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CHESTER  A Massachusetts man was arrested early Saturday after he drove off Route 9 while drunk and rolled his car onto its roof, police said.

Shawn H. Tajerha, 30, of Springfield, Massachusetts, was charged after the 3:01 a.m. accident near Stock Farm Road, according to the Warren County Sheriff's Office.

Police said Tajerha was heading north when he veered off the road and hit a guidewire, causing the Toyota Venza he was driving to roll over. He refused to take a breath test, but was charged with misdemeanor driving while intoxicated based on police observations at the scene, the Sheriff's Office said in a news release.

Tajerha was also ticketed for moving from his lane unsafely and refusing a breath test. He was released pending prosecution in Chester Town Court.

Sheriff's patrol officers Ken Smith and Matt Fish investigated the crash, assisted by Chestertown firefighters.
Heath A. McDonald, 41, suffered unspecified injuries after the 10:30 p.m. accident, the State Police public information website showed. It was unclear early Sunday whether his injuries were serious.

McDonald was charged with misdemeanor DWI and ticketed for not wearing a helmet, failure to keep right, moving from his lane unsafely and refusal to take a breath test, the website showed. He was released pending prosecution in Greenwich Town Court.
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Natures God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
In light of continued developments, primarily since 2008, there exists in these United States a Legal System which operates on a proved Two Tiered approach to justice rendered, which primarily benefits Democratic Elites and Woke Ideological Virtue Signalers, representing their co-dependent wards, to the expressed exclusion of normal hardworking American citizens: What is your suggestion in remedying this widespread injustice and, if not corrected, its existential outcome for our Constitutional Republic?

Complete overhaul of the Department of Justice and their enforcers - the FBI - to reflect a far more honest justice system to keep patriots remaining calm.

Disband the FBI, and request that congress investigate all unethical and non patriotic practices to partially right the wrongs of a distrusted and politically weaponized "Department of Justice."
Authorities of the school see a need to help block the supply gap in the provision of day-old chicks in Ghana, as the country produces only 25% of total demand of poultry farmers.

Local farmers import more than five million day-old chicks annually, which means that the six hatcheries in the country are unable to meet the local demand as well as the quality of day-old chicks demanded by farmers, something KNUSTs 5000-capacity Olympio Hatchery seeks to address.

Poultry Embryology and Chick Quality specialist at KNUST, Dr. Jacob Alhassan Hamidu reminisces the era of producing low-quality day old chicks could soon be over.

We want that to stop. We will conduct proper research and we are going to be troubleshooting, he told Kumasis Luv FM.
"What we are going to do is that we are going to fast track the development of infrastructure in the universities, in the polytechnics that are yet to begin the technical university programmes, he said.

The Kumasi polytechnic is one of the polytechnics recommended for upgrade to a technical university status.

President Mahama also noted that government will support lecturers and faculty members with scholarships to further their education.

We are going to give their lecturers and faculties scholarships to go and top up their degree programs so that they are able to achieve the standards to be able to teach in this technical universities, he revealed.

He added: lecturers will get scholarships, new structures will be built in their campuses in order to enable them catch up with the rest and be able to start their programs as soon as possible."

READ MORE: Mahama approves Technical University Bill
His comments came after the Electoral Commission (EC) submitted 56,739 names as people who registered with National Health Insurance Scheme cards to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court ordered the EC on Thursday, June 23, to submit the list within six days in order to bring an end to controversy surrounding the voter register.

Addison, who was the lead counsel in the 2012 election petition, argues that the EC has not been truthful, adding that the commission lacks credibility.

READ MORE: EC submits list of NHIS registrants to Supreme Court

He told Joy News that "the only way that we can be verified and be satisfied is for an independent investigator to be appointed to check the register. After all during the [2012] election petition such an independent investigator was appointed to go to the vote of the Supreme Court, and if that can be done, why not the EC?

Whatever means they used to determine [56,000 NHIS card registrants] they should provide it for the independent investigator. If [the investigator] confirms that it is 56,000 we will all go to sleep. But we cannot accept what the EC brings out. They have never been truthful, unfortunately. They have no credibility, absolutely none, Addison added.

The names submitted by the EC to the Supreme Court have been described as "fictitious" and "conjured" by the Abu Ramadan, one of plaintiffs in the case.
The Spy Bill also known as the Interception of Postal Packets and Telecommunications Messages Bill, seeks to grant the NCA the power to intercept communications through telecom services or post, for the purposes of national security investigations.

One of such campaigners, Lawyer Samson Ayenini, maintains that government must reconsider the bill in its entirety before taking it back to parliament to be approved.

My demand, which I believe is a demand that other people subscribe to, in short was that No Court, No interception, says Mr Anyenini.

The Spy Bill as it is called, when passed will grant access to security agencies to listen in on private conversations of Ghanaians with the intention of safeguarding the security of the State and fighting crime.

However, campaigners against the proposed law say there are several existing laws that can help with fighting crime, he said on his News File Program on Saturday.
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"What mechanized unit are we working with today?"

"We are not working with a Mech unit."

To accomplish this, President Lyndon B. Johnson authorized covert cross-border reconnaissance operations conducted by the secret Studies and Observations Group in order to gather intelligence on PAVN/NLF activities in the border regions (Project Vesuvius).



2016 Map from Google Earth with annotations by Bobby Tony

During most of my tour in Vietnam, I only had a passing knowledge of the specific battle plan. As a new replacement infantry grunt, there was no need to brief me or others on the minute details of a battle plan. We just boarded the helicopters after a short briefing and followed orders. At best, I had a general knowledge of where we were and what the broad parameters of the plan was. Most of the time we just were inserted into an area and performed cloverleaf operations of Search and Destroy. Huey's would then pick us up and move over to a new area to repeat the procedure. S&D missions are designed to flush out the enemy and start a fight. During and after the 1968 Tet Offensive flushing out the enemy was not hard to do. They were everywhere.My memory is cloudy on the exact date but sometime around March or April 1968 we made several incursion into Cambodia. I know this because of simple math. The UH1 Huey Specifications list a TOP speed of 130 MPH. We boarded Huey's just outside of Tay Ninh and flew due west. According to Google Earth, the Cambodian border is 16 miles due west of Tay Ninh. Flying by helicopter due west from Tay Ninh for 30-45 minutes had to put us in Cambodia if you assume cruising speed well below top speed with full load. Maybe Alex O can correct me if I am wrong on the Huey UH1 cruising speed, etc.With all due respect, to Albert Einstein, and his theory of special relativity, I can confirm his formulas. As a result, he found that space and time were interwoven into a single continuum known as space-time. Events that occur at the same time for one observer could occur at different times for another.The longest hour you will ever experience is the 30 minutes on board a Huey waiting for insertion into a Landing Zone and the 30 minutes you spend on the ground waiting for the Wop Wop sound of Huey's coming to extract you from a landing zone. That is when your fear is the highest level of anticipation. Time is indeed relative depending on the space you occupy. (Theory of Relativity) In 40 minutes we would have at least flown 60 miles which would put us directly in Cambodia. When we landed one of the guys remarked,when he saw the tracks on the ground. The answer came back:That increased theHaving seen the damage that tanks and APC can do with their 50 caliber turret mounted guns is enough to wake up even the most clueless of FNGs.Fortunately the mission was not a search and destroy but mainly a Reconnaissance-in-force (RIF) mission to determine the damage from B52 strikes. We inserted and extracted without incident but it was an intense time for the grunts of the 25th Infantry Division. My subsequent research has found evidence that we actually used B52 attacks in Cambodia in 1968 during my tour. ( US Secret War in Cambodia) . I do know for a personal fact that we did use them in Vietnam as I remember the ground shuddering and thunderous noise as well as seeing the high altitude light trails of squadrons of B52's overhead. Allowing for a somewhat faulty and exaggerated memory, I can only attest to the personal experiences of a lowly grunt that could read a compass and had a wristwatch. I did find some reference to the incursion, which indicates that my memory, though it may be embellished, was somewhat accurate.Later in May of 1970 the USA invaded the area. (1970 Cambodian Incursion) I have since lost my absolute blind faith in my government always telling the truth. To be clear, I do not see this as a fundamental flaw in our government, but as a sign of an ember of maturity on my part. Everything in life is based on a "need to know" basis and anyone who demands complete and utter transparency is naive and delusional. Our current President and his administration has taken the "need to know" to heights never imagined by Nixon and his cronies. Since that time, I have never subscribed to the "my country right or wrong" philosophy but have until recently given our leaders the benefit of doubt. Below is a map from Wikipedia that describes the 1970 mission. I have labeled itbecause it looks eerily familiar. Click here for enlarged version of the map. Below is a map from Google earth with annotations by me which illustrate the AO (area of operations) of the 25th Infantry Division during my year in RVN. The Circle is a 30 mile radius and we often worked the area between the Parrot's Beak and the Fishhook which is noted on the map. Our AO also covered the area to the NE of Saigon. That is one of the wonderful things about the UH1 Huey helicopter. It expands the area that an infantry unit can cover.
According to the Daily Post, Adebayo tricked the young girl to follow him to Usi-Ekiti, where he was supposed to visit his aged mother.

He however turned the girl to a sex slave during the trip.

When the search for the girl began, Adebayo was reported to have joined a search group, who were keen on finding her.

He later returned the girl to her aunts house in Akure, telling her that she had found the girl at his mothers house.

This wasnt true according to the girl, who said, Gbenga Adebayo is my neighbour. He used to ask me to buy things for him.

One day he approached me, saying he wanted to help me because my teacher was harsh on me. He said he would rescue me from my teacher and take good care of me. He then took me to his mothers place in Usi-Ekiti.

 Whenever he comes there, he used to sleep with me. He has done this for 10 times now.

I was at his mothers place for three weeks after which I refused to sleep with him again and because of that, he decided to take me to my aunts place in Akure.

He told my aunt that he found me in his mothers place in Ushi and decided to help me by taking me to her. He is the first man in my life.

According to her aunt, Mrs. Theresa Agboola, the girl was staying with her school teacher after losing both her parents some years back.

Agboola said,About a month ago, June 5 precisely, the girls teacher had called to inform me that she was missing and that the whole occupants in the house, including the suspect, Gbenga Adebayo, were searching for her.

"That continued till June 29, when my sister from Akure called to tell me that the girl was brought to her by a man whom she identified as the same Gbenga Adebayo. It was then we suspected a foul play.

We reasoned that if indeed Adebayo was sincere, he cannot be the same man who was part of the search team for the girl for three weeks here in Ado-Ekiti and also be the one who would now take her to my sisters place in Akure after finding her.

We then reported the case to the police who promptly arrested Adebayo and charged him to court. Last Friday, the magistrate court in Ado-Ekiti has remanded him in prison.

"We also gathered that he has been sleeping with the girl before eventually taking her to his mother.
The rally, which was a peaceful one, saw attendance from catholic priests and worshippers, who turned up in hundreds.

Punch reported that there was a plan to march to the government house, with the aim of serving a petition to Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi.

The plan was however suspended after reports that a miscreant group intends to disrupt the peaceful protest.

Ugwuanyi, who later visited the diocese told the church of his administration dedication to protecting lives and properties in the state.

The governor said, On the issues you have raised in this rally, I wish to state that I address you today not only as a Catholic but as your governor and the Chief Security Officer of Enugu State.

While taking my oath of office, I swore to do everything within my powers to preserve the security of lives and property of the people of Enugu State.

You can therefore be assured that I will not fail in this responsibility and be further assured that whatever message you convey through me to the appropriate authorities at Abuja, will be promptly delivered.

Rt. Rev. Callistus Onaga, the Catholic Bishop of Enugu Diocese, used the opportunity to state the churchs resentment for the grazing bill proposed by the government.
Ogbanago, who works at the banks branch located at Oba Akran, Ikeja, Lagos, reportedly found the money in the premises of the company.

Surprisingly, he decided to return it to the bank management.

This has earned him the attention of UBA boss, Tony Elumelu, who took to his Instagram to say nice things about him.

Elumelu wrote, When I heard about this story, I knew I had to meet the man who despite facing rising petrol & transportation prices and tomato ebola returned such a huge sum of money without recourse to himself.

It was a pleasant surprise to hear him tell this story and about how he came to be in the board room with us. Even more surprising was hearing him speak about his passion for governance and integrity in leadership.

Mohammed Ibrahim Ogbanago is an exemplary ambassador of the UBA spirit and it was fulfilling to meet and reward him for his conduct.
The recovery was made on Thursday, June 30, 2016, according to Mr Desmond Agu, the NSCDC Commandant for Bayelsa State.

Agu said, The search team, made up of NSCDC operatives, Navy, Army, gunboat crew and others, left Obama station at 0915 hours on Thursday in search of the Agip personnel.

At about 1100 hours, the dead bodies of two personnel were discovered in Oguama River close to Oguama community in Bayelsa. They were taken to Ogbia jetty for onward movement to Port Harcourt.

Three oil workers employed by the Agip Oil Company were killed, but only two bodies have been found.
Malami also called on the interested parties to wait for the courts ruling instead of dragging him into the matter.

The AGF said his opinion has not been sought concerning the matter, adding that he will not be part of the mind games of spin doctors.

A statement issued by Malamis Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Comrade Salihu Othman Isah, reads: "The attention of the Office of the Honourable Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice has been drawn to the insinuations and crass lies being peddled and disseminated by a cross-section of Nigerians and the various media platforms that the Honourable Attorney General of the Federation is behind the legal logjam over the Abia state governorship seat and wish to clarify that those canvassing this position have no basis to do so.

"Of particular concern are those who have peddled ill-natured rumours with a view to misinform our discerning populace that the Honourable Attorney General of the Federation and by extension, the Federal Government of Nigeria that gave directives to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to issue Certificate of Return to Dr. Uchechukwu Ogah declaring him Governor-Elect.

"He has definitely not taken any action either by spoken words or body language as far as this Abia governorship crisis is concerned.

"I wish to therefore, on behalf of my principal declare that these rumours are untrue and a figment of the imagination of those pushing these selfish, shameless and irredeemable lies into public space which only translates to partisanship on the side of its purveyors.

"As far as the Honourable Attorney General of the Federation is concerned, the constitutional powers for the legal opinion of his office have not been invoked on this issue. So far, nobody has approached him to proffer any legal opinion to it. As a strong believer in the rule of law, it is his belief that the law should naturally take its cause.

"The Honourable Attorney General of the Federation will not be dragged into this controversy and mind-games being played out by the various legal minds and spin doctors of both camps at this point. The parties involved should await the decision of the courts.

"In fact, we wish to by this statement advice those in the habit of dragging the highly esteemed Office of the Honourable Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice into knotty issue of this kind even when it is yet to take a position. They should desist from these unwarranted presumptions henceforth."
Reports had alleged that Justice Uzokwe went into hiding because of pressures mounted on her to swear in the Abia Governor elect, Uche Ogah.

Ogah also described the Chief Judge's action as an affront on the judicial process, adding that it could destabilise the state.

The Judge also said she was in her office on Thursday, June 30, 2016, from 8:30am till 4:30pm, adding that the allegations were the work of cowards who do not have the good of the state at heart.

Justice Uzokwe also issued a statement through the Chief Registrar Abia State Judiciary, Mrs. Vicky Analaba, saying The attention of the Chief Judge of Abia State, Justice Theresa Uzoamaka Uzokwe, has been drawn to various spurious and mischievous reports alleging that the Honorable Chief Judge had absconded from her duty post on Thursday 30th June 2016, to avoid swearing in Uche Ogah as Governor of Abia State.

Contrary to the allegations of cowardice by mischievous politicians, the Chief Judge, was in her office throughout work time on Thursday 30 June 2016 from 8:30am till 4:30pm.

For the avoidance of doubt, on Thursday 30th June 2016, the Chief Judge was in her court room performing her lawful duties, including the delivery of four rulings on that date.

The particulars of the rulings in question are, HU/35CM/2015 FRANCIS AKOR vs THE STATE; HU/ICM/2016-Johnson Aseigbu vs. Commissioner of Police, HU/42CM/2016-Onyekachi Samuel vs. Commissioner of Police; HU/34CM/2016-Lucky Sampson vs. the State.

These facts are verifiable and in the records of the court. The various lawyers who appeared in the respective suits listed above are also living witnesses. This press release has become necessary in order to avoid further mischief and to set the records straight.
Reports say the President went to his home town to spend the weekend and also attend to personal matters.

Before he left for the weekend, Buhari met with senior military officials on Friday, July 1, 2016, and urged them to respect rule of law and human rights in the service to the nation.

Mr. President also promised not to marginalise any part of the country, adding that he will do his best to keep Nigeria as one.

He also reassured international community of the determination of his administration to completely eliminate the menace of Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria.
Tom Campbell

Now that the NC Department of Health and Human Services has submitted detailed plans for the Medicaid reforms passed last year we are able to get a clearer picture how reform is to be implemented. Our analysis leaves us with more questions than answers.For several years we were told our Medicaid program was broken, primarily due to budget cost overruns, inadequate administration and the need for more predictable budgeting. Much (not all) of the huge Medicaid deficits were the result of the recipient growth during the recession, the legislature attempting to make changes not approved by the feds and lawmakers' failure to establish realistic Medicaid budgets. Legislators and DHHS are currently doing a much better job of budgeting. Our management and administration of Medicaid is much improved, delivers better care to recipients and enrollment growth is on post-recessionary projections, all resulting in sizeable recent year-end budget surpluses.DHHS has done a good job of taking legislative mandates and putting them into an organized program, albeit one that requires waivers by the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). These waivers will require months for approval and many more months to be implemented. The new plan calls for Managed Care Organizations (generally for-profit companies) and Provider Led Entities (doctor and hospital groups) to be compensated through a capitated, or per-patient per-month, fee. Whereas any surpluses from budgeted amounts currently revert to the state and its taxpayers, the new plan assigns surpluses to the MCOs and PLEs.North Carolina must still provide oversight, which includes at least 5 additional layers of administration (the MCOs and PLEs), new procedures, payment arrangements and relationships with local health departments, care givers and, of course, the legislature itself.All this is projected to save about $400 million over the next 5 years of the waiver, of which North Carolina's projected savings will be $134 million or $27 million per year - not small potatoes, but in a $14 billion annual Medicaid program not significant enough for all the hoops we are jumping through.The new plan effectively cuts out Community Care North Carolina, an organization Republicans don't like, but to our mind one that has helped save the state through better patient care management.Our analysis leaves many unanswered questions. For starters, will CMS grant the requested waivers or will North Carolina spend more time and money revising and revamping the reforms? Approximately 90 percent of primary care physicians now accept Medicaid patients but will they continue to do so, especially if paperwork becomes more burdensome or their reimbursements are cut or delayed? And what happens if (more likely when) these MCOs and PLEs find they cannot provide prescribed care for the agreed upon monthly amount they receive? The record in other states indicates they will either demand increases or discontinue their participation, leaving the state worse than before reform.The ultimate consideration should be whether North Carolina's Medicaid recipients would receive better healthcare? There is little evidence demonstrating they will.We understand our leaders' desire for budget predictability and cost controls but North Carolina cannot delegate responsibility. The Medicaid reform plan appears no better and might likely be worse than what we now have, leaving us questioning why we went through this lengthy and costly process.
Falana also asked the Senate President, Bukola Saraki and his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu not to politicise the forgery charges against them.

The lawyer said the National Assembly leaders do not have immunity to avoid the charges against them.

Falana added that immunity does not extend to electoral fraud of any kind.

Speaking on the stand-off between the Senate and the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami, the lawyer said The senate is now politicising the issue, saying it is political victimization but not that the offence was not committed.

As leaders of the National Assembly, you are supposed to be above board and that is even the more reason you must be careful.

But I want to remind the senate that the Attorney General of the Federation is only answerable to his boss, who is the president and nobody else.

The same thing applies to the states, so there is no longer absolute immunity in this country.

And that is why what is happening in Ekiti today about money found in a bank and the governor is saying it is illegal to freeze his account that is not true.

Any issue that is criminal in nature must be treated as such."
Punch reports that the leaders of the community and the herdsmen agreed to a two-week peace pact.

After the 14 day period, any cattle rearer who wants to graze in the community will be required to negotiate with the Olomu Traditional Council.

An excerpt of the peace agreement reads: Fulani Herdsmen must vacate the Kingdom for failing to properly negotiate with the Olomu Traditional Council before embarking on their grazing businesses in our domain. The Fulani Herdsmen should vacate Olomu Kingdom within two weeks from 25/06/2016-09/07/2016.
Falana had earlier said undefined adding that any Governor or President who commits a crime could be arrested even while in office.

Ozekhome however disagreed saying He said that you can institute a legal process against governors because they are also sued during election petitions. And I disagree with him on that because election petitions are too generic, they are generic because they are in a class of their own. They are hybrid, neither civil or criminal procedures. That is why it is the constitution itself that gives the right for a governor to be sued when they are challenging his mandate, it is not the lower laws like an Act of parliament like EFCC. EFCC is an act of parliament which is millions of miles lower than the provisions of the constitution. And any provision from the EFCC Act or money laundeiring Act which is inconsistent with the provision of the constitution is null and void by nature of section 1, sub-section 3 of the same 1999 constitution.

Adding that It is the same constitution in section 308 that says that when it comes to civil or criminal procedure, you can never sue the governor and such should not be entertained in any court of Law.

Contrary to Falanas argurment, that immunity is not absolute, it is totally absolute.

In the case of the IGP versus Gani Fawehinmi which he cited, the Supreme Court upheld that the governor can be investigated; it, however, said that you would have to wait till he vacates his office before you move any court process against him. That was the decision of that court.

Speaking further, the lawyer who is also representing Governor Ayo Fayose in his case against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), said Falana also said that the Money Laundering Act can also apply against a sitting governor, that is wrong. The money laundering Act is an act of the parliament which is as low as the EFCC Act and the two of them must bow down to the Kabiyesi (Lord) of our laws which is the 1999 consitution (as amended in 2011). And that constitution in its section 308 says that whether under the money laundering Act or the EFCC Act, you cannot move against Fayose or any other governor, vice-president or President or deputy-governor.

The third point by Falana that immunity is not total has been debunked because section 308 of the contitution overrides all the Acts of parliament such as the Money Laundering and the EFCC Act.

He also said that governors of Nigeria are not immune from the procedures of the international criminal court; of course that is outside the jurisdiction of Nigeria. International criminal court operates worldwide and even in that court, all the people who are being tried are usually tried for war crimes or crimes against humanity only when they have vacated office not when they are still in office.

Ozekhome also said And even at that, these international courts operate internationally and we are in Nigeria. The supreme law of Nigeria or the Kabiyesi (Lord) of all laws in Nigeria is the consitution and by virture of the section 1 sub section 3 of this constitution, which says this law shall be supreme and if any other law is inconsistent with the provisions of this consitution, that law shall be null and void.

So, none of all the arguements Falana has canvassed therefore can show that immunity can be watered down.

I think what the EFCC is trying to do is to be clever by half by now allegedly obtaining a court order directly against Zenith bank plc; they forgot that some sections of the EFCC Act, for example section 28, 30 say that before you can freeze an account of any person, you must first of all arrest the person and after that, insitute a criminal proceedings against the person before you can then get an order of the court to freeze the persons accounts. The simple question is, can you arrest Fayose now? Or insitutte any criminal proceedings against him? The answer is no.

So, what the EFCC has done from every angle is illegal and unconsitutional. And they are doing all this after the illegal freeezing because they know they are in a mess.

If they feel the law is inadequate, too bad! they have to first go to the National Assembly and ask them to remove section 308 which is the immunity clause or better still wait till October 16, 2018 when Fayose would vacate office as governor before they can come after him. Unless they want us to now believe that we are now living in an hobbesian state of nature where life is short, nasty and brutish, he added.
Attacks in the Niger Delta pushed crude production in the OPEC member to 30-year lows in recent weeks, although the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) last week said output was rising due to repairs and because there had not been an attack since June 16.

In a series of messages on its Twitter feed, the group said on Friday night it attacked a pipeline connected to the Warri refinery operated by NNPC, adding that on Saturday night it blew up two lines close to Batan flow station in Delta state run by NPDC, a subsidiary of NNPC.

The Avengers also said two Chevron facilities close to Abiteye flow station, in Delta state, were attacked in the early hours of Sunday. NNPC and Chevron could not immediately be contacted to comment on the group's statements.
He said the government is committed to having a dialogue with the militant group, despite the presence of the military in the Niger Delta region.

Lawal also described the militants' actions as sabotage, adding that their activities has affected the countrys crude oil production.

The SGF also called on the Niger Delta Avengers to nominate those who will represent them in the talks.

Lawal said "Government is not averse to discussing with them (militants) but we need to know who is in charge and who we can discuss with meaningfully; thats the dilemma of the government at the moment.

There are so many groups making it difficult to know who to talk to and the level of control that group will bring to the process.

He also added that When they blow up oil pipelines, the spill destroys their water and lands, a development that will take years to recover. They are more victims than the rest of Nigerians.
The Sultan called on people not to analyse matters based on religion or ethnicity.

He also said Muslims have been marginalised in Nigeria for long, but they have refused to complain.

The Sultan said Fulani men are only after their cattle not after any government or its policies and programmes. How can they carry weapons, to go and do what with it ?, he queried.

When there is a vacant position and a Hausa man is appointed, we called it northernisation and when a Muslim leader visit an Islamic country we say he is trying to islamise Nigeria.

In fact, there are many people from other religion and tribes occupying other offices and we witness many christian leaders who have visited Christian countries but nobody said they were planning to Christianise the country.
NANS says students of the institution have been at home for three months due to strike action.

NANS also called on Bello to pay staff salaries and approve the payment of students scholarship.

The NANS President, Tijani Shehu, in a statement said We also decried the refusal of Kogi State Government to continue the age long policy of bursary and scholarship payment to Kogi students even when we know the state has not been this buoyant in the last one year.

It is our advocacy that the educational sector be accorded it rightful place in accordance to the UNESCO resolutions on educational development globally.

Also of serious concern is the continue withholding of three state allocations plus bailout funds meant to ameliorate the long suffering workers whose children are already out of school.

This is leading to banks closing shops and leading to high retrenchment of staff, thereby worsening the state of already battered labour force and overriding their fundamental human right to basic freedom of choice.

The National Secretariat hereby issues a seven days ultimatum with immediate effect from Monday July 4, on the governor to respond to our prayers.

The governor should do the needful before we pass a vote of no confidence on his administration.

We have resolve to start mobilising Nigerian students down for a total shutdown of Kogi economy to occupy the street of Lokoja in solidarity with the poor masses and civil servant.
Weisel has been an inspiration to the world and most especially the Jewish community. He released a mind blowing book titled 'Night in 1955', which was a witness account to the horrors of Nazi concentration camps.

As a teenager, he was part of the people that were forced into the Auschwitz concentration camp, along with his father, mother and sister.

The other three eventually died, leaving him as the only survivor in his family.

His book Night in 1955 has sold over six million copies, according to a report by the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, who reported the news of his death.

Originally published in Yiddish, the book has a total of 800 pages. The author later went to make an abridged version of his work in French, then later English.

According to reports, Weisel involved himself in humanitarian agenda, aimed at ensuring a repeat of the World War horror.
Gunmen stormed the upmarket restaurant popular with expatriates in the diplomatic zone late on Friday, before killing 18 foreigners in a coordinated mass killing that experts said marked a level of scale and sophistication not previously seen in the South Asian country.

Most of the victims were hacked to death with machetes before commandos entered the building, killing six of the militants and capturing a seventh, after a 12-hour standoff, police said.

"All gunmen were Bangladeshi. Five of them were listed as militants and law enforcers made several drives to arrest them," national police chief Shahidul Hoque told reporters in Dhaka late on Saturday.

Police have yet to comment on Islamic State's claims of responsibility, but security sources said authorities were probing deeper for possible ties between the gunmen and trans-national Islamist extremist groups given the scale and sophistication of the attack.

Bangladesh has blamed two home-grown groups for a series of grisly killings targeting liberals or members of minority groups over the past 18 months, and local authorities have maintained that no operational links exist between Bangladeshi militants and international jihadi networks.

Police said nine Italians, seven Japanese, two Bangladeshis, an Indian and a U.S. citizen were killed during the attack at the Dhaka building, split between the Holey Artisan Bakery and the O'Kitchen Restaurant.

Italian media said several of the Italians victims worked in the garment industry, and the attack will frighten expatriates working in the $26 billion garment sector that accounts for 80 percent of its exports.
Wiesel was a philosopher, speaker, playwright and professor who also campaigned for the tyrannized and forgotten around the world. He died at his home in New York City, the New York Times reported.

The Romanian-born Wiesel lived by the credo expressed in "Night," his landmark story of the Holocaust - "to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time."

In awarding the Peace Prize in 1986, the Nobel Committee praised him as a "messenger to mankind" and "one of the most important spiritual leaders and guides in an age when violence, repression and racism continue to characterize the world."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed Wiesel as a ray of light, and said his extraordinary personality and unforgettable books demonstrated the triumph of the human spirit over the most unimaginable evil.

"Out of the darkness of the Holocaust, Elie became a powerful force for light, truth and dignity," he said.

Wiesel did not waver in his campaign never to let the world forget the Holocaust horror. While at the White House in 1985 to receive the Congressional Gold Medal, he even rebuked U.S. President Ronald Reagan for planning to lay a wreath at a German cemetery where some of Hitler's notorious Waffen SS troops were buried.

"Don't go to Bitburg," Wiesel said. "That place is not your place. Your place is with the victims of the SS."

Wiesel became close to U.S. President Barack Obama but the friendship did not deter him from criticizing U.S. policy on Israel. He spoke out in favor of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and pushed the United States and other world powers to take a harder stance against Iran over its nuclear program.

Obama remembered him as "one of the great moral voices of our time, and in many ways, the conscience of the world."

Wiesel had raised his voice, not just against anti-Semitism, but against hatred, bigotry and intolerance in all forms, Obama said in a statement.

"His life, and the power of his example, urges us to be better. In the face of evil, we must summon our capacity for good. In the face of hate, we must love," Obama said.

Wiesel attended the joint session of the U.S. Congress in 2015 when Netanyahu spoke on the dangers of Iran's program.

Wiesel and his foundation both were victims of the wide-ranging Ponzi scheme run by New York financier Bernie Madoff, with Wiesel and his wife losing their life's savings and the foundation losing $15.2 million. "'Psychopath' - it's too nice a word for him," he said of Madoff in 2009.

Wiesel was a hollow-eyed 16-year-old when he emerged from the newly liberated Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945. He had been orphaned by the Nazis and their identification number, A-7713, was tattooed on his arm as a physical manifestation of his broken faith and the nightmares that would haunt him throughout his life.

Wiesel and his family had first been taken by the Nazis from the village of Sighetu Marmatiei in the Transylvania region of Romania to Auschwitz, where his mother and one of his sisters died. Wiesel and his father, Shlomo, ended up in Buchenwald, where Shlomo died. In "Night" Wiesel wrote of his shame at lying silently in his bunk while his father was beaten nearby.

After the war Wiesel made his way to France, studied at the Sorbonne and by 19 had become a journalist. He pondered suicide and never wrote of or discussed his Holocaust experience until 10 years after the war as a part of a vow to himself. He was 27 years old in 1955 when "Night" was published in Yiddish, and Wiesel would later rewrite it for a world audience.

"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed ...," Wiesel wrote. "Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live."

Asked by an interviewer in 2000 why he did not go insane, Wiesel said, "To this day that is a mystery to me."

By 2008, "Night" had sold an estimated 10 million copies, according to the New York Times, including 3 million after talk-show hostess Oprah Winfrey made it a spotlight selection for her book club in 2006.

In 1985 Wiesel helped break ground in Washington for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the following year was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In typical fashion, he dedicated the prize to all those who survived the Nazi horror, calling them "an example to humankind how not to succumb to despair."

Wiesel, who became a U.S. citizen in 1963, was slight in stature but a compelling figure when he spoke.

With a chiseled profile, burning eyes and a shock of gray hair, he could silence a crowd by merely standing up.

He was often described as somber. An old friend, Chicago professor Irving Abrahamson, once said of him: "I've never seen Elie give a belly laugh. He'll chuckle, he'll smile, there'll be a twinkle in his eye. But never a laugh from within."

A few years after winning the peace prize, he set up the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, which, in addition to Israeli and Jewish causes, campaigned for Miskito Indians in Nicaragua, Cambodian refugees, victims of South African apartheid and of famine and genocide in Africa.

Wiesel wrote more than 50 books - novels, non-fiction, memoirs, and many with a Holocaust theme - and held a long-running professorship at Boston University. In one of his later books, "Open Heart," he used his 2011 quintuple-bypass surgery as impetus for reflection on his life.

"I have already been the beneficiary of so many miracles, which I know I owe to my ancestors," he wrote. "All I have achieved has been and continues to be dedicated to their murdered dreams - and hopes."

He collected scores of awards and honors, including an honorary knighthood in Britain. Obama presented him the National Humanities Medal in 2009.
Punjabi among the four top mother tongues spoken in Canada after English and French

SGPC President objected to the cancellation of visas of a large number of the batch going to Pakistan
The Purge: Election Year couldnt have been better timed.

With one of the most contentious national elections in United States history playing out in real life, the political horrors behind the fictional Purge continue to evolve in this third installment. The Purge films certainly are part of the horror genre, and they are a step above the usual stalk n slash because of the politics involved.

Incidentally, The Purge is one 12-hour period during which all crime is legal. Residents either barricade themselves in with weapons or they take to the streets to kill. (The concept of validated violence as a tradition has an ancestor in the classic Shirley Jackson story The Lottery.)

This time, no one has a special dispensation from The Purge: Everyone, regardless of what offices they may hold, may become a victim. So the stakes are higher during this Purge.

Sen. Charlie Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell, televisions Lost) is running for president with an intense platform: She watched while her family died in a Purge, and now she wants to rid the United States of the practice of The Purge, which is so distasteful to her opposition, the New Founding Fathers of America, that she becomes the target of an assassination attempt. Frank Grillo returns from The Purge: Anarchy as Leo, her head of security, who thinks he has secured the senators safety.

In the meantime, deli owner Joe (Mykelti Williamson, televisions Justified) prepares himself with weapons and a rooftop perch. Down below, activist Laney (Betty Gabriel,Experimenter) who risks her own life to help those in need while mayhem rules the streets.

Creator/writer/director James DeMonaco, who started this series in 2013, gives us a look at the haves and the have-nots in a process that helps whittle down the undesirables for the NFFA.

Youll see how religious fervor ties in to the sacrifices made during The Purge: Theres a lengthy scene inside a church thats blood-curdling in its intensity.

Although these performers may not be household names, they are up to the challenge of the script. The ever-versatile Williamson, in particular, is a welcome addition to the ensemble.

DeMonaco continues to provide entertaining characters and detail, including the vicious candy girls and a guillotine sequence that takes place in the background of another scenario. This is brutal material and certainly not for the faint of heart or children.

If you like the first two films, youll enjoy this one. And youll be able to see the movie as a skewed reflection of the 2016 election year and the all-too-real antagonism it is creating.
1. Fourth of July parade

March on over to the Fourth of July parade in Bettendorf and get ready to wave some American flags, grab some candy and sway along to patriotic tunes. The parade starts at 10 a.m. Monday. Stick around for a festive-filled day, including skydivers, a petting zoo, a rock climbing wall as well as a lineup of 10 bands, including country-group Dirt Road Rockers, AC/DC-cover band Electric Shock, Soul Storm, Funktastic 5 and Hap Hazard.

10 a.m. Monday, Cumberland Square, free

2. KT Tunstall

Make your Monday pop with a Fourth of July show from KT Tunstall, plus The Kickback, Lawrence, Graveyard Club, The Wild Reeds and OXYMORRONS at the Codfish Hollow Barn. You might know Tunstall's songs, such as "Black Horse & The Cherry Tree," "Suddenly I See," or "Saving My Face," and you'll definitely get a glimpse of her new album, which is set to release later this year.

4 p.m. Monday, Codfish Hollow Barn, $35

3. Here come the Mummies

Ever wanted to see 10 mummies rise to the stage and groove? Now's your chance. Each member of funk group Here Come the Mummies dresses in the full-on bandage fashion of the undead. They go by names like Cass Mummy, Eddie Mummy and KW Tut and are serious about keeping their real identities under wraps. Blues and funk band 10 of Soul will open up the outdoor evening of tunes.

7 p.m. Friday, Outside in The District, $23

4. More stars and stripes

Stretch out the red, white and blue fun  Fourth of July doesn't have to be over. With the Stars and Stripes theme, you won't want to miss this year's Eldridge Summer Festival. The day begins with pancakes and ends with a four-mile Moonlight Chase with ribs, ice cream, a parade and a car show in between.

9 a.m.-11 p.m. Saturday, Eldridge, free

4. Laughs all around

Looking for some eccentric laughs? The shoulder-length-haired Chicago-based comic Junior Stopka will headline a comedy show in Rock Island. His resume includes appearances on Comedy Centrals Underground with Dave Attell and NBCs Last Comic Standing. Other comics on the list include Andrew Cline, Donny Townsend and Chris Schlichting.

8 p.m. Thursday, Rock Island Brewing Company, $10

6. New musical, classic songs

Circa 21 Dinner Playhouse unveils its latest show this week  and it will involve plenty of jokes and songs about girls-only issues. "Menopause: The Musical" brings classic tunes from the past several decades to Rock Island. From wrinkles to chocolate-cravings, the characters find plenty to bond over and sing about. The performance kicks off Wednesday and runs through Aug. 27. For more information, visit circa21.com.

Opens Wednesday, Circa 21 in Rock Island, $52.25

7. Go into the woods

The Quad-City Music Guild is taking on a classic musical that borrows from other classics. "Into the Woods" tells the intertwining plots from a slew of well-known fairy tales. You'll recognize characters from Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel, Cinderella and more. Runs Friday through Sunday and July 14-17 at 1584 34th Ave., Moline.

Opens 7:30 p.m. Friday, Prospect Park Auditorium, $11-16

8. The best of Q-C bands

The Dawn and On Music Festival is back for its second year. The Western Illinois-based rock and jam band The Dawn has been around for nine years and are teaming up with some Quad-City staples to throw a musical party. Along with The Dawn, see The Candymakers, Soap, Joe Marcinek, The River Valley Rangers, Winterland, Driftless Sisters, Rude Punch, Have Your Cake, The Low Down and Juliana & A Soul Purpose.

Noon Saturday, Len Browns North Shore Inn, $5

9. Records showcase

Bob Herrington has a thing for records. As the owner of Ragged Records in Davenport, he never veered from vinyl. And last year, the music-lover started a record label, called Cartouche Records, which released a solo album from J.E. Sunde and a full-length album from Quad-City based Bedroom Shrine. You can see the best of Cartouche Records on a shelf at Herrington's shop any time  but you can't always see the crew play live. Catch Devin Frank's Vanishing Blues Band, JE Sunde, Chrash and Brooks Strause live at Daytrotter, 324 Brady St., Davenport.

7 p.m. Saturday, Daytrotter, $10
The Pleasant Valley Community School District school board voted unanimously to appoint Tracey Rivera to serve as school board director for Pleasant Valley's district #6, formerly held by Christina Anderson, who had to vacate her seat as her family is moving out of the district. Rivera will serve in Andersons former seat until the regular school board election scheduled for November 2023.
Jeffrey Kemper was suffering depression after the death of his mother when he overdosed on prescription medication and was rushed to a Quad-City area hospital a year ago.

Discharged on what felt like one of the hottest days of summer and without a home after having lost his apartment, Kemper roamed the Rock Island riverfront and passed out on a park bench. His eyes were still open and pupils dilated  a side effect of the drugs.

"The sun was shining in my eyes, and the sun burnt both of my eyes," the 46-year-old said.

The Muscatine native found his way to Christian Care, which has a rescue mission for homeless men at 2209 3rd Ave., Rock Island. Marilyn DeMay, the mission's marketing and events coordinator, said Kemper's eyes were swollen shut.

"I remember the day he came in," DeMay said. "He spent the afternoon here. We talked him into becoming a resident."

Every summer, especially when the temperature approaches 90 degrees and the heat index makes it feel even hotter, Christian Care opens its rescue mission as an emergency cooling center during the day.

Last Monday, which had a high of 90 degrees, Cherie Miles of Rock Island brought her nieces, 9-year-old Jamyia McLemore and 5-year-old Sharyia McLemore, to cool off and enjoy lunch.

Christian Care provides three meals a day most days, not only for residents of the shelter but for "any hungry person who comes to our door," its website states. Last year, the agency served more than 60,000 meals to the community.

Miles has been coming "off and on" to the meal site for a year, she said. She comes more frequently during hot summer days and, she added, toward the end of the month when food stamps run low.

"When you don't want to cook, this is the place to come," Miles said.

This summer has been hotter than normal, despite cool temperatures that now are covering the area. National Weather Service meteorologist Tom Philip said 10 days last month saw temperatures of 90 degrees or higher, when a normal Midwest June will have four days in that range.

DeMay said the heat can be oppressive to a homeless population already struggling with finding the next meal or place to live.

"When exposed to the elements, a day like this can be deadly," she said.

The nearly 100-year-old mission currently has 36 residents. DeMay said they tend to stay anywhere from a few days to a few years depending on their circumstances.

Those who stay there have access to skill-building groups, job searches, personal counseling and case management. They can attend chapel services nightly, meditate daily and participate in Bible studies each week night.

Kemper said when he first arrived he was "almost hysterical." Although he didn't care for meditating at first, he gradually adapted to doing so twice a day to calm down and be at peace, especially as he spends hours a day looking for work.

"It's still there," he said of the occasional panic attack. "I still go through it."

"Jeff has come a long way," DeMay said. "I see him smiling most days."
Though summer tends to deliver a few opportunities to put our feet up and take it easy, hunger never takes a holiday.

But while many of us serve up juicy hamburgers and barrels of potato salad as a prelude to fireworks displays, more than 48 million Americans won't be getting enough to eat.

That's because summertime is particularly difficult for both people who live with food insecurity and the organizations that help them access free food, according to Feeding America, the nation's largest hunger-relief organization.

Not only are children who are on summer break missing the breakfasts and lunches they would have gotten at school, but parents, who often are subject to the fluctuations of weather for work, struggle to pay for expanded child care and extra food.

Simultaneously, the nation's food banks sc3ramble to staff pantries and events when individuals and groups of volunteers, such as the Scouts and school-based community service organizations, are off on vacation. And food pantries are not immune to the whims of weather.

"Food banks in Arizona and New Mexico just don't do summer feeding because there aren't enough volunteers, there isn't enough food, and not enough money to get food out to the remote rural areas scattered throughout counties," said Ross Fraser, director of media relations for Feeding America. "And I repeatedly hear that in states with drought conditions, fewer crops are being planted, which means less donated fresh fruits and vegetables and more farmworkers who aren't working enough to sustain themselves. Then the farmworkers end up turning to food banks in greater numbers just to get by."

In some places, the need is so great that food banks resort to unconventional ways to get food to the people who need it the most.

For instance, in Las Vegas, an ice-cream-style truck will be delivering 300,000 meals to a variety of locations this summer, serving about 126,000 food insecure kids in the area. Similarly, Vermont has a "Veggie Van Gogh," starry-night motif truck that delivers produce to housing projects, schools and clinics.

Dayton, Ohio, does massive food distributions monthly in arena parking lots that serve thousands of families at a time. So does Fort Smith, Arkansas, with its summertime "Antioch in the Park" event, which distributes food to approximately 1,700 individuals over the course of just three hours.

The Arkansas event is organized by Antioch Consolidated Association for Youth and Family Inc., led by Executive Director Charlotte Tidwell, who told me that the need is so great, and the large donations so plentiful, that it's become necessary to hold events in the park just so there is enough space to accommodate the huge number of volunteers, pallets of food -- and the people arriving to stock up.

"We hold the event in the most low-income area of our community and the area that is most accessible since there is no public transportation [in Fort Smith]," Tidwell told me.

But the park has its own challenges. "Arkansas is very, very hot, it's like the sun only shines on Fort Smith. We've been out on days where it's 100 degrees and it's a real challenge. Not only does the food need to be protected to stay safe, but the elderly come out and stand in the heat for it; people come out with their little children; veterans and other people with disabilities come out and wait in the heat for hours just to get some food," Tidwell said.

"We have to have paramedics, nurses and emergency responders standing by. We have bilingual volunteers going up and down the long, snaking lines of thousands of people handing out cold water and distributing snacks for the kids. And we have volunteers to help those with disabilities transport their food."

Such is the challenge of feeding communities that are in dire need -- communities where those seeking food assistance are likelier than not to be working poor. Research indicates that underemployment is the biggest predictor of food insecurity among people living in the United States -- more than half (54 percent) of Feeding America's client households reported at least one employed person at some point in the past year.

Tidwell says that what local food banks need most is cash donations, because they get plenty of food but need funds to help distribute it to the neediest.

Every dollar counts. If you have a few to spare, consider feeding hungry fellow Americans your act of patriotism this weekend.
The following editorial recently appeared in The Dallas Morning News:

There are lessons for the United States from last week's Brexit vote across the pond. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, has has tapped into the same populist sentiment here that caused UK voters to cast ballots in favor of leaving the European Union. The consequences could be just as frightful.

Here are three common manipulations.

Grabbing attention with populist appeals, the simpler the better

Brexit supporters, led by former London Mayor Boris Johnson, promised that going it alone would produce a quick remedy to all that ails the United Kingdom. No more immigrants taking jobs. No more edicts from far-away Brussels. Prosperity all around.

If this sounds familiar, it should. It mimics the most simplistic populist talking points of the Trump campaign. A wall on the U.S-Mexico border and Mexico will pay for it. A ban against Muslims entering the United States. We'll have so many good trade deals that you couldn't stand the winning.

If a solution to seems too simple, it probably is.

Contempt for practical questions

Economists warned of the folly of fleeing the EU. Breaking up a powerful trading bloc at a time when the rest of the world is seeking new trade alliances made no sense, they said. Financial markets would crash, billions of dollars would be lost. The EU and UK would be thrust into a period of grave uncertainty.

And guess what? It is happening and some voters are having buyer's remorse for having purchased a pipe dream.

Ridicule of experts

Brexit supporters peddled magic beans, portraying anyone who questioned them as elitist and clueless. When pressed, Michael Gove, a pro-Brexit member of Parliament, offered this troubling response that has echoes of Trump: "I think people in this country have had enough of experts."

Sound familiar? It could have been lifted from Trump's playbook where doubters are automatically labled "losers" and "haters." Memo to voters: Any person who stokes anti-establishment rage without regard to practical implications is dangerous.

It's important to remember that elections do have consequences. Prime Minister David Cameron didn't have to call the election. In doing so, he misread the tea leaves and gave a significant toehold to the pro-Brexit camp in a referendum. Now the future of the EU and the UK are in limbo.

Ditto to the GOP leaders here who said primary voters would never nominate a man as bombastic as Trump. They, too, misread the tea leaves. Now the GOP is badly fractured with a candidate many in party leadership want to disown.

Brexit should be a wake-up call to Americans about Trump's campaign on this side of the Atlantic. Trump became the presumptive GOP nominee based on populist bluster. Bluster is not a policy, and the consequences of unchallenged assertions are written in the UK's self-inflicted wounds.
DES MOINES  Joe Enriquez Henry remains upset with a state law passed in 2002 that requires all Iowa voter registration materials be printed only in English.

Henry, the national vice president for the Midwest region of the League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa, said the law is a prime example of legislation that can pass when government is not reflective of the population it represents.

Its important to have a representative government, Henry said.

Henry is one of more than 170,000 Latinos living in Iowa, according to state data. Latinos make up more than 5 percent of the states population  and that figure is growing  but there are no Latinos among the 150 members of the law-making Iowa Legislature.

Even including local elected officials, Latinos comprise a scant two-tenths of 1 percent of all elected officials across the state, according to research by the Latino Political Network, which was established roughly a year ago to help Latinos run for elected office.

Thats just a dismal percentage, said Rob Barron, who co-founded the network with Omar Padilla. Both are former staffers to former U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, and Barron is a member of the Des Moines City Council.

Iowa is not alone.

Even though Latinos are now the nations largest ethnic minority, they are significantly under-represented in Congress and most state legislatures, according to a demographic analysis by The Associated Press.

In Iowa, there are no Latinos elected to federal or statewide office or to the state Legislature. Its not much better for Latinos at the local level, where there are only 14 Latino elected officials, according to Barrons and Padillas research. Of those, 13 are city council and school board members; the only Latino elected county official in the state is Scott County Recorder Rita Vargas, according to Barron and Padilla.

That is in contrast with Iowas black population and representation in the Iowa Legislature: Both are just more than 3 percent.

The problem with under-representation, Latino public leaders in Iowa say, is a government that is not reflective of its entire population cannot best serve all of its people.

No one can represent or really understand the issues of a particular community better than someone who belongs to that group, said Padilla, who works with Greater Des Moines Habitat for Humanity. That is not to discredit many of the good public officials we have in the state who have been trying to do that job and in many cases are doing a very good job advocating for women, Latinos, African-Americans and other minorities.  But I truly believe a community is best represented by someone with a shared background.

Latino communities

Even in pockets across the state where Latinos make up a higher percentage of the population, Latino elected officials are rare.

Latinos in recent years became a majority population in Webster City, in Hamilton County in central Iowa. Yet the city has no Latino elected officials.

Sioux City has one of the highest percentages of Latino residents in the state  21.2 percent in the state Senate district that encompasses the city  yet has just one Latino elected official: school board member Perla Alarcon-Flory, who is running for the state Legislature in this falls election.

High concentrations of our voters are usually within very strong Democratic districts, and the Democrats have always relied on the Latino vote to help their white candidates get elected or re-elected. That needs to change. We need to be an independent vote, Henry said. Clearly, we have the concentrations to elect our own people into the state Legislature, and we need to do that to make sure legislation is out there  to fight on the issues of jobs, health care, education and drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants.

Disenfranchised

Elected and political party officials often say it can be difficult to recruit people to run for elected office, particularly at the state level, largely because of the time commitment. The Iowa Legislature typically meets every Monday through Thursday from mid-January to roughly April or May at the Iowa Capitol in Des Moines.

That challenge sometimes is magnified for minority residents, including Latinos, who may be disenfranchised by government because of experiences in their home countries.

When you come from other countries where the political institutions and the electoral system are completely rigged, there is a lack of trust, Alarcon-Flory said. So we need to change the mindset. Thats the first thing.

It also can be difficult to motivate Latinos to run for elected office when so few have done so successfully to this point, Alarcon-Flory said.

They dont find that reflection, she said. "Its a door that hasnt opened yet."

Padilla and Barron think no Latino has ever been elected to the Iowa Legislature. Padilla said he thinks if they can break that barrier, more will follow.

If Latinos dont have anybody currently  and we have never had anybody in the Statehouse representing us  how can we expect other Latinos to want to do that and be able to do that? Padilla asked.

Young people

The answer may come in the form of young Latinos in Iowa, who make up a growing share of the Latino population. Because of the preponderance of young Latinos, the community is expected to more than double to 13 percent of the states population by 2050, according to projections from Woods and Pool Economics Inc.

Multiple Latino leaders said they see their communitys younger generation not only more populous but also more politically active.

I have a 13-year-old grandson who all he wants to do is watch CNN and MSNBC. He wakes up, eats breakfast and watches that, said Lena Avila Robison, founder and president of Latinos Unidos of Iowa. The youth are so energetic and so anxious to get involved in the political process. Its amazing to me, and I look forward to seeing a lot of our youth look toward representing the state of Iowa in some format.

Joe Enriquez Henrys son is one of those younger Latinos already involved in public service; Zachary Bales Henry serves on the Windsor Heights City Council west of Des Moines.

My son, and others in that millennial generation, are very confident. They just need a little bit of a nudge to move forward, Joe Enriquez Henry said. I feel good about that, I really do, that theyre going to, with our help from the elders within the community, that theyre going to get the resources to run for those higher positions, and theyre going to win.

Padilla said all his group seeks is fair representation so Latinos have a voice in local and state government.

We cant go from 0 percent to 6 percent (to match the Latino population in the state) in one day, one year, even a decade. I know its going to take time, Padilla said. But if we at least had one person in strategic government bodies, that would do that, that would put a different voice in meetings where we currently have no voice.
NATION

Private services held for Wiesel

Elie Wiesel was memorialized Sunday at a private service in Manhattan, as family and friends gathered at Fifth Avenue Synagogue and praised the endurance and eloquence of the Nobel Peace Prize winner and mourned him as one of the last firsthand witnesses to the Nazis' atrocities.

"This is really the double tragedy of it, not only the loss of someone who was so rare and unusual but the fact that those ranks are thinning out," Rabbi Perry Berkowitz, president of the American Jewish Heritage Organization and a former assistant to Wiesel, said before the service at Fifth Avenue Synagogue. "At the same time anti-Semitism, Holocaust revisionism keeps rising. The fear is that when there are no more survivors left, will the world learn the lesson because those voices will be silenced."

Millions first learned about the Holocaust through Wiesel, who began publishing in the 1950s, a time when memories of the Nazis' atrocities were raw and repressed. He shared the harrowing story of his internment at Auschwitz as a teenager through his classic memoir "Night," one of the most widely read and discussed books of the 20th century.

The Holocaust happened more than 70 years ago and few authors from that time remain. Another Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor, Hungary's Imre Kertesz, died earlier this year. Like Wiesel, he was 87.

Indiana gov. meets with Trump

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and his wife met with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his wife Saturday as Trump considers potential running mates, but a Pence spokesman said "nothing was offered."

"The governor had warm, productive meetings with the Trumps," Pence campaign spokesman Marc Lotter said Sunday, declining to say where the Saturday meeting was held. Pence is running for re-election against former Democratic state House Speaker John Gregg.

Trump and Pence discussed Pence's policies during his term as governor, which began in 2013, Lotter said.

WORLD

Officials search for answers after attack

Security officials searched on Sunday for evidence and the possible masterminds of the weekend hostage-taking in an upscale restaurant in Bangladesh's capital. The government has denied the Islamic State group's claim of responsibility for the attack that left 28 dead, including six attackers and 20 of the hostages.

Police released photographs of the bodies of five attackers, along with their first names: Akash, Badhon, Bikash, Don and Ripon. The men belonged to the banned domestic group Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh, or JMB, and their families hadn't heard from them in months, according to police. Asked whether they might also have had Islamic State ties, Police Inspector General A.K.M. Shahidul Hoque said authorities were investigating that possibility.

Despite the police saying IS links were being investigated, the home minister refuted the possibility that the Islamic State directed the attack from abroad. Bangladesh's government insists the extremist Sunni Muslim group based in Syria and Iraq has no presence in the country, and in the past has suggested that any claims of responsibility for violence waged in the South Asian country are simply opportunistic attempts at grabbing global attention.

"They are all Bangladeshis. They are from rich families, they have good educational background," Khan said of the attackers. One surviving suspect was detained when paramilitary forces ended the 10-hour standoff Saturday morning, and authorities said he was being interrogated.

Pope: Benedict is still perfect

Pope Francis has said his predecessor as pontiff is having trouble getting around, but remains sharp of mind and memory, according to an interview published Sunday.

"His mind and his memory are intact, perfect," Francis said of Benedict XVI in the remarks published by La Nacion.

He also praised the 89-year-old emeritus pope as a "revolutionary." Francis said Benedict's abdication "exposed all the problems of the church" and was itself "an act of government, his final act of government."

The interview was published five days after the current and former popes appeared together at an unprecedented Vatican ceremony celebrating the 65th anniversary of Benedict's ordination as a priest.

The event underscored the continuity from Benedict to Francis even as some conservatives have expressed nostalgia for Benedict's tradition-minded papacy.

In the interview, Francis said he avoids conflict with ultra-conservatives.

"They do their work and I do mine," he said. "I want a church that is open, compassionate, that accompanies wounded families. They say no to everything."

But he added, "I'm not a head-hunter. I've never liked doing that."

Francis waved aside suggestions that he has a cool relationship with Argentina's conservative new President Mauricio Macri, describing him as "a noble person."

He acknowledged that as archbishop of Buenos Aires, he'd had a difference with Macri, then mayor, when city officials declined to appeal a court ruling that granted a marriage license to a gay couple.

He said that was their only dispute in six years. "That's a very low average," he added.
Anyone ever within range of the nose-wrinkling odor of a ripe garbage container on a warm summer day will certainly appreciate the service John Hess of Wall plans to launch later this month.

Hess new trash bin and dumpster cleaning venture, called Classy Cans, started with Hess looking into potential business opportunities on Craigslist.

He responded to an ad for a self-contained, high-pressure wash unit mounted on a four-wheel trailer. A company in Watertown builds and markets the wash units, but Hess first had to overcome his initial skepticism.

At first it was a people dont pay to have their garbage cans cleaned, thing, but I started looking into it and in the bigger cities, its a big thing, Hess said.

Hess spotted one of the wash units in Piedmont while on a recent camping trip to the Hills. As it turned out, the owner was too busy to pursue the business.

We ended up buying it from him, Hess said.

Hess still has some startup wrinkles to iron out before he can launch Classy Cans. Once he gets steaming later this month, hell come right to a home or business, using the pressure washer to clean and deodorize residential and commercial garbage cans and dumpsters.

First-time and one-time prices range from $24.99 for a trash can to $39.99 for a dumpster.

Subsequent cleanings are much less expensive. Hess is planning to offer monthly plans for both residential and commercial customers.

The first time it takes a little longer, Hess said. Every month after that it gets easier and we can clean them a lot faster.

Hess said all of his cleaning and deodorizing products are biodegradable and will be disposed of properly.

Theres none of that icky stuff, as we like to call it, going down the storm drains, he said.

Hess said the former owner of the pressure washer entered the trailer in a Piedmont parade with vinyl signage, including a phone number, temporarily affixed. Although the former owner wasnt ready to launch the business, the response was very encouraging.

He told me he was getting so many calls he finally shut that phone number off. He had it disconnected, Hess said. Were keeping our fingers crossed for that (many calls) too.

Classy Cans is based in Wall, but Hess plans to serve customers in the Rapid City area.

Contact him (and he is indeed ready to take calls) at 605-786-4205.

New ServPro franchise in Rapid City

Continuing on the cleaning theme: Dave Peters, Kim Goodwin and Kris Goodwin have opened a ServPro franchise in Rapid City, according to a news release.

ServPro, founded in 1967 and based in Gallatin, Tenn., is a national specialty cleaning franchise helping home and business owners deal with fire, water and mold damage. The service also provides on-site cleaning of carpets and other flooring, drapes, furniture and upholstery and duct-work systems.

There are more than 1,300 ServPro franchises in 48 states. For fire and water damage, there is 24-hour emergency service.

ServPro of Rapid City is at 399 E. Watts Lane, Suite E. Call 605-388-3000 for more information.

Three franchises looking to expand to Rapid City

On the heels of Rapid City being named one of the top 20 small cities in which to start a business (reported in Talking Business on April 24), the No Limit Agency of Chicago reports three national franchises are looking to expand here.

Miracle Method, based in Colorado Springs, Colo., is a home improvement company marketing a money-saving way to rejuvenate kitchen and bath countertops, bathtubs and shower surrounds.

Miracle Method refers to a way to change the color of existing countertops, bath fixtures and even flooring to give rooms an updated look.

Rapid City is one of those areas where there is huge interest. We field a lot of phone calls and emails on a daily and weekly basis, said John Tubiolo, Miracle Method vice-president of franchise sales and development

Currently, a Miracle Method franchise based in Powell, Wyo., does commercial and residential work in Rapid City and western South Dakota.

Were pretty confident that in the next three to six months well actually have a physical presence or a showroom on the ground to help service those customers for us, he said.

Two other franchises, Wireless Zone, a Verizon Wireless retailer originally known as the Car Phone Store; and Slim Chickens, a Fayetteville, Ark.- based eatery specializing in fast-casual hot wings, chicken strips and waffles, also will open new operations in Rapid City in the near future.

No specific addresses or opening dates have been revealed.

Slim Chickens will open in Sioux Falls first, with a location in Rapid City soon to follow.

Rapid Rooter changes hands

Victor Wood owned Rapid Rooter for 30 years, partnering with David Stertz. But as of July 1, Wood turned the plumbing and drain cleaning business over to Stertz and will spend more time with his son Erin Wood in a construction business, Wood Builders, Inc.

Weve got a bunch of lots with a lot of spec houses coming up so Im going to jump in, Victor Wood said.

Call 605-342-6669 for information on Rapid Rooter, 2017 E. Highway 44. Contact Wood Builders, Inc., 3219 Teewinot Dr., at 605-390-5560.
"Konnichiwa"  a Japanese greeting that means hello  is just one of the words that Logan Garr is learning before he travels to Japan this summer.

I was actually just practicing some words, said Logan, a freshman at Douglas High School, who leaves for Japan on Tuesday. Im still on the basic words to get by Im not really into lengthy sentences yet.

Logan, 15, of Rapid City, is one of just 10 high school students in the U.S. chosen for the Japanese Society Junior Fellows Leadership Program.

Students who have been accepted into the program will stay in Japan for three weeks. While there, each student will live with a Japanese host family and attend high school for one week. Students will then meet with Japanese business leaders and visit cultural sites in various cities such as Tokyo, Hiroshima and Yokohama. Upon returning to the U.S., the students will present their findings about Japan to their school or implement new ideas that they learned in Japan.

Im excited for that because when I come back, I can bring some of the stuff from there back to our school since Im on student council, said Logan who has a 4.0 GPA. In addition, he also runs track, cross country, and is a member of the jazz band. His favorite subjects are math and English.

When hes not participating in school activities or practicing his baritone saxophone, he enjoys hiking and, like any other high school student, hanging out with friends.

Logan heard about the Japanese program through his art teacher Shannon Bonner, who encouraged him to apply.

What struck me about him was he was very well spoken, very mature for a freshman, Bonner said.

She recalled how she encouraged Logan to apply.

We just started talking during class and I told him, I came up with this opportunity that the Japan Society accepts high school students to become involved in their Junior Fellows Leadership program. I traveled with them last summer as an educator and they take 10 educators throughout the nation and when the opportunity came up for students, I said, Logan you should really look into this, and he did, Bonner said.

Though students are selected based on several criteria, including leadership and academic skills, vying for acceptance into the program is not easy.

It was an application process, Bonner explains. He had to write essays; there was, gosh, an hour and a half Skype interview he made it through  I was really proud of him, Bonner said.

Parents Jessie and Karey Garr are also proud of Logan.

I just had to take it one step at a time, Karey said. I knew he was going to get it, but it was overwhelming for me to think of my baby being in another country for three weeks.

Karey says she is preparing herself for the day that Logan departs.

I took the day off for when he goes; my eyes will be pretty full Im guessing, Karey laughs, adding that she could not let him miss this chance of a lifetime.

Theres no way I couldnt let him do this, so were super excited for him, Karey said.

Logan is also excited for his journey to Japan. Not only is this overachiever looking forward to the academic and cultural experience, hes enthused about using his new Japanese expressions and, like most growing young men, hes eager to try the cuisine.

Ive always liked sushi, says Logan, but thats pretty much all Ive had for Japanese food, so I'm excited to try out the new things there.
In South Dakota where rodeo is the official state sport, the saddle bronc event is the quintessential event; a blend of balance, technique, guts and often a family tradition handed down from generation to generation.

Given that history, it was perfectly fitting that the first PRCA rodeo performance of the 97th annual Black Hills Roundup in Belle Fourche on Saturday night featured a Utah rodeo family that takes to bronc riding in the Wright way.

On hand, two-time world champion (2008, 2010) Cody Wright (Milford, Utah) along with sons, Rusty and Ryder, and Codys younger brother Spencer, who won the PRCA world title in 2014, a year in which four Wright brothers were among the 15 National Rodeo Finals qualifiers.

Cody Wright, the eldest of the seven boys among the 13 children of Bill and Evelyn Wright, is one of six Wright brothers who are professional saddle bronc riders. And like Cody, brother Jesse is a former world champion (2012), and Jesses twin brother Jake is a former reserve world champion.

Unfortunately the bucking horses drawn in Belle Fourche on Saturday night werent of the same quality as their Utah dance partners. Cody Wright's sons, Ryder led the pack with an 84.5 point ride, good enough for third spot while Rusty, currently third in PRCA world standings finished fifth (83).

As for the trip to Belle Fourche, always a pleasure said Cody Wright, who drew a trashy horse and drew a 67-point score.

They have good horses, good money and the stock contractors are great people and its nice to work with people who know how to handle livestock, said Cody Wright, who was banged up in 2015, and missed a trip to the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo for the first time since 2002, and is hankering for a return trip to Las Vegas and the PRCAs premiere event in December.

I guess I will keep on going as long as I can have fun, said Wright, who currently sits 24th in world standings and is hoping to use the July Fourth Cowboy Christmas rodeos to make a big move in the standings. Its exciting to come out and watch the boys ride because they are just starting and they have craved doing this their whole life. When the chutes open its just like fireworks every time no matter what happens and to for them to be my boys its really neat to watch though it can be stressful at times.

Chet Johnson, a 35-year-old cowboy who was born in Rapid City, but now calls Gillette Wyo., home, turned in the best bronc ride of the night with an 87.5 point effort to nip Keldon South Dakotas Chuck Schmidt (87) for the win.

Its a really good Franzen (Powder River Rodeo Company) horse and is big and has a lot of strength to it, so if you get the timing a really fun horse to ride, Johnson said moments before hitting the road for an all-night drive to Ponoka, Alberta, Canada, for a short round appearance on Sunday. You are so much more excited when you are getting on a horse that you know gives you a chance to win. Chuck made a great ride and to be able to beat that feels really good.

Another cowboy with South Dakota roots had a big night as well as Chason Floyd (Buffalo) grabbed a share of the overall lead in steer wrestling with a 4.5 second trip. Though catching his steer a ways down the arena, Floyd did quick work on the ground to post the fast time.

Ive been kind of on a cold streak and havent placed in about five rodeos, Floyd said. I was talking to my traveling partners about things we could change to do better and I thought I needed to be a little more aggressive on the ground and I felt like I was tonight.

A bareback rider from afar won the nights opening event as Tanner Phipps from Dalton, Ga., turned in an 83.5 second ride to post the top ride of the night.

I heard it was a good rodeo and was where the money was at, so I decided to come and see, Phipps said of his first trip to the Black Hills Roundup Rodeo. It is a really good rodeo with great atmosphere. I didnt know anything about the horse, but he bucked right out of the chute and kept it up after that.

In other first performance results, Manny Egusquiza (Marianna, Fla.,) and Daniel Braman IV (Victoria, Texas) recorded the fastest team roping spin with a 5.0 second time to grab the overall lead. The quickest tie-down roping run of the night (10.6) was turned in by Jared Mark Kempker (Eugene, Mo.) though Michael Oteros 8.9 second loop and bound set in the Friday morning slack leads the event.

The second Black Hills Roundup Rodeo performance is scheduled for tonight at 7 p.m. and will be followed by the areas largest fireworks display. The third and final performance is on Monday, the Fourth of July at 2 p.m. and will be preceded by the annual Roundup Parade at 10:30 a.m.

Current leaders after the first performance winners: Bareback: 1. Tanner Phipps, 83.5; 2. Justin Miller, 78.5; 3. Scotty NeSmith & Bee Jay Scott, 74; 5. Weston Garrett, 73. Steer wrestling leaders: 1. Sheldon Portwine, Chason Floyd, 4.5 seconds; 3. Tyler Schau, 4.6; 4. Kyle Callaway, 4.9; 5. J.W. Lorenz, 6.3. Team roping leaders: 1. (tie) Clayton Van Aken/Cole Cooper and Turner Harris/Ross Carson, 5.5 seconds each; 3. Travis Winters/Josh Hodge, 6.1; 4. Wyatt Bice/Derick Fleming, 6.8; 5. Gene Harry/Clint Harry, 7.0; 6. Pate Norell/Joe Roderick, 7.1. Tie-down roping leaders: 1. Michael Otero, 8.9 seconds; 2. Jesse Clark, 9.0; 3. Cole Hatzenbuehler, 9.4; 4. Ike Fontenot, 9.8; 5. J.D. Kibbe, 10.5; 6. Clint Kindred, 10.8. Barrel racing leaders: 1. Stevi Hillman, 17.04; 2. Mary Burger, 17.19; 3. Amanda Harris, 17.21; 4. Tiany Schuster, 17.23; 5. Jana Bean, 17.31; 6. Lindsay Sears, 17.38. PRCA Steer Roping: Go Round 1  Vin Fisher Jr. (Andrews, TX); Go Round 2  J.P. Wickett (Sallisaw, OK); Go Round 3  Chet Herren (Pawhuska, OK); Aggregate  Chris Glover (Keenesburg, CO). the Bull Riding event hadnt concluded as of press time.
RAPID CITY - The South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks' Outdoor Campus-West in Rapid City will host its fifth annual Outdoor University on Saturday, July 9, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

"Individuals and families can enjoy a variety of outdoor activities no matter if they are an avid outdoors person or just getting started. Spend an hour or the whole day here," said Chad Tussing, director of the Outdoor Campus-West in Rapid City.

Individuals and families can try canoeing, archery, air rifles, fishing and kayaking. Attendees can also learn about how GFP manages the natural resources of western South Dakota at hands-on stations.

A kids' area will feature soft target shooting and other fun outdoor games and crafts, including a giant yard mural. Several other organizations, such as National Grasslands Visitor Center, Rapid City Arts Council, and Rapid City Izaak Walton League will have booths with activities as well.

For more information, call 605-394-2310 or visit outdoorcampus.org.
RAPID CITY | As the temperature skyrockets in the summer, it isn't just people who need to beat the heat. That's why the Humane Society of the Black Hills is making sure our furry friends stay cool and safe.

The HSBH has started a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds for its HVAC system, and people have lined up to help.

"We've raised $6,000 in the first two weeks, multiple HVAC businesses in town have contacted us, and different organizations in town want to help," said Resource Development Director Kaitlyn Janak.

On Friday afternoon, $7,280 had been raised. The non-profit organization, which is the only major animal shelter west of the Missouri River in South Dakota, is currently dealing with dated and insufficient units that have left their stray and adopt floors in 90-degree heat with 100 percent humidity.

"It's something we've tried temporary fixes for for lack of funding," Janak said. "At this point, we're not sure how long it's going to last, so we needed to make the decision to fundraise for a new unit."

The funds will help replace the system with a more current one that will provide optimal temperatures, humidity levels, room air exchanges and ammonia levels. In the meantime, several individuals have donated fans to help keep the rooms cool for the animals.

"We still have a ways to go, but we've been encouraged by the response," Janak said.

To contribute to the GoFundMe page, visit gofundme.com/helpusbeattheheat.

If you'd like to mail in a donation, specify this fundraiser and send to: Humane Society of the Black Hills, 1820 E. Saint Patrick St., Rapid City, S.D., 57703.

Bowling fundraiser

There will be a bowling fundraiser for Pennington County Search and Rescue, which will include displays and activities from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Saturday, July 9, at Robbinsdale Lanes.

Registration for four-person bowling teams begins at 10:30 a.m., vehicle extrication demo at 10:45 a.m., bowling begins at 11 a.m., with lunch available; silent auction ends at 12:30 p.m.; 50/50 drawing called at 1 p.m.; and a vehicle extrication demo at 1:15 p.m. Cost for bowling is $25 and includes two games, shoes and lunch. Register early at penncosar@gmail.com.

Cattlemen donate to Feeding South Dakota

The South Dakota Cattlemens Foundation presented a check for $212,000 to Feeding South Dakota at the June 25 Prime Time Gala event in Sioux Falls. This years donation exceeded the South Dakota Cattlemens Foundation goal by $62,000.

According to the press release, "We were completely stunned by the announcement that the Prime Time Gala had raised $212,000 to support Feeding South Dakota, said Matt Gassen, CEO of Feeding South Dakota. What the South Dakota Cattlemen's Foundation, the sponsors and all the donors made happen Saturday night was unbelievable and will help to make over 200,000 pounds of beef available to struggling South Dakota families."
It's not just "drought" hitting western South Dakota, it's a real fear of surface water contamination that literally can kill cattle.

That danger to livestock "is spreading like wildfire in this area," according to Robin Salverson, South Dakota State University cow-calf field specialist.

She added, "It's not getting any better."

Even several inches of rain won't likely add enough water to drought-depleted surface water sources.

Since thunderstorm rainfall tends to be spotty, she said,"We're going to need a gully washer" in general across western South Dakota.

The drought conditions have been evaporating surface water sources, concentrating such dissolved solids as salts and sulfites.

Salverson, who is based at the Lemmon Regional Center, said last week that she had tested surface water sources that normally serve livestock from the Missouri River to the Montana state line.

More than half of the 150 water samples she tested came out with dissolved solids over the red line for danger to cattle.

"It's a big deal," she said. Of samples collected over a two-week period, the state said 56 percent tested dangerously high for dissolved salts.

It's serious enough that she's even warning ranchers who have well water for their livestock.

"If you have a well, watch it," she said. If the well goes down, that could take cattle toward anything that looks like water on a given rangeland area.

She said surface water used by cattle should be tested: "Period."

"Call us to bring it in or in some cases we can go out," Salverson said. The water testing is a free service of the SDSU Extension Service.

Surface water usually used by cattle in the region could vary from stock dams to creeks.

SDSU regional centers in Rapid City and Lemmon, Butte and Harding County extension offices could test a clean sample of surface water.

Salverson said she's encouraging everyone to test surface water sources used by livestock, "especially if it's the only water source."

She said that the test for dissolved solids is the only way a rancher can tell if a stock dam or other water source is a potential danger to cattle.

"There is really no way to do it visually," she said.

Tests in Butte, Meade and Pennington counties have brought results of real concern.

"Polio has been occurring," Salverson said.

Along with bovine polio, she said the high concentration of salts can bring weight loss and possible death.

Earlier in the week she had said the poor water quality also was leading to blindness.

Regardless, she said, the poor water quality could lead easily to weight losses.

Sheep, another major livestock in northwestern South Dakota, also are a concern, according to Larry Prager, general manager at Center of the Nation Wool in Belle Fourche.

Prager said Friday, "Drought's drought."

"Sheep can deal with it better," he said, but that doesn't mean there's no concern among sheep ranchers in the area.

"It can still bring heat stress," he said.

Ranchers also are checking surface water areas for sheep bogged down in mud where they had been searching for water.

Butte County proclaimed the drought a local disaster, joining similar declarations in eastern Wyoming and neighboring South Dakota counties. That could bring federal aid to businesses and ranchers in affected areas, according to Brent Kolstad, regional coordinator for South Dakota Emergency Management.

Kolstad last week emailed West River counties in his region that assistance for water hauling and aid in wells, pipeline and tanks may be possible with a drought disaster declaration.

The Tri-State Neighbor contributed to this report
Katherine Young thought her family was going to lose everything when her husband practically hibernated for three weeks. Within several days in July 2005, she moved all their savings into his business just to ensure it would keep going while he slept.

Her husband Cody, a Rapid City physical therapist, owns a clinic and sees 40-50 patients a week. But for 24 days that July, all he did was sleep, eat and go to the bathroom. Mainly, the 36-year-old slept for 22 hours a day.

Most of his life, people thought Cody Young was either lazy, depressed or just odd. Three to five times a year, for about two weeks each time, he would sleep nearly round-the-clock. During the few hours he was awake, he was a different person.

He was not his usual happy and friendly self. He spoke very little, did not like being around people and shied away from noise and light. He devoured food, table manners forgotten. After nine to 14 days in this mode, he would slip back to the original Cody Young. And he wouldnt remember some things that happened during those slumberous days.

These incidents, which usually followed flu-like symptoms, started when Cody was a 14-year-old in Ohio. His parents took him to several doctors, including specialists at the famed Cleveland Clinic. The clinic initially diagnosed him with separation anxiety and then clinical depression, said Codys mother, Cherlynn Young.

For a year in high school, he was sent to counseling. Over the years, he has been prescribed various anti-depressants or mood stabilizers, such as Depakote, Desyrel and lithium. But the sleep episodes continued.

I did never buy into the depression per se, but I just went along. Hey, you know, this is the best they can do, Cody, now 47, said in an interview. He explained that depression was not the root, but a byproduct of the episodes in which he could not function normally.

Thats tough when youre not able to put your finger on something. You know somethings wrong, but nobody can find out what it is. Then you start to question in your mind whether its real.

Explaining the mystery

A satisfactory explanation for his condition remained elusive for two decades. Then on a phone call in the fall of 2001, a childhood friend of Codys told his wife to look up something called the Kleine-Levin Syndrome.

Kat, as friends call her, went online and started reading about a man who had been diagnosed with the disorder. The strangers symptoms so mirrored her husbands behavior that she started crying.

I was so relieved that I wasnt the only one, that this wasnt an isolated incident, Kat, 46, said, sitting face-to-face with her husband at their dining table. There is something that we can call this, so maybe theres treatment, theres help for it.

Kleine-Levin Syndrome, also known as the Sleeping Beauty syndrome and the Rip Van Winkle disease, is a rare sleep disorder. Its literally one  or two  in a million. Only around 500 cases worldwide have been reported in medical literature, according to experts.

Its exact cause is unknown though its suspected to be an autoimmune disorder, said Dr. Clete Kushida, medical director of the Stanford Sleep Medicine Center. The clinic belongs within the Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine, which is doing a long-term Kleine-Levin study. (An autoimmune disorder occurs when the bodys immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissue for unknown reasons.)

A flu-like illness or upper respiratory infection, as well as anesthesia, alcohol use and head trauma, have been reported to trigger KLS, Kushida said in an email.

The disease primarily affects adolescent males and is found in men more often than women, according to information published by the National Organization for Rare Disorders. Genetically inherited Kleine-Levin is rare, about five percent of recorded cases, said Kushida.

Episodes become less frequent as a person ages, which is Codys experience. He had one last April; prior to that was in 2011 and 2005.

There is no definitive treatment for the disorder, Kushida said, but stimulants and antidepressants may be effective for some of the symptoms. Cody just tries to lead a holistic healthy lifestyle, having declined shock therapy that the Mayo Clinic suggested some 10 years ago.

Search for more answers

Since 2008, the Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine has been collecting data that aims to identify biological factors associated with the disease, said Eileen Leary, the senior manager of clinical research.

At least 200 people with Kleine-Levin are participating in the study, including Cody. Participants answer a questionnaire and submit a blood sample. The latest findings are scheduled to be published by next year.

Kushida believes more people out there have KLS but their symptoms are misdiagnosed by medical professionals not familiar with the condition. Sleep specialists and neurologists are the people most likely to recognize it, he said.

Dr. Scott Finkbeiner, an internist, didnt hear about the Kleine-Levin Syndrome until he was out of medical school. He was doing research on sleep disorders when he encountered it. He and Cody had been buddies since they were 18-year-olds in Belle Fourche, then college roommates in Bowling Green, Ohio. The symptoms associated with KLS struck Finkbeiner. He knew he finally had a name for the mysterious condition that plagued his best friend, and he told Kat.

Finkbeiner saw Cody strive to make up for missed time in school. He saw Cody lose friends and girlfriends, because people got confused and upset by what appeared to be his dual personalities.

Hes such an outgoing, happy, friendly person. And then literally all of a sudden, he would disappear for a week or two weeks at a time. Finkbeiner, now a doctor in Arizona, said in a phone interview. Theres so many people that did not understand it.

Cody believes Kleine-Levin was the primary reason his first marriage crumbled. The union lasted only nine months during his mid-20s.

The impact of an illness

Kat experiences emotional stress whenever her husband is under, but takes it on as their biggest challenge as a couple. She becomes a single parent to their four children and a caregiver to Cody. She gets hurt by his seemingly cold and self-centered demeanor, no matter how many times she has lived with his episodes.

Codys eyes, she said, become distant and vacant, as if he were an impostor.

But Kats biggest worry is that the man she describes as her soulmate will not come back.

Despite the maternal things that you do and the caretaker things that you do, its very lonely, she said at the familys three-story home on Rapid Citys southwest side.

I always get to the point where I sit in my garage and Ill smoke a cigarette, and Ill drink a wine. And Im like, OK, God, I cannot take this anymore. After her anguished prayers, Kat said she always feels the burden lift.

Kat and Codys parents estimate that he has spent seven years of his life sleeping.

Cody and Kats two sons and two daughters have also learned to cope with his episodes. During these times, they try to give family members extra support.

We all get the idea that hes out and that were gonna need to pull together, J.C., the 18-year-old eldest said, with his parents and siblings gathered around the dining room.

Once youve dealt with it a couple times it gets easier, he said, knowing that hes not gonna die, or anything, from it.

The youngest child, however, was too small to remember Codys past episodes. Peyton, 11, came home from school one day in April and panicked when he could not wake his dad who was lying on the couch.

It scared me, he said in a whisper. Kat, who noticed that the boys heart was pounding, explained that his dad was just in a deep sleep.

Past, future and present

After the Youngs first learned about Kleine-Levin, Kat scrambled to find a doctor who could confirm their hunch. She called about 20 doctors in South Dakota and Colorado before she found someone, at Black Hills Neurology, who knew about the disease.

That person, Dr. Brian Tschida, described Codys symptoms as pretty much a textbook Kleine-Levin. The neurology and sleep specialist, now with Rapid City Regional Hospital, said there is no test that can confirm KLS, so diagnosing it involves ruling out other diseases that could account for the symptoms.

Cody remains Tschidas only Kleine-Levin patient in 36 years of medical practice.

Few people know that Cody has Kleine-Levin Syndrome. His family decided to tell their story, hoping it can help someone who is dealing with a mysterious illness. Kat also wants to shine a light on a disease that is difficult to explain.

This October, in conjunction with National Physical Therapy Month, Codys clinic plans to mark what will be its annual KLS Awareness Month.

After 30 years of living with a largely unknown disease, Cody believes Kleine-Levin has pushed him to transcend his weaknesses and fulfill his goals.

People are amazed when they find out Cody has KLS, said his younger brother J.D. Young, citing Cody's accomplishments as an athlete, student and medical professional.

Codys family, friends and patients describe him as an especially compassionate person and therapist. He believes this is a result of the pain and suffering he has experienced from having KLS.

Maybe even what has occurred to me is a blessing for some strange reason, he said. Theres a reason why I have this  God has a plan for it, and I try to just believe.
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PIERRE | Scandal Land. Harsh, perhaps, but it doesnt feel too strong.

Not with seven dead, and four awaiting criminal trials, possibly facing jail or prison, and other persons of possible interest perhaps still in the wings, in two separate scandals that have raised EB-5 and GEAR UP from obscurity into headlines.

Scandals that involved millions of dollars, washing without any high-level accountability for too many years through two state government departments, and enriching private hands.

The latest revelations from state Attorney General Marty Jackleys investigation of the GEAR UP fiasco suggest many, many thousands of public-paid dollars flowed to restaurants, casinos and an array of private businesses for questionable purposes.

Those details might be why Stacy Phelps of Rapid City, the former GEAR UP director, and Dan Guericke of White Lake, the former director of Mid Central Educational Cooperative at Platte, backdated contracts.

Falsifying documents, in one instance on the hood of a vehicle next to a farm field where a former Mid Central board member was working, took place in the days just before Mid Central wasnt renewed as a grant sub-recipient for GEAR UP.

Those contracts are key documents in proving an attempted GEAR UP cover-up.

Depending how the contracts were written, the state Department of Legislative Audit could, or couldnt, dig into the finances of several nonprofits.

They were run by Phelps and two other Mid Central employees, the late Scott Westerhuis and his wife, the late Nicole Westerhuis. Legislative Audit kept digging.

Reconstructed digital communications between Phelps and Scott Westerhuis, the result of solid detective work, are also in Jackleys circuit court filing made in the past week.

Both GEAR UP and EB-5 have many days ahead in state and possibly federal courts. At their hearts both are federal programs that South Dakota fully engaged during the prior administration of then-governor and now U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds.

GEAR UP relies on $3 million or more annually from the federal Department of Education to help children from low-income households and their families learn what is needed to pursue more education after high school.

EB-5 relies on a federal permit that, in South Dakotas case, was granted directly to the state government. It involved attracting foreign investors to put at least $500,000 into South Dakota business projects in return for help with immigration.

Both began in earnest through Rounds Cabinet members: Then-Education Secretary Rick Melmer and then-Tourism and State Development Secretary Richard Benda.

In October 2013 Benda killed himself with a shotgun while appearing to be hunting pheasants, according to the official investigations results. He was about to face a grand jury inquiry over EB-5.

Melmer continued to stay involved in GEAR UP, as did his then-director of Indian education, Keith Moore. They didnt submit work records for money they were paid several years ago while on the GEAR UP payroll through Mid Central.

The work records were one of the first problems noted by Legislative Audit. This happened under the current administration of Gov. Dennis Daugaard, as problems in GEAR UP worsened.

Education Secretary Melody Schopp took the side of Mid Central initially a year ago when Legislative Audits work became public. She later ended the contract. Directly overseeing her for years has been Tony Venhuizen, the governors chief of staff and son-in-law.

A variety of other state employees, current and past, and at least one legislator have ties to GEAR UP. A few, who havent been publicly identified, appear to have blown the whistle at key times. Others, who remain in the background, werent so forthcoming.

The saga of GEAR UP, on the heels of EB-5 which remains in a roil too with Joop Bollen facing criminal charges for allegedly borrowing state money on several occasions, is why members of many of state governments boards and commissions have been required, starting July 1, to declare potential financial conflicts.

Phelps was appointed to the state Board of Education by Rounds while he was GEAR UP director and Daugaard reappointed him. Phelps resigned last year.

Rep. G. Mark Mickelson, R-Sioux Falls, sponsored the conflicts legislation. The full Legislature endorsed it in the strongest possible way.

The combined vote of the House and the Senate was 102 ayes and zero nays. Board and commission members grumble, but the vote cant be mistaken for anything other than the message it clearly is.

We dont have to be Scandal Land.
Information technology has disrupted so many industries and human activities that everyone expected it would disrupt education as well.A few years ago, the Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) seemed poised to do that. One professor could teach an unlimited number of students because technology had dramatically reduced the cost of reaching them. A student on the other side of the world from a professor could access lectures and work through the material afterward in a digital discussion forum. Students in the poorest countries would have access to some of the most knowledgeable teachers in the world.MOOCs have not as yet lived up to their promise. Dropout rates from the courses are high, and those who took them tended to be students who already had degrees and were brushing up or acquiring new skills. Those were the authors' findings in the September 2015 Harvard Business Review article, " Who's Benefiting from MOOCs and Why. About the time the MOOC hype started, the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University decided to try a different approach to utilizing technology, one that has turned out to be quite successful.The Ashbrook Center began conducting a Master's in American History and Government summer residence program at Ashland University in 2005. The program, which is tailored specifically for middle and high school history, government, and civics teachers, focuses on primary documents and discussion. Its purpose is to provide teachers with the knowledge of and an approach to teaching American history and government that they need to excel in their classrooms.Working with primary documents is critical. With the guidance of a good teacher, reading these documents that shaped our past can force students to confront their preconceptions, open up their thinking, and escape the contemporary preoccupations and prejudices embedded in secondary literature.Studying documents from the past, if well guided, also helps students think for themselves. Thinking for oneself-questioning premises, weighing evidence-is the true foundation of taking responsibility for oneself, and that in turn is the basis of both a well-lived life and good citizenship.As future voters, students who study documents from the past come to see that political outcomes are not inevitable. Human beings, acting cooperatively or confrontationally in history, determine their own future. Moreover, students observe that self-government, forming majorities to rule and get things done, requires compromise, as well as the assertion of deeply held convictions.A recent study by Grant Evaluations shows that the program has proven popular and effective. It draws students from across the country. Classes are small, capped at just 16 students. Tuition, travel costs, and room and board to attend the program, however, often strain the tight budgets of teachers. Taking two or three weeks to study in the summer also has proven difficult for teachers with young families.Therefore, to serve teachers who found it difficult to get to Ashland, the Ashbrook Center decided to take master's classes to them using web-based tools. It purposefully designed its online courses to try to replicate what made the program successful in residence.The online program consists of small, seminar-sized classes based on discussion of primary documents, such as Federalist 10 or Teddy Roosevelt's New Nationalism speech.Ashbrook also decided that its online courses would be part of a hybrid program: students are required to do half their coursework in residence. Online efficiencies allowed tuition to be 25 percent lower and teachers also save the cost of room, board, and travel.The online program comes close to replicating in-house, small group discussions by using multi-point video web conferencing technology. Unlike the technology used to conduct a MOOC, this technology more closely simulates face-to-face interaction, allows for real-time active discussions between students and faculty, and gives students the ability to ask questions and get immediate answers.The Grant Evaluations study noted above found that teachers considered the online classes almost as good as the residence courses.The study determined that learning (measured by pre- and post multiple choice tests) was almost identical online and in residence. Grade point averages were almost the same as well. Four years into the online program the course completion rate is 98 percent. The time taken to complete the master's degree has declined 50 percent since the online courses became available.We believe the course completion rate is so high, certainly compared with MOOCs, because of the personal interaction that the model allows. Instructors were much more likely to express satisfaction with their online teaching for Ashbrook than were instructors in a variety of different online programs surveyed by the Gallup organization in a 2014 national study.According to the Grant Evaluations analysis, the most important area where the online courses fell short was in the quality of interactions between faculty and students, and among the students. This is an important point, one that draws us deeper into understanding both the success and limitations of our web-based program.The shared intellectual exploration of a small group discussion requires that the participants pay attention to and feel empathy for each other. Based on recent studies that are discussed in Professor Sherry Turkle's book Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, those requirements are met most effectively through face-to-face contact, when the full range of human experience and communication is directly available.If the research results discussed in Turkle's book are borne out by further studies, they will mark a limit to the effectiveness of online education. It will probably never fully replicate the results of traditional classroom education. It may turn out, for example, that critical thinking skills are most enhanced in face-to-face discussion, while fact-based learning can occur equally well in online courses.At this point, research and our experience suggest that hybrid programs combining residence and online learning may turn out to be the best way to use the new information technology. The issue will then be figuring out how to blend the residence and online experience to get the most effective and efficient result.Through these online and residence courses, Ashbrook is changing the way teachers teach American history and civics. Rather than teaching through boring-and sometimes biased-textbooks, the program focuses teachers' attention on primary source documents, and through these documents deepens the teachers' knowledge of American history and constitutional principles.Teaching with original documents increases teacher and student knowledge. For example, one study of an Ashbrook program found that middle and high school students of Ashbrook teachers on average increased their history test scores by 10 percent. Advanced Placement student scores increased by 12 percent. Teacher knowledge increased 11 percent on average.Teachers often say that the primary reason they became a teacher was to help their students realize their full potential. Teaching through discussion of the key documents of American history is an effective way to do this because it helps students take responsibility for learning and for themselves.
When it comes time to evacuate your home during a natural disaster, theres not much time to figure out what youre going to do with your pets or livestock.

A new coalition in Ravalli County wants to be able to help people who find themselves in that unenviable position.

Its called the Bitterroot Pet Rescue Coalition.

The folks at the Bitter Root Humane Association are serving as its main contact.

When disaster strikes, people tend to panic, said Eve Burnsides, the associations shelter manager. They dont know what to do with their animals. Well be here to help them. Well provide a calm voice and answers to their questions.

The coalition came together when the diverse animal-rescue organizations sat down to work on building a plan necessary for the application of a grant to fund the project.

Besides the humane association, they included Fox Hollow Animal Project, Montana Companion Animal Network, Western Montana Equine Rescue and Rehabilitation, Safe Haven Llama, Run for Adoption, Feral Cat Rescue and Montanas Monkeys.

That grant never materialized, but that didnt stop the men and women anxious to help people and their pets through difficult times.

The groups have created a brochure that offers tips to people facing evacuation and phone numbers on where they can find someone to help.

A lot of people chipped in to help pay for the flyers, Burnsides said. There is a lot of commitment toward this project.

People have stepped forward to volunteer pasture for livestock, transportation and a willingness to take in all sorts of other critters that run the gamut from chickens to ferrets to reptiles.

Burnsides said the coalition maintains a list of volunteers willing to take in displaced animals at their homes during the time their owners are evacuated. She encourages anyone wanting to help with that effort to give the shelter a call so their names and information can be added to the list. The number is 363-5311.

The humane association has a long history of being there to help when disaster strikes.

Board member Mary Gehl remembers that during the fires of 2000, the hallways and spare rooms in the shelter were stacked full of crates holding peoples pets after they took in more than 250 animals from those who had been displaced.

The hallways were just full, she said We have people volunteering to help 24/7.

The shelter is expecting to see a good number of new dogs and cats show up at their door over the Fourth of July weekend.

Its always a busy time for us, Burnsides said. Once the fireworks begin, dogs jump over fences and run out open doors. Many eventually end up here.

Its good to plan ahead on the holiday to keep your pets safe and sound.

Putting them in a quiet room, playing some relaxing music or even giving them an over-the-counter relaxant can be a big help in keeping pets calm when the skies are raining noise.

If someones pet does manage to escape, Burnside said they can call the shelter.

Were closed on Monday, but there will be someone here, she said. If they call and no one answers, be sure to leave a message. Well get back to you.
Bitterroot River fishermen may soon be looking for a nice shade tree to while away their afternoons.

With water temperatures on the rise and water levels dropping quick, state fisheries biologists may soon consider placing hoot owl restrictions on the Bitterroot River and others in western Montana.

The restrictions would mean that fishermen would have to put away their rods between the hours of 2 p.m. and midnight in order to protect cold water trout populations.

Restrictions are already in place on several rivers in southwest Montana.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Regional Fisheries Manager Pat Saffel said area rivers arent following the normal trend lines this year.

Were used to seeing air temperatures start to warm in May and June, but the water temperatures stay cool because theres still some snow left in the mountains, Saffel said. We didnt get that this year. We didnt have any snowpack. This year we saw water levels drop like a rock and water temperatures immediately start to heat up.

That lack of snowpack is showing up in stream flows this year.

On a normal year, Saffel said the Blackfoot River would be running at about 2,600 cubic feet per second. The 25th percentile of that is 1,800 cfs.

Were now to 1,000, he said. Thats well below the 25th percentile. Were seeing that on other rivers too. By and large, were hurting region wide.

The early melt out of low and mid elevation snow helped set up this situation.

I kept hearing this winter that our snowpack levels looked good, but there was really no low to mid elevation snowpack, he said.

That part of the snowpack provides an important water source.

Last year was another poor water year.

We ended up entering restrictions about this time last year, Saffel said. Then we had a series of periodic rains. That was discouraging to anglers who saw these three to five day cold rainy spells. They wanted us to remove the restrictions.

Once the restrictions are applied, Saffel said the department is reluctant to take them off until people are certain the hot weather is past, which is usually sometime in September.

We cant start chasing weather and be on and off again with the restrictions, Saffel said. That just makes it tough both for fish and the general public. We try to stay away from that.

After the July 4 holiday, Saffel said biologists will be taking a look at the temperatures in the lower Bitterroot River that will be used to determine if restrictions are needed.

The cooler temperatures forecast for next week may help, he said. The lower Bitterroot is traditionally warm.

Biologists will also watch the upper Bitterroot where temperatures dont have to flare quite as high before fish start to suffer.

The upper reaches contains a good population of native cutthroat, which are more susceptible to warm water, especially if they are being handled a lot by anglers.

If we close the lower end of the river, we typically look at doing something with the upper river too, Saffel said. We dont want to push more fishermen on the upper river at a time when the cutthroats are already stressed.

In southwest Montana, the following rivers are already on hoot owl hours:

 Big Hole from Saginaw Bridge to Dickie Bridge

 Big Hole from Notch Bottom Fishing Access Site to the mouth

 Beaverhead from Anderson Lane to the mouth

 Ruby from Duncan District Road to the mouth

 Gallatin from Sheds Bridge Fishing Access Site to the mouth.

Additional restrictions might be coming in that part of the state.

These rivers are still open for a great fishing experience, said Regional Supervisor Sam Sheppard. Anglers just need to adjust their timing so as not to cause the extra stress were concerned about.
For the second time in little over a month, a state court has overturned a Montana Department of Environmental Qualitys wastewater permit on proposed projects in Ravalli County.

Last week, District Court Judge Kathy Seeley in Great Falls rejected DEQs wastewater permit for the proposed 181-lot Grantsdale Addition Subdivision south of Hamilton.

In her ruling, Seeley said the state did not do an adequate job of considering the connection between ground and surface water before issuing a wastewater permit to the developers in 2014.

Bitterrooters for Planning, Montana Environmental Information Center and the Bitterroot River Protection Association sued the state DEQ in June 2014, one month after the permit was issued.

The essence of this lawsuit was one that related to the responsibilities of the DEQ in terms of protecting a clean and healthy environment for the people of Montana, said Bitterrooters for Planning President Skip Kowalski.

In her ruling, Seeley said the DEQ was presented with information that established a connection and interaction between ground and surface waters.

Given the connection between ground water and surface water, it is clear that this permit would allow discharge to ground water headed to the Bitterroot River, Seeley wrote. The Bitterroot River was listed as impaired in 2014 pursuant to state and federal water quality standards and law.

DEQs failure to recognize the connection between ground water and surface water in this case is a failure to adequately protect the water quality of the Bitterroot River, the ruling said. This, in turn, violates DEQs responsibility to protect the water quality of the state.

Montana DEQ officials withheld comment Friday.

We are still reviewing the case so it would be premature to comment on it at this time, said DEQ spokesperson Lisa Peterson.

The court ruling results in the DEQ permit being null and void, Kowalski said. DEQ has to go back to square one now. We are disappointed that these kinds of decisions have to be adjudicated in the courts. Agencies and applicants have a responsibility for due diligence.

A decision like this essentially puts the agency on alert that this kind of investigation is expected, he said. It is something that they should have to pursue.

In May, a different Great Falls district court judge overturned a DEQ wastewater permit on another proposed big box store project just north of the Grantsdale subdivision.

Last year, a Ravalli County district court judge overturned a county decision to approve the 600-lot Legacy Ranch Subdivision north of Stevensville.

Bitterrooters for Planning were parties in all three lawsuits.
AI, HRW call for suspending Saudi Arabia from UN Human Rights Council







NEW YORK, June 30 (Saba)  The Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) have called on the United Nations General Assembly to immediately suspend the membership rights of Saudi Arabia in the UN Human Rights Council.



The two organizations accused Saudi Arabia of exploiting the body to obstruct justice in regard to committing possible war crimes in Yemen.



In a joint statement issued Wednesday, they urged in the United Nations General Assembly to take this decision because of the regularly flagrant violations of human rights by the Saudi regime.



The statement confirmed that the two organizations will practice pressure on the General Assembly for a vote in this aspect.



"Several months ago, Saudi Arabia exceeded the borders and it is no longer worthy to remain in the Council," assistant director of Human Rights Watch Philippe Bolopion said at a press conference.



The Amnesty International accused the Saudi regime of leading an oppression crackdown, which it described as brutal, against opponents and applying the death penalty in crimes do not deserve it in accordance with international laws.



" Since 2013, all activists of human rights in Saudi Arabia have been jailed, threaten or forced to go into exile," said Richard Bennett, the AIs official at the United Nations.



He stressed that the possible war crimes of the Arab coalition in Yemen should be investigated by the Human Rights Council. "Instead of that, Saudi Arabia used the Council to prevent a decision for an international investigation."



The organizations demanded that the expulsion of Saudi Arabia should be effective until the termination of unlawful attacks of the coalition forces in Yemen and conducting to a credible investigation.



The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights at the United Nations Zeid Ra'ad Al-Hussein announced in last March, the responsibility of the Saudi-led coalition for most of the civilian casualties in Yemen.



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[30/June/2016]
The Times of India

by Ganesh Kumar Radha Udayakumar | June 11, 2016

NEW DELHI: Three years ago, atheist and rationalist Dr Narendra Dabholkar was shot in the back of the head from close-range and in broad daylight by motorcycle-borne assailants when he was on his morning walk. He was 67.

It was only on Friday that the CBI made the first arrest in this murder case, when it took Virendrasinh Tawde - a doctor and a member of the right-wing organization Hindu Janajagruti Samiti - into custody.

At the time of the murder, no one claimed responsibility for the attack and no eye-witnesses came forward. Still, there was wide speculation that Dr Dabholkar - who had received threats from right-wing groups - had become the target of religious fundamentalists. If he had, it wouldnt have been surprising. The website of a prominent organization that he founded lists astrology, vastu shastra and reincarnation as superstitions.

Dr. Dabholkar was a veteran activist who dedicated his life to the eradication of social evils, religious superstition, and the caste system.

He organized "innumerable campaigns to confront and expose hundreds of babas, buvas, tantriks, mantriks, ammas, matas and bogus doctors and brought them to book", his organizations website says. He also edited a magazine, Sadhana, a Marathi weekly.

The CBI says it found "strong" evidence of Virendrasinh Tawades guilt. The ENT specialist will be taken to Shivaji Nagar court in Pune on Saturday. Investigators say they have proof that Tawade was communicating by e-mail with Sarang Akolkar, a fugitive who was implicated in the 2009 Goa bomb blast case, and who - like Tawade - is a member of the Sanathan Sastha - an organization that has been accused of aiming to set up a Hindu state in India, and that both the AAP and the CPI have said should be banned.

When the murder occurred, Dr. Dabholkar was profiled in prominent newspapers and magazines - including the Economist and the New York Times - but hed been largely forgotten, until Friday, that is.

Who was this man that allegedly so irked so-called religious fanatics?

Driven by conviction

Dr. Narendra Dabholkar hailed from Satara, Maharashtra. In an autobiographical essay published on the website of his organization, the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti, the activist wrote that he had trained to be a doctor, and had had also been a national and international kabbadi player. No specific event had pushed him to take up social work, he said. He was driven by his own "convictions," and believed in "perseverance" and in using "pure and clean means" to achieve his ends.

During his time, this tireless advocate of rationalism made some influential enemies. When he asked that women be allowed to enter the Shani Shingnapur temple in Ahmednagar, he faced "a backlash from right-wing political groups and finally ended in court", a Hindu report said in 2013. It added that such groups often "disrupted" his press conferences. "In this movement, even expressing a thought is sometimes a fight," the doctor is quoted as saying in the report. In April, the Shingnapur temple agreed to allow women into the inner sanctum, breaking a four-century old tradition.

The crown in his legacy

Perhaps Dr. Dabholkars most valuable contribution to Indian history was an unprecedented Maharashtra state law against black magic and other superstitious practices.

The 2013 Maharashtra Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice and other Inhuman, Evil and Aghori Practices and Black Magic Act was promulgated a day after the veteran activist was murdered, and an entire decade after he had first drafted the Bill in 2003. The Bill had been altered 24 times since it was first introduced, and had faced opposition in the past, even from some political parties. However, it was hailed in 2013 as "a fitting tribute to Dabolkhar" by Prithviraj Chauhan, the then-Maharashtra chief minister.

Within eighteen months of its enactment, the law was invoked in as many as a 150 cases, most of which involved female victims.

The details of some of these cases are chilling.

A Nashik family was caught red-handed trying to bury their children to unleash the power of a mantra.

A girl was sexually assaulted by a Nagpur baba promising to cure a disease with his supernatural powers.

A woman suffered sexual explotation at the hands of a Malegaon baba, who also tempted her with the prospect of vast riches - for a goodly sum of Rs 3 lakh, of course.

An ongoing struggle

Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti (MANS) - which Dr. Dabholkar founded in 1989 - is still active. Its website contains articles on superstitions and the scientific temper, and describes the organizations ongoing fight against irrationality and psychological exploitation: MANS publishes books, and conducts exams, and training sessions to help children think scientifically, promotes inexpensive wedding ceremonies in Jotirao Phules Satyashodak tradion, and continues to work with educational institutions, the media, and political bodies to expose charlatans and self-ordained godmen.

"It has been a long struggle to imbibe rationality in the minds of people. But we have made a start, thanks to the sacrifice of Narendra Dabholkar," activist and eminent scholar Vidya Bal told a convention of MANS workers in 2015.
The IIAS Newsletter 74 Summer 2016

28 September 2015, night-time in Bisara village in Uttar Pradesh, India a a Hindu mob lynches a Muslim man and his son for allegedly consuming beef. The man dies while his son is severely injured. They had been guilty of killing the sacred Go-mata (Mother Cow) of the Hindus.

Morning of 30 August 2015, in the Kalyan Nagar locality of Dharwad, Karnataka a a man knocks on the door of the famous Indian scholar and vice-chancellor of Karnataka University, M.M. Kalburgi. Kalburgias wife answers the door and leaves them to talk, assuming the man to be Kalburgias student; she then hears gunshots. Moments later, she discovers that the man has fired two shots at point blank range through her husbandas chest and forehead. Kalburgias fault lay in raising questions backed by textual evidence on nude idol-worship and other semi-religious issues.

12 February 2016, at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi a undercover police enter the campus and arrest Kanhaiya Kumar, the JNUSU (studentsa union) president, from his hostel room, without a warrant. They continue raiding other hostels too, arresting students on charges of aseditiona, aterrorisma and aanti-nationalisma. The alleged crime of the students is organizing a peaceful cultural event criticizing Afzal Guruas death penalty. Guru was sentenced to death on the basis of mere circumstantial evidence for his supposed involvement in a terrorist attack on Parliament House. The charges also include speaking in favour of the aright to self-determinationa of the people of Kashmir.1

Violence against Muslims, against socialists, against intellectuals, against women a India has been witnessing a pattern of tragic events since the coming to power of the right wing government, whose actions and policies scream out aIntolerance!a. The countryas citizens and its media, deemed as the fourth pillar of democracy, have been taking sides without entirely understanding the situation. It is not just India, but a problem shared by many countries worldwide, where people fail to see through the political manipulation of their governments that distort knowledge.

We interviewed Professor Emeritus Romila Thapar on these issues. Holding a doctorate from SOAS and honorary doctorates from the universities of Paris, Oxford, Chicago, Edinburgh, Calcutta and Hyderabad, she is known not only for her brilliant contribution to the field of history, but also her refusal to accept the Padma Bhushan (awarded by the Indian government) as well as her strong condemnation of the anti-intellectual attacks by certain political groups in India.

Byapti Sur and Kanad Sinha

Sur & Sinha (SS): You, as a historian, have been a pioneer and one of the very few in India to take up the challenge of bringing academic history to the public. Your statements about the responsibility of apublic intellectualsa to help make citizens aware of governmental policies have invited a lot of attention. How far do you think India has come as a democratic society, in terms of understanding the use and abuse of history in politics?

Romila Thapar (RT): Well to begin with, I think the understanding of the differentiation between history as an academic discipline and history as used in politics, is a distinction that isnat being made sufficiently in India. There is a tendency for the popular use of history to try and overwrite academic history. At this moment, I think, this is our major struggle in trying to convince public opinion that academic history is something different. Itas not popular history. Therefore, even though one may say that popular history is legitimate because people will have ideas about their past, a differentiation needs to be made. The two cannot be confused.

SS: There is clearly a gap then between academic history and the popular ahistoriesa. You have pointed out that neither the policy makers nor the common people pay any heed to the opinions of the apublic intellectual(s)a. In fact, they freely use history as constructed pasts a be it fabricated, mythologized, glorifying, revivalist or pseudo-historical a to legitimize debates in the public sphere. Do you think that the academic arrogance of professional historians is to be blamed?

RT: Let me go back a little to say that in all nationalisms, history plays a central role. Nationalism derives its identity in part from the way the past gets projected. The desire for a particular community to set itself up as a nation means that it seeks legitimacy in its past. And in the process of constructing the past, the past can get deliberately twisted, distorted, and presented, in a non-academic way, as aHistorya. Political parties writing history therefore donat interpret the past as historians, but force it to be bent in the ideological direction they want. There itself you have a clear distinction. Besides, one needs to understand that the colonial reading of history had simply been a case of putting together the narratives from texts a pick a book, read it and state its contents in the form of events that happened. This kind of writing came to be challenged around the 1950s and history began to change. It ceased to be a part of Indology, raising a lot of questions about the colonial reconstructions of the past. Soon it became a part of the social sciences and interacted with other social science disciplines like sociology, economics, anthropology, archaeology and so on. Eventually history developed into a method of analysis, which is what characterizes academic history today. There is a method. And popular history knows nothing about this method. The problem starts when neither the method nor the questions that are being asked by historians become comprehensible to popular opinion. For the public at large, history is simply some information about the past with a few dates strung together. So there is a gulf, an enormous gulf between academic and popular perceptions of history.

SS: It is indeed extremely frustrating when you talk to people about history and they miss the entire point of critical thinking, reducing it to what you just said a a bundle of facts and figures.

RT: Yes, it is a rather silly question that people ask me: aA historical fact is a historical fact, so why do you talk about these different interpretations?a The understanding of what are historical facts, how they are analyzed, is often beyond the comprehension of the popular mind. This is simply because they have not taken an interest in the methods used by this discipline. What is interesting is that people donat ask these questions from scientists, because they do not understand the discipline, and because they expect scientific knowledge to change and be up-to-date. They also donat question economists because they canat handle econometrics. Even with sociology they are a little unsure with the terminology. But history is very easy in their minds because it is about their identity, their past and it can be concocted in any way that they want.

SS: Is there a solution then?

RT: I think we can solve this problem to some extent by making our first attempts at teaching history properly in schools. Children are mostly taught to just repeat information for getting good grades. It is a bit like the creed and the Catechism of religious organizations a you already know what the questions are and you even know what the answers are. I am not suggesting that whatever is being taught is rubbish. There is a method of teaching students to question knowledge in a creative way so that knowledge is opened up and further questions can be asked. Otherwise you are dealing with dead knowledge. The characteristic of knowledge is that it is constantly being tested and if need be, being renewed and taken forward. This is absolutely essential. Take for example the dominant Hindu and Muslim nationalisms in India. Their intention is not to question knowledge. You are given answers and you have to accept them. The syllabus of the madrassa (Muslim schools) or that of the shishu mandir (Hindu schools) inhibits students from questioning knowledge. Unless this is redressed, public opinion will be based on just repeating information, and this will continue without it being questioned.

SS: Coming back to these Hindu-Muslim nationalisms you just talked about; letas focus on India being in the international news recently for its rising intolerance debates. Donat you think that it is more of a universal problem of aIslamophobiaa in all places, and not just particularly India?

RT: It is, and one has to analyze it not just in terms of Christians against Muslims or Hindus against Muslims, but rather in terms of what is happening globally. What are the ideologies that nations are adopting? What is the global economy doing? One can even assert to a large extent that its genesis lies in history. After all, letas not forget that the anti-Islamic sentiment in Europe began with the crusades. Recent research has proved that religion was much less of a reason behind this and it had more to do with the competition for trade and profits. What goes wrong is when certain aspects and ideas during such conflicts get emphasized and remain ingrained in public opinion. The religious cause in this case has geared the widely prevalent aIslamophobiaa. The Iraq War in our time worsened the situation. The present European-American politics and their relationship with the Islamic states also contribute to heightening this phobia. There is a political and economic reality as well, which enhances Islamophobia and one should therefore not see it only in terms of religions battling each other. This is not a kind of Huntington notion of the clash of civilizations a it is rather a clash of realities. These are nations trying to establish themselves and they are running into problems with their neighbours and with distant people. So I think that when one looks at all the fears in the world today, one canat just limit it to religious fears. There are many other problems that sustain Islamophobia, and therefore need attention.

SS: The Netherlands, where one of us works, takes pride in being called a atolerant countrya. It is similar to the aUnity in Diversitya kind of nationalist message proclaimed in India. These kind of debates raise questions about what in fact tolerance means, and why should that word exist at all. Isnat it a dichotomy to preach tolerance where one should suppose diversity to be a natural factor and accept it that way? The word atolerancea is apparently a loaded term with subtle implications in that sense. Do you agree?

RT: An insistence on the concept of tolerance indeed foretells the existence of intolerance. You do not keep talking about the need for tolerance and how good it would be to be tolerant, unless somewhere there is some niggling little evidence of intolerance. It is therefore a double edged word. Now why are we making such a fuss about it in India? I think we have to go back a little into the anti-colonial nationalist ideology where tolerance and non-violence were said to be the difference between the West and the East (or India in this case). The West used stereotypes of Oriental Despotism and anti-democratic societies for the East. The Indians reacted to it by accusing the Westerners of being materialistic, unlike the spiritual East. The notion of atolerancea is part of this package of spirituality. It is from then on that India has come to be touted as a tolerant culture. And of course in order to be tolerant you have to be non-violent, since one of the biggest consequences of intolerance is violence. Both go hand in hand, and this image of a non-violent and spiritual India worked well for the anti-colonial nationalist propaganda, particularly for Gandhi. But then the violence during the partition happened. The question is, if we were such an innately tolerant and non-violent people, would these massacres have ever happened? Probably not!

Throughout Indian history there have been examples of Buddha, Ashoka, Akbar and others propagating the values of tolerance. But these values coexisted with examples of strong discord among religious cultures, which proves that there was not that much tolerance after all. For example, from the accounts of Megasthenes, the Ashokan edicts, Xuanzang and from Alberuni, the distinction between the brahmanas and the shramanas (non-Vedic heterodox mendicant groups, like the Buddhists or Jainas) can be quite clearly deduced. The grammarian, Patanjali (c. second century BCE), refers to their relation as that of the mongoose and the snake. Buddhist and Jaina teachings did not accept Vedic Brahminism and a lot of deaths and destruction followed. It was thus a society that was not entirely harmonious. One has to come to terms with this and as historians try to understand what the underlying intolerance was about. It is true that India did not suffer from the type of Catholic intolerance in Europe a the burning of people, the heresy, the inquisitions... We didnat have any of that. So the kind of intolerance here was perhaps a little more muted, but this has to be investigated. But one has to first admit that there was intolerance. Only then is it possible to start examining it. Moreover, beyond religions, there was enormous social discrimination against the Dalits. The moment you mention intolerance people think of religion. But the social stratification of Indian society irrespective of religion, was one in which intolerance has remained a powerful factor.

SS: You too have been a victim of this intolerance. You have even received physical threats from certain political groups.

RT (laughing): Oh yes, it all started when Morarji Desaias government came to power and Murli Manohar Joshi attacked the history textbooks that we had written. He would stand up in Parliament and call us aacademic terroristsa, aanti-nationala, and aanti-Indiana; he asked for the books that we wrote to be banned. Calling those who disagree with you aanti-nationala seems to be endemic to the thinking of these groups. Since those times we have had to defend ourselves. For three years the debate went on and on and then the government fell. But the books continued! This has been the story of the textbooks in this country a every time you write a textbook that the right wing Hindu extremists donat like, they call it anti-national and anti-Indian. The historian is then attacked and a fierce battle of words ensues. So far it has been words and actions against academics, but rationalist thinkers have fared far worse and have even been assassinated. One cannot predict what might happen this time.

SS: Your statements have always been quite strong and assertive.

RT: I donat make strong statements. If you are in a profession and your profession is being attacked, you have to defend yourself. Thatas all I do!

SS: In that light we think that you have raised a very daring and obvious point in terms of demanding the attainment of a totally aseculara India. This involves reforming the legal system and ensuring a auniform civil codea. It is something that has always remained a very sensitive issue (since the colonial regime) and nobody has dared meddle with it. Given the sentiments of the diverse society that India accommodates, every political group would find it an extremely precarious legislative task to execute. In fact, you have argued for being aconscious as a citizen and having the courage to say we object to ita . How or what would you suggest should be the way or the first step to make such major changes happen? Do you hope to see the citizens or the government taking the initiative in making the first move?

RT: All I mean is that the time has come for an extensive debate. And it should not only be in terms of setting religious goals. It should address questions like, what is meant by a auniform civil codea? Nobody knows since we play around this idea. It needs to be defined much more clearly because it is tied into the concept of a democracy. A democracy requires secularism since the status of every community has to be equal and every citizen has equal rights. And this requires the uniform application of basic civil laws reflected in the issue of a uniform civil code. One has to accept its inevitability if we are to be a democracy. Otherwise there will be continuous violence and the ridiculous love jihads, the horrors of the khap panchayats, and other such practices. Do we want proper civil law or should we allow religious customary law or religious personal law of every kind to prevail?

When I talk about forming a uniform civil code, I do not mean a bringing together of all religious codes and somehow knitting them together. A new and different simple, secular code that relates to the basic features of a citizenas life a registration of births, marriages, and rules on inheritance of property, has to be worked out. If you take even these three issues and place then under a uniform legal code, that will be enough to make a world of difference to people, such as Dalits, Adivasis and women. I am certainly not talking about making a radical revolutionary step. All I am saying is that letas start talking about it, discussing it, and making it a kind of reality. These aspects donat come to the fore unless people talk about them. We as the citizens need to debate every aspect of this.

SS: The problem lies again in the same old assertion a who reads what the apublic intellectualsa write? It is well-known today that history books written by academics are hardly read, bought or circulated beyond a certain group of readers. But that does not mean history does not sell. The movies based on historical themes and characters or the TV soaps and the large genre of historical fiction, happen to have mass appeal. But they suffer from the paradox of spreading awareness about history on the one hand and yet presenting a distorted version of historical events on the other. Do you think there is a solution to this problem? Also, how far do these ranks of acreative intellectualsa bear a responsibility towards their audience and readers about using biased depictions that go on to stir up dangerous identity politics?

RT: They have a huge responsibility but either they are not aware of it, or even if they are, they cater to their own commercial interests. The enormous number of rapes that we hear about now is a reflection of the mind-set of the people, which is in part shaped by the media. Patriarchy is accepted in India and instilled in everything that is made and shown and continues to be so. Those that make the programmes should be the ones who take up the responsibility of changing the mind-set, by the way they talk to people, educate them, use the media a in terms of asking questions like, aIf you donat agree with rape, are you aware of what the preconditions are and are you willing to do something about that?a The media should be more responsible and not keep supporting the values that are regarded as retrogressive. There has to be some awareness and it will come only when civil society stands up and says athatas not the kind of thing we want to hear and see.a

SS: How can an academic contribute to the formation of this informed apublica? Should s/he also participate actively in alternative forms of knowledge production outside academia, such as writing journalistic pieces, contributing to popular magazines, delivering public speeches, engaging more with electronic and social media, and composing more in the vernaculars?

RT: The question is a how to educate the public? It is important to remember that not every academic can or wishes to write in the style of a journalist. The journalistic style of writing is very different from the academic style. And letas face this a the really serious academic is addressing his or her research paper to fellow researchers. So that cuts off a lot of the popular audience and its interests. Now this doesnat mean that in case you are someone who has been gifted with skills for communicating with the public, that you must not do so. You certainly can do so. But do so from the point of view of taking it as a responsibility to educate. I am amazed for example that Indian TV or radio hasnat had a single channel devoted to serious discussion of problems. Every self-respecting country in this world has at least half a channel, half of prime time on a channel, where a serious discussion takes place. Here there is zero. It is substantially superficial discussion. So there is a tendency for serious academics to stay away. Besides this, academics should also feel equally responsible for the basic education at schools and colleges. How teachers are being trained is certainly crucial. They should stimulate younger people to think since that is what education is about a getting information and then thinking about it and asking questions. Once that is done, we shall have an educated public.

Romila Thapar (b. 30 November 1931) is a distinguished Indian historian, and currently Professor Emerita at JNU in New Delhi. Her area of expertise is ancient Indian history, on which she has published extensively, besides other popular writings. Her books, A History of India and Interpreting Early India are part of the history syllabus of several international schools and universities. She frequently appears on television and in newspapers for interviews, like the BBC and the NDTV. In 2008, Thapar co-won aThe John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanitya with Peter Brown.

Byapti Sur is currently pursuing her PhD in Colonial and Global History at Leiden University. She is a former student of JNU, Delhi (byaptisur@gmail.com).

Kanad Sinha teaches at St. Stephenas college, Delhi, and is also working on his PhD dissertation about the Mahabharata and Indiaas ancient history, at JNU (kanad.india@gmail.com).
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Press Release:

Statement from the Burr campaign:

"In what is yet another example of Deborah Ross' radical tenure as Chief Lobbyist for the ACLU, Ross criticized legislation that would have prohibited people from burning the American flag. Ross will have to explain to the roughly 775,00 veterans in North Carolina-all of whom bravely signed on the dotted line to defend the flag and the ideals it stands for- and other American patriots why she would allow someone to destroy our country's flag."

Background

The North Carolina ACLU Called Attempts To Ban Flag Desecration "An Assault On Free Speech." "But flag amendment supporters will not go away quietly. The Citizens Flag Alliance and its allies are gearing up an effort to punish Senator Edwards for opposing this assault on free speech. Through letters and calls to his Senate offices, and in letters to the editor, amendment supporters will attack the patriotism of the Senator, simply because he stood up for the Constitution." (North Carolina ACLU's Website via Internet Archive, www.acluofnorthcarolina.org, Cache Date 6/12/00)

Contact: Jesse Hunt

Jesse Hunt jhunt@burrforsenate.com

Raleigh, NC While North Carolinians celebrate our country's Independence Day this weekend, the Burr campaign will remind those taking part in the festivities of Deborah Ross' defense of burning the American flag. The campaign will use a Snapchat geofliter in Raleigh to highlight how then-top ACLU lobbyist Ross railed against a Constitutional Amendment in Congress that would have banned flag desecration, saying that everyone has a "right to burn the flag as symbolic speech." Then again in 2000, Ross' ACLU celebrated after the Senate narrowly failed to pass a Constitutional Amendment that would have banned flag desecration. In addition to the geofilter, the campaign will run targeted digital ads that allow people to demand that Ross explain her radical position regarding one of our nation's most respected symbols."The House voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to amend the Constitution to protect the American flag, brushing aside protests that flag desecration - no matter how objectionable - should be considered free speech. The amendment would give state and federal authorities the power to impose criminal sanctions against people convicted of physically desecrating the flag, although it made no attempt to define desecration. ... Deborah Ross, legal director for the N.C. chapter of the ACLU, said the amendment was a waste of time and resources. 'We have a First Amendment right to burn the flag as symbolic speech,' Ross said. 'The Constitution protects that right. To spend time and effort on this is ridiculous. Why not pass an amendment to help poor people or promote education in this country? This won't make one bit of difference.'" (David Hess, "Amendment On Burning Flag Easily Passes House," Charlotte Observer, 6/29/95)"In a tremendous victory for free speech and the Bill of Rights, Senator Edwards joined 36 of his colleagues in resoundingly defeating a proposed constitutional amendment to ban desecration of the flag!" (North Carolina ACLU's Website via Internet Archive, www.acluofnorthcarolina.org , Cache Date 6/12/00)
Here's who is on the ballot in Saline County

Advance, in-office voting is underway in Saline County, as voters in the 2022 general election have several options on who and what to vote for.
Joe Armendariz is a former member of the Carpinteria City Council, and executive director of the Santa Barbara County Taxpayers Association. The political views expressed in this space are his and are not necessarily endorsed by the organizations he represents. He can be reached at 805-990-2494 or by e-mail: joe@armendarizpartners.com
Seguin, TX (78155)

Today

Except for a few afternoon clouds, mainly sunny. High 83F. Winds SE at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms in the evening, then mainly cloudy overnight with thunderstorms likely. Low 66F. Winds SE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
Voters to Obama and Hillary: Yes, We Are at War with Radical IslamPresident Barack Hussein Obama ordering the release of heavily redacted transcripts of a 911 call by the man who murdered 49 people inside an Orlando night club created such a stir that within hours everyone in the administration ran for cover. Eventually, the full transcript was released.The transcripts show Omar Mateen pledging allegiance to a terrorist organization, and admitting to the shootings. The transcript originally omitted specific references to the shooter's name, the terrorist organization he pledges allegiance to, and Obama is showing he will always get his way with a compliant FBI.President Obama, Hillary Clinton and other senior Democrats refuse to say America is at war with "radical Islamic terrorism" for fear of insulting all Muslims, but voters in a recent poll disagree A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 60% of likely U.S. voters believe the United States is at war with radical Islamic terrorism. Just 24% share the president's position and disagree. A disturbing 16% are undecided.A surprising 56% of registered Democrats believe America is at war with radical Islamic terrorism, a view shared by 70% of Republicans and 54% of voters not affiliated with either major party.Overall, according to Rasmussen, a staggering 92% of all voters now regard radical Islamic terrorism as a serious threat to the United States. This includes 73% who say it is a Very Serious one, up 23 points from 50% in October of last year.Voters are also more reluctant now to agree with Obama that the radical Islamic State group (ISIS) which masterminded the massacres in Paris is not a reflection of Islam itself. A plurality (46%) still thinks the president is right when he says ISIS does not represent true Islamic beliefs. But that's down noticeably from 58% who felt that way in February after the president gave a speech equating the atrocities committed by ISIS with past sins of Christianity. Thirty-five percent (35%) now believe ISIS does represent Islamic beliefs. One-in-five voters (19%) are not sure.said former counter-terrorism operation and city police officer Danny "Bing" Crosby.Citing the links between Syrian refugees and the killings in Europe, about 25 governors oppose Obama's plan to bring thousands of so-called refugees to the United States. Voters strongly believe, however, that the Syrian refugees pose a national security risk, and most oppose settling them in the state where they live.Sizable majorities across most demographic categories consider radical Islamic terrorism a Very Serious threat to the United States. The majority of voters in nearly all categories also believe the United States is at war with radical Islamic terrorism.
Joshua Brown, the 40-year-old Ohio man who was killed in May while his Tesla Model S was in auto-pilot mode, was, like many Tesla owners, a technology enthusiast who enjoyed testing the limits of this nascent innovation. As the New York Times reports, Brown was one of many Tesla owners who had posted YouTube videos of himself testing the feature, like the one above.

Brown was in Florida at the time of the crash, returning from a family trip at Disney World in Orlando, and it was reported that neither he nor the auto-pilot sensors detected the white side of a tractor trailer that was perpendicular to the Model S, across the highway, backlit by a bright white sky.

Brown was a big fan of Tesla, and even gushed on Twitter in April when Elon Musk noticed one of the videos he posted about the car.

@elonmusk noticed my video! With so much testing/driving/talking about it to so many people I'm in 7th heaven! https://t.co/pzDWy6WgsG  Joshua Brown (@NexuInnovations) April 18, 2016

As the Times says, though, "Mr. Brown became a victim of an innovation geared precisely to people like him," and he became the first known fatality in a self-driving vehicle.

The Wall Street Journal delves into the lax regulation around the new technology. While Tesla just told owners of their cars to go ahead and download the auto-pilot software last October and begin using it  instructing them to always keep their hands on the wheel and stay alert 

Auto-safety regulators, meanwhile, were relatively silent on the technology even though many experts viewed Teslas program as the most aggressive self-driving system on U.S. roads. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, embroiled in managing a sharp increase in safety recalls, including tens of millions of rupture-prone air bags, lacks authority to approve or disapprove of the advanced technology or meaningfully slow its deployment. Instead, car-safety regulators were forced to wait until a major mishap before significantly addressing Teslas Autopilot system.

USA Today has a collection of videos shot by people doing things while driving in auto-pilot mode like playing Jenga and taking a nap. For example:

It's now likely that regulators will be more closely investigating self-driving cars and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says they've begun a preliminary evaluation of the autopilot feature.

Previously: Man Killed In Self-Driving Tesla Crash
Trust us on this: You dont ever want to be what the HR lady thinks of as a good story.

Those good stories make for bad references, missed opportunities and denied requests for favors. And far too often those stories are about a workers poor behavior during his or her exit from the company.

Its easy to get swept up in the excitement of getting a new job. But youll still want to be on your best behavior with your soon-to-be-former colleagues and bosses, not to mention the people who served as your references, says Heather Kinzie, owner of A Leading Solution, an HR and leadership consultancy in Anchorage, Alaska. Otherwise, youll put years of respect and goodwill at riskand possibly do damage to your own career in the long term.

To help you avoid inadvertently burning bridges, we compiled a list of 25 things you should never do on the way out the door:

Speaking negatively about your current employer, supervisor or team members during the interview or hiring process for a new job. (You wont impress your interviewer with this, either.)

Not giving people a heads up when you plan to use them as a reference. (And by the way, its better for you if youve prepped them with what to talk aboutand double checked that the person really has your back.)

Not thanking someone after a reference, recommendation or favor. An email or short note goes a long way. Its also nice to circle back with another thank you if you actually get the job.

Not giving sufficient notice. You should know what the standard notice period is for your company or industry. Follow it. If theres no standard, figure out what the last person at your level did.

Phoning it in those last two weeks because one foot is out the door already.

Undermining (or even not being helpful with) the recruitment, hiring or training process for your replacement.

Actively sabotaging the work during your final daysdeleting information, not informing others of approaching deadlines or not delegating all the work.

Using all your leave during the resignation period, so that youve effectively not left time for work to be wrapped up under your guidance.

Being overly enthusiastic about your new gig on social media. Of course youre happy about the new job, but you should be able to communicate that without dissing the old one.

Being overly enthusiastic about your new gig with your old coworkers. Dont forgettheyre still stuck there.

Misbehaving at your going away party since you have nothing more to lose. Yes, have a glass of wine or two, but not the whole bottle.

Poaching employees from your previous employer.

Poaching other clients, partners or stakeholders from the previous employer.

Posting negative reviews of your former employer on professional sites.

Posting negative reviews of your former employers products or services on consumer review sites (Yelp, Amazon, etc) out of revenge or spite.

Not getting organized before you go. Leave in a systematic fashion so you can share instructions, passwords and helpful hints for your replacement. Dont make people call you three weeks later for a password.

Stealing supplies or merchandise as a going away present for yourself. Put down the stapler.

Haunting the officeyou dont work here anymore. Why are you constantly visiting and chatting people up at our vending machine? Once was fine; the third time Im wondering if I should call security.

Abrasively questioning every single detail on your final paperwork. You never once looked at your pay stub before now and suddenly you want me to explain every cent of your FICA deduction?

Not responding when someone at your old job asks you for a favor. Remember that password I now realize I need, three weeks later? Please dont ignore that call.

Abusing an employee discount. This isnt the time to treat your entire family to a lifetime supply of new clothes, makeup or lawn mowers.

Not saying goodbye to your work friends. Dont just ghost.

Avoiding people when you see them out in public. If youve made a graceful exit, you shouldnt need to do a total 180 when I see you in the grocery store.

Not saying thank you to the people youre leaving whove helped your career. The boss who promoted you twice? A nice note will go a long way.

Making a scene. Unless youre leaving because you won the Powerball, this is not the time to tell everyone how you really feel. Youll need them again eventually.
ORANGE CITY, Iowa -- Northwestern College's economics program has been ranked 10th among the top 10 programs in the state of Iowa by zippia.com .

The ranking compared institutions based on three factors: career results, economics and emphasis, and school performance. The website describes Northwestern as ranking second in the state for percentage of graduates working in the field of economics and highlights the college's affordability.
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SIOUX CITY -- Humorist Jenny Herrick presented her program "It's Laughter We're After" to more than 1,000 people at several events throughout Northwest Iowa in recent months.

Herrick leads the Caring Clown Troupe at UnityPoint Health -- St. Luke's. CEO of her business, "All Kidding Aside," Herrick is a registered nurse and certified laugh leader. She authored an autobiography, "You Laugh, I'll Drive," and a book of humorous stories and anecdotes, "Laugh Your Lips Off!"
NEW YORK | They're not household names like McDonald's or The UPS Store, but small franchises beyond the usual restaurant groups and retailers are attracting buyers who want something new or different and see greater challenges and opportunities with lesser-known businesses.

Franchise buyers are taking chances on ideas like a nursing service, a personal assistant company and a used clothing retailer  companies that are tiny or growing, but don't yet have the name recognition of thousands of locations.

"I like the feeling of family and a team and I don't feel you can get that with a big corporate franchise," says Tom Wicklow, who's buying a franchise of Let Mommy Sleep, which provides baby nurses and other help to new parents. "A service business, especially one that helps new families grow closer and live happier, offers something that money can't buy."

Wicklow, a former Marine who recently got his MBA, had considered a Domino's Pizza franchise, but didn't believe it would be fulfilling. He's getting involved instead with Let Mommy Sleep, which is based in Bristow, Virginia, and has one franchise open so far in Philadelphia. Wicklow, who lives in Stanhope, New Jersey, plans his franchise to cover the northern part of the state and hopes for 10 employees in the first year.

But to be sure that a smaller franchise like Let Mommy Sleep would be a good deal for him, Wicklow had asked a mentor from SCORE, the organization that gives free advice to small business owners, to evaluate the franchise agreement papers first.

About 4,000 different franchises exist in the United States. Fast-food restaurants and hotel chains have the most outlets, along with a smattering of retailers and service providers like auto repair companies. Many of these businesses have thousands of locations  Subway has nearly 27,000 in the U.S., while The UPS Store has more than 4,500.

But 80 percent of the 1,200 franchise parent companies who belong to the International Franchise Association have fewer than 200 locations, and of that subset, 80 percent have fewer than 100, says Scott Lehr, a senior vice president of the trade group.

While the economy was more uncertain, parent companies, known as franchisors, had held off creating new franchises. Loans for people to buy franchise locations were also harder to come by. But Lehr says new franchises have been created as the economy recovers from recession.

"There are opportunities for people to get on board with these younger, smaller, less-established companies. And they're going to get bigger," he says.

Buying a franchise can be appealing for people who want to own a business because they don't have to come up with an idea from scratch. Some of the hard parts are already taken care of  there's a logo and marketing campaign, and if it's a restaurant, there's a menu and decor. In some franchises, the corporate parent provides food items or other inventory. But the franchise owner must bring in customers and make the business a success like any other company.

Charmaine Hunt, who used to work for a startup that sold medical devices and liked the job, didn't want a well-known company with a long track record when she began her franchise search. She turned down opportunities like hair salons and massage spas that already had plenty of franchisees.

"I wanted to go away from that direction. I wanted something that's brand-new and that has the ability to grow," says Hunt, who lives in Nashville, Tennessee. She's now about to become the second franchisee for Lifesquire, which provides personal assistants who run errands and take care of chores for clients.

Hunt wasn't daunted by the fact that a Lifesquire franchise hadn't yet been proved a long-term success; the first franchise, in San Diego, is a year old. Opening any business, even a well-established franchise, carries risks, Hunt says.

"I never thought about (Lifesquire) being any more difficult than opening a Subway," she says.

Adam Scott looked at several relatively small companies before deciding on Clothes Mentor, which has nearly 140 shops in about two dozen states that sell women's used clothing. Scott, who previously owned a franchise that shipped packages, was looking for a team atmosphere that he felt huge franchises with thousands of locations didn't offer.

"I wanted a certain culture," says Scott, who lives in Knoxville, Tennessee. "I could tell they really have an interest in the success of their franchisees."

Scott asked other franchise owners about their experience with Clothes Mentor, something that's recommended anyone do before buying a franchise. What he heard persuaded him that even though Clothes Mentor isn't on the tip of consumers' tongues, it was a good fit for him.

"I have to feel that I'm going to like who I'm in business with," he says.
SIOUX CITY | The gray clouds that hovered over Grandview Park for its 26th annual Saturday in the Park did not cloud the spirits of the 20,000 plus attendees who were decked out in tie-dye and red, white and blue.

Event co-founder Dave Bernstein said last year's 25th anniversary drew more than 25,000 people, and this year's number slimmed due to it being the coolest SITP ever with temps in the mid-sixties, he said. But what really heated up, was the Abe Stage, properly dubbed after the Abraham Lincoln statue next to it.

What really has been surprising is how many people are enjoying the Abe Stage, which is our second stage. The main stage has been flawless, but the Abe Stage is definitely going to be a tool we are going to keep using, he said.

The smaller of the two stages rocked with big names like Sir Mix-A-Lot, Supernova and Kill OG. It also gave a chance for local lights to shine such as Sioux City bands One Pimp Avengers, No. 7 Band, Alejandro and BucyBAD and Port Nocturnal, which kicked it off at noon.

I have been here many times and I always have wanted to play here, and now that is finally happening. It is good to see I perceived my goal, Grace Claeys said, drummer for Port Nocturnal. Performing was very exhilarating, its a relationship between the stage and the crowd is very empowering.

Bernstein declared it was a smooth day, and that it was.

Shuttles shuffled back and forth from the Tyson Events Center at five-minute intervals where people could conveniently park. There was a section where kids could pet animals and bounce around on inflatables while parents enjoyed music.

I want to ride the Ferris wheel, Bobby Abney, 11, said eyeing the rotating wheel perched at the highest point of the park.

Tranez Nix was one of those happy parents watching their children frolic in the fun.

This is exciting for the kids to do. They are so energetic, I just got them the bracelets so they can go on all the rides and do their thing, Nix, who moved to Sioux City from Mississippi, said. My favorite part, though, it is really great the community is doing a thing like this for the whole city and the Siouxland area.

The aroma of barbecue and funnel cakes from food vendors with flashy signs caught everyone's eyes and noses. And patrons had to snake their way through the narrow alley between the merchant vendors who were selling everything from airbrush tattoos to polished stones. Zoee Horn is from Lincoln, Nebraska, but comes to the festival to help out for the big day.

We sell bags, clothes, jewelry, flags, you name it, she said. Last year was a little bigger, but this year is a little easier.

The somewhat chilly temps came as a relief to some who wanted a break from the recent heat wave.

The weather is wonderful, Emily Bramlett of Onawa, Iowa, said. It is not blistering hot like last year. I would say it is very good weather to just chill in."

Thousands of lawn chairs and blankets were clustered in front the main stage at the park's bandshell to listen to the musical acts of The Stockyard Kings, Jo-El Sonnier, Kim Simmonds and Savoy Brown, The Wailers, Big Head Todd & The Monsters, KONGOS and country music headliner Kacey Musgraves.

Im a big Kacey Musgraves fan. I know she isnt a superstar yet but she should be, Korey Boeckmann of Sioux City said.

I kind of have a crush on her to be honest, he laughed. But don't tell my girlfriend that.

For many, the acts were not familiar, but for everyone, the festival had a familiar feel.

Ive come almost every year. I live in Kansas City now and I usually come back for this, Saranne Bergen said. I dont care who is playing. I just like coming.
SIOUX CITY | Before vendors could begin selling a bag of kettle corn, a gyro, or a snow cone at Saturday in the Park, they had to pass a detailed inspection by the Siouxland District Health Department.

Hours before musicians got on stage, inspectors were checking all 19 of this years food stands, looking at food preparation, storage and handling.

They have to get their food from a licensed and approved source, said Michelle Clausen Rosendahl, director of Environmental Health at the Siouxland District Health Department. You cant make food at home ... Meats that are used have to be inspected meats  USDA or State of Iowa Department of Agriculture-inspected meat.

Were also looking at temperatures - both cooking temperatures from the food, and holding temperatures, said Rosendahl. Are they keeping the cold food cold enough? If they have food theyre trying to keep hot, can they keep it hot enough? And do they have thermometers so they know its the right temperature?

Inspectors also made sure food vendors had hand-washing stations, overhead cooking covers and food station supervisors. Those supervisors had to make sure everyone washed their hands, wore gloves and kept utensils away from the ground.

Jackie Johnson of J&Js Old Fashion Kettle Corn runs her food booth seasonally with the help of her husband, Jaye, and son, Hunter.

(Saturday in the Park) had kettle corn people last year who theyve had for about 14 years, and those people decided not to come this year, said Johnson. So we were down at the farmers market and they approached us and asked if we were interested, and we decided to go for it.

Johnsons business registered late due to the last-minute change of plans, and only turned in its registration paperwork and fees about a month ago. Most food vendors had to be signed up and ready to go by April.

The kettle corn station had to be checked by both the health department and the fire department to make sure everything was up to code. Fire department officials checked both food stands and arts vendors to make sure there were no opportunities for hazards.

Pretty much, weve done it for years and years and they just kinda send us out an email saying, 'hey if youre interested again this year fill out the paperwork' and they send us a contract and we fill it out and send them that, said Athena Nino, general manager of Famous Daves in Sioux City.

In addition to passing the inspections, vendors had to pay SITP registration fees and get temporary mobile food vendor licenses if not previously registered as a mobile food vendor.

All of the vendors who were asked to SITP this year passed the inspections, and if they were lacking something at first, the health inspectors stuck around to make sure they got what they needed.

There were 19 arts vendors this year, including everything from tie-dye shirts to face painting.

Melanie Westin, owner and operator of Diva Bow Designs, was enjoying her first year at SITP, although her stand of tutus and dresses takes about three hours to set up. Westin is originally from Elk Point, S.D.,but currently lives in Sioux Falls.

They were interested in having my items because they dont really have things like mine, so they wanted to give me a chance, said Westin.

Another arts vendor at SITP was Christys Crystals, which hails from Mankato, Minnesota. Christy Steinbach is the owner, and the booth carries a variety of handpicked healing stones, gems, and minerals.

Steinbach has sold her wares at Saturday in the Park for seven years and said the setup process takes about an hour and a half. Steinbach goes to a number of other festivals and conventions throughout the year.

Despite the hoops vendors need to jump through in order to make it to Saturday in the Park, they keep coming back for one simple reason: its so much fun.

I love it, its been great. The volunteers are awesome, said Steinbach. Ive been to hundreds of events, but this is one of my favorite ones.
BRUNSVILLE, Iowa | Lynn Buss strolls into a 25-acre field of sweet corn on Wednesday morning south of Brunsville. He picks and pokes and prods, alarmed by what he sees.

The first ears of this summer's sweet corn crop are just about ready for scrumptious consumption.

"This is a 67-day sweet corn variety planted April 17," he says. "It got off to a cold, wet start, but with the heat-degree units we all sweltered under, it did a good catch-up."

Buss pulls at the silks, which are drying up, revealing that pollination has taken place. The kernels, in a matter of days, will swell to fill the husk.

"I'm surprised at the size of these ears," says Buss, who began growing Buss Sweet Corn as a family project in the early 1990s. "I was thinking we'd have corn the end of the second week of July. This will be in front of that."

Pressed to predict a date when his fleet of old pickup trucks will be stuffed full of sweet corn, bound for high-traffic areas in Le Mars (at Bob's Drive-In), Akron, Hinton and Hawarden, Buss hems and haws.

"We're probably in the front end of the second week of July," he says.

Another grower, Perry Slota, of Washta, Iowa, predicts he'll have sweet corn the week of July 11, one week ahead of normal for his Washta Corn. Slota, like Buss, says the 90-degree days of mid June, and the warm nights that accompanied that arid, dry spell, pushed the 2016 sweet corn crop along.

The Iowa Corn Promotion Board and the Iowa Corn Growers report that sweet corn is grown on 3,400 acres in Iowa, the nation's leading producer of commercial corn used for livestock and ethanol production, among other uses.

"This would be on the front side of our early starts," Buss says, noting that July 7 is a bit early for his sweet corn picking duty. "The full-season varieties take warmer soils and you won't see them yet for another two to three weeks."

Buss, a Plymouth County native, began planting sweet corn on April 17 and planted a different variety every 10 days. He'll plant his final variety just after the July 4 holiday. He refers to that planting as his "Hail Mary" effort, one that relies on a leap of faith, and patience from Mother Nature, to work just right. If it happens, Buss and his wife, La Nette Buss, and their children and grandchildren will have fresh sweet corn to sell into late February.

"Last year we were able to create sales through late September, even to the first of October, which was unusual," he says.

The corn sold by the Buss family is picked that day, a stamp of freshness that has helped the brand grow on the strength of customer satisfaction.

And while Buss says he could deliver fresh sweet corn by the July 4 holiday in northern Plymouth County, he holds back. In a typical year, the only way he could pick corn by Independence Day would be to plant a short variety that doesn't ingratiate itself to Northwest Iowa taste buds.

"We could produce it here, but it would be an inferior ear," he says.

Buss' crop narrowly missed the full force of a hail and wind storm on June 17 that prompted Joel DeJong, field agronomist with Iowa State Unversity Extension & Outreach, to call a meeting to cover crop damage issues for farmers in the area around Le Mars, Brunsville and Craig. Some 125 growers turned out, including Buss.

"Thankfully, we didn't take a direct hit," says Buss, who also raises commercial corn, soybeans and hay on his farm. "Our sweet corn was bent over a bit at the base, but it came back. We were fortunate."

In nearly 25 years of growing and selling sweet corn and other produce, Buss has never been hailed out.

"Mother Nature has been OK with us," he says while pulling at an ear that is racing toward maturity. "We've had more rain than other areas, like southern Iowa and eastern Iowa, which have been pinched for moisture. Notwithstanding any weather tantrums, we're on track."

In addition to the sweet corn, the Buss family will work with Lynn Hartter, of Le Mars, to sell produce that will complement their top crop, "King Corn," as Buss calls it.

"We'll have onions, tomatoes, watermelon, cantaloupe, potatoes, kohlrabi and carrots when they're all ready," he says.

Some will be ready shortly. The first corn, he repeats, should be heading from the field to your dinner table in a matter of days.
HULL, Iowa | A Hull firefighter was taken to an area hospital with minor injuries Sunday after combating a barn fire in rural Sioux County.

According to a news release from the Sioux County Sheriff's Office, around 10:50 a.m. Sunday the Hull Fire Department responded to a report of a structure fire that occurred at 3418 Ibex Ave., two miles southeast of Hull.

Upon arriving, emergency personnel discovered a large barn fully engulfed by fire. The barn, which was not occupied by animals, was a total loss, the release said. A nearby empty hog confinement on the property received minor damage.

One Hull Fire Department firefighter sustained minor injuries, the release said. He was transported by Hull Ambulance to the Sioux Center Hospital.

Assisting the Hull Fire Department was the Sioux Center Fire Department, the Boyden Fire Department and the Sioux County Sheriff's Office.
ORANGE CITY, Iowa | Dr. Michael Kugler, professor of history at Northwestern College, recently published a chapter in "Discworld and Philosophy: Reality is not what it Seems." In his contributed chapter, "We Willna be Fooled Again! Wee Free Anarchists!" Kugler draws inspiration from fantasy author Sir Terry Pratchett's novel "Wee Free Men," and re-imagines them as anarchists.
SIOUX CITY | With a large number of construction projects in full swing, Chris Bogenrief is willing to wager there have never been so many construction cranes on Siouxland's skyline before.

"I would bet money that there has never been this many ever at one time," said Bogenrief, president of NAI United, a Sioux City commercial real estate firm. "I don't know how to prove it, but I am very confident."

Bogenrief credits the big bump in the number of cranes to big projects such as the expansion of CF Industries' fertilizer complex at Port Neal, construction of the Seaboard Triumph Foods pork plant in Sioux City, reconstruction of Interstate 29 through Sioux City, and the widening of U.S Highway 20 between Moville and Correctionville.

He is so sure of his proclamation, he has submitted an article titled "Sioux City Crane Craze" to be published in the Heartland Real Estate Business, a magazine that covers real estate topics in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio and Wisconsin.

It's a difficult feat to record. The only documentation of crane usage at a city and state level is for the over-dimensional permits they need to travel on roads. And multiple companies team up on projects with different numbers of cranes. Some can be used for a week, while others could be used for months.

Bogenrief estimates there are more than 30 cranes deployed at various sites around Siouxland. Sioux City's mayor concurs and sees some symbolism in that fact.

"I would agree it is the most we have had," Mayor Bob Scott said. "I like cranes on the skyline, because it is the sign of economic activity."

The type of cranes commonly seen around Siouxland are crawler cranes. They are a type of construction equipment where a long boom is mounted to an undercarriage that has a control cab and a set of tracks. They are typically needed to lift the heavy concrete beams that support roads, or to assist in bridge and building construction.

At its peak about a year ago, CF Industries had 35 cranes operating at its $2 billion expansion at Port Neal, just south of Sioux City along I-29.

Kim Mathers, a CF spokeswoman, said one of the cranes reached a height of 394 feet. Another crane had the lifting capacity of 1,000 tons. Today, they have 13 in operation as they near completion of the three-year project.

Moving north along I-29, construction of the new $264 million pork plant has several cranes. The reconstruction project near downtown Sioux City adds almost a dozen more as crews expand the roadway from four to six lanes.

Several cranes are being utilized in Dakota Dunes to stack two three-story buildings.

Looking east, Dakin Schultz, District 3 traffic planner for the Iowa Department of Transportation, said a couple of cranes are helping with the widening of U.S. Highway 20 between Moville and Correctionville.

He said for all the work being done on I-29 northbound, the same work will be mimicked in the southbound lanes in 2018 and 2019. A contract has been awarded for bridge replacement on old U.S. Highway 75 that also will require cranes.

Scott said other big development projects are in the works, but did not release any details.

Bogenried also expects more on the horizon, literally and figuratively. Royal Canin USA recently announced a $120 million pet food plant to replace its existing plant in North Sioux City. The new plant is expected to be completed in early 2019.

"Although Sioux City has experienced its ups and downs, its our fairly recession-proof agricultural based economy, bolstered by local companies such as Blue Bunny Ice Cream, Jolly Time Popcorn and Sue Bee Honey, that keeps our growth safe and steady," Bogenrief wrote in his report.

"The economists are predicting a national slowdown in 2019, but based on the Sioux City crane craze, I dont expect it anytime soon."
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. | Born in the ashes of the smoldering South after the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan died and was reborn before losing the fight against civil rights in the 1960s. Membership dwindled, a unified group fractured, and one-time members went to prison for a string of murderous attacks against blacks. Many assumed the group was dead, a white-robed ghost of hate and violence.

Yet today, the KKK is still alive and dreams of restoring itself to what it once was: an invisible white supremacist empire spreading its tentacles throughout society. As it marks 150 years of existence, the Klan is trying to reshape itself for a new era

Klan members still gather by the dozens under starry Southern skies to set fire to crosses in the dead of night, and KKK leaflets have shown up in suburban neighborhoods from the Deep South to the Northeast in recent months. Perhaps most unwelcome to opponents, some independent Klan organizations say they are merging with larger groups to build strength.

"We will work on a unified Klan and/or alliance this summer," said Brent Waller, imperial wizard of the United Dixie White Knights in Mississippi.

JOINING IS EASY

In a series of interviews with The Associated Press, Klan leaders said they feel that U.S. politics are going their way, as a nationalist, us-against-them mentality deepens across the nation. Stopping or limiting immigration  a desire of the Klan dating back to the 1920s  is more of a cause than ever. And leaders say membership has gone up at the twilight of President Barack Obama's second term in office, though few would provide numbers.

Joining the Klan is as easy as filling out an online form  provided you're white and Christian. Members can visit an online store to buy one of the Klan's trademark white cotton robes for $145, though many splurge on the $165 satin version.

While the Klan has terrorized minorities during much of the last century, its leaders now present a public front that is more virulent than violent. Leaders from several different Klan groups all said they have rules against violence aside from self-defense, and even opponents agree the KKK has toned itself down after a string of members went to prison years after the fact for deadly arson attacks, beatings, bombings and shootings.

"While today's Klan has still been involved in atrocities, there is no way it is as violent as the Klan of the '60s," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, an advocacy group that tracks activity by groups it considers extremist. "That does not mean it is some benign group that does not engage in political violence," he added.

Historian David Cunningham, author of "Klansville, U.S.A.: The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan," notes that while the Klan generally doesn't openly advocate violence, "I do think we have the sort of 'other' model of violence, which is creating a culture that supports the commission of violence in the name of these ideas."

Klan leaders told the AP that most of today's groups remain small and operate independently, kept apart by disagreements over such issues as whether to associate with neo-Nazis, hold public rallies or wear the KKK's trademark robes in colors other than white.

NATIONWIDE MEMBERSHIP

So-called "traditional" Klan groups avoid public displays and practice rituals dating back a century; others post web videos dedicated to preaching against racial diversity and warning of a coming "white genocide." Women are voting members in some groups, but not in others. Some leaders will not speak openly with the media but others do, articulating ambitious plans that include quietly building political strength.

Some groups hold annual conventions, just like civic clubs. Members gather in meeting rooms to discuss strategies that include electing Klan members to local political offices and recruiting new blood through the internet.

It's impossible to say how many members the Klan counts today since groups don't reveal that information, but leaders claim adherents in the thousands among scores of local groups called Klaverns. Waller said his group is growing, as did Chris Barker, imperial wizard of the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Eden, North Carolina.

"Most Klan groups I talk to could hold a meeting in the bathroom in McDonald's," Barker said. As for his Klavern, he said, "Right now, I'm close to 3,800 members in my group alone."

The Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish protection group that monitors Klan activity, describes Barker's Loyal White Knights as the most active Klan group today, but estimates it has no more than 200 members total. The ADL puts total Klan membership nationwide at around 3,000.

The Alabama-based SPLC says there's no evidence the Klan is returning to the strength of its heyday. It estimates the Klan has about 190 chapters nationally with no more than 6,000 members total, which would be a mere shadow of its estimated 2 million to 5 million members in the 1920s.

"The idea of unifying the Klan like it was in the '20s is a persistent dream of the Klan, but it's not happening," Potok said.

RESURRECTED DURING WWI

Formed just months after the end of the Civil War by six former Confederate officers in Pulaski, Tennessee, the Klan originally seemed more like a college fraternity with ceremonial robes and odd titles for its officers. But soon, freed blacks were being terrorized, and the Klan was blamed. Hundreds of people were assaulted or killed within the span of a few years as whites tried to regain control of the defeated Confederacy. Congress effectively outlawed the Klan in 1871, leading to martial law in some places and thousands of arrests, and the group died.

The Klan seemed relegated to history until World War I, when it was resurrected. It grew as waves of immigrants arrived aboard ships from Europe and elsewhere, and grew more as the NAACP challenged Jim Crow laws in the South in the 1920s. Millions joined, including community leaders like bankers and lawyers.

That momentum declined, and best estimates place Klan membership at about 40,000 by the mid-'60s, the height of the civil rights movement. Klan members were convicted of using murder as a weapon against equality in states including Mississippi and Alabama, where one Klansman remains imprisoned for planting the bomb that killed four black girls in a Birmingham church in 1963.

Cunningham, the historian, said the Klan dwindled to nearly nothing during the 1970s and '80s, when the SPLC sued the Alabama-based United Klans of America over the 1981 murder of Michael Donald, a black man whose beaten, slashed body was hanged from a tree. In an odd twist, Donald's mother wound up with the title to the Klan's headquarters near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, because the group didn't have the money to pay the $7 million judgment awarded in the SPLC suit.

KKK leader Brent Waller was raised in Laurel, Mississippi, in the shadow of the civil rights-era Klan. He has boyhood memories of flaming crosses and of Sam Bowers, a Klan boss who served six years in prison for his role directing the murders of three civil rights workers in 1964, and who later was convicted of killing a civil rights leader in 1966.

Rather than a white robe, Waller, 47, wears a snow-white suit and orange tie when in public on Klan business and insists on donning sunglasses in photos to protect his identity.

HOT-BUTTON ISSUE

Stopping immigration, not blocking minority rights, is the Klan's No. 1 issue today, Waller said. His group operates by the KKK rulebook called the "Kloran," which was first published in 1915. Various versions of the book are now online, and an edition posted by the University of Wisconsin library states in part: "We shall ever be true in the faithful maintenance of White Supremacy and will strenuously oppose any compromise thereof in any and all things."

The current hot-button issue for Klan members  fighting immigration and closing U.S. borders  is one of the most talked-about topics in the presidential election. Klan leaders say Donald Trump's immigration position and his ascendancy in the GOP are signs things are going their way.

"You know, we began 40 years ago saying we need to build a wall," Arkansas-based Klan leader Thomas Robb said.

Years ago, the group Robb heads near Harrison, Arkansas, changed its name from the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan to the Knights Party USA, mainly to get away from the stigma associated with the Klan name. It now presents itself as more of a political or Christian entity.

"There is a lot of baggage with the name," said Rachel Pendergraft, Robb's daughter, who leads the group with him. "You say the name 'KKK' and a lot of people have a narrative in their minds of what it is about, what it does. The name resonates with people, whether it is good or whether it is bad."

Despite trying to rebrand itself in many ways, 150 years later, the Klan has not stepped away from burning crosses, though it rarely does so in public. Instead, the "lightings," as members call them, are held on private property away from law enforcement and demonstrators.

In April, Klan members and other white supremacists held two rallies on the same warm Saturday in Georgia. As the sun set, about 60 robed Klan members and others holding flaming torches gathered in a huge circle in a field in northwest Georgia to set a cross and Nazi swastika afire.

"White power!" they chanted in unison.

"Death to the ungodly! Death to our enemies!"
I abhor the comments that State Sen. Rick Bertrand made in response to last week's Supreme Court abortion ruling. He said the ruling marked "a sad day for the unborn in America today as this decision once again illuminates the clear difference between the Republican and Democratic Parties and how critical this upcoming presidential election is to the unborn."

Bertrand's reaction illuminates the clear difference between his own anti-choice agenda and actually taking into account the priorities of Iowans. Seven in 10 Americans believe that abortion should be legal. Iowans need a champion that can at least recognize that, but also realize that this ruling marks a tremendously joyous day for Iowa families as we continue to progress toward a society that values family planning and reproductive freedom. With Bertrand prioritizing the "unborn" over family planning, I don't think it's a far leap to take that he would agree with Donald Trump that women should be punished for having abortions.
SIOUX CITY | After more than 55 years, a new sexual abuse allegation is casting a shadow on the career of a now-deceased priest who served in the Sioux City Diocese during the 1960s.

The Rev. Peter Murphy, who served at eight parishes throughout Northwestern Iowa in the 1950s, '60s and '70s, has been accused of raping and sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy while he was a temporary assistant at Blessed Sacrament Parish in Sioux City in 1960.

In early June, the diocese published an article in the Catholic Globe newspaper explaining it had received information that Murphy had committed sexually abusive acts against a minor that year.

The article requested anyone with information of sexual abuse against minors by Murphy contact the diocese or the Mercy Child Advocacy Center. Notices have also been distributed to the parishes where Murphy worked.

"By putting that into the Catholic Globe about Father Peter Murphy and in parish bulletins where he served, we are searching for information if there are other potential abuse victims out there," said Sioux City Diocese spokeswoman Kristie Arlt.

Arlt said anyone who has allegations of a current or past abuse will be connected with professional help. She said the diocese has a partnership with the Mercy Child Advocacy Center in Sioux City, a comprehensive program that serves victims of child abuse.

"Our goal is to be transparent and to help any victims that might come forward," Arlt said.

PETER MURPHY

According to the Globe article, Murphy was ordained in 1955. Along with Blessed Sacrament Parish, Murphy served at St. Mary Church in Danbury, Iowa; Assumption Parish in Emmetsburg, Iowa; Sacred Heart Parish in Fort Dodge, Iowa; St. Michael Parish in Whittemore, Iowa; St. Joseph Parish in Bode, Iowa; St. Rose of Lima Parish in Denison, Iowa; and Sacred Heart Parish in Spencer, Iowa.

Arlt said Murphy moved around frequently and served in Sioux City for a brief time due to a chronic illness. He died in 1980.

Tim Lennon, who grew up in Sioux City and now lives in San Francisco, came forward publicly earlier this year about his abuse. Lennon, now 69, said he was violently raped and sexually abused by Murphy while Lennon served as an altar boy at Blessed Sacrament at age 12. He said memories of his abuse did not surface until the 1990s, and memories of his rape did not return until 2010.

"When I was 12, I basically froze," he said. "It took me 50-some years to challenge and fight back."

Lennon said he first wrote to the diocese in 1996 and received what he described as a "dismissive" reply informing him that Murphy was dead. He again contacted the chancellor in 2010, but he said he did not have the emotional strength to confront the church until 2016, when he arranged a personal meeting with Bishop R. Walter Nickless.

Lennon said earlier this year, he put notices in the papers in Fort Dodge and two smaller towns in the areas Murphy had served, asking for information about Murphy around 1959. He said he received six responses, four of which detailed activity that was abusive or sexual in nature.

Lennon said he now knows Murphy abused other children prior to coming to Sioux City. He alleges that it was discovery of abuse, not chronic illness, that caused Murphy to leave Sioux City.

So far, Arlt said, Lennon's is the only allegation against Murphy the diocese has received.

THE NUMBERS

Sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests has been a worldwide issue that the church, including the Diocese of Sioux City, has taken steps toward correcting and preventing in recent years.

In 2004, the Sioux City Diocese stated it had received 33 allegations of sexual abuse of a minor against 10 priests over the past 53 years. None of those priests, the diocese said, were in public ministry, and six had died. At the time, the priests represented 1.8 percent of the 545 priests and deacons who had served in the diocese.

According to diocese data, between 2002 and 2010, the year the last lawsuit was filed, the diocese has reached settlements with 46 people who said they had been sexually abused, most of whom did not file suit. Of those settlements, 32 were against a single priest.

In all, settlements have resulted in $4.1 million of payouts, which were funded either by the diocese, its insurance company or the priest who committed the abuse.

Arlt said the diocese has also reimbursed or paid therapy costs in many of the cases.

Ive worked with Bishop Nickless for nine years, and he is extremely compassionate to these victims, she said. It is priority No. 1 to keep these people safe and help these victims that have been victimized in years past.

FUTURE STEPS

Arlt said the diocese has for the past few years considered making a list of the known abusers' names public in the future, something 30 of the dioceses in the United States have done to date. She could not confirm how many names would be on that list if it were released.

Lennon said this is something he would like to see done, especially so parishioners know whether any of the living priests have re-entered the public ministry.

"What I would like to know is, are they still living, or are they still in ministry? he said.

Arlt said the Catholic Church and the Sioux City Diocese have taken conscious steps toward preventing future child abuse, as well. In response to the Charter for the Protection of Children as adopted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in Dallas in June 2002, the diocese instituted VIRTUS, a nationally recognized program designed to create a safe environment for all children.

The diocese's program enforces a strict code of conduct for all clergy, parish and school employees and volunteers to adhere to, comprehensive background checks, and an education program to teach how to recognize and report sexual abuse and abusers.

Lennon, who now works with the Survivor Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), said he hopes his story will lead to a continued increase of transparency and reporting within the Catholic church and with local authorities. He also hopes it will strengthen other victims to know they are not alone.

"Theres a lot of people who think theyre alone who think theyre the only ones, that its too bleak and it will never get better," he said.

Last month, after Lennon started sharing his story publicly, he said others also began sharing their stories in response.

Ive been contacted by six to eight people, he said. "People are telling stories, some from Blessed Sacrament, some from Sioux City, so doing the news is important in helping survivors."
Sheriff Ernie Coleman: Sheriff Offers Tips for a Safe July 4th Weekend

News Release:



With the July 4th weekend approaching, Sheriff Ernie Coleman asks all citizens to join him in making this Fourth of July holiday happy, enjoyable and safe for everyone.



Beaufort County citizens should remember that fireworks, as enjoyable as they are to watch, can be dangerous and should only be handled by professionals. According to the U.S. Consumer Product and Safety Commission, there are nearly 9,000 emergency room-treated injuries associated with fireworks a year. You can enjoy a safe Fourth of July by following these safety tips:



 Never give fireworks to small children, and always follow the instructions on the packaging.



 Keep a supply of water close-by as a precaution.



 Make sure the person lighting fireworks always wears eye protection.



 Light only one firework at a time and never attempt to relight "a dud."



 Store fireworks in a cool, dry place away from children and pets.



 Never throw or point a firework toward people, animals, vehicles, structures or flammable materials.



 Stay at least 500 feet away from professional fireworks displays.



 Leave any area immediately where untrained amateurs are using fireworks.



Sheriff Coleman also wants citizens to use caution when swimming at a beach or at a pool. Sheriff Coleman said, "Sadly, most deaths from drowning occur within a few feet of safety." The best thing anyone can do to stay safe in and around the water is to learn to swim. The Red Cross has swimming courses for people of any age and swimming ability. To find out where lessons are offered, or to enroll in a CPR/AED or first aid course, contact your local Red Cross chapter.



At a swimming pool, take the following precautions:



 If no lifeguard is on duty, do not let children swim unless they are accompanied by a responsible adult who knows lifesaving techniques and first aid.



 Post CPR instructions and directions to call 9-1-1 or your local emergency number in the pool area.



 Look around the pool area to be certain lifesaving devices are readily available for emergency use.



 Be sure covers are installed on all drains of a swimming pool or in a wading pool. The suction created by the pool's circulating pumps can be very dangerous unless it is reduced by covers.



 Take frequent breaks (about once an hour) where everyone gets out of the water, drinks water, reapplies sunscreen (SPF 15 or higher) and rests.



 If a child is missing, check the pool first. Go to the edge of the pool and scan the entire pool, bottom, and surface, as well as the surrounding pool area.



 To reduce the risk of eye, ear, nose or throat infection from contaminated water, swim only in pools in which water quality is properly maintained. The water should appear crystal clear, be continuously circulated and be maintained at a level that allows free overflow into the gutter or skimmer. There should not be a strong odor of ammonia or chlorine.



At the beach, take the following precautions:



 Swim in a supervised, marked area with a lifeguard present, and swim with others. Never swim alone.



 If you are caught in a rip current, swim parallel to the shore until you are out of the current. Once you are free, turn and swim toward shore. If you can't swim to the shore, float or tread water until you are free of the rip current and then head toward shore.



 Watch out for the "dangerous too's" - too tired, too cold, too far from safety, too much sun, too much strenuous activity.



 Look for water that is reasonably clear and free of floating materials and odors. Avoid swimming at beaches where there are large populations of ducks, geese or gulls. The waste produced by these birds causes high bacteria levels in the water.



 Look for movement in the water; it helps keep the water clean. Do not swim in stagnant or still water.



 Do not swim at any beach right after a heavy rain. Runoff following a heavy rain may result in a high bacteria level.



 When diving at a beach, exercise extreme caution. Beach water is not as clear as water in a pool, so underwater obstructions may not be visible.



 Avoid having beach water in your mouth or nose.



Sheriff Ernie Coleman said, "Following these precautions will help the children and citizens of Beaufort County stay safe and healthy this holiday weekend and throughout the summer."



Contact: Chief Deputy Charlie Rose



Beaufort County Sheriffs Office

210 North Market St.  Washington NC 27889


By: WSPMC



30 June 2016

The Western Sahara Petroleum and Minerals Commission welcomes the decision of Norways Sovereign Wealth Fund to withdraw its investments in companies Cairn Energy of the UK and Kosmos Energy of the US for their involvement in the looting the wealth of through illegal and unethical investment operations in the occupied part of Western Sahara.

According to a news release of the Commission, Western Sahara Petroleum and Minerals Commission honors the moral and courageous position that the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Norway taken to halt investment in the occupied territories of Western Sahara in accordance with international law and in line with the ethical standards of the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Norway. It calls on all foreign companies and private investors to disassociate themselves from involvement in investing in economic activities in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara. As the region has not been decolonized, international law prohibits any investment activities undertaken in collaboration with the occupying power, which does not have the legal or ethical authority to grant any licenses to carry out economic activities in the occupied territories.

Accordingly, Dr. Ghali Zubeir, head of the Western Sahara Petroleum and Minerals Commission called on companies exploring or investing under the Moroccan occupation of the Sahrawi territories to rectify their status by signing of new contracts with the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic authorities as the sole legal authority to award such licenses.

The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund already has withdrawn its investments from a number of companies engaged in the looting of Sahrawi natural resources such as the Kerr-McGee Corporation (USA) and the Irish San Leon Energy for the same reasons. (SPS)

062/090

http://www.hic-mena.org/news.php?id=pnBoaQ#.V3e0_dKLTIU




MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Conflicting leaders of the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) in the east and west of the divided country have agreed for the corporation's unification and recognized the Presidency Council formed along with the Government of National Accord, as the highest executive authority in the country, the NOC said Sunday.

Oil-rich Libya previously had problems with oil exports due to the confrontation within the NOC. The Libyan parliament based in the eastern city of Tobruk has not yet supported the UN-backed Libyan Government of National Accord.

According to the NOC statement, Mustafa Sanalla, that chairman of the National Oil Corporation of Libya, and his counterpart appointed by the government in Bayda, Nagi Maghrabi, agreed to unify the National Oil Corporation. Sanalla will continue as NOC chairman and Dr Maghrabi will join the NOC board, the statement reads.
Im sure that this was a bright star filmed close-up. That is why it appeared as some strange cone-shaped or diamond shaped object, the astronomer told OmskZdes news outlet. The fact that they filmed the video using close-up doesnt allow me to say which part of the sky was filmed.

However, Scott C. Waring, a UFO hunter and a prolific blogger, claimed that the Siberian flying object was a UFO and was also seen in other parts of the world, including Taiwan, China and Israel.

No, this is not a planet or star, it is a UFO. I personally have seen it over Taiwan, the blogger said, referring to another piece of footage filmed on July 29, 2013.

This is not the first time UFOs have been observed in Omsk region. The first reported instance occurred there over 50 years ago, OmskZdes reported. The most notable incident, however, was registered in 1991 in the village of Chukreevka, when locals reported of a fire ball floating over the streets. The object eventually hit the ground and exploded. Ufologists suggested at the time that the ball was an aliens spaceship. Experts found a large amount of chemical elements at the blast site, including rare-earth metals.
TOKYO (Sputnik)  Japan will make every effort in the international anti-terrorism cooperation, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Sunday at National Security Council, held following the Bangladesh terrorist attack.

"In cooperation with the international community, we will make every effort to eradicate terrorism," Abe was quoted as saying by the Kyodo news agency.
FAST is evidence of China's increasing investment in science  it is now second only to the US in terms of research spending and the number of scientific papers published.

It has seven receivers, five of which were made in China, and two of which were manufactured in conjunction with Australian and US companies.

The project's scientists said FAST will be able to help research on gravitational waves, and further the search for alien life.

"FAST's potential to discover an alien civilization will be 5 to 10 times that of current equipment, as it can see farther and darker planets," said Peng Bo, director of the NAO Radio Astronomy Technology Laboratory.

With a 500 meter diameter, FAST's curved dish is much larger than the 305-meter Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, which was built in 1963 and was previously the world's previous biggest radio telescope.
Manlio Di Stefano, Italian MP from the opposition party Movement of Five Stars (M5S) and a member of the parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, has denounced the prime ministers actions and argued that Italy can't afford to lose such an important partner as Russia.

"We support the withdrawal of sanctions, but Renzi sold himself to Brussels and the United States and extended them, despite his statements made during SPIEF-2016," he said.

Meanwhile, Italy's regional parliament in Liguria has adopted a resolution calling for the Italian government to lift sanctions against Moscow and to recognize Crimea as part of Russia. And while the initiative was originally proposed by Lega Nord party, even the supporters of the pro-government Democratic Party chose to support it, resulting in a unanimous vote.

In the meantime, sanctions continue to take their toll on the Italian economy. Three northern regions of Italy  Lombardia, Emilia-Romagna and Veneto  were hit hardest by the ongoing economic standoff, losing 1.18 billion, 771 million and 688 million euros respectively.

Furthermore, data compiled by the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies reveals that the sanctions war has already cost Italy 0.1 percent of its GDP along with 80,000 jobs; and if the current trend continues, the country may lose an additional 0.44 percent of GDP and 215,000 jobs.

While things are likely to improve by 2019, the short-term perspective remains pretty bleak, the newspaper surmises.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)According to Die Welt newspaper, which refers to the Ministry of Economy report, due to be presented to the government on July 6, the total amount of arms exports from Germany in 2015 stood about 8 billion euros ($9 billion), while in 2014 it amounted to about 4 billion euro ($4.5 billion).

The media noted that a number of factors contributed to the increase in sales volumes, including, for example, the permission to supply the United Kingdom with a tanker aircraft whose price exceeded 1 billion euro, as well as a deal with Qatar for the sale of tanks and self-propelled howitzers in the amount of 1.6 billion euro.

According to the publication, the level of arms exports from Germany to countries outside the European Union or North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) remained on the same level as in 2015, that is, amounted to 59 percent of all deliveries. In 2014, it amounted to 60.5 percent.
Dan and Lisa Williams wanted to break into the coffee business in Billings but were uncertain how.

They checked out a few franchises, and considered a coffee cart, but found them too expensive. Instead, they went a new concept and their own brand  Expresso Brake  and began serving coffee out of a food truck.

That was in late May. Three weeks later, the Williamses are scrambling to keep up with orders, driving their $150,000 retro-fitted 2016 Chevrolet van from the West End to the Heights.

What we want to have is a set route, (for) people who work in offices or cant get away. They know where were at, Dan Williams said.

His wife added, They can depend on us. Monday through Friday, they expect us.

Expresso Brake is the newest take on the food trucks, a mobile business thats rising in popularity in the Billings area. Summer is peak time for most trucks, when warm weather and abundant festivals attract the most crowds.

Yellowstone County has 45 mobile food establishments, according to Marilyn Tapia of RiverStone Health, which regulates food servers.

The agency doesnt track yearly stats of food trucks, but Tapia noted they have been definitely growing in the past few years.

Customer interest is growing, too. About 6,000 people are now members of a Facebook group called Billings Food Truck Tracker, which was formed two years ago to help hungry diners find the trucks.

The group, founded in 2014 by self-professed foodie Russ Morris, also has a website and tracks 21 food trucks in Billings and Laurel. People frequently post on the Facebook page wondering where the trucks are.

Many operators are hoping to launch their brand with the food truck, then open a brick-and-mortar shop with a built-in customer base.

Weve had pretty good business. Well probably do better business when were in a permanent location, said Scot Ireton, co-owner of the Sandees food truck.

Ireton and his wife, Jennifer Ireton, launched the business in May. Jennifer Iretons parents, Carm and Shirley Hampton, were the original owners of the Sandees hamburger stand on Billings West End, and the Iretons were hoping to capitalize on the nostalgia for the greasy food.

So far, its been a hit, and Ireton said the couples have secured a lease to move into the former Dominos pizza spot at 520 Wicks Lane in the Heights, near the lot where they normally park their truck.

He added that hes unsure of an opening date because the Iretons are focused on the busy summer food truck season.

A food truck turned out to be a good option to ease into the restaurant business in Billings, Ireton said. Die-hard customers make the effort to find Sandees, which Ireton expects will translate to his permanent location. The food truck has also taught them about the business before making a larger investment, he added.

We have learned a lot, Ireton said.

Ashley Robichaux, owner of Cajun Phattys, said shes happy to see more food truck opening in town and adding to the culture.

Cajun Phattys was one of the first trucks to open two years ago, and Robichaux said more businesses in town are welcoming them.

The truck is a regular at High Plains Brewing in Laurel, and Robichaux said other breweries  particularly those that dont serve food and offer parking  are popular places for the trucks. (One is usually parked at Canyon Creek Brewery on Billings West End. The lot between Angry Hanks and Thirsty Street is also a hot spot.)

Were really excited about all the new trucks, and were hoping for a more diverse group to come in. The more that the food trucks are out, the more people are going to want to visit the food trucks, Robichaux said.

Cajun Phattys moved into a brick-and-mortar location for about a year on First Avenue North, but the spot didnt work out, Robichaux said. Like other operators, Robichaux wants a permanent location, but shes keeping the food truck feel.

Details havent been nailed down, but Robichaux is working to buy a larger trailer that would remain in one spot. Shed keep using her current trailer for her catering business.

The trailer is more flexible, and its a lot more fun, said Robichaux, who helped open multiple restaurants in her native Louisiana as a consultant.

You can do whatever it is you want. You can be creative, have a smaller menu. Youre always around people. People are just happy all the time, she added.

Thats what the Williamses are discovering at Expresso Brake. The truck is popular with small offices, and the couple is trying to nail down the most efficient route to cover the whole city.

You pull up in front of a place, and you see people coming from somewhere else, Dan Williams said.

The two still have other jobs. Lisa works in accounting, where she has more time after the tax season, and Dan is a manager at a building supply company.

If all goes well, Expresso Brake could find a permanent home, but the Williamses are also excited about potentially franchising to other cities. They own the rights to the name and the logo.

The biggest challenge of a food truck is people finding where they are, Dan Williams said. Most order by phone at 406-839-HOST (4687), text messages, or through the shops Facebook page.
NASA's Juno spacecraft is set to enter into orbit around Jupiter on Monday July 4, almost five years after it was launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

At 8.18pm PDT, Juno will fire its main engine and begin a 35-minute engine burn that will place it into orbit around Jupiter. It will spend 20 months orbiting Jupiter 32 times, coming to within 5,000 kilometers of the planet's cloud tops.

"As Juno barrels down on Jupiter, the scientists are busy looking at the amazing approach science the spacecraft has already returned to Earth. Jupiter is spectacular from afar and will be absolutely breathtaking from close up," Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno, said in a NASA press release.
The consignment of 14 pieces of equipment includes lightweight AN/TPQ-49 and AN / TPQ-36 counter fire radars designed to detect and destroy artillery, the Ukrainian presidents website reads . The AN/TPQ-36 radar is aimed at localizing firing positions of mortars, artillery weapons and multiple-launch rocket systems. Such radars have been used by the American military for years, but are in the hands of the Ukrainian military for the first time.

With an operating range of 25 kilometers, the radars will help to detect possible attacks against Ukrainian Army in Donbas in timely fashion, allowing saving hundreds of lives, Poroshenko claimed during the delivery ceremony.

Ukrainians keep their powder dry, and if theres a threat of an offensive against us, I do not advise anyone to check how much time well need to deploy our artillery and rebuff an attack of an aggressor, Poroshenko said.
Last month, a Latvian parliamentary commission rejected an initiative to demolish Riga's Memorial to Soviet Liberators. The Latvian Foreign Ministry has also indicated that Russia and Latvia have reached an agreement on the preservation of Soviet-era monuments.

Latvia proclaimed its independence from the Russian Empire in 1918, before being forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940 in the early stages of World War Two. Between 1941 and 1944, the country was occupied by the Nazis. Within seven months of the German invasion, the Nazis and local collaborators had killed most of the country's Jewish population; a concentration camp was established in the Riga suburb of Salaspils which was handed the grim task of exterminating Jews who were sent there from other countries. After the collapse of the USSR, Latvian nationalists began actively commemorating Nazi collaborators, including the Latvian Legion, a volunteer formation of the Waffen-SS accused of war crimes and participation in the Holocaust.

Last month, a study by the Defense Academy of Latvia's Center for Security and Strategic Research revealed a dangerous trend  that nearly one third of Latvians believe that the country is seeing a revival of Nazism.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)According to Anadolu news agency, citing Turkish security source, the detentions were held early on Sunday morning.

On Friday, Turkish police arrested 11 foreigners suspected of involvement in the terrorist attack in the Ataturk International Airport. On Thursday, 13 suspects, including four foreigners, were reportedly detained.

On Tuesday evening, three suicide blasts rocked the Istanbul's Ataturk International Airport, leaving 41 people dead and more than 200 injured.
A photograph taken of the sky above CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, has got some internet theorists worried about the activities below.

On June 24 a Facebook user called Joelle Rodrigue posted a photograph of a storm above the research center, which is on the border of France and Switzerland.



CERN is home to the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator. One of the outstanding achievements by scientists using the accelerator was the discovery in 2013 of the Higgs boson, a fundamental particle predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics.
TBILISI (Sputnik)  Finland may consider joining NATO when the need to defend its national security arises, however, the current Finish defense strategy does not include any timetable or procedures for joining the Alliance, Finland's Defense Committee Chairman Ilkka Kanerva told Sputnik on Sunday.

"I am the man who was formulating the text of government's foreign and security policy program and, of course, we have a very clear commitment of the government to continue our partnership with NATO and in case it would be necessary for Finland in the name of its own security, we may to consider a membership as a possibility," Kanerva, who is also the President of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA), said on the sidelines of ongoing OSCE PA meeting in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Kanerva noted that the current Finish defense strategy did not not suggest the possibility of joining NATO.
TBILISI (Sputnik), Svetlana Alexandrova  A national referendum on Finland's North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership could be held if the government decides to join the alliance, a chairman of the Finnish parliamentary defense committee, Ilkka Kanerva, told Sputnik Sunday.

Kanerva is also the President of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA) whose meeting is being held in Tbilisi, Georgia, from July 1-5.

"A referendum [on joining NATO] is one of the alternatives we have and it will be one of the realistic approaches if there would be a need for it," Kanerva said on the sidelines of the ongoing OSCE PA meeting.
ROME (Sputnik)  Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi urged Sunday to suppress immediately those, who are trying to impose strategy based on hatred and terror to Europe.

"Those, who think about bringing us to the [radical] values, strategy based on hatred and terror, should be suppressed immediately," Renzi told SkyTg24, speaking about a recent deadly terrorist attack in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka.
Northern Ireland, like neighboring Scotland, voted to stay in the European Union with 56 percent in favor despite Britain as a whole voting in favor of leaving the political-economic bloc. The chasm in national vision between the various parts of the United Kingdom are beginning to push even Protestant unionists who have long stood against Irish reunification to call for an exit from Britains reach.

"I was always a 'small u' unionist. But I could not in all good conscience say I could vote for Northern Ireland to remain a member of the United Kingdom," said Christopher Woodhouse, a 25-year-old from Belfast. "I am softening to the idea of Irish unity, purely on economic issues. I am a European."
Despite its aspirations to join the EU, Serbia refused to join the EU sanctions against Russia, a decision declared openly by Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic. This decision was followed by EU Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy & Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn's statement that Serbia must join the sanctions if it is really interested in joining the Union. Some argued that this statement was effectively a demand to sell Russia in favor of EU membership.

"It's obvious that the European Union is increasing pressure on Belgrade with an aim to force Serbia to coordinate its foreign policy with Brussels and join the EU sanctions against Russia. That would have been a great mistake and would have contradicted Serbia's national interests and the will of its people," said Nenad Popovich, the head of the Serb People's Party (SPP) in October 2015.

This view is shared by the country's President Tomislav Nikolic, who said in his interview for Rossiya 24 TV Channel that "the EU, of course, seeks to make us join their cause, but we won't submit. We want to cooperate with both Europe and Russia, and when we face conditions, we start having second thoughts about the good will [of our partners]."

Apparently, the EU membership, much desired by Premier Vucic and the Serbian business elite, becomes a bounty for abandoning Russia. Instead of a productive development with benefits from both sides and despite talks about respect of Serbia's neutrality, the EU consistently forces Serbia to make its final choice, which, undoubtedly, will be disastrous for Serbian economy, as it will force the country to rip too many ties, both in business and culture.
A bomb exploded in a crowded shopping area of Baghdad, leaving al least 80 people dead, AP reported, citing the police.

Baghdad Operations Command spokesman Brigadier General Saad Maan said that the blast was caused by a car bomb, according to the agency.

The second explosion left 6 dead and 12 injured, Sky News Arabia reported, citing the sources. A self-made explosive device went off near a market square in the Sha'ab neighbourhood in Baghdad, agency reported.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Al-Nusra Front terrorist group shelled with mortars number of settlements in the Syrian provinces of Damascus, Aleppo and Idlib, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday.

"Al-Nusra Front international terrorist group continues to impede the establishment of the cessation of hostilities. During the day, terrorists shelled with mortars and artillery settlements of Handrat, Khader and Kudeihi and the Nayrab Airport in Aleppo," the ministry said in a daily bulletin posted on its website.

According to the ministry, in the province of Damascus terrorists attacked settlements of Dzhaubar, Kabun and others, while in the province of Idlib they shelled the settlement of Fua.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  A car bomb exploded in the north of the city, Sky News Arabia broadcaster reported.

The media noted that none of the terror groups had claimed responsibility for the attack.

Libya has been in a state of turmoil since 2011, when a civil war broke out in the country and long-standing leader Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown, and the country was contested by two rival governments  the internationally-recognized Council of Deputies based in Tobruk and the Tripoli-based General National Congress.
He pointed to the fact that the MIT is also unable to provide preventive security, which Yarar said deals with measures taken to neutralize the groups planning to commit a terrorist attack.

"If the security forces managed to prevent terrorists from entering the territory of their country, it means that preventive intelligence coped with their task," he said.

Additionally, Yarar drew attention to the fact that only 17 percent of the three million refugees, who arrived in Turkey, submitted their personal data to the country's migration services.

"Turkey was not prepared to receive so many migrants and no doubt, the lack of control on this issue continues to complicate the work of intelligence services," he pointed out.

Turkey has served as the country from which most foreign Daesh terrorists have entered Syria. However, the corridor in Syria's Aleppo Province linking Turkey with most of the territory of the self-proclaimed caliphate has narrowed thanks to a recent push by the mainly-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces and anti-government opposition groups. Earlier, Turkey had unequivocally insisted that Kurdish troops refrain from crossing the Euphrates into the Daesh-held corridor.

Yarar added that "in order to stem the wave of Daesh terrorist attacks in Turkey, it's necessary to deal with the purpose and the reason for these actions."

"The main thing is to understand what force is behind the organization of these explosions, and why it is Daesh that claims responsibility for the blasts," he said.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  At least 79 people have been killed in a car bomb attack in central Baghdad, media reports said Sunday.

The attack, which claimed the lives of many children and injured 132 people, occurred early on Sunday in central Baghdad's majority-Shiite Karrada district, the Al Jazeera news channel reported, citing its own sources.

The early morning attack claimed a large number of casualties as many Iraqi families were on the streets during the last days of the holy month of Ramadan.
BEIRUT (Sputnik)  The Syrian army has captured farms near the Syrian city of Aleppo, cutting off the Jaysh al-Islam Islamist group's supply routes in the north of the city, a military source told Sputnik on Sunday.

"The army has regained control over the Mallah farms and has cut off the terrorists' supply route running along the Castello road in the north of the city, thus blocking the militants in Aleppo itself," the source said.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)According to the Al Arabiya television broadcaster, some of the detained people earlier said that they had been abused by the Shiite militiamen, who participated in the liberation of Fallujah from Daesh.

Fallujah, located some 42 miles west of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, is one of the largest cities in the Anbar province. Daesh, which is outlawed in Russia, has been in control of the city since 2014.

On June 26, the Iraqi army commander heading the counter-terrorism operation in Fallujah said that the city had been fully liberated from the Daesh group, banned in Russia.


DUBAI (Sputnik)According to to Al-Hadas TV channel, people in the crowd thrown various objects shouting curses at prime minister's convoy, forcing him to quickly leave the place of the terrorist attack.

The terrorist attack, which claimed lives of at least 83 people and injured over 200 people, occurred early on Sunday in central Baghdad's majority-Shiite Karrada district.

The early morning attack claimed a large number of casualties as many Iraqi families were on streets during the last days of the holy month of Ramadan.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)Syrian President Bashar Assad has appointed a new government headed by former Electricity Minister Imad Khamis, Syrian president's administration said Sunday.

Foreign Minister Walid Muallem and Defense Minister Fahd Jassem Freij, as well as National Reconciliation Affairs Minister Ali Haidar have retained their posts, according to presidential decree number 203, as quoted by administration's official Twitter account.

Syria held parliamentary elections on April 15 with over 3,500 candidates contesting the 250 seats in Syria's parliament. Ballot stations were set up in 12 of Syria's 14 provinces, as the northern province of Raqqa was still under the control of Daesh terrorist group and the northwestern Idlib province was controlled by al-Nusra Front.
She stressed the importance of issuing the report, which specifically cited direct bilateral talks as the most effective way to resolve the conflict."The Quartet's recent report on the issue is a sign of international involvement and I do welcome the global community's willingness to intervene," she pointed out.

She voiced hope that "both sides will show the necessary restraint so as to de-escalate the situation and not to return to a level [reflecting] the 2014 tensions that were followed by Israel's Operation Protective Edge."

Her remarks came as Gilad Erdan said on Saturday that the social network Facebook had failed to block the posts inciting violence, and also sabotaged the work of Israeli police.
Buried in the July 1, 1916, edition of the Billings Evening Journal below bold front page headlines of World War I news and the Mexican Revolution is a two-paragraph article out of New York City that predicted things to come later that month in Montana.

"Infantile paralysis epidemic in New York," the headline reads, followed by a short detailing of an outbreak of poliomyelitis in the city that had killed 47 people in one week. Health officials there warned their counterparts in other states as far as 1,000 miles away to take steps to prevent it from spreading across the country.

Two weeks later, on July 11 in Pryor, the first case in one of the worst and deadliest polio outbreaks in Montana's history was diagnosed.

24 deaths

Polio is an infectious viral disease that mostly affects young children and spreads via person-to-person contact, although contaminated food or water can also pass it along.

It invades the nervous system and causes headache, fatigue, vomiting, stiffness and pain in the limbs. In a small number of cases, it causes often-permanent paralysis and can be fatal, aspects that stoked fears and panic across the U.S. in the late 1910s.

In 1916, the disease spread quickly from the East Coast and around the country in an epidemic that killed an estimated 6,000 people and registered 9,000 confirmed cases in New York City alone, and Montana wasn't immune.

By the end of the year, 24 deaths and 111 cases were confirmed statewide. The south central part of the state was hardest hit.

"While these cases and deaths were reported from 12 counties, there occurred a distinct explosive outbreak with Yellowstone County and the city of Billings as foci," wrote Dr. John J. Sippy, then-director of the Montana State Board of Health's child welfare division in an article titled "Eight Years of Epidemic Poliomyelitis in Montana" published in the Jan. 26, 1923, edition of Public Health Reports.

Nearly half of the outbreak's statewide cases and deaths occurred in the Billings and Pryor areas by Sept. 15, with Billings registering 29 cases and eight deaths and Pryor seeing 17 cases and three deaths.

Cases also were reported around the state  from Miles City to Edgar, from Bozeman to Great Falls.

The number of actual cases might have more than tripled from the number of reported ones, based on later surveys that showed many more children with paralysis who'd never received treatment, Sippy wrote.

"It is safe to admit that probably not more than 20 to 25 were detected and reported," he wrote.

The year before, Montana had just two reported cases and one death.

'Paralyses scourge'

The Billings Evening Journal printed a short story on its front page every few days in early July providing updates on what it called the "paralyses scourge" in New York.

But on July 10, it ran a story in which local physicians urged residents to take caution, even though it hadn't hit Montana.

"The local doctors believe that there is small opportunity for the disease to spread to this section, unless it is brought in by tourists with children," the paper reported. "Observance of the rules, it is said, will remove much of the danger."

Those rules included keeping children out of poorly ventilated theaters and public meeting areas, not allowing them to bathe in stagnant water, avoiding pets and other animals and carefully washing food, especially perishable items.

The first official case was diagnosed in a young boy on the Crow Reservation the next day, although no mention of that made the news until nearly two weeks later, on July 24.

In between, stories out of New York continued to say the spread was slowing down, almost always followed by another story the next day saying it had surged again.

And Montana officials were preparing for it to reach the state. W.F. Cogswell, secretary of the state board of health, advised that polio patients must be isolated and that the homes they were in must have a six-inch-tall placard saying "Poliomyelitis Here" on the outside.

Twelve days later, the first mention of the Pryor case confirmation printed and, four days later, the U.S. government issued a set of rules ordering people to make sure to clean up trash, discourage large assemblies of children, boiling clothing and linens and a six-to-eight week quarantine for infected kids.

By Aug. 2, as the journal reported, Billings had put a quarantine into place on South 27th Street after four new cases were reported in town and more potential cases were under investigation.

"Deaths of three other children who succumbed suddenly within the past few days are believed to have been caused by the plague, although the cases were diagnosed otherwise," the newspaper reported.

At the same time, restrictions were placed on where children younger than 18 could be and Cogswell arrived in Billings from Helena to help manage the outbreak.

'An absolute quarantine'

City and county officials met to lay out the rules in early August, and they included "an absolute quarantine" on children living on South 27th, since that's where three of the four confirmed cases were.

In addition, children weren't allowed in movie theaters, all Sunday schools and public pools were closed, all homes with confirmed cases were quarantined and children were not allowed in places of public gathering.

That forced the cancellation later in the month of two circuses passing through, although one of them was later allowed to perform. Montana medical historian and retired physician Volney Steele, who died in 2015, wrote an article called "Fear in the Time Paralyses: The Montana Experience" for the Summer 2005 issue of Montana: The Magazine of Western History and noted another popular attraction likely excluded kids as well.

"When Buffalo Bill's Wild West show came to Billings on August 15, 1916, there were probably not many children in attendance," he wrote.

Every day or two until mid-August, new cases continued to pop up across the area.

On Aug. 9, the outbreak reached the town of Edgar, which saw three cases and two more that were suspected, while officials found what they called a "hotbed of the dread child's disease" in Pryor on Aug. 16 with the discovery of six new cases and a death.

Later in the month as the number of infected grew, the outbreak caused the cancellation of Crow Fair and Billings officials announced that school would not resume until it was under control.

Originally slated for the beginning of the month, schools did not reopen until Sept. 25, and then only to students in fifth grade and up.

Speculation on the cause of the outbreak ranged from a family from Wisconsin that attended a church service in the area to a gray cat two afflicted children had been seen playing with earlier.

Years later, Sippy determined that Billings' status as a railroad hub, along with a rail point 18 miles from Pryor, likely brought the disease in with passengers or cargo from the east.

Treatment

With no cure or vaccine and lacking a full grasp of the virus and diagnostic tools to properly identify it, health officials in 1916 used a wide range of treatments for polio.

Steele wrote that doctors used physical examinations to identify the disease in place of lab tests.

They also treated individual symptoms, including through sedation, splints, hot packs for muscle cramps, passive exercises and even surgery in an attempt to fix limbs. As the disease progressed, patients received constant care from a nurse, and if respiratory issues surfaced, doctors might have to perform a tracheotomy to ease breathing.

In addition to Cogswell, among the leading figures in addressing the epidemic were Dr. Louis Allard, a Laurel-born physician who worked with the young St. Vincent Hospital while also serving and the City and County Physician, and Sister Mary Arcadia Lea, with the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth at the hospital.

In her history of St. Vincent Healthcare, called "The Call to Care," Sue Hart wrote that Allard and Lea used a small ward in the hospital, then on Division Street near Broadwater Avenue, to treat the growing crush of children disabled by the epidemic.

The pair eventually treated so many children that other staff began to call the young patients "Allard's kids." In response to the 1916 epidemic Allard and Lea eventually convinced the hospital to open up an annex across the street and develop a treatment program.

Hart noted that in the following years it became a program "that would ultimately attract hundreds of desperate sufferers from all over Montana and from the surrounding states to Billings. They came seeking the help available."

Public fears

All throughout the epidemic, public officials worked to ease the concerns of a scared public.

Nearly every time city, county and state boards were mentioned in the Evening Journal from July through September regarding polio, they included a statement about the epidemic being under control, that it was manageable or that people should remain calm.

In early August, those same officials lashed out at the Evening Journal, accusing the newspaper of exaggerating the epidemic to "play it up in scare heads" and Cogswell proposing cutting off any news or reporting of the epidemic.

On Aug. 10, a Billings resident identified as Mrs. Sam Roberts had a letter printed in the paper pleading with everybody to work together to address the rising numbers of infected, saying that she's "one who has felt the effects of the curse of the disease since babyhood" after contracting it as a child in the 1880s in Oregon.

"Do away positively with the shadow of a doubt and give our little ones at least an even chance against the dread disease which is now hovering over them," Roberts wrote.

Cases drop

As the number of new cases across Montana began to slow down in September, so did the number of public reports on the disease.

Quarantines and restrictions began to be lifted and by the end of the month, most children had returned to school and were allowed in public places, such as movie theaters, again.

One positive that came from the outbreak was a vast and rapid improvement of the city's sewer network.

Cosgrove issued a simple order of "Clean Up!" to the city upon his arrival over the summer and began looking at its sewer hookups as one way to do so. By the end of September dozens of new sewer connections had been made at homes and businesses across the growing city.

The 1916 plague was part of what Steele described as possibly the worst polio outbreak in U.S. history.

"For the next 39 summers after 1916, Montana parents lived in fear of their children's lives," he wrote.

That lasted into the early 1950s, infecting and killing thousands more across the globe until Jonas Salk's discovery of a polio vaccine that has since helped to all but eradicate the disease in places it is issued.

In Montana in 1954, more than 3,000 Montana children joined others across the country as some of the first to take Salk's vaccine.
BEIRUT (Sputnik)  New Syrian opposition members have not been included into the composition of the new country's government, a source from the Information Ministry told RIA Novosti Sunday.

Earlier in the day, Syrian President Bashar Assad appointed a new government headed by former Electricity Minister Imad Khamis.

"The new opposition members are not present in the new government. Reconciliation Affairs Minister Ali Haidar remains the only opposition representative," the source said.
On Friday Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia and Turkey have reached a common understanding on the Syrian crisis, following a meeting with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu.

As well as the Daesh terrorist group, Ankara has agreed that al-Nusra Front militants are terrorists. Moscow and Ankara are united in the request that moderate opposition groups leave areas controlled by terrorists.

"Anybody who doesn't want to be hit by an airstrike should leave the positions which are controlled by al-Nusra Front and Daesh. It's very simple. If there is a patriotic opposition group, a constructive opposition group, which is still located in areas under the control of terrorists, then that constructive opposition needs to order its forces to leave those areas," Lavrov said, RIA Novosti reported.
A search ship has recovered all previously located underwater human remains at the EgyptAir flight MS804 crash site, Reuters reports, citing Egypt's aircraft accident investigation committee.

The vessel headed to Alexandria port to hand over the remains co coroners, the investigation panel stated.

On May 19, EgyptAir Airbus A320 plane disappeared from radar screens over the Mediterranean Sea, 10 miles into Egyptian airspace. The plane, carrying 66 people on board, was heading to Cairo from Paris.
After a close approach the Russian ship is said to "have taken station in the San Jacintos wake about 3,000 yards astern of the cruiser" and to have broadcasted "do not cross my bow" which US officials claims is an act inconsistent with the [Incidents at Sea] agreement.

The incident comes only two weeks after an exclusive Sputnik News video shows that US Naval forces engaged in a dangerous distance along the bow of the Yaroslav Mudry at a distance of less than 230 feet (70 meters) which Moscow decried as a "gross violation" of the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea.

The Yaroslav Mudry followed its course and did not violate any international standards in this previous instance of American military hostility. The actions taken by the Yaroslav Mudry could be understood as a necessary precaution to prevent a similar incident of risky US intimidation tactics on the high seas.
The officer indicated that at present, medium and long-range hypersonic missile systems are perceived as the main threat when it comes to hypersonic weaponry.

Late last year, Leonov noted that Russia's air defenses would be looking to achieve the capability to repel hypersonic attacks by the year 2020. "Creating next generation air defenses capable of effectively fighting all types of air attacks, including hypersonic ones, is one of the main directions of development of Russia's air defense forces until 2020," the officer said.
The analyst recalled that submarines today can be broken down into two categories  nuclear and non-nuclear. During the Cold War, he noted, "the Soviet Union possessed the most powerful and most diverse submarine fleet in the world, including both nuclear and non-nuclear vessels. Unfortunately, much of this fleet was all but destroyed in the 1990s."

At the same time, Polevoy noted, "the ability to build nuclear submarines is something only a narrow circle of leading world powers are capable of. The United States and Britain have staked their resources exclusively on the construction of nuclear submarines, whose main advantage is a powerful reactor, and the ability to remain under water at a considerable depth for long periods of time. Subsequently, in spite of diesel subs' [comparatively] low cost, Washington and London have rejected them. The greater part of the world, meanwhile, has focused on developing non-nuclear submarines  due to their inability to build nuclear vessels."

"However, this has led to astounding results. Once considered a 'dead-end branch of research', non-nuclear submarines have recently essentially caught up with the characteristics of their nuclear cousins, demonstrating excellent performance at low noise levels and high maneuverability (all the while being significantly less expensive)."

For instance, Polevoy recalled, "in 2003, the Swedish non-nuclear submarine Gotland confidently prevailed in training duels over French and American nuclear subs."
"Typically, such ships patrolled areas near the trajectory of rockets or space objects. It's not possible to place sufficiently powerful antennae on board satellites to allow for precise measurements of the rockets' characteristics, whereas tracking ships were equipped with such powerful antennas."

"For instance, Kosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the flagship vessel of the Soviet Space Research Service [withdrawn from service in 1991 and sold for scrap in 1996] had 75 antennas on board, two of them consisting of large parabolic dish antennas with a diameter of 25 meters eachThis allowed [scientists] to track spacecraft with very high accuracy; the ship was capable of independently controlling satellites and spacecraft, sending instructions to them, and retransmitting such instructions from Mission Control."

In its own time, The Marshal Krylov also took part in tracking spacecraft for manned space flights to space stations, and monitoring the parameters of test warheads of strategic missiles. In 2011, Sivkov recalled, the ship monitored the test of submarine-launched Bulava missiles in the Pacific Ocean.

"In the Soviet period, the civilian 'Maritime Space Fleet' consisted of 11 specialized vessels. The Pacific Fleet, meanwhile, had a total of eight tracking ships, from which only the Marshal Krylov remains; six of the remaining ships were sold for scrap, while the Sakhalin tracking ship was sold to China for conversion. Unfortunately, the 1990s saw the near-fatal destruction of our defense industry, and the ships simply did not have the opportunity to get out into the oceans for economic reasons; after all, one of the main requirements for such vessels is the capacity for autonomy."

In light of the particularities of tracking ships' work, Sivkov suggested that new Project 18290 ship must be "fairly large (with the displacement of the Marshal Krylov amounting to 23.7 thousand tons), must feature a powerful antenna array and onboard computer systems. Such a ship is simply indispensable, considering that the Marshal Krylov was put into service in February 1990," over 25 years ago.
Indias indigenous next generation fighter jet, nearly 33 years in the making due to a string of system mishaps was finally unveiled at long last this week signaling a shift by New Delhi upon military self-determination after years of dependency on the Western military industrial complex.

"Easily the best aircraft Ive flown," said Rangachari following an initial flight of the fighter jet which was inducted into the Indian Air Force (IAF) fleet on Friday. The rave reviews by pilots are a promising signal for the IAF which looks to feature the fighter jet in its 2017 combat plan and may look to deploy the aircraft in forward bases as well.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Manufactured by the S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, Progress MS-01 is the first vehicle in Russia's modernized Progress-MS series and is designed to carry out resupply missions to the ISS. The spacecraft was docked to the ISS in December 2015.

Previously, the ISS was resupplied with Progress-M series vehicles, the last of which was submerged in April, 2016.

Unpiloted cargo craft successfully redocks after manual rendezvous test Friday. Spaceship departs for good Saturday. https://t.co/F86g6oA1wg  Intl. Space Station (@Space_Station) 2 July 2016

"Progress MS has been undocked from the ISS as scheduled. Its engines will switch to slowdown mode at 10:03 AM Moscow time [07:03 GMT]. The splashdown of unburned fragments of the cargo spacecraft is scheduled for 10:50 AM Moscow time in a non-navigational area of the Pacific ocean, several thousand kilometers from New Zealand's capital Wellington," the representative told RIA Novosti.
The technology, first deployed inside the new Mercedes-Benz E-Class, allows cars to wirelessly "talk" with each other, signaling up-to-date information about traffic jams, oncoming cars, and accidents.

Army tanks and jeeps will drive along the route that will include six roadside sensors. Those can also communicate with the vehicles and say, for instance, how many non-military cars have drove by a checkpoint in the past 24 hours.
The first thing you need to know about bear spray is that it works: Field studies show its far more effective than firearms at stopping a bear attack without injuring the person or the bear.

The second important thing is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classifies bear spray as a pesticide.

Beyond that, we go to the lawyers.

Thats what happened during the most recent meeting of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee in Bonners Ferry, Idaho. Makers of UDAP Bear Spray questioned why the organization continues to recommend a six-second spray duration in its buying criteria. Four companies make EPA-registered bear spray, and all have at least 1 percent capsaicinoid active ingredients (the same irritant that makes chili peppers hot), hold at least 225 grams of fluid and project at least 25 feet.

But Kalispell-made Counter Assault Bear Spray blasts for a minimum of 7.2 seconds, while Butte-made UDAP lasts four to 5.4 seconds. UDAP argues thats a distinction without a difference.

(T)he six-second spray recommendation is arbitrary, capricious and serves no other meaningful purpose other than to give one bear spray company a market advantage over all the others, UDAP attorney Greg Dorrington told the IGBC.

Thats not what customers in the field say, Counter Assault general manager George Hyde rebutted. He noted UDAP made the same complaint to the IGBC in 2007, but the recommendation remained the same.

A great number of bear management and research people who work with bears on a daily basis would prefer longer spray time and distance if it were available, Hyde said. Should the IGBC be bowing to commercial pressure rather than following the advice of people who use it?

For its part, IGBC spokesman Gregg Losinski said the organization would look at the claims.

Were not a regulating body saying this is the right tool, Losinski said. Theres no seal of approval, just a recommendation for certain distances and duration. The EPA approval is the main thing.

And the EPA only governs the chemical composition inside the can, not the physical action of its use. The National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks and many other public and private agencies have been vigorously promoting bear spray use as an effective way of managing bear conflicts. All those bodies generally refer back to the IGBC recommendations for what spray to use.

The Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee convenes a roundtable of people responsible for grizzly management in the Pacific Northwest. It includes the state fish and game departments of Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, Alberta and British Columbia, as well as federal agencies such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service. It formed in 1983, shortly after the grizzly gained threatened species status under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Three decades later, the committee has shifted from recovering grizzly populations in the Rocky Mountains to delisting what it considers a recovery success story. A side task has been public education about living with bears, which is how it got involved in the bear spray topic.

Missoulas late grizzly bear researcher Chuck Jonkel was instrumental in developing bear spray as a nonlethal alternative to firearms for bear protection. Working with University of Montana graduate student Carrie Hunt, he helped popularize the idea of using a pepper spray developed for dogs as a bear deterrent in the early 1980s.

Counter Assault founder Bill Pounds started developing a commercial bear spray based on Jonkel and Hunts research in 1982. In 1998, members of the IGBC asked for a review of bear spray product effectiveness. The following year, the IGBC published a position paper suggesting guidelines for choosing and using bear spray. Those guidelines included the six-second spray duration.

UDAP accused the committee of playing favorites in 2007 by recommending the six-second spray duration and by featuring a red spray can in its educational materials. Counter Assault has typically packaged its spray in red cans, while UDAP uses a nearly identical can with an orange or blue label.

The IGBC changed the color of a generic can illustration on its website to blue, but it kept the six-second spray duration recommendation. While the website explicitly states it makes no endorsements of a particular product, Counter Assault prominently features the IGBC guidelines in its promotional materials.

We know weve lost sales due to it, UDAP general manager Tim Lynch said. We believe its misinformation for the public. Theres a lot of support showing all the EPA-registered bear sprays are working great. We want to get everyone on the same page.

Neither Lynch nor Hyde would cite specific sales numbers of their spray cans, although Hyde said his company had seen about 20 percent annual growth in each of the past five years.

IGBC Chairman Jim Unsworth, of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, referred the matter to a subcommittee for review, with a plan to have results by the groups winter meeting.

We realize bear spray is becoming a big business, Losinski said. From a dollars-and-cents standpoint, theres different concerns. But were focused on what works as far as keeping bears out of trouble. Weve never wanted to venture into what is the best bear spray. Both companies are doing good things, but ultimately it is a business.
A blast hit New York's Central Park on Sunday leaving one man critically injured, local media reported.

The ABC News reported with reference to local police that the incident occurred not far from the Central Park Zoo, though the reasons of the explosion are still unclear.

According to the police, the injured man was taken to a hospital with a "possible amputation" as quoted by the broadcaster.
According to Walesa, such actions on the part of Russia cannot be tolerated.

"If I was a commanding officer on that ship, and I saw those planes flying above, I would just shoot them down." He said in an interview to Free Europe radio, "I wouldn't kill the pilots. I'd shoot through the wing"

The former leader of the eastern European country asserted that it is the proper way to answer the alleged "Russian threat" and that "otherwise they will win," but he does not believe such an act of hostility would lead to a military conflict with Russia.
"Yet these diplomats seem to have mostly ignored Russia's role in Syria  and at least for now, it is Russia, not America, that is the decisive force in the Syrian war," Heller wrote.

He referred to Russia's air campaign in Syria, which was held between September 2015 and March 2016 and which Heller claimed was aimed "to establish itself as the central military actor in Syria's war."

"Russia has used its military primacy to oblige others  including the United States  to treat it as the gatekeeper to a negotiated solution to the [Syrian] conflict," he pointed out.

In his think piece, Heller quoted a whole array of Western diplomats and pro-Syrian government journalists as describing Russia's military support of the Assad regime and its allies as "the decisive factor on the Syrian battlefield."

In this vein, he specifically mentioned the deployment of sophisticated S-400 Russian missile systems on the Syrian coast in December 2015, something that Heller called "a potentially lethal threat to U.S. pilots attempting to strike the [Assad] regime."

According to him, "this deployment contributed to forcing the United States to 'de-conflict' its operations in Syria with those of Russia."

As far as talks on Syria are concerned, they are nominally sponsored by the International Syria Support Group, but it is Russia and the United States that clinched a bilateral arrangement on the negotiations and the cessation of hostilities, Heller recalled.

"Within that US-Russian dyad, it is primarily Russia that has agency. The negotiations and the cessation of hostilities have already broken Russia's diplomatic isolation and drawn the United States into stepped-up military and political cooperation," he wrote.
Among the sectors with an over-reliance on imported products, Medvedev named the machine tool industry, the manufacture of heavy machinery, and machinery used for oil and gas extraction.

Other areas of Russias economy are already extremely self-sufficient. Imported goods only have a 7-12 percent share in the Russian defense industry, and in the majority of defense sub-sectors the issue of import substitution has been solved.

The same can be said for many areas of the chemical industry, and in agricultural sectors such as fish farming, poultry and brewing.

In 2015, the Russian government financed more than 800 economic investment projects, with 73.5 billion rubles ($1.2 billion) invested through state development funds. In addition, the government provided subsidies for loans and research and development.

Following the reforms, last year already saw some progress in import substitution: the share of imported consumer goods in the retail sector decreased from 42 percent in 2014, to 38 percent in 2015.

Russia is not the only developing economy seeking to produce its own alternatives to imported products; neighboring China has managed to substitute imports in a range of areas, albeit taking a different approach.

On Saturday, RT Russian compiled a shortlist of sectors in which China has managed to provide its own alternative to imports.

Technology

In 2000, China launched the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, its own alternative to the US GPS and Russian Glonass satellite navigation systems, which were launched in 1978 and 1982 respectively.

The system's 23rd satellite was launched last month, and it aims to deploy a constellation of 35 satellites by 2020 to provide services to global users.

Around 70 percent of China's population uses the satellite system on their mobile phones to search for locations or organize travel arrangements.

Chinese manufacturers of consumer goods have also gained inspiration from imported mobile phones, and transport vehicles.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he would start a historic visit to Africa on Monday aiming to find new political and trade partners.

"Tomorrow I am leaving on an historic visit to Africa, after decades in which a prime minister has not been there We intend to return to the African continent, which has 54 countries We intend to return to Africa just as Africa is returning to Israel. This has very important implications vis-a-vis varying our international alliances and international relations, which are expanding to the major powers in Asia, to Russia, to Latin America and  of course  to the African continent," Netanyahu said at a weekly cabinet meeting.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)UK police summoned Tzipi Livni, the former Israeli foreign Minister and acting member of parliament from the Zionist Union, for questioning over links to alleged war crimes committed by Israeli military during operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip in 2008-2009, Israeli media reported Sunday.

According the Haaretz newspaper, Livni is currently in London to attend the Israeli conference organized by the media outlet.

On Thursday, Livni received a telephone call from Scotland Yard's War Crimes unit, which asked the lawmaker to confirm her upcoming visit to London and then sent the summons via email, the publication reads.
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Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) J&K has launched "special Yatra SIM Cards" for pilgrims of annual Amarnath yatra beginning from July 2 in south Kashmir.

"BSNL has launched special Yatra SIM Cards taking care of communication requirements of pilgrims," a PIB spokesman said.

He said that BSNL has launched special initiatives for pilgrims in view of Amarnath yatra and there will be seamless mobile connectivity from Baltal and Chandanwari to holy cave.

The Special Yatra SIM cards will be available at Lakhanpur Border and at Base Camp Bhagwati Nagar in addition to already existing outlets at Baltal and Chandanwari,he said.

The spokesman said that the SIM card comes with a bundle of benefits including free talk time, attractive call charges and free data with a validity period of seven days.

"A special Customer service centre has been established at Base Camp Bhagwati Nagar Jammu to assist the pilgrims round the clock via Helpline No.0191-2555556," he said.

PTI
Three dogs died as a result of a South Side structure fire on the 3700 block of State Avenue Saturday night.

Billings fire crews were dispatched at around 8 p.m. to the scene of a structure fire at 8 Washington St. in an alleyway between Washington and Adams streets.

Fire Marshal Mike Spini, the fire's investigator, said in a press release that three dogs died as a result of the fire and that the structure was occupied at the time of the fire. The Billings Fire Department initially reported that the structure was unoccupied at the time of the fire.

Spini estimated the property and content loss to the uninsured structure at $15,000 and described smoke damage throughout the home and moderate fire damage to the bedroom.

Spini's press release states that the fire is still under investigation.

Burned furniture was pulled, piled and hosed down outside of the single story structure by firefighters. Three fire engines and a Battalion Chief's truck responded to the fire. No smoke or flames were visible by about 8:30 p.m., and firefighters could be seen going in and out of the single story building with pike poles. One dog was observed at the time walking in the area around the structure.

Billings Police Department officers arrived at the scene at about 8:40 p.m., and one man was led away from the scene in handcuffs. BPD Sgt. Brandon Wooley said the arrest was unrelated to the fire and that officers recognized the man as having an active warrant. Wooley believed the man was either a friend or family member of the structure's resident.

As firefighters continued to work, about a dozen people gathered along Washington Street. BPD Officer Jeff Stovall said police were called by the Billings Fire Department out of concern that onlookers were growing rowdy and agitated.
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A team of international researchers, including an Indian-origin graduate student, is developing software that could let you control your smartphone through eye movements to play games, open apps and do other stuff.

The team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Georgia and Germanys Max Planck Institute for Informatics has so far been able to train software to identify where a person is looking with an accuracy of about a centimetre on a mobile phone and 1.7 centimetres on a tablet, MIT Technology Review reported.

According to study co-author Aditya Khosla from MIT, the system's accuracy will improve with more data.

To achieve this, the researchers created an app called GazeCapture that gathered data about how people look at their phones in different environments outside the confines of a lab.

Users' gaze was recorded with the phone's front camera as they were shown pulsating dots on a smartphone screen. To make sure they were paying attention, they were then shown a dot with an L or R inside it, and they had to tap the left or ride side of the screen in response.

GazeCapture information was then used to train software called iTracker, which can also run on an iPhone. The handset's camera captures your face, and the software considers factors like the position and direction of your head and eyes to figure out where your gaze is focused on the screen.

About 1,500 people have used the GazeCapture app so far, Khosla said, adding if the researchers can get data from 10,000 people they'll be able to reduce iTracker's error rate to half a centimetre, which should be good enough for a range of eye-tracking applications.

The study results were recently presented at the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition in Seattle, Washington.

Other potential usage of the software could be in medical diagnoses, particularly to diagnose conditions including schizophrenia and concussions, Khosla said.

IANS
Woman contacts life-threatening infection from her pet dog

Life Desk :

An elderly woman contacted a life-threatening infection from her household per, an Italian greyhound. She was admitted to intensive care due to organ failure.

Doctors who treated the 70-year-old patient explained that she developed acute kidney failure after a few days of being admitted to hospital. Paramedics discovered her slumped in a chair, with decreased consciousness, after she had slurred speech and became unresponsive while on the telephone to a relative.

'The 70-year-old patient developed sepsis from cavities in her dog's mouth that she often petted closely and let it lick her.'

Upon admission to hospital, her symptoms temporarily improved, but on the fourth day, she developed confusion, headache, diarrhea, and rigors, along with high fever. She was transferred to intensive care for kidney failure.

Blood cultures revealed Capnocytophaga canimorsus, a rare yet significant cause of sepsis. It is a bacterium frequently isolated in the oral cavities of cats and dogs. After two weeks of intensive care and antibiotic treatment, the patient made a full recovery.

Only 13 cases of sepsis related to C. canimorsus have been reported in the UK since 1990. Mortality rates of 26 percent, with 60 percent of cases reporting a dog bite and 24 percent reporting another dog contact, have been documented.

"This is an interesting case," the doctors explain, "because neither scratch nor bite was established, although close petting including licks was reported." Diseases which can be transmitted to humans from animals are frequently missed diagnoses, explain the doctors, and they summarize important infections transmitted by cats and dogs. The study appears in the online journal BMJ Case Reports.

Source: ANI
Milon, Aupee in Eid play Jojon Biyojon

Sheikh Arif Bulbon :

Anisur Rahman Milon and Aupee Karim first worked together in Noresh Bhuiyans telefilm Doyeeta. Basically by that telefilm viewers first watched Milon on the screen in role of a hero. For this reason, while talking about telefilms Doyeeta comes often. Viewers have also acceptability about Milon and Aupee. As a result, they are found to work together in special days plays and telefilms.

This Eid, directed by Rubayet Mahmud Aupee and Milon worked together in a special play titled Jojon Biyojon. Mezbahuddin Sumon wrote story of the play. The play is scheduled to be aired on Channel 9 on third day of Eid-ul-Fitr. Shooting of the play was wrapped up on Sunday at a shooting house in the citys Uttara area.

While talking about the play Milon told this correspondent, From the beginning chemistry between Aupee and me is good. Viewers naturally find comfortable to watch us as a pair on the screen. I get this response after airing any telefilm or play. In fact, Aupee is really outstanding as an actress. I got huge responses from the viewers in those works where Aupee was my co-actress. I am very much optimistic about this play.

Aupee Karim shared her feelings by this way, When Eid comes I try to work a little bit. I always concentrate about script of any play. Story of Jojon Biyojon is really nice. This play will be aired on Channel 9.

Milon and Aupee for the last time worked together in Sagor Jahans play E Shohor Madhobilatar Na.

Therefore, Aupee will be seen to work in Sagor Jahan, Ashfaq Nipun, Goutam Koirees plays. She will be also seen to perform in a special dance programme on RTV.

On the other hand, to pass Eid holidays with wife and children Milon left Dhaka for USA on Monday.


Rotarian Ahmed Elish speaking at a discussion meeting before Iftar Mahfil organised by South Chittagong Chhatra Forum at CBA office recently.
With Russia as an ally, Serbia edges toward NATO

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a military parade to mark 70 years since the city\'s liberation by the Red Army in Belgrade, Serbia.

Reuters, Belgrade :Serbia is performing a delicate balancing act between its European aspirations, partnership with NATO and its centuries-old religious, ethnic and political alliance with Russia.Belgrade is being wooed by the West which has sought to bring it into the fold since the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. Serbia is now a European Union membership candidate and the bloc is its top trade partner and benefactor.Belgrade is also quietly moving toward NATO despite the reservations of most Serbians but it is wary of damaging its loudly proclaimed friendship with Russia that wants to boost its influence in the region and which is hostile to the military alliance."Serbia cannot entirely turn to NATO, it will maintain the maximum level of cooperation with it, without changing its (membership) status," said Genady Sysoev, Balkan correspondent for Russia's Kommersant newspaper and an expert on Moscow's policy in the region."Serbia cannot turn to Russia because ... no Serbian leadership would risk losing Western investment and aid."Serbia is one of the few Balkan countries not in the 28-member NATO which is hugely unpopular among Serbs after its 1999 bombing campaign to drive Serbian forces out of Kosovo.Alliance peacekeepers are also still deployed in Kosovo, Serbia's former southern province, whose independence in 2008 has not been accepted by Belgrade.But in 2006 Serbia, which adopted military neutrality, joined NATO's Partnership for Peace program and in 2015 Belgrade signed the Individual Partnership Action Plan - the highest rung of cooperation between the alliance and a country not aspiring to join."Serbia has demonstrated great enthusiasm for the partnership with NATO, relations between NATO and Serbia will be developing, benefits for Serbia will increase," Gordon Duguid, Deputy Chief of the United States mission to Serbia, was quoted by the Tanjug news agency as saying on June 28.Serbia is however, highly emotional about non-NATO member Russia, an ally that, for example, prevented Kosovo from becoming a member of the United Nations, at Belgrade's request.Serbia also shares Slavic and Orthodox Christian traditions with Russia and depends on it for energy. The largest Serbian oil company, Naftna Industrija Srbije, is majority-owned by Russia's Gazprom and its gas imports come from Russia.As a token of good relations, Belgrade in 2012 also allowed Moscow to set up a base for rapid response in emergency situations such as forest fires and floods in Serbia's southern city of Nis.The Serbian military is loosely based on Russian technology, a legacy of former Yugoslavia's ties with the Soviet Union.
GANGACHARA (Rangpur): Shahnaza Afroz, Upazila Women Affairs Officer and Masud Rana, Cooperative Officer handing over sewing machines among the poor women organised by Hanger Project recently.
Germanys new global role

Frank-Walter Steinmeier :

(From previous issue)

Our historical experience has destroyed any belief in national exceptionalism-for any nation. Whenever possible, we choose Recht (law) over Macht (power). As a result, Germany emphasizes the need for legitimacy in supranational decision-making and invests in UN-led multilateralism.

Every German military deployment faces intense public scrutiny and must receive approval from the Bundestag. Germans always seek to balance the responsibility to protect the weak with the responsibility of restraint. If Germany's partners and allies walk an extra mile for diplomacy and negotiations, Germans want their government to walk one mile further, sometimes to our partners' chagrin. That does not mean Germany is overcompensating for its belligerent past. Rather, as a reflective power, Germany struggles to reconcile the lessons of history with the challenges of today. Germany will continue to frame its international posture primarily in civilian and diplomatic terms and will resort to military engagement only after weighing every risk and every possible alternative.

Germany's relative economic strength and its cautious approach to the use of force have persisted as the regional and global environment has undergone radical change. Germany's partnership with the United States and its integration into the EU have been the main pillars of its foreign policy. But as the United States and the EU have stumbled, Germany has held its ground and emerged as a major power, largely by default.

Germans do not believe that talking at roundtables solves every problem, but neither do they think that shooting does.

In this role, Germany has come to realize that it cannot escape its responsibilities. Since Germany sits at the center of Europe, neither isolation nor confrontation is a prudent policy option. Instead, Germany tries to use dialogue and cooperation to promote peace and end conflict.

Consider Germany's new role in the Middle East. For decades, the Arab-Israeli conflict dominated the region's political landscape. In the decades after World War II, Germany deliberately avoided a role at the forefront of diplomatic efforts to resolve the standoff. But today, as conflicts have spread, Germany is engaging more broadly across the region. Since 2003, when multilateral efforts to dissuade Iran from building a nuclear bomb began, Germany has played a central role, and it was one of the signatories to the agreement reached in 2015. Germany is also deeply involved in finding a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Syria.

Nor is Germany shying away from the responsibility to help construct a new security architecture in the region-a process for which the Iran deal may have paved the way. Europe's history offers some useful lessons here. The 1975 Helsinki conference helped overcome the continent's Cold War-era divisions through the creation of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. If regional players choose to look at that example, they will find useful lessons that might assist them in addressing their current conflicts.

Sometimes Germans need others to remind us of the usefulness of our own history. Last year, for example, I had an inspiring conversation with a small group of intellectuals in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. One of them remarked, "We need a Westphalian peace for our region." The deal that diplomats in Munster and Osnabruck hammered out in 1648 to separate religion from military power inspires thinkers in the Middle East to this day; for a native Westphalian like me, there could be no better reminder of the instructive power of the past.

Closer to home, the Ukraine crisis has tested Germany's leadership and diplomatic skills. Since the collapse of Viktor Yanukovych's regime and the Russian annexation of Crimea in early 2014, Germany and France have led international efforts to contain and ultimately solve the military and political crisis. As the U.S. government has focused on other challenges, Germany and France have assumed the role of Russia's main interlocutors on questions concerning European security and the survival of the Ukrainian state.

Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, May 2015.

Germany did not elbow its way into that position, nor did anyone else appoint it to that role. Its long-standing economic and political ties to both Russia and Ukraine made it a natural go-between for both sides, despite Berlin's obvious support for the victims of Moscow's aggression.

The intense political debate that played out within Germany over how to respond to the challenge only enhanced Berlin's credibility, by showing the world that the government did not take its decisions lightly.

The Minsk agreement that Germany and France brokered in February 2015 to halt hostilities is far from perfect, but one thing is certain: without it, the conflict would have long ago spun out of control and extended beyond the Donbas region of Ukraine. Going forward, Germany will continue to do what it can to prevent the tensions from escalating into a new Cold War.

During the euro crisis, meanwhile, Germany was forced to confront the danger posed by the excessive debt levels of some Mediterranean EU states.

The overwhelming majority of the eurozone's members and the International Monetary Fund supported plans to demand that countries such as Greece impose budgetary controls and hard but unavoidable economic and social reforms to ensure the eventual convergence of the economies of the eurozone. But rather than placing the responsibility for such changes in the hands of these countries' national elites, many in Europe preferred to blame Germany for allegedly driving parts of southern European into poverty, submission, and collapse.

Perhaps no other European nation's fate is so closely connected to the existence and success of the EU.

Germany has come under similar criticism during the ongoing refugee crisis. Last autumn, Germany opened the country's borders to refugees, mainly from Iraq and Syria. The governments of the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia worried that this move would worsen the crisis by encouraging more refugees to enter their countries in the hope of eventually crossing into Germany. So far, however, such fears have proved unfounded.

How and when Europe will resolve this crisis remains unclear. What is clear, however, is that even a relatively strong country such as Germany cannot do it alone. We cannot give in to the rising desire of certain groups of the electorate to respond on a solely national level, by setting arbitrary limits on the acceptance of refugees, for example. Germany cannot and will not base its foreign policy on solutions that promise quick fixes but in reality are counterproductive, be they walls or wars.

(Frank-Walter Steinmeier is Foreign Minister of Germany)
Preventable child deaths not always linked to poorest countries

Aruna Dutt :

Millions of children still die before reaching their fifth birthday every year, according to the 2016 State of The World's Children Report released here Tuesday by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).

The report, which is released annually, shows that a country's income does not always determine progress in child mortality. Many poorer countries are outpacing their richer neighbours in reducing their mortality rates, and some rapidly growing economies - including India and Nigeria - have been in the slower lane for reducing child mortality.

The picture is unequal within rich countries too. The United States has a higher infant mortality rate than most high-income countries, and the odds of survival are closely linked to racial inequality: In 2013, infants born to African American parents were more than twice as likely to die as those born to white Americans.

By 2030, five countries will account for more than half of the global burden of under-five deaths: India (17 percent), Nigeria (15 percent), Pakistan (8 percent), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (7 percent) and Angola (5 percent).

Without increased international action in the next fifteen years, 69 million children under five will die from mostly preventable causes. For approximately 1 million children in 2015, their first day of life was also their last.

The report estimates that if all mothers achieved secondary education, there would be 1.5 million fewer annual deaths of children under age 5 in sub-Saharan Africa and 1.3 million fewer in South Asia.

In an analysis of 75 high-burden countries, only eight are expected to reach the Sustainable Development Goal target for neonatal and under-five survival which if achieved fully would save the lives of 38 million children worldwide.

The report estimates that if all mothers achieved secondary education, there would be 1.5 million fewer annual deaths of children under age 5 in sub-Saharan Africa and 1.3 million fewer in South Asia.

However, with no progress, almost 950 million women will have been married as children by 2030, up from more than 700 million today. Child marriage will increasingly deny girls their childhood, limit opportunities for education and mean they will begin childbearing too early.

Child brides are less likely than adult women to receive adequate medical care while pregnant. Babies born to mothers under age 20 are 1.5 times more likely to die during the first 28 days than babies born to mothers in their twenties or thirties.

The lack of care, and the fact that girls are not physically mature enough to give birth, put both mothers and their babies at risk.

"When a girl is in school, those around her are more likely to see her as a child, rather than as a woman ready to be a wife and mother. And the experience of going to school is empowering for girls, enabling them to develop skills and knowledge, and to forge social networks that equip them to communicate and stand up for their interests." Angelique Kidjo, Award-winning artist and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador said.

Education enables women to delay and space births, secure access to maternal and child health care and seek treatment for children when they fall ill.

But the number of children who do not attend school has increased since 2011, and many who do go to school are not learning: 38 percent of children finish primary school without learning how to read, write and do simple arithmetic.

In low-income countries, children from the richest 10 percent of the population receive around 46 percent of the benefits from public spending on education.

Based on current trends, low-income countries will not be on track to achieve universal primary and lower secondary school completion until around the turn of the next century.

-IPS


The city of Billings new website gives new prominence to often-visited departments and services, including the library, police, municipal court  and job opportunities.

Its also a launching pad for finding out what's going on within Billings' boundaries.

We want to bring attention to the many things going on in the community, said David Watterson, the citys chief information officer. As visitors look at the site, they might be enticed to learn more.

The most visible change is a new slideshow highlighting the community. Clicking on a photo takes the visitor to that particular website.

The new website, at www.ci.billings.mt.us, went live at 10 a.m. Thursday. The dynamic and interactive new website is hosted by CivicPlus, a government website development firm with more than 2,000 local government clients.

The new site was provided at no additional cost because the contract with the city includes a redesigned website every four years.

The airport/MET Transit and library websites are redesigned and available from the city's main page. People getting ready to board a flight at Billings Logan International Airport can view real-time flight information at the site. By clicking the library button, book-lovers can scroll down the library homepage to see a book jacket carousel featuring new library arrivals.

The overall format of the new website is light and airy, Watterson said, featuring elements borrowed from other CivicPlus clients whose sites have won awards for their usefulness. Pages load faster than before, and theyre optimized depending on whether theyre being viewed on a desktop, laptop, tablet or smart phone.

We got 20 people together to look at what other cities are doing, he said. We used that as a melting pot to get our ideas together, then gave those to a smaller committee to put together a rough draft. We havent received too much feedback yet, but we did look at traffic patterns to learn why people come to the site. It is an improved and more responsive site.
Italian government released photos of their nine nationals confirming their death at Spanish cafe in Gulshan on Sunday.
Hillary was 'eager' for FBI interview on use of private email server

NBC News :

Hillary Clinton was interviewed on Saturday at FBI headquarters in Washington, as part of the investigation into her use of a private email server while secretary of state in the Obama administration.

The interview lasted three and a half hours, the Clinton campaign said, and came at the end of a week in which the attorney general, Loretta Lynch, expressed her regret over a private meeting with Bill Clinton which critics used to cast doubt on her impartiality on the email issue.

Clinton's campaign confirmed the meeting early on Saturday. Later, the former secretary of state told MSNBC she had been "eager" to participate in the interview and was "pleased to have the opportunity" to help the justice department bring the investigation to a conclusion.

Speaking to MSNBC's Chuck Todd, Clinton agreed that the FBI interview had been "civil and businesslike" but declined to discuss specifics. It remains unclear when the investigation will come to

an end or whether any prosecutions will follow. Clinton has nonetheless been eager to close down an issue that has dogged every step of her presidential campaign. Her email practices while heading the state department were first revealed in March 2015. She launched her bid to succeed Barack Obama in the White House the following month.

The presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump, has said he would pursue a criminal indictment of Clinton if elected president. On Saturday, he tweeted: "It is impossible for the FBI not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton. What she did was wrong! What Bill did was stupid!"

Reince Priebus, chair of the Republican National Committee, released a statement in which he said: "Hillary Clinton has just taken the unprecedented step of becoming the first major party presidential candidate to be interviewed by the FBI as part of a criminal investigation surrounding her reckless conduct.

"That the FBI wanted her for questioning reinforces her central role in deliberately creating a culture which put her own political ambitions above state department rules and jeopardized our national security."

Between May 2015 and February 2016, more than 30,000 of Clinton's emails were released in tranches. Among the emails was information marked as classified by government officials, although Clinton's campaign has said the material was not classified at the time it was exchanged. The matter was referred to the justice department, which opened an investigation in July 2015.

In May of this year, a state department audit found that the use of the private server had violated department rules. Violations cited in the audit included the use of mobile devices for official business without checking if they were secure. Asked on NBC if she had violated the law, Clinton reiterated that communications marked as classified during the state department's review of her emails had only been done so retroactively.

"Let me just repeat what I have repeated for many months now," Clinton said. "I never received nor sent any material that was marked classified."

She added: "There is a process for the review of material before it is released to the public and there were decisions made that material should be classified. So therefore it would not be publicly released."

Clinton's meeting with the FBI signalled that the investigation could be nearing its final stages. She is set to formally accept her party's nomination for president later this month, at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Polling has found Americans split over Clinton's email issue. Republicans are overwhelmingly more likely than Democrats to view her behavior as unethical, but the controversy has taken a toll more broadly on whether voters view Clinton as trustworthy.

Clinton acknowledged to MSNBC it was a perception she needed to overcome.

"I have said that I'm going to continue to put forth my record, what I have stood for, do everything I can to earn the trust of the voters of our country," she said. "I know that's something that I'm going to keep working on."

Lynch said on Friday she would accept whatever recommendations were put forward by the FBI and career prosecutors upon the conclusion of the case. Lynch described her encounter with Bill Clinton, at an airport in Phoenix, as a purely social discussion. But Republicans and even some Democrats said the timing of the meeting raised concerns and Lynch acknowledged it had "cast a shadow" over the justice department's investigation, a process she insisted was independent. "It's important to make it clear that that meeting with President Clinton does not have a bearing on how this matter will be reviewed and resolved," Lynch said at the Aspen ideas festival in Colorado. "The recommendations will be reviewed by career supervisors in the department of justice and in the FBI, and by the FBI director. And then, as is the common process, they present it to me and I fully expect to accept their recommendations." Clinton told MSNBC the meeting was both short and unplanned, and characterized it as "an exchange of pleasantries". She also echoed Lynch's claim that the justice department review was not discussed. "I think, you know, hindsight is 20/20," she said. "Both the attorney general and my husband have said they wouldn't do it again. "Obviously no one wants to see any untoward conclusions drawn."
Man killed in 'gunfight' with police in Jessore

Jessore Correspondent :

A man whom the police claimed to be a robber was killed in a 'gunfight' between them at 2:30am on Saturday. But family members said he was picked up earlier by four motorbike riders.

The deceased was identified as Faruk Hossain, 42, son of Abu Bakr from Daulatdihi village under Kotwali Police Station.

Ilias Hossain, Officer-in-Charge of Kotwali Police Station, said that an

unidentified 'robber' died at Khulna Medical College Hospital after he received bullet wounds in a 'gunfight' between a gang of robbers and the police at the time of committing robbery at Kanaitala on the Rajarhat- Chuknagar Road at 2:30am.

He was first taken to Jessore Medical College Hospital and then shifted to Khulna, the OC added. He succumbed to his injuries there.

Taslima Begum, wife of the victim, told a group of newsmen that her husband was a farmer.

He was abducted by four persons identifying themselves as members of police when he was cleaning jute fibers in the nearby river from their residence at around 11am on Friday. 'The police men came there by two motorbikes'.
Privatisation may hand over public banks to wealthy people

NEWS report in The New Nation said quoting banking experts that since the condition of the country's state-owned banks is rapidly deteriorating, it is time the government should think to hand over those banks to private sector. They have mainly held reckless misconduct of senior bank officials and inefficiency of bank management for the poor state of these banks when most of them are surviving on regular budgetary bail out to keep their window open. Most banks like Sonali, Agrani, Rupali and BASIC Banks have lost much of their working capital over the past several years. They were subject to massive swindling by powerful people in and around the government. They arranged big loans on fake business projects and most of such projects are not traceable at the moment. Others are holding huge defaulted loans and avoiding the repayment through undue loan rescheduling for longer years. It is too big that out of Tk 60,000 crore defaulted loans Tk 32,000 alone belong to state-owned banks.

Even Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Saturday said he was highly worried about the condition of the state-owned banks and he seems to be utterly disappointed as he has to allocate regular recapitalization fund to avoid closure of some banks. It appears that when the government is spending taxpayers money to beef up banks capital, powerful people are exploiting banks to their advantage. It can't go unabated for long when banks are commercial organization and that should survive earning profit and not functioning like charities. So former bankers believe that such banks must be set free to private ownership to survive by competition with other banks. Finance Minister recently said banks have witnessed sea level theft and since the government is not capable to stop the theft, experts believe it must relinquish control over those banks.

We know that big business houses robbed Sonali Bank and Chairman of BASIC Bank made it empty. Agrani Bank Chief Executive was sacked last week for granting loans in questionable circumstances. The list is hefty that led many to think that privatization of state-owned banks might prove effective at the end. Experts suggestion that privatization of Sonali Bank, the largest one in public sector, may be on card while retaining others in public hand may make sense. But question also arises as to whether sales of such banks would be sustainable for the economy and whether the government can manage a fair deal protecting public interest.

In our view a 'banking commission' is the need of the hour as experts suggested to bring the banking sector back to order and their management at competitive level. Two things are important: banks must be held accountable and governance must be transparent to ensure their corporate functioning.
131 killed in Baghdad bombings: 200 hurt

ISIL claims responsibility

People gather at the site of a suicide car bomb in the Karrada shopping area, in Baghdad, Iraq July 3, 2016. Internet photo

Al Jazeera News :At least 131 people, including many children, were killed and hundreds wounded in a car bombing in a crowded commercial area in Iraq's capital, Baghdad, hospital and police sources have told Al Jazeera.The powerful explosion early on Sunday came near the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, when the streets were filled with young people and families out after sunset.Karada is in the middle of Baghdad. It is a district people go to - and this would have been where people would gather towards the end of Ramadan, after fasting. People would have also been in the cafes watching the Euro 2016 quarter finals. This was a deliberate attack. We've seen ISIL do this time and time again.A few months ago, I spoke to members of the Karada business community who were setting up a neighbourhood watch because they were so angry with the government for not being able to provide security. But even they said they couldn't monitor everything, all the time, as it was such a busy shopping district.Although the Fallujah battle may be over, it shows that if you squeeze ISIL in one area, they pop up in another. This isn't a problem that goes away by taking territory from ISIL.You need police work, intelligence gathering - it's not just a military operation. There will always be ISIL sympathisers in Baghdad who will try to mount attacks like these ones.Anger is coming through in Karada because the prime minister and MPs are in the Green Zone, they're fortified. Everyone else feels like they are under attack. Although this attack was big - it was not unusual.Sources said around 200 people were also wounded when a lorry packed with explosives blew up in a busy shopping street in Karada, a predominantly Shia neighbourhood in central Baghdad, The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group claimed responsibility for the attack in an online statement, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, a US-based monitoring service. Many of the victims were children, officials said, and there were fears the death toll could rise as more bodies could be lying under the rubble of devastated buildings.In a separate blast also on Sunday morning, an improvised explosive device went off in a popular market in the mainly Shia neighbourhood of al-Shaab. Reports said at least at least five people were killed in that attack, and 16 were wounded. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the second bombing. The overall death toll from the two explosions was initially reported to be much lower, and there were conflicting reports about the exact number of people killed. The bombings were the deadliest in the country since Iraqi forces late last month dislodged ISIL fighters from Fallujah, the armed group's stronghold just west of the capital that had served as a launch pad for such attacks. Despite a string of territorial gains by Iraq's ground forces against ISIL, the group has repeatedly shown it remains capable of launching attacks in Iraqi territory far from the frontlines.ISIL still controls Iraq's second largest city of Mosul. Iraqi politician Mowaffak Baqer al-Rubaie said ISIL was "resorting to classic, traditional terrorist acts" in response to losing territory in Iraq."They are so desperate to boost the morale of their fighters, many of whom are leaving the group daily. I think attacks like this will increase," he told Al Jazeera. Rubaie added, however, that ISIL would eventually fail in its mission of deepening sectarian tensions between Shia and Sunni communities.
UNSC condemns Gulshan attack

The UN Security Council has "strongly condemned" the deadly terrorist attack in a Dhaka cafe that killed more than 20 people, mostly foreigners.

Russia, Indonesia, Singapore and Pakistan also expressed their shock as global condemnation over the Friday night's attack continues to come in. "The members of the Security Council reaffirmed that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security," the council said in a statement, reports Xinhua. The council members stressed the need to take measures to prevent and suppress the financing of terrorism, terrorist organisations and individual terrorists, in accordance with resolutions 2199 (2015) and 2253 (2015), said the statement. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also condemned the attack and hoped that "those behind this crime will be identified and brought to justice."

The council members expressed their deep sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims, to the people and government of Bangladesh, as well as peoples and governments of foreign victims, and they wished speedy and full recovery to those who were injured, said the statement.

"The members of the Security Council underlined the need to bring perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism to justice," the statement added. "They stressed that those responsible for these killings should be held accountable, and urged all States, in accordance with their obligations under international law and relevant Security Council resolutions, to cooperate actively with all relevant authorities in this regard.

"The members of the Security Council reiterated that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations is criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of its motivation and wherever, whenever and by whomsoever committed, and should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilization, or ethnic group," it said.

They reaffirmed the need for all States to combat by all means, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and other obligations under international law, including international human rights law, international refugee law and international humanitarian law, threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts, the statement added. The Russian foreign ministry in a statement said: "We are indignant at this yet another inhumane terrorist attack, which has no justification. We express our sincere condolences to the relatives of those killed and wish the injured quickest recovery.

"What happened in Dhaka once again proves that it is necessary to immediately combine efforts of all the global community to fight international terrorism," read the statement.

"Indonesia stands in solidarity with Bangladesh in its fight against terrorism and reiterated its statement the importance of closer international cooperation for combating terrorism that poses a real threat to the world," a statement released by the foreign affairs ministry said on Saturday.

Singapore also condemned the attack in the strongest possible terms. "There can be no justifications for such heinous actions. We express our deepest condolences to the bereaved families and wish the injured a speedy recovery," said the MFA in a press release.

The Pakistan foreign ministry said: "The government and the people of Pakistan extend their heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families and the brotherly people and government of Bangladesh over the loss of innocent lives and wish the injured early recovery". "Pakistan stands in solidarity with the brotherly people of Bangladesh and is confident that the Government of Bangladesh will effectively counter this cowardly attack."
PM firm to find out root of terror attack

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday expressed her firm resolve to find out the root of Friday's terror attack.

"This is very much unfortunate...we'll find out root of this attack, we'll figure out who gave arms and explosives to them," she said. The Prime Minister said this while Japanese State Minister for Foreign Affairs Seiji Kihara met her at her official residence Ganobhaban. She said the targets of terrorists were priests and people like them until recently. "We've arrested many of the culprits. Such attack (Friday's attack) were carried out in France, Belgium, India and Japan. Now it happened in Bangladesh," she said. PM's Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim briefed reporters after the meeting.

The Prime Minister and Japanese State Minister agreed to fight out terrorism together.

About the bodies of the Japanese people killed in the terror attack, the Prime Minister said the bodies will be handed over to Japanese authorities after post-mortems.

Seiji Kihara thanked the Prime Minister for efficiently handling the situation. He said the economic cooperation between Japan and Bangladesh would continue.

Principal Secretary M Abul Kalam Azad and Japanese Ambassador to Dhaka Masato Watanabe were present during the meeting Denmark for strongest response to stay united UNB, Dhaka Danish Minister for Foreign Affairs Kristian Jensen has condemned the terror attack in Bangladesh.

"I strongly condemn the terror attack on innocent civilians that took place at a restaurant in Dhaka Friday night, where terrorists killed 20 people," Jensen said in a statement on Sunday.

The minister said such meaningless violence is completely unacceptable and must be fought. "Our strongest response is to stay united and not let our democracy, liberty and way of life fall into fear and despair." "I express my deepest compassion for the victims and their bereaved [family members]. They are in my thoughts," said the Danish minster. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Embassy in Dhaka are in close contact with the Bangladeshi authorities and they are monitoring the situation closely.

"It is reported from official site that there are no Danes among the killed and wounded."
Ishrat killed for not wearing hijab

Zee Media Bureau, Delhi :Even as the world continues to grapple with the terror attack in Bangladesh which killed 20 people, mostly foreigners, in a barbaric attack on a cafe, a post on social media by a Kolkata-based professor about a victim has gone viral.Professor Aloke Kumar, who is a professor of communication at the University of Calcutta, was friends with the Dhaka-based HR professional Ishrat Akhond.Ishrat was among those who died in the terror attack at the Holey Artisan Bakery in Gulshan diplomatic zone. My friend Ishrat was brutally tortured and killed by terrorist in a Dhaka restaurant yesterday when she was there with several Italian Fashion Designer. Most of the Muslim Bangladeshis were spared after they identified themselves and recited lines from the Koran. Ishrat who was not wearing a Hijab and neither wanted to prove herself was hacked to death with a machete.Twenty other foreign hostages were also hacked to death with sharp weapons by terrorists during a dramatic siege at an upmarket Dhaka restaurant that ended in a bloodbath today morning.The majority of the victims were from Italy and Japan. There was one young girl. A student from India Tarushi Jain. No Britons have yet been confirmed among the casualties. Two Sri Lankans and one Japanese hostage were rescued, along with around a dozen Bangladeshis.Six of the attackers were shot dead and one captured during the raid on the Holey Artisan Bakery, an expatriates' favourite.Holey Artisan Bakery, an expatriates' favourite.I am devastated on hearing the news as I was in touch with her periodically. She had come down to Calcutta last September and we had discussed my possible Lecture tour of the Universities of Bangladesh. This was scheduled to begin in the Fall Semester.Usually my notes are long but today I have run out of words.Love you Ishrat, wherever you are. Army commandos had stormed the eatery and rescued 13 hostages, killing six attackers while capturing one alive. The Army had said that 20 people were found dead on the premises during the raid, all possibly slaughtered late on Friday, hours before the commandos raided the cafe.It has been confirmed that the hostages killed included nine Italians, seven Japanese and an Indian. Three Bangladeshis were also among the dead and one of them was a US citizen.
Business leaders fear adverse impact on exports

Kazi Zahidul Hasan :Leaders of the country's export sector trade bodies on Sunday expressed serious concern over the deadly militant attack on a Spanish restaurant in Dhaka fearing its negative impact on garment exports and other merchandises to overseas markets.They said that exporters make their bulk of export to the EU nations and shipment to Japan is also rising steadily in recent years. But the killing of nine Italians, who were running buying houses for global brands here, and assassination of seven Japanese hostages has now become a serious blow to their other export markets."We have never seen such a deadly incident in Bangladesh. It has severely tarnished our image abroad," Md Siddiqur Rahman, President of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) told The New Nation on Sunday. He said the shooting incident has intensified security concern among the minds of foreign buyers. It may force them to cancel business trips to Dhaka, causing uncertainty over striking future business deals with local exporters."If the apprehension becomes true, it could leave a harsh impact on our apparel exports," said Rahman.The BGMEA leader, however, expressed the hope that the buyers may not quit from Bangladesh after the attack considering terrorism is a global phenomenon."It may be a short-term pain for us and we hope to come out from the current situation taking supports from all quarters," he added.Condemning the heinous incident, Rahman urged the government to take concerted efforts engaging all concerned to fight against the growing threat of terrorism and militancy. "Italy and Japan are now Bangladesh's growing export markets and killings of their citizens in Dhaka may have a huge negative impact on our export there," Mohammad Hatem, former Vice-President of Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA) told The New Nation yesterday.Terming the Dhaka shooting incident a 'new threat' for the apparel industry, he said, foreign buyers are closely monitoring the security situation in Bangladesh after the killing of the members of Italian buying houses."Foreign buying houses operating in Bangladesh are restricting staff movements and business executives from global clothing giants have reportedly cancelled trips to Dhaka after the killings of foreigners," said Mohammad Hatem. All these are worrying development and such developments would definitely hurt our exports, he added.Mohammad Hatem also said that when the rising tide of militant attacks tarnished image of the country aboard, the deadly attack on Spanish restaurant further deepen our image crisis."Such an image crisis may drive away the foreign buyers from Bangladesh to other countries hurting smooth growth of local apparel industry," he said. The former BKMEA leader urged the foreign buyers not to be panicked over the current situation in Bangladesh and stay with local partners considering their long-standing business relations.
Local militants behind killings

Massive investigation begins: IGP says they had no advance info: Home Minister says attackers belong to affluent families and highly educated

Sagar Biswas :Intelligence agencies have launched an extensive investigation into the Islamist militants-led hostage incident by interviewing the people who were rescued from 15-hour captivity inside Holey Artisan Bakery in the city.All of the 13 rescued persons were taken to office of Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit at Minto Road on Saturday night to know the Friday night's incident in details. Earlier, they were questioned by officials of Directorate General of Forces Intelligence [DGFI] soon after the army commandos rescued them raiding the Spanish restaurant. Apart from them, they are also quizzing a militant, who was captured from restaurant during the raid. "Apart from 13 rescued, a total of 27 people have been interviewed. We're scrutinizing the information gathered from them. They were inside the restaurant over 15 hours. They are eye witnesses. So, they can elaborate the scenario," Masudur Rahman, Deputy Commissioner, Dhaka Metropolitan Police, said. "We're taking their names and other details. It's part of the investigation. Of them, some will be taken as plaintiffs. Besides, we're handing over them to their family members. Several persons have already been released. The rest will go soon," the DC DB said.Officer-in-Charge of Gulshan police station Sirajul Islam said that no case was filed till Sunday night in connection with the terror attack. But interestingly, the police and other intelligence agencies are totally mum how the terrorists gathered such quantity of modern fire arms and explosives, and took them to high-security diplomatic zone dodging surveillance of security personnel.It's also a million dollar question how the militants were able to carry the bags full of arms and ammunition to their targeted restaurant while the entire diplomatic zone is covered with dozens of security cameras [close-circuit cameras]?Obviously, the lack of advance information as well failure of intelligence gathering about the regrouping of terrorists has appeared as big threat to the national security. Besides, the recently conducted anti-militant crackdown by police across the country has also turned into a farce. "We didn't get any advance information about Gulshan terror attack earlier. If there was advance information, the police would take protective measures," Inspector General of Police, AKM Shahidul Haque, said yesterday.The IGP categorically said that the terrorists killed in Gulshan were the members of banned militant outfit Jam'matul Mujahedin Bangladesh [JMB], and they may be linked with any international militant organisation. When he was asked about the news update of SITE Intelligence, the IGP further said: "We've no information whether the militants earlier had announced about the Gulshan attack through twitter. .It's an attack of organized militant group. We'll take legal action against them after a thorough investigation."It is still not clear whether the security agencies were really aware of the militancy situation, or failed to understand the importance of the situation. The ISIS-aligned AMAK news agency published the pictures of 20 slaughtered hostages in the Gulshan restaurant on Friday night. The international agency Reuters also carried the news before the army-led commando operation next morning. After operation, the commandos recovered 20 slaughtered bodies from there. Of them, 17 were foreigners, two Bangladeshis and one Bangladesh-born American. But strangely, the security officials were busy to negotiate with the armed militants on Friday night.In this backdrop, the Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal yesterday said: "The seven militants who killed 20 foreign and local nationals in the restaurant were members of a local militant outfit..They have no link with ISIS." Detailing the family status of the militants, the Minister said: "All of them [militants] are highly educated and university students. They all came from affluent families. It has now become a fashion to join Islamist militancy."Meanwhile, the pictures of militants have become viral in the social media, including facebook. Three of the six militants were students of English medium schools and completed education in private varsities. Later, they went to Monash University in Malaysia.
Display Structures Inc. in Roberts manufactures portable trade-show displays.

It's everything youd need to exhibit at any trade show, owner Connie Hernandez said Thursday.

Hernandez has been with the company for 28 years, initially employed in the warehouse shipping department when the business was located in Colorado. It moved a number of times, finally ending up in the small town of Roberts.

Then, in 2014, it came up for sale. Hernandez, a member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, decided to try to buy the firm.

For help, she turned to the Native American Development Corporation headquartered in Billings. She doesn't think she could have secured the loan without the organization's assistance.

They offered lots of support through the loan process, she said. They worked with me closely to make sure we had our legal documents in place, and they really looked out for my interests, making sure I was set up on the right page and headed in the right direction through all the financials.

The NADC also provided Hernandez with training and networking opportunities to get the word out about her business.

If I have a question and Im not sure who to contact, theyre there as a support group, she said.

The NADC works with American Indian-based businesses, helping small business entrepreneurs succeed both on and off the reservations in Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas.

On Thursday, Gov. Steve Bullock announced that the NADC had been certified by the state as a micro-finance program and funded $420,000 to help Native-owned businesses grow, expand and create jobs.

Access to capital is a critical tool for business success and economic growth, Bullock said in a news release.

Im pleased to partner with NADC to help open up additional financing for Native American owners to expand their businesses and create more jobs on reservations and in Native communities across the state, he said.

NADC will use the money to provide specialized services to clients on Montanas seven Indian reservations. The corporation will offer loans to startup and existing microbusinesses across the state.

According to the release, the Montana Department of Commerce partners with several regional organizations, and now one the statewide NADC, as well. Those entities have provided more than 1,120 loans totaling more than $24.8 million, which has created or retained more than 2,600 loans.

Leonard Smith, executive director of NADC, said the new infusion of money gives us capital for the small businesses we serve in native communities, and capital is always difficult to obtain.

It means that were going to be able to create jobs and have some kind of economic input on the reservation communities that we serve, he said.

Individuals who seek loans through the NADC usually are unable to secure conventional loans, Smith said. He called the organization a one-stop shop for potential small business owners, providing training and technical assistance.

We have several programs here that basically take them from 'cradle to grave,'" Smith said. We provide some pre-business assistance to get them to the point where theyre able to get into a business.

The NADC also helps Native businesses apply for contracts with federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Defense and the Department of Transportation.

Loren White, organizational planner for NADC, said the corporations focus on training and money lending help its clients to succeed.

Through direct hands-on technical assistance, we see very low delinquencies and very high employment rates, he said.

In addition, the just-awarded funds will be distributed on a revolving-loan basis, White said. As loans are repaid, the principal will be loaned out again and the interest will help provide technical assistance and servicing on those loans.

He pointed to another success story, on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. A Lame Deer woman was awarded a loan to run a grocery store, which at times has employed as many as 50 people.

Shes a great loan client, and were happy to see these dollars create that kind of impact in those communities, White said.
Disunity of divisive politics attracted international terrorism

The militant attacks in Dhaka was the predictable results of unchecked violence said the UK based daily Guardian in a report in the wake of the terrible mayhem in the capital's Diplomatic Zone on Friday. Its assessment is not correct in the proper perspective. Terrorism grows where violence rules.

Nobody can deny that our politics itself, in the absence of practice of democracy, is violent and police power is used as political power. So, violence is coming from politics more than from any other sources. True examination of the reality will confirm the truth and help us and our foreign friends to help us against growing terrorism.

The attack which claimed so many lives has put Bangladesh in the global spotlight of growing militancy threatening public safety and state security at its worst. The mayhem on a popular eatery in Dhaka's Diplomatic Zone killing over 30 people including 20 hostages, six militants and two police officers put Dhaka next to Paris, Brussels and Istanbul in terms of high volatility of shocks that rippled through Bangladesh and the global community. They have for the first time used heavy weapons shifting targets to large gathering at popular city spots.

This attack has made it clear that the militants do not belong to BNP and Jamaat, although the government has been using all the state power to suppress the oppositions as terrorists while others remain free and unnoticed for their acts of terrorism. This could happen because the government is not accountable and it feels no compulsion for transparency in public affairs.

We must say time is running out to forge a national unity to create a positive socio-political environment to defeat and eliminate the militants and avoid the risk of making Bangladesh a battle-ground of international terrorism.

We are not interested whether or not IS militants or al-Qaeda outfits are having their presence in Bangladesh. The fact is that the country has already become home to dreaded terrorist groups and they must be defeated. So there is no alternative to strengthen internal politics through national unity to defeat international terrorism.

But the government security crackdown last month that arrested over 14,000 people proved to be quite misleading. The latest attack shows how blind the government has been in dealing with militants. It was observed with the notion of punishing the opposition. The government must now explain the justification of arresting thousands of people but the identified non-party young militants of universities like AIUB, BRAC and North South remained untouched.

The government has always blamed BNP-Jamaat for their hands in such attacks and at the same time also insisted that there is no presence of international militant groups in Bangladesh. But there is their influence. In fact the Islamist militants so far took advantage of the government's political biasness. That is the reason why we have been pointing out the danger of the government being dominated by a special group of bureaucrats.

The identity of the militants as former students of the city's prestigious educational institutions like North South University or Scholastica English Medium School suggest that they come from wealthy families who are not supposed to be easy recruitment of religious fanatics. So the reason has to be found out.

It is clear after the exposure of the present terrorist attack that government has no knowledge how the young educated students feel so frustrated as to be recruits of misguided terrorism in the name of Islam. Anybody will be right to question the competence of the government to understand and fight terrorism.

We will ask the government and security agencies to think in terms of national interest. Our peaceful people earning a bad name all over the world damaging our national interest.


Country

United States of America US Virgin Islands United States Minor Outlying Islands Canada Mexico, United Mexican States Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Cuba, Republic of Dominican Republic Haiti, Republic of Jamaica Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria, People's Republic of Burkina Faso Burundi, Republic of Cambodia, Kingdom of Cameroon, United Republic of Cape Verde, Republic of Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad, Republic of Chile, Republic of China, People's Republic of Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia, Republic of Comoros, Union of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, People's Republic of Cook Islands Costa Rica, Republic of Cote D'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of the Cyprus, Republic of Czech Republic Denmark, Kingdom of Djibouti, Republic of Dominica, Commonwealth of Ecuador, Republic of Egypt, Arab Republic of El Salvador, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Faeroe Islands Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Fiji, Republic of the Fiji Islands Finland, Republic of France, French Republic French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon, Gabonese Republic Gambia, Republic of the Georgia Germany Ghana, Republic of Gibraltar Greece, Hellenic Republic Greenland Grenada Guadaloupe Guam Guatemala, Republic of Guinea, Revolutionary People's Rep'c of Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Guyana, Republic of Heard and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras, Republic of Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China Hrvatska (Croatia) Hungary, Hungarian People's Republic Iceland, Republic of India, Republic of Indonesia, Republic of Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq, Republic of Ireland Israel, State of Italy, Italian Republic Japan Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Kazakhstan, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Kiribati, Republic of Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait, State of Kyrgyz Republic Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon, Lebanese Republic Lesotho, Kingdom of Liberia, Republic of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein, Principality of Lithuania Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Macao, Special Administrative Region of China Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar, Republic of Malawi, Republic of Malaysia Maldives, Republic of Mali, Republic of Malta, Republic of Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania, Islamic Republic of Mauritius Mayotte Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco, Principality of Mongolia, Mongolian People's Republic Montserrat Morocco, Kingdom of Mozambique, People's Republic of Myanmar Namibia Nauru, Republic of Nepal, Kingdom of Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, Kingdom of the New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua, Republic of Niger, Republic of the Nigeria, Federal Republic of Niue, Republic of Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway, Kingdom of Oman, Sultanate of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama, Republic of Papua New Guinea Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Republic of Philippines, Republic of the Pitcairn Island Poland, Polish People's Republic Portugal, Portuguese Republic Puerto Rico Qatar, State of Reunion Romania, Socialist Republic of Russian Federation Rwanda, Rwandese Republic Samoa, Independent State of San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe
The sextoy market is growing quite rapidly in India right now.

Although it is not a big trend, it is a hot topic on the internet as it is secretly expanding its market.

In this article, we will focus on sextoy and introduce recommended sextoy for Indian beginners of sextoy by gender.

India, the birthplace of the Kama Sutra, is very strict about sex.

Also, premarital sex is basically not allowed. Therefore, there are many people who are sexually restricted.

But what happens when you continue to be sexually restricted?

Frustration may build up and you may end up taking your sexual stress out on your partner.

If you are able to adopt sextoy in a timely manner, you can get rid of those problems.

I want to have more exciting sex than Im having now.

I want more variation in masturbation

I want to get even stronger pleasure than I do on my own.

If you have any of these problems, please stay with me until the end.

What is sex toys for Indian?

Sextoy, as the name implies, is a toy used during sex and masturbation.

It is a generic term for vibrators, Egg-vibrators, Electric massagers, dildo, handcuffs and condoms.

They are used to make regular sex more exciting or to make masturbation more pleasurable.

Because sextoy is very stimulating, it can help you to get rid of the problems and frustrations of being in a rut of sex with your partner for a long time, or if you are unhappy with the lack of pleasure in sex with your partner.

The ability to satisfy your desires with movement, texture, and size, which cannot be done by a normal human being, can help you to be satisfied with sex and, as a result, improve your relationship with your partner.

It is also said to help improve sexual dysfunction (inability to get an erection or ejaculate) and difficulty in feeling during sex (insensitivity), which is attracting more attention than in the past.

In recent years, the demand for sextoy has increased due to the spread of smartphones and the Internet and the increasing number of people using online shopping.

Even those who are concerned about the appearance of sextoy (and find it difficult to purchase) can now easily obtain it by using mail order.

In the case of online shopping, most of the stores have taken steps to ensure that the contents of the products delivered to you are not revealed, so you can purchase them without your family members knowing.

Until a while ago, you had to go to the store where the adult goods were sold to buy them, so it was quite a hurdle to overcome.

Also, many people may have an image that sextoy is somehow embarrassing to own.

But nowadays, some of them are so stylish and cute that you cant believe they are sextoy at a glance.

More and more people are using them for travel and outdoor use because they are not too bulky and are suitable for carrying around.

Sextoy situation in India

Before introducing the recommended sextoy for Indians, lets talk about one of the sextoy situations in India in recent years.

In India, due to the high concentration of population, the following six cities have particularly high sales of sextoy in India.

Mumbai

Kolkata

Bangalore

Delhi

Chennai

Hyderabad

These cities account for roughly 70 percent of sextoy sales in India.

In the future, the percentage of sextoy use will gradually increase in other cities in India as well.

If you never talk about sextoy publicly, that girl in your neighborhood might be a sextoy user too.

If you are interested in sextoy, you dont have to suppress your desire for it.

What are Sextoys for beginner?

Among all sextoys, sextoy for beginners are vibrators, dildo, masturbators, Sex Lubricants, and condoms.

Sex Lubricants and condoms, which are familiar to people who have had sex, are also a great beginners sextoy.

I will explain the details of each toy later, but there are many sextoy products that are painful to use and can only be used after some anal expansion.

I assume that the Indian readers of this article are people who have not had much experience with sextoy.

If such people use professional sextoy suddenly, they are at risk of injury or trauma.

Therefore, to introduce sextoy, you need to start with a beginners version and gradually become familiar with it.

Advantages of using sextoy for Indians

There are three advantages of using sextoy for Indians

You can masturbate in a wide variety of ways.

Can have stimulating sex

Can develop new sexual zones

If you try to masturbate with your own fingers or hands, it tends to be a pattern.

However, with sextoy, you can easily masturbate in a variety of ways.

You will definitely be fascinated by the attraction of new stimulation.

Also, your daily sex life will be more exciting than ever.

There are many things in sextoy that are visually stimulating and give you a strong and intense feeling of pleasure.

This allows you to see your partners promiscuity in a way that you wouldnt normally see it.

When you are in a relationship, sex with your partner may become a pattern, but it can also eliminate these problems.

It can also lead to the development of new sexual zones (which is the training of sexual stimulation to allow you to feel orgasms).

For more information on the development of new sexual zones, see the following articles

[Women's Erogenous Zone]How to find and develop, 7 hidden sexual zones !![In India] In this issue, we will dissect the female erogenous zone! ..." Many of you may be like that. Men, in particular, shou...

Thus, the use of sextoy can only be a good thing for the men and women of India.

Sextoy for beginner men in India

So, lets continue with the recommended goods for Indian sextoy beginners.

For ease of understanding, we will introduce them by gender. Lets start with the men!

The following five goods are recommended for novice Indian sextoy men

Masturbator

Cock rings

Love Doll

Sex Lubricants

Toys for the prostate

Lets check each one in detail.

Masturbator

The masturbator is a sextoy for men that elaborately reproduces a womans vagina, mouth, and anus, and is one of the most popular sextoy products.

It is used by men to masturbate, and it is popular because it provides stronger stimulation and pleasure more easily than using hands.

Most are made of good quality silicone, and their softness is something that cannot be achieved with ones own hands.

They can provide stronger pleasure than a real womans vagina, so be careful not to overuse them. (You wont be able to have an orgasm in a womans vagina anymore.)

Again Male masturbators are a wonderful toy. I do not need any favourite timing, bothersome bargaining. You do not have to worry too much.

Revolutionize your masturbation time! ! !

Made in Japan is a wonderful kinky toy.#sextoysindia #SexToyIndia #Japanhttps://t.co/4k70QGzoTP pic.twitter.com/tRVdxTKPpa   SEXToys India PR  (@SextoysIndia) November 12, 2018

Some of them are disposable, while others can be washed and used over and over again, so its fun to buy a few to use depending on your mood.

If you want to know more about masturbator, please click here

Really pleasant male masturbation and how to do it Are you in a rut with your daily masturbation routine? I'm going to show you five ways men masturbate that you might ...

[For Beginners] How to choose and use a male masturbator without fail Gentlemen.Have you ever used a masturbator? The person who sees this article is probably the one who has not experien...

Cock Ring

A cock ring is literally a ring-shaped sextoy that is worn on a mans penis.

It maintains an erection by binding the penis with a ring of rubber and blocking blood flow.

It is sometimes used as an accessory to be worn on the penis, and may be made of metal or plastic as well as rubber.

In some cases, cock rings have parts or vibrators attached to them that stimulate the vagina, so they kill two birds with one stone, giving a woman pleasure while maintaining an erection.

Cock rings are also sometimes used to treat erectile dysfunction.

It can help with erectile dysfunction, where the penis doesnt get hard when you get an erection or doesnt last long when you try to insert it.

Men who are prone to breakage or who are unsure of the hardness and size of their erections can use a cock ring to increase the size of their penis and maintain an erection for a longer period of time.

Cock rings vary in price from around RS700 to over RS2000 with a vibrator function.

Some of them do not fit your penis, so you should check the size of the cock ring before you buy.

You should know the size of your partners or your own penis when it is erect.

[Penis enlargement] What is a cock ring? Types and usage Cock rings can make your penis bigger and harder. It also makes sex with women more fulfilling and increases your sat...

Love Doll

Love dolls, also known as Dutchwives, are dolls with the appearance of a woman who can experience simulated sex.

There are dolls that look like a woman, but they have no face and only have their breasts and lower torso cut off, and some dolls are so realistic that they can actually be mistaken for real women.

Some expensive dolls can cost more than 1 million yen, and the quality of the doll is easily influenced by the price.

The higher the price, the higher the quality of the doll will be, the closer it will be to the real woman, and the cheaper the doll will be, the less elaborate it will be, making it look like a real doll! Something is wrong! That is also true.

You cant go wrong if you choose a balance between price and taste.

There are stores that allow you to make custom-made love dolls, so you can create a girl of your choice.

You can make a girl of your choice. You can start with inexpensive love dolls at first, and once you get used to it, you can try custom-made love dolls.

If you want to know more about Love doll, please click here

Thorough explanation of the charm of sex dolls! Have you ever heard of sex dolls that are used primarily for pseudo-sex purposes? It is a doll that is quite close to...

Sex lubricants

Sex lubricants are used as a substitute for lubricating fluid during sex or as a lubricant for men to use masturbator rules.

It is not uncommon for women to have difficulty getting wet, depending on their physical condition, or to have difficulty getting wet due to their constitution.

Forcing the penis into the vagina at such times can cause painful intercourse.

There are various types of Sex Lubricants, some with a warming effect, some with a cooling effect, and some with a scent.

Changing the Sex Lubricant used during play is recommended as a good sex accent.

If you want to learn more about Sex Lubricants, click here.

What is sex lubricant?Explain the difference and usage of each ingredient The word "sex toy" may seem like a hurdle to overcome, but lotion is actually one of the most familiar sex toys. Many...

Toys for the Prostate

Another sextoy for men is prostate toys.

The most famous prostate toys include Enemagra, which was originally a prostate massager developed by an American urologist to treat an enlarged prostate line.

Modern prostate toys are imitations of Enemagra that have spread as sextoy for men.

Many people think of prostate toys as being used by gay men, but in fact they are often used by straight men.

What is the prostate?

The prostate is an organ found only in men. It is a walnut-sized organ located deep in the pelvis, just below the bladder, and its primary role is to protect and nourish sperm.

You cannot touch the prostate gland from outside the body, but you can touch it by inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus.

By inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus and touching the prostate and developing it, you can feel intense orgasms.

Orgasms felt in the prostate are mainly dry orgasms, which are orgasms that do not involve ejaculation. (You can also feel orgasms with ejaculation through prostate stimulation.)

The prostate is called the male G-spot, and dry orgasms can be much more intense than ejaculation.

Therefore, men who are able to develop a prostate can become addicted to the pleasure.

sextoy for beinner women in India

The following are the recommended goods for Indian women who are new to sextoy.

The following three are recommended for use by women who are new to sextoy.

Vibrator.

Dildo

Electric Masserger

Lets check out what each one is in detail.

If you want to check out womens toys, click here.

[BEST25]Sex Toys for Women in IndiaThat Can Help You Have an Orgasm There are many women who pretend to feel orgasm during sex. But don't worry, you don't have to pretend to feel orgasm...

Vibrators

A vibrator is a sextoy that vibrates with an Egg-Vibrator to provide stimulation and is often referred to simply as a vibrator.

Some vibrate as well as rotate, and there are many variations of sextoy.

It is quite a popular sextoy, and is well recognized by people who do not know much about sextoy.

Its usage is similar to that of a massager, but it is more compact and easier to carry than a massager, and many of them look as cute as a lipstick or a macaroon, so they are popular among women.

For a while, a famous influencer on twitter said, This is good! You may have heard of the topic of this article by introducing the recommended vibrators.

Vibrators are great for women to use on their own, but they are also recommended for men who have difficulty satisfying women with sex.

Since it is powered by electricity, it is far less tiring than moving your hands by yourself.

This makes it easier to satisfy a woman with sex because you can caress her for longer than usual.

Vibrators are mainly used on the female side, but they can also be used on men.

When used on men, they are used to attack the nipples and glans, and in both cases it is recommended to wear a condom for hygiene reasons.

Introducing how to use the vibrator, its purpose, and how to choose it! Vibrator uses the vibrations caused by the rotation of the motor to provide stimulation. It is one or two of the most...

Dildo

A dildo is a model sextoy made to mimic a male penis.

It can be made of silicone, elastomer (think of it as a material similar to PVC), metal or glass.

A dildo can be used by a man for his female partner during sex, or by a woman for masturbation to get pleasure from it.

They are mainly inserted into women, but some can be used in the male anus as well.

It is sometimes used synonymously with vibrators, but the vibrator is not the same thing as a vibrating device.

A model of a penis that does not vibrate is a dildo.

Some of them have suction cups that can be attached to the floor or wall so that you can enjoy realistic masturbation without using your hands.

For fun, there is a dildo made in the shape of your partners penis.

This one is also popular as a gift, and if youve been together for a long time and are having trouble finding a gift for your partner, you might want to pick one.

To learn more about dildo, please click here.

What is Dildo: Orgasms with Dildos for Men and Women A dildo is a model of a male organ that is used by women for masturbation and by men to stimulate the prostate gland. Th...

Electric Masserger

A Electric Masserger is a hand-held electric massager, also known as a handheld massager, and can usually be purchased at electronics stores.

It was originally designed to relieve stiff shoulders and back pain, so the hurdle of buying one in a physical store is quite low.

Many people may have seen or used it in some form or another, as it is often installed in leisure hotels.

Such a massager is highly recommended for beginners because it is easy for women to get pleasure from it when they use it during masturbation.

It is larger than Egg-Vibrator and vibrations are stronger than those of Egg-Vibrators and vibrators, so even just hitting the clitoris can give you a great deal of pleasure.

For those women who have never had an orgasm during sex with their man, the massager may be a good way to get a feel for what it feels like to have an orgasm.

It looks and feels like an electric massager, so you wont have to feel awkward if your roommate finds out.

If you are in a rut of having sex with your partner, if you want to feel an orgasm through masturbation, or if you are thinking of using a sextoy, why dont you try it from a simple massager?

To learn more about Electric Masserger, click here.

What is a massager? Introducing types, selection methods, and usage Originally, the Magic-wand vibrator and the massage machine were sold as a home massage machine used for the back and th...

How to choose a sextoy for Indian

Now that weve covered the different types of sextoy, heres how to choose one.

Especially if you are trying sextoy for the first time, pay attention to the following three points:  Does the size fit you (the partner)?

Does the size fit you (your partner)?

Is the environment able to produce sound without problems?

Price range

First of all, the choice of size is quite important.

Most sextoy are used against or inserted into the genitals, but the genitals are very delicate organs for both men and women.

For this reason, using an inappropriate size may cause damage.

Secondly, the environment should be able to produce sound without problems.

Some sextoys not only wear, but also rotate and vibrate. Its easier to get pleasure from something that moves than something that doesnt, but the fact that it moves means that the internal rotors make some noise.

If you live in a house with thin walls or if you have roommates, you may not be able to concentrate because of the noise, so it is best to choose one that is silent or has a low noise level.

Especially in India, where many people live with their families, it is very important that you dont have to worry about sound when you use it.

Finally, there is the price range.

The price range of sextoy ranges widely, from around RS500 at the cheapest to RS10,000 or more at the highest.

Its good to consider how much money you can afford and how much you want to buy.

Do you want your family to not find out about sextoy?

I live with my family and want to use sextoy without them finding out! If you are a man, you should buy a camouflage sextoy that does not look like a sextoy at first glance.

For men, there are many masturbators that do not look like a sextoy, and for women, there are vibrators that only look like cosmetics.

If you choose such a type, youll be safe in case your family members find out.

How to buy sextoys in India

The best way to purchase sextoy is through online shopping.

For more information on how to purchase sextoy, please see the article below.

Sextoy is one of them.

Therefore, you can easily get sextoy in India by using online shopping.

SexToysINDIA is a long established and stable sextoy store and you can have sextoy delivered to any place in India.

They also offer cash on delivery, so those who are worried about shopping with a credit card do not have to worry.

Of course, the latest security is in place, so your information will not be taken out when you use your credit card.

To begin with, many people may be concerned about whether they are legally allowed to purchase sextoy.

ikmAs it turns out, its not illegal.

Right now, it is not open to the public because the Indian adult market is still in the development stage, but it will gradually spread from now on.

Take advantage of sextoy and open the door to new pleasures and culture.

Cautions for Indians using sextoy

When using sextoy, keep the following three things in mind

Keep sex toys clean

Watch out for electrical leakage

Beware of the heat generated by the body while using a sex toy

As I mentioned earlier, many sextoy products are used for the delicate zone.

Therefore, it is most important to keep the sextoy itself clean. It is very important to keep the sextoy itself clean, because if a slight scratch is created by friction, bacteria can enter and breed there.

It is safe to wear a condom when using the masturbator, just in case.

In addition, many sextoy devices are powered by a power source, so if they are not waterproof, there is a possibility of electric shock or malfunction due to wetness.

Some may even develop heat during continuous use. If the fever becomes too much, you may get burned, so be careful.

If you get a fever during use, stop driving the sextoy immediately and refrain from using it.

You will enjoy sex more if you keep it safe and use it correctly.

Summary

What did you think?

In this article, we have introduced the recommended sextoy for the beginners of sextoy in India.

The sextoy market is growing rapidly in India and it will continue to grow steadily in the future.

As India is a rather closed-minded country, it can be difficult to be open about ones sexual habits and values.

However, being faithful to ones desires by properly dissolving ones sexual desire is very effective for ones physical and mental health.

If this is your first time to learn about sextoy, or if you are interested in using sextoy, why not give it a try?

Indian Sextoys for ur best! will introduce you to sextoy and other trivia about sextoy, sexuality, and sexuality for men and women.

I want to read more! If you think its a great idea, please bookmark it.
CARBONDALE  After the closure of Crispus Attucks High School in 1964, five former students gathered to create the group now recognized in Carbondale as Spirit of Attucks.

Since 1980, members from the education and social development organization reunite to celebrate the schools former success.

Members from the organization reunited with the schools class of 1966 Friday in celebration of 36 years since the group formed.

Festivities began with the Juanita Thomas Hospitality event and continued Saturday morning with the Burnett Devers Breakfast at Carbondale Community High School.

During the breakfast former students and legacies discussed the value of an Attucks education.

The schools were equipped with very good leadership of principals and teachers from both the high school and elementary school over the years, Ann Marie Shepherd, publicity chair for the group, said.

Conversations regarding the legacy of an Attucks education continued with Linda Stalls and Mary Walker  both members from the class of 1966.

Id like to really give honor to our teachers (who live) here in Carbondale (and worked) at the high school because, since I just had children and they have gone through elementary, middle, high school and college, I realize how fortunate we were to have the teachers that we had at Attucks, Stalls said.

Walker, agreed, saying, I believe that the legacy of an education that came from Attucks school is deep. Were still experiencing inequality today in education, and if I can turn back the hands of time I would really like to give a medal of honor to our parents -- they didnt have much, but the little that they did have they instilled in us with values, and that legacy is in who we are today.

Celebrations for the 36th annual reunion will conclude at 3 p.m. Sunday with a memorial and recognition service at Hopewell Baptist Church.
CARBONDALE  Ava, Carterville, Du Quoin, Marion, Murphysboro, West Frankfort  the list goes on of cities in Southern Illinois that, according to city officials, do not have specific food and beverage taxes.

Other than taxes applied by the state, Guy Alongi, mayor of Du Quoin, said city officials have never considered a food and beverage tax.

"The only additional tax that we have had is the Home Rule tax, and that's by law," he said.

Because of the impact that an additional tax would have on business in the city of Du Quoin, Alongi said, a food and beverage tax is something far from his mind.

"Right now, under my administration, I don't think I will ever consider an additional tax on food and beverage," he said. "(With) small communities like Du Quoin I think that will be the driving force to drive what business we do have more away from these smaller communities."

For Bob Butler, mayor of Marion, and city officials for Marion, the city has never been in a situation for officials to push an additional tax.

"I don't think we've ever been in that situation before," he said. Butler said he is not anticipating any additional business after Carbondale's new 4 percent food and beverage tax goes into effect Aug. 1.

Although it cannot be predicted whether or not the additional tax would affect tips, Jared Walczak, a policy analyst with the Center for State Tax Policy at the Washington-based Tax Foundation, said consumers may find less expensive alternatives.

"As the cost of dining out becomes more expensive, people may look for savings, but it is just as likely that they would dine out less frequently  or at less expensive restaurants  than it is that they would adjust their tips," he said.

Other Illinois college towns that have a specific food and beverage tax include DeKalb (2 percent), Bloomington (2 percent) and Champaign (1/2 of 1 percent).

Lance Jack, owner of Fat Patties in Carbondale, said the tax is not all that big, and is up to the perception of the consumer.

"In a grand scheme of things it's not all that big," Jack said. "Clearly when I raise my price a quarter trying to cover the cost of food increases it (may) turn people off, but at the same time a lot of that is in perception, or the mind, of the consumer."
Billings efforts to land a direct flight to Dallas moved closer to launch last week with the award of a $750,000 federal grant.

The Billings Tourism Improvement District, Billings Chamber of Commerce and Big Sky Economic Development have partnered with Billings Logan International Airport to expand air service to Montanas largest city. The private partners have committed to raising $700,000 in private contributions that, along with the $750,000 federal grant, can guarantee revenue and marketing to start a new direct air route between Billings and Dallas.

Shane Ketterling, assistant Billings airport director, received the good grant news Thursday in a call from the office of Sen. Jon Tester.

We were thrilled, Ketterling said, adding that Testers staff offered to help in any way they could to move the service expansion forward.

Letters of Support

More than two dozen letters of support were part of the 57-page grant application, including letters from Tester, Sen. Steve Daines, Rep. Ryan Zinke, School Superintendent Terry Bouck, Montana State University Billings Chancellor Mark Nook, Burlington Northern Sante Fe Railroad, NorthWestern Energy, Billings bank executives and hoteliers.

Crucially, one letter came from American Airlines. American Airlines strongly supports the strategic plan for a revenue guarantee, marketing campaign and fee waivers to support nonstop services to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, Michael Barich, senior manager of domestic route planning in Fort Worth, wrote on April 7. Barich stated that the grant wouldnt guarantee that the airline started serving Billings, but will help the potential case for the service.

Analysis of air passenger data has for years demonstrated that Dallas is the top final destination for Billings travelers among cities with no direct flight from Billings. United, Delta and Alaska provide daily service to Denver, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis, Portland and Seattle. Allegiant flies to southwest cities. But theres a southeast gap in Billings flight map  a gap that service to Dallas will fill.

Over the past decade, Billings has seen an increase in air passengers, but a decrease in available flights and seats. The result is full flights and ticket prices that are higher than most cities. The average ticket in Billings costs slightly more than in Bozeman and significantly more than in other Northwest cities.

In 2006, Billings logged 10,890 airline flight departures with 568,738 seats. In 2015, there were only 9,720 flights with 526,315 seats. While flights decreased 11 percent and seats went down 7 percent, passengers were up 3 percent.

Ramp-up revenue

The Billings strategic plan includes a revenue guarantee for American during the first 12 months of service as passenger volume ramps up. Additionally, the plan calls for spending $200,000 to market the new service.

If Billings and American successfully conclude negotiations this fall, nonstop service between Billings and Dallas could begin in June 2017.

American entered the Montana market on June 2 when it started daily nonstop flights to Bozeman from Dallas. The service provided on 50-passenger Mesa Airlines jets brings one flight into Bozeman daily and takes one flight out.

The fact that Bozeman landed a direct flight from Dallas bodes well for Billings chances. There could be economies of scale for American if it serves multiple Montana markets.

This public-private partnership between Billings business organizations and the city is the model Bozeman has used to expand its airline service. The key missing ingredient in Billings  until now  has been private business contributions toward a ramp-up revenue guarantee.

The federal grant to expand service was the second big award announced last week for the Billings airport. The city also received approval of $1 million in Federal Aviation Administration Airport Improvement Program funding to help with planned upgrades of the terminal.

Although Billings leaders have met with American Airlines in Dallas, the airline decision makers havent seen our city. We invite American to visit Billings, to see that our thriving city is a great market for air service to Dallas as well as destinations south and east.

Thanks to everyone who is cooperating to launch new airline service in Billings. Finally, Montanas largest city has the public-private partnership, and the seed money to land new flights to serve our unique and growing market.
SPRINGFIELD  Municipalities and utility companies that have been waiting many months for the Illinois Department of Corrections to pay power, water and sewer bills for prison facilities should see some money soon, the state comptrollers office said late last week.

The short-term budget deal that Gov. Bruce Rauner signed Thursday frees up $321 million for operational expenses in the states prison system. Those funds were held up in the yearlong budget impasse between the first-term Republican governor and the Democratic-controlled General Assembly.

As of last week, Corrections had racked up more than $34 million in unpaid utility bills at facilities statewide, according to records released to the Springfield bureau of Lee Enterprises in response to a request under the states Freedom of Information Act.

Rich Carter, a spokesman for Comptroller Leslie Munger, said checks should be going out soon.

Comptroller Munger knows the municipalities and utility companies have been waiting a long time to receive these payments, and she has directed staff to pay these bills immediately after receiving the vouchers from the Department of Corrections, Carter wrote in an email Friday.

The largest share of money  $12.9 million  is owed to Constellation Energy Services, a subsidiary of utility giant Exelon Corp. But the state is also in arrears to local municipalities that are home to correctional facilities.

The state owes the southern Illinois city of Chester nearly $1.2 million for utility services at the Menard Correctional Center.

To a city the size of Chester, it hurts us and it creates some extreme difficulties in moving money around and paying our bills, Mayor Tom Page told The Southern Illinoisan last week.

As of Friday afternoon, the mayors office hadnt received word of when the bills would be paid.

The situation is similar in Pontiac in central Illinois. The city just sent the state a nearly $800,000 sewer bill for the Pontiac Correctional Center.

City Administrator Bob Karls said Pontiac has had to make some adjustments to its plans as a result of the states overdue bills.

Weve kind of slowed down some capital improvement projects, he said, adding that it mostly involved work that was still in the design phase.

While hes happy that Illinois now has a partial budget, hell be happier when its bills are paid in full.

The sigh of relief will come when we get our checks, Karls said, adding that the situation is much less dire than when the state proposed closing the prison back in 2008.

Pontiac isnt the only central Illinois city waiting for its check from Corrections. Among others, the state owes $133,836 to Decatur, $293,187 to Taylorville and $561,695 to Vandalia. In the Quad Cities area, East Moline is owed $566,539.

Karls said Pontiac never considered disconnecting its prisons sewer service, but municipalities elsewhere grappled with the idea.

Leaders in the west-central Illinois city of Mount Sterling, which the state owes $313,575, weighed shutting off the water at Western Illinois Correctional Center. But the city council unanimously rejected the idea last month.

Municipalities have little leverage in the situation because if they shut off utilities, the Department of Corrections would have to remove inmates from the facilities. That, in turn, would call into question whether the inmates  and the jobs of those who guard them  would ever return.

If water had been shut off, it becomes a public health issue and the state would have no choice but to move inmates, Rauner spokeswoman Catherine Kelly wrote in an emailed statement. Before a facility could be reopened, IDOC would have to complete any repairs due to a water shut off, which would be subject to available appropriations, and have the entire complex pass inspection.
On paper, it can be hard to see where all of Dr. Tim Morthlands interests converge. Hes a family care physician, an aeronautical and astronautical engineer, the founding president of a nascent liberal arts college, an energy drink formulator and an all-around entrepreneur.

To the people who know him, hes a man with a vision to transform Franklin County.

Hes an intellectual giant, Benton Mayor Fred Kondritz said. Nobody can do these things that he did.

Morthland grew up in West Frankfort and left town to pursue his education, a total of 17 years of schooling. Upon his return, he was struck by how the community had changed.

When I returned and began to engage with the community again, first as a physician, the old guard  remnants of it that were still around  they were grieving, he said. I contemplated how to rebuild the economic engines of the community, because I knew that there was a heart here that was very unique, that remembered with affection the successes of the past.

Revitalization building by building

The past successes of West Frankfort are perhaps most visible on the citys main drag, where one can find enormous old furniture stores. One such building, Coleman-Rhoads Furniture, was donated to Morthland College and repurposed as a home base for the school; the expansive, warehouse-like space is at once a library, a student lounge, a financial aid office and a student services building. Its back rooms are crowded with tens of thousands of books that the college received last summer from a grant program, ready to be catalogued and shelved.

The building is just down the street from the stately Washington Hall, the colleges flagship building that was originally built as an Elks Lodge. Meanwhile, the school has stationed its Biblical Studies program and business offices at Litchfield Hall, a Methodist church built in 1925.

This is how Morthland College is constructing its noncontiguous campus: piece by piece, one historic building at a time. The halls are so centrally located in town that getting from one place to another is no more difficult than it would be at a standard university, the thinking goes. Plus, according to Morthland College Director of Community Engagement Leigh Caldwell, theres something satisfying about working with the towns older structures. She calls it revitalization building by building.

We have our detractors, Caldwell said. But I always say, tell me  wheres the manual on building a college? This really isnt something that happens every day.

By all accounts, Morthland College is poised for growth. The nonprofit, classical Christian liberal arts college, launched in 2009 as a storefront operation with 11 students, expects about 140 students on the ground this fall and 300 online students this summer. Not only is its budget balanced, it is generating a surplus.

Im a bit of an entrepreneur, Im always coming up with ideas. Its sort of how my wiring is, and so I tapped into that knowing that a college is not sustainable without underwriting of some sort, Morthland said. I knew there needed to be a fiscal subsidy, and I thought that if the college is the pin, then we can add additional cogs and keep the whole enterprise spinning.

He has achieved this with a network of linked private enterprises referred to as the guilds, which have ventured into a variety of competitive fields, including the energy drink market. DaVinci Inspire, billed as a smart drink, began as a pet project when Morthland was in medical school, and, by his own account, feeling very tired. His team is now in the preliminary stages of getting the drink manufactured in West Frankfort.

When we can help people that way, I think we are moving in a great humanitarian sense  were serving the people, and were also serving people with a good product, and were also preserving a sustainable model for the college, he said.

Morthland College Health Services

For years, the dilapidated building that housed the United Mine Workers of America Hospital stood vacant in West Frankfort after Southern Illinois Healthcare shuttered the facility in 2001. A gleaming $3.2 million MC dormitory known as Mount Vernon House now stands in its place.

Dr. Morthland was born on this site, and so was I. Its like weve come full circle, said Caldwell, who lives in the facility along with her young daughter as a dorm mother.

The closure of the beloved UMWA hospital was part of what sparked Morthlands desire to help restore Franklin Countys health care system.

I had been looking at the (UMWA) hospital for a number of years, and ruminating on its closure and what it did to the community, and that event was an impetus for the birth of MCHS in large part, he said.

MCHS employs a 40-member team of physicians, advanced practitioners, nurses and staff members who deliver services at small- and medium-sized hospitals in Southern Illinois. The clinic entered into a contract with Franklin Hospital in Benton in September of 2013, with Morthland serving as the hospitals chief of medical staff.

This has been a decade and a half culmination of thoughts when what I had concluded  that its devastating for a community to lose a hospital  applies in Benton, Morthland said. We have to address it aggressively before Benton and before the county loses their hospital. I believe that (Franklin Hospital is) at the precipice of this calamity.

Franklin Hospital

Rocky Morris first began to suspect that there was something odd going on at Franklin in 2014, when the hospital failed to pay a friend of his who had provided services. He learned that the Franklin Hospital District was millions of dollars in debt and had been delinquent for months on utilities, and had even racked up a $23,000 water bill owed to the city of Benton. Morris formed Pointman, a grassroots community watchdog group, in an effort to hold the hospital's board of directors accountable.

Were just high school graduates, old, beat-up Vietnam veterans, Morris said. We believe in transparency and we believe in the Constitution of the United States and we believe in freedom.

Kondritz said the group is remarkably effective in working to protect taxpayers interests. They always dig up the truth, he said.

In its early days, Pointman set its sights on Morthland and submitted FOIAs to obtain his documentation and invoices.

At that time, we seen that his record was just about immaculate, as far as we knew, Morris said. Everything was above board, everything was accounted for, transparency was completely open in his records, and the hospital was making profitability off him. (The hospital) said that on numerous occasions, that Dr. Morthland was generating good revenue.

Morthland puts the districts current debt at $14 million; other estimates range from $10 to $12 million, although the hospitals own chief financial officer claimed the figure was $5.7 million at a board meeting last Tuesday.

Services at Franklin have dwindled over the years, and the hospital has suffered equipment breakdown and medication shortages. Morthland says he butted heads with then-Chief Executive Officer Hervey Davis  who announced his retirement Tuesday  over the trajectory of care at the hospital.

Franklin terminated the contract with Morthland and MCHS in February, reportedly for financial reasons. Morthland, in turn, filed a lawsuit against Davis, claiming that he had made false and misleading statements to the board in order to induce them into terminating the contract early.

But he dropped the suit last month soon after he unveiled a new plan to invest $30 million to $40 million in a privately funded, nonprofit, new hospital facility to be built in Benton. Since then, the board has been considering Morthlands proposal to manage the current hospital and begin a process to privatize it.

The board held off on a vote on the proposal on Tuesday, and will reconvene on July 26.

Looking forward

To Kondritz, the proposal is the hospitals last hope.

Its sad for me that a handful of people sitting on a board would turn something like this down in a town and a county thats begging for progress, Kondritz said. Dr. Morthland is bailing them out of a serious problem. They are facing bankruptcy.

Weve got to get new stuff going. Were dying on the vine here, Morris said.
SALINE COUNTY -- Christopher L. Fox, 33, of Raleigh, struck a culvert and rolled his vehicle during a single-vehicle accident at 9:09 p.m. Saturday along Illinois Route 34, one mile North of Mount Moriah Road, according to a news release from the Illinois State Police, District 19.

Fox was not wearing a seat belt, and was transported by ambulance to an area hospital for treatment of his injuries. His 2001 white Cadillac passenger car was towed from the scene. The cause of the accident is noted by police as improper lane usage, though reasons why are unknown.

Fox was charged with improper lane usage, failure to wear a seat belt and operating an uninsured vehicle.

ISP District 19 was assisted at the crash scene by the Saline County Sheriff's Department and the Saline County Ambulance Service.

-- The Southern
POMONA  When the winners of the 2016 American Songwriting Awards were announced June 30, one local musicians name was on the list. Kevin Lucas of rural Murphysboro won the adult alternative category with his song, New World Orchestra from the album Echoes in the Sand by Kevin Lucas Orchestra.

After working on the album for several years, Lucas is very happy about winning an American Songwriting Award.

Its an elite award for indie artists, so basically people who are up for this award are the best indie artists around the world, Lucas said. They get thousands of submissions from around the world every year.

Lucas describes adult alternative category as adult easy listening or adult contemporary. And, the winning song is an instrumental number, which he says is very impressive because there were a lot of vocal music in that category.

Even if you have breakthrough success, it does not go over as big as a vocal artists would. It is much more challenging as an instrumentalist to gain mainstream popularity, Lucas said.

In addition, five KLO songs were named finalists in the world music category. They are Ancient of Days, New World Orchestra, The Dreaming Tree, Babylon and Oceans Rising.

Five KLO songs also were nominated for American Songwriting Awards: Passion Grows in the jazz category, Little Man in childrens music, Greensleeves in holiday music and both Echoes in the Sand and Sunrise Over Little Egypt in world music.

Every single song off Echoes in the Sand was nominated in different categories. Thats a first for me, Lucas said.

Lucas is proud of his body of work and has been fortunate to work with world class artists, including several Grammy Award winners and many Grammy nominee, on these projects.

Ive put together sort of a music dream team. First, its brought the music to a very high level. Also, all the networking Ive done has brought the name recognition of Kevin Lucas Orchestra to point that a lot of these awards already know about the group. It think the networking helps a lot, Lucas said.

Lucas may have more awards coming. His songs have been nominated for Global Peace Song Awards and Hollywood Music in Media Awards. Global Peace Song Awards will be announced in mid-August, and Stewart Copeland, formerly of The Police, will be a judge. Hollywood Music in Media Awards will be announced Nov. 17, and the awards are sponsored by Billboard Magazine.

Songs from "Echoes in the Sand" are available on Itunes and Amazon. Lucas will perform at 3 p.m. July 17 at Owl Creek Vineyard, 2655 Water Valley Road, Cobden.
Benjamin A. Burns of Pittsburg was charged with possession with intent to deliver (cannabis), unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon and possession of drug paraphernalia; Shannon A. Dorris of Carterville was charged with possession of methamphetamine, possession with intent to deliver (cannabis), obstructing justice (obstructing identification) and possession of drug paraphernalia; and Robert D. Reis of Herrin was charged with possession of cannabis and possession of cannabis with intent to deliver.
JEFFERSON COUNTY -- Two people were injured at 8:37 a.m. Saturday, July 3, in a traffic crash along I-57, according to a news release from the Illinois State Police, District 13.

Cynthia Breackens, 23, of Carbondale, was driving northbound on I-57, near milepost 90, when she drifted off the west side of the roadway, overcorrecting then overturning her silver 2007 Hyundai Accent, according to police.

Passenger Mary Drake, 21, of Carbondale, was airlifted to St. Louis University trauma center with life threatening injuries. Passengers Daniel Drake, 4, and Arria Allen, 2, both of Carbondale, were uninjured. Brackens received major, non-life threatening injures and was transported to Good Samaritan Medical Center in Mt. Vernon, according to police.

Brackens was cited for improper lane usage. All occupants of the vehicle were properly restrained, according to police.

-- The Southern
UP

Every vote counted. The post-election audit of Montanas June 7 primary election confirmed the accuracy of vote counting, Secretary of State Linda McCulloch reported. The audit selects random precincts for recounts by hand.

DOWN

Fire danger. A grass fire outside of Laurel burned nearly 900 acres and a fire in the wilderness outside of Yellowstone National Park covered about 23 acres last week, indications that fire danger increases as the landscape gets hotter and drier.

DOWN

Water warming. High water temperatures that stress fish prompted Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department to restrict fishing between 2 p.m. and midnight daily on stretches of the Big Hole, Beaverhead, Ruby, Gallatin and Madison rivers.

UP

Volunteer value. AmeriCorps is adding $4.7 million to support volunteer programs throughout Montana where nearly 400 AmeriCorps VISTA volunteers are with local nonprofit agencies. Sen. Jon Tester has championed AmeriCorps on the Senate Appropriations Committee and helped boost the programs funding.
The following editorial appeared in Friday's Washington Post.

The first reports of gunfire that would result in America's deadliest shooting in the modern era were received by Orlando, Florida, police at 2:02 a.m. At 5:02 a.m., police stormed the nightclub that had been turned into a slaughterhouse, and at 5:15 a.m. came the call that the gunman was down. Key details about what happened during those three desperate hours remain unknown as authorities continue their investigation into the events of June 12. Some have raised questions about whether more could - and should - have been done to save lives. That makes the need for thorough investigation, rigorous analysis and transparency all the more important.

In the weeks since 49 people were murdered and dozens more injured at Pulse, accounts from people who were inside the nightclub and anguished questions from victims' family members have raised the issue of whether police were right to delay storming the bathroom where the gunman had holed up with hostages. "I just feel that with so many cops to one person, it should have been a little quicker," Albert Murray, whose 18-year-old daughter was killed, told the Wall Street Journal.

Orlando Police Chief John Mina has defended the actions, telling reporters last week it was a "misconception" that nothing was done for three hours: That time was used to rescue patrons, understand the building's layout, figure out where people were hiding, get resources in place and talk to the gunman. So, what had been an active shooter turned into a hostage situation, and the decision to storm the building came when the gunman raised the threat of explosives. Police logs released this week indicate that most of the shooting occurred in the first 16 minutes. That there was heroic work by first responders who saved lives goes without question. And, of course, responsiblity for the carnage lies solely with the gunman, who was killed by police.

But authorities are wrong to be so defensive about legitimate inquiries; to argue, as did U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida A. Lee Bentley III, that there must be no second-guessing of the police response. What exactly transpired during the critical three hours? Were any of those wounded or killed caught in police gunfire? Could any of the victims have been saved if police stormed the club sooner? Those are questions that need to be asked and answered. In that sense, the release of the detailed police logs was an encouraging sign that authorities realized the need to be more forthcoming.

A thorough accounting is important not only for those whose lives were horribly changed June 12 but also because of lessons that might be drawn from the what-ifs of second-guessing. Just as the shooting at Columbine High School in 1999 prompted police to train differently to deal with mass shootings, so might Orlando provide insights that could help prevent - or at lease minimize - future horrors.
Downtown Carbondale has a shiny new master plan  a blueprint forged through dozens of meetings with input from stakeholders throughout the area.

Taking that plan from the drawing board, through various stages of implementation, and turning it into a reality is going to cost money. The City Council realizes this, and desperately wanting a revitalized downtown, theyve decided that a 4 percent food and beverage tax is the best way to put their money where their mouths are  literally.

Whether or not the tax will raise more money is not in question; it cannot fail. And although there is an inherent public relations issue involved with leading the nation in overall sales tax on food and beverages, the City of Carbondale coffers will prosper when the new tax takes effect in four weeks.

Its really just a math exercise. Although the latest in the string of Carbondale tax increases will raise the overall food and beverage rate to a relatively staggering 12 3/4 percent, nearly half of that gets sent back to the State of Illinois. Currently, the city gets only $2.50 from that $100 birthday celebration restaurant tab. On Aug. 1, theyll start getting $6.50.

For those scoring at home, thats a 260 percent increase. In fact, overall food and beverage sales at restaurants would have to decrease more than 60 percent for the City of Carbondale to bring in fewer dollars. That obviously will not happen.

Lance Jack, owner of Fat Patties in Carbondale, is quoted in todays story as saying, in a grand scheme of things its not all that big. Hes probably right. Its unlikely that those living or working in Carbondale will drive beyond the city limits in order to merely save a buck or two. Sure, they may dine out with slightly less frequency, or at a lower-price restaurant, or leave a slightly smaller tip, but demand will not greatly decrease. The downtown master plan will receive the cash influx it needs to facilitate success.

And while we have no particular issue with the tax increase itself, we are troubled by the comments of Councilman Adam Loos. Carbondale, on the path its on, is dying, was bad enough. OK, it was really, really bad. But the snarky, disparaging comment that For years the city has been laying golden eggs for some of its business owners, many of whom dont live in town, was a direct shot at all of us who employ Carbondale residents and generate tax revenue for Carbondale, even though we may choose to live elsewhere.

It benefits no one in Southern Illinois to have any of its elected city officials say that their city is dying, regardless of how hed like our applause for his "honesty". And it does the City of Carbondale no good whatsoever when a councilman criticizes investment from out-of-towners. Out-of-towners such as Dunkin Donuts, Panda Express and the International House of Pancakes could  and probably should  take offense.
I can think of no better place to be than home in Montana to celebrate the Fourth of July. Over the holiday weekend Ill be walking in the Livingston parade, honoring World War II veteran Louis Armentaro and spending quality time with my sweet wife, Cindy, and our loved ones.

In the midst of this holiday Im humbled as I reflect on the birth of American Independence. The declaration of our Founding Fathers, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, rings as true today as it did 240 years ago.

Over the weekend, we will be celebrating democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and years of defending these freedoms. Thank you to all our servicemen and women, our veterans and our military families for your selfless sacrifice and for protecting these liberties.

As Montanas U.S. senator, I am honored to be your voice, to represent your family and your interests. Thats why I work so hard to ensure that Montanas voice is heard. Together we can remind Washington, D.C., that we know our state best and that its time for commonsense government reforms. Folks in Montana know that D.C. needs to look a lot more like Montana, and not the other way around!

From my family to yours, we hope you have a safe and happy Fourth of July. May God bless you and may God bless our great United States of America.

Steve Daines

U.S. senator

Bozeman
Gov. Steve Bullock allowed 875 bills to become law during his first term, but the 129 measures he vetoed highlight core differences with Republican legislators that have been the topic of repeated campaign attacks.

The Legislature holds lawmaking authority, but the governors job, in part, is to drive the divided group toward solutions on key issues. Some, like infrastructure funding, are priorities for both parties that will pass or fail because of details, such as whether to use cash or go into debt. Other proposals, like lowering income tax, are sought by one party but denounced by the other.

Whether Bullock wins re-election or loses to Republican Greg Gianforte will set the tone for 2017 lawmaking. Some bills vetoed by Bullock would likely become law if Gianforte is elected, while some measures passed by a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans, such as Medicaid expansion and tightened campaign finance laws, could be more susceptible to repeal or revisions.

The possibility has fueled speculative attacks by Democrats, who highlight contributions by Gianforte to organizations that lobbied against some of those measures. Likewise, Gianforte has repeatedly denounced many of Bullocks vetoes as failed leadership. He declined to name specific policies he knows he would veto if they reached his desk.

At a simplistic level, Im going to sign the good bills and veto the bad bills, Gianforte said, saying he would have supported tax reductions, infrastructure funding, regulation tweaks to strengthen natural resource development and bills to expand gun rights.

Bullock has a different definition of good bill.

A Gazette State Bureau review of his vetoes shows where Bullock has drawn the line on favored Republican proposals. He has consistently vetoed bills to decrease income taxes, citing the need for a balanced budget, and those that would loosen water regulations to encourage new development but potentially harm water quality.

With nine vetoes, Sen. Cary Smith, R-Billings, has had more bills killed by Bullock than any other legislator, including proposals to expand monitoring for welfare fraud that the governor called redundant, a measure to define the scope of sex education in schools that Bullock said is a decision best left at the local level, a measure to limit the time window patients have to file malpractice lawsuits that would have set a different standard from other negligence suits, and bills to allow out-of-state insurance companies to sell policies in Montana which Bullock argued would be tough to monitor.

Greg (Gianforte) would be certainly a governor more on the same lines of policy that I am, Smith said.

Republican Sens. Roger Webb of Billings and Duane Ankney of Colstrip ranked second, having received five vetoes each for measures ranging from barring state health officials, for privacy reasons, from collecting basic identifying information about home health workers aiding the elderly to adding a new definition of a natural stream that likely would have helped Arch Coal permit the proposed Otter Creek mine.

Lucky me, Webb laughed. You cant write an article big enough. That man seriously is such a detriment to the people of Montana and most of that stuff is common sense stuff. Man, this things been looked at by 150 people. What gives one guy the right to say its not a good bill when 150 people said it was?

Webb said he spoke with Gianforte about all his vetoed bills and received a favorable response.

Ankney admitted that one of his vetoed measures, which would have provided $35 million to local governments in Eastern Montana stretched thin by the Bakken boom, was one of several spending bills given to Bullock to test the governors commitment to a $300 million rainy day fund, which Republicans called excessive.

That was a bad one, Ankney said. Because all indications were he was signing that bill, so I was really surprised.

Rep. Keith Regier, R-Kalispell, said if Gianforte is elected other proposals might surface that legislators have not brought forward with a Democrat in the governors office.

Ive heard from other people, 'Why go through all the trouble of getting it through both chambers to put it on his desk if hes just going to veto it?'" he said, unsure of what those proposals might be.

Bullock said some bills that he vetoed, like the 2015 proposal to lower income tax rates, were likely pushed through the Legislature for political posturing.

By the Legislatures own balance sheets, they were already upside down $500 million. But maybe that bill was chosen so they could say, That governor is vetoing tax cuts, he said. Maybe in 2013 they said, Well really show him. Well hold all these bills and put them on his desk the last day,' so they left me no choice but to veto them or sign them even if it busts the budget because the ammendatory veto window had ran out.

The number of gubernatorial vetoes increased in recent years from a handful to several dozen each session. In 2009, Democrats controlled one chamber and fellow party member Gov. Brian Schweitzer vetoed 11 bills. In 2011, when Republicans held majorities in the House and Senate, Schweitzer registered veto as a brand, burning the word into dozens of printed-out bills on the Capitol steps, a tally that hit a 20-year high of 80 vetoes. Bullock, who inherited the same divided government, issued 73 vetoes in 2013 and 56 in 2015.

If you have a governor from one party and both houses of the Legislature are controlled by the other party, its not surprising that the Legislature is going to pass some bills that the governor isnt going to like, said Robert Saldin, University of Montana political scientist. The other thing is that our parties have become more polarized. The Republican party has become more conservative and the Democrats have become more liberal over time, so there are fewer of those people in the middle who can broker compromises than there were several decades ago.

In a more general way, to me, the fact theres a lot of vetoes isnt necessarily a problem. Vetoes can be an important part of reaching a compromise, too, Saldin said. That can be part of the negotiation process of how governments function. I dont think weve gotten to the point where the governor refused to sign anything and we have a standoff. Bills do get passed.

Most bills that fail to become law are killed by the Legislature. Committees kill them, the House or Senate votes against them or the measures fail to move to the next chamber by transmittal deadlines. When Bullock had 56 vetoes in 2015, 677 bills died in the Legislative process and 454 became law. About a third of the passed bills were sponsored by Democrats, including some priority pieces of legislation that only passed because the governor helped broker a coalition with some moderate Republicans.

I think Democrats will pick up seats and I think the primary fight in the Republican party, the outcome of that helped him, Montana State University political scientist David Parker said, noting that moderate Republicans were not unseated by more conservative challengers that would be less likely to compromise with the governor. Theoretically, Gianforte going on should have more of his legislative packages passed, but Bullocks always going to have more vetoes because the Legislature starts from a position where theres less agreement.

Saldin agreed, but said that even if Gianforte is elected, the bipartisan coalition might remain.

It would put those moderate Republicans a little bit more in the drivers seat, he said. They could just as easily work with more conservative Republicans as they would the Democrats.

At the Republican partys recent platform convention, Gianforte called for party unity, saying if elected he would work to bring GOP legislators together. But if a coalition-backed bill crosses his desk, he might be left in the position of deciding which faction of his party to support.

If Gianforte is elected governor and Republicans maintain control of the Legislature, they will probably see eye-to-eye on economic issues and tax issues, Carroll College political scientist Jeremy Johnson said. On other topics, It depends on which line Republicans push.
COLUMBIA  Eight South Carolina military veterans were recognized among the hundreds honored at the 29th annual Carolina Celebration of Liberty at First Baptist Church in Columbia recently.

Among the eight were two men with strong Orangeburg connections.

Recognized were Col. Bill Connor, an Orangeburg attorney and former senior U.S. military adviser to Afghan forces in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Connor, a U.S. Army Reserve combat infantry officer, serves today as the senior-ranking federal (Title 10) U.S. Army officer for disaster response in South Carolina.

Also recognized was Maj. Gen. Abraham Turner, a graduate of S.C. State University. Turner served as former commander of Fort Jackson in Columbia, and he is a former commissioner with the S.C. Department of Transportation.

Among the other eight selected to represent all of the states veterans were: Maj. Gen. James B. Allen Jr., Maj. Gen. R.S. Siegfried, Col. Nollie Woodrow Wagers, Capt. Robert Alexander Miller Jr., Seaman First Class Joe Champey and Private First Class Gerald A. White.

Featuring martial music, singing, a cast of 400 performers, thousands of flags and indoor fireworks for an audience of a few thousand, two performances were held June 26 as a celebration of Americas Independence Day, July 4.

The Carolina Celebration of Liberty 2016 will be televised throughout Independence Day week. The broadcast schedule includes:

Monday, July 4  7 p.m. SCETV

Monday, July 4  8 p.m. S.C. Channel statewide

Sunday, July 3  4 p.m. WTAT-Fox 24 Charleston.
Rita Fleming of Orangeburg is a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and, yes, an adrenaline junkie.

A few years ago for her 77th birthday, she went skydiving over Walterboro.

We were going for my daughters birthday, and they made a date for me, too, and didnt tell me until I got there, she said.

Fleming is not new to thrill-seeking activities like that one, though. She has also been parasailing in the Bahamas and even scuba dived while visiting family in Florida.

That was a little scary because you want to be sure youre breathing properly, she said.

This time, Fleming made the request to go ziplining. The idea came to her when a friend of hers had four tickets to zipline and offered them to her.

Ill take my son, his wife and my granddaughter, she told her friend.

The idea of ziplining had always been in the back of her mind, but she hadn't thought she would actually do it, Fleming said.

They had another nephew with them so I gave all my tickets away, Fleming said.

After that, she decided she wanted to go ziplining, too.

So I said for Mothers Day, this is what I want to do, Fleming said.

Her family took her to the Canaan Zip Line Canopy Tour in Rock Hill.

I had never done anything like that, Fleming said.

She said she felt very safe while there, adding that it was nice to know people don't actually hook themselves onto the zipline.

They have a little test line before you even go out there, Fleming said. Youre in this harness, but when you sit down on it to slide, its like sitting in a lounge chair. Its not uncomfortable at all.

She said she was able to go on about eight lines that went up 100 feet before a storm came in and they had to stop. Fleming said it was still a fun experience and she would do it again.

That stuff doesnt bother me, she said. I always do crazy things like that. Id like to go somewhere else and try a change of scenery."

Out of all her adventures with her children, Fleming says she cant choose a favorite.

My kids encourage me to do whatever I want and they make sure I do it, she said.

The highlight of my life right now are all my grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Fleming added.

She has four children, seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

It gets expensive at Christmas, she joked.

Anytime I get the chance to go visit my kids, I do, she said.

Flemings children live in Gilbert, Anderson and Charlotte, and she even has a daughter who moved to Oregon. She she flies out to visit her twice a year.

Im going there in a couple of weeks and Im going paddleboarding, Fleming said.

She says she has always been very active and doesnt plan on stopping any of her adventures until she's physically unable to continue.

Itll have to be something physical to hold me back, Fleming said.

She said she slipped and injured her shoulder about five years ago. When the surgeon told her she probably wouldnt be able to swim freestyle anymore, Fleming said she told him, Ill challenge you to 50 meters.

He was totally wrong because I can still swim, she said, laughing.

Fleming said she doesnt allow nervousness to get in her way and encourages others to live life to the fullest.

Just go ahead and do it, she says. You only waste time.
You could say Dominique Rynes stayed on TASC.

The 23-year-old Orangeburg woman is the first to complete the Test Assessing Secondary Completion -- or TASC -- in South Carolina. She also earned the Distinguished Achievement Award for her mathematics score on the TASC.

The TASC national high school equivalency assessment evaluates five subject areas -- reading, writing, mathematics, science and social studies -- based on what current students need to know to pass high school tests. It measures examinees levels of achievement relative to that of graduating high school seniors and career and college readiness standards.

The Adult Education program at Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College began offering the TASC in April, said Dr. Renee M. Ritter, Adult Education director.

Students in our program can now choose between the GED or TASC tests to assess their competency in high school subjects, she said. We are excited that Dominique has become the first student in South Carolina to complete the TASC since the state implemented its use.

The TASC differs from the GED in that it is available in both paper-and-pencil and online versions. Its design allows for the gradual transition from essential Common Core state standards to a deeper depth of knowledge. For more information about the TASC, visit tasctest.com.

Rynes joined 25 adult learners who earned their high school diplomas or high school equivalency certificate in being honored during the Adult Education Spring Graduation ceremony in May. Receiving their credentials were Calvin Bedenbaugh, Christina Berkhimer, Dwayne Brown, Kendall Butler, Felicia Cain, Alexander Cuttino, Ajanee Ellis, Bilqis Everette, Bonita Frazier, Kayla Garrett, Cortney Harrington, Lakia Hart, Taletha Haskins, Daitron Henderson, Jennifer Herron, KC Johnson, Robert Kalafus, Jimmie Kinsey, Erica Parker, Travis Robinson, Shameika Shuler, Hailee Stone, Stephaine Story, Heather Taylor and Crystal Wright.

Three graduates earned Gold Career Readiness Certificates and 19 earned Silver CRCs.

For more information about the Adult Education program at OCtech, call 803-535-1321 or visit octech.edu/academics/adult-education.
People whove worked with new South Carolina State University President James E. Clark say hes the right person to lead the institution.

"His two greatest assets are his work ethic and his intellect," Columbia attorney Clarence Davis said. "They have made an outstanding choice.

I know he will manage the finances and he will raise money from the corporate arena."

S.C. State announced Wednesday that the Clark, a trustee, had resigned from the board. Trustees then named him president, effective July 1, for a four-year term.

A contract will be discussed at a July 12 board meeting.

Clark previously served as a Benedict College trustee for about 18 years. The businessman was appointed to the interim S.C. State board by House Ways and Means Chairman Brian White in May 2015.

Davis, who sits on the Benedict board, said while Clark brings many skills as a financial expert, he is not just a finance guy.

"I can also envision James putting in place a very, very strong academic program," Clark said. "He is a hard worker and very diligent."

Davis said Clark will say what he means and means what he says.

"He is a doer, not a talker," he said. "Whatever he does will be well researched, thought out and reasoned."

Davis also described Clark as loyal.

"He is doing this because he wants to, not because he needs to," Davis said.

S.C. State trustee Jeff Vinzani noted trustees decided to let the chairman speak for the board, but said he contacted Clark in advance of the decision.

"He was doing such a good job as a trustee," Vinzani said. He noted Clark has been faithfully attending all the meetings despite having to travel in order to do so.

"He is a true leader and a great guy, Vinzani said.

Benedict College trustee Dr. Paul W. Drummond said he did not know Clark except through his time on the board, but says one word that can be used to describe him is efficient.

"He did an excellent job on the board," Drummond said. "He was always concerned about the direction of the college. I think his input was very effective and appreciated."

Drummond also said Clark brought an air of positivity to the board and to the college.

"I never knew him to be negative," Drummond said. "He was always positive about his work and about the college. I think he will be a nice fit for the college."

Former Benedict trustee Jonathan Charleston said Clark comes at a good time for S.C. State.

"I found him to be a good listener and a consensus builder," Charleston said. "He is a very thoughtful and innovative person. I believe he will be a great leader for the university."

Dr. William P. Diggs, who is an emeritus board member of Benedict College, recalled working with Clark over the years.

Diggs said the selection of Clark as S.C. States new president should be a good thing for the university.

"I remember he was a pretty able-bodied person and a dependable individual," Diggs said.

Clark is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and MITs Sloan School for Management with degrees in electrical engineering and computer science and a masters in management.

The Columbia residents business career includes being vice president of a $1 billion division of AT&T, which he converted from a money-losing division into the most profitable division in AT&Ts computer business.

In addition to his service on Benedict's College's board, Clark has been chair of the University of South Carolina Research Foundation for three terms.

Hes served on dozens of boards and committees, including the Celebrate Freedom Foundation Board, the S.C. Technology Alliance Board, the Engenuity S.C. Board, the Lexington Medical Center Board, the Columbia Urban League Board and Black Alumni of MIT.

Hes also served on the board of the Experimental Aircraft Association. The associations website notes hes built aircraft, performed in air shows and was chairman of a special 60th anniversary Tuskegee Airmen reunion.
One year ago, S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley and the state Legislature asked seven individuals from around the state to become the new board of trustees for South Carolina State University, an important higher education resource that was facing several serious challenges. I was honored to be invited to be one of those appointees and to serve as chair.

The accreditation board, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, had put S.C. State on probation twice, leaving the institution in real jeopardy of losing its accreditation. And S.C. States financial condition was in shambles.

Now, one year later, S.C. State has balanced the budget, exceeded enrollment goals, increased alumni giving and faculty grants and  most importantly  restored S.C. States accreditation.

This was a collaborative effort. Interim President Dr. W. Franklin Evans and the entire S.C. State family contributed significantly to its success. Having put his future on hold for a year, as he addressed the needs of S.C. State, Evans has resigned as interim president to have the time to pursue his personal and professional goals. We are grateful for his service and wish him every future success.

As its president, S.C. State needs a proven leader who can make certain that we fulfill the commitments we made in securing accreditation and strengthening further S.C. States financial condition. We have been very fortunate in finding that person, James E. Clark.

A resident of Columbia, Clark knows how to build and lead teams to success. He has had an outstanding career in business, a longtime involvement with higher education in South Carolina and a close association with S.C. State.

His distinguished business career includes being vice president of a $1 billion division of AT&T, which he converted from a money-losing division into the most profitable in AT&Ts computer business. A graduate of M.I.T. and the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management, Clark also worked with General Electric, Gillette and Exxon International.

His commitment to higher education and, specifically, S.C. State is equally impressive, having served on the Benedict College Board of Trustees for 18 years. He has been chair of the University South Carolina Research Foundation for three terms. And he has been a remarkably valuable member of the S.C. State Board during this past year.

I know that James Clark is committed to strengthening the learning opportunities of every S.C. State student, whether its in the classroom or through practical real-world experiences. And he is committed to working collaboratively with S.C. States outstanding faculty, staff and alumni. After all, team building is one of this leaders greatest strengths.

Clark did not seek the job of president. But it became increasingly clear to our board that we had in our midst the ideal individual to lead S.C. State at this critical time. We elected him unanimously and with great enthusiasm as the 12th president of S.C. State University.

Clark is a person of strength, accomplishment and integrity. He has already hit the ground running. He has great clarity on what needs to be done and how to do it. And he is committed to an open, collaborative process that is grounded in trust and a passion for S.C. State.

S.C. State has come a long way in just one year. With James Clarks leadership and the engagement of the entire S.C. State family, an even brighter future lies ahead.
Its safe to say state lawmakers and the taxpayers they represent are happier about developments at South Carolina State University these days.

The specially appointed board of trustees was tasked by the General Assembly in 2015 with getting the states only publicly funded historically black university out of a fiscal crisis that threatened its very existence.

A year into the trustees two-year terms, the board has presided over changes that have produced a balanced budget, increased enrollment and removal of probation which could have led to loss of accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

This past week, the board took another major step by making a decision on permanent leadership for the university. It came in unconventional and surprising fashion that for the first time has some looking at the board and shaking their heads.

In agreeing to forgive the university for considerable bailout dollars provided by the state, lawmakers this past session made clear they wanted permanent leadership in place by years end or shortly thereafter. The board was reluctant, at least publicly, to commit to a timetable, leading many to believe that Interim President Franklin Evans would get the position on a permanent basis.

So when rumors starting flying this past Tuesday that the board was preparing to pick a president and the new leader would not be Evans, leaders such as Orangeburg Rep. Jerry Govan went to the scene of a hastily called trustee meeting a day later to let see what was going to happen.

Govan and others were not happy to learn that Evans was resigning  presumably because trustees made it clear he was not getting the job permanently -- and that a member of the board was being hired as president for a designated four-year term.

Im just stunned at this unprecedented move, said Govan, an SCSU alumunus. In my years in the General Assembly, I think this is the first time Ive seen a president appointed in this manner without any input from students or the alumni.

The General Assembly gave you the tools in terms of initiating a search process, he told trustees. Why not go through that process? What youve done here is create a cloud of suspicion by appointing one of your own.

Chairman Charlie Way defended the boards action, saying there was no time for a search and one was not needed with the right person for the job already involved with S.C. State and familiar with its needs and challenges.

Thus the trustees hired one of their own in Vice Chairman James Clark, a Columbia businessman whose career includes being vice president of a $1 billion division of AT&T. A graduate of M.I.T. and the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management, Clark also worked with General Electric, Gillette and Exxon International.

He served on the Benedict College board for 18 years and he has been chair of the University of South Carolina Research Foundation for three terms.

Way stressed Clarks resume regarding fiscal matters, which remain a top priority for university leadership.

And on that count, the chairman is right. SCSU must continue progress in operating in the black, gaining enrollment, increasing private contributions and restoring its long-held position of respect among the nations leading HBCUs. Should there be a backward slide into the problems of the past, the future of the school would be in serious doubt. Its hard to see state leaders being willing again to bail out the university.

So the board gets the benefit of the doubt as it continues working to, in Ways words to alumni a year ago, pave the road ahead to make sure South Carolina State is around for another 119 years.

The Orangeburg native and prominent businessman promised transparency, accountability, good stewardship and sound best business practices.

We trust trustees understand, as will the new president, that maintaining support among university stakeholders, lawmakers and taxpayers through open lines of communication is vital. That means transparency must be more than a word when it comes to key decisions. Lack of it serves to foment doubt where there should be none.

To Dr. Evans, we join the board in saying thanks for the role he played in getting SCSU on track. It is good news that he plans to remain at the university in a teaching role.

Now comes uniting behind the new president and giving him the opportunity to make good on Ways assessment that the future of S.C. State is in very good hands.
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When Norman Maclean wrote eventually, all things merge into one, in his novella A River Runs Through It, river ecologist Ric Hauer didnt expect to take the idea so literally.

But in 2013, Hauer was giving a lecture on gravel-bed rivers at a Yellowstone To Yukon conference and he saw one of the regions foremost grizzly bear biologists slap his head in amazement.

Im going to have to change my entire research program based on what you just told me, Hauer recalled Mike Proctor saying. Because youre explaining, from a standpoint of a major feature of the landscape, why my bears are doing what the bears are doing.

A year later, University of Montana elk-and-wolf expert Mark Hebblewhite had an identical experience after hearing the same talk. He told Hauer he needed to completely rethink what his elk and wolves were doing. So did Clint Muhlfeld, who studies fish habitat at the Flathead Lake Biological Station.

Hauer himself has been studying river ecology for the past 40 years. Now the director of U.M.s Center for Integrated Research on the Environment, hes considered one of the leading experts on how rivers in the northern Rocky Mountains function.

But as he spent more time with a growing network of regional scientists, he became increasingly convinced that new discoveries are best sought where his field touches the boundaries of other disciplines.

What Hauer said  what produced these eureka moments around the roundtable  goes like this:

People tend to think of rivers as water running down a rain gutter. Sometimes it dries up. Sometimes it overflows. But its just a ribbon running between two walls.

That perception is completely wrong, said Harvey Locke, co-founder of the Yellowstone To Yukon Conservation Initiative and co-author of the scientific paper where this all comes together.

Its more like a wet sponge,'' Locke said. "Imagine that whole system from valley wall to valley wall being a big gravel sponge. Sometimes that sponge is half-full of water. Sometimes its totally soaked. When its totally soaked, thats a flood. When its drying, you wont see any water in the channel at all. But its not about the channel. Its that whole wide system.

The influence of gravel-bed rivers like the Clark Fork or the Bitterroot extend far beyond their banks. Hauers research showed the water seeps through the cobbles and boulders underground for hundreds, even a thousand meters beyond the riverbank.

In spring runoff, the water spreads out and nourishes plant and microbe communities throughout its floodplain. Water flowing back into the main channel leaves behind impurities as it filters its way through the gravel.

That underground flow stays insulated from the surface weather, staying cool in summer and unfrozen in winter. Interfere with that process, and a delicate web of life unravels.

Missoula offers an easy-to-see example. Compare the new growth carpeting the rebuilt floodplain above the Clark Fork Rivers former Milltown Dam to the decrepit and collapsing cottonwood stands in the city center, where the riverbank has been fortified for most of a century. Without access to the underground floodplain water exchange, those shoreline forests cant support saplings and regeneration.

Flatland rivers running on compacted silt and sand don't show this effect. They still flood over their banks, but only penetrate the fine sediment a meter or two a day. Gravel-bed rivers spread water underground hundreds of meters a day.

The difference can be seen on the Flathead River upstream and downstream of Kalispell. Above town, biodiversity in the gravel-bed channel is significantly greater than between Kalispell and Flathead Lake, where the river runs over an ancient delta of packed silt. There, the riparian ecosystem barely gets beyond the riverbanks.

Why does this matter? Because in the Rocky Mountains, gravel-bed rivers make up about 3 percent of the landscape. But theyre home to 60 percent of the plants and animals that live here. Of the 235 bird species native to the northern Rockies, 200 of them spend a significant portion of their lives on riverbeds. About half of those nest there.

So when Muhlfeld, the fish expert, looked at where bull and cutthroat trout were spawning eggs, it was always on gravel-bed streams where underground seeps brought fresh oxygen to the egg redds and flushed away the waste that might suffocate the embryos.

When Proctor checked his grizzly satellite collars in spring, the locations were always in floodplains where bears were grazing on the first plant shoots.

When Hebblewhite plotted his wolf den locations, they all fell within short distances of river bottoms. So did most of the kill sites where they took down elk. Three weeks ago on a trip to Yellowstone National Parks Lamar River Valley, he and Locke watched a wolf take an antelope fawn to a den near Slough Creek, just off the gravel-bed floodplain.

There are other flat places they could be, but theyre not, Hauer said. Theyre on the floodplains. The floodplain is the arena. Its not just a corridor where animals go up and down.

Hauer and Locke had worked together for several years building support for the Transboundary Flathead River that flows out of British Columbia into Montana along the western edge of Glacier National Park. That campaign eventually produced a memorandum of understanding between the province and state that was later ratified by both the Canadian and U.S. governments, protecting the Flathead from future mining and energy development.

As they built their arguments justifying the Flatheads significance, they realized how much the flowing water sloshed into other scientific disciplines beyond their own. So in February 2015, they got together with Proctor, of Birchdale Ecological in British Columbia, riparian botanist Stewart Rood, of Alberta's University of Lethbridge, and UM colleagues Hebblewhite, Muhlfeld, conservation biologist Victoria Dreitz, amphibian expert Winsor Lowe and restoration ecologist Cara R. Nelson. The group outlined their collective vision of a research paper and got to work. They had a final version drafted by November.

You cannot submit to a higher profile journal than the Science AAAS journals, Hauer said, refering to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. A typical paper in Science Advances magazine is three pages  max, maybe four if theres lots of graphics. This is a 13-page paper. That is monster.

An emailed statement from Science Advances editorial staff said the paper highlights future directions of interests for not only the scientific community, but policymakers and the public.

In their review, Hauer and colleagues evaluated decades of research pointing to gravel-bed rivers and their floodplains as hotspots of biodiversity, the editors wrote. Their final analysis implies a need to modify development so that it is less impactful on these important ecosystems.

"It does not proscribe development per se, but rather, should lead to development approaches and designs that are creative and adaptive to environmental efforts that seek to protect biodiversity.

This kind of information is really helpful understanding how river systems are connected to upland systems, said Yvette Converse, coordinator of the Great Northern Landscape Conservation Cooperative, which brings together government and private land managers. This paper shows how they relate to the timber industry, the mining industry, to roads and transportation. It helps us understand the changes we see developing dams and water storage. Rivers arent just the water that comes down them.

Most of the authors of the paper limited their comments to the data and observations developed in their research. But Locke allowed himself to go a few steps further on those directions of interest.

This is like having a new pair of glasses for seeing how rivers work, Locke said. And they show our relationship with the natural world is wrong and we need to fix it.

Those relationship problems extend from local zoning rules about building houses in floodplains to plans in India, Nepal and China over hydroelectric dams on Himalayan rivers. They include new awareness of what threatened species like bull trout and grizzly bears need to survive from gravel-bed rivers. They affect how the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes manage flows out of Kerr Dam to restore the lower Flathead River, and what might happen if Congress approves requests to renovate Gibson Dam on the Rocky Mountain Front near Choteau.

When we stabilize a gravel-bed river that should be mobile and dynamic, were locking it into place, Hauer said. If we lose the functionality of a gravel-bed river, we drastically lose the natural heritage we have in Western Montana.
Equitable Financial Solutions (EFSOL), Australia's largest, international Islamic finance company, headquartered in Sydney, has established its Dubai, UAE office at Emirates Towers, Shaikh Zayed Road.



EFSOL is actively pursuing its Middle-East expansion strategy, following the successful establishment of its ASEAN office based in Singapore, last April 2016, a statement said.



Due to its strategic location as a major financial and regional centre, Dubai will provide Middle-eastern and South-Asian based sophisticated investors access to lucrative Australian investment products offered by EFSOL.



"We have not seen any competitive Australian Shariah-compliant investment products available in the global market. EFSOL is looking to change that", said John Isaacs, director.



"After years of working diligently towards our vision of creating accessible Shariah-compliant financial solutions for all Australians, Dubai's new office will allow us to boost our financial products' offerings in key areas of Islamic finance that align with our current and future growth plans. This new Dubai office will give investors access to our superior products and returns. As an international company of international standards, we will exceed the expectations of our Middle-Eastern investors," said Usman Siddiqui, managing director of EFSOL.



Hisham Fakhir, director of Funds Management at EFSOL said: "Our team is really excited about the growth we are experiencing at the moment and this move represents a commitment to continue to build on the success our team has accomplished in the last 5 years. We're excited to take our distinctive investment programs into a dynamic and diversified economy like Dubai. We are only just getting started.  TradeArabia News Service
Bahraini families moving into new government houses are renting out their rundown properties to labourers, leading to mushrooming of unregistered accommodations, reported the Gulf Daily News, our sister publication.



To read further, please visit GDNonline.








Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) said its joint venture firm Hassyan Energy Company has awarded a major engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to Harbin Electric International and General Electric (GE) for its ambitious 2,400 megawatt (MW) Hassyan Clean Coal project.



Hassyan Energy Company is a joint venture between Dewa (51 per cent) and Acwa Power Harbin Holding Company (49 per cent).



The signing of the EPC agreement follows the close of the 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) between Dewa and Saudi-based Acwa Power for the development of Phase One of the Hassyan Clean Coal independent power project (IPP) project.



The first clean coal power plant in the Middle East, Hassyan will see the ultra-supercritical plant deliver best-in-class performance on efficiency, output and adherence to global environmental best practices.



The EPC agreement pushes forward the development of the project, which will produce 2,400 MW of net electricity using clean coal, stated Saeed Al Tayer, the managing director and chief executive of Dewa after signing the deal with Qu Aimin, the vice-chairman of Harbin Electric International, and Andreas Lusch, the president and chief executive of GEs Steam Power Systems.



It will also works towards achieving the objectives outlined in Dubais Clean Energy Strategy 2050, in particular the fifth pillar, which prioritises eco-friendly energy according to the following percentages: 25 per cent - solar energy, seven per cent each for nuclear energy and clean coal and 61 per cent natural gas by 2030.



According to him, the first unit is expected to be operational by March 2020  before Expo 2020 in Dubai.



Phase One of the project - which consists of four units of 600 MW net power each - will be operational in March 2020, March 2021, March 2022 and March 2023, respectively.



Lauding the project, Al Tayer said it reflects Dewa's commitment to achieve Dubais Clean Energy Strategy 2050, which considers the production of electricity through the use of clean coal a key component.



"Hassyan will utilise the latest global clean coal technologies, such as the ultra-supercritical technology, and the latest environmental standards. Hassyan Clean Coal IPP will also be implemented under a BOO (build-own-operate) model," he added.



Acwa Power chairman Mohammed Abunayyan said: "With this agreement, we have taken a significant step towards starting the engineering and construction works as per the stated timeframe for the first plant of generating electricity with clean coal in the Gulf region within our strategic businesses and projects in the UAE."



"We are committed to supporting, with all our best-in-class expertise, capabilities and technologies, Dubais Clean Energy Strategy 2050," he added.



Qu Aimin said: "As a Chinese saying goes, distance tests a horses strength, time will reveal a persons sincerity. With our state-of-art-service and highly efficient EPC teams, we will put in place all efforts, and make Hassyan plant a benchmarking project in Dubai and beyond."



Lusch said the Hassyan Clean Coal IPP is a flagship project that highlights the focus of the UAE government and Dewa to diversify the regions energy mix in a clean and sustainable way.



"Along with our partners, GE is proud to celebrate this significant milestone in a project that will showcase our highly efficient ultra-supercritical coal technology to help meet Dubais growing demand for efficient and reliable power, at very competitive costs, while keeping an exceptionally low environmental footprint," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Dubai Properties Group (DPG) has appointed former Emaar Properties executive Abdulla Lahej as chief executive to succeed Abdullatif Al Mulla following his resignation last week.



Earlier on Sunday, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that Al Mulla had resigned.



Al Mulla joined Dubai Properties Group only in August 2015.



In a statement to Reuters on Sunday, Dubai Properties Group said it "can confirm that Abdullatif Al Mulla will be leaving to pursue new ventures".



Former Emaar group chief executive Abdulla Lahej has been appointed as Dubai Properties Group's chief executive, the statement said. Lahej left Emaar in April 2015, according to a statement from the developer at the time.



Dubai Properties Group is a unit of Dubai Holding, the investment vehicle owned by Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.



Al Mulla was previously chief executive of Tecom Group, another unit of Dubai Holding which concentrates on developing business parks and free zones.-Reuters
GE Aviation unit to carry out the activities

General Electric Company's GE Aviation unit has been awarded a $919 million cost-plus-incentive-fee contract for designing, fabricating, integrating and testing turbofan adaptive engines, the Pentagon said on Thursday.  Reuters


Aluminium Bahrain (Alba), one of the largest and modern aluminium smelters in the world, achieved a major milestone by attaining 4 million plant-wide hours without Lost Time Injuries (LTIs) during the first half.



The award-winning record was set on June 29 by maintaining the best safety standards, said a statement from Alba.



This comes in line with Ramadan Safety Challenge and in line with the CEO's expectations for 2016 where departments were tasked with the objective of completing the holy month without any cases of LTIs, heat stress related-injuries or accidents while meeting the production targets, it stated.



Many awareness sessions and safety visits were conducted by the Alba management team in the presence of labour union and trade union members with special emphasis on healthy eating habits, road safety and attaining sufficient amount of sleep before reporting to duty.



Lauding the employees for the achievement, CEO Tim Murray, said: "We are pleased to achieve 4 million working hours without LTIs as of to date and will strive to stretch this record going into the months of July and August."



"We, at Alba, believe that safety is a perpetual journey that bonds employees together under one common goal 'stay safe'. Safety is our long-term strategic goal that is linked directly to our bottom line," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Viva Bahrain donated BD33,000 ($85,710) to the Dreams Society, works towards making the dreams come true for children affected with terminal illness, matching the amount raised by the society at its annual fundraiser, taking the total money raised to BD66,000, reported the Gulf Daily News, our sister publication.

To read further, please visit GDNonline.








Software AG, an enterprise software developer, has signed a partnership agreement with two local partners in Iran, including TUV Nord, as part of its move strengthen its business in the $420 economy.



TUV Nord Iran has been offering a comprehensive range of world-class services, including technical monitoring, certification, and training since 1998.



As the Middle East swiftly moves to modernise and upgrade its IT capabilities, Software AG foresees a sustained growth in the region. Regional companies are keen on investing in Software AGs Digital Enablement Capability that utilises components of its Digital Business Platform to create profit and achieve efficiency.



In line with this, Software AG aims through its latest collaborations and help to build an official supply network. With its opening again to international business in key sector, Iran offers infinite opportunities to IT companies who can gain easy access to its 80 million consumers.



Rex Neate, Lead  partner and Ecosystems, Software AG  Gulf and Levant, said: Software AG has had a successful history of supplying software licences to banks, petrochemical companies, and government organizations in Iran prior to the UN restrictions imposed in 2006. Following the lifting of the trade embargo, we aim to work with established and capable partners who can help us start off work from where we left. We are confident that our current partnership deals will immensely benefit Software AG in re-establishing itself in a much stronger position than before in the Iranian market.



According to the World Bank, Irans gross domestic product (GDP) is predicted to grow by 6 per cent in 2016 and 7 per cent in 2017. Increased IT spending, an expanding rate of mobile penetration and the easing of economic sanctions will give a major boost to the domestic IT services market, enabling it to reach $2.8 billion by 2020.  TradeArabia News Service
UAEs Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (TRA) has directed social media users in general and parents in particular to avoid compromising their privacy on social media.



TRA has recommended the use of strong passwords, carefully reading the terms and conditions for granting permissions to smart phone applications, and reminding children not to accept friend requests from strangers.



The authority advised families on how to ensure their childrens safe activities on social networks and discouraged them from sharing their geographical location, personal information and photographs on devices connected to the internet to protect them from blackmail.



This was done during the Authoritys participation in a seminar on blackmailing conducted with Al Ameen Program at the Al Rashidiya Majlis in collaboration with Dubais Community Development Authority. The session aimed to raise parents awareness on the risks of blackmail posed on children by the unsafe use of the internet in general and social media in particular. Mothers were advised to use parental control applications and review games and applications before downloading them.



Mohamed Al Zarooni, TRAs director for Policies and Programs said: Events such as these are in line with the Authoritys social responsibility and related accredited programs which aim to protect families and society as a whole from the risks of online attempts to fool users in general and children in particular. Through this workshop we shall educate people on the proper use of the internet and smart applications.



The seminar focused on the technical, security, legal, and social aspects of internet use. It also covered child protection, outlining important procedures to be followed by parents to protect their children from blackmail and ensure social media privacy.



Ghaith Almazaina, manager for Business Affairs at TRAs Computer Emergency Response Team, pointed out to the importance of protecting privacy as he explained that extortionists choose their victims based on posts and activities on social media which can inadvertently reveal personal information, financial status, and geographical location.



It is very important to read the terms for using smart phone applications to ensure that permissions are granted only after careful consideration. These permissions can be controlled through the application settings which display access to personal data such as photos, Almazaina said.



Our main concern is the unsafe technical practices of potential victims such as using weak or predictable passwords which allow extortionists to easily access accounts; visiting suspicious websites; downloading hacked programs that may contain malicious software; and not properly and thoroughly deleting phone data, Almazaina added.



Almazaina concluded with advice on the best practices for safely using social media and the internet. He emphasized the importance of protecting computer systems through regular updates to the operating system and anti-virus programs, avoiding the unprotected storage of personal information on devices connected to the internet, and downloading programs only from trusted sources. He also invited parents to use parental control applications, review games and applications prior to downloading, and ensure that applications suit their childrens ages.



Media consultant Khalil Al Ali, senior officer at Al Ameen, spoke about the impact of social media applications to both national and personal security. He pointed out that irresponsible people stand behind various famous applications and use them to get information, data, photos and videos from users to serve their own interests. He warned users to avoid using those applications without reading terms and conditions.



We are suffering from cultural neglect within this field. Google as an example is allowed to collect and store users data, call logs of smart phones, SMS, and locate them as in the case of social media games especially live ones. He emphasized the importance of being aware of terrorist groups, which attract the youth and children through social media. The war these days is through websites and social media to win minds and change thoughts, Al Ali said.



The law in UAE criminalizes 52 cases related to social media including blackmailing, fraud, defamation, abuse of the country and many others, he noted. He called on the audience to review the countrys laws through UAE Legislations App.



Boushra Qaad, head of Child Protection in the Community Development Authority, concluded the seminar with a lecture titled The cultural hub according to child protection law, which explains Federal Law 3 for 2016 in UAE. The law considers individuals below 18 years of age as a child.



She emphasized that child abuse is an act that can harm the child and prevents him from growing safely and healthily. Neglect and ignorance of childrens health, education or safety is also preventing them from enjoying a safe and healthy childhood, she added.  TradeArabia News Service
The UAE has urged men to avoid wearing the white robes, headscarf and headband of the national dress when travelling abroad, after a businessman visiting the United States was wrestled to the ground and held as an Islamic State suspect.



UAE media reported that the Emirati man was detained in Avon, Ohio, last week after a female clerk at a local hotel called 911 to report what she had described as a man affiliated to Islamic State, according to the Arabic-language al-Bayan newspaper. It only identified him by his initials.



The English language The National said the receptionist at the Fairfield Inn hotel called the police after she heard the man talking on his phone in the hotel lobby.



Gulf News, another UAE newspaper, published photos of the Emirati man in white robes being wrestled to the ground and handcuffed before being led away by police.



In a message on a Foreign Ministry Twitter account focusing on citizens travelling abroad, the ministry said on Saturday:



"For citizens travelling outside the country, and in order to ensure their safety, we point out not to wear formal dress while travelling, especially in public places," the message dated July 2 stated, without referring to the Avon incident.



The Foreign Ministry, in a message posted on its website in Arabic and English, urged citizens to abide by the laws of countries they are visiting. It alerted women to countries in Europe whose laws prohibit wearing of face covers, also without referring to the incident in Avon.



Local newspapers said Avon police released the man after they realised their mistake, but he fainted and needed hospital treatment.



Al-Bayan reported that the citizen had hired a lawyer to pursue the case, saying he had received no apology from either the police or the hotel.  Reuters
An HR director, a salesperson visiting with your engineering team and a network administrator walk into office at 9am. Each is carrying a coffee in one hand, a smart phone in their pocket and a laptop over the shoulder. Within minutes of entering the building, they all log in to the Wi-Fi network and blend into the mobile workforce.



These tech-savvy, and wi-fi loving users expect to connect and work from anywhere on any device  and they want connectivity without extraneous layers of security that slow them down. Its this workforce and expectations across enterprises in Bahrain that are turning security inside out.



Whats happening faster than anyone imagined is the dilution of the fixed perimeter that surrounds the enterprise. Before workforces went mobile, IT invested tons of time and resources into building a crack-free perimeter that prevented outside threats from coming into the enterprise. They locked down the network with gateway firewalls, intrusion prevention systems, anti-spam, URL filtering and other security solutions to close off possible entry points. But in our more mobile-centric world, the biggest threats now come from inside the network.



Infected laptops and smart phones walk right through the front door and connect directly to the network without ITs knowledge. When you count the attacks initiated from those unsecured user devices, the loss of sensitive data on mobile devices and risky end user behaviour, they add up to more than 90 per cent of enterprise security breaches.



Lost devices alone pose a serious insider threat. In 2014 thieves stole 2.1 million smartphones in the United States and another 3.1 smartphones were lost. The missing devices are often all someone needs to gain access to a companys valuable data and critical business systems. Remember the mobile workers from earlier? The HR directors laptop could have access to the direct deposit information for the entire company, and the network administrator most likely has the credentials to access 70 per cent of the systems in the company.



Stats are only beginning to trickle in that highlight the potential threat of the Internet of Things. Clearly, billions of devices will connect to the Internet in the coming years, but how will they impact the enterprise? According to The Internet of Things 2015 report, the largest adopter of IoT ecosystems will be businesses, not consumers. According to Gartner, businesses are projected to have from 11.2 to 20 billion IoT devices installed by 2020. As smart meters, IV pumps, manufacturing robots, farming equipment, and even conference rooms connect, the network must get smarter and be able to classify and understand the behaviour of IoT devices automatically in order to keep the enterprise safe.



When context controls connectivity



Between the mobile devices already on the network and the IoT devices that are coming, the inside of the network has become a soft underbelly. It demands a different type of security approachone that starts on the inside and extends beyond the perimeter, and can adapt to the dynamic nature of usersand mobile-oriented threatsthose that can originate from anywhere.



The hallmarks of this security approach are: shared contextual information and adaptive controls based on mobility needs. By recognizing that no two users are alike, an adaptive trust approach allows IT to define more personal policies that are mapped to individuals or groups that share similar roles and business objectives.



Going back to our initial trio, the visiting salesperson gets guest access allowing them to reach only the Internetthis after meeting sponsor acknowledgement and device compliance. While guest access is a familiar scenario, context-based policies get more interesting when applied to the two employees. Enforcement can now be based on user role, device ownership, MDM/EMM status, and even location. The network administrator has full privileges from his laptop while he is in any company-owned building. At home, his privileges drop somewhat and they are different for his laptop and his smartphone.



The HR director has full access to all systems when onsite, and when working from home on her laptop. When travelling she is limited to emails and approvals from her mobile device. For vacation, review, or budget approvals, the HR director also has the necessary multi-factor authentication credentials to move the approval into the workflow cycle. This added layer of security ensures that automated processes are only initiated by approved personnel. If the mobile device is stolen, a thief has no access to the companys systems or private employee data.



User role, device type, ownership, status and location are some of the relevant contextual information that allows IT to create policies that allow or deny access on a case-by-case basis without leaving the enterprise completely exposed to new threats.



A secure network is a healthy network



Enterprises that have moved to an adaptive trust approach are responding confidently to the demands of BYOD, cloud, and IoT. Consulate Health Care is among the security thought leaders that have moved to an adaptive trust approach that protects against insider threats. The health care center had hundreds of company-issued mobile devices and thousands of guest devices that connected to the network daily, but security wasnt air tight.



Consulate wanted to assign policies to the connecting devices based on user role and device that would serve both visitors and employees and protect patient information and other private healthcare data. The new defence approach provides the center with much better security around its intensely dynamic mobile environment.



Prior to establishing a valid connection, corporate-owned and personal devices must meet compliance policies. Devices failing to meet requirements are automatically quarantined and the users are asked to resolve the issues.



Once recognised as compliant, patients, residents and family members can complete the self-enrolment process for Internet access that wont affect the security of the internal network. However, when the centres health care employees connect to the network, they are granted access to internal resources. Based on user role and device ownership IT can easily define which resources they should have access to  thus reducing the chance of compromising patient information. Consulate is now much more confident that its data and systems are safe from any insider threats.



When enterprises in Bahrain take an adaptive trust approach, IT can make smarter decisions about how users and devices connect and how their access privileges are enforced. This is required for todays mobile workforce  which will continue to push the boundaries of network security for years to come. In this fast-paced, upwardly mobile world, the best defence is being able to adapt.



Michael Netterberg is a solution architect, Networking at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company.
Dragon City, Bahrains flagship wholesale and retail shopping destination located in Diyar Al Muharraq, will be celebrating Eid Al Fitr by holding both traditional activities and fun filled events that will keep the young ones and families entertained.



Dragon City also announced that it will change its working hours from the first to the fourth day of the Eid holidays to permit shops to remain open from 10 am to 1 am to meet the engulfing demands of the celebratory occasion.



At the Mall Centre, a kids area will be setup for the children to participate in recreations that range from ceramic painting to paper crafts along with a specially designed zone in which visitors can play board games such as Backgammon and Carrom and preserve these special moments for years to come in a traditional house photo wall where they can take pictures. In line with the cultural significance of the festive occasion, Dragon City will also host an iconic representation of Eid Al Fitr, embodied with the presence of a man dressed in traditional attire with a falcon on his arm. Professionals will also be on hand to showcase their Arabic Calligraphy skills using special papers with Dragon Citys logo, as well as Henna artists to delight the ladies.



In the mini centers that run along the central area of Dragon Mall, several tents that have been enveloped in traditional decorations will be erected to hold live displays of textile and basket weaving with professionals moulding beautifully crafted pieces to captivate spectators with the many intricacies involved in the delicate art. Some of these tents will also house traditional Chinese activities such as the art of Chinese tea-making, with people provided samples of the exquisite taste, and Chinese Calligraphy, wherein those interested can have their names written in the ancient language and be provided with those timeless memorabilia.



Speaking on this occasion, Patrick Zheng Shuo, general manager of Chinamex Bahrain Management Company, the operating company of Dragon City, said: Dragon City is a unique destination that houses the best in wholesale and retail of both worlds, the Middle Eastern and the Oriental culture, and what better way to manifest this passionate fusion during this culturally important festival than to embrace it and be a part of it! And with the many pursuits and spectator events that we have lined up during the first three days of the Eid Al Fitr holidays, we hope to have fulfilled this aspect of that vision.



It brings me immense happiness to be able to provide such self-indulgingly satisfying opportunities to our customers, visitors and well-wishers alike and welcome everyone to our latest offering. We look forward to days of fun that will resonate the celebratory spirit of Eid Al Fitr throughout the dimensions of Dragon City, thereby adding to the allure of its wholesome shopping experience, and hope to generate plenty of smiles to brighten up the occasion. I would like to take this opportunity to extend my best wishes to Bahrains leadership and to its people as well and hope they have a fantastic time during the holidays, he added.

In addition, Dragon City plans to resume Monday Wholesale Offers and Orders for businessmen and retailers. And in line with their aim of catering to both businessmen as well as customers, Dragon City intends to showcase a Chinese folk art exhibition as well during the month of July. - TradeArabia News Service
Millennium Airport Hotel Dubai has appointed Ramesh Kumar Singh as the new assistant director of sales.



Singh holds more than 17 years of experience in the hospitality industry having worked in various capacities. His most recent posting was at Danat Hotels & Resort, Abu Dhabi as the director of sales. During the course of his career Singh was associated with several well-established brands such as Carlton Tower Hotel, Dubai; Dhow Palace Hotel, Dubai and Radisson Blu Residence, Dubai to name a few.



In his new role, Singh will be responsible for creating new business relationships and exploring potential clients for the property in order to maximise revenue.



Commenting on his appointment, Simon Moore, general manager of Millennium Airport Hotel Dubai, said: We are delighted to welcome Singh to our growing team who joins us at a pivotal time. We have just upgraded our facilities with a massive expansion of seven new meeting rooms, four new restaurants as well as a Grand Ballroom with over 6,448 sq. ft space. This requires a strong sales force and we are confident, Ramesh will be instrumental in helping us achieve our key business objectives. - TradeArabia News Service




Emirates launched its second daily A380 service from Dubai International Airport (DXB) to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on Friday, touching down just shortly after 8:00pm local time on July 1.



With this expanded schedule, Emirates is now able to serve nearly 1,000 passengers travelling to Los Angeles each day. Also on the same day Vienna joined the family of A380 scheduled destinations served by an Emirates A380.



The Emirates A380 aircraft was decked out in specially-designed Dodgers branding to celebrate its expanded service to Los Angeles, as well as the airlines sponsorship of the Los Angeles Dodgers. This sponsorship in conjunction with the second daily flight to Los Angeles, emphasises Emirates' commitment to sports, culture and the Southern California region.



The new flight EK217, operated by an Airbus A380-800 aircraft, is configured for three cabin classes with 14 private suites in First class, 76 seats in Business class and 401 seats in Economy class.



Were thrilled to continue growing our footprint in Los Angeles, the second largest city in the US, and to be able to provide more flight choices to more customers daily as well as doubling the economic benefits Emirates flights provide to Southern California, said Rob Gurney Senior Vice President of Commercial Operations, The Americas. We strive to give our customers the best possible travel experience every step of the way through our award-winning service and industry-leading products.



In addition to serving those visiting or traveling to Los Angeles, passengers wishing to travel beyond LA to nearby destinations in the US can take advantage of our partnerships with Virgin America and Alaska Airlines. For example, through Alaska Airlines, passengers can connect from LAX to cities such as Eugene, Mammoth Lakes, Monterey, Portland, Santa Rosa, and Guadalajara. Through Virgin America, passengers can travel onwards to Las Vegas, Fort Lauderdale, Cancun and more.



The new Emirates flight EK217, departs Dubai daily at 3:00 pm and arrives in Los Angeles at 8:00 pm. The return flight EK218, departs Los Angeles daily at 10:30 p.m. and arrives in Dubai approximately 16 hours later at 1:30 a.m. This new service supplements the current EK215 Airbus A380-800 flight which departs Dubai at 8:55 a.m. and lands in Los Angeles at 1:55 p.m. The existing return flight, EK216, departs LAX 4:45 p.m. and arrives in Dubai 7:35 p.m. the following day. - TradeArabia News Service
Coal faces myriad challenges these days. Competition from natural gas, reduced demand and government regulation are the most popular reasons cited for the industrys decline.

But theres one challenge that rarely gets mentioned in the litany of long-term issues facing the industry: shipping costs.

Transportation costs have increased in recent years, even as the price of coal itself has declined. The cost of average annual rail shipments from the Powder River Basin climbed nearly 20 percent between 2009 and 2014, the last year for which statistics are available. Spot prices on Powder River Basin coal are down 31 percent since the start of 2011.

The issue is of particular importance for miners in the Powder River Basin, who are half a continent away from many customers. Shipping costs generally account for two-thirds of their delivered cost. Put differently, shipping costs play a large role in determining whether coal is cheaper than its chief competitor, natural gas.

Rail companies earnings have slumped on account of reduced coal shipments. BNSF profits fell from $1.05 billion in the first quarter of 2015 to $784 this year after recording a 33 percent decline in coal shipments. Union Pacifics first-quarter earnings were $979 million, down 15 percent from the same period last year. The Omaha, Nebraska-based railroad said coal shipments were down 34 percent over that period.

Neither railroad has shown signs of offering concessions to coal companies, despite some calls for them to do so. When financial analysts asked Union Pacific Vice President Eric L. Butler about the subject during a recent earnings call, Butler declined to comment. The railroad does not talk about specific contract negotiations, Butler said.

I will say we negotiate aggressively and assertively, and were in a very competitive environment, he said. And for any particular contract negotiation, we probably have dozens, if not hundreds, of terms that were negotiating. And like always, as markets change and we look to be competitive, we evaluate a bunch of those terms and conditions and what works for us and works for our customer base.

A BNSF spokesman could not be reached by press time.

Railroads have cut deals for coal companies in the past, said Matt Preston, an industry analyst at the consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. Norfolk Southern and CSX have offered lower shipping rates to protect eastern coal exporters, he noted. BNSF also offered improved terms to Powder River Basin producers around 2012, prompting a shift away from Union Pacific in the basin.

Still, Preston said he did not expect to see railroads make wide concessions to coal companies.

My feeling is they are more interested in protecting their margins in general than aiding the coal industry, he said. They make money shipping frack sands to gas drillers, too.

Both major railroads have likely paid off their infrastructure investments in the Powder River Basin, Preston said, reducing their incentive to protect the coal market.

The railroads business is shipping stuff, not just coal, Preston said. Theyre moving onto some other market.
GLENROCK  Two years ago, the Higgins Hotel was jammed with oil field workers and owner Doug Frank worried about a lack of available rooms for summer tourists. Today, Frank reckons someone could hold a cannon fight on Birch Street, the central artery in this community of roughly 2,500, and no one would notice. Hardly anyone walks Glenrocks streets these days.

Few Wyoming communities have been harder hit by the energy bust. The oil fields to the north have gone dry, and the parking lots where coal miners catch the bus to the yawning surface mines in the Powder River Basin are half-full. The oil field service jobs in Casper, a half-hour west, have all but disappeared.

But a nondescript building on Glenrocks east side may hold the key to this communitys economic revival. Fewer than a half-dozen people were employed here several years ago, retooling oil field equipment for DS Manufacturing. The company was acquired last year by McGinley Orthopaedic Innovations, a medical device manufacturer. Now, 23 people labor in three shifts around the clock, building a drill used in orthopedic surgeries.

The shop has become a landing pad for former energy workers like Sturgis Steele, a burly machinist with a ZZ Top-esque beard. Steele refurbished oil field parts during the boom years only to see the work evaporate once the bust hit.

I knew being the medical field and everything, there was a lot better job security, he said during a break one recent afternoon. Of his present employer he added, It is an upcoming company, for sure. Once it takes off, it will provide quite a few jobs.

Wyoming has long struggled to lure firms like McGinley Orthopaedics to the state, burdened by the perception that it lacks the workforce to sustain high-tech jobs. Technology-related positions, including those in manufacturing and engineering, accounted for just 1.8 percent of the Cowboy States labor market in mid-2015, according to a recent analysis by the state Department of Workforce Services Research and Planning Department.

But after years of calling for diversification, Wyoming finds itself with little money to spend on the training needed to help workers like Steele make the jump to careers outside the energy industry. A budget shortfall wrought by the downturn in mineral revenues has raised the specter of cuts to the Wyoming Community College Commission and the Department of Workforce Services, the very agencies identified by Gov. Matt Mead as crucial to the retraining of laid-off energy workers.

Community colleges will see their budget cut by nearly 8 percent or $20.2 million. Mark Englert, the CEO of Gillette College, expects enrollment will increase even as funding decreases.

The college is focusing its resources on training in skilled trades like machining and welding.

We will look for efficiencies as best we can. We are going to capitalize on existing staff and expand in some areas, Englert said. It will present all of us with challenges.

The Department of Workforce Services is set to reduce spending on employment and training by $732,539. Its Workforce Training Fund, which provides workers with specialized job training, faces a $1.5 million cut.

That money has traditionally been crucial for institutions like Wyoming Contractors Regional Training Center in Casper, which uses the funding to develop specific training courses to match employers needs.

McGinley Orthopaedics has been in negotiations with the training center to set up its own certification program in CNC machining, the type of computer-assisted manufacturing used to make the companys drill. The prospective program has struggled to move forward, however, complicated by the question of where money for the training will come from.

Were fortunate enough that we get a lot of grants available for these training programs, too, but with cuts at the state level, some of that is going to go away, said Paul Nash, a recruiter at the center.

State officials say ample training opportunities remain. The Department of Workforce Services operates a series of one-stop centers, where officials try to match laid-off workers to open positions. The department has begun hosting career symposiums on Monday afternoons in Casper. And it has applied for up to $2 million in federal funding to help retrain laid-off coal miners for manufacturing and virtual jobs.

I think we have a lot of opportunities right now for someone in the state who is laid off, said Tobi Cates, the departments employment and training administrator.

Opportunity and challenge

For a company like McGinley Orthopaedics, the bust represents both an opportunity and a challenge.

The firm was founded by Joseph McGinley, a Casper orthopedic surgeon who saw the need for a more accurate surgical drill. McGinleys drill, the IntelliSense, won Federal Drug Administration approval last year. The company is now applying the finishing touch to its first batch of 100 drills. It has plans to build 400 more and is plotting an expansion into surgical saws.

The firm has raised $10.2 million in private financing since 2012, including $3 million in a two-month period this year. It has also received considerable public assistance. The State Loan and Investment Board contributed a $1.35 million business ready development grant while Glenrock pitched in $150,000. Frank, the owner of the Higgins Hotel who also serves as Glenrocks mayor, called the company our largest bright spot.

Still, McGinley Orthopaedics would have had difficulty luring an experienced machinist like Steele away from oil field work two years ago. As a startup, the company could not have been able to compete with the wages and benefits available in the energy sector.

The firm is now inundated with applications from oil field craftsman, said Diane McGinley, who runs the company with her husband.

Many have the basic skill set to work in the drill makers shop. But before they can step on the factory floor they need specialized training to work the companys high-tech machines.

What we find in Wyoming is there are many individuals who know how to do manual machinery or work with some larger parts that are sort of computer-based, she said. I think we have the talent in Wyoming. But we have to invest in them.

McGinley is quick to offer praise of state officials. The company has hired numerous employees through the Department of Workforce Services one-stop centers. The $1.35 million business ready development grant has also greatly increased its ability to hire.

But she is critical of proposals to cut funding for training programs.

This is part of how we grow as a state and keep people here instead of losing them to other states and economies, McGinley said. That is taking away that investing opportunity from an employer. There may be other employers who want to invest in their people, but dont have the means to do so.

To date, the company has relied on an in-house training program. New hires are partnered with more experienced hands on the factory floor. It would be more efficient to create a training program, freeing up factory hands while training prospective employees for the job, she said.

The company already coordinates with Casper College, which boasts a CNC machining program. That has provided a pool of potential applicants with a basic knowledge of computer-assisted manufacturing. Many still need specialized training, however.

More challenging is the fact many students dont know the program exists, or that medical device manufacturing is even an option to them.

I think it hasnt been on the radar for those entering the workforce from high school or community college looking at this as a viable field, McGinley said.

New career, new challenges

Indeed, perception may be one of Wyomings greatest challenges. A generation of new welders, machinists and electricians entered the workforce at a time when the oil field is booming, said Travis Blankenbaker, a welder at McGinley Orthopaedics.

Their skills are easily transferable to construction and manufacturing, but many are loath to take a pay cut now that oil field work has slowed, he said. At the other end of the spectrum are those who have worked in the energy sector so long that the idea of moving into a new industry seems prohibitively daunting.

Blankenbaker, a former Power Service employee, is something of an anomaly at McGinley Orthopaedics. The company only employs two welders.

But his colleague, Steele, nodded in agreement nearby. Many companies outside the state see Wyoming and think roughnecks and ranchers, he said. In truth, many oil field craftsmen can do a variety of jobs. For a machinist, its often just a question of learning how to use the equipment employed by a company.

Yet many oil field machinists balk at the thought of training, not just for what it entails but what is signifies, Steele said.

When you change careers, you have to be able to change your lifestyle, he said. As long as youre open to it, you will survive.
Chad Brown was brewing a summer ale in 2012 in the garage of his Las Vegas home.

A friend asked him how much he was paying for a bushel of malted barley. Thirty-five dollars, Brown said.

His friend, a Wyoming farmer, said hed sell the same barley for $3 a bushel.

He asked if I would move to Wyoming and get a business going, Brown said. This is what it turned into.

Brown and his friend, Gene Purdy, started Wyoming Malting Company. The duo broke ground Friday in Pine Bluffs at the site of the businesss future barley malting plant.

Five companies dominate the malting industry in the United States, Brown said, so theres no local source for malt. The country has seen an increased focus by consumers on locally produced foods and beverages, he said. And as the craft brewing industry grows in Wyoming, Brown and Purdy want to provide those brewers with Wyoming-made malt.

So there will be beer made with Wyoming-grown grains, he said.

Brown and Purdy began meeting with the Wyoming Business Council in 2014, after Brown had moved his wife and three daughters to Pine Bluffs. After settling on a business plan, the partners applied for a Business Ready Community Grant. They partnered with Laramie County and Cheyenne LEADS. They received the $3.4 million grant last year.

The barley will be grown on Purdys farm. The leftover grain, called spillage, will be fed to Purdys cows and pigs and will be sold to other local farmers.

We feel that a malting company should be an extension of a farm, Brown said. Were taking a raw product and modifying it into something different.

The partners have already reached out to breweries and distilleries within the state, who have expressed interest in purchasing the Wyoming-made malted barley. Jackson Hole Still Works wants to buy part of the businesss first batch, Brown said.

In addition to producing malted barley, Brown and Purdy are starting their own distillery, called Pine Bluffs Distilling. They plan to make vodka, whiskey and gin and are building a retail area for tasting. They also intend to sell their liquor in stores throughout the region.

The partners hope to open their business in January 2017.
The North Dakota Farmers Union wants price protections for milk similar to those provided for cotton.

NDFU, which fought against industry-requested exemptions to the state's anti-corporate farming law for dairy and swine producers seeking non-family member investors, said it will instead ask Congress to include better price protections for milk in the next Farm Bill as a way to stimulate the state's slumping dairy industry.

President Mark Watne said NDFU has joined in a multi-state dairy committee made up of other farmers union charters from Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota and California to lobby lawmakers for a higher price point that will cover the cost of production and "allow dairies to survive."

Watne said the price paid by consumers is not representative of the price paid to producers. The additional cost is "added by people beyond the farm gate."

"It doesn't happen overnight," Watne said of getting price protections implemented. "But we're out in D.C. having those conversations already."

NDFU also wants farmers to have ownership in any new processing plant built in the Upper Midwest to add to their profits as the raw product goes through processing. He points to similar ownership structures in sugar beet processing.

"If farmers own a cheese plant they get that profit, too," he said.

Meanwhile the number of dairies in North Dakota continues to shrink, dropping to 86 around the time of the corporate farming referendum vote.
The warden of the Wyoming Medium Correctional Institution in Torrington has retired, the Department of Corrections announced recently.

Steve Hargett worked in corrections for more than 40 years, holding warden positions in multiple states. He is well-known for his hands-on approach, according to the Department of Corrections.

This business is all about people  our inmates and our staff he would often remind people, the department said in a written statement.

Hargett told his employees they had a responsibility to do whatever they could to make the prison safe for staff to work in and inmates to live in.

Hargett started his career in Wyoming in 2008 as warden of the Wyoming Honor Conservation Camp in Newcastle. Three years later he assumed the warden position in Torrington. He helped both facilities become accredited with the American Correctional Association.

During his time in Wyoming, Hargett created a wellness program that earned a Best Practices award from the National Commission on Correctional Health Care.

He began his corrections career in 1973 in Mississippi. Hargett started as a correctional officer and quickly rose through leadership positions to become a superintendent in the Mississippi Department of Corrections. His career took him to Arizona, Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico and Kansas, where he oversaw privately and publicly operated prisons and jails.

Hargett and his wife plan to move to Florida. During his retirement celebration in May, he told staff to keep believing that people can change and to keep giving inmates opportunities that will help them go on and have a better life, the Department of Corrections said.

The department has not yet chosen a new warden for the Torrington prison.
Listen to the electricity being generated are the closing words that go to tourists from a speaker when they push a button to learn about solar electricity generation at Natural Bridges National Monument. Natural Bridges is located 38 miles from the nearest power line, west of Blanding, Utah. The tourist porch overlooks an acre of solar panels. They provide about 50 kilowatts (KW), more than enough electricity for six staff residences, maintenance facilities, the visitor center and a water sanitation system. Fifty KWs of electricity will light 50 1,000-watt light bulbs. In the daytime the excess electricity produced by the panels is stored in batteries for nighttime electricity.

Of course there are no sounds from the panels. The acre clearing in the juniper and pinion forest and installation of the panels was carried out in 1980. After thirty-six years some of the original panels remain in use. The panels replaced diesel generators that ran night and day and used about 15,000 gallons of oil each year at a cost of $34,000. The National Park Service, the Department of Energy and the MIT Lincoln Laboratory planned the solar system beginning in 1977. In 1977 solar cells were very expensive to buy and install, $76/watt. Today the cost is $.74/watt. And their efficiency (sunlight turned to electricity) has doubled.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported June 14 that for the first time ever, in 2015 solar utility-scale projects added more new capacity to the nations grid than any other energy source. There is a new energy production revolution.

China overtook Germany in 2015 and leads all nations with 43,530 megawatts (a megawatt is one million KWs) of solar production. The U.S. produced 25,620 megawatts the same year. The Chinese are also leading the way in total installation and solar panel production. But solar still provides a small portion of the electricity consumed by the world.

China recognizes the problems that accompany climate change. They produce the most CO2 emissions and the U.S. is second. Both nations joined the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement with 173 other nations.

An impediment to the growth of solar cells as a replacement for fossil fuels and reducing atmospheric temperature is storage of the electricity produced from sunshine. Some homes with solar panels store the excess electricity with batteries, like at the Natural Bridges. They can be off the grid. But most homes that use solar cells are like my own. Though we produce more electricity than we use and the excess goes to the grid, we remain on the grid and coal electricity is the storage battery used when the sun goes down. It is at sundown when homes begin to use the most electricity. Natural gas-generated electricity is a battery for solar cells also and is competing with coal for cost. It emits 50 to 60 percent less CO2 when combusted.

New battery packs have been developed for solar homes. One, the Powerwall by Tesla, maker of the car, is revolutionizing storage of electricity. It is a lithium ion battery the size of a large backpack, charged by solar cells and attaches to the garage wall. It is timed to come on when fossil fuel power plants ramp up. A vision for solar panel manufacturers and advocates is that new homes will be purchased with panels in place. Some already are and since ours is a mobile society, homeowners are also leasing panels.

The author was fortunate to attend the Renewable Energy Summit June 12-14 at UW where national leaders in wind and solar energy spoke about the state of development of these energy sources.

The keynote address was by Bill Ritter, Director of the Center for the New Energy Economy at Colorado State University. His talk was a summary of his new book, Powering Forward: What Everyone Should Know about Americas Energy Revolution. He first acknowledged that our modern civilization has been built with fossil fuels. But we are in a transition to clean energy and it needs to be as smooth as possible. It should not be built upon the backs of the poor. He was talking about undeveloped countries without electricity, but also about Wyoming coal workers who had well-paying jobs and are now unemployed. Fossil fuel workers can be in the new energy economy, too.

States whose economies are rooted in fossil fuels must assist in the transition with reeducation and renewable energy industries. Pueblo, Colorado, was Ritters example of transition. Through the 20th century the citys economy was steel making with coal. In 1982 the steel market collapsed for Pueblo. Today a wind turbine blade factory is a major employer.

By contrast the Wyoming Legislature in March of 2015 approved a bill to use $1 billion in bonded money to assist building coal ports in Oregon and Washington. What would a billion dollars do for reeducation and new renewable energy industries in the Cowboy State? It will take the will of the people and their leaders to realize the change and join the new energy revolution.
Happily, the conversation about what Wyoming students should be expected to learn in science class is different in both substance and style than it was two years ago.

That was the year the Next Generation Science Standards, which deal with climate change, were met with heated animosity. It was also one year after lawmakers stripped then-Superintendent of Public Instruction Cindy Hill of her power in a bill that was eventually ruled unconstitutional. Chaos reigned in the department, with many employees resigning and complaining of a hostile work environment.

All that seems far away now. A new set of standards, which are similar in content to the Next Generation standards, is approaching the finish line for adoption in the states schools. Gov. Matt Mead and the state Board of Education will review comments before ultimately deciding in the fall whether to OK the standards or change them.

This statewide dialogue, however, has lacked the bitterness and rancor that characterized the conversation two years ago.

The state has a more transparent process to thank for that. The public had multiple opportunities to offer input on the standards, and the members of the group that developed them are a fair representation of Wyomingites, including people from both education and the energy industry.

Another calming influence is Jillian Balow, the states schools chief. Balow, a Republican, has offered full support for the standards as well as the transparency of the process. However, she has also championed the industry, noting that energy taxes have supplied more than $3 billion for education since 2003. She has maintained a delicate balance between ensuring that Wyoming children receive fact-based science lessons and supporting an industry that employs sometimes-controversial science while it plays a huge role in supporting state schools.

All this civility has allowed science to lead the way  a difficult line to walk in energy-centric Wyoming. It has offered a too-rare demonstration of what happens when people balance a variety of priorities to ensure our students receive the best education possible. Political affiliation isnt the beginning or end of this discussion, and the leaders involved have realized that.

Hopefully, we in Wyoming will see more of this type of decision-making  open, transparent and most of all, productive.
Dont buy into hate

Editor:

The recent PBS documentary, The Love of Silence, shows a family that survives the genocide of a million people being slaughtered and murdered in Indonesia in 1965. Other family members were part of the murdering team that killed the brother. The man whose brother was killed confronted his killer, demanding they accept responsibility for the damaged lives and horrendous aftermath. This was just 20 years after the Holocaust in Germany.

They did not accept responsibility and were not at all guilt ridden. They were following orders to kill the communists because they did not believe in God and were enemies of the people. (Excuse). They bragged and laughed about the slaughter. They seemed to enjoy the killing  beheading, stabbing throats and drinking blood (to ensure they would not go crazy)!

I understand with the research on this genocide that America furnished the guns and the information is classified.

Remember the genocide in Rwanda where close to one million were killed (mostly with machetes) in 1994 where the world closed its eyes?

It seems many in the world and terrorists groups are forming and seem to be buying into hate  judging one another, taking the others inventory, spewing lies and distress signals that bring about distrust and judging one another as guilty and untrustworthy. One lie builds on another without fact checking.

In the political situation in our country  the lies and innuendos of Donald Trump, running for president of the U.S.  is seeming to get the backing of hate groups as white supremecy and Ku Klux Klan. With Trumps bigotry rhetoric saying all Muslims should be kicked out and not allowed, are we headed to another dangerous genocide or worse, having Donald Trump as president? Let us not forget what fear and panic brought about the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor. Heart Mountain was the third-largest town in Wyoming with 14,000 Japanese imprisoned here.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP)  At government expense, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach frequently flies in the state-owned executive aircraft to promote voter ID efforts outside of Kansas and to speak at Republican political events across the state, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The state is mired in a budget crunch, forcing legislators to slash funding for highway projects and struggling public schools to curtail bus services for students, but Kobach has spent thousands of dollars to fly more than 4,350 miles in the state's nine-passenger Raytheon King Air 350.

Using open records requests to obtain daily logs along with emails and other materials to piece together an accounting of the plane's usage from Jan. 1, 2015, to March 24 of this year, the AP found several flights by Kobach that appeared to either offer no benefit to Kansas residents or have little connection to official duties. On some trips, Kobach scheduled state business to coincide with Republican Party functions, and his family often flew with him.

Kansas has a statute that allows the governor to use the executive aircraft for personal or political travel as long as he reimburses the state, but mentions no other state agencies. The Kansas Highway Patrol, which oversees aircraft operations, says it has no specific guidelines and leaves its usage up to each state agency.

Kobach defended his use of the plane by saying that he's doing it less than former Republican Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh, who also flew with family members and logged about 8,700 miles over two years. He added that filling empty seats doesn't increase the agency's costs.

Kobach said in an email that he plans to visit all 105 county election officials to observe voting equipment and voting sites and discuss implementation of voter ID and proof-of-citizenship laws.

"It is absurd to suggest that such on-site meetings in the county election offices have no benefit to the Kansas taxpayer," Kobach said. "The notion that officials in Topeka should govern remotely without understanding the specific situation in each of the 105 counties is dead wrong."

The AP looked at all flights taken by the government officials regardless of which state agency paid for the trip. The costliest one any state official took during that 15-month period came Feb. 27, a 2,193-mile trek by Kobach to first deliver the eulogy at the funeral for a former employee, Jim Minihan in Virginia, then to speak at an archery banquet in Hutchinson before returning to Topeka. Traveling with him on the $3,290 flight was Dave DePue, a Topeka pastor whose ministry focuses on evangelizing government officials; DePue is not a state employee.

Other Kobach flights included:

 A Jan. 23, 2015, trip to Lincoln, Nebraska, to testify about the Kansas photo ID law when the Nebraska Legislature was considering the adoption of a similar measure, then to Great Bend to meet with the Barton County clerk. His wife, Heather, joined him on the $807 trip.

 A May 8, 2015, trip with his daughter, Reagan, to McPherson where he was keynote speaker at a Republican luncheon. Media reports show he spoke to local Republicans about voter fraud and his efforts to get prosecutorial power. Kobach also participated in the All School's Day Parade in his "official capacity," his office said. The flight cost $386.

 An Aug. 6, 2015, trip to Newton to meet the Harvey County clerk and local reporters before attending the county Republican Ice Cream Social. Daughters Lilly and Reagan joined him on the $360 flight.

 An Aug. 8, 2015, flight to Wichita, where he was keynote speaker at the Sedgwick County Republican Party fundraising picnic. He gave what the Wichita Eagle termed a "state of the Republican Party" speech on guns, abortion, elections, illegal immigration, taxation and courts. His office said he spoke to Sedgwick County Election Commissioner Tabitha Lehman that Saturday as well. The flight cost $524.

Twice, Kobach's office was unable to book the state plane to fly to Washington, D.C., for a hearing and deposition on the lawsuit he joined in support of Brian Newby, a federal election official who without public notice unilaterally changed a national voter registration form to require residents of Kansas, Georgia and Alabama to show proof of citizenship. Instead, Kobach and a staff member took commercial flights at a cost of $6,594 for airfares and other travel expenses, according to expense reports obtained by AP.

Kobach contended he has made "extraordinary efforts" to reduce spending, including fewer flights and fewer employees in his office through attrition. He also noted his office is entirely funded by filing fees from regulated businesses  not taxpayer money  and his agency contributed $10.2 million to the general fund last year.

But Rep. Jim Ward, a Wichita Democrat, criticized Kobach's use of the state plane to promote voter ID policies, an action Ward says would "suppress votes as he has in Kansas." He questioned whether state government should have paid for travel to the funeral, saying that was "straddling the line, if not crossing it."

Senate Democratic Leader Anthony Hensley said Kobach should reimburse Kansas for trips to Republican Party events, calling claims that the political functions coincided with official business "probably just a ruse."

___

Follow Roxana Hegeman on Twitter at https://twitter.com/rhegeman and find more of her work at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/roxana-hegeman
Mexicos Senate has approved a bill to eliminate daylight saving time, putting an end to the practice of changing clocks twice a year. Some cities and towns along the U.S. border can retain daylight saving time, presumably because they are so linked to U.S. cities. The Senate approved the measure Wednesday on a 59-25 vote, with 12 abstentions. Those who opposed the measure said that less daylight in the afternoon could affect opportunities for children and adults to get exercise. And businesses like restaurants may have to close earlier as many crime-wary Mexicans often try to be off the streets after dark.
After the housing market crash in 2008, few people considered opening a new business related to mortgages or titles.

Then there was Lenny Robles.

I joked that if I had $1 for everyone who thought I was crazy, I wouldnt have had to open a business, said Robles, who opened Metro Title Agency of Arizona in 2009, after his previous employer abruptly closed. We opened up at a time when it couldnt have been worse.

His previous employer, Arizona Title Agency, shut down in August 2008 by its Colorado-based parent, Mercury Cos. Inc., leaving Robles and 21 employees out of a job.

I didnt expect it, Robles said. When a title company closes, everything stops.

The following year, the Tucson native and Sahuaro High School graduate opened Metro Title at River Road and Hacienda del Sol.

Today the company is the only locally owned title insurance company in Arizona. It has seven locations and 43 employees.

It is the only title agency that has returned to Tucsons south side, with a branch on 12th Avenue, south of Irvington Road.

Title businesses provide third-party services in real estate transactions. They supply title insurance, which protects buyers or lenders from losses associated with title defects, such as unforeseen ownership claims or liens. They also provide escrow services, which entail holding and transferring money in real estate transactions.

Returning to the south side was always a goal for Robles, who recruited Angela Garcia to be the locations branch manager.

This is my family, said Garcia, a graduate of Desert View High School. I grew up near Valencia and 12th Avenue.

I like to help the Hispanic community because the process is hard to understand, said Garcia, who has four employees. There are very few Spanish- speaking escrow officers.

The area has a high percentage of sales by owner and many never deal with a real estate agent. Since opening on the south side, the branch does between 30 and 40 titles a month.

Its a service someone has to provide and were dealing with people that have less experience in the process, Robles said.

During the real estate boom of the mid-2000s, more than five title companies served the citys south side.

It was just a circus, Robles said. When things started to deteriorate, this was one of the areas hardest hit.

The branchs reach is as far as Green Valley to the south, Star Valley to the west and Rita Ranch to the east.

Mauricio Medina recently bought a home in Green Valley and used Metro Titles services.

They were very attentive and explained all questions clearly, he said in Spanish. When things are explained in your own language, it makes a big difference; you dont have to go back and with a translator trying to understand.

Medinas real estate agent recommended Metro Title.

They made me feel very comfortable, he said. You know, not like I was asking dumb questions.

Aside from three branches in Tucson, Metro Title has a location in Green Valley, Flagstaff and two in Sedona.

Robles is eyeing the markets in Maricopa and Santa Cruz counties.
El Pollo Loco, a fire-grilled chicken chain based in California, has signed a deal to open six new franchise locations in the Tucson area by 2019.

The company announced a development deal with a new franchise partner, Utah-based PLM Restaurants LC, which agreed to open the restaurants by August 2019 and also acquired two existing El Pollo Locos in Tucson.

Steve Sather, president and CEO of El Pollo Loco, said in a news release that the chain, which specializes in grilled, citrus-marinated chicken, has grown a strong fan base in the Tucson area.

The existing El Pollo Locos are at 5601 E. Broadway and 3781 W. Ina Road in Marana. PLM Restaurants is owned by franchise partners David Harper and Stephan Ralston.

Harper, a 39-year industry veteran, is also president and owner of Utah-based Meridian Restaurants, which operates 82 Burger King s in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota and Arizona.
As milk production has increased in South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa, the Upper Midwest has become ripe for a new dairy processing plant.

What remains to be seen is whether North Dakota's dairy industry, which has been shrinking rather than growing as in neighboring states, will be able to benefit.

I do believe the whole area will see additional processing capacity, said Marin Bozic, a dairy economist at the University of Minnesota, speaking of the four-state area of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa.

Mark Watne of the North Dakota Farmers Union, which led a campaign against industry-requested exemptions to the state anti-corporate farming law for dairy and pork producers, has said low prices are what's leading to dairy closures.

But, according to researchers, the Upper Midwest has better profit margins on dairy than other parts of the country and that lower pricing could be what's needed to spur processing investment.

A shift in the market

South Dakota has seen 10 to 12 percent annual production growth, and growth has continued in Iowa and Minnesota, Bozic said. Meanwhile, Idaho, California and Texas, where growth has happened previously, are not expected to grow anymore, or at least not at the same pace.

So, with the right framework to stimulate investment, the Upper Midwest stands to benefit from this realignment, which Bozic said will likely happen somewhere along the Interstate 29 corridor.

Potential new processing could be cheese production in particular, Bozic said, as cheese has a longer shelf life than fluid milk and the Upper Midwest is well positioned to reach both the East and West coasts.

When it comes to cheeses, I think were in a real good position, he said.

A new cheese plant would likely require 3 million to 5 million pounds of milk per day, which is a substantial amount, Bozic said, requiring about 100,000 cows to support it.

We have to beat the economics of building elsewhere, Bozic said, in order for the region to attract a new plant.

Most importantly, the region will have to instill confidence in potential investors that the plant will be full of milk from day one. Secondly, fluid milk prices have to be competitive.

Were very close to the level that premiums are attractive, Bozic said, which has not been the case for a long time.

A couple years ago, milk prices were indicative of a shrinking number of dairy farms, Bozic said. As farm numbers dropped, production dropped. As production dropped, processors were paying higher prices trying to get their hands on a more limited milk supply.

The basis was positive, and quite substantial, which is great for producers but not so great if you want to grow processing, he said.

That is no longer the case, Bozic said: Theres a new reality on the ground.

The reason: As production has increased, processing plants are no longer competing; theyre awash in milk. And agriculture as an industry is a price taker, not a price maker, Bozic said.

The price is what it is, he said. So you might as well increase quantity if you cant increase price.

NDFU disagrees, advocating instead for crop protections.

Investment needed to stay relevant

Bozic said agriculture is like a treadmill, you have to run just to stand still.

You have to continually reinvest in your dairy to keep it at a cost that will keep it competitive, said Bozic, indicating producers will have to decide if it is best for them to stay in the milk business or not. A sufficient number of producers, particularly in South Dakota, are finding it profitable to invest in their operations and grow.

Investment cost is extremely high in the dairy industry. It can cost $20 million to $40 million for a 3,000- or 4,000-cow dairy.

Such investment can happen in several ways. Producers can leverage their assets for bank loans, Bozic said. Occasionally, lenders will get creative, letting producers lease the barn or the cows. A third way that has become more common is for dairy producers to team up with grain producers in business partnerships.

When prices were high a couple years ago, some grain farmers accumulated capital that they are looking to invest, Bozic said. A partnership with dairies is mutually beneficial, especially now that grain prices are lower.

Dairies get the investment capital they need and grain farmers have a higher basis on their crop because they now have a guaranteed local market, in the form of animal feed, rather than having to haul it to the local grain elevator. The grain farmer also benefits from manure spreading, which reduces fertilizer costs.

North Dakota is prime for dairy expansion, said J.W. Schroeder, a dairy specialist at North Dakota State University, especially with the states sugar beets and ethanol plants creating feed. Right now, animal agriculture could be adding value to less than $3 corn. But like any business, it needs an infusion of money.

Bozic said he is not familiar with business law in North Dakota, but, from a strictly economic standpoint, dairy farmers looking for investors will have to communicate their ability to effectively run a growing operation. Their business plan also must be attractive to someone looking to multiply their capital and convince an investor the return on the investment will be good.

In a modern dairy barn, that more often than not translates to economies of scale, Bozic said. Cost is more easily spread over 2,000 cows than over 200, making the needed profit per cow lower.

Thats not to say a 100- or 200-cow dairy cant succeed. Some have found a niche, such as agricultural tourism or a fancy cheese. For example, Bessies Best near Sterling has kept the family business growing by producing their own whole milk, cheese and yogurt products.

But on average, size correlates to a higher return. For example, a proposed dairy seeking a permit in South Dakota has determined it needs 7,000 cows to be profitable, Bozic said.

"That's such a myth," Watne said, adding NDFU doesn't think getting bigger is the answer and believes more large producers will push out smaller ones. "That simply does not work."

What's next

North Dakota dairy producers tried to get more investment through the proposed exemptions to the states corporate farming law, Schroeder said. But with the recent referendum vote striking down legislation passed in the last legislative session, the industry is on the hunt for a next step.

The North Dakota Dairy Coalition is partnering with South Dakota on a research project, which is about to start now that funding has been secured from both states, to determine the possibility of a new milk processing plant in the region. The study will cover advantages and disadvantages of the region, where the processor should be located and what type of plant would make the most sense. It also will identify what steps need to be taken to attract such a plant.

Dairy people have been out looking for an alternative; they didnt wait to see the results of the (referendum) vote, Schroeder said. Its not that the dairy industry has been sitting on its hands. They have been out pounding the pavement.

Jennifer Holle, whose family has a dairy farm south of Mandan, said the North Dakota Dairy Coalition, of which she is a director, indicated the four-part study is very in depth and will take about six months to complete.

"South Dakota (dairy industry) is growing at such a ridiculous rate that we're actually partnering with them," Holle previously told the Tribune, adding that she hopes a strategically placed processing plant could benefit both states.

The Holles' Northern Lights Dairy milks about 600 cows and their numbers keep climbing. They are shipping directly to Dean Food's Land O' Lakes facility in Bismarck but are worried, if they keep increasing production, where they will be able to send excess milk.

If investors were to consider North Dakota, Schroeder said Wahpeton could be a prime location. Though the down vote, keeping North Dakotas anti-corporate farming laws in place, did not likely serve as encouragement for considering North Dakota as a potential location for a new processing plant, Bozic said.
Business wasnt doing so well for Ramon Macazani when he heard about the Eller Economic Development Program.

In 2012, his shop, Ramons Automotive in South Tucson, was still struggling against the weak economy and increased competition.

I knew how to fix radiators, but we didnt have much education on how to handle the business, how the system works, he said, but the classes by Eller faculty and lecturers really helped him understand.

Through the program, Macazani learned how to invest money in his business, attract more clients and interact with customers. He also connected with other business owners who took part in the program.

Since then, his business has thrived, he said. Hes gone from five to eight employees and this year has been his most prosperous yet.

Along with free business classes, the program offers consultation to small businesses in underserved areas, including South Tucson.

The idea is to push economic development from the bottom, said program manager Poncho Chavez, giving businesses, many of them minority-owned, the tools they need to succeed.

The program, part of the University of Arizonas Eller College of Management, was launched in 2012 with a $100,000 grant from JPMorgan Chase. Its modeled after similar programs throughout the U.S., officials said, and gives owners the chance to start thinking of their businesses on a broader level.

One program component, the Business Certificate Program, is free and open to anyone. It runs for three hours a week for six weeks, taught in English every fall and Spanish in the spring. More than 100 people participated last fall, about 60 percent women and 50 percent Hispanic, officials said.

Spring 2016 classes, taught in Spanish, had 137 participants, 77 of whom owned a business.

Since the program began, more than 700 people have gone through the classes, held at the YWCA Southern Arizona. There may eventually be a fee for participants, but so far the program has been able to provide everyone with a full scholarship, Chavez said.

Classes cover topics such as management, marketing, sales, accounting, finance and legal issues.

A second program component is the Business Assistance Program. Businesses are selected to work directly with Eller College of Management students, who identify key issues within the companies that need improvement and propose solutions.

Every spring, 30 to 40 students are paired with a business in groups of three to five, for 16 weeks. The consultations include marketing data analyses, sales campaigns, advertising through social media and business management techniques.

Not only does the consultation process benefit business owners, it also helps students, said Jan Konstanty, who teaches the small-business consulting class.

Were achieving what we want to with the students, and we are having that impact on the companies, he said. That, to me, is actually pretty powerful.

There is also the larger effect to the economy, he said.

For a healthy economy, you need a vibrant small and medium size enterprise economy because thats where the future big employers are, Konstanty said. These businesses are the lifeblood.
Imagine living in a community where everyone knows your name, remembers your birthday and offers to make you dinner on a regular basis.

Three Tucson communities have embraced such a lifestyle, called cohousing, which is a growing housing trend nationwide.

Dubbed intentional, collaborative neighborhoods that combine extensive common facilities with private homes, cohousing appears to be the antithesis of todays computer-connected world.

It involves contact and conversation.

Its a commitment to knowing each other, said Martha Depauli, a resident of Sonora Cohousing near Roger Road and First Avenue. The community members want to participate in each others lives.

Sonora has 36 homes on 4.8 acres of land. Like most cohousing developments, the parking lots surround the community so residents walk through the common areas on their way to and from their cars.

Depauli, 53, has lived there since 2000.

Neighbor Mechelle Meixner, 49, moved in nine years ago. She said the difference between cohousing and living in an apartment with shared amenities is intentionality.

That really matters, she said. People are living together like an extended family; we dont just have a cool community pool.

Since being introduced in the United States 25 years ago, more than 160 cohousing communities have been developed and 120 more are under construction, the Cohousing Association of the United States says.

Cohousing communities are part of the new sharing economy and are predicted to expand rapidly in the next few decades as individuals and families seek to live more sustainably, and changing demographics force us to find innovative ways to address the roles traditionally played by extended families, the association said.

Experts on housing and senior issues predict cohousing will become a way of caring for the senior population as residents look out for one another.

Tucson already has senior communities with a focus on socialization.

Las Abuelitas Family Housing, in South Tucson, was developed by the Primavera Foundation for seniors who are raising their grandchildren so they can consult with one another and arrange cooperative carpools or child care.

Sunnyside Pointe, near Park Avenue and Irvington Road, is a multifamily development by La Frontera Arizona and Old Pueblo Community Services. It is a senior community within a multifamily community, so young families can have their parents nearby.

But cohousing takes it a step further.

Many amenities are shared, such as laundry, office space, crafts rooms and meals.

A community kitchen features commercial-grade appliances where residents can whip up a meal and anyone can saunter in with a dinner plate.

Leftovers are placed in the refrigerator for anyone to snack on.

Kat Jimenez, 43, moved from Page to Stone Curves Cohousing Community near Stone Avenue and Limberlost Drive in 2013.

I tried to make a community in Page because its a small town, she said. But it was really hard to get together, to coordinate play dates. I wondered, Where is the sense of community?

Her husband and three children, 9, 10 and 12, now have that.

You just walk out the door and there it is, Jimenez said.

Stone Curves has 48 units on 5.1 acres of land with similar shared amenities.

Jimenez recalled a woman who bought a place for her adult son with autism because she wanted him to be part of a community. Although he didnt participate in community events, he liked to watch people walk by and wave at him.

No one goes unnoticed, Jimenez said.

Interestingly, many residents of cohousing communities are self-described introverts.

Depauli is one of them. Here, I can go in and out of socializing as I want, she said.

Meixner said she is an extrovert, but her husband is an introvert.

One of his favorite things is that he gets his downtime while I am out socializing in the community, she said. If we go to a shared meal, he can leave when hes ready, but I dont have to go home early. Its just a walk away.

Pet issues a problem

Cohousing communities are not utopia, residents say.

Conflicts arise and, because everyone is part owner of the common area, decision-making can get tricky.

Pet policies tend to be the No. 1 issue, Jimenez said, and violations often feel personal.

Dogs must be on leashes and cats cant roam, so when you see a dog off leash, you know whose dog that is and think, What? she said. But, I always tell myself, if I cant get along and reach consensus with like-minded people, what does that say about humanity?

Brian Stark, 44, and his family moved into Tucsons largest cohousing community seven years ago.

Milagro Cohousing Community, near Silverbell and Goret roads, has 43 acres with 25 homes clustered on 8 acres. The rest is natural desert landscape.

Stark agreed that conflict resolution is the toughest part of cohousing.

Moving away and having your own house where you make your own rules can be attractive, he said. But living sheltered like that then gives up all of the wonderful daily interactions that cohousing allows for. Yes, there are challenging times  but the positive social interaction, the quality of life and the benefit to living in such a community far outweigh the work it takes.

Both he and his wife wanted to find a better place to raise their daughters, 11 and 9.

We live in a supportive, multigenerational community, Stark said. The kids have lots of neighborhood friends, and we all support each other.

His family regularly participates in community meals, movie nights and impromptu social gatherings in the central grassy circle. Sundays feature a happy hour.

Moving a fridge, getting driven to the airport, watching someone elses child for an hour while you are delayed, these are all things that happen on a daily basis, Stark said of the lifestyle. Milagro, like many other cohousing communities, is a walking community; everyone parks in a central parking lot and walks into the community.

Not having cars race past your front door and being able to see  and hear  nature is a wonderful thing.

A Danish concept

The cohousing concept originated in Denmark, where nearly 8 percent of residents live in such communities.

There are four cohousing communities in Arizona; the three in Tucson and one in Prescott. Flagstaff and Phoenix each have a community under development.

The growth of cohousing is impressive given that most communities are started by the people who want to live in such developments, and not professional developers, a report by the cohousing association said. We are now seeing the concept gaining momentum as regional housing markets recover.

Both baby boomers and millennials are fueling the growth in cohousing, the report said.

Millennials seek supportive neighborhoods as they juggle multiple jobs without extended family nearby.

Baby boomers want to stay active.

This group, who began turning 60 in 2006, does not want to retire or grow older in the same kind of aging institutions in which they placed their own parents, the report said. They want to stay active in their larger neighborhoods and not be segregated in large senior-only developments.

Susan Rohrbach, 77, chose to live at Sonora Cohousing for the daily interactions.

I enjoy seeing people and saying hi and knowing youre connected, she said. I like that a disabled resident can ask if anyone is going to the grocery store and several people respond.
They struck off down the trails, feeling the heat but unaware it would kill them.

It was June 19, Tucsons hottest day in decades, which is saying something. It hit 115 that afternoon. Most of us locals, its fair to say, were spending the Sunday on sofas and other resting places, taking in some TV or a book, cranking the swamp cooler or AC.

The German travelers chose to hike. So did the young woman who recently moved here from Washington. Another woman, visiting from Alabama, hit the less strenuous but still dangerous Loop trail. Those four died on that one exceptionally hot day.

In retrospect, its easy to say the hikers judgment lacked. It did. And I think we should do more to warn out-of-state travelers at trailheads. But my colleague Tony Davis story Sunday about our broiling climatic future made me wonder, who are we to judge?

In a sense, we who live in Tucson and the Southwest are all hikers striking off on that baking trail, innocent of the threats that await us.

A new study projects that, if current emissions trends continue, the mean temperatures for parts of the Southwest will increase by eight or nine degrees in the period 2060-2080. A high of 110 degrees, rather than representing a hot early-July day, would become typical.

Last months killing temperature of 115, by that standard, would just be a little hotter than usual.

This presents a challenge to the Tucsonans of today and the future, one that few of us are seriously confronting. Relatively few of us harvest rainwater, few of us know who our vulnerable neighbors are, few produce our own power or food, relatively few simply have an emergency plan.

Yes, there are preppers, whom Ive written about before. Some have a broader community spirit, including the local preppers Meet Up group, but others are lone operators who envision armed conflict when disaster strikes and plan to bug out to remote hideaways.

A relative handful of people are grappling with the issue of how to survive in the hotter, drier Arizona of the future as a social problem with practical solutions. They can serve as guides down that broiling path and help us survive the hike.

One of them, Barbara Warren, views the problem from a small scale  that of the neighborhood. Her major concern is that an extreme heat wave will arrive and the electricity will go out for a long time, even weeks. People will need to take care of themselves and the vulnerable nearby. In a city, that would be in the neighborhood.

Warren is the Arizona director of a group called Physicians for Social Responsibility, which has been working on a project called Climate Smart Southwest since 2012. The idea is to build resiliency, a growing buzzword, at the community level.

When we spoke last week, she cited the 700-plus deaths that occurred in the Chicago heat wave of 1995  a common reference point for people worried about our hotter future.

Deaths occur in communities where there is a lack of social cohesion and a lack of preparedness due to lack of social cohesion, she told me. What we would expect is that people have gotten to know their neighbors, as many as possible, and gotten to know who is the most vulnerable.

Her group has developed a three-hour training that it takes to neighborhoods, preparing residents to respond resiliently and helpfully in case of disaster  especially extreme heat and power outages. Warren herself got a short test-run last week when the storm that slammed midtown knocked out her power.

I was somewhat prepared to deal with it, she said. I had a battery-operated fan. I had a battery-operated fluorescent lamp. I had flashlights handy. I had water and drank extra water. Those are some simple things that you think about.

Another of our local guides to the overheated future is Kathy Jacobs, a professor of soil, water and environmental science who runs the UAs Center for Climate Adaptation Science and Solutions.

The fact that such a center exists here is in itself good news. Its members are doing research as wide-ranging as creating more accurate forecasts for Arizona vineyards, monitoring drought on Hopi lands and increasing preparedness for extreme heat in border cities. They have also helped plan Tucsons responses.

Climate adaptation is very present and obvious in some states: Washington, Oregon, California and much of the East Coast, especially the northern states and Florida, Jacobs said. Its very highly linked to politics and experience of extreme events.

In Arizona, were so-so, she said. On water, Jacobs area of greatest expertise, the state has a sophisticated system of supply but not a very sophisticated long-range view of the risks and need for improved adaptation, she said.

And among the states people, Theres just a lot of vulnerability, she said. For people who have cars and air conditioners and access to media and information, theyre much less vulnerable than people who dont have these things.

But, she added, Everybody will have much more vulnerability than they have today.

Other officials are aware of the risks  in the utilities and local government. Theyre planning for it in ways both direct and indirect. Even tree-planting in areas that dont have much cover is a simple but potentially important way to keep the city cooler in the long run.

But it would be unwise to assume well be taken care of. Too many experiences have shown otherwise, from Chicago in 1995 to New Jersey after Hurricane Irene in 2011.

That would be like starting a long hike on an 80-degree morning, ignorant of the blazing afternoon ahead.
A Tucson man arrested on terrorism charges called himself an "American jihadist" who supports ISIL (also known as ISIS) and wanted to perform "a MO," likely meaning a martyrdom operation, according to newly released court documents.

Mahin Khan, 18, was taken into custody Friday. In a court document released Wednesday, authorities allege that Khan stated in an April 16 telephone conversation that Mission Bay, California, would be "a pretty good target," and also mentioned an Air Force recruitment center in Tucson.

In the same call, Khan said he had reached out to a foreign terrorist organization, TTP (Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan) asking for a pressure-cooker-bomb recipe, according to the document.

The court document is a statement from the FBI to the Arizona Attorney General's Office laying out probable cause to justify filing terrorism charges against Khan.

In other communications, via texts and emails on other dates in 2016, Khan asked a correspondent named Abid Mansoor for weapons, saying he needed assault rifles and pistols  "wanna take out marines and jews," according to the court document.

He also asked for "cookie recipes," likely meaning construction instructions for an improved explosive device, the court document alleges. He described himself as 17 and wrote that he was "no jok," and attached a photograph of himself wearing sunglasses, the document states.

Mansoor isn't described in the document. One full page of the three-page document was blacked out before a judge authorized its release to public view.

Khan was arrested after a joint operation between the Arizona Attorney Generals Office and FBI, said Mia Garcia, a spokeswoman for the attorney general.

Khan allegedly conspired to commit acts of terror against government buildings in Pima and Maricopa County, Garcia said Friday.

He was being held in the Maricopa County jail on no bond on one count each of conspiracy to commit terrorism and terrorism, she said.

His next court appearance is set for Tuesday.
Pima Community College has laid out its arguments for why it deserves to regain its accreditors full confidence in a report that describes positive changes at the school but offers limited proof of their effectiveness.

The college submitted a 55-page report Wednesday to the Chicago-based Higher Learning Commission, formally launching its bid to shed a sanction imposed last year over concerns PCC barely met several quality standards required for accreditation.

The report addresses 11 areas of deficiency that led to the 2015 sanction.

In a news release and an email to employees, PCC Chancellor Lee Lambert said the report provides strong evidence that the college has substantially addressed, the accreditors remaining concerns.

But Bruce Moses, the colleges assistant vice chancellor for accreditation, who played a key role in producing the report, recently told PCCs Governing Board theres not much proof yet either way on whether a number of new measures have led to improvements.

Many of the changes  such as a new enrollment management plan and new metrics to track student progress  were finalized only in the last few months, so not enough time has passed to show they work.

Im worried about not having enough evidence, Moses told the board at its June 8 meeting in response to a board member question. He urged the college to pay close attention to data collection in coming months to try to gather additional proof that improvements are working.

Some of the issues the PCC report addresses include:

Leadership instability.

The report acknowledges a continued perception among internal and external constituents that PCC has not yet stabilized its leadership.

As evidence that things are improving, the report cites PCCs quick internal selection of an acting provost after three permanent provosts quit in succession over the past three years. The report says the college has been forced to eliminate or repurpose a number of senior positions because of tight finances, and adds that a further reorganization plan will launch this month.

No proven system for effective handling of complaints.

PCC says its Office of Dispute Resolution, founded in mid-2014, has been highly effective.

The office has received more than 200 complaints and inquiries, which typically are acknowledged within one day and investigated within 10 days. The college had hoped for a 90 percent satisfaction rate among complainants who reported misconduct, but the actual satisfaction rate is 64 percent.

Inadequate efforts to measure the quality of PCC programs and make improvements when required.

The report says PCC has adopted six new measurements to judge program quality, such as enrollment rates, completion rates and the percentage of students who find jobs within six months of graduation, and that it started tracking data in those areas in fall 2015.

But a document linked to the report said PCC hasnt received any new job placement data since 2012 because it lacks a current agreement with the state agency that provides those statistics.

The state agency approved a new agreement with PCC in December, a copy obtained by the Arizona Daily Star shows.

College spokeswoman Libby Howell said PCC has not yet started collecting the new jobs data because it can be accessed only by a board member, and arrangements to do so are still being made.

Lack of input from employees and community experts in the colleges decision-making processes.

The report notes numerous improvements, such as the establishment of community advisory boards to help PCC oversee its finances and its human resources practices, and a governance council that includes faculty staff and students and advises senior management on college-wide issues. Those changes began in 2014 and have proven effective, the report said.

The filing of the report is the first of several steps in the colleges formal bid to win back its accreditors favor.

Accreditor representatives will visit PCC in September to verify the accuracy of the report, and school officials will get a final chance in December to argue their case in a closed-door hearing with commission members.

Moses, the colleges accreditation chief, said PCC will put on a road show for its employees before the accreditors site visit to fully explain the positive changes that have been made. It will help the colleges effort if employees believe in the changes and express confidence to the accreditation site reviewers, Moses said.

The Higher Learning Commission is expected to make a final decision on PCCs status in February.
New life could come to the west end of the streetcar line this fall when city officials and private developers focus their attention on empty parcels of land they say are underutilized.

Since the construction of the streetcar in 2014, the city has found new ways to expand access to businesses and highlight existing points of interest along the line. But there are more than 200 acres of land labeled as underutilized, which are typically old parking lots or empty parcels with development potential, said Camila Bekat, a city economic development specialist.

Hopefully, within the next three years, we can see some substantial build-out on that end, she said of the area west of Interstate 10 near West Congress Street.

An attempt to renovate this empty space is not new. In the past, the city has tried to start the construction process through The Gadsden Co., Bekat said, but when the housing market crashed the company was unable to make any plans come to fruition  until now.

Gadsden is set to begin construction on three projects this fall surrounding the Mercado San Agustin.

This construction is only the beginning phase of development the partners say they hope to see fill the streetcar loop and adjacent areas within the coming years.

One of the three projects to begin in the fall is the Monier Apartments complex. It will feature a four-story building with open courtyards and nearby retail space. The apartment building will be on the higher end for the area and will cost about $900 per month for a single-bedroom unit, according to Gadsden partner Adam Weinstein.

The Monier building will include a full retail frontage  13,450 square feet  with 122 residential units above, that are a mix of studios, ones and twos, Weinstein said. Then there is also an amenitized fourth floor with a gym, flex space, yoga studio, spa and a roofdeck pool.

Meanwhile, construction on the 70-unit West End Station apartment complex is to begin about the same time. It will be part of a larger project that eventually will be a 170-unit residential building. A 70-unit segment was approved for low-income housing tax credits in June. The credits will help stabilize the rent in the building for years to come, Weinstein said.

This apartment project is targeted at working-class families and individuals who make 50 percent of the median income for Pima County residents, which is about $59,000 a year. Rent for a single-bedroom unit is projected to cost about $460 per month and will be near a streetcar stop.

It has a lot of the same features (as Monier) that make this wonderful, Weinstein said. But, its going to be available to working families and others that meet the income requirement, and thats the beauty of having low-income housing tax credits, is that it affords the developer to build a long-term asset for the community.

The third planned project is the Mercado San Agustin Annex. An extension of the existing mercado, the extension will include an outdoor theater, plus food and retail vendors. Visitors might also see pet- and family-friendly areas, beer and wine hangouts and open observation decks. The project is estimated to cost about $5.3 million, with $2.2 million funded by the Rio Nuevo District, said Fletcher McCusker, the districts chair.

I think youre going to see continued retail and restaurant growth, McCusker said. We hope that we can attract a hotel down to that part of town ... I would hope that within the next four years we can complete the entire project.

For the partners, all three projects mean more than just building for profit  they say they want to build a space for Menlo Park residents to enjoy close to home.

We find this sensitivity and these interesting qualities and characteristics about Tucson, in particular the disposition on the west side of downtown, Weinstein said.

We wanted to help be able to continue to enhance what those things are and make it a place where people want to live, want to come visit and want to be a part of.

Menlo Park residents can also expect to see the new headquarters for Caterpillar Inc., which is expected to be located nearby. Rio Nuevo will be footing the $50 million for the construction, and McCusker says he hopes this opportunity will be profitable for the city and its taxpayers.

All the money is ours, the whole thing is a Rio Nuevo project. Caterpillar wanted to lease, not own, McCusker said. Its actually a very lucrative transaction for the taxpayers because we get high-paying jobs in Tucson.

For Gene Einfrank, the president of the Menlo Park Neighborhood Association and a longtime resident, the new construction is something he looks forward to and hopes will bring economic growth to the neighborhood.

In fact, those in the neighborhood association acted as a catalyst for growth when they pushed to bring the streetcar to their area.

As a neighborhood association, we worked really hard to make sure that the city brought the streetcar to the west side ... and that was really the key to unlocking development, Einfrank said.

All of the projected development has been approved by the residents of Menlo Park, according to Einfrank. He said the residents have been extremely involved in the planning process and have spoken out about the type of development they would like to see.

The only surprise to the Menlo Park residents is the development of Caterpillar headquarters. Even though the building was unexpected, Einfrank hopes the company can work with the neighborhood and contribute to a more economically diverse area.

It (Caterpillar) was not what we expected, but we voted unanimously, in our last neighborhood association meeting, to support a collaborative relationship with Caterpillar, Einfrank said.

If we can have that relationship, there can be great community benefits.
The Pima County Juvenile Court increasingly is funding care for children who have health insurance  but whose recommended treatments were denied by Cenpatico Integrated Care.

Juvenile Court judges  who oversee cases involving children in the child welfare and the juvenile justice systems  can order the courts probation office to pay for kids health services using its $2.9 million treatment budget. But that fund is meant primarily for children who are uninsured or underinsured.

Cenpatico coordinates behavioral health care for children on AHCCCS, the states Medicaid program, which includes kids from very low-income homes and children in the child welfare system.

Since Cenpatico started operating in Southern Arizona, juvenile court attorneys, judges and probation officers have been trying to find ways to maintain services for kids amidst a surge in treatment denials. The rejections mostly involve placements in Level 1 residential treatment centers for juvenile sex offenders, children with substance abuse problems or those with mental illness, say attorneys representing children in juvenile court cases.

This issue is coming up every day now, said Tony Zinman, attorney in the juvenile division of the Pima County Public Defenders Office. Its becoming routine.

But the state funding in the courts treatment budget goes only so far, said John Schow, the courts chief probation officer. Judges cant order Cenpatico  a for-profit subsidiary of publicly traded, St. Louis-based Centene Corp.  to pay for services the company has denied.

If the judge orders me to pay it out of my budget, I have to pay it until the money runs out, Schow said.

Juvenile Court officials would not provide figures on how much the court has spent on covering these services unless the Star paid for them to calculate those numbers.

In child welfare cases, in which the child is in state custody, the court has also ordered the Department of Child Safety to pay for treatment denied by Cenpatico. Officials at DCS did not respond to questions on how many times thats happened.

AHCCCS contracts with three regional behavioral health authorities, or RBHAs, including Cenpatico. RBHAs act as managed care organizations, distributing federal Medicaid dollars to agencies that provide direct care to children and adults with behavioral health needs. Cenpatico took over the RBHA contract for Southern Arizona in October.

Cenpatico officials didnt respond to requests for comment last week.

Keeping kids at home

Cenpatico CEO Terry Stevens has said she doesnt believe in institutionalizing children and prefers intensive, wraparound services in the home or in the community.

Shes not alone. Since the 1990s, the mental health community began to shun the highly restrictive Level 1 residential treatment settings, which are locked down and provide 24/7 medical staffing. Children go to school on-site. Therapists say the gains made in such controlled settings can be lost when a child returns home, so in-home interventions have more lasting results.

But many experts in the field agree that sometimes residential treatment is necessary, especially when children are a danger to themselves or others.

Cenpaticos denials have come despite the recommendation of kids doctors, leading to a flood of appeals and procedural delays for children in the court system, public defender Zinman said.

In a recent case, which the Star reported on in May, Cenpatico wanted to cut off funding for sex offender treatment for a 16-year-old Tucson boy.

The teenager was in state custody at the time, so a Juvenile Court judge ordered DCS to appeal Cenpaticos decision. In the meantime, the judge ordered the teenager to stay at the treatment center in San Marcos, Texas, where he was thriving, according to his father.

In May, before DCS issued its formal appeal, Cenpatico agreed to continue paying for the boy to finish the program.

Placement decisions

Child psychiatrist Dr. Gary Hellmann, former medical director of Pantano Behavioral Health, said its not always easy to determine when residential treatment is the best option.

Sometimes children have behavior problems that dont necessarily indicate mental illness but can cause serious disruption in a foster home or group home, he said. Those kids could end up in residential treatment for lack of a better option, which Hellmann termed a frustration placement.

It is important to my mind that we separate social control from mental health treatment, he said.

Hellman said Cenpaticos predecessor, the nonprofit Community Partnership of Southern Arizona, was more willing to approve residential treatment than Cenpatico, even though at times Hellmann felt community-based treatments would have been the better option.

But attorney Thea Gilbert, who has represented hundreds of children and parents in child-welfare cases, said Cenpatico appears to be denying Level 1 residential treatments across the board. The denials are often based on a paper review, without having met with the child, she said.

Its really a continued pattern of denial of services for kids who are, frankly, one of the most vulnerable populations we have, she said. Its the first time in the 20 years Ive been doing this work that weve had a for-profit agency as an RBHA. In the past, you didnt hear about this being an issue.

Certain conditions must be met for a judge to order the probation office or DCS to pay for treatment that has been denied, probation officer Schow said. The court needs a psychological evaluation stating residential treatment is the least-restrictive environment for the child.

And usually when a judge orders treatment, all players  the childs doctor, the courts probation office, the childs defense attorney and the countys prosecuting attorney  support the treatment, except Cenpatico, he said.

Schow said he regrets that money could be a factor in whether the judge will order the treatment to be covered.

We want the kids to be ordered into the services ... based on assessments, based on psychological evaluations, he said. We dont want a judge to order something based on (whether theres) money available.

He needs help

In June, the Juvenile Court ordered the probation office to pay for Level 1 residential treatment denied to a 14-year-old boy Zinman represents. The boy has bipolar disorder, psychosis and post-traumatic stress disorder tied to abuse at the hands of a family friend, said his mother, Nina DeConcini.

Hes been involved with the Juvenile Court before on domestic violence charges, DeConcini said. But the violence culminated one day in April when DeConcini said he tried to kill her.

Hes gone after me before, but never with this kind of determination, she said. Typically, I see the debate in his eyes as to whether or not he was going to hurt me. This time, it was the debate in his eyes over whether he was going to use the two-by-four or the knife.

At that moment, a counselor from behavioral health agency Devereux Arizona knocked on the door of the familys trailer for a scheduled appointment with the boy.

The distraction gave DeConcini the chance to run outside and call the police. Her son threw the two-by-four after her so hard that it stuck into the wall, she said. DeConcinis son told her he felt completely out of control that day, until police arrived  bearing a bean-bag gun  and he was taken to juvenile detention. He was charged with three felonies and a misdemeanor, including assault with a deadly weapon.

I love my son. I fight every single day for him, she said. This is the disease and he needs help, and the insurance company is not willing to give the help that he needs.

In May, Pathways  which gets behavioral health funding through Cenpatico and is the main agency providing services to DeConcinis son  denied residential treatment placement. A Pathways spokeswoman said the agency cant comment on specific cases, nor other companies, including Cenpatico.

The denial said the boy had to first try and fail at a lower level of care, but DeConcini says hed already done that. On the day he tried to hurt her, he was in the early stages of intensive, in-home counseling, which Pathways and Cenpatico recommended instead of residential treatment.

The boy waited in juvenile detention for weeks during an appeal, until the court agreed to pay for treatment at a Phoenix Level 1 residential treatment center. DeConcini is relieved her son is getting treatment, but she worries that option isnt going to help many families.

I got lucky, she said, but that doesnt mean that everyones going to.

Lengthier stays

Court attorneys fear the denials, and time-consuming appeals are reversing gains the Juvenile Court has made in reducing the juvenile detention population and lengths of stay.

Thats the worst problem, said Zinman, who represents children in delinquency cases. Because of these issues, my kids are sitting in detention longer than they should.

Court officials would not comment on the denials impact on lengths of stay, but court data indicate more kids are staying in detention for longer periods.

Between the start of March and the end of May, the average length of stay for children in juvenile detention was 23.7 days, compared with 20.2 during the same period in 2015.

During that period this year, the average juvenile detention population was 48.4 children, compared to 42.8 during the same period in 2015.

Tucson doesnt have enough intensive community-based programming, providers say.

Limited availability

The best in-home alternative to residential treatment is multisystemic therapy, an evidence-based, intensive in-home treatment program, said Hellmann, who is now at Banner-University Medical Center Tucson.

Its the kind of treatment we wish all families could get, but in fact its not easily available because of limited capacity locally.

Over a period of three to five months, a therapist works with the childs entire family and surrounding environment, initially coming by three days a week and staying on call 24/7 to respond to any family crises. The idea is to change a childs environment to defuse situations before they escalate into a crisis and to reduce a childs problem behaviors, such as using drugs.

Its a nationally recognized program with proven success rates, but only one agency in Arizona provides the service: Phoenix-based Touchstone Health Services. And it wont work for kids in the child welfare system who dont have a permanent home.

Touchstone has just four therapists in Tucson, who can each work with up to five families at a time. For new referrals, wait times can range from six to 12 weeks, said Kimberly Egan, director of evidence-based programs at Touchstone. The agency hopes to add two more therapists in Tucson.

Schow said court leaders have been meeting frequently with Cenpatico about the need to boost local capacity for in-home services that can be an alternative to residential treatments.

Theyre working with us, he said. We are making progress.
FARGO -- A troubled man shoots and kills a Fargo police officer responding to a domestic incident, weeks before the shooters wife says he was scheduled to see a specialist for worsening depression and memory loss.

A rash of opioid overdose deaths plagues the community -- among them, several men in their 20s who had been in and out of all-too-short addiction treatment programs.

A young man dies by suicide in a Fargo park. His family says the mental health system failed him.

These incidents in the last few months demonstrate what some lawmakers say are dangerous shortcomings in North Dakotas behavioral health care system, which includes mental health and substance abuse treatment.

In 2014, a consultant identified major gaps in such services statewide, particularly in western North Dakota, which she described as in a crisis. Renee Schulte of Iowa-based Schulte Consulting cited extreme shortages of behavioral health workers, inadequate emergency services and the states refusal to spend money on expanding services.

Rep. Kathy Hogan, D-Fargo who chairs the interim Human Services Committee on behavioral health, likens the problem to a complex jigsaw puzzle for which the state has only 100 of 1,000 pieces in place.

Until then, people are going to fall through the cracks and are going to die, Hogan said. Its almost criminal.

Two years later, Sen. Tim Mathern, D-Fargo, says only minor changes have occurred.

I read the Schulte report, sat on the committees, said Mathern who is also public policy director at Prairie St. Johns, a Fargo psychiatric hospital. I saw what little we did when we had all this money.

At the time, the states coffers were full, with oil production clipping along. Its a different story now with oils downturn and slumping agricultural profits, which prompted Gov. Jack Dalrymple earlier this year to order 10 percent in cuts to state agency funding for the two-year budget cycle starting next summer. Lawmakers will approve those budgets in next years session.

Hogan says one major change has happened since the consultants report came out. She estimated only about 30 percent of the legislative leadership previously acknowledged mental illness and substance abuse as a rapidly growing problem.

Everybody owns it now, Hogan said.

Few changes

Hogan said about 90 recommendations for improving the state of behavioral health in North Dakota came out of the Schulte report.

Among the long list of suggestions:

Law or policy changes, including deferring prosecution of first-time drug offenders upon conditions of successful treatment and increasing speeding fines to generate funds for more involuntary commitment beds

Program expansions, including drug courts, electronic monitoring, and peer support

Workforce issues, including loan forgiveness for people training to become addiction counselors and increasing use of telemedicine.

Almost none of the dozens of recommendations have been enacted.

The handful of accomplishments include a voucher program that just took effect Friday, July 1, for people who need substance abuse treatment but dont have insurance coverage, Hogan said.

For example, someone living in a smaller town wouldnt have to drive to one of the states eight regional human service centers. They could be treated in their hometown and the voucher system would reimburse the provider.

However, Mathern says the bill that passed made the voucher plan much smaller than the original $3 million. The program was cut further by allotment, the cuts to most state budgets of about 4 percent ordered by Dalrymple earlier this year.

So, its like one-tenth of a new idea was funded, said Mathern, who also sits on the interim Human Services Committee.

Hogan cites improvements in data collection and reporting, saying theyre starting to get a handle on what percentage of people who need behavioral health services are receiving them.

Sen. Judy Lee, R-Fargo, offers mandatory training for teachers to spot mental health issues as another positive step. But she admits services and resources still run terribly short.

Its something that could make you lay awake nights a lot, said Lee, also a member of the interim Human Services Committee.

Mathern compares the situation to 1980, when a federal class action lawsuit was filed against the state by the Association for Retarded Citizens challenging the institutionalization of people with developmental disabilities. A judges ruling forced the state to spend money on integrating them back into society.

Like then, people who have family members suffering from mental illness or substance abuse problems are demanding an alternative and the legislature hasnt responded, Mathern said.

The time to consider that these behavioral health things are sort of a moral choice that people make is way gone by, he said.

Mobile crisis units

A few of the more recent changes in mental health care in the state are designed to get patients in to see a professional more quickly and to keep them out of hospital emergency rooms. Again, those improvements are limited due to funding.

Whats called open access will eventually be offered at all regional human service centers, where a patient can walk in and be seen during business hours, rather than being scheduled weeks out or put on a waiting list. However, only centers in Minot and Williston have that system in place for now.

Chief clinics officer Rosalie Etherington, who oversees all eight of the regional centers, says patients are triaged, with the most urgent cases being seen first, followed by more routine cases.

We may ask them to return, but they would be seen that week, Etherington said.

Outside of the regular work day, mobile crisis units aim to fill in the gaps. Anyone experiencing a mental health or substance abuse crisis could call for real-time, face-to-face assistance from a mobile crisis team.

This program is also limited due to lack of funding. Only the Fargo-based southeast center is able to offer it at this time.

Southeast, with its existing 24/7 on-call service, teamed up with Solutions Behavioral Health, which provides the mobile team. There are seven people on the crisis team, with two of them on call between 5 p.m. and 8 a.m. weekdays, and on weekends and holidays.

Katie Nystuen, admissions and regional intervention services supervisor at Southeast Human Services Center, says after a crisis call comes in and contact is made with the crisis team, their average response time to a persons residence is 18 minutes. The team consults with an on-call psychologist initially and can check in anytime during the visit. The goal is to avoid hospitalization.

We really feel like we want to set people up with support to stay in the community, Nystuen said.

Last year, the mobile crisis team handled 524 crisis calls in the area, averaging just under two hours apiece. Of those, only 29 patients ended up having to go to a hospital for an assessment.

Team member Brandon Germain, who provided on-call support on the Minnesota side before Southeast Human Services also began offering the mobile crisis program in 2013, says he enjoys seeing the success stories.

From people calling ten to 15 times a week, too anxious to make it through the night, and now theyre calling two and three times a month, Germain said.

Finding the money

There are other gaps in behavioral health care across the state.

We have some communities with no psychiatric hospital beds, some with larger amounts. Some with a residential addiction component, some with none, Etherington said.

Hogan said every inpatient psych hospital bed in the state is typically filled, prompting spillover to other facilities.

Some people are in jail because they need supervision, or are in ERs waiting for an inpatient bed, she said.

And there is difficulty recruiting mental health specialists, especially to the western part of the state.

Theres one psychiatrist west of a line between Bismarck and Minot, Lee said.

Mathern is bent on finding more mental health funding and has several strategies in the works. Hes running for state treasurer, with the platform that he would work to eliminate the office and divert the cost savings to behavioral health services. Mathern says the treasurers duties can easily be absorbed by other agencies.

I am not okay with saying there isnt enough money, Mathern said.

Treasurer Kelly Schmidt, a Republican running for reelection this fall, says her offices duties are significant and not something other agencies can do. State voters have twice turned down ballot measures to eliminate the office, she pointed out.

Schmidt said shes as concerned as anyone about mental health, but its not tied to the treasurers position.

We all have neighbors, family affected, Schmidt said. That to me is a completely different part of the conversation.

Another option to raise money for mental health services is an initiated measure to raise the states tobacco tax. At 44 cents per cigarette pack, its the fourth lowest in the country.

Rep. Hogan is hoping for an increase of $1.76 a pack, to $2.20. About 50 percent of the revenue raised would go to veterans, 35 percent for behavioral health and the remainder to tobacco prevention.

House Majority Leader Al Carlson, R-Fargo, says the state does have to commit more resources to mental health. However, the problem isnt a lack of spending but a lack of priorities, he said.

You cant throw a lot of money at it and expect it to go away, Carlson said.

We have a $2 billion dollar plus budget for Human Services, he said. They (DHS) should be coming to us to readjust.

Hogan says if we were talking about another illness, things would be different.

If this was Ebola, just think what we would be doing, Hogan said. Thats where the stigma of mental health and behavioral health is still a factor.
Fluorspar is the commercial name for fluorite, calcium fluoride (CaF2), a mineral of fluorine, and the most reactive of all elements.

Fluorine, a pale yellow gas, proved deadly to early chemists because of its damaging qualities to the soft tissues of the respiratory tract.

Fluorite is derived from the Latin word fluere meaning to flow representing the minerals qualities of melting easily and supplying good flux, as noted by scientist and scholar Georgius Agricola in 1556. Agricola, known as the father of mineralogy, also claimed that fluorspar when used as an additive in molten metallic ores made them more liquid and easier to work with. It was used by the Greeks and Romans for drinking cups and ornamental slabs.

In 1670, Heinrich Schwanhard, a German glass cutter experimented with a mixture of fluorspar and acid which formed a substance with the properties of etching glass. The chemical reaction created a frosted image that was later used in stained glass in churches.

Fluorspar production worldwide increased during the late 19th century, satisfying the demands of the Industrial Era by promoting the fluidity of the slag while facilitating the passage of sulfur and phosphorus from the steel into the slag.

Fluorspar also aided the growth of the aluminum, ceramic and chemical industries during the world wars and the Korean conflict.

U.S. production of fluorspar began in 1910 with peak shipments of 237,000 tons in 1918 and 400,000 tons in 1944.

Fluorspar concentrates became more readily available with technological innovations including the froth flotation process begun in the 1920s contributing to the separation of fluorspar from galena, sphalerite and other minerals.

Fluorspar is a common gangue mineral that occurs in veins deposited by hydrothermal processes.

Arizona has several fluorspar deposits that have been commercially mined including those around Aguila, Benson, Castle Dome, Duncan, Sierrita Mountains, and Wickenburg. These operations have been small and sporadic.

The Fourth of July claims in the Ash Peak Mining district are in the southwestern foothills of the Mule Creek Mountains, an elevation of 4,600 feet about 20 miles northeast of Duncan.

The district is noted for producing $50,000 in silver between 1907 and 1933.

The Fourth of July Mine, its most notable fluorspar mine, was located by Robert T. Ellis of Duncan in 1937.

Averaging a four-man operation that worked the 150-foot-deep Ellis shaft, 500 feet of drifts, crosscuts and stopes along with two small open cuts made up the principal operation. Beset by rising costs of ore transport, the mine closed in 1942.

Fluorite from the mine was described as occurring in andesite porphyry country rock and a content averaging 65 percent calcium fluoride and over 25 percent silica. Additional qualities include an appearance as deep green to blue green with fissure veinlets up to 1 inch thick irregularly scattered in quartz. Some fluorite takes the appearance of cubes.

Two types of veins are found on the property including one composed of fluorspar with gangue minerals of calcite, manganese and iron oxides. The other referred to as the Riverview vein includes copper, gold and silver.

During its operation, the mine produced 2,600 tons of fluorspar averaging a car of fluorspar a week or a production averaging 150 tons per month. Duncan served as the nearest railhead for fluorspar transport to flotation mills at Lordsburg and Deming, New Mexico.

Ben Billingsley and Roy B. Wilson acquired the mine in 1952. The later was affiliated with the Arizona Eastern Fluorspar Corp. Depleted ore reserves necessitated the mines permanent closure soon after.

Nationwide, declining demand in the fluorspar-consuming industry in the 1970s was caused by a government ban on chlorofluorocarbons found in aerosol sprays and in refrigerants. Continued regulation costs of fluorinated gases due to government concerns pertaining to ozone layer depletion has since hindered production and subsequent mining efforts worldwide.
Sonora Cohousing Community

Mechelle Meixner, left, Julia Balestracci and her daughter, Shanti Kumar, 9 months, go for a stroll at Sonora Cohousing near Roger Road and First Avenue. People are living together like an extended family, Meixner says of the experience.
Two proposed housing developments in Marana got unanimous green lights for zoning changes from the citys planning commission Wednesday night, the first of several steps before building can begin.

Plans for the Camino de Oeste and Twin Peaks Oasis projects include 144 lots and 74 lots respectively, for a total of up to 218 new single-family homes.

The Camino de Oeste development would be on a 72-acre lot north of Cortaro Farms Road and between North Camino de Oeste and North Hartman Lane, and Twin Peaks would be on a roughly 37-acre lot east of Twin Peaks Road and north of West Oasis Road.

The commissions recommendations still need to be approved by the Marana Town Council.

The 72-acre propertys current zoning sets the minimum lot size at 25 acres, and the commission signed off on changing it to a more dense residential zone that sets a minimum lot size of 6,000 square feet. The Marana General Plan designates the area as low-density residential, which allows for a maximum of two homes per acre.

Sam Mills of Pulte Homes, the projects builder, said he hopes to be able to start building by next April.

Meanwhile, home density at the 37-acre lot would be similar, but the proposal required a zoning change and modification of the general plan. Linda Morales, whose company put together the Twin Peaks plan, said building could be up to two years out.

All homes in the Camino de Oeste development will be one-story, according to the conditions of the zoning change. Two-story homes are allowed in the Twin Peaks project, but the commission recommended their number be capped.

Neighbors of both projects attended the meeting to lodge their complaints, which centered on view-obstruction, increased traffic and threats to property values.

Were like rats in a cage, Darlene Snyder said of the current traffic conditions around Cortaro Farms Road, adding that the 144-home development would only make that worse.

The purpose of zoning is to protect other owners, Richard Amdahl told the commission of the Twin Peaks developments possible impact on the surrounding community and property values. Were asking you to protect what weve already spent.

Steven Vasquez, a Marana planner, said interest in new subdivisions around Marana has been picking up recently. Thats because many subdivisions that were approved in the leadup to the Great Recession whose lots remained empty for years after the crash have been slowly filled in, requiring developers to start new subdivisions from scratch.

Were seeing that increased growth, he said.
PHOENIX  When the temperature spikes, Phoenix trails will stay open for man, but not for mans best friend.

City leaders on Thursday rejected a proposal to prohibit people from hiking in extreme heat, but they approved a rule banning dogs from the citys 41 trailheads when the mercury climbs to 100 degrees.

The ban  a first for Phoenix, at least in modern times  took effect Friday.

The Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department was looking for ways to improve trail safety following several rescues and at least one death within the city limits. But after strong objections to the proposed hiking ban, its board passed just the dog portion of the proposal as a compromise, department spokesman James Ritter said.

Our goal and our duty is to meet what the taxpayers want, Ritter said. We werent there trying to strong-arm anyone.

More than 20 members of the public signed up to speak on the hiking-ban idea, and most were adamantly opposed.

People wanna hike when they wanna hike, not when youre telling them to go hike, Tim Sierakougle told the board.

Many who spoke said they were experienced hikers who regularly take to the trails on hot days.

Ernest Martinez said he hikes every other day.

I dont think that (a ban)is a practical or feasible approach. I dont think the city of Phoenix has the resources to carry out that policy or enforce it, Martinez said.

Ritter said the Humane Society was onboard with the dog ban, and he didnt think there was enough information available about how hot surface temperatures can be unsafe for dogs.

Phoenix resident Steve Douglas, who visited South Mountain Park on Friday morning, agreed that the dog ban makes sense, but that a hiker ban wouldnt.

The dogs cant speak for themselves, and theyre wearing fur coats, Douglas said.

Douglas said he hikes three to five times a week on city trails and recently hiked in 112 degrees. He stays safe by keeping hydrated and knowing his limits.
PHOENIX  Phoenix police say they will start testing all rape kits and clearing a backlog of hundreds.

KNXV-TV reports that the police department began testing all rape kits Friday.

Phoenix police also have 1,700 kits being held as evidence yet remain untested.

Authorities say some samples went untested for several reasons such as if the victim didn't know the offender or if there was disagreement about consent.

The new effort comes as there is a push across Arizona and nationwide to reduce the backlog of untested DNA evidence in sexual assault cases.

Gov. Doug Ducey recently signed an executive order to form a task force to come up with ways to address untested kits in Arizona.
Flags project

Rahmi Steiner Elkhatib, an honor student at Century High School, is completing his Eagle Scout project, which is retrieving, replacing and retiring damaged American flags in the Bismarck-Mandan area.

The plans are to retrieve the flags in June, replace them in July and hold a retirement ceremony in August.

If you would like a new flag to replace flags that are tattered, faded or damaged, or know someone who might, email Elkhatib at rahmielkhatib@gmail.com or call 319-654-4452. There is a limited supply of 20 flags.

Summer staffers

Sen. John Hoeven announced his new interns and legal fellow to his Washington, D.C., Bismarck and Fargo offices. The interns work with the senator and his staff on legislative, communications and administrative projects.

Philip Axt, son of Todd Axt and Tina Triebwasser, of Bismarck, is joining Hoevens staff for the summer as a legal fellow. He graduated from Bismarck High School in 2005 and the United States Military Academy (West Point) in 2009. Axt served for six years in the military and intelligence communities, including combat deployment to Afghanistan and assignments within U.S. Cyber Command. He is in his second year of study at the Yale Law School.

Edward Swiontek, Edgeley, has been hired as an intern in Hoevens Bismarck office. He is the son of Allen and Inna Swiontek, and a 2012 graduate of Edgeley High School. He is a senior at the University of Mary, majoring in public policy with a minor in economics. At U-Mary, Swiontek is vice president of the Pre-Law Club and is a member of the Investments Club.

Caitlin Hanson, daughter of Chris and Sheri Hanson, of Bismarck, is a junior at North Dakota State University. She studies political science and intends to pursue higher education in the international relations field. She is also a member of the North Dakota Army National Guard, participates in the Military Funeral Honors program and tutors newly immigrated families through ELL. Upon the culmination of her summer internship in Fargo, she will continue interning with Hoevens Washington, D.C., office for the fall semester.

Skunes elected

The National Corn Growers Association's Corn Board has elected Kevin Skunes, of Arthur, to become the organization's first vice president for the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.

Skunes, his wife, Betty, and their two sons farm 4,900 acres of corn and soybeans in Cass County.

On the national level, Skunes serves as the board liaison to NCGA's Grower Service Action Team and as the association's representative to the National Pork Producers Council. Previously, he served as the Corn Board liaison to NCGA's Trade Policy and Biotechnology Action Team, on the Association Relations Committee and on the Finance Committee. He served as a member of NCGA's Ethanol and Finance Committees prior to election to the Corn Board.

In October 2017, Skunes becomes president.

Bullinger interns

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp announced a total of 11 interns and fellows in her Washington, D.C., and North Dakota offices.

The interns at the Bismarck office include Daniel Bullinger, Bismarck, a junior at North Dakota State University majoring in political science and history.

Educators attend

Recently, 17 middle school and high school teachers, counselors and career advisers attended the Bismarck Mandan Development Associations first Educators Summer Workshop to help them learn about occupations and career options in the community, visit local businesses to see todays work spaces and meet with local employers.

The following employers hosted the group for each of the half-day sessions during the weeklong workshop; a total of 55 businesspeople helped with presentations and tours: Missouri Family YMCA, community workforce overview; Bank of North Dakota, business/finance careers; Edgewood Vista, health care careers; Juniper Environmental Consulting, science/agriculture careers; Northern Improvement Co., skilled trades careers; KLJ, engineering careers; Dakota Carrier Network, IT/computer science careers; and Doosan Bobcat Co., 21st century workplace innovations.

Completing the workshop were: Bismarck Public Schools  Brian Beehler, Sarah Berreth, Vanessa DeCoteau, Lea Geis, Laura Henkelman, Jessica Schafer, Beth Schwab and Blaine Steiner; Mandan Public Schools  Danielle Borseth and Darlene LaQua; Shiloh Christian School  Dan Seifert; St. Marys Central High School  Jill Vollmers; Linton Public School  Michael Schirado; Napoleon Public School  Phil Leitner; Underwood Public School  Kim Wirtz; and White Shield Public School  Aaron Gutman and James McGill.

P.E.O. convenes

The North Dakota P.E.O. Sisterhood elected and installed its new officers at its recent statewide 102nd convention held June 3-4 at Baymont Inn & Suites in Fargo.

Presiding was Marianna Malm, Chapter V Fargo. Jacque Meagher and Elise Leitch, both from Chapter E of Fargo, served as convention co-chairwomen assisted by host Chapters E, AT, and BB, all Fargo, and Chapter S, Mayville.

International Chapter representative Patricia Piro, PSP, Chapter AL, Alabama, and Judy Steege, PSP, Chapter KK, Missouri, were guest speakers along with North Dakota scholarship recipients. All 52 chapters from across the state were represented.

Officers elected are Marcia Foss, Chapter Z Valley City, president; Susan Johnson, Chapter Y Fargo, vice president; Cindy Schuetzler, Chapter AQ Dickinson, organizer; Lisa Olson, Chapter Q Park River, treasurer; and Phyllis Dvorak, Chapter AJ Bismarck, secretary.

Representatives to the LEAD conference will be Marcia Foss and Cindy Schuetzler and to the Cottey College conference will be Lisa Olson and Angie Cruff, Chapter J Wahpeton.

The 2017 North Dakota state convention will be at the Radisson in Bismarck. Hosting are Chapter A Valley City, Chapter I Ellendale, Chapter N Bismarck, Chapters AO and AY Grand Forks and Chapter AG Minot.

CDHS gets help

At each annual Credit Union Association of the Dakotas Summit, a local charity is selected to receive donations from credit unions and individuals attending the conference. The chosen charity for the 2016 event was Central Dakota Humane Society, Mandan.

The CDHS been working in the community for over 50 years. It receives no city, state or federal funding and donations are always needed to help the animals and the organization.

During the event held June 15-17, $225 in cash was collected. Also donated were postage stamps and numerous items needed for animal care. Mandy Schaff, volunteer and special events coordinator for the CDHS was on hand to receive the donated items and speak about the organization at the close of the summit.

Program winner

McKenna Keller was the 2015 North Dakota winner of a $1,000 savings bond from Bonnie Plants. She was the randomly-chosen winner, selected by the state agriculture commissioner.

Keller grew a giant cabbage (30.1 pounds) as part of a third-grade cabbage-growing program sponsored by Bonnie Plants, which delivers free O.S. Cross, or "oversized," cabbage plants to third-grade classrooms whose teachers have signed up for the program.
Help India!

By Asif Khan, TwoCircles.net

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I was sixteen when we returned from Burma in 1966, recalls Zaitoon. Her father had served there, and stayed back to live in Magway after the end of WWII. The war was before her birth, but she remembers the story of how one of her elder sisters had been dumped in a ditch by her panicked mother on hearing the air-raid sirens. Luckily the baby, who was six months old at the time, survived and was found when an older brother went looking for her later.

Her memory is hazy, but she remembers beginning to fast around the time she was between 10 and 12 years old. We used to go to school, she continued with a smile, and on the days it would be hot, we would skip the fast. She has pleasant memories of hills, and how the nights would be cool all year round. There was a mosque in her neighbourhood from where she remembers hearing the Azaan at Maghrib, when it would be time for breaking fast.

She remembers with equal fondness about her return journey. The family traveled by air, because her father wasnt keen on letting the kids travel by sea. It was getting difficult to live there, she said wistfully, and Abba said we shouldnt compromise our religious beliefs. That was the only time she sat on an airplane.

TCN Series: Ramadan 1437
Help India!

By TwoCircles.net special correspondent

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New Delhi: RSS front organization Muslim Rashtriya Manch (MRM) organized an iftar on Saturday where some Indian Muslims and diplomats of Muslim countries were invited.

RSS leader Indresh Kumar who is also the patron of MRM was the only speaker at the function. In his twenty minute speech he lectured Muslims on how to live in peace. He remarked that world over Muslims are responsible for all the violence. He went to ridicule how Muslims are busy debating how to give Talaq. He criticized Asaduddin Owaisi for his refusal to say Bharat Mata and told Muslims to be not fanatical.

As if this was not enough Aligarh Muslim University VC Zameeruddin Shah and Jamia Millia Islamia VC Talat Ahmed nodded in agreement.

it is significant to note that Indresh Kumar was mentioned in 2011 in a chargesheet filed by the National Investigative Agency (NIA) charging him to be present at the meeting where the plan for the 2007 Ajmer bomb blast was hatched. The blast at world-famous Ajmer Dargah of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti during iftar killed three people and injured 17.

Initially I felt embarrassed to see VCs of two prestigious universities moving around Indresh Kumar. I thought these people are so opportunist. But while speaking to them I felt pity. AMU VC wanted to explain to the RSS leaders how minority character was important for AMU. He wanted to tell his side of the story to them so that government and the Sangh rethink about their stand with regard to AMU. Similarly, Jamia VC also wanted to project RSS was no longer untouchable for him and his institution.

It reflects the kind of fear this regime and the Sangh have casted on prestigious institutions that learned people have to satisfy the ego of an RSS leader.

BJP leaders Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Shah Nawaz Hussain were also in attendance.

Out of thirty-five ambassadors of Muslim countries only three junior officials from Iranian and Syrian embassy turned up.

Related:

RSS, VHP, friends of Muslims: Muslim Rashtriya Manch
Help India!

New Delhi : A day after accusing the BJP of using Justice S.N. Dhingra Commission set up by its government in Haryana for a malicious witch hunt, the Congress on Saturday launched a further attack on the states Manohar Lal Khattar government, accusing it of pushing the youth in the dangerous web of drug abuse.

Malgovernance and incompetence of BJP government has pushed the youth of Haryana in the dangerous web of drug abuse. Modi government at the centre and Khattar government in Haryana have utterly failed in providing avenues of employment or jobs to the young, said Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala.

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Agriculture as also trade and business, the two biggest employment generators, have borne the maximum brunt of failed policies of BJP government. There is all-round gloom and disappointment among the youth with no ray of hope from any quarter, he added.

Congress also demanded the Khattar government issue a white paper bringing out the actual position of Haryanas youth, who have been pushed into drug abuse.

Action taken against the drug mafia, their numbers and details must also form part of the white paper for knowledge of people of Haryana, said Surjewala.

He also said that ongoing police recruitment in Kurukshetra and terribly shocking events of drug abuse have proved that youth of Haryana are being pushed into intoxicant abuse by a cartel of drug mafia.

Widespread spurt in crime in Haryana is a consequence thereof. In last 18 months of Khattar government, not a single youth of Haryana has been given employment while nearly 25,000 young people including guest teachers/computer teachers/daily wage employees have lost their livelihood, he alleged.

He also hit out at the BJP government for creating a bitter caste division in the state breaking social harmony which has resulted into an atmosphere of distress and fear dissuading the industry from setting up any new unit or project.
A shortage of school counselors in North Dakota is becoming more prevalent each year, according to an executive director of a regional educational association in the state.

As more school districts are reporting vacancies in their school counselor positions, the University of Mary and the Missouri Educational Cooperative teamed up to help fill these shortfalls.

The state of school counseling is no different than that of the regular classroom teacher throughout North Dakota, said Lyle Krueger, executive director of the Missouri River Educational Cooperative, an education service agency that serves 39 school districts.

In January, the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction reported 204 K-12 teaching positions remained open statewide.

In the past two years, one or two schools each year have asked MREC to assist in filling school counselor positions, according to Krueger.

The agency has "member districts" in the south central portion of the state, as far as the South Dakota border, with Elgin-New Leipzig in the west and Kidder County-Tappen the farthest east.

Theres more (open positions) within the south central part of the state  or throughout the state  than just the one or two, because theres not enough counselors to go around," Krueger said.

The University of Mary and MREC partnered to create a year-long paid internship program to place graduate students in school districts across the state.

The two-year degree program requires all school counseling students complete a minimum of 600 hours in an internship, normally across two semesters or from September to May.

The reason why this is a big deal with us is that with the partnership that we have with MREC, students are actually obtaining paid internships," said Julijana Nevland, assistant professor and chair of graduate counseling at the University of Mary.

In addition, Nevland said the partnership will allow the counseling program to admit more students. In recent years, the number of applicants for the program has nearly doubled, and the school has had to turn people away because it didn't have enough internship sites.

"Now that we have this partnership with MREC, were hoping to be able to accommodate those additional applicants and take more school counseling students into our program," Nevland said.

Filling the gap

The internship is the first of its kind at MREC.

Jennifer Grandalen, MREC college and career counselor and former school counselor at Turtle Lake-Mercer Public School, said she recognized the need for more school counselors and the state requirement of students in school counseling programs to complete internships.

Were trying to expand this program by using interns that need placements with schools that need counselors, Grandalen said.

Starting this fall, one student intern will be placed in a North Dakota school.

Krueger, MREC's executive director, said he hopes to build off" of the program next year and place more University of Mary students, as schools become more aware of the internship program.

Megan Grosz is a graduate student at the University of Mary, and the school's first intern with MREC.

Grosz, a Bismarck native, also is an academic adviser at the university and taught U.S. and advanced placement U.S. history at an inner city school in Houston for six years.

She said she loved teaching history, but her favorite part of the day was when students would come to her classroom after classes and "just want to talk."

They just wanted someone to listen to how their day was going," Grosz said of her students.

As the students became more comfortable talking with Grosz, she became surprised at how many would ask for her advice on going to college.

Most of the students she taught came from low socioeconomic backgrounds, she said, and just didnt think that college was a possibility."

There were 10 counselors at the school in Houston who "did a good job" but had an immense number of students on their caseloads, and Grosz said she began to notice some students falling through the cracks.

So, she started talking with students about scholarships, which classes to take and how to go on a college visit.

There were just so many unanswered questions," she said.

Upon leaving Houston, Grosz enrolled at the University of Mary's Graduate Counseling Program.

In the fall, she'll start as a full-time intern at Turtle Lake-Mercer Public School, which is without a school counselor.

Im incredibly excited," Grosz said. Its a great opportunity for graduate students to get that experience."

Grandalen, who was Turtle-Lake Mercer's school counselor from 2010 to 2012 and helped with the position last school year, will serve as Grosz's supervisor. She plans to visit Grosz at the school each week.

For Grandalen, school counselors play an important role in not only talking with students about academics, college readiness and career interests, but they also do individual counseling to eliminate the need for interventions later.

Schools counselors help tie everything together," she said.
Since the time the rumors of the most gorgeous looking couple of Bollywood Katrina Kaifand Ranbir Kapoor were out, their fans had given up on watching them romancing together on screen. The last thing their die-hard fans expected was them doing a romantic song together, but looks like their expectations have been surpassed.

Jagga Jasoos still incomplete

Though they are doing a movie together titled Jagga Jasoos, the movie is taking a long time to make due to unfortunate accidents and hindrances since it went on floors in 2014 when the leads were in a committed relationship.

Once the movie is complete, the fans will also in most probability get to see the lead i.e Ranbir and Katrina together while they promote the movie across cities.

Kat and Ranbir shoot a song for Fuddu

Katrina and Ranbir fans have waited endlessly for this and their dream is indeed coming true. The exes are coming together for a love song especially for Sunil Subramanis debut Bollywood movie titled Fuddu.

As per online reports, Sunny Leone who is never been seen with Katrina and Ranbir will also be shaking a leg in the song. Though it is a great thing to happen since the pair really looks very good together on screen, rumors suggest that all is still not well between them. The Fitoor actress and the Rockstar actor have been reportedly avoiding each other on sets, the song was apparently shot last week itself.

Fuddu is being made under Anurag Basu's guidance

Fuddu is a Bollywoodromantic comedy movie directed by Sunil Subramani and is being made under Barfi fame Anurag Basus supervision, interestingly Subramani has worked closely with Anurag Basu for over 17 years over innumerable movies. The movie has already been completed in July 2015 and has also premiered in the Film Bazaar of International Film Festival of India which was held in Goa.

Fuddu stars Swati Kapoor, Shubham and Gauhar Khan and is written by Pawan Kumar Sharma. The movie stars Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif in cameos and is slated to release in 2017.
Despite the many positive changes in the Bismarck area there are some troubling aspects to the communitys growth.

Law enforcement has seen an increase in the use of opiates with three recent suspected overdoses, with one resulting in a death. Also, more people have been resorting to the misuse of guns. These two problems are often related, with some of the gun violence being traced to drug deals.

The increase in drug trafficking has been well-documented across the state. One of the downsides of the oil boom was it attracted the drug trade. Recent crime statistics have shown the increase in drug-related crimes. Law enforcement has bolstered its efforts and task forces have been formed to battle some of the more organized crime efforts.

In the Bismarck area, law enforcement and health care groups are organizing to keep the opiate problem from getting out of control. At a press conference last week officials pointed out that opiate users dont fall into one class  its people of all ages and backgrounds. They are using heroin and fentanyl, a potent opiate often mixed with heroin to make it stronger, and more dangerous.

The price of heroin has dropped, making it more affordable for users. By mixing heroin with fentanyl, dealers can offer it at even a lower price. A two-pronged attack on the problem is underway.

The Heartview Foundation will begin offering methadone to recovering opiate addicts. Kurt Snyder, executive director of Heartview, said the success rate for recovering addicts is much higher with methadone. Heartview already uses two other drugs along with counseling, drug testing and mental health treatment to help addicts. The federal government will regulate the methadone program.

So theres help for those who fall into the trap of addiction and there are efforts to keep people from falling into the trap.

Bismarck Police Detective Jerry Stein said officers are targeting dealers and users with the end goal of getting the dealers. The police try to nab addicts committing small crimes to pay for their habits and then get them into treatment. The officers also work to build stronger cases against dealers. Not only are officers trying to catch offenders, they are trying to save their lives. Officers are trained to use naloxone, also known as Narcan, a drug that temporarily reverses an opioid overdose. It gives police some time to get a person to a hospital.

Pharmacies in North Dakota also can prescribe naloxone, giving the public access to the drug in case of an overdose.

It makes sense to get users into treatment. If users can get off the drugs they will be more beneficial to society than sitting in jail. That, however, is where the dealers belong.

Police also suspect the drug trade has fueled an increase in gun crimes in Bismarck. This year Bismarck has had 48 gun-related crime reports, as compared to 28 in the same period last year. Not all the incidents are related to drugs, but Deputy Police Chief Randy Ziegler said, "Typically people who possess or sell drugs tend to carry weapons on them."

Hopefully a crackdown on drug trafficking will quiet the gun problem.

Bismarck remains a safe city, but the drug and gun problems require action. It appears the community is taking the right steps.
Thousands march against Brexit in London Updated: 2016-07-03 08:36 (Xinhua)

Photo taken on Jan 29, 2016 shows the UK and EU flags outside the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. [Photo/Xinhua]

LONDON -- Large areas of central London were brought to a standstill Saturday as thousands of demonstrators converged on the capital to protest about the outcome of the EU referendum.

The peaceful march and rally came in the wake of a petition to parliament which by Saturday had exceeded 4 million signatures calling for a second referendum. It is estimated that around 40,000 people took part in the march.

With people waving pro-Europe banners, the "March for Europe" event took place even though the Leave camp won the June 23 referendum by 51.9 percent to 48.1 percent. One banner carried the message "Stay Calm but Remain...Outraged" while another had the message "We Love EU".

Starting from Park Lane in Central London, the procession stretched for more than three kilometers as it made its way towards Parliament Square, close to the seat of the British Parliament.

One of the organisers of the London march, Keiran MacDermott, said protesters want to stop the British government from triggering the mechanism that starts the EU withdrawal process, making a Brexit irreversible.

Stand-up comedian and satirist Mark Thomas said he helped organise the march to "address his anger, frustration and need to do something."

He said: "We would accept the result of the referendum if it was fought on a level playing field. But it was full of misinformation and people need to do something with their frustration."

With the House of Commons and Big Ben as a backdrop, speakers from different political parties heard pleas about the impact of the emerging "divorce" from the European Union.

Rock band icon Bob Geldorf, who famously helped raise millions of pounds for starving people in Africa with a desperate plea for help, was among the speakers Saturday.

He urged people "to take to the streets and speak to their neighbors" to stop Britain from leaving the EU.

Politicians and officials within the Palace of Westminster have already started laying the foundations for Britain's exit by establishing various working groups to discuss future moves in the long process.

In the referendum, London was out of step with the rest of England where the vast majority of people backed the Leave camp. Wales also was a strong supporter of Brexit, with both Scotland and Northern Ireland voting Remain. Around 60 percent of Londoners voted for remain.

Social media sites went into overdrive, with both sides engaged in verbal clashes. One person wrote: "I agree we have a democratic right to protest, but I don't see how 'March for Europe' is going to work. Leave won in a democratic vote."
126 people killed in suicide car bomb attacks in Baghdad Updated: 2016-07-04 01:02 (Xinhua)

BAGHDAD -- Up to 126 people were killed and some 152 others wounded in bomb attacks in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad on Sunday, an Interior Ministry source said.

This is the bloodiest attack this year in the country where the army are fighting against the Islamic State militants.

The busy commercial district in southern Baghdad was hit by a car bomb at about 1:00 a.m. local time (2200GMT) when a suicide bomber detonated his explosive-laden pickup truck outside a shopping center.

The three-floor building was completely destroyed, when lots of people were in it. Many of the victims are women and children, the source said.

The powerful blast set fire to the shopping center and four nearby buildings while many shops and stalls were charred and destroyed, along with destroying dozens of civilian vehicles at the scene, the source added.

Dozens of rescue workers, firefighters and civilians were removing debris and burned wreckage from dawn to the evening, looking for survivors and dead bodies.

The attack happened when many families and young people were in the crowded thoroughfare where many shoppers were preparing their families for Eid al-Fitr scheduled to start on Tuesday, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

Meanwhile, another car bomb went off in a market in northeastern Baghdad, leaving one killed and five wounded, the source added.

The death toll could rise as many wounded are in critical condition.

The bloody bombings have been claimed by the Islamic State group which said that one of its suicide bombers detonated his car bomb at a crowd of Shiite people in the predominantly Shiite district of Karrada-Dakhil, according to a statement posted online, which could not be independently verified.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited the explosion site in Karrada on Sunday morning, vowing to punish those behind the attacks, according to a statement issued by his office.

"The terrorist groups carried out such desperate deadly attack as a result of being crushed in the battlefield," the statement said, referring to the government's recent victory of retaking Fallujah city from IS in the country's western province of Anbar.

Abadi also sent his condolences to the families of the victims and promised that "victory over these terrorist groups is very close."

Local resident Mohammed Musa said:"Now we demand a solution from the government, because since 2003 to 2016 we are uncomfortable, we are in a difficult situation. And those people, all of them lost their money, properties and lives and other things, everything is gone."

The Iraqi government announced victory of retaking Fallujah, one of the last two strongholds of IS in Iraq, late last month, after almost a month of military operations.

The army are expected to by deployed to the northern Nineveh province, preparing to launch attacks against Mosul city, the country's second biggest city that fell into IS control two years ago.

In a statement issued on Sunday, Iraqi President Fuad Masoum condemned the deadly bomb attacks and called on the security forces to "take urgent measures to totally eliminate the sleeper terrorist cells and arrest the perpetrators."

He said "the sleeper terrorist cells are seeking to avenge the defeat of terrorists Daesh (IS group) in Fallujah and other regions of the country."

The IS has frequently targeted the security forces and areas where crowds of people gather, including markets, cafes and mosques across Iraq.

Observers said there could be more attacks against military targets and civilians in the future as the army advance to the last IS stronghold of Mosul

Iraq has been hit by a wave of violence since the IS terrorist group seized large parts in Iraq's northern and western regions since 2014.

A report by UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) estimated that 662 Iraqis were killed and 1,457 others wounded in acts of terrorism, violence and armed conflict in June this year across Iraq.
Manila urged to put aside upcoming ruling Updated: 2016-07-04 03:12 By WU JIAO, ZHANG YUNBI(China Daily)

Sources: China won't resume negotiations on disputes based on tribunal decision

EXPERT PREDICTION: New Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte (pictured) is expected to advocate "more pragmatism and bilateral diplomacy", according to Wilson Lee Flores, an analyst and columnist at the Philippine Star newspaper. [Photo provided to China Daily]

China will not resume negotiations with the Philippines about disputes in the South China Sea if the discussions are based on the ruling of an arbitral tribunal in The Hague, according to sources.

The negotiations have been stalled for years, and the tribunal is due to announce its ruling on July 12.

The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, are close to the issues between the two countries. The tribunal is in charge of the arbitration process that was launched unilaterally by the Philippines against China in 2013.

Many observers have voiced hopes that the chilly relations between Beijing and Manila will end after Rodrigo Duterte took office as the 16th Philippine president on Thursday.

"Manila must put aside the result of the arbitration in a substantive approach," one of the sources said.

The sources also said Beijing is ready to start negotiations on issues such as joint development and cooperation in scientific research if the new government puts the tribunal's ruling aside before returning to the table for talks.

China has rejected being part of the compulsory arbitral proceedings partly because the case involves sovereignty and maritime delimitation, which it declared in 2006 are issues that are not subject to any third-party arbitration.

Although the outgoing Philippine government said it had exhausted all diplomatic approaches before seeking arbitration, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Manila did not embark on any serious two-way negotiations over the claims it had raised with the tribunal.

Wilson Lee Flores, an analyst and columnist for the Philippine Star newspaper, said he expects "more pragmatism and bilateral diplomacy to prevail in the Duterte government's dealings with China, instead of the past six years of confrontations".

Normalizing bilateral relations with China would help to balance the Philippines' foreign policy with its traditional ally the United States, Flores said.

Li Guoqiang, a senior researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Chinese Borderland Studies, said: "For all the disputes concerning the South China Sea, negotiation is the only choice and the only viable approach. Confrontation will never help to resolve the South China Sea issue."

Li said that no matter how the tribunal rules, he believes the situation will not go into free fall, but that the decision will possibly lead to some "new chaos".

"No matter how the new president acts on the ruling, diplomatic negotiation is second to none. Using the ruling as a condition for resuming diplomatic consultations will not be viable," Li said.

Zhu Feng, professor and executive director at Nanjing University's China Center for Collaborative Studies of the South China Sea, said it will be "a very important and ideal start" if the new Philippine government repairs ties with China.

He said this will be the case if it "effectively manages in a reasoned manner the impact brought by the ruling on the existing bilateral disputes between China and the Philippines".

Contact the writer at zhangyunbi@chinadaily.com.cn and wujiao@chinadaily.com.cn.

Zhang Yan and Xinhua contributed to this story.
I'm on my way today back to Colorado for two weeks of ALEPH programming. The ALEPH Kallah begins on July 11, and of course I'll be there for that -- wouldn't miss it for the world. But I'm going to be there this week, too.

During my years of rabbinic school, I always went to another week of ALEPH learning before the Kallah -- what we called "smicha students' week" (or "smicha week" for short), a week-long learning intensive with the ALEPH Ordination Program community of students and faculty.

We would daven together three times a day, learn together all day and all evening, and generally enjoy the pleasure of steeping in one another's company and in our studies. The classes we took during those intensive weeks would continue via teleconference calls (or, by the time I finished the program, webconference video calls) for months thereafter.

Last time I did that was summer of 2010. (I wrote about it here: My last smicha students' week. That's where I wrote the poem that begins "Don't chew on your mama's tefillin...") As that poem makes clear, I had an infant at the time, and navigating his needs while immersing in study and community made that a week not quite like any other.

The following January I was ordained, and since then, I haven't attended smicha students' week -- it's not for me anymore. I've felt some sadness about that. I miss the hevreschaft (community of learners) and the spirited daily davenen. But it's a natural consequence of finishing rabbinic school, so I accepted it... until now.

This year ALEPH is piloting a new program for ordained clergy, which we're calling Clergy Camp. Those of us who are ordained and practicing in the field are invited back during smicha students' week for our own dedicated learning track. While the students are doing their learning, we'll be doing our continuing education. We'll get to share meals and davenen with the ordination program community. I anticipate that it will feature much of the joy I used to take in smicha students' week -- without the stress of being a graduate student!

During the mornings I'll be studying geirut, conversion, with Rabbi Jeff Fox, the rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Maharat, the groundbreaking Orthodox seminary ordaining women to serve as clergy. During the afternoons there will be a skills practicum taught by Reverend Dr. Bill Kondrath, Director of Theological Field Education at Episcopal Divinity School. During the evenings we'll be integrating our learning via group hashpa'ah (spiritual direction.) It promises to be a rich and full week. I'm incredibly excited about it. To those whom I'll be seeing at Clergy Camp, and those whom I'll be seeing at Kallah next week: travel safely!
Independence Day has come to mean many wonderful things over the centuries. It is first and foremost a day to celebrate the birth of our great nation, but it also has come to be a warm and happy occasion to enjoy time with friends, family, good food and special public celebrations with fireworks and patriotic music in cities large and small across our state.

The Fourth also is a time to remember and thank our veterans  the men and women who secured our freedom and independence almost 250 years ago, and also those who have protected our freedom and independence around the world ever since.

We often hear that we owe our veterans a debt that we can never fully repay. What we can do, however, is show them our gratitude in tangible ways by being there for them when they need us, especially when theyre ill and aged. Thats why I have pushed, and continue to push, for measures that will help us to better serve the men and women who have served our nation so well. What better way to say thank you than by providing them with the best quality health care and nursing home services possible?

In North Dakota many of our veterans live in rural communities, requiring drives of up to eight hours to obtain care from the Veterans Hospital in Fargo when their Community Based Outpatient Clinic cant provide a service. Similarly, veterans in North Dakota have essentially one long-term-care facility, the Veterans Home in Lisbon, available to them, often taking them far from family and friends in their senior years. This is one instance where we have a real opportunity to make a huge impact on health care access for our veterans, especially those living in rural communities.

To meet the challenge, I am working to pass the Veterans Access to Long Term Care and Health Services Act, bipartisan legislation Ive introduced that will provide veterans with more local options for health care and skilled nursing homes. It works by allowing the Department of Veterans Affairs to enter into provider agreements with qualified health care and extended care facilities. The bill enables more local providers to accept veteran patients without having to comply with burdensome and often expensive federal contracting requirements.

This legislation has now become part of the Veterans First Act, which we are working to pass in the Senate.

A second challenge facing our veterans in North Dakota is getting timely appointments scheduled at the VA Medical Center in Fargo. When a veteran is eligible to schedule an appointment with a local provider through the Veterans Choice Program, a third-party administrator with call centers located around the country has had to do the scheduling. As a result, I heard stories from veterans about dropped appointments, long wait times and other obstacles to getting in to see a doctor.

To address this issue, we have gotten the VA to launch a pilot project at the Veterans Medical Center in Fargo to resolve scheduling issues with the third-party administrators. This spring, I hosted a roundtable in North Dakota with officials from the VA and Health Net, a contractor that schedules appointments for veterans under the Choice Program. The meeting resulted in an agreement to implement a pilot project in North Dakota, allowing the Fargo VA to assist in scheduling appointments for veterans. That project is in development at the Fargo VA hospital and is now expected to be ready to implement this fall.

When all the Independence Day picnics and fireworks are over, we need to remember the men and women who ensure our freedom and safety. These measures are a way to thank our veterans every day of the year.
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Emergency supplies: Dr. Ngo Tan Gia Phu (middle), head of a club in the southern region for people with rare Rh-negative blood types.  VNS Photo Ngo ong

Viet Nam News by Gia Loc HCM CITY  Thirteen years ago, a five-month pregnant resident of HCM City was told that she badly needed a blood transfusion to prevent a miscarriage. But her Rh-negative O blood type was in short supply at the citys blood banks at that time. I was told that I should find others with the same blood type because most of the hospitals had a shortage of this type since it is less common, she said. Between 0.4 and 0.7 per thousand of Vietnamese, a lower rate than many other countries, have Rh-negative blood. None of the womans relatives had the same blood type, so she sought help from her cousins friends and colleagues in France and Germany, who volunteered to donate blood. At eight months pregnant, doctors said she needed to deliver her baby via a Cesarean section. She was concerned because she had already had two miscarriages. Luckily, there was no problem during surgery. I didnt need a blood transfusion, she said. But other patients in the country have not always been so lucky. Nguyen Tuan Khoi, deputy head of the organisation board for the Red Journey Blood Donation Campaign, said the board had once received a request for Rh-negative blood donations from at least four people for one patient. Khoi said that Red Journey could only find two people. The result was that surgery was delayed, Khoi said at a forum held June 25 by Red Journey in cooperation with CP Viet Nam Charity Fund, Nhan Ai Vong Tay Viet JS Company and HCM City University of Technology. Also speaking at the forum was Dr. Ngo Tan Gia Phu of Cho Ray Hospitals Blood Transfusion Centre in HCM City, the head of a club for people with Rh-negative blood, formed to deal with emergencies. Many patients have died because of a shortage of blood of these types, Phu said.

Donation drives: Between 0.4 and 0.7 per thousand of Vietnamese, a lower rate than many other countries, have Rh-negative blood.  VNA/VNS Photo Nguyen Ly

In 2000, a patient with congenital heart disease, for example, was brought to the citys Heart Institute for surgery, but the operation could not be performed until blood was received from donors.

Although donations were finally collected, the patient died while waiting.

In other cases, doctors have had to contact foreign agencies and hospitals in other countries to ask for rare blood types.

People with these less common blood types have set up clubs in case of urgent need, according to Phu.

The southern regions club at first had 12 members, but now has between 500 and 600.

Even so, the clubs are not enough to satisfy demand.

Many people in the country do not know their blood type, and are unaware there is a need for rare types.

Each person should be tested at healthcare clinics. And its even simpler if they volunteer to join blood donation programmes and receive general health exams and tests, Phu said.

If they have a rare blood type, they should join the clubs, he added.

The woman from HCM City who needed a blood transfusion during her pregnancy years ago is now a member of a club managed by HCM City Humanitarian Blood Donation Centre.

The club has called her at least once to donate blood.

At a recent press meeting held in the city, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Anh Tri, head of the National Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion in Ha Noi, said that before 1993 the nations blood supply came mostly from people who sold their blood.

Since then, many blood donation campaigns have been organised, providing nearly 97 per cent of the countrys blood supply.

Last year, around 1.4 million units of blood were collected in the country, an increase of 110.5 per cent compared to 2014.

Blood transfusion centres in the country have also received nearly 55,600 units of platelet cells separated from the blood of donors.

These platelets are needed for patients with certain diseases that lead to a drop in platelet cells, especially dengue fever.

As a result, more blood donation campaigns have been organised, including the Red Journey effort.

Red Journey plans campaigns this year in 27 provinces and cities, an increase of five compared to last year.

It will also disseminate information about thalassemia, an inherited form of anaemia. Patients with this condition need regular blood transfusions.

A website www.mauhiemhanhtrinhdo.vn will also be launched to connect the public with health centres.  VNS
The Brexit vote-52 per cent of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union (EU)-has important lessons for our desperately globalising world. It tells us that economic globalisation must be shaped by political globalisation. Growth that is not shaped by tolerance or is not inclusive will lead to anger and huge consequences, mostly unintended. Brexit is the ugly face of that unintended consequence.
Indians who work abroad invest their money back home. In fact, these remittances from non-resident Indians (NRIs) have allowed us to bridge the foreign exchange deficit caused by our unbridled love for gold. On its part, the government has also ensured that its remittance and tax laws facilitate investments in India.
CEDAR FALLS  Vibrant, sensuous, fluid and surprisingly detailed, the collection of paintings is a remarkable display of artistic expression told through water-soluble pigments.

The Hearst Center for the Arts is now hosting the Iowa Watercolor Society Annual Traveling Show, which represents the work of 25 Iowa artists, including Merle Poland.

Although he taught art in Waterloo Schools for 36 years, it wasnt until his retirement four years ago that he became truly fascinated by watercolor. Painting with water and pigments on paper is considered one of the most challenging artistic mediums, which he appreciates.

I enjoy mixing the colors on paper, letting the colors flow, brushing them together  its like a dance, says Poland, a member of the Thursday Painters.

Other watercolorists have likened the way in which watercolor spontaneously moves on paper to a kind of performance art. Each brushstroke creates a nuance that conveys mood, light, translucence and while there is starting over, theres no going back.

Polands Confluence is one of 27 paintings included in the exhibition, which also features five awards of excellence winners, the best translucent watercolor and eight honorable mentions.

The work represents a new, abstract direction for Poland. I just decided to push it. This piece is inspired by folds and knots in fabric.

Other paintings in the exhibition range from portraits and naturalistic scenes to urban and abstract images.

The Iowa Watercolor Society is composed of beginning, amateur and professional artists, with the only requirement being an interest in watercolor painting. The IWS is celebrating its 38th year, established in 1977 by Joe Messner of Cedar Rapids.

Each year, the organization hosts an annual meeting, watercolor workshops and a juried show. Iain Steward, a signature member of the National Watercolor Society served as the judge this year.

Local artists Alice Dolgener of Cedar Falls and Michael Broshar of Waterloo have works on display in the show, as well.

Also featured in the exhibition are artists from throughout Iowa: Janice Bell, Marvella Blome, Larry Castek, Dan Cross, Mayela Fonseca, Deb Garner, Richard Grodt, Charlotte Hamity, Richard Hanson, Louise ODonnell, Ann Hutchins, Richard Leet, Donna McConkey, Jo Myers-Walker, Richard Parker, Julie Powell-Mohr, Susan Snyder, Mavis Stevens, Tami Van Zante, Jean Weiner and Robert Zeidler.
WATERLOO  A Waterloo man has pleaded guilty to charges that he returned to the United States after he was removed from the country.

Jose Israel Barrios-Juarez, 38, entered his plea to one count of illegal re-entry on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids.

Barrios is a citizen of Guatemala, and the government alleges he entered the United States in July 2004. He was convicted of forgery in Black Hawk County in 2008 and deported to Guatemala later that year, court records state.

On May 16, 2016, Evansdale police arrested Barrios for operating while intoxicated and driving while suspended, but he was released on bond before immigration agents arrest him. He was detained on May 26, and a federal grand jury issued an indictment on the re-entry charge.

Barrios faces up to two years in prison, and sentencing will be at a later date.
WATERLOO  Black Hawk County and some other places in Northeast Iowa are swimming through one of the wettest Junes in history.

As of Thursday, Waterloo had collected 8.52 inches of rain, according to the National Weather Service, nearly 3 3/4 inches more than a typical June.

The figure ranks seventh in the top 10 wettest Junes for the city. But with rain falling early on the final day of the month  and with more forecast throughout the final hours  the total for June 2016 in Waterloo could easily crack into the top 5.

Other communities are in the same boat, so to speak. Mason City so far in June has collected 6.23 inches of rain, according to weather service data. The total is about 1 1/4 inches more than normal. Dubuque has received 7 inches, 2 3/4 more than its average.

And yet, drought conditions in Iowa are expanding.

Drawing a line diagonally across the state from northwest to southeast roughly defines the boundary between wet and dry, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center based in Lincoln, Neb. And in fact about half of Iowas acres  52 percent  rank at least abnormally dry, according to the organization.

The figure is up from 44 percent a week earlier.

For the seven-day period ending June 28, despite pockets of locally heavy rain  which led to catastrophic flooding in parts of West Virginia  above-normal temperatures and below-normal rainfall caused dryness and drought to expand or intensify across portions of the central and eastern U.S., according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

The mitigation center and its drought monitor released its latest assessment Thursday morning and categorizes conditions on a five-step scale, going from D0, abnormally dry, to D4, exceptional drought.

Portions of Benton, Grundy, Hardin, Marshall and Tama counties are on the wrong side of the wet-dry boundary. They are experiencing at least D0, abnormally dry, conditions. Southern Tama and Marshall counties, however, are in D1, or moderate drought.

The differences in rainfall amounts can be rather pronounced in relatively close proximity. Davenport in June, for instance, has so far collected 5.57 inches of rain, a full 1 1/2 inches more than normal. A bit father south, though, Burlington soaked up a paltry 1/2 inch for the month, about 3.8 inches below its norm.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources noted similar disparities. According to the agency, Nora Springs in Floyd County by mid-June had already received more than 7 inches of rain. Bloomfield on Iowas southern edge in Davis County had gotten just a trace.

Des Moines in June so far has gotten a mere 1.2 inches of rain, more than 3 1/2 inches below its average total. The most to fall at any one time was about a third of an inch on June 14.

Other communities are reporting similar shortfalls: Marshalltown is nearly 2 inches below its norm, Ames is more than 3 inches low and Lamoni about 3 1/2.

The excess rain did create a few problems for Waterloo. The city on June 16 closed its flood gates ahead of the rising Cedar River, and downpours and saturated soil led to several overflows of the sanitary sewer system. The most recent overflow followed 3.31 inches of rain June 21-22.

Elsewhere, DNR officials closed a shooting range at the Hawkeye Wildlife Management Area in Johnson County after nearly 6 inches of rain fell June 21, damaging recent renovations. The facility had opened just a day earlier following weeks of work, ironically, to address drainage and erosion issues.

The range is scheduled to reopen July 15.

Typically, June is Waterloos wettest month of the year. The city, on average, gets 4.98 inches of rain followed by July with 4.91 inches, according to weather service data.

The absolute soggiest June arrived in 1947, when Waterloo got 12.43 inches of rain. The total is not far from the all-time wettest month, July 1999, when the city recorded 12.82 inches.

Weather records for Waterloo go back to February 1895.
WATERLOO  Democratic state House candidate Gary Kroeger had two points to prove with his nonpartisan hot dog caucus event Saturday night.

The first is a love of hot dogs crosses party lines.

But more importantly, Kroegers event held at a Waterloo home aimed to show his Iowa values bona fides.

This is an effort to acknowledge the fact that when we talk to each other, even those on the other side of the fence, we do find some common ground, Kroeger said to a crowd of about 75 people. We at least find common goals.

Kroeger is running for the Iowa House District 60 seat that includes parts of Waterloo and Cedar Falls and Hudson. He is running against incumbent Iowa Rep. Walt Rogers, R-Cedar Falls.

He defended his Iowa values in part because hes heard Rogers is criticizing Kroeger, a Saturday Night Live alum, for his Hollywood values. During an event Rogers held in May, a couple other supporters had noted Kroegers Hollywood history.

Yeah, I lived in Hollywood for almost 20 years  but my values were the same Iowa values that this woman taught me, Kroeger said, pointing to his mom and noting his father. The same Iowa values. Those have always been my values.

Kroeger, who has lived in Iowa for the past 13 years and grew up in Cedar Falls, defined Iowa values as taking care of senior citizens and veterans; providing oversight for the new Medicaid managed care system; appropriately funding education; supporting business; ensuring clean air, soil and water; and valuing civil rights.

You cant tell me Im out of touch with whats important to us, Kroeger said.

The statement prompted a response from Iowa Rep. Bob Kressig, D-Cedar Falls, who was one of several Democratic state lawmakers, past and present, at the event.

We know youre not out of touch. We know it. Youre a good man, Gary, Kressig called out from crowd.

Kroeger said the casual evening also is a response to Rogers May fundraiser held at Mudd Advertising, where Kroeger currently works, and included several high-profile Republican office holders.

While Kroegers event was less formal, his backyard barbecue included his own sizable number of Democrats, both those who are currently elected and those seeking office.

Democratic congressional candidate Monica Vernon  who Kroeger ran against in a brief bid for the same office  came to support Kroeger. Though the event wasnt billed as a fundraiser, Kroeger sold T-shirts and received donations.

Vernon said the pair formed an unlikely friendship during their time seeking the Democratic nomination. Vernons early entry into the race  she announced her bid in January 2014  means the pair have had a year and a half to get to know each other.

Vernon, a former Cedar Rapids City Council woman, stressed how quickly the general election is approaching relative to the time she had to build her primary campaign. Shell face first-term incumbent U.S. Rep. Rod Blum, R-1st District, in the general election.

Iowa House District 62 Democratic candidate Ras Smith, who is currently running unopposed, was also offered a chance to introduce himself to the crowd. He instead used his time to praise Kroeger and his philosophy.

As a citizen of Iowa, Im excited for someone like Gary, and in our talks, the thing that he emphasized most is his belief that this role is one thats for the people, that to not work across the aisle to get things done is a disservice to those that we serve, Smith said.
WATERLOO  The Volunteer Center of Cedar Valley is looking for help with the following:

The Cedar Bend Humane Society has received a Green Scene grant to beautify its campus with nine trees. Individual or group volunteers are needed to do the planting. Special training is not necessary and volunteers over age 13 are welcome. Trees need to be planted by Friday; work dates will be based on volunteer availability.

A day camp assistant is needed at the Grout Museum Districts Advanced Rocket Camp the week of July 18. Volunteers will assist campers with the building and launch of a giant rocket. You may volunteer one day or all week.

The fourth annual Accel Triathlon is on Sunday, July 10th, and will require volunteers to assist with all facets of the event from parking direction and aid stations to security and recordkeeping. Held at George Wyth Park, this event expects to use 150 volunteers and attract over 200 families.

The Cedar Falls Tourism & Visitors Bureau is looking for outgoing, friendly volunteers who like to visit with people to staff the Cedar Falls Visitor Center on the weekends. Duties include welcoming guests, assisting with directions and providing information on attractions, restaurants and things to do in the community.

For more information, call the Volunteer Center of Cedar Valley at 272-2087, or go to www.vccv.org.
ST. ANSGAR  Progress on a community visioning program continues in St. Ansgar.

The Iowa Living Roadways Community Visioning Program is designed to address local parks, trails and roads and is part of a larger project to revitalize Fourth Street with new facades and establish a formal town center.

Architects from Ritland & Kuiper Landscape Architects of Waterloo took suggestions from residents at a recent forum. A preliminary draft of drawings was presented, which architect Craig Ritland said served as a guide to public wants and needs.

Areas recommended to be addressed include new signage on all entrances into St. Ansgar as well as wayfinding signage to include town and school logos. Storm water run-off at parks and other areas was also of concern as well as improving pedestrian and school walkways along Fourth Street.

A new welcome sign might include stone pillars on either side of inscribed limestone with evergreen trees and shrubbery surrounding the sign.

To combat erosion at parks, architects proposed removing mulch from playgrounds and replacing the surface with pea gravel, as well as adding rock ledge around the playground perimeter.

School Street could be designated as the safe route to school due to the long stretch of sidewalks. Crosswalks will be implemented on all intersections to and from school.

Because there are no sidewalks connecting School Street to Eighth Street, architects plan to also use the stop signs to create a diagonal crosswalk to lead children down the street to elementary school.

Meredith Borchardt, field coordinator for Trees Forever, said the Community Vision committee will review more detailed plans from architects this month. In August, the public will be invited to deliver more input. Plans could be approved by September or October.

The Community Vision Program takes applications from towns with fewer than 10,000 people and is partial to communities that lack planning resources in city government.

To be considered, a community must be willing to contribute $2,000 toward project implementation.

St. Ansgar is one of 10 communities selected in 2016 phase. Past Mitchell County communities to be part of the project include Osage and Riceville in 2015.

The Community Vision Program is collaboration between the Iowa Department of Transportation, the Living Roadway Trust Fund, Iowa State University and Trees Forever.

Ethan Stoetzer is a reporter for the Mitchell County Press-News, another Lee Enterprises newspaper.
Recently I was moseying along an Atlantic beach at low tide when I came upon an American flag scratched out in the sand with a stick.

It had the familiar outline  the box in the upper left with stars, horizontal stripes on the right and bottom, the whole sitting in a rectangle. Well done, I thought, probably by a patriotic beach-walker with a sharp stick.

I knew that graffiti-sand flag wouldnt last past noon thanks to the approaching tide.

Imagine if someone had placed a Wal-Mart American flag there instead and tacked it down with sticks. The saltwater tide would inundate it daily.

Trouble. People would complain a real flag was being desecrated by saltwater and carelessness. No such problem with the sand flag.

That flag was a mere scrawl, a graffiti any smart 10-year-old could have done.

So should patriots take real flags more seriously than sand flags? Should anyone be fined or jailed for desecrating store-bought versions of Old Glory?

No. They should not. If desecrating a flag depends on the elaborateness and detail with which the flag is created, its nonsense.

The flag serves as the countrys logo, and worldwide the Stars and Stripes symbolizes what the country stands for. Nothing more, nothing less.

If this seems like common sense, point your browser to Flag Desecration Amendment and check out the serious attempts to outlaw flag destruction.

In the late 1960s, legislators from practically every state as well as federal lawmakers were rabidly opposed to flag burnings by Vietnam War protestors.

It infuriated them to see their beloved Stars and Stripes trampled and burned.

If you think the country is divided now, a half-century ago we were burning down buildings  not just flags  and police and the National Guard were beating and shooting students for marching and protesting. Now we merely carp and grouse on the Internet.

When the so-called Flag Burning Amendment to the Constitution went to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1989, the decision split 5-4 in favor of desecration being free speech. The justices ruled burning the flag is perfectly legal.

And get this  Justice Antonin Scalia voted with the majority, insisting public desecration of the flag was in fact protected the by the First Amendment.

Still, the idea didnt die. The U.S. Senate brought it up in again as recently as 2006. It lost by one vote. Basically, lawmakers wanted to give the courts power to punish anyone who damages the flag in any way.

That piece of colored cloth, in other words, would be treated like a powerful religious relic, with the government behaving like an avenging church.

Theres a crucial irony here. You cant damage a countrys freedom by hurting its logo. The only way to inflict real damage is by curtailing freedom of speech.

Thats what anti-desecration laws would do, as the Supreme Court wisely declared.

Defacing or destroying any representation of the U.S. flag does nothing whatsoever to harm the country for which it stands, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
CEDAR FALLS  Mayor Jim Brown has recommended the City Council appoint retired chief administrative officer Dick McAlister to a seat on the Cedar Falls Utilities board of trustees.

The City Council will interview McAlister for the post in work session prior to Mondays regular council meeting and vote on his appointment July 18. He would replace Roger Kueter, who is leaving the board after 20 years.

McAlister worked for the city more than 40 years under several titles, the last as city administrator, before retiring at the end of 2015.

He was one of five candidates who applied for the post and was interviewed last week by Brown, city department heads and council members Frank Darrah and Susan deBuhr.

Since retirement, McAlister also was appointed to the board of the Black Hawk County Gaming Association, a nonprofit organization that holds the Isle Casino Hotel Waterloos gaming license and gives out grants for various local projects with a portion of casino funds.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Jul. 02, 2016 | MILBURN, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Jul. 02, 2016 | 01:31 PM | MILBURN, KY

A woman faces a murder charge after a shooting Friday night in Carlisle County that left her husband dead and another man hospitalized.



According to Kentucky State Police, troopers received a report of a woman on KY 307 with a firearm, shortly after 5 pm Friday.



Troopers say 68-year-old Martha A. Ligon of Bardwell was holding a handgun, but dropped the weapon when instructed to do so by troopers. She was taken into custody. A short distance away troopers found a car stopped in the roadway on KY 307 North.



Inside the vehicle, in the passenger seat, troopers found 83-year-old Ray L. Ligon of Bardwell with a gunshot wound to the chest. Also located near the scene was another man, 28-year-old Shane L. Courtney of Arlington. Courtney had a gunshot wound to the shoulder.



A preliminary investigation by troopers indicates that Martha Ligon was driving in Milburn with her husband, Ray, when she began following what is believed to be a random vehicle. Martha Ligon followed the vehicle into the driveway of a residence in Milburn.



Troopers said she then allegedly got out of the vehicle and began firing shots at several random individuals. No one was injured during the altercation. Martha Ligon returned to her vehicle and fled down 307 North.



Martha Ligon then shot her husband, Ray, in the chest. A short while later, troopers say Courtney drove up behind the couple as they were stopped in the roadway on KY 307 North. Ligon opened fire on Courtney, striking him in the shoulder.



Ray Ligon was airlifted to Deaconess Hospital in Evansville where he later died. Courtney was airlifted to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville with non-life threatening injuries, where he remains at this time.



Martha Ligon was arrested Saturday and charged with murder. She was lodged in the McCracken County Regional Jail.






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By The Associated Press

Jul. 02, 2016 | LONDON, KY

By The Associated Press Jul. 02, 2016 | 03:37 PM | LONDON, KY

A cardiologist in eastern Kentucky has been indicted for allegedly performing unnecessary heart procedures and billing the government for them.



Dr. Anis Chalhoub has been charged by a federal grand jury for implanting pacemakers into patients without "sufficient need or justification." The medial fraud charges carry a sentence of up to 10 years in prison if convicted.



The indictment, returned in Laurel County on June 23, says the illegal conduct occurred between 2007 and 2011. Federal prosecutors say it is related to a scheme for which another cardiologist, Dr. Sandesh Patil, was sentenced to 2 years in prison in 2013.



The Courier-Journal reports both doctors practiced at St. Joseph-London Hospital, which in 2014 paid $16.5 million to settle allegations of a false billing scheme at the facility.



Chalhoub has argued that the treatments were appropriate.






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Matthew Boudway in Commonweal:

THE QUESTION WHITHER EUROPE has been asked so often that it has become a cliched subcategory of another cliche, the headline writers Whither X? A Google search for Whither Europe? turns up more than six thousand uses of the phrase. People were asking the question after World War I and again after World War II; they asked it at the birth of the European Union and have been asking it, again and again, in the wake of debt crises that have threatened to tear that union apart. Last May the historian James J. Sheehan tried to answer the question in the pages ofCommonwealalthough the editors fastidiously avoided the word whither in the headline (we settled for A Continent Adrift).

The title of George Steiners recent book is The Idea of Europe, but there is a strong whiff of whither in the books nervously elegiac tone. When Steiner, who is generally the kind of writer one would expect to use that archaic word without embarrassment, finally arrives at his modest speculations about Europes future, he settles for the more demotic What next? But most of this very short book is about Europes past, not its futureabout what has set the Continent apart from the rest of the world, including America. Steiners method here is impressionistic and idiosyncratic: his list of five axioms that have defined Europe is a hodgepodge of suggestive observations and monumental truisms. It is nevertheless an interesting list. Steiner makes it interesting by dint of style and erudition. It does not quite amount to a systematic theory of Europe, but then, Steiner does not promise one. As his title indicates, he is content to offer an ideaor several ideas.

His list of things that make Europe Europe starts with the concrete and becomes gradually more abstract. Item one is the cafe or coffeehouse. Draw the coffeehouse map and you have one of the essential markers of the idea of Europe.

A cup of coffee, a glass of wine, a tea with rhum secures a locale in which to work, to dream, to play chess or simply keep warm the whole day. It is the club of the spirit and theposterestante of the homeless. Three principal cafes in imperial and interwar Vienna provided the agora, the locus of eloquence and rivalry, for competing schools of aesthetics and political economy, of psychoanalysis and philosophy. Those wishing to meet Freud or Karl Kraus, Musil or Carnap, knew precisely in which cafe to look, at which Stammtisch to take their place. Danton and Robespierre meet one last time at the Procope. When the lights go out in Europe, in August 1914, Jaures is assassinated in a cafe. In a Geneva cafe, Lenin writes his treatise on empiro-criticism and plays chess with Trotsky.

More here.
Jordan Stein in Avidly:

My mother gives me a headache. It would appear, also, that she gave me headaches. When I spoke with a neurologist last winter about the increasingly frequent migraines I was having, I told him about my mothers medical history. He smiled sardonically, one adult survivor of Jewish parents to another, and said, Well, the good news is that this is probably your mothers fault! Twenty-eight years ago, when my mother was the exact age I am now, she began to have migraines. These manifested as powerful and debilitating headaches, which, along with major pain relieving drugs administered by ER doctors and later by her neurologist, would knock her out for days. Days have a way of adding up. Enough knock outs and you stop getting up so fast. As I recall it, anyway, my mother slept on the couch in the daytime for about four years. I have memories of coming home after school and just sitting on the floor watching her sleep. I think I felt abandoned.

My mothers neurologist was a world-famous specialist who, Google informs me, wrote what is still considered the textbook on headaches. He recommended Oliver Sackss book, Migraine, and when Sacks later came to our local metropolis on a book tour, my otherwise homebodyish parents went. My mother loved being taken care of, understood little science, and was in awe of doctors. Oliver Sacks blazed on her horizon like a bright star. Yet, when he signed her book, she gave him my name. Sacks inscribed my mothers copy of Migraine To Jordan, who taught me everything I know. I was eleven or twelve, at home, alone. Even in those childhood days, my mothers headaches were already marked as my inheritance. Because she suffered from migraines, there was a 40% chance I would too. But because there was some migrainous history on my fathers side, the chance jumped up to 80%. My mother repeated these numbers, and I grew up repeating them too: her words in my mouth, her pain in my head. Perhaps we each wanted to believe that having this connection was the same as her giving me what I needed. If I was being ignored as a consequence of my mothers illness, I was being roped into it as well, made complicit with things I didnt do and certainly didnt understand. I coped in the ways I could: meaning, I waited out the better part of three decades, and then told this story to my therapist last week. Afterward, I walked into the independent bookstore down the block from his office and bought myself a copy of Migraine.

More here.
Blake Smith in Aeon:

For nearly four centuries, the Atlantic slave trade brought millions of people into bondage. Scholars estimate that around 1.5 million people perished in the brutal middle passage across the Atlantic. The slave trade linked Africa, Europe and the Americas in a horrific enterprise of death and torture and profit. Yet, in the middle of the 18th century, as the slave trade boomed like never before, some notable European observers saw it as a model of free enterprise and indeed of liberty itself. They were not slave traders or slave-ship captains but economic thinkers, and very influential ones. They were a pioneering group of economic thinkers committed to the principle of laissezfaire: a term they themselves coined. United around the French official Vincent de Gournay (1712-1759), they were among the first European intellectuals to argue for limitations on government intervention in the economy. They organised campaigns for the deregulation of domestic and international trade, and they made the slave trade a key piece of evidence in their arguments.

More here.
Robin Feuer Miller reviews Aileen Kellys new biography of Herzen in Times Higher Education:

Who was Alexander Herzen (1812-1870)? Why has this most important and courageous Russian thinker remained among the least famous, the least read? Yet he figures at the centre of Tom Stoppards magnificent trilogy of plays, The Coast of Utopia, is fundamental to Isaiah Berlins thought, and now is the subject of Aileen Kellys magisterial new biography. Herzen, like John Dewey, was witness to the complexities of his century; a man whose ideas constantly evolved, at the centre of often tragic family and extramarital relationships, the author of far-reaching essays and an autobiography, My Past and Thoughts, generally acknowledged to be a masterwork of Russian prose and one of the great autobiographies of all time. Kelly offers us a new Herzen to consider  not the last of the Romantics, or the radical Russian exile, but the man inspired since boyhood by science and the natural world. Tracing Herzens thought through this lens, she places Herzen firmly and unexpectedly within a line of thinkers from Francis Bacon to Charles Darwin.

Along the way, Kelly depicts Herzens fascinating early years. Drawing on an impressive array of scholarly and archival materials, she forges a vivid account of the University of Moscow of the day. His friendship with an eccentric cousin known as The Chemist inspired Herzen, surprisingly, to enrol in the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, a decision that shaped his thought. Thus Kelly understands his subsequent disillusionment with the upheavals of 1848 as being partly rooted in his sustained interest in science and the natural world rather than simply reflecting a rejection of Romantic political ideals.

Herzen lived primarily in exile  in Italy, France, England and Switzerland; he left Russia at 34, having spent six years in prison and internal exile, never to return. Eventually his complex political opinions alienated him from contemporary Russian writers such as Ivan Turgenev, Vissarion Belinsky, Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Fyodor Dostoevsky, although an admiring Leo Tolstoy wrote, Our Russian liveswould have been different if this writer had not been hidden from the young generation. Kelly demonstrates how Herzens From the Other Shore anticipates principles affirmed a decade later by Darwins On the Origin of Species. She situates Herzen within a demythologizing tradition in European humanism. His passionate attack on philosophies of progress and his interest in scientific modes of inquiry and their relevance to the study of history made him among the first to appreciate Darwins discovery of the role of chance in evolution as a momentous step toward dismantling teleological systems that misrepresent the world and humans place in it. He wrote to his son Sasha about his admiration for Darwins relegation of causes that science did not yet understand to a black box: Now theres an honest thinkerwhereas others, as soon as they come up against something they cant solve, invent a new force, such as a soul.

More here.
David Runciman, Neal Ascherson, James Butler, T.J. Clark, Jonathan Coe, Sionaidh Douglas-Scott, Daniel Finn, Dawn Foster, Jeremy Harding, Colin Kidd, Ross McKibbin, Philippe Marliere, James Meek, Pankaj Mishra, Jan-Werner Muller, Susan Pedersen, J.G.A. Pocock, Nick Richardson, Nicholas Spice, Wolfgang Streeck, and Daniel Trilling in the LRB. Wolfgang Streeck:

Every fortnight the Institute of Race Relations publishes a round-up of racist incidents and far right activity. Many of the stories  verbal abuse on public transport, vandalism of religious memorials or places of worship, poorly attended protests by extremist groups  are culled from the local press. Theyre not usually considered important enough to merit national media attention.

Now they are. On Saturday, a photograph of a National Front demonstration in Newcastle, at which a handful of supporters hung a banner demanding the repatriation of immigrants, went viral on Twitter. Reports of EU migrants and British citizens of visible ethnic minority backgrounds being insulted or told to go home, collected under the hashtag #postrefracism, began to flow in. A Polish cultural centre in West London was sprayed with graffiti. Sima Kotecha, a Today programme reporter, was called a Paki in her home town during a discussion on immigration and Brexit. According to the National Police Chiefs Council, 85 hate crimes were reported between Thursday and Sunday, an increase of 57 per cent compared with the equivalent four days last month.

Anecdotes on Twitter are difficult to verify, and reports of hate crimes can go up when more people are looking out for them, but even so it seems clear that the referendum has led to a spike in public harassment. Yet it would be a mistake to think that the referendum campaign created this racism out of nothing, or that its the preserve only of those who voted Brexit. While the Leave campaigns focused on a series of racist myths  the effect of Turkeys proposed accession to the EU; a flood of refugees from the Middle East  politicians on the Remain side have also taken xenophobic positions. It was Camerons government that introduced the recent immigration act which turns landlords into an extension of the border police, and Cameron himself who talked of swarms of migrants at Calais. Labour carved the words controls on immigration into a stone tablet during the 2015 general election campaign.

More here.
No truth to rumor that schools are putting litter boxes in bathrooms

local
Constellations of spirals, dots and circles speckle cotton and silk fabric as dark as the African sky.

That fabric and its iterations in T-shirts and scarves will drape the booth of Nigerian indigo dyer Gasali Adeyemo at this years 13th Annual International Folk Art Market.

Gasali, who lives in Santa Fe, creates fabrics of silk and cotton using batik, tie-dye and indigo in the traditional adire technique. Adire is traditional Yoruba hand-painted cloth. Artists create patterns by tying and stitching the fabric with raffia or cotton thread, or by using chicken feathers to paint with cassava paste made from African tubers. The paste acts as a resist dye, creating white patterns against the blue.

Gasali sees himself both as an artist and an ambassador of the traditional Yoruba culture in southwestern Nigeria.

Dyeing and painting are his form of therapy.

A tiny plywood studio sits in the back of his Santa Fe yard, piled with stacks of folded fabric, an electric frying pan sitting ready to heat the wax. Buckets of fabric soaking in dye sit beneath a nearby tree. Wall hangings expressing his culture decorate the walls, along with photographs of his mother and his father, who died 24 years ago.

Gasali grew up in a house with a family of five. Everyone slept on floor mats, because there were no beds. They gathered water in buckets from a local ditch. Rice was their primary food at breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The size of my house was the size of a classroom, Gasali said. Being in the U.S. and part of the Folk Art Market is a dream come true.

He makes enough money at the market to last throughout the year.

Gasali sends a portion of his market income home to help his mother and send his nieces to school in Nigeria.

Indigo grows wild in Nigeria. Gasali imports it to create his clothing. Dried balls of the plant fill a basket on his desk like yarn.

A white silk T-shirt spreads across his work table, its fabric swirled with white spirals and circles. Gasali slices a foam square into a pointed pen shape, dips it into the hot wax and adds designs to the sleeves as he listens to traditional African music.

My mind is not here, he said. My mind is in Africa.

It makes me digest the hardship, the life I grew up in Africa, he continued, to be able to share that with other people.

His father died young; no one knows what killed him.

He died in his home in a lot of pain, Gasali. Doctors ask for a down payment. People die because of $50.

His design shapes symbolize the beliefs of the Yoruba people. He creates them all without a sketch or pattern.

You just meditate with it, he said. And then you flow.

The spiral is known as a mosquito coil that represents the cycle of life. A fish bone pattern reflects the peoples fondness for tilapia.

A double X shape signals crossroads.

We use the designs as a healing, Gasali said. In that junction, we believe there is a spirit. We use indigo to identify the tribe. We do not carry an ID card.

He studied, then taught at Nigerias Nike Center for Arts and Culture. Then he entered an exchange program through the University of Nigeria, which landed him in Ames, Iowa.

When I first came, I arrived in New York, he said. That was the scary part. I dont think I have ever seen so many people.

He flew into John F. Kennedy International Airport in the middle of a snowstorm. He had only seen the flaky white substance in movies.

I took a picture and sent it home to my parents, he said. I dont know how people can live in weather like that, he added, flashing a grin.

After that, he became something of a traveling Nigerian workshop teacher, migrating to towns across the U.S. He finally settled in Santa Fe in 1996 after visiting a friend.

I call it the center of craft and culture, he said.

He flies home at least once a year.

People always ask me, Gasali, are you going to come back home? I say, Yes. 

Scheduled for July 8-10 at Milner Plaza on Santa Fes Museum Hill, this years market will showcase the work of nearly 200 artists from more than 60 countries.

Visitors can choose from jewelry, beadwork, basketry, carvings, glass, metal, paintings, mixed-media, sculpture, textiles, musical instruments and more. Nearly 40 percent of the artists are new to the market. Many come from developing countries where the average income is less than $3 a day.

In the past 12 years, 850 artists from 92 countries have participated, generating more than $23 million in sales. Ninety percent of the take heads home with the artists. Many have returned home to build schools, houses and wells for clean drinking water.
Some who have never visited might think that theres not much more to Portales than Eastern New Mexico University.

And although a significant number of the cultural and historical attractions are connected to the university, there are places to visit in the area that are equally attractive.

The Blackwater Draw National Historic Landmark (theclovissite.wordpress.com), operated in conjunction with ENMU, is just north of Portales. Its the location where evidence of Clovis mans hunting was discovered.

Its just kind of a lost little gem out here, said George Crawford, site director.

The little gem is the only paleo-Indian archeological site in North America that one can walk into and see on a regular basis, he said. Theres a one-mile walking trail and you can go and see what an archeological excavation looks like.

The site has been professionally excavated for more than 80 years since its discovery.

Since then, it has yielded bones from woolly mammoths, bison, bears, camels and prehistoric horses dating to more than 10,000 years ago, Crawford said. And among the bones were numerous Clovis spear points  characterized by a lance-shaped tip and (sometimes) wickedly sharp edges in jasper, chert, obsidian and other fine, brittle stones.

This shows that humans were hunting mammoths in North America, clearly proving people were enduring the Ice Age, Crawford said.

People come from all over the world to see this site, he added.

An associated museum is expected to be moved to a site on campus, but details are still being worked out, said Karl Terry, executive director of the Roosevelt County Chamber of Commerce.

The county fairgrounds on the eastern outskirts of town are home to one of the more unusual displays. The Dalley Windmill Museum features more than 70 windmills  an exhibit that touches the Don Quixote in everybody, Terry said.

When it was in private hands, it was the largest privately owned windmill collection in United States, he said of the Dalleys, who set up windmills on their property. As they got a little older, they wanted to make sure the windmills could still be available to the public and they wanted to try and keep it here. The county finally made a home for them at (the) fairgrounds.

The oldest of the windmills dates back to the 1800s, Terry added.

When it comes to eclectic spots to visit, the university is a treasure trove.

The Jack Williamson Science Fiction Library is perhaps chief among them. The late Williamson, an ENMU graduate and professor who grew up in the area after his family moved to New Mexico in a covered wagon in 1915, was a Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame member.

The library includes not only all of Williamsons voluminous collection but also about 15,000 one-of-a-kind items, first editions, signed editions and thousands of collectible publications from a Silver City donor, Terry said.

An early Star Wars script is a prize piece in what is known as one of the more complete science fiction collections in the Southwest, he said.

The Roosevelt County Historical Museum, built in the Works Progress Administration era, is in one of the earliest, brown-brick buildings on campus.

Its displays include an old printing press, a covered wagon, an early doctors office and interactive dioramas, Terry said.

For a relaxing time in an idyllic spot, Oasis State Park offers a 3-acre fishing pond stocked with catfish in the summer and rainbow trout in the winter. It also boasts a large playground area and sand dunes that are becoming overgrown with vegetation but still make for good scrambling.

Back in downtown Portales, the Yam Theatre is an art deco building built in 1926 featuring setbacks and stepped treatments emphasizing the structures geometric form.

It remains as a multiuse complex for a number of community and private affairs, Terry said.

Downtown also is home to the Hampton Farms store, which sells famous Valencia peanuts grown nearby. Among the chief attractions of the store is watching peanuts being ground into peanut butter as you wait, Terry said.

Its the best peanut butter youve ever tasted, he said.

A microbrewery and other purveyors of local treats make strolling through downtown a treat for the senses and palate, Terry said.

We have a very nice, relaxed downtown atmosphere, he said.
This is a bilingual childrens book that tells a sweet story and niftily injects a message about immigrants.

In A Charmed Life/Una vida con suerte, young Felicia tags along with her mother, who is working as a cleaning lady in an upscale home. Felicia tells her mom she will behave and will remember her moms list of dos and donts. But when she gets bored with her crayons, Felicia wanders off. You think, Uh-oh. Trouble ahead.

She peeks in at a babys room, filled with a beribboned crib, and large and small stuffed animals.

Through a window in another room, she spots two swings in a grassy backyard. Overcome with excitement, Felicia runs to the yard and gets on a swing.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick, whose home it is, walks into the yard. Shes not upset. Not at all. In fact, she gives Felicia a cup of lemonade from a pitcher and a cookie from a plate.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick sits on the other swing, and the two of them swing out.

Theyre new best friends.

Felicia says she wishes her own house looked like this one. The comment prompts Mrs. Fitzpatrick to excuse herself. She returns from the house to give Felicia a charm bracelet. The charms are a heart, a pink ballet slipper, a star and a cupcake.

She clasps the bracelet on Felicias wrist, telling Felicia about her own great-grandparents who immigrated to the United States from Ireland in search of a better life.

Here comes the message from Mrs. Fitzpatrick to Felicia (and to readers): Believe that you will have a better life, and dont let anyone make you feel that you dont deserve it, because you do. We all deserve to have a charmed life.

Felicias mom isnt initially pleased with her daughters behavior. But she softens up, smiles and says she thinks Felicia will have a charmed life.

Gladys E. Barbieri, the daughter of a Salvadoran mother and a Nicaraguan father, is the author of this well-told story for ages 4 to 7.

Barbieri teaches first grade in Los Angeles. Lisa Fields bold, inviting illustrations complement the text. Carolina E. Alonso did a competent Spanish translation.
Kay Beason witnessed the ups and downs of the business world, emerged a survivor and thrived. But it hasnt always been easy for the owner of Reliance Construction. Like most other builders, when the economic slump settled into Albuquerque big time in 2008-09, things got pretty dicey. Beason got her start in the business by chance and fell back on her remodeling roots. For a while there, I didnt really have any projects going on, she said.

Good contacts, a winsome personality and good fortune played a big role for her, however, as a friend the Dallas area brought her to Texas for a major project that lasted well over a year.

The project was built with massive, full logs imported from Canada that were so large that their settlement movement post-construction actually had to be accounted for in the building process, as well tons of real stone. The home also included an 18-foot by 40- foot fireplace.

I went to Dallas for 15 months, Beason recalled. It was a really different experience. It was a lot of fun. Although she had never tackled such a project before, she prepared herself by doing copious amounts of research and relying on the confidence instilled in her by her parents. My mother and dad and always taught us that you can do anything you want to do, Beason said. And I truly believe that.

Finding her niche

Beason is originally from Carlsbad and moved to Albuquerque to attend the University of New Mexico, where she earned an education degree. She spent one semester at Fort Wingate, and found out that I was really bad at teaching, Beason said.

She returned to Albuquerque and landed a job with a mortgage company, then moved over to a large-scale builder as their project and sales manager. It was then that she got her first itch for the building business. Then Beason moved back into the finance world, working for a savings and loan company. She also started doing small remodeling jobs for neighbors in her Nob Hill community.

My parents owned a furniture store and they were always working on our house growing up, Beason said. I really love remodeling and making silk purses out of sows ears. In many ways, she said, a remodeling project or adding an addition can be more challenging than building from scratch because you have to work within the confines of an existing structure. And there can be hidden issues that dont emerge until well into a project.

For instance, in one job, it was found that extension cords were used behind the walls instead of proper electrical wires. This meant that all the electrical work had to be redone, Beason said, greatly adding to the expense of the project. It was a really hard job but it turned into a beautiful little house, she said.

Building for the clients needs

Still, when a neighbor asked Beason to build her a house, she was somewhat reluctant at first. But she said, I know you can do it,' Beason recalled the neighbor saying. And I did.

That was 29 years ago, and Beason has experienced great success ever since.

I love it, Beason said. I like to get to know the people Im working for. You can really help them. A lot of builders will just send them off to pick things out, but I like to go with them. I want to go with them so I can help them pick out the right touches for the house.

Building to a customers needs helped create a cozy living space in a home Beason did in Bernalillos upscale Bosque Encantado. The main room is centered around a grand piano and a magnificent fireplace. The home also has a three-car garage structure but one of the bays was turned into game room since the owner does a lot of entertaining. It was built in such a way, however, so that it can be easily returned to a garage when it comes to sell.

I like to be able to look at the lifestyles of the customer and work to fit their needs, Beason said.
SANTA FE  Former state Sen. Phil Griego is the subject of a criminal complaint filed this week in Magistrate Court in San Miguel County that alleges rocks were unlawfully removed from state trust land he leases.

Griego is charged with three misdemeanor counts of trespassing on state land and three misdemeanor counts of depredation of state land.

The allegations are not related to pending charges against the Democratic ex-senator that he used his position as a legislator to make money from a real estate deal. A preliminary hearing is scheduled next week in that case, in state District Court.

The alleged removal of rocks from state-owned property at San Jose occurred on Sept. 20, 2015.

According to a statement of probable cause from a State Police officer that was filed in Magistrate Court, the State Land Office investigated and sought help from the State Police after it received reports that heavy equipment was being used to remove large rocks from state lands.

A State Land Office manager told the police that the rocks were the property of the state, and that he had talked to a man who acknowledged having removed them, according to the statement of probable cause.

Online court records indicate Peter Encinias was charged in connection with the same incident with three counts of trespassing, three counts of depredation and one count of tampering with evidence, all misdemeanors.
Under the headline No Fly, No Buy, the June 22 Journal highlights Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrichs push, with Republican Maine Sen. Susan Collins, for a compromise on gun control. Please imagine something with me.

Imagine for a moment that you enter your local package liquor store to pick up an alcoholic beverage for the coming weekend. At the cash register, you present your New Mexico drivers license. The sales clerk tells you that you cannot buy alcoholic beverages.

You are surprised. Youre an adult with no criminal record.

When you ask why you cannot buy alcohol, the clerk reports that you failed a background check because you are on the no buy list.

What? you ask. The clerk comments that alcohol is dangerous in the wrong hands and then explains that an official at the U.S. Department of Justice apparently has decided that your drinking represents a threat to public safety; you are prohibited from buying alcohol. Rejected, you leave the store.

When you later contact the DOJ, a bureaucrat confirms that you are on the alcohol no buy list. You ask why. The bureaucrat explains that no further information is available. You ask for the name of the person who supplied the evidence that put you on the list. You are told that the information is strictly confidential.

Your lawyers later repeated efforts to get your name off the list are refused by the DOJ. The DOJ tells you that you cannot be informed why you are on the no buy list because the Attorney General has developed procedures to prevent the unauthorized disclosure of information that reasonably could be expected to result in damage to national security or ongoing law enforcement operations.

Facing a lifetime without the ability to buy your favorite adult beverage, you sue the federal government to get your name removed from the alcohol no buy list. Your case is dismissed when the court agrees with the DOJ that you have failed to prove that you do not deserve to be on the no buy list.

Would you feel like a citizen or a subject?

Now, replace alcoholic beverage with firearm in the foregoing scenario and you may better appreciate why it was a good thing that the U.S. Senate on June 20 prevented passage of Democrat-sponsored gun control efforts, particularly Senate Amendment 4720 to Nancy Pelosis HR 2578.

This law  which Heinrich supported in his vote on June 20  would have fostered violations of Americans constitutional due process rights.

The federal Terrorist Screening Center has virtually unchecked discretion to place names on the so-called no fly list of persons prohibited from boarding a commercial airplane. The bill defeated by Senate Republicans on June 20 effectively would have merged the no fly list into the FBIs NICS background database for clearing firearms purchases  and thus, without due process, potentially deny American citizens their Second Amendment rights.

Persons who urge us to blindly trust federal officials to act fairly regarding gun rights should have a conversation with any of the over 400 groups targeted for abuse, based on their political leanings, by the IRSs Exempt Organizations Division.

Meaningful judicial review of executive agency activity is crucial to preserving effective procedural protections for all American civil rights, not just the right to lawfully purchase a gun.

None of us wants persons properly named on the federal no fly list to breeze through a gun purchase background check. But gun ownership  unlike alcohol beverage ownership!  is a constitutional right of American citizens and Americans ability lawfully to purchase guns  or alcohol!  must not be denied in some federal star chamber whose secret decision is beyond challenge.

Thus, we may now applaud Heinrichs more recent compromise. While his compromise bill, if passed, is unlikely to deny terrorists access to guns, it affords some measure of protection for law-abiding Americans against being deprived of Second Amendment rights.
This is a defining moment for New Mexicos energy future and, if residents dont pay attention, a small but vocal group of special interests could hijack our future and your electric bill.

They would take the state down a path of increased carbon emissions and higher electricity prices, all to further an extremist agenda that has little basis in fact and does not consider the best interests of PNM customers.

PNM delivers energy thats reliable and environmentally sensitive while keeping electric bills low. We have a balanced and increasingly cleaner mix of resources to generate electricity. At the end of next year, the company will retire two of its four coal-fired units at San Juan Generating Station, and replace that power with solar, natural gas and existing energy from the Palo Verde nuclear plant in Arizona.

A diverse group of stakeholders, including environmental advocates, agreed that our plan is right for New Mexico.

PNM customers have received electricity from Palo Verde for more than three decades. It is one of the worlds safest, most reliable nuclear facilities. PNM owns or leases part of all three units, which we need to meet customer demand 24-7.

This year, as we have done previously, we purchased an expiring lease at fair market value to ensure access to this reliable source of energy for years to come.

PNM took this action under authority granted by the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission in previous public hearings. Just as we have done before, PNM now seeks to recover the costs of this power in a rate review pending at the PRC.

Energy decisions require an open and vigorous discussion centered on facts and focused on a clear goal. PNMs goal is to continue providing reliable energy to our customers at low prices while protecting our environment.

Unfortunately, those special interests are attacking every aspect of PNMs request, including Palo Verde, with little regard for reason or fact. They want to deny PNM cost recovery for this critical source of energy and, ultimately, they want all nuclear plants closed.

They claim more renewable energy is the answer, and they twist facts and mislead consumers to promote their narrow agenda.

One only has to look to the state of California to see how special interests can hamper economic growth and hurt working families.

California mandated a huge increase in renewable energy and is closing several of its nuclear plants due in part to similar pressure from special interest groups. How is that going? Californians already pay among the highest electric bills in the country and now theyre facing serious reliability challenges.

Even worse, their carbon emissions are expected to increase, since they will need gas-burning plants to keep the lights on when theres no sun or wind. Hawaii has similar mandates and challenges, and also has some of the highest electricity bills in the nation.

Four of the worlds leading environmental scientists recently wrote that wind and solar energy sources cannot deliver cheap and reliable power at a scale the global economy requires. They say nuclear power has to have a substantial role in addressing climate change.

U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz told the New York Times, Maintaining the nuclear fleet is really important for meeting our near-term and midterm goals.

For PNM customers, Palo Verde helps keep bills low and reliability high. Currently, New Mexico is on track to meet the Clean Power Plan mandate for carbon reduction, but we wont be able to do that without the ability to buy  and pay for  energy from Palo Verde.

If PNM is denied cost recovery for purchasing Palo Verde leases, the company wont be able to purchase the next set of leases when they expire and other states would benefit from that zero-carbon electricity. PNM would have to add energy from natural gas, increasing carbon emissions.

Palo Verde may cost a little more in the short term but, without it, the consequences and prices will be much higher, which would impact our economy and hurt working New Mexico families.
WASHINGTON  The Republican yearning to pin a scandal on Hillary Clinton knows no bounds. Any scandal will do, real or imagined. She must somehow be  or appear to be  guilty of something.

They tried Benghazi. Boy, did they try Benghazi. House Republicans even put together a special committee, which House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy praised for hurting Clintons chances of being elected president. Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? he said last September. But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.

To the GOPs consternation, however, those numbers recovered nicely. According to the Real Clear Politics average of polls, she leads Donald Trump by about 5 points; the most recent Washington Post survey showed her ahead by 12.

Adding insult to injury, the Benghazi committee came up empty-handed. Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., the panels chairman, released a final report last week that found no smoking gun. In fact, it didnt find smoke.

The Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on U.S. diplomatic and intelligence facilities in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans should be blamed on the terrorists who committed the assault  not on the secretary of state. Even if she happens to be named Clinton.

So if Benghazi isnt the sought-for scandal, what else might be? Trump keeps threatening to relitigate the 1990s by dredging up Bill Clintons womanizing and even the suicide of Clinton friend and associate Vince Foster. That is a realm peopled mostly by conspiracy theorists wearing tinfoil hats; Trump can go there if he wants, but the rest of the country wont follow.

Lets see, theres the Clinton Foundation and the vast amount of money it has raised, including from foreign governments, potentates and moguls.

The problem with this line of attack is that the foundation, by all accounts, does a lot of good around the world. And it generally operates in a way that Republicans should applaud, not simply doling out money but instead boosting the capacity of local governments and organizations to solve their own problems.

What other grist for the scandal mill could there be?

Im being somewhat disingenuous, of course. There are Hillary Clintons emails.

As Ive written, Clinton was wrong to decline a government email account when she was secretary of state and instead use a private account, run from a server in her house.

What was she thinking? I doubt it was convenience, as she still claims.

Ive believed all along that Clinton wanted control. I think she wanted to guarantee that no personal or foundation emails would ever become part of the public record and thus potentially subject to release.

It is certainly true that the Clintons have legions of political enemies who would love to root through the familys private affairs. This fact does not, however, make Clintons actions right.

But were they illegal? And were they criminal?

Thats what the FBI and Justice Department lawyers are trying to ascertain. From what is publicly known about the emails, I am unimpressed.

The salient issue is whether she mishandled classified material. Clintons critics note that David Petraeus, a former CIA director and one of the most lauded military officers of his time, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and was hit with a $100,000 fine for that offense.

But it seems to me that routing potentially sensitive emails through a private server is different from handing classified information to ones mistress, which is what Petraeus did.

Obviously, I dont know what else the investigators on the Clinton case might have found out. I do know, however, that Bill Clinton isnt doing his wifes legal prospects any good.

Last week, at the Phoenix airport, the former president learned that Attorney General Loretta Lynchs plane would soon be landing and decided to drop by and say hello.

I cant say its the most inappropriate thing hes ever done, since thats a high bar, but its up there.

Lynch described the visit as purely social. But to eliminate any hint of impropriety, she pledged to accept the recommendation of FBI and Justice investigators on whether Clinton should face any charges.

Prosecutors have enormous discretion. The danger for Hillary Clinton is that if the decision is a close call, Justice Department lawyers might decide that giving her the benefit of the doubt would make it look as if the political fix were in.

Now Clinton has to hope her husband hasnt succeeded, scandal-wise, where Republicans failed.

Copyright, Washington Post Writers Group.
Last Monday, I got an email from Jesus Christ inviting me to watch a video about the Second Coming. I dont know whether the Second Coming would have cost me anything because I didnt get that far.

The next day, a colleague heard from Warren Buffett about a donation which will benefit you and your entire family, with the less privileged in your local community. It asked for an immediate response and closed with God Bless you richly.

Its been a global grab bag for creative scams during the past week, with emails from an Italian financial services company (Only serious minded clients are welcome not all.) and the wife of a Chinese leader (Reply me for more details ) also hitting my inbox.

Its easy to wonder who would really believe all this stuff, but sometimes the scammers arent out to be convincing. In other words, they dont necessarily think you will believe Jesus just sent you an email.

Instead, they are banking on the less lofty goal of piquing your curiousity, according to Scambusters.org.

All they need you to do is follow a link or open an attachment, after which they can go phishing in your computer in a hunt for personal information.

Laugh, but dont click.

Has Amazon contacted you about an order you didnt place? And then asked you to click on a link to cancel the order?

Have you ever received an Amazon-looking customer satisfaction survey for a product you never purchased?

If any of the above has happened, you were most likely the target of a bogus Amazon email. The goal of these spoof emails is to get you to reveal personal information.

Here are some ways to tell whether this kind of email is legitimate, courtesy of Amazon:

 Look for misspellings. In the email a reader forwarded to me, the link provided to cancel the order was labeled cancell.

 Genuine e-mails from Amazon always come from an address ending in @amazon.com. The company says the following are examples of fraudulent return addresses: seller-performance@payments-amazon.com; amazon-security@hotmail.com and amazon-payments@msn.com.

 Dont follow instructions in a forged e-mail that claims to provide a method for unsubscribing. Many spammers use these unsubscribe processes to create a list of valid, working e-mail addresses, Amazon says.

 Some scammers have set up spoofed websites that contain the word amazon somewhere in the URL. Like email addresses, legitimate websites always end with .amazon.com  that is, www.amazon.com.

We never use a combination such as security-amazon.com or amazon.com.biz, the company says.

 If you get an email telling you to update your payment information, do this instead: Go to your Amazon account and click Manage Payment Options in the payments section. If you arent prompted to update your payment method on that screen, the message isnt from Amazon.

 Suspicious emails often come with attachments or include prompts to install software on your computer.

Amazon asks that those who get bogus emails send them to stop-spoofing@amazon.com.

Ellen Marks is assistant business editor at the Albuquerque Journal. Contact her at emarks@abqjournal. com or 505-823-3842 if you are aware of what sounds like a scam. To report a scam to law enforcement, contact the New Mexico Consumer Protection Division toll-free at 1-866-627-3249.
CONCORD, N.H.  Apparently, being a signer of the Declaration of Independence doesnt carry that much clout these days.

The 242-year-old home of Josiah Bartlett, of Kingston, New Hampshire, a doctor who signed the document after John Hancock and later became governor, is still available two years after it was put up for sale by his great-great-great-great granddaughter.

The name might ring familiar to fans of the TV series The West Wing. Martin Sheen played President Josiah Jed Bartlet from New Hampshire, a fictional (and differently spelled) descendant.

Ruth Albert, who has spent much of her life in the house in the town of Kingston, wants to downsize and hopes that the home can stay in her family. She has no children, and she has exhausted her list of cousins. She got excited last year when she was suddenly approached by a fellow seventh-generation Bartlett descendant who lives in Florida, but that didnt work out.

I held on and held on, the 65-year-old retired postal worker said. She said the descendant was considering moving to New Hampshire to pursue a doctorate. I guess at one point in time she was thinking it would be kind of cool to go to Dartmouth, because thats where a lot of our ancestors got their doctorate degrees. And then I think she decided it was just a little too cold up there.

The 4,600-square-foot, four-bedroom Colonial farmhouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 and is selling for $549,900. It has a linden tree that Bartlett brought back from Philadelphia as a sapling after signing the Declaration of Independence.

Little has changed beyond kitchen and bathroom renovations and mechanical upgrades. Bartletts medical instruments are displayed in the parlor. One end of the second floor still has an outhouse and tin bathtub with a pump.

Additional land near the house can be bought, bringing the price to $849,900.

People have been coming to look at it, but I havent had any serious offers, Albert said.

Ben Wilson, director of New Hampshires Bureau of Historic Sites, says the state cant afford to buy and operate the house without an endowment.

Historic buildings, landscapes and monuments take an extra level of care, so the bureau tries very hard to make the most of the resources it has, he said. Taking on a new property that is not endowed would place an extra burden on the services and experiences we currently provide to our thousands of visitors.

Plan New Hampshire, a group that evaluates communities strengths, said that the house is uniquely important to the town, the state and the country and that it could be used as a restaurant, brewery or bed and breakfast.

Bartlett was born in Amesbury, Massachusetts, in 1729. He moved to Kingston in 1750 to set up practice. He married his cousin Mary Bartlett, and they had 12 children. He died in 1795. One of his sons, Dr. Levi Bartlett, lived in the house, and it has stayed in the family since.
WASHINGTON  President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton campaign together this week for the first time this year, and their decision to meet up in Charlotte says a lot about how her campaign views her path to replace him in the White House.

Democrats see North Carolina as a prime place to expand into Republican territory against Donald Trump, building upon one of Obamas biggest triumphs in 2008 and his narrow loss four years ago.

The states electorate has become more diverse since Obamas first presidential campaign. Women play an increasingly influential role in the states politics, giving Clinton an opportunity to play up her potential to become the first woman to win the White House.

And contentious moves by the GOP-controlled state legislature to exclude sexual orientation and gender identity from statewide anti-discrimination protections and to require transgender people to use restrooms corresponding to the sex on their birth certificate in public buildings has touched a nerve in the battleground state.

I told her that the state is winnable. I think she believes that in her core, said Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, a former Charlotte mayor, describing a recent conversation with Clinton. North Carolina is a classic battleground state. Its a state with people who are hungry for progressive change.

Foxx added: Theres been a lot of things at the state level that have reminded people that North Carolinas proud progressive tradition is under assault right now.
Copyright  2016 Albuquerque Journal

Christi Warner says she had two choices when her 19-year-old son Jorden died of an accidental overdose of prescription painkillers in March 2013  just five months after her husband died from cancer.

I was going to lay down and die, or I was going to make a difference, Warner said. I decided to dedicate my life to make sure another mother didnt have to bury her child because of an overdose.

Warner became a Licensed Substance Abuse Associate in hopes of making a difference in the lives of drug addicts, but her hopes are now on hold because the state Opiate Treatment Authority has decided to enforce a long ignored state law.

It is a decision that has sidelined Warner and more than 100 others like her from counseling addicts.

After her sons death, Warner decided to become an alcohol and drug abuse counselor and had taken the first big step.

She earned a two-year associate degree from CNM in criminal justice and completed 90 hours of continuing education in counseling-related subjects at the University of New Mexico. She was licensed by the state Counselling and Therapy Board as a Licensed Substance Abuse Associate in June 2015.

She then went to work for New Mexico Recovery Services, a private for-profit company that runs methadone clinics and a buprenorphine  commonly referred to by its brand name Suboxone  clinic in Albuquerque where she has logged about 860 hours counseling drug addicts.

She prepared reports on the counseling sessions, which were then reviewed by an appropriately licensed supervisor. She met regularly with her supervisor about her clients and any direct action such as a referral was subject to approval by her supervisor.

But on April 15, the state Opiate Treatment Authority, a unit of the Human Services Department, sent letters to methadone clinics and other treatment centers around the state informing them that substance abuse associates like Warner could only assist licensed counselors with group or individual counseling sessions.

After the April letter, Warner was transferred to desk duty and can no longer directly counsel addicts at the clinic.

Warner says she knows of associates who have lost their jobs, and one advocate for drug counselors said she knows of others who have lost work among the 125 associates she believes are currently working toward becoming licensed counselors. The states Regulation and Licensing Department couldnt immediately provide numbers.

Adding to Warners dilemma, her path to becoming a fully licensed counselor just got harder.

Counselling and Therapy Board regulations require Warner and other associates with two-year degrees to accumulate 3,000 hours of supervised counseling and other clinical work, such as preparing treatment plans for clients.

LSAAs with a bachelors degree need 2,000 hours, and those with a masters degree need 1,000 hours of supervised counseling required by the state Counselling and Therapy Board regulations.

It doesnt make any sense, Warner said.

The Counselling and Therapy Board, a division of Regulation and Licensing, oversees the individual licenses for associates and counselors, including writing regulations that lay out education and experience requirements to obtain licenses for different levels of counseling.

But it was the Opiate Treatment Authority, which oversees the treatment centers, that sent the letter to Warners employer.

The letter referred to a 1998 state law that has been ignored for at least the last 15 years by both the Opiate Treatment Authority and the Counselling and Therapy Board.

During that time, substance abuse associates have worked at methadone clinics around the state, accruing counseling experience that allowed them to become licensed counselors. The clinics were subject to site visits from the Opiate Treatment Authority during that time, and there is no indication that the issue of associates doing face-to-face counseling was raised.

In its April letter, the Opiate Treatment Authority said it was relying on state law and regulations written by the Counselling and Therapy Board.

But a spokesman for the Counseling and Therapy Board said there had been no change in policy and the regulations have been in place since 2007.

After the Journal raised the issue with the Regulation and Licensing Department, a spokesman said that the department has asked the Counseling and Therapy Board to hold a special meeting to provide an interpretation of the applicable statute.

Only the board can make this decision, and we call on them to act as soon as possible, spokesman Ben Cloutier said.

Cloutier said the departments interpretation of the statute is that LSAAs do not require direct supervision at all times during their clinical training.

The meeting has not been scheduled.

A spokesman for the Human Services Department, which oversees the Opiate Treatment Authority, said the departments responsibility is to ensure that patients receive quality care from qualified practitioners within their scope of practice and with appropriate supervision.

We hope that the Counseling and Therapy Board will provide clarification soon, HSD spokesman Kyler Nerison said.

Rule never enforced

Dr. Evan Baldwin runs New Mexico Recovery Associates where Warner works.

This (letter) was the first we heard of the issue, said Baldwin, who has worked in the field for 15 years.

If this is the rule, Baldwin said, it has never been enforced.

The company has had numerous site visits from the Opiate Treatment Authority over the years to make sure it is in compliance with state and federal laws.

He said the clinics employ 20 to 25 counselors and several were LSAAs who had to be replaced.

We were able to transfer the LSAA caseloads, with some difficulty, to others who were suitably licensed, he said.

The company had to do extensive advertising on the internet to find replacement counselors.

They were hard to find, he said.

And they cost more than LSAAs who make about $15 an hour at private clinics and less at non-profit agencies.

We have a real bad drug overdose problem in this state, Baldwin said. This interpretation of the rules makes it impossible for an LSSA to get the clinical hours to become a licensed counselor.

He said there seemed to be some misunderstanding that the associates were unsupervised.

They are being supervised, Baldwin said. The whole structure is set up to supervise everything they do.
Copyright  2016 Albuquerque Journal

Make more than $200,000 a year and want a raise? UNMs Health Sciences Center might be the place to be.

A University of New Mexico review showed that 58 university employees made more than $200,000 a year and received at least one 10 percent raise since fiscal year 2014.

Fifty-six of those employees are Health Sciences Center faculty, and another was an HSC staffer. The other was Joseph Cecchi, UNMs school of engineerings dean.

The salary information is contained in documents obtained by the

Journal, which show Dorothy Anderson, vice president for human resources, started the salary review process in May following a meeting with UNM President Bob Frank.

The review also found that one employee, Ava Lovell, a CPA who oversees the Health Sciences Centers $1.7 billion budget, had received a total of roughly $100,000 in raises over the course of three years. Anderson recommended that Lovells base salary of $300,136 be cut to be in line with employees with similar tasks. She also receives $55,000 in deferred compensation.

This review was relevant since these increases would have occurred at a time when many other employees were not receiving pay increases, Anderson wrote in the memo obtained by the Journal .

Frank said Lovell wasnt specifically targeted, but that her salary stood out upon review.

Lovell wasnt talking, but her attorney, Karen Mendenhall, feels differently.

I believe its retaliation against her, she told the Journal . She was singled out by the university to have her salary and her deferred compensation attacked, and theres no credible basis in doing it.

The Journal attempted to reach Lovell directly, but her lawyer responded instead.

Regents President Rob Doughty said the raises show the need for the recently restructured HSC governing body.

At a time when students are being asked to pay more and faculty is making do with less, it seems like a massive 47 percent pay increase for a top-level bureaucrat indicates a real or perceived lack of accountability and tone deafness, said Doughty. He sits on the committee that oversees the HSC.

But UNM regent Suzanne Quillen said that many raises at Health Sciences were approved in 2014 in an attempt to keep people, and added that it wouldnt make sense to reduce an employees pay as it defeats what we have been trying to build.

Main campus administrators say they are trying to be financially responsible in cutting the salary and benefits package for Lovell. But Frank said there has been pushback.

Nobody likes to have their salary adjusted. Frank said. Its a miserable activity to engage as a human and a boss.

Dr. Richard Larson, HSCs executive vice chancellor, said the Health Sciences Center  home to the hospital, medical school and other health care programs  is struggling to pay competitive wages to its personnel.

The Health Sciences Center operates in a pretty difficult position, Larson said. Were in a very highly competitive market to attract and retain physicians and other health care leaders.

Strife between the two campus branches started earlier this year when the board of regents voted to overhaul the governing structure of the HSC, changing the makeup of its governing board to become a committee of the regents and ditching outside community members. The change also brought the Health Sciences Center clearly under Franks authority.

Doughty and Quillen were on opposite sides of that issue, with Doughtys group prevailing on a 4-2 vote that was taken just three days after the controversial proposal was unveiled in a regents agenda.

And further challenges arose when Frank wanted to change the email addresses for HSC employees to unm.edu addresses  an effort he put on hold this week citing the dissension.

$100,000 in raises

According to her biographical page on the HSC website, Lovell  who has been with UNM for more than two decades  took her current position as senior executive officer for finance and administration in 2012. She oversees the HSC budget, and her responsibilities include, fiscal and administrative oversight for the HSC including academic and health system enterprises.

In July 2013, she received an increase to $205,680, about 5 percent.

The following year, her pay went from $205,680 to $260,000, roughly a 26 percent increase. And in 2015, her pay was bumped from about $260,000 to roughly $300,140, which is about a 15 percent increase.

According to a UNM official, faculty on both campuses received a 3 percent salary increase and 0.75 percent increase to their retirement contributions in 2013-2014 and 2014-15. Staff received a 1 percent salary increase in 2013-2014, and a 2.5 percent increase in 2014-2015, and a 0.75 percent increase in the retirement contribution both years. Faculty and staff didnt receive a raise this year or an increase in retirement contributions.

A health care workers union recently walked out of contract negotiations after University of New Mexico Hospital refused to suspend out-of-pocket costs for employee health insurance.

A recent document shows that Lovells increase in 2015 was at the direction of Paul Roth, the chancellor of the Health Sciences Center. Roth was unavailable for comment.

Larson told the Journal that the increased salary was an attempt to keep Lovell on board. They were paying her less than similar institutions pay in the same job. And he said she had received a $400,000 offer from an another university.

Frank said he and staff disagree with the HSCs take on Lovells duties. And he said that even the proposed adjusted pay of $241,650 is an extremely generous compensation package.

The report calls for changes to Lovells pay so that her fiscal year 2017 pay would be $241,650 or to modify her deferred compensation to $25,000. Another option calls for modifying her current contract, but that option didnt mention financial figures. Changes to her salary are on hold pending a review from an outside firm.

Regents weigh in

The disagreement has drawn attention from members of the board of the regents as well. Quillen, a Certified Nurse Practitioner with a history in health care management, formerly chaired the now-defunct HSC board of directors. She said that in 2014 the regents approved a series of raises that would increase employee pay in an attempt to retain them.

I feel it was an effective policy then and feel it is even more critical today, Quillen said.

And Regent Lt. Gen. Brad Hosmer, who sits on the HSC committee, defended Lovells credentials.

Ms. Ava Lovell has extensive experience in finance, accounting and administration, with particular expertise in the complexities of health care finance and was one of the key management executives we counted on, Hosmer said in a statement.

Regent Marron Lee, who is also on the HSC committee, raised concerns similar to those of Doughty and said review of highly paid administrators is necessary for regents.

With regard to this particular employee, the amount of compensation has raised some concerns, Lee said in a statement. We are currently reviewing a number of positions, including those in the finance areas, to ensure that we are as efficient as possible in our operations. This applies to organizational roles, budgets and compensation.

Although Anderson also mentioned 56 faculty members in her letter, Frank said it was unlikely that their salaries would change.

If anything, we should probably be giving them more money, Frank said.

Save
The Human Services Department letter refers to state statutes that say a substance abuse associate shall assist licensed counselors or therapists in group or individual counseling sessions.

Jennifer Cady, an advocate for drug counselors, a licensed clinical counselor and a college instructor, has been seeking to change that law since at least 2005.

She says she hasnt received any help from the Counseling and Therapy Board, which has written regulations covering LSAAs that seem to contradict the statute.

Several of the regulations expect LSAAs to provide counseling and dont mandate that they only assist others with counseling.

Regulation and Licensing Department spokesman Ben Cloutier said the Regulation and Licensing Department will work closely with the Counseling and Therapy Board and the Human Services Department to resolve any issues that arise in the substance abuse counseling community.

But several weeks ago, a staff member wrote Cady in an email, That paragraph, even if it is out-dated, is state law as passed by the New Mexico State Legislature. The only way to change it is for you to work with the Legislature and ask them to CHANGE THE LAW.

Unless something is fixed, Cady doesnt hold out much hope.

I was also recently contracted with CNM to write the Substance Abuse Concentration in the Human Services degree, which will be churning out students ready for their LSAA, Cady said. There is no point in educating them if they are not going to be allowed to do the work.

From my point of view the LADAC has no future, she said. If an LSAA cannot accrue supervised hours within the legally defined Scope of Practice, it has no value. Agencies cannot retain a volunteer or employee who cannot do the work.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.  The U.S. Attorney for New Mexico is hoping a visit to an Islamic community center in Albuquerque will send a message against any anti-Muslim backlash.

U.S. Attorney Damon Martinez joined Muslims at the Islamic Center of New Mexico on Saturday night to celebrate the last few days of the holy month of Ramadan.

The ninth month of the Islamic calendar, Ramadan is observed by Muslims everywhere as a month of fasting from dawn until dusk.

Martinezs appearance is part of the U.S. Department of Justices ongoing efforts to address threats against Muslims, Arabs and Sikhs in the wake of terrorism incidents involving perpetrators who claim to be following Islam.
LAS CRUCES  Las Cruces Police have arrested a Roswell man suspected in Friday nights fatal stabbing on the 2100 block of west Picacho Avenue.

Rodolfo Martinez, 35, of the 6200 block of Wild Road in Roswell, New Mexico, is charged with an open count of murder and one count of tampering with evidence.

Police were dispatched to the report of a stabbing shortly before 7:30 p.m. Friday, July 1, in the parking lot of the Western Inn at 2155 W. Picacho Ave. Officers located 46-year-old Christopher Wray suffering from multiple stab wounds. Wray was transported to Mountainview Regional Medical Center where he died early Saturday morning.

Detectives learned that Martinez and Wray appeared to know each other and were seen by witnesses walking together near the apartment complex. At some point, the two men got into a fight and Martinez is alleged to have used a sharp-edged object  either a knife, scissors or some other type of bladed item  to stab Wray multiple times.

Witnesses told officers that Martinez then fled from the area. Officers located Martinez a short distance away and he was taken into custody within the hour.

Martinez was booked into the Dona Ana County Detention Center where he is being held without bond.



2016 the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.)

Visit the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.) at www.lcsun-news.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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LAS CRUCES  Twenty-nine New Mexico charter schools have filed a complaint against the current director of the Options for Parents Division  commonly referred to as the Charter Schools Division  of the Public Education Department.

In a letter dated May 3, the New Mexico Coalition for Charter Schools outlined 20 complaints against the CSD and its director, Katie Poulos. The letter was sent to the Public Education Commission, the elected body that has the power to grant, extend and revoke state-authorized charters.

The letter was written on behalf of 29 New Mexico schools  20 signed the letter, seven lodged complaints but elected not to add their names for fear of reprisal or retaliation from the CSD, and two were district-authorized charter schools, which are not under the purview of the PEC.

Two Las Cruces charter schools signed the letter New America School  Las Cruces and La Academia Dolores Huerta.

Charter schools are public schools which operate independent of public school systems. They are operated either by nonprofit or for-profit organizations. Although they are largely publicly funded, charter schools are exempt from many of the requirements imposed by state and local boards of education regarding hiring and curriculum. Charter schools can either be affiliated with an existing school district, or can operate under a state charter granted by the PEC. All of the charter schools in Las Cruces are state-chartered; none are chartered through Las Cruces Public Schools.

As public schools, charter schools cannot charge tuition or impose special entrance requirements; students are usually admitted through a lottery process if demand exceeds the number of spaces available in a school.

The letter of complaint points to a souring of the relationship between the states charter schools and the PEDs Charter School Division under Poulos direction.

The relationship between the CSD and charter schools appears to have deteriorated significantly over the past year, and in numerous cases it appears broken, the letter stated. The current CSD Director is micromanaging oversight rather than evaluating outcomes and looking for ways to assist charters.

Under state statute, the CSD was created to serve as support staff for the PEC. The letter alleges the CSD has made a practice of overstepping its authority.

The CSD is not entitled to do whatever it wants or act however it wants or ignore PEC directives, policies and procedures with respect to the PECs charter schools simply because it is a division of the New Mexico Public Education Department, the letter states.

Listing nearly 50 examples, the schools describe a general atmosphere of hostility between the CSD and state charters, and accuse Poulos of having an arrogant and controlling attitude. The schools fear retaliation if they challenge or do not adhere to Poulos directives.

The schools also feel new reporting requirements imposed by the CSD  but not authorized by the PEC  are unduly demanding, burdensome and often duplicative.

My concern is the dysfunctional relationship between Ms. Poulos and the PEC, and Ms. Poulos and the schools, said Mark Hartshorne, principal of Alma dArte Charter High School in Las Cruces. Alma dArte is a state-authorized charter school, but is not a member of the New Mexico Coalition for Charter Schools.

Poulos did not respond directly to a request for comment, but PED Chief of Staff Sam Shumway said the department remains committed to the success of all students.

PED is committed to ensuring that all charter schools meet high educational and operational standards, Shumway said. While accountability is frustrating for some, New Mexicos students deserve high quality educational opportunities at all of our public schools, including charter schools. As we always have, well continue to work with charter schools and the Coalition to address their concerns.

Poulos came to PED in April of last year after serving as director of academic affairs for accountability at the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools, according to her LinkedIn account.

Patricia Gipson, chairman of the PEC, told the Sun-News Friday that the commission has discussed the letter, and plans are underway to address the schools concerns.

There was a brief discussion at our May meeting about the letter, Gipson said. PED Deputy Secretary Chris Ruszowski was there, as was Sam Shumway and the CSD Director, Katie Poulos. They were unwilling to respond to any part of the letter at that time.

However, they ultimately agreed to schedule a meeting between representatives of the PEC, PED, CSD and Coalition for Charter Schools. The meeting, which has not yet been scheduled by the PED, will take place behind closed doors, because some of it is being addressed as a personnel matter, Gipson said.

Gipson acknowledged that the relationships between the CSD and charter schools have eroded, and that the situation is in need of attention  and a resolution.

The schools have always had a pretty good working relationship with the CSD, and now that has done a (180), Gipson said.

While the CSD operates as support staff to the PEC, Gipson said the staff is hired by the PED.

Greta Roskom, co-executive director of the New Mexico Coalition for Charter Schools, said the letter was never intended to be made public, and that she hopes it doesnt create a more adversarial relationship between the schools and the CSD. It was intended to draw the PECs attention to a rapidly-deteriorating situation.

Roskom said the letter was met with gratitude from the PEC, but received a lukewarm response from the PED.

Schools had been expressing these concerns since the beginning of the school year, which escalated through winter and spring, Roskom said. We believe the fundamental problem has been communication. What (NMCCS Co-Executive Director Kelly Callahan) and I are hoping to achieve between CSD and the schools is better communication. And anything we can do to facilitate that can only help the PEC as the authorizer of the charters. We want to protect the schools autonomy, and reduce the undue burdens that are being placed on them.

Hartshorne said there are clearly issues which need to be resolved.

There is a great deal of anxiety and, frankly, fear about the dynamics of the interplay between the CSD and the PEC, and the CSD and school-site personnel, he said. It is fair to say that here at Alma dArte, we have not received any untoward actions from the CSD, but many charter school administrators have expressed their concern in (the letter). In my view, Ms. Poulos would be wise to adopt a collegial approach that reaches out to the expertise and talent present in the PEC members and school people. We all have a great deal of work to perform to ensure the best education for our students.

Margarita Porter, principal of New America School  Las Cruces, declined to comment on the specific concerns outlined in the letter. Octavio Casillas, principal of La Academia Dolores Huerta, could not be reached for comment.

Damien Willis may be reached at 575-541-5468, dawillis@lcsun-news.com or @damienwillis on Twitter.



2016 the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.)

Visit the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.) at www.lcsun-news.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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American English vs. British English(ZT)

Now the VOA Learning English program Words and Their Stories!

The fourth of July is Independence Day in the United States. On that day, we celebrate the decision by early American leaders to declare independence from Britain.

While people in both England and the U.S. speak English, the two types of English can be very different.

First, there are differences in spelling. The British like the letter u and have kept it in many words. Americans have dropped it. Somewhere in our language history, we decided that labor, color and favorite were just fine without the u next to the o.

But our differences go beyond spelling. Sometimes, we use different words entirely.

Here, we live in apartments with elevators. Over there, they live in flats with lifts.

Kate the Duchess of Cambridge pushes daughter Princess Charlotte in a pram. Not a stroller. England, July 2015.

We put diapers on our babies and push them in strollers. The British love their babies just as much as we do, but they use nappies and prams instead.

We power our cars with gas. They use petrol.

And, if we need to look in our cars dark trunk for something, we use a flashlight. They would use a torch to search their dark boot.

Then there are idioms. Some British and American idioms have the same meaning, but use different words. For example, in the U.S. if you want to add your opinion to a conversation, you put in your two cents. In the U.K., they put in their tuppence (or two pence) worth. Makes sense. They have pence and we dont.

Another example is the idiom about discussing the same issue again and again, especially if it cannot be resolved.

We say, Dont beat a dead horse! The British, on the other hand, advise against flogging one. And, if you are keeping secrets in the United States, you have skeletons in the closet. In Great Britain, your skeletons would be hiding in a cupboard.

But the real fun begins when we start exploring idioms and expressions that are unique to each country.

Lets start with Bobs your uncle. To an American ear, that is a weird expression. And it has nothing to do with any relative you may or may not have named Bob. It is just a way to finish a set of simple instructions.

What is the equivalent -- the different but equal saying -- in the U.S.? Americans might say, and there you have it! Or sometimes, more dramatic people will say, Ta-da!

For example, imagine you are explaining to someone how to use your new fancy, coffee maker.

You explain: First, you grind the beans. Then you put them in the side container and pour water in the main container. Push the button and ten minutes later -- ta-da! -- you have a pot of coffee!

Sometimes over a fresh pot of coffee, you may want to have a long talk with a friend. You might even throw in a little gossip. We call that a chat, or if its a short conversation, chit-chat. The British would call it a chin-wag.

If a British person says, Ive got the hump, we might think they are sick and need to see a doctor. But in fact, when Brits say they have a hump, it means they are mildly annoyed or upset. In the U.S., some informal ways to say we are upset are Im ticked off or Im miffed.

Now, when Americans are really surprised by something, we can say we are at a loss for words. Or more informally, we simply say we are shocked or blown away.

Across the Atlantic in the U.K., they are gobsmacked. In the U.S., we dont get smacked by gobs. Ever.

Finally, a familiar word used by both countries but in different ways is cheers. We use the word over drinks when we are wishing someone good health or congratulating an accomplishment. The British use cheers to mean thank you. For that, we Americans say, Thank you!

Now, we dont expect you to pick sides. Both American and British English have their strong points. But thanks for listening to Words and Their Stories, a program that teaches American English.

Im Anna Matteo.

Cheers! I mean, thanks.

___________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

apartment  n. a usually rented room or set of rooms that is part of a building and is used as a place to live (British = flat)

elevator  n. a machine used for carrying people and things to different levels in a building (British = lift)

diaper  n. a piece of cloth or other material that is placed between a baby's legs and fastened around the waist to hold body waste (British = nappies)

stroller  n. a small carriage with four wheels that a baby or small child can ride in while someone pushes it (British = prams)

trunk  n. the enclosed space in the rear of an automobile for carrying articles (British = boot)

flashlight  n. a small electric light that can be carried in your hand and that runs on batteries (British = torch)

flog  v. to beat or whip (someone) severely

smack  v. to strike so as to produce a smack

gob  n. lump : a large amount

skeleton  n. the structure of bones that supports the body of a person or animal

closet  n. a usually small room that is used for storing things (such as clothing, towels, or dishes) (British = cupboard)

fancy  adj. pricey and fashionable

grind  v. to crush or break (something) into very small pieces by rubbing it against a rough surface or using a special machine
By Mac Slavo

It seems that the Andrews Air Force Base, where the Presidents Air Force One plane is stationed, couldnt tell a difference between a drill simulating an active shooter attack and the real thing.

And it happened just five minutes before President Biden was due to arrive.

As the Daily Mail reported:

Chaos erupted at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Thursday morning after an active shooter drill prompt reports of a real world shooter. The base was placed on lockdown at 9am Eastern Time  just minutes before Vice President Joe Biden was due to arrive to board a plane to Ohio. All personnel were ordered to shelter in place, and people were seen running through the base with their hands in the air. It came at exactly the same time that they were scheduled to start an active shooter training exercise.

Apparently this exercise was last minute and unannounced. Did this drill go live?

21st Century Wire reported:

scheduled for 9 am this morning, and as if by some amazing coincidence, during exercise, local first responders received emergency calls about a real world active shooter on the base. [] According to a public information officer in the Washington office, the reason for this is because of the confusion over reports of a drill or an actual incident. The FBI field offices let security on Joint Base Andrews sort out the confusion. (FOX6 NOW) Joint Base Andrews was locked down just after 9 a.m. after someone mistook an active shooter drill for the real thing, senior law enforcement officials told NBC News. All personnel were directed to shelter in place, said NBC News.

Why did Joint Andrews Air Force Base begin tweeting out reports as if it were really happening?

Was it a plot targeting the Vice President or other high officials? Or was it just a botched exercise?

Media reports began to circulate before it was found out that it was just a false alarm. One wonders if the effect wasnt intentional.

If the military doesnt know the difference, then no one could expect the public to know the difference either. Yet, when terror attacks or big incidents grab headlines, there is often no substantial proof that is shown, and quite a bit is taken on faith.

Significantly, CNN and other networks began broadcasting the report as if the event were real, showing the world images of the simulated drill  before the report was ultimately quashed.

Nevertheless, the images of this manufactured event were at first reported as real, and shown as evidence.

The ticker shows the breaking news that Joint Base Andrews was in lockdown mode

Yet these images were proof of nothing, because nothing was really happening.

Are we being goaded on by reality, or just simulations and exercises?

Read more:

Click here to subscribe: Join over one million monthly readers and receive breaking news, strategies, ideas and commentary.

You can read more from Mac Slavo at his site SHTFplan.com
India has more festivals than any other part of the world with its people bonded together by different faiths, customs, religions and its history living in celebrations of colours, lights, music and dance. Eid-ul-fitr is one such festival, celebrated by nearly 180 million Muslims in India and many others around the world at the end of the holy month of Ramadan (or Ramzan).

Celebrating the auspicious month of Ramzan, Discovery Channel will take its viewers on a spiritual journey to discover the essence of this festival. Watch the one-hour special SPIRIT OF INDIA: RAMZAN ON Wednesday, July 6th at 8 pm on Discovery Channel.

Fasting is arguably the most important practice in the month of Ramadan but the story unravels many other dimensions of the festival besides the regular prayers. There are are a number of other socio-religious practices that have to be strictly adhered to during this month, like being patient, doing charity, giving up materialist desires in order to free oneself from the worldly desires and strengthening the bond between man and God.

The programme presenter Danny Sura will take Discovery Channel viewers through the streets of Mumbai abuzz with festivities, will attend an Iftar Party near Jama Masjid at Santa Cruz, and later culminate his spiritual journey at the holy shrine of Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer, Rajasthan.

The programme will also feature the tradition of people hugging and greeting each other and saying EId Mubarak that speaks volumes about the brotherhood that Islam is instilling in its followers and the significance of the Eid Namaaz or the KhutbathdeNamaz as an important prayer. The programme also follows the sermons by clerics, delivering messages of peace and goodwill and blessings for the people.

Tune in to Discovery Channel on Wednesday July 6th at 8 PM to witness the congregation of Muslim devotees offering their prayers to almighty, preparation of ancient cuisines and much more on this Eid-ul-Fitr.
Air Force-USDA partnership: Providing wildlife mitigation tactics

Birds and wildlife can always pose a threat to aircraft operations in any location that aircraft are taking off, landing, or flying. In order to prevent a catastrophic event from occurring it takes a dedicated team to mitigate the effects of birds and wildlife on an airfield.



In a close partnership between the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing Safety office and the United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services they are able to find solutions to ensure air operations continue as safely as possible.



The broader relationship is based on safetys execution of the BASH [Bird/Wildlife Aircraft Strike Hazard] program, which is to prevent bird and wildlife hazards from becoming a factor for aircraft operations, says Lt. Col. James Cooper, 455th AEW chief of safety.



Airmen who are deployed to the 455th AEW Safety office currently work alongside Mr. Ben Allen, USDA wildlife specialist and biologist. In the United States, Allen works at the Denver International Airport providing wildlife services to civilian aviation operations.



Wildlife services is a wealth of knowledge, says Allen. We bring background. Wildlife services, this is what we do. Its not necessarily wildlife management as much as it is wildlife knowledge.



Here together, their mission is to prevent bird and wildlife aircraft strikes to military and civilian aircraft that operate in and out of Bagram Airfield. But, the USDA partnership allows that individual (USDA personnel) to be solely focused on bird and wildlife management using the knowledge they bring.



In the areas where we have the highest problems, it is one of the most effective means [USDA partnership] to use the USDA and use that expertise and leverage it, says Cooper



There are a variety of methods to mitigate bird and wildlife issues. These methods can range from fireworks that make popping noises or flashes, using sirens and air cannons to wildlife depredation if necessary. In addition to these tactics both organizations work to change the habitat around the airfield to make it less enticing for birds and other animals. Changes in types of grass or removing certain features on the airfield play a key role in changing the environment.



Allen not only conducts mitigation tactics on the airfield but he also conducts research and analysts on birds and wildlife. With this data Allen is able to provide the Air Force a much better picture of the issues pertaining to wildlife at Bagram Airfield.



I collect survey data and put it into a Geographic Information System Trimble unit that a gentleman back home is going to be able to make maps to tell the story better, says Allen. So what I do during the day is go out with a map of the airfield and anytime I remove anything or disperse anything I put a spot down on the map, record that and bring it back to the office and put it into the Trimble unit. The same thing goes for my bird or wildlife surveys.



In the long term this data will be able to build maps and display the issues on the airfield in a visual way. Allen argues that these maps will give people a better understanding of the actual issues facing the airfield.



Along with the informational data that is collected, Allen also sends back physical specimens to the Feather ID Lab at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. Researchers at the Smithsonian can then produce data on the exact kind of wildlife that is present at Bagram.



All this is important because Bagram Airfield operates a variety of missions with a variety of aircraft including C-130s, C-17s, F-16s and HH-60s. It is imperative that people have a better understanding of these wildlife issues to ensure that crucial air operations supporting tasks throughout Afghanistan can continue safely.



Its a whole problem approach looking at the habitat, the patterns and the species and learning about what we can do to make the airfield less attractive for them, says Cooper. The goal of the BASH program is to reduce the impact of wildlife thats here on our ongoing operations.


The attack on Istanbuls main International airport is yet another act of terror that shook Turkey as 10 people were killed and wounding several others. This reminds us of the Mumbai terror attack. Turkey airport is one of the busiest and stands at 11 in that order. The terror attack all over the world is taking place through hate and violence and India suffers the most. Human life is lost in various such attacks in the recent past and India tops the list with numerous attacks in the border as well as Metro cities at frequent intervals. Mass killing by terrorists is not an open and shut case but should be looked into all seriousness. It happened in past in US, UK, Paris and other countries. It is time to form a peace finding committee to look into the different aspects of terror attacks and make concerted efforts to end this problem in the best way.

C.K. Subramaniam

(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
According to senior Congress leaders from Maharashtra, Priyankas entry into active politics will give a fresh lease of life to the party.

The Congress has finally decided to give larger role to Priyanka Gandhi as she will be actively campaigning for next years Uttar Pradesh assembly polls. Senior Congress leaders from Maharashtra Prithviraj Chavan, Ashok Chavan, Sushil Kumar Shinde had urged Congress President Sonia Gandhi to project Priyanka as the face of UP assembly polls. Ever since Congress had received severe drubbing in the recently concluded assembly polls held in four states there was growing dissent within the party. Some leaders had even threatened to quit the party. Former state president of Congress said that right now Congress is in dire need of a major makeover and it is the right time to pass the baton to Priyanka who is known to connect better with the masses. According to senior Congress leaders, Priyankas entry into active politics will give a fresh lease of life to the party which badly needs a makeover after suffering massive debacle in assembly polls. Priyanka will venture out of Rae Bareli and Amethi, where she has campaigned for Congress in the past, and hold 150 rallies across UP though it remains unclear whether she will be its chief ministerial candidate.

According to sources, Many senior leaders have lost faith in the leadership of Rahul Gandhi after Congress received severe drubbing in assembly polls. According to them, Rahul has failed to give a proper direction to the party which has created more confusion among party cadre workers. Their morale has hit an all-time low and many of them are complaining that there is lack of coordination between party workers and senior leadership.

A senior Congress leader had recently threatened to quit the Congress after it was planning to contest the UP assembly polls under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi. After Sonia Gandhis intervention he had withdrawn his resignation. Like him there are many Congress leaders who may turn rebel if Rahul Gandhi is given the charge of campaigning in UP election, said a leader from Congress party on the condition of anonymity.

On the other hand, Congress cant rely on its alliance partner NCP which has a tendency to align with other parties whenever there is a change in political equation in state and centre. NCP also had offered outside support to BJP in Maharashtra even though both parties follow different ideologies. To make matters worse, Sonia Gandhi cant nominate senior Congress leaders to campaign for the UP polls as it may lead to rift within the party.

Congress has had a dismal performance in Uttar Pradesh so far. In the last assembly polls, Congress had won just 28 of the 403 seats in the state. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the party had secured only two seats in UP with only Sonia and Rahul emerging victorious.

On the other hand, BJP said that Congress is bringing Priyanka Gandhi as it had lost faith in the leadership of Rahul Gandhi. BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said, Congresss attempt to bring in Priyanka shows that Rahul Gandhi has failed. If Rahul had succeeded that they would not have been called Priyanka. It makes three things clear. One is that the Congress can never come out of its family, they even want leadership in Gandhi family.
Slamming AIMIM President Asaduddin Owaisi over his decision to provide legal help to men arrested for allegedly being members of an Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) module, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday accused him of betraying the country and sought action against him for helping the terror group.

Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi alleged that Mr. Owaisi was giving oxygen to terrorists and that he is seen as standing with extremists.

Owaisi is directly or indirectly helping the ISIS which had come up with a video in which it threatened to target India. This is betrayal of the country. On the one hand you condemn the ISIS and on the other hand you support those who are involved in such acts.

The investigating agencies should take action against him within the legal framework. Those who support terrorism directly or indirectly should be condemned, BJP national secretary Shrikant Sharma said.

The NIA has arrested five persons from Hyderabad for their alleged links with the ISIS. Mr. Owaisi had said his party would provide legal help to them while holding AIMIM does not support terrorism.

One should not stoop down to this level in politics that you are seen standing with terrorism and those who support it. Those who give such statements are giving oxygen to terrorism. You do politics but refrain from actions that make it seem like you are supporting terrorism, Mr. Naqvi said.

BJP spokesperson Nalin Kohli said before jumping onto anything, Mr. Owaisi should have weighed the pros and cons because the evidence suggested that the arrested youths were allegedly planning to carry out terror-related activities during Ramzan.

The media is clearly pointing towards evidence that clearly seems to suggest that this is the plot and there is evidence to back it up. Now before jumping into it, one should weigh the pros and cons because tomorrow if the court finds that the evidence is sufficient, they are convicted for an act of terror, they are sentenced, then Mr. Owaisi will definitely answer a question. Was he openly helping terrorist and that he was very eager to help terrorists? Mr. Kohli said.

Congress leader Digvijaya Singh launched a scathing attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi for trying to protect those who had been accused of terrorist activities.

Singh said that one hand the saffron party is hell bent on saving the Malegaon blast accused, and on the other Owaisi is attempting to protect those caught by the NIA in alleged terror cases.

Just the way BJP is hell bent on protecting Malegaon blast accused, Owaisi is trying to save Muslims youths who have been caught. I do not know if they are guilty or not, but to try to save them shows that BJP is trying to protect Hindu bomb blast accused and Owaisi is trying to save those whom NIA has caught with evidence, he said.
Controversies and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) go hand-in-hand. In a fresh row, an FIR has been registered against an AAP MLA on Saturday in a Quran desecration case. Naresh Yadav, AAP MLA from Mehrauli (South) in Delhi, is now accused of stoking communal tension in Punjab. Naresh Yadav was named in an FIR related to a recent case of alleged desecration of the Quran. The development comes after the mastermind in the case took Naresh Yadavs name during interrogation.

He was booked by the Sangur police after the alleged orchestrator Vijay Kumar told officials he had desecrated the holy book on Yadavs orders, for which he was offered Rs. 1 crore.

Kumar and two others  zonal secretary of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad in Pathankot Nand Kishore Goldy and his son Gaurav  were arrested earlier and reportedly confessed. The police alleged that Kumar had said he hated Pakistan and Muslims and wanted to exact revenge for the Dinanagar and Pathankot terrorist attacks. Kishore and Gaurav allegedly helped conspire with him in the case.

Noteworthy, this comes as a shock as the case has been filed ahead of Arvind Kejriwals three-day visit to Punjab beginning Sunday.

Yadav told that the alliance has become restless as the people of Punjab have decided to give absolute majority to the AAP in the upcoming assembly elections.

I have become a victim of false conspiracies. I am working in Punjab. So, now they (BJP-SAD alliance) are trying to falsely trap the people one after another. Their restlessness is evident. The people of Punjab will give full majority to the AAP this time so they have become restless, he said.

Asserting that the AAP will carry on its fight against corruption, Yadav said they wont be scared of police action or FIR.

All the Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians of Punjab are with us. So, there is no need for us to run. We are ready to join the investigation, he added.

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Manjeet Singh called on the AAP to maintain caution as they proceeded with their campaign since Punjab is a border area.

Right from the 80s Punjab has seen many problems. First the Guru Granth Saheb was disrespected and now Quran Sharif is being desecrated. AAP is welcome to fight the elections, however, they should not create any troubles there, Singh said.

However, Kejriwal should first control the youth of Delhi. He had tried to defame the youth of Punjab in drug issue. Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal are defaming the youth of Punjab regarding drugs. For mere votes, these people have defamed the people of Punjab who have stood for the country, Singh said.

Taking a jibe at Yadavs remark, BJP leader Manoj Tiwari said it is now evident that the AAP leaders would indulge in the same practice for which they are well-known.

They will disrupt communal harmony and divide the people. This is the real face of the AAP. There should be strict probe against him (Naresh Yadav), said Tiwari.

This is one of such examples cited by Mehrauli MLA Naresh Yadav, he added.
Pakistans Advisor to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs, Sartaj Aziz has said that the strengthening US-India relations were not a matter of concern for Islamabad, as long as the co-operation between the two did not increase the strategic and conventional gap between the nuclear-armed rivals of the subcontinent.

Aziz said in an interview that the United States has constantly assured Pakistan that both countries were of equal importance to them.

I think US has itself emphasized number of times that our relations with India are not at the cost of Pakistan; both are important for us. India is important in the south Asian and East Asian context, whereas Pakistan is important in west Asia and central Asian context. We are one of the largest Islamic, democratic country, and we have a role vis a vis Afghanistan and in this region, Aziz said.

He also stated that the United States is an independent country and in terms of economic and other relations it can go ahead with India as it desires and as its national interests require.

Aziz asserted that there is only one dimension which they have been emphasizing and that is that their co-operation with India should not increase the gap, the strategic and conventional military gap, between India and Pakistan.

If that happens, then of course we have to respond. So the objective of strategic stability should be kept in view in whatever co-operation they extend, and they have acknowledged that these are legitimate concerns because they dont want an arms race  a nuclear arms race  in the subcontinent. So thats the only dimension on which we are concerned. Otherwise, the US and India relationship are not a matter of concern, he added.

However, he said that Pakistan would not compromise on adequate deterrence, so the United States must persuade India not to expand its nuclear power.

When they (India) started the Cold Start doctrine in which they moved 10 cantonments close to the Pakistan border so they can act on our forces at short notice and from across the border, the tactical nuclear weapons were a response to that particular threat. So  the independent variable in this case is India. We are the dependent variable, he said.

He further stated that if the U.S. has to persuade Pakistan to respond in a positive way, they have to persuade India not to expand its nuclear and initiate the dialogue to reduce tensions and resolve disputes.

But Pakistan has of course clarified that the decision: what is adequate deterrent, how to protect our security, this is our own national sovereign right. This we cannot share with anyone, Aziz said.
The suicide attack on Istanbuls Ataturk airport which claimed 44 lives is a wake-up call for Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The terrorism which they only promoted to achieve their selfish motives of expanding Turkey and bringing down Bashar al Assad government in Syria has backfired them now in this form.

The West and Middle East have failed to understand Indias warnings about terrorism since many years. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his first speech in United Nations General Assembly categorically said that there is no distinction between good and bad terrorism. Terrorism as a whole needs to be contained by combined efforts by all nations of the world. He reiterated his stand in his recent speech in Senate of United States of America.

USA learnt the lesson after the blast of twin towers in 2001. The very terrorist organizations which it promoted in Afghanistan showed their dirty face through causing this huge disaster on the mankind. Then only the then government of USA led by George W Bush realised that the policy which favoured the Talibans flourishing was a misplaced doctrine. They reaped what they had sown. However, it was too late by then. Despite all efforts by USA and other countries of the world to bring stability in Afghanistan, the Afghans live in a totally insecure environment. During interaction with this author, the Afghans have openly cursed USA and Pakistan for bringing chaos and total instability in their lives.

Pakistan is not an exception either. With an aim to make India unstable, it pushed for infiltration of terrorists across the borders. It also helped in giving training for terrorist organizations and even funded them. But they had to witness the bitter fruits of the bad seeds that it had sown in incidents like Peshawar attack on 16th December 2014 which killed more than 148 students of Army Public School to open firing in Bacha Khan University in January 2016. In the first half of the year 2016 alone, there have been nine major terrorist attacks.

Still it seems Pakistan has not learnt lessons. This is evident in incidents, which we are witnessing in India, like attack on Pathankot air base and on bus carrying Central Reserve Police Forces (CRPF) in Pampore last week which were conducted by Pakistan backed United Jihad Council, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar e taiba terrorist organizations.

It is good if Pakistan realises its mistake very soon and goes for self correction measures along with addressing the issue of internal instability. At the same time, Turkey needs to join hands with western allies who are waging war against terrorism. The countries need to think beyond their short term goals of overpowering their neighbourhood. All countries should join hands together to establish long lasting peace in the world. If we sow the seeds of peace, then only we will reap the fruits of peace.

 Akshara Damle

(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
The tweet, posted at roughly 8:30 a.m., featured a picture of Hillary Clinton pasted over a backdrop of $100 bills with a six-pointed star  the Jewish Star of David  next to her face.

Donald Trump tweeted a blatantly anti-Semitic image Saturday morning, causing an immediate backlash online and further confirming the Republican nominee is willing to sink to depths well beyond usual, acceptable bounds of politics.

This is not a dog whistle. Its not subtle. It is anti-Semitic imagery aimed at a candidate who isnt even Jewish.

Clintons campaign could not immediately be reached for comment.

Mic News reported that the image Trump used was previously shared on a website used by neo-Nazis and anti-Semites. The site said the image appeared on an entry posted around June 22, more than a week before Trumps team tweeted it.

The irony, of course, is that Trump has Jewish relatives. His daughter Ivanka converted to Judaism when she married Jared Kushner, who is Jewish himself. Their kids are Jewish too. Trump even has a number of Jewish backers.

This hasnt exactly mellowed his instinct to give telling winks to people who hate Jews. Trump has retweeted support from white supremacists and neo-Nazis in the past and hes notably refrained from condemning the anti-Semitic mob of his supporters that has attacked Jewish reporters online.

Usually, hes responded to criticism in the past by playing dumb, as if hes unaware of what hes doing. And that same pattern held true  somewhat  on Saturday morning. Moments after tweeting out the Star of David image, he put out a second image with the same language, but with a red circle instead of a star. The first tweet remained up for some time, however, before eventually being taken down.

Ari Fleischer, a Jewish Republican who served as press secretary to former President George W. Bush, criticized the Trump campaign for the tweet.

I suspect this was a case of stupidity and not malice, but no matter what, his campaign keeps making foolish mistakes, he said. It would be nice to make it through a 3-day weekend without his campaign hurting itself.

As for Clintons faith, shes a Methodist. Trump has attacked her for that in the past too. At a meeting of evangelical conservatives last month, he suggested there was little in the public record about her religion and that she might not actually be Christian: a blatantly false missive that was offensive in its own right but one that seems somewhat quaint in light of Saturdays tweet.

Trump adviser Roger Stone sent an email to HuffPost several hours after this article was posted, with the subject line: Total Horseshit.

A sheriff badge is the same shape as the Star of David, Stone wrote. You should be ashamed to publish crap like this - but then you dont work for a real news organization.
June 30, 2016

The European Union decision June 20 to endorse the French Middle East Peace Initiative was influenced by the perception at the highest levels in Brussels that the Israeli government has taken a sharp turn toward an annexation policy with the entry of Avigdor Liberman into the Ministry of Defense.

Indeed, the resolution of the EU council of foreign ministers to support the French initiative and to call for an international peace conference on a two-state solution before the end of the year is a challenge to the Benjamin Netanyahu government. The Israeli government is concerned that this move will drive the Barack Obama administration to embrace a two-state solution policy platform as a legacy for the next US president.

The Netanyahu-Liberman government, in the meantime, continues with business as usual in regard to funding West Bank settlements and decision-making by Liberman to deepen the occupation.

Liberman has entered the Defense Ministry with a pretentious voice of moderation. Nevertheless, it was only a matter of days before he expressed again his real extremist views, which he now can translate into actions. In a briefing to defense correspondents June 15, a very senior Defense Ministry source threatened Hamas that in the next war it will be wiped out and criticized Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for his extremist views on Israel and for his political weaknesses in Palestine. The source also related that Liberman ordered the cancellation of the VIP permit to enter Israel for the one man in the PLO charged by Abbas to maintain relations and communication with Israeli public opinion: Mohammed Madani, head of the Palestinian committee for interaction with Israel.

A senior PLO source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that Libermans policies are a kiss of death to whatever hope they had that Liberman and Netanyahu will engage in any two-state regional initiative: The Israel of Netanyahu and Liberman prefers to focus on extremist Palestinian positions, such as the voices of the Hamas leadership or their terror, rather than addressing the moderation of Abbas. Libermans policies are not really directed against one PLO official, but rather against President Abbas.

The official said that the PLO has clearly related to the United States, EU and Egypt that Libermans decisions and rhetoric were an assault on the hope for a two-state solution and on the French initiative.

Similarly, a senior EU official close to Federica Mogherini, high representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, expressed to Al-Monitor the dismay of Brussels with Libermans statements and decisions. He said on condition of anonymity, We were asked by the Israeli prime ministers office to give Defense Minister Liberman a chance to prove his constructive attitude toward a regional two-state peace process. But then Liberman started acting like an elephant in a china shop. We impressed upon the Netanyahu government our dismay. Liberman's policy is weakening Abbas positions in favor of moderation and a negotiated two-state solution, vis-a-vis the Palestinian political circles. The official claimed that the greater the Palestinian despair with a negotiated solution becomes, the higher the chances are for a wave of accelerated lethal terror involving also Fatah. He added that the EU finds it increasingly harder to prevent such violent deterioration.

EU foreign ministers have made their decision: adopting the French initiative to bolster Abbas position and to prevent a greater cycle of violence. The EU official told Al-Monitor, "Having Germany and the UK on board was essential in order to impress upon the United States the danger of leaving a policy vacuum in the second half of 2016 and the first half of 2017." The EU source added that Mogherini is in close contact with Secretary of State John Kerry, as the US participation or even support for an international conference is far from obvious. Yet, it is clear to Brussels that the real obstacle to an operative US policy is the policy of settlement expansion of the Netanyahu-Liberman government.

The EU source concluded that based on these assessments at the EU foreign policy mechanism, Brussels has realized that it must fill the policy vacuum created by the US Middle East policy paralysis in an election year. The EU, he said, is committed to prevent the fall of Abbas, which would cause major harm in the region.
July 3, 2016

CAIRO  Just hours after British-Lebanese TV presenter Liliane Daoud announced June 27 that her contract had ended with private satellite channel ONTV, the Egyptian authorities decided to deport her from the country under the pretext that her residency permit had expired.

At 5:45 p.m. June 27, about an hour after I announced that my contract with ONTV had ended, eight security personnel arrived [at my home]. Without showing me any official papers, they demanded my British passport. They treated me rudely in front of my [11-year-old] daughter and her father  my ex-husband, the Egyptian journalist Khalid Alberry  who had come to see our daughter, Daoud wrote in Arabic on Twitter.

In a series of tweets describing the incident that she posted after arriving in Beirut, Daoud added, I asked to call my embassy and my lawyer, but they refused and had taken my cellphone from me. They also refused to show me the [deportation] order. One of the men began screaming and threatening me, saying that he would take me by force, with or without my consent. I, meanwhile, stressed that I objected to them violating the sanctity of my home and family.

Daoud eventually went with them to Cairo International Airport, although she said she didnt know where they were taking her at the time. According to her, she relented and quit protesting after the security personnel gave her a verbal promise that they would not harm her daughter or ex-husband. She said that after arriving at the airport, she asked to call her embassy and her family, but all of her requests were denied. [They told me] we have orders, were only implementing them. We only know that your residency permit has ended and we must deport you, she wrote.

Daoud was held by the security services in a location at the airport far away from the other passengers until it was time to board. She was transferred to the plane under a veil of secrecy, not waiting in the boarding area with others.

The state-run Ahram newspaper said that the passport authority and another security agency  which it did not name  had detained Daoud after her residency permit ended following the conclusion of her work with ONTV.

For her part, Daoud added on Twitter, I commit to fighting using all legal and diplomatic avenues available to me to be able to return to Cairo as soon as possible, to be reunited with my daughter and be able to continue the life built for her there, close to her family and friends. I am proud of the work I have done and the opportunities I have had throughout my career.

An anonymous Egyptian security source told Al Arabiya Net on June 29 that the officers charged with deporting Daoud had not treated her badly. According to the source, they merely informed her decisively that she would be leaving Egypt immediately since her residency permit had ended in April 2015. Owning property in Egypt doesnt grant her the right to return or reside here. However, she may be granted residency if she obtains a work contract from an Egyptian agency or institution, or [obtains residency] to live with her daughter who is an Egyptian national, the source said.

Daoud had presented "Al-Soura Al-Kamila" ("The Full Picture"), an interview-based show on ONTV that focused on political issues, for the past five years. The show came to an end after the channel was sold in May by Egyptian businessman Naguib Sawiris to another businessman close to the current regime.

In statements to the media May 15 regarding his reasons for selling ONTV, Sawiris said that the channel was the cause of multiple headaches for him. He said that after the government and political forces became angered with the station, the solution was to sell.

An official at ONTV who wished to remain anonymous told Al-Monitor that the decision to stop broadcasting Daouds show and the termination of her contact, which was supposed to continue until the end of the year, came as the result of editorial policy and conditions that the new ownership tried to impose on her. She was said to have rejected this, with the contract ending in an amicable manner.

But Amer Tamam, the programs editor-in-chief, told Reuters on June 27 after Daoud was deported, This is a campaign against respectable media and free journalism.  All we were doing was presenting a respectable show that respected the minds of the viewers and upheld ethics and professional values.

In an interview with Deutsche Welle on June 29, Daoud said, I am committed to objectivity and neutrality in my program. Neutrality requires a commitment to showing different points of view, even if in opposition [to views of the government]. This is what upset the regime  they want me to be a copy of the [state-run] media, and this is something I rejected.

A foreigners right to live in another country can be revoked by the state to maintain its security, and this is what gives the state the right to deport a person before the expiry of their residency permit, said Ayman Salama, a professor of international law and a member of the Egyptian Council of Foreign Affairs. Speaking to Al-Monitor, he added, Deportation procedures are taken against a foreigner who has entered state territory illegally  for example if they are not carrying a passport, do not have an entry visa or their residency is invalid due to not obtaining the proper authorization or failing to renew it. He said that, in his view, this is likely the case with Daoud.

Salama said that while a foreigner who enters legally and is authorized to reside in the country can be deported if they become a threat to national security, he ruled out this scenario in Daouds case. He added that there are states that do not require a judicial ruling or decision to deport someone, but such matters are regulated by the executive authorities.

He said that Daoud had violated Article 16 of Law No. 88 of 2005, which requires any foreign national whose residency permit has expired to leave the country.

Al-Monitor spoke with Daouds lawyer, Ziyad al-Alimi, about the matter. We are gathering all the documents that prove [Daoud] is the custodian of her daughter. We will submit a new request for a residency permit to the passport and immigration authority, given that she is the caregiver of her 11-year-old daughter. If the residency request is denied, he added, We will take all legal proceedings [to appeal] and file a case in the coming days.

Regarding the manner in which she was detained, Alimi said, This is the first time such an incident has occurred in this manner in Egypt. He called on the Ministry of Interior to declare the reasons for her deportation, so that they can take the appropriate legal path, describing the security services manner of dealing with the matter as thuggish.

Mustafa Kamel, a political science professor at the American University in Cairo, told Al-Monitor that Daouds deportation will impact Egypts image abroad, especially since the governments image when it comes to freedoms and human rights is already blemished. He added that what happened comes within the framework of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisis so-called national alignment, whereby everyone should support his regime. In this context, Kamel described the expulsion as disgraceful.
On March 23 I went to Grand Cayman, we visited the turtle farm, Grand Cayman and seven miles beach.

First I went to the Grand Cayman Turtle farm to see Turtles habitat. I saw two pools one pool had baby turtles in it the other pool had the adult turtles. I went into a pool I tried to hold a turtle but I was scared of holding it. After I went to the crocodile exhibit there was a saltwater crocodile resting on the grass. The turtle nursery has about 2000 turtles there and lays about 1000 eggs for baby sea turtles to hatch and go into the pool. The nursery took some sea turtles from the Atlantic Ocean and was raised in the Grand Cayman turtle farm. The Grand Cayman turtle farm was built in 1968.

Next I went to the dolphin discovery centre and saw an instructor train the dolphin, and the dolphin splashed water on the people. You have 5 choices one is where you kiss the dolphin on the lips, the other is playing with the dolphin. I saw some people swim with two dolphins and you can get a photo with the two dolphins. The dolphin surfed on water somehow it was cool.

After that I went to the seven mile beach to walk around and see the view of the ocean, I also went snorkeling. We took some pictures and went back to our cruise ship.

I had a fun time during visiting Grand Cayman, It is a pretty place.

The history paragraph is copied from another website.

History of the Grand Cayman turtle farm:

In 1968-1978 they collected green sea turtles from Ascension Island, Costa Rica, Guyana and Suriname approximately 477,644 eggs were collected from the herd of turtles.

In 1973 mating and hatching in captivity was achieved.

In 1975 A turtle hatches at the Farm, is reared to sexual maturity and is able to mate and nest with a hatch rate of 33 percent.

In 1980 The Farm introduces a small group of yearling and hatchling Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtles - to establish a captive breeding colony of this endangered species and to obtain further biological data on this species in a controlled environment.

In 1983 The Turtle Farm reaches another operational milestone when the Cayman Islands Government purchases it from its previous owners and is incorporated as Cayman Turtle Farm Ltd.
July 3, 2016

US, Russia should give Jabhat al-Nusra no quarter

The Obama administration is considering a plan to coordinate airstrikes with Russia against Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaedas affiliate in Syria, in return for Russias commitment to pressure the Syrian government to end its airstrikes against civilians and US-backed moderate armed groups operating in Syria.

This column wrote in May that the United States should take up the Russian offer to coordinate airstrikes and put Moscow to the test on its and the Syrian governments targeting decisions.

The announcement of US-Russian negotiations comes a little more than a week after the leaking of a dissent cable by State Department diplomats calling for an escalation of US military involvement in the war by undertaking airstrikes against the Syrian military.

The Obama administration, in our view, has rightly kept the focus on trying to end the war and defeat terrorist groups, rather than follow the escalatory and misguided course of action recommended in the cable.

What we find perplexing is resistance in some quarters to US-Russia coordination, despite numerous UN resolutions calling for international cooperation against al-Qaeda and its affiliates, including and especially Jabhat al-Nusra, and recent warnings that al-Qaeda may declare an emirate in northern Syria. A Washington Post editorial cites several experts on Syria as making the case that US-Russia coordination would be a bad deal because Jabhat al-Nusra forces are intermixed with other rebel units and an assault on them could have the effect of allowing the Assad regime to achieve what it says is its foremost objective, the recapture of Aleppo, tipping the balance of the civil war in its favor. The anti-Assad rebels backed by the West could be decisively undermined, even if Russia and the Syrian regime respected the no-bombing zones  which, given the history of past agreements, is a most unlikely prospect.

There is absolutely a place for pressure on Assad, and we agree in putting Moscow to the test on whether it can deliver. But there is no place, ever, for giving al-Qaeda, its affiliates and its partners a pass. We should know how this ends by now. Our view is that those groups that ally with Jabhat al-Nusra are making their choice, and its the wrong choice, and it should have consequences, given the many UN Security Council resolutions sanctioning any cooperation with al-Qaeda, as well as al-Qaedas well-known record of uncompromising hatred and terrorism, which, we would have thought, would be well known to most "experts" on Syria.

Turkeys failure of intelligence on IS

Turkey suffered a horrific terrorist bombing at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport on June 28 that killed 44 people and injured more than 200. CNN reports that the bombers have been identified as foreign fighters linked to the Islamic State (IS) in Syria.

This was the seventh terrorist attack linked to IS in Turkey. Turkeys recent increased detention and arrest of terrorists on its Syrian border, the result of domestic and international pressure, may be stoking IS ire. Fehim Tastekin observes that the measures Turkey is taking against IS  even though they are at times hypocritical and for show only  are enough for IS to terrorize Turkey with suicide attacks.

Cengiz Candar provides further context. For a few years now, Turkey has been the jihadi highway, and its porous long frontier with Syria has been an easy passage for all sorts of Salafi opposition groups under the support of Ankara, Riyadh and Qatar, including al-Qaedas Syrian branch Jabhat al-Nusra and IS participants. It is an open secret that IS has many sleeper cells in Turkey. Under the favorable umbrella of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) for all sorts of Islamist activities, IS found an affectionate bosom to entrench, expand and stay relatively safe within the territory of Turkey. The Turkish security agencies tasked with supporting anti-Bashar al-Assad Salafi opposition groups consequently established contacts with many Salafists, most of them residing in the refugee camps along the border or in the Turkish border towns. Thus, they accumulated a lot of precious information about who is who in the jihadi highway.

Why then is there an intelligence lapse? Candar asks. It is mainly because of the laxity of the AKP political rule in the assessment of terrorism. For a long time, Turkish authorities refrained from affixing the label of terrorist to IS, but it easily stuck the label on the Syrian Kurdish groups fighting the Turkish government.

While the IS attacks are blowback for Turkeys role in Syria, the mainstream Turkish press hawking the government line has sought to link the attack to those opposed to Ankaras making amends with Russia and Turkey.

Erdogan sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 27 seeking to bury the hatchet over Turkeys shooting down of a Russian fighter jet on Nov. 24, 2015. Putin and Erdogan spoke by phone soon after the terrorist attack at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport the following day. Maxim Suchkov writes, The most common explanation among one group of Russian experts and decision-makers was that Erdogans move was driven by Russias economic blow to Turkey, as well as that Ankaras relations with Europe arent working out the way he planned. Syria and the Kurds remain a prime headache, while the Turkish president simply has no chemistry with Washington. Moreover, in recent years Turkey has wasted some of the vast soft-power resources it had without obvious gains for itself. These arguments, often voiced in Moscow, created a perception that Erdogan was cornered. The common perception is: It took Erdogan a long time to understand his own situation and now its up to Putin to pardon him.

Erdogan also restored ties with Israel. Metin Gurcan writes that "pressure from the Turkish armed forces forced Ankara to restore ties with Israel, and that Turkey urgently need to compensate for its disturbing isolation in the region.

Ben Caspit reports from Israel that Israel-Turkey ties will never reach the level of partners or strategic allies, as was once the aspiration. What we should expect is an ad hoc partnership based on common interests, shared suspicions and the kind of bargaining that one would expect to find in the Turkish bazaar. Israel and Turkey are equally worried about Iranian influence in Syria. They both share the same concerns regarding an Iranian Shiite state pressed up against the border fence on the Golan Heights and Idlib. Having many fronts and challenges to deal with, Erdogan had to cut his losses and reduce the number of unnecessary fronts. The one he opened against Israel was the most superfluous of all. And so, he climbed down from his tree, taking with him his demand that Israel lift its naval blockade of Gaza. That being said, he did receive a candy in return, with the possibility of sending goods to the Gaza Strip through the Israeli port in Ashdod, and of developing projects in Gaza. This is a win-win situation, at least as far as Israel is concerned. These kinds of projects would make life easier for Hamas and reduce the overall pressure in Gaza. This, in turn, could postpone the next Hamas-Israel round of fighting.

We wrote here in October 2014 about Erdogans slow turnaround on foreign fighters in Syria as a result of domestic and international pressure. Although we did not expect it would be this slow, the turnaround now seems to be taking form, the result of Turkeys failed Syria policies and blowback from its deliberate ambiguity in dealing with terrorist and affiliated groups crossing into Syria. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov expressed his hope for increased Russian-Turkish counterterrorism cooperation after meeting with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in Moscow on July 1.

Mustafa Akyol suggests that the Istanbul attack should force Turkey to resume peace talks with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and intensify its efforts against IS. While you can negotiate with the PKK, as we have seen, you possibly cannot negotiate with IS. And if we Turks had any delusion of seeing IS as somehow less dangerous than the PKK, then we must have been woken by the ferocious attack on the Ataturk airport, Akyol writes.

Hamas resumes ties with Iran

In a related trend, Hazem Balousha reports from Gaza that Hamas is resuming its ties with Iran, which have frayed since 2011 over Syria.

After right-wing hawk Avigdor Libermans appointment to the head of Israels Ministry of Defense and the rise of rhetoric about the possibility of waging a new war against Gaza, Hamas military wing, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, found itself in desperate need for financial and military support, while its political wing sought public and explicit political backing, Balousha writes.

He adds, Hamas tried to postpone the resumption of relations with Iran after the toppling of some Arab leaders and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. But the fall of the Brotherhood and the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi in 2013 made Hamas, which is a Brotherhood branch in Palestine, more open to resuming its relations with Iran."

A senior Hamas leader told Balousha, "The Arab world is undergoing a redrawing of its political map. The Syrian regime is achieving success on the ground against its opponents, Saudi Arabia is preoccupied with its war in Yemen and Turkey is restoring relations with Israel. As a result, Hamas fears a continuation of its isolation due to regional developments. It is thus consciously resuming its rapprochement with Iran out of its leaderships full conviction that doing so was the best option to safeguard its strength militarily and politically.
July 1, 2016

Over the past 10 years, Syrian drama series have been very popular in the Arab world and have even taken the lead among Arab series, Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi said during a meeting with South American actress Carla Ortiz May 20 in Damascus.

Syrian series have been getting high ratings on Arab channels, especially those that address Damascus and Syrian history, such as the series Bab al-Hara, which started in 2006 and is in its eight season. Although Syrians have widely criticized the series and said it distorts Syrian history, the series continues to be the most popular in the Arab world.

When the Syrian revolution broke out in March 2011, several Syrian actors, as well as other people from all social categories  such as doctors, artists and even the unemployed  rushed to join the revolution. As a result, several actors were arrested, while others were forbidden from acting. For its part, the Syrian Artists Syndicate, which is affiliated with the Syrian regime, dismissed hundreds of artists who denounced and opposed the practices of the regime.

Syrian actress Sawsan Arsheed told Al-Monitor via Skype from Paris, The regime labeled us as opponents just because we supported calls for freedom and equality. I do not have any political orientation, but I act in accordance with the principles of humanity and justice. We know that the people expect us to say what is right about the arrests and killing of the people. We were labeled as traitors and enemies of the country. We faced incitement campaigns and we lost our presence in our own country just because we uttered the right word facing the regime. Our loss, however, is nothing compared to the Syrians who lost their lives and their children.

Arsheed went on to talk about the Syrian drama reality. The Syrian drama is now governed by so many red lines that serve the regime, and it only has a very small margin of freedom. It is dealing with what is happening in the country based on the regimes version. It covers vague stories that reflect the denial or partial recognition of the other party, knowing that such vagueness only results from security dictates. I cannot work under the authority of the regime because the latter would be dictating my words.

Arsheed concluded her interview with Al-Monitor by saying that she hopes to participate in films that truly depict what is happening in Syria. The tragedy plaguing the country is too big to be filmed in any series.

There have been dozens of various Syrian series either produced in Syria or in Arab countries that have led to diverse perceptions of what is happening in Syria.

Syrian actor and theatrical director Maher Sleibi told Al-Monitor from the United Arab Emirates via Skype, There are two types of drama. The first, which is very rare, is produced outside of Syria and has tried to be neutral for marketing purposes. Some cadres who left the country tried to work on portraying what is happening in Syria, but most of these works do not sell. The other type of drama is produced inside Syria based on the whims of the Syrian regime, which wanted to show that life is normal and sought the production of love stories, sexual relationships and college life away from Syria's pain.

Sleibi confirmed the good quality of the Syrian artistic cadres who have achieved significant works over the past years.

He added, Some of these cadres are still working in Syria, while others left Syria and went to [other parts of] the Arab world. Some artists are trying to find their place in the field, sometimes at the expense or their ideology or position as they cannot return to their homeland due to their political views.

Sleibi said that as soon as the Syrian tragedy is over, the Syrian issue will be of great significance and a lot of stories and scenarios will be focusing on Syrian daily life and will be stronger as a result of the experience that Syria went through.

Syrian soap operas produced in Syria have been mostly pro-regime as they were filmed under the Syrian security apparatus control. These have distorted the image of the opposition, written off moderate opposition and shown that those against the regime are armed people and radical Islamists. According to these soap operas, what is taking place in the country falls under the category of sabotage, and this is a message that has been conveyed to supporters of the Bashar al-Assad regime.

Syrian director Abdulrahman Dandashi, who works in foreign production companies, told Al-Monitor in Istanbul, The Syrian drama is no longer governed by any party. It is only working to widen the gap between the parties to the conflict as it denies the reality and offers extreme examples of both sides of the conflict. The Syrian drama has evolved in terms of quality due to the use of modern cameras and equipment, but as far as the artistic quality is concerned, there has been a decline due to the superficial approach of topics. Before the revolution, Syrian drama was more mature as it would deal with subjects close to reality, but following the revolution, it became poorer as it headed toward the marketing of a clear pro-regime political vision. A large number of artists left the country, thus creating an artistic loophole that was filled by people who do not have enough experience.

The Syrian revolution has affected all aspects of political, social and artistic life, and this has been reflected on television screens in a systematic framework showing certain orientations of the Syrian regime. The Syrian opposition has no formal artistic work that can broadcast its ideology and goals or promote it in the media.
July 1, 2016

Over the past year, 12 large bomb attacks, the last at Istanbuls main airport June 28, have rattled Turkey, claiming close to 300 lives and leaving some 1,500 people wounded. The one-year timespan is not chosen casually here as the unprecedented wave of bloodshed started after the June 7, 2015, election in which the Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since coming to power in 2002. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan argued at the time that a coalition government would mean instability, and, through various machinations, blocked any such prospect, forcing new elections on Nov. 1. The tactic worked. The AKP restored its majority and returned to power alone. Yet, far from receding, the spiral of violence has only intensified since then.

The bloodiest attacks have been blamed on or claimed by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Islamic State (IS). Meanwhile, another terrorist organization has been omnipresent in government rhetoric  the followers of US-based Turkish preacher Fethullah Gulen. Ankaras history with these three groups is crucial for understanding Turkeys current security turmoil.

Here is a brief overview:

Up until spring last year, the government was engaged in a settlement process with the PKK. The initiative attracted much criticism  not only because Ankara was negotiating with a group it designated as a terrorist organization, but also because of the shroud of secrecy that cloaked the issues under discussion. The main opposition, for instance, argued the Kurdish conflict should be resolved on a parliamentary platform to ensure a broad-based consensus on the countrys gravest problem. The AKP dismissed the objections, portraying critics as political vampires who opposed peace and sought to feed off the conflict.

After the talks collapsed, Erdogan himself admitted that governors in the southeast had been instructed to tolerate the PKKs illegal activities and the militants exploited the lull to smuggle weapons into Turkey. It turned out that military commanders in the region had sought permission for security operations at least 290 times in 2014 alone, but the requests were granted only on eight occasions. As a result, the PKK was able to stockpile weapons and explosives in urban areas, which it has been using amply since the conflict resumed in July 2015.

The AKP government jumped headlong into Middle Eastern politics and took sides in internal conflicts, ignoring warnings that this was a dangerous departure from Turkeys long-established policy of caution in the region. Since Syrian President Bashar al-Assad turned from a friend to an enemy overnight, Turkey has faced myriad accusations such as providing passage for jihadis and supplying weapons to radical groups in Syria. The AKPs domestic critics were this time accused of supporting Assad, the murderer. The government seemed little perturbed as ample signs emerged of IS-linked networks and recruitment in Turkey. Even an open gathering of IS sympathizers in Istanbul last summer failed to spur the government into serious action.

Turks became acquainted with "parallel terrorists" after a massive corruption probe rattled the government in December 2013. According to the AKP, the police and prosecutors involved in the probe belonged to a parallel state set up by the Gulen community, which was now seeking to topple the government. This marked the end of the AKPs 11-year alliance with the community, which faced a fierce onslaught in every realm of public life and landed on the list of terrorist groups. The Gulenists entrenchment in the state had long been an issue of controversy in Turkey, but the AKP again claimed ignorance. Erdogan keeps pledging the parallel state will be fully dismantled, but many warn that the purge in the police, which has been particularly ferocious, has swept away also years of institutional experience in countering terrorist groups.

Despite all this background, the AKP takes no responsibility for the consequences of its actions and, moreover, tries to blame the opposition. Following the June 28 carnage at Istanbuls Ataturk Airport, for instance, AKP deputy Mehmet Metiner rushed to blame the PKK, which he described as the friends of main opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu. Not only did he face no reprimand, he appeared on the parliaments rostrum the following day to speak on behalf of the AKP.

Without any self-criticism, the AKP simply vows to crush the enemies  the very groups it befriended or tolerated yesterday  as the price Turkey pays continues to rise.

The list of terrorist attacks since June 2015 starts with the bombing of a pre-election rally in Diyarbakir on June 5, which claimed five lives. IS was held responsible for the attack, as were the following bombings thereafter (the first two in 2015 and the remainder in 2016):

July 20: 34 killed and 100 injured in Suruc.

Oct. 10: 103 killed and 500 injured near the main train station in Ankara.

Jan. 12: 13 German tourists killed and 14 others injured in Istanbuls historic district of Sultanahmet.

March 19: Four foreign tourists killed and 39 others injured in Taksim, the heart of Istanbul.

May 1: Three policemen killed and 23 others injured outside the police headquarters in Gaziantep.

June 28: At least 44 killed and 250 injured at Istanbuls Ataturk Airport.

Kurdish militants, meanwhile, have been responsible for the following blasts in 2016:

Feb. 17: 29 army personnel killed and 60 injured outside a military garrison in central Ankara.

March 13: 37 killed and 125 injured at a busy transport hub in downtown Ankara.

April 27: 13 injured at an ancient mosque in Bursa.

May 12: 16 killed in Durumlu in Diyarbakir.

June 7: 12 people, including five policemen, killed and 36 injured in Istanbuls Vezneciler district.

Here, it is worth recalling how Erdogan berated US President Barack Obama after three young Muslims were shot dead in North Carolina last year. Im calling on Mr. Obama, asking 'Where are you, president?' We, politicians, are responsible for the murders that take place in our countries, he said. We have to take a stance because when people vote for you they entrust you their security.

But what about Turkish officials? Has anyone taken political responsibility for any of the bloodshed? No. After the airport attack, for instance, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim was quick to rule out any security lapse.

So the terrorist attacks in Turkey claim innocent lives, but never the armchairs of government and security officials. Interior Minister Efkan Ala has removed no one from office so far, while resignations are something unheard of. And with the Turkish media largely muzzled, a meaningful public debate to exact accountability is virtually nonexistent. In this area, the government has outdone itself. Media blackouts and restrictions on social media have become a routine in the aftermath of bombings, so much so that some have been in place even before the injured could be taken to hospital.

Another AKP hallmark in this context is the constant blaming of opposition parties, which keeps society polarized and distracts attention from the real issues. This tactic may have worked in removing pressure off the government, but contributes nothing to reining in the violence as what went wrong is never really debated.

Al-Monitor contacted three former interior ministers for comment, and their reactions came as further evidence of how much free debate is suppressed. Two of them declined to comment out of hand, while the third one, who spoke on condition of anonymity, pointed only to the merits of resignation as a means to allay the public and motivate successors to work more diligently.
July 1, 2016

Left-wing darling Elizabeth Warren made her first appearance with Hillary Clinton on the presidential campaign trail this week, and her stock as a potential vice presidential pick immediately ticked up.

Speaking in Cincinnati, Ohio  a state hard hit by Americas manufacturing crisis  the senator from Massachusetts ferociously tore into Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. She called him a small, insecure money-grubber who fights for no one but himself, drawing Trumps fury on Twitter while effectively neutralizing some of his effectiveness as the populist candidate standing up for the little guy.

Warrens emergence as Trumps chief public antagonist is but another example of how both parties are adopting an anti-establishment tone to reach increasingly bitter and angry voters. Following British voters decision to leave the European Union last week, Trump this week doubled down on his criticism of US free trade deals, even going to war with the reliably pro-Republican Chamber of Commerce.

Speaking in western Pennsylvania on June 28, Trump vowed to rip up international trade deals and start an unrelenting offensive against Chinese economic practices, framing his contest with Clinton as a choice between hard-edge nationalism and the policies of a leadership class that worships globalism. He attacked Clinton for flip-flopping on her past support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact negotiated by the Obama administration, and challenged her to pledge that she would void the agreement in its entirety.

Clinton had backed free trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Ageement with Canada and Mexico in the past. That prompted Trump to warn, She will betray you again. You will be hurt worse than ever before if she becomes president of the United States.

The Clinton campaign struck back at Trump, attacking his credibility as a critic of free trade and outsourcing on a conference call on the afternoon of June 28. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a liberal Democrat, accused Trump of hypocrisy for taking a hard line on trade while doing business himself in other countries.

With all of his personal experience profiting from making products overseas, Trump is the perfect expert to talk about outsourcing, Brown said, reciting what he said was a list of Trump-branded products, from suits to picture frames, made in other countries. We know just in my state alone where Donald Trump could have gone to make these things, he added.

The latest RealClearPolitics polling average shows Clinton retains the lead over Trump, 44.6% to 39.8%, four months before the election. Clinton is desperate for a running mate who can help her seal the deal. (This column looked at Trumps potential veep picks last month.)

Neither presumptive nominee has wrapped up universal support within his or her own party.

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll this week found that just 45% of Republican voters are satisfied with Trump, while 52% would have preferred someone else. The numbers are reversed for Democratic voters and Clinton.

Clinton, a former senator from New York, tried to placate those critics by taking her campaign to Capitol Hill two weeks ago. While the majority of House Democrats supported her during the primary, a handful backed her rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (who has yet to concede) and are working to make sure their liberal ideas  including a significant increase in the minimum wage  will be embraced by the party.

If you made history once, why not do it twice? Already the first presumptive female nominee of a major party, Clinton is widely reported to be vetting Warren for the No. 2 spot.

Warren would not be the first woman picked as a vice presidential nominee: Democrat Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and Republican Sarah Palin in 2008 have already secured that honor for each major party. But a winning Clinton-Warren ticket would make Warren the first female vice president of the United States. After 240 years, the United States would have women filling the top two jobs in the executive branch.

After Clinton struggled with her victory over Sanders, she needs help winning over the progressives in the Democratic Party. And Warren, a former commercial law professor, has long been a rock star among the partys left-wing activists.

Another role of vice presidential nominees is to unleash scathing political attacks on the rival ticket  a role Warren also has down pat, as evidenced by her speech in Cincinnati. She has emerged as the most effective, sarcastic and mocking Democratic critic of Trump's character and business record.

Whether Clinton would ever accept a potential rival with a fiercely loyal following into the White House is an open question, however. Brown, the equally left-leaning senator from the crucial swing state of Ohio, has also been mentioned as a possibility.

One top Democrat who helped spearhead the Capitol Hill meeting was California congressman Xavier Becerra. His name has been mentioned numerous times as a potential vice presidential pick for Clinton.

Becerra was born and raised in Sacramento and worked on the Capitol staff before getting elected to the state Assembly. He has served for 23 years in his Los Angeles-area House seat and is fourth in the House Democratic leadership, the chair of the House Democratic Caucus and the partys highest-ranking Latino.

Choosing Becerra  or former San Antonio mayor and current Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro  makes sense considering the US electorate this year will be the countrys most racially and ethnically diverse ever. Nearly one in three eligible voters on Election Day (31%) will be Hispanic, black, Asian or another racial or ethnic minority, up from 29% in 2012. Much of this change is due to strong growth among Hispanic eligible voters, in particular US-born young people.

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine is another politician whose name has been floating around for some time. Some think Clinton will pick a safe, relatively boring, dependable running mate  someone who is qualified to be president and ready to go from day one without any need for hand-holding. The former governor of Virginia fits that description to a T as someone who is at once media-savvy, knowledgeable, respected, experienced and unlikely to generate much personal or professional controversy.

Selecting Kaine would free Clinton to focus on fighting Trump with the least amount of hassle from her running mate. And if she loses, Kaine is already being talked about as an early favorite for 2020.
Elie Wiesel in mirror at BSC 2007 Stelter.jpg

Elie Wiesel last visited Birmingham-Southern College in 2007.

(The Birmingham News/Linda Stelter)

Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, during his last visit to Birmingham-Southern College on Nov. 28, 2007, got a tough question from the audience.

A 15-year-old, Forest Bonner of Huntsville, stepped forward after his speech during the question-and-answer session.

''I am a daughter of a colonel in Iraq,'' she said. She asked the Holocaust survivor for advice on dealing with her situation.

''I cannot lie to you,'' Wiesel said. ''I can only hope it will end soon.''

He wished that friends would comfort her. ''I hope you have friends here,'' he said. ''If you don't, I will be your friend. The worst feeling a person can feel is abandonment.''

A tearful Bonner, after expressing concern for the safety of her father, Jeff Bonner, then was approached and hugged by several friends.

Wiesel, then 80, was a teenager himself when he was imprisoned in World War II concentration camps Auschwitz and Buchenwald. He tried to offer hope and encouragement during his appearance as part of the Alex P. Stirling Lecture Series, sponsored annually by the Birmingham-Southern College Student Government Association.

''A child is not born to hate,'' he said. ''He has to learn to hate. Which means he can unlearn hate.''

Wiesel died on July 2. He was 87.

Elie Wiesel reflects during an interview with a Birmingham News reporter in 2007 on his last visit to Birmingham-Southern College.

On that Wednesday night in 2007, high school students including Bonner arrived by bus from around the state, joining students from the college in a crowd of about 800 at the Norton Student Center.

''Suffering confers no privileges,'' Wiesel said. ''If you use it to spread suffering, then you betray your own. Suffering itself may have a redemptive purpose.''

He said indifference must be fought as much as hatred. ''If someone is suffering and I don't respond, what kind of humanity do I have?'' Wiesel said. ''The opposite of love is not hatred, but indifference. The opposite of education is not ignorance, but indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, but indifference. The opposite of life is not death, but indifference.''

Wiesel had previously spoken at Birmingham-Southern College in 1987, the year after he won the Nobel Peace Prize.

He said his first journey through the South came in 1956 as a journalist writing for French and Israeli newspapers. Then, he was shocked by enforced racial segregation. Now he's pleased with the progress made against racism in the South, he said in an interview before the lecture.

But hatred never dies, he said. He's worried about Holocaust denial by Iran's leaders and their pursuit of nuclear weapons.

''I'm worried about fanaticism in general,'' he said. ''I'm concerned about suffering and indifference.''

Wiesel said on his 2007 visit he was encouraged by the American-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis, Md., with Israeli and Palestinian leaders working toward a peace treaty.

''If both sides are simply tired of war, all things are possible,'' he said. ''They are very tired. The danger is much too dangerous. I really believe Israel wants peace, the people and the government."

Wiesel, who said he grew up a very religious Hasidic Jew, said he struggles with faith in God because of his experiences during the Holocaust. He said he still had vivid nightmares of the camps.

''I still don't understand - where was God?'' he said.

He addressed that issue in his best-selling book, ''Night,'' the most famous of dozens of books he's written. ''I never really lost my faith,'' he said. ''Whatever I wrote about my doubts in 'Night,' on the next page I went on to pray.''

He wrestles with questions of belief and the evil he saw. ''I have a faith that is wounded; it's not healed; it is a faith that has doubts,'' he said. ''All the questions I had then are still open. If not, it would be a blind faith.''
More arrests could be made in the May shooting death of a man found lying next to his car in Ensley, a Birmingham homicide detective told a judge during last week's hearing for the only person charged so far in the case.

Birmingham Police Homicide Detective Joylyn Craig testified at the preliminary hearing for Shantea Rasha Blevins.

Martez Santoine Taylor's body was found by police lying next to the open driver's door of his orange and blue Oldsmobile Cutlass in the 2900 block of 31st Street in Ensley after a 911 call was made at 1:49 a.m. on May 4, Craig testified at Thursday's hearing.

Blevins, 30, of Fairfield, was arrested in June and charged with capital murder (murder during the course of a robbery) in the May 4 slaying of the 31-year-old Taylor. She is being held without bond in the Jefferson County Jail.

Taylor died of a single gunshot wound to his back, Craig testified. It was not a long-range shot, she said.

At the end of a more than two-and-a-half-hour hearing Jefferson County Circuit Judge Teresa Pulliam said she found sufficient evidence for the charge against Blevins and forwarded the case for review by a grand jury.

Craig testified a cousin at Taylor's home identified Blevins from a photo line up as the woman who had left with Taylor about midnight. The cousin reported couple might have had a "little spat" before they left, she said.

Another cousin reported seeing Taylor, who was sitting in his car, about 12:30 a.m. at a store on Third Avenue West, Craig said. That cousin told police that he told Taylor he shouldn't be flashing a lot of money, the detective said.

Video surveillance inside and outside of the store show Taylor and Blevins in the story and Taylor talking to his cousin, Craig said.

Martez Taylor

A man and woman also reported they were standing on the porch of a house in the 2900 block of 31st Street Ensley about 1 a.m. when they saw an orange and blue car circling the block, Craig said. The man also reported seeing what appeared to be a black car following with three or four females inside, she said.

After the final time the orange and blue car circled the man reported hearing a gunshot, but didn't witness anyone exit the car, Craig said. But he reported seeing the black car again and drive into a nearby bank parking lot, she said.

"He (the witness) heard a female voice say 'we've got to get out of here," Craig testified under questioning by Deputy Jefferson County District Attorney Jerome Dees.

In the days after the slaying detectives tried to track Blevins down, talking to her sisters and mother, Craig said. Then on May 11 detectives unexpectedly got a call from Blevins, she.

Blevins met with detectives and admitted she had been with Taylor that night, Craig said. Blevins said they had bought drugs and were drinking, the detective said.

After leaving the store, Blevins reported Taylor commented that someone was following them, Craig said. Blevins said when they stopped along 31st Street two armed men dressed in black got out and approached Taylor's car from both sides.

Blevins reported one of the men put a gun to her head, took her purse and ID, and told her to leave. "She said I run for my life," and didn't report hearing a gunshot, Craig testified.

Blevins said she ran to a nearby motel.

Blevins does own a black vehicle, but she told police it was being repaired, Craig testified.

But then Blevins changed her story, saying she knew one of the men. Police couldn't locate anyone with that name and description, Craig testified. Blevins then named another man and police let her go.

On May 16 while checking whether the motel near the shooting scene had video surveillance from that night, the manager runs in and tells detectives Blevins is outside in a car in the parking lot, Craig said.

Detectives saw pill bottles with the labels torn off and marijuana inside the car.

That same day Blevins changed her story again about what happened and pointed to a different man (third man) as the shooter and robber, Craig said. Blevins also stated that the gun was a .38-caliber revolver and there were no shell casing, despite having said she didn't actually see the shooting, the detective said.

Blevins was arrested June 1 and charged with possession of a controlled substance and possession of marijuana.

After Blevins' arrest, Craig said Blevins asked her to come to the jail to have another talk. Blevins changed her story again - the sixth different story - and named a fourth man as the robber and shooter.

That fourth man told police he didn't know Blevins before he picked her as she walked along the side of the road and gave her a ride, Craig said. The man says he was headed to Hong Kong Seafood when he saw Blevins, the detective said.

One of Blevins' attorneys, Jim Parkman, asked Craig if they ever identified who was in the black car following Blevins and Taylor. She said detectives had not and that there was no video surveillance from the bank parking lot.

Craig also said during questioning by Parkman that police don't have any information that places a .38 caliber pistol or any pistol in Blevins' hands that night.

Clayton Tartt and William White also represent Blevins.

Craig, under questioning by Dees, said that the investigation isn't finished. Potentially others could face charges related to Taylor's death, including the fourth man Blevins' named. Detectives are still trying to verify his story, she said.
A South Carolina father turned his son into police after a bank robbery last week, WSPA reported.

Nicholas Clay Gregory's father called police after he said that his son robbed the United Community Bank in Greenville on Thursday.

The local TV station said that Gregory went inside the bank and handed the bank teller a note demanding money. He then escaped with an undisclosed amount of cash.

It was not clear if Gregory was armed at the time of the robbery.

The suspect turned himself into police after his father gave authorities the tip.
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker is no longer denying that he is in the running for the position of vice president.

The senator, who once said that he was not being vetted for Democratic presumptive presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's running mate, said today on CNN that he is referring all questions about the VP spot to the Clinton campaign.

"I'm just referring questions about the vice presidency to the woman who is going to have to make this decision," he said.

He said in the last few weeks that it was flattering to be mentioned, but that he was not being considered.

However, some Democrats may not support Booker for Clinton's running mate- the senator serves in a state with a Republican governor, meaning that Gov. Chris Christie would most likely choose a Republican for Booker's Senate seat if he went to the White House.

According to CNN, other rumored choices for the former Secretary of State's VP are Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Sherrod Brown, Sen. Tim Kaine, and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The U.S.S. Massachusetts was the worst battleship ever made.

That has a lot to do with why it has spent the last 95 years rusting on the seafloor just outside the mouth of Pensacola Bay.

Today, the ship is an Underwater Archaeological Preserve managed by the state of Florida. The rusting hulk is considered the oldest battleship still in existence. Scuba diving among the fish swarming over the steam-era wreck provides a portal to another time, when the nation's fledgling Navy was first beginning to flex its muscles.

Knowing a little of the history of this particular ship, a failure of almost comical proportions, it seems something of a miracle that the U.S. became the world's dominant naval power.

Designated BB-2 in 1896 because it was the second "modern" battleship made for the U.S. Navy, the Massachusetts was so poorly designed that it was considered obsolete and retired from the fleet just five years after it was launched.

Two sister ships, the Indiana and the Oregon - BB-1 and BB-3 respectively, suffered the same flaws and the same early retirement in 1901, though all three were ultimately re-commissioned after extensive repairs and put back into service in the run up to World War I.

Launched to great fanfare in 1893 - 15,000 people turned out to see the 350-foot-long Massachusetts slide from the dry docks into the water - the boats were an immediate flop.

These were state of the art weapons of war in 1896, the largest guns ever put to sea. Each gun weighed 136,000 pounds, and shot projectiles that weighed 1,130 pounds. (Courtesy U.S. Navy)

Chief among the flaws on the Massachusetts was this: if you turned both of the giant 13-inch gun turrets to shoot at an enemy on one side of the boat, the weight of the gun barrels caused the entire ship to list so severely to that side that much of the deck and many of the other guns on board would go underwater. It's worth noting that the four 13-inch guns together weighed 544,000 pounds.

Some naval historians have characterized the problem as "attempting too much," on boats that simply weren't large enough to support the incredible number of guns they were outfitted with. But really, the ships' failures began with a political compromise.

Confronted with a request from the Secretary of the Navy in 1890 for funding to build a fleet of 35 large and medium-sized battleships at a cost of nearly $300 million (about $6 billion in today's money), Congress balked. Some members thought the price tag too high, while others felt such a fleet was designed to transform the U.S. into an imperial power, rather than simply defend its interests. In the end, the politicians agreed to fund three ships costing $4 million each, with plans to build nine more in the future. That $12 million investment would amount to about $240 million today.

A panel of officials, not engineers, played a large role in the design of the ships and determined what sort of armor and weaponry they would have, without any apparent consideration for the seaworthiness of the resulting crafts. From the moment the boats first hit the water, it was clear the panel had designed three comically terrible ships.

In photos from the 1890s, the ships look every bit like they were imagined at the height of the Victorian Era, that golden age of mechanization. Festooned with dozens of guns poking from the superstructure in every direction, it appeared the idea was to make up for the missing 32 battleships from the Navy request by putting as many guns as possible on these boats.

A Philadelphia newspaper reporting on the launch detailed the full armament on the Massachusetts: "Between the turrets for the 13-inch guns there is a superstructure, in which are placed the six-inch guns; and above, or upon the deck erected thereon, are placed the 8-inch guns. A battery of six pounders is arranged along the top of the hammock berthing and bridge. One pounders are placed two forward and two aft, one on either side on the berth deck. In the tops of the double topped military mast are placed four Gatling guns, two in each top. There are also six torpedo tubes, one bow, one stern, and four broadside, two on either side, just abaft and forward of the forward and after barbettes respectively."

For some perspective on the incredible fire power described above, let's examine just the four 13-inch guns on the Massachusetts, which, at the time, were the largest Navy guns ever made. Each gun weighed 136,000 pounds, and shot shells that weighed 1,130 pounds and could travel more than two miles to a target.

The weight of all the guns on board was well over 1 million pounds, which helps explain the terrible listing problem on the ships whenever the gun barrels were swung to one side. Especially so when you factor in a million pounds of coal for the engines, hundreds of thousands of pounds of ammunition, and supplies for a crew of 475 men.

But, it was from these failed boats, the first ever outfitted with such large guns, that the Navy learned that counterweights were needed to keep the ships level in battle. Such weights were added in 1906, after the ships had been retired for the first time, and their performance improved enough that boats were employed as training vessels for young sailors, and saw some action in World War I.

The massive coal-fired boilers on the ship required tons of coal every day. The ship could carry about a million pounds. (Courtesy U.S. Navy)

Powered by massive coal-fired engines (imagine the equivalent of four steam locomotives buried in the belly of the ship) the Massachusetts featured armored sides made of solid steel that was five inches thick at the waterline. Unfortunately, it turned out the armor was placed too low and did little to protect most of the vessel. Meanwhile, the hull below the waterline was unarmored and vulnerable, especially for a boat capable of traveling at 17 miles an hour. The Massachusetts nearly sank three separate times after hitting submerged objects in Florida, New York and Maine.

The design of the hulls harkened back to the Civil War-era class of Monitor-style boats forty years earlier, with their low decks. The Massachusetts had so little freeboard, it was constantly in danger of being awash in the most moderate of seas, even before the guns were turned to the side. These were the last battleships to feature such a hull design.

Perhaps the most critical design error was the decision to forgo a bilge keel, which would have helped stabilize the ships. The reason to do without the keel: there wasn't a dry dock in the United States that was large enough to build such a big ship with a keel, and constructing a suitable dry dock would raise the price of the boats too much.

In the end, the many compromises in the building process, the inherent design flaws, and the rapid improvement in naval architecture spawned by the failure of these ships, meant their days were numbered from the start.

All three participated in the Spanish-American War when they were brand new, playing a crucial role in the bombardment of Santiago in 1898. But by 1910, despite numerous upgrades and repairs designed to overcome their flaws, the Secretary of the Navy declared them "worthless and obsolete" and retired them for a second time.

The Massachusetts did some work as a sort of ceremonial boat after that, for instance, traveling to England and firing its cannons in celebration of the coronation of King George in 1911. And she and her sister ships were put back in service for World War I, though not in fighting roles. The Massachusetts, for instance, was used as a target for heavy artillery practice near Chesapeake Bay.

The three ships were officially retired for the third and final time in March of 1919, after very limited experience in actual battle.

"Twice these old ships have passed through the ceremony of being deserted by their bluejackets," wrote the Evening Public Ledger in Philadelphia, describing the multiple times the boats were kicked out of the Navy. "They all had vigor enough to come back to help beat the Germans at sea and today their naval service ends with all of them looking their trimmest and brightest.... waiting Washington's orders as to whether they again sail the sea under a new flag or go to the scrapheap or offer a target that the new youngsters of the Navy may learn how to spot the bull's-eye."

The Indiana and the Oregon ended up on the scrapheap. But not the Massachusetts. In 1920, she was sailed to the mouth of Pensacola Bay to serve as a bull's-eye. There, the battery at Fort Pickens and other cannons on rail cars pummeled her for weeks until she finally sank in 26 feet of water.

With the superstructure still visible above the surface, the Massachusetts was again used for target practice in World War II, this time by bomber pilots training at Naval Air Station Pensacola.

Over the years, the state of Florida fought numerous attempts by the Navy to have the ship raised for salvage, and was finally awarded ownership of the wreck by the Florida Supreme Court. The state named the Massachusetts its fourth Underwater Archaeological Preserve in June of 1993, marking the 100th anniversary of her launching.

The colorful cocoa damselfish stands out vibrantly against the red and orange sponges on the wreck. Note the large eyespot on its tail designed to trick predators into thinking he's coming toward them when he's really running away. (Ben Raines/braines@al.com)

Despite the heavy shelling and bombing the ship has suffered, the wreck is in remarkably good shape after 95 years underwater. Over time, the hull has become so encrusted with marine life, it has reached a sort of stasis, no longer disintegrating.

Huge wheels that were part of the anchor windlass, and the giant holes where the 13-inch gun turrets mounted are still easily visible, and bear the signature design of their era. Bold, round shapes and chunky, overbuilt looking gears are scattered about the wreck. The torpedo tubes are just large enough to swim into. The thick steel hull is remarkably well preserved, with fish popping up through holes where deck plates were peeled away by bombs.

Sitting at the mouth of the bay, the wreck is alive with fish. In fact, schools of cigar minnows, menhaden, leatherjackets and other baitfish are so thick it is difficult to see much of the wreck at any one time. Your vision is reduced to the area immediately around you simply by the abundance of life.

The metal superstructure is fully encrusted with sponges, anemones, corals, tunicates and algae. Tiny, glowing cocoa damselfish dart around, while blennies and soapfish nestle in the nooks and crannies. Sea cucumbers and urchins crawl over every surface, and butterfly fish, tang, Bermuda chub and other tropicals are abundant this time of year.

Situated in just 26 feet of water, the wreck is a popular diving spot. It is well lit by the sun, and swarming with marine life in a way the deep water wrecks never are. With the top of the wheelhouse still breaking the surface at low tide, and much of the superstructure as little as seven feet underwater, it is even possible to snorkel on the Massachusetts. But, it is also a popular fishing spot, and it is easy to get tangled up in abandoned fishing line. Always carry a knife. More problematic are the large, commercial cast nets scattered all over. Most likely they were left by fishermen looking to harvest cigar minnows for bait, or mullet for the frying pan. I counted nine nets on a dive this week, most had dead fish trapped in them. Getting wrapped up in one in dive gear could prove a fatal mistake.

Which brings up the other issue with diving the Mass, the current. Located at the mouth of the pass into Pensacola Bay, the current rips through the wreck except at slack tide. Current velocities of five or six miles an hour are common, and impossible to swim against. To dive the wreck, you must time your visit with high tide. Arrive just as the full high tide is coming in, and prepare to dive in the slack hour or two before the water starts rushing back out of the pass.

While you are underwater, let the ship cast its spell, for it has quite a tale to tell. It is the story of how a wildly expensive failure brought on by a bunch of bumbling and disagreeable politicians gave birth to the greatest naval force the world has ever known.
France D Day Anniversary

A U.S. flag flies among the graves at the Colleville American military cemetery, in Colleville sur Mer, western France, Thursday June 6, 2013, on the day of the commemoration of the 69th anniversary of the D-Day.(AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)

James F Burns

By James F. Burns, retired professor at the University of Florida.

I was born in 1939 in the Midwest. Our house was surrounded by woods, and I well remember the peacefulness and tranquility of my youth.

But even at ages three and four, I was aware that we were at war. I had toy soldiers to play with and knew that real soldiers could get hurt--though I had little idea of what war and death really were.

It was a steep climb up the hill to Mrs. Stevenson's house next door to us. She had a big porch overlooking the woods and would invite me over to visit.

Mrs. Stevenson was a refined lady who wore lipstick--even on Tuesday mornings at home--and was always well-dressed. She said she'd show me how to make stretchers for my injured soldiers.

"Bring some twigs from the woods."

I had a goodly supply of twigs the next time I climbed the steep hill. Mrs. Stevenson cut out rectangular shapes from white cloth and showed me how to tie the corners onto the ends of two twigs to make a stretcher. I could now carry my injured toy soldiers to the Red Cross--or military field hospital.

I wondered why Dad wasn't coming home from the shop. He and three or four other men repaired electric motors for factories as part of the war effort.

Working late at the shop one night--and in the darkness at the rear of the second floor--he fell down an elevator shaft, breaking an arm and a leg. Confined to a hospital bed in traction for weeks, he worried about the shop's keeping up with demand.

I went off to kindergarten at our small township school three months after the D-Day invasion at Normandy in 1944. There was an American flag with its bright red, white, and blue colors in the corner of the classroom, and we would recite the Pledge of Allegiance. And we regularly sang, "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty--land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims' pride."

But my America was still largely one of Thanksgiving feasts and Christmas presents--not really knowing that fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, were still dying for that sweet liberty.

Only later in life did I begin to understand why Dad wasn't coming home from the shop and why there were row upon row of white crosses above the cliffs of Normandy. I learned that Bedford, Virginia lost 19 of her sons on the beaches at Normandy, a horrific toll for a tiny town in the foothills of the Alleghenies. I was gradually becoming an American.

In the late summer of 1953, I was about to start my freshman year of high school. I was still awake with the radio on while my sister and parents slept.

The Korean conflict was winding down, and my brother was still serving in the Coast Guard. His best buddy, Leigh Whitaker was an army medic in Korea, his unit being overrun in an attack south of Seoul. Most were killed, Leigh disappeared, and for the past 37 months was an MIA, missing in action.

A final list of returning POW's--prisoners of war--was being read off on the radio. Suddenly the words came crackling over my radio, "Charles Leigh Whitaker, Cincinnati, Ohio." I shot out of bed to wake up my sister and parents. "Leigh's coming home."

Newly married, my wife and I were living in Boston in 1963 when President Kennedy was assassinated, shocking the nation and particularly his home state where we were. Only later did I see the photo of Leigh Whitaker, his wife, and children with President Kennedy at the White House a few months before the assassination. Leigh and Joyce's two children were the National Poster Children for Muscular Dystrophy.

Civil rights marches, sit-ins, Martin Luther King Jr.'s stirring "I have a dream" speech. The awareness of the limited liberty that blacks, other minorities, and women had was a disturbing but real echo of those words, "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty." Sweeter for some than others.

I now have a fuller understanding of what it means to be an American. All gave some, and some gave all. The boys from Bedford, POWs, army and navy nurses, my Dad's repair shop were all part of a larger, longer effort to grant a full measure of liberty to all Americans.

What experiences shaped your understanding of being an American? Has it changed with the ebb and flow of world events and personal triumphs and tragedies?

Let us all reflect on what American has been, is today, and should be in the future. And God bless America on this 240th celebration of our independence.
Genres : Documentary

Starring : Gordon Pinsent, Patricia Phillips, Shaun Benson

Director : Mike Slee

Plot Synopsis

Produced by SK Films, FLIGHT OF THE BUTTERFLIES is a unique and memorable cinema experience that follows a tiny creatures epic story of endurance on one of the most spectacular migrations on earth. On the trail of one of natures greatest events, we will witness, as never before, one generation from some 100 million monarch butterflies as they travel across a continent on a perilous journey of 1,000 miles or more ... and not to just anywhere, but to a remote forest on a Mexican mountaintop, a destination that was once an impenetrable mystery. The iconic monarch butterfly is a true marvel of nature. Weighing less than a penny, it makes one of the longest migrations on Earth across a continent, with pinpoint navigational accuracy, to a secluded place it has never been. Follow the monarchs' perilous and extraordinary journey and join hundreds of millions of real butterflies in the remote mountain peaks of Mexico. For the first time ever, witness the transformation from caterpillar to butterfly, inside a chrysalis, thanks to advanced MRI and micro CT scans. Be captivated by the true and compelling story of an intrepid scientist's 40-year search to find their secret hideaway, with the help of citizen scientists across North America.
David Nyorkor lost his family to Ebola and his leg to a misdiagnosis in a hospital overwhelmed by the epidemic.

Yenga, Sierra Leone  When Save the Children found David Nyorkor in November 2014, he had been locked in his bedroom for six weeks.

It was at the height of the Ebola epidemic and Yenga, a small village along Sierra Leones eastern border with Guinea near the epicentre of the outbreak, was devastated.

David had contracted an unknown illness long before Ebola swept through the village and killed nine members of his family. But accurate information about the disease was scarce and superstition was rampant, so community leaders locked him in a bedroom in his empty family home, where he remained until Save the Children arrived.

I tried to get out but I was never able, so I stayed in the room, in bed always, remembers David, who is now 15 years old.

Then Save the Children came to the village and asked for all the children who didnt have parents, David explains. They took my name and after two days they brought me to Freetown. I was sick and saw no other way, so I was happy. I thought they would give me a new life.





But, more than 18 months after he was rescued, David is back in the same community  only now, he is disabled.

A victim of a health system decimated by the Ebola epidemic and an overwhelmed international relief agency, Davids leg had been amputated  unnecessarily.

Amputation

Convinced that the six weeks he had spent in isolation in his room in Yenga had ruled out any possibility that he may have had Ebola, Save the Children took David to Connaught Hospital in Freetown instead of to an Ebola treatment centre for observation.

The hospital had been overwhelmed for months by the citys high rate of Ebola infections and, two weeks after he arrived, junior staff at the hospital went on strike following the deaths of three doctors to the disease in just two days.

By the end of the month, the diminished Connaught Hospital staff announced that they were unable to diagnose Davids condition. Large sores had developed on his left arm and right leg, and with the only pathologist in the country preoccupied with Ebola cases, hospital staff recommended that his leg be amputated before further observation.

Save the Children, fearing Davids life was in danger due to the spreading sores and delays in administrative processes, agreed. At the beginning the process was out of our control because it required a lot of back and forth, getting consent from the family, getting doctors to do samples, said one Save the Children employee who wished to remain anonymous.

Doctors wanted permission to do laboratory analysis, and that took a lot of consulting and back and forth. Ultimately [the amputation] was a decision made at our country office.

Fatima Sia, one of Davids aunts who had brought him meals while he was confined to his room, travelled with him to Freetown and provided consent for the operation.

Sia says that at the time she was under the impression that Davids illness had been identified and that amputation was the only treatment. It wasnt until after David recovered from the operation that she realised he didnt yet have a diagnosis.

Misdiagnosis

Save the Children contracted an American social worker, Teresa Brooks, to handle the case. David met Brooks, a former case worker for the Nevada juvenile corrections system, in January 2015, following his amputation and release from hospital.

Save the Children arranged for David and Sia to live in a spare bedroom in a local familys house while observation continued, and Brooks visited David several times a week to take him to his weekly check-up, deliver medication and assist him with physical therapy.

Things only continued to get worse after his leg was amputated, Brooks recalls. What tests were available we ran. At one point we got a false-positive on a tuberculosis test and ended up treating him for that for the next six months without improvement.

By December 2015, almost a year after his amputation, it was apparent that the tuberculosis diagnosis was incorrect, and Davids doctors recommended that his arm and other leg be amputated as well.

This time, however, those at Save the Children responsible for his case, weary of the previous misdiagnosis, did not consent to the amputations and arranged for samples from the sores on his body to be sent to a pathologist outside the country in order to identify his illness before taking any further action.

The results showed that David was suffering from a severe bacterial infection. He was treated and cured shortly after his diagnosis.

Your time is up

After he had recovered from the infection, David says, he was told by a number of Save the Children employees that the funding for his case had run dry and he would have to return to Yenga.

They always asked me if I wanted to go back to Yenga or stay in Freetown, and I told them I wanted to stay, David says. I was getting enrolled in school, but they kept saying, Your time is up, your time is up. I was very sad.

David was sent back at the beginning of February. According to Brooks, he wouldnt even have had a wheelchair had she not convinced a local hotel owner to donate one.

Frustrated by the decision to return David to Yenga, Brooks chose to end her year-and-a-half-long relationship with Save the Children and returned to the United States.

You cant take someone out of a situation only to put him right back in it without providing him with at least the means to be productive, Brooks says. And in this country, to be brought back an amputee, his chances of making a life on his own are incredibly small. There are so many things that could have been done to better this kids situation and I dont think nearly enough was.

In a country where a disabled person is far more likely (PDF) to experience unemployment, social exclusion, violence and abuse, David faces significant challenges in his future.

Falling through the cracks

Although Save the Childrens policy restricts her from addressing specific cases, Deanne Evans, the organisations child protection manager, spoke generally, explaining that there were a lot of competing demands, and of course in all of that, children fell through the cracks.

There are children who suffer today because they didnt get the services they needed and there are children who died because they didnt get the service they needed, Evans says.

You try to do your best in terms of balancing, and for some that works out well, and for others it doesnt. Its very unfortunate, but not at all surprising given the chaos of that situation, that some children just didnt get the support they needed at the time they needed it most.

Resuming life in Yenga

Today, David is living with Sia in Koindu, a small town south of Yenga, in a house a stones throw from his school. Sahr Andrew, a local teacher, offered David the spare room in his home a month after he returned to Yenga.

I knew I had to do something, Andrew says. His situation is tragic. First and foremost, a kid being handicapped in this country is extremely tragic in itself. It would be too painful for him to come from Yenga every day, and it would cost too much money to hire a motorbike for him. Since I live so close to the school, I thought it wise I give him that assistance.

Unfortunately, the assistance Andrew is able to provide doesnt go much further. The school is rarely open five days a week, he explains, because like many teachers in Sierra Leone, he has never been paid by the central government and maintains a farm to feed himself and his family.

Save the Children used to provide food subsidies to local teachers to ensure that the schools stayed open, but that programme ended when the Ebola outbreak began and funds were reallocated to deal with the outbreak and provide treatment for the ill.





Evans says she doesnt know if funding for the programme will resume.

Although he isnt receiving financial support, David is attending class when the school is open.

The time he spent out of the classroom meant that he had to resume his final year of primary school. A community-wide agreement allows for primary school pupils to attend class for free, but he will have to begin paying school fees when he enters the junior secondary level next year.

If I could have anything, it would be for someone to guarantee him an education, so I can focus on other tasks and he can have opportunity, says his aunt Sia as Andrew translates for her.

David is now a fatherless child and I lost people I rely on, too. Im tied to David, taking care of him all day. I struggle to feed my own children, and now David, Sia explains.

But David refuses to give into pessimism. He smiles and cracks jokes with his new family, and says that no matter how bad things get, he wont let negativity take over his life.

Before Ebola he had dreamed of performing on stage, and that dream has changed only slightly: instead of dancing for people, he now dreams of becoming a DJ so people can dance for themselves.

People with problems, serious problems, should know that no condition is permanent, he says, sitting on the edge of his bed.

No matter how bad things get, if no one is encouraging you, you can encourage yourself. You have to, otherwise you wont make it through.

Follow Cooper Inveen on Twitter: @cinveen
It was a gesture to reclaim the right of the visibility of refugees.

Athens, Greece  The roar of childrens laughter erupts as they play tag and chase one another through the corridors, while several adults prepare the tables in the City Plaza hotels dining hall in preparation to break the fast for Ramadan, a holy month for Muslims.

Tucked away down a side street in the Greek capital, the previously deserted hotel was occupied by left-wing Greek activists and turned into a squat for nearly 400 refugees and migrants  half of them children  in late April.

Sitting in the hotels cafe, Lina Theodorou, a 27-year-old Athens-based lawyer and member of the Solidarity Initiative for Political and Economic Refugees, explains that the activist group was inspired to take action shortly after neighbouring Macedonia sealed its borders in late March.

The closure was in response to the agreement between the European Union and Turkey to halt the flow of refugees and migrants seeking to reach Western Europe by crossing through Greece, the Balkans and central Europe.

The hotel is now home to Syrian and Afghan refugees and, to a lesser extent, families who fled Iraq, the occupied Palestinian territories and several countries across Africa. The squat is administered by the refugees themselves, as well as between 30 and 40 solidarity activists who volunteer informally on a daily basis.

We wanted to demand this public space because the mayor tried to throw all of the refugees out of [Victoria Square], Theodorou tells Al Jazeera, referring to an area in central Athens that has become a meeting place for those hoping to continue their journey.

It was a gesture to reclaim the right of the visibility of refugees because we feel that [the Greek government] is trying to hide them on the outskirts of the city.

Self-organised democracy

Fleeing war and economic devastation, more than 57,000 refugees and migrants have been bottlenecked in Greece since Macedonias border closure. Stuck in refugee camps across the countrys mainland and islands, most endure difficult humanitarian conditions in both formal and informal camps.

In City Plaza, families live in hotel rooms and have access to refugee-run and activist-administered healthcare, education and dining, among other services. Most residents play a role according to their own abilities.

Sculpted on principles of self-organising and democracy, decisions about the squats operations and activities are taken when a general consensus is reached through discussion and debate between the residents and activists.

Wael Alfarawan, a 26-year-old father of two and Palestinian refugee who fled Syrias Deraa, volunteers as a barber in the hotel. A group of children gather around as a young man sits in the chair and asks Wael to trim his beard.

We feel like one family here, he says as he turns on his clippers. I contacted several NGOs and nobody helped me. They helped me a lot here [at City Plaza]. They help us and we help each other.

The City Plaza squat is one of several similar activist-led initiatives in Athens and elsewhere, most of which reject the assistance of the Greek government and humanitarian organisations.

READ MORE: Greek anarchists cook in solidarity with refugees

More than one million refugees and migrants reached Europe by boat in 2015, according to the UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency. More than 223,000 have made the trek across the Mediterranean Sea so far this year.

Theodorou argues that refugee response initiatives have to be politicised in order to make a tangible difference. We are leftists and anarchists  and we want to change the system that creates inequalities and this kind of refugee crisis, she says.

In the capital and elsewhere, solidarity activists and refugees have also staged several demonstrations to raise awareness about the plight of displaced people who ended up in Greece.

We are anti-capitalist; we are against imperialism and great stuff like that. We believe that if your action doesnt connect with real-life improvement  its an empty gesture.

Political and humanitarian goals

Since the EU-Turkey deal, refugees and migrants have been left with the option of applying for asylum in Greece or returning to Turkey.

With the Greek governments efforts to register asylum applicants stalling, anger and tensions have grown in the camps. In the Greek islands, more than 8,400 refugees and migrants are barred from travelling to mainland Greece without police permission until their applications are processed.

Rabee Abo Tarah, a 26-year-old Syrian, works in City Plaza as a translator for residents who dont speak English or Greek. He worked in Istanbul for a period and sent money back to his family in Damascus, but decided to move on to Europe when his father died earlier this year.

After spending a month staying with people who opened their doors in Athens, activists informed him of the City Plaza squat. This is a good project, he tells Al Jazeera. It is the occupation of a building towards political and humanitarian goals. I support it.

READ MORE: Refugee life at Greeces Hara Hotel

Thirty-seven-year-old Abdoulaziz Sall, a chef in the squat, left Senegal for Greece back in 2010, long before the eruption of the present refugee crisis rattling Europe.

Although he lives in the nearby Exarcheia neighbourhood  a hotbed of leftist and anarchist activism and a key area for the Greek refugee solidarity movement  Sall comes to volunteer at the hotel five days a week. Sitting on a balcony, there is a steady chorus of pots and pans clanking behind him in the hotels kitchen.

Explaining that he was inspired by a sense of solidarity with people making the same journey he made six years ago, he says: I quit my job and now I do full-time solidarity work. For me, my project is to help as much as possible.

Untenable business

Seraphim Seferiades, a politics professor at the Panteion University in Athens, argues that initiatives like the City Plaza squat play a crucial role as government-run camps experience worsening living conditions and a growing number of illnesses among their residents.

The whole refugee camp business is untenable, he says. The general goal is to keep refugees where they are now and conceal the problem.

Seferiades concedes that managing the influx of tens of thousands of refugees and migrants is not an easy task. But there are more than 11 million unoccupied buildings across the EU.

Back in the squats kitchen, a group of women and men chat in Arabic and Dari as they prepare food for iftar, the meal with which Muslims break their fast. A man whistles softly while watching over a steel pot of coffee boiling on the stovetop.

Nasim Lomani, a 35-year-old member of the Solidarity Initiative who fled Afghanistan as a child 23 years ago, sits in the cafe and lights a cigarette. He says the squats location is significant because the Greek government has tried to restrict the movement of asylum seekers, attempting to coerce them to relocate to official camps.

The camps have two very clear-cut features: All of them are outside of the city, in the middle of nowhere, with no access to social services, Lomani says. The other thing is that almost all of them have tents.

The activists often go to Victoria Square and other refugee transit points to inform those looking for accommodation of City Plaza and other squats.

We wanted to set a good example of housing in order to say no to the way they are building the camps, he says. There is an alternative  treating [refugees] like humans.

Follow Patrick Strickland on Twitter: @P_Strickland_
Dutch ministers dont seem to mind bending the laws to incorporate territory to Israel that does not belong to it.

Hanine Hassan is a PhD candidate at Columbia University. Her research focuses on the long-term effects of humiliation as a tool of oppression by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Dutch ministers, including prime ministers, have been circumventing laws, without informing their parliament, for the past 14 years to sustain monthly payments to Dutch settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories.

On June 18, NRC Handelsblad, a prominent daily in the Netherlands, revealed in a fully documented report how several prime ministers, ministers, Dutch diplomats in Israel and the Social Insurance Bank, or SVB, have been bending pension laws since 2002 to keep paying untaxed state pensions to Dutch settlers living in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

The report is a detailed exposure of the exceptional privilege awarded to Dutch settlers on occupied Palestinian land.

In 2002, a new law was put in motion to decrease state pensions for all Dutch citizens living in countries that have no social security agreement with the Netherlands.





Israel has one, however: The Netherlands cannot make payments to its citizens living in territories occupied by Israel after 1967.

Political scandal

This is when the political scandal started as ministers suggested creative solutions to sidestep the law and public knowledge in order to create an exception for all Dutch settlers living in illegal settlements.

The report takes us through a decade of legal circumventions, ministerial power play, hidden letters, the Israeli lobby in The Hague, and current Minister of Social Affairs Lodewijk Asscher personally ordering the SVB, which is independent from his ministry and responsible for the pension payments, to transfer the money despite the banks discovery of the fraud.

ALSO READ: A century later, the tide turns on Palestine

It goes as far as having ministers scheme to blame the Palestinian Authority for fraud surveillance should all of this come to light.

Dutch Jewish colonists receive income support on top of their pensions, and have their taxes, which Dutch citizens living in the Netherlands have to pay, covered by the SVB. As a result, you are better off financially if you are a Dutch Jewish settler on Palestinian stolen land. by

The controversy taking place is three-tiered: firstly, Dutch Jewish colonists receive income support on top of their pensions, and have their taxes, which Dutch citizens living in the Netherlands have to pay, covered by the SVB. As a result, you are better off financially if you are a Dutch Jewish settler on Palestinian stolen land.

Secondly, questions arose on the role of the Israeli influence on Dutch politicians and politics. The report exposed the fierce Israeli lobbying that took place to keep the payments going.

Former Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende is quoted as saying that the Dutch government is undeniably pressured by the pro-Israel lobby, and an SVB official maintained the cover-up because one has to keep one hands off Israel.

This power play led to a shadowy quest with no legal basis, a lack of transparency and ministers hiding information from the Parliament.

Finally, during a parliamentary session on June 21, the minister was questioned on breaching the law and the double standard he maintained.

Double standards

Asscher has limited pensions paid to residents of other areas internationally viewed as occupied, such as Western Sahara.

He has personally worked on reducing the pensions of retired Dutch-Moroccans wanting to move back to Morocco. His search for a decrease on their benefits continued unabated, to the extent that he modified the Social Security Agreement with Morocco.

In short, the Dutch government has affected the rights of Dutch-Moroccans who have contributed to the Dutch economy for at least 40 years of their lives, and to the reconstruction of the Netherlands after World War II.

Although the Dutch parliament has demanded clarification regarding double standards, hardly anything has been done to correct the unequal and privileged treatment of Dutch colonists in Palestine. The Dutch government as such reduces Palestinians to a disenfranchised population that has no say over its life, death, property and faith.

Most crucially, what has completely been missing in the debate is the governments facilitation of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. Israel does not even have to pay its settlers.

ALSO READ: A defeated sanctions vote in the US should worry Israel

This new revelation shows that these settlers are capable of sustaining a living in illegal settlements due to the financial support by the Dutch government, which instead of demanding that its citizens do not violate international law, it actually further supports the appropriation of Palestinian land.

Additionally, the European Union, whose presidency was held by the Netherlands until June 30, has called on the Israeli authorities to show zero tolerance for settler violence and to protect the local Palestinian population.

Settlements need settlers

But in its most recent move, Israel has announced the construction of more settlements. To follow the same logic, these settlements need settlers and these settlers do not appear out of thin air, nor does their violence. Among them are these Dutch colonists that get paid more to deprive a Palestinian from his land and resources.

What is even more controversial is how successive Dutch administrations have actually acted in accordance with Israels de facto annexation of the Westbank. Ministers did not mind bending the laws to incorporate a territory to Israel that does not belong to it.

The Netherlands, the country that is symbolised by International Law and the ICC, considered illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land as de facto part of Israeli territory under the social security agreement.

And finally, a most sensitive subject the Dutch officials evade is the fact that while actively promoting the migration of Dutch Jews outside of Europe; current Dutch governments are contributing to the ongoing destruction of European Jewry. And this specifically, is the continuation of European tradition of anti-Semitism.

Hanine Hassan is a PhD candidate at Columbia University. Her research focuses on the long-term effects of humiliation as a tool of oppression by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
The most important dynamic is that a US presidential contender garnered popular support for a more progressive position.

The Democratic partys platform drafting committee hearings in St Louis earlier this month provided another little push forward to Martin Luther King Jrs belief that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.

It bent a little bit more in that direction after the Democratic partys lively public debate and behind-the-scene deliberations resulted in several noteworthy but incremental advances in the long, uphill struggle for a more balanced American position on the Israel-Palestine issue.





These included a series of subtle but meaningful word changes in the Democratic partys draft platform of positions on political issues for the presidential campaign.

These reflect a gradual drift from a predominantly pro-Israel tilt towards one that also advocates equal Palestinian rights to sovereignty and dignity.

The 15-member platform committee included 10 of its 15 members who were named by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party machine  both traditional leaners towards Israel  while five were named by Bernie Sanders.

Occupation and illegal settlements

Consequently, the committee did not approve wording proposed by Sanders nominee James Zogby to end occupation and illegal settlements in Palestinian lands Israel has occupied since 1967.

ALSO READ: A defeated sanctions vote in the US should worry Israel

The adopted draft advocates working towards a two-state solution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict that guarantees Israels security with recognised borders and provides the Palestinians with independence, sovereignty, and dignity.

Such small changes in vocabulary that assert the rights of both people reflect real political changes ... by

This formulation notably dropped previous wording that had supported a Palestinian state primarily in order to secure a (Jewish-majority) Israel, rather than because both people explicitly deserved equal rights in adjacent states.

Such small changes in vocabulary that assert the rights of both people reflect real political changes, according to interested parties like the more liberal pro-Israel US lobby group J-Street, which advocates Palestinian and Israeli statehood.

It also noted that the platform language breaks with the partys practice of making a Palestinian state conditional on Israeli security and other interests.

By including parallel acknowledgement of Israeli and Palestinian rights, the party underscores its belief that the only viable resolution to the conflict  a two-state solution  requires recognising the fates of the two peoples are intertwined, it said.

It also released a joint statement by two Members of Congress on the platform drafting committee who were appointed by Clinton and Sanders, saying the platform must reflect the hardships faced both by Israelis and Palestinians.

Slow but steady change

When I asked Zogby by phone about the significance of these recent developments, he said they reflected slow but steady change on the Israel-Palestine issue taking place among Democratic Party supporters that has been speeded up and brought into the public sphere by the Sanders campaign.

This kind of support for two states without the previous conditionality is the most that has ever been said by a Democratic party platform, he told me.

Not using the words occupation and settlements is the triumph of politics over policy, at a time when Sanders and many other Democrats feel that politics and policy should be the same, in order to achieve integrity in our national policy, he said.

ALSO READ: The enduring, harsher lessons of June 1967

His view that the party platform has lagged behind reality is supported by analysts and pollsters who also offer evidence to show that the Sanders and J-Street positions are increasingly supported by both Democrats and Americans as a whole, especially younger people.

Younger Americans are increasingly liberal and progressive and they also continue to move towards a more even-handed position on Israel-Palestine.

Recent polls by Pew show that liberal Democrats account for most of the increased support for Palestinian rights among Americans in recent years.

Pew also found that 43 percent of millennials (born since 1980) sympathise more with Israel, while 27 percent say they support the Palestinians  three times the 9 percent support level of 2006.

So time would seem to favour a more even-handed US position on Israel-Palestine, which may be rearing its head in the incremental changes just witnessed by the Democratic party platform committee.

The most important dynamic is that a leading presidential contender harnessed significant popular support for progressive positions... by

Limited advances

The draft platform will now be debated by the full platform committee in Orlando on July 8-9, and finally will go to the convention floor for a debate, amendments, and vote.

Beyond the limited advances in the platform wording itself, though, this political year has achieved a much bigger breakthrough on the Israel-Palestine issue in the United States in several realms, according to participants and observers of the process.

The most important dynamic is that a leading presidential contender harnessed significant popular support for progressive positions and named five members of the platform committee, including several who spoke out explicitly and forcefully for Palestinian rights alongside Israels security.

Sanders himself showed that a candidate could demand even-handed treatment for Palestinians and Israelis and remain a strong candidate, reversing long-held assumptions that such a position would be political suicide.

ALSO READ: A century later, the tide turns on Palestine

It is very significant that we debated this issue for the first time since 1988, Zogby told me.

We won on other progressive platform issues like minimum wage, temporary refugee protection rights, and the death penalty. The big change from now on is that this issue which was not widely discussed in the public eye will be debated widely across the country, ending the deadly silence that has prevailed for so long, he said.

The fact that a Jewish-American candidate allowed this to happen is intriguing but not necessarily a central factor. More important is that Israel-Palestine and component issues  including occupation, settlements, and the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement  are all being debated in public forums, within political parties and beyond.

We have made the Israel-Palestine issue part of a wider message of speaking unvarnished truth on a difficult issue to progressives across the spectrum of political action in the United States, Zogby said.

This is no longer a narrow cast issue. It now represents consistent moral and political views of progressives in the wider political arena.

Rami G Khouri is a senior public policy fellow at the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut and a non-resident senior fellow at Harward University Kennedy School.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
PM Sheikha Hasina implores fighters to stop killing in the name of religion after 20 foreigners were slain at a cafe.

Bangladesh has begun observing two days of national mourning after 20 hostages were slaughtered at a restaurant packed with foreigners in a major escalation of a campaign of attacks by armed groups.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina decreed the mourning period, which began on Sunday, as she vowed to drag Bangladesh back from the brink, warning of a concerted bid to turn one of the worlds most populous nations into a failed state.

Amid mass condemnation of the Dhaka killings, victims of which included 18 foreigners, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group said it had targeted a gathering of citizens of crusader states on Friday night at a Western-style cafe.





Bodies of the 20 hostages were found in pools of blood after commandos stormed the cafe to end the siege.

In addition, two policemen were also killed in the deadly attack in a high security area. Security officials said most of the victims were slaughtered with sharpened machete-style weapons.

Six gunmen were killed by the commandos in the final stages of the siege at the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe, but one suspect was taken alive and was being interrogated by Bangladeshi intelligence.

Despite ISILs claim, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said the fighters have no connections with the Islamic State.

They are members of the Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, Khan said, referring to a group which has been banned in Bangladesh for more than a decade.

Hasinas government has previously blamed a string of deadly attacks against religious minorities and foreigners on domestic opponents, but the latest attack  despite the governments denial  will heighten fears that ISILs reach is spreading.

READ MORE: What is fuelling the rise of armed groups?

Islam is a religion of peace. Stop killing in the name of the religion, Hasina said in a televised address to the nation.

Please stop tarnishing our noble religion  I implore you to come back to the rightful path and uphold the pride of Islam.

The 68-year-old prime minister said the people behind the attacks were trying to ruin Bangladesh, a mainly Muslim nation of 160 million people.

By holding innocent civilians hostage at gunpoint, they want to turn our nation into a failed state, she said.

Flags were being flown at half-mast in government offices and at other sites across the country while funerals of the two Bangladeshi victims were expected to be held.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon was among those who expressed outrage, stressing the need to intensify regional and international efforts to prevent and combat terrorism.

Nefarious terrorism

There was agony in Italy whose government confirmed that nine of its nationals had been killed.

The terrorists want to rip away the daily fabric of our lives, said Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.



Our duty is to reply with even greater force, by affirming our values, the values of freedom of which we are proud, and which are stronger than hatred or terror.

Seven Japanese nationals were also killed in the attack and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he felt profound anger that so many innocent people have lost their lives in the cruel and nefarious terrorism.

One Japanese citizen remains in a critical condition in hospital.

Al Jazeeras Wayne Hay, reporting from Tokyo, said: There is no mention yet from the Japanese government of Islamic State; they are not using that term yet.

Our correspondent added that officials had expressed their regret at the killings, especially because the Japanese nationals were trying to help the country  many of those killed had been working on an aid project to help ease traffic congestion.

US officials said one American citizen was among those killed and the government in New Delhi confirmed that a 19-year-old Indian who was studying at the University of California, Berkeley, had died.

Witnesses recounted how a massive gunfight erupted on Saturday morning as more than 100 commandos launched the rescue operation, nearly 11 hours after the siege began the night before.

IN PICTURES: Hostage drama in Bangladesh

Thirteen hostages were rescued in total, some of whom were taken to a military hospital.

The father of one of the survivors was told by his son how the hostage-takers separated the locals from foreigners.

The attack, by far the deadliest in a recent wave of killings, was carried out in the upmarket Gulshan neighbourhood which is home to the countrys elite and many embassies.

Last month authorities launched a crackdown on local fighters, arresting more than 11,000 people but critics allege the arrests were arbitrary or designed to silence political opponents.
With no official mosque, Cuban followers of Islam do their best to observe the holy month and practise their religion.

They speak little Arabic and dont have a real mosque, but Cubas small Muslim community practises the faith and will quietly mark the end of Ramadan as best they can.

In Havanas old quarter, one can see a green and white minaret on top an old colonial-style building. It is here where Cuban Muslims have gathered for the past year to pray.

Inside, the walls of the prayer hall are decorated with Arabic calligraphy and a Palestinian flag. The copies of the Quran have been translated into Spanish.

Salam aleikum, says a smiling man named Javier as he welcomes visitors in Arabic on a hot summer afternoon.

He was born into a Catholic family but converted to Islam two years ago.

The text of the Bible seemed incomplete to me, so I changed religion, Javier said about his decision, an unusual one in a country where 70 percent of the population observes a blend of Christianity and Afro-Cuban beliefs.



Hollywoods Fast and Furious ride in Cuba

There are as many as 10,000 Muslims in Cuba, making up less than 0.1 percent of the island nations population.

According to experts, Islam was introduced to Cuba by Muslim students who came from countries such as Pakistan in the 1970s and 80s.

Tourists often come through this street and they are so surprised when they realise they are looking at a mosque, said Ahmed Aguelo, who converted to Islam 17 years ago and runs the prayer hall where some 200 worshippers gather for Friday prayers.

I am not officially an imam, as there is no training course here, he said. But I know the basics.

A few hundred metres away, a sign advertises the construction of a purpose-built mosque on a two-hectare piece of land. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised it to Cuba in February 2015.

But building has yet to begin. In June 2015, the Cuban government gave the go-ahead for the inauguration of the prayer hall in the heart of Old Havana as Cubas first mosque.

We write mosque at the entrance because it works like one, said Rigoberto Menendez, director of Arab House, which is behind the project.

A real mosque would have more space but the main thing is for Muslims to be able to come together in one place.

Cubas Muslims have been clamouring for their own house of worship for 25 years.

We would meet in apartments around the city, said Pedro Lazo Torres, who converted in 1988 and is considered Cubas first Muslim. I can practise my religion totally freely in Cuba.

A frail Fidel Castro bids farewell in last speech

It can be difficult being an observant Muslim in Cuba during the holy month of Ramadan.

Tradition holds that Muslims break their obligatory fast by eating dates, but in Cuba there arent any.

Everything is imported. The Saudi embassy supplies us with dates, traditional garments, halal meat. With the help of God, we get by, said Lazo Torres, who goes by the name Yahya.

Alen Garcia, 33, said he gave up a lot when he converted to Islam.

I lost friends when I told them I wanted to become a Muslim. To convert was to renounce drinking rum, eating ham, going to parties and dancing salsa, he said. In other words, it meant renouncing much of Cuban culture.

Garcia explained that Arabic-speaking students from Chad, Afghanistan and Libya who attend the Latin American School of Medicine here give Cuban Muslims free classes in the language of the Quran.

As the time approaches to break the days fast, the prayer hall fills. Children play and squirm on the side of the room reserved for their mothers, who wear veils.

The man who distributes food is named Leonel Diaz, but he goes by Mohamed. He converted at age 73.

It is never too late to welcome a good thing, he said.

He agrees to discuss Guantanamo, the US prison for terrorism suspects that opened at a US-held naval base in eastern Cuba after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

States must find a solution to close this prison, he said.

He noted that Colombia recently reached a peace accord with FARC leftist rebels after a half century of war.

I would like the same agreement for the Muslims who are held in Guantanamo, said Diaz.

Yaquelin Diaz, who goes by the Islamic name Aisha, lived in Spain for eight years and it was there that she converted, thanks to a Pakistani brother-in-law.

Because of our habits, lots of people think we are foreigners. They cannot imagine that there are Muslims in their country. But Islam is expanding in Cuba.

From Elvis to Castro: The man selling Canada to Cuba

Aisha said that the only thing missing in Cuba is a shop that sells religious garments.

Our brothers from Saudi Arabia give them to us, but we cannot keep living off their charity. We need our own stores, in our own style. We must be able to promote Islam in Cuba.

After the Cuban Revolution of 1959, Cuba became an officially atheist state and limited practice of all religions. But over time the restrictions eased.

Everything can evolve over the course of a countrys history. Look, the United States killed thousands of blacks in the last century. And now it has a black president, said Ahmed, the imam.
Several others remain missing after torrential rain causes havoc in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

At least 43 people have been killed and several others remain missing after heavy rain and flash floods hit northern Pakistan close to the Afghan border.

Mosques, several houses and an army post in Ursoon village in the southwest of Chitral district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province faced extensive damage after incessant rain caused flash floods early on Sunday.

Chitral is in the far north of Pakistan, bordering Afghanistans Badakhshan province.

Most bodies had been identified, however, some bodies might have been washed away to Afghanistan, Osama Ahmad Warraich, deputy commissioner of Chitral, told Al Jazeera, before adding that eight of the dead were soldiers.

Eighty-two homes in Ursoon were affected by the waters, a rescue services statement said, with some of them swept away, along with a mosque and an army post.

Sixteen of the dead were offering prayers in the mosque when it was swept away by the flood, spokesperson for the provincial disaster management authority Latifur Rehman said.

The army has been taking part in rescue operations in the affected areas together with the district administration.

But Warraich said the bad weather was hampering rescue efforts, but added that authorities had called for helicopters to join rescue operations in the area.

In April, rains and landslides killed at least 127 people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan region and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Poorly-built homes across the country, particularly in rural areas, are susceptible to collapse during the annual spring and monsoon rains in July and August, which are often heavy.

During the rainy season last summer, torrential downpours and flooding killed at least 81 people and affected almost 300,000 people across Pakistan.

The worst flooding in recent times occurred in 2010, which covered almost a fifth of the countrys total land mass, killing nearly 2,000 people and displacing some 20 million.
President says government will help Syrians by offering them the chance to acquire Turkish nationality.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that Syrian refugees living in Turkey could eventually be granted citizenship.

I want to announce some good news, Erdogan said late on Saturday at a dinner to break the Ramadan fast in Kilis province, on the Syrian border.

We are going to help our Syrian friends in offering them the chance, if they want it, to acquire Turkish nationality.

The Interior Ministry will shortly announce how the citizenship procedure would work, Erdogan added.

READ MORE: Plan to make Syrians citizens sparks hashtag war

The president did not specify whether all of the 2.7 million Syrians that Turkey is hosting would be able to apply, and gave no details on eligibility criteria or how long the process would take.

We regard you as our brothers and sisters. You are not far from your homeland, but only from your homes and your land  Turkey is also your homeland, Erdogan told a group of Syrian refugees in Kilis, a city hosting more than 120,000 refugees, which exceeds its population.

Ankara has refused to grant refugee status to Syrians who have fled the devastating war across the border since 2011, referring to them as guests.

Only a small group have been granted work permits and residency.

The hashtag #UlkemdeSuriyeliIstemiyorum (I dont want Syrians in my country) hit the worldwide list of trending topics on Twitter on Sunday, as Turkish social media users slammed Erdogans plan.

Difficult to implement

Mustafa Akyol, a Turkish political analyst and columnist, told Al Jazeera that the governments plan was not easy to implement.

 In humanitarian terms, it is a positive step. But it is not easy to make it exclusively easier for Syrians to gain citizenship. There are Georgians, Armenians and other foreigners who are in Turkey for economic and other reasons. It is not clear if they will be included in this scheme or not, he said.

Integration of a large amount of non-Turkish speakers who come from a different culture is not going to be easy and will bring large economic burden. I t might also encourage more people to try to enter Turkey, considering the volatile geography we live in.

Akyol added that the opposition in Turkey might see the plan as a bid by Erdogan to import voters who out of gratitude would support the president and help him strengthen his grip on power.

The countrys open-door policy to Syrian refugees was initially a source of pride for the country.

However, there have been reports that many refugees are not allowed to cross the border.

Life is a struggle for most Syrians in Turkey, who mainly live off odd jobs that are often insufficient to feed and house a family.

The country is also hosting about 300,000 Iraqis who have fled the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

Syria has been in a civil war since 2011, when the government cracked down on pro-democracy protests.

More than 250,000 people have been killed in the conflict and more than 10 million have been displaced, according to the UN. Around four million people have taken refuge in neighbouring countries.

Additional reporting by Umut Uras
Opinion divided online after President Erdogan said Syrian refugees in Turkey could eventually be granted citizenship.

A hashtag targeting Syrian refugees in Turkey has trended worldwide on Twitter after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Syrian refugees could eventually be granted citizenship.

Using the hashtag #UlkemdeSuriyeliIstemiyorum (I dont want Syrians in my country), divided opinions surfaced on Turkish social media, with tweets criticising as well as backing Erdogans plan.

https://twitter.com/DoganBurak19/status/749479486664695808

Were going to help our Syrian friends in offering them the chance, if they want it, to acquire Turkish nationality, Erdogan said late on Saturday while breaking his Ramadan fast in the Kilis province on the Syrian border.

Turkey is also your homeland, he told a group of refugees in the province hosting more than 120,000 Syrians.

He added that the interior ministry was working on the proposal, without giving further details.

About 2.7 million of more than four million people who have fled Syrias civil war reside in Turkey.

There are mixed feelings about Syrian refugees in the country, where crimes have been blamed on them and complaints made about the increase in the number of beggars in the streets.

https://twitter.com/scsazak/status/749535832822910976
Genres : Romance, Drama, Thriller

Starring : Kathleen Turner, Anthony Perkins, John Laughlin, Bruce Davison

Director : Ken Russell

Plot Synopsis

In the early eighties British enfant terrible Ken Russell travelled to America and placed his unorthodox imprint on a pair of US movies. The first was the Altered States, so out-there its screenwriter disowned it. The second was the equally crazy Crimes of Passion, starring Kathleen Turner (Body Heat, Serial Mom) at the height of her powers. Fashion designer Joanna Crane (Turner) leads a double life. By night she is China Blue, a prostitute who's attracted the unwanted attention of two men. One is a sexually frustrated private detective hired by her employees. The other is psychopathic priest (played by Norman Bates himself, Anthony Perkins) in possession of a murderous sex toy. With its outre screenplay by Barry Sandler and over the top score by Rick Wakeman, Crimes of Passion may just be the most outrageous Ken Russell film ever made - and that's quite some feat! Bonus features include: Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Twins of Evil, Theatrical trailer, Home movie footage of Ken Russell visiting Florida for a retrospective screening of Crimes of Passion at the 2009 Orlando Film Festival, Brand-new interview with Sandler recorded especially for this release, Seven deleted/extended scenes with optional commentary by Sandler, Audio commentary with director Ken Russell and producer-screenwriter Barry Sandler, Optional subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing, Brand new 2K restoration of the film from original film materials, High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations of the directors cut and unrated versions of the film, Illustrated booklet containing new writing by Ken Russells biographer, Paul Sutton, correspondence between Russell and Kathleen Turner, and an on-set interview with Russell
The dispute between the state of Israel and the Bedouin village of Araqib dates back three generations.

Araqib village, Israel  Hunched over a white cooler box, Aziz al-Turi sifted through his most important possessions and pulled out an antique brass coffee pot.

You know how old this is? Fifty years old, he declared. It came from Syria, via Jordan, here to Araqib.

Along with pillows and carpets from Araqibs hospitality tent, the centre of social life in the village, these were the items that Turi rushed to save on the morning of June 29, when Israeli police arrived to demolish the village. By the villagers count, it was the hundredth time that Araqib had been destroyed since July 2010  and the second demolition during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

READ MORE: The man reconstructing Palestines lost villages

Having loaded up the improvised trunk, Turi dragged it 50 metres to the village cemetery, where he dropped it close to two graves. Knowing the possessions were safe from bulldozers there, he stood and watched another demolition unfold.

We finished eating the suhoor meal around 4am and then went to sleep, he said. About an hour later, I woke up, as there was a police van speeding around the outside of the village.

Hours later, police vehicles returned to the village  along with a demolition team  as a helicopter circled overhead, residents told Al Jazeera.

We started to take our clothes out of our houses. I put some things in the cemetery; others I put in this valley; some I put in the trees. I cant put them in one place because one time I put them all in one place and they came with a bulldozer and destroyed everything, Turi said. I didnt have time to take everything, but it was important for me to take the old coffee pot  its my life. I took the cushions. Then they destroyed everything  my fathers house, my friend Salims house, all the houses.

Araqib is one of about 40 unrecognised Bedouin villages in the Negev, or Naqab, a desert region in southern Israel. While the residents of these villages are full citizens of Israel, the state does not provide water, electricity, infrastructure or sewage systems. The vast majority of these villages also lack basic state services such as schools and health clinics, while their residents are not able to participate in local government or municipal elections.

The dispute between the villagers of Araqib and the state of Israel dates back three generations, and relates to the ownership of the land. Initially established during the Ottoman era, the villages lands were expropriated by Israel under the Land Appropriation Law in 1953, and the villagers were forced to leave.

However, many residents of Araqib returned to the village in the 1990s, in an attempt to re-establish a pastoral way of life on the land. The village was home to about 300 residents living a traditional Bedouin lifestyle when it was first demolished on July 27, 2010.

Even if they destroy it 200 times, I am not moving. This is the most precious place in the world for me. by Haqmeh Abu Madigem, resident of Araqib

Our life was beautiful. We used the land. We grew barley or wheat in the winter and melon in the summer. Everyone had a tractor and worked. We had 500 olive trees. We made oil and we sold it, Turi said. We grew vegetables: tomatoes, eggplants, zucchini and fruits as well. We also had sheep. My wife and I had more than 500 chickens. We used to sell everything at markets in Beersheba, Rahat and everywhere  until that black day, July 27, 2010.

Since 2010, demolition teams have returned to the village once or twice a month on average to destroy the shacks that the residents built. Meanwhile, the villagers have also been sued for the costs of the first eight demolitions of the village. In an ongoing lawsuit, the state is seeking 1.8 million shekels ($467,000.)

Today, only a few families remain in Araqib, living in makeshift wooden shacks near the villages cemetery. Many former residents visit on weekends but have moved their lives to nearby Rahat, a state-developed town established in 1972. While a handful of Bedouin villages were recognised by the state in 2003, most Bedouins living in unrecognised villages face little choice but to move to one of seven of these state-planned towns across the region.

READ MORE: Palestinian Bedouins live the Nakba every day

Haia Noach, chief executive of the Israeli human rights NGO Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality, told Al Jazeera that these planned urban spaces were dense, crowded and offered an alien way of life to the rural Bedouin population.

It is a great concern that the state is only offering the Bedouin one way of living in suburbs or urban spaces, but not in rural spaces, she said. The state wants to concentrate the Bedouin population in small and dense urban spaces and give privileges to the Jewish community, which can live in whatever kind of village or urban place they want to live.

Despite the tough conditions in the village and the likelihood of more demolitions, the remaining Araqib residents say they have no intention of leaving their homes and lifestyles.

Haqmeh Abu Madigem said that even though two of her sons and one daughter had moved to Rahat, she would not be joining them.

Im tired of the demolitions, but I will stay here, she said. Even if they destroy it 200 times, I am not moving. This is the most precious place in the world for me.
Two-year local truce breaks down after intense air strikes kill at least 43 civilians, including children, in Jayrud.

At least 43 civilians have been killed in intense Syrian government air strikes on a town near Damascus, a day after the reported execution of a Syrian air force pilot, a monitoring group has said.

Saturdays overnight shelling on Jayrud, 60km northeast of the Syrian capital Damascus, killed at least five women and children, as well as two medical staff.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said scores of people were also wounded in the strikes, as well as shelling from army posts in the area.

OPINION: The death of the Syria peace process

There were intense air strikes and multiple targets were hit  residential areas, a medical centre, that is according to activists on the ground, Al Jazeeras Zeina Khodr, reporting from Gaziantep on the Turkish side of the Syria-Turkey border, said.

Khodr said the attacks appeared to be in retaliation for the killing of a Syrian government air force pilot whose warplane had crashed in the area on Friday.

The pilot managed to eject himself. He was captured but subsequently killed and after his death, the Syrian army promised retaliation and that is exactly what happened.

A rebel spokesman also said the strikes seemed to be in revenge for the pilots killing.

The strikes against civilians are in retaliation against the execution of the pilot by Nusra Front, Said Seif al Qalamoni from the Free Syrian Armys Shahid Ahmad Abdo brigade, which operates in Jayrud alongside al-Nusra Front and other groups, told Reuters news agency.





Rebel groups in Jayrud include Jaish al-Islam, Ahrar al-Sham and al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front.

In a statement, the military had pledged that the killing of its pilot would not go unpunished.

The Observatory said the raids marked the first bombardment of Jayrud in at least two years.

Prominent figures in Jayrud have had a local truce with the regime for at least two years, and neither fired on each other, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told the AFP news agency.

The truce had made Jayrud a sanctuary for thousands of civilians fleeing heavy battles nearby.

The town is heavily populated. Many internally displaced people live there because it was secure due to the truce, said Al Jazeeras Khodr.

Ahrar al-Sham said in an online statement on Saturday it was attacking nearby government positions in response to warplanes shelling Jayrud.
Gangs of ethnic Dinka youths accused of targeting Fertit tribe in northwest city as tens of thousands flee their homes.

Juba, South Sudan  Dozens of people have been killed and more than 120,000 displaced from their homes in a wave of fighting in Wau, one of South Sudans largest cities, almost a year after a peace agreement was signed to bring an end to civil war in the country.

Clashes between the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) and members of the Fertit tribe began on June 24, say sources in the city. The SPLA is predominantly made up of members of the Dinka tribe, the largest in the country.

At least 43 people were killed in the fighting, according to a government statement on June 28.

An independent count of casualties has not been done, and the actual figure could be much higher than the government estimate.



Inside Story  Is South Sudan finally on its way to peace?

Weve not been able to get access to the southern part of the town, which is apparently where most of the heavy artillery fire was, Shantal Persaud, a spokeswoman for the UN Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS), told Al Jazeera.

At St Marys Cathedral, one of several churches in the town, 13 people have been buried, Father Natale, a priest at the church, told Al Jazeera. The dead included a three-year-old child.

A lot of people have been killed, said Natale. Dinka youths came to the town, some of them in uniform and others with spears and machetes. There were dead bodies on the streets.

Although calm has been restored in Wau, an atmosphere of lawlessness prevails, says Natale. The Dinka youths are looting peoples houses and taking everything they have. All the residential areas in the south and west of Wau are empty.

The UN Security Council called on the government to prosecute those responsible for the violence in Wau. Attacks against civilians may constitute war crimes and those involved could be potentially subject to sanctions, a statement said.

According to estimates from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), almost 50,000 people have been displaced within Wau.

St Marys Cathedral is providing shelter to 10,000 people who fled the fighting, and more than 12,000 people are living in cramped conditions and without shelter on a site adjacent to the UNMISS base in the town.

Two local schools are accommodating at least another 17,000 people, and two other churches are each providing shelter for 1,000 Wau residents, according to OCHA.

Several thousand have also sought refuge at the South Sudan Red Cross (SSRC).

We provided rations for 5,200 people in the first 48 hours, and have supplemented this with another 4,500 rations, said Layal Horanieh, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Juba, which is supporting the SSRC.

Its just an office compound  its not designed to be a shelter for people. Its one of many gathering points that formed across the town. Fleeing famine in northern South Sudan In addition to almost 50,000 people displaced within Wau, more than 70,000 civilians have been displaced outside the town.

Weve managed to reach people to the southwest of Wau, which was the area we were most worried about, Horanieh told Al Jazeera. We have distributed food rations to more than 73,000 people in Biringi, Ngoku and Ngohalima.

Beside its base in Wau, the UN is providing a degree of protection to its 12,000 guests and is coordinating with humanitarian agencies to provide food, water and shelter to the displaced.

But UNMISS is determined that the site does not become a long-term home for Wau residents, as has happened at UN Protection of Civilians (POC) sites in several other towns in the countrysince the start of the civil war in South Sudan in December 2013.

There is a perception that UN bases opening their gates is the norm, and thats not the case, said Persaud. Its a last resort, a last measure, when weve exhausted all other options.

There are concerns that the current level of protection at the site, which amounts to little more than a barbed wire perimeter, is insufficient to protect the displaced from possible attack.

Two people were killed on June 25 on the way to the UNMISS site, not far from the ad hoc camp.

Regrettably two people were killed on Saturday close to the perimeter around the site, said Persaud. Its not clear whether they were killed by stray bullets, or whether it was a deliberate attempt to prevent them from reaching the camp.

There are no plans to build a more robust perimeter around the camp, although the situation is being monitored, said Persaud.

Should the situation deteriorate, we will make a decision then. We will continue to provide protection by reinforcing the areas they [the displaced] are in, we have peacekeepers stationed around the area, and we are also pushing for dialogue between the two sides.

UN failed to protect civilians in South Sudan: report

The UN has taken steps to reinforce its personnel in Wau. We have sent in more peacekeepers to reinforce the security buffer, said Persaud. We have added 150 troops and 50 personnel to formed police units.

This takes the number of UN troops in Wau to more than 1,000, and more than doubles the number of police to about 85. UNMISS is also carrying out a lot of patrols during the day, said Persaud.

Patrols are also still limited to areas to which the UN has been granted access. We are still negotiating with national and local authorities to have more access, said Persaud.

Despite continuing to provide protection to more than 150,000 civilians in POC sites across the country, the UN is under scrutiny for its failure to prevent an attack on the POC at Malakal earlier this year, in which 19 people were killed and more than 100 wounded.

In a statement on June 22, the UN said it took very seriously the findings of an internal investigation that concluded that there was an inadequate response by some of our people on the ground, and that confusion over command and control and rules of engagement hampered some peacekeepers response.

Herve Ladsous, the UN undersecretary for peacekeeping operations, told reporters that certainly there will be repatriation  in some cases of a unit and in other cases of individual officers.
Man stabbed and shot twice while heading to morning prayers in US city of Houston, witnesses say.

A Muslim doctor in the US state of Texas has been shot and stabbed while on his way to a mosque for morning prayers, local reports said.

The victim, identified as Arslan Tajammul, an eye specialist, had parked his car and was walking towards Madrasah Islamiah in the city of Houston, when he was approached by three men, according to KTRK.

Without any warning, the doctor was stabbed, before one of the men reportedly pulled out a gun and shot him twice.

The victim was able to ask for help near the mosque entrance, as the the attackers made their escape, witnesses told authorities.

The Houston Police District said the victim was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where he will remain in the intensive care unit for 24 hours.

These anti-Muslim attacks need to stop. Innocent people are getting hurt, Mufti Mohammed Wasim Khan, a Madrasah Islamiah official, told Al Jazeera before adding that the victim was in stable condition.

This is what they want, Americans attacking fellow Americans.

Mustafaa Carroll, executive director of the Houston-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Texas, told Al Jazeera it was too early to know what motivated the attack.

Police also said the motive for the attack was not known.

On Saturday, a Muslim man was also attacked near a mosque in Florida.

The Southern Poverty Law Centre, which tracks hate groups, said anti-Muslim attacks rose sharply in 2015.

CAIR and the Centre for Race and Gender at UC Berkeley also reported that in 2015, there were approximately four times as many attacks on mosques than the previous year.
Following Turkish-Israeli reconciliation deal, 11,000 tonnes of supplies, including food and toys, arrive in Ashdod.

A Turkish ship carrying aid for Gaza has arrived in Israel, a week after Turkey and Israel agreed to restore ties that soured over a deadly raid on an aid flotilla in 2010.

The Panama-flagged Lady Leyla container vessel docked at Ashdod port on Sunday afternoon after departing on Friday.

Its contents were to be unloaded, inspected and sent to the Gaza Strip which is under an Israeli blockade and has been hit by three wars with Israel since 2008.

The ship was carrying 11,000 tonnes of supplies including food packages, flour, rice, sugar and toys, the Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency reported. The aid is expected to reach Gaza in a few days.

OPINION: What the Israeli-Turkish reconciliation says about Gaza

Turkey had initially pushed for a lifting of Israels blockade on Gaza as part of the negotiations to normalise ties, but Israel rejected this.

A compromise was eventually reached allowing Turkey to send aid through Ashdod rather than directly to the Palestinian enclave.

Israel says the blockade is necessary to prevent Hamas, the Palestinian group that rules Gaza, from receiving materials that could be used for military purposes. But United Nations officials have called for it to be lifted, citing deteriorating conditions in the territory.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who visited Gaza on Tuesday, called the blockade collective punishment.

Turkeys ruling Justice and Development Party has friendly ties with Hamas, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been a vocal supporter of the Palestinian cause.

Turkey and Israel were formerly close regional allies, but fell out in 2010 when Israeli commandos killed 10 Turkish activists in a raid on an aid flotilla seeking to break the blockade on Gaza.

READ MORE: Will the Turkey-Israel deal end Gazas siege?

Under a reconciliation deal struck last week, Israel will pay $20m in compensation to the families of those killed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promoted the economic benefits of restoring ties, with talk of building a pipeline to Turkey to export natural gas, and the need to find allies in the turbulent Middle East.

This small amount of aid coming from Turkey is highly appreciated, but the most important thing for Gazans is freedom, hope and a new process to end the suffering of two million Palestinians, Amjad al-Shawa, the director of the Palestinian Non-Governmental Network, told Al Jazeera from Gaza City.

We expect Turkey to pressure Israel  through its new restored relations  to respect international humanitarian law and to lift this inhumane blockade.

Families of four Israeli soldiers declared killed or missing in Gaza protested that the Turkish-Israeli deal did not mandate their loved ones be returned to Israel.

Several relatives and supporters of the soldiers families protested against the deal outside Ashdod port on Sunday.
Advisory comes after Ahmed al-Menhali was wrestled to ground by police in Ohio after being mistaken for ISIL suspect.

The United Arab Emirates has advised its citizens to avoid wearing the national attire abroad after an Emirati man was wrestled to the ground in the US state of Ohio and held as an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) suspect.

The UAE has also summoned a senior American diplomat to protest against the abusive treatment of Ahmed al-Menhali, in the US for a medical check-up, who was arrested at a hotel in the suburb of Cleveland.

UAEs foreign ministry said on Sunday that it expressed discontent to US embassy deputy chief of mission Ethan Goldrich, and demanded clarifications over the detention of Menhali, wearing a white robe and Arab headdress, on Wednesday.





A video of the incident posted on YouTube showed several policemen armed with rifles take down Menhali and then handcuff and search him.

A hotel employee had suspected Menhali had pledged allegiance to ISIL (also known as ISIS), while speaking Arabic on the phone.

She [the employee] went off and texted her sister and said I pledged my allegiance to ISIS, Menhali told Al Jazeera, speaking through a friend because of his inability to speak properly following a previous stroke.

They told the police that I was pledging allegiance to ISIS, but [said] nothing about weapons. The police responded as if there were weapons.

We are consulting with lawyers and will decide where to go from there.

The foreign ministry said it expressed discontent over the abusive treatment by the Ohio police of a UAE citizen as well as the posting of a video showing his arrest, which contained defamation of the UAE national.

Goldrich apologised for the incident, pledging to get clarifications from authorities, the statement carried by WAM state news agency added.

OPINION: Ramadan is the strongest antidote for Islamophobia

After confirming that Menhali posed no danger, the policemen let him go.

Menhali told media that he got several injuries from the arrest.

The Emirati foreign ministry, in a statement posted on Twitter, urged citizens not to wear the national dress during their travel, especially in public areas, to ensure their own safety.

100 percent blameless

Officials from the Cleveland suburb of Avon, where the incident happened, had also apologised to Menhali, according to Julia Shearson, executive director of the Cleveland Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

They told him that he was 100 percent blameless in this matter, and that the incident absolutely should never have happened, Shearson said in a statement sent to Al Jazeera.

Shearson also cited the police chief as saying he would welcome training about understanding Islam and Muslims for law enforcement to help break down barriers and stereotypes.

Anti-Muslim incidents have spiked in the US after deadly ISIL attacks in the West.

A Muslim doctor in the US state of Texas was shot and stabbed while on his way to a mosque for morning prayers on Sunday.

On Saturday, a Muslim man was also attacked near a mosque in Florida.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the US.
It might be the most basic beauty product, but it can get awfully luxurious. We work ourselves into a lather over soap.

2800 B.C.: Period when the Babylonians boiled fat and ashes to create a cleaning solution for clothes and cookware.

2nd: Century Greek physician and surgeon Galen recommended using soap to prevent skin diseases.

1200: Approximate year the Spanish and Italians first made soap from goat fat and beech bark. In Castile, Spain, olive oil was added to create the first white bar.

141: Number of yearsfrom 1712 to 1853that soap was taxed as a luxury item in England.

1863: Year Procter & Gamble chemist James Gamble noted in his diary, "I made floating soap today. I think we'll make all of our stock that way." The idea was shelved for years until the company launched Ivory soap and marketed its purity with the slogan "It floats."

1927: Year American soap manufacturersafraid that cars, paved roads, and widespread electricity led to less-dirty customersbanded together and formed the Cleanliness Institute, which started a hygiene campaign at schools, encouraging a daily "Keep Clean" parade.

1930: Year the radio show Painted Dreams debuted. It is considered the first soap opera, so named because the show's biggest advertisers were soap and detergent makers.

$25: Fine Wisconsin judge Harvey L. Neelen levied against a woman for yelling obscenities in 1953. She was also advised to wash her mouth out with soap "to wipe out the bad language in your mouth."

24: Age of future First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier when she met actress Zsa Zsa Gabor on a plane and asked for her skin-care secret. Gabor told her about a pricey black soap made with mud from the Dead Sea by celebrity facialist Erno Lazslo. Today, the soap costs $45.

50: Percent of her beauty that Audrey Hepburn once declared she owed "to my mother."

50: Percent she said she owed to Erno Lazslo.

64: Percentage of women who wash their hands at least six times a day, according to a global survey.

48: Percentage of men who do the same.

33: Number of people who contracted typhoid in 1906 and 1907 after eating food made by infected cook "Typhoid Mary" Mallon. Soon afterward, restaurant owners began to post signs requiring employees to wash their hands before returning to work.
           2005     ..        
Israel has recently decided to allocate millions of dollars to the construction of settlements in Judea and Samaria. Of course, this has produced anger among those who believe in the two-state fantasy of an Arab state and a Jewish state peacefully and cooperatively living side by side. As the fantasists see it, those darned Israelis are always such a nuisance -- building homes in their ancestral land, shattering the dreams of a people who are not a people, and throwing the Middle East into chaos once again. If the Israeli right wing that governs the country was not so closeminded and would just give peace a chance and the Jews and the Palestinians could be the best of friends.

However, in the real world, people know, or should know, that none of these things are true. The Palestinians have been offered their own state at least three times, in 2000, 2001, and 2008, and each time it was the Palestinians who refused to take the offer of most of the land they claimed they wanted, and live in peace with Israel. Further, it is not Israel that has thrown the Middle East into chaos, but Islamist extremism in the region, especially from the Shia Islamists in Iran. Also, the much-vilified Israeli settlements are not an impediment to peace in the region, but are a necessity for Israel to provide security and protect its Jewish heritage and identity.

The idea that building homes is the cause of this conflict is ridiculous, because there was conflict even before there was any Israeli construction in Judea and Samaria. When the Arabs refer to occupation, most often they mean Jewish occupation of the entire land of Israel. The evidence lies in not just their words and chants of from the river to the sea, but also in their actions, especially pre-1967, before Israel took Judea and Samaria from the invading Jordanians. History has demonstrated that the Palestinian Arab population has never been willing to agree to peace as long as there would be a Jewish state next to the Arab state. When Israel was first created and allotted a sliver of land, it was attacked by five Arab armies vowing to drive its residents into the Mediterranean. And since then, whenever Israel offered generous peace proposals, meeting almost all of the Palestinian Arab demands, the offers were still rejected because they required recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.

Settlements in Judea and Samaria actually are vital to Israeli national security. If Palestine were created in Judea and Samaria, it would likely become another hotbed for terrorists, like in Gaza. This is incredibly dangerous, as there would be parts of Israel only nine miles wide but still containing the vast majority of the Israeli population which would be trapped between Arab terrorists and the sea. The settlements in Judea and Samaria were established to widen Israels narrowest width, which ensures Israel will have a route to the Jordan Valley if Israel is forced to fight a war to the east. Further, Judea and Samaria are positioned on a formidable mountain range, towering over central Israel. Without Israeli control or presence there the IDF would not be able to prevent Arab Katyusha rocket fire that has in range over 70% of Israels population and 80% of her industrial base.

Advocates of Israeli withdrawal argue that Israel cannot control entire swaths of land with such a large number of Arabs because if Israel were to annex Judea and Samaria and grant citizenship to the Arab residents, the Jewish character of the State would be destroyed. However, this is not true. There will still be far more Jews in Israel than Arabs, despite overcounting of the Arab population, if the Arabs remain in Judea and Samaria after an Israeli annexation. In fact, contrary to conventional wisdom, the birth rate among Jews is growing and close to surpassing that of the Arabs, so as time goes on, the numbers will continue to favor the Jewish majority.

The other benefit of increased settlement activity in Judea and Samaria is that it reconnects the Jews to more of their homeland. Many of the ancient holy cities and sites in the heart of the Israelite kingdoms are located in Judea and Samaria. Tel Aviv just does not bear the same religious significance as areas like Nablus, where Josephs Tomb is located, and the Cave of the Patriarchs in the city of Hebron. Currently, Jews do not have full rights to access all of their own places of worship because of the large Arab presence in Judea and Samaria. The settlements seek to continue to re-establish the Jewish people as a nation on their historical land, hence they are not just a matter of security policy, but also security of heritage, and that is the entire reason for the Jewish State of Israel.

So when we read articles detailing how Israel will allocate more funds to the construction of settlements, we should not lament the destruction of the peace process and the two-state solution. What has killed the peace process has been Arab intransigence and incitement against Jews, and not Israeli settlements. In fact, these settlements are necessary to provide greater security for Israel from the hostile Arab population. True supporters of Israel should rejoice as settlement building strengthens Israels defenses and allows Zionism to flourish so that Jews can return to all of their homeland and rebuild what was laid to waste thousands of years ago.

Jacob Bernstein is an intern at the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET)
Genres : Family, Adventure

Starring : Kelly Reno, Vincent Spano, Allen Garfield, Woody Strode, Ferdy Mayne, Teri Garr

Plot Synopsis

"Black" is a stunning fire-and-silk stallion celebrated the world over. But to his young American owner, Alec Ramsay (Kelly Reno), he's much more. So, when the amazing animal is stolen, Alec will stop at nothing to get him back - from stowing away on a plane to Casablanca to crossing the brutal Sahara desert. With the help of a friend named Raj (Vincent Spano), Alec finally unravels the mystery of Black's theft...only to discover that he must overcome even greater odds to reclaim his beloved horse.
First lady Michelle Obama has wrapped up her six-day Let Girls Learn tour of Liberia, Morocco and Spain. Together with her mother Marian and two daughters Sasha and Malia, the FLOTUS, under the guise of promoting access to education for 62 million girls worldwide, embarked on a multimillion-dollar excursion where she ate great food, wore great clothes, hung out with celebrities, and spent $600,000 for one night in Marrakesh.

In Madrid, while speaking to schoolgirls about equality, Michelle did what her husband Obama does in African nations that ban homosexuality; she interfered by making a comment about abortion that was better left unsaid. Ignoring the fact that Spain is 68% Catholic, the wife of a man who boycotted Netanyahu for bringing a message to America hed rather not hear, Michelle stressed that female equality is tied to aborting offspring.

In a clever way, Michelle shared her husbands message that If [girls] make a mistake, they dont need to be punished with a baby. Simply put, Mrs. Obama must believe that letting girls learn sometimes means letting girls die.

Nonetheless, besides teaching her own daughters how to flaunt $4,000 outfits in the face of impoverished girls, Michelle clearly felt authorized to discuss how having children If you choose to have them impacts a girls future.

Joined by Spains fetching Queen Letizia Mrs. Obama had this to say about how childrearing positively impacts gender equity, You can start with how you raise your own children. Maybe [that] means telling your sons that its OK to cry, and your daughters that its OK to be bossy.

In gay-friendly Spain, Michelle could have just as easily said, Maybe it means telling your sons that its OK to use the girls bathroom and your daughters that its OK to ask a girl to the prom.

But she didnt.

Instead, the Guru of Girl Power attempted to inspire her female audience to great heights by talking about the accomplishments of a certain Democratic presumptive presidential nominee whose husband, on a tarmac in Phoenix, in an effort to thwart an impending indictment, intimidated a female U.S. Attorney General on his wifes behalf.

Then Mrs. Obama, who abandoned Lets Move! for a less food restrictive government-funded initiative, lamented young age girls around the world forsaking schooling for marriage. For such a supposedly bright individual, is Michelle unaware that in countries other than Spain and the U.S. encouraging girls to seek out an education could get them killed?

Nonetheless, while pushing Let Girls Learn the FLOTUS asked if families and communities who believe in things like underage marriage, and mutilating the genitals of young women, think that girls are even worthy of an education in the first place?

Yes, Michelle, girls are worthy of an education! However, in countries like Morocco and Liberia women are also worthy of being regularly subjected to beatings and rape by their husbands. And, on occasion, girls are even worthy of being forced into prostitution, and burnt alive. So, with so many other dangerous and more oppressive laws plaguing girls, why would Michelle Obama choose as her primary focus women being denied access to a classroom?

In Madrid, the first lady, a victim of catcalls herself, also reminded the spectators that education is [a]bout whether girls are valued only for their bodies  for their labor, for their reproductive capacities  or  valued for their minds as well. By telling girls in Spain that it was okay to choose education over an unborn life, Michelle Obama seemed to imply that labor, whether outside or inside a delivery room, may diminish opportunities for girls.

Either way, its hard to believe that these bitter sentiments continue to issue from the mouth of a woman who incessantly complains about gender bias and racial discrimination while enjoying the abundant fruit of a nation like America.

Moreover, Michelles mind over body shtick calls into question why the first lady insists on showing off her beefy biceps. In Madrid complete with a $2,000 price tag and a Delpozo designer label the first lady called attention to herself again by displaying arms that in the sunlight resembled two glistening rolls of bologna wrapped in a white, queen-sized bed sheet.

Nonetheless, without giving one solid example, Michelle, who hasnt washed a dish, or scrubbed a toilet in 35-years, continued to bemoan that despite advancement for women in both the U.S. and Spain , men and women are often held to very different standards. Mrs. Obama reminded the girls that:

Changes in our laws havent always translated to changes in our cultures. And many of us still struggle with outdated norms and assumptions about the proper role for women, especially when it comes to our families and our workplaces.

And so, once again, it cost the U.S. taxpayer millions of tax dollars to transport the first lady to Liberia, Morocco, and Spain. This time, under the banner of Let Girls Learn, Americas petulant FLOTUS, decked out in haute couture, represented our nations values by insulting cultural norms, complaining about male oppression, and peddling unrestricted abortion to Catholic schoolgirls.

Jeannie hosts a blog at www.jeannie-ology.com
James Sanders was the first investigative reporter to take a serious look at what happened to TWA Flight 800. For his efforts, he, his wife Elizabeth, a TWA trainer, and one of his sources, TWA Capt. Terry Stacey were arrested. The Sanderses were tried and convicted in federal court of conspiracy to steal airplane parts. Learn more in TWA 800: The Crash, The Cover-Up, The Conspiracy (Regnery: July 5).

July 12, 1996, Westhampton, Long Island, a repairman using his video camera to film the dawn, instead captured a large missile solid-fuel exhaust plume climbing into the sky. Then something large fell from the sky, on fire, leaving a smoke trail as it descended slowly toward the Atlantic Ocean south of Westhampton.

Five days later, in the same area of the sky, just after 8:30 pm, the United States Navy fired off another missile that brought down TWA Flight 800. Almost twenty years later I obtained from the FBI the video of the July 12, 1996, shoot-down, but the FBI refused to send me the documents associated with the video.

Newly discovered CIA documents, however, reveal that a cover-up was ordered. A factually-false narrative disguised as analysis was created, but never released to the media. Highly credible witnesses observed a missile take out TWA Flight 800, statements so compelling the FBI and CIA altered these statements to comport with the desired outcome of the investigation: mechanical failure.

The New York Times reported the story the FBI wanted read by the masses; therefore, not one relevant witness article was published. When the National Security State ordered the FBI to abandon its bomb hypothesis, the Times pivoted, cooperating with National Security State wishes, feeding the masses the new propaganda.

About this time, I began my investigation of the government. I was receiving documents from my sources inside the investigation that confirmed the FBI and NTSB were altering the debris field to comport with a mechanical explanation. I also received information that the United States Navy was involved, including its newest submarine, the Seawolf, then undergoing sea trials, and that a massive failure within the Navys AEGIS system was responsible for two missiles taking out the TWA 747.

I received the Supervisor of Salvage log for the Red, Yellow, and Green zones. Cross-referencing this with other documents received from inside the NTSB side of the investigation, I was able to confirm and track the NTSB effort to alter the debris field.

I received forensic evidence of a thermite warhead attached to a solid-fuel missile striking TWA 800s right side at the point where the leading edge of the right wing attached to the fuselage. A few feet away was engine number three, the first large part of the 747 to fall away. The NTSB/FBI moved the engine more than a mile to the east in its debris log to make the explanation for the crash read mechanical.

With some help from me, in March 1997, the Riverside, California, Press Enterprise ran a series of articles revealing forensic evidence of a thermite warhead and solid fuel missile. The DOJ then immediately raided the publisher of my TWA Flight 800 manuscript as it was being prepared for publication.

My phone records were seized, along with my financial records. Mail was seized along with my computer. No warrants were issued because thats the way the National Security State operates when its existence is imperiled. Later, during the trial, the judge said that these illegal National Security State acts were okay because Congress had not attached a criminal penalty to such shenanigans.

The CIA and FBI created a propaganda cartoon, presenting it to the worlds media November 18, 1997, about two weeks before my wife and I were arrested for receiving forensic evidence exposing federal lawlessness. The cartoon showed TWA Flight 800 flying east toward Paris, France, when suddenly a mechanical event blew off the front end of the 747, causing it to suddenly zoom-climb several thousand feet. FBI and CIA propagandists alleged this was what witnesses observed climbing into the evening air. A deep voice assured the public that no missile was involved.

Unfortunately for the Keystone Cops managing the cover-up, CIA documents have escaped their control. The CIA analysis concluded the zoom-climb did not occur, could not occur. There went the buffoonish cover story. Did the National Security State rush to the judge and manfully confess to the false CIA/FBI propaganda? Of course not.

Federal District Judge Joanna Seybert helped the National Security State by refusing to give my wife and me discovery, thereby guaranteeing that criminal utterances of National Security State propagandists would not be exposed. The judge then interrogated each member of the jury pool. All potential jurors who believed the federal government might engage in a cover-up were removed on the order of the judge. Seybert later confessed she would not allow a jury to sit in her court that did not believe in veracity of the federal government.

On December 22, 1998, prior to the trial, I was given three hours to photograph the reconstructed 747, along with the debris not included in the reconstruction. The path of the thermite warhead blast was photographed, along with altering of the floor of the center-wing-tank. The judge refused to allow a First Amendment defense so my photos of the criminal alteration could not be shown to the jury.

Times reporter John McQuiston wrote: Captain Stacey appeared as the chief Government witness against the couple, testifying the three of them had conspired to steal the evidence. He told the jury Mrs. Sanders pleaded with him to help provide evidence for her husbands investigation into the crash.

Search the trial transcript and you will find nothing to confirm McQuistons allegations. Stacey stated the exact opposite: he did not believe he was breaking the law when he on his own volition removed red residue samples and sent them to me to test for evidence of a missile.

In a tape-recorded conversation, the NTSBs Dr. Merritt Birky confessed that he and the other red residue propagandists lied. They claimed that the red residue was 3M 1357 glue when they knew that to be false. Birky also ordered NASA (Florida) chemist Charlie Bassett to cease testing when Bassett discovered possible explosive residue on crash debris. Seybert would not allow evidence of these criminal acts in her courtroom.

We appealed the inevitable conviction, and Appellate Judge Sonia Sotomayor, now a Supreme Court Justice, falsified evidence in order to not overturn my wifes conviction. DOJ lawyer Valerie Caproni forced the NTSB to violate federal law and turn over witness interviews to the FBI where they would be altered. Like Sotomayor, Caproni would become a federal judge. Reward for supporting the National Security State in its hour of need?

Reality is what remains after federal propagandists interpret fact. The shoot-down of a TWA 747 is fact; reality is everything the NTSB, FBI, CIA and DOJ said about the shoot-down over the last twenty years.
Who will be the first Republican to publically suggest that the DoJ has violated the Hatch Act?

The Hatch Act of 1939, also known as An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities, is named after the late U.S. Senator from New Mexico, Carl Atwood Hatch (1889-1963).

The U.S. Governments Office of Special Counsels website offers this definition of the Act:

The Hatch Act, a federal law passed in 1939, limits certain political activities of federal employees, as well as some state, D.C., and local government employees who work in connection with federally funded programs. The laws purposes are to ensure that federal programs are administered in a nonpartisan fashion, to protect federal employees from political coercion in the workplace, and to ensure that federal employees are advanced based on merit and not based on political affiliation. 

Further information is provided at uslegal.com:

The Hatch Act applies to federal employees, employees of the District of Columbia and certain employees of state and local governments. According to 5 USCS  7322 (1) employee means any individual, other than the President and the Vice President, employed or holding office in

(A) an Executive agency other than the General Accounting Office [Government Accountability Office];

(B) a position within the competitive service which is not in an Executive agency; or

(C) the government of the District of Columbia, other than the Mayor or a member of the City Council or the Recorder of Deeds;

but does not include a member of the uniformed services.

Lastly, additional information is posted on legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com:

Enacted in 1939, the Hatch Act (5 U.S.C.A. 7324) curbs the political activities of employees in federal, state, and local governments. The law's goal is to enforce political neutrality among civil servants: the act prohibits them from holding public office, influencing elections, participating in or managing political campaigns, and exerting Undue Influence on government hiring. Penalties for violations range from warnings to dismissal. The law's restrictions have always been controversial. Critics have long argued that the act violates the First Amendment freedoms of government employees. The U.S. Supreme Court has disagreed, twice upholding the law's constitutionality. Congress has amended the Hatch Act several times since 1939. In 1993, a number of amendments to the act sought to limit the effects of political patronage in federal hiring.

The intent of the Hatch Act is, therefore, to prohibit influencing elections, by protecting federal employees from political coercion in the workplace, including, but not limited to, persons employed or holding office in(A) an Executive agency other than the General Accounting Office [Government Accountability Office].

So heres the question: Does former President William Jefferson Clintons Phoenix tarmac rendezvous with Attorney General Loretta Lynch represent a potential case of political coercion in an effort to influence an election?

And, if it does, is an investigation by a Special Prosecutor warranted?

Also, note the federal government entities (underlined & bolded) on the list of the top 20 donor organizations to President Barack Obamas 2012 Re-election Campaign according to OpenSecrets.org:

University of California $1,350,139 Microsoft Corp $815,645 Google Inc $804,249 US Government $736,722 Harvard University $680,918 US Dept of State $638,237 Kaiser Permanente $592,761 Stanford University $532,246 Columbia University $478,123 Deloitte LLP $458,275 Time Warner $447,521 DLA Piper $415,390 US Dept of Justice $402,280 Sidley Austin LLP $400,671 US Dept of Health & Human Services $391,978 IBM Corp $370,491 Walt Disney Co $369,598 New York University $357,822 University of Chicago $354,282 University of Michigan $351,118

The combined total of the four federal contributions is $2,169,217, making the government the #1 source of contributions on the Obama Campaign donor list.

By the way, in comparison, not one government agency appears on the GOP 2012 Presidential Top 20 donor list.
Japan is almost completely unbound by political correctness when it comes to Muslims. There have been no instances of Islamic terrorism there, mostly because Japan does not permit immigration without marriage to a Japanese citizen. There are some illegal aliens from Muslim counties working in Japan, but very few with families.

So the common sense notion that if you want to prevent Islamic terror, you watch Muslims for signs of trouble, is accepted popularly, and even at the highest levels of Japans judiciary. Thus, as the UK Independent writes (via MSN):

Japan's Supreme Court has upheld the government's blanket surveillance of the country's Muslim community. The court struck down the second appeal by Japanese Muslim plaintiffs against what they perceive as an unconstitutional invasion of their privacy and freedom of religion.

The surveillance came to light because of a leak:

A 2010 leak of 114 police files revealed nationwide surveillance of Japanese Muslims. The files revealed that Muslim places of worship, halal restaurants and Islam-related organisations across the capital, Tokyo, were being monitored.

The plaintiffs were awarded damages of under one million dollars (90 million yen) for invasion of privacy because of the leak (not the surveillance itself). So it is a pyrrhic victory for them, leaving in place the legal mechanism for blanket surveillance based in the statistical probability that almost 100% of cases of Islamic terror are perpetrated by Muslims.

And who knows, maybe because the Koran preaches violent jihad against infidels, anyone adhering to its literal teachings is worthy of scrutiny.
On October 30, 1995, a great man summed up the feelings rapidly spreading within the West about the toxic political influence of mass immigration. In the era of Brexit, we now take the geographic region of choice, prefix it, and add the "exit" suffix. Much of this modern sanity is owed to Jacques Parizeau, who spoke the unspeakable and helped reopen the door to a rational discussion regarding the concerns surrounding mass immigration.

At the time, Parizeau was the premier of Quebec, and he launched a referendum to determine if residents of his province wanted to declare national sovereignty and become an independent country. Sadly, the pro-independence side lost, just 49.42% to 50.58%. Voter turnout was an astonishing 94%.

After the results came in, and it was clear the sovereignists had lost by the narrowest of margins, Parizeau blamed the loss on "l'argent et le vote ethnique," which translates to money and the ethnic vote.

The "vote ethnique" was the real cause, and the ethnic vote has now, unfortunately, forever doomed the Quebecois culture and their desires for an independent state. The sovereignists lost by just 54,000 votes. In 1995, the Canadian federal government  who rabidly opposed the independence movement  ordered its Citizenship Court judges from across the country to move into Quebec and immediately award full citizenship rights to immigrants in order to turn the tide against separation. It worked. During the months leading up to the vote, 44,000 immigrants were given citizenship and allowed  read: encouraged  to vote against independence. This alone, coupled with known "voting irregularities," ended any hope at the time of what could have been termed Quebexit.

Fast-forward more than two decades, and Quebexit has an immigrant nail in its coffin. The province had 975,000 foreign-born individuals as of 2011, or more than 12% of its total population, and this number is growing as it continues to accept tens of thousands of new migrants each year while having a low birth rate among its old-stock population. These immigrants will effectively entirely vote against sovereignty, presenting an insurmountable hurdle for the sovereignists.

Of course, that was always the plan for the globalists and multiculturalists. Saturate a society with immigrants, beating down opposition with accusations of xenophobia, racism, etc., and change the demographics so radically that the native demographic becomes a minority. Quebec's Parti Quebecois walked right into this trap in the decades before the 1995 referendum. The party was largely neutered, with a few exceptions  such as Parizeau, against any critical thought about the immigrant invasion underway that would preclude ever reaching their goals of independence.

Old-stock Canadians throughout the nation should have been more indignant of being continually lectured to by immigrant media commentators from quasi-authoritarian states, whether they came by way of Singapore or the former communist states of eastern Europe.

The U.K. narrowly avoided Quebec's ethnic disaster. Had Britain waited perhaps two or three more years, the increased Muslim population alone would almost assuredly have prevented a successful Brexit vote. The Netherlands, France, Spain, and others are in the same boat, having approximately the same percentage of immigrants as the U.K. If they manage to secure their "exits," it will be by luck alone, and the window of opportunity is narrowing rapidly, if it hasn't already passed.
More fallout from the Obama administration's war on coal as Murray Energy, a large supplier, announced it may have to lay off up to 80% of its workforce.

While stiff competition and low coal prices are also to blame. the driving force for coal layoffs are the draconian rules drafted by the EPA regarding carbon emissions.

Daily Caller:

Murray Energy Corp. notified employees it may have to slash as many as 4,400 jobs, or about 80 percent of its workforce, because of a combination of stiff regulations, low coal prices, and an increasingly crowded, competitive energy market. Company officials said it anticipates massive workforce reductions in September. Murrays owner, Robert Murray, is a stalwart supporter of Donald Trump and a fierce critic of President Barack Obama. The possible layoffs were due to the ongoing destruction of the United States coal industry by President Barack Obama, and his supporters, and the increased utilization of natural gas to generate electricity, the company said in a press statement Friday. The current coal price benchmark is $40 a ton, or half its level from five years ago, when the top Central Appalachian coal price ebbed at nearly $100 a ton. Another massive coal company, Peabody Energy Corp., was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April, joining the likes of fellow coal country gold standards Arch Coal and Illinois-based Alliance Coal, in contemplating drastic measures to pull itself up and out of the muck and mire. All three Goliaths are struggling in a coal market pummeled by low natural gas prices on one side, and overreaching regulations on the other. Peabody, which was marked as a bankruptcy risk by regulators prior to the companys decision, acknowledged it reneged on a $71.1 million interest payment to its lenders, putting in place a month-long grace period. Much like Arch Coal  which filed for Chapter 11 in January  Peabodys lenders are asking the once-massive coal producer to restructure its debt through bankruptcy. Arch filed in hopes of keeping $4.5 billion in debt off its financial accounts.

Low coal prices were inevitable once the fracking revolution took hold. Huge amounts of natural gas have been drilled and, with the new anti-coal government rules, have forced a conversion by coal electrical plants to natural gas. This has created a coal glut that has cut prices catastrophically.

Was this necessary? Absolutely not. What are driving the carbon rules is a belief in catastrophic global warming. The rules could have been gradually adopted over a number of years, giving the coal industry time to develop cleaner and more efficient ways of creating energy. But there is a thin veneer of vindictiveness on the part of the administration against fossil fuel producers, blaming them for climate change.

The coal industry was struck down and government is sitting on it to make sure it doesn't rise again.
Writing in The Telegraph, James Delingpole argues that U.K. conservative politician Michael Gove is the next Margaret Thatcher. Hardly. Or worse yet, if he is, it surely reflects poorly on Thatcher.

At times it is difficult to understand where Delingpole is going with his views, and why he would want to support Gove:

He is a genuinely decent, warm, sensitive man who likes nothing better than amusing and delighting friends with his excellent conversation and almost legendary speeches. But there's a very serious, committed side to him: on his Whitehall office wall, as a gesture of intent, he hung pictures of Lenin and Malcolm X. He is a conviction politician who likes to get things done, hence his vigour and absolute mastery of his briefs first as education secretary, more recently as justice secretary.

And in actuality, Gove does have pictures of Lenin and Malcolm X on his wall. Hardly good role models, and more precisely, they represent the lack of judgment far too common in the types of "conservative" leaders that the raging populists are getting behind.

Gove's fiscal conservative credentials are in serious doubt. For the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, he suggested that British taxpayers shell out $90 million toward a new yacht for the monarchy.

To add to his long spate of deficient judgment, Gove's foreign policy views are a failure and represent the policies that conservatism should be moving away from as fast as possible. As late as September 2008, he was still carrying the water for the disaster that was the war in Iraq:

Because now that the Bush family is leaving the White House, now that the Blair years are history, now that our troops are returning at last, we can see, clearly and free of partisan rancour, that the liberation of Iraq has actually been that rarest of things -- a proper British foreign policy success. Next year, while the world goes into recession, Iraq is likely to enjoy 10% GDP growth. Alone in the Arab Middle East, it is now a fully functioning democracy with a free press, properly contested elections and an independent judiciary. The two facts, the economic and the political, are of course connected. Sunni and Shia contend for power in parliament, not in street battles. The ingenuity, idealism and intelligence of the Iraqi people can now find an outlet in a free society rather than being deployed, as they were for decades, simply to ensure survival in a fascist republic that stank of fear. ... Now, eight years on, Iraq is not a scar on the whole world's conscience but a prompt to the Arab world's conscience. The war the region opposed has led to the establishment of their first democracy.

A few years later after Gove's writings, and rational conservatives look back on the nation-building exercise that was this war as a waste of blood and treasure . You can't build a Western nation-state in the Islamic wasteland that is the Middle East, and it was stupid even to try.

And Iraq's actual real GDP growth in 2009? Just 3.4%. That is certainly respectable compared to other regions, which suffered greatly that year, but no 10%. Whatever successes the Iraqi economy has seen in recent years are, in large part, being funneled directly into radical Islam, much as many of those cautioning against messing around in this region warned against.

Nobody serious refers to Iraq as a "fully functioning democracy with a free press, properly contested elections and an independent judiciary"  neither now nor at the time Gove was writing. To make such claims in public is an absurdity. It also looks as though the Sunni and Shia are back in street battles, as all those with even a modicum of common sense and historical knowledge could predict.

At present, Iraq is not just "a scar on the whole world's conscience"; it is Ground Zero for the exportation of Islamic terrorism abroad, which has affected the West greatly since Gove's neoconservative love-in.

If this is modern Thatcherism, then conservatives need to throw Thatcher's ideology on the ash heap of history as well. What we need are leaders who have a demonstrable history of good judgment, accurate predictions, and with the ability to lead the West out of the septic tank into which it has fallen. Gove is not that leader.
With the leadership race for the Conservative Party of Canada underway to replace former prime minister Stephen Harper, a selection of less than stellar candidates have entered the race. Two of the most notable include Harper's former foreign minister, Maxime Bernier, and Kellie Leitch. Both are very liberal when it comes to social views, but that is the least of the concerns about their candidacies and what they say about the sorry state of Canadian conservatism.

Bernier's former girlfriend, Julie Couillard, was the subject of intense media scrutiny in early 2008, whereby the Montreal newspaper Le Devoir found that Couillard "had links to the criminal biker underworld as late as 2005  [and yet] is the head of a high-tech firm that has been involved in airport security." Bernier was then forced to resign as foreign minister in May 2008 "after leaving NATO-summit documents in the home of his former girlfriend, Julie Couillard." A subsequent federal government national security investigation of Bernier revealed that "Bernier's carelessness hurt Canada's reputation within NATO circles and was 'injurious' to national interest."

Leitch, who served as the minister of labor and was also the minister responsible for the status of women under Harper, initially chose Nick Kouvalis to head her leadership campaign. Kouvalis  who was the campaign manager for Toronto's notorious crack-smoking mayor, Rob Ford  has been no stranger to controversy. In 2007, he was aquitted of uttering a death threat against a member of Parliament, and in May of this year, he pleaded guilty to driving with a blood alcohol level above the legal limit.

Poor judgment and toxic individuals abound in the party, and continue to be recycled, making the party entirely unelectable at the federal level until a complete purge and reboot have been completed and demonstrated to the base. Unless that occurs, Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau  and his successor(s), if the clean-out takes more than a decade  will remain prime minister. And quite frankly, the country is better off with a Liberal P.M. than having the conservative rot given another chance to govern: 2006 through 2015 were bad enough under Harper, and the next generation could truly drive the nation into the ground.

Hurting the chances for real reform and true conservative leadership in the party even more are the members of Canada's supposedly conservative commentariat. Romanian-born Financial Post contributor Lawrence Solomon, who wrote a glowing pre-election promotion for Harper last October, is self-described as "one of Canada's leading environmentalists" and was an "advisor to President Jimmy Carter's Task Force on the Global Environment (the Global 2000 Report) in the late 1970's."

And then there is American-born  and apparently still of dual Canadian-American citizenship  Margaret Wente at the Globe and Mail newspaper. Wente, like so much of the Canadian "conservative" commentariat, has an apparent habit of trying to claim more original credit for ideas than is warranted  a problem that is also endemic in the United States. Between 2012 and 2016, Wente's own newspaper confirmed repeated occasions of plagiarism, some of which dated back to 2009.

And in her latest article, the immigrant Wente proceeds to lecture on how Canada gets it right on immigration. Only she gets it wrong. Immigrants repeatedly vote overwhelmingly (generally ~70%) for the left-of-center parties in Canada, and the 2015 federal election was no exception. Consequently, if you are for immigration, you are against the electoral success of conservative parties in Canada. The data is clear, and this is more settled political science. As a result, the pro-immigration strategy of Jason Kenny  Harper's former minister of citizenship and immigration and multiculturalism  undoubtedly cost the party the 2015 election, and led to a 2011 victory less than it should have been, for the simple reason that it turned off much of the real conservative base, gaining fewer moderate voters than it loses off the right end of the spectrum.

Wente goes on to claim that somehow Canada's immigration has been more moderate than in the U.K., and this explains the immigration backlash across the pond: "The British ran into trouble because they've had too much immigration, too fast."

Wrong again. The U.K. has a 13.4% foreign-born population, while Canada is already at more than 22%. Since 2005, the international migrant stock as a percentage of total population rose by 3% in both Canada and the U.K., showing that Wente doesn't even understand the data she is dealing with. Canada's rate of immigration growth during the past decade has been as fast as in the U.K., and Canada's level of total immigration is nearly double that of Britain. She also tries to peddle the left-wing myths that in Canada, "public support for immigration is strong." Except that a comprehensive review of the data reveals a different story. Canadians are very skeptical of immigration and multiculturalism.

In Canada, the "conservative" media commentators are, in actuality, liberals caught somewhere between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on the political spectrum, and their ideas of a reliable source of news and opinion are outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and Vox.com. They regurgitate pro-immigration pablum because their corporate masters desirous of a steady flow of low-cost labor want them to.

Old stock Canadians aren't buying this fake conservatism anymore, especially from immigrants, which is why the Conservative Party is down nearly 2:1 to the Liberal Party in the polls. It will stay that way until the conservative cleansing takes place, which will involve a party that is far more socially conservative and nationalist.

Moderatism is dead. If the media and political face of the Canadian conservative movement continues to showcase the weak individuals it currently does, consider it unelectable in perpetuity.
In a sign of shifting fortunes in the oil business, Trade Arabia reports that Russia has surpassed Saudi Arabia as the top oil exporter to China.

Russia beat out Saudi Arabia as China's largest oil supplier in May, customs data showed on Tuesday, marking the third month in a row the world's biggest oil producer has topped the world's biggest oil exporter in feeding China's market.

Both Russia and Saudi Arabia view the Asian oil market as a top priority, but Chinas small, independent refineries (aka, teapots) prefer the low-Sulphur oil from Russia due to the smaller cargo size and geographical proximity to the refineries. This is in contrast to high Sulphur grades from Saudi Arabia and Iraq which is less suitable for the teapots because of larger shipment sizes and because they are typically sold under long-term contracts. China is encouraging the teapot  Russia operation by speeding up approvals for crude import licenses and quotas for independent refiners.

Meanwhile, Saudi Aramco reacted Thursday by announcing that it will cut all official oil prices to its Asian and US clients.

State-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co. lowered its official selling price for Arab Light crude to Asia by 40 cents to a premium of 20 cents a barrel above a regional benchmark. Saudi Arabias move to lower the official selling price (OSP) will intensify competition with rivals such as Russia and the United Arab Emirates, who produce similar oil grades and are also looking for a bigger share of the market in Asia, the worlds top oil consuming region.

Whether reductions of selling price for oil will further exacerbate an already lowered revenue stream for the Kingdom is arguable as the Saudis are aiming for increasing their market share in Asia directly competing against the Russians.

The kingdom, however, has responded by pumping and shipping more following an oilfield expansion, a move that traders say could pressure rival producers  such as the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) and Russia  and knock down prices in Asia.

In other words, Saudi Arabia is not taking the recent Russian surge in Asia lying down. Asia is the Kingdoms traditional stronghold, and the challenge to its dominance will not go unanswered.

John Smith is the pen name of a former intelligence officer
Emails from the reporter who wrote the UVA gang rape story to Rolling Stone editors show the moment that the magazine realized they'd been had.

The emails and texts were filed in court on Friday as part of a lawsuit brought by UVA Associate Dean Nicole Eramos that seeks $10 million in damages against the magazine for defamation.

Reporter Rubin Erdely at first backed the presumed "victim's" story of the gang rape by a fraternity. But inconsistencies in the narrtive told by "Jackie" finally led Erdely to the conclusion that she was lying.

Washington Post:

Rolling Stone journalist Sabrina Rubin Erdely spent five months investigating a shocking claim of a gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity, and the 9,000-word account of the brutal attack published online on Nov. 19, 2014, sent a tremor through the Charlottesville campus and beyond. Then, on Dec. 5, at 1:54 a.m., Erdely sent an e-mail to the magazines top-tier editors, Will Dana and Sean Woods, with a simple subject line: Our worst nightmare. The body of the message detailed how Erdely no longer trusted the primary source for the most striking anecdote in her article: a U-Va. junior named Jackie, who told Rolling Stone that she had been raped by seven men, while two others watched, during a date function at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house in 2012. She wrote that as questions arose about the tale, she tried to have Jackie help her verify the identity of her assailant, and it spiraled into confusion. By the time we ended our conversation, I felt nearly certain that she was not being truthful, she wrote, noting that she had come to believe that Jackie isnt credible. She ended her message by saying that the fraternity was planning to issue a statement denying that there was a party at their house the night of the purported assault. We have to issue a retraction, she wrote. Erdelys e-mail was a signal flare warning of turbulent months to come for the magazine, but, according to hundreds of pages of Erdelys notes and other materials related to the case filed in court Friday, there were many other warnings  before the story published  that Jackies account was inconsistent.

Even before the story was published, Erdely suspected Jackie was not being truthful:

The notes show that after Erdely learned of Jackies allegations involving Phi Kappa Psi, she uncovered the story of Liz Seccuro, who was drugged and raped at the same fraternity house at U-Va. in the 1980s. Erdely mentioned the connection to Renda. Its a little too much to believe, to be honest, that somehow its not part of the institution and that it accidentally happens twice in similar ways, Renda told Erdely. It begs you to suspend your disbelief. In her notes, Erdely describes the moment when Jackie tells her of the apparent connection. Jackies description of her assault strongly resembled aspects of Seccuros, including that she believed the fraternity had served her a spiked drink. Every hair on my arm is standing up, Erdely wrote in her notes describing her reaction. Seems like more than a coincidence. Jackie told Erdely that she learned of two U-Va. students who also were attacked at Phi Kappa Psi. Two other girls who were gang raped at the same fraternity? Erdely asked.

Yes, Jackie said.

Shocking, Erdely said.I dont know the stats on gang rape but I cant imagine its all that common? So the idea that three women were gang raped at the same fraternity seems like too much of a coincidence.

There were other warning signs. An episode of the NBC drama "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit" portrayed a gang rape eerily similar to Jackie's story. She even mentioned it to Erdely. A couple of books on sexual assault also gave details that mirrored Jackie's account.

Bottom line: Erdely's reporting, while thorough in some areas, completely fell apart when she tried to tell Jackie's story. She failed to follow basic journalistic precepts. And for that, she and the magazine she wrote for are likely to suffer the consequences.
Genres : Comedy, Romance, Musical

Starring : Alice Faye, Carmen Miranda, Phil Baker, Benny Goodman, Eugene Pallette, Charlotte Greenwood

Director : Busby Berkeley

Plot Synopsis

Playboy Andy Mason, on leave from the army, romances showgirl Eadie Allen overnight to such effect that she's starry-eyed when he leaves next morning for active duty in the Pacific. Only trouble is, he gave her the assumed name of Casey. Andy's eventual return with a medal is celebrated by his rich father with a benefit show featuring Eadie's show troupe, at which she's sure to learn his true identity...and meet Vivian, his 'family-arrangement' fiancee. Mostly song and dance.
From the annals of "You're government is incredibly corrupt" comes another exciting episode of criminal activity covered up by bureaucrats for an astonishing two decades.

A lab associated with the United States Geoglical Survey (USGS) falsified data from 1996 to 2014. And the USGS refuses to name the bureaucreats responsible or say whether they were punished.

Daily Caller:

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) officials refuse to reveal who, if anyone, has been punished for nearly two decades of disturbing data manipulation.

Someone in the inorganic section of a USGS lab in Lakewood, Colorado manipulated data  some of which related to the environment  from 1996 to 2014, with serious and far ranging effects, the Department of the Interior (DOI) Inspector General (IG) recently reported.

The Energy Resources Program lab closed March 1, 2016 as a result of the bad data, but now agency officials wont say whos been punished or even if anybody has or will be.

Due to the confidential nature of personnel actions, we cannot disclose any specific actions that have been taken, USGS spokeswoman Anne-Berry Wade told The Daily Caller News Foundation. She also cited privacy laws and refused to name the officials involved.

The first data manipulation issue began in 1996  just one year after the USGS program was created  and lasted until 2008.

Science center officials initiated an investigation, but the employee resigned before the investigation concluded, a May 2015 IG report said.

A House Natural Resources subcommittee has held two hearings since May scrutinizing DOI employees who escaped punishment for misconduct, or were even promoted.

The second instance began later in 2008 and lasted until 2014, when USGS halted all work at the lab before closing it two years later. The manipulation affected $108 million worth of projects, according to the IG.

USGS is pursuing disciplinary actions for the responsible staff, the IG reported in June 2016.

But Wade wouldnt reveal additional details, including whether any managers that supervised the analyst who manipulated the data would face punishment. She also told TheDCNF to ask the IG whether anyone was referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution.

We conducted a limited scope inspection and, as a result, we had no material that gave us a reason to consult with a U.S. Attorneys office, Assistant IG for Investigations Matthew Elliott told TheDCNF.

Regardless, theres no guarantee the Department of Justice would have prosecuted anyone, given that the agency declined 17 of 29 referrals from the IG.
Sharp isnt a name that is popular in the smartphone world, here in the West. But in their homeland of Japan, they produce some of the best looking Android smartphones around. The Sharp AQUOS Mini SH-M03 is the latest in their AQUOS line, which features a bezel-less display, just as youd expect from Sharp. The company brought their AQUOS Crystal to the US in 2014 and it was available on Sprint as well as their prepaid brands  Virgin and Boost Mobile. The AQUOS Crystal had no bezel on the left and right sides as well as the top. With everything fitting into the chin of the phone. It was a pretty interesting smartphone and at the time, we thought Sharp might bring more of their offerings over here. Theyve pretty much kept that design here with the Sharp AQUOS Mini SH-M03.

As the name hints at, the AQUOS Mini SH-M03 is a pretty small device. Sporting a 4.7-inch display. This panel is of the 1080p resolution variant, and uses Sharps IGZO technology. Sharp says that this technology is more power-efficient than most LCDs available today. Additionally, the specs inside include a Snapdragon 808, which is Qualcomms hexa-core processor from 2015. The same processor that has powered other flagships like the Google Nexus 5X, Motorola Moto X Style (Moto X Pure in the US) and many others. Thats paired with 16GB of storage and 3GB of RAM. Luckily the 16GB of storage is expandable using the micro SD card slot. Camera-wise, theres a 13-megapixel camera around back, which also features a f/1.9 aperture. The front-facing camera is a 5-megapixel sensor. The entire body is waterproofed, rated at IPX68. Powering this bezel-less smartphone is a 2810mAh battery.

Advertisement

The Sharp AQUOS Mini SH-M03 is available in Japan now for 44,800, which roughly converts to around $436. Like most of Sharps other smartphones, its highly unlikely that they will ever actually make it into the West. A bit sad, considering a phone like this could definitely give the big-time Android OEMs like Samsung, LG, Motorola, Sony, and even HTC, a run for their money. As its a sleek smartphone, with relatively high-end specs, but it also has a small screen. Something that is wanted among a small niche of users, that most OEMs are ignoring, at least for now.
Elie Wiesel was a Holocaust survivor, Nobel Peace Prize winner, a prolific author, and an outspoken activist for peace and human rights. He died Saturday, at 87 years old.

Wiesel is widely known for his role in advocating for education about the Holocaust, and for helping post-World War II generations remember the Shoah with his memoir "Night," about his own experience as a teen in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Wiesel wrote more than 50 books. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States Congressional Gold Medal, the French Legion of Honor with the rank of Grand Cross, and his books won awards including Prix Medicis. In 1986, he received the Nobel Peace Prize. Until his death, he served as Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and University Professor at Boston University.

A few of his most-loved quotes:

 We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

 The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.

 There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.

Elie Wiesel's Books: 'Night', 'Dawn', and 'Day', and 'A Beggar in Jerusalem' at Amazon.

Images below: U.S. President Barack Obama during their historic visit together at Buchenwald.

Obama first saw Wiesel when the author lectured at the college where Obama was a student, but the pair became friends in 2009 when Wiesel was invited to join the president on a visit to Buchenwald. Obama said to Wiesel at the end of his speech: "The last word has to be yours here," the author told Haaretz. Wiesel went on to make a speech in which he said to Obama: "Mr President, we have such high hopes for you, because you, with your moral vision of history, will be able and compelled to change this world into a better place You are our last hope."

Earlier today, GOP Presidential candidate Donald Trump tweeted an image of his opponent, Hillary Clinton, with the Star of David, aka The Jewish Star. We are going to need a lot of hope.

A snip from the extensive Haaretz obituary:
News / National

by Staff Reporter

RESTRICTIONS on imports of selected basic commodities under Statutory Instrument Number 64 of 2016 will not be reversed because the policy is in Zimbabwe's best interests and was introduced after wide consultations, Industry and Commerce Minister Mike Bimha has said.His State Security counterpart, Minister Kembo Mohadi, has added that South African businesspersons operating near Beitbridge Border Post should not think they can use illegal tactics to force Harare to adopt policies that favour them but are detrimental to Zimbabwe.The ministerial declarations follow Friday's chaos at the Zimbabwe-South Africa border in Beitbridge where rogue elements and businesspersons on the other side of the Limpopo River took advantage of frustrations by Zimbabwean travellers over implementation of SI 64/2016.Minister Bimha yesterday told the state media that Government would not deviate from engineering its economic revival agenda and would press ahead with the limited import restrictions."There is no change whatsoever in Government's position. The Statutory Instrument went through all the processes of public consultations with relevant stakeholders and then through Cabinet. So how can we just wake up one morning and declare that we have changed the policy?"The SI is in the interest of the economy because we are looking at how things will change in the medium to long term and not its effects today," he said.Minister Bimha said the regulations did not bar people from importing a few products for personal consumption, and were aimed at stopping importation of truckloads of locally available goods at a time Government was trying to boost manufacturing capacity.He said Zimbabwe would apprise Sadc trade ministers on why the country introduced the restrictions at the Council of Ministers meeting slated for Botswana next week.Last month, Government gazzetted SI 64.2016, which removed goods that are locally available from Open General Import Licence exemption. The goods include bottled water, mayonnaise, salad cream, peanut butter, jams, maheu, canned fruits, vegetables, pizza, yoghurts, flavoured milks, dairy juice blends, ice creams, cultured milk, cheese, coffee creamers, camphor creams, white petroleum jellies, body creams and plastic pipes.The SI also controls importation of second-hand tyres, urea and ammonium nitrate fertilisers, tile adhesives and tylon, shoe polish and synthetic hair products. Goods categorised as builder-ware products including wheelbarrows (flat pan and concrete pan wheelbarrows), roofing frameworks, pillars, columns, balustrade, shutters, towers, masts, roofs and roofing framework are also part of the restricted list. Flash doors, beds, wardrobes, bedroom and dining room suites, office furniture and specified woven fabrics of cotton were restricted.The restrictions follow banning of the wholesale importation of cooking oil through a similar mechanism two years ago. Since that ban, locally manufactured cooking oil now occupies 95 percent of supermarket shelf space, a massive jump from 15 percent in 2014, according to official statistics.


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News / National

by Stephen Jakes

Zanu PF senior members in Bulawayo reportedly denied their party colleagues food aid and gave most of it to non party members much to the chagrin of the affected members.Zimbabwe Peace Project reported in its May report that several cases of discrimination were reported in the province."One peculiar incident was reported in Lobengula where Zanu PF officials reportedly denied their own members access to rice and instead gave the rice to non-members they were recruiting."This left their supporters complaining that their own party was now feeding MDC T supporters at their expense. Zanu PF officials had also started registering their youths for the allocation of land to be done by Local Government Minister Saviour Kasukuwere," reads the report. "Food relief distribution in urban areas also began in some constituencies with some residents complaining that the scheme was politicized. Intra-party conflict within Zanu PF was reported in Luveve where a group of war veterans accused Minister Eunice Sandi Moyo of working with former Vice President Joice Mujuru's ZimPF."ZPP said police denied MDC T their right to demonstrate which was set for 28 May but this was later overturned by the High Court which granted permission in line with the constitution.
News / National

by Stephen Jakes

The supporter of MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai, has claimed that the former Vice President and ZimPF leader Joice Mujuru has no support if the little crowed that characterized her rallies in Bulawayo and Harare is the only support that she has.Soneni Dube said Mujuru, who recently addressed a handful of her party supporters at Stanley Square in Bulawayo revealed that she has nothing to offer the people of Zimbabwe."In her speech, MaNdlovu', as Mujuru called herself so as to be politically accepted in Bulawayo, stressed the issue of coalition of opposition parties. ZimPF was only declared a political party this year in February," Dube said. "This means that ZimPF is still adapting to the opposition politics environment. Politics is a game of numbers."She said however, this is different with Mujuru's party which has few supporters. After realizing that ZimPF has few, Mujuru thought of coalescing with other opposition parties."The idea of a coalition implicates that ZimPF wants to use other opposition parties who are superior in terms of numbers of supporters than that party.However, Mujuru should be advised that the downside of forming an alliance of political parties is that all the leaders of different parties crave for power. In the event that the union has been formed, things like slight digression from the common agenda or misjudging a partner's sentiment can cause a great damage to the planned union," Dube said."Also, an alliance between political parties is often affected by ideological differences among the leaders of those organisations. Ideologies of disgruntled politicians usually affect the output."Dube said People Democratic Party (PDP) led by Tendai Biti strongly believes that forming solidarity with Mujuru's ZimPF is a great idea."ZimPF and PDP share the same background of being political turncoats. Worse still, Mujuru is a reject of the ruling party Zanu-PF while Biti is a discard from the opposition party MDC-T. Zanu-PF ideology and MDC-T ideology are like water and oil which never mix. The same is likely to be experienced if ever Mujuru and Biti attempt to unite," he said.
News / National

by Stephen Jakes

Political analyst Pedzisai Ruhanya has said the Local Government Bill which the Ruling Zanu PF legislators has voted for is a clear criminal abuse of power by the ruling party and the Minister Saviour Kasukuwere meant to target Harare Mayor Bernard Manyenyeni and other opposition mayors.Kasukuwere tabled the bill in parliament where Zanu PF MPs voted for it and due to their numbers against opposition MPs it sailed through parliament."When injustices become law; resistance become duty (Thomas Jefferson). Such literature should be read by the likes of Kasukuwere," Ruhanya said."The Manyenyeni Local Gvt Bill shows criminal abuse of power and legislative repression. What was and is required is a local government law that provides for devolution of local governance as provided by the Constitution."He said to use the law to target individuals and scoring cheap political points is archaic, parochial, anachronistic and epitomizes the pettiness, vindictiveness, decomposition and corruption of the political in Zimbabwe.
by Sumon Corraya

The president of the Bishops Commission for Justice and Peace slams the attack in the capital. God shall not tolerate this massacre, he told AsiaNews. Now it's up to the countrys Muslims. They must stand up to save their religion. The victims include nine Italians, seven Japanese, three Bangladeshis, and one Indian. Full of sadness, Pope Francis condemns such barbarous acts as offences against God and humanity.

Dhaka (AsiaNews)  Mgr Gervas Rozario, bishop of Rajshahi and president of the Bishops Commission for Justice and Peace, spoke to AsiaNews about last Fridays massacre in Dhaka.

For the prelate, the attack at the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe is an unjustified barbarous act. Gods name cannot and must not be mixed up with such acts. Now Muslims believers must stand up and intervene to save their religion.

Twenty hostages died in the attack against the cafe popular with foreigners, including nine from Italy, seven from Japan, three from Bangladesh, and one from India. Six of the seven (presumed) terrorists also died, as did two policemen.

The gunmen stormed the cafe on the last Friday of Ramadan, shouting "Allah is great" and opened fire.

Bangladeshis Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina described the attackers as young misfits who do not understand the values of Islam.

According to Mgr Rozario, the condemnation must be unanimous. "No one, of any religion, can justify killing. It is sad to realise that the hostages died in this way. God shall not tolerate this massacre. Now it's up to the countrys Muslims. They must stand up to save their religion. Peace must prevail upon all of us. "

The Bangladeshi Church "is praying for the victims of Islamic terrorism. May God grant eternal peace to the departed souls. The Christian martyrs of the massacre shall be remembered in a very special way."

In a message signed by the Secretary of State, Card Pietro Parolin, Pope Francis yesterday voiced his pain.

Deeply saddened by the senseless violence perpetrated against innocent victims in Dhaka, His Holiness Pope Francis expresses heartfelt condolences and condemns such barbarous acts as offences against God and humanity.

In commending the dead to Gods mercy, His Holiness gives the assurance of his prayers for the grieving families and the wounded.
Francis spoke about the Gospel of Luke, where the "workers" of which Jesus speaks "are the missionaries of the Kingdom of God. Their task is to proclaim a message of salvation for everyone." The mission "is hindered by the evil one. That is why the worker of the Lord "will strive to be free" from human influences of every kind.

Vatican City (AsiaNews)  Pope Francis spoke today before the Marian prayer about the Gospel of Luke, and the workers that the Lord of the harvest must send out to work. They are the missionaries of the Kingdom of God, a task to which every Christian is called.

For the pontiff, Christians are indeed called to a wonderful mission, destined for everybody without exception. It requires a lot of generosity, with especially ones eyes and heart turned on high, to invoke the Lord's help. There is so much need for Christians to bear witness with joy to the Gospel in everyday life."

The task of these workers "is to proclaim a message of salvation for everyone. The missionaries are not only those who go far away but all of you, everyone, as well. This is the gift that Jesus gives us with the Holy Spirit. This proclamation means The kingdom of God is at hand for you (Lk 10:9). In fact, Jesus has brought God close to us; God became one of us. Through Jesus, God reigns in our midst; his merciful love overcomes sin and human misery."

This is the Good News that the "workers" must bring to everyone. They must bring a message of hope and comfort, peace and charity. When Jesus sent his disciples ahead of him into the villages, he told them first say, Peace to this household [. . .] cure the sick in it and say to them (Lk 10:5,9). All this means that the Kingdom of God is built day by day and already offers its fruits of conversion, purification, love and consolation among men on this earth. This is a beautiful thing, right? Building this Kingdom of God in the making day by day. Building, not destroying. "

The Pope then asked. "With what spirit will the disciples of Jesus carry out this mission? First of all, they must be aware of the difficult and sometimes hostile reality that awaits them. But Jesus does not spare words in this, right? Jesus said, I am sending you like lambs among wolves (Lk 10:3). This is clear. There is always hostility at the beginning, the persecution of Christians. Because Jesus knows that the mission is hindered by the work of the evil one. For this reason, the workers of the Gospel will strive to be free from human influences of every kind, carrying neither money bag, nor sack, nor sandals (Lk 10:4), as Jesus recommended, to rely solely on the power of Christs Cross."

This "means giving up every reason to boast of personal careerism and hunger for power, and becoming humble instruments of salvation due to the sacrifice of Jesus." Christians are indeed called to a wonderful mission, destined for everybody without exception. It requires a lot of generosity, with especially ones eyes and heart turned on high, to invoke the Lord's help. There is so much need for Christians to bear witness with joy to the Gospel in everyday life."

The disciples sent by Jesus, Francis went on to say, returned rejoicing (Lk 10:17). When we do this, the heart is filled with joy. This expression makes me think about how much the Church rejoices, rejoices when its children receive the Good News thanks to the dedication of so many men and women who proclaim the Gospel daily. So many priests, religious, good pastors . . . "

I wonder, the pope said. Listen to the question: how many of you young people who are present in the square today hear the call of the Lord? Do not be afraid, be brave, and carry the torch that was given to us by these apostles. Let us pray to the Lord, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, that the Church may never lack in generous hearts, who work to bring the Heavenly Fathers love and tenderness to everyone."

After the Angelus, the Pope offered his closeness to the families of all the people killed and wounded in the attack that took place yesterday in Dhaka, and the one that occurred [today] in Baghdad. Let us pray together. Let us pray together for them, for all the dead, and let us ask the Lord to convert the hearts of all those blinded by hatred. After this, the pontiff recited a Hail Mary with the faithful in the square.

After this, the pontiff greeted the groups in the square, especially "some special pilgrims, in the name of Mercy", and pointed out that as part of the Year of Jubilee, next Wednesday, "we shall celebrate the memory of Saint Maria Goretti, the martyr girl who forgave her killer before dying. This brave girl deserves an applause from the entire square! I wish you all a good Sunday. Please do not forget to pray for me. Have a good lunch and goodbye!"
News / National

by Stephen Jakes

An MDC-T senior member Chalton Hwende has lambasted William Gerald Mutumanje aka Lumumba for daring to insult an elderly statesman saying such a move is disrespectful and unAfrican.Lumumba insulted President Robert Mugabe during a press conference in Harare much to his condemnation from the political divide."I think using a F**K word on a 92 year old man is unAfrican and the height of lunacy," Hwende said. "As Zimbabweans we must learn to disagree without reaching that level of Lumumba."But Samuel Gwenzi challenged him saying Lumumba was to say more."Mugabe doesn't deserve respect. He will never respect the people and Lumumba respond to the ignorant Mugabe. He may have misjudged in forming a party but the f...k word is on point," he said.
Hello everyone,



I would like to sell my house before I leave England if possible and migrate with the proceeds of the sale. If however that doesn't happen, and it sells once I am in Australia, would I have to pay tax in Australia on that money?



Best regards,



Zorro.
Hey all,



I am moving to Australia this month on my 309 visa and will be moving to NSW. Do they consider a 309 visa a permanent one even it's a temporary visa?



The reason I am asking is because I read online that in order for me to get an Australian Drivers Licence, I need to have a permanent visa. Do I need to wait until I get my 100 visa before I can apply for an Australian Licence? You are only allowed to drive on an international drivers licence for a few months right?



I would love some clarification on this.



Thanks so much in advance!



Rick
Dear all,



I am moving to Brisbane in August in order to start a new permanent job at the University of Queensland. I have been granted the 457 Visa, and nominated for the permanent residency, which should be sorted in the following months.



My question is regarding to the options/possibilities for my partner to move with me in the near future (next 9-12 months). We started a relationship a few months ago while I was living and working permanently in the UK and she was living in Spain. We are not married nor engaged yet - but we are obviously thinking of it.



I reckon that given my future permanent residence she could opt to acquire a Visa or permanent residence to stay with me given the right conditions, however we haven't lived together permanently for a period of time due to our work circumstances.



Additionally, she's got a couple of kids from previous relationship, which may make things slightly more complicated.



Please, could you provide me some advice regarding which could be the most feasible way for her to move to Australia in the near future (max. a year), so we can stay together?



Many thanks in advance.



Best wishes,

Xoano
News / National

by Staff reporter

Former Zanu-PF Harare youth leader, Acie Lumumba's family and friends yesterday said he has gone missing and they feared he may have been kidnapped following his obscene insult of President Robert Mugabe on Thursday.Police yesterday confirmed the former Zanu-PF politician who abandoned the party after making many damning allegations against its officials, could not be found.Police spokesperson Charity Charamba told The Standard yesterday that police had launched a manhunt for Lumumba whom they believed had gone into hiding following his unprintable insult of Mugabe.The youthful politician used the "F" word to insult Mugabe before threatening to go after his family should the State come after him.His family and associates in his newly-formed party  Viva Zimbabwe  claimed that he had gone missing in a suspected case of kidnap. They said there were indications that he was picked up by officers from the Criminal Investigations Department soon after his party launch Press conference where he took the ugly pot-shot at Mugabe.The party's legal secretary, Agency Gumbo, said they were searching for Lumumba."We do not know about his whereabouts and we are also looking for him. He was taken by the CID officers soon after the Press conference," said Gumbo."His personal assistant told us that he was going home on Thursday night and that was the last we heard of him."Charamba said Lumumba had undermined the authority of the president in contravention of Section 33 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act Chapter 9:23."He knew that he had committed a crime, that is why he went into hiding. Even if it wasn't the president, anyone insulted like that has the right to come and complain to the police," said Charamba.
Hi Yoli,



Yes, a lot of us have been through this situation and similar, either waiting to come home to Australia or waiting separated from a partner. Both situations are hard, though I think it helps when you can wait it out together with your partner.



No one can tell you exactly how long it's going to take, unfortunately. If you're living in Spain, your application would probably be going through the Madrid embassy. See if you can find a thread on the forum about processing times in this embassy - it really helps to get an idea of how long they are taking to grant partner visas and if there are any issues you should know about (eg. processing often seems to slow down at the end of the financial year when the embassies reach their allocated quotas for the year). When we were waiting in Germany I was looking at the Berlin thread at least once a day and sometimes at the London thread and a few others too, to try to get an idea of what month was being processed and to connect with other people in the same boat. The sense of sharing the wait with other people seems to help, and seeing grants come through gives hope that it will happen eventually.



Hopefully you're on the home stretch now.
Boeing is considering a new twin-aisle airliner that would bridge the gap between its 737 and the 787. The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reported last week that Mike Delaney, Boeings VP of airplane development, said that the company believes theres a market for up to 5000 aircraft that would seat up to 270 and operate on routes up to 10 hours long. Delaney said the company has been in discussion with 36 airlines about the plane, which would take about 10 years to develop. The 757 and 767 that fit that size range are no longer being built and those in service are considered old and inefficient. The new design would likely incorporate many of the features of the 787, including a composite airframe. Meanwhile, Boeing is hoping to lure operators of the extravagant A380 to a stretched version of its 777.

While it hasnt even broken ground on a factory for its 777-9, a 400-seat modernized 777, the company has been floating the idea of a 450-seat version called the 777-10X. It will be aimed squarely at operators of the A380, which carries high operating and maintenance costs and only carries a few dozen more passengers. Emirates, which has the largest fleet of A380s, has been pressing Airbus for an upgraded version with more efficient engines but Airbus is reportedly not keen on making the investment.
AVweb actually has a policy about ignoring coverage of youngest pilot aviation exploits since they can and have led to disaster but a story out of the U.K. is one of the exceptions. Budget carrier easyJet has welcomed the U.K.s youngest airline pilot and he said few have noticed, which is as it should be. Luke Elsworth is just 19 and holds a multi-crew pilot license and flies A319 and A320 aircraft throughout Europe. He began training for his commercial license nine days after turning the minimum age of 18 in late 2014 and by April of 2016 he was in the right seat of an Airbus heading from Gatwick to Airbus home airport in Toulouse, France

Flying for easyJet runs in the family and his father Paul is a senior captain for the airline. The younger Elsworth said there was no pressure from family to become a pilot but hed been watching his father while growing up and figured it would work for him, too. Elsworth said passengers dont seem to pay any attention to his age and theres no reason they should. If youre good enough to be there, youve done the training and youre suited towards it then I dont think age really has an impact, he told the Manchester Evening News. He said his next goal is to become a captain but in the meantime hes trying to encourage young people to take up the profession.
The mission of awwwards is to create the biggest community of web designers and developers on the Internet, as well as our platform, we also host conferences all over the world in iconic cities, where attendees can see inspiring talks from leading fi
3 July 2016 10:49 (UTC+04:00)

Armenian armed forces have 10 times violated the ceasefire with Azerbaijan on the line of contact over the past 24 hours, said Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry.

Armenian armed forces, stationed in the village of Berkaber of Armenias Ijevan district, opened fire at Azerbaijani positions located in the village of Gizilhajili of Gazakh district.

Moreover, Azerbaijani positions underwent fire from the positions located near the village of Horadiz of Fizuli district and from the nameless heights of Khojavend 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.
3 July 2016 17:26 (UTC+04:00)

The OSCE PAs Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions opened debate on Rapporteur Gordana Comic`s (MP, Serbia) report and draft resolution, introduced by Committee Chair Isabel Santos (MP, Portugal) as part of the OSCE PA Annual Session in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.

The resolution urges a revitalization of the OSCEs commitment to the human dimension of security at a time when a crisis of leadership and ideas is coinciding with a humanitarian emergency related to Europes refugee and migrant crisis.

Proposed by the Azerbaijani parliamentary delegation, a paragraph was added to the draft resolution. The paragraph urges the protection of rights and freedoms of migrant women and children.
3 July 2016 11:20 (UTC+04:00)

Repairs in Naftalan airport, which will be the seventh international airport in Azerbaijan will begin in 2017, director of the Depatment of Culture and Tourism of Naftalan Zohrab Adigozalov told Trend.

Adigozalov said that it gets international airport status after the restoration of activity.

Previously, through the airport flew Yak-40 aircraft in the direction of Baku-Naftalan, and now it will be possible to fly in foreign destinations.

"Sometimes the day the airport took five flights, gradually their number was reduced to two and one flight per day, therefore it was decided to suspend flights" - Adigozalov said.

Construction of the new airport will be carried out at the expense of state funds. At the same time the director of the department did not name the time for completion of works and putting the airport into operation, as well as the cost.

"The activities of the airport was suspended in 1994 and since then it functions as cashbox, where you can buy tickets for air travel through airports in Ganja and Baku. However, the restoration of flights increases the number of tourists" - Adigozalov said.

According to him, until 1988, the annual number of tourists in Naftalan was about 80-84 thousand people, and in 2015 their number was 20,000, including 4,800 foreign tourists. For five months of 2016 the total number of tourists reached five thousand (in 1200 growth), including 900 foreign tourists.
3 July 2016 15:32 (UTC+04:00)

Azerbaijan`s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva and other international organizations Vagif Sadikhov has met with Geneva Mayor Guillaume Barazzone to discuss Azerbaijani-Swiss ties.

Ambassador Sadigov hailed political relations between the two countries. He pointed to prospects for economic and cultural cooperation with Geneva.

Barazzone hailed Azerbaijani-Swiss cooperation, and expressed his confidence that it would continue developing.

They discussed the opportunities for organizing a series of events promoting Azerbaijan`s culture in Geneva.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Kern County may be spread far apart, but when tragedy hits, the county comes together.
News / National

by Thobekile Zhou

Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko has revealed that some elements within Zanu PF are pursuing a racial policy which President Robert Mugabe is against.He said Mugabe (92) who forcibly evicted hundred of white commercial farmers off their land is not racist."Some misguided leaders are pursuing a racial policy and they are a disservice to Zanu PF, which is a revolutionary but multiracial political party. While the government is keen on luring foreign direct investment (FDI), it is also working on strengthening relations with local investors," said Mphoko in Nketa.He warned government officials from misrepresenting the name of Mugabe by attacking the white community, claiming to be propagating the vision of the President.
News / National

by Staff reporter

Violence that rocked Beitbridge Border Post on Friday is negatively affecting business volumes in Musina, SABC reported Sunday evening.The broadcaster said trading at Musina remains badly affected by the Zimbabwean government's decision to ban goods from entering the country through Beitbridge.Today, 17 people appeared in the Beitbridge magistrate's court on the Zimbabwean side, charged with public violence.A State warehouse with thousands of dollars' worth of imported goods held in lieu of duty payment was razed in a raging fire.Cars held by Zimra were destroyed in the fire started by groups of protesters who fought running battles with police as they were driven from the border post.Meanwhile, Zimra says it will go ahead and implement Statutory Instrument 64/2016 despite violent protests that have rocked Beitbridge town.Zimra issued a statement late on Friday stating that the ban on specified goods was there to stay."The authority is implementing SI 64 of 2016 as gazetted. Members of the public are encouraged to comply," read part of the statement.
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News / National

by Staff reporter

Former Zanu-PF Hurungwe West MP Temba Mliswa has sensationally claimed that President Robert Mugabe does not trust securocrats that have always been seen as the power behind the nonagenarian leader's 36-year rule.Speaking from Brussels, where he met with several European Union representatives through a Media Origins-organised meeting, Mliswa took the opportunity to discuss the country's State of economy and re-engagement efforts.He said as it stands, the First Lady Grace wields so much power in terms of how the country is being run, but was not in favour of the security organs that include the war veterans.Mliswa said the war veterans were very crucial in ensuring Zanu-PF's existence and campaigning for the party to remain in power."That is the defence, because the war veterans are an extension of the defence, soMugabe has no confidence in the security as he alluded to at the conference in Victoria Falls that he was no longer trusting them and that they must not interfere with the politics of Zanu-PF.We know very well that is something which you cannot do withoutthey are critical in advising him," Mliswa said.The outspoken businessman, who now leads a youth movement Youth Advocacy for Reform and Democracy (Yard), met Geoffrey Van Orden, who is a member of the European Parliament for the East of England and a Conservative security and defence spokesperson.He also met with Anna Fotyga, another European Parliament member and a chair of the subcommittee on security and defence.Mliswa explained the importance of the security sector in Mugabe's rule, adding that even though they serve at his pleasure, he is not at liberty to remove them at will. He said because of the lack of trust in the security sector, Mugabe would have loved to change the securocrats and replace them with people that his wife feels she is safe with."That's how powerful he (Mugabe) is, but they (securocrats) have resisted and I think they are very clear in terms of defending themselves and say, listen we put you where you are. The 2008 elections were rigged as a result of us getting involved, you were on your way out and you can't just kick us out like that'," Mliswa said.He said that Zimbabwe must re-engage with Western nations and get back into the Commonwealth, since there are many benefits that come with being a member of that grouping.Commonwealth is a voluntary association comprising several independent and sovereign nations, most of which are former British colonies."Zimbabwe has to come back to the Commonwealth. There are no two ways about it. You cannot talk about re-engagement when you are not able to go back to the Commonwealth again."The first point of call must be for Zimbabwe to get back to the Commonwealthwhether that will happen while Mugabe is in power, that's a different thing altogether, but whoever is to assume leadership in the country must be very clear about re-engaging and being part of the Commonwealth in moving forward," Mliswa said.Mugabe pulled Zimbabwe out of the Commonwealth in December 2003.He said he did not accept the decision made at the Abuja summit, to maintain Zimbabwe's suspension indefinitely.The country had been suspended from the Commonwealth in 2002 after a presidential election widely seen as flawed.
News / National

by Danisa Masuku

It's the sound of a gun that a villager from the Fairfield area of Somabhula heard until he fell unconscious when a magazine of bullets was wasted on him.About 55 bullets later, Brighton Ndlovu (50) was still alive after farm guards that accused him of poaching in 2008 shot and left him for dead.The gun that almost killed Ndlovu was a Mossberg 500 listed as arguably the number one selling shotgun.Of the 55 bullets that successfully found a spot on his body, only 16 were removed by doctors. Therefore, he lives with 39 bullets in his body."I was sitting with other villagers at Peter Moyo's homestead. About five men who guard Debshan Farm which is seven kilometres from our homestead came and accused us of poaching. While we were trying to explain our side of the story one of them stood up and sprayed a gun randomly at us. While I was trying to run into the house they shot me several times on my back,, as a result I fell down and they continued," said Ndlovu.He was rushed to hospital where a doctor discovered there were 55 bullets in Ndlovu's body.Up to now, doctors have only managed to remove 16 of them. Thirty nine bullets are yet to be removed.The matter was reported at Gweru Rural Police Station under case no.CR 115/ 04/ 08.However, the accused Judah Mpofu was not arrested and he left for Gokwe without compensating his victim."We reported the matter at Gweru Rural Police Station. But the police officer said they didn't have transport to go and investigate the case. Instead they told us that as villagers we had to go and locate Mpofu and effect a citizen's arrest," he said.Efforts to get a comment from Midlands spokesperson Joel Goko were fruitless as his phone went unanswered.Ndlovu told B-Metro how he has lived with the ammunition in his body."They shot me on the back several times, on my thighs and buttocks. The doctor managed to remove those on the buttocks and thighs. Those on the shoulder and at the back are the ones still there," he said.That means a life in and out of hospital."I sleep on my tummy. On cold days I am affected by pneumonia. That is why I wear a jersey all the time. The bullets at times make me feel itchy," he said.His wife, Hleziphi Sibanda is now the breadwinner."I assist people with fetching firewood and water. They usually pay me with maize or money but it is not enough to buy required medication but we manage to buy pills," she said.No wife would want to see her husband in such pain. Sibanda gets emotional when she talks about her husband's situation."He sold about 30 cattle to get medical attention. We have nothing now, we can't even pay our children's (six of them) school fees," she said, adding they were $8 000 in the red with medical expenses.To remove the remaining 39 bullets the couple needs $20 000.John Moyo, the village head, has since decided to pay school fees for one of Ndlovu's children."Community members have been assisting the family with money for buying medication. As the village head I am paying for his seven-year-old child who is doing Grade Two at Debshan Primary School. But he is facing a $253 debt for his other two school going children and has been given a letter of demand by the school authorities."Ndlovu is appealing for financial help and anyone who may wish to assist may contact him on 0717837515 or 0713234268.
A 9-year-old Bay area photographer is back home after her dream came true.

Madison Harrison traveled to Washington D.C. to snap pictures of the President of the United States.

Madison Harrison started her photography business when she was 3

The entrepreneur traveled to D.C. earlier this summer

She was invited to sit with the Press Corps to take pictures at an event

The Spring Hill fourth grader was invited by the United State of Women Summit after she made a plea on social media.

It was really, really amazing, being invited, Madison said. I just couldnt believe it.

As part of the press corp, Madison scored pictures of the president, the first lady, the vice president, television icon Oprah Winfrey and television host Gayle King.

I had to pinch myself to realize I was there, Madison said.

Now, Madison said she has a new goal. She wants to be a photographer at the Oscars.

Madison is no amateur. She started taking pictures when she was 3 years old. She even has her own photography business.
The Army Corps has started reducing the flow of water from Lake Okeechobee.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio is calling on President Barack Obama to declare a state of emergency to help businesses harmed by the massive algae bloom fouling some of Florida's southern rivers and beaches.



Algae blooms off Martin, St. Lucie counties

Algae caused by water from Lake Okeechobee

Senators calling for stop of flow from St. Lucie River

Rubio on Friday toured a portion of the St. Lucie River where a smelly muck is fouling an area promoted as Florida's "Treasure Coast." During a news conference later, he called the impact on tourism, home values and small businesses "catastrophic," saying he couldn't think of a precedent anywhere else in the country.



"I hope the president will have an emergency declaration, because that will open up the full portfolio of aid that the federal government can provide local businesses and communities that are being impacted by this," Rubio said.



Rubio's Democratic colleague, Sen. Bill Nelson, toured the area Thursday. Both senators have joined Martin County commissioners in calling for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to stop the flow of water between the river and Lake Okeechobee. Residents and business owners blame the algae on pollutants streaming from the lake.



After touring the St. Lucie River as it passes through downtown Stuart, Nelson said the problems can be traced to Florida's history of diverting water to the ocean.



"We need to repair 75 years of diking and draining, but that takes time," he said. He called on Florida's Legislature to spend money approved by state voters for environmental projects such as purchasing land around Lake Okeechobee for water storage instead of diverting the funds to pay for administrative costs.



The Corps' Jacksonville District began the reductions Friday, targeting the Caloosahatchee Estuary and the St. Lucie Estuary, a news release said.



The action comes after Florida Gov. Rick Scott declared a state of emergency over the problem, and as politicians and residents are blaming the federal government.



Multiple Florida lawmakers have asked federal authorities that oversee Lake Okeechobee to immediately stop freshwater releases that coastal communities blame for algae blooms and other environmental damage.



"I would describe them as guacamole-thick. And it stinks," said Gabriella Ferraro, spokeswoman for Martin County.



The blue-green algae is the latest contaminant featured in yearslong arguments over water flowing from Lake Okeechobee, which is critical to South Florida's water supply and flood control systems.



At Central Marine boat docks in Stuart, pea-green and brown algae coated the water Thursday and smelled strongly like cow manure. Blooms that started last week in the St. Lucie River continue to spread, threatening Atlantic beaches expecting crowds of families for the holiday weekend.



Sarah Chaney, a receptionist at Central Marine, said boaters and fisherman are cancelling reservations after seeing reports of the algae, which she called "horrible and disgusting."



When Scott declared a state emergency for the area Wednesday, he blamed the federal government for neglecting repairs to the lake's aging dike that's considered one of the country's most at-risk for imminent failure.



On Thursday, he amended the emergency declaration, adding Lee and Palm Beach counties to Wednesday's emergency declaration for Martin and St. Lucie counties. Palm Beach County is located directly south of the existing emergency area, while Lee County is located on Florida's Gulf coast.
Friends and family are honoring one of the victims of Saturdays fatal crash on US 301 with a memorial.

3 people killed in US 301 crash Saturday identified by FHP



Troopers say crash happened as car tried to pass another



Crash remains under investigation



Matthew Garcia, 24, was one of the three killed in the crash.



According to the Florida Highway Patrol, Garcia was driving on US 301 when a VW Bug trying to pass another car collided head on with his SUV. Seconds later, two other oncoming cars ran into them.



"They changed lives when they changed lanes, Garcias mother, Jamie Vanness said. And it made me think that not only for that ten seconds she could have just waited for him to go by."



The VW Bugs driver, Garcia and Garcias passenger, Corey Dormany were killed. One other person was taken to the hospital.



"It feels like you are just numb, Vanness said. Its like a part of me died too. That was my son, I talked to him every day."



Saturday night, friends and family met at a memorial built in Vannesss yard. They lit candles that spelled out Matthews name and shared their favorite stories of how much Garcia loved fishing and being a father.



"He had a son, my grandson Jordan, Vanness said. "And I feel so bad for him because hes not going to have his dad and Matt was a great dad."



Vanness said the memorial will stay in their yard and are encouraging anyone to stop by and pay their respects.



"Its a happy sad feeling, Vanness said. You are happy because you know people care and they loved Matt and no one has had a bad word to say about him, but it makes you sad because, you know, this is it."



Vanness said the family is trying to raise money for Garcias funeral.


Bangladeshi forces stormed an upscale Dhaka restaurant to end a hostage-taking by heavily armed militants early Saturday, killing six of the attackers and rescuing 13 captives including foreigners. The military said 20 hostages were killed during the 10-hour standoff, and a survivor's father said the attackers spared people who could recite verses from the Quran.

20 hostages were killed, 13 rescued in the restaurant attack

Bangladeshi forces stormed the restaurant after a 10-hour standoff

Six attackers were killed

Italian foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni said nine Italians were killed, and India's government confirmed an Indian woman was killed. The overall toll of 28 dead included two police officers who were killed at the start of the attack.

The hostage-taking marked a sharp escalation of the militant violence that has hit the traditionally moderate Muslim-majority nation with increasing frequency in recent months. Previous attacks involved machete-wielding men singling out individual activists, foreigners and religious minorities.

About 35 people were taken hostage Friday night when gunmen stormed the popular Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's Gulshan area, a diplomatic zone, during the Ramadan holy month.

Paramilitary troops who mounted the rescue operations in the morning killed six attackers and recovered explosive devices and sharp weapons from the scene, Brig. Gen. Nayeem Ashfaq Chowdhury said. He did not identify the hostages.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina condemned the attack, which was claimed by the Islamic State group, and she said security officials arrested one of the militants.

"Because of the effort of the joint force, the terrorists could not flee," Hasina said in a nationally televised speech, vowing to fight militant attacks in the country and urged people to come forward.

"Anyone who believes in religion cannot do such act," Hasina said. "They do not have any religion, their only religion is terrorism."

In Rome, Gentiloni said the bodies of nine Italians have been identified among the dead.

There was another, unidentified body in the military morgue of Bangladesh, but its nationality had not been determined, Gentiloni told reporters Saturday. Italian news reports had said about 10 Italians were inside the restaurant when it was attacked by militants on Friday night.

Japan's government said a Japanese hostage was rescued with a gunshot wound but seven others are unaccounted for. Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Koichi Hagiuda said the eight were together at the restaurant during the attack. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters in Tokyo the situation for the others was "dire."

India's External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj confirmed that a young Indian woman was among those killed in the attack.

"Extremely pained to share that the terrorists have killed Tarushi, an Indian girl who was taken hostage in the terror attack in Dhaka," Swaraj tweeted, adding that she had spoken with the girl's father.

Indian officials said Tarushi Jain, 18, was a student at University of California, Berkeley, who was visiting her businessman father in Bangladesh.

Two Sri Lankans also were rescued, said Lt. Col. Tuhin Mohammad Masud, commander of the Rapid Action Battalion that conducted the rescue operations.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist activity online. The Amaq news agency, affiliated with IS, also posted photos purportedly showing hostages' bodies. The authenticity of the images could not be confirmed.

With the sound of gunfire and explosions, local TV stations reported that the rescue operation began at 7:40 a.m. It included army personnel with automatic weapons and at least seven armored vehicles and ambulances. The attackers did not respond to authorities' calls for negotiation, Masud said.

The attack came during Ramadan, when devout Muslims fast during the day and eat after dark.

On Friday evening, many people headed to the popular bakery and restaurant that serves Spanish food and is patronized by residents of Gulshan, an affluent neighborhood where most of the foreign embassies are located. The restaurant overlooks a lake and on pleasant evenings, diners often chose to eat outdoors.

Kitchen staffer Sumon Reza, who escaped, said the attackers chanted "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great) as they assaulted around 9:20 p.m. Friday, initially opening fire with blanks.

Another survivor said the gunmen ordered bakery workers to switch off the lights in the restaurant. The militants then covered close-circuit cameras with black cloth.

The bakery worker, who was not identified, told ATN News, a Bangladesh television channel, that when the first attacker entered the gate he thought it was someone taking shelter in the restaurant's doorway.

"Then I saw that he had weapons. On seeing that, I ran toward the back of the restaurant. He fired while I was running but I was not sure if he was targeting me because I did not look back," the survivor said.

He said he ran and told everyone working inside the bakery, and many people ran out using the back door.

"Those who could not hear me, or understand me, did not leave because this happened in a short span of time," he said.

Rezaul Karim, the father of a Bangladeshi businessman who was rescued along with his family, said the attackers did not harm any hostage who could recite verses from the Islamic holy book, Quran.

Karim said his son, Hasnat, had gone to the restaurant along with his wife and two children to celebrate the birthday of his elder daughter when the attack happened. "He told me, 'Please save us, please!' And he hung up," he said.

Karim said his son told him that the attackers "did not hit people who could recite verses from the Quran. The others were tortured," he said.

"The gunmen asked everyone inside to recite from the Quran. Those who recited were spared. The gunmen even gave them meals last night," Karim said.

He said detectives were questioning his son and his family as part of the investigation.

Police said the two officers died at a hospital after being wounded in the initial gunfire. Ten of 26 people, who were wounded when the militants opened fire, were in critical condition, and six were on life support, according to hospital staff. The injuries ranged from broken bones to gunshot wounds. Only one civilian was among the wounded.

The government did not directly comment on the IS claim of responsibility but has denied in the past that the extremist group based in Syria and Iraq has a presence in Bangladesh, instead blaming the recent attacks on its political enemies.

In Washington, a White House official said President Barack Obama was briefed on the attack by his chief counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco. The president asked to be kept informed as the situation develops, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the president's meetings.

State Department spokesman John Kirby says the U.S. is in contact with the Bangladesh government and has offered its assistance to bring those responsible to justice.

The recent attacks in Bangladesh have raised fears that religious extremists are gaining a foothold in the country, despite its traditions of secularism and tolerance.

About two dozen atheist writers, publishers, members of religious minorities, social activists and foreign aid workers have been slain since 2013. On Friday, a Hindu temple worker was hacked to death by at least three assailants in southwest Bangladesh. IS and and al-Qaida affiliates have claimed responsibility for many of the attacks.

Hasina's government has cracked down on domestic radical Islamists by making scores of arrests. It has accused local terrorists and opposition political parties - especially the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its Islamist ally Jamaat-e-Islami - of orchestrating the violence in order to destabilize the nation, which both parties deny.

---

Associated Press writers Katy Daigle in New Delhi, Matthew Pennington in Washington and Ken Moritsugu in Tokyo contributed to this report.
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Newly opened restaurants are introducing fresh energy into Houston's favorite island.

Galveston has seen the debut of some chef-driven establishments (a handful are concepts by Houston talent) as well as some family-owned spots that are infusing the Bay Area with diverse new cuisines.

Among some of the recent launches is Tex-Mex restaurant Taquilo's, which opened last month in downtown Galveston. It comes courtesy of the Galveston Restaurant Group (GRG) owned by Danny Hart and brothers Johnny Smecca and Joey Smecca. The bright, bold new spot replaced longtime Island outpost the Stork Club, next to another GRG establishment, Little Daddy's Gumbo Bar.

RELATED: Galveston restaurateur tackles seawall parking shortage

On the menu are Tex-Mex staples, including nachos, quesadillas, fajitas and burritos. Some seafood-forward options include a variety of ceviche iterations and a jalapeno-stuffed shrimp brochette. Hart boasts that ingredients are sourced from Island favorite Katie's Seafood Market, with steak and fajita cuts carted in from Houston-based Freedman Meats.

(Story continues below.)

"I just wanted to start slow, but we were full within 30 minutes," Hart laughs. The tourists have been swarming the new place and its bar, which offers a variety of margaritas made with name-brand tequila. (More: Taquilo's.)

READ MORE: The biggest bar and restaurant closings so far this year

Earlier this year, Houston's self-proclaimed Godfather of Burgers, Ricky Craig, swung open the doors to a Cajun/Creole seafood restaurant, Harborside Mercantile. After some staffing shuffles and a brief shutdown, Craig re-opened the gorgeous space on the Strand and is back to serving head-on barbecue shrimp, muffalettas, duck and sausage gumbo and a number of other Gulf seafood items. (More: Harborside Mercantile.)

Three Indian restaurants are adding exotic flair to Galveston's dining options. The Himalayan Taste, Rice and Curry and ZaZa Bar & Bites all opened this year.

"The funny thing is, none of the three restaurants are run by Indians," Asad Khan, owner of ZaZa Bar & Bites, told The Galveston County Daily News. "One is from Nepal, and two of us are Pakistani-American. But India, Pakistan and Nepal are all part of the same subcontinent, and there are common items in all three places."

READ MORE: Galveston tourism industry continues to gain momentum

Moving away from Galveston, over in Seabrook, Tookie's Burger's fanatics are converging upon newly opened Tookie's Seafood. The long lines and longer waits should see some relief soon, however, since owner Barry Terrell has opened only half of the restaurant's 12,000-square-foot space. He's reluctant to roll out the other dining areas because he wants his staff to "become a team" and familiarize themselves with the new menu.

That new menu includes fried seafood platters, lobster bisque, gumbo, po-boys, steak and more.

"Everything is fresh and made in-house," Terrell told the Houston Chronicle late last month. "For drinks we have a full-service bar." (More: Tookie's Seafood.)

There's plenty to do and plenty more to eat in Galveston now. As Hart says, "Come to Galveston. We keep growing."
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"When you have confidence, you can have a lot of fun. And when you have fun, you can do amazing things." Joe Namath

"Israel Prophets were seers "Examine this view. To what extent do Zimbabwean prophets act as seers ? (25) - pt 60In order for you to understand this question, you have to be able to answer the following fundamental questions.- What is a seer ?- What is a prophet?- Were all prophets seers?- Can Moses be regarded as a seer?- Why only Samuel, Gad, Elisha, Amos, are regarded as seers but not every prophet?- What's special about the above prophets leading them to be regarded as seers ?- Can it be argued that seer was a function of a prophet?- The above view requires one to have deep knowledge about seers . B. Vawter submitted that seers were visionary rather than ecstatic, Ewbank says a seer is someone with a second sight, Ewbank further says that seers worked locally but Samuel was that kind of a seer who was known abroad "known in Benjamin land" ,Saul`s servant who is regarded as ZIBA by Dr T Constable knew Samuel very well for different reasons ~It is said that seers were able to visualize things which were happening at a distant.- Not every prophet according to our primary source "bible" is regarded as a seer, only Samuel, Amos,Gad,Edom to mention but few are regarded as seers ,In other words this means that they he'd special thing which they practised.- Samuel is regarded as seer as he partook in the issue of the lost asses of Kish.~This means that Samuel was visionary ,thus why he is regarded as a seer.~ Will notice that this might be valid to a certain degree as it supported by B Vawter who says seers were visionary rather than ecstatic .- Amos is regarded as a seer by Amaziah even though he denies it,(Amos 7 v 11).The point is that what did Amos do in front of Amaziah which led him to regard Amos as a seer but not a prophet?, Can this be the visions of doom in Amos 7 v 1?.~If it is like that ,then this means that the view of B Vawter is valid to a certain level of thinking?~One will be still forced to ask himself or herself the following fundamental questions concerning Amos and Amaziah e.g. Amos is being regarded as a seer by Amaziah (7v 10),And he rejects the title by using the title "prophet" Does this mean that Amos thought that seership and prophet is one and the same thing?- Gad is regarded as a seer and prophet in 2 Samuel 24 v 11. - Why is he given two titles?- And not one title if seer and prophet is one and the same thing? In other words this means that seership was also another role of a prophet.- The argument of the essay is that all prophets were seers in Israel ,basing on the above text ,one will be forced to argue that the statement which says all Israel prophets were seers is invalid, because not all prophets were regarded as seers and some didn't even partake in the duties or roles which were inline with seership.- In other words the statement doesn't hold water much ,one will be justified to suggest that not all prophets were seers but less prophets as the writer highlighted above.- It is of great value to note that no single prophet has claimed to be a seer in Zimbabwe. And the reason is unknown . Does this mean that the title is now out of fashion? ~Inline with the views of Ewbank and B Vawter which the writer stated above you will understand that Zimbabwe prophets greatly deserve to be regarded as seers even though they don't claim to be seers.- Zimbabwean prophets are visionary for instance Uebert Angel who is nicknamed as "Major Provovo man of style" was quote by the Camera visualising the man who was in Zambia (2012) and the man was called same hour ,same minute. He confirmed the prophecies of Angel.- Uebert Angel in 2012 cited by Bulawayo24.com and Newsday Newspaper delivered two visions "My vision to heaven and Hell", just like Amos ~The likes of Chaminuka, Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi can be regarded as seers .- Zimbabwean prophets are able to forthtell the events [This is one of the character of a seer]- Basing on the above Zimbabwe context information, it is of great value to note that in Zimbabwe context no single prophet has claimed to be a seer but they greatly practice the seership duties, just like Israel prophets.- Justify the validity of the statement and giving the extent
France's prime minister said Britain's vote to leave the European Union is a business opportunity for Paris.

Manuel Valls said the government is working on enhancing the French capital's attractiveness, especially measures regarding taxes and expatriates' status. He spoke to the Le Parisien newspaper in an interview published on Saturday.

Mr Valls told international companies: "Welcome in Paris! Come and invest in France!"

Due to the British vote to leave the EU, some businesses based in London are considering leaving for other cities like Dublin, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris to benefit from the large EU common market.
Protesters are marching in London expressing support for the EU and Europe

Remain supporters gather on Park Lane in London, before marching to Parliament Square to show their support for the European Union in the wake of Brexit. PA

Remain supporters gather on Park Lane in London, before marching to Parliament Square to show their support for the European Union in the wake of Brexit. PA

Musician Jarvis Cocker recorded a video message in solidarity with pro-EU supporters on the March For Europe rally in London.

An estimated 35,000 demonstrators at the pro-EU event watched the film, which was played alongside speeches from musician and activist Bob Geldof, journalist and TV presenter Billie JD Porter, MPs and impassioned protesters.

In the film the Pulp frontman held up a world map and said: "You cannot deny geography. The UK is in Europe."

Geldof urged Remain campaigners to log out of social media and instead take to the streets to stop the UK's exit from the EU.

"Let's get real," he said. "Going online and tweeting your indignation is only venting into the ether. It achieves nothing.

"Come out. Take action amongst your friends, work colleagues and in your neighbourhoods."

Labour peer Michael Cashman told the crowd: "We need to uphold the values of democracy and inclusiveness which are at the heart of the EU and this country. Decent British values are also the values of the European Union."

Porter said: "We're all angry and we're all scared and, quite frankly, some of us are ashamed. We have been eager to show the rest of the world that the decision does not speak for all of us."

Demonstrators wearing flags as capes and wielding home-made placards saying "Bremain" and "We Love the EU" squeezed into Parliament Square and spilled into neighbouring streets.

Father and daughter Bill Baker, 59, and Jess Baker, 22, from Islington, north London, had made a banner for the march which read: "I will always love EU."

Ms Baker said: "We didn't want to leave, but if you respect the decision of the referendum, which we should, we still want Britain to be EU orientated, outward looking and inclusive."

A naked woman on a balcony in Park Lane was cheered by the crowds when she flashed at marchers as they walked from Hyde Park to Westminster.

The rally was the idea of remain voters Keiran MacDermott and activist Mark Thomas, who said he felt "anger, frustration and need to do something".

They worked with Secret Cinema, a company which stages live film presentations, and Pride to put on the march.

Mr MacDermott said: "I was hoping there would be a clear message to come out of today, a political edge, and I think we succeeded. People want politicians to reconsider Brexit and want the UK to remain with the EU."

A statement released after the rally said: "Today we joined thousands of people backing March For Europe and we called for the country to come together in a positive democratic discussion over the new partnership with Europe.

"We condemn the misinformation over Brexit and believe we need a properly informed debate on the way forward. We cannot pull up the drawbridge to Europe and call on our politicians to set out a clear route map for this partnership.

"Politicians must be prepared to put to the British people their prospectus for the new way forward through a general election or second referendum."
Stephen Philpott was renowned for being outspoken

The head of Northern Ireland's largest animal welfare charity has been dismissed on grounds of misconduct.

Stephen Philpott, the high profile chief executive of the USPCA, had been suspended since March.

In a statement, the USPCA board said the dismissal related to aspects of Mr Philpott's management of the organisation and followed a review by an independent consultant, a full disciplinary hearing and exhaustive appeal process.

An interim manager has been in place for a number of months.

USPCA chairman Helen Wilson said the day-to-day work of the charity continued and said staff had "worked tirelessly to ensure that the service to animals has remained exemplary during a very difficult time".

Mr Philpott was particularly outspoken on a number of animal welfare issues including dog fighting and badger baiting.
The PSNI has appealed for anyone with information about the flag thefts to get in touch

Police are treating the theft of flags from a Co Londonderry Orange hall as a hate crime.

Two Union and Somme remembrance flags as well as flag poles were removed from Ballyneal Orange Hall near Magherafelt early on Saturday morning.

The Orange Order said it happened just hours after the flags were erected at the Brookmount Road property.

A spokesman said: "Due to its rural and isolated location, Ballyneal hall would be regarded as an easy target for the intolerant culprits wishing to engage in such low life criminality. Nonetheless, this does not excuse their misdemeanours under the cover of darkness.

"Any form of disrespect for the Union flag is appalling and must be condemned. However, it is abhorrent that a flag commemorating the centenary of the Battle of the Somme, recognising the loss of all who paid the supreme sacrifice - regardless of background, colour or creed - should be treated with such disdain. Those responsible ought to be utterly ashamed of their actions."

There have been 13 attacks on Orange Halls so far this year, according to the Orange Order.

In May paint and graffiti was daubed on two Orange Halls in Banbridge while another hall at Muckery in Co Armagh was targeted by arsonists.

There was also a failed arson bid at Ballyneal Orange Hall last month.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland has appealed for anyone with information or who saw suspicious activity to contact police in Magherafelt on 101, quoting reference 1356 02/07/16.

DUP MLA Keith Buchanan described the theft as "disgraceful".

He said: "This is clearly a hate crime motivated by sectarianism and unfortunately follows a number of similar attacks to halls across the province.

"Over this weekend people have been marking the service and sacrifice of those from all traditions who fought at the Battle of the Somme. It is particularly disgraceful therefore that a Somme remembrance flag was one of those ripped down in this attack."
A teenage convicted sex offender who went missing from his bail hostel has been recaptured.

Ryan Humpage, 19, who was reportedly given an 18-month jail term in August for sexual activity with a 13-year-old girl, had failed to a hostel in Bury on Saturday, Greater Manchester Police said.

He was the subject of a Crimewatch appeal by Lancashire Police in April last year over fears he may have fled to Ireland at a time he was wanted on suspicion of rape. He was later arrested in County Antrim in Northern Ireland and returned to England.

On Sunday evening a Greater Manchester Police spokesman said a man had been found and arrested.
Ireland's Archbishop Eamon Martin has said prayers on the spot where Irish troops died at the Somme as he urged Catholics to remember the First World War.

The Irish primate commemorated the shared sacrifice with Protestants during a short memorial ceremony in the village of Guillemont at a stone Celtic cross commemorating the 16th Irish Division which fought a century ago.

Thousands of soldiers from across Ireland died or were wounded at the Somme as part of the British Army. The first day, July 1 1916, was the bloodiest in British military history.

Archbishop Martin said: "In remembering the horrors of the war a century ago it helps us to redouble our efforts towards building peace, healing and reconciliation.

"I know that we have gone our separate ways in many ways over the last decades in Ireland and the more recent conflicts have tended to divide us and we don't realise the shared narrative that there is in the sacrifice of those men in the First World War.

"So I am hoping that being here myself will give a signal to Catholics that it is okay for them to remember the First World War and I am hoping that it will also open up the Protestant community to realise that many Catholics died side by side with their ancestors here on these fields of France."

The 16th Irish Division went into battle on September 3 at Guillemont. The area was badly shelled throughout 1916 and was full of broken trenches and shell holes and very difficult to attack over, chairman of the Somme Association Alan McFarland said.

A total of 1,147 soldiers were lost out of the 2,400 who attacked.

Private Thomas Hughes of Castleblayney in Co Monaghan was awarded the Victoria Cross after he was wounded and went back into battle and single-handedly took out a German machine gun position and captured four German soldiers.

A few days later in a neighbouring village the Irish Division lost Professor Tom Kettle, an MP and noted poet who favoured Irish Home Rule.

Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close A gun salute during the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memoria on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France. (Photo bt Yui Mok - Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images Britain's Prince Charles (R) and Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron attend a a memorial ceremony on July 1, 2016 at the Thiepval Memorial, northern France, during which Britain and France mark the 100 years since soldiers emerged from their trenches to begin one of the bloodiest battles of World War I (WWI) at the River Somme. / AFP PHOTO / POOL / Francois MoriFRANCOIS MORI/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images THIEPVAL, FRANCE - JULY 01: War graves at Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme during Somme Centenary Commemorations on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France. Today marks exactly 100 years since the beginning of the battle of the Somme. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images) Getty Images BEAUMONT-HAMEL, FRANCE - JULY 1: Prince Charles, Prince of Wales lays a wreath at the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial during a Ceremony of Remembrance hosted by the Government of Canada to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the battle of the Somme on July 1, 2016 in Beaumont-Hamel, France. The event is part of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial in Thiepval, France, where 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated. (Photo by Niall Carson - Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images THIEPVAL, FRANCE - JULY 1: French President Francois Hollande meets British and French school children during the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memoria on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France. The event is part of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial in Thiepval, France, where 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated. (Photo bt Yui Mok - Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - JULY 01: Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne MP attends a commemoration service at Manchester Cathedral marking the 100th anniversary since the start of the Battle of the Somme. July 1, 2016 in Manchester, England. Services are being held across Britain and the world to remember those who died in the Battle of the Somme which began 100 years ago on July 1st 1916. Armies of British and French soldiers fought against the German Empire leading to over one million lives being lost. (Photo by Christopher Furlong - WPA Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images Handout photo issued by the MOD of a gun salute by 206 (Ulster Battery Royal Artillery) at the Somme Memorial in Thiepval Barracks, Northern Ireland, to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the battle of the Somme. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Friday July 1, 2016. See PA story HERITAGE Somme BelfastEvents. Photo credit should read: Kellie Shattock/MOD/PA Wire NOTE TO EDITORS: This handout photo may only be used in for editorial reporting purposes for the contemporaneous illustration of events, things or the people in the image or facts mentioned in the caption. Reuse of the picture may require further permission from the copyright holder. PA MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - JULY 01: Royal british Legion standard bearers attend a commemoration service at Manchester Cathedral marking the 100th anniversary since the start of the Battle of the Somme. July 1, 2016 in Manchester, England. Services are being held across Britain and the world to remember those who died in the Battle of the Somme which began 100 years ago on July 1st 1916. Armies of British and French soldiers fought against the German Empire leading to over one million lives being lost. (Photo by Christopher Furlong - WPA Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - JULY 01: Prince Andrew, Duke of York, attends a commemoration service at Manchester Cathedral marking the 100th anniversary since the start of the Battle of the Somme. July 1, 2016 in Manchester, England. Services are being held across Britain and the world to remember those who died in the Battle of the Somme which began 100 years ago on July 1st 1916. Armies of British and French soldiers fought against the German Empire leading to over one million lives being lost. (Photo by Christopher Furlong - WPA Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images Press Eye handout photo of the Band of the Irish Guards taking part in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Cenotaph in the grounds of Belfast City Hall to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Battle of he Somme. PA PA Press Eye handout photo of Belfast Lord Mayor, Alderman Brian Kingston taking part in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Cenotaph in the grounds of Belfast City Hall to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Battle of he Somme. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday July 1, 2016. See PA story HERITAGE Somme. Photo credit should read: Kelvin Boyes/Press Eye/PA Wire NOTE TO EDITORS: This handout photo may only be used in for editorial reporting purposes for the contemporaneous illustration of events, things or the people in the image or facts mentioned in the caption. Reuse of the picture may require further permission from the copyright holder. PA THIEPVAL, FRANCE - JULY 1: Serviceman watch footage of soldiers from the battle of the Somme during the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France. The event is part of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France. where 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated. (Photo by Chris Radburn - Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images THIEPVAL, FRANCE - JULY 1: Serviceman watch footage of soldiers from the battle of the Somme during the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France. The event is part of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France. where 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated. (Photo by Chris Radburn - Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images THIEPVAL, FRANCE - JULY 1: Standard bearers during the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France. The event is part of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France. where 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated. (Photo by Chris Radburn - Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images THIEPVAL, FRANCE - JULY 1: A view of the wreath laying ceremony during the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France. The event is part of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France. where 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated. (Photo by Chris Radburn - Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images THIEPVAL, FRANCE - JULY 1: A Union flag and French tricolour fly during the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France. The event is part of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France. where 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated. (Photo by Chris Radburn - Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images A man dressed as a First World War soldier in Walthamstow, London, to mark 100 years since the start of the Battle of the Somme. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday July 1, 2016. The imitation soldiers surprised onlookers by stopping to pose and sing wartime songs, and when not singing, the men remained silent, handing out cards with names of those who had died to members of the public. See PA story HERITAGE Somme Tributes. Photo credit should read: Nitya Kanoria/PA Wire PA THIEPVAL, FRANCE - JULY 1: The Prince of Wales at the Ulster Memorial Tower in Thiepval, France, during a service to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the battle of the Somme on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France. The event is part of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial in Thiepval, France, where 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated. (Photo by Niall Carson - Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images THIEPVAL, FRANCE - JULY 1: Wreaths at the Ulster Memorial Tower in Thiepval, France, during a service to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the battle of the Somme on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France. The event is part of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial in Thiepval, France, where 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated. (Photo by Niall Carson - Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images Men dressed as First World War soldiers in Euston station, London, to mark 100 years since the start of the Battle of the Somme. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday July 1, 2016. The imitation soldiers surprised onlookers by stopping to pose and sing wartime songs, and when not singing, the men remained silent, handing out cards with names of those who had died to members of the public. See PA story HERITAGE Somme Tributes. Photo credit should read: Sarah Perry/PA Wire PA The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge tour the new Thiepval Memorial to the Missing Visitors Centre in Thiepval, France. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday July 1, 2016. See PA story HERITAGE Somme Royals. Photo credit should read: Ian Jones/PA Wire PA (left to right) French President Francois Hollande and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge arrive to open the new Thiepval Memorial to the Missing Visitors Centre in Thiepval, France. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday July 1, 2016. See PA story HERITAGE Somme Royals. Photo credit should read: Ian Jones/PA Wire PA THIEPVAL, FRANCE - JULY 1: Detailed view of the note on the wreath left by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn at the Stone of Remembrance after the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France. The event is part of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France. where 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated. (Photo by Andrew Matthews - Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images THIEPVAL, FRANCE - JULY 1: Actress Joely Richardson speaks during the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France. The event is part of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial in Thiepval, France, where 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated. (Photo by Steve Parsons - Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images THIEPVAL, FRANCE - JULY 1: Detailed view of the note on the wreath left by Prime Minister David Cameron at the Cross of Sacrifice after the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France. The event is part of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France. where 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated. (Photo by Andrew Matthews - Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall are given a tour at Beaumont-Hamel, France, following a Ceremony of Remembrance, hosted by the Government of Canada to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the battle of the Somme. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday July 1, 2016. See PA story HERITAGE Somme. Photo credit should read: Niall Carson/PA Wire PA THIEPVAL, FRANCE - JULY 1: (L-R) Prince Charles, Prince of Wales with Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and Prime Minister David Cameron during the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France. The event is part of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial in Thiepval, France, where 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated. (Photo by Steve Parsons - Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images THIEPVAL, FRANCE - JULY 1: School children take part in a procession in the rain holding flowers a wreaths during the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memoria on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France. The event is part of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial in Thiepval, France, where 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated. (Photo bt Yui Mok - Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images THIEPVAL, FRANCE - JULY 1: Prince Charles, Prince of Wales speaks during the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France. The event is part of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial in Thiepval, France, where 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated. (Photo by Steve Parsons - Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images THIEPVAL, FRANCE - JULY 1: Poppies fall on a Military Service person during the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France. The event is part of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial in Thiepval, France, where 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated. (Photo by Steve Parsons - Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images THIEPVAL, FRANCE - JUNE 30: Soldiers take part in a vigil at Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme during Somme Centenary Commemorations on June 30, 2016 in Thiepval, France. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images) Getty Images LONDON, ENGLAND - JUNE 30: Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and Queen Elizabeth II attend a Service on the Eve of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at Westminster Abbey on June 30, 2016 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Niklas Halle'n - WPA Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images War graves are lit during part of a military-led vigil to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of the Somme at the Thiepval memorial to the Missing, as part of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial in Thiepval, France, where 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday June 30, 2016. See PA story HERITAGE Somme. Photo credit should read: Steve Parsons/PA Wire PA LONDON, ENGLAND - JUNE 30: Five civilians and five members of the military undertake a Vigil at Grave of the Unknown Warrior after the Service on the Eve of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at Westminster Abbey on June 30, 2016 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Niklas Halle'n - WPA Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images War graves are lit during part of a military-led vigil to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of the Somme at the Thiepval memorial to the Missing, as part of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial in Thiepval, France, where 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated. PA PA THIEPVAL, FRANCE - JUNE 30: Major General Peter Kelly, Head of the New Zealand Forces takes part in a vigil at Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme during Somme Centenary Commemorations on June 30, 2016 in Thiepval, France. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images) Getty Images Soldiers stand at the Stone of Remembrance during a military-led vigil to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of the Somme at the Thiepval memorial to the Missing, as part of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial in Thiepval, France, where 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday June 30, 2016. See PA story HERITAGE Somme. Photo credit should read: Gareth Fuller/PA Wire PA Soldiers take part in a vigil at Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme during Somme Centenary Commemorations on June 30, 2016 in Thiepval, France. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images) Getty Images Prince Harry gives a reading as part of a military-led vigil to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of the Somme at the Thiepval memorial to the Missing, as part of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial in Thiepval, France, where 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday June 30, 2016. See PA story HERITAGE Somme. Photo credit should read: Yui Mok/PA Wire PA LONDON, ENGLAND - JUNE 30: Prime Minister David Cameron and wife Samantha arrive to attend a Service on the Eve of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at Westminster Abbey on June 30, 2016 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Niklas Halle'n - WPA Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images THIEPVAL, FRANCE - JUNE 30: Prince Harry, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge attend part of a military-led vigil to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of the Somme at the Thiepval memorial to the Missing in June 30, 2016 in Thiepval, France. The event is part of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial in Thiepval, France, where 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated. (Photo by Tim Rooke - Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images THIEPVAL, FRANCE - JUNE 30: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry attend part of a military-led vigil to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of the Somme at the Thiepval memorial to the Missing in June 30, 2016 in Thiepval, France. The event is part of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial in Thiepval, France, where 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated. (Yui Mok - Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images THIEPVAL, FRANCE - JUNE 30: Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge take part in a vigil at Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme during Somme Centenary Commemorations on June 30, 2016 in Thiepval, France. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images) Getty Images LONDON, ENGLAND - JUNE 30: Five civilians and five members of the military undertake a Vigil at Grave of the Unknown Warrior after the Service on the Eve of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at Westminster Abbey on June 30, 2016 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Niklas Halle'n - WPA Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images LONDON, ENGLAND - JUNE 30: Queen Elizabeth II lays a wreath made of roses and bay leaves on the Grave of the Unknown Warrior at a Service on the Eve of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at Westminster Abbey on June 30, 2016 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Niklas Halle'n - WPA Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images LONDON, ENGLAND - JUNE 30: Prime Minister David Cameron and wife Samantha speak before a Service on the Eve of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at Westminster Abbey on June 30, 2016 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Niklas Halle'n - WPA Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images LONDON, ENGLAND - JUNE 30: Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn attends a Service on the Eve of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at Westminster Abbey on June 30, 2016 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Niklas Halle'n - WPA Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images Soldiers take part in a vigil at the the Stone of Remembrance as part of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial in Thiepval, France, where 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday June 30, 2016. See PA story HERITAGE Somme. Photo credit should read: Andrew Matthews/PA Wire PA ALBERT, FRANCE JUNE 30: A general view of the Thiepval Memorial as Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry attend the Somme Centenary commemorations on June 30, 2016 in Albert, France. (Photo by Tim Rooke - Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images ALBERT, FRANCE JUNE 30: Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry attend the Somme Centenary commemorations at the Thiepval Memorial on June 30, 2016 in Albert, France. (Photo by Tim Rooke - Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry attend part of a military-led vigil to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of the Somme at the Thiepval memorial to the Missing, as part of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial in Thiepval, France, where 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday June 30, 2016. See PA story HERITAGE Somme. Photo credit should read: Yui Mok/PA Wire PA The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry receiving a historical briefing on the battlefields of the Somme from the top of the Thiepval monument in France to mark the centenary of the Battle of the Somme. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Thursday June 30, 2016. See PA story HERITAGE Somme. Photo credit should read: Tim Rooke/PA Wire PA Security before the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry received a historical briefing on the battlefields of the Somme from the top of the Thiepval monument in France to mark the centenary of the Battle of the Somme. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Thursday June 30, 2016. See PA story HERITAGE Somme. Photo credit should read: Tim Rooke/PA Wire PA Lance Sergeant Stuart Laing from the Welsh Guards rehearses the Last Post on a bugle that was sounded at the Battle of the Somme at Westminster Abbey on June 30, 2016 in London, England. The bugle will be played from the Lantern Tower at Westminster Abbey during a service on the eve of the Battle of the Somme centenary attended by the Queen. The bugle is kept at the Welsh Guards Regimental HQ at Wellington Barracks in London and was used daily along the reserve line as an efficient way of communicating orders. (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images) Getty Images An overnight vigil at the Somme Museum and Heritage Centre outside Newtownards. The sound of bagpipes filled the air at Helen's Tower, as lone piper, Grahame Harris, played a lament. Picture: Philip Magowan / PressEye Philip Magowan An overnight vigil at the Somme Museum and Heritage Centre outside Newtownards. The sound of bagpipes filled the air at Helen's Tower, as lone piper, Grahame Harris, played a lament. Picture: Philip Magowan / PressEye Philip Magowan An overnight vigil at the Somme Museum and Heritage Centre outside Newtownards. The sound of bagpipes filled the air at Helen's Tower, as lone piper, Grahame Harris, played a lament. Picture: Philip Magowan / PressEye Philip Magowan Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh arrive at Westminster Abbey in London for a service to commemorate the centenary of the Battle of the Somme. PA PA Prime Minister David Cameron and wife Samantha Cameron attend Service on the eve of the centenary of The Battle of The Somme at Westminster Abbey on June 30, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images) Getty Images Jeremy Corbyn and his wife Laura Alvarez arrive at Westminster Abbey in London for a service to commemorate the centenary of the Battle of the Somme. PA PA An overnight vigil at the Somme Museum and Heritage Centre outside Newtownards. The sound of bagpipes filled the air at Helen's Tower, as lone piper, Grahame Harris, played a lament. Picture: Philip Magowan / PressEye Philip Magowan An overnight vigil at the Somme Museum and Heritage Centre outside Newtownardsy. Starting at 7pm on Thursday evening, the vigil will end at 7.28am on Friday morning, to the blowing of whistles. Picture: Philip Magowan / PressEye Philip Magowan ALBERT, FRANCE - JANUARY 30: A memorial is seen in the town in front of the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Brebieres on January 30, 2016 in Albert, France. This year will mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the World War One Battle of the Somme and a number of commemorations are planned to mark one of the bloodiest battles in military history. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images) Getty Images An overnight vigil at the Somme Museum and Heritage Centre outside Newtownardsy. Starting at 7pm on Thursday evening, the vigil will end at 7.28am on Friday morning, to the blowing of whistles. Picture: Philip Magowan / PressEye Philip Magowan LONDON, ENGLAND - JUNE 30: The Abbey Choir rehearse after Lance Sergeant Stuart Laing from the Welsh Guards rehearsed the Last Post on a bugle that was sounded at the Battle of the Somme at Westminster Abbey on June 30, 2016 in London, England. The bugle will be played from the Lantern Tower at Westminster Abbey during a service on the eve of the Battle of the Somme centenary attended by the Queen. The bugle is kept at the Welsh Guards Regimental HQ at Wellington Barracks in London and was used daily along the reserve line as an efficient way of communicating orders. (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images) Getty Images People in kilt play bagpipes during a ceremony to commemorate the centenary of the battle of the Somme, one of the deadliest of the World War I (1.2 million killed, missing and wounded in five months), on June 30, 2016 in Albert, northern France. / AFP PHOTO / FRANCOIS NASCIMBENIFRANCOIS NASCIMBENI/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Colour Sergeant Trevor Ross takes delivery of wreaths from the Mayor of Thiepval, at the Ulster Memorial Tower in Thiepval, France, ahead of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday June 30, 2016. Thousands of soldiers from across Ireland died at the Somme, including many from the 36th Ulster Division on the first day of battle. See PA story HERITAGE Somme NIreland. Photo credit should read: Niall Carson/PA Wire PA An overnight vigil at the Somme Museum outside Newtownards. Pictured at the vigil is, Jim Shannon MP, John Morrison of the Royal British Legion, military bugler, Grahame Harris of Harris Piping, and Kingsley Donaldson, secretary of the Northern Ireland 1st World War centenary committee. Picture: Philip Magowan / PressEye Philip Magowan An overnight vigil at the Somme Museum outside Newtownards. Pictured at the vigil is, Jim Shannon MP, John Morrison of the Royal British Legion, military bugler, Grahame Harris of Harris Piping, and Kingsley Donaldson, secretary of the Northern Ireland 1st World War centenary committee. Picture: Philip Magowan / PressEye Philip Magowan ALBERT, FRANCE - JANUARY 30: A memorial is seen in the town in front of the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Brebieres on January 30, 2016 in Albert, France. This year will mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the World War One Battle of the Somme and a number of commemorations are planned to mark one of the bloodiest battles in military history. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images) Getty Images Liam Mercer, 20, from Elm Park, in Hornchurch, Essex, of the 10th Essex living historians group, in the uniform of a British soldier from WW1, prepares to march through Albert, in France, as part of the of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme, in France. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday June 30, 2016. See PA story HERITAGE Somme. Photo credit should read: David Wilcock/PA Wire PA ALBERT, FRANCE - JANUARY 30: A memorial is seen in the town in front of the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Brebieres on January 30, 2016 in Albert, France. This year will mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the World War One Battle of the Somme and a number of commemorations are planned to mark one of the bloodiest battles in military history. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images) Getty Images ALBERT, ENGLAND - MAY 18: Headstones of fallen British servicemen are seen in the Caterpillar Valley Cemetery on May 17, 2016 near Albert, France. This year will see the 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Somme with a series of major ceremonies planned across the UK and France on July 1 to mark its centenary. The Somme was one of the bloodiest battles of World War One with more than one million casualties over 141 days. The fighting began just before 7.30am on the morning of July 1, 1916 and was to become known as the British Army's bloodiest day. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images) Getty Images ALBERT, ENGLAND - MAY 17: A poppy is left besides the names of fallen soldiers in the Caterpillar Valley Cemetery on May 17, 2016 near Albert, France. This year will see the 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Somme with a series of major ceremonies planned across the UK and France on July 1 to mark its centenary. The Somme was one of the bloodiest battles of World War One with more than one million casualties over 141 days. The fighting began just before 7.30am on the morning of July 1, 1916 and was to become known as the British Army's bloodiest day. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images) Getty Images ALBERT, FRANCE - MAY 17: The 51st (Highland) Division memorial is seen at the Newfoundland Memorial Park at Beaumont Hamel on May 17, 2016 near Albert, France. This year will see the 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Somme with a series of major ceremonies planned across the UK and France on July 1 to mark its centenary. The Somme was one of the bloodiest battles of World War One with more than one million casualties over 141 days. The fighting began just before 7.30am on the morning of July 1, 1916 and was to become known as the British Army's bloodiest day. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images) Getty Images ALBERT, ENGLAND - MAY 18: Headstones of fallen British servicemen are seen in the Caterpillar Valley Cemetery on May 17, 2016 near Albert, France. This year will see the 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Somme with a series of major ceremonies planned across the UK and France on July 1 to mark its centenary. The Somme was one of the bloodiest battles of World War One with more than one million casualties over 141 days. The fighting began just before 7.30am on the morning of July 1, 1916 and was to become known as the British Army's bloodiest day. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images) Getty Images ALBERT, FRANCE - MAY 17: The remains of trenches are seen in the Newfoundland Memorial Park at Beaumont Hamel on May 17, 2016 near Albert, France. This year will see the 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Somme with a series of major ceremonies planned across the UK and France on July 1 to mark its centenary. The Somme was one of the bloodiest battles of World War One with more than one million casualties over 141 days. The fighting began just before 7.30am on the morning of July 1, 1916 and was to become known as the British Army's bloodiest day. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images) Getty Images ALBERT, FRANCE - JANUARY 31: A view of the Gordon Cemetery, Mametz is seen on January 31, 2016 near Albert, France. This year will mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the World War One Battle of the Somme and a number of commemorations are planned to mark one of the bloodiest battles in military history. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images) Getty Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp A gun salute during the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memoria on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France. (Photo bt Yui Mok - Pool/Getty Images)

Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt and council delegations from Lisburn and Portadown were among those who gathered for the service.

The Last Post and Reveille bugle calls were sounded and a piper played a lament before poppy wreaths were laid by the Somme Association, military figures and a series of local councils.

The Royal Irish Regiment (RIR) provided a ceremonial guard of honour.

Mr Nesbitt said the service commemorated men from Londonderry, the mainly Catholic Falls Road in Belfast and all over the island of Ireland.

"It reminds me as we struggle to create a shared future that we actually have the example of a shared past, of service and sacrifice.

"Of sacrifice in almost unimaginable numbers, not just the 36th Ulster Division, not just the Protestants and unionists from the north-east of Ireland but from all over the island who came here and fought and died together."
Former president of Ireland Mary Robinson who has said it is unfair that Ethiopians are suffering the worst effects of climate change as 10 million people are hit by food shortages following the worst drought in 50 years. Niall Carson/PA Wire

Former president of Ireland Mary Robinson has said it is unfair that Ethiopians are suffering the worst effects of climate change as 10 million people are hit by food shortages following the worst drought in 50 years.

The UN special envoy for climate change and the El Nino weather pattern is spending three days in the country this week after widespread failure of rains and flash floods in the region over the last year.

Mrs Robinson, former UN high commissioner for human rights, said Ethiopia suffers some of the worst effects of climate change despite doing so little to cause it.

"I am saddened that Ethiopia should have to cope with this El Nino situation," she said.

"Despite the efforts of the government of Ethiopia, and humanitarian partners, the impacts of climate change have weakened people's ability to cope with El Nino which is unfair considering Ethiopia's negligible contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions."

The trip is Mrs Robinson's first visit to Africa since being appointed to her role two months ago by UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon.

It also takes place amid the deepening food crisis in the Horn of Africa where millions of people are at risk of malnutrition as El Nino warming in the Pacific compounds the debilitating impact of climate change elsewhere around the world.

The weather pattern, which hits every two to seven years, is taking place where temperatures are already warmer and it is usually followed by the La Nina cooling period which can spark floods and droughts in other regions.

During her trip Mrs Robinson will see the work of aid agencies, including Concern, Trocaire and Goal, which have been pleading for the international community to do more to prevent the Ethiopian drought becoming the worst food emergency in the region since 1985.

She called on world powers to live up to their responsibilities as millions of Ethiopians are put at risk.

"In addition to supporting relief efforts for this immediate crisis, the international community must take a much longer term view," Mrs Robinson said.

"Climate change impacts will continue to undermine development gains and increase the vulnerability of people to natural disasters, therefore the international community has a duty to reduce emissions, support resilience and adaptation efforts in the hardest hit communities."

It is estimated that 3.4 billion euro (2.85 billion) is needed to combat the impacts of the current El Nino crisis which is being compounded by climate change in countries across Africa, Asia and in South and Central America.

Only 1.2 billion euro (1 billion) has been pledged.

Despite its vulnerability to the negative effects of climate change, Ethiopia and its population of more than 100 million has one of the lowest carbon emission rates in the world.

It is estimated that it takes 88 Ethiopians to emit as much carbon dioxide as one Irish person.
Ricky Tomlinson, Steve Coogan and David Walliams have paid tribute to British actress and comedian Caroline Aherne.

Caroline, best known for her role as Mrs Merton, an outspoken elderly woman turned chat show host, passed away at her home in Greater Manchester, England on Saturday (02Jul16) after a battle with cancer.

The British funny woman, who was born with a rare form of retina cancer, later received treatment for bladder cancer. And in 2014 announced she was battling lung cancer.

Ricky Tomlinson, who played her layabout father Jim Royle in the much-loved TV sitcom The Royle Family, lead the tributes from the cast of the show.

He told British newspaper the Sunday Mirror, "Im so bl**dy shocked. She was absolutely wonderful and amazing to work for. Kind, funny, witty. A true professional and one of the most generous people I ever worked with."

The 76-year-old actor said he never once heard Caroline complain about her ill health, and added, "She never talked about her health, ever. I can never ever remember her complaining. She must have gone through a lot but I never saw her looking unwell.

"She never flagged in work and the atmosphere when she was writing and acting was brilliant."

Sue Johnston, who played mother Barbara to Caroline's character Denise in the show, made a brief statement to the media on Saturday, saying simply, "I am devastated at her passing and I am numb with grief."

And Ralf Little, who played her brother Antony, wrote on Twitter, "Sorry for silence - I just... don't know what to say. What a sad, sad day. We've lost another one of our best. A character. A legend. A boss. A sister, real and (for me) fake. A boss. A writer. An actor. A genius. A friend. Big, big heart. Goodbye. X"

He later wrote, "Thing is, amidst all sadness Caroline would now say something grounded, incisive, and hilarious. I can't think of anything, but she would."

Steve Coogan, a close friend of Caroline, wrote a touching tribute to the comedian in British newspaper The Guardian on Saturday, and said poignantly, "I loved her. She used to make me cry with laughter. This is the first time shes made me cry without laughing."

David Walliams wrote on Twitter, "Absolutely devastating news about Caroline Aherne. A true comedy genius, her work was equally funny & touching," while fellow comedian and actor Matt Lucas wrote, "Caroline Aherne moved television comedy on to a new place. Her extraordinary work will be cherished by future generations."

Star Wars actor Mark Hamill also paid tribute to Caroline, writing on Twitter, "I'm devastated at the loss of brilliant writer/actor Caroline Aherne #TheRoyleFamily was a masterpiece! #GoneTooSoon."

Little soon responded to Mark's touching post, and wrote, "I cannot believe Mark Hamill knows of Caroline & the Royle Family. That shows just how far reaching her talent was.

John Thomson, Aherne's co-star on The Fast Show, said his friend had "raw talent" and "no agenda".

He said: "We've lost a great comedienne, actress and writer and sadly I've lost a very dear, very old friend.

"When I say lost, sadly a lot of us lost Caroline years ago. Thanks to the cumulative effect of the regular intrusion into her private life and particularly her personal relationships, Caroline opted out and became a virtual recluse, only to bless our screens at Christmas in the latest rendition of the Royle Family.

"Who can blame her? I know only too well, the pain that comes with the moniker 'celebrity'. She never wanted fame, she was a raw talent who accepted that fame was a mere by-product of her skill set."

He added: "She wasn't political, she never saw herself as a feminist or representing the minority of female comics. She didn't need to, there was no agenda, she was just funny.

"She was an incredibly funny woman on and off screen, whose raw talent and 'funny bones' never failed to make me roar with laughter."
Opinion / Columnist

What is there to respect from Mugabe whose rule has been insulting ever since he came to power in 1980? What political mileage do you want to gain from the word un-African? That F-word was very mild to describe a monster called Mugabe and his cabals: in retrospect, Zanu under Mugabe has pillaged the once a vibrant economy, killed, maimed, abducted, been scornful and manipulative, disrespect of human life, makes numerous and expensive journeys to get the best health services in foreign countries, leaving our hospitals and clinics without basics to treat basic ailments, schools both in rural and urban areas are dilapidating, he sends his own children to foreign countries to get the best education, until they give birth in those foreign countries, they do not trust their own clinics. We have seen on social media the presidents birthdays celebrated in style: eating cakes at the glare of the cameras while not far from the hotel of the big celebrations, people are hungry, cannot even manage a decent isitshwala/sadza a day. Is that not insulting enough Hon. Hwende?Have we not been told casually how an estimate of 15 billion US dollars have gone missing, a national treasury that could have changed Zimbabwe into a bread basket. Do we really deserve this famine and subsequent benefit handouts of food-aid from western countries, our colonisers and we are not even ashamed of it? Worst insults are in the system of government Hon. Hwende, worse than "F**K" word! Don't you think that the running of this government is the highest insult a nation has to comprehend with, compared with a youthful insult of "F***K" Mr. Hwende? Curiously you put too much value on the comment the youthful Lumumba made, a juvenile expression of disgust. "I think using a F**K word on a 92 year old man is un-African and the height of lunacy" you said. As Zimbabweans we must learn to disagree without reaching that level of Lumumba."Much as I cannot say the "F**K word myself, if Lumumba, in his frustration, was able to air his disgust meted on him by the CIO, that unlawfully intruded into his private affairs, disclosed his video of sexual nature to the public to publicize him in false light, I would support him fully on this. Only a lunatic government can engage in such horrendous nature, I would say go ahead youthful Lumumba and with a big "F**K" word. This government has openly violated the privacy of a growing up young man by making available on social media, indecent movies of him and young girls, with the intention to damage his reputation. The invasion of privacy of that psychological magnitude to young persons of Lumumba's age is an act of desperation. Do you have an idea how psychological devastated this young man is, to be exposed not only his n.akedness but sexual acts too, and that of his girl-friends to the entire nation? What did the CIO gain from exposing Lumumba's indecent video, apart from wild laughs, free bioscope? Did they need to subject children innocent in their p.ornographic video catch? We thought sex is inviolable secrecy! How old is Lumumba to deserve such a horrible revenge by the state and its notorious CIO? Is this youthful man called Lumumba not our offspring to be respected by us elders of Zimbabwe it did not matter how the inner-Zanu conflicts or how he disagreed with the ruling party Zanu? What is else left of him to respect Mugabe still, having been treated in the most barbaric form of violation of rights to privacy, he has nothing to lose? Lumumba's privacy especially of sexual nature should have been respected by Mugabe and the government in the first place. It is typical of our Zimbabwe societies to blame victims to gain whatever mileage, political or traditional. In Shona they say: Gudo riphete muske waro kuti vaduku vazokuchka.We should respect our offspring in the first place so that in return they respect us equally. Where is this Lumumba going to know respect, who is going to give him good guidance if his privacy is violated in such a manner? His privacy is not respected by that same government that purports to serve its citizens? Much as I cannot not say "F***K" off to Mugabe, I can honestly say "go hang" Mugabe. We wish you to go now as soon as possible we are fed up of you and Zanu people are fed up equally, they pretend to love you, the old man should not get carried away by that one million match, it means nothing, people are fearful and that is the reason why they attended a frog-matched one million match and you are full of it!How many innocent children watched those videos and pictures on social media? Do we wonder then about the rise of rape cases in our societies if the very government is casual about sex in the media? Are you also disrespectful to our innocent growing children, to expose them with indecent videos in our social media? Don't you think African-ness should start with a government that should respect its citizens and not the other way round? What decency can still be attached to a government that displays n.akedness as punishment for either leaving a political party or speaking against it? It is not the first time this government has exposed sexual acts on social media; they did that to the Archbishop Pious Ncube. With all his weaknesses he has, regarding sex as a man of Catholic celibacy, there was no reason, no decency to be treated by the "good government" to publicize him with in false light. Those videos where accessible to young children, displayed by government social media at the behest of the government and CIO who entered his home and planted those CCTVs as surveillance tool. Right to privacy is a human right Mr Hwende, which should never be tempered with. I do not know of any civilized country that treats its citizens with such levels of privacy violations as the Zimbabwe government. You need to disagree with the Zanu PF government, you become the target.Privacy is a fundamental human right recognised by the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the International Convention Civil and Political rights and many other international conventions. The right to privacy is explicitly stated under Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "no one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference, neither with his /her privacy, family home or correspondence nor to attack upon his/her honour and reputation." Our "civilized and good" government has unlawfully interfered with Lumumba's privacy by invading his private space including tempering with inviolability of his home secrets.Hon. Hwende please, I do not want to be seen arguing with opposition parties at this point in time. We are together in fighting Zanu PF. Lets concentrate on removing Mugabe from power, and it means all oppositions parties and pressure groups pulling together and not fighting against each other on social media. I can assure you this is my one-off disagreement with you. Lumumba's scatter shots are a small fry compared to the work we have to put together in fighting Zanu PF from the corridors of power.Nomazulu ThataNomazulu.thata(at) web.de
A woman prepares to leave flowers at a roadblock leading to the site of the attack in Dhaka, July 3, 2016.

The seven men who slaughtered 20 mostly foreign hostages at a Dhaka cafe were locals with no links to the Mideast-based Islamic State group, Bangladeshs home minister said Sunday, as the country began two days of mourning after the IS-claimed terror attack.

"How can IS come to Bangladesh? Do we have borders with Syria and Iraq? Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told BenarNews.

So this is not right that IS terrorists carried out the attack. All the attackers are locals; they grew up here, he added, repeating a message that officials conveyed after previous killings of foreigners and religious minorities in Bangladesh, some of which IS also claimed.

While the siege at the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhakas diplomatic quarter was under way, ISs propaganda wing, Amaq, posted photos showing what it said were bodies of people hacked to death inside the restaurant.

On Saturday, it released photos of five men it said had carried out the attack, toting guns in front of an IS flag, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist activity online.

The attackers took away the mobile phones of the victims, took snaps of the dead bodies, and sent it to Facebook and other social media. Anyone can send photos to anyone in this age of internet and social media, Khan said. Amaq can get the photos from the Facebook or other social media. This does not mean that they are IS members.

Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation Rashed Khan Menon told BenarNews that while IS has no organizational structure in Bangladesh, local militants have embraced the concept.

They are from rich families

Six of the seven terrorists were killed and the seventh was captured when security forces stormed the cafe on Saturday morning and ended the stand-off.

Police Inspector-General A.K.M. Shahidul Hoque said the seven assailants were all members of the banned home-grown radical group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and that five of them were already wanted by police for terrorist-related activities, according to news reports.

Police on Sunday also identified five of the assailants by their first names, and released photos of their corpses.

"They are all Bangladeshis. They are from rich families, they have good educational background," AP quoted the home minister, Khan, as saying in describing the attackers.

According to a report in the Asia Times, as they negotiated with Bangladeshi security officials, the hostage-takers demanded that authorities release Khaled Saifullah, a leader of the JMB. He was arrested on the eve of the restaurant siege on suspicion of being the mastermind of a non-fatal machete attack on a Hindu professor in Madirapur district on June 15.

Amid the denials from Bangladeshi officials, the U.S. State Department referred to the Dhaka siege when it condemned another IS-claimed attack, a car bombing Sunday in Baghdad, Iraq that reportedly killed 125 people.

These acts of mass murder are yet another example of Daeshs contempt for human life. From Baghdad to Istanbul, Brussels, Dhaka, and Paris, Da'esh terrorists murder the innocent to attract attention and recruits, the State Department said, using another name for IS.

They will not succeed. We will continue to unite the world against this evil, remove their safe havens in Syria and Iraq, and uproot their global networks, it added.

A policeman walks past body bags believed to be those of terrorists killed in the attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka, July 2, 2016. [AFP]

They will only kill non-Muslims

In a televised address late Saturday, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced two days of national mourning, starting Sunday. On Monday, the prime minister was to lead a public memorial service at Army Stadium in Dhaka, local media reported.

The siege that lasted at least 10 hours began on Friday night and ended on Saturday morning when Bangladeshi security forces stormed the cafe.

The death toll of 28 included two senior police officers and six of the seven alleged assailants. Thirteen people, including a Japanese national, two Sri Lankans, and 10 Bangladeshis were rescued by the security forces.

Since early 2013 dozens of people, including minorities, secular bloggers, intellectuals and gay-rights activists have been killed in attacks by suspected religious extremists across Bangladesh. Those attacks mostly targeted individuals.

After they stormed into the restaurant on Friday evening, the assailants separated foreigners from other hostages and then hacked the foreigners to death, according to Agence France-Presse, which cited an eyewitness account.

"They burst [into] the restaurant firing their weapons and I could hear them shouting Allahu Akbar [God is great], a worker at the restaurant told AFP.

"They asked me whether I was a Muslim. As I said yes, they said they wouldn't harm or kill any Muslims. They will only kill the non-Muslims, the survivor said.

The dead hostages included nine Italians, seven Japanese, an Indian national, a U.S. citizen and-two Bangladeshis, according to Inter-Service Public Relations, the publicity wing of the Bangladesh Armed Forces.

The Italian foreign ministry identified its nine slain citizens as Adele Puglisi, Marco Tondat, Claudia Maria DAntona, Nadia Benedetti, Vincenzo DAllestro, Maria Rivoli, Cristian Rossi, Claudio Cappelli and Simona Monti.

A tenth Italian who was at the restaurant had been listed as missing. On Sunday, AP reported that Italian pastry chef Jabopi Bioni had escaped the attack and immediately fled the country.

"I grabbed two things and my passport, headed to the airport and caught the first flight out," he was quoted as saying from Bangkok, in an interview with an Italian television channel.

AP identified the seven slain hostages from Japan  Bangladeshs biggest foreign aid donor  as Koyo Ogasawara, Makoto Okamura, Yuko Sakai, Rui Shimodaira, Hiroshi Tanaka, Nobuhiro Kurosaki, and Hideki Hashimoto.

The Indian national was Tarishi Jain, a student at the University of California-Berkeley in the United States, the Indian government confirmed.

Emory University of Atlanta, Georgia, another U.S. college, said in a statement that its students Abinta Kabir and Faraaz Hossain were among those taken hostage and murdered by terrorists yesterday in the attack in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Asia Times identified the 20th victim as Ishrat Akhond, a Bangladeshi national and human resources director with a private firm in Dhaka.

A mourner stands along the road near the site of a terror attack at a cafe in Dhakas diplomatic quarter, July 3, 2016. [AFP]

Shahriar Sharif in Dhaka contributed to this report.


Von: John R. Schindler*

In the three years since Edward Snowden landed in Moscow, his relationship with his hosts has been a source of much speculation and controversy. The American IT contractor, who worked for the CIA and NSA until he fled Hawaii with more than a million purloined secret files, has not left Russia since he arrived at Sheremetyevo airport on 23 June 2013, on a flight from Hong Kong.

Snowden landed in Moscow with the permission of the Russian government, whose representatives he met during his sojourn in Hong Kong that lasted more than three weeks. He became so friendly with them that he actually celebrated his 30th birthday at the Russian consulate!

On the run from prosecution in the USA, Snowden received asylum from Vladimir Putin. Although Snowden recently indicated he would like a pardon from President Barack Obama before he leaves office in January, theres no indication that will happen. The White House only a month ago explained that it considers Snowden to be a criminal, so any pardon seems like a fantasy.

Then there is the messy question of Snowdens ties with the Kremlin. To anybody acquainted with the world of espionage, particularly when it involves Russians, Snowden is a defector and his collaboration with Moscows security agencies is a sure thing  as I explained in BILD recently.

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Experts on the Kremlins powerful intelligence apparatus, what Russians call the special services, have no doubt that collaboration is a matter of simple quid pro quo. Any Western intelligence official who receives sanctuary in Russia will share what he knows with his hosts: there is no choice in the matter.

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Snowden and his representatives have insisted that he is no collaborator. The official story is that Snowden arrived in Moscow with none of the classified documents he stole from NSA, and he refused to share secrets with Russian intelligence. According to Wikileaks, which told Snowden to flee to Moscow, the defector was approached by Russian spies after his arrival in their country, but refused to spill secrets.

Since Wikileaks itself is now more or less openly a front for the Kremlin, with its head Julian Assange mouthing pro-Putin propaganda with increasing frequency, theres no reason to take its claims about Snowden seriously  particularly given Assanges admitted role in getting the American to Moscow in the first place.

Nobody I know in Western intelligence circles believes any of these claims of Snowdens innocence. If he has not collaborated with Russias special services, he would be the very first defector since 1917 not to do so. There are no indications that Vladimir Putin, who publicly called Snowden a strange guy and is not known for giving anything away for free, is that charitable.

Snowdens relationship with Russian intelligence was in the public eye recently when the issue arose during the Bundestags NSA-Untersuchungsausschuss. Last month, Hans-Georg Maassen, the BfV President, created a stir when he explained that, in reality, Snowden is very likely a Russian agent.

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BND President Gerhard Schindler went further, explaining to BILD that Snowden is a traitor and Er ist zum Spielball des FSB geworden, und das ist alles andere als gut  the FSB being the Federal Security Service, Russias powerful and unsavory domestic intelligence agency.

Although these statements should not be controversial, since Snowden has been in Russia for three years and shows no signs of leaving Putins protection, his defenders objected to such commonsense pronouncements by Germanys security leadership. However, Snowden did himself no favors by suddenly being able to tweet in fluent German  a language he seems to have learned overnight  which bolstered the case that he is the plaything of the FSB.

Now, the Kremlin has settled the issue once and for all by stating that Edward Snowden is indeed their man. In a remarkable interview this week, Franz Klintsevich, a senior Russian security official, explained the case matter-of-factly: Let's be frank. Snowden did share intelligence. This is what security services do. If there's a possibility to get information, they will get it.

With this, Klintsevich simply said what all intelligence professionals already knew  that Snowden is a collaborator with the FSB. That he really had no choice in the matter once he set foot in Russia does not change the facts.

Klintsevich is no idle speculator. He is a senator who has served in the State Duma for nearly a decade. More importantly, he is the deputy chair of the senates defense and security committee, which oversees the special services. The 59-year-old Klintsevich thus has access to many state secrets  for instance regarding the Snowden case.

He is also a retired Russian army colonel, having served 22 years in the elite Airborne Forces (VDV). Klintsevich saw action in Afghanistan in the 1980s with the VDV and, based on a careful reading of his biography, appears to have served with GRU, that is military intelligence (his work in special propaganda in Afghanistan and his 1991 graduation from the Lenin Military-Political Academy are indications of his GRU affiliation).

Klintsevich is not a well-known figure outside Russia  he appeared in the Western press briefly in 2012 with his short-lived idea to buy Hitlers birth house in Braunau, in order to destroy it  but he is a well-connected member of the Kremlins ruling elite. Given his senate committee position and his GRU past, there is no doubt that Klintsevich is considered nasch (ours) by Russias special services.

His statement outing Snowdens relationship with the Kremlin therefore cannot be an accident or a slip of the tongue. For whatever reason, Putin has decided to out Snowden as the collaborator that he actually is  and has been for three years already.

One reason for this may be Snowdens recent tepid criticism via Twitter of Russias draconian new laws on domestic surveillance  which vastly exceed any of the activities of the Western democracies that Snowden has so strongly criticized from his FSB hideaway. Indeed, his hosts finally allowing their American collaborator to tweet negatively about Russia  many had noted Snowdens silence on FSB repression and worse  may be a sign that the defector has outlived his usefulness.

In truth, Snowden was never all that well informed about American intelligence. Contrary to the myths that he and his mouthpieces have propagated, he was no more than an IT systems administrator. Snowden was never any sort of bona fide spy. There are no indications he really understands most of what he stole from NSA.

The FSB therefore milked Snowden of any valuable information rather quickly. He likely had little light to shed on the million-plus secret files he stole. Instead, his value to Moscow has been as a key player in Kremlin propaganda designed to discredit the Western intelligence alliance.

In that role, Snowden has done a great deal of damage to the West. But he was never a mole for Moscow inside NSA. In reality, the Snowden Operation is probably a cover to deflect attention from the one or more actual Russian moles who have been lurking inside NSA for years, undetected.

Based on the cases of previous Western intelligence defectors to Moscow, Edward Snowden faces an unhappy future. Whatever happens to him is up to his hosts, who control all aspects of any defectors life. There no longer can be any honest debate about his relationship with the Kremlin, which has settled the matter once and for all. Putin and his special services consider Snowden to be nasch  there is no question about that now.

*John R. Schindler is a security consultant and a former National Security Agency intelligence analyst and counterintelligence officer. He is on Twitter @20committee.
Update 4.16pm: A mother attending today's protest against religious discrimination in the Irish education system said that her family was turned down by several local schools - until she had her child baptised.

We were denied access to four schools in the area, she said.

We had to go and do the pretend baptism to get the certificate  and then we were allowed in.

Great turn out, powerful speeches at #gatheringforchange from @edu_equal - the time for equality in education is now pic.twitter.com/YLXThW3y2m  EQUATE (@equateireland) July 3, 2016

Hundreds of parents attended todays Gathering for Change demonstration in Dublin, many of whom have been directly affected by schools' admissions policies.

[Im here] mainly for my son, yeah, to try to get equal treatment for him, said one father.

I dont want to baptise him, I dont feel I should have to baptise him to get him into a State-funded school.

Great speech by Paddy Monaghan local parent from Raheny campaigning for @edu_equal #gatheringforchange pic.twitter.com/k0raZuO6Sc  Cian O'Callaghan T.D.  (@OCallaghanCian) July 3, 2016

Earlier:

Hundreds of people are taking part in a march in Dublin city centre this afternoon, calling for religious discrimination in school admissions to be stopped.

The group Education Equality organised today's demonstration from St. Stephen's Green Park to Leinster House.

At the moment, religious run schools can prioritise which children they admit according to the school's ethos.

More than 90% of primary schools in Ireland are Catholic-run.

Chairperson of Education Equality, April Duff, says the so-called "baptism barrier" is not fair on parents or children.

"We want equality in all local schools, regardless of patronage," she said.

"We want the law that allows religious denominational schools to discriminate to be repealed so there is an absolute prohibition on discrimination against children in admitting students - that it's done on some other criterion, but not religion."
The HSE is to investigate reports that over 2m in secret top-ups were made to more than a dozen senior members of staff at St John of God.

The report, in the Irish Mail on Sunday, said that managers at the Dublin hospital were paid lump sums totalling around 2m back in 2013.
Console has taken control of a number of assets held by former CEO Paul Kelly, according to a spokesman for the charity.

The interim head of the suicide prevention society has said that it will now create a full inventory for presentation to the High Court on Tuesday.
Each of Tennessees 95 counties has a board of education (school board) and superintendent. This wasnt just a good idea which began in one county and spread to others. The oversight of public education across the state is something which was mandated by state legislation. The requirement that every Tennessee county have a board of education and school superintendent can be traced to the work of Governor Austin Peay, Tennessees governor between 1923 and 1927, and the Sixty-Fourth Tennessee General Assembly in 1925.

By the early 1900s, availability of education depended greatly on where the student and his/her family lived. Urban Tennessee counties were able to make a greater investment in public education than rural counties. The inequity in education was considerable, with many rural Tennessee counties not even having public elementary schools. Some counties still had all grades in the proverbial one room school house like where Tennessees famous citizen, Sam Houston, held classes at Maryville, TN.

According to Paving the Way for Progress: The Governorship of Austin Peay (http://www.teachtnhistory.org/file/Paving%20the%20Way%20for%20Progress-%20Austin%20Peay.pdf), While education had been improved slightly by such governors as James B. Frazier and Malcolm Patterson, Tennessee continued to lag far behind national standards. Few rural legislators thought it affordable, thanks in large part to the states antiquated tax system which continued to place an unfair burden on these communities, to establish elementary schools in every county. 

In his second inaugural address on January 6, 1925 Gov. Austin Peay made a commitment to improve availability and quality of public education. He said, Children must be educated. Poverty is no crime in this country...The American child needs no inheritance of wealth, nor station to reach success in life. He does need, and he is entitled to be free from the handicap of ignorance.

The Public Acts of 1925, Chapter 115 included a section sometimes known as the General Education Act. There was a requirement for a board of education in each county. Be it further enacted, That in each county of the State there shall be a County Board of Education composed of seven members elected by the County Court at its July term, one each year, to succeed members now in office as their respective terms expire, each member to serve for a term of seven years; ...

Members of the board were required to reside in the county in which they served and to have a practical education. Compensation was set at a maximum of $4.00 per day. Duties of the County of Board of Education included holding quarterly meetings, electing one of its members as chairman, and preparing budgets.

The Public Acts also mandated that each county have a school superintendent. The County Superintendent was required to file with the State Commissioner of Education a copy of the school systems budget as approved by the Quarterly County Court. The superintendent was also charged with filing a list of teachers employed by the school system.

Tuberculosis was prevalent across Tennessee in 1925. The Public Acts mandated that the Superintendent and all members of the Board of Education be free of tuberculosis, and stated that they should be removed from office after contracting the disease. Mention was also made of the requirement to maintain a tuberculosis-free student enrollment.

Since some larger counties and cities in the state already had school boards, the Public Acts made exceptions so as not to change what those governments were already doing. Hamilton County and Chattanooga already operated their own school systems with oversight by a superintendent and school board.

The records available at the Public Library do not indicate when the local board and superintendent began meeting nor what the original mission was. However, the Public Library does have excellent books containing the required annual reports on Hamilton County schools which were presented to the Hamilton County Court. The books include detailed statistics on the system as a whole as well as on each school, often accompanied by photographs.

Since 1925, public education in each county of Tennessee has been guided by the administrative roles prescribed in the Public Acts. Unfortunately, Gov. Austin Peay did not live long enough to see the outcome of his education reforms. He became the only governor of Tennessee so far to die while in office, having succumbed to a cerebral hemorrhage on October 2, 1927. For his role in leading education reforms, Gov. Austin Peay was honored by his name being given to Austin Peay Normal University (now Austin Peay State University) located in his home town of Clarksville, TN.

If you have additional information on the early history of boards of education and school superintendents in Tennessee, please e-mail me at jolleyh@bellsouth.net. Ill update this article with some of your comments. Also, if you have ideas for similar origin of articles, please e-mail those to me. There are many things that we have today which are often taken for granted as to their origin.
SINGAPORE: Palm oil may retest a support of 4,114 ringgit per tonne, a break below which could open the way towards...
"Everyone" should be pleased that a royal commission on banks won't proceed under a Coalition government, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank chief executive Mike Hirst says.

Labor promised a royal commission on misconduct in the banking and financial services industry within 100 days of being elected. Its leader, Bill Shorten, said during the election campaign that the "banks do not need a tax cut  they deserve a royal commission".

Mike Hirst of Bendigo and Adelaide Bank. Credit:Christopher Pearce

The promises follow revelations of a scandal and cover-up at CBA's financial planning arm, as well as the CBA life insurance scandal, which saw sick and dying people denied claims, and the alleged manipulation of the bank bill swap rate by National Australia Bank.

But the Coalition has opposed a commission and with Labor unlikely to form government, Australia's financial services industry might well be breathing a sign of relief.
Former prime minister and self-proclaimed larrikin, Bob Hawke, has still got it at the ripe young age of 86, when he successfully predicted the outcome of the weekend's federal election. He was the guest of honour at the Newgate Communications' annual pre-election and June 30 clients' drinks at the Ivy last Thursday night, where he told the audience, "I'm a good friend of Malcolm [Turnbull] and said you will win, but with a reduced majority"... before adding he thought Bill [Shorten] was a good leader. Newgate's founder Brian Tyson is also a mate of Turnbull, who was the guest of honour at the first Sydney-based Newgate function where he launched the group on the top floor balcony of 1 Bligh Street.

When asked if, in this day and age, he still run as PM, Hawkey said probably not given the scrutiny of the media and rise of social media in the modern age. That was given a wry laugh from the audience, most of whom were tweeting photos of him as he spoke. Soaking up the bon vivant and Bob's advice that all governments should hold a National Economic Summit that he established in 1983  which he said his government's success flowed from  was former Tony Abbott chief of staff Peta Credlin, NSW Minster for Trade, Tourism and Major Events Stuart Ayres, Mike Baird staffer Clive Mathieson and his former News Ltd comrade Greg Baxter and ASIC's Matthew Abbott. The corporate and broking world was also on hand to give Bob a rousing reception, including Robert Webster and Lindsay Partridge from Brickworks, Jim Evans, from BT Investment Management; Michael Richardson, Deutsche Bank's head of equity capital markets; Richard Alcock, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and former editor of Woman's Weekly, Helen McCabe.

Illustration: John Shakespeare.

Spare a dime?

Buddy can you spare me a dime? Well, several million bucks, actually.

For Roger Corbett and his pokie king buddy Bruce Mathieson, their boat has finally come in over at Mayne Pharma, but to keep the money rolling, both have to dig deep.

Even so, given the way its shares have helped to underwrite a growing portion of their wealth over the better part of the past decade, can they afford not to take up their rights to its latest hare issue?

Mayne Pharma has finally broken through and garnered interest at the big end of town with its placement last week at $1.50, which left the professionals with big grins on their faces counting their profits since its shares ended the week at $1.87.

Corbett has been on the register since Mayne shares were trading at under 15, and Mathieson for even longer.

Now, the fun starts for the pair, with the rights priced at $1.28, so they can't afford not to take them up, plus some, since there is a "top-up" which allows retail investors to apply for up to 50 per cent on top of their entitlement. For Corbett, he will need over $7 million, according to your diarist's old abacus, with Mathieson up for more than $40 million. But the instant gains they will make will help cover losses on the dogs in their portfolio such as Western Desert Resources, which sank without trace a few years back.
Over recent months it has become apparent that 7-Eleven is the tip of the iceberg. Credit:Simon Bosch You can almost hear the lobbying machine going into overdrive. Proposed changes from both parties include more powers to the regulator, a 10-fold increase in penalties and more resources to the regulator. But the biggest change of all is to put franchisors in the firing line. Illustration: Cathy Wilcox. Until now, the Fair Work Ombudsman can only deal with individual injustice and go after franchisees. The regulator can only pursue franchisors as accessories to workplace law breaches only if it can be proved they are "knowingly concerned in or party to the contravention". This burden of proof makes the law virtually useless.

Under proposed changes to the legislation, notably from the ALP, the burden of proof will be flipped on its head and head office will have to prove it could not have reasonably known workers were being ripped off. In other words, if there is systemic underpayment, the FWO can do something about it. There can be no middle ground on scrubbing out worker exploitation. The worker will also be able to go after the franchisor, who then has to go after the franchisee. Currently, workers are supposed to go after the franchisee, who have been known to threaten workers with loss of job or deportation if they pursue the matter. It is this flaw in the system that has allowed wage fraud to get out of control. It is a similar story for the supply chain, which, until now, has been able to hide behind the corporate veil. The decision by both parties to tackle worker exploitation has been a long time coming.

But stories such as systemic underpayment of foreign students throughout the 7-Eleven franchise network has put the issue on the national agenda. Before the joint media investigation into 7-Eleven, wage fraud had been going on for decades and head office had turned a blind eye. In the words of the 7-Eleven whistleblower at the time the scandal was exposed: "Everyone at head office knows about it. No one likes it, but people want to keep their jobs so they stay quiet. I've heard it being joked about at senior levels at meetings." Nothing was done about it because the business model that operated for years was such that many franchisees wouldn't have had a business if they paid the correct wages. Workers coming forward and telling harrowing stories forced action. One worker in Brisbane was forced to rummage through bins for old sandwiches after not being paid for months. He got to breaking point and stood outside the store with a placard saying: "This store has not paid me for 3 months. Please Help."

Head office was aware of the incident but left it with the franchisee to deal with. In the aftermath of the election, there should be an investigation into the franchising industry. 7-Eleven has underpaid workers, that is not in dispute. It set up an independent compensation scheme and appointed Fels to oversee it. Months later it changed its mind and decided to do the scheme in-house. It created a public backlash. It was seen as the company trying to shirk its commitment. The public won't rest until the problem is fixed. The reality is there isn't any legal compulsion for 7-Eleven to pay up. It is why the new government, whether it is Labor or the Coalition, will need to amend the legislation and not only put franchisors on the hook but also make it retrospective to ensure companies such as 7-Eleven do the right thing.
The disaster was that Malcolm Turnbull decided to go to the election with Tony Abbott's conservative agenda instead of that of a 'liberal' reformer ("'Turnbull a Disaster' for the Liberal Party", July 3).

The electorate has demonstrated that it rejects conservatism and wants a modern man in the lodge. Turnbull still has a chance to be that.

Derek Hall Neutral Bay

Australians can spot a fake a mile away. That's why if Malcolm Turnbull had campaigned on the things he believed in, he would have won in a canter.



Grant Heaton Port Macquarie

If Malcolm Turnbull had held to his original principles and not buckled to the right , he would be prime minister today.



Neil Duncan Balmain

I listened to Scott Morrison on Saturday night's election coverage as he spluttered indignantly about Labor's "monstrous lie" about Medicare and I have only two words for him: "children overboard."
Actions, meet consequences! So the big question is how this will play out for Malcolm Turnbull, and the answer is: oh, he's probably totally fine, surely? Sure, it looks like his government has lost double the number of seats that they predicted as being a reasonable outcome, and many of the losses were party members that supported his challenge - like Fiona Scott in Lindsay, Wyatt Roy in Longman, and his pre-Abbott overthrow dinner host Peter Hendy. Oh, and there's also the embarrassing loss of disgraced former minister Jamie Briggs in Mayo, toppled by NXT. That's not a great look. But there's definitely no chance that the right of his party will be baying for blood, having seen three of their strongest Tasmanian warriors removed by the swing against the Liberals. They'll probably be cool about it: especially Tasmanian senate leader, Abbott supporter and dumped former Employment Minister Eric Abetz, who won't mind his influence being badly eroded by a tactical error by someone with whom he strongly disagrees. No likely problems there!

"I've thought up secret plans and clever tricks!" And, as the PM made clear in his distastefully defensive not-victory speech, this election was really all about passing the stalled legislation to reintroduce the Australian Building and Construction Commission, and nothing else. And it's great that he cleared that up, because it did look awfully like it was all done simply in order to go to an early election to clear out the senate cross bench that were failing to pass the things they were told to pass, Sure, he could have waited another month or so and gone to a normal election rather than a double dissolution, if he genuinely wasn't fussed about the senate make up. And that would have been a lot cheaper and easier, and not required spending a million-plus public dollars on getting the Governor-General to prorogue Parliament to return in order to have the ABCC legislation fail to pass. Of course, and if the double dissolution wasn't all about clearing out the senate, why did the government spend all that time arguing over the Senate ballot changes which took weeks to get finalised, thereby forcing the aforementioned proroguing in order to have the Senate not-pass the ABCC legislation so they had the trigger for the double dissolution  that, um, was all about the ABCC?

But now, after all this, Parliament will have a joint sitting of both houses to pass the ABCC  except now the government hasn't got the numbers to successfully do it. Oh well! It was definitely worth a shot, eh? Upstairs, downstairs Anyway, it's a good thing that the election was apparently never connected with clearing out the Senate crossbench  because if it was, it failed miserably. According to the ABC's analysis, there's looking like a total of 10 cross benchers (up from eight) and the reduced Coalition number means that the government will need at least nine to agree to pass any legislation that Labor and the Greens block.

Meanwhile conservative commentators like Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones are openly mocking the Coalition and Turnbull and insisting that the party would have done better had they kept Tony Abbott as leader, with the former straight up calling for Turnbull to resign during a spirited rant on Sky and the latter calling James McGrath  the man who gathered Turnbull's numbers ahead of the leadership coup  "captain of the bedwetters" on Channel 9. In short: things could probably have gone a little better. So, to recap: Turnbull's support base within the party has been decimated, the loss of key conservatives will have the right of his party demanding blood (get ready for Tony Abbott to return to the frontbench!), the Nationals have strengthened their position relative to the Liberals, the Senate is a dog's breakfast, the party's loudest and most blustery public supporters are calling for the leader to fall on his sword, and the legislation which the entire election was supposedly about is doomed to fail. But if the Coalition do eke over the line, their agenda for the rest of the year seems pretty straightforward!
Malcolm Turnbull may have kept his cool over a gruelling eight-week election campaign but the rumoured Turnbull temper was close to the surface on election night after his strength and stability mantra was ignored by an unimpressed electorate.

In contrast to his words, the meta-message communicated by his tetchy election night performance, betrayed frustration, embarrassment, and anger.

Voters, Turnbull explained, had been conned by Labor's demonstrably false Medicare privatisation lie, and duped by last-minute text messages purporting to originate from the government scheme itself. Here was Turnbull's entire explanation for his party's calamitous reversals.
Marriage equality hangs in the balance following Saturday's line ball election, with a big question mark over the Turnbull government's planned plebiscite.

Some in an emboldened Labor Party have hardened their resolve to oppose a public vote, with one senior Labor source telling Fairfax Media: "We were never going to support it."

But marriage equality advocates believe a hung parliament with a broadly supportive crossbench would now have the numbers to pass same-sex marriage anyway.
"I think if anyone ever across the country treats their seat with complacency, a la Peter Hendy, people will respond. Christina Hobbs voting in Lyneham on Saturday. "People are prepared to change their votes at every election." Ms Gallagher, who has contested four ACT Legislative Assembly elections, spent Sunday dropping her daughter at the airport for a gap year in the UK. She also spoke to Bill Shorten, praising his campaign, Ms Gallagher said. The Labor leader had "run rings around Malcolm Turnbull" and had her full support, she said.

On Sunday, Mr Seselja was quietly confident he would be returned to the Senate. "Obviously the national result is still very tight, but I'm very hopeful. I think the signs are good for us in the way that certainly postals tend to go and I would think it's highly likely that we will form a majority government," he told Fairfax Media. "Locally, I think we've really secured the Senate seat. I think it was seen as under threat and we treat it as a marginal seat. "I would think it's a very positive result in the face of I think a 3 per cent national swing against the Coalition." He accused the Labor Party of taking the ACT for granted and said they had not run a strong local election campaign.

"They were virtually silent, and they obviously retained the seat easily, they do take it for granted and I guess that's something for voters to think about, about whether they are well served by those local Labor members," he said. "Certainly from the Greens, it was a highly negative and personal campaign and I don't think voters really responded very well to that. The Greens are probably the biggest losers here when you consider over the past two elections, we now potentially have seen their vote go backwards. "I think it does show many people in the community are rejecting the Greens' policy offerings." Greens candidate Christina Hobbs had all but conceded defeat on Sunday, with a Facebook post to her supporters saying winning a seat was a "steep road ahead from here". As of Sunday, the Greens had gathered more than 26,000  17 per cent  of the votes, but fell short of the number needed to win one of the ACT's two Senate seats.

There was a swing against the Greens of -2.25 per cent. "The results that have come in at the moment for the Senate are mixed for us," Ms Hobbs said. "As was always a possibility, it looks like the popularity of the Labor candidate has increased her vote at the expense of our primary, but we are also seeing what is looking to be the lowest ever vote for the Liberal Party in Canberra." "Under the old voting system, we'd be in a strong position with Labor and the Greens together pulling a good vote. However, under the new system, with the scattering of preferences, it's going to be a steep road ahead from here." Ms Hobbs praised the work of her team and the Greens' election campaign.

"We were up against it at this election with the most popular politician ever in Canberra running at her first election in the Labor Senate seat, and probably the most expensive election campaign we've ever seen from the Libs," Ms Hobbs said. "Overall the strength of our campaign can be seen in the good swings towards us in both of the lower house seats of Fenner and Canberra. In Fenner we are currently up around 2 per cent and the Libs are down 2 per cent. "No matter the outcome of the days ahead, everyone should be incredibly proud to be part of this campaign, the momentum we're building, the conversations we've had and the strength of the party leading into the October election." A relaxed looking Senator Seselja planned to spend Sunday enjoying a barbecue with his family and the volunteers who worked on his campaign. Loading
Being a retired educator myself, having taught in three states and five districts, having substituted in Hamilton County, teaching chess in numerous area schools, and now with all my concerns for workforce preparedness; I have more than just a passing interest in the state of our schools in Hamilton County.

Personally, I do not believe the citizens of Hamilton County should vote to retain any of the current school board members seeking re-election.



In the case for District 1, this absolutely means that Rhonda Thurman should take her, "I got up at 6 a.m.to get to school by 7:15 a.m. and so can the students today" attitude and concentrate on directing that attitude somewhere else where it will also not make any difference

In regards to Donna Horn in District 7, it is like she was never there the difference is so negligible. She expertly showed her leadership skills by traveling the district with now disgraced Supt. Rick Smith to advocate for a tax increase believing money would be a key element for the answer of how to right the ship of the worst school district in the state of Tennessee. Mr. Wingate sweeps the floor with Ms. Horn whenever and wherever they speak together. What a great candidate and a real "Win for District 7."

In regards to Mr. Ricks, who recently received the endorsement of City Councilman Moses Freeman - bless his heart - District 4 is the worst district in the worst system in the state. The Worst of the Worst. What has he accomplished in his tenure? And, why in the world wouldn't the voters of District 4 choose the dynamic leadership of the challengers. Personally, I prefer Tiffanie Robinson. Oh, that's right, it's that "white" thing. It appears the color of Mr. Ricks' skin and his genuine concern has done nothing to change the trajectory of the schools in his district.





What a refreshing difference most of the challengers offer the taxpayers this year. The voters should feel blessed so many brave souls are willing to offer themselves up to take on the momentous task which will be facing them. The school district needs dramatic change: year-round schooling, longer school days, a new state-of-the-art technical/vocational school - just to mention a few.

I hope the rest of this current board also get ousted in 2018. Maybe the HCDE will then start to see some genuine improvements by 2020. Until then I pray all the good teachers of Hamilton County hang on and continue the hard, hard work of doing their best to educate the children of the county each and every day.

Please support Chattanooga 2.0 and all the organizations in the county working to improve the academic achievements of our students.

City Councilman Larry Grohn

In District 2, Mr. Welch has probably done the best of the four, especially under his leadership during this stress-filled year. However, considering the dramatic events and damning evidence of system-wide central office failures, even that may not be enough to save him from the challenge of Kathy Lennon.

* * *

I think Larry Grohn's statement attributed to me, " I got up at 6am to get to school by 7:15, so can the students today" was made in reference to the 2010 order from the state to allow Howard to change their school start time from 7:15 (the start time of other high schools including Soddy-Daisy) to 9:00. While the state's intention was admirable, it did not accomplish the goal of increasing attendance and academics. In David Carroll's article titled, "Do Hamilton County's High Schools Start Class Too Early?", dated Nov. 5, 2015, he says that Howard students have not improved since later starting times were implemented. He states that Howard scored 15.8 on ACT, but the overall score declined to 14.3 in 2014. Carroll also reports that the state report card showed attendance rates dropped slightly since 2007 (89.8 to 87.4).

David Carroll also quotes long time educator, Michelle Buchanan-Egle, "At first it did improve, but after a while they adjusted. When we started at 7:15, they got there at 9:00. When we moved to 9:00 they got here at 11:00; so, they adjusted."

The article continues, "Some elected officials say a 7:15 start time is an education in itself, because it teaches students and families the discipline and structure that is often needed in the workforce. The lesson teaches, they say, is show up on time, whatever time that may be." I would fall into this camp of elected officials, Mr. Grohn would not.

Mr. Grohn says he now has all of his concerns focused for "workforce preparedness". I might offer a little advice, you might want to tell young people they better be on work on time or there will not be any jobs for them to prepare for. You may be able to find a company who will let employees show up to work two hours after everyone else has started, but I doubt it.

Our job on the school board is to educate young people so they can be productive, taxpaying members of society. Rather than focus valuable time seeing what new educational fad will actually work, I prefer to tell students the time-proven way to get a good education - get up, go to school with a good attitude, follow directions, do your homework, repeat every day. I once heard you have to take the stairs to success, there is no elevator. Rhonda Thurman One would think Mr. Grohn would have enough to do in his elected position as a City Councilman since at least one person gets shot in Chattanooga every night.

* * *

You are wrong, city councilman; if any elected board needed to be removed it would be that huge circus tent on Lindsay Street. I understand that when people get elected they become experts in everything. Look closer at Chattanooga 2.0.

Rhonda Thurman is the peoples huckleberry and is a keeper.





The financial contracting and procurement operations of HCDE speak volumes. These educational non-profits are motived by easy government contracts. They are highly motivated financially to control HCDE.





The PEF, Chattanooga 2.0, and UnifiEd have a mission to fund their organization to the greatest extent possible from public resources.





It is so lucrative to claim to possess solutions for government. The contracts associated with being the self-proclaimed saviors of public education are millions. These contracts are so desirable new non-profits have emerged and others created to divert public funding from real and tangible need in the classroom to the bank accounts of these organizations.

The PEF has remedied nothing in public education and is a tiresome brand that is completely spent. As public education continues to decline from bad to worse, the same PEF group has created a new brand with the Chamber of Commerce, and a new face that has absolutely no track record in educational reform.





Several years ago, a group of people with no financial interest sought to examine whether the PEF was indeed the giver to public education they claimed to be.





The following records were obtained.



For a three-year period, all contracts PEF initiated and executed with HCDE Copies of all payments to the PEF from HCDE.

It was truly mind boggling that each open records request sent to the HCDE Finance Department was forwarded to PEF by HCDE staff. For a non-government agency, this was rather curious. PEF has great control over HCDE. The staff at HCDE acts in a manner to protect the private interests of PEF. These organizations collect elected HCDE board members. Unfortunately, they cannot collect Rhonda Thurman.

These open records requests actually raised questions about HCDE acting in the best interest of PEF. Is it really the function of HCDE to protect PEF from transparency? I think not. Why would third party organization yield so much control over the HCDE board, they do.





This type of protectionism of PEF also extended into the school board, except with Rhonda Thurman.





We titled our open records search Siphoned from the Top Funds because that was the financial model. Funds came into HCDE from the federal government, and left with the PEF.





The PEF wasted millions of public education funds in contracts with the HCDE acting as their human resources, actually hiring teachers, and consulting contract windfalls. As a result, these organizations are extraordinarily motivated to keep the contracts flowing, which requires having favor with board members. Oh, but you know this, right?





We tend to believe that we the people control our elected boards. The opposite is true, we elect them and these organizations control them.

There is only one HCDE board member that will tell you the truth no matter who you are, friend or foe.





As a new resident of District 1, please keep Rhonda Thurman.





Shes our huckleberry.

Aprile Eidson

* * *

Mr. Grohn, I had much rather see the City Council dumped rather than the school board. At least I have hope for the school board. Politics does not rule it nor does the mayor make its decisions before each meeting. Charlotte Parton Chattanooga












The battle for the WA seat of Cowan is poised to go down to the absolute wire - and the acrimonious contest between Liberal incumbent Luke Simpkins and Labor's Anne Aly doesn't look like getting any nicer as counting continues.

When counting stopped on Saturday night, with 77 per cent of votes counted, Ms Aly was ahead of Mr Simpkins by less than 1000 votes.

Counting won't resume again until Tuesday and a result for Cowan may not be clear until days after that.

Both the Liberals and Labor would seem to fancy their chances. Newly elected Burt MP Matt Keogh told Radio 6PR's Bob Maumill on Sunday morning that Labor was confident of grabbing Cowan.
"I was very touched when I got a message from Lynda Gardner, the mother of Heath, the 27-year-old man who was my liver donor," Hinch said. "Her message said, 'I voted for you.' That really got to me."

Derryn Hinch gets a congratulatory handshake in St Kilda. Credit:Arsineh Houspian

Hinch believes he will be the only senator who has had a liver transplant  it saved his life in 2011  and is concerned that Australia has one of the lowest rates of organ donation in the world. He plans to advocate binding "living wills" for willing donors that can't be overruled by families in their grief.

Hinch, who as a journalist and broadcaster found himself in so many high-profile scrapes he has become known as the Human Headline, was also touched when he got a call from an old mate, Channel Seven news director Jason Morrison, who addressed him as "Senator Headline".

"Surreal, being called a senator," he said.
Divisive Queensland politician Pauline Hanson is on the cusp of a return to parliament almost 20 years after she left.

The One Nation leader rose to prominence in 1996 when she won the lower house seat of Oxley and is vying for one of the final Queensland Senate seats against other minor parties.

Late on Saturday night, the party had attracted about 10 per cent of first preference votes.
Andrews' action added fuel to the claim that Labor remains beholden to the vested interests of militant unions at the expense of the broader community, and the level of anger among CFA volunteers was palpable enough that it prevented the gains needed to win key seats. Or so the story goes.

The first version is deeply unflattering for Daniel Andrews. It holds that the Premier probably cost his federal colleagues the election through his decision to bring an ugly dispute between the CFA and United Firefighters Union explosively to a head just weeks before polling day.

CFA volunteers and supporters rally in Treasury Gardens on June 5. Credit:Daniel Pockett

The second version is kinder. It holds that the CFA dispute, a state issue, had little, if any, impact on the federal campaign. Labor actually gained solid ground in Bendigo, McEwen and even Corangamite, the seats arguably most affected by the dispute. Or so the story goes.

It's impossible to say with any certainty which version is most accurate because the question of what might have been is hypothetical.

But there are a number of things to bear in mind. The swing to Labor in Victoria was relatively modest, at 1.5 per cent - much less than the 3.4 per cent national swing to Labor.

The counter-argument here is that Labor was already in a relatively strong position in Victoria, and it still managed to capture about 51.7 per cent of the two-party preferred vote, one of the best state results in the nation.
Both major parties face a steep uphill battle to muster workable support from enough crossbenchers to form a minority government if, as seems possible, the election produces a hung parliament.

Two of the likely five independents, Andrew Wilkie and Cathy McGowan, have already ruled out doing a deal with either side. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten were calling independents on Sunday morning in a sign neither felt his party could form a majority on its own.

The Greens' Adam Bandt reaffirmed to Fairfax Media that he would deal with Labor but not with the Coalition. Mr Shorten on Sunday ruled out forming "any coalition agreements" with the Greens but added he was committed to making the Parliament work as elected.
A man is in an induced coma and is expected to lose an eye after a glass was thrown at his head in Woolloongabba early this morning.

The 26-year-old victim was on the upstairs dance floor of the Chalk Hotel on Stanley Street when the incident occured.

He suffered severe injuries to his eye and face and was given first aid by night club security until ambulance officers arrived.

He is expected to have surgery later today.

The assault is the latest in a string of violent assaults at Brisbane nightspots which have spurred the Queensland Police Union to this week call for trading hours in Brisbane's CBD and Fortitude Valley to be brought back to 2am - a proposal backed by Lord Mayor Campbell Newman.
Michelle Carter. Credit:AP Carter, who was 17 at the time of Roy's death, faces a charge of involuntary manslaughter. "We appreciate the court's thorough review of the law as it pertains to the facts of this case, and it's decision to uphold the juvenile court's denial of the defendant's motion to dismiss," Gregg Miliote, spokesman for the Bristol County District Attorney's office, said in a statement. "We will now focus our efforts on preparing for the upcoming trial in this case." Prosecutors have alleged that Carter pressured Roy to go through with suicide, counselled him on his fears and researched suicide methods. Text messages between the two propelled the case into a national spotlight and highlighted Carter's alleged role. 'I mean, you're about to die'

For more than a week in July 2014, Carter and Roy exchanged hundreds of messages in which Carter insisted that Roy would be better off dead. "You're finally going to be happy in heaven. No more pain," she told him in one message. "It's okay to be scared and it's normal. I mean, you're about to die." According to prosecutors, the two had struck up a romantic relationship  mostly online  in 2012. Her attorney says they had met only a few times in person over the course of two years prior to Roy's death. Roy had a history of depression and had attempted suicide in the past, but his family was hopeful that he would get through it. "He seemed to be pulling out of it," his grandmother Janice Roy told WBZ.

Text messages recovered by police, however, suggest that by 2014, Carter had tired of Roy's idle talk of suicide and wanted him to go through with it  now. "You always say you're gonna do it, but you never do," Carter complained. "I just want to make sure tonight is the real thing." Another time, she texted: "You can't keep pushing it off, though. That's all you keep doing." Carter was insistent, even when Roy steered the topic to other things: ROY: How was your day?

CARTER: When are you doing it? Roy said he was having a good day, but Carter wasn't satisfied. CARTER: Really? ROY: Yes. CARTER: That's great. What did you do?

ROY: Ended up going to work for a little bit and then just looked stuff up. CARTER: When are you gonna do it? Stop ignoring the question??? Roy had doubts and was scared, according to his texts. What if it didn't work and he ended up injured for the rest of his life? How would his family cope with the loss? Carter had answers. He would be her guardian angel in heaven.

She would comfort his family, and they would move on. If he followed the directions he had found online for killing himself with carbon monoxide, it would "100 percent work," she said. "There isn't anything anyone can do to save you, not even yourself," she told him. The day of Roy's death  July 12, 2014  he and Carter exchanged texts in the early morning hours. "You can't think about it. You just have to do it," Carter said, telling him she didn't understand why he was hesitating.

"I'm gonna eventually," he replied. "I really don't know what I'm waiting for but I have everything lined up." She suggested that he take medication to fall asleep and allow the fumes to work. She worried that he wouldn't go through with it because the sun would soon be coming up. She suggested that he go to an empty parking lot. They texted throughout the day about the plans, about Roy's doubts and about Carter's insistence that "the time is right" and that he was ready.

The day before his death, she told her friend: "I'm thankful that our last words were I love you." At some point on the night of July 12, Roy went through with the suicide, using a gas-powered water pump. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning inside the cab of his pickup truck. While he was in the truck with the pump running, he was on the phone texting and talking with Carter, she told her friend. "Like, honestly I could have stopped it," Carter texted Samantha months later. "I was on the phone with him and he got out of the car" because the carbon monoxide was working, she said. She added that she "told him to get back in." His depression

Roy had a history of depression and had previously attempted suicide. Details of his struggles with mental health were presented to the grand jury, according to the ruling; Roy had been receiving treatment since 2011, according to the filing, and attempted suicide in 2013 by trying to overdose on acetaminophen. "A friend saved his life by contacting emergency services," they note. Court documents note a conversation that took place weeks before Roy's death, weeks before Carter was pushing him to take his own life: ROY: we should be like Romeo and Juliet at the end CARTER: Haha. I'd love to be your Juliet :)

ROY: but do you know what happens in the end CARTER: "OH YEAH F NO! WE ARE NOT DYING" Days later but still weeks before Roy's suicide, Carter urged him to get help: CARTER: But the mental hospital would help you. I know you don't think it would but I'm telling you, if you give them a chance, they can save your life CARTER: Part of me wants you to try something and fail just so you can go get help

ROY: It doesn't help. trust me CARTER: So what are you gonna do then? Keep being all talk and no action and everyday go thru saying how badly you want to kill yourself? Or are you gonna try to get better? ROY: I can't get better I already made my decision. But in the days leading up to Roy's death, Carter's tone seemed to have changed. She was the one brainstorming ideas with Roy on how he should kill himself, according to prosecutors.

Roy thought about using a tube to channel the exhaust from his truck's tailpipe into the vehicle but realised that the diesel engine emitted lower levels of carbon monoxide that might make failure more likely. Carter was confident that it would work and told him why. If the truck emitted a specific amount of carbon monoxide "for five or ten minutes, you will die," she told him. "You lose consciousness with no pain. You just fall asleep and die." But Carter didn't love that idea, either, because she feared that Roy would make up an "excuse" to explain why it didn't work. "I bet you're gonna be like 'oh, it didn't work because I didn't tape the tube right or something like that,' " she texted him "You always seem to have an excuse."

When Roy decided to use a generator instead, Carter was impatient. "Do you have the generator?" she asked him. "Not yet LOL," he replied. "WELL WHEN ARE YOU GETTING IT?" she wrote. Eventually, Roy did find a generator  his father's  but it was broken. Carter told him to take it to Sears for repairs.

And if Roy couldn't find a way to use carbon monoxide, Carter suggested alternatives: "I'd try the bag or hanging," she told him. "Hanging is painless and take like a second if you do it right." Roy's body was found by police the morning of July 13. 'Words alone' Dana Curhan, an attorney for Carter's appeal, said he had argued that Carter's words alone were not enough to constitute manslaughter. Instead, he said, it had to be "words plus"  words plus a threat, or words plus intimidation. "This is not what we were hoping for," he told The Washington Post in a phone interview. "I have not seen any case in Massachusetts where somebody was charged with manslaughter based on words alone."
The Queen has urged political leaders to calm down following the chaos triggered by the Brexit vote and told Members of the Scottish Parliament they should feel "hope and optimism" about the next five years.

The monarch used her address at the opening of the fifth session of the Scottish Parliament to tell the United Kingdom's political class to allow "room for quiet thinking and contemplation" before deciding on their next move.

The Queen speaks during the opening of the fifth session of the Scottish Parliament as Ken Macintosh, Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, looks on. Credit:Getty Images

Alluding to the political economic turmoil that has enveloped the country since the vote to leave the European Union, she said that Britons "live and work in an increasingly complex and demanding world" with events and developments occurring at "remarkable speed".

The Queen admitted that the ability to "stay calm and collected" in such circumstances could be hard but argued that a hallmark of leadership was the ability to take a step back.
New York: A college student from Fairfax, Virginia, was seriously injured on Sunday in New York City's Central Park when he unwittingly jumped on explosive material that had been left next to a rock, according to police and his family.

The bizarre accident forced the amputation of 18-year-old Connor Golden's left leg below the knee and set the nation's largest city on edge a day before the July 4 holiday was expected draw thousands to watch the city's annual fireworks display.

The injured tourist is carried to an ambulance in Central Park in New York on Sunday. Credit:AP

New York City police officials said at an evening news conference that they had no evidence to indicate the blast was related to terrorism and had documented no credible threats against the city. But many questions about the case remain unanswered.

Deputy Police Chief John O'Connell said the explosion occurred near East 60th Street and 5th Avenue shortly after 10.50am. Golden and two friends jumped off a rock and Golden landed directly on the explosive material. A New York City Fire Department spokesman said the blast nearly blew off Golden's foot, but his two friends were uninjured.
Dhaka: The well-dressed young men entered the trendy restaurant armed with guns, crude bombs and blades. When the 10-hour siege was over, 28 people were dead and Bangladesh's attempts to underplay the threat posed by Islamist radicals lay in tatters.

The hostage crisis and ensuing commando raid on a popular Dhaka restaurant that ended early on Saturday made it clear that Bangladesh has become a key battleground for militants inspired by the likes of Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the attack.

Army commandos rescued at least 13 people after the standoff.
Two of the Twins top prospects who spent time with the Southern League Champion Chattanooga Lookouts appear to be coming into their own. Top prospect, Byron Buxton, is with the Twins and is struggling a bit to live up to his potential.

In case you missed it, former Chattanooga Lookout (2015) Max Kepler put on a dazzling performance during Saturdays 17-5 blowout of the Texas Rangers  the American Leagues best team  setting a Minnesota Twins rookie record with seven runs batted in.

Those RBIs were due in large part to a pair of three-run homers.

What this performance proved more than anything was that Kepler has arrived.

After a slow start following his promotion to the big leagues, Kepler hit .255 in June with three home runs and 15 RBIs and has gotten off to a hot start in July.

Hes beginning to look a lot more composed and confident at the plate and if he can continue to ride this wave of success, hell be exactly what the Twins were hoping for; a mainstay in the outfield.

Keplers strong point has been his ability to find the gaps in the outfield and has proven a capable defender. Now that the Miguel Sano outfield experiment looks to be over, it seems the Twins have found their right fielder of the future.

And speaking of Sano.

Saturdays game also marked Sanos second game since returning from the Disabled List. All he did was connect on a towering home run to the second deck in left field, scored two runs and drove in three.

It seems the Minnesota Twins are more than ready to begin the full transition to Sano becoming the full-time third baseman.
News / National

by Stephen Jakes

ROHR Zimbabwe (Restoration of Human Rights) has rapped the Zanu PF government for purpoting to be attacking the European Union and the west at the time when its land reform programme has crumbled the food production in the country.ROHR in its Facebook post that Zanu PF seems not to be negotiatiating over the crisis in thge country at the time when people were setriously sufering."Rejecting EU support for farming aid against their disastrous land policy which they are dogmatically sticking to; in 1975 Zimbabwe had some of the best farming production in the World - now nothing? Why is that? But they want "Investment" too!" ROHR said.The organisation said Minister of Finance Patrick Chinamasa and his other crew are expected to be in London on the 5th of July, next week lobbying for investors yet the Minister of Agriculture, Joseph Made is playing a different ball game."Are they working for the same government? If so what a circus, who is going to take them seriously when they do not have one voice?" ROHR said.
Federal authorities investigating Bob Menendez, reports and adviser say

The investigation by New York prosecutors is reportedly connected to the 2017 trial in which the senior U.S. senator was acquitted.
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Rescuers evacuate a woman and her child in Chaohu city, Anhui province on July 2, 2016. [Photo by Li Tinghe and Ma Fengcheng/chinadaily.com.cn]

China's weather authorities on Saturday evening warned of possible geological disasters in the south and southwest of the country as heavy rain offers no respite for the region.

The National Meteorological Center (NMC) and the Ministry of Water Resources warned of high risks of mountain torrents in parts of Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Yunnan and Tibet from Saturday evening to Sunday evening, suggesting residents take necessary precautions.

The NMC on Sunday renewed its orange alert for heavy rain across much of the southern regions in the coming 24 hours.

Thunderstorms will hit the provinces of Hubei, Anhui, Jiangsu, Hunan, Jiangxi, Guizhou and Guangxi Zhuang autonomous Rregion from Sunday morning to Monday morning, with precipitation reaching up to 220 millimeters in some areas, the NMC said on its website.

The center suggested people reduce outdoor activities and take precautions against possible floods and landslides.

China has a four-tier color-coded system for severe weather, with red being the most serious, followed by orange, yellow and blue

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Rescuers evacuate trapped villagers after a dike breach in Xinzhou District of Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, July 2, 2016. Heavy rainfall caused a dike breach on the Jushui River in Xinzhou District of Wuhan Friday. More than 700 rescuers were sent there to evacuate stranded villagers. (Xinhua/Xiao Yijiu)

Chinese disaster relief authorities and experts said on Saturday that flood control efforts shall be ramped up to brace for severe floods along the Yangtze River as intense downpours continue to batter its drainage area.

Chen Guiya, deputy director of the Yangtze River Water Resources Committee, said there is absolutely no room for slack in the flood control efforts as several river banks have suffered damage by floods.

"Flood control facilities, especially main dikes, along the Yangtze River have been reinforced since 1998 to stand severe floods, but rising water levels have damaged many riverbanks in the middle and lower reaches of Yangtze, posing great danger," Chen said.

A similar El Nino effect triggered heavy flooding on Yangtze and led to more than 1,320 deaths in 1998. Experts said main dikes on the Yangtze are not likely to be damaged by floods like they were in 1998, but severe floods are likely to hit its tributaries.

Chinese meteorological authority on Saturday evening renewed its orange alert for heavy rain in the south and southwest of China in the coming three days.

The harsh weather conditions will lead to more disasters in the coming days, according to the Yangtze flood control headquarters. It ordered local authorities to remain on top alert, properly deploy relief forces and issue timely warnings to the public.

Yangtze saw its first flood peak at 2 p.m. Friday. The Three Gorges Dam increased water discharge to allow the peak to pass through.

The heaviest rainfall this year battered Hubei Province on Saturday, leaving at least 22 people missing or dead. Water levels of the Jushui River, a major Yangtze tributary, rose by more than eight meters in a day, inundating at least 23 villages. Thousands of soldiers, firemen and relief workers are working around the clock to repair the breaches.

On Saturday, soldiers in the Macheng city of Hubei used a tonne of explosives to bomb the sluice channel for the Xianggudun reservoir, which is located near several key railway and highway lines. A dam breach of the reservoir could put about 70,000 lives in danger.

According to the committee, the Yangtze River has seen 16 rounds of strong rainfalls since mid-March. Levels of 43 rivers along Yangtze have surpassed the safe limit.

Precipitations along the Yangtze have been 20 percent more than previous years. Water level on the Dongting Lake is about one meter higher than previous years, while water level of the Poyang Lake, China's largest body of fresh water, is two meters higher than the level in previous years.

"Consistent rainfall has swelled most lakes and reservoirs in Hubei, and more rains and future floods will bring even greater tests," said Wang Zhongfa, director of water resources department in Hubei.

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The online taxi aggregator space is poised to reach $1.7-billion (Rs 11,400-crore) mark, in gross booking value in 2016, as both Uber and Ola continue to invest heavily to grow the market.
Rohan Coelho, 21, a resident of Navi Mumbai, was looking at apartments in Gurgaon early last week. Almost 10 months ago, he had been handpicked from Birla Institute of Technology and Science-Goa by Grofers, one of the hottest delivery start-ups in the country. A few weeks later, he was offered a package north of Rs 12 lakh a year and the company raised $120 million in fresh funds. Coelho had been in constant touch with human resources department ever since. They were as eager to welcome him as he was to join them. Then, on the evening of June 28, his phone pinged. He had an e-mail from .
China Fortune Land Development Company Limited (CFLD) is planning to develop a industrial township in around 1500 acres of land, spread across Sohna and Manesar in the Gurgaon district, .



The township will cost about Rs 33,595 crore, which is to be developed along with the State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC), by forming a joint venture.
Engineers applying to small and medium businesses or start-ups in Bengaluru could be in for a disappointment as many of these have decided to hire only diploma holders.
Thronged by hundreds of people, Delhi Chief Minister on Sunday started a three-day political tour of Punjab with prayers at two famous shrines in this Sikh holy city.

A lone protestor threw some pamphlets towards Kejriwal as he stepped out of the Golden Temple complex, blaming the AAP leader for the razing of a 'piao' (drinking water point) outside the historical Sis Ganj Gurdwara in Delhi's Chandni Chowk area.

The man was taken away by security personnel as an unfazed Kejriwal continued with his programme.

Kejriwal offered prayers at the holiest of Sikh shrines, the Harmandar Sahib, popularly known as Golden Temple, and later went to the nearby Hindu Durgiana Temple.

This is Kejriwal's second tour of a longer duration to Punjab this year. He made a five-day trip to various parts of Punjab in February.

The visits are in connection with the assembly elections to be held in Punjab in February next year for which the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is posing a serious challenge to the ruling Akali Dal-BJP combine and the opposition Congress.

The AAP leader's visit to the state started under the shadow of an AAP legislator in Delhi, Naresh Yadav, being named in a case filed over the sacrilege of Quran, the holy book of Islam, in Punjab's Muslim dominated town of Malerkotla in Sangrur district recently.

Yadav has been booked by Punjab Police in the conspiracy behind the sacrilege incident.

The AAP legislator is the party's co-incharge for Punjab affairs. AAP leaders say the Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP alliance government of trying to implicate its leaders in false cases.

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Sunday refused to be drawn into the controversy over the criminal case against the AAP legislator saying that the police were investigating the matter.

During Kejriwal's visit, the AAP leadership will focus on youth and other categories of voters in Punjab, whose 117 assembly seats go to polls early next year.

The AAP has four MPs in the Lok Sabha from Punjab. Two of them are under suspension from the party.
The Gujarat government has opposed in the Supreme Court a plea by six persons, acquitted by the apex court in the 2002 terror attack case, seeking compensation for their 'wrongful' arrest, saying it would have a "serious demoralising effect" on the investigating agencies.

It said that since the trial court as well as the Gujarat High Court had convicted these persons for their alleged roles in the terror attack that had claimed 32 lives, the issue of "curtailment" of their personal liberty, which they are claiming, cannot be accepted.

On May 16, 2014, the Supreme Court had acquitted the six persons, including the three condemned prisoners, in the case, saying, "The story of the prosecution crumbles down at every juncture."

In its counter affidavit, the state government said that the probe agency had followed the law in charge sheeting these six persons, who were convicted by the designated POTA court, and their conviction was subsequently confirmed by the high court.

"When two courts having jurisdiction have appreciated the evidence collected against the petitioners and have recorded a judicial finding holding the petitioners to be guilty of the offences charged, the curtailment of the petitioners' personal liberty cannot be said to be accepted in accordance with law," the affidavit said.

It said, "Even after the functioning of the statutory authority conducting investigation being examined and accepted by two competent hierarchical courts if this court were to grant any relief it would have a serious demoralising effect on the investigating agencies throughout the country who would remain under threat investigating a situation in which in spite of their investigation being accepted by two courts they are held liable only on account of this court taking a different view of the evidence collected by them."

It said that such an eventuality would be "against public interest and interest of the nation".
Rescuers evacuate a little girl in Shouquan Village of Huaining County, east China's Anhui Province, July 2, 2016. Due to heavy rainfall, rescuers were sent to Shouquan Village to evacuate more than 60 villagers trapped in flood early Saturday morning. The National Meteorological Center (NMC) and the Ministry of Water Resources warned of high risks of mountain torrents in parts of Anhui, Hunan, Guizhou and Tibet from Friday evening to Saturday evening, suggesting residents take necessary precautions. (Xinhua/Wang Tianxiang)

Heavy rain has left 14 people dead and 8 others missing in south China since Thursday, the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said on Sunday.

Storms have hit most of southern China since Thursday, pushing water levels in rivers to dangerous levels and swelling many reservoirs.

Some 9,000 houses collapsed and 710,000 hectares of crops have been damaged. Combined losses have been estimated at around 9.1 billion yuan (1.37 billion U.S. dollars).

Two rounds of rainstorms are forecast to hit southern regions over the next ten days. Nepartak, the first typhoon of the year, is expected to bring gales and downpours to eastern coastal areas next week.

The country's weather authority suggested people in southern areas reduce outdoor activities on rainy days and take precautions against possible floods and landslides.

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The mortal remains of Indian teenager Tarishi Jain, who was among those hacked to death by Islamic militants in a terror attack at a Dhaka restaurant, will be brought here tomorrow, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said.

"It is a case of brutal killing  an unnatural death. Some legal procedure has (to) be completed," the Minister said on Twitter.

Swaraj said that Tarishi's body will be taken to Delhi by plane on Monday. "This is with concurrence of Tarishi's father."

"The family will take the mortal remains to Ferozabad (UP)," she added.

Tarishi, a student at UC Berkeley, was on vacation in Dhaka. Her father runs a garment business in Bangladesh for the last 15-20 years, according to officials here.

Swaraj said the country is with Tarishi's family in this hour of grief and visa has been arranged for them.

Twenty foreigners, including eight Italians, seven Japanese and the Indian student, were brutally murdered by the militants inside the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's diplomatic zone before commandos launched an assault yesterday, killing six attackers and capturing one alive, ending Bangladesh's worst terror attack.

The bodies of the victims were recovered during a search in the Bakery compound after the operation.
A leopard was beaten to death by villagers in Gujarat's Botad district, prompting the forest department to order an inquiry into it.

A video of people from Rajmol village in Botad beating the male leopard went viral on social networking sites like WhatsApp, a couple of days back.

In the video, about 7-8 persons were seen attacking the feline with sharp objects and sticks.

"The incident happened on July 1, when the animal in search for prey may have entered in the village," Deputy Chief Conservator of Forest (Botad), A E Samuel said.

"The villagers attacked the leopard with sticks and sharp-edged objects and killed it," he said.

An inquiry has been ordered against the villagers who attacked the leopard and killed it, the official added.
Around 250,000 residential properties in the Delhi- Capital Region (NCR) have found no takers in the past one year. The slowdown in the has not only forced developers to slash prices and come up with new ways to boost sales, it has also prompted state governments to intervene.
President is scheduled to visit Darjeeling on July 12 along with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi.

Mukherjee will preside over a function in Darjeeling on July 13, the birth anniversary of Nepali poet Bhanubhakta Acharya, official sources said here.

The chief minister had also announced the President's upcoming visit during her recent north Bengal tour.

Banerjee had said the President will be in Darjeeling for three days and the state government will felicitate him.

Meanwhile, the Darjeeling District Magistrate held a meeting a few days ago to work out the modalities, including the place where the President would halt, his travel and security arrangements.

The last time Mukherjee visited Darjeeling was on November 10, 2013.

He was in town to flag off the 125th anniversary celebrations of St Joseph's School.
China Fortune Land Development (CFLD) is planning to develop an industrial township on 1,500 acres, spread across Sohna and Manesar in the Gurgaon district of Haryana. The township will cost Rs 33,595 crore and will be developed with Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC), by forming a joint venture. The agreement was signed by Sudhir Rajpal, managing director of HSIIDC, and Jerry Zhao, president of CFLD.


The government surely knows how to milk the Aadhaar card for ideas. The animal husbandry department is set to launch a massive programme to tag all indigenous variety of cattle in a bid to improve progeny and milk production.
The Centre is in the process of framing a to counter Chinese dominance in the sector. The new policy would also seek to augment domestic production and concurrently increase the per capita steel consumption in the country.
The National Joint Council of Action (NJCA) representing 33 lakh central employees will decide on Wednesday whether to go on strike on July 11, in view of the government's recent talks with them on what they call a "meagre" pay hike.

The Centre has fixed a minimum wage of Rs 18,000 in the pay hike approved by the Cabinet earlier this week. However, the central government employees are protesting the decision calling it a meagre rise in view of the price rise.

"Government has initiated talks with NJCA. We welcome it. But the decision regarding going on strike will be taken at the meeting of the council on July 6," Convener of NJCA Shivgopal Mishra.

On June 30, the representatives of NJCA including Mishra were called for a meeting with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu and Deputy Railway Minister Manoj Sinha.

"They have not assured us anything. They have proposed to refer the issue of minimum wage and fitment formula to a committee for reconsideration. The panel is expected to give its report in three to four months," Mishra said.

Speculations were rife that the NJCA may defer the July 11 indefinite strike after government heeded to their demand of increasing minimum wage to over Rs 25,000 from Rs 18,000 fixed after considering the recommendations of the .

Under the fitment formula, the government multiplied the minimum wage of Rs 7,000 fixed in the last pay commission with 2.57 and arrived at a minimum pay of Rs 18,000 per month.

The employees are demanding for the fitment formula of 3.68, which will result in minimum monthly pay of Rs 25,760.

NJCA is a joint front of government employees' unions including Confederation of Central Government Employees (CCGE), All India Defence Employee Federation, All India Railway Men Federation and National Coordination Committee of Pensioners Association.
It was exactly 25 years before when then Commerce Minister P Chidambaram began trade reforms with many far-reaching announcements. Since then, the foreign trade policy has moved in the direction set by him, with less dramatic changes every now and then.
The Union has asked for proposals from THDC India, SJVN and WAPCOS to conduct a basin-wise review of hydro-electric potential in the country and preparation of basin reports. They will have to give these by August 16, while a pre-proposal conference is being organised on July 25.
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Bangladeshi army personnel stand guard during a rescue operation after an attack at a Spanish restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave Gulshan, Bangladesh, July 2, 2016. Gunmen killed 20 foreigners soon after they stormed a Spanish restaurant in Dhaka in Bangladesh's worst hostage crisis, a spokesman of the Bangladesh Army said on Saturday. (Xinhua/Shariful Islam)

Nine Italians, seven Japanese, two Bangladeshis, a Bangladeshi-born U.S. citizen and an Indian female were killed in the attack on a Spanish restaurant in Bangladesh capital Dhaka popular with foreigners.

An official at the Bangladesh Army's Inter Service Public Relations (ISPR) confirmed the nationalities of the victims to Xinhua on late Saturday.

He said Nine Italians, seven Japanese, two Bangladeshis, an Indian and a Bangladeshi-born U.S. citizen were among the 20 people hacked to death by the terrorists who burst into the restaurant on Friday night.

The official who preferred to be unnamed said the victims include 10 males and 10 females.

Seven gunmen armed with blades, guns and bombs also murdered two Bangladesh police officers in the early hour of the attack.

Gunmen killed the victims soon after they stormed the Spanish restaurant -- Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave Gulshan -- in Bangladesh's worst hostage crisis, a spokesman of the Bangladesh Army had said in a media briefing on operation "Thunderbolt" that ended the 13-hour hostage crisis on Saturday.

Director of Military Operations Brigadier General Naim Ashfaq Chowdhury in the briefing did not disclose the nationalities of the victims.

According to the Italian Foreign Ministry, the Italian victims are Adele Puglisi, Marco Tondat, Claudia Maria D'antona, Nadia Benedetti, Vincenzo D'allestro, Maria Rivoli, Cristian Rossi, Claudio Cappelli and Simona Monti.

Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj already made public that an Indian female student was among the victims.

"Tarishi was 19 years old. She passed out from American School Dhaka. Presently, she was a student at Berkeley," she said in her another tweet.

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department said a U.S. citizen was among those killed in the attack.

"We can confirm that a U.S. citizen was also among those senselessly murdered in this attack," the department said in a statement.

Chowdhury told a press briefing that six attackers were killed during an armed raid on Saturday morning that ended the 13-hour siege in Gulshan.

"We've managed to capture one attacker alive," he said.

Some 13 hostages, including one Japanese and two Sri Lankans, were rescued.

Around five hours into the attack, according to a jihadist threat monitoring portal, SITE Intelligence Group, IS claimed responsibility of attacking the upmarket restaurant.

The gunmen stormed the restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave Gulshan on Friday night.

The authenticity of the IS claim has not been confirmed by the Bangladesh police.

At least 40 people, including senior police officials, were injured in the incident.

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The countrys highways could soon see green shoots of private investments, with the government now confident of getting India Inc to fund 55 per cent of the total kilometres to be put up for bidding this year.
President of Indias Message on the eve of Independence Day of USA .

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The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee has extended his greetings and felicitations to the Government and people of the United States of America on the eve of their Independence Day (July 04, 2016). .

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In a message to His Excellency Mr. Barack Obama, the President of the United States of America, the President has said, On behalf of the Government, the people of India and on my own behalf, it is with great pleasure that I extend warm greetings and felicitations to you and to the people of the United States of America on the occasion of your Independence Day. .

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It is a matter of satisfaction that the close relations between India and the United States of America are based on shared values of democracy, pluralism and rule of law and strengthened by our increasing convergence on bilateral, regional and global issues.

Over the years, we have built on our numerous synergies to achieve the common goals identified by us for the good of our two peoples and peace, progress and prosperity in the world. .

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Our recent high level interactions have helped to enhance our mutual understanding and brought us closer to realizing the true potential of our multi-faceted partnership. I am confident that the positive outcomes of Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modis recent visit to the US will contribute to the further strengthening of our strategic partnership. .

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I take this opportunity to convey to you my best wishes for your good health and well-being as well as for the continued progress and prosperity of the people of the United States of America." .

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The cook was crouching in a washroom, taking refuge from the gunmen who had invaded the Holey Artisan Bakery, when he understood that there was a logic behind the killing: The people in the restaurant were being sorted.
Two suicide car bomb attacks at two crowded commercial areas in the Iraqi capital early on Sunday killed at least 119 people and wounded more than 130 others, officials said. Police said that the first explosion occurred in a busy commercial street in the central neighborhood of Karrada.

Those injured and trapped in the adjacent buildings were rescued by the fire-fighting crews.

The second explosion took place in an outdoor market in the Shaab neighbourhood of south-eastern Baghdad, killing one and wounding five.

ISIS in a statement posted on Twitter claimed responsibility for the Karrada attack and said that the group is targeting Shiite neighbourhoods.

And both Karrada and Shaab are predominately Shiite.

In a similar incident, in May this year, a series of car bombs killed scores of people in Baghdad with ISIS claiming responsibility for many of those bombings.



Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited Karrada on Sunday morning and vowed to punish the terrorists.
Age has caught up with her, but not her memory. She gives a vivid account of the last words of a dying woman - who she attended to as a practicing nurse. The words are sharp: "Shamina said that she was scared of darkness. That is all," says the feeble voice in the frame. In another screen grab, a young nurse says that her dying patient simply said sorry, nothing more, nothing less, just sorry again and again. And in yet another frame, a young child on his death bed informs his nurse that he wishes to bid his mother goodbye. The dying patients' last words are being shared by their nurses, not their families. And that is what the campaign that won Medulla Communications two golds and one silver metal in the just concluded aims to change.
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Indias soybean output is estimated to be the lowest in 11 years in crop year 2015-16 (July-June), after two years of drought, resulting in crop damage and a fall in yield.
After treating fans with 'Rustom''s first look and trailer, Akshay Kumar has now introduced to his fans, three characters who shaped his entire destiny in the movie.

The actor took to his Twitter handle and shared three posters, introducing his wife Cynthia Pavri, villain Vikram Makhija and Priti Makhija, deadly sister of Vikram.

Akshay, first introduces his wife Cynthia Pavri, played by actress Ileana D' Cruz, writing, "Meet Cynthia Pavri, the anchor of my life, my wife but then our life boat hit rock bottom!Find out on Aug 12 #Rustom."

Sharing an image of one of the primary villains in the movie Vikram Makhija, played by Arjan Bajwa, he wrote, "Meet Vikram Makhija, an enemy in the disguise of a friend! Full story unfolds on Aug 12. #Rustom."

The third poster introduces us to the character Priti Makhija, the pretty yet deadly sister of Vikram played, by actress Esha Gupta.

The poster captioned as, "Meet Priti Makhija, again was a friend of the Pavri's but was she really? Find out on Aug 12 #Rustom," shows Esha wearing a black and white checked dress while coolly smoking a cigarette.

The three-minute promising trailer, with a backdrop of 1959 Mumbai puts forward basic points that the film will cover and has received thumbs up from the members of the film fraternity.

The movie, which is inspired by the sensational Nanavati case, wherein a naval officer was tried in court for killing his wife's lover, is slated to hit theatres on August 12 alongside Hrithik Roshan's 'Mohenjo Daro'.
Blaming homegrown Islamist terrorists for the Dhaka restaurant terror attack in which 20 hostages were hacked to death, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's advisor Gowher Rizvi said the terrorists are trying to attack the core values of the society which are secularism, pluralism and democracy.

He said Bangladesh is an example of a tolerant Muslim majority state.

"Bangladesh is a secular country even though it is pre-dominantly Muslim. We are a very tolerant society. We are an exemplar of a Muslim majority state, which is secular, plural and democratic and I suspect they are attacking our fundamental core values," Rizvi told ANI while describing the terror attack as "barbaric, heinous, mindless and callous."

He also pointed that the terrorists are now targeting soft and the vulnerable targets.

The Prime Minister's Advisor on International Affairs, however, dodged posers on the involvement of ISIS behind the attack and said that they do not have any concrete evidence to prove any such reports.

"Nowhere there is a direct evidence to say there is a link or it is being orchestrated. That said.some of our religious based parties have a propensity towards violence and fundamentalism, Islamic extremism," Rizvi said.

He also asserted that the attackers were homegrown terrorists with an objective to derail the democratic procedure of the country.

"These are Bangladeshis; these are home-grown terrorists with a very deliberate objective which is to undermine our secular plural democratic tradition. That is what I think we are fighting to protect," he said.

Rizvi said the terrorists are also harming the reputation and the economy of the country.

He added that Bangladesh Government is doing everything possible to ensure the safety of foreign nationals and called upon all countries to fight together and not withdraw their citizens from Bangladesh as that would be a victory for terrorists.

"We are doing everything possible to make our foreign nationals living in Bangladesh safe, but if countries start withdrawing their citizens from Bangladesh or other developing countries like Bangladesh, you will be contributing to the victory and success of the Islamist extremist. That is their success to force you to withdraw. We must work and stay together," he said.

When asked if there was any information available prior to the attack, Rizvi said "An year ago we were told that there would be an attack on some popular place where foreigners conglomerate. It was then understood and interpreted as some five-star hotel or event where foreigners are present. But there was no actionable intelligence identifying where and on which date will it happen."

He claimed that there was no failure on the intelligence part.

When asked about the progress of investigation following the arrest of one of the attackers, Rizvi said: "The terrorist, who has been apprehended, has been injured. Our first task would be to make sure that he is given proper medical care, restored to health so that our investigator can interrogate him. It is a time consuming process.
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Two rallies took place in Wales Saturday with hundreds of people demanding the 3 million population region break away from the United Kingdom to become a member state of the European Union (EU).

It follows demands by Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon who wants a second independence referendum in her Scotland so it can apply to become an EU nation.

Hundreds of Welsh people gathered in Caernarfon in North Wales as well as in the capital city, Cardiff. Both rallies were organized by a group calling itself A Free Wales in Europe, or in its own language, Cymru Rydd yn Ewro.

In the referendum of whether Britain should leave the EU, the Brexit side in Wales won 52.5 percent of the vote, with 47.5 percent voting to remain.

Welsh Conservative MP David Jones, called the demonstrations in Wales undemocratic, saying "Frankly, these demonstrators should respect the will of the people."

Campaigner Ifan Morgan Jones told local media in Wales: "We do not believe the people of Wales were given all the facts before the vote. The discussion was held in a British context, and there was almost no discussion about the likely impact on Wales.

"The EU has invested over 4 billion pounds (about 5.3 billion U.S. dollars) in Wales since 2000. Wales gets a lot more out of the EU than it puts in. We're not attempting to overturn it (the referendum result), but to convince people that Wales' future now lies as an independent country within the EU."

Across the border in England there were rallies in a number of major cities in support of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, estranged from the vast majority of his MPs at Westminster.

Behind the scenes, established Labour Party politicians were attempting to convince Corbyn to quit as leader following the decision by more than 170 of his MPs to pass a vote of no confidence in him.

Lord Kinnock, who as Neil Kinnock was leader of the Labour Party in the 1980s, was the latest party bigwig to call on Corbyn to go.

It is understood senior names in the party have suggested an exit plan for Corbyn, promising to embrace some of his policies, if he resigns to pave the way for a new official opposition leader at Westminster.

Cornbyn supporters say their leader is to stand firm, convinced that a leadership challenge will see him holding on to his job.

In last year's leadership contest, Corbyn stormed to success capturing a quarter of a million votes, compared to his closest rival's 80,000. Since the referendum which saw Labour embroiled in an internal civil war, 60,000 people have joined the Labour Party, many of them loyal to Corbyn. Corbyn is expected to learn early next week if his leadership will be challenged by a fellow MP.
The Gilgit-Baltistan government has decided to boycott the three-day Shandur polo festival over lingering territorial dispute and failing to reach consensus over jointly organizing the event with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government.

They have instead decided to organise separately a three-day Shandur polo festival.

The festival is scheduled to start from July 22 on the world's highest polo ground, Shandur, located at 12,000 feet above the sea level.

The Gilgit-Baltistan government had also boycotted the event last year and in 2011 as it accused the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government of monopolising the sport.

Though a meeting was held in Islamabad between GB and KP representatives to work out an amicable solution to organise the festival, the dialogue ended without consensus.

Meanwhile, lawmaker Fida Khan responding to a question regarding GB's right over Shandur territory said that Shandur was a part of Gilgit-Baltistan, but KP administration had illegally and unconstitutionally occupied it.

"KP administration is deliberately escalating tension by illegally occupying the territory," Dawn quoted him as saying.

Khan added both sides would suffer if the tension continued.

He further said that the Gilgit-Baltistan government had given the territory to Chitral people for cattle grazing on a temporary basis.

He demanded amicable solution from the federal government on the matter.
Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, who is well-known as the survivor of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp of the Nazis and the witness for the six million Jews slaughtered in War II, died at his residence in Manhattan at the age of 87.

The humanities professor, who was the author of several books, seared the memory of the Holocaust on the world's conscience through his autobiographical account 'Night' in which he recounts the horrors he witnessed in the Nazi camps as a teenage boy.

In 1986, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian works.

His death was announced yesterday by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, reports the New York Times.

U.S. President Barack Obama, who visited the site of the Buchenwald concentration camp with Wiesel in 2009, called him a "living memorial."

"He raised his voice, not just against anti-Semitism, but against hatred, bigotry and intolerance in all its forms. He implored each of us, as nations and as human beings, to do the same, to see ourselves in each other and to make real that pledge of 'never again." said Obama.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief on Sunday sounded the poll bugle in Punjab and said that his party would register a thumping win in the state assembly elections slated for next year.

Addressing a rally Kejriwal said, "According to various surveys conducted nationwide, AAP will sweep at least 100 seats of 117 in Punjab."

Kejriwal, who started a three-day political tour of Punjab with prayers at two famous shrines, Amritsar's Golden Temple and Durgiana Mandir in the holy city, the Delhi Chief Minister said that if AAP comes to power, the people behind desecration of Quran and Guru Granth Sahib will be booked to justice.

He also promised to end the menace of drugs business and mafias in Punjab within a month, saying, "The Aam Aadmi Party if comes to power, it can curb and put an end to drugs business and mafias in Punjab within a month."

"First Capt Amarinder looted Punjab followed by Badals, if AAP comes to power we will put behind bars those involved in corruption," he added.

Kejriwal, who is on his second long tour to Punjab this year, had earlier made a five-day trip to various parts of the state in February.
Over 60 Taliban insurgents have been killed in a series of airstrikes at Arghistan district in Afghanistan's northeastern Badakhshan province.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed that at least 50 militants were killed and 12 seriously wounded in the raids.

Further, 12 militants were killed and two wounded in a separate airstrike in Aband district of southeastern Ghazni province, the ministry said.

So far, the anti-state armed militant groups have not commented regarding the report.

Both Badakhshan and Ghazni provinces are among the relatively volatile provinces where the armed militant groups are actively operating in a number of its remote districts.

The Afghan forces have stepped up their efforts in curbing the militant groups after the Taliban announced its spring offensive earlier in April.

Since then the Taliban militants have staged numerous coordinated and suicide attacks across the country.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday paid tribute to Sikh military commander Baba Banda Singh Bahadur, saying he was not only a great warrior but was also very sensitive towards common people.

Speaking at the commemorative event to mark the 300th martyrdom anniversary of the Sikh military commander, Prime Minister Modi said Bahadur ji will remain the source of inspiration for generations to come.

"Baba Banda Singh Bahadur ji was not just a great warrior but was also very sensitive towards common people. Today, I pay tribute to him, his bravery and sacrifice," he said

"Sometimes a single moment in life gives direction to a person. Similar thing happened with Banda Bahadur ji. After getting inspiration from Guru Gobind Singh ji, he imbibed values of a warrior and embarked on a new journey for social development," he added.

Prime Minister Modi said during his rule poor people and minorities felt secure and his every decision was aimed at development.

"During Baba Banda Singh Bahadur ji's time, for the first time, farmers were given their rights, common man felt empowered, During his time, poor people and minorities felt secured," he said.

The Prime Minister released a book and souvenir on the life of Banda Bahadur. Chief Ministers of Punjab and Haryana and some union ministers among others attended the event.

Banda Bahadur had established his rule to protect the honour and traditions of his people by defeating the Mughals in 1710. Later in 1716, at the age of 46 he was captured and executed by the Mughals in Delhi.
Ace Indian shuttler B. Sai Praneeth progressed through to the finals of the Canada Open after fending off France's Brice Leverdez in the men's singles event here on Saturday.

After going down in the second game, the fourth-seed staged a spirited fight back to register 22-20, 19-21, 21-12 win against his French compatriot in a thrilling semi-final contest that lasted for one hour and eight minutes.

Meanwhile, top-seed Ajay Jayaram suffered a major blow as he has been knocked out of the tournament after going down 21-9, 21-8 at the hands of Lee Hyun Il.

In the men's doubles event, Indian pair of B Sumeeth Reddy and Manu Attri also stormed into the final round after beating Indonesian-Canadian pair of Andrei Adistia and Adam Dong 21-15, 21-19 in their semi-final encounter.

Praneeth will now lock horns with French opponent Lee Hyun Il while Reddy and Attri will meet the Canadian pair of Adrian Liu and Toby Ng in the summit showdown today.
Pakistan's Advisor to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs, Sartaj Aziz has said that the strengthening US-India relations were not a matter of concern for Islamabad, as long as the co-operation between the two did not increase the strategic and conventional gap between the nuclear-armed rivals of the subcontinent.

Aziz said in an interview that the United States has constantly assured Pakistan that both countries were of equal importance to them.

"I think US has itself emphasized number of times that our relations with India are not at the cost of Pakistan; both are important for us. India is important in the south Asian and East Asian context, whereas Pakistan is important in west Asia and central Asian context. We are one of the largest Islamic, democratic country, and we have a role vis a vis Afghanistan and in this region," Aziz said.

He also stated that the United States is an independent country and in terms of economic and other relations it can go ahead with India as it desires and as its national interests require.

Aziz asserted that there is only one dimension which they have been emphasizing and that is that their co-operation with India should not increase the gap, the strategic and conventional military gap, between India and Pakistan.

"If that happens, then of course we have to respond. So the objective of strategic stability should be kept in view in whatever co-operation they extend, and they have acknowledged that these are legitimate concerns because they don't want an arms race - a nuclear arms race - in the subcontinent. So that's the only dimension on which we are concerned. Otherwise, the US and India relationship are not a matter of concern," he added.

However, he said that Pakistan would not compromise on adequate deterrence, so the United States must persuade India not to expand its nuclear power.

"When they (India) started the Cold Start doctrine in which they moved 10 cantonments close to the Pakistan border so they can act on our forces at short notice and from across the border, the tactical nuclear weapons were a response to that particular threat. So - the independent variable in this case is India. We are the dependent variable," he said.

He further stated that if the U.S. has to persuade Pakistan to respond in a positive way, they have to persuade India not to expand its nuclear and initiate the dialogue to reduce tensions and resolve disputes.

"But Pakistan has of course clarified that the decision: what is adequate deterrent, how to protect our security, this is our own national sovereign right. This we cannot share with anyone," Aziz said.

It should be noted that the US and many other Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) member countries have supported India's inclusion based on its non-proliferation track record.

The U.S., however, did not subsidize the sale of eight F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan.
Actor Zachary Quinto paid tribute to his "Star Trek" co-star Anton Yelchin, saying his death is a "devastating loss" to the world.

Quinto opened up about the demise of Yelchin in an episode of "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert", reports dailymail.co.uk.

Yelchin, 27, died last month after his Jeep Grand Cherokee pinned him against a brick mailbox and a security fence at his home here.

Quinto shared that he is still trying to come to terms with it.

He said: "Oof, absolutely senseless. Beautiful guy. I don't even know how to talk about it. We already knew that this would be a bittersweet experience because of the loss of Leonard (Nimoy) last year, but this has just been absolutely devastating for all of us."

Quinto and Yelchin collaborated on three "Star Trek" films over the last nine years.

"I think our goal has to be to just celebrate his incredible life and honour him as much as we can. It was a terrible loss not only to us personally, but I think to the industry and audiences. He was such a talent," Quinto added.

"Star Trek Beyond", the third instalment of the "Star Trek" reboot series, is set to release in India in English and Hindi on July 22.

--IANS

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An alleged supermarket robber was gunned down and at least two policemen were wounded in a shootout on Saturday evening in .

The incident, reported by news daily Heute, took place around 6:10 p.m. local time at a branch of the Billa supermarket chain in Hutteldorferstrae -- a station on Line U3 of the U-Bahn.

According to local witnesses, two employees were held at gunpoint in the supermarket after it was closed.

The dead robber has been identified as a Bosnian man (50), who is a suspect in at least two previous robberies.

He was armed with a pistol with a silencer and was described by police spokesman Paul Eidenberger as "a professional", The locale (Austria) reported.

According to a police spokesman, a silent alarm was trigged. A team of police responded immediately, cornering the suspect, who allegedly opened fire on them, wounding two officers.
Three of the terrorists who slaughtered 20 people in the Bangladeshi capital city have been identified by their former friends after their photographs were released.

One of the terrorists, Nibras Islam, has been recognised by his former classmates in the privately-run North South University in Dhaka, bdnews24.com reported on Sunday.

An expatriate Bangladeshi has posted on Facebook a photo of one Mir Sabih Mubashsher along with the photo of an attacker.

He quoted one of Mubashsher's classmates in Scholastica School in Dhaka as saying that Mubashsher went missing in March before his A-Level exam.

A Mahbub Rajib posted a family photo of Rohan Imtiaz also from Scholastica, known as a school for the children of the well-to-do in Dhaka.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the macabre killing of the 20 people, mostly foreigners, in a cafe in Dhaka on Friday evening.

Six of the attackers were also killed. The attackers reportedly shouted Islamic slogans when they set upon the innocents at Holey Artisan Bakery, in Dhaka's upscale diplomatic heart of Gulshan.

The assailants killed two policemen who tried to enter the cafe, after taking a number of hostages.

Army commandos stormed the eatery on Saturday morning and rescued 13 hostages, killing six attackers and arresting another.

The army said 20 foreigners were found dead on the premises during the raid.

Terrorism observer group SITE published the photos of the attackers on Saturday night.

Police have also released photos of the gunmen killed during the raid.

Police chief AKM Shahidul Hoque said five of the dead gunmen were listed as militants and police had been looking for them.

Police identified them as 'Akash', 'Bikash', 'Don', 'Bandhon', and 'Ripon'.
Suspected Maoist guerrillas killed two people in Jharkhand's Hazaribagh district on Thursday after dubbing them police spies.

According to police, the Maoists abducted K. Shayamlal Mahto and Ghanshyam Mahto from their homes in Navadih village and took them to a nearby forest.

Both were shot dead. The Maoists left a note terming them as "police informers".

--IANS

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(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set on Sunday to release here a book on Sikh military commander Banda Singh Bahadur to mark the 300th anniversary of his martyrdom.

"The Prime Minister will release a book and souvenir on Baba Banda Singh Bahadurji on the occasion," the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said in a series of tweets.

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal will be part of the programme, the PMO said.

"A recently released commemorative coin on Baba Banda Singh Bahadurji will be presented to the Prime Minister and Chief Minister of Punjab," said another tweet from the PMO.

Last month, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had released a commemorative silver coin to mark the 300th martyrdom day of Banda Singh Bahadur.

Delhi's Arvind Kejriwal government has also been keenly associating itself with the Sikh military commander's martyrdom anniversary, recently putting out newspaper advertisements to announce renaming of the Barapulla flyover after Banda Singh Bahadur.

These commemorations and announcements come months ahead of the assembly elections in Punjab to be held in 2017.

Banda Singh Bahadur is believed to have been born in 1670 in Rajouri, now part of Jammu and Kashmir state. At a young age he became a disciple of Guru Gobind Singh and assembled a force to fight the Mughal Empire.

He is credited with establishing Sikh rule in Punjab, starting with the sack in 1709 of the Mughal provincial capital, Samana, now part of Patiala district.

He was captured and executed by Mughals in Delhi in 1716.

--IANS

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has extended his greetings and felicitations to the government and people of the United States on the Independence Day of the country on July 4.

"On behalf of the government and the people of India, and on my own behalf, it is with great pleasure that I extend warm greetings and felicitations to you and to the people of the United States of America on the occasion of your Independence Day," Mukherjee said in a message to his US counterpart Barack Obama.

Mukherjee also expressed satisfaction over the relations between the two countries.

"It is a matter of satisfaction that the close relations between India and the US are based on the shared values of democracy, pluralism and rule of law  and strengthened by our increasing convergence on bilateral, regional and global issues.

"Over the years, we have built on our numerous synergies to achieve the common goals identified by us  for the good of our two peoples, peace, progress and prosperity in the world," he said.

The President said that the recent high-level interactions between Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had helped enhance mutual understanding and brought the two countries closer.

"I am confident that the positive outcomes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent visit to the US will contribute to the further strengthening of our strategic partnership," he added.

"I take this opportunity to convey to you my best wishes for your good health and well-being as well as for the continued progress and prosperity of the people of the United States," Mukherjee said.
The Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of Odisha Police's Crime Branch said it had on Sunday arrested an official, who was absconding after being accused of defrauding the state government by issuing a fake gazette notification and swindling public money.

Crime Branch's Special Director General Bijay Kumar Sharma said Motilal Gouda, the suspended assistant director (medical) of Factories and Boiler Department, was arrested from Andhra Pradesh by a special investigation team after a four-day manhunt.

"We will produce him before the court on Monday and seek his remand for further probe into the allegations," he said.

The Odisha government had suspended in November 2015 for remaining absent from duty for a long period without permission.

Gouda had while working in the Health Department as a medical officer, allegedly issued a fake notification asking industries in the state to get the health check-ups of their staff done at five pathological laboratories empanelled by the government.

Based on this notification, he even managed to sign a contract worth Rs 63 lakh with aluminium major Nalco.

The vigilance sleuths on Saturday raided the house of Gouda after allegations of corruption.

An official statement said Gouda acquired properties worth Rs 60 lakh in his short span of service period of about seven years.

Meanwhile, Excise Minister Damodar Rout on Sunday questioned the efficiency of the government machinery after the issue of the fraudulent gazette notification by Gouda cropped up.

"Who in the administration are involved in the fraud? I completely agree with the questions being raised in this matter. How come he was transferred from Health Department to another department and appointed as an assistant director? How was the gazette notification changed, something that is usually cleared by a minister?" he asked.

The opposition members meanwhile alleged that Gouda had proximity with some ruling Biju Janata Dal leaders including Law Minister Arun Sahu and BJD's student wing president and legislator Byomakesh Ray.

--IANS

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Asking Pakistan to have a clear stand against terrorists, a leading Pakistani newspaper on Sunday wondered if Islamabad was again differentiating between "good" and "bad" militants.

"The security of Pakistan and the region lies in an unambiguous policy against militancy and terrorism in all their manifestations by all countries," the Dawn said in an editorial.

But it said Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz's remarks had added to the confusion and called for an "immediate and emphatic clarification".

It said that citing fears about so-called blowback from militant groups, Aziz seemed to defend Pakistan's lack of action against sanctuaries of the Haqqani network and the Afghan Taliban on Pakistani soil.

It said that he appeared to suggest that decisions were yet to be made regarding how far and on what scale the state would eventually act against some groups.

"Has Aziz backtracked on the state's explicit commitment that there will no longer be a policy of differentiating between so-called good and bad Taliban?" the editorial asked.

"That would be an alarming and astonishing reversal made all the worse by the casual - almost careless - manner in which the remarks were given."

Dawn said Pakistan's policy was to treat all militant groups as a problem "that must be solved by eventual elimination...

"Pakistan's pledge to try and deliver the Afghan Taliban to the negotiating table should not be allowed to become a reason to differentiate between militant groups over the long term.

"What threatens the stability of Afghanistan inevitably threatens the stability of Pakistan - the security establishment and political leadership here cannot lapse into old, damaging habits of denial and obfuscation."

Both India and Afghanistan accuse Pakistan of harbouring and training terrorist groups acting against New Delhi and Kabul. Islamabad denies the charge.

--IANS

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Veteran actor Pepe Serna has joined actors Matt Damon, Kristen Wiig, Christoph Waltz and Hong Chau in Alexander Payne's satire "Downsizing".

The film, currently being shot in Toronto, is on an Omaha man who joins the throngs of people undergoing a new process that reduces humans to a tiny fraction of their size. Then they move to one of the many communities of small people that are sprouting up around the world.

"It's the smallest part I've ever had, four inches to be exact," variety.com quoted Serna as saying.

Payne is co-writing the script with Jim Taylor, with whom he won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for "Sideways" and collaborated on the scripts for "Citizen Ruth", "Election", "Jurassic Park III", "About Schmidt" and "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry".

Serna is also one of the new members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, which was announced on Wednesday.

His career dates back nearly 50 years with credits including "Scarface", "American Me", "Car Wash", "The Black Dahlia" and "The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez".

--IANS

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Texts from the holy books of various religions will be incorporated in the curriculum of government schools in Haryana from this month, a minister said on Sunday.

The subject of moral education which includes religious texts from 'Bhagavad Gita' (Hindu religion), 'Quran' (Islam), the 'Bible' (Christianity) and 'Guru Granth Sahib' (Sikhism) will be introduced at a programme to be held in the Kurukshetra University auditorium on July 5.

Haryana Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma said moral education would be introduced as a subject for students from class six to class 12.

"All religions focus on character building. Texts such as Bhagavad Gita, Quran, the Bible and Guru Granth Sahib have been incorporated in the curriculum. Different textbooks would be prescribed for each class," Sharma said in a statement.

"The state government has prepared the curriculum in collaboration with social organisations and educationists."

Sharma held a meeting with senior officials of education and allied departments regarding preparations for the introduction of the subject on Saturday.

The Haryana government had faced criticism last year when it announced to include texts from the 'Bhagavad Gita' in school curriculum. The opposition Congress termed it an attempt to saffronise education.

The event to launch the texts in school curriculum will be attended by Haryana Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki, Himachal Pradesh Governor Acharya Dev Vrat, Gita scholar Swami Gyananand, Acharya Balkrishna from Patanjali Vidyapeeth and ministers from the centre and state government.

Haryana has a Bharatiya Janata Party government since October 2014. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar was a Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) activist earlier.

--IANS

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The US Special Representative for and Pakistan, Richard Olson, met with top Pakistani diplomat in Islamabad on Saturday and "discussed the regional security situation and efforts for peace and stability in Afghanistan," officials said.

Ambassador Olson is visiting Pakistan at a time when relations between Pakistan and the US are tense over the drone strike that killed Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour and the US blockade of the F-16 fighter plane sale, Xinhua reported.

The visit is also seen important at a time when relations between Pakistan and are also tense over recent border skirmishes that had caused casualties on both sides last month.

Both sides also had the opportunity to discuss the efforts by the Quadrilateral Coordination Group involving Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and the US to push for the Afghan peace process.

Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry while talking to Ambassador Olson reiterated Pakistan's commitment to as an effective forum to facilitate Afghan-owned and Afghan-led reconciliation process.

"The Foreign Secretary underlined Pakistan's focus on effective border management on Afghanistan-Pakistan border with a view to enhancing security and counter-terrorism efforts," a Foreign Ministry statement said.
There is renewed speculation on a likely Cabinet reshuffle on Monday. Mahant Adityanath could be made a minister, along with Anupriya Patel of Apna Dal; between five and 10 people could be added to the council of ministers. Immediately after, the appointment of a full-time governor for Punjab is likely. Currently, Kaptan Singh Solanki is governor for both Punjab and Haryana, which is problematic as both states have several disputes with each other.
She has been a Congress MLA in Himachal Pradesh four times and lost the previous election by only around 2,000 votes to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). She cannot contest elections any more because of her conviction in a criminal case, in which she has been ordered a year in jail and is currently out on bail.
Thirteen Bangladeshi national, all members of minority community, were apprehended in Meghalaya's South Garo Hills district today when they were trying to cross the border, the BSF said.

Members of the group, which included three women and four minors, said they came to this side of the border in the wake of recent "atrocities" against minorities in Bangladesh, a top BSF official told PTI.

The 13 hailing from Anandpur village under Netrakona district of Bangladesh said they were going to Cooch Behar in north Bengal to meet their relatives but were willing to stay put there, he said.

"They also felt threatened following the terror attack in Dhaka," the official claimed requesting anonymity.

Meanwhile, the BSF augmented its manpower at the 443 km-long border with Bangladesh keeping in mind the possibility of illegal migration.
Three bureaucrats have received calls from an unidentified person posing as leaders and ministers on different occasions, who asked them to reinstate jail officials suspended after a convicted gangster escaped from a Rewa hospital in May during treatment.

The officers, one from IAS and two from IPS, lodged a complaint against the caller with Jehangirabad police station here yesterday, police said today.

They are Madhya Pradesh Prisons Principal Secretary Vinod Kumar Semwal, Jails Director General of Police V K Singh and his Deputy Sushovan Banerjee (both IPS officers).

The man made the calls impersonating as Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, MP Ministers Gauri Shanker Shejwar, Narottam Mishra, former Home Minister Babulal Gaur and state BJP chief Nandkumar Chauhan on different occasions and asked them to reinstate the suspended jail officials, police added.

The gangster in question is Balwinder Singh, who was serving a life sentence in Rewa Central Jail.

"I got calls on my landline and cellphones from the caller, who posing as ministers, asked me to reinstate some staffers of Rewa Jail who had been suspended after Balwinder Singh escaped," Banerjee told PTI.

"We have lodged a complaint with police," he added.

The unnamed caller has been booked under Sections 419 (cheating by personation) and 507 (criminal intimidation) of IPC, Jehangirabad Police Station Inspector P S Thakur said.

"We are investigating the matter," he added.

Balwinder was admitted to a Rewa hospital on May 26 for treatment of spinal ailment from where he escaped the next day, police sources said. He hails from Aurangabad in Bihar.

He was running a criminal gang involved in inter-state kidnappings, they added.
At least 33 people, including eight Pakistani security personnel, were today killed when torrential rains hit a region bordering Afghanistan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, triggering flash floods, officials said.

Around 30 houses were demolished in the rainstorm caused by continuous heavy rainfall that began late yesterday and were concentrated mainly in the northwestern province of Khybher Pakthunkwa.

The worst hit district was south west Chitral district, where flood waters swept away a mosque at the time when special Ramzan prayers were being held inside, dozens of houses and army post in the remote village of Ursoon, a media report said.

At least 33 people, including eight security officials, were killed and 17 people were reportedly missing in Ursoon Village while as many were injured due to flash flooding in the area occurred due to the over flow of the Chitral river, DPO Chitral Asif Iqbal said.

Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) was in contact with the district administration for rescue and relief efforts, according to a statement released by the authority.

Around 82 houses were affected by the waters and efforts were underway to provide food and relief items to the villagers, the statement said.

KP Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra has expressed deep grief and sorrow over the losses caused by the flooding and directed the authorities concerned to speed up the rescue and relief efforts in the affected area.

He also directed the administration to take all precautionary measures to save the lives and properties of the people.
Aam Aadmi Party MLA Naresh Yadav has been booked in connection with alleged June 24 sacrilege incident in Malerkotla and Punjab Police will summon him for questioning after one of accused claimed that he had acted at the behest of the legislator.

AAP termed it as a "political conspiracy" to defame the party ahead of 2017 assembly polls.

Questioning Punjab police's investigation in the Malerkotla incident, AAP demanded a Supreme Court monitored SIT probe into it.

"AAP MLA has been booked under various sections of IPC and his name added in the FIR already registered in connection with Malerkotla sacrilege incident," Sangrur SSP Prithpal Singh Thind said today.

The MLA has been booked under various sections of IPC including 109 (punishment of abetment if the act abetted is committed in consequence and where no express provision is made for its punishment), 153 A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth etc and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony), 295 injury or defiling place of worship with an intent to insult the religion of any class).

"We will summon AAP MLA Naresh Yadav in order to question him regarding Malerkotla incident," Thind said, adding his name has surfaced during questioning of an accused, who had been arrested for his alleged role in the incident.

"During our investigation and questioning of accused, it was revealed that accused had met him (AAP MLA). Calls were also exchanged between the accused and AAP MLA," the SSP said.

Asked whether police suspected Mehrauli MLA was the mastermind behind the incident, he said it will be known after Yadav's questioning.

When asked if police will arrest him, Thind said "We are collecting evidence in the case."



Asked about reports suggesting the accused was offered Rs 1 crore for the alleged act at the behest of MLA, SSP said, "Investigations are underway and we are verifying it."



However, Yadav and his Aam Aadmi Party alleged that it was a "political conspiracy" to malign the party's image ahead of Assembly polls in Punjab where it is stepping up campaign with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal beginning his three-day visit today.

Sangrur police had arrested three persons--Vijay Kumar, Nand Kishor Goldy and Gaurav--on June 27 in the case.

Vijay, an accused in the case and resident of Delhi, had claimed yesterday in Patiala that he did that at the behest of Yadav.

"We have taken two-day transit remand of Vijay from the



court and he will be taken to Delhi as part of our probe," Sangrur DSP (Malerkotla) Randhir Singh said today.

Violence had erupted after the alleged sacrilege incident in Malerkotla on June 24 in which a mob even attacked the house of the local Akali Dal MLA Farzana Nissara Khatoon, wife of a former Punjab DGP.

Several policemen including a DSP were injured as about 300-400 protesters had hurled stone and torched a car.

Rejecting the charge against Yadav, senior leader and AAP incharge of Punjab, Sanjay Singh accused BJP and Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal government of "playing dirty politics out of sheer frustration".

"People know who was behind Malerkotla incident...It is BJP, RSS and VHP. We are winning over 100 seats (out of total of 117) in Punjab and therefore Badal government and BJP are playing dirty politics out of frustration," Singh claimed.

AAP has four Lok Sabha MPs from Punjab, but it will be contesting its maiden assembly polls in the state next year.

Rejecting police investigation into the Malerkotla incident, Singh sought a Supreme Court monitored SIT probe into the incident.

"We do not believe in their investigation. I will seek time from Punjab DGP and shall meet SSP (Sangrur). We are not going to get scared of these allegations. They (Punjab police) cannot undertake independent investigation. We want Supreme Court-monitored SIT to be formed to probe the matter and punish whoever is found guilty," he said.

Punjab Chief Minister refused to comment on the matter, saying investigation is on.

"Earlier, Congress used to divide the community. And now others have moved on the same path. But I do not want to say anything on this matter as investigation is going on,"he said.

Rebutting the charge, AAP MLA Naresh Yadav claimed a false case has been made out by his political opponents under a "well hatched conspiracy".

"I have been doing work in Punjab for the last one-and-a- half years. Political opponents here are trying to fix me in a false case under a conspiracy. They know members of all communities are with us and we are going to win polls with a big majority. We will not be scared of FIR, jail, and we are not running away from any investigation.

"A lot of people meet me. If somebody who has met me he commits a crime, it does not mean I should be punished," the AAP MLA said.

"It is a big political conspiracy and SAD and BJP are behind it because they are losing their ground and people in Punjab are fed up with them," he alleged.
Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh today described the Aam Aadmi Party's 51-point youth manifesto as a "bunch of stolen ideas from the Congress" including those related to a drug and corruption-free Punjab.

"This is not even the old wine in new bottles, but stolen wine in stolen bottles," he said while challenging the AAP to prove that its manifesto is not a carbon copy of the Congress announcements made in the recent past.

"Sounds strange that they did not even make an attempt to hide their theft," Amarinder remarked, adding "the AAP has simply copy-pasted our ideas of drug free and corruption-free Punjab, besides generating employment and cancelling all the false cases, which we promised under oath at the Badlaav Rally in Bathinda on December 15."



"Not that we had expected something miraculously novel or new from the AAP particularly with someone like Kanwar Sandhu, with a worn out mind, heading the committee, but we certainly did not expect it to be an act of shameless and senseless plagiarism," he said.

He said while AAP has announced it will provide 25 lakh jobs, he had promised at least "one job per family" so that each family has a "reasonable and respectable monthly income" to sustain itself.

Referring to the AAP's announcement of "drug free Punjab", Amarinder said, "While they say they will finish it within six months, I have promised to do it within four weeks and I will do it even before that."



On corruption-free administration, the former CM said, "I have already announced that there will be "zero tolerance" to corruption. He said he had already announced that all the false FIRs will be cancelled on day one and that will be the first decision of his government.

About the AAP announcement that it will scrap the application fee for recruitment in the government jobs, he said he has been repeatedly saying it in all his meetings and interactions with the youth.

About providing free Wi-Fi hotspots in colleges, the PCC president taunted the AAP, "I am sure it will meet the same fate like that in Delhi where AAP promised free Wi-Fi before elections". However, he added, "we have announced provision of such facilities in colleges and universities and we will do it."



About setting up a Foreign Employment Youth Board and Punjab Overseas Employment Corporation, Amarinder said, "It is a poor copy of our Immigration Promotion Board that we have already announced."



Similarly, he said, the AAP has announced it will end the "monopoly" of the "rulers" over business and will offer government contracts to the youth.

"Let me ask them, how is it different from our announcement of finishing the monopoly of the Badals," he asked.
Monsoon deficiency has reduced to 9 per cent after several parts of the country received a good amount of rainfall.

From June 1 to July 2, the country has received 164.9 mm of rainfall as against the normal limit of 180 mm, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said, adding that the situation is expected to improve as good rainfall is predicted for the months of July, August and September.

But the rainfall deficiency in east and northeast India has gone up to 28 per cent as the region has received only 274 mm of rainfall as against 381 mm, which is the normal limit, they said.

According to the IMD, monsoon deficiency in central India is around 12 per cent.

According to the IMDs prediction, other parts of the country are expected to receive good rainfall but the east and northeast India and parts of Tamil Nadu are likely to get less precipitation Meanwhile, the Southwest Monsoon has advanced further to remaining parts of west Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, most parts of Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Punjab and some parts of east Rajasthan.

The Northern Limit of Monsoon passes through Dwarka, Vallabh Vidyanagar, Bundi, Jaipur, Hissar and Bhatinda.

"Conditions are favourable for further advance of Southwest Monsoon into some more parts of north Arabian Sea and Gujarat State, remaining parts of East Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab and some more parts of West Rajasthan during next 48 hours," the said in its forecast.
Hitting back at BJP Chief Amit Shah after he needled her on desertions in BSP, former chief minister Mayawati today said his "childish" remarks betrayed BJP's nervousness ahead of Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh.

The BSP supremo lashed out at Shah, saying the BJP-led government at the Centre should have imposed President's rule in Uttar Pradesh to fullfil its promise to improve law and order situation in the state but it "failed" to fulfil its "constitution obligation".

"Our growing base has made BJP nervous so much so that its president Amit Shah is making childish remarks on Uttar Pradesh's law and order situation and not taking any action," Mayawati said at a press conference here.

Shah had said the manner in which leaders were exiting BSP, by the time elections come Mayawati will be the lone person left in the party.

This was Mayawati's fourth impromptu press conference in a span of less than a fortnight which has led her political opponents to claim that the desertions from BSP have left her jittery.

Mayawati said while Akhilesh Yadav government has failed to control crime, Shah has been saying that law and order is a state subject and it was not for US President Barack Obama to set things rights.

"I want to say that the NDA government at the Centre has failed to carry out its constitutional obligations," she said, adding that imposition of President's rule in the state was the only answer.

"Shah's remarks are not only childish, they are irresponsible," she said, targeting the BJP chief who is going hammer and tongs at both ruling Samajwadi Party and main opposition BSP in the state in the build to the Assembly polls due next year.

During a series of recent meetings in UP in the run up to the Assembly elections in early 2017, the BJP chief accused SP and BSP of giving a prop to then UPA government at the Centre for 10 years.

Mayawati charged the BJP with dabbling in all sort of "dirty designs" and playing politics in the name of Ram Mandir to return to power in the state.

She said the SP government has failed to control crime in Uttar Pradesh where, she pointed, even policemen were paying with blood.

The BSP supremo said that before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, BJP had promised to ensure better law and order in UP the moment it came to power at the Centre.

"But what happened? It has failed to carry out its constitutional duties," she rued, and mocked at Shah for punctuating his speech with expressions like "jungle raj" and "goonda raj" in UP and "just doing nothing".

In back-to-back setbacks to BSP in last fortnight, two senior leaders and once close confidants of Mayawati -- Swami Prasad Maurya and R K Chaudhary -- quit the party accusing her of auctioning tickets for the upcoming Assembly polls, ignoring Kanshi Ram's ideology and running the organisation like her "private real estate company".

Maurya belongs to other backward caste while Chaudhary is a Dalit, the two important votebanks of BSP.

(REOPENS DES31)



Mayawati said she wanted to remind the PM about his poll promises on New Year.

"The biggest election promise was bringing back black money from foreign banks in 100 days and giving Rs 15 lakhs to each poor citizen ...He is talking of responsibility to his partymen but he should also pay attention on how responsible he is," she stressed.

The BSP Chief recalled BJP's defeat in Bihar, saying the people of the state gave a "befitting reply" to the party.

"For diverting attention the Prime Minister and his ministers went on a spree of foundation laying and making announcements even if there is no budgetary allocation for the works."



Stung by Modi's charge that BSP was busy saving its blackmoney, Mayawati said BJP should first look within.

"When people did not fall prey to their designs they went in for note ban without making preparations...In the ten months preceding note ban they got busy in converting their black money collected through fake membership into white.

"They bought land for making party offices," she alleged, adding "they should look at themselves before talking about other parties".

Condemning the note ban, she said, "It will be viewed as a black chapter in the coming times and no one will be able to forget it...90 per cent people of the country are concerned about it".

Alleging that a majority in Lok Sabha has made BJP arrogant, she said, "I pray to God that good sense prevails on the Prime Minister in 2017. ..The note ban has become a curse for the honest".

Stressing that her party was poised to form the next government in UP, she flayed the Prime Minister for not making a mention of the ongoing tussle in the ruling Samajwadi Party in his speech and said that voting for Congress or SP will only benefit BJP in the coming elections.
Actor Zachary Quinto says his "Star Trek" co-star Anton Yelchin's death is a "devastating loss" to the world and he and the 'Star Trek' cast are still trying to come to terms with it.

The 27-year-old actor died from "blunt traumatic asphyxia" in a freak accident at his Los Angeles home last month when his car rolled backward and trapped him against his gate.

Speaking during an appearance on "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert", Quinto said, "Beautiful, beautiful guy. I don't even know how to talk about it. We already knew this was going to be a bittersweet experience as a result of the loss of Leonard (Nimoy, who died in February 20150.

"But this has been absolutely devastating for all of us. I think our goal just has to be to celebrate his incredible life and honour him. It was a terrible loss, not only to us but to audiences and the industry."



Anton was mourned at a private service by close friends and family and buried in an "undisclosed location" five days after his death at his home in Studio City, California.

On the night he died, Anton was due at rehearsals but when he failed to show up, his worried friends went to his home to check on him and found his lifeless body.

The tragic death was officially ruled an accident, however questions were raised over why the vehicle rolled back and whether it was a mechanical or human error.

An investigation is also being held into whether Anton's car was a model that should have been recalled because of a gear-shifting problem.

Quinto previously penned a touching message on Instagram, describing Anton as "enormously talented and generous of heart".
Andhra Pradesh will host a two-day international conference of the BRICS Working Group on 'Energy Savings and Energy Efficiency' in the port city Visakhapatnam from tomorrow.

The central as well as the state government will showcase their efforts in energy saving and energy efficiency at the event in which delegates from Brazil, India, Russia, China and South Africa will take part, according to AP Principal Secretary (Energy and Infrastructure), Ajay Jain.

The successful LED street lighting programme of Visakhapatnam city would be specially showcased to the visiting delegates, he said after briefing Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on the conference agenda and arrangements here.

By switching to the energy-efficient LED street lighting, the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation could save electricity to the tune of70 lakhunits, translating to a saving of Rs 4.20 crore per annum.

"Consequent to the Conference of Parties-21 (COP-21) summit held in Paris, where the LED energy-efficient street lighting programme of Visakhapatnam was highlighted by the Union Ministry of Power, countries like China and Brazil evinced interest in exchanging global LED technologies by studying this successful model as part of international initiatives on Climate Change," CEO of State Energy Conservation Mission A Chandrasekhara Reddy said.

The BRICS group comprises developing countries where the energy growth is expected to be large as compared to the developed nations.

In view of this growth scenario, the countries had entered into a Memorandum of Understanding on energy saving and energy efficiency.

The MoU intends to pursue their energy cooperation



through joint research and technology projects, technology transfer, conferences and exchange of experience and best practices.

It also includes specific common projects, applicable methods and instruments of energy saving promotion and energy efficiency increase in the BRICS economies.

The heads of delegations of the Working Group on Energy Saving and Energy Efficiency will also agree on a Work Plan on Development of Cooperation in Energy Saving and Energy Efficiency within BRICS.

A joint statement, which will be a guiding toolfor the BRICS efforts in energy saving and energy efficiency and consultation process in energy efficiency among the BRICS countries, is expected to be issued during the two-day conference, a communique from the State Energy Conservation Mission said.
Assam police has directed SPs of all districts to keep a strict vigil to thwart any possible activities of ISIS in the state following the terror strike in Bangladesh.

According to a press release by the Assam Police, all the SPs have been instructed to gear up their intelligence machinery and keep a close watch on the situation.

Although authorities have not perceived any footprint of ISIS in Assam in the recent past, considering the gravity of the situation in the neighbouring country the alert has been issued, it explained.

"The SPs of Cachar, Karimganj and Dhubri, and BSF along the Assam-Bangladesh border have also been cautioned to be on maximum alert," the statement said.

Several modules of JMB in Assam were busted in the aftermath of Khagragarh blast in Burdwan district of West Bengal on October 2, 2014.
RPI(A) leader Ramdas Athawale today demanded a law that would safeguard funds meant for the development of Dalits and ensure it not used for any other purpose, except their social welfare.

"The state government, in every budget provides funds for the development of Dalit adivasis on the basis of their population.

"In order to ensure that the money is not diverted to any department but used by the social justice department, and if funds are not used in a particular year, they should be carried forward to the next year, the government needs to form an Act," Athawale told reporters here today.

The Dalit leader said he has placed his demand before Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, and claimed the CM has assured him that an Act would be formed soon.

"Till now, money is either being diverted to some other department or if funds remained unused, they get lapsed. This deprives the Dalit adivasis of their rightful share of funds and development," he said.

He said in either case, the responsibility is not fixed and action not taken, due to which funds have been periodically used for purposes other than the development of Dalits.

"Once an Act is enforced, people will be made responsible to ensure this does not happen. The CM has assured that an Act to safeguard funds meant for Dalit adivasis will be formed and implemented across the state soon," the Rajya Sabha MP said.
Australia may have a hung parliament after voters swung away from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's Coalition in a closely contested general election, which may force him to seek help from Independents and minor parties, who have emerged as kingmakers, to stay in power.

The people cast ballots yesterday to decide the fate of over 1,600 candidates, including five of Indian-origin, contesting fromover 55 political parities.

Voters dumped more than 10 Coalition MPs with the government suffering a 2.8 per cent swing against it.

Twelve out of 150 lower house seats remain in doubt, with counting of pre-poll, postal and absentee votes to resume on Tuesday.

The official Australian Electoral Commission tally has Labor on 71 seats and the ruling Liberal-National coalition on 67 seats. Independents and minor parties gained an unprecedented share of the vote.

The future Australian government wouldbe resolved by the 11 seats which remain in doubt. Of these, Labor was ahead in six.

The polls will elect all 226 members including 150 members for the lower houseof the 45th parliament after an eight-week official campaign period following thedouble dissolution announced by Turnbull in April.

If the Coalition finishes with fewer than 76 seats, it would need to negotiate with independents and minor parties to stay in power, ABC reported.

Turnbull, 61, was seeking out to crossbenchers and reports said that at least oneIndependent candidate, Bob Katter, was looking at negotiations.

The Coalition would likely talk with Nick Xenophon's new MP Rebekha Sharkie and Victorian rural independent Cathy McGowan to secure its position.

Turnbull also expressed confidence thatthe Coalition couldform majority government despiteresults still unclear.

"Based on the advice I have from the party officials, we can have every confidence that we will form a coalition majority government in the next parliament," he said.

Turnbull conceded it was a "very, very close count" with 30 per cent of votes yet to be counted.

Media reports said that there were reports ofLabor Party'sBill Shorten likelyto face a leadership contest against Anthony Albanese.

Albanese has the support of powerbrokers from Labor's left and right factions to take the leadership. Albanese has not denied a move for a contest, telling colleagues Labor's focus should be on forming government.

AEC spokesman Phil Diak said"[There's a] very strong pattern there that it does take around a month to complete all the counting for the House and Senate," he said, adding AEC won't declare seats until there's a mathematical impossibility of the leader being overtaken, as it were, in any seat.

"So that's often a lot later than when victory is claimed or a seat is conceded," Diak said.
Bangladesh today blamed "homegrown" Islamist terrorists and Pakistan's spy agency ISI for the country's worst terror attack in which 20 hostages were hacked to death, ruling out the role of the Islamic State, as the shocked nation began observing two days of national mourning.

"Let me clear it again, there are no ISIS or al-Qaeda presence or existence in Bangladesh...The hostage-takers were all home-grown terrorists not members of ISIS or any other international Islamist outfits," Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told PTI.

"We know them (hostage-takers) along with their ancestors, they all grew here in Bangladesh...They belong to homegrown outfits like JMB (Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh)," he said.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the killing of the hostages, mostly foreigners, and two police officers during the 12-hour siege that ended yesterday after the army stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery popular with expats in the diplomatic zone here, killing six attackers and capturing one alive.

Hossain Toufique Imam, the political advisor to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said that the way in which the hostages were killed with machetes suggests the role of a local terrorist group, the banned Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen.

"Pakistan's ISI and Jamaat connection is well known... they want to derail the current government," Imam told a TV channel.

The arrested terrorist chickened out at the last minute and he holds the key to crucial details, he said.

Two teams of CID investigators and a bomb disposal squad today visited the Spanish restaurant to collect evidence after Bangladesh's worst terror attack.

A police source was quoted as saying by the Dhaka Tribune that all the attackers were Bangladeshi nationals aged between 20 and 28. Police said the attackers were well-educated and most came from rich families.

"All of them were students and communicated at the crime scene in both Bengali and English," the police source said.

Police chief AKM Shahidul Hoque said five of the dead gunmen were listed as militants and police had been looking for them. Police identified them as Akash, Bikash, Don, Bandhon, and Ripon.

Hostages who were killed include 19-year-old Indian girl Tarishi Jain. Nine Italians, 7 Japanese, one American of Bangladeshi origin, and two Bangladeshis were also among the people who were killed.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina vowed to trace the "roots" of the culprits who supplied weapons and explosives to the terrorists.

Her remarks came during a meeting with Japan's State Minister of Foreign Affairs Seiji Kihara at her official residence Ganabhaban.
Bangladesh government today claimed the attackers who slaughtered 20 hostages inside a cafe here in the country's worst terror attack were members of "homegrown" Islamist terrorist outfits and not ISIS militants, as the shocked nation began observing two days of national mourning.

"Let me clear it again, there are no ISIS or al-Qaeda presence or existence in Bangladesh...The hostage-takers were all home-grown terrorists not members of ISIS or any other international Islamist outfits," Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told PTI.

"We know them (hostage-takers) along with their ancestors, they all grew here in Bangladesh...They belong to homegrown outfits like JMB (Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh)," he said.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the killing of the hostages, mostly foreigners and one Indian girl, and two police officers during an 11-hour siege that ended yesterday after the army stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery popular with expats in the diplomatic zone here, killing six attackers and capturing one alive.

A police source was quoted as saying by the Dhaka Tribune that all the attackers were Bangladeshi nationals aged between 20 and 28.

Police said the attackers were well-educated and most came from rich families.

"All of them were students and communicated at the crime scene in both Bengali and English," the police source said.

The government has consistently ruled out the presence of the dreaded terror group in the Muslim-majority nation though experts have been maintaining that series of brutal attacks on minorities and secular activists had the hallmarks of ISIS group.

Meanwhile, police have released the photos of the six gunmen killed during the raid by commandos. A seventh was arrested and is being interrogated by Bangladeshi intelligence officers.

Police chief AKM Shahidul Hoque said five of the dead gunmen were listed as militants and police had been looking for them.

Police identified them as Akash, Bikash, Don, Bandhon, and Ripon.

Bangladeshi media reports said that after US-based SITE Intelligence Group published photos of five gunmen holding assault rifles who, the Islamic State claims, killed the hostages, former classmates have started identifying by posting their old pictures on social media.

According to the reports, three of the five attackers have so far been identified by their friends.

Announcing a two-day state mourning for those killed in



the worst terror attack in the country, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina vowed to do everything to eliminate terrorists from the country and asked extremists to stop killing in the name of religion.

She asked all, including the general public, to get united to resist a "handful of terrorists".

Twenty hostages, including 19-year-old Indian girl Tarushi Jain, were hacked to death by terrorists inside the cafe popular with expats in the diplomatic zone before commandos launched an assault killing six attackers and capturing one alive.

Most of those killed were found with their throats slit.

Of the 20 hostages slain 9 were Italian, 7 Japanese, one American of Bangladeshi origin, and two were locals, the army said.

Among those rescued were Indian, Sri Lankan and Japanese nationals, media reports said. Around 30 people were injured.

Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack through its Amaq agency, nearly four hours after the hostage crisis unfolded.
West Bengal has sought easing of National Clean Energy Fund (NCEF) norms for a Rs 7,047 crore 1,200 MW solar project in Purulia.

"There is a ceiling of 25MW for NCEF eligibility. In a recent meeting with Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal, we had asked to remove the 25MW ceiling and he has assured to do so," West Bengal State Power Minister Sobhandeb Chatterjee told PTI.

West Bengal had sought 40 per cent funds under Viability Gap Funding (VGP) totalling around Rs 2,800 crore for the Turga mega power project.

Chatterjee said there are a lot of funds in the clean energy fund and government should provide money for such projects.

The 1,200 MW solar project would require 5000 acres but as the project is in Purulia, land is not likely to be an issue, a power department official said.

The state government wants to set up the solar plant to feed the second 1000 MW pump storage power plant in the same location to be built at cost of Rs 5200 crore.

Process for obtaining environmental and forest clearance is in progress.

Chatterjee said the Centre has given a target of 5000 MW of solar capacity in the state.

The Central government has set a target of solar power capacity of 100 GW by 2022.
Induction of India's first home-grown fighter jet 'Tejas' into the Air Force has brought special cheers to the people of Odisha as its leading designer hails from Berhampur town.

Kota Harinarayan, who had a huge contribution in designing the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), is jubilant following the induction of the aircraft into the Indian Air Force (IAF) on Friday.

"We worked for over two decades for designing the Tejas. Hard work finally paid off as the aircraft was inducted into the IAF. I will be really happy, when it is fully utilised by the Air Force," Harinarayan said over phone from Bengaluru.

"The aircraft is equipped to handle air-to-air missiles, air-to-surface missiles and anti-ship missiles. It can also track the enemy's craft Beyond Visual Range (BVR) and support the army operation across the border," he said.

"Tejas is superior to any other fighter aircraft of other countries like China and Pakistan. It is designed with the latest technology," he added.

"Though we started the work for development of the LCA in 1980s when the government decided to develop indigenous aircraft for the air force with establishment of Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), the actual work started when government sanctioned funds in 1993," Harinarayan said, who was the then director of the project.

He said around 20 educational institutions like IITs of Kanpur, Kharagapur and Bombay, 40 Research and Development (R&D) labrotaries and over 500 engineers toiled hard for years to develop the indigenous aircraft in the country. While a few components of this jet were imported, most parts of it are made in India.

Though he is settled in Bengaluru now, Harinarayan visits his home town frequently.

Tejas, India's first home-grown fighter jet, was finally inducted into the IAF on Friday after a tortuous saga spread over 33 long years with the launch of the first squadron of two Light Combat Aircraft(LCA) Tejas in Bengaluru.
Bharatiya Kisan Andolan (BKA) national president and 14 others were arrested by Uttar Pradesh police for allegedly creating ruckus at the DSO's office here.

Alleging black marketing in the public distribution system (PDS), the members of BKA led by its President Kuldeep Tyagi, allegedly vandalised the district supply officer's office yesterday. They also took hostage some government employees and threatened to kill them, district police spokesperson said today.

"The agitators were demanding cancellation of registration of a ration shop in Aurangabad village, which is not under our jurisdiction," said DSO Rajesh Kumar.

Soon after the complaint by supply inspector Rekha Pandey, personnel from the Civil Lines police station took the protesters into custody. The police produced them before the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate who remanded them in judicial custody.
Former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr has praised Britain's decision to leave the European Union, saying Brexit will allow the UK to get back on its "own feet".

The 75-year-old musician said he was a "huge fan" of the EU when it started but claimed it had failed to turn into a "love fest," reported Daily Mirror.

Reacting to the referendum result, Starr said, "I think it's good. Get back on our own feet. I was a huge fan when the EU started. I've lived all over Europe so I thought 'how great'. But it never really got together, I didn't think."



"Maybe in a business way it got together but everyone kept their own flags... It didn't really turn into a love fest," he said.

Starr, who lives in Los Angeles, is just one of a host of celebrities to come out in support of Britain ditching Brussels.
Financial movers and shakers gathered in France have urged a clear and timely political response to lift the uncertainty caused by Britain's shock vote to leave the European Union.

A raft of top business leaders and intellectuals yesterday gathered in the southern French city of Aix-en-Provence for a three-day meeting to discuss how to react to the fallout from last week's "Brexit" vote.

Participants swiftly agreed on at least one thing -- nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next, the underlying source of their worries.

Britain has not yet begun the process of disengaging itself from the European Union, with arguments raging after the country was split 52 per cent to 48 per cent in the referendum.

Renault-Nissan automaker giant head Carlos Ghosn said the loss of Britain in itself from the EU bloc was not so much the problem as that the uncertainties such a move would provoke.

"Worried? Yes," said Ghosn. "Not because of Brexit but worried by the uncertainty that has engendered."



For Ghosn, "companies, good or bad, are capable of adapting to everything. All kinds of situations."



But with Britain's new status regarding the European Union not clear he said firms would have to live with uncertainty.

"We are going to navigate as we go along," said Ghosn, not least regarding the post-Brexit future of Nissan's factory employing 8,000 in the north east of England.

Oil giant Total's CEO Patrick Pouyanne said for his part that Brexit would "not have a direct impact" as likely sterling weakness could bring down production costs for the group's North Sea operations.

"On the other hand, Brexit will have European growth impacts on the macro-economic front and that could cause damage," Pouyanne said.

"There is an element of more uncertainty, instability, in a world which is already facing up to a range of geopolitical difficulties, with Daesh (Islamic State), Ukraine, a swathe of financial crises and now Brexit."



US ratings agency SP Global Ratings cut its rating for the EU by one notch last Thursday citing the uncertainty created by the Brexit vote.
A 22-year-old Canadian has been sentenced to 10 months in jail for punching and kicking a Sikh man in a racially motivated attack that had drawn strong condemnation from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Gabriel Royer-Tremblay, 22, was convicted of assault for punching and kicking Toronto resident Supninder Singh Khehra on a street in Quebec City in March.

Khehra had said at the time that Tremblay and two of his friends shouted and swore at him in French and pointed at his turban, before he was punched in the eye and kicked.

29-year-old Khehra said his turban flew off of his head during the assault.

Police arrived at the scene a short time later and arrested Tremblay and another man, who was later released without charges.

The incident had drawn widespread condemnation in Canada, including from Prime Minister Trudeau, who said at the time that such "hateful acts" have "no place in Canada".

Royer-Tremblay was also convicted of several other offences, including obstructing police and methamphetamine possession.

His lawyer, Benoit Labrecque, told CTV Toronto that six months of the sentence was for the assault against Khehra, and the other four were tied to the other offences.

Royer-Tremblay was also given two years' probation on Thursday. The crown had sought a total jail term of 18 months, while Labrecque argued for a 90-day jail stint served on weekends.

Khehra submitted a victim impact statement to the court that said he no longer feels safe when walking alone on the street, and is coping with a great deal of stress related to the incident.

With credit for pre-trial custody, Royer-Tremblay will spend eight more months in jail.
Two teams of CID investigators and a bomb disposal squad today visited the Spanish restaurant to collect evidence after Islamist militants brutally killed 20 people, mostly foreigners, in Bangladesh's worst terror attack.

A five-member team of crime scene unit, Criminal Investigation Department (CID), went to the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's Gulshan diplomatic zone to collect evidence, Bangla daily Prothom Alo reported, quoting Abul Hasan, inspector and a member of the team.

A bomb disposal unit of Detective Branch entered the restaurant premises at the same time, Hasan said.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today said her government will find out "roots" of the gunmen, who attacked the restaurant.

"Describing the terror attack as unfortunate, the prime minister said, we must find out the roots of the culprits who supplied weapons and explosives to the terrorists for the barbaric attack," Ihsanul Karim, press secretary to Hasina told the media after she met Japan's State Minister of Foreign Affairs Seiji Kihara at her official residence.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said the jihadists who slaughtered 20 hostages were members of Jamaeytul Mujahdeen Bangladesh, a homegrown Bangladeshi militant outfit, and not followers of the Islamic State group.

Seven Japanese nationals were among the 20 hostages who were brutally murdered during the chilling siege before the commandoes stormed the popular hangout in Dhaka's diplomatic zone yesterday morning.

Thirteen hostages were rescued while six of the gunmen, who attacked the upscale eatery on Friday night, were killed in the army-led operation.
Chief Justice of India T S Thakur today asked advocates from Telangana to withdraw their ongoing agitation over allotment of judges from Andhra Pradesh in courts of the newly formed state and seeking bifurcation of the High Court here.

CJI Thakur made the request when a delegation of Telangana advocates called on him in New Delhi.

Members of Telangana High Court Advocates Association, Federation of Bar Associations Telangana, Telangana Advocates Joint Action Committee and other organisations spearheading the agitation submitted a representation listing their demands to the CJI.

"We explained to him our demands for withdrawal of provisional list of Judges of AP nativity who were allotted to subordinate courts in Telangana, revoking the suspension of 11 judges and for initiating steps to bifurcate Hyderabad High Court," Telangana High Court Advocates Association President Gandra Mohan Rao told PTI.

"The CJI asked us to withdraw the agitation and said he would discuss the matter with Union Law Minister. He assured us to initiate steps to fulfil our demands," he said.

However, the agitation will continue and any decision on withdrawing it shall be taken collectively at Hyderabad only after taking everybody into confidence, Rao said.

Acting Chief Justice Dilip Babasaheb Bhosale and Judges of the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad had on July 1 appealed to agitating employees and judicial officials to immediately withdraw the "illegal" strike in public interest.

The HC Registrar General's office has warned that if the strike is not called off, it may have to consider "other options" to ensure the litigants do not suffer.

However, the protesting advocates have urged the HC to first look into their demands before they considered ending their stir.

Advocates and judicial employees across Telangana had been protesting since June 6 against allotment of judges from Andhra in Telangana's courts. Around 200 judges from Telangana are also on a mass leave since June 28.

The HC had earlier suspended 11 judicial officers on disciplinary grounds. They had taken part in a rally. The advocates are demanding revocation of their suspension.

Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh in 2014, but both States still have a common HC.
A criminal complaint filed against AAP MLA Akhilesh Tripathi for allegedly using his influence over PWD officials to allow illegal use of a government flat has been dismissed by a Delhi court which said it cannot proceed against the legislator without a valid sanction.

The court said when there is no previous sanction, the magistrate cannot order probe against a public servant by invoking section 156(3) (police officer's power to investigate cognizable case) of the CrPC in a complaint filed against him.

"Thus the contention of counsel for complainant that at the stage of exercise of power under section 156(3) of the CrPC, sanction was not required is without merit. Thus, once there is no previous sanction, a magistrate cannot order investigation by invoking power under section 156(3) CrPC," special CBI judge Poonam Chaudhry said.

The court dismissed the complaint filed against three persons, Tripathi, a woman government employee who was allotted the flat in Gulabi Bagh here, and a woman, who was occupying the flat.

It said the allegation against the MLA was under the provision of Prevention of Corruption Act and sanction under the law was mandatory for proceeding against him.

"The requirement of law for a valid sanction for proceeding against public servant is mandatory," it said.

Regarding the public servant and the woman, the court said the allegations against them were under the Public Premises (Eviction unauthorised Occupant) Act, 1971, and complainant Vivek Garg can take recourse to the legal remedy provided under the Act.

RTI activist Garg alleged in his complaint that a flat was allotted to Veena and during an inspection by PWD officials, it was found that the house was sublet to Seema who was living there with her family.

A show-cause notice was issued to Veena in November 2014, calling for an explanation but no satisfactory reply was received, it alleged, adding that presence of unauthorised occupants in the flat showed that it was a case of subletting and thereby cheating Delhi Administration or government.

The complaint further alleged that Tripathi requested PWD to prolong the matter of allotment of flat as it was under the consideration of PWD minister and by using his influence, he unlawfully managed to do it.

It sought prosecution of the MLA and two women for alleged offences of cheating, criminal breach of trust, conspiracy under the IPC and taking gratification, to influence public servant by corrupt and illegal means under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Death toll in heavy rains and landslides in China during the last few days rose to 61 as 14 more death were reported.

At least 14 people were killed and eight other missing in south China since Thursday, the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said today.

The downpour which struck Hubei province has left 16 people dead and six missing, destroying or damaging more than 15,800 housing units and inflicting direct economic losses worth USD 595 million, state-run agency Xinhua agency quoted local officials yesterday.

In another incident, at least 23 people were killed and seven others injured in the landslide in southwest China's Guizhou Province.

In all 30 people were caught in Friday's landslide at Pianpo Village, Dafang County.

All missing and dead people were found, the report said.

More than 800 soldiers and rescuers workedwith excavators to search for the missing villagers.

In another incident, eight people were killed yesterday after a wall collapsed due to heavy rain in Wuhan City, capital of central China's Hubei Province.

Some counties saw record-breaking daily rainfall during the past two days, local weather authorities said today.

Storms have hit most of southern China since Thursday, pushing water levels in rivers to dangerous levels and swelling many reservoirs.

Some 9,000 houses collapsed and 710,000 hectares of crops have been damaged.

Combined losses have been estimated at around USD 1.37 billion.

Two rounds of rainstorms are forecast to hit southern regions over the next ten days.

Nepartak, the first typhoon of the year, is expected to bring gales and downpours to eastern coastal areas next week.

China's weather authority cautioned people in southern areas reduce outdoor activities on rainy days and take precautions against possible floods and landslides.
Egypt's human rights council said today that the authorities' human rights record had not improved, noting a string of enforced disappearances by the police and abuse of prisoners.

The National Council for Human Rights, the country's official rights watchdog, made the remarks in an annual report.

"The human rights situation in the country has not changed in spite of the adoption of the new constitution two years ago," the report said.

It added that the council had raised 266 cases of enforced disappearances with the interior ministry, of whom 27 were since revealed to have been released while 143 remained in pretrial detention.

The ministry responded that 44 of the missing people had not been arrested, and may have disappeared for other reasons, including to join jihadist groups, the council's report said.

The cases were documented between April 2015 and the end of March this year.

"Human rights causes have not yet become a priority for the state," it said.

Rights groups had accused Egypt of extensive abuses that spiked after the military overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, unleashing a bloody crackdown on his followers.

The report also criticised the state for failing to pass effective legislation to curb torture, although it acknowledged that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had tried to end the abuses.

Sisi has spoken out against police abuses and several policemen have been put on trial over the deaths of detainees.

The report noted that suspicions that security services had abducted Italian student Giulio Regeni, whose mutilated body was found on the side of a road, had been boosted by "the continuation of the phenomenon of torture" in Egypt.

The report did not shed any light on Regeni's disappearance, which created a diplomatic rift between Egypt and Italy, a close ally. Police have denied involvement.

The council said it had received 296 complaints during 2015.

"Many of the complaints are related to abuses they are subject to in prisons and other detention facilities, most notably torture and other harsh and degrading treatment," the council said.

The use of torture "continues to be widespread", particularly in initial detention centres.

Meanwhile, pretrial detention has become "a punishment in itself".

Initial detention centres are estimated to hold more than 300 percent of their capacity, the report said.

Detainees "take turns sleeping because of lack of space".
Five fishermen were on Sunday arrested by Sri Lankan naval personnel off Neduntheevu in the island nation for allegedly fishing in their territorial waters.

The Lankan personnel damaged their fishing nets and also took away GPS equipment, Fishermen's Association President S Emiret said.

He told reporters that the fishermen were taken early this morning to Kankesanthurai and would later be taken to Jaffna, to be produced at a court there.

About 2,500 fishermen had put out to sea in 619 boats on Saturday, he said, adding the arrested fishermen were among them.
Five people were killed and 25 injured when an aged bus carrying farmworkers collided with a tractor-trailer and both vehicles burst into flames at a highway intersection in the Florida Panhandle, authorities said.

The Blue Bird bus from Georgia was carrying roughly 34 adults and children when it ran a flashing red light and a stop sign before hitting the tractor trailer, then spun around and hit the semi again, authorities said.

"This is a very horrendous crash, I can tell you," Wakulla County Sheriff Charlie Creel said, calling it one of the worst in several decades in law enforcement.

He told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that one of the bus passengers killed was a small child. The driver of the semi-truck, Gordon Sheets, 55 of Copiague, New York, also died, Creel said.

He said the bus, a retired school bus model built in 1979, hit just behind the driver's door of the semi-truck on first impact and then spun around and hit it again as the vehicles went off the road and came to rest under a power line.

Deputies responded to a gruesome and chaotic scene as the front and the back of the bus was on fire when they arrived. "Our deputies are heroes ... Our deputies got on the bus and started pulling people off, people that were not able to get off by themselves. They pulled out two deceased victims," said Creel.

He said deputies continued to rescue victims until the bus was fully engulfed in flames and they were forced to stop. "If these deputies had not done that, we would have had a lot more fatalities," the sheriff said, adding they were eventually "driven back" by the flames that then fully engulfed the tractor-trailer.

Both vehicles were resting against a power pole with live wires so fire rescue officials had to wait for the power company to shut off the power before it was safe to spray the vehicles with water. Both vehicles eventually burned out, he said.

The Tallahassee Democrat reported the intersection was strewn with bloody medical gear, clothing, pillows and coolers packed with food littered the road. The accident happened on US-98, a highway that follows the Florida coast around the Gulf of Mexico.

No one on the bus spoke English and authorities brought in interpreters, Creel said. He said the bus had left Bainbridge in south Georgia not far from the Florida Panhandle area and was bound for Belle Glade, Florida.

He said the bus was headed south on a north-south state road when it collided with the tractor-trailer, which was westbound on US 98 a Florida coastal highway.
Four persons, including two residents of Kerala, have been arrested and over three kg of "high quality" Brown Sugar, worth about Rs five crore in local market, was seized from their possession in Jammu city.

Mohammed Farooq and Javed Iqbal, residents of Rajouri district, had brought the consignment to Jammu and were to hand it over to Nawaf Khan and Mohammed Ajmel Roshan, both hailing from Kerala, when a police team arrested them, SP (city) Vinod Kumar told reporters today.

On questioning, Farooq and Iqbal admitted they were in touch with a person from Kuwait who called Khan and Roshan to take the delivery of the contraband here, Kumar said.

Khan and Roshan, after taking the delivery, were to hand over the packets to a person in Delhi, he said.

"The arrests were made by chance as police grew suspicious of the movement of the four persons, and on checking their belongings, the consignment was found," the officer said.

"Questioning of the accused would reveal the origin of the contraband and we expect to make more recoveries and arrests in the days to come," he said.

Several mobile phones have also been recovered from the accused, the SP said.
The government will celebrate 350th birth anniversary of Sikh Guru Gobind Singh across the country and has earmarked Rs 100 crore for the events.

Addressing a function to commemorate 300th anniversary of martyrdom of Sikh general Baba Banda Singh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said a high-level national committee will be formed that would chalk out an elaborate plan for the celebrations.

"Government of India will be celebrating 350th birth anniversary of Guru Gobind Singh in every corner of the country. It will be celebrated everywhere across the world where Indians reside.

"For this, the government of India has earmarked an amount of Rs 100 crore. A high-level committee is being formed to look into organisation of the events," Modi said.

The Punjab government will also contribute a matching amount for the event.

Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth and last Sikh Guru was born on December 22, 1666.

"Commemoration of the historical events will connect future generations with our roots. Those who forget history can never create history. Only those can create history who are connected with the historical roots.

"So, if we celebrate 300th, 350th or a centenary, all these events connect us with the great and historical traditions," he said.

Incidentally, the AAP government in Delhi had recently named the Barapullah bridge after Baba Banda Singh.

The AAP is trying hard to make inroads in Punjab, while the Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP combine may have to overcome a ten-year anti-incumbency factor in the state as polls are scheduled to be held in the first half of 2017.

Modi began his speech with the Sikh victory cry of "Jo



bole so nihal..." and spoke a few sentences in Punjabi explaining the relevance of the sacrifice made by Baba Banda Bahadur Singh while defending the cause of freedom and socialism.

He said the present generation should seek inspiration from the life of Baba Banda Bahadur and try to emulate him in their day-to-day life.

Modi said the Sikh general was a sensitive administrator and never deviated from the path of justice for all despite living most part of his life under adverse circumstances and shadow of war.

"He did not deviate from his path...He did not let himself to be distracted," Modi said.

Addressing a packed Indira Gandhi indoor stadium here, Modi said his dedication Guru Gobind Singh is one of the finest example of 'guru-shishya' relationship.

Likening his skills with to Maratha King Shivaji, the PM said with his organisational



capabilities and great courage, Baba Banda Bahadur took on his enemies with limited resources.

"He fought for the equal rights of the people. He ensured that the farmer gets his due. He worked on empowering people and igniting the spirit of development in the masses. He was a real socialist...People under him got justice," Modi said.

Recalling one of the decisions of the warrior, who was born as Lachhman Dass to a Dogra Rajput family, Modi said in that age, the rulers and emperors brought out currency bearing image of their face. "But the currency he brought out bore the faces of Sikh gurus...He never sought anything for himself," he said.

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, state Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal, Punjab and Haryana Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki, Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar and some Union ministers were present on the occasion.

Modi also released a coffee table book on Baba Banda Bahadur Singh.

In his address, the Punjab CM said even Modi can be described as "bahadur" for what he has achieved for the country.

He said there was a need to rekindle the spirit of nationalism. He lamented that neither there is a memorial to the freedom struggle nor a war memorial in the country.

Asking people to go digital, Modi told them to use their



mobile phone as their wallet and there was no need to use cash.

"People will not forgive the corrupt, the country has to be rid of all ills during the past 70 years," he said.

Modi reminded BJP volunteers and party workers once again of the government's assurance that things will ease up after a period of 50 days.

"I had said there will be hardships for now, but things will improve. You might have to stand in queues to withdraw money, but it's essential to eliminate corruption," he said, and cited instances of parents doling out heavy sums for admission of their children in schools and for higher studies.

On shortage of currency notes, Modi suggested use of plastic money and to go cashless.

"There are 40 crore smartphones in the country today. Everything is available on mobile banking, net banking and through credit and debit cards. You just need to download an app on your phone, and for 40 crore people, everything is possible without visiting a bank or standing in queues," he said.

Modi also hit out at those saying people were resisting change or were technologically challenged, saying "they should remember that the same people elected a new government by pushing a button."



"Some people have lost glow on their faces... Earlier they used to chant money-money, now they are chanting Modi-Modi," he said.

He said to eradicate poverty from country, it has to be removed first from big states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra and West Bengal.

Modi cited the example of Madhya Pradesh to highlight the efficiency of BJP rule.

"Madhya Pradesh was considered a 'Bimaru' state. But the people of MP gave BJP a chance. The state government there, led by Shivraj Singh Chouhan, has transformed the state. Today, Madhya Pradesh is a shining example of efficiency," he added.
Aiming to boost potato exports, the government is considering identifying 'pest-free zones' for the staple in production clusters of the growing states like Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

Although India was the world's second largest potato producer at 48 million tonnes in 2014-15, its exports were less than one per cent of the output. Potato can be exported to many countries if pest related issues are addressed and standard operating procedures are put in place.

In a meeting held last week, Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman discussed ways to increase potato exports and other related issues with Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh.

"In the meeting, the Commerce Minister emphasised the need to identify pest-free zones for export of potatoes in the production clusters. Both ministries have decided to take further course of action soon on this issue," a senior government official told PTI.

The Commerce Ministry has suggested that concerned stakeholders such as Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Central Potato Research Institute, National Plan Protection Organisation (NPPO) and the state horticulture departments need to interact and prepare an action plan for identification of pest free zones for potato.

That apart, it has also stressed on preparing the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for export of potatoes to various countries in order to address the quarantine pest concerns, the official added.

It may be noted that though there is huge demand for Indian potatoes from Russia, the country has not been able to tap the export opportunities fully due to pest related issues.

Identification of pest-free zones in producing areas will help export of quality commodity from India and avoid any rejection of consignments, the official said.

India exported 1.80 lakh tonnes of potatoes in 2014-15 fiscal, which was lower than 3.05 lakh tonnes in the previous year, as per the government data.
Nearly 150 forest guides from Kanha and Bandhavgarh national parks in Madhya Pradesh are fearing the financial strain they would face during the upcoming monsoon break of these reserves from July 1 when they desperately look for alternate means of livelihood.

"We have a monthly salary of Rs 7,500 and during the three month break we have to live on what we earned through the year," says Rajesh Dwivedi, a senior guide at Bandhavgarh National Park.

"I have an experience of over 12 years in the park but my condition remains the same. All the guides dread this three-month break when the parks shut," says Dwivedi.

He says that tourism is their main source of livelihood and when the parks shut down during monsoon it just increases their financial difficulties.

"Whatever we save through the year gets spent during these three months, we are left with nothing to plan future of our children," he says.

Ramesh Dhuve, another guide at Bandhavgarh national park, also solely depends upon saving from rest of the year for surviving during the break.

"We know the jungle and we love our job as guide but the money we get from here is not enough," says Dhuve, who now he plans to start working for resorts that have come up in the area and leave his job as a guide.

One of the other alternate means the guides look for is temporary migration to nearby cities like Bhopal and Jabalpur but they face difficulty in finding job for a period of three months.

"We can't migrate to work in cities for these three months as no one hires us for such a short period of time," says Rishi Solanki, a guide at Kanha National park.

The authorities, however, say that as they are registered and not regular employees, it isn't their responsibility of take care of them during the three months the parks are closed.

"As they are not our regular employees it isn't our responsibility to give them salary for the months when the park is shut," says J S Chauhan, Field Director, Kanha National Park.

But the guides insist that the authorities should look from their point of view and understand how difficult it gets for them to survive during the monsoon break.

"We work very hard through the year, help officials in taking care of wild animals, informing them of any suspicious activities. We are paid to do that but it is because of our sincerity and hard work that poaching in the jungle has nearly vanished and tiger population is rapidly increasing," says Santhosh Yadav, another guide at Kanha National Park.

"We want authorities to acknowledge our role and think about our condition also during the monsoon break," he adds.

Few guides have an alternate source of income in form of



farming but the land is not very fertile and by end of the day these guides are also not able to meet their needs, says Ajay Kumar, a guide at the Bandhavgarh National Park.

One such guide is Mahesh Singh who turns to farming for these three months but with reduced fertility and low produce, the income from the land is not enough.

"The money we earn through farming can act as a pocket money but not be a substitute to our jobs at the jungle," says Singh.

Even for Singh, who is a senior guide at Bandhavgarh, it is that time of the year when he desperately looks for alternate means of livelihood.

Singh who is the only earning member in a family of six is one of many guards who survives on their saving through the year an the extra money he earns through farming during these three months. He is among the fortunate ones to have extra pocket money but most of the guides solely depend upon their savings from their jobs as guides during the break.

Kanha and Bandhavgarh tiger reserves are two of the most popular national parks in the country. These reserves have an annual tourist intake of over 1,50,000. The guides form the lifeline of the park. They are well acquainted with the forest hence are able to guide the tourists, said a naturist with the Kanha National Park.

Many of these guides grew up inside forest, they recognise the movements and sounds of the animal making their experience unique, says the naturist.

Kanha Tiger Reserve is one of the tiger reserves of India and the largest national park of Madhya Pradesh. The lush sal and bamboo forests, grassy meadows and ravines of Kanha provided inspiration to Rudyard Kipling for his famous novel Jungle Book.

Bandhavgarh National Park on the other hand has one of the highest tiger population in the country. The park has a large breeding population of leopards, and various species of deer. There are around 150 guides in both the parks. Kanha national park has around 85 guides and Bandhavgarh national park has 40 guides.

The national parks across the country shuts down from July till September during monsoon and mating season of animals.

During this time census of animals is also carried out. According to the recent census, Madhya Pradesh now has 308 tigers against 257 in 2010.
The Delhi High Court has put on hold the rustication of a JNU student who had accused a hostel warden of sexual harassment, saying the university did not follow the prescribed procedure while taking the decision.

Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva stayed the May 30 decision of Jawaharlal Nehru University to rusticate the female student for one semester saying the varsity did not provide sufficient time to her to respond to the show cause notice and order appeared to have been passed without carrying out an inquiry.

The court also issued notice to the university and sought its response on the plea of the student, who was rusticated for one semester on the basis of a report of a Gender Sensitization Committee against Sexual Harassment (GSCASH) which had held that the girl had made a false complaint against the warden.

"Prima facie, I am satisfied that the respondent No.1 (JNU) has not complied with the provisions of the rules and procedures prescribed. The show-cause notice dated May 20, 2016 appears to have been served on the petitioner (student) on May 27 which did not provide sufficient time to her to respond to the said show-cause notice.

"Consequent to the show-cause notice, prima facie, there does not appear to have an inquiry conducted and the impugned order has been passed. In view of the above, issue notice. Renotify on August 23. In the meantime, the order dated May 30 shall remain stayed," the court said.

The student, in her plea, had contended that procedure as prescribed under the Rules and Procedures of the GSCASH has not been followed, as even the time required for filing an appeal was not provided to her since the show cause notice of May 20 was given to her on May 27.

She has also contended that even without awaiting her response, the rustication order was passed.

The student further alleged that even the report of the committee was not given to her.

The committee had carried out an enquiry pursuant to the girl lodging a complaint against the warden at Vasant Kunj police station on November 22, last year. A FIR was registered pursuant to her complaint.

The GSCASH had exonerated the warden and recommended the student's rustication for defaming him.
A high alert has been sounded on the in West Bengal following the Friday night's terror attack in Dhaka, with the Border Security Force intensifying its vigil to prevent suspects from crossing over to India.

The administration has asked the state police to be on high alert and take serious note of any suspicious movement in the border districts.

"All police stations along the have been alerted and all border districts have been told to keep a close eye on any suspicious movement," a senior police official of the West Bengal Police said.

Vehicles are being checked at various entry and exit points in the districts bordering Bangladesh, which has declared a two-day state mourning after the attack on a cafe in Dhaka's diplomatic zone resulting in the killing of 20 persons, all foreigners, who were taken hostage.

As it was a festival season with Eid and Ratha yatra to be celebrated, a strict vigil was being maintained on the border. But after the attack in Bangladesh, the BSF had further intensified the vigil and special operations were on, IG BSF Sandeep Salunke had told PTI on Saturday.

Salunke also said that the BSF was in touch with Border Guard Bangladesh and keeping a close eye on the situation.
A high alert has been sounded on the Indo-Bangla border in the five states of West Bengal, Tripura, Meghalaya, Assama and Mizoram in the wake of the terror attack in Dhaka with the Border Security Force (BSF) stepping up its vigil.

India and Bangladesh share a 4,096 km-long international border, the fifth-longest land border in the world, with West Bengal having the highest length with 2,217 km. The length of the border in the other four states is Tripura (856km), Meghalaya(443km), Assam(262km) and Mizoram(180km).

The West Bengal administration has asked the state police to be on high alert and take serious note of any suspicious movement in the border districts.

"All police stations along the Indo-Bangla border have been alerted and all border districts have been told to keep a close eye on any suspicious movement," a senior police official of the West Bengal Police said.

Vehicles are being checked at various entry and exit points in the districts bordering Bangladesh, which has declared a two-day state mourning after the attack on a cafe in Dhaka's diplomatic zone on Friday night resulting in the killing of 20 persons, all foreigners, who were taken hostage.

As it was a festival season with Eid and Ratha yatra to be celebrated, a strict vigil was being maintained on the border. But after the attack in Bangladesh, the BSF had further intensified the vigil and special operations were on, IG BSF Sandeep Salunke had told PTI yesterday.

Salunke also said that the BSF was in touch with Border Guard Bangladesh and keeping a close eye on the situation.

A top police official in Agartala said that as soon as the attack broke out BSF and all other security forces including Tripura police, were alerted so that no unwanted elements could cross the border to enter Indian territory.

BSF Inspector General (Meghalaya Frontier) P K Dubey said the force has been put on "very high alert" along the Indo- Bangladesh border in Meghalaya.

"The force has been put on very high alert along the Indo-Bangladesh border following the armed attack in Dhaka. Security has been tightened," Dubey said.

Dubey said he had spoken to officials of Meghalaya Police for coordination and sharing of information as soon as news of the killings came in.

Meghalaya has over 100 "gaps" consisting of streams, rivers and drains apart from the unfenced 90-km stretch along its 443-km border with Bangladesh.

Accordingly, the BSF has sought cooperation of all state and central intelligence units to ensure that no illegal cross-border movement takes place, he said.

Police personnel posted close to the border have been alerted and asked to keep strict vigil in close coordination with the BSF, a senior police officer said.

The Assam police said it had instructed SPs of all districts, especially the border ones, to keep a strict vigil for any possible ISIS activity in the state.

According to a press release by the Assam Police, all the SPs have been instructed to gear up their intelligence machinery and keep a close watch on the situation.

Although authorities have not perceived any footprint of ISIS in Assam in the recent past, considering the gravity of the situation in the neighbouring country the alert has been issued, it explained.

"The SPs of Cachar, Karimganj and Dhubri, and BSF along the Assam-Bangladesh border have also been cautioned to be on maximum alert," the statement said.

Several modules of JMB in Assam were busted in the aftermath of Khagragarh blast in Burdwan district of West Bengal on October 2, 2014.
Himachal Pradesh police today claimed to have unearthed a high-tech scam in the recent recruitment of police constables after the arrest of six persons in Nahan, including a government official and the topper of the examination.

Two aspirants of the recruitment examination, Gurdeep Singh and Sushil Sharma, and senior assistant in Education Department Ramandeep Singh, believed to be the mastermind of the scam, were among those arrested yesterday, police said.

Preliminary investigation has revealed that Sushil and Gurdeep allegedly paid Rs 25,000 and Rs 3 lakh respectively to Ramandeep to secure high marks in the examination which was held on May 29, they said.

The probe was initiated after receiving an anonymous complaint about some candidates securing "exceptionally high marks" in the written test. On perusal of documents it was found that Gurdeep and Sushil secured high marks and, in fact, the former was a topper, police said.

Ramandeep, with the help of a local shopkeeper, allegedly bought high-tech cameras and other gadgets from Delhi which were provided to both the candidates to scan the question paper and transmit it to a highly-educated professional, Inspector General of Police, Zahoor H Zaidi said.

The professional, allegedly hired by Ramandeep, solved the questions and conveyed it to the candidates who filled the answer sheets, the IG said.

Kamal Kant, who allegedly solved the questions in favour of the original aspirants, his accomplice and the shopkeeper have also been arrested. It is suspected that the racket may have deeper roots and investigation is on, police said.
The HRD ministry is mulling launching its Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) platform 'Swayam' that will host over 2,000 courses for up to 3 crore students across the country on August 15.

Sources said preparations for getting the entire system ready for the ambitious project is on in full swing and it is likely be launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a special ceremony here.

"The preparations for the project are on in full swing. The project has the capacity to revolutionise the education system. It is expected to be launched by the Prime Minister on August 15," a source in the Ministry said.

SWAYAM is an Information Technology platform which will host Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and provide high quality education on various subjects from school level--class 9-12 to Under Graduate and Post Graduate students-- covering all disciplines.

About 2000 courses shall be launched backed by a network that is expected to support 10 lakh concurrent users on anytime, anywhere basis.

Through this scheme the Ministry has proposed to provide high quality e-content to all colleges and universities free of cost.

The HRD Ministry has roped in Microsoft as the technology partner for this venture.

"When completed, it would bring in interactive eContent on MOOCs format of more than 2.5 lakh hours which would make it the world's biggest repository of interactive electronic learning resource under a single window," officials said.

The UGC has already notified the UGC (credit framework for online learning courses through SWAYAM) Regulation 2016 which allows for transfer of credits earned through these courses into the academic record of the student in the parent institution.

"This would allow any student in the country to take the courses offered by the best teachers on SWAYAM, especially bridging the academic deficit experienced in the backward areas and helping raise standards of education," officials said.
India has slipped to 75th place in terms of money held by its citizens with banks in Switzerland, while the UK remains on top.

India was placed at 61st place last year, while it used to among top-50 countries in terms of holdings in Swiss banks till 2007. The country was ranked highest at 37th place in the year 2004.

As per the latest annual update on Swiss banks, released by Switzerland's central bank SNB (Swiss Bank), the total money held there by foreign clients from across the world fell by nearly 4 per cent to Swiss franc (CHF) 1.42 trillion (about Rs 98 lakh crore) at the end of 2015.

In terms of individual countries, the UK accounted for the largest chunk at about CHF 350 billion or almost 25 per cent of the total foreign money with Swiss banks.

The US came second with nearly CHF 196 billion or about 14 per cent. No other country accounted for a double-digit percentage share, while others in the top-ten included West Indies, Germany, Bahamas, France, Guernsey, Luxembourg, Hong Kong and Panama.

India was ranked 75th with CHF 1.2 billion (about Rs 8,392 crore), which is not even 0.1 per cent of the total foreign money in Swiss banks and is the lowest for the country in at least two decades or since 1996 -- the first year for which full comparable data is available.

Pakistan was placed higher at 69th place with CHF 1.5 billion -- a shade better than 0.1 per cent of total foreign money parked with Swiss banks.

India was also lowest ranked among the BRICS nations -- Russia was ranked 17th (CHF 17.6 billion), China 28th (CHF 7.4 billion), Brazil 37th (CHF 4.8 billion) and South Africa 60th (CHF 2.2 billion).

Others ranked higher than India included Mauritius, Kazakhstan, Iran, Chile, Angola, Philippines, Indonesia and Mexico, while a number of so-called tax havens were also placed above, including Jersey, Cayman Islands, Cyprus, Marshall Islands, Bermuda, Belize, Gibraltar, Isle of Man, Seychelles and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

All offshore financial centres together held CHF 378 billion in Swiss banks. The total for developing countries stood at CHF 207 billion, while the same for the developed countries was much higher at CHF 833 million.

India was ranked in top-50 continuously between 1996 and 2007, but started declining after that -- 55th in 2008, 59th in 2009 and 2010 each, 55th again in 2011, 71st in 2012 and then 58th in 2013.
Battling successive markdowns in valuation by investors and third-parties, Flipkart's Chairman Sachin Bansal has said such cuts are their "opinions" and cited the case of Uber to illustrate that it will not impact fundraising plans of the e-commerce major.

"That (markdowns) does not matter. If you look... They did it to Uber as well. Uber raised (money) at a higher valuation. They did it to one more company, they also raised money at higher valuation," Bansal told PTI on the sidelines of an event when asked about the recent markdown by Morgan Stanley.

"I think it does not matter, people have their own opinions and it is their own opinion," he added.

Asked if this will impact the country's largest e-commerce company's fund raising plans in the future, Bansal said, "Absolutely not".

He added that Flipkart is well capitalised at present and is not looking for fresh funds.

In its second consecutive action in as many quarters, Morgan Stanley Mutual Fund Trust, an investor in the company, in May lowered its estimate of the valuation of the Bengaluru-based e-commerce company by 15.5 per cent to USD 9.39 billion.

At its peak, Flipkart was valued at over USD 15 billion.

A host of its investors have marked down their valuation estimates by up to 39 per cent in the recent past.

Flipkart, which competes with Amazon, Snapdeal and others in the domestic e-commerce market, had raised money at a valuation of over USD 15 billion during one round of fundraising last year.

The skyrocketing valuations was one of the biggest reasons for the larger public to notice the growth of such startups.

But in their bid to expand their base, these companies started giving huge discounts to customers, which dented their profitability.

According to reports, many e-commerce firms have rejigged their business models to focus on profitability.

Describing the global investment scenario as "a little shaky right now", Bansal said companies like his continue expanding despite the loss of investor interest.

Flipkart expanded its customer base by 100 per cent last fiscal and is targeting to achieve a similar growth in 2016-17 as well, he said.

Asked about the government's move to allow retail stores to remain open round the clock, Bansal said this will not impact online sellers.

He was quick to add that e-commerce penetration in the country is very low with only 2 per cent of the overall shopping happening online, while this is between 8 and 10 per cent in markets like China and US.
In the aftermath of the ISIS attack on a Bangladesh restaurant that left 20 people dead, Democratic White House hopeful Hillary Clinton has asserted that the US stands firmly with its allies in the fight to defeat the terror group.

She said her "thoughts and prayers" were with the people of Bangladesh, and stressed that the terror group's "campaign of fear, hatred and violence" would not succeed.

"The terrorist assault on a bakery and restaurant in Dhaka is a reminder that an attack halfway around the world is still an attack on all of us, in the everyday places we hold dear," Clinton said in a statement.

The victims in Dhaka came from all over-- Italy, Japan, India and Bangladesh, she said, adding that at least three, including an American citizen, attended college in the United States.

"Today, we say with one voice: this campaign of fear and hatred and violence will not succeed. We will not retreat," Clinton said.

"We will not turn our backs on each other. The United States stands firmly with our friends and allies in the fight to defeat ISIS and radical jihadism around the world. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families, and the people of Bangladesh," she said.

Mourning the loss of life in the attack, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said the United States is ready to help Bangladesh.

"With heavy hearts, we pray for the victims, survivors, and the loved ones affected by this horrific assault. With determined spirits, we will continue to stand firm against these vicious acts wherever they occur," she said.

"We must continue to confront terrorists with strength, unity, and a comprehensive strategy. Extremists fuelled by hatred can never extinguish the light of international cooperation and the beacon of hope aflame in communities around the world," Pelosi said.
Israel today condemned a request from British police to interview ex-foreign minister Tzipi Livni, reportedly over suspicions of war crimes in the 2008-2009 Gaza conflict.

Israel's foreign ministry said in a statement that it viewed the request "with great concern".

"We would have expected different behaviour from a close ally such as the UK," it said in a statement.

The reaction came after Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Livni had received a request last week for an interview from Scotland Yard's war crimes unit ahead of her visit to London for a conference.

The interview was said to be related to Israel's 2008-2009 war against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip at a time when Livni was foreign minister.

The request was cancelled after diplomatic contacts between Israel and Britain, Haaretz reported.

Livni, currently an opposition member of parliament, has also been granted special diplomatic immunity in response, it said.

The interview was to be on a voluntary basis, the newspaper reported.

Contacted by AFP, Scotland Yard refused to confirm or deny the identities of people they have been seeking to question, while Livni's spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

The 22-day Gaza operation included a massive air assault to halt rocket attacks by Palestinian militants.

It cost the lives of 1,440 Palestinians, mainly civilians, and 13 Israelis, 10 of them soldiers.

In 2009, a British court issued an arrest warrant for Livni after Palestinian activists made an application over her role as foreign minister during the conflict.

Britain sought to soothe strained ties with Israel the following year by publishing an amendment to a law that put visiting officials at risk of arrest for alleged war crimes.

The change was to ensure that private arrest warrants for offences under certain international laws, including the Geneva Convention, would first have to be approved by the chief prosecutor.
The National Green Tribunal has sought the Uttar Pradesh government's response on a plea alleging loss of green cover in Mathura's Jawahar Bagh, where clashes between encroachers and security personnel left 29 people, including two policemen, dead recently.

A bench headed by Justice M S Nambiar issued notices to the Uttar Pradesh Principal Secretary, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Secretary at Horticulture Department, District Magistrate and others while seeking their reply by July 27.

The order came while hearing a plea by NGO Tree Protection Team seeking constitution of a committee of experts for evaluation of ecological loss and damage caused at Jawahar Bagh.

The plea, filed through advocate Siddhartha Singh, sought stringent action against erring officials responsible for causing loss of the green cover and air pollution in Jawahar Bagh, which was rocked by violence on June 2.

It also sought directions to halt the state government's plan to turn some of the 270-acre land into an amusement park with all the civic amenities for the residents in Mathura.

The petition has also alleged that besides damage to the environment in Jawahar Bagh, illegal extraction of ground water by encroachers on very large scale has caused serious damage to the ecosystem as the encroachers had installed submersible pumps to extract water which was stored in a makeshift tank.

"The State Horticulture Department that owns the 260 acre Bagh but never acted against the encroachers i.E. But chose to ignore damage to the ecology; resulted to massive loss to environment.

"That numbers of complaint were lodged with authorities regarding encroachments and damage to the trees and ecology of the Jawahar Bagh but no action was taken to protect the trees in Jawahar Bagh in this regard," the plea alleged.

Massive clashes broke out in Mathura on June 2 when police were trying to evict illegal occupants, believed to be of Azad Bharat Vidhik Vaicharik Kranti Satyagrahi, from Jawahar Bagh on the Allahabad High Court orders.
Jharkhand police would be seen in an important role in the welfare and development of the areas along with security measures, Director General of Police D K Pandey said today after his two-day visit of Lohardaga and Gumla districts.

After reaching Pesrar in Lohardaga today, the state police chief reiterated his commitment to take all steps in the development of Pesrar block of Lohardaga district and all round progress of its inhabitants.

He said the police would assist if any beneficiary found shortage of money to purchase cows under a government's programme while talented children would be encouraged.

The condition of bridges and roads would be improved, he said.

He appealed to those people who drifted away from the mainstream to surrender or action against them would be intensified.
Now consumers in Haryana will be able to get pure milk of desi cow as the Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar launched pasteurised A2 milk of this breed.

It was launched at a state-level function today at Panchkula in the state.

Speaking at the event, Khattar said that its sale points would be set up in Panchkula, Kurukshetra and in Delhi also.

Initially, the plant for A2 milk of 'desi cow' has been set up at Kurukshetra where 5,000 litres of milk would be processed and packed and it would be sold through 'Vita' brand booths.

The CM also launched two schemes - One Time Settlement Scheme 2016 for the settlement of NPAs of District Central Cooperative Banks and Micro ATM for distribution of pension and other allowances under the social security pension of Central Cooperative Bank, Haryana, an official release said.

Khattar said that milk of desi cows would be purchased from the cooperative milk societies working at village level at an attractive price and would be taken to the plant at Kurukshetra where it would be processed and packed.

This would not only increase the income of milk producers but the consumers would also be able to get pure milk of cow. Besides, it would also promote the rearing of cows in the state, he said.

An MoU was also signed between Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) and Haryana Dairy Development Cooperative Federation Limited in the presence of the Chief Minister.

Under the pact, the Vita milk booths would be set up at about 1,500 petrol pumps of IOCL for the sale of milk and milk products.

Such MoUs would be signed with other companies also so as to promote the cow milk, Khattar said.

Describing it as a historical day, the CM said various steps have been taken by the state government for the promotion and conservation of cows.

Haryana Gauvansh Sanrakshan and Gausamvardhan Act, 2015 was enacted. Besides, a mass movement was also launched to enhance faith of the people in cow.

The state government has decided to set up 'gau abhyaranyas' (cow sanctuaries) for the conservation for stray cows in the state. These sanctuaries would be set up over 10 to 50 acres of land. Apart from this, arrangement of fodder, water and grant were also being made for all 408 gaushalas in the state.

The CM further said that Gau Seva Aayog has been



constituted with a budget provision of Rs 20 crore.

Besides, cow competitions were also being organised in the State to promote cow rearing.

Describing the cow's milk as 'Panchamrita', he said it is much more beneficial as compared to the milk of buffalo and is helpful in curing many diseases.

"Now, a study also reveals that electricity could also be generated from cow's urine," he added.

As the land holdings are continuously shrinking and agriculture becoming a costly affair, the people should adopt cow rearing as an alternate source of income, the CM suggested.

He said as the people in urban areas could not rear cows, they could adopt the same in villages by way of funding them. In turn they could get pure milk and ghee, he added.

Haryana Agriculture Minister Om Parkash Dhankar, who was also present at the event, said that it was the dream of the state government that every household in the state has atleast one cow.

The state government would ensure that the income being generated through cow milk should not be less than that of the milk of buffalo, he said, adding that the milk of desi cow is more beneficial for human consumption as it contains A2 type protein whereas the cow of foreign breed has A1 (type protein)



A cat-walk competition of cows was organised in village Bahu Akbarpur in Rohtak district and cash prize of Rs 2.50 lakh was awarded, Dhankar said.

He further said that about 634 cows and bulls participated in the competition out of which 117 were honoured with cash prizes.

Minister of State for Cooperation Bikram Yadav said that 4.50 lakh liter per day milk was purchased from various milk societies in the state whereas its sale is about 3.36 lakh liter per day.

He said that it was during the tenure of present state government that Vita has earned profit in 2015-16.
Buoyed by relaxation of FDI norms, NRI tycoon Yusuffali M A, who heads the Dubai-based retail conglomerate Lulu Group, has announced investment of over Rs 7,000 crore in India for setting up shopping malls and hotels.

Ali said his group will invest Rs 4,650 crore in Kerala, Rs 1,000 crore in Uttar Pradesh and Rs 1,410 crore in Telangana in the hospitality and retail sector.

Complimenting the NDA government for raising FDI cap for various key sectors, Ali estimated that investment to the tune of $150 billion will flow into India's retail, aviation, tourism and manufacturing sectors from the Gulf countries in the next few years.

He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's outreach to a number of Gulf nations coupled with new initiatives to attract foreign investment have made India the most talked about FDI destination in the region which is eying to broaden its non-oil investment.

"There will be a tremendous push from Gulf investors into India as the they are looking to broaden their non-oil investment," he said.

Ali's Lulu Group, having an annual turnover of $6.3 billion, has already made major investments in retail, hospitality and food processing sectors in India.

The Forbes magazine had last year listed Ali, a first generation migrant to the Middle East, as the 30th wealthiest Indian and the 737th richest in the world.

Ali said the company will initially invest Rs 1,000 crore for setting up a shopping mall and a five star hotel and convention centre in Lucknow. The site for the project has already been identified and construction work will start by December.

In Telangana, Ali said his group is investing Rs 500 crore for establishing a food processing plant, while a shopping mall will be set up with an investment of Rs 900 crore in Hyderabad.

In Kerala, Ali said his group is making an investment of Rs 4,650 crore in a number of projects.

A shopping mall and a five star hotel with investment of Rs 1,250 crore is being set up in Thiruvananthapuram, he said, adding another five star hotel will come up in Kochi at an investment of Rs 1,600 crore.

The is also a setting up a world class IT Park at Kochi with an investment of Rs 1,400 crore.
BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav has said if the Centre's decision to give refuge to persecuted minorities of Pakistan and Bangladesh is communalism, then it is happy to be called "communalist".

"As regards the 2015 central government notification that offers refuge in India to persecuted minorities of Pakistan and Bangladesh, the stand of the government is that such minorities are not just Hindus but also Sikhs, Jains, Christians, Ahmadiyas etc.

"If giving them refuge is communalism, we are happy to be called communalists," Madhav said yesterday at an event to discuss the party's victory in Assam Assembly polls, "The Assam Triumph".

The government, last year, had decided on humanitarian consideration to exempt Bangladeshi and Pakistani nationals belonging to minority communities who have entered India on or before December 31, 2014, in respect of their entry and stay in India without proper documents or after the expiry of relevant documents.

He said borders in Assam will be sealed and constitutional steps will be taken to check infiltration.

Infrastructure is a priority for the North-East, and in this direction, Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari has allocated Rs one lakh crore for building roads in the region, he said.

"In last two yeas, the condition of roads in the North-East has improved tremendously," he said.

Madhav said the North-East is a gateway to South-East Asia, a region that is of strategic importance to India and the Centre's 'Look East Policy'.

"Assam has as many as five countries as neighbours and its development will contribute significantly to 'Look East Policy'," he said.

By developing North-East and providing infrastructure to connect to South-East Asia, the potential for trade and connectivity will increase phenomenally, Madhav said.

"This connectivity will transform North East India. Already, there is increased connectivity between India and Bangladesh, thanks to initiatives of the Narendra Modi government," he said.

Talking about the problem of infiltrators, Madhav said by 2016-end, the government is committed to fence the entire Indo-Bangladesh border and implement joint patrolling by the two nations.

BJP's victory in Assam polls has opened doors of the North-East for nationalist forces, which hitherto was unheard of. "Until now, the North East was inaccessible to nationalist forces but through the grand entry into Assam, access to the entire region is now possible," he said.
India is making all efforts to secure the release of two Indians abducted from Gboko, a town in the Benue state of north-central Nigeria, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said today.

The Minister also thanked Indian envoy in Abuja for repatriation of 11 Indians, who were released after languishing in a Nigerian jail for two years.

"I appreciate the efforts of our High Commissioner in Shri B N Reddy for expediting their repatriation," Swaraj tweeted.

Employees of a Merchant Navy firm, the crew's ship got stranded in and the entire crew was arrested for violating laws of international waters in 2014.

Meanwhile, Swaraj said all efforts were being made to secure the release of the two Indians abducted in .

The duo -- Mangipudi Sai Srinivas (from Andhara Pradesh) and his colleague Anish Sharma (from Karnataka) -- were travelling to Dangote Cement Plc Plant in a car from their residential quarters around 7.20 pm last Wednesday when a group of armed men kidnapped them at a traffic signal.

"I spoke to Anish Sharma's wife this morning. I assured her that we are doing our best to secure Anish and Srinivas's release from abductors in Nigeria," Swaraj said.

"I have deputed a senior officer to update the family regularly," she tweeted.

External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup had on Friday described the abduction as "nothing surprising or new in that area", saying such incidents keep happening there.

Asserting that there has been no ransom demand so far, the Spokesperson had said, "As far as our information goes there is no hand of terror group Boko Haram and it seems local criminal elements were responsible for the act.
A man from Chicago has agreed to plead guilty to hacking into the Apple iCloud and Gmail accounts of over 300 people, including the accounts of 30 celebrities, federal prosecutors said.

Edward Majerczyk, 28, faces up to five years in prison, though the plea agreement anticipates a sentence in the range of six to 12 months, reported Variety.

The case is the second to arise from "Celebgate," the 2014 hacking scandal in which intimate photos of numerous celebrities were posted online.

In March, federal authorities announced that Ryan Collins, 36, of Pennsylvania, had agreed to plead guilty to hacking into the accounts of 100 people, including some celebrities, and downloading nude photos and videos.

However, prosecutors have said they have no evidence that either Collins nor Majerczyk posted the hacked material online.

The investigation is still ongoing, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman with the US Attorney's Office in Los Angeles.

Though the charges against both men are very similar, Collins and Majerczyk were apparently operating independently, Mrozek said.

Each is accused of using a phishing scam to obtain usernames and passwords from his victims. According to the plea agreement, Majerczyk would send emails from accounts like "appleprivacysecurity@icloud.Com" or



"appleprivacy@icloud.Com."



Thinking the emails were legitimate, the victims would click on the links and type in their usernames and passwords.

Majercyzk would then use that information to access the victims' iCloud and Gmail accounts and download "sensitive and private photographs and videos," according to the plea.

Majercyzk was charged by prosecutors in Los Angeles, but the case will be transferred to Illinois for the entering of the plea and sentencing, which are expected within the next few weeks. Collins has also not yet been sentenced, though prosecutors recommended a term of 18 months in prison.

As many as 100 celebrities, including Jennifer Lawrence, Kirsten Dunst and Kate Upton, were targeted in the massive leak of photos in September 2014.
Mines Ministry will tomorrow take up the issue of threshold limit value (TLV) on beach sand minerals or heavy minerals, which the mining industry says can adversely impact the companies if implemented.

"Mines Ministry will take up the issue of TLV on beach sand minerals (BSM) with the industry over the demand that it has made on the provisions of the draft Atomic Mineral Concession Rules 2016 at the national mines and minerals conclave in Raipur tomorrow," a senior government official said.

The draft rules proposes to reserve all BSM deposits containing more than 0.75 per cent monazite in the THM (Total Heavy Minerals) for government-owned corporations. Even for already operating mines, if it is found that the monazite content is above the fixed TLV, the lease will be terminated.

An official with a private miner said: "This provision will reserve almost more than 75 per cent of the explored reserves to government sector, which will have a huge adverse impact on the BSM industry and the BSM mining situation will go back by twenty years, reverting the production to reserve ratio to 0.001 per cent prevalent in the 1990s."



The industry is demanding that the TLV may be fixed as 5 per cent in THM or 2 per cent in the deposit and the termination clause be totally removed. If required, suitable safeguards may be implemented by Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), like having a conservation policy for monazite.

Beach sand mining generally includes ilmenite, rutile, zircon, garnet, monazite, leucoxene and sillimanite.

Most of these minerals occur together but their individual contents varying from deposit to deposit, with the major mineral in most deposits being ilmenite.

The government has earlier said that five states -- Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Maharashtra, Kerala and Tamil Nadu -- have heavy minerals worth Rs 65,000 crore which are available on the coastline and can be extracted provided the industry complies with the norms including those relating to the Coastal Regulatory Zones (CRZ).

BSM industry is also demanding a separate policy for monazite production and processing to utilise the rare earths available in monazite, so that India can be a major player in the field of rare earths, the company official said.

Monazite, a mineral of Thorium and Rare Earth Element (REE), is the only commercial source of Rare Earths in the country at present. Private sector is not allowed to mine monazite.

Presently, Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research (AMDER), part of the DAE, carries out exploration, establishment and development of atomic minerals in the country, including Monazite.

Indian Rare Earths, a PSU controlled by DAE, processes Monazite at its Rare Earths Division in Kerala. IREL has been processing Monazite to produce Rare Earths compounds, but in 2004 this was stopped due to lack of market, as materials became available at a much lower cost.
In a major rejig of portfolios by inducting new faces and dropping veterans from the Cabinet, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister has rewarded those close to him with important ministries like Home, Industries, Water Resources, while downsized those who tried to flex muscles.

After formation of the new Cabinet, Chouhan took over two days to decide on the vexed issue of allocating portfolios.

The portfolios were allocated after 10 PM last night. There is, however, no word on the constitution of the novel Ministry of Happiness, which the CM had announced earlier.

Chouhan gave a free hand to Ministers of State by giving them independent charge of few departments, something never done by any of his predecessors before.

Ministers known to be close to him like Bhupendra Singh was given the important Home Ministry, while government's trouble shooter, Narottam Mishra was rewarded with the Water Resources and Public Relations portfolios.

Chouhan also raised the stature of Rajendra Shukla by allocating him Industries Ministry, just ahead of the mega event, Global Investors Meet.

Besides, Singh will continue to retain Transport Ministry while Mishra, Parliamentary Affairs.

The chief minister also rewarded his trusted minister, Rampal Singh with the Public Works Department.

Balancing power between the erstwhile royal family of Gwalior, Chouhan took away Industries from Yashodhara Raje Scindia but rewarded another member of the family, Maya Singh with an all important Urban Administration and Development department, which is mandated to implement Smart Cities and Metro Rail projects in the state.

Similarly, he cut to size Uma Shankar Gupta by taking away Higher Education Department from him and allocated it to Jaibhan Singh Pawaiya, a strongman in the Gwalior region known to challenge the supremacy of the Scindias.

Pawaiya was also given the charge of Public Service



Management and Public Grievances departments.

The chief minister allocated School Education department to Vijay Shah by taking away Food and Civil Supplies Ministry from him. Paras Jain, who was heading School Education department, was given the charge to head the crucial Energy Ministry.

Newly inducted Rustam Singh was allocated Public Health and Family Welfare, while Archana Chitnis was given the charge of Women and Child Development.

All nine Ministers of State were given Independent charge of at least one department, including five newly inducted ones, an experiment which is probably done for the first time in the state.

The newly inducted Ministers of State are Vishwas Sarang, Sanjay Pathak, Suryaprakash Meena, Lalita Yadav and Harsh Singh.

On the issue of the much-talked about Ministry of Happiness, to be formed on the lines of Bhutan, a top government official clarified that it will be constituted once the Cabinet approves it and a notification for its creation is issued.

The Chouhan dispensation now has 20 cabinet ministers and nine Ministers of State. Under the rules, the State Cabinet can have a maximum strength of 33.

Chouhan had sprung a surprise by dropping powerful Ministers like Babulal Gaur (85) and Sartaj Singh (76) by implementing the formula of 'old age' in the cabinet expansion that was done a little over two years after the Chouhan-led government took charge of the office for the third-term.
Crime Branch officials were left startled when an unusual message flashed on their online help service 'Crime Watch', which was sent by a farmer seeking their help in tracing his stolen buffalo.

"A farmer from Shajapur district sent a message yesterday night on our online help service 'Crime Watch' that his buffalo has been stolen. District police have arrested the thief but the bovine remains untraced," Crime Branch Police Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Vinayprakash Paul said today.

The farmer wrote, "Saheb, you are a big name, help me to get back my buffalo," the ASP said.

We asked the farmer, whose name is being withheld, to pass on the information, if any, on the place where his buffalo might have been kept, Paul said, they are working with Shajapur police to trace the bovine.

The ASP said "Crime Watch" linked to whatsapp, facebook, twitter was launched in November 2015 to check crime.

The service has paid off and names of those who pass on information are kept secret, he added.
A Muslim doctor in the US was today shot at twice by some unidentified assailants here while he was on his way to a Mosque for offering morning prayers.

After parking his car, the victim was waylaid by three suspects. One of the assailants whipped out his gun and shot the doctor near the Mosque, authorities said.

According to Houston Police Department, the man was shot twice and was rushed to a nearby hospital. His condition was not immediately known.

Police have launched an investigation and prima facie, they suspect it to be an attempted robbery, and not a hate crime.

Mosque spokesperson Mohammed Imaduddin said that the victim was ambushed by three persons.

Police said there is no indication that the attack was a hate crime, but its proximity to the Mosque has made some people worried.

The incident comes a day after another Muslim manwas beaten outside of a Mosque in Florida.

Though Houston Police said that the incident appeared to be a robbery attempt and not a hate crime, violence and threats against Muslims have increased in the months since the terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino.
On the eve of his 60th birthday, Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar ruled out retirement from politics, saying this was the "right time" he could use his experience.

"As a teacher I would have retired at 60, but in politics when you reach that age, the kind of experience you get at the end of life-long churning fills you with the different level of maturity," the teacher-turned-politician told PTI today.

After having such an experience, every minute of life counts, he said.

"This is the right time to use my experience," the CM of Goa, where Assembly polls are due next year, said when asked he if had any retirement plans.

Parsekar said he would continue to serve people be it through politics or social work.

"In last few years, I had to neglect my educational institute. When the time comes for me to quit politics, I will be working for the people through my educational institute," said Parsekar, who owns a school and a college at his native village in Mandrem constituency (North Goa).

The BJP leader, who took over the reigns from his predecessor and now Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar in 2014, said, "During my current tenure, I never spoke without thinking. I was not perfect in all the subjects but wherever I lacked knowledge, I have tried to understand the subject and took the decision."



Responding to a query, the CM said he had been dragged into unnecessary controversies by media which "misinterpreted" his comments.

"There are times when I speak 10 sentences but only one sentence is selectively picked up and controversy is created misinterpreting everything," he said.

Parsekar had last month courted a row over his comments on Nigerians amid incidents of attack on people of African-origin in Delhi, saying people are angry in general with Nigerians because of their "different attitude".

Recently, RSS Goa unit chief Subhash Velingkar resigned from the committee formed to celebrate Parsekar's birthday, saying the CM has "betrayed" Goans over the issue of the Medium of Instruction in schools.

Parsekar was also in a spot over reinstatement of his graft-accused brother-in-law Dilip Malvankar, attached to Goa State Industrial Development Corporation.

He also dismissed reports that suggested he has been defending Malvanakar, who was arrested last year for allegedly accepting bribe for land allotment and reinstated subsequently.

"When there was allegation against my relative, I ordered his suspension. During suspension you get payment without any work. He has been taken (back) in service after nine months of his suspension. His reinstatement does not mean he is cleared of the charges by Anti Corruption Bureau," Parsekar said.

He said there are "many instances" where suspensions are revoked after three or six months. "He (Malvankar) should not get advantage as my relative but he should also not be disadvantaged for that," Parsekar added.
Students can now opt for courses in animal welfare sciences at the prestigious Jawahar Lal Nehru University from this academic session, with the varsity taking over the operations and academic activities of National Institute of Animal Welfare.

"We have signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) for the transfer of operations and management of academic activities of the National Institute of Animal Welfare," a senior university official said.

The National Institute of Animal Welfare was earlier managed by the Environment Ministry.

The memorandum was signed on June 29 by JNU Vice Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar and Joint Secretary, Environment Ministry Anil Sant.

The agreement allows JNU to venture into animal welfare with six 1-month certification courses and one 6-month diploma course, beginning this academic session, and also to start a master's course after one year.

"Courses based purely on various aspects of animal welfare will be conducted for the first time in the country. To recognise animals as sentient beings, capable of experiencing pain and suffering and to promote their welfare is an issue of importance and a part of the social development of nations worldwide," the official added.
About one in every nine men, and one in 30 women in the US may experience sudden cardiac death, most before age 70, scientists including one of Indian origin have found.

Sudden cardiac death claims up to 450,000 American lives each year, according to a new study and most commonly occurs in people with no prior symptoms of cardiovascular disease.

The study offers the first lifetime risk estimates for sudden cardiac death.

"We often screen for conditions that are less common and much less deadly than sudden cardiac death," said Donald Lloyd-Jones, from the Northwestern University in the US.

"The lifetime risk of sudden cardiac death for men is one in nine, and yet we're not really screening for it," he said.

Researchers, including Sanjay Mehrotra from Northwestern University, examined long-term data on more than 5,200 men and women aged 28 to 62 who were free of cardiovascular disease at the time of their enrolment in the Framingham Heart Study, a decades-long cardiovascular study.

Focusing on four major risk factors - blood pressure, total cholesterol, smoking, and diabetes - researchers calculated overall cumulative lifetime risk estimates for sudden cardiac death, and estimates according to risk factor burden.

Researchers found that sudden cardiac death occurred in 375 people during follow up, and the death risk was greater for men than women - with an overall 10.9 per cent lifetime risk among all men at age 45 (roughly one in nine men) and a 2.8 per cent lifetime risk of among all women at age 45 (or about one in 30 women);



They also found that men with two or more major risk factors at all ages had even higher lifetime risks of sudden cardiac death, at least 12 per cent (over one in eight men).

High blood pressure alone or a combination of other cardiovascular risk factors was linked to higher lifetime risk of sudden cardiac death, researchers said.

Although sudden cardiac death is a leading cause of death in the US, the previous methods for predicting its risk in a person's lifetime have been partly successful, missing many people who ultimately succumb to it, researchers said.

"Sudden cardiac death has been very hard to study because most patients had no history of heart problems and were not being monitored at the time of their death," Lloyd-Jones said.

"The majority of all cases occur before age 70; this is obviously sudden and devastating for families, with a burden that can be quite severe," he said.

"Our paper sets the stage for thinking about how we can screen the population effectively to find out who's at risk," he said.

The Framingham Heart Study provides robust data due to its large number of well-characterised participants and long follow-up time, but because all the participants were Caucasian, the results cannot necessarily be applied in other races or ethnic groups, researchers said.

The study was published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Senior European political figures appealed today for the EU to set aside lofty debate as it struggles with Brexit-style populism, and instead to focus on measures which clearly benefit citizens.

Leading the charge, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble -- a linchpin of the Berlin coalition government -- scorned "political sermons," institutional reform and changes to EU treaties as proposed fixes for Europe's faultlines.

"This is not a time for grand visions," the 73-year-old veteran minister, long a passionate supporter of the European project, told Welt am Sonntag weekly.

"The situation is so serious that we have to stop playing the usual European and Brussels games," Schaeuble said.

"The EU is facing an acid test, perhaps the greatest in its history."



Schaeuble, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said the EU had to work "with speed and pragmatism" to unlock growth and thus create jobs.

He sketched initiatives from a common energy policy to job training to harmonising national defence procurements.

The CDU's coalition partners, the Social Democrats, meanwhile stressed strengthening the safety net for the poor or unemployed -- two big factors in the perceived collapse of confidence in the EU.

The goal must be to "not only create competition but also social security," said Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, describing the crisis in Greece as a pointer of a possible north-south split in Europe.

In the southern French town of Aix-en-Provence, the European commissioner for economic policy, Pierre Moscovici, called for "strong initiatives... To reinvent Europe."



"Status quo cannot be a reply to Brexit," he said, referring to the June 23 referendum in which a majority of Britons voted to leave the EU.

The vote dealt a body-blow to European federalists, who want the bloc's states to come into an ever-tighter embrace.

Critics of federalism argue many citizens are hostile to Euro-centralism. They contend Brussels is not addressing concerns about jobs, living standards and migration.

Moscovici threw his weight behind widening and extending the so-called Juncker Plan -- a scheme named after European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker which uses EU funds as a lever for investment in areas such as energy, infrastructure and research.
President Pranab Mukherjee today extended greetings to the US President Barack Obama on the eve of his country's Independence Day and said the recent high-level contacts between the two countries have brought them closer to realizing the true potential of a multi-faceted partnership.

In his message to Obama, Mukherjee said it was a matter of satisfaction that the "close relations between India and the US are based on shared values of democracy, pluralism and rule of law and strengthened by our increasing convergence on bilateral, regional and global issues.

"Over the years, we have built on our numerous synergies to achieve the common goals identified by us for the good of our two peoples and peace, progress and prosperity in the world."



He said the recent high-level interactions have helped enhance mutual understanding and brought the two countries "closer to realizing the true potential of our multi-faceted partnership.

"I am confident that the positive outcomes of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi's recent visit to the US will contribute to the further strengthening of our strategic partnership," he said while extending greetings on behalf of India.
US-backed rebels today accused Al-Qaeda-linked fighters of storming their headquarters in northwestern Syria and kidnapping their commander and dozens of other combattants.

In an online statement, Jaish al-Tahrir (Liberation Army) said its commander, Mohammad al-Ghabi, was abducted from his father's home in the town of Kafranbel by Al-Nusra Front jihadists yesterday evening.

It said Al-Nusra fighters also "kidnapped more than 40 members of Jaish al-Tahrir" and stole weapons from other bases and checkpoints set up in northwestern Syria.

"We call on Al-Nusra Front to immediately release our commander and all the others who were kidnapped," the statement said, urging other Islamist groups to put pressure on the jihadists.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the incident and said the US had supported Jaish al-Tahrir with weapons and even salaries in the past.

Al-Nusra has attacked several US-backed groups in northwestern Idlib province -- most recently raiding the warehouses of Division 13 in the town of Maarat al-Numan in March.

And in the summer of 2015, it kidnapped several members of US-trained rebel group Division 30.

Idlib province is controlled by the Army of Conquest, an alliance of Islamist and rebel fighters led by Al-Nusra and hardline group Ahrar al-Sham.

Residents of towns like Maarat al-Numan and Kafranbel have demonstrated against Al-Nusra's jihadist ideology.

Syria's five-year conflict began with anti-government demonstrations before turning into a complex war increasingly dominated by extremist groups.

More than 280,000 people have been killed and millions have been forced to flee their homes since March 2011.
This is the latest in a new series of letters home from a local Marine getting ready to be deployed to the Republic of Georgia to train the Georgian army for their mission in Afghanistan:

It was a hot week and fairly uneventful. We continued with training, this time platoon level live fire and maneuver ranges.

My air conditioning skills were utilized. I spend the majority of the week fixing air conditioners in the Georgian part of the camp.

The last time there was any scheduled maintenance done to the majority of the camp was prior to 2008. The camp that I am on was built by KBR (Kellogg, Brown and Root), a defense contracting company that constructed and maintained a lot of the bases built in the last 15 years.

In 2008, the Russian incursion into Georgia precipitated the pull out of KBR. At that time, the camp was turned over to the Georgians. They are now responsible for the maintenance of the camp.

Due to a lack of funds, along with a logistics apparatus that is still in its infancy, there are many things that have fallen by the way. I have been teaching the Georgian troops that are part of the training staff how to do the job so they are not reliant on an outside agency. My hope is that by the time I am gone, they are able to use the tools and knowledge I leave behind.

Cleaning up

On Sunday we went out to the Markopi House, a home for developmentally disabled people, to donate our time and labor. I mentioned in a previous letter that we were there doing lawn and yard maintenance.

The building they have was built by American funds about eight years ago. It was a project that partnered USAID and the Defense Department section in the embassy. It is sitting on about five acres that are becoming overrun with bushes and weeds.

We went there to help clean it up. The reason cleaning up around the compound is important is the prevalence of poisonous snakes in the country.

Keeping the weeds and brush down keeps the snake population away and limits the possibility of snake bites. This was our third and final time we will be there until we pass the responsibility on to our replacements.

We had sent a group of Marines and Georgian soldiers to Afghanistan to do a pre deployment survey. By sending them there before the training is complete, we are able to change our training if necessary, to ensure that it matches the reality on the ground. They are now back and we are moving on to our final months of training.

This series began in the March 20 edition of The Dunn County News and can also be found at www.dunnconnect.com
Chief negotiators of 16 countries, including those from India and China, will meet on July 18-19 in Jakarta to discuss tariff-related issues in the goods sector.

In the meeting, India will make a pitch for continuation of the three-tier system of tariff or tax elimination for member countries as a few countries favour only one tier, an official said.

The official added that some, including China, are pushing to increase the number of products that will attract zero duty.

"The meeting is crucial as members have to finalise the contours before the trade ministers meet in August. India may increase the number of products, but would not go for zero duty on those. It will propose to reduce taxes on those incremental goods," the official said.

India has decided to offer maximum access to its market for ASEAN countries -- with which it has a free trade agreement in place -- and has proposed to eliminate duties or tariffs on 80 per cent of items for the 10-nation bloc under this proposed pact.

Similarly, for Japan and South Korea, it has offered to open up 65 per cent of its product space.

For Australia, New Zealand and China, Delhi has proposed to eliminate duties on only 42.5 per cent of products as India does not have any kind of FTA with them.

In the recently-concluded negotiations for the mega trade deal - RCEP - in Auckland, a few members raised concerns about the three-tier system. The next round of talks is scheduled to be held in Vietnam.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a mega trade deal which aims to cover goods, services, investments, economic and technical cooperation, competition and intellectual property rights.

The talks for the pact started in Phnom Penh in November 2012. The 16 countries account for over a quarter of the world's economy, estimated to be more than USD 75 trillion.

India already has FTAs with the ASEAN grouping, Japan and South Korea.

The 16-member bloc RCEP comprises 10 ASEAN members (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Laos and Vietnam) and their six FTA partners - India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
Myanmar's bitterly-divided Rakhine State saw mass protests today as thousands of Buddhists, including monks, demonstrated in a show of opposition to a government edict referring to Muslim communities in the restive province, organisers said.

Anti-Muslim rhetoric has spiked across Myanmar recently, with two mosques torched by Buddhist mobs in just over a week in a country where sectarian violence has left scores dead since 2012.

Home to around one million stateless Rohingya Muslims, Rakhine State has been hardest hit by religious violence that has left tens of thousands of the persecuted minority in fetid displacement camps.

The Rohingya are reviled by Rakhine Buddhists who refuse to recognise any shared rights to the province and instead call them "Bengalis" -- or illegal immigrants from nearby Bangladesh.

Aung San Suu Kyi's new government has sought to defuse the row over the term Rohingya instead ordering officials to refer to "Muslim communities in Rakhine".

But protesters today said that too was unacceptable as it hands Muslims recognition in a Buddhist state.

"We reject the term 'Muslim communities in Rakhine State'," Kyawt Sein, protest organiser in Sittwe, told AFP, adding more than 1,000 people, including monks, had joined the rally in the state capital.

Rally-goers there shouted slogans including 'Protect Rakhine State,' while a protest in the town of Thandwe drew similar numbers.

"Bengalis should be called Bengalis," Phoe Thar Lay,a leader of a local Rakhine youth group told AFP, adding that 17 townships across Rakhine were participating in protests on today afternoon.

Most Rohingya live cut off from the Buddhist community in displacement camps or remote settlements since sectarian riots tore Rakhine apart in 2012.

Persecution and poverty have forced tens of thousands to flee by sea, but the dangerous trafficking route south through the Bay of Bengal was closed late last year during a Thai crackdown on people smuggling.

Suu Kyi, a veteran democracy activist who championed her country's struggle against repressive military rulers, has drawn criticism from rights groups for not taking up the cause of the Rohingya.

Instead she has carefully sought to sidestep controversy, urging the international community to give the country "space" to unpick its sectarian problems.

The Rohingya are not recognised by the government as an official ethnic minority.
Family members of a 44-year-old woman, who died in a road accident involving a rashly-driven vehicle, have been awarded Rs 19.57 lakh compensation by a Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) here.

MACT Presiding Officer Raj Paul Singh Teji directed National Insurance Company Ltd, insurer of the offending tractor, to pay a compensation of Rs 19,57,958 to the family members of victim Saroja Bala, who suffered fatal injuries in the December 23, 2013 mishap.

"It is clear that respondent no 1 (driver) was driving the vehicle in rash and negligent manner and caused fatal injury to the deceased," the tribunal said.

According to the complaint, on December 23, 2013, the victim, a homemaker, lost her life after being hit by the rashly and negligently driven tractor-trolley while she was going to her daughter's school along with her husband.

The complaint, filed by family members of the deceased, had claimed Rs 30 lakh compensation.

The driver and the owner of the vehicle, however, denied the allegations leveled against them.
Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal today hit out at the ruling SAD-BJP combine, alleging they were feeling "jittery" as AAP would sweep the 2017 Punjab assembly polls and have stooped to hatch a "conspiracy" to defame the party.

Kejriwal, who released a youth manifesto, also quoted a survey claiming it showed that AAP would win 100 out of 117 assembly seats in the state polls.

"Seven months are left for Punjab polls and the Badals have started playing a dirty game. It becomes necessary to tell people how low the SAD-BJP government can stoop," he said addressing a public meeting here this evening during his three-day tour to the state.

Referring to one of the arrested accused in the sacrilege incident in Malerkotla on June 24, the Delhi Chief Minister claimed that Punjab government (police) had earlier said he belonged to Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).

"Punjab government had said Vijay Garg belonged to VHP. They continued to maintain that he belonged to VHP till July 1. But on July 2, they said he did it (act of sacrilege) at the behest of AAP. Why? Because Kejriwal was to visit Punjab on July 3," he said.

"All in Punjab know that AAP is going to win (polls) in the state and win with a good majority," he said, adding, "The Badal government is on its way out."



"Now they will indulge in such dirty tricks...A big conspiracy has been hatched and now they are trying to implicate AAP in this," he said.

Without naming any party, Kejriwal said, "Everyone knows that there is only one party in entire India whose politics is based on religion. And to defame us, they have hatched this conspiracy."



"They threw ink on me, slapped me, but I remained silent. But I want to tell them that if you desecrate holy Guru Granth Sahib, holy Quran and other religious scriptures, then we will give them a befitting reply. People will not tolerate it. People will not tolerate this conspiracy," he said.

"I am pained that to defame us, they indulged in desecration of religious books. If they wanted to defame us, they could have done anything else," he said.

Punjab Police have booked AAP MLA Naresh Yadav in connection with the alleged sacrilege incident in Malerkotla.

"Who is Vijay? He is a puppet. When our AAP government is formed, we shall send those people to jail who were behind Vijay," he said.

"Those who desecrated Quran and Guru Granth Sahib (last



year) will be punished once our party forms government," he said.

Kejriwal said a true Hindu is one who respects other religions like he respects his own.

"I want to appeal all Punjab police officers that they must listen to their conscience and work according to that... Don't listen to Badals, they are on their way out," he said.

"Rumours are being spread that if AAP comes to power, it will stop welfare schemes like Atta Dal. But I want to tell people that whatever poor of Punjab are getting, that will continue and I also want to assure that nothing of that sort will happen as is being speculated. In fact, more will be given to the poor and weaker sections," he said.

"It is also being said farmers' power subsidy will be withdrawn, this is also untrue. Farmers will be given more subsidy," he said.

Another rumour being circulated is that reservation will be discontinued. "In fact it is BJP which is against reservation and not AAP," he claimed.

Kejriwal accused SAD, BJP and Congress of joining hands to not allow AAP to win the upcoming assembly polls.

"A meeting between top leaders of BJP and Congress took place. And they have decided that BJP, Congress and Akali Dal should join hands to contest polls so that AAP does not form the government," he claimed.

Notwithstanding the Election Commission's warning during last year's Delhi Assembly polls, he asked people to accept money from BJP, Congress and SAD during the polls but vote only for AAP.

"Some people are saying that Akalis are distributing money to buy votes. They will come to you. You take money from them. Don't refuse. This is your money. You also take money from Congress and BJP. But you vote only for AAP," he said.

The poll panel had taken a serious view of Kejriwal's comments and asked him to desist from repeating it failing which it had warned of action.

Kejriwal said earlier he was of the opinion that he



should not bring up the sacrilege incident on the occasion of the release of AAP's youth manifesto.

"But then I thought it was extremely important to expose the obnoxious face of SAD-BJP government which wanted to derail my visit over the desecration incident," he said.

After coming to power AAP would put Akali minister Bikram Singh Majithia in jail in a month and break the entire supply chain of the drugs and the mafia in the state, he said.

The opposition has been accusing Majithia of patronising drug trade in Punjab, a charge he has persistently rejected.

Meanwhile, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) General Secretary and Revenue Minister Majithia asked Kejriwal to "worry about himself rather than building castles in the air as to what he would do to others if he ever came to power in Punjab".

"Your days in power in Delhi are numbered with your lies and deceitful ways catching up with you. Your government is losing MLAs on a daily basis and it is very much possible that you might not even be chief minister of Delhi after three months as the people are fed up with you," Majithia said in a statement.

Kejriwal and his supporters today had to face some resistance from unidentified Sikhs in the Golden Temple complex.

They had gone there to pay obeisance when unidentified Sikh youths raised anti-Kejriwal slogans and threw pamphlets titled 'Mister Kejriwal tu Sikhan da doshi hain' (Kejriwal, you are an enemy of the Sikh community) which held him responsible for demolition of a historic 'piao' (water kiosk) at Gurdwara Sis Ganj Sahib in Delhi.

The pamphlet also compared Kejriwal with former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, saying the community will never forgive "anti-Sikh" people.

Kejriwal also paid obeisance at the Durgiana Temple where he was honoured by the temple committee members.

During his three-day Punjab visit, Kejriwal will visit Gurdaspur, Jalandhar and Malerkotla where he is expected to meet different sections of the society, an AAP leader said.

Kejriwal will go to Ludhiana and Khanna where he will meet traders and industry people and listen to their concerns, he said.

After Delhi, AAP is eyeing to win the high-stakes state assembly polls with party leaders exuding confidence that it would repeat the "history of Delhi's victory" in Punjab.
A Saudi-funded mosque in Nice has opened its doors for the first time after a 15-year tussle with the local town hall.

The Nicois En-nour Institute mosque received authorisation to open early yesterday from the local prefect, substituting for town mayor Philippe Pradal, who recently took over from Christian Estrosi.

Estrosi was implacably opposed to the construction of the mosque and in April had secured the green light to sue the French state in a bid to block its opening in the southern city.

He had accused the building's owner, Saudi Arabia's Islamic Affairs Minister Sheikh Saleh bin Abdulaziz, of "advocating sharia" and wanting to "destroy all of the churches on the Arabian peninsula".

Estrosi, mayor since 2008, said that the project which was initiated under his predecessor in 2002 was unauthorised.

However the mosque's opening was described as "a real joy," by Ouassini Mebarek, lawyer and head of a local religious association.

"But there is no smug triumphalism," he told AFP. "This is recognition of the law, and a right to freely practise one's religion in France in accordance with the values of French Republic".

Ten Muslim faithful entered the mosque's basement, which can hold 880 worshippers, for evening prayers.

"A Muslim prefers the house of god to his own home, provided it is beautiful," said Abdelaziz, one of the worshippers who came to pray with his son Mohamed.

In the room reserved for women Amaria, a mother from neighbouring Moulins said: "Today we are happy. Happy and relieved to have found this place.... We are tired of hiding ourselves, we aren't mice!"



The construction of the Mosque began in 2003 in a building in an office district.
BSF shot dead an alleged Indian smuggler at Durlavpur in Sipahijala district, about 50 km from here.

"A group of suspected smugglers set up a temporary bridge on the barbed wire fencing at Durlavpur and allegedly tried to smuggle motor bikes last evening. When jawans patrolling along the border challenged them, the group attacked the personnel with knives," BSF Commandant Amitav Roy said.

BSF then opened fire killing one suspected smuggler while others fled the area, the BSF Commandant added.

The slain Indian national was identified as Prasenjit Das.

Sub divisional Police officer Babul Das said Prasenjit Das was taken to the nearby Jatrapur hospital, where the attending doctors declared him brought dead.
People should accept those who choose to have children through IVF and surrogacy if they are not breaking rules or harming the society, says a noted Mumbai-based fertility expert.

She also revealed that scientists are working on developing stem cells-related technologies where procreation in humans could happen without intercourse.

Dr Firuza Parikh, Director, Department of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics at Mumbai's Jaslok Hospital told PTI here that people should accept those who choose to have children through in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and surrogacy, as done by a Bollywood actor recently, till they do not break rules or harm the society.

"Everybody has a right to procreation. If the person is not breaking any rules, he or she is not harming society in any way. All of us have our biological needs. It should be fulfilled. As doctors, we are non-judgemental. But, if we can help somebody achieve happiness without breaking laws, then society should be large-hearted to accept such people into their fold," she said.

Parikh said the trend of people opting to be single parents in the present day society due to a variety of reasons like focusing on careers and divorce, is gathering momentum.

"We already have single parents. We have so many women who are single and have opted for it. The reason why more and more people are opting for it is perhaps they don't want to get married or they are divorced or perhaps they are independent and have the ability to look after," she said.

Single parents also have the support of extended family and are now bold enough to take the decision of being a single parent, Parikh said.

Notably, Bollywood actor Tusshar Kapoor recently became a single father of a baby boy who was born through in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and surrogacy.

On new researches in the field of fertility, Parikh said, "...People are working on creating (identifying) stem cells which will be able to be converted into egg cells and sperm cells."



The scenario may become a reality in another 10 or 15 years, she said.

She also expressed her views that women who do not wish to have children at an early age should freeze their eggs before it is too late.
Condemning bomb blasts in Baghdad in which at least 80 people were killed, Congress President Sonia Gandhi today expressed her condolences to the families of those who lost their lives and called for the world to "unite to fight and defeat forces of extremism".

"Sonia Gandhi has condemned bomb blasts in Baghdad which killed 80 innocent people. The past week has been terrible for humanity," a statement released by her office said.

Around 80 people were killed in a terror attack in Iraq's capital city of Baghdad today, while in Bangladesh, 20 people were killed, including a young Indian woman, in a terrorist attack at a restaurant in its capital Dhaka.
The Staff Selection Commission (SSC) has decided to conduct its flagship Combined Graduate Level Examination (CGLE) online to check malpractices and make the test more transparent.

Besides, the Commission has also changed the pattern of the examination and included descriptive portion (essay writing) in it for the first time.

Hundreds of students are selected through the CGLE every year for various mid-level central government jobs, including as Assistant in Intelligence Bureau and Inspector in Income Tax.

"It has been decided to conduct the CGLE through online mode rather than Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) based. It is a historic decision that will bring in more transparency in the examination process," SSC Chairman Ashim Khurana said.

He said a video walk through on the SSC's website has been put up to help the aspirants understand the new pattern.

About 38 lakh aspirants, who had already applied for CGLE 2016, will have to take the test under the new pattern which will be conducted in the next two months.

"A notice mentioning the changes in pattern of examination has been issued. The new online system will effectively put a check on any incident of leakage of exam paper or tampering with the examination process," Khurana told PTI.

He said the Commission is getting positive feedback from the students across the country on the recently announced changes.

The decision to hold the CGLE online was endorsed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi also, senior officials in Personnel Ministry said.

The SSC is one of the largest recruiting agencies in the country mandated to conduct eight exams. It will fill about 89,000 government posts this year alone from among about two crore applicants.

The Commission's flagship CGLE is for filling vacancies in 30 different services in the central government.

There will be no fresh application for CGLE 2016 and those who have already applied will have to take the exam on computer rather than OMR mode, which was prone to malpractices by tech-savvy syndicates, the officials said.

The computer-based examination will ensure greater confidentiality and faster processing of results, they said.

The SSC has for the first time been authorised to make recruitment for gazetted posts of Indian Audit and Accounts department.

As per the changed pattern, the CGLE will now be conducted in three tiers instead of two.

In phase I, there will be 100 questions as against 200 earlier. The aspirants will get 1.15 hours instead of two. There will be no change in tier II and two papers of 200 marks each would continue. Those who qualify in both tier I and II, will have to take tier III exam of 100 marks which will be descriptive in nature, the officials said.

They said the descriptive portion will help in checking candidates' comprehension and analytical skills.
Amid tight security, Ramkumar, arrested in connection with the sensational murder of a woman IT professional here last week, was today taken to Chennai in an ambulance and will be produced in a court.

On Friday night, he had attempted suicide by slashing his neck to evade arrest when surrounded by police following which he was under going treatment at a hospital here.

A special probe team led by Assistant Police Commissioner, Nungambakkam, K P S Devaraj, Armed Reserve Police personnel of the district and a team of medicos are accompanying the ambulance.

Earlier, Tirunelveli First Judicial Magistrate Ramadoss visited Ramkumar at government medical college hospital here as there were some hiccups in producing him before the court.

After recording the case details, on a plea of police, the magistrate gave them authorisation to take the 24-year-old engineering graduate to Chennai with police security and medical personnel.

He directed that the accused be produced before a metropolitan magistrate court in Chennai.

Ramkumar was rushed to a local hospital after he slashed his neck, where he was given first aid and later shifted to the medical college hospital here.

24-year-old Swathi, employed with software giant Infosys, was hacked to death around 6.30 AM on June 24 while waiting to board a train at Nungambakkam Railway Station to her workplace on the city outskirts.

Ramkumar allegedly killed her after she resisted his efforts to befriend her. He had also reportedly told Swathi that he was in love with her, which she rejected.

(Reopens MDS4)



A day after Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa lauded Chennai Police Commissioner T K Rajendran for apprehending the alleged murderer Ram Kumar, DMK patriarch Karunanidhi praised the police officials for the same.

"I had condemned the police when Swathi was killed. Now, I laud the police officials for zeroing in on the culprit," he said.

Welcoming the arrest of culprit, BJP Tamil Nadu unit president Tamilisai Soundararajan said similar swift action should be taken in all other cases too.

Tamil Maanila Congress chief G K Vasan said more CCTV cameras should be installed in public places so that it would help prevent crimes.
Prior to 1862, college education was based on a classical, elite system, leaving little educational opportunity for most Americans. It's doubtful Abraham Lincoln would have been admitted as a student seeking a university degree.

In 1862 Lincoln signed the Homestead Act and the Morrill or College Land Grant Act.

The Homestead Act gave rise to creating family farms. The Morrill Act revolutionized education.

It addressed the need for a different type of education to meet the nations growing need for vocational research and training through the establishment of Agricultural and Mechanics (A&M) Colleges/Universities.

As a means to fund the establishment of A&M colleges each State was granted 30,000 acres of public land for each senator and representative.

Tracts of land were usually deeded to schools of higher education such as Cornell University, with the

stipulation that all prots derived through the leasing or selling of the land's assets such as timber had to be endowed to fund agricultural and mechanics programs.

As much as four-fifth's of the land encompassing the present city of Cornell once belonged to Cornell University. Originally known as Brunet Falls, the name was changed to Cornell to honor Ezra Cornell, president of Cornell University.

Segregation was allowed under the Morrill Act, leaving former Negro slaves, especially in the southern states, with little chance for a vocational education.

A revised Morrill Act, while not addressing segregation, provided funding to establish all Negro A&M Universities. Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver were but two of the many Negro men to be educated and to teach in Negro A&M Colleges.

Vocational training was implemented in many junior and senior high schools. Agricultural education was offered through the Future Farmers of America. Woodworking, machine shop and other such introductory classes were favored by boys.

Home economics classes offered lessons in food preparation, sewing, hygiene and thrifty home management. Accounting and typing offered vocational training for boys and girls.

Gone are the days of the small family farms that once surrounded our cities as well as manufacturing industries and railroads that once provided jobs that supported American families.

The digital age has given us automation, robotics and other computer principals, many with the design to eliminate men and women in the workplace.

While watching the track that carries hundreds of sand cars roll by my house, pulled by three or four diesel engines, operated by one engineer, I wonder what my Uncle Frank, a railroad bridge crew worker for 40 years would say.

The ever evolving need for workers trained in the scientific research of agriculture, manufacturing, health care and other service jobs are of paramount importance to our future in the world economy that we live in today.

America will never go back to the unskilled work force of our yesterdays. Therefore we must provide the choice for educational opportunity in both classical and vocational training for all Americans, rich and poor alike, to assure we all have an equal place at the table of life.
Syrian government forces were locked in fierce battles with rebels north of Aleppo today in a bid to cut the last opposition route out of the city, a monitor said.

Fresh clashes broke out overnight in Mallah, a section of farmland on the northern edge of the divided city of Aleppo, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

President Bashar al-Assad's forces have been attempting to seize Mallah for more than two years as it runs adjacent to the Castello Road -- the last route rebels can use to access districts they control in the city.

"Regime forces were able to advance in the area, but the Castello Road is still open," said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.

"If they seize control of all of Mallah, they will be able to besiege the opposition neighbourhoods of Aleppo city," he added.

Syrian daily Al-Watan, which is close to the government, quoted a field commander today morning as saying the army had fully overrun Mallah but had not yet cut off the Castello Road.

"The army has two kilometres (less than two miles) left to cut the militants' only lifeline from the eastern neighbourhoods to the outside world via the Castello Road," the paper wrote.

Fighting has rocked Mallah since a government assault on the area began in late June, followed by a jihadist-led counterattack.

The situation has remained fluid, with each side advancing briefly before being rolled back.

Dozens of fighters on both sides of the frontline -- including from the Al-Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda -- have been killed there over the past week, the Observatory said.

Aleppo province is criss-crossed with supply routes for nearly all of Syria's warring parties -- rebels, jihadists, the regime, and Kurdish forces.

The city itself -- the country's pre-war commercial capital -- has been divided since mid-2012 into rebel-held and regime-held areas.

Syria's government has pledged to retake the whole city despite efforts by Washington and regime ally Moscow to stem the violence there.

Several temporary freezes on fighting have been implemented in the city, but a broader truce brokered by the US and Russia has not held there.
living in Turkey could eventually be granted Turkish citizenship, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signalled, a plan that has sparked controversy at home.

"I want to announce some good news," media quoted Erdogan as saying late on Saturday at a dinner to break the Ramadan fast in Kilis province, on the Syrian border.

"We are going to help our Syrian friends in offering them the chance, if they want it, to acquire Turkish nationality."



The interior ministry will shortly announce how the citizenship procedure would work, Erdogan said.

He did not specify whether all of the 2.7 million Syrians that Turkey is hosting would be able to apply, and gave no details on eligibility criteria or how long the process would take.

"We regard you as our brothers and sisters  you are not far from your homeland, but only from your homes and your land," Erdogan told a group of in Kilis.

"Turkey is also your homeland."



Ankara has refused to grant refugee status to Syrians who have fled the devastating war across the border since 2011, referring to them as "guests".

Only a select group have been granted work permits and residency.

The country's open-door policy to was initially a source of pride for many Turks.

But more and more have come to resent the new arrivals, seeing them as a drain on state resources and rivals for scarce jobs.

In Kilis, where Erdogan spoke, refugees now outnumber the native Turkish population.

Life is a struggle for most Syrians in Turkey, who mainly live off odd jobs that are often insufficient to feed and house a family.

The country is also hosting some 300,000 Iraqis who have fled the Islamic State group.

Erdogan's announcement sparked fierce debate on social media, with many Turkish web users questioning whether it was a good idea.

"Granting citizenship shouldn't depend on what one person wants. We need a referendum!" wrote Mahomet Mahomet on Twitter.

The hashtag #ulkemdeSuriyeliistemiyorum ("I don't want Syrians in my country") trended on Twitter, though some users denounced the reaction as racist.
Cyrus Mistry

The Mumbai-headquartered steel giant had announced plans to auction its Port Talbot steelworks in Wales earlier this year.

However, The Sunday Times reported the move has been put on hold as it assesses the fallout of the Brexit vote. The company will pause the sale amid uncertainty over the impact of the decision to leave the EU, the newspaper quoted sources as saying. The board is yet to make a formal decision, but is under less pressure to sell after a jump in steel prices, which has cut losses at the south Wales site, the report said.

The company will reportedly stall the auction and await till the outcome of a UK government deal to cut its 14 billion pension liabilities as well as talks on EU trade deals come out. The decision may come as a blow to bidders, including the Indian-origin businessman Sanjeev Gupta-led commodities trader Liberty House and management buyout firm Excalibur.

The newspaper has also reported in the past that the Tata Group had already been leaning towards retaining the plant before the Brexit decision. The strategic review of our UK business continues. Like businesses across the UK, parties involved will be considering implications from the referendum. We remain committed to working towards the best possible outcome for our UK business, the statement said.
Three students from US universities, including an Indian girl, were among 20 hostages hacked to death by ISIS militants in a terror attack at a restaurant in Bangladesh capital's high-security diplomatic zone.

Nineteen-year-old Tarushi Jain, an Indian student at UC Berkeley, was on vacation in Dhaka when the attack happened.

The two other students -- Abinta Kabir and Faraaz Hossain-- were studying at Atlanta's Emory University, varsity officials said here, mourning the loss of their lives.

Bangladeshi-origin Abinta, who was from Miami, was a rising sophomore at Emory's Oxford College. Faraaz, a junior from Dhaka, was a graduate of Oxford College and a student at the university's Goizueta Business School, the university said yesterday.

"The Emory community mourns this tragic and senseless loss of two members of our university family. Our thoughts and prayers go out on behalf of Faraaz and Abinta and their families and friends for strength and peace at this unspeakably sad time," the university said in a statement.

The attack has drawn widespread condemnation from several US Senators, with Georgia lawmaker David Perdue asserting that "these senseless acts of terror must come to an end."



Mourning the loss of the two Emory students, Senator Perdue said innocent people were being massacred across the world at the hands of ISIS.

"These senseless acts of terror absolutely must come to an end. It is deeply disturbing to hear that two of the victims of the most recent attacks are Emory University students...Keeping Abinta Kabir, Faraaz Hossain, and their loved ones in our thoughts and prayers during this terrible time," Perdue said.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio said he was saddened to learn that Miami's Abinta Kabir was among the victims.

"My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Bangladesh and all those countries who lost citizens in this horrific attack" Rubio said.
Three students from US universities, including Indian girl Tarushi Jain, were among 20 hostages hacked to death by suspected ISIS militants in a terror attack at a restaurant in Bangladesh capital's high-security diplomatic zone.

18-year-old Tarushi was a student at UC Berkeley and was on vacation in Dhaka when the attack happened while two other students of Bangladeshi-origin -- Abinta Kabir and Faraaz Hossain -- were studying at Atlanta's Emory University.

Abinta, who was from Miami, was a rising sophomore at Emory's Oxford College while Faraaz, a junior from Dhaka, was a graduate of Oxford College and a student at the university's Goizueta Business School, Emory university officials said yesterday.

"The Emory community mourns this tragic and senseless loss of two members of our university family. Our thoughts and prayers go out on behalf of Faraaz and Abinta and their families and friends for strength and peace at this unspeakably sad time," the university said in a statement.

The hostages were hacked to death by suspected ISIS militants inside a cafe popular with expats in the diplomatic zone in Dhaka in the worst terror attack in Bangladesh before commandos launched an assault yesterday killing six attackers and capturing one alive.

The attack has drawn widespread condemnation from several US Senators, with Georgia lawmaker David Perdue asserting that "these senseless acts of terror must come to an end."



Mourning the loss of the two Emory students, Senator Perdue said innocent people were being massacred across the world at the hands of ISIS.

"These senseless acts of terror absolutely must come to an end. It is deeply disturbing to hear that two of the victims of the most recent attacks are Emory University students...Keeping Abinta Kabir, Faraaz Hossain, and their loved ones in our thoughts and prayers during this terrible time," Perdue said.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio said he was saddened to learn that Miami's Abinta Kabir was among the victims.

"My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Bangladesh and all those countries who lost citizens in this horrific attack" Rubio said.
Pakistan and the US must strive for greater coordination for establishing peace in the region, a top American Senator said as he held talks with army chief General Raheel Sharif amid strains in bilateral ties over the scuttling of F-16 fighter jets deal and the US drone strikes.

Senator John McCain, Chairman of US Senate Arms Services committee, held a crucial overnight meeting with the army chief to "smoothen the frayed relations" between the two countries after the tension due to the drone strike that killed Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour, officials said.

McCain, accompanied by a congressional delegation including Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator Joe Donnelly arrived last evening, and held the meeting with General Raheel in Rawalpindi.

The army, in a late last night statement, said matters of mutual interest and regional security with particular reference to Afghanistan situation were discussed.

"The COAS dilated upon security challenges faced by Pakistan and Pakistan's contribution in regional stability and global peace," it said.

The army chief said a stable Afghanistan is in Pakistan's interest and relationship between both countries hold key for regional peace and security.

Senator McCain said Pakistan and US need to cement relations in all dimensions and must strive for greater coordination for optimal deliverance of peace dividend in the region.

Earlier, US Special Representative ambassador Richard Olson held a separate meeting with the army chief and discussed the recent strains in the ties.

Olson also met foreign secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry and "discussed the regional security situation and efforts for peace and stability in Afghanistan," according to Foreign Office.

The Pak-US ties strained after Congressional restriction on financing of F-16 fighter jet's sale from Foreign Military Financing programme, due to which Pakistan could not buy the jets.

The relationship further suffered when the US carried out a drone strike in Balochistan, killing the Taliban chief, which was termed by Pakistani leadership a violation of the country's sovereignty.

According to sources, it is believed that the real source of tension between the two countries is the US' demand that Pakistan should act against the Haqqani network and stop all alleged support to Afghan Taliban who are involved in horrendous attack in the country.

The US also wants Pakistan to use its influence over Taliban to pursue it to unconditionally join the Afghan peace talks without any further delay.

Pakistan has maintained that it was already taking action against all militants and it was only matter of "sequencing" the targets.
The rattle of guns was replaced by the excited noises of people clicking selfies and dancing to the beats of drums at the Border Out Post (BoP) here as the J&K government launched its border tourism initiative.

Ahead of their departure to Amarnath cave shrine to pay obeisance at ice-lingam of Lord Shiva in South Kashmir Himalayan shrine, a group of nearly 100 pilgrims from various states of the country made a beeline at Octerio Border Out Post (BoP) along IB with Pakistan which has a three-tier border fencing.

Minister of State for Culture & Tourism, Priya Sethi led the group which traveled in a special tourism bus to Suchetgarh border belt in R S Pura tehsil of Jammu district.

"This is an effort by the government to promote border tourism in the state. After this, the next step of the government would be to promote cross-border tourism," the Minister told reporters.

"Tourists and pilgrims are ambassadors for our state and the government wants to send a message of peaceful atmosphere and cultural harmony across the country through them," she said, adding that such visits would become a routine excercise in the coming days.

Rakesh Kumar Verma, an Amarnath pilgrim from Varanasi, said, "We are happy to be here. We keep reading in media that it is the most active battleground between Indo-Pak troops as they keep firing and shelling these border areas resulting in death and destruction. There is no fear today."



Like him, Suresh Kumar from Tamil Nadu, who has visited Wagah border a few years back, feels that most of the people wish to visit the borderline in Jammu and Kashmir and today "I feel my desire has been fulfilled".

"We appeal to the government to make this Octerio BoP in Jammu as a place of tourism similar to Wagah border. It has huge potential. This IB should become a line of peace and bonhomie," Kumar said.

Anuradha Kumari, who has come for pilgrimage with her family from Maharashtra, was excited at the opportunity to be so near the Indo-Pak border.

"Fear has taken a backseat as I visited this border... saw border pillars, was told about the history... I am very excited and will go home with selfies. Government should encourage this border tourism effort and making all logistic facilities," she said.

Shelja and her family from Uttarakhand, who were visiting the International Border in RS Pura, were busy clicking selfies along the border fence.

"We saw bunkers and flags of India and Pakistan. We felt very good and hope that tourists from Pakistan also come to see the border areas," said an excited Shelja.

"I feel that places along the borderline be it pilgrim centres, wetlands and border contact points at BoPs should be developed and this IB should be converted into an attraction of Indo-Pak friendship instead of firing and shelling," she said.

"Every day 200 to 300 people including tourists visit Octerio BoP as border tourism initiative. On Sundays, the footfall of tourists goes upto to 100. It is open for tourists from 8 AM to 6 PM daily," a BSF officer manning BoP Octerio said.

Indo-Pak border has seen major ceasefire violations as Pakistani troops resorted to heavy firing and shelling during past few years triggering fear among resident many of whom have frequently been forced to flee.

Pakistani troops have violated ceasefire on Line of Control (LoC) and International Border (IB) in Jammu and Kashmir for 11,270 times since 2002, claiming the lives of 313 people including 144 security personnel, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti told the state Assembly recently.

Amid the excitement, pilgrims chanted slogans 'Bum Bum Bole'and 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' as they danced to the beats of dholaks at the Suchetgarh tourist centre.

Jammu and Kashmir launched border tourism at low key in a bid to attract tourists and pilgrims with a twin-aim to boost the economy of the border dwellers and also increase the footfall along the Indo-Pak border (a mission taken up by Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti).

The tour buses are being operated by the Department of Tourism in collaboration with Jammu and Kashmir State Road Transport Corporation (JKSRTC) from Amarnath base camp at Bhagwati Nagar in Jammu, the Minister of State for Culture & Tourism said.

The border tour buses take the pilgrims to Suchetgarh border and its adjoining places while the city tour buses take them to Ranbireshwar Temple, Raghunath Temple, Peer-Kho, Bawe Wali Mata, Fish Aquarium, Amar Mahal Palace, Mubarak Mandi and Balidaan Stambh.

The Minister said the government would restore old colonial Octroi BoP building to a gallantry gallery, besides constructing a multi-purpose hall, children's park and border meeting post at Suchetgarh border under Himalayan circuit of Swadesh Bharat Scheme of Central government.

The other places of historical and cultural importance including Jio Pota Ghat, Baba Chamliyal and Gharana Wetland would be included in tour circuits for promoting tourism in the state, she said.

"Adequate arrangements for security of tourists and pilgrims have been put in place by deploying police personnel and traffic police officers in the bus, besides providing them with clean drinking water, information pamphlets and a guide for providing them information about the places of historical and cultural importance in the city," Director Tourism Jammu, Sushma Choudhan said.

The Department of Tourism has also installed a stall at the Octroi post for assisting the pilgrims at the border, she said.

During her less than 3-months rule, Mufti, has made several visits to border areas close to International Border (IB) with Pakistan where she pitched for opening new cross-border points to expand people-to-people contact.

The Chief Minister said that she would be delighted if Suchetgarh is promoted as a people-to-people meeting point after reopening the cross-border route connecting it with Pakistani city of Sialkot.

She said that her government will soon approach the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) with a request to explore the possibility of bringing Suchetgarh-Sialkote corridor between India and Pakistan along the IB within the ambit of cross-border trade and travel.

"Suchetgarh can be J&K's Wagah. I will approach the Centre to make it a people-to-people meeting point across the IB," she had said, adding that "with improvement in overall situation, we can also explore the option of promoting Suchetgarh as a trading point with the neighbouring country."



Suchetgarh is about 27-km from Jammu and served as the route to Sialkot during the pre-partition era, the (now) Pakistani town which is just 11 kms from the border post.

The Jammu-Sialkot railway line through Suchetgarh was a 43-km narrow gauge branch of the North-Western railway and the first railway line in Jammu and Kashmir.

Since 1947, the line has fallen into a state of despair on both sides of the border.

The shrine of Daleep Singh Manhas popularly known as Baba Chamliyal, close to the IB, attracts thousands of devotees from both sides - Pakistan and India -on the annual mela held on fourth Thursday of June.

Mehbooba during her visit to this shrine urged the media to highlight the cultural camaraderie that exists between the people of India and Pakistan.

"I wonder if hostilities can become between the two neighbours, why can't cultural bonhomie," she asked.
Kerala police chief Loknath Behera today sought a report from the city police commissioner over allegations by two transsexuals that they were brutally attacked by the police while they were waiting at a bus shelter at Valanjambalam here.

He sought the report after the issue was highlighted in the local media.

Transsexuals Poorna and Ayesha were admitted in General Hospital in Ernakulam following injuries they suffered from alleged police brutality.

Poorna alleged that she was attacked while she was waiting for her mother at the bus shelter last night.

Ayesha, who rushed to the spot, questioned the police following which she also experienced police violence, they alleged.

They alleged that police even used abusive words when they realised that they were transsexuals.

City police, however, said a section of police was deployed at Valanjambalam area following complaints from locals about the "problems" being created by transsexuals at night.

A policeman was attacked when heintervened to prevent them from disturbing public at busy area in Valanjambalam, police said.

Behera said city police commissioner has launched an investigation into the matter.

"Strong action would be taken if police are found guilty," he said.
Donald Trump's tweet that featured Hillary Clinton and a six-pointed star atop a pile of money has also appeared on a white supremacist website.

Trump's account on Saturday tweeted the so-called "meme" then deleted it and replaced it substituting a circle for the star symbol that resembles the Jewish Star of David. The change came after a social media uproar about the star tweet's potentially anti-Semitic implications.

The meme first appears to have hit the Internet on June 15, when it was posted by the Twitter user @FishBoneHead1. The account, which described itself as belonging to a comedian, regularly tweeted out anti-Clinton and right-leaning messages and images.

The image also appeared on June 22, on /pol/, an active neo-Nazi Internet message board that features many anti-Semitic posts.

It remains unclear where Trump's campaign obtained the image. A spokeswoman for the campaign did not immediately respond to questions about the original tweet or who was responsible for sending it out. Trump's twitter account remained silent on the issue yesterday.

The @FishBoneHead1 account was deleted amid the uproar on yesterday afternoon. The person who operated the feed did not respond to a request for comment before it was deleted. The post itself was deleted from the /pol/ message board, but its existence was confirmed by The Associated Press through an internet search engine that combs internet archives.

The image's appearance on /pol/ and @FishBoneHead1's twitter feed was first reported by the website mic.Com.

Trump, who is running for president as a Republican, has repeatedly said that he would remain a staunch defender of Israel and last week shot down a question from a town hall attendee who questioned the US's defence of the Jewish state.

His daughter, Ivanka, converted to Judaism and is raising her children Jewish.

Trump has been criticised in the past for repeatedly re-tweeting posts from white supremacists' accounts and failing to immediately denounce the support of former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke.

Trump has a loyal following on white supremacist message boards and has been endorsed by several prominent white nationalist leaders who have credited him for invigorating their cause. Among them are William Johnson, chair of the American Freedom Party, which ran pro-Trump robo-calls during the GOP primary.

Trump's former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, dismissed the controversy in an interview with CNN yesterday, accusing the media of trying to create something out of nothing.
A Turkish ship carrying aid for Gaza arrived in Israel today, a week after the two countries agreed to restore ties that soured over a deadly raid on an aid flotilla.

The Lady Leyla container vessel docked at Ashdod port in the afternoon after departing on Friday, an AFP journalist reported.

Its contents were to be unloaded, inspected and sent on to the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, hit by three wars with Israel since 2008 and under an Israeli blockade.

The Panama-flagged ship was carrying 11,000 tonnes of supplies including food packages, flour, rice, sugar and toys, the Turkish state-run Anadolu agency reported.

Turkey had initially pushed for a lifting of Israel's blockade on Gaza as part of the negotiations to normalise ties, but Israel rejected this.

A compromise was eventually reached allowing Turkey to send aid through Ashdod rather than directly to the Palestinian enclave.

Israel says the blockade is necessary to prevent Islamist movement Hamas from receiving materials that could be used for military purposes, but UN officials have called for it to be lifted, citing deteriorating conditions in the territory.

Turkey's ruling Islamic-rooted AKP party has friendly ties with Gaza's Hamas rulers, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been a vocal supporter of the Palestinian cause.

Turkey and Israel were formerly close regional allies, but fell out in 2010 when Israeli commandos killed 10 Turkish activists in a raid on an aid flotilla seeking to run the blockade on Gaza.

Under the reconciliation deal, Israel will pay USD 20 million in compensation to the families of those killed.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promoted the economic benefits of restoring ties, with talk of building a pipeline to Turkey to export Israeli gas, and the need to find allies in the turbulent Middle East.

The deal received a mixed response in Israel.

There were allegations that it does not do enough to push for the return of four Israelis missing in Gaza - two soldiers who have been declared dead and two civilians believed to be alive and held by Hamas.

Several relatives and supporters of the soldiers' families protested against the deal outside Ashdod port today.
Glen Sikorski understands that Chippewa Countys wheel tax is unpopular among county residents. But the County Board supervisor from Cadott and chairman of the countys Highway Committee says it would be fiscally irresponsible to end the tax this year, several years before its scheduled expiration on Jan. 1, 2020.

The money raised by the tax goes to pare down the deficit in the countys winter road maintenance fund. Sikorski said that deficit is real and has been long standing.

Nothing is being hidden. This is an honest-to-goodness actual problem, he said.

The state could help matters by raising Wisconsins gasoline tax, but that has not happened, Sikorski said. Its falling on deaf ears, he said.

While the countys Highway Committee took no action this past week on the annual $10 per vehicle registration fee, committee members informally agreed to keep the tax around for 2017.

Relatively mild winter weather, a good inventory of road salt on hand along with the wheel tax have combined to take a good bite out of Chippewa Countys winter road maintenance deficit.

We had a mild winter and we took in $540,724 in wheel tax (money) in 2015, Highway Commissioner Brian Kelley said.

If projected average costs pan out, Kelley said the deficit at the end of this year is anticipated to be $63,000.

So if the tax is working and the tax amount is relatively low, why is the wheel tax unpopular?

I think its a really, really unfair tax, said Supervisor Matt Hartman of Bloomer, another member of the Highway Committee.

While the tax covers normal vehicles, state law prohibits counties from extending the tax to motorcycles and larger vehicles such as semis and agriculture implements.

This winter maintenance account for the past 10 years has been underfunded. This wheel tax has been a Band-Aid fix, Hartman said.

He said the county has been putting aside $1.2 million for the fund, and he wants to see funding bumped up to $1.7 million.

Hartman believes the tax is also unpopular because some residents recall that the countys half-cent sales tax used to pay for a courthouse addition in the 1990s remains in effect long after that project was completed.

The people in this county were burnt by the sales tax, he said.

Sikorski and Hartman want to hear about ways the county can keep the program funded once the wheel tax goes away.

Well be looking at providing a variety of options to them, County Administrator Frank Pascarella said. Those options will be given to the Highway Committee at its Wednesday, July 27 meeting.

I asked them to give us the consequences of everything we cut, Sikorski said.

Kelley will look at what would happen if there is no increase in revenue from the state and the county needs to make cuts in the highway department.

Pascarella said one possibility is the county could wait until there is a minimum snowfall, such as three inches, before plowing roads. He added that he is not recommending that option, but will list it.

Or the county could wait longer before replacing its winter road machinery, Sikorski added.

Once the committee gets the options, Hartman said, Then we can put it out to the public and tell them the whole story and ask them.

Pascarella said the committee members suggested holding a special County Board meeting on the issue. If it happens, it will likely be later this summer.

Sikorski said the county has had trouble funding the winter maintenance program since 2005, and has taken money from other accounts to pay the deficit in the funding. His priority is to find a way to make program funding sustainable.

I will be so excited when we come up with a good solution to this, he said.
The United Arab Emirates summoned on Sunday, a senior US diplomat to protest the "abusive treatment" of a citizen,

as it advised citizens to avoid wearing national attire abroad.

The foreign ministry expressed "discontent" to US embassy deputy chief of mission Ethan Goldrich and demanded clarifications over the detention of an Emirati businessman suspected of being a jihadist.

The 41-year-old, visiting the United States for medical treatment, was wearing a white robe and Arab headdress Wednesday when he was arrested at a hotel in Cleveland, Ohio after an employee suspected he had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group, apparently in a phone call.

The foreign ministry said it expressed "discontent over the abusive treatment by the Ohio police of a citizen" as well as the posting of a video showing his arrest, which contained "defamation of the national."



"The UAE cares for the safety of its citizens and, therefore, demands clarifications about this incident," it said in a statement carried by WAM state news agency.

Goldrich "apologised" for the incident, pledging to get clarifications from authorities in the state of Ohio, WAM said.

A video of the incident, posted on Youtube, shows several policemen armed with rifles take down Ahmed al-Menhali, and then handcuff and search him.

"They were brutal with me. They pressed forcefully on my back. I had several injuries and bled from the forceful nature of their arrest," Menhali said, quoted in The National daily.

The Emirati foreign ministry, in a statement posted on Twitter, urged citizens "not to wear the national dress during their travel, especially in public areas, to ensure their own safety."



After confirming that Menhali posed no danger, the policemen let go of the Emirati man, who said he collapsed and needed treatment in hospital.

Menhali had been in the United States since April for treatment after a brain stroke suffered last year, said Emarat Al-Youm, another UAE daily.

Anti-Muslim incidents have spiked in the United States on the back of deadly IS attacks in the West that prompted presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country.
The United Arab Emirates is warning its citizens to avoid wearing traditional garments when traveling abroad after an Emirati man was handcuffed in Ohio over terrorism fears.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a tweet late yesterday that Emiratis should avoid wearing the garments for their safety. A separate ministry statement urged women to abide by bans on face veils in parts of Europe.

Local media reported today that Emirati national Ahmed al-Menhali was detained at gunpoint last week while wearing a traditional white kandura, or ankle-length robe, and headscarf in Avon, Ohio after a hotel clerk raised suspicions he could have links to the Islamic State group.

Cleveland's WEWS-TV posted police camera video footage of al-Menhali's arrest and a later meeting where Avon officials offered their apologies.
Former British prime minister Tony Blair today said "we should keep our options open" on the UK leaving the European Union as 48% of the voters at last month's referendum felt "disenfranchised".

Blair said as the details of what meant for the country began to emerge: "If the will of the people shifts, why shouldn't we recognise that?"



Blair, who was premier from 1997 to 2007, told the BBC the 48% who had voted to Remain in the EU felt "disenfranchised" and it was not clear "what we are moving to".

Both Prime Minister David Cameron and Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn have both ruled out a second EU referendum.

When asked whether "keeping our options open" meant a second EU referendum, Blair replied: "It means whatever we decide it should mean as we see how this debate develops."



The 63-year-old Labour politician added that when the practical effects of the UK's decision to leave the EU became clearer, "then Parliament's got a role, the country should carry on being engaged in this debate, it should carry on expressing its view...

"We are sovereign. Let's just keep our options open," he added.

Ahead of the historic June 23 referendum, Blair had warned that "our nation is in peril" after the vote to leave the 28-nation EU and the negotiations on the UK's future relationship with the other countries would be of "extraordinary complexity".

In an article in the Daily Telegraph, Blair had said: "There is going to be a negotiation of extraordinary complexity where there are a thousand devils in every detail. Those we used to call 'our European partners' are, unsurprisingly, divided and uncertain themselves."



He said some countries wanted a quick divorce, while others favoured a delay in commencing the article 50 process, which starts a two-year countdown to .

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A US Senate delegation paid a rare visit today to a key tribal district along the Afghanistan border, an erstwhile stronghold of Taliban recently taken by the army, and expressed support for Pakistan's counterterrorism campaign.

The four-member, bipartisan US Senate delegation, led by former presidential candidate John McCain, visited the restive North Waziristan tribal region, and later called on the Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan foreign ministry said in a statement.

"McCain and his colleagues deeply appreciated the enormous success achieved by Pakistan in its counterterrorism campaign," the statement said.

Aziz reiterated Pakistan's efforts to keep the Pakistan-US partnership on track and thanked McCain for his positive comments regarding the importance of bilateral relation, it said.

Earlier, McCain visited the North Waziristan tribal region, where army has launched a campaign in 2014 to flush out militants and destroy their bases in the remote mountainous region, straddling across the Afghanistan border.

The region, an erstwhile stronghold of al-Qaida and Taliban, is largely banned for foreigners and visits by foreign delegations are rare.

McCain also met country's powerful army chief General Raheel Sharif in an overnight meeting and discussed matters of mutual interest and regional security.

The visit comes at a delicate time when relations between the two country are at a new low after US Congress in May blocked the subsidised sale of eight F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, accusing it of not being serious enough in fight against terrorism.
Cautioning against expecting too much from central banks, RBI Governor has said it is wrong on their part also to always claim a 'bazooka' left up their sleeves, even as he asserted that life is "very difficult" in emerging markets.

In a panel discussion here on lessons learnt by the central bankers from the global financial crisis, he also took on the industrial nations for expecting the emerging markets to be "orthodox" in their monetary and economic policies at a time when they themselves have "thrown out the orthodoxy out of the window".

He was speaking at a panel discussion after the Per Jacobsson Foundation Lecture, delivered by JPMorgan Chase International Chairman Jacob Frenkel, on the occasion of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Annual General Meeting here.

The lecture took place on June 26, but its content has been made public now only. Those participating in the panel discussion included Bank of Mexico Governor Agustun Carstens and Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau.

The lecture took place within days of Rajan making public his decision that he would not opt for a second term as RBI Governor when his current three-year tenure ends on September 4.

Rajan, a former Chief Economist at IMF, who is credited for predicting the global financial crisis, was here to attend the BIS Annual Meeting, as also a bi-monthly meeting of select central bankers from across the world here at BIS Tower.

Referring to Frenkel's lecture that talked about unconventional monetary policies and the central bankers not being the only game in the town, Rajan said the question at the heart of his talk appeared 'why is the populism popular'.

"In a way, he was making a desperate plea for orthodoxy and saying let's not abandon orthodox principles and I guess the converse of that is that populism has become popular.

"I think if you want to talk about the institutional and environmental situation which supported the orthodoxy, the 80s and 90s, one would guess that it was a society where the elites were respected, where there was a feeling that they could understand and interpret the policies for the masses.

"There was broadly a positive sum game... And actions were not interpreted as favouring one constituency versus another. There was a sense of coherence in the society, little more than today," he said.

Rajan further said that when there is trust in the elite and there is no common economic paradigm, a lot of competing paradigms come up, some of which contradict the laws of economics and very little trust is left in the institutions.

"Well, that's what we call an emerging market," he said.

"It's the kind of environment we have worked in the past and we have tried to change that to try and say that there are some broad principles, there are institutions that we should build and yes that some people can be trusted, the experts can be trusted. It takes time to do that.

"But my sense is that what the crisis has done is that in the industrial countries, created the kind of conditions that bring you back to the conditions we experienced in the emerging markets," he added.
At least 40 people, including policemen and media persons, were today injured when a protest by some parents against alleged molestation of girl students at a school here turned violent and police resorted to lathi-charge.

The protesting parents were demanding arrest of Kishor Darda, Chairman of YPS School Committee, which runs Yavatmal Public School, which is at the centre of the controversy.

To push their demand, the parents had assembled in front of Darda's residence this morning. The protest turned violent when they resorted to stone pelting targeting the policemen.

Police resorted to lathi-charge and lobbed teargas shells to disperse the angry parents.

Around 15 police personnel sustained injuries in the stone pelting, Devidas Dhole, Police Station Officer, Wadgaon Road Police Station, said.

Twenty-five people were injured in the police action, said an official from State Control Room in Mumbai. Two media persons are said to be among the injured.

Sanjeevkumar Singhal, Special Police Commissioner of Amravati Region (under which Yavatmal falls), visited the area and took stock of the situation.

Yavatmal Public School's principal Jacob Das was arrested on Friday under Section 21 (failure to report an offence) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, said Superintendent of Police Akhilesh Kumar Singh.

Two teachers of the school - Yash Borundia and Amol Shirsagar - were arrested three days earlier in the case. The arrests were made after parents of about a dozen students lodged a joint complaint alleging the two molested girls in the KG and primary classes.

The parents are now demanding the arrest of Kishor Darda.

Tension prevailed in the area and SRPF personnel were deployed to maintain law and order.

Meanwhile, Union Minister Hansraj Ahir met some of the injured at the hospital. The Lok Sabha MP from Chandrapur blamed the Yavatmal SP for the situation going out of control.

Ahir, who met the parents, demanded a high-level probe into police "mishandling" of the molestation episode.

Ahir said he has briefed Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on the situation and demands of the parents, who want the government to appoint an administrator to run the school.

Fadnavis has asked the Director of School Education to examine the possibility of appointing an administrator, he said.

Meanwhile, a member of the Maharashtra Women's Commission, Neeta Thakre, visited the city and recorded the statements of over 70 parents.
Bengaluru-based home aggregator and management startup Zenify plans to expand to eight more cities, including Mumbai and Delhi, in the next five years.

"We are currently managing 2,200 properties in the Bengaluru market. But now we will expand our horizon to other top metros and plan to have 1.5 lakh properties listed on our platform," company CEO and co-founder Sudarshan Purohit told PTI.

The company plans to expand to eight more cities, including Mumbai, Delhi, Surat, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Pune in the next five years.

The online firm is also planning to list 1.5 lakh properties on its platform by 2021.

"We will be also raising USD 5 million in 'Series A' funding, which will be utilised for this expansion as well as for building our brand and technology enhancement. We are currently in talks with few investors, but we will not be able to define the period by when we will raise the funds," Purohit said.

Zenify.In, which provides an end to end solution to owners and tenants by automating the process of rental management, has so far raised angel funding of Rs 4.15 crore in 2015 and Rs 6 crore in 'pre-Series A' funding in May this year.

Explaining the business model, he said that once a property is registered with Zenify, the owner gets an assured rental for the agreed time period.

"In return, the owner pays us one month of the pre-determined rent as our fees. In our model, if the tenant discontinues the agreement, we continue to pay the rent even when the flat is vacant," he added.

He also said that the company is eyeing a revenue of around Rs 500 crore in the next fives years.

"We hope to do nearly Rs 3,500 crore worth of transactions over the period and earn revenues of up to Rs 500 crore in the next five years," he said.
SHARE William Clark Rashelle Young Lori Dellinger

Clark joins Driscoll Children's Hospital

Dr. William Clark joined Driscoll Children's Hospital as a pediatric otolaryngologist, officials said.

Clark received his medical degree at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, and completed his internship at Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio. He completed his residency in otolaryngology at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C., and completed his flight surgeon training in aviation medicine at the Army Aeromedical Center, Ft. Rucker, Alabama.

He is board-certified in otolaryngology.

Young named executive director

Community Options, Inc., a national nonprofit organization, which provides housing and employment support to people with learning disabilities, names Rashelle Young as the executive director in Corpus Christi, officials said.

Young previously joined Community Options in March of this year as assistant executive director in Corpus Christi.

Frost Bank makes promotions

Frost-Corpus Christi recently promoted two people.

Lori Dellinger was named market president, corporate banking, Parkdale Financial Center. Dellinger, a Frost staff member since 2011, graduated from Texas A&M in 1981 with a bachelor's degree in business administration in finance. She is currently responsible for managing the commercial lending team, officials said.

Ciara Williams was named relationship banking officer, corporate banking, Parkdale Financial Center, officials said.

Compiled by Natalia Contreras
The city of Laredo decided that it had enough with plastic bags blowing in the wind.

So the local city government banned the flimsy bags. It is the same step that Port Aransas and other Texas cities have taken.

A local problem is taken care of by a local government.

Likewise, Fort Worth school superintendent Kent Scribner dealt with a delicate local issue: how to accommodate transgender students. Guidelines designed to be inclusive were issued.

For his troubles, Scribner has become the target of Texas Republican state leaders.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has said the superintendent should resign. On Tuesday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a nonbinding opinion saying the guidelines violate state law.

On that same Tuesday, a state appeals court in San Antonio heard arguments in a lawsuit against Laredo's plastic bag ban. That suit, brought by Laredo merchants, has the support of a bevy of Texas Republican legislators, the Texas Tribune reported.

That same Republican state leadership cries "local control" in the face of any encroachment by the federal government. But what they really mean is, "we want to control."

The legal fight over Laredo's plastic bag ban and the targeting of the Fort Worth superintendent have become another in a series of frictions between Texas local governments and the Republicans who control state government.

Texas Republicans have already put in their sights cities, such as Corpus Christi, who have imposed fingerprint requirements on ride-hailing companies like Uber.

That local officials decided that their citizens needed the safety of fingerprints of Uber drivers doesn't cut the mustard with GOP leaders who want to call the shots for every Texas city.

Nor do they want individual cities to decide issues such as whether to ban single-use plastic bags.

Maybe that's why three state senators and 17 state representatives, all Republicans, filed a "friend of the court" brief in support of the opponents of the bag ban.

The Laredo Morning Times quoted a news release from the Rio Grande International Study Center which pushed for the ban which said, "We feel the state legislators in question should stay out of Laredo's business just as those same legislators loudly decry federal interference in Texas issues."

Why are these Republican state leaders so set against having local folks decide local issues?

Local governments tend to decide matters along pragmatic lines. City governments and local school districts have no partisanship axes to grind. But governors, lieutenant governors and attorneys generals are highly partisan. Certainly Texas' leaders are.

That's undoubtedly why Patrick and Paxton have come down hard on the Fort Worth superintendent. Patrick along with fellow legislators have declared that they will follow the lead of North Carolina and pass a state measure that prohibits people from using bathrooms that don't match their biological sex.

Scribner, the superintendent, tried to make sure that his district met federal requirements by adopting guidelines that made sure all kids are safe and yet accommodate transgender students.

In other words, he wasn't making a political point. He was just trying to serve students. That's where he got crosswise with the state's leadership.

The guidelines say that every student should feel secure in their bathrooms. If students feel uncomfortable with a transgender student in their bathroom, those students must be allowed to use a single-stall restroom, a gender-neutral restroom or a restroom where no one else is present.

That triggered Patrick's call for his resignation. (Where does a statewide leader get off calling for the resignation of a local official?)

This won't be the only friction point between local governments and Austin. Corpus Christi has debated its own plastic bag ban. The fingerprint requirement for ride-hailing services has been adopted by Austin as well as Corpus Christi. Though the stars seem to be aligned for statewide payday loan regulation such as the kind passed by Corpus Christi and other cities, the same stars in the last Legislature didn't get the job done.

What seems more apparent is that Austin may unlimber its lawsuit guns at any sign of federal encroachment, but no such leeway will be allowed local governments.

It's an old game of "do as I say, not as I do."

Nick Jimenez has worked as a reporter, city editor and editorial page editor for more than 40 years in Corpus Christi. He is currently the editorial page editor emeritus for the Caller-Times. His commentary column appears on Wednesdays and Sundays.
People often ask, "Why doesn't she just leave?" The most dangerous time for a victim are the weeks leading up to her escape and the weeks following. She has been threatened by the abuser numerous times that he will take their children, he will kill their children, he will kill her family, and that he will hunt her down and kill her as well. He has carried out all the other threats throughout their relationship. Why should she believe he won't carry out this one?

The paragraph above isn't anything new. It is actually taken out of a letter to the editor I submitted two years ago. And here we are again  two murders and one homicide within weeks of each other.

Now everyone is shocked and alarmed, and the community wants to know what can be done to stop the violence. For well over a year, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times has put the issue of domestic violence in the forefront. They have shared stories and statistics, and yet it isn't until more victims die that people finally become outraged.

Don't forget these murder victims were victims long before the last violent act that took their lives.

Every day in our community literally thousands of women, men and children are living in abusive homes. Where is the outrage for them? Why is it OK that people live in homes where they are emotionally and physically abused? Have we just accepted that it is OK for people to die a little every day? That is what is happening to those living in violent homes. They are losing a little bit of themselves with each passing day, and children are learning that there is an intersection between love and violence.

I am frustrated that some people don't see the value in at least trying to stop the violence. Writing it off to "human nature" or "it's just too big a problem" aren't good excuses. An 11-year-old girl was just shot and killed by her stepfather. Do you think that needs to be written off to "human nature?"

OK, so we know it is a big problem. Yes, it is hard to wrap our heads around it. But it doesn't mean we give up. It means we work together as a community to take steps, albeit baby steps, toward a future free of violence. Will we have changed everything by this time next year? No. But we will be moving in the right direction. Fewer victims and fewer children growing up in violent homes. That is a goal worth working toward.

Join us as the Coordinated Community Response Coalition hosts a public forum on Thursday, July 7, at noon at the First Baptist Church recreation center located at 3115 Ocean Drive.

Frances Wilson is the president and CEO of the Women's Shelter of South Texas.
By Beatriz Alvarado of the Caller-Times

It's time for legislative solutions to the area's domestic violence problem, three area lawmakers said.

In light of an increase in awareness on the issue and a trend of casualties to the violence, state Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, said he and two others are banding together to draft legislation that can assist communities struggling with preventing deaths and protecting victims.

Hunter said he, state Rep. Abel Herrero, D-Robstown, and state Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, D-McAllen, will collaborate to author legislation to combat domestic violence. The criminal jurisprudence committee, chaired by Herrero, is seeking input as it prepares for the 85th Legislature, which begins in January. Hunter also sits on the committee.

"Hopefully we can take ideas (from communities) and become leaders in preventing domestic violence through education," Hunter told the Caller-Times. "Our community is coming together on the issue and ... it's when we come together when we can accomplish the goal."

The Caller-Times began a series in early 2015 to explore domestic violence, including how law enforcement investigates the attacks, how prosecutors pursue offenders in court, how advocates help victims heal, and what the community must do to reverse the deadly trend. Since 2014, two victims of abuse sought protection from law enforcement and later were killed by their abuser. Another woman was killed amid a divorce and processing of a protective order. She could have been warned her husband was stalking her by a GPS device if a 2009 state law were being funded and used locally, but GPS devices were not being issued to track domestic violence offenders at the time of her death.

Advocates understand why victims choose to stay, but there are few protections for those unwilling to pursue charges. Even when the unwillingness stems from fear.

Hunter said he hopes the collaboration among legislators will help strengthen existing laws, aid in data gathering methods, and address shortfalls for organizations that provide assistance to victims and offenders, among other goals. Nothing is concrete yet, he said, adding it's prudent to listen to various groups for input.

Herrero said the three-part delegation has in the past worked together to aid communities in tackling domestic violence through awareness and enabling agencies to provide adequate intervention, but preventive measures are a new focus.

"The issue (of domestic violence) isn't new, and neither are the efforts to combat it," Herrero said. "(The delegation) this time is emphasizing support on the prevention front."

Herrero said a public hearing in August will gather input from the Corpus Christi community.

Susan Trevino, chief operating officer of the Women's Shelter of South Texas, said an ongoing death toll in Corpus Christi has intensified the relationships between legislative leaders and the victim advocate community. They've been helpful in the past, she said. For example, Herrero is the author of Mary's Law, which passed in 2009 and allows for GPS monitoring of domestic violence offenders.

Trevino sits on the Texas Council on Family Violence's public policy committee and said once the council's legislative agenda is closer to being finalized she will have a better idea about the input she can provide leaders. Continued funding for victim services such as shelter and counseling is always the main priority, she said, adding there are hundreds of other needs that are usually narrowed to four or five manageable items per legislative session.

Trevino also is part of a group formed to assist in implementing Mary's Law. It wasn't being regularly used locally until community leaders realized a woman's life could have been saved in 2014 if it were. Patricia Askew was gunned down in front of her Kings Crossing home by her husband, David Askew, whom she was divorcing. Patricia Askew had an emergency protective order and was scheduled to appear in court the week of her death to ask a judge for an extension. She, among others, "did everything right," but to no avail.

The group includes members of the Nueces County District Attorney's Office, district representatives for state legislators, the Women's Shelter of South Texas and other government and community volunteer organizations.

Nueces County 319th District Judge David Stith is a part of the group. He said legislative assistance to improve communication among agencies would help the group reach its goal of providing effective protection for victims of domestic violence via GPS monitoring.

"We have found challenges in communication between branches of government," he said.

Stith said assigning the GPS monitoring devices to offenders has served as a deterrent for offenders, which is good, but the law is not serving its full purpose. Police are not yet part of the notification process in case the aggressor gets too close to a victim and magistrate judges who assign the devices sometimes aren't provided with essential documents to assess risk, Stith said.

A private vendor contracted for the monitoring also is tasked with guiding a victim through a safety plan, which is worrisome, Trevino said. The task is more adequate for trained advocates, but confidentiality constraints exclude the option at this point.

"Parts of the statute can be made clearer," Stith said.

State Sen. Hinojosa said although he is on board for the collaboration, laws only go as far as local agencies take them.

"What good is a law if it's not going to be used?" he asked.

With a perked legislative ear, it's time for agencies to own up to deficiencies and bring those to the table, said Sharon Custer Sedwick, who sits on the board for the Women's Shelter of South Texas.

"As hard as we work and as much money as we try to raise it's just not stemming it," she said. "We're at a point where we have to come together and say (to governmental agencies) 'Help us help you.' Is it money? Is it manpower? We need to hear what (the agencies) need. This isn't just police ... it's everybody and we need to sit down and ask, 'What do you need?"'

In August 2005, the dismembered body of Sharon's daughter, Jennifer Cave, a Carroll High School graduate, was discovered in an Austin apartment bathroom. She couldn't understand why the desecration of her corpse only warranted a misdemeanor charge, she said. It took lots of knocking on doors and testifying before committees, but she was able to change that. Under the Jennifer Cave Act, which Gov. Rick Perry signed into law in 2007, the desecration of a human corpse is a second-degree felony.

She praised then state Rep. Juan Garcia, D-Corpus Christi, and other legislators who supported the cause.

"It can be done," she said. "But it's going to take a group effort."

Twitter: @CallerBetty
When is hurricane season? Here's what you need to know in South Texas
COURTNEY SACCO/CALLER-TIMES Juan Melgoza, a construction material technician for the city of Corpus Christi, drills a core sample on a newly completed section of County Road 20 near Staples Street in early May. The city's new design and construction standards require that new streets be build for a 30-year life span.

SHARE COURTNEY SACCO/CALLER-TIMES Summer Wind Drive was specifically designed to the city's former 20-year design standards, records show. If the Planning Commission had approved the residential street two months later, it would have been required to last 30 years. In less than two years, its asphalt became a sea of waves. COURTNEY SACCO/CALLER-TIMES A core sample of asphalt taken from a newly rebuilt section of County Road 20 is measured in preparation for having the material tested as part of the city's new street construction inspections. COURTNEY SACCO/CALLER-TIMES Juan Melgoza, a city construction material technician, uses a rubber mallet to free a core sample from a drill bit used to inspect new road construction in Corpus Christi city limits. COURTNEY SACCO/CALLER-TIMES Juan Melgoza, a construction material technician for the city of Corpus Christi, logs descriptive information on a core sample taken from a newly rebuilt section of County Road 20 in early May.

By Matt Woolbright of the Caller-Times

Summer Wind Village is one of Corpus Christi youngest neighborhoods.

The two-story houses are similar in design, but several display unique tastes of families settling in, like a limestone walkway or a Texas logo emblazoned above the garage.

The lawns are well-manicured, but the young trees barely provide much shade from the summer sun, representing the rapid growth on the city's Southside.

Oddly, Summer Wind Drive, built in 2013, is already on the verge of needing a full reconstruction. The street's asphalt is a sea of waves.

As residential road woes choke the city's budget, Summer Wind Drive puts the need for adequate design, construction and preventive maintenance in clear focus.

The City Council tried to fix the problem by ordinance in 2013 when it approved new street design standards aimed at extending the life of new roads from 20 to 30 years. Building better new streets is a foundation issue to the city's overall strategy for correcting decades of road maintenance neglect.

Summer Wind Drive was specifically designed to the city's former 20-year design standards, records show. If the Planning Commission had approved the residential street two months later, it would have been required to last 30 years.

It didn't last two years.

"If you don't get a road designed right and have preventive maintenance, you're going to have problems," said Toby Futrell, a former Austin city manager who served on the City Council's residential streets committee earlier this year.

City engineers tasked with inspecting new roads before the city takes ownership of them don't know why the road failed.

"It could be because of any number of things," said Jeffrey Edmonds, the city's director of engineering services. "This design could have been bad, it could have been we missed something or it could be the loads on the streets."

A DELAYED SOLUTION

City leaders hatched a comprehensive plan in early 2013 to improve the streets over the long-term that led to a street user fee to fund preventive maintenance and a revamp of the design standards to increase the life cycle of new streets 50 percent.

The standards, which were effective for all developments approved after March 25, 2013, require the road's support layers be limestone-based and extend beyond the curb. There also has to be a reinforced zone behind the curb to prevent it from rolling and allowing water to begin its destruction. It charges private development project engineers to submit street design plans that give the new street a 30-year life span.

City Standard Construction Specifications by callertimes

Residential streets typically aren't expected to be thoroughfares for heavy trucks laden with cement or lumber like a larger arterial or collector might experience, so their design requirements are less demanding.

Yet, in many cases, that's their role initially.

"The first thing they do is build the roads," Edmonds said. "One of the problems is then they build the houses so  some of the heaviest loads it will have come in the first year of life."

Summer Wind Drive passed 30 city inspections that ensured the materials and composition were within acceptable levels before the city took ownership of the road, city records show.

In late-January 2015, less than two years after the street was added to the city's street system, city crews measured the pavement condition index, a score used to determine what kind of repairs are needed and when.

The road scored a 66, which is 11 points above the threshold of 55  a marker suggesting reconstruction as the most cost-effective solution.

CHECKING DEVELOPER WORK

The city has 11 inspectors, of which three are devoted to inspecting new subdivisions, and 11 positions are contracted out to private companies to ensure new roads are meeting the applicable standards.

In the past year, city inspectors conducted at least 495 tests in 19 subdivisions.

In at least one case  The Promenade, which is being constructed off South Staples Street south of most other developments  the testing caught problems with parts of the subdivision's roads being built.

The moisture content at three testing locations  one on Battle Creek Drive and two on Great Falls Drive  failed to meet city standards in a November 2015 test. A week later, another test turned up multiple failures on Magnolia Road and Great Falls Drive for moisture content and soil compaction.

By the next month, subsequent tests at both Magnolia Road and Great Falls Drive show the sites' issues had been rectified and met city standards.

George Thomas, of South Staples LLC, the developer for the subdivision project, said his team welcomes inspection and doesn't hesitate to address design concerns or roads that fail to meet the requirements.

"Absolutely," said Thomas. "We fix any problems."

The subdivision is being built on former farm land.

City inspectors collect core samples from different parts of the street, and private labs analyze the material against the appropriate standards. If the test results come back less than satisfactory, the developer is required to fix the issue before the houses can be sold or placed for rent., Edmonds said.

Inspectors are tasked with visiting multiple subdivisions daily, and tests are completed without exception for the road composition and the underlying soil compaction for all new streets. Like the street operations department, the inspections division of the city has positions that need to be filled to operate as efficiently as possible.

There are seven inspector vacancies.

There's no moratorium on hiring  the city's compensation packages just don't compete with what's available for qualified inspectors in the private market, Edmonds said.

The city pays its inspectors about $19 per hour for the their labor, but the going contract rate is somewhere between $65 and $90 per hour, he explained.

"Those guys are paid better than the city employees and it's a pervasive problem across the (city)," Edmonds said.

Because contracting outside inspectors was approved, the city is meeting the demands of an accelerated development period, he added.

Those contracted positions primarily stem from a request for qualifications the city issued late last year. Most of the inspectors come from the South Texas-based AGCM, Inc., and local companies LAN Inc., LNV Inc. and Maverick Engineering are also represented on the team.

EARLY DIVIDENDS

The city's chief of street operations said it's "too early to tell" if the 2013 standards will eliminate some of the past problems, like those that surfaced on Summer Wind Drive.

Still, others are praising the improved standards as the first step of a long journey toward building neighborhood streets that last and making ongoing maintenance affordable and practical. The city's maintenance plan has scheduled repairs at seven, 14 and 21 years using the 30-year design standards.

The specific issue of road edges failing on new streets does seem to have been fixed for streets that are built to the 2013 standards, said Edmonds, whose team has been inspecting the new streets.

"It's been a dramatic improvement once we started extending the base beyond the edge of the curb," he said. "It really is paying dividends in terms of longevity."

It won't be long before all new streets will be built to the new 30-year standards now that a loophole has been closed that allowed subdivision street plans approved five years ago to be built today under old standards, said Julio Dimas, the assistant director of development services.

The Planning Commission adopted a practice of no longer granting repeated extensions to developments without a compelling reason, he explained.

In some cases, multiple, consecutive two-year extensions were being sought and approved, said Andy Taubman, who chaired the just-concluded residential streets committee.

"They didn't realize that was happening," Dimas said.

Still, projects that received extensions before the change in policy are able to continue building under the old standards.

That grandfathering issue is one that Edmonds and the streets committee's final report want to see addressed. Not doing so could compromise the effectiveness of this City Council's update to the street design standards.

"If I had my way, the new construction would have to comply with the new standards," Edmonds said.

The report calls for the City Council to request a legal review of the issue to weigh whether or not the city has the authority to modify existing project agreements. It also recommends only the non-geographic portions of the new standards  such as street depth and underground work  be required, while issues like cul-de-sac radices be left unchanged.

"If the builder does a good job building their streets they will last 60 years with just routine maintenance," Taubman said. "But if the builder doesn't build the streets as well as the new standards ask for ... the city will need to begin spending significant money on them from Day 1 just about."

Twitter: @reportermatt

A 30-YEAR LIFE SPAN

In 2013, the City Council approved a new set of design standards that call for new streets lasting 30 years before being replaced. The Street Preventative Maintenance Program was adopted to guide streets toward fulfilling that life expectancy. Here's the scheduled maintenance for new streets engineered for a 30-year life span:

Year 7: A thin  less than half an inch  layer of hot asphalt and crushed rock seals surface cracks on the street. This is a seal coat, and the process costs about $11/square yard.

Year 14: The top layer of asphalt is replaced and some work is done as needed on the base. This is called an overlay. Overlays are usually less than two inches thick and cost about $32 per square yard.

Year 21: A second seal coat is applied.

Year 30: Depending on condition, either another overlay is applied or the street is reconstructed. Reconstruction costs about $75 per square yard.
Rachel Denny Clow/Caller-Times file Wind turbine pieces are unloaded from a ship in the Port of Corpus Christi late last year. A total of 99,300 tons of wind energy-related equipment and materials passed through the port last year, compared with 57,000 tons in 2014 and 21,000 tons in 2013.

SHARE Rachel Denny Clow/Caller-Times file Wind turbine pieces are unloaded from a ship in the Port of Corpus Christi late last year. A total of 99,300 tons of wind energy-related equipment and materials passed through the port last year, compared with 57,000 tons in 2014 and 21,000 tons in 2013.

By Chris Ramirez, chris.ramirez@caller.com

Who needs oil?

Well, OK. Pretty much anybody with a car, truck, SUV or any of the 22 million vehicles registered in Texas, that's who.

But wind energy is quickly muscling its way into Texas' crowded energy landscape.

And the Port of Corpus Christi has become the tip of the spear in the industry.

Texas ranks first in the nation for both installed and under-construction wind capacity, while also supporting more than 24,000 wind-related jobs. The state is home to at least 40 manufacturing facilities and numerous component suppliers, and its wind energy industry has provided nearly $33 billion in capital investment.

The parts to make a windmill are big; a tower can stretch several hundred feet.

That's where the Coastal Bend's largest port can play a vital role in getting blades, turbines and other materials from a transaction sheet to someone's property.

"They've done an exceptional job helping the industry," Jeffrey Clark, executive director of Austin-based The Wind Coalition, said of the port. "We are going to need them as we continue to grow and branch out."

In 2001, Texas received only 1 percent of its energy from wind. Today, the state's wind energy infrastructure, nearly 18,000 megawatts of power, is roughly three times larger than second-place Iowa.

Wind provides almost 10 percent of the state's energy and powers over 3.6 million homes.

"The simple fact is there's a lot of room in Texas," said Michael Goggin, senior director of Research for the American Wind Energy Association in Washington, D.C. "It's more than able to meet climbing energy demands."

Much of that growth is being funneled in the port's direction.

A total of 99,300 tons of wind energy-related equipment and materials passed through the port last year, compared with 57,000 tons in 2014 and 21,000 tons in 2013, according to port financial records

Roughly 25,000 tons of such material made its way through the port between January and May, according the most updated port data.

Some of the growth resulted in a recent shortage of storage space the port recently resolved.

The port had, on average, about 85 acres available just two years ago along the Corpus Christi Turning Basin to store wind energy-related materials. Last summer, orders for parts began to back up. That gobbled up waterfront space at the Port of Corpus Christi.

Port officials at one point were left with less than 6 acres available upon which to store blades, mounts and other windmill equipment.

They had to use undeveloped portions of Rincon Industrial Park, a 200-acre parcel on the north side of the Corpus Christi Ship Channel, for storage and were also considering other land west of Cargo Dock 9, including the port's Permian Yard, as a backup if the space crunch continued.

Even land near the Texas State Aquarium was packed with blades.

Eventually, companies began moving their equipment. Patricia Cardenas, a spokeswoman for the port, said they did so on their own as orders began filling up; the navigation district did not have to force any of them out.

Still, the port may need to prepare for another wave of congestion at some point. Texas' wind energy success is now opening opportunities to export energy to growing markets in Central and South America, Clark said.

For example, wind power is now the fastest growing source of electrical power in Brazil.

That country installed 56 new wind farms between August and December, increasing its capacity by 23 percent, according to Brazil's Electric Power Trade Chamber. Brazil hopes to reach 18.8 gigawatts of wind capacity by 2019 with an average annual growth rate of 20 percent.

Clark said experts expect growth in Texas to remain steady the next few years, after a "real boom period" earlier this decade. Costs to build and manage wind farms have dropped 65 percent since 2010, and companies also are shelling out less to transport towers. Blades also are lighter and more durable.

The lower costs have begun to build confidence among those looking to make long-term investments that can generate reliable returns.

"Corporate America is buying wind power not necessarily because it's clean, but it's one of the ... few sources of energy that can guarantee its costs for 20 to 30 years," Clark said. "While it's good for the planet, it's great for the bottom line."

Twitter: @Caller_ChrisRam

BY THE NUMBERS

Texas' role in wind energy

40

Active manufacturing facilities in state

116

Wind projects online in state

17,711

Megawatts of installed wind capacity

10,390

Number of wind turbines

5,486

Megawatts of wind capacity under construction

24,001-25,000

Number of direct and indirect jobs supported

$32.7 billion

Total capital investment

Source: American Wind Energy Association

U.S. wind energy profile

8,598

U.S. installed wind capacity in 2015 in megawatts

$128 billion

Wind industry investment in new wind projects in the last 10 years

88,000

Number of wind-related jobs in the U.S. at the end of 2015, across fields such as development, construction, transportation, manufacturing, operations, services
SHARE Contributed photo Tony Feher's exhibit "Some Time Soon," installed at the Art Museum of South Texas in 2007, transformed everyday objects such as plastic bags, water bottles and painter's tape into unique pieces. Feher died June 24.

By Esther Hackleman, Esther.M.Hackleman@caller.com

International artist Tony Feher, who grew up in Corpus Christi, died June 24 at age 60 in a New York City hospital.

Feher developed a style of art that transformed everyday objects into unique pieces.

"Tony is the kind of person that revealed things to people through his talent and intellect," said Deborah Fullerton, a curator at Art Museum of South Texas. "He appreciated small things and raised your sensibilities."

In 2007, Feher's "Some Time Soon" exhibit installed at the Art Museum of South Texas incorporated water bottles, plastic bags and painter's tape.

"My intent is to present something to the viewer that allows them to find their own way in," Feher told the Caller-Times in 2007.

Though his art was first misunderstood, the University of Texas at Austin alumnus was featured in galleries across the world, including the United States, Canada and Sweden. Feher, who moved to New York where he flourished as an artist, was featured in the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan.

"He was like a poem. Poems open people's mind to how they feel and the world around them  his work did the same thing," Fullerton said. "He was very much someone who led us into the work and how to respond to the experience. He gave us so many beautiful experiences."

Twitter: @Caller_Esther
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The Harbor Bridge Project designers recently held a public meeting to provide community updates on the future bridge design. The proposed bridge is nothing short of spectacular and could certainly boost Corpus Christi's image.

The planners did an extraordinary job tying the bridge approaches to Interstate 37 and accommodating traffic patterns in other parts of the municipal area.

The work in the Hillcrest and bayside areas accommodated the residents but it needs to be remembered those populations were represented by the Environmental Clinic from the University of Texas School of Law and the Texas RioGrande Legal Aid.

On the other hand, the north end of the bridge seems to have been forgotten. The environmental impact statement requires a land use panel. The panel is supposed to identify needs and issues for impacted areas. Unfortunately no member of the panel is really familiar with North Beach, much less a resident there.

It appears that North Beach received little thought. The Texas Department of Transportation's supposed tried and true exit model for North Beach that is simply not adequate and more than likely a traffic nightmare. There are other issues, too.

Fox News recently reported that Corpus Christi Bay and associated beaches are among the top 10 beaches in the nation for bacteria-laden water. Locally, the bacterium is associated with stormwater sewage. The report identified bay waters adjacent to Ropes Park, Cole Park and Emerald Beach. New data suggests the contaminated area will expand.

Between this area and North Beach lies McGee Beach on the seawall. That water was believed to be relatively bacteria-free. As it turns out the storm sewer outflow for McGee Beach is situated differently from other outflows.

Water testing locations are different. It is believed that future sampling will follow protocols like those near the parks to the south. Corrected bacteria levels are expected to rise. Consequently, the only clean beach water in the city would be at North Beach. That is extremely significant because Corpus Christi holds itself out to be a tourist destination.

Currently, new houses are being built on North Beach in what is referred to as the Cottage District. Additionally, a new good size subdivision is being planned. The idea of a new hotel is being raised. This is important because Corpus Christi is losing convention business because of a lack of hotel space.

No more hotels can be built on the south side of the bridge because of deed restrictions prohibiting hotel construction on otherwise vacant lands. The city needs the hotel rooms. Accordingly, it is imperative that the north end of the bridge have better traffic entry and outlets than are currently planned. This would support the viability of new growth on North Beach.

The North Beach Community Association, a group of concerned North Beach residents and business owners, has been seeking what it describes as a sweeping turn coming off the bridge and flowing to the right to Beach Avenue. This would entail acquiring some land from Whataburger Inc.

There has been no known contact with Whataburger to see if the company would be amenable to its land becoming part of a right of way and if so under what circumstances. This writer has been told that no eminent domain proceedings would be considered because of time constraints.

The fallacy of that logic is that the currently proposed inadequate access to and from North Beach would likely cause nonresident property owners to seek legal relief preventing Flatiron/Dragados and TxDOT from rendering their lands significantly less useful and valuable. That litigation would make negotiations with Whataburger seem like a microsecond.

North Beach could and should be the most vibrant visitor and vacation destination on the Texas Gulf Coast. Access to and from the bridge needs to be user friendly, which as currently planned is not. Inattention to North Beach now will create mistakes that will last the better part of a century.

This project can be and should be carried out effectively to the benefit of the entire community. The proposed bridge project should be noted for its beauty and practicality and not for its oversights.

Claude V. D'Unger is a lifelong resident of Corpus Christi and holds a graduate degree in environmental science.
home World Amazing Christian revival in South Africa, says City Harvest Church pastor Kong Hee

City Harvest Church pastor Kong Hee said he and his family were "blown away" by what they witnessed during their recent visit to Soweto in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Kong shared it was their first time to visit the place, and they were amazed by the revival.

"Sun Ho (Official), Dayan and I have been so blown away during this first-ever ministry trip of ours to Soweto, a township of the city of Johannesburg in South Africa, which borders the city's mining belt in the south," Kong wrote in a Facebook post.

They spent a few days with the members of Grace Bible Church, which is pastored by Bishop Mosa Sono.

The megachurch pastor said that upon seeing the revivial in Soweto, something inside him "exploded." His wife Sun Ho felt the same thing.

"I am so blown away, I feel like I have exploded inside me, I feel like heaven and earth have met in this place. The glory of God is so amazing," Ho said in a video uploaded on Kong's Facebook page.

Kong commented that what his wife said described what they both felt: "We have exploded inside us."

He said the South African revival is "real," and many people are truly being saved. He added that he sensed an "openness and spiritual hunger for Jesus and His Word" in the place.

Earlier this year, Kong shared his desire to see a revival among the Muslims, particularly in the predominantly Muslim country Indonesia. Christianity is the second largest religion in Indonesia, Kong said, making it very ready for harvest.

"What a big harvest field Indonesia is. The number of Christians has grown from 1.3M to 24M in the past 40 years, making up approximately 10% of the country's population," Kong said.

The megachurch pastor is facing an eight-year prison term for fraud after a judge found him guilty of misusing more than $30 million in church funds. Kong has filed an appeal for the case.
He told the tribunal his company was considering making up to 5000 silencers for the Australian law enforcement, defence and pest control industries "... and that it is absurd and unreasonable that he cannot obtain a permit authorising him to test (meaning use) these suppressors in order to ensure their quality and suitability before supplying them to the market."
"It's really a magical story  at its heart it's about the value forming relationships with others brings to our lives," Barlow says, as well as the related idea that doing things for others enriches our own lives and the notion that we can't necessarily see what is right in front of us and need to take a leap of imagination.
"The results that have come in at the moment for the Senate are mixed for us," Ms Hobbs said. "As was always a possibility, it looks like the popularity of the Labor candidate has increased her vote at the expense of our primary, but we are also seeing what is looking to be the lowest ever vote for the Liberal Party in Canberra."
Orange has signed an agreement to acquire 100% of Sun Communications share capital. Sun Communications is the leading cable TV operator in Moldova. The acquisition of Sun Communications will, in theory, enable Orange to prepare itself better for the convergence which is sweeping through the telecoms market.

Orange plans to reinforce its position as the leading convergent operator in Europe providing fixed broadband, fixed and mobile voice services as well as pay TV services. The acquisition of Sun Communications is part of this strategy. Orange Moldova is the largest mobile operator in the country with over two million customers, providing high-quality 4G coverage to 84% of the population.

Sun Communications is one of the main Pay TV providers in Moldova by customer base and offers digital and cable TV services under the brand SunTV to customers in Chisinau, Balti, and Cahul. With over 172 channels and 25 HD channels on offer, SunTV is one of the largest providers of cable TV services with over 100,000 active customers. Sun also offers internet and VOIP (Voice over IP) services to over 38,000 customers in Moldova, offering up to 300Mbps connectivity.

The transaction will allow Orange to enter the fixed and Pay TV services market and offer new and innovative services to the new entitys customers, particularly offers and services across fixed, mobile and pay TV services.

The completion of the transaction remains subject to the approval of competition authorities.
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Our Promise: Welcome to Care2, the world's largest community for good. Here, you'll find over 45 million like-minded people working towards progress, kindness, and lasting impact.

Care2 Stands Against: bigots, racists, bullies, science deniers, misogynists, gun lobbyists, xenophobes, the willfully ignorant, animal abusers, frackers, and other mean people. If you find yourself aligning with any of those folks, you can move along, nothing to see here.

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You are our people. You Care. We Care2.
Honda has released a new image gallery with the NSX, as the supercar is getting ready to commence deliveries on the European car market this fall.



With its evolutionary design and increased dimensions over its iconic predecessor, the all-new Honda NSX showed its fangs, as an Acura, at last years Detroit Auto Show and since then it has been displayed at numerous automotive events across the globe and it even raced to the clouds last weekend, at Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.

The supercar is tech-loaded and the list counts just about everything an enthusiasts could wish for, from active sound control to intuitive steering. The driver is greeted by the Honda Connect 7.0-inch touchscreen, 8.0-inch TFT display instead of a traditional instrument cluster, leather and Alcantara trim, dual-zone climate control with humidity control and air filtration system, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity and a premium audio system, among others.

Its Sport Hybrid SH-AWD power unit, which combines a twin-turbo V6 and three electric motors, feeds 581 PS (537 HP) and 686 Nm (506 lb-ft) of torque to the wheels through a 9-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, catapulting the NSX from rest to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 3 seconds and up to a top speed of 308 km/h (191 mph). Official fuel consumption figures stand at 10.3 lt/100 km (22.84 mpg US) in the city, 9.9 lt/100 km (23.76 mpg US) on the highway and a combined 10.0 lt/100 km (23.52 mpg US), while emitting 228 g/km of CO2.

PHOTO GALLERY
Remember last yeara Jeep Wrangler made out of cans to celebrate Canada Day? No? No problem  for those who missed out, FCA Canada built another one to display on the streets of Vancouver.



The iconic Jeep was recreated in full scale out of 5,000 cans of non-perishable food with help from students, scouts, and Canstruction, a non-profit organization that specializes in this kind of display.

Displayed on the West Coast citys waterfront to mark the countrys 149th birthday, the Wrangler sculpture will now be disassembled, its cans going to local food banks to make over 3,500 meals for those in need.

This wasnt the first time that FCA Canada and the FCA Foundation teamed up with Canstruction for this kind of project. Nor was last years Jeep display. In 2014 they created a Ram pickup out of cans and put it on display at the Calgary Stampede. And in 2013 they showcased a Dodge Grand Caravan in downtown Toronto.

We doubt this will be the last such project, either. So the question is, what will they do next? A Viper on Montreals Crescent Street during the Canadian Grand Prix, perhaps? Or a Challenger in front of Parliament in Ottawa? Lets wait and find out, shall we?

PHOTOS
Of the 88 individuals who were invited into their Short Films and Feature Animation branch, 76 work in animation (the remaining 12 members are live-action short filmmakers). Heres the positive: 24 out of those 76 are female (32%). That number represents a significant improvement for the short films/animation branch, which according to previous research conducted by Cartoon Brew, is somewhere between 10-13% female on the animation side.

There is one deeply troubling observation about the 24 female invitees, however, and thats that the majority of the women (14 of them) are producers or management side. Compare that to the 52 men invited, where by my count just three are producers. This isnt the Academys fault; invited members are sponsored by existing Academy members in the industry. In other words, existing Academy members are simply perpetuating the longstanding (and outdated) stereotype in our industry that women belong in management and men should handle the art.

On the visual effects side, just 3 of the 34 invitees (9%) were women. I dont want to guess what percentage of that branch is male, but its going to be a long time before vfx becomes anything other than a huge sausage party. Between both branches, nearly 25% of this years members are female, which is a fivefold increase from last year, when just 5% were female.

While I dont like the ambiguous people of color label, the Academy has certainly added a lot more international diversity to the short film/animation branch than years past: I counted three individuals born in Japan, two from Brazil, two from Chile, as well as other artists born in Hong Kong, Mexico, South Korea, and Philippines. Plenty of European-born artists are represented, too. This international mix of artists, combined obviously with dozens of American artists, comes closer to representing the broad group of people who are responsible for all of the the major animated films released by Hollywood.

Again, there is much less diversity in the visual effects branch. Almost all of the 34 invitees are white, though there seems to have been some effort to include more European and Australian artists.

African-American artists continue to be nearly invisible in both branches. Of the 110 animation-related invitees in both branches, there is just one African-American artist. (To account for the fact that I may have missed some people, lets say two or three people. Still an abysmal figure.) The rate of invited African-Americans into the short/feature animation branch between 2004-2015 was less than 1.5%, so this years class continues to send African-American membership downward. Ive never done research into the vfx branch, but we can assume its equally dismal.

After looking at all these numbers, a key question remains: Is the Academy merely reflecting the homogeneity of the animation and visual effects industry, or is it not fully representing the diversity of our community? Theres no easy answer to that question. While animation production is exploding all over the globe, those new voices are not necessarily represented in Hollywood, where the majority of decision-makers and artists in key creative positions remain white. The Academy, like many other institutions, will have to grapple for years to come with the changes in this newly globalized world of Hollywood production. If this years invitees in the animation and vfx branches are any indication, theyve got a long road ahead of them.

Below is the full list of animation-related Academy invites in the animation and visual effects branches:

Short Films and Feature Animation

Ale Abreu  Boy and the World, Cosmic Boy

Line K. Andersen  The Croods, Monsters vs Aliens

Bruce Anderson  Rio 2, Rio

Graham Annable  The Boxtrolls, ParaNorman

Guillaume Aretos  Puss in Boots, Shrek the Third

Sanjay Bakshi  The Good Dinosaur, Monsters University

Maxwell Boas  Kung Fu Panda 3, Rise of the Guardians

Lydia Bottegoni  Hotel Transylvania, Surfs Up

Rebecca Wilson Bresee  Zootopia, Frozen

Mark Burton  Shaun the Sheep Movie, Gnomeo & Juliet

Chris Butler  ParaNorman, Coraline

Clement Calvet  Cafard, Song of the Sea

Rio 2, Dr. Seuss Horton Hears a Who!

Galen Tan Chu  Epic, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

Pam Coats  Gnomeo & Juliet, Mulan

Melissa Beth Cobb  Kung Fu Panda 3, Kung Fu Panda 2

Deborah Cook  The Boxtrolls, ParaNorman

Renato Dos Anjos  Wreck-It Ralph, Bolt

Jeff Draheim  Frozen, The Princess and the Frog

Karen Dufilho  Duet, For the Birds

Pato Escala  Bear Story

Katie Fico  Zootopia, Feast

Michael Fong  Inside Out, Toy Story 3

Lori Forte  Epic, Ice Age Continental Drift

Jonathan Gibbs  Turbo, The Croods

Steven Goldberg  Frozen, Tangled

Judith Gruber-Stitzer  Wild Life, When the Day Breaks

Jorge R. Gutierrez  The Book of Life, Carmelo

Jane Hartwell  The Croods, Madagascar

Georgina Hayns  The Boxtrolls, ParaNorman

Janet Healy  Minions, Despicable Me 2

Tang K. Heng  Kung Fu Panda 2, Kung Fu Panda

Raman Hui  Monster Hunt, Shrek the Third

Claire Jennings  Coraline, Father and Daughter

Yong Duk Jhun  The Croods, Shrek Forever After

Scott Kersavage  Zootopia, Wreck-It Ralph

Michael Knapp  Epic, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

Robert Kondo  The Dam Keeper, La Luna

Shawn Krause  Inside Out, Cars 2

Max Lang  Room on the Broom, The Gruffalo

Nicolas Marlet  Kung Fu Panda 3, How to Train Your Dragon 2

Steve Martino  The Peanuts Movie, Ice Age Continental Drift

Dale Mayeda  Planes: Fire & Rescue, Frozen

Brian McLean  The Boxtrolls, ParaNorman

Mike Mitchell  Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, Shrek Forever After

Joe Moshier  Penguins of Madagascar, How to Train Your Dragon 2

James Ford Murphy  Lava, Cars

Kiel Murray  Up, Cars

Yoshiaki Nishimura  When Marnie Was There, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

Kyle Odermatt  Big Hero 6, Paperman

Gabriel Osorio  Bear Story, Residuos

Sanjay Patel  Sanjays Super Team, Tokyo Mater

Martin Pope  Room on the Broom, Chico & Rita

Tina Price  Dinosaur, Fantasia/2000

Peter Ramsey  Rise of the Guardians, Monsters vs Aliens

Denise Ream  The Good Dinosaur, Cars 2

Julie Roy  Carface, Kali the Little Vampire

William Salazar  Kung Fu Panda 3, Monsters vs Aliens

Scott Santoro  Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, Flushed Away

Katherine Sarafian  Brave, Lifted

Kent Seki  Rocky and Bullwinkle, Megamind

Osnat Shurer  One Man Band, Boundin

Mireille Soria  Home, Madagascar 3: Europes Most Wanted

Richard Starzak  Shaun the Sheep Movie, A Matter of Loaf and Death

Michael D. Surrey  The Princess and the Frog, The Lion King

Galyn Susman  Ratatouille, Toy Story 2

Imogen Sutton  Prologue, The Thief and the Cobbler

Dice Tsutsumi  The Dam Keeper, Monsters University

Nora Twomey  Song of the Sea, The Secret of Kells

Pablo Valle  How to Train Your Dragon 2, Turbo

Michael Venturini  The Good Dinosaur, Toy Story 3

Pierre-Olivier Vincent  How to Train Your Dragon 2, How to Train Your Dragon

Dan Wagner  Kung Fu Panda 3, Kung Fu Panda 2

Koji Yamamura  Muybridges Strings, Mt. Head

Hiromasa Yonebayashi  When Marnie Was There, The Secret World of Arrietty

Raymond Zibach  Kung Fu Panda 3, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas

Visual Effects

Kevin Baillie  The Walk, Transformers: Age of Extinction

Sara Bennett  Ex Machina, Hercules

Theo Bialek  The Amazing Spider-Man 2, The Smurfs 2

Richard Bluff  The Big Short, Unbroken

Steve Cremin  Hail, Caesar!, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay (Parts 1 and 2)

Lindy Wilson De Quattro  Pacific Rim, Mission: Impossible  Ghost Protocol

Adrian de Wet  The Hunger Games: Mockingjay (Parts 1 and 2), The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Matt Dessero  Jupiter Ascending, Divergent

Deak Ferrand  By the Sea, Lucy

Ronald Frankel  Gods of Egypt, Riddick

John Gibson  X-Men: Days of Future Past, Snow White and the Huntsman

Martin Hill  The Hunger Games: Mockingjay  Part 2, Furious Seven

Bruce L. Holcomb  Ant-Man, Avengers: Age of Ultron

Andrew Jackson  Mad Max: Fury Road, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Matthew Jacobs  Gods of Egypt, Deliver Us from Evil

Anders Langlands  The Martian, X-Men: Days of Future Past

Seth Maury  Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, Maleficent

Rich McBride  The Revenant, Gravity

Kelvin McIlwain  Furious Seven, Snow White and the Huntsman

Paul Norris  Ex Machina, Mission: Impossible  Rogue Nation

Dan Oliver  Gods of Egypt, Mad Max: Fury Road

Edward M. Pasquarello  Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, Tomorrowland

Betsy Paterson  The Hunger Games, The Incredible Hulk

Matthew Shumway  The Revenant, Life of Pi

Jason Smith  The Revenant, Super 8

Kevin Andrew Smith  Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Krampus

Simone Kraus Townsend  Ant-Man, Avengers: Age of Ultron

Stefano Trivelli  Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Pan

Adam Valdez  Maleficent, World War Z

David Vickery  Mission: Impossible  Rogue Nation, Fast & Furious 6

Steven Warner  The Brothers Grimsby, The Martian

Andrew Whitehurst  Ex Machina, Paddington

Andy Williams  Mad Max: Fury Road, Fury

Tom Wood  Mad Max: Fury Road, The Last Witch Hunter
Photo: Dropzone

Skydivers were soaring to new heights in the North Okanagan this weekend during the Great Canadian Free Fall Festival.

Vanessa Chalmers, whose husband Brett owns Dropzone based out of the Vernon airport, said the event has attracted more than 100 skydivers from around the world including New Zealand, Australia, Holland and the United States.

New this year is the Skybus  a twin-engine plane capable of going higher and carrying more skydivers than Vernon has seen in the past.

It holds 22 skydivers, said Vanessa. It goes to a higher altitude than we usually go to. We usually go to 10,000 feet, now we go to 12,500 feet.

It is a lot of fun. People are having a blast. It's the first time a plane like this has been in Vernon.

Vanessa, herself a skydiver for the past six years, said skydivers will be taking flight throughout the day Sunday as well as Monday morning.

All of the skydivers are experienced in their sport  Brett has more than 4,000 dives  but there have been some newbies as well.

We had about 80 first timers that have been doing tandem jumps, she said.

The skydivers will also be doing formations often to the cheers of the thousands of people in Vernon for the annual Funtastic music festival and slow pitch tournament.
OMAHA  If anyone knows how to juggle what life throws at them while still wearing a smile, its 22-year-old Nealey Branting.

After learning of the single-parent schooling program at College of Saint Marys in Omaha in January 2014, Branting scooped up her then 2-year-old daughter Brynley Pfeffer and made the move from her hometown of Osceola.

This was going to be perfect. She was going to live in the dorms with other single mothers, go to school full time to become a nurse and hold down a job to help pay for the expenses, all while her day care was covered by the school.

She had her whole life figured out. Everything was going great.

That was until August, when she went to the emergency room with a severe headache that left her debilitated.

I couldnt even see, she said.

Branting recalls doctors giving her a painful spinal tap. Although she wanted to react, she couldnt, her body wouldnt let her.

I mentally knew everything that was going on, but I couldnt physically react, she said.

Tests came back positive for oligodendroglioma, a slow-growing brain tumor located on her left frontal lobe, wreaking havoc on her nervous system.

Of the panel of 12 doctors my oncologist took my case to, only two have seen this tumor, and no one has seen it in someone this young, she said, adding that its more often seen in senior citizens.

She took the diagnosis surprisingly well, even joking that since she couldnt pronounce the tumors name she simply called it Fred.

Going in for surgery, she wasnt worried at all  until she saw her parents crying before they wheeled her back.

Thats when it hit me, Branting said. I was having brain surgery.

She came out of the surgery cleared for takeoff. The tumor was gone. Branting was thrilled she was finally OK, and even happier she got to keep her hair, as they were able to make four tiny incisions around her hairline.

She missed a few assignments during the ordeal, but a brain tumor wasn't going to make Branting fall behind in her quest to enter the medical field.

Branting jumped back into her busy life, splitting time between her coursework, the college's work-study program and a job as a certified nursing assistant at Shenandoah Medical Center in Iowa, an hour drive from her dorm.

Around April 2015, her life took another turn.

Branting went in for a routine MRI when they found an unexplainable mass. They wanted to dismiss it as scar tissue, but instead opted to keep a close eye on it.

The MRIs were put on hold when Branting found out she was expecting.

Branting made the decision to go through with the birth, despite her hectic life.

Im very anti-abortion, but if I kept him I would be living paycheck to paycheck, she said.

However, Branting knew in her heart she wanted the baby to have a better life than she could provide for two children. So she used the internet to research adoptions.

After finding an agency, Branting began searching for the perfect couple.

She noticed many of the heterosexual couples on the list already had multiple children, so she looked into same-sex couples. Since lesbian couples still have the option of giving birth, Branting narrowed her search to men.

I really wanted to explore my options, she said. I didnt want the richest family, I just wanted a family with good, stable jobs. I want the best possible life for this baby.

After sifting through list after list of qualified couples, she fell in love with one in particular  a surgeon and linguistics professor in Florida  and they were more than willing to have an open adoption.

They still call me his mommy, Branting said, adding that the couple keeps in contact with her regularly. That means so much to me.

She gave birth to her son in January then handed him over to his new parents, Jerrod Sharp and Geoff Young.

But her life wouldn't slow down.

With the birth over, Branting was free to have an MRI checkup.

Just like before, she took the news that followed in stride, jotting down "chemo" in her schedule book for July after doctors confirmed the tumor returned.

Surgery is risky enough without it being brain surgery and it can only take so much trauma, so doctors are trying chemo and radiation this time, Branting explained.

But first she needed a new hairdo.

I didnt want my anxiety to go through the roof when my hair starts falling out, she said.

A few weeks ago, she did something she tried to avoid for a long time and chopped off her long locks.

It was a bittersweet moment, but I know it's going to make a beautiful child a wig while battling a rough patch in life, she posted on her Facebook page along with a photo of an envelope carrying the hair she donated to Locks of Love.

Branting admits she cried after watching her 10-inch ponytail disappear, but she looked at the bright side, as shes done so many times before.

 ... the more Jesse Churchill (her stylist) made my hair look beautiful, the more I fell in love with it, Branting posted on Facebook, now rocking a bob style, just a few inches above her shoulders. Its so much easier to wash and style now.

Her doctors and school counselors recommended she take a semester or two off for her treatments, but she said thats not going to happen.

I will graduate, she said sternly. I have worked too hard to get where I am. I am not letting this stop me.

Branting expects to graduate with a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing next year. She hopes to continue her education as a nurse practitioner.

I graduate May 21, 2017 ... but Im not counting, joked Branting, who is taking 14 credit hours this summer. My daughter is the reason I am here and the reason I keep pushing through.
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End Date:

January 31, 2022 at 11:59 p.m. ET

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Grand Prize: A $1,000 Ann Taylor gift card. (ARV: $1,000)

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Jennifer Lawrence attends a special screening of "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2" at the AMC Loews Lincoln Square in New York. (Evan Agostini / AP)

A Chicago man has agreed to plead guilty to hacking into the Apple iCloud and Gmail accounts of over 300 people, including the accounts of 30 celebrities, according to federal prosecutors.

Edward Majerczyk, 36, faces up to five years in prison, though the plea agreement anticipates a sentence in the range of six to 12 months.

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The case is the second to arise from "Celebgate," the 2014 hacking scandal in which intimate photos of numerous celebrities were posted online. In March, federal authorities announced that Ryan Collins, 36, of Pennsylvania, had agreed to plead guilty to hacking into the accounts of 100 people, including some celebrities, and downloading nude photos and videos.

However, prosecutors have said that neither Collins nor Majerczyk posted the hacked material online. The investigation is still ongoing, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles.

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Though the charges against both men are very similar, Collins and Majerczyk were apparently operating independently, Mrozek said. Each is accused of using a phishing scam to obtain usernames and passwords from his victims. According to the plea agreement, Majerczyk would send emails from accounts like "appleprivacysecurity@icloud.com" or "appleprivacy@icloud.com." Thinking the emails were legitimate, the victims would click on the links and type in their usernames and passwords.

Majercyzk would then use that information to access the victims' iCloud and Gmail accounts and download "sensitive and private photographs and videos," according to the plea.

Majercyzk was charged by prosecutors in Los Angeles, but the case will be transferred to Illinois for the entering of the plea and sentencing, which are expected within the next few weeks. Collins has also not yet been sentenced, though prosecutors recommended a term of 18 months in prison.

As many as 100 celebrities, including Jennifer Lawrence, Kirsten Dunst and Kate Upton, were targeted in the massive leak of photos in September 2014.







Watch the latest movie trailers.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 126 Woody introduces the gang to a homemade spork toy with self-esteem issues in "Toy Story 4." Read the review. (Pixar / AP)
Chicago police officers investigate where two men and one woman were shot on the 3300 block of W. Ohio St. in the East Garfield Park neighborhood early July 5, 2016. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

While violence erupted during the start of the holiday weekend in Chicago, authorities see some progress even as they lament two killings and a dozen more wounded from Friday afternoon through Saturday.

"That's definitely ... more than we'd like to see," Chicago police First Deputy Superintendent John Escalante told reporters outside police headquarters Saturday afternoon when asked about the violence over the weekend. "We look at just say the last five years, it is encouraging that we can have still a significant impact on the next three days."

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Last year, the Fourth of July weekend saw dozens of shootings, according to Tribune data.

Historically, the Fourth of July weekend has been one of the most violent in the city, and police officials have strategized to tamp it down by putting thousands more officers on the streets and conducting raids that racked up dozens of arrests.

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One man was shot to death early Saturday on the West Side and 12 more were wounded in shootings. A second man was stabbed to death on the South Side in what police describe as a fight between two relatives.

Chicago has been in the spotlight with nearly 2,000 shooting victims, some of them among the 331 homicides, in the first half of the year, according to Tribune data. In all of 2015, there were 490 homicides, the Tribune data show.

On Friday, Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson pointed to repeat gun offenders as being responsible for much of Chicago's violence. Hours later police executed 20 search warrants on the West Side, arresting 88 people on felony and misdemeanor charges for narcotics- and weapons-related crimes, police said. In all officers seized eight firearms, according to police.

Of those arrested, 55 were convicted felons and 16 were currently on parole, police said. Most of those arrested were on the Chicago Police Department's "Strategic Subject List," which includes those believed to be most prone to be involved in violence.

"If I can keep telling you that most gun violence is driven by repeat offenders, that's telling you if we can remove these repeat offenders from the communities that they are terrorizing, that our gun violence will go down," he said. The top cop also is working with state lawmakers on legislation for harsher sentences for repeat gun offenders.

Chicago Police First Deputy Superintendent John Escalante, outside police headquarters on Saturday afternoon, discusses the violence over the weekend and police deployments. (Chicago Tribune)

As the raids were underway, more than 5,000 Chicago police officers had been deployed to patrol the city streets, expressways, lakefront, parks, CTA stations and tourist attractions such as Navy Pier and the Magnificent Mile. That's several thousand more than the typical deployment.

Still, violence continued.

Hector Badillo Jr., 31, of the 400 block of North Trumbull Avenue, was found shot to death early Saturday in the driveway of his father's West Side auto repair shop, according to police and his family, who says he's a father. Badillo suffered a wound to the neck in the shooting at 3:20 a.m. Saturday in the 700 block of North California Avenue just north of Grand Avenue. He was pronounced dead on the scene about 20 minutes later, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

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In the Brainerd neighborhood, two relatives got into an argument about 5 a.m.in the 9200 block of South Lowe Street and one of the men, in his 30s, was stabbed, according to police and the Cook County medical examiner's office. Willie Pittman, who lived at the Lowe address, was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn where he died, authorities said. A second man, described as a relative, was taken into custody and detectives were interviewing him, according to Chicago police.

At least two shootings were reported in the Austin area at the start of the weekend  hours before a peace picnic. A 17-year-old girl was shot in the foot at about 10:35 p.m. in the 5100 block of West Fulton Street, part of the South Austin neighborhood, police said. Less than a mile away, blood drops marked a trail from a shooting in the 5200 block of West Quincy Street, where a 39-year-old man was shot in the shoulder and right hand at about 12:50 a.m. Saturday, according to police. The trail went toward where paramedics found him a couple blocks away in the 5200 block of West Gladys Avenue.

Where shootings have occurred Dots represent shootings between 3 p.m. July 1, 2016, and 6 a.m. July 5.

On Saturday afternoon, some residents in Austin hosted a community cookout in an act of solidarity against the violence in their neighborhood. Initially, people were reluctant to get involved in an event over the holiday weekend, said organizer Cortez Duquette, who has lived in the West Side community for the past decade.

"A lot of people didn't want to come outside today because of the anticipation of violence and what has been going on historically," he said. "Hopefully, we can stop the gunfire in that community at least for the weekend by showing a little love in the community. We want to bring neighbors out of the house and talking to each other."

Duquette added, "We're not trying to solve nothing today. We just want to discuss about what's going on and what's the resolution and what can we do to move forward."

lvivanco@tribpub.com

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Michael Kenny, 55, was ordered held in lieu of $500,000 bail Saturday after being charged with sexually assaulting two young teenage girls. (Cook County Sheriff's photo / )

A Mount Prospect man was ordered held in lieu of $500,000 bail Saturday after being charged with sexually assaulting two young teenage girls who visited him.

Michael Kenny, 55, appeared in bond court at the Leighton Criminal Courts Building before Judge Laura Marie Sullivan on charges of criminal sexual assault and aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

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The two victims, ages 13 and 15, are both related to him and live out of state, while Kenny lives in Mount Prospect because of his job, prosecutors said.

Over several weeks in June, Kenny forced sex on the younger girl several times, physically abusing her when she resisted, prosecutors said. The older girl visited Kenny for a few days late in June, and Kenny sexually assaulted her also, prosecutors said.

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On June 30, a relative told another relative to look at the 15-year-old's cell phone, on which she found text messages between the two victims talking about Kenny, prosecutors said. The relative became concerned about possible sexual abuse and contacted police, prosecutors said.

Kenny, of the 2300 block of Lexington Drive in Mount Prospect, is due in court Wednesday in Rolling Meadows court.
Shelby County Sheriffs deputies work the scene where four young children were fatally stabbed at the Greens of Irene apartment, Friday, July 1, 2016 in Memphis, Tenn. (Mark Weber / AP)

MEMPHIS, Tenn.  Police have arrested a Tennessee woman and accused her of killing her four children by slitting their throats with a butcher knife.

Shanynthia Gardner, 29, of Memphis, faces four counts of murder and child abuse and neglect in the deaths of her children, who ranged in age from 6 months to 4 years, according to the Associated Press.

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She is being held without bond and is scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday.

A fifth child, identified as 7-year-old Dallen Clayton, managed to escape the apartment where the slaughter occurred, according to an affidavit cited by the AP.

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"One of the most difficult questions in any investigation always is, why did it occur?" Shelby County Sheriff Bill Oldham told CNN affiliate WMC.

"It is certainly something that has impacted us as an organization and a family," he added, referring to the sheer brutality of the killings.

The AP identified the victims as 4-year-old Tallen Gardner, 3-year-old Sya Gardner, 2 year-old Sahvi Gardner and 6-month old Yahzi Gardner.

Sheriff's deputies discovered the crime scene after they received a 911 call at 12:30 p.m. Friday directing them to the Greens of Irene apartment complex, a gated community in unincorporated Shelby County, the AP reported. The caller alerted deputies after witnessing Dallen screaming for help and saying his sister was hurt, according to court documents cited by the New York Daily News.

Once inside the apartment, an affidavit cited by the AP stated, deputies observed small cuts on Shanynthia Gardner's neck and wrists. The affidavit stated that her children had "severe lacerations to the throat."

Two children were found in the living room and two others in a bedroom, the AP reported.

A witness told investigators that he had seen Gardner exit her apartment with a large knife in her hand before going back inside, the AP reported. Investigators found the weapon in the apartment.

Oldham told the AP that investigators are searching for a motive in the killings and exploring the possibility that Gardner was suffering from mental illness.

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An affidavit cited by the AP states that Gardner admitted to killing her children during a phone call with her husband.

Gardner worked part time for ALSAC, which raises money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, according to CBS affiliate WREG. In recent months, police documents cited by the station suggest, her behavior had become erratic:

"WREG discovered another police document from 2015 that stated Gardner was reported missing back on March 19 just days after telling her family she felt like someone was trying to hurt her and her family." the station reported.

Neighbors told WMC that they were baffled by the crime.

"I can't imagine what those babies do to make you do that," Trisha Johnson told WMC. "If you're having trouble, go and say you're having trouble. Everybody gets stressed out. Kids are home from school, you don't know what to do with them, you have no money to do with them, but you don't take their lives."

At a vigil for the children on Saturday night, Sonya Clayton, Dallen's grandmother, told the AP that the attack took her completely by surprise.

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"She was a sweet young lady," Clayton said of Shanynthia Gardner. "What happened, I don't understand."

The Washington Post


The father of the 2-year-old boy who was killed in an alligator attack near Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa told officials a second gator was involved, records show.

In public records released this week, Capt. Tom Wellons with the Reedy Creek Fire Department emailed two supervisors about his interaction with the child's father, Matt Graves, the morning after Lane Graves went missing.

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Wellons said he was examining Matt Graves' injuries early on the morning of June 15 and told him he needed stitches and antibiotics since he had lacerations from the gator's teeth.

Wellons said Graves "refused to leave" the area, but he was finally able to persuade him and told him he could come back after getting medical treatment, an email shows.

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"This incredibly sweet couple insisted on showing us pictures of their happy son. [The] mom kept referring to him as her 'happy boy,' " Wellons wrote.

He said on the way to the hospital, Graves shared "the horror that he experienced" as his son was being pulled into the water and "how another gator attacked him as he fought for his son," Wellons wrote in the email.

Assistant Chief Stan Paynter forwarded the email to Orange County officials to alert them that there may be a second alligator.

In total, five alligators were killed in the 16-hour search for Lane. His body was discovered intact about 15 yards from the shore, six feet underwater.

The Orange County Sheriff's Office detailed that the family was relaxing by the shore of the Seven Seas Lagoon at the resort, located near the Magic Kingdom park, while Lane splashed along the shoreline.

Sheriff's Office spokesman Angelo Nieves told the Orlando Sentinel Sunday that during initial interviews, a witness also said "he saw a second gator attack the father" as he was fighting with the first one that had his son.

Nieves said this was the only witness to mention a second gator. Nieves said the father did not tell the Sheriff's Office of a second gator.

There were signs posted in the area that advise against swimming but the signs did not warn of gators.

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Three days after the tragedy Disney raised fencing around the lake at that and other lakefront resorts and announced signs would be posted reading "Danger! Alligators and snakes in area. Stay away from the water. Do not feed the wildlife."

chayes@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5493
According to Nasri AbiMansour, multi-color brick is also typical of some bungalows in Berwyn, on June 30, 2015. (Abel Uribe / Chicago Tribune)

Squat and square with a sloped roof, off-center entrance, wide windows and brick facade, the Chicago-style bungalow has been the heart and hearth of the city's working class since it first popped up in the 1910s.

Now, it's under siege: The Battle of Bungalow Belt has begun.

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Leading the charge for developers is Adam Barrera, who runs Welcome Home Chicago Properties. He's been buying up bungalows, slapping a second story on them and selling them to aging hipsters looking for life outside Wicker Park.

The Historic Chicago Bungalow Association is working to quell his conquest: The association is incensed  its word, not ours  by Barrera and other developers' assault on the neighborhoods on the city's North, Northwest, South and Southwest sides that the group aims to preserve.

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The clash started when the association received an invitation to one of Barrera's rehab trolley tours. After seeing his garish second stories, dubbed "pop tops" by critics, the HCBA's deputy director took to the group's Facebook page on June 10. "On behalf of the 16,000 members of the Historic Chicago Bungalow Association," the post says, "DO NOT support the work of Welcome Home Chicago Properties."

Presto! A social media campaign to #StopThePop was born.

The HCBA can't actually do anything to stop them, so it is angling to educate developers, contractors and homeowners about how to properly add on to bungalows. Barrera's hefty second floors, the association argues, are swallowing up the stocky structure of the bungalows and ruining the streetscape. Some of the additions have been painted with bold colors, and developers have ignored all the period-appropriate modifications the association recommends in its free, 27-page bungalow design guidebook.

Bungalow lovers have gotten creative with their insults toward Barrera's homes, calling them "Lego blocks," "hideous" and "frankenhomes."

One commenter simply said, "Ugh no."

Even Barrera admits that "sometimes it doesn't come out the way I wanted." But he was quick to point out that people are buying the rehabs regardless.

Barrera said that he often buys abandoned or foreclosed homes and then flips them, adding more room to appeal to downtown millennials looking for affordable space and quiet streets. A few homeowners in the bungalow belt have added pop tops to their own homes in the quest for bigger bedrooms at a lower price.

HCBA Executive Director Mary Ellen Guest concedes that there isn't much her organization can do to stop pop tops from cropping up on bungalows. Some areas have limited protections under National Register Historic Districts, but there isn't any legal recourse to stop the ugly elsewhere. The #StopThePop campaign is more bark than bite.

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"We're not the bungalow police," Guest told us. "We encourage people to do whatever they want with their homes."

Her only stipulation is that additions should be "sensible." Second floor additions should be set 20 feet back from the front of the house, for example, so they don't interfere with the look of the classic bungalow dormers and sloped roofs from the street.

One commenter on the HCBA Facebook page summed the issue up nicely: "I am saddened when I see bungalow butchery, but one can't enforce good taste." Bingo.

Beauty is in the eye of the mortgage holder. Clearly there are buyers who find the pop-tops charming. Or practical. Or something.

Join the discussion on Twitter @Trib_Ed_Board and on Facebook.
Joshua Kremen, 10, does his best to hang on to the mechanical at the Northwest Fourth-Fest Saturday at the Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates. (Jon Langham / The Courier-News)

Northwest Fourth-Fest has everything for the perfect Independence Day celebration. Barbecue. Beer. Live music. A carnival. A pie-eating contest. A mechanical bull ride.

Dubbed "The Burbs' Biggest Fourth of July Celebration," the fest is in full swing at the Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates with family activities, more than 40 carnival rides and an indoor arts-and-crafts fair. A state-of-the art computerized fireworks display is to start at 9:30 p.m. Sunday.

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Amid traditional carnival rides is the mechanical bull. Mike Cullen owns it, and comes north from Florida for the summer to do the festival circuit.

The mechanical bull is similar to the kind that became popular following the 1980 film "Urban Cowboy" except Cullen has decked it out to look like the actual animal, complete with real head and hide, he said. The bull is surrounded by an inflatable "pillow" to cushion falls.

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Some riders are cocky, thinking they will beat the bull, Cullen said. "I start them out slow and see how they'll do. Some of them, their eyes bug out" when they realize how hard it is to stay on, he said.

The ride has several speeds, he said. He uses a slow speed for children and gives them a fun ride. Then there are the faster speeds "for real bull riders," he said.

A basic ride is $5 and the challenge ride is $10. Cullen said if a rider stays on for eight seconds and rides the bull with one hand, he will give the rider $100. A teenager stepped up to challenge after a group of friends bet he couldn't do it.

"All right, city boy, you ready?" Cullen said.

The teen lasted 3.2 seconds and lost the bet.

Neha Ojha tried the bull ride while her husband and their toddler son cheered from the sideline. She managed to get up on the bull but didn't last. "Ahh, no," she said, as she got off the bull and crawled away. Cullen let her husband finish the ride.

Vivek-Sharma Ojha was able to stay on longer but at one point looked like he was hanging on for dear life. "Now you are riding like a city girl," Cullen said, as a crowd began forming around the ride and got to witness good-natured Ojha be thrown off.

The fest, a partnership between Hanover Park Township, Hoffman Estates and Hoffman Estates Park District, continues through Monday with the Fourth of July parade on Illinois Boulevard kicking off the day at 9 a.m.

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Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
People take their oath of citizenship, officially making them American citizens, at a naturalization ceremony at Carmel High School in Mundelein Wednesday. (Angelica LaVito / Lake County News-Sun)

During the 42 years Evelia Delatorre lived in the U.S. she's been interested in politics but hadn't taken the plunge to naturalize as a citizen and gain the right to vote  until now, she said.

Fueled in part by the current election cycle and "the way things are going," Delatorre was among dozens of immigrants last week who sang the "Star Spangled Banner" and waved American flags as part of a naturalization ceremony at Carmel High School in Mundelein. By the end of the ceremony, which included a member of Congress in attendance, the United States officially welcomed its newest citizens with certificates.

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"Instead of standing at the TV screaming, at least I can try to do something," said Delatorre, of Addison, who was 5 years old when her parents brought her to the U.S.

In all, 140 people from 42 countries were sworn in as U.S. citizens at last week's Independence Day Naturalization Ceremony. The audience included people of different backgrounds, ages and languages who came to take the oath of allegiance. U.S. Rep. Bob Dold and Lake County State's Attorney Michael Nerheim were on hand, along with a video from President Barack Obama.

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Sandra Castaneda, of Round Lake, was among the group of new citizens. She came to the U.S. from Mexico 12 years ago and said her citizenship is "very important," to her.

Jerson Sancho came to the U.S. from Costa Rica five years ago because he met a girl and fell in love. The two are no longer together, but he decided to stay in Gurnee since he found a job and made friends.

He said he took the step to become a citizen so he does not need to keep applying for a Green Card, also known as permanent residency, and so he can vote in the November election.

THE JOURNEY

The naturalization ceremony marks the final step in what can be a long journey to becoming a U.S. citizen. Not all immigrants have a path to citizenship, including those who are undocumented.

For those who do, it can still be a complicated and lengthy process. Before applying for citizenship, a candidate must get a Green Card, otherwise known as becoming a permanent resident. Most people are sponsored by family members or employers, and some may gain this status as a refugee or through asylum, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

Green Card holders who are married to U.S. citizens may apply to become citizens after three years, while other Green Card holders must wait five. They then can submit an application, which costs $680. If their application is approved, they then have their fingerprints taken.

Applicants then go for their interview with an USCIS officer. They answer questions about their application and take a civics test and an English test. If they pass, they then take the oath of allegiance to officially become citizens.

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Molly Gilmore helps students of her citizenship class at Mano a Mano prepare for their English test that is part of the naturalization process. (Angelica LaVito / Lake County News-Sun)

The entire process takes six to eight months on average, according to Megan McKenna Mejia, executive director of Mano a Mano Family Resource Center, an organization based in Round Lake that offers citizenship classes and immigration services.

The interview requires people to answer questions about their applications, pass an English test and a civics test. Organizations like Mano a Mano and local libraries offer classes to help people prepare.

A HELPING HAND

Mano a Mano has helped about 115 people become citizens this year, and it has helped about 400 people become citizens over the past five years, McKenna Mejia said.

Mano a Mano is a fairly unique resource in Lake County. The organization holds citizenship classes in its Round Lake facility and eventually its new Zion facility as well as in satellite spaces in Wauconda, Libertyville and Lake Villa. Some libraries in the area offer citizenship classes, but Mano a Mano differs with the number of services it provides.

In addition to its citizenship classes, the organization offers English classes, healthy families classes, productive parents classes and successful children classes. About 4,000 people are helped each year.

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Castaneda is one of those people. She attended classes for five months and listened to a CD of 100 possible questions for the civics test. She also had outside tutoring help from her daughter Samantha, who quizzed her and helped her with pronunciation, she said.

"She helped me all the time," Castaneda said.

The mother-daughter duo shared their success story in front of one of Mano a Mano's citizenship classes at its the Round Lake facility one Tuesday morning in June. Students clapped for her and asked questions before they started their own preparation efforts for the day.

"When you work with people like you who study so hard, it's a pleasure to come back and hear you passed," Molly Gilmore, the instructor, told Sandra in front of the class.

The classes at Mano a Mano are held in a room decorated with a U.S. map and the alphabet on the wall. Two globes and books with titles such as "Celebrate America" fill shelves in the room.

Gilmore asked her eight students why they wanted to be citizens to help them prepare for the interview. They took turns answering, with the most popular answer being to vote in the November elections.

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She quizzed them on the 100 questions that could show up on the civics test.

"When do we celebrate Independence Day?" Gilmore asked.

"July 4," the students shouted back.

They practiced for the reading and writing tests, quietly sounding out English words under their breath before going over common misspelled words or ones that are hard to pronounce. The letter "v," for example, is pronounced as "b" in Spanish, so vote can sound like "boat" to some.

"I don't want any boats," Gilmore told the class.

People in the class can be at all different levels. Some are ready for their interviews, while some have not even submitted the application. But the hope is for everyone to have their own success story like Castaneda, who became a citizen just before the Fourth of July. She has plans to celebrate the holiday with friends.

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"People who take the step toward citizenship are doing it because they love this country and want to be a full part of it," McKenna Mejia said. "So I think certainly there a lot of people who are motivated by feelings of patriotism and pride for their new country because people came here for that reason."

Angelica LaVito is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun
Diane Meyers (left) and Shari Gullo, of Lake Zurich, organized a book drive for an impoverished region in West Virginia, collecting more than 10,000 books. Volunteers helped prepare the books for shipping June 20. (Brian O'Mahoney, Pioneer Press)

Shari Gullo made a promise she wasn't able to keep, and she was determined to make up for it.

After researching the idea, Gullo, a 35-year resident of Lake Zurich, told a social service agency in the Big Ugly River region of Lincoln County, W.V., that she would send hundreds of books from a northwest suburban bookstore that was closing, she said.

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But the bookstore owner changed her mind and donated the books locally, Gullo said.

"I had promised the books, and I felt terrible they weren't coming," she said. "It weighed on my heart for a long time. In April, I finally said, 'I really want them to get some books.'"

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Big Ugly, a small coal-mining region in the Appalachian Mountains, is 40 minutes by car from the nearest public library, said Michael Tierney, director of Step by Step, a nonprofit providing educational, social and other services to the community.

Forty-nine percent of the children there live below the national poverty level, Tierney said.

"They are the poorest Census tract in one of the poorest counties in West Virginia," he said.

In 1995, Step by Step founded the Big Ugly Community Center, where a satellite dish provides one of the few locations with internet access in the Big Ugly region, Tierney said. To say the books are badly needed is an understatement, he said.

"We have no cellphone reception," Tierney said. "We have no cable. Cable stops a few miles from the community center. We have a satellite dish at the community center, but most households on the creek don't have internet access. We have no broadband. Unless you have a satellite dish, you have no internet access."

The nearest bookstore is in Charleston, S.C., located about an hour away, he said. The community center is the only public building within a half-hour drive in any direction, Tierney said.

"There are no other bookstores in any direction for hours," he said. "There are no stores, no gas stations. There are a couple tiny churches open Wednesday night and Sunday mornings. We're talking country."

Because 68 percent of the low-income households in the region have no age-appropriate books, Step by Step launched the Family Library Project, Tierney said.

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"We're trying to combat that," he said. "We work with each individual kid to find their interests and what their family's interests are, and give them books to help build their family library."

Gullo worked to deliver on her promise to the Big Ugly River region. Working with fellow Lake Zurich resident Diane Myers, the two collected 10,700 books from the Lake Zurich area.

Gullo launched her campaign in April in seven different communities throughout the Lake Zurich area. She placed several dozen donation boxes at restaurants, libraries, bookstores, a bank, American Legion Post 964, a veterans agency and a theater, she said.

"At first I did Facebook and then people started giving me ideas," Gullo recalled. "I thought it was important people start seeing and hearing about it wherever they could."

A few boxes never received any donations, while others had six or seven books. Some boxes had to be emptied every few days to keep up with the volume, she said.

"It just grew and grew and grew," Gullo said.

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Shannon Flores, a manager at Boloney's Sandwich Shop in Barrington, collected almost 300 books.

"The second time I came in, there were so many books it took two trips to my car," Gullo said. "She had 30 to 40 regular customers, and she kept saying, 'Can't you help her out?'"

When Gullo told Flores the donation box was needed for a book drive, Flores "immediately jumped on it," the McHenry resident said.

Many customers at Boloney's offered help, including several who worked at a publishing company, Flores said. They brought more than 200 books that had never been opened, she recalled.

"I've raised my son for 16 years and really stressed how important reading is," Flores said. "You're going to need it every day of your life."

After Gullo posted about the drive on Facebook, Myers, the sister of one of Gullo's Facebook friends, contacted her to say she had previously organized a fundraiser to get books for a homeless shelter.

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"We met at Panera for about an hour," Gullo said. "About three hours later, she called and already had about 500 books. She wound up collecting 1,000 books more than me. She was amazing."

Gullo said she believes the drive was so successful because Lake Zurich area residents simply wanted to help others.

On June 28, the book collection finally arrived safe and sound in Big River country, Gullo said.

"It's astounding how it developed," she said. "It's amazing to me how it all worked out."

Tierney said he was overwhelmed.

"This is the biggest, coolest book donation we've received," he said. "I can't say enough about how wonderful Shari and her friends are."

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Phil Rockrohr is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Naperville resident Lillian Grace Avery signs Medicare forms at Edward Hospital on July 1, 1966, assisted by her husband Robert, left, and hospital administrator Eugene Morris. (The Associated Press / HANDOUT)

When Edward Hospital surgical patient Lillian G. Avery became the first person in the United States to register for Medicare 50 years ago, the Naperville woman gave at least a fleeting thought as to how to parlay that fact into a bit of personal immortality.

A Chicago Tribune reporter informed 68-year-old Avery she would be the first citizen to have her bills paid under the then-new program. Her amused reply, "Oh boy! Now I can go to New York and get on the television program 'I've Got A Secret.'"

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It was no secret when Avery signed her Medicare forms in her hospital bed on July 1, 1966, the day the program went into effect for nearly 20 million Americans age 65 or older. In addition to front-page coverage in the Tribune, an Associated Press photographer snapped Avery's picture, which made its way across the country and into numerous other newspapers and publications.

And if not necessarily a secret, there is quite a bit of mystery as to what became of Avery.

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Edward Hospital officials report they have had no success in locating any survivors. Similarly, the Naperville Sun failed to turn up any trace of Avery siblings, children or grandchildren.

The unsubstantiated story has it Avery's first husband was a physician and that by 1966 she had remarried, after being widowed or divorced. She also might have been childless.

All of which couldn't matter in the slightest to Edward officials, who on July 20 will mark the Avery-Medicare anniversary with the unveiling of a plaque and other ceremonies that  with luck  might yet include guest appearances from the much-sought-after members of Avery's family, hospital spokesman Keith Hartenberger said.

One key player in the event is still very much alive and well: former journalist and Chicagoan Duane Carlson. He and his wife, Ann, arrived in Naperville in 1955, and lived there for 31 years.

"Edward Hospital, birthplace of Medicare" is how Carlson wryly refers to the event. Carlson is the one who chose Avery for her distinction.

"The reason I was given the right to choose was that I was a member of the communications staff at the national Blue Cross Association," Carlson said. He and the head of communications at the U.S. Social Security Administration coordinated Avery's form-signing and photo opportunity.

"We both wanted a patient who would be recovering and, since Blue Cross covered nearly all the seniors who had health coverage before Medicare, I wanted the patient to be one of our subscribers," said Carlson, who would go on to become Blue Cross' vice president of communications.

Then-Social Security Administration Commissioner Robert Ball saluted Avery in the 1966 press release that preceded the signing. Gene Morris, Edward's administrator at the time, is depicted in the photograph with Avery.

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Carlson worked for newspapers in Warrenville and Downers Grove during his youth, and recalled the population of Naperville at the time of the Avery-Medicare event was 7,500. He said he later "led the work to change Edward from a tax district hospital that had been unprepared for the growth and needs of residents  to a hospital which could grow, and do so in a way that it was the center of the area's health needs"

President Harry S. Truman proposed compulsory national health insurance in 1945, a cause later taken up by President John F. Kennedy.

The idea continued to meet with fierce resistance from the American Medical Association and other opponents of so-called "socialized medicine" until July 30, 1965. That was when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicare into law in Independence, Mo.  Truman's hometown  with the former president receiving the very first Medicare card.

The budget for Medicare in 1965 was around $10 billion. An estimated 19 million people signed up for it during its first year.

Individual premiums at the time were $3 per month.

wbird@tribpub.com
The Jazzy Ladies and Gents, who dance for fun and health, perform at the Gary 4th of July Parade. (Jim Karczewski, Post-Tribune)

The Gary Sanitary District proved the Orak Shriners don't have the monopoly on attention-getting routines Saturday morning.

GSD employees kicked out the jams during the city's annual Fourth of July Parade and showed residents their rigs are just as nimble as the Lilliputian motorcycles the Shriners dust off during parade season. Watching a street sweeper zig-zag along the road with sudden bursts of speed made attendees in the judge's tent a bit nervous, however.

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"Hope it stays over there," one woman said, eyeing it cautiously as it stopped to spin its brush.

Parade-goers lined the streets as 55 entries passed by them with flair. From floats to bands to a one man and his saxophone, there was a little something for everyone to enjoy.

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People got especially excited when Asia's Dance Factory rolled up  so excited, dance leaders had to pause the group's performance to get revelers to back up and give them room.

Mayor Karen Freeman Wilson enjoyed seeing the crowd enjoying themselves.

"I think it's a great testament to see so many people come out," the mayor said. "From medical organizations to marching bands to drill units and other dance teams, it's just awesome."

Earnesha Edmond brought her dance troupe, GIC 2 WIC, to watch the parade for the first time Saturday. They were particularly interested in seeing the competition for when they register next year.

"We're going to be ready to march," Edmond said as troupe members Asia Washington, 12; Jacqueline Johnson, 11, and Talauny Edmond, 11, chattered about what they like about the holiday in general. "This is my first time out here, and everything was really nice."

"ADF was my favorite," Jacqueline said of Asia's Dance Factory. "Theyre just so talented."

Judges were asked to rate the entries from one to 10 based on originality, uniformity and decor, city spokeswoman Lalosa burns said. Judges turned in their packets for vote tallying, and the winners will be announced during a press conference at the end of July.

Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
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Chinese top legislator Zhang Dejiang has urged sound implementation of the Food Safety Law to ensure people's health and security.

"Food safety is a big matter concerning the people's vital interests, and is a major project for the people's well-being," said Zhang, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, while presiding over a meeting about the issue on Saturday.

In April and May, an NPC Standing Committee delegation led by Zhang conducted a nationwide inspection over the enforcement of the Food Safety Law and formed a report. The law was revised in 2015 with harsher punishment for violators.

Zhang asked government departments to study the report and carry out specific measures targeting problems listed in it.

He also asked the NPC to strengthen supervision over the government's work.

Vice Premier Wang Yang, who is also deputy head of the State Council food safety committee, attended the meeting.

Legislators asked Wang some questions, such as how to crack down on food-related crimes and how to regulate unqualified food business.

The food safety situation is generally good, but problems in some sectors and places are prominent, Wang said.

He said his committee will investigate and solve irregularities uncovered in the inspection and rush to establish a unified and authoritative supervision system.

Relevant authorities will strengthen management over the source of food materials and ask food enterprises to shoulder more responsibilities so as to plug loopholes in the food production and sale chain, Wang said.
A giant salamander that had gotten stuck in a ditch was released into a river in northwest China.[Chinanews]

A giant salamander that had gotten stuck in a ditch was released into a river in northwest China.

The 3.9-foot long, 18.7-pound amphibian was trapped among some twigs at one end of the ditch, which drains water from the Yellow River, China's second largest river, for irrigation.

Kong Haiyu, a farmer in Zhongzhuang Village, Yongjing County, Gansu Province, noticed the twisting amphibian when passing by last Tuesday.

Yongjing is located at the upper reaches of the Yellow River, about an hour and a half drive from the provincial capital of Lanzhou.

"There was no way out for it," recalled Kong. "It was too long, and there was not much water there."

Kong mistook it for a catfish and brought it home in a bag.

His wife, Yang Linfang, was surprised by the sight of the "fish."

"It looks more like a giant salamander," said Yang. "[It] should be a nationally protected animal."

The couple searched the Internet and confirmed the wife's guess. They immediately reported it to the local forest police.

"This is the first time we have ever heard of and found a giant salamander in this area," said Dang Yizhi, an officer from the forest police bureau of Yongjing County.

Dang estimated the giant salamander could be as old as 80 years, according to its length and weight.

"The life span of a giant salamander can be 130 years," he said. "It eats as much as two jin (2.2 pounds) of food in one meal and can survive after two or three years of fasting."

Giant salamanders are known as "living fossils," as they can be traced back 300 million years ago to the age of dinosaurs. Today the species mainly lives in the mountain creeks of the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River, Yellow River, and Zhujiang River in China.

It is still unknown how this giant salamander made its way to the trunk stream. Locals surmised that recent rainfall in the area might have brought the creature away from its usual habitat.

Dang said the appearance of the giant salamander showed the water in the area is very clean, as the species is vulnerable to pollution.

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Lebanon's Shiite militant movement Hezbollah destroyed two Islamic State (IS) positions entrenched on the outskirts of the border town of Ras Baalbek and al-Zwaitinah, killing a highly ranked official of the extremist group, Hezbollah's al-Manar TV station said Saturday.

Abu Khatab and members of his company were killed in their command center in the area of al-Zwaitinah, on the outskirts of Al-Qaa and neighboring Ras Baalbek, the report said.

Hezbollah fighters posted a video showing guided missiles destroying two bunkers hundreds of meters apart in the barren region that comprised the command center.

Militants from the al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State group are entrenched in the mountains along the Lebanese-Syrian border.

The Lebanese army regularly shells their positions while Hezbollah and the Syrian army have engaged in clashes with them on the Syrian side of the borders.

The northeastern border town of al-Qaa was targeted with eight suicide attacks on Monday, which left five people killed and at least 255 others injured.

No group has yet claimed responsibility of the attacks.

The two extremist groups overran briefly the border town of Arsal in 2014 and engaged in deadly battles with the Lebanese army for several days.

The extremists abducted around 35 troops and policemen before they retreated, among whom al-Nusra executed four while the IS beheaded one.
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California Governor Jerry Brown has signed six gun-control measures into law, according to local media reports Saturday.

His signature on Friday drew criticism from conservatives who complained Sacramento was eroding Second Amendment rights, though the San Bernardino terrorist attack last December killed 14 and injured 22.

The six bills signed into law will ban possession of magazines with the capacity to hold more than 10 rounds. They also requires people who already have such magazines to turn them over to authorities.

The bills put assault rifles with a feature known as a bullet button into illegal and mandate background checks when a gun is loaned to someone other than a close relative of the owner.

Filing false reports of stolen guns will have tougher punishment and there will be stricter regulations for ammunition, including requirements that ammo sellers get a license, purchases be screened and transactions be recorded.

California Senate President Kevin de Leon, who was author of one of the signed bills, said he was pleased with the governor's action, though Brown did veto a few other proposed gun laws.

"Taken together, these bills will save lives and make our communities, our families and our children safer," de Leon was quoted as saying by local media.

However, Assemblyman Jay Obernolte strongly criticized the package of new laws, which he said clearly infringe on the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment.

"These new laws will not address the underlying problems of why gun violence occurs and they will do nothing to prevent another terrorist attack like the one that occurred in my county on Dec. 2 (the San Bernardino shooting)," Obernolte said.

Senator Jeff Stone said that criminalizing gun ownership instead of prosecuting criminals who use guns to commit crime is not the answer.

San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said he anticipates that many gun owners will balk at turning in their high-capacity magazines in response to one of the new laws. Endit
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As the farce of arbitration on the South China Sea is to end soon, it is time for the new Philippine government of Rodrigo Duterte to stop the wrong foreign policy of its predecessor, so as to bring China-Philippines ties back to the track of sound development.

An aerial photo taken on Sept 25, 2015 from a seaplane of Hainan Maritime Safety Administration shows cruise vessel Haixun 1103 heading to the Yacheng 13-1 drilling rig during a patrol in South China Sea. [Photo/Xinhua]

Since Duterte assumed presidency on Thursday, sparks of hope have arisen for resumption of sound development of relations between China and the Philippines after bilateral ties seriously deteriorated during the rule of former Philippine President Benigno Aquino III.

In 2013, the government of Aquino III filed a case of arbitration with the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration over territorial disputes between China and the Philippines on the South China Sea, stoking tensions in the South China Sea region.

On June 29 -- just a day before the assumption of presidency by Duterte, the Permanent Court of Arbitration announced that an arbitral award in the case initiated by the Philippines against China will be issued on July 12, meaning that the farce of arbitration started by the government of Aquino III will come to an end in days.

Since winning the election, Duterte has made a series of overtures on China-Philippines relations, signaling that improvement of relations with China would be a foreign policy priority of his government, in sharp contrast to the wrong foreign policy pursued by the former government.

As whoever started the trouble should be responsible for settling it, any substantial improvement of relations between China and the Philippines under the current situation actually depends on efforts of the Philippine side. Therefore, it remains to be seen whether the new Philippine government will be able to play the role of settling the trouble left over by the former government, how long it will take before the new Philippine government can shake off the burden of wrong diplomacy created by its predecessor, how much efforts it will make in this endeavor, and how it will face the serious harm caused by the farce of arbitration to China-Philippines relations.

Today, there do exist chances for the new Philippine government to substantially improve relations with China, and also for it to eliminate negative impacts of the farce of arbitration on China-Philippine relations and even on the regional situation.

In a message to congratulate Duterte on his victory in the election more than one month ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that China and the Philippines see a long history of friendly exchanges and profound traditional friendship between the two peoples.

"A friendly, stable and sound China-Philippines relationship is in the fundamental interest of the two countries and the two peoples," Xi said, adding that he hoped the two sides would work together to get bilateral relations back onto the track of sound development.

In response, Duterte said he was "honored" to receive the congratulatory message from the Chinese president, calling him a great leader.

"I was honored receiving a congratulatory message from a great president," Duterte reportedly made the remarks when speaking with reporters in Davao City after unveiling the members of his cabinet to the media.

The indirect "dialogue" reflected by the two foregoing passages has been interpreted as a positive signal for improvement of relations between China and the Philippines. It is noteworthy that both sides mentioned therein the history of China-Philippines relations, and that both emphasized the existence of a long history of friendly exchange between China and the Philippines and the maintenance of profound traditional friendship between the Chinese and Philippine peoples.

Since ancient times, China and the Philippines have maintained friendly exchange and profound traditional friendship between the two peoples, which is just one of the reasons why the two countries can get bilateral ties back onto the track of sound development despite negative impacts of the wrong foreign policy pursued by the government of Aquino III.

In history, the South China Sea used to be an important link via which the two countries conducted friendly and equal exchanges.

Historical literature "The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898" gave an account of a story about friendly contacts between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea.

In 1626 AD, the region of today's Hermosa in the Philippine province of Bataan was facing a severe famine, but the then Manila government was unable to offer aid to the region. Local Catholics had to pray every day that Chinese merchant ships could come as annually scheduled to help them cope with the emergency. Shortly afterwards, when six Chinese ships fully loaded with rice arrived on Hermosa port from the South China Sea, the locals hailed the timely rescue as "a gift from God."

Almost at the same time, chronicles of southeast China's Fujian Province known as "The Book of Fujian" also recorded a history of people-to-people contacts between the two countries, saying that sweet potato widely planted in today's China had actually been introduced from Luzon -- today's Philippines.

At that time, after seeing that sweet potato was widely grown in Luzon and its growth had gained good harvests, businessmen took sweet potato plants via the South China Sea to Fujian, where they were successfully planted. During the first years of extensive cultivation of sweet potato, it helped local people survive famines.

In the long history, the South China Sea mainly played the role as such a link and platform for equal exchanges and common development between China and neighboring countries.

However, in the past few years, the government of Aquino III put aside the traditional friendship between the two countries and the needs of the Philippine people's livelihood and development by pursuing a wrong foreign policy that led to serious deterioration of relations between China and the Philippines. Considering oral promises made by some countries outside the region as a security umbrella and economic driving force, Aquino III internationalized the South China Sea issue and was willing to serve as a vanguard for those countries in muddying the waters in the South China Sea.

In fact, it is difficult for Manila to find its real security interests from the frequent navigation by foreign military vessels on the South China Sea.

In economy, the promises of some Western countries have not helped improve the people's livelihood in the Philippines. Instead, escalation of South China Sea disputes has deprived many Filipinos of their means of survival.

Therefore, the cognitive, decision-making and strategic errors the Aquino government committed will finally bring bitter fruit to its people and even undermine regional stability and prosperity.

Only enhancing win-win cooperation and developing the economy are in the fundamental interests of the two countries.

As is known to all, China has been prudent and tolerant in handling its relations with the Philippines while considering the Philippine people's livelihood.

In 2015, bilateral relations were difficult, and the trade between China and other Asian countries as well as between China and countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations went down by 7.8 percent and 1.7 percent respectively. However, the China-Philippines trade hit a record high of 45.65 billion U.S. dollars, up 2.7 percent from a year ago.

Now, China has become the Philippines' largest source of imports, second largest trade partner and third largest export market. The two countries are complementary to each other in industry, with the existence of great potential for economic growth and broad prospects for investment cooperation, which makes up a right way for mutually beneficial cooperation compared to the empty promises some countries made to Aquino III.

In the 1980s, then Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, after meeting then Philippine Vice President Salvador Laurel and then Philippine President Corazon Aquino successively, proposed peacefully solving the South China Sea disputes, and shelving disputes while seeking joint development. The reason why such a constructive consensus was reached was that the two sides realized that hope was far more than difficulties and common interests were far more than differences.

Only through cooperation and common development can China-Philippines relations be brought back onto the track of sound development. As long as the Philippines remembers the history, envisages realities and refrains from jumping into traps set by some forces outside the region, it will not be difficult for it to substantially improve relations with China.
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The UN Security Council on Saturday "strongly condemned the heinous and cowardly terrorist attack perpetrated in the city of Dhaka," Bangladesh, which killed more than 20 Bangladeshi nationals and foreigners.

"The members of the Security Council reaffirmed that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security," the council said in a statement issued to the press here.

The council members stressed the need to take measures to prevent and suppress the financing of terrorism, terrorist organizations and individual terrorists, in accordance with resolutions 2199 (2015) and 2253 (2015), said the statement.

The Islamic State in Iraq, also known as the ISIL or Da'esh) has claimed responsibility for the attack, which also injured at least 40 people, including senior police officials.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday condemned the deadly terrorist attack in a restaurant in Dhaka, voicing his hope that "those behind this crime will be identified and brought to justice."

The council members expressed their deep sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims, to the people and government of Bangladesh, as well as peoples and governments of foreign victims, and they wished speedy and full recovery to those who were injured, said the statement.

"The members of the Security Council underlined the need to bring perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism to justice," the statement said.

"They stressed that those responsible for these killings should be held accountable, and urged all States, in accordance with their obligations under international law and relevant Security Council resolutions, to cooperate actively with all relevant authorities in this regard," the statement said.

"The members of the Security Council reiterated that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations is criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of its motivation and wherever, whenever and by whomsoever committed, and should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilization, or ethnic group," it said.

They reaffirmed the need for all States to combat by all means, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and other obligations under international law, including international human rights law, international refugee law and international humanitarian law, threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts, the statement added.

Some 13 hostages, including one Japanese and two Sri Lankans, were rescued after a two-hour operation by Army commandos.

After planning and waiting through the night, Bangladesh Army-led joint forces launched the assault at around 7:40 a.m. local time (0140 GMT) Saturday.

More than 1,000 rounds of bullets were reportedly fired and explosions were heard in the first 30 minutes of the raid when army men in armored vehicles tore down a wall of the cafe and the commandos galloped into it through the breach.
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Photo taken on Jan 29, 2016 shows the UK and EU flags outside the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. [Photo/Xinhua]

Large areas of central London were brought to a standstill Saturday as thousands of demonstrators converged on the capital to protest about the outcome of the EU referendum.

The peaceful march and rally came in the wake of a petition to parliament which by Saturday had exceeded 4 million signatures calling for a second referendum. It is estimated that around 40,000 people took part in the march.

With people waving pro-Europe banners, the "March for Europe" event took place even though the Leave camp won the June 23 referendum by 51.9 percent to 48.1 percent. One banner carried the message "Stay Calm but Remain...Outraged" while another had the message "We Love EU".

Starting from Park Lane in Central London, the procession stretched for more than three kilometers as it made its way towards Parliament Square, close to the seat of the British Parliament.

One of the organisers of the London march, Keiran MacDermott, said protesters want to stop the British government from triggering the mechanism that starts the EU withdrawal process, making a Brexit irreversible.

Stand-up comedian and satirist Mark Thomas said he helped organise the march to "address his anger, frustration and need to do something."

He said: "We would accept the result of the referendum if it was fought on a level playing field. But it was full of misinformation and people need to do something with their frustration."

With the House of Commons and Big Ben as a backdrop, speakers from different political parties heard pleas about the impact of the emerging "divorce" from the European Union.

Rock band icon Bob Geldorf, who famously helped raise millions of pounds for starving people in Africa with a desperate plea for help, was among the speakers Saturday.

He urged people "to take to the streets and speak to their neighbors" to stop Britain from leaving the EU.

Politicians and officials within the Palace of Westminster have already started laying the foundations for Britain's exit by establishing various working groups to discuss future moves in the long process.

In the referendum, London was out of step with the rest of England where the vast majority of people backed the Leave camp. Wales also was a strong supporter of Brexit, with both Scotland and Northern Ireland voting Remain. Around 60 percent of Londoners voted for remain.

Social media sites went into overdrive, with both sides engaged in verbal clashes. One person wrote: "I agree we have a democratic right to protest, but I don't see how 'March for Europe' is going to work. Leave won in a democratic vote."
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The suicide car bomb attack at a crowded commercial area in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad early Sunday has killed 79 people and wounded 133 others, an Interior Ministry source said.

"Our latest report said up to 79 people were killed and 133 wounded by the suicide bomb attack in Baghdad's Karrada-Dakhil district," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Two busy commercial areas in Bagdad were hit by car bombings, with one of the attacks occurring at about 1:00 a.m. local time (2200 GMT) when a suicide bomber detonated his car bomb at a crowded thoroughfare in Karrada-Dakhil in southern central Baghdad, according to what the source told Xinhua earlier.

The powerful blast set fire to several nearby shops and destroyed many stalls and civilian cars at the scene which was crowded with shoppers who are preparing their families for Eid al-Fitr, or the Festival of Fast-breaking, which marks the end of a month-long of fasting for Muslims, said the source.

The Iraqi capital was the scene of another attack after midnight when a booby-trapped car went off at Shallal popular market in Baghdad's northeastern district of Shaab, killing a civilian and wounding five others, the source added.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited the scene of the massive suicide car bomb attack in Karrada Sunday morning , and promised to punish those behind the attacks, according to a statement issued by his office.

"The terrorist groups carried out such desperate deadly attack as a result of being crushed in the battlefield," the statement said, referring to the latest defeat of the Islamic State (IS) in the country's western province of Anbar, including its stronghold in Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad.

Abadi also sent his condolences to the families of the killed and the wounded people and promised that "victory over these terrorist groups is very close."

Iraq has been hit by a new wave of violence since the IS terrorist group seized parts of Iraq's northern and western regions in June 2014.

Earlier, a report by UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) estimated that 662 Iraqis were killed and 1,457 others wounded in acts of terrorism, violence and armed conflict in June across Iraq.
A chili pepper eating competition is being held in Lijiang, Yunnan province on July 2, 2016. Nine contestants who joined the match are asked to eat as many peppers as they can while soaking in a giant tub filled with the hot red chili peppers. The winner was awarded with a 24 karat gold pepper. [Photo/Chinanews.com]
Photo taken on May 4, 2016 shows the traffic in Beijing. [Photo/IC]

Debate is heating up in Beijing as municipal officials continue to discuss the possibility of bringing in a congestion tax to try to make motorists think twice about driving into the city's high-traffic areas.

Beijing's traffic is notorious.

With millions of vehicles filling the city's roads on a daily basis, its not uncommon for drivers during peak hours to find themselves measuring their travelling distance in meters, rather than kilometers.

To try to help ease this, municipal authorities are now actively discussing the idea of a congestion tax.

The proposal would hit drivers with a yet-unspecified surcharge to travel into Beijing's high-traffic areas.

It's a concept which - for most people who work in Beijing's busy downtown area - isn't sitting well with daily commuters.

"To collect congestion fees may be effective to a certain degree. But you can't sort out Beijing's traffic problems by such short-term measures. It may be that you have to change the way the nation's capital works."

The municipal government is in the process of moving most of its offices into the suburbs, which should ease traffic in central Beijing, where most municipal government offices are currently located.

A number of other steps have also been taken, including increasing parking fees and implementing restrictions on when people can drive, based on their license plate number.

Ma Zhong, professor of Environmental Studies at Renmin University, says while well-intentioned, the license-plate restrictions have had the opposite effect.

"Those policies may have intended to control the number of vehicles. But they ended up just doing the opposite, because as a result of the controls, there was a further stimulation of vehicle purchases."

As such, if people can afford a 2nd vehicle to get around license plate restrictions, its left many questioning whether a congestion tax will be enough to dissuade drivers.

Zheng Wentao, associate professor of Earth and Space Sciences with Peking University, says he believes the core issue in eliminating traffic congestion in Beijing is to fix the layout of the roads.

"The problem of traffic jams are best resolved if the roads themselves are well designed. It's not difficult to figure out where the problem areas are and what are the main factors behind the traffic jams."

However, that too becomes problematic, as many of the core areas in central Beijing can't be torn up or redrawn, given the existing development, as well as the many historical sites which can't be moved.

Many who are discussing the proposed congestion tax online say the issue goes beyond restricting vehicles or charging people more.

Much of the debate focuses on ways to ensure drivers follow the rules of the road, which many experts say would certainly go a long way in eliminating Beijing's incessant gridlock.
Some 30,000 Chinese peasants were executed by the Japanese army for saving more than 10 American pilots during the War Against Japanese Aggression (1937-1945), said researcher Liu Changzhu1st rightin the symposium marking the 75th anniversary of the Flying Tigers. [Photo by Huang Zhiling/chinadaily.com.cn]

The 75th anniversary of the Flying Tigers has been marked at a symposium held in Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan province, on Sunday.

More than 70 years ago, people from around the world launched an indomitable resistant war against fascism.

In 1941, on the Eastern battlefield, General Claire Lee Chennault led his American Volunteer Group to China and fought intense battles against Japanese invaders, with the Chinese army. His volunteer group was known as the Flying Tigers and is a household name in China.

Many times, American bombers took flight from the Xinjin Airport in Sichuan to bomb military targets in Kyushu, Japan. They heavily hit the arrogance of Japanese militarists, says Shen Zaiwang, a senior official of the Sichuan Provincial Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, during a keynote speech.

Before the arrival of Chennault and his men, Japanese planes bombed Leshan in Sichuan and then flied very low above the nearby Mount Emei, to show off their aviation strength because China had few planes. That's according to Xu Bin, a lawyer with the Junyi Law Office in Chengdu.

Xu, an expert in the Japanese air force's war-time atrocities in Sichuan, helps Chinese victimized during the Japanese planes' indiscriminative bombing of Sichuan to seek justice in Japan.

The Chinese people forged friendships with American pilots during the war against the Japanese invasion. Some 30,000 Chinese peasants in East China's Fujian province were executed by the Japanese army for saving more than 10 American pilots, said Liu Changzhu, a researcher with the General Claire L. Chennault and Governor James A. Noe Research Institute.

He said China's first lady Soong Mei-ling told the story in her public address to the US Congress in 1943.

One of the most critical factors in the Flying Tigers' success was the support provided by China's extensive early warning network, said Dennis James Le Boeuf, vice principal of the Guangya School in Chengdu.

In lonely outposts on hills and in hidden locations across a large part of China, there was a network of air-raid alarm stations with alert Chinese staff equipped with radios and telephones to give instant warning of any approaching Japanese airplanes.

"These early warnings gave the Flying Tigers the critical advantage of having sufficient time to take off in their P-40 fighter airplanes and gain the altitude needed to execute savage diving, or slashing, attacks against invading Japanese aircraft," Dennis said.

His school trains students to be pilots, thanks to foreign co-operation.

During her visit to the school last August, Nell Calloway, granddaughter of Chennault, unveiled a plaque for the Guangya Chennault Flying Tigers Institute together with Qin Guangya, headmaster of the Guangya School.

The school and the General Claire L. Chennault and Governor James A. Noe Research Institute organized the symposium.
On a cool, rainy afternoon in Dafeng Village of Wuzhi County, despite the continuous pitter-patter, laughter could be heard from a courtyard packed with old people enjoying a piece of traditional Yu Opera.

The piece was performed by a volunteer, one of many who work in the village's senior care system. A number of such courtyards in rural Henan Province are answering the call for more social support in the care of China's old people.

"We've been here for about four months now," said Xu Chunqi, head of the charity courtyard. "We want to make sure that everyone receives good care and lives happily."

PREMIER LI'S VISION

Most elderly care institutions in China are run by local governments, but change is now the order of the day. In August 2013, Premier Li Keqiang spoke of how charities and businesses could participate in China's elderly care and in Henan, Li's vision is gradually taking shape.

Apart from looking after their quotidian needs, Xu organizes birthday parties, shows, excursions and massage for his charges, helped by donations from local people of money and groceries, mostly vegetables as courtyard residents are strictly vegetarian.

One of the characteristics of his courtyard is that it is the old people themselves who are in charge and traditional Chinese culture plays a big part. Banners and posters around the village preach filial piety in the form of poems, aphorisms and couplets.

"Relations between villagers and their relatives have improved since the yard opened," said Miao Zhenxuan, 81, who lives in the courtyard. "I'm really happy here, and the vegetarian lifestyle makes me feel stronger."

These charity yards are not the whole story in the county. Wuzhi Elderly Care Center was funded by Wang Xiaoming, a local entrepreneur who spent over 70 million yuan (10.5 million U.S. dollars) on the business in 2014. The center opened in 2015 and quickly attracted many fans. The center's bright and well organized reading room with an abundant collection of books has become a favorite haunt for local old people.

Zhao Qingxin, 76, is one of the regulars. "I come here twice a day," he said, without raising his eyes from the book he was reading. "When I'm here I feel rich, and very much at home."

"This is what's cool about running an institution like this," said Wang. "We're more in touch with people's needs, and more flexible in what we can provide. We value the spiritual fulfillment of our customers."

His thoughts are shared by Lee Chen Changyan, CEO of Ourliving Seniors Care Management.

"We do what we believe is best for our business here," said Lee, who, after 16 years in the business in Taiwan, runs a center in the provincial capital Zhengzhou.

"We go out and about to absorb new ideas, and that's our advantage," he explained.

WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE

The new mode of the care industry is not without its critics who claim the government can still do more.

"Sometimes it can take too long to get permission from the government," Wang admitted. "The procedures are unnecessarily long and complicated at times."

Lee agrees. "The government offered us a lot of financial support, but it could be more efficient. We are often hindered in improving our facilities by cumbersome procedures," he said.

There are well over 2OO million over-60s in China today, around the total combined populations of Germany, France and Great Britain, and the number will at least double in the next twenty years. There are roughly 50,000 elderly service institutions nationwide and around 300,000 specialist geriatric nurses, nowhere near enough to meet demand. In rural areas, the problem is even more acute.

"Personnel training needs to improve," Lee said. "If policy, training and facilities can be better combined, things will improve dramatically."

Practitioners are optimistic. Xu Chunqi, a professional, and his team of volunteers bring not only innovative ideas to the sector, but also a workforce which the county needs.

"We are professionals. The industry will definitely be better with us playing a bigger part, especially in rural areas." Xu claimed.

Wang Xiaoming, the entrepreneur, has faith in policy. "The government backs our participation. This is already a foundation for a better future.

"As long as the opportunities keep coming, more investors and more practitioners will join us and our industry, along with our elderly people, will prosper."
It seems his style: top leader Xi Jinping would raise some new point or catch line in his public speech on every important occasion. But in his speech on July 1, to mark the 95th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, he was impressive not only in style.

He called for the 88 million members of the Party, certainly the largest political organization on Earth, to "stay true to the mission". It is a point that carries a lot of significance in the Chinese language, and in the country's political realities.

Literarily translated as "original heart", this is a phrase with a familiar ring among the young, which may mean their first solemn expression of mutual affection.

The expression also has a deep root in China's classical literature. In Confucianism, it may mean never relenting one's effort in public service, and in Buddhism, keeping one's mind as pure as it originally was.

A search on Baidu.com, a Chinese language search engine, would gather around 65.5 million results under "original mind", and 4.5 million results under the phrase "not forgetting the original mind".

Such powerful language was used by Xi to remind the Party members of the oath they took when they joined the organization, when they were ready to give their lives on the battlefield in the time of revolution, or to lead their coworkers in achieving new growth targets in the reform era.

All the 88 million men and women are urged to set examples in public services.

On a higher level, it was used as a pledge to the public of the Party's resolve to stick to its goal declared 95 years ago, to socialism, or society's general welfare or fare distribution of wealth and opportunities.

And in doing so, the Party is expected to continue to be active in its social ties and social development programs, rather than to reduce itself to a stratum of administrative bureaucrats isolated from the rest of society and nonchalant to people's pressing needs.

Xi's audience at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing reacted to his "stay-true-to-mission" call with passionate applauses. Some Party members described it as the "manifesto in a new era" in exploring the Chinese version of human progress.

It is a sign of an evolving new consensus, at a time when the clean government campaign has been going on for more than three years to have rounded up some once high-placed officials who obviously betrayed the Party's ideal to build socialism with Chinese characteristics.

Now Xi has made it clear: The clean-government effort is not to be relaxed so that the Party will always stay true to its original commitment to the people.
Editor's Note: The June 22 executive meeting of the State Council, China's Cabinet reviewed the falling growth rate of non-governmental investment and the implementation of polices aimed at promoting private investments, and vowed to remove the obstacles preventing private investors from injecting more money into projects. Following are the comments of some domestic media outlets on the meeting:

Economic Daily:

Aside from the country's economic slowdown and sluggish progress of reform in some industries, the lackluster non-governmental investment can also be attributed to some local governments' failure to implement the preferential policies promised to investors. To attract investments from outside, many local governments promise preferential policies on land and taxation. But after outside investors start their projects, they are denied the preferential policies.

Such a breach of commitment has not only damaged local governments' credibility, but also dealt a severe blow to potential investors' confidence.

Statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics show the country's private fixed-asset investments grew by 3.9 percent in nominal terms in the first five months of this year, the lowest since 2005. And such investments accounted for 62 percent of China's total fixed-asset investment, a decline of 3.4 percentage points from the previous year.

Investment still plays a crucial role in China's economic development. Thus, how to increase private investment remains particularly important. And to further boost private investors' enthusiasm to invest, the government should try to raise its credit and strengthen institution building while creating a transparent and ideal environment for sustain-able investment.

China Economic Information Service:

The May economic data indicate that, although non-governmental investments accounted for 62 percent of China's total investment, they grew by only 0.96 percent year-on-year, a decline from the 10 percent growth rate in the previous two years.

Some say private investment growth has dropped because of government interventions in the market, lack of investors' confidence as well as their concerns over policy uncertainties. For example, a recent survey organized by the State Council showed some government policy measures aimed at promoting private investments have not been fully implemented, and private enterprises still find it difficult to access markets and funds.

Besides, local officials' inaction and malpractices, and their failure to keep promises have also seriously affected the sustainable development of private investments.

To promote private investment, the State Council meeting, among other things, has attached great importance to developing the private sector, adopting special policies to boost investors' confidence, effectively handling the relationship between the government and market, creating an equitable investment environment and strengthening the accountability mechanism for officials who fail to implement policies.

The policy signals given by the State Council, therefore, are expected to boost investor confidence and thus facilitate a steady increase in private investments.

Ifeng.com:

In a move to solve the problems faced by private investors, Premier Li Keqiang recently made an inspection tour of some State-owned banks, and said financial institutions need to support the real economy.

For an effective solution to the problems, however, the government should also try to build a multi-layer capital market and develop direct financing to offer enterprises, which help boost the real economy, a stable source of funds and to lower their financing costs.

Financial institutions are essentially a kind of capital and information intermediary. By developing financial big data, the country can help financial institutions gain full knowledge of the conditions of enterprises with financing demands and the flow of their funds, which will enable them to decide whether or not to offer them loans.

This will also help private enterprises, especially small and micro ones, remove the obstacles created by the asymmetry of information in getting loans, and thus help expand their financing channels.

Given the irregularities emerging internet financing platforms are involved in, the government should also take measures to tighten supervision over their businesses.
Pennsylvania residents can only legally purchase novelty items from fireworks tents.

Cross the state border, however, and those rules could change.

There is no uniform national law when it comes to what fireworks can be sold and what can be used by residents. Some states dont allow for any sale of fireworks. Others allow the sale of any type of fireworks, and still some others allow for the sale of some fireworks while prohibiting others.

This can cause a bit of a headache for those in the fireworks industry, such as Bill Weimer, vice president of Phantom Fireworks, based out of Ohio. Phantom Fireworks has two tents in Cumberland County and a brick-and-mortar retail store in York County, as well as other locations in the state.

Its a mixed bag across the country. Im not sure theres a really good rule of thumb why some states allow it, Weimer said. Over the years, more and more states are opening up to the use of fireworks. In the last five to six to seven years, (there were changes to) Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maine, and Arizona went to ground-based from nothing.

Weimer noted that Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia and Maine had changed from some prohibited sales to allowing the sale of a full-line of firework products. New York, like Arizona, decided two years ago to move from no consumer sales allowed to allowing ground-based fireworks.

The law is similar to what Pennsylvania allows.

According to the Pennsylvania State Police, the sale and use of ground-based and hand-held sparkling devices, as well as novelties and toy capsas defined by the American Pyrotechnics Associationare permissible in Pennsylvania. These types of fireworks can be sold from tents, stands, convenience stores, retail establishments and other various outlets not licensed by the state Department of Agriculture.

Cherry bombs, M-80s, M-100s and silver salutes are illegal, and mail-order fireworks kits are also considered illegal, given that police deem them dangerous to use and assemble.

However, Pennsylvania does allow wholesalers to sell a fuller line of fireworks at brick-and-mortar stores. Non-residents can show a government-issued document, such as a drivers license, and purchase fireworks like aerial products that otherwise could not be sold to consumers.

The caveat is that those non-residents must take the fireworks directly out of the state upon purchase.

Pennsylvania residents may purchase consumer fireworks at these stores if they have been issued a display permit by the municipality where the display will take place. In Pennsylvania and across the country, rules for display fireworks vary by municipality. Some municipalities do not allow for any permits to residents for a display.

State Police said that in Pennsylvania, the municipalitys fire chief or other designated officer can inspect the display site, require a bond of at least $500 to be posted for any possible damages and issue a permit only if they deem the consumer to be competent.

Safety

Weimer said he understands that many of these rules are in place because of concerns regarding safety, but they can be confusing for consumers.

He noted as an example that Ohio is much like Pennsylvania in that it allows novelty items to be sold just about anywhere, but it requires a purchase of any other type of firework by a non-resident or resident to be transported out of the state within 48 hours.

Weimer said Ohios law up until last year required residents to sign a statement saying they would take it out of the state within that time period.

Last year, the legislature passed a law doing away with the liars statement. Now, they dont have to sign the statement, but the law itself hasnt changed, he said, noting that companies arent required to tell residents that there is a mandatory rule to transport the fireworks out of state. My personal position is that its confusing.

He added, however, that safety is still a major factor, even for those in the wholesale fireworks business.

For instance, he said Phantom Fireworks is very strict about at what age a consumer must be to purchase fireworks.

Our policy is that we dont really care what the law is. Our limit is 18 years of age, he said. There are one or two states that set the law at 21, which we abide by, but even for states with ages less than 18  (such as) 16 years old  our company policy is 18. We believe fireworks are better left to adults. They should be handled by sober adults and observed by children.

We always recommend the (fireworks) shooter is sober, he added. The consumer product safety commission readily admits that the majority of injuries stem from misuse and abuse rather than malfunction of the product.

Though there are stories every year of someone being injured in a fireworks mishap, Weimer said the rate at which people are getting injured is actually declining.

The number of injuries the (Consumer Product Safety) Commission reports can be mildly misleading, Weimer said. Theyll tell you there were 8,000, 9,000 injuries. The reality is that use of products has increased over the years dramatically.

Weimer said the use of fireworks has increased from 117 million pounds in the United States in 1994 to 285.3 million pounds in 2015.

If you compare the increased based on rate of use per 100,000 pounds, there were 10.7 injuries in 1994 and 4.2 in 2015. Thats a pretty substantial reduction, he said. If you look at the numbers, the actual number of injuries has not gone down much, but use has skyrocketed.

To ensure that the rate of injuries stays down, Phantom Fireworks does offer fireworks safety tips on its website as part of its Fireworks University, and sales at its brick-and-mortar stores also come with directions and safety tips. The company also has recommendations on how best to use any of its products for a local display.

The shooter should be sober, and someone in the group should be named as fireman, Weimer said. He would watch products go up, and more to the point, come down. Sometimes a product can come down a little hot, or theres an ember, which can start a grass fire or brush fire. The fireman can use a fire extinguisher or house to douse the fire.

Though safety is a factor, Weimer also noted that the movement states are making to allow for more or any fireworks sales also likely involve the need for more revenue. The need for more tax revenue is pretty relevant.

For more information on fireworks laws, visit the American Pyrotechnics Association website at www.americanpyro.com. Safety information is also available at the Consumer Product Safety Commissions website at www.cpsc.gov.
A labourer cuts steel bars at a railway bridge construction site in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province, September 12, 2015.[Photo/Agencies]

An important mission of the supply-side reform is to reduce overcapacity, which is essential for the healthy development of the Chinese economy in the long run. The increase in labor cost and the other factors of production have not only weakened some conventional industries' advantages, but also worsened the overcapacity problem.

Yet reducing overcapacity does not mean eliminating conventional industries completely. So the reform should be carried out according to the specific conditions of specific places.

It is a remarkable that China took just 60 years to build a relatively complete industrial system while some developed countries took more than 200 years to do so. But since China's industrialization is not yet finished, the government still has to recognize the leading role of manufacturing in boosting economic growth.

Western countries implemented neo-liberal economic policies in the 1970s to pull their economies out of the quagmire of stagnation, which resulted in the large-scale relocation of conventional industries to developing countries, the idling of domestic industries and the decline of conventional manufacturing industries.

Before the global financial crisis of 2008, the share of manufacturing in many developed countries' industries was about 10 percent, with the service sector, mainly in finance, insurance, tourism, consultation and restaurants, accounting for more than 75 percent.

This de-industrialization of Western countries has had serious consequences. After the global financial crisis broke out, their economies declined fast and the growth in their citizens' incomes stopped or even fell. Investments became insufficient and exports dwindled, with stagnation becoming an almost normal phenomenon.

Drawing lessons from these countries, China should not support the survival of enterprises with overcapacity, which also pollute the atmosphere and have no scope of being upgraded. But the enterprises that can still be innovative and transform their production methods should be reformed.

Reducing overcapacity also means cutting conventional industries' operating costs, strengthening their comparative advantages and helping them upgrade their technologies.

Reform is an effective way of solving the overcapacity problem. But the market should be allowed to play a decisive role in the distribution of resources, because it can force enterprises to constantly improve their competitiveness. And the government should enact policies to ensure the process to reduce overcapacity is carried out in an orderly and rational manner.

As for the enterprises, they should pay attention not only to upgrading their technologies but also to moving up the value chain, transforming from the labor-intensive to tech-intensive model, and enhancing their core competitiveness.

The process to reduce overcapacity must also take the enterprises' economic and social capacities into consideration. Since China still needs to maintain a certain level of economic growth, it should take some measures to create a good macro-economic environment for reducing overcapacity. And it needs to follow a pro-active fiscal policy and a prudent monetary policy, in order to stimulate growth, boost consumption and expedite urbanization.

Moreover, the enterprises have to improve their products' quality and pursue innovation, especially because Chinese consumers' demand for high-quality and smart commodities has been increasing by the day. The government should take steps to bridge the development gap between different regions.

Also, since the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei integration development plan, Yangtze River Economic Belt development plan and the Belt and Road Initiative, the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, are all related to the project of reducing overcapacity, there is need for China to foster international industrial cooperation and promote its competitive industriessuch as steel, construction materials, high-speed railway, electricity, telecommunications, engineering machinery and ship-buildingto enter the global market through investments, technological cooperation and equipment export, and by winning contracts.

The author is an economics professor of Nankai University in Tianjin.

The Chinese version of this article was first published by Qiushi Journal in its 10th issue of 2016.
China is defending not only its territorial sovereignty but also world peace and stability in its fight against the arbitration unilaterally initiated by the Philippines on the South China Sea issue.

The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration, which accepted Manila's unilateral case against Beijing, said on Wednesday that it would issue a ruling on July 12.

Since January 22, 2013, when Manila initiated the arbitration, Beijing has been reiterating that it will neither participate in the arbitration nor accept its ruling. So by acting with disdain for China's concerns, the arbitration court risks opening a Pandora's box in the South China Sea, which could have dangerous consequences.

From the very beginning, the arbitral tribunal, set up on the basis of the Philippines' illegal actions and claims, has had no jurisdiction over the issue.

The tribunal disrespects the fact that Beijing and Manila have agreed to settle their dispute in the South China Sea through bilateral negotiation and that the arbitration proceedings under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea do not apply to the maritime dispute between the two sides.

Since the Philippines' request is essentially about territorial sovereignty and maritime delimitation, the arbitral tribunal has also turned a blind eye to the declaration made by China in 2006 on optional exceptions in accordance with UNCLOS, which excludes, among others, disputes over maritime delimitation from arbitration and other compulsory dispute settlement procedures. Some 30 countries have made similar declarations.

Therefore, the tribunal has violated UNCLOS, too, and expanded its jurisdiction and abused its power by hearing Manila's case. No matter what the court ruling is, it will be illegal.

By unwisely proceeding with the Philippines' case, which breaches international law, the tribunal has not only helped escalate tensions between Beijing and Manila, but also undermined regional stability and the international maritime order.

China's stance of neither participating in nor accepting the results of the arbitration does not mean it cares a hoot about international law, instead it shows China's commitment to upholding its rights vested in it by the world order.

The role international conventions play in safeguarding the world order can never be underestimated. Since the end of World War II, they have contributed to the relatively stable international relations despite the changes in the global balance of power, and helped the international community formulate hundreds of treaties to regulate countries' behaviors. In fact, without these conventions, the current world order would be threatened.

But when such conventions are misused by non-relevant countries, as has happened in Manila's arbitration case, they have to be countered. The United States, a country from outside the region, has been trumpeting the importance of the rule of law in international relations even though it has not signed the UNCLOS. And by supporting the Philippines and the tribunal, the US has only exposed its hypocrisy.

For the US, violations of international conventions can be called acts of strategy, because it has been militarizing the South China Sea with the increasing presence of its defense forces in the name of opposing the "militarization" of the waters and the region.

With regard to territorial issues and maritime delimitation disputes, China does not accept any third-party intervention or any imposed solution. Beijing will continue to be a responsible player and contributor within the established international order, upholding international law and basic norms governing international relations as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations. It will also continue to negotiate and work with states directly to resolve bilateral disputes in the South China Sea.

As such, the Philippines and countries supporting it have to swallow the "award" (as the ruling is being called) of the arbitration tribunal.

The author is a writer with Xinhua News Agency.
Participants march in the New York City Pride March on Sunday in New York. Millions of people draped in the rainbow hues of LGBT turned out for parades across the US on Sunday, two weeks after a massacre at a Florida nightclub stirred fear and solidarity among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Americans. The march in New York started near the Empire State Building and ended at Greenwich Village's Stonewall Inn, the birthplace of the gay rights movement and the newest national monument. AFP

It was a year ago on June 26 when the US Supreme Court ruled that all states should issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and to recognize same-sex marriages in other jurisdictions.

A lot has changed since the early 1990s during my stay in Hawaii, when that state tried to become the first US state to legalize same-sex marriage. That became a reality in the Rainbow State only in 2013.

On June 24, US President Barack Obama designated the Stonewall Inn in New York City's Greenwich Village as a national monument to commemorate the uprising of the LGBT community on June 28, 1969. The protest that day in response to a police raid ushered in the LGBT civil rights movement in the US.

"I'm designating the Stonewall National Monument as the newest addition to America's National Park System. Stonewall will be our first national monument to tell the story of the struggle for LGBT rights," Obama said.

As a journalist based in the Big Apple three years ago, I was outside the Stonewall Inn at midnight on July 24, 2011, to cover the celebration when the New York state Legislature passed the Marriage Equality Act, signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo the same day.

In fact, the president of the Hawaii Gay and Lesbian Association I interviewed back in 1993 was a participant in the 1969 Stonewall movement.

June is a month of Pride parades and festivals across the world, but this year celebrations are heavy with sadness because of the June 12 shooting in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in which 29-year-old gunman Omar Mateen shot and killed 49 people and injured 53 others. It was the deadliest event against the LGBT community in US history.

In Shanghai, my hometown, the 10-day eighth Shanghai Pride festival ended Sunday. While the Shanghai festival still does not have a parade like many other global cities, the colorful activities this year featured a film festival, drama, Pride run, bicycle ride, exhibitions, conference, awareness campaign, parties and awards.

Shanghai is regarded the most LGBT-friendly city on the Chinese mainland, demonstrating the tolerance and acceptance that is required for an international city that Shanghai aspires to become.

I happened to be on the China Daily team writing editorials back in 2009 when the piece "Pride of Tolerance" I wrote was hailed as probably the first endorsement from a national newspaper. The first Shanghai Pride festival that year was not as smooth as this year's. Some activities had to be canceled because government authorities intervened.

The situation regarding the LGBT community in China has improved considerably over the years, but there still is no comparison to the US and many other nations today.

Same-sex marriage is still impossible in China. On April 13, two gay men lost a court case in Furong district, Changsha, capital of Hunan province, when they challenged a local civil affairs bureau that had denied them the right to marry. Both vowed to carry on the fight.

On June 14, a Beijing court accepted a woman's case against the Ministry of Education to revise textbooks that call homosexuality a "psychological disorder". It was the third attempt by the woman, a lesbian at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou.

China decriminalized homosexuality in 1997, and it was removed from the list of mental disorders in 2001.

According to a United Nations report published on May 17, less than 15 percent of LGBT people in China choose to come out to their close family members.

The study, conducted by the UN Development in China, Peking University's sociology department and Beijing LGBT Center, polled 28,000 people in late 2015.

The poll found that young people in China were less prejudiced against the group, a good sign for more progress in the years ahead. The LGBT group in China is believed to number from 39 million to 52 million.

Li Yinhe, a sociologist and sexologist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, has been the leading voice for LGBT rights in China. For years, she has helped craft measures for the country's legislature that push for legalizing same-sex marriage.

While such bills have not made any legislative progress, Li expressed optimism in various interviews that the progress in the US will have a positive impact on China.

So far, senior Chinese officials, both at the central and local levels, have been largely reticent about the subject.

Some Chinese-language news media covering the 2016 Shanghai Pride cited the long fight in the US, starting with the Stonewall Uprising 47 years ago.
Regardless of its tempestuous and dramatic plots and subplots, the US electoral system is nothing but an internal American affair. Politicians running for the US presidency, however, should try to view the election through a more global and comprehensive lens to avoid any risk of undermining the US-China relationship.

A healthy US-China relationship with a solid foundation will serve the fundamental interests of the two peoples, safeguard world peace and regional stability and bring prosperity to the Asia-Pacific and the whole world.

It's no secret that US presidential candidates tend to adopt a "China bashing" strategy in election years. Their rants against China, no matter what the topic might be, follow a road map of "the harsher, the blunter, the better".

Democrat primary candidate Hillary Clinton, a noted China hawk, has criticized China during her campaign on a series of issues ranging from human rights violations and cyber attacks to the so-called "military expansion" in the South China Sea, which China claims as its territorial waters.

Republican primary frontrunner Donald Trump shows no lack of anti-China rhetoric either. At a campaign rally on May 1, Trump accused China of engaging in unfair trade practices with the US.

"We can't continue to allow China to rape our country," Trump told a crowd composed mainly of working-class people in Fort Wayne, Indiana. "It's the greatest theft in the history of the world."

Trump has repeatedly made sensationalistic remarks targeting China for years. On Nov 6, 2012, he said, "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive." On Feb 21, 2013, he tweeted that "China is not our friend. They are not our ally. They want to overtake us, and if we don't get smart and tough soon, they will."

While irritating to many Chinese, do these remarks really characterize the state of US-China relations? Or are they just a reflection of a loss of orientation in the American democratic system, a sign of US society's weariness with the never-ending battles between its two political parties?

When the American public's disbelief and outrage over its government's foreign policy, economy rejuvenation and overall competence mounts, does "bashing China" really help defuse the collective national sentiment and anger?

In a recent article signed by Fu Ying, chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People's Congress, the veteran diplomat agreed that perceptions in both China and the US on the China-US relationship are "highly diverse" and complicated by recent media reports painting the South China Sea as a new geopolitical wrestling ground for the two countries.

"However, if you look at what is happening in real life, you see a different picture," wrote Fu. Over the past three years, President Xi Jinping and President Obama have had six lengthy meetings that cover wide-ranging subjects, giving a strong push to the relationship by initiating important cooperative programs.

China has become one of the biggest trading partners of the US on a monthly basis, according to this year's numbers.

Every 17 minutes, there is a flight between China and the United States, averaging hundreds of flights a week shuttling some 4 million people a year.

Our two militaries are actually engaging in more exchanges and dialogues than ever before.

The world's two largest economies have launched continuous partnerships to jointly tackle difficult global issues such as climate change and nuclear security.

So, what is the real state of China-US relations?

"I often hear in the US that China is seeking to dominate the Asia-Pacific and replace US leadership," said Fu. "This is a reflection of America's own fear of losing its primacy in the world more than China's ambitions.

"The US- China relationship has come to a state where if they work together, they are capable of making a difference in the world. If they fight, they can bring disaster onto the world," Fu added.

There's no doubt that there's a gap between perception and reality concerning the real state of the China-US relationship. The gap reflects the underlying need to rebuild consensus within political, economic and academic circles in the US and China.

Maybe Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump could start for themselves by speaking and acting more thoughtfully and accurately when it comes to China and China-US relations. The two great countries need to learn to get along, no matter who's elected.

Contact the writer at junechang@chinadailyusa.com.
The answer to China's energy challenges, as the song goes, may be blowin' in the wind.

According to a new study from MIT, China has the opportunity to massively increase its use of wind power - if it can properly integrate wind into its existing power system.

Only 3 percent of China's electricity demand was provided by wind power in 2015. The study forecasts that it could provide as much as 26 percent by 2030, which would be good news for the global effort to transition to renewable energy, since China produces the most total greenhouse gas emissions of any country in the world.

The promising projection comes with a counter-intuitive caveat, however. To make it happen, China should not put more wind turbines in its windiest places, but rather in places where they can more readily be integrated into the existing grid.

A "wind [turbine] that is built in distant, resource-rich areas benefits from more favorable physical properties but suffers from existing constraints on the operation of the power system," said Valerie Karplus, an assistant professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and director of the Tsinghua-MIT China Energy and Climate Project. The constraints are higher transmission costs and the cost of "curtailment," when available wind power is not used.

The study - Integrating Wind into China's Coal-Heavy Electricity System - is in the current issue of Nature Energy and is co-authored by Karplus and students and professors at MIT and Tsinghua University who are part of an academic collaboration focused on tackling energy and climate issues in China. Co-existing with coal appears to be step one.

There's no argument that China has been investing heavily in renewable energy in recent years, but still more is needed if the country is serious about meeting its pledged goal of having 20 percent of its energy consumption come from non-fossil fuels by 2030 - part of the Paris climate pact of 2015, the study says.

Plenty of studies have been made sizing up China's wind-energy potential based on the country's natural environment - its windiest valleys, plains and mountainsides. The new MIT study, however, is the first to take at look at how China's wind energy production could expand based on simulations of its existing power system operations.

Taking the limitations of the operations into account, the MIT team found, China may only be able to use 10 percent of its physical potential for wind power. But even that 10 percent would be enough to surpass the 20 percent goal and reach 26 percent by 2030.

The key challenge, the team says, is integrating wind power into a system that has been geared to coal since day one. Coal can be tapped with the light of a match. But wind, by its very nature, is intermittent and sporadic, so any grid it ties into has to be flexible enough to accommodate its on-again-off-again contribution.

And that, in turn, requires flexibility from the coal-fired power plants, which accounted for more than 70 percent of electricity generated in China in 2015.

The study suggests that since China already has regulations setting minimum output levels for coal-powered plants (to ensure their profitability), reducing these thresholds and employing more flexible production schedules would open the door for more wind power.

"Renewable energy plays a central role in China's efforts to address climate change and local air quality," Da Zhang, a post-doc at MIT, explained. "China plans to substantially increase the amount of wind electricity capacity in the future, but its utilization - and ultimately its contribution to these environmental goals - depend on whether or not integration challenges can be solved."

The researchers call for new policies but acknowledge the inherent challenges to implementing them. As co-author Michael R. Davidson put it: "Establishing regulatory structures and policy incentives to capture these benefits will be difficult in China because of legacy institutions."

Karplus puts it another way: the regulations now in effect were designed to ensure profitability for power producers, not encourage them to compete to lower costs.

"Existing policies prioritize sharing benefits equally among participants rather than facing strict price competition," she said. "As electricity demand growth has slowed in recent years, the limited size of the pie means sharper conflicts between wind and coal."

Karplus pointed to government planners in China are experimenting with using energy markets that encourage competition and create additional markets for flexible operation. Such markets could be a boon to renewable energy, especially wind and solar.

For China to tap its wind capacity to the fullest, Karplus concluded, "our work shows the value of continuing these reforms, including introducing markets and relaxing administrative constraints."

Contact the writer at chrisdavis@chinadailyusa.com.
A man wearing a monk's robe offers up Buddhist materials in Times Square on Tuesday. It could not be determined whether he was ordained or not. Note the teal "designated activity zone" at left. NIU YUE / FOR CHINA DAILY

That smiling man in the rust-colored robe handing you a medallion may not be upholding the precepts of the Buddha.

Ersatz Buddhist monks belong to the legions of costumed panhandlers who populate the bustling streets of New York City.

While solicitous "monks" have been around for years, they now will have to deal with New York City's recent reconfiguration of Times Square.

The teeming Manhattan crossroads has been redrawn into boxes aimed at keeping pedestrian traffic moving and to regulate street performers and costumed characters, such as Sponge Bob Square Pants, Elmo, Minnie Mouse, Woody from Toy Story and myriad Spider-Men.

The push for the rules heated up last summer because of the commotion caused by the desnudas (nude in Spanish), or women who are practically naked, save for body paint and sequined bikini bottoms.

Their high-heeled parading apparently offended the sensibilities of some tourists, while pleasing many others. Spider-Men exchanging punches also played a role, too.

The changes went into effect on June 21, as a way to control solicitation by the characters, some of whom are a bit more surly than the cartoon heroes they represent.

There are eight designated rectangles between 42nd and 47th streets that measure 8 feet by 50 feet. The teal boundaries, which the city has dubbed "designated activity zones", apply to anyone who is performing a service in which money is exchanged, whether it's costumed characters posing for pictures for tips or vendors selling tickets to comedy shows or bus tours.

Those stepping over the line, so to speak, could face arrest and a $500 fine or even jail time. It's too soon to tell how strictly the rule will be enforced, but some "characters" have vociferously objected, saying it is costing them money.

It appears that the monks won't be afforded any religious exemption; I contacted the city's press office just in case, but haven't heard back.

The "monks" are pretty mobile anyway.

"There were many fake monks in Chinatown," the Rev TK Nakagaki, president of the Buddhist Council of New York, told China Daily. Nakagaki said "they disappear" when people catch on to them. "Then they appear in other parts of New York.

"It's very disrespectful for the Buddhist people," he said. "They take advantage of the tradition that we have. This is happening more and more, not only in New York, but across the US and different countries."

Although Nakagaki doesn't like the situation, he has a good sense of humor about it.

"They should be the real monks, not the fake monks," he said with a chuckle.

When I strolled through Times Square on Monday evening, I saw two women dressed in tai chi-style jackets and sun hats. They both were carrying flimsy-looking gold medallions that they thrust half-heartedly at a select tourist or two as they headed west.

Later Monday on the Channel 5 news in New York, a reporter confronted a "monk" about his legitimacy, and the monk took off running.

Along the High Line, a former railroad section in Manhattan converted into a popular park, a robed man handed a gold-colored medallion and a plastic bracelet to a couple. He then showed them photos of a planned "temple" and shouted, "Ten dollars! Twenty dollars!" When they wouldn't pony up, he grabbed the trinkets back, The Associated Press reported.

Nakagaki is quoted on a sign on the High Line, which informs people that Buddhists are not pushy salesmen.

"While authentic monks traditionally carry a beggar's bowl to receive gifts of food or money, they would not aggressively ask for cash," the sign says.

That same sign also features a less diplomatic quote from the New York Post in 2015: "Fake Buddhist monks are the new squeegee men of New York."

Niu Yue in New York contributed to this story.

Contact the writer at williamhennelly@chinadailyusa.com
An aerial photo taken on Sept 25, 2015 from a seaplane of Hainan Maritime Safety Administration shows cruise vessel Haixun 1103 heading to the Yacheng 13-1 drilling rig during a patrol in South China Sea. [Photo/Xinhua]

BEIJING - As the farce of arbitration on the South China Sea is to end soon, it is time for the new Philippine government of Rodrigo Duterte to stop the wrong foreign policy of its predecessor, so as to bring China-Philippines ties back to the track of sound development.

Since Duterte assumed presidency on Thursday, sparks of hope have arisen for resumption of sound development of relations between China and the Philippines after bilateral ties seriously deteriorated during the rule of former Philippine President Benigno Aquino III.

In 2013, the government of Aquino III filed a case of arbitration with the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration over territorial disputes between China and the Philippines on the South China Sea, stoking tensions in the South China Sea region.

On June 29 - just a day before the assumption of presidency by Duterte, the Permanent Court of Arbitration announced that an arbitral award in the case initiated by the Philippines against China will be issued on July 12, meaning that the farce of arbitration started by the government of Aquino III will come to an end in days.

Since winning the election, Duterte has made a series of overtures on China-Philippines relations, signaling that improvement of relations with China would be a foreign policy priority of his government, in sharp contrast to the wrong foreign policy pursued by the former government.

As whoever started the trouble should be responsible for settling it, any substantial improvement of relations between China and the Philippines under the current situation actually depends on efforts of the Philippine side. Therefore, it remains to be seen whether the new Philippine government will be able to play the role of settling the trouble left over by the former government, how long it will take before the new Philippine government can shake off the burden of wrong diplomacy created by its predecessor, how much efforts it will make in this endeavor, and how it will face the serious harm caused by the farce of arbitration to China-Philippines relations.

Today, there do exist chances for the new Philippine government to substantially improve relations with China, and also for it to eliminate negative impacts of the farce of arbitration on China-Philippine relations and even on the regional situation.

In a message to congratulate Duterte on his victory in the election more than one month ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that China and the Philippines see a long history of friendly exchanges and profound traditional friendship between the two peoples.

"A friendly, stable and sound China-Philippines relationship is in the fundamental interest of the two countries and the two peoples," Xi said, adding that he hoped the two sides would work together to get bilateral relations back onto the track of sound development.

In response, Duterte said he was "honored" to receive the congratulatory message from the Chinese president, calling him a great leader.

"I was honored receiving a congratulatory message from a great president," Duterte reportedly made the remarks when speaking with reporters in Davao City after unveiling the members of his cabinet to the media.

The indirect "dialogue" reflected by the two foregoing passages has been interpreted as a positive signal for improvement of relations between China and the Philippines. It is noteworthy that both sides mentioned therein the history of China-Philippines relations, and that both emphasized the existence of a long history of friendly exchange between China and the Philippines and the maintenance of profound traditional friendship between the Chinese and Philippine peoples.

Since ancient times, China and the Philippines have maintained friendly exchange and profound traditional friendship between the two peoples, which is just one of the reasons why the two countries can get bilateral ties back onto the track of sound development despite negative impacts of the wrong foreign policy pursued by the government of Aquino III.

In history, the South China Sea used to be an important link via which the two countries conducted friendly and equal exchanges.

Historical literature "The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898" gave an account of a story about friendly contacts between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea.

In 1626 AD, the region of today's Hermosa in the Philippine province of Bataan was facing a severe famine, but the then Manila government was unable to offer aid to the region. Local Catholics had to pray every day that Chinese merchant ships could come as annually scheduled to help them cope with the emergency. Shortly afterwards, when six Chinese ships fully loaded with rice arrived on Hermosa port from the South China Sea, the locals hailed the timely rescue as "a gift from God."

Almost at the same time, chronicles of southeast China's Fujian Province known as "The Book of Fujian" also recorded a history of people-to-people contacts between the two countries, saying that sweet potato widely planted in today's China had actually been introduced from Luzon -- today's Philippines.

At that time, after seeing that sweet potato was widely grown in Luzon and its growth had gained good harvests, businessmen took sweet potato plants via the South China Sea to Fujian, where they were successfully planted. During the first years of extensive cultivation of sweet potato, it helped local people survive famines.

In the long history, the South China Sea mainly played the role as such a link and platform for equal exchanges and common development between China and neighboring countries.

However, in the past few years, the government of Aquino III put aside the traditional friendship between the two countries and the needs of the Philippine people's livelihood and development by pursuing a wrong foreign policy that led to serious deterioration of relations between China and the Philippines. Considering oral promises made by some countries outside the region as a security umbrella and economic driving force, Aquino III internationalized the South China Sea issue and was willing to serve as a vanguard for those countries in muddying the waters in the South China Sea.

In fact, it is difficult for Manila to find its real security interests from the frequent navigation by foreign military vessels on the South China Sea.

In economy, the promises of some Western countries have not helped improve the people's livelihood in the Philippines. Instead, escalation of South China Sea disputes has deprived many Filipinos of their means of survival.

Therefore, the cognitive, decision-making and strategic errors the Aquino government committed will finally bring bitter fruit to its people and even undermine regional stability and prosperity.

Only enhancing win-win cooperation and developing the economy are in the fundamental interests of the two countries.

As is known to all, China has been prudent and tolerant in handling its relations with the Philippines while considering the Philippine people's livelihood.

In 2015, bilateral relations were difficult, and the trade between China and other Asian countries as well as between China and countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations went down by 7.8 percent and 1.7 percent respectively. However, the China-Philippines trade hit a record high of 45.65 billion U.S. dollars, up 2.7 percent from a year ago.

Now, China has become the Philippines' largest source of imports, second largest trade partner and third largest export market. The two countries are complementary to each other in industry, with the existence of great potential for economic growth and broad prospects for investment cooperation, which makes up a right way for mutually beneficial cooperation compared to the empty promises some countries made to Aquino III.

In the 1980s, then Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, after meeting then Philippine Vice President Salvador Laurel and then Philippine President Corazon Aquino successively, proposed peacefully solving the South China Sea disputes, and shelving disputes while seeking joint development. The reason why such a constructive consensus was reached was that the two sides realized that hope was far more than difficulties and common interests were far more than differences.
Army soldiers patrol near the Holey Artisan restaurant after gunmen attacked the upscale cafe, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, July 2, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

DHAKA - Nine Italians, seven Japanese, two Bangladeshis, a Bangladeshi-born US citizen and an Indian female were killed in the attack on a Spanish restaurant in Bangladesh capital Dhaka popular with foreigners.

An official at the Bangladesh Army's Inter Service Public Relations (ISPR) confirmed the nationalities of the victims to Xinhua on late Saturday.

He said Nine Italians, seven Japanese, two Bangladeshis, an Indian and a Bangladeshi-born US citizen were among the 20 people hacked to death by the terrorists who burst into the restaurant on Friday night.

The official who preferred to be unnamed said the victims include 10 males and 10 females.

Seven gunmen armed with blades, guns and bombs also murdered two Bangladesh police officers in the early hour of the attack.

Gunmen killed the victims soon after they stormed the Spanish restaurant - Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave Gulshan - in Bangladesh's worst hostage crisis, a spokesman of the Bangladesh Army had said in a media briefing on operation "Thunderbolt" that ended the 13-hour hostage crisis on Saturday.

Director of Military Operations Brigadier General Naim Ashfaq Chowdhury in the briefing did not disclose the nationalities of the victims.

According to the Italian Foreign Ministry, the Italian victims are Adele Puglisi, Marco Tondat, Claudia Maria D'antona, Nadia Benedetti, Vincenzo D'allestro, Maria Rivoli, Cristian Rossi, Claudio Cappelli and Simona Monti.

Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj already made public that an Indian female student was among the victims.

"Tarishi was 19 years old. She passed out from American School Dhaka. Presently, she was a student at Berkeley," she said in her another tweet.
BELGRADE - A Serbian scholar and politician has urged the Philippines to settle the South China Sea dispute directly with China, warning failure to solve disputes bilaterally would result in permanent and even armed conflict.

Experience in the Balkans has taught us that when two sides fail to settle disputes bilaterally, the disputes would prolong and evolve into permanent conflicts - even armed conflicts, Zarko Obradovic, an MP and vice president of the Socialist Party of Serbia, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

The Philippines should not have initiated its dispute with China over the South China Sea at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague, but instead should solve it directly with China, said Obradovic, who is also author of several books on Balkan geopolitics.

"We had territorial disputes in the Balkans, and if two countries did not come out with a solution directly, in negotiations, which would satisfy both, then this problem would continue to exist for a long time, and would become a source for permanent conflicts, instability, and sometimes even armed conflicts," he said.

There were a number of reasons for the Philippines to call for arbitration over the issue. There was public pressure domestically, and internationally, the country was influenced by the United States, Obradovic said.

"Internal reasons might be some upcoming elections for parliament or president, while foreign political reasons are related to a major global power. I think that their move is illogical and will not bring them any benefit," he said.

A resolution reached through direct negotiations would abide by the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, signed between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries in 2002, including the Philippines, he said.

The Philippines' call for arbitration is neither based on international convention nor on mutual consent, Obradovic said.

The Permanent Court of Arbitration is authorized to make decisions on matters where mutual consent exists and if the request is made in accordance with international conventions. In this case, "I think any decision will be unilateral and will not be in the interest of maintaining good neighborhood relations between China and Philippines," he said.

Obradovic said the very fact that the United States aligned with the Philippines against China in the case indicates that Washington has some expectations on the upcoming verdict.

"I think that the United States should not have interfered in their relations because, by supporting the Philippines it directly demonstrated its interests that the verdict should be in favor of the Philippines," he said.

It is against the interest of the whole region to have the US claiming immediate interests in the surrounding area, he warned.

Obradovic noted that China and ASEAN, including the Philippines, pledged to resolve all disputes peacefully and bilaterally in the 2002 declaration.

"I cannot understand why that after 14 years during which there was at least a readiness to talk, suddenly this issue has reached the level of ...an international arbitration, without attempting to find a solution in bilateral negotiations," he said.
NEW YORK - The Federal Bureau of Investigation interviewed Democratic US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for three and a half hours on Saturday as part of the probe into her use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state, her campaign said.

The interview at FBI headquarters in Washington followed a week of intense public focus on the investigation and on Clinton's viability as a presidential candidate, with four months to go to the election. Her campaign has tried for months to downplay the controversy as a distraction.

In an interview broadcast on MSNBC, Clinton said she was happy to do the FBI interview, which her spokesman earlier described as "voluntary."

"I've been answering questions for over a year" regarding the private email server, Clinton said.

It was not clear if the questioning of Clinton signaled an imminent conclusion to the investigation in a pivotal time for the presidential race. It does follow FBI interviews of several of Clinton's former staff members, as well as her top aide Huma Abedin.

Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at a town hall discussion with digital content creators in Los Angeles, California, US, June 28, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

Clinton is expected to be formally nominated as the Democratic candidate for the Nov 8 presidential election at the party's convention in less than four weeks.

"Timing of FBI interview, between primaries and convention, probably good timing for @HillaryClinton," tweeted David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to US President Barack Obama who served as the chief strategist for his two presidential campaigns. "Best to get it behind her."

Clinton is currently the front-runner for the White House with polls showing her leading presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.

In a tweet on Saturday, Trump said it was "impossible for the FBI not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton. What she did was wrong!"

He also criticized Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, for meeting privately with Attorney General Loretta Lynch earlier this week, which Lynch later said she regretted, though she said they did not discuss the investigation.

"What Bill did was stupid!" Trump tweeted.

The FBI is investigating whether anyone in Clinton's operation broke the law as result of a personal email server kept in her Chappaqua, New York, home while she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. One of the questions is whether they mishandled classified information on the server.

Clinton and her staff have struggled to respond to accusations that her use of the server in violation of State Department protocol means she is untrustworthy. Trump has said the investigation should disqualify her from being president.

"@HillaryClinton campaign statement says She "voluntarily" met w @FBI for 3.5 hours this morning - yeah, lots of people volunteer 2 do that," tweeted the Republican National Committee's communications director, Sean Spicer.
When it meets again in August, the South Middleton School Board could begin work to develop a policy regarding the non-discrimination of transgender students.

District administrators in June gave board members information on how school districts across Pennsylvania and the country are addressing the issue of gender identity and expression.

The hope is the district could have a policy in place sometime this fall, Superintendent Al Moyer said. We are in the beginning stages. Were just beginning to educate ourselves.

Board member Tom Merlie chairs the policy committee which is scheduled to meet again on Aug. 15 after a break in July. His goal is to study the information during the intervening weeks.

As a board member, I can safely speak for all of us, Merlie said. We cant do anything until we are educated. To form good policy, you have to know the facts and what the ramifications are for your actions. You have to be very careful and respectful of the subject matter.

The main questions going forward is why the need for a policy, what would it do and what would it prevent, Merlie said. Policies are the rules. They are the deciding factor on what we do.

In recent years, there have been a couple Boiling Springs High School students who have identified themselves as transgender and have approached building administrators with requests for accommodations, Moyer said. He added the procedure thus far has been to meet with each student and his or her family to work out a mutually agreeable resolution.

We hope to continue that way, Moyer said. We want to do our best to make each student feel safe and to respect them as much as we can. The goal of a policy would be to have something in writing to guide everyone in the future.

Carlisle Area School District administrators have discussed the issue of transgender students internally, but have yet to bring the topic before the school board, Superintendent John Friend said.

The district already has a policy in place to protect students from unlawful harassment based on race, color, national origin/ethnicity, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation or religion. Though the board has yet to consult its solicitor on the matter, it should probably add gender identity or expression to that list of protections, Friend said.

They are kidsThey are part of the system, he added. We need to protect them and work with them to provide the best support possible. We need to do what is right for the youngster and the family.

It has been at least two years since several Carlisle High School students first approached building administrators to state that they have made a gender identity change, Friend said. Staff members have worked with these students to notify their teachers of the gender identity change and to make accommodations for the student use of restrooms and school locker rooms.

Weve had zero issues related to those students, Friend said. He added each student and family is assigned a point of contact to notify if there are any issues and teachers with questions are encouraged to seek advice from administrators based on what school districts across Pennsylvania and around the country are doing.

Back in May, the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Office and the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights issued a joint letter outlining the federal governments position on accommodating transgender students.

The letter outlines how the agencies interpret the law and what ramifications may exist if local school districts deny the process and the need to make accommodations, said Steve Robinson, spokesman for the Pennsylvania School Board Association. He forwarded by email the guidance statement the PSBA has provided to its member school boards.

It reads that while the joint letter provides significant guidance, there are many legal cases pending on this issue nationwide. Until the courts provide us with a definitive answer that is binding in Pennsylvania, it would be premature for PSBA to draft a policyIn the meantime, we do caution districts of potential repercussions if you decide to ignore this significant guidance or actively take contrary action via policy or in handling an individual students requests for accommodations.

South Middleton School District has on retainer as its solicitor Gareth Pahowka, an attorney with the law firm of Stock and Leader of York. He has recommended the district hold off on drafting a policy because of the pending law suits involving transgender students, Moyer said. There is so much happening. Its a moving target right now.

Member school boards started asking the PSBA questions about transgender students about four years ago, said Emily Leader, an attorney for the organization. She added almost all the questions relate to sex segregated facilities such as restrooms and school locker rooms.

While the joint letter states school districts must allow transgender students access consistent with their gender identity, there is conflicting case law and expert opinions on what gender identity means and how it should be interpreted by school districts when it comes to this hot button issue, Emily Leader said.

Some districts have enacted policy requiring students use the restroom or locker room of their birth gender. Others have granted access to whatever facility the student feels comfortable with. Some transgender students have asked for a gender neutral option. The questions and concerns are coming from rural, suburban and urban school districts all across Pennsylvania.

Its all over the place, Leader said. We are not hearing a lot of problems about bullying. In many cases, students are accepting. Anecdotally there is a lot of acceptance.

Aside from access to facilities, transgender students have asked school officials to use the name they have selected and the appropriate pronouns to reflect their change in gender identity, Leader said. Most school districts have been willing and able to accommodate such requests.

The joint letter states how Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits sex discrimination in educational programs and activities operated by recipients of federal funding. The letter states that this prohibition encompasses discrimination based on the students gender identity or transgender status.




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"This grant will help us improve walkability in the borough and ensure that walkers are able to do so safely," Mechanicsburg Borough Council President Kyle Miller said. "We will also be able to take a look at how to promote bike safety on borough and state roads as well as develop safer connections between public spaces such as parks, schools and downtown businesses."
LITITZ  Forty years ago, a widowed Amish woman and her daughter watched from their window late one night as someone in dark clothing walked up to their farmhouse near Gordonville and left a basket on the porch.

The frightened widow summoned her son from the attached house next door. They saw movement in the basket and assumed it was kittens.

Then they saw a pair of tiny, fluttering hands and knew someone had left them a baby.

The widow, 65-year-old Annie Lantz, sent her son, David, more than a mile on foot to a neighbor with a horse and buggy. From there he rode to a Mennonite home with a phone to call police.

Meanwhile, the baby waited contentedly on the porch, swaddled in a blanket and sucking her thumb. The widow and her daughter watched from inside, afraid to approach the basket until police arrived.

Forty years later, that little Jane Doe  all grown up and raising children of her own in Lititz  hopes to find her birth family.

Jane Doe

Diane Bell has been an artist and pastry chef. These days, she works as an independent driver while raising two children, 18-year-old Evan and 13-year-old Kaelie.

Bell was about 3 months old when she was left on that porch. Taken by police to Lancaster General Hospital, she was officially named Baby A in the pediatrics ward, although nurses called her Jennifer, Kitina and Sweetheart.

She was listed as Jane Doe by social services which, two days later, placed her in a foster home, where she was called Rebecca.

Seven months later, the baby girl was adopted by Don and Marlene Bell of Mount Joy. They named her Diane after deciding Becky Bell didnt roll neatly off the tongue.

Bell celebrates her birthday on Feb. 10. Its just a date her adoptive parents picked, based on her estimated age at the time she was found.

She also celebrates porch day, May 26, which is the day she was found.

Its a weird little holiday, she says. It marks my arrival on this planet. Its like being an alien  I got dropped, and this is where I landed.

Local celebrity

Marlene Bell says she and her husband were childless and on a waiting list to adopt for quite a while. They were delighted to be chosen to raise the mysterious Jane Doe, who had been the feature of several newspaper stories about her discovery, as well as a large-scale effort by police to track down the people who abandoned her.

Initially, only a few people close to the family knew the girls background, Marlene Bell says.

Details of the childs whereabouts  who adopted her, where she was living  were kept quiet, Diane Bell says. Her parents fretted that someone might try someday to claim her and take her away.

Bell didnt know she was something of a local celebrity until she was 15.

I always knew I was adopted, she says. I was chosen, I was brought up feeling really great about being adopted, but I didnt know the circumstances.

She was assigned to make a family tree in high school, and without telling her parents she called the adoption agency to see what they could tell her about her birth family.

A woman from the agency contacted Bells adoptive parents and told them what happened. She didnt want to be the one, she told them, to inform Bell of her origins.

Its unbelievable, Bell says. Everybody has somewhere they came from. Everybody has family trees. People can say if breast cancer runs in their family, or if it doesnt. People can say their family has certain dispositions. I have none of that.

Bell knows her love of music comes from her adopted mom, and her fondness for trains comes from her dad. But where, she asks, did she inherit artistic tendencies?

Its that whole nature vs. nurture thing, she says.

She spent hours in the library reading microfilmed newspaper articles about her discovery.

Her first baby pictures, she says, are those that appeared in Lancaster Newspapers.

Bells doppleganger

Her desire to find her natural family  if not her birth parents, she says, maybe a sibling  has waxed and waned over the years. The desire was reinvigorated last week when Bell made a delivery in York to a woman who confused her with someone that, apparently, looks identical to her.

Its happened before, Bell says. Years ago, an ex-boyfriends mother thought she saw Bell walking hand-in-hand with another boy. Even Bells own father swore he saw her at a pancake breakfast, but she insists she wasnt there.

Theres someone walking around who looks a lot like me, she says. I know, I sound crazy saying that.

Unfortunately, no one has ever approached or been able to identify the blue-eyed, blond-haired doppleganger to give Bell a place to start on her quest for family.

I even tried a psychic, she says with a laugh.

I love my family, she adds. If this was remotely hurting either one of them, I wouldnt be pursuing it at all.

But who knows, Bell says. Maybe I have a twin.

Her Amish connection

Besides trying to find her birth family, Bell was inspired to reconnect with the Amish family that found her.

I met the Amish family last night. I found the porch where I was left, she says.

I did not actually get up on that porch. I dont know why. I stood next to it. I took a picture. ... I had a much more grandiose porch in mind. When they took me around to see it  I was like, thats it?

Annie Lantz and her daughter, Rebecca, are dead, Bell says. David Lantz, now 75, lives in the same house on Musser School Road with his wife and children, and he clearly recalls the night of Bells discovery.

The family, he told Bell, has long regretted not keeping her themselves. Lantz said the Amish community gave his mother a hard time for giving the baby up, Bell says, but she didnt feel it was right. She cried a lot about it afterward.

Surrounded by people who, with a slight twist of fate, could have been her siblings, nieces and nephews gave Bell an odd feeling.

How could you possibly put into words how different a life that would be? she asks.

She spent time with several Lantz youngsters who were excited to learn that Bell enjoys baking and painting.

Some of the granddaughters want me to teach them to paint, she says.

Were going to have a giant get-together. Were going to have a picnic, she adds. Apparently there are a lot of people in the Amish community who want to meet me. Whod have thought, after all this time, its still being talked about.

No longer angry

I have no idea what Id say if her birth parents or siblings turn up, Bell says.

Most of the time, it doesnt bother me to be who I am. I dont really think about it. I dont talk about it, she says.

Im not angry anymore, she adds. I definitely dont understand it. But hard situations call for hard choices. Theres no way to know if (her birth mother) even had any part of the decision.

I stopped being angry about it years ago. But when I became a mom, it became really confusing for me. Theres no way I could leave my children somewhere.

Maybe her birth parents are gone, she says. But maybe they had one or more children who they raised  or maybe, she said, maybe there are others who were given away as well.

They could be in the same position as me, she says. Id want to meet them, at least to have a cup of coffee. If theres someone out there, Id love to sit down and have a conversation.

Having a sibling, she adds, would be really great. I wouldnt know what to do. Ive been an only child all my life. That would be pretty cool.
(Photo : Youtube Video) Li Yang, domestic violence victim, was subjected to death penalty by a Hong Kong court in 2013. After being abused for several years, she was found guilty of killing her husband in a fight.

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As feminism continues to grow in China, Chinese women are taking it upon themselves to raise awareness about sexual assault, taboo, gender discrimination, and exploitation using social media.



According to the BBC, popular microblogging platform Sina Weibo is one of the platforms being used for this form of protest. Feminists on Weibo are reportedly encouraging victims of crimes like rape, domestic, and sexual violence to speak up and make their voices heard.



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In China, rape is seen as a taboo and often victims are afraid to report the crime. As a result, such crimes also go unpunished. Until last year, there was no Domestic Violence Law (DVL) in the country. China drafted its first DVL in Dec 2015.



Women's rights activists who speak up are allegedly harassed and sometimes even arrested. In March 2015, ahead of International Women's Day, five prominent women's rights activists were detained after planning events calling for an end to sexual harassment.



Feminism has reportedly been gaining weight in China since 2012. What began as a fringe movement several years ago has sparked a nascent feminist awakening. Activists claim that feminism has now become a "sensitive" political topic with some feminists treated as threats to state security.



Sex education is also an important aspect of the issue. How it is taught is allegedly outdated with women finding it difficult to find empowerment. While China's First Lady Peng Liyuan has been calling on women to empower themselves through education, there are still challenges within the education system about how sex education should be taught.



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Tagswomen's rights, women, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Harassment, domestic violence, man posts on fb about murdering wife, doctor murders wife, China human rights, domestic violence law, China domestic violence, domestic abuse
(Photo : NASA JPL) Ceres

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Members of the team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory overseeing the Dawn spacecraft orbiting the dwarf planet Ceres are dismayed by the agency's decision not to have Dawn explore the dark asteroid 145 Adeona.



NASA will instead support an extension for the New Horizons spacecraft mission now leaving Pluto to chase 2014 MU69, a massive and icy Kuiper Belt Object (KBO).



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NASA bosses said Dawn will remain in orbit around Ceres, which it began orbiting on March 6, 2015, instead of visiting 145 Adeona in 2019. This 150 kilometer-wide asteroid in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is a C-type asteroid probably composed of primitive carbonaceous material.



NASA planetary division director Jim Green said the agency's decision to forego 145 Adeona was based on recommendations of a senior review panel that evaluated all the agency's ongoing planetary missions,



"The long-term monitoring of Ceres, particularly as it gets closer to perihelion -- the part of its orbit with the shortest distance to the sun -- has the potential to provide more significant science discoveries than a flyby of Adeona," said Green.



NASA JPL mission leaders supported the trek to 145 Adeona since it would be better to exhaust Dawn's remaining fuel in exploring another large asteroid. There were dismayed by the decision to let Dawn continue orbiting Ceres.



Chris Russell, the Dawn mission's principal investigator at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the decision not to go to 145 Adeona was disappointing.



"We thought that everyone we had talked to about this plan was enthusiastic about it. I had no negative vibes until this particular moment."



Russell said it's a mistake to think the science of staying outweighs the chance to visit a new asteroid. He said Ceres has already been mapped and there are few signs of scientifically interesting changes in Ceres.



The Dawn mission was designed to study Ceres and Vesta, two large bodies in the asteroid belt, to answer questions about the formation of the Solar System. It was also to test the performance of its ion drive in deep space. Dawn is the first spacecraft powered by ion propulsion.



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TagsDawn Spacecraft, Ceres, 145 Adeona, NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
I have an idea.

The federal government needs to compile a list of women who shouldnt be allowed to get abortions. The criteria for getting on the list must be flexible. If an official at, say, the NIH or FBI think that a woman should be a mother for some reason or other, he or she can block an abortion. Maybe the woman has great genes or a high IQ or the sorts of financial resources we need in parents. Lets leave that decision where it belongs: in the hands of the government.

Heck, theres really no reason even to tell women if theyre on the no abort list. Let them find out at the clinic. And if they go in for an abortion only to discover they are among the million or more people on the list, there will be no clear process for getting off it, even if it was a bureaucratic error or case of mistaken identity.

Sound like a good idea?

You probably dont think so, particularly if you took part in the celebratory riot of good feeling in the wake of the Supreme Courts recent decision striking down Texas abortion regulations. In the case of Whole Womans Health v. Hellerstedt, the court ruled that Texas could not raise the required health and safety standards of abortion clinics to match those of other ambulatory surgical centers. The reforms were implemented in the wake of the Kermit Gosnell scandal in which the Philadelphia abortionists abattoir was revealed to be more like the setting for a Saw movie than a decent medical clinic.

The court held that abortion is such a fundamental constitutional right that minimal health standards are an undue burden on women seeking an abortion, even if they might save womens lives.

Theres a deep and perplexing contradiction here. If abortion is just another aspect of womens health  currently the preferred euphemism for the procedure  why have higher health and safety regulations for dentists than abortionists?

But thats just the first of many contradictions. The court allowed Whole Womens Health to sue in the first place, even though the company has no right to an abortion, and third parties arent supposed to have standing to sue for someone elses constitutional rights. The left loves to say corporations arent people  unless theyre suing for abortion rights. Then the new mantra is: Corporations are people, but human fetuses arent.

The contradiction I find most glaring and galling is that the euphoric hysteria from the left over the courts decision occurred right in the middle of a conversation about guns and terrorist watch lists.

In that conversation, many of the same voices on the left argued that the federal government can  nay, must!  have the unilateral power to put American citizens on a secret list barring them from exercising two constitutional rights: the right to bear arms and the right to due process when the government denies you a right. (Both, unlike abortion, are rights spelled out in the Constitution). Congressional Democrats even staged a tawdry tantrum on the House floor about it.

Never mind that the Orlando slaughter  the event that set off the House sit-in  would not have been prevented if the Democrats had their way.

Writing for the majority in the Hellerstedt case, Justice Stephen Breyer argued that the Texas statute was unnecessary because determined wrongdoers like Gosnell wouldnt be deterred by new laws given that he was willing to violate existing laws.

Maybe so. But isnt that exactly the NRAs position on gun laws? Murderers, never mind terrorists, by definition dont care about the law.

It gets even crazier. President Obama, who hailed the courts decision, desperately craves the unilateral power to keep a list of people to whom he wants to deny guns without due process. But he also insists that known terrorists, particularly those held at Guantanamo Bay, have a constitutional right to due process (though presumably not to buy a gun).

Yes, theres a lot of deviltry in the details, but the basic truth is undeniable: Those on the left  in all three branches of the federal government, along with their cheerleaders in the media  believe that the rights they like are sacred and the rights they dislike are negligible inconveniences at best and outrageous cancers on the body politic at worst. As Justice Clarence Thomas put it in his Hellerstedt dissent: The Court employs a different approach to rights that it favors.

In this, the court is not alone.

Jonah Goldberg is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior editor of National Review. You can email him at goldbergcolumn@gmail.com.
(Photo : H. Downes) Tiny fragments of opal embedded on meteorite EET 83309.

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A meteorite studded with bits of opal -- a mineraloid that contains properties of water -- discovered in Antarctica is powerful proof the Earth's water originated from asteroids that slammed into the Earth as it was forming billions of years ago.



This is the first time opals have been found on a rock confirmed to have come from an asteroid.



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Scientists have found only one other space rock carrying opal, and this was a meteorite originating from Mars. Opal requires water for it to be formed.



The discovery was announced by Hilary Downes, a geochemist and study lead author at the Birkbeck Institute of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of London, during the National Astronomy Meeting held last week in England.



"This is more evidence that meteorites and asteroids can carry large amounts of water ice," said Downes.



"Although we rightly worry about the consequences of the impact of large asteroids, billions of years ago they may have brought the water to the Earth and helped it become the world teeming with life that we live in today."



To reach their conclusion, Downes and her colleagues studied meteorite "EET 83309" consisting of thousands of bits of rocks and minerals, all of which suggest EET 83309 came from the surface of an asteroid.



On the Earth, opal consists of silica commonly found in sand and water. Flowing water picks up sand and other pieces of silica. When the water evaporates, it leaves behind traces of materials that eventually form opals.



Research on EET 83309 by other scientists show the asteroid from which it came was likely hit by other asteroids and meteorites as fragments of other space rocks were discovered on the meteorite. They also said EET 83309 was exposed to radiation from the sun, solar wind and other cosmic sources.



Since an asteroid lacks an atmosphere to protect it from deadly radiation, the conclusion is the meteorite and the asteroid it came from already had water.



"Our evidence shows that the opal formed before the meteorite was blasted off from the surface of the parent asteroid and sent into space, eventually to land on Earth in Antarctica," said Downes.



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(Photo : Getty Images) China is set to carry out military drills to assert its territorial claims in the South China Sea.

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China will carry out military drills to assert its claim over disputed reefs and islands in the South China Sea from July 5 to 11.



China's Maritime Safety Administration on Sunday announced that the drills would be conducted around the Paracel Islands. The announcement came days after the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration declared that it would issue a final ruling on July 12 on the South China Sea case filed by the Philippines against China.



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The Philippines government in questioning Beijing's claim to disputed territories in the South China Sea. However, the Chinese government has said that it does not recognize the jurisdiction of the court and continues to maintain that it has ''indisputable sovereignty' over the contested region.



Chinas Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei, earlier this week, said that the tribunal was established at the unilateral request of the Philippines, therefore, it has no jurisdiction over the case.



"The Philippines' unilateral initiation of arbitration breaches international law," Lei said, according to state-run Xinhua news agency. "With regard to territorial issues and maritime delimitation disputes, China does not accept any means of third party dispute settlement or any solution imposed on China."



Meanwhile, a senior Japanese diplomat on Friday expressed concern about the territorial dispute between China and neighboring countries over the South China Sea. Koro Bessho, Tokyo's ambassador to the United Nations, also hinted that the UN Security Council might take up the matter.



"Japan is deeply concerned about the situation. Security Council will put the issue on its agenda if there is a request to do so from its members," he said, according to Japan Today.



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TagsSouth China Sea, china, Military drill, Philippines, Permanent Court of Arbitration
(Photo : Getty Images) President Xi Jinping has reiterated China's claim to sovereignty over disputed islands and reefs in the South China Sea ahead of a ruling by a Hague-based court on the issue.

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"We are not afraid of trouble."



These were the bold words uttered by Chinese President Xi Jinping in his speech to mark the 95th-anniversary commemoration of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on Friday. The statement comes ahead of the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) over Beijing's claims to territories in the disputed South China Sea, which is set to be handed down on July 12.



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President Xi said Beijing would never compromise on the sovereignty of the territories it controls in the disputed waters as he called on the CPC to strengthen its military and maintain absolute power in the country.



Xi told high-ranking officials of the party in Beijing's Great Hall of the People to remain vigilant in anticipation of the Permanent Court of Arbitration's ruling on the Philippines' territorial case against China, which is widely expected to favor Manila.



Bitter pill



"No foreign country should expect us to swallow the bitter pill of harm to our national sovereignty, security, or development interests," Xi said.



"We are not afraid of trouble," he added as he rallied the party members to make their presence felt on the world stage.



Xi's statement comes in light of rising tensions in the South China Sea region over Beijing's claim to a large portion of the disputed territories in the South China Sea. U.S. ships continue to patrol near Chinese-claimed artificial islands in the strategic waterway in defiance of China's territorial claims.



Trading barbs



Beijing and Washington have been trading barbs over ownership issues of reefs and islands in the disputed waters.



In a swipe at Washington, President Xi said he was not afraid of any foreign military posturing in the disputed waters.



"We will not show up at other people's front doors to flex our muscles. That does not show strength or scare anyone," he emphasized.



July 12 ruling



The Permanent Court of Arbitration is set to make a ruling on the Philippines' case against China on July 12.



The Philippines is asking the court to nullify China's claims to the disputed waters claiming that Beijing's actions have violated the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Laws of the Sea (UNCLOS).



China has stated that it does not recognize the court's jurisdiction over the case and that it will reject whatever ruling is handed down. The international community has urged Beijing to respect the ruling saying its rejection would be tantamount to declaring itself an 'outlaw state.'



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TagsPresident Xi Jinping, Chinese sovereignty, South China Sea, Communist Party, china
(Photo : Cambridge University) Stephen Hawking and the COSMOS MK IX supercomputer at Cambridge University

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World renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking has announced a truly ambitious project to map the known Universe in 3D using the COSMOS supercomputing facility at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom.



COSMOS was founded in January 1997 by a consortium of leading UK cosmologists brought together by Hawking. The project will plot the position of billions of cosmic structures including galaxies, black holes and supernovas to create the most detailed 3D map of the early Universe to date, said Hawking.



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The COSMOS supercomputer, COSMOS Mk IX, is an Altix UV2000 system from SGI. COSMOS Mk IX is the largest shared-memory computer in Europe and is being used to support research in cosmology, astrophysics and particle physics.



COSMOS Mk IX features 1856 Intel Xeon E5 processor cores (SandyBridge-EP) with 14.5TB of globally shared memory. It was boosted further in December 2012 with 31 Intel Many Integrated Core (MIC) co-processors, providing a hybrid hierarchical SMP/MIC computing platform.



COSMOS Mk IX will create the 3D map relying on data from two previous surveys: the Planck satellite from the European Space Agency and the Dark Energy Survey, an optical/near-infrared survey probing the dynamics of the expansion of the Universe over the last 10 billion years and the growth of large scale structures.



The COSMOS team will use Planck satellite to form detailed images of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), or the radiation leftover by the Big Bang. These images of the oldest light in the cosmos allowed physicists to refine their estimates for the age of the Universe to 13.82 billion years, and its rate of expansion.



This information will be combined with data from the Dark Energy Survey. From all of this, the COSMOS team will compare the early distribution of matter in the Universe with its subsequent expansion to see how the two combine. This will be the first time scientists compare data the early Universe to its evolution since the Big Bang.



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TagsStephen Hawking, COSMOS supercomputing facility, Cambridge University, Altix UV2000 system
(Photo : Getty Images) China is seeking an explanation from Taiwan after the latter fired a missile and killed a Chinese fisherman.

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China on Friday said it is seeking a 'responsible' explanation from Taiwan about the missile firing incident.



A Taiwanese naval vessel accidentally fired a Hsiung Feng III supersonic missile into the Taiwan Strait on Friday, leaving a fishing boat owner dead and two crews wounded. Beijing has described the incident a serious matter.



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"The incident occurred and has caused a severe impact at a time when the mainland has repeatedly emphasized safeguarding the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations based on the political foundation of the 1992 Consensus," Zhang Zhijun of China's Taiwan Affairs Office said, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. "The Taiwan side should offer a responsible explanation of the matter."



Meanwhile, Taipei has launched a probe into the incident calling it a missile 'blunder.' President Tsai Ing-wen on Saturday ordered country's top defense officials to conduct a review of fleet management and personnel training. Taiwan's Defence Minister Feng Shih-kuan offered an apology to the family of the boat captain.



Beijing has suspended cross-Taiwan Strait communication. Nonetheless, President Tsai Ing-wen expressed her willingness to continue dialogue with China.



"We will continue the dialogue with mainland China as even though... official negotiation channels have been temporarily interrupted, there still exist other options for communication and dialogue," she said recently.



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Tagschina, Taiwan, missile, Tsai, dpp
(Photo : Getty Images) Rescue workers are attempting to save 12 miners trapped underground in a mine in Shanxi Province following heavy rains over the weekend.

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Work safety authorities in China's Shanxi province have launched a rescue operation for 12 trapped miners in a mine in Jincheng city.



A coal mine reportedly flooded around 11 p.m. local time on Saturday when 94 workers were working in it. Eighty-two miners have been rescued, but twelve remain trapped underground.



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China's work safety watchdog last month asked local authorities to initiate safety inspections at coal mine facilities to prevent deadly accidents. The country has witnessed several instances of mine flooding in the past two months due to torrential rains.



In a separate accident, a limestone mine exploded early Sunday morning in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The accident, which occurred at early 2 a.m. local time, left six workers missing and one injured.



Following heavy rains this past week, flooding has killed dozens and displaced thousands in several parts of the country. In a flood-related incident, 23 people were killed in Guizhou province on Friday.



China's National Meteorological Center on Sunday issued a renewed orange alert for rains in the south and southwest parts of the country. It warned that thunderstorms would hit the provinces of Hubei, Anhui, Jiangsu, Hunan, Jiangxi, Guizhou and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region from Sunday morning to Monday morning, with precipitation reaching up to 220 millimeters in some areas.



Disaster relief authorities also said that the rising water levels of riverbanks pose a great danger.



"Flood control facilities, especially main dikes, along the Yangtze River have been reinforced since 1998 to stand severe floods, but rising water levels have damaged many riverbanks in the middle and lower reaches of Yangtze, posing great danger," Chen Guiya of Yangtze River Water Resources Committee said, according to state-run Xinhua news agency.



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Tagschina, Floods, Mine Flooding, Miners Trapped, Shanxi
(Photo : Getty Images) Mitsubishi Motors's logo is seen in Tokyo, Japan.

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Japanese automotive maker Mitsubishi will recall more than 7,500 imported Pajero units in China because of a potential airbag system issue, a customer quality watchdog announced on Saturday.



According to the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection, and Quarantine, Mitsubishi will recall around 7,725 vehicles manufactured between August 4, 2014, and April 28, 2016, Shanghai Daily reported.



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Customers will be contacted by authorized Mitsubishi Motors dealers, who will fix the issue without any additional cost. The recall of affected units will begin on September 20.



Other than China, Mitsubishi also recalled about half a million units of its vehicles in Australia on Friday because of driver safety issues, Bernama reported. The Mitsubishi models affected include the Triton ute, Lancer Sedan, Outlander, Pajero four-wheel drive, Colt Hatchback, and the iMiev electric car. The cars are being recalled over electrical issues that affect the indicator signal, windscreen-wipers, and headlights.



The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has also found handbrake cable defects on Mitsubishi's Lancer. The issue could reportedly interfere with the fuel tank, leading to rust and a potential fuel leak.



In related news, Mitsubishi Motors will also recall Delica MPV and Pajero SUV models in Japan that are equipped with Takata-made driver-side airbags. The vehicles were produced this year, Automotive News reported.



According to a statement released by the Japanese company, the passenger-side airbags of the following models will be changed: eK Wagon, eK Sport, Pajero Mini, and Toppo mini as well as other mini vehicles manufactured for Nissan Motor Co.



Some 92,000 Delicas and Pajeros that have been shipped overseas are affected and will also be recalled at a later date.



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TagsJapan, Mitsubishi, car recall, Pajero, airbag issue, Takata airbags
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home Faith Suicide risk lowered by attending worship services, says study

Women who attend religious services are less likely to commit suicide than those who don't, according to a new study released Wednesday, June 29.

The study, published on JAMA Psychiatry, investigated the relationship between suicide and attending services by analyzing data collected from 1996 to June 2010 from the Nurses' Health Study.

The study involved 89,708 women aged 30 to 55, most of whom are Protestant or Catholic. Of these, 36,488 attended service once a week and 17,028 attended service more than once a week, while 21,644 never attended service and 14,548 attended service less than once a week.

A total of 36 suicides were documented during the period specified.

The study authors said women who attended one or more services each week were five times less likely to commit suicide compared to those who didn't attend.

The authors clarified that the study results do not mean health care providers should advise patients to attend services.

"However, for patients who are already religious, service attendance might be encouraged as a form of meaningful social participation. Religion and spirituality may be an underappreciated resource that psychiatrists and clinicians could explore with their patients, as appropriate," the authors wrote.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identifies suicide as the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S., with approximately 13 out of 100,000 people committing suicide in 2014.

So how should a health professional respond to the results of the study?

Harold G. Koenig from Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina said psychiatrists can consider a patient's spiritual history in conducting a psychiatric evaluation because it could "identify patients who at one time were active in a faith community but have stopped for various reasons."

"Nevertheless, until others have replicated the findings reported here in studies with higher event rates (i.e., greater than 36 suicides), it would be wise to proceed cautiously and sensitively," Koenig, who is not part of the study, wrote in an accompanying editorial.
home World Christian man death sentence affirmed by Pakistan court after blasphemy allegations

A court in Pakistan handed a death sentence to a Christian man and the two men he reported for extortion and blackmail over charges of blasphemy.

Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) Gujranwala Judge Bushra Zaman issued the capital punishment Monday, June 27 to 65-year-old Anjum Naz Sindhu and his accusers Javed Naz and Jaffar Ali over the blasphemy case. The court found Sindhu guilty and fined him 500,000 rupees (US$4,730) while the court condemned Naz, a Christian, for concealing the alleged blasphemy. Naz and his Muslim friend, Ali, received an extra 35-year imprisonment and 800,000 rupees (US$7,570) fine for their extortion.

It all started when the two men accused Sindhu, a Catholic school owner in Gujranwala, of committing blasphemy during last year's speech at Locus Science School. According to a First Information Report (FIR), Naz kept a record of the alleged blasphemy on his mobile phone. Naz and Ali then extorted 20,000 rupees (US$190) from Sindhu on May 15 last year and then demanded more with 50,000 (US$475) rupees. That's when Sindhu went to the police, upon the advice of friends and religious elders, and filed a complaint against the two for blackmail.

"He took the extortion matter to the police because he was innocent and was not ready to be blackmailed any further for something he hadn't done," a source who spoke in anonymity told Morning Star News.

"He succumbed to the pressure of the blackmailers because of the fear of death for himself and his family members that comes with the charge of blasphemy in a country where one doesn't really have to prove the accusation," the source added.

Sindhu's brother, Asif, revealed that Naz worked at one of the schools owned by his brother and suspected that Naz's charges may just be an act of retribution because his brother fired Naz from the school after leaking examination papers.

"They uttered blasphemous words in my brother's voice to get revenge for taking action against Javed Naz and later started demanding extortion," he said.

An Egyptian lawyer and former parliamentarian, Ehab Ramzy, also said that the blasphemy law is like a "sword to be used against certain people."

"If you want to get rid of your neighbor, you find a way to accuse them of blasphemy, using an ordinary insult as evidence," Ramzy said.
home US Cleveland school district must grant religious groups equal access to facilities, rules federal court

A federal court has approved a Consent Order for a religious group to enjoy the same equal access that non-religious groups have in the use of school facilities.

The Child Evangelism Fellowship of Ohio filed a lawsuit against the Cleveland Metro School District in 2013 with the help of Liberty Counsel after school authorities restricted its use of the district's public school facilities.

The CEF holds meetings for the Good News Clubs and for Christian character teaching after school. While secular groups have been allowed to use school facilities for free, the school district charged fees for CEF.

When CEF was unable to pay such fees, the Good News Club was shut down. CEF enlisted the help of Liberty Counsel regarding the case.

"The district allowed secular use at no cost and at one time allowed CEF the same treatment but that changed when a new administrator stopped treating CEF equally," said Matt Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, according to WND. "We sent letters to no avail and have been litigating this for several years to win the case."

The legal battle lasted three years until the court acknowledged the district's discrimination against CEF through a Consent Order issued on June 28, requiring the district to "amend and replace its Community Use of District Facilities Policy" in order to allow CEF equal access to public school facilities.

The district is also required to pay the religious group $150,000 for damages and fees.

Liberty Counsel vice president for legal affairs Horatio Mihet said public schools are not allowed to discriminate against "Christian viewpoints."

"It is a shame that CMSD wasted three years in litigation to learn a basic civics and constitutional lesson. We are elated with this victory for CEF, for equal access, and for our Constitution," Mihet said in a statement.

CEF has been involved in ministry for more than 70 years. It is represented in every state and has a presence in 183 countries. The Good News Clubs operated by CEF help give moral and religious education to children.

A survey conducted in 2013 showed that 87 percent of school principals believe the presence of the Good News Clubs in the campuses has positively impacted the students, and 52 percent believe that it has resulted in improved behavior for those who join them, according to Liberty Counsel.
home US Florida abortion law blocked at the last minute by federal judge

A federal judge blocked certain provisions in an abortion law in Florida late Thursday night, just a few hours before the new law was to take effect, in favor of Planned Parenthood.

A law signed by Gov. Rick Scott earlier this year contains provisions that prohibit state funding to organizations that provide abortion services.

Planned Parenthood, which stood in danger of losing an estimated $500,000 in funding for non-abortion services like health care screening, filed a lawsuit to challenge the new law.

U.S. District Court Judge Robert Hinkle ruled that the state should not stop funding preventive care at abortion clinics. The judge also blocked a provision in the law that mandates the state to conduct inspections on half of the annual abortion records.

"The Supreme Court has repeatedly said that a government cannot prohibit indirectly a by withholding otherwise-available public funds a conduct that the government could not constitutionally prohibit directly," Hinkle wrote, according to the Associated Press.

Hinkle also said that the decision to let the state continue funding for clinics that provide abortion services was "not on any objection to how the funds are being spent ... but solely because the recipients of the funds choose to provide abortions separate and apart from any public funding."

"You can't defund based on exercising a constitutional right," he said. He added that while inspecting health records is justified, the state has no reason to do it for half of all patients.

Other provisions in the law will take into effect.

Planned Parenthood celebrated the ruling. Laura Goodhue, Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates executive director, called for the renewal of their local contracts following the judge's decision.

"They expired the 30th, so that's why we're working to renew them quickly," Goodhue said, according to Miami Herald.

Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood enjoyed another court victory in Indiana when a federal judge blocked an abortion law that was supposed to take effect on July 1.

The law was to restrict abortion based on genetic abnormalities like Down syndrome.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt issued a preliminary injunction to Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, which filed a lawsuit against the state through the American Civil Liberties Union.

"The United States Supreme Court has stated in categorical terms that a state may not prohibit any woman from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy before viability," Pratt said, as reported by Reuters.
home World ISIS claims responsibility for overnight Baghdad bombings that killed nearly 95

Nearly 95 people were killed and 200 wounded in two bombings overnight in Baghdad, most of them in a busy shopping area as residents celebrated Ramadan, police and medical sources said Sunday.

The attack is the deadliest since U.S.-backed Iraqi forces last month scored a major victory when it dislodged Islamic State from their stronghold of Falluja, an hour's drive west of the capital.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had ordered the offensive after a series of deadly bombings in Baghdad, saying Falluja served as a launchpad for such attacks on the capital. However, bombings have continued.

A convoy carrying Abadi who had come to tour the site of the bombings was pelted with stones and bottles by residents, angry at what they felt were false promises of better security.

A refrigerator truck packed with explosives blew up in the central district of Karrada, killing 91 people and injuring at least 200. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement circulated online by supporters of the ultra-hard line Sunni group. It said the blast was a suicide bombing.

Karrada was busy at the time as Iraqis eat out and shop late during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which ends next week with the Eid al-Fitr festival.

Videos posted on social media showed people running after the SUV convoy of Abadi as he departed Karrada after touring the scene, throwing pavement stones, bottles of water, empty buckets and slippers, venting their anger at the inability of the security forces to protect the area.

Another video posted on social media showed a large blaze in the main street of Karrada, a largely Shi'ite district with a small Christian community and a few Sunni mosques.

Reuters TV footage taken in the morning showed at least four buildings severely damaged or partly collapsed, including a shopping mall believed to be the target, and gutted cars scattered all around.

The toll climbed during the day as rescuers pulled out more bodies from under the rubble and people succumbed from their injuries.

AL SHAAB ATTACK

In a second attack, a roadside explosive device also blew up around midnight in a market in al-Shaab, a Shi'ite district in the north of the capital, killing at least two people, police and medical sources said.

Iraqi forces on June 26 declared the defeat of IS militants in Falluja, a historic bastion of Sunni insurgency, following a month of fighting.

Now the militants were "trying to compensate for their humiliating defeat in Falluja," said Jasim al-Bahadli, a former army officer and security analyst in Baghdad.

"It was a mistake for the government to think that the source of the bombings was restricted to just one area," he said. "There are sleeper cells that operate independently from each other."

Falluja was the first Iraqi city to fall to Islamic State in January 2014. Abadi said the next target of the Iraqi forces is Mosul, the de facto capital of the militants and the largest city under their control in both Iraq and Syria.
home World Christian women arm themselves in Lebanon, threaten to send ISIS jihadists to hell

Lebanese Christian women threatened to send jihadists to hell as they armed themselves in defiance of the suicide bombing attacks on Monday, June 27.

Women in the Christian village of al-Qaa in the Bekaa Valley near the Syrian border didn't sit around cowering in fear after five died and more than a dozen suffered from injuries in two separate bombing blasts on Monday morning and evening. Instead, they took up arms and threatened to kill the Islamic State jihadists whom they suspect to be behind the attacks.

"We will not allow Lebanon to become a new Iraq. We will not flee, we have weapons and are ready to protect ourselves," said one of the women who spoke in anonymity, as reported by Assyrian campaign group A Demand for Action.

"Jihadists think they go to hell if they are killed by women, we will send them straight to hell," the unnamed woman declared.

Apparently, this belief is well-known among Iraqis and Kurdish people. Two years ago, U.S. Rep. Ed Royce talked about how Iraq recruited women fighters to the Kurdish peshmerga forces to fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) terrorist group.

"These ISIL soldiers apparently believed that if they were killed in battle, they went to paradise as long as they were killed by a man," Royce told the New York Post in 2014.

In the same report, an unnamed Kurdish woman fighter told Agence France-Presse, "I think [the Islamic State terrorists] were more afraid of us than of the men. They believe they'll go to hell if they die at a woman's hands."
home US Mom unable to stop autistic daughter from having a sex change despite teen having mental age of an 11-year-old

A mother who opposed her autistic daughter's desire for sex change considers the operation "a crime against the disabled" after failing to stop it.

"I am a lone voice in the academic and social work world speaking out against the [transgender] transitioning of autistic people, what I feel to be both a crime against the disabled as well as their sterilization," said Dr. Kathleen Levinstein, as reported by Breitbart News.

Levinstein is a clinical social worker teaching at the University of Michigan as well as the mother of a 19-year-old autistic daughter, whom she named Ruth but is now called Ryan, with a mental age of 11.

Even so, her daughter decided to alter her body so she can finally "become a boy" after changing her mind about being a lesbian. The physical changes included undergoing double mastectomy, growing a beard and mustache, taking massive injections of testosterone to "grow a penis" and amputating her breasts.

Levinstein blames the gender therapist, whom her daughter met with only twice and approved the sex change, because she believes her daughter is not capable of making such decisions. She accused the gender specialist, who she refused to identify, for skipping on the proper procedures of evaluation and not looking into her daughter's medical history which includes Crohn's disease and Sotos syndrome.

The head of the psychiatric department at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Dr. Paul McHugh, sympathizes with the mother and calls transgenderism a mental disorder similar to anorexics.

"Only a counter-force that is science-friendly ... will help turn this [transgender] craze around," McHugh said.

Meanwhile, the American College of Pediatricians considers sex change among children as a form of child abuse. The organization published a statement in March where it posted at least eight reasons to explain why gender ideology is harmful for children.

"A person's belief that he or she is something they are not is, at best, a sign of confused thinking," read the statement on the organization's website.

The health professionals gave more weight to a person's biological identity over any gender perception arguing that "no one is born with a gender" but only biological sex. Gender, they said, is not an objective concept.

They also added, "Conditioning children into believing that a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse."
home Faith Muslim mob attacks Christian man's family over debt payment in Pakistan

A Muslim mob in Pakistan attacked a Christian man's family after he sought payment for the money he has loaned to a Muslim man since last year.

According to Barnabas Fund, a group of 12-15 Muslim men led by Muhammad Naveed attacked the house of Jhoora Masih around midnight of June 16 in Punjab province. The attackers opened gunfire, stole some cash, and burned the agricultural laborer family's donkey cart and household items. The mob may have also burned Masih's daughters if not for the intervention of the family's Christian and Muslim neighbors.

The Friday Times reported that the Muslim mob armed themselves with batons, axes and pistols. Masih claimed the attackers also harassed and humiliated women and touched their private parts.

Masih, who suffered a gunshot injury on his hand for trying to protect his eldest son, had gone to Naveed earlier to follow up on the payment of the remaining money that Naveed had borrowed from him last year. He still needed to pay a balance of 26,000 PKR from the loaned 56,000 rupees (400, $535, a485) but instead of settling the payment, Naveed harassed the Christian man and even threatened him should he continue to ask for the payment.

"My family and I labored in the fields, but when it was time to divide the profits, they refused to give me the Rs 26,000 they owed me," Masih told The Friday Times. "Every time I demanded the money, they beat me up. The police pressured me to make to reconcile with them."

Human rights activist Khalid Shahzad believes the police will only resort to forcing compromise between the Christians and the Muslims unless there will be pressure applied on them.

"The police are not interested in arresting the suspects," Shahzad said.

Authorities at the Saddar Police Station reportedly refused to register the case and only did so on June 18 after considerable pressure from rights activists and local Christian leaders from Lahore. The police did not make any arrests and cast doubts that the attackers had indeed broken into the Christian family's home.

"He had a bullet injury, but he was not even hospitalized. This is a sign that the state machinery is acting with a bias," Shahzad said.
home US New 'Boycott Target' campaign launched after police arrest man for recording girls in dressing room

Conservative group American Family Association has called for another round of petition to boycott Target after police arrested a man who allegedly recorded juvenile girls in a dressing room.

AFA President Tim Wildmon asked American families on Tuesday, June 28 to declare their independence this coming Fourth of July from the giant company retailer Target. The center of the controversy happens to be the store's inclusive transgender bathroom policy that allows transgender employees and customers to use bathrooms and changing facilities based on their gender preference and not their biological sex.

AFA spearheaded a boycott campaign shortly after the company announced its bathroom policy in April. AFA and other conservative groups oppose the policy and criticize it as "dangerous," "unsafe and family unfriendly."

"Yet even with the signatures Target has turned a deaf ear to opposition regarding its dangerous bathroom policy that opens the door to predators and endangers women and girls. Not only does the loss of shoppers not matter but apparently neither does news like what happened in a New Hampshire Target store matter either," wrote Wildmon on the organization's website.

On June 24, Chief John Bryfonski of Bedford Police in New Hampshire confirmed the arrest of 22-year-old Zachery Bishop who allegedly recorded juvenile girls as they changed in the dressing room of a Target store.

The police charged the bishop with Violation of Privacy and detained him at Hillsborough County Jail on $2,000 bail.

AFA's initial signature campaign garnered 1.3 million pledges but Wildmon believes this may not be enough since the Target executives are not budging from their position. So Wildmon is raising another round of campaign.

"Therefore, we must speak louderaand numbers talk," Wildmon rallied.

AFA provided three ways to spread the new #BoycotttTarget campaign, including sample social media posts on Facebook and Twitter and a "pass-along" sheet.

"Perhaps another drop in sales during the busy summer shopping season will garner some attention," Wildmon said.
home Faith Christian school removes cross from logo, sparking anger among parents

Parents expressed outrage when a new Church of England-affiliated primary school decided to remove a featured Christian cross on its logo for fear it was offensive.

According to the Huddersfield Daily Examiner, parents felt furious when they noticed that the newly opened Oak CE Primary School altered its original logo design by replacing the symbolic cross with three branches of a tree.

The primary school in Crosland Moor district of Huddersfield, West Yorkshire became the largest in the Huddersfield area after three nursery schools a Crosland Moor Junior, Dryclough Infants and Thornton Lodge a merged together. A student from one of these schools who entered a competition designed the original logo with a cross.

"Staff have said people have complained about the cross yet the head is saying it was only temporary," said Niki Trepak, a mother with four children attending the school, as reported by the publication.

On Monday, June 27, headteacher David Bendall wrote to the parents to tell them that the original logo was never considered final and was only temporary. The parents, however, did not buy it.

"Why would you make temporary banners and produce temporary uniforms?" Trepak asked.

She considered the diverse community of Huddersfield with many Muslims residing in the area but dismissed the idea that the religious symbol offended them.

"I've got quite a few Muslim friends at the school and I asked them does the cross offend you and they said no," she said. "This isn't about race, it's the fact that they've removed the cross so as to not offend people. If it's going to remain a Church of England school it should keep the cross."

On Wednesday, June 29, the Examiner reported that the school just went on "lockdown." The school informed the parents through a text message that it would only open the Main Gate from 3:10 p.m. to ensure security for everyone following the logo controversy.
home World Obama blasted for funding countries that recruit child soldiers

Human Rights Watch urged U.S. President Barack Obama to stop funding millions of dollars in military aid to countries that recruit child soldiers.

The international non-government organization immediately blasted the American president as the U.S. State Department released Thursday, June 30 a new list of countries that recruited child soldiers.

These countries include Burma, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Nigeria, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

Jo Becker, children's rights advocacy director for HRW, wrote for Politico where she cited that some of these implicated countries have "received hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military assistance, despite continued a and even escalating a use of child soldiers."

"The United States has a powerful tool to pressure foreign countries to crack down on these abuses," wrote Becker. "But so far during his presidency, President Barack Obama has failed to use it effectively."

According to HRW, the 2008 Child Soldiers Prevention Act enables the president to be selective in granting military aid by withholding military assistance to countries that exploit children as soldiers in their national armed forces or government-supported militias and paramilitaries.

Becker summed up the Act's powerful message as saying, "If you want U.S. military aid, you need to stop recruiting children."

However, HRW cited that Obama chose in 26 of 33 cases to waive this law for national security reasons. Becker criticized the president's decision to use his override powers as she highlighted the previous cases of Congo and Rwanda where the administration effectively used the Act to positive effect.

"Obama has been far too quick to squander the law's power through the use of waivers," said Becker. "Withholding it until governments address their child soldier use seems like a no-brainer a an easy way to raise concerns and give abusive countries incentives to change their practices."

Speaking for HRW, Becker challenged Obama that he has one more chance until he leaves office by the end of September to use the full force of the law and send the message loud and clear that there will be no free pass to any of these countries until they end child recruitment.
home US Transgender ban lifted, may now serve openly in US military, Pentagon announces

Transgender individuals may now serve in the U.S. military, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced Thursday, June 30 in the wave of the country's sweeping transgender movement.

"This is the right thing to do for our people and for the force," stated Carter during his news conference in Pentagon when he announced the military's decision to lift the ban on transgender people.

Carter discussed the one-year timeline for the full implementation of the new policy. By October, the Defense Eligibility Enrollment System (DEERS) should already be updated to reflect a service member's gender identity.

Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Peter Levine would have one year to oversee the implementation of the revised regulations and forms as well as the training and implementation guidance to members of the force.

Upon reaching the one year time mark, transgender individuals who qualify the accession standards would already be admissible to the armed forces.

What should immediately end after Carter's announcement would be gender discrimination within the military that usually leads to involuntary separation, discharge, and denied reenlistment.

According to Military.com, Carter cited Rand Corp.'s statistics that indicated an upper range estimate of about 7,000 transgender service members on active duty and 4,000 in the reserves. Carter believes the new policy would open up the military to the nation's vast human resource of "talented Americans."

In July last year, Carter signaled an intention to lift the transgender ban in the military by directing a study on how transgender members can serve openly without causing negative effects on military effectiveness and readiness.

"We have transgender soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines a real, patriotic Americans a who I know are being hurt by an outdated, confusing, inconsistent approach that's contrary to our value of service and individual merit," said Carter.

Social conservatives criticized the military's decision to lift the transgender ban as part of President Barack Obama's sweeping transgender movement.

"Considering the abysmal condition of our military and a decline in readiness, why is this a top priority for the Obama administration?" executive vice president of the Family Research Council, Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jerry Boykin, said in a statement shared with The Christian Post. "No new science has led to the Pentagon's transgender study a only the politics of the Obama administration and the transgender movement."
Christian mother beaten and gang-raped in front of her 5 kids by Muslims in Pakistan 'honour' attack

This Christian mother didn't do any harm to anybody but still she suffered an intensely painful, humiliating, shocking and unwarranted punishment: being beaten and gang-raped in front of her five children by a group of Muslim men in Pakistan.

Samrah Badal fell victim to a Muslim man who was seeking to avenge his family's "honour" after the woman's sister fell in love and eloped with the man's brother who belonged to a very influential family in the city.

Fides News Agency learned of the attack last week from Christian lawyer Aneeqa M. Anthony, coordinator of the NGO "the Voice Society."

Anthony said the angry Muslim man and his henchmen went to Badal's home in Lahore to ask her on the whereabouts of the eloped couple. But Badal kept her mouth shut.

Angered by her show of disdain, the unidentified Muslim man and his gang mates beat and stripped her naked and dragged her out on the streets where she was brutally raped in front of her five children.

Anthony noted that the attack on the innocent Christian woman by a Muslim mob was just one of many such attacks that have taken place in Pakistan, where many of the culprits have remained unpunished by the authorities.

One rare incident occurred just last month when a Christian man reportedly beat his own sister to death because he disapproved of the man she wanted to marry.

It was the first reported honour killing involving Christians in Pakistan in recent memory, according to International Christian Concern's Regional Manager for South Asia William Stark.

"After hearing about this killing, I called a contact of mine in Pakistan and asked him about it. He said that it was the first time he had heard of a 'Christian honour killing' in Pakistan in his 14 years working as a human rights activist," Stark told The Christian Post. "Overall, Christians do not follow the practice of honour killing in Pakistan, which is why this killing is so shocking."

Also last June, a Muslim mother was reported to have killed her teenage daughter by burning her to death because she eloped with her lover and married without consent, shaming her family. It was the third reported case of honour killing in Pakistan for the month of June alone.
Harvard journal refuses to retract fake 'Gospel of Jesus' Wife' papyrus story

A Harvard University journal has refused to retract an article it published in 2014 about the "Gospel of Jesus' Wife" papyrus fragment despite the fact that its author has admitted that the scrap of paper is a forgery.

In 2012, Karen King, an expert in the history of Christianity and who works at Harvard Divinity School, took the world by storm when she presented a papyrus that indicated, according to her, that Jesus had a wife.

She unveiled the "Gospel of Jesus's Wife" papyrus that contained the text "Jesus said to them, 'my wife..." at a Coptic Studies congress held across the street from St. Peter's Square.

In 2014, the Harvard Theological Review published King's findings.

However, an investigative report by The Atlantic last month prompted King to say that the papyrus "tips the balance towards forgery" after the magazine published the story on its origin and ownership.

Critics said the papyrus was a forgery because it contained errors in Coptic grammar and similarities with the Gospel of Thomas, according to The Atlantic.

But the Harvard journal has refused to retract, saying, "Acceptance of an essay for publication means that it has successfully passed through the review process. It does not mean that the journal agrees with the claims of the paper," according to the website Retraction Online.

The journal said it never endorsed a position on the papyrus fragment.

"In the same issue (HTR 107:2, April 2014) in which HTR published Professor Karen King's article and the articles on the testing that were represented or misrepresented in some circles as establishing the authenticity of the fragment, it also published a substantial article by Professor Leo Depuydt arguing that it was a crude forgery. Given that HTR has never endorsed a position on the issue, it has no need to issue a response," the Harvard Theological Review added.

King told the Boston Globe that "it appears now that all the material [owner Walter] Fritz gave to me concerning the provenance of the papyrus ... were fabrications."

Harvard Divinity School (HDS) Dean David Hempton said the school's mission "is to pursue truth through scholarship, investigation, and vigorous debate."

He said the HDS is "grateful to the many scholars, scientists, technicians, and journalists who have devoted their expertise to understanding the background and meaning of the papyrus fragment. HDS welcomes these contributions and will continue to treat the questions raised by them with all the seriousness they deserve."
Presbyterian Church U.S.A. caught reciting Muslim prayer

The Presbyterian Church U.S.A. (PCUSA) caused a stir after a Muslim prayer was recited at its General Assembly held last week in Portland, Oregon.

During the church's opening plenary session, Wajidi Said, co-founder of the Muslim Education Trust, led the attendees in a prayer to Allah that was arranged by the Ecumenical and Interfaith ministry staff.

"Allah bless us and bless our families and bless our Lord. Lead us on the straight path  the path of all prophets: Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. Peace be upon them all, Amen," said Said, according to CBN News and Christian Daily.

Said said God "created us and made us into nations and tribes, from male and females that we may know each other, not that we might despise each other."

"Incline towards peace and justice and trust in God, for the Lord is one that hears and knows everything and the servants of God, the most compassionate, the most merciful, gracious are those who walk in the earth in humility and when bigots and hateful and Islamophobes address them, they say peace. Peace be upon them and peace be upon Allah," he added.

Days after the Muslim prayer, a protest letter was sent to the Stated Clerk written by a Korean Presbyterian and signed by 25 Assembly commissioners, according to The Layman and the blog of Mateen Elass.

Rev. Gradye Parsons apologised to those who were offended, saying that mistakes can happen but the prayer was not intentional.

"During the interfaith prayer service on Saturday in response to the killings in Charleston and Orlando, a prayer was offered that went beyond what had been scripted. It was an offense of the head, not of the heart; it came from one seeking to be authentically gracious, as part of the healing service," he said.

He said "some commissioners found it offensive."

"When in relationship with people of other faiths, sometimes we can inadvertently be offensive when meaning to be sensitive and ecumenical. It was never the intention of the one offering the prayer to offend any of us. Nevertheless, we offer an apology to all those who were offended," he added.
'Prison Break' season 5 release date, spoilers: New footage to be teased at SDCC; Production will be finished in two weeks

The "Prison Break" season 5 production is "under two weeks" away from its conclusion, "Prison Break" writers confirmed on Twitter.

The filming of the revival series started back in April. Filming locations included Vancouver and Morocco. There will only be nine episodes for "Prison Break" season 5 and it looks like all episodes should be ready for a spring premiere.

Describing the production process for "Prison Break" season 5, the writers said in another tweet that they "shoot in order, two episodes at a time, with a few exceptions for locations."

Meanwhile, for those who are worried that they won't see much of fan-favorite Theodore Bagwell aka T-Bag (Robert Knepper) on "Prison Break" season 5, the writers also clarified that he will be in several episodes.

T-Bag is known for his psychopathic tendencies and it is expected that he won't shake off such cunning and dangerous nature come "Prison Break" season 5.

In fact, in the trailer for "Prison Break" season 5 trailer, it was T-Bag who informed Lincoln (Dominic Purcell) that Michael (Wentworth Miller) is alive and is in Yemen.

In "Prison Break" season 5, Lincoln will be on a quest to save his brother and break him out of prison in the said country, where he served a terrorist organization.

How exactly Michael was able to fake his death without a trace and make everyone believe he died is expected to be revealed in "Prison Break" season 5.

More information about the revival is expected to be shared at the San Diego Comic Con or SDCC, where the show will take part.

Miller, Purcell, Knepper and Sarah Wayne Callies, who plays Michael's wife Sara Trancedi, as well as "Prison Break" season 5 producer Vaun Wilmott will be there.

The group will "greet fans fresh out of production to share their behind-the-scenes experiences from set and show a special sneak peek of all new footage."

The SDCC panel for "Prison Break" is scheduled on July 24, the last day of the four-day event. "Prison Break" season is set to premiere in spring next year.
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In 1913, an angry mass of what were then Houston suburbanites gathered in the July heat in the community of Brunner - now just another clump of townhomes along Washington Avenue - to declare war against an annexation pushed by Houston City Hall.

The state Legislature had granted Houston and other cities new annexation powers, and Houston had been eyeing Brunner and the community of Sunset Heights. The residents wanted none of it.

"You will be sought for the taxation of your property," A.T. Maxwell, president of the Sunset Heights Civic Club, told the crowd, as reported in the Houston Post. "It will not be for the want of your pleasant company, but strictly your money as taxes."

The faces changed, but, for the next eight decades, the same angry residents in the same crowded meeting halls made precisely the same denunciations of Houston's aggressive annexation plans, from Bellaire in 1949 to Mykawa in 1956 to Clear Lake in 1977 to Kingwood in 1996.

Aided by ambition and liberal annexation laws that gave residents no say in the matter, the swampy backwater gobbled up territory, becoming the largest city in the South and, then, the fourth-largest in the nation.

For the last 15 years, nearly all of Houston's annexations have been limited in scope and at the request of the property owners. Typically, these are outlying utility districts in which the city takes in commercial land, levies a sales tax and splits that new revenue with the district. Property to be fully annexed, in which new residents would pay all taxes and assume all duties of citizenship, must be identified three years ahead of time. In part because Houston's past actions led to more restrictive annexation rules, the city today plans no such general annexations.

It was not always so, for Houston or for its peers across the country. As America urbanized, the challenge of serving a growing region typically was solved by cities annexing new neighborhoods on their edges.

Around the turn of the 20th century, attitudes shifted, and states restricted annexation even as cities boomed, as detailed in a 1965 U.S. Department of Agriculture report on Harris County's postwar growth. As Americans used their new automobiles to flee cities, these restrictions became entrenched. Suburbs incorporated into their own cities, creating landlocked metro areas.

One exception was Texas, and Houston in particular.

Founded in 1836 on roughly a square quarter-mile at the confluence of Buffalo and White Oak bayous, Houston did not boom overnight. By 1900, the city had expanded to only about nine square miles around downtown. In 1913, with a population of 77,000, the city added a bit of land beyond that - including Brunner - and also annexed land along the newly deepened Houston Ship Channel.

The formerly independent city of Houston Heights, the state's first planned community, was annexed in 1918. By the end of the 1920s, Houston covered much of what is now the Inner Loop, including the former cities of Magnolia and Harrisburg, and the state's first black-founded city, Independence Heights. Unlike unincorporated areas, cities had to consent to become part of Houston.

It was the postwar period, however, that gave Houston largely the shape it has today. Afraid of being boxed in by neighboring cities with which it was in open competition, Houston completed more than two dozen annexations between 1940 and 1960.

A landmark 1949 annexation added 79 square miles and 110,000 people. The original plan had been even larger, but industries to be annexed along the ship channel forced a referendum and defeated the plan. In a surprise 1948 New Year's Eve vote, City Council restarted the process without the plants. Pasadena mayor Sam Hoover called it a "land grab."

Houston Mayor Oscar Holcombe ultimately dropped some claims near Pasadena and Deer Park, but that did not stop angry residents from petitioning for another referendum. This time, however, voters approved, and the city's footprint doubled.

Holcombe, then mayor of a city of more than 600,000, argued Houston had to prevent suburban communities from benefiting from Houston's economy without ensuring its long-term vitality by contributing to the city's tax base.

Houston again doubled in size in 1956, taking in another 188 square miles and 140,000 residents. A handful of southside opponents protested, saying city services would not justify their new tax burden. "There are only a few cows out there," one resident said. "Why take me in?"

But the plan went through, adding Lake Houston and swathes to the south and west, reaching what is now Beltway 8.

Pasadena and other eastside cities fought Houston's expansions, triggering a decade of lawsuits, recalled Jerry Wood, who worked on annexation issues at City Hall for 21 years. Houston moved to lock in a claim to all unincorporated areas of Harris County in 1960; in protest, Wood said, Deer Park annexed part of the surface of the moon.

These wars spurred dozens of bills in the Legislature. One, in 1963, blocked the sorts of enormous annexations Houston had pursued, limiting annexations to a 5-mile band around the city limits and capping them at 10 percent of a city's existing territory.

The bill also cooled the city's interest in Clear Lake City, the growing community around NASA's new manned spaceflight facility. Ultimately, it just delayed the fight.

City Hall moved to annex the area in 1977, after a bill passed the Legislature that could have allowed Clear Lake to form its own city. T-shirts and bumper stickers proclaimed "Free the Clear Lake 25,000." After the vote, billboards cried, "De-Annex Clear Lake." Wounds from the battle didn't fully heal. Many residents kept using Clear Lake City, not Houston, in their mailing addresses.

"In all the time we've been here there has never been adequate staffing in either the fire or the police department at all, and of course we've been taxed quite well," said longtime Clear Lake resident Sherrie Matula, who said the 40-year-old topic still comes up regularly.

In the 1990s, Mayor Bob Lanier made clear his intention to again grow the city by annexing a large, populated area, Wood said, and Kingwood made the most sense from a planning perspective.

The issue dominated 1996, as Houston officials started the year being heckled at a January meeting in Kingwood and ended it that December with a split vote to take in the area's 55,000 residents and 32 square miles.

Again, bitterness lingers. The Kingwood Service Association ousted its president after he cooperated with city officials in the wake of the vote. Area residents and their councilman still argue they do not receive adequate services for the taxes they pay.

The Kingwood fight spurred 70 bills at the Legislature in 1997, ultimately producing a 1999 compromise that all but ended cities' ability to conduct similar forced annexations in the future.
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Back in 1984 the Houston Zoo was a much different place than it is now. Back then not all of its exhibits were even real.

A frequent visitor to the zoo asked then curator-in-charge John Donaho why the coral snake in the reptile house hadn't moved in nine months.

RELATED: Spring in Texas means snakes ending hibernation

His answer was priceless and spawned a Houston Post story for the ages.

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The employee admitted to the Post's Michael Haederle that there was a good reason that coral snake was so motionless inside the "Poisonous Snakes of Harris County" exhibit.

''We have had live snakes in the exhibit, but they don't do well - they tend to die,'' Donaho said. ''Rather than kill snakes, we put out a rubber one for people to be able to see what they look like.''

The zoo at the time did have very alive coral snakes off-exhibit that were used in educational programs.

John Werler, director of the Houston Zoo since 1963, wouldn't comment at the time about the four-year ruse. The snake was made from a mold of real dead snake that was then lovingly painted.

"Instead of being ashamed of being found out, he should be proud that he fooled us for four years," wrote The Houston Post's Paul Harasim in 1992 on the occasion of Werler's retirement.

Larry Evans/Houston Chronicle

Back in 1984 troll-before-his-time Harasim even held a "Name The Houston Zoo's Fake Coral Snake Contest" which received hundreds of entries, enough to fill one of his old army duffel bags. In the end the name "Jean LaCounterfitte" was chosen, a play on the moniker of the villainous pirate that marauded around Galveston.

Texas Monthly, Esquire, National Enquirer and even David Letterman all made sport of Houston's fake snake.

REAL REPTILES: Can you identify these Texas snakes?

A herpetologist by trade, Werler passed away in 2004. He is still fondly remembered for bringing acclaim to the zoo, regionally and across the country, even with the fake snake.

Today in 2018 the Houston Zoo can positively say that all of the animals on display are the real things. The only fakes are the sculptures and the plush ones in the gift shop that kids beg their parents to buy them.

No one is sure whose idea it was back in the early '80s to fake the snake. To create the illusion of life where there was none.

According to zoo lore, just days after the story broke, a box arrived in Houston from another zoo on the East Coast, which wasn't named. The box contained a brand-new rubber coral snake and "breeding loan" documentation, done by the book.

A similar thing happened back in 2013 when it was discovered that a zoo in China was passing off a shaved Tibetan mastiff dog as a lion, along with other decidedly domestic beasts masquerading as true leopards and wolves.

Craig Hlavaty is a reporter for Chron.com and HoustonChronicle.com.
The summers final Live on the Waterfront concert was held Wednesday evening at Prince Arthurs Landing. The popular series in Thunder Bay has completed nine weekly shows that began on July 13. Wednesdays concert was unique as it was held one hour later in the evening to mesh with the 10 p.
On the surface, longtime friends Sam Oberle from Ste. Genevieve and Jon DeBold from Imperial were seemingly content a year ago, working for separate, stable, well-established companies as traditional employees.

Fast forward to May 21 and suddenly the men are business partners, embarking on an entrepreneurial adventure as owners of the new weekend Ste. Genevieve Trolley service.

Weve been friends for about 18 or 20 years, said Oberle. But I kind of came up with the idea because I was born and raised down here and always had the idea in the back of my mind to try it out and see how it would go.

The idea started to come to fruition after Oberle and his girlfriend made one of their yearly trips to Nebraska.

My dad was up in Nebraska and my girlfriend and I would go up every summer and make a little vacation out of it, he said. We stopped at a local winery on the way there to Nebraska and they had a trolley service  it just made the overall experience (so much better).

Having lived in the historical community of Ste. Genevieve all his life, Oberle knew a trolley would likely be a good fit with the town and add another charming element for visitors and tourists. DeBold agreed and happily joined Oberle in turning the idea into a reality.

Its a lot different than a taxi or a limousine or a shuttle, he said. With a trolley you can sit back and enjoy the scenery and have a good time with a group of people. Youre not crammed on top of each other.

When Oberle and DeBold began to search for a trolley to buy, they first had their eyes on one in Colorado.

Whenever this finally came together, by the time we called to get the one in Colorado, the guy had already sold it, said Oberle. But he led us to a guy in St. Louis  in downtown St. Louis in the Soulard area  whod been running a business for about 30 years and he had them stored in a warehouse that he was selling.  It was kind of meant to be because (the trolley) even had the fleur-de-lis symbols  the special symbol for (Ste. Genevieve)  they were already on the trolley.

The trolley is a 1991 model with a diesel motor and an Allison transmission. Oberle said the engine had relatively low mileage and the overall price seemed very fair. The fact that its also handicapped accessible and with removable panels for warmer weather was just icing on the cake.

It was just too good to pass up, he said.

The St. Louis trolley was a great deal for another important reason as well. Had they bought the Colorado trolley, the freight cost would have been a financial burden, so finding a trolley for sale so close to Ste. Genevieve just made it that much more appealing  and easy to transport.

We just drove it down from St. Louis down 55, said Oberle.

Part of the idea for offering the service relates directly to the rural setting of southeast Missouri and how spread out most of the areas wineries are from each other and from Ste. Genevieve.

Oberle said, We found out that, when talking to the winery owners and restaurant owners, when people would come into town they would just venture more or less around town, so this is a nice way to get people around to some of the other attractions further outside the city limits.

He said the trolley is a way for people to visit the area wineries and the historical downtown, whereas before, they often had to pick one or the other.

With just one trolley, Oberle and DeBold decided it would be best to limit the winery tours to within a specific geographical area in order to best serve their customers.

Right now were trying to keep to a certain radius, Oberle said. If we have special occasions, we can go out and hit the other ones  but were trying to keep it within a 20-mile radius for now  we dont want to keep people waiting a long time to get picked up.

Arranging for a winery tour is as simple as dialing the phone or sending an email.

Normally how its been working is people call (or email) us and tell us how many is in their group, Oberle said, and then we have main pick-up points  at the Highway 32 commuter parking lot or in town by the Audubon Restaurant. Theres a big parking lot across the street.

Those are the two main pick-up points and then we have a pick-up and drop-off point at each of the wineries  Weve been averaging about an hour and a half or hour and 45 minutes at each winery, so we can hit four, five, six wineries in a day, depending on what the group wants to do.

The service isnt limited to just winery tours, however. Earlier this month, for example, residents and family along with staff members of the Ste. Genevieve Care Center rode the trolley around town to visit area restaurants and see some historic sites.

We picked the residents up at the nursing home and the restaurants around here brought out appetizers and finger foods, said Oberle. So everybody really came together. You couldnt wipe the smiles off the older peoples faces.

If all goes well, Oberle and DeBold will possibly get a second trolley to better handle special occasions and events while maintaining the regular service to area wineries and restaurants. Buying a second trolley, however, is just in the idea stage right now, Oberle said.

One special event the partners are considering is scheduling tours for the Christmas holiday season, such as a Christmas lights tour. The various annual festivals and the Fourth Friday Art Walks are also opportunities for visitors to take advantage of the service.

Id be really neat to be part of Ste. Gen when people come into town and have the trolley be part of their experience, Oberle said.

Oberle and DeBold have been getting a lot of feedback and support from local businesses and organizations, including, Oberle said, the Ste. Genevieve Welcome Center, Audubons Restaurant, Crown Valley Winery and Microbrewery and other area wineries.

Crown  the winery and the microbrewery  have been really awesome, he said. Just how they came together and are offering 10 percent off for our trolley riders, which I think is awesome. Its helping support us and support them as well.

Oberle said when people buy a day pass for the trolley, they receive a wrist band, which is all they need to get the discount at Crown locations on the day they ride.

Other wineries on the tour are also coming up with their own special offers for trolley riders as well.

Its pretty exciting, said Oberle. The support and everything from the community  and getting to give back to the community is really exciting. To help with tourism and give people more reasons to come visit Ste. Gen  now that it has a trolley service it might hopefully help draw more visitors.

The service is available on Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. or by appointment for special occasions such as weddings, parties and other group events.

The cost to ride the trolley is $20 per person for an all-day pass. To make arrangements for a day pass or to reserve the trolley for a special occasion, call 573-535-1191, leave a message on the trolley Facebook page (www.facebook.com/Ste-Genevieve-Trolley-LLC) or via email at stegentrolley@gmail.com.
Brecksville City Hall.JPG

Brecksville City Council has voted to place a 59-lot cluster-house subdivision proposal on the November ballot.

(Bob Sandrick, special to cleveland.com)

BRECKSVILLE, Ohio - Voters will decide in November whether a Broadview Heights developer can build 59 stand-alone cluster houses on 25 acres at Snowville and Brecksville roads.

Last month, City Council voted unanimously to place a rezoning issue, which would allow the cluster-house plan to move forward, on the November ballot.

A rezoning is needed because the proposed site - near the northeast corner of Snowville and Brecksville - is zoned for half-acre lots and can fit just 35 homes. The developer, Petros Homes, wants to make the property a multifamily district that would accommodate up to eight houses an acre.

Earlier this year, Mayor Jerry Hruby said he supported the rezoning. He said the city for years has recognized a need for empty-nester housing for aging residents wanting to downsize. Now, Brecksville residents seeking smaller homes and yards have to leave the city.

Gary Naim, president of Petros Homes, said the new development would target residents 55-75. He said the housing market is under-supplying that segment of the population.

The development would have one entrance off Snowville, just east of Brecksville Road. The single street would curve 180 degrees back toward Snowville and have two cul-de-sacs.

The homes would measure between 2,000-3,000 square feet and would cost between $300,000-$400,000. About three or four houses would sit on each acre, and the lots would measure at least 8,125 square feet.

Buyers would choose from among five or six basic floor plans, perhaps with some customization options. The homes would come with a two-car garage. A homeowners' association would plow snow from driveways and cut lawns.

Naim said Petros would buy an existing, occupied home on the property, then renovate and sell the home, keeping it separate from the new subdivision.
VERMILION, Ohio -- A 15-year-old boy drove his drunken parents and 12-year-old sister 115 miles from Columbus to Vermilion, where they were pulled over for speeding Saturday morning, the state patrol says.

The boy told a state trooper he was taking the family to Cedar Point, but they were lost and he had been driving all night.

The boy's parents, Timothy W. McCoy, 54, and Michelle Kirk, 45, both of Reynoldsburg, were charged with child endangerment. Kirk also was charged with wrongful entrustment of a vehicle, according to a news release from the State Highway Patrol. They are due in court Tuesday.

Children Services in Columbus is also reviewing the matter.

A state trooper stopped a 2000 Dodge Caravan that was going 83 mph in a 70 mph zone on State Route 2 near Vermilion at 8:13 a.m. Saturday.

When the trooper asked for the driver's information, the boy said he was only 15 and he didn't have a driver's license or permit, the release says.

McCoy was in the front passenger's seat, and Kirk and the boy's sister were in the backseat.

Kirk's blood alcohol content was .265 percent, more than three times the .08 percent legal threshold to drive in Ohio. McCoy's BAC was .184 percent, the state patrol said.

The family was taken to the Sandusky Post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, and troopers and dispatchers bought food for the children.

Their grandmother picked up the children, and Kirk.

McCoy remains in the Erie County Jail.

If you wish to discuss or comment on this story, please visit our crime and courts comments section.

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e152fire.jpg

Cleveland fire fighters work a house fire in the 800 block of East 152nd Street. They found no one inside after responding to a call of a person trapped.

(Chanda Neely, cleveland.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- No one was inside a house fire on the city's East Side where fire fighters responded to a call of a person trapped Sunday afternoon, fire officials said.

A man who lived in the two-story home reported at 1:13 p.m. that his roommate was trapped inside on the second floor, Acting Battalion Chief Bill Graham said. But fire fighters searched the home and found no one.

The man who made the call was unaware that his roommate was not in the house in the 800 block of East 152nd Street, Graham said.

No one was injured.

Fire Fighters Local 93 posted on Twitter that fire fighters were searching for a person trapped in the house.

Cleveland firefighters working to rescue a reported victim trapped at a house fire. 800 block of E. 152.  CLE Firefighters-L93 (@Cleveland_FFs) July 3, 2016

Fire fighters responded two minutes after receiving the call and found heavy fire and smoke throughout the house, Graham said. It started on the first floor and traveled up the walls.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

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CLEVELAND, Ohio - Fifteen days until the Republican National Convention. Which means 15 days until Donald Trump arrives in Cleveland.

We've got plenty going on until then, with Indians fever, a visit from Vice President Joe Biden and lots of local news.

Oh, and happy Independence Day.

While you wait for fireworks, take a look at what you might have missed. (And take a look at this Indians forecast while you're at it.)

What was Biden doing in town? Vice President Joe Biden visited Cleveland Thursday to discuss cancer research, his first stop after Moonshot Initiative summits on Wednesday brought together 270 communities to talk about the disease. Emily Bamforth sums up the visit.

How do you earn $20,000 as a 15-year-old? Start a bike-operated lawnmower visit, obviously. Daron Taylor saved up for a bike and built himself a trailer to lug his lawnmower to customers of the lawncare business he started at 14. Now strangers have donated more than $20,000. Check out Bamforth's video.

Where can you buy medical marijuana once the affirmative defense starts in September? Um, good question. The new state law doesn't specify where people can get marijuana, Jackie Borchardt reports. So until the state's dispensaries are set up, residents can travel to Michigan or another legal state and bring marijuana back. Or, you know, they might buy it on the black market.

Who's getting food stamps in Ohio? A state audit found benefits were paid to dead people and flagged other activity indicating possible fraud in the $2.6 billion program, Borchardt reports.

What's new in the water? A new shipwreck has been discovered in the Great Lakes, a Canadian schooner bound for Toledo that sank nearly 150 years ago, Bob Higgs reports. Shipwreck explorers Jim Kennard and Roger Pawlowski found the Royal Albert in June off the southern shore of Lake Ontario.

What's the latest with Benghazi? After spending two years probing a 2012 terrorist attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya that killed four Americans, GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of Champaign County on Tuesday issued a blistering critique of how the Obama administration and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton handled the tragedy, Sabrina Eaton reports.

Where can you go during the Republican National Convention? Not on near downtown, if you're on a boat. The U.S. Coast Guard will severely restrict boating and shipping around the Lake Erie harbor in Cleveland and on the Cuyahoga River before and during the Republican National Convention, Steve Koff reports.

When can businesses use drones? Soon, Koff reports. Under a replacement set of FAA rules, Realtors will begin using drones to photograph houses for sale. News organizations will use drones to take photos and video from on high. Farmers will use drones to check the condition of crops.
SPRINGBORO, Ohio (AP) -- Authorities say a man shot his estranged wife and her brother before fatally shooting himself in the driveway of a suburban southwest Ohio home.

Clearcreek Township police responded to the home just north of Springboro around 6 p.m. Saturday to find Eric Walker, 33, dead in the driveway from a self-inflicted gunshot. His wife, 32-year-old Lauren Walker, was hospitalized in critical condition while her brother Justin Michel, 33, was reported in stable condition with a leg wound. No updates on their conditions were available Sunday.

Police said Walker had retrieved a handgun from his vehicle, parked near the residence, and was arguing with Lauren in the driveway. Michel had come outside to check on the couple after hearing them arguing. Police said Walker shot Lauren, then Michel, before shooting himself.

Police said there were children and other relatives inside the house, but no one else was injured.

Police Chief Jim Terrill said it was the first such case in his nine years as chief in the township. He said neighbors were not in danger during the triple shooting.

But Danielle Fischer, who lives nearby and said she often walks or bikes through the neighborhood, said she was worried there was a gunman loose.

"Any type of disturbance in a neighborhood that's so quiet like this is disturbing for anybody that lives around here, especially with it being domestic," she told WHIO-TV.

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Donald Trump

In this July 1, 2016, photo, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during the opening session of the Western Conservative Summit in Denver. Trump plans to hold a rally in Cincinnati on Wednesday.

(AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

COLUMBUS, Ohio--Donald Trump plans to return to Ohio for a rally in Cincinnati on Wednesday, July 6, according to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's campaign.

The rally, set to be held at the Sharonville Convention Center at 7 p.m., is open to the public.

Trump visited eastern Ohio last Tuesday, his first campaign stop in the Buckeye State since he became the presumptive GOP nominee.

Hillary Clinton, Trump's likely Democratic rival, held an event in Cincinnati last week as well.
Illinois Daily Life

A boat cruises on Lake Michigan as morning fog covers the downtown Chicago skyline June 10. The unanimous vote by Great Lakes governors to allow Waukesha to divert Lake Michigan water to the Wisconsin community's water supply was the right call, following a decade of negotiations and rigorous conditions, writes James Zehringer of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

(Kiichiro Sato, Associated Press)

James Zehringer is director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources

Governors of the eight Great Lakes states made the right decision when they joined in a unanimous, bipartisan vote to allow the small Wisconsin city of Waukesha to withdraw - and return - water from Lake Michigan.

As director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and an active participant in negotiations leading up to that vote, I firmly support the governors' decision, which allows a community long plagued with radium-contaminated drinking water to take uncontaminated water from Lake Michigan and return the same amount of cleaner water back to the lake.

The process for Waukesha to find a clean drinking water solution has been long and exhaustive. For more than 10 years, state and local officials in Wisconsin explored many water-supply alternatives, as required by the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact. The Waukesha request has seen many alterations, with a number of concessions made by the community over that time to reach an agreement acceptable to all eight Great Lakes states.

I commend the original parties who initially drafted the terms and conditions of the Compact, and who had the foresight to allow small towns and cities like Waukesha to share in this great natural resource if they met strict criteria. As I chaired these proceedings, it became readily evident to me that they had worked with incredible diligence and foresight to ensure that the waters of our Great Lakes would be protected from unwise diversions and environmental challenges, while preserving the availability of water for use by nearby communities, and that the states and provinces would work closely together in making sound decisions.

There were many changes that were made to the original application to make sure it followed the guidelines of the Great Lakes Compact that allowed diversions for straddling counties and communities like Waukesha.

In fact, conditions imposed on Waukesha in the final approval are even stricter than the original withdrawal application guidelines, including new restrictions on existing wells, limiting the amount of new wells allowed to be drilled, as well as requiring detailed monitoring of return flow and enhanced mandates for performance audits.

Previously, a million gallons of water a day were being diverted from the Lake Michigan watershed through an underground drinking source and discharged to the Mississippi River basin. Under this agreement, that water will be both withdrawn from and returned solely to Lake Michigan.

These conditions will not open floodgates and dry up our great natural resources. Rather than encourage additional requests for withdrawal, these limitations set the bar even higher for any future diversion applications.

I must emphasize again: The Waukesha decision was a unanimous, nonpartisan and carefully considered decision by all the Great Lakes governors. It was truly a historic vote and sets a higher bar for any future consideration on water withdrawal applications.

My hat is off to all the farsighted public officials from the United States and Canada, natural resource professionals, legal specialists and stakeholders who worked so long to forge this agreement.

It was the correct decision for the continued well-being and abundance of Great Lakes water - the world's largest supply of fresh water and an irreplaceable ecological, economic and recreational resource for Ohio and its Great Lakes neighbors.

I am extremely proud of the decision we reached as well as the exhaustive process we undertook to help ensure we arrived at the best choice for the Great Lakes and the families of Waukesha. The unheralded reality in all of this is that the Compact accomplished exactly what it was designed to do. Because of that, citizens in a small community will have access to safe clean drinking water, and our precious Lake Erie remains protected.

James Zehringer is director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and chair of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Council.
Supporters of Labor Party leader Bill Shorten look on as they follow results of the national election in Melbourne on July 2, 2016. Polls closed in Australia's most populous states where national elections are expected to be won or lost with the outcome between conservative leader Malcolm Turnbull and Labor challenger Bill Shorten too close to call.

Australia could be a step closer to losing its vaunted triple A credit rating after a deeply divided electorate left the country in limbo and foreshadowed a hung parliament where no party holds outright power.

The uncertain outcome of Saturday's federal election heightened fears Australia could be consigned to three years of minority government and paralysis on budget reform, a scenario that is expected to cause market jitters on Monday.

"The market doesn't like uncertainty and the election result has delivered that in spades," AMP Capital chief economist Shane Oliver told Reuters, adding a ratings downgrade appeared likely.

"It will probably effect the Aussie dollar and I think the share market; we will see a negative knee-jerk reaction tomorrow."

Australia's debt levels, while relatively low on a global scale, have been heading in the wrong direction for years. All the most ambitious attempts to right the fiscal ship have been sunk by the ruling coalition government's lack of power in the upper house Senate.

Rating agencies have been patient with the political process up to now, but there are signs time might be running out.

"Australia should be doing so much better than it is," Oliver said.

A downgrade would be a political nightmare for whichever party is in power, after successive governments brandished the rating as a badge of honor. Only 10 nations have the top rating from all three of the major agencies.

Losing it would "be a blow to confidence" and could lead to a rash of downgrades for Australian banks and companies, the opposition Labor Party has warned.

In May, Moody's noted that governments of all stripes were finding it hard to rein in spending, and budget deficits had been repeatedly revised higher.

Treasurer Scott Morrison's latest forecast was for net debt to peak at 19.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by mid-2018. Yet as recently as the 2012/13 budget the peak had been projected to be less than 10 percent.
The first to be killed was a jogger, gunned down last September during his daily run in the leafy diplomatic quarter of Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka. He was identified as a 50-year-old Italian aid worker, and the police say the men who murdered him had been given instructions to kill a white foreigner at random.

In October, a Japanese man was killed. In November, gunmen riding a motorcycle pulled alongside a Catholic priest in northern Bangladesh and opened fire, wounding him.

For the Islamic State terrorist group, which broadly advised operatives it sent to Europe to kill "anyone and everyone," the group's tactics in Bangladesh have seemed more controlled. In the past nine months, it has claimed 19 attacks in the South Asian country, nearly all of them targeted assassinations singling out religious minorities and foreigners. They included hacking to death a Hindu man, stabbing to death a Shiite preacher, murdering a Muslim villager who had been accused of converting to Christianity and sending suicide bombers into Shiite mosques.

For years, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, has pursued a campaign of wholesale slaughter in Syria and Iraq. And in the attacks the group has directed or indirectly inspired in Western countries  including the coordinated killings in Paris and Brussels and the mass shooting inside an Orlando, Fla., nightclub  the assailants killed at random.

But a closer look at the attack the Islamic State has claimed in Bangladesh  and at the fact that it has not claimed bombings attributed to it in Turkey,including the airport attack this past week  suggests a group that is tailoring its approach for different regions and for different target audiences.

"For I.S. to maintain support among its followers and prospects, it must take different considerations into account when planning an attack in a Muslim country versus non-Muslim countries," argues Rita Katz, the director of the SITE Intelligence Group, which has tracked the group's attacks in Bangladesh. "I.S. encourages the killing of random civilians in France, Belgium, America or other Western nations, but in a country like Turkey, I.S. must be sure that it isn't killing Muslims  or at least make it look like it's trying not to," she wrote in an analysis recently published online.

The issue of killing Sunni civilians has been a main point of contention with Al Qaeda after the Islamic State broke away from the terror network several years ago. And it surfaced again in the past week.

After the triple suicide bombing at the Istanbul airport on Tuesday, a Qaeda official used Twitter to issue a stinging rebuke of the attack blamed on ISIS. "The Turkish people are Muslims, & their blood is sacred. A true mujahid would give his life up for them, not massacre them #IstanbulAttack," wrote Abu Sulayman al-Muhajir, who has been described as an Australian member of Al Qaeda's branch in Syria, according to a transcript provided by SITE.

The Islamic State's uncharacteristic silence about the attacks in Turkey, when it tends to quickly claim bombings elsewhere, reflects the balancing act the terror group must undertake when carrying out violence in predominantly Muslim nations, analysts say.

Ms. Katz said the Islamic State "has shown comparable discretion when conducting attacks in other Muslim countries, focusing on government targets, perceived religious deviants and enemy factions, as opposed to random civilians."
An injured Bangladeshi policeman being assisted after a granade attack at a restaurant nearby in the early hours of July 2, 2016 in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Seven militants who killed 20 people at a restaurant in Dhaka were local Bangladeshis and authorities had tried before to arrest five of them, police said, as investigators probed for possible links with international Islamist extremist groups.

The gunmen stormed the upmarket restaurant in the diplomatic zone late on Friday, before killing 20 hostages, including at least nine Italians, seven Japanese and an American.

Islamic State claimed responsibility, warning citizens of "crusader countries" that their citizens would not be safe "as long as their aircraft are killing Muslims", the group said in a statement. It also posted pictures of five fighters it said were involved in the attack. Its claims have not been confirmed.

Security sources said Bangladeshi authorities were investigating any ties between the gunmen and trans-national Islamist extremist groups.

Whoever was responsible, the attack marked a major escalation in violence by militants who have demanded Islamic rule in Bangladesh, whose 160 million people are mostly Muslim. Previous attacks have mostly singled out individuals advocating a secular or liberal lifestyle or religious minorities.

Friday night's attack was more coordinated. The attackers stormed a restaurant in the diplomatic enclave popular with the expatriate community during the final days of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

They ordered all Bangladeshis to stand up before they began killing foreigners, a source briefed on the investigation said. Most of the victims were hacked with machetes before around 100 commandos entered the building, killing six of the militants and capturing a seventh, after a 12-hour standoff, police said.

It was not clear if the attackers had made any demands during the 12-hour hostage standoff.

"All gunmen were Bangladeshi. Five of them were listed as militants and law enforcers made several drives to arrest them," national police chief Shahidul Hoque told reporters in Dhaka late on Saturday.
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Brexiters have 'absolutely no plans' but there are a number of challenges that the U.K. economy will face through the process, Pascal Lamy former WTO Director General told CNBC at a conference in the south of France. "I'm convinced it will take a very long time, first because we've got this so-called article 50, which is the sort of disentangling of the U.K. legislation from the EU legislation and that is square one. Once you've done that, and it will take a lot of time then you have to go to square two, which is the new relationship between U.K. and European continent." Adding that while trade is only a small part of the arrangements it will still be a complex and bumpy ride. The bigger challenge he said is that the U.K. with its 60-65 million consumers, will have to negotiate with a bloc of 450 million consumers.



Andrey Rudakov | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Concerns over the U.K.'s exit from the EU have been worrying not just market and political analysts in the euro area, but also political leaders across the region who think this may lead to a kneejerk reaction and may pose a risk to the integration of the European Union. However, the former WTO chief told CNBC there is nothing on the continent like the U.K. situation. "If you look at the Poles, in the EU 27 on the continent, there is not a single country where the majority of citizens would like to leave the Union. So, the British case has always been very specific," he said. He further explained that there is a lot of discussion and controversy but except for the extreme right movement there is no other notion that a country should step out of the union because "it is a bad bargain." Meanwhile, fears that a soft approach to Brexit may lead to other countries following the referendum road has got political leaders maintaining a strong stance on Brexit. A number of leaders have been negating the speculation that they will follow the Brexit approach. Speaking to CNBC, Louka Katseli, non-executive chair of the National Bank of Greece and Chair of Hellenic Banking Association said the fears of Grexit are now behind us. "I think that Grexit, or the fears of Grexit are behind us. Greece is entering a new phase, phase of return to normalcy and stabilization. And if rationality prevails all over Europe I think we can even see positive signs of growth and return of investment and better standards of living."



Mario Monti Pier Marco Tacca | Getty Images

In a research note, Citi says they do not expect any other In/Out referendums on EU/euro zone membership in the near-term, despite rising EU and euro-scepticism. The note however adds that political risks in Europe are high and rising and referendum risk contributes significantly to these risks. These could include boosting electoral prospects of challenger parties promising such referendums. Risks such as these often create uncertainty and volatility in financial markets. "Uncertainty is bad for economics and we will have a long period of uncertainty which will harm the U.K. economy first. But as it harms the U.K. economy it will hurt our economies as well because we are inter-dependent," Lamy told CNBC. Meanwhile, another referendum likely to be held in Europe will be in the second half of 2016 on Italy's constitutional reform. According to Citi's research note, this is probably the single biggest risk on the European political landscape this year as Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's political future depends on the outcome of the referendum. "It is true that Mr. Renzi made a bit of a gamble by unnecessarily putting his prime ministership on the line. In case he lost, he'll lose the referendum," Mario Monti, former prime minister of Italy told CNBC at a conference in Aix-en-Provence in France.



He further added some people are saying that Italy could the next country out of the euro zone but Italy is a rather strong country. "Italy is the only country in southern Europe that has come out of the financial crisis of the euro zone without asking for a single euro of external support."  Adding that U.K.'s decision to leave the EU will have huge consequences not only within the U.K. but also for the rest of the Europe, Italy's Monti said Prime Minister David Cameron has abused democracy in holding this referendum. "Mr. Cameron did to the extreme I must say, something that many national leaders in EU member states do, namely to use Europe in their political discourse, for their domestic political interest."


He added: "A very small proportion of companies even had this on their radar. Now, all of the sudden you've to potential for weaker growth in Europe, potential for recession in the UK."

"What's kind of unnerving to me is that if you look at last quarter's commentary and company outlooks, only 26 companies in the S&P 500 even mentioned Brexit," BofAML's head of U.S. equity and quantitative strategy Savita Subramanian recently told CNBC's " Fast Money ."

The message is clear: Just because the S&P 500 Index has recovered more than 90 percent of its post-Brexit vote losses, doesn't mean the United States is out of the woods. The firm says it's just a matter of time until companies start to reveal just how hard Brexit is hitting themand it could soon get quite ugly for stocks.

Bank of America-Merrill Lynch has a warning for investors who have sighed in relief following the U.K.'s surprising vote to leave the European Union (EU).

Subramanian predicted 2017 is actually the year when Brexit will inflict the most pain on U.S. companies. She expects they'll start providing clues during second quarter earnings season, which begins in just a few weeks.



"I do think that they're going to get questions from the Street on, 'How are you thinking about your European division or your European sales exposure given what's going on?'," she said.

"A decent chunk of U.S. company sales come from Europe, 20 percent or more and that's going to be the risk."

In her latest research note, she highlighted the firm's stock market sentiment indicator, which fell to its lowest level in three years. It's actually considered a very bullish sign for the market.

Yet Subramanian is sticking by her 2000 year-end target, the lowest on the Street and about 100 points below the index's Friday closing price.

Beyond the potential effects of the Brexit, Subramanian noted that the markets are also heading into a seasonally weak period.



Companies are having a tougher time raising capital and company balance sheets have gone back to leverage ratios not seen since 2007, according to Subramanian. It's a scenario which typically happens in a late stage bull market.



"We've sort of exerted all of the levers we can to extract value from corporations based on cheap financing. We've seen tons of [mergers], lots of share buybacksyou know all sorts of financial mechanisms to generate earnings growth but nothing real," she argued.

"And what worries me is that you had this exogenous shock that happen in a fairly fragile market environment," the analyst added.



Still, she notes that there are a few salient bullish arguments as well, even as U.S. Treasury yields sank to record lows on Friday. That is a sign that investors are still nervous and see American assets as a safe haven.



"The risks and rewards are skewed to the downside. But as we acknowledge, the only reason that stocks could go higher is sentiment and a lack of alternatives," she told CNBC.

Indeed, 60 percent of stocks in the S&P offer a dividend yield that is higher than the ten-year Treasury rate, according to Subramanian.
In the long term, Britain may pay a high cost for last week's vote to quit the European Union (EU). That said, it could mean a low cost vacation for travelers.

Since the United Kingdom voted in favor of Brexit, the value of the British pound has fallen to the lowest levels in three decades.



"It's a great time to be in London, " Travel + Leisure News Director Sara Clemence told CNBC's "On the Money" in a recent interview. "If you are there now, if you were there last week, you saw things get 15 percent cheaper overnight," she said.



"Your hotel stay, your restaurants, your museum admissions everything."



A weaker pound means a stronger dollar and a cheaper trip for U.S. visitors, which according to Visit Britain, numbered 3.3 million in 2015. They spent a record $4.4 billion dollars.



Last week, Hotels.com said its site saw a 50 percent spike in searches for travel to Britain. So can a trip to England fit in your budget this year?



"Maybe," Clemence told CNBC. "Even though the currency changes have an effect on the prices on the ground," she explained. for hotel and airfare prices, "some of them may be changing" but "it's not like they're discounting them across the board," she added.



However, "airfares are a lot lower than they were a couple years ago. A couple years ago you may have paid $1200 dollars, now you'll pay $500 or $600."

British Airways had a "Brexit" fare sale last week, selling economy fares from New York to London for as little as $639 round-trip.



Yet Clemence pointed out the cheaper fare trend is not due to Brexit, but instead were "low-fare airlines that are going Trans-Atlantic, so they're just bringing down those costs tremendously." Wow Air and Norwegian are new low cost carriers offering flights from U.S. cities to London for about $500.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks to thousands of his supporters who greeted the prime minister at Istanbul airport on his return from a North African tour. Getty Images

Turkey is preparing to offer citizenship to Syrian refugees, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday in a move that could cause deep domestic divisions and complicate a deal with Brussels to halt the flow of migrants to Europe. Speaking in Kilis, a town in southern Turkey that has seen its population doubled by those fleeing the civil war in neighbouring Syria, the Turkish leader said that the country's interior ministry was taking steps to offer citizenship to those who wanted it. "Tonight, I want to give some good news to my brothers and sisters here," he said at a meal to break the Ramadan fast attended by Syrian refugees. "Among our brothers and sisters, I believe there are those who would like to obtain citizenship of the Turkish Republic. Our interior ministry is taking steps in that regard." He added: "Turkey is your home, too." Mr Erdogan did not specify whether all of the 2.7m refugees registered as living in Turkey would be able to apply for citizenship, nor did he set out the eligibility criteria or how long the process would take. While Turkey announced in January that it would grant Syrians the right to apply for work permits if their employer will sponsor them, human rights groups say that uptake has been minimal.

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A senior Turkish official said that the president's remarks represented a "statement of intent" and that the government was still undertaking preliminary work. Mr Erdogan's comments raise questions about the fragile deal struck between Turkey and EU to halt the flow of people using smugglers to reach Europe. In return for Ankara's cooperation, Brussels promised a series of incentives, including granting visa-free travel for Turkish passport holders to Europe's borderless Schengen Zone. More from the Financial Times Turkey and Russia reassess role in Syria

Turkey seeks a way out of international isolation

The Brexit vote will leave a long-lasting legacy The deal has come under increasing strain in recent weeks, with Turkey resisting an EU demand to overhaul its terror laws in order to qualify for visa liberalisation.

EU leaders, many of them facing pressure from the extreme right amid growing public hostility to immigration, are likely to be reluctant to extend the exemption to Syrians for fear that they would plan to settle in Europe or that Isis operatives would travel to the content to commit terror attacks.

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Twenty million Bank of Thailand 70-baht notes commemorating King Bhumibol Adulyadejs 70 years of rule sold out within hours when offered to the public, two per person, priced at 100 baht each.

The Bank of Thailand offered citizens 20 million 70-baht commemorative bank notes celebrating the 70th anniversary of the reign of Thailands much-revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who is also known as Rama IX. The notes sold out in hours.

The Bank of Thailand announced on May 30 that it would issue 20 million 70-baht (the equivalent of about $2 in U.S. funds) commemorative bank notes celebrating the 70th anniversary of the reign of Thailands much-revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who is also known as Rama IX.

The notes were sold to the public for 100 baht each with part of the additional proceeds from each sale designated for presentation to the king. When they went on sale June 9, people lined up at the offices of at least a half dozen banks. Buyers were limited to two notes each, yet despite the very high amount printed, the entire issue sold out within hours

International dealer Jan Olav Aamlid, who lives and works in Thailand, says that despite the sales limitations, the new note is sold in the secondary market for 120 to 130 Baht, and it looks like dealers and others bought large quantities of the notes hoping to make a quick profit.

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The face of the note depicts the king in the uniform of the supreme commander of the Armed Forces wearing several decorations. The reverse shows a younger version of him in full regalia holding the Sword of Victory and standing in front of the throne.

The note measures 89 millimeters by 162 millimeters with at least five major security features publicized by the bank: (1) The portraits on both sides are done with intaglio printing that can easily be felt by touch. (2) The Thai denomination on each side is printed with glitter ink. (3) Color-shifting ink in the Arabic numeral 70 on the back changes from gold to green upon tilting. (4) A hidden numeral 70 inside the garuda bird on the face becomes visible when the note is viewed from a certain angle. (5) Finally, fluorescent ink causes the radial pattern behind the portrait on both sides to glow yellow under ultraviolet light.
What may be one of the worlds oldest zoos, Noahs ark, is the centerpiece of a silver bullion program from Armenia. A German firm has coordinated the program since 2011, and seven sizes of coins are now available.

Editor's note: this is the final piece of an article about the rise of silver bullion coins. The complete story originally appeared in the July issue of Coin World.

Success begets success, and Australia in 1990 joined the growing roster of nations issuing a 1-ounce silver bullion coin.

Following Chinas lead, Australia honors a native animal, in this case the Kookaburra (a bird known for its distinct laughing-like call), as the subject for its silver bullion coin. The coins are struck by the Perth Mint, which is owned by the state of Western Australia. The coins are considered legal tender and struck in the name of Australia.

The .999 fine silver $5 coin, in another nod to the Panda program, changed designs annually. The denomination was altered, though, after just two years. Since 1992, the 1-ounce silver coins are denominated $1.

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Multiple-ounce sizes have been part of the program from the beginning, with 2- and 10-ounce options, as well as kilogram-sized coins (which were also offered, along with half-ounce versions, as Proofs).

The Perth Mint now offers three distinct silver bullion coin programs. In 1999, the Perth Mint launched the second program, a series of 1-ounce .9999 fine silver coins celebrating the annual Lunar animal in the Chinese zodiac calendar. The multi-year program began anew in 2008 with a second Chinese Lunar Zodiac series.

The third entry in Australias silver bullion program is the Koala 1-ounce .999 fine silver bullion coin, which emerged in 2007. Three other sizes, a half-ounce, 10-ounce and kilogram coin, are offered.

Koala coins do not have a mintage limit, but rather the mintage is determined by sales during an 18-month period.

Although not as successful as Australia in its offerings, the United Kingdom is an issuer of silver bullion coins as well. The Britannia silver 2 bullion coins, introduced in 1997, 10 years after a gold bullion program began, became the flagship bullion issue for the United Kingdom. However, the coin was initially struck from Britannia silver, which is .958 fine. Although the .958 fine coins contain an ounce of silver, the Britannia 2 coin gained little traction around the world, perhaps because of the lower fineness.

The reception to the Britannia changed in 2012.

In an effort to compete with world bullion coins of higher fineness, Royal Mint officials launched Britannia .999 fine silver and .9999 fine gold coins that year, as 2013-dated issues.

Coins of the new fineness weigh less than coins of the previous standard because the silver of the previous coinage was alloyed with an additional metal, copper.

Before the switch, the Britannia 1-ounce bullion coin had an authorized mintage 100,000 pieces annually. Limited numbers of Proof versions were issued infrequently. Since the switch, mintage restrictions have been loosed as the Royal Mint seeks to own more of the market. Though mintage figures have not been announced, the Royal Mint has since had to expand bullion production facilities and add production shifts in response to increased demand for the finer Britannia.

In 2014, the Royal Mint also began a Lunar silver bullion series, honoring the animals of the Chinese Zodiac calendar.

Austria joins bullion market

Austrias history as a popular silver producer got a boost nearly a decade ago.

One coin that has been well-received during its relatively young life is Austrias Vienna Philharmonic .9999 fine silver 1.5 coin, introduced in 2008 as an addition to a gold bullion program that has been around since 1989.

The obverse of each Vienna Philharmonic gold and silver coin depicts a cello, violins, Vienna horn, bassoon and harp with legend WEINER PHILHARMONIKER about the rim. The common reverse shows the Great Organ of the Vienna Golden Hall, home of the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra. It also carries the denomination, weight, fineness and year of issue.

The Vienna Philharmonic silver bullion coin program enjoys continually rising demand, unlike some series that started with a bang only to see demand wane. The Austrian Mint has not expanded silver offerings, but in 2016 did launch a platinum version.

Russia and beyond

Rarely encountered in the United States is the silver 3-ruble bullion coin from Russia that made its debut in 2009, extending the young St. George the Victorious gold bullion franchise launched in 2007. The obverse of both bullion coins shows the two-headed eagle emblem of the Central Bank of Russia. The reverse displays an image of Saint George the Victorious sitting on horseback and spearing a dragon.

Russias bullion program featured nine bullion coins to celebrate the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games, including three different 1-ounce .999 fine silver 3-ruble coins.

Silver bullion coins arent the sole province of national mints, as collectors and investors might infrequently encounter the Taku turtle .999 fine silver $2 coin from Fiji or the Elephant .999 fine silver 100-shilling coin series from Somalia, coins struck by private minters on behalf of the issuing nations and promoted to European and other audiences outside of the United States.

Since 2011, Armenia has issued an annual silver bullion series honoring the biblical Noahs ark, which some people believe rests on a mountain on the border of Armenia and Kurdistan. What began as a three-coin series in 2011 (with quarter-, half- and 1-ounce sizes) was expanded in 2012 to include 5-ounce, 10-ounce, 1-kilo and 5-kilo coins.

The Armenian program is issued under the auspices of a German firm, Geiger Edelmetalle, and there appears to be no mintage limit for the coins.

Worldwide, demand for silver bullion coins was at record highs in 2015, if one takes U.S. Mint sales figures as an indicator, and generally Canadas silver sales follow behind the United States.

The Royal Canadian Mint, however, no longer discloses sales figures for specific coins in its bullion program, noting in its most recent annual report only that it sold 34.3 million ounces of silver bullion in 2015, compared to 29.1 million ounces in 2014.

The figure includes special issues like the Birds of Prey bullion coins, which each have a million-coin mintage, and it may contain other special bullion pieces as well.

Continued entry of new private issuers into the marketplace suggests that there is unmet demand for bullion, especially for novel designs or from new places.

Whether other world mints and issuers join the fray is yet to be seen, but the silver bullion marketplace already offers an awe-inducing number of options for the willing collector or investor
The United States Mint will open sales for the 2016 America the Beautiful Quarters Three-Coin Set  Harpers Ferry National Historical Park on July 11 at noon Eastern Time.

The United States Mint will open sales for the 2016 America the Beautiful Quarters Three-Coin Set of its new Harpers Ferry National Historical Park quarter on July 11 at noon Eastern Time.

The set is priced at $9.95. It contains two Uncirculated Harpers Ferry National Historical Park quartersone each from the Philadelphia Mint and Denver Mint facilitiesand one Proof coin from the San Francisco Mint.

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The coin's reverse (tails) design features John Brown's Fort, the site of John Brown's last stand during his raid on the Harpers Ferry Armory. Inscriptions are "HARPERS FERRY," "WEST VIRGINIA," "JOHN BROWN'S FORT," "2016," and "E PLURIBUS UNUM." The coins are held in a durable plastic card with an image of the site. A certificate of authenticity is printed on the back of the card.

The Harpers Ferry quarter is the third America the Beautiful quarter to be released in 2016. The first two honored Shawnee National Forest in Illinois and Cumberland Gap National Historical Park in Kentucky.

Two 2016 America the Beautiful quarters will be launched into circulation later this year, one honoring North Dakota's Theodore Roosevelt National Park and another honoring Fort Moultrie (Fort Sumter National Monument) in South Carolina.

Other Harpers Ferry quarter products

The Harpers Ferry quarter was officially launched into general circulation during a June 8 ceremony at the park, which has parts located in three statesWest Virginia, Virginia and Maryland.

A couple of days before that, on June 6, rolls and bags of the coins were made available to U.S. Mint customers.

There's a 5-ounce silver bullion version, right?

Yes, every America the Beautiful quarter has a 5-ounce silver version. Actually, there are two 5-ounce silver versionsone a bullion coin and the other an Uncirculated coin.

The Mint offers the Uncirculated version of the 5-ounce silver coins directly to the public, with pricing subject to potential change weekly based on metal price fluctuations. The bullion version is not available to everyone directly from the Mint. It is sold to authorized purchasers approved by the U.S. Mint to purchase bullion coins.

The Uncirculated 2016-P Harpers Ferry National Park 5-ounce silver quarter dollar will be available to U.S. Mint customers at noon Eastern Time on July 14.

How to order the three-coin set

Orders will be accepted online and over the phone at 1-800-USA-MINT (872-6468). Hearing- and speech-impaired customers with TTY equipment may order at 1-888-321-MINT. Information about shipping options is available here.
Eli Drinkwitz revealed the condition that's sidelined Chance Luper

Drinkwtz said that Luper is currently on blood thinners and that he will be reevaluated in three months. He will miss the rest of the regular season.
June 30, 2016  Nathan Taylor helps a customer with a growler refill at the Cash Saver in Midtown. Beginning in January stores will be able to sell "high gravity" beer with an alcohol content of up to 10 percent versus the current 6+ percent. (Stan Carroll/The Commercial Appeal)

SHARE June 30, 2016  Larry Jackson makes a selection from over 300 beers at the Cash Saver in Midtown. Grocery stores across Tennessee can sell wine starting Friday, July 1. Beer sells will continue with a "by volume" cap of 6.2; beginning next year the cap will be 10.2. (Stan Carroll/The Commercial Appeal)

By Kevin McKenzie of The Commercial Appeal

With wine sales launched in grocery stores last week, beer drinkers in Memphis and elsewhere in Tennessee must wait until the new year to find at food and convenience stores the "high-gravity" beers now restricted to liquor stores.

State lawmakers in 2014 made Jan. 1, 2017 the date when high-gravity or high alcohol content beers can flow beyond liquor stores to regular beer outlets. The highest alcohol content beer available outside of liquor retailers in Tennessee remains 6.25 percent.

From craft beers popular with the millennial generation to more potent malt liquor, consumers are in for a wider variety of choices at grocery and convenience stores, said Ashley Crawford, craft and specialty manager for beer wholesaler A.S. Barboro in Memphis.

"There will be a lot more opportunity for people to try new things," Crawford said.

For Taylor James, assistant manager and beer manager for the Cash Saver grocery store in Midtown and its Madison Growler, the change will mean no longer turning away customers in search of high-gravity beers, despite stocking from 300 to 350 craft and import beers in addition to regular beers.

"When people come in here and say, "Hey, do you have Golden Monkey?' Golden Monkey is one of Victory Brewing's best-selling beers," James said. "Can't sell it (at Cash Saver) because it's 8 percent, it's 'I don't have it, got to go to the liquor store.' "

Years of competing lobbying by the grocery industry and liquor retailers reached a compromise with legislation that passed in 2014.

Beer wholesalers, among those lobbying to allow high-gravity beer sales to spread, were told not to upset the wine negotiations and to wait for that bill to pass, said Rich Foge, president of the Tennessee Malt Beverage Association. Later in 2014, lawmakers changed the state's definition of beer to open high-gravity sales to other beer retailers in January while allowing liquor stores a head start selling regular beer as well.

"The reason it doesn't start until this January, which was part of the negotiations with the liquor retailers, they were taking such a hit with the wine going in that they wanted some time to get into the high-gravity beer business and get established before it was pushed out into the other convenience stores and grocery stores," Foge said.

Craft beers may account for nearly 10 percent of the market, he said. The new alcohol content of about 10.1 percent "captured well over 90 percent of the craft beers that are out there," Foge said.

A decision in 2012 by California craft beer maker Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. to locate its eastern hub brewery in North Carolina instead of Alcoa, Tennessee, showed how the low alcohol content allowed for general beer sales and the high excise tax on beer in Tennessee hurt the state's chances of attracting craft brewers, Crawford said.

While the state's 17 percent wholesale tax was changed to apply to volume and not to price  more expensive beers paid a higher tax under the price system  it remains the highest tax in the country, Foge said. It delivered nearly $17.5 million to the city of Memphis in 2014, he said.

The changes in January will also remove the need for beer brewers to obtain a distiller's license to produce beer above the 6.25 percent cap. Among four craft breweries and a brew pub in Memphis, only Wiseacre Brewing Co. took that step.

"Those laws have also prevented a lot of great breweries from selling beer in Tennessee  they drive trucks through to sell in Alabama," said Kellan Bartosch, founder of the brewery with his brother, Davin.

"We love Memphis, we love where we're from, but if you were just looking at this by the numbers, we're not in the right state to do what we're doing," Bartosch said.

At Memphis Made Brewing Co., head brewer and co-founder Drew Barton said the brewery doesn't plan to jump into making high-gravity beers. It's already working hard to meet demand.

For beer distributors, the growth in beers represents a "skumaggedon" -- a word familiar to many millennials as the name of an antagonist in a video game  because so many more "stock keeping unit" codes to catalog and identify beers rolling to stores will be required.

While the raised cap on alcohol in beers sold generally will offer consumers wider choice, Tennessee still remains more tightly regulated, compared to many. In Ohio, for example, Gov. John Kasich in May signed a law that eliminates that state's 12-percent limit altogether.

Missouri's beer tax is among the, if not the, lowest in the nation, James said. Liquor, beer and wine can be sold at convenience stores, grocery stores and other outlets between 6 a.m. and 1:30 a.m. Monday through Saturday and 9 a.m. to midnight with a Sunday license.

"It's a Sunday? It's 12? Guess what?" James said. "Ain't no thing, get you some liquor, have at it."
Curry Todd, Dana Matheny, Mark Lovell, Diane George

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By Daniel Connolly of The Commercial Appeal

Three people are trying to wrest the District 95 state legislative seat from Rep. Curry Todd, who has served for 17 years and has faced high-profile health and legal issues. Yet Todd says his problems are behind him, and that he's campaigning hard to keep the seat.

"Making calls over the telephone, walking the streets," said Todd, 68, R-Collierville. "I'm not a lazy guy and a lazy campaigner. I'm going to do what I need to do to win this election and do it fair and square."

Todd had announced in 2012 that he had a slow-growing form of cancer.

A representative of challenger Diane George had pointed to the illness earlier this year, as well as to Todd's 2013 guilty plea to driving under the influence and a related gun charge.

But Todd said last week that his health is fine. "I've got a clean bill of health from my doctors and I'm doing great. Mentally, physically and all. It's not an issue, even though it's been brought up by others."

Todd also said the DUI is no longer relevant. "I paid my dues just like any other citizen did on that. And did my penance and it's behind me." Todd's sanctions included 48 hours in jail, minus eight hours he'd served at the time of the arrest. "And I've been elected two times since then. And I'd like to challenge anyone to pick up a stone and throw it at someone if they did not commit the sin."

With $192,000 in campaign money in hand as of April 9, Todd may have a big advantage over his challengers, although that's unclear because the challengers don't have to file campaign finance reports until July 11.

All the candidates in the race are Republicans, and the race will likely be decided in the Aug. 4 primary.

Here's a look at the platforms for Todd and the other candidates running to become the state representative for District 95, which covers Collierville and nearby areas.

Todd, a retired lieutenant for the Memphis Police Department and former owner of a safe and lock company, said he's proud of his record on education, which includes supporting an allocation of $261 million this year for teacher salaries and related items.

Todd also worked with State Sen. Mark Norris several years ago to sponsor the Norris-Todd bill, which enabled creation of municipal school districts in Collierville, Germantown and other local suburbs.

He said if he is re-elected, one of his main priorities will be to promote business growth, specifically helping startup companies get off the ground with matching funds.

His major donors in recent months have included WSWT PAC, an arm of the alcoholic beverage industry, which gave him $3,000. Representatives of Comcast Corp. gave $1,500. JMS PAC, which shares an address with a payday loan store, gave $1,500, as did the Housing Industry PAC.

"I have a good relationship with all the donors," Todd said. "I listen to what their concerns are and what their issues are. Just because they give to me doesn't mean that I'm going to vote for an issue that they have," he said.

Former Shelby County school board member Diane George said she'd like to see Tennessee become one of the top 10 states in the U.S. for education. She also calls for creation of facilities to treat the mentally ill and a social movement to cut demand for illegal drugs.

"You know, I support the second amendment very much, citizens' right to bear arms, but gun violence is out of control in our nation," said George, a 57-year-old Realtor. "We need to look at cities such as New York and learn from other people who have been successful to reduce the number of guns on the street."

She also said she supports tax breaks and other supports for businesses.

Another challenger, businessman Mark Lovell, 57, is best known for festival promotion, particularly bringing the Delta Fair to Memphis.

Lovell was out of the country last week, an associate said, and efforts to reach him were unsuccessful. However, his website lists positions on a number of issues. On education, he calls for measures including additional charter schools and vouchers to help students in failing schools get a better opportunity.

On business development, he called for less regulation: "Businesses are unfairly targeted for licensing fees and taxes, thereby reducing the opportunities for job creation." On health, he wrote, "I support efforts underway to incentivize Medicaid patients to be better healthcare shoppers ... I also oppose our continued restriction of health insurance options in Tennessee."

On guns, he wrote, "It is time to pass Constitutional Carry in Tennessee and return the right to 'keep and bear arms' to law-abiding Tennesseans without the need for a state-sponsored 'permit.'"

He said he's also opposed to what he describes as "forced federal refugee resettlement" and called for enforcement of immigration laws.

Candidate Dana Matheny, a 53-year-old former health care administrator, said if elected she'll make health care a focus of her campaign, working toward solutions that use the power of the free market. "In reality, if we put that money back in the direct control of the patient, they will actually drive down the cost of health care by choosing the services."

Her website offers positions on other issues. On government accountability, she says the legislature should create simple, clear ways to measure the performance of different areas of government. "This will help focus attention to areas of waste, fraud, and abuse. It will also help us see what is working well."

She also addressed education. "To drive up quality and drive down cost, we need a system that competes in an environment of low regulations."

On gun issues, she wrote, "I will seek to have the permit requirement for concealed carry abolished."
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By Trudy Rubin

BERLIN  Should anyone require further proof that the promises of populists are worthless, they need only watch the latest psychodrama in London.

Boris Johnson, the ex-London mayor and mop-haired Donald Trump clone who led the Conservative party's "leave" faction, just dropped his bid to become Britain's next prime minister. This was almost as shocking as the voters' decision to leave the European Union, since Johnson was the face of the Brexit campaign.

But every glowing promise Johnson made before the Brexit vote has been walked back since by leading Brexiteers. Perhaps Boris realized he could no longer fool the voters and didn't want to be around when they got angry.

His political demise, and the swift debunking of his claims, is further proof  as if it were needed  that voting for the pap peddled by populists guarantees a rude shock if they win.

Only nine days ago Johnson was promising  in the last televised Brexit debate  that there would be no economic cost if Britain left the EU. He called such claims by the opposition "Project Fear."

He told voters Britain would still have access to the European common market, but would no longer have to freely admit workers from other European countries. (The Brexit camp whipped up fears of Muslim immigrants when, in fact, Britain admitted almost no Arab refugees. It mainly took in migrants from Europe as required under EU rules.)

Boris also assured voters that there would be huge financial gains from Brexit because they would no longer have to send 350 million pounds ($462 million) a week to Brussels, headquarters of the EU. That money would go to bolster Britain's National Health Service, the Brexiteers said.

Yet immediately after the vote Nigel Farage, the leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party  the hard right group that pushed most fervently for "leave"  denied there had ever been such a pledge. And it turned out the 350 million figure was a gross exaggeration.

Next, it emerged that the main Brexit (and Boris) promise, that Britain would "take back control" of immigration, was also a fantasy. Germany's Angela Merkel and other European leaders made very clear that, if Britain wanted to remain in the common market, it would have to accept EU rules permitting free movement of Europeans across borders.

The blows kept coming. The British pound tanked. Johnson's assurance that Scotland  which wanted to remain in the EU  would not hold a second independence referendum if the "leave" vote won, was quickly contradicted by Scottish political leaders.

Yet Boris kept ladling out lies even after the vote, insisting in a Daily Telegraph column that Brits could "take back democratic control of immigration policy" and still retain access to the single European market, even as Merkel was saying the exact opposite.

This reminded me of the impossible media task of keeping up with the whoppers peddled by Donald Trump in every speech.

The Washington Post, whose fact checkers rate political fibs on both sides of the aisle with "Pinocchios," with four as the max, has noted that Trump has earned so many "four Pinocchios" they have no room for them all.

Johnson's Brexit statements were four Pinocchios all the way.

Yet this Conservative MP  an Eton and Oxford grad  could convince a large slice of the British public that he was anti-establishment. He was clever enough to realize that the populist nationalism rising in Europe and in the United States is based more on emotions than facts.

Many citizens, left behind by globalization, are angry at politicians. They are susceptible to promises of an easy fix, and what could be easier than to promise that Brexit would make Britain great again?

And let's not forget Johnson's political ambitions. He clearly hoped to ride the populist wave to become the next Conservative prime minister, after David Cameron  who had backed "remain"  announced he would step down in the fall.

So why did Johnson abandon his plan?

Perhaps he realized what he had done to his country, as the warnings of Project Fear became realities. It quickly became clear that Johnson had no plans for how to handle the Brexit aftermath. Or perhaps Johnson's ambitions curdled when his Conservative ally Michael Gove announced his plan to campaign for prime minister. Obviously, the Conservatives who pushed Brexit were inspired more by ambition than by detailed plans for Britain.

The saga of Boris Johnson does serve one useful purpose. It lays bare the risk of voting based on emotions and ignoring facts. It underlines the risk of embracing a Pied Piper who makes promises that are clearly too good to be true.

The British example could prove instructive come November in America. But that depends on whether voters are willing to take it to heart  and to head.

Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Contact her at trubin@phillynews.com.
A newly released exploit can disable the write protection of critical firmware areas in Lenovo ThinkPads and possibly laptops from other vendors as well. Many new Windows security features, like Secure Boot, Virtual Secure Mode and Credential Guard, depend on the low-level firmware being locked down.

The exploit, dubbed ThinkPwn, was published earlier this week by a researcher named Dmytro Oleksiuk, who did not share it with Lenovo in advance. This makes it a zero-day exploit -- an exploit for which there is no patch available at the time of its disclosure.

ThinkPwn targets a privilege escalation flaw in a Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) driver, allowing an attacker to remove the flash write protection and to execute rogue code in the SMM (System Management Mode), a privileged operating mode of the CPU.

According to Oleksiuk, the exploit can be used to disable Secure Boot, a UEFI feature that cryptographically verifies the authenticity of the OS bootloader to prevent boot-level rootkits; to defeat the Credential Guard feature of Windows 10 that uses virtualization-based security to prevent the theft of enterprise domain credentials, and to do "other evil things."

The UEFI was designed as a replacement for the traditional BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) and is meant to standardize modern computer firmware through a reference specification. However, implementations can still vary considerably between computer manufacturers.

The reference specification provided by CPU and chipset vendors like Intel and AMD is used by a small number of independent BIOS vendors (IBVs) to create their own implementations which are then licensed to PC manufacturers. The PC vendors take these implementations from IBVs and further customize them themselves.

According to Lenovo, the vulnerability found by Oleksiuk was not in its own UEFI code, but in the implementation provided to the company by at least one IBV that hasn't been named.

"Lenovo is engaging all of its IBVs as well as Intel to identify or rule out any additional instances of the vulnerability's presence in the BIOS provided to Lenovo by other IBVs, as well as the original purpose of the vulnerable code," the company said in an advisory Thursday.

The full scope of the problem has not yet been determined as the vulnerability might also affect other vendors aside from Lenovo. In the ThinkPwn notes on GitHub, Oleksiuk said that it appears the vulnerability existed in the Intel reference code for its 8-series chipsets, but was fixed sometime in 2014.

"There's a high possibility that old Intel code with this vulnerability is currently present in firmware of other OEM/IBV vendors," the researcher said.

The Lenovo advisory also hints that this might be a more widespread issue, by listing the scope of impact as "industry-wide."

The ThinkPwn exploit is implemented as an UEFI application that needs to be executed from a USB flash drive by using the UEFI shell. This requires physical access to the targeted computer, which limits the kind of attackers who could use it.

However, Oleksiuk said that with more effort it would be possible to exploit the vulnerability from inside the running operating system, which means that it could be targeted through malware.

There are past examples where malware injected malicious code into the UEFI for increased persistence and stealth. For example, Italian surveillance software maker Hacking Team had a UEFI rootkit in its arsenal.
Your estimated benefit is based on your highest 35 years of earnings. (Photo: Getty Images)

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By Robert Powell, USA TODAY Network

Q: I was looking on the Social Security website about my wife's Social Security benefits when she reaches 66 in two years. I want her to take the spousal benefit while her account continues to grow. On the website it states that her benefit estimates are based on her continuing to earn "x" amount until 66. But she is recently retired and loving her church volunteer work and other projects, meaning that she will not be earning anything. So are her Social Security estimates on the high side, or will they be reduced as she reaches 66? Also would the benefits continue to grow until 70 when she would request to take her own?  Hal Preas,

A: You're right that your wife's benefit estimate may change between now and reaching age 66, since she will not be earning as the projected estimate assumes, says Jim Blankenship, a certified financial planner and author of Social Security Owner's Manual: Your Guide to Social Security Retirement, Dependent's, and Survivor's Benefits.

However, since the estimate is based on the highest 35 years of earnings over her career, these coming couple of years should not have a major impact on the projection  but there will likely be an impact, that's fairly certain, says Blankenship.

The good news: The fact that she is planning to continue delaying her own benefits past age 66  and collect the spousal benefit in the interim  will result in an 8% increase for each year that she delays, says Blankenship. Plus, the 8% increase will be based upon her re-calculated benefit amount once she reaches age 66, he says.

is editor of Retirement Weekly, contributes regularly to USA TODAY, The Wall Street Journal and MarketWatch. Got questions about money? Email rpowell@allthingsretirement.com.
1. Despite tradition, millions of Americans won't spend the Fourth of July at a barbecue, fireworks display or back-alley chinchilla fight. Instead, they'll spend it at work. I'll be among them this year, so be like me and celebrate by igniting a round of Black Cats in your boss' office.

2. Don't let off Black Cats. That's dangerous. Use bottle rockets instead.

3. Who are these Founding Fathers you keep hearing so much about? Learn about them.

4. Wait a second. They all owned slaves and wore horsehair wigs? Get new Founding Fathers.

5. If you work at a fast-food joint, add "American" in front of every menu item. Did a customer just order a Mexican Pizza? No they did not. They ordered an American Mexican Pizza.

6. According to the National Retail Federation, Americans spent $6.7 billion on food for July 4 cookouts and/or picnics in 2014. Don't miss out. If you work in a department store, every grilling accessory you need is at your disposal. Blaze up some burgers in the sporting goods section. But don't forget to fumigate! Charcoal emissions can be deadly in a poorly ventilated space. Luckily your store also sells crowbars and hammers, so grab some and start ripping out ceiling tiles. Your boss will understand. And if he doesn't (he won't), don't worry about it: he's probably off for the holiday anyway, that goldbricking donkey.

7. Drink beer at your desk and look at old girlfriends' Facebook accounts.

8. Embrace your inner George Washington. Gather your co-workers, steal a boat and cross the Delaware!

9. According to something called "the Internet," the Delaware River is roughly 800 miles from Evansville. Looks like you'll have to settle for Delaware Street.

10. Tearfully collect the shattered remains of your boat from the middle of Delaware Street. Don't believe that bumper sticker depicting a muscle-jacked bald eagle shooting holes into the Canadian flag. The driver of that F-350 hates America.

11. Watch old Hulk Hogan matches on your phone. Surprise your co-worker with a leg drop off the top cubicle.

12. Look at that. Bethany moved to New York and married an investment banker. Meanwhile, I had to dig change out of my car's cupholders to buy this American Mexican pizza.

13. Ignore your work and see if, by the end of the day, you can name all the presidents in chronological order. George Washington, John Adams, George Jefferson, Dolly Madison, Bill Monroe 

14. Look up famous presidential speeches and imagine how they would change if delivered by Donald Trump. "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." ---> "First of all: I don't ask for anything. OK? Because I don't need it. I don't need it. I've been given things, sure, and it's great but I give  I am the best giver. I give even when I don't have to give, and I'm gonna give things to this country. And they're going to be the best things."

15.  John Quincy John Adams, Harriet Tubman, Nick Van Exel 

16. Recall watching fireworks as a kid, and how you thought their dissipating arms were reaching down for you as you sat in a lawn chair in grandpa's front yard. And remember how that led to nightmares of gigantic space spiders lifting you out of bed and dropping you into a steaming bowl of corn chowder. Who's eating that chowder? You guessed it: a giant space spider wearing a fedora. And he's got eight spoons, and they all dive into the soup as you desperately swim toward safety, giant kernels of corn ramming into your nasal cavity. You wake up. It's the Fourth of July! (Expletive) You have to work today.

17.  Abraham Lincoln, Bill Pullman, Archduke Franz Ferdinand 

18. What are you doing in the office on a holiday? No sir, I did not let off Black Cats in your office. Those are bottle rockets.

Contact Jon Webb at jon.webb@courierpress.com or follow him on Twitter @JonAdamWebb.
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One rainy night many years ago, a gentleman and his wife entered the lobby of a small hotel in Philadelphia. The man asked the clerk if he had any rooms available.

The clerk, who was actually the hotel manager, was a friendly man who prided himself on superior customer service. He said that unfortunately the hotel was completely booked. "However," he said, "rather than send you out in the rain at 1 a.m. I would be happy to offer you my room. It's not a suite, but it will be comfortable for the night."

The man tried to object, but the clerk insisted. The next morning, as he paid his bill, the gentleman said to the clerk: "You are the kind of manager who should be the boss of the best hotel in the United States."

Two years passed, but the two men stayed in touch. One day the clerk/manager received a letter from the guest, inviting him to New York for a visit including a round-trip airline ticket. When the clerk/manager arrived in New York, the man met him and led him to the corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street. He pointed to a brand-new building. "There is the hotel I want you to manage," said the man.

"You must be joking," said the astonished clerk/manager.

"I can assure you that I am not," said the man, William Waldorf Astor, and the palace that he had built was the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

The moral of this story is you never know when kindness will come full circle.

Kind words and kind actions start with kind thoughts. In a hypercompetitive world, we might be tempted to take a dramatically different approach. But that tactic doesn't produce any winners.

Mean people are not happier, or necessarily more successful. If you don't believe me, spend a few minutes on Twitter or Facebook. The comments are too frequently cruel or so extreme, and they breed even more ugliness. That's the definition of "anti-social media."

Pastor and author C. Neil Strait said: "Kindness is more than deeds. It is an attitude, an expression, a look, a touch. It is anything that lifts another person."

It even extends to the animal kingdom! Great Britain's Newcastle University found that cattle treated with care and a "more personal touch" tend to produce more milk for farmers. The school studied over 500 farmers across the U.K. and  believe it or not  found that cows given names by their owners gave over 50 percent more milk than cattle that were nameless.

Contrary to the old saying, nice people can finish first. The key is to know how to use kindness to your advantage. If you think you might need a refresher course, here are some steps you can take to make kindness a habit.

First, be kind to yourself. You'll find being nice to others easier if you build your self-respect with positive thoughts about your personality and achievements. When you are good to yourself, you are best to others.

Treat everyone with respect. Don't worry about who's on top. Treat everyone the way you want to be treated, regardless of their position or job title. No one is too big to be kind and courteous, but many people are too small.

Say no when necessary. You can't do everything. Say no, but be polite and positive. It's kinder to say no to something when you cannot devote adequate time or attention than to do a halfhearted job.

Plant seeds of kindness. Do something nice every day. Kindness pays most when you don't do it for payback.

Take the high road. Trust me, it's the road less traveled. It's a big wide highway with no traffic jams. And no road rage.

There's an old story about a king who had a beautiful ring and three sons who each wanted the ring. When the king died, he left three rings for his sons and a note that said, "My dear sons, one of these rings is real, and two are fake. The way you will know who has the real ring is that the son with the real ring will be kind and generous to all people."

Each of the three sons spent the rest of his life being good to others  to prove that he had the real ring.

Mackay's Moral: Funny thing about kindness: The more it's used the more you have of it.
Garrison Keillor gives a final wave before walking off the Hollywood Bowl stage. (Photo: Craig T. Mathew, Mathew Imaging)

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By Bryan Alexander, USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES  used his introduction to the song Friendship from to give the briefest  but telling  explanation for why he has devoted himself to the radio variety show A for the past 42 years.

"Friendship, I believe in that," the self-effacing Keillor, 73, told the crowd at Hollywood Bowl on Friday night. "That was the whole reason for starting a radio show  it was to get to meet people if you had no social skills. And people would walk up to you and say, 'I heard you on the radio.' This was the beginning of a conversation that would lead in all sorts of interesting directions."

Keillor's decade-spanning conversation came to an end Friday as he performed his final Prairie Home in front of a packed house of 18,000 fans for a show that aired Saturday on . Fittingly, this final conversation led in all sorts of interesting directions, too.

Prairie Home is normally performed live-to-radio on Saturdays, but Keillor said the pre-taping was made necessary because the summer sun "does not allow matinees." He mentioned offhand that President Obama had called for a "little conversation" before the final taping, which was heard only on the Saturday broadcast.

The "first-ever last show" was devoid of sentimentality from the proud Minnesotan Keillor, who changed the regular format to incorporate duets with five of his favorite singing partners over the years  Christine DiGiallonardo, , Heather Masse, and .

"It's my night," said Keillor. "I get to sing duets with these five wonderful women."

A number Keillor penned himself set the tone for humor and farewell with the refrain, "I never will forget those Saturdays."

"I was lucky to have the employment go on for 42 years, I never got fired, because I am the boss. And I had no regrets because of memory loss," Keillor sang. "And suddenly the day becomes the past. Four decades, and it went by so fast."

As a tearful Masse took the stage to sing Every Time We Say Goodbye with Keillor, he cracked, "Are you trying to make us cry?"

"We're going to miss you," said Masse.

"I'm going to miss President Obama, that's what I'll miss," Keillor deflected.

During another segment, the regular Prairie Home stage performers (Fred Newman, and Sue Scott) peppered Keillor with the same question of how he felt about leaving. "It feels like something ends and something else is about to happen," Keillor responded.

Prairie Home will continue with a new host in October, 's . Keillor will continue to serve as a producer and is working on his memoirs as well as a Hollywood screenplay.

He ended Friday's taping with a stage full of performers singing Next Time I'm in Town with the line, "There's one thing I promise you, that's another rendezvous, next time I'm in town." Keillor then offered a simple wave of his hand and said, "Thank you, everybody, good night" as he walked off stage.

He returned to the crowd for an encore to urge them to sing an idiosyncratic Keillor-only medley consisting of the folk song Goodnight Ladies. That segued into Goodnight Irene, Happy Trails, Praise God Through All Blessings Flow, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, Can't Help Falling in Love, The Parting Glass and ending with the gospel song Amen.

For the final Amen refrain, Keillor lifted his hands silently and let the audience of 18,000 sing him off.
DENNY SIMMONS / COURIER & PRESS Jesse Sprinkle of Troy, Ind., attaches a rail to a fence post she and her dad, Dale Sprinkle, are constructing around her yard Tuesday afternoon. The fence's main purpose is to create a safe place for her son, Bobby Joe Green Jr., 19 months old, to play. "He's really brought a lot of joy to our lives," she said of her son. "Before I was kind of empty. I couldn't really figure out where I needed to be. Everything about him, he's just all kinds of fun."

SHARE DENNY SIMMONS / COURIER & PRESS Bobby Joe's dinosaur toy sits atop a circular rock garden Jesse Sprinkle and her mom made. "He's so fun to get stuff for at this age," she said. "You just can't help it. I love kids toys now. I've got a lot of fun coming up." DENNY SIMMONS / COURIER & PRESS Dale Sprinkle (left) and Jesse Sprinkle add bracing to the fence they are building around Jesse's Troy, Ind., yard Tuesday afternoon. "We work together a lot and have a lot of back-and-forth," she said of working with her dad.

By Denny Simmons of the Courier and Press

TROY  Jesse Sprinkle laughs when people mistake her yard for a child care center.

"I get that a lot," the mother of 19-month-old Bobby Joe Green Jr. said.

With a goodly number of plastic riding contraptions dotting the corner lot, it is an honest mistake.

"I find the trucks and cars and I'll pressure wash them and fix them up so they look new. I figure if he has friends over, they can all play together."

The proud mom spoke as she used her battery-powered hand drill to attach rails to the fence posts she and her dad, Dale Sprinkle, were building. The fence  when completed  will encompass the yard and offer peace-of-mind to mom.

"As long as we can keep him contained," Dale Sprinkle said. "We don't want him out in the street."

"We used to work together a lot more when I was a kid," Jesse Sprinkle said. "We worked over at the wood shop. He still won't let me use the saw  and I'm 32  even though I've got five of my own."

About six years ago, Jesse Sprinkle's parents offered her a chance to renovate an old building down the street from his cabinet business.

"It's been an adventure, but it's been a lot of fun," she said. "We started a really long time ago.

"This was dad's storage building. It was all concrete floors and block walls. My mom told me she would help me fix this place up. I lived here for about two years while we were fixing it up without any plumbing or electric. Dad helped me dig out the lines for the plumbing, run the wiring and studded-out the walls."

"Now, me and my baby live here," she said proudly. "Just about everything in it is handcrafted. The curtains are all handmade. Dad did the cabinets. Me and mom and dad and a couple of our friends have worked just a little bit at a time to do it."

"This building is kind of neat, but we've still got a lot of little stuff to do to fix it up."

The new fence will be another project she can check off her to-do list.

"I'm dying to see it done. I think it's going to be really cute," she said of the fence, which will be cut to resemble a large ocean wave. "I'm going to paint it white."

---

Highways & Byways is a weekly photographic report from longtime Courier & Press photojournalist Denny Simmons.
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By John Martin of the Courier and Press

Vanderburgh County sheriff's deputies said a man threatened three people with a shotgun Sunday in Pleasant Ridge Mobile Home Park and was later found in possession of loaded, stolen weapons.

Nigel Tyrone Daniels, 41, was held in the county jail with no bond.

Deputies were called to the 5200 block of Gary Drive, in northeast Vanderburgh County, by a man reporting that he and a female were approached by a man pointing a shotgun at them who said, "Do you want to die tonight?"

According to an arrest affidavit, the man with the gun "went on to tell them that there were three white men with beards trying to get underneath his trailer and they were part of ISIS."

A nearby resident, who lives in the 4400 block of Chapel Court, told deputies that also was approached by a man and threatened while returning home from work.

Deputies said all three people who were threatened identified Daniels, and he was arrested while walking on Pleasant Ridge Drive.

After obtaining a search warrant for Daniels' home at 4909 Fawn Lake Drive, deputies found rifles and handguns that were stolen from Henderson, Kentucky, according to the arrest affidavit. Deputies said a homeowner on Ashley Drive found additional firearms, including a shotgun, lying next to her mobile home.

Preliminary charges include two counts of intimidation with a deadly weapon drawn and pointing a loaded firearm, and one count of intimidation threat, possession of a firearm by a felon and theft. Deputies said Daniels has a 2006 conviction for domestic battery.
By Cole Claybourn

The National Weather Service in Paducah issued a small stream flood advisory until 9 a.m. for the much of the Tri-State area and storms are expected until mid-day.

After that, it's "iffy" on whether or not storms will persist into the evening and affect July 4 festivities, meteorologist Dan Spaeth said.

"There may not be a lot of energy left for storms the rest of the day," he said. "Hopefully people can sleep in and then enjoy the evening."

Spaeth said one spotter reported the Evansville area got three inches of rain as of around 5 a.m. Monday.

Plenty of lightning will accompany Monday's storms, Spaeth said.

"After that, I'm really thinking we might be done, but there's still a chance in the forecast," he said.

Spaeth added that those planning to be out celebrating for July 4 should be prepared for sloppy conditions whether it rains or not due to the amount of rain that's already fallen.

Evansville hasn't seen rain on Independence Day since 2012 when 0.41 inches of rain fell on the area, according to the NWS's online climate data. That year also saw the temp rise to 103 degrees for the Fourth of July, the highest in over ten years.
By Richard Gootee of the Courier and Press

Three weeks before 17-year-old Javion Wilson was fatally shot in November 2015, the teen accused of killing him was at a Northern Indiana boot camp run by the Indiana Department of Correction, finishing a sentence for juvenile gun-related charges stemming from a March 2015 arrest in Evansville.

Carltez J. Taylor's records also indicate the agency originally planned to hold him until Dec. 1  three days after Wilson was killed. That was until the state notified the local court on Nov. 2 that it would instead release Taylor Nov. 10. At that time Taylor  also 17 when Wilson was killed  was turned over to his mother, Tracy Mayes, according to court records. There was no court supervision included in his sentence after he was let go, which was an option to both state and local authorities.

The actions by the Department of Correction involving the release of the now-accused murderer came at a time when local police and other officials were trying to highlight the rise in gun crimes being committed by juveniles in Evansville. Some actions to address the spike have already been taken, but longtime Vanderburgh County Juvenile Court Judge Brett Niemeier acknowledged that Taylor "clearly slipped through the cracks."

Niemeier pointed to a new probation field officer unit that was implemented earlier this year because of the rise in gun crime offenders as a step in the right direction, The longtime judge also advocated for tougher gun possession sentences for juveniles, though he admitted that there has not been movement on that front from state lawmakers.

"It's one thing for a 50-year-old man who has a gun, and he gets caught carrying it in his glove box and he doesn't have a license. (A class) A misdemeanor, that's probably OK, but a 15-year-old kid walking the streets with (a gun) on his hip  that's not an A misdemeanor," Niemeier said. "There should be an enhanced classification for minors."

The Evansville Police Department has spotlighted the increase of gang activity, especially among teens, in recent years and has increased the size of the department's Gang Task Force. Officials have said groups target youths as young as teenagers and has blamed gangs for much of the rise of gun-related crime in the city. There were eight juvenile Vanderburgh County firearms arrests in 2013 and only two were for actually using guns to commit crimes, according to court statistics. There were 44 juveniles arrested on gun charges in 2015. Of those arrested last year, 32 were charged with possessing a firearm and another 12 were charged with using a gun to commit crimes.

The Courier & Press initiated the inquiry into Taylor's juvenile record after he was connected to a March 2015 shots-fired case earlier this year. The case involved the same weapon he faced the juvenile charges for. The victim in the case said he and two juveniles were on the porch when "several suspects" started shooting at his Line Street home, according to a police report. No one was injured.

Investigators don't believe Taylor was one of the shooters in that incident but think he supplied the gun to a teen who was, according to Evansville Police Department spokesman Sgt. Jason Cullum. Police believe Paje C. Diaz, now 18. is one of the people who shot at the home in the 700 block of Line Street.

Taylor and Diaz face charges stemming from the incident, but those were not filed until last month because it took about a year for investigators to connect the case to the two teens, police said.

The weapon Diaz is believed to have shot at the home was found two days later in a backpack that police said Taylor discarded as he and two others fled police.

Authorities seized the gun  which had been previously reported stolen  but no one would be able to confirm that the weapon was used in the Line Street incident until ballistic tests were conducted on the weapon. That was not until August 2015.

Though the man whose home was shot at in March came to authorities initially and said he wanted to press charges, no one was able to identify any of the shooters from the incident, even as events afterward pointed to Taylor's suspected involvement, police said.

But authorities did bring juvenile charges  theft and carrying a handgun without a license  in 2015 against Taylor for the backpack discovery. That is how Taylor landed at Camp Summit in LaPorte, Indiana, which is a medium- to high-security facility, according to the Indiana Department of Correction.

An Indiana Department of Correction spokesman described Camp Summit as a paramilitary style boot camp that blends military components with rehabilitation programs. It offers individual and group counseling, as well as substance-abuse programs, anger management and parenting classes.

The program normally lasts five and half months, spokesman Ike Randolph said.

Even though investigators got the requested ballistic tests on the weapon while Taylor was at Camp Summit, police could not confirm that Taylor or Diaz were suspects in the case until a grand jury session in March of this year, Cullum said. Those hearings, it has been widely publicized, were aimed at addressing gang violence. Those hearings were nearly a year after the Line Street shooting, and about four months after Wilson's death. Both Taylor and Wilson were alleged gang members.

Wilson was shot outside a home in the 900 block of West Michigan Street in Evansville just after midnight on Nov. 28, 2015. According to police, Wilson was walking in the area when Taylor confronted him and two other people. Taylor is accused of firing multiple shots at Wilson, who died in the street. Police have claimed Taylor told people he was going to shoot Wilson and other members of a group known as the Cream Team.

When officials announced Taylor's arrest a few days after the shooting, Cullum told reporters investigators believe there was an "ongoing dispute" between Taylor and Wilson.

For Wilson's death, Taylor faces charges of murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder. He has been in the Vanderburgh County jail since his arrest Dec. 2, and the trial for that case is set to begin Aug. 22. Evansville attorney Barry Blackard is representing Taylor in the murder case. He declined to talk about Taylor's juvenile record for this story because he is not representing Taylor in the juvenile case.

Taylor and Diaz face juvenile charges of conspiracy to commit aggravated battery and criminal recklessness for the March 2015 incident on Line Street. Both their cases will likely be waived to adult court. Like Taylor, Diaz had also been in jail for an unrelated case when the charges were brought against him.

Between the time of the two shootings Taylor is accused of being part of, he was sentenced for charges related to the discovery of the gun in the backpack. Court records indicate that Taylor pleaded delinquent in the case on May 4, 2015 and was assigned to boot camp.

Judge Niemeier said he makes the determination of whether to assign a defendant to the state. But once the decision is made, Niemeier said he does not have any control over where Taylor ended up  or when he got released. Even though Niemeier criticized the lengths of many juvenile sentences handed out by the state for being too short, he said the state can punish offenders more harshly than he can. State-assigned juveniles serve sentences averaging six to eight months, according to the agency, but Niemeier said some offenders serve as little as three months.

He said when he first took office in 2001, state Department of Correction sentences were about 18 months. Local juvenile courts can only hold youths for up to 90 days for most crimes, though some have a 120-day maximum, Niemeier said. He estimated that he sends anywhere from 50 to 75 juveniles each year from Vanderburgh County to the state for punishment, which represents about 10 percent of the annual juvenile case load. Niemeier acknowledged that the cases he sends to the state are either the more violent delinquents or repeat local offenders.

"The (Indiana) Department of Correction is more punitive, without a doubt," Niemeier said. "The Department of Correction, in my eyes, is always the last resort, in the sense that kids coming out of the Department of Correction have a very, very high recidivism rate. The Department of Correction is run by a lot of good people, but they do not get the results, and we're aware of that."

The state had first estimated in October that Taylor would be released from its custody on Dec. 1, 2015  a few days after Wilson was killed  but then it notified Vanderburgh County courts on Nov. 2 that it would be releasing him earlier. Revising release dates for offenders is common because the first date is a "target date," Randolph said in an email to the Courier & Press. He called it a Projected Program Completion Date.

"The PPCD is directly affected by a student's behavior, completion of programs, and demonstrating a good-faith effort to participate in all required educational and treatment programs as well as any other assigned programs and/or activities and behavior expectations," Randolph wrote.

When that first estimation date was given to the local court, it appeared that Taylor was going to be assigned to a "juvenile reintegration" program when he was released, but they decided to ultimately send him home three weeks earlier than first projected, and there was no requirement of additional supervision.

Randolph did not specifically address why Taylor was not put on state-ordered supervision as first planed, but did say it is common that offenders not face any additional punishment from the Department of Correction after their time at Camp Summit or other facilities.

"The determination of a youth's placement on supervision in the community is based on the youth's risk level, age, committing offense, input from the court/county and any other pertinent information," Randolph wrote.

Cullum acknowledged that investigators did not notify either the state or the local court system of the ballistics tests tying the March 2015 incident to the gun that was connected to Taylor. He said because there was nothing to notify the courts of yet regarding Taylor and Line Street because there was not enough information to charge him with the crime.

Asked whether knowing about the ballistics test would have gotten Taylor court supervision, Randolph declined to comment, saying that he could not address the case of a specific juvenile.

Niemeier, too, had a chance to put him on local probation but chose not to do so. He said he rarely assigns the local probation office on such cases because there isn't much money for such programs. However, when asked the same question about the ballistics test, Niemeier said if that information would have been shared, he is hopeful it would have resulted in some sort of additional supervision.

"Several years ago, the state  to save money  decided to cut back on parole. They just slashed it," he said. "They said, basically, local judges, if you don't like what we've done, you just go ahead and do it. Of course, they don't give any funding, any extra personnel, nothing."

Niemeier also said that had Taylor been put into the state reintegration program he would have been looked at by the local courts more closely because he would have been put on an additional six months of local probation, plus the state integration program.

Taylor's arrest in connection with the juvenile gun case was not even his first serious offense involving a weapon. In 2013, the then-15-year-old Taylor was accused of being one of three teens who took bicycles from two men during an armed robbery. In that incident, Taylor is accused of throwing a knife at one of the victims so hard that the weapon pierced his buttocks, and the wound required medical attention. Records from that case show that Taylor, known as Carltez Mayes at that time, was found delinquent on one count of robbery. He received a 60-day sentence of probation to be supervised by the county. By the time he was found delinquent in that case, Taylor had already spent 88 days in a detention facility, which was factored into his sentence, according to court records.

Niemeier said there are multiple options regarding how Taylor could have been put on some sort of additional supervision in last year's case. He acknowledged that, in retrospect, it's clear something additional should have been done in Taylor's case, but reiterated that it's rare for the local court to add probation on its own, simply because of case loads, especially before the new field officer unit was added. Niemeier said he's hopeful the field officer unit prevents situations like Taylor's in the future.

"With the field officer unit and their close ties to law enforcement, I have confidence in the future that the most dangerous juveniles will continued to be monitored in some fashion," he said. "The communication aspect surrounding the Field Officer Unit is vital to the success of the unit."

Randolph declined to comment when asked whether there have been any discussions within the Indiana Department of Correction about strengthening punishment guidelines for juvenile gun crimes, but Niemeier said most likely changes in how offenders are punished would have to come from the Indiana Legislature.

In addition to advocating for tougher punishments for juveniles who get caught carrying a weapon, Niemeier said he wishes the state would implement "determinant" sentences for some crimes, which mean they would carry automatic minimum punishments.

There is a chance the Indiana Legislature could at least examine the broad topic of juvenile gun crime in some fashion when it meets next year. In the last session, at least one bill was proposed that addressed the issue. It would require teens who are at least 14 to be tried in adult court if they are accused of using a gun in a crime, a stipulation that if passed would have affected a growing number of local cases. The bill called for tougher sentences for gun crimes, as well.

One of the authors of that 2015 proposal, state Sen. Jim Merritt, R-Indianapolis, recently told the Courier & Press that he continues to believe in mandatory, minimum sentences for crimes involving guns and plans to "take a look at the landscape later this year," when asked if he will propose similar legislation next year.
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By Megan Erbacher of the Courier and Press

The Brexit vote spiraled the United Kingdom into a "period of uncertainty," according to University of Evansville political science teacher Robert Dion.

But for now, he said, that may work in favor of American students studying abroad. Why? It will be cheaper.

The British pound plummeted July 24, an immediate consequence of the country's vote to exit the European Union.

"That, for sure, makes it easier for American students to study in the U.K.," he said. "The markets plummeted on Friday (June 24) partly because there was the expectation there would be a narrow win for the remain side, but there was instead a pretty solid win for the leave side. So I think the market reacted sharply, partly because of the surprise."

Dion is unsure how long that will last, and noted he isn't an expert, but believes the currency will eventually stabilize.

For more than 40 years, UE has owned Harlaxton College in Grantham, England, about one hour north of London. Slightly more than 50 percent of UE students study abroad during their academic career, according to the university's website.

University of Southern Indiana students, as well as other higher education partners, also frequently attend sessions at Harlaxton. USI officials were not available to comment on the potential impact Brexit might have on study abroad programs.

Dion returned from Harlaxton on June 15 after teaching a summer course on living world religions. It was his seventh time teaching at UE's British campus.

Brexit, he said, was everywhere.

It was on the news. It was on BBC radio when he shaved in the morning. It was in every newspaper at Harlaxton (they receive about six daily newspapers.) People passed out brochures for and against the vote. It came up in conversations at the pub.

"It was pervasive," Dion said.

When visiting staff and students arrived in May, Dion said they listened to a lecture on Brexit.

"So the kids were immediately attuned to what they were getting into," Dion said. "People were on edge. I can't name any names, but faculty and staff at Harlaxton were on both sides of this issue, so it was a topic of discussion.  It just goes to show that people disagree."

The U.K. is now in a period of political and economic uncertainty, according to Dion.

The vote was a referendum to begin the process of the British government to leave the EU. According to EU rules, there is a two-year window to exit after Britain gives official notification.

"So far we've just had a referendum expressing the will of the voters.  It's not self-executing," Dion said. "The government has to make it happen."

The uncertainty may cause some people to reconsider studying abroad, but Dion doesn't anticipate a downturn in students doing so.

"If anything, the interest might spike.  This is a rare and wonderful opportunity to see, firsthand, in a rigorous academic setting the ways that globalization presents challenges in the 21st century," he said.
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By Mark Wilson of the Courier and Press

In 2011 Indiana joined the growing number of states that have banned drivers from text messaging on their cell phones while driving.

Only a small fraction of states  Arizona, Missouri, Montana, Texas  have not banned all texting while driving, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Yet the difference in traffic enforcement between Indiana and those four states may not be as wide as the difference in laws implies.

Law enforcement agencies across the state wrote 2,020 tickets and issued 2,134 warnings for violating Indiana's texting and driving prohibition from 2011 through 2015, according to the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute.

Although the numbers have slowly escalated each year, they pale compared to total traffic citations, said Indiana State Police Sgt. Philip Hensley, public information officer for the Jasper District.

"The idea of the law, the spirit of it, is to prevent people from texting and driving. Has it been a deterrent? I don't know. It at least brings more awareness about it," he said.

So far this year the Evansville Police Department and Vanderburgh County Sheriff's Office combined have written only seven tickets for texting and driving, said Sheriff David Wedding.

However, Wedding noted that at least 98 tickets have been written for other traffic violations typically associated with distracted driving and frequently linked to texting or cell phone use: driving left of center, unsafe lane movement, following too close and improper turning.

That more tickets are written for other infractions possibly linked to cell phones underscores law enforcement's dilemma with the current law.

"We know it's a problem, but it's hard to catch and hard to cite for," Wedding said.

Hensley is even more direct about it.

"As a violation, it is next to impossible to enforce," he said. "I can't take your phone and look to see what you were doing. It is difficult to prove unless the driver admits it."

Indiana Code 9-21-8-59 specifically bans a person operating a moving motor vehicle from using "a telecommunications device" to: "type a text message or an electronic mail message; transmit a text message or an electronic mail message; or read a text message or an electronic mail message."

The only exceptions are if is used in conjunction with hands free or voice operated technology, or unless it is used to call 911 "to report a bona fide emergency."

However, it also restricts police from confiscating cell phones and looking at them to see if the driver had been using it. In addition, police cannot use the law as reason for confiscating a phone and keeping it as evidence, or from extracting or downloading information from the phone.

The officer would have to believe the phone was used in committing a crime or have a valid search warrant, according to the law.

Wedding said the law does not take into account the many other reasons a driver might be using  and be distracted by  their cell phones, such as following a map, looking for directions, social media or even reading.

An easier law to enforce, Hensley said, would be a total ban on hand-held cell phone use while driving.

"That would be easier to enforce," he said. "Using your cell phone is a huge distraction. Your focus should be on what is around you. Would it make a difference? Absolutely it would."

Hensley noted that with Bluetooth wireless technology for phones, it's no longer necessary for drivers to hold their cell phones while talking.

Indiana is among the 37 states that restrict novice drivers from using cell phones. However, only 14 states have instituted total bans on using hand-held cell phones while driving, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

The District of Columbia also bans using hand-held cell phones for all drivers, including new drivers, and using them to text.

He said it is important for adults to set an example for younger drivers by not using their cell phones while driving, and to talk about it with them.

"People are addicted to these devices. We are just in a situation where I don't know what else to do," Wedding said.
But many American soldiers are in fact kids fresh out of high school:

U.S. Marine Corps

It's a lot harder to look like the movies when someone isn't buffing up your shoulders in post.

That's what the military prefers; they're at the peak of physical fitness, and they've spent their whole lives following orders at school and home. The only downside is that, like every 19-year-old in history, they're usually not emotionally mature at all. That's how you end up with comrades playing "gay chicken," as Roger, a former marine who fought in Iraq, told us. "Who can do the gayest thing?"

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Wouldn't that technically be gay rooster? But whatever. The point is that it's not a game isolated to one eccentric unit. Chuck, a nine-year Marine veteran, went into more detail. "I saw marines being forced to show penis to other marines. Some marines being forced to touch penises. People putting their balls or penis on another person's face."

Shenanigans like that are what you're going to see when you take thousands of hormonal young men, separate them from women, and put them under extreme stress. "In 2004 ... I think I saw three women. And you can only beat off to the same porn DVD so many times ... it's not like we had WiFi in the barracks." Internet porn access wasn't the first priority in the early days of the occupation of Iraq, because the government was busy screwing up other things. So Roger and his comrades had a lot of steam to, uh, blow off. "There some strange fucking outlets ... when all you want to do is drink and fuck in a dry country where there's no women."
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Opinion Wordle

The next day I woke to find myself in a WhatsApp group titled Quordle is Awesome!! A small group of three. There was no getting out of it now.
Next week a strange thing will happen.

The United Kingdom will begin the transition to a one-party state. It will all happen in a very British way. There will be no dawn raids, or troops on the streets.

Instead, the coup of 2016 will be driven by a series of small acts of omission. A parliamentary question will go unasked. An amendment to a Bill will sit untabled. A frontbench speech will lie half-written.

And slowly, but surely, Her Majestys official Opposition  that vital corrective that ensures we remain a fully functioning democracy  will cease to exist.

A supporter of Jeremy Corbyn holds up a sign saying that 2/3 of Labour voters backed remaining European Union during Momentum's 'Keep Corbyn' rally outside the Houses of Parliament on June 27

We have just lived through seven days the like of which no living soul has witnessed, and probably will never witness again.

An economic crisis layered on top of a diplomatic crisis layered on top of a political crisis. And now a fresh layer is about to be added. A fully blown constitutional crisis.

Since Monday we have seen the series of resignations from Jeremy Corbyns Shadow Cabinet turn into a flood, then an exodus of almost biblical proportions.

As a result, precise figures are hard to come by. But according to one Labour MP who has been tracking the numbers, at the time of writing, 63 of the 115 shadow frontbench positions now sit unfilled. Labours frontbench team in the House of Lords have virtually declared independence.

Those Shadow Ministers who remain in post are filling double briefs. And the Labour whips office  which manages all parliamentary business  is in the hands of the rebels.

From next week it will all begin to fall apart, one former Shadow Minister told me.

They literally wont be able to conduct the business of the House. Youve got the statements, the urgent statements, the Government debates, the Opposition days, the Bill committees, the adjournment debates, the Westminster Hall debates, the departmental sessions, oral questions, written questions. The official Opposition of the country is simply going to stop functioning.

According to MPs Ive spoken to, this gives rise to several seemingly incredible, but no longer implausible scenarios. The first is that the rebels elect their own leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party, and unilaterally declare themselves the official opposition.

They would take over the apparatus of the Opposition  offices, funding, etc  leaving Corbyn technically leader of the national party, but with no official role within Parliament.

However, I understand Corbyns supporters have spoken to Commons speaker John Bercow about this, and the guidance they have received is that the rebels would need to demonstrate they represent an officially constituted party to receive formal designation as the official Opposition.

The second scenario is that, as it becomes clear Labour can no longer effectively fulfil its constitutional functions, Bercow may be forced to intervene directly.

The Speaker cant sit back indefinitely and watch the business of the House grind to a halt, one former Shadow Minister told me. If this situation continues I can see him calling in Jeremy Corbyn and giving him an ultimatum. That ultimatum is said to be based around the idea of recognising the SNP as the official Opposition.

This week the SNP made a formal request to be granted such a designation, which was rejected by Bercow. But if the stand-off between Corbyn and his party continues, several Labour MPs believe Bercow may subtly raise the possibility of SNP designation as a way of breaking the deadlock.

The third scenario is even more fantastical. You have to remember, Corbyn is leader of Her Majestys Opposition, and this is a time of national crisis, said one veteran backbencher. If this continues, the Palace are going to start to take an interest.

This talk of palace plots may sound like the stuff of fiction. But this is a genuine reflection of how serious the crisis within the Labour Party, and British politics in general, has become.

On Friday, the remaining members of Corbyns Shadow Cabinet  led by Shadow Home Secretary Andy Burnham  twice tried to see their leader to appeal to him to stand down. On both occasions the requests for a meeting were blocked by senior aide Karie Murphy. The problem is, Jeremy doesnt even know people are trying to see him, one MP told me. Murphy isnt passing on the requests.

AS A result, Labour MPs are literally talking about kidnapping Corbyn in an attempt to get him out of the clutches of his inner circle.

Theyve basically got him trapped in his office and theyre not letting anyone in to see him, one said. But hes going to have to come out eventually for the votes. His staff cant come into the voting lobbies, so when hes in there, thats when we can move. Were going to surround him and force him to talk to us.

Most former Shadow Cabinet members hope such dramatic action can be averted, and that Corbyn can be persuaded to do the decent thing. They believe there is clear evidence his position is finally starting to fracture among his last bastion of support, the Labour membership.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is joined by Shadow Health Secretary Diane Abbott as he delivers a speech

A poll of Labour members published on Friday showed his approval rating collapsing from +45 to +3 in just over a month. A separate poll of members of the Left-wing Unite trade union showed a majority want him to resign before the General Election. And a poll of likely leadership match-ups found his main challengers are now within striking distance. One source said: Hes only ten points ahead of Angela Eagle, and she hasnt even started campaigning yet. She only needs to peel off five points and shes got him.

Crucially, there is also evidence his support is crumbling in his London heartland, with several large constituency Labour parties this week tabling no-confidence motions in their embattled leader.

If hes losing London, hes losing the leadership, said one MP.

The strategy of Corbyns inner circle is to try to hang on till Wednesday, and the publication of the long-awaited Chilcot report. Im told they are considering unleashing the nuclear option of formally calling for Tony Blair to be prosecuted for war crimes, in the hope this can reset the debate within Labour.

But it seems increasingly clear that even a catastrophe such as Iraq will be unable to overshadow the unfolding political and constitutional crisis engulfing the Labour Party and the British political class. By the end of this week the official Opposition may have effectively ceased to exist, and our transition to a one-party state may be under way. For 1984, read 2016. Big brother has his beady eye on you, Jeremy Corbyn.

Queen May snubs a coronation

As the post-Brexit mood of crisis deepens, the cries for the smack of firm, decisive leadership are growing louder.

Tory MPs I have been speaking to have been saying they expect significant pressure to be brought upon the remaining Tory candidates to step down in favour of Theresa May, possibly with a view to having her installed as the sole candidate by the end of next week.

We have to get on with this now, one told me. The country needs us to get our act together.

Tory MPs I have been speaking to have been saying they expect significant pressure to be brought upon the remaining Tory candidates to step down in favour of Theresa May, possibly with a view to having her installed as the sole candidate by the end of next week

But I understand strong opposition to the idea of a coronation is coming from an unexpected source  Theresa May herself.

She is said to believe that, in the wake of the divisive Brexit vote, and the internal blood-letting of the past few days, it is vital that Conservative members are given a say in choosing David Camerons successor.

She is also thought to want a strong mandate from the members for what she believes will be the tough policy decisions needed in the months ahead.

But events may be taken out of her hands. Theyre all stampeding towards Theresa now, one MP tells me. Goves launch was the final piece of the jigsaw. He spent the whole event trying to justify his treachery. No one was impressed. Shes got this.
A male boss who is no longer with us once said to me: I dont know why you are always so angry. You seem such a nice person in the flesh, so reasonable.

He was missing the point entirely. Its not me whos not nice, and unreasonable, its the world! But I have got to the point where I am exhausted by being angry; its not good for me, its probably ageing.

So I decided to conduct an experiment. Could I go for one whole week without becoming enraged? Could I let it all wash over me? Could I become more Zen?

The week didnt start well. I have bought a 1,000 old banger, and went on confused.com to insure it. I got a quote, filled in forms online, sent proof of my no-claims bonus, and paid more than 100 as an initial fee.

After filling out her proof of her no-claims bonus, Liz Jones was sent an email that read: 'We have found out you have lied on your form, and are therefore uninsured

I sent a copy of my paper licence in the post. I then got an email. We have found out you have lied on your form, and are therefore uninsured.

I phoned them up. I was polite, calm. How have I lied?

You have three points on your licence.

No I dont. If I had three points, they would be printed on the paper. I would have had to surrender my licence.

Not any more. The government phased them out. It was very well publicised. You can check your status online.

But why would I randomly check my status? What was wrong with a paper record?

People lost them.

OK, so charge me a bit more.

We cant. We are cancelling your insurance, and will write to let you know how much you owe us.

But I paid you over 100! [OK, calm, confident, capable.] Why dont you send me an email to say its been cancelled, and take what I owe you now. I dont want to spend all of next week having this conversation all over again.

I cant send an email, or take any money. Thats another department.

The woman then cut me off. I have since had 21 emails telling me I am about to break the law by driving an uninsured car. Another email has just popped up: Thank you for choosing StupidBastards.com. Car insurance made easy!

On Saturday, I took my boyfriend out for dinner on his birthday. We got to the gastro pub, and to avoid any confusion I quietly informed the maitre d and a waitress that Im profoundly deaf. The French waiter later chased after us, and said: Shes been ignoring me all evening

On Saturday, I took my boyfriend out for dinner on his birthday. We got to the gastro pub, and to avoid any confusion I quietly informed the maitre d and a waitress that Im profoundly deaf. We sat down for our meal. I changed my mind about the soup only after it arrived, but I paid for a different starter, which was lovely.

Id requested no mushrooms in my main course, but when my salad arrived covered in slivers of truffle, I simply placed them to one side without a murmur.

I tipped the waiter 20. We left, thanking them profusely. When the French waiter chased after us, I thought nothing of it. I continued walking to the car. My boyfriend came after me. He said the waiter had made a complaint. The waiter said, and I quote: Shes been ignoring me all evening.

What?!, I demanded of my boyfriend.

I know, he said. I told him SHE COULDNT HEAR YOU!

What is it with all this She business? Who am I, the cats mother? And since when do waiters complain?

Never mind that, he told you never to return!

My boyfriend had to restrain me, and bundle me into the car.

PS Wanting to cheer myself up, I went to see Ab Fab: The Movie. Isnt it just brilliant to see older women with mad shoes and bed head hair running the country, I mean the show?
With excruciating timing, David Cameron is due to take delivery next week of his 10 million prime ministerial jet.

It means he is likely get just one taste of life in Cam Force One  a short hop to a Nato conference in Warsaw on Friday  before handing it over to his successor.

The PMs supporters are not happy. Dave deserves his own plane. But the idea that treacherous Michael Gove could be flying the world in VIP comfort, imagining hes JFK, doesnt bear thinking about, says one.

With excruciating timing, David Cameron is due to take delivery next week of his 10 million prime ministerial jet

The new king of the pollsters, Tory peer Rob Hayward, the only expert who accurately forecast the Brexit victory, says even if Boris Johnson had not thrown in the towel on his leadership bid, hed have lost to Theresa May anyway.

A pal said to me that Tory associations would love Boris to be guest speaker at a dinner, but theyd feel much safer with Theresas finger on the nuclear button.

The mass resignations by Labour MPs trying to topple Jeremy Corbyn forced him to promote Barry Gardiner to Shadow Climate Change Secretary.

Gardiner certainly knows about global warming, or at least which bits of the globe are warm. During the devastating floods of two years ago, he jetted off on a 3,000-plus jolly to Mexico, where the MoS pictured him frolicking in the azure waters.

Most Labour backbenchers wish they could put Jez on a plane too  with a one-way ticket.

Now Lisa is no the case for a new boss

Barry Gardiner replaced manoeuvring Wigan MP Lisa Nandy who has come a long way since she starred in a sex photo casebook during her days as a Newcastle University student.

Barry Gardiner replaced manoeuvring Wigan MP Lisa Nandy (pictured) who has come a long way since she starred in a sex photo casebook during her days as a Newcastle University student

The strip, depicting Lisas search for a boyfriend, showed her naked in bed with another woman and concluded with her complaint: Ill never find a man! Time for a new strip: Where can I find a new leader?

Whatever Diane Abbotts credentials to be Corbyns aid supremo were, a faultless grasp of a world map presumably wasnt one of them.

Shortly before being made health spokeswoman, Abbott asked her opposite number Justine Greening what she was doing to help the drought-stricken Indonesian province of Davao del Norte. Greenings reply?

There is no province called Davao del Norte in Indonesia. It is actually in the Philippines.

Wizard's tricky moment

Boriss campaign strategist  Australian Sir Lynton Crosby  was steaming with Michael Goves decision to run for the Tory leadership, just two hours before his man was due to announce his own bid.

Fury turned to panic as MPs defected from the launch in droves, forcing the Wizard of Oz to order a dozen of his office workers to fill the empty seats. Awks, as youngsters say in these circumstances.

When Boris finally arrived, none of the Tory groupies was more enthusiastic than plebgate MP Andrew Mitchell. Winner! Winner! he yelled.
The tumour is incurable, but his family is refusing to give up hope

Next week he will meet with Australian neurosurgeon Dr Charlie Teo

Doctors are still determining the best form of treatment for Jimmy

Call it a mothers intuition, but Natalie Gilmour-Jurd knew there was something seriously wrong with her son.

Little Jimmy Junior Jurd had been unwell.

One Wednesday morning the then 19-month-old was unable to walk and started to vomit, his eyes rolled back in his head and he struggled to focus on his mother.

Adorable: Little Jimmy Junior Jurd was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer

Rare condition: The toddler's parents Mark Jurd and Natalie Gilmour-Jurd said doctors believe he is the only child in Australia with the condition

'We've got to act fast': Jimmy, 21 months, was diagnosed with high grade glioma, which doctors say is incurable

Mrs Gilmour-Jurd rushed her only son to the car and started to drive to the hospital, the ambulance meeting her en route.

They were saying it might just be a virus but I knew it wasnt, it was just too bizarre, the 31-year-old told Daily Mail Australia.

Two months later, little Jimmy was diagnosed with a rare and incurable form of brain cancer called a High Grade Glioma.

Terrifying: One Wednesday morning, Jimmy was unable to walk, started to vomit and could not focus on his mother

Doing tests: He was rushed to the hospital where doctors referred him to get a CT scan

Emergency testing: They found a spot on little Jimmy's brain, and he was taken by helicopter to Westmead Hospital in Sydney

The condition is more common in adults and older children, and Ms Gilmour-Jurd said doctors believe little Jimmy is the only child in Australia with the condition.

I couldnt believe what had happened, it was surreal, Mrs Gilmour-Jurd said.

You try and stay positive but it was just consuming me, I couldnt help but think the worse.

Jimmy was taken from his home in Chittawy on the New South Wales central coast to Wyong hospital before being transferred to Gosford where doctors performed a CT scan.

The scan showed what doctors believed to be a spot on the brain, and Jimmy was taken by helicopter to Westmead hospital in Sydney.

Hard to accept: I couldnt believe what had happened, it was surreal, Mrs Gilmour-Jurd said

Supportive family: Apart from sleeping more and suffering more headaches, Jimmy appears to be in good health

Expert advice: The family will meet with high profile Australian neurosurgeon Dr Charlie Teo next week

It was one of the worst nights, Ms Gilmour-Jurd said.

You think hes going to die  I was shocked and upset, I didnt know how to handle it.

Despite his condition, you would be forgiven for thinking there is nothing wrong with Jimmy.

Apart from sleeping more than usual and getting more headaches, the youngster appears to be in good health.

Treatment options: So far doctors have suggested Jimmy undergo chemotherapy to try and reduce the size of the tumour

Never giving up hope: The family hopes Dr Teo will be able to determine if the tumour is operable

Looking at the options: Jimmy could also undergo proton beam therapy in the US, which costs about $250,000

Next week he and his parents Mrs Gilmour-Jurd and her husband Mark Jurd, 31, will meet with high profile Australian neurosurgeon Dr Charlie Teo to determine whether Jimmys tumour is operable.

They will then decide his course of treatment, which could include chemotherapy to help reduce the size of the tumour.

The family have also looked in to treatment called proton beam therapy in the US that specifically targets the tumour in the brain.

Targeted therapy: Proton beam therapy would specifically target the tumour, without touching the rest of the brain

Optimistic: The end goal for anyone is to get it out, Mrs Gilmour-Jurd said

Community support: Jimmy has the support of his family, community and strangers who are helping raise funds for treatment

The treatment costs about $250,000, while surgery would cost about $80,000.

The end goal for anyone is to get it out, Mrs Gilmour-Jurd said.

The GP told us that its incurable and with no treatment its a pretty short life. Weve got to act fast.

A fundraising page has been set up for Jimmy, with an incredible $36,975 raised in 19 days.

Every bit helps: A fundraising page has been set up to cover his treatment costs, and has already raised $36,975

Overwhelming support: I cant thank everyone enough, its been unbelievable, Mrs Gilmour-Jurd said

Family, friends and strangers have rallied behind the family, leaving the Jurds overwhelmed by the support.

I cant thank everyone enough, its been unbelievable, Mrs Gilmour-Jurd said.
She first appeared in Vogue Australia 12 years ago, where she discussed her fairy tale wedding and what life was like as the newest addition to the Danish royal family.

And now, as the August cover girl for Vogue Australia, Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, 44, has offered yet another glimpse into her world... this time as a mother-of-four and inspiring role model for women.

Photographed by Peruvian living, fashion and portrait photographer, Mario Testino, the Princess and her family will feature in a number of stunning shots that capture both the formal nature of her role, and her more relaxed family life.

Stunning: Crown Princess Mary of Denmark has appeared on the cover of Vogue Australia alongside her husband Prince Frederik... 12 years on from her first cover appearance

Group shot: Photographed by, Mario Testino, the Princess also appeared in a snap with Frederik and Prince Christian, 10, Princess Isabella, nine and their five-year-old twins Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine

In an interview with Vogue Australia's editor-in-chief, Edwina McCann, the Australian-born royal discussed her charity work, passions and philanthropic causes including her own Mary Foundation and the Women Deliver conference.

Princess Mary has worked tirelessly to prove her commitment to charity over the years and has been a near constant presence in Denmark and abroad as she carries out royal duties and serves as a patron for some 25 international organisations.

The Princess and Crown Prince appear arm-in-arm on the cover of the issue - Frederik in a chic black suit and Mary in a stunning floor-length black gown and understated tiara as they wandered the grounds of their home at Amalienborg Palace.

Making a difference: In an interview with Vogue Australia editor-in-chief, Edwina McCann, the Australian-born royal discussed her charity work, passions and philanthropic causes including her own Mary Foundation

Another photo shows the pair in a more relaxed setting surrounded by their four children Prince Christian, 10, Princess Isabella, nine and their five-year-old twins Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine.

If I can inspire others and if others see something in me that can inspire them or motivate them, then that's a big compliment. Crown Princess Mary

In the stunning group photo, Princess Mary is seen donning a blue button-up shirt and jeans as she sits with the twins, while Prince Frederik wears a white button-up as he hugs the eldest two.

When asked whether she sees herself as a role model, the Princess said it's something she's 'aware' of but doesn't often think about it.

'I find it difficult to speak of myself as a role model, as role models are defined by the individual.

'It is what they see in a person that gives meaning or inspiration to them that makes another person a role model for them. Its not something I consciously think about,' Princess Mary said.

'But at the same time, I am very aware of my role and my responsibility. If I can inspire others and if others see something in me that can inspire them or motivate them, then that's a big compliment.'

Humble: 'I always find it difficult to speak of myself as a role model, you know, because I think it is other people and their impression of you that makes a role model,' Princess Mary said in the interview

Opening up: McCann said the Crown Princess 'kindly welcomed' Vogue Australia into her home, despite it being 12 years since their first encounter

McCann said the Crown Princess 'kindly welcomed' Vogue Australia into her home, despite it being 12 years since their first encounter.

'I have enormous admiration for both HRH Crown Prince Frederik and HRH Crown Princess Mary and the work they do,' McCann said.

'We discovered a woman at ease with her public life and position, who is driven to use her influence and the privilege it awards her to further causes close to her heart: gender equality and sustainability.

'She is knowledgeable, fiercely intelligent and well-informed about the issues. The Crown Princess is making her mark as a world leader and passionate advocate in these areas. With her energy and drive I suspect this is still only the beginning of the enormous contribution she will make.'
While some men choose to propose with extravagant flash mobs, fireworks and a band, one man has proven that a more understated approach can be just as (if not more) meaningful.

Troy Reddington, from Canada, touched the hearts of women around the world with his incredibly romantic proposal, after sharing a video of the heartwarming moment online.

Five years earlier, he and his now fiance Jennifer were camping on Eagle Lake, Ontario, when they decided to bury a time capsule filled with a list of their favourite songs, current mobile phones and dream jobs.

Scroll down for video

Adorable: Troy Reddington, from Canada, touched the hearts of women around the world with his incredibly romantic proposal, after sharing a video of the heartwarming moment online

Romantic: Five years earlier, he and his now fiance Jennifer were camping on Eagle Lake, when they decided to bury a time capsule filled with a list of their favourite songs, current mobile phones and dream jobs

'At the time I didn't realise that I was planning my proposal,' Troy said, adding that the pair had been dating for just eight months at the time.

'About five years later I snuck out at 3am with one of our kayaks before work and hiked out to the water and kayaked to the island on my own.

'Once I was there, I replaced the old cleaned out peanut butter jar with the new one that held a letter wrapped in ribbon and stamped with a red wax stamp. The letter inside said "Will you marry me?" on a light blue card stock.'

No clue: 'About five years later I snuck out at 3am with one of our kayaks before work and hiked out to the water and kayaked to the island on my own,' Troy said

Sneaky: 'Once I was there, I replaced the old cleaned out peanut butter jar with the new one that held a letter wrapped in ribbon and stamped with a red wax stamp,' he said

Surprise! Under the assumption that they were going to drive up north and open the original time capsule together, Jennifer filmed the entire trip without realising she was helping to film her own engagement video

Under the assumption that they were going to drive up north and open the original time capsule together, Jennifer filmed the entire trip without realising she was helping to film her own engagement video.

The romantic video shows the pair driving through the country together before getting into kayaks and paddling across to a scenic island in the middle of a lake.

They then find the time capsule under a rock and Troy acts surprised to see the original contents of the jar replaced with a letter.

Marry me? Just as Jennifer opens the letter, Troy gets down on one knee and proposes to his very teary-eyed and surprised girlfriend, who accepts his proposal immediately

Shocked: The adoring couple then embrace and take in the moment

Newly engaged: Jennifer then shows off her brand new diamond ring to the camera and the excited pair jump back into their kayaks and head back across the lake

Just as Jennifer opens the letter, Troy gets down on one knee and proposes to his very teary-eyed and surprised girlfriend, who accepts his proposal immediately.

The adoring couple embrace and take in the moment before Jennifer shows off her brand new diamond ring to the camera and the excited pair jump back into their kayaks and head back across the lake.
As children's movies go, it's certainly one that tugs on the heartstrings.

And 22 years after The Lion King's release, it's clear it still has the ability to reduce youngsters to tears.

A Channel 4 show has captured the reactions of British primary school children watching the Disney tearjerker for the first time, and their response is heartbreaking.

Huddled into the sofa, the Gogglesprogs - a spin-off to the hit show Gogglebox - shows the young participants' shock at the infamous scene that sees Scar murdering his brother, Mustafa, by throwing him off the edge of the cliff.

One little boy's eyes widen in surprise, while another youngster exclaims, 'Why would you do that to your brother?'

One little girl is seen blinking back tears, while another hides behind her cuddly toy in terror. She then wipes away tears with her jumper.

And as the protagonist, Simba, watches his father fall to his death, the children's horror is only too apparent.

Googlesprogs captured the reactions of British primary school children watching the Disney tearjerker for the first time, and their response is heartbreaking

One boy looks totally aghast as he watches a tear-jerking scene from the 1994 Disney movie

Last month, the show captured children's reactions to a documentary on US presidential candidate Donald Trump.

It showed how the youngsters were flummoxed by how old he is, and how his father's mantra was 'drummed' into his head.

Valencia, 12, from Hertfordshire, exclaims when she hears Donald's age: 'Hes 69 and he's trying to be president, he'll have to retire soon.'

Her friend Taya agrees, saying that Donald is 'crazy' to try and be President at his age.

The programme shows the young participants' shock at the infamous scene that sees Scar murdering his brother, Mustafa, by throwing him off the edge of the cliff (pictured)

As the protagonist, Simba, watches his father fall to his death, the children's horror is only too apparent

As the documentary continues, the children are shown images of Donald as a young boy posing proudly with his siblings.

The narrator explains that Donald's father raised him to be competitive, 'drumming a mantra into his head'. This is an alarming concept for Gogglesprog Jacob, 11, from Yorkshire.

The documentary on Donald is one of the programmes the youngsters watch from the comfort of their sofas on this week's show, which proves children really do say the funniest things.

The concept was born out of a one-off Christmas special of Channel 4's popular Gogglebox using children, and proved such a hit, the youngsters are back for their own series.

Gogglebox's Christmas special featuring children proved such a hit, the youngsters are now back for their own series

One little girl is seen blinking back tears, while another hides behind her cuddly toy in terror. She then wipes away tears with her jumper (pictured)

So far, the children have already given their opinions on shows such as Britain's Got Talent - debating what they think of the judges.

'I like David Walliams, he's funny,' said Dan, 12, from Kent. 'But I don't like Simon Cowell. Amanda and Alesha? Not bothered. If I had to go on a date with either one of them I'd say, "To be honest, I wouldn't choose either of you." I prefer Nicki Minaj.'

The Queen's 90th birthday celebrations at Windsor Castle weren't a hit with the boys.
Gay Christians will soon be able to look for love on dating site ChristianMingle for the first time after being ordered to remove restrictions limiting users to heterosexual matches.

The news, reported by Wall Street Journal, follows a class-action lawsuit that was settled in California courts, resulting in the site's parent company, Spark Network, agreeing to open doors to gay singles on their websites.

Currently ChristianMingle only allows users to identify themselves as a man seeking a woman or a woman seeking a man.

Changing up: ChristianMingle will need to adjust their search and profile settings to allow for same-sex matches, a California judge has ruled following a class-action claim

Having a look: The claim was filed by two gay men who had tried to use the website, and found that its restrictions were in violation of Californias anti-discrimination law (photo for representation)

These options will soon be changed to only asking if the user if a 'man' or a 'woman'.

After trying to use the site and finding that it violated Californias anti-discrimination law, two gay men filed the class action in 2013.

The law, known as the Unruh Civil Rights Act, requires any business to offer 'full and equal accommodations' to anyone of any sexual orientation.

Judge Jane Johnson ruled that Spark Network will have two years to change their search and profile features to accommodate same-sex matching.

The ruling is a leap forward for members of the LGBT community, who also consider themselves to be people of faith.

Adjustments to be made: The website currently only allows users to identify themselves as a man seeking a woman or a woman seeking a man, but will soon only be able to ask for gender

While some organizations in the Christian church maintain anti-gay leanings, plenty have also grown to be inclusive of LGBT people.

'I am gratified that we were able to work with Spark to help ensure that people can fully participate in all the diverse market places that make our country so special, regardless of their sexual orientation,' said Vineet Dubey, one of the men's lawyers, in a statement.

And the settlement doesn't only affect ChristianMingle, but also other Spark Network sites including SilverSingles.com, BlackSingles.com, CatholicMingle.com, and LDSSingles.com.

However, another one of the company's sites, JDate.com, was not a part of the lawsuit.
Import Certificates Vs. Tariffs:Im a proponent of USA could adopt an Import Tariff policy as described in the Wikipedia article entitled Import Certificates.Refer to:The subject of tariffs often arises within discussions of Import Certificates.Comparisons between tariffs and import certificate policies:Both tariffs and import certificate proposals would require importers of goods surrender somethings of value to the U.S. government before their goods are enabled to enter the USA and the policies can be drafted in a manner to be self-funded; (i.e. all direct costs due to the trade policy be eventually passed onto final USA purchasers of imported goods.The values of what importers are surrendering (and thus the additional expense to the importers) are proportionally related to approximate values of their shipments being brought into the USA.In both cases the net differences between goods costs to importers and their USA domestic market prices motivate the importation of goods into the USA; (availability is reflected within those market prices).The nature of the Import Certificate policy significantly reduces (if not entirely eliminates) USAs trade deficit of goods REGARDLESS of how small are the additions to prices paid by USA purchasers of imported goods. Only if tariffs were set to drastically increase prices of imports sold to USA purchasers, could we reasonably hope (but cannot assure) that USAs trade deficits of goods could be reduced to similar extents as that due to an Import Certificate policy.Rather than the proposed USA adoption of the transferable Import Certificates policy for USAs global trade of goods, our existing trade practices and all other proposed USA trade policies are more rather than less subject to mischief upon our economy. Within the certificate policy, (with no additional pro-action by our federal government, USAs economy would suffer less mischief perpetrated upon our global trade.Effects upon prices of imported goods within USAs domestic markets within an Import policy (rather than a tariff policy) are much more market and less government driven.Also due to market forces an Import Certificate policy serves as an indirect but somewhat effective subsidy of USAs exported goods.Respectfully, Supposn
A simple scratch to the inside of the womb could double a woman's chances of becoming pregnant, research suggests.

A review of eight trials found the 'cheap and simple' procedure, which uses a probe the width of a drinking straw, improved the odds of having a baby for women undergoing IVF treatment.

The 'endometrial scratch' technique has been around for some time  but there is much debate among experts about whether it is effective as it is not yet known how it might work.

A review of eight trials found the 'endometrial scratch' procedure improved the odds of having a baby for women undergoing IVF treatment

Theories include that as the womb tissue repairs itself after it is scratched, hormones are released and the new lining that grows is more receptive to an embryo.

The review of trials involving more than 1,000 women added more weight to arguments that the method can improve the odds of becoming pregnant.

But experts urged caution, pointing out that while the study found the scratch seemed to work for IVF patients, there is still insufficient evidence to recommend it for couples trying to conceive naturally.

They also stressed that scratching the inside of the womb can cause significant discomfort. In one of the reviewed studies, patients gave the procedure an average pain score of six out of ten.

The review, which was presented at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Helsinki, Finland, was conducted by researchers from Cochrane, a global organisation that assesses medical evidence to inform policy makers.

It found that the endometrial scratch  which is a similar process to taking a biopsy  roughly doubled the chance of a woman giving birth successfully compared to when no intervention was taken  from around 9 per cent to between 14 per cent and 28 per cent.

Experts urged caution, pointing out that while the study found the scratch seemed to work for IVF patients, there is still insufficient evidence to recommend it for couples trying to conceive naturally

However Sarah Lensen, of the University of Auckland in New Zealand, who led the review, pointed out that the evidence she and her team looked at was not of a high standard, adding: 'The results must be treated with caution.'

The procedure is already offered in the UK in some private fertility centres to women for whom IVF has previously failed, at a cost of around 300. Trials are now under way to investigate whether it should be more widely recommended.

But British experts said despite its increasing popularity, the jury is still out on whether the endometrial scratch should be recommended, and in what situations.

It is still open for debate Obstetrician Nick Macklon

Obstetrician Nick Macklon, of Southampton University, who is director of the city's Complete Fertility Centre, said: 'There's no evidence of good enough quality to imply that couples setting out to conceive spontaneously should seek this treatment from their doctors.'

Professor Macklon said the initial discovery that the endometrial scratch might work was purely by chance. Scientists in Israel doing a study on womb cells were taking biopsies from women, and 'someone noticed those patients having these biopsies all seemed to conceive in the next cycle'.

He added: 'It was from there that the interest in this potential technique developed but we are still uncertain as to if it works and the mechanism is still open for debate.'

British Fertility Society chairman Adam Balen, a professor of reproductive medicine and surgery at Leeds Teaching Hospitals, said: 'We're certainly not suggesting that women who want to conceive should go out and have this procedure.'
More than a third of children born to single mothers from IVF treatment have mixed or negative feelings about not having a father, research has found.

So-called 'solo mothers' form a growing number of those having fertility treatment  but little research has been done on the effects on their children.

Typically well-educated and with good careers, they have children without a partner out of choice because they fear that time is running out for them to have a baby, and conceive through a sperm donor, the Cambridge University researchers said.

So-called 'solo mothers' form a growing number of those having fertility treatment  but little research has been done on the effects on their children (file photo)

Some 39 per cent of the children in the survey, who were aged four to nine, were 'neutral' about not having a father around, according to interviews with solo mothers.

But a significant number were less happy, with mothers saying 27 per cent had 'mixed feelings' about not having a father, and another 8 per cent feeling 'negatively' about it.

Comments made by two mothers were highlighted by researchers in a study being presented at the annual conference of the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology in Helsinki.

One mother of a five-year-old boy told them: 'I remember the first time he asked me a question, was when he was about three, and we were coming home from swimming and this little voice in the back of the car said, 'Mummy, why don't I have a daddy'.'

Another solo mother, of twin seven-year-old girls, said: 'They don't talk about the donor  they talk about a father figure and 'You need to go out and find somebody to be a dad to us'.

'They don't talk about the biological father. They haven't made that connection.'

Solo mothers  who have neither a male or a same-sex partner  form 15 per cent of all women registered at IVF clinics for treatment.

While the numbers are small  just 952 solo mothers in 2013, according to the latest figures from the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority  this has risen by 226 per cent since 2006.

The researchers said children from mothers who were single by choice had advantages over the typical child of a single mother, having not experienced parental conflict from divorce or other problems resulting from a marital breakdown, for example.

According to interviews with solo mothers, 27 per cent of children surveyed had 'mixed feelings' about not having a father, and another 8 per cent feeling 'negatively' about it (file photo)

But they added: 'Nevertheless, they grow up without a father from the start and, for those conceived by donor insemination at a fertility clinic, do not know the identity of their biological father. This makes them distinct from most other children of single mothers, whose fathers may be absent but whose identity is known.'

The team spoke to 51 mothers who had IVF treatment at a clinic in Cambridge.

In interviews with 37 of the children, researchers said 51 per cent did not want to change their family circumstances. Only one wanted the donor father to be involved in family life.

All the children had at least one friend at school and 51 per cent had five or more. Most  63 per cent  said they had not been teased at school, while 34 per cent had suffered 'trivial teasing' although this was not related to being without a father.

A nuclear family is still the norm Researcher Sophie Zadeh

Researcher Sophie Zadeh said: 'This is the first study that has directly asked children born of sperm donation to single mothers about their experiences.

'The vast majority did not mention the absence of father or their donor conception.

'However, in some cases these children will be the only ones in their class without a father in the home, and from mothers' reports, it is clear that most children do ask about the absence of a father.

'In terms of psychological adjustment, however, these children are generally doing well.

'Most of the mums would have preferred a traditional family set-up, and it's not surprising that some of the mothers reported that their children feel negatively or have mixed feelings about the absence of a father, because they live in a world where a nuclear family is still largely the norm.

'Solo mothers' have children without a partner out of choice because they fear that time is running out for them to have a baby, and conceive through a sperm donor, Cambridge University researchers said (file photo)

'But we did find in terms of psychological adjustment they seem to be doing well, and these thoughts and feelings were not conveyed by children in their own reports to researchers.'

Norman Wells, of the Family Educational Trust, said: 'In its zeal to be at forefront of advances in new reproductive technologies, the scientific community and the political establishment have tended to give insufficient consideration to the implications and consequences for the children who are produced by artificial means.
Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti is consistently asking Kashmiris to look towards thriving democracy in India instead of war-ravaged Muslim world.

Even as she denounced the militant attack on the paramilitary Centre Reserve Police Force, saying she is ashamed of being Muslim.

The Jammu and Kashmir Police has started biggest exercise of profiling Imams of mosque to find any correlations between rising anger in the valley, stone throwing and mosque sermons.

J&K CM Mehbooba Mufti has been trying to motivate the Kashmiri youth

According to the sources, Jammu and Kashmir polices CID wing has mobilised men and material to get the details of Imams, including their name, family composition, and ideological affiliation and bank details to understand the relations between stone throwing, militancy and role of Imams in it.

The Imams of mosques run by Jamaate- Islami and Jamait-ulahlehadees are in focus.

The CID has to collect details of political affiliation of Imam, their affiliation with NGOs, their property details, source of income, convictions, whether they have relatives in the rest of the country and Pakistan, their acquaintances in Pakistan, FIR details if any and proof of political allegiance.
With an eye on the 2017 Punjab Assembly election, AAP on Sunday unveiled its Youth Manifesto promising 25 lakh jobs in five years, free Wi-Fi hotspots in villages, and a special law to ensure drug dealers get life imprisonment.

Delhi Chief Minister and AAP National Convener Arvind Kejriwal unveiled the partys manifesto for young people.

The party, which is aiming to capture power in the state, will come out with separate manifestos for different sections of society.

AAP National Convener Arvind Kejriwal unveiled the partys manifesto in Amritsar

Our endeavour is to make the Punjab youth job creators, instead of job seekers, the party said in its manifesto, prepared by Punjab Dialogue Committee Chairman Kanwar Sandhu.

It also said that 25 lakh jobs and employment opportunities will be created in the next five years.

AAP, if it forms a government in the state, will create employment and entrepreneurship opportunities in both rural and urban areas, it said. The party has also promised to make the administration corruption-free.

An AAP government would launch a massive drive to root out corruption from all levels of administration and restore the credibility of the government of Punjab, and the prestige of the state as the pre-eminent destination for setting up businesses, industry and trade, it said.

AAP would also set up 147 entrepreneurship and skilling centres, one in each block of the state.

Special emphasis would be laid on agriculture and allied industries, including food processing, dairy farming, and horticulture.

Incubation centres, called Punjab Launch Pads, will be set up in 10 major cities - Mohali, Batala, Pathankot, Ludhiana, Patiala, Jalandhar, Bathinda, Hoshiarpur, Ferozepur and Amritsar. This will help the youth of Punjab turn their dreams of becoming innovators and entrepreneurs into reality, with access to technology, infrastructure, finance, industry mentors and market opportunities, the party said.

A Foreign Employment Youth Board with five branches in Jalandhar, Amritsar, Mohali, Ludhiana and Sangrur would be established to advise and train young people for foreign jobs.

A skills university, called Kanshi Ram Youth Skill University, would be set up in Doaba Region, with two regional campuses in Malwa and Majha.
Contrary to reports that the Congress has decided to go ahead with Priyanka Gandhi as chief campaigner for the UP elections, party sources in Delhi said no such decision has been made so far.

The Congress, they said, is waiting for party vice-president Rahul Gandhi to come back from his vacation abroad. Rahul will then decide if Priyanka is going to campaign across the state.

An All-India Congress Committee (AICC) functionary closely involved in the states affairs said the issue was still under consideration, and no decision can be taken in Rahuls absence.

Time for a promotion? Priyanka has so far restricted herself to campaigning in the Gandhi family strongholds of Amethi and Rae Bareli

Rahul, who flew abroad on June 20, a day after he turned 46, is expected to return from his vacation soon.

The exact role that Priyanka will play in UP will be decided between the two Gandhi siblings.

"All reports about the Congress declaring Priyanka as the partys chief campaigner for the UP polls is pure speculation right now. The decision will taken only when Rahul is in the country, the AICC official said.

According to sources close to the Gandhi family the speculation is the handiwork of the state unit, which believes the party can do well in Uttar Pradesh only if Priyanka campaigns extensively.

The Congress won just 22 of the 403 seats in the state in the 2007 assembly polls, and 28 in 2012.

A weak organisation and infighting among leaders have been two main causes for the poor results, they said.

The Congress is waiting for Rahul Gandhi (centre)'s return from his vacation before deciding on Priyanka Gandhi's role in the UP polls

Priyanka has so far restricted herself to campaigning in the Gandhi family strongholds of Amethi and Rae Bareli, represented by Rahul and Sonia Gandhi in the Lok Sabha.

She will be the star campaigner in UP, Congress legislative party leader Pradeep Mathur told Mail Today, reflecting a sentiment shared by lakhs of party workers across the state.

Priyanka is immensely popular in UP, in part thanks to her striking resemblance to her grandmother, former prime minister Indira Gandhi. Her entry as the lead campaigner for the crisis-ridden Congress could turn around the fortunes of the grand old party, state leaders acknowledged.

They recalled how Priyankas sharp attacks had given the jitters to Narendra Modi, then the BJPs prime ministerial nominee, while she was campaigning in Amethi during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

AICC sources, however, said the state unit simply wants a Gandhi to deliver a victory for them and should ponder why it has not been able to impress voters over the past decades.

The Congress, facing attacks on the Gandhis from an aggressive BJP since the party lost the 2014 polls, is desperate for a win in UP, which would send a positive signal across the country.

Though winning the state appears to be a tall order, party strategists want the Congress to significantly improve its tally in the assembly and then be able to play a role in the formation of the next government.

As Sonia and Rahul were the only two winners in the 2014 national polls from UP, which sends 80 members to the Lok Sabha, the family is taking a keen interest in the assembly polls slated to be held early next year.

The induction of strategist Prashant Kishor a few months ago, and the recent appointment of party veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad as the AICC general secretary in charge of UP, indicate that the Congress is investing its precious resources in the poll-bound state.

Azad had acknowledged that there was an overwhelming demand from state leaders for Priyanka to be the face of the UP Congress, or at least that she should campaign for the party.
Amid differing views on whether it should host an Iftar party, the UP Congress finally opted to organise a community event in Lucknow, the capital of the poll-bound state.

Earlier, the UP Congress had cancelled the Roza Iftar party, after the AICC decided to distribute grains to the poor instead this year.

However, the state units minority department has now announced that it will host an Iftar.

Sources said there is a fear within the UP Congress that not hosting an Iftar party would send the wrong message to the Muslim community ahead of the upcoming Assembly polls

Sources said there were fears within the party that not hosting an Iftar party would send out the wrong message to the Muslim community, at a time when the Congress is preparing for the assembly polls slated for early next year.

AICC general secretary in charge of UP affairs, Ghulam Nabi Azad, and state unit chief Nirmal Khatri attended the Iftar, as well as Congress legislative parry leader Pradeep Mathur and a host of party leaders from the state.

AICC secretaries Prakash Joshi and Zubair Ahmed, who assist Azad in UP, were also present at the get-together.

The Iftar comes days after Azad toured Muslim-dominated areas of Bulandshar in western UP to mark his political tours across the state.

State party leaders, meanwhile, have been individually hosting Iftar parties. One such party was hosted in Bulandshahr on Thursday, which was attended by senior leaders, including Azad.

Muslims have supported the Congress in the past and the party does not want to take any chances in an election year.

Voters in UP are not sophisticated to be able to understand the AICC decision to visit Madrasas and distribute grains to the poor than hosting lavish Iftars at five star hotels, said Mathur.

Muslims constitute around 18 per cent of the voters in UP, and have been voting for the SP in significant numbers while also casting ballots in favour of BSP nominees.
Global brewing giant SABMiller paid a whopping 120million to buy craft brewer Meantime last year, despite it making an annual profit of just 1.5million on sales of 17million in 2014, according to the most recent accounts filed.

Reports at the time of the sale in May 2015 estimated the price at between 30 million and 50 million, but the true figure was revealed in SABMillers annual report, released last month.

The windfall was shared by Meantime Brewery Company founder Alistair Hook, Nick Miller, who was chief executive at the time, and about 60 other shareholders.

Glass half full: Alistair Hook was one of two main shareholders

Rupert Ponsonby, a barley farmer and public relations consultant to the food and drink industry, was an early investor at the company, based in Greenwich, South-East London.

He told The Mail on Sunday that it was splendiferous to have been able to share in Meantimes good fortune.

It can be really hard for a bigger brewer to get into the craft beer market and particularly to acquire a company with such integrity as Meantime, he said.

Alistair Hook has from the start been interested in using different hops and yeast in his beers and keeping the companys individuality, and the Meantime name, thanks to Greenwich Meantime, is a globally-recognised brand that could be huge in many different countries in the future.

Meantime was founded by Hook in 1999 in his Greenwich flat with 500,000 borrowed from friends and family. He and Miller owned the two largest stakes. It is one of the top-performing modern craft breweries, with beer sales growing 58 per cent in 2014.
BUY THIS: Tate & Lyle

Liberum is positive on ingredients business Tate & Lyle and this week raised its target price for the stock to 790p.

It has increased its profit expectations for the firm by 8 per cent, largely driven by a favourable dollar to pound exchange rate  Tates pre-tax profits rise 1.3m for every $0.01 fall in sterling.

Sweet taste of success: Liberum said the firms decision to focus on speciality ingredients is the right one

Liberum said the firms decision to focus on speciality ingredients  it sold its historic sugar business, including its golden syrup brand, back in 2010  is the right one.

On Friday its shares rose 3.3 per cent, or 22p to 690.5p.

SELL THIS: Pearson

Brokers at Berenberg think its time to sell shares in education company Pearson.

Pearson has a big presence in the US market where, it is expected, college enrolments are likely to decline over the next 12 to 18 months.
The frustration is audible in Sir Howard Daviess otherwise calm voice. Almost exactly a year after he recommended a major expansion at Heathrow airport, the issue has once again been kicked into the long grass.

After the political fallout from Brexit, the question will not now be settled by David Cameron, but left to whoever takes his place at No 10.

Davies, who chaired the Airports Commission, is exasperated but not surprised.

Delay: Sir Howard Davies made his recommendation 12 months ago for Heathrow expansion

Did I expect a decision by now? When I published the report I expected they would have made a decision by now, certainly. After this past week, did I expect them to make a decision now? No I didnt, he says.

But if anything, he is more certain than ever that a decision to expand Britains biggest airport is now essential.

Post-Brexit this is even more important, he declares. The Brexit argument is that the UKs future growth will come from focusing on markets outside Europe, so we are not tied to slow growth countries and instead focus our energies elsewhere, like the Far East.

That falls to the ground instantly if we cannot actually fly to any of those places, he says drily.

Internationally, too, Brexit is seen as the country turning in on itself. But a decision on airport expansion would be a critical symbol that the Government is prepared to make difficult decisions in order to turn outward.

This would allow them to put some flesh on the bones for that idea that we want to engage with the wider world.

Debate: After the political fallout from Brexit, the question will not now be settled by David Cameron, but left to whoever takes his place at No 10

And Davies, a former Bank of England economist, also argues that Heathrow expansion could provide a boost to exactly those sectors which now face the risk of a slowdown following the Brexit vote.

Look at what is happening to the construction sector. Shares in leading builders have taken an absolute hammering. Big infrastructure projects do affect that and a decision to build a new runway would have a terrific effect, he says.

It would be a big boost for the construction industry. It would come on stream in two or three years time, just when present projects would be tailing off.

Davies rolls on into another economic case for airport expansion.

The Government seems to have adopted a view that suddenly all parties will agree

This is also about inward investment: we know there is a pause happening, we can see that in the property markets, but this project would be bringing funding into the UK by inward investment. This is not public money, either, it will be funded by the big overseas pension funds and by sovereign wealth funds.

If the Government could announce it and commit to it, then that is a signal to other investors that the UK is still prepared to make big decisions and it is now a more significant decision than it was before because the Government has to show it is open to the world.

That line about no public money is a little disingenuous: Heathrow is set to cost 17.6 billion to build a new runway, while it would cost nearly 6 billion of taxpayers money for road developments, including shifting the M25 into a tunnel, though the Government has said it would not pay for this. Gatwick claims its second runway would cost 7.1 billion and lead to less environmental damage and far less noise pollution and disruption.

But the economic issues around the airports decision have often been put in the shade by the politics. Residents (read voters) in West London were often opposed and there were the rival plans from Gatwick. And, of course, a scheme for an airport in the Thames estuary backed by the one-time London Mayor  and so dubbed Boris Island.

The less said about Boris Island the better

Bye bye Boris: Johnsons plan for a Thames estuary airport is dead

The island idea was flatly rejected by Davies and is now as dead as Boris Johnsons bid to become Prime Minister.

Although Davies favoured Heathrow, he left a tiny bit of wriggle room in his report, which has allowed rival Gatwick to continue lobbying for its case. A decision though will have to wait.

A weary Davies comments: I am afraid the Government seems to have adopted a view that some propitious moment will turn up when all parties will agree with each other. But, as the French say, gouverner, cest choisir  to govern is to choose. 

Davies knows whereof he speaks: he is a former private secretary to the British ambassador to France and is also Professor of Practice at the Paris Institute of Political Science.

As well as being a former director of the London School of Economics  a post which may be regarded as a blot on his otherwise clean copybook since he resigned following its decision to accept funding from an institution controlled by the son of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, Saif, who had been awarded a PhD by the university  Davies has a long record as one of the great and the good.

He is chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland, where the taxpayers stake has been hammered in a post-Brexit world as its share price has plummeted; was formerly deputy governor of the Bank of England; and was the first chairman of the Financial Services Authority.

The right man, it would seem, to assess the competing claims of two airports which are key to a brighter future for the UKs currently congested trade in air travel and freight  Heathrow is the UKs biggest port, with 25 per cent of all our exports by value going through it in the cargo holds of its planes.

HEATHROW is owned by international investors led by Spains Ferrovial group, while Gatwick is owned by New York-based Global Infrastructure Partners, with a substantial share owned by Abu Dhabi, a Korean and a Californian pension fund.

The Gatwick camp says Davies was wrong to favour Heathrow. His report said Gatwick would not expand to reach 40 million passengers for a decade.

In fact, Gatwick reached the 41 million passenger mark last week. And while Gatwick is known for its short-haul flights, it points out it is expanding long haul, too, with new routes to New York and Lima as well as China. Its plans are politically deliverable in a way that Heathrows ambitious expansion scheme simply isnt, it says.

But the Commission did come to a conclusion, after exhaustive study, and that conclusion was in favour of Heathrow. All that is lacking are the political decisions.

So what about the two main candidates for leading the Tory party, Theresa May and Michael Gove  are they pro-Heathrow expansion?

Davies, who is known to have discussed the issue at least with May, will not be drawn on what he believes either of them would decide.
Former Vice President Al Gore's daughter and other activists arrested at a protest of a natural gas pipeline in Boston have pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges.

Karenna Gore, activist Tim DeChristopher and nine others were arraigned Friday on charges including trespassing, resisting arrest and disturbing the peace.

Speaking to reporters outside the hearing she said: 'I'm supporting the people of Roxbury in fighting the Spectra pipeline.'

Former Vice President Al Gore's daughter and other activists arrested at a protest of a natural gas pipeline in Boston have pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges. Pictured: Karenna Gore in court Friday

Speaking to reporters outside the hearing she said: 'I'm supporting the people of Roxbury in fighting the spectre pipepline.'

'I'm really struck by the fact that we are now in a situation where we could make a transition to renewable energy, we know that we must do that, the climate impacts are already here and yet fossil fuel infrastructure continues to be built against the will of local communities only because of the power of corporations.'

She added: 'I'm here as a mother-of-three, a 42-year-old woman who has had a lot of my own experiences and yes, I do accept my father's work has informed my position.'

Twenty-three protesters were arrested Wednesday when they tried to block construction of Spectra Energy's West Roxbury Lateral pipeline.

Several of those arrested struck deals to have their charges reduced to civil infractions or to serve probation.

Gore, DeChristopher and four others didn't agree to those conditions and were ordered back to court July 29. They also were ordered to stay away from the pipeline construction site.

Houston-based Spectra Energy Corp. says the pipeline will provide a reliable energy source.

Karenna Gore, daughter of former Vice President Al Gore protests at the site of Spectra Energy's West Roxbury Lateral pipeline in Boston on Wednesday

She was among demonstrators who tried to block construction activity on the site by lying in a trench dug for the pipeline and refusing to move until firefighters removed them, said protest group Resist the Pipeline & Stop the West Roxbury Lateral

Gore said in an email last week that she was honored to be part of the protest 'as they made the case that there are higher moral principles at stake here that merit nonviolent civil disobedience'.

'The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should be helping us transition to renewable energy like solar and wind but instead they almost always defer to the fossil fuel industry,' she wrote.

Al Gore, who served as vice president under Democratic President Bill Clinton, said he was proud of his daughter.

'We are facing an existential crisis and should speed up the transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy and a decarbonized economy,' he said through a spokeswoman.

Houston-based Spectra Energy Corp. said it does not condone actions that take first responders away from their duties.

Protesters are seen holding signs opposing the pipeline

Al Gore, who served as vice president under Democratic President Bill Clinton, said he was proud of his daughter. They are seen together in this June 2014 file photo

'Our pipelines provide a vital source of reliable, affordable energy for the nation's homes, hospitals, businesses and schools. Low energy prices help everyone, particularly those least able to pay their bills,' company spokesman Creighton Welch said in a statement.

The 5-mile pipeline is part of a larger, roughly $1billion plan to expand natural gas capacity in New England.

Protesters said Buddhist, Jewish and Christian clergy members were among those charged with resisting arrest, as was noted climate change activist Tim DeChristopher, who a few years ago tried to stop drilling operations in Utah.

'We can no longer pretend like what Spectra is doing here in West Roxbury is anything other than digging a mass grave,' DeChristopher said in remarks at the protest.
He hadnt ever planned on doing a theme park, said Linder. He had my kids over and thought, How can I keep them entertained and make it fun and get their imagination going? He put them in this whole fantasy type of thing as pirates. It was very homegrown. I dont think he ever thought hed build a theme park, he just got carried away and more grandkids came and its just magical.
Delta County Republican Party committee chairwoman Linda Sorenson (pictured) has resigned

The chairwoman of the Delta County Republican Party who was accused of favoritism and posting a racist meme on her Facebook page has resigned.

Party officials were upset after a photo comparing President Barack Obama to a chimpanzee appeared on Linda Sorenson's Facebook page, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reported.

The photo depicted former President Ronald Reagan bottle feeding a chimpanzee and included the text, 'I'll be damned... Reagan used to babysit Obama.'

Sorenson stepped down after an accountability meeting was convened by the county's Republican Central Committee investigating the allegations.

She announced her decision to resign in an email to supporters.

The committee was investigating allegations that Sorenson and others made that her Facebook page was 'hacked,' and whether she violated party rules by endorsing a primary candidate.

Sorenson said her Facebook page was hacked, but Colorado Party Chairman Steve House said that was not the case.

And in an interview in May after the image was posted, Sorenson said she did not care if people were offended by the image.

'I really don't care if people are offended by it,' she told The Big Media Blog of the post. 'Un-friend me. Stop looking at me on Facebook.'

She was accused of favoritism and posting a racist Obama meme on her Facebook page. The photo depicted former President Ronald Reagan bottle feeding a chimpanzee and included the text, 'I'll be damned... Reagan used to babysit Obama'

She later apologized saying she did care if anyone was offended.

'I admit to saying to the blogger that; "I don't care if you're offended," however I do care very much if anyone else was offended,' Sorenson wrote in an apology, according to Colorado Statesmans Ernest Luning.

'Please forgive me for being insensitive and not thinking of others in the heat of the moment.'

Don Suppes, mayor of Orchard City, who is running for the Delta County Commission, said he was not at the meeting, but he got the email and agreed with the decision.

'There's no room for racism, intended or unintended, in society,' he said.

'It's best for the party, best for the county, that she step down.'

President Barack Obama pictured on Friday. Sorenson said her Facebook page was hacked, but Colorado Party Chairman Steve House said that was not the case

Sorenson admitted to 'liking' the 'tired old Internet meme' and apologized for her bad judgment last month

Party members said Sorenson also urged people to vote for U.S. Senate candidate Daryl Glenn, even though six Republicans were competing for the right to challenge Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet in the June 28 Republican primaries. Glenn won the primary.

Under party rules, officials of state and local parties, including their leaders, are not allowed to endorse one primary candidate over another.

'That is one of the hardest parts of that job,' Suppes said.
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This horrifying first-hand video shows the deadly inferno that ripped through a packed Baghdad shopping centre - moments after an ISIS suicide bomb attack rocked the building.

More than 125 are feared dead after a truck laden with explosives was detonated outside the mall in the Karada district of the Iraqi capital which was rammed with shoppers preparing for Eid festival.

Most of the victims were inside the multi-story shopping and amusement mall, where dozens burned to death or suffocated in thick black smoke.

Shocking footage taken inside the shopping centre shows huge flames engulfing the building as a panic-stricken man behind the camera screams out.

At least 15 children were among those killed in the atrocity while more than 200 were injured. It was followed shortly after by a second blast in the east of the city which killed five more.

The bombings, which came near the end of the holy month of Ramadan, demonstrated the extremists' ability to mount significant attacks despite major battlefield losses, including the city of Fallujah, which was declared 'fully liberated' from ISIS just over a week ago.

Scroll down for video

Inferno: Video captured the horrifying moment shoppers were trapped inside a Baghdad shopping centre as an inferno ripped through the building moments after a devastating ISIS suicide bomb attack

Iraqi firefighters and civilians evacuate bodies of victims killed during the ca car bomb at a commercial area in Karada in Baghdad, Iraq

Devastating: Pictures of the bomb site show the power of the explosion as firefighters and rescuers work at the scene

Iraqi men carry a coffin in the holy Iraqi city of Najaf on July 3, 2016, during a funeral procession for the victims of a suicide bombing that ripped through Baghdad's busy shopping district of Karrada

Iraqi men mourn over bodies after they lost five members of their family in a suicide bombing that ripped through Baghdad's Karrada

Iraqi security forces and civilians gather at the site after a suicide car bomb occurred in the Karrada shopping area in Baghdad

Mourners pray near the coffins of their relatives, who were killed in a suicide vehicle bomb in the Karrada shopping area in Baghdad

Emergency: Firefighters rush to put out the blaze as civilians gather at the scene of the terror attack in the early hours of this morning

Iraqi firefighters extinguish a fire as civilians gather after a car bomb at a commercial area in Baghdad's Karada neighborhood early Sunday

UN Iraq envoy Jan Kubich condemned the 'cowardly and heinous act of unparallelled proportions,' calling on authorities to bring those responsible to justice.

A police officer at the scene said the first attack killed 15 children, 10 women and six policemen.

The suicide bomber struck shortly after midnight, when families and young people were out on the streets after breaking their daylight fast for the holy month of Ramadan.

Most of the victims were inside a multi-story shopping and amusement mall, where dozens burned to death or suffocated, officials said.

'It was like an earthquake,' said Karim Sami, a 35-year-old street vendor. 'I wrapped up my goods and was heading home when I saw a fire ball with a thunderous bombing. I was so scared to go back and started to make phone calls to my friends, but none answered,' the father of three added. He said that one of his friends had been killed, another was wounded and one was still missing.

'I knew all of them; they are all my friends,' said Sami Kadhim, one of those digging through the remains of the shop.

Kadhim said he brought his friend Mustafa some juice from a nearby vendor moments before the blast, then went home to sleep.

'After the explosion, there was nothing there except fire. I couldn't see Mustafa because his place' was ablaze, Kadhim said.

Baghdad has been hit by a number of bombings this year, but none as deadly as this attack which combined explosives and shrapnel with raging flames. Identifying all of the victims who are found will also be an enormous challenge.

Civil defence members found a body near where Kadhim was searching, but it was burned beyond recognition and may require DNA testing to be identified.

'It is not possible to know who this body belongs to,' one of them said. A list of victims posted at a nearby hospital listed some as 'unknown'.

Black banners bearing the names of victims hang from some shops in the area, which has been closed off by security forces. While dozens died in the bombing and subsequent fires, some made narrow escapes.

'A number jumped off the roofs of buildings despite the height,' sustaining injuries including broken feet, said shop owner Sari Mohammed.

And 'three people hid inside a refrigerator on the first floor, and after the fire was extinguished, they came out alive,' Mohammed said.

Terror: Hundreds were injured when the blast rocked the commercial area in the Karada district of the Iraqi capital while the streets were filled with young people and families

The bombings, which came near the end of the holy month of Ramadan, demonstrated the extremists' ability to mount significant attacks despite major battlefield losses, including the city of Fallujah, which was declared 'fully liberated' from IS just over a week ago

Over the last year, Iraq forces have racked up territorial gains against ISIS, retaking the city of Ramadi and the towns of Hit and Rutba, all in Iraq's vast Anbar province west of Baghdad

The suicide bomber struck shortly after midnight, when families and young people were out on the streets after breaking their daylight fast for the holy month of Ramadan.

At the height of the extremist group's power in 2014, ISIS rendered nearly a third of the country out of government control

The explosion was so fierce that it blasted the side off the shopping centre and completely destroyed vehicles nearby

Within hours, ISIS claimed responsibility for the bombing in a statement posted online, saying they had deliberately targeted Shiite Muslims. The authenticity of the statement has not been verified, but it was posted on a militant website commonly used by the extremists.

At the scene, firefighters and civilians were seen carrying the dead away, their bodies wrapped in blankets and sheets. Smoke billowed from the shopping center, which was surrounded by the twisted and burned wreckage of cars and market stalls.

A group of women were sitting on the pavement, crying for their loved ones.

In the second attack, an improvised explosive device went off in Baghdad's northern Shaab area, killing five people and wounding 16, another police officer said. No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but it bore the hallmarks of ISIS militants who often target commercial districts and Shiite areas.

A weeping Zainab Mustafa brought a photo of her husband to the still-smouldering site, seeking word of him and their two missing children.

The three had gone out the night before to buy clothes for the upcoming holiday marking the end of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, and Mustafa has not heard from them since.

'We have looked everywhere; members of my family are looking for them,' said Mustafa.

The street in the Karrada area is littered with rubble, and the search for victims within the burned buildings could take days.

'The lists of victims I saw included whole families - the father and his sons, the mother and her daughters - whole families were wiped out by this explosion,' a member of the civil defence forces said.

'We need a number of days to be able to recover the bodies of victims. It is a difficult task,' he said.

Fadhel Salem is missing two of his brothers who were in the family's shop.

'I think they are still there inside the store, but I can't see anything because of the heavy smoke,' he said.

Five people worked with shovels to try to find their friends at another shop where the ceiling had collapsed.

Now, ISIS is estimated to control only 14 percent of Iraqi territory, according to the office of Iraq's prime minister

Most of the victims were inside a multi-story shopping and amusement mall, where dozens burned to death or suffocated, officials said

Within hours, ISIS claimed responsibility for the bombing in a statement posted online, saying they had deliberately targeted Shiite Muslims

Medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke anonymously because they were not authorised to release information to the press

Medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke anonymously because they were not authorised to release information to the press.

The high death toll made it the second deadliest attack in the capital this year. On May 11, ISIS militants carried out three car bombings in Baghdad, killing 93 people.

Hours after the bombing, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and senior politicians visited the blast site. Video footage uploaded to social media showed an angry crowd, with people calling al-Abadi a 'thief' and shouting at his convoy. Eyewitness said the crowd pelted the al-Abadi's car with rocks, shoes and cans.

Until the government launched its Fallujah operation, the prime minister had faced growing social unrest and anti-government protests sparked, in part, by popular anger at the lack of security in the capital. In one month, Baghdad's highly-fortified Green Zone - which houses government buildings and diplomatic missions - was stormed twice by anti-government protesters.

Iraqi firefighters and civilians carry the bodies of victims killed in a car bomb at a commercial area in Karada neighborhood

ISIS still controls Iraq's second largest city of Mosul as well as significant patches of territory in the country's north and west.

A man comforts a woman in the aftermath of the devastating attack, which has claimed dozens of lives in Baghdad

Rescuers have been looking for survivors in the burnt out shell of the shopping centre. Dramatic pictures show how fire ripped through the building

A fireman hoses down a burning building after the suicide car bomb in the Karrada shopping area in Baghdad, Iraq

HOW A DEADLY WAVE OF ISIS BOMBINGS HAS KILLED HUNDREDS OF CIVILIANS IN IRAQ SINCE JANUARY June 9: Two ISIS-claimed suicide bomb attacks near the entrance of a military base in Taji, north of Baghdad, and close to a market in the Iraqi capital kill at least 18 people. May 17: A series of attacks including suicide bombings claimed by ISIS kill at least 48 people in Baghdad. The deadliest bombing hit the frequently targeted Sadr City, a Shiite district in northern Baghdad, killing at least 24. May 12: At least 16 people are killed when gunmen attack a cafe with gunfire and grenades north of Baghdad then detonate suicide belts against security forces in pursuit. ISIS claims the attack on the cafe in the town of Balad popular with fans of Real Madrid football club. May 11: ISIS claims three car bombs in Baghdad, including a huge blast at a market in a Shiite area, that kill at least 94 people, in the bloodiest day in the Iraqi capital since the start of the year. The worst bombing hits Sadr City, killing at least 64 people. Another suicide car bomb attack kills at least 17 people at the entrance to the northwestern neighbourhood of Kadhimiya, which is home to an important Shiite shrine. In the Jamiyah district of western Baghdad, another car bomb kills at least 13 people. May 1: ISIS carries out rare attacks in mainly Shiite southern Iraq, killing at least 33 people with twin suicide car bomb blasts in the city of Samawa. April 30: A car bombing targets Shiite pilgrims in an area near Baghdad, killing at least 23 people. The bomb is left on a road in the Nahrawan area used by Shiite pilgrims walking to the shrine of an imam in northern Baghdad for annual commemorations. March 25: In an attack claimed by ISIS, a suicide bomber blows himself up during a trophy ceremony after a local football tournament near Iskandiriyah, killing at least 32 people, many of them teenagers and children. March 6: At least 61 people are killed when a massive truck bomb claimed by ISIS explodes at a crowded checkpoint at one of the entrances to the city of Hilla. February 28: Bombings claimed by the jihadist group kill at least 33 people near a market in the Sadr City area. January 11: In two attacks claimed by ISIS, jihadist gunmen and bombers kill at least 12 people in a busy market area of Baghdad, while a double blast at a cafe claims another 20 lives. Suicide blasts, gunfights and hostage-taking kill at least 12 people in Baghdad Jadida. And dual bombings kill at least 20 people at the cafe in the town of Muqdadiyah, northeast of Baghdad. Advertisement

In Karada civilians expressed their frustration at the government's failure to secure the capital.

'We are in a state of war, and these places are targeted. The security can't focus on the war (against ISIS) and forget Baghdad,' Sami, the street vendor, said.

The U.N. envoy for Iraq, Jan Kubis, described the Karada attack as 'a cowardly and heinous act of unparalleled proportions' and urged the Iraqi government to redouble its security efforts to protect Iraqis during celebrations for the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of Ramadan.

ISIS militants who 'have suffered defeats at the battlefront are seeking to avenge their losses by targeting vulnerable civilians,' Kubis added.

ISIS still controls Iraq's second largest city of Mosul as well as significant patches of territory in the country's north and west.

At the height of the extremist group's power in 2014, ISIS rendered nearly a third of the country out of government control. Now, the militants are estimated to control only 14 percent of Iraqi territory, according to the office of Iraq's prime minister.

Mourners carry the Iraqi flag-draped coffins of bomb victims, Talib Hassan, 35, and Hamza Jabbar, 37, during their funeral procession at the holy shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, Iraq

Iraqi security forces and civilians gather at the site after a car bomb hit Karada, a busy shopping district in the center of Baghdad, Iraq

People gather at the site of a suicide car bomb in the Karada shopping area, in Baghdad. Dozens were killed in the atrocity
It revolves around claims he 'misled the public' over the 2003 Iraq War

Former prime minister Tony Blair, pictured, is facing calls to be 'stripped of all honours' in the wake of the Chilcot report into the Iraq War

Tony Blair is facing demands from MPs to be stripped of all honours in the wake of the long-awaited Chilcot report into the Iraq War.

The inquirys findings, due to be published on Wednesday, are expected to criticise the former Labour Prime Minister for misleading Parliament and the public over the 2003 conflict.

Calls for Mr Blair to face a war crimes trial have so far been rejected, but influential politicians including senior Tory MP Sir David Amess are determined he should not escape justice.

They say he should lose the right to sit on the Privy Council  the formal body of advisers to the Queen  and the Right Honourable title that comes with it.

Writing in todays Mail on Sunday, another senior Tory MP, David Davis, says: From the evidence presented to Chilcot, it seems clear that Blair lied to the British people and to Parliament we must stop presidents and Prime Ministers from casually killing thousands without thought for the consequences. No one can be immune from justice.

The disastrous conflict  condemned as illegal by critics  sowed the seeds for the rise of the Islamic State terror group.

Nearly 7,500 Iraqi civilians were killed in the first two months of the war, which also claimed the lives of 179 British servicemen and women.

The UKs six-year military mission came to an end in May 2009.

Sir John Chilcot is expected to report that Mr Blair sidelined experts and the Cabinet to make the case for war.

Calling for Mr Blair to be stripped of all honours, Sir David said: I suspect the report will be shocking and a damning indictment of that Government and particularly Tony Blair who was in charge.

If Chilcot finds that he did lie then Im sure the families of those servicemen and women who died in that war will want to see justice done.

Former SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars said Mr Blair could face trial in Scotland if retrospective legislation was introduced.

He said: When Chilcot comes out, then I think the SNP and Holyrood [Scottish Parliament] which led the great anti-war demonstration in Glasgow, will again placed on the spot, with the power to bring this man to justice.

While retrospective legislation is usually regarded as obnoxious, in respect of Nazi war criminals there has been retrospective legislation.

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Mr Blair, pictured being questioned during the Chilcot Inquiry, has been accused of 'misleading the public' over the 2003 conflict

'Blair is in no different category as them. So the same should apply to him.

'The SNP and the Greens have a sufficient majority to bring in a special retrospective act which brings him to a court in Scotland.

The two-million-word Chilcot report, which has taken seven years to compile, will examine the build-up to the invasion, the military action and the attempts at post-war reconstruction.

Mr Blairs office did not respond to requests for comment, but he has previously said: I find it hard to apologise for removing Saddam.

Tony Blair did lie, whether he is put on trial is up to Chilcot, says MP DAVID DAVIS

Next week, after a disgraceful seven-year delay, the Iraq Inquiry will finally publish its long-awaited report.

With evidence from more than 100 witnesses and a cost exceeding 10 million, the report is expected to be more than two-and-a-half million words long.

The inquiry, led by Sir John Chilcot, should never have been allowed to take this long.

The families of those 179 British soldiers who died fighting for their country have suffered for years, waiting for answers, as the inquiry dragged on and on.

A British soldier is pictured leaping from a petrol-bombed tank during a riot in Basra, Iraq

If the report is to have any value, it must provide answers to the families of the fallen and insights into what caused this disaster for the policy-makers of today and tomorrow.

The Iraq War claimed the lives of more than 150,000 people. Iraq, once relatively stable, was left a smouldering ruin.

The country is plagued by a horrific violence that has now spread across the region.

The credibility of Western foreign policy has been shattered. How was this allowed to happen?

The most important question is whether Tony Blair lied to the British people and to Parliament. From the evidence presented to the inquiry, it seems clear that he did.

The intelligence evidence Blair relied on was described by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) as sporadic and patchy.

Yet Blair told the House of Commons that the picture painted by our intelligence services was extensive, detailed and authoritative.

This was simply untrue, and in making this claim Mr Blair was misrepresenting the available intelligence, a key premise behind his case for war. Some of this bogus evidence was obtained under torture.

Then there was the dodgy dossier on Saddam Husseins supposed weapons of mass destruction. In it, Mr Blair stated that it was beyond doubt that Saddam operated and produced WMDs.

In reality the JIC had told Mr Blair that they knew little about Iraqs chemical and biological weapon capabilities.

Former prime minister Tony Blair 'misled the British people and Parliament' over the Iraq War, said MP David Davis

Even the wording of the motion approving military action passed by Parliament was laced with deceit, stating that a second UN resolution was not possible as France made plain in public its intention to use its veto whatever the circumstances.

This again was not true, and was a misrepresentation of what President Chirac had actually said. He had clearly laid out circumstances where France would not have vetoed war.

Sir Stephen Wall, Mr Blairs EU adviser, told the inquiry that the Prime Minister and Alastair (Campbell, No 10 head of communications) know that what they are claiming Chirac said is not what he actually said.

It was a deliberate decision by Mr Blair to shift the blame on to France for the failure to secure a second resolution.

These were more than just lies. It was a concerted campaign whereby MPs and the public were misled by constructed mechanisms of deceit.

Intelligence was stretched to the very limit, stripped of warnings as to its reliability, and was then presented as the impartial analysis of the Civil Service.

Public misconceptions, such as over the story that Iraq could deploy WMDs in 45 minutes, went uncorrected by Government.

Mr Davis, pictured, said Mr Blair 'used deceit to sway the population' to back intervention in Iraq

Worst of all, the structure of government, designed to prevent such transgressions, was undermined.

Mr Blairs sofa Government meant that decisions were not subjected to full Cabinet scrutiny.

Objectors were banished from No 10 and excluded from seeing key documents. The process for deciding to go to war was flawed.

Then there is the question of whether or not Mr Blair had already decided to go to war before he made his case to the British people.

He told Parliament as late as February 2003 that regime change was not necessary if disarmament could be achieved peacefully.

But the evidence to the inquiry showed that since at least early 2002 he had told the US he was fully committed to regime change.

A memo written by Mr Blairs foreign policy adviser Sir David Manning revealed this subterfuge was necessary because of a press, a Parliament and a public opinion that was very different from anything in the States.

In other words, deceit was used to sway a sceptical population.

There is also the question of whether the war was legal. The then-Attorney General Lord Goldsmith produced a legal opinion expressing doubts that war could be justified without a second UN resolution.

He then revised his opinion, stating that war would be legal if the Government could show that Iraq was in material breach of a previous UN resolution.

This reversal was greeted with amazement among Government lawyers. One resigned.

The Cabinet was fobbed off, with legal opinion made to appear far more clear cut than it really was.

Having taken the country to war on shaky grounds, the post-war planning was almost non-existent.

Indeed, Mr Blair appears to have repeatedly ignored warnings from the Armed Forces on this.

He also ignored warnings from Middle East experts who said it was a fantasy that Saddams regime could be removed without triggering civil war throughout the region.

The consequences were disastrous, and have overshadowed every action the UK has taken in the Middle East since, in Afghanistan, in Libya, in Syria and in Yemen.

So the evidence presented to the inquiry is clear: Mr Blair misled Parliament and the country by deliberately exaggerating the threat posed by Saddams regime, and by deliberately underplaying his own commitment to regime change.

In addition, he took the UK into a disastrous conflict while ignoring warnings about the lack of planning for the aftermath.

How did our system of Government become so corrupted that deliberate inaccuracies and even lies could become the official narrative?

Why did the intelligence chiefs not object to their product being so misrepresented?

Why did the Governments legal advisers not make more noise about their doubts over the wars legality?

Chilcot must address this. We must stop presidents and prime ministers from casually killing thousands without thought for the consequences.

It is likely that many people will receive blame in the report. The problem with blaming everyone is that you end up blaming no one. That should not be allowed to confuse the public.

The central question is clear: was Tony Blair guilty of misleading Parliament, guilty of starting an unnecessary and illegal war, and guilty of mismanaging that war, causing thousands of lives to be destroyed unnecessarily?

If the Chilcot report shows the answer to those questions is yes, we will have to think very hard about what we do next.

Because, given the consequences of the Iraq War, no one can be immune from justice.




Next week, after a disgraceful seven-year delay, the Iraq Inquiry will finally publish its long-awaited report.

With evidence from more than 100 witnesses and a cost exceeding 10 million, the report is expected to be more than two-and-a-half million words long.

The inquiry, led by Sir John Chilcot, should never have been allowed to take this long.

The families of those 179 British soldiers who died fighting for their country have suffered for years, waiting for answers, as the inquiry dragged on and on.

A British soldier is pictured leaping from a petrol-bombed tank during a riot in Basra, Iraq

If the report is to have any value, it must provide answers to the families of the fallen and insights into what caused this disaster for the policy-makers of today and tomorrow.

The Iraq War claimed the lives of more than 150,000 people. Iraq, once relatively stable, was left a smouldering ruin.

The country is plagued by a horrific violence that has now spread across the region.

The credibility of Western foreign policy has been shattered. How was this allowed to happen?

The most important question is whether Tony Blair lied to the British people and to Parliament. From the evidence presented to the inquiry, it seems clear that he did.

The intelligence evidence Blair relied on was described by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) as sporadic and patchy.

Yet Blair told the House of Commons that the picture painted by our intelligence services was extensive, detailed and authoritative.

This was simply untrue, and in making this claim Mr Blair was misrepresenting the available intelligence, a key premise behind his case for war. Some of this bogus evidence was obtained under torture.

Then there was the dodgy dossier on Saddam Husseins supposed weapons of mass destruction. In it, Mr Blair stated that it was beyond doubt that Saddam operated and produced WMDs.

Former prime minister Tony Blair 'misled the British people and Parliament' over the Iraq War, said MP David Davis

In reality the JIC had told Mr Blair that they knew little about Iraqs chemical and biological weapon capabilities.

Even the wording of the motion approving military action passed by Parliament was laced with deceit, stating that a second UN resolution was not possible as France made plain in public its intention to use its veto whatever the circumstances.

This again was not true, and was a misrepresentation of what President Chirac had actually said. He had clearly laid out circumstances where France would not have vetoed war.

Sir Stephen Wall, Mr Blairs EU adviser, told the inquiry that the Prime Minister and Alastair (Campbell, No 10 head of communications) know that what they are claiming Chirac said is not what he actually said.

It was a deliberate decision by Mr Blair to shift the blame on to France for the failure to secure a second resolution.

These were more than just lies. It was a concerted campaign whereby MPs and the public were misled by constructed mechanisms of deceit.

Intelligence was stretched to the very limit, stripped of warnings as to its reliability, and was then presented as the impartial analysis of the Civil Service.

Public misconceptions, such as over the story that Iraq could deploy WMDs in 45 minutes, went uncorrected by Government.

Worst of all, the structure of government, designed to prevent such transgressions, was undermined.

Mr Davis, pictured, said Mr Blair 'used deceit to sway the population' to back intervention in Iraq

Mr Blairs sofa Government meant that decisions were not subjected to full Cabinet scrutiny.

Objectors were banished from No 10 and excluded from seeing key documents. The process for deciding to go to war was flawed.

Then there is the question of whether or not Mr Blair had already decided to go to war before he made his case to the British people.

He told Parliament as late as February 2003 that regime change was not necessary if disarmament could be achieved peacefully.

But the evidence to the inquiry showed that since at least early 2002 he had told the US he was fully committed to regime change.

A memo written by Mr Blairs foreign policy adviser Sir David Manning revealed this subterfuge was necessary because of a press, a Parliament and a public opinion that was very different from anything in the States.

In other words, deceit was used to sway a sceptical population.

There is also the question of whether the war was legal. The then-Attorney General Lord Goldsmith produced a legal opinion expressing doubts that war could be justified without a second UN resolution.

He then revised his opinion, stating that war would be legal if the Government could show that Iraq was in material breach of a previous UN resolution.

This reversal was greeted with amazement among Government lawyers. One resigned.

The Cabinet was fobbed off, with legal opinion made to appear far more clear cut than it really was.

Having taken the country to war on shaky grounds, the post-war planning was almost non-existent.

Indeed, Mr Blair appears to have repeatedly ignored warnings from the Armed Forces on this.

He also ignored warnings from Middle East experts who said it was a fantasy that Saddams regime could be removed without triggering civil war throughout the region.

The consequences were disastrous, and have overshadowed every action the UK has taken in the Middle East since, in Afghanistan, in Libya, in Syria and in Yemen.

So the evidence presented to the inquiry is clear: Mr Blair misled Parliament and the country by deliberately exaggerating the threat posed by Saddams regime, and by deliberately underplaying his own commitment to regime change.

In addition, he took the UK into a disastrous conflict while ignoring warnings about the lack of planning for the aftermath.

How did our system of Government become so corrupted that deliberate inaccuracies and even lies could become the official narrative?

Why did the intelligence chiefs not object to their product being so misrepresented?

Why did the Governments legal advisers not make more noise about their doubts over the wars legality?

Chilcot must address this. We must stop presidents and prime ministers from casually killing thousands without thought for the consequences.

It is likely that many people will receive blame in the report. The problem with blaming everyone is that you end up blaming no one. That should not be allowed to confuse the public.

The central question is clear: was Tony Blair guilty of misleading Parliament, guilty of starting an unnecessary and illegal war, and guilty of mismanaging that war, causing thousands of lives to be destroyed unnecessarily?

If the Chilcot report shows the answer to those questions is yes, we will have to think very hard about what we do next.
A Texas city council has voted unanimously to reinstate a popular library cat to his job as its live-in mascot.

The governing council of White Settlement voted 3-0 to let Browser the cat stay at the White Settlement Public Library, according to KRLD-AM.

The decision comes two weeks after the council had previously voted 2-1 to give the tabby 30 days to check out.

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A Texas city council has voted unanimously to reinstate a popular library cat, Browser (pictured on Thursday) to his job as its live-in mascot

Lillian Blackburn, a volunteer and chair of the Friends of White Settlement Library, shows a collection of petitions to save Browser from city imposed eviction

Mayor Ron White had said the move against Browser was a response to officials' denial of permission to an employee to bring a puppy to work at City Hall.

But he said he was overwhelmed with more than 1,000 messages on social media, all in support of keeping Browser on the job.

The vote was taken without hearing from Browser's supporters who jammed the council chamber.

Browser, a Siamese mix, was adopted from a local shelter in 2010 to help control rodents at the library and was voted out on June 14 by two city council members.

Council members Elzie Clements and Paul Moore led the 2-1 vote to boot the kitty, despite a large group of people who swarmed City Hall to protest the eviction.

The White Settlement Public Library pictured left. Elzie Clements (right) is one of two city councilmen who voted to evict Browser two weeks ago

Mayor Ron White said he was overwhelmed with more than 1,000 messages on social media, all in support of keeping Browser (pictured) on the job

Browser had to be out by July 14 and White was against the cat's outster.

'He helps children read,' White told ABC News. 'Little children will come into the library and theyll read to Browser.'

'The council just went out and did this on their own because they dont like cats,' Mayor White told the Star Telegram.

White explained Browser takes care of rodents in a natural way, helping the library so it doesn't have to hire an exterminator to use potentially dangerous chemicals that will then be handled by children.

The cat is also the star of an annual calendar that helps raise money for the library.

Browser, a Siamese mix, was adopted from a local shelter in 2010 to help control rodents at the library and was voted out on June 14 by two city council members

Following the vote that fired the cat from his job, feline lovers and library regulars started a petition to keep him in his home.

'Browser... hasn't done anything to deserve this unfair treatment,' the petition said, which had over half of its 5,000 supporters goal at the time.

After the vote booting the cat out, people flocked to the library's Facebook page to express their dismay.

'Keep the cat! Vote out the city council if they go through with this!!' wrote Maure Bond.

'You obviously have NO CLUE how to motivate children to read. Evicting their mascot is NOT the way to go about this,' commented Liza Null.

Library cats are fairly common throughout the country.

Dewey the library cat of Spencer Public Library in Spencer, Iowa became so famous that he inspired a series of bestselling books. He passed away in 2006.

The cat (pictured left and right) has been a big hit with the public and even has his own Facebook page
It is the kind of politically incorrect joke about Tory leadership hopeful Stephen Crabb and running mate and fellow Cabinet young gun Sajid Javid that could land you in court.

They are a perfect match: one is white, one is brown; one is a Christian, the other is Muslim; one has a beard, the other is totally bald.

Except that this joke is used by Conservative likely lads Crabb and Javid about themselves.

If not for their ethnic divide, the Tory Blue Brothers could almost be twins. They are of near-identical, neat, trim build, both jacketless with crisp white shirts and plain tie

If the Tories priority is to rid the party leadership of the posh boys tag that stuck to David Cameron and George Osborne, Crabb and Javid are a shoo-in.

They claim their backgrounds give them an extra insight into the needs of ordinary working people, and how to meet those needs.

Work and Pensions Secretary Crabb, 43, was brought up in Wales by a single mother and protected her from his violent dad.

Business Secretary Javid, 46, is the Rochdale born son of a Pakistani bus driver.

Former marketing consultant, rugby-playing wannabe PM Crabbs broken nose adds grit to his boy-next-door charm, while hard-nosed ex-banker and aspiring Chancellor Javid gives their alliance extra gravitas.

They sat next to each other at Cabinet meetings, their families meet at weekends and they and their wives went to a Lebanese restaurant in London two weeks ago.

We often hang out together, says Javid, in a joint interview with The Mail on Sunday in the Commons.

If not for their ethnic divide, the Tory Blue Brothers could almost be twins. They are of near-identical, neat, trim build, both jacketless with crisp white shirts and plain tie. They even sit with crossed legs facing the same direction for much of the interview.

Both have got to the top the hard way. Both were bullied at school: Crabb for his English accent when his mother took her sons to Scotland to flee her husband; Javid was called a P***.

Crabb jokes: I hope you sorted him out! Sajid: I did actually.

By coincidence, long before they knew each other, both worked in Newport, South Wales. Nine-year-old Javid helped his dad run a market stall there, Crabb lived in a tent when he worked on a building site at Newport docks as a student.

Despite their working-class backgrounds, both were fans of Margaret Thatcher when they were in short trousers.

Both avidly followed the Falklands War. Javid was 12, Crabb, nine.

Stephen Crabb (left) and Sajid Javid (right) claim their backgrounds give them an extra insight into the needs of ordinary working people

Maggies right to buy home-owning reforms meant Crabbs mother was able to buy her council house.

A photo of Mrs Thatcher takes pride of place in Javids office. My dad always voted Labour until 1979, but by then hed had enough of strikes and the rest so voted for Thatcher, he says.

I remember him saying, This woman is going to change the country. My mum said in Punjabi, But we vote Labour.

Dad said, No, Mrs Thatcher will change everything. 

When Mrs Thatcher quit as PM in 1990, Javid, by then at Exeter University, bought a bouquet of flowers and sent them to Mrs T. Leftie students were probably dancing in celebration. You bet! he says.

The duo stress they are not seeking to win the leadership contest purely on the basis of their working-class roots.

Your background doesnt qualify you to be PM or Chancellor, says Crabb. Sajid finishes the sentence: But it helps you connect with people because you can look them in the eye and say, Ive been there. 

What does Crabb see in Javid? He is a brilliant negotiator for the Brexit talks.

Crabb and Javid stress they are not seeking to win the leadership contest purely on the basis of their working-class roots

And what does Javid see in Crabb? Great emotional intelligence.

Cynics have suggested other motives for their alliance.

Javid was tipped as a leadership candidate in his own right  until he was accused of betraying his Eurosceptic beliefs by backing the Remain camp, though he denies the charge.

Some say Crabb is using number-cruncher Javid to compensate for claims that he is too lightweight.

Ive got more experience than Margaret Thatcher had when she became leader, Crabb fires back, like the ferocious rugby-tackler he is. This time last week, Boris and Michael Gove were best buddies, now one has destroyed the other.

Whos to say best mates Crabb and Javid wont fall out as quickly?

Javid: We didnt just get together a few months ago. Crabb: Yeah, ours is not a marriage of convenience. He agrees the hatred in the Tory Party is off the scale.

It is beyond Shakespearean tragi-comedy. If the governing party is split from head to toe it has implications for the country: how you are seen internationally, how the financial markets see you. People look at Westminster and think: Can we believe anyone?

Politics isnt a soap opera, its a serious business and you need serious people who work as a team. Sajid and I can do that.
Stark images show ISIS had created their own 'prisons' and even a court - forces also found burned out human cages

Dozens of buildings were booby-trapped with explosives and terror group had left behind weapons and propoganda

Iraqi forces seized Fallujah from Islamic State militants this week but the extremists left behind reminders of their reign

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The Islamic State flag flying over Iraq's Fallujah is in tatters and its fighters are all dead or gone leaving behind a broken city of bomb-rigged schools, burned out human cages and empty streets.

Only scattered signs of ISIS's self-declared 'caliphate' remain in Fallujah, a city west of Baghdad which was seized by anti-government fighters in early 2014 and later became a key jihadist stronghold.

Iraqi forces declared Fallujah fully liberated on Sunday, after government troops routed the remaining ISIS fighters from the city's north and west under the close cover of US-led coalition airstrikes.

The battle, which began May 22, was the latest in a string of territorial defeats for ISIS in Iraq over the past year.

Iraqi forces declared Fallujah fully liberated on Sunday, after government troops routed the remaining IS fighters from the city's north and west under the close cover of US-led coalition airstrikes

Human cages were discovered in the burned out prison belonging to Islamic State in Fallujah after government forces recaptured the city

In the city's industrial neighborhood, dozens of car repair shops had been converted into car bomb factories. A garage still advertising Toyota car repairs was stocked with plastic jugs filled with chemicals

Fallujah's broad streets are now empty except for members of the security forces, some relaxing or firing their guns in the air to celebrate their victory, while others search for bombs that are one of ISIS's legacies in the city.

Police detonated a massive cache of explosives in a house in central Fallujah, sending a towering cloud of dust rising over the city and spraying debris across the neighbourhood.

The house had 'five tonnes of ammonium nitrate' inside and was rigged to detonate if someone tampered with the explosives, said Colonel Nabil Radhi of the federal police. Security personnel walked down another empty street, searching for bombs in buildings so they could be dealt with later.

Most of ISIS's black flags have been removed, but the torn remains of one still flutters from a street light.

ISIS flags are also painted on support pillars and murals under an overpass in Fallujah, but they have been daubed with red paint, and graffiti with the names of Iraq's elite counter-terrorism service and a militia umbrella group makes the city's change of ownership clear.

Iraqi forces discovered multiple ISIS 'prisons' and at least one court in the city.

A prison located inside one house, which had heavy metal gates blocking off rooms inside, was set on fire by the jihadists, said Second Lieutenant Hussein Shaker of the interior ministry's rapid response forces.

Security personnel held in the prison were burned alive while IS fighters fled, Shaker said.

A wall painted by Islamic State in Fallujah. It is believed the world was part of a mural at a school but the militants added weapons

Rocket-propelled grenades were left behind by Islamic State militants are seen at a school, following the liberation of Fallujah

Members of the Shi'ite Badr Organisation inspect the weapons factoryin Fallujah which was abandoned by Islamic State militants

Other remnants of ISIS's rule are also still in evidence: Journalists saw a marriage document issued by ISIS. Another document said that songs, television programmes and films were banned, while a large sign said women should be completely covered from head to foot

Another house - this one said to have been burned by Iraqi forces - contained seven metal cages made for humans - some of them not even large enough to stand in.

Other remnants of ISIS's rule are also still in evidence: security forces showed journalists in the city a marriage document issued by the jihadists, and one building was marked as their 'Agricultural Centre of the State of Fallujah.'

Another document said that songs, television programmes and films were banned, while a large sign said women should be completely covered from head to foot.

To the east, in the city's industrial neighborhood, dozens of car repair shops had been converted into car bomb factories. A garage still advertising Toyota car repairs was stocked with plastic jugs filled with chemicals.

The only ISIS fighters still in Fallujah are dead, some of them decomposing in the searing summer heat amid rubble at the site of an apparent air strike.

Bodies of dead fighters also lay in the courtyard of what was once a school, while more were said to be buried below.

The only ISIS fighters still in Fallujah are dead, some of them decomposing in the searing summer heat amid the rubble of the city

Police detonated a massive cache of explosives in a house in central Fallujah, sending a towering cloud of dust rising over the city and spraying debris across the neighbourhood

Despite the terror parts of Fallujah are relatively untouched, with houses only scarred by bullets or shrapnel if they are damaged at all. But others have been smashed by air strikes or shelling, while many more houses and shops have been set on fire by either IS or Iraqi forces

But other jihadists managed to flee the city, with some fighters shaving their long beards to aid their escape.

'We found a mountain of their beards' in one house, Shaker said.

Small makeshift boats constructed from corrugated metal with low wood transoms were left at the same school where the bodies were located, apparently intended for crossing the Euphrates River to safety.

Despite the terror parts of Fallujah are relatively untouched, with houses only scarred by bullets or shrapnel if they are damaged at all.

But others have been smashed by air strikes or shelling, while many more houses and shops have been set on fire by either IS or Iraqi forces.

Anti-government forces seized Fallujah in 2014 amid widespread anger among its Sunni Arab residents, who felt marginalised and targeted by the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

But instead of a better life, residents suffered over two years of ISIS rule that led to siege, privation and fighting that forced them to flee and ultimately put the city in the hands of some of the very forces they feared.
Academics have criticised note sharing websites that allow students to buy cheap study notes as they think it will stop them attending class.

Thousands of students are using the note sharing technology and can purchase lecture summaries for as little as $2 through websites such as NoteXchange.

An eight-page summary of a Biology of Cells and Organisms lecture at the The University of Melbourne compiled by top student Alastair Weng, for example, will cost $3.

University students are using note sharing websites to avoid going to lectures (stock image)

An eight-page summary of a Biology of Cells and Organisms lecture at the The University of Melbourne compiled by top student Alastair Weng (pictured) will cost $3

'It's a little bit of pocket money on the side,' the 19-year-old told Fairfax Media.

'I may as well spend a few more minutes putting them online. It helps students understand some weird concepts.'

But academics claim the sharing system undermines learning and discourages students from attending class.

'These sites are dangerous, even if they are legitimately trying to just provide notes,' University of South Australia academic integrity expert Tracey Bretag told Fairfax.

Academics have said the sharing system undermines learning and discourages students from attending class

'These notes are available freely to students at their own university. Go to class people!'

The founders of NoteXchange argue that 87 per cent of students who sell their notes see an improvement in their grades.
A police electronics expert made a clumsy attempt to doctor vital evidence that led to the conviction of four fishermen and their friend for drug smuggling, according to legal documents seen by this newspaper.

The five men were accused of picking up rucksacks containing 560 lb of cocaine worth 53 million in the middle of the English Channel, before dropping them overboard off the south coast of the Isle of Wight for someone else to recover.

At their trial, data from the satellite tracking device on their boat, the Galwad-y-Mor, appeared to damn them.

Five men were accused of picking up rucksacks containing 560 lb of cocaine worth 53 million in the middle of the English Channel on the boat Galwad-y-Mor (pictured)

But new evidence shows that after officers from the Serious and Organised Crime Agency (Soca) seized the vessels Olex GPS machine, an officer tried to alter internal databases, apparently to make them conform more closely to the prosecutions theory.

But he not only failed to achieve his goal, he also left a computerised fingerprint revealing how he tried to interfere with the crucial testimony.

And in another bombshell development, it can be revealed that the Galwad-y-Mor could not have dumped the drugs at the location alleged by prosecutors, because the water there is too shallow and the vessel would have run aground.

The fresh evidence is included in a dossier from the mens lawyers to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which is being asked to order a new appeal.

At the heart of the case is Isle of Wight crab and lobster fisherman Jamie Green, who owned the 39ft Galwad-y-Mor. Found guilty by a majority verdict in 2011, he was jailed for 24 years, together with casual labourer Zoran Dresic and Mr Greens lifelong friend, Jonathan Beere, who runs a scaffolding business. Crewmen Danny Payne and Scott Birtwistle got 18 and 14 years respectively.

All were staunch family men with no previous convictions, and there were grave doubts among the close-knit fishing community on the Isle of Wight that they could be guilty.

The Mail on Sunday published the first of two investigative articles on the case in 2014. In a further expose last year, we revealed that one of the prosecutions central claims could not be true  that the Galwad-y-Mor picked up the cocaine on the storm-lashed night of May 29, 2010, when it crossed the wake of the MV Oriane, a Brazilian cargo ship from which, supposedly, the drug-filled rucksacks were thrown into the sea.

New evidence shows that after officers from the Serious and Organised Crime Agency seized the vessels Olex GPS machine, an officer tried to alter internal databases

Data from the AIS satellite tracking system installed on the Oriane, which was made available to the prosecution but not disclosed to the defence nor shown to the jury, showed that the Galwad-y-Mor never crossed the Orianes wake, but at its closest was several hundred yards away.

Moreover, according to a report by the Portsmouth Marine Laboratory on drift and current, anything thrown from the Oriane would have drifted away from the Galwad- y-Mor, not towards it, making the alleged pick-up impossible.

The fishing boats course can be determined from its own highly sophisticated GPS-linked tracking and navigation system, known as Olex. It is a new analysis of a cloned copy of the Olex hard drive that has led to allegations that Soca investigators tried to tamper with it to improve their case.

The five men were accused of smuggling bags of cocaine on a boat

The analysis by one of the worlds leading experts on the Olex system shows that after Soca seized the machine following Mr Greens arrest, an operative tried to alter internal databases, apparently to make them conform more closely to the prosecutions theory.

The new dossier submitted by Mr Greens legal team, led by solicitor Emily Bolton from legal charity the Centre for Criminal Appeals, says the expert concludes that the police accessed the device on several occasions not shared with the defence.

It says the person responsible tried to change the settings on the Olex machines internal clock, leading to inconsistencies in the filing system that cannot be explained by the police and their experts account of their handling of the Olex  in other words, an electronic fingerprint that shows an attempt to tamper with the data.

It is the new analysis of the Olex machine that also led to the second finding: that the Galwad-y-Mor could not have left the drugs where they were found in Freshwater Bay.

The fishermen admit that they did throw bags off the boat, but these contained only old bait and other rubbish, and they were put into the sea some distance away from where the drugs were found.

The closest the boat came to the point where the drugs were found was 100 yards away, and it would have run aground at the spot where they were found because the waters were 6ft too shallow for the fishing boat. The drugs could not have drifted to their anchorage point from the Galwad-y-Mors closest position because there is no south-north tidal flow off Freshwater Bay.

Ms Bolton called on the CCRC to refer the case to the Court of Appeal as soon as possible, saying: We filed our original submission in October 2014. The case was strong then and it is now overwhelming.
A woman who wants to use her dead daughters frozen eggs to give birth to her own grandchild is likely to be given the go-ahead within days, The Mail on Sunday understands.

It will mean the 60-year-old can fly to the US for IVF treatment. If successful the woman, known only as Mrs M, will give birth next year  six years after her daughter died.

Last Thursday the Court of Appeal overturned a High Court verdict banning the woman from taking her late daughters eggs for IVF.

The Court of Appeal, pictured, has overturned a High Court ruling banning a 60-year-old woman from using her dead daughter's frozen eggs in IVF treatment

The High Court had agreed with fertility regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), that Mrs Ms daughter had never given explicit consent for her eggs to be used in that way.

But appeal judges rejected the ruling, saying there was enough evidence to conclude the daughter, who died of cancer at 29, had given consent for her mother to use the eggs.

Rather than direct the fertility regulator to release the frozen eggs to Mrs M, judges ordered the HFEA to look at the matter afresh.

The woman, known only as Mrs M, would fly to the US and use the frozen eggs (file picture) to give birth to her own grandchild if given the go-ahead

The regulator said it would make a decision as soon as possible on the case  revealed last year by The Mail on Sunday  and a source indicated it is highly unlikely the HFEA will go against the judgment.

The source said: The decision-making committee will have to meet again as soon as possible, taking into consideration the Court of Appeals recommendations and guidance. It will make a new decision based on that.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP)  The alien sequel "Independence Day: Resurgence" may have destroyed cities across the United States.

But the film generated more than $44 million for New Mexico, where the alien-invasion movie was filmed, according to the Motion Picture Association of America.

Numbers released by Twentieth Century Fox on Friday show the movie hired over 5,750 New Mexico workers and paid them around $19.4 million in wages. It also sparked more than $3.72 million spent on hardware and lumber supplies, numbered showed.

The film spent 158 days on location in New Mexico and the production, filmed at Albuquerque Studios, hired a number of New Mexico businesses.

New Mexico Film Office Director Nick Maniatis said the "Independence Day" numbers demonstrate the effect the film and television industry has on the state's economy.

"Maybe less obvious, however, is the incredible level of skill and dedication on the part of New Mexico crew and businesses that were able to service such a demanding industry and an incredibly complex project like 'Independence Day: Resurgence'," Maniatis said.

The industry in recent years has stepped up productions in Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

For example, the popular AMC-TV series "Breaking Bad" was filmed in Albuquerque and has generated a number of "Breaking Bad" related tours. Its prequel, "Better Call Saul," is filming in Albuquerque.

And earlier this week, the AMC network has announced that it has renewed the series "Preacher" and will expand the second season to 13 episodes.

That show, which is filmed in Albuquerque and just completed its first season, follows a West Texas preacher named Jesse Custer, who is inhabited by a mysterious entity that causes him to develop an unusual power.

"New Mexico's small businesses and local workers continue to reap the benefits from major productions because of the state's competitive production tax incentive program," MPAA Chairman and CEO Chris Dodd said.

Dodd praised New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez and state lawmakers for pushing to make the state friendly to film production.
Labour peer Gulam curry king Noon left 2.6million in his will  and a mystery over what happened to the rest of his massive fortune.

Lord Noon, who was at the centre of a cash for peerages scandal in 2006, was said to be worth up to 75million after building up a business empire selling ready- meal curries to supermarkets.

But probate records reveal that the tycoon, who moved to Britain from India in 1972 with just 50, left a UK estate of only 2,672,826.

Lord Noon, who died in October aged 79, is pictured standing outside his company's headquarters in Southall, West London

Lord Noon, pictured, made his fortune making ready-made curries for supermarkets

His grant of probate stated that his assets held in India were being dealt with separately.

Lord Noon died at 79 last October.

He gave away millions to charities in the UK and in his native India to fund schools and hospitals.

He left the bulk of his UK estate in trust for his two daughters Zeenat and Zarmin from his first marriage.

The will stated he had made full financial provision for third wife Mohini during their 17-year marriage.

Solicitor Michael Jepson, an executor of the will, said he was unable to comment on the reasons for the difference between the size of the estate and estimates of Lord Noons fortune.

Lord Noons factory in Southall, West London, became the largest in the world for ready-made Indian food and he employed hundreds of people.
Anthony Albanese has been encouraged to challenge Bill Shorten for leadership of the Labor party despite his 'heroic' effort during the election

Unnamed sources from both the left and right of the party have urged Mr Albanese to stand, as Labor rules state the leadership must be contested if the election is lost, Sky News reported.

This comes as Australia faces the prospect of another hung parliament, with neither party emerging with enough seats to form a workable government after Saturday's election.

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Rumours of a possible leadership challenge against Bill Shorten (right) by Anthony Albanese (left) have emerged following the Australian federal election on July 2

It has been suggested that NSW senator Sam Dastiyari said he would throw his support behind Mr Albanese in the case of a leadership challenge but he quickly denied the claims when questioned on Sunday.

He told Sky News the speculation was 'ridiculous' and he had no idea where the story had come from.

Mr Dastiyari said Mr Shorten would 'certainly' continue to be Opposition Leader but wasn't sure whether the party will be in government or not.

'You know what they are doing today in a whole bunch of marginal seats ... they are erecting statues to Bill Shorten,' he added.

While there is no danger of Mr Shorten (left) losing his seat, his job as Opposition Leader hangs in the balance after sources revealed that Mr Albanese (right) has support from the left and right of the party to stand

Opposition Deputy Tanya Plibersek (left) pictures with Mr Shorten at the launch of the election campaign in Sydney on June 19 said that it's been a 'terrific result' and that Mr Shorten ran a 'fantastic campaign'

Former NSW Labor premier and now Sky commentator Kristina Keneally said it would be absurd to challenge Mr Shorten's leadership after his 'heroic' performance during the election.

Mr Shorten also had his deputy's support, with Tanya Plibersek telling reporters on Sunday that he delivered a 'terrific result' following a 'fantastic campaign'.

'He's led a united team, he's laid out a very position vision for Australia,' Ms Plibersek said.

However, incoming MP Linda Burney said 'there will be a leadership ballot' as per the rules of the Labor Party.

Mr Albanese commented that the primary focus was to get the opposition back into government. He said: 'We haven't been a small target at this election  and that is to credit of the leader'

Just days before the election, Mr Shorten deflected questions about his hold over leadership.

The opposition leader dismissed 'silly' questions over how much they would need to win on Saturday's election to prevent a challenge.

He said: 'How many seats does Malcolm Turnbull have to lose before Tony Abbott moves on him.

'We are arguably the most united we've been in probably two decades.'

It has been suggested that NSW senator Sam Dastiyari (pictured) said he would throw his support behind Mr Albanese in the case of a leadership challenge but he quickly denied the claims on Sunday

'How many seats does Malcolm Turnbull have to lose before Tony Abbott moves on him?' Mr Shorten said

Mr Albanese commented that the primary focus was to get the opposition back into government.

He said: 'We haven't been a small target at this election  and that is to credit of the leader.'

As it stands, Saturday's election was too close to call after a sudden surge of support for Labor with running totals in 150 for lower house seats in the early hours of Sunday morning.

The Coalition and Labor have won 67 seats, the Greens one and the independents four with 11 seats undecided.

Mr Albanese lost the leadership ballot in 2013 prior to the Labor's 2013 election loss.
The lucky homeowners of a three bedroom brick veneer house in an up and coming development area have almost doubled the value of their home in three years.

Sitting in the heart of Box Hill, about 14 kilometres east from Melbourne city centre, the unassuming property sold for $4.25 million in an auction last month.

Untouched since it was purchased in 2013 for $2.2million, the 753-square-metre block will join a growing skyline of skyscrapers in the location which is tipped to become an alternative to the city.

The lucky owners of a three bedroom brick veneer house (pictured) which was bought for $2.2million in 2013 has almost doubled in value after three years. The property sold for $4.25million in an auction last month

Dennis Dellas, of First National Lindellas told Domain that the sale equated to a price gain of $738,192 a year, $61, 516 a month, $14, 196 a week and $2028 a day.

Mr Dellas also said that the home was the most expensive residential zoned property ever to be sold in Box Hill.

The price gain was significant because the property was untouched and did not have a town planning permit, he added.

The price gain was significant because the property was untouched and did not have a town planning permit and will join a growing skyline of skyscrapers in Box Hill 14 kilometres east of Melbourne

Pictures of the house posted to Domain shows that the Archibald street residence is conveniently located near public transport and a local shopping centre.

There are now plans to build seven to nine storey apartment blocks on the block of land which is expected house about 40 apartments.

Whitehorse City Council approved about 1,200 units in Box Hill last year, according to data collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The veteran television presenter, 50, will be quizzed by officers from London's Metropolitan Police in the next few days over the historical sexual assault claims, it has been reported

Top Gear host Chris Evans is to be questioned by police over sexual assault allegations after a former colleague complained about him, it has been reported.

The television presenter, 50, will be quizzed by officers from London's Metropolitan Police in the next few days over the historical sex assault claims, The Sun reports.

Sources told the newspaper that the Radio 2 presenter will be spoken to 'in the near future' by officers investigating the complaint made by a former colleague.

The claims come just two months after he was accused of grabbing a colleague's breasts and 'flashing her almost every day for two years'.

The woman said she worked with Evans in the 1990s and she was 'bullied' by him after rejecting his advances, with her complaints falling on deaf ears.

But Evans, 50, hit out at what he has called a 'witch hunt' around him that has had a 'devastating' effect on his family.

Speaking anonymously in May, the woman said she was 'sent to Coventry' after spurning the Radio 2 DJ's advances and that he 'told colleagues not to talk to her'.

The former colleague said she was speaking out to prevent others becoming victims of his 'bullying behaviour'.

She said she sought legal advice over her claims several years ago, particularly around the 'flashing', which she said was a tactic to 'punish those who didn't do what he wanted'.

It comes after several of the presenter's former colleagues took to social media also accusing him of bullying.

The woman said she was 'not surprised' to hear those allegations and said she was eventually prescribed anti-depressants after becoming 'burnt-out' and 'traumatised by Evans', who she claimed 'knew he could get away with it'.

The new series of programme, which Evans took over after Jeremy Clarkson was fired when he punched one of the show's producers, has been plagued with controversy ever since filming got under way

She added she was 'gobsmacked and appalled' Evans got the Top Gear job with the BBC and called for him to be investigated over all recent claims made against him.

But the star himself has called the allegations 'ridiculous' and denied ever being a bully.

The presenter, who is at the helm of a team of six who will front the new version of Top Gear, has been accused of being 'out of control' by former colleagues.

The opening show of Chris Evans' new Top Gear saw its audience plummet in the US compared to the last series despite having a new American host, Matt LeBlanc (pictured together)

But the star has denied the programme has already run into problems and told the Sunday Mirror that the accusations of bullying have hurt his family.

He said: 'All these bullying claims and other allegations are just ridiculous.'

He described how he and wife Natasha and their two young children Noah, seven, and Eli, four, live a 'normal life' in a small area and said the accusations amounted to a 'witch-hunt'.

Evans has been accused of bullying colleagues when he worked on The Big Breakfast in the 1990s.

His former radio sidekick John Revell claimed he was 'out of control' and that BBC bosses were too scared to stand up to him.

Evans rejected these ideas.

He said: 'I'm not a bully. But of course if you sling enough mud, some will stick to the wall.

'Is it hurtful to see your wife - or your children - upset? Of course it is.'

Mark Linsey, Director of BBC Studios and Bob Shennan, Controller of Radio 2, have also denied claims that Evans had a 'volatile' working behaviour.

He said: 'The assertion that Chris Evans' behaviour at Radio 2 since beginning work at Top Gear has been in any way below BBC acceptable levels is completely untrue.'

Mr Linsey added: 'Since taking on Top Gear alongside his Radio 2 breakfast show, Chris has displayed even greater commitment and professionalism.

'He remains a team player, a huge asset to the BBC and continues to show outstanding leadership in all he does on radio, television or for Children in Need.'
Political commentators have labelled Malcolm Turnbull's post-election speech 'ungracious' and 'pathetic'.

Veteran Nine News political analyst Laurie Oakes slammed the prime minister for delivering an 'angry' speech to the party faithful at Sydney's Sofitel Wentworth Hotel.

'It's the first time I've seen a bloke who has probably won the election saying 'we was robbed' - I thought that was, quite frankly, pretty pathetic.

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Political commentators have labelled Malcolm Turnbull's post-election speech at the Sofitel Wentworth Hotel in Sydney as 'ungracious', 'angry' and 'pathetic'

Mr Turnbull slammed Labor's 'extraordinary act of dishonesty' over Medicare, drawing shouts of 'grubs' from the crowd

Veteran Nine News political analyst Laurie Oakes (pictured) slammed the prime minister for delivering an 'angry, bitter' speech

Media commentator Mike Carlton posted this to Twitter after Mr Turnbull's post-election speech

'It was an angry, bitter speech for a bloke that only two days ago promised a different kind of politics because Australians, he said, were sick of the personal stuff, the rancorous stuff - that's what we got tonight.'

Media commentator Mike Carlton joined the criticism: 'I have known Malcolm Turnbull for 40 years,' he posted to Twitter.

'Tutored him in journalism. What a flabby failure he is tonight,' he said.

Radio presenter Alan Jones chimed in on Channel Seven's election coverage.

'That wasn't a speech, it was a harangue,' he said.

Mr Turnbull kept the faithful waiting into Sunday morning as the excitement of election day gradually wore off.

When he finally arrived, Mr Turnbull slammed Labor's 'extraordinary act of dishonesty' over Medicare, drawing shouts of 'grubs' from the crowd.

'The Labor Party ran some of the most systematic, well-funded lies ever peddled in Australian politics,' Mr Turnbull said.

'That wasn't a speech, it was a harangue,' radio presenter Alan Jones (pictured) said

He called for a police investigation into text messages sent to constituents which said the Liberal Party would privatise Medicare.

'The SMS message said it came from Medicare, an extraordinary act of dishonesty. No doubt the police will investigate. But this is the scale of the challenge we faced.'

He said he was confident the Coalition would form a majority government, but admitted the count was close.

'I can report that based on the advice I have from the party officials, we can have every confidence that we will for a coalition majority government in the next parliament,' he said.

'The Labor Party ran some of the most systematic, well-funded lies ever peddled in Australian politics,' Mr Turnbull said

Mr Turnbull said he was confident the Coalition would form a majority government, but admitted the count was close

'We will have to wait a few days,' he added, noting when that counting would resume again on Tuesday.

Earlier, an upbeat Bill Shorten delivered a speech to the Labor Party faithful at Mooney Valley Racing Club in Melbourne.

'In the past three years we have united as a party. In the past eight weeks we have run a magnificent campaign,' Mr Shorten said.

'We have argued for our positive plans and, three years after the Liberals came to power in a landslide, they have lost their mandate.'

The result remains in the balance with 11 seats too close to call.
Mahin Khan (pictured), who just turned 18, was arrested by the FBI for threatening to commit acts of terrorism on Arizona government buildings

A Tucson man has been arrested by the FBI and the Arizona Attorney General's Office for threatening to commit acts of terrorism on Arizona government buildings.

Mahin Khan, who just turned 18, appeared before a Phoenix judge Saturday morning, according to the Attorney General's Office.

He was arrested in Tucson on Friday.

Khan faces two counts of conspiracy to commit terrorism and a terrorism charge.

Arizona Attorney General spokeswoman Mia Garcia said Khan is accused of conspiring to carry out terrorism acts on government buildings in Phoenix and Tucson.

Garcia declined to give further details, saying Khan's court records are currently sealed.

However, she says authorities are not aware of any threats Khan made that involved the Fourth of July holiday weekend.

'The Arizona Attorney General's Office is working closely with federal authorities to keep Arizonans safe.

'We are not aware of any threats Khan made that involve the Fourth of July holiday weekend,' Garcia told the Arizona Republic.

Garcia said there are no additional suspects and no current threat to the public involving Khan's plans.

Khan lived with his family in a gated community near River Road and Camino Boscaje Escondido in north Tucson close to the Catlina Foothills, according to records obtained by the Republic.

'The FBI believes there is no specific and credible threat information about possible attacks in the US as we enter the July 4th holiday,' Jill McCabe, a public affairs specialist for the FBI in Phoenix, told CBS News in a statement.

Garcia did not know if Khan had retained an attorney.

A message left at a phone number listed for Khan was not immediately returned.

Khan was ordered held without bond in Maricopa County Jail.
A pair of proud parents at the Australian Reptile Park, on the NSW central coast, have welcomed the arrival of five fuzzy and very cute dingo pups.

Mum and dad Adina and Fred surpassed expectations with their larger-than-usual litter of three male and two female pups, bred in captivity over the autumn months.

The youngsters will be fully reliant on their mum for the next few weeks before they venture out of their den to meet winter school holiday makers later this month.

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A pair of proud parents at the Australian Reptile Park, on the NSW central coast, have welcomed the arrival of five fuzzy and very cute dingo pups (pictured) who were bred in captivity over the autumn months

A video of the dingoes playing with one another in their enclosure at the Australian Reptile Park was captured by 9News.

The footage shows the puppies jumping on one another but remaining in close proximity to their parents.

Facebook users crooned over a picture which was posted of the puppies on the Australian Reptile Park social media page.

One user said: 'Oh my god so cute my daughter would love to see them as she is loves working with animals.'

The golden fur-balls are likely to grow to a medium size and weight between 15 to 20 kilos

Another user said: 'Cuteness overload.'

The picture was posted along with a comment which read: 'Just some dingo puppy cuteness for your Sunday morning.

'Don't forget you can visit these adorable bundles of joy these school holidays at The Australian Reptile Park.

'Tag a friend in the comments that loves puppies.'

The picture has been liked over 270 times and shared over 30 times on social media.

The pups were captured suckling at their mother in footage filmed by 9News (pictured). Young dingoes stick close to their parents for several years before moving on to find their own mates

Australian Reptile Park general manager Tim Faulkner said the births highlighted the critical role endangered dingoes played in the country's ecosystem.

'Dingoes are being blasted, baited, tracked, shot and hunted in the wild because of their perceived damage to agriculture,' Mr Faulkner said.

'However, killing dingoes removes them from the critical weight eco-system, allowing feral foxes and cats to continuously increase the rate of mammal extinction.

'If dingoes continue to be hunted, Australia will see another endangered species disappear, just like the Tasmanian Tiger, a marsupial which shared a similar role in the environment as the dingo.'

The youngsters will be fully reliant on their mum for the next few weeks before they venture out of their den to meet winter school holiday makers later this month (pictured)

Young dingoes stick close to their parents for several years before moving on to find their own mates.

The golden fur-balls are likely to grow to a medium size and weight between 15 to 20 kilos.

Dingoes arrived in Australia from Asia several thousand years ago were speculated to be brought over by indigenous Australians or seafaring people from Indonesia, the park's website read.

The species is spread across Australia inhabiting a wide range of areas with the exception of Tasmania.
A father and eight-year-old son both died in a collision between two jet skis Saturday afternoon on the Patcong Creek in New Jersey.

Two small jet skis - or personal water crafts - struck each other at 4.45pm Saturday as they rounded a sharp curve from opposite directions, said New Jersey State Police.

The father and son from Maryland were taken to Shore Memorial hospital where they were pronounced dead on arrival.

A father and eight-year-old son both died in a collision between two jet skis (pictured) Saturday afternoon on the Patcong Creek in New Jersey

New Jersey State Police wrote in statement on their Facebook page: 'PWC can be difficult boats to control for the inexperienced'

The driver of the other jet skis is a 55 year old woman from Egg Harbor Township in New Jersey.

She escaped from the collision with just a broken wrist.

There was no immediate indication that alcohol was a factor, said police, who added that the father was sitting behind his young son at the time of the crash.

Both crafts were taken to a nearby marina where they have been impounded pending further forensic examination by NJSP detectives.

Although the crash remains under investigation, the limited sight line at the location of the crash and the fact the the boy was closest to the jet ski's steering and controls are being looked at as possible contributing circumstances.

A bystander said there have been other accidents in the bend of the creek, near where Saturdays fatal crash occurred (pictured

Frank Payne of Morgantown, Pennsylvania, who uses the marina, told the Press of Atlantic City there have been other accidents in the bend of the creek, near where Saturdays fatal crash occurred.

He added that many watercraft users don't slow down as they navigate the bend of the creek just north of the Mays Landing Road bridge.

The identities of the father and son have not yet been released.

New Jersey State Police wrote in statement on their Facebook page: 'PWCs can be difficult boats to control for the inexperienced.
The New York Police Department reinstated a Muslim officer, who was suspended without pay for refusing to save his beard.

Officer Masood Syed was reinstated after he was escorted out of police headquarters last month for not shaving his beard which he said he grew for religious reasons.

After a little more than a week when a judge said the NYPD had to reinstate the officer's pay and benefits, Syed was allowed back on the force and permitted to keep his one-inch beard, according to NBC News.

The New York Police Department reinstated Muslim officer, Masood Syed (pictured), who was suspended without pay for refusing to save his beard in June

Syed (pictured) was reinstated after he was escorted out of police headquarters last month for not shaving his beard which he said he grew for religious reasons

Syed, who said he has maintained about half-to-one-inch (13 to 25 mm) beard for most of his 10-year career, has sued the department saying its no-beard policy is unconstitutional.

Following the suit, the NYPD said it will examine its policy banning beards.

'Given an ultimatum to choose between my faith and my career on that day was one of the most disquieting moments of my life, hopefully no other officer will be put in that situation again,' said Syed.

'It appears the NYPD has taken this crucial step to address this policy, and I am looking forward to getting back to work.'

After a little more than a week when a judge said the NYPD had to reinstate the officer's pay and benefits, Syed was allowed back on the force

City attorney Michael Fleming had said the limit on facial hair is necessary for gas masks to fit tightly on officers' faces.

But beards are allowed for religious reasons up to one millimeter in length, according to the department.

Syed's lawsuit states the rule is unconstitutional and inconsistently enforced.

It seeks unspecified financial damages and a court order banning the NYPD from enforcing the rule.

Police legal officials say a review of the rule should take about 120 days.

The NYPD will also examine how it handles disciplinary cases and exemptions involving the rule.

On June 22, during an emergency hearing, a federal judge ordered the city to continue paying Syed his salary and benefits.

US District Judge P Kevin Castel criticized the city repeatedly before finding it was probable Syed would succeed, issuing a temporary restraining order that will remain in place until a July 8 hearing.

On July 8, another judge will consider whether Syed should be allowed to work until the matter is resolved.

The judge, who is bearded, said one millimeter of hair exists when a man is unshaven for a day or two. He said it seemed the policy is enforced haphazardly.

'I am very relieved,' Syed said following the hearing, as he celebrated his 32nd birthday with a half dozen fellow officers supporting him in the Manhattan court.

Syed said that two uniformed supervisors escorted him from Manhattan NYPD headquarters where he works as a law clerk to administrative judges, sometimes preparing legal documents for the police commissioner about disciplinary issues.

His attorney, Joshua Moskovitz, said the department also took Syed's shield and weapon before he was 'escorted out in front of his friends and colleagues'.

'It was extremely humiliating,' Syed said. 'I felt insulted, frankly.'

During the hearing, Moskovitz told the judge the department's policy violates the First Amendment and threatens Syed's job, his retirement benefits and his reputation.

Meanwhile, city attorney Michael Fleming said the beard ban was necessary.

Syed said two uniformed supervisors escorted him from Manhattan NYPD headquarters (pictured) where he worked as a law clerk to administrative judges. Syed, who said he has maintained about half-to-one-inch beard for most of his 10-year career, has sued the department saying its no-beard policy is unconstitutional

Besides for religious reasons, exceptions exist for undercover duties and medical conditions.

Occupational Health and Safety Administration regulations require annual fit-testing and prohibit respirators for employees with facial hair.

During Wednesday's hearing, the judge became impatient as he questioned Fleming about the policy and the department's failure to respond to a December 2015 request by 37 police officers for an exception to the no-beard policy.

'Let's play 20 questions,' Castel said at one point.

'The court is troubled by the fact it cannot get an answer,' he said at another.

As he announced his ruling, Castel referenced a November 2013 ruling by the late-Judge Harold Baer Jr after an Orthodox Jewish officer sued the department after it forced him out because he insisted on growing a one-inch beard.

In that case, the city argued that the one-millimeter rule was consistent with counterterrorism and emergency preparedness goals.

However, Baer found the rule was applied unevenly and was too broad to satisfy the law.
Wrote letter of apology and said he didn't know

A teacher who kicked a hearing-impaired student for not listening said he didn't intend to hurt him and didn't know about his hearing problem.

The Year 9 student at Melville High School in Hamilton, New Zealand, was kicked by technology teacher Peter Charles Rowlingson.

Mr Rowlingson snapped when the student wouldn't listen to his instructions to stop throwing pieces of metal, The New Zealand Herald reported.

A Year 9 student at Melville High School in Hamilton, New Zealand, was kicked by technology teacher Peter Charles Rowlingson (stock image)

Mr Rowlingson snapped when the student wouldn't listen to his instructions to stop throwing pieces of metal (stock)

The teacher, who said he was unaware of the student's hearing problem, kicked him with the inside of his boot.

The student swore at Mr Rowlingson before throwing an object on the ground and leaving the class to tell the school's Year 9 Dean what had happened.

Mr Rowlingson later said he had made a 'very poor choice' and wrote a letter of apology to the student and his mother, according to an Agreed Statement of Facts for NZ Teachers Disciplinary Tribunal.

Mr Rowlingson was ordered to pay more than $1,500 in tribunal hearing costs but allowed to keep his job at Melville High School (pictured)

He was ordered to pay more than $1,500 in tribunal hearing costs but allowed to keep his job.

Former principal of more than 30 years Bill Noble told Stuff.co.nz should be grateful he wasn't sacked.

'I think, quite frankly, (Rowlingson) was lucky that he wasn't dismissed because you're not allowed to hit kids. Simple. And worse is kicking them,' he said.

Mr Rowlingson was the subject of a separate investigation in 2013 where he was alleged to have lost his temper with a colleague.
The Oregon State University Rocketry Club is never going to forget the summer of 2016.

Two weeks ago, the OSU American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics club took home the top prize in the 10th annual ESRA Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition in Green River, Utah  the biggest college rocket competition in the world. In 2014, they beat out 40-plus teams to win first place in the basic category at the IREC. Nancy Squires, OSU AIAA senior instructor, said the club's recent success is a major feat for a club that just three years ago didnt exist.

Our first rocketry project wasnt even built in the lab, she said. We were fixing it in a garage and doing testing out in my horse pasture. We just didnt have a space. It wasnt until after the team won its first competition (in 2014) that we got a lab.

On Saturday, members of the team packed up the award-winning rocket at its lab on the first floor of Rogers Hall and prepped a first-time experimental prototype rocket for a launch today in Brothers. While there are always nerves prior to a new launch, many team members couldnt hold back smiles Saturday. Not just because they were part of a major victory for the team, but because thanks to the teams success, OSU administration is set to introduce a new aerospace engineering minor this fall.

Theres no doubt in my mind that that would have happened without the win, Squires said. It really feels like a chicken-and-egg situation, because in order to get interest from the administration, you have to have success first. The interest at the university follows the students and the money follows the students, so they had to do all of this on their own first. Theyve definitely caught the attention of the administration.

Roughly 40 students showed up to the first OSU AIAA meeting. Today, OSU AIAA has 120 members. OSU Rocketry co-captain Ian Walters, who joined the team during its inception in 2013, said he never could have predicted such a meteoric rise.

Without a doubt this is the crowning achievement for my career as an engineer so far, the 22-year-old said. Were showing the university administrations and College of Engineering that there is intense enthusiasm for aerospace engineering at OSU. It speaks very loudly when we go to these aerospace competitions and bring home first place. Now theres going to be an aerospace engineering minor, so its been very cool to be a part of the grassroots impetus for that.

Because of the teams recent success, dozens of members are receiving job offers from companies like SpaceX and Boeing.

Krissy Kellogg, the project manager on the experimental hybrid rocket launching today, started a new job with SpaceX last week after graduating from OSU with a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering.

This experience has been invaluable, Kellogg said. Weve had a lot of guys get recruited based on their work here. The program here is really great, because people who are interested in this just have to get out there and do it. And now there are so many more opportunities for it.

Kellogg said her work on the OSU AIAA team helped lead to her job at SpaceX. It was the fulfillment of a dream that she first envisioned when she was a kid.

We went on a family trip to Disneyworld, but we also went to the Kennedy Space Center while we were there, Kellogg said, adding that there was no competition between the two. The Kennedy Space Center was my favorite part. Thats when I knew this was what I wanted to do.

Squires said that Kellogg was one of four students on the hybrid project team that were women, and that out of 12 mechanical engineering students on the award-winning ESRA project, five were women.

This is unprecedented in our mechanical engineering department. I hope these programs will serve as an inspiration to other young women who are hoping to enter the aerospace industry, Squires said. We now have one of the biggest teams anywhere. Its shocking to me we have so much interest in aerospace without an aerospace major at the University, but I think were only going to see more really big things from this team in the future.
Former President George H. W. Bush has met his great-grandson James for the first time as he celebrated the holiday weekend with his family.

President Bush's granddaughter shared a touching Instagram snap of the ex-commander-in-chief beaming with pride on a beach in Maine with her, her husband David and their son.

The adorable seven-month-old looked pretty happy too, smiling as Lauren held him up to the camera.

James' dungarees were adorned with an American flag, matching his father's cap as they celebrated the July 4 weekend.

Former President George H. W. Bush has met his great-grandson James for the first time as he celebrated the holiday weekend with his family. Pictured, left to right, James Bush Lauren, Lauren Bush Lauren, George H W Bush and David Lauren

Sweet moment: Lauren Bush Lauren took to Instagram on Tuesday to share this photo of her six-month-old son James caressing her friend's cheek

Lauren captioned the picture: 'Family time in Maine and James getting to meet his Great Gampy and Ganny.'

The message suggests Barbara Bush was also there for the family gathering in Kennebunkport, although she was not pictured.

James is the former president's third great-grandchild after three-year-old Mila and baby Poppy, who are the daughters of Jenna Bush and granddaughters of former President George W. Bush.

It was not the first time James' cheeky smile has won over his mother's Instagram followers.

He was pictured sitting on her lap while she chatted with friends on the front stoop of her New York City home in June.

'A magical moment this evening when three friends all randomly collided on my stoop! Love how a big city like NYC can be such a village sometimes. #ladiesmaninthemaking,' she captioned the image, which sees James caressing her friend's cheek.

Triumphant return: Lauren showed off her delightful family, including husband David and son James, at her 10-year reunion at Princeton University on May 28

Gathered together: In honor of her son James turning six months old, Lauren Bush Lauren (right) shared a photo of herself and James posing with Lauren's mother, sister and grandmother three weeks ago

In the photo, Lauren is all smiles as she holds her little boy on her lap and looks down at him with love.

However, baby James only has eyes for his mom's friend - who is equally enamored with him.

And while they are smiling at the infant's first attempt at flirting, Lauren's two other friends are posing for the camera.

In late May, Lauren and David, 44, took their only child to New Jersey for her 10-year Princeton University reunion.

And the doting mom proudly shared a photo of her family decked out in orange and black Princeton gear.

'Princeton 10th year reunion with our little Tiger cub!' she captioned the image, which sees James wearing an orange onesie and an orange and black striped hat featuring Tiger ears in honor of the school's mascot.

Lauren graduated from Princeton in 2006 with a Bachelor of the Arts degree in anthropology and a certificate in photography.

So in love: Mom Lauren is turning her little boy into an Instagram star with her frequent snaps of him

Former President Bush met up with another of his great-granddaughters, Poppy, last month, as he celebrated his 92nd birthday

A second photo showed Mr Bush as he flashed his pearly whites and was sandwiched between Jenna Bush Hager, who was giving him a kiss on the cheek, and her twin sister, Barbara Bush

Former President Bush met up with another of his great-granddaughters, Poppy, last month, as he celebrated his 92nd birthday.

On social media, his granddaughter, NBC News correspondent Jenna Bush Hager, posted two photos on Instagram in honor of his birthday.

The first snap showed him flashing a big smile as he held Hager's daughter Poppy Louise, one of his four great-grandchildren.

The caption read: 'Poppy with Poppy Lou. Happy Birthday our Gamps! Xx.'

A second photo showed Mr Bush as he flashed his pearly whites and was sandwiched between Hager, who was giving him a kiss on the cheek, and her twin sister, Barbara Bush.
Pauline Hanson may finally have succeeded in winning a senate seat, but her victory was soured by a cheeky joke from Senator Sam Dastyari when he asked her to join him for a halal snack pack.

Mr Dastyari, the Labor Senator for New South Wales, cracked the joke while speaking to Ms Hanson during 7 News' live election coverage on Saturday, quickly riling the new Queensland senator.

Ms Hanson, the leader of the One Nation party, was all smiles as Mr Dastyari congratulated her, but her face dropped when he made the offer.

Sam Dastyari looks very pleased with himself as Pauline Hanson reacts to his halal snack pack jibe

Despite Mr Dastyari's offer, Ms Hanson emphatically refused his offer, saying she didn't believe in halal certification

An example of a halal snack pack, including halal meats, hot chips and cheese, usually with garlic, chilli, barbecue sauce and hummus

'Right now, I will invite you to join me in Sydney and I will take you out for halal snack pack out in the western suburbs of Sydney whenever you want,' he said.

Mr Dastyari - grin on face - was clearly pleased with her reaction.

'It's not happening. Not interested in halal thank you. Not interested in it. I don't believe in halal certifications,' Ms Hanson said, waggling her finger in the air.

A smug-looking Dastyari attempted to cut Ms Hanson off, saying they'd have an 'interesting time' in the senate together.

Mr Dastyari grins at Ms Hanson's reaction to being invited out for a halal snack pack in Sydney's western suburbs

One Nation's Pauline Hanson arrives at her election-night function in Ipswich, west of Brisbane, on Saturday night

But she continued, claiming that '98 per cent of Australians' didn't want halal certification.

A halal snack pack comes in a styrofoam backs and includes halal meats, hot chips and cheese, usually with garlic, chilli, barbecue sauce and hummus.

Ms Hanson succeeded in finally re-entering politics after a 20-year hiatus and eight failed attempts to be re-elected.

She's recently said U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump was copying her policies, which focus on stopping Muslim immigration to Australia, stimulating the economy in the regions, ridding the streets of methamphetamine and getting people into jobs.

This year's double dissolution election meant she only required half the usual number to be elected.

New South Wales Labor Senator Sam Dastyari pictured in Canberra in 2014
A Perth man is fighting for his life in hospital with carbon monoxide poisoning, after using a barbecue to heat his bedroom.

Jaeric Bukuru, 25, was found lying unconscious by family members at his house in South Lake, Perth, three weeks ago.

Mr Bukuru has been in Fiona Stanley Hospital since the incident, and is unable to breathe without the use of a ventilator, reported Perth Now.

He was reportedly in intensive care for two weeks before being moved, and is now in a serious but stable condition.

Mr Bukuru brought the charcoal barbecue inside his house to cook some meat.

Jaeric Bukuru, 25, is fighting for his life after trying to heat his bedroom with a barbecue

It's believed that after cooking, he then used the same barbecue to heat up his bedroom.

His family has warned about the consequences of using a barbecue as a heater indoors during winter.

His brother-in-law Sylvester Amiri said they were 'hoping for a miracle'.

Mr Bukuru's brother Donnie, urged others not to leave barbecues burning inside.

'We realise now this is very dangerous and can kill people,' he said.

'It's a silent killer. It's still hard for me to realise and comprehend what has happened.'

Mr Amiri said he would lobby for barbecue manufacturers and shops to display prominent warning labels on their products.

In May, the Health Department issued a warning to homeowners not to leave fires or heaters burning overnight.

WA chief health officer Tarun Weeramanthri said a build-up of carbon monoxide in the bloodstream could lead to serious tissue damage or death.

A GoFundMe page has been set up to help Mr Bukuru's family.
Cuddle up: Holistic therapist and founder of BeCuddled Kitty Mansfield, 48, (left) is looking to recruit a new team of professional snugglers

Potential candidates might need to give hugs rather than handshakes during the interview process, as Britain's first cuddling agency looks to recruit new staff.

BeCuddled charges 50 an hour for 'professional snuggle services and cuddle therapy'.

The unusual idea is the brainchild of holistic therapist Kitty Mansfield, 48, from West London, who three years ago began offering her services as Britain's first professional 'snuggler'.

She has been earning up to 360 a day by opening her arms to people who 'crave intimacy' and her clients include stressed executives, the bereaved or people simply wanting a warm embrace.

Given the events in Westminster from the last week, unloved politicians might also benefit from the service.

Now Mansfield wants to expand her service and recruit professional cuddlers across Britain and eventually Europe - and stresses there is no sexual element to the service.

In fact, people who have worked in the sex industry within the last 12 months are not allowed to apply.

Her rules also clearly state that 'any innapropriate requests or behaviour will result in your immediate exit' and areas normally covered by underwear are off-limits.

On her website, www.besnuggled.co.uk, the job advert calls for people aged over 18, who are 'tactile, empathetic, understanding and non-judgmental'.

No experience is required and successful candidates can work from home and set their own hours.

Rather than being a simple craze imported from America, Mansfield insists there are genuine benefits to her service and 'the power of human touch to soothe and heal'.

Her website adds: 'A mountain of respected scientific research confirms that theres a lot more to snuggling than merely getting close to someone.

'One proven health benefit of cuddling is the release of oxytocin. Known as the feel-good hormone, oxytocin creates a sense of well-being and happiness.

The job advert for BeCuddle requests candidates that are 'tactile, understanding and non-judgmental'

'In addition, physical contact with others can lower blood pressure and reduce stress.

'People love to be cuddled because it feels good and offers simple comfort.'

Other purported benefits including a boost to the immunity system and a decrease in anxiety, cravings and depression.
Jessica Kumala Wongso poisoned her friend Wayan Mirna Salihin with cyanide over bad relationship advice, according to the Prosecution's indictment.

Wayan Mirna Salihin collapsed and began frothing at the mouth at a popular Jakarta restaurant after drinking the Vietnamese coffee allegedly laced by Jessica in January.

The trial is set to resume on July 12 when the first witnesses against Jessica will be called.

The women (Mirna pictured right and Jessica pictured left) studied in Sydney together before graduating in 2008

The Prosecution's indictment which was read out on the first day of the murder trial alleges that Mirna gave her friend some relationship advice about Jessica's then boyfriend, The Daily Telegraph reports.

Prosecutor Ardito Muwardi told the court that Jessica became angry after receiving relationship advice from Mirna and cut off contact with her.

'The victim Mirna suggested to the defendant to break up with her boyfriend who was often rough and a drug user. She asked why date a bad person who doesn't have any capital.'

After Jessica broke up with the boyfriend in question, the prosecution claims she became 'more offended' towards Mirna and planned to kill her.

Arief Soemarko (left) widower of Wayan Mirna Salihin (right) revealed the couple wanted to start a family by the end of the year

Mirna (seen above during another outing) began foaming at the mouth and convulsing after drinking the coffee

CCTV on the day of Mirna's death allegedly shows Jessica arriving at the Jakarta restaurant well before her friend.

After ordering an iced coffee for Mirna, she arranges a number of shopping bags around the drink, blocking any view of it.

After a few minutes she then allegedly returned to her original seat, cleared away the shopping bags and pushed the coffee into the middle of the table.

'Jessica, she came alone (to the restaurant), only with the devil,' Mr Salihin said on Tuesday.

Jessica maintains she is innocent.

Wayan Mirna Salihin sipped from the coffee and began foaming at the mouth and convulsing. She died en route to hospital

Mirna's father, Edi Dermawan Salihin has hit out on the arrangement which will see Jessica (pictured) avoid the death penalty if convicted

Mirna's father, Edi Dermawan Salihin, has also hit out at an agreement between Australia and Indonesia that his daughter's accused killer would not face the death penalty.

Canberra had sought the assurance on the death penalty after Indonesian prosecutors asked for the assistance of the Australian Federal Police to gather evidence from the time the two women had spent in Australia.

But Mr Salihin said the agreement should be void if she were convicted on evidence that Jakarta police had gathered.

Speaking before the second week of Jessica's murder trial at Central Jakarta District Court on Tuesday, Mr Salihin alleged she 'killed my daughter like (she was) a rat'.

He said he had been 'shocked' when Jessica became the prime suspect in the murder as she and his daughter had been very close, studying together at the design college Billy Blue in Sydney for several years.

Jessica Kumala Wongso (above being escorted by police) is accused of slipping the poison in to her friend's iced coffee in January

She participated in a police reenactment of the alleged killing at the cafe earlier this year (above)

Mr Salihin said he had been heavily involved with the police and prosecutors' efforts in bringing the case against the 27-year-old and had handed over 'key evidence' to police.

He said the agreement with Canberra should only stand if she is convicted based on evidence gathered by the AFP.

'If we find the evidence here in Jakarta, myself and police, how come we have to accept their agreement?'

Jessica's legal team applied to have the case thrown out on a number of grounds, including that the indictment presented to the court failed to properly outline the evidence on which the charge of premeditated murder had been brought.

She lost her bid to have the case against her thrown out, with a Jakarta judge finding prosecutors have clearly explained elements of premeditated murder.

Jessica maintains she is innocent and her legal team has applied to have the case thrown out on a number of grounds
The Australian Federal Police said it is looking into the source of thousands of partisan texts about Medicare sent to voters on election day.

The texts were purported to come from Medicare and contained the message 'Mr Turnbull's plans to privatise Medicare will take us down the road of no return.'

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Malcolm Turnbull has vowed police will investigate thousands of anti-Liberal Party text messages sent just hours before voting polls closed

The Government has called on Opposition Leader Bill Shorten to confirm he was not behind an anti-Liberal Party text message campaign

The AFP said today that 'it can confirm it has received a referral on Saturday 2 July 016 in relation to the receipt of text messages allegedly sent from Medicare.'

'This matter is now being evaluated and whilst this occurs it would not be appropriate to provide further comment,' a spokeswoman said.

Malcolm Turnbull vowed last night that police would investigate the anti-Liberal Party text messages sent to voters just hours before the polls closed on Saturday.

'As voters went to the polls, as you would have seen in the press, there were text messages being sent to thousands of people across Australia saying that Medicare was about to be privatised by the Liberal Party,' Mr Turnbull said in the speech.

Dozens of people have taken to social media to slam the last minute text campaign

'The SMS message came from Medicare. It said it came from Medicare. An extraordinary act of dishonesty.'

The Health Minister's office warned voters to beware of the 'desperate and deceitful' messages and called on Opposition Leader Bill Shorten to confirm he was not behind the campaign.

Some social media users have questioned the legality of the campaign

Minister for Health Sussan Ley urged voters to unsubscribe from what she branded a Labor Medi-scare campaign

The Health Minister's office has warned voters to beware of the 'desperate and deceitful' messages

The messages are in agreement with Labor's campaign slogan that voting Labor is voting to 'save Medicare'

Minister for Health Sussan Ley urged voters to unsubscribe from what she branded a Labor Medi-scare campaign in a statement to news.com.au.

'Australians can spot a fake when they see one and Labor's Medi-scare campaign is the biggest fake of all,' she said.

Others took to social media to slam the campaign.

'Has anyone else received this text message? Is Labor pretending to be Medicare?'

'Got this text from 'Medicare' today. Clearly from ALP. Deceit of the highest order. How is this legal?'

'Tempted to vote for the person who didn't text spam me' wrote another.

A spokesperson from the Labor campaign denied any knowledge of the message campaign.

The Labor party has been arguing a Coalition proposal to look into privatising Medicare back-room payments systems will lead to full-scale privitisation.

The message was so pivotal to the campaign they later adopted the slogan: 'save Medicare, vote Labor'.
Pauline Hanson's election to the senate in Queensland has prompted calls for a 'Quexit' by those unhappy with the result.

The controversial far right politician and One Nation leader easily gathered enough votes to be elected after eight unsuccessful attempts, returning to politics proper for the first time since 1998.

But those who were unimpressed have taken to social media calling for a Brexit-style separation of Queensland from the rest of Australia.

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One Twitter user's re-imagination of Australia after a 'Quexit' in response to right-wing politician Pauline Hanson being elected to the senate

One Nation's Pauline Hanson arrives at her election-night function in Ipswich, west of Brisbane, on Saturday evening

Tom Ballard called for a 'Quexit' early on Saturday ahead of her election to politics

This Twitter user referenced the fact that the last time Ms Hanson was in politics was almost 20 years ago

Brexit is the term used to describe Britain's recent successful referendum to split from the European Union after more than four decades.

The hashtag Quexit began before her win on Saturday, with many stating they'd call for it if she was successful.

After her win, it began to gather momentum.

Early on, comedian Tom Ballard tweeted: ' If Pauline Hanson wins we should have a referendum for a #Quexit'.

Some reacted by calling for a moment of silence for Queensland after Ms Hanson's election

Some of the reactions on social media after the election were more unpleasant than others

Leader of the One Nation party, Ms Hanson shakes hands with the party's candidate for Oxley, Brad Trussell, at her election night function on Saturday

The call was repeated by many, with some asking for a 'moment of silence in mourning' for Queensland.

One man tweeted: 'Pauline is in government. I'm going to play my So Fresh CD and eat a roll up cos [sic] apparently it's 1998'.

Some seemed serious, many tongue-in-cheek.

Others simply expressed their shock and despair that Ms Hanson had won.

Someone even created a new map of Australia - without Queensland.

Ms Hanson believes Muslim immigration to Australia should be stopped and is concerned by Asian influence on the country, but recently said she didn't want to be labelled a racist, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Her other priorities include stimulating the economy in the regions, ridding the streets of methamphetamine and getting people into jobs.

Before the election on Saturday, many expected Ms Hanson to do well due to senate voting reforms and the dramatic decline in support for the Palmer United Party in Queensland.

The double dissolution also meant she required half the usual votes, it was reported.

Social media users also had a field day with photoshop, imagining Queensland closed off to the rest of the country, and it taking off to the moon with Ms Hanson
Abbey Clancy was left terrified after coming face to face with burglars at her luxury holiday villa in the south of France.

The 30-year-old model heard noises in the middle of the night at the villa in the French Riviera resort of Antibes before going downstairs to investigate with a friend.

The mother-of-two, whose husband Peter Crouch was away working as a Euro 2016 TV pundit, is said to have screamed when they saw two men rifling through their belongings.

Abbey Clancy (left), wife of ex England striker Peter Crouch (right), was left terrified after coming face to face with burglars at her holiday villa in the south of France. The pair are pictured together days before the drama

The mother-of-two (left), whose husband Peter Crouch was away working as a Euro 2016 TV pundit, is said to have screamed when they saw two men rifling through their belongings. The pair are pictured together in February

Peter Crouch was in Paris working for ITV when the drama happened at a holiday villa in Antibes, southern France

The intruders then fled empty handed, but the attempted raid, on Monday, left the star badly shaken.

A source told Laura Armstrong of the Sun on Sunday: 'Abbey seemed quite traumatised. She cant stop thinking about what could have happened to them if they hadnt woken up or if the burglars had been armed.

The source added that her 35-year-old husband, who was in Paris working for ITV at the time, was 'horrified' at the break in and 'extremely relieved' Ms Clancy was unharmed.

Just days earlier, the pair had been pictured soaking up the sun on the coast together.

Ms Clancy, whose two children were believed to be in the UK at the time, was due to fly home to Britain on Tuesday.

The Sun on Sunday said she had made an appearance at the London premiere of Absolutely Fabulous on Wednesday.

The 30-year-old model heard noises in the middle of the night at the villa in the French Riviera resort of Antibes (file picture) before going downstairs to investigate with a friend

The mother-of-two, whose husband Peter Crouch was away working as a Euro 2016 TV pundit, is said to have screamed when they saw two men rifling through their belongings

Ms Clancy's representatives declined to comment when contacted by MailOnline this morning.

Her ordeal came a year after F1 driver Jenson Button and his former-wife Jessica were targeted by burglars in the South of France.

The couple - who had been asleep - lay unconscious in bed as the burglars rifled through the rented St Tropez home, taking items including 30-year-old Jessicas 250,000 engagement ring.

French police believe the gang had been watching the villa for days before letting off a cannister of anaesthetic gas into an air-conditioning vent.
Exasperated Labour MPs pleaded with Jeremy Corbyn to finally quit as leader today amid claims his closest allies were stopping Tom Watson and other shadow cabinet members from seeing him.

Ex-leader Neil Kinnock demanded Mr Corbyn quit today while Chris Bryant, one of the more than 60 MPs to quit the front bench in the past week, said the Labour leader was 'too frightened' to see colleagues.

The long-awaited Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War will finally be published on Wednesday morning and Prime Minister David Cameron will make a detailed Government response after PMQs.

Mr Corbyn is due to visit Downing Street on Tuesday to read the 2.6-million word report and plan Labour's response despite a week of unprecedented rebellion in his party - expected to including a condemnation of Tony Blair and an apology for the Labour Party's role.

Jeremy Corbyn, pictured at an ant-racism rally in Islington yesterday, has repeated his insistence he will not resigning and sources have said he will definitely not be moved before the Iraq War Inquiry is published

Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock today joined calls for Mr Corbyn to quit, a week after an insurrection among Labour's parliamentary party began

It was reported today moderates in Labour hope reaching the Chilcot publication could provide Mr Corbyn the chance to a draw a line under his troubled 10-month leadership.

But Mr Corbyn was forcefully backed by Unite leader Len McCluskey todayaccused Labour MPs of attempting a 'political lynching'.

The Observer today revealed Mr Watson had been stopped from holding a completely private meeting with Mr Corbyn because they have a 'duty of care' to protect him from a 'culture of bullying'.

Mr Corbyn and Mr Watson together travelled to and appeared at a Polish Centre in Hammersmith on Thursday but were at no time left completely alone, according to reports.

And former shadow Commons leader Mr Bryant today revealed a 'frightened' Mr Corbyn had been in hiding from seven members of his new team who wanted to see him.

He told the BBC: 'If you're listening Jeremy, please please, you're the only person who can't break this logjam. Go with dignity.'

Since news broke of Hilary Benn's sacking by Corbyn last Sunday, more than 60 front benchers have resigned and Labour MPs overwhelmingly backed a motion of no confidence in their leader.

But senior Labour figures have so far held back from issuing a formal challenge, which could be secured by one candidate gaining 50 nominations, and triggering a new leadership contest.

A formal challenge could still come as soon as Tuesday but Labour sources told The Sunday Times: 'He won't resign until after he gets to crucify Blair for Chilcot.'

The Sun reported another source as insisting: 'A number of proposals to ensure Jeremy's legacy will be offered in return for him stepping down.'

They added: '(Chilcot will be) his moment in history.'

Mr Blair himself added to the pressure, telling Sky News: 'Im not saying Jeremy Corbyn should stay or go  Im not expressing an opinion on that.

'Right now, at this moment in time, this country needs an opposition that challenging the government, holding it to account and representing those millions of people out there who are thinking ''Our country has been changed and weve got no-one to represent us''.

'Ive not known a time like this in British politics.'

Unite leader Len McCluskey today claimed Mr Corbyn had been the victim of a 'political lynching' and dubbed him a 'man of steel' who would not quit

Angela Eagle and Owen Smith are still thought to be weighing up making the challenge but there are fears of what could happen were Mr Corbyn to win a second leadership election.

Unite leader Mr McCluskey, a prominent supporter of Mr Corbyn, said the leader had been the victim of a 'political lynching' and said it was 'outrageous' for 'grandees being dragged out to be part of this unedifying coup'.

He told Andrew Marr: 'This has been a political lynching of a decent man, undermined, humiliated, attacked, in order to push him out.

'And here's the truth. It's failed. The coup has failed. Jeremy Corbyn is made of stronger stuff, he is a man of steel and he has made it clear that he will not stand down.'

Mr McCluskey said 'sinister forces', including a PR company with links to Mr Blair, had 'seduced' the MPs on the left of the party.

Portland Communications today branded the comment a 'ridiculous conspiracy theory'.

The trade unions can 'broker a peace', Mr McCluskey said as he urged potential challengers Angela Eagle and Owen Smith to step back.

'The alternative if Angela goes ahead with this, and I hope she doesn't, or Owen, is that we are plunged into a civil war that will be bitter and ugly and may never allow the Labour party to reunite again.'

Mr Corbyn is said to be eager to denounce Tony Blair, pictured last weekend, over the Iraq War from the Commons Despatch Box on Wednesday after the Chilcot Inquiry is published

Mr Corbyn, who lost his temper with a reporter at an event in Islington yesterday, struck a defiant tone in a column in today's Sunday Mirror.

In a message aimed at both his revolting MPs and the activists who insist they will defend him, the Labour leader insisted he would fight on.

Mr Corbyn said: 'I was elected nine months ago, by 60 per cent of Labour members and supporters, for a new kind of politics in a country that clearly wants real change.

'I am ready to reach out to Labour MPs who didn't accept my election and oppose my leadership - and work with the whole party to provide the alternative the country needs.

'But they also need to respect the democracy of our party and the views of Labour's membership, which has increased by more than 60,000 in the past week alone. Our priority must be to mobilise this incredible force to oppose the Tories, and ensure people in Britain have a real political alternative.

'That is my priority and always will be as leader of our party.

'Those who want to challenge my leadership are free to do so in a democratic contest, in which I will be a candidate.'

The plea for calm comes at the end of a tumultuous week that saw most of his front bench team walk out and 172 of his MPs back a motion of no confidence in his leadership.

Activists devoted to protecting Mr Corbyn have protested in London last week as the attempt by Labour MPs to remove him gathered pace

Mr Corbyn's aides are reportedly keeping Mr Watson away from him, fearing he will try to 'bully' the 67-year-old leader into quitting.

The deputy leader has been trying to seek a meeting to find a way of negotiating a settlement as the crisis engulfing the party shows no sign of abating.

Mr Corbyn's team said it had a 'duty of care' to the leader and highlighted his age, according to the Observer.

A spokesman for Mr Watson said: 'Tom and Jeremy have always had a good working relationship and a friendly personal relationship. They have never even raised their voices to one another.'

Mr Corbyn's team said the claims were nonsense from an anonymous source. 'Jeremy has met Tom on a couple of occasions this week,' a spokesman said.
Andrea Leadsom today portrayed herself as the heir to Margaret Thatcher as she battled to beat Theresa May to the Tory crown.

But she refused to rule out appointing Ukip leader Nigel Farage to her Brexit negotiating team if she overhauls the front runner to become PM.

Asked directly if she would bring in Mr Farage, she said: 'I don't want to get into who does what.'

In an interview on the BBC Andrew Marr programme, Ms Leadsom defended herself against claims she was being hypocritical after a 2013 speech emerged in which she claimed Brexit 'would be a disaster for our economy and it would lead to a decade of economic and political uncertainty'.

Andrea Leadsom, interviewed on today's Andrew Marr programme, refused to rule out brining Nigel Farage into her Brexit negotiating team

Ms Leadsom, alongside her leadership rival Michael Gove on the Marr set today, agreed to publish her tax return during the interview - but insisted she did not want to set a precedent for all MPs

She said in the same speech she had demanded 'fundamental reform' and today insisted the EU had demonstrated it would never reform when David Cameron asked for change.

Ms Leadsom insisted today: 'I probably know more about the EU than most people in Government right now.'

And she told Marr : 'It has been a journey.

'When I came into Parliament, like most people in the country I'd grown up as part of the EU and it's absolutely part of our DNA.

'I came into Parliament, set up something called the Fresh Start Project, which took hundreds and hundreds of hours of evidence about how the EU impacts on the UK - on everything from immigration to fisheries and so on.

'During that process I travelled all across Europe with lots of parliamentary colleagues - up to 100 Conservative colleagues supporting this work - to try and get a really decent, fundamental reform of the EU.'

She went on: 'When the Prime Minister came back with his reform, with his renegotiation, with the certainty of a referendum behind it ... it was very clear the EU is just not reformable.

'So that speech was April 2013, and things have so moved on.'

Ms Leadsom said it was vital for someone who 'believes in the opportunities of leaving the EU' becomes Prime Minister to negotiate the exit.

Ms Leadsom told the Sunday Telegraph she aspired to match Lady Thatcher's combination of toughness with 'personal warmth'.

She said: 'As a person, she was always kind and courteous and as a leader she was steely and determined.

'I think that's an ideal combination - and I do like to think that's where I am.'

She insisted she was not a 'reincarnation' of the former PM but added: 'I met her a few times. I was always in awe of her and I don't think people should be in awe of me.

'I'm just a normal person.'

Ms Leadsom, seen arriving at the BBC today, claimed in a newspaper interview she shared Lady Thatcher's combination of toughness with 'personal warmth'

Ms Leadsom today gained high profile support from Tory grandees Lord Tebbit, and Sir Bill Cash, the chairman of the Commons EU scrutiny select committee.

Sir Bill told the Sunday Telegraph: 'Andrea is the authentic voice for Brexit. She is competent, she is experienced, she has knowledge of the EU issue and she will deliver.'

Lord Tebbit, who served in Thatcher's Cabinet, said: 'She has a hinterland of business experience outside, which is something sorely needed these days among members of the House of Commons.

'If you look at her background, her beliefs and her record she is essentially a Thatcherite figure. She is the obvious candidate.'

Ukip donor Arron Banks has pledged his backing to Ms Leadsom.

Mr Farage, the Ukip leader, has been jubilant since the Brexit vote and some have suggested he should have a role in negotiating Brexit

When asked if she was satisfied to be the candidate 'where the Conservative Party and Ukip touch fingers' by Marr, the Ms Leadsom replied: 'I don't recognise what you're saying.'

She questioned how it was possible to know if those backing her campaign were Ukip supporters, noting she has received support from Labour voters.

Ms Leadsom added: 'I don't think it's fair to say that I'm just being supported by Ukip. I think the undertone of your accusation is that somehow those aren't nice people or something.'

Mr Marr intervened, noting: 'It's not an accusation, it's a friendly question.'
Libraries plan comedy,

magic programs

Students going into grades kindergarten and up and their parents are invited to three programs of physical comedy featuring mime, acting, hat manipulations, and unexpected magic by Thomas Schroyer (aka Tommy Twimble) at the library this summer.

Programs will be at 2:30 and 4 p.m. Tuesday, July 5, at the Downtown Carnegie Library, 302 Ferry St. S.W., or 2:30 p.m. Thursday, July 7, at Albany Public Library, 2450 14th Ave. S.E.

The library will provide a display of books and movies available for checkout on related subjects for further learning at home.

This program is part of the Librarys Summer Reading Program events scheduled through August. They are free of charge, and no registration is required.

For more information, e-mail doris.hicks@cityofalbany.net or call 541-791-0015.

Swim lessons

at Albany pools

COOL! Pool will offer swimming lessons July 5-15, and a few spots are still available. Classes are held daily in the mornings.

This year, water polo classes also will be offered for children ages 6 to 10 on Tuesdays and Fridays from 4:10 to 4:50 p.m.

The second set of morning lessons will be held July 5-15 at the Albany Community Pool as well. Some spaces are still available.

For COOL! Pool information call 541-917-7752. For Albany Community Pool info, call 541-967-4521.

Day camps

offered in Lebanon

LEBANON  The Boys & Girls Clubs of the Greater Santiam are offering three camps this summer for incoming third through seventh graders.

Before and after care is available at the Lebanon Boys & Girls Club.

Space is limited. Camp costs include a snack and lunch. Register now at the Lebanon Boys & Girls Club, 305 S. 5th Street For more information, check out the website at http://www.coyleoutside.com/ or call 541.258.7105 or email treece@bgcgreatersantiam.org

The camps are:

Survival Camp (Aug. 8-12; Monday-Friday 8:30 a.m. 5:00 p.m. daily; Cheadle Lake Park): Kids will be taught how to survive in the wild, including learning to solve problems, tie knots, and build shelters, traps and fires. Cost is $200 per child.

Skate Camp (Aug. 1-5; 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday at the skate park in Lebanon): Experts will teach kids how to build a skateboard, learn tricks, and much more. Fun for all levels. Cost is $140 per child.

Secret Agent Camp (July 25-29; 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday; Century Park): A fun, hands-on day camp all about how to be a spy. Disguises, cracking codes, solving crimes and much more. Cost is $140 per child.

Lebanon library

plans Lego Day

LEBANON  The Lebanon Public Library will host a Lego Day at 11 a.m. Thursday, July 7, for ages 6 and older.

The library will provide the Legos and participants will provide the creativity. All finished Lego creations will be displayed in the librarys special display case for everyone to enjoy.

The event is part of the librarys summer reading program. For more information about the program and upcoming events, visit www.lebanonpubliclibrary.com, check out the librarys Facebook page or call during regular business hours at 541-258-4926.

Museum plans

Pioneer Day Camp

The Monteith House is hosting a summer day camp for children in kindergarten through sixth grades July 11-13. Registration is due by July 8.

The three-day camp gives children the opportunity to go on a pioneer journey. On day one, they will learn about why the pioneers went west and what it was like to cross the Oregon Trail and make their home in Albany in the 1800s. On days two and three, the children will explore daily pioneer life through hands on activities and stories, and pioneer music and manners.

Each day a snack and a partial costume will be provided.

Camp hours are from 9:30 a.m. to noon at the Monteith House, 518 S.W. Second Ave. in downtown Albany, across from the Post Office. Cost is $50 per child or $30 for siblings.

Space is limited. For information or registration, contact the Albany Visitors Association at 541-928-0911.

Movie Night

at Albany pool

Albany Parks & Recreation Department will show Zootopia at 7:00 p.m. Friday, July 8, 2016 for Family Movie Night at Albany Community Pool, 2150 36th Avenue SE. Movie-goers are encouraged to bring a favorite inflatable and watch the movie while they swim. Snacks will be part of the fun.

Family cost is $12.00 for the first six; $2.00 each additional person; $3.50 for ages 18 and under; and $3.75 for those over 18. Children under age six and/or using a lifejacket must have an adult within reach of them in the water.

For more information, call the pool office at 541-967-4521 or visit http://www.cityofalbany.net/departments/parks-and-recreation/aquatics/albany-community-pool.
Prosecutors will examine the Chilcot report on the war in Iraq for evidence of abuse and torture that could be used to prosecute British soldiers.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) said it is looking at the 2.6 million report at its headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands.

If evidence of war crimes are found in the document, which will be published on Wednesday, British soldiers could face prosecution.

But the ICC has ruled out putting Tony Blair on trial, as it said the decision to go to war is not in its remit.

A British soldier is pictured leaping from a petrol-bombed tank during a riot in Basra, Iraq

In a statement to The Telegraph, the Office of the Prosecutor at the ICC said: 'We will take note of the Chilcot report when released in the context of its ongoing preliminary examination work concerning Iraq/UK.

'A preliminary examination is not an investigation but a process aimed at determining whether reasonable basis exist to open an investigation.

'As already indicated by the Office in 2006, the "decision by the UK to go to war in Iraq falls outside the Court's jurisdiction".'

The disastrous conflict  condemned as illegal by critics  sowed the seeds for the rise of the Islamic State terror group.

Nearly 7,500 Iraqi civilians were killed in the first two months of the war, which also claimed the lives of 179 British servicemen and women.

The UKs six-year military mission came to an end in May 2009.

Mr Blair, pictured being questioned during the Chilcot Inquiry, has been accused of 'misleading the public' over the 2003 conflict

Sir John Chilcot is expected to report that Mr Blair sidelined experts and the Cabinet to make the case for war.

Calls for Mr Blair to face a war crimes trial have so far been rejected, but influential politicians including senior Tory MP Sir David Amess are determined he should not escape justice.

They say he should lose the right to sit on the Privy Council  the formal body of advisers to the Queen  and the Right Honourable title that comes with it.

Mr Davis, pictured, said Mr Blair 'used deceit to sway the population' to back intervention in Iraq

Writing in todays Mail on Sunday, another senior Tory MP, David Davis, says: From the evidence presented to Chilcot, it seems clear that Blair lied to the British people and to Parliament we must stop presidents and Prime Ministers from casually killing thousands without thought for the consequences. No one can be immune from justice.

Today, Tony Blair said he will be very vocal in response to the report, but not until it's released on Wednesday.

He told Sky News: 'Ive said many times I will wait for the report and then I will make my views known and express myself fully and properly.

'Ive taken the view that we should wait for the report to be published. Im not getting into the politics or the detail of it.

'I dont know (why people people hate me)  there may be lots of reasons for it - but politics is a strange business.

'But youve always go to think back. I had great times leading the Labour Party.

'Despite all the controversies over issues like Iraq, there were many good things we managed to do for the country.

'Whatever people say theres still an important to be done  and a job that, if you manage to get to it, you should count yourself privileged.

'I think its best we wait for Wednesday and lets see what the report brings.
Australia's incoming senate includes a 72-year-old with three criminal convictions, a staunchly right-wing fish and chip shop owner and a mother of two who wants to ban the burqa.

When Malcolm Turnbull dissolved parliament to make the senate easier to work with, he probably did not have this bunch in mind.

Maverick politicians such as Pauline Hanson, Derryn Hinch and Jacqui Lambie have swept into power as Australians turn to anti-establishment candidates to get things done.

Scroll down for video

Pauline Hanson's One Nation party is likely to gain two seats in the Senate. Hanson is pictured with probable Senator Malcolm Roberts

As Australia's senate takes shape in the wake of Saturday's Federal Election, it appears the Liberals, National and Labor will hold 57 seats between them.

That leaves 19 seats  and a significant chunk of influence  to independent and minority candidates.

Controversial right-wing politician Pauline Hanson  a former fish and chip shop owner  will return to the Senate after 20 years in the political wildnerness.

Her One Nation party is on track to nab at least two spots in Queensland, which would catapult both her and party mate Malcolm Roberts into government.

Hanson rose to fame in the mid-1990s for controversial stances against immigration and Aboriginal land rights. Parliament infamously passed a resolution condemning her views on these topics

Hanson rose to fame in the mid-1990s for her stances against immigration, Aboriginal land rights and multi-culturalism.

This time around - her 13th tilt at getting into government - she has positioned herself as the plucky voice of grassroots Australia.

Her party mate Malcolm Roberts describes himself as a 'family man with a background in engineering and mining' and with a keen interest in climate change policy .

Radio shock jock Derryn Hinch, the self-proclaimed 'Human Headline', has secured a Senate spot in Victoria

Former radio shock jock Derryn Hinch stayed true to his roots when he heard of his likely election to the Senate in Victoria.

The self-described 'Human Headline', 72, said: 'It's time to keep the bastards honest.'

Hinch, who has been convicted three times for contempt of court, said Mr Turnbull would have a hard time keeping the motley senate in line.

He told the ABC: '[Turnbull] called the election to get rid of pesky senators.

'He's shot himself in the foot. He's going to end up with 12 [indepedendents].'

Hinch has been convicted three times for contempt of court and is notorious for outing sex offenders who are protected by name suppresion

Controversial politician Jacqui Lambie retains her Tasmanian Senate spot and is already being picked to cause legislative headaches.

The mother of two has previously introduced a bill into the house which would outlaw the burqa and has vocally called for the death penalty to be re-introduced.

Already tensions are running high between Lambie and the Liberals, after an attack ad accused her of cuddling up to the Greens.

In response to the ad, Lambie said: 'The Liberal Party's nothing but a pack of liars.

'They're starting to get their knickers in a knot that Jacqui Lambie's starting to find some ground here in Tasmania.'

Mother of two Jacqui Lambie infamously tried to introduce a bill to the Senate that would ban the burqa

Anti-gambling Adelaide Senator Nick Xenophon has returned to government and is on track to take two or three candidates with him.

Rebekha Sharkie, a member of his Nick Xenophon Team, has already been elected in Mayo and candidates Stirling Griff and Skye Kakoschke-Moore are likely picks.

Xenophon, who showed up to vote on a bright orange motorbike, has campaigned strongly on gambling reform and revitalising the manufacturing sector.

He is shaping as a probabl kingmaker in the upper house and has already begun pre-emptive negotiations with Malcolm Turnbull.

Nick Xenophon (second from left) is hopeful of bringing three members of his Nick Xenophon Team into the Senate. He is pictured with confirmed Senator Rebekha Sharkie (left) and hopefuls Stirling Griff (second right) and Skye Kakoschke-Moore (right)

In typical headline-grabbing fashion, South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon showed up to vote on Saturday riding a bright orange motorbike

With such colourful characters voted into power, veteran ABC journalist Barry Cassidy predicts upper house politics will be anything but dull.

'The Prime Minister called a double dissolution. Now let's have a look at the result of that handiwork,' he said.

'You have Pauline Hanson and Derryn Hinch. They will have to erect a circus stand on the lawns of Parliament House ... That's quite an assortment.'
Boris Johnson's decision not to fight on in the Tory leadership race was 'telling', Michael Gove claimed today as he defended himself against claims he was a 'political serial killer'.

The Tory leadership contender said he had wanted Mr Johnson to go on from Vote Leave and become the Prime Minister.

But Mr Gove said watching his preparations had convinced him the former London Mayor was not up to the job.

Mr Gove dropped a bombshell announcement on Thursday morning that he would himself run for leader, just two hours before Mr Johnson was due to begin his campaign.

Mr Johnson then dropped out of the race before it began. It was reported today the pair are yet to have a conversation about the 'betrayal'.

In a newspaper interview today, Mr Gove claimed the brutal political move would show Russian President Vladimir Putin he would not 'flinch' in a confrontation.

Michael Gove, on the BBC Andrew Marr programme today, defended his decision to depose Boris Johnson at the head of the Tory race

Mr Gove said the ex-London mayor lacked 'that executive authority, that strength of purpose, that clarity'.

And he said: 'Boris could have chosen to go on (for the leadership). The fact he didn't is telling.'

Mr Gove insisted: 'If you put friendship and personal relationship before what is right, you are not serving your country.'

Mr Gove said he took the decision 'very late' on Wednesday evening after talking to close colleagues and wife Sarah Vine.

He insisted he had tried to ring Mr Johnson to tell him about the decision 'but the clock was ticking' in the leadership contest.

'I came to the conclusion reluctantly after throwing my heart and soul for four or five days into trying to get Boris to become the next leader of the Conservative Party he could not do that job,' he said.

Mr Gove added: 'Boris had the opportunity to build a team, Boris had the opportunity to lay out a particular vision in the last 24 hours and I felt that he did not step up to that challenge.'

The Justice Secretary said he was running for leader because there were currently 'two Britains', one which was doing 'very nicely' and the other which had been 'left behind'.

Outlining a policy offer, Mr Gove said he would reform corporate pay to ensure there was no 'reward for failure'.

Mr Gove outlined a policy plan to crack down on corporate pay in today's interview with the BBC

In an interview with the The Sun today, Mr Gove admitted he was yet to speak to Mr Johnson about his actions.

He said: 'I'm keen to talk to Boris. I've been trying to ring him. I want to explain to him why I felt I had to do what I did.

'I tried to ring him on Thursday morning when I decided to run but he didn't pick up the call and I've been unable to speak to him since.'

Mr Gove has faced accusations of 'treachery' since his decision to pull his support for Mr Johnson and stage his own bid for the top job.

He told the newspaper his confidence in the former London mayor had 'evaporated'.

'Over the past week, to my deep regret, my confidence evaporated. That led me to make the difficult decision, at no little cost, to put friendships aside and act in the national interest,' he said.

The leading Leave campaigner also insisted the decision to quit the European Union would not lead to the break-up of the UK.

'I don't believe that we will need to go down that path,' he said.

'There is no appetite for a second referendum.'

Mr Gove and Boris Johnson were close allies during the referendum battle, jointly leading the Vote Leave campaign. Mr Gove had been due to run his colleague's leadership campaign

Pressed on his past comments describing the Northern Ireland peace process as a 'moral stain' and a 'capitulation to violence', he insisted the negotiations 'could have been handled in a different way'.

'There was a problem with the Northern Ireland peace process,' he added.

Michael Gove today claimed his knifing of Boris Johnson would prove to Putin he was not a 'soft touch'

In a separate interview, Mr Gove told the Sunday Times: 'I think one thing that people could say after this week is whatever else you say about Michael Gove, he is a man who is prepared to stand up for what he believes in and take the consequences and he is a man who is prepared to act on what he thinks is the national interest,' he said.

'You've got to take a particular step, not to flinch, so I think Vladimir Putin, if we had the option to meet  which I'm sure we will if I am elected as prime minister  will know that whatever else I am, I am not a soft touch.'

The Home Secretary is backed by 60 per cent of Tory voters, with Mr Gove second on 10 points and Mrs Leadsom on six, according to the ICM poll for The Sun on Sunday.

Among party members, who will vote to decide the winner of the leadership contest, some 46 per cent say she would make the best prime minister.

Mrs May has also been backed by more MPs, who select the final two candidates to go on to the ballot paper, than any of the other candidates.

Although the poll puts Mr Gove, who has wider name recognition, ahead of Mrs Leadsom, bookies have slashed the odds on the junior minister making it through the knock-out stages in Parliament to go up against Mrs May in the head-to-head.
A jobless mother-of-five has denied urinating on a town centre war memorial on the anniversary of the Battle of the Somme.

Kelly Martin, 42, was charged with outraging public decency after shocking photos that appeared to show a woman relieving herself on poppy wreathes were posted online.

The images show a semi-naked woman squatting next to the cenotaph in Grays, Essex in broad daylight as children stroll past. She has what appears to be a can of drink next to her.

Kelly Martin, 42, was charged with outraging public decency after shocking photos that appeared to show a woman relieving herself on poppy wreathes were posted online

Although the pictures were taken on Thursday, they emerged as the nation was united in grief and remembrance the following day.

Wearing an orange prison jump suit, Martin, of no fixed abode, confirmed her name, address and entered a not guilty plea at Basildon Magistrates Court today.

The court heard that on June 30 mother-of-five Martin allegedly urinated on the war memorial, one day before The Somme anniversary.

Prosecutor Lesley Chips said: 'A witness saw her with her trousers pulled down at the memorial where these poppies had been laid.

Pictures emerged of a woman urinating on a war memorial as the nation marked the centenary of the bloodiest day in British military history

'At the same time he was so disgusted by the business he took photographs and these photographs were on social media and have been seen by many people.

She added: 'Most people would find this kind of behaviour very offensive if it was in the public domain.

'But this was on a war memorial, and here children were present and going about their business.'

The images emerged as Europe commemorated the Battle of the Somme, which killed more than 429,000 British soldiers.

When the images first emerged, disgusted locals branded the incident 'awful' and called upon residents and passers-by to help identify the woman.

The secretary of the town's Royal British Legion, Sue Merrin, was appalled by the incident.

'I'm shocked. I think it's awful and I will be relaying this to our branch chairman,' she told the Daily Star.

'Somebody must know something. Whoever is doing this should be ashamed of themselves. It's totally disgusting,' she added.

A soldier stands guard by the Croix du Sacrifice, or Cross of the Sacrifice, as guns are fired at the Thiepval cemetery. The Commonwealth War Graves cemetery has an equal number of British and French casualties, with 90 per cent of them killed during the Battle of the Somme

The Royal British Legion has condemned the woman and slammed it as an insult to the brave few who made the ultimate sacrifice.

A spokesman said: 'The Legion is shocked and saddened to hear of this incident.

'War memorials and graves honour the memory of the British Armed Forces who have made the ultimate sacrifice and those who defend the freedom we enjoy.

'They deserve to be treated with the utmost respect.'

The Kings Troop Royal Horse Artillery pass the group of dignitaries, including Prince William, Charles, Harry, Kate Middleton and David Cameron (pictured cente) as the service of remembrance gets underway. The procession was watched by more than 10,000 guests

Locals also hit out at the disgusting image, claiming a group of people have been drinking heavily around the sacred monument for days.

A High Street worker said: 'The said party of people have been there for the last four days.'

On Friday senior members of the Royal Family stood side-by-side with politicians as more than 10,000 people gathered to mark the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme.

The Duke and Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Harry, David Cameron and Francois Hollande stand side-by-side with other dignitaries as they pay tribute to the thousands who lost their lives in the Battle of the Somme 100 years ago. The event at the Thiepval Memorial, which looks over the battlefields, is one of a number of commemorations being held to mark the centenary

The Duke and Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry led a service of remembrance for the thousands of soldiers who lost their lives in one of the bloodiest offensives of the First World War.

They were joined by David Cameron, Nicola Sturgeon and French president Francois Hollande at the Thiepval Memorial in northern France, which commemorates the 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave.
A dying man allegedly used his last words to describe how his 'mate stabbed him and stole his car'.

The man, believed to be in his 40s, was found on the porch of a home in Schofields, western Sydney, on Saturday night and was taken to Westmead Hospital in a critical condition before dying a short time later.

According to 9 News, he'd stumbled to the porch of the home on Meadow Road where the tenant and his 15-year-old son found him and he told them what had happened.

Bloodstains outside a property in Schofields, Sydney, after a man was stabbed to death on Saturday night

An ambulance at the scene. The man was taken to Westmead Hospital in a critical condition before he died

Meadow Road in Schofield, Sydney, where the stabbed man came to a house and told the residents he'd been stabbed by a friend

He had suffered multiple stab wounds and left pools of blood outside the house and bloodstains on a wall.

On Sunday, police visited a nearby property and took a woman for questioning, it was reported.

They also towed away a damaged car for inspection.

Police had been called to the scene just after 11pm on Saturday and a crime scene was established by officers from Quakers Hill Local Area Command.

A forensics team was at the scene on Sunday.

Investigations are continuing and police are urging anyone with information to come forward.

The victim was taken to Westmead Hospital in Parramatta on Saturday night before dying
One in six British jihadis who have gone to Syria and Iraq to fight with ISIS have been killed - but 400 are back in the UK, it has been claimed.

Security chiefs believe at least 15 per cent of all British extremists who have fled to join the terror group have been wiped out amid intensified airstrikes and military operations on the ground.

But with 850 fanatics believed to have travelled to ISIS strongholds from Britain, there are fresh fears that half of them have already returned.

One in six British jihadis who have gone to Syria and Iraq to fight with ISIS, including Jihadi John (pictured), have been killed - but 400 are back in the UK, it has been claimed

Colonel Richard Kemp, the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, told Dan Warburton of the Sunday Mirror: 'My concern is more with the 400 or so who have returned to the UK and pose a threat. We have seen what the Islamic State can do in Brussels, in Paris, in the US and most recently in Turkey.

'They can, and will, try to do the same thing here. I think thats what is most concerning. We are not actually being effective in killing them in large numbers as we need to be.

'Our failure to wholeheartedly attack Islamic State gives people the inspiration to carry out attacks.'

His comments come days after it emerged that Britain will almost double its number of troops in Iraq

A total of 250 military personnel are to deploy to the war-torn region to help in the fight against ISIS at the end of the summer. They will join around 300 soldiers already there.

Earlier this month it was reported that at least 85 British jihadists fighting in Syria have been killed.

The Defence Secretary Michael Fallon revealed around 850 people linked to the UK and regarded as a security threat are now believed to have taken part in the bloody civil war.

A staggering 50 per cent of those have returned to the UK, raising fears the battle-hardened warriors could be inspired to carry out lone-wolf attacks in Britain.

Security chiefs believe at least 15 per cent of all British extremists who have fled to join the terror group have been wiped out amid intensified airstrikes and military operations on the ground

High-profile British deaths have included Mohammed Emwazi, who became known as Jihadi John after he appeared in barbaric videos in which he murdered UK and US hostages.

The 26-year-old Kuwaiti-born was killed in a drone strike last year.

In September, RAF warplanes killed two British jihadists who were plotting attacks on British soil.

Shadow Foreign Office minister Diana Johnson said the figures highlighted the grim reality for those lured to join ISIS.

But she said ministers must do more to explain how the 400 or so homegrown extremists are being managed following their return to the UK.

The Government believes the number of foreign fighters joining IS has fallen to around 200 a month from its peak of 2,000.

Meanwhile there are claims an SAS soldier killed three ISIS fighters in Iraq using a Gurkha knife.

Britain will almost double its number of troops in Iraq in a bid to reassure nervous allies in the wake of Brexit (file pict

According to John Ward of the Daily Star Sunday, the sergeant, was part of a number of SAS advisers helping Iraqi troops during the battle for Fallujah.

He is said to have been caught up in an ambush before using the knife after running out of ammunition in a bid to avoid being captured alive.

It comes after it was reported that SAS troops in Libya have shot dead three British jihadists during a half-hour gun battle.

The men were killed during fighting in Sirte as part of moves to liberate ISIS strongholds in the area.
The Church of England will consider banning priests from wearing skimpy 'Borat' style clothes whilst giving Sunday service.

The sight of a middle-aged village vicar strapping themselves into Sacha Baron Cohen's mankini from the cult film seems unlikely but it's enough of a concern for the Church to propose changes to canon law.

A new condition stopping clergy from conducting services whilst dressed in anything considered 'seemly' or which is a 'departure' from traditional C of E clothing is to be looked at.

The sight of a middle-aged village vicar strapping themselves into Sacha Baron Cohen's mankini from the cult film seems unlikely but it's enough of a concern for the Church to propose changes to canon law

Church leaders also have in their sights any vicar bold enough to don an atheist t-shirt or one promoting terrorism or extreme views.

The General Synod will consider the condition changes to ecclesiastical law at its annual gathering in York next weekend.

Despite the Church set to ban revealing attire it is still pressing ahead with relaxing rules on what priests can wear whilst leading weddings, baptisms or funerals.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby wearing traditional Church attire for an Easter Day service

The Church wants to appeal to young people and be 'relevant' to shore-up congregation numbers.

But traditionalists are concerned the change will mean priests will appear 'slovenly'.

Vicar and broadcaster, the Rev Dr Giles Fraser, is an 'arch traditionalist' on the subject of clerical robes.

He told The Telegraph: 'The most unseemly thing I may have taken the eucharist in is a Chelsea top, but that was underneath my vestments so no-one could see it.

'I think the whole point about having vestments is that it stops all this stuff being an issue.

'I would certainly be extremely disturbed if I saw the Bishop of Willesden celebrating the eucharist in his Tottenham t-shirt.'

And the priest won't be wearing a mankini in the pulpit anytime soon as he says it's 'not acceptable.'

A spokesman for the Church of England said 'seemly' meant 'conforming to propriety or good taste; fitting, decorous or proper.'

But the meaning of the word can be decided depending on the particular service, he added.

The rule change would still make it possible for clergy to wear dark clothing at special 'goth' services, which have been held at Whitby Abbey or Coventry Cathedral.

The annual Grimalidi service, held in in Dalston, east London, where the congregation dresses up as clowns would not be banned. The event is held to mark the death of Joseph Grimaldi, who was known as the 'king of clowns'.
Indigenous politician Linda Burney says her trailblazing win on Saturday night is still sinking in.

A day after becoming the first indigenous woman in Australia's lower house, the new Labor MP said she was still coming to grips with the importance of her role.

Ms Burney entered the House of Representatives by winning the fiercely-contested Sydney seat of Barton  also becoming the first woman to do so.

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In her first press conference since she was elected to Parliament, Linda Burney buttered up reporters with chocolates

'It's starting to dawn on me the importance of this role', Ms Burney told The Express.

'I've had messages (of congratulations) from people living in Germany, Israel, friends in America and other friends of mine have had messages to pass on to me from Switzerland and London.

'It's been lovely.'

Ms Burney started her relationship with the media on a good footing, offering a plate of chocolates before her press conference

The hungry and cold press pack happily accepted the treats from Ms Burney

Ms Burney began her Sunday press conference by buttering up hungry reporters with chocolates before outlining her policy priorities for the next three years.

Aboriginal issues and education would be particularly important, she said.

'I have spent 45 years of my life working in that space and I am horrified the Turnbull Liberal Government will be ripping $28million out of schools in our area and I will fight that with every ounce of strength within me.

'I am very passionate as you know and, understandably, about indigenous issues, both social justice and recognising Aboriginal people in the Australian constitution.'

Having buttered up the waiting press pack, Ms Burney launched into a withering attack on the Turnbull Government

Ms Burney's election to the House of Representative is another milestone in her trailblazing career.

In 2003 she became the first Aboriginal female to enter the NSW State Parliament, where she rose to become the Deputy Leader of the Opposition.

She told the ABC: 'Being elected as the first indigenous woman into the House of Representatives is a moment for this country.

'This was not lost on the people of Barton. They, and we, have made history together.'
Rain also predicted for Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide

Snow is expected in the southern and central

Sunny winter conditions across Australia on Saturday saw voters flock to the polling booths, some lining up fresh from a swim at the beach in their budgie smugglers or carrying a surfboard.

However as a hung parliament looms over Australia so does a low pressure system, which is set to bring cloud, windy conditions, rain and even snow to parts of the country for the start of the working week- and the election result which is expected on Tuesday.

Tuesday and Wednesday will be the worst for Sydney with heavy rainfall predicted, Jake Phillips, a senior forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology told Daily Mail Australia.

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Sunny winter conditions across Australia on Saturday saw voters flock to the polling booths, some lining up fresh from a swim at the beach in their budgie smugglers (pictured) or carrying a surfboard

A surfer is seen lining up to vote at Bondi Beach in Sydney on Saturday

Bondi local Dimitri Moskovich wore a red pair of budgie smugglers to vote on Saturday - the second year in a row he's worn the revealing swimwear to vote

Sydney experienced sunny days throughout the week- but they are not expected to last with rain predicted for Monday

Sydney can expect its fine run of weather to come to an end on Monday with showers increasing in the middle of the week and continuing until Friday.

Mr Phillips said there is also a high chance of more snowfall on the central and southern tablelands following last weeks powerful cold snap.

Areas 900 to 1000 metres above sea level could see snow on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Rainfall and cool conditions are also expected in Canberra through the week.

Following a tight election count on Saturday night the leadership of the nation is just as unpredictable as Melbourne weather can be.

This week Melbourne can expect rainfall and tops if 13 degrees until Wednesday.

Snow worries, mate: A car covered snow at Perisher in New South Wales following a powerful cold snap last week

A emu covered in snow attempted to cross the road in front of a truck in Thredbo last week- More snow is predicted for the central and southern tablelands on Tuesday

Help I'm freezing! Two snowmen in blustery conditions at Mount Buffalo National Park in Victoria

Showers are predicted for Brisbane (pictured) with the wettest conditions expected in the middle of the week

This week Melbourne (pictured) can expect rainfall and tops if 13 degrees until Wednesday

Australian Federal Leader of the Opposition Bill Shorten enjoyed a sunny day out in Melbourne with his family on Sunday

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull smiles as he departs his home in Point Piper in Sydney on Sunday

The wet weather is set to clear by Friday.

After experiencing its coldest morning of the year, at just 2.9 degrees on Friday, cloud will develop over Perth on Monday and Tuesday before showers are set to soak the westernmost capital later in the week.

Showers are also predicted for Adelaide and Brisbane with the wettest conditions expected in the middle of the week.

FORECAST: WHAT THE WEATHER LOOKS LIKE AROUND AUSTRALIA SYDNEY Monday: Min 6, Max 17. Cloudy Tuesday: Min 10, Max 16. Showers Wednesday: Min 9, Max 16. Showers BRISBANE: Monday : Min 9, Max 22. Sunny Tuesday: Min 14, Max 21. Showers Wednesday: Min 10, Max 17. Possible showers ADELAIDE Monday: Min 9, Max 13. Showers Tuesday: Min 6, Max 13. Showers Wednesday: Min 7, Max 14. Showers clearing DARWIN Monday : Min 22, Max 32. Sunny Tuesday: Min 22, Max 33. Sunny Wednesday: Min 21, Max 33. Sunny Source: Weatherzone MELBOURNE Monday: Min 9, Max 13. Showers Tuesday: Min 7, Max 12. Showers Wednesday: Min 9, Max 12. Showers CANBERRA Monday: Min 0, Max 11. Frost Tuesday: Min 2, Max 10. Rain Wednesday: Min 3, Max 12. Rain PERTH Monday: Min 6, Max 16. Mostly sunny Tuesday: Min 10, Max 17. Mostly sunny Wednesday: Min 11, Max 16. Cloudy HOBART Monday: Min 7, Max 10. Showers Tuesday: Min 7, Max 12. Possible shower Wednesday: Min 6, Max 12. Possible shower Advertisement

Punters enjoying the fine conditions as Melbourne took on the Adelaide Crows at the MCG on Sunday

After experiencing its coldest morning of the year, at just 2.9 degrees on Friday, cloud will develop over Perth (pictured) on Monday and Tuesday before showers are set to soak the westernmost capital later in the week

Adelaide (pictured) experienced cool but sunny conditions on Sunday- Rain is expected to hit in the middle of the week
Five suspected drug dealers were gunned down in a shootout with Filipino police as authorities wage an increasingly violent war on drugs.

According to police around 200grams of methamphetamine was found at the scene in the capital of Manila alongside guns and bags of money.

President Rodrigo Duterte  dubbed Duterte Harry  has vowed to wipe out drug trafficking in the Philippines and the number of dealers killed since he came to power has risen 200 per cent.

The bloodied body of a suspected drug dealer is carried away from the scene of a shootout in the Philippines

Two hundred grams of methamphetamine as well as guns and bags of money were found at the scene of the shootout in the capital city of Manila

President Duterte was swept into office on a wave of voter supporter for his hardline policies on drugs and crime.

During his swearing in on Thursday he delivered a passionate speech promising to relentlessly fight corruption and to stamp out drug trafficking within six months.

He said although his policing methods would be seen as unorthodox, they would be effective.

The remains of two suspected drug dealers who were killed in a shootout are loaded by funeral workers into the back of a van

A police officer inspects the corpse of a suspected drug dealer who was killed in a shootout

In his first speech as president, he said: I know that there are those who do not approve of my methods of fighting criminality, the sale and use of illegal drugs and corruption.

'They say that my methods are unorthodox and verge on the illegal.

In response let me say this. I have seen how corruption bled the government of funds, which were allocated for the use in uplifting the poor from the mire that they are in.'

I have seen how illegal drugs destroyed individuals and ruined family relationships.

Look at this from that perspective and tell me that I am wrong.

The Philippines' new President, Rodrigo Duterte, has vowed to stamp out drug crime within the country in six months

President Duterte has said: 'If you're into drugs, I'm sorry. I'll have to apologise to your family because you'll surely get killed.

In the four days since President Duterte came into power, at least 12 suspected drug dealers have been killed, according to local media reports.

Drugs, particularly methamphetamine, have become a rampant problem in the Philippines.

The Philippines is used as a trafficking hub for syndicates running drugs through South East Asia and the countrys illegal drug trade is estimated to amount to around $8bn.

Speaking about his war on drugs, Duterte has said: If you're into drugs, I'm sorry. I'll have to apologise to your family because you'll surely get killed, reported the IB Times.

Hundreds of drug dealers have reportedly surrendered to authorities since he came into power.

Two dead bodies can be seen in the foreground as Filipino police comb the scene of shootout for evidence
Melbourne Cup-winning jockey Michelle Payne has shared an image of her impressive post surgery scar on social media just more than a month after a heavy fall damaged her panceas.

Payne, 30, suffered a shocking fall while riding at the Mildura races in May, and was rushed to hospital where she later had to have three quarters of her pancreas sewn back on.

When she was discharged from hospital in early June she admitted she'd lost all memory of her Melbourne Cup win in 2015 and it was reported she would spend at least a month in recovery.

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Melbourne Cup-winning jockey Michelle Payne shared this image of her post surgery scar on her Instagram account with the caption: 'Some scar! Thankfully getting better all the time'

A photo Payne shared of herself being airlifted to hospital after falling from her horse

The moment Michelle Payne fell from horse Dutch Courage at the Mildura race in May

Michelle Payne and her brother Steven celebrate as she returns to the mounting yard after she rode Prince of Penzance to victory in the Melbourne Cup at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne

At the time, she shared a tweet saying: 'Feel no pressure to make a decision on my future, I'm sure I'll know as time progresses'.

She's been keeping her fans, followers and supporters updated on social media, posting a picture to Instagram in mid June of her being airlifted to hospital with the caption: 'Very comfy when they airlifted me from Mildura to The Alfred #amazingpeople'.

On Sunday evening, she shared an image of the scar left by her surgery, accompanied by the caption: 'Some scar! Thankfully getting better all the time'.

It runs from below her belly button, around it and up towards her chest.

Early in June Payne was discharged from hospital and it was announced she would spend 'at least' a month recovering before deciding on her future

Payne on her way out of the Alfred Hospital after surgery following her fall from 'Dutch Courage', which had been trained by her brother

An update from Payne of the injuries to her abdomen caused by the fall, but before having surgery on her pancreas

Within two hours it had received nearly 1,000 'likes' and dozens of comments of support and encouragement.

Payne had earlier revealed her memory of winning the Melbourne Cup came back - but she had to Google it, she told RSN.

In June, she still couldn't remember her fall from horse Dutch Courage, trained by her brother Patrick.

It's believed her horse clipped another runner's heels.

Payne had been in great form, riding two winners and three seconds in her five earlier race.

Her family have urged her to retire from racing

Prince of Penzance ridden by Michelle Payne winning the Melbourne Cup race in November 2015
The father of a two-year-old boy killed by an alligator near Disney's Grand Floridian Resort told officials a second reptile was involved in the attack.

Lane Graves was paddling just ten feet from the shore of the Seven Seas Lagoon at the upscale resort on June 14 when he was attacked by the predator and dragged into the water. His body was found 'intact' in the water 17 hours later.

His father, Matt Graves, told authorities he was desperately trying to save his son when a second alligator attacked.

But even after fending off his own attack, Graves was unable to pry his toddler from the jaws of the first animal's grasp - and the creature disappeared underwater, taking the child with it.

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Two-year-old Lane Graves (pictured left) was dragged to his death by an alligator at the Walt Disney World Resort last month. His father Matt Graves (right) told authorities he was desperately trying to save his son when a second alligator attacked.

Florida wildlife officials later announced that they had removed and killed five alligators from the lagoon - including the one they believe dragged the Nebraska toddler to his death

Florida wildlife officials later announced that they had removed and killed five alligators from the lagoon - including the one they believe dragged the Nebraska toddler to his death, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

The park has admitted it routinely catches the reptiles near the resort.

Public records released this week revealed that Capt. Tom Wellons, of the Reedy Creek Fire Department, had emailed two supervisors after he was called to examine Graves' injuries - which he sustained in the attack - the following day.

Wellons said that at first the dad refused to leave' the area until he was eventually persuaded to seek seek medical treatment.

On the way to the hospital, Graves shared 'the horror that he experienced' as his son was being dragged into the lagoon and 'how another gator attacked him as he fought for his son,' Wellons told his superiors.

'This incredibly sweet couple insisted on showing us pictures of their happy son. [The] mom kept referring to him as her 'happy boy,' he added.

Assistant Chief Stan Paynter then forwarded the email to Orange County officials to alert them that there may be a second alligator, documents reveal.

Lane Graves was paddling just ten feet from the shore of the Seven Seas Lagoon (pictured) at the upscale resort on June 14 when he was attacked by the predator and dragged into the water

At the time of the attack, the resort had 'No Swimming' signs that did not mention alligators. Disney has since installed signs by the lagoon warning guests of alligators and snakes

An autopsy showed Graves died from drowning and traumatic injuries in the lake (pictured) near the Magic Kingdom

Lane and his marketing company executive father Matt, 42, and mother Melissa, 38, of Elkhorn, Nebraska, had been in Seven Seas Lagoon, despite the 'no swimming' signs close by when the alligator struck.

Ben Wilson, who was visiting Orlando from Indiana, saw the terrifying scene from the balcony of his Grand Floridian room  and said the attack unfolded in less than 30 seconds. Within a minute, the gator and the boy were gone.

At first, Wilson said it sounded like a fight had broken out.

'I looked over and here comes one of the lifeguards,' Wilson told the Orlando Sentinel. 'I looked over and here comes one of the lifeguards.

'He said 'Everybody get out of the water.' The mother was there and she was frantic, running up and down looking.'

The Seven Seas Lagoon behind the upscale hotel is off limits to guests, and there are 'no swimming' signs posted nearby - but none of them warned about possible alligators in the water, like the signs posted at the Polynesian Village hotel next door.

Walt Disney World had shut down all of its Florida resort beaches and marinas immediately after the attack out of precaution after the incident - the first such death in its 45-year history.

The beaches have all since been reopened but a fence has now been erected and signs put up warning of alligators and snakes in the area.

Rescuers searched the water in the shadow of Cinderella's Castle at the Magic Kingdom for 17 hours before Lane's body was recovered intact

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission later issued a statement saying it was confident the alligator responsible for the attack on Lane has been removed.

Officials said they have based their conclusions on expert analyses and observations by staff with extensive experience in investigating fatal alligator bites.

There was no statement regarding the alligator that attacked Matt Graves but the resort confirmed that five of the creatures had been removed since the incident.

'Everyone here at the Walt Disney World Resort is devastated by this tragic accident,' Disney communications executive Jacquee Wahler said shortly after the incident.

An autopsy showed the boy died from drowning and traumatic injuries.

The beach at the resort is across a lake from the Magic Kingdom.

The boy's parents, who were on vacation from Nebraska when their son was dragged from the water's edge by the alligator, said they have been 'overwhelmed with the support and love' that have poured in since the tragedy captured national attention.

'Melissa and I continue to deal with the loss of our beloved boy, Lane, and are overwhelmed with the support and love we have received from family and friends in our community as well as from around the country,' father Matt Graves said in the statement issued by their church in Elkhorn, Nebraska, on Saturday.

Disney CEO Bob Iger said in a statement following the discovery of the boy's body: 'As a parent and a grandparent, my heart goes out to the Graves family during this time of devastating loss.'
A surge in shark sightings in the north of Perth has caused the WA Department of Fisheries to issue a warning for people to stay away from the water during the school holidays.

Since Thursday, there have been seven reports of shark sightings along northern beaches. Five of those sharks are thought to be over 3 metres long.

The sharks have been spotted close to shore - with three sharks coming within 30 metres of the shore within three days at Waterman Bay Beach.

On Thursday, a 3.5 metre shark was spotted just 20 metres from the shore.

At Mettams Pool Beach in Perth Metro, a 3 metre great white shark was also spotted.

Mettams Pool Beach (pictured) could be closed for part of winter after a great white shark was spotted close to shore

The Department of Fisheries has issued a warning after seven shark spottings close to shore in four days

Authorities are encouraging would-be swimmers, surfers and divers to reconsider entering the water

The area between Triggs Point and Hillarys Boat Harbour is believed to be where swimmers are most at risk.

The warning comes after two people were killed by sharks in early June.

Ben Gerring died in hospital on June 4 after losing his leg in a shark attack, and 60-year-old Doreen Collyer lost her life the next day to a shark reported to be more than 5.5 metres long, reported WA Today.

If the sightings continue at such high frequency, it is possible beaches will be closed. A release from the Department of Fisheries encourages beach goers, divers and surfers to reconsider entering the water.

Those who still choose to swim are urged to stay away from large schools of fish, and to keep an eye on updates on the SharkSmart website or the Surf Lifesaving WA Twitter page.

Many WA beaches are not patrolled full time during winter, which could add an extra level of danger for people entering the ocean.

The warning comes just a month after two people died from shark attacks in early June
A 21-year-old fast food worker died after being stabbed repeatedly by a former employee at the restaurant, authorities said.

Taylor Friloux, 21, of LaPlace, was a shift manager at a Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers restaurant in Kenner, Louisiana. She died earlier this week of multiple stab wounds.

Two men robbed employees of the restaurant at knifepoint, stealing money from the safe before one of them stabbed Friloux to death, police said.

Authorities have arrested four people so far, including two former employees accused of committing the armed robbery, one man accused of being the getaway driver, and a woman accused of recruiting the perpetrators.

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Taylor Friloux, 21, of LaPlace (pictured left and right in Facebook photos), was a shift manager at a Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers restaurant in Kenner, Louisiana. She died earlier this week of multiple stab wounds

Joshua Every, 23, of LaPlace, and Gregory Donald Jr, 18, of Kenner, went to the closed Raising Cane's restaurant around 1:20 am on Wednesday and approached employees who were taking out the trash, police said.

Both Every and Donald had worked at the restaurant previously, the Times-Picayune reported.

They stole the employees' cellphones and forced Taylor, who had just gotten out of the restaurant by a rear door, to go back inside, according to authorities.

Friloux refused to open the door at first and got stabbed, police said. She eventually opened the door and complied with the robbers, who took money from the safe, a police release states.

Former employees Joshua Every, 23, of LaPlace (left) and Gregory Donald Jr, 18, of Kenner (right), have both been charged with first-degree murder in the case

The two men were about to exit the restaurant when Friloux collapsed, which is when one of the perpetrators stabbed her repeatedly, police said.

She was taken to the hospital and later died of eight stab wounds, the New Orleans Advocate reported based on a police report.

Friloux had been stabbed in the head, neck and chest, the Times-Picayune wrote.

Police arrested Every on Thursday and booked Donald the following day.

Donald first told them he had been the getaway driver, but eventually confessed to being the person who entered the Raising Cane's restaurant with Every, police said in a statement.

He told authorities he was carrying a box cutter while Every had a knife during the robbery, according to a release by the police.

Donald said a woman had recruited him to take part in a robbery, which he helped plan, and told detectives Every had 'stabbed that girl', the release states.

He said Every told the occupants of the getaway car that he thought he had 'killed that girl', police said.

Every has been charged with first-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping, criminal conspiracy, aggravated burglary, three counts of armed robbery, and aggravated assault.

Donald has been charged with first-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping, criminal conspiracy to armed robbery, aggravated burglary, three counts of armed robbery, and aggravated assault.

They took approximately $1,000 from the restaurant, police said.

Mark Crocklen Jr, 24, of LaPlace (left), was the getaway driver, police said. Ariana Yanni Runner, 22, of Reserve, Louisiana (right), is accused of actively recruiting those who committed the robbery

Two other people have been arrested in connection with the case.

Mark Crocklen Jr, 24, of LaPlace, was the getaway driver, police said. He surrendered to authorities after Every's arrest and admitted his role in the robbery, officers said in a release.

Crocklen told police murdering Friloux was not part of the plan, authorities said.

He has been charged with second-degree murder, conspiracy to armed robbery and three counts of armed robbery.

Ariana Yanni Runner, 22, of Reserve, Louisiana, actively recruited those who committed the robbery at Raising Cane's, police said.

She was not in the car at the time of the robbery according to authorities.

Runner will be charged with second-degree murder, conspiracy-armed robbery, three counts of armed robbery, and aggravated burglary, a police release states.

Police are still working to identify a fifth suspect, whom they say was inside the vehicle.

First-degree murder is punishable by death or life imprisonment in Louisiana. Second-degree murder is punishable by life imprisonment.

Friloux, who graduated from Archbishop Chapelle High School in 2013, loved animals and often joked she would end up as an old lady surrounded by rescued cats, an obituary states.

She began working at Raising Cane's at 17 years old and was promoted to shift manager within two years.

Friloux had plans to go back to college in the fall to study business management.

'Taylor was a very sweet, sweet-hearted girl. Just super nice,' neighbor Craig Gommel, told the Times-Picayune.

He drove Friloux to school each morning along with his own daughter, who went to the same high school.

'She was very professional at the job out here.'

Raising Cane's will cover all funeral expenses for Friloux, the Times-Picayune reported. The service will take place on Tuesday.

Friloux had plans to go back to college in the fall to study business management. Pictured, a woman places flowers at a memorial outside the Raising Cane's restaurant in Kenner
Multi-billionaire Jack Taylor, who made his fortune after founding Enterprise Rent-A-Car in the 1950s, has died aged 94.

Taylor, who launched the company in St. Louis, Missouri in 1957, passed away on Saturday after a short illness.

This year, Forbes magazine estimated his wealth at $5.3 billion and listed him in the top 250 richest people in the world.

But more than anything else, Taylor simply wanted to be remembered as 'a nice guy.'

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Multi-billionaire Jack Taylor, who made his fortune after founding Enterprise Rent-A-Car in the 1950s, has died aged 94

'"Taylor was a nice guy." I like that,' he said in an interview, footage of which has been posted as part of a video tribute.

'I want everybody to be happy, it's impossible but I'd like for that to happen.'

The Second World War veteran, who named his business after the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier, said when he left the Navy, he wanted to set up a company which focused on good customer service.

'I had no thoughts about being the biggest, I just wanted to be the best,' he said.

'When I started Enterprise I just wanted the customer when the walked out the door, to say "God, that's a nice guy and that's a nice place to do business.

'Being rich wasn't that much of a motivator.'

The outlook inspired his business ethos: 'Take care of your customers and employees first, and profits will follow.'

Taylor, who launched the company in St. Louis, Missouri in 1957, passed away on Saturday after a short illness

And the profits did just that. After founding the firm with just a handful of cars and one employee, the company grew into a billion dollar firm while Taylor was listed as being the 248th richest person in the world this year.

'My father took a simple idea and created a great company,' his son, Andrew C. Taylor, the company's current executive chairman, said in a statement.

Taylor, who studied at the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis in 1940, enlisted in the Navy during the Second World War where he piloted an F6F Hellcat fighter from the decks of the USS Essex and the USS Enterprise, earning two Distinguished Flying Crosses and the Navy Air Medal.

Not a natural student, he often joked that the war had 'saved' him from further education.

After returning home, he went onto take a salesman job at the Lindburg Cadillac dealership. By 1957, he founded a car leasing company with the dealership owner, Arthur Lindburg.

Starting out with just seven cars, the business rented to customers whose own vehicles were in the shop.

Eventually the business grew into Enterprise, which differed from competitors by allowing people to pick up and drop off cars away from airports.

By 1980, the rental fleet had expanded to 6,000 cars, and less than a decade after that, it had grown to 50,000. In 1995, Enterprise Rent-A-Car was making $2 billion in revenues.

Yet Taylor's first concern was always happiness over money, both for himself and his customers.

The Second World War veteran (pictured while in the Navy) named his business after the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier he flew from

Taylor enlisted in the Navy during the Second World War where he piloted an F6F Hellcat fighter from the decks of the USS Essex and the USS Enterprise, earning two Distinguished Flying Crosses and the Navy Air Medal

'I said to myself, "You are going to be happy everyday of your life because you are here, while many of your buddies are not."'

Enterprise bought the Alamo and National brands in 2007 to strengthen its position in airports -Enterprise itself had begun operating at airports in 1995.

The privately held company changed its name to Enterprise Holdings Inc. in 2009.

Enterprise says that it had $19.4 billion in revenue and more than 1.7 million vehicles in 2015, making it more than twice the size of each of its two main U.S. competitors, Hertz and Avis.

It also sells cars and trucks and operates worldwide, with more than 90,000 employees in 70 countries. Taylor retired as CEO in 1991 and as the company's executive chairman in 2013.

Taylor's two children, who he had with ex-wife Mary Ann Taylor, both came to join him in the running of the company.

Andrew became executive chairman of Enterprise, while Jo Ann Taylor runs the Taylor family philanthropic activities.

Taylor, who described his children as 'terrific kids' said they company would not exist as it were today if not for his son.

After returning home, he went onto take a salesman job at the Lindburg Cadillac dealership. By 1957, he founded a car leasing company with the dealership owner, Arthur Lindburg (Taylor is pictured holding up literature to staff members at the dealership)

Starting out with just seven cars, Enterprise rented to customers whose own vehicles were in the shop

Enterprise says that it had $19.4 billion in revenue and more than 1.7 million vehicles in 2015, making it more than twice the size of each of its two main U.S. competitors, Hertz and Avis

While his daughter's running of the foundation had given him lots of satisfaction and allowed him to share some of his good fortune.

'My life has just been a wonderful, American, lucky guy experience,' he said in the video.

'I have had a beautiful life; healthwise, moneywise, familywise, kidwise. It's almost too good to be true.

'I've just got more money than I need and I think there are people our there that don't have as much as they to have for a reasonably happy life.

'And I would like to give them some of mine.'

The company said that since 1982 Taylor had donated more than $860 million to organizations including Washington University in St. Louis and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.

Jo Ann Taylor praised her father as a 'forward thinking guy' and a 'fair thinking individual' over his generous donations over the year while his son Andrew added: 'It was a really terrific thing that he did.'

The company said there will be a private funeral service.

The Taylor family requests that memorial donations be made to the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, Forest Park Forever, or the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
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The official, final result of the federal election could take as long as a month to be verified.

On Sunday morning, initial counts had the coalition and Labor at 67 seats apiece with a tense wait ahead as manoeuvering to form a majority government begins and the parties may have to wait as long as a month for the final result, according to the Australian Electoral Commission.

Malcolm Turnbull is 'quietly confident' he will be able to form a majority government, however the prime minister has opened his phone book of crossbenchers as the prospect of a hung parliament looms.

After a swag of pre-poll votes were added to running totals in 150 lower house seats, the coalition and Labor had each won 67 seats, the Greens one and independents four - leaving 11 in contention.

Labor leader Bill Shorten could reportedly face a leadership contest against Anthony Albanese, but said he had 'never been more certain of his leadership' after emphatically declaring his party was 'back' on Saturday night and then describing Mr Turnbull as 'seriously out of touch' on Sunday.

'His agenda was out of touch and a lot of Australians made that clear yesterday in the ballot booths right across Australia,' Mr Shorten said.

Meanwhile, ABC analysis suggested both major parties were being hit hard by 'voter rage.'

Frustration with the state of politics was driving voters away from the main parties, a 'perfectly rational response to a political system that is not working for the people it is designed to serve', according to ABC political editor Chris Uhlmann.

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Malcolm Turnbull is 'quietly confident' he will be able to form a majority government however the prime minister has opened his phone book of crossbenchers as the prospect of a hung parliament still looms

The official, final result of the federal election could take as long as a month to be verified, according to the Australian Electoral commission

Earlier Labor leader Bill Shorten used his speech at the party's function in Melbourne to congratulate his volunteers for a 'magnificent campaign'

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he had 'every confidence' the federal election would return a Coalition majority as the results hung on a knife-edge in the early hours of Sunday

Mr Turnbull has started to reach out to the crossbenchers who could ultimately decide his fate if a clear winner can not be determined by the public's vote.

If the final result is 75 coalition MPs to Labor's 70 with five crossbenchers, the ball will be in Mr Turnbull's court to convince one extra MP to back his government on budget supply and confidence.

However he'll need to convince more than one, given the tenuous nature of a 76-seat government and the fact that a Speaker will be needed - effectively taking one number off the government from the get-go.

Once the prime minister is satisfied he has the numbers, he can go to the parliament, elect a Speaker and get on with business.

A Labor deal with all six crossbenchers to add to its 70 appears a much less likely scenario.

Mr Turnbull - who has made a career of negotiating big business deals - has already reached out to Cathy McGowan, Andrew Wilkie and the Nick Xenophon Team's Rebekha Sharkie

Ms McGowan and Mr Wilkie confirmed the prime minister had rung them on Sunday morning with congratulations on retaining their seats.

'The fact that he took the time this morning to have a short conversation with me this morning suggests he feels the need to have an open channel of communication,' Mr Wilkie told reporters in Hobart.

Mr Turnbull - who has made a career of negotiating big deals - has already reached out to Cathy McGowan (right) and Andrew Wilkie (left)

Ms McGowan said she had a good working relationship with Mr Turnbull who indicated he was confident of forming a majority government.

'We have agreed to stay in contact over the next few days as the national situation becomes clearer,' she said.

The Indi MP, who was returned with a bigger majority in her northern Victorian regional seat, wouldn't make deals with any party.

Similarly, Mr Wilkie said he wouldn't do any deals - formal or informal - but instead consider every move in parliament on its merit, including budget bills and confidence motions.

The Tasmanian MP knows from experience about the fickle nature of such deals - he was burned by the Gillard government over his pokies reforms.

He hadn't heard from Labor leader Bill Shorten, nor had anyone discussed a possible offer of the Speaker's role, which he would reject.

Independent senator Nick Xenophon, whose team has won the lower house seat of Mayo, promised to sit down with both sides if there was a hung parliament.

Mr Turnbull has also reached out to the Nick Xenophon Team's Rebekha Sharkie (left) but Xenophon has promised to sit down with both sides if there was a hung parliament

Greens leader Richard Di Natale said neither side had rung him - but his phone was fully charged

But he said the number of seats each party won would be a big factor in his thinking, saying: 'You would be silly to ignore the weight of arithmetic.'

HUNG PARLIAMENT The last hung parliament was in 2010, which was the first of its kind since the 1940 election. At that time, Labor and the coalition won 72 seats each in the 150-seat House of Representatives. Six crossbench MPs held the balance of power, four of whom sided with Labor leader Julia Gillard to form minority government based on written formal agreements. Two of the queenmakers remain in parliament after Saturday's election - independent Andrew Wilkie and Greens MP Adam Bandt. Advertisement

Greens leader Richard Di Natale said neither side had rung him - but his phone was fully charged.

Prior to the election the Greens rejected the notion of any deal being done with the coalition, but a written deal with Labor is not beyond contemplation.

He told reporters in Melbourne he hoped to have talks with Mr Shorten in coming days.

Veteran Queensland MP Bob Katter has a long-standing commitment that he would not support any party that did not back his 20-point plan for Australia

His plan includes protectionism and other unpalatable measures for both Labor and the coalition.

A final result may not be known until well into next week. If the Turnbull government secured 74 seats, two short of an absolute majority, it will need the support of two independents to govern.

Labor would probably need all four independents if, as it pledged during the election campaign, it refused to enter into any arrangement with the Greens.

Another election also cannot be ruled out. With 10 million two-party preferred votes counted, the coalition has won 50.11 per cent to Labor's 49.89 - a swing of 3.4 per cent against the coalition on the 2013 election.

Veteran Queensland MP Bob Katter has a long-standing commitment that he would not support any party that did not back his 20-point plan for Australia

POST ELECTION SCENARIOS Hung parliament with Coalition ahead Malcolm Turnbull will be in the box seat to negotiate with crossbenchers to get to the magical number of 76 in the lower house.

Indi MP Cathy McGowan won't sign a formal agreement but wants government action on support for universities and students, broadband, transport, renewable energy and jobs in regional Victoria.

The Nick Xenophon Team wants more schools funding, an emissions trading scheme, preferential treatment of Australian businesses in government contracts, better labelling of Australian-made products, lower foreign investment review thresholds and tougher anti-gambling laws.

The Greens won't negotiate.

Bob Katter has a 20-point plan no one will agree to.

Andrew Wilkie is open to talks, but won't sign a formal agreement. He wants pokies reform, better support for aged and disabled pensioners, a ban on the live cattle trade, better broadband and means testing of the private health insurance rebate.

Turnbull will get kudos in his party room for winning over the crossbenchers, but conservatives will keep the pressure on him. Slim majority for Coalition Turnbull may still need support from a few crossbenchers in order to put a Speaker in the chair without jeopardising his majority.

The prime minister will face pressure in the party room to ditch unpopular election promises, such as superannuation changes and cuts to health budget savings.

There will be leadership speculation and pressure to call a lower house election as soon as the government's popularity recovers. Hung parliament with Labor ahead Unlikely scenario, given Bill Shorten would probably need the support of the entire crossbench.

Labor would seek to kick some big policy goals early in the piece, delivering on its first 100 days plan including same-same marriage and a revised budget based on protecting Medicare, jobs and education.

Liberal leadership instability would be the likely scenario for an early House election Advertisement

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT WITH THE ELECTION COUNT? Saturday More than 11 million House of Representatives votes cast on election day and in pre-poll centres counted

First preference Senate votes cast on election day counted Sunday Absent, interstate, postal and other declaration votes are sorted and packaged to send to home electorates. These can't be counted until received in the home electorates

Votes collected by mobile polling teams counted Monday Continue verifying postal votes

Senate pre-poll votes and any remaining House of Representatives pre-poll votes counted Tuesday Full count of votes from all sources resumes (Source: Australian Electoral Commission) Advertisement

Early on Sunday morning, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told the party faithful he expected the coalition could form a majority government.

'We are the only parties that have the ability or the possibility of doing that,' Mr Turnbull said.

'In the meantime, I want to say to all Australians those that voted for us, those that voted for other parties or candidates, this is a time when we must come together, we must stick together.'

However, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten was not giving up on forming government, telling his supporters Mr Turnbull had 'failed miserably'.

'Whatever happens next week, Mr Turnbull will never be able to claim that the people of Australia have adopted his ideological agenda,' he said in Melbourne.

'He will never again be able to promise the stability which he has completely failed to deliver tonight.'

'What I'm very sure of is that, while we don't know who the winner was, there is clearly one loser: Malcolm Turnbull's agenda for Australia and his efforts to cut Medicare. We want to make the 45th parliament work.'

This comes after Mr Turnbull said he was confident the Coalition could form a majority government.

The Prime Minister addressed supporters at the Liberal Party's headquarters at around 12.30am on Sunday to optimistically tell them he would be re-elected but warned the final outcome may not emerge until Tuesday with the results too close to call on election day.

Around an hour earlier Opposition leader Bill Shorten gave a gushing speech to followers in Melbourne after seeing his hopes of a Labor government evaporate.

Describing it as a 'very, very close count' as he addressed followers at his party's HQ on Sunday morning, Mr Turnbull shied away from the possibility of a hung parliament.

'Tonight, my friends, I can report that based on the advice I have from the party officials, we can have every confidence that we will form a Coalition majority Government in the next parliament.

'It is a very, very close count. It is a very close count, as you know. And right now, right now, right now nearly 30% of the votes are yet to be counted,' he said.

'The pre-poll will continue to be counted until 2am. But I don't suggest we should wait around for that.

'And then the commissioner advises us there will be no more carding tomorrow or on Monday and they will count the postal votes on Tuesday.

'And we may, the final results in terms of seats may not be known until then.'

The Prime Minister addressed supporters at the Liberal Party's headquarters at around 12.30am on Sunday to optimistically tell them he would be re-elected but warned the final outcome may not emerge until Tuesday with the results too close to call on election day

AUSTRALIA DECIDES: FEDERAL ELECTION 2016 RESULTS - 76 SEATS NEEDED FOR A MAJORITY WIN COALITION LABOR GREENS OTHER UNDECLARED 67 67 1 4 11

UNDECLARED SEATS WHICH WILL DECIDE THE ELECTION Barker, SA (Liberal) Cowper, NSW (The Nationals) Durack, WA (Liberal) Grayndler, NSW (Australian Labor Party) Grey, SA (Liberal) Higgins, VIC (Liberal) O'Connor, WA (Liberal) Advertisement

He went on to accuse Labor of spreading 'extraordinary' lies in a bid to win the election, namely a text message sent to voters on election day which warned Medicare would become privatised under Liberal leadership.

'The Labor Party, the Labor Party ran some of the most systematic, well-funded lies ever peddled in Australia.

'Telling vulnerable Australians that Medicare was going to be privatised or sold, frightening people in their bed and even today, even today, as voters went to the polls, there were text messages being sent to thousands of people saying that Medicare was about to be privatised by the Liberal Party.

'An extraordinary act of dishonesty,' he fumed.

In Melbourne Mr Shorten said the election results demonstrated the Prime Minister had been 'rejected' by the people of Australia as he celebrated the return of his party.

'Friends, we will not know the outcome of this election tonight. Indeed we may not know it for some days to come. There is one thing that is for sure - the Labor party is back!' he said proudly.

After giving his impassioned speech Mr Turnbull was rewarded with a kiss from his wife Lucy while their adult children Daisy and Alex applauded

The Prime Minister said he had been advised by the Electoral Commission a result may not be returned until Tuesday but said he was optimistic

Mr Turnbull told followers the Labor Party had run a campaign based on 'dishonesty', describing its tactics as 'well-peddled lies'

Thanking his followers for their support, he encouraged Labor voters to take 'great pride' in the results delivered across the country.

'In the past three years we have united as a party. In the past eight weeks we have run a magnificent campaign. We have argued for our positive plans and three years after the Liberals came to power in a landslide, they have lost their fan base.

'Mr Turnbull's economic program, such as it was, has been rejected by the people of Australia.

'Whatever happens next week, Mr Turnbull will never be able to claim that the people of Australia have adopted his ideological agenda. He will never again be able to promise the stability which he has completely failed to deliver tonight.'

He went on to thank his wife Chloe for her support throughout the lengthy campaign, noting that it had been the longest in Australia for 30 years.

'Chloe, wherever you went in this campaign, you brought the sunshine with you. And I guess the secret is out - you all know how lucky I am.'

Labor collected eleven more seats than it did at the last federal election. At the time of Mr Turnbull's speech seven of the 150 Lower House seats remained undeclared.

Treasurer Scott Morrison said he believed the party would still be able to storm to victory in a last minute win, declaring: 'I believe we'll be able to form a majority government.'

Mr Shorten thanked his wife Chloe and their children (above at the Labor Party function) for their support throughout the lengthy campaign

The Labor leader led his youngest daughter Clementine with his wife Chloe and the rest of their family through adoring supporters at the party

Clementine stole the attention of her older siblings and mother as she hid behind them during her father's speech

The Opposition leader's six-year-old daughter seemed a little overwhelmed by the cheering crowds at the Liberal Party's HQ

Earlier in the night former Treasurer Peter Costello said it was not 'inconceivable' neither would be able to secure a win while ABC political expert Barrie Cassidy described it as 'more likely than not' Australia would be left with a hung parliament.

After half the vote was counted the Coalition held a narrow lead with 50.2 per cent of the vote to Labor's 49.8 per cent.

As the results came in through the night the possibility of a Labor-majority house evaporated while the Coalition's chances grew slimmer.

Mr Costello was among the first to point to the likelihood of a hung parliament, telling Channel 9 News: 'This election is getting very, very close.

'I've got to say it's not inconceivable that we could have a hung parliament.

He later swayed his prediction towards the Coalition, ruling out a Labor victory by saying: 'I don't think that Labor can win this election.'

Mr Cassidy pointed to the possibility of a hung parliament earlier in the night in his coverage for the ABC.

'Now there's the potential for the Labor Party to win seats in Queensland, six at least in New South Wales, three in Tasmania, Solomon they're claiming.

'Mayo falls to Xenophon and you've got Western Australia at this stage of the night. It's more likely than not now that the country will have a hung parliament,' he said.

His colleague Antony Green shared the same view and predicted there would not be a clear result at the end of the night.

'We won't know who's won tonight. At the moment on the numbers I'm seeing it's not clear. At this stage the modelling we're doing, the projections we're doing we have the government on 75 seats.

'I don't think we'll have a clearer picture by the end of tonight,' he said.

Bill Shorten has ruled out forming a post-election coalition with other senior Labor figures in the past insisting the party would govern alone or not at all.

Voters have been left with yet more uncertainty with the outcome of the election still hanging in the balance. Above, Liberal Party supporters at its election night function in Sydney

Labor supporters at a party in Melbourne (above) were full of cheers as they gradually collected seats as the first of the results were announced

The mood fell more somber when the party was ruled out of leading its own majority government after failing to secure a lead

Some Labor voters stifled tears as they watched their chances of seeing Bill Shorten lead a majority government evaporate

Bill Shorten was offered a sympathetic pat on the back by a supporter as he was seen arriving at the Labor Party's function in Melbourne

It was a disastrous election day for the Opposition leader who earlier attracted a barrage of ridicule for eating a sausage sandwich sideways

The Labor leader shared this note with followers on Saturday night thanking them for their support

Among prominent victories of the night was Labor MP Linda Burney's win in Barton, NSW. She is the first Aboriginal woman to ever become elected in the House of Representatives.

WHAT HAPPENS IN THE EVENT OF A HUNG PARLIAMENT If neither of the major parties secures a majority in the federal election the country will be left with a hung parliament. It will be up to them to negotiate with independent MPs and form the next government. While the politicians themselves will have to draw up arrangements, their efforts are overseen by the Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove. The 2010 federal election returned a hung parliament. The then Labor leader Julie Gillard formed a coalition with independent and Greens MPs in its wake. If the parties cannot agree on terms for a coalition another election will be called as a last resort. Both Bill Shorten and Malcolm Turnbull have ruled out forming a coalition with the Greens. Advertisement

Malcolm Turnbull held his seat of Wentworth in NSW with 67 per cent of the vote while Bill Shorten won 61 per cent of the vote in his seat of Maribyrnong, Victoria.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce held his seat of New England with 63 per cent of the vote, putting on a raucous display of cheer as he arrived at his victory party.

He thanked Hollywood star Johnny Depp who he said had given him 'advertising' in the lead-up to the campaign.

Mr Joyce publicly lambasted the actor and his now estranged wife Amber Heard for not declaring her two puppies when they flew into Australia on a private jet last year.

His tough stance on bio-security laws became a talking point for Depp in interviews around the world.

Celebrating his win on Saturday, Mr Joyce said: 'Thanks for the advertising, Johnny.'

He also shared his support for Malcolm Turnbull, insisting the Prime Minister would be re-elected because Australians do not want 'a revolving door' of leaders.

'I get along very well with Malcolm Turnbull and had a number of conversations with him tonight. He is most definitely the best person to lead our nation in a time of uncertainty and we're seeing that through Brexit,' he told the ABC.

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott also held his seat of Warringah in NSW with 64.5 per cent.

As the first of the results poured in on Saturday night he appeared in an interview with Alan Jones to take a swipe at Malcolm Turnbull.

Mr Abbott, who was ousted in September, said the Liberal Party's campaign would have been 'different' if he had been at the helm in the interview.

Elsewhere independent candidate Andrew Wilkie was one of few independents to be elected, retaining his seat of Denison in Tasmania. Bob Katter of Katter's Australian Party retained the seat of Kennedy in Queensland.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton was re-elected as was Labor MP Tanya Plibersek in Sydney. Jamie Briggs, a former federal government minister, lost the seat of Mayo in Adelaide to Rebekah Sharkey of the Nick Xenophon Team Party.

The federal election results were too close to call throughout Saturday night with the possibility of a hung parliament increasing. Above Malcolm Turnbull casts his vote during the day

There was still no sign of Mr Turnbull at the Liberal Party's function in Sydney at midnight as supporters gathered excitedly

Liberal Party supporters watched with baited breath as the results trickled through at its function in Sydney

'After a tough fight tonight hasn't been our night, thanks to those who supported me and my best to the new member, it's a great electorate,' he said on Twitter.

WHAT THE POLLS PREDICTED Sky News exit poll: 62% of voters predict Coalition victory Galaxy poll of 25 marginal seats: 50% Coalition - 50% Labor Fairfax & Ipsos: 50% Coalition - 50% Labor Essential: 50.5% Coalition - 49.5% Labor Advertisement

Former Prime Minister John Howard commiserated with the MPs who had lost their seats and implored any supporters of ousted Tony Abbott to give their backing to Mr Turnbull.

'As far as Tony Abbott is concerned, yes he was, is and will always be a good friend of mine but the party room made a decision and I accept that decision.

'I encourage all Liberals, particularly people who were especially attached to Tony Abbott to... out of respect for his own wishes, to vote for the Turnbull Coalition,' he said at the party's Sydney function.

A Sky News poll released on Saturday afternoon revealed 62 per cent of voters believed the Coalition would be re-elected despite earlier predictions failing to put forward a clear winner.

It also showed which issues most held close when casting their ballots.

Liberal voters prioritised the economy, with 70 per cent listing the budget among their chief concerns.

Turnbull supporters talked among themselves as Mr Shorten gave his speech at the Labor Party's function in Melbourne

Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce celebrated with his wife and daughters after being re-elected in the seat of New England

Let's party! The Nationals leader could barely contain his joy or his dance moves as he celebrated in Tamworth, NSW

Mr Joyce delighted in the affection of supporters in his seat of Tamworth in New England on Saturday after retaining his seat

Former Prime Minister John Howard addresses the media at the Liberal Party function at the Sofitel Wentworth hotel in Sydney on Saturday night

Mr Howard was joined by his wife Janette at the event in Sydney. He implored Tony Abbott fans to give their full support to the Turnbull coalition

One Nation's Pauline Hanson was greeted by supporters in Brisbane as she awaited the results. The controversial senator is expected to retain her seat in the Senate

The flame-haired senator was surrounded by supporters at a party in Ipswich, west of Brisbane

Greens MP Adam Bandt retained his seat of Melbourne, making him the party's only elected member. He celebrated above at its party

Mr Bandt celebrated his re-election with a kiss from his wife Claudia at the Greens party celebration on Saturday night

Greens leader Richard Di Natale led crowds at the party's election night event in Melbourne after retaining its seat in the Lower House

Linda Burney became the first Aboriginal woman to be elected after winning the seat of Barton, NSW

Tony Abbott retained his seat of Warringah in NSW. Hours before celebrating his victory the former Prime Minister was seen in an interview with Alan Jones on Channel 7 taking aim at Mr Turnbull's campaign

Labor MP Tanya Plibersek was re-elected in Sydney (left) while Foreign Minister Julie Bishop (right) was expected to retain her seat of Curtin in WA

At the Greens election night party in Melbourne Senator Janet Rice (above) celebrated after Adam Bandt was re-elected in his seat of Melbourne

Property driven issues including negative gearing and building unions were of little matter to them with less than 30 per cent naming it as of importance.

Medicare, which has been Bill Shorten's most prominent policy throughout the campaign, drove 83 per cent of Labor votes. They also listed education as a key issue.

Liberal voters valued budget and economy as one of the most important issues, with 70 per cent highlighting it, compared with 36 per cent of Labor voters.

The Galaxy poll of 25 marginal seats showed the election was merely too close to call, with both the Coaltiion and Labor predicted to win 50 per cent of the vote.

Labor needed a 4.5 per cent swing to win - 19 more seats than they won at the 2013 election.

Former Treasurer Peter Costello (left) said it was not 'inconceivable' the country would be left with a hung parliament while ABC's political expert Barrie Cassidy (right) said it was 'more likely than not' there would be no clear winner by the end of the night
Bangladesh released first names of attackers - Akash, Badhon, Bikash, Don, Ripon - who were all from 'rich families'

Terrorists killed 20 people who failed to recite the Koran before they took another 13 hostage in Bangladeshi capital

Her fellow Emory student Faraaz Hossain, who was born in Bangladesh, also identified among 20 victims of attack

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One of the American students killed in the Dhaka terror attack made a final, haunting phone call to her father moments before she was killed in the toilets where she hid with her two friends.

Tarishi Jain, 19, was one of three US students and 20 people in total to be hacked to death in the Holey Artisan Bakery in an upmarket district of the Bangladeshi capital.

With gunfire in her ears and sheer panic in her voice, she called her father to say: 'I am very afraid... I'm not sure whether I will be able to come out alive.'

'They are killing everyone here... I think we will be killed one by one,' she added in the heart-breaking call, made just before 6am in the morning as round after round of gunfire rang out just outside the toilet doors.

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Tarushi Jain (left and right in right-hand photo), 19, an Indian native who was studying at University of California, Berkeley, made a final phone call to her father before she was killed

Today, hundreds laid flowers and lit candles to pay tribute to the 20 killed at the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Tarishi Jain, 19, was one of three US students and 20 people in total to be gunned down in the Holey Artisan Bakery in an upmarket district of the Bangladeshi capital

Bangladeshi authorities later confirmed that Tarishi, who was studying Economics at the University of California, was killed alongside fellow US collegiates Abinta Kabir, 18, and Faraaz Hossain

Bangladeshi authorities later confirmed that Tarishi, who was studying Economics at the University of California, was killed alongside fellow US collegiates Abinta Kabir, 18, and Faraaz Hossain, who were both enrolled at the Emory University in Georgia.

They would often hang out at the Holey Artisan Bakery, famed for its bagels, croissants and coffee, the India Times reported.

Witnesses told of how seven Islamist terrorists stormed the cafe armed with assault weapons, pistols and sharp objects before taking more than 30 people hostage.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks, releasing photos of the grinning killers, but Bangladeshi authorities have denied the despotic terror group was responsible for the attack.

Authorities today released the first names of the five attackers - Akash, Badhon, Bikash, Don and Ripon - who are all said to come from 'rich' Bangladeshi families.

'They are all Bangladeshis. They are from rich families, they have good educational background,' the country's Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said.

He said the men were part of a homegrown Sunni Muslim terror group known as of Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh and their motive is as yet unknown.

Gruesome: This is one of the images that was released by ISIS' media agency Amar, purportedly showing victims inside the Dhaka restaurant which was taken siege by Islamist militants on Friday night

Witnesses said that attackers split the group inside the cafe, keeping Bangladeshis downstairs where they were fed and looked after, but taking foreigners upstairs where they were tortured

It emerged today that Bangladesh's police had previously tried and failed to arrest five of the militants who hacked 20 people to death - sparing only those who could recite the Koran.

As investigators try to confirm any possible links they may have had to international extremest groups, it was revealed that five of them were already 'listed as militants' and that law enforcers had tried to arrest them before.

They killed nine Italians, seven Japanese, an Indian, an American and two local men before elite commandos ended the 12-hour standoff by raiding the bakery, shooting six terrorists and arresting one.

It has since been claimed that Tarishi was one of the hostages who may have been tortured before she was killed. 'That was apparent from the injuries,' an unnamed source told the Indian Express.

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has declared two days of national mourning after the massacre in the upmarket Gulshan district of the city.

In a statement made on national TV, she said: 'It was an extremely heinous act. What kind of Muslims are these people? They don't have any religion.'

Emory sophomore Kabir, was from Miami, Florida, while Hossain was born in Bangladesh and Jain was of Indian origin.

The terrorists hacked 20 people to death inside the bakery (pictured), sparing only those who could recite the Koran, before engaging police in a 12-hour standoff

Witnesses told of how seven Islamist terrorists stormed the cafe armed with assault weapons, pistols and sharp objects (pictured, an emotional woman paying her respects to the victims today)

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe confirmed that five men and two women died worked for the country's foreign aid agency

A university spokesman said: 'Emory University has learned that two Emory students, Abinta Kabir and Faraaz Hossain, were among those taken hostage and murdered by terrorists yesterday in the attack in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

'Abinta, who was from Miami, was a rising sophomore at Emory's Oxford College. Faraaz, who was from Dhaka, was a graduate of Oxford College and a student at the university's Goizueta Business School.

'The Emory community mourns this tragic and senseless loss of two members of our university family.

'Our thoughts and prayers go out on behalf of Faraaz and Abinta and their families and friends for strength and peace at this unspeakably sad time.'

Meanwhile UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas B. Dirks issued a statement on Jain's death, saying: 'We have been in contact with her family to provide assistance in any way that we can and are working closely with our other students there to assist them in staying safe and determining whether they leave the area.

'On behalf of our entire campus, we send our deepest condolences to her family and friends and to all the other families who have suffered such a devastating loss.'

A graduate of the American International School in Dhaka, Jain came to UC Berkeley in 2014 and was intending to major in economics.

Jain and seven other students were completing internships with UC Berkeley's Subir and Malini Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies, according to statement from the university.

Abinta Kabir, an American student from Miami, Florida, has been identified as one of the 20 foreigners killed during the attack on a cafe in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka last night

Hossain (center) had studied at Emory's Oxford campus, the same one attended by Kabir, then joined the business school after graduating

Kabir (far right), an undergraduate student at Emory University, Georgia, was visiting family and friends in Bangladesh at the time of the attack, a university spokesman said

Kabir (left) died alongside Faraaz Hossain (right) who was originally from Bangladesh but had also been studying at Emory University, attending the college's business school

Ruba Ahmed, Kabir's mother, weeps as she arrives to identify the body of her daughter in Dhaka today after she was killed

The Italian foreign ministry confirmed its dead countrymen as: Adele Puglisi, Marco Tondat, Claudia Maria D'Antona, Nadia Benedetti, Vincenzo D'Allestro, Maria Rivoli, Cristian Rossi, Claudio Cappelli, and Simona Monti.

Most of the Italian victims were understood to work in the fashion industry, buying fabrics from Bangladesh.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe confirmed that five men and two women died worked for the country's foreign aid agency and said they 'were giving their all for the development of Bangladesh'.

All the attackers were from Bangladesh, Police Inspector General Shahidul Hoque told CNN, as ISIS released their grinning pictures online

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed declared two days of mourning for the victims to take place on Sunday and Monday.

She also thanked all those who had expressed their solidarity with Bangladesh, and vowed that terrorism would be exterminated at all costs.

She added: 'Anyone who believes in religion cannot do such act. They do not have any religion, their only religion is terrorism.'

Army Brigadier General Naim Asraf Chowdhury said: 'Most of (the hostages) were killed mercilessly by sharp weapons last night.'

On Friday night, Bangladeshi resident Hasnat Karim said he brought his family to the cafe in order to celebrate his daughter's birthday.

ISIS has also released images purporting to show four of the attackers online, though has not revealed their identities

The terror group's media arm released images of the grinning gunmen along with a message saying: 'Let the people of the crusader countries know that there is no safety for them as long as their aircraft are killing Muslims'

Hasnat was too traumatized to say more than a few words about his ordeal, saying only that the hostage-takers 'did not misbehave with us'.

But he detailed to his father Rezaul how the gunmen - who were armed with automatic weapons, bombs and makeshift machetes - had split the diners into two groups.

Rezaul said: '(The foreigners) were taken to the upper floor and the Bangladeshis were kept around a table.'

He said his son told him the terrorists 'did not hit people who could recite verses from the Koran. The others were tortured'.

He added: 'The gunmen asked everyone inside to recite from the Koran. Those who recited were spared. The gunmen even gave them meals last night.'

Elite Bangladeshi commandos stormed the building after siege of more than 12 hours, freeing some 13 hostages, in addition to another eight who manged to flee during the siege. Six of the terrorists were shot dead and one was arrested at the scene.

The ISIS media wing has claimed responsibility for the attack which was launched on the final Friday of Ramadan, as millions of Muslims prepare to celebrate the Eid holiday. The final ten days of Ramadan are the most solemn in the Islamic calendar.

Amaq News Agency, ISIS's media wing, claimed responsibility for the attack while releasing a gruesome series of images online purporting to show victims inside the cafe.

Distraught relatives of those killed covered their faces as they were taken to identify the bodies of their loves ones following the attack

Meanwhile members of the military and police remained on the streets in force today in the hopes of preventing another attack

Armed police officers and soldiers took up positions around the cafe today as Dhaka remained on edge following the attack yesterday

Armored troop carriers rolled through Dhaka's streets today as the military took a no-nonsense approach to preventing more attacks

Troops took up strategic positions across Dhaka to discourage any further terrorist attacks

Two marksmen stood holding their high-powered Dragunov sniper rifles after last night's rescue mission

Meanwhile in Kolkata, India, demonstrators held a candlelit vigil for the victims of Dhaka, demanding an end to terrorist violence

It is thought that at least some of the victims of the Bangladesh attack were Indian, including student Tarushi Jain

The pictures show a number of bodies piled together next to a table still covered with plates of half-eaten food, while in others bodies lie in twisted shapes on floors that are covered in blood.

Two police officers were killed, including a local police station chief, Mohammed Salahuddin, who was earlier injured in the shoot-out.

According to a local photojournalist, Mr Salahuddin was asked by his colleagues not to cross the cordon as he was not wearing a bullet-proof vest.

Just moments after he crossed the line, according to the Daily Star in Dhaka, he was shot.

A second policeman, Robiul Islam, assistant commissioner of Uttara zone Detective Branch, has also died in the shooting, top police officials confirmed.

Another 25 officers and one civilian are being treated for injuries from gunshots and shrapnel, with 10 people in a critical condition, according to hospital authorities.

Speaking after the raid, Lieutenant Colonel Tuhin Mohammed Masud, commander of the Rapid Action Battalion said: 'We have gunned down at least six terrorists and the main building is cleared but the operation is still going on.'

A Japanese government spokesman said that a Japanese hostage was rescued with a gunshot wound but seven others are unaccounted for.

Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Koichi Hagiuda said that the eight were together at the restaurant at the time of the attack.

Kitchen staffer Sumon Reza, who escaped, said the attackers chanted 'Allahu Akbar' (God is Great) as they assaulted around 9:20 p.m. Friday, initially opening fire with blanks.

An injured policeman is carried away after the attack in Dhaka on Friday night

Police have stormed a restaurant after being locked in a shoot-out with gunmen at a restaurant in the diplomatic quarter of the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka, that is popular with foreigners

Casualties were evacuated from the scene in the back of army trucks and ambulance

People help an unidentified injured person after a group of gunmen attacked a restaurant popular with foreigners in a diplomatic zone of the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka

A staff member who managed to escape said the gunmen shouted 'Allahu Akbar' as they attacked the restaurant, shooting and throwing bombs

Another survivor said the gunmen ordered bakery workers to switch off the lights in the restaurant. The militants then covered close-circuit cameras with black cloth.

The bakery worker, who was not identified, told ATN News, a Bangladesh television channel, that when the first attacker entered the gate he thought it was someone taking shelter in the restaurant's doorway.

'Then I saw that he had weapons. On seeing that, I ran toward the back of the restaurant. He fired while I was running but I was not sure if he was targeting me because I did not look back,' the survivor said.

He said he ran and told everyone working inside the bakery, and many people ran out using the back door.

'Those who could not hear me, or understand me, did not leave because this happened in a short span of time,' he said.

ISIS claimed 24 people had been killed and a further 40 were wounded in the attack. Images of the carnage were distributed on social media channels with links to the jihadi terror organisation.

Bangladeshi officials have said 20 have died with a number of others in a critical condition in hospital.

Hospital staff dealing with casualties said of the 26 people they are currently treating, ten are in a critical condition with six on life support. Victims suffered broken bones and gunshot wounds.

In Washington, a White House official said President Barack Obama was briefed on the attack by his chief counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco. The president asked to be kept informed as the situation develops, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the president's meetings.

Victims: Police officers Mohammed Salahuddin (right) and Robiul Islam (left) have been named as the two reported fatalities in the hostage situation in Dhaka, according to local news site The Daily Star

A police officer assists an injured colleague outside the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe, currently under a hostage siege by armed gunmen

Two police officers injured earlier in the shoot-out have been confirmed dead, according to local media reports

Members of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) have surrounded the Spanish restaurant, as communications are believed to be underway in an attempt to save their lives of those inside

Bangladeshi security personnel stand guard after gunmen stormed a restaurant in Dhaka's high-security diplomatic district

The attack is reported to have broken out at the Holey Artisan Bakery in the upmarket area of Gulshan, Dhaka

State Department spokesman John Kirby says the US. is in contact with the Bangladesh government and has offered its assistance to bring those responsible to justice.

The recent attacks in Bangladesh have raised fears that religious extremists are gaining a foothold in the country, despite its traditions of secularism and tolerance.

Around two dozen atheist writers, publishers, members of religious minorities, social activists and foreign aid workers have been slain since 2013.
Tony Blair, seen leaving TV studios today, urged the Government to keep its options open on Brexit in case the 'will of the people' changes

Tony Blair today claimed Britain should not quit the EU if the 'will of the people' changes as a Brexit deal is negotiated.

In remarks certain to infuriate those who backed Brexit and pulled off an improbable win, the ex-Labour PM said Britain should 'take its time' over leaving to 'keep its options open'.

Mr Blair claimed his remarks did not mean Parliament should set out to 'override' the result but were an acknowledgement of the closeness of the result on June 23

Speaking to Sky News, Mr Blair said the Prime Minister and Chancellor should be touring European capitals to get a sense of the politics and 'room for manoeuvre'.

He said: 'In the immediate aftermath of the vote, theres a certain hostility but weve got to treat this like a vast campaign for our national interests. The referendum expressed the will of the people.

'But the will of the people is entitled to change. Right now over this next two months, weve got to have the national interests protected by trying to set the scene for any negotiations.

'I dont think you can override the settled will of the people. Its 52 to 48.'

Mr Blair said public opinion could shift dramatically if the Brexit terms were bad and people worried about keeping their jobs.

He said: 'Im not saying we have another referendum, Im not saying we revisit this, Im saying theres no rule about this. Were a sovereign people  we can do what we want to do.

'Parliament shouldnt override the will of the people. But it is also the job of Parliament to express the will of the people and to make sure they scrutinise carefully what this new deal may be.'

Ukip MP Douglas Carswell said: 'When I lost an election to Tony Blair in 2001, I accepted the result.

'Today Blair wants to set aside the referendum.'

Andrea Leadsom today said she would want to trigger Article 50 and get Britain out of the EU as fast as possible but her rival for the Tory leadership Theresa May urged caution

The five Tory leadership contenders have all suggested various schedules to triggering 'article 50' of the Lisbon Treaty which officially begins the process of Brexit.

Once the button is pressed, a two year timetable for negotiating the UK's departure begins - but until this happens there is no schedule in place.

On when to trigger Article 50 and start the process for Brexit talks, Andrea Leadsom told the BBC: "We need to get on with it. We need to seize the opportunity."

By contrast, Theresa May told ITV the process should be begun until the UK had established its own negotiating position.
YouTube and Facebook appear to have removed the videos made by a vigilante who posed as a minor online to expose the men approaching them for sex.

Zach Sweers, 23, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, began posting videos of his stings to catch alleged sexual predators on a website, YouTube channel and Facebook page under the name Anxiety War months ago.

But the clips were recently removed after two people filed lawsuits against Sweers, MLive reports.

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YouTube and Facebook appear to have removed the videos made by Zach Sweers (above), a vigilante who posed as a minor online to expose the men approaching them for sex

Sweers caught the accused pedophiles by responding to their Craiglist ads, and would chat with the men pretending to be a young girl of 14 or 15  before setting up a meeting.

Then, when they showed up to the meetings, Sweers would confront them and film the encounter as he revealed the truth.

Seven men were arrested for allegedly accosting a child for immoral purposes after Sweers took his video and cell phone evidence to police earlier this year.

But afterwards, Kent County Prosecutor William Forsyth said they would stop charging people Sweers targeted.

In one video posted in April, Sweers went to a meeting armed with what appeared to be a handgun in a holster.

Sweers caught the accused pedophiles by responding to their Craiglist ads. He would chat with the men pretending to be a young girl of 14 or 15  and set up a meeting (above, one of the encounters)

Forsyth asked Sweers to stop his freelance law enforcement due to the dangerous nature of it, according to MLive.

'Fortunately, no one has gotten physically injured yet, but I fear your actions could end with a person not choosing to leave, but instead assaulting you, anyone with a video device nearby, and/or some uninvolved passerby,' Forsyth told Sweers in a latter.

And in May, one of the men sued Sweers for defamation.

Another of the men, who was never charged after being caught up in one of Sweers stings, also filed a lawsuit recently.

Now, all but one of Sweers videos have been removed.

In the remaining video on the Anxiety War YouTube channel, Sweers discusses the first lawsuit filed against him and asks his followers for financial help to pay for an attorney.

Sweers (left, with his brother in one of his videos) posted videos of his stings to catch alleged sexual predators on a website, YouTube channel and Facebook page under the name Anxiety War

He has also set up a GoFundMe page to raise money to pay his legal fees.

In a post on the page, Sweers says he is being sued for defamation and privacy invasion.

He says he is also being sued for using the plaintiffs name and image for monetary gain. Sweers insists he never benefitted financially from that or any other video he made.

I believe that simply telling people that some adults are willing to have sex with children doesnt sink in enough if we want the public, especially parents, to be as much aware of this issue as possible in todays increasingly surreptitious Internet age, he wrote.

Thats why I show people  thats why I published the video  to spread awareness through realism and as a result, vigilance that is so much needed.

The page, which was set up on June 20, has since raised more than $26,000.
Curtis has not publicly commented about the issues related to the property

Her fed up neighbors have also complained that nothing is being improved

Years later, the renovation is not completed and city officials may seize it

Reality TV star Nicole Curtis has hit out at local news stations who published scathing reports about the dilapidated state of the home she purchased for just $2 in Minneapolis.

She bought the property in November 2012 with the promise of renovating it.

But almost four years later, the city has threatened to seize it from HGTV's 'Rehab Addict' celeb after neighbors complained about the slow progress of refurbishment and its appearance.

In a biting Facebook post aimed at the city's media, Curtis wrote: 'If the Minneapolis news teams are as starved for news as they were last week, I will be mowing my lawn this evening followed by walking my dogs.

'Maybe light some sparklers which I guess would be seen as illegal fireworks... Have a safe and Happy 4th of July.'

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More than two years have passed after the year deadline to complete the renovations and now the city might take legal action against Curtis (above) and seize the house

Curtis, who stars on HGTV's 'Rehab Addict,' purchased the home pictured above in 2012 from the city of Minneapolis for the cheap price $2

With purchasing the home, Curtis signed a contract with the city to make much needed renovations on the home (above) within a certain time frame

There were specific requirements that came along with the sale and contract about Curtis needing to 'substantially complete construction' on the home within a year, the Star Tribune previously reported.

In addition, the 38-year-old TV star was also supposed to provide the city with regular updates about the progress on the home.

More than two years have passed after the year deadline to complete the renovations and now the city might take legal action against Curtis and seize the house.

In late June, Council Member Blong Yang, city staff members and an appraiser took a tour of the property.

The city is currently waiting for a formal appraisal to be completed.

Casper Hill, a spokesman for the city, told the Star Tribune that Curtis, who is a mother-of-two, has performed some work on the dilapidated property.

However, he said 'the issue is the time of performance, as she was given a year to complete improvements.'

There were specific requirements that came along with the sale and contract about Curtis needing to 'substantially complete construction' on the home (pictured right) within a year and provide updates to the city

However, the repairs on the home have been slow and neighbors have complained about its appearance. She is pictured above outside of a home in Ohio with LeBron James and his sons

Curtis had a meeting with Yang and other city officials on June 25 about the issues with the home.

Yang stated that a specific timeline on when all of the renovations on the home would be finished was not established.

'She didn't say much,' Yang said. 'I don't know what the plan is. I think we as a city have to figure out what to do at this point, because it has been a burden on the neighbors who live there.'

Neighbors have repeatedly complained for months to officials about safety issues connected with the property.

Curtis has posted several times on her Facebook page about the issue of the home and said that she hired a contractor to finish working on the home by December 2014.

However, she said that the contractor 'kept pushing back and then left two of our sites in shambles.'

Last year, she fought with two separate contracting companies that filed liens for unpaid work totaling $36,000.

In addition, the property that the city is considering seizing from Curtis has delinquent taxes from 2015

Of the situation with Curtis and the home, Council Member Blong Yang (above) said: 'The neighbors don't deserve this'

In addition, the property that the city is considering taking back from Curtis has delinquent taxes from 2015.

She dismissed questions on Facebook about why she has not met the deadlines of the contract she signed with the city for the home and said that she is in 'constant contact' with officials.

She has not publicly commented about the issues related to the home or when she will complete the renovations.

On June 26, she hosted an event on the property offering tours of the house for $5 in an effort to raise money for a friend with cancer.

'Here's the story that was true  Nicole Curtis and her crew of volunteers threw together a last minute event to raise money for Sean Boeckmann  a couple hundred people raised a lot of $ and brought positive energy to support a great guy fighting cancer  done,' she wrote.

Yang told WCCO that he thought hosting the event at the Hillside Avenue home was 'inappropriate.'

'We need to be better at not allowing something like this to ever happen again,' Yang said. 'The neighbors don't deserve this.'

On June 26, she hosted an event on the property (above) offering tours of the house for $5 in an effort to raise money for a friend with cancer

One of her neighbors, Jon Lundberg (above), is upset that nothing has been done to the house. He said that 'this is a charade and a lie.'

Yang said that it doesn't appear that Curtis cares about fixing up the neighborhood, as she promised to do so. 'If she did, her actions would have proven it,' Yang said

One of her neighbors, Jon Lundberg, attended the event because he is fed up with the appearance of the house.

'We decided to come down to the event today not to distract from the money going to a good cause but to point out the fact that this is a charade and a lie,' Lundberg said.

Another neighbor, Julie Oden, who lives across the street from the property said no progress has been made on the house since Curtis bought in 2012.

'Piles of rocks, foundation  everything was left as if time stood still and the earth stopped,' Oden said.

Yang said that it doesn't appear that Curtis cares about fixing up the neighborhood, as she promised to do so.
A toddler born with no eyes, a hole in the middle of his face where his nose should be and no upper jaw will return to his hometown in Morocco after reconstructive surgery that transformed his face.

Yahya El Jabaly was born in a small village six hours from Casablanca but was flown to Melbourne for surgery at the age of three after a woman spotted his parent's desperate plea for help online.

The courageous boy, who recently celebrated his fifth birthday, was born grotesquely deformed after complications in the womb stopped the bones in his face from fusing together.

But after an 18-hour life-changing operation in 2014 that remodeled the bones on his face and a number of follow-up surgeries that rebuilt his nose, doctors say he will now live a normal life.

And in an exclusive report on Channel Seven's Sunday Night, Yahya continued to defy expectations, uttering his very first words, a tear-inducing 'thank you' to the doctor that saved his life.

His touching story has stolen the hearts of Australians, and will see him finally return home to be with his loving family and childhood best friend Hiba - who never cared about his appearance.

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Five-year-old Yahya before (left) and after (right) his reconstructive surgery in Melbourne. He will return to his hometown in Morocco

Yahya El Jabaly was born with no eyes, a hole in the middle of his face where his nose should be and no upper jaw (pictured before surgery)

He was born grotesquely deformed after complications in the womb stopped the bones in his face from fusing together

Yahyah is reunited with his childhood best friend Hiba - who never cared about his deformed appearance

'Thank you': Yahyah's first ever words were to Tony Holmes - the doctor that performed the life-changing surgery on him

Despite his incredibly rare condition Yahya defied all odds by surviving in the womb and managed to grow into a happy and healthy toddler.

However he was a social outcast in his hometown and his parents kept him hidden away, believing his appearance was too confronting for some.

They covered their son up when he left the house and due to the lack of roofing on his mouth he was unable to speak and could only communicate through grunting noises.

Upon seeing their son's new face for the first time after Dr Tony Holmes - who separated Bangladeshi-born twins Trishna and Krishna - spent nearly a day on his delicate surgery, his parents dissolved into tears of joy.

'It's a huge joy, a huge happiness to see my son in such a situation,' Yahya's father Mostafa told Sunday Night in an exclusive report last year.

Despite his incredibly rare condition Yahya defied all odds by surviving in the womb and managed to grow into a happy and healthy toddler

The now five-year-old boy lives in a small village six hours from Casablanca, Morocco, with his parents

The surgery was expected to take up to eight hours but went on for over 18 hours during which Yahya lost nearly half of the blood from his body and had the lining of his brain dissected from his skull

Family ties: Yahya is the proud big brother to Amal, who was born five weeks after his surgery in 2014

The surgery was expected to take up to eight hours but went on for over 18 hours during which Yahya lost nearly half of the blood from his body and had the lining of his brain dissected from his skull.

A team of surgeons worked in shift rotation and the pricey surgery was funded partly by donations and doctors who offered their services free of charge.

Yahya's plight first went global when the father of his closest friend took to Facebook, pleading for medical professionals to help the boy lead a normal life.

From across the world, the post was read by Fatima Baraka, a Melbourne breast cancer survivor who was born in a village close to Yahya's.

Ms Baraka took it upon herself to search for a surgeon who would be willing to transform Yahya's face and soon found Melbourne reconstructive surgeon, Tony Holmes.

She then traveled to Yahya's home where she met the toddler and his family for the first time before bringing them to Australia.

Now, after undergoing an 18-hour life-saving operation, the miracle child has been given the chance to live a normal life thanks to Melbourne doctors who remodeled the bones on his face

A team of surgeons worked in shift rotation and the pricey surgery was funded partly by donations and doctors who offered their services free of charge

Despite being happy, healthy and adored by his parents (pictured) the toddler's face was covered whenever he leaves his town due to his appearance being too confronting for many

The little boy was a social outcast in his village and doctors refused to operate on him

Fatima Baraka, a Melbourne breast cancer survivor, heard of Yahyah's story on Facebook and took it upon herself to help him by flying him to Australia

'I just can't believe what he's been through and how he just comes out and gets better and better every time,' Ms Baraka said two weeks after Yahya's successful facial surgery.

'He looks like a normal little boy.

'He's a very smart little kid, he's got so much potential, there's no reason for him not to have a good, healthy bright future.'

Ms Baraka said the little boy 'entered her heart' and she instantly fell in love with him however she admits she was 'quite shocked' when she first met Yahya and his family.

'I was a little bit horrified to be honest,' she said.

'I just can't believe what he's been through and how he just comes out and gets better and better every time,' Ms Baraka said two weeks after Yahya's successful facial surgery

Dr Tony Holmes, who separated Bangladeshi-born twins Trishna and Krishna, operated on Yahya in late 2014

He completed a range of tests on Yahya in Melbourne, including CT and MRI scans, to see if he was suitable for surgery

Yahya and his parents met Dr Holmes after being flown to Melbourne where the three-year-old underwent a range of developmental tests from CT scans to MRI's, to confirm how his brain functioned and if he was suitable for surgery.

Despite the serious risks involved, Dr Holmes soon agreed to operate on the toddler.

'I think this one is about as difficult as it gets. A 9.5-out-of-10 degree of difficulty,' Dr Holmes told Channel Seven's Sunday Night.

'Yahya may not die if we don't operate but he might if we do.

'I believe that it's the right of everybody to look human and this kid doesn't look human.'



Yahya underwent surgery in December 2014, when Dr Holmes brought the two sides of his skull together and built him a nose with his own skin.

The operation brought together the two sides of Yahya's skull and doctors shaped him a nose from his own skin

Over the moon: Yahyah has since celebrated his fifth birthday, and doctor's expect him to live a long life

Speaking after Yahya came out of surgery Dr Holmes was ecstatic at the results and delighted at his parent's reactions.

'When they first saw him you could just tell that they were just stunned and so happy' he said.

Five weeks after the surgery Yahya's parent's welcomed a new addition into their family after his mother gave birth to a baby girl.

After initially being afraid she may suffer from the same deformed facial features as Yahya they were relieved when she was given the all clear.

While the inspirational little boy still needs some prosthetic eyes and more surgery on his nose, he is learning to walk and his life has changed forever.
When police pulled John Cramsey over on the way into New York, they found a huge collection of powerful weapons.

The 50-year-old was arrested and sparked claims that cops had foiled a deadly attack on the Big Apple.

But the Second Amendment supporter insists that he is not a vigilante or a terrorist.

Instead he claims he is just a heartbroken father who was trying to help a girl at risk of being dragged into a heroin addiction - four months after his model daughter overdosed with her boyfriend.

In an interview with The New York Post from the Hudson County Correctional facility in New Jersey, he revealed how he suffered after his 20-year-old daughter Alexandria 'Lexii' Cramsey passed away.

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John Cramsey (left) insists he is not a terrorist or a vigilante after he was arrested outside New York's Holland Tunnel with a huge cache of weapons on June 21. He claims he is just a heartbroken father who has been trying to help heroin addicts since his daughter, Lexii (right), suffered a fatal overdose in February

'My last memory is giving my daughter a hug in the rain,' Cramsey said.

She was found dead alongside boyfriend Marquillis 'Quillis' Calhoun, 22, in his Allentown, Pennsylvania, warehouse apartment In February.

They had both suffered fatal overdoses while watching Netflix

Ever since he says he has been trying to rescue girls heading down the same path.

But it was his determination that led to a bungled rescue mission which ended outside the Holland Tunnel on June 21.

The owner of a Pennsylvania gun range was stopped in a SUV heading into the Big Apple with friends Dean Smith and Kimberly Arendt beside him.

Cramsey was arrested, and is now facing a slew of gun charges. He has tried to have his bail reduced, but the judge has failed every time.

He has since claimed that he was on his way to Queens to try and 'extract' a 16-year-old girl from a party.

Lexii (left) was dead after suffering a heroin and fentanyl overdose alongside her boyfriend Marquillis 'Quillis' Calhoun, 22, (right) in his Allentown, Pennsylvania, warehouse apartment. They were watching Netflix

Cramsye, the owner of a Pennsylvania gun range, was stopped in a SUV heading into the Big Apple with friends Dean Smith and Kimberly Arendt beside him. Cramsey was arrested, and is now facing a slew of gun charges

The teenager woke up in a hotel next to Sierra Schmitt, 20, who fatally overdosed on heroin.

It has been part of his crusade since his daughter Lexii's death.

'My world ended,' he told The Post.

Lexii adored her Calhoun, and even gushed on Facebook about how he would treat her like a princess, but Cramsey didn't like him.

'If I had a chance to go back, I would've intervened,' he said. 'I didn't spend enough time with [Lexii], but there was no way anyone could have spent enough time with her.'

Five months before her death, Calhoun even reached out to Cramsey on Facebook, assuring him nothing would happen to her.

At the time she was building a career in modelling.

She had been invited to Mexico for a three-month residency after stints working professional in Philadelphia and Atlanta.

But she struggled with substance abuse after getting hooked on Xanax that had been prescribed by her doctor.

This is the massive collection of weapons, ammo and tactical gear that was found in the back of the SUV

They were pulled over in this SUV, which is covered in pro-Second Amendment messages and advertising for his gun range, Higher Ground Tactical

Her ex-boyfriend Anthony Aniades, 24, told The Post she would eat it 'like candy' every day.

Cramsey said: 'I knew she was doing Xanax and Percocet. To prescribe Percocets to a child at a very young age is totally stupid. It was early in her teens, 12 or 13.'

A few days before Lexii died, she wrote in her diary that she was worried about Calhoun.

Gina, her mother, shared extracts with The Post.

It read: 'I'm worried about Quillis. I think he's secretly doing heroin again, and I don't know how to help him.'

Lexii's death left her father desperate to fight for the lives of heroin addicts.

He said: 'Words can't describe how fast it happened,' he said. 'She went from this beautiful young lady to this beautiful young woman overnight, and just as fast, she was gone.'

He created a Facebook group, Enough is Enough, to provide 'grief counseling and solutions' to Pennsylvania families coping with addiction.

'There was nothing I could do to bring my baby girl back. The only thing I could do to heal myself was to help other parents who are going through the same heartache,' he told The Post. 'The difference is not seeing the body counts go up.'

He claims that since her death, he has rescued dozens of addicts.

'There are people I've literally carried out on my shoulder,' he said. 'I've also had people who consciously went into treatment.'

'I'm not the criminal people say I am,' Cramsey said. 'There is a lot people don't know yet.'
Repeat offender: Convicted Somalian rapist Dahir Ibrahim, 31, was allowed to stay in Britain after overturning a deportation order only to brutally rape two more 'vulnerable' women, it has been revealed

A convicted Somalian rapist was allowed to stay in Britain after overturning a deportation order only to brutally rape two more 'vulnerable' women, it has been revealed.

Dahir Ibrahim, 31, attacked his second and third victims within six weeks of each other in 2014 - threatening one with a Stanley knife and the other with pliers and a screwdriver.

He was only in the country because he successfully appealed a judge's request to boot him out.

The sex offender had been jailed for 10 years in 2005 following his first attack, on a prostitute in Edgbaston, Birmingham, and a deportation order was made upon his release.

But Ibrahim fought and controversially won the right to remain in the UK - only to rape again after luring one woman down an alleyway under the pretence of offering her drugs.

She was beaten during her ordeal before managing to flee and seeking help from a passing motorist.

The third victim to endure 'abuse and humiliation' at the hands of Ibrahim was sleeping rough when she was threatened with a pair of pliers and a screwdriver before being raped.

Ibrahim's lawyer defended him in court by saying the rapist had come from a country where he had witnessed many atrocities and had a lack of understanding of what is acceptable in the UK.

'It was more opportunistic then pre-planned,' Jabeen Akhtar said. 'No long-term physical injury was sustained by the victims.'

But Ibrahim, from Handsworth, was jailed for another 10 years at Birmingham Crown Court.

Steven Bailey, prosecuting, said the rapist's second victim left her home in the early hours of September 5 to buy cannabis.

She was approached by Ibrahim who offered to sell her drugs and persuaded her to follow him down an alleyway off Villa Road, Handsworth.

Once there, he threatened her with a Stanley knife and then raped her.

Ibrahim attacked his second and third victims within six weeks of each other in 2014 - threatening one with a Stanley knife and the other with pliers and a screwdriver. He is pictured fleeing the scene of his second attack

Ibrahim fought and controversially won the right to remain in the UK - only to rape again after luring one woman down an alleyway after offering her drugs. His hat (left) is pictured while, right, he flees the scene in Villa Road

'She was crying and telling him to stop, and started screaming and shouting,' said Mr Bailey. 'The woman was beaten during her ordeal before she managed to flee and was helped by a driver on the Birchfield Road.'

The second victim was sleeping rough in St Paul's Square when she was attacked by Ibrahim in the early hours of October 18.

He was eventually tracked down and arrested by police through the gathering of a combination of DNA, forensic and CCTV evidence.

Passing sentence, Judge Murray Creed said: 'There was abuse and humiliation. There was severe psychological hurt and harm done. There was degradation.

The third victim to be attacked by Ibrahim was sleeping rough when she was threatened with a pair of pliers and a screwdriver before being raped. He is pictured looking for his glasses after the brutal assault

Ibrahim, of Handsworth, was jailed for another 10 years at Birmingham Crown Court. His clothes are pictured

'They were sustained incidents and the victims were targeted.'

Ibrahim had previously admitted two charges of rape, two of possessing weapons and another serious sexual offence.

Detective Constable Gavin McGrath, from West Midlands Police, said: 'The evidence against Ibrahim was indisputable and, in desperation, he tried to claim that it was a "fit up".

'But a few days before he was due to stand trial, he changed his plea to guilty.

'I am pleased that he has spared these women the further ordeal of a trial and he will now be behind bars and no longer a danger to the public.'
Oxford University is replacing some portraits of famous men with female, black and gay leaders to counter its male, pale and stale image.

It is commissioning artists to paint dozens of new portraits to hang in its ancient buildings at a cost of 900 each.

Stickers with the words next in frame have been put up around Oxford, asking students and staff to nominate suitable subjects by the end of this week.

In addition, colleges are already redecorating dining and lecture halls with new pictures and photographs to reflect the diversity of their alumni.

Pictures of author Jonathan Swift, 16th century poet John Donne and bible translator William Tyndale were all removed. And portraits of TV presenter Natasha Kaplinsky, author Hari Kunzru and journalist Naomi Wolf have been put up.

Pictures of author Jonathan Swift (left), 16th century poet John Donne (centre) and bible translator William Tyndale (right) were all removed

Portraits of TV presenter Natasha Kaplinsky (left), author Hari Kunzru (centre) and journalist Naomi Wolf (right) have been put up

The transformations are under way at a time when Oxford has faced intense international scrutiny over the presence of longstanding male symbols.

Students led by Ntokozo Qwabe, a South African-born Rhodes scholar, unsuccessfully campaigned for the removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College, arguing it was a reminder of apartheid.

The movement, backed by Malia Bouattia, now head of the NUS, drew global condemnation.

It failed in January, when Oriels governing body ruled out removing the statue after furious donors threatened to withdraw gifts and bequests worth more than 100million.

A month later, the National Union of Students Black Students Campaign described Oxford University as one of the most male, pale and stale places of learning in Britain.

It was revealed yesterday that a photograph of feminist and former Rhodes scholar, Naomi Wolf, will go on display in Rhodes House, home of the scholarship scheme that pays for non-British postgraduates to study at Oxford.

She admitted she left Oxford in the 1980s without finishing her doctorate after encountering horrible sexism and anti-semitism. She returned more than 20 years later to complete it.

Ms Wolf insisted that changing iconography helps to change how you see history.

She told a newspaper: In my college, New College, there are portraits of men everywhere.

While pictures are not the same as gender or race equality, I do not think this is trivial. If all you see are white men, white men, white men, it is very hard to believe that people in your society think you have a place in history.

Prime Minister of Jamaica Norman Manley (right), who died in 1969, with his wife Edna Manley

Some of the Rhodes scholars who fought for colonial independence have also been placed on the walls of the Rhodes House, to flank the portrait of Rhodes, who is regarded by some as racist.

These include Zambian activist, Lucy Banda Sichone and Norman Manley, who started the independence movement in Jamaica.

In February, Wadham College unveiled portraits of the journalist Amelia Gentleman, wife of Universities Minister, Jo Johnson, and novelist and journalist, Hari Kunzru, as part of a project to showcase a more balanced selection of alumni and fellows images.

A portrait of the first female Anglican bishop, the Right Reverend Libby Lane, was hung in St Peters College in January

Wadhams warden, Lord Macdonald, said at the time: I wanted to address the predominance in Hall and around College of portraits of white men.

The Wadham community is a diverse and inclusive one and, until now, this has not been reflected by the portraits which adorn its walls.

A portrait of the first female Anglican bishop, the Right Reverend Libby Lane, was hung in St Peters College in January. She was an undergraduate at St Peters in the mid-1980s.

Oxford University said yesterday its Diversifying Portraiture project  aimed at recognising the diversity of figures who have helped shape the institution - was launched after a successful funding bid in May 2014.

It said: In the first phase, we collected more than 250 portraits already on display around Oxford, depicting pioneering individuals who challenged the stereotypes and preconceptions of their times.

The university added in a statement: The second phase is now well under way.

We have asked the University community for suggestions for 25 fresh portraits of living figures connected to Oxford, representing our diversity in gender, race, disability and LGBTQ identity.

Nominations close on July 8 and we hope to have the portraits ready for display early in the New Year.

The university project complements many similar initiatives undertaken by Oxford colleges in recent years.

Dr Stephen Goss, Oxford University Pro Vice-Chancellor for Personnel and Equality, added: It has been uplifting to see so many initiatives to celebrate the great diversity of inspiring characters from the Universitys past and present.
A large Muslim festival has been cancelled due to escalating racial tensions post Brexit.

Up to 2,000 people were expected to gather in East Park, Southampton, to celebrate Eid - the end of the holy month of Ramadan - today and tomorrow.

But organisers the British Bangladeshi Cultural Academy have cancelled the event after far-right groups threatened to hold a protest in the city following the EU referendum vote.

Up to 2,000 people were expected to gather in East Park, Southampton, to celebrate Eid - the end of the holy month of Ramadan - today and tomorrow (stock image of Eid prayers)

Although the demonstrations, which include a rival anti-racist and pro-refugee march, are not linked to the festival or planned for the same day, organisers believe it is 'for the good of all communities' to cancel it.

Members of the far-right Pie and Mash Squad, who describe themselves as 'a group of people who love Pie n Mash and Britain the way it used to be', along with a faction of the group called South Coast Resistance, say they will hold a demonstration in the city.

Posting on social media they encouraged demonstrators to 'join us to celebrate Brexit and an end to mass immigration'.

They have also put up posts saying 'no more refugees'.

A number of groups such as pro-refugee organisation Refugees Welcome and anti-facist group Southampton AntiFa held a counter-demonstration in the same area on Saturday.

Shere Sattar, chairman of the British Bangladesh Cultural Academy, said: 'We have considered the political situation and unrest in UK after leaving the EU, the rise of racist activity and comments around other cities around the country, and Pie and Mash deciding to visit Southampton.

A number of groups such as pro-refugee organisation Refugees Welcome and anti-facist group Southampton AntiFa held a counter-demonstration in the same area on Saturday (stock image)

'We the British Bangladeshi Cultural Academy with other organisations have decided that for the good for all communities in our city it would be best if we cancel the huge gathering in the city park for Eidul Fitre prayer.'

Mr Sattar added that although the gathering for Eid, which is held to mark the end of the Islamic Holy Month of fasting, has been cancelled, they hope to hold other events in Southampton later this year.

He said: 'We are positive that by September we are hoping all those activities would be at rest, so that we can continue with our normal lives and community activities without any interruptions.

'We urge everyone to be at their best in this unrestful time in the country. We all should contribute everything we can to keep our city and the community safe.'

Police have said they are aware of the demonstrations and had planned to ensure the events were peaceful.

The UK has seen a 57 per cent rise in race-hate crime following the referendum decision to leave the EU last week. Among the dozens of reported incidents are.

MUSLIM ACCOUNTANT ATTACKED WITH A CROWBAR WHILE ARTIST IS ABUSED OVER BURKA-THEMED ARTWORK A young Muslim man was attacked with a crowbar and an artist was abused for her burka exhibit in two of the latest thought to be Brexit-related crimes. Yasmeen Sabri was told to 'go back to Saudi Arabia' as she showed off her work at the Royal College of Art on Wednesday evening. The 24-year-old woman, who is actually from Jordan, was shocked when a woman walked into the centre and started hurling racist abuse. The artist's burka-inspired work called 'Walk a Mile in her Veil' was damaged in the fracas as guests looked on in horror. Ms Sabri's work, which is for master's degree, invites people to try on the burka to see how they feel wearing the garment. Shocked Yasmeen, who does not wear the veil herself and has lived in London for six years, told The Evening Standard: 'This lady just came in off the street and started insulting me. 'She was saying "you don't belong here, you don't belong in England"'. Some of the guests tried to calm the woman down but she started shouting 'Arabs don't belong here, Arabs should leave the city.' Security guards eventually took the woman to one side at the Kensington gallery but not before she had damaged part of the exhibit. Police later arrested a 69-year-woman on suspicion of criminal damage and inciting racial hatred. A 23-year-old Muslim man was driving his BMW when he was attacked in a separate incident he thinks is connected to Brexit. Trainee accountant Adil Jamil was in Leyton when a crowbar-wielding man started swiping his car. He was sat in traffic driving his friend back from a mosque when a man 'calmly' approached him. Mr Jamil told the Standard: '[The man] looked at my face and for a split second I saw his eyes light up. He started to run straight at me. 'He was coming towards me brandishing this metal pole in the air in front of him, I knew I was in trouble. The man smashed the car's windscreen before Mr Jamil was able to drive to safety. But the attacker then allegedly went after a Somalian taxi driver whilst shouting racial abuse about Muslims. The man was tackled by an off-duty security guard who was in the vehicle behind Mr Jamil. Police were called to the scene and arrested a man in his mid-40s on suspicion of carrying an offensive weapon. Advertisement

The scene at halal butchers Kashmir Meat and Poultry shop in Walsall after it was fire bombed on Monday
A knife killer who stabbed a man in the heart is being investigated by authorities in Scotland after he posted pictures from his jail cell on his Facebook page.

John Cassidy, 35, who was convicted of the culpable homicide of Alexander McLellan, 56, created a profile under the alias Johnny Ootsoon.

Cassidy, from Dundee, could face further prosecution.

John Cassidy, left, stabbed Alexander McLellan, right, in 2012 and was jailed after admitting culpable homicide

Cassidy posted a number of social media updates under the pseudonym Johnny Ootsoon from behind bars

According to a spokeswoman, possession of a mobile phone in Scotland is illegal and prisoners are not allowed to update their social media profiles from behind bars.

However, authorities are unable to shut down the profiles and need Facebook to remove them from the internet.

Cassidy was sentenced to seven years in 2012 after admitting culpable homicide.

The killer posted several pictures from behind bars. In some of them he posed with other convicted killers.

Cassidy's victim's brother William McLellan expressed his disgust at the killer's ability to update his friends over the internet.

He told the Daily Record: 'Hell organise a party and be thinking how great his is. There doesnt seem to have been much punishment. If you kill someone, you should get life without parole.

'I got a letter from the prison service saying hell be out in September.

'But using Facebook is surely a breach of rules.'

Cassidy, writing as Ootsoon, wrote: 'Its Johnny Cassidy. Will be home soon so get a number for me so I can get in touch  its soon time to party.

'Back to a normal life soon.'

He added: 'Feeling fine near finished my time yee ha.'

One source said: 'Possession of a mobile phone in prison or taking photographs without permission is a criminal office. Johnny may not be Oot-so-soon after all.'

A spokeswoman for the Scottish Prison Service told MailOnline: 'We do not comment on individual prisoners. We do not permit access to the internet and therefore to social media sites.

'SPS cannot close social media profiles. Upon identification of a profile for a prisoner, we request removal from the site.

'The SPS only has the ability to investigate and request removal of Facebook accounts that are proven to be accessed while a prisoner is in our care.
A neighbour of the Queensland family torn apart by a fatal car crash just metres from their home on Saturday reportedly said images of the scene will 'stay with me for the rest of my life'.

Lea Steinburger, who lives close by to the Hutchinson family in Welcome Creek, told the Courier Mail she, her partner and her brother-in-law found it hard to distinguish the dead from the living when the Hutchinson's 4WD crashed near their house.

The parents, Steve and Caroline Hutchinson, both aged 37, were killed in the crash on Gooburrum Road, only a few hundred metres from their Welcome Creek home near Bundaberg, on Saturday afternoon.

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A mother and father were killed and three others injured after their car rolled near their home in southern Queensland

Their two sons, aged five and 17, suffered non-life threatening injuries, while the teen's 15-year-old girlfriend sustained serious head, chest and limb injuries after being thrown from the vehicle, reported the ABC.

Ms Steinburger told the Courier Mail she and her family initially believed the young girl was dead.

The girl, 15, was flown from Bundaberg Base Hospital, where her boyfriend Dylan and his younger brother were also taken, to Brisbane in a critical condition.

After he first emerged from the car, Dylan is said to have run towards the family home screaming for his mother  not yet fully comprehending the gravity of his loss.

Ms Steinburger said his actions saved him from having to see his mother's body after it was also thrown from the car in the crash.

The Hutchinsons have a seven-year-old daughter who was staying with friends when the car crashed.

The parents, both aged 37, were killed in the crash on Gooburrum Road, a few hundred metres from their Welcome Creek home near Bundaberg on Saturday afternoon

Their two sons, aged five and 17, suffered non-life threatening injuries, while the teen's 15-year-old girlfriend sustained serious head, chest and limb injuries after being thrown from the vehicle (pictured)

'These people were just a couple of hundred metres from their home when it would appear their vehicle has left the road and rolled over,' Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) spokesman Martin Kelly told the ABC.

'It's quite a distressing scene. It was on a road that was only single lane and has gravel either side, on a bend, with a creek crossing.'

Mr Kelly said people from a nearby house helped until paramedics arrived on the scene.

'There were some people who were at a house very nearby the incident and they came out and rendered some wonderful assistance to the people that were injured ... until the ambulance and other emergency services arrived.'

Investigations into the cause of the crash are continuing.
'Go jump off a cliff and take your wife with you', 'Rot in hell you f****** skanks', 'I'm buying up my ammo right now you filthy, ugly, disgusting, fat, stupid, cruel, piece of lesbian scum.'

These are just three of the hundreds of Facebook messages Rachel and Laurel Bowman Cryer receive in their inbox, three years after they were denied a wedding cake at a Portland bakery.

The couple's name made headlines in July 2015 when they won $135,000 in emotional damages caused by Aaron and Melissa Klein, who owned the Sweet Cakes bakery in Gresham, Oregon.

It was supposed to be the end of a battle that began in 2013, when the Bowman-Cryers asked the Christian bakers to make their special raspberry fantasy cake.

But it was just the beginning, the women have revealed to OregonLive.com.

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Laurel and Rachel Bowman-Cryer are still receiving hate mail three years after Sweet Cakes, owned by Christians Aaron and Melissa Klein, refused to make their wedding cake

Day after day the women receive messages full of expletives, telling them to kill themselves or warning them that the sender is 'buying ammo' and 'getting ready for the war'

'You started a war b***h, I'm far from done with you', 'I'm getting ready for the war so I hope you and your t**t-faced girlfriend have a good hiding spot', 'F*****g die, or just kill yourself.'

The messages come by the hour, filling up Laurel and Rachel's inboxes with insults and threats, accusing them of ruining the lives of both the bakers and fellow members of the LGBTQ community.

A Saudi Arabian man finds their Facebook and tells the couple their case has inspired him and his friends to whip gay people with canes.

He said he asked one of them to get a wedding cake, in the couple's honor, and place it in a video of the beatings. He promises to send the Bowman-Cryers a link.

The couple have tried to remain quiet for years, up until now. They quit their job, declined media interviews, and moved to a nondescript house on the outskirts of town that they now rarely leave.

But as they retreated, Aaron and Melissa Klein only grew louder. They hired former President George HW Bush's White House lawyer, toured with Ted Cruz, spoke about business owners' religious freedom.

It wasn't until Laurel and Rachel, who had been together since they were 19, inherited two little girls that they decided they would finally get married.

Lizzy and Anastasia, aged three and two, were the two daughters of Laurel's best friend, who died of cancer in 2010.

Anastasia has Asperger's and stopped speaking when her mother died. Lizzy has cerebral palsy, autism and chromosomal disorder that delays development, according to OregonLive.com.

The couple, who had both come from broken homes, wanted to give the girls a real family. One of the first thing Rachel's mother said when she heard the happy news was: 'Let's call Melissa'.

The couple were awarded $135,000 in emotional damages caused by the Kleins, who owned the Sweet Cakes bakery in Gresham, Oregon, in June 2015

Melissa Klein had made a cake for McPherson's sixth marriage two years before, to a fiancee she had known for a few weeks.

Rachel and her mother still talked about Melissa's 'raspberry fantasy cake'. It seemed like the perfect way to bond, both getting married with the same cake, after years of estrangement.

McPherson had kicked Rachel out of the house for being a lesbian when she was 14.

But there would be no fantasy, cake or otherwise. When Rachel and McPherson arrived at Sweet Cakes they met with Aaron, who first asked: 'What are the names of the bride and groom?'

'It's two brides,' Rachel told him cheerfully.

'I think we may have wasted your time,' said Klein. 'We don't do same-sex weddings.'

Rachel burst into tears and mother and daughter left the shop. But McPherson turned the car around, she wanted to reason with Klein.

She told him how she had once discriminated against gay people. How everything changed after both her daughter and younger son came out.

Klein claims he replied with a Bible quote: 'You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female, it's an abomination.'

McPherson said he told her something quite different: 'I'm sorry ma'am. But your children are an abomination.'

Her soon-to-be-wife in tears all night, Laurel knew she had to do something. She filed what she thought was a review to the Better Business Bureau, warning them not to go to Sweet Cakes.

She only realized two weeks later she had actually made a complaint to the Oregon Department of Justice, when Aaron Klein received notice his bakery was under investigation.

Laurel's name and phone number were included on the notice. He posted it on Facebook.

'This is what happens when you tell gay people you won't do their 'wedding' cake,' he wrote.

That's when the messages began.

'Can't wait to see you go die, and go to hell one day', 'Go the f*** away, you and your fat a** wife', 'F****t lesbian money-grubbing b*****s, rot in hell you f*****g skanks.'

Laurel asked the Department of Justice to drop the case, Rachel declined every interview. The women wanted to keep their two girls safe.

As the Bowman-Cryers tried to shield themselves from the public eye, the Kleins (pictured) only grew louder, hiring former President George HW Bush's White House lawyer

hey have since toured with Ted Cruz, speaking about business owners' right to religious freedom

The Kleins shut their bakery (pictured) in 2013 amid the national attention and now operate it from their home

The state attorney abandoned the case. But the Kleins kept talking, and the hate mail kept coming.

After eight months, the Bowman-Cryers decided to reach out to the Bureau of Labor and Industries, which is in charge of enforcing the state's civil right laws.

Laurel and Rachel wanted to try and get the Kleins to stop speaking out, to offer an apology, to let it all go, they told OregonLive.com.

The couple have said they never wanted an award, that they considered it 'blood money', but that it was not their decision how the case was prosecuted.

Laurel was diagnosed with stage 2 cervical cancer just before the trial. Rachel was so exhausted from the hate mail and abuse she walked using a cane.

Labor commissioner Brad Avakian believed there was enough evidence that the Klein's had caused $135,000 worth of damage to the couple.

That money remains locked up in a government account as the bakers continue to fight for appeals, potentially planning to take the case all the way to the US Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, the Bowman-Cryers spent years being turned away by landlords who didn't want the publicity that came with them.

Rachel now cleans houses to help the family get by. She was denied food stamps because the intake worker recognized her name.

Once a regular performer, now she only sings for her girls.

'Give me a break fata***s, like you need a cake anyway', 'Happy Pride, hope you don't die', 'Your fight for cake led to death. Do you know how sick that is.'

It's been three years, but the Bowman-Cryers have realized it was never just about a cake.

'I feel like Melissa Klein doesn't believe that my family should celebrate being a family,' Rachel said. 'Shouldn't recognize in front of our friends and family our commitment to each other.'

'It's not, "I'm denying you a wedding cake". It's "You don't deserve to have this. You don't deserve to have this part of your life."'
A revolutionary new device is giving surfers across the country hope that they may never have to worry about shark attacks again.

The Shark Shield, developed by Australian inventor Lindsay Lyon, is a small box that uses electrical pulses to repel sharks that get to close.

Although the device has the surfing community excited, marine biologists warn that further testing is needed to find out how effective it is.

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Sharks have sensors in their heads which allow them to pick up faint electrical currents in the water

Sharks have a network of jelly-filled sensors embedded in their heads which allow them to pick up electrical currents.

When a living creature enters the water these sensors pick up electrical pulses generated by heartbeats or muscle spasms.

University of Western Australia shark expert Professor Shaun Collin told 60 Minutes that these electrical pulses allow sharks to find humans in the water.

He said: 'The beating of your heart or the spasms of your muscles produces an electrical field that a shark can detect.

'The sensitivity of these animals is rather astounding. They can detect weak electrical fields down to the nano-volt range. That is a billionth of a volt.'

Inventor Lyndsay Lyon designed the Shark Shield - a small electrical device which causes sharks to have muscle spasms

Mr Lyon holds the Shark Shield and demonstrates how it works by scrambling the electrical sensors in a shark's head

The Shark Shield works by creating a current that scrambles a shark's electrical sensors and causes it to have muscle spasms.

Mr Lyon told 60 Minutes: 'The electrode uses the saltwater as a conductor.

'And they connect together and create this large electrical field.

'Think the shape of a football  about 6m by 4m.'

Laboratory tests of the product have been promising and Mr Lyon told Fairfax Media the Shark Shield has been proven to repel sharks nine times out of 10 interactions.

Professor Shaun Collin, a marine biologist and shark expert, said the Shark Shield was promising but more research was needed to see how effective it was

As sharks get close to the Shark Shield it emits an electrical pulse which causes them to have a muscle spasm

Australian surfing champion Tom Carroll said the Shark Shield offered a win-win situation for humans and sharks.

He said: 'Shark Shield should be applauded for taking the health of this ancient species into consideration and at the same time as providing protection to humans who enter their territory.

He told 60 Minutes he would 'confidently' use the product while surfing.

Australian surfing champion Tom Carroll said the Shark Shield was a win-win for humans and sharks

Although the Shark Shield was proven to work in controlled laboratory settings, the next challenge was designing a working product that could be attached to surfboards.

Professor Collin said he would willingly help to test the product to prove its safety.
A woman has been arrested after she allegedly ran over and killed a two-year-old boy while drunk.

Patricia Sanchez, 41, was taken into custody after the toddler was knocked over in the parking lot of a Walgreens in Nogales, Arizona.

Police got a call on Saturday saying the youngster had been hit by a Ford pickup truck while he was walking outside the pharmacy.

Patricia Sanchez, 41, (mugshot let and right) from Nogales, Arizona, has been arrested after a two-year-old boy was run and over and killed in the parking lot of a Walgreens

He was taken to hospital but died a short time later, according to multiple reports.

His family have been informed.

Sanchez has been booked into the Santa Cruz County jail on charges of DUI impaired to the slightest degree and one count of manslaughter.

It is not known if she is related to the child in any way.
The parents of Aiden Webb, who died climbing Vietnam's highest mountain, plan to return to Vietnam at Christmas to thank those who have tried to save their son, BBC reported July 3.

The backpacker, 22, from Norwich, set off to climb the Fansipan mountain alone on June 3. He called his girlfriend to say he had fallen, injuring himself at 6 p.m. the same day.

It is understood he later fell down a waterfall while trying to make it to safety. His body was found on June 9.

Tests showed he died at about 7 a.m. on June 4, after falling 18m (60ft).

His father Trever Webb said he and mother Simone could only "proceed" by returning to thank those who helped find him.

According to BBC, on a Facebook memorial page set up in his son's name, Mr. Webb wrote: "We are able to proceed at this moment only by the thought of returning to Sapa, to offer support in any way to the people who helped to find you, son, for us.

"We would want you to be as proud of us as we are of you, Aiden."

The spot where Aiden Webb's body was found. Photo by VnExpress/SG

Webb, an experienced climber, had started his ascent of the 3,100m high mountain at about 6 a.m. on June 3 and planned to climb it in a day.

He had gone to Vietnam with his girlfriend Bluebell Baughan, 24, and she was in contact with him by phone from the nearest town of Sapa.

A wide-scale search operation on the ground in Hoang Lien National Park was carried out one day after Webb was reported missing, with the participation of 200 rangers, police, trained dogs, and locals from San Sa Ho Hamlet, who know the area best.

A group of Vietnamese also helped by using camera drones to scour the area from a height of 2,800m.

Webb's body was eventually found by rangers near Sin Chai village at 12:50 p.m. local time on June 9.

Fansipan, known as "the roof of Indochina", is a popular destination for Vietnamese and overseas trekkers.

Related news:

> Family of British climber Aiden Webb reveals cause of his death

> British climber Aiden Webb died of exhaustion on Mount Fansipan

> Aiden Webb search operation under fire for being "too slow"
Fatal error: Raymond Stott, 66, died after suffering an allergic reaction to the amoxycillin dose meant for another patient at St James' Hospital in Leeds

A grandfather died after hospital staff mistakenly gave him another patient's medicine - even though he had not been prescribed any drugs - and he suffered a fatal allergic reaction.

Despite efforts to save him with adrenaline, Raymond Stott, 66, died after he was given a dose of the antibiotic amoxycillin at St James' Hospital, Leeds.

The father-of-four, who also had 15 grandchildren, was originally admitted to hospital in March after suffering a heart attack at his home.

He went into cardiac arrest again when he arrived at the hospital and was taken to the Intensive Care Unit, where he stayed for 21 days before being moved to a ward.

Stott, who worked as a plasterer, had been diagnosed with emphysema and had a tracheostomy to help him breathe.

He was only prescribed painkillers for back pain and was not on any other medication.

His daughter Jackie, 42, said: 'When we found out it was not natural, we were absolutely devastated.

'We are so upset that a mistake has happened and it has taken our father. He was getting better.

'It if had been natural, we could say that he couldn't go on any more. But he was fighting.

'He was a lovely person, very kind and everyone used to call him Uncle Ray.'

Reflecting on the events of April 4, when she and her siblings were summoned to the hospital before discovering their father had died, she said: 'We kept asking 'Is anyone going to tell us?' Nobody was speaking to us.

'Eventually we saw a doctor, who said the nurse had cannulated my father.

'She had the medication in her pocket ready to give to the next patient, but she accidentally gave to my father.

'When she realised she had given the wrong medication, she told somebody straight away.

'The crash team were called and they tried to give him two adrenaline shots, but he passed away.'

Jackie added that she and her siblings Brian, 36, Christopher, 33, and Jennipher, 29, were 'very upset and angry' at the news.

The father-of-four, who had 15 grandchildren, was originally admitted to hospital after suffering a heart attack

Raymond's eldest child said: 'We did not know how to handle it. We have never been in this situation before where someone's been taken by mistake.'

Both the coroner and the hospital are investigating the death.

Dr Yvette Oade, chief medical officer for Leeds Teaching Hospitals, said: 'I'd like to express my sincere condolences and apologies to Raymond's family.

'We will keep in contact with them to discuss the progress of our investigation, the findings when it is completed and to answer any questions they may have.'
A New Zealand man who beat his pregnant girlfriend to death has been sentenced for a sex attack committed months after his release.

Andrew Molo, 39, was sentenced to two years and nine months for attacking a woman and sexually assaulting her in Auckland in November last year, according to the NZ Herald.

Sentencing Molo in Auckland District Court on Friday, Judge Russell Collins reportedly said he would not increase Molo's sentence despite his violent history including the murder of his pregnant girlfriend and an assault on a prisoner while incarcerated.

Andrew Molo, 39, was sentenced to two years and nine months in Auckland District Court (pictured) for attacking a woman and sexually assaulting her in November last year

Molo has been behind bars since the sex attack and could be out within months if granted parole.

Judge Collins reportedly said Molo pulled off the woman's pants and violated her in an incident that lasted less than a minute.

'I anticipate, Mr Molo, that you will have significant objections to overcome before the Parole Board will give you parole and you'll have to work extremely hard to earn it,' Judge Collins said.

Molo had only walked from a Brisbane jail months before the attack after serving 15 years for the murder of his girlfriend.

He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison with a non-parole period of 15 years after he severely bashed his pregnant 18-year-old girlfriend, Tanya Cathy Watts, in November 1998.

She was taken to Royal Brisbane Hospital but died from brain injury. A post-mortem also found she had extensive bruising to her limbs, chest, scalp, eyes and her tongue, according to the report.

Molo had only walked from Wolston Correctional Facility (pictured) in Brisbane months before the attack after serving 15 years for the murder of his girlfriend

While incarcerated in Wolston Correctional Facility in Brisbane, he assaulted a fellow prisoner in 2007 over an altercation involving 'missing milk'. Molo fractured the other man's jaw during the incident, according to Sydney Morning Herald.

Upon his release from last year he was deported from Australia back to his home in Mt Roksill, Auckland, where he would reoffend within months.

While incarcerated in Wolston Correctional Facility (pictured) in Brisbane, he assaulted a fellow prisoner in 2007 over an altercation involving 'missing mil'

Defence counsel Louise Freyer said her client was remorseful for his actions, according to the NZ Herald.

'He accepts what he did was absolutely wrong, he has apologised over and over again and accepts such behaviour is simply not acceptable,' she said.
The mother-of-five had sought help after losing custody of her children

Lehnardt was arrested after her AA sponsor reported her to the authorities

She was guilty of six counts of

Rachel Lehnardt (pictured) was sentenced to six years of probation and a $600 fine after allowing her teenage daughter and her friends to drink and smoke marijuana in her home

A mother who allowed her 16-year-old daughter and her friends to drink alcohol, smoke marijuana and play naked Twister in her home has avoided jail time.

Rachel Lehnardt, 36, of Evans, Georgia, was handed 12 months of probation and a $100 fine for each count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, WJBF reports.

She was handed a total sentence of six years of probation and fined a total of $600 under the First Offender Act. She must also comply with mandatory drug and alcohol testing and treatment.

In Georgia, offenders can face a prison term of up to 12 months for a first offense.

Lehnardt was arrested in April last year.

The mother-of-five also allegedly had sex with an 18-year-old man at the party, used her sex toys in front of the teenagers and claimed she had woken up to find a 16-year-old raping her.

When the daughters paternal grandparents learned about the party, Lehnardt lost custody of her five children.

In the days after, she researched local Alcoholics Anonymous groups and was paired with a sponsor in a bid to overcome her issues, her lawyer said.

Lehnardt told her sponsor about what had led to her seeking help from AA, including her divorce, the drunken party and then losing her children, during a meeting in April last year.

The sponsor contacted authorities and reported what she had revealed.

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Lehnardt (left) was arrested after she allowed the teenage daughter (right) and her friends to drink and smoke marijuana in front of her while her other kids were with their father

Lehnardt had allowed the teenage daughter and her friends to drink and smoke marijuana in front of her while her other kids were with their father, the sponsor said.

She had also played a game of naked Twister with them in the living room and then had sex with an 18-year-old in the bathroom, Augusta Crime reported.

When she returned, she reportedly told her sponsor she was still horny and had used sex toys on herself in front of the teenagers.

Later, Lehnardt said she had been asleep in bed when she woke to find her daughters 16-year-old boyfriend having sex with her.

The girl told her mother that she felt guilty because the boyfriends ten-inch penis was too large for her and so he needed to have sex with the mother instead.

At the time, Sheriffs Office spokesman Capt. Steve Morris said there was no evidence of a crime and no charges were pending against the boy.

No sex crime charges were filed in connection with allegations that Lehnardt had sex with the 18-year-old as 16 is the age of consent.

Lehnardt (pictured outside her home in April last year) was reported to the authorities after telling her AA sponsor about the party

Lehnardt's 16-year-old daughter jumped to her defense on Twitter, saying 'everyone makes mistakes'

Days after Lehnardts arrest last year, her daughter jumped to her defense in a series of posts on Twitter.

She defended her mothers actions, saying: Everyone makes mistakes.

'Yes my mom was arrested,' she added. 'Yes she made some mistakes. Yes she is an alcoholic. Yea I've f***ed up too. But nobody deserves this s***. So stop.'

As other Twitter users bombarded her with messages, she fought back, saying that her mother 'used to be a great mom'.

'Everyone screwed up at some point,' she wrote.

The teenager also backed up her mother's claim that she had been raped by the 16-year-old boy.

'She was passed out drunk and he was wasted of his ass,' the daughter wrote. 'She didn't have sex with a 16 year old she was raped by one [sic].'

After the party at her home in Evans, Georgia (pictured) Lehnardt lost custody of her five children

The teenager also denied that the boy was her boyfriend, as previously reported and claimed by Lehnardt's lawyer.

It came after Lehnardt defended her actions in a statement issued through her lawyer Shawn Hammond to Augusta Crime.

Mrs. Lehnardt acknowledges that due to recent alcohol abuse she engaged in several acts of inappropriate conduct, the statement said.

Although, many of the allegations are exaggerated, she is extremely remorseful for what she allowed to occur in her presence and is obtaining professional and pastoral counseling to ensure that this conduct is never repeated.

The statement added that Lehnardt had been a life-long follower of the Mormon church and had never touched a drop of alcohol before her split from her husband James, who was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder when he returned from Iraq.

The couple had been married since 2000 and had five children together.

But following their divorce in 2014, she began drinking and ultimately broke away from the church, where she had once been a Sunday school teacher.

Hammond denied that she had thrown the party for the teenagers on the weekend in question or provided them with drugs.

'Mrs. Lehnardt has recommitted herself to her faith and her family,' he added.

'She is hopeful that her children, members of her faith and others will learn from her poor example as to just how easy it is for people to exercise such extremely poor judgment while intoxicated.'
One of Britain's most notorious serial killers has been pictured enjoying a stroll in the sun more than 35 years after he was locked up for burning 15 victims to death in a series of arson attacks.

Only murdering GP Harold Shipman had a greater death toll than Bruce Lee, who changed his name from Peter Dinsdale in tribute to his love of Kung Fu.

Lee killed little children, including a six-month-old baby, during a reign of terror that continued over a seven-year period.

Taking a walk: One of Britain's most notorious serial killers Bruce Lee has been pictured enjoying a stroll in the sun more than 35 years after he was locked up for burning 15 victims to death in a series of arson attacks

Now, for the first time since he was locked up in 1981, the depraved killer has been seen out and about on the street while on day release from his secure unit, the Sunday Mirror has revealed.

Lee once boasted that his ambition was to 'break the Guinness World Record' for serial killers.

The 55-year-old was spotted joking with staff as he walked past unsuspecting schoolchildren near the psychiatric unit where he is being held indefinitely.

One of his victims, Roz Fenton, who lost her unborn baby after being trapped in a fire started by Lee, said: 'He should never be allowed out.'

She suffered 50 per cent burns to her body and still suffers regular flashbacks of the horrific day.

Lee killed little children during a reign of terror that lasted seven years. He is pictured giving a thumbs up as he left Leeds Crown Court, where he was detained for life under the Mental Health Act in 1981

The 63-year-old told the Sunday Mirror: 'Hes a danger to society. The thought of him walking about near kids sickens me.

'The police always said wed be kept informed of what was happening with him at every stage, but weve heard nothing about this.'

By the age of 19 Lee, who stalked the streets of his hometown Hull while clutching boxes of matches and tins of paraffin ready to start a blaze, had killed 15 people.

Among his victims were the three Hastie brothers, aged eight to 15, the three Dickson brothers, aged 16 months to five years, their mother Christine, and baby Katrina Thacker, just six months old.

Lee was detained for life under the Mental Health Act at Leeds Crown Court in 1981. The serial killer was accused of murder but a plea of manslaughter was accepted on each count.

He had endured a difficult childhood in care homes and claimed he was bullied over a disability which left him with a deformed hand.

The clinic were Lee is currently being held is run by NHS contractors the Priory Group.

A spokesman said they were unable to comment on individual patients but took the safety of the wider community 'extremely seriously'.
After prosthetics were fitted she still took two weeks to get used to them

This little dog was able to walk again after being fitted with prosthetic legs by a disability charity.

Verdiblanca Discapacidad, based in Almeria, Spain, usually focuses on helping humans but offered its expertise to help the pooch after she lost both her front legs.

The painstaking procedure required a team of two medics to fit a set of wheels to replace the lost limbs.

To start with, the dog was wrapped in bandages and a cast made for the prosthetics.

As she waited patiently, the medical team drew on circles where the stumps would go in before removing the wrapping.

Measurements were taken for the prosthetics, which were made by a team of specialists.

Even after the wheels were fitted, the mutt needed two weeks to get used to them before she was able to walk.

This little dog was able to walk again after being fitted with prosthetic legs by a disability charity

Verdiblanca Discapacidad, based in Almeria, Spain, usually focuses on helping humans but offered its expertise to help the pooch after she lost both her front legs

The painstaking procedure required a team of two medics to fit a set of wheels to replace the lost limbs

One person commenting online thought the money spent on the operation was wasted on an dog.

He wrote: 'We should focus more on human beings, and we'd have a better world.'

But most supported the charity's decision, with another Facebook user writing: 'We would have a better world if we respected to all living beings, human or not.'

To start with, the dog was wrapped in bandages and a cast made for the prosthetics

One person commenting online thought the money spent on the operation was wasted on an dog
Mr Turnbull now faces a push from MPs for the return of Tony Abbott

Senator Cory Bernardi has launched a scathing attack on Prime Minster Malcolm Turnbull, calling his electoral performance a disaster and blaming his poor performance on arrogant contempt for the Liberal party.

The conservative revolution needs to start within the Liberal party or it will end outside it, and I think we've seen just a taste of that this weekend, Mr Bernardi told The Australian.

However you look at it, its a disaster for the Liberal Party. The brand has been damaged substantially by hubris; by an arrogant contempt for our traditional base and the abandonment of any founding principle,' he added.

Leading conservative Cory Bernardi (pictured) has launched a scathing attack on Prime Minster Malcolm Turnbull, calling his electoral performance a disaster

The South Australian Senator is just one of the conservatives who were openly against the ousting of former PM Tony Abbot to make way for Malcolm Turnbull (pictured)

The South Australian Senator is just one of the conservatives who were openly against the ousting of former PM Tony Abbot to make way for Malcolm Turnbull.

Mr Turnbull has only had the chance to flex his muscles as Prime Minster for ten months.

He became the coalition leader after he defeated Mr Abbott at the September 2015 Liberal leadership ballot after poor polling from the Abbott government.

Mr Turnbull is now reportedly facing an internal push from conservative MPs for the return of Tony Abbott.

Mr Abbott has been named as a possible choice for the indigenous affairs or defence minister but Mr Turnbull down played the notion of bringing the former PM back into the cabinet to appease conservative MPs.

Mr Turnbull is facing an internal push from conservative MPs for the return of Tony Abbott

Mr Turnbull (pictured) has assured Australians that he can provide stability after a swing from voters




Family and friends were gathering at Fifth Avenue Synagogue in the Upper East Side on Sunday morning

Auschwitz and Buchenwald, died aged 87 at his home in New York City on Saturday

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Nobel laureate and Auschwitz survivor Elie Wiesel is being laid to rest after a a private service in New York City on Sunday as admirers around the world honored his life-long fight for millions of Holocaust victims.

Family and friends gathered at the Fifth Avenue Synagogue in the Upper East Side on Sunday. A hearse was seen outside the Orthodox Jewish synagogue and mourners were arriving around 10am.

Among them was former national director of the Anti-Defamation League Abraham Foxman. Wiesel and his wife Marion were honored by the League with the Jabotinsky Award Courageous Jewish Leadership in 2013.

Mourners attending the private service say his death is also a great loss because there's one less Holocaust survivor in the world.

Rabbi Perry Berkowitz called Wiesel's death a 'double tragedy,' since the world lost someone so 'rare and unusual' and that Holocaust survivors are dying out.

Berkowitz, the president of the American Jewish Heritage Organization, had known Wiesel for more than 40 years and worked with him very closely in the 1970s as his assistant.

Wiesel, 87, died on Saturday at his home in New York City. The private funeral will be followed at a later date by a public memorial, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity said.

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The coffin of Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel is carried out following his memorial service at the Fifth Avenue Synagogue in Manhattan on Sunday

Marion Wiesel, widow of Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, arrives for his funeral in New York on Sunday

Romanian-born Wiesel shared the harrowing story of his internment at Auschwitz as a teenager in 'Night,' one of the most widely read and discussed books of the 20th century.

'My husband was a fighter,' Marion Wiesel said in a statement. 'He fought for the memory of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust, and he fought for Israel. He waged countless battles for innocent victims regardless of ethnicity or creed.'

His advocacy on behalf of Holocaust victims earned him the Nobel Peace prize in 1986. He told their story in his landmark book 'Night,' maintaining that 'to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.'

Even as he received the Congressional Gold Medal at the White House in 1985, he rebuked U.S. President Ronald Reagan for planning to lay a wreath at a German cemetery where some of Hitler's notorious Waffen SS troops were buried.

His tenacity on behalf of Holocaust sufferers was matched by his warmth and encouragement of loved ones, his son Elisha Wiesel said.

'My father raised his voice to presidents and prime ministers when he felt issues on the world stage demanded action,' she said in a statement.

But those who knew him in private life had the pleasure of experiencing a gentle and devout man who was always interested in others, and whose quiet voice moved them to better themselves.

'I will hear that voice for the rest of my life, and hope and pray that I will continue to earn the unconditional love and trust he always showed me,' she said.

While Wiesel was best known for his campaign never to let the world forget the Holocaust, one of his greatest rewards was working with students, including those at Boston University, where he was a religion and philosophy professor.

'What was most meaningful to him was teaching the innumerable students who attended his university classes,' Marion Wiesel said.

Boston University said in a statement the school was heartbroken to have lost such an 'iconic' teacher.

Elie Wiesel (pictured), who survived the Holocaust and went on to become an influential author and Nobel Peace Prize winner, died age 87

Wiesel is pictured at the 2014 John Jay College of Criminal Justice Awards (left) and receiving the 2009 National Humanities Medal (right)

A procession exits the Fifth Avenue Synagogue during the funeral for Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel on Sunday

New York Police Department officers stand guard outside the Synagogue as funeral services are held for Elie Wiesel in New York

Family and friends carry Elie Wiesel's coffin during a private service for the Nobel laureate at the Fifth Avenue Synagogue in New York

Condolences from leaders around the world filled social media with memories of Wiesel demonstrating the triumph of goodness over inconceivable horrors.

Leading the tributes to the influential author on Saturday was President Obama. He said: 'Elie Wiesel was one of the great moral voices of our time, and in many ways, the conscience of the world.'

'Tonight, Michelle and I join people across the United States, Israel and around the globe in mourning the loss and celebrating the life of a truly remarkable human being.

'Like millions of admirers, I first came to know Elie through his account of the horror he endured during the Holocaust simply because he was Jewish.

'But I was also honored and deeply humbled to call him a dear friend. I'm especially grateful for all the moments we shared and our talks together, which ranged from the meaning of friendship to our shared commitment to the State of Israel.'

Obama said Wiesel was a 'living memorial' and praised him for standing up against 'not just against anti-Semitism, but against hatred, bigotry and intolerance in all its forms'.

'At the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum that he helped create, you can see his words: 'For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.' But Elie did more than just bear witness, he acted,' the president said.

Mounrers embrace outside the Fifth Avenue Synagogue in New York during the funeral for Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel

The private funeral will be followed at a later date by a public memorial, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity said

A hearse was seen outside the Orthodox Jewish synagogue and mourners were arriving around 10am. The procession left after a private service

'My husband was a fighter,' Marion Wiesel (above) said in a statement. 'He fought for the memory of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust, and he fought for Israel. He waged countless battles for innocent victims regardless of ethnicity or creed'

'As a writer, a speaker, an activist, and a thinker, he was one of those people who changed the world more as a citizen of the world than those who hold office or traditional positions of power.

'His life, and the power of his example, urges us to be better. In the face of evil, we must summon our capacity for good. In the face of hate, we must love. In the face of cruelty, we must live with empathy and compassion.

'We must never be bystanders to injustice or indifferent to suffering. Just imagine the peace and justice that would be possible in our world if we all lived a little more like Elie Wiesel.'

Obama, who met Wiesel a number of times - including while visiting the site of the Buchenwald concentration camp where he was detained - said the Holocaust survivor 'never gave up on humanity and on the progress that is possible when we treat one another with dignity and respect'.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also paid tribute to Wiesel.

'The state of Israel and the Jewish people bitterly mourn the death of Elie Wiesel,' he said.

'Elie, a master of words, expressed in his unique personality and fascinating books the victory of human spirit over cruelty and evil.

'In the darkness of the Holocaust, which killed our brothers and sisters - the six million - Elie Wiesel was a beam of light and served as a model of humanity that believes in the good of the human kind.'

Mourners gathered and hugged each other following the funeral for Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel at the Fifth Avenue Synagogue

A procession exits the Fifth Avenue Synagogue with mourners reading from scripture during the funeral for Wiesel, who died on Saturday

Prayers are said as mourners help lift Wiesel's coffin into the hearse after his private funeral at the Fifth Avenue Synagogue on Sunday

A man kisses Elie Wiesel's coffin after a private service for the Holocaust survivor at the Fifth Avenue Synagogue in New York

'What was most meaningful to him was teaching the innumerable students who attended his university classes,' Marion Wiesel (above) said

The funeral motorcade for Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel departs the Fifth Avenue Synagogue on Sunday afternoon

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo tweeted: 'Rest in peace Elie Wiesel. Thank you for your stories of triumph of the human spirit in the face of evil. The world will never be the same.'

Wiesel's death was announced Saturday by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, the world center for Holocaust research, documentation, education and commemoration. No other details were immediately available.

One of the world's foremost witnesses and humanitarians, Wiesel for more than a half-century voiced his passionate beliefs to world leaders, celebrities and general audiences in the name of victims of violence and oppression.

He wrote more than 40 books, but his most influential by far was 'Night,' a classic ranked with Anne Frank's diary as standard reading about the Holocaust.

'Night' was his first book, and its journey to publication crossed both time and language.

It began in the mid-1950s as an 800-page story in Yiddish, was trimmed to under 300 pages for an edition released in Argentina, cut again to under 200 pages for the French market and finally published in the United States, in 1960, at just over 100 pages.

''Night' is the most devastating account of the Holocaust that I have ever read,' wrote Ruth Franklin, a literary critic and author of 'A Thousand Darknesses,' a study of Holocaust literature that was published in 2010.

'There are no epiphanies in 'Night. There is no extraneous detail, no analysis, no speculation. There is only a story: Eliezer's account of what happened, spoken in his voice.'

Wiesel (circled in red) was 15 when he and his family were transported to Auschwitz by the Nazis, where his mother and younger sister perished

President Obama led tributes to Wiesel. They are pictured together at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, in 2012

Wiesel (right, with fellow Holocaust survivor Betrand Herz, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Obama) is pictured in 2009 at the Buchenwald concentration camp where he was detained

Wiesel, who was born in Romania in 1928, began working on 'Night' just a decade after the end of World War II, when memories were too raw for many survivors to even try telling their stories.

Frank's diary had been an accidental success, a book discovered after her death, and its entries end before Frank and her family was captured and deported.

Wiesel's book was among the first popular accounts written by a witness to the very worst, and it documented what Frank could hardly have imagined.

He was 15 when he and his family were transported to Auschwitz by the Nazis, where his mother and younger sister perished.

He and his father were later transferred to Buchenwald, but his father died before the camp's liberation.

'Night' was so bleak that publishers doubted it would appeal to readers.

In a 2002 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Wiesel recalled that the book attracted little notice at first. 'The English translation came out in 1960, and the first printing was 3,000 copies. And it took three years to sell them. Now, I get 100 letters a month from children about the book. And there are many, many million copies in print.'

In one especially haunting passage, Wiesel sums up his feelings upon arrival in Auschwitz:

'Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. ... Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.'

'Night' was based directly on his experiences, but structured like a novel, leading to an ongoing debate over how to categorize it. Alfred Kazin was among the critics who expressed early doubts about the book's accuracy, doubts that Wiesel denounced as 'a mortal sin in the historical sense.'

Wiesel's publisher called the book a memoir even as some reviewers called it fiction. An Amazon editorial review labeled the book 'technically a novel,' albeit so close to Wiesel's life that 'it's generally - and not inaccurately - read as an autobiography.'

In 2006, a new translation returned 'Night' to the best-seller lists after it was selected for Oprah Winfrey's book club. But the choice also revived questions about how to categorize the book. Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com, both of which had listed 'Night' as fiction, switched it to nonfiction. Wiesel, meanwhile, acknowledged in a new introduction that he had changed the narrator's age from 'not quite 15' to Wiesel's real age at the time, 15.

'Unfortunately, 'Night' is an imperfect ambassador for the infallibility of the memoir,' Franklin wrote, 'owing to the fact that it has been treated very often as a novel.'

Wiesel's prolific stream of speeches, essays and books, including two sequels to 'Night' and more than 40 books overall of fiction and nonfiction, emerged from the helplessness of a teenager deported from Hungary, which had annexed his native Romanian town of Sighet, to Auschwitz.

Tattooed with the number A-7713, he was freed in 1945 - but only after his mother, father and one sister had all died in Nazi camps. Two other sisters survived.

After the liberation of Buchenwald, in April 1945, Wiesel spent a few years in a French orphanage, then landed in Paris. He studied literature and philosophy at the Sorbonne, and then became a journalist, writing for the French newspaper L'Arche and Israel's Yediot Ahronot.

He moved to the U.S. in the 1950 and in 1978, President Jimmy Carter appointed Wiesel as Chairman of the President's Commission on the Holocaust

Wiesel went on to write the Nobel Peace Prize winning 'Night', which told the story of his time in the concentration camps

French author Francois Mauriac, winner of the 1952 Nobel in literature, encouraged Wiesel to break his vowed silence about the concentration camps and start sharing his experiences.

In 1956, Wiesel traveled on a journalistic assignment to New York to cover the United Nations. While there, he was struck by a car and confined to a wheelchair for a year. He became a lifetime New Yorker, continuing in journalism writing for the Yiddish-language newspaper, the Forward. His contact with the city's many Holocaust survivors shored up Wiesel's resolve to keep telling their stories.

Wiesel became a U.S. citizen in 1963. Six years later, he married Marion Rose, a fellow Holocaust survivor who translated some of his books into English. They had a son, Shlomo. Based in New York, Wiesel commuted to Boston University for almost three decades, teaching philosophy, literature and Judaic studies and giving a popular lecture series in the fall.

Wiesel also taught at Yale University and the City University of New York.

In 1978, he was chosen by President Carter to head the President's Commission on the Holocaust, and plan an American memorial museum to Holocaust victims. Wiesel wrote in a report to the president that the museum must include denying the Nazis a posthumous victory, honoring the victims' last wishes to tell their stories. He said that although all the victims of the Holocaust were not Jewish, all Jews were victims. Wiesel advocated that the museum emphasize the annihilation of the Jews, while still remembering the others; today the exhibits and archives reflects that.

Among his most memorable spoken words came in 1985, when he received a Congressional Gold Medal from President Ronald Reagan and asked the president not to make a planned trip to a cemetery in Germany that contained graves of Adolf Hitler's personal guards.

'We have met four or five times, and each time I came away enriched, for I know of your commitment to humanity,' Wiesel said, as Reagan looked on. 'May I, Mr. President, if it's possible at all, implore you to do something else, to find a way, to find another way, another site. That place, Mr. President, is not your place. Your place is with the victims.'

Reagan visited the cemetery, in Bitburg, despite international protests.

Wiesel also spoke at the dedication of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington in 1993. His words are now carved in stone at its entrance: 'For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.'

Wiesel defended Soviet Jews, Nicaragua's Miskito Indians, Cambodian refugees, the Kurds, victims of African famine and victims of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Wiesel was a longtime supporter of Israel although he was criticized at times for his closeness to Netanhayu. When Netanhayu gave a highly controversial address to Congress in 2015, denouncing President Obama's efforts to reach a nuclear treaty with Iran, Wiesel was among the guests of honor.

'What were you doing there, Elie Wiesel?' Haaretz columnist Roger Alpher wrote at the time. 'Netanyahu is my prime minister. You are not an Israeli citizen. You do not live here. The Iranian threat to destroy Israel does not apply to you. You are a Jew who lives in America. This is not your problem.'

The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, which he established in 1988, explored the problems of hatred and ethnic conflicts around the world.

President Obama presents the 2009 National Humanities Medal to Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel at the White House on February 25, 2010

Obama and Wiesel met again in 2012 when Wiesel gave a speech at the Holocaust Museum in the Hall of Remembrance in Washington D.C.

But like a number of other well-known charities in the Jewish community, the foundation fell victim to Bernard Madoff, the financier who was arrested in late 2008 and accused of running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

Wiesel said he ended up losing $15.2 million in foundation funds, plus his and his wife's own personal investments.

At a panel discussion in February 2009, Wiesel admitted he bought into the Madoff mystique, 'a myth that he created around him that everything was so special, so unique, that it had to be secret.' He called Madoff 'a crook, a thief, a scoundrel.'

Despite Wiesel's mission to remind the world of past mistakes, the greatest disappointment of his life was that 'nothing changed,' he said in an interview.

'Human nature remained what it was. Society remained what it was. Too much indifference in the world, to the Other, his pain, and anguish, and hope.'

But personally, he never gave up - as reflected in his novel 'The Town Beyond the Wall.'

Wiesel's Jewish protagonist, Michael, returns to his native town in now-communist Hungary to find out why his neighbors had given him up to the Nazis. Suspected as a Western spy, he lands in prison along with a young man whose insanity has left him catatonic.

The protagonist takes on the challenge of 'awakening' the youth by any means, from talking to forcing his mouth open - a task as wrenching as Wiesel's humanitarian missions.

'The day when the boy suddenly began sketching arabesques in the air was one of the happiest of Michael's life. ... Now he talked more, as if wishing to store ideas and values in the boy for his moments of awakening. Michael compared himself to a farmer: months separated the planting from the harvest. For the moment, he was planting.'

World War II veteran Scottie Ooton (center, right) who helped to liberate a concentration camp and Wiesel (center, left) were presented with pins by former U.S. President Bill Clinton and poet Rebecca Dupas (left)
The Bangladeshi attackers - identified only as Akash, Badhon, Bikash, Don and Ripon - all came from 'rich families'

Terrorists killed all those who failed to recite the Koran before they took another 13 hostage in Bangladeshi capital

All three young students were among the 20 innocent people hacked to death by seven suspected ISIS terrorists

He stayed with his friends Abinta Kabir, 18, who was also enrolled at Emory, and Berkeley student Tarishi Jain, 19

ISIS terrorists offered Emory student Faraaz Hossain the chance to leave the cafe because of his Bengali ancestry

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One of the US students killed in the Dhaka terror attack spurned his hostage takers' offer to walk free - deciding to stay and die with his two female friends instead.

Emory student Faraaz Hossain was one of around 20 customers and as many staff inside the Holey Artisan Bakery when seven ISIS extremists armed with guns and 'sharp objects' burst in.

He and Abinta Kabir, 18, who was also enrolled at Emory, and Berkeley student Tarishi Jain, 19, were among the 20 people hacked to death inside the blood stained cafe.

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Emory student Faraaz Hossain (center) refused ISIS terrorists' offer to leave the besieged Dhaka cafe, deciding to stay and die with his friends Abinta Kabir (left) and Tarishi Jain (right)

Hundreds have taken part in a candle-lit vigil in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka to remember the 20 innocent people killed in the unprecedented terror attack

Hossain and Abinta Kabir, 18, both enrolled at Emory, and Berkeley student Tarishi Jain, 19, were among the 20 people hacked to death inside the blood stained cafe (pictured, a vigil honoring the victims)

Emory student Faraaz Hossain was one of the dozens trapped inside the Holey Artisan Bakery when it was invaded by seven ISIS extremists (pictured, a candle-lit vigil for the victims)

Witnesses and survivors have revealed how the terrorists separated Muslims from non-Muslims and strapped explosives to a man who tried to escape (a young boy observes a candle-lit vigil for the victims)

'We will not kill Bengalis. We will only kill foreigners,' one of the terrorists is said to have shouted as customers and staff trembled with fear, trying desperately to stay out of sight.

After almost a 12-hour stand-off, the gunmen released a group of women dressed in traditional Islamic hijabs and Hossain the chance to leave because of his Bengali ancestry, his nephew told the New York Times.

He refused after the terrorists denied his friends, who said they were from India and the United States, the same opportunity.

One of his slain friends, Jain, made a haunting phone call to her father as the three friends cowered in a toilet cubicle.

With gunfire in her ears and sheer panic in her voice, she called her father to say: 'I am very afraid... I'm not sure whether I will be able to come out alive.'

'They are killing everyone here... I think we will be killed one by one,' she added in the heart-breaking call, made just before 6am in the morning as round after round of gunfire rang out just outside the toilet doors.

They would often hang out at the Holey Artisan Bakery, famed for its bagels, croissants and coffee, the India Times reported.

Witnesses told of how seven Islamist terrorists stormed the cafe armed with assault weapons, pistols and sharp objects before taking more than 30 people hostage.

Gruesome: This is one of the images that was released by ISIS' media agency Amar, purportedly showing victims inside the Dhaka restaurant which was taken siege by Islamist militants on Friday night

Witnesses said that ISIS attackers split the group inside the cafe, keeping Bangladeshis downstairs where they were fed and looked after, but taking foreigners upstairs where they were tortured

he Bangladeshi attackers - identified only as Akash, Badhon, Bikash, Don and Ripon - all came from 'rich families', the authorities revealed today (pictured, two of the suspected terrorists)

The terror group's media arm released images of the grinning gunmen along with a message saying: 'Let the people of the crusader countries know that there is no safety for them as long as their aircraft are killing Muslims'

They yelled 'Allahu Akbar!' as they fired indiscriminately inside the busy bakery, sending customers scurrying for cover underneath tables and chairs, CNN reported.

One of the survivors, waiter Diego Rossini, ran upstairs and jumped from a second floor window onto the roof of a neighboring building. Other staffers survived by hiding out in an overheated, claustrophobic restroom which was being used to store flour and yeast.

Inside the bakery - chaos and cruelty ensued. The gunman are said to have split up non-Muslims from Muslims. who were given food and water.

They ordered staff to make food for the Muslims so they could eat before starting their Ramadan fast, which requires them to abstain from food and drink during sunlight hours.

One of the cafe's bakers tried to escape but the terrorists caught him, strapped him to a chair and tied bombs and gas canisters to his body.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks, releasing photos of the grinning killers, but Bangladeshi authorities have denied the despotic terror group was responsible.

Authorities today released the first names of the five attackers - Akash, Badhon, Bikash, Don and Ripon - who are all said to come from 'rich' Bangladeshi families.

'They are all Bangladeshis. They are from rich families, they have good educational background,' the country's Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said.

The terrorists hacked 20 people to death inside the bakery (pictured), sparing only those who could recite the Koran, before engaging police in a 12-hour standoff

Bangladeshi officials carry a body bag at an upscale cafe in Dhaka after the bloody siege at the restaurant came to an end early in the morning

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks, releasing photos of the grinning killers, but Bangladeshi authorities have denied the despotic terror group was responsible (pictured, bodies of the victims being removed from the cafe)

He said the men were part of a homegrown Sunni Muslim terror group known as of Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh and their motive is as yet unknown.

Today it emerged that Bangladesh's police had previously tried and failed to arrest five of the militants who hacked 20 people to death - sparing only those who could recite the Koran.

As investigators try to confirm any possible links they may have had to international extremest groups, it was revealed that five of them were already 'listed as militants' and that law enforcers had tried to arrest them before.

They killed nine Italians, seven Japanese, an Indian, an American and two local men before elite commandos ended the 12-hour standoff by raiding the bakery, shooting six terrorists and arresting one.

It has since been claimed that Tarishi was one of the hostages who may have been tortured before she was killed. 'That was apparent from the injuries,' an unnamed source told the Indian Express.

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has declared two days of national mourning after the massacre in the upmarket Gulshan district of the city.

In a statement made on national TV, she said: 'It was an extremely heinous act. What kind of Muslims are these people? They don't have any religion.'

Emory sophomore Kabir, was from Miami, Florida, while Hossain was born in Bangladesh and Jain was of Indian origin.

A university spokesman said: 'Emory University has learned that two Emory students, Abinta Kabir and Faraaz Hossain, were among those taken hostage and murdered by terrorists yesterday in the attack in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Tarishi Jain, 19, was one of three US students and 20 people in total to be gunned down in the Holey Artisan Bakery in an upmarket district of the Bangladeshi capital

Bangladeshi authorities later confirmed that Tarishi, who was studying Economics at the University of California, was killed alongside fellow US collegiates Abinta Kabir, 18, and Faraaz Hossain

Today, hundreds laid flowers and lit candles to pay tribute to the 20 killed at the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Witnesses told of how seven Islamist shooters stormed the cafe armed with assault weapons, pistols and sharp objects (pictured, an emotional woman paying her respects to the victims today)

'Abinta, who was from Miami, was a rising sophomore at Emory's Oxford College. Faraaz, who was from Dhaka, was a graduate of Oxford College and a student at the university's Goizueta Business School.

'The Emory community mourns this tragic and senseless loss of two members of our university family.

'Our thoughts and prayers go out on behalf of Faraaz and Abinta and their families and friends for strength and peace at this unspeakably sad time.'

Meanwhile UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas B. Dirks issued a statement on Jain's death, saying: 'We have been in contact with her family to provide assistance in any way that we can and are working closely with our other students there to assist them in staying safe and determining whether they leave the area.

'On behalf of our entire campus, we send our deepest condolences to her family and friends and to all the other families who have suffered such a devastating loss.'

A graduate of the American International School in Dhaka, Jain came to UC Berkeley in 2014 and was intending to major in economics.

Jain and seven other students were completing internships with UC Berkeley's Subir and Malini Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies, according to statement from the university.

Abinta Kabir, an American student from Miami, Florida, has been identified as one of the 20 foreigners killed during the ISIS attack on a cafe in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka last night

Hossain (center) had studied at Emory's Oxford campus, the same one attended by Kabir, then joined the business school after graduating

Kabir (far right), an undergraduate student at Emory University, Georgia, was visiting family and friends in Bangladesh at the time of the attack, a university spokesman said

Ruba Ahmed, Kabir's mother, weeps as she arrives to identify the body of her daughter in Dhaka today after she was killed by ISIS

The Italian foreign ministry confirmed its dead countrymen as: Adele Puglisi, Marco Tondat, Claudia Maria D'Antona, Nadia Benedetti, Vincenzo D'Allestro, Maria Rivoli, Cristian Rossi, Claudio Cappelli, and Simona Monti.

Most of the Italian victims were understood to work in the fashion industry, buying fabrics from Bangladesh.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe confirmed that five men and two women died worked for the country's foreign aid agency and said they 'were giving their all for the development of Bangladesh'.

All the attackers were from Bangladesh, Police Inspector General Shahidul Hoque told CNN, as ISIS released their grinning pictures online

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed declared two days of mourning for the victims to take place on Sunday and Monday.

She also thanked all those who had expressed their solidarity with Bangladesh, and vowed that terrorism would be exterminated at all costs.

She added: 'Anyone who believes in religion cannot do such act. They do not have any religion, their only religion is terrorism.'

Army Brigadier General Naim Asraf Chowdhury said: 'Most of (the hostages) were killed mercilessly by sharp weapons last night.'

On Friday night, Bangladeshi resident Hasnat Karim said he brought his family to the cafe in order to celebrate his daughter's birthday.

After almost a 12-hour stand-off, the gunmen released a group of women dressed in traditional Islamic hijabs (pictured, a man wounded in the terror attack)

After commandos raided the building and killed six of the seven terrorists, several ambulances were called in to remove the victims from the blood soaked restaurant

Bangladeshi security forces took immediate security measures after the ISIS terrorists killed 20 and took another 13 hostages inside the baker

Hasnat was too traumatized to say more than a few words about his ordeal, saying only that the hostage-takers 'did not misbehave with us'.

But he detailed to his father Rezaul how the gunmen - who were armed with automatic weapons, bombs and makeshift machetes - had split the diners into two groups.

Rezaul said: '(The foreigners) were taken to the upper floor and the Bangladeshis were kept around a table.'

He said his son told him the terrorists 'did not hit people who could recite verses from the Koran. The others were tortured'.

He added: 'The gunmen asked everyone inside to recite from the Koran. Those who recited were spared. The gunmen even gave them meals last night.'

Elite Bangladeshi commandos stormed the building after siege of more than 12 hours, freeing some 13 hostages, in addition to another eight who manged to flee during the siege. Six of the terrorists were shot dead and one was arrested at the scene.

The ISIS media wing has claimed responsibility for the attack which was launched on the final Friday of Ramadan, as millions of Muslims prepare to celebrate the Eid holiday. The final ten days of Ramadan are the most solemn in the Islamic calendar.

Amaq News Agency, ISIS's media wing, claimed responsibility for the attack while releasing a gruesome series of images online purporting to show victims inside the cafe.

Distraught relatives of those killed covered their faces as they were taken to identify the bodies of their loves ones following the attack

Meanwhile members of the military and police remained on the streets in force today in the hopes of preventing another attack

Armed police officers and soldiers took up positions around the cafe today as Dhaka remained on edge following the attack yesterday

Armored troop carriers rolled through Dhaka's streets today as the military took a no-nonsense approach to preventing more attacks

Troops took up strategic positions across Dhaka to discourage any further terrorist attacks

Two marksmen stood holding their high-powered Dragunov sniper rifles after last night's rescue mission

Meanwhile in Kolkata, India, demonstrators held a candlelit vigil for the victims of Dhaka, demanding an end to terrorist violence

It is thought that at least some of the victims of the Bangladesh attack were Indian, including student Tarushi Jain

The pictures show a number of bodies piled together next to a table still covered with plates of half-eaten food, while in others bodies lie in twisted shapes on floors that are covered in blood.

Two police officers were killed, including a local police station chief, Mohammed Salahuddin, who was earlier injured in the shoot-out.

According to a local photojournalist, Mr Salahuddin was asked by his colleagues not to cross the cordon as he was not wearing a bullet-proof vest.

Just moments after he crossed the line, according to the Daily Star in Dhaka, he was shot.

A second policeman, Robiul Islam, assistant commissioner of Uttara zone Detective Branch, has also died in the shooting, top police officials confirmed.

Another 25 officers and one civilian are being treated for injuries from gunshots and shrapnel, with 10 people in a critical condition, according to hospital authorities.

Speaking after the raid, Lieutenant Colonel Tuhin Mohammed Masud, commander of the Rapid Action Battalion said: 'We have gunned down at least six terrorists and the main building is cleared but the operation is still going on.'

A Japanese government spokesman said that a Japanese hostage was rescued with a gunshot wound but seven others are unaccounted for.

Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Koichi Hagiuda said that the eight were together at the restaurant at the time of the attack.

Kitchen staffer Sumon Reza, who escaped, said the attackers chanted 'Allahu Akbar' (God is Great) as they assaulted around 9:20 p.m. Friday, initially opening fire with blanks.

An injured policeman is carried away after the attack in Dhaka on Friday night

Police have stormed a restaurant after being locked in a shoot-out with gunmen at a restaurant in the diplomatic quarter of the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka, that is popular with foreigners

Casualties were evacuated from the scene in the back of army trucks and ambulance

People help an unidentified injured person after a group of gunmen attacked a restaurant popular with foreigners in a diplomatic zone of the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka

A staff member who managed to escape said the gunmen shouted 'Allahu Akbar' as they attacked the restaurant, shooting and throwing bombs

Another survivor said the gunmen ordered bakery workers to switch off the lights in the restaurant. The militants then covered close-circuit cameras with black cloth.

The bakery worker, who was not identified, told ATN News, a Bangladesh television channel, that when the first attacker entered the gate he thought it was someone taking shelter in the restaurant's doorway.

'Then I saw that he had weapons. On seeing that, I ran toward the back of the restaurant. He fired while I was running but I was not sure if he was targeting me because I did not look back,' the survivor said.

He said he ran and told everyone working inside the bakery, and many people ran out using the back door.

'Those who could not hear me, or understand me, did not leave because this happened in a short span of time,' he said.

ISIS claimed 24 people had been killed and a further 40 were wounded in the attack. Images of the carnage were distributed on social media channels with links to the jihadi terror organisation.

Bangladeshi officials have said 20 have died with a number of others in a critical condition in hospital.

Hospital staff dealing with casualties said of the 26 people they are currently treating, ten are in a critical condition with six on life support. Victims suffered broken bones and gunshot wounds.

In Washington, a White House official said President Barack Obama was briefed on the attack by his chief counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco. The president asked to be kept informed as the situation develops, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the president's meetings.

Victims: Police officers Mohammed Salahuddin (right) and Robiul Islam (left) have been named as the two reported fatalities in the hostage situation in Dhaka, according to local news site The Daily Star

A police officer assists an injured colleague outside the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe, currently under a hostage siege by armed gunmen

Two police officers injured earlier in the shoot-out have been confirmed dead, according to local media reports

Members of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) have surrounded the Spanish restaurant, as communications are believed to be underway in an attempt to save their lives of those inside

Bangladeshi security personnel stand guard after gunmen stormed a restaurant in Dhaka's high-security diplomatic district

The attack is reported to have broken out at the Holey Artisan Bakery in the upmarket area of Gulshan, Dhaka

State Department spokesman John Kirby says the US. is in contact with the Bangladesh government and has offered its assistance to bring those responsible to justice.

The recent attacks in Bangladesh have raised fears that religious extremists are gaining a foothold in the country, despite its traditions of secularism and tolerance.

Around two dozen atheist writers, publishers, members of religious minorities, social activists and foreign aid workers have been slain since 2013.
Said he was merely using his 'resources' and claims JFK did the same

When one thinks of past American presidents that compare to Donald Trump, one likely does not think of the Democrat John F. Kennedy.

But that's exactly who popular Fox News host Bill O' Reilly believes the presumptive GOP presidential nominee resembles.

O'Reilly said that Trump's wealth gives him the ability to say whatever is on his mind at any given time.

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Fox News host Bill O'Reilly has compared Donald Trump to former president John F Kennedy, saying they both came from a place of privilege that allowed them to speak whatever was on their mind

'He is a guy who has billions of dollars,' O'Reilly said of Trump, a frequent guest on his show. 'And if you have a billion of dollars, you can say what you want all right?'

'He is a guy who has billions of dollars,' O'Reilly said on CBS News Sunday Morning. 'And if you have a billion of dollars, you can say what you want all right?'

'Kennedy was the same way,' O'Reilly said. 'John Kennedy did whatever he wanted to do and said whatever he wanted to say. Did he not?'

'So ever since he's been two years old, Donald Trump has pretty much said anything he wanted to say.'

When questioned on whether that made Trump a 'spoiled brat', O'Reilly disagreed and said Trump was merely using his resources just as JFK, a member of the wealthy Kennedy dynasty, did.

'Kennedy was the same way,' O'Reilly said. 'John Kennedy did whatever he wanted to do and said whatever he wanted to say. Did he not?'

JFK, who was assassinated while nearing his third year in office in 1963, became renowned not for controversial comments but for his oratorical powers and historical speeches.

Kennedy's American University speech, one of his most famous, called for 'mutual tolerance' amid the country's Cold War with the Soviet Union.

'World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor,' he said.

'It requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance'.

O'Reilly explained that although he considers Trump a friend who he goes 'to ball games' with, there are some things the outspoken presidential hopeful has said that crossed a line.

'I didn't like the John McCain stuff,' O'Reilly said, referring Trump's comments that McCain was only a war hero because he got captured, adding 'I like people who don't get captured'.

O'Reilly explained that although he considers Trump a friend who he goes 'to ball games' with, he was not happy when Trump said John McCain was not a war hero because he was captured in Vietnam

McCain spent nearly six years, two in solitary confinement, in a Vietnamese prison where he was repeatedly tortured.

'John McCain's a hero,' O'Reilly added. 'He suffered greatly for his country.'

But O'Reilly also had some harsh words for Trump's presumptive competition, Hillary Clinton, saying he thought it was 'disingenuous' that the Democrat called people 'misogynists and racists'.

'I don't think she knows the people, and I think its cheap,' he said.

Clinton has previously said she was 'not sympathetic' to the 'xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia and Islamophobia' Trump uses in his campaign.
Mohammed Islam, 19, lured a boy to his flat in Druids Heath, Birmingham, by using a girl he knew as a ruse to entice him over

A teenager who kidnapped a boy and threatened to kill him unless his family paid a ransom was caught after he left a half-eaten chocolate bar at the scene.

Mohammed Islam, 19, lured a boy to his flat in Druids Heath, Birmingham by using a girl he knew as a ruse to entice him over.

When he arrived, he held a knife to his throat, pulled his jumper over his head and dragged him into his bedroom where he forced him to sit on the floor.

He warned his 18-year-old victim he would stab him unless friends and family members transferred money into his bank account.

Islam casually scoffed a Cadbury's Wispa bar during the three-hour ordeal on March 25, and left traces of his DNA on the packet.

The 18-year-old was slapped around the head and threatened during the terrifying ordeal, and walked out of the flat with a plastic bag over his head.

As Islam led him out of the flat towards a lift, the victim was able to grab the half-eaten Wispa and, after a few minutes, he removed the bag before running to the nearest house for help.

Police arrested Islam on 3 April, after he was bitten by a police dog as he tried to make his escape.

He then made an audacious attempt to run away from hospital, but was later recaptured.

Traces of DNA from the half-eaten Wispa, which was cunningly seized by the victim, were directly matched to Islam. He was later picked out in an identification parade.

Islam was sentenced to eight years in prison, with an extended three-year licence, after pleading guilty to robbery, false imprisonment and blackmail.

Jailing him at Birmingham Crown Court on Friday, Judge Simon Drew QC said: 'This was an horrific series of offences committed against a victim seriously traumatised by what took place.

'It is difficult to imagine what it must be like for someone to find themselves in a vulnerable and intimidating situation.

'Threats and violence of this sort are particularly serious.

'This was a horrific, terrifying series of events.

'I have to have doubt how much, if any, progress has been made.

'Text messages recovered from your phone revealed the true nature of the planning that had taken place, you deliberately identified a vulnerable victim.

When he arrived, he held a knife (pictured) to his throat, pulled his jumper over his head and dragged him into his bedroom where he forced him to sit on the floor

'It is the sort of case where there needs to be an extended sentence to reflect the threat you face to society as a whole.'

Gareth Walters, prosecuting, told Birmingham Crown Court the victim was contacted on Facebook by a woman he went to school with on March 25.

Text messages found later revealed Islam and the woman, who has not been traced, deliberately targeted the 19-year-old who they thought would be easy pickings.

They lured him to a nearby block of flats where he was quickly confronted by Islam.

Mr Walters said: 'The defendant pulled a jumper over the victim's face and led him down some stairs into a flat.

'The defendant began waving a knife in the face of the victim, humiliating him, telling him he was worthless, a waste of space and pathetic.'

After searching the terrified teen's bag and only finding 10 and some tobacco, Islam demanded the teen call friends and family to get more cash.

Islam forced the victim to phone his dad to tell him he was being held hostage and ask for cash.

But when he only agreed to send 150, Islam saw red and snatched the phone from him.

He threatened the unsuspecting father, telling him that unless he transferred a further 150, he would stab his son.

Islam then headed out with the boy's bank card and PIN to withdraw the money he had just extorted.

Traces of DNA from the half-eaten Wispa, which was cunningly seized by the victim, were directly matched to Islam. He was later picked out in an identification parade

The victim - frozen with fear - obeyed the demands to stay sat on the floor of Islam's walk-in wardrobe, as his hands were bound behind his back with a leather belt.

But when Islam got back, he demanded even more money.

He made a second call to the father and falsely told him he had actually carried out the threat and stabbed his son.

Reduced to tears, the dad transferred yet another 150, which Islam then went out to withdraw.

Mr Walters added: '(Islam) told his victim he would stab him and put him in a body bag.

'After getting 150, he told his victim to phone his employer or friends to get another 150 but they didn't really believe what was going on.'

In a victim personal statement, the father said the fear he felt while speaking with his kidnapped son would live with him forever.

He added: 'I hope that no father ever has to go through what I went through.'

Andrew Jackson, defending, said Islam had been all but abandoned by his family as a youngster and spent his childhood in several children's homes.

He said there had been 'glimmers of hope' the teenager, who had a string of previous offences, was turning away from offending.

DC Darran Ford, from Bournville CID, said, 'This was a callous, planned attack that had great impact on the victim and his family, who I hope have now been offered some closure.

'I would like to pay tribute to the victim and his incredible presence of mind to grab the Wispa bar immediately before escaping. This played a crucial role in bringing the Mohammed Islam to justice.
U.S. authorities at a Houston airport have stopped Tran Thanh, a well-known comedian and MC in Vietnam, from entering the U.S., which he claimed is due to visa issues.

Thanh and a group of artists departed from Ho Chi Minh City on June 29 for a tour in the U.S., but he was held at an airport in Houston for around 24 hours after he landed there on July 1 then had to return to Vietnam.

On his Facebook page, Thanh sent an apology to his fans in the U.S., denying that he had been expelled as some rumors suggest.

Comedian, MC Tran Thanh. Photo by VnExpress

According to the MC, he had two working visas obtained using invitations from two show organizers in the U.S., Thuy Nga and Lien Pham. The visa from Thuy Nga is valid until November this year but Thanh used the visa from Lien Pham because this company was organizing this year's tour. The visa from Lien Pham was granted in September 2015 and should have been valid for a year, however he failed to spot a line in the visa that said it expired in October 2015.

No one has ever noticed it and I do not understand why they put that line in a visa that is valid for one year. It is out of my imagination and control, he said.

Lawyers for Lien Pham are looking into the issue and will help apply for a new visa for the MC.

According to Thanh, U.S. authorities also said it was an error: Because the visa has expired, we cannot let you enter the U.S., you have to fly back to Vietnam. When you have a new visa, you can continue to come here to work as normal, he quoted them as saying.

He promised the audience he would return to perform in the U.S. during Thanksgiving in November as compensation. Thanh also urged them not to cancel the show Ha Trang Cat Vang (White Summer, Yellow Sand) just because of his absence.

Thanh has performed on "Paris By Night", a popular Vietnamese-language musical variety show in the U.S., produced by Thuy Nga and hosted by Nguyen Ngoc Ngan and Nguyen Cao Ky Duyen who are popular among overseas Vietnamese in the U.S. and other countries. "Paris By Night" features musical performances by modern pop stars, traditional folk songs, one-act plays and comedy sketches.
Shopper Jay Lopez intervened offered to buy all the girl's candy for $80

She even threatened to call the cops on the girl who started

Witnesses say older woman was yelling at and 'harassing' the youngster

Girl was selling candy outside a California Target when she was approached by a grey haired shopper

A good Samaritan bought $80 worth of candy after he noticed a young girl being 'harassed' for selling the treats outside his local Target.

The girl, who has not been identified, was sitting outside the store in Rowland Heights, California, selling packs of candy for a dollar each when an elderly woman approached her and began interrogating her, witnesses say.

'She comes up to the little kid like, 'Where is your license? Have you asked permission to be here?'' shopper Andy Lizarraga told CBS.

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A good Samaritan has bought $80 worth of candy after he noticed a young girl being 'harassed' for selling the treats outside his local Target

Lizarraga said the girl had tried to explain that she was just 'trying to make some money'.

But the older woman was yelling and 'harassing' the youngster who broke down in floods tears during the exchange.

The elderly shopper even threatened to call the police before good Samaritan Jay Lopez intervened.

'When I walked up, she was crying hysterically,' he said.

Lopez stepped in and offered to buy the entire box of candy - which cost $80 - to put an end to the confrontation once and for all.

The girl, who has not been identified, was sitting outside the store in Rowland Heights, California, selling packs of candy for a dollar each when an elderly woman approached her and began interrogating her

The elderly shopper even threatened to call the police before good Samaritan Jay Lopez intervened

Andy Lizarraga (left) said that she had seen the elderly woman 'harassing' the girl before Lopez (right) offered to buy all her candy

'I'm buying it all!' he said during the incident, which was captured on film by Lizarraga and has been viewed more than 6million times since she posted it to Facebook.

'I'm gonna come out right now and get your cash,' said Lopez, who told the older woman she should 'be ashamed' of herself.

He proceeded to hand out many of the sweets to shoppers and passersby.

Lopez believes that, if the seller, who was black, had been a white girl selling Girl Scout cookies then the elderly shopper would have had little to say.
He even owns T-shirt reading: 'I Am Not Boris' to prevent abuse occurring

for welfare and 'scared' of what people may do

A Boris Johnson lookalike has revealed he is scared to leave the house for fear of being attacked after his double led Britain to Brexit.

Drew Galdron has been working as a lookalike of the former London Mayor for nine years and says he has recently become concerned about drawing attention to himself.

His change of heart came after Johnson fronted the Leave campaign ahead of the EU Referendum, which saw Britain vote to quit the European Union.

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Drew Galdron (pictured) has worked as a lookalike of the former London Mayor for nine years but says he has recently become concerned about drawing attention to himself

Johnson's 33-year-old double (pictured) who is managed by Susan Scott lookalikes, has even had a T-shirt made, which reads: 'I Am Not Boris', to prevent abuse

The MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip later pulled himself out of the running to become the next Conservative leader and Prime Minister.

Speaking to the Daily Star, Johnson's 33-year-old double, who is managed by Susan Scott lookalikes, said he is 'scared of what people could do'.

But did reveal that he was shocked when Johnson abandoned his ambitions to become PM as his new position would have likely been a 'great little money earner' for the lookalike.

Drew, who told the paper he has a history of mental illness, revealed that he fell into the role of an impersonator of the Tory politician in 2007 prior to him becoming London Mayor.

But added that the similarities between the pair are strictly visual and that he does not agree with Johnson's politics.

The 33-year-old has experienced abuse for looking like Johnson and has even had a T-shirt made reading: 'I Am Not Boris', to prevent it from occurring.

In the past Drew has had members of the public muttering things about him under their breath as he has walked by.

Johnson, pictured leaving his Islington home on July 1, met his lookalike at a London Pride celebration in 2009

A woman walks past a banner put up by protesters opposite the home of Boris Johnson in north London

And he claims that people have even stuck cameras in his face to take photographs of him while he has been out and about in public.

While he admits that he expects this to happen when he is dressed up like the former London Mayor, he hates it when it occurs as he is going about his daily business.

Speaking to the paper, Drew also claimed that a homeless man even hurled abuse at him for his appearance while he was filming a documentary.

In 2009, the lookalike got the chance to meet Johnson when the then Mayor held a reception for London Pride.

Drew claims Johnson was left speechless, despite the fact he was dressed as himself and not his blonde-haired double.

Johnson was apparently talking to an activist at the time when he spotted Drew and was 'pretty shocked'. Drew recalled that he 'looked like he had seen a ghost.'
The Malling Centenary has been praised for its deeper flavour and long shelf life

They have long been recognised as being among the best in the world and a symbol of an idyllic British summer.

But it seems British strawberries could become even tastier after researchers developed a new variety.

The Malling Centenary, developed by researchers in Kent and praised for its deeper flavour, has this summer become widely available in shops across the country.

Supermarkets and breeders have been testing new varieties in the hope of producing a crop with more flavour.

And after eight years of research, the Malling Centenary, which retains its taste and shape despite packing and picking, is expected to fly off shelves.

The Dutch Elsanta, one of the most common varieties of strawberry, has been praised by growers because of its high yields.

But, because the Elsanta is produced to have a long shelf life, many have described the berries as tasteless.

The Sonata, the other most common variety, is also popular with sellers because of its ability to flourish in hot weather or during periods of heavy rain.

Laurence Olins, the chairman of British Summer Fruits, the body which represents U.K berry growers, told the Observer: I think within a year or two you wont see Elsanta or Sonata any more.

Mr Olins added that the Elsanta was not as sweet or as big as the Malling Centenary.

Sainsburys also said that, despite the Elsanta previously being the backbone of the industry, it was seeing a shift towards the Malling Centenary.

Maddie Wilson, the category technical manager for fruit at the supermarket giant, told the newspaper that she expected the Malling Centenary to begin taking over within the next three or four years.

Describing what makes a winning strawberry, she said: The holy grail is finding something that is a growers dream: easy to plant, yields well, performs well in different weather and gets the right size of fruit, the plants last a long time, taste delicious and look lovely.

During a survey, carried out by Cambridge Market Research and published in the Fresh Produce Journal last week, those polled were asked to rank supermarket strawberries.

Marks & Spencers Driscoll Elizabeth strawberry came up tops, described as juicy and tasty followed by Tescos Malling Centenary punnet with tasters describing the berries as fresh, good value for money and nice and sweet.

Over the course of the summer, 74,000 strawberries are expected to be produced in Britain  an 11 per cent rise on last year.

Berry sales now make up for 21 per cent of the total fruit consumption in the UK. The demand for berries in Britain has soared by 132 per cent over the last decade, Seasonal Berries, part of British Summer Fruits, reported.

The Malling Centenary, created by East Malling Research, an agricultural research institution in Kent, was originally released to a limited number of suppliers in 2013 to mark the groups 100th anniversary.

But following a surge in popularity, it was then released to major supermarkets  many of whom have now included it on their preferred list of varieties.

At this years Grower Awards in February, the success story was recognised after the Malling Centenary was awarded the title of best new variety (fruit).
A Sudanese refugee who walked 31 miles through the Channel Tunnel to get to Britain has been spotted going to the job centre and attending a mosque near his new home.

Abdul Haroun, 40, is entitled to claim Job Seekers Allowance and housing benefit, of around 700 a month, and is now renting a room in a 100,000 semi-detached house in Perry Barr, Birmingham, close to Aston Villa's stadium.

Abdul is automatically qualified for Job Seekers Allowance and housing benefit because he was granted leave to remain at Christmas, a few days before being released on bail after his perilous journey through the tunnel in August 2015.

Abdul Haroun (pictured) is entitled to claim Job Seekers Allowance and housing benefit of around 700 a month

He is automatically qualified for Job Seekers Allowance and housing benefit because he was granted leave to remain at Christmas

Charity Kent Refugee Help helped him find a home so he could get bail.

A volunteer for the group, which relies on public donations, said: 'They [refugees] can apply for benefits and apply for work.

'That's what people want to do, they want a normal life.'

Abdul lived in the camp for 12 years before making the 5000-mile month-long journey to Folkestone via Egypt and Libya in August.

Friends say he has now started to learn English in a bid to improve his opportunities in the UK.

A judge handed him nine months at Canterbury Crown Court last month for obstructing a railway carriage but allowed him to walk free because of time already served on remand.

Abdul is now renting a room in a 100,000 semi-detached house in Perry Barr, Birmingham, close to Aston Villa's stadium

The 40-year-old made the 5000-mile month-long journey to Folkestone, Kent via Egypt and Libya in August

Friends were tight-lipped about his aspirations pending an appeal against the charges.

Neighbour Arthur Berry, 81, said: 'I hope he hasn't received any benefits. We're giving too much money away in this country as it is.'

Neighbour Gary Joyce, 53, unemployed said: 'People round here keep themselves to themselves. Refugees deserve to live peacefully, I'm a firm believer of that.

'Refugees should be entitled to benefits, but if he were here illegally that would be a different kettle of fish.

'We're a great mixed bunch in this area, there's every nation here. I can't see why he can't stay here if he's genuine.'

Abdul was approached, but didn't wish to comment.

A judge handed Abdul nine months at Canterbury Crown Court last month for obstructing a railway carriage but allowed him to walk free because of time already served on remand
Trump's ex-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski defended him on CNN on Sunday and said 'a tweet is a simple tweet'

supremacists before making its way to Trump's Twitter account

Since then it was shared in a chatroom frequented by neo-Nazis and white

A 'comedian' on Twitter has taken credit for creating the controversial graphic that included a Jewish Star of David, which was used by Donald Trump to attack Democratic rival Hillary Clinton on Twitter.

Trump came under fire this weekend for sending out the tweet accusing Clinton of being the 'most corrupt candidate ever,' alongside what appears to be a Star of David and $100 bills.

A Twitter user by the name of @FishBoneHead1 tweeted at the Hill Newspaper, which is covering the controversy, showing journalists there the 'original file,' which he tweeted out starting on June 15.

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Twitter user FishBoneHead1 originally tweeted the image on June 15, which Donald Trump than tweeted out Saturday morning

In communication with the Hill newspaper, FishBoneHead1 took credit for the 'original file,' which included a controversial use for the Jewish Star of David

The billionaire businessman tweeted the graphic Saturday morning at 8:47 a.m., but deleted it about two hours later, replacing it with a photo-shopped version of the meme with a circle in the star's place

Donald Trump sent out two versions of the image - one with a Star of David (left) and one with a circle (right) after the original image started getting panned by critics

The Trump version went out Saturday morning at 8.47 a.m. with the message 'Crooked Hillary -- Makes History!' and also included a Fox News poll that found 58 per cent of voters believe that the former secretary of state is 'corrupt.'

It's juxtaposed against a black and white image of Clinton with a riff from her own presidential campaign statement about how she would make history as the first female nominee of a major political party.

Then there's the red Star of David emblazoned with the words, 'most corrupt candidate ever!'

Behind Clinton's photo there are $100 bills scattered around in piles.

About two hours after putting the post up, the real estate mogul sent out another tweet that replaced the Star of David with a circle, though used the same text.

Trump deleted the original post, though opened himself up to controversy and charges of antisemitism, with the implication that Clinton's fundraising comes from corrupt Jews.

As for the origin of the image, FishBoneHead1 describes himself as a 'comedian' who will 'probably offend you if you are Liberal, Politically Correct, Feminist, Democrat or Piers Morgan.'

The comedian's Twitterfeed is filled with controversial imagery including a cartoon of a blonde woman welcoming Muslim refugees  who then gets her head cut off.

The Twitter user who created the Star of David graphic rails against political correctness and suggests Americans should be more wary of 'Islamists'

FishBoneHead1 portrayed the Democrats as whining babies for holding a sit-in in the aftermath of the Orlando terror attack. The comedian suggested in another tweet that Americans should blame radical Islam over guns

The Twitter user also suggested that President Obama was elected thanks to 'liberal white guilt' and brought up the president' Nobel Peace Prize win as well

In another tweet the user shows the House Democrats during their sit-in, with cartoonish words over the group saying 'Waaah! Waaah!'

In another, there's a photo of President Obama speaking to a packed crowd. 'Liberal White Guilt,' the tweet reads. 'Can get you a Presidency and a Nobel Prize even when you are a total failure.'

Other tweets bring up Bill Clinton's infidelity and mock Democrats for suggesting that hatred of gay Americans and guns were bigger issues in the Orlando shooting than gunman Omar Mateen's pledge to fight for ISIS.

'Fight liberal stupidity,' that tweet advises.

After its creation, FishBoneHead1's graphic was then shared on /pol/, according to Mic.com, the 'politically incorrect' 4chan discussion board that attracts dialogue from neo-Nazis, anti-semites and white supremacists.

The image appeared there as early as June 22, but has since been deleted.

Later Sunday afternoon, FishBoneHead1 deleted his or her Twitter account.

The campaign generally attributes images used by Trump's Twitter account, but did not to so for this particular meme.

The fallout for posting the Star of David version was quick.

A communications staffer for Clinton's campaign, Josh Schwerin, tweeted and asked why a Star of David was used on the image.

Political columnist Ana Marie Cox wrote the 'Symbolism here is pretty... unsubtle.'

Trump has not released a statement about the now-deleted tweet about the former New York senator.

Twitter users, pictured above, expressed their outrage over the ad by the presidential hopeful

Trump's former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, defended him on CNN on Sunday.

'A tweet is a simple tweet, and the bottom line is you can read into things that aren't there,' Lewandowski, who was recently hired by CNN as a contributor, said.

'This is a simple star ... it's the same star that sheriff's departments across the country use all over the place to represent law enforcement.

'To read into something that isn't there is... I think that's the mainstream media trying to attack Donald Trump for something that really isn't there.'

He added that the Trump campaign put a new tweet up with a circle, but said that Clinton is corrupt.

When Lewandowski was pressed about why the campaign would release an updated version of the graphic without the star, he deflected and said the criticisms were 'political correctness run amok.'

For years, Trump has been known for using his Twitter account that has more than nine million followers to insult and attack his rivals.

And during this intense presidential campaign Trump has received criticism for retweeting others including messages from white supremacists.

Trump's former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski (above), defended him on CNN on Sunday. 'A tweet is a simple tweet, and the bottom line is you can read into things that aren't there,' he said

In addition, the presumptive Republican nominee has fought accusations in the past of anti-Semitism and racism.

In March, while speaking to the largest pro-Israel lobby in the United States, AIPAC, Trump declared his love for Jewish people and Israel.

'I love the people in this room,' Trump told AIPAC attendees. 'I love Israel. I've been with Israel so long in terms of - I've received some of my greatest honors from Israel.

'My father before me. Incredible. My daughter Ivanka, is about to have a beautiful Jewish baby.

'In fact, it could be happening right now, which would be very nice as far as I'm concerned.'

During a CNN debate, Trump also said: 'I have a lot of  I have tremendous love for Israel. I happen to have a son-in-law and a daughter that are Jewish, OK? And two grandchildren that are Jewish.'




Police only found alcohol inside and charged him with disorderly conduct

A bartender ran with his backpack and threw it in an alley, fearing a bomb

Staff immediately got Bell down from the bar and tackled him to ground

Ralmanzow Bell, 21, was arrested after he drunkenly stood up on a bar in an Idaho restaurant and declared: 'Allah is the only one true god'

A 21-year-old man caused panic at an Iowa restaurant when he jumped up on the bar, yelled at everyone to be quiet and then yelled: 'Allah is the only one true god'.

Patrons at the Horsewood's Restaurant in Caldwell, Idaho, immediately fled the room on Friday night, running through every door as they left their purses on the chairs and cell phones on the table.

They thought there might be a bomb in his backpack. There were rumors he had a gun.

But Ralmanzow Bell wasn't declaring a terrorist attack. He was merely drunk, said authorities.

Police were on the scene within two minutes, but the bartenders already had Bell under control.

Christopher Ozuna ripped Bell's backpack off and immediately began to run.

'All this is going on real fast and I'm just trying to get him away,' Ozuna told KTVB.

Ozuna ran into a nearby alley with the backpack, scared something might be inside.

'Everybody is telling me throw the bag, don't carry it,' he told KIVI.

'But, you know, I'm trying to get it as far away as I possibly can. You know, better me than a hundred people.'

Staff members tackled Bell to the ground and held him until police arrived.

'Instincts kicked in that this may be a terrorism attack,' owner Aaron Horsewood told KTVB. 'Whether it was legitimate or not, that's how you view it at the moment.'

Bell's proclamation, and the fact that he was wearing a backpack, immediately spread panic across Horsewood's Restaurant in Caldwell

Patrons immediately fled the room on Friday night, running through every door as they left their purses on the chairs and cell phones on the table as staff worked to get Bell down

Authorities at the scene determined there was no real threat, finding no gun and only a bottle of alcohol inside Bell's backpack.

'That's what panicked people,' Lt Joey Houdley said of the bag.

'Not necessarily what he was saying - that maybe contributed to it - but that, along with the backpack, and then people saying he had a gun. It startled people.'

Houdley said he was not surprised people felt threatened at the time.

'If I was in there eating with my family and something like that happened I would definitely feel threatened,' he said. 'But there is no threat to the community.'

Bell was examined at a nearby hospital for intoxication before he was booked into Canyon County jail.

He has been charged with disorderly conduct. Houdley said Bell, who has an extensive history with police, was 'shocked' by his own actions when he sobered up.

Authorities have since forwarded information about Bell's case to the FBI.

Police were on the scene within two minutes, but the bartenders already had Bell under control
Tajammul, an eye doctor, is expected to recover from his injuries

him before shooting him outside the mosque

A doctor headed for morning prayers at a Houston mosque was ambushed by three masked men who shot and wounded him on Sunday.

The victim of the Texas incident, Dr Arslan Tajammul, an eye specialist in his 30s, was undergoing surgery.

Tajammul, who is married, is expected to survive, according to Mustafaa Carroll, executive director of the Houston branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Dr Arslan Tajammul (pictured), an eye specialist in his 30s, was ambushed and shot while on his way to a Houston mosque

The doctor, who was born in Alberta, Canada, had parked his car and was walking to the Madrasah Islamiah mosque for the day's first prayers when he was ambushed and shot twice at about 5.30am, Carroll said.

His three attackers fled on foot.

Tajammul was assaulted by three men, who fled on foot. He is expected to survive his injuries

'Police said it was an attempted robbery so we're waiting to see what the investigation finds,' Carroll said.

'It's a real strange occurrence because the mosque is in a poor neighborhood, and they were wearing masks, which could mean all kinds of things,' Carroll said.

Some people who pray at the mosque have been sleeping overnight there in the final days of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month that ends next week, he said.

Houston police did not immediately respond to a request for information.

The shooting took place a day after a Muslim man was beaten outside a Florida mosque that had been attended by the gunman who killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub.

The victim in that case was punched in the head and face outside the Fort Pierce Islamic Center just after 4am on Saturday, the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office said.

Taylor Anthony Mazzanti, 25, was arrested in the attack and was charged with felony battery, the sheriff's office said.

No racially motivated comments were made to the suspect during the incident, said the sheriff's office, which added the case is under investigation.

The Florida branch of CAIR, however, said the attacker uttered racially offensive comments including 'You Muslims need to get back to your country' before the assault.

The Islamic Center's imam had requested extra security following last month's mass shooting by Omar Mateen at the Orlando gay nightclub Pulse. Mateen had worshipped at the center.
An estranged wife is trying to claim part of the 175,000 compensation her husband received for suffering sexual abuse as a child.

As part of her divorce settlement, Helen Tippett, 41, has applied to the courts for a share of the cash paid to Andrew Kerslake.

Mr Kerslake, 45, regarded the compensation as dirty money and put it into a trust to be given to charity when he dies.

But Miss Tippett claims the money is a marital asset and wants her share of it. It is believed legal history will be made if the courts find in her favour.

Helen Tippett (left) is fighting for a share of her ex-husband Andrew Kerslake's (right) 175,000 compensation he received for suffering sexual abuse as a child

Mr Kerslake was molested between the ages of five and ten by a family friend. After he finally went to the police in 1998 his abuser was jailed for three years.

The father-of-four was paid 175,000 by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority  a government organisation which pays damages to victims of violent crime  in 2002.

He set up the Andrew Kerslake Trust and the fund has grown to almost 250,000 after being invested by his lawyers.

Mr Kerslake, who has waived his right to anonymity as a victim of sexual abuse, said: I was given the money to compensate for what happened to me when I was a very young boy.

'I was abused over 500 times, every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. It left me with both physical and emotional damage.

I didnt apply for the money, I didnt really want it at the time. But Im not prepared to hand it over as part of our divorce settlement.

'It doesnt seem right that my ex-wife should get a penny of it  it does not belong to her, she wasnt the one who was abused.

It is shameless and immoral that she is even trying. Im very disappointed in her.

When the compensation was paid the couple were happily married. Miss Tippett was studying for a humanities degree and Mr Kerslake was a stay-at-home father.

He said: My wife wanted to spend it, she wanted a beautiful house, she had all sorts of ways of spending it. But to me it was dirty money...I could not bring myself to use it.

Devout Catholic Mr Kerslake wants the fund to be his legacy and has laid down instructions about how it should be used to help other victims of abuse.

His 19-year marriage came to an end four years ago and he has since become estranged from his children.

His wife reverted to her maiden name, and Mr Kerslake believes she is now in a relationship with a man named Jarrod Williams who is 11 years her junior.

Mr Kerslake, who walks with the aid of crutches after breaking his back in a fall, said: They say they are not living together but he posts pictures of the two of them in bed on Facebook.

Im concerned some of that money would end up in his pocket. That cant be right.

Mr Kerslake said he now suffers from a variety of health problems. His legal team say that if Miss Tippett wins the case it will be the first time compensation paid to a sex abuse victim has been part of a divorce settlement.

He said: I dont want people to think I put the money in a trust to stop Helen getting her hands on it  that is not the case.

I just dont want the money myself and it is my wish it will be divided between two charities of my choice when I die.

Miss Tippett (left) is said to now be in a relationship with Jarrod Williams (right) who is 11 years her junior

It was paid to me for something that happened long before I met Helen. I still have to live with the consequences of that.

Mr Kerslake lives alone in a housing association bungalow in Llanharan, near Bridgend in south Wales.

His estranged wife now works part-time in a church breakfast club and claims she needs the money to buy a house for herself and her two youngest children.

Miss Tippett was accompanied by Mr Williams at two preliminary hearings at the County Court in Pontypridd.
Gunfire at a funeral gathering at an Indianapolis home has left two people dead and a three-year-old boy wounded.

A gunman approached the group of people gathered in a front yard in the 2300 block of Magnolia Place on Saturday evening following a funeral, authorities said.

The gunman began shooting into the crowd, then fled on foot.

Gunfire at a funeral gathering in Indianapolis left two people dead and a three-year-old boy wounded

Police responded to the shooting shortly after 6.30pm and found three victims with gunshot wounds in the front yard.

Justin Sims, 32, was pronounced dead at the scene. Dangelo Brown, 26, was taken to hospital with critical injuries, where he later died.

An injured three-year-old boy, who was taken to another hospital, is expected to recover.

The child suffered a gunshot wound to his hand, police said, and remains in a serious but stable condition.

Police are calling it a targeted shooting, but have not determined a motive.

Video courtesy of WRTV

A gunman approached the group of people gathered in a front yard in the 2300 block of Magnolia Place on Saturday evening following a funeral

The gunman shot into the crowd before fleeing on foot, authorities said. Two people died while a child who was shot in the hand is expected to recover

'There's a lot of emotion in the air,' IMPD's deputy chief of patrol Valerie Cunningham told RTV6.

'There was emotion in the air before this incident occurred because of why they were gathered, so emotions are high.'

Witnesses told detectives the victims were part of a larger family gathering outside the residence.

The family was celebrating the life of a recently deceased relative, whose funeral was earlier in the day, a news release from the Indiana Metropolitan Police Department said.

Investigators are continuing to interview witnesses and asking the public for information.
There will be a bottle of water nearby the president, ESPN on the television with the volume turned down, and always the same snack by his side: seven almonds.

It is the only thing Obama indulges in during the four to five hours he spends alone every night in the Treaty Room, a private office down the hall from his bedroom in the White House.

The contents of the speeches and the briefing papers he reads always change, but nearly one thing has stayed the same: It is the time for Obama to be alone, with his work and his thoughts.

A self-professed 'night guy' the hours Obama spends awake after having dinner with his family have only increased as he's gotten older and his two daughters have grown up.

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Obama sits in his private study, called the Treaty Room, in his first 100 days in office. It would become the room where the president spends nearly four to five hours alone every night with his work and his thoughts

In 2009 Obama told John Meacham, the editor in chief of Newsweek, that he stayed reading briefing papers and doing paperwork until 11.30pm, then gave himself a half-hour to read before bed.

But nearly six years later the president revealed to Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan that he was usually awake until 2am every night, and waking up at 7am.

'Everybody carves out their time to get their thoughts together,' Rahm Emanuel, Obama's first chief of staff, told the New York Times.

'There is no doubt that window is his window. You cant block out a half-hour and try to do it during the day. Its too much incoming. Thats the place where it can all be put aside and you can focus.'

Every night at 8pm the staff secretary delivers the leather-bound daily briefing book, a binder stuffed with papers. Obama goes through every single one.

'He is thoroughly predictable in having gone through every piece of paper that he gets,' said Tom Donilon, Obama's national security adviser from 2010 to 2013.

'You'll come in the morning, it will be there: questions, notes, decisions.'

The president will also read 10 letters from Americans chosen by his staff.

Every night Obama only has one snack, seven almonds, as he reads through briefings, rewrites speeches, and has ESPN on low volume in the background

But it's the nights that Obama is working on speeches that turn into the latest - that bring the 1am emails.

His rewrites are there in the morning, handwritten scribbles on yellow legal pads, pages and pages of notes and changes.

Its not always work in the Treaty Room. The president will turn up ESPN when a big game is on, and sometimes his late night emails aren't questions about memos but jabs about a loss.

He will also read the news on his iPad or watch it on cable, and sometimes he'll unwind with a game of Words With Friends.

And always, always the seven almonds will be by his side.

'Michelle and I would always joke,' said Sam Kass, the family's former White House chef.

'Not six. Not eight. Always seven almonds.'
The Hanoi-based Foreign Trade University (FTU) has suspended summer volunteer programs this year after three female students drowned on July 2.

20 student groups from the university operating across the country have been asked to temporarily halt operations, Nguyen Van Trieu, secretary of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union at FTU, told VnExpress.

The three female students from FTU drowned while trying to cross a flooded stream in Quang Ninh Province near the border with China on Saturday.

They were among a group of 21 FTU students on their way back from a trip to Binh Lieu District following their summer charity project.

Local authorities found their bodies, one 20, and the others both 19, early on Sunday morning.

Local authorities searched for the students' bodies overnight. Photo by QNP

Universities and colleges in Vietnam often organize annual Green Summer campaigns across the country, focusing on remote areas to help local communities deal with poverty and environmental issues.

Vu Minh Ly, director of the National Volunteer Center, said volunteer groups from other universities and colleges will continue their work but must prioritize safety.
Student is heading to Las Vegas for Miss Hooter

This is the mother and daughter who have both taken jobs in Hooters to pay their way through college.

Amanda Shapiro, 20, and her mother Jill, 41, have both worked in the iconic chain bar so they could fund their studies.

Jill worked in the Orlando venue 25 years ago until she decided to join the Army, while Amanda has become one of the most popular employees in southwestern Florida.

The aspiring nurse, who works at the Coral Cables bar, has been featured in the company calendar and is competing to be Miss Hooter International in Las Vegas next month.

Amanda Shapiro (right) and her mother Jill (left) have both worked as waitresses in Hooters to pay their way through college

The Miss Cape Coral is now competing to be Miss Hooters International. She is also studying in Florida to become a nurse

'I used to be very shy,' Amanda Shapiro told WTSP.

She said becoming a Hooters girl has given her lots of opportunities.

Amanda has been able to pay for her nursing degree without taking out students loans.

She received her associate degree at Florida Southwestern State College in the Spring.

Now she is going to start her bachelor's at Florida Gulf Coast University in the fall.

The oldest of seven children, Amanda joined the Cape Coral Hooters two years ago.

She's traveled to luxurious placed including the Bahamas for the calendar photo shoot.

Amanda has also visited the Grand Canyon, Vail, Colorado, and Las Vegas as a photo assistant, the TV station reported.

She goes the region signing calendars and helps with the company's charity work.

Her picture has also been included on mugs, shot glasses and other store merchandise.

Amanda is one of two local Hooters girls who will compete against 78 others for Miss Hooters International on July 12 and 13 in Sin City.

She will be watched by her parents Michael and Jill.

She received her associate degree at Florida Southwestern State College in spring and will pursue her bachelor's in nursing at Florida Gulf Coast University in the fall

Jill worked at the famous bar until joining the Army, yet Amanda has worked for longer as she has joined in with the beauty competitions

Amanda (right) said she used to be shy, but she says her job has given her more confidence
Parents are furious after a group of girls from Hooters joined Colorado Cub Scouts to pose with their children as part of a sponsor deal by the adult chain.

Michelle Kettleborough was horrified when she went to pick her seven-year-old son up from the camp in Denver and noticed the women in Hooter's uniforms.

'I step back for a second and I take a look and I'm like, 'are they wearing Hooters visors? Wait a minute,' she told Denver ABC.

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Michelle Kettleborough was outraged when she went to pick her seven-year-old son up from the camp in Denver and noticed the women in Hooter's uniforms

Hooters employees wore tight fitting camp t-shirts, Hooters hats and short shorts

'Quite honestly we're questioning whether we're going to keep him in the organization at all next year,' said Kettleborough.

A spokesperson for Boy Scouts of America defended the 'dedicated' volunteers from the adult themed restaurant but apologized for their uniforms.

Hooters employees wore tight fitting camp t-shirts, Hooters hats and short shorts.

'A restaurant extended support to help make a local Cub Scout Day Camp possible and provided volunteers for the camp.

'The group of trained volunteers mistakenly wore the wrong attire and it was addressed by our Council leadership.

'The Boy Scouts of America relies on millions of dedicated volunteers and we are very appreciative of their commitment. We extend our apologies for this mistake and look forward to continuing our mission of serving youth in the Denver area.'

Pictures of Hooters girls with the Boy Scouts have since been removed from Hooters Colorado.

Video courtesy of KMGH-TV/Denver7News

Michelle Kettleborough was outraged when she went to pick her seven-year-old son up from the camp in Denver and noticed the women in Hooter's uniforms

A district executive said that Hooters helped with the costs of running the camp while several waitresses (right) volunteered their own time to help

The Boy Scouts of America Denver Area Council also confirmed that Hooters approached them about working with the scouts.

Several parents have complained about the partnership.

'It's just the philosophies of the two organizations are polar opposites and I just don't think they should be together,' said Marsha Corn.

'We love the Scouts, we think they made a very poor choice and what I would like and what I think would go a long way again is some accountability.'

A district executive said that Hooters helped with the costs of running the camp while several waitresses volunteered their own time to help.
Officer David Elahi was killed Sunday morning when a drunk driver sideswiped a patrol car during a traffic stuck and struck him and two other cops

A Louisiana police officer was killed and two others were injured after a drunk driver sideswiped a patrol car during a traffic stop early Sunday morning, authorities revealed.

Sterlington Police Officer David Elahi was standing next to the police car and interviewing a woman he had pulled over when he was struck by a pickup truck driven by 44-year-old Tracy Govan.

Govan crossed the fog line, hitting Elahi and the two other officers and taking off the car doors of the patrol car on US Highway 165 shortly before 5am.

Elahi was pronounced dead at the scene. The two other officers were taken a nearby hospital with non-life threatening injuries, according to KNOE.

Govan was determined to be impaired at the time of the crash and he was arrested at the scene.

He faces charges of vehicular homicide, vehicular negligent injury, improper lane usage and failure to move over for emergency vehicle on the shoulder.

Louisiana State Police Superintendent Colonel Mike Edmonson said it was a tragedy that 'could have been avoided'.

'Our thoughts and prayers go out to Officer Elahi's family and the Sterlington Police Department during this time of grief', he said in a statement.

This is the second time in the past two days that an officer has been struck on a Louisiana highway.

A Louisiana State Trooper suffered injuries after they were hit on Interstate 55 on Friday while directing traffic around a stalled vehicle.
The US has apologized for the arrest of a businessman who was mistaken for a terrorist because he was wearing traditional Arab robes while in Ohio.

Emirati national Ahmed al-Menhali was detained at gunpoint last week after he was mistakenly held as an Islamic State (IS) suspect by police at a local hotel in Ohio.

In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had summoned the US Deputy Chief of Mission Ethan Goldrich over the incident, and he apologized.

The US has apologized for the arrest of businessman, Ahmed al-Menhali (pictured), who was mistaken for a terrorist because he was wearing traditional Arab robes while in Ohio

In the footage of the arrest, al-Menhali was pressed to the ground and had handcuffs put on him. He was later released

In a statement , the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had summoned US Deputy Chief of Mission Ethan Goldrich (pictured) over the incident, and he apologized

'He emphasized that the United States respects the right of different nations to wear their national dress, adding that this incident was an exception which was totally unacceptable,' the statement read.

The 41-year-old man was released once the mistake was realized but had to be hospitalized after he fainted at the scene.

Al-Menhali, who had been in the country since April, was trying to check into Fairfield Inn and Suites in Avon, Ohio, on Wednesday when he was mistaken for a member of IS, according to The National.

A hotel clerk raised suspicions he could have links to IS.

He was wearing a dishdasha, the traditional dress in the UAE for men, at the time.

The UAE media reported that Avon Police Department said they were alerted to 'a suspicious man with disposable phones, two of them, in a full head dress'.

Al-Menhali was in Ohio to seek medical treatment in nearby Cleveland after suffering a stroke.

On Saturday, a Foreign Ministry Twitter account focusing on citizens traveling abroad posted a message (pictured) in Arabic urging its citizens to stay safe by avoiding the traditional dress

According to the report, the 911 call came from the family of a woman working at the hotel and a second call requested police assistance.

In footage that later emerged from the arrest, Al-Menhali was asked to lie on the ground and drop his phone by police pointing weapons at him.

He was then handcuffed and searched.

Local newspapers said Avon police released the man after they realized their mistake, but he fainted at the scene and needed hospital treatment.

On Saturday, a Foreign Ministry Twitter account focusing on citizens traveling abroad posted a message in Arabic urging its citizens to stay safe by avoiding the traditional dress.

It read: 'Note the citizens traveling abroad not to wear the uniform when traveling, especially in public places so as to preserve their safety.'

The Foreign Ministry, in a message posted on its website in Arabic and English, urged citizens to abide by the laws of countries they are visiting.

It alerted women to countries in Europe whose laws prohibit wearing of face covers, also without referring to the incident in Avon.

Al-Bayan reported that the citizen had hired a lawyer to pursue the case, saying he had received no apology from either the police or the hotel.

In an interview with The National on Saturday, Al-Menhali called his treatment 'brutal'.

In an interview with The National on Saturday, Al-Menhali called his treatment 'brutal'

He added: 'They pressed forcefully on my back. I had several injuries and bled from the forceful nature of their arrest.' Al-Menhali is pictured after being released by officers who held him down on the ground

He added: 'They pressed forcefully on my back. I had several injuries and bled from the forceful nature of their arrest.

'I didn't think that they were there for me. I assumed that there was some sort of training exercise or event at the hotel but I was shocked to see them barge at me'

Al-Menhali told Al Jazeera that the clerk 'went off and texted her sister and said I pledged my allegiance to ISIS'.

The sister and her father then called 911, according to the news network.

Police Chief Richard Bosley told Al-Menhali that 'no one from the police department [wanted] to disrespect you', according to WEWS-TV.

'That was not the intent of any of our officers. It is a very regrettable circumstance that occurred for you. You should not have been put in that situation like you were.'

'There were some false accusations made against you,' Mayor Brian Jensen said. 'And those are regrettable. I hope...the person that made those can maybe learn from those.'
Andrea Leadsom faced a growing row last night after refusing to release her tax return unless chosen as one of the two MPs in the final Tory leadership shortlist.

The Energy Minister and former City banker yesterday agreed to publish her details when interviewed on the Andrew Marr show.

But within hours her campaign said would do so only if she is chosen from the five leadership candidates to go to a final vote of Conservative Party members.

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Andrea Leadsom faced a growing row last night after refusing to release her tax return unless chosen as one of the two MPs in the final Tory leadership shortlist

Last night pressure grew on Mrs Leadsom to release the information immediately, after Justice Secretary Michael Gove released two years of his returns. They showed his only earnings were from his MP and ministerial salaries.

Home Secretary Theresa May is expected to release her returns imminently, and Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb within days.

Liam Fox, the final leadership candidate, is also refusing to publish his unless he is among the final two candidates. The row could overshadow the formal launch of Mrs Leadsoms campaign this morning.

There will be particular interest in her return because in 2014 it emerged she set up a trust to hold shares in her buy-to-let property firm, in an arrangement which could help reduce inheritance tax. There is no suggestion she acted unlawfully.

The Energy Minister and former City banker yesterday agreed to publish her details when interviewed on the Andrew Marr show alongside Michael Gove

Yesterday a spokesman said she would publish her return after the end of the MP selection process  expected to conclude next week  but before the end of the campaign in the country, meaning it could be weeks before documents are released.

That would mean MPs would not see her tax return before deciding whether she should be one of two shortlisted contenders to be Tory leader and prime minister.

The row could puncture the momentum around her campaign, which saw her move to be the second favourite, behind Mrs May, over the weekend.

Yesterday Mrs Leadsom was hit by embarrassing revelations that only three years ago she argued Brexit would be a disaster for our economy and mean a decade of economic and political uncertainty.

In a speech to the Hansard Society in April 2013, when she was a backbench MP, she said: Im going to nail my colours to the mast here: I dont think the UK should leave the EU.

I think it would be a disaster for our economy and it would lead to a decade of economic and political uncertainty.

But within hours her campaign said would do so only if she is chosen from the five leadership candidates to go to a final vote of Conservative Party members

She told Andrew Marr: Well, you know it has been a journey. Now when I came into parliament, like most people in the country Id grown up as part of the EU.

Since then, she said, events had moved on, and the risks of remaining had massively magnified.

Asked by Mr Marr whether she would publish her return she appeared surprised. Initially she said she would have to think about it, before conceding she would.

Later in the day, her spokesman then clarified she would only do so if shes in the final two. He said she did not want to put other MPs in a difficult position.

Mrs Leadsom also refused to rule out having Ukip leader Nigel Farage on her Brexit deal team.

She has been endorsed by Arron Banks, the millionaire Ukip backer who funded the Leave.EU campaign group.

Yesterday there were claims Ukip members in Essex were ringing Tory MPs pretending to be members of the public and urging them to back Mrs Leadsom.
The former television boss given the task of cracking down on dodgy fundraising practices exposed by the Daily Mail yesterday revealed his own robust tactic for dealing with unwanted approaches.

Lord Grade, a former chairman of the BBC and ITV who is leading the new independent Fundraising Regulator, said he told charity collectors who knocked on his front door to: 'B****r off.'

Meanwhile he said his response to receiving unsolicited text messages from fundraisers was to tell them he was a top lawyer and would sue them if they didn't leave him alone.

Lord Grade, a former chairman of the BBC and ITV, is leading the new independent Fundraising Regulator set up after the Mail exposed how rogue operators used 'immoral' techniques on vulnerable victims

'I can't tell you how many phone calls or texts I get,' he said.

'I always send them a text back saying, 'I am a leading QC at the Criminal Bar and I am putting you on notice. Please accept this text as a letter before action. I mean to pursue this case to the High Court if necessary.'

He added: 'I've never had a repeated text.'

The 73-year-old peer told the Sunday Times he did give money to charity, but never in response to doorstep cold-callers.

'I get very cross if people knock on my door at eight, nine at night when I've just got home from work,' he said.

'Charity? B****r off! Don't come knocking on my door  you're not invited. It drives me crazy.'

The new regulator was set up after the Mail exposed how rogue operators used 'immoral' techniques on vulnerable victims.

An undercover investigation found boiler room-style companies were extracting donations from vulnerable victims including dementia patients.

The former television boss said his response to receiving unsolicited text messages from fundraisers was to tell them he was a top lawyer and would sue them if they didn't leave him alone

As a result, ministers commissioned a review of charity fundraising by Sir Bill Etherington which called for the creation of the new watchdog, with Lord Grade appointed chairman.

Paid for by a levy on charities, it will have the power to ban them from seeking donations while they are under investigation.

Failure to comply will lead to a referral to the Charity Commission and 'draconian' punishments.

Its introduction comes as research shows public confidence in charities had hit a 10-year low.

Lord Grade said he had been on the boards of 'a million charities' and said some had turned a blind eye to the unscrupulous methods used by fundraisers, falsely believing that their worthy objectives justified the means.

'When things are going well, you don't ask the question and when things are going badly ... all you care about is getting the money in,' he added.

The 73-year-old peer told the Sunday Times he did give money to charity, but never in response to doorstep cold-callers

He praised the media for exposing poor practices in some charities but said he was confident the lessons would now be heeded.

'All charities rely on the goodwill of the British public  their donors and their constituency of donors,' he told the paper.

'The last thing they want to read is that they have behaved badly.'

However he admitted that the new commission was 'completely under-resourced given the size of the sector'.
Countries are lining up to enter trade talks with Britain in the wake of the decision to leave the European Union, it was claimed last night.

American politicians are clamouring for an agreement, while talks could soon begin with Australia, South Korea and India.

New Zealand has also offered up its top negotiators to help in the difficult task ahead.

The country will be free to negotiate its own deals after quitting the EU, and business secretary Sajid Javid (pictured) is already preparing for a hectic schedule of visits to countries across the world

In the wake of Brexit, nations outside Europe are eyeing opportunities to increase trade with Britain for the first time in decades.

The country will be free to negotiate its own deals after quitting the EU, and business secretary Sajid Javid  who campaigned for a Remain vote  is already preparing for a hectic schedule of visits to countries across the world.

US House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan has called for the US to start negotiating a new free trade deal with Britain to show solidarity and ensure a smooth relationship post-Brexit.

Mr Ryan, the former Republican vice-presidential candidate and one of the party s most senior politicians, said the UK was Americas indispensable ally and needed to be helped after it parted ways with the EU.

His comments on the issue are in stark contrast to those of Barack Obama, who warned before the referendum that that a UK out of the EU would be at the back of the queue for trade deals with the US.

US House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan has called for the US to start negotiating a new free trade deal with Britain to show solidarity and ensure a smooth relationship post-Brexit

Mr Ryan said: We need to emphasise that they are our indispensable ally. We have a special relationship, and I think that does mean we should have a trade agreement with Great Britain.

David Cameron has met top business advisors and said companies must not be fixated on the EU and should strive to carve out new opportunities beyond.

Mr Javid will lead trade missions to attract inward investors.

Former Waitrose boss Lord Mark Price, who is now trade minister, is set to visit China, Hong Kong and Brazil.

Officials in Australia and South Korea have also been in touch to discuss new partnerships, and discussions with India could begin soon.

And New Zealand has offered to lend its battle-hardened negotiators to help Britain out.

Its trade minister Todd McClay said Britain was a long- standing friend and he wanted to be useful in any way we can be.

Yesterday the US ambassador to Britain warned that Britains decision to leave the EU could still have serious economic consequences for the country.

Matthew Barzun  who was formerly Barack Obamas chief fundraiser  told BBC Radio 4s Desert Island Discs that the President was right to warn Britain in April that it would end up at the back of queue as a result of Brexit.

In an interview recorded after the referendum, Mr Barzun says it is naive to think that the UK could now somehow jump further ahead of its trade rivals.

He adds: The tone in which it was said, there was nothing punitive about it.

The point was, you are at the front of the queue right now - he was saying back in April - because we are doing this big trade deal with the European Union, of which you are a member.
Downing Street has dismissed the idea of British troops going on trial for war crimes at the Hague after the Iraq Inquiry finally reports this week.

Number 10 said the International Criminal Court (ICC) did not have the right to intervene because the UK already has a process in place to investigate allegations.

Prosecutors at The Hague, who usually try dictators over genocide, have confirmed they will examine the 2.6million-word report for evidence of war crimes by British troops.

But the ICC said former prime minister Tony Blair will not face charges, even if he is found to have duped Parliament into backing the 2003 invasion that cost the lives of 179 British personnel and tens of thousands of civilians.

The statement raised the grim prospect of individual soldiers being hounded as the former Labour leader, who made misleading claims about Saddam Husseins weapons of mass destruction, evades justice.

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Soldiers have spoken of their disgust that the Chilcot report could be used to prosecute troops for war crime while former prime minister Tony Blair, pictured centre, will likely not face trial himself

Sgt Kevin Williams, centre, who went through 12 years of legal hell before being cleared of shooting dead an Iraqi civilian, criticised Mr Blair for sending troops to Iraq 'based on fabricated evidence'

But Downing Street today signalled it would fiercely resist any attempt by the court to target troops for prosecution.

'The purpose of the report was to examine the decision-making at senior levels in the run-up to and during the involvement in Iraq. It wasnt about punishing our soldiers who served with bravery and dedication,' the Prime Minister's spokeswoman said.

'Its worth bearing in mind you have also had the Iraq historical allegations team looking into a number of cases and indeed the majority of those investigated so far have been found to be false.

'The point with the ICC is that they are only authorised to investigate alleged war crimes if a state is unwilling or unable to itself.

'We have already had a process underway in regard to some allegations relating to the Iraq operations and were confident we will be able to demonstrate that we are fully able to investigate matters should they arise.'

The Daily Mail has campaigned to end the relentless witch-hunt against British soldiers facing multiple probes into incidents from more than a decade ago.

Sir John Chilcots report, which has taken seven years and cost more than 10million, will be published on Wednesday.

It is expected to strongly criticise Mr Blairs role, including misuse of intelligence to bolster his case for war.

The ICC is already probing more than 1,000 allegations that UK forces tortured and mistreated Iraqi prisoners.

It means soldiers who have been cleared by UK courts could still face the ordeal of war crimes trials.

Sergeant Kevin Williams, who went through 12 years of hell before being cleared of shooting dead an Iraqi, said: The chance that soldiers may be investigated rather than Blair is utterly disgusting.

'Soldiers went to Iraq based on fabricated evidence that Saddam was a worldwide threat.

Those responsible for fabricating that evidence are at the greater end of responsibility for the countless lives lost in the fight for Iraq.

Roger Bacon, whose son Major Matthew Bacon was killed by a roadside bomb in 2005, said: It is outrageous. It is double standards.

These soldiers have gone out to do their best for us and here they are being hounded and yet the guy who took them there is not being looked at.

The report by Sir John Chilcot, pictured, is likely to criticise Mr Blair's role in the 2003 Iraq War including claiming he 'misused intelligence' to bolster his case for a conflict

Soldiers and their families have said Mr Blair should be held to account for any wrong doing as troops 'were just doing as they were ordered' (file picture)

Demi Catteralls father, ex-sergeant Richard Catterall, is too unwell to speak following multiple investigations  even though he has been cleared over the shooting dead of an Iraqi in self-defence in 2003.

She said: If anyone should be held to account it should be Tony Blair. Im absolutely outraged.

The soldiers simply did what they were told  why should they be held responsible for somebody elses orders?

'The fact these men, including my dad, have already gone through questions after questions is disgraceful.

I dont think they realise the mental torture that these men go through when theyre questioned. It affects every single aspect of their lives.

These people have done their job, done what they have been taught, their whole lives have revolved around the military, protecting us and our country and the rules that apply. They should be celebrated not punished.

WHY THE PRIME MINISTER WHO LED US TO WAR WILL NOT BE PUT ON TRIAL Donald Payne, pictured, is the only British soldier to be convicted of a war crime By Ian Drury, Home Affairs Correspondent for the Daily Mail The International Criminal Court will not put Tony Blair on trial for war crimes because decisions on launching a conflict are outside its remit. The tribunal investigates only atrocities that take place on the battlefield, such as torture, maiming and execution. The former Labour Prime Minister has faced calls to be prosecuted amid claims he took the UK to war  a decision which plunged the Middle East into bloodshed and violence  based on lies. But the court in The Hague said that the decision by the UK to go to war in Iraq falls outside the Courts jurisdiction. Only one British soldier, Corporal Donald Payne, has been convicted of a war crime after he pleaded guilty to inhumanely treating civilians in relation to the killing of a hotel receptionist in Basra. But if Mr Blair had known that British troops had committed war crimes, he could have been prosecuted. Last month former Congolese vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba was jailed for 18 years by the ICC for heading a sadistic campaign of rape and murder in neighbouring Central African Republic. The 53-year-old ex-militia leader directed troops who acted with particular cruelty when they rampaged across the country in 2002-03. Advertisement

Reg Keys, whose son Lance Corporal Thomas Keys, 20, was murdered in an Iraqi ambush in 2003, said the Chilcot report should be used by the ICC as a basis for action against Mr Blair.

Colonel Richard Kemp, who commanded troops in Afghanistan, said: It may be easier politically but is certainly wrong to focus any investigations on more junior rather than more senior people.

Former Scottish first minister Alex Salmond called for Mr Blair to face a judicial or political reckoning.

He said: He seemed puzzled as to why [people] think he is a war criminal, why people dont like him.

The reason is 179 British war dead, 150,000 immediate dead from the Iraq conflict, the Middle East in flames, the world faced with an existential crisis on terrorism  these are just some of the reasons perhaps he should understand why people dont hold him in the highest regard.

There are many MPs... who are absolutely determined that account has to be held.

'[They believe] that you cannot have a situation where this country blunders into an illegal war with the appalling consequences and at the end of the day there isnt a reckoning.

The Iraq War has been blamed for escalating problems in the Middle East and leading to the rise of ISIS (file picture)

'There has to be a judicial or political reckoning for that.

The ICC announced two years ago that it had begun a preliminary examination into claims of mistreatment by UK troops after being handed a dossier by solicitor Phil Shiner.

Mr Shiners firm Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) was criticised after the Al-Sweady Inquiry in 2014 demolished its claims that soldiers murdered, tortured and mutilated Iraqi detainees.

The law firm has been responsible for making thousands of complaints to the Ministry of Defence of abuse and mistreatment of Iraqis by British troops.

The office of the prosecutor at the ICC said it would take note of the Chilcot report, adding: A preliminary examination is not an investigation but a process aimed at determining whether reasonable basis exists to open an investigation.

The decision by the UK to go to war in Iraq falls outside the courts jurisdiction.

HOW OUR TROOPS FACED SIX PROBES FOR DOING THEIR DUTY By Larisa Brown, Defence Correspondent for the Daily Mail British troops face no fewer than six investigations and inquiries into their conduct in Iraq. Firstly commanding officers investigate whether soldiers followed rules of engagement. In some cases the Royal Military Police investigate further and troops can be charged with murder or manslaughter in a court martial, or referred to civil courts. The 145-strong Iraq Historical Allegations Team (Ihat) looks into cases handed to them by law firms Public Interest Lawyers or Leigh Day. The firms allege criminality under the Human Rights Act. Ex-police officers decide if there is enough evidence to level murder or manslaughter charges or fines for lesser crimes. Some cases are passed to the Iraq Fatality Investigations for an inquest-style inquiry to fulfil Britains obligations under the Human Rights Act. Each costs around 200,000. They can result in MoD payouts to Iraqi families. Soldiers are forced to give evidence. Compensation claims from Iraqi families are heard in the High Court. Soldiers are dragged before a judge while the credibility of each claimants case is assessed. They are also forced to appear before public inquiries, such as the 31million Al-Sweady inquiry into claims British troops tortured and murdered Iraqis. And prosecutors in The Hague are investigating more than 1,000 alleged war crimes lodged by Public Interest Lawyers. Advertisement

A cross-party group is considering using an ancient parliamentary mechanism to impeach Mr Blair for misleading Parliament.

The former Prime Minister may also face legal action from bereaved families who believe he is guilty of malfeasance in public office on the grounds that he overstepped his constitutional powers and that led to mass casualties.

Mr Blair told Sky News: Wednesday is the time the report is published.

I have said many times over these past years I will wait for the report and then I will make my views known and express myself fully and properly.
Immigration could surge in the coming years as Europeans seek to enter the UK before Brexit takes effect, Theresa May warned yesterday.

The Home Secretary hoped to bring down net migration to sustainable levels  but added that it was impossible to put a timescale on it.

And she suggested she would like EU migrants already in Britain to be able to stay after we leave the bloc, although she said it was a matter for negotiation.

The Home Secretary hoped to bring down net migration to sustainable levels and suggested she would like EU migrants already in Britain to be able to stay after we leave the bloc

Speaking on ITVs Peston on Sunday show, she said: If were looking ahead over the coming months and years once we get the issue of the EU negotiation sorted, the right deal for Britain, we may very well see in the run-up to that, people wanting to come here to the UK before that exit happens.

So there are factors you cant always predict what the timing and numbers of those will be. Mrs May also appeared to back away from the Conservative Partys long-standing target to get net migration down to the tens of thousands  talking instead of sustainable levels.

Theres still a job to be done from people outside the EU, she said. Theres also, of course, the future negotiation in relation to free movement for people coming from inside the EU.

Im very clear the Brexit vote gave us a very clear message from people that we couldnt allow free movement to continue as it had hitherto.

Speaking on ITVs Peston on Sunday show, she said: If were looking ahead over the coming months and years once we get the issue of the EU negotiation sorted, the right deal for Britain, we may very well see in the run-up to that, people wanting to come here to the UK before that exit happens'

We need to bring control into movement of people coming into the UK from the EU. So weve got to move ahead looking across immigration dealing with both those types of immigration. But still I believe we should have that goal of bringing immigration down to sustainable levels. She added that she wants to guarantee the position for EU citizens currently living in the UK and British citizens living in EU countries.

Whats important is there will be a negotiation here as to how we deal with that issue of people who are already here and who have established life here and Brits who have established a life in other countries within the EU, she said.

The position at the moment is as it has been, theres no change at the moment, but of course we have to factor that into negotiations.

Mrs May has also dismissed suggestions she could be crowned as Tory leader without the party membership having their say.

Some party grandees had said that, for the sake of party unity, other candidates should drop out of the race to allow the runaway favourite to take the top job.

But she rejected the calls yesterday, demanding a proper contest. A poll at the weekend showed Mrs May was backed by 60 per cent of Tory voters, with Michael Gove trailing on just 10 per cent. The Home Secretary now has the declared support of more than 100 MPs  higher than her four rivals combined total.

Her backers include heavyweight figures such as Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, who today says that now is not the time for the talent of the future.

In an article for the Mail (right), he said only Mrs May had the experience needed to conduct complicated Brexit negotiations.

Yesterday Mrs May dismissed suggestions that one candidate should be given a clear run if they receive overwhelming support from Tory MPs in early rounds

NO CHILDREN? WE COPED Not having children had affected the Home Secretary and her husband but it was just one of those things, she said yesterday. Speaking for the first time about her struggle to conceive, Theresa May said that she and her husband Philip found comfort in their happy 35-year marriage and other things they were blessed with when they found out they could not have children. Of course we were both affected by it, she said. You see friends who now have grown-up children, but you accept the hand that life deals you. It just didnt happen, so you know, its one of those things. Advertisement

MY DIABETES 'IS PART OF LIFE' Theresa May insisted yesterday that her type 1 diabetes would not hamper her performance as Prime Minister as she fought off slurs about her health. The clear frontrunner in the Tory leadership race pointed out that many senior businessmen suffer from the condition, which carries the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Mrs May revealed her diagnosis three years ago after a two-stone weight loss prompted speculation she was revamping her appearance ahead of a Tory leadership bid. At the weekend one unnamed minister raised questions about the Home Secretarys health, saying the job of PM could kill her. But in the Mail on Sunday, Mrs May said: It becomes a routine part of your life  there are plenty of serious people in business with it. Advertisement

MPs will hold their first ballot tomorrow to whittle down the five leadership choices to four.

Further votes will be held on Thursday and the following Tuesday, leaving two MPs left in the race. Tory party rules state these candidates will then go forward to the party membership.

Yesterday Mrs May dismissed suggestions that one candidate should be given a clear run if they receive overwhelming support from Tory MPs in early rounds.

She said she was not taking anything for granted, adding there is a need for the arguments to be heard by Tory members.

There should be a contest, she said. I think its important members have their opportunity to have their say and I think what people want to hear is what the arguments are and people putting those arguments together.

She added: I think there should be a proper contest and obviously I hope Im one of the candidates that will go forward to the membership. I dont take anything for granted.

Mrs May also dismissed holding an early general election for the new prime minister as another destabilising factor for the economy. And she denied claims she was a control freak, saying she had handed over power in her time at the Home Office.

She said: If somehow I was a control freak and people didnt get on and like my style, we wouldnt have a majority of ministers whove worked with me actually backing me. If you look at what Ive done in policing Ive actually given power away from the centre, not just talked about it.

Former shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said Mrs Mays words will only have increased the anxiety felt by EU citizens currently living in the UK and British citizens living in the EU. Suggesting that their status is subject to the results of the negotiations adds to the current uncertainty, which is being exploited by extremists, she said.

Nick Boles, campaign manager for Michael Gove, said the residency rights of EU citizens should not be put in doubt. Michael Gove is clear that they are valued members of society. The same assurance was given by fellow contender Andrea Leadsom.
The International Criminal Court will not put Tony Blair on trial for war crimes because decisions on launching a conflict are outside its remit.

The tribunal investigates only atrocities that take place on the battlefield, such as torture, maiming and execution.

The former Labour Prime Minister has faced calls to be prosecuted amid claims he took the UK to war  a decision which plunged the Middle East into bloodshed and violence  based on lies.

But the court in The Hague said that the decision by the UK to go to war in Iraq falls outside the Courts jurisdiction.

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Tony Blair will not face charges from the International Criminal Court because 'launching a conflict is outside of its remit'

Only one British soldier, Corporal Donald Payne, has been convicted of a war crime after he pleaded guilty to inhumanely treating civilians in relation to the killing of a hotel receptionist in Basra.

But if Mr Blair had known that British troops had committed war crimes, he could have been prosecuted.

Last month former Congolese vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba was jailed for 18 years by the ICC for heading a sadistic campaign of rape and murder in the neighbouring Central African Republic.

The 53-year-old ex-militia leader directed troops who acted with particular cruelty when they rampaged across the country in 2002-03.

Prosecutors in the Hague, who usually try dictators who commit genocide, controversially confirmed they would examine the long-awaited 2.6million-word report for evidence of war crimes by UK troops.

Last night serving soldiers and the bereaved families of those killed in the illegal conflict expressed anger and disgust at the courts stance.

It raises the grim prospect of individual troops being hounded while the former Labour leader, who made misleading claims about Saddam Husseins weapons of mass destruction to justify the 2003 invasion, evades justice.

Sir John Chilcots report, which has taken seven years and cost more than 10million, will be published on Wednesday.

Sir John Chilcot, pictured, will publish his report into the Iraq War on Wednesday, with Mr Blair expected to be criticised for 'misusing intelligence' to bolster his case to take Britain into a conflict

The 6,000-page document is expected to strongly criticise Mr Blairs role, including his misuse of intelligence to bolster his case for war.

The ICC is already probing more than 1,000 allegations that UK forces tortured and mistreated Iraqi prisoners.

It means British soldiers cleared by UK courts of unlawfully killing Iraqi citizens could still face the ordeal of war crimes trials.

The ICC announced two years ago that it had launched a preliminary examination into claims of mistreatment by UK troops after being handed a dossier by solicitor Phil Shiner.

Mr Shiners legal aid-funded firm Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) was criticised in December 2014 after the year-long Al Sweady Inquiry demolished its claims that soldiers murdered, tortured and mutilated Iraqi detainees in May 2004.

The law firm has been responsible for making thousands of complaints to the Ministry of Defence of abuse and mistreatment of Iraqis by British troops.

Former Congolese vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba, pictured, was jailed for 18 years by the ICC for heading a sadistic campaign of rape and murder in the neighbouring Central African Republic

In a statement, the Office of the Prosecutor at the ICC said: We will take note of the Chilcot report when released in the context of its ongoing preliminary examination work concerning Iraq/UK.

A preliminary examination is not an investigation but a process aimed at determining whether reasonable basis exist to open an investigation.

As already indicated by the Office in 2006, the decision by the UK to go to war in Iraq falls outside the Courts jurisdiction.

Prosecutors at the ICC have already refused to grant immunity from the possibility of fresh charges to troops giving evidence to Iraq Fatality Investigations, whose functions are similar to those of a coroners inquest.

These hearings are examining the deaths of Iraqis at the hands of UK troops during the six-year war.

Troops have faced several legal probes over single allegations of wrong-doing.

These include a military investigation and court martial; the Iraq Historic Allegations Team, which looks at cases brought by PIL or legal firm Leigh Day; the Iraq Fatality Investigations; the ICC; and civil claims in the High Court from bereaved families.

A cross-party group is considering using an ancient Parliamentary mechanism to impeach Mr Blair for misleading Parliament over the Iraq war.

The former prime minister may also face legal action from bereaved families who believe he is guilty of malfeasance in public office on the grounds that he overstepped his constitutional powers and that led to mass casualties.

Mr Blair told Sky News: Wednesday is the time the report is published. I have said many times over these past years I will wait for the report and then I will make my views known and express myself fully and properly.
Bui Trong Van, 44, a Vietnamese fisherman on board a Taiwanese fishing boat, was injured after the vessel was hit by a supersonic missile in the first day of July, Tran Duy Hai, chairman of the Vietnam Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei, told VnExpress on July 2.

The ship-to-air missile was misfired from a 500-ton navy patrol vessel during pre-inspection in southern Taiwan ahead of a mock exercise, killing a Taiwanese fisherman on Vans boat.

According to Hai, Van was slightly wounded in the incident. The man from Vietnams central province of Nghe An has left hospital with stable conditions.

The Vietnam Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei has sent an official to the area but has not been able to meet Van because it is the military zone. Communication with Taiwanese authorities on the issue is under way, Hai said.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen waves her hand as she boards the nation's first domestically built stealth-missile 500-ton Tuo Jiang twin-hull corvette at Suao Naval Base in Yilan, Taiwan June 4, 2016. Photo by Reuters/Tyrone Siu

Initial findings indicate the missile did not explode and that it sank into the sea, according to Reuters.

China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since 1949, when Mao Zedong's forces won the Chinese civil war and Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists fled to the island.

Beijing has vowed to bring Taiwan under its rule, by force if necessary.

Taiwan's Defence Ministry said it had not detected irregular movements by China's military after the accident.

The incident came as Chinese President Xi Jinping warned on Friday that the biggest threat to the ruling party is corruption, as he used the party's birthday to also warn against any moves in Taiwan towards independence.

Related news:

> Taiwan Navy fires missile in error as China's Party marks birthday

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Jeremy Corbyn will be hauled before MPs today to defend Labour against charges of anti-Semitism as the partys leadership crisis continues.

Last week he was accused of equating Israel with Islamic State and of standing by at an event when Jewish MP Ruth Smeeth left crying after being abused by one of his far-Left supporters in the group Momentum.

The appearance comes as Labour faces another day of chaos, with Mr Corbyn doggedly refusing to resign, and no challenger having yet come forward to stand against him.

Jeremy Corbyn will be hauled before MPs today to defend Labour against charges of anti-Semitism as the partys leadership crisis continues

However, last night union leaders claimed they were hopeful of brokering a deal to avoid civil war in the party.

Len McCluskey, the general secretary of the Unite union, offered to mediate between the leadership and MPs, who want Mr Corbyn out.

Former leader Lord Kinnock warned the Tories would be in power for decades unless Mr Corbyn is ditched  and insisted party rules mean he must quit.

But Mr McCluskey, one of Mr Corbyns most prominent supporters, hit back  saying it was outrageous that grandees were being dragged out to be part of this unedifying coup.

He told the BBC that the coup had failed, and said the Labour leader had been the victim of a political lynching.

In a bizarre intervention, shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry urged plotters to listen to the Queen, who at the weekend urged politicians to allow room for quiet thinking and contemplation.

In a bizarre intervention, shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry urged plotters to listen to the Queen, who at the weekend urged politicians to allow room for quiet thinking and contemplation

Miss Thornberry said: I agree with the Queen. Now is the time for politicians to cool down, to unite and to think of the good of our nation and thats what we should be doing.

She has a lot of experience, shes led this country for more than 60 years, shes seen many crises. Shes right.

Mr Corbyn faces another tough day today, with an appearance in front of the Commons home affairs select committee, which is investigating anti-Semitism.

He will also have to answer questions about his failure to condemn comments by Ken Livingstone, who claimed Hitler was a Zionist.

Len McCluskey, the general secretary of the Unite union, offered to mediate between the leadership and MPs, who want Mr Corbyn out

Angela Eagle and Owen Smith, shadow cabinet members who resigned last week, are weighing up launching a challenge to Mr Corbyn, although no move is expected today.

Yesterday Lord Kinnock, who led Labour between 1983 and 1992 but lost two elections, said support for Mr Corbyn outside Westminster is seeping away and there is no basis on which he can stay in his post.
The United Arab Emirates has urged men to avoid wearing the white robes, headscarf and headband of the national dress for their own safety when travelling abroad.

UAE's Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted the message to Twitter on Saturday after an Emirati businessman visiting the United States was mistakenly held as an Islamic State (IS) suspect by police at a local hotel in Ohio.

The 41-year-old man was released once the mistake was realised but had to be hospitalised after he fainted at the scene.

UAE's Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted the message to Twitter on Saturday after an Emirati businessman visiting the United States was mistakenly held as an Islamic State (IS) suspect by police at a local hotel in Ohio

According to The National, Ahmed Al Menhali, who had been in the country since April, was trying to check into Fairfield Inn and Suites in Avon, Ohio, on Wednesday when he was mistaken for a member of IS.

He was wearing a dishdasha, the traditional dress in the UAE for men, at the time.

The UAE media reported that Avon Police Department said they were alerted to 'a suspicious man with disposable phones, two of them, in a full head dress'.

According to the report, the 911 call came from the family of a woman working at the hotel and a second call requested police assistance.

In footage that later emerged from the arrest, Mr Al Menhali was asked to lie on the ground and drop his phone by police pointing weapons at him.

It read: 'Note the citizens traveling abroad not to wear the uniform when traveling, especially in public places so as to preserve their safety'

He was then handcuffed and searched.

Local newspapers said Avon police released the man after they realised their mistake, but he fainted at the scene and needed hospital treatment.

On Saturday, a Foreign Ministry Twitter account focusing on citizens travelling abroad posted a message in Arabic urging its citizens to stay safe by avoiding the traditional dress.

It read: 'Note the citizens traveling abroad not to wear the uniform when traveling, especially in public places so as to preserve their safety.'

The Foreign Ministry, in a message posted on its website in Arabic and English, urged citizens to abide by the laws of countries they are visiting.

In the footage of the arrest, Mr Al Menhali was pressed to the ground and had handcuffs put on him. He was later released

It alerted women to countries in Europe whose laws prohibit wearing of face covers, also without referring to the incident in Avon.

Al-Bayan reported that the citizen had hired a lawyer to pursue the case, saying he had received no apology from either the police or the hotel.

In an interview with The National on Saturday, Mr Al Menhali called his treatment 'brutal'.

He added: 'They pressed forcefully on my back. I had several injuries and bled from the forceful nature of their arrest.

'I didn't think that they were there for me. I assumed that there was some sort of training exercise or event at the hotel but I was shocked to see them barge at me.'

A spokesman for Marriott International, the group owners of Fairfield Inn and Suites, told MailOnline Travel: 'Marriott International is aware of the incident that occurred at the Fairfield Inn & Suites, in Avon, Ohio that resulted in a gentleman who entered the hotel being apprehended and briefly detained by local authorities.

'This was a terrible misunderstanding and we deeply regret what happened to Mr. Al Menhali.

'Diversity and inclusion is a core principle of Marriott's operations and we remain committed to providing a welcoming environment.

'We have been in regular contact with the hotel since the incident and we will be following up to discuss diversity and inclusion training designed to help prevent this type of situation.'
When visiting a new country, there are often local customs that can come as a shock to travellers.

For example, foreigners in Greece should be aware that some toilets don't allow you to flush paper down them, due to poor sewage systems, and in Canada it is common for milk to be stored in a bag.

A handy infographic reveals some of the biggest culture shocks and how to avoid looking out of place when abroad.

When visiting a new country, there are often local customs that can come as a shock to travellers

A handy infographic reveals some of the biggest culture shocks and how to avoid looking out of place when abroad

The Fly to Dubai infographic includes a helpful tip that in some Asian countries such as China, it is rude to finish all the food on your plate when being hosted.

In China this signals that you want more food or are dissatisfied with the amount you have received.

The guide also advises non-religious travellers that in Istanbul you may want to come equipped with some ear plugs, as a loud Muslim call to prayer is blasted at 3am in the morning.

And those intent on boarding a train in India should be prepared for the hustle that is required to secure a coveted spot on board.

According to the infographic, this includes 'furious fighting, shoving, scratching and clawing.'

Did you know that in Canada it is common for milk to be stored and transported in a bag?

Those intent on boarding a train in India should be prepared for the hustle that is required to secure a coveted spot on board

While some cultures are accustomed to not leaving extra money at the end of a meal, those in America are advised that you are expected to fork out a tip for just about everything.

This can include a 15 to 25 per cent markup on top of meals, but also a payment in bars, hotels and even to toilet attendants.

On the other side of the pond, an important principle to adhere to in England is the golden rule of queuing; do it with style and grace. Cutting in won't make you any friends.

An important principle to adhere to in England is the golden rule of queuing; do it with style and grace. Cutting in won't make you any friends

The Fly to Dubai inforgrpahic includes a helpful tip that in the Czech Republic, people typically don't talk to strangers, even when they are drunk




She's so fond of her bikinis that she often wears them to the gym.

So it came as no surprise to see Chloe Madeley had opted for a skimpy black two-piece as she hit the beach in Ibiza with her beau, James Haskell on Friday.

Cooling off with a dip in the crystal clear waters, the 28-year-old fitness fanatic was a vision of beauty as she submerged herself in the sea.

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Beach babe: She's so fond of her bikinis that she often wears them to the gym. So it came as no surprise to see Chloe Madeley had opted for a skimpy black two-piece as she hit the beach in Ibiza on Friday

Flaunting her impeccably toned abs, the star - who is the daughter of Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan - instantly showed off the results of her laborious work in the gym.

Clutching the railings, the blonde beauty flexed her muscular arms - undoubtedly down to her weight lifting regime, whilst her stellar perky posterior appeared to be the results of her squats.

Opting for a black bikini top with a baby blue trim and halter neckline, the health and fitness guru also showed off her ample cleavage as she lowered herself into the water.

Two of a kind: Joined by her beau, James Haskell on Friday, she cooled off with a dip in the crystal clear waters, and the 28-year-old fitness fanatic was a vision of beauty as she submerged herself in the sea

Abs-olutely stunning: Flaunting her impeccably toned abs, the star - who is the daughter of Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan - instantly showed off the results of her laborious work in the gym

Patriotic pants: Chloe's rugby playing beau James, 31, also showed off his impressive physique in a pair of England flag swimming briefs

Fitness fanatic: Clutching the railings, the blonde beauty flexed her muscular arms - undoubtedly down to her weight lifting regime, whilst her stellar perky posterior appeared to be the results of her squats

Follow the leader: Chloe looked on lovingly as James lead her into the sea

Taking her time: The water appeared to be chilly as she dipped her toes in the water

Look of love: Chloe gazed adoringly at her boyfriend from the dock

Blonde beauty! Wearing her golden locks loose and tousled, the starlet went make-up free for the outing, showing off her natural beauty

Get in the sea! Chloe seemed to be having second thoughts about jumping into the water

Wearing her golden locks loose and tousled, the starlet went make-up free for the outing, showing off her natural beauty.

Meanwhile, Chloe's rugby playing beau James, 31, also showed off his impressive physique in a pair of England flag swimming briefs.

It was no wonder the Wasps star was feeling patriotic following the England rugby team's impressive performance over the summer.

Winning streak: It was no wonder the Wasps star was feeling patriotic following the England rugby team's impressive performance over the summer

Loved-up: Heading off the dock, the couple continued to cosy up to each other, with James affectionately planting a kiss on his girlfriend's head

Once they were in the sea, the couple put on a loved-up display as they shared a cuddle and kiss amid the waves.

Gazing into each other's eyes, the pair seemed oblivious to their friends swimming around them until they broke away and engaged in a playful water fight.

Heading off the dock, the couple continued to cosy up to each other, with James affectionately planting a kiss on his girlfriend's head.

Nice to sea you! Once they were in the sea, the couple put on a loved-up display as they shared a cuddle and kiss amid the waves

Look of love: Gazing into each other's eyes, the pair seemed oblivious to their friends swimming around them until they broke away and engaged in a playful water fight

Good enough to eat: James looked adoringly into his girlfriend's eyes

Fun in the sun: The pair seemed in great spirits as they splashed around with friends

Keep it steady: Chloe relied on her beau for support as they set off swimming

Laugh a minute: The couple shared a private joke as they splashed in the sea

Hold on! Chloe gripped tightly onto the rugby player as they swam into the sea

In May, the sporting legend admitted he had marriage on the cards for his girlfriend, but insisted he was in no rush to tie the knot just yet.

Speaking in an interview with the Daily Mirror, James said: 'I was a bit of a player before I met her but she has 100% changed me. From the day I met her until now I have been completely happy, and 100% faithful.

'I can see myself staying with Chloe and obviously Im 31 now so, yeah, the marriage stuff does cross my mind every now and then.'

Focused: James appeared to be gathering his thoughts as he stepped out on the dock

Ouch! James sported a rather painful looking sunburn as he emerged from the sea

Having a laugh: The star pointed out his tiny swimming briefs

Beach bums! The pair decided to take things easy on their Ibiza getaway

The pair met at the end of 2014 in a west London cafe, after James admitted he 'stalked' Richard and Judy's daughter on social media.

The sportsman also praised Chloe for forging her own career in the fitness world and breaking away from the path set for her by her famous family.

James added: 'Its never easy being the daughter of a celebrity couple and forging your own path, and getting your own qualifications, but thats what shes done so amazingly well. I am really proud of her.'

Staying close: The pair looked happy together as they soaked up the sights

Chatting: The couple seemed in great spirits as they enjoyed a natter on the docks

Whilst her boyfriend may have nothing but kind words about her passion for fitness, Chloe was recently forced to hit back at online trolls after she received hateful comments regarding her appearance.

After posting a snapshot of her impeccably toned abs on Instagram, one user wrote: 'Disgusting! - there's nothing feminine about that!!!'

But Chloe hit back in reply, which she sent to her 90,000 Instagram followers.

Cheerful: The pair seemed in good spirits as they frolicked in the sea

Making a splash: Chloe seemed shocked by a sudden rush of water as she held onto her boyfriend

'What's disgusting is not my body, or any human body for that matter - fat, thin, muscly, curvy, size 6-16, none of the above are disgusting,' she wrote.

'What's disgusting is your brain, that has been brainwashed for into thinking anything other than "feminine" is disgusting.'

Sharing the post, she added: 'And here I was thinking in 2016 women were all about supporting varied appearances, goals, careers, passions and choices. Silly me.

'Let me guess, freedom of speech? Just a different opinion? I wonder if racists and homophobes hide their hate behind the same excuses? Probably. #SuckyTrollB****es.'

Heading in: James also donned a pair of swimming trunks for the outing

Meanwhile, her father Richard recently spoke out about his daughter's methods for dealing with hateful comments, revealing that - like him - she 'doesn't give a stuff'.

Speaking about her daughter on Loose Women, she explained: 'Chloe and I mentally are quite similar.

'We both have the same attitude, we don't obviously like trolls, but we don't give a stuff. We don't take what they say seriously.'

Cute couple: Chloe and James were a picture of happiness as they strolled around the sea

Happy families: James has admitted he's thought about marrying girlfriend Chloe but has yet to propose

Discussing how Chloe - a successful personal trainer - brushes off the remarks made by the trolls, Richard simply said it didn't affect her because 'they're sad people'.

Adding his own view to the mix, he said: 'If you think about the kind of person, whose day is made bright by writing this kind of stuff, what kind of background do they have? What do they actually do with the rest of their day?'

However, he was quick to add the online bullies never make him or his family feel vulnerable, saying: 'I never feel threatened by them and I don't think Chloe does either.'

Wet and wild: The pair looked as though they were having the time of their lives in the sea

Holding on: Their playful session soon turned romantic as they cuddled up close to one another

Speaking to exclusively to the Daily Mail about her haters earlier this month, Chloe said the torrent of abuse starts at around 5am every day as she starts her morning workout.

'It's as if hey have to get it off their chest before they can get on with their day,' Chloe mused.

'He or she, I don't know which, threatens me with rape, death and pretty much anything you can think of in between. It's very graphic. I don't want the words to come out of my mouth.'
She has been busy of late with her jet set lifestyle.

But after flying back to Los Angeles, Kendall Jenner got caught up with some shopping in the company of close pal Scott Disick on Saturday.

The 20-year-old wore a sleeveless white jumpsuit that hung off her lithe frame as she and the 33-year-old former partner of her elder half-sister Kourtney Kardashian hit up celeb-friendly restaurant Il Pastaio in Beverly Hills for a spot of lunch.

Hanging! Kendall Jenner and Scott Disick spent their day on Saturday shopping and grabbing lunch together in Beverly Hills

Kendall stood out in a pair of black PVC ankle boots with high heels and carried a fluffy black purse.

Slicking her tresses back into a low ponytail, Kendall polished off her complexion with a swipe of bronzed blush and light pink lips.

Looking far from jet lagged, the star instead looked relaxed as she headed towards the eatery, sporting a pair of circular sunglasses.

Scott, meanwhile, wore his usual ensemble of distressed jeans and a t-shirt with trainers.

BFFs: The reality stars, who are known to be close, had some catching up to do as Kendall has been spending time lately in New York and traveling for modeling work

Own styles: The 20-year-old rocked a sleeveless white jumpsuit and black PVC ankle boots, while the 33-year-old ex partner of her older half-sister Kourtney Kardashian stuck to his usual ripped jeans and a t-shirt

Hitting her stride: Looking far from jet lagged after flying back to LA, the older sister of Kylie Jenner instead looked relaxed as she headed into the celeb-friendly eatery Il Pastaio in Beverly Hills

Following their bite to eat, the pals stopped by some of the nearby ritzy boutiques.

Together, they checked out some designer shoes and clothing, with Kendall taking particular interest in a casual black jacket with white detailing.

She and Scott appeared completely at ease in each other's company as they shared a joke while perusing the merchandise.

Thinking of buying: Kendall later checked out the nearby pricey boutiques and seemed to be taken with a casual black jacket with white detailing

At ease: The pair appeared to be having a fun time together, sharing jokes as they checked out the merchandise

What do you think? The businessman seemed to be getting the young model's opinion about a pair of brown suede shoes

Superslim: Kendall's baggy jumpsuit hung off her lithe frame and the large armholes revealed her white lacy bra underneath

Celebrity 'relatives': Scott and Kendall both found fame on the family reality series Keeping Up With The Kardashians

Based on his Instagram account, Scott was definitely in a playful mood that day, having earlier shared an image from the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

The picture showed Matthew Broderick as the titular character on the phone, wearing a robe and drinking a glass of orange juice.

'Mood,' Scott wrote alongside it.

Meanwhile, his ex Kourtney was across the country sunning herself in Miami on a vacation with the former couple's three young children, from where she shared snaps via social media of herself frolicking in a black bikini.

'In-laws': Party animal Scott spent time with Kendall at the Cannes Film Festival in May. He shares three young children with ex Kourtney, who is currently enjoying a weekend beach vacation with the kids in Miami

Something in common: Kendall just splashed out $6.5 million on a tri-level Hollywood Hills home to replace her more modest two-bed condo in West LA, while Scott spends his time flipping luxury mansions

Kendall, meanwhile, has been expanding her property portfolio.

The second youngest of Kris Jenner's daughters has just purchased a renovated Hollywood Hills home previously owned by Hollywood stars John Krasinski and Emily Blunt for $6.5 million, according to TMZ.

The home, which boasts six bedrooms and five baths, is nestled above the Sunset Strip and right above the iconic Chateau Marmont Hotel.

It also includes a swimming pool and a spacious outdoor patio.

At age 18, Kendall bought a two-bedroom condo in the Westwood area of Los Angeles for $1.39 million.

Turning a house into a home! Kendall is relocating to her new tri-level property with six bedrooms and a pool after purchasing it from Hollywood stars John Krasinski and Emily Blunt
Zachary Quinto paid tribute to his fallen friend and Star Trek castmate Anton Yelchin on Friday's episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

'Oof, absolutely senseless. Beautiful guy. I don't even know how to talk about it,' the 39-year-old Emmy nominee winced.

'We already knew that this would be a bittersweet experience because of the loss of Leonard [Nimoy] last year, but this has just been absolutely devastating for all of us.'

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'Oof, absolutely senseless. Beautiful guy': Zachary Quinto paid tribute to his fallen friend and Star Trek castmate Anton Yelchin on Friday's episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Zachary and his 27-year-old co-star - who tragically died June 19 - collaborated on three Star Trek films over the last nine years.

'I think our goal has to be to just celebrate his incredible life and honor him as much as we can,' Quinto - who plays Commander Spock - continued.

'It was a terrible loss not only to us personally, but I think to the industry and audiences. He was such a talent.'

The Soviet-born, LA-raised actor died after his Jeep Grand Cherokee pinned him against a brick mailbox and a security fence.

The 39-year-old Emmy nominee said: 'We already knew that this would be a bittersweet experience because of the loss of Leonard [Nimoy] last year, but this has just been absolutely devastating for all of us'

'I think our goal has to be to just celebrate his incredible life': Zachary and his 27-year-old co-star (L) - who tragically died June 19 - collaborated on three Star Trek films over the last nine years

Quinto - who plays Commander Spock - continued: 'It was a terrible loss not only to us personally, but I think to the industry and audiences. He was such a talent'

That same day, Zachary mourned the Rise actor with a touching post for his 2.5M social media followers.

'Our dear friend. our comrade. our anton,' the Lip Sync Battle contestant wrote.

'One of the most open and intellectually curious people i have ever had the pleasure to know. so enormously talented and generous of heart. wise beyond his years. and gone before his time. all love and strength to his family at this impossible time of grief.'

According to E! News - Anton's death by 'blunt traumatic asphyxia' was ruled accidental, and his funeral took place Friday at an undisclosed location.

'I don't even know how to talk about it': The Soviet-born, LA-raised actor died after his Jeep Grand Cherokee pinned him against a brick mailbox and a security fence

'Our dear friend. our comrade. our anton': That same day, Zachary mourned the Rise actor with a touching post for his 2.5M social media followers

RIP: According to E! News - Anton's death by 'blunt traumatic asphyxia' was ruled accidental, and his funeral took place Friday at an undisclosed location (pictured June 16)

A class action lawsuit was filed Thursday against Fiat Chrysler Automobiles regarding the recalled model with a fatal gear shift.

Anton concludes his role as the USS Enterprise's navigator Pavel Chekov in the sci-fi three-quel Star Trek Beyond - hitting US/UK theaters July 22 - alongside Chris Pine, Zoe Saldana, and Simon Pegg.

However, Yelchin has four more films being released posthumously - including the family drama We Don't Belong Here alongside Cary Elwes, Catherine Keener, and Riley Keough.

Hitting US/UK theaters July 22! Anton concludes his role as the USS Enterprise's navigator Pavel Chekov in the sci-fi three-quel Star Trek Beyond alongside Chris Pine, Zoe Saldana, and Simon Pegg
Australian actress Phoebe Tonkin and her American boyfriend Paul Wesley first met in 2012, before they started dating in 2013.

And the pair have proved they are still going strong as they cosied up to one another during their romantic holiday in beautiful Mexico.

Phoebe, 26, shared an Instagram snap of herself posing in a bikini with her shirtless beau - the image was simply captioned, 'Jungle twins'.

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Relaxing: Australian actress Phoebe Tonkin and her American boyfriend Paul Wesley cosied up to one another on their holiday in the idyllic Mexico

In the picture, the brunette beauty puts on a very busty display in a black bikini as the pair lie down on a towel.

It appears they were both fresh from a dip, with the pair both having wet hair and water dripping off them.

Phoebe showed off her natural beauty going completely makeup free, while her man, 33, showed off his shoulder tattoo and his dark scruffy beard.

Having fun: The pair appear to be holidaying with a bunch of friends, with one friend sharing shots of the group to Instagram and revealing they are in Mexico

The pair appear to be holidaying with a bunch of friends, with one friend sharing shots of the group to Instagram and revealing they are in Mexico.

One shot includes Phoebe posing in her black swimsuit while poking her tongue out and another is a shot of the group out at dinner.

The stunner also shared to Instagram at the weekend, a shot of herself standing under some trees at the beach wearing a red dress.

Biking the day away: Paul is seen here riding bikes with friends

Hot to trot: Phoebe also shared to Instagram at the weekend, a shot of herself standing under some trees at the beach wearing a red dress

In the snap, the leggy actress poses showing off her trim pins and a soft golden tan.

She is currently based in the US as she pursues her career.

Phoebe - who hails from Sydney - is making an impact in the US, as she appears on the show The Originals, a spin-off from The Vampire Diaries which Paul stars on.

They both met on set of The Vampire Diaries.

She is also well known for starring in the Australian series H20: Just Add Water, as mermaid Cleo.

Before heading to Hollywood, she also appeared on Australian shows including Home and Away.
Over the past few days, she has been busy promoting her latest venture in her native Australia.

But on Saturday night, it was time for Shanina Shaik to wave goodbye as she packed up all her belongings before her flight  no doubt back to the States.

Stripped down to a tiny black vest, the 25-year-old flaunted her ample assets and fabulous curves as she posed for a smouldering Instagram selfie.

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'Ready for my next flight': Shanina Shaik flaunted her ample assets and fabulous curves as she posed for a smouldering Instagram selfie while packing on Saturday night

With her natural beauty on full show, the brunette stunner oozed heaps of sex appeal in the skimpy ensemble which boasted a plunging neckline.

In between packing....ready for my next flight #littlejetsetter, she captioned the snap.

Her post comes soon after her appearance at the Seafolly spring campaign launch in Sydney on Thursday, where she dazzled crowds in a floral off-shoulder number.

Pretty as a petal: Her post comes soon after her appearance at the Seafolly spring campaign launch in Sydney on Thursday, where she dazzled crowds in a floral off-shoulder number

At the event, Shanina spoke highly about her experience as a Victoria's Secret Angel, revealing she took fellow Australian Bridget Malcolm under her wing during her debut in 2015.

'My advice to Bridget before doing the show was just to have fun and live in the moment because that moment doesnt come very often,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'It is always just very important to be there and to be present, she confessed, before adding: 'It is such an exciting and fun time, also it's a great opportunity to showcase your personality.

A shoulder to lean on: At the event, Shanina spoke highly about her experience as a Victoria's Secret Angel, revealing she took fellow Australian Bridget Malcolm under her wing during her debut in 2015

The Melbourne native propelled into the limelight after she started modelling at the age of eight, she then went on to campaign for Myer and appeared in a TV commercial for Hyundai.

The star - who is engaged to DJ Ruckus - then made her catwalk debut for labels such as Mara Hoffman, Trovata and Shipley & Halmos in 2009 in New York.

In 2011, Shanina became the fifth Australian model to walk for Victorias Secret, joining the ranks of Miranda Kerr, Elyse Taylor, Jess Hart and Abbey Lee Kershaw.
She's a regular visitor to the South of France every summer.

And Victoria Silvstedt was spotted topping up her tan on board her yacht in the marina at Saint Tropez, catching some some rays on Saturday as she continued her never-ending getaway.

The 41-year-old Swedish model was putting on a very busty display in a white halterneck bikini with a pretty polka dot motif and a white lace trim on the cups.

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Living it up: Victoria Silvstedt was spotted topping up her tan on board her yacht in the marina at Saint Tropez, catching some some rays as she enjoyed a relaxing Saturday

Victoria was seen sunning herself from all angles, stretching out on her front to tan her back and her legs.

The glamorous socialite appeared totally at ease during her solo sunbathing session, during which she was seen browsing her phone.

The star wore her platinum blonde locks pulled back in a messy updo, and opted for a full face of make-up.

Looking good: The 41-year-old Swedish model donned a white halterneck bikini featuring a pretty polka dot motif and a white lace trim

Kicking back: The glamorous socialite appeared totally at ease during her solo sunbathing session, during which she was seen browsing her phone

Prior to mooring her boat in Saint Tropez, Victoria was seen nearby in Cannes where she mingled with the rich and famous at celebrity hotspot the Eden Roc hotel.

The former Playmate of the Year has recently appeared on a Swedish reality series alongside a host of famous personalities, which was broadcast on TV3.

Victoria has previously talked about her introduction to modelling and her discomfort with the catwalk.

Killer curves: The platinum blonde beauty's halterneck two-piece made the most of her decolletage

Enviable lifestyle: Prior to mooring her boat in Saint Tropez, Victoria was seen nearby in Cannes where she mingled with the rich and famous at celebrity hotspot the Eden Roc hotel

Catching some rays: Victoria was seen sunning herself from all angles, stretching out on her front to tan her back and her legs

Bronzed to perfection: The star wore her blonde locks pulled back in a messy updo

Worldly woman: Victoria is capable of speaking a whopping four languages and loves to travel

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.

Victoria is capable of speaking a whopping four languages and loves to travel.

Paddle away: Earlier on in the day Victoria headed out to see to chill on a paddle board

A smile on her face: the blonde beauty appeared to be loving life, as she sedately made her way across the waves and back to the yacht

Covering up: She managed to keep her modesty in-tact after her dip in the seam, keeping a firm grip on her bikini top as she clambered back aboard the yacht
Christina Milian dressed lightly for a post-lunch, hand-in-hand stroll with daughter Violet in West Hollywood on Saturday.

The 34-year-old We Are Pop Culture designer got leggy in her brand's $32 'Doll' denim shorts over a white bodysuit, Adidas trainers, and a maroon 'be-lov-ed' cap.

The two-time Grammy nominee was all smiles with her six-year-old princess wearing a 'Srsly Tho?' T-shirt with shorts and trainers.

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'I'm doing everything in my power to be a great mother': Christina Milian dressed lightly for a post-lunch, hand-in-hand stroll with daughter Violet in West Hollywood on Saturday

Little Violet - who graduated from kindergarten on June 3 - already boasts an impressive 3K Instagram followers.

Milian - born Flores - and her mini-me were joined for lunch by a brunette gal pal wearing a summery halter frock.

The privileged tyke's father - five-time Grammy-winning hitmaker The Dream - separated from Christina three months after their 2009 wedding after cheating on her with his assistant.

Representing: The 34-year-old We Are Pop Culture designer got leggy in her brand's $32 'Doll' denim shorts over a white bodysuit, Adidas trainers, and a maroon 'be-lov-ed' cap

'She has a very confident personality and I want her to maintain that': The two-time Grammy nominee was all smiles with her six-year-old princess wearing a 'Srsly Tho?' T-shirt with shorts and trainers

'I want Violet to be proud of every little thing that is her': Little Violet - who graduated from kindergarten on June 3 - already boasts an impressive 3K Instagram followers

Three's company: Milian - born Flores - and her mini-me were joined for lunch by a brunette gal pal wearing a summery halter frock

The 38-year-old father-of-five - born Terius Nash - was last pictured bonding poolside with little Violet on June 5.

'I'm doing everything in my power to be a great mother. I wish I could be with her throughout the day, because I'm always working,' the Cuban-American beauty told Latina Magazine in April.

'I want Violet to be proud of every little thing that is her - her hair, her body. We're all different and from early on I've always said she has a very confident personality and I want her to maintain that. I don't want her to be stuck thinking about the scale or thinking, "I gotta have straight hair" and all of this.'

Darling daddy: The privileged tyke's father - five-time Grammy-winning hitmaker The Dream - separated from Christina three months after their 2009 wedding after cheating on her with his assistant (pictured February 26)

go Shawty it's ya Birthday! @thekingdream @christinamilian 6 A video posted by Violet M Nash (@violet_milian) on Feb 26, 2016 at 3:17pm PST

'Sunday Princess Bling!' The 38-year-old father-of-five - born Terius Nash - was last pictured bonding poolside with little Violet on June 5

The Lip Sync Battle loser will next play the domestic Magenta in Fox's two-hour, taped reimagining of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which premieres in late October.

The small-screen sci-fi satire also features Laverne Cox, Adam Lambert, and Tim Curry - who originated Dr. Frank-N-Furter in the 1973 London stage production

But it's still unclear whether E! will renew the Emmy winner's reality series Christina Milian Turned Up for a third season.

Let's do the Time Warp again! The Lip Sync Battle loser will next play the domestic Magenta in Fox's two-hour, taped reimagining of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which premieres in late October
Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue has said the government does not allow interest groups to manipulate policies in national budget collection and spending, the government portal reported on Saturday.

Hue made the statement while addressing a conference held by the Ministry of Finance, where he said the country was facing a budget deficit.

Vietnam ran a budget deficit of VND85.7 trillion ($3.79 billion) in the first half of this year, the deputy prime minister said. Budget revenue in the first six months reached VND476.8 trillion, equal to 47 percent of the target for this year, while budget spending over the period stood at VND562.5 trillion, accounting for 44.2 percent of the target for 2016.

We need to strengthen discipline and ethics in public services so that government departments and agencies can coordinate to manage the national budget. Policies for budget collection and spending must not be manipulated by interest groups, Hue said.

Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue at the meeting on July 2. Photo by VGP/Thanh Chung

The deputy prime minister called on the Ministry of Finance and other government agencies to effectively deal with tax fraud, closely look into tax exemptions, reductions and refunds, and not to allow interest groups to interfere in tax policies.

This is the second time in just 10 days that the government has warned about interest groups. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, while chairing a meeting on policy making on June 23, said the government will not allow "interest groups" to manipulate policies, according to the Vietnam News Agency.

Related news:

> Vietnamese PM says not to allow "interest groups" to manipulate policies
Francesca Packer Barham has reportedly purchased a high-rise apartment in Sydney's harbourside suburb of Elizabeth Bay.

According to The Daily Telegraph, the 21-year-old niece of billionaire James Packer secured a two-bedroom space in the Encore building on Elizabeth Bay Road, paying $2.1 million in an off-market purchase.

The publication reports that the apartment was sold by the Odillo Maher family, and needless to say, the daughter of Gretel Packer and Nicholas Barham will be quite comfortable with her new living arrangements.

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Hot property: Francesca Packer Barham has reportedly purchased a high-rise apartment in Sydney's harbourside suburb of Elizabeth Bay

The two-storey luxury apartment has two spacious bedrooms, as well as two bathrooms.

The master bedroom features deluxe ensuite facilities, while a study zone and internal laundry are thrown into the mix.

The Encore building itself also flaunts an array of extra conveniences, including a pool, spa and gym for tenants to enjoy.

According to realestate.com.au, the apartment was previously sold in 2012 for $1.625 million.

Luxury: According to The Daily Telegraph , the 21-year-old niece of billionaire James Packer secured a two-bedroom space in the Encore building on Elizabeth Bay Road, paying $2.1 million in an off-market purchase

Lavish: The publication reports that the apartment was sold by the Odillo Maher family, and needless to say, the daughter of Gretel Packer and Nicholas Barham will be quite comfortable in her new space

Meanwhile the granddaughter of late media mogul Kerry Packer has great aspirations for the future.

Speaking to Sunday Life magazine earlier this month, she said although she's unsure what path her career will take, she believes: 'I'll probably be married with kids and a house in Bellevue Hill in 10 years' time'.

The brunette has been studying psychology at The University of Sydney, but revealed nothing is set in stone as to what she wants to do.

She is currently on a gap year and remains open to all the possibilities, calling this year the 'why not' year.

State-of-the-art: The kitchen has a predominantly white colour scheme, while carpet lines the floor

Luxury: The high-rise apartment has a master bedroom with an ensuite

The beauty cited philanthropy as a passion and something that comes naturally to her, with thanks to her family's strong ties with charities.

Her intentions of moving to Melbourne were halted after her break-up with Melbourne-based property developer Kelli.

They had only revealed their romance months earlier at her lavish 21st birthday party in November.

She has previously been linked to Van Hoorn guitarist Joshua Mullane, however the pair also split after six months of dating in late 2015.

Bathroom: The apartment has two bathrooms for tenants to use at their luxury
She has already established a successful modelling career and secured acting roles in top Hollywood movies.

Yet Abbey Lee finds it difficult to start a relationship or even score a sideways glance from a potential love interest.

Speaking to Sunday Style magazine, the 29-year-old bisexual model turned actress said: 'I don't get picked up at bars, I don't get asked if I want a drink.'

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Tough time: Single Abbey Lee admitted to Sunday Style magazine she doesn't 'get picked up at bars and she doesn't 'get asked if I want a drink'

'I think I must be scary or something.,' she added. 'Maybe it's because I'm nearly six foot tall with a b***h resting face.'

Abbey was last seen cuddling up to her on-again off-again boyfriend Matthew Hutchinson at the Kenzo Snowbird launch in February 2016 in Hollywood.

Despite the loved-up appearance, the the Australian beauty admitted to the publication she was very much a 'single' lady.

Former flame: Abbey was last seen cuddling up to her on-again off-again boyfriend Matthew Hutchinson at the Kenzo Snowbird launch in February 2016 in Hollywood

New gif: The 29-year-old has moved from full time to an up-and-coming actress

Relationship woes aside, Abbey's acting career has gone from strength-to-strength.

The Melbourne born native made her debut in the action remake of Mad Max: Fury Road in 2015.

She also ditched her family name Kershaw after being plucked to star alongside fellow Australian Megan Gale in the movie franchise.

Abbey told the Sunday Telegraph: 'I'm aiming to do what I need to do for acting and nothing more. I'm bowing down to acting.'

The slender blonde said she was also scaling back her modelling assignments in a determined bid to concentrate on acting, telling the paper her new name is: 'Sexier, it's short and sweet.'

Starring role: The Melbourne born native made her debut in the action remake of Mad Max: Fury Road in 2015

New role and new name: She also ditched her family name Kershaw after being plucked to star alongside fellow Australian Megan Gale in the movie franchise

Moving on up: Abbey also secured a role in the psychological horror film, Neon Demon, alongside Elle Fanning

Abbey also secured a role in the psychological horror film, Neon Demon.

In the movie, the starlet plays Sarah, an ageing model whose obsession with co-star Elle Fanning's character Jesse drives her to bloodletting extremes.

The movie loosely draws inspiration from the tale of Countess Bathory, a 16th-century Hungarian noblewoman who purportedly tortured and mutilated the bodies of young girls, bathing in their blood to maintain her youthful appearance.

'I f***ing hope that my performance is good enough to shut them all up,' she told Dazed and Confused. 'I guess we'll see. I wanted to not only do my character justice, but for the film to do the industry justice, and I wanted it to be right.'
She has been enjoying a romantic holiday with her boyfriend, Lewis Romano, in Europe after competing on Im A CelebrityGet Me Out Of Here!.

And Laurina Fleure appeared to be in absolute bliss as she lapped up the sun and the water while kicking back in Ibiza, Spain, on Saturday.

The 32-year-old put her surgically enhanced assets on display in a floral bikini as she posed by her hotel's pool in a snap, which was later uploaded on Instagram.

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Absolute bliss: Laurina Fleure flaunted her surgically enhanced assets in a floral bikini as she soaked up the sun and the water while holidaying in Ibiza, Spain

Pity it will be too cold to show off this tan when I get back to Melbs!! the reality star captioned the picture while adding the hashtags Ibiza, villa and 2016 to the post.

Laurina and Lewis are on a month-long getaway in Europe and have visited the Netherlands, Italy and Spain so far.

But before their dream holiday, Laurina was left stranded in China's Guangzhou Airport for 16-hours after her Australian passport was stolen from her handbag during an international flight from Melbourne.

Troubles: Laurina was left stranded in China's Guangzhou Airport for 16 hours after her Australian passport was stolen from her handbag during an international flight from Melbourne - before her European holiday

Speaking to the Daily Mail Australia, the The Bachelor series two star explained that she had her handbag stored under the seat in front of her and was asleep when the incident allegedly took place.

The businesswoman was travelling to China with her mother to meet with a high school friend while also shopping for garments for her online boutique business.

'It is really bad. I had my passport in my handbag and my handbag was under the seat,' she confessed.

Dream trip: Laurina and her boyfriend Lewis Romano are on a month-long getaway to Europe and have visited the Netherlands, Italy and Spain so far

'I have a feeling the person who was sitting in front of me has helped themselves to my handbag and taken the passport.

'You would think it would be safe there but it seems anybody could reach from under their own seat and help themselves.

Despite a lost passport, Laurina could expect a marriage proposal from her boyfriend of more than a year after he told OK! magazine it was 'on the cards'.

When asked by the publication if he would pop the question during the holiday, he coyly replied: 'You never know. It's been a pretty quick and intense eight months.'

During the trip, they returned to Italy, where they first found love after being introduced overseas last year.
Actor Matt Damon opted for a cool and casual look when he touched down in Sydney on Sunday.

The 45-year-old American movie star, who is in Australia to promote his new Jason Bourne film, was seen wearing a light T-shirt and jeans ensemble for his long-haul trip.

Making his way through the airport terminal, Damon layered his grey top with a black hooded jacket, contrasting his pair of blue denim trousers and navy laced shoes on the day.

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Arrival: Actor Matt Damon opted for a cool and casual look when he touched down in Sydney on Sunday, pictured at the Australian airport with a fan

With a backpack no doubt carrying his on-the-go essentials, the Hollywood star completed his look with a black coloured cap.

His relaxed attire was certainly a change from his usual red carpet style, and no doubt he will get changed later on before attending the Sydney premiere of his new film on Sunday evening.

In Jason Bourne, Damon returns to the spy franchise that made him a full-blown movie star with all the freedom such status affords.

Given how much actor credits the series with, it's a welcome homecoming.

In character: The actor is in town to promote his latest film, Jason Bourne

'It's obviously the most significant thing that's happened in my career,' Damon said in a recent interview from the set of Alexander Payne's Downsizing.

'I definitely knew I wanted to do it again but I was always kind of tethered to Paul (Greengrass). I knew I didn't want to do it without him.'

It's been nine years since The Bourne Ultimatum, but the franchise based on Robert Ludlum's novels has kept spinning.

The Bourne Legacy, in 2012, starred Jeremy Renner as another secret agent. That film grossed less than the three previous Bourne movies, thus proving the value of both Damon and Greengrass to the franchise.

Fan fave: Damon says film's delay was partially caused by a struggle to find a worthy next chapter for his character

The Captain Phillips director helmed Damon's last two "Bourne" movies.

Damon says the delay was partially caused by a struggle to find a worthy next chapter for the character. The time helped: Jason Bourne was inspired by Edward Snowden and more recent debate over civil liberties.

But Damon's and Greengrass' motivation in returning, they say, ultimately grew out of satisfying fans of the kinetic, mysterious "Bourne" films.

'All those people who have come up to me over the years, hopefully they're representative of a whole group of people who will go buy tickets,' says Damon. 'We're counting on it. You never know. It's the movie business, so it could be a total disaster.'

Damon will be walking the red carpet at the Sydney premiere of Jason Bourne on Sunday alongside co-star Alicia Vikander.
She's expecting her first child with rocker Adam Levine in September.

And it's clear Behati Prinsloo is still a child at heart as she shared a delightful Instagram snapshot on Saturday afternoon.

'Belly button still on point,' the 27-year-old model captioned a closeup photograph of her pregnant blossoming baby bump in a tiny two-piece.

'Belly button still on point': Behati Prinsloo shared a humourous animated Instagram snapshot of her pregnant bikini bod on Saturday

The Victoria's Secret Angel lounged poolside in a bikini as she gave her four million followers a glimpse of her burgeoning belly.

She used several colourful Snapchat emojis and illustrations to bring life to her child-like image.

Her pictured used phrases including 'cool,' 'yaaasss,' 'awesome,' 'true love' and 'sweet.'

Hot mama! The Victoria's Secret Angel took a selfie displaying her baby bump while wearing a hot pink string bikini

Blossoming baby bump: The mother-to-be is still a few months away from expecting her first child

The wife of the Maroon 5 frontman also added drawings of ice cream cones, daisies, rainbows and even mice sharing a slice of pizza.

The Namibian beauty has documented her growing baby bump on Instagram and shared numerous photos throughout her pregnancy.

Back in May, the couple made a joke about Behati's bump with Adam pushing his belly out - mimicking his wife's changing figure - in a funny selfie.

'I'm finally popping': In May, the couple made a joke about Behati's bump with Adam Levine, 37, pushing his belly out - mimicking his wife's changing figure - in a funny selfie

He captioned the black and white snap with the cheeky caption: '20 and I'm finally popping! #impregnanttoo.'

The 5ft 11in stunner also shared a gorgeous selfie displaying her baby bump while wearing a hot pink string bikini in May.

In another photo she was completely covered in head-to-toe black and lounged on a bench, as she appeared more than ready to give birth.

Behati and Adam, 37 began dating in May 2012 but split in March 2013 before reconciling just four months later in July. They tied the knot one year later in July 2014.
Theyve been on a mother-and-daughter trip to the Gold Coast.

And Jodi Anasta and her two-year-old daughter Aleeia returned home to Sydney on Sunday with big smiles planted across their faces after a relaxing week away.

The former Home And Away star appeared to be in content spirits as she juggled her daughter on her hip while making her way out of the busy airport terminal.

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All smiles: Jodi Anasta and her two-year-old daughter Aleeia returned home to Sydney in matching white trousers after a mother-daughter trip to the Gold Coast

The 31-year-old actress opted for ultimate comfort for her flight home and showed off svelte figure in a pair of white denim trousers, which was paired with a matching T-shirt and a chic blazer.

She accessorised her one-tone ensemble with a black Mon Purse backpack, crisp white sneakers and a pair of aviator sunglasses.

The mother-of-one tied her brunette tresses back into a simple ponytail and opted for a natural palette of make-up to highlight her striking features.

Meanwhile, Aleeia looked adorable in a pink knitted jumper teamed with a pair of white trousers  just like her mothers.

Cute a button: Aleeia looked adorable in a pink knitted jumper teamed with a pair of white trousers

Casual but chic: The 31-year-old opted for ultimate comfort for her flight home and showed off svelte figure in a pair of white denim trousers paired with a matching T-shirt and a chic blazer

The beaming toddler had her curly locks styled back into a bun with a neat bow.

Jodi has been keeping her fans updated on her holiday movements, taking to her social media to upload snaps of the pair exploring the coastal Queensland township.

Most recently, the actress shared a sweet video of herself going down a slippery slide with her cherubic tot in her lap and Neighbours star Emma Victoria Lane behind them.

Giggling on the ride, the girls slid down to the bottom before Aleeia asked her mother, 'are you okay?' after Jodi had fallen onto the ground off the slide.

Stylish accessories: The beaming toddler had her curly locks styled back into a bun with a bow

Apart from the holiday, the Neighbours newcomer has been romantically linked to a new man, Sydney multi-millionaire Jason Huljich.

According to The Daily Telegraph, the 31-year-old was spotted getting cosy with the executive director of Centuria Capital at Sydney hotspot Miss Sippy at the weekend.

The publication reports that the couple were seen 'in deep conversation and cuddled up' in a corner of the Double Bay establishment.

Sources report the actress and Jason looked 'extremely happy' to be in each other's company before the mother-of-one left separately with friends at 8pm.

Meanwhile, Jodi and estranged husband Braith announced their 'trial separation' in December last year after they were spotted in a heated argument in a park in the Sydney beachside suburb of Coogee.

The couple married in October 2012 and welcomed Aleeia a year later.
Over the past 10 weeks, the teams of House Rules have changed each others lives with their inspiring renovations.

But there has been plenty of drama and excitement from fiery clashes between teams to the biggest renovation in the shows history.

Daily Mail Australia take a look back at the top moments from the show this season, starting with the incredible transformation of Claire and Hagan's one bedroom home.

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Turbulent season: Daily Mail Australia looked back at the top moments from House Rules this season, starting with the incredible transformation of Claire and Hagan's one bedroom home

In the grandest renovation in the shows history, another floor was built onto their existing home - which was a life changing upgrade for the young family who previously all slept in the same bed.

Their new home featured their own master bedroom and ensuite and their children's bedrooms on the second floor.

During the reveal of their home, the couple were left in awe of the incredible new home they had for their children and were both overcome with emotion as they delivered their scores to the teams.

First time: In the grandest renovation in the shows history another story was built onto their existing home which was a life changing upgrade for the young family who previously all slept in the same bed

Retro revival: Rose and Rob's 'Shagadelic' swinging '70s style pad - but with a family-friendly twist was a very unique renovation

Rose and Rob's 'Shagadelic' swinging '70s style pad - but with a family-friendly twist was a very unique renovation.

Their kitchen was a true retro revival with a bright orange refrigerator and brightly coloured tiles and splashback to add to the 'no white walls' rule.

Meanwhile, a kaleidoscope of colours on the feature-wall of one room was finished horribly by Nancy and Daniel paired with garishly bright bedding didn't work well.

Loud: Meanwhile, a kaleidoscope of colours on the feature-wall of one room was finished horribly by Nancy and Daniel paired with garishly bright bedding didn't work well

Explosive: Rob was also involved in his fair share of fiery clashes with other contestants, mostly over negotiating space in the house for his rooms erupting in one episode over more space

Rob was also involved in his fair share of fiery clashes with other contestants, mostly over negotiating space in the house for his rooms.

He and Brooke erupted in one episode after the teams marked the layout for their renovation zones, with Rob unwilling to give Brooke more space for his bedroom as it would encroach on his entry.

In another episode Fil and Joe and Rose and Rob clashed because Fil and Joe needed more space for their living room, after the ensuite was made bigger and cramped their space.

Rob got annoyed that they asked for more space for their living room which would make one of their bedrooms smaller.

More drama: In another episode Fil and Joe and Rose and Rob clashed because Fil and Joe needed more space for their living room, after the ensuite was made bigger and cramped their space

Bringing the fun: Country twin brothers Luke and Cody brought their boisterous and loveable personality's to the show and quickly learned about interior decorating

Country twin brothers Luke and Cody brought their boisterous and loveable personality's to the show and quickly learned about interior decorating.

In a humorous moment, they were completely unfazed by a possum running through the site, with Cody telling the camera: 'Possums are cute and cuddly, I don't know why you'd be scared of them!'

The pair struggled to wrap their head around some of the house rules they were given from 'coastal chic' to 'art deco' but pulled through to land a place in the grand final.

When it came to their renovation the other couples were left puzzled by their 'house rules', which featured some rather unusual requests - including a bedroom inspired by actor George Clooney.

Country boys: In a humorous moment, they were completely unfazed by a possum running through the site, with Cody telling the camera 'Possums are cute and cuddly, I don't know why you'd be scared of them!'

Emotional: Brooke was brought to tears throughout several episodes of the show and turned on the waterworks after the cancer causing fibre, asbestos, was found in the backyard he was working on

It was an emotion filled season for the contestants and it was Brooke who was brought to tears throughout several episodes of the show.

The landscaper had an emotional moment towards the end of the series and turned on the waterworks after the cancer causing fibre, asbestos, was found in the backyard he was working on.

In an earlier episode the kind-hearted handyman cried over he and wife Michelle's incomplete bathroom, after helping the other teams before finishing their area.

The grand finale episode of House Rules airs on The Seven Network on Sunday at 7pm.
She's currently playing the evil stepmother in the centre stage production of Cinderella.

And Real Housewives Of Melbourne (RHOM) star Gina Liano took to her social media to celebrate her acting debut with a snap of herself donning a sparkly ball gown alongside her co-stars.

'Loving the role of wicked step mother in Cinderella. Fantastic opening night,' the 50-year-old captioned the picture of herself posing alongside Jaime Hadwen (who plays Cinderella) and Jimmy Rees (who plays Prince Charming).

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Real Housewives Of Melbourne (RHOM) star Gina Liano took to her social media to celebrate her acting debut with a snap of herself donning a sparkly ball gown alongside her co-stars

Despite forgetting her lines twice, Gina admitted in the long-winded post her 'audience' had been wonderful.

'Love the enthusiasm and our hilarious cast,' she added.'Thank you to everyone for all your cheering, booing and laughter xxxx only 2 weeks to go and I've only forgotten my lines twice.'

Gina has previously admitted booing from the audience was inevitable as her character was 'a bit mean'.

Positive review: Despite forgetting her lines twice, Gina admitted in the post her 'audience' had been wonderful

'I think that will happen automatically, won't it,' she told the Daily Telegraph ahead of her stage debut. 'She's a bit sassy and a bit mean, but she's attractive, of course - because they've cast me.'

Apart from acting, the reality star has already established herself as a successful barrister, property developer and qualified art curator.

She has also expanded her Gina empire to include books, fashion and now beauty.

The businesswoman told the Daily Mail Australia earlier this year, she also plans to take to the marketplace with her own skin care range.

Crowd pleaser: Gina has previously admitted booing from the audience was inevitable as her character was 'a bit mean

Gina added that she's been developing the range with a doctor.

'The guy that we have for that [cream] is an oncologist from LA and he has worked with a lot of cancer patients, and he developed a range of vitamins that feed and nourish the cells and he is also an immunologist,' she said.

'When I first met him, he actually said to me that when people put a face cream on and they get that pink plump look that it's actually an inflammatory response to damage to the cells. So the cream that I'm working on is one that feeds the nutrition to the cells. It restores rather than plumps. it up and then damages it.'

Outside of beauty, the younger sister of famous fashion designer Bettina Liano, also has her own line of bedazzled pumps and heels - which sell for a pricey $440 a pair on her official website.

The bronzed beauty also sells blinged-out clutches for $360-a-piece.

To add to her growing brand, the fashionista also released a self-titled fragrance and penned a best-selling autobiography called Fearless.

All smiles: The 50-year-old reality star was seen posing in a selfie with her fellow RHOM co-star Lydia Schiavello




Sarah Michelle Gellar gave her newly brunette locks a big boost with 'mermaid-length' hair extensions while shopping at Rebecca Taylor in Los Angeles on Saturday.

The 39-year-old Golden Globe nominee paired her partially-plaited updo with a trendy off-the-shoulder dress beneath a denim waistcoat and beige suede booties.

While inside the boutique, the Foodstirs co-founder selected a couple more summery white eyelet frocks to try on in the dressing room.

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Long hair, don't care! Sarah Michelle Gellar gave her newly brunette locks a big boost with 'mermaid-length' hair extensions while shopping at Rebecca Taylor in Los Angeles on Saturday

Toting a Louis Vuitton purse: The 39-year-old Golden Globe nominee paired her partially-plaited updo with a trendy off-the-shoulder dress beneath a denim waistcoat and beige suede booties

Can't have too many! While inside the boutique, the Foodstirs co-founder selected a couple more summery white eyelet frocks to try on in the dressing room

Sarah dyed her signature flaxen locks darker in March to reprise her Cruel Intentions role as scheming socialite Kathryn Merteuil.

In May, NBC passed on original filmmaker Roger Kumble's spin-off soap pilot, which he wrapped with Gellar on April 1 in San Francisco.

Last week, Deadline reported that the network is still considering picking up the series based on the 1999 film for a summer run.

'It's hard to take your eyes off her,' Taylor Smith Johnson - who plays Kathryn's nephew Bash - told People.

Without extensions: Sarah dyed her signature flaxen locks darker in March to reprise her Cruel Intentions role as scheming socialite Kathryn Merteuil (pictured April 25)

Back at the helm: In May, NBC passed on original filmmaker Roger Kumble's spin-off soap pilot, which he wrapped with Gellar on April 1 in San Francisco

17 years later! Last week, Deadline reported that the network is still considering picking up the series based on the 1999 film for a summer run

'Even in a scene, its hard to stay focus just because she's magnetic to watch.'

The Daytime Emmy winner also voices an Inquisitor called the Seventh Sister in animated series Star Wars Rebels, returning for a third season this year on Disney XD.

The Buffy the Vampire Slayer alum and husband Freddie Prinze, Jr. just returned from a Hawaiian holiday with their son Rocky, 3, and daughter Charlotte, 6.

Rodale published the 40-year-old chef's first cookbook Back to the Kitchen - featuring 75 recipes - on June 7.

'#prinze family roll #airportstyle': The Buffy the Vampire Slayer alum and husband Freddie Prinze, Jr. just returned from a Hawaiian holiday with their son Rocky, 3, and daughter Charlotte, 6

Island life...I may never return  #vacation ( @perversesunglasses) A photo posted by Sarah Michelle (@sarahmgellar) on Jun 25, 2016 at 9:29am PDT
They recently went on a girls trip to New York to take some time out from their busy lives.

And now Ashley Hart and Renee Bargh have been reunited at home in Los Angeles after Ashley made a quick visit home to Sydney to visit her family and old friends.

The stunning best friends soaked up some Saturday sunshine with friends on Venice Beach in the days before the American Independence Day on July 4.

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Sun with friends: Ashley Hart and Renee Bargh reunited at home in Los Angeles after Ashley made a quick visit home to Sydney to visit her family - they met up with their friends, personal trainer Aimee Fischer-Gray (2nd from left), photographer Hareth Tayem (centre), and cheerleader Courtney Watts (right)

Renee put on a busty display as she sat on the beach in a Mikoh bikini printed with a palm leaf pattern, and a white long-sleeved shirt thrown on over the top.

A little beach obsessed, she wrote to her 71,000 Instagram followers.

The TV presenter showed off her enviably slim physique with her taunt midriff visible between the unbuttoned tops edges and crossed her toned legs on a circular palm patterned beach towel.

Beach obsessed: Renee put on a busty display as she sat on the beach in a Mikoh bikini printed with a palm leaf pattern, and a white long-sleeved shirt thrown on over the top

Working on her tan: You could be forgiven for thinking Ashley Hart had gone topless as the bikini had no shoulder straps, showing off just her slender shoulders and arms

The Emmy winner posed with her head turned slightly away from the camera sporting a pair of designer sunglasses with her beach hair hanging messily past her slender left shoulder.

Ashley also took a snap of herself lounging on the beach in a bikini, though her ample assets were not visible in the close up shot taken to advertise a sunscreen brand.

You could be forgiven for thinking the Australian model had gone topless as the bikini had no shoulder straps, showing off just her slender shoulders and arms.

'Sunbathing made safe. Flawless if I don't say so myself,' she wrote on Instagram.

The 27-year-old closed her eyes to the Californian sun and let her golden locks spill over her collarbones.

Later the blonde beauties met up with their friends, personal trainer Aimee Fischer-Gray, photographer Hareth Tayem, and cheerleader Courtney Watts.

They all assembled for several photos against a wall near the beach bearing a dart board they made good use of by flirtatiously posing with the darts in one shot.

Hugging her frame: She also showed off her ample assets in a tight grey singlet that hugged her torso and slapped a brown felt hat with a feather over her blonde tresses and playfully kissed Hareth on the cheek

Bullseye! Ashley displayed her trim pins in short shorts while flaunting her pert derriere in one photo where she turned around to face the wall

Ashley and Aimee displayed their trim pins in short shorts with the Melbourne-born model flaunting her pert derriere in one photo where she turned around to face the wall.

She also showed off her ample assets in a tight grey singlet that hugged her torso and slapped a brown felt hat with a feather over her blonde tresses.

In another photo she playfully kissed Hareth on the cheek.

Renee slipped into a plunging white midi dress that showcased her svelte frame and barely concealed her enviable cleavage.

No caption necessary! It's pretty obvious we r having a good time! Aimee wrote next to one of the photos on her Instagram.
Vietnams Ministry of National Defense has allowed Nguyen Quoc Hoa, a businessman from Thai Binh Province, to begin trial runs of his mini-submarine at sea.

Inventor Hoa launched the "Hoang Sa" himself, named after the Paracel Islands, in the countrys northeast waters at 8 a.m. on Sunday, accompanied by a naval vessel.

The "Hoang Sa" mini-submarine is lowered into the sea during the trial run on Sunday. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Chinh

A panel from the Ministry of National Defense was there to assess the performance of the "Hoang Sa".

I am happy, moved and fired up by the support of the party, government, Ministry of National Defense and Vietnam Peoples Navy that enables people who are interested in science and inventing like me to realize our dreams and serve the fatherland, Hoa told VnExpress.

Hoa was happy after the "Hoang Sa" mini-submarine successfully passed a two-day test. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Chinh

According to the businessman, the mini-submarine had tens of trial runs before receiving approval to be tested at sea. The Hoang Sa successfully passed a two-day test under the close supervision of the Ministry of National Defense during which it was put through its paces on the surface, underwater and in a crash situation.

In 2014, Nguyen Quoc Hoa, director of Quoc Hoa Mechanical Engineering Company in Thai Binh City, announced he had invented a mini submarine, naming it "Truong Sa" (Spratly Islands).



While waiting for a license for trial runs of the "Truong Sa" in 2015, Hoa and his co-workers were busy working on the "Hoang Sa".

The Hoang Sa mini-sub is made of steel. It has a displacement of 9 tons and is 7 meters long and 2.5 meters wide. It is capable of running at a maximum speed of 15 nautical miles per hour and diving to a depth of 50 meters. The mini-submarine can operate underwater for three consecutive days and nights and can carry two people.

Meanwhile, the Truong Sa is about 9 meters long and 3 meters wide, and has a displacement of 12 tons when submerged and 9.2 tons on the surface.

Related news:

> Vietnams Kilo-class submarine brigade honoured

> Vietnam looks to Japan for anti-submarine aircraft
He is known for his short gelled hair and clean-shaven look.

But it was a different story on Sunday as The Bachelor host Osher Gunsberg shared a flashback image of himself with facial fuzz and long hair.

In the black and white image, taken in 2012, the 42-year-old rocked long wavy hair and a thin black moustache as he posed with pop rock band Hanson member, Taylor.

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Blast from the past: The Bachelor host Osher Gunsberg (R) shared a flashback image of himself on Sunday in which he rocked long hair and a black moustache while posing with Hanson member, Taylor (L)

Osher displayed a slight grin for the mirror-reflected photo as he tucked his long hair behind his ears while dressed in a plain jumper.

Taylor leaned forward in the shot as he allowed his overgrown locks to fall in front of his face, covering his eyes.

Osher wrote alongside the image: 'Bet you never thought I was a Hanson supporter. Backstage with @taylorhansonmusic in 2012.'

Clean-shaven: The 42-year-old, pictured in March last year, is known for his smart attire and groomed looks

Last week the reality television star threw his support behind ex-Australian Idol co-star James Mathison who ran for the independent seat of Warringah against former Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

The Bachelor host told The Daily Telegraph he would like to tally the votes live and use his reality television fame to say: 'Tony, you did not receive a rose, please take a moment to say goodbye to your electorate of 22 years'.

In a nod to their previous role together on television, Osher added: 'I'd like them to figure out a way to cross to me so I can read out the votes for the seats of Warringah as if I was reading out Australian Idol votes.'

Supportive: Last week the reality TV host (R) throw his support behind ex-Australian Idol co-star James Mathison (L) ran for the independent seat of Warringah against former Prime Minister Tony Abbott

Combining his past and present, he joked: 'And then, in a hybrid, be able to say to the losing candidates, "You did not receive a rose".'

Osher joined James on Election Day last Saturday at North Curl Curl Primary School on Sydney's Northern Beaches in a bid to show his support.

The pair hosted former singing show, Australia Idol between 2003 and 2008.
Fans of the Japanese manga series Ghost In The Shell were outraged after it was revealed Scarlett Johansson had been cast in the Asian role.

And now the movie's producer Steven Paul has defended claims of 'whitewashing' the role which has seen the name of the original character alter from Motoko Kusanagi to The Major.

'I don't think it was just a Japanese story. Ghost in the Shell was a very international story, and it wasn't just focused on Japanese; it was supposed to be an entire world,' he explained to Buzzfeed News.

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'It wasn't just focused on Japanese': Ghost In The Shell's movie producer Steven Paul has defended claims of 'whitewashing' the original Japanese manga series after casting Scarlett Johansson in the role of The Major

'That's why I say the international approach is, I think, the right approach to it,' he continued.

Drawing on his 'international' inspiration, he stated: 'There (are) all sorts of people and nationalities in the world in Ghost in the Shell.

'We're utilising people from all over the world. There's Japanese in it. There's Chinese in it. There's English in it. There's Americans in it.'

The controversy further escalated after reports emerged of the movie studios running CGI tests to alter the appearances of the white actors involved.

Iconic: The manga series first came to prominence in 1989 and was the result of Masamune Shirow's writing and illustration

However, Paul didn't address those particular claims but stated that the remake would be tweaking a few details of the original characters in other to fit in to the new world but has been 'very, very careful' about it.

Despite the heated debate in regards to the original series, he's adamant that fans will love the final product stating: 'They're going to be very, very happy with it when they see what we've actually done with it, and I don't think anybody's going to be disappointed.'

The manga series first came to prominence in 1989 and was the result of Masamune Shirow's writing and illustration and is the story of a fictional counter cyberterrorist organisation Section 9, which is spearheaded by the human-cyborg hybrid protagonist Motoko Kusanagi.

A film anime adaption followed in 1995 where the lead role was voiced by Japanese star Atsuko Tanaka, and then a television series followed in 2002.

'I don't think anybody's going to be disappointed': Steven stated fans would be happy at the outcome of Scarlett's role in the flick and that they had been 'very, very careful' about it

Steven's defense was further cemented by Sam Yoshiba, the director of the international business division at Kodansha- the publisher of the original series.

'Looking at her career so far, I think Scarlett Johansson is well cast. She has the cyberpunk feel. And we never imagined it would be a Japanese actress in the first place,' he told The Hollywood Reporter - and his views may also be cemented by recent reports of Scarlett being Hollywood's highest grossing film actress.

He also added: 'This is a chance for a Japanese property to be seen around the world' and was reportedly impressed after visiting the set of the movie in New Zealand where there was a considerable amount of respect shown for the source material.

The new live action version will be released in cinemas March 2017 and will also star Michael Pitt and Juliette Binoche.
She was outed as the high-class hooker in the middle of the NYPD in-flight 'orgy' scandal.

And while Gabi Grecko was courageous enough to come forward and tell her story in a bid to rid corruption in the police force, it seems that not everybody appreciates her honesty.

Her estranged husband Geoffrey Edelsten, 72, says he has been left reeling by news of the model's clandestine life telling Daily Mail Australia: 'Her mother Kathy would be left disgusted...'

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'Naive': Geoffrey Edelsten, 72, says he has been left reeling by the news of estranged wife Gabi Grecko's clandestine life as a high-class hooker in NYPD in flight sex scandal saying: 'Her mother would be disgusted'

Exposed: Gabi says she has received death threats since it emerged she had 'group sex' with NYPD Deputy Inspector James Grant, Detective Michael Millici and three other men, according to The New York Post

He added: 'She is religious and adores her daughter and worries about her constantly.

'I haven't spoken to her recently but when Gabi and I broke up she stopped calling me.

'Before then she would call me frequently to say I was a stable influence on her daughter.

'She would be destroyed to learn what Gabi has been doing with those NYPD officers.'

Notorious: The 27-year-old was recently outed as the high-class hooker in the middle of the NYPD in-flight 'orgy' scandal

He went on: 'I know I sound naive to say I had no inkling of her double life but it was before she me.

'I genuinely really wish I had never met her.'

In February 2013, Gabi, 27, had 'group sex' with disgraced NYPD Deputy Inspector James Grant, since-fired Detective Michael Millici and three other men, The New York Post reported.

It was claimed in a federal corruption case filed last week that a pair of businessmen paid Gabi to entertain Grant during a flight to Las Vegas in exchange for official favours.

Close bond: Gabi's mother Kathy, who is in her 50s, is said to be religious and would wholly disapprove of her daughter's recent antics, Geoffrey says

The Florida-born reality TV star confirmed to the Post that she performed oral sex on the men in the cabin as they 'laughed' together.

Gabi, who was then working as an escort under the name 'Candi', also claimed she had sex with multiple men simultaneously while 'role playing' as a flight attendant.

'I was supposed to be a sexy stewardess. Id ask: "Tea or coffee?" They all wanted me, I guess, and not the tea or coffee,' she explained.

Gabi added: 'It was me on top the whole time. Front, behind, side. They all seemed really comfortable to take their pants off in front of each other and laugh about it.

Mother: Florida based Kathy is a other of three and says gabi is her firstborn and she worries about her constantly

'Its like theyd done this before,' Gabi said of the highly publicised mile-high 'orgy'.

Meanwhile, Detective Millici was fired last month and Deputy Inspector Grant has been stripped of his gun and badge.

Since news of the scandal broke, Gabi says she has been receiving death threats on social media saying: 'I know people have free speech and can say whatever they want, but they shouldn't threaten my safety.'

Difficult to decipher: The disgruntled Twitter user sent Gabi threatening tweets using both words and emojis

The former Penthouse cover girl shared one shocking tweet from user 'kgingerbreadman' that saw her threatened for being a whistleblower.

Using words along with a string of emojis, the user wrote: 'Every [man] already [knows] that u won't live long enough 2 testify...'

The user also blamed the young starlet for potentially causing the high-ranking officers in the scandal to lose their police pension.

Alias: Gabi, who was then working as an escort under the name 'Candi', also claimed she had sex with multiple men simultaneously while 'role playing' as a flight attendant
Matt Damon has spoken about how he hopes the next Jason Bourne movie will be filmed in Australia.

The Hollywood heavyweight revealed he was even house hunting in Bondi Beach when he thought The Martian was going to be shot Down Under.

Speaking at the Sydney premiere of the fifth Bourne installment on Sunday, he said: 'I definitely wouldn't rule out Australia.

Plans: Matt Damon has spoken about how he hopes the next Jason Bourne movie will be filmed in Australia, pictured at the Sydney premiere of the fifth installment on Sunday

'We were going to shoot The Martian here but we couldn't get the rebate. We were too late to get the deal so we shot in Budapest.

'But I was looking at rentals on Bondi Beach, so I was close, but maybe next time,' Damon told AAP.

The 45-year-old has just reprised his role as secret agent Jason Bourne after a nine-year absence and said he could see the next movie being filmed in Australia.

Bourne again: Matt Damon was in Sydney on Sydney for the premiere of this latest movie, Jason Bourne

Distracted? The 45-year-old appeared to be distracted by his screaming fans whilst posing against the media wall

'He goes everywhere. I never thought that he would end up in Las Vegas but he does in this one, so I definitely wouldn't rule out Australia.'

He took to the red carpet for the premiere at Sydney's Entertainment Quarter alongside his co-star Alicia Vikander on Sunday night.

But it didn't take long for the actor to ditch the stuffy red carpet and start posing for selfies with admirers.

The handsome hunk looked delighted at the chance to rub shoulders with his ardent supporters, all of whom had shown up to catch a real-life glimpse at the Hollywood kingpin in person.

Hey there: Matt quickly rushed to be with his fans, eagerly picking up a phone to take a selfie

Say cheese: The actor proved that he's a master at taking selfies with the crowd

Before joining his fans, the Behind the Candelabra star put on a dapper display as he posed for a few photos on the red carpet.

Matt looked marvelous in a black suit that complimented his muscular physique.

At one point he was joined by his stunning Jason Bourne co-star, Oscar-winning actress Alicia Vikander.

The Swedish stunner looked stylish in a unique brown gown that almost appeared to be made out of old leather.

She pinned her brunette locks back, and made sure that her makeup was natural and elegant.

Grinning: The actor couldn't wipe the smile off his face as a male fan eagerly snapped a selfie

Look at me! The Hollywood star could barely keep up with the demand for photos

Posing: Matt struck a Zoolander-esque look as he gazed into the camera lens

In Jason Bourne, Damon returns to the spy franchise that made him a full-blown movie star with all the freedom such status affords.

Given how much actor credits the series with, it's a welcome homecoming.

'It's obviously the most significant thing that's happened in my career,' Damon said in a recent interview with the Associated Press from the set of Alexander Payne's Downsizing.

Nice guy: Matt leaned in for a photo with a young fan in a wheelchair

He can't believe it! One male fan looked stunned to be in the A-list actor's presence

Smiling: Matt flaunted his good looks with a beaming smile

'I definitely knew I wanted to do it again but I was always kind of tethered to Paul (Greengrass). I knew I didn't want to do it without him.'

It's been nine years since The Bourne Ultimatum, but the franchise based on Robert Ludlum's novels has kept spinning.

The Bourne Legacy, in 2012, starred Jeremy Renner as another secret agent.

Double trouble: At one point he posed for photos with his glamorous co-star Alicia Vikander

A-list: Alicia is best known for her roles in films like The Danish Girl and Ex Machina

That film grossed less than the three previous Bourne movies, thus proving the value of both Damon and Greengrass to the franchise.

The Captain Phillips director helmed Damon's last two "Bourne" movies.

Damon says the delay was partially caused by a struggle to find a worthy next chapter for the character. The time helped: Jason Bourne was inspired by Edward Snowden and more recent debate over civil liberties.

But Damon's and Greengrass' motivation in returning, they say, ultimately grew out of satisfying fans of the kinetic, mysterious "Bourne" films.

'All those people who have come up to me over the years, hopefully they're representative of a whole group of people who will go buy tickets,' says Damon. 'We're counting on it. You never know. It's the movie business, so it could be a total disaster.'

He's a happy guy: Matt looked delighted as he promoted his new film
On Tuesday he revealed that he will not return for the 14th season of Strictly Come Dancing, stoking speculation that his marriage was on-the-rocks.

However, Russian heartthrob Gleb Savchenko allayed any fears about his personal life when he explained that he simply wants to spend more time with his wife Elena Samodanova and their young daughter Olivia.

Speaking to The Sun he said: 'I think family is more important than fame. My wife needs to feel loved and I want to see my daughter grow up.'

Family man: On Sunday Gleb Savchenko explained that his decision to leave Strictly Come Dancing comes down to spending more time with his wife Elena Samodanova and their young daughter Olivia

The Moscow-born stud elaborated on the difficulties of working in London and raising a family 1,500 miles away in Russia.

'When I was on Strictly it was really, really difficult,' he said. 'I was missing out on so much and I didnt get to see my daughter for six months out of the whole year.'

'Shes going to be six in November and she has to go to school. My wife was trying to fly back and forth but it was too tough... I didnt want to miss out on so much and I made this decision to be with my family.'

Love comes first: Speaking to The Sun, Gleb, pictured here with his wife Elena in 2013, said that he missed her during the six months of preparation and filming of Strictly

Family: Gleb was missing out on a lot of time with his daughter who was living in Russia with her mother

Gleb, who has previously appeared on the US, Australian and Russian versions of the show Dancing with the Stars, has managed to avoid the so-called 'Strictly curse', which began in 2004 when newsreader Natasha Kaplinsky began an alleged affair with her dancing partner Brendan Cole.

It has struck repeatedly since with a string of celebrities getting together with their dancing other halves.

A BBC spokesperson said: 'Strictly extends its thanks to those who announced at the end of last series that they wouldn't be returning to the show, and to Gleb Savchenko, who has decided that due to family commitments he will not be appearing in the next series.'

What a pair! 'I think family is more important than fame,' Gleb said. 'My wife needs to feel loved and I want to see my daughter grow up.' She certainly looked loved in this snap, taken outside of the Sleeping Beauty musical in London in December 2015

Gleb said: 'I thoroughly enjoyed taking part on the last series of Strictly Come Dancing and especially the way that the UK gave me such a warm welcome but due to family commitments I won't be returning to the show for the next series.

His decision to quit the show after just one series heaps further pressure on Strictly's bosses after stars Aliona Vilani, Kristina Rihanoff, Ola Jordan and Tristan MacManus all confirmed they would also not be returning.

The father-of-one, who is currently appearing on Celebrity Masterchef, reached the semi-finals of Strictly in 2015 with Countryfile presenter Anita Rani.

Nice moves: Gleb and his dancing partner Anita Rani took their fancy footwork all the way to the semi-finals of Strictly in 2015
She was left heartbroken when her Love Island flame Terry Walsh hooked up with new girl Emma-Jane Woodham following her eviction from the house.

And Malin Andersson, 23, has turned to her TOWIE pal Michael Hassini to help her through her hard time with the pair seen leaving Wellies restaurant in Magaluf together after a night dining with pals from the Essex-based reality show.

The two made their way down the steps outside the eatery in the town's port side by side, both with subtle smiles on their faces.

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Just good friends: Malin Andersson, 23, has turned to her TOWIE pal Michael Hassini to help her through her hard time with the pair seen leaving Wellies restaurant in Magaluf together

Malin looked in fine spirits as she sauntered in a pretty patterned halterneck minidress and a pair of tan strappy heels.

The beauty wore her dark tresses tied back and decorated her chestnut peepers with plenty of dark eyeliner.

Michael showed off his muscular frame in a tight bronze t-shirt and black skinny jeans torn at the knees and finished his look with white trainers and a matching timepiece.

Gone girl: After being evicted from Love Island and returning back to the UK, Malin watched as Terry wasted no time in getting acquainted with new girl Emma-Jane Woodham, 19

After being evicted from Love Island and returning back to the UK, Malin watched as Terry wasted no time in getting acquainted with new girl Emma, 19.

Taking to Twitter after seeing Terry and Emma kiss, she announced: 'So I'm single... I'll let you all know how I feel tomorrow and my version on things. Heads gonna explode.'

With more of a calm head the next morning, she tweeted: 'Send my love to your new lover.. Treat her better.'

It's over! Things went from bad to worse for Malin, after Terry (right) and Emma stunned viewers by having sex on top of the covers just days later

And things went from bad to worse for Malin, after Terry and Emma stunned viewers by having sex on top of the covers just days later.

Malin and Terry got together on the show earlier last month and had been inseparable - even having sex in front of their fellow Islanders while they cheered along.

Viewers have speculated that Malin might return to confront Terry, and her appearance on the Spanish island, which is where the reality show is based, has only fueled the rumours.
She's known for her polished fashion sense.

And Alicia Vikander proved she knows how to dress when she went hippie chic in a tie-dyed floaty dress for the Sydney premiere of Jason Bourne.

The 27-year-old wowed on the red carpet as she was reunited with co star Matt Damon to promote their blockbuster.

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Turning heads: Alicia Vikander proved she knows how to dress when she went hippie chic in a tie-dyed floaty dress for the Sydney premiere of Jason Bourne on Sydney

And pose: The 27-year-old went hippie chic in a tie-dyed floaty dress

The doe-eyed actress, who dates Irish actor Michael Fassbender, wore her brunette locks swept back into a tight low bun as she cut a serene look on the red carpet,

She sidled up to 45-year-old Matt and gamely posed for snaps before signing autographs for fans.

Alicia, best known for her role in Danish Girl, and Fassbender took their romance public when they shared a kiss at the Oscars this spring and have been frequently seen out and about together over the coming months.

Double trouble: At one point Matt Damon and Alicia posed for photos on the red carpet

Working it: The Swedish born beauty lit up the red carpet with her tiered golden dress

Say cheese: The pair sidled up to one another as flashbulbs popped

A-list: Alicia is best known for her roles in films like The Danish Girl and Ex Machina

Michael is currently working on Alien, a sequel to 2012's Prometheus, which will eventually become a trilogy, with Michael reprising his Prometheus role as the android David 8.

It was announced in April that Alicia is set to strap on her gun holsters and lave-up her hiking boots for the new Tomb Raider movie.

Currently in pre-production, the movie - directed by Roar Uthaug - will be a re-boot for the franchise which previously starred Angelina Jolie in the lead role.

Hey there: She gamely signed autographs for fans

My turn: The Danish Girl star obliged when crowds asked her her scrawl

Fan favourite: The crowd went crazy for the Oscar winner

Say cheese! The brunette beauty posed for photos with waiting fans

Although little is know about the plot, it is thought the film will stick closely to Square-Enix's video game re-start, which tells the origin story of a young Lara Croft.

In Jason Bourne, Damon returns to the spy franchise that made him a full-blown movie star with all the freedom such status affords.

Given how much actor credits the series with, it's a welcome homecoming.

PLeased to meet you: She politely greeted fans

'It's obviously the most significant thing that's happened in my career,' Damon said in a recent interview with the Associated Press from the set of Alexander Payne's Downsizing.

'I definitely knew I wanted to do it again but I was always kind of tethered to Paul (Greengrass). I knew I didn't want to do it without him.'

It's been nine years since The Bourne Ultimatum, but the franchise based on Robert Ludlum's novels has kept spinning.

The Bourne Legacy, in 2012, starred Jeremy Renner as another secret agent.

Golden girl: The actress dressed in a light silk dress despite the bracing Sydney chill
She's used to showing off her phenomenal body in bikinis on the beach as one of the world's most sought after models.

But Doutzen Kroes, 31, enjoyed an off-duty day along with her son Phyllon, five, and her husband Sunnery James, 37, where she kept her figure underwraps in a long skirt and black coat.

The family looked enthralled to be at the Rijksmuseum, museum of the Netherlands, in Amsterdam on Saturday to explore Dutch art and history from the Middle Ages to the present day.

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Model mother! Doutzen Kroes showed off her impeccable style in a white skirt and black leather jacket on a family day at the Rijksmuseum museum in Amsterdam on Saturday

Clearly enjoying some quality time her DJ husband, 37, the Victoria's Secret model - who has worked on campaigns for the likes of L'Oreal and Miu Miu - cut a laid-back but seriously stylish figure.

She looked every inch the stylish mother in her floaty white skirt - which she teamed with a fitted black leather jacket to add a tougher edge.

Lifting her little boy up in her arms, the couple looked the epitome of a happy family as they laughed and chatted away.

Modern family: Doutzen and her DJ hubby Sunnery kept a watchful eye over their handsome boy

Cuddles: Doutzen enjoyed some quality time with her adorable boy on Saturday

Art lovers: Back in their native Netherlands, Doutzen and Sunnery show Phyllon, five, around the world famous gallery on Saturday afternoon

Rocking a stripped back street look, Doutzen appeared to be embracing her off-duty vibe.

Leaving her voluminous blonde locks to fall over her shoulders in a natural wave, she looked flawless as she arrived at the museum ready to take in the historical works.

Ever the make-up pro, she kept her look simple on Saturday opting for a more natural look of a touch of blusher, and let her natural beauty shine through.

She gave her feet an off-day too, opting for sensible black patent flats instead of heels.

Her squad looked just as cool as they accompanied her on Saturday afternoon.

Young Phyllon was dressed casually in a grey hoodie and pale blue jeans as he stood by his parents.

The handsome eldest child of the dreamy couple looked engrossed as he stood alongside his Dj dad who wore a blue plaid shirt and a black hoodie jacket with leather arms.
They're two of the UK's brightest music stars.

And pals Rita Ora, 25, and Professor Green, 32, attracted plenty of attention when they went for dinner at Nando's in London, on Thursday.

The Read All About It hitmaker drove to Rita's East London pad at around 3pm, The Sun reported, collecting the songstress and nipping to a nearby branch of the South African chain for some of its famous peri-peri flavours.

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Peri peri pals: Rita Ora, 25, and Professor Green, 32, attracted plenty of attention when they went for dinner at Nando's in London, on Thursday

A source told the publication: 'Pro picked Rita up and she seemed really excited to be heading out with him. They had a friendly kiss in the car before heading off.'

While another revealed diners inside the busy restaurant couldn't help but stare at the famous pair.

They said: 'Its not every day two of the biggest pop stars in the country are just hanging out together in your local restaurant.

'They seemed totally relaxed and fine being somewhere down to earth. They were laughing and joking and very comfortable in each others company.'

Eye-catching: A source said diners inside the busy restaurant couldn't help but stare at the famous pair

However, any fans hoping the pair's trip to the eatery could be the start of a hot new romance will be disappointed, as a source told MailOnline: 'Rita has been friends with Professor Green for years and they met a group of friends at Nando's. Rita went home with her sister after the dinner.'

The pair spent last weekend having fun at a typically wet and muddy Glastonbury Festival.

On Monday the rapper simply wrote on Twitter: 'Glastonbury was magic.'

Festival vibes: The pair spent last weekend having fun at a typically wet and muddy Glastonbury Festival

Meanwhile, just days after the festival, Rita took to Instagram to share a concerning image with her 9.5million followers in which she lay in a hospital bed with a drip attached to her arm.

The usually glamorous star was clad in head-to-toe sportswear as she managed a weak smile while resting a hand on her forehead.

The image garnered 116,000 likes and 1,477 comments in just eight hours, as her devoted fan base gushed well-wishes to her, urging her to get better soon.

Exhausted! Just days after the festival, Rita took to Instagram to share a concerning image with her 9.5million followers in which she lay in a hospital bed with a drip attached to her arm

Rita added a comment on the image, reading: 'Today was pretty tough but I'm getting through it thank you to all of you for the support! I love you!! #exhaustionisreal'.

Sources close to the star revealed: 'Yes, she was exhausted - a result of not having a break. Shes been working solidly for the last few months and then when she can she parties. Over the last few months she has been flying back and forth between Vancouver and LA  on 50 Shades set in Vancouver and then recording studio in LA.

'She then flew to UK for the court trial and then went to Glastonbury for a few days partying and then came back on Monday and shot a two day ad campaign in London this Tues and Wed.'
Actors Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor went for a low-key look while running errands on Saturday.

The People v O.J. Simpson star, 41, and her girlfriend, 73, looked relaxed as they stopped by Bristol Farms supermarket in Los Angeles.

Sarah went makeup free and wore a baggy black blouse as they loaded groceries into their vehicle, while Holland revealed a surprise tattoo on her lower back.

Relaxed: Actors Sarah Paulson, 41, and girlfriend Holland Taylor, 73, looked relaxed as they stopped by a supermarket in Los Angeles on Saturday

The couple, who went public with their relationship in December, looked at ease as they stocked up on groceries.

American Horror Story star Sarah added wide-legged jeans and black platform sandals, and carried a black handbag.

Holland also went for a low-key look in a striped Tshirt and salmon capri jeans.

The Two and a Half Men star added thick black specs and grey flip flops.

Casual: The People v O.J. Simpson star went makeup free and wore a baggy black blouse with sandals

And the 73-year-old revealed a surprising circular inking on her lower back as she loaded grocery bags into the car.

Sarah told The New York Times in March she doesn't like to label her sexuality, but gushes she is 'in love' with Holland, who she called 'probably the most exquisitely beautiful woman Id ever seen.'

And dating an older woman helps put things into perspective, she said.

Surprise inking: Holland revealed a lower back tattoo as she loaded groceries into the car

'Theres a poignancy to being with someone older,' said Sarah.

'I think theres a greater appreciation of time and what you have together and whats important, and it can make the little things seem very small.'

The actress, who was previously engaged to acclaimed playwright and Homeland actor Tracy Letts, and dated 24 actress Cherry Jones, also recently joined by 49 other actors in a video honoring the Orlando Pulse nightclub massacre victims.

Tribute: Sarah joined 49 celebrities to honor the victims of the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting in a video created by American Horror Story showrunner Ryan Murphy

The video was the brainchild of American Horror Story and People v OJ creator Ryan Murphy and also starred Lady Gaga and Sofia Vergara.

Sarah - who earned raves for her turn as prosecutor Marcia Clark earlier this year - also posed for a revealing shoot forW magazine this week.

The Golden Globe-nominated actress goes toplsess and stares poignantly out of a window in the sultry snapshot taken by photographer Mona Kuhn.

She is pictured in two separate images - one entirely nude and another wearing a revealing black lace bra.
(Photo: REUTERS / Gonzalo Fuentes)Nayet (C), wearing a Burqa, and Kenza Drider (L), a French Muslim of North African descent, wearing a niqab, are seen after their release from a police station in Paris April 11, 2011. France's ban on full face veils, a first in Europe, went into force on April 11, 2011, exposing anyone who wears the Muslim niqab or burqa in public to fines of 150 euros (6) and lessons in French citizenship.

A law banning face-covering headgear such as the burqa has come into effect in Switzerland's canton of Ticino, and on the first day a Swiss woman, who converted to Islam, was apprehended for breaking the law.

The Swiss woman and a French-Algerian businessman are facing fines after defying the law, voted in by a 2013 referendum, in Italian-speaking Ticino, that banned face-covering headgear on its first day, July 1.

The two chose the moment to publically oppose the ban in the lakeside city of Locarno.

The law forbids burqas in shops, restaurants, or public buildings, with offenders facing a fine of up to 10,000 Swiss francs (around $10,280).

Nora Illi is a member of the radical Islamic Central Council Switzerland and she walked through the streets of Locarno wearing a full length burqa before police officers stopped her, Swissinfo reported.

She was arrested along with Rachid Nekkaz, who has also openly protested similar bans in Belgium and France.

As a foreign national, Nekkaz was immediately fined 200 fine Swiss francs for incitement to break the law, plus 30 francs to cover costs. His eventual fine could rise depending on the verdict of the local authorities.

Illi, from Zurich who converted to Islam in 2002 and she faces a fine of between 100 and 10,000 Swiss francs.

PAY FINES TO RAISE AWARENESS

Nekkaz said he would pay all of the eventual fines out of his own pocket to raise awareness of what he considers a discriminatory law.

The Ticino region's Parliament approved a referendum in 2013 banning face-covering headgear, but it was not enforced until now.

France, the Netherlands, and Belgium have passed similar laws that in 2014 were upheld by the European Court of Human Rights.

Muslim's account for some 5 percent of Switzerland's 8.34 million total population numbering some 420,000.

Ticino borders Italy to the south and has some 350,000 residents, or about 4.2 percent of Switzerland's population.

Before the law came into effect in Ticino, the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Bern had reminded its citizens that wearing a burqa or niqab would soon be illegal in canton Ticino.

The embassy posted its advisory on Twitter:

"The embassy wishes to emphasize that the Ticino cantonal authorities in south eastern Switzerland have announced that as of July 1, 2016 they will start to enforce the burqa (niqab) ban in public places in the canton, including in Lugano, Locarno, Magadino, Bellinzona, Ascona and Mendrisio.

"As school holidays [in Saudi Arabia] are coming up, the embassy reminds all honorable citizens of the necessity to respect and conform to Swiss rules and regulations in order avoid all problems."

The law makes no exceptions for tourists, The Local Ch reported.

During the extremely hot summers in the Gulf region a number of residents holiday in the cooler climate of Switzerland.

Some 40,000 visitors from the Middle East traveled to Ticino in 2015.
She's got one of the hottest bodies on the planet and Alessandra Ambrosio showed off her toned and honed abs while on a boat in Ibiza on Sunday.

The 35-year-old was pictured putting on a very agile display as she topped up her tan alongside her very loving long-term partner, Jamie Mazur.

The model was seen practicing her yoga moves alongside her husband and children, as the family soaked up the sun aboard a luxury yacht in the sun.

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Supple stunner: Alessandra Ambrosio was pictured putting on a very agile display as she topped up her tan alongside her very loving long-term partner, Jamie Mazur and two children, Anja, seven and Noah, four

Loved-up: She spent time close to her handsome partner proving that they are just as in love as ever

Alessandra looked incredible wearing a sexy white two-piece, which allowed the world-famous model to showcase every inch of her fantastic figure.

The skimpy swimsuit featured a tiny plunging neckline which allowed the Brazilian beauty to flash more than a hint of her cleavage.

Teamed with a pair of matching thong-styled bottoms, Alessandra also highlighted her lithe legs and pert bottom.

Paradise: She showed off her incredible body in her white two-piece and Jamie appeared to be loving every second with his beautiful love

Two's company: The pair used each other's bodies to carry on their yoga moves

Lean this way: The couple appeared to be very much in tune as they made their way through their routine

All about family: The couple's children also had a go at some of the exercises in a rather sweet display

Adding a stylish edge to her beachy look, the brunette beauty added a selection of bangles and a necklace to her look.

She had her adorable children, Anja, seven, and Noah, four with her, with them getting stuck in and having a go at some yoga moves themselves.

Wearing her dark locks loose and free beneath her hat, Alessandra wasn't afraid of getting her hair wet as she showed later on when she took a dip in the sea and slicked her mane back.

Pert posterior: Alessandra looked incredible from every angle as she moved from her position

So cute: She kept a watchful eye over her adorable children who appeared to be loving their holiday

So in love: Jamie took some snaps of Alessandra and Anja as they danced on the boat

Heading for a paddle in the azure waters, the former Victoria's Secret model jumped on the back of a pedalo, which Jamie was peddling.

Clearly in the mood for some family fun, Alessandra took her children up the pedalo's back steps and splashed down into the sea.

The mother-of-two recently revealed the secret to her happy relationship with Jamie, explaining that her constant globe-trotting helps keep the passion alive when they do spend time together.

Hang on a sec: She was pictured adjusting the straps on her top as she topped up her tan at the front of the boat

Sizzling in the sun: Alessandra looked incredible wearing a sexy white two-piece, which allowed the world-famous model to showcase every inch of her fantastic figure

And relax... One move saw them lying back with their legs behind their bodies

On the horizon: The pair were pictured looking out to sea as they made the most of their time together

Snap happy: Alessandra looked picture perfect as she outstretched an arm behind her head

Heading to a family dinner later on in the day, the model and her partner looked the picture of domestic bliss.

Sat in a quiet restaurant, the two parents laughed as their children tucked into some ice creams.

And though Alessandra's work keep her very busy as she hops around the globe to shoots, the model recently revealed that when it comes to her marriage distance keeps the spark 'alive'.

Speaking to Cosmopolitan she said: 'I travel all the time, so I think that helps keep the spark alive, because its not like Im here every day. Im not an everyday-at-home kind of person.'

Curves in all the right places: Alessandra also put on a rather busty display as she walked along the beach wearing a cute kaftan

She's got all she needs: She carried a few beach accessories in her hand as she walked along with her family

Sweet: She held hands with her little boy as they made their way down some steps

Click: Alessandra was pictured snapping pictures on her phone as she enjoyed her day

There you are: Jamie kept a protective eye over his love as they enjoyed some bonding time

'Even with the kids, we try to make time for ourselves, just me and him.

'But I want to be with my kids the most, so once or twice a week well go to dinner, me and him or with friends, after we put the kids to sleep.'

And Alessandra revealed that she always wanted to be a young mum.

She added: 'I wanted to have kids at 20, so 26 was already old for me! I felt it was great timing and I took off a whole year.'

Happy couple: Heading to a family dinner later on in the day, the model and her partner looked the picture of domestic bliss

All sunshine and happiness: Sat in a quiet restaurant, the two parents laughed as their children tucked into some ice creams

Making a point: The family looked to be in high spirits, as they joked around finishing their meal
They've apparently officially decided to call off their divorce, and Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green celebrated on Saturday with lunch at Nobu in Malibu, California.

Of course the pregnant 30-year-old will have surely skipped the raw fish on offer as she gears up for the arrival of her third child.

Megan looked gorgeous for the meal in a flowing black maxi dress, which highlighted her growing bump, and kept her feet comfortable in flat metallic flip flops.

Oh baby: Pregnant Megan Fox showed off her growing bump at lunch with Brian Austin Green in Malibu, California on Saturday

The actress wore her glossy brunette hair down and covered her minimally made-up face with large sunglasses.

Meanwhile Brian was looking casual in a white T-shirt, jeans, trainers and shades.

The rekindled couple were spotted chatting away as they headed inside the celebrity hotspot, a day after it emerged that they have ended divorce proceedings.

A source close to the 42-year-old actor told People: 'Brian and Megan are living together in Malibu with their boys.

She'll skip the sushi!: The actress looked stunning for a meal at Nobu in a black maxi dress and flat sandals

Time to celebrate: The rekindled couple's outing came a day after it emerged that they have called off their divorce

'They have been getting along and seem very happy. They are just waiting for the baby to arrive.'

The two stars are already parents to sons sons Noah, three, and Bodhi, two, and Brian has 14-year-old son Kassius from a previous relationship with Vanessa Marcil.

'During their separation, Brian always hoped Megan would change her mind about the divorce and he is very happy that she did,' the source added to People.

Keeping it casual: Brian, who looked thrilled, was dressed in a white T-shirt, jeans, trainers and sunglasses

'They both worked hard to figure out their marriage and things seem great.'

Megan filed for divorce from the 42-year-old Beverly Hills, 90210 actor in August after 11 years together and five years of marriage.

But the actress revealed in April that they were expecting a baby, and they have since decided to give their relationship another go.
Jennifer Garner and Bradley Cooper looked thick as thieves as they held court front row at the Atelier Versace Haute Couture F/W16 show in Paris on Sunday.

Turns out the 44-year-old Golden Globe winner and the 41-year-old Golden Globe nominee worked together in the forgettable romantic comedy Valentine's Day in 2010, as well as 46 episodes of ABC's Alias.

Jennifer played CIA double-agent Sydney Bristow while Bradley played reporter-turned-CIA analyst Will Tippin on the J.J. Abrams spy show, which concluded in 2006.

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Catching up: Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Garner looked thick as thieves as they held court front row at the Atelier Versace Haute Couture F/W16 show in Paris on Sunday

Hello again! Turns out the 41-year-old Golden Globe nominee and the 44-year-old Golden Globe winner worked together in the forgettable romantic comedy Valentine's Day in 2010, as well as 46 episodes of ABC's Alias

A decade ago! Jennifer played CIA double-agent Sydney Bristow while Bradley (3-R) played reporter-turned-CIA analyst Will Tippin on the J.J. Abrams spy show, which concluded in 2006

Sporting a leather jacket and a burly beard, Cooper flashed a grin as he caught up with Garner at the fashionable function in France.

The Limitless heartthrob - who's fluent in French - and the Mother's Day actress took a seat next to nineties supermodel Naomi Campbell inside the packed Paris Stock Exchange.

Both actors have gone through divorces - Bradley split with wife Jennifer Esposito in 2007 after just five months, while Jennifer split with husband #1 Scott Foley in 2003 and husband #2 Ben Affleck last year.

Reunited: Sporting a leather jacket and a burly beard, Cooper flashed a grin as he caught up with Garner at the fashionable function in France

VIP treatment: The Limitless heartthrob - who's fluent in French - and the Mother's Day actress took a seat next to nineties supermodel Naomi Campbell (L) inside the packed Paris Stock Exchange

Both actors have gone through divorces: Bradley split with wife Jennifer Esposito in 2007 after just five months, while Jennifer split with husband #1 Scott Foley in 2003 and husband #2 Ben Affleck last year

And as captivating as the dimpled Denison grad is, the Georgetown grad couldn't keep his eyes off a certain model strutting down the catwalk.

The four-time Oscar nominee has been romancing the very leggy Russian catwalker Irina Shayk for the last 15 months.

Garner - who relies on stylist duo Jill Lincoln and Jordan Johnson - got full-on glamorous in an asymmetrical, thigh-baring black Versace gown.

Supporting his honey: And as captivating as the dimpled Denison grad is, the Georgetown grad couldn't keep his eyes off a certain model strutting down the catwalk

Hard at work: The four-time Oscar nominee has been romancing the very leggy Russian catwalker Irina Shayk for the last 15 months

Irina has arrived for her fitting... She is just divine. Photo by @rahirezvanistudio #DVDIARYPARIS #AtelierVersace A photo posted by Donatella Versace (@donatella_versace) on Jul 2, 2016 at 2:48am PDT

'I loved the dress that [designer Donatella Versace] put me in for the Oscars this year,' Jennifer - who flew out especially - told Women's Wear Daily at the show.

'And she told me that the dress had inspired a whole collection, in a way. She asked if I would like to come, and I said I'd be thrilled and honored!'

June 30 marked a full year since the Capital One spokesmodel split from the 43-year-old Oscar winner, with whom she has three children - Violet, 10, Seraphina, 7, and Samuel, 4.

When in Paris: Garner - who relies on stylist duo Jill Lincoln and Jordan Johnson - got full-on glamorous in an asymmetrical, thigh-baring black Versace gown

Natural beauty: As usual, Jennifer kept her make-up minimal and had her brunette locks coiffed into waves for the event

Single: June 30 marked a full year since the Capital One spokesmodel split from the 43-year-old Oscar winner, with whom she has three children - Violet, 10, Seraphina, 7, and Samuel, 4

Ooh la la! The mother-of-three later changed into another stunning, asymmetric black gown for the Amfar Paris Dinner at The Peninsula Hotel

The Southern belle - who flew out especially - told WWD at the show: 'I loved the dress that [designer Donatella Versace] put me in for the Oscars this year'

She continued: 'And she told me that the dress had inspired a whole collection, in a way. She asked if I would like to come, and I said I'd be thrilled and honored!'

Let's boogie! And while Bradley appeared to have skipped dinner, Garner had Donatella, Naomi, and Oscar winner Adrien Brody to keep her company at the afterparty

The Miracles from Heaven actress will next play Lara Brand in the swapped-identity comedy Nine Lives - hitting UK/US theaters August 5 - alongside Kevin Spacey, Christopher Walken, and Cheryl Hines.

Cooper reunited with his Hangover director Todd Phillips to play a terrorist in the gun-dealing bro dramedy War Dogs starring Jonah Hill and Miles Teller, which hits US theaters August 19 and UK theaters August 26.

The flick is based on Guy Lawson's 2011 Rolling Stone article detailing two South Beach stoners David Packouz and Efraim Diveroli, who scored a $300M Pentagon contract to arm America's allies in Afghanistan.

Back home: Ben Affleck meanwhile was spotted out and about on Sunday in Los Angeles

Kept it casual: The Hollywood star kept it casual in jeans and a T-shirt with a black leather baseball jacket

Hollywood star: Ben has found success in front of and behind the camera in Hollywood

Hitting UK/US theaters August 5! The Miracles from Heaven actress will next play Lara Brand in the swapped-identity comedy Nine Lives alongside Kevin Spacey, Christopher Walken, and Cheryl Hines
Following Georgina Leigh Cantwells eviction on Friday night fans would be forgiven the Big Brother house would be a calmer place  with the exception of heartbroken Jackson.

However, it seems that Hughie Maughan isnt ready to let peace descend on the house, as Andy West was subjected to a scathing attack over his story-telling.

And on Sunday night's episode, the Irishman launched a scathing rant at the journalist over his gossiping, snapping at Andy over breakfast: You are a liar and a story carrier!

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You are a liar: Hughie Maughan wasnt ready to let peace descend on the house, as Andy West was subjected to a scathing attack over his story-telling

But never one to take an assault on his character lying down the former BBC journalist brushed off the words, as Ryan Ruckledge tried to intervene.

However Hughie felt the need to hammer home his point, repeating that he thought Andy was a liar and gossip  following Andys apparent meddling in Georgina and Jacksons relationship.

Clearly fuming over Hughie and others in the house stirring the pot, and sending tension to new heights, he headed straight to the diary room where he vented his feelings on Hughie and the aftermath of Gerogina.

Calling him out: Confronting Andy early on in the day, Hughie confronted Andy over his gossiping, snapping: You are a liar and a story carrier!

I have Hughie telling me Im a liar and a storyteller! The fun never ends, Andy quipped. When I try to justify myself Im ignored.'

Clearly angry with Hughie's direct and loud approach, he said: 'Its infuriating and exhausting. Im not going to sit back and let people say things about me that arent true.

Then turning his mind to his one-time friend, Andy admitted he thought Jacskson was better off without Georgina, as she doesnt love him for who he is.

Offering his thoughts on her eviction, he said: Its nice not to have a constant whine in the background. The person who deserves you, Jacko, is the person who loves you for you.

'Its infuriating and exhausting': Clearly fuming over Hughie and others in the house stirring the pot, and sending tension to new heights, he headed straight to the diary room where he vented his feelings

He scathingly added: Georgina wants him to be someone else, thats not love. Id be surprised theres not a part of him thats relieved shes gone.

And following his conversation with Big Brother it seemed Andy was determined to build bridges, seeking out Jayne Connery and Jackson to explain why he had been offering his opinion on their complicated relationships.

However it seems Jayne still had some ill-feelings brought about by his gossiping, as she told Andy: If that was me, I wouldnt have involved myself. It could be perceived you sticking you nose in.

Ready to make up? Following his conversation with Big Brother it seemed Andy was determined to build bridges, seeking out Jayne Connery

Long way to go? However it seems Jayne still had some ill-feelings brought about by his gossiping, as she told Andy: If that was me, I wouldnt have involved myself. It could be perceived you sticking you nose in

And attempting to build bridges with Jackson, Andy seemed to make things worse for himself, as he tried to warn the model off of his girlfriend yet again.

Im being honest, I dont think Georgina is absolutely perfect for you but that is none of my business, Andy explained carefully.

However, despite their tempestuous relationship, Jackson remained loyal to Georgina, telling Andy that he and his girlfriend complement each other.

'I dont think Georgina is absolutely perfect': Attempting to build bridges with Jackson, Andy seemed to make things worse for himself, as he tried to warn the model off of his girlfriend yet again

Though Andy wasnt the only stirring up trouble in the house, as Charlie Doherty revealed to Lateysha Grace and Ryan that she and Jason had spent the night together mere weeks before they entered the house.

Debunking Jasons previous assertions that theyd had nothing to do with each other since their break-up, she told her friends the opposite.

Whispering to the other two, she revealed: We spent our last night together before he went away. We spent the night together and we even had sex and everything.

But clearly still fuming over her ex-boyfriends behaviour towards her, she said: Then I saw this video of him saying, I dont want to see her, and I just dont want to be put into that corner. Its like hes putting everything on me.
He became a household name playing one of the best known villains of all time.

But Al Pacino's days as tough man looked to be well and truly behind him after he was spotted in West Hollywood over the weekend.

The Godfather actor, 76, appeared to have piled on the pounds and looked virtually unrecognisable while on the phone outside the Macha Theatre, California.

Al Pacino (pictured) appeared to have piled on the pounds and looked virtually unrecognisable while on the phone outside the Macha Theatre

Al Pacino won roles in critically acclaimed films Scarface (pictured) and Scent of a Woman - which won him the Academy Award for best actor in 1993

Pacino wore an ill-fitting dark suit, which he paired with a white shirt and bulky trainers - however the outfit did little to conceal his rather large beer belly that protruded underneath.

The actor however, didn't completely forgo his tough-guy exterior  he was sporting shades and knuckle rings.

Pacino rose to prominence playing protagonist Michael Corleone in the blockbuster Mafia film The Godfather.

His casting in the film was at the time controversial, due to the fact that several established actors - including Jack Nicholson, 79, and Robert Redford, 79, had also tried out for the part and Pacino was relatively unknown.

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times in 2014 he said: 'I didn't want to do The Godfather. I didn't know what was going on.

'I thought 'How am I going to play this part?

Pacino appeared svelt and fit in 2015 (pictured) but has clearly expanded his waistline since then

Pacino (pictured in 2015) rose to prominence playing protagonist Michael Corleone in the blockbuster Mafia film The Godfather

Pacino (pictured in 2008 film 'Righteous Kill' alongside Robert De Niro) has three children including two with actress Beverly D'Angelo, 64, with whom he had a relationship with from 1996 until 2003

Out for dinner... Al was seen out for dinner with his stunning girlfriend Lucila Sola to ring in the 4th of July celebrations

Along with pals: The group headed in for the festivities looking casual

'No one wanted me. Except for Coppola who was, I thought, a bit mad. He just wanted me. Even I said, 'What are you doing Francis? They don't want me.

'Of course Warner Brothers said, 'Who is this Kid?! Why do you like this kid? What do you see?' I thought, 'He's going to lost his job,' They didn't want Brando either, all due respect.'

Pacino later won roles in critically acclaimed films Scarface and Scent of a Woman - which won him the Academy Award for best actor in 1993.

Pacino has three children including two with actress Beverly D'Angelo, 64, with whom he had a relationship with from 1996 until 2003.

Pacino also has a relationship with actress Diane Keaton, 70, his co-star in the Godfather trilogy which ended following the filming of The Godfather Part II.

The 76-year-old actor (pictured in 2015) told the Los Angeles Times in 2014 that he didn't want to do The Godfather at the time
She has always called Sydney home and has built a life for herself and her family there.

But Roxy Jacenko has told Domain that if she could live in a dream home, anywhere in the world, it would be in Los Angeles.

'Right now, Los Angeles, a city not unlike Sydney  cosmopolitan, large homes with space on big blocks and a time zone that means I can work our Sydney office hours with ease,' she told the website.

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Dream home: Roxy Jacenko has said that if she could live in a dream home, anywhere in the world, it would be in Los Angeles

Roxy has spent plenty of time in California recently, visiting the Coachella music festival in April and taking her daughter Pixie Curtis on holiday in 2014.

Her dream of a big house in LA, and the lavish Woollahra pad she sold for $8 million last year, are a far cry for her very first property - a $337,000 two-bedroom flat in Double Bay when she was 21.

'It was a steal, but at the time I felt like I had a $300 million mortgage on my shoulders,' she said.

Well travelled: Roxy has spent plenty of time in Los Angeles

Girls trip: She visited the city in April with some of her friends

Roadtrip: Roxy (right) with friends Holly Asser and Anna Gooden

'I had worked since the age of 14 so had saved the then 10 per cent deposit  my Mum nagged me to invest, telling me there was no better investment than property and that clothes and shoes dont appreciate. She was spot on.'

The PR dynamo's interview was published after her husband Oliver Curtis was jailed for two years for insider trading earlier this month, and was sent to high security prison, Parklea.

The former banker is likely rubbing shoulders with members of murderous Sydney bikie gang Brothers 4 Life and recently convicted murderer Glen McNamara.

Big day out: The trio hit the Coachella music festival in California

More friends: Roxy with Pete Harrison and Toby Franklin at Coachella 2016

Insiders say Curtis will probably be held in some sort of protective custody - rather than with the general population - due to his high profile. There are concerns he could be assaulted or extorted for money.

'It's about what level of supervision we can offer and making sure those particular inmates are not at risk of assault or being stood over  like strong arm tactics to get money off them,' a prison source said.

Daily Mail Australia has been told there are no definite plans for the father-of-two's future, and his future home will depend on 'what sort of placement is suitable for him'.

Family trip: Roxy previously visited LA with her daughter Pixie Curtis in 2014

The ultimate in travel pram! The two-year-old set a cracking pace during sight seeing

Glamourours tot: Pixie was always decked out in expensive designer clothes during the trip.

I learned from the pro! She bought a few more on numerous shopping expeditions with Roxy

Oliver's sentence came after a lengthy trial in Sydney where he was found guilty of conspiring to commit insider trading in 2007 and 2008.

Roxy was by his side throughout court proceedings, arriving at court on her husband's arm dressed in a parade of designer outfits.

Before his sentence was handed down last week, she pleaded with the court not to jail him, giving an emotional character reference in which she described him as their children's 'primary carer'.

What a welcome! Roxy and Pixie hit up a Beverley Hills nail spa

Calls for an ensemble change! They also got some business done, going to a poolside Pixie Bows meeting

Playing tourist: Roxy and Pixie visited The Grove in LA

Just like mums cooking! Pixie tries out some tasty treats in Beverley Hills

'Pixie and Hunter adore their dad. He's fun, tolerant, uncomplaining and loving. They screech with excitement as soon as they see him and no one else matters to them  not even me.

'Because of my work hours, I would describe Oli as the primary carer of Pixie and Hunter.

'Oli is a kind, considerate and reliable man. I have no doubt that he will never be involved in anything like this again,' she said.

On Friday, Roxy returned to work after her husband's sentence was handed down.

Oliver handed her his wedding ring, watch and a wad of $50 notes before being led away from the dock.

Family torn apart: The PR dynamo's interview was published after her husband Oliver Curtis was jailed for two years for insider trading earlier this month and was sent to high security prison, Parklea

Facility: Roxy's husband Oliver has been moved to Parklea Correctional Centre (pictured). Insiders say his stay will likely be temporary, but he will be in maximum security before he is classified

Locked up: Oliver was led away in cuffs after being sentenced to two years jail for insider trading
Absolutely Fabulous star Joanna Lumley has revealed a six-month breakdown left her crippled with panic attacks and fearing assassins were trying to kill her.

The veteran actress, 70, described how she suffered from a complete nervous breakdown in 1971 after she thought she saw snipers levelling rifles at her from the boxes of the Garrick Theatre.

The episode led to a six month psychotic breakdown which left the actress struggling to breathe and unable to leave her home.

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Joanna Lumley (pictured), 70, described how she suffered from a complete nervous breakdown in 1971 after she thought she saw snipers levelling rifles at her

Joanna Lumley and co-star Jennifer Saunders pose with guests at the world premiere of Absolutely Fabulous

She said: It was a complete nervous breakdown. I then quit that play, ran away from the play. It was a Saturday morning.

I got up in the morning and went and sat in the corner of my bedroom and I thought for about an hour and then I went straight - like a deserter - I went to the station.

Miss Lumleys breakdown occurred in her mid-20s, while the she was struggling to raise her son, Jamie, as a single mother.

The actress fled to her parents home in Kent for six months to recover and revealed that, at the height of her illness, she was left struggling to breathe.

She said: I was off for six months. I was pretty badly shaken up. My nerves were gone. I didnt dare go to the shops. I had a really ropey old time. I was spending all day thinking, How will I get through the day I had those panic attacks when you think, Breathe in, breathe out, just keep breathing in. Study the flowers. What colour are the flowers? Anything to stop your mind going mad. And I thought, Ive got to get out of this, how do I?

Miss Lumley said she would often imagine worst case scenarios in order to spur confidence to leave the house to go shopping.

Joanna Lumley (left) - who said talking herself through her fears meant she could start to audition again - and actress Jennifer Saunders

She told The Times: To try and make myself get out to shops to buy food I would imagine the worst thing that could happen at each stage. If I fell over on the floor, what would happen? Always the same answer came back in my head. Somebody will help you up. I will fall over on the floor and I havent got any pants on and I knock over a pile of drinks and they smash. Now what? The same answer: Somebody will help you up.

In 2011 the actress, who previously described the ordeal as a bit of a wobbler, told Lord Bragg on the Living The Life Sky Arts series she believed her breakdown was born on money worries.

She said: It was Marmite on toast for breakfast, lunch, tea and supper. There was nothing else to eat, we were so poor. I chopped up towel rails to burn on the fire. I was happy and it didnt matter but we were skint and I couldnt see how I would manage to be a good enough parent to my darling boy and how I would actually get through life.

The star revealed that hypnosis and talking herself through her fears eventually enabled her to reason herself back to health and start attending auditions once more.

Following her breakdown, the actress won a string of roles that saw her become a household name - including the role of Patsy Stone in Absolutely Fabulous and crime-fighting secret agent Purdey in 70s television series The New Avengers. She has just reprised the role of Patsy for the Absolutely Fabulous movie.

Miss Lumley was later able to bring her fictional skills in dealing with rogue secret agents to life when she confronted a man with a gun in a city bar in 2007.

After gunman Phillip Cottam dropped his gun on the floor in the busy bar, the actress coolly went up to Cottam to ask why he had a firearm and whether he was going to use it to cause harm.
Her one-year-marriage has been plague with split rumours.

But Michelle Keegan has been hard at work, cosying up to a Mark Wright lookalike while filming BBC drama, Our Girl, in Manchester.

The 29-year-old looked perfectly at ease as her hunky co-star, Luke Pasqualino, 26, draped his arms around her and planted a kiss on her head during filming.

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Close: Michelle Keegan cosied up to Mark Wright lookalike Luke Pasqualino while filming BBC drama, Our Girl, in Manchester during filming

The pair strolled together hand in hand through the lush green countryside and even decided to get an ice cream together, despite the rainy conditions.

And they continued to keep each other warm in the downpour as they took shelter together underneath a large umbrella.

Ditching her typically glamorous style, Michelle looked laid-back for the outing as she sported a casual khaki bomber jacket and white trainers.

Teamwork: The 29-year-old looked perfectly at ease as her hunky co-star, Luke Pasqualino, 26, draped his arms around her and planted a kiss on her head

And she kept the rest of her outfit simple as she combined a slouchy black T-shirt with some coordinating skin-tight jeans.

The former Coronation Street star also kept thing low-key in the hair department as she pulled back her glossy brunette tresses into a loose ponytail and only left a few carefully placed strands out to frame her face.

Showing off her natural beauty, Michelle appeared to go makeup free while filming and complemented her enviably golden glow with just a sweep of mascara.

Leaning on him: The pair strolled together hand in hand through the lush green countryside and even decided to get an ice cream together, despite the rainy conditions

Support: They continued to keep each other warm in the downpour as they took shelter together underneath a large umbrella as filming continued

Luke looked equally dressed down in a baggy blue hooded jumper and plain white T-shirt.

And the Musketeers star rounded off his style with a pair of indigo skinny jeans, which ruched slightly around his knees.

A spokesperson for Michelle told MailOnline: 'Michelle is an actress and these pictures were taken during the filming of a scene in which Luke plays a romantic interest.'

The pretty actress - who tied the knot with ex-TOWIE hunk Mark Wright in May last year - landed the coveted role in the BBC's Our Girl in June 2015, after EastEnders star Lacey Turner left her role as Molly Dawes.

Natural beatuy: Michelle looked laid-back for the outing as she sported a casual khaki bomber jacket and white trainers

Deep in conversation: Michelle kept the rest of her outfit simple as she combined a slouchy black T-shirt with some coordinating skin-tight jeans

Laid back: The former Coronation Street star also kept thing low-key in the hair department as she pulled back her glossy brunette tresses into a loose ponytail

Michelle has taken on a different leading role - that of Corporal Georgie Lane - for the second series, which will air later this year.

Meanwhile, Michelle - who has also landed the role of legendary England captain Bobby Moore's wife in a new ITV series - has been busy filming the hotly-anticipated second series of the acclaimed show for months, with her workload attributing to constant reports about the state of her marriage to Mark.

However, they have constantly denied there are any issues within their relationship and Jessica Wright, Mark's sister and former TOWIE co-star, also recently spoke out about the couple's marriage.

No raining on their parade: The actors took shelter from the weather conditions under a large umbrella

Lovely up north! The pair were out filming Our Girl in Manchester

Keeping dry: A crew member held a large orange and black umbrella over the co-stars

Relaxed: Luke looked equally laid back in a baggy blue hooded top and skinny black jeans

British summer time! Michelle enjoyed an ice cream despite the cold weather

Food for thought: The actress looked deep in thought as she nibbled on her whipped ice cream

Speaking of the negativity around the couple, she said in an interview with OK! magazine: 'Its extremely annoying.

'I feel so bad for them because you dont want to have negative vibes around your relationship.'

Theyre perfect together, theyre so in love and theyre so happy, added the TOWIE beauty, who is set to appear on Celebrity First Dates later this year.

As for how the photogenic couple have been dealing with the incessant chatter, Jessica explained: 'Its awful for them but they have to rise above it and they do.

'I feel like constantly having to defend their relationship, even though they dont because they dont give a s**t! But they feel like they might have to reassure everyone.

Line up! The duo queued for an ice cream as filming got underway

Whipped! Michelle handed Luke an ice cream as they took a break from their hard work

Throwing it in! Michelle didn't think anyone was looking as she threw an empty bottle into the pond

At one with nature: The pair lapped up the scenery as they watched some swans swim by
Bangladesh denies IS link after hostage bloodbath

Bangladesh said Sunday the attackers who slaughtered 20 hostages at a restaurant were well-educated followers of a homegrown militant outfit who found extremism "fashionable", denying links to the Islamic State group.

As the country held services to mourn the victims of the siege in Dhaka, details emerged of how the attackers spared the lives of Muslims while herding foreigners to their deaths.

And although the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack at the Western-style cafe on Friday night, the government stuck to its line that international jihadist networks had not gained a foothold in Bangladesh.

Officials carry a body bag at Dhaka's Holey Artisan Bakery cafe after a bloody siege at the restaurant came to an end

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told AFP the killers -- six of whom were shot dead in the siege -- were members of the homegrown militant outfit Jamaeytul Mujahdeen Bangladesh (JMB), a group banned over a decade ago.

"They have no connections with the Islamic State," Khan said.

National police chief Shahidul Hoque told reporters that investigators would explore the possibility of "an international link" but added that "primarily, we suspect they are JMB members".

The bodies of 20 hostages were found in pools of blood after commandos stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe to end the standoff, in which two policemen were also shot dead in a fierce gunbattle at its outset.

Six of the gunmen were killed by the commandos in the final stages of the siege, but one was taken alive and was being interrogated by Bangladeshi intelligence.

Security officials said most of the victims -- 18 of whom were foreigners -- were slaughtered with sharpened machete-style weapons.

- Candlelit tribute -

Hasina's government has previously blamed a string of deadly attacks against religious minorities and foreigners on domestic opponents but the latest will heighten fears that IS's reach is spreading.

Despite the government's denials, the IS-linked news agency Amaq published extensive details of the attack, including photos from inside the cafe and the numbers of dead.

Analysts say that the government is wary of acknowledging that groups such as IS or Al-Qaeda are operating in Bangladesh over fears that it will frighten off foreign investors.

"They may be homegrown but certainly there are linkages (to IS). We really can't deny it," Joyeeta Bhattacharjee, a fellow of the Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, told AFP.

There was mass condemnation of the killing in Dhaka, where flags were being flown at half-mast at government offices, while prayer services were held across the country.

Candles were lit at a mausoleum in the centre of Dhaka in a night-time ceremony where mourners sang songs of unity and then stood in silence for 30 minutes in a solemn tribute to the victims.

"We've come to take a vow that we won't allow the country to become a terrorist hotspot," Hanif Khan, a poet and fiction writer, who joined the rally, told AFP.

"We have taken a pledge to keep the country secular and safe for all its citizens. We'll fight to the end to achieve that goal. Bangladesh emerged as a secular nation and will remain so."

The agony was felt far beyond Bangladesh, with Italy mourning the death of nine citizens in the attack while seven Japanese were also killed.

- Muslims spared -

A Bangladeshi worker at the cafe who survived the massacre told how the attackers split the diners into groups of foreigners and locals, making clear that their targets were non-Muslims.

"They took me and two of my colleagues and forced us to sit on chairs, with our heads down on the table," the survivor told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"They asked me whether I was a Muslim. As I said yes, they said they won't harm or kill any Muslims. They will only kill the non-Muslims.

"All the time I prayed to Allah, keeping my head down. Several times I vomited.

"They warned us not to raise our heads but at one point I raised my head slightly and saw a bloodied body on the floor."

The worker described the killers as appearing to be university-educated, a point echoed by Khan.

Asked why they would have become Islamist militants, the minister said: "It has become a fashion."

The attack, by far the deadliest of a recent wave of killings claimed by IS or a local Al-Qaeda offshoot, was carried out in the upmarket Gulshan neighbourhood which is home to the country's elite and many embassies.

Last month authorities launched a crackdown on local jihadists, arresting more than 11,000 people but critics allege the arrests were arbitrary or designed to silence political opponents.

Bangladesh's main Islamist party has been banned from contesting polls and most of its leaders have been arrested or else executed after recent trials over their role in the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.

Map of central Dhaka, locating a gun attack on a restaurant popular with foreigners

Bangladeshi officials stand near some of the body bags carrying the bodies of foreigners killed at a Dhaka restaurant

A military tank makes its way past a police barricade near an upscale restaurant in Dhaka following a bloody siege by attack by Islamist extremists

Ambulances believed to be carrying the bodies of some of the hostages killed in a bloody attack on an upscale restaurant in Dhaka leave the vicinity
Bangladesh garment industry fears for future after attack

The horrific slaughter of diners at a Dhaka cafe has fanned fears that surging Islamist violence may imperil the giant garment industry in Bangladesh, which built its economy on cheaply supplying fashion to the world's big-name brands.

Gunmen stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery in the capital's diplomatic quarter on Friday evening, rounding up foreign hostages before murdering 20 people with explosives and machetes, in a brutal targeting of the small expat community.

Islamic State jihadists released gruesome images of corpses lying in crimson pools on the cafe floor as they claimed responsibility for the deadly 11-hour siege. Most of the victims were Italian or Japanese.

Bangladeshi military commandos pictured after a bloody siege at a Dhaka restaurant ended with 20 hostages killed

"This attack will turn away foreigners," said Faruque Hassan, senior vice-president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, which represents 4,500 factories.

"The impact of this attack will be very damaging for the industry. We are now extremely worried," added Hassan, whose Giant Group supplies clothes to retailers including Britain's Marks & Spencer and Next.

Even before the cafe siege, Bangladesh, the world's second-biggest exporter of apparel after China, was reeling from a wave of Islamist-linked killings of religious minorities, liberal activists and foreigners, including an Italian aid worker last September.

Concern is mounting that the South Asian nation, wracked by political instability since independence in 1971, is sliding into deeper chaos, with under-pressure police arresting 11,000 people last month in a desperate crackdown.

"The hostage crisis in Dhaka is a terrible tragedy reflecting how security has deteriorated in the country," said Sarah Labowitz, co-director at the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights in New York.

The violence presents "a serious threat to the economy," Labowitz said. "This kind of attack will surely keep (fashion) buyers away in the months leading up to the holiday shopping season."

Although a quarter of its 160 million people still live below the poverty line, Bangladesh has clocked growth of around six percent nearly every year since the turn of the millennium.

That's largely thanks to garment exports, the lifeblood of its economy, accounting for more than 80 percent of total outbound goods last year.

Between them the nation's clothing factories employ more than four million people, most of them impoverished rural women.

Ulrica Bogh Lind, a spokeswoman for H&M, which sources many of its clothes from Bangladesh, told AFP the Swedish chain was "deeply sad about the tragic incident".

"We are of course monitoring the situation in Dhaka closely."

- Echoes of Pakistan -

Trade-dependent Bangladesh may suffer the same fate as its restive rival Pakistan, fears Ahsan Mansur, a former representative for the International Monetary Fund in Islamabad.

"I saw the decline of a promising economy into a terrorist hotspot. This attack reminds me of those days, although I hope things won't turn out that way," said Mansur, now executive director of the Policy Research Institute in Dhaka.

When extremist violence began to spread in Pakistan, he said, the first sign of financial malaise was expat families packing their bags, then trade and investment crumbled.

"The perception that Bangladesh is a potential terrorist hotspot can seriously hit our export potential and growth prospects."

Yet plucky Bangladesh has ridden out numerous storms, seeing off threats from labour unrest, mass transport blockades and large-scale political paralysis -- as well as workplace disasters.

Clothing exports swelled nearly 10 percent in the year to June, to $27.3 billion, industry figures show.

The deadly Rana Plaza factory collapse that killed at least 1,138 workers in 2013 shocked the world, heaping opprobrium on Western retailers seen as exploiting impoverished workers.

But the tragedy prompted retailers to act on appalling safety conditions in their factories, where fires and other accidents are frequent.

Brands set up two global alliances to make workshops safer and cleaner -- although it remains a work in progress.

- Global threat -

While retailers will watch Bangladesh closely, industry experts point out that unrest plagues many developing countries where labour is cheap.

As Islamist attacks in France, Brussels and the United States over the past year show, the threat of extremist violence is not confined to single countries.

"If foreigners give in to fear, terrorism's political mission will have succeeded," said Devangshu Dutta, chief executive of Third Eyesight, a retail consultancy in New Delhi.

"Exports and foreign investment are both critical (in) the upliftment of a very large poverty-stricken population," Dutta told AFP.

"The contribution of foreigners is vital. It is important for everyone to remain engaged."

Activists and relatives of victims of the Rana Plaza building collapse take part in a protest march on the third anniversary of the disaster at the site where the building once stood in Savar MUNIR Uz Zaman (AFP/File)
There is a song that says, In New York Harbor stands a Lady with her torch held to the sky, and all who see her knows she stands for liberty 

Who is this Lady and where did she come from?

In the mid-1865s French law professor and politician Edouard Rene de Laboulaye, a staunch supporter of the Union in the American Civil War, made the following statement at a dinner held in his home; If a monument should rise in the United States, as a memorial to their independence, I should think it only natural if it were built by united effort  a common work of our nations.

Thus, the work on the Statue of Liberty began. When she was shipped from France to New York, she came in 350 pieces. Once delivered it took four months to put her together, and was completed on October 28, 1886.

Although Ellis Island, where the Lady resides, is federal property and has always been historically considered in New York, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1998 determined that part of the island was territory of New York while most of the island, which was added after 1834, is within the territory of New Jersey. Lady Liberty actually resides in New Jersey territory.

Many of our ancestors came to Americas Golden Door seeking freedom, work opportunities and new lives. Over 12 million immigrants passed through the doors of Ellis Island between January 1, 1892 and November 1954 seeking to achieve the American Dream. Many changed their names to more American sounding and spelling.

Although most immigrants processed at Ellis Island stayed between three and five hours, about 20 percent stayed overnight in dormitory rooms until their cases could be cleared. They found these accommodations an improvement from the dreaded conditions of traveling to American aboard ship in the steerage compartments.

The first thing our ancestors saw when they entered New York Harbor was Lady Liberty. For them she represented a new life and freedom from the past.

During our 22 years of living in New Jersey we made several trips to visit Ellis Island and Lady Liberty. Every year we would take the 5th through 12th grade students from our school there for a field trip. I will never tire of what I saw there and the things I learned from those visits.

For the Christian the Old Rugged Cross also stands for freedom and forgiveness; freedom from the shackles of the past and forgiveness of sin. Just as Lady Liberty stands on a pedestal on Liberty Island, the Cross stood on an old hill called Golgotha.

Through the years thousands of people have visited Lady Liberty and marveled at her greatness. Thousands of people have also come to the Old Rugged cross and asked for forgiveness, accepting Gods promise of a new life in Heaven.

Just as the words engraved on the pedestal of Lady Liberty welcomed our ancestors, the words of God will always welcome those who come to the Cross for forgiveness and salvation.

Romans 10:13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Let us remember to pray for this great Country that we are privileged to call home.

Let us also remember the Spiritual Freedom we can have as we look at the Cross where Jesus Christ gave his life for our freedom.

May God bless America!

Meet me again for a View From The Windowsill

Your Friend, Pat Smith
Taboo or not taboo? Artists expose naked truths in Pakistan

Mohammad Ali sits before a painting of a semi-naked man and declares his work has never been censored in conservative Muslim Pakistan, where an artistic vanguard are challenging taboos in the chaotic city of Karachi.

"I have done some pretty bold and risky works but luckily I did not face any," says the 27-year-old, a rising star who paints figurative, contemporary images exploring gender, politics and sex.

Ali has a theory about why, in a developing country where women are traditionally veiled and even unproven allegations of blasphemy can stir mob violence, he has been so free.

Sameera Raja explains an art work at her Canvass Gallery in Karachi Asif Hassan (AFP)

"People, a lot of them don't have access to even a decent meal and if they are starving you cannot make them interested in art instead of food," he says.

Pakistan remains deeply bound to strict religious norms, though art bursts from unexpected places, such as the acid-trip trucks wild with bells and bright, elaborate images that traverse the country.

But in recent years Karachi's concrete sprawl has become home to a rush of galleries and dealerships bullish on the country's art market as a new generation challenges constraints that date back to the Islamisation of the 1980s.

In the port city's trendy Canvass Gallery, owner Sameera Raja takes AFP on a tour of the nude and homosexual art on display.

"These are not the things which are taboos in our society, at least not in the art-related population," she says.

"Having said that, it doesn't that mean I am going to socially risk the artist by putting it up on a the public platform. Absolutely not," she swiftly adds.

- Public exposure -

Raja is all too aware that, despite the confidence of artists such as Ali -- whose paintings have so far been confined to galleries and private spaces -- such art only finds safe haven in showrooms like hers and in the bedrooms of the Pakistani elite.

Her caution is echoed by other artists, such as third-year visual arts student Hadiqa Asif at Karachi University.

"If we want to make a sculpture so we must be aware that it should not cause any harm to the society," she says, chiselling at a piece of wood.

Some artists point to the Islamisation of Pakistan by military dictator Zia ul-Haq in the 1980s as a ground zero of sorts for conservative taboos, and other forms of art that flourished because of them, such as calligraphy.

"During the regime of Zia ul-Haq there was much noise of imposition of Islamic government in the country," prominent Pakistani artist Mashkoor Raza, famous for his abstract images of women and horses, recalls.

"Our seniors would draw nudes, but fearing their arrest they started calligraphy of the religious verses and Sufi poetry."

He said he found himself unable to earn a living, and worked in a textile mill as a designer for nearly a decade, using his savings to buy brushes, paints and canvas.

But Zia was assassinated in 1988, and the 1990s saw galleries and art shops mushroom in urban centres like Karachi.

"After the 90s, I became the owner of my own home, car and whatnot," says Raza, who now lives in a posh neighbourhood fanned by the city's sea breezes.

Estimates by gallery owners and art critics put the number of galleries, framers and dealers in Karachi alone in the hundreds.

"They are growing exponentially, it's a huge market, I think," comments Raja the gallery owner.

- No nudes are good nudes? -

This fresh dynamism is having a potent effect, argues Munwar Ali Syed, an art professor at the state-run Karachi University.

"Of course, we are very cautious here to censor human body parts," he says. "There are some limitations."

But the squeezing of liberal thought does not stifle creativity, he claims -- rather it spurs his students in new directions.

"When you realise that there are some limits and boundaries which you can not cross, you work more creatively," he says, citing a sculptor named Mohammad Ismail.

Eight years ago, Ismail fell from the second storey of a building where he was supervising construction and broke his back, leaving him confined him to a wheelchair for life.

Now the 35-year-old crafts twisted, skeletal sculptures from metal.

"My own skeleton got distorted so I focus on it," he tells AFP, seated next to a worktable as he puts the finishing touches on a new piece.

"I searched the intricacies of the skeleton, I drew my strength from it and I tried to support myself through this."

Despite the shift and the brimming confidence of artists like Mohammad Ali, change, already decades in the making, remains slow.

For many sex -- contrary to the received wisdom -- still doesn't sell.

"I don't think that there is a room for the nude in Pakistan other than what an artist makes privately for themselves," Durriya Kazi, head of the visual arts department at Karachi University, told AFP.

"I don't think it is relevant to our society."

Mohammad Ali declares his paintings have never been censored in conservative Muslim Pakistan Asif Hassan (AFP)

"During the regime of Zia ul-Haq there was much noise of imposition of Islamic government in the country," prominent Pakistani artist Mashkoor Raza recalls Asif Hassan (AFP)

Sculptor Mohammad Ismail crafts twisted, skeletal sculptures from metal Asif Hassan (AFP)
Singapore to pursue firms over fires, despite Indonesian ire

Singapore is refusing to back down in its pursuit of those responsible for haze-belching forest fires in Southeast Asia last year, despite struggling to bring the perpetrators before the courts and drawing a sharp rebuke from neighbouring Indonesia.

Forest fires are part of an annual dry-season problem in Indonesia, started illegally to quickly and cheaply clear land for cultivation -- particularly for palm oil and pulpwood.

But last year's haze outbreak was among the worst in memory, shrouding Malaysia, Singapore, and parts of Thailand in acrid smoke and forcing school closures as pollution reached hazardous levels and thousands fell sick across the region.

Indonesian police and firefighters extinguish a fire on burning peat land in Central Kalimantan province on Borneo island Romeo Gacad (AFP/File)

Singapore has served notice to six Indonesian companies it believes may have cleared land by burning but could target others as investigations continue, according to Singapore's ambassador to Indonesia Anil Kumar Nayar.

"We are going after, to put it starkly, the bad guys that are causing this problem," he told AFP in an interview last week.

However, the city-state's efforts to punish Indonesian companies under its own anti-haze law have become a flashpoint with Jakarta.

Singapore argues that international rules allow states to take action -- even if harm is being caused by activities outside its jurisdiction -- but Jakarta has questioned how Singapore could pursue Indonesian citizens for prosecution, especially in the absence of a ratified extradition treaty between the neighbours.

The latest sabre-rattling came after Singapore issued a court warrant in May to detain a director of an Indonesian company linked to the haze while he was in the city-state.

Afterwards, Indonesia's Environment Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar said that she would be reviewing her ministry's cooperation with Singapore on environmental issues.

"Singapore cannot step further into Indonesia's legal domain," Bakar told reporters in June. Her spokesman declined to comment further on the matter when contacted.

Nayar reiterated that Singapore wasn't crossing any line pursuing these companies and was within its rights to enforce its law.

"We are not doing something that is extraordinary. It is not targeting any country, or anybody's sovereignty," he said.

The law threatens local and foreign firms with fines of up to $100,000 Singaporean dollars (US$74,000) for every day Singapore endures unhealthy haze pollution.

So far just two of the companies have responded to the court order, Nayar said, without naming specific firms.

- Slow progress -

Singapore has repeatedly asked Indonesia for details about companies -- such as maps showing who owns what concessions -- but says Jakarta has not provided any information.

Singapore would "continue to press", Nayar said, but added the evidence needed to prosecute these companies could be found by other means.

"We could go that way as well, but at the end of the day this is part of a legal process. We want to be working with the Indonesian government," he said.

One of Indonesia's main arguments is that a regional approach to solving the haze crisis would be more effective than individual action.

"They (Singapore) know our view on this, on how we can best address this issue of haze through the ASEAN mechanism," ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir told AFP.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has an agreement to create a haze-free region by 2020, though it took 14 years to be fully ratified.

Nayar says regional progress on curbing haze has been slow.

Fellow ASEAN member Malaysia, which also suffers during the haze outbreaks, has expressed interest in adopting its own law similar to Singapore's to pursue errant companies.

Jakarta has promised tougher action in the wake of last year's haze disaster, which turned skies yellow in Indonesia's part of Borneo island and dealt the economy a $16 billion blow.

The government announced in May it would no longer grant new land for palm oil plantations, and established a new agency to restore millions of hectares of carbon-rich peatlands susceptible to fires.

Singapore's Keppel container port terminal is blanketed in thick smog as air quality reached "very unhealthy" levels in September 2015 Roslan Rahman (AFP/File)

Motorists travel under thick haze in Palembang on Indonesia's Sumatra island Abdul Qodir (AFP/File)
New Zealand police bust coke horse head

New Zealand police said Sunday they have seized a record NZ$14 million (US$10 million) dollars worth of cocaine hidden inside a large diamante-encrusted horse head from Mexico.

The largest-ever haul of the drug in New Zealand has been linked to the rebuild of the city of Christchurch, severely damaged in a 2011 earthquake, and the Australian market.

Detective Superintendent Virginia Le Bas, from the organised crime unit, said they were still working to establish the final destination of the haul.

A record NZ$14 million dollars worth of cocaine had been hidden inside a large diamante-encrusted horse head from Mexico

"This is a significant win for New Zealand," she said. "This is a great success, we should be proud to have detected it at the earliest of stages."

The 35-kilogramme (77 pound) shipment had been air-freighted from Mexico to Auckland where it was detected in the bejewelled horse-head statue in May.

Following a six-week investigation, a Mexican and an American were arrested in Auckland over the weekend as they prepared to fly to Hawaii and another Mexican was detained in Christchurch.

Police believe at least some of the drug was destined for Christchurch which has attracted workers from around the world to get involved in the rebuild over recent years.

Le Bas said some people in Christchurch were using the drug and the rebuild had created a change in demand for some illicit substances.
Flash floods kill 43 in northern Pakistan: officials

Overnight flash floods killed at least 43 people in northern Pakistan, the majority in a remote village that did not receive an evacuation warning before the waters hit washing away most of the settlement, officials said Sunday.

The heavy monsoon rains began late Saturday and were concentrated mainly in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which has been badly affected by flooding in recent years that some scientists have linked to climate change.

The worst hit district was Chitral, on the country's northwest border with Afghanistan, where the flood waters killed 41 people in the village of Ursoon near the Afghan border, which is home to some 100 families, district mayor Maghfirat Shah told AFP.

Pakistani labourers wade through flood water following heavy rain in Lahore Arif Ali (AFP/File)

Eighty-two homes in the village were affected by the waters, a rescue services statement said, with some of them swept away, along with a mosque and an army post.

"Sixteen of the dead were offering prayers in the mosque when it was swept away by the flood," said Latifur Rehman, a spokesman for the provincial disaster management authority.

At least eight of the victims were soldiers, and another eight bodies were swept over the border into Afghanistan, senior local official Osama Waraich said.

Rehman said a military-led rescue and relief operation was now underway, with helicopters being used to reach the affected people and provide them with tents, food and medical aid.

Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation, the charitable wing of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group, were among the first at the scene providing relief.

An AFP reporter in Ursoon said survivors who had lost their homes were waiting for aid under open skies surrounded by mud and debris where their village once stood.

Nearby villages had received flood warnings from the local authorities, but Ursoon was not alerted in time, the reporter said.

Separately, two Chinese engineers were killed and five Pakistani workers injured when the heavy rains caused the roof of a construction site to collapse at Tarbela Dam, also in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Rehman said.

- Deadly rains

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's office issued a statement expressing his grief and sorrow.

Heavy rains and flash flood claim many victims each year, with poorly built homes across the country, particularly in rural areas, susceptible to collapse during the annual spring and monsoon rains in July-August

In April rains and landslides killed 127 people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Gilgit-Baltistan region and Pakistani Kashmir.

During the rainy season last summer, torrential downpours and flooding killed 81 people and affected almost 300,000 across the country.

The worst flooding in recent times occurred in 2010 and covered almost a fifth of the country's total land mass. Nearly 2,000 people were killed, 20 million affected and huge tracts of prime farmland destroyed.

Rapid deforestation brought about by decades of illegal logging in the country's north and the growth of farming along the river Indus in the south is believed by experts to have exacerbated the effects of the annual floods.

Energy-starved Pakistan relies on a multitude of dams and barrages to prevent Himalayan rivers from flooding and help meet its power needs, but some academics believe the slowing of rivers due to the structures mean that silt accumulates, decreasing their capacity.

A research paper commissioned by conservation group WWF and published in 2000 looked at various countries, and warned of similar consequences. It noted the drainage of wetlands as well as deforestation associated with dams led to a loss of natural "sponges" to absorb flood waters during rainy season.

strs-mmg/ia/as
IS-claimed Baghdad blast kills at least 119

A suicide car bombing claimed by the Islamic State group ripped through a busy Baghdad shopping district Sunday, killing at least 119 people in the deadliest attack this year in Iraq's capital.

The blast hit the Karrada district early in the day as the area was packed with shoppers ahead of this week's holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

It came a week after Iraqi security forces recaptured Fallujah from IS, leaving Mosul as the only Iraqi city under the jihadist group's control.

Iraqis, including firefighters, gather at the site of a suicide car bombing claimed by the Islamic State group on July 3, 2016 in Baghdad's central Karrada district Sabah Arar (AFP)

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered changes to Baghdad security measures in response to the bombing, which security officials said also wounded more than 180 people.

Abadi visited the site of the attack and vowed "punishment" for the perpetrators, according to his office, which later announced three days of mourning for the victims.

The blast set buildings ablaze, and firemen were still working to extinguish them some 12 hours later.

Men carried the bodies of two victims out of one burned building and a crowd of people looked on from the rubble-filled street as emergency personnel worked at the site.

A member of the civil defence forces said that it would take "a number of days" to recover the bodies of the victims.

Hussein Ali, a 24-year-old former soldier, said six workers at his family's shop were killed, their bodies so badly burned they could not be identified.

"I will return to the battlefront. At least there, I know the enemy so I can fight him. But here, I don't know who I'm fighting," Ali told AFP.

- 'Cowardly and heinous act' -

IS issued a statement claiming responsibility for the suicide bombing, saying it was carried out by an Iraqi as part of "ongoing security operations".

The jihadist group said the blast targeted Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority, whom the Sunni extremists consider heretics and frequently attack in Baghdad and elsewhere.

UN Iraq envoy Jan Kubis condemned the "cowardly and heinous act of unparallelled proportions," calling on authorities to bring those responsible to justice.

Officials said another explosion in the Shaab area of northern Baghdad killed at least one person and wounded four on Sunday, but the cause of the blast was disputed.

Bombings in the capital have decreased since IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in June 2014, with the jihadists apparently more concerned with operations elsewhere.

But the group has struck back against Iraqi civilians after suffering military setbacks, and in May, Baghdad was rocked by a series of blasts that killed more than 150 people in seven days.

A video posted on social media showed men -- apparently angry at the government's failure to prevent the carnage in Karrada -- throwing rocks at what was said to be Abadi's convoy.

A bystander could also be heard cursing at Abadi in another video.

But the premier struck a conciliatory tone over anger directed towards him.

- IS defeat in Fallujah -

"I understand the emotional feelings and actions that occurred in a moment of sadness and anger," Abadi said in a statement.

With thousands of vehicles moving in and out of the city each day, such bombings are difficult to prevent.

But there are also flaws in security measures in the city, especially the continued use of fake bomb detectors at checkpoints years after the man who sold them to Iraq was jailed for fraud in Britain.

Abadi announced a series of changes to security measures following the Sunday bombing, including scrapping the fake detectors.

He also ordered the deployment of scanning devices at entrances to Baghdad to be sped up, directed that security personnel be banned from using mobile phones at checkpoints, and also called for increased aerial reconnaissance and coordination among security forces.

Iraqi forces completely recaptured Fallujah, a city 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad, from the jihadists a week ago.

Anti-government fighters seized Fallujah in early 2014 and it later became one of IS's main strongholds in the country.

IS's defeat there was compounded by a devastating series of air strikes targeting jihadist forces as they sought to flee the Fallujah area.

Iraqi and US-led coalition aircraft destroyed hundreds of IS vehicles and killed dozens of fighters in two days of strikes against jihadist convoys after the end of the Fallujah battle, officials said.

With Fallujah retaken, Iraqi forces are now setting their sights on second city Mosul, the last major population centre held by IS in Iraq.

Iraq: Baghdad bombing

Iraqis evacuate a body from the site of a suicide car bombing in Baghdad's central Karrada district on July 3, 2016 Sabah Arar (AFP)

An Iraqi man mourns in the holy Iraqi city of Najaf during the funeral procession for the victims of a suicide bombing that ripped through Baghdad's busy shopping district of Karrada on July 3, 2016 Haidar Hamdani (AFP)
China to hold drills in disputed waters ahead of court ruling

China will hold military drills in the disputed South China Sea, the government said Sunday, ahead of an international tribunal ruling over Beijing's maritime claims in the resource-rich area.

The drills will be held in waters around the Paracel Islands from July 5 to 11, with other ships prohibited from entering the waters during that time, a short statement by the maritime safety administration said.

The military exercises come as an international tribunal in The Hague prepares to rule on a case brought by the Philippines challenging China's claims in the strategic waterway.

China's South Sea Fleet takes part in a drill in the Xisha Islands, or the Paracel Islands, in the South China Sea in May 2016

Manila lodged the suit against Beijing in early 2013, saying that after 17 years of negotiations it had exhausted all political and diplomatic avenues to settle the dispute.

Beijing, which asserts sovereignty over almost all of the South China Sea despite rival claims from Southeast Asian neighbours, insists that the Permanent Court of Arbitration has no jurisdiction over the issue and has boycotted the proceedings.

Basing its claims on a vaguely defined "nine-dash" Chinese map dating back to the 1940s, it has rapidly turned reefs into artificial islands capable of hosting military planes.

Manila contends that the "nine-dash" line has no basis under international law and Beijing has no "historic" claim to the ocean.

Tensions in the South China Sea have alarmed other nations, and most notably the United States which has key defence treaties with many allies in the region, and in a show of strength has sent warships close to some of the Chinese claimed reefs.

But President Xi Jinping said in a speech last week that China will never compromise on sovereignty, and that the country was "not afraid of trouble".

In an apparent stab at the US, Xi said: "We will not show up at other people's front doors to flex our muscles. That does not show strength or scare anyone."
Syrian refugees could become Turkish citizens: Erdogan

Syrian refugees living in Turkey could eventually be granted Turkish citizenship, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signalled, a plan that has sparked controversy at home.

"I want to announce some good news," media quoted Erdogan as saying late Saturday at a dinner to break the Ramadan fast in Kilis province, on the Syrian border

"We are going to help our Syrian friends in offering them the chance, if they want it, to acquire Turkish nationality."

Turkey is hosting more than three million refugees from Syria and Iraq Odd Andersen (AFP/File)

The interior ministry will shortly announce how the citizenship procedure would work, Erdogan said.

He did not specify whether all of the 2.7 million Syrians that Turkey is hosting would be able to apply, and gave no details on eligibility criteria or how long the process would take.

"We regard you as our brothers and sisters -- you are not far from your homeland, but only from your homes and your land," Erdogan told a group of Syrian refugees in Kilis.

"Turkey is also your homeland."

Ankara has refused to grant refugee status to Syrians who have fled the devastating war across the border since 2011, referring to them as "guests".

Only a select group have been granted work permits and residency.

The country's open-door policy to Syrian refugees was initially a source of pride for many Turks.

But more and more have come to resent the new arrivals, seeing them as a drain on state resources and rivals for scarce jobs.

In Kilis, where Erdogan spoke, refugees now outnumber the native Turkish population.

Life is a struggle for most Syrians in Turkey, who mainly live off odd jobs that are often insufficient to feed and house a family.

The country is also hosting some 300,000 Iraqis who have fled the Islamic State group.

Erdogan's announcement sparked fierce debate on social media, with many Turkish web users questioning whether it was a good idea.

"Granting citizenship shouldn't depend on what one person wants. We need a referendum!" wrote Mahomet Mahomet on Twitter.

The hashtag #ulkemdeSuriyeliistemiyorum ("I don't want Syrians in my country") trended on Twitter, though some users denounced the reaction as racist.

"The reaction is racist pure and simple -- before everything else we need a measured response," tweeted Omer Sloukas.

Some critics suggested the move might be a bid by Erdogan to register an army of thankful Syrian voters who might back his plans to boost his presidential powers.

The Turkish strongman is accused of increasing authoritarianism since he came into power as 2002 as prime minister becoming the country's first directly-elected president two years ago.

He is seeking to change the constitution to give Turkey a presidential system, a proposal that has prompted staunch criticism from the parliamentary opposition.

To achieve his goal, he would need a three-fifths majority in parliament to call a referendum on the issue, or a two-thirds majority for direct approval.
Restless Myanmar state sees mass anti-Muslim protests

Myanmar's bitterly-divided Rakhine State saw mass protests Sunday as thousands of Buddhists, including monks, demonstrated in a show of opposition to a government edict referring to Muslim communities in the restive province, organisers told AFP.

Anti-Muslim rhetoric has spiked across Myanmar recently, with two mosques torched by Buddhist mobs in just over a week in a country where sectarian violence has left scores dead since 2012.

Home to around one million stateless Rohingya Muslims, Rakhine State has been hardest hit by religious violence that has left tens of thousands of the persecuted minority in fetid displacement camps.

Myanmar Buddhist residents participate in an anti-Muslim demonstration in Sittwe, Rakhine State, on July 3, 2016 Win Moe (AFP)

The Rohingya are reviled by Rakhine Buddhists who refuse to recognise any shared rights to the province and instead call them "Bengalis" -- or illegal immigrants from nearby Bangladesh.

Aung San Suu Kyi's new government has sought to defuse the row over the term Rohingya instead ordering officials to refer to "Muslim communities in Rakhine".

But protesters on Sunday said that too was unacceptable as it hands Muslims recognition in a Buddhist state.

"We reject the term 'Muslim communities in Rakhine State'," Kyawt Sein, protest organiser in Sittwe, told AFP, adding more than 1,000 people, including monks, had joined the rally in the state capital.

Rally-goers there shouted slogans including 'Protect Rakhine State,' while a protest in the town of Thandwe drew similar numbers.

"Bengalis should be called Bengalis," Phoe Thar Lay,a leader of a local Rakhine youth group told AFP, adding that 17 townships across Rakhine were participating in protests on Sunday afternoon.

Most Rohingya live cut off from the Buddhist community in displacement camps or remote settlements since sectarian riots tore Rakhine apart in 2012.

Persecution and poverty have forced tens of thousands to flee by sea, but the dangerous trafficking route south through the Bay of Bengal was closed late last year during a Thai crackdown on people smuggling.

Suu Kyi, a veteran democracy activist who championed her country's struggle against repressive military rulers, has drawn criticism from rights groups for not taking up the cause of the Rohingya.

Instead she has carefully sought to sidestep controversy, urging the international community to give the country "space" to unpick its sectarian problems.

The Rohingya are not recognised by the government as an official ethnic minority.

After a 12-day visit to Rakhine and other conflict sites in Myanmar, a UN rights investigator warned Friday that "tensions along religious lines remain pervasive across Myanmar society".

Yanghee Lee urged the country's new civilian government to make "ending institutionalised discrimination against the Muslim communities in Rakhine State... an urgent priority".

The same day a mosque was torched by a Buddhist mob in the jade-mining town of Hpakant in the far north.

That incident came eight days after another crowd of Buddhists destroyed another mosque in central Bago, forcing the Muslim community to seek refuge in a neighbouring town.
Clinton 'pleased' to speak with FBI in email probe

Hillary Clinton says she was "pleased" to speak with the FBI about her use of personal email while serving as secretary of state, but refused to discuss reports that she will not face charges.

In an interview aired Sunday, Clinton acknowledged it was unwise for her husband to meet with America's top law enforcement officer, with the encounter coming in the midst of the FBI investigation that has dogged her campaign to become the first female president of the United States.

"Hindsight is 20/20," Clinton told NBC's "Meet the Press" program, noting that both Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch have said they would not do it again.

US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at a campaign rally in Balboa Park on June 2, 2016 in San Diego, California David McNew (AFP/File)

The pair held an impromptu meeting at the airport in Phoenix, Arizona this week.

Clinton, who was interviewed by the FBI on Saturday for about 3.5 hours, refused to speculate on the timeline or possible conclusions of the FBI investigation, and would not comment on reports saying she would not be charged.

"I was eager to do it and I was pleased to have the opportunity to assist the department in bringing its review to a conclusion," Clinton said.

She has apologized for exclusively using a private email account and her own server during her time as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.

Opponents argue that this breached rules about protecting classified documents from cyber attack and may have amounted to a crime.

The latest NBC News/WSJ poll shows Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump with a strong lead over Clinton -- 41 percent to 25 percent -- on honesty and trustworthiness.

"I'm going to continue to put forth my record, what I have stood for, do everything I can to earn the trust of the voters of our country. I know that's something that I'm going to keep working on, and I think that's, you know, a clear priority for me," she said.

"When you've been in the eye of the tornado for as long as I have, I know there's a lot of incoming fire, I accept that."

- Fortunate timing -

The interview came on the long Independence Day weekend when most Americans are preoccupied with family and friends, and before the Democratic National Convention where Clinton is set to be officially named the party's presidential nominee.

"Timing of FBI interview, between primaries and convention, probably good timing for @HillaryClinton. Best to get it behind her," ex-White House aide David Axelrod commented on Twitter.

Clinton, who declined to comment further on the probe, promised that "I will continue to be as forthcoming as I can."

"I've been answering questions now for over a year. I've released more than 55,000 pages of my emails for the public to read for themselves," she said.

Lynch has acknowledged that the tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton last Monday "cast a shadow" over the investigation into his wife's use of emails just months before the November general election.

Lynch said she would respect the decisions of the FBI and prosecutors on whether to charge Hillary Clinton.

The former top US diplomat said she learned of the meeting "in the news."

"It was a short, chance meeting that occurred. They did not discuss the Department of Justice's review. I know that some have nonetheless viewed the meeting in a different light," Clinton said.

She said planes carrying her husband and Lynch apparently landed at about the same time. They exchanged hellos and chatted about grandchildren, golf and their mutual friend and former attorney general Janet Reno, Hillary Clinton said.
Kuwait to tap foreign debt markets to finance deficit

Kuwait said Sunday it plans to tap the international debt market through bond issues to finance its budget deficit after recording a first shortfall in 16 years.

The oil-rich Gulf state plans to "borrow up to three billion dinars ($10 billion) in US-denominated bonds from international markets, in both conventional and (Islamic) sukuk issuance," Finance Minister Anas al-Saleh told parliament.

The ministry will borrow another two billion Kuwaiti dinars ($6.6 billion) in both conventional and Islamic instruments from the domestic market, Saleh said.

Kuwaiti Oil and Finance Minister Anas al-Saleh speaks during a parliament session on July 3, 2016 Yasser al-Zayyat (AFP)

It will be the country's first foreign debt in around two decades.

The borrowings will take place during the 2016/2017 fiscal year, which began April 1 and end next March 31, the minister said, without giving specific dates.

Saleh said the finance ministry has already borrowed $2.5 billion from the domestic market.

Saleh, who is also acting oil minister, said Kuwait recorded its first budget deficit of 5.5 billion dinars ($18.3 billion) in the 2015/2016 fiscal year.

Kuwait posted healthy budget surpluses for 16 consecutive fiscal years until oil prices began to slide two years ago. Oil income made up around 95 percent of public revenues.

During the surplus years, Kuwait piled up around $600 billion in its sovereign wealth fund managed by Kuwait Investment Authority in holdings mostly in the United States, Europe and Asia.

Parliament later on Sunday overwhelmingly passed the budget for 2016/2017 projecting a huge deficit due to the slump in oil prices.

Revenues were projected at 10.2 billion dinars ($33.9 billion), while spending was estimated at 18.9 billion dinars ($62.8 billion), leaving a shortfall of 8.7 billion dinars ($28.9 billion).

Oil income, calculated at a price of $35 a barrel, was projected at $29.2 billion, down by more than 60 percent of 2014/2015 crude returns before prices saw the sharp downfall.

During the debate in parliament, MPs called on the government to do more to diversify the sources of income to reduce dependence on oil.

"For the past 60 years, we have remained under the mercy of oil... The government must search for alternatives," independent MP Adel al-Khorafi said.

The finance minister warned that due to the slide in oil revenues, "we now face serious challenges that put the stability and sustainability of our public finances at risk".

Like its Gulf peers, Kuwait has taken some austerity measures that include liberalising prices of diesel and kerosene and plans to hike petrol prices.

Two months ago, parliament approved a law to raise heavily subsidised power and water fees but exempted citizens. Implementation is scheduled after one year.
LAMOILLE  Elko and Spring Creek area families are invited to come to the new Lamoille Farmers Market, to be held on the second Saturday of the month at the Kennedy Ranch property in downtown Lamoille. The first market is scheduled for 8 a.m. to noon Saturday. The Farmers Markets will run through November.

The Lamoille Farmers Market is an outgrowth of informal sale days held by several local agricultural producers in recent years. While the products offered each month will vary based on what is coming into season, in the past shoppers have been able to take home pasture-raised chicken, turkeys, lamb and beef, locally produced honey, handmade cheeses, eggs, vegetables, jellies and fruit butters. This year, they hope to offer regionally produced fruits and handspun wool, as well.

The sales are held next to Lamoille Creek, and visitors are able to see the animals being raised there. As the market grows, organizers hope to be able to offer other locally produced agricultural products, as well as showcase local 4-H and FFA members animal projects.
Egypt rights watchdog criticises disappearances, torture

Egypt's human rights council said on Sunday that the authorities' human rights record had not improved, noting a string of enforced disappearances by the police and abuse of prisoners.

The National Council for Human Rights, the country's official rights watchdog, made the remarks in an annual report.

"The human rights situation in the country has not changed in spite of the adoption of the new constitution two years ago," the report said.

Egypt's human rights council report criticised the state for failing to pass effective legislation to curb torture, although it acknowledged that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had tried to end the abuses Mohamed el-Shahed (AFP/File)

It added that the council had raised 266 cases of enforced disappearances with the interior ministry, of whom 27 were since revealed to have been released while 143 remained in pretrial detention.

The ministry responded that 44 of the missing people had not been arrested, and may have disappeared for other reasons, including to join jihadist groups, the council's report said.

The cases were documented between April 2015 and the end of March this year.

"Human rights causes have not yet become a priority for the state," it said.

Rights groups had accused Egypt of extensive abuses that spiked after the military overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, unleashing a bloody crackdown on his followers.

The report also criticised the state for failing to pass effective legislation to curb torture, although it acknowledged that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had tried to end the abuses.

Sisi has spoken out against police abuses and several policemen have been put on trial over the deaths of detainees.

The report noted that suspicions that security services had abducted Italian student Giulio Regeni, whose mutilated body was found on the side of a road, had been boosted by "the continuation of the phenomenon of torture" in Egypt.

The report did not shed any light on Regeni's disappearance, which created a diplomatic rift between Egypt and Italy, a close ally. Police have denied involvement.

The council said it had received 296 complaints during 2015.

"Many of the complaints are related to abuses they are subject to in prisons and other detention facilities, most notably torture and other harsh and degrading treatment," the council said.

The use of torture "continues to be widespread", particularly in initial detention centres.

Meanwhile, pretrial detention has become "a punishment in itself".

Initial detention centres are estimated to hold more than 300 percent of their capacity, the report said.
Tears, smoke and loss at site of deadly Baghdad blast

A weeping Zainab Mustafa brought a photo of her husband to the still-smouldering site of a bloody bombing in Baghdad Sunday, seeking word of him and their two missing children.

The three had gone out the night before to buy clothes for the upcoming holiday marking the end of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, and Mustafa has not heard from them since.

The suicide car bombing in the Karrada area, which was claimed by the Islamic State group and killed at least 119 people, sparked raging fires in nearby buildings, and smoke still rose from charred structures more than 12 hours after the explosion.

An Iraqi firefighter works at the site of a suicide car bombing claimed by the Islamic State group on July 3, 2016 in Baghdad's central Karrada district Sabah Arar (AFP)

"We have looked everywhere; members of my family are looking for them," said Mustafa.

The street in the Karrada area is littered with rubble, and the search for victims within the burned buildings could take days.

"The lists of victims I saw included whole families -- the father and his sons, the mother and her daughters -- whole families were wiped out by this explosion," a member of the civil defence forces said.

"We need a number of days to be able to recover the bodies of victims. It is a difficult task," he said.

Fadhel Salem is missing two of his brothers who were in the family's shop.

"I think they are still there inside the store, but I can't see anything because of the heavy smoke," he said.

Five people worked with shovels to try to find their friends at another shop where the ceiling had collapsed.

- 'Nothing there except fire' -

"I knew all of them; they are all my friends," said Sami Kadhim, one of those digging through the remains of the shop.

Kadhim said he brought his friend Mustafa some juice from a nearby vendor moments before the blast, then went home to sleep.

"After the explosion, there was nothing there except fire. I couldn't see Mustafa because his place" was ablaze, Kadhim said.

Baghdad has been hit by a number of bombings this year, but none nearly as deadly as the Sunday attack, which combined explosives and shrapnel with raging flames.

Identifying all of the victims who are found will also be an enormous challenge.

Civil defence members found a body near where Kadhim was searching, but it was burned beyond recognition and may require DNA testing to be identified.

"It is not possible to know who this body belongs to," one of them said.

A list of victims posted at a nearby hospital listed some as "unknown".

Black banners bearing the names of victims hang from some shops in the area, which has been closed off by security forces.

While dozens died in the bombing and subsequent fires, some made narrow escapes.

"A number jumped off the roofs of buildings despite the height," sustaining injuries including broken feet, said shop owner Sari Mohammed.

And "three people hid inside a refrigerator on the first floor, and after the fire was extinguished, they came out alive," Mohammed said.

Iraqis react at Baghdad's central Karrada district Sabah Arar (AFP)
John McCain reassures Pakistan of support in terror fight

US senator John McCain expressed support for Pakistan's efforts in the fight against the Taliban after visiting a key tribal district recently retaken by the military, the Pakistani foreign ministry said Sunday.

A four-member, bipartisan US Senate delegation led by the former presidential candidate went to North Waziristan, where in 2014, under US pressure, the army launched an operation to wipe out militant bases and end the near decade-long Islamist insurgency.

In May, the army announced it had successfully cleared the area of militants.

John McCain, pictured on March 8, 2016, led a four-member, bipartisan US Senate delegation to North Waziristan Win McNamee (Getty/AFP/File)

The foreign ministry statement said that the US delegation had met with Pakistani Foreign Affairs advisor Sartaj Aziz and held talks on Pakistan-US ties as well as the situation in Afghanistan.

Aziz "appreciated Senator McCain for his positive comments regarding the importance of Pakistan-US relations at a time when the region was facing complex challenges," the statement said.

"Good delegation mtg w/ Chief of Army Staff of #Pakistan Gen Raheel Sharif & discussing regional security challenges," McCain said on his verified Twitter account, also posting photos of the delegation's visit to Waziristan.

The relationship between the two nations has been strained at times with some in Washington believing Pakistan has not done enough to bring its influence to bear and to persuade the Taliban to renounce violence.

Pakistan was angered over a recent US drone strike which killed the Taliban's leader Mullah Akthar Mansour in May in southwestern Balochistan province.

The US Congress also blocked the subsidised sale of eight F-16 jet fighters to Pakistan in May accusing of it of being lax in the fight against militants.

The US has carried out hundreds of drone strikes in Pakistan, mainly in the border tribal regions with Afghanistan, and leaked documents show Islamabad had quietly consented despite publicly protesting.
Bangladesh 'in denial' over jihadist attacks: analysts

A slaughter of foreign hostages has put Bangladesh firmly on the frontline of the global war on terror despite government efforts to portray a campaign of attacks as the work of domestic opponents, according to analysts.

Several dozen people have been killed by jihadists in Bangladesh in the last two years, the victims including mainly local atheist bloggers, Hindus, gay activists and liberal academics.

But while those attacks generated few column inches beyond Bangladesh, this weekend's hostage siege in a Dhaka cafe led news bulletins around the world, attracting the kind of attention its perpetrators had long been craving.

Bangladeshi policemen guard a checkpoint on a road block leading to the Holey Artisan Bakery, the scene of a fatal attack and siege, in Dhaka on July 3, 2016

Analysts said the choice of venue, target, timing and method of killing were all designed to maximise publicity for jihadists who were well aware of the outrage that greeted recent massacres in Orlando and Paris.

Eighteen of the 20 civilians who were killed in the Holey Artisan Bakery were foreigners. Nearly all were hacked to death with machetes, even though the hostage-takers had plenty of firearms.

The attack was even more shocking as it came on the final weekend of Ramadan, with survivors describing how the hostage-takers made clear their targets were non-Muslims, separating locals from the foreigners.

Around 90 percent of Bangladesh's 160 million people are Muslims but the state is officially secular.

"By hacking people to death... they wanted to show the world that they can go to any extent for jihad," said K G Suresh, a senior fellow at New Delhi's Vivekananda International Foundation think-tank.

"Once they attack a restaurant popular with foreigners on a Friday night their message is clear who they want to go after. By sparing Muslims, they wanted to send out the message that they are only against Westerners."

According to the monitoring group SITE, the Islamic State organisation claimed responsibility for the attack which it said had targeted "citizens of crusader states".

But Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's secular government has long insisted neither IS nor Al-Qaeda have gained a foothold in Bangladesh despite both groups claiming many previous attacks.

That line was reiterated by Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan who told AFP that six gunmen killed at the end of the siege were members of Jamaeytul Mujahdeen Bangladesh, a domestic group which has been banned for a decade.

He denied any link with IS but analysts said that stretched credibility.

Taj Hashmi, a Bangladeshi who teaches security studies at the Austin Peay State University in the US, said there could be "no ambiguity" that the attack was the work of IS.

"Bangladesh must admit that international Islamist networks are actively engaged in killing people in the country and they are not through yet," said Hashmi.

Mubashar Hasan, an expert on political Islam at Dhaka's Liberal Arts University, said it was not merely a local difficulty but was the latest in a line that stretched back to the attacks in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001.

"This is Bangladesh's 9/11. Bangladesh has now entered into the global war on terror," Hasan told AFP.

Critics have said the violence stems from the government's refusal to allow its opponents to operate freely in the political mainstream.

- 'Lack of democracy' -

Bangladesh's main Islamist party has been banned and most of its leaders have been arrested or else executed after recent trials over their role in the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.

Opposition leader Khaleda Zia is facing a string of court cases for her role in violent anti-government protests.

Zia's party boycotted the 2014 general election after Hasina refused to allow it to be overseen by a neutral caretaker government as in the past, and Hasan said growing extremism was an inevitable consequence.

"A dysfunctional state and lack of democracy made it fertile ground for terrorism," said Hasan.

The columnist Zafar Sohban urged the government to end "its state of denial".

"It cannot continue to bury its head in the sand about the clear and convincing evidence of transnational links to domestic terror groups and operations," he wrote in the Dhaka Tribune.

Subhash Agrawal of the Delhi-based India Focus political risk consultancy, said the recent arrests of thousands of Bangladeshis that the government says was organised to eradicate extremism had been counter-productive.

"She has been focusing on her political opponents and going after Begum Khaleda Zia's people while turning a blind eye to the alarming political and social polarisation in her country," Agrawal told AFP.

"Arresting so many people is simply stupid."

Indian Border Security Force personnel patrol along the Teesta River on the border with Bangladesh on July 3, 2016, following an attack and seige in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka Diptendu Dutta (AFP)

Floral tributes left near the site of a bloody siege in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka on July 3, 2016
Israel bars Hebron mayor over condolence visit

Israel on Sunday barred the Hebron governor from entering its territory after he visited the family of a Palestinian who killed a US-Israeli teenage girl in her sleep, officials said.

On Thursday, 19-year-old Mohammed Nasser Tarayra broke into the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba in the West Bank on the outskirts of Hebron and killed 13-year-old Israeli-American Hallel Yaffa Ariel before being shot dead by a security guard.

The murder sparked outrage and prompted Israel to lock down Hebron, a flashpoint city in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Israeli soldiers control check a vehicle at a mobile checkpoint on the main exit road from the West Bank town of Hebron on July 3, 2016 Hazem Bader (AFP)

The decision to bar mayor Kamal Humeid from Israel was taken by COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry unit which manages civilian affairs for Palestinians in the West Bank and liaises with Gaza.

A statement said Humeid had paid a condolence visit to Tarayra's family and was therefore "barred from entering Israel" and that he had been stripped of "his privileges", without elaborating.

Humeid said on Facebook he does not enjoy any special privileges and has "no business in Israel" that would lead him to enter the Jewish state.

A day after Thursday's attack, 48-year-old Israeli Michael Mark was killed after his car was fired on by a suspected Palestinian gunman south of Hebron.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the cabinet on Sunday that a series of measures had been taken "including aggressive ones which had not been used in the past" to respond to such attacks.

"This includes the lockdown of the entire Hebron district," home to 700,000 people, he said.

Netanyahu said the army had also revoked the Israeli work permits of residents of Beni Naim, the home village of Palestinian assailants.

Other measures, he said, include a "massive" bolstering of Israeli troops and an investigation into family members of Palestinian assailants "and their arrest if they were involved" in attacks.

On Friday a relative of Tarayra, 27-year-old Sarah Tarayra, was shot dead after drawing a knife on Israeli forces in Hebron.

Hebron has been one of the main focuses of a wave of deadly unrest that has rocked Israel and the Palestinian territories since October, with the army saying 80 of the attacks on Israelis were carried out by Palestinians from the Hebron area.

Several hundred Jewish settlers live in a tightly guarded enclave in the heart of the city of more than 200,000 Palestinians, a persistent source of tensions.

At least 214 Palestinians, 34 Israelis, two Americans, an Eritrean and a Sudanese have been killed since October.
More EgyptAir crash remains recovered from Mediterranean

Search teams have recovered more human remains from the EgyptAir plane that crashed into the Mediterranean in May, the Egyptian-led investigative committee said Sunday.

The search vessel John Lethbridge "retrieved all the human remains that were mapped at the crash location," the Egyptian Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee said in a statement.

After delivering the remains in Alexandria, the vessel will return to the crash location "to conduct a new thorough scan of the seabed and to search for any human remains," the committee said.

Egyptians walk past posters of the 66 victims of the EgyptAir MS804 flight that crashed in the Mediterranean Sea Khaled Desouki (AFP/File)

The Airbus A320 plunged into the sea on May 19 while heading to Cairo from Paris, killing all 66 people on board.

Egyptian and French forensic doctors onboard the search vessel supervised the retrieval process, the committee said.

The recovered remains will be examined by prosecutors and forensic specialists in Alexandria before being sent on to Cairo for DNA analysis.

A committee probing the plane disaster said Saturday that the memory chips of EgyptAir 804's black box voice recorder are intact and investigators should be able to access them.

The other black box, a data recorder that had also been retrieved from the bottom of the Mediterranean, has already been accessed.

Investigators said last week that the plane's wreckage showed signs of fire while the data recorder confirmed smoke alarms had been activated.
Obama: Wiesel was 'one of the great moral voices'

WASHINGTON (AP)  President Barack Obama is praising author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel as "one of the great moral voices of our time, and in many ways, the conscience of the world."

Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial announced Saturday that Wiesel had died at the age of 87.

In a statement, Obama says he first came to know Wiesel through his account of the horror he endured simply because he was Jewish. Later, Obama says, he came to regard Wiesel as a dear friend.

FILE - In this Feb. 25, 2010 file photo, Elie Wiesel is congratulated by first lady Michelle Obama, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, after President Barack Obama, left, presented him with the National Humanities Medal. Wiesel, the Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor has died. His death was announced Saturday, July 2, 2016 by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Obama says he was especially grateful for talks they shared on topics ranging from the meaning of friendship to their shared commitment to the state of Israel.
Muslim women campaign to end instant divorce in India

MUMBAI, India (AP)  Just hours after Shagufta Sayyd was married, her new husband told her he was having a relationship with another woman.

He was clear the two would have no future, the 21-year-old Sayyd said. He was only marrying her to please his mother.

"He said, 'no, I don't want to keep you,'" she said. "So he said, 'divorce, divorce, divorce, three times, and that was it."

In this June 29, 2016 photo, Indian Muslim woman Shagufta Sayyd prays at the office of Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, or the Indian Muslim Women's Movement, in Mumbai, India. Shagufta is among the Indian Muslim women who are campaigning against an Islamic legal practice that allows men to divorce their wives by simply saying "I divorce you" three times. The so-called instant divorce has already been banned in more than 20 Muslim countries, including neighboring Pakistan and Bangladesh. But in India, it is allowed under rules that protect communities following religious law. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

Sayyd still insists on using her husband's surname, until she can end the marriage officially in an Indian court. But like many other women from India's large Sunni Muslim minority, her fate and status are governed by Muslim Personal Law that follows the tenets of the Islamic faith, as interpreted by local imams and religious schools across India.

The so-called triple talaq, or instant divorce, has been banned in more than 20 Muslim countries, including neighboring Pakistan and Bangladesh. But in India, the practice is allowed thanks to the country's rules protecting Muslim, Christian and Hindu communities following religious law.

Most of the 170 million Muslims in India are Sunnis governed by Muslim Personal Law for family matters and disputes. Those laws include allowing men to divorce their wives by simply uttering the word "talaq," or divorce in Urdu, three times  and not necessarily consecutively, but at any time, and by any medium including telephone, text message or social media post.

Some women are fed up with what they say is an archaic and patriarchal rule that too often leaves them destitute. Muslim women do not have the same right, and those left by their husbands have no claim to alimony though they can collect a small payment for three months after divorce.

Then, they're on their own.

"They have been divorced by speed post, by sending out letters. Some have just simply said "talaq" three times and the divorce has happened," Noorjehan Safia Niaz, co-founder of Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, or the Indian Muslim Women's Movement.

The movement has been fighting for equal laws for Muslim women for six years.

"There are cases where women don't even know that they've been divorced," Niaz said. "The children are without any support. So, it has become very convenient for Muslim men to just say talaq thrice and . it is just so easy for him to get the woman out of his life."

Legal experts say the practice is unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court has been pushing for uniformity in laws. In 1985, the top court ruled ordered a man to pay alimony to his elderly wife, after verbally divorcing and abandoning her.

The Indian government in office at the time, however, managed to overturn the verdict retroactively by passing a law to protect Muslim divorce law. Many suspect the government was under pressure from Muslim leaders to stay out of their business or lose their electoral support.

The move frustrated women's rights activists. India had long since banned dowry payments from a girl's parents to the family of a groom before marriage, though many still practice the ancient Hindu tradition openly, they note. And more recently, India threw out Hindu laws that barred women from inheriting property from their fathers.

What makes the instant divorce laws so difficult, some say, is the fact that they are not codified and so are open to interpretation and adjustment.

One Supreme Court lawyer called the practice "barbaric."

"This is a kind of an ISIS-like rule prevailing in India," the advocate, Monika Arora, said, referring to the militant Islamic State that controls much of Syria and Iraq. "No progressive country can tolerate this."

Earlier this month, the women's movement collected more than 50,000 signatures, calling for a nationwide ban on instant divorces. That petition was being added as evidence in an appeal filed to the Supreme Court to ban instant divorces. The court has asked the central government for its opinion before scheduling a hearing.

Since the 1950s, "Hindu personal law has been constantly evolving and codified," Arora said. "Why this 'touch-me-not' perception for Muslim laws?"

She said India should follow the example set by other Islamic nations, including Turkey, Cyprus, Pakistan and Bangladesh, in banning the triple talaq.

But there is sure to be resistance. Some Islamic bodies, including the hardline Raza Academy based in Mumbai, say any women who dislike the laws of Islam can always leave the religion.

One academy cleric, Mohammad Saeed Noori, said it was possible that men were not performing the triple talaq correctly.

"Don't give three altogether in one go. People who do that are doing it wrong," Noori said. But "if he says it thrice, then the divorce is immediately confirmed. Then that woman has to immediately leave his house."

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Jain reported from New Delhi.

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Follow Rishabh R. Jain at: www.twitter.com/RishabhRJain1

In this June 29, 2016 photo, Indian Muslim woman Shagufta Sayyd, left, listens to Khawtoon Shiekh, an activist of Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, or the Indian Muslim Women's Movement, at their office in Mumbai, India. Shagufta is among the Indian Muslim women who are campaigning against an Islamic legal practice that allows men to divorce their wives by simply saying "I divorce you" three times. The so-called instant divorce has already been banned in more than 20 Muslim countries, including neighboring Pakistan and Bangladesh. But in India, it is allowed under rules that protect communities following religious law. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

In this June 29, 2016 photo, Indian Muslim woman Shagufta Sayyd, right, sits along with her mother Shama as they listen to Khawtoon Shiekh, an activist of Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, or the Indian Muslim Women's Movement, at their office in Mumbai, India. Shagufta is among the Indian Muslim women who are campaigning against an Islamic legal practice that allows men to divorce their wives by simply saying "I divorce you" three times. The so-called instant divorce has already been banned in more than 20 Muslim countries, including neighboring Pakistan and Bangladesh. But in India, it is allowed under rules that protect communities following religious law. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
Emory students among Bangladesh attack victims

ATLANTA (AP)  Emory University said Saturday that two of its students were among those killed when a group of armed extremists stormed a restaurant in Bangladesh earlier this week.

The university said on its website that students Faraaz Hossain and Abinta Kabir died in the attack in the South Asian nation's capital of Dhaka on Friday.

Kabir was entering Emory's Oxford College as a sophomore. She was visiting family and friends in Bangladesh at the time of the attack. Hossain was a graduate of Oxford College and a student at the university's Goizueta Business School in Atlanta.

School spokeswoman Elaine Justice says Kabir was a sophomore from Miami, Florida; and Hossain was from Dhaka. University President James Wagner has been in contact with the families of both students.

Fellow student Kereisha Harrell told The Associated Pres on Saturday she worked with Hossain and Kabir on Emory's Oxford College Student Activities Committee executive board, which planned school-wide events.

"We are honestly shocked," she said. "A lot of us are not ready to talk about it. But we were a family. It hit us hard. There are a lot of people very upset. We're just trying to support each other through this."

Harrell, 20, said she and Hossain were event chairs of the committee before he graduated from Oxford College in December and became a student at the business school. Harrell said she and Hossain worked on the committee's annual Fall Formal for two years in a row.

Harrell said she trained Kabir to replace Hossain. She said Kabir spearheaded several events planned by the committee.

"They were always so willing to help," said Harrell, who is a junior at the school. "They put everyone before themselves. They were both very intelligent. They never had any enemies. Anyone who met them fell in love with them. They were genuinely great people. It's a serious loss for Emory and Oxford as a whole."

Harrell said Hossain and Kabir were a part of an honor society that required a GPA of 3.9 or higher.

"The Emory community mourns this tragic and senseless loss of two members of our university family. Our thoughts and prayers go out on behalf of Faraaz and Abinta and their families and friends for strength and peace at this unspeakably sad time," the statement said.
The Latest: Elie Wiesel's wife grateful for support

NEW YORK (AP)  The Latest on the death of Elie Wiesel, a Nobel laureate and Romanian-born Holocaust survivor known as one of the world's foremost humanitarians (all times local):

10:45 p.m.

The wife of Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel says she's grateful for the outpouring of support that has come after his passing.

FILE - In this Sept. 12, 2012, photo Elie Wiesel is photographed in his office in New York. Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial says Elie Wiesel has died at 87. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

Marion Wiesel said in a statement Saturday that her husband was a fighter who waged countless battles for innocent victims.

She says he fought for the memory of six million Jews who were killed in the Holocaust and to protect innocent victims without regard for their ethnicity.

But she says he was truly passionate about teaching college students.

His death was announced Saturday by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. No other details were immediately available. Wiesel was 87.

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4:30 p.m.

Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel has died.

His death was announced Saturday by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. No other details were immediately available. Wiesel was 87.

Wiesel shared the harrowing story of his internment at Auschwitz as a teenager through his classic memoir "Night," one of the most widely read and discussed books of the 20th century.
3 days of heavy rain in China leave 50 dead, 12 missing

BEIJING (AP)  Three days of heavy rain in southern China have left 50 people dead and another 12 missing and destroyed thousands of homes, authorities said Sunday, as areas along the Yangtze River braced for more floods.

Torrential rains caused the deaths of 27 people and left a further 12 missing since Thursday in central Hubei, the provincial civil affairs department said. Nearly 400,000 people have been evacuated or are in need of aid in the province. Almost 15,000 houses have collapsed or are seriously damaged and more than 500,000 hectares of crops have been affected, causing direct economic losses of 5.669 billion yuan ($850 million), the department said.

In mountainous Guizhou province in the southwest, the bodies of 23 people were found after a landslide buried a village Friday, Dafang county government said. Seven people were injured.

Rainstorms soak the southern part of China every year during the summer monsoons, but this rainy season has been particularly wet.

State television on Saturday showed people using boats to navigate flooded streets in eastern Anhui province. Anhui's civil affairs department said 18 people have died and four are missing due to heavy rain since June 18.

Vice Premier Wang Yang warned last month that there was a high possibility of floods in the Yangtze River and Huai River basins this year, which equate to a large swath of China's southern, central and eastern areas.

He said the situation was made worse by "super El Nino." El Nino is the natural warming of parts of the Pacific Ocean that changes weather worldwide and the latest occurrence of the phenomenon has been blamed for triggering droughts in parts of Africa and India and playing a role in a record hurricane season in the Pacific.

A similar El Nino effect was linked to China's worst floods in recent history, when 4,150 people died in 1998, most along the Yangtze. Flood control measures along China's longest river, including dikes, have since been reinforced, but experts say this time severe floods are likely to hit the Yangtze's tributaries, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
Gamblers crossed picket lines at the Trump Taj Mahal casino in large numbers Sunday amid taunts from striking union members whose job action stretched into its third day.

The stakes were raised by Local 54 of the Unite-HERE union against the Taj Mahal, which was opened in 1990 by Donald Trump but now belongs to his friend, fellow billionaire Carl Icahn.

The union called the strike after being unable to agree on a contract that restored health care and pension benefits that a bankruptcy judge terminated in October 2014.

It reached new contracts Thursday with four of the five casinos it had targeted: Bally's, Caesars, Harrah's and the Tropicana.

Employees of the Atlantic City Taj Mahal continued into their third day of strikes (pictured) over contracts on Sunday

Picketers use bullhorns to ask people not to cross picket lines and enter the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City

A steady stream of people filed in to the casino lobby off the Boardwalk on Sunday, braving amplified taunts from picketers and a warning to visitors that 'dead mice have been found in this building.'

The sprawling casino floor was busy, although it had about half the crowd that was playing at Resorts, a casino next door that is half the size of the Taj Mahal  but not facing a strike.

'Hundreds of dead mice were found in the kitchen of this building!' said Benjamin Albert, an organizing director with the union.

'If you like mice and roaches, stay at the Taj Mahal! If you like casinos that care about their workers, stay anywhere else!'

Questioned by a reporter, Albert said the union relied upon Atlantic City Health Department inspection reports from March through August of 2015 that found 282 instances of mice or rodent feces throughout the casino.

The sprawling casino floor was busy on Sunday, although it had about half the crowd that was playing at Resorts, a casino next door

The union called the strike after being unable to agree on a contract that restored health care and pension benefits that a bankruptcy judge terminated in October 2014

Taj Mahal management did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and the city's health department was closed Sunday.

In early afternoon, about a dozen people stood in line to check in at the hotel desk for reservations they had made weeks or months earlier, before they knew a strike was possible.

Gamblers played slot machines throughout the casino floor, and about two thirds of the table games were in use Sunday afternoon.

Outside on the Boardwalk, picketers shouted at those leaving the casino, and especially people who looked like they were heading inside.

To one man wearing a blue New York Giants cap, a picketer yelled: 'The Giants will never win another Super Bowl if you go inside there.'

To another customer heading for the casino, a picketer yelled 'You'll have horrible luck. Every day, for the rest of your life.'

Other taunts were more personal, including picketers using loudspeakers to call people crossing the picket lines 'horrible, horrible scabs.'

That seemed to steel the resolve of Dean Cafiero, of Philadelphia, to enter the casino.

'Free markets rule, and these people are against free markets,' he said. 'They're trying to hold people hostage.'

Rich Springer of Trenton was staying at the Taj Mahal over the weekend, and acknowledged the strike had cut back on the level of service. But he said he understood why.

It reached new contracts Thursday with four of the five casinos it had targeted: Bally's, Caesars, Harrah's and the Tropicana - but the Taj Mahal hasn't received new contracts yet

Striking union members walk a picket line outside of the Trump Taj Mahal casino early Sunday

'These guys aren't working, so there's no one to clean the rooms,' he said. 'A lot of the higher-ups are cleaning and carrying luggage.'

Asked if he was disappointed at the number of customers crossing picket lines, Ben Begleiter, a union spokesman, said many people on the Boardwalk have voiced support for the strikers, and acknowledged many, if not most, of the hotel guests were honoring reservations they had made well in advance of the strike.

'These are the first days of the strike,' he said. 'As we move on from here and the word spreads, there will be fewer and fewer customers.'

The main issue in the strike is the restoration of health insurance and pension benefits that the casino's previous owners  after Trump but before Icahn got a bankruptcy court judge to do away with in 2014.

'Hundreds of dead mice were found in the kitchen of this building,' said Benjamin Albert, an organizing director with the union

The strikers include workers that serve drinks, cook, transport luggage, clean rooms and more. Casino dealers and security are not part of the strike.

The union said no contract talks are scheduled.

While the casino still bears his name, Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has not owned it for years.

The bankruptcy filing and the benefit terminations at the Taj Mahal happened five years after Trump relinquished control of the casino and its parent company, Trump Entertainment Resorts to bondholders in a previous bankruptcy.
'Deer Hunter,' 'Heaven's Gate' director Michael Cimino dies

LOS ANGELES (AP)  Michael Cimino, the Oscar-winning director whose film "The Deer Hunter" became one of the great triumphs of Hollywood's 1970s heyday and whose disastrous "Heaven's Gate" helped bring that era to a close, has died.

Cimino died Saturday at age 77, Los Angeles County acting coroner's Lt. B. Kim told The Associated Press. He said Cimino had been living in Beverly Hills but did not yet have further details on the circumstances of his death.

Eric Weissmann, a friend and former lawyer of Cimino's, said friends had been unable to reach Cimino by phone for the last few days and called the police, who found him dead in his bed. He said Cimino had not been ill that he had known of.

FILE - In this Oct. 28, 2008 file photo, director Michael Cimino arrives at the third edition of the Rome Film Festival, in Rome.Cimino, whose film "The Deer Hunter" became one of the great triumphs of Hollywood's 1970s heyday, and whose disastrous "Heaven's Gate" helped bring that era to a close, has died. Los Angeles County acting coroner's Lt. B. Kim told The Associated Press that Cimino died Saturday, July 2, 2016, at age 77. He said Cimino had been living in Beverly Hills but did not yet have further details on the circumstances of his death. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)

Cimino's masterpiece was 1978's "The Deer Hunter," the story of the Vietnam War's effect on a small steel-working town in Pennsylvania. The film won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Cimino. It helped lift the emerging-legend status of Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep. Christopher Walken also won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

"Our work together is something I will always remember. He will be missed," De Niro said in a statement Saturday.

Despite controversy over its portrayal of the North Vietnamese and use of the violent game Russian roulette, the film was praised by some critics as the best American movies since "The Godfather" six years earlier.

"With his visionary approach and attention to every detail, Michael Cimino is forever etched in the history of filmmaking," Paris Barclay, president of the Directors Guild of America said early Sunday. "In his most iconic work, the DGA and Academy Award-winning film 'The Deer Hunter,' Michael captured the horrors of war through a personalized lens  captivating a nation in the process."

Cimino's emerging career then took a U-turn with 1980's "Heaven's Gate," a Western starring Kris Kristofferson and Walken that was a critical and financial disaster.

The film became synonymous with over-budget and out-of-control productions, and a cautionary tale for giving artistic-minded directors too much power in the new Hollywood that had been defined by directors such as Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese.

Its initial budget of $11.5 million would balloon to $44 million after marketing. While those numbers are meager by today's standards, at the time they were enough to hasten the demise of United Artists, and of Cimino's career. Some say it helped bring down the director-driven renaissance that had fueled much of the great work of the 1970s, giving way to a business-and-blockbuster mentality that would dominate the decades that followed.

Steven Bach, a former executive vice president at United Artists, documented the production in the 1999 book "Final Cut: Art Money and Ego in the Making of Heaven's Gate."

Vincent Canby, the New York Times film critic not known for his harshness, said that the film was an "unqualified disaster" that "fails so completely that you might suspect Mr. Cimino sold his soul to the devil to obtain the success of 'The Deer Hunter,' and the devil has just come around to collect."

But Cimino always stood by the movie as an artistic accomplishment, or at least a project worth undertaking. The critical reputation for "Heaven's Gate"  praised by some as a misunderstood masterpiece  has been somewhat rehabilitated over the years, culminating in a 2012 restoration overseen by Cimino.

"I never second-guess myself," he told Vanity Fair in 2010. "You can't look back. I don't believe in defeat. Everybody has bumps, but as Count Basie said, 'It's not how you handle the hills, it's how you handle the valleys.'"

Eastwood, a lifelong friend, also defended him in Vanity Fair.

"George Lucas made 'Howard the Duck,' and the guy who made 'Waterworld'  those films didn't destroy them," Eastwood said. "Critics were set up to hate 'Heaven's Gate.' The picture didn't work with the public. If it had, it would have been the same as 'Titanic.' 'Titanic' worked, so all is forgiven."

He became an eccentric figure even for Hollywood, living in solitude, constantly changing his appearance, claiming allergies to both alcohol and sunshine.

Born in New York City and raised on Long Island, Cimino graduated from Yale in 1961, and he earned a master's degree from the University of New Haven in 1963, both in painting.

His first film came with 1974's "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot," a heist picture with Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges playing the title characters that led to his landing "The Deer Hunter."

Cimino worked only sporadically in the years that followed "Heaven's Gate," and with no success. His remaining films were 1985's "Year of the Dragon," 1987's "The Sicilian," 1990's "Desperate Hours," and 1996's "Sunchaser."

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Associated Press writers Daisy Nguyen in Los Angeles and Hillel Italie in New York contributed to this report.

FILE - In this Feb. 22, 1979 file photo, American movie director Michael Cimino listens during a press conference, in Berlin. Cimino, whose film "The Deer Hunter" became one of the great triumphs of Hollywood's 1970s heyday, and whose disastrous "Heaven's Gate" helped bring that era to a close, has died. Los Angeles County acting coroner's Lt. B. Kim told The Associated Press that Cimino died Saturday, July 2, 2016, at age 77. He said Cimino had been living in Beverly Hills but did not yet have further details on the circumstances of his death. (AP Photo/Edwin Reichert, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 28, 2008 file photo, director Michael Cimino arrives at the third edition of the Rome Film Festival, in Rome. Cimino, whose film "The Deer Hunter" became one of the great triumphs of Hollywood's 1970s heyday, and whose disastrous "Heaven's Gate" helped bring that era to a close, has died. Los Angeles County acting coroner's Lt. B. Kim told The Associated Press that Cimino died Saturday, July 2, 2016, at age 77. He said Cimino had been living in Beverly Hills but did not yet have further details on the circumstances of his death.(AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)
Thailand, Japan share mutual affection that is rare in Asia

BANGKOK (AP)  Thailand is smitten by Japan: Sushi restaurants fill the malls, Issey Miyake's luxury "Bao Bao" bags are all the rage and Thai tourists are flocking to Japan in record numbers to visit a country many view as a role model.

"I love Japan. They really put their heart into whatever they do," says Aunyawee Sahachalermphat, 26, who has traveled to Japan more than a dozen times since studying there five years ago and owns at least 10 Comme des Garcons shirts, another popular brand that sounds French but is actually Japanese.

Like many Thais, she loves Japanese food and admires the quality of its products and its advanced, orderly economy that retains a respect for tradition. "We look up to them," she says.

In this June 24, 2016 photo, a Thai shopper gets inside a Japanese restaurant at Japanese shopping mall in Bangkok, Thailand. Thais admire Japanese craftsmanship and the culture's emphasis on courteous and subdued manners, and tend to look to Japan as a role model. Thailand, meanwhile, is a favored destination for Japanese corporate investment and is seen an inviting tourist spot thats different but not too foreign. The mutual affection between these two nations is rare in Asia, where historical, political and territorial tensions often complicate ties. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

Japan, too, has a soft spot for Thailand, although it doesn't loom nearly as large in the public mind. It's seen more as a warm, easygoing tourist spot  a welcome break from Japan's often onerous social codes  and a vital production and export hub for more than 4,500 Japanese companies, including behemoths such as Toyota, Honda and Canon.

All this has resulted in a mutual affection between these two nations that's rare in Asia, where historical, political and territorial tensions often complicate ties.

Typical of many in her generation, Aunyawee traces her positive feelings to watching Japanese cartoons such as "Doraemon" and "Sailor Moon" as a child. As an adult, she instinctively trusts anything "Made in Japan" and admires the courteous, subdued manners of many Japanese  widespread sentiments among Thais.

Economic and bureaucratic changes have helped foster these ties. Three years ago, Japan waived visas for Thais for up to 15 days, prompting tourist numbers to surge to nearly 800,000 last year, up five-fold from 2011.

As Thai incomes have grown and budget carriers such as AirAsia have intensified competition, trips to Japan have become more affordable. Likewise, Japanese tourists can now fly from Tokyo to Bangkok for about the same price as to Okinawa, in southern Japan.

There seems to be a cultural affinity between these two peoples  a gentleness, an aversion to conflict and an emphasis on proper etiquette  that creates a sense of familiarity and safety.

Yet there are still enough intriguing differences to make the other culture appealing in a non-threatening way.

Buddhism, for example, has influenced both countries, although in Thailand it plays a more overt role and it is epitomized by brilliantly colored temples and monks in orange robes, while in Japan it takes on a more subdued form. Both countries have royal families, although the Thai king holds greater sway over society than the emperor does in Japan.

"There's a kindred feeling" with Thais, more so than with other Asians, said Mariko Uehara, an English instructor from Chigasaki, southwest of Tokyo, who recently visited Thailand for a second time since 2012. "We have something in common that makes us feel secure." Some 1.38 million Japanese tourists came to Thailand last year, a similar level to previous years.

Japan and Thailand aren't encumbered by historical baggage that has strained ties with their respective neighbors.

Tokyo's ties with China and South Korea are tainted by territorial disputes and lingering resentment over Japan's aggression before and during World War II. After briefly resisting Japanese troops, Thailand formally became an ally of Tokyo during most of the war and served as a supply base and so suffered less. Japan's infamous "Death Railway" in western Thailand was built by British, U.S. and Australian POWs and thousands of other Asians.

Japan's rosy image here has been partly shaped by popular books, TV dramas and movies.

"Khu Kam," a novel that has been made into movies many times  titled "Sunset on the Chaophraya" in English  depicts a wartime romance between a Japanese naval officer and a Thai woman in the resistance. He manages to win her over before being killed.

Japanese food, once considered a delicacy in Thailand, has become more affordable and popular as more than 2,300 Japanese restaurants have opened up across the country, tripling since 2008.

Now a top reason Thais want to go to Japan is to eat authentic Japanese food  in Japan.

Chaitee Tandhanskul, a 29-year-old manager in his family's chemical business, says he makes bookings at restaurants in Japan weeks ahead of time, and bases his itinerary around those reservations.

"I've traveled many times to Japan just for the culinary experience," he said.

Japan is more popular than previous favorites Hong Kong or Singapore because "it's much more exotic" and less "robotic," said Chaitee, who also roams the country taking pictures.

Taking their cues from Thai fashion magazines and websites that highlight the latest Japanese styles, Thai women line up in Tokyo to buy Issey Miyake's "Bao Bao" brand bags, which can cost several hundred dollars and have become a staple of Bangkok's fashion elite. Shiseido cosmetics, Kenzo shoes and Casio G-Shock watches are also hot.

Many Thais also like Japan because it is safe and they believe they won't get cheated by shopkeepers or taxi drivers, said Kavi Chongkittavorn, a senior fellow at Chulalongkorn University's Institute of Security and International Studies.

The two countries' economies have become increasingly intertwined.

Thailand's importance to Japanese manufacturers was made plain when severe flooding here in 2011 swamped many factories and suppliers, disrupting markets as far away as Chicago and London, Japanese Ambassador Shiro Sadoshima said in an interview.

"We need to think in terms of being in the same boat as they are  that whatever Thailand is doing well is good for Japan, too," said Sadoshima, who was surprised to find a big "Ippudo" restaurant in Bangkok serving ramen noodles native to his home island of Kyushu.

"It's bigger and grander than the main shop in Japan," he said.

Japan's official development aid to Thailand shows up prominently in places like the "Thai-Japanese Bridge" sign  with national flags  on a flyover at a major Bangkok intersection. Assistance from Tokyo helped build 14 of the 21 bridges across the Chao Phraya River that runs through the capital. Officials from the two countries are doing feasibility studies on three high-speed railway lines that would cross the country, the ambassador said.

Bangkok has a large Japanese community, many of whom live clustered in an area that resembles parts of Tokyo, with Japanese eateries and yakitori shops lining side streets and Thai hostesses calling out in Japanese. There are at least a couple streets of go-go bars devoted to Japanese customers.

Each country offers something appealingly different to the other.

The very discipline and proper etiquette that Thais admire about Japanese culture can become an enormous burden to some Japanese who find Thailand's easygoing, accepting ways a welcome refuge.

Kazue Takenaga moved with her three children to Bangkok two years ago to escape the growing educational and social pressures facing her family, especially her 11-year-old daughter. Her husband had car parts factories in Thailand, so she decided to move here and enroll her children in an international school because the country and environment seemed more accepting and diverse than Japan, and yet also familiar.

"It's so good that we came to Thailand," she said. "Our family's overall health is much better. The lifestyle is much easier here. The thought of returning to Japan is daunting."

Thais, meanwhile, want to see and experience things in Japan they can't at home, like snow, cherry blossoms and colored autumn leaves  without traveling all the way to Europe or North America, said Tanong Prakuptanon, who runs a "Japanthaifanclub" Facebook page, which has tips for travelers and more than 230,000 followers.

"It's different, but not too foreign," he said. "It's a dream destination."

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Associated Press writers Natnicha Chuwiruch and Jason Corben contributed to this report.

In this June 24, 2016 photo, a pedestrian passes by advertisements for Japanese restaurants in Bangkok, Thailand. Thais admire Japanese craftsmanship and the culture's emphasis on courteous and subdued manners, and tend to look to Japan as a role model. Thailand, meanwhile, is a favored destination for Japanese corporate investment and is seen an inviting tourist spot thats different but not too foreign. The mutual affection between these two nations is rare in Asia, where historical, political and territorial tensions often complicate ties. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

In this June 24, 2016 photo, a Japanese family living in Bangkok walks past Japanese shopping mall in Bangkok, Thailand. Thai admires Japan culture's emphasis on courteous and subdued manners - widespread sentiments among Thais, who look to Japan more than China, the U.S. or other Asian neighbors as an example to follow. The mutual affection between these two nations is rare in Asia, where historical, political and territorial tensions often complicate ties. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

In this June 24, 2016 photo, visitors gather counters during the Japan Tourism Fair in Bangkok, Thailand. Thais admire Japanese craftsmanship and the culture's emphasis on courteous and subdued manners, and tend to look to Japan as a role model. Thailand, meanwhile, is a favored destination for Japanese corporate investment and is seen an inviting tourist spot thats different but not too foreign. The mutual affection between these two nations is rare in Asia, where historical, political and territorial tensions often complicate ties. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

In this June 28, 2016 photo, cars cross the Thai-Japanese friendship bridge in Bangkok, Thailand. Thais admire Japanese craftsmanship and the culture's emphasis on courteous and subdued manners, and tend to look to Japan as a role model. Thailand, meanwhile, is a favored destination for Japanese corporate investment and is seen an inviting tourist spot thats different but not too foreign. The mutual affection between these two nations is rare in Asia, where historical, political and territorial tensions often complicate ties. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

In this June 24, 2016 photo, visitors read leaflets on hotels in Japan at the Japan Tourism Fair in Bangkok, Thailand. Thais admire Japanese craftsmanship and the culture's emphasis on courteous and subdued manners, and tend to look to Japan as a role model. Thailand, meanwhile, is a favored destination for Japanese corporate investment and is seen an inviting tourist spot thats different but not too foreign. The mutual affection between these two nations is rare in Asia, where historical, political and territorial tensions often complicate ties. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

In this June 16, 2016 photo, shoppers pose for a photo with sumo wrestler statues on a Japanese themed floor of a major shopping mall in central Bangkok, Thailand. Thais admire Japanese craftsmanship and the culture's emphasis on courteous and subdued manners, and tend to look to Japan as a role model. Thailand, meanwhile, is a favored destination for Japanese corporate investment and is seen an inviting tourist spot thats different but not too foreign. The mutual affection between these two nations is rare in Asia, where historical, political and territorial tensions often complicate ties. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

In this June 16, 2016 photo, Tanong Prakuptanon, who runs a Facebook site with 230,000 followers, "Japanthaifanclub," which provides information and tips in Thai on tourism in Japan stands in a Japanese themed floor at a major shopping more in central Bangkok, Thailand. Thais admire Japanese craftsmanship and the culture's emphasis on courteous and subdued manners, and tend to look to Japan as a role model. Thailand, meanwhile, is a favored destination for Japanese corporate investment and is seen an inviting tourist spot thats different but not too foreign. The mutual affection between these two nations is rare in Asia, where historical, political and territorial tensions often complicate ties. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

In this June 16, 2016 photo, Tanong Prakuptanon, who runs a Facebook site with 230,000 followers, "Japanthaifanclub," which provides information and tips in Thai on tourism in Japan stands in a Japanese themed floor at a major shopping more in central Bangkok, Thailand. Thais admire Japanese craftsmanship and the culture's emphasis on courteous and subdued manners, and tend to look to Japan as a role model. Thailand, meanwhile, is a favored destination for Japanese corporate investment and is seen an inviting tourist spot thats different but not too foreign. The mutual affection between these two nations is rare in Asia, where historical, political and territorial tensions often complicate ties. The statue written in Japanese reads: "Welcome, left," and "Smile." (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
Aussie leaders seek minor party support amid election chaos

SYDNEY (AP)  With the results of Australia's stunningly close national election potentially weeks away, Australia's prime minister and opposition leader were expected to spend Monday trying to drum up support from minor parties in desperate bids to form a working government.

The country was facing the prospect of a dreaded hung parliament after Saturday's elections, which failed to deliver an immediate victor. With about a quarter of the votes left to be counted, neither Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's conservative Liberal Party-led coalition nor the center-left Labor Party had secured the required 76 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives to form a government.

Turnbull, who is pinning his hopes on mail-in and early ballots that traditionally favor the conservatives, said he remained quietly confident of an eventual victory.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull addresses party supporters during a rally in Sydney, Sunday, July 3, 2016, following a general election. The elections, which pit the conservative coalition government against the center-left Labor Party, cap an extraordinarily volatile period in the nation's politics. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)

Turnbull's coalition could indeed still win by a slim margin, though with a reduced majority. But with Labor and the Liberals in a virtual tie, there was a possibility neither would end up with enough seats to form a majority government, resulting in a hung parliament.

That would force the Liberals and Labor to try to strike alliances with independent and minor party lawmakers in a bid to form a minority government. If no alliance can be forged, the government could end up calling yet another election.

As of Monday, Australian Broadcasting Corp. election analysts  considered among the most reliable  were predicting that Labor and the coalition were tied at 67 seats each and minor parties leading in five seats. Another 11 seats were in doubt.

Counting by the Australian Electoral Commission was on hold until Tuesday, with Turnbull warning that the ultimate result may not be known until the end of the week. The electoral commission said it may take up to a month.

With the possibility of a hung parliament looming, Turnbull and opposition leader Bill Shorten both said they had contacted the five independent lawmakers who could make up a minority government if needed. Two of those  Tasmania state independent Andrew Wilkie and Victoria state independent Cathy McGowan  said on Monday they had yet to commit to either party.

Independent Senator Nick Xenophon said he had spoken with both leaders, describing the phone calls as simple, "G'day, let's keep in touch and see where the dust settles" conversations.

"I still think it's likely that Malcolm Turnbull might just get across the line with a one-seat majority," Xenophon told Melbourne radio station 3AW.

The lack of certainty wrought by the election continues an incredibly volatile period in Australian politics, with Monday's front page headline in Sydney's Daily Telegraph aptly blaring "CHAOS REIGNS." Weary Australians have watched as internal party squabbling and fears over flagging poll ratings have prompted five changes of prime minister in as many years.

Even if Turnbull's party wins, the country could potentially end up with yet another new prime minister. Turnbull took a gamble by opting to call the rare early election, and few had predicted his party would suffer such steep losses. The disappointing result could put him at risk for an internal leadership challenge from unhappy colleagues.

Mobbed by reporters outside his Sydney home on Monday morning, Turnbull ignored a question about whether he was still confident of his leadership, only telling journalists "the counting continues."

Australian leader of the opposition Bill Shorten addresses party members during the Labor party election night event in Melbourne, Australia, Saturday, July 2, 2016. The elections, which pit the conservative coalition government against the center-left Labor Party, cap an extraordinarily volatile period in the nation's politics. (Mick Tsikas/AAP Image via AP)

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull waves to supporters after he addressed a reception on election night in Sydney, Australia, Sunday, July 3, 2016. The result of the nation's election is too close to call in a race that could end with neither side able to form a majority government and may not be decided for several days.(AP Photo/Rob Griffith)

Australian leader of the opposition Bill Shorten addresses party members during the Labor party election night event in Melbourne, Australia, Saturday, July 2, 2016. The elections, which pit the conservative coalition government against the center-left Labor Party, cap an extraordinarily volatile period in the nation's politics. (Tracey Nearmy/AAP Image via AP)

Voters fill in their ballots at a polling station at Town Hall in Sydney, Saturday, July 2, 2016. After years of political turmoil, Australians head to the polls with leaders of the nation's major parties each promising to bring stability to a government that has long been mired in chaos. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
Wiesel urged Romania to take responsibility for Holocaust

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP)  Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel was responsible for making his native Romania investigate the Holocaust and face its responsibility.

Romania deported 150,000 Jews and 25,000 Roma, also known as Gypsies, to concentration camps in an area of the Soviet Union controlled by the Axis powers from 1942 to 1944, when the country was run by pro-Nazi dictator Ion Antonescu.

After communism ended, many denied or downplayed Romania's role in the Holocaust. In 2004, Wiesel chaired the Wiesel Commission which documented Romania's role in the Holocaust and a government institute was set up bearing his name in 2005.

FILE - In this Sept. 12, 2012, photo Elie Wiesel is photographed in his office in New York. Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial says Elie Wiesel has died at 87. Elie Wiesel never lived in Israel, but the death of the esteemed author and Nobel peace laureate is being treated in Israel like the loss of a national icon. As perhaps the world's most famous Holocaust survivor, Wiesel was championed in Israel as a symbol of the Jewish people's journey from the depths of darkness to the redemption of having a land of their own. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)

That institute, the National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania on Sunday called him "a tireless campaigner for freedom and human rights, for respecting each other, for the understanding and the dialogue between people."

The Center for Monitoring Antisemitism in Romania thanked Wiesel for his support for the Holocaust Memorial in Bucharest, saying: "In 2003, when no one in Romania responded to our initiative for constructing the Holocaust Memorial in Bucharest, we turned, for support, to Elie Wiesel.

"He responded to our appeal and our project became a reality that, for generations, will honor the memory of the victims, Jews and Roma, of the WWII Romanian fascist regime."

Wiesel was decorated with Romania's highest honor, the Star of Romania, in 2002 but returned the award in 2004, after Corneliu Vadim Tudor, a politician and poet who was known for his anti-Semitic and nationalist commentary in his Greater Romania weekly, also received the same award.
End in sight for FBI probe into Clinton's email server?

WASHINGTON (AP)  Hillary Clinton's interview with the FBI may signal that the Justice Department is nearing the end of its yearlong probe of her use of a private email server while secretary of state, a controversy that has hung over her White House bid.

"I've been eager to do it, and I was pleased to have the opportunity to assist the department in bringing its review to a conclusion," Clinton said in describing the FBI session to NBC's "Meet the Press" for an interview that aired Sunday. She agreed that the tone of meeting with investigators had been civil and business-like.

Clinton said she had no knowledge of any timeline for the review and would not comment on whether she was given an indication that charges would not be filed.

FILE - In this March 12, 2012 file photo, then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton checks her mobile phone after her address to the Security Council at United Nations headquarters. An impromptu meeting between Bill Clinton and the nation's top cop could further undermine Hillary Clintons efforts to convince voters to place their trust in her, highlighting perhaps her biggest vulnerability. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

The presumptive presidential nominee for the Democratic Party gave a voluntary interview for 3 1/2 hours Saturday at FBI headquarters in Washington, her campaign announced. Spokespeople for the FBI and the Justice Department declined to comment.

The interview, which had been expected to take place before the Democratic National Convention on July 25, did not suggest that Clinton or anyone else is likely to face prosecution. If the former senator and secretary of state and her aides are exonerated, it might help brush aside a major distraction that has made many voters question her trustworthiness.

Donald Trump, the Republican Party's presumptive nominee, has repeatedly said the email issue undermines Clinton's fitness for office and suggested she will receive leniency from a Democratic administration. Following reports of Clinton's FBI interview, Trump tweeted: "It is impossible for the FBI not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton. What she did was wrong!"

While she was Obama's secretary of state, Clinton exclusively used a private email server for her government and personal emails, rather than the State Department's email system. The Associated Press revealed the existence of the server in March 2015.

Clinton has said relying on a private server was a mistake but that other secretaries of state had also used a personal email address.

The FBI is investigating the potential mishandling of sensitive information. The matter was referred last summer by the inspectors general for the State Department and intelligence community following the discovery of emails that were later determined to contain classified material.

Clinton sat down with the FBI just days after her husband, former President Bill Clinton, had an impromptu meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch while at a Phoenix airport in separate planes. That Clinton would approach Lynch while her Justice Department was investigating his wife's actions, and that Lynch would speak to him, opened a new angle of criticism about the Clintons' judgment and sense of entitlement.

Lynch, while maintaining that their discussion on Monday purely personal and didn't touch on the email server, said Friday she regretted meeting with the former president. Bill Clinton joined her in saying he would not do it again, either, in light of the impression it gave. He had nominated Lynch as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York in 1999.

Asked about the ongoing investigation, Lynch said Friday that she intended to accept the findings and recommendations of career prosecutors who have spent months on the case.

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On Twitter follow Eric Tucker at https://twitter.com/etuckerAP and Ken Thomas at https://twitter.com/KThomasDC

Secret Service stand guard around a Secret Service vehicle after it arrived at the home of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in Washington, Saturday, July 2, 2016. The Clinton campaign says the FBI interviewed Clinton on Saturday morning in Washington, about her emails while she was secretary of state. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
Israel's Netanyahu seeks new allies in historic Africa trip

JERUSALEM (AP)  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads to Africa this week, where Israel has found much-needed partners in the battle against Islamic militants and allies in countering the rising Palestinian influence at the United Nations.

Netanyahu will also visit the site where his brother was killed in a 1976 military raid on a hijacked airliner in Uganda, a seminal event that helped cement his hard-line ideology.

Israel is hoping that the visit  the first by an Israeli premier to sub-Saharan Africa in three decades  will usher in a new era in which it provides African states with security and agricultural assistance in return for support in international forums.

FILE -- In this Feb. 23, 2016 file photo, Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta, left, stands next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as they deliver joint statements in Jerusalem. Netanyahu heads to Africa this week, where Israel has found much-needed partners in the battle against Islamic militants and allies in countering the rising Palestinian influence at the United Nations. Netanyahu will also visit the site where his brother was killed in a 1976 military raid on a hijacked airliner in Uganda, a seminal event that helped cement his hard-line ideology. (Amir Cohen, Pool via AP, File)

Israel has a long history of involvement in Africa, sending experts in agriculture and development, as well as military advisers and mercenaries, over the years.

Netanyahu's visit caps a budding rapprochement in recent years initiated by Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who, as foreign minister a few years ago, toured the continent on two occasions after no Israeli foreign minister had visited in two decades.

In turn, dozens of African dignitaries have visited Israel in recent years, including Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Dore Gold, a senior Israeli diplomat, traveled to South Africa in March, hoping to mend ties with a country that is strongly supportive of the Palestinian quest for statehood.

"Israel is coming back to Africa; Africa is coming back to Israel. It's happening in a big way," Netanyahu told African ambassadors at the launch February of the Israeli parliament's caucus for Israel-Africa relations. Netanyahu said last month he will seek government approval for a $13 million plan to strengthen economic ties and cooperation with African countries.

Israel played a prominent role in assisting newly independent African countries in the 1960s, but those relations crumbled in the 1970s, when Arab countries, promising aid, pressured African nations to limit or cut ties with Israel. African states were also opposed to Israel's close ties to South Africa's apartheid government.

With the rise of jihadism across the continent, from Boko Haram in Nigeria to al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab militants in Somalia, Israel has found common ground with countries like Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria.

"Any victory of radical Islam in any part of Africa immediately impacts us," said Avi Granot, the former head of the Israeli Foreign Ministry's Africa division. "The more defeats (militants) face, whether it is in Nigeria, Cameroon, Somalia or Chad, then it's a victory also for the Middle East."

While Israeli military exports to Africa are limited, it provides several countries with security training and assistance. Granot cited Israel's deployment of a team of security experts following the 2013 al-Shabab attack on a Nairobi mall. He said Israel, with its vast experience fighting militants, could continue to offer training on terror prevention.

Israeli defense officials say intelligence sharing is limited to a few close allies for now. Israel has military ties with several African countries, and Israel's Defense Ministry has given clearance for private Israeli security firms to operate in some nations, including some arms sales.

In exchange for its expertise in security and other fields, Israel wants African states to side with it at the U.N., where the General Assembly overwhelmingly recognized Palestine as a nonmember observer state in 2012. The Palestinians have used their upgraded status to launch a diplomatic offensive against Israel and its occupation of lands where the Palestinians hope to establish a future state.

"We're talking about some 45 countries in sub-Saharan Africa who vote in one bloc at the U.N.," said Arye Oded, a former Israeli diplomat and expert on Africa. "Netanyahu wants to improve relations with these countries ... and wants more countries to not vote against us at the U.N."

Granot said African countries may be responsive to supporting Israel because the Palestinian cause is "tangential" to them. One example of that came during Kenyatta's trip, when he angered the Palestinians by visiting a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. The Palestinians and virtually the entire international community view the settlements as illegal or illegitimate.

Yoram Elron, the head of the Israeli foreign ministry's Africa division, said an increasing number of African countries "understand that Israel is being singled out in the international fora."

Jamal Dajani, the Palestinian government spokesman, said he believed African states would see through Netanyahu's "propaganda" because Africans and the Palestinians share a history of "occupations and colonialism."

Netanyahu departs Monday, and will spend a total of four days in the east African nations of Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia.

In Uganda, a ceremony is planned to mark the 40th anniversary of the July 1976 operation that freed Israeli hostages from a hijacked plane at Entebbe. Netanyahu's brother Yonatan, the leader of the commando unit that led the raid, was shot dead as he was helping the Israeli hostages who had been held inside the airport's old terminal back onto the plane. His death made Yonatan an Israeli hero, and thrust Netanyahu toward public life.

"It changed his life 180 degrees," said Nahum Barnea, Israel's pre-eminent political columnist, adding that Netanyahu has also derived political capital from his brother's death.

"The images from the airport will make Israelis think that Yoni and Bibi are the same thing," he said, referring to the Netanyahu brothers by their nicknames. "The outcome will be (the impression that) Netanyahu is linked to victory. Netanyahu is linked to military success."

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Knife with blood found in home where children killed

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP)  Sheriff's deputies found a large butcher knife with what appeared to be blood on it in an apartment where a Tennessee mother killed her four children by cutting their throats, court documents say.

Shanynthia Gardner, 29, of Memphis, has been charged with four counts of first degree murder while committing aggravated child neglect in the deaths of her three daughters and one son  all under the age of 5. Their bodies were found after deputies entered her apartment in a gated community in unincorporated Shelby County on Friday. Neighbors and friends of the family attended a vigil to honor the victims on Saturday.

Gardner also faces four counts of first degree murder while committing aggravated child abuse; four counts of aggravated child neglect or endangerment; and four counts of aggravated child abuse. She is being held without bond, with an arraignment scheduled Tuesday.

Jerry Taylor,center, pastor of Greater Love Baptist Church, leads a prayer vigil for four children who authorities say were fatally stabbed by their mother on Saturday, July 2, 2016 in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/Adrian Sainz).

An affidavit filed in Shelby County court by a sheriff's detective identified the victims as 4-year-old Tallen Gardner; 3-year-old Sya Gardner; 2 year-old Sahvi Gardner; and 6-month old Yahzi Gardner. A fifth child, 7-year-old Dallen Clayton, fled the apartment and escaped the attack, the affidavit said. Dallen is Gardner's son from a previous marriage.

Gardner spoke by phone with her current husband, Martin Gardner, and acknowledged that she killed her children, the affidavit said. Attempts to reach him or relatives of the Gardners have been unsuccessful.

"This is a terrible act, an egregious act that has shocked, I believe, the community, and has shocked our staff to the core," Shelby County Sheriff Bill Oldham said Saturday.

Deputies were called to an apartment complex in unincorporated Shelby County on Friday afternoon. When they arrived at Shanynthia Gardner's apartment, they found her with superficial cuts to her neck and wrists, the affidavit said. Deputies also found four children with "severe lacerations to the throat," the document said.

Two children were found in the living room  Yahzi was in her baby carrier and Sya was lying next to the carrier. The other two victims were in a bedroom.

The affidavit said Dallen was able to escape the apartment and run up to a man, yelling that his mother had stabbed his sister.

The man told officers that he saw Shanynthia Gardner come outside with a large knife in her hand, then re-enter the residence. Deputies found the knife in the apartment, the affidavit said.

Authorities have not divulged what circumstances they believe led to the killings. Oldham said investigators were trying to determine if Gardner has mental health problems.

In March 2015, Gardner disappeared briefly after leaving work early and picking up her children, according to a Memphis police report.

According to The Commercial Appeal (http://bit.ly/29fleVD ), her husband told police she was having problems at work and feeling anxious, and "she also has been feeling that someone is trying to harm her and her family," the report said. She called her husband that night from Corinth, Mississippi, and she later was found at a Memphis hospital emergency room.

The state Department of Children's Service has offered its assistance to local law enforcement, but has no record of interaction with the slain children, said spokesman Rob Johnson.

About 30 people attended an outdoor candlelight vigil at the apartment complex on Saturday evening. They prayed for the four children, the surviving boy, and Shanynthia Gardner. A pastor poured water from a decanter onto the ground, in remembrance of the victims.

Sonya Clayton, Dallen Clayton's grandmother, said she had not seen the boy's mother for a few years. She said she was shocked by the attack.

"She was a sweet young lady," Clayton said of Shanynthia Gardner. "What happened, I don't understand."

Later, Sonya Clayton said she forgives her former daughter-in-law.

"I know this is the work of the devil," Sonya Clayton said. "I know this is not Shanynthia. And I pray and I love Shanynthia."

Sonya Clayton said her son, Detrail Clayton, has not seen Dallen since the stabbings. She said her son is not doing well, and he wants to see Dallen soon. Sheriff's officials say the boy has been under protective supervision.

Neighbor Mona Hansen, who attended the vigil, became emotional when talking about how her own daughter adopted three girls after their brother was killed by a parent. Hansen called the killings of the four children in the apartment complex where she lives "heart-wrenching."

"Like the minister said, you don't know what they could have been in life," Hansen said of the Gardner children. "Their lives didn't even get started yet, before they were taken."

LaSimba Gray, right, in robe, pastor at New Sardis Baptist Church, pours out water from a decanter to honor the lives of four children who authorities say were fatally stabbed by their mother on Saturday, July 2, 2016 in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/Adrian Sainz)

Shelby County Sheriffs deputies work the scene where four young children were fatally stabbed at the Greens of Irene apartment, Friday, July 1, 2016 in Memphis, Tenn. Four young children were stabbed to death in a gated apartment complex in suburban Memphis on Friday, and police took their mother into custody for questioning. (Mark Weber/The Commercial Appeal via AP)

Shelby County Sheriff's Office vehicles leave a gated neighborhood where four children were found stabbed to death Friday, July 1, 2016, in suburban Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/Adrian Sainz)

Patricia Johnson talks about the killings of four children who were found stabbed to death in a gated neighborhood Friday, July 1, 2016, in suburban Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/Adrian Sainz)
Florida officials investigating fiery crash that left 5 dead

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP)  Authorities were investigating Sunday what caused a driver of a decades-old school bus to run a flashing red light and collide with a tractor-trailer causing both to burst into flames killing five people and injuring 25 others.

Speed was not a factor, Wakulla County Sheriff Charlie Creel said Saturday about the early morning crash.

"We don't know what happened to the driver. He might have fallen asleep, he might not have seen the flashing red light," Creel said. "From what I've seen, no there was not a speed factor."

Wakulla County first responders work on the scene of an accident on Saturday, July 2, 2016 in Wakulla, Fla. The Florida Highway Patrol says a bus and tractor trailer collided on a highway in the Panhandle. Florida Highway Patrol Capt. Jeffrey Bissainthe says the bus was carrying between 30 and 35 passengers and was from Georgia. (Joe Rondone /Tallahassee Democrat via AP)

The driver of the bus, 56-year-old Elie Dupiche of Belle Glade, was hospitalized in critical condition. A passenger in the semi-truck, 21-year-old Rafael Nieves of Sound Beach, New York, was not injured, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.

Deputies responded to a gruesome and chaotic scene after the Blue Bird bus from Georgia carrying roughly 34 adults and children hit the tractor trailer, then spinning around to hit the semi again, authorities said. The vehicles went off the road and came to rest under a power line, both on fire.

"Our deputies are heroes ... our deputies got on the bus and started pulling people off, people that were not able to get off by themselves. They pulled out two deceased victims," said Creel.

He said deputies continued to rescue victims until the bus was fully engulfed in flames and they were forced to stop.

"If these deputies had not done that, we would have had a lot more fatalities," the sheriff said, adding they were eventually "driven back" by the flames that then fully engulfed the tractor-trailer.

He told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that one of the bus passengers killed was a small child. The driver of the semi-truck, Gordon Sheets, 55 of Copiague, New York, also died, Creel said.

No one on the bus spoke English and authorities brought in interpreters, Creel said. He said the bus had left Bainbridge in south Georgia not far from the Florida Panhandle area and was bound for Belle Glade, Florida.

He said the bus was headed south on a north-south state road when it collided with the tractor-trailer, which was westbound on U.S. 98  a Florida coastal highway.

Florida Highway Patrol officials were also investigating the wreck and were in the processing of notifying victims' family members.

Wakulla County first responders work on the scene of an accident on Saturday, July 2, 2016 in Wakulla, Fla. The Florida Highway Patrol says a bus and tractor trailer collided on a highway in the Panhandle. Florida Highway Patrol Capt. Jeffrey Bissainthe says the bus was carrying between 30 and 35 passengers and was from Georgia. (Joe Rondone /Tallahassee Democrat via AP)
Officials: Bombings in Baghdad kill at least 23

BAGHDAD (AP)  Iraq's prime minister toured the site of a blast Sunday morning, hours after bombs hit two crowded commercial areas in Baghdad, killing at least 23 people and wounding 61, according to hospital and police officials.

The bombings came near the end of the holy month of Ramadan, when the streets were filled with young people and families out after sundown.

Video footage uploaded to social media showed an angry crowd at the blast site in the Karada district of the capital, with people shouting at the convoy and calling Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi a "thief."

Karada, a Shiite-majority neighborhood, was where the first attack struck. A car bomb exploded in this central district, killing 18 people and wounding 45. Shortly afterward, an improvised explosive device went off in eastern Baghdad, killing 5 people and wounding 16.

The officials who provided the casualty figures spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release the information.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in the Karada district in a statement posted on a militant website. The statement said a suicide car bomber targeted Shiites and warned that "the raids of the mujahedeen (holy warriors) against the Rafidha (Shiites) apostates will not stop."

The statement could not be independently verified.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the second bombing.

At dawn Sunday, fire fighters were still working to extinguish blazes at the Karada blast site and bodies were still being recovered from charred buildings. Many of the dead were children, according to a team from The Associated Press at the scene. Ambulances could be heard rushing to the site for hours following the blast. An eyewitness said the explosion caused fires at nearby clothing and cellphone shops.

The Baghdad attacks come just over a week after Iraqi forces declared the city of Fallujah "fully liberated" from IS. Over the past year, Iraqi forces have racked up territorial gains against IS, retaking the city of Ramadi and the towns of Hit and Rutba, all in Iraq's vast Anbar province west of Baghdad.

Despite the government's battlefield victories, IS has repeatedly shown it remains capable of launching attacks far from the front-lines.

Before the launch of the operation to retake Fallujah, Iraq's prime minister was facing growing social unrest and anti-government protests in Baghdad sparked in part by popular anger at the lack of security in the capital. In one month, Baghdad's highly-fortified Green Zone  which houses government buildings and diplomatic missions  was stormed twice by anti-government protesters.

IS still controls Iraq's second largest city of Mosul as well as significant patches of territory in the country's north and west.

At the height of the extremist group's power in 2014, IS rendered nearly a third of the country out of government control. Now, the militants are estimated to control only 14 percent of Iraqi territory, according to the office of Iraq's prime minister.

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Deadliest attack in a year kills 115 in central Baghdad

BAGHDAD (AP)  A devastating truck bombing on a bustling commercial street in downtown Baghdad killed 115 people early Sunday, brutally underscoring the Islamic State group's ability to strike the capital despite a string of battlefield losses elsewhere in the country.

It was the deadliest terror attack in Iraq in a year and one of the worst single bombings in more than a decade of war and insurgency, and it fueled anger toward Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

When al-Abadi visited the site of the suicide blast in the city's Karada district, a furious mob surrounded his convoy, yelling expletives, hurling rocks and shoes and calling him a "thief."

Iraqi women wait to hear about family members who went missing after a car bomb hit Karada, a busy shopping district in the center of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, July 3, 2016. Dozens of people have been killed and more than 100 wounded in two separate bomb attacks in the Iraqi capital Sunday morning, Iraqi officials said. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

Many Iraqis blame their political leadership for lapses in security in Baghdad that have allowed large amounts of explosives to make their way past multiple checkpoints and into neighborhoods packed with civilians.

Karada, a mostly Shiite section, is lined with clothing and jewelry stores, restaurants and cafes. The blast struck during the holy month of Ramadan, with the streets and sidewalks filled with young people and families after they had broken their daylight fast.

Eleven people were missing and 187 were wounded, authorities said. Many of the victims were women and children who were inside a multi-story shopping and amusement mall. Dozens burned to death or suffocated, a police officer said.

IS swiftly claimed responsibility in a statement posted online, saying the organization had targeted Shiites. The Associated Press could not verify the authenticity of the statement, but it was posted on a militant website commonly used by the extremists.

A second bombing early Sunday on another busy commercial street in a Shiite-dominated neighborhood, this one in east Baghdad, killed five people and wounded 16, authorities said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Hospital and police officials provided the death tolls and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Iraqi forces, supported by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, have secured a string of victories against IS over the past year and a half, retaking the cities of Tikrit, Ramadi and Fallujah, which was declared fully liberated from the extremist group just over a week ago.

But IS has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to carry out large-scale operations in territory removed from the front-line fighting.

Iraqi officials have repeatedly linked the operation to retake Fallujah to improving security in and around Baghdad, citing the large numbers of bomb factories uncovered in Fallujah, less than an hour drive west of the capital.

However, within Baghdad, security forces that screen for explosives at the ubiquitous checkpoints in and around the city often rely on electronic wands that have been repeatedly discredited.

And security across the capital is fragmented. Baghdad is handled by an array of armed groups that are allied with the government but also loyal to political parties or militias and often do not coordinate or share information.

By early Sunday evening, the crowd at the Karada site had grown, but the yelling had largely ceased.

Exhausted family members sat on sidewalks silently awaiting news of missing loved ones as others began to hang freshly printed death notices for the police officers and shop owners killed. Young people lit candles on street corners.

Karim Sami, a 35-year-old street vendor in Karada, was just leaving work when the blast shook the ground beneath him. He said he saw a fireball rise from the blast site and immediately began trying to call his family and friends, but none of his calls went through.

Hours later he discovered one of his friends had been killed, one was wounded and another was missing.

"We are in a state of war," Sami said, but "the security can't focus on the war (against IS) and forget Baghdad."

It was the deadliest bombing in Iraq since July 2015, when a truck bombing in eastern Diyala province killed at least 115 people.

While the U.S.-led coalition conducts police training in Iraq as part of the battle against IS, the vast majority of resources go toward fighting the extremist group on the front lines.

U.S. Army Col. Christopher Garver said that while the coalition and Iraq are concerned about the Islamic State's insurgent abilities, the current anti-IS effort "is more of a conventional fight."

Before announcing the operation to retake Fallujah in late May, al-Abadi faced growing unrest sparked in part by anger at the state of security in the capital. In one month, Baghdad's highly fortified Green Zone, which houses government buildings and diplomatic missions, was stormed twice by anti-government protesters.

Al-Abadi issued a statement Sunday condemning the attack and describing the loss of life as a "painful tragedy" that "robbed Iraqis of the delight of their victories against the reprehensible (Islamic State group) in Fallujah."

"These attacks only strengthen our resolve to support Iraqi security forces as they continue to take back territory from ISIL, just as we continue to intensify our efforts to root out ISIL's terrorist network and leaders," White House National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said in a statement, referring to IS by an alternative acronym.

At the height of the extremist group's power in 2014, IS had driven the government from control across nearly one-third of Iraqi territory. Now the militants are estimated to control only 14 percent, according to the prime minister's office.

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Associated Press writers Murtada Faraj, Ali Abdulhassan and Khalid Mohammed in Baghdad and Maamoun Youssef in Cairo contributed to this report.

Mourners carry the Iraqi flag-draped coffins of bomb victims, Talib Hassan, 35, and Hamza Jabbar, 37, during their funeral procession at the holy shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf, 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, July 3, 2016. Dozens of people have been killed and more than 100 wounded in two separate bomb attacks in the Iraqi capital Sunday morning, Iraqi officials said. (AP Photo/Anmar Khalil)

Iraqi firefighters try to extinguish a fire after a car bomb at a commercial area in Karada neighborhood, Baghdad, Iraq, early Sunday, July 3, 2016. Bombs went off early Sunday in two crowded commercial areas in Baghdad. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

Mourners carry the Iraqi flag-draped coffins of bomb victims, Talib Hassan, 35, and Hamza Jabbar, 37, during their funeral processions at the holy shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf, 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, July 3, 2016. Dozens of people have been killed and more than 100 wounded in two separate bomb attacks in the Iraqi capital Sunday morning, Iraqi officials said. (AP Photo/Anmar Khalil)

Iraqi firefighters and civilians carry bodies of victims killed in a car bomb at a commercial area in Karada neighborhood, Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, July 3, 2016. Bombs went off early Sunday in two crowded commercial areas in Baghdad. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)

The latest blast has deeply shaken residents in the neighbourhood, who are asking Shiite militias for protection

The burnt out shell of the market building after the suicide attack in the affluent Karada district of Baghdad

Iraqi firefighters and civilians evacuate bodies of victims killed from a car bomb at a commercial area in Karada neighborhood, Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, July 3, 2016. Bombs went off early Sunday in two crowded commercial areas in Baghdad. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)
A PORTRAIT: The Bangladesh siege victims

The deaths in the militant attack on a restaurant in Bangladesh were at once random, and not so random.

The 20 hostages who died in the siege had reasons to be in the developing South Asian nation. They were construction consultants from Japan, working on a Japanese government-funded infrastructure project. They were Italian businesspeople in textiles, a major industry in a country that is a center for low-cost production. They were three students from American universities who had ties to Bangladesh.

Their lives intersected on a Friday night at the western-style restaurant at Holey Artisan Bakery, a popular hangout for the relatively well-heeled in the Gulshan diplomatic enclave in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. By Saturday morning, after security forces stormed the restaurant to end a 10-hour siege, they were dead. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it had targeted citizens of what it called "Crusader countries." Their stories paint a portrait of innocent lives lost in this deadly militant attack.

An unidentified woman reacts as she brings flowers to pay respect to the people who died at Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's Gulshan area, Bangladesh, Sunday, July 3, 2016. The assault on the restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic zone by militants who took dozens of people hostage marks an escalation in militant violence in the Muslim-majority nation. (AP Photo)

TEXTILE INDUSTRY FIGURES FROM ITALY

Nadia Benedetti's family remembers her as someone who moved with ease in the world. Her work, including collecting orders for European and U.S. fashion companies, took to places as far as China, Australia, and, her latest business address, in Dhaka. Benedetti, 52, headed a company with 1,800 employees. But beyond workplace success, friends and family remember her for other things, especially a sunny disposition, her thoughtfulness and a love for song. She adored singing karaoke style. A niece also recalled how she would send home early from work employees who were fasting during the month of Ramadan, since they looked tired.

An Italian woman who is friends with an Italian diner who survived the Dhaka restaurant attack says three university students were dining outside in the garden when the attackers saw them and ordered them inside, where they were killed.

Agnese Barolo was dining with the Italian ambassador at the embassy a few blocks from the restaurant when the attack began Friday night. Survivor Gianni Boschetti phoned the embassy to tell them the attack was underway. Boschetti survived because he had just gone outside to talk on the phone and hid behind the gardens' bushes. Barolo says the attackers ordered the students to go inside and "they started to cry, they didn't want to" go inside. Students Tarushi Jain, Abinta Kabir and Faraaz Hossain were killed.

Barolo's son-in-law had been the soccer coach of Kabir and Hossain. Corriere says Barolo is married to an adviser to the Bangladesh's premier. Her friend, Claudia D'Antona, died in the attack. Corriere says Boschetti and D'Antona were married last year at the Italian embassy, where a big party was held.

D'Antona worked in the clothing and textiles, as did Simona Monti, who was five months pregnant with a boy she planned to name Michelangelo. Maria Riboli, Marco Tondat and Cristian Rossi, a business manager who lived in Feletto Umberto, northern Italy, also worked in the textiles industry, a crucial sector of Bangladesh's economy.

 By Frances D'Emilio in Rome

CONSULTANTS FROM JAPAN

Dhaka, a city of 7 million, has some serious traffic congestion, so it's no surprise that transport is a key area of Japanese government aid in Bangladesh.

The work brought together eight technical experts, from three Tokyo-based consulting firms, who were eating together when the attack began at 9:20 p.m. Two women and five men died. Only one made it out alive.

Tomaoki Watanabe, who was hospitalized after being shot, was one of four employees from ALMEC Corp., a transportation consultancy with offices in Manila, Hanoi, Jakarta and Ulan Bator, according to its website. The other three  Yuko Sakai, Rui Shimodaira and Makoto Okamura  perished.

Okamura's father, Komakichi Okamura, told Japanese media outside his home on Sunday that his 32-year-old son's death "is unbearable as a parent." He recalled their last words: "He said, 'I am leaving now.' and I said to him to be careful. That was the last conversation I had with him on the telephone."

Another victim, Koyo Ogasawara, worked for Katahira & Engineers International, a transportation consultancy that has worked on projects in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The other three were working for Oriental Consultants Global, which is part of a Japanese project to build three bridges for the widening of the national highway from Dhaka to Chittagong. They have been identified as Hideki Hashimoto, Nobuhiro Kurosaki and Hiroshi Tanaka.

"We feel very indignant toward the perpetrators, because these people were working hard for the development of Bangladesh," said Shinichi Kitaoka, the president of the Japan International Cooperation Agency. He pledged to strengthen security precautions while continuing to contribute to the country's development.

 By Ken Moritsugu in Tokyo

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STUDENTS FROM AMERICA

They were three friends from American universities, meeting up over summer vacation in Dhaka.

Two were studying at Emory University in Georgia: Faraaz Hossain from Dhaka, and Abinta Kabir from Miami, Florida, who was visiting family and friends in Bangladesh.

The third, 18-year-old Tarishi Jain, was an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley. She was an Indian citizen, whose father Sanjeev Jain moved to Bangladesh nearly two decades ago and runs a garment business there.

Tarishi was a frequent visitor to Holey Artisan Bakery, located near her home.

"The country is with them in this hour of grief," India's minister for external affairs, Sushma Swaraj tweeted. Her body will be flown to New Delhi on Monday, and the cremation will take place in the northern Indian town of Firozabad, the Jain family's home town.

Kabir was entering Emory's Oxford College as a sophomore, and Hossain was a graduate of Oxford College and a student at the university's Goizueta Business School in Atlanta.

Both were active on the Student Activities Committee executive board at Oxford, and fellow student Kereisha Harrell said they were also part of an honor society that required a GPA of 3.9 or higher.

"We are honestly shocked," she said. "A lot of us are not ready to talk about it. But we were a family. It hit us hard. There are a lot of people very upset. We're just trying to support each other through this."

 By Jonathan Landrum Jr. in Atlanta and Nirmala George in New Delhi

The facade of Rome's Campidoglio Capitol Hill is lit with the colors of the Italian flag, in Rome, Saturday, July 2, 2016. Italy's foreign minister said the bodies of nine Italians have been identified after a group of armed extremists stormed a restaurant in Bangladesh. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

This May 5, 2015, photo provided by Naim Chowdhury and posted on his Instagram account, shows the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's diplomatic zone. The assault on the restaurant on Friday, July 1, 2016, by militants who took dozens of people hostage marks an escalation in militant violence in the Muslim-majority nation. (Naim Chowdhury via AP)

This May 5, 2015, photo provided by Naim Chowdhury and posted on his Instagram account, shows the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's diplomatic zone. The assault on the restaurant on Friday, July 1, 2016, by militants who took dozens of people hostage marks an escalation in militant violence in the Muslim-majority nation. (Naim Chowdhury via AP)

Italian players stand on the pitch to honor the victims of the attack in a Dhaka's restaurant, Bangladesh, during the Euro 2016 quarterfinal soccer match between Germany and Italy, at the Nouveau Stade in Bordeaux, France, Saturday, July 2, 2016. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

The Italian and European Union flags fly at half-mast on the facade of Chigi Palace government's office in Rome, Saturday, July 2, 2016. Italys foreign minister said the bodies of nine Italians have been identified in the Dhaka restaurant attack by extremists. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Syria's new US-backed force stumbles in first test

BEIRUT (AP)  The call came around noon, about four hours after U.S.-backed Syrian fighters announced they had taken over an air base outside a town held by the Islamic State group near the Iraqi border. "We are trapped. Pray for us," a commander called into the operation room.

Then communication was cut. Six hours later, the exhausted fighters from the group, known as the New Syrian Army, returned to their base in Tanf, nearly 150 miles (240 kilometers) across the desert to the west, having lost four fighters, four vehicles and ammunition.

The swift, humiliating defeat last Wednesday marked the end of a widely advertised offensive launched less than 24 hours earlier with intense U.S.-led air cover. The fighters had hoped to capture Boukamal, a prize possession of IS and the extremist group's last border crossing between Iraq and Syria.

This file photo released Tuesday June 23, 2016 by the New Syrian Army, an anti-government rebel group, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows U.S.-backed Syrian rebels of the New Syrian Army gathering in an unknown place in Syria. A humiliating defeat came Wednesday, June 29, 2016 for the New Syrian Army's offensive to capture Boukamal, a prize possession of the Islamic State group and their last border crossing between Iraq and Syria. The quick unraveling of the budding offensive reflects the difficulties in U.S. efforts to create an effective Syrian force against IS. (The New Syrian Army via AP, File)

The Boukamal offensive was the first serious attempt to take on IS in the northeastern province of Deir el-Zour, and the first major test for the nascent force of some 1,000 fighters, formed in November from a coalition of Syrian army defectors, local militias and Islamist fighting groups, many of them from the area.

The quick collapse of the offensive reflects the difficulties the U.S. faces in creating an effective Syrian force against IS, given the complex terrain, competing personal and tribal loyalties  and the extremists' continued ability to fight on multiple fronts.

The U.S. has struggled to find local partners in Syria. The exception has been the Kurds, who heavily dominate the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which have had success wresting territory from IS in the north.

All other known attempts to train rebel groups have largely failed, in part because of Washington's focus on the fight against IS rather than toppling the Syrian government, and its failure to protect its partners from better-equipped rivals.

The offensive on Boukamal, a city of nearly 160,000 people along the Euphrates River  mostly Sunni Arab tribes that move freely between Iraq and Syria  aimed to take advantage of IS' focus on defending its northern stronghold of Manbij, which is under attack by the SDF.

Some 200 New Syrian Army fighters took part in the Boukamal operation, according to activists and media reports. They had extensive air support from the U.S.-led coalition, a vote of confidence in the new force, said Jennifer Cafarella, of the Institute for the Study of War. But the group "is definitely not off to a good start," she told The Associated Press.

Commanders of the U.S.-backed militia say they have received extensive training since June last year by U.S. and British special forces, with the Jordanian military playing an advisory role. Activists and observers say the group appears to have equipment and weapons not often seen with other rebels, such as special vehicles for difficult terrain and exclusively U.S.-made small arms.

U.S. officials have not specified the extent of their support for the group, which has been channeled through the Pentagon. The U.S. military refers to the New Syrian Army as a "partner."

The group's first major operation  though much smaller than the Boukamal push  was in March, when it took over Tanf, a smaller IS-held crossing on the border with Jordan.

Ahead of the Boukamal offensive, the American-backed fighters posted a number of messages online indicating that an attack was imminent and taunting IS as "rats." Days before the New Syrian Army offensive, IS announced it had killed five Boukamal residents, describing them as spies.

The fighters made gains early on, taking the small Hamdan air base  but then the offensive quickly unraveled.

A member of the New Syrian Army debriefed on the battle said the American-backed force closed two or three routes to the base but left another one unguarded. IS then used that approach to attack and surround the facility. The member of the force spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

After hours of fighting and heavy airstrikes, the U.S.-backed fighters found a way to escape, but were chased for six hours. Reinforcement from a separate U.S.-backed brigade arrived, the group member said, adding that some tribal members in the area offered logistical support but didn't take part in the fighting.

The spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, Col. Christopher Garver, described the Boukamal operation as a "very tough fight," and acknowledged it had been a setback. He said the implications will need to be analyzed to determine the way forward.

Analysts and members of the American-backed force believe it has the advantage of being able to draw on local support, unlike Shiite or Kurdish forces. Many Arab Sunni tribes in the area have allied with IS, either out of fear of the extremists or anger at the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

Soon after IS declared its so-called caliphate in 2014, some local tribes tried to rise up against it. The extremists responded with a brutal crackdown, shooting and beheading hundreds of members of the prominent Shueitat tribe, which lives in the area north of Boukamal. An estimated 700 to 1,000 tribesmen were killed or are missing.

IS recently imposed an internet blackout in Boukamal, in what some saw as an attempt to prevent locals from joining the New Syrian Army. The member of the U.S.-backed force said that at one point during the offensive, IS spread rumors online that fighters had entered the city, hoping to expose and arrest "sleeper cells" who tried to help the New Syrian Army.

Khaled al-Hamad, a member of one of the main component groups of the New Syrian Army, said they had hoped for support from Iraqi Sunni tribal fighters, but it didn't materialize.

Jordanian military analyst Fayez al-Duweri said any sleeper cells in areas controlled by IS "will not move until they are certain that IS will be defeated because they know the group's brutality."

The spokesman for the New Syrian Army insisted his group was not a lost cause, despite the defeat.

"This was a strike in the heart of the so-called Daesh state amid its core of supporters," Mozahem al-Saloum said. "The desert is their playing field, and we tackled them in it to strike at their stronghold."
Police injured as residents protest incinerator in China

BEIJING (AP)  A protest on Sunday against an incinerator in a southern Chinese town turned violent as some people attempted to break into government offices and police were injured, residents and authorities said.

The protesters in Lubu town in Guangdong province oppose a project to build an incinerator that would also generate power. Residents reached by phone said they had spontaneously taken to the streets by the thousands because they fear the incinerator might contaminate the air and drinking water.

The protest was sparked by an announcement Saturday afternoon by Lubu town government that land requisition work for the project and the project itself were being stopped, without giving any reason.

Residents said people were concerned the halt was just temporary. "The notice was released by Lubu town government, but the project is led by Zhaoqing city government so the notice issued by the town government is not enough," said a resident and restaurant worker who would only gave his surname, Yu.

Protests against incinerators and chemical plants are becoming more frequent in China as citizens' concerns grow over threats to public health. Local governments are faced with the mounting challenge of disposing the waste generated in ever-larger cities, and public distrust over their ability to properly plan, build and manage such projects.

Local authorities tend to announce they will halt plans for incinerators after angry protests by residents, wanting to restore order.

On Sunday, Yu estimated that about 10,000 people had earlier gathered at the town's main street and near a national highway, and that 3,000 or more police officers were present.

A propaganda department of Zhaoqing city's Gaoyao district, which oversees Lubu town with a population of more than 70,000, said police were injured.

In a post on its official Sina Weibo account, Gaoyao's Communist Party committee propaganda department said that around noon "some ordinary people who are unaware of the truth led by some troublemakers attempted to storm the Lubu town government" and attacked and injured some police officers who were trying to maintain order. It said those people should surrender themselves to police and people at the government offices should leave the site immediately.

A man who answered the phone at the propaganda department said he could give no more details. A man who picked up the phone at Lubu police station said he wasn't authorized to talk to the media. A woman from Lubu government said there had been no protest at all and hung up.

The post by the Gaoyao propaganda department was removed later Sunday afternoon. Photos of the protest also posted on Sina Weibo had earlier apparently been taken down by censors.

A resident who only gave her surname, Lin, said the planned incinerator was only about 2 kilometers (a mile) from the town and close to the Xijiang River, and residents had first protested in fewer numbers last weekend.

"We worry about air and water pollution," she said. "The river is a major source of our drinking water."

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100 years later, France marks American's July 4 sacrifice

BELLOY-EN-SANTERRE, France (AP)  In the end, Alan Seeger's bones could no longer be distinguished from those of his Foreign Legion comrades who had fallen alongside him in one of the most brutal battles of World War I.

United across nations, it was the glorious death that he craved.

Seeger  an American poet, romantic and soldier  died on that most American of days, July 4th, a century ago Monday. Barely 28, he was already fighting for a global, common cause that bound dozens of countries together at a time when the United States was still a bystander, reluctant to get involved in a faraway war in Europe.

In this photo taken on Wednesday, June 8, 2016, an information board with a photograph of Alan Seeger guides visitors through the French National Necropolis of Lihons, in Lihons, France. American poet Alan Seeger died a century ago on July 4th during the 1916 Battle of the Somme in northern France, already fighting for a global, common cause that bound dozens of countries together at a time when the United States was still a bystander, reluctant to get involved in a faraway war. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

His premonition, "I have a Rendezvous with Death," was to become his most beloved poem, and the volunteer was happy to give his life for France and its grand ideals of "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity." Half a century later, it was a favorite poem of U.S. President John Kennedy.

Seeger was last seen by his Egyptian friend Rif Baer charging the German enemy, a tiny part of the massive Battle of the Somme, where more than 1 million people were killed, wounded or went missing in 4  months of fighting in 1916.

"His head erect, and pride in his eye, I saw him running forward, with bayonet fixed. Soon he disappeared," Baer described the final scene  and the myth of Seeger emerged.

As a belated summer comes to northern France, peonies bloom over Ossuary No. 1 in nearby Lihons where he is believed to lie, forgotten by most but still cherished by some. In the village where he fell, a gnarly apple tree planted in dedication to his sacrifice furtively tries to produce fruit from the few branches it still has. The mayor plans to graft the tree, to make sure Seeger's memory survives.

The Belloy village square is named after him and the village's World War I memorial even has him  in the Gallic "Alain Seeger" chiseled in stone.

"For France, Alan Seeger is first and foremost the symbol of commitment  commitment right up to death," said local historian Marcel Queyrat.

In his diary, Seeger wrote "I never took arms out of any hatred against Germany or the Germans, but purely out of love for France."

To his mother he wrote "there should really be no neutrals in a conflict like this, where there is not a people whose interests are not involved." This, combined with his French military flair for "elan"  the forward thrust in battle  makes Seeger a standout a century later when Europeans are questioning their unity.

From the start of World War I, Seeger wanted to get the United States involved in the allied cause. Once it did, in 1917, it set the scene for the "American century" of predominance in the world.

His centennial now offers a stark contrast. During this year's U.S. presidential campaign, opponents of Republican candidate Donald Trump accuse him of turning back to isolation, his "America First" slogan stoking such fears.

Seeger could not understand those who stood to the side in World War I, hardly the anti-war message that his folk-singing nephew Pete Seeger would later spread during the Vietnam War years.

"Playing a part in the life of nations, he is taking part in the largest movement his planet allows him," Alan Seeger wrote in his diary.

Born into a wealthy family that built its fortune on Mexican sugar refining, and with a gift for languages, he went to study at Harvard. His life changed for good when he started hanging out with classmate John Reed, who went on to become the eyewitness writer of the 1917 Russian Communist revolution with "Ten Days that Shook the World."

After Harvard, it was on to New York and the Bohemian lifestyle of Greenwich Village. Soon Seeger was crossing the Atlantic to Paris and the Rive Gauche  the Left Bank. He arrived there in 1912, giving him two years to fall in love with the City of Lights and all things French, enough to decide to defend the nation when war came.

"An artist is not only an artist, he is also a man of action which, for me, is absolutely essential," said Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger, president of the famed family Champagne house. "Seeger shows the way."

Taittinger has been smitten with Seeger's dash. At his Chateau de la Marquetterie amid the Champagne vineyards, he even has a special room with poetry and photos of Seeger, amid other World War I memorabilia. Seeger was smitten just as much with Champagne, writing of a night when he and other soldiers "in our candle-lit loft we uncorked bottles of bubbling champagne ... and clinking our tin army cups."

Early on, there was much fighting around Reims, Champagne's main city, and the destruction of the Cathedral by the Germans was considered such a sacrilege that it turned many across the world against Kaiser Wilhelm II. Those were the lands amid rusty vines that soldier Seeger roamed early on  often behind the lines while his soul yearned for action.

"And what a curious anomaly," he wrote to his mother. "On this slope the grape pickers are singing merrily at their work, on the other the batteries are roaming. Boom! Boom!"

Even though France was in his heart, home kept tugging at it too. He "fairly danced for joy" being granted a July 4th leave in Paris in 1915, but the war malaise had already spread to the capital, where Seeger saw many women in mourning. It was to be his last full Independence Day.

With an uncanny sense of fate, he felt battle was near in June 1916. "We will go directly into action, magnificently, unexpectedly, and probably victoriously, in some dashing charge, even if it be only of local importance," he wrote.

That is exactly what happened at Belloy-en-Santerre.

"I have a rendezvous with Death  At some disputed barricade," the poem says.

On Monday, Seeger will be remembered again.

"Life is very short but some lives are more full than others," said the 63-year-old Taittinger, adding that Seeger's life, cut short at 28, "is much more full than my life will ever be."

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Follow Raf Casert on Twitter at http://twitter.com/rcasert

In this photo taken on Wednesday, June 8, 2016, Wooden crosses with ribbons in the French national colors line a border around Ossuary No.1 at the French National Necropolis of Lihons, in Lihons, France. American poet Alan Seeger died a century ago on July 4th during the 1916 Battle of the Somme in northern France, already fighting for a global, common cause that bound dozens of countries together at a time when the United States was still a bystander, reluctant to get involved in a faraway war. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

In this photo taken on Wednesday, June 8, 2016, a photograph of American poet Alan Seeger and other mementos line a mantle piece in the Mayors office of Belloy-en-Santerre, France. American poet Alan Seeger died a century ago on July 4th during the 1916 Battle of the Somme in northern France, already fighting for a global, common cause that bound dozens of countries together at a time when the United States was still a bystander, reluctant to get involved in a faraway war. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

In this photo taken on Wednesday, June 8, 2016, a plaque dedicated to Alan Seeger stands at the front of the French National Necropolis of Lihons, in Lihons, France. American poet Alan Seeger died a century ago on July 4th during the 1916 Battle of the Somme in northern France, already fighting for a global, common cause that bound dozens of countries together at a time when the United States was still a bystander, reluctant to get involved in a faraway war. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

In this photo taken on Thursday, June 9, 2016, poppies grow in a field in Pardondru, France. A commemoration will be held in France on July 1, 2016 for those who were lost during the Battle of the Somme which began on July 1, 1916. American poet Alan Seeger died a century ago on July 4th during the 1916 Battle of the Somme in northern France, already fighting for a global, common cause that bound dozens of countries together at a time when the United States was still a bystander, reluctant to get involved in a faraway war. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

In this photo taken on Wednesday, June 8, 2016, a visitor looks at photos of soldiers who died or who were declared missing during the Battle of the Somme, at the Thiepval Memorial in Authuille, France. American poet Alan Seeger died a century ago on July 4th during the 1916 Battle of the Somme in northern France, already fighting for a global, common cause that bound dozens of countries together at a time when the United States was still a bystander, reluctant to get involved in a faraway war. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

In this photo taken on Wednesday, June 8, 2016, Historian Marcel Queyrat, left, and the Bernard Lictevout, the Mayor of Belloy-en-Santerre, stand in a courtyard in Belloy-en-Santerre, France. Alan Seeger, a poet and soldier in the French Foreign Legion died in Belloy-en-Santerre on July 4, 1916 in the first days of the Battle of the Somme during World War I. Seeger's parents had the apple tree in the orchard on the rear right planted shortly after the death of their son. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

In this photo taken on Wednesday, June 8, 2016, a World War I memorial contains the name of American poet and soldier of the French Foreign Legion, Alan Seeger, in the town square of Belloy-en-Santerre, France. American poet Alan Seeger died a century ago on July 4th during the 1916 Battle of the Somme in northern France, already fighting for a global, common cause that bound dozens of countries together at a time when the United States was still a bystander, reluctant to get involved in a faraway war. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

In this photo taken on Wednesday, June 8, 2016, a square in the town of Belloy-en-Santerre, France, is named after American poet Alan Seeger. Seeger died a century ago on July 4th during the 1916 Battle of the Somme in northern France, already fighting for a global, common cause that bound dozens of countries together at a time when the United States was still a bystander, reluctant to get involved in a faraway war. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)
A timeline of the weekend hostage crisis in Bangladesh

A timeline of the deadly hostage crisis as it unfolded from Friday night in Bangladesh:

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FRIDAY

This May 5, 2015, photo provided by Naim Chowdhury and posted on his Instagram account, shows the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's diplomatic zone. The assault on the restaurant on Friday, July 1, 2016, by militants who took dozens of people hostage marks an escalation in militant violence in the Muslim-majority nation. (Naim Chowdhury via AP)

8:45 p.m.  Heavily armed gunmen enter the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's diplomatic zone. Witnesses report hearing explosions.

10 p.m.  Two policemen are injured in firing and throwing of bombs or a grenade by the gunmen who have taken over the restaurant, with some 35 people inside.

10:30 p.m.  Explosions heard from inside the restaurant.

10:55 p.m.  Bakery worker Sumon Reza escapes from the restaurant and says the attackers shouted 'Allahu Akbar' (God is Great) when they entered.

11:20 p.m.  Bangladesh security asks TV channels to stop live broadcasts, citing security reasons. A security official says authorities are trying to listen for demands from the militants, and that saving the hostages is the first priority.

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SATURDAY

1 a.m.  The two officers who were hit by bullets in the initial police response to the crisis succumb to their injuries in a hospital, according to police.

1:33 a.m.  Islamic State claims responsibility for Gulshan attack, says SITE Intelligence monitoring agency.

4 a.m.  Gunshots are heard again from inside the restaurant.

6:10 a.m.  Bangladesh security and Rapid Action Battalion say they are ready to launch a rescue operation.

7:40 a.m.  A joint strike team, led by a newly formed paramilitary force, storms the restaurant and secures the area.

7:48 a.m.  Heavy firing and explosions continue.

8:30 a.m.  "Operation Thunderbolt" ends.

12:45 p.m.  Military operations chief says 13 hostages rescued. Bodies of 20 hostages, most slain with machetes or sharp weapons, are found. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina condemns the attack and says six gunmen were killed and one suspect arrested.

3:50 p.m.  India's foreign minister says Tarishi Jain, a student at UC-Berkeley, was among the hostages killed.

5:30 p.m.  Bangladesh's home minister denies the Islamic State's claim of responsibility.

6:30 p.m.  Pope Francis condemns the Dhaka restaurant attack as an "offense against God and humanity."

7:45 p.m.  Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni says the bodies of nine Italians have been identified among the dead.

8:45 p.m.  Japan's government confirms seven Japanese development workers were killed.

Midnight Police release photographs of bodies and names of five militants killed inside the restaurant.

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SUNDAY

10 a.m.  Members of the Criminal Investigative Department of Bangladesh enter the restaurant to collect evidence.
Chelsea signs Batshuayi, Arsenal strikes deal for Asano

LONDON (AP)  Chelsea signed Belgium striker Michy Batshuayi and Arsenal struck a deal to bring in Japan forward Takuma Asano as Premier League clubs remained active early in Europe's summer transfer window.

Batshuayi joined from Marseille on a five-year deal and reportedly cost Chelsea 33 million pounds ($44 million).

"(Fellow Belgium players) Eden Hazard and Thibaut Courtois have told me many good things about the club," said Batshuayi, who played at the European Championship in France, "and with Antonio Conte coming in (as coach), it's an exciting time to become a Chelsea player."

Arsenal said the 21-year-old Asano will complete his move from J-League club Sanfrecce Hiroshima once he has undertaken a medical examination and the regulatory processes are completed.

Given Asano has only played five times for Japan's national team, there could be an initial challenge gaining a British work permit.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said Asano is "very much one for the future" and "we look forward to him developing over the next couple of years."

Arsenal last season finished 10 points behind champion Leicester, which announced the signing of French midfielder Nampalys Mendy on Sunday.

The 24-year-old Mendy joined from Nice on a four-year deal to become Leicester's third offseason signing.
The Latest: Italian chef describes escape from Dhaka siege

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP)  The Latest on the attack on a restaurant popular with foreigners in a diplomatic zone in the Bangladeshi capital (all times local):

7 p.m.

A dessert chef who is only one of two Italians to survive the Dhaka restaurant siege says he took refuge in an adjoining house and stayed there long after the massacre ended.

Members of an Indian family offer flowers and light candles as they pay tribute to those killed outside the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sunday, July 3, 2016. The assault on the restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic zone by militants who took dozens of people hostage marks an escalation in militant violence in the Muslim-majority nation. (AP Photo)

Jacopo Bioni, 34, tells Sky TG24 TV in a phone interview broadcast Sunday, that after jumping two stories down onto the property of a nearby house, the residents, although "understandably" frightened by his sudden appearance, welcomed and hid him. Bioni says when he saw an attacker point a rifle at a table of Italian diners, he fled to the roof without thinking twice. Bioni says police came to talk to him Saturday morning and then he left the house in the afternoon.

Says Bioni: "I grabbed two things and my passport, headed to the airport and caught the first flight out." That flight took him to Bangkok, and Bioni says he can't wait to return to Italy on Monday.

He says he has no desire to look at attack photos on social or other media, since he prefers to remember Bangladesh in happier times.

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5:15 p.m.

Pope Francis has led tens of thousands of pilgrims, tourists and Romans in silent prayer for the dozens of people who perished in militant attacks on a Dhaka, Bangladesh, restaurant and two bombings in Baghdad.

Francis told the crowd gathered in St. Peter's Square on Sunday that he expresses closeness to the families of the victims and the wounded. He urged prayers so that "the Lord converts the heart of violent ones blinded by hate."

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5 p.m.

Italian Premier Matteo Renzi says Islamic State group must be destroyed "without pity" but in a way so that next generation doesn't harbor such hate, too.

Renzi spoke Sunday to Sky TG24 TV, referring to the weekend attack in a restaurant in Dhaka, Bangladesh, that killed 22 people, including nine Italians.

The Italian leader notes IS is losing on the military level in Syria, Iraq and Libya. But he advocated an "iron fist" against those using a "strategy based on hate and terror."

Says Renzi: "We must destroy them without pit, but also avoiding that the next generation is like this" one.

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4:30 p.m.

Police are blocking all access to streets near the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's Gulshan area as security officials look for evidence after the weekend hostage crisis that left 28 dead, including six attackers and 20 of the hostages.

Sunday is the first of two days of national mourning for the victims. In the morning, investigators from Bangladesh and Japan visited the restaurant to collect evidence. The dead included nine Italians and seven Japanese development workers.

After the hostage siege began Friday night, authorities said 25 officers and one civilian had been wounded, and 10 of them were in critical condition. People were not allowed near the hospital on Saturday and Sunday, and hospital staff would give no updates on those injured.

Some of the 13 rescued hostages also were treated for injuries.

Pope Francis delivers his blessing during the Angelus noon prayer he celebrated from the window of his studio overlooking St. Pter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, July 3, 2016. The pontiff has led tens of thousands of pilgrims, tourists and Romans in silent prayer for the dozens of people who perished in militant attacks on a Dhaka, Bangladesh, restaurant and two bombings in Baghdad. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

People leave flowers at a barricade leading to the Holey Artisan Bakery to pay respects to the hostages who died there, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sunday, July 3, 2016. The assault on the restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic zone by militants who took dozens of people hostage marks an escalation in militant violence in the Muslim-majority nation. (AP Photo)
Turkish authorities detain 3 more over airport attack

ISTANBUL (AP)  Turkey's state-run news agency says authorities have detained three new suspects in connection with the attack at Istanbul's airport that killed at least 44 people.

Anadolu Agency didn't identify the suspects or specify their nationalities.

It said Sunday the total number of those detained in relation to the shooting and suicide attack at the airport is now 27. Thirteen suspects, including three foreigners, have been referred to Istanbul's Bakirkoy Court after undergoing medical checks, according to the report.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, third left, prays in front of photographs of Tuesday's blast victims at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, Saturday, July 2, 2016. Tuesday's gunfire and suicide bombing attack at Ataturk Airport killed dozens and injured over 200. Turkish authorities have banned distribution of images relating to the Ataturk airport attack within Turkey. (Kayhan Ozer, Presidential Press Service, Pool via AP)
Iranian sculptor Tanavoli blocked from leaving the country

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP)  Famed Iranian sculptor Parviz Tanavoli said Sunday he has been barred from leaving the country without explanation while trying to travel to Britain.

Authorities confiscated the artist's passport early Saturday morning while he tried to board a flight out of Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport. He had been scheduled to give lectures at the British Museum and Asia House in London.

Tanavoli told The Associated Press that he does not know why he was prevented from leaving. Immigration authorities directed him to the country's main passport office, but he came back empty-handed after spending several hours there.

FILE - In this Feb. 9, 2015 file photo, Iranian artist Parviz Tanavoli stands near a detail of his sculpture "Poet Turning into Heech," at the Davis Museum on the campus of Wellesley College in Wellesley, Mass. Tanavoli says he has been barred from leaving the country while trying to travel to London. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)

"They said absolutely there is nothing we can do," the 79-year-old artist said. "They tell me it's not political but they don't tell me what it is."

Iranian officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

One of Iran's best-known living artists, Tanavoli is associated with the Saqqakhaneh artistic movement, which began in the 1960s and draws on traditional Persian and Shiite folk themes. His bronze work "The Wall" ("Oh, Persepolis") fetched $2.84 million at a 2008 Dubai auction, then a record price for a Middle East artist.

He travels twice a year between Canada and Iran, and frequently pays visits to Europe and elsewhere without problems, he said. In February last year, he was in the Boston area for his first solo retrospective in the U.S.

Despite his international acclaim, Tanavoli has faced difficulties with Iranian authorities before.

Authorities confiscated 57 pieces of his artwork more than a decade ago. He eventually got 11 back following a court ruling two years ago, only to have them taken away again weeks later.

He is still fighting in the courts to get the artwork back, but said he does not believe that is why he was stopped from leaving Saturday.

"I have followed the rules, I haven't done anything illegal," he said. "I didn't have any hints I did anything wrong."

He plans to continue pursuing his work while he tries to get his passport back, including preparing for a major exhibition at Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art next year.

Several artists, poets, journalists and activists have been detained in Iran since the government of relative moderate President Hassan Rouhani reached a nuclear deal with world powers last year. The crackdown is widely seen as the work of hard-line elements within the judiciary and security services who oppose loosening limits on social freedoms and Rouhani's strategy of pursuing greater openness to the wider world.

In one of the most recent incidents, police in May arrested eight people for "un-Islamic acts," including female models posting images of themselves without their hair covered online.

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Follow Adam Schreck on Twitter at www.twitter.com/adamschreck
France eyes prospects to pressure Britain over migrants

PARIS (AP)  Concern about immigration and a wish for stricter border controls were important factors in Britain's vote to leave the European Union last week.

But the mayor of Calais in northern France hopes the neighbor's decision to quit the bloc can have a reverse effect and eventually help unravel a deal that has kept migrants attempting to reach Britain trapped on the French side of the English Channel.

The French-British bilateral Touquet Treaty was signed in 2003 with the aim to stop migrants from crossing the channel. It effectively moved Britain's southern border to northern France, allowing British police, customs officials and their sniffer dogs to operate around Calais.

FILE - In this Jan.18 2016 file photo, a migrant stands in the Calais migrants camp after it was partially cleared, in Calais, northern France. Calais Mayor Natacha Bouchart shares the dream of thousands of migrants massed in her city on the English Channel _ she wants them to leave for Britain. But undoing a French-British treaty that keeps them trapped on the French side of the border is a pipe dream. (AP Photo/Michel Spingler, File)

Bilateral deals aren't legally affected by a British exit from the EU and French leaders haven't shown any appetite to undo the Touquet Treaty for now, but Calais Mayor Natacha Bouchart hopes they can use the June 23 referendum result to gradually start chipping away at the deal and squeeze more concessions out of Britain in its hour of vulnerability.

Because of the agreement, Calais' economy and image have suffered, Bouchart says.

A fortress-like defense system has been mounted against the thousands of migrants, from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Eritrea and elsewhere, living in dire conditions in a Calais slum camp and nearby towns as they try to hop into freight trucks headed to Britain, via the Channel Tunnel or the huge ferry port. High barbed wire fences stretch along the urban landscape, trees and bushes have been razed to eliminate hiding spots and flashing police lights illuminate the night sky.

"We can't take it anymore. We don't want it anymore. We're sick of it," Bouchart said Wednesday after she and other regional officials met with Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve to discuss the next steps after Britain's EU vote.

Cazeneuve noted that chucking the treaty would require a two-year notice and would further worsen the humanitarian situation in Calais. He said it would encourage smugglers attracted by easier passage across the channel, risk an increase in deaths of migrants trying to cross and add an extra burden on the hundreds of French police posted around Calais.

However, he suggested the referendum result could help France put more pressure on Britain to help out.

"We've already increased cooperation in a tough dialogue, and the choice of the British on June 23 must make us become still tougher," Cazeneuve said without elaborating. He said he was seeking a meeting this fall to discuss the issue with regional officials and his British counterpart Theresa May  a contender to become new prime minister after David Cameron's resignation.

Britain has never been part of Europe's travel-free Schengen zone, and has tried to protect its borders from illegal immigration via other EU states. Amid an exceptional migrant influx since 2014, France pressured Britain into pumping more than 100 million euros ($111 million) into helping secure Calais and house some migrants.

Numerous adjustments have been made to the Touquet Treaty, and France may now push for more.

"We want some arm-wrestling around a table with the new British government" that will replace Cameron's team in the fall, said Calais mayor Bouchart, who is also vice president of the northern region. She wants "to clarify the Touquet accords ... We want at least fairness, sharing, a refugee camp opened in Britain. We want the British government to assume its responsibility."

President Francois Hollande has said it "makes no sense" to put the agreement in doubt under the pretext that Britain has voted to leave the EU, instead suggesting finding ways to "improve the situation."

But even if Hollande's government doesn't pull out of the border treaty, an eventual successor could.

The Socialist is in political difficulty ahead of presidential elections next year, and some leading conservative candidates are already complaining about France's role as a depot for migrants. Popular far-right candidate Marine Le Pen is actively campaigning to leave the EU, the euro currency and the borderless Schengen zone.

One potential conservative candidate, former Prime Minister Alain Juppe, said this week it's "obviously necessary" to reconsider the treaty. "It was true before Brexit," he said on BFM-TV. "It is even truer today."

Fear alone should be enough to prompt the French state to rethink the Touquet Treaty, suggested Xavier Bertrand, conservative president of the northern region.

Small militia-like groups have already attacked migrants in recent months, and "we don't want one day to have clashes between Calaisians and migrants," he said. "It's that we want to avoid."

FILE - In this Jan.21, 2016 file photo, migrants attempt to board trucks lining up to enter the Channel Tunnel in Calais, northern France. Calais Mayor Natacha Bouchart shares the dream of thousands of migrants massed in her city on the English Channel _ she wants them to leave for Britain. But undoing a French-British treaty that keeps them trapped on the French side of the border is a pipe dream. (AP Photo/Michel Spingler, File)
Trump statements, slow start put pivotal Southwest at risk

DENVER (AP)  Once a swing state in presidential elections, Colorado has teetered on the brink of becoming solidly Democratic. Donald Trump may have pushed it over the edge.

Trump's disparaging words about Mexicans, negative comments about women and weak campaign organization have punctuated the state's shift from a nip-and-tuck battleground to one that's Democrat-friendly. For the first time in more than 20 years, there are now more registered Democrats in the state than Republicans.

"Trump is turning off as many key voter groups as we have in this state," said former state Republican Party Chairman Dick Wadhams. "I would have to believe Trump's having trouble."

In this July 1, 2016, photo, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during the opening session of the Western Conservative Summit in Denver. Once a swing state in presidential elections, Colorado has teetered on the brink of becoming solidly Democratic. Trump may have pushed it over the edge. Trumps disparaging words about Mexicans, negative comments about women and weak campaign organization have punctuated the states shift from a nip-and-tuck battleground to one thats Democratic-friendly. For the first time in more than 20 years, there are now more registered Democrats in the state than Republicans. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

And it's not just Colorado. Trump's inflammatory rhetoric and weak campaign structure could ensure that perennially competitive Nevada and New Mexico are out of reach as well.

That matters for Trump. He can't win the 270 electoral votes needed to capture the presidency without capturing some states that favored Barack Obama in the last two elections.

The three Southwestern states  which have a combined 21 electoral votes  might have offered some hope. All backed Republican George W. Bush 12 years ago.

But Trump isn't making as much of a push for those states as is his likely Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. He made his first campaign appearance in Colorado just Friday, speaking at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver.

Clinton made her fifth trip on Wednesday, proposing college-loan deferment for graduates who start businesses. It was a tactical move aimed at swaying young voters, many of whom flocked to Sen. Bernie Sanders, who beat Clinton soundly in March's Colorado caucuses.

"Hillary has some ground to make up," said Craig Hughes, who ran Democratic President Barack Obama's winning 2012 Colorado campaign. "But compared to Trump, Hillary is in a far, far better place."

In Colorado, Clinton's campaign is spending $2.4 million on television advertising this month through Election Day, while a group that supports Clinton, Priorities USA, is spending $13.6 million, according to Kantar Media's campaign advertising tracker. In Nevada, Clinton is spending $2 million and Priorities USA is spending $10.4 million.

Neither Trump nor any super PACs supporting him have reserved advertising time in the two states. Super PACs are organizations that can spend unlimited funds on a candidate, but can't coordinate with the campaign.

The National Rifle Association's political arm is making small ad buys  $155,000 in Colorado and $98,000 in Nevada  to attack Clinton's handling of the attacks on diplomatic compounds in Libya while she was secretary of state.

Clinton has had staff in Nevada for more than a year, ahead of the state's early caucuses, and in Colorado for almost a year. Trump has a Colorado state campaign director and a Southwest regional director in Nevada.

If Colorado is a stretch for Trump, Nevada and New Mexico may be out of reach with their larger Hispanic populations and wider Democratic edge. The number of Hispanic voters has boomed in Nevada, more than doubling as a percentage of the state's voters since 1980, to an estimated 22 percent this year. In New Mexico, nearly half the population is Hispanic.

Trump has alienated Hispanics with his call to build a wall on the Mexican border, his plans to deport the roughly 11 million immigrants who are in the United States illegally and by characterizing some Mexican immigrants as drug smugglers and rapists.

Still, Nevada Republican strategist Ryan Erwin says Trump could salve the wounds were he to make the effort himself.

"As that population changes, it's harder for a Republican presidential candidate that isn't here all the time," said Erwin, 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney's Nevada director.

But Trump is relying on the Republican National Committee for staffing, as he is in all competitive states, said Trump's Colorado director, Patrick Davis.

"There's only so much one presidential candidate can do," Davis said. "You've got to use all of the means of communication to get it done."

Trump's statements, late organizational start and Clinton's statewide organization have her Colorado director Emmy Ruiz cautiously optimistic.

"I think the odds are in our favor. But I don't think that they are strong odds. I also don't think they are high enough for us to sit back," Ruiz said.

Part of Clinton's tail wind: Democrats in April nosed ahead of Republicans in voter registration for the first time since 1994. Since 2012, Democratic voter registration in Colorado has grown 7.5 percent, compared to 5 percent for Republicans.

In Nevada, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 70,000, a gap that Democrats and Republicans say could top 120,000 by Election Day. It's a small but significant chunk of the state's 1.5 million voters.

"Unless and until Republicans can match the kind of funding Democrats have put into their voter registration here, Republicans are going to fall behind," said Erwin, the Republican strategist.

Last week, 18-year-old Kevin Garcia knocked on doors in 100-plus degree heat, registering Las Vegas residents to vote. He then attended a Clinton campaign calling session at a pizza restaurant.

Garcia, whose family emigrated from Mexico, was among about a dozen callers sipping cold Pepsis and using cellphones to call Nevadans. His goal was to make 100 calls that night  some in Spanish.

He said he supports Clinton because of her support for allowing people in the United States illegally to stay under certain circumstances. And because of Trump's rhetoric.

"And my whole family is naturalized," he said. "We're all citizens."

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Associated Press writer Julie Bykowicz contributed to this report from Washington.

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Follow Thomas Beaumont on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/tombeaumont

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Light injuries after Paris Euro 2016 fan zone fight

PARIS (AP)  Police say a few dozen people were slightly injured in the Paris Euro 2016 fan zone when a fight among British fans prompted a rush for safety.

It was the first such incident in the Paris fan zone since the tournament started June 10, and comes amid tensions and high security across the country. France is under a state of emergency after extremist attacks last year, and hooligan violence that marred the early days of the tournament.

Paris police and city hall officials said Sunday that a group of fans started fighting during extra time in Saturday's quarterfinal between Germany and Italy. People near the fighting fans moved away, while scores of others ran for the exits, the officials said.

One person was hospitalized with injuries but should be released Sunday, while the others were treated on site at the fan zone beneath the Eiffel Tower, said a city hall official.
Turkish ship carrying aid to Gaza reaches Israeli port

ISTANBUL (AP)  A Turkish ship carrying over 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip has reached the Israeli port of Ashdod, Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency said Sunday.

The vessel Lady Leyla set sail late Friday from the Turkish city Mersin. Anadolu said it docked in Ashdod after a 35-hour journey.

The ship is carrying food, toys, clothes and shoes, according to Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority. The delivery comes before the start of Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Panama-flagged "Lady Leyla", a ship carrying Turkish humanitarian aid to Gaza, arrives at the port in the city of Ashdod, Israel, Sunday, July 3, 2016. The first Turkish aid shipment to Gaza since Ankara reconciled with Israel after a six-year spat has arrived in an Israeli port Sunday with 10,000 tons of aid, including food, toys, clothes and shoes destined for Gaza ahead of the upcoming Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr. (AP Photo / Tsafrir Abayov)

A six-year political fissure between Turkey and Israel ended last week when the two countries agreed to normalize ties. Relations had imploded in 2010 after an Israeli naval raid killed nine Turks on board an aid ship trying to breach Israel's blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
When the neighborhood is owned by billion-dollar companies

APOPKA, Florida (AP)  Many of the single-family homes in the Piedmont Park neighborhood of Apopka, Florida, used to be owned by families  the Vargases and the Townes, the Pierces and the Riddles. Now, they're owned by Blackstone, American Homes 4 Rent and Colony Starwood Homes, companies associated with big real estate investment firms.

And the occupants are tenants, not owners.

In the decade since the housing boom deflated into a bust, financial firms recognized an investment opportunity in hard-hit areas like this Orlando suburb. Single-family homes lost to foreclosure could be bought cheaply and transformed into rent-generating income streams.

FILE - In this Thursday, April 14, 2016, file photo, renter Nicole Caverly gets settled at her home in the Piedmont Park neighborhood in Apopka, Fla., a former agricultural hub now crowded with housing developments. Where one in 10 homes was once a rental, now more than a third are. Caverly began renting in the Piedmont Park neighborhood this year. The previous owners had lost the three-bedroom house to foreclosure in 2015, after which it was bought by Freo Florida LLC in January. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)

The corporate purchases have spread through Piedmont Park and surrounding neighborhoods, where the percentage of renters rose from a bit over 10 percent to more than 35 percent within a decade. Piedmont Park homeowners complain that the result is more transient neighbors, less engagement at homeowners' meetings and difficulties reaching absentee corporate landlords.

Apopka Mayor Joe Kilsheimer regards the surge of renters in houses throughout central Florida as an unfortunate consequence of the damage this region absorbed from the Great Recession and housing bust.

"Having an owner-occupied house is better for a neighborhood and better for a community than a house occupied by renters," Kilsheimer said. "They are invested in their children's school. They're invested the quality of life in their community."

Claudette Guerrier, one of the original homeowners in Piedmont Park from its development in 1988, feels disheartened by the transformation. She said her four-bedroom, two-story house has been broken into twice recently

"It was better in the beginning; now it's not so good," Guerrier said.

In the aftermath of a housing crisis, metro Orlando suffered one of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation. A few homes in Piedmont Park sat empty for months, attracting squatters who moved in and were hard to evict, said Karin Settle, president of the local homeowners association. One house of college-age renters, she said, threw fraternity-like parties with 20 or so cars parked outside and drunk men hanging out on the porch  something the neighborhood didn't see in years past.

Several homeowners have said they're considering selling their homes because there are so many renters now, she said.

"If these people come in and they're out-of-state investors  some place in Canada or Arizona  you don't really have a physical office or people to contact about when there is something going on with the home," Settle said. "On the good side, they come in, renovate the house, typically gut it. They paint it, fix the fence and it looks nice from the curb. But then these companies don't take a lot of pains in terms of who they rent to."

Laura Smith, a resident for 17 years, was close friends with her neighbors in the house behind hers until they moved a couple of years ago. Since then, she said, it's been one renter after another.

"They just come and go; you just see different cars," Smith said. "I say to myself, 'I should make a better effort to get to know them.' But by the time I get around to it, they're gone."

The three-bedroom, two-bath home next door to Michelle Harner's house was sold in March. She was hoping that owner-occupants would move in. But the telltale signs of a corporate landlord appeared within days.

"Somebody doesn't buy a house like that and turn around and rip everything out and completely remodel the whole thing and put a new roof on it five days after buying the house," she said.

Property records show that the house was bought at the end of March by Freo Florida LLC for $145,000. Freo Florida, part of Progress Residential Trust, which owns over 3,000 homes around the nation, listed the house on Zillow as a rental for $1,325 a month.

Some renters do show pride in tending to their homes, Harner said, but it's often easy to pick out which homes are rentals. Yards tend to be untended, cars are parked all over the street, "and you see one family a year come and go."

The transient nature brings other challenges. At a recent homeowners' association meeting to discuss installing a new playground, only nine homeowners showed up from a neighborhood with more than 400 residents. A decade ago, dozens would likely have attended.

"When you have a high percentage of renters, you end up having a low turnout at things like homeowners' association meetings, when you do a community yard sale," Harner said. "That collaboration sort of declines.

Ask the renters themselves, and some will say that very sense of community is what they value most about living there. Nicole Caverly, who began renting in the Piedmont Park neighborhood this year, doesn't consider herself a disengaged neighbor. After having lived for years in an apartment building where people kept to themselves, she loves living where she can chat with neighbors during walks.

The previous owners had lost the house to foreclosure in 2015, after which it was bought by Freo. Caverly, a store manager, says the management company her landlord uses has been pleasantly responsive. It quickly fixed troubled locks on the front door after she moved in with her daughter and boyfriend.

She is saving for a down payment to buy a home. But she doesn't yearn for the responsibilities of ownership  from having to fix appliances to dealing with insect infestations.

For now, Caverly observed, "It's a renters' market because nobody can afford a down payment."

There are few signs that the real estate investment companies plan to sell many of the homes they bought. But the temptation to do so will keep rising if home prices do. In the meantime, the companies have scaled back their purchases  from 9 percent of all sales nationwide in 2013 to about 2.5 percent early this year, said Daren Blomquist, a vice president at RealtyTrac, which tracks housing data and trends.

The industry has been consolidating as companies try to create efficiencies of scale. Colony American Homes and Starwood Waypoint Residential merged this year. And American Residential Properties merged with American Homes 4 Rent late last year.

"It seems like the players who are still around are pretty committed to a long-term strategy of holding these homes," Blomquist said. "You had a lot of investors jump on the bandwagon during the acquisition phase because honestly the easiest part of this strategy is acquiring these properties ... Efficiently and effectively managing these properties is just harder, so there are fewer players who want to do that."

Christine Anderson, a Blackstone spokeswoman, said in an email that the company has sharply reduced its acquisitions. It has bought nearly 50,000 homes nationwide.

Wynkoop, LLC, which owns about 1,000 homes in Arizona and Florida, including some in Piedmont Park, has been winding down its Phoenix acquisitions as the supply of low-priced homes has dwindled. But it plans to buy about 200 homes in central Florida this year to serve a still-growing population of newcomers who need homes to rent, said Brandon Jundt, who runs the Denver-based investment firm.

If builders start constructing many more homes, or if the homes become more profitable to sell than rent, it would create an incentive to sell off the portfolio, Jundt said.

Still, he added, the firm's investment in single-family homes is a matter of "years, but not for decades." As the number of home sales from the foreclosure crisis fades, limiting opportunities to buy homes at discount, and as rents peak, it will eventually be time to look elsewhere.

"At some point, you're going to have a normalization between rents and home values," Jundt said. "And once things get back to normal ... I'll probably move on."

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Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter: http://twitter.com/mikeschneiderap

FILE - In this Thursday, April 14, 2016, file photo, renter Nicole Caverly gets settled at her home in the Piedmont Park neighborhood in Apopka, Fla., a former agricultural hub now crowded with housing developments. Where one in 10 homes was once a rental, now more than a third are. Caverly began renting in the Piedmont Park neighborhood this year. The previous owners had lost the three-bedroom house to foreclosure in 2015, after which it was bought by Freo Florida LLC in January. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)

This Thursday, April 14, 2016, photo, shows a real estate sign in the Piedmont Park neighborhood in Apopka, Fla., a former agricultural hub now crowded with housing developments. Where one in 10 homes was once a rental, now more than a third are. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

In this Thursday, April 14, 2016, photo, homeowner Michelle Harner stands in front of her house in the Piedmont Park neighborhood in Apopka, Fla. She has seen a surge of renters in the past decade. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

In this Thursday, April 14, 2016, photo, homeowner Michelle Harner stands in front of her house in the Piedmont Park neighborhood in Apopka, Fla. She has seen a surge of renters in the past decade. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

This Thursday, April 14, 2016, photo shows a view of a street in the Piedmont Park neighborhood in Apopka, Fla. Many of the single-family homes in the neighborhood used to be owned by families, but now they're owned by companies associated with big real estate investment firms. And the occupants are tenants, not owners. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

In this Thursday, April 14, 2016, photo, Nicole Caverly stands in front of her home in the Piedmont Park neighborhood in Apopka, Fla. Caverly began renting in the Piedmont Park neighborhood this year. The previous owners had lost the three-bedroom house to foreclosure in 2015, after which it was bought by Freo Florida LLC in January. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
WWII air gunner from Montpelier gets France's top honor

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP)  When James Facos was squeezed into the ball turret of a B-17 Flying Fortress, using the two 50-caliber machine guns on either side of him to soften up German air defenses to let his plane drop its payload of bombs, he wasn't looking to get into the good graces of the French.

He and the nine other members of his bomber crew, based in England, were just trying to get through another of what would end up being 30 missions  the last on June 5, 1944, against German positions in occupied Normandy, paving the way for the Allied invasion that would begin the next day.

But when he opened his mail at his Montpelier, Vermont, home one day last week, the now 91-year-old Facos found a certificate showing that French President Francois Hollande had installed him as a chevalier  a knight  in that country's Legion of Honor.

In this June 29, 2016 photo, James Facos holds a medal in Montpelier, Vt., that he received as part of his induction into the French Legion of Honor for his service defending that country in World War II. The French have been bestowing their highest honor on U.S. veterans who were distinguished in their efforts to defeat the Nazis. Facos flew 30 missions with the Eighth Air Force over France in Germany in 1944 as a ball turret gunner on a B-17 bomber. (AP Photo/Dave Gram)

His reaction to the news? "Startled... I know the value of the medal. It's one of the highest honors France has to offer."

The Army Air Corps had awarded him the Distinguished Flying Cross at 19, but as for this new honor, "I was caught by it," Facos said. "To be a chevalier  a chevalier you know is a knight. So I'm recognized as a knight," he said, a bit of wonder in his voice.

The award was first given by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802. But since 2004, which was the 60th anniversary of D-Day, the French have awarded it to U.S. veterans who gave distinguished service defending France against Nazi Germany in World War II.

In a letter notifying Facos that he had been selected for the honor, Valery Freland, France's consul general in Boston, wrote that the award "is a sign of France's infinite gratitude and appreciation for your personal and precious contribution to the United States' decisive role in the liberation of our country in World War II."

The job of ball turret gunner was not for the faint of heart.

The ball turret hung from the B-17's s underbelly, without enough room in the spinning, tilting sphere for a parachute. If the plane were shot down, the gunner had to try to scramble out of the turret to get a parachute.

"I never wore a 'chute during combat, so that made it more interesting," he said, adding that trips to the bathroom during a nine- or 10-hour flight over the continent and back to England wasn't possible.

"You went before you got in (the turret) and then, that was it," Facos said.

Born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1924 to a Greek immigrant father and Irish mother and raised in Springfield, Facos worked as a bookkeeper for a time after the war and later got a bachelor's and master's degree. He taught English for decades at Vermont College in Montpelier, which has been absorbed into Norwich University in nearby Northfield. He's a published novelist, playwright and poet.

His son, Montpelier Police Chief Tony Facos, said in an interview that his father didn't talk much about the war during the time the future chief and his two sisters were growing up in Montpelier.

"I had to pry stuff out of him. He didn't want to talk about it. He wasn't even a big fan of me playing with guns or toy soldiers," said the chief, now 51. He added he was proud of his dad, and called the new recognition "kind of cool."

Even now, the elder Facos is matter-of-fact about the risks he took as a 19-year-old all those decades ago.
The Latest: Images in Trump tweet on neo-Nazi website

WASHINGTON (AP)  The Latest on the 2016 presidential campaign (all times local):

5:50 p.m.

A version of the anti-Hillary Clinton image tweeted by Donald Trump that featured a six-point star resembling the Star of David atop a pile of money appeared earlier on a white supremacist website.

In this May 11, 2016, file photo, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence launches his campaign for re-election during an event in Indianapolis. Pence will meet with presumed Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump over the weekend, a top aide to the governor said Friday, July 1, 2016, after it was confirmed that Pence is under consideration as a vice presidential running-mate. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)

Trump's account tweeted - then deleted - the so-called "meme" Saturday shortly after a social media uproar about potentially anti-Semitic undertones.

The meme first appears to have hit the internet on June 15, when it was posted by Twitter user @FishBoneHead1. The now-deleted account has described itself as belonging to a comedian and regularly tweeted out provocative and offensive content.

The image appeared a week later on a neo-Nazi internet message board, /pol/, that features anti-Semitic posts. The image's appearance on that site was first reported by mic.com.

It's unclear where the Trump campaign found the image.

___

2:20 p.m.

A spokesman for Indiana Gov. Mike Pence says the governor and his wife met with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his wife Saturday.

Pence spokesman Marc Lotter said Sunday that the two couples had a "warm, productive" meeting before Pence returned to Indiana.

Lotter said they discussed policies Pence has used in Indiana. But the spokesman said "nothing was offered" when asked if Trump discussed the possibility of Pence becoming his running mate.

Lotter referred all other questions to Trump's campaign.

Trump has never held public office and is considering a small group of political veterans as potential running mates.

People with direct knowledge of Trump's vetting process say the list includes Pence, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions.

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1:50 p.m.

Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham  best known for their conservative politics and support for the military  are knocking their presumptive presidential nominee's handle on foreign affairs. And Graham is endorsing Democrat Hillary Clinton's plan for no-fly zones in Syria.

In a televised interview from the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, McCain says he didn't think either candidate had the "necessary strategy and outlook" to succeed as commander in chief.

Graham says Donald Trump's comments on accepting the Syrian regime "tells me he has no idea what that means for the region." Graham says Clinton's no-fly zone in Syria is a "great step in the right direction."

The senators spoke on CBS "Face the Nation." McCain has said he will support the GOP nominee, but Graham has said he won't vote for either.

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12:30 p.m.

Hillary Clinton and her surrogates are campaigning explicitly on the idea of her trustworthiness. It's a remarkable vulnerability that persists for the presumptive nominee despite after four decades in public life.

Clinton's other supporters were driving the trust tour across the Sunday news shows. Labor Secretary Tom Perez and Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio used the word 'trust' in their appearances Sunday, and Clinton herself said in an interview taped just after her FBI interview Saturday that she has "work to do" to earn the trust of U.S. voters.

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden are set to drive that message this week in separate campaign appearances with Clinton.

Still looming is the FBI report on Clinton's private email server as secretary of State.

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10:10 a.m.

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker is no longer flatly denying that he's being vetted as a potential running mate for presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Booker has said in recent weeks that it was flattering to be mentioned but that he wasn't being vetted.

Speaking on CNN's "State of the Union," Booker now says "If you have a question like that, please direct it to the Clinton campaign."

It's possible that Democrats won't want Booker plucked from his Senate seat: New Jersey's Republican governor, Chris Christie, would pick Booker's replacement if he leaves for the White House. Democrats are hoping to win the majority in the Senate this election and might not want to take that chance.

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2:44 a.m.

Hillary Clinton's interview with the FBI may signal that the Justice Department is nearing the end of its yearlong probe of her use of a private email server while secretary of state.

The controversy has hung over her White House bid and provided an angle of attack for Republican Donald Trump and other critics.

The Clinton campaign says the presumptive presidential nominee for the Democratic Party gave a voluntary interview for 3 1/2 hours Saturday at FBI headquarters in Washington. Spokespeople for the FBI and the Justice Department have declined to comment.

Clinton tells NBC's "Meet the Press" that she has no knowledge of any timeline for the review. She won't comment on whether officials gave her an indication that charges would not be filed.

FILE - In this March 12, 2012 file photo, then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton checks her mobile phone after her address to the Security Council at United Nations headquarters. An impromptu meeting between Bill Clinton and the nation's top cop could further undermine Hillary Clintons efforts to convince voters to place their trust in her, highlighting perhaps her biggest vulnerability. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

Secret Service stand guard around a Secret Service vehicle after it arrived at the home of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in Washington, Saturday, July 2, 2016. The Clinton campaign says the FBI interviewed Clinton on Saturday morning in Washington, about her emails while she was secretary of state. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

A SUV depart the home of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in Washington, Saturday, July 2, 2016. The Clinton campaign says the FBI interviewed Clinton on Saturday morning in Washington, about her emails while she was secretary of state. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
Cologne's gay pride parade pays tribute to Orlando victims

BERLIN (AP)  Tens of thousands of people are taking part in Cologne's annual gay pride parade, with many paying tribute to the victims of the attack on a Florida nightclub last month.

Some held placards with the words "We are Orlando" while 49 rainbow flags were hung at half-mast to symbolize those killed in the attack.

Sunday's Christopher Street Day parade is one of the biggest LGBT events in Germany and was first held 25 years ago to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York.

Participants gather for a Christopher Street Day parade in Cologne, western Germany, Sunday July 3, 2016. ( Maja Hitij/dpa via AP)

Participants gather for a Christopher Street Day parade in Cologne, western Germany, Sunday July 3, 2016 and hold a poster in different languages reading 'I am Orlando', to remember the victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting. ( Maja Hitij/dpa via AP)
Texas accused of ignoring mentally disabled in nursing homes

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP)  It took more than 40 years for Leonard Barefield to finally get to choose where he lived.

The intellectually-disabled Texas native moved to a group home in Lubbock in September after he had first lived in near slavery conditions for more than three decades in a squalid house in Iowa and worked at a turkey processing plant there for 41 cents an hour. After being freed by social workers from that situation, he was sent in 2008 to a nursing home in Midland, Texas.

His plight is not uncommon in Texas, where people with such disabilities are routinely warehoused in nursing homes, according to a lawsuit brought by Barefield and other disabled people. Advocates for the intellectually-disabled  a condition affecting reasoning and learning  say Texas is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act and other federal laws by denying services that could allow more than 4,000 people to live in the community.

In this June 13, 2016 photo, Leonard Barefield pauses in his home in Lubbock, Texas. The intellectually disabled South Texas native had for at least three decades lived in a rundown, mouse- and roach-infested schoolhouse in Iowa with dozens of others with similar developmental conditions. The group worked at a nearby turkey processing plant before social services workers liberated them. (AP Photo/Betsy Blaney)

The state denies it is exploiting the disabled, saying it is committed to providing them with the highest quality of services.

The 71-year-old Barefield has a developmental disability, suffers from depression and other mental health and medical conditions, and has high blood pressure, court records show. He wears a hearing aid and his speech is significantly impaired. But he can read, write and drive a truck.

Barefield lives with three other intellectually disabled men in a well-maintained and spacious home.

"It's better here," he said, nodding his head emphatically. Barefield leaves the home several days a week for a day center where he can play games and work on small projects.

Even though he was exploited for decades, the outcome of Barefield's case is better than some.

Andrea Padron, who suffered a severe head injury in a car accident when she was 10, died in 2013 after getting an inaccurate evaluation to determine the care she needed in a nursing home, court documents show.

Padron's mother put her in a nursing home when she could no longer afford to care for her. Her mother then was deployed to the Iraq war with the military. The services promised for Padron were not provided during the mother's absence.

When her mother returned to Texas, Padron couldn't even sit in her wheelchair.

Padron was left to lie in bed for about 165 hours a week  without specialized services, including physical therapies. She eventually was unable to straighten her wrists, ankles, shoulders, legs or hips and developed a spine deformity, court records show. She was 29 when she died.

The lawsuit against the state by Barefield and the other disabled patients was filed in 2010 and has crawled through the legal system. The federal Department of Justice joined the suit on the side of the disabled in 2012.

In 2013, the state and lawyers for the disabled reached an "interim settlement agreement" that in part called for Texas to expand community services and create a service team for each disabled person. In return the suit was put aside for two years.

But without explanation, the agreement was ended in 2015. Neither side will talk about why this happened because they say confidentiality rules prevent comment. The lawsuit has been reactivated.

A federal judge in San Antonio ruled in May that the case could go ahead and granted class-action status to include more than 4,000 intellectually-disabled people in nursing homes.

Barefield and the others aren't asking for any money in compensation.

"All we're asking the state to do is comply with the (federal) law," said Robert Velevis, an attorney for the disabled clients.

State aging and disability department spokeswoman Cecilia Cavuto declined to comment on the case but said the state is "committed to ensuring Texas nursing home residents, including those who have intellectual and developmental disabilities, receive the highest quality services."

She said Texas care providers do evaluations for each person entering a nursing home to determine what specialized services might be needed and whether a resident wants to transition into a community-based setting.

Lawyers for the disabled say the state excludes them from "any meaningful access" to Texas's system of community-based services needed to be able to live in the community.

Lenwood Krause, whose 36-year-old son has a condition related to a developmental disability from a traumatic brain injury, said the state has mishandled the care of his son for years.

"I can't exactly express the sentiments I feel about them," the 72-year-old said. "It's that bad."

Texas was ranked in the bottom one third of states for the comprehensiveness of evaluations conducted on intellectually-disabled patients, according to a federal report by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services last year.

"Our belief is that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities have just as much right to live in the community as anyone else," said Yvette Ostolaza, another attorney for the disabled clients.
New-look Big Boy, menu and restaurant changes for Frisch's

CINCINNATI (AP)  Big Boy without his Big Boy double-decker; menu additions; a revamped, brighter restaurant with a kids' zone, and experimentation with "brupper" are among changes underway at Frisch's Restaurants Inc. as its new leadership tries to competitively beef up the regional chain.

Atlanta-based NRD Capital's $175 million acquisition last August ended family operation of the Cincinnati-based regional business dating to a 1939 drive-thru that later acquired trademark rights in Ohio and nearby states for Big Boy, originated in California. The private equity firm named industry veteran Jason Vaughn the new CEO in April and has slowly  and cautiously  been making changes.

The chain recently unveiled Big Boy's new look  no longer hoisting his signature sandwich and his formerly chubby cheeks noticeably tighter.

FILE - In this Friday, May 22, 2015, file photo, a Big Boy statue stands outside a Frisch's Big Boy restaurant, in Columbus, Ohio. Frischs Restaurants Inc. has unveiled a new look for Big Boy, no longer hoisting his signature sandwich and his formerly chubby cheeks noticeably tighter, as part of a rebranding effort. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

"He's a little thinned down, but he's still a big boy," Vaughn said, chuckling.

In an AP interview, Vaughn and Anne Mejia, the new executive vice president of marketing, explained that Big Boy's different look is meant to signal other changes are underway in the chain, which had been profitable but faced increasing casual-dining competition.

"The evolving of the Big Boy himself is a part of the broader picture," Vaughn said. "We're evolving Big Boy, we're evolving our venue; how it looks and the food offerings, and we're just evolving the brand."

The Frisch's in Covington, Kentucky, near the Ohio River has brighter colors and lighting, updated employee attire and dinnerware, and homey touches such as local artwork and clocks showing the time in nearby towns. The new-look prototype rolled out there June 29 includes images around the restaurant of the new-look Big Boy, a "community table" to encourage convivial dining, and the kids' area where children can color and hang up their results.

Frisch's earlier began a line of "prime-time" burgers to augment the Big Boy double-decker, Brawny Lad and its other traditional sandwiches, and July will bring the western barbecue burger with special barbecue sauce. Frisch's is moving into appetizers such as new mozzarella sticks and planning new drinks for summer including a lemonade fizz, lemonade-and-tea drink, and a raspberry lemonade.

Regular guest Shirley McDonald, of Cleves, Ohio, agreed Frisch's needed some changes.

"I like Frisch's, but they need to get a wider variety on their menu," she said.

Besides offering breakfast items any time, Frisch's in June tried out "brupper": its breakfast buffet for Wednesday evening supper time. Vaughn said the trial was well-received by customers and is being evaluated.

"The changes we've been talking about haven't been made in a silo," Vaughn said. "We have a lot of consumer research and we're listening to our guests."

Frisch's operates 95 Big Boy restaurants and franchises 25 others in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. It also holds the Big Boy trademark rights for Tennessee and plans to expand there, but Vaughn said there was no timetable for that to discuss.

He also said the "classic Big Boy" figure will remain visible at restaurants in the form of the statues out front.

That's good news to customer McDonald, 71, who said she has amassed Big Boy figurines, banks and other collectables over the years.

"I'd miss him," she said.

___

Follow Dan Sewell at http://www.twitter.com/dansewell. For some of his other recent stories: http://bigstory.ap.org/content/dan-sewell
El Salvador, deadliest nation in 2015, sees lull in violence

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP)  After becoming the world's murder capital last year and posting an equally bloody start to 2016, this violence-torn Central American nation has seen its monthly homicide rate fall by about half.

The government attributes the drop to a tough military counteroffensive against the country's powerful gangs, deploying a special security force and transferring imprisoned organized crime leaders to a maximum-security lockup to isolate them.

But the gangs also claim credit. The three main groups  the Mara Salvatrucha, Barrio 18 Revolucionarios and Barrio 18 Surenos  forged a nonaggression pact in March to try to reduce the killings. In a joint video message, they said their aim was to convince the government that the crackdown was unnecessary.

In this June 14, 2016 photo, a soldier stands next to a stenciled graffiti that reads in Spanish "Truce between politicians" painted on the main walls of the National Palace in San Salvador, El Salvador. After becoming the world's murder capital last year and posting an equally bloody start to 2016, El Salvador has seen its monthly homicide rates fall by about half. The government attributes the drop to a tough military crackdown on the country's powerful gangs, while the gangs themselves claim credit for a nonaggression pact between the three biggest criminal groups. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)

Either way, killings in El Salvador dropped from 611 in March to 353 in April and 351 in May. There were 331 homicides in June, compared with 677 in the same month in 2015.

Last year the country recorded over 100 killings per 100,000 residents. That rate was so high that even if it's halved for all of 2016, El Salvador would still be firmly in the top 10 for killings for any country not at open war, though it's a fraction of the deaths seen in a war zone such as Syria, where casualty estimates run into the hundreds of thousands since 2011.

Authorities say most of El Salvador's dead are gang members slain by rivals on the streets and inside prisons, or in encounters with security forces.

"The reduction in homicides is due to the effectiveness of the plans by police and the extraordinary measures by the government, especially inside prisons" national police chief Howard Cotto said last week.

Authorities say isolating jailed gang leaders makes it harder for them to issue orders to their underlings out on the streets.

"We have gradually been bringing the penitentiary system under control and we are going to finish the job," Vice President Oscar Ortiz said recently.

The gangs see things differently. A senior member of one, the Barrio 18 Surenos, told The Associated Press that the killings have fallen because gang leaders ordered their street soldiers to stand down.

"When we have wanted war, we have waged war on them, and right now we are not thinking that way," the gang member said, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid being targeted by authorities. "We want things to be solved in a different way."

He said he is part of a team that coordinates among the three big criminal bands, and all are open to dialogue and have agreed to maintain a cease-fire.

Experts say the government crackdown and the gang truce have both likely played a part in reducing homicides.

Jose Miguel Cruz, a specialist on Salvadoran organized crime at Florida International University, said the fact that the gangs are behaving less aggressively may suggest only that they are trying to keep a lower profile, not that the government has won the battle. He also worries that the lull in violence could be fleeting.

"I fear that this is temporary," Cruz said. "That it is going to last until the gangs figure out another way to confront the government."

When President Salvador Sanchez Ceren took office in 2014, he established a policy of confrontation with the gangs. A former guerrilla, Ceren doubled down on that approach in March after gang members used guns and machetes to slaughter 11 people in the town of San Juan Opico, outside the capital  an attack whose brutality was shocking even for Salvadorans numbed by daily reports of death and mayhem.

Within weeks of the "Opico massacre," the Salvadoran Congress approved legislation that included isolating gang prisoners and deploying 1,000 soldiers and police to pursue and dismantle the gangs. The government has "recovered the hope that this country is now on the path to defeat crime," Sanchez Ceren said in mid-May.

The three gangs called a truce before, in 2012, that allegedly was facilitated by then-President Mauricio Funes' government.

Funes' administration has denied being the architect of that pact. However an official in his government, who says he was involved in its planning and implementation, says the truce was a matter of government policy and the former president and security Cabinet approved a strategy allowing mediators to negotiate with gang representatives inside and outside prisons. He spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid drawing the attention of investigators in an ongoing probe.

Funes did not respond to an email request for comment. On a recent radio show, he said his government didn't design the treaty and only "facilitated the pact" that the gangs had established.

The attorney general's office on May 3 ordered the arrest of 21 people allegedly involved in negotiating the truce, including former mid-level officials. Prosecutors said they were suspected of crimes such as introducing illegal items into prisons and illicit association in their contact with gang members.

The idea of negotiating with the gangs is widely unpopular among Salvadorans. A recent poll by the newspaper Diario de Hoy found that 78 percent of respondents would oppose another truce, compared to 10 percent who would support one. The May 20-24 survey polled 2,174 adults and had a margin of error of 1.5 percentage points.

"I don't believe in the truce," said San Salvador resident Maria Teresa Perdomo, who called the 2012 pact a "farce" because even while it was in effect, the gangs "kept on killing and extorting people."

Street vendor Jose Melgar agreed, saying the government needs to take a tough line on the gangs.

"You have to hit them hard," Melgar said. "They are bad, they were born bad, and they don't spare anyone."

In this June 14, 2016 photo, reserve soldiers stand on a truck during a presentation to the press at the Central Square in San Salvador, El Salvador, as part of extraordinary security measures to dismantle gangs. After becoming the world's murder capital last year and posting an equally bloody start to 2016, El Salvador has seen its monthly homicide rates fall by about half. The government attributes the drop to a tough military crackdown on the country's powerful gangs, while the gangs themselves claim credit for a nonaggression pact between the three biggest criminal groups. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)

In this June 14, 2016 photo, reserve soldiers and National Civil Police are presented to the media at the Central Square in San Salvador, El Salvador, as part of extraordinary security measures dismantle gangs. After becoming the world's murder capital last year and posting an equally bloody start to 2016, El Salvador has seen its monthly homicide rates fall by about half. The government attributes the drop to a tough military crackdown on the country's powerful gangs, while the gangs themselves claim credit for a nonaggression pact between the three biggest criminal groups. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)

In this June 21, 2016 photo, a child peers from behind the door of her home, covered with Mara Salvatrucha gang graffiti, in Soyapango, El Salvador. After becoming the world's murder capital last year and posting an equally bloody start to 2016, El Salvador has seen its monthly homicide rates fall by about half. The government attributes the drop to a tough military crackdown on the country's powerful gangs, while the gangs themselves claim credit for a nonaggression pact between the three biggest criminal groups. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)

In this June 14, 2016 photo, a man looks at a formation of police and soldiers during a presentation to the press in the Central Square in San Salvador, El Salvador. After becoming the world's murder capital last year and posting an equally bloody start to 2016, El Salvador has seen its monthly homicide rates fall by about half. The government attributes the drop to a tough military crackdown on the country's powerful gangs, while the gangs themselves claim credit for a nonaggression pact between the three biggest criminal groups. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)

In this June 21, 2016 photo, an army paratrooper patrols the April 22 neighborhood in Soyapango, El Salvador, as part of extraordinary security measures to dismantle gangs. After becoming the world's murder capital last year and posting an equally bloody start to 2016, El Salvador has seen its monthly homicide rates fall by about half. The government attributes the drop to a tough military crackdown on the country's powerful gangs, while the gangs themselves claim credit for a nonaggression pact between the three biggest criminal groups. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)
As late budgets go, Illinois has no equal

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP)  Illinois has redefined what it means to have a late budget.

Other states have gone several months without a spending plan before, and Illinois has had prior delays that caused great anxiety. But going an entire fiscal year without a full budget? It's the only time in post-World War II history it's happened in the country.

"Late budgets will have a new meaning after you guys are done," said Arturo Perez, a fiscal analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures who has researched past overdue budgets nationally.

In this Thursday, June 30, 2016 photo, Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner speaks to reporters in front of his office at the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield, Ill., after lawmakers passed a stop gap budget. Illinois has redefined what it means to have a late budget. Other states have gone several months without a spending plan before and Illinois has had previous delays that caused great anxiety. But no state has gone as long as Illinois without a budget in modern history. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)

So what did past budget delays here and elsewhere look like? And how did Illinois get to this point? Here's a look.

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JUST A MOMENT

Jim Edgar found himself in an unsettling position as Illinois governor in 1991 when the state went 18 days without a budget.

"We thought '91 was protracted and it looks like child's play compared to what they've gone through this year," the former Republican governor said.

The 1991 standoff, which Edgar said "seems like just a moment" compared to today, kept staff at colleges from collecting their paychecks.

At the time, Edgar said the state had not experienced a budget delay like it.

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REASONS FOR PAST DELAYS

Back then, Edgar found himself disagreeing with Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, much like current Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner. The sticking point now is Rauner wants business-friendly, union-weakening legislation as a condition of raising taxes to pass a full, balanced budget.

In 1991, a bad economy forced layoffs and budget cuts, but the gridlock was over what to do about a temporary two-year income tax surcharge that brought $700 million annually to schools and local governments. Edgar and legislators resolved their differences by agreeing to make the surcharge for education permanent, while extending the tax for local governments for another two years.

There were other late-budget scares in the 1980s and '90s that had state workers worried about getting paid, said Kent Redfield, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois in Springfield. One of those times, Redfield said he considered getting a short-term bank loan to make a mortgage payment, but the budget was resolved in time.

In the late 2000s, the state had three straight years where the budget was delayed for several weeks.

"Other times, it was how much you want to spend, what do you want to spend it on, but it was never tied to a policy ultimatum," Redfield said.

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OTHER STATES

This year, Pennsylvania went nine months without a budget because the Democratic governor wanted a multibillion-dollar tax increase from ruling Republicans. Ultimately, Republicans passed a spending package without new taxes.

Prior to Pennsylvania and Illinois, the distinction for having the longest-budget stalemate belonged to Kentucky, which went nine months without a spending plan in 2002 because of a disagreement over campaign finance legislation.

One big reason Illinois' standoff has gone for so long is court-ordered spending has guaranteed payments to state workers and other critical government obligations, like funding for Medicaid. Illinois is among 13 states where some or all payments continue without a budget, according to NCSL.

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IT'S NOT OVER

Rauner and the Democrat-led Legislature had a breakthrough Thursday, agreeing to fund state government for the next six months and giving schools enough money to stay open a full academic year.

However, in six months the partisan gridlock will likely continue. Rauner plans to keep pursuing the agenda that has angered Democrats, and they've shown no desire to give him what he wants.

And the legacy of this impasse will remain for years. Illinois is about $8 billion backed up on bills and the autopilot spending is increasing the state's debt.

"It's going to take forever to get out of the debt," Redfield said.

In this Thursday, June 30, 2016 photo, Illinois Speaker of the House Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, center, speaks to lawmakers while on the House floor during session at the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield, Ill. Illinois has redefined what it means to have a late budget. Other states have gone several months without a spending plan before and Illinois has had previous delays that caused great anxiety. But no state has gone as long as Illinois without a budget in modern history. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)
Colorado governor haunted by links to prison chief killing

DENVER (AP)  Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper listened as an investigator offered details about the murder of one of his cabinet members, a corrections chief he hired to reform the state's prisons who had also become a close friend.

As the trooper flashed photo after photo on a projection screen, a wave of nausea washed over the governor. It was a mugshot of the killer he immediately recognized. He was the son of another close friend.

Three years after that tense briefing in his office, Hickenlooper has said little publicly about the March 2013 assassination of prisons director Tom Clements by a mistakenly paroled member of a white supremacist prison gang, even as questions linger.

Advance For Sunday, July 3--File--In this Wednesday, June 3, 2015, file photograph, Colorado Gov. John HIckenlooper speaks during the signing of two school safety measures in the State Capitol in Denver. Hickenlooper has said little about the case publicly in the three years since the murder of Clements. Gunman Evan Ebel was the son of Hickenloopers longtime friend. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, file)

In his candid, newly released autobiography, Hickenlooper, a dark horse to be the Democratic vice presidential nominee, recalled the first time he realized he was the one who led the murderous son of one close friend to the doorstep of another.

"Here, now, were ... two of my friends, intersecting in this horror," Hickenlooper wrote in his autobiography.

Hickenlooper met quietly this month with prosecutors and sheriff's officials, who told him they have begun closing the case.

The killer died in a shootout with lawmen in Texas, but the case remains dogged by speculation that he didn't act alone. That was revived by documents recently released by Texas authorities showing they believed, at least for a time, that Evan Ebel was doing the bidding of higher-ups in his white supremacist prison gang when he shot Clements dead at his front door.

Yet the investigators in charge of the case for the past year-and-a-half insist it was the work of a lone gunman who is dead.

Ebel, 28, was the son of Jack Ebel, a suburban Denver attorney who worked with Hickenlooper at an oil company when Hickenlooper was a geologist. The two stayed close as Hickenlooper went on to become a brewpub owner, and then Denver's mayor and Colorado's governor. And Hickenlooper has said he knew Jack Ebel had been troubled by his son's time in prison.

Hickenlooper had just given a eulogy for Clements when he went to dinner with Maximillian Potter, a Denver reporter who became Hickenlooper's media adviser and helped him write the memoir.

"He looked like a ghost. He looked incredibly hurt, and he looked wounded," Potter told The Associated Press. Over the years, "he felt guilty that, because of him, more or less, Tom is in town. If Tom's not the head of the Department of Corrections, Tom doesn't become his friend, and Tom doesn't get killed."

Hickenlooper declined to comment for this story, as did Clements' widow Lisa. Jack Ebel could not immediately be reached.

"I can't talk about this," Hickenlooper told reporters after a recent news conference, his voice rising. "I know too many things, and they can be misconstrued in a million different ways."

Jack Ebel testified before the Colorado Legislature in 2011 that he believed solitary was destroying his son's psyche. When Hickenlooper was interviewing Clements, then a Missouri corrections official, for the top prisons job in Colorado, he mentioned his friend's son as an example of why the prison system needed reform.

Once Clements came to Colorado, he eased the use of solitary confinement and tried to make it easier for people housed there to re-enter society.

No one has officially revealed Ebel's motive for executing Clements. First, he killed Nathan Leon, a father of three who was working as a pizza delivery driver to make extra money. Two days later, wearing Leon's Domino's uniform, Ebel shot Clements dead when he answered the front door of his home.

At the time of the murders, Evan Ebel should still have been in prison. Already there for a series of convictions, he was sentenced to an additional four years for assaulting a prison officer. But a clerical error made it unclear the sentences were supposed to be served back-to-back, and officials treated the sentences as simultaneous, allowing Ebel to walk out of prison in January 2013. He was on parole just two months before he slipped out of his ankle bracelet monitor and set out to kill the prisons chief.

After killing Clements, Ebel fled to Texas in his black 1991 Cadillac DeVille, in which authorities later found lye and pipe bomb-making materials, a book about white supremacy, directions to Clements' home and the names of other Colorado officials.

Adding a new layer of confusion, the sheriff's officials who oversaw the probe at its outset resigned and were indicted in May on extortion charges. The lead investigator overseeing the Clements case was among those charged.

El Paso County Sheriff Bill Elder, who is currently in charge of the investigation, said he plans to close it. Elder dismissed the 77-page report released by the Texas Department of Public Safety, written by one of its rangers, saying it was taken in the confusing days after the killing, and that years of further investigation found no evidence of a gang conspiracy.

"We have had countless people looking at this case," Elder told The Associated Press prior to meeting with Hickenlooper. "If there was physical evidence of a conspiracy we would be on that like white on rice."

Elder said that when he took office in January 2015, he had a team of investigators go over every lead and every piece of evidence. A single investigator remains assigned to the case.

Hickenlooper has not said whether he has doubts about the handling of the investigation that would prompt him to use his authority to appoint the attorney general as a special prosecutor, a rare move.

"All he could do is run the state as he normally would and let the investigation play out," Potter said. "And privately grieve for one of his closest friends, and for a father who lost a son."

ADVANCE FOR SUNDAY, July 3--In this file photograph taken Monday, March 25, 2013, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper presents a flag to Lisa Clements, the widow of Tom Clements during the public memorial for the chief executive of the Department of Corrections held at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo. Hickenlooper has said little about the case publicly in the three years since the murder of Clements. Gunman Evan Ebel was the son of Hickenloopers longtime friend. (Jerilee Bennett/The Gazette via AP, POOL)
Disastrous July Fourth fire in Portland, Maine

The "Great Fire of 1866" started with a boy lighting a firecracker in Portland, Maine, on the first Fourth of July after troops returned from the Civil War. The wind-swept conflagration quickly became the greatest fire yet seen in an American city, destroying 1,500 buildings and leaving more than 10,000 people homeless. Miraculously, only a handful of deaths  at least four, according to a Portland Press Herald analysis  were recorded. The Associated Press is making available its first dispatches alerting the world to the fire 150 years ago.

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First Dispatch

In this 1866 photo released by the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, destruction from a fire that swept through Portland, Maine, is visible looking west from India Street. The fire started by a boy lighting a firecracker on Fourth of July. The AP's original coverage of the event 150 years ago ends with a request by an Army officer for about 1,500 tents for the homeless. The fire left about 10,000 people homeless but killed only a few. (Maine Historic Preservation Commission via AP)

PORTLAND, July 4  A terrible fire is here, having destroyed Brown's sugar house, and is sweeping through the city before a strong southerly wind.

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Second Dispatch

PORTLAND, July 4, 8 p.m.  The fire caught in the building above the sugar house on Commercial street and has swept northerly through Fore Street into the wooden buildings between Centre and Cross streets, consuming everything as it goes. J.B. Brown & Sons from $600,000 to $700,000. Insured $300,000 Staples & Son, machine shop, and R.P. Richardson & Co's stove foundry are completely destroyed. One steam engine has come from Saco.

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Third Dispatch

PORTLAND, July 5  The fire has swept completely through the city from the foot of High street to North street on Munjoy Hill, destroying everything in its track so completely that the lines of the streets can hardly be traced, and a space one and a half miles long by a quarter of a mile wide appears like a forest of chimneys with fragments of walls attached to them.

The wind was blowing a gale from the south and a tremendous sheet of flame swept along before it, devouring everything in its passage, and the utter most exertions of the firemen, aided by steamers and hand engines from several other places, could only succeed in preventing it from spreading in new directions. Many buildings, perhaps fifty, were blown up, to check the flames.

The inhabitants could scarcely do more than flee with their families to the upper part of the city, saving such goods as they could carry, though every vehicle in the city was employed with excellent effect in moving goods. The Custom House being fire proof, escaped, through greatly damaged, and the splendid city and county building on Congress Street, which was nearly fire proof, was considered safe and it was piled full of furniture by the neighboring residents, and then swept away with all its contents.

Half the city is destroyed, and that half includes nearly all the business portion, except the heavy business houses on Commercial street.

The fire commenced a little below the foot of High street in a boat shop. Upham's flouring mill was next burnt, then Brown's sugar house with all its surroundings, then Staples & Sons' and Richardson's foundries, and nothing else on Commercial Street of consequence.

It next swept down what is called Gorham's corner, composed of small wooden buildings, up as far as the old Varnum House on Pleasant street, one third the way up Centre street, half way up Cotton street, completely up Cross street, Union street, Temple street, Pleasant street and Exchange street.

It swept down on the northerly side of Forest street to India on the east, while on the west it moved along diagonally across Middle street and down to Cumberland, taking the Elm House, but sparing the First Parish. Then from Chestnut to North street it made a clean sweep on the southerly side of Cumberland street to Congress street, and everything else to Forest street as far as India street.

All the banks are gone, all the newspapers, all but three printing offices, all the jewellers, all the whole sale dry goods stores, several churches, the telegraph offices, nearly all stationers and the majority of nearly all the business places. The fire is still ranging below Commercial street, making back to the westward, the wind having changed.

Davis, Baxton & Co., in Free street block, whole sale fancy articles, lost $23,000; fully insured at the Etna of Hartford, and Hampden of Springfield.

Capt. Inman has telegraphed for 1,500 tents to accommodate the homeless inhabitants.

In this 1866 photo released by the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, destruction from a fire that swept through Portland, Maine, is visible from the corner of Middle and Free Streets. The fire started by a boy lighting a firecracker on Fourth of July. The AP's original coverage of the event 150 years ago ends with a request by an Army officer for about 1,500 tents for the homeless. The fire left about 10,000 people homeless but killed only a few. (Maine Historic Preservation Commission via AP)
Gypsy moth caterpillars return to dine on New England trees

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP)  Last year's dry spring, coupled with the recent stretch of dry weather, has helped to fuel the resurgence across parts of southern New England of the gypsy moth caterpillar, a furry nuisance blamed for defoliating an estimated 9 million acres from Maine to Maryland back in 1981.

Scientists say this year's crop of caterpillars is one of the largest they've seen since the '80s. The critters are being blamed for stripping foliage from thousands of acres of trees in pockets across the region, often leaving behind barren branches. Some warn next year could be even worse, considering there's been no significant wet weather in recent weeks to spark a fungus that has proven in past years to be a successful gypsy moth predator.

"I suspect we're going to be facing a real issue next year," said Kirby C. Stafford III, Connecticut's chief scientist and state entomologist. While oaks and other trees can often withstand a single defoliation, Stafford warned that after "getting slammed two years in row, we'll probably see a lot of tree mortality" next year.

The moth caterpillars caused widespread deforestation last year, and while experts say that most trees will be expected to survive this year's onslaught, without wet weather next year many will die

In 2015, the gypsy moth caterpillar was blamed for munching away more than 175,000 acres in Connecticut alone, marking the first major outbreak in years. Stafford said he expects this year's defoliation will be much worse, adding that he's received reports from the northeastern part of the state of caterpillars feasting on spruce and conifers. Aerial surveys of this year's damage are planned soon.

The Boston bureau of the National Weather Service recently tweeted satellite pictures from late May and late June that showed "notable" tree defoliation has occurred in southeastern New England, especially western Rhode Island.

Farther north in New Hampshire, however, state forestry experts said this month they've received reports of high numbers of gypsy moth and forest tent caterpillars, but no defoliation. They predicted rain would activate several predators, such as the fungus, and keep the caterpillars in check, posing little threat to trees.

David Hanson, who runs a family farm in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, and sells everything from eggs to firewood, said this year's devastation in parts of his state reminds him of the gypsy moth assaults in the late 1980s, when many trees ultimately died. While the damage is not noticeable in some locations, he described areas where there isn't a single leaf on a tree.

Hanson couldn't see the blacktop on a road behind his farm because it was covered with bits of leaves left behind by the caterpillars.

"It's almost like you have to rake your lawn now," he said. "Some people are telling me they're raking their lawn because there's so much leaf litter on them from the gypsy moth damage."

In Rhode Island, the state's Department Environmental Management recently issued a public warning about the increased risk of forest fires due to the defoliation. State officials urged residents to avoiding sparking a fire while cooking outside, building a campfire or using fireworks. Meanwhile, one Rhode Island allergist warned how the little hairs on the caterpillars can stick into people's skin and cause a "histamine-type reaction" that could last for days or weeks.

This year's onslaught of caterpillars should end soon. They complete their feeding during late June to early July and then seek a place to pupate. They'll then transform into a moth in about 10 to 14 days. Females will lay one egg mass and then die.

Stafford said those hard egg masses can be found anywhere, including on vehicles and outdoor furniture. While homeowners can drown the egg masses in soapy water, he said many are located high up in the trees and may require a professional arborist next spring.
From SEALs to startups: Special ops drawn to Silicon Valley

SAN DIEGO (AP)  Keith David spent years flying around the globe on covert missions, making life-and-death decisions and overseeing multiple units unleashing airstrikes against insurgents. The former Navy SEAL now realizes it was the perfect training for a career in Silicon Valley.

A growing number of U.S. special forces veterans are veering off the traditional path of working for private security firms and law enforcement agencies, and instead are heading into the tech industry. Companies are discovering their abilities to build teams and think outside the box make them a good fit for the innovative businesses.

"It's very adaptable and flexible, especially a startup, so it's kind of like the Wild West where there are not a lot of rules," David, 32, said of Silicon Valley, where he has worked at a robotics startup since October. "It's more about getting things done and executing them. It's very much like the SEAL teams in that there is not a lot of control from the top down."

In this photo taken Wednesday, June 29, 2016, former Navy SEAL Keith David poses in the lobby of his office at Anki in San Francisco. A growing number of U.S. special forces veterans are veering off the traditional path of working for private security firms and law enforcement agencies, and are instead heading into the tech industry. Silicon Valley companies say theyre discovering the veterans abilities to build teams and think outside the box make them a good fit for the innovative businesses. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

There is no hard data, but anecdotally Silicon Valley businesses and special forces' veterans say they are seeing more former SEALs, Army Rangers and other special ops seeking jobs at the likes of Facebook, Airbnb and small startups.

"Special ops work in this blend of a big traditional structure and a small agile team. They grow up in this gray area that is a mix of big and stable and fast and light," Chris Fussell, a former SEAL and managing partner of the McChrystal Group founded by retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal. The consulting firm works with Silicon Valley companies.

Former Marine Don Faul said he estimates 100 special operations veterans have gone into the tech industry in the past year or two. Faul  who served in a Force Reconnaissance company, which is similar to the SEALs  has worked at Google Inc., Facebook and Pinterest, and now is COO of Athos, a wearable technology startup.

The military veterans fill a gap in leadership skills for many tech companies, especially startups that formed around an idea and are thin on structure, Faul said.

On the flip side, Faul said the former special warfare operators might end up being good connections for the Pentagon, which opened an office in Silicon Valley a year ago to woo tech companies into working with the Defense Department to get more cutting-edge gadgets into the military but has struggled to win over the companies.

A number of groups in the past three years have cropped up to groom veterans for tech jobs, including The Honor Foundation, which helped David, the former SEAL.

David, who spent nine years in the Navy, went from managing multiple military units in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East to directing marketing, robotics and other departments at Anki, a startup that makes smartphone-controlled toy cars.

Anki received hundreds of resumes when it posted an opening for a program manager. The company interviewed a dozen candidates, including domain experts and engineers, said Craig Rechenmacher, Anki's chief marketing officer.

David has a degree in chemistry and biology, and did not tick off many of the job qualifications. But Rechenmacher said he "blew them away with his passion and his ability to translate his military skills to the real world."

"We needed someone who could work with multiple disciplines and bring everyone together to work for one common vision," he said.

Tech companies have been slow to tap into the military because veterans often do not know how to market themselves, said Joe Musselman, founder of The Honor Foundation, which offers a 15-week course to active-duty and retired special ops to help them transition to their next career.

That's particularly true for Navy SEALs. The elite warfighters spend years on secret missions and cannot publicly identify themselves or talk about what they do, living an underground life, unlike others in the military. When they get out, they struggle to write a resume (like putting "sniper" as a skill) or learn to say something other than "I am not able to tell you about that" in an interview, Musselman said. Some have gone dressed in a suit and tie and find themselves greeted by CEOs in shorts and flip-flops.

It's also an adjustment for the workplace given the public's view of SEALs as either celebrities, hardened killers or both.

In The Honor Foundation's course, SEALs go to companies so both sides can get to know each another. The San Diego-based foundation now offers its courses in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and is one of four groups to receive a grant from Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and his wife, Laura, who want to see more veterans in tech jobs.

On a recent evening, two dozen SEALs in the San Diego course discussed their future plans.

Among them was Garret Unclebach, a SEAL who just left the Navy. He said among his ambitions is to work for an independent lab called X that is run by Google's new parent company, Alphabet Inc.

He never considered the tech industry until he met an X official through the foundation. They talked about the lab's 2-year-old "Project Loon" program, which aims to get people internet access in remote areas of the world by deploying clusters of balloons about 60,000 feet above the Earth that act as floating cell towers. When a balloon is ready to come down, a parachute attached to the top is deployed.

As a master jumper, Unclebach, 26, saw a good fit since he knows how to ensure parachutes deploy correctly, something his life depended on in the military.

"It would be an incredible opportunity to work there," he said.
Guam governor vetoes higher smoking age

HAGATNA, Guam (AP)  People can still buy tobacco in Guam at 18 after the U.S. territory's governor vetoed a bill that would have raised the age limit to 21.

Legislators voted 9-6 to approve a measure increasing the legal age to buy tobacco products and use electronic cigarettes, the Pacific Daily News reported (http://bit.ly/29eZsSS).

But Gov. Eddie Calvo vetoed the legislation last week, calling the measure vague and unenforceable.

"As adults, we each have the right to make our own individual life choices, even if that choice is bad for our health," Calvo said in his veto letter. "And it's our personal responsibility to live with whatever choice we ultimately make."

Vice Speaker Benjamin Cruz authored Guam's measure and said in a statement that he's hoping to get the 10 votes needed to override the veto.

"Cigarettes turn choice into a lifelong addiction funded by taxpayers_many of whom never smoked a day in their lives," Cruz said in a news release. "When it costs 40 times more to treat a smoker than a nonsmoker, it isn't about choice. It's about saving lives, saving dollars, and saving valuable public resources."
Police: Drunk driver kills local officer at traffic stop

STERLINGTON, La. (AP)  A 44-year-old man is accused of driving drunk and sideswiping a police car at a traffic stop in northeast Louisiana, killing one officer and injuring two others early Sunday, authorities said.

The wreck occurred on Interstate 55 in Sterlington, about 220 miles northwest of New Orleans, as city police Officer David Elahi stood next to a patrol car, talking to a woman who had been stopped, Sterlington Police Chief Barry Bonner said.

He said a pickup truck hit Elahi and took off the police car doors.

The other two officers had minor injuries, Trooper Michael Reichardt, a state police spokesman, said in an email.

He said Tracy Govan, 44, of Monroe, was arrested on charges including vehicular homicide and vehicular negligent injury  killing or injuring someone by driving while drunk. He did not know whether Govan has an attorney.

Bonner said the woman stopped for a traffic violation escaped injury. She was waiting in the patrol car's rear seat for a friend to come and drive her home, since police learned after she had been stopped that she was driving with a suspended license, Bonner said.

He said Elahi was in his late 20s, had worked for him about four years, and was engaged to the mother of his toddler-age daughter.

His funeral will be at 2 p.m. Thursday at North Monroe Baptist Church, Bonner said.

"David was probably the hardest-working individual I've ever met," Bonner said. He said Elahi had two part-time businesses  real estate and renting inflatable "bounce houses"  and had planned to go to part-time police work at the end of July so he could work full-time at real estate.

He was devoted to his daughter and to his parents, Bonner said.

"His father has some health issues, and David's always been there for him."

He said he can't remember ever seeing Elahi in a bad mood.
Repairs underway near Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River

CASPER, Wyo. (AP)  Trails, overlooks and parking lots near the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River are getting about $9.1 million in improvements and repairs.

The Casper Star-Tribune reports (http://bit.ly/29g6doJ) the projects were partially spurred by fatal falls.

An 8-year-old California girl died about two years after an 18-year-old park employee fell to her death in 2012.

Work will take about four years and intermittently close certain areas.

The Yellowstone Park Foundation is funding the work with private donations and money from federal fees.

A Montana Conservation Corps student crew will help.

Trails will be rerouted to safer areas and walkways are going to connect historic overlooks, among other changes.

The first closures include part of the North Rim Trail until July 23 and Inspiration Point until the fall of this year.

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Police: La. sheriff's deputy fatally shoots stabbing suspect

NEW IBERIA, La. (AP)  State police say a south Louisiana sheriff's deputy shot and killed a man who came at him with a knife after a standoff.

Master Trooper Brooks David (DAH-veed) says the shooting occurred about 1:30 a.m. Sunday in New Iberia, which is about 115 miles west of New Orleans.

He says the suspect was 40-year-old Shannon Labit (lah-BEE) of New Iberia. David did not release the Iberia Parish sheriff's deputy's name.

David says that, according to the sheriff's office, Labit had stabbed two people earlier at another home.

He says he doesn't know how long the standoff lasted.

David referred other questions to the sheriff, who could not be reached. The shift lieutenant on duty did not return a phone call.
Ilkay Gundogan a key player for Pep Guardiola at Manchester City

New Manchester City signing Ilkay Gundogan has been told by boss Pep Guardiola that he is crucial to implementing his plans at the Etihad Stadium.

The Germany international, 25, signed for City from Borussia Dortmund last month despite a knee injury that will keep him sidelined for the opening weeks of the new Barclays Premier League season.

That did not prevent Guardiola from making Gundogan his first signing at City, though, and the midfielder revealed he was informed by his new manager that he sees him as pivotal for his vision at the club.

Ilkay Gundogan is currently sidelined by a knee injury

"He told me that he needs a player like me as a central midfielder," Gundogan revealed.

"We haven't had the possibility to talk more. He comes now, we will think about it more then we will see.

"I like to have the ball, to have the possession and to play passes, to create chances for my team-mates. I think that is what makes me strong. I hope those are things that we need here."

Gundogan has not featured since April due to a knee injury he suffered while still at Borussia Dortmund and it was that problem that prevented him linking up with his Germany colleagues at Euro 2016 this summer.

City have three league games in August and their first fixture in September after the international break is at Old Trafford against cross-city rivals Manchester United, whom Gundagon was constantly linked with while still at Dortmund.

"I hope to be ready as soon as possible, I am looking forward," he said of a comeback date.
Teenage sex offender Ryan Humpage recaptured after failing to return to hostel

A teenage convicted sex offender who went missing from his bail hostel has been recaptured.

Ryan Humpage, 19, who was reportedly given an 18-month jail term in August for sexual activity with a 13-year-old girl, had failed to a hostel in Bury on Saturday, Greater Manchester Police said.

He was the subject of a Crimewatch appeal by Lancashire Police in April last year over fears he may have fled to Ireland at a time he was wanted on suspicion of rape. He was later arrested in County Antrim in Northern Ireland and returned to England.

Police are looking for Ryan Humpage
Finnish eurosceptics start talk of possible "Fixit" vote

HELSINKI, June 27 (Reuters) - A senior lawmaker from Finland's Finns party, a member of the government coalition, said on Monday that the Nordic country should consider holding a referendum on leaving the European Union after its next elections in three years' time.

"If Finland would like to proceed on this, we should follow the same route as Britain," said Sampo Terho, head of the eurosceptic party's legislative group.

Terho declined to say whether the Finns party would propose a "Fixit"-vote after Britons opted last week for "Brexit", but said it should be one of the main issues of the 2019 elections. "If the people back it, then we should have a vote if we'll stay or leave."

Finland's three-party government - also including the Centre Party and the pro-Europe National Coalition Party - remains officially committed to membership of the EU and the euro zone.

Prime Minister Juha Sipila did not comment on Terho's proposal directly, but said that the government had not discussed it.
German spy chief says can't rule out Istanbul-style attacks at home

BERLIN, July 2 (Reuters) - Attacks by Islamist militants pose the biggest security threat for Germany and events like the shooting and bombing in Istanbul this week could happen in Germany, the head of the country's domestic intelligence agency (BfV) told a Saturday newspaper.

Three suspected Islamic State suicide bombers killed 44 people at Istanbul's main airport on Tuesday, the deadliest in a string of attacks in Turkey this year.

"We can't rule out attacks like those in Istanbul also happening in our country," Hans-Georg Maassen told German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Holocaust survivor, Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel dies at 87

By Bill Trott

July 3 (Reuters) - Activist and writer Elie Wiesel, the World War Two death camp survivor who won a Nobel Peace Prize for becoming the life-long voice of millions of Holocaust victims, died on Saturday. He was 87.

Wiesel was a philosopher, speaker, playwright and professor who also campaigned for the tyrannized and forgotten around the world. He died at his home in New York City, the New York Times reported.

The Romanian-born Wiesel lived by the credo expressed in "Night," his landmark story of the Holocaust - "to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time."

In awarding the Peace Prize in 1986, the Nobel Committee praised him as a "messenger to mankind" and "one of the most important spiritual leaders and guides in an age when violence, repression and racism continue to characterize the world."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed Wiesel as a ray of light, and said his extraordinary personality and unforgettable books demonstrated the triumph of the human spirit over the most unimaginable evil.

"Out of the darkness of the Holocaust, Elie became a powerful force for light, truth and dignity," he said.

Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, said that Wiesel had taught people not to be silent where they saw injustice and that the void caused by his death could not be filled.

"We have lost the most articulate witness to history's greatest crime," he said.

Wiesel did not waver in his campaign never to let the world forget the Holocaust horror. While at the White House in 1985 to receive the Congressional Gold Medal, he even rebuked U.S. President Ronald Reagan for planning to lay a wreath at a German cemetery where some of Hitler's notorious Waffen SS troops were buried.

"Don't go to Bitburg," Wiesel said. "That place is not your place. Your place is with the victims of the SS."

Wiesel became close to U.S. President Barack Obama but the friendship did not deter him from criticizing U.S. policy on Israel. He spoke out in favor of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and pushed the United States and other world powers to take a harder stance against Iran over its nuclear program.

Obama remembered him as "one of the great moral voices of our time, and in many ways, the conscience of the world."

Wiesel had raised his voice, not just against anti-Semitism, but against hatred, bigotry and intolerance in all forms, Obama said in a statement.

"His life, and the power of his example, urges us to be better. In the face of evil, we must summon our capacity for good. In the face of hate, we must love," Obama said.

Wiesel attended the joint session of the U.S. Congress in 2015 when Netanyahu spoke on the dangers of Iran's program.

German President Joachim Gauck wrote to Wiesel's wife Marion saying: "Your husband knew how to use vivid and empathic words to keep the memory of the darkest years of German history that he witnessed alive and to warn young people especially of the dangers of right-wing extremism and xenophobia."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said a "voice of morality and humanity has fallen silent".

Wiesel and his foundation both were victims of the wide-ranging Ponzi scheme run by New York financier Bernie Madoff, with Wiesel and his wife losing their life's savings and the foundation losing $15.2 million. "'Psychopath' - it's too nice a word for him," he said of Madoff in 2009.

Wiesel was a hollow-eyed 16-year-old when he emerged from the newly liberated Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945. He had been orphaned by the Nazis and their identification number, A-7713, was tattooed on his arm as a physical manifestation of his broken faith and the nightmares that would haunt him throughout his life.

Wiesel and his family had first been taken by the Nazis from the village of Sighetu Marmatiei in the Transylvania region of Romania to Auschwitz, where his mother and one of his sisters died. Wiesel and his father, Shlomo, ended up in Buchenwald, where Shlomo died. In "Night" Wiesel wrote of his shame at lying silently in his bunk while his father was beaten nearby.

After the war Wiesel made his way to France, studied at the Sorbonne and by 19 had become a journalist. He pondered suicide and never wrote of or discussed his Holocaust experience until 10 years after the war as a part of a vow to himself. He was 27 years old in 1955 when "Night" was published in Yiddish, and Wiesel would later rewrite it for a world audience.

"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed ...," Wiesel wrote. "Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live."

Asked by an interviewer in 2000 why he did not go insane, Wiesel said, "To this day that is a mystery to me."

By 2008, "Night" had sold an estimated 10 million copies, according to the New York Times, including 3 million after talk-show hostess Oprah Winfrey made it a spotlight selection for her book club in 2006.

In 1985 Wiesel helped break ground in Washington for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the following year was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In typical fashion, he dedicated the prize to all those who survived the Nazi horror, calling them "an example to humankind how not to succumb to despair."

Wiesel, who became a U.S. citizen in 1963, was slight in stature but a compelling figure when he spoke. With a chiseled profile, burning eyes and a shock of gray hair, he could silence a crowd by merely standing up.

He was often described as somber. An old friend, Chicago professor Irving Abrahamson, once said of him: "I've never seen Elie give a belly laugh. He'll chuckle, he'll smile, there'll be a twinkle in his eye. But never a laugh from within."

A few years after winning the peace prize, he set up the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, which, in addition to Israeli and Jewish causes, campaigned for Miskito Indians in Nicaragua, Cambodian refugees, victims of South African apartheid and of famine and genocide in Africa.

Wiesel wrote more than 50 books - novels, non-fiction, memoirs, and many with a Holocaust theme - and held a long-running professorship at Boston University. In one of his later books, "Open Heart," he used his 2011 quintuple-bypass surgery as impetus for reflection on his life.

"I have already been the beneficiary of so many miracles, which I know I owe to my ancestors," he wrote. "All I have achieved has been and continues to be dedicated to their murdered dreams - and hopes."

He collected scores of awards and honors, including an honorary knighthood in Britain. Obama presented him the National Humanities Medal in 2009.

Wiesel was attacked in a San Francisco hotel in 2007 by a 22-year-old Holocaust denier, but not injured.

Wiesel and wife Marion married in 1969 and their son, Elisha, was born in 1972.
Bangladesh garment industry trembles after Dhaka attack

By Ruma Paul and Promit Mukherjee

DHAKA/MUMBAI, July 2 (Reuters) - Some leaders of Bangladesh's $26 billion garment industry expect Western fashion retailers to review their ties with the world's second-largest garment exporter after Islamist militants killed at least 17 foreigners in an attack on a Dhaka restaurant.

Bangladesh, one of the world's poorest countries, relies on garments for around 80 percent of its exports and for about 4 million jobs, and ranks behind only China as a supplier of clothes to developed markets like Europe and the United States.

Islamist militants killed 20 people, including at least nine Italians, seven Japanese and an American, inside an upmarket restaurant in Bangladesh's capital, before security forces stormed the building and ended a 12-hour standoff on Saturday.

Islamic State said it was responsible for one of the most brazen attacks in the South Asian nation's history, but that claim has yet to be confirmed.

It marks a major escalation in a campaign by militants over the past 18 months that had targeted mostly individuals advocating a secular or liberal lifestyle in majority-Muslim Bangladesh with 160 million people.

"An incident like this will definitely impact us, in as much as our importers from places such as (the) U.S. and China will be wary to visit because of the security concerns," said Shahidul Haque Mukul, managing director of Ananta Garments.

The industry had been recovering strongly from a major tragedy three years ago, when a factory building collapsed, killing more than 1,100 people, prompting safety checks that led to many factory closures and the loss of exports and jobs.

It had also seemed little touched by a spate of recent murders on liberals, gays, foreigners and religious minorities in sporadic attacks claimed by Islamic State and al Qaeda.

Between October and January, its exports surged 14 percent from a year earlier.

But Friday's attack signalled a more chilling threat to foreigners. The militants targeted a building housing two upmarket eateries popular with foreigners, and several of those killed were Italian garment entrepreneurs.

"Bangladesh has never seen such a horrific incident," said Mohammad Siddiqur Rahman, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

"It is a strong slap to our image. It will put pressure on our business, but we cannot say to what extent at the moment."

A Bangladesh-based executive for a French-based garment buyer said he feared a deep slump in business in the coming days.

But other industry figures said heightened security fears could be managed and that manufacturers could hold more meetings with Western customers outside Bangladesh, in Asian cities such as Singapore or Hong Kong, a trend that had begun some time ago.

"Concerns on visiting our factories, holding meetings, etc, by foreign nationals will be there for a few months but I believe within six months, the intensity will thaw and things will be back to normal," said Abdullah Hil Rakib, head of exporter Brothers Fashion Ltd.

At least two European retailers which source clothes from Bangladesh, Sweden's H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB and Britain's Marks and Spencer Group PLC, say their operations in the country are not immediately affected.

Both said their workers are unaffected and that they have no plans to change their sourcing, but are monitoring the situation.

H & M's spokeswoman said the company has "safety routines" for workers, though she did not elaborate.

The industry owes its resilience to some of the world's lowest wages, the right skills and the fact that China has become less competitive as a producer in recent years.
Niger Delta Avengers say five attacks launched since Friday in Nigeria's southern Delta

LAGOS, July 3 (Reuters) - The Niger Delta Avengers, a militant group, on Sunday said it had carried out five attacks on crude oil pipelines in Nigeria's southern oil hub since Friday.

In a series of messages on its Twitter feed, the group said it attacked a pipeline operated by state oil company NNPC on Friday night. It added that it attacked two trunk lines operated by NPDC on Saturday night, as well as two Chevron >trunk lines in the early hours of Sunday. The group said all the attacks took place in the Niger Delta.
Bangladesh may be confronting a more fearsome militant foe

By Sanjeev Miglani and Ruma Paul

DHAKA/NEW DELHI July 2 (Reuters) - Bangladesh, faced with the worst militant attack in its history, is probing deeper for possible ties between the men who murdered around 20 people in a restaurant and trans-national Islamist extremist groups, security officials said.

Until Friday's attack in an upscale part of the capital Dhaka, the government had blamed two home-grown groups for mounting violence, but these were attacks on individuals, most of them with crude machetes and knives, and never a coordinated mass killing.

So the storming of the restaurant, taking diners hostages, apparently singling out foreigners for death and then fighting a gunbattle to the finish marked a new level of sophistication and scale, anti-terrorism officials and security experts said.

"We cannot say immediately which group is behind this. But they were terrorists who were trained well," said Brigadier General Naeem Ashfaq Choudhuri, director general of military operations for the Bangladesh army.

One line of inquiry being pursued is whether the attackers received any guidance from Islamic State or al Qaeda in the run-up to the attack, an official in the police counter-terrorism wing said.

Police were also looking into whether the Dhaka assault was part of, or inspired by a series of attacks elsewhere in the world including on Istanbul airport last month, he added.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Dhaka attack, and even while the siege was still on, the group published grisly pictures from inside the restaurant apparently sent by the assailants.

The authenticity of the images has not been established, however.

A U.S. government source said some U.S. government experts were now leaning towards the view that Islamic State was behind the attack, in which an American citizen was among the dead, along with at least nine Italians and seven Japanese.

AL QAEDA VERSUS ISLAMIC STATE?

Bangladesh, a pre-dominantly Muslim country of 160 million people, has long maintained that there are no foreign fighters on its soil, although some Western security experts have questioned that.

Officials have said that all seven gunmen in Friday night's attack and overnight siege were local.

It is not yet clear whether they belonged to either of the two main domestic militant movements blamed for a spate of attacks in recent months on bloggers, university teachers and members of religious minorities.

Ansar-al-Islam, considered the better coordinated and more dangerous of the two until now, had pledged allegiance to al Qaeda, while Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen had claimed to represent Islamic State in Bangladesh.

Security experts in Bangladesh, India and the United States said that even if there were no foreign fighters involved, whichever group mounted the restaurant assault appeared to have benefited from external support.

"This attack was of a level of sophistication that suggests the involvement of a group well schooled in intricately choreographed terror operations, and ISIS and al Qaeda fit the bill," Michael Kugelman, a senior South Asia associate at the Wilson Center, said.

Four pistols, an AK-22 semi-automatic assault rifle, four unexploded IEDs and several sharp weapons were recovered from the scene, Brigadier General Choudhuri said.

The targeting of people in a restaurant appeared more in line with Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, which has focused its attacks on non-Muslims, whether a poor rickshaw-puller or a grocer.

Ansar-al-Islam, in contrast, has laid down strict "targeting criteria" under which its fighters attack people carrying out "anti-Islamic" activities such as bloggers criticising radical Islam or activists promoting gay rights.

It has said it will not carry out random killings.

Bangladesh counter-terrorism officials say Ansar follows the ideology and methods of al Qaeda, and has a fugitive former army major playing a key role that could make it more potent.
Australian election cliff-hanger leaves nation in limbo

By Jonathan Barrett and Tom Westbrook

SYDNEY, July 3 (Reuters) - Australia's political parties began horsetrading on Sunday to break an anticipated parliamentary deadlock after a dramatic election failed to produce a clear winner, raising the prospect of prolonged political and economic instability.

The exceptionally close vote leaves Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's centre-right Liberal Party-led government in a precarious position, potentially needing the support of independent and minor parties.

It has also opened the door to the possibility, albeit less likely, that the main opposition Labor Party could win enough backing from the smaller parties to form government itself, although Turnbull said on Sunday he remained "quietly confident" of returning his coalition to power for another three-year term.

"I can promise all Australians that we will dedicate our efforts to ensuring that the state of new parliament is resolved without division or rancour," Turnbull, who accused Labor of waging a dirty tricks campaign, told reporters in Sydney.

Police said they were considering whether to investigate thousands of text messages sent to voters on Saturday by the Labor Party purporting to be from the state healthcare service Medicare, warning the service would be privatised by a coalition government.

Labor leader Bill Shorten said Australians had rejected Turnbull's mandate for reform like cuts to healthcare and a A$50 billion ($37 billion) corporate tax break over 10 years.

"What I'm very sure of is that while we don't know who the winner was, there is clearly one loser: Malcolm Turnbull's agenda for Australia and his efforts to cut Medicare," Shorten told reporters in Melbourne.

The election was meant to end a period of political turmoil in which Australia which has had four prime ministers in three years. Instead it has left a power vacuum in Canberra and fuelled talk of a challenge to Turnbull's leadership of the Liberal Party, less than a year after he ousted then prime minister Tony Abbott in a party-room coup.

If the coalition fails to form a government, it would be the first time in 85 years an Australian ruling party has lost power after its first term in office.

The uncertainty is likely to spook markets when they reopen on Monday, with analysts warning Australia's triple A credit rating could be at risk and predicting a fall in the Australian dollar and the share market.

Vote counting could take a week or more, and the coalition will rule under caretaker provisions in the interim.

Official electoral data for the House of Representatives showed a 3.4 percent swing away from the government, with about two-thirds of votes counted.

Electoral Commission projections give the coalition 67 seats in the 150-seat lower house, against Labor's 71 and five to independents and the Greens Party. A further seven seats were in the balance.

That leaves independents, whose election campaigns ranged from economic protectionism to anti-gambling and policies to improve the treatment of asylum seekers, as kingmakers.

Small parties are likely to hold the balance of power in the Senate, with Pauline Hanson's One Nation on track to win between two and four seats, marking the return of the anti-immigration activist to parliament after an almost 20-year absence.

LEADERSHIP DOUBTS

Confirming that talks were already underway, independent member of parliament Andrew Wilkie said Turnbull had called him just to "open lines of communication".

Stirling Griff, a Nick Xenophon Team candidate who is on track to win a senate seat, said the party was scrambling to pull together its wishlist for negotiations after being caught off-guard by the coalition's poor performance.

Speculation has also begun about the ability of Shorten and Turnbull to hold onto the leadership of their parties.

Turnbull was under the most pressure, having ousted Abbott on a promise of stability and then called the election in a risky bid to sweep out independents in the upper house who were blocking his economic agenda.

Turnbull had some of the highest poll ratings of an Australian leader on record shortly after he snatched the top job from Abbott in September.

But that popularity soured as he appeared to bend his centre-right values on issues like climate change and same sex marriage under pressure from the right of his party.
VW says U.S. 'Dieselgate' settlement not to be replicated in Europe

BERLIN, July 3 (Reuters) - Volkswagen's CEO has rejected calls for the carmaker to compensate customers in Europe over the 'Dieselgate' emissions scandal along the lines of its $15 billion deal in the United States, telling a German newspaper a similar settlement would be inappropriate and unaffordable.

Europe's Industry Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska last week called on Volkswagen to also compensate European owners of its diesel-powered cars, saying it would be unfair for them to be treated differently from U.S. customers just because of a different legal system.

"We have a different situation here (in Europe)," Matthias Mueller was quoted as saying by Welt am Sonntag.

Mueller also said while VW was on a solid financial footing, replicating the U.S. deal in Europe would be tough for VW to cope with financially.

"You don't have to be a mathematician to realise that compensation at arbitrarily high levels would overwhelm Volkswagen," he said.

Mueller said he had spoken to Bienkowska in Brussels this week about his views.

"In the U.S. the (emission) limits are stricter, which makes the fix more complicated. And taking part in the buyback is voluntary (for customers), which is not the case in Germany, for example," he said.
Pakistan floods kill 28, including worshippers at mosque

By Jibran Ahmed

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, July 3 (Reuters) - Flash floods triggered by heavy rain have killed at least 28 people in northern Pakistan, officials said on Sunday, including some who were swept away while praying at a mosque.

Torrential rains began to pelt the Chitral district, in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, on Saturday and continued into the night, residents said.

Maghferat Shah, Chitral district administrator, said some residents were missing after flash floods swamped a local mosque in Drosh town in Upper Chitral.

"The floodwater killed 10 people and caused serious injuries to 21 others at the mosque. Some of them had been swept away in the floodwater and are still missing," he said.

During the holy month of Ramadan it is common for people to pray at the mosque during night hours.
"Reverse Greenland", anyone? Scots eye post-Brexit EU options

By Alastair Macdonald and Elisabeth O'Leary

BRUSSELS/EDINBURGH, July 3 (Reuters) - Could Scots get their wish to remain, effectively, in the European Union even while maintaining their union with England once the United Kingdom as whole leaves the EU?

Dubbed the "reverse Greenland" option, that was among ideas kicked around by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon during a flying visit to Brussels after Scots voted heavily against Brexit while their southern neighbours opted to quit the EU.

Sturgeon, a pro-independence nationalist, stressed during her visit to the EU capital on Wednesday that she was keeping an open mind and simply wanted "all of the options for Scotland" considered once a new British government starts negotiations on what, in principle, is supposed be a two-year divorce process.

But several people involved in the meetings she had with the EU executive and lawmakers told Reuters that ideas discussed included possible models based on the fact that several states have some parts in the EU and some outside - as in the case of EU member Denmark and its non-EU territory Greenland.

At its most extreme - and, in the view of officials and experts, deeply implausible - a "reverse Greenland" solution might see the Scottish government in Edinburgh take on Britain's EU membership while remaining in the United Kingdom and the UK government in London would, like Greenland in the 1980s, pull England out of the EU while keeping the British state united.

More plausibly, Sturgeon's warm reception in Brussels amid the shock of Brexit, highlighted the possibility that British withdrawal from the EU could well be accompanied by special EU arrangements for some of the United Kingdom's constituent parts - not just Scotland but also Northern Ireland and Gibraltar.

"They discussed possibly Scotland getting special status within the UK to let it still be a member of the EU somehow," an EU official who took part in one of Sturgeon's meetings said.

"On the 'reverse Greenland' option, she wasn't trying to put it on the agenda. It was a genuine reflection."

Senior EU officials say they are in no mood now to do more than brainstorm, even if they sympathise with the plight of the pro-EU Scots. Brussels faces existential and legal nightmares to cut loose the bloc's second biggest economy and expects to wait months for a new British government even to start the process.

"Scotland is a part of the UK," a spokesman for the European Commission said. "All parts of the UK should sort out what they want to do," he added, calling the options "speculation".

WITHOUT INDEPENDENCE, OPTIONS OPEN

However, Sturgeon's trip to Brussels, on the very day the EU sat down without Britain to consider its options, showed leaders her determination to get a seat at the Brexit negotiating table.

Crucially for her charm offensive in a city that rebuffed Scots' appeals for assurances of EU membership during their 2014 independence referendum - a reflection of fears of secession in other EU states such as Spain - Sturgeon kept the secession card firmly off the table, insisting that was not the priority.

"We don't come at it from the starting point of independence," she told reporters in Brussels. "We come at it from the starting point of protecting Scotland's interests."

Another person familiar with one of her meetings said Sturgeon was told that Brussels did not want to be drawn into a battle inside Britain or offer a future independent Scotland any fast-track to EU membership - and she had not disputed that.

"She didn't use the Brexit referendum as an excuse to leave the UK. She wasn't pushing independence at all," the person said. "That was smart ... it's not what Brussels wants to hear."

Alyn Smith, an EU lawmaker for Sturgeon's Scottish National Party (SNP) who won a standing ovation in the chamber on Tuesday with a plea to the EU not to "let Scotland down", stressed: "I am talking about status rather than membership ... Everyone wants to talk about Scottish independence - except us."

Keeping close EU ties, such as in education and research for which Edinburgh has its own powers and a big economic interest, might be achieved in a variety of ways, involving considerably less constitutional acrobatics than Greenland-inspired ideas. These would be much more likely to secure approval by the other 27 EU states.

"Reverse Greenland" is just "silly" in the opinion of David Edward, formerly Britain's justice on the EU's top court and, with Smith, a member of an advisory panel Sturgeon set up in the wake of the Brexit vote to explore Scotland's options.

Scotland has 100 times the population of Greenland and, in the reverse scenario, it would be England, 10 times bigger again, that was playing "Greenland" to Scotland's "Denmark". In other states with differing internal relations with the EU, it is minority regions, not the main state, which is outside.

But, Edward said, the Scottish government could use devolved powers in some areas to rework partnerships with Brussels.

AUTONOMOUS PARALLELS

Alyn Smith said the advisory group had drawn up a list of all the different territorial arrangements in the EU, which also include for example exemptions from EU tax and economic rules for the likes of French departments in the Caribbean or the English Channel island of Jersey, ruled by the British crown.

The closest, though not very close, analogy, Smith thinks, is that of Finland's autonomous, Swedish-speaking Aland Islands.

Scotland should look into using devolved powers to take part in EU programmes like the Erasmus student system or the Horizon 2020 research fund, in which several non-EU states - including Israel - participate, Edward said: "It's not much but it's something, given Scotland's commitment to academic research."

Sturgeon has not ruled out the possibility of a second independence referendum and Scottish anger at Brexit and chaos in London politics may have bolstered support for secession. But the fall in oil prices has put Scotland's potential finances in a poorer position than two years ago, while the depth of trade ties with England and the problems that a new customs border along the River Tweed would create still leave many unconvinced.

The EU also would be unlikely to grant Scotland concessions that Britain has secured during its 43 years of membership.

EU officials also caution that Sturgeon should not under-estimate hostility among other member states. The Spanish prime minister, wary of Catalan separatists, was also in Brussels on Wednesday and threw cold water on Scottish EU membership.

Yet, the demonstrative pro-European clamour in Scotland has struck a chord with shellshocked EU politicians who, Edward said, are "absolutely fed up to the back teeth" of the British.

"At least Nicola Sturgeon maintained goodwill," he said.
With Russia as an ally, Serbia edges towards NATO

By Aleksandar Vasovic

BELGRADE, July 3 (Reuters) - Serbia is performing a delicate balancing act between its European aspirations, partnership with NATO and its centuries-old religious, ethnic and political alliance with Russia.

Belgrade is being wooed by the West which has sought to bring it into the fold since the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. Serbia is now a European Union membership candidate and the bloc is its top trade partner and benefactor.

Belgrade is also quietly moving towards NATO despite the reservations of most Serbians but it is wary of damaging its loudly proclaimed friendship with Russia that wants to boost its influence in the region and which is hostile to the military alliance.

"Serbia cannot entirely turn to NATO, it will maintain the maximum level of cooperation with it, without changing its (membership) status," said Genady Sysoev, Balkan correspondent for Russia's Kommersant newspaper and an expert on Moscow's policy in the region.

"Serbia cannot turn to Russia because ... no Serbian leadership would risk losing Western investment and aid."

Serbia is one of the few Balkan countries not in the 28-member NATO which is hugely unpopular among Serbs after its 1999 bombing campaign to drive Serbian forces out of Kosovo.

Alliance peacekeepers are also still deployed in Kosovo, Serbia's former southern province, whose independence in 2008 has not been accepted by Belgrade.

But in 2006 Serbia, which adopted military neutrality, joined NATO's Partnership for Peace programme and in 2015 Belgrade signed the Individual Partnership Action Plan - the highest rung of cooperation between the alliance and a country not aspiring to join.

"Serbia has demonstrated great enthusiasm for the partnership with NATO, relations between NATO and Serbia will be developing, benefits for Serbia will increase," Gordon Duguid, Deputy Chief of the United States mission to Serbia, was quoted by the Tanjug news agency as saying on June 28.

Serbia is however, highly emotional about non-NATO member Russia, an ally that, for example, prevented Kosovo from becoming a member of the United Nations, at Belgrade's request.

Serbia also shares Slavic and Orthodox Christian traditions with Russia and depends on it for energy. The largest Serbian oil company, Naftna Industrija Srbije, is majority-owned by Russia's Gazprom and its gas imports come from Russia.

As a token of good relations, Belgrade in 2012 also allowed Moscow to set up a base for rapid response in emergency situations such as forest fires and floods in Serbia's southern city of Nis.

The Serbian military is loosely based on Russian technology, a legacy of former Yugoslavia's ties with the Soviet Union.

FINE LINE

Serbian politicians do not want to openly acknowledge the full extent of the partnership with NATO, because they do not want to alienate those inside the country who look to Russia or resent the Alliance.

"They are afraid that every mention of it (NATO) will affect their ratings as the alliance is very unpopular," said Milan Karagaca, a former military diplomat and a member of Belgrade's Center for Foreign Policy think-tank.

Belgrade, which refused to join the West's sanctions on Russia even though its pledged its respect for the territorial integrity of Ukraine, also treads a fine line to avoid upsetting Moscow.

Since 2000, Russia's Vladimir Putin, as President and Prime Minister, has visited Serbia several times, including a trip in 2014 when he was guest of honour at the military parade marking the liberation of Belgrade from Nazi Germany.

Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic and Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic have also travelled to Moscow on several occasions and their visits were followed by media reports of large-scale weapons purchases. On June 28, Vucic said Serbia wants to buy four Russian MIG-29 fighters for 260 million euros.

Pro-government media have speculated that a visit by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev tentatively set for this fall will also address military cooperation.

But so far the results have been modest. On June 28, the country received two Russian Mi17 utility helicopters, which it bought for 25 million euros. Their arrival, with Vucic present, was shown live on national TV, unlike comparable events involving NATO.

"Military-political cooperation (between Serbia and Russia) has not expanded significantly ... there has been a lot of talk," Sysoev said.

By contrast, in 2015, the Serbian army took part in 197 activities with NATO and another 370 bilateral activities with countries that are alliance members. Only 36 were organised with Russia. Out of 21 multinational training exercises, the Serbian military participated in only two with Russia.

"Serbia's goal is to join the European Union and the process will also include the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy agenda. Most NATO policies fit in that agenda," a Serbian defence official said, on condition of anonymity. "Russia remains a partner, we will not join NATO, but our road heads to the West." he said.
Facebook defends position on content standards after Israeli censure

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM, July 3 (Reuters) - Facebook is doing its share to remove abusive content from the social network, it said on Sunday in an apparent rejection of Israeli allegations that it was uncooperative in stemming messages that might spur Palestinian violence.

Beset by a 10-month-old surge in Palestinian street attacks, Israel says that Facebook has been used to perpetuate such bloodshed and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rightist government is drafting legislation to enable it to order social media sites to remove postings deemed threatening.

Ramping up the pressure, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan on Saturday accused Facebook of "sabotaging" Israeli police efforts by not cooperating with inquiries about potential suspects in the occupied West Bank and by "set(ting) a very high bar for removing inciteful content and posts".

Facebook did not respond directly to Erdan's criticism, but said in a statement that it conferred closely with Israel.

"We work regularly with safety organisations and policymakers around the world, including Israel, to ensure that people know how to make safe use of Facebook. There is no room for content that promotes violence, direct threats, terrorist or hate speeches on our platform," the statement said.

It appeared to place an onus on Israeli authorities, as with any other users, to flag offensive content to Facebook monitors.

"We have a set of community standards designed to help people understand what's allowed on Facebook, and we call on people to use our report if they find content they believe violates these rules, so that we can examine each case and take quick action," the statement said.

Erdan, who urged Israelis to "flood" Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg with demands for a policy change, expanded on the Netanyahu government's complaint in remarks published on Sunday.

Of 74 "especially inciting and extremist posts" Israel had brought to Facebook's attention, 24 were removed, Erdan told the Yedioth Ahronoth daily, adding that jurisdiction was an issue.

"The big problem is in Judea and Samaria, because Facebook does not recognise Israeli control there and is not prepared to turn over information," Erdan said, using a biblical term for the West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 war and where the Palestinians, with international support, seek statehood.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked called on social media companies to curb pre-emptively content deemed by Israel to be a security threat.

"We want the companies not to approve and to themselves remove posts by terrorist groups and incitement to terrorism without us having to flag each individual post, in just the same manner, for example, that they today do not allow posts and pages with child pornography," she told Israel's Army Radio.

Citing sources familiar with the technology, Reuters reported last month that Facebook and other Internet companies have begun using automation to remove Islamic State videos and other extremist content from their sites.
ECB's Coeure says Brexit questions EU project, to impact growth

AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France, July 3 (Reuters) - Britain's vote to leave the European Union, or Brexit, questions the EU project's irreversibility and will have a negative impact on growth although its extent is still unclear, European Central Bank Executive Council member Benoit Coeure said on Sunday.

"Brexit created a climate of uncertainty, financial uncertainty in the short-term, and the Central Bank can answer that, it already did," Coeure told a business conference in the southern French city of Aix-en-Provence.

"We have instruments that we are ready to use, thank God we didn't have to use them so far, but we are ready to do so."
Nusra captures leader, fighters of Western-backed rebels in northern Syria

AMMAN, July 3 (Reuters) - Syria's al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front has abducted the commander of the Western-backed Jaish al-Tahrir brigade, along with several of his aides and scores of fighters in coordinated raids in northern Syria, Jaish al Tahrir said on Sunday.

Jaish al Tahrir was set up in February as part of an effort to forge unity among moderate rebels in the Free Syrian Army (FSA) alliance at a time when a major Islamic State advance threatened their main stronghold near the Turkish border.

The powerful Islamist Nusra Front is ideologically opposed to the more moderate FSA rebels and their Western supporters, but occasionally fights alongside them against Islamist State.

Jaish al Tahrir, which has 4,000 well trained fighters, said their leader Mohammad al Ghabi and a number of his aides were taken in a house raid in Kfr Nubl in Idlib province Saturday night.

"They were injured and kidnapped and taken to an unknown location," Jaish al Tahrir said in a statement.

Nusra Front fighters stormed several locations in coordinated raids and set up checkpoints to arrest around 40 fighters, the group said.

The Nusra Front has previously targeted rebel groups supported by the West, leading to the dissolution of the Syria Revolutionaries Front and the Hazzm movement last year.

In March, the al Qaeda offshoot seized the bases and weapons of the 13th Division rebel group, one of the factions that has received foreign military aid, capturing U.S.-made anti-tank missiles.

Jaish al Tahrir called on Syria's main rebel groups al Ahrar al Sham and others to put pressure on Nusra to release their leader and prevent an escalation in tensions.

They also said they wanted a judicial court that would arbitrate their differences. Nusra Front has accused leaders of Jaish al Tahrir of participating in a U.S.-led programme to train and equip Syrian insurgents to fight Islamic State. Nusra Front regards the United States as an enemy.
In sign of progress, Libya's rival NOC oil companies agree to merge

TRIPOLI, July 3 (Reuters) - Libya's state energy company National Oil Corporation has agreed to merge with a rival company established in the east by one of the country's two former competing governments, the NOC said in a statement.

The merging of the two NOCs is a positive step to recovering the OPEC member's oil sector which has been battered by militant attacks, rival export attempts and closures of pipelines and oil ports by armed factions.

It is also a boost for the U.N.-backed unity government and its presidential council in Tripoli that has struggled to extend its influence over hardline factions and their armed supporters who set up rival administrations in the capital and in the east.

The NOC said current chairman, Mustafa Sanalla, who was named executive before any rival administrations were in place, will remain in the top post while former eastern NOC head Nagi el-Maghrabi will join the unified NOC board.

"There is only one NOC, and it serves all Libyans," Sanalla said in the statement. "This agreement will send a very strong signal to the Libyan people and to the international community that the Presidency Council is able to deliver consensus and reconciliation."

Prime Minister Fayaz Seraj's presidential council has been in Tripoli for three months since a U.N.-brokered agreement, but it has struggled to make progress and still faces resistance from hardliners who reject its authority.

With no national army, Libya's brigades of former rebels who once battled to oust Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 have turned against each other backing rival political leaders in a scramble for control of Libya and its oil resources.

Libya's oil exports are less than half of the 1.6 million barrels per day it produced before the 2011 uprising. Its two main oil ports are closed and under control of one armed faction that expressed support for the presidential council.

Other fields have been closed by attacks by Islamic State, which took advantage of the chaos to expand its territory. Forces allied to the government are currently fighting to take back the city of Sirte from the group.

The NOC said it recognised the presidential council as the executive and also the parliament in the east, the House of Representatives. It would report to both bodies.
Chinese man sentenced to death for bus blaze

BEIJING, July 3 (Reuters) - A court in northern China on Sunday sentenced a man to death for starting a bus fire in January that killed 18 people, the government said.

Flames engulfed the bus in front of a furniture store in the northern region of Ningxia, state media has previously reported. Thirty-three people were injured.

The court in regional capital Yinchuan sentenced Ma Yongping to death after finding him guilty of using an "extremely cruel form of crime", the Yinchuan government said on its official microblog.

Ma set alight two plastic bags filled with gasoline on the bus after getting involved in a personal work dispute, the government said, without explaining the connection between the bus he chose to set alight and the dispute.

Ma will appeal, the statement added.

It was not possible to reach a lawyer for him for comment.
Serbia won't hold referendum on joining the EU, PM tells newspaper

BERLIN, July 3 (Reuters) - Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic told a German newspaper that Serbia would not hold a referendum on whether or not to join the European Union, which Belgrade hopes to do in 2020.

Britons voted in a June 23 referendum to leave the bloc, a decision that has taken its toll on global financial markets and raised concerns about the EU's future prospects.

Asked by Bild am Sonntag newspaper about reports Russian President Vladimir Putin is using his influence in Serbia to push for a referendum there on the EU, Vucic said: "I don't know anything about Putin but I know that some Serbian parties are openly calling for that."

He added: "My answer to that is clear: There won't be a referendum no matter how many initiatives there are for that."

Several small rightist parties that favour close ties with the Kremlin have in the past demanded a referendum on Serbia's accession to EU, although the country has only started negotiation process with the bloc.

He said that before Serbia's recent parliamentary elections, he had made clear that his goal was to join the EU.

"We won with an absolute majority. We'll do everything we can to reach this goal now. If we were to leave this path, Serbia would end up going the wrong way," he said.

Vucic and an alliance led by his Serbian Progressive Party won an April 24 election with 48.24 percent of the vote, securing a comfortable majority of 131 deputies in the 250-seat parliament.

He explained that there were a lot of "stupid and dangerous ideas" in Serbia and if there was a crisis there, there would be a crisis in the whole region. Old conflicts could be opened up again, he warned.

Vucic said he was very concerned that the mood in Serbia could turn against the EU, adding: "Decisions like those on the accession negotiation chapters nurture the nationalist forces in the country, especially because we performed better than all the others in the previous stages."
Senator McCain, visiting Pakistan, seeks better ties in Islamist fight

ISLAMABAD, July 3 (Reuters) - U.S. Senator John McCain said on Sunday he would like relations between United States and Pakistan to improve as they have a common enemy in the Islamic State and other radical Islamist groups.

Relations between Pakistan and United States have been frayed over the past decade, with U.S. officials frustrated by what they term Islamabad's unwillingness to act against Islamist groups such as the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network.

Pakistan rejects harbouring militants but says there are limits to how much it can do as it is already fighting multiple Islamist groups and is wary of "blowback" in the form of more terror attacks on its soil.

McCain, visiting Pakistan as part of a U.S. delegation, said he had an "excellent meeting" with Pakistani foreign ministry officials.

"We come back with a message that we have a common enemy in ISIS, radical Islam and terrorism, and we look forward to closer relations and resolving the differences we have," McCain told Pakistan's national PTV channel.

Relations between United States and Pakistan were tested again in May by a U.S. drone strike that killed Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour on Pakistani soil.

As part of the visit, McCain travelled to Miranshah, the capital of the restive North Waziristan region bordering Afghanistan. The region was effectively run Islamists by groups such as the Pakistani Taliban and the Haqqani network until the Pakistani military launched operations against them in 2014.

"I was very impressed with the progress (on the ground)," said McCain, who is the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"I see us working together in confronting a common challenge - radical Islamic terrorism - and these kinds of meetings are very helpful to both those countries," McCain added.

The Islamic State has struggled to gain a major foothold in Pakistan, analysts say, but officials worry the group may pose a threat in the future.

Pakistan said the country's top foreign policy official Sartaj Aziz had briefed the U.S. delegation - which includes Senators Lindsey Graham, Benjamin Sasse and Joe Donnelly - about faltering peace talks to end the civil war in Afghanistan.

So far China, United States and Pakistan have struggled to persuade the Afghan Taliban to meaningfully embrace the talks.
Bangladesh garment industry braces for fallout from Dhaka attack

By Ruma Paul and Promit Mukherjee

DHAKA/MUMBAI, July 3 (Reuters) - Some leaders of Bangladesh's $26 billion garment industry expect Western fashion retailers to review their ties with the world's second-largest garment exporter after 18 foreigners were killed in an attack on a Dhaka restaurant.

Bangladesh, one of the world's poorest countries, relies on garments for around 80 percent of its exports and for about 4 million jobs, and ranks behind only China as a supplier of clothes to developed markets like Europe and the United States.

Militants killed 20 people, including nine Italians, seven Japanese, an Indian and an American, inside an upmarket restaurant in Bangladesh's capital, before security forces stormed the building and ended a 12-hour standoff on Saturday.

Islamic State said it was responsible for one of the most brazen attacks in the South Asian nation's history, but that claim has yet to be confirmed.

It marks a major escalation in a campaign by militants over the past 18 months that had targeted mostly individuals advocating a secular or liberal lifestyle in majority-Muslim Bangladesh with 160 million people.

"An incident like this will definitely impact us, in as much as our importers from places such as (the) U.S. and China will be wary to visit because of the security concerns," said Shahidul Haque Mukul, managing director of Ananta Garments.

The industry had been recovering strongly from a major tragedy three years ago, when a factory building collapsed, killing more than 1,100 people, prompting safety checks that led to many factory closures and the loss of exports and jobs.

It had also seemed little touched by a spate of recent murders on liberals, gay people, foreigners and religious minorities in sporadic attacks claimed by Islamic State and al Qaeda.

Between October and January, its exports surged 14 percent from a year earlier.

But Friday's attack signalled a more chilling threat to foreigners. The militants targeted a building housing two upmarket eateries popular with foreigners, and several of those killed were Italian garment entrepreneurs.

Italy's textile imports from Bangladesh more than trebled in the last decade to reach $1.31 billion last year, as low cost garment production moved outside the European country.

"Bangladesh has never seen such a horrific incident," said Mohammad Siddiqur Rahman, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

"It is a strong slap to our image. It will put pressure on our business, but we cannot say to what extent at the moment."

A Bangladesh-based executive for a French-based garment buyer said he feared a deep slump in business in the coming days.

But other industry figures said heightened security fears could be managed and that manufacturers could hold more meetings with Western customers outside Bangladesh, in Asian cities such as Singapore or Hong Kong, a trend that had begun some time ago.

"Concerns on visiting our factories, holding meetings, etc, by foreign nationals will be there for a few months but I believe within six months, the intensity will thaw and things will be back to normal," said Abdullah Hil Rakib, head of exporter Brothers Fashion Ltd.

At least two European retailers which source clothes from Bangladesh, Sweden's H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB and Britain's Marks and Spencer Group PLC, say their operations in the country are not immediately affected.

Both said their workers are unaffected, adding they were monitoring the situation.

"There are no plans in changing any sourcing but we are following the development closely," Ulrica Bogh Lind, spokeswoman for H & M, told Reuters.

She said the company had "safety routines" for workers, adding the company was in contact with its office in Dhaka.

The industry owes its resilience to some of the world's lowest wages, the right skills and the fact that China has become less competitive as a producer in recent years.
German politicians call for improvements to EU after Brexit vote

BERLIN, July 3 (Reuters) - Senior German politicians called for improvements to the European Union's processes to speed up decision making and boost its appeal among citizens, just a week after Britons stunned the world with a vote to leave the bloc.

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble urged member states to be more pragmatic and take an "intergovernmental approach" to solving problems, complaining that EU politicians had taken too long to make decisions on the migrant crisis last year and Brussels operated with timeframes that were too big.

"You soon realise if the Commission isn't managing something or if we're getting bogged down in the (European) Council. And that's when governments have a responsibility," Schaeuble said in an interview with Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

However, he said reforming European institutions or changing European treaties would take too long and denied that he was calling for the Commission's power to be reduced.

In a referendum held on June 23, Britain voted 52 to 48 percent in favour of quitting the EU - a decision that caused major losses in global financial markets and raised concerns about the EU's future prospects.

German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel called for the ranks of EU Commissioners to be streamlined and for Brussels to reconsider how it allocates its budget.

"A Europe in which 27 Commissioners want to prove themselves doesn't make sense. It would be good to downsize in this respect," he told the newspaper Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung in an interview published on Saturday.

Speaking on German broadcaster ZDF on Sunday, Gabriel said: "What we have now, with 27, 28 Commissioners in the European Commission is like an administrative apparatus without any real connection to voters."

Gabriel, who is also Germany's vice chancellor, said the EU should reassess if it should still put around 40 percent of funds towards agriculture while much less money is pumped into research, innovation or education.

And European Parliament President Martin Schulz, a German, wrote in a piece for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung's Monday edition that the Commission should be turned into "a real European government" subject to parliamentary control from the European Parliament and a second chamber made up of representatives of member states.

Schaeuble said on German public broadcaster ARD on Sunday that in view of the Brexit vote and rising euroscepticism in other countries, the EU needed to better explain its role to people and deliver visible results more quickly.

"Of course we'll hold on to national ties - no one wants to get rid of them - but there are some things that only Europe can solve better together ... but we need to prove that."
Man wounded in shooting outside Houston mosque -report

July 3 (Reuters) - A doctor headed for morning prayers at a Houston mosque was reportedly ambushed by three masked men who shot and wounded him on Sunday, a day after a Muslim man was beaten outside a Florida mosque.

The victim of the Texas incident, identified as Dr. Arslan Tajammul, an eye specialist, was undergoing surgery and was expected to survive, according to KTRK, an ABC television affiliate.

The doctor had parked his car and was walking to the Madrasah Islamiah mosque when he was ambushed and shot twice at about 5:30 a.m. EST (0930 GMT). His three attackers fled on foot, KTRK reported.

The victim was able to toss his cell phone to someone at the entrance to the mosque on Bintliff Drive and DeMoss Drive , in southwest Houston, and ask them to call 911, the TV station said.

Houston police did not immediately respond to a request for information.

The shooting took place a day after a Muslim man was beaten outside a Florida mosque that had been attended by the gunman who killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub.

The victim in that case was punched in the head and face outside the Fort Pierce Islamic Center just after 4 a.m. (0800 GMT) on Saturday, the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office said.

Taylor Anthony Mazzanti, 25, was arrested in the attack and was charged with felony battery, the sheriff's office said.

No racially motivated comments were made to the suspect during the incident, said the sheriff's office, which added the case is under investigation.

The Florida branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), however, said the attacker uttered racially offensive comments including "You Muslims need to get back to your country" before assaulting the victim.
Eight Cuba volleyball players detained in Finland over suspected rape

HELSINKI, July 3 (Reuters) - Eight Cuba national team volleyball players have been detained over a suspected rape in Finland, police said on Sunday.

According to central Finland police three of the players were apprehended on Saturday, and five on Sunday.

The Cuban men's team was playing in a World League tournament in the city of Tampere in central Finland.
The United Arab Emirates urged citizens to avoid wearing traditional clothes when traveling abroad after a businessman visiting the US was handcuffed at gunpoint because a hotel clerk spread false reports that he was an Islamic State suspect.

Ahmed al-Menhali, who was wearing a white, ankle-length shirt along with a headscarf and headband, suffered a 'light stroke' when he was detained at gunpoint last week in Avon, Ohio.

Al-Menhali was handcuffed and searched in an incident that was widely reported in the Emirates, prompting an apology from a number of American officials.

Scroll down for video

Ahmed al-Menhali (pictured) was wearing traditional clothes common in Arab countries when a hotel clerk spread false reports that he was an ISIS suspect

In the footage of the arrest, al-Menhali was pressed to the ground outside a hotel in Avon, Ohio and handcuffed after police approached him with at least once assault rifle drawn

The 41-year-old man was released once the mistake was realized but had to be hospitalized for three days (pictured) after suffering a 'light stroke,' according to CNN

Al-Menhali has been in the US on a tourist visa since April while he is seeking medical treatment for several conditions.

He was trying to check into Fairfield Inn and Suites on June 29 when a receptionist notified her sister about a man 'in full head dress with multiple disposable phones pledged his allegiance to ISIS' before two calls were made to police, CNN reported.

Al-Menhali was wearing a thawb or kandura, the long traditional shirt common among men in the UAE and other Arab countries.

In video footage that emerged from the arrest, Al-Menhali was wrestled to the ground and handcuffed by police who approached with at least one assault rifle drawn.

The 41-year-old man was released once the mistake was realized but had to be hospitalized for three days after fainting and suffering a 'light stroke' according to CNN.

A foreign ministry twitter account issued a warning on Saturday without referring to the incident directly.

The tweet stated: 'For citizens travelling outside the country, and in order to ensure their safety, we point out not to wear formal dress while travelling, especially in public places.'

On Saturday, a Foreign Ministry Twitter account focusing on citizens traveling abroad posted a message (pictured) in Arabic urging its citizens to stay safe by avoiding the traditional dress

Barbara Leaf, an American ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, said: 'The unfortunate incident that Mr. al-Menhali endured in the U.S. is deeply regrettable.'

The UAE's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement after it summoned Ethan Goldrich, the US Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Abu Dhabi for an apology.

'He emphasized that the United States respects the right of different nations to wear their national dress, adding that this incident was an exception which was totally unacceptable,' the statement read.

Avon's Mayor Bryan Jensen also issued an apology and said authorities were reviewing the incident for possible charges against the hotel clerk.

Al-Menhali called his treatment 'brutal' and Barbara Leaf, an American ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, said: 'The unfortunate incident that Mr al-Menhali endured in the U.S. is deeply regrettable'

In an interview with The National on Saturday, Al-Menhali called his treatment 'brutal'.

He said: 'I didn't think that they were there for me. I assumed that there was some sort of training exercise or event at the hotel but I was shocked to see them barge at me'

Police Chief Richard Bosley told Al-Menhali that 'no one from the police department [wanted] to disrespect you', according to WEWS-TV.

'That was not the intent of any of our officers. It is a very regrettable circumstance that occurred for you. You should not have been put in that situation like you were.'

'There were some false accusations made against you,' Mayor Brian Jensen said. 'And those are regrettable. I hope...the person that made those can maybe learn from those.'
Counting to resume in Australia's election cliff-hanger

By Jane Wardell and Jonathan Barrett

SYDNEY, July 4 (Reuters) - Vote counting is scheduled to resume on Monday in a dramatic Australian federal election that failed to produce a clear winner on the weekend, raising the prospect of prolonged political and economic instability.

The exceptionally close vote leaves Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's centre-right Liberal Party-led coalition in a precarious position, potentially needing the support of independent and minor parties to reform government.

It has also opened the door to the possibility, albeit less likely, that the main opposition Labor Party could win enough backing from the smaller parties to form government itself.

Turnbull said on Sunday he remained "quietly confident" of returning his coalition to power for another three-year term but the key independents who have become the powerbrokers after winning a greater share of the vote than anticipated are yet to declare their allegiance for either side.

With counting expected to take several days, possibly weeks, the uncertainty is likely to put downward pressure on the Australian dollar and the share market as analysts warned Australia's triple A credit rating could be at risk.

Both Turnbull and opposition Labor Party leader Bill Shorten began talking on Sunday with the independents, whose election campaigns ranged from anti-foreign ownership and economic protectionism to anti-gambling and policies to improve the treatment of asylum seekers.

The election was meant to put a line under a period of political turmoil which has seen four prime ministers in three years. Instead it has left a power vacuum in Canberra and fuelled talk of a challenge to Turnbull's leadership of the Liberal Party, less than a year after he ousted then prime minister Tony Abbott in a party-room coup.

"I can promise all Australians that we will dedicate our efforts to ensuring that the state of new parliament is resolved without division or rancour," Turnbull, whose coalition will rule as a caretaker government in the interim, said on Sunday.

If the coalition fails to form a government, it would be the first time in 85 years an Australian ruling party has lost power after its first term in office.

Official electoral data for the House of Representatives showed a 3.4 percent swing away from the coalition government, with about two-thirds of votes counted before counting was paused early on Sunday.

Electoral Commission projections give the coalition 67 seats in the 150-seat lower house, against Labor's 71 and five to independents and the Greens. A further seven seats were in the balance.

The Liberal-National coalition and Labor Party require 76 seats in the House of Representatives to form majority government.

Small parties are also likely to do well in the Senate, with Pauline Hanson's One Nation on track to win between two and four seats, marking the return of the right-wing anti-immigration activist to parliament after an almost 20-year absence.
Ahead of key court ruling, Beijing in propaganda overdrive

By Greg Torode and Mike Collett-White

HONG KONG/LONDON, July 4 (Reuters) - As an international tribunal prepares to rule on Beijing's territorial claims in the South China Sea, officials in Washington, Tokyo and Southeast Asia are on tenterhooks.

Yet, in the words of one senior Chinese official, Beijing does not care.

On July 12, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague will rule on a case brought by the Philippines against China over its territorial claims and actions across the disputed waters and vital global trade route.

Beijing claims some 90 percent of the South China Sea, and the Philippines is challenging it under a United Nations maritime convention.

"We do not know, we don't care, in fact, when this arbitration decision will be made, because no matter what kind of decision this tribunal is going to make, we think it is totally wrong," China's ambassador to the UK, Liu Xiaoming, told Reuters at a recent lunch in London.

"It has no impact on China, on China's sovereignty over these reefs, over the islands. And it will set a serious, wrong and bad example. We will not fight this case in court, but we will certainly fight for our sovereignty."

Beijing's plans to ignore the ruling would represent both a rejection of the international legal order and a direct challenge to the United States, which believes China is developing islands and reefs for military, as well as civilian purposes in a threat to stability.

It would also significantly raise the stakes over dispute, according to lawyers, diplomats and security experts.

How Washington handles the aftermath of the ruling is widely seen as a test of its credibility in a region where it has been the dominant security presence since World War Two against an increasingly assertive China.

China in turn sees this as a matter of defending its territorial and political sovereignty against the United States.

Other nations laying claim to disputed areas of the South China sea felt emboldened to challenge China because they felt they had the United States on their side, Liu said.

"They probably believe that they have America (behind them) and they can get a better deal with China. So I'm very suspicious of America's motives."

So while Beijing scoffs at the imminent decision, it is also making an international PR effort to get its view heard.

Beijing has organised meetings with diplomats and journalists and has expressed its views in a slew of editorials and academic papers around the world.

"Manila has no leg to stand on," said one report in the China Daily's inaugural New Zealand edition.

Asian and Western diplomats said their Chinese peers were raising the issue constantly, and at all levels.

"It's relentless. We haven't seen anything like this in years," said one Asian-based Western envoy.

China says more than 40 countries back its position that such territorial disputes should be handled through bilateral discussions not international arbitration, although only a handful of countries have publicly voiced their support.

Both Chinese and Western analysts say the ruling is not just about the territorial claims in the South China sea, but speaks to broader Sino-U.S. tensions over China's rise.

"This is about exposing Washington's declining primacy," said Zhang Baohui, a mainland security expert at Hong Kong's Lingnan University. "China gains reputational power by showing the U.S. that it can't dictate Chinese actions."

ARGUING THE CASE

The law under which the Philippines has made its claim is the UN's Convention on the Law of the Sea, known as UNCLOS, which outlines what can be claimed from different geographic features such as islands and reefs. China is a signatory of the convention, one of the first international agreements it helped negotiate after joining the UN.

But Beijing says the issue is beyond the remit of UNCLOS and The Hague court because China has undisputable, historic rights and sovereignty over much of the South China Sea.

China's claims are expressed on its maps as the so-called nine dash line, an ill-defined U-shaped demarcation drawn up after the defeat of Japan in World War II.

Manila's case is based around 15 points that challenge the legality of China's claims and its recent reclamations on seven disputed reefs in the fishing and energy rich region.

It also seeking support for the Philippines' right to exploit is 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

Sources close to Manila's legal team said they are confident of favourable rulings on enough points to create significant pressure on China's future moves in the waterway.

Many of Manila's arguments in court last November were couched in arcane legal terms, but to drive home the point about the scale of China's on-going building works, lawyers used a slide show.

Amsterdam's sprawling Schiphol airport was shown fitting neatly into China's new runways on Subi Reef.

"We knew the judges had all used Schiphol," said one source close to Manila's case. "We think they got the point."

UNITED RESPONSE?

Ahead of the vote, the UK, Australia and Japan are among countries that have joined Washington in stressing the importance of freedom of navigation and respect for the rule of law.

U.S. officials have also been pressing Southeast Asian nations to forge a united front on the issue, with limited success so far.

Vietnam, which has made a submission to the panel not ruled out taking its own legal action, on Friday called for a "fair and objective" ruling from the tribunal.

The G7 and EU groupings have stated that ruling must be binding, despite China's objections, while Vietnam gave a submission to the court supporting its jurisdiction.

Legal experts say that while the ruling is technically binding, no body exists to enforce UNCLOS rulings.

Concerns are growing among regional military and government officials that, regardless of the ruling, Beijing could launch fresh military action and re-building efforts to buttress its claims.

China may deploy fighter jets or missiles to its new facilities on the Spratlys, create an air exclusion zone or starting fresh reclamation work on shoals occupied within the Philippines, U.S. and regional military officials say.

Beijing says the reefs are Chinese territory and it is entitled to station "self-defence" equipment on its holdings as it sees fit to counter U.S. provocation.

In Washington, concern is particularly acute over whether China attempts to make permanent its sea-borne presence near the Scarborough Shoal, near the Philippines, by building on the reef.

Liu outlined various civilian developments completed and underway in the South China Sea. He said there were also military facilities being built, adding:

"I was asked why China is also building military facilities. You should ask the Americans. They made us feel threatened. It's not we (who) are threatening the Americans. They are so close to us."

The United States has been increasing its own military presence in the region where Malaysian, Vietnam, Brunei and Taiwan also have claims. France has also proposed to European countries that they take part in joint South China Sea patrols.

U.S. responses could include accelerated freedom-of-navigation patrols by U.S. warships and overflights by U.S. aircraft as well as increased defence aid to Southeast Asian countries, according to U.S. officials speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Liu said Beijing wanted to resolve the disputes through bilateral negotiations.

"We are not going to war with these countries, we do not want to have a fight with them," he said. "But we still claim our sovereignty over these islands."




In his speech, VBFA President Nguyen Thai Lai highlighted the significance of the event to the friendship and cooperation between the two nations and people.

The VBFA serves as a bridge to further promote the bilateral ties, he stressed.

Belarusian Ambassador to Vietnam Valery Sadokho affirmed that Vietnam is one of the major partners of his country in Asia.

The time-honoured friendship between the two countries has formed on the basis of mutual respect, trust and support, he said.

Bilateral relations have developed in various fields, especially in politics, economics-trade, and culture, he noted.

In 2016, the two foreign ministries have reached a consensus on the simplification of visa procedures for both sides citizens, which helps expand links and attract more Belarusian tourists to Vietnam.

Valery Sadokho expressed his belief that the Vietnam-Belarus relations will be stronger in the future, thus bringing more benefits to the two peoples.

On the occasion, the VBFA and the Belarusian Embassy in Vietnam launched a contest Learning about Belarus and the Vietnam-Belarus relations, which aims to promote cultural and tourism exchanges between the two nations./.
WASHINGTON DC - USA - First Lady, Michelle Obama with her president husband in tow, has been seen rocking the Dome nightclub in downtown Washington.

The Dome nightclub was rocked on Tuesday night with a post-presidential speech party on Capital Hill.

It was time for the Obamas to relax and let loose. These have been tense times and they may be the coolest couple in the world but everybody needs some down time once in awhile, senior aide to the Obamas Jeffrey Katzen told the Fox News Networks OReilly Factor.

Downtown Washington DC can get a bit scary sometimes, especially at night time when all the wildlife come out.

The manager of The Dome, Herb Willis, was not warned of the presidential visit and only learned of it when a troupe of secret servicemen cleared away the pimps and prostitutes from the front entrance.

I was just counting up the nights takings when slap my face with my aunt Jemima, I was informed by one of my chickens that we got some serious company. We dont usually get anyone here apart from hoes and johns maybe a few dealers. Hell, I nearly shit my pants when I saw Obama and Michelle walk through the door and jump on the stage. Michelle was dressed to the nines and she got her booty out, I saw every guy drop their jaws on the floor. Obama looked on from the side and was lapping it up too.

The Obamas cleared the dancefloor and ordered the nightclub owner to give everyone whatever they wanted at the bar. Soon word got round the local neighborhood and there was a sudden rush at the door but many were not allowed entry.

Michelle wears a pair of $49.99 jeans from

BootyCall and a $12.75 G-string from Wash Krew



The surprise visit by the Obamas went down well with the regulars who soon crowded around the dance floor as the DJ pumped some serious bass through the clubs speaker system.

Baby got back! Michelle even posed for photos when she got her booty out for the boys. Barack was seen doing some serious moves on the dancefloor too, he had about twenty women around him adoring every move he made. It was something I never seen before, Leroy Robinson, a regular at the Dome told Washington Week magazine.

Michelle posing with senior White House advisor Jonelle Shaquilla



According to nightclub revellers the party wound down by about 4 am when the Obama entourage left the club leaving a huge tip for its owner.

Well never forget this visit. I been trying to get people to come to my club for years. Obama sure did his bit for the recession tonight. Whoosh! It was the best thing that ever happened to my place. Now I can afford to get a fire exit installed and a new lapdancing stage. We got all the photographs to prove what happened and even Ebony magazine sent a reporter here to talk to me. God bless our president and his hot booty wife, Mr Willis added.
LONDON - England - Brexit is at real risk of either being watered down or simply ignored with wishy washy Conservative prime ministerial candidates like Andrea Leadsom and Theresa May.

Andrea Leadsom was extremely pro-EU in 2013, and even though she was involved in the Leave campaign, there are serious doubts to her vision of a valid Brexit.

Theresa May has backed out of repealing the ECHR, and has also said that mass migration should continue into Britain post Brexit.

These candidates present a watered down Brexit vision where Britain will still be under the thumb of the EU and nothing will change.

On the other side of the coin is the now unpopular Michael Gove, who spectacularly leaped over former candidate Boris Johnson using rather underhand techniques. Despite his ruthless campaign, Gove is a real Brexiteer who is more than capable of taking the PM job and exercising a proper Brexit.

There is further danger for Brexit from Tony Blair who is now saying that Brexit should simply be ignored and Britain should remain in the EU. Blairs despicable stance on the democratically won EU referendum is a disgusting vindictive position that is an affront to democracy. If Remain had won by a small margin, he would not be saying that the result should be ignored.

Unfortunately for Brexit, there are many in the Conservative party who wanted to remain in the EU, which may impact on the Tory leadership contest and destroy a real implementation of leaving the EU.
For all you Lord and Lady Haw Haws of Britain who voted to remain, you can renounce your British citizenship, learn to speak German, and go to live in Deutschland.

If you live in Germany already you may even be offered dual citizenship in the future.

If you voted to remain in the EU, some would say you hate Britain and its history and are effectively nothing more than a traitor, although this could be true, there were many who voted to remain in the EU who did not know the reason for doing so. They were most probably the brainwashed youth who have been through the eurocentric education system and are not only naive to the machinations of the EU, but have very little understanding of any political process or ideology.

If you hate Britain so much, you are now welcome to denounce British citizenship and live in Germany where you will be able to live the life you want in the EU.

It is your choice and whatever your decision please just fuck off and stop your incessant whining.
Ohio Governor John Kasich has signed into law the revised Ohio Motion Picture Tax Credit, passed by the Ohio General Assembly, which raises the annual movie production incentive, doubling the cap to $40 million and changes the incentive rate to 30% on all production dollars spent in Ohio.



This new incentive elevates Ohio to the competitive level of states like Georgia and Louisiana, which currently lead the country in film production. Since passing the film incentive in 2009, over $100 million has been rebated to production companies, shooting movies in Ohio. Of that money 90% has gone to Cleveland and Cincinnati projects.


Bangladeshi army personnel stand guard during a rescue operation after an attack at a Spanish restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave Gulshan, Bangladesh, July 2, 2016. Gunmen killed 20 foreigners soon after they stormed a Spanish restaurant in Dhaka in Bangladesh's worst hostage crisis, a spokesman of the Bangladesh Army said on Saturday. (Xinhua/Shariful Islam)

UNITED NATIONS, July 2 -- The UN Security Council on Saturday "strongly condemned the heinous and cowardly terrorist attack perpetrated in the city of Dhaka," Bangladesh, which killed more than 20 Bangladeshi nationals and foreigners.

"The members of the Security Council reaffirmed that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security," the council said in a statement issued to the press here.

The council members stressed the need to take measures to prevent and suppress the financing of terrorism, terrorist organizations and individual terrorists, in accordance with resolutions 2199 (2015) and 2253 (2015), said the statement.

The Islamic State in Iraq, also known as the ISIL or Da'esh) has claimed responsibility for the attack, which also injured at least 40 people, including senior police officials.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moonon Saturday condemned the deadly terrorist attack in a restaurant in Dhaka, voicing his hope that "those behind this crime will be identified and brought to justice."

The council members expressed their deep sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims, to the people and government of Bangladesh, as well as peoples and governments of foreign victims, and they wished speedy and full recovery to those who were injured, said the statement.

"The members of the Security Council underlined the need to bring perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism to justice," the statement said.

"They stressed that those responsible for these killings should be held accountable, and urged all States, in accordance with their obligations under international law and relevant Security Council resolutions, to cooperate actively with all relevant authorities in this regard," the statement said.

"The members of the Security Council reiterated that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations is criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of its motivation and wherever, whenever and by whomsoever committed, and should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilization, or ethnic group," it said.

They reaffirmed the need for all States to combat by all means, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and other obligations under international law, including international human rights law, international refugee law and international humanitarian law, threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts, the statement added.

Some 13 hostages, including one Japanese and two Sri Lankans, were rescued after a two-hour operation by Army commandos.

After planning and waiting through the night, Bangladesh Army-led joint forces launched the assault at around 7:40 a.m. local time (0140 GMT) Saturday.

More than 1,000 rounds of bullets were reportedly fired and explosions were heard in the first 30 minutes of the raid when army men in armored vehicles tore down a wall of the cafe and the commandos galloped into it through the breach.
Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) turned net buyers of equities in March after pulling out a massive Rs 41,661 crore from the market in the previous four months (November-February).

New Delhi: Foreign investors brought in over Rs 3,700 crore into Indian stock markets in June, taking the total to more than Rs 20,600 crore so far this year, mainly on hopes of a good monsoon. It follows a staggering inflow of more than Rs 32,000 crore in preceding three months (March-May).

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) turned net buyers of equities in March after pulling out a massive Rs 41,661 crore from the market in the previous four months (November-February).

"Good monsoons should drive improvement in earnings in 2016-17 and India remains a long-term structural story. Better near-term as well as long-term catalysts might have led to higher flows," Quantum AMC Associate Fund Manager Equity Nilesh Shetty said.

According to data available with depositories, FPIs net invested Rs 3,713 crore in the stock market last month. However, they pulled out Rs 6,220 crore from the debt market during the period under review. So far this year, FPIs have invested Rs 20,648 crore in equities while withdrawing Rs 12,105 crore in the debt market, resulting in a net inflow of Rs 8,543 crore.
New Delhi: India has slipped to 75th place in terms of money held by its citizens with banks in Switzerland, while the UK remains on top.

India was placed at 61st place last year, while it used to among top-50 countries in terms of holdings in Swiss banks till 2007. The country was ranked highest at 37th place in the year 2004.

As per the latest annual update on Swiss banks, released by Switzerland's central bank SNB (Swiss National Bank), the total money held there by foreign clients from across the world fell by nearly 4 per cent to Swiss franc (CHF) 1.42 trillion (about Rs 98 lakh crore) at the end of 2015.

In terms of individual countries, the UK accounted for the largest chunk at about CHF 350 billion or almost 25 per cent of the total foreign money with Swiss banks.

The US came second with nearly CHF 196 billion or about 14 per cent. No other country accounted for a double-digit percentage share, while others in the top-ten included West Indies, Germany, Bahamas, France, Guernsey, Luxembourg, Hong Kong and Panama.

India was ranked 75th with CHF 1.2 billion (about Rs 8,392 crore), which is not even 0.1 per cent of the total foreign money in Swiss banks and is the lowest for the country in at least two decades or since 1996 -- the first year for which full comparable data is available.

Pakistan was placed higher at 69th place with CHF 1.5 billion -- a shade better than 0.1 per cent of total foreign money parked with Swiss banks.

India was also lowest ranked among the BRICS nations -- Russia was ranked 17th (CHF 17.6 billion), China 28th (CHF 7.4 billion), Brazil 37th (CHF 4.8 billion) and South Africa 60th (CHF 2.2 billion).

Others ranked higher than India included Mauritius, Kazakhstan, Iran, Chile, Angola, Philippines, Indonesia and Mexico, while a number of so-called tax havens were also placed above, including Jersey, Cayman Islands, Cyprus, Marshall Islands, Bermuda, Belize, Gibraltar, Isle of Man, Seychelles and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

All offshore financial centres together held CHF 378 billion in Swiss banks. The total for developing countries stood at CHF 207 billion, while the same for the developed countries was much higher at CHF 833 million.

India was ranked in top-50 continuously between 1996 and 2007, but started declining after that -- 55th in 2008, 59th in 2009 and 2010 each, 55th again in 2011, 71st in 2012 and then 58th in 2013.
Mumbai: Kareena Kapoor Khan, who was last seen in 'Udta Punjab', recently gave her nod to 'Veere Di Wedding' which also stars Sonam Kapoor and Swara Bhaskar in the lead roles.

Soon after Kareena announced her pregnancy, there were several speculations whether she will go ahead with her work commitments. However, producers of the film- Ekta Kapoor and Rhea Kapoor issued a joint statement which read, Me and Ekta Kapoor are families and companies. We are delighted and excited for Kareena and Saif. As producers of Veere Di Wedding we are thrilled to be part of their special journey. Kareena is a thorough professional and will start the shoot of the film in August. Much like the spirit of our film, which celebrates the modern girl, Kareena is going on with her work and life as usual and we couldn't be prouder to have her.

After several months of speculations and denial, Saif Ali Khan and Kareena have finally gone on record with the big news. The two are expecting their first child in December this year and the actor has thanked his well-wishers for their blessings. An elated Saif Ali Khan said, "My wife and I would like to announce that we are expecting our first child in December. We would like to thank our well wishers for their blessings and support and also the press for their discretion and patience."

This will be Kareenas first child and Saifs third. He has two children- Ibrahim and Sara, from his earlier marriage to Amrita Singh.
Mumbai: You dont have to be a Bollywood buff to know who KRK (Kamal R Khan) is, and anyone who knows him, knows why KRK is famous and most days in news. But well, going by his recent tweets, everyones in for a shock.

From politicians to A-list Bollywood stars, KRK has trolled everyone on social media with his 'critical' comments. After targeting filmmaker Vikram Bhatt, KRK fell in some serious trouble has the director filed a defamation case against him.

It all began after KRK accused Vikram Bhatt of trying to supply Meera Chopra to a well-known producer. After this, Bhatt slapped a criminal defamation notice on KRK for spreading false and derogatory stories about him.

However, it seems that the so called movie critic KRK have had a spiritual awakening and has decided to let the troller in him go.

In his recent series of tweets, KRK has apologises to Vikram Bhatt and Bollywood fraternity, saying that a new very serious type of critic has born.

"Today I watched @TheVikramBhatt n he said-KRK has got big social media power so he should decide whether he wants to be..Cont..," tweeted KRK.

Recognised as a troll only or respected critic n I am 100% agree with his statement. So thanks to @TheVikramBhatt for showing me right way.  KRK (@kamaalrkhan) July 2, 2016

Anyway thanks Mr. @TheVikramBhatt for giving me very good advise n I am sorry if I hurt you in the past. Cheers and best of luck for future.  KRK (@kamaalrkhan) July 2, 2016

Vikram Bhatt replied back:

@kamaalrkhan you are a talented critic and people will take you seriously now because you are not a troll anymore :) cheers!  Vikram Bhatt (@TheVikramBhatt) July 2, 2016

KRK didn't take everyone's specific names but apologized to Bollywood fraternity in general.

I m sorry to all other Bollywood ppl also if I have hurt anyone by my statement or review. Today a new very serious type of critic has born.  KRK (@kamaalrkhan) July 2, 2016

Few hours after making this tweet, KRK also started a poll on Twitter. Take a look!

Do you think @DeShobhaa is Rakhi Sawant of journalism?  KRK (@kamaalrkhan) July 3, 2016

Well, we don't know whether KRK is serious about ditching his past acts or not. Guess, the time will tell.
Mumbai: The Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada) has issued a legal notice to actor Anil Kapoor for appearing in an advertisement for Ekta World, a construction firm, where the developer has claimed that it is offering flats in Virar and Nashik at rates cheaper than that of Mhada.

Mhada has also issued a legal notice to Mr Ashok Mohanani, owner of Ekta World, citing that the firm has illegally, blatantly and with mischief and malice used Mhadas name to promote a scheme based on false and unauthorised information. Mhada secretary Bharat Bastewad said, How can anyone endorse any firms claims without confirming whether they are true or false? We have issued a legal notice to Anil Kapoor for endorsing false claims. Mr Kapoor should have confirmed with Mhada before endorsing such claims by a private construction firm.

The legal notice states, This is to bring to your notice that you have caused damage to the image of Mhada and violated regulations of the Advertising Standards Council of India. Kapoor remained unavailable for comment.

The website of Ekta World has also uploaded a comparison of the rates quoted by it and the rates quoted by Mhada for a location in Virar.

When contacted, Mr Mohanani said, We have not made false claims. We have disclosed in our communication and website the source of information where Mhada has publicised its rates at Virar and Nashik and our rates are lesser than theirs. We are transparent and would like our prospective customers to be aware and educated of the facts before they make a decision. Kapoor remained unavailable for comments.
While the Internet has been raving about Fergies (Stacy Ann Ferguson) comeback music video M.I.L.F. $ (MILF Money), there has also been an uproar about Kim Kardashians appearance, which looks it has been retouched to give her a tinier waist. In one scene, Kim can be seen wearing a white tee-shirt and high waist shorts, with her waist looking extremely tiny compared with the rest of her body.

Twitter users were quick to point it out, with one user commenting why would u photoshop @kimkardashian like this is so unnecessary, while another said I dont even see anything natural in this picture. Others also lashed out at Fergie herself for setting a bad example for women. One user wrote Promoting unrealistic beauty images for young girls? Yep.
Most years, through the thirty days of fasting through the holy month of Ramzan, a stream of worshippers head to the mosques across the city. At daybreak, as the muezzin calls, the sehri is done, the last meal as daylight dawns. A little after sundown, the fast is broken with a few dates and sherbet. That's the old-timer for you. Today's youngsters keep to the tradition of fasting, but they've turned the whole experience around, transforming the areas around the mosques and places of worship into almost a fairground. This iftar, the reverence remains, but the variety of food that the stalls now serve goes well beyond what was once closed to anyone but people of the faith.

Irfan Pasha, one of the key people involved in setting up of the stalls at Ramzan Food Mela is a forty something entrepreneur, who is a businessman by profession, but during Ramzan brings out the heavy duty organising skills required to keep his clientele coming back for more. Watch out Mosque Road, Frazer Town, you have a rival here at the playground near Masjid-E-Eidgah Bilal Mosque on Bannerghatta Road.

Irfan's fame has spread. His culinary and organising skills draw some 3,000 people on the weekend. There are 80 stalls this time and there are some 5000 odd people across all faiths who come here to enjoy the delicious spread. Hyderabadi Haleem and sweets are the most special of all, says Irfan.

For many who want to celebrate Iftar with their families in their homes there is always another option. They make an early visit to these food stalls at 5:30 pm to 6: 30 pm and pack their favourites.

Many people visit these stalls to just pack food and take it home to dine with family and friends back home, says 28-year-old Afzal Pasha, the owner of Chatkharay who has also got businesses running in the Gulf cities of Muscat, Doha and Abu Dhabi. But, I want to serve my friends with some really tempting food during Ramzan and hence I always set my stall during Ramzan at the Food Mela, says Afzal whose work along with the other stall owners is long. Work begins at 2 pm itself. We start preparing food way before 5 pm, he adds.

When the sun sets and after the Azaan (call to prayer), Muslims break their fast with dates and water after which they have kababs, haleem and last of all, the biryani. Biryani is always the last, says young Afzal. The transformation is startling. From just before the call to prayer at sundown, and the celebration of food and fare at sunset where people from all faiths gather to celebrate something that is so unique to just one religion.

Every year we travel to these Ramzan food stalls as we just love having the kababs and fries, says, twenty-year-old Bengali, Sushmita a college student who relishes the seekh kabab.

The air is filled with strong meaty aromas as the place comes alive. In Bengaluru though, its not just Bannerghatta Road, the older ones continue to draw the crowds - Johnson Market in Richmond Town that is open through the night and Shivaji Nagar Broadway and Tilak Nagar where the food is available until dawn. Rain seemed to not dampen the spirits of the foodies. We come for this every year despite the venue change and the rain. We just love the tikkas and kababs, says Sushmita who has also come with her family to taste the food haven. Also many were seen enjoying, kabsa mutton, Banno Kabab; stuffed chicken grilled on charcoal.

Banno kabab, sauteed prawns, dum biryani are something that people are enjoying a lot, says Imtiyaz, manager of the Four Seasons Hotel stall. After feasting on the delectable spread, one needs to visit the sweet stall of Rauf Bagmar of Lazeez Catering who makes some really special Ramzan sweets.

There is dry fruit phirni, shahi tukda which is famous in Hyderabad, Kashmiri pineapple dessert, fruit truffle pudding and the most famous, 'khubani ka meetha', says fifty-year-old Rauf, owner of Lazeez Catering which is quite famous in the city.

For the discerning foodie, theres a daily gastronomic adventure as every iftar this Ramzan has chefs bringing out newer and more exciting variations of the theme. This time we have come out with something very unique called Rasmalai Chicken and the chicken has been marinated with saffron, dry fruits and some secret ingredients, says 28-year-old Afzal Pasha of Chatkharey stall whose stall already has a serious fan following.

I came here last Sunday, and couldn't resist the Afghan Tikka and had to bring my whole family here again today, says Stanely who is already gorging on the delicious tikka. The usual rolls and biryani is as always popular, but there were many dishes that were different - like the Arabian Dry Fruit Soup. This soup is called marakh and it is an Arabian soup and it is had with fresh bread, says 27-year-old Saif, owner of one of the stalls who also owns a restaurant in the city.

The mutton soup is boiled along with many dry fruits and a few spices for three hours and the juices blend into an outstanding soup. For Ramzan, I leave everything and just work at this stall and it is a delight to watch people enjoy good food, he adds. For those who need to cool down their system after the fast there is a wide variety to choose from at the Kashmiri Juice shop where the emphasis is on health.

We have strawberry juice, Pista juice, Kashmiri Faluda, Blueberry juice and peach and apricot juices with Chia seeds which are all healthy for the system, says Irfan, who adds that they are selling such juices at just twenty rupees. Irfan, who runs a chain of fruit juice centres across the city says: for Ramzan I generally open a stall to serve people.
The study appears in the journal Aging and Mechanisms of Disease.

Washington: Cannabis has long been accused of affecting memory and thinking ability, but now, a team of researchers has found that it may actually help with the effects of brain ageing.

Salk Institute scientists found preliminary evidence that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and other compounds found in marijuana can promote the cellular removal of amyloid beta, a toxic protein associated with Alzheimer's disease.

While these exploratory studies were conducted in neurons grown in the laboratory, they may offer insight into the role of inflammation in Alzheimer's disease and could provide clues to developing novel therapeutics for the disorder.

"Although other studies have offered evidence that cannabinoids might be neuroprotective against the symptoms of Alzheimer's, we believe our study is the first to demonstrate that cannabinoids affect both inflammation and amyloid beta accumulation in nerve cells," said senior author David Schubert.

The researchers found that high levels of amyloid beta were associated with cellular inflammation and higher rates of neuron death. They demonstrated that exposing the cells to THC reduced amyloid beta protein levels and eliminated the inflammatory response from the nerve cells caused by the protein, thereby allowing the nerve cells to survive.

Schubert emphasized that his team's findings were conducted in exploratory laboratory models and that the use of THC-like compounds as a therapy would need to be tested in clinical trials.

The study appears in the journal Aging and Mechanisms of Disease.
Photo taken on Jan. 29, 2016 shows the UK and EU flags outside the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. (Xinhua/Ye Pingfan)

LONDON, July 2 -- Large areas of central London were brought to a standstill Saturday as thousands of demonstrators converged on the capital to protest about the outcome of the EU referendum.

The peaceful march and rally came in the wake of a petition to parliament which by Saturday had exceeded 4 million signatures calling for a second referendum. It is estimated that around 40,000 people took part in the march.

With people waving pro-Europe banners, the "March for Europe" event took place even though the Leave camp won the June 23 referendum by 51.9 percent to 48.1 percent. One banner carried the message "Stay Calm but Remain...Outraged" while another had the message "We Love EU".

Starting from Park Lane in Central London, the procession stretched for more than three kilometers as it made its way towards Parliament Square, close to the seat of the British Parliament.

One of the organisers of the London march, Keiran MacDermott, said protesters want to stop the British government from triggering the mechanism that starts the EU withdrawal process, making a Brexit irreversible.

Stand-up comedian and satirist Mark Thomas said he helped organise the march to "address his anger, frustration and need to do something."

He said: "We would accept the result of the referendum if it was fought on a level playing field. But it was full of misinformation and people need to do something with their frustration."

With the House of Commons and Big Ben as a backdrop, speakers from different political parties heard pleas about the impact of the emerging "divorce" from the European Union.

Rock band icon Bob Geldorf, who famously helped raise millions of pounds for starving people in Africa with a desperate plea for help, was among the speakers Saturday.

He urged people "to take to the streets and speak to their neighbors" to stop Britain from leaving the EU.

Politicians and officials within the Palace of Westminster have already started laying the foundations for Britain's exit by establishing various working groups to discuss future moves in the long process.

In the referendum, London was out of step with the rest of England where the vast majority of people backed the Leave camp. Wales also was a strong supporter of Brexit, with both Scotland and Northern Ireland voting Remain. Around 60 percent of Londoners voted for remain.

Social media sites went into overdrive, with both sides engaged in verbal clashes. One person wrote: "I agree we have a democratic right to protest, but I don't see how 'March for Europe' is going to work. Leave won in a democratic vote."
The study was published in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease.

Washington: Holding 'walking meetings' at work instead of conventional seated ones just once a week may increase the physical activity levels of white-collar workers by 10 minutes, a new study has found.

The study suggests a possible new health promotion approach to improving the health of millions of white-collar workers who spend most of their workdays sitting in chairs.

"There are limited opportunities for physical activity at work. This walking meeting pilot study provides early evidence that white-collar workers find it feasible and acceptable to convert a traditional seated meeting into a walking meeting," said Alberto J Caban Martinez, assistant professor at the University of Miami (UM) Miller School of Medicine.

"Physical activity interventions such as the walking meeting protocol that encourage walking and raise levels of physical activity in the workplace are needed to counter the negative health effects of sedentary behaviour," Caban-Martinez said.

Participants in the study, who were white-collar workers, wore accelerometers to measure physical activity levels during the workday over a three-week period.

They also followed a "walking meeting protocol" that included guidance for leading meetings and taking notes while walking.

The average combined moderate/vigorous physical activity reported by participants increased from 107 minutes in the first week to 114 minutes in the second week and to 117 minutes in week three of the study.

"Having sedentary white-collar workers consider walking meetings feasible suggests that this intervention has the potential to positively influence the health of many individuals," said Hannah Kling, a graduate of UM's Department of Public Health Sciences.

Previous studies have proven that engaging in moderate exercise, which includes brisk walking, for as little as 15 minutes per day can add up to three years of life expectancy.

The study was published in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease.
Archaeologists made the find during excavations at a Buddhist temple in Nanjing China in 2010.

Washington: A team of archaeologists may have attained enlightenment inside a 1,000-year-old Chinese chest.

Researchers believe that a chunk of skull, mixed with a collection of remains of Buddhist saints, which were uncovered within the gold chest, belonged to Siddhartha Gautama.

Archaeologists made the find during excavations at a Buddhist temple in Nanjing China in 2010. When they opened a stone chest in a crypt underneath the temple, they found an ornate shrine called a stupa, used for meditation.

Live Science described the shrine that contains the bone inside as a 117 cm tall and 45 cm wide box made from sandalwood, gold and is covered with gemstones made of crystal, glass, agate and lapis lazuli. This was stored within an iron box, which, in turn, was stored within a stone chest.

The bones were found within a tiny gold chest less than 8 cm tall, which itself was stored in a larger silver casket 20 cm tall. This casket was locked within the stupa, before the entire nest of boxes was stored safely within the stone chest.

Inscriptions carved into the protective stone chest tell the story of how Buddha's skull bone came to lie within. The inscriptions indicated that it was constructed during the time of Emperor Zhenzong of the Song Dynasty, 997-1022 A.D.

The names of the people who donated money and material for the construction of the model and those who were involved in the construction are also inscribed on the stupa.

According to the archaeologists, while the inscriptions say that the skull belonged to the Buddha, it was not confirmed whether the bone really belonged to him.

An inscription on the stone chest, which was written by a man named Deming 1,000 years ago, indicated that after the Buddha died his body was cremated at the Hirannavati River, before the ruling king divided the remains into thousands of portions, 19 of which found their way to China.

The study appears in the journal of Chinese Cultural Relics.
The motive of the killing was being investigated, police said.

TIRUNELVELI: The Swathi murder suspect, who slit his throat when the police nabbed him at his residence near Shengottai in Tirunelveli district would be unable to respond to police enquiry for two days, according to Dr Sithy Athiya Munavarah, dean of Tirunelveli medical college hospital (TVMCH), where a surgery was performed on the suspect.

Ramkumar (22) son of Paramasivam of Meenakshipuam, Thenpothai panchayat near Shengottai, sensing the arrival of the police to arrest him on Friday mid-night, was reported to have attempted to commit suicide by slitting his throat using a blade.

However caught by the Shengottai police, who immediately rushed him to a private hospital and later to Tenkasi government hospital, where he was given first aid.

Later at around 1.40 am on Saturday Ramkumar was bought to Tirunelveli medical college hospital, where he was performed a surgery by a doctors team headed by ENT specialist, Dr Suresh Kumar.

After the operation that went on for about 40 minutes, according to the doctors, Ramkumar was kept at the post-operative care unit from where he was shifted to intensive surgical care unit on Saturday morning.

According to TVMCH dean, Dr Sithy Athiya Munavarah, the injury with a 7 cm long cut with a depth of 3 cm in the neck has not damaged the nerves. The hospital dean added that any patient after such operation would be kept under observation for seven days.
CHENNAI: The data of tower dump and cloned mobile technology put to use by police helped triangulate the suspect in Swathis murder. The police were in possession of the tower dump, which had a total of 6 lakh mobile numbers having access to Nungambakkam telecom circle.

The circle has about 10 mobile phone towers of different service providers, between 6.30 am and 7 am, on the day of murder. The police managed to narrow down to 30 suspect mobile numbers which further were narrowed down to five suspects.
On Saturday morning, when her mother sent her to Rajeshs house to collect the money, he took her inside and assaulted her sexually, Petbasheerabad inspector D.V. Ranga Reddy said. (Representational image)

Hyderabad: A Class III student was allegedly sexually assaulted by her neighbour in Petbasheerabad on Saturday. Police said Rajesh Kumar assaulted the child when she went to his house to collect some money that he was due for kirana items.

Police said Kumar 26, who works for a private company, is the victims neighbour in Bhagyalaxmi Colony. Rajesh had to give Rs 6,000 to the shop run by the family of the victim.

On Saturday morning, when her mother sent her to Rajeshs house to collect the money, he took her inside and assaulted her sexually, Petbasheerabad inspector D.V. Ranga Reddy said.
Hyderabad: Troubled by the alleged harassment of his brother, a 22-year-old man attacked his brother at Kavadiguda on Saturday.

Police said Shekhar slit Shravan's throat with a knife to kill him, but Shravan escaped with injuries.

Shravan Yadav, 24, a trolley driver from Kavadiguda is an accused in many cases and has a rowdy sheet against him at Gandhinagar police station.

Shekhar and his brother are staying with their mother and grandmother

Shravan is an alcohol addict and is known for creating nuisance in the locality.

His brother Shekhar Yadav also owns a trolley. Shravan used to flee with Shekhars vehicle and damage it by breaking its windshield and other parts.

Fifteen days ago, while driving after drinking alcohol, he hit a person and injured him seriously, and a case was registered in Musheerabad police station.

Police said that due to his rude behaviour he was not allowed into home since a week. This made him angry and he decided to attack Shekhar.

On Friday afternoon, while Shekhar was waiting by the roadside he quarrelled with him and both fought. Passersby who saw them pacified the two. Shekhar returned home. Soon Sravan also came home heavily drunk and picked up a quarrel.

When Shravan tried to attack Shekhar he took a knife and slit his throat, Gandhinagar SI Raghuramudu said.

Shravan collapsed in a pool of blood and Shekhar fled. Neighbours rushed Shravan to hospital where he is out of danger now.

Police found that Shravan got married two years ago but his wife had left unable to bear his harassment. Police registered a case of causing injury.
MADURAI: A 30-year-woman from Madurai who was allegedly tortured by her employer in Oman, managed to return home, thanks to the intervention of a voluntary organisation. S. Mekala from Jaihindpuram was admitted at the Government Rajaji Hospital on Friday as she is suffering from mental stress and physical pain. I am unable to sleep as I recall the suffering I faced at the hands of my employer, said Mekala showing her hands, which have several burn marks.

The employer, who allegedly purchased her from an agent in Oman, forced Mekala to work nearly 20 hours a day. If he found me resting for a few minutes, he would brand me with an iron rod, said Mekala. Mekala decided to work as a domestic in Oman when Babu John, who had worked with her in a papad manufacturing unit, promised a monthly salary of Rs 30,000.

I paid Rs 60,000 to an agent Abdulla from Kumbakonam, she said. Enroute to Dubai, In Delhi, another agent made us to stay in a small room in a hotel for 11 days without proper food, but we are left with no other option, she said. After she landed in Dubai, local agents took her to their office. Only then did I realize that the agents sell Indian women to employers in Dubai. I saw women forced to sit in an open area and employers taking away a woman of their choice after paying money, she claimed. Mekala was even shocked to find women, who refused to work in an employers house, were subjected to physical and sexual torture.

Unable to withstand the torture, Mekala informed her mother over phone who filed a complaint with the district collector and later filed a habeas corpus petition at the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court seeking the rescue of her daughter.
The damaged BMW car driven by Siddharth Maharia, son of Rajasthans MLA Nand Kishore Maharia, that hit an autorickshaw and a police van in Jaipur. (Photo: PTI)

Jaipur: Three people were killed and several others, including four police officers, were injured when a speeding BMW car rammed into an autorickshaw and a police van near St Xaviers School in Jaipur on Friday night.

Police said the car was driven by Siddharth Maharia, son of Sikar MLA Nand Kishore Maharia. The incident took place at around 1.50 am, when Siddharth along with his cousin Jayant were going to their house in Jalupura in a BMW 520d Sedan.

The speeding car collided with an auto rickshaw, killing three people on the spot and injuring one, before ramming into a PCR van of the Ashok Nagar police station. Both have been detained.

He first hit an autorickshaw and then a PCR van, police said, adding under the impact of the crash, the three-wheeler fell about 200 feet away from the site.

Four police officers were also injured in the accident.
Hyderabad: The police on Sunday arrested a man, who had been released from prison on Friday, for raping and killing a 10-year-old girl in Bolarum on Saturday. He had been convicted to one-year rigorous imprisonment for an attempt to murder a sex worker.

Chintaginja Anil, 28, had come to the Alwal toddy compound on Saturday evening, where the victim, a Class III student, had been brought by her parents. While her parents were drinking, Anil struck up a conversation with the girl and took her to a nearby shop and purchased toffees for her

Later he took her to an isolated place behind the EME headquarters and raped her. He then throttled her and crushed her face with a boulder before disposing of the body on the railway tracks to make it look like an accident.

CCTV footage showed him sitting with the girl at the toddy compound, police said. The victim was the second daughter of her parents, who hail from Kalasiguda.
An inquiry revealed that the victims parents had taken her to the toddy compound at Alwal. (Representational image)

Hyderabad: The mother of the 10-year-old girl who was raped by a convict who was released on Friday, said that at about 4.30 pm her daughter had taken Rs 10 from her and gone to a nearby store to purchase a notebook, where Anil was sitting. He purchased toffees for her and played with her for a few minutes. I saw him but did not object as he was just playing. Later, he took her aside and disappeared. We searched for her and filed a complaint at night, she said. At around 1 am, Army personnel found the girls body on the tracks and alerted the Bolarum police.

An inquiry revealed that the victims parents had taken her to the toddy compound at Alwal. While both of them were drinking toddy, Anil called the girl and started talking with her, which the parents ignored.

He took her with him and after purchasing toffee for her, took her to an isolated place, raped and throttled her and then smashed her head with a stone. He then disposed of the body on the railway tracks to make it an accident. He was heavily drunk and collapsed near the track when police found him, said North Zone DCP B. Sumathi.

Sources said that Anil told the police that three more people were involved. He told cops that after crushing her face, he continued assaulting her for more than an hour.

We are checking if more people are involved. Based on the investigation we will proceed, Ms Sumathi added.

A case of kidnap, rape and murder and under the SC/ST Atrocities Act and under the POCSO Act has been registered. Police is yet to confirm the arrest officially.

Tension in Bolarum police station area

Tension gripped the Bolarum police station area with the girls relatives and Kalasiguda residents demanding action against the accused. Rights activists demanded capital punishment for the accused.

The AP Balala Hakkula Sangham demanded a compensation of Rs 25 lakh to the victims family and called for a bandh of educational institutions.

One of the girl's neighbours said she was more than a daughter to her as she used to come to her home every day and stay till her parents returned from work. Though I was not related to her she called me Peddamma. He should be immediately hanged, she said.

Activists said the police failed to reform the accused who was a habitual criminal. "Had the police kept a watch on him after his release from prison, the girl would have been alive, student activist Krishank Manne said.

Another resident said that despite SHE teams, there is much to be done to protect girls and women. The Balala Hakkula Sangham held the government responsible for the incident.
HANOI, July 3 -- A private mini-submarine made by a Vietnamese mechanic went on its first sea trial on Sunday, local media reported.

At around 8:00 a.m. local time on Sunday (01:00 GMT), the mini-submarine started undergoing its first sea trial in Vietnam's northeastern waters. The submarine was escorted by Vietnamese naval ship, reported local Tien Phong (Pioneer) online newspaper.

An evaluation council of Vietnam's Ministry of Defense (MoD) will carry out quality evaluation while the submarine is continuously diving and floating for hours.

Nguyen Quoc Hoa, the one who performed the mini-submarine production, said on Tien Phong that prior to the sea trial, his product must pass around ten times of trial in pools and then in lakes. It also passed two-day exams of floating, diving, running in circles, moving backwards and handling collisions while diving hosted by the MoD.

Hoa, a director of an engineering company in Vietnam's northern Thai Binh province, some 110 km southeast from capital Hanoi, started to produce a mini-submarine in 2014.

One year later, Hoa and his engineers studied to produce a second mini submarine, which is supposed to be in smaller size and have more functions than the first one.

According to Hoa's design, the submarine is made of steel and weighs about nine tons. It is able to operate at a maximum depth of 50 meters at a maximum speed of 15 nautical miles per hour. It can dive for three days and three nights with two people on board.
In its counter affidavit, the state government said that the probe agency had followed the law in chargesheeting these six persons.

New Delhi: The Gujarat government has opposed in the Supreme Court a plea by six persons, acquitted by the apex court in the 2002 Akshardham terror attack case, seeking compensation for their 'wrongful' arrest, saying it would have a "serious demoralising effect" on the investigating agencies.

It said that since the trial court as well as the Gujarat High Court had convicted these persons for their alleged roles in the terror attack that had claimed 32 lives, the issue of "curtailment" of their personal liberty, which they are claiming, cannot be accepted.

On May 16, 2014, the Supreme Court had acquitted the six persons, including the three condemned prisoners, in the case, saying, "The story of the prosecution crumbles down at every juncture."

In its counter affidavit, the state government said that the probe agency had followed the law in chargesheeting these six persons, who were convicted by the designated POTA court, and their conviction was subsequently confirmed by the high court.

"When two courts having jurisdiction have appreciated the evidence collected against the petitioners and have recorded a judicial finding holding the petitioners to be guilty of the offences charged, the curtailment of the petitioners' personal liberty cannot be said to be accepted in accordance with law," the affidavit said.

It said, "Even after the functioning of the statutory authority conducting investigation being examined and accepted by two competent hierarchal courts if this court were to grant any relief it would have a serious demoralising effect on the investigating agencies throughout the country who would remain under threat investigating a situation in which in spite of their investigation being accepted by two courts they are held liable only on account of this court taking a different view of the evidence collected by them."

It said that such an eventuality would be "against public interest and interest of the nation".
Hyderabad: In a major setback to the AP government, the Union Finance Ministry has said it will release only Rs 5,000 crore under outstanding arrears of revenue deficit for financial year 2014-15 against the state's claim of Rs 13,776 crore.

For the construction of the capital city, the Centre plans to give another Rs 350 crore. AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and others met Union finance minister Arun Jaitley and officials of his department and discussed financial assistance to the state.

The government told Union finance ministry officials that the revenue deficit in 2014-15 was Rs 16,079 crore and the Centre had released Rs 2,303 crore. It asked the Centre to release Rs 13,776 crore under outstanding arrears of revenue deficit.

According to sources, Union finance ministry officials said they would not give any funds to the new schemes introduced by the state government.

In the Rs 16,079-crore revenue deficit, the AP government included funds given under waiver of farm loans, the amount enhanced for social security pensions and power subsidy to industries and assistance to discoms and incentives for industrial promotion.

Finance ministry officials said that as per its calculations the revenue deficit in 2014-15 was about Rs 7,303 crore and it had released Rs 2,303 crore. It said that to cover the revenue deficit, the Centre would give another Rs 5,000 crore but in phases.

On funds towards the construction of capital city, the Union Finance Ministry officials said the Centre had decided pay Rs 2,500 core. So far, the Centre has released Rs 2,050 crore, and the remaining would be released in due course.

State government officials told the finance ministry that the Centre has released only Rs 1,050 crore for the construction of capital city and another Rs 1,000 crore was released to Vijayawada and Guntur for creating infrastructure.

Earlier, the Centre had released Rs 1,500 crore, of which Rs 500 crore was for construction of government buildings such as Assembly, High Court, Raj Bhavan and others and another Rs 1,000 crore for creating infrastructure in the capital city area, finance department officials said.

When state government officials asked about release of Rs 350 crore under backward areas development scheme for seven districts in the state, Union finance ministry officials said they have given Rs 700 crore under this scheme in the last two years, but the state government did not send an action plan for spending these funds; it did not also submit utilisation certificates. They said after submission of action plan and utilisation certificates they will release Rs 350 crore in the current year.
The BJP MLA said he will next week meet Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on the issue. (Photo: File)

Hyderabad: Telangana BJP MLA T Raja Singh on Sunday demanded immediate arrest of MIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi for announcing that his party will provide legal help to five city-based youths arrested by NIA on charges of involvement in an alleged ISIS terror module.

Alleging that the ruling TRS government in Telangana supports Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM), which in turn supports terrorists, the MLA from Goshamahal seat in Hyderabad also demanded the Centre to derecognise the MIM party.

"On one hand Prime Minister Narendra Modi is touring the world to gather support to combat terror, which is a good initiative, but on the other hand, TRS government in Telangana is friends with MIM, which in turn, has friendship with terrorists," he claimed at a press conference in Hyderabad.

Singh, known for his controversial statements who had also earlier been booked for alleged hate speeches, further claimed that the Telangana Police is "sleeping", and asserted that the 'cordon and search' operation conducted by Hyderabad police is done only in the areas as directed by MIM.

The NIA averted major "attack" not only in Telangana but in the country by arresting the five persons which the agency did only after thorough investigation, he said, adding:

"I congratulate the NIA officers."

"The revelations of the arrested accused to carry out terror attacks on religious places among others is shocking.

The conspiracy has been foiled. But, Asaduddin Owaisi talks of providing legal aid to five IS suspects arrested by the NIA," Singh said and asked Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao will it be good to support MIM under such circumstances.

Owaisi on Friday said his party would provide legal help to the five youths arrested by the NIA on charges of involvement in an alleged ISIS terror module, but asserted his party does not support terrorism.

Noting that the family members of the arrested youths met him and claimed they are innocent, the Hyderabad Lok Sabha MP had said he directed a senior advocate to provide legal help to them.

Meanwhile, Singh claimed "earlier also, maximum number of terror suspects were arrested from Old City and they all have been helped financially and in other ways by MIM.

He sought to know why the TRS government was not initiating any action against them and claimed that the TRS indulged in 'vote bank politics' and, hence, was not taking any action against them.

"Think over it... I request the chief minister to ban MIM party and book sedition case against Asaduddin and arrest him immediately. This is the time to initiate action," he said.

The BJP MLA said he will next week meet Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and give him in writing all information he has on the "terrorist activities going on in Telangana".
New Delhi: Tarishi Jain, an 18-year-old Indian girl studying at the University of California at Berkeley in the US, was among the victims hacked to death in the carnage at a Dhaka restaurant where 20 people, including Italians, Japanese and South Koreans, were slaughtered by terrorists.

Read: Bangladesh terror attack: Hostages asked to recite verses from Quran

Her father, Sanjeev Jain, runs a garment business in Bangladesh. An Indian doctor, Satyapal, who was among the hostages, escaped death and was released by the terrorists along with some Bangladeshi hostages since he spoke Bengali and the terrorists mistook him for a Bangladeshi, Indian government sources said.

Read: Bangladesh terrorists separated foreigners from locals, 1 captured alive

India mourns Tarishis death

Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to his Bangladesh counterpart, Sheikh Hasina, following the terror attack. New Delhi is worried about the rampant attacks on minorities and foreigners in Bangladesh continuing despite a crackdown by the government there.

Read: Dhaka restaurant carnage: Elite cafe turns into killzone

Tarishis Facebook account reveals a happy and vivacious teenager who was fond of music and a Justin Timberlake fan besides being a volleyball player. She had completed her schooling from the American School, Dhaka, before going on to study at Berkeley.

The Indian government has arranged visas for Tarishis family members to fly to Dhaka on Sunday. The attack in Dhaka has pained us beyond words. I spoke to PM Sheikh Hasina and strongly condemned the despicable attack, Prime Minister Modi said.

Read: 20 killed, 6 ISIS terrorists shot dead in Bangladesh hostage crisis

India stands firmly with our sisters & brothers of Bangladesh in this hour of grief. My thoughts are with the bereaved families. I pray that those who are injured recover quickly, Mr Modi tweeted.

Read: Three US university students killed in Bangladesh attack

External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj said, I have spoken to her father, Mr Sanjeev Jain, and conveyed our deepest condolences. After the brutal murder of yet another Hindu priest in Bangladesh on Friday, India had said it was looking at the problem with utmost seriousness.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi adopted the village Jayapur whose head has been arrested. (Photo: PTI)

Varanasi: The head of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's adopted village Jayapur was arrested along with his son and nephew for allegedly beating up an RTI activist for complaining about alleged misuse of funds.

Village head Narayan Patel, his son Rahul and nephew Mukesh were arrested on Friday for beating up RTI activist Ashok Singh and others and produced before a magistrate who remanded them in judicial custody, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Akash Kulhary said.

Singh had complained that on May 27, the trio thrashed him and few others after a district administration team visited the village that day to probe a complaint of misuse of funds made by him, Circle Officer (Sadar) Ram Sevak Yadav said.

On the basis of Singh's complaint, an FIR was registered under relevant sections of IPC including 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means), 308 (attempt to commit culpable homicide), he said.

The family members of Patel, however, have termed the incident as a case of political vendetta and alleged that people from the ruling Samajwadi Party were behind the trio's arrest.

Local BJP leaders also came in support of the village head.

BJP Kashi region president Laxman Acharya said the party had objected to the arrest of the village head, his son and nephew and demanded the police conduct a fair and unbiased probe.

Acharya, an MLC from Varanasi, said the party would ensure Patel gets justice.
Hyderabad: It is learnt that Chief Justice of India Justice T.S. Thakur on Saturday took stock of the situation during his meeting with Acting Chief Justice Dilip B. Bhosale of the Hyderabad High Court vis-a-vis the agitation by advocates and subordinate judicial officers of Telangana.

Telangana advocates started their agitation on June 6 demanding bifurcation of the High Court at Hyderabad between the states of AP and Telangana and also the recall of the list of provisional allocation of subordinate judicial officers between both states published by the HC on May 3. The subordinate judicial officers joined in the stir by taking out a silent rally last Sunday.

CJI takes stock, will meet advocates today

The advocates and subordinate judicial officers of TS have also decided to go on mass leave following the suspension of 11 of their colleagues; they will be on leave till the suspensions are revoked and the provisional allocation list is recalled.

The CJI is said to have asked the ACJ to meet him in Delhi to review the situation and take steps to resolve it. Sources close to the intelligence department revealed that Justice Bhosale, after apprising the CJI of the situation in the state as well as at the High Court, left for Mumbai.

After his meeting with the CJI, Justice Bhosale also met Supreme Court Justices J.S. Khehar, Anil R Dave and Ashok Bhushan, intelligence sources said.

The CJI will meet the delegation of the Telangana High Court Advocates Association on Sunday at his residence in Delhi as the CJI's Secretariat had already given the appointment to the delegation.
NIA officials found the five suspects had stayed at a lodge in Ananthapur a few months ago. (Representational image)

Hyderabad: The five men linked to the ISIS who were arrested by the NIA were interrogated one-to-one at a secret location in Shamirpet on Saturday. The NIA sleuths were trying to extract information on whether more explosives have been hidden by the suspects in the city. The source of their funds is also being probed.

The suspects will be taken to Nanded, from where they are suspected to have procured arms, for scene reconstruction and then to other places on Sunday, NIA sources said.

NIA officials found the five suspects had stayed at a lodge in Ananthapur a few months ago. They are now trying to find if they had procured explosives from there.

The NIA had told the court on Friday that the suspects have to be taken to Rajasthan and Maharashtra among other places. During the 12-day custody, NIA would take them to Rajasthan, from where another ISIS sympathiser and a Karnataka resident were arrested.

Intelligence sources said NIA could not extract much information on Wednesday as the suspects were not revealing details. NIA suspects that more explosives are hidden in Hyderabad and that some people assisted the five arrested men.

NIA officials are also extracting information from the electronic gadgets seized from the suspects. Some gadgets are password protected, said a senior official.

Ten NIA teams including one from Kerala and Delhi are participating in the investigation.
The Minister also thanked the Indian envoy in Abuja for repatriation of 11 Indians, who were released after languishing in a Nigerian jail for two years. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: India is making all efforts tosecure the release of two Indians abducted from Gboko, a town in the Benue state of north-central Nigeria, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Sunday.

The Minister also thanked the Indian envoy in Abuja for repatriation of 11 Indians, who were released after languishing in a Nigerian jail for two years.

"I appreciate the efforts of our High Commissioner in Nigeria Shri BN Reddy for expediting their repatriation," Swaraj tweeted.

Employees of a Merchant Navy firm, the crew's ship got stranded in Nigeria and the entire crew was arrested for violating laws of international waters in 2014.

Meanwhile, Swaraj said all efforts were being made to secure the release of the two Indians abducted in Nigeria.

The duo -- Mangipudi Sai Srinivas (from Andhra Pradesh) and his colleague Anish Sharma (from Karnataka)  were travelling to Dangote Cement Plc Plant in a car from their residential quarters around 7.20 pm last Wednesday when a group of armed men kidnapped them at a traffic signal.

"I spoke to Anish Sharma's wife this morning. I assured her that we are doing our best to secure Anish and Srinivas's release from abductors in Nigeria," Swaraj said.

"I have deputed a senior officer to update the family regularly," she tweeted.

External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup had on Friday described the abduction as "nothing surprising or new in that area", saying such incidents keep happening there.

Asserting that there has been no ransom demand so far, the Spokesperson had said, "As far as our information goes there is no hand of terror group Boko Haram and it seems local criminal elements were responsible for the act."
Kolkata: Condemning the terror attack in Bangladesh capital, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today called for a united fight against terrorism for the sake of humanity.

She expressed her condolences to the families of the deceased in the terror attack.

"Condolences to families of those who lost lives in Bdesh. We r with u. We pray for peace/harmony in holy month of Ramzaan. We condemn terror," Ms Banerjee wrote on Twitter.

"Terrorism has no boundaries. Terrorism has no religion. So let us fight and defeat the inhuman terrorists together, so humanity wins," she tweeted.

Twenty foreigners, including an Indian teenaged girl, were hacked to death by suspected ISIS terrorists inside a popular cafe in the diplomatic zone in Dhaka in the worst terror attack in Bangladesh before commandos launched an assault today killing six attackers and capturing one alive.
AAP MLA Naresh Yadav has been booked for allegedly trying to incite riots in Punjab following a recent case of alleged 'desecration' of the Quran. (Photo: Twitter)

New Delhi: With Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Naresh Yadav booked for trying to incite riots in Punjab following a recent case of alleged 'desecration' of the Quran, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today demanded a thorough investigation into the matter and said it clearly reveals the fact that the Arvind Kejriwal-led party has been playing with the sentiments of the people.

BJP leader Zafar Islam said this is a very serious issue as it is connected to religion.

"Kejriwal and his party stand exposed. They have set an example of how they are going to play with the people's sentiments and religion," Islam told ANI here.

"The way Naresh Yadav has got this thing done through the power of money it feels that he might be a target (mohra). The whole thing is somewhere connected with Kejriwal. Proper investigation must be done. Police must do a thorough investigation on Kejriwal and all of its party leaders, as they show as to how low they can go in the name of politics," he added.

Yadav earlier today downplayed the allegations levelled against him and said that the 'restless' SAD-BJP alliance in Punjab was hatching conspiracies.

Yadav told ANI that the alliance has become restless as the people of Punjab have decided to give absolute majority to the AAP in the upcoming assembly elections.

The fresh charges against the AAP MLA came as a major blow to the party, which is gearing for the 2017 polls in the state.

The Sangrur Police booked Yadav after the alleged mastermind in the case, Vijay Kumar, disclosed that he had desecrated the Quran at the behest of the Mehrauli MLA and was offered Rs. one crore for the same.
DU'AN, July 2, 2016 -- People attend a feast celebrating the Danu Festival in the Chihua Village of Daxing Township of Du'an Yao Autonomous County, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, July 2, 2016. The Danu Festival is the biggest traditional festival among Yao people which involves dancing, sporting events, and commerce. Every year on the 29th day of the fifth Chinese lunar month, the Yao people will get together and celebrate their own festival. (Xinhua/Lu Boan)
The damaged BMW car driven by Siddhart Maharia ( inset) son of Rajasthan's MLA Nandkishore Maharia hit an autorickshaw and Police PCR van in Jaipur on Friday late night (Photo: PTI)

Jaipur: Siddharth Maharia, son of Sikar MLA Nand Kishore Maharia, was arrested on Saturday by Rajasthan police after his BMW car rammed into an autorickshaw and a police van near St Xaviers School in Jaipur, killing three people and injuring several others.

The incident took place at around 1.50 am on Friday night when Siddharth along with his cousin Jayant were going to their house in Jalupura in a BMW 520d Sedan. Police said the car was driven by Siddharth Maharia, who was reportedly drunk during the accident.

The speeding car collided with an auto rickshaw, killing three people on the spot and injuring one, before ramming into a PCR van of the Ashok Nagar police station. Both have been detained.

He first hit an autorickshaw and then a PCR van, police said, adding under the impact of the crash, the three-wheeler fell about 200 feet away from the site.

Four police officers were also injured in the accident.
Former minister Jairam Rameshs book Old History, New Geography- Bifurcating Andhra Pradesh that was released recently is an insiders account of what led to the carving up of one of the biggest states in South India that was not divided on either religious or linguistic lines.

In conversation with Deccan Chronicle, Ramesh recalls his role in preparing the legislation for the bifurcation and the events that followed the bifurcation.

In the opening chapter of his book, Ramesh, writes, The wheel had turned a full circle in fifty-eight years, referring to the merger of Andhra and Telugu-speaking areas in 1956, drawing us back to the agitations that marked the years thereafter, until the Andhra Pradesh-Telangana bifurcation and the turmoil it created in the Indian political landscape, with the how Congress failed disastrously to make the numbers work in its former bastion, following the bifurcation.

When asked if this was a black mark against his party, Ramesh, responds, I would certainly not call it a black mark. As I have been at pains to describe in my book, there is a long historical context to bifurcation that cannot be ignored. There were also political factors with all parties, barring the CPI(M) clamouring for bifurcation.

In addition, there were social and economic reasons that kept the Telangana sentiment alive for many years. There were weighty reasons in favour of bifurcation just as there were weighty reasons against it. It was not a simple, open and shut case.

The bifurcation seemed rather unfair to the people of Andhra Pradesh with revenue generating capital, Hyderabad, staying put with Telangana.

We ask if it was a big blow to AP or both the states, and Ramesh, quickly replies, Hyderabad had to be with Telangana. It did not make much sense declaring it as a UT. Its geographical position vis-a-vis Telangana and Andhra Pradesh was not the same as Chandigarh's position in relation to Punjab and Haryana. Hyderabad is at the very core of Telangana. Having said that let me also say that the development of undivided Andhra Pradesh was excessively Hyderabad-centric and bifurcation opens up vast new opportunities for places like Vizag, Guntur, Vijayawada, Tiruparti, Kurnool and others to take off, something that could not happen earlier because of the dominating position of Hyderabad.

He also stressed: The special category status for five years for Andhra Pradesh was announced by Dr. Manmohan Singh on February 20, 2014 as a way of compensating Andhra Pradesh for the loss of Hyderabad revenues.

Such announcements steer the conversation towards electoral benefits the Congress enjoyed with this bifurcation. Ramesh says the move proved counter-productive.

Not in the least did the bifurcation benefit Congress. It proved singularly disastrous. The Congress was wiped out in Andhra Pradesh and got just 26% of the popular vote in Telangana. It was a spectacular suicide, but in the long-run bifurcation will have positive economic and social impacts on both states.

Speaking of the Congress, he is reminded of the communal politics in both the new states, and says, Politics continues to be confrontational and all the three regional parties (TRS, TDP and YSRCP) are looking to keeping disputes alive or create new points of acrimony. ?Both the ruling parties indulge in competitive showmanship.

As we near the end of the conversation, we cannot wrap up without asking Ramesh what he thinks of Rahul as the next face of Congress and what the future of Congress holds.

Without mincing many words, he concludes, Rahul must take over soon and reinvent and reinvigorate the Congress. We cannot wait for anti-incumbency cycle to begin and only a gigantic collective endeavour will bring us back to the central position in Indian politics. Also, the future of India is bleak if the Congress is not strong. India needs a vibrant Congress, a reformed Congress, a restructured Congress, a Congress sensitive to changing aspirations, circumstances and challenges, a Congress leadership that is communicating with the people proactively.
Hyderabad: The Federation of Bar Associations on Friday decided to continue its agitation till the High Court was bifurcated between AP and TS, the provisional list of subordinate judicial officers is withdrawn and the suspension of judicial staff revoked.

Federation president M. Jitender Reddy said that as part of their agitation, protest programmes will be held on July 4 at Ambedkar statues across the state, religious prayers would be organised on July 5 and on July 7 a jail bharo would be organised across TS.

He urged advocates not to believe in rumours spread by vested interests that the federation had withdrawn its struggle. He said that a signature campaign would be organised in support of their demands on July 8.

The BJP Telangana Legal Cell has also called for a state-level dharna at Indira Park here on July 5, demanding immediate revocation of the suspension of judicial staff.

The Telangana Advocates Joint Action Committee held a silent protest at the Gun Park in the city demanding resolution of the demands of the advocates and judicial officers. Several retired subordinate judicial officers also participated in the protest. TAJAC co-convener T. Sriranga Rao alleged before the media at the Gun Park that the High Court was responsible for the present situation.
Telangana advocates protest in front of Hyderabad High Court against the suspension of two judges for taking out a rally over what they called injustice done to Telangana state in splitting of judges. (Photo: DC)

Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and Union labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya separately met Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan at the Raj Bhavan on Saturday and requested him to take immediate steps for bifurcation of the High Court, withdrawal of postings of Andhra native judges in TS and cancellation of the suspension of 11 judges.

During his hour-long meeting, the Chief Minister requested Mr Narasimhan to take to steps to end the impasse. Statements of AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and his Cabinet colleagues on non-allocation of funds for the High Court and contradiction by BJP leaders also came up for discussions, it is learnt.

Mr Dattatreya also met the Governor on behalf of the Central government.

I requested the Governor to speed up bifurcation of the High Court, lift suspension of judges and withdrawal of postings of new judges to TS. The Governor promised to discuss the issues with the Chief Justice, Mr Dattatreya said.

Sources said that Mr Narasimhan would also take up the matter with Mr Naidu and go to New Delhi to meet the Union home and law ministers. Mr Naidu, who returned from his China tour, had made it clear he was also in favour of a separate HC for AP.

There has been a flurry of activities in New Delhi and Hyderabad after T-advocates and judges struck work. Union law minister Sadananda Gowda, as promised to state leaders, spoke to the Governor and asked him to take steps in consultations with the CMs of both the states.

Earlier in the day, acting Chief Justice of the Hyderabad High Court, Justice Dilip B. Bhosale met Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur in New Delhi and discussed the issues. A decision is expected on suspension of judges and other issues.

Convene meeting of Telangana and AP CMs, says Bar Council

The Bar Council has requested Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan to convene a meeting of Chief Ministers of TS and AP to end the ongoing dispute over bifurcation of the High Court and allotment of judicial officers.

Bar Council chairman Narsimha Reddy wrote to Mr Narasimhan in this regard on Saturday. He brought the PIL that was filed in High Court on this issue to the notice of the Governor.

Disposing of the case, the High Court had directed the AP government to identify the location for a permanent High Court for the state, along with administrative and residential blocks.The HC pronounced the verdict on May 1, 2015 and the entire process of identifying the buildings was to have ended within six months.

Mr Reddy stated that violations were done in allotment of judicial officers. Under the circumstances, the options exercised by judicial officers from AP were contrary to the guidelines issued by the High Court, he said.
The suspects came to Hyderabad and other places on trains through the porous Bangladesh border.

Hyderabad: The IB reports that at least 70 to 90 trained militants of the Jamat Ul Mujahideen and other terror groups from Bangladesh and Afghanistan may have sneaked into Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Maharasthra is baffling the city police. However counter Intelligence denied the IB alert on Bangla ultras sneaking into the country.

After the terror attacks in Dhaka the alert has gained significance and several agencies are working to track down the ultras. A senior police official said, We dont know the exact number but there is an alert that militants have sneaked into the city and other parts of the country. Not only Bangladesh the alert also mentioned Afghanistan. We are trying to ascertain whether there is any ISIS link.

Sources in Intelligence agencies said the threat is that most of them were trained in terror in Bangladesh, Syria, Afghanistan and has now spread throughout the country to carry out attacks.

The suspects came to Hyderabad and other places on trains through the porous Bangladesh border. A police official said, Bangladeshis may be living in the city as Rohingya refugees. When we conducted cordon and search we found many illegal immigrants in Hafeezbabanagar, Asadbaba Nagar and Chandrayanagutta. However, some NGOs protested against the cordon and search saying that we are violating human rights.

The official said, We are going to focus on Bangladeshi illegals after Eid. This time we want to deport them to their country. Most Bangladeshis speak fluent Bengali and it is very difficult to identify them. They work in the gold industry in the old city.

The police had earlier arrested Bangladeshis linked to terror. In 2015 there was a crackdown on illegals A Bangladeshi suicide bomber of the Huji group was involved in bombing a police task force in 2005.
Tarishi had been hiding inside a toilet of the cafe with her two friends, Faraaz Ayaaz Hossain and Abinta Kabir. (Photo: Facebook)

Tarishi Jain, the 19-year-old girl who was killed in the terror attack on an upscale Bangladesh cafe on Saturday, called up her father Sanjiv Jain while trying to hide herself from the terrorists.

According to a report, she told her father that, Terrorists have entered the restaurant. I am very afraid and not sure whether I will be able to come out alive. They are killing everyone.

Tarishi had been hiding inside a toilet of the cafe with her two friends, Faraaz Ayaaz Hossain and Abinta Kabir.

Read: Bangladesh says gunmen behind restaurant killings local, some known

Sanjiv Jain had been waiting outside Gulshan Cafe ever since he got the news that armed men were on a killing spree inside. He was had been planning to bring his wife and two children to Firozabad in UP for a short holiday before Tarishi headed back to the US where she was an Economics undergraduate at the University of California.

The whole night, Sanjiv and several other families gathered outside the restaurant anxiously. But by the time the terrorists had been neutralised by Bangladeshi security forces, Tarishi was dead. She was the only Indian killed in the attack which left 20 dead.

Tarishis uncle Rakesh Mohan Jain also said that the family had waited the entire night to hear news of her safety.

Read: Bangladesh terror attack: Hostages asked to recite verses from Quran

Tarishi was in Bangladesh as she had received an internship with a bank through the Institute for South Asia Studies at her university.

Tarishis brother Sanchit had landed in Delhi from Canada a day earlier so that the family of four along with mother Tulika could all head to Firozabad for a family reunion. But it was not to be.

"We don't want her to be cremated in the land where she was brutally murdered. Terrorists killed her for being a Hindu," Sanjiv's younger brother Rakesh Mohan Jain was quoted as saying.
New Delhi: President Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday extended greetings to the US President Barack Obama on the eve of his country's Independence Day and said the recent high-level contacts between the two countries have brought them closer to realizing the true potential of a multi-faceted partnership



In his message to Obama, Mukherjee said it was a matter of satisfaction that the "close relations between India and the US are based on shared values of democracy, pluralism and rule of law and strengthened by our increasing convergence on bilateral, regional and global issues



"Over the years, we have built on our numerous synergies to achieve the common goals identified by us for the good of our two peoples and peace, progress and prosperity in the world."



He said the recent high-level interactions have helped enhance mutual understanding and brought the two countries closer to realizing the true potential of our multi-faceted partnership.



"I am confident that the positive outcomes of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modis recent visit to the US will contribute to the further strengthening of our strategic partnership," he said while extending greetings on behalf of India.
Family members of kidnapped engineer, M Sai Srinivas, met CM Chandrababu Naidu and submitted a representation for his early release in Vizag. (Photo: DC)

Visakhapatnam: The family members of civil engineer M. Sai Srinivas, who was kidnapped in Nigeria, are spending anxious moments in the city as there was no further communication on his whereabouts from the Ministry of External Affairs and Indian consulate in Nigeria, even though four days have passed since the abduction.

Though the Indian government has ruled out involvement of terror group in the kidnapping saying that local criminals were involved for a ransom, there has been no money demanded so far from the kidnappers.

On Saturday evening, Srinivas wife Srilalita met Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu in Vizag and appealed to him to take up the issue with the union government for early release of her husband.

Talking to newsmen, Srilalitha said Naidu has assured that he would talk to the Union minister for external affairs Sushma Swaraj and a few others to step up the efforts to trace Srinivas. Despite his busy schedule, Mr Naidu has given time for us, she added.

Ms Lalitha also mentioned that she would be in constant touch with Vizag MP K Haribabu, who is responsible for contacting Union minister Sushma Swaraj and Nigerian embassy officials.

Anakapalle MP M. Srinivasa Rao visited the house of the kidnapped Srinivas and consoled his family members.
KOZHIKODE: Indian Union Muslim League national secretary E.T. Mohammed Basheer MP said on Saturday that implementing the uniform civil code is against the Muslim personal law and that the issue would be taken up in Parliament. Discussions would be held with other Muslim organisations against the move. Recently, the central government had asked the Law Commission to examine the issues in implementing the uniform civil code, he said.

Addressing a press conference at League House, Mr Basheer said that the plan was communal and against the secular character of the country. All the religions in the country have the right to practise their religious culture. If women Muslim organisations have any complaint regarding the practice, their issues should be discussed, said Mr Basheer.

The BJP is carrying out its communal agenda one by one. This will be intensified due to the Uttar Pradesh elections. Already, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has announced the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya. They are campaigning that the people should vote for those who support the temple construction. Mr Amit Shahs theory that communal card will gain political mileage will destroy the values in the country, he said. There was no politics behind the murder of a man in Mankada after moral policing, he said and added that action would be taken against the accused if IUML workers were involved in the murder.
With Britains shock exit from the European Union (EU), the geopolitical map of the Continent is undergoing a dramatic change. While the United States is grieving over losing its closest partner and main interlocutor with the EU across the Atlantic, Germany has its inhibitions in assuming the leadership role, given its 20th century past. However, there is no option for Germany, the biggest and most dynamic economy, but to don the mantle of the leader. It was significant that after the first summit of EU held without Britain for more than 40 years, it was German Chancellor Angela Merkel who faced the press. The meeting was called informal because London has not yet activated the treaty article setting the two-year timeline for completing its departure.

Britains divorce is bound to be messy because the victorious leave side has not done its sums on the consequences of departure and it wants to remain in the single market without having to allow free movement of EU nationals. For Europeans, this is a no-go area. One thing is clear: the UKs role in Europe and the world will be diminished because although it will remain a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato), the salience of Germany and France will grow, if only because America must now rely on them to pursue its geopolitical goals in Europe.

But the central problem facing Europe, the US and the world is Germanys future role. One of the major attractions of the EU idea for her neighbours was to tie it down in a larger institution and it was the brilliance of German diplomacy and its impeccable post-World War II record that it succeeded in convincing the East in the shape of the then Soviet Union and West that a reunited Germany would work for the common good. As it happened, Germany developed a consensus at home on a pacifist role, despite American efforts to get German forces to play a

more muscular role.

Unwillingly or otherwise, Germany must assume the EU leadership at a testing time for the alliance and the world. Signs of nationalism are rearing their head, with the far-right feasting on concern over a seemingly endless flow of refugees from war-torn Syria and elsewhere. Second, the march of technology is making many workers with basic education redundant and the middle class is rebelling over stagnant wages and growing disparity  the rich getting richer. On the economic front, the German regimen of austerity in times of difficulty, which has served it so well, is deeply unpopular among many member states, particularly in the southern rim. Greece presents a salient case because the privations it must suffer for its past extravagance and irresponsibility are deeply unpopular and the hope is that Berlin will be forced to loosen the purse strings somewhat.

The ascendance of Germany is likely to have a major influence on Europes relationship with Russia because Washingtons lead in imposing sanctions on Moscow after its annexation of Crimea, egged on by the Baltic states and Poland, is unpopular among many EU members. Germany has been an important trading partner of Moscow and other members such as Italy are keen to resume trade ties. It is no secret that the socialist coalition partners of Ms Merkel are critical of continuing anti-Moscow sanctions. And Washington will no longer have Britain fighting for its cause in European councils.

Now that circumstances have pitch-forked Germany into the EU leadership role, what kind of transformation will take place in a country that has been at the heart of making war and peace on the Continent in preceding centuries? Ms Merkel has been a steady and popular leader but has met reverses over welcoming Syrian refugees, which have encouraged such parties as Alternative for Germany and other right-wing elements. She must damp down this challenge to retain her position at home. In fact, extreme right-wing parties have spread their wings in many EU member states, including France, the Netherlands and Spain. It would appear that after half a century and more of tasting the benefits of belonging to a common organisation, the shoots of nationalism are sprouting again, now being promoted in an exaggerated form in Hungary and Poland in particular.

Undoubtedly, in the foreign policy field there will be less of Russia-baiting because most EU members are interested in a more cooperative relationship. It remains to be seen how the calibration of this policy will affect Nato. Washington will push its agenda to strengthen anti-Russian moves at the organisations next summit meeting soon. But with Britain now sitting outside EU, most members enthusiasm, except for Poland and the Baltic states, will ebb. It must be recognised, however, that the EU is no longer the organisation it was, with booming markets and the gains of coming together leading to much optimism. The recession of 2008 did much to change the mood and as economic difficulties mounted, so did peoples grouses and the new attraction of nationalist jingoism. The new task of the national leadership across EU is to bring the political discourse back to the centre.

Indeed, this is a Herculean endeavour for Ms Merkel. Thus far she has sought to bring down the temperature on both sides of the pond. Brexiteers demand that they must remain in the single market while restricting the movement of EU nationals was met with invectives from the Continent. And there are any number of people in the remaining 27 EU members who are angry with the UK for this unprecedented step to vote to leave the group and want their revenge. Their anger has increased after Brexiteers said they were in no hurry to trigger the mechanism to get the clock ticking on their departure. Ms Merkels counsel has been that while Britain does not have eternity to start formal negotiations, it should be given some time to reorder priorities and the divorce need not

be nasty.
ANQING, July 2, 2016 -- Rescuers evacuate a little girl in Shouquan Village of Huaining County, east China's Anhui Province, July 2, 2016. Due to heavy rainfall, rescuers were sent to Shouquan Village to evacuate more than 60 villagers trapped in flood early Saturday morning. The National Meteorological Center (NMC) and the Ministry of Water Resources warned of high risks of mountain torrents in parts of Anhui, Hunan, Guizhou and Tibet from Friday evening to Saturday evening, suggesting residents take necessary precautions. (Xinhua/Wang Tianxiang)

ANQING, July 2, 2016 -- Rescuers evacuate a senior villager in Shouquan Village of Huaining County, east China's Anhui Province, July 2, 2016. Due to heavy rainfall, rescuers were sent to Shouquan Village to evacuate more than 60 villagers trapped in flood early Saturday morning. The National Meteorological Center (NMC) and the Ministry of Water Resources warned of high risks of mountain torrents in parts of Anhui, Hunan, Guizhou and Tibet from Friday evening to Saturday evening, suggesting residents take necessary precautions. (Xinhua/Chen Kaihang)

BEIJING, July 3 (Xinhua) -- China's meteorological authority on Sunday renewed its orange alert for heavy rain across much of the southern regions in the coming 24 hours.

Thunderstorms will hit the provinces of Hubei, Anhui, Jiangsu, Hunan, Jiangxi, Guizhou and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region from Sunday morning to Monday morning, with precipitation reaching up to 220 millimeters in some areas, the National Meteorological Center said on its website.

The center suggested people reduce outdoor activities and take precautions against possible floods and landslides.

China has a four-tier color-coded system for severe weather, with red being the most serious, followed by orange, yellow and blue.
Maurya kept pleading that he belonged to Ambedkar Nagar and had never even visited Mathura but the cops would not listen.

Lookalike trouble

Pramod Maurya, a farmer from Ambedkar Nagar, was in Varanasi on a pilgrimage. He had barely emerged from the waters after taking the holy dip in the Ganga at the Dashashwamedh Ghat when a group of policemen swooped down on him and whisked him away to an undisclosed destination. Maurya was shocked into silence and when he gathered his wits, he asked the cops why they had taken him into custody. What the cops told him shocked him further.

The cops told him that he looked exactly like Ram Vriksh Yadav, the main accused in the Mathura clashes. Since Yadavs lawyers had claimed that he was still alive, they had arrested him for verification. Maurya kept pleading that he belonged to Ambedkar Nagar and had never even visited Mathura but the cops would not listen. A police team was later sent to Mauryas house in Ambedkar Nagar to collect documents related to his identity. It took more than 30 hours before Maurya was allowed to go and the SSP confirmed that it was a case of mistaken identity.

America calling

When US undersecretary of state for political affairs Thomas Shannon met West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at Nabanna (the state secretariat) last week, he extended an invitation to her to visit Washington. This is the not the first time that Ms Banerjee had received an invitation to visit America. In May 2012, she was invited by no less than charismatic US secretary of state Hillary Clinton to visit the US. Later, US ambassador to India Nancy Powell met the chief minister not once but twice, and on both occasions invited her to the US.

Exactly a year ago, the US-India Business Council invited Ms Banerjee to visit the US to showcase West Bengal as an ideal investment destination. Ms Banerjee suddenly became extremely popular in the US in May 2011 after she dethroned 34-year-long Left Front government. Time magazine included her in its prestigious list of 100 most influential women of the world. In fact, Ms Clinton was so impressed by her meeting with the stormy petrel of Indian politics that even after her return to the US she praised her.

In her first tenure as Chief Minister, Ms Banerjee visited Bangladesh, Singapore and the UK. No one perhaps remembers that Ms Banerjee had once visited the US in 1998. In fact, she had visited the United Nations headquarters in New York donning her trademark cotton sari and rubbers chappals. Trinamul Congress leaders are waiting for the day when their Didi will break bread with the US President at the White House. The US, it seems, is waiting for Didi.

Killing many birds with one stone

Often criticised for allegedly hijacking all powers of the state BJP unit and getting his protege Basanta Panda elected as president of the Odisha BJP unit ostensibly to smoothen his path to become partys chief ministerial candidate in 2019 Assembly elections, Union petroleum and natural gas minister Dharmendra Pradhan was looking for an opportunity to counter the impression.

A crafty and shrewd politician as he is, Mr Pradhan got this opportunity at the recently-held BJP state executive meeting. He said: I and Jual bhai (Union tribal affairs minister Jual Oram) are small fries as far as the BJP Odisha unit is concerned. Basanta bhai (Basanta Panda) is our leader. If he asks us to do one hundred sit-ups, well immediately follow his instruction without any objections. Ours is a disciplined party.

Party leaders present in the meeting looked at Mr Orams face to know his reaction. Mr Oram and a few other veteran and experienced leaders have been sulking for quite some time now over their marginalisation in the partys organisational affairs. Leaders present in the meeting had no difficulty in understanding how Mr Pradhan was shooting more than two birds with one stone  assuaging Mr Orams feeling, holding his protege Basanta Panda in high esteem and sending a message across party workers that he is not as ambitious as they think.

Punjab ready for the fight

With Punjab in election mode, the political parties in the state are getting ready for the fight, in some cases quite literally. A case in point is a squabble in a TV studio between Akali legislators N.K. Sharma, who is also a chief parliamentary secretary, and Congress leader Gurvinder Singh Bali. The two leaders were together in the studio of a local channel to debate the appointment of Asha Kumari as in-charge of the Punjab Congress, who hs been convicted in a land grab case.

Mr Sharma, who is also a real estate baron, reportedly lost his cool when Mr Bali pointed that `1 crore is pending as electricity bill at a project of Mr Sharmas firm. Then Mr Bali also made general allegations of land-grab against Mr Sharma. The infuriated Mr Sharma punched Mr Bali and the two got involved in a scuffle and exchanged abuses. The two leaders were stopped by the anchor and others present in the studio. While the matter was hushed up, it came out as another panelist present spilled the beans. The channel later held the debate with the two leaders and it was telecast.

Rumours that divide

The worst phase for the Congress in Assam was said to be over with party losing Assembly elections, but suddenly the local media was flooded with news of a split within the Congress. With the demise of Assam Congress president Anjan Dutta, the responsibility of taking note of such developments has come on the shoulders of Congress Legislature Party leader Debabrata Saikia. Obviously Mr Saikia started consulting his MLAs to know their mood and all of them denied the media reports.

While Mr Saikia was trying to find out, a veteran Congress leader, Gautam Roy, whose wife and son also lost the elections with him, came before the media and said ex-chief minister Tarun Gogois reckless remarks was the cause of the partys defeat. The veteran Congress leader also praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal in the same breath.

If insiders in the Congress are to be believed, Mr Roys remark has come as a great relief for the Congress leadership, as most of the elected representatives had ruled out any chances of joining the BJP. In fact, some Congress veterans who lost elections have been trying to engineer a defection in the party for their smooth entry in the BJP. Now the Congress has alerted its newly-elected MLAs to be at a safe distance from such opportunists.

Left-out secretaries

These days once the Union Cabinet clears a specific proposal, the secretary of that ministry is called in for media briefings on the Cabinet decisions to give a brief presentation on the matter. Last month, when the Cabinet cleared the aviation policy, the civil aviation secretary gave a detailed presentation before the media. Later, after the textile industry package was okayed by the Cabinet, the textile secretary too explained the nitty-gritty of the package to the media.

Last week, when the Union Cabinet cleared the much-awaited recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission, finance secretary Ashok Lavasa briefed the media on its details through a presentation. The matter being of extreme public interest, it garnered all the media attention, with Mr Lavasa and finance minister Arun Jaitley facing all the questions.

Though the Cabinet that day also cleared the National Mineral Exploration Policy and the Model Shops and Establishments (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Services) Bill 2016, and the mines and labour secretaries too were present in the briefing to field questions related to the two matters, they were relegated to the background as hardly any mediaperson showed interest in the subject. Both bureaucrats therefore did not get any opportunity to give presentations related to their proposals and when the briefing ended, they quietly left the venue along with other officials and ministers.
Nasscom has said telecom regulator Trai should give complete flexibility to apps and websites to decide free data policy.

New Delhi: IT industry body Nasscom has said telecom regulator Trai should give complete flexibility to apps and websites for deciding on provisions for rewarding free data to customers.

In its response to consultation paper of Trai on free data for telecom customers, the body also said operators should not have direct or indirect influence on the content that customers view on the Internet.

It said the purpose of free data or concessions on data usage as reward is to encourage users to explore Internet.

"When the reward is given by the platform and not by the individual website, it should not have any conditions attached that translate into discrimination between websites and apps or have any conditions as to which websites and apps may be

accessed, either implicitly or explicitly, including stipulations regarding technology or content," Nasscom said.

The body also said there should be no stipulations on how the data reward can be used by the customer, like restricting its use to specific websites. Nasscom in its suggestions invoked net-neutrality to keep intervention of telecom operators out of free data reward decision of websites or applications.

"Net Neutrality is a universal concept (recently upheld by the US courts as well as other nations in the past) where TSPs (telecom service providers), as access providers, have no power to influence consumer choice relating to services, applications, content that a consumer accesses. Therefore, TSPs should not have any direct or indirect influence on the content that customers view on the Internet," Nasscom said.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) through its consultation paper on free data is exploring equivalent of toll free number for Internet space where customers can access websites without having to incur data charges.

The regulator is looking at a framework, which should be compliant with the principles of net neutrality and it should b e telecom network agnost. Telecom industry bodies, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and Association of Unified telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI), have questioned the points in the consultation paper talking about telecom agnostic platform.

The industry body has also questioned jurisdiction of Trai in case it wants to frame rules on free data without involving telecom operators. Various stakeholders have asked Trai to define net neutrality before framing rules for free data.

Member of Parliament Rajeev Chandrasekhar in his comments said: "TRAI must define Net Neutrality urgently and this definition must focus on preventing gatekeeping/cabelisation by telcos. Free data must not be regulated through an ex-ante ban, but on a case-by-case basis. Regulation must not dampen competition or innovation on the web."

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Boston: Scientists, including one of Indian origin, are developing new mobile software that can accurately identify where a person is looking in real time, an advance that may lead smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices to be controlled by eye movements.

In an effort to make eye tracking cheap, compact and accurate enough to be included in smartphones, researchers are crowdsourcing the collection of gaze information and sing it to teach mobile software how to figure out where a person is looking in.

The researchers at Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Germany, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and University of Georgia in the US, have so far been able to train software to identify where a person is looking with an accuracy of about a centimetre on a mobile phone and 1.7 centimetres on a tablet.

"It's still not exact enough to use for consumer applications," said Aditya Khosla, a graduate student at MIT. However, he believes the system's accuracy will improve with more data.

The technology has been expensive and has required hardware that has made it tricky to add the capability to gadgets like phones and tablets.

It could make eye tracking a lot more widespread and also be helpful as a way to let you play games or navigate your smartphone without having to tap or swipe.

The researchers started out by building an app called GazeCapture that gathered data about how people look at their phones in different environments outside the confines of a lab, 'MIT Technology Review' Users' gaze was recorded with the phone's front camera as they were shown pulsating dots on a smartphone screen.

To make sure they were paying attention, they were then shown a dot with an "L" or "R" inside it, and they had to tap the left or ride side of the screen in response. GazeCapture information was then used to train software called iTracker.

The andset's camera captures your face, and the software considers factors like the position and direction of your head and eyes to figure out where your gaze is focused on the screen.

"About 1,500 people have used the GazeCapture app so far," Khosla said, adding that if the researchers can get data from 10,000 people they will be able to reduce the software's error rate to half a centimetre, which should be good enough for a range of eye-tracking applications.

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Toronto resident Supninder Singh Khehra was assaulted by a Canadian on a street in Quebec City in March.

Toronto: A 22-year-old Canadian has been sentenced to 10 months in jail for punching and kicking a Sikh man in a racially motivated attack that had drawn strong condemnation from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Gabriel Royer-Tremblay, 22, was convicted of assault for punching and kicking Toronto resident Supninder Singh Khehra on a street in Quebec City in March.

Khehra had said at the time that Tremblay and two of his friends shouted and swore at him in French and pointed at his turban, before he was punched in the eye and kicked.

29-year-old Khehra said his turban flew off of his head during the assault.

Police arrived at the scene a short time later and arrested Tremblay and another man, who was later released without charges.

The incident had drawn widespread condemnation in Canada, including from Prime Minister Trudeau, who said at the time that such "hateful acts" have "no place in Canada".

Royer-Tremblay was also convicted of several other offences, including obstructing police and methamphetamine possession.

His lawyer, Benoit Labrecque, told CTV News Toronto that six months of the sentence was for the assault against Khehra, and the other four were tied to the other offences.

Royer-Tremblay was also given two years' probation on Thursday. The crown had sought a total jail term of 18 months, while Labrecque argued for a 90-day jail stint served on weekends.

Khehra submitted a victim impact statement to the court that said he no longer feels safe when walking alone on the street, and is coping with a great deal of stress related to the incident.

With credit for pre-trial custody, Royer-Tremblay will spend eight more months in jail.
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are locked in a bitter battle for the top US post. (Photo: AFP/ Inset of Mary Anne Noland of Richmond)

Washington: The family of an American woman who died recently put out an obituary that said she passed away to avoid the spectre of voting for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in the upcoming presidential election!

The funny obituary of 68-year-old Mary Anne Noland of Richmond, Virginia claimed she died to avoid the increasingly likely choice between Republican Trump and Democrat Clinton in the November 8 US presidential poll.

"Faced with the prospect of voting for either Trump or Clinton, Noland chose, instead, to pass into the eternal love of God on Sunday," read the obituary which was published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

The obituary which appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Her husband, Jim Noland, said that one of their sons wrote the satirical political line and that it was not an attack on either candidate, but rather a way to carry on Mary Anne's sense of humour. His wife passed away after a long battle with lung cancer in May.
Kuala Lumpur: A 76-year-old man in Malaysia has been arrested for allegedly sharing a "crude" photo of Prime Minister Najib Razak on a WhatsApp group which "insulted and hurt feelings of Malaysians", a media report said today.

The elderly man, who goes by the name Pa Ya, was arrested in Kampung Tunku, Petaling Jaya yesterday, Johor police chief Comm Datuk Wan Ahmad Najmuddin Mohd said.

The suspect, who can be fined over USD 12,000 or jailed for a year or both, had uploaded the photo into a WhatsApp group called "Bicara Politik Melayu", The Star reported.

Police arrested him for sharing a crude photo insulting the Prime Minister in a WhatsApp group, the report said.

"The photo has insulted and hurt the feelings of Malaysians," he said in a statement, adding that the man's mobile phone has also been seized.

A police report in this regard was lodged on Friday following the posting of the photo.

Ahmad said that the suspect would be remanded at the Johor Baru court for investigations under relevant provisions of the law which carries a maximum fine of 50,000 Malaysian Ringgit (USD 12,526) or up to a year's jail, or both upon conviction.

A task force had been formed within the police force to monitor, identify and take action against those who misuse social media, Ahmad said.

"I advise the public against misusing social media applications without thinking about the consequences. We will not hesitate to take action and eventually charge those who do," he added.
Bangladeshi army soldiers patrol a street during a rescue operation as gunmen take position in a restaurant in the Dhakas high-security diplomatic district. (Photo: AP)

Dhaka: As diners relaxed for their evening meal on one of the last days of Ramzan, the gunmen burst into the restaurant before separating foreigners from locals so they could launch their killing spree.

By the time Bangladeshi commandos stormed Dhakas Holey Artisan Bakery 11 hours later, its stone-washed white floors were a sea of blood, strewn with the bodies of foreigners who had been hacked to death.

Most of (the hostages) were killed mercilessly by sharp weapons, Army Brigadier General Naim Asraf Chowdhury told a news conference.

The Western-style cafe was a popular bolt-hole for expats and locals in the upmarket Gulshan neighbourhood which has long been home to the countrys wealthy elite and many embassies.

On Friday night, Hasnat Karim had brought his family to celebrate his daughters birthday. Hasnat was too traumatised to say more than a few words about his ordeal, saying only that the hostage-takers did not misbehave with us.

But he detailed to his father Rezaul how the gunmen  who were armed with automatic weapons, bombs and makeshift machetes  had split the diners into two groups. (The foreigners) were taken to the upper floor and the Bangladeshis were kept around a table, said Rezaul Karim.

In the chaos and confusion that erupted at the start, many diners at the cafe were able to scramble to safety. One man who escaped told a news channel how the gunmen chanted slogans as they forced their way past the sole security guard on the door. I rushed to alert others, some people managed to escape from a back route but the rest were trapped, he said on condition of anonymity.

They made people stand in a line. There must be about 20-25 staff and about 20-25 guests and then they switched off the lights and CCTV.

Infographic

Pools of blood

Bangladesh, where around 90 per cent of the population is Muslim, has just begun a week-long holiday to enjoy the Id celebrations which accompany the end of Ramzan.

As news of the siege spread, police rushed to the scene and engaged in gunbattles with the hostage-takers but they met heavy resistance.

(The hostage-takers) had automatic weapons and bombs, said Diego Rossini, an Argentinian chef who escaped into a neighbouring building. Rossini managed to escape into a next-door building while under fire.

I felt bullets pass so close to me, I felt fear like Ive never felt in my life. Images posted by the Islamic State group as they claimed the attack showed two bodies soaked in pools of crimson.

A senior army officer said that all 20 of the slaughtered civilians were foreigners and nearly all were hacked to death with makeshift machetes. Several people have been attacked in similar fashion by Islamist extremists in the last two years, mainly members of religious minorities.
Erdogan accused Assad of Syrian conflict and said that he was the root cause of the war in Syria. (Photo: AP)

Istanbul: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared on Saturday that Syrian President Bashar Assad was a "more advanced terrorist" than the ISIS, despite the deadly attack on Istanbul's Ataturk Airport that Turkish officials blame on ISIS.

Speaking in the town of Kilis near the border with Syria, Erdogan said the Syrian leader was responsible for the deaths of some 600,000 of his own citizens and was the root cause of the war in Syria.

"He is a more advanced terrorist than a terrorist from the PYD or the YPG," Erdogan said. "He is a more advanced terrorist than Daesh." Erdogan was referring to Syrian Kurdish militia, which Ankara accuses of being a terror organization because of their affiliation with Turkey's Kurdish rebels, and to the ISIS group by its Arabic name.

Three terrorist armed with assault rifles and suicide bombs attacked one of the world's busiest airports on Tuesday night, killing at least 44 people. Although no one has claimed responsibility for the attack, Turkish officials say they believe it was the work of ISIS.

Turkish authorities have detained at least 24 people in raids in several Istanbul neighborhoods over possible connections to the attack. Seventeen other people were detained in the province of Gaziantep, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Erdogan paid an unannounced visit to the airport on Saturday, saying a prayer in front of a memorial set up for the victims, which features the pictures of airport employees killed in the rampage.

He later flew to Kilis, where the number of Syrian refugees is higher than the local Turkish population. ISIS terrorists have also attacked the town with cross-border rocket fire, killing 21 people there since January.

Erdogan said countries he did not name were supporting the Syrian Kurdish militia and the ISIS in a bid to prevent democracy in Syria and for their "dirty calculations" in the region. He also announced that his government would allow Syrian refugees in Turkey to take on Turkish citizenship.

Turkey has been accused of long turning a blind eye to jihadi fighters who crossed into Syria from Turkish territory in the hope that they would hasten Assad's downfall. Turkey has also been accused of not doing enough to fight ISIS, despite allowing the US-led coalition to use a key air base to conduct air strikes against jihadists.

Turkey denies the accusations but such statements from Erdogan help reinforce beliefs that fighting ISIS is not a priority for Ankara despite the extremist groups' attacks on Turkish territory.

Earlier, the Istanbul governor's office said 52 people were still in the hospital - 20 of them in intensive care - four days after the devastating airport attack. It said 184 airport victims had been discharged from hospitals so far, including 13 people released Saturday.

Prosecutors have established the identity of two of the three airport attackers - giving their names as Rakim Bulgarov and Vadim Osmanov - and were trying to identify the third, Anadolu said. Other media reports have given different versions of Osmanov's name.

Investigators' attentions have reportedly focused on whether a Chechen extremist known to be a top lieutenant in the ISIS masterminded the attack.

US Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, told CNN that Akhmed Chatayev directed the attack. The CIA and White House declined to comment on McCaul's assertion and officials said the investigation into the airport bombings is still ongoing. McCaul could not be reached for further comment.

Turkish officials also were not able to confirm Chatayev's possible role in the deadly attack. The Sabah newspaper, which is close to the Turkish government, said police had launched a manhunt for him.

The ISIS, which has used the porous border with Turkey to establish itself in neighboring Syria and Iraq, has repeatedly threatened Turkey. In turn, Turkey has blamed ISIS for several major bombings in the past year in Ankara and Istanbul.
The tail of the Il-76 emergencies ministry plane was found north of Irkutsk, in the region straddling Russia's Lake Baikal. (Photo: AFP)

Moscow: Russian firefighters on Sunday found the remains of a crashed plane that went missing Friday with ten people on board while putting out wildfires in Siberia.

The tail of the Il-76 emergencies ministry plane was found north of Irkutsk, in the region straddling Russia's Lake Baikal, where catastrophic fires have been raging for weeks.

Rescuers found six bodies and both the data and voice flight recorders at the scene, ministry spokesman Alexei Vagutovich told Interfax news agency.

Investigators were also at the site following Saturday's launch of a criminal probe into the crash.

Earlier, the ministry said ten people were on board the plane, which stopped making contact early Friday.

Footage from the crash site showed the tail of the transport plane lying on charred ground with the rest of the fuselage apparently completely burned.

A Russian aviation agencies source told TASS news agency that the plane most likely lost control because of interference from hot air from the wildfire that it was trying to douse with water.

"It's possible that hot air from the wildfires got into the engines, the plane lost propulsion and could not gain altitude, hit the top of the trees and fell," the source was quoted as saying.

The plane's tail was discovered by another firefighter on Sunday morning, said the Russian forestry agency's aviation unit.

Last week another firefighter died on duty in Russia's far-eastern Kamchatka region, the regional government revealed.

The forestry agency's aviation unit said Sunday that over 43 thousand hectares of forest land is burning in Russia, mostly in Siberia.

But Russia's Greenpeace which monitors wildfires via satellite data said government figures are vastly underestimated, with 415 thousand hectares burning in Irkutsk region alone.
London: The two leading contenders in the race for the next British prime minister, Theresa may and Andrea Leadsom, differed on Sunday on how urgent it was to trigger article 50, the formal step to begin Britains negotiations with the European Union on the terms of its exit from the bloc.

Home Secretary Theresa May, the front-runner who campaigned for a Remain vote in the June 23 referendum, said Britain needed to be clear about its negotiating stance and she would not be rushed into triggering the article this year. She vowed to push for an EU trade deal that limited immigration. This is not about the UK retreating, this is about the UK going centre stage in the world, she said.

Meanwhile, Junior energy minister Andrea Leadsom, who has emerged as Mays strongest rival from the Leave camp, struck a more urgent tone, saying Britain needed to get a grip and make progress. Britons voted by 52 to 48 per cent to leave the bloc it had joined in 1973 and Prime Minister David Cameron said he would resign over his failure to keep the country in.

According to reports, May has an early lead, gaining the support of more than 100 lawmakers, four times as many as any other candidate. But her critics, including rivals Leadsom and Justice Secretary Michael Gove, said the next leader needed to come from the winning Leave side of the EU debate.

Keep calm: Queen

The Queen has urged the British leaders to calm down in the wake of post-Brexit chaos and told MSPs they should feel hope and optimism about the next five years. The monarch in her address at the opening of the fifth session of the Scottish Parliament told UKs political class to contemplate before deciding their next move.
An aerial photo taken on Sept 25, 2015 from a seaplane of Hainan Maritime Safety Administration shows cruise vessel Haixun 1103 heading to the Yacheng 13-1 drilling rig during a patrol in South China Sea. [Photo/Xinhua]

BEIJING, July 2 -- As the farce of arbitration on the South China Seais to end soon, it is time for the new Philippine government of Rodrigo Duterte to stop the wrong foreign policy of its predecessor, so as to bring China-Philippinesties back to the track of sound development.

Since Duterte assumed presidency on Thursday, sparks of hope have arisen for resumption of sound development of relations between China and the Philippines after bilateral ties seriously deteriorated during the rule of former Philippine President Benigno Aquino III.

In 2013, the government of Aquino III filed a case of arbitration with the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration over territorial disputes between China and the Philippines on the South China Sea, stoking tensions in the South China Sea region.

On June 29 -- just a day before the assumption of presidency by Duterte, the Permanent Court of Arbitration announced that an arbitral award in the case initiated by the Philippines against China will be issued on July 12, meaning that the farce of arbitration started by the government of Aquino III will come to an end in days.

Since winning the election, Duterte has made a series of overtures on China-Philippines relations, signaling that improvement of relations with China would be a foreign policy priority of his government, in sharp contrast to the wrong foreign policy pursued by the former government.

As whoever started the trouble should be responsible for settling it, any substantial improvement of relations between China and the Philippines under the current situation actually depends on efforts of the Philippine side. Therefore, it remains to be seen whether the new Philippine government will be able to play the role of settling the trouble left over by the former government, how long it will take before the new Philippine government can shake off the burden of wrong diplomacy created by its predecessor, how much efforts it will make in this endeavor, and how it will face the serious harm caused by the farce of arbitration to China-Philippines relations.

Today, there do exist chances for the new Philippine government to substantially improve relations with China, and also for it to eliminate negative impacts of the farce of arbitration on China-Philippine relations and even on the regional situation.

In a message to congratulate Duterte on his victory in the election more than one month ago, Chinese President Xi Jinpingsaid that China and the Philippines see a long history of friendly exchanges and profound traditional friendship between the two peoples.

"A friendly, stable and sound China-Philippines relationship is in the fundamental interest of the two countries and the two peoples," Xi said, adding that he hoped the two sides would work together to get bilateral relations back onto the track of sound development.

In response, Duterte said he was "honored" to receive the congratulatory message from the Chinese president, calling him a great leader.

"I was honored receiving a congratulatory message from a great president," Duterte reportedly made the remarks when speaking with reporters in Davao City after unveiling the members of his cabinet to the media.

The indirect "dialogue" reflected by the two foregoing passages has been interpreted as a positive signal for improvement of relations between China and the Philippines. It is noteworthy that both sides mentioned therein the history of China-Philippines relations, and that both emphasized the existence of a long history of friendly exchange between China and the Philippines and the maintenance of profound traditional friendship between the Chinese and Philippine peoples.

Since ancient times, China and the Philippines have maintained friendly exchange and profound traditional friendship between the two peoples, which is just one of the reasons why the two countries can get bilateral ties back onto the track of sound development despite negative impacts of the wrong foreign policy pursued by the government of Aquino III.

In history, the South China Sea used to be an important link via which the two countries conducted friendly and equal exchanges.

Historical literature "The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898" gave an account of a story about friendly contacts between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea.

In 1626 AD, the region of today's Hermosa in the Philippine province of Bataan was facing a severe famine, but the then Manila government was unable to offer aid to the region. Local Catholics had to pray every day that Chinese merchant ships could come as annually scheduled to help them cope with the emergency. Shortly afterwards, when six Chinese ships fully loaded with rice arrived on Hermosa port from the South China Sea, the locals hailed the timely rescue as "a gift from God."

Almost at the same time, chronicles of southeast China's Fujian Province known as "The Book of Fujian" also recorded a history of people-to-people contacts between the two countries, saying that sweet potato widely planted in today's China had actually been introduced from Luzon -- today's Philippines.

At that time, after seeing that sweet potato was widely grown in Luzon and its growth had gained good harvests, businessmen took sweet potato plants via the South China Sea to Fujian, where they were successfully planted. During the first years of extensive cultivation of sweet potato, it helped local people survive famines.

In the long history, the South China Sea mainly played the role as such a link and platform for equal exchanges and common development between China and neighboring countries.

However, in the past few years, the government of Aquino III put aside the traditional friendship between the two countries and the needs of the Philippine people's livelihood and development by pursuing a wrong foreign policy that led to serious deterioration of relations between China and the Philippines. Considering oral promises made by some countries outside the region as a security umbrella and economic driving force, Aquino III internationalized the South China Sea issue and was willing to serve as a vanguard for those countries in muddying the waters in the South China Sea.

In fact, it is difficult for Manila to find its real security interests from the frequent navigation by foreign military vessels on the South China Sea.

In economy, the promises of some Western countries have not helped improve the people's livelihood in the Philippines. Instead, escalation of South China Sea disputes has deprived many Filipinos of their means of survival.

Therefore, the cognitive, decision-making and strategic errors the Aquino government committed will finally bring bitter fruit to its people and even undermine regional stability and prosperity.

Only enhancing win-win cooperation and developing the economy are in the fundamental interests of the two countries.

As is known to all, China has been prudent and tolerant in handling its relations with the Philippines while considering the Philippine people's livelihood.

In 2015, bilateral relations were difficult, and the trade between China and other Asian countries as well as between China and countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations went down by 7.8 percent and 1.7 percent respectively. However, the China-Philippines trade hit a record high of 45.65 billion U.S. dollars, up 2.7 percent from a year ago.

Now, China has become the Philippines' largest source of imports, second largest trade partner and third largest export market. The two countries are complementary to each other in industry, with the existence of great potential for economic growth and broad prospects for investment cooperation, which makes up a right way for mutually beneficial cooperation compared to the empty promises some countries made to Aquino III.

In the 1980s, then Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, after meeting then Philippine Vice President Salvador Laurel and then Philippine President Corazon Aquino successively, proposed peacefully solving the South China Sea disputes, and shelving disputes while seeking joint development. The reason why such a constructive consensus was reached was that the two sides realized that hope was far more than difficulties and common interests were far more than differences.

Only through cooperation and common development can China-Philippines relations be brought back onto the track of sound development. As long as the Philippines remembers the history, envisages realities and refrains from jumping into traps set by some forces outside the region, it will not be difficult for it to substantially improve relations with China.
An Iraqi woman grieves at the scene of a deadly suicide a car bomb at a commercial area in Karada neighborhood, Baghdad, Iraq. (Photo: AP)

Baghdad: At least 91 people were killed on Sunday in two bombings in the Iraqi capital, including a large-scale attack claimed by the Islamic State group that killed 86 people - among them 15 children - in a central shopping district, officials said.

The bombings demonstrated the extremists' ability to mount significant attacks despite major battlefield losses, including the city of Fallujah, which was declared "fully liberated" from IS just over a week ago.

The deadliest attack took place in the central Karada district of Baghdad, where a suicide bomber blew up his explosives-laded pickup truck outside a crowded shopping center, killing at least 86 people and wounding up to 170 others, according to a police officer. He said the dead included 15 children, 10 women and six policemen.

The suicide bomber struck shortly after midnight, when families and young people were out on the streets after breaking their daylight fast for the holy month of Ramadan. Most of the victims were inside a multi-story shopping and amusement mall, where dozens burned to death or suffocated, officials said.

"It was like an earthquake," said Karim Sami, a 35-year-old street vendor. "I wrapped up my goods and was heading home when I saw a fire ball with a thunderous bombing. I was so scared to go back and started to make phone calls to my friends, but none answered," the father of three added. He said that one of his friends had been killed, another was wounded and one was still missing.

Within hours, IS claimed responsibility for the bombing in a statement posted online, saying they had deliberately targeted Shiite Muslims. The Associated Press could not verify the authenticity of the statement, but it was posted on a militant website commonly used by the extremists.

Iraqi security forces and civilians look for victims at the site after a car bomb hit Karada, a busy shopping district in the center of Baghdad, Iraq. (Photo: AP)

At the scene, firefighters and civilians were seen carrying the dead away, their bodies wrapped in blankets and sheets. Smoke billowed from the shopping center, which was surrounded by the twisted and burned wreckage of cars and market stalls. A group of women were sitting on the pavement, crying for their loved ones.

In the second attack, an improvised explosive device went off in Baghdad's northern Shaab area, killing 5 people and wounding 16, another police officer said. No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but it bore the hallmarks of IS militants who often target commercial districts and Shiite areas.

Medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to release information to the press.

The high death toll made it the second deadliest attack in the capital this year. On May 11, IS militants carried out three car bombings in Baghdad, killing 93 people.

Hours after the bombing, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and lawmakers visited the blast site. Video footage uploaded to social media showed an angry crowd, with people calling al-Abadi a "thief" and shouting at his convoy. Eyewitness said the crowd pelted the al-Abadi's car with rocks, shoes and jerry cans.

Until the government launched its Fallujah operation, the prime minister had faced growing social unrest and anti-government protests sparked, in part, by popular anger at the lack of security in the capital. In one month, Baghdad's highly-fortified Green Zone - which houses government buildings and diplomatic missions - was stormed twice by anti-government protesters.

In Karada civilians expressed their frustration at the government's failure to secure the capital.

"We are in a state of war, and these places are targeted. The security can't focus on the war (against IS) and forget Baghdad," Sami, the street vendor, said.

The U.N. envoy for Iraq, Jan Kubis, described the Karada attack as "a cowardly and heinous act of unparalleled proportions" and urged the Iraqi government to redouble its security efforts to protect Iraqis during celebrations for the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of Ramadan.

IS militants who "have suffered defeats at the battlefront are seeking to avenge their losses by targeting vulnerable civilians," Kubis added.

IS still controls Iraq's second largest city of Mosul as well as significant patches of territory in the country's north and west.

At the height of the extremist group's power in 2014, IS rendered nearly a third of the country out of government control. Now, the militants are estimated to control only 14 percent of Iraqi territory, according to the office of Iraq's Prime Minister.
Tel Aviv: Activist and writer Elie Wiesel, the World War Two death camp survivor who won a Nobel Peace Prize for becoming the life-long voice of millions of Holocaust victims, has died, Israel's Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem said on Saturday.

Wiesel, a philosopher, speaker, playwright and professor who also campaigned for the tyrannized and forgotten around the world, was 87.

The Romanian-born Wiesel lived by the credo expressed in "Night," his landmark story of the Holocaust - "to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time."

In awarding the Peace Prize in 1986, the Nobel Committee praised Wiesel as a "messenger to mankind" and "one of the most important spiritual leaders and guides in an age when violence, repression and racism continue to characterize the world."

Wiesel did not waver in his campaign never to let the world forget the Holocaust horror. While at the White House in 1985 to receive the Congressional Gold Medal, he even rebuked U.S. President Ronald Reagan for planning to lay a wreath at a German cemetery where some of Hitler's notorious Waffen SS troops were buried.

"Don't go to Bitburg," Wiesel said. "That place is not your place. Your place is with the victims of the SS."

Wiesel became close to U.S. President Barack Obama but the friendship did not deter him from criticizing U.S. policy on Israel. He spoke out in favor of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and pushed the United States and other world powers to take a harder stance against Iran over its nuclear program. Wiesel attended the joint session of the U.S. Congress in 2015 when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on the dangers of Iran's program.

Wiesel and his foundation both were victims of the wide-ranging Ponzi scheme run by New York financier Bernie Madoff, with Wiesel and his wife losing their life's savings and the foundation losing $15.2 million. "'Psychopath' - it's too nice a word for him," he said of Madoff in 2009.

Wiesel was a hollow-eyed 16-year-old when he emerged from the newly liberated Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945. He had been orphaned by the Nazis and their identification number, A-7713, was tattooed on his arm as a physical manifestation of his broken faith and the nightmares that would haunt him throughout his life.

Wiesel and his family had first been taken by the Nazis from the village of Sighetu Marmatiei in the Transylvania region of Romania to Auschwitz, where his mother and one of his sisters died. Wiesel and his father, Shlomo, ended up in Buchenwald, where Shlomo died. In "Night" Wiesel wrote of his shame at lying silently in his bunk while his father was beaten nearby.

After the war Wiesel made his way to France, studied at the Sorbonne and by 19 had become a journalist. He pondered suicide and never wrote of or discussed his Holocaust experience until 10 years after the war as a part of a vow to himself. He was 27 years old in 1955 when "Night" was published in Yiddish, and Wiesel would later rewrite it for a world audience.

"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed ...," Wiesel wrote. "Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live."

Asked by an interviewer in 2000 why he did not go insane, Wiesel said, "To this day that is a mystery to me."

By 2008, the New York Times said "Night" had sold an estimated 10 million copies, including 3 million after talk-show hostess Oprah Winfrey made it a spotlight selection for her book club in 2006.

In 1985 Wiesel helped break ground in Washington for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the following year was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In typical fashion, he dedicated the prize to all those who survived the Nazi horror, calling them "an example to humankind how not to succumb to despair."

Wiesel, who became a U.S. citizen in 1963, was slight in stature but a compelling figure when he spoke. With a chiseled profile, burning eyes and a shock of gray hair, he could silence a crowd by merely standing up.

He was often described as somber. An old friend, Chicago professor Irving Abrahamson, once said of him: "I've never seen Elie give a belly laugh. He'll chuckle, he'll smile, there'll be a twinkle in his eye. But never a laugh from within."

A few years after winning the peace prize, he established the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, which, in addition to Israeli and Jewish causes, campaigned for Miskito Indians in Nicaragua, Cambodian refugees, victims of South African apartheid and of famine and genocide in Africa.

Wiesel wrote more than 50 books - novels, non-fiction, memoirs and many with a Holocaust theme - and held a long-running professorship at Boston University. In one of his later books, "Open Heart," he used his 2011 quintuple-bypass surgery as impetus for reflection on his life.

"I have already been the beneficiary of so many miracles, which I know I owe to my ancestors," he wrote. "All I have achieved has been and continues to be dedicated to their murdered dreams - and hopes."

He collected scores of awards and honors, including an honorary knighthood in Britain. Obama presented him the National Humanities Medal in 2009.

Wiesel was attacked in a San Francisco hotel in 2007 by a 22-year-old Holocaust denier, but not injured.

Wiesel and wife Marion married in 1969 and their son, Elisha, was born in 1972.
Mourners carry the Iraqi flag-draped coffin of Hamza Jabbar, 37, who was killed from a bomb attack in Karada neighborhood. (Photo: AP)

Baghdad : Nearly 120 people were killed and 200 wounded in two bombings overnight in Baghdad , most of them in a busy shopping area as residents celebrated Ramadan, police and medical sources said on Sunday.

The attack on the shopping area of Karrada is the deadliest since US-backed Iraqi forces last month scored a major victory when it dislodged Islamic State from their stronghold of Falluja, an hour's drive west of the capital. It is also the deadliest so far this year.

An Iraqi woman grieves at the scene after a car bomb attack in Karada, a busy shopping district in the center of Baghdad. (Photo: AP)

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had ordered the offensive after a series of deadly bombings in Baghdad , saying Falluja served as a launchpad for such attacks on the capital. However, bombings have continued.

A convoy carrying Abadi who had come to tour the site of the bombings was pelted with stones and bottles by residents, angry at what they felt were false promises of better security.

A refrigerator truck packed with explosives blew up in the central district of Karrada, killing 115 people and injuring at least 200. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement circulated online by supporters of the ultra-hard line Sunni group. It said the blast was a suicide bombing.

Karrada was busy at the time as Iraqis eat out and shop late during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which ends next week with the Eid al-Fitr festival.

Iraqi security forces and civilians gather at the site after a car bomb hit Karada. (Photo: AP)

Videos posted on social media showed people running after the SUV convoy of Abadi as he departed Karrada after touring the scene, throwing pavement stones, bottles of water, empty buckets and slippers, venting their anger at the inability of the security forces to protect the area.

Another video posted on social media showed a large blaze in the main street of Karrada, a largely Shi'ite district with a small Christian community and a few Sunni mosques.

Reuters TV footage taken in the morning showed at least four buildings severely damaged or partly collapsed, including a shopping mall believed to be the target, and gutted cars scattered all around.

The toll climbed during the day as rescuers pulled out more bodies from under the rubble and people succumbed from their injuries.

Comments posted on social media accused security forces of continuing to use fake bomb detectors at checkpoints filtering traffic in Baghdad, five years after the scandal broke out about a device commonly known as the 'magic wand'.

A police officer in Baghdad confirmed these hand-held ADE 651 detectors were still in use. They were sold to Iraq and other nations by a British businessman who was jailed for 10 years in 2013 in the United Kingdom for endangering lives for profit.

Al Shaab Attack

In a second attack, a roadside explosive device also blew up around midnight in a market in al-Shaab, a Shi'ite district in the north of the capital, killing at least two people, police and medical sources said.

Iraqi forces on June 26 declared the defeat of IS militants in Falluja, a historic bastion of Sunni insurgency, following a month of fighting.

Now the militants were "trying to compensate for their humiliating defeat in Falluja," said Jasim al-Bahadli, a former army officer and security analyst in Baghdad .

"It was a mistake for the government to think that the source of the bombings was restricted to just one area," he said. "There are sleeper cells that operate independently from each other."
A separate ministry statement urged women to abide by bans on face veils in parts of Europe. (Representational Image: AFP)

Dubai: The United Arab Emirates is warning its citizens to avoid wearing traditional garments when travelling abroad after an Emirati man was handcuffed in Ohio over terrorism fears.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a tweet late Saturday that Emiratis should avoid wearing the garments for their safety. A separate ministry statement urged women to abide by bans on face veils in parts of Europe.

Local media reported Sunday that Emirati national Ahmed al-Menhali was detained at gunpoint last week while wearing a traditional white kandura, or ankle-length robe, and headscarf in Avon, Ohio after a hotel clerk raised suspicions he could have links to the Islamic State group.

Cleveland's WEWS-TV posted police camera video footage of al-Menhali's arrest and a later meeting where Avon officials offered their apologies.
Bangladeshi security officers cordon off an area after heavily armed militants attacked a restaurant in Bangladesh's diplomatic zone on Friday night, in Dhaka, Bangladesh. (Photo: AP)

Milan: Nine Italians were killed in Friday's attack by Islamist terrorists in the Bangladeshi capital, with another Italian still unaccounted for, Italy's foreign minister said on Saturday.

The terrorists killed 20 people, most of them foreigners, inside an upmarket restaurant in Dhaka before security forces stormed the building and ended a 12-hour standoff on Sunday.

"We have identified nine (Italians) killed, there is another person who is missing and could be hiding himself or could be among wounded people ... we are looking for him," Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni told reporters.
Bangladeshi security officers cordon off an area after heavily armed militants attacked a restaurant in Bangladesh's diplomatic zone on Friday night, in Dhaka, Bangladesh. (Photo: AP)

Dhaka: The Bangladesh government is now suspecting the involvement of Pakistans spy agency ISI in Friday's deadly terror attack in a restaurant in Dhaka where unknown militants hacked 20 hostages to death.

According to a report in NDTV, HT Imam, who is the political advisor to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday said that the attack seemed to be the handiwork of a local banned terror group called Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen that has links to the Pakistani spy agency.

Read: A timeline of the weekend hostage crisis in Bangladesh

"Pakistan's ISI and Jamaat connection is well known...they want to derail the current government, all victims were hacked to death like Jamaat and local terror groups do," said Imam.

Read: Bangladesh says gunmen behind restaurant killings local, some known

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan had earlier ruled out the role of Islamic State in the attack and said the jihadists who slaughtered hostages at the Dhaka restaurant were members of the homegrown Bangladeshi militant outfit named by Imam.

Many details of the attack remain unclear a day after commandos stormed the restaurant and rescued 13 people. But police released photographs of the bodies of five attackers, along with their first names: Akash, Badhon, Bikash, Don and Ripon.

Read: Bangladesh terror attack: Hostages asked to recite verses from Quran

Their families hadn't heard anything from them in months, according to police.

"They are all Bangladeshis. They are from rich families, they have good educational background," Asaduzzaman Khan said.

Read: 20 killed, 6 ISIS terrorists shot dead in Bangladesh hostage crisis

He once again refuted the possibility that the Islamic State could have been behind the attack despite the group claiming responsibility on Saturday and releasing horrifying photographs of what unfolded overnight Friday.

The government insists the extremist Sunni Muslim group has no presence in the country, and in the past has suggested that any claims of responsibility for violence waged in the South Asian country are simply opportunistic attempts at grabbing global attention.
Her remarks came during a meeting with Japan's State Minister of Foreign Affairs Seiji Kihara at her official residence Ganabhaban. (Photo: AP)

Dhaka: Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday vowed to trace the "roots" of the culprits who supplied weapons and explosives to the terrorists who killed 20 people, mostly foreigners, in a barbaric attack on a cafe in Dhaka.

Her remarks came during a meeting with Japan's State Minister of Foreign Affairs Seiji Kihara at her official residence Ganabhaban.

Read: A timeline of the weekend hostage crisis in Bangladesh

"Describing the terror attack at Gulshan cafe as unfortunate, The Prime Minister said we must find out the roots of the culprits who supplied weapons and explosives to the terrorists for the barbaric attack," Ihsanul Karim, press secretary to the PM, told the media after the meeting.

HT Imam, who is the political advisor to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday said that the attack seemed to be the handiwork of a local banned terror group called Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen that has links to the Pakistani spy agency.

Read: A timeline of the weekend hostage crisis in Bangladesh

"Pakistan's ISI and Jamaat connection is well known...they want to derail the current government, all victims were hacked to death like Jamaat and local terror groups do," said Imam.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan had earlier ruled out the role of Islamic State in the attack and said the jihadists who slaughtered hostages at the Dhaka restaurant were members of the homegrown Bangladeshi militant outfit named by Imam.

Read: Bangladesh terror attack: Hostages asked to recite verses from Quran

Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's upscale diplomatic zone came under attack on Friday evening by gunmen. Seven Japanese nationals were among 20 killed during the attack.

Six of the seven Japanese killed in the terror strike were surveyors for Dhakas Metrorail project. The Japanese government has sent the minister to Dhaka after the attack.

Read: 20 killed, 6 ISIS terrorists shot dead in Bangladesh hostage crisis

The assailants killed two police officers, who tried to enter the cafe, to break the siege.

Army commandos stormed the eatery yesterday and rescued 13 hostages, killing six attackers while capturing one alive. The Army said 20 people were found dead on the premises during the raid, all possibly slaughtered late on Friday, hours before the commandos raided the cafe.

It has been confirmed that the hostages killed included nine Italians, seven Japanese and an Indian. Three Bangladeshis were also among the dead and one of them was a US citizen.
The terrorists had mobiles and tabs, which were used to upload the pictures. ISIS immediately got hold of these images and claimed responsibility for the terror attack. (Photo: AP)

Dhaka: The terrorists who massacred 20 people in the Dhaka cafe attack had uploaded pictures of their victims on the internet, which were used by Islamic State (IS) to claim responsibility for the attack.

According to an NDTV report, a top Bangladeshi official has said that the terrorists had mobiles and tabs, which were used to upload the pictures. ISIS immediately got hold of these images and claimed responsibility for the terror attack.

Read: Bangladesh attack: Pak ISI role under scanner; ISIS involvement ruled out

The Bangladesh government on Sunday ruled out an ISIS hand in the attack. HT Imam, who is the political advisor to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said that the attack seemed to be the handiwork of a local banned terror group called Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen that has links to the Pakistani spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Bangladesh has blamed two home-grown groups for a series of grisly killings targeting liberals or members of minority groups over the past 18 months, and local authorities have maintained that no operational links exist between Bangladeshi militants and international jihadi networks.

Read: Photos of bodies of Bangladeshi attackers released along with first names

ISIS had on Saturday uploaded photos of five fighters it said were involved in the killings.

Police said nine Italians, seven Japanese, two Bangladeshis, an Indian and a US citizen were killed during the attack at the Dhaka building.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced two days of national mourning on Saturday and said the country would stand up and fight the "terror threat".
Dhaka: A dessert chef who is only one of two Italians to survive the Dhaka restaurant siege says he took refuge in an adjoining house and stayed there long after the massacre ended.

Jacopo Bioni, 34, tells Sky TG24 TV in a phone interview broadcast Sunday, that after jumping two stories down onto the property of a nearby house, the residents, although "understandably" frightened by his sudden appearance, welcomed and hid him. Bioni says when he saw an attacker point a rifle at a table of Italian diners, he fled to the roof without thinking twice. Bioni says police came to talk to him Saturday morning and then he left the house in the afternoon.

Says Bioni: "I grabbed two things and my passport, headed to the airport and caught the first flight out." That flight took him to Bangkok, and Bioni says he can't wait to return to Italy on Monday.

He says he has no desire to look at attack photos on social or other media, since he prefers to remember Bangladesh in happier times.
It is unclear whether the man was caught red-handed by his love's husband or he managed to get through the awkward situation. (Photo: YouTube Video Grab)

Beijing: In a death-defying and desperate attempt to hide somewhere, a naked man clung to the air conditioner of an eighth floor apartment in China after his lover's husband made a surprise entry into the house.

The incident is believed to have taken place in China.

A video footage, shot by an unknown person, shows a man clinging out of the window -- barely wearing any clothes, trying to hide behind the air conditioner.

The video also shows a lot of passengers passing by the street unaware of the man who hung outside the window.

It is unclear whether the man was caught red-handed by his lover's husband or if he managed to get through the awkward situation.

In a similar incident, a man was forced to spend the entire night out on a ledge on the seventh floor as his lover's husband returned home. He was forced to stay there until next morning the woman's husband left for work and she called up the fire department to get him rescued.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 3

By Maksim Tsurkov  Trend:

The State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) received revenues worth $7.23 billion in 2015 from the sale of profit oil and gas produced within the framework of PSA (production sharing agreement) contracts on onshore and offshore fields of the country, according to a report on the fund's activity in 2015.

At the same time in 2015, the weighted average price of profit oil exported amounted to $54.31 per barrel, and the net price was $48.06 per barrel.

According to the report, some $6.86 billion accounted for the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) block of fields, which amounts to 94.9 percent of revenues from the sale of profit oil in 2015.

In addition, some $322.8 million accounted for the Shah Deniz field, $14.8 million - for Binagadi field, $12.9 million - for Kurovdag, $9.1 million  Balakhani, $4.6 million - Bahar, $3.1 million  Surakhani, $3 million - Zyg-Hovsan and $0.8 million  for the Neftchala field, the report says.

In accordance with the report, SOFAZ revenues from assets management in 2015 amounted to $425.4 million. The funds were placed in debt securities and money market instruments, shares, real estate and gold. Revenues of SOFAZ investment portfolio stood at 1.24 percent in 2015.

During the reporting period, bonus payments to SOFAZ in connection with oil and gas agreements amounted to $2.01 million.

It is reported that the SOFAZ received $11.6 million of revenues from transit fees for transportation of hydrocarbons through the territory of Azerbaijan by the Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC).

Another $2.1 million was transferred to SOFAZ by the BP company as payment per acre for the use of contract area within the exploration of hydrocarbon reserves at the Shafag-Asiman field.

SOFAZ was established in 1999 with assets of $271 million.

As of April 1, 2016, SOFAZ's assets increased by 2 percent and amounted to $34.25 billion compared to early 2016 ($33.57 billion).

Based on SOFAZ's regulations, its funds may be used for the construction and reconstruction of strategically important infrastructure facilities, as well as solving important national problems.

The main goals of the State Oil Fund include: accumulation of resources and the placement of the fund's assets abroad in order to minimize the negative affect on the economy, the prevention of "Dutch disease" to some extent, promotion of resource accumulation for future generations and support of current social and economic processes in Azerbaijan.
Both Badakhshan and Ghazni provinces are among the relatively volatile provinces where the armed militant groups are actively operating. (Photo: Representational Image)

Kabul: Over 60 Taliban insurgents have been killed in a series of airstrikes at Arghistan district in Afghanistan's northeastern Badakhshan province.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed that at least 50 militants were killed and 12 others seriously wounded in the raids.

Further, 12 militants were killed and two others wounded in a separate airstrike in Aband district of southeastern Ghazni province, the ministry said.

So far, the anti-state armed militant groups have not commented regarding the report.

Both Badakhshan and Ghazni provinces are among the relatively volatile provinces where the armed militant groups are actively operating in a number of its remote districts.

The Afghan forces have stepped up their efforts in curbing the militant groups after the Taliban announced its spring offensive earlier in April.

Since then the Taliban militants have staged numerous coordinated and suicide attacks across the country.
Dar said that Khan should act in line with the moral values expected of a national leader and apologise to Maryam after knowing the facts of the incident.(Photo: AP)

Islamabad: Pakistan Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has asked Imran Khan to apologise to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's daughter Maryam Nawaz for falsely accusing her in an incident involving police misbehaviour with one of his sisters and said the PTI chairman should behave in a responsible manner.

In a statement issued on Saturday, Dar said that Khan should act in line with the moral values expected of a national leader and apologise to Maryam after knowing the facts of the incident.

Dar added that Khan was in the habit of reacting to 'hearsay and rumours without verifying facts' of the cases involved.

"Being the head of a political party, Imran Khan should adopt responsible behaviour," said Dar, who has been looking after government affairs in the Prime Minister's absence.

Reacting to the comments, a PTI spokesman said that Khan would never apologise to Prime Minister Sharif's daughter.

The PTI chief's sister Uzma Khan had said on Friday that security personnel in Maryam Nawaz's protocol harassed her and her family in the Gulberg-III area of Lahore.
Washington: Three students from US universities, including an Indian girl, were among 20 hostages hacked to death by ISIS militants in a terror attack at a restaurant in Bangladesh capital's high-security diplomatic zone.

Nineteen-year-old Tarushi Jain, an Indian student at UC Berkeley, was on vacation in Dhaka when the attack happened.

The two other students -- Abinta Kabir and Faraaz Hossain-- were studying at Atlanta's Emory University, varsity officials said here, mourning the loss of their lives.

Bangladeshi-origin Abinta, who was from Miami, was a rising sophomore at Emory's Oxford College. Faraaz, a junior from Dhaka, was a graduate of Oxford College and a student at the university's Goizueta Business School, the university said yesterday.

"The Emory community mourns this tragic and senseless loss of two members of our university family. Our thoughts and prayers go out on behalf of Faraaz and Abinta and their families and friends for strength and peace at this unspeakably sad time," the university said in a statement.

The attack has drawn widespread condemnation from several US Senators, with Georgia lawmaker David Perdue asserting that "these senseless acts of terror must come to an end."

Mourning the loss of the two Emory students, Senator Perdue said innocent people were being massacred across the world at the hands of ISIS.

"These senseless acts of terror absolutely must come to an end. It is deeply disturbing to hear that two of the victims of the most recent attacks are Emory University students, keeping Abinta Kabir, Faraaz Hossain, and their loved ones in our thoughts and prayers during this terrible time," Perdue said.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio said he was saddened to learn that Miami's Abinta Kabir was among the victims.

"My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Bangladesh and all those countries who lost citizens in this horrific attack" Rubio said.
Islamabad: Pakistan and the US must strive for greater coordination for establishing peace in the region, a top American Senator said as he held talks with army chief General Raheel Sharif amid strains in bilateral ties over the scuttling of F-16 fighter jets deal and the US drone strikes.

Senator John McCain, Chairman of US Senate Arms Services committee, held a crucial overnight meeting with the army chief to "smoothen the frayed relations" between the two countries after the tension due to the drone strike that killed Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour, officials said.

McCain, accompanied by a congressional delegation including Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator Joe Donnelly arrived last evening, and held the meeting with General Raheel in Rawalpindi.

The army, in a late last night statement, said matters of mutual interest and regional security with particular reference to Afghanistan situation were discussed.

"The COAS dilated upon security challenges faced by Pakistan and Pakistan's contribution in regional stability and global peace," it said.

The army chief said a stable Afghanistan is in Pakistan's interest and relationship between both countries hold key for regional peace and security.

Senator McCain said Pakistan and US need to cement relations in all dimensions and must strive for greater coordination for optimal deliverance of peace dividend in the region.

Earlier, US Special Representative ambassador Richard Olson held a separate meeting with the army chief and discussed the recent strains in the ties.

Olson also met foreign secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry and "discussed the regional security situation and efforts for peace and stability in Afghanistan," according to Foreign Office.

The Pak-US ties strained after Congressional restriction on financing of F-16 fighter jet's sale from Foreign Military Financing programme, due to which Pakistan could not buy the jets.

The relationship further suffered when the US carried out a drone strike in Balochistan, killing the Taliban chief, which was termed by Pakistani leadership a violation of the country's sovereignty.

According to sources, it is believed that the real source of tension between the two countries is the US' demand that Pakistan should act against the Haqqani network and stop all alleged support to Afghan Taliban who are involved in horrendous attack in the country.

The US also wants Pakistan to use its influence over Taliban to pursue it to unconditionally join the Afghan peace talks without any further delay.

Pakistan has maintained that it was already taking action against all militants and it was only matter of "sequencing" the targets.
Lahore: Pakistan`s Advisor to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs, Sartaj Aziz has said that the strengthening US-India relations were not a matter of concern for Islamabad, as long as the co-operation between the two did not increase the strategic and conventional gap between the nuclear-armed rivals of the subcontinent.

Aziz said in an interview that the United States has constantly assured Pakistan that both countries were of equal importance to them.

"I think US has itself emphasized number of times that our relations with India are not at the cost of Pakistan; both are important for us. India is important in the south Asian and East Asian context, whereas Pakistan is important in west Asia and central Asian context. We are one of the largest Islamic, democratic country, and we have a role vis a vis Afghanistan and in this region," Aziz said.

He also stated that the United States is an independent country and in terms of economic and other relations it can go ahead with India as it desires and as its national interests require.

Aziz asserted that there is only one dimension which they have been emphasizing and that is that their co-operation with India should not increase the gap, the strategic and conventional military gap, between India and Pakistan.

"If that happens, then of course we have to respond. So the objective of strategic stability should be kept in view in whatever co-operation they extend, and they have acknowledged that these are legitimate concerns because they don't want an arms race - a nuclear arms race - in the subcontinent. So that's the only dimension on which we are concerned. Otherwise, the US and India relationship are not a matter of concern," he added.

However, he said that Pakistan would not compromise on adequate deterrence, so the United States must persuade India not to expand its nuclear power.

"When they (India) started the Cold Start doctrine in which they moved 10 cantonments close to the Pakistan border so they can act on our forces at short notice and from across the border, the tactical nuclear weapons were a response to that particular threat. So - the independent variable in this case is India. We are the dependent variable," he said.

He further stated that if the U.S. has to persuade Pakistan to respond in a positive way, they have to persuade India not to expand its nuclear and initiate the dialogue to reduce tensions and resolve disputes.

"But Pakistan has of course clarified that the decision: what is adequate deterrent, how to protect our security, this is our own national sovereign right. This we cannot share with anyone," Aziz said.

It should be noted that the US and many other Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) member countries have supported India's inclusion based on its non-proliferation track record.

The US, however, did not subsidize the sale of eight F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan.
Dhaka: After the SITE Intelligence Group published photos of five gunmen claimed by Islamic state that killed 22 people in Dhakas Holey Artisan Bakery, friends and former classmates have started identifying the attackers using social media. The photos of five ISIS recruits released over the weekend show the militants are young  around 21 to 27 years old. They were identified as Akash, Bikash, Don, Badhon and Ripon.

But friends who have identified the attackers have identified different names for three of them through social media. As per the photo posted by SITE, one assailant has been identified as Nibras Islama (pictured bottom left). On his Facebook, which has now been deactivated, it was found that he went missing from Uttara on February 3. In one of the videos posted on his profile, he is seen shaking hands with Bollywood actress Shraddha Kapoor. It is unclear where the footage was shot.

After studying at a top private university in Dhaka, he had gone to pursue higher studies in Monash Universitys Malaysia campus. Another assailant identified as Meer Saameh Mubasheer (pictured bottom right) was a class 11 (A-level) student. He went missing from Gulshan on February 29 The third attacker has been identified as Rohan Imitiaz.

His father is believed to be a politician from Dhaka and was also a student of a top private school. They are all highly educated young men and went to university. No one is from a madrassa, Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said. Asked why they would have become Islamist militants, Khan said: It has become a fashion.
High-tech Maruti Ertiga Hoysala patrol vehicles that can reach crime spots quickly would be inducted into all police commissionerates in the state.





The concept behind buying the new Hoysala patrol vehicles and equipping them with modern gadgets connected to a command centre is to be first and fast. The government has allotted 222 such patrol vehicles for Bengaluru, Home Minister G Parameshwara told reporters on Saturday, after flagging off the patrol vehicles along with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and others in front of Vidhana Soudha.



The government will buy 200 more such patrol vehicles for Bengaluru city besides 1,000 patrol bikes under the Mega City policing and police modernisation scheme.



The police will now be able to reach crime scenes or trouble-hit areas in the quickest possible time. These vehicles will not be used for any other purpose but patrolling. It is a new beginning for the Bengaluru city police under the police modernisation scheme. This is the first step towards making Bengaluru a safe city, he said.



There will be effective policing and patrolling in rural areas and on Bengaluru citys outskirts once the ongoing work to reorganise police jurisdictions is completed, he said.



Regarding extention of timings of eating joints in Bengaluru city, he said the government responded to the demand of the corporate world. The government permitted eating joints to operate till 1 am on Saturdays and Sundays in the past. This proved to be a success and no untoward incidents were reported. Hence, a decision was taken to allow them to operate till 1 am in Bengaluru, he said. To a question, the Home Minister said: People can reach out to senior officers quickly through social media. The social media will soon be used effectively in all other commissionerates in the state.


Three students from US universities, including an Indian girl, were among 20 hostages hacked to death by ISIS militants in a terror attack at a restaurant in Bangladesh capital's high-security diplomatic zone.





Nineteen-year-old Tarushi Jain, an Indian student at UC Berkeley, was on vacation in Dhaka when the attack happened.



The two other students -- Abinta Kabir and Faraaz Hossain-- were studying at Atlanta's Emory University, varsity officials said here, mourning the loss of their lives.

Bangladeshi-origin Abinta, who was from Miami, was a rising sophomore at Emory's Oxford College. Faraaz, a junior from Dhaka, was a graduate of Oxford College and a student at the university's Goizueta Business School, the university said yesterday.



"The Emory community mourns this tragic and senseless loss of two members of our university family. Our thoughts and prayers go out on behalf of Faraaz and Abinta and their families and friends for strength and peace at this unspeakably sad time," the university said in a statement.



The attack has drawn widespread condemnation from several US Senators, with Georgia lawmaker David Perdue asserting that "these senseless acts of terror must come to an end."



Mourning the loss of the two Emory students, Senator Perdue said innocent people were being massacred across the world at the hands of ISIS.



"These senseless acts of terror absolutely must come to an end. It is deeply disturbing to hear that two of the victims of the most recent attacks are Emory University students...keeping Abinta Kabir, Faraaz Hossain, and their loved ones in our thoughts and prayers during this terrible time," Perdue said.



Florida Senator Marco Rubio said he was saddened to learn that Miami's Abinta Kabir was among the victims.



"My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Bangladesh and all those countries who lost citizens in this horrific attack" Rubio said.




Fifteen people, including six policemen, were injured when people belonging to two communities clashed in south Delhis Fatehpur Beri area on Friday night.





The police have detained around 25 people, and heavy police force including CRPF men have been deployed in the area.



Most of the people got injured in stone-throwing, and were taken to AIIMS Trauma centre. A case of rioting has been registered, the police said.



The incident started when two juveniles belonging to Valmiki and Jatav communities sparred over a minor issue in Osla village. Following which adults also jumped into the fight and soon stones started to rain from both the sides.



A police call was made few minutes after the clash had started and large numbers of policemen reached the spot to control the situation.



The police had to use force in order to control the mob but the stone-throwing was so intense that some policemen got injured by it. Apart from that, several parked vehicles got damaged due to stone-throwing, the police said.



Due to the, incident panic has spread in the area and people are avoiding coming out from their houses. Concerned about the safety of their near and dear ones, some people have even left their residence and have moved in to their relatives houses, said sources.



Bricks and stones are being strewn around on the streets of Osla village, sources said.



People from Jatav community are claiming that the Valmikis first started throwing bricks on them from the roofs of their multi-storey-houses and they only retaliated in defence. They also said that bullets were also being fired from the Valmiki community.



The police have, however, registered a case under section 147 (punishment for rioting) and 148 (rioting, armed with heavy weapon) in the incident and investigation has been started.



We have detained 20-25 people and they are being questioned to know more about the incident, said a senior police officer.




The daughter of a woman who had forced a 17-year-old into sex trade helped save the girl by getting in touch with an NGO and prompting it to carry out a rescue operation.





The girl who was forcibly married by the accused after being forced into prostitution is now one month pregnant. Three people were arrested after the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) intervened in the case after the victim was rescued.



The teenager, a resident of Fatehpur district, Uttar Pradesh, came to Delhi a few days back in search of a job. While the girls parents have died, her brother suffers from epilepsy.



She came to the capital so that she could earn a living for her brothers treatment.

When the girl reached New Delhi Railway station, she met two people. The duo promised her a job and took her along.



However, the girl found herself in the middle of a sex trade racket soon after this. She was kept in Maujpur area where the accused forced her into the trade. A few days later, they forcibly married her off to a 40-year-old man in Chandni Chowk area.



The accused womans daughter, who is also a minor, was aware of the sequence of events.



She was aware that her mother pushed young girls into sex trade racket and wanted to help out the victim.



The accused had been arrested earlier in connection with cases of running sex trade rackets as well.



The girl reached the house in Chandni Chowk where the victim was living after being married off.



After a rescue operation, the girl along with an NGO representative approached the DCW.



The commission after listening to the victim sent a team with the girl to get an FIR registered at the concerned police station. An FIR was filed at the Zafarabad police station. Following this, the three, including the woman, were arrested.


Baku, Azerbaijan, July 3

Trend:

Armenian armed forces have 10 times violated the ceasefire with Azerbaijan on the line of contact over the past 24 hours, said Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry.

Armenian armed forces, stationed in the village of Berkaber of Armenias Ijevan district, opened fire at Azerbaijani positions located in the village of Gizilhajili of Gazakh district.

Moreover, Azerbaijani positions underwent fire from the positions located near the village of Horadiz of Fizuli district and from the nameless heights of Khojavend 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.
Bindiya, 13, along with four other children, leaves her home in slum cluster in Narela at 7 am sharp every day. They return home by around 5 pm. Their routine may be mistaken for school timings. But these children head to Connaught Place to sell pens to make a living.





They form a group and stick together so that they do not get lost. Their siblings disperse in other parts of the city, mostly the Delhi Zoo, to sell folded fans, along with the pens.



The youngest child in the group is four-year-old Sanjay. Bindiya swiftly names the other children: Sonia, 10 who is always accompanied by her sister Khusboo, 8, and Kuldeep, 9.



Their tales are almost similar: their parents either sell water in Narela or work in factories where they pack noodles. The children themselves earn between Rs 80-Rs 100 together every day by selling pens.



Only one among them, Kuldeep, has ever been to school.



I left it and started coming here instead to earn money, he says. The others say they have never thought about going to school. Their only bit of learning happens on Sundays when two youths come to teach them outside gate No. 2 of the Rajiv Chowk Metro Station.



The children were not able to confirm whether the teachers are from an NGO or any other institute.



At another corner of the busy Connaught Place market, five-year-old Alam asks for alms outside the Metro station. He comes from Noida every morning and goes back to his grandmother at around 7 pm.



Alam is wearing a dirty red t-shirt, his nose is bubbling with mucous and the skin on his legs is dry and flaking. Till 2.30 pm, he has managed to collect Rs 35.



He says he was born in Delhi but soon after that his parents ran away to Patna and left him with his grandmother, who works as a domestic help.



I give my money to her or else she beats me, he says.



Experts say that the only way to bring these children into the mainstream is taking their parents into confidence as they are the ones who send these kids to earn.



These children know no other way of life. They have been brought up by their parents in a way that they know they have to start working at an early age. They remain on the streets throughout the day and do not fear even travelling to far off places for money, says Pramod Kumar Singh, who works with the NGO Salaam Baalak Trust.



The NGO has been working towards rehabilitation of street children since 1988, providing full-time and short stay facilities to children in need of care and protection. It has a total of 28 centres (22 contact points and six shelter homes).

The NGO also has various centres dedicated to education of children who live in shelter homes run by the Delhi government.



According to a study done by the NGO Save the Children in 2010, the national capital is home to over 50,000 street children  constituting 0.4 per cent of Delhis population and one per cent of the total number of children here.



There are two kinds of street children, Pramod says. One kind is like Alam who have a home to go to but beg for a living or those born to homeless parents, and the second category are those who have run away from home and made their way to Delhi. These children spend their days at locations such as New Delhi railway station and Old Delhi and get involved in activities like drugs, theft and prostitution.



There are various gangs who look for these children. We have to reach out to them before they do. Once they come in contact with these gangs, it is difficult to convince them for their rehabilitation, says P N Mishra, a member of the NGOs executive council.



Even if they live on their own, it takes a lot to convince them and bring them into the mainstream, sometimes even months.



These children are mostly in the age group of 10-15 years. They have tasted freedom and are mostly into alcohol. They have seen what exposure to the world is. We have to gain their confidence, says Pramod, who is the coordinator for rescuing children from the vicinity of New Delhi railway station.



Sometimes, even if the child agrees to come into the shelter home, he goes back into his old world. The NGO has seen cases where they have admitted children in government schools but they have dropped out and gone back to begging or to one of the gangs.



Some children are not convinced that what is being done is for their benefit, he says.



Last year, the NGO rescued more than 8,000 children, out of which 2,200 were restored to their families, mostly in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.



Pramod, however, says, there is a need to improve the infrastructural facilities for these children in the capital.



We are already exceeding the capacity at our centres. There are so many such children coming to Delhi by train every day. The issue of street children should be on the priority list of the government, he says.



Another issue is getting these children used to living without pocket money, which is their weakness.



When we made them leave begging and got them admitted into government schools, what we noticed was they used to ask for alms while coming back from school in their school uniforms, says Samar, who teaches at a centre run by the NGO at a government-run shelter home near Jama Masjid.



Almost every child in the shelter home was into begging till last year when this centre was set up.



Since they had their own money, they were into the habit of eating every one or two hours from a dhaba nearby. Initially they didnt like the healthy food we gave them, says Samar.



The children are given basic education from morning till 4 pm daily. They rest, eat their lunch, and play, all in this one room. Once they have passed a certain level, they are admitted into nearby government schools.



Last year, 17 children from this centre were enrolled into schools. One of them is eight-year-old Chandni, who says she did not like begging but was forced into it by her mother.



Now she cheerfully claims that she knows counting and can recite tables and alphabets. She has a file, like every child in the centre, which has pages of the lessons she has learnt so far, like forming sentences, etc.



We had to be strict with them because these kids have a lot of exposure. Initially they didnt take us seriously and even their parents used to interrupt the classes anytime of the day, and take the children with them for begging,

says Samar.



Things are visibly different now. Sitting on their mats, the children greet anyone new who enters the room, and tell them what they want to become when they grow up. Many here say they want to become policemen or doctors.



Chandni points towards Samar and says she wants to become a teacher like her.










The jihadists who slaughtered 20 hostages at a Dhaka restaurant were members of a homegrown Bangladeshi militant outfit and not followers of the Islamic State group, a senior minister said Sunday.





"They are members of the Jamaeytul Mujahdeen Bangladesh," Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told AFP, referring to a group which has been banned in Bangladesh for more than a decade.



"They have no connections with the Islamic State."




A high alert has been sounded on the Indo-Bangla border in the five states of West Bengal, Tripura, Meghalaya, Assama and Mizoram in the wake of the terror attack in Dhaka with the Border Security Force(BSF) stepping up its vigil.





India and Bangladesh share a 4,096 km-long international border, the fifth-longest land border in the world, with West Bengal having the highest length with 2,217 km. The length of the border in the other four states is Tripura(856km), Meghalaya(443km), Assam(262km) and Mizoram(180km).



The West Bengal administration has asked the state police to be on high alert and take serious note of any suspicious movement in the border districts.



"All police stations along the Indo-Bangla border have been alerted and all border districts have been told to keep a close eye on any suspicious movement," a senior police official of the West Bengal Police said.



Vehicles are being checked at various entry and exit points in the districts bordering Bangladesh, which has declared a two-day state mourning after the attack on a cafe in Dhaka's diplomatic zone on Friday night resulting in the killing of 20 persons, all foreigners, who were taken hostage.



As it was a festival season with Eid and Ratha yatra to be celebrated, a strict vigil was being maintained on the border. But after the attack in Bangladesh, the BSF had further intensified the vigil and special operations were on, IG BSF Sandeep Salunke had told PTI yesterday.



Salunke also said that the BSF was in touch with Border Guard Bangladesh and keeping a close eye on the situation.



A top police official in Agartala said that as soon as the attack broke out BSF and all other security forces including Tripura police, were alerted so that no unwanted elements could cross the border to enter Indian territory.



BSF Inspector General (Meghalaya Frontier) P K Dubey said the force has been put on "very high alert" along the Indo- Bangladesh border in Meghalaya.



"The force has been put on very high alert along the Indo-Bangladesh border following the armed attack in Dhaka. Security has been tightened," Dubey said.Dubey said he had spoken to officials of Meghalaya Police for coordination and sharing of information as soon as news of the killings came in.



Meghalaya has over 100 "gaps" consisting of streams, rivers and drains apart from the unfenced 90-km stretch along its 443-km border with Bangladesh.



Accordingly, the BSF has sought cooperation of all state and central intelligence units to ensure that no illegal cross-border movement takes place, he said.



Police personnel posted close to the border have been alerted and asked to keep strict vigil in close coordination with the BSF, a senior police officer said.



The Assam police said it had instructed SPs of all districts, especially the border ones, to keep a strict vigil for any possible ISIS activity in the state.



According to a press release by the Assam Police, all the SPs have been instructed to gear up their intelligence machinery and keep a close watch on the situation.



Although authorities have not perceived any footprint of ISIS in Assam in the recent past, considering the gravity of the situation in the neighbouring country the alert has been issued, it explained.



"The SPs of Cachar, Karimganj and Dhubri, and BSF along the Assam-Bangladesh border have also been cautioned to be on maximum alert," the statement said.



Several modules of JMB in Assam were busted in the aftermath of Khagragarh blast in Burdwan district of West Bengal on October 2, 2014.




The US federal government has proposed adding a line to forms filled out by visitors to the United States that would ask them to voluntarily disclose their social media accounts, a step that it said would help in screening for ties to terrorism.





Visitors entering the country under the Visa Waiver Program, which allows citizens of some countries to visit up to 90 days without a visa, would not be required to list their social media accounts, and the forms would not ask for passwords. But Customs and Border Protection, which announced the proposal recently in the Federal Register, said the social media information would give it extra investigative tools.



Collecting social media data will enhance the existing investigative process and provide DHS greater clarity and visibility to possible nefarious activity, the border agency said, referring to the Department of Homeland Security, its parent organisation.



The proposal comes after Congress passed legislation last year to add restrictions to the Visa Waiver Program. The legislation was a response to the November terrorist attacks in Paris, which led to fears that European-born or naturalised citizens with terrorist ties could enter the United States without being properly vetted.



Legislation pending in Congress would require the Department of Homeland Security to collect social media information from foreign visitors. The bills were spurred by the terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, in December. The couple who carried out the assault had exchanged private messages online discussing their commitment to jihad and martyrdom, law enforcement officials said, but they did not post any public messages about their plans.



Rep Vern Buchanan, who has introduced one of the bills requiring social media information, called the Customs and Border Protection proposal lame.



Voluntary disclosure wont keep anyone safe, Buchanan said. If we want to win on the digital battlefield, mandatory screening is required.



Buchanans bill would direct the Department of Homeland Security to review all public records, including Facebook and other forms of social media, before admitting foreign travellers.



Four pilot projects are underway in the department to examine the use of social media among applicants for immigration benefits. One of the projects, which began in December and runs through this month, screens the social media accounts of applicants for so-called fiance visas, the program under which one of the San Bernardino attackers entered the United States.




The Karnataka government has directed the Bengaluru Metropolitan Region Development Authority (BMRDA) to guide local planning authorities of Ramanagaram, Solur, Nandagudi and Sathanur to regulate growth in these towns by preparing master plans.





The governments move is to check unplanned growth and unauthorised constructions in these towns after they were dropped from a proposal to develop them as integrated satellite townships around Bengaluru to decongest the state capital. At present, these towns do not have proper zoning regulations.



The JD(S)-BJP government, in 2006, proposed to develop these towns and also Bidadi as integrated satellite townships. As part of the project, a notification was issued to stop conversion of agricultural land and development of private layouts in these towns.



However, as years moved on, the proposal to develop integrated township at Bidadi was retained while that for the other four towns was dropped. In 2013, the then BJP government withdrew the notification which disallowed conversion of agricultural land for residential and commercial activities in the four towns.



Urban development department officials point out that since the withdrawal of the notification there has been haphazard and unregulated growth in the towns due to lack of zoning regulations, necessitating the need for master plans.



The State Cabinet, in April this year, gave its nod for preparing master plans for the four towns. The urban development department has since written to the BMRDA to guide the local planning authorities in preparing the master plans. Once the draft master plans are ready, objections would be called from the public, after which it would be notified as per the provisions of the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act, 1961.



The master plans, which will specify the zoning regulation, development code, planning guidelines and space requirements for various socio-economic activities, will be in effect for a period of 15 years since the date of notification, sources said.
A 14-year-old student jumped to death from the 10th floor of a private apartment building in JP Nagar 5th phase on June 29.





The deceased is Raunak Banerjee, a ninth standard student in Baldwin Boys High School. He committed suicide as he could not bear the humiliation after a few students spoke ill of him. On June 29, he came home from school and went to the 10th floor. He resided on the first floor along with his parents.



He climbed up the parapet wall and jumped from there. He fell down and was lying in a pool of blood. The security guard, who noticed this, informed the parents and neighbours.

The JP Nagar police arrived at the spot and shifted him to a nearby hospital, where he was declared brought dead, said the police.



A senior police officer said, The footage from the CCTV camera at the apartment was examined. It was seen that he alights from the van and walks straight into the building. His bag was found lying near the lift. In a chit found in the bag, the boy says he was embarrassed as some of his friends bullied him. He could not bear the humiliation.

We are enquiring if he was bullied in the van or in the school. The school authorities have been asked to conduct an enquiry and submit a report.



We will check with the parents to see if he had complained of being bullied in school. As of now, they are not in a condition to speak. The case involves students and it has to be dealt with in a sensitive manner, the officer said. A case of abetment to suicide has been registered in JP Nagar police station and investigation is on.



Find the guy who disturbed my son



Bengaluru: Speaking to the media, Rounaks mother said that he usually comes home at around 4.25 pm. However, on that day, she did not find him when she returned home.

I rang the door bell, no one opened. I thought he was delayed. I thought he must have got stuck in the rain. I entered the house and went to the washroom, she said.



The mother came back to pick a call from the neighbour. My neighbour said your son is lying down. I rushed there and he was in a pool of blood, she recalled. The mother said that the principal was praising her son, saying he was generous, but she was not overwhelmed by it. I know my son was a good boy and very generous. I did not want that compliment from him. I want to know who has disturbed him. Just ask him to find out this guy. He (the principal) has been saying that they are looking out.



Despite several attempts, the school has not been able to identify the student responsible for Rounaks death. A parent-teacher meeting has been called on Monday to discuss the issue. Ajay Seth, principal secretary (incharge) of the Department of Public Instruction, said that he had sought a report on the issue. I do not have much information. I have sought a report from the officials, he said.



Victims sister on Facebook



Dyuti Banerjee: We need information. We demand justice. Raunak Banerjee lost his life to fatal bullying! I will never know what my brother went through but we demand to know what happened to him. Waiting for justice. #Baldwinboys #Antibullying #Antiragging



Change.org



A soft hearted, good natured 14 year kid was harassed and tortured to such an extent that ending his life was the only option he could think of... A suicide note in his school bag says he couldn't take it anymore and was terribly bullied by a group of boys in school. Apparently the incident was so bad that he couldn't put the details on the note and apologized to his parents for the extreme step. Today I have lost my brother. Tomorrow it can be yours!



Experts for watch by parents, teachers



Adolescence being a phase of life with emotions running high, there is a need for closer watch by teachers and parents, say psychologists.



They have also insisted on a need for a separate law against bullying.

Speaking to Deccan Herald, Bharathi Singh, founder, Yuva Helpline, Sa Mudra Foundation said incidents of this sort call for better guidelines in schools.



One could possibly look at whether the child who bullied the other was himself a victim of bullying. It could also be possible that he was not getting enough attention at home.

She suggested, There should be a 1:5 ratio of teachers and students. With micro-families going up these days and young mothers not being able to give much time, it becomes a need for someone to give attention to the child, she said.



Dr B N Gangadhar, director, Nimhans said peer pressure could mostly be good. However, some students have a tendency to be sensitive.



Parents or teachers must identify any changes in the childs behaviour. It is ideal to have a counsellor in school, he added.










Baku, Azerbaijan, July 3

Trend:

The whole world saw that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is not frozen, Novruz Mammadov, deputy head of Azerbaijani presidential administration, chief of the administration's foreign relations department, said in an interview with local TV channels July 3.

He said that, there are several reasons for revival in the process of settlement of the conflict.

"Many people want to create a view that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is frozen," Mammadov said. "However, as a result of recent Armenian provocations, the whole world saw that the conflict is not frozen."

According to him, in addition, the policy pursued by the President of Azerbaijan in relations with different countries - the EU, US, Russia, Turkey, Iran, committed visits to these countries, the results achieved during the negotiations and these visits have led to a common position - it's time to resolve the conflict, which has continued for almost 25 years.

"Therefore, today great attention is paid to the resolution of the conflict. After the April events, by the initiative of the US, a meeting was held in Vienna, and also at various meetings, Russia, and France stressed the importance of starting negotiations on the settlement of the conflict and the entry into a new phase. Now, considering the positions of the OSCE Minsk group member states, and the co-chairs themselves, you can see that there is an intention to move forward," Novruz Mammadov said.

He said that currently, Germany is trying to take a step on this issue.

Given the possibilities of Germany as the OSCE chairman, Berlin is interested in resolving the conflict, wants to help solve the problem, Mammadov said.

"In addition, some time ago during the Azerbaijani President's visit to Germany, this question was widely discussed at the meeting with the German Chancellor and the delegations. Azerbaijan President expressed his position, explained and justified a fair solution to the conflict. I think that the result of this was the German foreign minister's visit to the region," Novruz Mammadov said.

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.
It has been years since land was identified for a pulping industry in Srinivaspur - the states mango town in Kolar district. The town, bordering Andhra Pradesh and around 90 km from Bengaluru, produces the largest quantity of mangoes in south India.



An official in Horticulture department in Srinivaspur said many requests to set up a pulping industry have been in vain. Officials said that when S M Krishna was chief minister, 50 acres of gomala land was identified in Somayajalapalli in Srinivasapur taluk, for setting up the states first pulping industry. But till date, things have not moved further.



Farmers and local residents are exploited by pulping industries and dealers from other states. The dealers come here, buy mangoes in large quantities from the yards or directly from the farmers and sell them at a higher price to the pulping industries. Karnataka has no pulping industry of its own, the official said.



Kamalakshi Rajanna, chairperson of the Karnataka State Mango Development and Marketing Corporation Limited, said it was for the government to decide on setting up a pulping industry in Srinivaspur.



Karnataka generates 11-12 lakh tonnes of mangoes, of which one lakh tonnes is from Kolar district alone.



Of the 22,000 tonnes of Totapuri mangoes produced, 14,000 tonnes is from Srinivasapur only. Around 48,000 hectares of land in Kolar is under mango cultivation, of which 22,000 hectares is in Srinivasapur. In Chikkaballapur, 15,000 hectares is under mango cultivation. Since Totapuri is an annual crop, unlike other varieties, more farmers grow Totapuri.



There are three mango marketing yards in Srinivasapur - one private, one belonging to the Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee and the other belonging to the mango growers association. At any given time, 100-200 trucks and tractors can be seen ferrying tonnes of mangoes from there to Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Goa, Maharashtra and local markets, especially Bengaluru.



My 20 hectares of land has already been booked by a dealer for two years, who has tied up with a pulping industry. I have been growing Totapuri, Mallika, Badami, Banganapalli and Neelam varieties. It was only later did I learn that the rate at which we sold was less than the market rate. But I am not the only one. This is the case with most farmers here, as government shows no interest in helping us, said Basavanna, a farmer.



Over 4,000 farmers are registered with Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority, of which 2,000 are from Srinivasapur and other parts of Kolar. But there are over 2,000 more who are not aware of the registration and crop safety aspects.



To increase crop production, export more mangoes and sell more in local markets, next season, the Horticulture department has decided to undertake a rigorous awareness drive October onwards, when sowing starts.



S V Hittalamani, former additional director of the department, said 80% of the Totapuri is processed for juice, tetra packs, frozen fruit and squash. Only 20% is consumed raw. Most of the time, Totapuri is blended with superior quality mango (for the fragrance). This works out cheap, as pulp recovery is maximum from Totapuri.
A month after Rajasthan got its first two women qazis, Jama Masjid in Jaipur will open its doors for women to offer namaz. The historic mosque, situated in the old city market of Johri Bazaar, has made a separate room for this purpose.





The section, located in the main hall on the first floor, can accommodate 20-25 women, and has a glass partition and curtains for purdah. The mosque was built by King Bharmal of Amber on orders from emperor Akbar in AD 1569, and is considered a tourist attraction.



"The provision has been made for women who are in the market shopping and cant get home in time to offer prayers. But the women will not be a part of the jamaat and will have to offer prayers separately, Naim Qureshi, chief of the Jaipur Jama Masjid committee, told Deccan Herald. The section will open this Ramzan.



Welcoming the move, Navaid Hamid, president, All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat, told DH: It is certainly a positive step. This is a first in Rajasthan. For decades, the Old Delhi Jama Masjid and Hazratbal in Kashmir have a designated place for women."



There are many who are unhappy with the initiative. Some clerics have cautioned the Jama Masjid committee to not popularise the trend. They also refused to accept the two women from Jaipur who underwent a training course for qazis in Mumbai, perhaps making them the first women qazis in the state.



Womens groups have come out in support of the initiative. Mehrunnisa Khan, chairperson, Women Muslim Welfare Society, told DH, Namaz is compulsory for men and women, and working women need a space to offer prayers on time. Other mosques should also try to keep a separate area for women. When we offer rituals in Mecca, there is no discrimination between men and women.
The family of Tarishi Jain, who was killed in Dhakas terror attack on Friday, has criticised the way the Bangladesh government handled the crisis.





The Jains, who hail from Uttar Pradesh's Ferozabad town, said Bangladesh showed ''undue haste'' in launching the operation to eliminate the terrorists. Tarishi's father Sanjiv has an ancestral house at Suhag Nagar area in the town. He runs a garment business and has been living in Bangladesh for over a decade.



''The Bangladesh government should have first taken steps to ensure the safety of the hostages and then launched the operation, said one of Tarishi's uncles in Ferozabad on Sunday.



He also claimed the authorities in Dhaka did not hand over the body to Sanjiv for several hours after the operation was over.



Sanjiv's brother Rakesh Mohan Jain said the last rites would be performed in Gurgaon. ''We are expecting the body to reach Delhi on Monday...from there it will be taken to Gurgaon, he said. Tarishi's parents and brother Sanchit will accompany the body, Rakesh added. He said the cremation was to take place at Ferozabad, but later changed to Gurgaon where Sanjiv has a flat.



Another relative said the young girl was scheduled to arrive in Ferozabad on Sunday. ''She was here last year for Diwali, Rakesh recalled.



Relatives had planned to go to Dhaka to be with Sanjiv, but changed the plan after it was decided that Tarishi would be cremated in India.



Ferozabad district magistrate Nidhi Kesarwani said the administration would lend all possible help to the family in bringing the body from Delhi to Ferozabad.



Tarishi, who studied in the US and was on vacation, was with her friends when terrorists struck the Holey Artisan Bakery in the diplomatic district of Dhaka.

At least 20 hostages and two police officers were killed in the incident.
If an Uttar Pradesh school teacher can say that IMF stands for International Money Found, then Bihar teachers are not lagging behind in terms of merit.





A primary school teacher in Bihars Buxar district could not even write namaskar in Hindi properly when she was asked to do so.



The matter came to fore when the District Magistrate (DM) Raman Kumar decided to carry out a surprise inspection of a primary school in his area. When the DM reached the school in Masarhia, he found the teacher concerned Rekha Kumari absent. The other teacher on the school campus Ruby Kumari was summoned. She was asked to write Namaskar in Hindi on the black board. She failed to write it correctly. With much difficulty she wrote Nasmakar.



To be fair to her, the DM gave her another chance and asked her to write Aashirwad (blessings) in Hindi on the board. She could not write even Aashirwad correctly.



This infuriated the DM who publicly snubbed the teacher: How do you people teach the children here? Is this the way new generation of student is being readied?



The DM later interacted with the students who informed him that the school teacher Rekha Kumari visited school only twice a month. When the students register was verified, it was found that out of 43 students enrolled, only 16 came to school.



The rota in Bihars education system recently came to fore and made national headlines a month back when Intermediate Arts topper Ruby Rai pronounced political science as prodigal science and added that cooking was taught in that subject. She could not even answer how much marks she scored in the intermediate exams. Having failed in the re-test, Ruby Rai is at present cooling her heels in Patnas Beur Jail.



The District Magistrate during a surprise inspection at a primary school asked the teacher, Ruby Kumari, to write Namaskar in Hindi on the black board. She failed to write it correctly. With much difficulty she wrote Nasmakar. DM gave her another chance and asked her to write Aashirwad. She could not write even Aashirwad correctly


Despite the Centre making it mandatory to test mid-day meal samples at certified laboratories, several state governments are yet to do so.





The Centre notified rules for the implementation of the mid-day meal scheme in September 2015 after the hot cooked meal served in schools under the Centre-sponsored programme became a right for schoolchildren with the enactment of the Food Security Act.



So far, only 16 states and Union Territories got the mid-day samples tested for its quality and nutritional contents. Gujarat topped by getting 1,000 samples tested, followed by Uttar Pradesh (972) and Maharashtra (506). Between Bihar and Haryana, just three samples were tested, five were tested in Mizoram, eight in Assam and 10 in Himachal Pradesh.



While as many as 344 food samples were tested in Delhi since September last year, the Karnataka government has sent just 51 samples for tests.



According to the Human Resource Development Ministry, the governments of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala and Tamil Nadu have not yet started sending the meal samples for laboratory testing.



The Mid-Day Meal Rules, 2015, stipulated: Hot cooked meals provided to children should be evaluated and certified by the government Food Research Laboratory or any laboratory accredited or recognised by the law so as to ensure that the meal meets the nutritional standards and quality specified in Schedule II of the Act. The Food and Drugs Administration Department of the respective states should collect samples to ensure the nutritive value and quality of the meals, it added.
At least 120 people were killed and 200 injured in two suicide bombings in a busy Baghdad shopping district on Sunday.





Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the deadliest attack this year in Iraqs capital.



The blast hit the Karrada district early in the day as the area was packed with shoppers, ahead of this weeks holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.



The incident came a week after Iraqi security forces recaptured Fallujah from IS, leaving Mosul as the only Iraqi city under the jihadist groups control. The bombing also wounded more than 200 people, security officials said. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited the site of the attack and vowed punishment to its perpetrators, his office said.



The blast set buildings ablaze, and firemen were still working to extinguish them some 12 hours later.



Hussein Ali, a 24-year-old former soldier, said six workers at his familys shop were killed in the attack, their bodies burnt beyond recognition.



I will return to the battlefront. At least there, I know the enemy so I can fight him. But here, I dont know who Im fighting, Ali told AFP.



An IS statement said the suicide bombing was carried out by an Iraqi as part of the groups ongoing security operations. The jihadist group said the blast targeted members of Iraqs Shiite Muslim majority, whom the Sunni extremists consider heretics and frequently attack in Baghdad and elsewhere.



UN Iraq envoy Jan Kubich condemned the cowardly and heinous act of unparallelled proportions, calling on authorities to bring those responsible to justice.



Officials said another explosion in the Shaab area of northern Baghdad killed at least one person and wounded four on Sunday, but the cause of the blast was disputed.



US National Security Council spokesperson Ned Price said the attacks only strengthen our resolve to support Iraqi security forces as they continue to take back territory from IS.



Bombings in the capital have decreased since IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in June 2014, with the jihadists apparently occupied with operations elsewhere.



But the group has struck back against Iraqi civilians after suffering military setbacks.



Abadi faces ire



A video posted on social media showed men - apparently angry at the governments failure to prevent the carnage in Karrada - throwing rocks towards what was said to be Abadis convoy. A bystander could be heard cursing at Abadi in another video.



In May, Baghdad was rocked by a series of blasts that killed more than 150 people in seven days. With thousands of vehicles moving in and out of the city each day, such bombings are difficult to prevent.



But there are also flaws in Iraqi security measures in the city, especially the continued use of fake bomb detectors at checkpoints years after the man who sold them to Iraq was jailed for fraud in Britain. Iraqi forces completely recaptured Fallujah, a city 50 kilometres west of Baghdad, from the jihadists a week ago. Anti-government fighters seized Fallujah in early 2014 and it later became one of ISs main strongholds in the country.




The body of Indian teenager Tarishi Jain, who was among those hacked to death by IS militants in Dhaka, will be brought here on Monday, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said.





It is a case of brutal killing, an unnatural death. Some legal procedure has (to) be completed, the minister tweeted. Swaraj said Tarishis body will be flown to Delhi on Monday. This is with concurrence of Tarishis father.



The family will take the mortal remains to Ferozabad in Uttar Pradesh, she added.

Tarishi, a student at UC Berkeley, was on vacation in Dhaka. Her father has been running a garment business in Bangladesh for the last 15-20 years, according to officials here.



Sushma said India is with Tarishis family in this hour of grief and visas have been arranged for them. Twenty foreigners, including the Indian student, were killed by militants inside the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhakas diplomatic zone before commandos launched an assault.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 3

Trend:

The whole world saw that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is not frozen, Novruz Mammadov, deputy head of Azerbaijani presidential administration, chief of the administration's foreign relations department, said in an interview with local TV channels July 3.

He said that, there are several reasons for revival in the process of settlement of the conflict.

"Many people want to create a view that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is frozen," Mammadov said. "However, as a result of recent Armenian provocations, the whole world saw that the conflict is not frozen."

According to him, in addition, the policy pursued by the President of Azerbaijan in relations with different countries - the EU, US, Russia, Turkey, Iran, committed visits to these countries, the results achieved during the negotiations and these visits have led to a common position - it's time to resolve the conflict, which has continued for almost 25 years.

"Therefore, today great attention is paid to the resolution of the conflict. After the April events, by the initiative of the US, a meeting was held in Vienna, and also at various meetings, Russia, and France stressed the importance of starting negotiations on the settlement of the conflict and the entry into a new phase. Now, considering the positions of the OSCE Minsk group member states, and the co-chairs themselves, you can see that there is an intention to move forward," Novruz Mammadov said.

He said that currently, Germany is trying to take a step on this issue.

Given the possibilities of Germany as the OSCE chairman, Berlin is interested in resolving the conflict, wants to help solve the problem, Mammadov said.

"In addition, some time ago during the Azerbaijani President's visit to Germany, this question was widely discussed at the meeting with the German Chancellor and the delegations. Azerbaijan President expressed his position, explained and justified a fair solution to the conflict. I think that the result of this was the German foreign minister's visit to the region," Novruz Mammadov said.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 4

Trend:

Azerbaijans President has taken many steps to restore the relations between Turkey and Russia, Novruz Mammadov, deputy head of Azerbaijani presidential administration, chief of the administration's foreign relations department, said in an interview with local TV channels July 3.

He said that, Turkey and Russia, should be closer to each other and cooperate even more, since they are in the same region and have historical ties.

Mammadov went on to add that from this point of view, Azerbaijan was sure that sooner or later, Turkey and Russia will begin to normalize relations.

"From the beginning, President of Azerbaijan, in talks with the leaders of Turkey and Russia, has been noting the importance of mutual trust and understanding and restoration of relationship, and in this regard, he has taken many steps. Turkish authorities have also noted it", Novruz Mammadov said.

He said that Turkey is a partner and friendly, fraternal country to Azerbaijan.

"Russia is also a country with which we are linked by centuries, and cooperate in all areas, and so our main plan is to strengthen and expand this cooperation, so the Turkish-Russian relations would be solid," said Mammadov.

He added that some distance that appeared in relations between Turkey and Russia worries Azerbaijan even more than the mentioned countries.

"That's because the normalization of Turkish-Russian relations will also be beneficial both for themselves and for Azerbaijan" Novruz Mammadov said.
Tehran, Iran, July 3

By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:

Eight companies have been recognized as meeting the requirements to act as exploration and production (E&P) companies in the oil industry, Deputy Oil Minister for Research and Technology Mohammad Reza Moqaddam said.

The companies will be able to work as partners with foreign investors, Moqaddam told SHANA news agency July 3.

He named the companies as Petropars, OIEC (Oil Industries Engineering and Construction), Dana Energy, PetroIran Development, Mapna Oil and Gas Co., Khatam ul-Anbiya Construction Camp (Subsidiary of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps aka IRGC), Iran Industrial Projects Management Co. (subsidiary of Iran Industries Development and Renovation Organization), Persia Oil and Gas Development Co. (subsidiary of The Execution of Imam Khomeini's Order aka EIKO).
Ohio's 6-week abortion ban was a fringe idea. Heres how it became law

Ohio led a slow, determined push to steadily weaken and then nearly eliminate abortion rights. It's indicative of what has happened around the U.S.
Tehran, Iran, July 3

By Mehdi Sepahvand  Trend:

A Belgian-Turkish company will build a number of 5,000MW power plants in Iran, and the number of plants is to be finalized in about two weeks, according to Deputy Minister of Energy Hushang Falahatian.

The power plants will be built in different places such as East Azarbaijan, Sistan-Baluchestan, Khuzestan, and Saveh, he told Fars news agency July 1.

Falahatian also added that the plants will be built with a fund of $3 billion.

The power plants will met Class F standards, giving efficiency of over 58 percent, which we lack in our country. So the entire investment will be made by foreigners and the price of the power will be less than that produced domestically, he said.

Iran has signed an investment agreement with a group of foreign companies for developing its energy sector, an Iranian government official said June 7.

Government spokesman Mohammad Bagher Nobakht said then that Iran signed a new contract with a group of foreign companies to attract $4.2 billion worth of direct investments for building power plants in the country.

Nobakht said the contract envisages building several power plants with a total capacity of 5,000 megawatts (MW).

The power plants are projected to be built in the cities of Ahvaz, Dehloran, Zahedan, Saveh, Sufian and Bonab.

Iran's power generation capacity currently stands at around 74,000 MW, of that some 12,000 MW account for hydroelectric power plants, 1,000 MW for a nuclear power plant and the remaining for thermal power plants.
Five families across Ireland and many communities would have been quietly remembering the fishermen lost 30 years ago last Monday when the Skifjord fishing trawler sunk after striking a reef off Burtonport. Among the dead were skipper Francis Byrne from Bruckless (39), his son James (16), Desmond McGovern (22) from Mayo, Jimmy Laverty (20) from Ballycastle and Tony OBrien (21) from Dublin. Four other crewmembers - Gerry Laverty (26) from Dunkineely, John McGuinness (19) from Killybegs, Eamonn Mullin (29) also from Killybegs and the boats chef Standish OGrady (33) from Dublin - survived the catastrophe.

Five families across Ireland and many communities would have been quietly remembering the fishermen lost 30 years ago last Monday when the Skifjord fishing trawler sunk after striking a reef off Burtonport. Among the dead were skipper Francis Byrne from Bruckless (39), his son James (16), Desmond McGovern (22) from Mayo, Jimmy Laverty (20) from Ballycastle and Tony OBrien (21) from Dublin. Four other crewmembers - Gerry Laverty (26) from Dunkineely, John McGuinness (19) from Killybegs, Eamonn Mullin (29) also from Killybegs and the boats chef Standish OGrady (33) from Dublin - survived the catastrophe.

Danny Byrne, who lost both his father and brother in the tragedy, recalls that fateful day.

I was only eight years old at the time, but I can still remember it very clearly. The first we knew about it was when a national newspaper rang us in the morning to tell us. The horrible reality became apparent very quickly.

Everyone helped in the search - family, friends and neighbours. We even had family living in the Middle East who came back to take part in the search, which lasted for several weeks. They only found my brothers body after 8 or 9 days and they never found either my fathers body or Des McGoverns.

People were all in shock. No matter how aware you are of the dangers of fishing, its always a shock when someone dies. A tragedy like that, with so many lives lost, had a profound effect on the people of the area.

The local people ralled round and were a great support to us. One of the blessings we found over the years was that the local people continued to be a great support to us. My mother was from Mayo, and she wouldnt have had much in the way of family up here, apart from us, but the local people were wonderful to her and did all they could to help. It wasnt a case of being there at the time of the tragedy and then leaving us all on our own.

People were still rocking from the loss six men when the Evelyn Marie went down off Rathlin OBeirne and in 1976 when five men from the Carrig Una died when she foundered off the same reef as my fathers boat. Both of those crews fished, like my father, out of Killybegs and Burtonport.

I think the loss of the Skifjord wasnt anyones fault, it was just an unfortunate combination of events. The sea can be a hostile place at the best of times.

Enormous credit is due to my late mother Winnie. To be left with eight children after the trauma of losing your husband and your son, that was some cross.

My grandmother Brigid deserves great respect too. She had already lost her husband James and brother Danny a fishing tragedy off St Johns Point as well as her brother Anthon, who drowned in Mayo. My grandmother Brigid was a very strong person, a great source of strength to my mother and a big help raising us.

Another of the familys affected by the tragedy, the McGoverns, had also suffered previous losses. Des McGoverns mother died in a car accident and his brother died at the age of eight after falling off a pier in Mayo.

Witness accounts from the Donegal Democrat

When it became apparent that the Skifjord had run aground on The Mad Reef between Arranmore Island and Burtonport at around 3am, the crew of the Arkansas and the Autumn Glory came to their aid.

Joe Duffy, skipper of the Arkansas said the treacherous conditions meant they couldnt get close enough to fire a safety line over to them. I was there within ten minutes and went in as close as possible but the reef was between me and him and I couldnt get at him.

A large wave hit the boat, at approximately 3.30am, and swept it off the reef.

Standish OGrady described what happened next. The boat took a list to port and then she came back over to the sternboard side. After that, she was listing to port again and the stern was going down. We were all hanging onto the rails. Then the sea came up and swept us off the boat.

He managed to tie two buoys from the boats nets together and used them to keep afloat. Both he and Gerry Laverty made it to Inishinny Island, where they broke into a cottage and were later found by a search party.

One of the rescuers said: When they were found, both men were so cold they were almost stiff. It was almost like rigor mortis.

John McGuinness and Eamon Mullen also swam toward the mainland and were pulled from the water by local people.

Garda Sgt. Donal Ward recalled: When we found McGuinness, he was fairly strong, he was swimming well. When I went back, Eamonn Mullin had been found. He was not as strong as he had swallowed a lot of diesel.

The first body to be found was that of Tony OBrien who nearly made it to shore. He had been swimming with McGuinness and Mullin but it is believed that he struck a submerged rock and was knocked unconscious. His body was recovered at approximately 7.30am. The body of Jimmy Lavery was found at approximately 10am.

Gales and heavy seas hampered searches for the remaining crew members. When the garda sub-aqua team located the wreck all that was found on board was two lifejackets.
Halloween creatures  owls, crows and bats  all live at Crossroads, and that makes us very happy, for these scary animals make a positive contribution to the habitats of the preserve. We don't even mind black cats, IF they are kept indoors. Feral and outdoor cats are exceedingly harmful to wildlife ... and that's not a superstition! But to tamp down superstitions, we at Crossroads will spend the week demystifying Halloween creatures.

On October 28, 2022, at 6 p.m. will be our Evening with Owls. The Open Door Bird Sanctuary will be at Crossroads, offering a one-hour presentation followed by the opportunity to meet and greet live birds. Learn all about owls and the other incredible birds in the care of the Sanctuary!

Down through the centuries, in many cultures throughout the world, owls have been associated with evil and death. Truth is, owls probably are not smart enough to be evil. But researchers agree that owls are about as dim as the nighttime forests in which they hunt.

Owls don't need to be smart. They have everything else going for them. They are muscular. They fly silently. Their huge eyes enable them to see in the dark. Their beaks and talons are strong and wickedly sharp. But their sensitive ears are what make owls extraordinary hunters.

Most people assume that the plumicorns (a.k.a. "horns) of an owl are its ears. Not so.

The actual ears lie under feathers on the sides of the head, and they aren't symmetrical. Because one ear is higher than the other and the ears are unequal in size, sound is different from different directions, helping owls locate prey, which they do almost unfailingly, even in total darkness.

Owls do not smell their prey. As with most birds, the sense of smell is insignificant, if it exists are all. Great Horned Owls frequently prey on skunks. Enough said.

But well-developed intelligence? Researchers have observed owls beating their wings on bushes to try to flush out little birds. Is this learned behavior? Is it problem-solving?

Maybe.

For the most part, owls do not have a lot of problems to solve. They appropriate abandoned nests of other birds, so they don't need building skills. They are stealthy by nature, and they pounce on and usually catch anything they hear, so they don't need hunting techniques.

In spite of ghost stories, legends of American First People, and superstitions from Europe and India, hooting owls do not foretell impending death, although their nocturnal calls are spooky. We hear them now and then this time of year, but we will regularly hear those eerie calls at Crossroads in January or February.

In contrast to owls, crows are noisy all year round and they are amazingly intelligent. They can learn. They can remember. They can solve problems. They can even identify individual humans. And they detest owls, though whether this is innate or learned behavior is not clear.

Those curious about crows will want to attend the Crossroads Book Club on Wednesday, October 26, at 10:00 a.m. This month, the book Crow Planet, Essential Wisdom for the Urban Wilderness by Lyanda Lynn Haupt will explore the fascinating world of these remarkable birds. The program is free and open to all, whether or not they have read the book.

So bring the family to our program on owls, learn about crows at the Crossroads Book Club, or learn about bats at our pre-school Junior Nature Club on Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. or our Family Science Saturday program at 2:00 p.m. Costumes are encouraged but not required at Junior Nature Club and Science Saturday, and adult visitors are welcome.
Tehran, Iran, July 3

By Mehdi Sepahvand  Trend:

Prominent Iranian conservative MP Ali Motahari has asked the Ministry of Intelligence and the cyber police to investigate into the origins of a series of threatening messages recently sent to some reformist journalists in the country.

The text messages have caused great worry among the media activists and the FATA (cyber) police and the Ministry of Intelligence should swiftly discover the origins and report to the public, Motahari, who is currently deputy speaker of the Parliament told ISNA news agency.

The text messages had been sent two days earlier. But the Minister of Intelligence Mahmoud Alavi, government spokesman Mohammad Baqer Nobakht, Vice President for Science Hesamoddin Ashna, and Minister of Culture Ali Jannati had said they knew nothing about them.

On July 3, the Ministry of Intelligence issued a statement dismissing any relation with the text messages.

It stressed that the ministry would not be the source of such messages since it respects civil rights and cares for societys psychological peace.

According to IRNA news agency, the message titled Security Warning had read, Any relation or cooperation with inimical entities overseas either via email, secure portals, or other communication devices is a criminal act and will entail judicial pursuit. It is necessary that you terminate your communications. This message is the last security warning.
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The FBI interviewed Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton Saturday about her private email server when she was secretary of state, her campaign team said.

"Secretary Clinton gave a voluntary interview this morning about her email arrangements while she was secretary," her campaign's spokesman Nick Merrill said, according to multiple media reports.

"She is pleased to have had the opportunity to assist the Department of Justice in bringing this review to a conclusion."

The interview lasted for about three-and-a-half hours at FBI headquarters in Washington DC.

The interview comes after U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch met privately earlier this week with Clintons husband, former President Bill Clinton, for 30 minutes in Phoenix, Arizona. Lynch said the conversation did not touch on the investigation, media reports say.

Lynch announced Friday that she would rely on the recommendations of FBI investigators and career prosecutors to determine whether to press charges over the private server usage.

Since August 2015, the FBI has been investigating whether Clinton's email arrangement broke any laws or put important information at risk. Saturday's interview marks a first for Clinton to respond to the law enforcement officials over her personal email account and server, which she used for her official government communications.

In recent months, several current and former Clinton aides have also reportedly been interviewed by FBI.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested an 18-year-old man in the city of Tucson, Arizona, for plotting to commit acts of terrorism on government buildings, local media reported Saturday.

According to the reports, Mahin Khan, who was allegedly plotting attacks on buildings in Phoenix and Tucson, was ordered held without bond in Maricopa County Jail.

The Arizona Attorney Generals Office is working closely with federal authorities to keep Arizonans safe. We are not aware of any threats Khan made that involve the Fourth of July holiday weekend, spokesperson for Arizona Attorney General's Office Mia Garcia said as quoted by The Arizona Republic newspaper.

Garcia also noted that there were no additional suspects in the investigation.
Summer living made easy on the waterfront at Dockside

According to research conducted by the European Centre for the Environment and Human Health, those living closer to the waterside are reporting better health and overall wellbeing which, in turn, also makes them happy. Further research by Knight Frank shows that the premium on waterside properties is now 70% over those inland. Offering a collection of waterside apartments in the heart of Londons Docklands, but without the associated price tag, Bellways Dockside development in E14 offers a range of one and two bedroom apartments priced from just 384,995.

Dockside comprises a brand new collection of one, two and three bedroom contemporary apartments, some with stunning views across the quay, as well as plenty of modern amenities. The location is the perfect place for city workers looking for some escapism, but with plenty going on to explore during the warmer summer months.

Bellways Sales Director Peter Knights comments: During summer, people of course like to get out more. The apartments at Dockside all offer private outdoors space in the form of balconies or terraces, ideal for al fresco dining on the waterfront. Londons Docklands offer so much for residents in the form of local amenities, with restaurants, bars and Canary Wharfs shopping district all within a few minutes from home.

All of the apartments at Dockside have a contemporary design with a high quality specification. The living and dining areas are open plan, which is spacious and light-filled, thanks to full height glazing leading out to a balcony or terrace. Kitchens are fully fitted with a range of modern units and integrated appliances including a fridge/freezer and electric oven.

Bedrooms are generously proportioned, with the master bedrooms benefiting from built-in wardrobes and en suite shower rooms. The bathrooms feature crisp, white sanitaryware and chrome fixtures and fittings, while the en suites include full height tiling. Residents also benefit from access to a concierge, ideal for modern city lifestyles.

For local amenities and leisure activities, nearby Canary Wharf is not just a place of work, but is also home to three shopping malls, each boasting a range of high-street and high-end brands, as well as a wide range of restaurants, bars and cafes. Historic Greenwich is a short hop across the river by DLR, offering a wide range of places to visit, including parks, museums and famous university.

For commuters, Crossharbour DLR station is just a three minute walk away, providing just a three stop service to Canary Wharf. From there, the Jubilee line offers direct journeys across the capital to Stratford and Bond Street. 2018 will see Canary Wharf become home to Crossrail, linking Essex and Kent to Buckinghamshire and Berkshire with direct train services across London. For international and domestic air travel London City Airport can be reached in less than 30 minutes by public transport.

Prices for the apartments at Dockside start at 384,995 for a one bedroom, from 689,995 for a two bedroom, and from 799,995 for a three bedroom apartment. Duplex apartments are available from 904,995. For further information on the new homes at Dockside, visit bellway.co.uk.
Human rights organization Amnesty International released a statement on Wednesday urging the Belgian Parliament to not pass a law that would ban women from wearing full face veils anywhere in public.

The garments in question, which are traditional clothing for some Muslim women, are the niqab, which veils the face, and the burqa, which covers the entire body.

The proposed Belgian law would carry penalties of a fine of up to $34 or a seven-day jail sentence for perpetrators.

Belgian officials, both from the country's ruling party and the opposition, have widely supported the measure, citing security and morality as reasons for the new policy.

"We think all people in public places must show their face," Denis Ducarme told CNN.

He adds: "We must defend our values in the question of the freedom and the dignity of the woman."

For Amnesty International, however, the ban would be a serious violation of human rights.

"A general ban on the wearing of full face veils would violate the rights to freedom of expression and religion of those women who choose to express their identity or beliefs in this way," said Claudio Cordone, Amnesty International's interim secretary general.

"At the same time the Belgian authorities must make sure that all women who chose to wear the full veil do so without coercion, harassment and discrimination," Cordone added.

The Belgian government was set to vote on the measure this week, but a collapse of their coalition government delayed the action.

Meanwhile, a 31-year-old French woman was fined $29 last month after being pulled over by police for wearing a niqab while driving.

Earlier this week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy reiterated his determination to have the garments banned in the country, saying that such clothing "hurts the dignity of women and is not acceptable in French society," according to a presidential spokesman.

"We're legislating for the future. Wearing a full veil is a sign of a community closing in on itself and a rejection of our values," the spokesman said.
(Photo: REUTERS / Soe Zeya Tun)Ashin Wirathu (C), Buddhist monk and leader of the 969 Movement, takes part in protest against visiting United Nations Special Rapporteur on Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, in Yangon January 16, 2015. Rakhine activists and hundreds of Buddhist monks demonstrated against the United Nations for urging Myanmar's government to give Rohingyas citizenship, local media reported

Tensions between Myanmar's ruling Buddhist majority and the Muslim minority are simmering again after an influential group of hardline monks pitched for a ban on headscarves worn by Muslim schoolgirls at schools.

Monks from the Organization for the Protection of Race and Religion, locally known as the Ma Ba Tha, insisted that schoolgirls who wear headscarves do not comply with school regulations.

Some 1,300 monks affiliated with Ma Ba Tha converged on Yangon over the weekend as it mapped out a nationalist agenda, which it wants implemented after elections scheduled for later this year.

"We will demand seriously for the government to ban Muslim students wearing the burqa in government schools, and to ban the killing of innocent animals on their [Muslims'] Eid holiday," the group said in a list read out.

It argues headscarves contradict the local culture, The Guardian reported.

"When they [Muslims] live in Myanmar, they need to obey the law and regulations of the country," said Ma Ba Tha monk U Pamaukkha, as they are a minority in Myanmar, and should conform to the majority, instead of practicing their faith.

"We are not targeting or attacking their religion," he said.

Ma Ba Tha was formed in 2013 during rising Buddhist-Muslim tensions and it pledged to campaign for candidates espousing similar principles which would "not let our race and religion disappear."

At the same time, the Buddhist extremist organization backed vigilance against "crimes by non-Buddhists," and to use social media to publicize incidents deemed as a threat to the majority.

They have used social media to make accusations of rape and inter-communal violence, with mobs sparking riots in Muslim areas, particularly in Myanmar's western Rakhine state where Rohingyas live.

Persistent riots have encouraged Rohingya Muslims to try to flee Myanmar and seek asylum in neighboring countries only to be turned away. Worsening conditions in Myanmar for Muslim minorities triggered a regional human trafficking crisis.

Separately New York-based Human Rights Watch condemned Ma Ba Tha remarks, saying its campaign against Muslims threatens their existence in the country.

"The Ma Ba Tha have become an unaccountable and arrogant political force based on extremist religious and social views, like a fifth column using Buddhism to serve shady political and economic interests," said senior researcher David Mathieson.
(Twitter courtesy of Nintendo of America)

Nintendo fans can still expect the new NX console to be launched by March of next year, at least according to the company itself.

Nintendo commented on the status of the new console during a recent meeting with shareholders, indicating that it is still expected to launch within that previously announced window of time, Nintendo Everything reported.

The company reconfirming that release window has to come as pleasant news for fans, especially since Nintendo hasn't shared many details about it to this point.

Still, fans would probably prefer to have a good look at the new console well before its scheduled launch next year, and there may be a chance that such an occurrence does indeed take place.

Rumors from earlier this year have hinted at the possibility that the Nintendo NX could be showing up at different events scheduled for September.

First off, a report from VR World mentioned that Nintendo's new console "should be announced during Tokyo Game Show 2016." For those who may be unaware, this year's Tokyo Game Show is currently set to start on Sept. 15 and last all the way through the 18th.

The upcoming Tokyo Game Show is not the only September event that the NX may surprisingly crash.

Recently, a leaked survey question for the upcoming EGX 2016 event also sparked the interest of gamers online after it mentioned the NX.

WCCF Tech was able to share a screenshot of the question and it asks respondents which platform they would anticipate playing the most at the upcoming event. Interestingly enough, included in the list of possible answers to the question is the Nintendo NX, seemingly hinting that it could make a surprise appearance at the event that is scheduled to start on Sept. 22.

Gamers may not be able to get their hands on the Nintendo NX until March of next year at the earliest, but with a bit of luck, they may learn more about it as soon as this September.
The UK s Brexit referendum had many worried, with a number of world leaders from the West to the East seeming to support Bremain. One major concern has been the economy, which has a bearing on many potential students study abroad decisions. As per an International Monetary Fund report, A vote to leave the EU would result in a protracted period of heightened uncertainty, leading to a hit to output. It indicated an adverse scenario can cause a recession in the UK in 2017. However, even as the result shook parts of the globe, it may not shake Indians studying or intending to study in the UK, suggests an expert.



In recent years, Indians were already rooting for other regions due to various factors. India sent more students to all destinations, except the UK, where the numbers continue to drop, says the 2016 student mobility report brought out by Delhi-based MM Advisory Services. (Alan Gemmell, director, British Council in India, says the numbers are not dipping now.) For the past several years, there was very limited funding for PhD research or scholarships for Indians as most funds went to UK and EU citizens, says Pratibha Jain, an international education counsellor.



Says Karan Gupta, an education counsellor, Current students may see reduction in research grants available as universities are likely to tighten budgets.



Counsellors also point to the challenges those from India face in the job market, with Indians being the last in line for interviews after UK and EU graduates. Gupta says, Brexit will further affect the number of Indian students as the UK economy will generate fewer jobs, and make it harder for international students to obtain work permits. There is a good chance that international students will now compete for work permits with EU citizens who previously did not need permits to work in the UK.



Given the situation so far, Jain suggests Indian students may not be adversely affected. Indians will have more opportunities to compete on a more level field for admissions, merit-based scholarships and jobs. The competition is now reduced to only British citizens, which will make conditions definitely more favourable for Indians, says Jain. Students who wish to work in their family businesses will still consider the UK as they don't need jobs after graduation, she adds.



As the formal exit is yet to take place, much may depend on the UK-EU relationship in the years (if not months) to come. Gordon Innes, chief executive officer, London & Partners, the official promotional company for the city, says, It is entirely possible that, emboldened by a mandate from the British people, a new UK prime minister can negotiate favourable terms for a future trading relationship with the EU and easy movement of tourists and skilled labour. It is entirely possible, too, that new trading relationships can be forged with economies that will be the powerhouses of world trade 20, 30, 40 years from now  which will open up new opportunities.
The University of Delhi, in its first cut-off list for undergraduate courses, saw a few exceptions this year, unlike the last four years where the minimum required score reached 100%. Ramjas College required the highest in BCom (H) -- 99.25%, followed by Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Khalsa College, with a cut-off of 99% for BSc (H) Electronics. The second cut-off list will be released on July 4 (night) and admissions will begin on July 5.
I had visited Germany for a few months when I was a student at St Xaviers College, Mumbai. On my return, I decided to study German at the Goethe Institut/ Max Mueller Bhavan because I was unable to communicate with the locals during my visit. I completed the B2.3 level before taking up a job as a flight attendant with a now defunct airline after graduation. My initial plan was to work for some time and then continue with my German lessons. But once into the job, I never wanted to quit. Also, by this time, I had stopped learning the language. However, I lost my job when the airline shut down a few years later. I did not know what I wanted to do and what kind of positions I could apply for. All I knew was I did not want to work in the same industry again and that I did not want to be idle. I thus decided to take up German again. However, since I had a three-year break, I had to repeat the B2.2 and B2.3 levels. During this time, a friend helped me find a sales job at a domain name registrar, which was looking to expand in Germany. So, I worked during the week and continued studying German at weekends. After a few months, the institute offered me a scholarship to study the four-week C1 level at the Goethe-Institut Bonn. In Bonn, our class was small, with 20 people from across the world. Most students were either aspiring German teachers or already teaching the language in their country. The teaching material was up to date. Apart from the language learning, a major focus of the course was cultural sensitisation. We would work with the previous days news or the latest songs being played on the radio. We would also have museum visits once a week. The way our teacher taught us made me love the language even more. The entire experience not only honed my language skills and gave me the confidence to have a long conversation with people in German but it also gave me a fresh perspective on it as I now understood the language better. My time in Bonn made me realise that teaching German was my calling. So, I after returning to India, I started teaching the language at the institute where I learnt it. Looking at my career graph, I think you should always have a hobby. You never know when something may not work out in your professional life. In such a situation, your hobby can not only help you find some work but also give you the opportunity to do something you are passionate about.
Three more people were detained early Sunday as a part of investigation into Tuesdays deadly Istanbul Ataturk Airport attack, Turkish security sources said, Anadolu reported.

The total number of people detained over the terror attack rose to 27, an unnamed security sources said on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking to the media.

Tuesday nights attack saw three terrorists open fire in the international terminal of Ataturk International Airport before detonating explosives, killing 44 people and injuring more than 200.

Meanwhile, 13 suspects, including three foreigners, were referred to Istanbuls Bakirkoy Court House on Sunday.
An engineering degree forms a base to branch into different sectors. Subjects in the field can broadly be categorised into traditional and non-traditional specialisations. The unconventional concentrations are relatively new and deal with niche subject matter but are not in high demand due to a lack of awareness among students. Says Dipankar Halder, faculty member, Department of Food Technology and Biochemical Engineering, Jadavpur University, Specialised engineering courses usually evolve with time, based on the needs of industry or academia or sometimes even society. Here is a list of a few such unconventional specialised options for engineering aspirants: CONSTRUCTION ENGINEERING This four-year BE course equips students in the basics of construction management, construction plant and machinery, concrete technology, materials and process of construction, repair and rehabilitation of structures, etc. Informs Kaushik Bandopadhyay, professor and head, department of construction engineering, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, Students are imparted training in an application-oriented manner for civil construction jobs. In keeping with this, the syllabus is designed to give less importance to some subjects that are commonly taught in a civil engineering course. Career Prospects: Students can pursue higher studies at any of the IITs, IIMs or other reputable institutions in India and abroad. They can find jobs in core construction industries as construction engineers and in design firms as design engineers. Besides, they are absorbed by software industries as well, adds Bandopadhyay POWER ENGINEERING This branch deals with the generation, transmission and distribution of electric power and electrical devices connected to various power machines like generators, motors and transformers. A four-year BTech course in power engineering addresses the technical and human resource needs of the power sector, enhancing human and organisational excellence by blending frontier technologies with management to facilitate and provide reliable, safe, economic and clean power. Students are trained in subjects like electrical machines, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, control engineering and energy conversion. The course is designed in such a manner that it gives students an edge over conventional electrical and mechanical engineering graduates. Career Prospects: Graduates can find employment with power generation, transmission and distribution companies, says Meena Kumari, director, National Power Training Institute, Badarpur (Delhi). Students can also opt for process industries, steel plants, software industries, power electronics companies, railways, AC/DC drive industries, etc AEROSPACE ENGINEERING A BTech in aerospace engineering is meant to develop professionals who contribute to the aircraft industry in general with a focus on industrialised divisions, air turbine production plants or designs, etc. The course covers aerospace structural mechanics, flight mechanics, aerospace measurement laboratory, control theory, propulsion, aircraft design, etc. Most institutes offer a four-year degree programme in this field. Others such as IIT Bombay offer a five-year dual degree (DD) programme in aerospace engineering. Career Prospects: Aerospace engineers can find jobs in commercial aviation companies, space research agencies, civil aviation, research centres (industrial, government and academic), etc. They are needed in aircraft construction, testing purposes such as efficiency testing, flight testing and in designing work including airframe design, engine design, etc. They are also required to work towards the maintenance of aircraft and their functioning with manufacturing companies and in air traffic controls (ATCs), etc, says a faculty member, Department of Aerospace Engineering, IIT Bombay. PETROLEUM ENGINEERING The study of petroleum engineering is divided into two parts. The up-stream sector involves activities like exploration, production and exploitation of oil and natural gas whereas the down-stream sector focuses on activities like refining, marketing and distribution of petroleum products. The first year of the four-year BTech programme focuses on building a strong foundation in the humanities, sciences, maths and engineering sciences. Second year onwards, students learn the core courses specific to the discipline. During the third year, students can pick from a range of electives. Says BS Nagendra Parashar, vice chancellor, Presidency University, Bengaluru, This course is inter-disciplinary and gives students a hands-on-experience. Career Prospects: In oil and gas extraction, support activities for mining, petroleum and coal products manufacturing and engineering services, etc, in the petroleum industry in the public and private sectors

WHAT YOU NEED: Physics, chemistry and maths at the plus-two level. Admission can be on the basis of the board exam result and/ or college, national or state-level entrance tests as specified by the institute (With inputs from Bhavna Agarwal)
Alan Gemmell is the new director of the British Council in India. Before this, he was British Council Israel s director running a 10 million stem cell research fund. He received degrees in law and music from the University of Glasgow. In 2015, with the BBC and Arts Council of England, he commissioned an interactive digital art work, www.mixthecity.com, in which more than 650,000 people in 193 countries have taken part. He talks about his digital plans, the number of Indian students in the UK , and more. Excerpts from an interview:

Whats your focus at the British Council in India?

Education is at the heart of our mission to strengthen the UKs relations with India. We like to work with the next generation of young Indians to help them improve their economic, social and cultural opportunities, shifting their perceptions of the UK.

What will that shift involve? What would you like to change and why?

We would like to reconnect young people in India and in Britain with the contemporary story of both countries. We would like young people in Britain to understand the incredible success story of 70 years of India. And we would like young people in India to understand that the UK is a modern, vibrant country with a large Indian diaspora. And it is open to welcoming Indian students at our universities. There is a constant need to keep international relationships alive. Our business is an active one. We believe when you do things together you build trust between people. And we believe that trust between India and the UK is as important today as it was 50 or 70 years ago. Over the last 10 years, more than 160,000 young Indians have studied in the UK and there are about 20,000 in the UK right now. New enrolments are about 11,000. We are delighted about that because studying in the UK is an international experience. Britain is lucky to be home to four of the top 10 universities. UK government research says Indians returning to India with a UK qualification earn, on average, 13,000 pounds a year. So, choosing to study in the UK is a good investment. We need to do this because we want the relationship between our countries to be as strong as possible. We want both peoples to understand one another better, to be connected and for there to be opportunities for both to work together. And young Indians studying in the UK is one of the best ways to make that happen.

But the number of Indian students in the UK dropped by 10%? Why do you think that is happening?

The numbers have stopped declining now. A number of things are happening. Different students are coming to the UK for different reasons today. There are more undergraduates from India in the UK. Thats a slight change in the profile of students coming. At the same time, we have to recognise there are other opportunities for Indian students today to progress their careers, including in India. The UK wants to make sure that the best students come to our country. Its important that Indian students know that Britain is open to them. And there is no limit on the number of student visas that we will issue. And nearly nine in 10 students obtain their visas. Students can stay in the UK if they secure a job, post-graduation, with a salary of at least 20,800 pounds. So, there are opportunities for students to continue to work in the UK.

After your four-year Re-Imagine programme for the arts, you have announced 2017 as the UK-India Year of Culture? What will be its highlight and what will be different (from the previous initiative) since art and culture are related?

We have announced digital elements of our 2017 year. Whats certainly new about it is that we are trying to do a lot of work online or on mobiles, so we can reach lots of people in India with the message that says, we want our 2017 year to celebrate, reconnect and inspire people. Those first digital commissions are about making music, about theatre and ideas. The making music project is called Mix the City. And we are working with musician Sonya Mazumdar to develop interactive music apps with musicians from Delhi , Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. We hope millions of people in India and around the world will take part using their phones or computers. We will create a YouTube music video with musicians from those cities  they will do four of these. And working with a British digital business, Flying Object, we will create an interactive app on your phone that will allow you to remix that video and create your version, which you can share. Its a fun way to celebrate brilliant musicians and great cities and to tell the story of those cities today.

The theatre project is called Mix the Play (an edition of the Mix the City platform). We are working with Indian director Royston Abel, who will choose a scene from a Shakespeare play and direct it a number of times. Well record it each time he does it with different actors, all from India, different costumes, all from India, and different sets or backdrops, all from here. So, there could be a 100 variations of this scene. With this technology and company, users will be able to direct the scene, choose the actors, costumes and set. We hope it will do two things. It will help you understand a little bit about how a director works and we hope it will celebrate Indian acting and directing and again that millions of people will take part. There will be more digital ideas like that and those will come from India because we have announced an open call with funding for people and businesses here to come up with ideas to reach lots of people online using culture. The call is open till July 7. Were offering 10,000 pounds for individuals or businesses to submit ideas on how to create interactive, digital projects, programmes or products using culture. And I am sure we will receive them.

How will Brexit affect students from India currently studying or planning to study in the UK?

Britain is just as open and welcoming to Indian students today as it was last month. Over the last 10 years, 160,000 Indians have studied in the UK. This year, the British Council is offering more than 500 scholarships for Indian students who want to study in the UK. This month, we are holding nine face-to-face briefings across India for almost 1,000 students going to the UK. And in November, 50 British universities will come to India for a five-city tour and meet around 5,000 students. Were just as committed to helping young people from the UK understand and connect with people in India. So, this summer over 400 British young people are undertaking short-term study courses at universities across India as part of our Generation UK-India programme.
Other improvements

The move is worthwhile, but for a later stage. First, the government should take steps to stop the commercialisation of education. Government schools especially are in a bad condition, with deficient teaching staff, collapsing walls and poor standards of teaching. Many states hire teachers on contract. The government should ensure that teaches are appointed on a regular basis with job security and adhere to the NCERT qualifications for teachers. The wall scheme should not be left solely to schools but should include parents as well because they have a key role in their childrens education.

-Ramesh Patnaik, organising secretary, All India Forum for Right to Education



National requirement

The HRD ministry had conducted small sample surveys to access education standards in schools. Haryana was the first state to paint the minimum requirements on the walls following a government order followed by Odisha, where schools stick posters. Uttrakhand uses flex walls for the purpose. NCERT is developing some learning outcomes for national-level implementation of the scheme. Following the recommended outcomes, every state would publically display them on the school wall in local languages.

-Y Shreekant, head, Education Survey Division (ESD), NCERT



Creative move

To enhance out-of-the-box thinking capabilities, the walls should display what is not in the book. For us, that would be a creative experience. If that happens, it will enhance students creative thinking in an otherwise boring environment. We already know what we are supposed to study to pass.

-Mohammad Kasim Ansari a class XI student of Kendriya Vidyalaya, Delhi Cantt



Space limitation

The ministrys farsightedness could be seen through this step. It is definitely a creative idea but the school is not ready for it now. We are facing space issues because of Metro construction work. So, the infrastructure issue has to be tackled first.

-Sanjay Kumar, principal , Kendriya Vidyalaya, Naraina

Know the curriculum

The move will help students to understand the school curriculum better as well as increase their learning capability. At the same time, it would be helpful for us to understand what the child has achieved and what has to be achieved. But before that the government should ensure better teaching quality as many teachers often have to help with non-academic work, from providing mid-day meals to conducting government surveys because of which their focus on teaching is refracted.

-Savitri Devi, parent of a class VIII student in Delhi

-As told to Simran Hora




To build the largest and most complete Amateur Radio community site on the Internet - a "portal" that hams think of as the first place to go for information, to exchange ideas, and be part of whats happening with ham radio on the Internet. eHam.net provides recognition and enjoyment to the people who use, contribute, and build the site. This project involves a management team of volunteers who each take a topic of interest and manage it with passion. The site will stand above all other ham radio sites by employing the latest technology and professional design/programming standards, developed by a team of community programmers who contribute their skills to the effort. The site will be something of which everyone involved can be proud to say they were a part. We welcome your comments. The eHam.net Team, Revision 07/2020.
Ely, Cambridgeshire is best known for its majestic cathedral dubbed the 'Ship of the Fens' because it dominates the flat landscape. The city, which is the second smallest in England, is about 14 miles north-northeast of Cambridge and about 80 miles by road from London.

13:33, 25 OCT 2022
Turkey will make a significant contribution to the Middle East peace process following reconciliation with Israel, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Sunday, Anadolu reported.

In a TV interview on TRT Haber, Cavusoglu said the six-year hiatus in Turkish-Israeli relations had hindered Ankaras role in bringing peace to the region.

Turkey will make a significant contribution to Middle East peace in the next process, he said. As he spoke, 11,000 tons of aid from Turkey was making its way to the Gaza Strip.

Cavusoglu said Turkey wanted to help Palestines struggling economy.

Gaza and Palestine do need more and more, he said. The infrastructure has collapsed after the [Israeli] attacks. The hospitals and schools have been damaged. The UN buildings have been targeted. For these issues, Turkey will give support.

We are establishing an organized industrial site in [the West Bank city of] Jenin where 6,000 people will be employed. We have also removed the obstacles to transferring money directly [to Palestine].

Diplomatic ties between Turkey and Israel were suspended in 2010 after Israeli troops stormed the Gaza-bound Mavi Marmara aid ship in international waters, killing 10 Turkish activists.

The ship was among six civilian vessels trying to break Israel's blockade of Gaza when Israeli commandos boarded it.

In the aftermath of the attack, Turkey demanded a formal apology from Israel, compensation for the families of those killed and the lifting of Israels Gaza blockade.

Turning to Syria, Cavusoglu said Turkey and Russia should reestablish a joint military mechanism for coordinating action against terrorism and to prevent the reoccurrence of an accident such as the shooting down of the Russian military jet by the Turkish Air Force over the Turkey-Syria border last November.

The downing of the plane after it violated Turkish airspace led to a freeze in relations with Moscow that was only resolved this week when Presidents Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin spoke by telephone.

Russia has a presence in Syria -- planes and troops, the foreign minister said. Also, we are fighting Daesh and the PYD-YPG. In addition, the cooperation between our intelligence must be very good because recently Russia and the [Syrian] regime carried out airstrikes targeting civilians.
Cavendish describes yellow jersey win as 'unbelievable'

Mark Cavendish wears the yellow jersey for the first time after winning stage one in the Tour de France yesterday.

On twitter this morning the Manxman said it was an 'unbelievable moment' and he will 'wear his yellow jersey with pride'.

Cavendish won the 188km first stage at Utah Beach making it his 27th stage win beating out 198 other riders for the top spot.

Mark has also been selected to represent Team GB in the 2016 Rio Olympic Games this summer.
Thirteen suspects linked to the Istanbul airport terror attack were remanded in custody by a court in Istanbul on Sunday, Anadolu Agency reported.

The defendants, including three foreigners, were jailed pending trial by a judge at Bakirkoy Peace Court, a security source said on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking to the media.

They are charged with membership of a terrorist organization and abetting murder through helping to plan the attack.

Earlier Sunday, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said 29 people had been arrested in connection with Tuesdays gun and bomb attack at Ataturk International Airport that left 44 dead and more than 200 injured.
Helsinki, July 4, 2016: The number of children born to single women is increasing, partly as a result of social and legislative changes (in most jurisdictions) in the rights to parenthood. While technology has been readily able to meet this rising demand through donor insemination and even IVF, little is known about how children think, feel and fare growing up in the families formed by single women.

A study performed at the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge, UK, and presented as a poster here in Helsinki at the Annual Meeting of ESHRE suggests that the children are generally well adjusted, with positive feelings about family life, although they do raise questions about the absence of a father in their families. "Indeed," said researcher Dr Sophie Zadeh, "at the age at which children begin to understand their family circumstances, they continue to function well."

The study was an evaluation of 51 solo mother families who were compared (both quantitatively and qualitatively) with 52 heterosexual two-parent families with at least one donor-conceived child aged 4-9 years. The participating families were matched in terms of the age and gender of the target child, and on demographic factors including the mother's educational level. The study, said Dr Zadeh, is the first to examine child adjustment and children's perspectives in solo mother families at an age at which children are old enough to understand their family circumstances and what it means to grow up without a father - and the only study to assess children's own reports about their social and family experiences.

Mothers in both groups answered standardised questionnaires of child adjustment and parenting stress. In addition, the solo mothers completed an interview which asked about their children's feelings about a father, and whether or not this was a topic of family discussion. A total of 47 children within these solo mother families agreed to be interviewed. They were asked about family life and friendships.

There was no significant difference between the two family types when assessed for child adjustment according to a standardised questionnaire. However, higher levels of financial difficulties within the solo mother families, and higher levels of parenting stress, were each associated with higher levels of child adjustment problems. Moreover, mothers mostly reported that their children had neutral (39%) or mixed (28%) feelings about the absence of a father, although qualitative analysis of mothers' reports showed that conversations about fathers were a prominent feature of family life.

As for the children themselves, most (89%) who answered a question about changing their family circumstances either expressed a desire for just trivial changes (38%) or no change (51%). Children mostly (59%) reported high (19%) or very high (40%) levels of enjoyment of school. All reported having at least one friend, and most (51%) named five or more friends. The majority (63%) had not been teased at school, or had experienced only trivial teasing (34%).

"Between the ages of 4 and 9, donor-conceived children in solo mother families generally seem to be doing well," said Dr Zadeh. "However, we don't yet know how these children will fare over time, or what they will think and feel about being donor-conceived and/or growing up without a father in the home as they grow older.

"In general, our findings seem to suggest that what matters most for children's outcomes in solo mother families is not the absence of a father, nor donor conception, but the quality of parenting, and positive parent-child relationships. These findings therefore echo much of what we already know about the determinants of children's psychological adjustment in other family types."

###

Abstract P-535, Monday July 4, 2016

Children's adjustment and perspectives in solo mother families

Notes

1. There are some countries, such as France, in which fertility treatment is not allowed in single (or lesbian) women. There have been protests this year about the inability of specialists in France to help these women, who generally head abroad for treatment.

2. Nevertheless, even in countries which give full parenthood rights to single women (such as the UK) fertility clinics are likely to ask about plans for caring for the child on your own. In the UK the number of donor insemination cycles increased by around 20% between 2013 and 2014.

A podcast of Dr Zadeh speaking about this study is available at https://www.eshre2016.eu/Media/Press-releases/Zadeh/Podcast.aspx

When obtaining outside comment, journalists are requested to ensure that their contacts are aware of the embargo on this release.

For further information on the details of this press release, contact:

Christine Bauquis at ESHRE

Mobile: +32 (0)499 25 80 46

Email: christine@eshre.eu








Strategically located between Paris and Prague, Strasbourg offered a natural location for the French and Czech EU 2008 and 2009 Presidencies to tune their agendas for a resolute European move towards Renewable Energies, during an exceptional Joint Parliamentary meeting on "Energy and Sustainable Development", co-organized here by the Presidents of EU Parliament, Hans Gert Poettering, French National Assembly, Bernard Accoyer, and Senate, Gerard Larcher, on November 20 and 21.



Concluded by a busy-looking French super-Minister of Energy, Environment and Regional planning, Jean-Louis Borloo, the exceptional gathering of Top MPs from all 27 EU States' Parliaments hoped that a Ministerial meeting prepared by Borloo, will pave the way to an overall agreement at the level of EU Heads of State and Government Summit chaired on December 2008 by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, allowing the next EU chair, the Czech Republic, to start working from the beginning of 2009 on concrete measures.

Speaking to "EuroFora" President Accoyer resumed the general feeling by stressing that "Europe has no Oil-Gas resources, but an important Scientific-Technologic potential. Therefore, we must develop Renewable Energy sources". "Since the Sun is the most abundant and free RES, we must do the outmost to boost Solar Energy" solutions, he added, at the eve of a special meeting on Solar energy and the Mediterranean organised by Borloo on Saturday.

Oil-gas supplies' security and diversification were also examined by the EU gathering, after which, President Accoyer replied to our question on risks of long, expensive and fragile pipe-lines' projects, crossing through foreign countries out of the EU, compared to new possibilities for Sea and River Ship direct EU transport even of Gas, thanks to New Liquification technologies : - "We have just ecreated the Union for the Mediterranean for concrete projects like these", Accoyer stressed, speaking of Sea-River Ship Highways, fundeable under EU's TENS programs.

Rapporteur on "Energy innovation and sustainable development", Dr. Bedrich Moldan, vice-President of Czech Senate's Environment and Regional Development Committee, added that Climat issues, price uncertainties and diminution of accessible Fossil energies, played together with EU's RST potential in order to make RES both a need and "an opportunity". However, in cases as "Solar Energy, even if the main Scientific ideas are already here, we have to make some technologic breakthroughs in order to find how to produce it on a large scale, store and transport it", Dr. Moldan added to "EuroFora".

Czech interest for RES was also expressed, earlier in Strasbourg, by Jan Kohout, the deputy Minister pf Foreign Affairs who participated to a workshop on "Renewable Energies" organized by the French EU 2008 Presidency : - "The focus is on Development", he told us.

On this and other RES issues, Dr. Moldan anounced the Czech EU 2009 chair's intention to organize an important 2-days Conference on Renewable Energies and Sustainable Development late January 2009 at nearby Prague.
AIX--EN-PROVENCE, France, July 3, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

For the 16th edition of Les Rencontres Economiques d'Aix-en-Provence, the Cercle des economistes calls for a redefinition of the architecture of international, European and French sovereignty.

We are convinced that the existence of countries willing to preserve a large share of their sovereignty needs to come hand in hand with stronger cooperation structures in order to be in line with current global changes.

Sovereignty implies the existence of complete and unshared responsibility. With this in mind, we have come out with twelve measures, constituting a coherent whole. We believe that they will reshape cooperation models in a time of growing global uncertainty, brought about by a third globalisation and the turmoil that came with it - namely the rise of national populism, various forms of violence, isolationist tendencies and the perception of an increase in inequalities.

On a global scale, sovereignty centres around four aspects: environment, finance, numerical data and peacekeeping. In order for this sovereignty to be carried out, traditional international institutions need to fuel their negotiations through a dialogue involving decision-makers, business leaders, civil society representatives and local authorities, as recently exemplified by the COP21.

On a European level, we need to establish a distinction between what must be handled by the European Union and what must be handled by the Euro zone. The European Union should be responsible for European fiscal policies, border control, innovation, and to some extent, European defence. Within the Euro zone itself, integration and sovereignty need to materialise through the implementation of a policy mix and via different forms of industrial policies. Needless to say this requires a significant budget.

Finally, any French political agenda must be inscribed within the territory of its sovereignty. Obviously, diplomacy and a large part of defence should be taken into consideration, but the main focus needs to be social cohesion, economic growth and personal development policies. This definition of national sovereignty entails the priority given to education and housing, and the construction of a second chance society. Reforming fiscal policies as a way to stimulate investment falls within French sovereignty -the creation of an evolving single employment contract, for instance.

For more information, please visit the website of the Rencontres Economiques d'Aix : lesrencontreseconomiques.fr [enlace ]

Press Corps/

Le Cercle des economistes : Anais Paccard / +33(0)6-24-62-55-45 - anais.paccard@cercledeseconomistes.fr

Marion Joubert / +33(0)6-21-94-35-70 -marion.joubert@cercledeseconomistes.fr

Publicis Consultants : Thomas Antoine / +33(0)6-23-34-00-18 - thomas.antoine@consultants.publicis.fr

Romain Sulpice / +33(0)6-64-04-46-84 - romain.sulpice@mslfrance.com et Aubane de Gelis / +33(0)6-30-74-55-27 - aubane.de-gelis@consultants.publicis.fr
Saturday, July 2, 2016

Warning:

This is long.

I think its important

In the wake of Attorney General Lynchs acknowledgment of wrongdoing in meeting, however briefly and innocently, with Bill Clinton, some reader comments here are redolent of the destructive distrust of government and leadership engendered by this administration and others, particularly Bills. Yet this attitude feeds on itself, and is to an extent a self-fulfilling prophecy. If leaders think that people expect corruption, they are less likely to shy away from it. Cynicism leads to acceptance. Of course, this is one explanation of why the tarmac meeting took placepure arrogance and a belief that with the news medias complicity, now virtually any degree of government dishonesty and corruption will be either effectively hidden from the public, or accepted by it.

This is untrue, still. Indeed, this episode is proof that it is untrue, though the news media did make (disgusting and ignorant) efforts to shrug off the clear appearance of impropriety represented by Lynch having a meeting with Clinton the Impeached under these circumstances. Why do I labor trying to write these essays explaining the legal and ethical context of such events if readers are so poisoned by bitterness and distrust that they cant or wont process them, and just default to it doesnt make any difference, all is shit, all is lost? If I believed that, I wouldnt be spending timework time, uncompensated timewriting this stuff. I can earn peanuts directing professional theatrical productions: it makes people happy, gives actors work, and is a lot more fun, believe me.

Paranoia, suspicion, despair, and conspiratorial views of government, which are all these comments represent, are just forms of bias. Bias makes us stupid, and in this case, bias makes us dysfunctional as a people and fearful and miserable as individuals.

Readers of Ethics Alarms know that I reject this particular bias, no matter how much I deplore the wilful ethical breaches of government officials and the mucky character and untrustworthy nature of individuals like the Clintons and Donald Trump. There are good people in government at all levels, and there are lawyers, judges, members of the military, law enforcement officers and elected representatives and leaders whose professional lives are guided by the core ethical principles demanded by their professions. I know many of them personally, and can vouch for this. I continue to believe, not without evidence and justification, that even those who have strayed from the ethical path laid out for them can be brought back, if the public and society insist on it.

If I did not believe that, then I would give up, not just on ethics (which is my profession) and the blog, but also American democracy. Democracy is the one form of government that requires trust to exist.

Partyist hate and the demonization of opposing views and those who hold them, I admit, make trust very difficult. I begin with an assumption that my study of history and American leaders supports completely: no President who has ever served in the office wanted to harm the country. I know some extreme partisans (like conservative radio show host Mark Levin) and irresponsible demagogues (like Donald Trump) have accused Barack Obama of this motivation, and this alone should disqualify them from being considered serious participants in the public policy debate (and needless to say, except apparently I do need to say it and keep saying it, someone who cannot be considered a serious participants in the public policy debate cannot be treated as a responsible choice to lead the nation.) I know, and have chronicled, that Barack Obama, who is a frightening and toxic combination of an incompetent leader and an arrogant one, is the worst kind of catalyst for division and distrust that the nation could have right now. Nevertheless, this is still an ethics-driven system of government, and our leaders can and do rise to the occasion and above political expediency to act in the countrys best interests.

I just wish they would do it more often.

It is not in the countrys best interests for most of the nation to believe that a woman who placed her own financial and political ambitions above the national security of the nation and the integrity of the government she served should be rewarded with a nomination and election as President of the United States. Indeed, it is cultural poison of undetermined potency.

I understand why so many believe the fix is in regarding the investigation of Hillary Clintons astoundingly stupid and dangerous breach of e-mail policy, protocol and responsibility while at the State Department. Listening to the group I call the Clinton Corruptedthose otherwise intelligent and ethical citizens (relatives, friends, social media addicts, journalists) we all know who continue to ape Clintons absurd and insulting mantra that she did nothing wrong despite mountains of evidence indicating that she not only did, but did so intentionally, and to blame a Republican witch hunt for suggesting otherwisecan make you feel like you are trapped in The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

The biased and corruption-enabling news media is greatly at fault for this scary feeling. The House Benghazi report, which I have read, makes it crystal clear and undeniable that the Obama administration deliberately misled the public and the world by repeatedly citing a YouTube video as the motivation for the attack, and that Hillary Clinton supported the lie in public while eschewing it with foreign officials and in private communications. That means that it is a fact that this administration conspired to deceive the public in advance of the Presidential election in 2012, for pure electoral advantageand it matters. Never mind: the news media framed the entire report and the investigation as a partisan screed.and Hillarys allies, against all logic, are trying to frame the FBI investigation the same way.

And, it is true, Obamas Justice Department, under the inept and politically motivated Eric Holder (who, never forget, approved outgoing President Bill Clintons pardon of an unvarnished fugitive criminal, Mark Rich, as a quid pro quo for acquiring a huge Clinton Library donation from Richs ex-wife), operated as an unapologetic partisan arm of the White House. His successor, Loretta Lynch has done little to signal that her Justice Department is more independent, and recently allowed herself to be made to look like a compliant dupe by imitating Susan Rices Sunday morning disinformation tour after Benghazi, and channeling Barack Obama at his sanctimonious worst by saying that terrorism must be fought with love.

The biased and corrupted White House reporters, like the Washington Posts Dan Baltz (supposedly one of the fair ones) still treat suspicion that the investigation of Clintons e-mail/Clinton Foundation machinations is a sham as a only a GOP political ploy. Nothing more perfectly proves the complete, crippling bias of the news media. HmmmYoure right, Dan, why would anyone think the Obama Administration is incapable of policing itself? The Justice Department stonewalled regarding its own scandal, Fast and Furious. The primary suspect in the IRS scandal took the Fifth Amendment, and the IRS told Congress that her e-mails were lost. The head of the NSA lied to Congress about whether his agency spied on citizens, and still kept his job. Susan Rice, after her well-documented abuse of her prestige and credibility as Ambassador to the UN to carry the official Obama campaign lie that Benghazi was not a planned, terrorist attack, was conspicuously rewarded by Obama with a powerful new post.

Yes, observing this and more, there is ample reason for anyone to be suspicious and cynical. Especially since charges being brought against a pending Presidential nominee would be unprecedented, and because an outgoing Democratic administration has never before taken legal action that could cripple or end the campaign for the same partys candidate who is counted upon to continue current policies, a scenario where Clinton is indicted seems unlikely, because it is unlikely. Anything happening that has never happened before is unlikely, by definition. Add to this the fact that Democrats blocked accountability for proven illegal acts and gross ethical breaches on the part of Bill Clinton, when he was impeached, and it would be foolish to deny that a pattern exists.

I accept all of that. However, you will recall that Bill Clinton, while escaping conviction and removal from office, had to surrender his license to practice law, because he had proven himself too dishonest and untrustworthy to be a lawyer. There are many, many unethical lawyersboth Clintons qualifybut I detect no evidence in her long career that Loretta Lynch is one of them. I believe she is an ethical lawyer, and like most prosecutors, went into the law to enforce the law, and not destroy public faith in it. She deserves that presumption. (From a comment and commenter banned this morning: This is what happens when you have niqqers in high ranking positions. They are not only unethical, but they are too stupid to do unethical stuff clandestinely, and get caught. Lynch was a useless jigaboo when she was the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Obongo, as the HNIC, made her Attorney General for the sole reason that she is a coproderm Now THATS bias...but only a more ugly form than presuming that a Democrat cant be ethical.) Is Lynch, like Holder and Obama, especially committed to trying to make certain law enforcement is neither tainted by racial bias nor perceived as being so? Absolutely. Has that orientation led her into policy and ethical missteps, like Holder and Obama? Yes. Does than mean that she does not fully accept her professions commitment to due process, equality under the law, and a duty to protect the rule of law from the rot of public distrust?

Absolutely not.

The meeting that I criticized here immediately in the strongest terms was almost certainly the result of Bill Clintons epic arrogance and sense of entitlement, an abuse of his position, and a terrible decision by Lynch in a situation that surprised and ambushed her. [ From The Observor: According to this source, whose credentials were checked and confirmed by the Observer with sources inside both the FBI and the United States Secret Service, the attorney general was caught completely off guard by the meeting and the source dismisses suggestions that have been raised alleging that she waited there to see Bill Clinton or accommodated his request to see him. In fact, it seems from this source that it was Bill Clinton who was maneuvering for face time with the attorney general, because his plane had been scheduled to leave before hers arrived.] Bill Clinton is a former President. He also appointed Lynch to her previous job. As I already wrote, the correct action was for Lynch to send him away, in essence a rebuke, but how many of you reading this can say with honesty that you wouldnt have been caught in Clintons trap? I cant say with complete confidence that I wouldnt have been.

After this ethics fiasco, Lynch has reacted in exemplary fashion. She reacted quickly, and did not wait to see if the controversy subsided. ( Clinton 101: Delay, delay, delay.) She has not lied (like Hillary), nor brushed the episode aside (as the news media and White House tried to do), and even has acknowledged that the politically-charged circumstances surrounding the investigation and the Justice Departments role in it have created doubts about the integrity of the process, tacitly implying that suspicions and cynicism are not unjustified.

She knows and has admitted, therefore, that her department, Justice, which is duty-bound to be apolitical, is viewed as political. Her remedy for the tipping point in public distrust that the tarmac meeting created was to do exactly the right thing. She agreed to take the political aspect of the decision whether or not to charge Hillary Clinton out of the equation. She said that she would accept the recommendation of the FBI.

Now look

The FBI is arguably the least political agency in the government. They are lifetime cops and lawyers. The FBI, you will recall, blew the whistle on Watergate and the Nixon administration. Because of its role, and the hard hit it received to its reputation when the politically-tinged tyranny of its founder and long time emperor, J. Edgar Hoover, were made public, the agency knows that its integrity must be beyond reproach.

James Comey, the current director, is not a partisan Democratic hack (like so many Obama appointees). Comey graduated from the College of William and Mary majoring in Chemistry and Religion. He is devoted to ethics and ethics theory: his senior thesis compared the liberal theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and the conservative televangelist Jerry Falwell, emphasizing their common belief in public action. He was Deputy Attorney General under President Bush, and there is no reason to assume that he is under the thumb of either the President or Lynch.

The FBI has a great deal of loyalty to and pride in its mission. The agencys employees would not take kindly to being used for a political whitewash, and its final report and recommendations will either be made public by Justice, if it follows the recommendations regarding Clinton, or by a whistleblower (Deep Throat was an FBI whistleblower), if they are rejected. Of this there should be no doubt.

Had Lynch recused herself, it would have made a whitewash easier , and eventually, distrust greater. Her Justice stand-in would be assumed to be a compliant abettor of the administrations partisan effort to clear Clinton, and would be a less exposed target than than Lynch. If the meeting an aftermath were the complex pro-Clinton conspiracy that some are claiming (including here), a recusal would be part of the plan.

Instead, Lynch took herself and the non-FBI Justice Department out of the equation by pledging to accept the FBIs recommendations. Here are two incompetent and unfair reactions to that:

1) Balz: If she sticks to her pledge simply to accept what is recommended without any genuine review and consideration, she is abdicating her role as attorney general. Baloney..indeed, partisan baloney; better yet, ignorant partisan baloney. A superior can always delegate a decision when a subordinate is better informed and more objective. That is a legitimate management choice, and not abdicating in any way. Obviously, Lynchs pledge doesnt obligate her to accept an absurd, unjustified or unprofessional recommendation. If the FBI recommends that Clinton be exiled to Sumatra or summarily executed, I think it is fair to assume that Lynch would reject such a result.

2) Matt Drudge, who wrote in a link that Lynch was playing word games with accept. Boy, hes a slime, isnt he? His implication (the link was here) is that Lynch is emulating Bill Clinton in deceit, using the word accept to mean Ill take it but not Ill follow it as most would assume. Ugh. Lawyers are forbidden by all ethics codes from engaging in deceit. The fact that Bill never took that rule seriously doesnt mean Lynch doesnt. Moreover, that particular words game would provoke bipartisan fury. Lynch isnt stupid.

What she really did was neither lie nor abdicate, but to announce full confidence that that the FBI is apolitical and trustworthy, and the ideal agency to carry out the investigative process and reach a result that engenders trust in the justice system rather than undermining it.

I do not know what will happen. I still find it hard to believe that Clinton will be indicted, and until I see the actual report, I dont know if she should be.

I do know, however, that as Americans we have to fight our proclivity to be cynical and suspicious of this or any law enforcement effort, because the nation and democracy literally cannot survive it. We must assume that our leaders are doing the best they can; we must assume that the system is not rigged, and that wrongdoers will not be permitted to prosper regardless of their party, class or contacts. When our trust is betrayed, we have an obligation to demand accountability and consequences, and rather than surrender to despair and distrust, do our best to ensure that we can continue to assume the best, and not the worst, of our system, our leaders, and our national character.

We should trust Loretta Lynch and the FBI, for Americas sake.
From: Jack Marshall -- ProEthics, Ltd. For Immediate Release: Dateline: Alexandria , VA Saturday, July 2, 2016

On the afternoon of July 2, 1863 Sickles Third Corps, having advanced from this line to the Emmitsburg Road, eight companies of the First Minnesota Regiment, numbering 262 men were sent to this place to support a battery upon Sickles repulse. As his men were passing here in confused retreat, two Confederate brigades in pursuit were crossing the swale. To gain time to bring up the reserves and save this position, Gen Hancock in person ordered the eight companies to charge the rapidly advancing enemy. The order was instantly repeated by Col Wm Colvill. And the charge as instantly made down the slope at full speed through the concentrated fire of the two brigades breaking with the bayonet the enemys front line as it was crossing the small brook in the low ground there the remnant of the eight companies, nearly surrounded by the enemy held its entire force at bay for a considerable time and till it retired on the approach of the reserve the charge successfully accomplished its object. It saved this position and probably the battlefield. The loss of the eight companies in the charge was 215 killed & wounded. More than 83% percent. 47 men were still in line and no man missing. In self sacrificing desperate valor this charge has no parallel in any war. Among the severely wounded were Col Wm Colvill, Lt Col Chas P Adams & Maj Mark W. Downie. Among the killed Capt Joseph Periam, Capt Louis Muller & Lt Waldo Farrar. The next day the regiment participated in repelling Picketts charge losing 17 more men killed and wounded. On July 2, 1863, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 262 Union soldiers in the First Minnesota Regiment rushedwhich apparently specialized in desperate fighting-to throw themselves into a breach in the Union line at Cemetery against a greatly superior force, knowing that they were almost surely to die. 215 of them did, but the regiment bought crucial minutes that allowed reinforcements to arrive. It is perhaps one of the most inspiring of the many acts of courage that day, the second day of the battle that changed the course of the Civil War. I first wrote about the sacrifice of the First Minnesota five years ago, here. Lets try to remember. (A recommendation: Sometime between July 1 and the Fourth ever year, we always watch Ted Turners excellent film, which also has one of my favorite film scores. It helps.) [embedded content] Share this:


Tekserve Apple Retailer (Photo : Twitter)

Apple's first brick-and-mortar retailer Tekserve will close after almost three decades serving New York City customers in Manhattan. The service center for iPhones, iPads, and Macs will shutter on July 31, and the retail store will close its doors for the last time on August 15. Tekserve has been at its current address on 23rd Street since June 2002 and has been certified to do repairs for Apple products since 1993.



Advertisement

The New York Times reported that around 70 people will lose their jobs when Tekserve closes shop. It opened in 1987 then moved to its current location when it transferred to the Printing Arts Building.



Tekserve has become famous for its unorthodox style. That includes an antique Coca-Cola machine that has relocated with the retail store over the years.



The Manhattan store is not just an Apple reseller. It is also a place for Apple fans to hang out and take classes, and even includes a museum of old-school Apple computers, according to AppleInsider.



During its history Tekserve has faced various issues as it fought to stay in business. They include Manhattan's high real estate prices. There are also six official Apple Stores in Manhattan, and a new Best Buy across the street, according to Tech Crunch.



Tekserve employees were informed about the store closing on June 29, Wednesday.



The Apple retailer was opened after the co-founders bought their first Mac computer in 1984 for $3.000. They have been loyal Mac fans since that time.



CEO Jerry Gepner told the NYT that the store loves its customers and the service it provides. However, he admitted sometimes that it is not enough to stay in business.



Tekserve will end its retail business. However, the NYC store will still offer corporate sales as well as professional services for small and medium-sized companies.



Apple's late co-founder Steve Jobs hosted a press event in 2001 when the first Apple Store was opened. It was located in Fairfax County, Virginia, which was the richest county in the United States at that time.



Tekserve's closing shows that the computer market has shifted. Gepner told the NYT that it is like a giant had crashed on the computer market instead of the PC industry failing.



Here's a video of the first Apple Store:






Sunday, July 3, 2016

I am not a Never Trump advocate. I can conceive of a Presidential race that would force me to vote for Donald Trump, over, say, a Gorn, frightful Florida Congressman Alan Grayson, Simple Jack or Darth Vader. None of those, fortunately, are likely to be running in 2016, however, so the issue is moot. I have stated that there is no rational reason to vote for a candidate as undeniably unfit as Trump when the alternative is a candidate as undeniably as unfit as Hillary Clinton. Unlike Trump, Clinton does have positive features in her resume. As a Senator and former Secretary of State, she presumably has a passing comprehension of how the government works, and she comprehends the importance of public decorum and civility for a national leader, meaning that she knows that boasting about her penis or doing this

is not remotely Presidential. Hillarys positive features are, we all know, buried beneath the avalanche of her dishonesty, venality, incompetence and corruption, but still, she has something. +1 beats  1,606even zero beats  1,606.

Months ago, I challenged Trump supporters, Trump fans, Trump defenders and even Trump oh come on, nobody is that bad-ers to present a single, substantive, positive feature of Donald Trump that could justify voting for him as President. I have searched for and read alleged posts by professional pundits and others; I have listened to (until overcome with depression and nausea) Trumps uniformly idiotic surrogates, and I have invited submissions. The results? Zilch. Nada. Bupkis.

Hillary is evil! is not a positive argument for Trump. Other submissions Hell destroy the Republican Party, those collaborating traitors!Im mad as hell, and Im not going to take it any more!, He says what he thinks!, I hate political correctness!, Hell stick it to the elites! and the ever-popular incoherent gruntare similarly non-responsive. I dont think it is too much to ask, and the lack of any entry remotely meeting the modest requirements (the best so far is, At least the news media might do their job with someone like him as President) makes me more certain by the day that 1) I am correct to reject him and 2) that Gorn may not be so bad.

Clearly I am not the only one engaging in this quest. The Washington Post obviously searched under every rock to come up with an academic who would put his name on an op-ed last week titled Why Never Trump conservatives are wrong about Trump.

He is Charles R. Kesler, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, and the editor of the Claremont Review of Books. My heart soared like a hawk when I saw the column: Claremont McKenna is an excellent institution, and finally someone who does not communicate in howls, hocks and memes had written down a substantive argument to vote for Donald Trump!

But no.

Here, alas, are his substantive points:

1. Trump probably wont be a fascist dictator: I dont see many similarities between Mein Kampf and The Art of the Deal. Where is that hallmark of fascism, the fanatical political party organization, with its secret or higher wisdom? Where is the glorification of the nation, the collectivity?

Verdict: Disqualified. He wont be Hitler isnt a positive qualification.

2. Hes a Jacksonian: He trusts the American people, not the special interests or the governing elite.

Verdict: Ridiculous. Trumps business has been built on catering to the governing elite, and he is a special interest himself! He trusts the American people? He has stated his love for ignorant people, as most con men would. He obviously doesnt trust the American people, as he has derided their choices of Presidential leadership for the past 16 years. And to call Donald Trump a Jacksonian is the equivalent of calling Forrest Gump a Jeffersonian. Andrew Jackson was a lawyer, a military leader, a persuasive writer, a man of unusual courage, and public figure of remarkable integrity. He fought to make government more accessible to average Americans at a time when the national government really was run by a small class of elitesevery President had been either a Virginia squire or a Harvard lawyer. Jackson did not, however, advocate mob rule, and did not tolerate fools. He had also acquired the political skills and experience to execute many of the democratic reforms he sought. Trump shares neither his skills, focus, or intellect. Hes a Jacksonian is a disingenuous effort to enhance Trump by linking him to a leader infinitely superior.

3. Unlike Clinton, he does not propose to amend the First Amendment, he defends the Second Amendment vigorously and he promises to bring the executive branch back inside the Constitution.

Verdict: Oh, really? Trump has proposed measures that breach the First Amendment guarantees of freedom of religion and assembly, and has argued that the news media needs to be more closely controlled. At least Clinton understands that you have to amend the Constitution; Trump would just defy it. What Trump defends or promises, meanwhile, depend on what gerbil is running circles in his head on a particular day. Nobody has any idea what President trump would do or support.

4. [Never Trump critics say] he is a buffoon, a clown, an overactive third-grader who has gone off his Ritalin, a tawdry egomaniac whose policies are no better than barstool eruptions and who by temperament and experience is unworthy of the presidencyHis critics give these legitimate doubts an exaggerated spin.

Verdict: Baloney. Im sorry, did I neglect to post this? I thought I did

You see, Professor, this is signature significance, as was boasting about his penis, and claiming that a professional news anchor was critical because she was having her menstrual period, and repeatedly calling a shorter adversary Little Marco, and basing virtually all of his arguments on childish rationalizations like Everybody does it,They do it too!, and Its not the worst thing!, leading to fatuous and irresponsible statements like this from last week:

We cant do waterboarding but they can do chopping off heads, drowning people in steel cages, they can do whatever they want to do. You know, you have to fight fire with fire.

Exaaggerated?

I think not.

5. [I]f we were electing the first Sunday school teacher (a job for which Jimmy Carter would have been superbly qualified), their revulsion at Trumps messy, vainglorious life might settle the matter. But were electing the chief executive.

Verdict: Prof. Kesler is an Ethics Dunce. He is asserting that ethical values, character, the ability to tell right from wrong and personal integrity are not essential qualities of trustworthy leaders, which, in my view, means that he has no business teaching government to impressionable young minds; this is how we graduate political predators like Hillary and Bill Clinton. He is also wrong about Sunday school teachers, who do not need to be ethical to teach morality; they just need to be able to read and convey principles they dont personally believe in. Leaders have to do things, make choices, solve problems, and all of these tasks require a frirm grasp and commitment to ethics, or what we end up with is the ends justify the means. Civility, dignity, respect for the office and a comprehension of a leaders duty to be a cultural and societal role model are also important, none of which Professor Kesler appears to understand. President Carter was a poor leader in many respects, but in those areas he was exemplary. Here, read this, professor.

Youre welcome.

6. Reasonable people can disagree, of course, but millions of Republican (and other) voters have already weighed Trumps talents, virtues and vices against 16 other contenders and concluded that he is the best guardian of their interests in 2016.

Verdict: The worst argument of all. To begin with, it is factually false. There were approximately 3 million more votes cast against Trump and for another GOP candidate in the primaries than were cast for Trump. By no interpretation one conclude that a majority of Republican voters weighed Trumps talents, virtues and vices against 16 other contenders and concluded that he is the best guardian of their interests in 2016, even if we assumed that the typical primary voter did much substantive weighing whatsoever. Nor did anything close to a representative number of potential voters participate in the primaries, andmulti-candidate contests are notoriously misleading. Moreover, the mere fact that a process chooses a candidate does not make that candidate presumptively respectable or trustworthy.

Reasonable people can and should disagree with unreasonable people who make reckless, indefensible choices that threaten to screw up the nation, the culture and the world.

Finally, Prof. Kesler argueswait. He has no other arguments! What? How can this be? A professor from an esteemed school gets a chance to strut his stuff on the op-ed page of a major newspaper, and dazzle us with a carefully considered list of the virtues of Donald Trump unfairly ignored by unlettered meanies like me, and the best he can come up with is..

Hes probably not Hitler,

He sometimes talks a little like Andrew Jackson if you dont listen too hard, are gullible enough to believe him and dont really know a thing about Andy,

He doesnt want to amend the Constitution, just to ignore it,

Hes not as big a buffoon as some people say,

You dont need ethics to be President, and

A lot of people voted for him?????

Not dazzled.

Embarrassed.

Imagine getting your big chance to shine, and botching it this badly. However, I am grateful to the professor, because his abject failure convinces me more than ever that there are no good, positive arguments for voting for Donald Trump.

Im going to keep searching, however.
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In mid-April, Bexar County resident John Shull received a bill from the San Antonio Water System for $1,697.64.

Shull was shocked. The bill said that between March 9 and April 6, Shull had used 157,101 gallons at his home on Ravens Ranch on the far West Side outside the city limits. Thats nearly 27 times what the average residential user consumed over the same period, according to his bill.

If Shull had used his March amount every month from May through November last year, he would have come in at No. 32 on the 100 biggest water users list, which the Express-News obtains from SAWS under the public records law.

Shulls other bills show he is not exactly a water hog, at least not recently. He used 1,496 gallons in April and 2,224 gallons in May. His highest use over the past year was a little over 40,000 gallons in September when Shull said he was filling his 20,000-gallon swimming pool. He found out the pool had a leak and has not tried to fill it since then, he said.

Wondering where 157,101 gallons could possibly have gone, he soon contacted the utility and was visited twice by a SAWS technician.

More than two months later, Shull and SAWS still disagree about his use. SAWS in late April gave Shull a credit of $931.06 on his bill, and Shull paid $300 to try to ward off shutoff notices. But in early June, he received a SAWS letter saying his service would be terminated if he failed to pay the remaining $563.30.

SAWS Vice President Gavino Ramos and spokeswoman Anne Hayden said the utilitys staff checked Shulls property, his meter and his account. They said meters such as Shulls operate mechanically as the water runs through them, not electronically. As they age and wear down, they underreport use, not the other way around, they said.

If Shull does not pay for the water they say he used, the burden falls on the rest of SAWS customers, they said.

We did what we can, Ramos said. We work with all our customers. Theres not much more we can do at this point.

Some billing errors

On the surface, Shulls situation seems similar to the problems with meter estimations that plagued SAWS customers last year. In some cases, customers were billed based on previous months use. These customers then saw their bills spike when SAWS actually read their meters and recorded the accurate amount, SAWS CEO Robert Puente told the Express-News last fall.

Across the entire SAWS system, meter readers are responsible for 500,000 meters, SAWS analyst Dan Crowley said in April. At its worst, the utility was estimating use for about 14 percent of those meters. This year, it has reduced that to less than 1 percent, he said.

One strategy has been to add more meter readers. Last September, SAWS had 42 full-time and six temporary employees to read meters. That number has increased to 67 full-time, temporary and contract workers, according to Tim Davis, a customer service director and a relatively new hire himself.

But Shulls case is different: SAWS officials say his meter was read by a human being and is working properly. The water went somewhere, they say, though they cannot explain exactly where.

Leaks can add up

Some SAWS customers have found out the hard way that unseen leaks can account for a lot of wasted water.

For example, a toilet that runs continuously can waste up to 1,440 gallons of water a day, according to SAWS. A frequent culprit is the flapper valve at the bottom of the square tank behind the bowl.

I know thats the first thing we always tell people  go check your flapper, SAWS spokeswoman Lilliana Gonzalez said.

Leaky faucets can also add to water bills. One faucet dripping 120 drops per minute means 11 gallons a day of wasted water, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

An outdoor leak in an irrigation system can lose quite a bit in a hurry. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency states that an irrigation system with a leak with a diameter of just 1/32-inch, or the thickness of a dime, can waste about 6,300 gallons a month.

Such outdoor leaks do not always form pools on the property. One example happened in 2014 at a building owned by Trinity University, where an old, capped irrigation line leaked water that seeped into rock below and disappeared, according to Sharon Jones Schweitzer, Trinitys assistant vice president. The leak sent that property to No. 3 on the biggest 100 water users list that year, with more than 1.7 million gallons used from May through November.

Because of the way SAWS charges for water, bills rise sharply as use increases.

Under a new rate structure this year, the price per 100 gallons of water increases from just over 6 cents for the first 2,992 gallons to more than 40 cents after 20,200 gallons. SAWS added water supply fee also jumps from nearly 9 cents per 100 gallons to about 58 cents.

Shull insists he found only two leaks, which he shut off immediately. He offered a tour of the 1  acres hes lived on since 2006. He pointed to two places where water could have leaked: a sprinkler head he accidentally hit with his lawnmower, and a spigot on the outside of garage connected to a hose where a flat, metal washer caused another small leak.

Shull said he shut off water to both those sources within hours of discovering them. He said he never saw a stream of water or a wet, muddy patch that would indicate tens of thousands of gallons being wasted. Still, he told SAWS about the leaks.

It probably would have been better not to mention them because, to me, they were insignificant in the scope of the problem, Shull said.

Shull is determined to continue fighting the remaining charge but is not sure how since, as a county resident, he has no representation on the San Antonio City Council, the governing body of the city that owns SAWS.

Ive got the judge, jury and prosecutor all in the same guy, he said, referring to SAWS.

bgibbons@express-news.net, Twitter: @bgibbs
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WASHINGTON  While nonpartisan groups say funding is lagging to sign up Latinos to vote in the November election, voter registrations  likely fueled by Donald Trumps salvos against people of Mexican heritage  are well ahead of 2012 along the Texas border and in the states largest counties.

Bexar County last week reported crossing the

1 million mark of registered voters for the first time, an additional 30,000 people this year and 80,000 more than in the 2012 presidential election.

Thats the size of a small town weve registered this year, Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacquelyn Callanen said.

She attributed the expanding electorate to population growth and to an election season she termed nonconventional.

Harris County has posted an increase of 150,000 since 2012, thanks in part to the 1,200 to 1,500 newly naturalized citizens added each month to the voter rolls, Harris County Voter Registrar Mike Sullivan said.

Trumps utterances, combined with proposals for mass deportation, a border wall and curbs on remittances immigrants send back to Mexico, have seeded what Latinos expect to be explosive growth in their election-year influence.

Many Latino leaders can cite the date Trump emerged  June 16, 2015  with his drugs  crime  rapists allegations, providing more than a year for anger in immigrant populations to take root.

Nonetheless, groups devoted to mobilizing Latinos contend that despite the many newly registered voters, they see complacence by donors and Democratic Party leaders.

Dont count on Donald Trump being the guy whos going to get people out to vote in November, said Ben Monterroso, executive director of California-based Mi Familia Vota.

Mi Familia, which has offices in San Antonio, Houston and Dallas, has a goal of registering 95,000 people this year across the country. But the group is less than one-third of the way there and at least 10,000 behind the pace of four years ago.

At this point in 2012, the National Council of La Raza had significant operations in Florida, Colorado and Nevada and lesser programs in Texas and four other states.

Last week, the group was fully up and running only in Florida.

We have one-fifth the funding we had back then even though Latinos are the talk of the town, said Clarissa Martinez-de-Castro, the La Raza councils deputy vice president.

Part of the problem, leaders say, involves planning delays due to the late-breaking race for the Democratic nomination. They say, too, that donor money that used to be spent on nonpartisan registration is landing in partisan political operations.

A lot of it is flowing directly into PACs or focused on ads and mail, Martinez-de-Castro said, rather than the retail work and the elbow grease it takes to bring new voters into the equation.

In the run-up to Californias June 7 primary, news accounts trumpeted the new potency of Hispanic voters. But the San Antonio-based William C. Velasquez Institute, which studies Latino voting trends, says those assessments were overblown.

After analyzing California data based on Spanish surnames, the institute concluded that Latino registration had grown by a quite sluggish 3.1 percent since April 2015.

These new data counter the all too prevalent narrative that Latinos are being mobilized by Donald Trumps anti-immigrant narrative, wrote institute president Antonio Gonzalez.

In Texas, the Mission-based Libre Initiative is among groups unworried about resources in efforts to reach out to Latino voters through social service and education programs  though not yet voter registration, executive director Daniel Garza said.

The 5-year-old organization has received millions of dollars from conservative donors Charles and David Koch to provide a counterweight to left-leaning groups mobilizing Latinos.

Libre has 80 paid staff and 50 contracted workers in 10 mostly battleground states and soon may begin operations in two or three more states, Garza said.

What were doing is engaging Latinos in a different way than the left is, Garza said.

He labeled some of Trumps assertions and policies as divisive and unproductive and vowed to function as an honest broker in the months ahead.

But when he gets it right, well praise him for it, Garza added, noting a list of potential Supreme Court nominees Trump produced in May.

In Texas, Libre began operating recently in El Paso, buttressing offices or staff in San Antonio, Houston, Dallas and Austin.

In deep-red Texas, which has an estimated 1.4 million unregistered Latinos of voting age, some groups are feeling left out of the national game.

Hillary Clinton may be trailing Trump by single digits in Texas, as a poll by the University of Texas at Austin found last week. And Texas, thanks to Latino voters, one day might become the Electoral College game-changer that Democrats crow about.

But for now, organizations like the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project, which focuses on new and first-time voters, say theyre starved for funds.

In most cases, there is very little money falling into Texas for voter registration, said Lydia Camarillo, Southwests San Antonio-based vice president.

Her organization is the nations oldest nonpartisan Latino nonpartisan voter group and is credited with registering some 2.5 million voters since the mid-1970s.

At this time four years ago, Southwest was fully staffed in Texas and seven other states.

Thats not the case now, said Camarillo, who attributes delays to a belief by some would-be donors that Trump alone will energize Latinos. Others have calculated their money can do more good in traditional battlegrounds like Ohio, she said.

Unlike Texas, Arizona, despite voting Republican in nine of the past 10 presidential elections, is being viewed in some quarters as a battleground amid polls showing Trump and Clinton virtually even. Latinos make up 30 percent of the Arizona population, and the state has an estimated 311,000 unregistered Latinos of voting age.

Smaller operations like the Advocacy Alliance Center for Texas, which operates in Hidalgo and Cameron counties, also say theyre hard-pressed to take advantage of the moment.

Were struggling quite a bit to find any type of funding, the alliances Alberto Morales said.

The tension felt in Texas this season is one that surfaces every four years between groups turning out voters in November and those seeking to build long-term power for Latinos.

Mi Familias Monterroso lamented what he calls the roman candle approach to Latinos.

If youre just going to come in three months before the election and see the people who are lucky to be in a targeted area, that is not building political power, he said.

bill.lambrecht@hearstdc.com
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Apple will opt to turn MacBook Air into entry level devices instead of boosting the slate with high-resolution Retina displays, speedy I/O technology and Force Touch trackpads. (Photo : YouTube/Anmar AJ)

The recently concluded Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) last month by Apple Inc. has been the venue of the iOS 10, MacOS Sierra and Watch OS 3 announcements. Noticeably, no words were uttered about the MacBook Air 2016, and the silence of the Cupertino-based company resulted to a frenzy of rumors about the anticipated release of MacBook Air 2016.



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One of which is the news that the lack of words about MacBook Air 2016 from its creator means two things - there will be no new MacBook Air and the Cupertino-based company will be axing the eight-year old line, and if there is one, it will likely be launched next year and not this year, MNR Daily reported.



There is also a rumor that MacBook Air 2016 will be soon released, maybe alongside the anticipated iPhone 7 on Apple's annual September event, Tech Radar reported. But this time, the new addition to the eight-year old line will be branded as the company's entry-level laptop, made specifically for those who cannot afford MacBook and MacBook Pro.



In terms of specifications, tech analysts predicted that MacBook Air 2016 will sport some major boosts as the line has been almost stagnant in terms of specs upgrades for years. It is believed that there may be no 11-inch variant anymore, and this will be replaced by a new 15-inch option.



The new MacBook Air 2016 will also be thinner and lighter compared to its predecessors, and there will also be upgrades in terms of its battery, cooling system and an Intel Skylake processor. Most of all, the major question of MacBook Air followers is will there be a new version feature of the most-awaited Retina display.



While Apple Inc. remains silent about MacBook Air 2016, consumers will yet to figure out if these rumors are true.



Meanwhile, Apple's CEO Tim Cook has recently expressed the tech firm's positive outlook for iPad Pro 2's salability. Cook was quoted as saying that buying a desktop will be obsolete if one already has an iPad Pro 2. However, it can also be noted that there are a lot of rumors about the American tech giant's upcoming MacBook Pro, the high-end laptop line of Apple Inc.


There're only a few days to go until The Legend of Tarzan hits the big screen and it is set to be one of the July movies that're not to be missed.

The Legend of Tarzan

The Legend of Tarzan sees the Edgar Rice Burroughs-created character back on the big screen... and this time, he will be played by the very lovely Alexander Skarsgard.

The movie sees David Yates back in the director's chair for the first time since the huge success of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 - it is great to see him back at the helm of another major movie.

We have some terrific new images from the film for you to take a look at:

Yates has brought together another terrific cast as Margot Robbie, Christoph Waltz, and Samuel L. Jackson will all star alongside Skarsgard.

It has been years since the man once known as Tarzan (Skarsgard) left the jungles of Africa behind for a gentrified life as John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, with his beloved wife, Jane (Robbie) at his side.

Now, he has been invited back to the Congo to serve as a trade emissary of Parliament, unaware that he is a pawn in a deadly convergence of greed and revenge, masterminded by the Belgian, Leon Rom (Waltz). But those behind the murderous plot have no idea what they are about to unleash.

The Legend of Tarzan is released 6th July.

by Helen Earnshaw for www.femalefirst.co.uk

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The seventh month of the year is underway and there are more great indie films on the horizon for those who love this genre.

The Neon Demon

So far, 2016 has been another great year for indie films and they are a welcome break from the blockbusters during the summer season.

We take a look at some of the indie films that are set to hit the big screen over the coming weeks and there's plenty to watch out for and be excited about. We take a look at some of the films that we are looking forward to the most.

- Notes On Blindness - released 1st July

If you are looking for a documentary this July, Notes On Blindness could well be the film that you are looking for.

The movie sees Pete Middleton and James Spinney team up in the director's chair as they both make their feature film directorial debut. The duo introduced us to John Hull's story in a 2014 short film and they have now expanded that into a feature film.

In the early 1980s, after decades of steady deterioration, writer, and academic John Hull lost his sight. To help him make sense of the ensuing upheaval in his life, he began to keep an audio diary.

Across three years, he created over 16 hours of material; these recordings would form a unique testimony of loss, rebirth, and renewal, excavating the interior world of blindness.

Notes on Blindness is set to be a touching and powerful documentary and unlike any other feature film that we have seen in this genre this year.

- Maggie's Plan - released 8th July

Rebecca Miller is one of the female filmmakers to watch out for this summer as she returns to the director's chair with her latest film Maggie's Plan.

So far, this summer has been packed with exciting female directed films and Maggie's Plan is the latest that's not to be missed this month. As well as being in the director's chair, Miller has also penned the film's screenplay, which is based on an original story by Karen Rinaldi.

Miller has brought us movies such as Personal Velocity and The Ballad of Jack and Rose and it is her first feature since The Private Lives of Pippa Lee back in 2009.

Greta Gerwig takes on the central role of Maggie and is joined on the cast list by Ethan Hawke, Bill Hader, May Rudolph, and Travis Fimmel.

The film follows Maggie, a vibrant and practical thirty-something New Yorker working at the New School who, without success in finding love, decides now is the time to have a child of her own. But when she meets John Harding (Hawke), a 'ficto-critical anthropologist- and struggling novelist, Maggie falls in love for the first time and adjusts her plans for motherhood. Complicating matters, John is in a strained marriage with Georgette Norgaard (Moore), a brilliant Danish academic.

With a Greek chorus of Maggie's eccentric and hilarious best friends Tony and Felicia (Hader and Rudolph) observing wryly from the sidelines, Maggie sets into motion a new plan that catapults her into a nervy love triangle with John and Georgette, intertwining their lives and connecting them in surprising and humorous new ways. Maggie learns that sometimes destiny should be left to its own devices.

Maggie's Plan has been playing well on the festival circuit having been screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival and Berlin International Film Festival, where it has been met well by the critics.

- The Neon Demon - released 8th July

Nicolas Winding Refn is one of the most exciting and off the wall filmmakers around and he is back in the director's chair this summer with his new film The Neon Demon.

Refn has brought us movies such as Pusher, Bronson, and Drive during his career and The Neon Demon is his first feature since Only God Forgives three years ago. As well as being in the director's chair, Refn has also penned the film's screenplay.

The movie sees Elle Fanning take on the central role of aspiring model Jesse and this is the first time that the actress has worked with the filmmaker.

Refn has a knack of bringing together a great cast list and The Neon Demon continues that trend; Christina Hendricks, Keanu Reeves, Jena Malone, Bella Heathcote, and Abbey Lee will all star alongside Fanning.

When aspiring model Jesse moves to Los Angeles, her youth and vitality are devoured by a group of beauty-obsessed women who will use any means necessary to get what she has.

The Neon Demon was a movie that split critics and audiences at the Cannes Film Festival last month, where it competed for the prestigious Palme d'Or. It is sure to divide opinion when it is finally released but it will be unlike anything else that you will see this summer. But dividing opinion is something that Refn does best.

- The Hard Stop - released 15th July

Another documentary that is not to be missed this July is the hard-hitting British film The Hard Stop.

George Amponsah is back in the director's chair and he is no stranger to the documentary genre, having brought us films such as Diaspora Calling and The Fighting Spirit.

The Hard Stop is an intimate documentary revealing the story, away from all press coverage, of Mark Duggan's friends and family following his death. He was shot and killed in a 'Hard Stop' police procedure in 2011, sparking the most violent riots in British history.

For 28 months, director George Amponsah (The Fighting Spirit) filmed around Broadwater Farm in Tottenham, where Duggan grew up, capturing his family's distress and focusing on two of his best friends, Marcus Knox, and Kurtis Henville.

We follow the men closely as they attempt to get on with their lives, look for a job, talk about the discrimination they experience on a daily basis and the impact Duggan's death has had on the community. Duggan is present throughout, in peoples' testimonies and news broadcasts. What emerges is a profoundly humane, thought-provoking and topical testament, which gives a voice to people who are rarely heard.

The Hard Stop has played at the BFI London Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival and is set to be a very sincere but hard-hitting documentary that's not to be missed.

- The Commune - released 29th July

We haven't seen Thomas Vinterberg in the director's chair since the success of Far from the Madding Crowd last year and now he is back with his latest project The Commune.

Vinterberg is an exciting filmmaker and he has delivered movies such as The Hunt and Submarino in recent years - it is great to see him back. As well as being in the director's chair, Vinterberg has also teamed up with Tobias Lindholm to pen the film's screenplay.

The Commune reunites Danish director Thomas Vinterberg with scriptwriter Tobias Lindholm (The Hunt, A Hijacking) in a story that focuses on the clash between personal desires versus the solidarity and tolerance in a commune in the mid-1970s.

Ulrich Thomsen, Trine Dyrholm, Fares Fares, and Julie Agnete Vang lead the cast in and are set to turn in some exciting performances.

Vinterberg is an exciting filmmaker and I am looking forward to seeing what he delivers with his latest movie.

by Helen Earnshaw for www.femalefirst.co.uk

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Ricky Tomlinson has paid a heartfelt tribute to his 'Royle Family' co-star Caroline Aherne.

Caroline Aherne

The writer and actress passed away yesterday (02.07.16) following a lengthy battle against lung cancer, and Ricky - who starred as Jim Royle in the popular BBC sitcom - has admitted he's been left reeling by the tragic news.

He shared: "I'm so bloody shocked. She was absolutely wonderful and amazing to work for. Kind, funny, witty.

"A true professional and one of the most generous people I ever worked with."

Ricky also revealed that despite her health woes, which included having previously fought bladder and eye cancer, Caroline "never once complained".

He told the Sunday Mirror newspaper: "She never talked about her health, ever. I can never ever remember her complaining.

"She must have gone through a lot but I never saw her looking unwell.

"She never flagged in work and the atmosphere when she was writing and acting was brilliant."

Caroline's death was announced yesterday by her publicist Neil Reading.

In a statement, he explained: "Caroline Aherne has sadly passed away, after a brave battle with cancer.

"The BAFTA award-winning writer and comedy actor died earlier today at her home in Timperley, Greater Manchester. She was 52."

As well as co-writing 'The Royle Family', Caroline starred as the acerbic chat show host Mrs Merton, while she also featured in various roles in the 'The Fast Show'.

Caroline won an array of gongs during her comedy career, including BAFTAs, a British Comedy Award and a Royal Television Society Award.
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Here's a round-up of some of the best on-screen proposal scenes in Hollywood and Bollywood which make us go weak at the knees:

PRETTY WOMAN: Well, any list of the most romantic on-screen proposals has to begin with the final Richard Gere-Julia Roberts romantic encounter in Pretty Woman.

Edward (Gere) goes to Vivian's (Roberts) apartment with a little help from his limo chauffeur. Opera music plays from his car while Edward overcomes his fear of heights and climbs the winding stairs to meet Vivian with flowers. And the dialogue goes:

Edward: "So what happens after he climbs the tower to rescue her?

Vivian: She rescues him right back.









This is one of the most romantic Nora Ephron films that starred Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Zoom to the last scene atop the Empire State Building. It's not overdramatic - the simplicity makes it a very powerful romantic scene. Annie (Meg) and Sam (Hanks) miss each other at the rooftop by a whisker. But Annie finds little Jonah's (Sam's son) bag and turns around to find the father-son duo. After the initial 'hellos', Sam tells Annie, "We better go...Shall we?" And our knees turn to jelly!









The climactic final scene of this Hugh Grant classic is a legendary piece of Romantic cinema. Hugh leaves his fiancee at the altar while his true love, Andie MacDowell arrives in London to meet him. The pair gets soaked in the London downpour as they proclaim love for each other. Andie's line is unforgettable.

Hugh: "I realised I totally and utterly love one person and it wasnt the person standing next to me in the aisle. Its the person standing opposite me now in the rain."

MacDowell: "Is it still raining? I hadnt noticed."











We are back to Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. Again it's a climactic scene. This time though Ike Graham (Julia) proposes to Gere's character. The famous words are these: "Look, I guarantee there'll be tough times. I guarantee that at some point, one or both of us is gonna want to get out of this thing. But I also guarantee that if I don't ask you to be mine, I'll regret it for the rest of my life, because I know, in my heart, you're the only one for me."





The Reese Witherspoon-Patrick Dempsey proposal scene in the middle of the film is everywoman's dream situation. It unfolds at Tiffany which is empty for them. Dempsey goes down on his knees and proposes to Witherspoon. And the latter says, "Are you sure?"

How can we talk about proposals and romance without mentioning Saleem and Anarkali? In this Bollywood classic, Saleem (Dilip Kumar) writes a letter to Anarkali (Madhubala), professing his undying love. Anarkali writes back, pointing out their differences in social and economic statuses. Saleem rushes to her and there's an intimate exchange - all in candle light.









Many, many proposals in Bollywood films are conveyed through songs. This Aamir-Juhi blockbuster is no exception. Remember the song, "Ghazab ka hai din?" where Juhi woos Aamir when they lose their way in a forest. They profess love for each other through the song and the scene ends with a passionate liplock.
The Mubarak-era foreign minister and new Arab League chief sheds light on the final years of Mubarak's rule, discussing the political ambitions of Mubarak's son, Egypt-US relations, and the negative impact of an ailing president

It was as early as 2009 that Ahmed Aboul-Gheit, then foreign minister, heard President Hosni Mubarak expressing concern over US intentions regarding his own fate.

It was a remark that Mubarak made in a direct conversation with his foreign minister following Aboul-Gheit's return from a visit to the US where he had heard, and later conveyed to the president, direct criticism from US senators and members of the administration over the failure of Mubarak to embrace democracy, along with his plans to groom his younger son, Gamal Mubarak, for succession.

I was surprised, as our meeting was coming to an end and he was walking me out, to hear him say that he felt that the Americans were getting in a mood to remove him from the rule of Egypt, Aboul-Gheit recalled.

This recollection is only one part of a very lengthy memoir that the former foreign minister, now Arab League secretary general, includes in his over 500-page book, My Testimony: Egyptian Foreign Policy, 2004-2011. Aboul-Gheit officially starts his reign as the Arab League chief on Sunday.

Mubarak's unease, Aboul-Gheit recalls in memoires he wrote in 2012, a year after he left office, came against the backdrop of incremental disagreement between Cairo and Washington over Egyptian internal politics and what seemed to the Americans to be Mubaraks wavering rule.

Aboul-Gheit writes in his book that he heard direct criticism of Mubarak and the succession scenario  which he says he and former intelligence chief Omar Suleiman were uncomfortable about  from Republican Senator John McCain during his participation in the annual Munich Security Conference in 2009, and later from US Vice President Dick Cheney in the same year.

Aware of the sensitivity of the matter to Mubarak  who is quoted by Aboul-Gheit in his memoires as having repeatedly expressed resentment at the idea of open succession  Aboul-Gheit had chosen to privately bring to the attention of the president his need to take a few "encouraging steps" to reduce US apprehension over the matter.



Area of contention

One area of contention between Cairo and Washington, Aboul-Gheit recalls, was the fate of Ayman Nour, a young politician who had contested Mubarak in the first multi-candidate presidential election in 2005 and came second by a landslide to the longstanding president who had been in power since 1981.

It was, he wrote, something that was brought up by almost all top US officials, sometimes during private talks and at others  especially with then-US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice  during press conferences and briefings.

Aboul-Gheit recalled that he had more than once asked the president to use a presidential pardon to release Nour. Mubarak, he added, was always reluctant.

The excuse that Mubarak offered, according to Aboul-Gheit's testimony, was his wish to intervene in judicial affairs.

Another point of contention between Cairo and Washington, Aboul-Gheit recalls, was debate over the operation of two US political non-governmental organisations that were associated with the two US political parties.

[The Americans] demanded freedom of operation for American NGOs in Egypt  we declined to offer an official approval and kind of left the matter open  The president was not willing to pass any approvals," Aboul-Gheit wrote.



"However, he chose to be the sole decision-maker of the fate of these NGOs that were discretely working in Egypt to train Egyptian elements and civil society groups ... [with] a very generous budget that the Americans were passing to their operation from US aid to Egypt  first with around $25 million in 2005 and later it went up to $50 million, as was publicly announced."

According to the former head of Egyptian diplomacy abroad, The Egyptian state was not unaware of the operations of these groups, but it was a bit too complicated to take a firm position on them.

Aboul-Gheit said that he had told Mubarak that these large amounts of money might be for ulterior motives that are much bigger than simply training for democracy and electoral [processes] and so on  He was feeling worried but he chose not to take firm action on the matter; this was the case until the time he stepped down.

In the reading of Aboul-Gheit's memoir, it is clear that Mubarak was trying to avoid an additional open confrontation with the US that would only add to the issues he was having with Washington over Ayman Nour and Gamal Mubarak.

Mubarak, Aboul-Gheit suggested, would not have wished to get into another clash with the US that might prompt Washington to question its military aid to Egypt in negative terms.

I thought carefully about the issue of these NGOs when it was brought up again after the 25 January Revolution in relation to their attempt to simply overlook Egyptian law in their operations in Egypt, Aboul-Gheit wrote.

He added that he chose to brief the first post-Mubarak cabinet in detail on this matter and on the security reports that he was receiving in relation to the funds that some Egyptian NGOs were getting from here and there under the pretext of being part of Egyptian civil society."



Structural division

In addition, the memoires of Aboul-Gheit also reveal considerable insight into the structural division in the top levels of Egyptian rule during the last few years of Mubarak, whereby Gamal Mubarak had his own authority, away from the state and established rules and norms.

This, he said, included meetings that the younger son of the president, in his capacity as a leading figure of the ruling National Democratic Party, held with foreign officials in Egypt and overseas without notifying the foreign service.

According Aboul-Gheit , when the help of an Egyptian embassy was solicited to facilitate logistics for a visit by the younger Mubarak, it was done directly between the presidency and the concerned embassy, without notification to the office of the foreign minister.

Aboul-Gheit reflects on the expanding "political space" of Gamal Mubarak as one of many signs of an old, ailing and increasingly disinterested president who seemed to be struggling with an almost monotonous rule.

This "ailing" factor, Aboul-Gheit says, was frequently a handicap to the efforts of the top Egyptian diplomat to better position Egypt in the world of African politics.



The book includes several detailed accounts of Aboul-Gheit's attempts to try to pique the presidents interest and dispel security concerns of visits to African capitals as head of state. Aboul-Gheit felt Egypt was fast losing ground to other players, including some of Egypts direct regional adversaries.

This presidential disinterest in Africa  which was not just a function of old age, declining political focus, and an inevitable side effect of the assassination attempt on Mubarak in Addis Ababa in 1995  had big repercussions on the decisions of upstream Nile river countries to shrug off Egyptian objections to their efforts to rework Nile water shares from those set out in previously agreed international treaties, effectively downsizing Egypts "historical" share.

Aboul-Gheit's book includes a shocking account on the slow reaction of Cairo to what seemed a fast-tracked Ethiopian attempt to pursue water projects that would leave Egypt with potentially serious water shortages, despite the accounts he offers of the foreign ministry's efforts to try to block international political, legal and financial support for these Ethiopian plans.

An ailing president who was growing less interested in the details of domestic and foreign affairs, especially after the sudden loss of his eldest grandson, is a repeated image throughout the 13 chapters of Aboul-Gheit's book.



Included during this period is Mubaraks first meeting with the newly elected US President Barack Obama in 2009 and his various foreign trips and meetings with visiting leaders.

Also discussed is the management of Mubarak's relations with Arab leaders, especially with Saudi Monarch King Abdullah, as the Egyptian president found it easier to avoid rocking the boat of Egyptian-Saudi relations, at times at the expense of Egyptian preferences or even interests, rather than to try and push the envelope or maneuver politically.

Aboul-Gheit also discusses the growing role of the intelligence and security apparatuses at the expense of direct presidential intervention in managing crucial domestic and foreign affairs, including relations with Israel.

At this point in time the former foreign minister noted attempts of Mubarak's immediate aides to reduce the flow of work needing the presidents attention  something that Aboul-Gheit often criticised in his book.

Mubaraks sloppiness was also clear ahead of the 25 January demonstrations.



He seemed carleless despite what Aboul-Gheit suggests were clear security warnings that the call for protests was not a minor issue to overlook, especially in the wake of the ouster of long-ruling Tunisian President Zein El-Abedine Ben Ali, and later to expanding demonstrations in Egypt and gradually declining international  and especially American  support for his dying regime.

Aboul-Gheit's book, which is printed by Nahdet Misr, does not reveal many secrets about his seven years in office. However, it explains and at times attempts to justify political events and positions during his tenure.

The selection of pictures is slightly disappointing in its scope. However, for keen researchers there is a considerably thorough, but certainly not complete, annex of statements that were made by the head of Egyptian diplomacy and some of his aides during the years from 2004 to 2011 on key issues of Egyptian foreign policy.

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Maheshinte Prathikaaram is one such recent Malayalam movie, which went on to win the applause of all types of audiences alike.

Now, actor Mohanlal is come out in praise of this film, which has already found a place in the list of blockbusters of this year so far.

A video which has Mohanlal talking about Maheshinte Prathikaram has gone viral in social media. The actor has conveyed his apology for not being able to attend the 125th day celebration of Maheshinte Prathikaaram.

He opined that Maheshinte Prathikaaram has turned out to be one of his favourite films. He stated that he was really impressed by the concept of the film, the way of presentation and the performances of various actors in the film.

He also praised the performances of Fahadh Faasil, Anusree and Aparna Balamurali. He also talked about the climax of the film, which according to him has been handled excellently by the team, conveying a message that the idea of revenge is something that shouldn't be kept in the mind forever and should be forgotten.

Maheshinte Prathikaaram, which released on February 5, 2016 has turned out to be the first solo blockbuster in the career of Fahadh Faasil so far.

Meanwhile, Mohanlal has completed the shoot for his next film Oppam, directed by Priyadarshan. Oppam is all set to hit the theatres during the Onam season. The actor is also shooting for his Telugu film Janatha Garage starring Jr NTR in the lead role.
The wedding of the television actors Divyanka Tripathi and Vivek Dahiya is round the corner. Recently, the couple had a pre-wedding photo shoot and Vivek have given a clue that the couple will have the wedding song.

Vivek had posted a picture (Slide 2) from the studio and wrote, "Happy faces right after we heard our "wedding trailer track". It's a soulful composition, exclusively created for Divek:) #TheWeddingStory #DivekWedding #Hurray." Now, Divyanka had too, posted a picture and here is what the actress has to say about their wedding track!

Check Out The Latest Pictures Of DiVek....



Posting the picture (Slide 3 & 4) Divyanka wrote, "#FirstCouple to have their own original #WeddingTrack. Is that more special? Or the small moments while singing that got us closer are more special? #Romance isn't about what we say. It's about what we do. Thanks for this brilliant initiative @theweddingstoryindia. Looking forward to this #HappilyEverAfter."

Vivek also shared another amazing picture (Slide 1) from their pre-wedding photoshoot. Posting the picture the actor wrote, "Someone once wisely said, "What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us" Picture by- @sachin113photographer."

Vivek and Divyanka's tilak and sangeet ceremony will be held on 7th July. The marriage will be held on July 8th, in Divyanka's hometown Bhopal, followed by reception in Chandigarh. The reception will also be organised for family and friends in Mumbai, on July 14th.

Stay locked to this space for the latest update....
Since this is an opinion column, my considered opinion formed after following their work over more than a decade is that Sagarika Ghose is an under-average journalist while Arnab Goswami shrilly advertises his mediocrity night after night.

Im not being selective in picking just these two but for the context they generated in the last few days after Arnab Goswamis now-famous interview with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But to set the record straight, let me say that my equally considered opinion about most TV news talking heads and anchors spans the entire gamut from below average, vacuous, shrill, and disgusting. On TV, there is nary a space for serious and contemplative discussions and most participants are chosen for reasons other than original thought, scholarship or record of public service.

You can call me old school but my old school mindset has never allowed me to marshal the courage to let facts come in the way of my opinions. To get an idea of what I mean by old school, I present an excerpt from the legendary Dr DV Gundappas essay titled 'The Profession and The Training of a Journalist':

journalists writing on everyday worldly affairs must, as a prerequisite, have knowledge in the following subjects: (1) Politics (2) Economics (3) Jurisprudence (4) Logic. There is no knowledge or fact that is not useful to a journalist. Anything that is related to the life of humans will prove useful for a journalist at some point. It is self-evident that a journalist must be endowed with the ability to write in a style that is simple, clear, decisive, unambiguous, and tight. However, this must also be accompanied by hard labour in at least two fields in art or science. He must be well-versed in the history of his own nation, and know its geography intimately. Because various countries and cultures have made inroads into our nation in our time, the journalist must at least be acquainted with the geography, history, and culture of those countries and cultures as well. He must constantly and everyday revise his labours in politics and economics. Likewise, he must also have decisive knowledge in art, poetry, drama, music, and sculpture. Thus, unless the journalist inculcates within himself specialized and in-depth knowledge in at least one field that falls outside the purview of his routine work, his standard will fail to rise higher than mediocrity. on any topic that he writes, there will be at least one or two readers who are more knowledgeable than he himself is. He must ask himself what they would think about his writing. Such a thought process yields an attitude of healthy trepidation, which is the root of responsibility. The greater this trepidation, the greater this sense of responsibility, and the greater it motivates the journalist to read widely, deeply, and examine anything from as many perspectives as possible. Ultimately, this results in a greater benefit to the reader. This is how the paper earns the respect of the people and society. However, the primary and basic qualification for a journalist is to develop a character of culture and refinement. (Translated from the original in Kannada by me)

I suppose this passage both foresaw and warned of the pathetic state that journalism would descend to, as exemplified today by a majority of the Indian English media.

In the Sagarika-Arnab spat that Firstpost itself has summarised quite well, it must be said that Arnab Goswami makes a valid point when he takes an open dig at the machinations and intrigue of Lutyens journalism and makes a veiled reference to their incurable support for the Nehru dynasty whose latest heir, Rahul Gandhi, left them disappointed with how he let them down.

Indeed, the wording of Sagarika Ghoses tweet (which she later deleted) shows in full Technicolor how she views journalism: she equates an interview with the Prime Minister to a bestowal of favours on a journalist.

This is not journalism. It is a desperate and frustrated plea for political patronage, which pretty much characterises much of the Lutyens journalism that Arnab Goswami refers to. That there existed a media-political nexus was well-known but the appalling extent to which it flourished came out in the open in the last few years of the dark UPA-2 regime  the Radia tapes being the greatest symbol of the time. I highly recommend reading the late Vinod Mehtas Editor Unplugged which contains really sordid revelations of the cesspool that the English media has become.

Neither is the aforementioned phenomenon of journalists seeking political patronage restricted to India or is of recent vintage. In his classic epigram, The Uncelestial City, the British poet Humbert Wolfe reminds us how

You cannot hope

to bribe or twist,

thank God! the

British journalist.

But, seeing what

the man will do

unbribed, there's

no occasion to.

Humbert Wolfe wrote this in the context of British journalists who acted as wanton apologists for the crimes of British imperialism, and it wouldnt be far from the truth to say that large sections of Lutyens journalists continue to act as apologists for the Sonia-controlled Nehru dynasty and Congress party. This scathing expose by journalist Sandeep Bhushan in the Open magazine uncovers how some editors specialised in the Sonia is unhappy brand of journalism:

Just as I was gearing up for another live report from in front of Mrs Gandhis residence, my boss literally stood before me and ordered me to spin the story around Sonia is unhappy as a theme. I was left with little choice. Sonia had not issued a statement. Yet the story had irrevocably changed. The next morning, even the print media was full of the same spin Stories impacting Sonias image are carefully choreographed right at the top, at the level of promoters and editors who are on first-name terms with key Congress functionaries such as Ahmed Patel. But Patel, the consummate spin doctor, also has a line with beat reporters; they need each other in the demanding 24x7 news cycle where a single untutored line could damage the Congress Presidents image It has also assured him plum reporting options, including (maybe) a trip with the PM on his next foreign visit. When it comes to reporting on the Gandhis, this is precisely how much of the electronic media functions.

The seeds for said patronage were sown by and took deep and pervasive roots thanks to former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru who gave away large parcels of land in Delhi to journalists ostensibly to place a roof above their heads. The value of these lands today is anybodys guess. Ever since, press freedom halted at the courtyard of obligation, which then transformed into an active quest for patronage as it must.

Some have also argued that the reason for Sagarikas outburst against Arnab is rooted in jealousy: that today he has become a far bigger celebrity than her, given how they both cut their teeth in TV journalism at the same NDTV school. Arnab obliquely refers to this in his retort by calling her a has-been anchor and how Times Now is the number one channel with billions of views, etc, which is why the PM gave him the interview.

Arnab is surely free to self-congratulate but the fact is that his ruthless nocturnal TRP expeditions have slaughtered even the notion of debate.

Setting that aside, when we closely observe the events of the 2004-2014 decade, we obtain two major revelations premised on a singular fact: a sustained and vicious witch-hunt of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi by the selfsame Lutyens media, which continues till date albeit with nearly-muted tenor. Entire careers were made, fabulous wealth amassed and influence peddled by mediapersons based solely on vilifying Modi. Indeed, Karan Thapar once issued a call for the sudden removal of Narendra Modi in the Hindustan Times.

First, there was a point after which Modi simply refused to interact with the media. I believe this inflection point to be the Karan Thapar interview on CNN-IBN which Modi cut short and walked away from. Sagarika Ghose was then a prominent anchor at the same CNN-IBN with a record of relentless Modi-baiting both on screen and in her columns. Second, Modi discovered that latest technology in connectivity was a far more powerful medium using which he could bypass the media and directly reach the masses. And it paid him handsomely.

And as we witness, his scorched-earth policy regarding the English media hasnt caused any dent to his image or popularity whereas the public perception of the English media continues to become progressively dimmer.

Episodes like the Arnab-Sagarika spat augur well for the society as a whole because they indicate a churn hopefully for the better. The media code of omerta which till recently forbade journalists from writing against one of their own  this was most noticed in the Tarun Tejpal case where a section of influential journalists desperately tried to protect him, and attempts are still being made to resurrect himseems to have been finally broken. The Open magazine report quoted earlier is just one of such instances.

Perhaps this bit from Lord Byron illustrates this churn best:

I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs,

A palace and a prison on each hand:

[]

And such she was--her daughters had their dowers

From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East

[]

In purple was she robed, and of her feast

Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased.

[]

In Venice Tassos echoes are no more,

And silent rows the songless gondolier;

Her palaces are crumbling to the shore

Postscript: Perhaps Sagarika Ghose missed the irony before she put out that deleted tweet: both she and Arnab Goswami work for Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd.
New Delhi: The Chief Justice of India has rejected the government's move to put in place a committee of retired judges to evaluate the applications of candidates before forwarding them to the collegium to decide whether to recommend their names for elevation or appointment as judges.

CJI TS Thakur expressed his reservations over the clause in the revised draft memorandum of procedure (MoP) when External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who headed the Group of Ministers which drafted the MoP, and Law Minister D V Sadananda Gowda met him at his residence on Wednesday evening.

Parliament had enacted the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act to do away with the over two-decade old collegium system where judges appoint judges. The law was struck down by the apex court on 16 October last year.

A Supreme Court bench, while deciding on ways to make the collegium system more transparent, had asked the Centre to redraft the MoP in consultation with the states.

The MoP is a document which guides the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court and the 24 high courts. At present, there are two MoPs  one for the apex court and the other for the high courts.

The government had sent the MoP to the SC collegium in March. The CJI had returned the document in May raising objections to the various clauses.

Wednesday's meeting was aimed at narrowing down the differences between the executive and the judiciary on MoP.

At the meeting, Justice Thakur said the committee of retired judges to evaluate the applications by candidates for appointment was unacceptable, highly placed source said.

The government wanted the proposed committee to evaluate the experience of aspirants in detail before making recommendations to the collegium for taking a final call.

One committee was proposed at the Supreme Court level and 24 others for each of the high courts.

While the government and the collegium were on the same page on having secretariats in high courts to process judicial appointments, the judiciary had earlier opposed defining the role of the proposed secretariat.

At the meeting, however, there was an agreement on defining the role and functions of the secretariat.
Aam Aadmi Party's MLA from Delhi, Naresh Yadav, was booked on Saturday in connection with a case of alleged Quran desecration' in Punjab, reported The Indian Express.

Yadav was booked after Vijay Kumar, the alleged mastermind in the case, told the police that he had desecrated the Quran at the behest of Yadav, and was offered Rs 1 crore, the report added.

"Vijay Kumar has claimed that in Malerkotla, he was offered Rs 1 crore for tearing pages of Quran and throwing them near a drain on Khanna Road. Their plan was also to desecrate a Hindu holy book next," the report quoted Sangrur Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Pritpal Singh Thind as saying.

According to the police, Kumar wanted to avenge Dinanagar and Pathankot terrorist, The Indian Express report said. Kumar also told the investigators he hated Pakistan and Muslims.

"We will summon AAP MLA Naresh Yadav in order to question him regarding Malerkotla incident," Sangrur SSP Prithpal Singh Thind said.

"During our investigation and questioning of accused, it was revealed that accused had met him (AAP MLA). Calls were also exchanged between the accused and AAP MLA," claimed Thind.

Asked whether police suspected Mehrauli MLA as the mastermind behind the sacrilege incident, SSP said it will be known after questioning Yadav.

The Sangrur police had arrested three men  Vijay Kumar, Nand Kishor Goldy and Gaurav - on 27 June in connection with the Malerkotla case.

Delhi-based Kumar, an accused in the case, had yesterday claimed in Patiala that he "did at the behest" of Yadav.

Kumar was yesterday taken to Rajindra Medical college and hospital by police for check-up.

Violence had erupted after the alleged sacrilege incident which had taken place in Malerkotla on 24 June in which a mob had even attacked the house of local Akali Dal MLA Farzana Nissara Khatoon, wife of former Punjab DGP.

Several policemen including a DSP were injured as about 300-400 protesters had indulged in stone pelting and torched a car.

"This is false charge. When everyone across the country -- Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians-- are supporting us and when we are winning elections, why will I do it? I have no involvement in the case. If there is any proof then hang me. This is a conspiracy and I have nothing to do with the matter. The whole country knows that only one party can do this," Yadav said, hitting out at the BJP.

Yadav has been booked under Sections 109 (Punishment of abetment if the act abetted is committed in consequence and where no express provision is made for its punishment) and 153-A (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) of IPC.

AAP lashed out at the ruling SAD-BJP alliance over the issue. Its leader Ashutosh said it reflects BJP's

desperation as his party is "sweeping" the polls scheduled to be held early next year.

"Now ruling Akalis do not have any issue with them for contesting polls and they know that they are losing their ground. Therefore they have resorted to these things which are highly condemnable. It is a political conspiracy to defame AAP ahead of elections. We knew that ruling party will indulge in such cheap moves," AAP's Punjab Convener Sucha Singh Chhotepur said.

The development comes just three days ahead of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's Punjab visit to launch AAP's election campaign.

With inputs from PTI
A college student in Telangana's Adilabad district hacked an 18-year-old girl to death on Saturday afternoon in full public view because she rejected his offer of marriage, said reports.

According to this India TV report, 22-year-old Mahesh, the accused, was the victim's neighbour and also a second year degree college student.

A shocking fact stated in the report is that despite the fact that the victim had earlier complained to the police after being harassed by Mahesh last year, the police had brokered peace between them instead of taking any action against the culprit.

Another report in Hindustan Times said that Mahesh was putting pressure on the girl to marry him for months but she had rejected him.

The victim was attacked by Mahesh when she was out for grocery shopping. The culprit slit her throat in full public view, said the police.

This horrific incident comes to light merely days after a 24-year-old woman IT professional was murdered in full public view at a railway station in Chennai.

The victim, Swathi, employed with IT major Infosys, was allegedly hacked to death by a man on a platform in Nugambakkam railway station in Chennai while waiting to board a suburban train on her way to office around 6.30 am on 24 June.

The accused in the Chennai murder case was arrested on Friday night. Reports said that the accused, 22-year-old engineering graduate named Ramkumar, was arrested in Tirunelveli district in southern Tamil Nadu. He tried to kill himself as the police were trying to arrest him.

(With inputs from PTI)
Leopards and leeches are permanent partners in a dilapidated home nestled in the dense forests of Uttarakhand where Rabindranath Tagore once found inspiration for his epic, Gitanjali.

Big stones on which Indias most famous bard used charcoal to pen some of his classy songs are lost, stolen many years ago by those who discovered it first. Also stolen were furniture, among them a mahogany reclining chair which his terminally ill daughter Renuka used to gaze the stars.

Everything is lost, we don't encourage visitors to go there. It's a steep climb, the road full of leeches. Leopards routinely bring their kill inside the place, says Prakash Singh, a caretaker at the forest rest house at Mahesh Khan.

Strangely, the expansive house, a decade ago, was still worth a visit, the place maintained by the forest department which had put up signages that claimed it as Tagore Top, or the abode of Tagore. But then, everyone lost interest because there was no cash for maintenance. No one showed interest in getting Tagores books and copies of his paintings to decorate the place. Some furniture was lost, others devoured by termites. Worse, Tagore was not from the hills, not one of the hills. He was from faraway Bengal, from the plains. The interest thinned and dimmed.

Once abandoned, jungle creepers and weeds took over the home, female leopards found it a great spot to deliver babies. When the wild cats left the place, barking deers took shelter during winter and rains. Couple of years ago, the roof collapsed due to neglect and rains, bloody leeches growing in abundance in the slush. The visitors, expectedly, stayed away and Tagore Top  82,000ft above sea level  was only a sign board near the entrance of Mahesh Khan forest rest house, located 36 km from Nainital.

Only tales remained.

Stories handed down through generations like Phantom chronicles say the bard, who lived with his terminally ailing daughter in the spacious home, completed nearly one fourth of his works that eventually comprised Gitanjali that helped him win the Nobel Prize a decade later in 1913.

Singh, who has lived at Mahesh Khan that translates into the abode of Lord Shiva for over a decade, says he was witness to discussions between state government officials to renovate the dilapidated home. But he would not comment as to why no decision was taken to restore the home to its former glory.

Kolkata-based Tagore researcher Tanvee Nasreen says it's a pity that no one has ever thought of restoring the Mahesh Khan home of the Nobel laureate, nor other homes he stayed at during his visit to the hills of Nainital.

She said last year, on his 154th birth anniversary, there was a plan to create a Tagore trail connecting Ramgarh, Almora, Ranikhet and Mahesh Khan but the move  initiated by the Uttarakhand government  failed for unknown reasons.

Tagore was in Mahesh Khan in 1903, along with Renuka who was recuperating from tuberculosis. Doctors had advised that the Himalayan air would do her good. The poet returned there in 1914, 1927 and 1937 and also visited Ramgarh and Almora.

Mahesh Khan is special to Tagore because it was there he conceptualised Gitanjali. Tagore also composed several childrens poems, eventually compiled and published as Sishu (The Child, 1903). The English title was later changed to The Crescent Moon," says Nasreen.

He also wrote about his train journey from the East to the North, watching from the windows of his first class compartment a life in a moonlit night. Historian Prasanta Paul, who meticulously chronicled the bards life, mentions the journey to Nainital and how Tagore used carriages lifted by men to reach Mahesh Khan.

Tagore historian Professor Sitabrata Chattopadhyay says Renuka died in September 1903, the same year she visited Mahesh Khan. Tagore was very attached to his daughter who he fondly called Rani. In 1901, when Renuka was 10-and-a-half years old, her father married her to a husband she had never met. This was surprising because Tagore was  actually  against child marriages and even argued against the system in a letter to his wife (20 July, 1901). He hoped the change of climate will help Renuka recover. But it did not happen.

Krishna Dutta and Andrew Robinson, who wrote what is known as a definitive biography of the poet, titled Rabindranath Tagore  The Myriad Minded Man, claim the journey to Mahesh Khan was long and difficult, the poet sometimes carrying his ailing daughter in his arms. He keep her entertained and cheerful, for she was moody and high-strung.

In an animated discussion over soggy buns and sweetened tea, Anant Joshi, a Nainital-based historian remembered his grandfather telling him tales of Tagore in Mahesh Khan and how the bard would place chairs outside his home and sit to watch the stars in the night. He would often sing as the stars blazed out wonderfully through the clear mountain atmosphere, showing Renuka constellations and treating her to some astronomical discourses. Sometimes, lying on her bed, Renuka could see snowy peaks shimmering in the starlight.

Now, the very room where Renuka stayed is full of leeches and lizards; big-sized bats fly in and out with ease in the night.

Senior officials of the Forest Department of the Uttarakhand government say they have no plans to renovate the place, nothing even is on paper. We have not heard anything, the place is virtually in ruins, says Mahendra Singh Rawat.

In faraway Santiniketan, officials at Viswa Bharati University, say they were not in a position to renovate the poets disbanded home. This is a decision for the state governments of Uttarakhand and West Bengal. We do not have a renovation plan for his home in Mahesh Khan, a VBU official said in a telephonic interview from Santiniketan, 160 km from Kolkata.

The official, who spoke in his personal capacity, said the best option would have been a Tagore circuit for those interested in the bards life: It has not happened, not been discussed ever.

A pity, especially because Tagore  a household name in Bengal  is now almost a Rs 300 crore plus pan-Indian industry spanning books, movies, plays, poems, songs and music. Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee is a Tagore fan, she even pushed her officers to play Rabindra Sangeet at traffic intersections when she came to power in 2011.

It is dark at Mahesh Khan, time for the bats and barking deer to occupy a place that once belonged to Indias most famous bard.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry arrived in the Iraqi capital Baghdad on a one day visit Saturday for several meetings with Iraqi leaders, Egypts foreign ministry said in an official statement.

Foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid said that Shoukry would hold meetings with his Iraqi counterpart, Ibrahim Gaafari, and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider El-Abadi. He is also set to meet Iraqi Parliament Speaker Amaar Al-Hakim.

Abu Zeid added that Shoukrys visit to Baghdad, the third of its kind, aims to provide support to Iraq at an important time when it is confrontating terrorism.

He added that the visit also aims to support and promote bilateral relations in several fields of mutual interest, including promoting Iraqs role in the Arab sphere, especially in cases that call for the unity of Arabs in facing challenges surrounding the Arab region.

Egypt has repeatedly called for preserving the unity of Iraq by entrenching national unity during the war-torn countrys fight with the Islamic State group, which has been battling Iraqi forces for control of several parts of the country.

Egypt has praised steps taken by the Iraqi government and armed forces to fight terrorism, the latest being the retaking of Fallujah in June, once an Islamic State group bastion.

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Lucknow: Hitting back at BJP Chief Amit Shah after he needled her on desertions in BSP, former chief minister Mayawati on Sunday said his "childish" remarks betrayed BJP's nervousness ahead of Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh.

The BSP supremo lashed out at Shah, saying the BJP-led government at the Centre should have imposed President's rule in Uttar Pradesh to fullfil its promise to improve law and order situation in the state but it "failed" to fulfil its "constitution obligation".

"Our growing base has made BJP so nervous that its president Amit Shah is making childish remarks on Uttar Pradesh's law and order situation and not taking any action," Mayawati said at a press conference.

Shah had said the manner in which leaders were exiting BSP, by the time elections come Mayawati will be the lone person left in the party. This was Mayawati's fourth impromptu press conference in a span of less than a fortnight which has led her political opponents to claim that the desertions from BSP have left her jittery.

Mayawati said while Akhilesh Yadav government has failed to control crime, Shah has been saying that law and order is a state subject and it was not for US President Barack Obama to set things right.

"I want to say that the NDA government at the Centre has failed to carry out its constitutional obligations," she said, adding that imposition of President's rule in the state was the only answer.

"Shah's remarks are not only childish, they are irresponsible," she said, targeting the BJP chief who is going hammer and tongs at both ruling Samajwadi Party and main opposition BSP in the state in the build to the Assembly polls due next year.

During a series of recent meetings in UP in the run up to the Assembly elections in early 2017, the BJP chief accused SP and BSP of giving a prop to then UPA government at the Centre for 10 years. Mayawati charged the BJP with dabbling in all sort of

"dirty designs" and playing politics in the name of Ram Mandir to return to power in the state.

She said the SP government has failed to control crime in Uttar Pradesh where, she pointed, even policemen were paying with blood. The BSP supremo said that before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, BJP had promised to ensure better law and order in UP the

moment it came to power at the Centre.

"But what happened? It has failed to carry out its constitutional duties," she rued, and mocked at Shah for punctuating his speech with expressions like "jungle raj" and "goonda raj" in UP and "just doing nothing". In back-to-back setbacks to BSP in last fortnight, two senior leaders and once close confidants of Mayawati  Swami Prasad Maurya and RK Chaudhary  quit the party accusing her of auctioning tickets for the upcoming Assembly polls, ignoring Kanshi Ram's ideology and running the organisation like her "private real estate company".

Maurya belongs to other backward caste while Chaudhary is a Dalit, the two important votebanks of BSP.
Peshawar: At least 31 people, including eight security officials, were on Sunday killed after torrential rain hit the south-west of Chitral district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, triggering flash floods in the area, officials said.

Around 30 houses were demolished in the rainstorm caused by continuous heavy rainfall in the area near the Pak-Afghan border.

At least 31 people, including eight security officials, were killed and 17 people were reportedly missing in Ursoon village while as many were injured due to flash flooding in the area. The flooding occurred due to the overflowing of the Chitral river, DPO Chitral Asif Iqbal was quoted as saying by The Express Tribune.

The floods also washed away a mosque at the time when special Ramzan prayers were being held inside, he added.

Pakistan-Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan shared his condolences to the victims families and have asked the government to take urgent steps to trace the missing people.

PTI is the ruling party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) was in constant contact with the district administration for rescue and relief efforts, according to a statement released by the authority.

KP Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra has expressed deep grief and sorrow over the losses caused by the flooding and directed the authorities concerned to speed up the rescue and relief efforts in the affected area.

He also directed the administration to take all precautionary measures to save the lives and properties of the people.
New Delhi: BJP on Sunday hit out at BSP supremo Mayawati over her attacks on party chief Amit Shah, saying she was making illogical comments as she could sense defeat for her party in Assembly polls scheduled next year.

"There is disorder in her party as leaders are leaving her. She is not connected to the ground as she remains stationed in Lucknow and her support base has crumbled. All these years, BSP and SP had a tacit pact and they did not attack each other," BJP National General Secretary Shrikant Sharma said.

Alleging that BSP and SP took turns to enjoy power every five years, he said, not a single comment came from Mayawati who had made no comment on Mathura and Kairana incidents. "People this time have made up their mind to vote for the good governance and development agenda of the BJP," Sharma said.

He said the law and order situation in the state was deteriorating and the Samajwadi Party government had failed on all fronts.

"People will vote for BJP. Mayawati can sense her defeat and that is why she is making illogical comments," he said. Mayawati has accused Shah of making childish statements, saying BSP's growing support base has made him nervous.
Hyderabad: Telangana BJP MLA T Raja Singh on Sunday demanded immediate arrest of MIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi for announcing that his party will provide legal help to five city-based youths arrested by NIA on charges of involvement in an alleged Islamic State terror module.

Alleging that the ruling TRS government in Telangana supports Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM), which in turn supports terrorists, the MLA from Goshamahal seat here also demanded the Centre to derecognise the MIM party.

"On one hand Prime Minister Narendra Modi is touring the world to gather support to combat terror, which is a good initiative, but on the other hand, TRS government in Telangana is friends with MIM, which in turn, has friendship with terrorists," he claimed at a press conference here.

Singh, known for his controversial statements who had also earlier been booked for alleged hate speeches, further claimed that the Telangana Police is "sleeping", and asserted that the 'cordon and search' operation conducted by Hyderabad police is done only in the areas as directed by MIM.

The NIA averted major "attack" not only in Telangana but in the country by arresting the five persons which the agency did only after thorough investigation, he said, adding: "I congratulate the NIA officers."

"The revelations of the arrested accused to carry out terror attacks on religious places among others is shocking. The conspiracy has been foiled. But, Asaduddin Owaisi talks of providing legal aid to five Islamic State suspects arrested by the NIA," Singh said and asked Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao will it be good to support MIM under such circumstances.

Owaisi on Friday said his party would provide legal help to the five youths arrested by the NIA on charges of involvement in an alleged ISIS terror module, but asserted his party does not support terrorism.

Noting that the family members of the arrested youths met him and claimed they are innocent, the Hyderabad Lok Sabha MP had said he directed a senior advocate to provide legal help to them.

Meanwhile, Singh claimed "earlier also, maximum number of terror suspects were arrested from Old City and they all have been helped financially and in other ways by MIM.

He sought to know why the TRS government was not initiating any action against them and claimed that the TRS indulged in 'vote bank politics' and, hence, was not taking any action against them.

"Think over it... I request the chief minister to ban MIM party and book sedition case against Asaduddin and arrest him immediately. This is the time to initiate action," he said.

The BJP MLA said he will next week meet Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and give him in writing all information he has on the "terrorist activities going on in Telangana".

Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi alleged that Owaisi is giving "oxygen" to terrorists and that he is seen as "standing with extremists".

"Owaisi is directly or indirectly helping the ISIS which had come up with a video in which it threatened to target India. This is betrayal of the country. On the one hand you condemn the ISIS and on the other hand you support those who are involved in such acts.

"The investigating agencies should take action against him within the legal framework. Those who support terrorism directly or indirectly should be condemned," BJP National Secretary Shrikant Sharma said.

"One should not stoop down to this level in politics that you are seen standing with terrorism and those who support it. Those who give such statements are giving oxygen to terrorism. You do politics but refrain from actions that make it seem like you are supporting terrorism," Naqvi said.

BJP spokesperson Nalin Kohli said before jumping onto anything, Owaisi should have weighed the pros and cons because the evidence suggests that the arrested youths were allegedly planning to carry out terror-related activities during Ramzan.

"The media is clearly pointing towards evidence that clearly seems to suggest that this is the plot and there is evidence to back it up.

"Now before jumping into it, one should weigh the pros and cons because tomorrow if the court finds that the evidence is sufficient, they are convicted for an act of terror, they are sentenced, then Mr Owaisi will definitely answer a question. Was he openly helping terrorist and that he was very eager to help terrorists?" Kohli said.

Sharma said terrorism should not be seen through religion and also took a dig at those who had targeted the Modi government over intolerance issue as he questioned their silence.
Congress has finally decided to project Priyanka Gandhi, the daughter of party president Sonia Gandhi, as the leader of its campaign for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections in 2017.

A report in The Hindu stated that Congress spokesperson in UP Satya Dev Tripathi said that Priyanka will venture out of Rae Bareli and Amethi, where she has campaigned for Congress in the past, and hold 150 rallies across UP.

The party is also planning to hold a convention in Lucknow in mid-July once party vice-president Rahul Gandhi comes back to India from his vacation abroad. In that convention, Rahul will launch the campaign and present Priyanka as its leader, said the report.

It is settled that she (Priyanka) will be seen beyond Amethi and Rae Bareli this election. With Rahul Gandhi, she will take on rival parties. Different leaders and strategists have different suggestions. Some have suggested that the mistakes made with Rahul in 2012, of over-exposing him, should not be repeated. There are others who feel that she should first be brought to the AICC. Theres still another section which wants her as the face of the election campaign, The Indian Express quoted a source in the Congress as saying.

An earlier report in DNA had also said that Congress general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad had met Priyanka and formally proposed to her to take charge as chief campaigner after securing a nod from Sonia Gandhi.

In June, Azad had favoured Priyanka Gandhi campaigning outside Amethi and Rae Bareli for the state Assembly elections next year.

"I do hope that she campaigns in some other places as per time available to her," he had told reporters.

In May also, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh had said that the party favours Priyanka getting into active politics. Digvijaya, who had said she has the potential to emerge as a mass leader, had added, "As far as we (Congress) are concerned, we will be very happy if she comes into active politics."

Party's election strategist Prashant Kishor had earlier recommended that Priyanka plays a bigger role in the UP elections.

Even the people of Amethi, Rahul Gandhi's home constituency, told Rahul to bring Priyanka into active politics.

Congress has had a dismal performance in Uttar Pradesh so far. In the last assembly polls, Congress had won just 28 of the 403 seats in the state. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the party had secured only two seats in UP with only Sonia and Rahul emerging victorious.

The Congress has been in political wilderness in Uttar Pradesh since 1989 following the emergence of divisive 'Mandal-Mandir' politics and rise of the BSP, which took away its crucial Dalit vote base.

In the recent five assembly elections held in Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry, Congress managed to secure a victory only in Puducherry.

Bringing Priyanka into active politics could be a whiff of fresh air for the Congress. As Sandipan Sharma wrote in this Firstpost article, "For the Congress, Priyanka Gandhi is indeed an idea whose time has come. Whatever be the outcome of the expected ploy, it will immediately inject new life in the Congress veins. Its workers will get a sense of direction, the party a new face and voters the option of looking at a Rahul-mukt Congress. Comparisons with leaders of other parties can wait, but in a tossup between the Gandhi siblings, Priyanka is the clear winner."

However, Priyanka will have to deal with a lot of challenges, perhaps the most difficult one being the allegations of money laundering made against her husband Robert Vadra. Once Priyanka becomes the face of the Congress in UP, the attacks on Vadra may become more caustic.

Only time will tell whether Priyanka will be able to make any difference to Congress' fortunes but her leap into active politics has been demanded for a long time and may make things difficult for the BJP.

In fact, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra reacted to reports that Priyanka will take an active part in campaigning for the UP polls and said that Congress was bringing Priyanka only because Rahul had failed. "Congress attempt to bring in Priyanka shows that Rahul Gandhi has failed. If Rahul had succeeded that there would not have been called Priyanka," another report in The Indian Express quoted him as saying.

(With inputs from PTI)
New Delhi: The Gujarat government has opposed in the Supreme Court a plea by six persons, acquitted by the apex court in the 2002 Akshardham terror attack case, seeking compensation for their 'wrongful' arrest, saying it would have a "serious demoralising effect" on the investigating agencies.

It said that since the trial court as well as the Gujarat High Court had convicted these persons for their alleged roles in the terror attack that had claimed 32 lives, the issue of "curtailment" of their personal liberty, which they are claiming, cannot be accepted.

On 16 May, 2014, the Supreme Court had acquitted the six persons, including the three condemned prisoners, in the case, saying, "The story of the prosecution crumbles down at every juncture."

In its counter affidavit, the state government said that the probe agency had followed the law in chargesheeting these six persons, who were convicted by the designated POTA court, and their conviction was subsequently confirmed by the High Court.

"When two courts having jurisdiction have appreciated the evidence collected against the petitioners and have recorded a judicial finding holding the petitioners to be guilty of the offences charged, the curtailment of the petitioners' personal liberty cannot be said to be accepted in accordance with law," the affidavit said.

It said, "Even after the functioning of the statutory authority conducting investigation being examined and accepted by two competent hierarchal courts, if this court were to grant any relief, it would have a serious demoralising effect on the investigating agencies throughout the country who would remain under threat investigating a situation in which in spite of their investigation being accepted by two courts they are held liable only on account of this court taking a different view of the evidence collected by them."

It said that such an eventuality would be "against public interest and interest of the nation".

Besides the three who were facing the gallows, the apex court had also quashed the life sentence of two others and the 10-year jail term of another person for the September 24, 2002 terrorist attack on Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar.

Adam Ajmeri, Shan Miya alias Chand Khan and Mufti Abdul Qyyum Mansuri were awarded death sentence in July 2006, by the special court set up to try the case under POTA.
An open fight between a bureaucrat and a politician in Kerala has put the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government in a tight spot.

The battle between Kozhikode district collector Prashanth Nair and Congress MP MK Raghavan over implementation of projects under the Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) has been raging both online and offline for the last one week.

It began with the MP seeking an apology from Prashanth for allegedly maligning his image in public for questioning the undue delay in clearing the bills of contractors who had undertaken the projects under the scheme.

The battle snowballed after the young IAS officer sarcastically responded to the MPs demand by posting a map of Kunnamkulam, a tiny town in Thrissur district known for producing spurious items, in his personal Facebook page. The word 'map' or maap in Malayalam means apology.

Viewing it as an insult to him as well as the people who have elected him, Raghavan has urged Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to take action against the collector. He has also lodged a complaint with the privileges committee of the Parliament.

Neither Pinarayi nor Revenue Minister E Chandrashekharan, under whom the head of the district functions, has responded to the demand even after Congress workers took the fight to the streets. However, Excise and Labour Minister TP Ramakrishnan said that the government had no intention to intervene in the row.

The government is apparently finding it difficult to take sides as both the persons who have locked horns are hugely popular. While the two-time MP enjoys the support of people cutting across political lines in his constituency (Kozhikode), the collector is a darling of common man, especially the new generation.

The new generation demonstrates their support to Prashanth, whom they call collector bro, mainly through social media. With over 2.5 lakh followers in Facebook alone, Prashanth is perhaps one of the most popular district collectors in the social media across the country today.

The politicians, especially the Congress leaders, have been accusing him of spending time on social media for the sake of publicity. Kozhikode district Congress chief KC Abu said Prashanth was not attending to the problems faced by the people because of being active on social media.

Prashanth is undeterred by the criticism. He told Firstpost that he has been trying to make social media serve the people better. He said that his attempt was to make the Facebook page of the district collector as an informal platform of the district administration for citizens to discuss, interact and post innovative ideas as well as air their grievances 247.

The old way of reaching out to people through notices on the notice boards of village offices is no more the norm when there are technologies to connect with the people directly. We have to use this to make the administration more transparent, seamless, fast and accountable. When people are out there in social media, we need to be there, says Prashanth.

The collector has been using the social media not merely to take the administration to people but also to draw ideas from them and ignite collective action for the betterment of all sections of people, especially the marginalized sections.

One such initiative is Compassionate Kozhikode, a platform he has established to launch projects that can generate and cultivate the spirit of compassion in individuals. It now hosts more than 20 initiatives offering innovative crowd sourced solutions to the problems of the people.

It all started after Prashant visited a mental hospital soon after he assumed charge of the district two years ago. He said he was taken aback by the condition in which the patients were lodged. The condition was pathetic. He was shocked by the lack of even essential materials there.

The district administration had limitations in solving the problems. Hence, I decided to appeal to the goodness of the people through my Facebook page. I put out a list of 22 materials, including cots, bed pans, pillows, mugs, buckets and even nail cutters that it needed immediately. The response was tremendous. We got more than what we wanted in two weeks, said Prashanth.

But what encouraged him most was the change in the attitude of people towards the mental care centre following the Facebook post. It inspired people from various walks of life and organisations to come forward to help the patients in whatever way they can.

This opened my eyes towards the innate goodness among the people. I believed that they would express it when opportunities are made available. We have now offered a plethora of opportunities for people to show their compassion to fellow human beings with the help of social media he added.

The initiatives include, 'Operation Sulaimani', which ropes in local restaurants and hotels to ensure none of the city's inhabitants go hungry, Savarigiri that provides security and dignity to students travelling in public transport and Yo Appooppa that seeks to bring comforts to elderly who are living alone.

Compassionate Kozhikode, which is called Project CK, uses the power of electronic and social media such as Facebook for tapping the compassion of the people. Its website puts areas where voluntary services are required. The site will provide the details of the requirements of each institution. The donor can select from the list and post his readiness in the space provided in the website.

Project CK does not take money. He said that the project was designed in that way to avoid controversies and corruption. Those who wish to donate articles such as cot, wheel-chair, vehicles or refrigerator can directly provide them to the institutions or individuals concerned.

The project has caught international attention. While the last ITB-Berlin has chosen it as one of the 50 inspirational projects from around the world, Digital Empowerment Foundation and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation has selected it for the social media for empowerment (SM4E) award.

Prashanth said that his involvement in the social media was not for publicity or for any other personal gains as alleged by the politicians. He said that he was trying to make use of the opportunities it offers to serve the people better. He denied ignoring his duties as district collector.

Putting a post on Facebook page takes just ten minutes. I do this mostly while I am travelling. Many think that I am always sitting in front of my device and chatting with people. This is not true. The people are communicating with me their problems for a solution. This is part of the collectors job, he added.

Prashanth said the delay in clearing payments to certain projects under Raghavans MPLADS was on account of complaints he received regarding the execution of the project. He said that he had informed the MP that he will clear the payment only after looking into the complaints.

I had no intention to insult anybody by posting the map of Kunnamkulam. If this was my intention, I could have posted it on my official page. I had posted the map on my personal page, which is restricted to my family members and friends. Nobody has the right to poke their nose into my personal page, he added.

Biju Govind, a senior journalist at Kozhikode, said the problem politicians may have with the collector is his swelling popularity. He said some of the local politicians may be considering it as threat to them. It is learnt that a couple of parties had tried to utilise this by approaching him with an offer to make him a candidate during the polls.

Biju, who regularly interacts with the collector, said that Prashanth is one of the few collectors who think out of the box, and that he has done a lot for the people of the district. Dr Suresh Kumar, who works with Prashanth on a palliative care project, finds him to be dedicated in whatever he does.

A senior police officer, who had associated with the collector in some projects, said the best thing he saw in Prashanth was that he was open to suggestions regardless of the person who made it. The officer, who did not want to be identified, said that this makes working with him comfortable.

Prashanth said that his main source of inspiration was his mother, who is a doctor by profession. She taught me not to fear anybody when you do the right things. I believe I am on the right path, he added.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the "poster boy for broken promises", Congress alleged on Sunday as it tore into the performance of his government, which it dubbed as a "regime of lies".

"PM Modi has become the poster boy for broken promises. His entire government and politics is built on a foundation of deceit and falsities," the party said in a scathing criticism of the Prime Minister in a commentary.

When campaigning for power, Modi promised the world to India and was "able to spread lies, in the garb of truth, across the nation. But, PM Modis claims have been exposed in the last 2 years", the opposition party said.

Recalling that Modi had promised Indians two crore jobs a year, the party said in reality he has "only delivered 1.35 lakh jobs".

"This is after he had been screaming hoarse on how the Indian economy is booming under his government. If the economy is booming, where are the jobs? In a stark contrast, the UPA created 9 lakh jobs in 2011," the party said in the commentary posted on its website.

Taking a dig at Modis supporters who claim that his travelling across the world has raised India's prestige abroad, it wondered as to what has been the product of his foreign policy?

"Gurdaspur, Pathankot, Pampore, 1000 ceasefire violations have been the direct result of Modis diplomacy. India has been left red-faced in our quest to become an NSG member," the

party said.

Besides, it insisted that under Modi's "adroit" diplomacy, Russia has removed its arms embargo on Pakistan, China is going full steam ahead in propping up Pakistan, and the US has agreed to sell Pakistan fighter planes.

"Experts are still trying to find the success stories of Shri Modi's foreign policy!".

The commentary is titled "Soaring inflation, rising intolerance, Rupee in ICU, youths in long queue! Are these the Achhe Din promised by PM Modi?"

It alleged that Modi and his government has been the "bane" for the middle and lower income groups in India. "From the soaring prices of pulses to his silence on the promise to increase the Income Tax base to Rs 5 lakh and doubling farmers income, Modi is unconcerned about fulfilling his electoral promises as he is too busy travelling across the world."

The party said the Prime Minister has "failed" the women in India, by "completely neutering" the Nirbhaya centres.

"Today, crimes against women are on the rise, and Modi has been unable, or perhaps, unwilling to do anything."

Claiming that when Modi would eventually relinquish office, he would have left India "broken and battered", the opposition party said it is the duty of every Indian to defend their nation and fight the "regime of lies" imposed by PM Modi and RSS.
Baghdad: A suicide car bombing claimed by the Islamic State group ripped through a busy Baghdad shopping district on Sunday, killing at least 119 people in the deadliest attack this year in Iraq's capital.

The blast hit the Karrada district early in the day as the area was packed with shoppers ahead of this week's holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

It came a week after Iraqi security forces recaptured Fallujah from Islamic State, leaving Mosul as the only Iraqi city under the jihadist group's control.

The bombing also wounded more than 140 people, security officials said.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited the site of the attack and vowed "punishment" for its perpetrators, his office said.

The blast set buildings ablaze, and firemen were still working to extinguish them some 12 hours later.

Men carried the bodies of two victims out of one burned building and a crowd of people looked on from the rubble-filled street as firefighters worked at the site.

Hussein Ali, a 24-year-old former soldier, said six workers at his family's shop were killed in the attack, their bodies burned so badly that they could not be identified.

"I will return to the battlefront. At least there, I know the enemy so I can fight him. But here, I don't know who I'm fighting," Ali told AFP.

Islamic State issued a statement claiming responsibility for the suicide bombing, saying it was carried out by an Iraqi as part of the group's "ongoing security operations".

The jihadist group said the blast targeted members of Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority, whom the Sunni extremists consider heretics and frequently attack in Baghdad and elsewhere.

UN Iraq envoy Jan Kubich condemned the "cowardly and heinous act of unparallelled proportions," calling on authorities to bring those responsible to justice.

Officials said another explosion in the Shaab area of northern Baghdad killed at least one person and wounded four on Sunday, but the cause of the blast was disputed.

US National Security Council spokesperson Ned Price said the attacks "only strengthen our resolve to support Iraqi security forces as they continue to take back territory" from Islamic State.

Bombings in the capital have decreased since Islamic State overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in June 2014, with the jihadists apparently occupied with operations elsewhere.

But the group has struck back against Iraqi civilians after suffering military setbacks.

A video posted on social media showed men - apparently angry at the government's failure to prevent the carnage in Karrada - throwing rocks towards what was said to be Abadi's convoy.

A bystander could be heard cursing at Abadi in another video.

In May, Baghdad was rocked by a series of blasts that killed more than 150 people in seven days.

With thousands of vehicles moving in and out of the city each day, such bombings are difficult to prevent.

But there are also flaws in Iraqi security measures in the city, especially the continued use of fake bomb detectors at checkpoints years after the man who sold them to Iraq was jailed for fraud in Britain.

Iraqi forces completely recaptured Fallujah, a city 50 kilometres west of Baghdad, from the jihadists a week ago.

Anti-government fighters seized Fallujah in early 2014 and it later became one of Islamic State's main strongholds in the country.

Islamic State's defeat there was compounded by a devastating series of air strikes targeting jihadist forces as they sought to flee the Fallujah area.

Iraqi and US-led coalition aircraft destroyed hundreds of Islamic State vehicles and killed dozens of fighters in two days of strikes against jihadist convoys after the end of the Fallujah battle, officials said.

With Fallujah retaken, Iraqi forces are now setting their sights on second city Mosul, the last major population centre held by IS in Iraq.

Initial operations aimed at setting the stage for a final assault on the city have begun, and the US-led coalition is carrying out strikes in the area.

The Pentagon announced on Friday the coalition had killed two senior IS leaders in the Mosul area the previous week.

In addition to Mosul, Islamic State still holds significant territory in Nineveh province, of which it is the capital, as well as areas in Kirkuk to its west and Anbar to its south.

The jihadist group seized control of large parts of Iraq and Syria in mid-2014, declaring an Islamic "caliphate", committing widespread atrocities and organising or inspiring a series of deadly attacks in Western cities and across the Middle East.
Dhaka: The jihadists who slaughtered 20 hostages at a Dhaka restaurant were members of a homegrown Bangladeshi militant outfit and not followers of the Islamic State group, a senior minister said on Sunday.

"They are members of the Jamaeytul Mujahdeen Bangladesh," Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told AFP, referring to a group which has been banned in Bangladesh for more than a decade.

"They have no connections with the Islamic State."
The court decided to postpone the trial in order to listen to the testimonies of more witnesses

A Cairo misdemeanor court postponed for the third time on Saturday the trial of Egypt's Journalists Syndicate Chairman Yehia Kalash and two other board members on charges of harbouring fugitives.

The court decided to postpone the session to 9 July in order to complete listening to the witnesses as two State Security policemen were scheduled to give their testimonies on Saturday along with the syndicates security staff and board member Hatem Zakaria.

The first three sessions took place on 4, 18 and 25 June.

Kalash, union Secretary-General Gamal Abdel-Reheem and undersecretary Khaled El-Balshy were referred to court last month for harbouring journalists Mahmoud El-Sakka and Amr Badr who were staging a sit-in in the syndicate to protest warrants issued for their arrest.

El-Sakka and Badr, who were arrested inside the syndicate, were among many arrested ahead of the 25 April protests against the Egyptian-Saudi Red Sea island maritime border agreement.

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Bangladesh: Security officials searched on Sunday for evidence and the possible masterminds of the weekend hostage-taking in an upscale restaurant in Bangladesh's capital. The government has denied the Islamic State group's claim of responsibility for the attack that left 28 dead, including six attackers and 20 of the hostages.

Police released photographs of the bodies of five attackers, along with their first names: Akash, Badhon, Bikash, Don and Ripon. The men belonged to the banned domestic group Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh, or JMB, and their families hadn't heard from them in months, according to police. Asked whether they might also have had links with the Islamic State group, Police Inspector General AKM Shahidul Hoque said authorities were investigating that possibility.

Despite the police saying IS links were being investigated, the home minister refuted the possibility that the Islamic State could have been behind the attack. Bangladesh's government insists the extremist Sunni Muslim group based in Syria and Iraq has no presence in the country, and in the past has suggested that any claims of responsibility for violence waged in the South Asian country are simply opportunistic attempts at grabbing global attention.

"They are all Bangladeshis. They are from rich families, they have good educational background," Khan said of the attackers.

The 10-hour standoff that paramilitary forces ended Saturday morning marked an escalation in the militant violence that has hit Bangladesh with increasing frequency. Most of the attacks in the past several months have involved machete-wielding men singling out individual activists, foreigners and religious minorities.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has blamed her political opponents of trying to create chaos by backing domestic militants.

"Anyone who believes in religion cannot do such an act," Hasina said Saturday. "They do not have any religion, their only religion is terrorism."

On Sunday morning, the first of two days of national mourning for the victims, police were blocking all access to streets near the Holey Artisan Bakery where the siege occurred. Investigators from both Bangladesh and Japan visited the restaurant to collect evidence.

The 20 hostages who were killed included nine Italians, seven Japanese, three Bangladeshis and one Indian teenager. Two police officers were killed by the attackers, and 13 people were rescued when commandos stormed the restaurant Saturday morning. Another 25 officers and one civilian were wounded, though hospitals would not give fresh information on their conditions.

The attack was the worst in the recent series of attacks by radical Islamists in the moderate, mostly Muslim nation of 160 million. Unlike the previous attacks, the assailants were well-prepared and heavily armed with guns, bombs and sharp objects that police later said were used to torture some of the 35 captives.

That the attackers targeted a popular restaurant in the heart of the diplomatic quarter of Bangladesh's capital signaled a change in tactics. The restaurant overlooking a lake serves Spanish food and is patronized by residents of Gulshan, an affluent neighborhood where most of the foreign embassies are located.

The hostages were asked to recite verses from the Quran, to prove themselves Muslim, according to a witness. Those who passed were allowed to eat. Those who failed were tortured and slain.

Western embassies issued travel warnings to their citizens, advising those in the country to be vigilant and avoid places frequented by foreigners in the diplomatic zone. The US Embassy also urged its citizens and personnel to avoid traveling on foot or in open vehicles exposed to potential attackers.

In its claim of responsibility, the Islamic State group said its operatives had targeted the citizens of "Crusader countries" in the attack, warning that citizens of such countries would not be safe "as long as their warplanes kill Muslims." The statement was circulated in a manner consistent with past IS claims of responsibility.

The Amaq news agency, affiliated with IS, also published photos of five smiling young men, each holding what appear to be assault rifles and posing in front of a black IS flag, and identified them as the restaurant attackers, according to the SITE Intelligence Service, which monitors jihadi online activity. The men in those photographs appeared to match the bodies shown in police images of the dead assailants in the restaurant after the hostage crisis ended.

Amaq identified the five by noms de guerre indicating they were all Bangladeshis. It said the fighters used "knives, cleavers, assault rifles and hand grenades," and had "verified" the identities of the hostages in order to spare the Muslims and kill the foreigners.
London: Former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr has praised Britain's decision to leave the European Union, saying Brexit will allow the UK to get back on its "own feet".

The 75-year-old musician said he was a "huge fan" of the EU when it started but claimed it had failed to turn into a "love fest," reported Daily Mirror.

Reacting to the referendum result, Starr said, "I think it's good. Get back on our own feet. I was a huge fan when the EU started. I've lived all over Europe so I thought 'how great'. But it never really got together, I didn't think."

"Maybe in a business way it got together but everyone kept their own flags... It didn't really turn into a love

fest," he said.

Starr, who lives in Los Angeles, is just one of a host of celebrities to come out in support of Britain ditching Brussels.
Cambridge: Britain's shock Brexit vote has left the country's universities worried about its impact, whether on exchange programmes or research funding.

In Cambridge, southeast England, students at the world-famous university's 31 colleges have left for the summer, but among the teaching staff still here the word Brexit is on everyone's lips.

"It's the only topic of conversation, even a week later," Athene Donald, master of Churchill College, told AFP, adding that it was still "far too early to know what the consequences are going to be".

The stakes, for Cambridge and the country, are high: over 125,000 European students were enrolled this year in British universities, or five percent of the total, while 15 percent of academic staff come from other EU countries, according to Universities UK (UUK).

British universities received 836 million British pounds (995 million euros, $1.1 million) in subsidies and research contracts in the 2014-15 academic year alone.

In the wake of the 23 June referendum, numerous universities have sought to reassure their students from other EU countries, notably on the question of tuition fees.

EU students have until now not paid the same as their counterparts from elsewhere in the world, who have to stump up for International Status fees, which can be much higher.

"In 2016/17, the fees will be the same, and you will still have access to the government loan" as do British students on Home Fee status, said Michael Arthur, president of University College London in a video posted on YouTube aimed at European students.

"If you're thinking of coming to study with us after that time... we believe that nothing will have changed then either," he said, while adding: "We're seeking clarifications on that from the government at the moment."

British universities minister Jo Johnson is also seeking to reassure them.

"UK welcomes EU students. Current students and this autumn's applicants will continue to receive student finance for duration of their course," he tweeted after the shock Brexit vote.

On Friday, the Scottish government issued a statement saying it hoped Scotland would remain a "destination of choice" for EU students.

Outside the EU, Britain would also have to renegotiate its participation in the Erasmus programme, to which over 200,000 British students have signed up.
Toronto: A 22-year-old Canadian has been sentenced to 10 months in jail for punching and kicking a Sikh man in a racially motivated attack that had drawn strong condemnation from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Gabriel Royer-Tremblay, 22, was convicted of assault for punching and kicking Toronto resident Supninder Singh Khehra on a street in Quebec City in March.

Khehra had said at the time that Tremblay and two of his friends shouted and swore at him in French and pointed at his turban, before he was punched in the eye and kicked.

29-year-old Khehra said his turban flew off of his head during the assault.

Police arrived at the scene a short time later and arrested Tremblay and another man, who was later released without charges.

The incident had drawn widespread condemnation in Canada, including from Prime Minister Trudeau, who said at the time that such "hateful acts" have "no place in Canada".

Royer-Tremblay was also convicted of several other offences, including obstructing police and methamphetamine possession.

His lawyer, Benoit Labrecque, told CTV News Toronto that six months of the sentence was for the assault against Khehra, and the other four were tied to the other offences.

Royer-Tremblay was also given two years' probation on Thursday. The crown had sought a total jail term of 18 months, while Labrecque argued for a 90-day jail stint served on weekends.

Khehra submitted a victim impact statement to the court that said he no longer feels safe when walking alone on the street, and is coping with a great deal of stress related to the incident.

With credit for pre-trial custody, Royer-Tremblay will spend eight more months in jail.
Kabul: At least nine militants were killed and 12 others were injured in a clash between security forces and the Taliban in Afghanistan's Saripul and Faryab provinces, an official said on Sunday.

According to the official, four militants  including group commanders  were killed in Sayad district of Saripul province and five more insurgents lost their lives in Qaisar district of Faryab province respectively.

A total of 12 militants sustained injuries in the skirmishes which have been continuing in parts of the said districts.
New Delhi: Top CPI leaders will hold bilateral talks with their communist party counterparts in

Vietnam over the next week to strengthen ties between the two countries.

A three-member CPI delegation, led by party's National Secretary D Raja, would reach Ho Chi Minh city on Monday and hold meetings with leaders of the Politburo and Central Committee, among others, of the Communist Party of Vietnam in Hanoi.

The delegation, which would return here on 9 July, also includes senior CPI leaders Pallab Sengupta and Girish Sharma, Raja said.

The CPI leaders have been invited by the Communist Party of Vietnam to hold discussions on issues to "further promote friendship and cooperaton between the two parties and the two countries," he said.
New Delhi: In the wake of spate of violence engulfing Bangladesh, including the Dhaka terror attack, CPM expressed concern over the rise of fundamentalist activity in the neighbouring country on Sunday.

The recent spate of attacks against "secular rationalists, minorities and foreigners clearly shows that the activities of the fundamentalists are on the rise", a statement by the party Polit Bureau said.

It hoped that the Government of Bangladesh will bring the perpetrators to book and restore normalcy at the earliest.

"The people of Bangladesh have a heroic legacy of struggling unitedly for the liberation of the country cutting across all barriers of religion. The Polit Bureau of the CPM hopes that the people of Bangladesh will continue to uphold this legacy and thwart all efforts to spread violence and anarchy in the country," the statement added.

ISIS terrorists brutally murdered 20 foreigners, including an Indian student, inside a cafe popular with expatriates in Dhaka's diplomatic zone in the worst terror attack in Bangladesh before commandos yesterday launched an assault and killed six attackers while capturing one alive.
Washington: Three students from US universities, including Indian girl Tarushi Jain, were among 20 hostages hacked to death by suspected Islamic State militants in a terror attack at a restaurant in Bangladesh capital's high-security diplomatic zone.

18-year-old Tarushi was a student at UC Berkeley and was on vacation in Dhaka when the attack happened while two other students of Bangladeshi-origin  Abinta Kabir and Faraaz Hossain  were studying at Atlanta's Emory University.

Abinta, who was from Miami, was a rising sophomore at Emory's Oxford College while Faraaz, a junior from Dhaka, was a graduate of Oxford College and a student at the university's Goizueta Business School, Emory university officials said on Saturday.

"The Emory community mourns this tragic and senseless loss of two members of our university family. Our thoughts and prayers go out on behalf of Faraaz and Abinta and their families and friends for strength and peace at this unspeakably sad time," the university said in a statement.

The hostages were hacked to death by suspected Islamic State militants inside a cafe popular with expats in the diplomatic zone in Dhaka in the worst terror attack in Bangladesh before commandos launched an assault on Saturday killing six attackers and capturing one alive.

The attack has drawn widespread condemnation from several US Senators, with Georgia lawmaker David Perdue asserting that "these senseless acts of terror must come to an end."

Mourning the loss of the two Emory students, Senator Perdue said innocent people were being massacred across the world at the hands of Islamic State.

"These senseless acts of terror absolutely must come to an end. It is deeply disturbing to hear that two of the victims of the most recent attacks are Emory University students...keeping Abinta Kabir, Faraaz Hossain, and their

loved ones in our thoughts and prayers during this terrible time," Perdue said.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio said he was saddened to learn that Miami's Abinta Kabir was among the victims.

"My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Bangladesh and all those countries who lost citizens in this horrific attack" Rubio said.
Paris: A Gay Pride march in Paris on Sunday has caused a row in France's hard Right National Front (FN), with some student supporters backing an event decried by a party vice-chairman.

"More than ever necessary after the homophobic attack in Orlando, we wish a good #MarcheDesFiertes (Gay Pride) to all," tweeted the association of FN students at the Paris Institute of Political Studies.

The tweet, just as the march started in the capital, was met with consternation however from other FN supporters  not least vice-president Louis Aliot, who took to Twitter to give an entirely different line.

"The FN does not support the Gay Pride March, an exhibitionist and anti-FN symbol of militant communitarianism," Aliot said in a message retweeted by FN lawmaker Marion Marechal-Le Pen, niece of party FN president Marine Le Pen.

Another party vice-president, Marie-Christine Arnautu, as well as the leader of the party's youth wing Gaetan Dussausaye, also disapproved of the pro-march message from the Sciences Po grouping.

Dussausaye said it was "out of the question... to support the Gay Pride march". Arnautu also expressed astonishment while FN regional councillor Axel Loustau indicated that "hoisting aloft one's sexuality as a standard is as indecent and measly as homophobia."

There was no immediate reaction from another party vice-president Florian Philippot  outed two years ago by a French magazine, Closer, as gay.

At the time, decrying an attack on his private life by the magazine, Philippot insisted that "the FN is not gay friendly, (but) it is not the opposite either. It is French friendly."

Former FN leader Jean-Marie Le Pen once indicated he saw homosexuality as a "biological and social anomaly" although Marine Le Pen, his daughter, has sought to soften the party line in advocating, for instance, civil partnerships for same-sex couples.

Thousands of people took to the streets for today's march amid tight if discreet security three weeks after the attack on a Florida nightclub which killed 49 people.

"Three weeks on from the LGBT-phobic and racist attack in Orlando, to march is an act of resistance. We must not give in to fear," insisted Amandine Miguel, spokesperson for organisers Inter-LGBT association.

On Paris's Place de la Bastille, marchers stopped to observe a minute's silence in memory of the Florida victims.

Some 1,000 police were on hand along the 4.6 kilometre route, reduced by a third from the normal route eight months on from the Paris attacks.

The march usually takes place one week earlier but was put back with France still hosting the group phase of Euro 2016.
Islamabad: Asking Pakistan to have a clear stand against terrorists, a leading Pakistani newspaper on Sunday wondered if Islamabad was again differentiating between "good" and "bad" militants.

"The security of Pakistan and the region lies in an unambiguous policy against militancy and terrorism in all their manifestations by all countries," the Dawn said in an editorial.

But it said Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz's remarks had added to the confusion and called for an "immediate and emphatic clarification."

It said that citing fears about so-called blowback from militant groups, Aziz seemed to defend Pakistan's lack of action against sanctuaries of the Haqqani network and the Afghan Taliban on Pakistani soil.

It said that he appeared to suggest that decisions were yet to be made regarding how far and on what scale the state would eventually act against some groups.

"Has Aziz backtracked on the state's explicit commitment that there will no longer be a policy of differentiating between so-called good and bad Taliban?" the editorial asked.

"That would be an alarming and astonishing reversal made all the worse by the casual  almost careless  manner in which the remarks were given."

Dawn said Pakistan's policy was to treat all militant groups as a problem "that must be solved by eventual elimination...Pakistan's pledge to try and deliver the Afghan Taliban to the negotiating table should not be allowed to become a reason to differentiate between militant groups over the long term. What threatens the stability of Afghanistan inevitably threatens the stability of Pakistan  the security establishment and political leadership here cannot lapse into old, damaging habits of denial and obfuscation."

Both India and Afghanistan accuse Pakistan of harbouring and training terrorist groups acting against New Delhi and Kabul. Islamabad denies the charge.
Initial investigations showed that the accident happened due to a burst tire

Six Egyptian pilgrims were killed and 14 others wounded in Saturday's bus crash in Saudi Arabia, the Egyptian Community in Saudi Arabia announced on its Facebook page Sunday.

The accident took place on a road connecting the Saudi cities of Riyadh and Taif, as the bus was transporting 49 passengers of different nationalities who were performing the Umrah, the minor Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.

The deadly accident left a total of 13 killed and 35 injured.

News outlets quoted Saudi officials as saying that initial investigations showed that the accident happened due to the bus's front tire bursting.

Unlike the Hajj pilgrimage, Umrah can be performed at any time of the year but it is highly popular during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

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PARIS Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced plans to quit his role as head of France's Les Republicains party on Saturday, setting up a potential bid to become head of state for a second time.

Supporters of Les Republicains and other right and centre-right parties will vote in November to decide who will be their candidate in the 2017 presidential election.

The winner will face the far-right National Front's Marine Le Pen and a Socialist candidate, likely to be President Francois Hollande.

Sarkozy would not be able to run in those presidential primaries if he remained head of the party. He would need to resign two weeks before the application deadline on Sept. 9.

"This national council will be my last one as president of Les Republicains," he told a party meeting, calling for a fair contest and no acrimony between the potential nominees.

"This primary will be a time of competition between some strong personalities, between people of significant talent," he said.

"When the right goes into battle it has a front on the left and a front on the extreme right. That is why it is unacceptable that we should attack each other."

For much of this year, centre-right rival Alain Juppe has outpaced Sarkozy in opinion polls, but the man who was president between 2007 and 2012 is making a comeback among party supporters, a recent survey showed, a sign the battle could be more open than many thought.

(Reporting by Sophie Louet, writing by Sybille de La Hamaide; editing by Susan Thomas and Andrew Callus)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Beirut: Syrian government forces were locked in fierce battles with rebels north of Aleppo on Sunday in a bid to cut the last opposition route out of the city, a monitor said.

Fresh clashes broke out overnight in Mallah, a section of farmland on the northern edge of the divided city of Aleppo, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

President Bashar al-Assad's forces have been attempting to seize Mallah for more than two years as it runs adjacent to the Castello Road  the last route rebels can use to access districts they control in the city.

"Regime forces were able to advance in the area, but the Castello Road is still open," said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.

"If they seize control of all of Mallah, they will be able to besiege the opposition neighbourhoods of Aleppo city," he added.

Syrian daily Al-Watan, which is close to the government, quoted a field commander today morning as saying the army had fully overrun Mallah but had not yet cut off the Castello Road.

"The army has two kilometres (less than two miles) left to cut the militants' only lifeline from the eastern neighbourhoods to the outside world via the Castello Road," the paper wrote.

Fighting has rocked Mallah since a government assault on the area began in late June, followed by a jihadist-led counterattack.

The situation has remained fluid, with each side advancing briefly before being rolled back.

Dozens of fighters on both sides of the frontline  including from the Al-Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda  have been killed there over the past week, the Observatory said.

Aleppo province is criss-crossed with supply routes for nearly all of Syria's warring parties  rebels, jihadists, the regime, and Kurdish forces.

The city itself  the country's pre-war commercial capital  has been divided since mid-2012 into rebel-held and

regime-held areas.

Syria's government has pledged to retake the whole city despite efforts by Washington and regime ally Moscow to stem the violence there.

Several temporary freezes on fighting have been implemented in the city, but a broader truce brokered by the US and Russia has not held there.
Islamabad: The US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Olson, met with top Pakistani diplomat in Islamabad on Saturday and "discussed the regional security situation and efforts for peace and stability in Afghanistan," officials said.

Ambassador Olson is visiting Pakistan at a time when relations between Pakistan and the US are tense over the drone strike that killed Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour and the US blockade of the F-16 fighter plane sale, reported.

The visit is also seen important at a time when relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan are also tense over recent border skirmishes that had caused casualties on both sides last month.

Both sides also had the opportunity to discuss the efforts by the Quadrilateral Coordination Group involving Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and the US to push for the Afghan peace process.

Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry while talking to Ambassador Olson reiterated Pakistan's commitment to as an effective forum to facilitate Afghan-owned and Afghan-led reconciliation process.

"The Foreign Secretary underlined Pakistan's focus on effective border management on Afghanistan-Pakistan border with a view to enhancing security and counter-terrorism efforts," a Foreign Ministry statement said.
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The annual report by the semi-governmental human rights council reports that three new fatalities have occurred due to torture in police custody

The head of Egypt's semi-governmental National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) Mohamed Fayek cast light on Sunday on human rights violations against prisoners and detainees, calling on authorities to remedy the situation.

On the sidelines of a press conference held to release the council's 11th annual report, Fayek said there were three new fatalities caused by torture in police stations, Al-Ahram Arabic website reported.

Fayek also stressed that police torture is a prevalent issue and that the allegations are repeatedly denied.

"This problem requires all laws on this issue to be reviewed," Fayek said.

Another 20 people have died while behind bars due to deteriorating health conditions caused by detention facilities, he added, stressing that regulations relating to human rights also need to be reviewed.

The Egyptian government has insisted that torture incidents in police stations or prisons are individual acts by rogue officers, saying it does not tolerate such acts.

In recent months, a number of officers have stood trial on charges of committing torture against citizens with several convicted.Prisons and detention facilities, according to the NCHR report, are overcrowded by 150% and 300% respectively, which results in insufficient and ineffective medical services.

The report also shed light on other basic rights that it said have deteriorated such as sleeping spaces and the food served to detainees and inmates.

Prison congestion also leads to the occasional cancellation of visits, the report stated.

While police usually ensure medical treatment for detainees who have critical health conditions, the report highlights, the problem remains for those detained while being investigated or facing charges. According to the report, this represents a separate punishment.

Fayek also said that clear regulations for arrests have to be set in order to deter forced disappearances, which are usually blamed on the interior ministry.

Forced disappearances are defined as people who are believed to have been arrested by security agencies but not referred to prosecution as stipulated by the constitution.

Meanwhile, the report also recommended the reduction of death penalty sentences as much as possible, proposing its use only in cases of capital crimes.

Hundreds of defendants were sentenced to death over the past three years on terrorism related charges. However, most sentences were overturned upon appeal.

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Investors often overlook energy stocks. The sector is not known for booming growth like tech, nor are energy companies well-known household names, as are many consumer-facing companies. However, despite the shortcomings, energy stocks have a lot to offer investors. Here are three reasons investors should love energy stocks.

1. Owning energy stocks can offset personal energy costs

Each month, more than $100 gets plucked out of my checking account and deposited into the account of SCANA (SCG) subsidiary South Carolina Electric and Gas Company to pay for my home's energy usage. I am one of over a million customers who routinely pay a SCANA subsidiary to deliver energy. Over the years, those recurring income streams have generated substantial wealth for SCANA's investors:

Because of the wealth-generating ability of energy companies, investors can benefit from owning energy stocks by using them to offset personal energy expenses. For example, by investing in a utility an investor can offset some of their home energy costs via the wealth generated by that entity. The same could be true for offsetting gasoline costs by investing in an oil and gas producer, or a refining and marketing company.

2. Energy stocks provide pretty decent passive income

Aside from explicitly using energy stocks to offset expenses, another reason to love energy stocks is the passive income streams these companies often generate. To use SCANA again, it has paid a dividend to its investors for 265 consecutive quarters, growing its payout in 61 of the past 65 years. Further, with plans to expand its earnings stream by 4% to 6% annually over the next three to five years, that payout will likely continue to grow. That is a pretty nice passive income stream.

While some investors might loathe the idea of owning a carbon-emitting utility, there are plenty of green ideas out there that also throw some green into an investors' portfolio. Brookfield Renewable Partners (BEP -0.28%), for example, is one of the largest pure-play renewable-power platforms in the world. Brookfield Renewable Partners generates more than 10,000 megawatts of clean energy from its hydro power plants and wind farms, which is enough energy to power 4 million homes. Those assets not only generate a relatively steady supply of renewable power, but they also provide a steady stream of cash flow to Brookfield Renewable Partners. Further, because of its pass-through corporate structure, the company sends the bulk of that cash flow to investors. It is a pretty nice payout, with the company's distribution currently yielding more than 6%. That passive income stream would make any investor green with envy.

3. The energy industry is still growing

Because its roots go back hundreds of years, the energy sector is not viewed as a growth industry. Further, because of the rise of renewables, many investors believe that fossil-fuel demand is on the decline. These views, however, could not be further from the truth.

It's true that renewable-energy demand growth is expected to be much stronger than demand growth for fossil fuels. According to ExxonMobil's (XOM 1.19%) outlook for energy, demand for renewables is expected to grow by 4.8% per year through 2040, compared with just 0.7% annual demand growth for oil and 1.6% annual demand growth for natural gas. That said, the combined growth for those two fossil fuels far outweighs the growth of renewables on an absolute basis:

This suggests that there is plenty of long-term growth left for investors in the energy sector, even in the fossil-fuel space.

Investor takeaway

Too many investors are missing out by not owning any energy stocks. Not only can these investments offset an investor's personal energy consumption, but energy stocks are also excellent for earning passive income as well as capturing the sector's abundant future growth. This is why investors should love energy stocks and consider owning at least one in their portfolio.
Egypt's High Administrative Court postponed to 30 July referring a recusal request of the panel reviewing a government appeal against a ruling establishing the Egyptian sovereignty of two Red Sea islands to an independent commission.

Last week, lawyers Khaled Ali and Adel Soliman, who have spearheaded the campaign to establish Egyptian sovereignty over the two Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir, requested the panel step down.

In June, Egypt's State Lawsuits Authority  the body representing the government in legal cases  appealed a court ruling that voided a decision by the government to place the two islands under Saudi Arabia's sovereignty.

The judge who issued the ruling, State Council Vice President Yehia El-Dakroury, reasoned that since the agreement was void, "the islands should remain part of Egyptian territory and within Egyptian borders; Egyptian sovereignty over the islands holds, and it forbidden to change their status in any form or through any procedure for the benefit of any other state."

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It may not come as a complete surprise for Kia investors or fans, as the South Korean automaker claimed last summer it would take the top spot in this year's J.D. Power quality survey, but the fact is it's incredibly rare for a non-premium brand to accomplish the feat. In fact, the last non-premium brand to find itself atop the quality rankings was Toyota Motors (TM 0.63%), all the way back in 1989. Here's a look at how the scoring works, how the rest of the rankings shaped up, and why it matters.

The devil is in the details

J.D. Power's U.S. new-vehicle quality is a study now in its 30th year and it examines problems consumers experience with their vehicle during the first 90 days of their ownership. The initial quality ratings are scored by boiling down the number of problems experienced per 100 vehicles, or PP100, with lower scores reflecting higher quality.

J.D. Power based the study's results on more than 80,000 responses from owners and lessees of 2016 model-year vehicles. From the 10,000 foot view, new-vehicle quality improved 6% across the industry which was double last year's improvement of 3% and the largest increase since 2009's initial quality study. In fact, 21 of the 33 brands included in the study improved their quality rating this year.

King of the hill

Making good on its promise was Kia, which ranked the highest among brands and simultaneously ending the 27 year drought for non-premium brands in the quality study by posting the lowest score of 83 PP100. Kia narrowly edged out Porsche's 84 PP100 which checked in alone at second place. Third, fourth and fifth place took a few steps back in score with Hyundai, Toyota and BMW respectively posting scores of 92 PP100, 93 PP100 and 94 PP100.

"Manufacturers are currently making some of the highest quality products we've ever seen," said Renee Stephens, vice president of U.S. automotive quality at J.D. Power, in a press release. "Tracking our data over the past several years, it has become clear that automakers are listening to the customer, identifying pain points and are focused on continuous improvement. Even as they add more content, including advanced technologies that have had a reputation for causing problems, overall quality continues to improve."

Surprisingly, for the first time since 2006, non-premium brands recorded fewer problems, at 104 PP100, than premium brands did at 108 PP100. Another oddity, which is a great sign for domestic auto investors, is that for just the second time in the 30-year history of J.D. Power's IQS domestic brands scored lower than their important counterparts combined. In fact, Detroit's "Big Three" combined to score 103 PP100 which was a significant 10% improvement from just last year, and double the improvement rate from their combined import competitors.

Finally, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCAU) have a reason to cheer after multiple reports of poor quality over the years. Chrysler and Jeep were the two most improved brands and reduced their number of problems by 28 PP100 from last year's initial quality study. However, despite being the most improved both Jeep and Chrysler find themselves scoring below the industry average of 105 PP100, at 113 PP100 and 115 PP100, respectively.

Those two brands surrounded FCA's Ram brand which scored 114 PP100, but all were at least a huge distance ahead of Fiat which scored second to last with 174 PP100. While Fiat's score is pretty atrocious, it's fair to argue that the brand's score is likely skewed to some degree by a shallow vehicle portfolio and sample sizes.

Why it matters

Obviously consumers want to purchase vehicles that will give them the least amount of trouble, but for investors there is a little more to it. When it comes to market share even a fraction of a percentage point change can mean hundreds of millions of dollars in gained or lost revenue. And, as J.D. Power notes in the study, there's a correlation between the number of problems a customer has and the decisions they make during their next purchase. So, investors within the automotive industry would be wise to pay close attention to these quality results.
What: After taking a large tumble in May because of rising oil prices, independent oil refiners had another rough month. Shares of HollyFrontier (HFC), Alon USA Energy (NYSE: ALJ), PBF Energy (PBF 4.07%), and CVR Refining (CVRR) all saw declines of 10% or more in June.

So what: The reason that the three oil refiners' shares have tumbled for the second straight month is that, like last month, refining margins haven't been as robust as they were this time last year. According to the most recent refining margin report from Scotia Howard Weil, the two refining margin indicators that are most pertinent to these four companies -- Chicago and the Gulf Coast -- stood at $16.10 and $11.33 per barrel, respectively, on a quarter-to-date basis. This is well below the results from the same time in 2015. To be fair, though, refining margins in 2015 were some of the best they have been in decades, so it was a very high hurdle to jump over.

There is one particular trait keeping refining margins rather low, and that is high utilization rates from refiners. Utilization rates are the amount of crude processed, divided by the total capacity of the facility. For an individual refining company, you want this number to be as high as possible because it means the company is running an efficient business. If every refiner is able to run at high utilization rates, though, it typically means there is a bit too much gasoline and diesel supply to go around. If you look at the utilization rates of these companies in the past quarter, they show companies that are doing good things individually, but aren't really helping the refining market get back to more robust margins.

Company Utilization Rate (Q1 2016) HollyFrontier 88.3% Alon USA Energy 93.2% PBF Energy 89.9% CVR Refining 105%

CVR Refining saw even larger losses in the quarter because it has been forced to reduce operations at its Coffeyville refinery. A refined product pipeline between the refinery and Kansas City -- run by Magellan Midstream Partners -- was shut down on June 7. That pipeline reduced the takeaway capacity from the facility by about 30,000 barrels per day and is expected to be down for about four weeks. This reduction in production will likely put a dent in the company's second-quarter results, but it's a temporary thing and probably won't be much of an issue beyond that.

Now what: All of these companies are in an odd position. They have been operating at a high level with great utilization rates, but all these companies running at high rates also means that they are reducing their own profit margins. Ultimately, though, things like refining margins eventually come out in the wash, and today's lower refining margins may not mean much over the very long term.

Going forward, investors should continue to watch that all of these companies keep up strong operational results and keep costs down.



One thing to note in particular: PBF Energy recently purchased a refinery in Torrence, California from ExxonMobil. The refinery has been riddled with issues over the years, and so far ExxonMobil hasn't put together the four weeks of uninterrupted operations required for the transfer of assets. When it does, though, PBF will face an uphill battle in getting this facility up to par with its others.
With a population of just 1.3 million, and a GDP of less than 25 billion, the Baltic nation of Estonia is rarely thought of as a military powerhouse. Yet Estonia is one of only a handful of NATO member states that meets the alliance's target of spending 2% of GDP on defense.

Some might wonder that such a tiny nation is shouldering an outsize part of the alliance's defense burden. Others might wonder, is that investment beginning to pay off?

IED scanners ...

Judging from what we've seen this month, it just might be paying off. A couple of weeks back, Defense-Update.com reported that Estonian robotics developer Milrem has teamed up with Raytheon (RTN) to develop a new integrated robotic platform for detecting buried improvised explosive devices.

Raytheon, you see, has something called a GroundEye sensor system, which, according to the company, is able "to view, in real time, the exact position, orientation, size, and shape of all individual components of an emplaced or suspected ... IED or other buried threat ... with extremely low false alarm rates."

Plus Baltic warbots ...

Initially designed to be man-portable, Raytheon has also been looking for an unmanned ground vehicle platform to carry GroundEye, permitting bomb-disposal technicians to identify and "geotag" the location of suspected IEDs from a safe distance. And it seems Raytheon has found such a platform in Milrem's "THeMIS" robot.

Designed specifically with counter-IED missions in mind, THeMIS, the "Tracked Hybrid Modular Infantry System" is said to be able to carry payloads up to 1,650 pounds in weight. This makes it potentially useful not just for C-IED missions, but for medevac, supply delivery, and remote weapons station missions as well.

Equals profits for Raytheon?

This is obviously attractive to Raytheon, which has yet to develop a really popular unmanned ground vehicle of its own. Its partnership with Milrem, though, just might do that trick. So long as the United States remains involved in counterinsurgency actions in Afghanistan, in Syria, and in Iraq, it will face an ongoing threat from IEDs. This creates an immediate market for THeMIS-cum-GroundEye, which should begin production in numbers later this year.

Additionally, the paired robot-plus-IED scanner concept could prove useful in missions similar to IED detection. For example, in former conflict zones around the world, there's a persistent threat to civilian populations from unexploded ordnance such as cluster bombs and land mines. Years, and even decades, after a conflict has ended, these munitions continue to claim hundreds of innocent lives year after year. Deployment of GroundEye-equipped THeMIS robots to identify such threats could be a great way to disarm that threat -- and produce a nice new revenue stream for Raytheon in the process.
What: Shares of Cheniere Energy (LNG 0.04%) ended June up more than 16% after a month that would make even the most adamant roller coaster fan a little queasy. What makes Cheniere Energy's ups and downs even more puzzling is that its subsidiaries -- Cheniere Energy Partners (CQP 0.98%) and Cheniere Energy Partners Holdings (NYSEMKT: CQH) -- remained relatively stable throughout the month.

So what: Cheniere Energy has been a very polarizing stock over the past year or so. The company's shares have been under the pressure of notable short-sellers such as Jim Chanos who view the company as wildly overvalued and too laden with debt to deliver long-term profits. This past 12 months also marked a notable transition as the company completed construction of one liquefaction train at its LNG facility in Louisiana. For all the years that Cheniere's stock was a bet on the idea of exporting natural gas from the U.S., it's now actually doing that. What is surprising about Cheniere's seeming volatility, though, is the entity that actually owns the liquefaction terminal -- Cheniere Energy Partners -- has seen a relatively stable ride.

The one thing that seems to have ultimately fueled the most recent rally at Cheniere was a recent stock upgrade from analyst group Howard Weil. Weil upgraded Cheniere's stock to "sector outperform." It was the fifth upgrade to the company's stock by various analyst groups this year. It should also be noted, though, that some of those same analyst groups downgraded the stock as recently as a year ago. So anyone who is looking at the long-term future of this company should probably take those analyst calls with a very large grain of salt.

Now what: Despite all the ups and downs of Cheniere's stock, not much has changed with the company's long-term investment thesis. The company still has strong contracts in place to sell liquefied natural gas overseas once those terminals are complete and fully operational. Until we see what the company's production looks like when running at a full clip, it's probably still too soon to judge whether the company's stock is overvalued or whether its debt load is too onerous to handle. For the investor looking well in advance, it may still be best to take a wait-and-see approach.
Marijuana has expanded like a weed over the past two decades, but 2016 could be its greatest year yet.

In November, residents in up to a dozen states could vote on whether or not to legalize medicinal or recreational marijuana. Five states have secured marijuana initiatives on their ballots, while signature collection and verification continues in the remaining states.

California is one state where a marijuana vote is going to happen, and the cannabis industry couldn't be more excited about it. California is one of the largest economies in the world, and recreational legalization would mean a major bump in tax revenue and licensing fees for the state. Additionally, legalizing the recreational use of marijuana in a state as large as California would add validity to the fast-growing industry, and it could encourage Congress to take another look at legalizing marijuana.

In total, since California first passed a Compassionate Use law for medicinal marijuana in 1996, two dozen additional states have legalized medical marijuana. Four states, along with Washington, D.C., have legalized recreational marijuana since 2012. After the first week of November we could be seriously adding to these totals.

Lawmakers stand firm on marijuana

Of course, Capitol Hill has other ideas. The federal government has stood as a brick wall in the way of the marijuana industry for decades, and even with state-level approvals gaining steam, lawmakers have shown no sign of letting up on their view of marijuana being an illicit substance. As we've seen previously, keeping the marijuana plant as a schedule 1 substance (i.e., a highly addictive substance with no medical benefits) places cannabis-based businesses at a marked disadvantage to normal businesses.

For instance, cannabis-based companies are, in many cases, forced to deal solely in cash because banks want nothing to do with marijuana. The reasoning is that bank deposits are insured by the federal government, and allowing cannabis companies to open checking accounts and gain access to lines of credit could be construed as money laundering. Only about 3% of banks nationwide are currently dealing with the marijuana industry. This means cannabis companies are coping with the added security concerns of using cash and are slowed in their efforts to expand and hire without access to credit.

Another issue that cannabis businesses face that any normal company doesn't can be found come tax time. U.S. tax code 280E disallows businesses that sell illegal substances from taking normal business deductions on their federal corporate income tax filing. This leads to marijuana companies paying tax on their gross profits instead of net profits, meaning they're forking over well more than they should to the federal government.

At the center of lawmakers' concerns is the long-term safety of the drug, as well as what might happen to adolescent-use rates if it were to be legalized. However, newly released data from the 2015 Healthy Kids Colorado Survey could prove to be a game-changer for lawmakers concerned about adolescent safety and drug access.

This study could be pivotal in changing lawmakers' minds

According to the survey, adolescent marijuana use hasn't shot higher as some pundits had predicted following the legalization of recreational marijuana in the state in 2012. If anything, marijuana use has been on the decline among adolescents over the past six years.

In 2009, 43% of Colorado adolescents had used marijuana at least once in their lifetimes. By 2013, a year after Colorado legalized marijuana but prior to the opening of dispensaries retailing legal recreational marijuana, only 37% of middle school and high school students admitted to ever having tried marijuana. In this latest study of approximately 17,000 middle school and high school students, which includes 2014 and 2015 data, 38% admitted to trying marijuana at least once.

A similar trend was seen in occasional-use adolescents, defined as those who had used the drug within the past 30 days. A quarter of teens surveyed admitted to cannabis use within the past month in 2009. By comparison, only 20% admitted to using marijuana within the past month in 2013, and just 21% did so in the latest study. The national average of monthly marijuana use among adolescents is 21.7%, meaning Colorado is slightly below to more or less in-line with the national average despite selling legal recreational marijuana since Jan. 1, 2014.

Although fewer teens view marijuana as risky compared to 2013 (48% now vs. 54% in 2013), and it remains the second most used substance (over students' lifetimes) behind only alcohol, this survey from Colorado certainly suggests that creating a regulated, but legal, marijuana market nationwide may not lead to the surge in marijuana use among adolescents that skeptics have feared.

Change could be around the corner, courtesy of the DEA

Making matters even more exciting for supporters of the marijuana movement, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency is on the precipice of a major ruling within the next couple of weeks that could wind up with a rescheduling, or de-scheduling, of marijuana for medical purposes. The Food and Drug Administration has already released its findings to the DEA, and now the DEA is undertaking is own research into the potentially addictive qualities of marijuana.

If the DEA were to completely de-schedule marijuana, it would be treated just as alcohol and tobacco are. A rescheduling to anything between a schedule 2 and schedule 5 would legalize medical marijuana throughout all 50 states. However, it would also, in effect, turn the cannabis industry into a pharmaceutical industry. The FDA would tightly regulate marijuana's production, as well as the packaging and labeling of the product. More importantly, marijuana businesses would need to substantiate claims of medical benefits by performing potentially costly clinical trials that the FDA could then validate.

There are a lot of positive and negative ways to construe this upcoming DEA decision.

Wait and see

With this new survey data from Colorado, a DEA ruling in a matter of weeks, and the upcoming November elections that could radically alter the state-level legal landscape, investors could be champing at the bit for their piece of the marijuana industry. For those investors I'd strongly suggest a wait-and-see approach.

For example, a DEA decision to reschedule marijuana could just as easily be bad for the industry. Federally legal medical marijuana, but with tighter regulations, could lead to higher costs and lower margins for cannabis-based business. In fact, it could be downright difficult for smaller players in the business to survive.

State-level legalizations this November also offer no guarantee that Congress will even consider legalizing marijuana. President Barack Obama has suggested that the best way to get the attention of Congress is to keep legalizing at the state level, but lawmakers may elect to take a longer wait-and-see period approach. Currently, Colorado, Washington, and Oregon are the full-legalization "guinea pigs" that Congress is closely watching.

There may indeed come a time when marijuana makes for a suitable buy-and-hold investment, but I don't believe we're anywhere near that point yet. Until we see discernable progress at the federal level, I'd suggest keeping your investing money far away from cannabis.
President Obama's signature health reform law, the Affordable Care Act -- which you probably know as "Obamacare" -- has been controversial and generally disliked by about half of Americans since it was signed into law in March 2010.

The Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking Poll has been closely monitoring the public's sentiment toward Obamacare on a near-monthly basis since it was signed into law. You can essentially count on two hands how many months over the past six years the general public had a "favorable" view on the law.

Although Obamacare enrolled about 12.7 million people through its marketplace exchanges in 2016, and a nearly equal number of lower-income individuals and families have gained medical coverage through the expansion of Medicaid in 31 states, the program's long-term survival is still in question, with premium prices looking as if they could soar by a double-digit percentage in 2017. Another analysis conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that a weighted average increase of 11% could be in store, based on the price of the lowest-cost silver plan in 2016 compared to 2017.

Obamacare's shortcomings threaten its future

"What's wrong with Obamacare?" you might be wondering. Unfortunately, there's no single or centralized problem, but rather a confluence of factors that have come together to put the future of President Obama's hallmark legislation in doubt.

First, young-adult enrollment hasn't been up to par. Young adults are typically healthier and less likely to go to the doctor, meaning their enrollment and premium payments are vital for insurers looking to offset the higher costs of treating sicker and/or older Americans. By a similar token, the Shared Responsibility Payment, or SRP, may not be steep enough to encourage young adults to enroll. The SRP is the "penalty" assessed for violating the individual mandate by not buying health insurance. In 2014, the SRP was the greater of $95 or 1% of modified adjusted gross income, or MAGI. In 2016, it has jumped to the greater of $695 or 2.5% MAGI. Even with this jump, the Kaiser Family Foundation predicts an average penalty of $969, which is still far less than the cost of a full year of healthcare premium payments.

Secondly, the "risk corridor" has failed badly. The risk corridor program was designed to provide payments to insurers losing excessive amounts of money on Obamacare's exchanges. This loss protection was meant to encourage more insurers to enter the marketplace by giving them a safety net while they figured out an appropriate level for premium prices. The funds for these payments were to be provided by overly profitable insurers on Obamacare's exchanges. Ultimately, only 12.6% of the $2.87 billion requested wound up being paid out, leading more than half of Obamacare's healthcare cooperatives to close their doors.

Finally, the checks and balances designed to keep insurers from jacking up premiums aren't sufficient. Each state has an Office of the Insurance Commissioner to which insurers submit requests for any rate increases (or decreases) of 10% or more. While the OICs can negotiate with insurers, they essentially have no bargaining power if the rate hike is justified. They can call out insurers on a public platform, but health-benefit providers still remain largely in control of their premium pricing.

Colorado could ditch Obamacare for a single-payer system

The long-term uncertainty surrounding Obamacare has the trailblazing state of Colorado to propose ditching Obamacare altogether and instead implementing a statewide single-payer healthcare plan.

This November, residents of Colorado will vote on Amendment 69, also known as ColoradoCare, which, if approved, would set up a single-payer healthcare system within the state. Under single-payer plans, there are no copays or deductibles, and coverage is universal. It's similar to Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders' Medicare-for-All proposal.

There are obvious advantages to a single-payer system, and we don't have to look any further than our neighbors in Canada to see that single-payer can be quite successful. Within the U.S., the biggest advantage of single-payer is that it would dissociate healthcare from the workplace. Some workers get stuck in a job they dislike because they don't want to go without health insurance. Universal healthcare allows people to leave their jobs without the fear that they'd lose their insurance coverage.

Presumably, a single-payer plan could also result in long-term savings for the residents of Colorado. Think about it this way: When a big corporation with 10,000 employees seeks out health coverage, it can often garner premium discounts for bringing the insurer such a large new pool of patients. Now magnify this 10,000 figure more than 500 times to Colorado's population of approximately 5.5 million. With the Coloradan government fighting for its residents, and a patient pool of 5.5 million people at stake, it seems likely that insurers would be willing to make a deal with Colorado, possibly reducing the final cost of single-payer healthcare.

Single-payer could have problems, too

While Colorado's single-payer plan -- if approved -- could work wonderfully, there are also concerns.

Front-and-center is the expected cost to implement the program. The federal government has pledged $13 billion in funding, but that would still leave Colorado's residents to come up with the extra $25 billion needed to pay for a single-payer system.

According to opponents of ColoradoCare, this would result in a 10% payroll tax that would be paid for by employers and employees. Employers would be on the hook for a 6.67% tax per employee, regardless of whether they were full-time, part-time, or seasonal, and workers would be required to contribute 3.33% (making a total of 10%). Persons receiving non-payroll income -- such as rental income, Social Security income, pensions, dividends, capital gains, and so on -- would owe the full 10%. The state's income tax rate would also rise from 4.63% to 7.96%. Added taxes could be especially harmful to low-wage and middle-class workers who might already be struggling to make ends meet. Small businesses could also struggle under the weight of the newly proposed taxes.

Another concern is what might happen to Colorado's physician network. Having millions of people suddenly insured could overwhelm Colorado's healthcare networks and lead to mile-long waits to see a doctor. Healthcare providers would also be required to enter into contracts with the state and accept reimbursement that's "competitive with other states." This vague terminology could cause doctors to leave the state.

Nov. 8 is the day to watch

Election Day is Nov. 8, so in a matter of roughly four months we'll have an answer as to whether or not Colorado's residents want single-payer healthcare, or if they believe it's too costly for them or for their state.

The results of the vote could certainly hold weight, because success in Colorado could lead the dozen other states tinkering with the idea of altering how Obamacare is administered to make the transition to single-payer. Conversely, a trouncing of ColoradoCare in November could crush any near-term hope that single-payer will get off the ground. I, for one, am eager to see the outcome of this vote, and as investors -- and healthcare consumers -- you should be, too.
Two U.S. Army veterans are aiming to bridge the gap between farmers in Afghanistan and the international spice market.

Kimberly Jung and Emily Miller, both West Point graduates and military veterans who were deployed in Afghanistan, created Rumi Spice in 2014.

Jung, who was named 2016 Asian-American Vetrepreneur of the Year by the National Veteran-Owned Business Association (NaVOB), served in Afghanistan near the Pakistani border searching for improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Miller was a member of the Cultural Support Team (CST) which helped U.S. Special Forces build a closer bond with Afghan women and the local communities.

Women know a lot about what is going on, Miller said. The CST program was meant to train women, get them out there to have woman-to-woman talks in order to build trust.

After leaving the military, both Jung and Miller enrolled in Harvard Business School where they developed the idea for starting their own company, helped by their prior experience in the Middle East. The two used Skype to communicate with a friend still deployed in Afghanistan, who knew of farmers who wanted to sell their product to aid organizations.

Agriculture is one of Afghanistans biggest industries, including the rampant production of opium. According to the United Nations, the country has accounted for an estimated 80% of global illicit opiates. However, Jung and Miller's goal is to focus on the more wholesome nature of the local agriculture community. Their business brings high-quality, flavorful saffron from local Afghan farmers to the global marketplace.

We have fantastic, entrepreneurial Afghan partners on the ground in the country, Jung said. A lot of people didnt think it was going to be possible, but we said were military officers so we can make this happen.

Saffron, which comes from the crocus flower, is the most expensive spice in the world due to its labor-intensive production. In fact, it costs more per pound than gold, which trades north of $1,300 a troy ounce. The spice itself comes from stigmas of saffron flowers, which are handpicked in the morning and brought to a processing facility. Once dry, the product is shipped to Rumi Spice in Chicago for inspection, and then readied for shipment to various restaurants. According to Miller, it takes 450,000 stigmas to make one kilogram of saffron.

The vets are proud of the impact they've made on the Afghan community: Rumi Spice began operations with partnerships from 11 of the country's saffron farmers, and today, that number is up to 34. It also employs 75 Afghan women who work at its local processing facility. The move to incorporate local women in the company's ranks is close to Miller's heart given her work with CST.

Thanks to Miller and Jung's dedication to the business, and hard work from employees from Afghanistan to Chicago, Rumi Spice last year logged $130,000 in sales and is expecting around $500,000 in revenue by the end of this year, according to Jung. Currently, the company sells a one-ounce package for $140. Still, Jung said the company has certainly had its fair share of growing pains.

There are high barriers to entry in [the Afghan saffron market] which is good because it keeps competition away," she said.

Due to stringent regulations and required third-party audits, Miller says operating a food company in Afghanistan is more complex and isnt easy.

For many in the Western world, public perception of Afghanistan if often negative, which the duo is looking to change.

When people think Afghanistan they think of war, opium, terrorism, Miller said. Were trying to shift that narrative. It takes a lot of educating the consumer. We want Afghanistan to become synonymous to having the best saffron in the world.

Rumi Spice is one of three million veteran-owned businesses in the U.S. Jung encourages more Americans to shop at these types of companies.

I think the American people should recognize that vets should be looked at with less pity but more empowerment. Its not always about donating money, but investing money in their businesses.
The attacks killed almost 90 people and injured over 210

The Egyptian foreign ministry strongly condemned early Sunday's terror attacks in the Karada and Shaab areas of Baghdad that killed almost 90 people and injured over 210.

"The foreign ministry spokesman assured that Egypt stands by and fully supports the Iraqi government in the fight against terrorism which targets its security and stability," a ministry statement read, noting that Egypt sends its condolences to the Iraqi people and government.

The spokesman also reiterated Egypt's stance that "terrorism contradicts all humanitarian principles and that the end of the phenomenon relies on international solidarity to crack down on financing and militant ideology."

The ISIS militant group claimed Karada's attack in a statement posted online, AFP reported.

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If your job offers a 401(k) plan as part of its benefits package, your employer may offer to match your contributions up to a certain percentage of your salary. This 401(k) match can boost your retirement income by thousands of dollars, and you won't have to pay any extra income taxes this year.

How does 401(k) matching work?

Many employers choose to match employees' contributions to their 401(k) accounts in order to incentivize retirement saving. While the money employers contribute can't be used until retirement, this can be thousands of dollars per year, and should be taken advantage of, if offered.

Ninety-one percent of Vanguard's retirement plans offer an employer match of some kind, but the way companies structure their matching contributions varies widely. In general, the match is defined as a certain percent of contributions, up to a certain percent of the employee's salary. For example, an employer contribution of "50% of employees' contributions, up to 6% of salary" means that the employer will contribute half of what its employees do, with a maximum employer contribution of 3% of the employee's salary.

Some employers impose a waiting period before employees are eligible for matching contributions, while others require a number of years of service before employees are "vested" in the employer contributions in their accounts. Another common structure is a service-based matching formula, giving more favorable matching percentages to employers who have been there for longer.

The long-term impact of 401(k) matching

To illustrate just how much of an impact 401(k) matching can have, let's consider an example. Let's say that you earn a salary of $50,000 per year and that your employer is willing to match all of your 401(k) contributions, up to a maximum of 6% of your salary.

Without the matching contributions, this means that you're contributing $3,000 per year into your 401(k). Assuming 2% annual raises and 7% average investment returns, this could result in a $520,000 nest egg after 35 years.

However, with the matching contribution, this doubles your investments and would result in a nest egg of more than $1 million. This can make a big difference in your post-retirement quality of life.

Tax implications and withdrawal rules

I mentioned in the introduction that 401(k) matching contributions won't result in any additional income tax liability this year. This is because 401(k) plans are tax-deferred, meaning you won't pay income tax on the money you contribute, but your eventual withdrawals will be treated as taxable income.

Just like the rest of your 401(k) contributions, you can withdraw your matching contributions penalty-free as soon as you're fully vested in your plan, and you're 59 1/2 years of age or older. There are a few exceptions to this age requirement, and you can read about them here.

One of the best employee benefits

A 401(k) matching program ranks right up there with health insurance as one of the best benefits your employer can offer. Not only is a 401(k) match effectively tax-free income, but the long-term effects can be incredible. For this reason, it's important to take full advantage of your employer's 401(k) match if you're contributing anything less than the percentage your employer is willing to match, you are literally turning down free money.

This article is part of The Motley Fool's Knowledge Center, which was created based on the collected wisdom of a fantastic community of investors. We'd love to hear your questions, thoughts, and opinions on the Knowledge Center in general or this page in particular. Your input will help us help the world invest, better! Email us atknowledgecenter@fool.com. Thanks -- and Fool on!

The article What Is 401(k) Matching? originally appeared on Fool.com.

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Millions of older Americans depend on Social Security to provide the income they need in retirement, so any negative news surrounding the program is potentially cause for alarm. That's why the most recent Social Security Board of Trustees' report is somewhat concerning. According to the Board's latest projections, Social Security's combined trust funds will be depleted in 2034, which is consistent with last year's findings. But while this certainly isn't good news, it doesn't mean that Social Security will be going away in its entirety.

IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.

How Social Security and its trust funds work

Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system. Current workers are subject to taxes on up to $118,500 of their income, and those taxes are used to pay today's Social Security beneficiaries. When today's workers retire, they, too, get to collect the benefits that other people's taxed wages are paying for. The problem with this system is that in recent years, more people (specifically, baby boomers) have been exiting the workforce than entering it, and if this trend continues as expected, the total amount collected in Social Security taxes won't be enough to keep up with retiree benefits.

That's where the trust funds come in. Social Security taxes are deposited into specific accounts from which benefits are paid. The funds' assets are then invested in special interest-bearing Treasury bonds that are redeemable when the funds need to be tapped.

While Social Security's total income is projected to exceed its total costs through 2019, starting then, money will need to be drawn from the trust funds to cover the program's anticipated income shortfall. And though there's enough money in the trust funds to keep paying beneficiaries until 2034, at that point, the fund's reserves are expected to be depleted. When this happens, the only income source for the program will be the money it collects via taxes.

Now the good news here is that anticipated tax revenues should be enough to pay 75% of scheduled benefits once the trust funds run out. The bad news, however, is that for those who rely on Social Security as their sole source of income, a 25% reduction in benefits could be downright catastrophic.

Retirees are falling short on savings

The National Academy of Social Insurance reports that as many as 65% of beneficiaries rely on Social Security for the majority of their retirement income. Even more frighteningly, Social Security represents the sole source of income for almost 25% of those 65 and older.

While today's retirees may not have to worry about a sudden 25% reduction in benefits, for future retirees, it's a very real possibility -- which means that those set to retire in 2034 or later need to take matters into their own hands and start saving independently. Currently, an estimated 33% of Americans have absolutely no retirement savings, while 23% admit to having less than $10,000 saved. This collective failure to save, coupled with the widespread disappearance of pensions and other such forms of retirement income, is forcing more and more Americans to put their faith in Social Security. But even without a reduction in benefits on the table, today's average beneficiary receives just $1,341 in monthly Social Security income. For many Americans, that just isn't enough to live on.

Start saving today

Unless you're willing to risk running out of money in retirement, your best bet is to forget about Social Security -- even though the program is expected to continue paying out the majority of its benefits for the foreseeable future. Even in its current state, Social Security is only designed to replace about 40% of the average worker's pre-retirement income. Most people need 70% or more of their pre-retirement income to keep up with living costs once they're no longer working. If you're looking at retiring in 2034 or later -- which means you might face a 25% benefits reduction -- you'll need to work even harder to bridge that gap.

But here's the bright side: If you're not planning to retire till 2034, it means you still have a decent amount of time to amass some savings. If you manage to save $200 a month starting tomorrow, invest it, and generate an average annual return of 8%, in 18 years, you'll have about $90,000 for retirement. Save $500 a month, and you'll have a cool $225,000 by the time retirement rolls around.

Even if future Social Security benefits do take a hit when the trust funds run out, you won't suffer from that shortfall if you're smart about saving on your own. And the sooner you begin, the better your chances of achieving financial security when it's your turn to retire.

The article Will Social Security Disappear When the Trust Fund Runs Out? originally appeared on Fool.com.

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Image source: Kinross Gold Corp.

Roth IRAs are a great way to invest. But you have to think about the structure of the account and what you can do with it before just heading out and buying stocks. And that's why I would never put Kinross Gold Corp. in a Roth IRA. Here's what I mean...

Ins and outs

The wonderful thing about a Roth is that you pay taxes on the money you put in and -- more to the point -- don't pay taxes on the money you pull out. In other words, when you retire and start tapping your retirement savings, withdrawals from your Roth accounts are tax-free income. At a time when you're likely trying to keep costs down, that can be a huge benefit. But it changes how you need to think about investing.

For example, in a Roth the income from taxable bonds and high-yielding stocks suddenly becomes tax-free income. And if you own stocks that have a history of dividend increases, then you get tax-free pay raises, too. It's not that you don't want capital appreciation, but income-focused investments that throw off taxable distributions tend to play well with Roth IRAs (a notable exception is limited partnerships, which have unique tax implications and are best held outside all IRAs).

Big gains, big losses!

But who wouldn't want a stock that's gained over 180% so far this year, like Kinross Gold? With that kind of a gain, who cares where you own it? You should.

The first reason not to be so fond of Kinross is that it doesn't pay a dividend. That said, some gold and precious metals companies do pay dividends. For example, industry giants Newmont Mining and Barrick Gold have yields of 0.3% and 0.4%, respectively. Not much to write home about, but during good times these gold miners are likely to materially increase those distributions -- in fact, Newmont's dividend level is actually linked to gold prices.

But here's the thing -- good and bad times tend to fall at the extremes when it comes to miners. Which is the second reason to avoid owning Kinross Gold.

KGC data by YCharts

One of the big reasons to buy a precious metals company is diversification. The shares tend to zig when markets zag, effectively hedging your portfolio against stock market losses. . The stocks of precious metals companies, though, can be quite volatile. I noted that Kinross is up 180% or so this year, but take a look at the chart above -- it's down nearly 50% over the last decade.

Since you know going in that Kinross is going to be volatile, it's something of a proxy for owning gold, you pretty much know you're going to lose the ability to offset capital gains with capital losses if you put in a Roth. And as the chart below shows, Kinross's benefit as a hedge haven't really worked out so well over the long term, with some stressful ups and downs along the way. But there are other reasons to worry about Kinross.

KGC data by YCharts

Kinross' mine portfolio is mostly in the Americas, which represent about 60% of production. Around 15% comes from West Africa and 25% from Russia. That last one is a little worrisome, since Russia has a habit of not playing nicely with its global peers and is currently being hit with financial sanctions. That's a risk you simply don't have to take on. Roughly 80% of Newmont Mining's portfolio is in the Americas and Australia, with no exposure to Russia at all (Indonesia and Africa make up the last 20% or so).

Looking at Kinross from a more dollars and cents perspective, it's targeting all in sustaining costs of $890 to $990 an ounce this year. Newmont's goals are similar, but Barrick Gold's target is $760 to $810 an ounce. Basically, Kinross isn't the lowest cost miner around and has notable exposure to a questionable region. (Barrick, by the way, doesn't have any mines in Russia, either.) If you were to buy a gold investment in a Roth, Kinross probably isn't the best option available.

Better options

Although I don't think a Roth IRA is the best place for a gold stock, Kinross Gold really shouldn't be your choice if you plan to go down that route. It doesn't offer any income and it has company-specific issues that suggest it could be even more volatile than other options like Newmont and Barrick. These two gold giants, by comparison, would give you some income now, with more likely during good years for gold, have more exposure to "stable" countries, and Barrick has relatively low costs.

The article The 1 Stock I'd Never Put in a Roth IRA originally appeared on Fool.com.

Reuben Brewer has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Image source: Getty Images.

What: After taking a large tumble in May because of rising oil prices, independent oil refiners had another rough month. Shares of HollyFrontier , Alon USA Energy , PBF Energy , and CVR Refining all saw declines of 10% or more in June.

HFC, ALJ, PBF, CVRR data by YCharts.

So what: The reason that the three oil refiners' shares have tumbled for the second straight month is that, like last month, refining margins haven't been as robust as they were this time last year. According to the most recent refining margin report from Scotia Howard Weil, the two refining margin indicators that are most pertinent to these four companies -- Chicago and the Gulf Coast -- stood at $16.10 and $11.33 per barrel, respectively, on a quarter-to-date basis. This is well below the results from the same time in 2015. To be fair, though, refining margins in 2015 were some of the best they have been in decades, so it was a very high hurdle to jump over.

There is one particular trait keeping refining margins rather low, and that is high utilization rates from refiners. Utilization rates are the amount of crude processed, divided by the total capacity of the facility. For an individual refining company, you want this number to be as high as possible because it means the company is running an efficient business. Ifevery refiner is able to run at high utilization rates, though, it typically means there is a bit too much gasoline and diesel supply to go around. If you look at the utilization rates of these companies in the past quarter, they show companies that are doing good things individually, but aren't really helping the refining market get back to more robust margins.

Company Utilization Rate (Q1 2016) HollyFrontier 88.3% Alon USA Energy 93.2% PBF Energy 89.9% CVR Refining 105%

Data source: Company earnings reports.

CVR Refining saw even larger losses in the quarter because it has been forced to reduce operations at its Coffeyville refinery. A refined product pipeline between the refinery and Kansas City -- run by Magellan Midstream Partners -- was shut down on June 7. That pipeline reduced the takeaway capacity from the facility by about 30,000 barrels per day and is expected to be down for about four weeks. This reduction in production will likely put a dent in the company's second-quarter results, but it's a temporary thing and probably won't be much of an issue beyond that.

Now what: All of these companies are in an odd position. They have been operating at a high level with great utilization rates, but all these companies running at high rates also means that they are reducing their own profit margins. Ultimately, though, things like refining margins eventually come out in the wash, and today's lower refining margins may not mean much over the very long term.

Going forward, investors should continue to watch that all of these companies keep up strong operational results and keep costs down. One thing to note in particular: PBF Energy recently purchased a refinery inTorrence, Californiafrom ExxonMobil. The refinery has been riddled with issues over the years, and so far ExxonMobil hasn't put together the four weeks of uninterrupted operations required for the transfer of assets. When it does, though, PBF will face an uphill battle in getting this facility up to par with its others.

The article Independent Refining Stocks Continued Their Recent Slide in June (HFC, ALJ, PBF, CVRR) originally appeared on Fool.com.

Tyler Crowe owns shares of ExxonMobil and Magellan Midstream Partners.You can follow himat Fool.comor on Twitter@TylerCroweFool.The Motley Fool owns shares of ExxonMobil. The Motley Fool recommends Magellan Midstream Partners. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
NASA says we are going to Mars.SpaceX replies: "Wanna race?"

Meanwhile, investors want to know: How much is all of this going to cost? And if it costs too much, what are the chances Congress will agree to pay for it?

Image source: Getty Images.

The answer comes in two parts: First, it's going to cost a whole lot. But second -- it's probably not going to cost quite as much as you think.

Mars cost: The basics

Estimates of the cost of a manned NASA mission to Mars are legion, and all over the space map. Last time we checked, just developing a Space Launch System (SLS) to get all the parts assembled in orbit to build a Mars-going spacecraft was likely to cost about $7 billion.

America's best and brightest space companies -- led by Boeing , but with a lot of help from Lockheed Martin , Orbital ATK, and Aerojet Rocketdyne -- are hard at work getting SLS operational already. But even once it's ready, you still need to build the spaceship -- let's call it the "SSValentine Michael Smith" for fun-- in pieces, and pay for multiple SLS missions to put those pieces in orbit between the Earth and the Moon.

And then there would be the cost of the actual Mars mission, estimated at anywhere from $30 billion to $160 billion, including the cost of keeping astronauts alive on the Red Planet, and en route to and from same, over the course of, perhaps,an 18-month mission.

Indeed, a successful NASA-led Mars mission cannot possibly cost more than $160 billion -- because right now, that's all the money that NASA can expect Congress to give it, by maxing out its space-exploration budget and spending every penny on Mars prep between now and 2033. If it ends up costing more than that, we're going to need to farm some of the work out to our friends in Europe, and maybe even in Russia, China, and India, some of whom are planning their own Mars missions.

Care and feeding of astronauts

Now that we know our "ceiling" budget, it's time to start cutting costs. First step: rocket launches.

Visiting Mars will probably not be a one-shot deal. In addition to the spaceship that makes the voyage and carries the astronauts, multiple pre-positioning missions will precede the main mission, depositing equipment, fuel, and supplies to await the astronauts upon their arrival.

How much is all of that going to cost?According to NASA estimates, "a crew of four on a three-year martian mission eating only three meals each day would need to carry more than 24,000 pounds (10,886 kilograms) of food." That works out to 6,000 pounds of food per astronaut, or roughly one ton per astronaut per year.

Getting all of that food from Point A (Earth) to Point B (Mars) thus becomes an exercise in (relatively) simple (if expensive) mathematics:

Put another way, it probably costs about $50 million per astronaut per year, and therefore, $75 million per astronaut over the course of an 18-month Mars mission. That's $150 million for two astronauts, $300 million for four -- or $525 million to feed the seven astronauts who could cram aboard a Boeing CST-100 crew capsule for the ride from Earth to Valentine Michael Smith.

Mars cost: How to cut it

Those are some big numbers -- but we can cut them. For one thing, Boeing and Lockheed Martin are hard at work building cheaper launch vehicles to cut launch costs to as little as $15 million per ton by as early as 2020, long before any Mars mission could depart.

Image source: NASA.

At the same time, scientists in the Netherlands, where the Mars One project is planning its own manned Mars mission as early as 2026,have just conducted an experiment proving the feasibility of growing food on Mars.

According to Dutch researchers, Martian soil, even though heavily contaminated with heavy metals such as cadmium, copper, and lead, can be used to safely grow "radishes, peas, rye and tomatoes" that contain no unsafe levels of these toxic substances. British newspaper The Guardian reports that, since 2013, the Dutch have successfully raised 10 such crops using NASA-developed Mars-like soil -- and pronounced at least four of them edible so far.

Granted, this doesn't help much with the cost of "airline meals" -- the food astronauts will need en route to and from Mars. It may not even help on NASA's first short Mars mission, as astronauts may not be on Mars long enough to grow crops. But for longer subsequent Mars missions by NASA, or actual colonizations such as the Dutch (and Elon Musk) are contemplating, it looks like raising food on the Red Planet could be a viable option.

It could eliminate the need to move literal tons of supplies to Mars, and make the colonization of Mars a whole lot cheaper than we used to think.

The article Manned Missions to Mars Will Cost a Lot Less Than You Might Think originally appeared on Fool.com.

Rich 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. 278 out of more than 75,000 rated members.The Motley Fool recommends Orbital ATK. 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: Airbnb.

You may have to wait a little longer to get your hands on what seems the inevitable Airbnb IPO. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the top dog in peer-to-peer lodging is in the process of trying to raise at least $500 million, a move that should keep its coffers full and defer an exchange listing until 2018 at the earliest.

Sources are telling the Journal that more than a half-dozen large investors will help Airbnb raise at least $500 million and as much as $750 million or $1 billion. The deal is expected to close in the coming weeks.

Early Airbnb employees will also have an opportunity to unload some of their shares. They will be able to sell roughly $200 million in stock in a separate transaction. Naturally, that money will go to the employees who are selling, and it will not be part of the larger financing that will go directly to Airbnb.

Some sources say that the deal is expected to value Airbnb at roughly $30 billion, but one source says it might be closer to $25 billion -- in line with where the valuation stood a year ago.

Panhandling for the rich and famous

Airbnb can use the money. It was telling investors last year when it was raising $1.5 billion in a round of financing that it was projecting an operating loss of about $150 million for 2015. Its goal is to hit $3 billion in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortizationby 2020, but it may have to spend a lot of money between now and then on marketing, acquisitions, and perhaps more importantly, keeping local jurisdictions from impeding its progress.

We've seen Airbnb come under fire in some key markets in recent weeks. An important battle is brewing in the Big Apple, where the New York State Senate passed a bill that would make online apartment listings for stays shorter than 30 days illegal. If Gov. Andrew Cuomo signs the bill into law, some experts say that it would nix about half of the current Airbnb listings in New York.

There was also legislation approved in San Francisco last month that would require anyone listing an available property on Airbnb or any online site to register the property with the city. The days of just offering up a spare den or garage apartment for incremental pocket change on the down-low may be history.

It might also not be an ideal time to go public. The last major online travel specialist to go the IPO route was China's Qunar , which went public at $15 in late 2013. It was a rocket out of the gate, more than doubling on its first day of trading to close at $34.99. It's trading below $30 today.

Qunar is growing quickly and it expects to finally turn a profit next year, but the market isn't very excited about its prospects. With the Brexit referendum vote sending most online travel portals lower, Wall Street may not rally around a company that needs healthy tourism trends in order to continue thriving.

The article You May Have to Wait Until 2018 for the Airbnb IPO originally appeared on Fool.com.

Rick Munarriz has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Image source: White House via Flickr.

President Obama's signature health reform law, the Affordable Care Act -- which you probably know as "Obamacare" -- has been controversial and generally disliked by about halfof Americans since it was signed into law in March 2010.

The Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking Poll has been closely monitoring the public's sentiment toward Obamacare on a near-monthly basis since it was signed into law. You can essentially count on two hands how many months over the past six years the general public had a "favorable" view on the law.

Although Obamacare enrolled about 12.7 million people through its marketplace exchanges in 2016, and a nearly equal number of lower-income individuals and families have gained medical coverage through the expansion of Medicaid in 31 states, the program's long-term survival is still in question, with premium prices looking as if they could soar by a double-digit percentage in 2017. Another analysis conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that a weighted average increase of 11% could be in store, based on the price of the lowest-cost silver plan in 2016 compared to 2017.

Image source: Getty Images.

Obamacare's shortcomings threaten its future

"What's wrong with Obamacare?" you might be wondering. Unfortunately, there's no single or centralized problem, but rather a confluence of factors that have come together to put the future of President Obama's hallmark legislation in doubt.

First, young-adult enrollment hasn't been up to par. Young adults are typically healthier and less likely to go to the doctor, meaning their enrollment and premium payments are vital for insurers looking to offset the higher costs of treating sicker and/or older Americans. By a similar token, the Shared Responsibility Payment, or SRP, may not be steep enough to encourage young adults to enroll. The SRP is the "penalty" assessed for violating the individual mandate by not buying health insurance. In 2014, the SRP was the greater of $95 or 1% of modified adjusted gross income, or MAGI. In 2016, it has jumped to the greater of $695 or 2.5% MAGI. Even with this jump, the Kaiser Family Foundation predicts an average penalty of $969, which is still far less than the cost of a full year of healthcare premium payments.

Secondly, the "risk corridor" has failed badly. The risk corridor program was designed to provide payments to insurers losing excessive amounts of money on Obamacare's exchanges. This loss protection was meant to encourage more insurers to enter the marketplace by giving them a safety net while they figured out an appropriate level for premium prices. The funds for these payments were to be provided by overly profitable insurers on Obamacare's exchanges. Ultimately, only 12.6% of the $2.87 billion requested wound up being paid out, leading more than half of Obamacare's healthcare cooperatives to close their doors.

Finally, the checks and balances designed to keep insurers from jacking up premiums aren't sufficient. Each state has an Office of the Insurance Commissioner to which insurers submit requests for any rate increases (or decreases) of 10% or more. While the OICs can negotiate with insurers, they essentially have no bargaining power if the rate hike is justified. They can call out insurers on a public platform, but health-benefit providers still remain largely in control of their premium pricing.

Image source: Getty Images.

Coloradocould ditch Obamacare for a single-payer system

The long-term uncertainty surrounding Obamacare has the trailblazing state of Colorado to propose ditching Obamacare altogether and instead implementing a statewide single-payer healthcare plan.

This November, residents of Colorado will vote on Amendment 69, also known as ColoradoCare, which, if approved, would set up a single-payer healthcare system within the state. Under single-payer plans, there are no copays or deductibles, and coverage is universal. It's similar toDemocratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders' Medicare-for-Allproposal.

There are obvious advantages to a single-payer system, and we don't have to look any further than our neighbors in Canada to see that single-payer can be quite successful. Within the U.S., the biggest advantage of single-payer is that it would dissociate healthcare from the workplace. Some workers get stuck in a job they dislike because they don't want to go without health insurance. Universal healthcare allows people to leave their jobs without the fear that they'd lose their insurance coverage.

Presumably, a single-payer plan could also result in long-term savings for the residents of Colorado. Think about it this way: When a big corporation with 10,000 employees seeks out health coverage, it can often garner premium discounts for bringing the insurer such a large new pool of patients. Now magnify this 10,000 figure more than 500 times to Colorado's population of approximately 5.5 million. With the Coloradan government fighting for its residents, and a patient pool of 5.5 million people at stake, it seems likely that insurers would be willing to make a deal with Colorado, possibly reducing the final cost of single-payer healthcare.

Image source: Getty Images.

Single-payer could have problems, too

While Colorado's single-payer plan -- if approved -- could work wonderfully, there are also concerns.

Front-and-center is the expected cost to implement the program. The federal government has pledged $13 billion in funding, but that would still leave Colorado's residents to come up with the extra $25 billion needed to pay for a single-payer system.

According to opponents of ColoradoCare, this would result in a 10% payroll tax that would be paid for by employers and employees. Employers would be on the hook for a 6.67% tax per employee, regardless of whether they were full-time, part-time, or seasonal, and workers would be required to contribute 3.33% (making a total of 10%). Persons receiving non-payroll income -- such as rental income, Social Security income, pensions, dividends, capital gains, and so on -- would owe the full 10%. The state's income tax rate would also rise from 4.63% to 7.96%. Added taxes could be especially harmful to low-wage and middle-class workers who might already be struggling to make ends meet. Small businesses could also struggle under the weight of the newly proposed taxes.

Another concern is what might happen to Colorado's physician network. Having millions of people suddenly insured could overwhelm Colorado's healthcare networks and lead to mile-long waits to see a doctor. Healthcare providers would also be required to enter into contracts with the state and accept reimbursement that's "competitive with other states." This vague terminology could cause doctors to leave the state.

Nov. 8 is the day to watch

Election Day is Nov. 8, so in a matter of roughly four months we'll have an answer as to whether or not Colorado's residents want single-payer healthcare, or if they believe it's too costly for them or for their state.

The results of the vote could certainly hold weight, because success in Colorado could lead the dozen other states tinkering with the idea of altering how Obamacare is administered to make the transition to single-payer. Conversely, a trouncing of ColoradoCare in November could crush any near-term hope that single-payer will get off the ground. I, for one, am eager to see the outcome of this vote, and as investors -- and healthcare consumers -- you should be, too.

The article This State May Ditch Obamacare for Single-Payer Healthcare This November originally appeared on Fool.com.

Sean Williamshas no material interest in any companies mentioned in this article. You can follow him on CAPS under the screen nameTMFUltraLong, and check him out on Twitter, where he goes by the handle@TMFUltraLong.The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter servicesfree for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe thatconsidering a diverse range of insightsmakes us better investors. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Image source: Getty Images.

One of the most important decisions people face is what they'll spend the vast majority of their 9-to-5 time doing. Because adults spend about half their waking lives at work, there are countless pieces of advice for people considering different careers.

One adage for job seekers is especially popular: "Money doesn't buy happiness." It's a phrase with a clear message: Money isn't what makes you happy, so in pursuing a career, you should follow your dreams.

But that advice makes my skin crawl, because it's a half-truth at best and an outright lie at worst. Money and happiness are bound to each other. Struggling to pay your bills, save for emergencies, and invest in your future shouldn't be glorified as a sacrifice made by those living for a higher purpose. It's hazardous to buy into this mentality,especially if you're looking for a job.

Whoever invented the phrase has never gotten into a fight over the purchase of a green pepper.

I was 19 years old and had just returned from my freshman year of college to live with my mom and aunt for the summer. Being on a health kick, I asked my family if they could buy more vegetables, including a green pepper.What ensued was a heated conversation on the affordability of a vegetable.

"We shouldn't have to stress out about buying a green pepper," I argued, stomach twisting.

"We have to see whether we can afford it," they replied.

The reality was that they did. Our low-income lifestyle revolved around financial constraints. Money couldn't be allocated for even small purchases without the most careful intentions.

When bills arrived that my family couldn't pay, money became a monster that tormented me. In fourth grade, my mom sat me down to explain mortgages and how we missed a payment. In sixth grade, while working on a science project, I heard whispers of foreclosure from downstairs. In ninth grade, I avoided movie plans with friends to save money. In 12th grade, I looked up during my shower to see a tarp covering the bathroom roof.

And once I was in college, purchasing a vegetable required thoughtful consideration.

However, only a few months later, the pain I associated with money started disappearing. Along with a large scholarship, I received a stipend capable of covering my basic needs. Buying produce, eating out, and paying my rent changed from dreams to mundane realities. Self-reliance and comfort replaced gripping panic, and money changed from a monster to a comforting friend.

Simply put, more money did buy me happiness.

Many studies affirm this idea. A June 2016 economics paper states that negative emotions decrease at a constant rate until income approaches $80,000; as income nears $200,000, negative emotions continue to decrease, implying a happier life. If that doesn't convince you, a University of Michigan analysis from 2013 examined data from 155 countries -- including 95% of the world's population -- and determined that well-being and income consistently rise in tandem.

"If there is a satiation point, we are yet to reach it," the authors say.

Yet the myth that "money doesn't buy happiness" remains pervasive in people's hearts and minds. It implies that striving for money means striving for a life devoid of color and meaning. As a writer, I've been told that money should be considered only tangential to my dreams -- that dreams are the golden apple I should chase.

Image source: Getty Images.

But here's the truth: Dreams don't pay the bills. Dreams don't stop the monster from gutting your happiness.

Money does. It's the only way to guarantee your basic human needs are fully met. Treating money with disdain is seriously misguided. Worse, telling young people to throw financial stability to the wind can lead them down the road to ruin.

Just because I don't believe that "money doesn't buy happiness" doesn't mean that I believe the opposite: I recognize that money is not the sole determinant of happiness. Other factors in life -- health, friends, love, and an enjoyment of work -- play a part as well. However, you'll be in better health if you can afford medical care, a gym membership, and nutritious food. Friendships are easier to maintain when you can afford dinners, movies, and nights out. And as for love, a study by Kansas State University found that arguments over money were the greatest predictor of divorce.

Enjoying your work certainly increases your happiness, but that will be mitigated if your passions can't pay for food, water, shelter, and utilities -- if you can't put money in a savings account or let it compound in the stock market, if the occasional splurge is entirely outside your reach.

So follow your dreams as much as you can, but be realistic. Research your expected career earnings, compare them to your expenses, and decide whether you can make a livable income. If you can't, think about compromising with a job that strikes a balance between your passions and your basic income needs.

It may not seem as fulfilling as following your dreams, but here's the calculated truth: It will provide happiness.

The article Why "Money Doesn't Buy Happiness" Is Wrong originally appeared on Fool.com.

Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Soon you may be able to buy solar panels, energy storage, and an EV all in one place. Image source: Tesla Motors.

If you thought Tesla Motors was going to tiptoe into its acquisition of SolarCity , you were wrong. The company has already filed for trademarks that would allow it to bring solar energy sales and products into the Tesla family. And it may tell us something about what Elon Musk has in mind for the future of energy.

Tesla Energy is going to be big

We already know that Musk is referring to Tesla Motors' energy storage business as Tesla Energy. But according to trademark filings obtained by Electrek, Tesla is expanding its trademarks to include solar equipment from modules to inverters, installation and repair, and monitoring and financing of solar systems. All would be covered under the "Tesla" trademark.

In essence, Tesla Motors is already laying the groundwork to bringing everything SolarCity does, or could do, under the Tesla banner.

How this fits into the Tesla Energy vision

Musk has said that SolarCity products would still be offered if Tesla Motors acquires the company, but he also wants to build a solar showroom in Telsa Motors stores with a vertically integrated offering. At least while in the store, it would make sense to brand solar products under the Tesla name.

Imaging buying a Tesla electric vehicle that will be charged by solar energy from Tesla solar panels with excess power stored by a Tesla battery, all financed, monitored, and controlled by Tesla. In a sentence, that's Musk's vision.

There's still a long way to go

The initial backlash from the market has faded, but there's still a long way to go before Tesla Motors and SolarCity merge to form one energy giant. Shareholders are going to get to vote on the deal and with Musk and SolarCity's Rive brothers recusing themselves from the vote it's possible investors will overturn the deal.

It's also unclear how long it would be before the vision I laid out above would really make sense. Energy storage today isn't economical in the U.S. (except for Hawaii in some cases) and it's not clear that potential EV buyers are interested in going solar at the same time they buy an EV. Maybe there's synergy there, but it's not a natural cross sell today.

What we do know is that Musk wants to make his vision of the future happen today. Maybe the world is ready for that and maybe it isn't, but he's forging full speed ahead.

The article You'll Never Guess What Tesla Motors Is Trying to Trademark originally appeared on Fool.com.

Travis Hoium has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends SolarCity 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.
The U.S. Senate is set to finally kick its BlackBerry habit.

Lawmakers' staffers were informed last week that the Senate would no longer provide them with any more of the communications devices. The announcement marked the end of an era for the once-ubiquitous tools, widely dubbed "crackberries" for the way they became essential to users' lives.

"Once we have exhausted our current in-house stock, new device procurements will be limited, while supplies last, to warranty exchanges only," the Senate Sergeant at Arms said in the message.

BlackBerrys were particularly popular on Capitol Hill during their heyday a decade ago, where many found the device's design ideally suited to political messaging. Even after the devices were eclipsed by Apple's iPhone, they remained in common use in Washington.

Read more on WashingtonExaminer.com
20 hostages were killed in a diplomatic zone of the capital Dhaka

Egypt's foreign ministry strongly condemned the attack on a restaurant in a diplomatic zone in Bangladesh's Dhaka that resulted in the death of 20 hostages.

Security forces managed to free 13 hostages and killed six attackers and arrested one armed man.

Ministry spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zeid expressed his condolences to the families of the victims and wished a fast recovery for the injured.

Ten of 26 people who were wounded when the militants opened fire were in critical condition, and six were on life support, according to hospital staff, AFP reported on Saturday.

Abu Zeid assured that the "Egyptian government and its people stand by Bangladesh in the fight against terrorism."

He also called upon the international community to unite in the fight against terrorism and to work to stem the financing that enables it.

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The U.S. military Saturday accused a Russian warship of "high risk" and "highly unprofessional" maneuvers near a U.S. Navy ship in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the second time in as many weeks that American and Russian ships had such a close encounter on the high seas.

A statement from the U.S. European Command (EUCOM) claimed that the frigate Yaroslav Mudry passed unnecessarily near the guided missile cruiser USS San Jacinto. The statement added that the Yaroslav Mudry navigated in the San Jacinto's wake.

EUCOM said the U.S. cruiser was not threatened and maintained its course and speed. However, the statement said the Russian maneuver was "contrary to international maritime regulations."

"These actions can unnecessarily escalate tensions between countries, and could result in dangerous miscalculations or accidents," the EUCOM statement said.

Reuters reported that at the time of the incident, the San Jacinto was carrying out operations against ISIS in Iraq and Syria along with the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The latest incident occurred 13 days after another incident between U.S. and Russian forces in the Mediterranean Sea. On June 17, defense officials tell Fox News, the Russian frigate Neustrashimyy maneuvered close to the USS Gravely, a destroyer that was protecting another U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS Harry Truman, while the Truman was launching anti-ISIS airstrikes.

One official said the Neustrashimyy had raised the day shape ball-diamond-ball on her mast, the international signal a ship displays when restricted in her ability to maneuver, when it took position two nautical miles off Gravelys starboard quarter.

The Russian ship repeatedly asked Gravely over VHF radio, a common bridge-to-bridge radio required of all vessels at sea, to maintain a safe distance, while Neustrashimyy continued to maneuver to get closer to Gravely.

As Gravely changed course and speed, Neustrashimyy also changed course and speed, according to one official. At one point, the Neustrashimyy came within 315 yards from the U.S. destroyer and five nautical miles to the American aircraft carrier

The incidents are the latest in a string of highly provocative actions from Russia to try to intimidate the United States, according to the officials. In April, Russian jets buzzed a U.S. Navy destroyer in the Baltic Sea conducting a series of high speed passes at close range more than 30 times. A State Department spokesperson said earlier this week harassment of U.S. diplomats in Moscow by Russian spies had increased significantly.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report.
Hillary Clinton said she was eager to be interviewed by the FBI this weekend regarding the agencys investigation into her use of a private email server while secretary of state, though she declined to say who said the setup was legal and whether it violated government regulations regarding the handling of classified material.

Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, was interviewed Saturday morning at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Her campaign said the interview was voluntary and lasted three-and-a-half hours.

It was something I had offered to do since last August, Clinton told MSNBC in a phone interview Saturday evening. I've been eager to do it, and I was pleased to have the opportunity to assist the department in bringing its review to a conclusion.

Nevertheless, Clinton said she has no knowledge about when the FBI will conclude its case before sending its recommendation to Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

Clinton also defended her use of the private server by repeating that she never received nor sent any material that was marked classified, while acknowledging some of the emails have been retroactively" re-classified.

When asked who advised her about the server, Clinton said: I'm not going to go into any more detail then I already have in public many times  out of respect for the process that the department is conducting.

The server controversy, which has cast a shadow over Clintons campaign since the start, intensified Thursday when her husband, former President Bill Clinton, had an impromptu meeting with Lynch, on the tarmac of a Phoenix airport.

Clinton told MSNBC that Lynch and her husbands exchange was a short, chance meeting in which the Justice Department review was not discussed. But she seemed to acknowledge that the meeting was not a good idea, saying hindsight is 20/20.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Saturday called for charges to be filed against Clinton in the case.

"It is impossible for the FBI not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton," Trump tweeted. "What she did was wrong! What Bill did was stupid!"

Neither the FBI nor Justice Department has commented on the interview.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said: Hillary Clinton has just taken the unprecedented step of becoming the first major party presidential candidate to be interviewed by the FBI as part of a criminal investigation surrounding her reckless conduct.

He also said the Lynch-Clinton encounter raises serious concerns about special treatment.

There was already speculation about whether an agency under the Obama administration could conduct an unbiased probe, which only intensified after Clinton met with Lynch, a President Obama appointee who decides whether to bring charges in the case.

Lynch says she "fully expects" to accept whatever recommendations she receives from the agency's career prosecutors and lawyers. She also acknowledged the meeting with the former president has cast a shadow over the investigation.

Hillary Clinton has said relying on a private server was a mistake but that other secretaries of state had also used personal email addresses.

The matter was referred for investigation last July by the inspectors general for the State Department and intelligence community following the discovery of emails that they said contained classified information.

The State Department's inspector general, the agency's internal watchdog, said in a blistering audit in May that Clinton and her team ignored clear warnings from State Department officials that her email setup violated federal standards and could leave sensitive material vulnerable to hackers. Clinton declined to talk to the inspector general, but the audit reported that Clinton feared "the personal being accessible" if she used a government email account.

Agents have already interviewed top Clinton aides including her former State Department chief of staff Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, a longtime aide who is currently the vice chairwoman of Clinton's campaign.

The staffer who set up the server, Bryan Pagliano, was granted limited immunity from prosecution by the Justice Department last fall in exchange for his cooperation. The FBI as a matter of course seeks to interview individuals central to an investigation before concluding its work.

The emails were routed through a server located in the basement of Clinton's New York home during her tenure as the nation's top diplomat.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Hedge fund manager Marc Mezvinsky had friends in high places when he bet big on a Greek economic recovery, but even the keen interest of his mother-in-law, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, wasn't enough to spare him and his investors from financial tragedy.

In 2012, Mezvinski, the husband of Chelsea Clinton, created a $325 million basket of offshore funds under the Eaglevale Partners banner through a special arrangement with investment bank Goldman Sachs. The funds have lost tens of millions of dollars predicting that bailouts of the Greek banking system would pump up the value of the countrys distressed bonds. One fund, exclusively dedicated to Greek debt, suffered near-total losses.

Clinton stepped down as secretary of state in 2013 to run for president. But newly released emails from 2012 show that she and Clinton Foundation consultant, Sidney Blumenthal, shared classified information about how German leadership viewed the prospects for a Greek bailout. Clinton also shared protected State Department information about Greek bonds with her husband at the same time that her son-in-law aimed his hedge fund at Greece.

That Americas top diplomat kept a sharp eye on intelligence assessing the chances of a bailout of the Greek central bank is not a problem. However, sharing such sensitive information with friends and family would have been highly improper. Federal regulations prohibit the use of nonpublic information to further private interests or the interests of others. The mere perception of a conflict of interest is unacceptable.

Through its press representative, Eaglevale declined to comment for this story. Clintons campaign press office did not respond to a request for comment.

A former Goldman Sachs broker himself, Mezvinsky formed Eaglevale Management with two ex-Goldman Sachs partners in October 2011. As a global macro firm, Eaglevales strategy is to seek profit opportunities in politically volatile situations. Mezvinsky set up several funds in the Cayman Islands, a secretive tax haven, with Goldman Sachs serving as Eaglevales prime broker and banker. The giant brokerage firm has a checkered history of manipulating the value of Greek debt to the detriment of Greece.

The same month that Eaglevale incorporated its offshore arm, Gary Gensler, the head of the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which polices hedge funds, emailed Clinton that a bailout by the European Central Bank could turn market sentiment in favor of Greek bonds.

Gensler had previously worked as co-head of finance at Goldman Sachs; he is now the financial director of Clintons election campaign. Goldman Sachs has donated up to $5 million to the Clinton Foundation and $860,000 to Hillary Clintons political campaigns. Shortly after Clinton resigned, Goldman Sachs paid her $675,000 in speaking fees.

Clintons deputy in charge of economic policy was Robert Hormats, a former vice chairman of Goldman Sachs. Hormats and Clinton shared an extensive email trail about the possibility of bailing out Greece, including classified materials, and internal state department memos about the debt from the U.S. ambassador to Greece.

Again, monitoring Greece was part of Clintons job description, but, ethically, that does not mean that a family member should make bets that depend upon the actions of another family memberleaving aside the question of whether insider information was divulged to Mezvinsky by Blumenthal or his parents-in-law.

During 2011, Secretary of State Clinton lobbied the leaders of European governments to bail out the Greek financial system. She advocated imposing austerity measures on Greeceraising taxes, cutting public employee salaries and eliminating social welfare programsto make the investors holding the debt happy.

Driven by investors belief that Greece would be bailed out, the speculative value of its debt climbed into the stratosphere in late 2011 and early 2012. The bonds gradually sank to 2008 levels by the end of the year, with temporary spikes, as investors alternately gained and loss confidence in the prospect of a bailout. In other words, there were multiple opportunities for Greek-bond hedge funds to buy cheap and sell dear.

At a February 2012 summit meeting about the Eurozone debt crisis in Munich, Clinton urged leaders of the European Union to commit to a Greek bailout.

In April, Eaglevale booked $19 million from a dozen investors. Californias public employee pension fund, CalPERS, reportedly invested $13 million. Goldman Sachs CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, jumped in with his own money, as did Chelsea Clintons former boss, Marc Lasry, who specializes in buying distressed debt.

In May, Blumenthal, emailed two confidential memos about the Greek debt situation to Clinton. Hormats was included in the email loop.

The first memo, Blumenthal told Clinton, is based on conversations with German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble and those close to him  the information comes from an extremely sensitive source and should be handled with care. This information must not be shared with anyone associated with the German government.

The unnamed spy reported that in secret meetings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Schauble had searched for a politically acceptable way to bail out the Greek debt in order to avoid collapsing the economies of Greece, Italy, Spain and Ireland.

The second memo was classified and blacked out by State Department censors when Clintons emails were released. No doubt, it was informative.

In June, Clintons deputy, Jake Sullivan emailed her a depressing snapshot of reports that Greek banks were failing and that Merkel was against a Greek bailout. The next day, he reported re: Greece that Ambassador Dan Smith just spoke to the Central Bank Governor and assessed that the economic situation was ok for now provided that small depositors put money back into the banks.

A few days later, Clinton asked Sullivan for a confidential state department report, Solidarity Bonds Greece Revised. He sent it to her adding, If you like, send it on [to] WJC," presumably a reference to William Jefferson Clinton.

Clinton ordered an aide, Pls print two copies of the Greek bond report. The report was blacked out as a protected document when the emails were made public.

Did Mezvinsky benefit from his family connection?

The emails show that Clinton did at least one official favor for her son-in-law. In August 2012, she forwarded Deputy Secretary Thomas Nides an email from Mezvinsky lobbying on behalf of his former Goldman Sachs colleague, Harry Siklas.

Siklas and Goldman Sachs were invested in a deep sea mining venture called Neptune Minerals. Siklas asked Mezvinsky to broker a talk with Clinton about current legal issues and regulations on deep sea mining. Clinton ordered Nides to follow up on this request.

Nides replied, Ill get on it.
Top Hillary Clinton supporters blanketed the TV airwaves Sunday, trying to build voter trust for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee amid her evolving email controversy and other issues, while also appearing to audition for the role of vice president.

She understands that she's got to earn people's trust, California Democratic Rep. Xavier Becerra said of Clinton on Fox News Sunday. She's going to work very, very hard to do that. And I give her credit for saying that she's made some mistakes.

Becerra was one of four Democratic lawmakers purportedly on Clintons vice presidential short list to appear on the Sunday morning talk shows.

He deferred on the question about being vetted for the job by saying, That's a question that has to be asked of Secretary Clinton.  Well see.

Becerra was joined on the Sunday shows by New Jersey Sen. Corey Booker (CNN,) Labor Secretary Tom Perez (NBC) and Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown (ABC.)

Clinton appears qualified to become president, considering she is a former first lady, secretary of state and U.S. senator for New York.

However, her campaign has been slowed from the start by questions about her trustworthiness.

Such questions date back to the Clinton administration and more recently are about donors to the Clinton Foundation and Clintons tenure as secretary of state -- including the 2012 Benghazi terror attacks and her use of a private email server for official correspondence while at the State Department.

A Gallup survey released Friday found 27 percent of Americans dont trust Clinton.

On Saturday, Clinton was interviewed by the FBI regarding the agencys investigation into whether her using a personal server for official communication violated government rules regarding the handling of classified information.

Earlier last week, her husband, former President Bill Clinton, held an impromptu meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who will decide whether to bring criminal charges in the FBI probe.

Even Lynch acknowledge the meeting cast a shadow over the investigation. She also said that she fully expects to accept the recommendations of the FBI director and career prosecutors.

However, a Justice Department spokeswoman clarified Lynchs remark by telling Yahoo News that the attorney general will be the ultimate decider.''

Also last week, Republicans on the special committee investigating the attacks on a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, issued a final report on the matter that concluded Clinton as secretary of state and others in Obama administration told the public that the attacks were inspired by an anti-Islam video, despite eyewitness accounts that they were terror attacks.

U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the attacks.

Booker told CNNs State of the Union that the FBI interview was merely routine and that Clinton being indicted over the emails is just not going to happen.

We're going to be seeing an investigation closing up, he said. And I think she, like most Americans, wants this thing to be concluded and so we can move beyond it and focus on the real issues of this campaign.

Booker dismissed the Clinton-Lynch conversation as little more than a chat about grandchildren and golf.

This is nothing that in any way undermines this case, said Booker, who also deferred to the Clinton campaign regarding a question about being a potential 2016 running mate. I know a lot of it is coming from the Trump campaign  trying to whip up conspiracy theories.

Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, another potential Clinton running mate, told ABCs This Week that he doesnt think Clinton will be indicted.

I'm not worried. I see what Clinton has done, he said. She's always been willing to talk. The story that is missing is what we don't know about (presumptive GOP presidential nominee) Donald Trump.

He called the Clinton-Lynch encounter unfortunate and focused his answers on criticizing Trump and touting Clintons knowledge on key issues, including the future of the U.S. auto industry.

She clearly understands these issues, and she talks in great depth about them in individual interviews and rallies. You get none of that from Donald Trump, said Brown, also deferred to the Clinton campaign regarding a question about being a potential running mate.

Trump said this weekend on Twitter about the FBI investigation: "It was just announced -- by sources -- that no charges will be brought against Crooked Hillary Clinton. Like I said, the system is totally rigged!"

Labor Secretary Tom Perez on Sunday also showed his potential to be a good running mate in attacking the general election rival.

Donald Trump is a fraud. He's the outsourcer in chief. And listening to him talk about how he's going to put America first again, he spent his entire career putting his own profits first, said Perez who has already joined Clinton on the campaign trail, in part to bring progressives around to her trade policy.

Perez, in the pre-taped interview Friday with NBCs Meet the Press, even responded to a vice president question by touting Clinton over Trump.

Trump is such a volatile individual, and what I have seen working with Secretary Clinton is that she is a steady hand, he said. And I think she is exercised sound judgment throughout.
The chairwoman of the Delta County Republican Party who was accused of favoritism and posting a racist meme on her Facebook page has resigned.

Party officials were upset after a photo compared President Barack Obama to a chimpanzee appeared on Linda Sorenson web page, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reported.

Sorenson stepped down after an accountability meeting was convened by the county's Republican Central Committee investigating the allegations. She announced her decision to resign in an email to supporters.

The committee was investigating allegations that Sorenson and others made that her Facebook page was "hacked" and whether she violated party rules by endorsing a primary candidate.

Sorenson said her Facebook page was hacked, but Colorado Party Chairman Steve House said that was not the case.

And in an interview in May after the image was posted, Sorenson said she didn't care if people were offended by the image.

Don Suppes, mayor of Orchard City, who is running for the Delta County Commission, said he wasn't at the meeting, but he got the email and agreed with the decision.

"There's no room for racism, intended or unintended, in society," he said. "It's best for the party, best for the county, that she step down."

Party members said Sorenson also urged people to vote for U.S. Senate candidate Daryl Glenn, even though six Republicans were competing for the right to challenge Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet in the June 28 Republican primaries. Glenn won the primary.

Under party rules, officials of state and local parties, including their leaders, are not allowed to endorse one primary candidate over another.

"That is one of the hardest parts of that job," Suppes said. "You have to stay neutral no matter how strong your feelings are one way or another. You have to stay neutral."
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and his wife met with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his wife Saturday as Trump considers potential running mates, but a Pence spokesman told Fox News on Sunday that "nothing was offered."

"The Pences enjoyed spending a warm and productive time with the Trumps," Pence campaign spokesman Marc Lotter told Fox News. "They talked about policies that are working in Indiana and the future of this country."

Pence is running for re-election against former Democratic state House Speaker John Gregg.

Asked whether Trump and Pence had discussed the possibility of Pence becoming Trump's running mate, Lotter said "nothing was offered." Lotter declined to discuss Pence's level of interest in the position, echoing a comment from Pence last week that he did not want to comment on "a hypothetical."

Lotter referred other questions to Trump's campaign, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump has never held public office and is considering a small group of political veterans as potential running mates.

People with direct knowledge of Trump's vetting process say the list includes Pence, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions.

In addition to serving as governor, Pence served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 12 years.

He also at one time had his own presidential ambitions but last year ruled out a run after his popularity fell in the wake of criticism over his handling of the state's religious objections law.

Fox News' Chris Snyder and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
An American woman was handed a suspended four-month jail sentence in Spain Friday for threatening to kill cosmologist Stephen Hawking.

The woman, identified by Spanish media reports as Jenny Theresa C., was arrested at a hotel on Spains Canary Island of Tenerife Wednesday. According to BBC, the woman had a map showing Hawkings itinerary while on the island.

She told police after she was detained that she was in love with him and would have never hurt him.

BBC reported that the 37-year-old was stalking Hawking on social media before her arrest. Hawkings daughter Lucy Hawking told Spanish News Today that threatening messages were received on his social media and email accounts.

According to Spanish media, the woman planned to kill Hawking at the Starmus Festival.

Police said there were plenty of signs that the woman was mentally unstable.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Click for more from BBC.
Two prominent American colleges on opposite sides of the U.S. were plunged into mourning Saturday after learning that their students were among the victims of Friday's terror attack on a restaurant in the Bangladesh capital, Dhaka.

Emory University in Atlanta announced that students Abinta Kabir and Faraaz Hossain were among the dead. Kabir, of Miami, Fla., was a sophomore at Emory's Oxford College who was visiting family and friends in Bangladesh. Hossain, a junior at the university's Goizueta Business School, was a Dhaka native.

David Leinweber, an associate professor of history, described Kabir as "disciplined, very smart and very likable" in an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "You knew she was going somewhere."

Rifat Mursalin, a recent Emory graduate, said he met Hossain when the younger student offered to help him with a project on alleviating poverty in Bangladesh.

"Thats the kind of person he was," Mursalin told the Journal-Constitution. "He offered to help out of the sheer goodness of his heart."

At the University of California, Berkeley, chancellor Nicholas Dirks confirmed that Tarushi Jain, a native of India, was also killed at the Holey Artisan Bakery.

Jain, 19, had been on holiday from her studies and was in Dhaka visiting her father, who has run a garment business in the country for the past 15 or 20 years, Indian government sources told the Associated Press.

One of Jain's classmates described her as driven to improve conditions in Bangladesh.

"She was just ready to take action and make change," Rebecca Dharmapalan, 20, told the San Francisco Chronicle. "Whats hitting me hard is that she wanted to see so much happen there ... she wanted to do everything she could for the people."

Another Berkeley student, 18-year-old Chanakya Varma, told the Chronicle that Jain was "genuinely good person who brought out the best in people." He added that her death would make the university "a less brighter place."

"Walking to school now, it's going to be difficult," he said.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack on the popular restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic quarter. The attackers killed 20 hostages and two police officers. Following a 10-hour standoff, a Bangladeshi commando raid freed 13 other hostages and killed six of the militants.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
An Arizona man was arrested Friday and accused of conspiring to commit terror attacks in Phoenix and Tucson, federal and state officials said.

Mahin Khan, 18, of Tucson, appeared before a Phoenix judge Saturday morning, according to the state attorney general's office. He faces two counts of of conspiracy to commit terrorism and terrorism.

Khan was ordered held without bond in the Maricopa County jail.

Arizona Attorney General spokeswoman Mia Garcia told reporters Khan was accused of conspiring to carry out attacks on government buildings.



Garcia said that Khan's court records are under temporary seal, but did say that authorities do not believe Khan made any threats involving the July 4 holiday weekend.

A message left at a phone number listed for Khan was not immediately returned and it was not immediately clear whether he had an attorney.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.


Reaction to the death of Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, author of "Night," who died Saturday at the age of 87:

"The state of Israel and the Jewish people express sorrow over the death of Elie Wiesel. Elie, a master of words, gave expression to the victory of the human spirit over cruelty and evil with his unusual personality and captivating stories. In the darkness of the Holocaust when our brothers and sisters perished  the six million  Elie Wiesel served as a ray of light and an example of humanity that believes in the goodness of man. Elie's prolific creations do not just reflect the Holocaust but also the hope and optimism against the darkness of Auschwitz. Jerusalem  the eternal capital of Israel  represented to him our ability to rise from the bottom and reach new heights. I am grateful for the honor I had of knowing Elie and learning so much from him. On behalf of all Israelis citizens, Sara and I send out condolences to his wife Marion and the Wiesel family. May him memory be blessed forever."  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

___

"Tonight we bid farewell to a hero of the Jewish People, and a giant of all humanity. Elie Wiesel, of blessed memory, embodied the determination of the human spirit to overcome the darkest of evils, and survive against all the odds. His life was dedicated to the fight against all hatred, and for the sake of man as created in the image of God  he was a guide for us all. One of the Jewish people's greatest sons, who touched the hearts of so many, and helped us to believe in forgiveness, in life, and in the eternal bond of the Jewish people. May his memory be a blessing, everlastingly engraved in the heart of the nation."  Israeli President Reuven Rivlin

___

"Wiesel left his mark on humanity through preserving and upholding the legacy of the Holocaust and delivering a message of peace and respect between people worldwide. He endured the most serious atrocities of mankind  survived them and dedicated his life to conveying the message of 'Never Again.' I had the honor and privilege to personally thank him for his numerous years of work and for saving the world from apathy when I gave him the Presidential Medal on behalf of the State of Israel. May his memory be a blessing to us all."  Former Israeli President Shimon Peres

___

"Elie Wiesel was a loyal son of the Jewish people. He did much in his life to strengthen the continued existence of the Jewish people and the development of the Jewish creation. As a Holocaust survivor he dedicated his life to bearing witness to it and he did so through his extraordinary talent as a writer and speaker. Elie believed till his final day that the Holocaust must be studied and remembered as a unique event to the Jewish people that has a universal message to the entire world."  Chairman of the Yad Vashem Avner Shalev

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"Sadness over the death of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel. Witness of the Holocaust and chronicler of the indescribable."  German Justice Minister Heiko Maas

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"Deeply saddened by the passing of Elie Wiesel, who remained optimistic in the darkest days and pushed us to see beauty in humanity."  Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Co-Chair Melinda Gates

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"So sorry to hear of Elie Wiesel's passing. I knew him well. He was a great man and a wonderful writer. Rest in peace."  Television and radio host Larry King

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"We have lost the most articulate witness to history's greatest crime. Without Elie Wiesel in the world, it is up to every one of us now to stand up to the deniers. With his passing, we will all have to work a little harder because we will no longer have Elie to remind us of what happens when the world is silent and indifferent to evil. It is now our job, and that of our children and grandchildren, to pick up the baton and to relay Elie's message of hope and peace to the world."  World Jewish Congress' Ronald S. Lauder

___

"This universal man had a special relationship with France, where he studied after the war, where he published the first edition of 'The Night' thanks to Jerome Lindon, where he created the Universal Academy of Cultures in 1992. France honors the memory of a grand humanist, tireless defender of peace."  French President Francois Hollande
All human remains discovered from the EgyptAir flight MS804 crash in the Mediterranean Sea were recovered by Egyptian and French forensic experts aboard the vessel John Lethbridge, the Egyptian investigative committee said on Sunday.

The vessel is in transit to Alexandria, where the human remains will be delivered to prosecution and forensic authorities in the presence of investigative committee members before being transported to the forensic authority in Cairo for DNA tests.

John Lethbridge, which was contracted by the Egyptian government to search for the plane debris, flight recorders and human remains, will continue to search the crash site in order to confirm no other remains are left behind, according to a statement released by the investigative committee.

The two flight recorders were retrieved from the sea last month.

Data from the flight's data recorder is being decoded in Cairo after it was repaired in France. Preliminary information confirms smoke onboard the flight before it crashed into the sea.



The cockpit voice recorder is being repaired in France and will be returned to Cairo after the replacement of damaged components, according to an earlier statement by the committee.

EgyptAir Flight 804, an Airbus A320 en route from Paris to Cairo, slammed into the Mediterranean on 19 May, killing all 66 people on board. The reason for the crash remains unclear. The pilots made no distress call, and no group has claimed to have brought down the aircraft.

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Murray Energy Corp., the largest privately held coal miner in the U.S., has warned that it may soon undertake one of the biggest layoffs in the sector during this time of low energy prices.

In a notice sent to workers this week, Murray said it could lay off as many as 4,400 employees, or about 80% of its workforce, because of weak coal markets. The company said it anticipates massive workforce reductions in September.

The law requires a 60-day waiting period before large layoffs occur.

Layoffs 'due to the ongoing destruction of the United States coal industry by President Barack Obama, and his supporters, and the increased utilization of natural gas to generate electricity'  company statement

The American coal industry, especially in Appalachia, has languished as cheap natural gas replaces coal as fuel for power plants. World-wide demand for coal has also slumped, and new environmental regulations are making many coal mines unprofitable to operate.

The Central Appalachian coal price benchmark is $40 a ton, or half its level from five years ago. Almost all of the biggest coal producers in the U.S. have declared bankruptcy in the past 18 months, including Peabody Energy Corp., Arch Coal Inc. and Alpha Natural Resources Inc.

Robert Murray, the controlling owner of Murray, is a fierce opponent of President Obama and a supporter of Donald Trump. In a statement, the company said the potential layoffs were due to the ongoing destruction of the United States coal industry by President Barack Obama, and his supporters, and the increased utilization of natural gas to generate electricity.

The move came just a day after the United Mine Workers of America said it would reject a proposed new labor deal with Murray. The existing contract expires at the end of this year.

Phil Smith, a spokesman for the union, said the rejected deal is just a first step.

Hopefully the coal market will come to the point where [the layoffs are] not necessary, he said. Its no secret the coal market is bad right now.

The UMWA represents about 3,000 Murray workers, half of whom have already been laid off.

Click for more from The Wall Street Journal
The family of a disabled St. Jude Hospital patient has filed a lawsuit against the Transportation Security Administration after officers allegedly left her bruised and bloodied at a Memphis airport Thursday.

According to WREG-TV, 19-year-old Hannah Cohen was heading home to Chattanooga after receiving treatment for a brain tumor when there was an incident at the security checkpoint at Memphis International Airport.

Shirley Cohen, Hannahs mother, told the station that the agents wanted to do additional scanning.

They wanted to do further scanning, she was reluctant, she didn't understand what they were about to do," Shirley Cohen said.

Cohen said she tried to tell the TSA officers that her daughter is partially deaf, blind in one eye, paralyzed and easily confused. However, she said agents kept her at a distance from her daughter.

She's trying to get away from them but in the next instant, one of them had her down on the ground and hit her head on the floor. There was blood everywhere, Cohen added.

WREG-TV reported that Hannah Cohen was arrested and spent the night in jail.

Authorities later dropped the charges, but the family had decided to file a lawsuit against the TSA, the Memphis Airport and Airport police.

Neither agency commented directly on the situation. However, TSA released a statement on the screening process.

Passengers can call ahead of time to learn more about the screening process for their particular needs or medical situation, TSA spokeswoman Sari Koshetz said.

Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority president and CEO Scott Brokman told the Memphis Commercial Appeal that airport isnt commenting on the lawsuit.

Clearly there are additional facts in the matter, he said.

According to the New York Daily News, the lawsuit seeks a sum of less than $100,000 in damages.

Click for more from WREG-TV.
A massive brush in Hawaii has caused widespread power outages and road closures and has threatened homes on Saturday.

According to KITV, about 6,000 acres have been burned as authorities in Maui investigate the cause of the fire. Fire officials believe that it may have started due to a flare up from a separate wildfire that started early Saturday morning due to downed power lines.

Officials closed a stretch of highway as a precautionary measure.

West Maui and South Maui residents are mostly without power. Officials said power began to be restored in West Maui at around 4 p.m., according to the station.

A resident told the station that homes are being threatened by the brush fire. Maui Electric also said that some stores on the island are being evacuated because of the high winds.

Officials said helicopters and tankers are being used to combat the flames.

A separate brush fire on the island is also burning. Officials said that fire started at around 7 a.m. and its burning in the middle of a sugar cane field.

No injuries have been reported in the fires.

Click for more from KITV.
A prosecutor says he won't charge a mother with the death of her 9-month-old son in a hot car because it was a perfect storm of change of routine, sleep deprivation and forgetfulness.

Jefferson Wilkins' body was found in his car seat in his mother's SUV after she went to his Wilmington daycare on May 25 and she was stunned to find out he wasn't there.

The StarNews reports New Hanover County District Attorney Ben David said Nancy Byrd-Wilkins will not be charged, adding "accidents do happen and they break our hearts."

David says the mother took her son for a doctor's regular checkup but apparently forgot to drop the boy off at daycare and went to work, leaving him in the car for nearly eight hours.
A father and his 8-year-old son, visiting the Jersey Shore on Independence Day weekend, were killed when their personal watercraft slammed into another watercraft as they rounded a sharp turn, investigators said.

Father, 8-year-old son, killed after 2 watercraft collide in Atlantic Co. https://t.co/w2Z7bUdOOm pic.twitter.com/pybyK7SU02  Action News on 6abc (@6abc) July 3, 2016

The father and son were visiting Patcong Creek in Somers Point from Maryland, according to police, who said they were investigating the incident Sunday. The water was crowded with boats at the time of the crash Saturday afternoon, witnesses said.

The front of one of the vehicles was smashed open when investigators took it out of the water.

Witnesses told the Press of Atlantic City too many people recklessly zoom through the sharp turn, which may have triggered the crash. Police said it did not appear that alcohol played a role.

The father was sitting behind his son before the crash. Paramedics rushed them to the hospital, but neither survived. Police did not identify the victims.

It has been very unsettling tonight, knowing what had happened, that we came upon that, witness Melissa Splendido told KYW-TV. Thinking about them and thinking about their families and just hoping that everyone is doing okay tonight.

The other driver, a 55-year-old woman from Egg Harbor Township, suffered a wrist injury.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Chinas military plans exercises in the disputed South China Sea this week, adding to tensions ahead of an international tribunals ruling that is expected to challenge Beijings maritime claims in the area.

The drills, announced in a brief online statement Sunday, are scheduled to stretch over seven days starting Tuesday and ending July 11, the day before the United Nations-backed tribunal in The Hague is expected to issue its ruling. Beijing has repeatedly said it will ignore the verdict despite pressure from the U.S. and its allies to comply.

U.S. Navy ships have conducted exercises around the South China Sea in recent weeks and on Friday the Navy said an aircraft-carrier strike group was operating in the sea, without saying precisely where or how long it would stay. U.S. officials have warned that Beijing could respond to the ruling by expanding its recent island-building or declaring an air-defense zone in the area.

Chinas Maritime Safety Administration, in announcing the exercises, gave geographic coordinates for the drills in an area running east of Chinas Hainan Island down to and including the Paracel Islands.

Entering prohibited, it said in English. The Paracels are controlled by China but also claimed by Vietnam, where government officials didnt respond to requests for comment.

Chinese defense ministry officials couldnt be reached for comment Sunday. In a speech on Friday to mark the 95th anniversary of the Communist Partys founding, President Xi Jinping said that China would never compromise on its sovereignty and was not afraid of trouble.

China normally issues public notices in advance of military exercises, which it conducts regularly in the South China Sea and elsewhere.

The timing and location of these latest drills seem particularly provocative. They coincide with U.S.-led joint naval exercises off Hawaii which Chinese navy ships are joining for the second time as part of efforts to improve military relations.

Click for more from The Wall Street Journal.
China's Maritime Safety Administration says the country will hold seven-day military drills around disputed islands in the South China Sea from Tuesday.

The exercises will overlap with Wednesday's expected ruling by an international arbitration court on China's sweeping claims in the South China Sea.

China is boycotting the case brought before The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration.

The Philippines is challenging the validity of the nine-dash line that China uses to demarcate its claims to most of the South China Sea.

The Maritime Safety Administration on Sunday gave coordinates for where the exercises would be held, which run from the east of China's Hainan Island and encompass the Paracel Islands. They are controlled by Beijing but also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan.
Elie Wiesel, who documented his experience of the Holocaust in the best-selling memoir "Night" and went on to become an influential author and Nobel Peace Prize winner, died Saturday at the age of 87.

Wiesel's death was first reported by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz and confirmed on Twitter by Israel's Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem. No further details were immediately available.

President Barack Obama called Wiesel "one of the great moral voices of our time, and in many ways, the conscience of the world." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wiesel was "a powerful force for light, truth and dignity."

Born in Romania in 1928, Wiesel wrote extensively about his experiences as a teenager in the Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Buna during World War II.

He was freed in 1945, but only after his mother, father and one sister had all died in the camps. Two other sisters survived. Wiesel went on to write dozens of books, lecture worldwide and become a living reminder of the Nazis' atrocities.

His most influential work by far was "Night," a classic ranked with Anne Frank's diary as standard reading about the Holocaust.

"Night" was his first book, and its journey to publication crossed both time and language. It began in the mid-1950s as an 800-page story in Yiddish, was trimmed to under 300 pages for an edition released in Argentina, cut again to under 200 pages for the French market and finally published in the United States, in 1960, at just over 100 pages.

"'Night' is the most devastating account of the Holocaust that I have ever read," wrote Ruth Franklin, a literary critic and author of "A Thousand Darknesses," a study of Holocaust literature that was published in 2010.

"There are no epiphanies in 'Night'. There is no extraneous detail, no analysis, no speculation. There is only a story: Eliezer's account of what happened, spoken in his voice."

Wiesel began working on "Night" just a decade after the end of World War II, when memories were too raw for many survivors to even try telling their stories. Frank's diary had been an accidental success, a book discovered after her death, and its entries end before Frank and her family was captured and deported. Wiesel's book was among the first popular accounts written by a witness to the very worst, and it documented what Frank could hardly have imagined.

"Night" was so bleak that publishers doubted it would appeal to readers. In a 2002 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Wiesel recalled that the book attracted little notice at first. "The English translation came out in 1960, and the first printing was 3,000 copies. And it took three years to sell them. Now, I get 100 letters a month from children about the book. And there are many, many million copies in print."

In one especially haunting passage, Wiesel sums up his feelings upon arrival in Auschwitz:

"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. ... Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never."

"Night" was based directly on his experiences, but structured like a novel, leading to an ongoing debate over how to categorize it. Alfred Kazin was among the critics who expressed early doubts about the book's accuracy, doubts that Wiesel denounced as "a mortal sin in the historical sense." Wiesel's publisher called the book a memoir even as some reviewers called it fiction. An Amazon editorial review labeled the book "technically a novel," albeit so close to Wiesel's life that "it's generally  and not inaccurately  read as an autobiography."

In 2006, a new translation returned "Night" to the best-seller lists after it was selected for Oprah Winfrey's book club. But the choice also revived questions about how to categorize the book. Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com, both of which had listed "Night" as fiction, switched it to nonfiction. Wiesel, meanwhile, acknowledged in a new introduction that he had changed the narrator's age from "not quite 15" to Wiesel's real age at the time, 15.

"Unfortunately, 'Night' is an imperfect ambassador for the infallibility of the memoir," Franklin wrote, "owing to the fact that it has been treated very often as a novel."

After the liberation of Buchenwald, in April 1945, Wiesel spent a few years in a French orphanage, then landed in Paris. He studied literature and philosophy at the Sorbonne, and then became a journalist, writing for the French newspaper L'Arche and Israel's Yediot Ahronot.

French author Francois Mauriac encouraged Wiesel to break his vowed silence about the concentration camps and start sharing his experiences.

In 1956, Wiesel traveled on a journalistic assignment to New York to cover the United Nations. While there, he was struck by a car and confined to a wheelchair for a year. He became a lifetime New Yorker, continuing in journalism writing for the Yiddish-language newspaper, the Forward. His contact with the city's many Holocaust survivors shored up Wiesel's resolve to keep telling their stories.

Wiesel became a U.S. citizen in 1963. Six years later, he married Marion Rose, a fellow Holocaust survivor who translated some of his books into English. They had a son, Shlomo. Based in New York, Wiesel commuted to Boston University for almost three decades, teaching philosophy, literature and Judaic studies and giving a popular lecture series in the fall.

Wiesel also taught at Yale University and the City University of New York.

In 1978, he was chosen by President Carter to head the President's Commission on the Holocaust, and plan an American memorial museum to Holocaust victims. Wiesel wrote in a report to the president that the museum must include denying the Nazis a posthumous victory, honoring the victims' last wishes to tell their stories. He said that although all the victims of the Holocaust were not Jewish, all Jews were victims. Wiesel advocated that the museum emphasize the annihilation of the Jews, while still remembering the others; today the exhibits and archives reflects that.

Among his most memorable spoken words came in 1985, when he received a Congressional Gold Medal from President Ronald Reagan and asked the president not to make a planned trip to a cemetery in Germany that contained graves of Adolf Hitler's personal guards.

"We have met four or five times, and each time I came away enriched, for I know of your commitment to humanity," Wiesel said, as Reagan looked on. "May I, Mr. President, if it's possible at all, implore you to do something else, to find a way, to find another way, another site. That place, Mr. President, is not your place. Your place is with the victims."

Reagan visited the cemetery, in Bitburg, despite international protests.

Wiesel also spoke at the dedication of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington in 1993. His words are now carved in stone at its entrance: "For the dead and the living, we must bear witness."

Wiesel defended Soviet Jews, Nicaragua's Miskito Indians, Cambodian refugees, the Kurds, victims of African famine and victims of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Wiesel was a longtime supporter of Israel although he was criticized at times for his closeness to Netanhayu. When Netanhayu gave a highly controversial address to Congress in 2015, denouncing President Obama's efforts to reach a nuclear treaty with Iran, Wiesel was among the guests of honor.

The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, which he established in 1988, explored the problems of hatred and ethnic conflicts around the world. But like a number of other well-known charities in the Jewish community, the foundation fell victim to Bernard Madoff, the financier who was arrested in late 2008 and accused of running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

Wiesel said he ended up losing $15.2 million in foundation funds, plus his and his wife's own personal investments. At a panel discussion in February 2009, Wiesel admitted he bought into the Madoff mystique, "a myth that he created around him that everything was so special, so unique, that it had to be secret." He called Madoff "a crook, a thief, a scoundrel."

Despite Wiesel's mission to remind the world of past mistakes, the greatest disappointment of his life was that "nothing changed," he said in an interview.

"Human nature remained what it was. Society remained what it was. Too much indifference in the world, to the Other, his pain, and anguish, and hope."



Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. In his acceptance speech, Wiesel summed up his mission: "Whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation, take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The Pentagon said Thursday that two senior Islamic State leaders were killed in a U.S. airstrike in the Iraqi city of Mosul on June 25.

The Pentagon said the airstrike killed deputy war minister Basim Muhammad Ahmad Sultan al-Bajari and a military commander identified as Hatim Talib al-Hamduni.

The announcement comes after a U.S. official said earlier this week that at least 250 ISIS militants were killed in U.S.-led coalition airstrikes targeting Islamic State convoys.

Col. Christopher Garver said the first convoy was spotted southwest of Fallujah in an area with known ISIS influence. Iraqi Security Forces fought the militants on the ground, he said, before coalition strikes destroyed some 55 vehicles.

The official said a second convoy formed east of Ramadi later Wednesday before coalition and Iraqi jets launched more strikes. He said that air assault destroyed nearly 120 ISIS vehicles, but in both attacks, Iraqi Security Forces destroyed more.

The fall of Fallujah means that Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, is the terror group's only remaining urban stronghold in Iraq after Iraqi forces recaptured Fallujah.

Islamic State has suffered a string of territorial losses in Iraq but the group continues to carry out large-scale militant attacks in the capital, Baghdad, and other territory far from the front-lines.

The U.N. children's fund warned Thursday that the ISIS surge in Iraq and the military operation to route the extremist group from captured territory have had a "catastrophic impact," with some 4.7 million Iraqi children in need of humanitarian assistance.

UNICEF warned that 3.6 million Iraqi children are at "serious risk" of death, injury, sexual violence, abduction and recruitment into armed groups, and called on warring parties in Iraq to protect their rights. It said that the number of children in Iraq at serious risk of death or wartime exploitation had increased by 1.3 million in the past 18 months.

"Children in Iraq are in the firing line and are being repeatedly and relentlessly targeted," said Peter Hawkins, UNICEF's Iraq representative. "We appeal to all parties for restraint and to respect and protect children. We must help give children the support they need to recover from the horrors of war and contribute to a more peaceful and prosperous Iraq."

The airstrikes come days after the triple suicide bombing at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport that killed more than 40 people. ISIS is considered the prime suspect, according to top U.S. officials.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Fierce government bombardment of an opposition-controlled Syrian town has killed 43 people, among them children and medical staff, a monitoring group said Sunday in a new toll.

Hours of air strikes and shelling on Saturday struck Jayrud, 60 kilometres (35 miles) northeast of Damascus, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said two medics were among the dead, as well as women and children.

One of those killed was Amjad al-Danaf, head of Jayrud's medical centre.

Activists mourned him online and said he was killed in an air raid as he was trying to treat residents wounded in the attacks.

The bombardment -- the first on Jayrud in at least two years -- began after Syria's armed forces said Islamist militants killed a government pilot when he was forced to eject from his plane on Friday.

In a statement, the military had pledged that the attack on its pilot "will not go unpunished".

Early Sunday, Abdel Rahman said prominent figures in Jayrud had reached an agreement with government officials that rebel fighters would leave the town and hand over the pilot's body in exchange for a halt to the shelling.

A Facebook page run by Jayrud activists that publishes news about the town said rebels began withdrawing from their bases around the town overnight.

Anti-regime factions in Jayrud include the Saudi-backed Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam), the hardline Ahrar al-Sham, and Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front.

A truce between the regime and local representatives had kept the town calm for over two years.

Dozens of similar agreements have been brokered among the myriad of armed groups fighting in Syria's complex war.

But a broader ceasefire between government forces and non-jihadist rebels brokered by the United States and Russia in February has been repeatedly violated by both sides.

More than 280,000 people have been killed and millions have been displaces since Syria's conflict broke out in March 2011.

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At least 119 people were killed Sunday in two bombings in the Iraqi capital, including a large-scale attack claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group that killed 86 people  among them 15 children  in a central shopping district, officials said.

The bombings demonstrated the extremists' ability to mount significant attacks despite major battlefield losses, including the city of Fallujah, which was declared "fully liberated" from IS just over a week ago.

The deadliest attack took place in the central Karada district of Baghdad, where a suicide bomber blew up his explosives-laded pickup truck outside a crowded shopping center, killing at least 86 people and wounding up to 170 others, according to a police officer. He said the dead included 15 children, 10 women and six policemen.

The suicide bomber struck shortly after midnight, when families and young people were out on the streets after breaking their daylight fast for the holy month of Ramadan. Most of the victims were inside a multi-story shopping and amusement mall, where dozens burned to death or suffocated, officials said.

"It was like an earthquake," said Karim Sami, a 35-year-old street vendor. "I wrapped up my goods and was heading home when I saw a fire ball with a thunderous bombing. I was so scared to go back and started to make phone calls to my friends, but none answered," the father of three added. He said that one of his friends had been killed, another was wounded and one was still missing.

Within hours, IS claimed responsibility for the bombing in a statement posted online, saying they had deliberately targeted Shiite Muslims. The Associated Press could not verify the authenticity of the statement, but it was posted on a militant website commonly used by the extremists.

At the scene, firefighters and civilians were seen carrying the dead away, their bodies wrapped in blankets and sheets. Smoke billowed from the shopping center, which was surrounded by the twisted and burned wreckage of cars and market stalls. A group of women were sitting on the pavement, crying for their loved ones.

In the second attack, an improvised explosive device went off in Baghdad's northern Shaab area, killing 5 people and wounding 16, another police officer said. No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but it bore the hallmarks of IS militants who often target commercial districts and Shiite areas.

Medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to release information to the press.

The high death toll made it the second deadliest attack in the capital this year. On May 11, IS militants carried out three car bombings in Baghdad, killing 93 people.

Hours after the bombing, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and lawmakers visited the blast site. Video footage uploaded to social media showed an angry crowd, with people calling al-Abadi a "thief" and shouting at his convoy. Eyewitness said the crowd pelted the al-Abadi's car with rocks, shoes and jerry cans.

Until the government launched its Fallujah operation, the prime minister had faced growing social unrest and anti-government protests sparked, in part, by popular anger at the lack of security in the capital. In one month, Baghdad's highly-fortified Green Zone  which houses government buildings and diplomatic missions  was stormed twice by anti-government protesters.

In Karada civilians expressed their frustration at the government's failure to secure the capital.

"We are in a state of war, and these places are targeted. The security can't focus on the war (against IS) and forget Baghdad," Sami, the street vendor, said.

The UN envoy for Iraq, Jan Kubis, described the Karada attack as "a cowardly and heinous act of unparalleled proportions" and urged the Iraqi government to redouble its security efforts to protect Iraqis during celebrations for the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of Ramadan.

IS group militants who "have suffered defeats at the battlefront are seeking to avenge their losses by targeting vulnerable civilians," Kubis added.

IS still controls Iraq's second largest city of Mosul as well as significant patches of territory in the country's north and west.

At the height of the extremist group's power in 2014, IS rendered nearly a third of the country out of government control. Now, the militants are estimated to control only 14 percent of Iraqi territory, according to the office of Iraq's prime minister.

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US-backed rebels on Sunday accused Al-Qaeda-linked fighters of storming their headquarters in northwestern Syria and kidnapping their commander and dozens of other combatants.

In an online statement, Jaish al-Tahrir (Liberation Army) said its commander, Mohammad al-Ghabi, was abducted from his father's home in the town of Kafranbel by Al-Nusra Front jihadists on Saturday evening.

It said Al-Nusra fighters also "kidnapped more than 40 members of Jaish al-Tahrir" and stole weapons from other bases and checkpoints set up in northwestern Syria.

"We call on Al-Nusra Front to immediately release our commander and all the others who were kidnapped," the statement said, urging other Islamist groups to put pressure on the Islamist militants.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the incident and said the US had supported Jaish al-Tahrir with weapons and even salaries in the past.

Al-Nusra has attacked several US-backed groups in northwestern Idlib province -- most recently raiding the warehouses of Division 13 in the town of Maarat al-Numan in March.

And in the summer of 2015, it kidnapped several members of US-trained rebel group Division 30.

Idlib province is controlled by the Army of Conquest, an alliance of Islamist and rebel fighters led by Al-Nusra and hardline group Ahrar al-Sham.

Residents of towns like Maarat al-Numan and Kafranbel have demonstrated against Al-Nusra's militant ideology.

Syria's five-year conflict began with anti-government demonstrations before turning into a complex war increasingly dominated by extremist groups.

More than 280,000 people have been killed and millions have been forced to flee their homes since March 2011.

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Southern Maryland Moving Help Service Launched By Furniture Moving Helpers

Furniture Moving Helpers is a widely-popular, highly-trusted and highly-recommended furniture assembly, disassembly and furniture delivery service in Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia, which was launched in 2013.

--

Furniture Moving Helpers, the fastest growing furniture assembly, disassembly and furniture moving service in Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia - launches expert moving help service in Southern Maryland.

This recently launched service has been well-received by the people of Southern Maryland, the basic reason behind this successful launch is the trust that Furniture Moving Helpers has built around different areas of Maryland during their 3 years of service. The expert services of Furniture Moving Helpers are widely trusted as one of the most professional and fast furniture assembly, disassembly and furniture moving service in not only Maryland but also in Washington DC and Virginia.

The Furniture Moving Helpers' Southern Maryland movers are especially trained by Furniture Moving Helpers in order to facilitate the customers of Southern Maryland in the best way possible. The team which is especially designated to serve the people of Southern Maryland is well-aware about this area and are professionally trained by Furniture Moving Helpers to handle both large and small scale jobs.

"The trust of people of Maryland is highly important for us, and we assure them that we will always give it our level best to maintain their trust in the longer-run. Their trust motivates us to always strive for the best and never give up. Though, it is difficult for a young company to reach the level of success that we are currently on within such a short time period of only 3 years, but yes! We are proud to say it that it was the trust of the people of Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia that never let us give up, and today we are what we are only because of the love and trust of people to of these areas", stated the spokesperson of Furniture Moving Helpers.

Apart from this amazing Southern Maryland Moving help service the Furniture Moving Helpers are also planing to launch similar professional moving help service in other parts of Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia. Though Furniture Moving Helpers services are already available in all major parts of Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia, but now they are planning to specifically allocate professional teams on each and every single area of Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia.

About: Furniture Moving Helpers is a widely-popular, highly-trusted and highly-recommended furniture assembly, disassembly and furniture delivery service in Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia, which was launched in 2013. For more information, please go to www.FurnitureMovingHelpers.com

For more information, please visit http://www.FurnitureMovingHelpers.com

Contact Info:

Name: Furniture Moving Helpers

Email: info@FurnitureMovingHelpers.com

Organization: Furniture Moving Helpers

Address: 9418 annapolis rd

Phone: (240) 764-6143

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/southern-maryland-moving-help-service-launched-by-furniture-moving-helpers/122067

Release ID: 122067

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The White House on Sunday condemned Baghdad bombings in which nearly 120 people were killed and 200 wounded, saying the attack only strengthened the United States' resolve to confront Islamic State (IS) group.

"We remain united with the Iraqi people and government in our combined efforts to destroy ISIL," said the White House statement referring to IS group.

Meanwhile, the US State Department on Sunday extended condolences to the victims of two bombings overnight in Baghdad and condemned acts of extremist violence.

"We are in close contact with Iraqi authorities, and stand committed to supporting Iraqi security forces," read the statement from spokesman John Kirby.

*The story was edited by Ahram Online.

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CSULB alum wins gold at the 38th Long Beach Marathon  which was his first
Julian Contreras has worked for the city of Corvallis since 1991. And since 1994 he has lived approximately 30 miles away in the Polk County town of Dallas.

Although the cost of living in Corvallis played a factor, Contreras said, my spouses job also played a factor. We ended up in Dallas, due in part to her job being in Woodburn. Dallas presented itself as the middle point for our commute.

We had opportunity to move to Corvallis after a few years living in Dallas, but the housing costs in Corvallis were higher than in Dallas. Once our kids got into middle school it was more difficult to move.

Contreras, the financial services manager for Corvallis, is one of the approximately 18,000 people who work in the city but live elsewhere. Only about 10,000 people do the opposite commute.

City goal

That commuting gap led the City Council for the past two election cycles to include a housing goal among the key objectives the City Council hoped to achieve.

Receiving approval as one of the council goals means significant resources  including money and staff time  are allocated to that mission.

In the case of housing a five-person advisory group was formed to being work on the issue, a study by the consulting and planning firm Eco Northwest was commissioned and a task force was established to come up with policy proposals for the council to consider.

Along the way the city discovered that it wasnt alone. Many other mid-valley towns have similar in-commuting percentages to the 64 percent in Corvallis  and some communities have far higher numbers (see chart page Ax).

I had heard for a decade that more than 10,000 commuted to Corvallis daily, said Mike Beilstein, councilor for Ward 5 north of the Oregon State University campus and chairman of the citys housing task force. When we saw real numbers I was surprised that it was actually 18,000. The city started the housing actions based on the idea that (this) was a unique problem for Corvallis.

We have learned that this is typical of university towns and maybe just part of modern automobile-oriented society.

The Eco Northwest report (see the website for the full reports) shows that Albany and Salem also are at 64 percent, with Lebanon at 75 percent, Adair Village at 94 percent and Tangent at 99 percent.

Corvallis, the home of Oregon State University, also is not really an outlier when compared to other college towns. Ames, Iowa, the site of Iowa State University and Stillwater, Oklahoma (Oklahoma State) also are at 64 percent, while Boulder (University of Colorado) at 77, Davis (UC-Davis) at 73 percent and College Station (Texas A&M) at 72 percent are slightly higher.

Eugene, meanwhile, which includes the University of Oregon, is at 55 percent.

The Eco Northwest study also found a wide array of reasons for the choices in-commuters had made. There was the low-hanging fruit of high prices and low supply in Corvallis, but commuters also noted that having more acreage and a bigger house, aiming for a rural feel or family issues, such as those described by Contreras, also were in the mix.

Albany commute

Patrick Rollens, the public information officer for Corvallis, moved from the Chicago area to start work for the city in December of 2015. He recently moved into a house near Takena Park in Albany with his wife, Melissa, and 15-month-old son Owen.

All of the above, Rollens said when asking about the reasons he chose to live in Albany and commute in. We actually started browsing homes for sale toward the end of 2015, shortly after Id accepted the job. Our budget was changing because wed decided that my wife would stay home with our son for a year or two after our move.

Add to that the fact that our home in Chicago was quite affordably priced compared to a typical Corvallis starter home. That detail always surprises people out here, who seem to think that Chicago has really high housing prices everywhere.

I would have preferred to live in Corvallis, not just because of the reduced commute but also so I could have felt a little more invested in the community where I work. Im just thankful that we did some research and got a sense of the market, for better or worse.

And who has a better sense of the market than someone in real estate? Take Janel Hoffman, a broker with Coldwell Banker Valley Brokers in Corvallis.

Lots of clients are looking into Philomath and North Albany as an option since the availability of affordable homes in Corvallis is little to none, Hoffman said. Three years ago I purchased in North Albany after seeing what I could get for my budget in Corvallis. The commute is not bad and I tell my clients that as well.

I used to live in Philomath before that so I have always had a small commute. There are some people that just have to live in Corvallis  and realize they will have much less of a home.

The other direction

But just like those store sales in which items are 65 percent off  they still are 35 percent on. Obviously, there are out-commuting stories to tell as well.

Ryan Noss, the interim superintendent for the Corvallis School District, moved to Corvallis in 2001, but he worked for the Lebanon district until 2015.

I was fortunate to move to Corvallis at a time when the housing costs were not as drastic, said Noss, who added that family issues and quality of life concerns led him to choose Corvallis.

My wife is an RN in surgery at Good Samaritan. She is required to (be on call) and we felt it was important to be in Corvallis. Also, we have two kids that have been in the Corvallis schools since kindergarten. As a family we felt that continuity with a school community was really important.

Corvallis City Manager Mark Shepard, who started in that job in May of 2015, also has reduced his commute. Shepard, who worked for the city of Albany for more than 20 years, lived in Corvallis that entire time.

When we moved back to the mid-valley for my job in Albany housing affordability was not the issue it is now, Shepard said. My wife and I looked in both Albany and Corvallis. However, we both went to OSU and we really liked Corvallis from our time as students. It felt like home to us. Once we were here and our kids started in school we had set roots in Corvallis. In addition my wife worked here in Corvallis.

I will say that now that I am able to work in Corvallis and not commute I am very appreciate of the fact that I can work and live in the same community.

Policy dilemma

Beilstein and his task force, meanwhile, are faced with the challenge of finding ways of making housing more affordable and more available in Corvallis.

Effective city involvement in developing more housing requires the city to invest in staff and incentives for developers, he said. We seem to be very resource-constrained.

Among the policy options the task force has been considering are loosening the requirements for accessory dwelling units, reducing systems development charges to keep prices lower and finding ways to implement new state legislation aimed at boosting affordability  inclusionary zoning and a construction excise tax.

Another piece of the housing pie that challenges Corvallis is the amount of the housing stock that winds up being rented by OSU students.

It would help for Corvallis to recognize and accept its role as a college town.  said Beilstein, who noted that in addition to those 18,000 employees who commute in there are 6,000 OSU students on the same roads.

Student housing is in just as short supply as other forms. Students who dont commute are competing for the limited housing supply. The city should encourage and assist in the development of student housing as a means of taking the pressure off of non-student housing.

Commuting benefits?

The good news, according to the Eco Northwest study, is that mid-valley commutes are conducted on nowhere near the scale of those in Seattle, Portland or the San Francisco Bay Area. The study found that the vast majority of commuters travel less than 20 miles in a commute that lasts less than 30 minutes.

Im OK with commuting, Contreras said. Traveling through Highway 99 is very scenic and allows me to decompress from a busy and hectic day at work prior to getting home to family.

Rollens agreed.

Anything is better than Chicago, he said. I routinely had two-hour daily commutes (and) towards the end of our time there my wifes commute spiked to three hours total. And that was a round-trip distance of just over 30 miles a day. Talk about soul-sucking.

If anything, the drive to and from Albany gives me a few minutes to unwind and listen to NPR at the end of a long day. We love our house and dont plan to move for a long time.

Former commuter Noss said his old drive from Corvallis to Lebanon was good thinking time. But he added that many more cars were headed in the opposite direction and such a drive might have gotten to him over time.

Thousands of other drivers, be it Highway 20 trying to get in and out of Albany or those in Highway 34 near Corvallis, know the feeling.

Beilstein also expressed concerns about the social costs of commuting.

 I think it requires a different vision of our society and economy, he said. Cheap parking by the city and the low cost of gasoline guarantees that people will find it easy to commute. Changing either of these factors will result in a lot of public opposition. But in the long run it will be better for everyone to fully value parking and fuel.
Downtown hotel

The story: Construction crews broke ground in January on the first phase of a new Courtyard by Marriott hotel on the Corvallis riverfront. The 176-room, seven-story hotel will occupy the west side of First Street between Washington and Adams avenues. The project is expected to cost $24 million.

The latest: Corvallis River Run LLC, the hotels developer, has received a building permit from the city of Corvallis to begin the second phase of the project. Phase one focused mainly on the concrete work for the first three stories, including a 136-space parking garage. Phase two covers the rest of the project. The hotel is expected to be completed by late summer of 2017.

Bennett Hall

Timberhill appeal

The story: Developers have submitted an application that would partition 202 acres of land in the Timberhill region into a 5-acre plot and a 197-acre parcel. The group, GPA1 LLC, also is seeking approval of a road layout for the 5-acre site. The Corvallis Planning Commission rejected the application June 1. GPA1 appealed the decision, with the hearing originally scheduled to be held Tuesday.

The latest: GPA1 has requested a 30-day extension in the case, which now will be heard Aug. 1.

James Day

OSU amendments

The story: The city has been working on a series of comprehensive plan amendments that will be used to review future growth and development at OregonStateUniversity. A city task force meet 16 times to discuss the changes and the Planning Commission began reviewing the amendments with a march 9 work session./

The latest: Commissioners finally wrapped up the review at a meeting June 29, the eighth meeting the body has held on the amendments. Next step for the commission will be to produce one document with all of the changes that will be reviewed July 20. The City Council will have the final say on the changes at a date to be determined.

James Day

Vision project

The story: one of the six Corvallis City Council goals for this two-year election cycle is to develop a vision and action plan for the city. A task force and steering committee, with the help of consultants, has developed a draft vision statement after a series of meetings and public outreach workshops.

The latest: Now, the project management team has developed an online survey for the public to review and evaluate. To participate in the survey go to https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ic2040vision. The survey will be open through the end of this month.

James Day
A highway overpass in central Fallujah, from which Islamic State (IS) group militants hanged a captured Iraqi soldier last year, bears the marks of the city's latest victors, including a slogan scrawled in green spray paint: "The state of (Imam) Hussein remains."

The overtly Shia Muslim phrase, which appears to mimic IS group's own "Remain and Extend" motto, was left a week ago by one of the Shia militiamen who helped drive IS group from the Sunni city it captured in January 2014.

With combat over, the militias are staying on, brushing up against army, police and counter-terrorism forces which have each staked out positions across Fallujah, heavily damaged by the fighting and now almost completely empty.

The militias' continued presence in Fallujah and their pledges to remain for an undefined period of time raise the possibility that nearly 300,000 displaced Sunnis may not feel safe returning home anytime soon.

Keen to avoid a repeat of systematic looting, blamed on militias, after the recovery of cities like Tikrit and Baiji last year, regular government forces and militia leaders themselves say they have managed to limit abuses in Fallujah to a few isolated cases.

The government said it had arrested several perpetrators, including those suspected in the summary execution of dozens of fleeing residents.

But government efforts to keep the militias to outlying areas of Fallujah have failed, part of continuing tensions over the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), a coalition of mostly Shia militias that report to Iraq's Shia Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi but are trained and armed by Iran.

Sunni politicians say what happened in Fallujah shows the militias should be completely barred from a planned offensive on Mosul, the most important IS group bastion remaining in Iraq which the authorities want to retake this year.

Looting, Arson

Before the military assault began on May 23, Iraqi officials had said the militias would be kept outside Fallujah for fear of aggravating sectarian tensions with Sunni residents. The militias initially indicated they would cooperate.

But by mid-June, their fighters appeared on the battlefield and commanders bragged about their important contributions. Prime Minister Abadi later praised their role in the offensive, which was declared over on June 26.

A government spokesman said the forces deployed in Fallujah are clearing it from mines and explosives and restoring basic services so that the population can return under the supervision of the local police that will take over the city.

"When the city is secured, the forces will leave," he said, referring to the units that don't belong to the city, without mentioning specifically the Shia paramilitary.

"Popular Mobilization is part of the security forces and they are taking part in the military operations according to the plan set by the commander in chief of the armed forces," the spokesman added, referring to Abadi.

The militias were still present last week during several Reuters visits to Fallujah, where plumes of dark black smoke billowed into the sky.

Two sources from the elite counter-terrorism service (CTS) said looting and arson had followed the end of combat. One of them blamed the PMF and showed Reuters three militiamen caught in the act.

At least two white pick-up trucks inside Fallujah on Thursday were carrying what appeared to be washing machines and other home appliances, covered with blankets, but Reuters could not verify they had been stolen.

Many roads in the zone controlled by CTS have been blocked off with rubble and burnt-out cars. The second source said the barriers, which went up after IS group was routed, were meant to block other Iraqi forces.

"We do that to prevent any looting or violations in our area of operations," he said.

Security forces prevented a Reuters team touring Fallujah on Thursday from approaching a large fire in a western district overlooking the Euphrates river.

Such fires were set by IS group militants to provide cover from airstrikes as they fled, many officials say, but some acknowledged pro-government forces are also partly to blame.

A spokesman for the Badr Organisation, one of the largest PMF factions, denounced the acts as isolated incidents.

"The (Popular) Mobilisation refuses these acts and will punish all those who those proven to have committed them," said Karim al-Nuri, adding that four or five PMF members had already been arrested.

For how long?

Abu Mahdi al-Mohandis, one of the PMF leaders and head of Kataib Hezbollah, a constituent militia, last week pledged his fighters would not leave their positions inside Fallujah.

"The (Popular) Mobilisation will continue to hold its ground in every area. The armed forces still need the Popular Mobilisation," he said in an interview posted online on June 26.

Nuri, the Badr spokesman, said the PMF would leave "as soon as security returns", but could not specify how long that might take. The militias have remained in many other areas retaken from IS, including predominately Sunni cities like Tikrit and Samarra.

Given Fallujah's record of militancy, the threat of IS group attempting to return is not unrealistic but a long-term presence of Shia forces could prove destabilising.

The city emerged as the main bastion of the Sunni insurgency after the US-led invasion in 2003 and swiftly became an al Qaeda stronghold. US forces that toppled Saddam Hussein suffered heavy losses there in two battles in 2004.

More than a decade later, Fallujah is seen by many Iraqis as an irredeemable bulwark of Sunni unrest.

After declaring victory, the operation's field commander Lieutenant-general Abdul Wahab al-Saidi said the entire southern industrial district should be sealed off because, according to him, IS group used it to assemble car bombs sent to Baghdad.

However, bombings have continued to target Shia districts of the capital, with IS group claiming the deadliest attack so far this year, targeting the shopping area of Karrada overnight Saturday as residents celebrated the fasting month of Ramadan.

The suicide truck bomb that hit Karrada killed at least 115 people and wounded more than 200, according to police and medical sources.

The US-led coalition has trained about six battalions of police and several thousand tribal fighters to ultimately "hold" the city, a spokesman said, but two policemen told Reuters last week only about 700 police had so far been posted to Fallujah.

More will likely be needed, as Iraqi forces continue to battle the insurgents in southern and western outskirts. Several hundred fighters apparently trying to slip out of the area to regroup were killed in a series of airstrikes last week.

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Israel on Sunday condemned a request from British police to interview ex-foreign minister Tzipi Livni, reportedly over suspicions of war crimes in the 2008-2009 Israeli assault on Gaza.

Israel's foreign ministry said in a statement that it viewed the request "with great concern".

"We would have expected different behaviour from a close ally such as the UK," it said in a statement.

The reaction came after Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Livni had received a request last week for an interview from Scotland Yard's war crimes unit ahead of her visit to London for a conference.

The interview was said to be related to Israel's 2008-2009 assault against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip at a time when Livni was foreign minister.

The request was cancelled after diplomatic contacts between Israel and Britain, Haaretz reported.

Livni, currently an opposition member of parliament, has also been granted special diplomatic immunity in response, it said.

The interview was to be on a voluntary basis, the newspaper reported.

Contacted by AFP, Scotland Yard refused to confirm or deny the identities of people they have been seeking to question, while Livni's spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

The 22-day operation was a massive air assault against Palestinians in the Gaza enclave.

It cost the lives of 1,440 Palestinians, mainly civilians, and 13 Israelis, 10 of them soldiers.

In 2009, a British court issued an arrest warrant for Livni after Palestinian activists made an application over her role as foreign minister during the conflict.

Britain sought to soothe strained ties with Israel the following year by publishing an amendment to a law that put visiting officials at risk of arrest for alleged war crimes.

The change was to ensure that private arrest warrants for offences under certain international laws, including the Geneva Convention, would first have to be approved by the chief prosecutor.

*The story was edited by Ahram Online.

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In the first half of the current fiscal year, investment represented 12.9 percent of GDP

Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi accepted a governmental suggestion to establish a Higher Council for Investment, his office said in a statement on Saturday.

The decision comes after El-Sisi met with Prime Minster Sherif Ismail and Investment Minister Dalia Khorshid on Saturday.

El-Sisi is expected to chair the new council.

Egypt has set its total investment target for the fiscal year of 2016/17 at EGP 531 billion ($59.76 billion), representing 16-16.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The government will invest EGP 107 billion ($12 billion) in the fiscal year starting on 1 July 2016, up from EGP 75 billion ($8.44 billion) in the same period a year earlier, while public sector and economic entities plan EGP 132 billion ($14.86 billion) in investment.

Egypt saw investments worth EGP 172 billion ($19.36 billion) in the first half of the current fiscal year, representing 12.9 percent of GDP.

Egypts economy grew 4.5 percent of GDP in the six months to 31 March, slower than the 5.5 percent growth rate achieved in the same period a year prior.

Last week, Egypt's cabinet reshuffled the board of the Higher Council for Tourism (HCT) to be chaired by President El-Sisi. The new board includes the ministers of defence, interior, military production, planning, foreign affairs, local development, international cooperation, culture, tourism, aviation, investment, finance, youth, communications, and antiquities.

Officials say that the HCT reshuffle aims to set a new strategy to boost the country's ailing tourism sector, which has suffered a severe blow to revenues which dropped $500 million in the first quarter of 2016, compared to $1.5 billion in the same period last year.

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Somali President to al-Shabab: 'Abandon This Suicidal Mission'

by Harun Maruf July 01, 2016

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on Friday called on al-Shabab militants to end what he called their "suicidal mission" and stop their brutal attacks.

In a speech marking Somalia's 56th anniversary of independence, the president urged the Islamist insurgents to think of the lives they disrupt.

"I want to send this Ramadan message to al-Shabab leaders and militias  to abandon this suicidal mission, to stop killing the innocent, to stop terrorizing their parents and brothers, to avoid orphaning Somali children," he said. "I urge them to cross over and come over to the government's side in order to live a normal life, and their rights will be protected."

He said the Somali army, with the support of African Union troops, had achieved "tangible success" against al-Shabab  although the group continues to carry out attacks, such as a hotel bombing that killed 15 people in Mogadishu last Saturday.

He said "the sun is setting" on al-Shabab and that "there is no doubt that the Somali people will be the eventual victors in this fight."

Mohamud said the government was working to rebuild the national army, long an elusive goal for Somalia's leaders. The African Union force, AMISOM, has provided protection for Somali governments for nearly a decade.

Mohamud said that Somalia would hold elections this year and that the country would establish a new upper house of parliament.

"It's not a one person, one vote [system], but it will be superior to the election we had in 2012," he said. "We need compromise, patience and cooperation."

Somalia declared independence on July 1, 1960, when the Italian-colonized parts of the country became free and united with the British-colonized region in the north. The British part had become independent just five days earlier.

The country is trying to emerge from more than two decades of conflict and chaos triggered by the fall of military ruler Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

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Visualizing threats: A decade of threat modeling

By Senior Airman Matthew Lotz, National Air and Space Intelligence Center Public Affairs / Published July 02, 2016

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (AFNS) -- Dynamic explosions, missile launches and air-to-air dogfights are just a few animations the National Air and Space Intelligence Center threat visualization team create to help communicate potential threats in the world.

For the past decade, these types of animations have allowed policymakers at all levels of government to watch a video clip, rather than read a stack of intelligence reports filled with military jargon and technical data.

"Seeing really is believing when it comes to our job," said Arthur Luke, a contractor from Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. "We explain important dangers using visual communications."

Since opening their doors in July 2006, the five-person shop -- a mix of civilians and contractors -- has created more than 250 visualizations for customers throughout the Air Force and intelligence community.

"When an analyst requests a product, we must build off of information in the intelligence analytic report," said team member Greg Sundra. "It's the creativity of each individual in this office that builds off that foundation to communicate a critical message which makes our work so special."

Most of the products have a security classification and cannot be seen by the general public, but that doesn't stop the team from striving for perfection.

"I always think something can be improved in our work; it's never good enough," said team member Justin Weisbarth, a contractor from Ball Aerospace. "Each person on the team has particular skill sets and we use those capabilities to always give the customer greater than what they are asking for."

The threat visualization team has more than 100 years of combined experience, with most of their backgrounds including productions related to freelance movies, 2-D graphics, logos and video special effects.

According to Steve Vanzant, the NASIC threat visualization team leader, he works with the best of the best and has people he can trust with anything.

"I have the jokester, the straight-man, the calm soul and the button-pusher," Vanzant said. "The diversity of thought helps the creative process, plus all those characters make it enjoyable to come to work."

The team's next project includes working with the Air Force Institute of Technology to allow visualization specialists across the intelligence community to use and share 3-D models, textures and other animation elements.

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Military Strikes Hit ISIL Terrorists in Syria, Iraq

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, July 02, 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

Near Manbij in Syria, attack and remotely piloted aircraft conducted three strikes that struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL fighting position.

Strikes in Iraq

Attack, fighter, and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 15 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq's government:

-- Near Baghdadi, five strikes struck two ISIL bomb-making factories, an ISIL weapons cache, an ISIL staging facility and an ISIL bed down location.

-- Near Beiji, a strike destroyed an ISIL tunnel entrance and an ISIL cave entrance and denied ISIL access to terrain.

-- Near Habbaniyah, two strikes destroyed two ISIL front-end loaders and two ISIL vehicles.

-- Near Qayyarah, four strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL-used road, two ISIL assembly areas, and an ISIL checkpoint and denied ISIL access to terrain.

-- Near Ramadi, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed four ISIL vehicles and an ISIL boat.

-- Near Sinjar, a strike suppressed an ISIL mortar system.

Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target. Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike.

Part of Operation Inherent Resolve

The strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to eliminate the ISIL terrorist group and the threat they pose to Iraq, Syria, and the wider international community. The destruction of ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq further limits the 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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Egypts balance of payments deficit (BoP) leaped a whopping 260 percent in the first nine months of the current fiscal year due to ongoing fall of tourism receipts, services income and transfers, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) said Sunday.

The overall BoP deficit reached $3.6 billion from July to March in the fiscal year 2015-2016, compared to $1 billion in the same period of the previous year as the current account deficit rose by around 75 percent to reach $14.5 billion from $8.3 billion.

Tourism revenues dropped by 40 percent to $3.3 billion from $5.5 billion during July-March compared to the previous year, according to the CBE.

The CBE attributed the drop in revenues to the decline in the number of nights tourists spent in the country from 73.4 million to as low as 45.1 million.

The trade deficit shrunk slightly during the period in spite of declining export proceeds, falling to $29.3 billion from $29.5 billion as world oil prices declined, the CBE said.

Export proceeds retreated by $3.7 billion to register a total of $13.4 billion during the same period, the bank said in an official release. Non-oil exports rolled back by $1 billion to stand at $9.2 billion.

However, the imports bill dropped by around 8 percent to $42.7 billion from $46.6 billion as the value of both oil and non-oil imports dropped.

According to CBE, the services surplus narrowed by 43.4 percent to $2.4 billion from $4.3 billion over the first three quarters of the current fiscal year.

Net official transfers (which include foreign aid bar loans) plummeted to $60.7 million from $2.6 billion as remittances of Egyptian workers overseas declined to $12.4 billion from to $14.3 billion.

The capital and financial account registered a rise in net inflow, reaching $13.9 billion, compared with $6.6 billion in the corresponding period of the previous year as investment inflows increased.

Foreign direct investment net inflows rose from $5.1 billion to $5.8 billion, with net inflows to green field investments up by 32 percent.

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China calls on Philippines to properly solve maritime disputes via negotiation

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 09:21, July 02, 2016

BEIJING, July 1 (Xinhua) -- China on Friday called on the Philippines to work with China to use the power of negotiation to solve disputes on the South China Sea.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei made the remarks at a daily press briefing in response to remarks made by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte during the first meeting of his cabinet after his inauguration Thursday.

"God knows I don't want to declare any fighting with anyone. If we can have peace by just talking I'll be really happy," said Duterte, who had previously said that he was open to talking with China about the maritime disputes.

Philippine presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella said on Friday that Duterte wanted a "conversation" with China on the South China Sea to work out a "win-win relationship" with the country.

Hong said the disputes are ultimately issues between China and the Philippines.

The South China Sea arbitration initiated by former President Benigno S. Aquino III is invalid and illegal, he said.

"The disputes between China and the Philippines can only be solved via bilateral negotiation on the basis of fully respecting historical facts and in line with international laws," said Hong.

"We hope the Philippines can work together with China and meet each other halfway so that the disputes are solved properly," he said.

Alberto Encomienda, former secretary-general of the Maritime and Ocean Affairs Center of the Philippine Foreign Affairs Department, said recently in an interview with Xinhua that the Philippine government had been behind the increasing tensions in the South China Sea.

"China has championed negotiations all along, but at the beginning we were not," he said.

Hong said these facts revealed by the former Philippine diplomat "show once again the Aquino III government lied" for the unilateral initiation of the arbitration on the South China Sea at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.

The tribunal said it would issue a ruling on July 12.

Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that the Arbitral Tribunal has no jurisdiction over the case and the relevant subject-matter, and that it should not have heard the case or rendered the award.

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US blasts Russian Navy ship's "erratic" maneuver

Iran Press TV

Sat Jul 2, 2016 4:43PM

The United States has hit out at Russia over a "high risk" maneuver of a Russian frigate near an American warship in the eastern Mediterranean.

The US European Command said Saturday that the Russian frigate, Yaroslav Mudry, came unnecessarily close to the guided-missile cruiser USS San Jacinto on June 30 and maneuvered afterwards.

The US military said in a statement that the American warship was not threatened, "But the closing distance by Yaroslav Mudry before the ship turned away from San Jacinto is considered a high risk maneuver, highly unprofessional, and contrary to international maritime regulations."

It described the move, the second such incident in the region in a matter of weeks, as "aggressive, erratic maneuvers."

The US added that "these actions can unnecessarily escalate tensions between countries, and could result in dangerous miscalculations or accidents."

This is while on Tuesday, the Russian Defense Ministry said that US warship USS Gravely came within the "dangerous" distance of 180 meters of the Yaroslav Mudry on June 17.

It said in a statement that the incident took place in international waters and that the Russian ship maintained her course and refrained from entering dangerous maneuvers with the US ship.

"The US sailors, in particular, neglected Rule 13, which stipulates that an overtaking vessel must keep out of the way of the vessel being overtaken," read the statement.

It further noted that, the US ship had violated rule 15, which states that a ship that has another vessel on its starboard side must yield and refrain from crossing ahead of her.

The statement also called on the Pentagon to pay attention to such incidents instead of accusing Russian forces of unprofessional conduct.

In April, a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 jet performed a flyby over the USS Donald Cook destroyer in the Baltic Sea, prompting harsh reactions from US Secretary of State John Kerry who called the move "reckless" and "provocative," saying the US had every right to shoot the plane down.

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225 Daesh terrorists killed in east Afghanistan

Iran Press TV

Sat Jul 2, 2016 8:58AM

At least 225 Daesh terrorists have been killed during military operations in Afghanistan's Nangarhar Province over the past week, local officials say.

Authorities announced on Saturday that most of the Takfiri militants were killed in their hideout in the Kot district of Nangarhar during the operation "jointly conducted" by Afghan troops and US air forces, according to local media.

Nangarhar Governor Salim Kunduzi said last week that 131 of the Daesh terrorists as well as 12 Afghan forces were killed within the first two days of the offensive.

Nearly 90 houses were torched down by the terrorists in the area. The clashes in Kot have forced nearly 500 families to flee the violence zone.

The armed clashes occurred after the Daesh-linked militants launched a major attack on police check points in Kot last month, killing several local residents and security personnel.

The operations against the Daesh affiliates in Afghanistan come amid rising concerns that the terror group is attempting to gain a new foothold in the country.

Nangarhar, which borders Pakistan, has been the main area where Daesh has managed to carry out high-profile attacks.

Daesh has reportedly managed to establish connections with the Taliban's splinter groups, especially those believed to be discontent with changes in the militant group's leadership.

The Takfiri group has also enjoyed defections from al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

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Taliban chief urges US to end Afghan 'occupation'

Iran Press TV

Sat Jul 2, 2016 9:53AM

The new leader of the Taliban militant group has called on the US to end its "occupation" of Afghanistan as foreign forces are still present in the country 15 years after Washington launched its so-called war on terror.

"Admit the realities instead of useless use of force and muscle ... and put an end to the occupation," Akhundzada said on Saturday in his first message since being appointed the Taliban leader.

He also noted that the Afghan nation stands firm against invaders, stressing that Afghans "neither fear ... your force nor your stratagem."

The Taliban chief further warned those supporting invaders that they are following suit of "those abhorrent faces who  supported the Britons and the Soviets" in the past.

Elsewhere in his comments, Akhundzada raised the possibility of an agreement with the Afghan government if Kabul renounced what he called its foreign allies.

The Taliban planned to create an independent and united country, he said.

Akhundzada was picked as the Taliban's leader, when former ringleader Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in an American drone attack in a remote border area inside Pakistan on May 21.

The Taliban has seen a string of defections ever since the news about the death of Mullah Omar, Mansour's predecessor, broke in late July 2015. Mullah Omar died at a hospital in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi in April 2013, but his death was kept secret for two years.

Afghanistan faces a security challenge years after the United States and its allies invaded the Asian state in 2001 as part of Washington's so-called war on terror.

The offensive removed the Taliban from power, but many areas in the country are still beset with bomb attacks, kidnapping incidents and murders.

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UN reports two new cases of child abuse by peacekeepers in CAR

Iran Press TV

Sat Jul 2, 2016 6:43AM

The United Nations has reported two new cases of child sexual abuse charges against its peacekeepers in the Central African Republic (CAR) as the world body continues an investigation into similar cases.

The UN secretary-general's spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Friday that the new allegations from two underage kids were related to the incidents that had reportedly taken place in May.

Dujarric was addressing a press conference, in which he provided an update on the ongoing investigations by the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) on many reports of sexual exploitation and abuse of mostly minors by French troops and other UN peacekeepers in the CAR's Kemo Prefecture.

He said the UN would notify the concerned member states and request for national investigators to look into the new allegations.

Dujarric did not provide details on the nationalities of the peacekeepers under investigation.

According to Dujarric, the new information is undergoing preliminary review and assessment by OIOS in a bit to verify its credibility, saying all subsequent measures would be taken as required in an expeditious manner.

He further declared that nearly 50 witnesses have so far been identified and are being interviewed in order to corroborate the testimonies.

The UN and various countries have come under increasing criticism for sexual abuse of minors by peacekeepers.

Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Deputy Head of MINUSCA (UN's peacekeeping mission in CAR) Diane Corner as well as several other UN delegates were told by local leaders and victims in March that troops from France and Gabon had sexually abused several girls in the Kemo region of the Central African Republic between 2013 and 2015.

The CAR, one of the world's poorest countries, plunged into turmoil in December 2013, when Christian armed groups launched coordinated attacks against the mostly-Muslim Seleka group, which itself had toppled the government in March that year.

France invaded the CAR, a former French colony, after the UN Security Council adopted a resolution giving the African Union and France the go-ahead to send troops to the country in a bid to contain the violence.

According to the latest UN estimates, the conflict in the CAR has internally displaced 399,000 people and forced more than 460,000 to flee to neighboring countries.

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Netherlands May Join NATO Battalion in Lithuania - Defense Minister

Sputnik News

20:54 02.07.2016

The Netherlands plans to join NATO battalion in Lithuania under Germany's control, Lithuanian Defense Minister Juozas Olekas said Saturday.

VILNIUS (Sputnik)  According to Olekas, the details of the Netherlands' contribution and other countries' joining the alliance's battalions may become clear at the next NATO Summit in Warsaw, due to take place on July 8-9.

"The Netherlands sent us a clear message that it is ready to join us. It was clearly stated at the meeting of NATO Defense Ministers [held on June 14-15, 2016 in Brussels]," Olekas told BNS news agency.

Olekas added that "Germany will lead the battalion in Lithuania, Canada in Latvia, the Great Britain in Estonia and the United States in Poland."

Following the NATO defense ministers' summit, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg confirmed that the alliance agreed to deploy four multinational battalions to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. The ministers also agreed on measures to enhance defense and deterrence in the Black Sea region.

Since 2014, NATO has been building up its military presence in Europe, using Moscow's alleged interference in Ukraine as a pretext for the move. Moscow has repeatedly denied the claims and warned NATO that the military buildup near Russia's borders is provocative and threatens the existing strategic balance of power.

 Sputnik

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EU Mulls Own Army While Spending Billions on These 7 Defense Organizations

Sputnik News

13:39 02.07.2016(updated 15:51 02.07.2016)

The European Union seems to be interested in creating a unified NATO-style armed force to protect itself from both internal and external challenges now that Britain, a fierce opponent of the initiative, voted for withdrawal from the bloc.

Earlier this week, Brussels unveiled its Global Strategy, meant to update the EU's foreign and security policy. In particular, the document calls to bolster defense cooperation in Europe.

The new strategy has prompted some to say that Brussels is seriously considering establishing a European army.

"The new Global Strategy paves the way for more far-reaching defense cooperation," that could involve "creating a genuine European army," according to the Danish daily newspaper Politiken.

Brexit may be the driving factor in these plans. Britain has the strongest military in the EU so European leaders fear that after London leaves the EU's military capabilities will decrease. At the same time, London has long opposed creating a European army parallel to NATO.

After the Brexit vote, an "obstacle that prevented better cooperation has been removed," Marcin Zaborowski, Executive Vice President of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), told Wirtualna Polska news site.

Nevertheless, if created a European army would be a significant addition to the military and defense burden of EU taxpayers.

Here is a list of the security organizations Europe is already paying for.

The UN Police (UNPOL)

The UN Police has been an inherent part of the UN-led peace operations. Currently there are nearly 15,000 UN Police operating in over 90 countries.

Since the 1960s, the UN has been deploying its police forces in different peace operations. Now, the UN Police acts a corrective power with domestic police and other law enforcement agencies.

The UN Police acts at a mandate of the UN, thus by agreement of a certain UN member state.

The UN does not have its own police and military forces, and member states contribute their forces to the UN Police. It can operate in any UN member state. Police officers of any member state can be deployed to the UN Police.

Frontex

Currently, Frontex, a European border security agency, is undergoing major reforms.

Previously it relied on coast guards provided by the EU members but now it will have a permanent corps of border guards. It will be deployed to help countries which have difficulties securing their borders.

The corps will operate across the EU and will be able to act even without authorization of a certain country in the event of a serious crisis.

Interpol

The International Criminal Police Organization is an intergovernmental organization facilitating cooperation between national police forces. It involved the police forces of 190 countries.

Interpol coordinated national police forces, including in fighting cybercrimes, terrorism, and organized crime.

Interpol does not have own forces. Police officers of any country members can be sent to the organization.

Europol

The European Police Office is the law enforcement agency of the European Union.

It handles criminal intelligence and combats serious organized crime by coordinating actions of the relevant authorities of the member states.

Europol also does not have own forces. Personnel of national law enforcement agencies are seconded to work in the organization.

UN peacekeepers (Blue Helmets)

The UN peacekeeping forces comprise civil and military personnel seconded by UN country members. But Blue Berets usually refers to military forces.

Currently, nearly 120,000 personnel from 114 countries, including 18,000 civil personnel, are involved in 16 UN peacekeeping missions around the world.

The Blue Helmets are deployed at a mandate from the UN, thus by agreement of the certain country.

NATO

Originally established as a defense military alliance of the United States and Western Europe, NATO has been conducting military operations with and without UN authorization.

NATO does not have its own forces. Its capabilities depend on contribution of the member states.

European Union Force (EUFOR)

EUFOR is the closest to a European army. In fact, it is a staff coordinating forces seconded by its main country members, including France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Luxembourg, and Poland.

The decision to deploy forces is made by the five main country members. The decision may be independent or at the request from the EU, UN, NATO, and OSCE.

EUFOR does not have its own forces. Its personnel can be deployed around the world.

 Sputnik

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US, Pakistani Officials Discuss Afghan Border Security

by Ayaz Gul July 02, 2016

A group of influential American senators and other top officials begun an official trip to Pakistan on Saturday by meeting with the country's military chief to discuss the situation in Afghanistan and efforts to strengthen Pakistan's border security.

The congressional delegation includes Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican who is chairman of Senate Arms Services Committee; South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham; and Indiana Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly.

After the group met with General Raheel Sharif, the army chief reiterated that "a stable Afghanistan is in Pakistan's interest," and that the relationship between the two countries was a key to regional peace.

Pakistan and the United States have long had uneasy relations. Ties have been strained recently over allegations that Pakistan's counterterrorism operations focus only on militants linked to the anti-state Pakistani Taliban, and that Islamabad is not doing enough to uproot sanctuaries linked to Afghan militants, including the Haqqani Network terrorist group.

The alleged lack of progress on preventing Afghan insurgents from using Pakistani soil also recently prompted the U.S. Congress to stop the Obama administration from subsidizing the purchase of eight F-16 fighter planes it had promised to Islamabad.

Speaking prior to Saturday's visit by the U.S. lawmakers, Army spokesman Lieutenant General Asim Bajwa insisted that Islamabad was committed to cracking down on militant groups involved in the Afghan conflict.

"Pakistan is not at all sheltering anyone and Pakistan is not aiding anyone, is not allowing its soil to be used for attacks across the border," he said.

Drone strike

Relations have particularly deteriorated after the May 21 U.S. drone strike that killed leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Akthar Mansoor, in Pakistan.

Officials in Islamabad remain critical of the drone attack, insisting it derailed the efforts Pakistan was making to arrange peace talks between the Islamist insurgency and the Afghan government.

In a recent public talk in Washington, Richard Olson, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, again defended the Mansoor drone strike, dismissing criticism that it signaled waning U.S. interest in the peace process.

"This strike should make clear to all parties in the region that the United States is fully prepared to protect its interests," said Olson, who accompanied the U.S. lawmakers in Saturday's talks in Rawalpindi, where the military is headquartered.

"Mullah Mansoor was an obstacle to peace, posed a continued threat to U.S. persons through his support for operations against U.S. forces, and was perpetuating a war without end," Olson said.

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Political Flash Points Ahead for DRC

by William Clowes July 02, 2016

President Joseph Kabila is due to step down as head of state of the Democratic Republic of Congo in December but it is looking increasingly likely that this year's election will be delayed. Statements this week by the president and the lead opposition figure, now in exile, underscore the uncertainty of the central African nation's political future, and the potential flash points ahead.

President Joseph Kabila's Independence Day speech was pre-recorded, as usual  Kabila is a famously reluctant public speaker  but his words were anything but timid.

The defiant head of state summoned the Congolese people to resist what he called "untimely and unlawful foreign interference." He repeatedly praised his security services.

His comments are seen as a direct response to targeted sanctions imposed by the U.S. government on one of Kabila's most senior police chiefs on June 23.

The U.S. government, as well as members of Congress, have accused the Kabila government of deliberately delaying elections that should take place in November and of cracking down on the opposition and civil society. Further sanctions may be forthcoming.

This was supposed to be Kabila's final Independence Day as president. The nation's constitution limits him to two terms in office.

But it is looking unlikely the polls will be held this year. The electoral commission says it needs more than a year to prepare the voter rolls. And the Constitutional Court ruled in May that Kabila can stay in power until the election is held.

In his speech, the president insisted voter registration will start imminently and that nothing can stop the election from happening.

But in recent weeks, senior officials close to Kabila have spoken publicly of holding a constitutional referendum first. If the people of Congo want more Kabila, they ask, why should they be denied?

Hans Hoebeke is a senior Congo analyst at the International Crisis Group.

"The moment voter registration reaches its end, I am sure that this will become a concrete proposal," he said. "If they get away with prolonging the reign, if the people remain generally speaking quiet, then I think they are going to try it. I'm not saying they are going to succeed, but I think they are going to try it."

And there is recent precedent. The leaders of two of Congo's neighbors, Congo-Brazzaville and Rwanda, have successfully removed term limits through referendums and won fresh terms in office in the past year.

For more than a year, Kabila has invited the opposition to participate in a political dialogue. Edem Kodjo, a former Togolese prime minister, is facilitating the efforts on behalf of the African Union.

Most influential opposition leaders remain publicly hostile to Kabila's offer. They dismiss the dialogue as a trap and have begun to ask for U.S. involvement on the facilitation panel. But qualified support can be found.

Juvenal Munubo is a parliamentarian from one of the largest opposition parties.

He told VOA that a dialogue acceptable to all sides is the country's last chance and must provide clear answers to two essential questions: On what date shall the presidential election take place and who shall lead the DRC once Kabila's elected mandate expires December 20? For Munubo, if these questions can be answered, the main problems disappear and the election need not take place in 2016.

More time could work in the opposition's favor.

At present, there is no obvious opposition presidential candidate and the separate coalitions are still trying to form a united front.

Moise Katumbi points to the size of the fight on their hands. As yet the only politician to declare his intention to contest the presidential election, Katumbi left the Democratic Republic of Congo in May. He was the subject of two sets of legal charges, one of them over the alleged hiring of foreign mercenaries. In June, he was sentenced in absentia to three years in prison. Returning home to campaign is currently out of the question.

Katumbi issued his own Independence Day statement. He said Kabila must leave power this year. Katumbi condemned the charges against him as a crude means of preventing his candidature.

The government brushed it off, calling Katumbi's statement a "pathetic diatribe."



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China Delivers First Batch of Military Aid to Afghanistan

by Ayaz Gul July 03, 2016

Afghanistan has received its first batch of Chinese military equipment as part of Beijing's commitment to provide millions of dollars of assistance to help Kabul fight terrorism.

The shipment on board a Russian cargo plane arrived Sunday in Kabul where Chinese Ambassador Yao Jing handed it over to Afghan National Security Advisor Hanif Atmar.

The cargo apparently contained among other things logistical equipment, parts of military vehicles, ammunition and weapons for the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF).



Jing said Beijing wants to have regular and normal state-to-state relations with the Afghan government and the Afghan people, which includes military cooperation.

"Afghanistan is our close neighbor and a very important neighbor to China So, this is the beginning of our regular military-to-military exchanges and cooperation," Jing said.

Atmar declined to discuss further details or value of the Chinese equipment, saying such military matters required secrecy. He said the assistance shows a joint resolve against terrorism facing Afghanistan and China.

"The military aid is just the beginning of our joint struggle against terrorism. I consider it a major change in China's relations towards Afghanistan that China is standing with the Afghan people in the counterterrorism fight," Atmar noted.

He said that a next shipment due later this year is expected to include more military equipment along with scanners for Afghan police to enable them to detect bombs such as vehicle-born improvised explosives devices. Afghan officials plan to install the scanners at four entry points to Kabul.

"Both China and Afghanistan, we don't have any ambitions ... But we do have our own duty to safeguard our own peace and the sovereignty. So, in this regard China and Afghanistan are on the same front. We will fight together," Jing resolved.

China is also part of a Quadrilateral Cooperation Group or QCG, which also includes Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States, working to bring about a peaceful end to the Afghan conflict. But the four-nation process has been unable to start peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

The increased Chinese involvement in the conflict-torn Afghanistan, critics believe, stems from concerns that continued instability in its immediate neighborhood could fuel problems in the far western Xinjiang region where Uighur Muslims are waging a low-level separatist insurgency against Chinese rule.

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Taking place between 15 and 24 July, the Liverpool Arab Arts Festival is one of the UKs largest annual celebrations of Arab arts and culture

This year the Liverpool Arab Arts Festival (LAFF) will take place between 15 and 24 July, bringing together 147 artists to participate in 35 events dedicated to Arab culture.

Spanning 10 days, the festival attracts artists from the Arab world and Arab diaspora, with some joined by non-Arab performers. Shows many art genres: music, theatre, visual art, traditional art, etc.

Egypt will be featured through dance with the Ezzat Ezzat Dance Company as well as Zosia Jo.

Ezzat Ezzat Dance Company and Zosia Jo's Joon Dance are both young independent dance companies which, according to the festival organisers, "play significant roles in the development of contemporary dance for the future of Egypt."

The companies will perform a double bill of contemporary dance.

Ezzat Ezzat will premiere Belbaladi, a dance exploration of the most common gestures used in Egyptian body language, set to a score of Mahraganat music.

Founded by Ezzat Ismail Ezzat, a young Egyptian dancer, choreographer and architect, Ezzat Ezzat is one of the crucial players in Egypt's contemporary dance movement.

Established in 2012, Ezzat Ezzat Dance Studio stages performances in Egypt, participates in local festivals, organises workshops, and holds and co-produces artistic projects and events.

Zosia Jo will bring to Liverpool audiences Ana Asif (an extract from Ancient Modernity), a fusion of spoken word, theatre and dance to "create a living, breathing, dancing museum of modern Egyptian culture."

The festival will also include an open discussion event during which Ezzat Ismail Ezzat and Zosia Jo will tackle the nature of the independent contemporary dance scene in Egypt.

Other highlights include traditional and contemporary Arab music from musicians such as the award-winning Swedish group Tarabband, a cross-cultural attempt at creating Tarab (defined on the band's official website as "ecstasy through music") steeped in Western melodies.

The festival will also feature performance of whirling dervishes with Sufi Mahmoud Pharaon.

The storyteller Alia Alzougbi will bring to audiences traditional tales from Egypt, Syria and Yemen.

Queens of Syria, a troupe consisting Syrian women now refugees exiled in Jordan, will perform a modern retelling of Euripides The Trojan Women.

Another evening will include a comedy show by British Nigerian comedian and actor Nabil Abdul Rashid joined by Welsh-Egyptian comic and BBC Radio 2 presenter Omar Hamdi.

Among many other elements, the festival's website also points to a folkloric dance workshop with Moroccan artist Nawarra.

Egyptian-born painter, muralist and illustrator Nazir Tanbouli will explore the idea of mythology and narrative with a dramatic explosion of ink and black and white marks on massive sheets of paper.

The Liverpool Arab Arts Festival is one of the most important festivals dedicated to showcasing Arab culture to audiences in the UK.

"The first festival took place in 2002 and it has run annually since that date as a celebratory event raising awareness and promoting an understanding and appreciation of Arabic culture for both Arab and non-Arab audiences in Liverpool and beyond," reads the festival's website, adding that LAAF was awarded the Arab British Centres Culture and Society Award 2010 "for an outstanding contribution to the British publics knowledge and understanding of the life, society and culture of the Arab people."

Renowned Lebanese oud master and performer Marcel Khalife is one of the festival's patrons.

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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20 foreigners killed, 13 hostages rescued after Bangladesh siege: Army

Iran Press TV

Sat Jul 2, 2016 5:29AM

The Bangladeshi army says 20 civilians, all of them foreigners, have been killed by Daesh-linked gunmen after security forces ended a siege at a cafe in the capital, Dhaka.

"We've recovered 20 bodies. Most them had been brutally hacked to death with sharp weapons" at Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka, Brigadier General Nayeem Ashfaq Chowdhury told reporters, without giving the nationality of the victims.

He said survivors were also rescued at the end of the siege at the cafe in the vicinity of the US Embassy, which is popular with expatriates, diplomats and middle-class families.

"Three of those who were rescued were foreigners, including one Japanese and two Sri Lankans," said the spokesman.

The army said the victims were mostly Italian or Japanese.

Late on Friday, a group of armed men attacked the upscale cafe in the diplomatic area of the capital at around 9:20 p.m. local time (1320 GMT), setting off explosives and taking a number of people hostage, including foreigners. Police said eight to nine gunmen armed with assault rifles and grenades were holed up inside.

Initial reports had put the number of those trapped inside the cafe at around 20.

Several hours later, police forces managed to enter the place to free the hostages. Two officers lost their lives in the clashes.

On Saturday morning, police declared an end to the 12-hour siege and said the cafe was free of gunmen. Six attackers were killed and another arrested alive during the operation.

Japan said one of its citizens had been shot and wounded in the attack, but the injuries were not life threatening.

Italian Ambassador to Bangladesh Mario Palma was quoted by Italy's state TV as saying that seven Italians are among the hostages.

The Daesh terror group claimed responsibility for the attack. It posted photos of what it said were dead foreigners killed in the assault.

Addressing a live broadcast following the attack, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina condemned the assault as a "heinous act" and emphasized the need for a firm fight against terrorism in his country.

"People must resist these terrorists. My government is determined to root out terrorism and militancy from Bangladesh," he added.

In recent months, Daesh and al-Qaeda have claimed several deadly attacks mainly targeting secular bloggers, academics and members of religious minorities, including Shia Muslims, Hindus and Christians.

However, Dhaka denies that Daesh is active in the country and blames opposition parties or local militant groups for the killings.

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Dhaka on Lockdown After 20 Hostages Killed in Restaurant Standoff

by Megan Duzor July 02, 2016

Bangladesh authorities deployed heavy security throughout the capital Saturday following an 11-hour standoff with a group of militants who killed 20 mostly foreign civilians at an upscale restaurant.

The White House and the U.S. Department of State confirmed the death of an American, whose identity has not been released.

Security forces rescued at least 13 hostages during the siege. Most of those who died were Italian and Japanese nationals. At least two police officers were also killed.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi confirmed Saturday that Italians were among the victims of the Dhaka attack, but would not give details or numbers until families had been notified.

Authorities in Japan confirmed the death of seven Japanese nationals.

In a televised address to the nation Saturday, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said that her country would not let "conspirators succeed in their mission" to tarnish its image.

She appealed to all citizens of Bangladesh to "come forward and help fight terrorism."

Sheikh Hasina also addressed those "driven towards the path of wrongdoing" and demanded that they "stop killing people in the name of Islam," which she stressed was a peace-loving religion.

In an interview with VOA's Urdu service, Kamal Hassan, a former foreign minister and law minister of Bangladesh, said that terrorism has nothing to do with religion, therefore Islamic State is not representative of Islam or the Muslim world.

He said that on the domestic front, one political party should not blame another on security threats but everyone should do some soul-searching and come up with solutions to help the country. He said terrorists were targeting a harmonious society.

Hassan said that not only Bangladesh but the whole world should adopt a unified policy to deal with terrorist groups like Islamic State and al-Qaida.

Assault ends siege

The siege ended when security forces stormed the building, killing six attackers and capturing one. Most of the victims were hacked to death, and their killers sent photographs of the carnage to the Islamic State during the standoff.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, but the identity of the attackers has not been confirmed.

Gunfire and explosions were heard Saturday morning after scores of commandos converged on the restaurant, more than 10 hours after the hostage crisis began. Journalists were not allowed near the restaurant where several armored vehicles were on the scene.

The attack began late Friday when as many as 10 gunmen entered the Holey Artisan Bakery located in the diplomatic zone of Dhaka.

Police initially cordoned off the area around the restaurant and exchanged gunfire with the attackers who set off explosives. By midnight, shooting around the restaurant appeared to have stopped. Police then tried to open a channel of communication with the militants. Several hours later, the commando operation to free the hostages began.

A bakery employee who escaped the attack told reporters the gunmen shouted "Allah Akbar" (God is the greatest) prior to taking hostages. Some people in the restaurant were able to escape through the roof of the facility.

Lori Ann Walsh Imdad, principal of the American Standard School in Dhaka, lives one block from the restaurant and described the scene to VOA.

"I started hearing the shots outside... Then I started very cautiously looking out of my balcony to see what was going on, but you could really hear the shots in the distance, and could see people running around." She said by 12:30 a.m. local time, the streets were quiet, although she said there was still a large police presence.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said all Americans working at the U.S. mission in Dhaka have been accounted for.

Latest in String of Terror Attacks

Bangladesh has seen a series of attacks in recent months, mostly targeting secular bloggers, atheists and religious minorities. The Islamic State terror group as well as al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent, or AQIS, have claimed responsibility for many of the attacks.

On Thursday, the United States declared AQIS a "foreign terrorist organization" and called its leader, Asim Umar, a "specially designated global terrorist."

Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri announced the formation of the group on the Indian subcontinent in 2014 and Umar has appeared in al-Qaida publications as the leader of the Indian offshoot. Umar is believed to be based in Pakistan but was born in the mid-1970s in India.

Bangladesh authorities have largely rejected the claim that foreign terror groups are behind the attacks. Instead, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and other top officials have blamed the attacks on the political opposition or local militant groups.

VOA's Urdu service, Maaz Hussain and Isabela Cocoli in Washington contributed to this report.

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Bangladesh Says Dhaka Attackers Not From Islamic State Group

July 03, 2016

by RFE/RL

Bangladesh says that the gunmen who killed 20 foreigners at a Dhaka restaurant were members of a homegrown Bangladeshi militant group and not followers of the Islamic State (IS) organization.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said on July 3 that "they are members of the Jamaat-ul-Mujahedin Bangladesh," referring to a group which has been banned in Bangladesh for more than a decade. He added that they "have no connections with the Islamic State."

IS has taken credit for the killing of the foreigners and two police officers during an 11-hour hostage crisis that ended on July 2. The government has consistently denied that international extremist groups are operating in Bangladesh but says that Jamaat-ul-Mujahedin Bangladesh claims it represents the IS terrorist organization.

Police have released the names and photos of six of the attackers who were shot at the end of the siege. A seventh was arrested and is being interrogated by Bangladeshi intelligence officers.

Police said nine Italians, seven Japanese, two Bangladeshis, an Indian, and a U.S. citizen were killed during the attack.

Thirteen survivors were also rescued at the end of the siege after as many as 100 police commandos backed by seven armored vehicles stormed the restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic quarter.

Three of those who were rescued were foreigners, including one Japanese and two Sri Lankans.

The United Nations Security Council has condemned the attack. The council late on July 2 said terrorism "constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security."

Bangladesh has seen a spike in militant violence in the last 18 months. Previous attacks have tended to be against individuals, often using machetes, targeting liberals or members of minority groups.

The government has blamed two homegrown groups for the previous killings: Jamaat-ul-Mujahedin and Ansar al-Islam, which pledges allegiance to Al-Qaeda.

The raid on the restaurant was a rare instance of a more coordinated operation.

In the attack, gunmen singled out foreigners as soon as they stormed through the doors of the restaurant.

They ordered all Bangladeshis to stand up before the killing began, and then to close their eyes and recite verses from the Koran.

The militants hacked most of their foreign victims to death with machetes.

It was not clear if the attackers had made any demands during the hostage standoff.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/terrorism-un-bangladesh/27835094.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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Iran Navy foils pirate attack on tanker

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, July 2, IRNA -- The Iranian Navy successfully on Saturday thwarted a pirate attack on an oil tanker in vicinity of Bab-el-Mandeb Strait near the Gulf of Aden.

The pirates in 12 boats comprising of 115 armed people attempted to seize the Iranian oil tanker, but they were overpowered after Iran's domestically-manufactured Shaheed Naqdi destroyer was called in and opened heavy fire on the pirates.

Three hours later, the pirates, who were equipped with different types of weapons, once again attempted to attack the Iranian oil tankers, but the 41st fleet of the Iranian Navy forced them to flee.

The 41st fleet of the Iranian Navy, consisting of Lavan logistic warship and Shaheed Naqdi destroyer, then escorted the oil tanker to the safe zone.

In recent years, Iran's Navy has expanded its presence in international waters to protect naval routes and provide security for merchant vessels and tankers.

In line with international efforts against piracy, the Iranian Navy has also been conducting patrols in the Gulf of Aden since November 2008 in order to safeguard merchant containers and oil tankers owned or leased by Iran or other countries.

Iran's Navy has managed to foil several attacks on both Iranian and foreign tankers during its missions in international waters.

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Iraqi army liberates region east of Ramadi

Iran Press TV

Sat Jul 2, 2016 3:49PM

The Iraqi army and allied volunteer fighters have managed to liberate an area east of the central Iraqi city of Ramadi, PressTV reports.

Major General Ismail al-Mahlawi, the head of the Anbar Operations Command, on Saturday announced the liberation of Albu Obeid region and added that the Iraqi forces are at the doorstep of the al-Zeweyyah area.

Iraqi troops also on Saturday morning announced an all-out operation to free the region of Jazeerat al-Khaledeya east of Ramadi, the capital of the western Anbar Province.

Meanwhile, Iraq Joint Operations Command said Iraqi F16 fighter jets conducted airstrikes against Daesh Takfiri group's stronghold district of al-Qaim along Iraq's borders with Syria and managed to destroy a number of the terrorists' headquarters and posts.

The Iraqi Ministry of Defense also said on Saturday that some 50,000 displaced families have returned to their homes in Iraq's province of Salahuddin - to the northeast of Anbar - after thorough investigations confirmed that they had no affiliation with Daesh Takfiri terrorists.

The northern and western parts of Iraq have been plagued by gruesome violence ever since Daesh terrorists mounted an offensive in the country in June 2014.

Iraqi government forces, backed by fighters from allied Popular Mobilization units, have been fighting the militants.

The Iraqi army and allied volunteer fighters on Thursday succeeded in recapturing more territories from Daesh terrorists on the outskirts of the recently-liberated city of Fallujah.

Security sources said the Iraqi troops retook control of two districts of Albu Ifan and al-Dhaviyah south of Fallujah in Anbar Province.

Iraqi forces retook Ramadi from Daesh Takfiri militants in December 2015 after seven months of control over the city by the terrorists.

The new gains come days after the Iraqi military announced the full liberation of Fallujah, located around 60 kilometers from the capital of Baghdad, but clashes have continued with the remaining militants around the city.

Iraqi forces are now engaged in a military operation to regain control of Mosul.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi has repeatedly vowed that the year 2016 will be the year Daesh would be "wiped out of the Iraqi soil."

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Suicide Bombings Kill at Least 124 in Baghdad

by VOA News July 03, 2016

Iraqi Defense Minister Khalid al-Obeidi met with U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Stuart Jones in Baghdad after two separate early morning bombings in Baghdad killed at least 124 people and wounded at least 186 others. The officials discussed how the two countries can better collaborate in the fight against Islamic State (IS).

A suicide truck bombing Sunday occurred shortly after midnight at a busy shopping area, killing at least 119 people and wounding 170 others. It was the most deadly attack in the Iraqi capital this year.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the blast in the Karrada district, saying Shi'ites were targeted. The jihadist group considers Shi'ites heretics.

In the second attack, an explosive device detonated in Baghdad's northern Shaab area, killing at least five people and wounding 16. No one has claimed responsibility for this attack.

Pope Francis delivered a prayer for the victims in Iraq and for a separate bombing Friday in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The pope told tens of thousands of worshipers in St. Peter's square he feels "closeness to the families of the victims" and asked those gathered to "pray together" for them.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited the site of the bombing hours after the attack.

The attack came little more than a week after Iraqi forces ousted Islamic State militants from the city of Fallujah, just 50 kilometers west of the capital.

A second deadly blast occurred in eastern Baghdad, killing at least one person and wounding several others. There has been no immediate claim of responsibility for the second blast.

Latest high profile attack

This is the third major act of terrorism claimed by IS in a week, following the suicide attack Tuesday at Ataturk International Airport that killed more than 40 people, and the siege of a restaurant in Dhaka in which more than 20 people died.

Bangladeshi officials insist, however, the Dhaka attackers had no connection with Islamic State. The Bangladesh government has long maintained IS has no presence in the country.

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Libya troops retake Sirte area after clashes with terrorists

Iran Press TV

Sat Jul 2, 2016 7:48AM

Forces loyal to the Libyan unity government have wrested control of a district south of the city of Sirte following heavy clashes with Takfiri Daesh terrorists, officials say.

Mohamed Gnaidy, intelligence chief for Misrata forces, told Reuters on Friday that the residential 700 neighborhood was under the control of his troops who are supporting the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA).

"Residential area 700 has been liberated and as of 6 p.m. the Ouagadougou [conference] center and the hospital are surrounded," Gnaidy said, adding that airstrikes were carried out on the conference hall.

Misrata forces also hit a hideout of Daesh commanders, he noted without elaborating on how many casualties they suffered or how long it would take to dislodge the remaining militants from Sirte.

The advance came after fierce clashes involving rockets, mortars and gun battles in the region.

According to local officials, three pro-government forces were killed and more than 30 others sustained injuries during Friday's fighting to recapture the residential 700 district.

Libyan forces launched a military operation in May to retake Sirte, which fell to Daesh in February 2015. They managed to enter the city on June 9 and since then, they have liberated a number of residential districts.

Libya has been dominated by violence since a NATO military intervention followed the 2011 uprising that led to the toppling and killing of longtime dictator, Muammar Gaddafi.

The oil-rich state has had two rival administrations since mid-2014, when militants overran the capital and forced the parliament to flee to the country's remote east.

The two governments achieved a consensus on forming a unity government, the GNA, last December after months of UN-brokered talks in Tunisia and Morocco to restore order to the country.

Daesh, which is mainly active in Syria and Iraq, has taken advantage of the political chaos in Libya to increase its presence there.

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Mixed Reaction in Pakistan to US Report on Civilians Killed By Drones

by Ayesha Tanzeem July 02, 2016

Reaction to the White House report on civilian casualties in drones was mixed in Pakistan, the country that has suffered the highest number of strikes and casualties outside active conflict zones.

Pakistan's foreign office issued a press release reiterating its calls for "an immediate cessation of drone strikes that violate the territorial integrity and sovereignty of [S]tates." Pakistan's government routinely denounces the strikes which are deeply unpopular among the public, but authorities are believed to privately consent to the operations targeting militants in the country's tribal regions.

The U.S. report said between 64 to 116 civilians had been killed in strikes outside active combat zones from 2009 to 2015. It said the strikes killed between 2372 to 2581 combatants.

Imran Khan, an opposition politician and one of the strongest critics of drone strikes, called Obama's figures far from the "ground realities."

He said local officials from Pakistan's northern tribal areas, the scene of most of the U.S. drone attacks, had reported numbers which were quite the opposite, something like 2000 civilians versus only 100 militants.

'Extra judicial killings'

Zohra Yousuf, the chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said the White House numbers could be disputed, because others, like the Bureau of Investigative Journalism that has been tracking drone deaths for a while, have reported higher figures. She also called any civilian casualties regrettable and drone strikes a form of "extra judicial killings."

At the same time, she added, the reality was that most of those who died in these strikes were militants. Yousuf said that compared to aerial bombing, which results in much higher civilian casualties, the civilian deaths from drones were much lower.

On the other end of the political spectrum, Abdul Ghaffar Aziz, the director for foreign affairs in Pakistan's religio-political party Jamaat e Islami, called the U.S. report "useless," adding that such reports had no credibility.

The report says more than 2500 other targets were terrorists, but he asked who decided they were terrorists and that it was okay to kill them?

"Which world court gave them the right to go and kill in another country, without even taking the other government in confidence?" he questioned.

Afrasiab Khattak, a senior leader in Awami National Party, a Pashtun nationalist party that touts secularist credentials, called it a complicated issue.

"Obviously the drone strikes are violating our laws," he said. "But the terrorists sitting on our soil are violating our laws too."

Drone strikes were a much bigger issue in Pakistan a couple of years ago when they were occurring much more frequently. Over the last five years there have been far fewer, from 128 in 2010 to 13 last year and only three this year, according to data collected by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

Political analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi said that despite complaints from human rights groups, the U.S. was likely to continue its drone program because it was an effective counter terrorism strategy. On one hand it reduced the number of U.S. casualties while on the other it kept the militants on their toes and unable to operate freely, even in their supposed safe havens.

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Russia to mobilize forces if Finland joins NATO: Putin

Iran Press TV

Sat Jul 2, 2016 8:2AM

Russia has threatened it will mobilize its forces to areas closer to its border with Finland should Helsinki choose to join the US-led military alliance of NATO.

"Do you think we will continue to act in the same manner [if Finland joins NATO]?" visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin asked at a joint press conference with his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto at the latter's summer residence in southwestern Finland on Friday.

"We have withdrawn our troops 1,500 [kilometers (932 miles) from the border]. Do you think they will stay there?" Putin said.

Back in April, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had likewise said that Russia would take appropriate military-technical measures at its northern borders if Finland's neighbor Sweden decided to join NATO.

Already reeling from mutual distrust, relations between Russia and NATO specially soured after the Black Sea Crimea Peninsula rejoined the Russian Federation from Ukraine following a referendum in March 2014.

The United States and its European allies accuse Moscow of destabilizing Ukraine and have imposed sanctions against Russian and pro-Russia figures. Moscow, however, rejects having a hand in the Ukrainian crisis.

In his Friday remarks, Putin said Moscow will try to begin a dialogue with NATO despite its expansion towards Russia's western borders.

He said Moscow would, however, respect Helsinki's decision in case it opted to join the Western alliance.

The Russian head of state also welcomed a proposal by the Finish president that aircraft flying over the Baltic region turn the devices enabling their identification on, calling it "the first steps aimed at enhancing confidence and preventing conflicts [in the Baltic airspace]."

RT said Russia had intercepted several US aircraft over the Baltic Sea in close proximity to the country's border in recent months. The planes in question had their identification devices turned off, Moscow has complained.

Russia has repeatedly censured the gradual expansion of NATO eastward.

NATO routinely engages in activities deemed provocative to Russia. The alliance has installed missile systems across Europe, including ones recently launched in its eastern flank near Russia, and is involved in military exercises in Ukraine, another Russian neighbor.

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Russian navy sending flagship aircraft carrier to Syria

Iran Press TV

Sat Jul 2, 2016 8:58PM

Russia is sending the flagship of its navy, the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier, to join the battle against the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in Syria.

According to the TASS news agency, the ship will leave for the Mediterranean Sea in October and serve as a platform for carrying out airstrikes against the terrorists until at least February 2017.

Classified by Moscow as a heavy aircraft-carrying missile cruiser (TAVKR), she will carry 15 Sukhoi Su-33 fighter jets (seen in the video below) and Mikoyan MiG-29K/KUB fighters, and around 10 Kamov Ka-52K, Ka-27, and Ka-31 choppers.

"The Joint Staff has developed a program for carrier pilots to take part in delivering airstrikes on terrorist groups in Syria. It implies performing operational flights from the carrier against land targets," said a source.

The source noted that the Admiral Kuznetsov will take the helm of Russia's naval operations in Syria, where it will ensure sufficient operation range of its jet fighters.

After finishing its tour, it will return to the Sevmash shipyards in Severodvinsk in the north of Russia where it will receive extensive upgrading.

Earlier in the week, the head of the Russian State Duma's Defense Committee and former commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Vladimir Komoedov, stressed that the carrier should join the Russian fleet in the Mediterranean to protect Moscow's interests in the region.

"The ship's crew ought to be rotated, yet the vessel should not leave the Mediterranean," Komoedov said.

Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed in the conflict. The UN has stopped its official casualty count in Syria, citing its inability to verify the figures it receives from various sources.

On March 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial military pull-out from Syria; however, forces remain mainly at the Khmeimim airbase in Latakia and at the Tartus naval base to help maintain a Moscow-Washington brokered ceasefire.

Russia started its military campaign in Syria on September 30, 2015, based on a request from the Syrian government.

The airstrikes have greatly boosted the morale of the Syrian army as it has managed to retake key areas from militants across the country with Russia's support.

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A stolen limestone relief of King Nectanebo II that was smuggled out of Egypt was handed to the Egyptian embassy in Paris on Sunday

Egypt's antiquities ministry succeeded in recovering the stolen relief of King Nectanebo II of the 30th dynasty that was smuggled out of Egypt over a decade ago.

Shaaban Abdel-Gawad, the supervisor-general of the Antiquities Recuperation Department, told Ahram Online that the object was stolen from a temple in the Saqqara necropolis during the 1990s.

The whereabouts of its location was not known until early last week when the Antiquities Recuperation Department noticed the relief on the selling list of an auction hall in Paris.

The ministry, Gawad continued, took all the necessary legal procedures to stop the sale of the relief after proving its possession. The Parisian hall halted the relief's sale and withdrew it from the auction and handed it over to the Egyptian embassy in Paris.

Abdel-Gawad said that the relief will return to Egypt within weeks and would be restored and put on display temporarily at the Egyptian Antiquities Museum in Tahrir until returning it to its original location in Saqqara.

Gawad said the relief is carved in limestone and weighs 80 kilograms. It depicts the lioness goddess Sekhmet who is adorned with the sun disk on top of her head. The King Nectanebo II cartouche is also found beside Sekhmet.

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Russian Military Delivers Over 5 Tonnes of Humanitarian Aid to Syria's Hama

Sputnik News

09:15 02.07.2016(updated 09:24 02.07.2016)

The Russian military has delivered over five tonnes of humanitarian aid to the town Suqaylabiyah in Syria's Hama province, the Russian center for Syrian reconciliation at the Hmeymim airbase said Saturday.

SUQAYLABIYAH (Sputnik)  The delivery had been organized in coordination with local authorities, he added, noting that priority was given to families of those killed in fighting, as well as disabled people, the elderly, women and children.

"The center has delivered five and a half tonnes of food, which include the most essential items, flour, rice, food rations," reconciliation center representative Ruslan Tokarev told reporters.

"As a peacekeeping country, we are first and foremost helping the population to help them survive the war and reach victory," Tokarev said.

Suqaylabiyah, a predominantly Eastern Orthodox town, has doubled its pre-war population of 17,000 residents due to an influx of refugees from other parts of the country, according to local administration head Muhammad Taros. The government is providing refugees with shelter, food and medical treatment, while local residents have housed a large number of refugees, he added.

However, the town's farms have suffered as a result of its proximity to the line of contact between government forces and terrorist groups. The town has undergone shelling by al-Nusra Front militants, Taros said.

 Sputnik

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President, premier call emergency meetings in wake of missile blunder

ROC Central News Agency

2016/07/02 09:23:56

Taipei, July 2 (CNA) Two Navy non-commissioned officers involved in the accidental launch of a anti-ship missile were released early Saturday on bail as both the president and the premier prepared to call emergency meetings to manage the fallout of the unprecedented incident.

Kao Chia-chun (), a petty officer said to be the one who fired the missile, and Chen Ming-hsiu (), a chief petty officer who reportedly left Kao alone in the middle of a supposedly simulated firing procedure, were released on a NT$300,000 (US$9,307) bail after being questioned at the Kaohsuing District Prosecutors' Office overnight.

Their two superior officers who had also been questioned by prosecutors were also set free pending further investigation. They are Lt. Cmdr. Lin Po-tse (), commanding officer of the Navy's 500-ton Chinchiang-class corvette, and Lt. Junior Grade Hsu Po-wei (), the officer responsible for the ship's weapon systems.

Kao and Chen face charges of causing death and injuries due to negligence when performing their duties under the Criminal Code. They are also likely to be indicted under the Criminal Code of the Armed Forces for damaging equipment or weapons intended for combat.

A fisherman from Kaohsiung was killed when his boat operating in waters off the Penghu islands in the Taiwan Strait was hit by the Hsiung Feng III supersonic missile and three others on board sustained non-life threatening injuries.

The incident involving one of Taiwan's most advanced weapons shocked the nation, with President Tsai Ing-wen () preparing to call a National Security Council (NSC) meeting as soon as she arrives back in Taiwan in the afternoon after a visit to Latin America.

Presidential Office Spokesman Alex Huang () said that, at the meeting, the president will be briefed by NSC and Ministry of National Defense (MND) officials on the incident.

On Saturday morning, Premier Lin Chuan () will call a meeting with officials from the MND, the Mainland Affairs Council and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to learn more about the facts of the missile incident and to discuss possible next steps, according to Cabinet Spokesman Tung Chen-yuan ().

On Friday, a top Chinese official responsible for cross-Taiwan Strait relations demanded an explanation on what had actually happened and said that the incident had "a serious impact".

The missile incident occurred on the day when the Communist Party of China was celebrating its 95th founding anniversary and when cross-strait ties were cooling after eight years of warm relations under President Ma Ying-jeou (), whose Kuomintang party lost power to Tsai's Democratic Progressive Party in elections held in January.

(By Chen Ja-fo and Jay Chen)

Enditem



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President says missile mishap 'unforgivable'

ROC Central News Agency

2016/07/02 23:42:59

Taipei, July 2 (CNA) President Tsai Ing-wen () said Saturday that a Navy ship's misfiring of a missile a day earlier that caused one civilian death and three injuries was something that "absolutely cannot be forgiven."

The president gave a directive to related government agencies to inform neighboring countries and mainland China about the incident, reassuring them that Taiwan's determination to maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and throughout East Asia remains unchanged.

The president made her comments at a National Security Council meeting after hearing a briefing on a Chinchiang class corvette's firing of a Hsiung Feng III anti-ship missile from a southern Taiwan port.

According to Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang (), the president used strong words to chide the Ministry of National Defense: "If there were SOPs and they were not followed by the officers and soldiers, then it shows an utter contempt of disciplines and a complete lack of competency."

"The incident was caused by absolutely more than an individual sailor's mistakes," Huang quoted the president, who added that Hsiung Feng III is an advanced weapon with multiple security deigns -- safety designs that she said have all failed to work because of unimaginable human errors.

Armed forces without any discipline cannot be called armed forces, she was quoted, urging the MND to "thoroughly examine itself."

Tsai said the military must not fear being examined; "only by bravely reflecting can we hope to have strong armed forces."

"When the armed forces make mistakes, I, as president and commander-in-chief, will face the mistakes along with members of the armed forces," she said.

She called the national security meeting right after returning from a nine-day trip to Panama and Paraguay, her first visit to Taiwan's diplomatic allies since taking office on May 20.

Also attending the meeting were Vice President Chen Chien-jen (), Premier Lin Chuan (), Defense Minister Feng Shih-kuan (), Mainland Affairs Minister Chang Hsiao-yueh (), Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lee (), Coast Guard Administration Director-General Lee Chung-wei () and Navy Commander Adm. Huang Shu-kuang ().

Upon her arrival back home, Tsai expressed her deepest condolences to the family of a fisherman who was killed in the incident, saying it "should not have happened."

At the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, she pledged that the government will deal with the fallout of the incident with a responsible attitude.

At the NSC meeting, Tsai said she has asked Taiwan's officials based in Vietnam and the Philippines to comfort family members of two injured fishing crew members from those countries.

(By Lu Hsin-hui and S.C. Chang)

Enditem/

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MND denies conspiracy theories regarding Navy missile fiasco

ROC Central News Agency

2016/07/02 22:14:58

Taipei, July 2 (CNA) The Ministry of National Defense (MND) issued a detailed question-and-answer press release Saturday to debunk a string of conspiracy theories surrounding the Navy's misfiring of a missile a day earlier causing one civilian death and three injuries.

The release, posting 10 questions and 10 responses, began by asking how could a sergeant be allowed to "do it alone" without having been given consent from his superiors, triggering speculations?

The MND said the Navy ship commander, senior arms officer and missile launch control sergeant had all failed to follow standard operation procedure (SOP) before the operating sergeant chose the wrong simulation mode, committing a series of "discipline violating" acts and making a string of mistakes that finally resulted in the historic fiasco.

Learning a tough lesson from the mishap, the MND will, from next week on, toughen up its training programs for all military units, particularly in regard to SOP training, to prevent any similar occurrences in the future, said the release.

Was it appropriate for the armed forces to conduct a live-fire training program while President Tsai Ing-wen () was on a foreign visit? The MND said Friday's Navy corvette missile firing was not a "military drill" but a "test of single-ship training results."

Why did the sailors on board the corvette not initiate the "self- destruct" button before the Hsiung Feng III missile hit a target?

The release said a self-destruct mechanism would be installed only in missiles during a formal military exercise. The sailors were not participating in such an exercise Friday; they were instead just conducting a "test of training results," said the MND.

Was it true that sergeant Kao Chia-chun () gave a hurray after he finished firing the missile?

"No, our investigation found that to be untrue," said the release.

Another rumor has it that Kao did not care about what he had just done and posted some remarks and played games on his FB page soon afterward, is there evidence to support this?

The MND said, Kao's cell phone was immediately impounded and probed, with no evidence found to support the allegations. "The rumor is false," it added.

Why did the Navy not send any ships or aircraft to the scene after the incident, while only coast guard ships were seen there?

The MND said the Navy did send two corvettes, four speed boats and two helicopters to search for the fallen missile and immediately contacted the Coast Guard Administration for assistance in the search.

The MND also dismissed as untrue reports that an ammunition ship was about to enter the harbor when the Hsiung Feng III missile was fired by mistake.

On the question of why the fishing boat did not explode after being struck by the missile, the MND explained that the missile is designed to attack military vessels, and because the structure of fishing boats tend to be light and weak, thus the impact of the strike was not strong enough to detonate the warhead.

The MND also responded to an allegation by Lu Li-shih (), a former Chinchiang-class corvette captain, that the accident occurred because control procedures were not properly imposed on the missile's launch key.

According to the ministry, the Hsiung Feng III missile does not have a launch key, and therefore no control procedures are needed.

The ministry said it deeply regretted Lu's "mistaken" and "misleading" comments about the case.

(By Lu Hsin-hui, S.C. Chang and Stephanie Low)

Enditem/ke

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President hears briefing on missile accident

ROC Central News Agency

2016/07/02 19:05:58

Taipei, July 2 (CNA) President Tsai Ing-wen () called a National Security Council (NSC) meeting Saturday to hear a briefing on the accidental launch of an anti-ship missile a day earlier.

Tsai, who just returned from a trip to Panama and Paraguay, was briefed by officials from the NSC and the Ministry of National Defense.

Also attending the meeting were Vice President Chen Chien-jen (), Premier Lin Chuan (), Defense Minister Feng Shih-kuan (), Mainland Affairs Minister Chang Hsiao-yueh (), Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lee (), Coast Guard Administration Director-General Lee Chung-wei () and Navy Commander Adm. Huang Shu-kuang ().

The locally developed Hsiung Feng III missile was accidentally launched from one of the Navy's 500-ton Chinchiang-class corvettes at Zuoying Military Harbor in Kaohsiung during a drill on Friday and hit a fishing boat, killing the captain and injuring three other crew members on the boat.

The ministry has issued an apology and has blamed the incident on human error; it said a petty officer on board the Chinchiang (PGG-610) did not follow standard operating procedure and launched the missile during a simulated attack.

(By Lu Hsin-hui and Y.F. Low)

ENDITEM/sc

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Minister apologizes to victim's family for missile blunder

ROC Central News Agency

2016/07/02 13:39:57

Kaohsiung, July 2 (CNA) Taiwan's Defense Minister Feng Shih-kuan () on Saturday apologized to the family of the captain of a Taiwanese fishing boat, who was killed after the Navy fired a supersonic anti-ship missile by mistake and hit the fishing boat that was operating in waters off the outlying county of Penghu.

Feng traveled to Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, to offer the apology in person to the family of Huang Wen-chung () at their home. He promised to help them obtain state compensation and repair the damaged fishing boat, which has been towed back to Kaohsiung.

Accompanied by Navy Commander Adm. Huang Shu-kuang (), Feng also vowed to improve military discipline.

The locally developed Hsiung Feng III missile was accidentally launched from one of the Navy's 500-ton Chinchiang-class corvettes at Zuoying Military Harbor in Kaohsiung during a drill at 8:15 a.m. on Friday and hit the fishing boat about two minutes later, according to the Navy.

The Defense Ministry confirmed that the missile ripped through the "Hsiang Li Sheng" () fishing boat, causing the death of the captain and injuring the three other crew members on the boat.

The ministry has issued an apology and has blamed the incident on human error; it said a petty officer on board the Chinchiang (PGG-610) did not follow standard operating procedure and launched the missile during a simulated attack.

While meeting with Feng, the family complained that the military did not provide immediate assistance after the missile was launched by mistake, saying that the son of the captain, who was also a crew member on the boat, had to make an emergency call by himself to ask for help, before the coast guard came to their rescue.

In response, Feng explained that the military took several response measures shortly after the incident, including sending military vessels to the area where the missile sank into the waters on a search-and-rescue mission. The military's efforts were also joined by the coast guard, he added.

The fishing boat was some 40 nautical miles away from the military harbor in southern Taiwan. A chart provided by the Navy showed that the simulated position targeted by the missile was in the Taiwan Strait, northwest of the harbor and southeast of Penghu.

(By Wang Shwu-fen and Elaine Hou)

ENDITEM/cs

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President Tsai says fatal missile blunder 'should not have occurred'

ROC Central News Agency

2016/07/02 17:13:57

Taipei, July 2 (CNA) President Tsai Ing-wen () expressed her deepest condolences Saturday to the family of a fisherman who was killed after the Navy fired a supersonic anti-ship missile by mistake and hit a Taiwanese fishing boat, saying that such an incident "should not have occurred."

In a speech at the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport upon her return from a nine-day trip to Latin America, she said that Taiwan continued to face many challenges domestically when she was abroad, noting the missile blunder that occurred on Friday.

Expressing her deepest condolences to the family of Huang Wen-chung (), she said she agreed with Huang's wife that "this incident should not have happened."

She pledged that the government will deal with the fallout of the incident with a responsible attitude.

Tsai also spoke about the fruits of her first overseas trip since taking office on May 20, which took her to Panama and Paraguay. She also made a stopover in Miami on her way to Panama and made a transit stop in Los Angeles before heading back to Taiwan.

Tsai is set to call a National Security Council (NSC) meeting at the Presidential Office as soon as she returns to Taipei. She will be briefed by officials from the NSC and the Ministry of National Defense.

The locally developed Hsiung Feng III missile was accidentally launched from one of the Navy's 500-ton Chinchiang-class corvettes at Zuoying Military Harbor in Kaohsiung during a drill at 8:15 a.m. on Friday and hit the fishing boat about two minutes later, according to the Navy.

The Defense Ministry confirmed that the missile ripped through the "Hsiang Li Sheng" () fishing boat, causing the death of the captain and injuring three other crew members on the boat.

The ministry has issued an apology and has blamed the incident on human error; it said a petty officer on board the Chinchiang (PGG-610) did not follow standard operating procedure and launched the missile during a simulated attack.

The fishing boat was some 40 nautical miles away from the military harbor in southern Taiwan. A chart provided by the Navy showed that the simulated position targeted by the missile was in the Taiwan Strait, northwest of the harbor and southeast of the offshore county of Penghu.

(By Elaine Hou and Lu Hsin-hui)

ENDITEM/ke

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Premier vows to get to bottom of leaks over missile blunder

ROC Central News Agency

2016/07/02 16:48:57

Taipei, July 2 (CNA) In an emergency meeting called Saturday, Premier Lin Chuan () gave a directive that related government agencies must get to the bottom of military leaks related to a missile blunder a day earlier that caused the death of a Taiwanese fisherman.

Lin called the meeting to manage the fallout from the unprecedented incident. The three-hour meeting was attended by officials from related agencies.

During the meeting, Lin said that the military leaks have posed a serious threat to Taiwan's national security, demanding that the Ministry of National Defense review its existing measures to protect confidential information and the task force put together by the Ministry of Justice conduct a thorough investigation into the leaks, according to Cabinet spokesman Tung Chen-yuan ().

Tung did not provide further details on the leaks.

But separately, Defense Minister Feng Shih-kuan () said earlier in the day in Kaohsiung that his ministry will look into possible military leaks, when asked about the actions of Tsai Cheng-yuan (), executive director of the Kuomintang's Policy Committee, who revealed the missile blunder in a Facebook post shortly after the missile was fired by mistake.

Tsai, whose "Missile Crisis!" post on his Facebook page released at 8:54 a.m. a day earlier caught the media's attention, said it is laughable to call his breaking of the news a leak of state secrets.

"What kind of secret was it when between 500 and 600 people were on hand to watch what was happening?" Tsai said.

On Friday, the Ministry of Justice formed a task force comprised of several prosecutors to look into the incident.

Lin said the task force should find out every detail behind the incident to clarity if it involved lapses in military discipline, and that the defense ministry should cooperate with the prosecutors.

"Wasn't the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors Office already investigating this? Did Lin Chuan not know this?" Tsai said.

His post was simple: "Missile Crisis! At 8:20 a.m. this morning, a Chinchiang corvette was said to have misfired a Hsiung Feng III missile with a range of 300 km."

Meanwhile, the premier demanded the defense ministry carry out a thorough review on its operating procedures, personnel training and discipline, as well as identify all the officers who should be held accountable.

He also asked the ministry to negotiate on the matter of state compensation with the family of the captain of the Taiwanese fishing boat, who was killed in the incident, as soon as possible.

Feng traveled to Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, to offer the apology in person to the family of the dead captain, Huang Wen-chung (), at their home. He promised to help them obtain state compensation and repair the damaged fishing boat, which has been towed back to Kaohsiung.

The locally developed Hsiung Feng III supersonic anti-ship missile was accidentally launched from one of the Navy's 500-ton Chinchiang-class corvettes at Zuoying Military Harbor in Kaohsiung during a drill at 8:15 a.m. on Friday and hit the fishing boat about two minutes later, according to the Navy.

The Defense Ministry confirmed that the missile ripped through the "Hsiang Li Sheng" () fishing boat, causing the death of the captain and injuring the three other crew members on the boat.

(By Tang Pei-chun, Wang Shwu-fen, Elaine Hou and S.C. Chang)

ENDITEM/ke/ke

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Mainland urges Taiwan to explain missile misfire

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 09:35, July 02, 2016

Mainland authorities are calling for a "responsible explanation" behind the fatal firing of a missile by a naval vessel from Taiwan on Friday.

Zhang Zhijun, head of the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office, says the incident needs to be addressed properly.

"The incident occurred and has caused a severe impact at a time when the mainland has repeatedly emphasized safeguarding the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations based on the political foundation of the 1992 Consensus. The Taiwan side should offer a responsible explanation of the matter."

Taiwan authorities have confirmed that one of its naval vessels accidentally fired a missile on Friday morning.

The missile hit a fishing boat from Taiwan near the southern end of the island, killing one and injuring three others onboard.

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Egyptian investigators will fly from Paris to Cairo as soon as possible to start decoding the cockpit voice recorder

A number of tests conducted on EgyptAir's MS804 Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) have shown that the contents are undamaged, Egyptian investigators said in a statement Saturday. The black box were undergoing repair in France.

Supported components associated with communications to and from the memory chips were replaced, but its memory unit was not damaged, the statement read.

The investigation committee said its team in France will travel to Cairo as soon as possible with the repaired black boxes, to start the decoding and analysis process.

Last week, the committee announced that the second black box, the Flight Data Recorder (FDR), was repaired at the French Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau. The box was transported to Cairo for analysis.

The black boxes from EgyptAir flight MS804, which crashed last month killing all 66 on board, were found at the bottom of the Mediterranean and were sent to France to repair the damage they suffered.

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A Danville native recently named the new Deputy Secretary of the Commonwealth said the area affected her interest in government from an early age.

Traci DeShazor became the second local appointment in Gov. Terry McAuliffes administration when she was named to the post announced via news release June 24. Pittsylvania County native Todd Haymore was recently named the Virginia Secretary of Commerce and Trade after serving as Virginia Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry.

DeShazor is a native of Danville and a graduate of George Washington High School.

Speaking of Danville, DeShazor said it 100 percent had an impact on just my interest in public service altogether.

DeShazor said she could even remember her favorite teachers from local schools like Woodberry Hills Elementary. Additionally, she said the areas economic development changes and challenges inspired her to pursue her public service career.

In high school, DeShazor said she got the opportunity to work as an election page where she was able to see firsthand how the process worked on a local level.

Previously, DeShazor served as the Deputy Director of the Virginia Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. In this role she was a federal liaison between Virginia, the Virginia Congressional Delegation, the White House and other states and territories.

She also has worked on the governor-elects transition team and as the African-American Outreach Coordinator for McAuliffe for Governor.

In her new role, DeShazor said she is beginning to work with far-ranging areas like rights restoration, pardons and relationships with Virginia Indian Tribes.

However, DeShazor said the Dan River Region always has a place in her heart.

Danville is always home, she said.
In the months leading up to Thomas Road Baptist Churchs move to Mountain View Road, a sign placed at the direction of Jerry Falwell Sr. displayed a countdown of the days till July 2, 2006.

It was a public reminder of the move and perhaps a bit of pressure on construction workers to get the new 6,000-seat sanctuary ready on time to kick off the churchs second half-century.

Dad had cast this grand vision, grand idea of, man, we are going to re-launch a 50-year-old church  Its going to be a new church and a new launch and man we are going to do new things and exciting things, Jonathan Falwell, his son and now senior pastor said recently as the church marked a decade in its new home.

The younger Falwell was ready to do what we had done a thousand times before but to do it in new ways, in exciting ways and in revolutionary ways, to truly once again make a difference in our community.

We had no idea that would be his last year here, he said.

Begun June 17, 1956, by 35 adults and their children, Thomas Road Baptist Church launched Jerry Falwell Sr. s popular radio and television ministries, which then gave him the clout to help cement an alliance between evangelical Christians and Republican political leaders on a national level. The burgeoning church birthed Liberty Christian Academy and Liberty University and helped plant like-minded churches across the country and world.

Following Jerry Falwell Sr.s death on May 15,2007, the congregation elected Jonathan Falwell its senior pastor, promoting him from his executive pastor position.

Scared and grieving as he tried to prepare for his first Sunday service after his fathers death, Falwell felt unsure about what he could or should say. Then he got an email from a friend sharing a quote from the son of famed 1800s preacher Charles Spurgeon, who said despite accolades pouring in, what his father really would want said is, Its not I, but Christ.

Falwell said his father would have felt the same.

Not I, but Christ made it into that first sermon and then became the literal backdrop to all of TRBCs Sunday services as a projected image above the sanctuary stage.

If nobody gets anything out of that sign but me and Im reminded every single Sunday when I walk out on that stage that its not about me, its about Christ, then thats a win, he said. So thats why its there.

Jonathan Falwell has continued TRBCs television and radio ministries, and written a few books since that time, but he hasnt seemed to prioritize obtaining his fathers level of celebrity or political clout. Instead, hes presided over TRBCs adoption of new methods in ministry while it continues to proclaim a message based on the inerrancy of the Bible and the embrace of Christ as the sole path to salvation.

Besides a new pastor and a new building, there are a few other obvious differences between this church and the one that held its last service on Thomas Road on June 25, 2006.

Thomas Road Baptist Church now consists of eight campus churches that together hold 10 services each Sunday. Theres a TRBC satellite in Danville and one in Roanoke and five campuses in Lynchburg in addition to the main church, which provides the bulk of the attendance. Three of those operate in different languages: Spanish, Korean and Chinese.

Church spokesman Mike Tilley said TRBC now has about 9,000 attendees each week, up from about 6,000 per week in the year prior to the move to the current location adjacent to Libertys campus. Outreach Magazines annual ranking of the biggest churches in United States listed Thomas Road Baptist Church as 45th in 2015.

Theres also an increased emphasis on starting new churches; Falwell said in his sermon last Sunday Thomas Road Baptist had planted 901 churches in 2015 and another 442 in the first half of 2016  most in developing countries through financial and other contributions in partnership with the international church-planting organization The Timothy Initiative. That goes along with the ongoing work of the Liberty Church Network, a domestic church-planting organization founded by Jerry Falwell Sr. in 1981.

Nonetheless, what especially comes to mind for Falwell when he thinks about the differences between today and 10 years ago is a renewed focus at TRBC on engaging lay people to carry out ministry, a shift that he said is taking place in many churches.

In years past it was the kind of the idea that if we could just get people to church on a Sunday then peoples lives would be changed by what they would hear, he said.

What we really focus on now is what we hear imparted on a Sunday, we want to take it out Monday through Friday as well, he said. So its engagement of our people, that they can have an impact daily in the lives of people in the community, that they have an opportunity to encourage people, and to disciple people, and to help people, and to minister to people in places that are far away from a church sanctuary.

These days, Falwell said, official church membership seems to be less important to many people; he cited a writer who said the average active churchgoer attends church twice a month. So with 8,000 to 9,000 people attending TRBC in a given week, he said, it can be hard to know just how many people they are dealing with; are they mostly the same or mostly different from the week before?

What they try to emphasize, Falwell said, is a minimum of one hour a week of small group study, one hour a week of service work, and one hour a week of church worship.

I think we do have a far more engaged congregation today, thousands of our people involved in ministry, he said, explaining that these arent people doing it professionally, but finding the time in their often busy lives.

To me that is such a healthy situation for our church, or any church, because it allows people to recognize that every one of us has a calling and a responsibility to be part of carrying out the ministry.

Catching Ministry

A cowboy-themed vacation Bible school took over part of the Salvation Army in Lynchburg last week  an event that included color-coded bandanas for each age group and at least one arts-and-crafts project that involved drawing a horseshoe in the place of the U when writing out a verse from the Gospel of Luke.

In their gray The Good, The Bad, and The Redeemed T-shirts, volunteers from Thomas Road Baptist Church helped organize relay games in the centers gymnasium on Tuesday.

Who wants to do a three-legged race? called out church member Bobby Norman. I think Ms. Tosha can show you how its done.

Ms. Tosha is Tosha Jones, a member at TRBC and administrative assistant for the churchs Mission and Outreach ministry, where she works alongside Pastor Tim Grandstaff.

She and Norman were both part of the Lynchburg Impact mission trip the church sponsored from June 27 to July 1. It works like a typical mission trip without the traveling  families served at sites across the city during the day, doing everything from visiting elderly people in nursing homes to stocking the food pantry at Parkview Community Mission.

In the evenings they gathered at the Salvation Army to serve meals and to help Salvation Army staff put on a vacation Bible school.

Norman and Jones both joined TRBC relatively recently  under different circumstances  and share a common experience of finding value in getting involved with small groups and community service work through the church.

Jones joined TRBC when she arrived in Lynchburg two years ago  a move that was also an act of faith.

She and her husband had made a life in Central Florida with their five children, and shed been taking Liberty University classes online, but the nearest Christian school was an hour away and out of their price range. They decided they couldnt stick with the status quo.

We changed our life from giving up, you know, a 4,800-square-foot home and luxury cars, to making that change so that our kids could be founded in the Word, and we knew that Thomas Road and LCA could provide that for our kids and our family, she said.

She talked with pride about the way a daughter has blossomed in her faith since moving to Lynchburg. She said shes developed in her own faith, too, learning to give God control  what she called followship, not just fellowship.

Those life groups and small groups keep us growing and able to train and teach others, she said.

This past week, shes had the chance to work side by side on community service with a couple of her children.

Its been neat to see them communicate, watch them with the older people, watch them with the kids their age, she said. Pastor Tim Grandstaffhas said, you cant teach ministry; you have to catch ministry. You can force kids to volunteer, you can require them to volunteer and serve, but its only when they catch it that they grow that desire and continue to do it.

The Norman familys choice to join TRBC about three years ago was less dramatic than the Jones familys journey.

Norman had past experience at TRBC, having attended as an adolescent before moving on to other churches in his adulthood. He and his wife loved the church theyd been attending, but one day when they took their children to play at the indoor playground at TRBC, they were intrigued by a television listing various international mission trips and local service projects going on through the church.

I recognized one of the neighborhoods that they were serving in, and they were having like a block party and they were cooking hotdogs and they were giving out free food, and we were like, Oh, wow, thats what weve been looking for, he said.

He and his wife have been helping out with a team from their TRBC life group at the Methodist-run Park View Mission in midtown Lynchburg and their children have helped with Thomas Roads annual Christmas Cares project. This is their second year participating in the Lynchburg Impact mission trip.

Their last church, he said, had a strong missions program but less-accessible local community outreach. Thomas Road, he said seemed focused both on people across the world and also in their own backyard.

Jonathan, as being the pastor and leading the church in itself, he doesnt want the church to stay in those four walls, Norman said. He doesnt believe thats what the church is. He believes that the church is a living organism that goes out.

Gathering for Worship

Volunteers in bright vests flagged newcomers to empty parking spaces before the church service last Sunday morning  which combined the usual early and late services into one for the special occasion of celebrating the churchs 60th anniversary.

Inside the churchs Main Street central corridor, some people paused to purchase snacks and beverages at the coffee shop or stopped by a series of automated card-swipe kiosks to check in their children for youth Sunday school before delivering them to their class. There was even a photo booth taking pictures set for inclusion in a special time capsule the church was planning to bury.

On stage in the auditorium, white-toothed, grinning worship leader Charles Billingsley joined the massive TRBC choir in serenading congregants as they found their seats.

In the midst of the music-filled service, Falwell took time to honor and thank those 1956 founding members whod made it to the service.

They got together and they simply had one vision, one thought, one idea  that if Gods people will simply get together and pray and seek his face, God will do amazing things, he said.

He also played a video clip of his father preaching on that last Sunday at Thomas Baptist Church in honor of the 50th anniversary.

Dad preached the word of God there, and then he said this, But today we move out and move forward, Falwell said. My dad understood that a church that sits still on what God has done is a church that will never be a part of what God has yet to do.

Later in the service, he mirrored the recognition of the founders when he honored members set to embark on local and international mission trips, and those going out to plant new churches. He talked about the ways in which the money and ministries of TRBC members are shaping the religious landscape around the world.

We would have every right to sit back and to rejoice and to talk about the amazing things that God has done in our past and as we sit there and talk about the amazing things that God has done in our past, we would miss out on what God wants to do in the future, Falwell said.

He claimed thats not the path his congregation has chosen.

We decided 60 years ago  we decided then, and we decide now, we will not stop, he said. We will move forward to see God do it again.
Americans will celebrate the 240th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on Monday. Its an important achievement in our nations history.

The Declaration of Independence was a simple statement of political independence

that could not have been turned into a new country without the help of France  and 75 years ago, a cruel twist of fate helped the French teach us a lesson about freedom:

What was won always could be lost.

It took an army of young Americans  on the ground, on the seas and in the air  to give the French people their freedom back. Those young Americans now are in their 90s. Called the Greatest Generation for their survival of both an economic collapse and a world war, the men who fought to free France in the 1940s came home to create the world we live in today.

Along the way, they married their sweethearts, started families, worked hard and kept the American Dream going. Now they are grandfathers and even great-grandfathers  and we still enjoy the fruits of their success. Since the end of World War II, the world hasnt seen a war as large or as costly.

France remembers their efforts, and in recent months, three Dan River Region residents  James A. Rich Jr., Julian Neal Watlington and James Lynch  have been honored with the French Legion of Honor for their demonstrated devotion to freedom, brotherhood and democracy, French Consul General Michel Charbonnier said at one of the awards presentations.

I have a new respect for France, for giving these men and women this recognition, Watlingtons son Stuart said.

Time is doing to the Greatest Generation what warfare could not. They are slipping away from us. What the French government has done is to remind us  once again  freedom is easily lost, and sometimes, men like Rich, Watlington and Lynch are needed to correct the mistakes made by older men.

Its the appreciation of their service  and the recognition of their efforts  that makes these presentations so important.

Were proud of all of our veterans. Most of them fought in foreign lands thousands of miles from home. They fought for grand ideas. They battled to protect their fellow soldiers. They didnt start the wars they fought, but they certainly ended them.

On this, the 240th anniversary of our own bid for freedom, we thank the French government for reminding us that there are local heroes who gave up their youth to defend freedom.
To the editor:

There are a number of lessons to be learned from the recent Brexit vote, which we in the United States would be wise to heed. This issue may well be revisited in the United Kingdom, partly for reasons which will be addressed here.

First, this initial vote to leave the EU was largely driven, statistically, by white, high-school educated males who are feeling disenfranchised in their own country. Sound familiar? Read: Donald Trump supporters.

Younger voters of both genders and more highly educated voters  as well as the majority of Scots  voted for remaining in the EU. But the problem was this: huge numbers of younger voters  polled as being highly supportive of remaining in the union  didnt show up to vote. They thought that it was impossible

that the people of the UK would vote for leaving the EU.

The lesson is that people who are rightly afraid of having Donald Trump as the head of this nation must get out and vote in November.

According to recent polls, he now has a 70 percent unfavorable rating, but this will mean nothing if people dont vote against him. I have heard so many people say they just arent going to vote this year, because they cannot stand Trump, but they dont like Secretary Hillary Clinton either. The result of that kind of thinking could very well be exactly what just happened in the UK.

Second, when is the populace of the United States going to grow up and understand that we live in a global economy, a global politic, a global society?

These are not the days of Woodrow Wilson  or even of Dwight Eisenhower  although either of them would most likely be welcomed back with open arms with the current dearth of statesmen and women. In this highly technologic age  with instant communication  it is simply not possible to maintain a position of isolationism. It did not work after either great war, and it will not work now. Take our country back! is one of Trumps jingoistic slogans, and it was also effective in the UKs recent vote.

Feel as you may about President Barack Obama, but this country truly is much better off than it was when President George W. Bush left office, economically and as a member of the world community. He has strengthened ties throughout the world through diplomacy, which in the long run is a far better policy than the bullying, threatening, disgustingly rude stance of Donald Trump.

The United States will be the laughing stock of the world community if we elect a chief executive who cruelly ridicules disabled people, women, people of color and people of other nations. Have I left out other of his targets? But more frightening than having the world laugh at us, we will be distrusted, which will threaten our own security and that of our allies.

The British may indeed hold a second vote on the Brexit, if enough signatures are gathered to force it.

Here in the United States, if we make a disastrous choice in November, we dont get a do-over. It is incumbent on those of us who value peace, stability, respect and security to ensure a huge turnout so that our voices are not drowned out by fear and hatred.

JENNIFER A. WHITE

Yanceyville, North Carolina
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By Ray Vigil Social Security Public Affairs Specialist, El Paso

You've probably noticed the unusually cold and stormy weather we've been experiencing this year. That makes it more appropriate than ever to recognize National Umbrella Month this March.

National Umbrella Month is a time to celebrate a useful invention used by most everyone. It's no coincidence that the month comes at the beginning of the rainy season. April showers may bring May flowers, but the rain starts pouring in March. When the rain pours, an umbrella has you covered.

If you work and pay Social Security taxes, we have you covered too. Whether the storm that hits you unexpectedly is a disability, the loss of a loved one or an unexpected early retirement (such things can sneak up on you like a sudden storm), Social Security's umbrella of coverage will keep you protected from the harsh weather.

You qualify for Social Security benefits by earning credits when you work in a job or are self-employed and pay Social Security payroll taxes. In 2014, you receive one credit for each $1,200 of earnings, up to the maximum of four credits per year. Most people need 10 years of work (40 credits) to be eligible for retirement benefits.

The number of credits you need for disability benefits depends on how old you are when you become disabled. For example, if your disability occurs before age 24, you generally need 1 1/2 years of work (six credits) in the three years before you became disabled. At age 31 or older, you generally need at least 20 credits in the 10 years immediately before you became disabled.

In most cases, you need to have worked about 10 years for surviving family members to qualify for survivors benefits. Survivors of very young workers may be eligible if the deceased worker was employed for 1-1/2 years during the three years before his or her death.

Umbrellas have been around for thousands of years. Social Security has only been around since 1935. Yet the Social Security umbrella covers an expanded range of services for you and your family. When you need to learn more about disability, survivors or retirement, the place to go is socialsecurity.gov. And you don't even have to grab your umbrella on your way to apply ? just do it online from the dry comfort of your own home or office computer.

n n n

The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, held each March in Alaska, is one of the harshest, most challenging races known to man (or dog). Mushers embark on a race from Anchorage to Nome that takes between nine and 15 days. Contestants bear subzero temperatures with gale-force winds that can cause wind chills as low as negative 100 degrees Fahrenheit. It takes endurance, preparation and careful planning to make it from start to finish.

The same can be said for your race toward retirement and Social Security. No one would hit the trail without being ready for the challenges. Similarly, no worker today should be navigating toward retirement without a little bit of preparing, planning and stick-to-itiveness.

Choosing your steps is as important as selecting the right sled dogs. Your first step in planning for a comfortable retirement is to look at your Social Security statement, which you can do online easily with a my Social Security account. The online statement is easy to use and provides estimates you should consider in planning for your retirement. It provides estimates for disability and survivors benefits, making the statement an important financial planning tool. Your statement allows you to review and ensure that your earnings are accurately posted to your Social Security record. This feature is important because Social Security benefits are based on average earnings over your lifetime. If the information is incorrect, or you have earnings missing from your record, you may not receive all of the benefits to which you are entitled in the future. Visit socialsecurity.gov/myaccount to set up a my Social Security account and get started.

Before heading into the snowy terrain, you want to make sure you have prepared for a number of different possible obstacles on the trail. For retirement planning, you'll want to test out the Retirement Estimator to see how changes in your income, retirement age and other variables may change your overall plan. Use our Retirement Estimator, where you can get a personalized, instant estimate of your future retirement benefits using different retirement ages and scenarios. Visit the Retirement Estimator at socialsecurity.gov/estimator.

Out in the cold, you'll be thankful for the provisions you've brought along. In retirement, you'll understand why it was so important for you to save early on. The sooner you begin your financial planning, the better off you will be. Social Security replaces about 40 percent of the average worker's pre-retirement earnings, but most financial advisers say that you will need 70 percent or more of pre-retirement earnings to live comfortably. You also will need other savings, investments, pensions or retirement accounts to make sure you have financial security to live comfortably when you retire. Visit the Ballpark Estimator for tips to help you save. You'll find it at choosetosave.org/ballpark.

Use our online library of publications as your trail map or guidebook to help you when it comes to planning for retirement. Check out "When To Start Receiving Retirement Benefits." It and many other useful publications can be found at socialsecurity.gov/pubs.

As you mush, mush, mush toward retirement, remember that it's not about the destination, but all about the journey. Spending a little time to prepare along the way will make all the difference when you cross the finish line into retirement.
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Fairyflies hard to see with naked eye

By Rachel Webber

Dear Dr. Universe: What is the smallest insect on Earth?  Laurenz 8, Molino, Philippines

Dear Laurenz: When I saw your question, I set out to explore with my bug net and a magnifying glass. I was searching all around for tiny insects when I ran into my friend Laura Lavine, a Washington State University scientist who studies bugs.

She said there are nearly a million different kinds of insects on Earth. The smallest of all the known ones are called fairyflies.

Like all insects, fairyflies have six legs. And like most insects, they also have wings. Some swim under water and use their wings as paddles. Their wings are also a bit hairy. It also turns out the fairyfly isn't truly a fly. It's a kind of wasp.

"They are almost impossible to spot with the naked eye," Lavine said.

In fact, fairy flies are nearly 400 times smaller than the typical ant. And they are about two or three times the width of a human hair.

I imagine finding a fairyfly would be like finding a needle in a haystack. You'd have to keep a sharp eye out.

I started to wonder how exactly entomologists could spot such fairyflies or other kinds of small insects in the wild. For example, a couple years ago scientists discovered a new kind of fairyfly in Costa Rica. It was named Tinkerbella nana after the fairy from Peter Pan.

Lavine explained that scientists often use nets or traps to catch the insects. Sometimes they have to sift through dirt and litter, or decaying leaf matter, a teaspoon at a time to see what they can find.

Scientists can also use what they know about the insect's behavior and habitat to help track them down. Fairyflies, despite their cute name, are killer insects. They lay eggs inside a host insect's egg. When the fairyfly's egg hatches, it eats the host egg. If we keep our eyes out for their host bugs and their eggs, we might also find the fairyfly.

Fairyflies are important for the environment, Lavine added. Farmers and scientists can use fairyflies to help get rid of bigger insects that damage grape vines, blackberries and sugar cane. These tiny creatures help us do a big job.

The insect world is filled with interesting critters. Thinking about the smallest insect also made me wonder about the biggest one on our planet. The biggest bug is a giant walking stick. It's almost 2 feet long. But who knows? There might be even bigger insects or even smaller insects we haven't discovered yet crawling around on our planet.

Thanks for your question, Laurenz. It reminds me that even the small things can inspire us to wonder big.

Send emails to Rachel Webber at Washington State University, Dr.Universe@wsu.edu or visit her website at askdruniverse.com.
McConn plays with her dog at her San Angelo home. She helped save numerous animals here and hopes others will continue her work.

SHARE Yfat Yossifor/Standard-Times Jennifer McConn takes photos of a female pit bull to help with adoption efforts at the San Angelo Animal Shelter. Yfat Yossifor/Standard-Times Jennifer McConn plays with a female pit bull in a visitation room at the San Angelo Animal Shelter. ABOVE: Jennifer McConn sends photos of a dog she is trying to find a foster home for at the San Angelo Animal Shelter. Photos by Yfat Yossifor/Standard-Times Jennifer McConn, who recently left San Angelo, takes photos of a female pit bull to help with adoption efforts at the city's animal shelter.

Activist: Entire community must work to help pets

By Rashda Khan, rashda.khan@gosanangelo.com / @rashda_SAST

San Angelo recently said goodbye to Jennifer McConn, a community activist who raised $10,000 and helped more than 200 dogs at the local Animal Shelter get adopted. A military spouse, she's moved back to Washington State  where she's originally from  with her family.

"I don't want to see them just get out, I want to see them living the good life," said McConn, who keeps in touch with most of the people who have adopted dogs with her help.

While McConn has always been around dogs, her activism didn't spark until living in San Angelo.

"I grew up with dogs, always had dogs and always loved dogs," she said. "But I didn't get too involved with shelters because I thought it would be just too heartbreaking."

It took her son, Roman, to nudge her in the right direction in 2015. The family visited the local PetSmart, where Critter Shack, a local rescue organization, has animals for adoption, and Roman asked a lot of questions. In the end, he decided to forgo presents for his fourth birthday party and raise money for the animals. He donated about $200 to Critter Shack.

"That was really humbling as a parent, and it made me think," McConn said. "If he's 4 and he can do something, I'm 34  maybe I should be able to do something, too.

"I want to make sure he's proud of me," she said, adding that Roman has been her push to finish her schooling. She got a bachelor's degree in business administration in December.

About the same time in July 2015, the family came across the picture of a shelter dog someone had posted online that reminded them of a deceased pet, Beemer. McConn took it as a sign and went to see the dog. At that time, the kennel area was open to the public.

"I was appalled by what I saw," she said. "All the kennels had (evidence of) diarrhea and reeked to high heaven."

The dog, whom the family adopted and named Luna, was spayed and microchipped. Back then, however, the shelter didn't have a vet on staff, so the McConns couldn't take Luna home until the vet  who visited the shelter during his lunch hour  showed up the next day to give her the required shots.

McConn also had a persuasive paper to write for homework and no idea what she wanted to write about. She ended up writing about the shelter and the issues she had noticed, and also posting online. Before she knew it, she was involved.

"It all happened very fast, " McConn said. "By October, I was neck deep."

That fall, she received a call from shelter officials about the facility being overcrowded. To her, the solution was simple: "Let's get them adopted."

The first adoption event McConn helped with was a reduced-fee $10 adoption event at the end of October. "We had 57 adoptions in one afternoon. We cleared out enough of the kennels that they didn't have to euthanize any."

At the Nov. 3, 2015, City Council meeting, however, Mayor Dwain Morrison took James Flores, who oversees the shelter, to task for the discounted adoption event. Adoption fees at the shelter are $85 for dogs and $50 for cats, which include the cost of the spay or neuter procedure, rabies vaccine, microchip and city registration.

The remainder of council commended Flores for working to improve things at the shelter and for the event. The general consensus was that they would rather see animals adopted than use taxpayer dollars to kill them because the shelter is overcrowded.

Nevertheless, McConn was informed that the city shelter couldn't offer reduced-cost adoptions, so her clear-the-shelter effort would have to help pay the costs for people who want to adopt a dog or cat, she said.

McConn started fundraising efforts in mid-January and in six weeks had about $10,400. Some people donated large amounts, others whatever they could. "We had donations ranging from $5 to $1,300. It all added up fast," she said.

This money and McConn's efforts went toward several other adoption events this year.

In April, City Council recognized McConn for her work. The mayor introduced her by saying, "Jennifer McConn is passionate about animals, particularly homeless dogs and cats. Like many in our community, she is troubled by San Angelo's pet overpopulation problem and the number of unwanted animals dumped at the city's animal shelter. Unlike most, Jennifer did something about it."

It has not always been easy, and the shelter kennels keep filling up time and again.

While the shelter has made many improvements  the biggest being not putting down "adoptable" animals for a couple of months  there's still a long way to go, said McConn, who has now lived in four communities thanks to the military and visited various shelters.

One of her biggest concerns is that the dogs at the shelter live in 5-by-5-foot cinder-block kennels and rarely have outside time.

"I have never been to a shelter that didn't have an indoor or outdoor runs or where the animals didn't have some daily access to outside time," she said.

McConn said dogs at the San Angelo Animal Shelter were worse off than inmates in prison. "It's not because of the treatment, but just because they have nothing," she said, adding that the shelter didn't allow dog beds or toys. "The dogs get food, water, and they're safe, but dogs are social creatures. They're pack animals."

The shelter she visited in Honolulu butted up against a huge dog park. In a conversation, another dog lover mentioned that a Michigan shelter required all dogs there to have mandatory outside time daily.

"If they had a manageable number, maybe that would be possible," McConn said. "But 150 is not a manageable number."

She's adopted out enough dogs and kept in touch with their new families to have noticed a difference when the dog goes from the shelter to a home environment. She recalls one dog, Romeo, in particular. When she first met him, he hid under her chair and refused to look up. "Now (after being adopted), he's so proud of himself," she said. "Some of the dogs are just so broken, but later when you visit them with their families, their eyes are bright and they're so happy. It's nice to see them change."

Because the city is charging income-based spay and neuter fees, McConn would like them to consider income-based redemption fees as well so that owners with limited income can get their dogs back if picked up by shelter staff.

Another issue she wants to see change is penalties directed toward illegal breeders. If a code enforcement officer comes across an illegal breeder trying to sell puppies, the officer can choose to give a person a warning or a ticket and/or fine.

"I don't think there should be a choice," McConn said. "If they violated the ordinance, they should lose their animals and also face a fine. These are people who are ultimately contributing to the problem. The biggest problem we have is overpopulation of animals at the shelter."

She said the spay and neuter ordinance should have been in effect 10 years ago, but she's glad the city has put it into effect now. "Change won't happen overnight," McConn said. "It'll take five to 10 years before we see any improvements."

In the end, she stressed that all of San Angelo has to work for a change to improve the lives of the local pet population.

"The shelter can't fix the problem, the City Council can't fix the problem, and the rescues can't fix the problem by themselves," she said. "We can't have 2 percent of the population trying to fix the problem for the other 98 percent. It going to take the whole community."

McConn said that it has been a learning experience and that she has ended up surprising herself by what she has been able to achieve.

"I want people to realize you can do something  you can make a difference."
In this June 23, 2016 photo, Charlie Hake, owner of We B Smokin in Jefferson City, Mo., reaches for a pack of cigarettes at his store. Hake opposes a pair of proposed Missouri ballot initiatives seeking to raise the state's lowest-in-the-nation cigarette tax. (AP Photo/David A. Lieb)

SHARE In this June 23, 2016 photo, Kenneth Houser sells a carton of cigarettes to a customer at the We B Smokin store in Jefferson City, Mo. A pair of proposed ballot initiatives seek to raise Missouri's lowest-in-the-nation cigarette tax. (AP Photo/David A. Lieb) In this June 23, 2016 photo, Kenneth Houser takes a puff on an electronic cigarette at the We B Smokin store where he works in Jefferson City, Mo. Houser says he has smoked traditional cigarettes since age 13 but is trying to quit, partly because of the potential for prices to rise under a pair of tobacco tax initiatives proposed for the Missouri ballot. (AP Photo/David A. Lieb)

By DAVID A. LIEB, Associated Press

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP)  An entire generation has come of age since the last time Missouri raised its cigarette tax, from 13 cents a pack to 17 cents, in 1993.

Today, it's the lowest tax in the nation. And Missouri is one of just three states  along with North Dakota and California  that has held cigarette taxes flat since the turn of century. In that time, other states have increasingly tapped smokers to fill budget gaps and raise money for services such as health care and education.

That could soon change. Petitions are seeking to put higher cigarette taxes on the fall ballot in all three of those holdout states, as well as Colorado.

Victories by anti-tobacco advocates would add to a surge that has already raised tens of billions of dollars for states while helping drive down the nation's smoking rate, from about a quarter of adults in 1990 to fewer than 17 percent in the most recent surveys.

From 2000 through 2014, states raised their cigarette taxes nearly 120 times, helping generate more than $85 billion of additional revenue, according to an Associated Press analysis of state-by-state figures compiled by the economic consulting firm Orzechowski and Walker, which is funded by the tobacco industry.

More than a dozen additional cigarette tax hikes have been enacted since then. They include July 1 increases that will raise West Virginia's tax to $1.20 a pack and Connecticut's to $3.90, the second highest nationally behind New York's $4.35.

In June, California became only the second state behind Hawaii to raise the legal smoking age from 18 to 21 under a new law that also regulates electronic cigarettes.

Advocates believe the timing is right for people in even the most historically hesitant states to embrace higher tobacco taxes.

"What we've seen is momentum, and I think voters are ready to take the next step," said Mike Roth, a spokesman for the Save Lives California coalition backing the ballot initiative.

Yet even in a society that has increasingly turned against tobacco, the cigarette tax initiatives are no sure thing to pass.

California voters narrowly rejected two previous tobacco tax measures, in 2012 and 2006. Missouri voters did the same to three tobacco tax initiatives over the past 14 years.

Charlie Hake, a nonsmoker who owns the We B Smokin chain of tobacco shops based in Jefferson City, said he opposes the latest proposals.

"I think that our government needs to live within its means, and any tax increase is just simply unnecessary," Hake said.

Two separate initiative petitions have been submitted in Missouri  one seeking a 23-cent-a-pack increase, the other a 60-cent hike.

A petition being circulated in North Dakota would raise the cigarette tax from 44 cents a pack to $2.20. A California initiative seeks a $2 increase to the current 87-cent-a-pack tax. The Colorado proposal would ask voters to raise the cigarette tax by $1.75 a pack to a total of $2.59.

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids estimates that every 10 percent increase in cigarette prices leads to a 4 percent decline in cigarette consumption. It says smaller tax increases often have little effect, because the tax is more easily absorbed into the overall price or offset with discounts.

The potential financial hit from Missouri's proposed tax hikes has already helped persuade We B Smokin clerk Kenneth Houser, 32, to give up the cigarettes that he first started smoking at age 13.

"I've scraped by as it is," Houser explained. "More money out of the pocket, I can't afford."

Even with declining sales, states that have raised cigarette taxes have seen an increase in revenue. But in many states, that revenue surge has diminished over time, and some have failed to realize the windfall predicted.

Tobacco sellers argue that significant tax hikes ultimately drive customers elsewhere.

"People find a way to get these cigarettes via the internet or via counterfeit or via the black market or off the (Native American) reservations at a discounted price," said Mike Rud, president of the North Dakota retail and petroleum marketers associations, which oppose a potential ballot measure.

Supporters of the North Dakota initiative hope to fare better with voters than they did with lawmakers, who defeated higher cigarette taxes last year. In 2008, voters approved an initiative earmarking part of the state's tobacco settlement proceeds toward anti-tobacco programs. Four years later, they banned smoking in most workplaces.

A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found two-thirds of likely voters favor increasing the state's cigarette tax to fund health care.

But pre-election polls also found similar levels of general support for tobacco tax increases in California in 2006 and 2012 before the measures were narrowly defeated.

Opponents led by big tobacco companies outspent supporters 4-to-1 to help turn public opinion against the measures. Supporters had sought a $1 a pack tax hike to fund cancer research in 2012 and a $2.60 increase in 2006 to benefit health care, anti-tobacco efforts and other programs.

The task for tax opponents is to "convince voters that there's some fatal flaw, that it's not doing what they had intended or hoped for it to do, or that there's some reason to question the people who are supporting it," said Mark Baldassare, president and survey director for the institute.

Such strategies already are at work in Missouri, where big tobacco and smaller cigarette manufacturers are squaring off over two potential November ballot proposals.

One initiative would phase in a 60-cent-a-pack tax hike while also imposing a 67-cent-a-pack surcharge on cigarettes from companies that did not participate in a 1998 legal settlement with states. Many of those comparatively smaller companies currently sell lower-priced cigarettes.

The campaign for the tax hike has been largely financed by Reynolds American Inc.  the parent company for Camel, Newport and Pall Mall cigarettes  because it could end the price advantage of smaller companies.

A separate initiative proposing a phased-in 23-cent-a-pack increase is backed by discount cigarette makers and retailers, who hope it will satisfy calls for higher taxes without significantly affecting sales.

If voters approve both initiatives, Missouri's tax would gradually climb to $1 a pack.

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids opposes both measures, asserting they don't go far enough. It would be better to leave the tax unchanged, spokesman John Schachter said, because doing so would "improve the chances of a significant increase in the future."

___

Follow David A. Lieb at: http://twitter.com/DavidALieb .

___

State rankings of cigarette tax rates per pack

The average cigarette tax rate for U.S. states and the District of Columbia will be $1.63 per pack, as of July 1. Cigarette taxes per pack:

1. New York: $4.35

2. Connecticut: $3.90

3. Rhode Island: $3.75

4. Massachusetts: $3.51

5. Hawaii: $3.20

6. Vermont: $3.08

7. Washington: $3.03

8. Minnesota: $3.00

9. New Jersey: $2.70

10. Wisconsin: $2.52

11. District of Columbia: $2.50

12. Alaska: $2

13. Arizona: $2

14. Maine: $2

15. Maryland: $2

16. Michigan: $2

17. Illinois: $1.98

18. Nevada: $1.80

19. New Hampshire: $1.78

20. Montana: $1.70

21. Utah: $1.70

22. New Mexico: $1.66

23. Delaware: $1.60

24. Ohio: $1.60

25. Pennsylvania: $1.60

26. South Dakota: $1.53

27. Texas: $1.41

28. Iowa: $1.36

29. Florida: $1.34

30. Oregon: $1.32

31. Kansas: $1.29

32. West Virginia: $1.20

33. Arkansas: $1.15

34. Louisiana: $1.08

35. Oklahoma: $1.03

36. Indiana: $1

37. California: 87 cents

38. Colorado: 84 cents

39. Mississippi: 68 cents

40. Alabama: 68 cents

41. Nebraska: 64 cents

42. Tennessee: 62 cents

43. Kentucky: 60 cents

44. Wyoming: 60 cents

45. Idaho: 57 cents

46. South Carolina: 57 cents

47. North Carolina: 45 cents

48. North Dakota: 44 cents

49. Georgia: 37 cents

50. Virginia: 30 cents

51. Missouri: 17 cents
Frank Carter, seen with Kat Rowoldt, celebrated Saturday evening as Carter was elected police chief over incumbent Tim Vasquez.

SHARE Photos by Adam Sauceda/Standard-Times Tim Vasquez was surrounded by supporters at Peepsi's BBQ on Saturday as he watched election results come in. He lost his bid for re-election.

By Ngan Ho of the San Angelo Standard-Times

The San Angelo Police Department for the first time in 12 years will be directed by a new chief: Lt. Frank Carter.

In Saturday's runoff election, Carter defeated incumbent Tim Vasquez, who has headed the SAPD for three terms, by a 2-to-1 margin.

Carter garnered 6,769 votes (67.09 percent) and Vasquez received 3,321 (32.91 percent).

Carter's win was foreshadowed by early voting results released shortly after 7 p.m. by the Tom Green County elections office. At that time, Carter had 4,180 votes and Vasquez 2,164 votes.

"I'm very surprised with the results," Vasquez said, "but when you take into account the national atmosphere and people wanting change, it's something that people do."

Vasquez, who has defeated numerous challengers in the past 12 years, said "the national environment of change" may have had an impact on his losing the election this time.

"I've had people tell me, 'You've done a good job, Tim, but it's time for change,'" Vasquez said. "We'll have to see what my opponent is going to do in the next couple of years."

Vasquez said "as far as he knows" he and all his assistant chiefs will retire at the end of the month, after Carter takes office. Carter has the power now to appoint three new assistant chiefs, and none of the current assistant chiefs are on Carter's list, Vasquez said.

"It is what is, and I'm honored to have served the community," Vasquez said, adding, "I just want to say thank you to the community for allowing me to serve 26 years in the department."

Vasquez said his options for the future are "whatever God opens up for me," adding that once someone works a chief there is no taking any other role lower than that in the department.

Several road bumps occurred as Vasquez campaigned to remain chief.

Vasquez held a news conference in late May in the lobby at City Hall and called out Carter for turning down two proposed debates as the runoff election approached. Carter responded in a news release the same day that he would not participate in any more debates with Vasquez.

Additionally, the two candidates for police chief who did not make the runoff election, Mike Hernandez and Jeff Davis, publicly announced their endorsement of Carter shorty after the May 7 election, in which Carter won 33.62 percent of the votes compared to Vasquez's 31.35 percent.

In late April the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, the largest law enforcement union in the state, which also endorsed Carter, published a survey that the organization said was completed by 123 out of 150 sworn SAPD officers who gave low marks for morale and administration at the department.

The survey was conducted this spring and released in the midst of early voting for the May 7 election. Vasquez responded in a letter and voiced his opinion against CLEAT's survey and the organization.

This was Carter's first campaign for police chief.

Carter did not return numerous phone calls and text messages sent by the Standard-Times during the evening after voting results began coming in.
This excerpt from journalist Larry Tyes new book, Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon, to be released Tuesday, recalls Kennedys connection to the celebrated case of a Greensboro man, Junius Scales, in 1962.

As the head of a Justice Department bureaucracy with thirty-two thousand employees and a $400 million budget, Robert F. Kennedy could and did set broadly ambitious goals like attacking organized crime and rooting out political corruption, which reverberated across the worlds of law enforcement and politics. At the same time this attorney general and brother of the president had the capacity to look down as well as up, focusing on the individual stories of people desperate for justice. Junius Scales was one of those small stories that reflected Bobbys tender side.

Born to an affluent family in Greensboro, Scales loved books as much as he hated the Jim Crow system of racial segregation that governed life in the South in 1920. At the young age of sixteen he enrolled at the University of North Carolina, and the day he turned nineteen he joined the Communist Party. Over the next eighteen years he became a local organizer, then chairman of the state party, positions from which he could battle Jim Crow, then the Red-baiting Senator Joe McCarthy.

On the evening of November 18, 1954, the FBI arrested Scales on a quiet street in Memphis, binding him in leg irons and carting him off to stand trial in Greensboro. The charge: violating the Smith Act of 1940, which made it a crime to belong to any group that advocated the violent overthrow of the United States government. The verdict: guilty, which his hometown paper said was what he deserved. After more than six years of new trials and appeals, the Supreme Court upheld his conviction by a five-to-four vote and he began serving a six-year sentence at the Lewisburg Penitentiary in Pennsylvania.

The Smith Act itself seemed un-American, outlawing the advocacy of ideas rather than the commission of misdeeds, and reflecting the anticommunist fever of postwar America. Scaless punishment, in turn, seemed an especially poor fit for his supposed crime. He was the only American ever imprisoned for merely belonging to the Communist Party, as opposed to participating in a violent or subversive activity. His sentence was longer than that of anyone who had been convicted of actual political violence or subversion. By the time he was jailed under the Smith Acts knowing membership provision, he no longer belonged to the Communist Party, having become disillusioned first by the Soviet invasion of Hungary, then by revelations of the murderous crimes of his onetime idol, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

His real crime, the FBI made clear, was refusing to name names of other former or present party members. On the bureaus say-so, Robert Kennedys Justice Department weighed in against a reduction in Scaless sentence. That disappointed but didnt surprise the growing groundswell of Scales supporters, which included the civil libertarian Roger Baldwin, the labor leader David Dubinsky, The New York Times editorial page, and nine of the twelve jurors who had convicted the curly-haired North Carolinian. The only thing that annoyed the attorney general more than the Communist Party was being told what to do by smug liberals or The New York Times.

But Bobby was changing. He had begun to distinguish saying provocative things from actually doing something wrong. He was more open to admitting a mistake. He was also less afraid to break with the unbending J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI director who insisted Scales stay behind bars until he named his ex-comrades.

The New York Timess Anthony Lewis remembers first raising the Scales case with Bobby just when the administration was trying to persuade Southern senators, who were as fervidly anticommunist as they were pro-segregation, to dial back Jim Crow. The attorney general turned on him angrily, saying,  You liberals, you think we can just do anything we want and it will all come out your way. But if we did anything for Junius Scales I can tell you that it would be the death of our civil rights legislation. I said, Okay, okay. You know more about it than I do. 

A month later, at his own birthday party, Bobby took Lewis aside and in an almost shy way, he said, very briefly, Were going to let your friend Scales out of prison. Thats what he was like. It bothered him. All the things he said to me, he was angry because he knew it was wrong, and he didnt think he could do anything about it. But then he thought he would do something about it. And he did.

What he didnt tell Lewis was that in order to get President John F. Kennedy to commute Scaless sentence, he had to buck not just Hoover but three other citadels against the Red Menace: the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and his own Internal Security Division. He also didnt mention that Scales would be let out of jail on December 24, 1962, with a guard on duty yelling to him, We just got a telegram from Bobby Kennedy, and he says we gotta get you home by tonight in plenty of time for Christmas.

The attorney generals turnaround on Scales signaled a man in transition, much as his nation was. Bobby was slowly shedding the Cold War persona of his days working for Joe McCarthy, but he hadnt yet become the liberal icon we remember. He cracked down on Communist Party members who failed to register as agents of the Soviet Union, indicting them and the party. He had a union leader in San Francisco arrested for being a Communist.

Yet he intervened to grant visas to leftists such as the Mexican painter Juan OGorman when he was invited to speak by several American universities. He turned down a request from the shah of Iran, and the U.S. State Department, to ship back to Iran thirty students the shah accused of being Communists. And he hounded from office an obscure bureaucrat named Otto Otepka, who had overseen security vetting at the State Department ever since Senator McCarthy had branded the agency a beehive of American Communists and Soviet spies. Otepka angered the attorney general by leaking classified files to Congress suggesting that the administration was lax in cracking down on subversives, and by refusing to clear appointees whom Bobby trusted but Otto didnt. By the time he was fired in November 1963, Otepka had become a cause celebre for anticommunists. The lesson of the Otepka case is plain, wrote the conservative scribe Frank Kluckhohn. The State Department security against penetration by Communists and against other security risks has been smashed. That smashing, Kluckhohn said, was done at the personal order of Bobby Kennedy.

If those moves alienated his old anti-Red allies, at least some of his liberal critics applauded the changes they were seeing, starting with his pledge to give meaning to the phrase equal justice. I have a strong feeling that the law, especially in criminal cases, favors the rich man over the poor, Bobby said in his first interview after taking office.

Tame language by todays standards but not so then, and not for the head of the Justice Department.
HARTFORD  The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection is warning residents that fire danger levels remain High because of the dry conditions over the past several weeks.

Officials urged those enjoying the holiday to take special care with sparklers, fireworks and other potentially flammable materials.

While some parts of our state had some rain in recent days, the forest fire danger will remain at high or above until we get a good statewide soaking, said DEEP Commissioner Robert Klee. As always, Connecticut residents and visitors alike need to take precautions to prevent forest fires - especially with the forecast calling largely for hot and dry conditions to continue throughout the state over the next few days.

Klee said always limit your campfires to the stone or metal rings provided, and be sure your fire is doused thoroughly when done. He also noted that recent gypsy moth defoliation has left many trees bare, especially in the Southeastern, portion of the state, allowing more sunlight to reach the forest floor and creating drier conditions that contribute to the rapid spread of fires.

The DEEP encourages residents of Connecticut to protect their families and homes from forest fire by:

Making a fire safe zone around your house. Clean flammable vegetation and debris from at least 30 feet around the house and any outbuildings;

Pruning away the lower limbs of evergreens that are within the fire safe zone. Evergreens catch fire easily during dry periods and burn quickly;

Removing any limbs which overhang the roof or chimney

Regularly removing leaves and needles from gutters

Not storing firewood in the fire safe zone

Using fire resistant roofing materials

Making sure firefighters can find and access your home. Mark your house and roads clearly and prune away limbs and trees along your driveway which do not allow fire truck access

Have an escape plan and practice it

Following state and local open burning laws

Staying with outside fires until they are completely safe and dead out

Disposing of wood ashes in a metal bucket, soaking them with water before dumping them.
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You know it's not the most intriguing of weeks, when it's not a product launch that's the best read article of the past few days.

It's the MIUI 8 global announcement that gathered the most hits this week, even though Xiaomi's latest Android overlay had already debuted in China in May alongside the Xiaomi Mi Max.

Android itself got a name for its next version - N stands for Nougat, putting an end to all Nutella speculations.

Of course there was the typical abundance of Galaxy Note7 rumors and leaks. Chipsets, front panel, battery, the lot, but also a redesigned TouchWiz in development for the new generation got demoed on a Note5.

The iPhone 7 and its possible Pro version also got a round of attention, supposedly photographed in the wild. The 3.5mm headphone jack is supposed to be gone with this new generation, though some sources insist it won't be. Either way, one of our editors prepped an opinion piece on the matter, outlining the pros and cons.



Xiaomi announces MIUI 8 globally Comes with a bunch of new features.





iPhone 7 and 7 Pro photographed with camera humps A shot at the iPhone 7's underside shows a second speaker grew in the place of the 3.5mm headphone plug.





Editorial: Headphone jack vs. USB audio. Which is better? Ever since the first rumors that popped up late last year that Apple will be dropping the headphone jack from its next iPhone, the tech world has gone into a tizzy.





ZTE nubia Z11 is official with Snapdragon 820, 6GB of RAM As expected, ZTE has taken the wraps off its newest flagship smartphone today in China.





Note 7 TouchWiz UI beta leaked, complete with core app APKs Samsung's TouchWiz UI will be getting quite the facelift. New visual cues, simplified elements, and blur effects are apparent throughout.





Samsung Galaxy Note7 cases confirm it will have a curved display Just like many past rumors have said, it looks like the Note is going for the edge screen this year.





New Galaxy Note7 leak reveals SD821 and Exynos 8893-powered variants Presumably, the former will be aimed at markets like the US, while the latter will be available in developing regions.





5.5-inch HTC Nexus phone codenamed Marlin has its specs leaked This leak follows the one from last week detailing the smaller upcoming Nexus device codenamed Sailfish.





Android N is Android Nougat, Google reveals The company has unveiled the new name along with the corresponding new statue on its lawn in Mountain View, California.





Apple may be working on a darker color for the iPhone 7 A darker Space Black is available for the Apple Watch, maybe it's coming to the iPhone 7 too.





The Turing phone is apparently still alive First "evaluation" units are expected to ship on July 12.





Google Maps update brings sharper satellite imagery Google Maps satellite imagery has received a major boost in quality. Thanks to the new Landsat 8 satellite, the images are now sharper with better color.





New mysterious Xiaomi "markw" device spotted on Geekbench The handset appears to be powered by a Snapdragon 625 SoC with 3GB of RAM.





Galaxy Note7 will have an iris scanner, leaked front panel shows A couple of newly leaked images claim to depict the front fascia of the upcoming smartphone.





Samsung Galaxy A9 Pro international variant launched The device is currently available for purchase in Malaysia for RM 1,999 or around $500.


By Panos Kotzathanasis | Published on 2016/07/02

Melodrama has always been one of the most popular genres in S. Korea, although, in the last decades, due to the ascent of crime thriller, joseon, romance, and other genres, the category is considered somewhat preterit. "A Family" manages to cover this gap in quality by modernizing the genre and by adding elements of other genres.

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Jeong-eun, a pickpocket who was convicted for an assault with a knife is released from prison after two years and returns to her home, where her father, Joo-suk and her little brother, Jeong-hwan are waiting for her. Joo-suk is an ex-cop who lost one eye and his job years ago, and is currently a fishmonger. His relationship with his daughter was always tense and got even worse after his removal from the police force, which led him to alcoholism and subsequently to violence towards the rest of the family members. Jeong-eun blames him for her mother's death and he rejects her due to her association with crime. However, she decides to stay in the family house for a while, due to her brother, and in order to a give a memorial service to her mother. At the same time, she starts working in a hairdresser's, while she dreams of owning her own one day. Eventually, she decides to pay a visit to her old "comrade", Chang-won, who has become the leader of the local gang while she was in jail. Things then, take a turn for the worse, for both her and her family.

Lee Jeong-cheol pens and directs in his debut, doing a wonderful job in both aspects. He takes the classic form of the melodrama, which is represented by the central concept of the dysfunctional family, and adds modern elements of Korean cinema, as is the gangster action. In contrast, though, to gangster films, he does not focus on action, but rather on the analysis and development of the main characters, with the rest of the film's aspects simply completing their words and actions.

The main axis of the film is the relationship between father and daughter, which is analyzed to the fullest and in very dramatic, but realistic fashion. He ignores her, considering her stubborn and immature as a child, and she considers his behavior cruel and egoistical. Both of them want to get away from each other, but the circumstances do not allow them to and they end up living in a situation filled with misery and lack of understanding. She desperately asks for support from her family and her father constantly misunderstands her behavior.

Equally interesting is the way Jeong-hwan functions in the film, who is presented as someone who does not realize the tension between the two other members of the family, being very young to interpret her frustration and his silence. Despite his innocence though, he also becomes part of the problem, since Jeong-eun wants to protect him from having a similar childhood to hers, and Joo-suk desperately wishes for him to avoid the road his sister has previously taken.

Soo Ae, in the role of Jeong-hwan is the film's biggest asset, despite the fact that she also makes her debut. She is utterly convincing as a young woman who has just been released from prison and is trying to put her life in order among very difficult circumstances. The way she portrays radically different sentiments, being tough and intrepid towards her father, but very tender towards her brother is magnificent. The plethora of awards she won as a newcomer were absolutely justified. Joo Hyun is also very good as a bitter, sick father, and their chemistry is another of the film's assets.

Technically the film is quite suitable to the script, with the cinematography by Yoon Se-yeong portraying realistic images of the poor neighborhood and the editing by Nam Na-yeong managing to embed the flashbacks in the film in a very understandable way. The few action scenes are also quite good, considering the nature of the film.

"A Family" is an elaborate film, which can be easily watched by fans of both action and melodrama.

Review by Panos Kotzathanasis

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"A Family" is directed by Lee Jeong-cheol and features Joo Hyun, Soo Ae, Park Ji-bin, Park Hee-soon and Uhm Tae-woong.

Available on DVD from YESASIA



DVD TH (En Sub)
Published on 2016/07/03 | Source

The government on Sunday said it will consider forging a separate free trade agreement with the U.K. after Britons in a shock referendum Thursday voted to leave the European Union.

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Korea has an FTA deal with the EU that will no longer cover the lucrative U.K. export market once it leaves the EU.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said tariff cuts in bilateral trade with the U.K. will disappear with its exit from the EU and a new trade pact is needed.

The U.K. is on course to ease Brexit over two years of negotiations with the EU, and for that period the terms of the Korea-EU FTA will remain effective.

But if Korea fails to forge a separate FTA within that period it will have to abide by trade rules set by London that could be more stringent than the Korea-EU FTA.

Analysts urged Seoul to get started on separate FTA talks with the U.K.

Korea's exports to the U.K. totaled US$7.39 billion in 2015, a mere 1.4 percent of total outbound shipments. But they could lose competitiveness if China and other rivals forge fresh FTAs first, which could tilt Korea's trade balance with the U.K. from a surplus last year to a deficit.
Published on 2016/07/03 | Source

The average life expectancy of Korean women reached 85.5 years last year, making them the third longest-lived in the world.

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But for Korean men the life expectance only stood at 78.8 and a middling 18th in the world. In terms of combined life expectancy Korea ranked 10th, but the 6.7-year gap between men and women was the biggest in the top 10.

A recent WHO report said women in Japan had the longest life expectancy with 86.8 years, followed by Singapore with 86.1, and Spain and Korea with 85.5. Next came France (85.4), Switzerland (85.3), Australia (84.8) and Italy (84.8).

In 2012, Korean women only had the seventh-longest life expectancy. The average life expectancy of Korean women increased 3.6 years from 2005 to 2014, while in European countries like Sweden and Estonia it rose just 1.2 to 3.5 years.

Swiss men were the longest-lived at 81.3 years, followed by Iceland (81.2), Australia (80.9), Sweden (80.7), Israel (80.6) and Japan (80.5).

Why the big gap between men and women in Korea? For one thing the death rate from cancer is 1.6 times higher than among women. The death rate from lung and stomach cancer among men is 2.8 and 1.8 times higher than among women.

"Cancer has a high correlation with smoking, and the difference reflects the smoking rate among men, the highest in the OECD", said Park Eun-cheol at Yonsei University College of Medicine.

Men's death rate from liver cancer and other liver diseases is three times higher than among women because men tend to exercise far less than women and are growing gradually more obese.

Men also drink and drive more than women, which means more die in traffic accidents, and they are more likely to commit suicide.
Published on 2016/07/03 | Source

Korea's newest no-frills carrier Air Seoul conducted a trial flight between Seoul's Gimpo and Jeju on Tuesday ahead of its official launch next month. Air Seoul is the budget arm of Asiana Airlines and plans to fly regularly between Gimpo and Jeju from around July 11.

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The launch raises the number of budget carriers in Korea to six. Low-cost carriers began operating here in 2006 focusing on short-haul routes. But now many are expanding to mid and long-haul routes.

Their burgeoning business is bad news for overpriced flag carriers Korean Air and Asiana, which posted net losses in the first quarter due to competition from budget carriers and foreign-exchange losses.

"As low-cost carriers expand their flights into mid- and long-range routes, the status quo is collapsing", says Huh Hee-young at Korea Aerospace University said. "We will see intensifying competition between budget and flag carriers over routes, services and prices".

Jin Air, started flights to Honolulu, Hawaii in December last year and will start flying to Cairns, Australia this December. And Jeju Air is starting flights to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia on July 20. Eastar Jet already flies to mid-haul destinations in Southeast Asia such as Siem Reap, Cambodia and Kota Kinabalu.

Some budget carriers have even joined international alliances to secure long-range fliers. Last month, Jeju Air formed the "Value Alliance" with seven other low-cost carriers based in Australia and Singapore.

This trend has given budget airlines carriers a bigger slice of international routes.

According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, Korean Air's and Asiana's shares of international routes in May declined 2.9 percent on-year, while low-cost carriers' share rose 40.4 percent.

Korean Air's share of international flights fell from 51.1 percent to 45.7 percent but budget carriers' soared from 11.1 percent to 17.5 percent. Low-cost carriers have accounted for more than 50 percent of domestic flights since 2014 and their share is still growing.

Their prices are irresistible. The lowest round-trip fare to Guam on budget carriers during the August peak season is W105,000, while tickets cost just W591,400 to Honolulu (US$1=W1,174).

But on big carriers round-trip tickets to Guam and Hawaii cost W470,000 and W1.3 million. That means budget carriers need more airplanes, and they currently have 89, 18 more than late last year.

Korean Air and Asiana have instead bolstered their long-haul flights. Asiana started flights to Rome in July last year, while Korean Air deployed A380 superjumbo jets to San Francisco, New York and London.

But industry watchers say the flag carriers will have to accept their dwindling business.

"The intensifying competition between airlines will benefit passengers", Huh said. "But over the long term, airlines' competitiveness will weaken if their prices are forced down and they cut back on investments in new planes or maintenance".
Published on 2016/07/03 | Source

Nicolas Cage and Alice Kim (left)

Hollywood star Nicolas Cage has been separated from his Korean wife Alice Kim since January, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.

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Cage and Kim met in February 2004 in the Los Angeles restaurant where she was a waitress. The two have a son.

Their marriage fell apart in recent years, and in 2011 Cage was arrested after an altercation with Kim in the streets in New Orleans.

Cage was previously married to actress Patricia Arquette and Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of Elvis Presley.

Divorce proceedings will see the couple's lawyers arguing about Cage's wealth including over a dozen houses around the world, four yachts, an island in the Bahamas, a personal jet, over 20 cars including nine Rolls-Royces, and jewelry and artefacts worth millions of dollars.
Two men, four wings and a dream

Dennis Dunlap and Ken Stubbs flew a 1943 Stearman biplane cross-country and back from June 10 to June 17. [PHOTO BY ASHLEY ELDER]

Landing back home in Hendersonville after a round trip to the Pacific Ocean, vintage airplane pilot Ken Stubbs summed his trip with his good friend and copilot, Dennis Dunlap.

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Between the two of us, we can get it out there and get it back, said Stubbs, who at 73 is the same age as the 1943 open-cockpit Stearman PT-17 biplane the intrepid pilots had just flown on a coast-to-coast round trip.

Stubbs, who attended Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, and Dunlap, who got his pilots license at age 24, left Hendersonville on June 10 and flew east to Johns Island, outside of Charleston. They dipped their toes in the Atlantic before taking off on the cross-country adventure the next morning. Two and a half days later they reached Carlsbad, Calif., where they waded into the Pacific.

We didnt make a flight plan, said Dunlap, a 59-year-old building contractor. We just went as far as we could before we had to get gas.

The two sat down with maps and drew a straight line across the United States. They stopped every two hours to refuel, covering at least three legs a day. They spent the night in Hot Springs, Ark., and Santa Rosa, N.M., before they reached Carlsbad.

The Stearman drew attention everywhere time they landed.

Everybody liked us, Stubbs said. All the old pilots came out at every airport.



Old-fashioned navigation

They used two handheld GPS units, a transponder and a pile of maps.

I carried a map every inch, Dunlap said. Every inch in this case translated to 4,652 miles roundtrip and 50 hours in the air, sometimes at top speed of 160 mph. They flew no higher than 8,500 feet to avoid thermals of hot air across the desert. Even up that high, the turbulence made for a bumpy ride.

One time, if we hadnt had on our seatbelts, I would have gotten thrown out of there, Dunlap said.

One of the most interesting stops the pair made was in Black Rock, Ariz., home to the Zuni Indian tribe. It seemed like the whole town turned out to see the plane.

The airport had no fuel, so they had to get 5 gallons from a local gas station to make it to the next airport.

Powered by a 450-horsepower Pratt & Whitney radial engine, the vintage biplane only used about 930 gallons of fuel and a gallon and a half of oil for the whole trip.

One of the memorable sights was when we flew over the Hoover Dam and down the Colorado River, Stubbs said.

Friends for three decades, the pair spent a night in Vegas on the way back and ended up staying at the Flamingo Hotel.

We stopped at a little oyster bar and ate some of the best seafood Ive ever had. And the cook was the cook for the Blue Angels, Dunlap said.

The Stearman touched down back home around 2 p.m. on June 17, ash still on its wings from wildfires blazing in Arizona and New Mexico.

It was the best flight in a Stearman Ive ever had, Dunlap said. We have stories to tell our grandkids one day.

Dunlaps daughter, Jill Wallen, tracked the flight throughout their journey. She greeted them at the airport upon their return.

Im so proud of him, Wallen said of her dad.
Garage owner charged with pot, making potent THC

The owner of the Grease Monkey Garage at 147A 1st Avenue East in Hendersonville was charged with multiple felony counts after Henderson County sheriff's deputies executed a search warrant at the business on Thursday.

Detectives seized about 19 ounces of marijuana in multiple packages and drug paraphernalia and seized components for a Honey Oil conversion lab. Honey Oil, also known as Butane Hash Oil (BHO), is a very concentrated form of THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, the main active ingredient of marijuana. It is illegally manufactured using a very dangerous process involving releasing butane, a highly flammable gas. There have been numerous reports of explosions, deaths and severe burns across the country from BHO manufacturing.

Business owner Eric Patrick Carter, 38 of Brightwater Heights Drive, was charged with Possession with Intent to Manufacture, Sell or Deliver Schedule VI Controlled Substances, Manufacturing Marijuana, Maintaining A Vehicle, Dwelling Or Place For Controlled Substances and Possession Of Marijuana Paraphernalia. He was released on a $7,000 secured bond. Anyone wishing to report suspicious or criminal activity is encouraged to call the Sheriffs Office at 828-697-4596.

The Sheriffs Office warned that anyone trying to manufacture BHO is not only running the risk of criminal prosecution but also taking their life or the lives of others into their own hands. The danger posed by fire and explosions involving butane extends beyond the clandestine lab itself. It can cause damage and destruction to neighboring properties and residents that may live there. This was the first occasion found by law enforcement of BHO manufacture in Henderson County in recent years.




Huntington, WV (25701)

Today

Some clouds this morning will give way to generally sunny skies for the afternoon. High 61F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Clear early followed by cloudy skies overnight. Low 41F. Winds light and variable.
Dinner will be served at seven.

Youll be ready by then. Hungry, for sure, and eager to sample things youve never eaten, prepared by a cook whose reputation is stellar. Of course, youve had good meals before, but this one is special. And as youll see in Dinner with Edward by Isabel Vincent, good company is half the feast.

One of the last things Paula did before she died was to sing.

Music had been an important connection for her and her husband, Edward, so Paula sang and 24 hours later, she was gone. Knowing hed be bereft, shed made Edward promise that hed go on living but, just in his 90s and without the love of his life, he had no more zest. His daughter worried, so she asked her friend, Isabel, to check in on him.

Isabel Vincent agreed. She needed a distraction from her unhappiness, her failing marriage, and her recent move from Toronto to Manhattan for a new job. She agreed, and found Edward enthusiastic for company. Thus began a wonderful friendship.

He was tall and courtly, an excellent listener, and a careful advisor who spoke eloquently when storytelling, which Edward loved to do. Years before, hed assumed kitchen duties for himself and Paula and as a result, he was a first-rate cook and bartender. Vincent noted Paulas kitchen skills several times a week as she joined him in his home for fine dining and even better conversation.

Through the months, they discussed poetry and history. He regaled her with tales of old New York and theatre life, and his days as a young husband. When she confided in him about her crumbling marriage, he told Vincent about love, and urged her to never stop studying it. He said she needed lipstick, and he took her shopping for a special dress. She cried with him, checked on him, and was sometimes completely surprised by him.

And when Edward took ill, Vincent made sure he knew what he meant to her

I thought long and hard about Dinner with Edward after I finished it. I came to the conclusion that this is not a book for everybody.

Some readers may be thoroughly charmed by this sweet story of a strictly platonic friendship between an older man and a younger woman. Author Isabel Vincent made Edward, in my mind, somewhat of a bon vivant, the kind of man you only see in high-brow French films; indeed, her descriptions of dinner parties and of Edward himself seemed like a delightful 1940s movie.

And yet, I felt sort of squirmy about the books Henry Higgins bit, in which Edward instructed Vincent on being a proper lady. Vincent even says later that Edwards daughter seemed appalled by some of it, and I rather concurred.

I think that this book will take a specific reader to enjoy: one who loves the elegance of a bygone era, in particular, or who can appreciate a May/December friendship. Only if youre that kind of reader will Dinner with Edward serve you well.

Terri Schlichenmeyer lives in Wisconsin with two dogs and 11,000 books.
Hancock-area couple sentenced in huge animal cruelty case

A Hancock-area couple was sentenced Wednesday in an animal cruelty case that led to massive animal rescue operation in Western Maryland in June 2021.
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Japan increasingly figures in three contexts in South Asia today. First, its role in fostering regional cooperation, where it has the potential of emerging as a critical player in regional groupings like SAARC and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), and sub-regional groupings like Bhutan-Bangladesh-India-Nepal (BBIN). Second, its massive support across South Asian countries on a bilateral basis has been avidly watched and recorded. And third, its conspicuous increase in investment in non-traditional ventures like energy could lead to politico-strategic alignments in the near future. In all, these regional partners are the single-most beneficiaries as they gain without being dragged into global security alliances and, more critically, from an effectively quiet yet non-controversial Japanese economic intervention.

In the regional context, Japan, besides being given observer status in SAARC, has been the only nation that has floated a substantive SAARC-Japan fund. Though the SAARC process has not been able to utilise this fund effectively, there is a huge potential for this fund to inspire and work on people-centric projects of non-official SAARC. In the emerging sub-regional blocs like the BBIN, the Japanese imprint is clearly seen both in terms of potential cross-border ventures and initiatives like that of the multilateral development agency Asian Development Bank and United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia-Pacific (UNESCAP), where the Japanese have a deeper influence. The question is how rapidly Japan and India, after the Modi-Abe commitment of 2014, implement the connectivity projects in the North-East region of India, and how robustly reconfigures Japans pivotal role in Indias Act East policy to connect with and make ASEAN, East Asia Summit and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership more diverse, inclusive and a win-win game. Eyes are on the steady relocation of Japanese investment from China to South-East Asia, topped by the expectation that soon South Asia will be another hotbed of Japanese investment. Unlike India and China, the Japanese are never taken in a competitive strategic framework in the South Asian region. Japan has this unique and powerfully evolved core status.

Read: India, Japan say no prosperity possible in South China Sea amid tensions

Bilaterally, during 2010-14 alone, of the Japanese loan disbursements of 7.66 trillion yen in the six countries of South Asia, India constituted the highest share of almost 60%. In the total grant of 1.27 trillion yen Bangladesh took 37%, followed by Pakistan  20.42%. And in the technical assistance of 3.55 trillion yen, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal had almost 22% each. Afghanistan alone since 2001 received a support of $5.79 billion in areas varying from security to health, education to agriculture and energy to infrastructure. The likelihood of realising 3.5 trillion yen public-private investment from Japan in giant Indian next-generation infrastructure like freight and industrial corridors, clean energy, Japan industrial townships and Shinkansens is making South Asia another theatre of action. This, along with Prime Minister Shinzo Abes Proactive Contribution to Peace and Japans commitment to make India a full member in the four international export control regimes including Nuclear Suppliers Group, could make Japan an actor to reckon with in this geography of shallow regionalism.

Read: Japan willing to fund two more road projects in northeast India

These transforming Japanese bilateral projects in South Asia have attracted others to renegotiate their national strategy both in the direction and content of their development assistance and commercial investments. Many believe that the far-reaching $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, launched in 2015, is a sequel to Japans highly successful 1,885-metre Pakistan-Japan Friendship Tunnel, completed in 2003. Besides the soft official development assistance, Japan is everywhere with all the people-centric human security projects. Tsunami reconstruction in Sri Lanka and the Maldives and earthquake rehabilitation in Nepal provided another humanitarian groundswell for Japanese participation. This uninhibited attraction towards Japanese disaster relief and reconstruction will be more conspicuous because this region is witnessing changing characters of disasters and cross-border environmental injuries like the Kosi floods of 2008 in Bihar and the Indus floods in Pakistan in 2010.

Japan has to make up for its relatively late entry and the opportunities it lost in the past. Despite Maruti-Suzuki, the symbol of Japanese innovative people-oriented venture, the Japanese really could not capitalise on its goodwill in such a diverse society and market as in India. Even for India relatively an insignificant venture like sending trained nurses from the North-East region to ever-aging society of Japan could never happen. These nurses could give a tough competition to the Filipinos. This is one way where Prime Minister Narendra Modis idea to bring the North-East region centre stage of the Act East policy could be realised.

Read: Japanese art makes its way to Delhis culture gully

While in Japan the communities affected by the earthquake-Tsunami-nuclear plant melts  in Fukushima and around  debate on the choice of their sustenance between technological heart or a natural soul, Japanese investors and institutions such as JICA are busy constructing state-of-the-art energy projects in South Asia. In Bangladesh, the 1,200 MW Matarbari Ultra Super Critical Coal-Fired Power in the Chittagong division is a path-breaking energy security project. Japan is versatile with its energy security projects, varying from the Greater Colombo Transmission Distribution Loss Reduction Project, Clean Energy by Solar Electricity in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Rural Electrification Project in Bhutan, Umiam Hydropower Station in India, Tanahu Hydropower Project in Nepal, and even Baluchaung Hydropower Plant in Myanmar. No country has this privilege and reach to undertake these projects without an iota of controversy. These changing directions and contents of the grant-loan-investment composition are packed with both soft and commercial orientations. These are inclusively targeted at big and small countries and have inbuilt transparency and accountability and timely delivery. All these take Japan towards being a successful model.

Mahendra P Lama is professor at the School of International Studies, JNU

The views expressed are personal
Isak Chishi Swu was interred on July 2 at his village of Chishilimi, north of Kohima, the capital of Nagaland. Today, the weeklong mourning will formally end for the chairman of the Isak-Muivah faction of National Socialist Council of Nagalim, the largest Naga rebel group, and the largest rebel group in India after Communist Party of India (Maoist).

What happens now to the framework agreement for peace that this rebel organisation signed with the Government of India last August?

Several things, and all were in play even before Swu died in a New Delhi hospital on June 28, aged 87, for all purposes chaperoned by the government, with which NSCN (I-M) fought a bitter war till 1997. A ceasefire took hold that year.

Read: Naga leader Isak Chishi Swu dies in Delhi hospital

It has always been an uneasy ceasefire, and an uneasy year since the framework agreement was signed.

The faction chaired by Swu and his colleague and real power centre, Thuingaleng Muivah  the M in I-M  the Ato-kilonser, or prime minister to Swus Yaruiwo, has continually trained, recruited and rearmed. Its headquarters at Camp Hebron  landmarks of this group that mixes Christianity, socialist ardour, and brute power have biblical references  hosts much of its army and administration, the Government of the Peoples Republic of Nagalim. Its a short drive southwest of Dimapur, Nagalands commercial hub.

Read: Naga accord a framework agreement, Nagalim issue set aside

Flags here proclaim Nagalim: A light-blue background striped with red, yellow and green, and topped by a white six-pointed star of Bethlehem. Clocks proclaim Nagalim Time. Thus far its Indian Standard Time, but Nagalim maps an idealistic geography that includes, besides Naga homelands in Myanmar, all of Nagaland, Naga homelands in vast areas of Manipur, and handsome slices of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. Nagalim remains on the agenda for negotiations.

From here NSCN (I-M) runs a parallel administration from across all Naga areas in India. Personnel intercede in development projects and elections. Such national workers monitor the flow of funds that Naga citizens  even government officials  and businesses operating in Nagaland contribute every month, quarter or year. It makes a mockery of the governments of India and Nagaland, and has co-existed because an uneasy peace with occasional skirmishing is seen as better than war.

Read: Oil block auction may hit Naga accord: Nagaland CM Zeliang

While Swu increasingly focused on prayer, Muivah focused on building and maintaining the organisation, and appointing loyalists to key posts. Its an organisation with an estimated 5,000 armed cadres, with some numbers in camps in Myanmar  preparatory ground in case the framework peace agreement heads south.

Because it could.

NSCN (I-M) is only one faction. There are breakaways of the original NSCN formed in 1980, and several breakaways of the original NSCN (I-M), besides pale shadows of organisations like the once-overarching Naga National Council led by Angami Zapu Phizo. (That iconic leader in various degrees helmed Naga nationalist interests from 1929 till his death in 1990.)

These factions are in various stages of ceasefire and neutrality with government of India, but are not signatories to NSCN (I-M)s August 2015 agreement. Certainly not the K or SS Khaplang faction of NSCN  die-hard enemies of I-M  which broke away from a 14-year ceasefire with the government in March 2015. Based in Myanmar, Khaplang read the wind drifting I-Ms way and opted to secure his base in Myanmar while still foraying into Nagaland. Till it broke ceasefire, NSCN (K) like all other groups maintained camps designated by government of India. All groups attempt to strenuously mirror the command and control structure of NSCN (I-M). Imagine this crossfire of administration.

Read: Nagalands troubled timeline: Naga club to peace accord

While the leaders of all groups, even Khaplang, have eulogised Swu and spoken of the nobility of the Naga cause  including legitimate anger at genocide against the Naga people sanctioned by Indias government  the sobering truth is that there can be no lasting Naga solution without reconciliation among Naga factions. Or, they are neutralised as to be made toothless.

Leaders and cadres of these rebel groups also need to be mainstreamed within the Naga structure variously in politics, administration, some in paramilitaries, others pensioned off or provided seed money to fund businesses, and younger cadres provided retraining or education. A gesture has been made. On June 15, all legislators of Nagaland offered to resign en masse to pave that way.

The dynamics are further complicated by inevitable leadership struggles in all rebel structures. For instance, Muivah is 82. A power play within NSCN (I-M) has been the talk for at least two years. Disarray may provide plum pickings for India, but if a next-gen leader perceives greater power and influence in a state of continuing conflict, he will choose it.

Moreover, Nagalim is more than Naga perspectives. Take Manipur, particularly the perspective of plains-dwelling Meitei (the Nagas, Kukis and other tribes occupy the hills, 90% of the territory). Many Meitei leaders suspect that an ongoing hills-versus-plains stand-off is pure I-M, and underwritten by the Indian government. This feeling is sharpened by the fact that several I-M leaders, including Muivah, are of Naga tribes in Manipur, and could logically look to secure a power base here. This is plausible if seen through the complex lens of tribalism. Muivah is Tangkhul, a tribe with its homeland in Manipurs Ukhrul district. He is seen by many in Nagaland as an outsider. Swu, who was Sema (or Sumi), from ancestral lands in Zunheboto district in Nagaland, provided Muivah a veneer of acceptability that is now somewhat diminished.

Read: Naga peace accord shows arrogance of Modi govt: Sonia

And finally, the framework agreement remains for all practical purposes an inside job between the signatories. The public and other players remain in the dark. In effect, there is little beyond two signatures and stated intentions to move forward. Nagalands future, and that of much of its neighbourhood, depends on this rubble-strewn road where all travelers will need to behave like saints.

Sudeep Chakravarti is the author of several books, including Highway 39: Journeys through a Fractured Land, a commentator on issues related to conflict, a columnist, and consultant to think-tanks

He tweets at @chakraview
After her debut film, Slumdog Millionaire (2008), Freida Pinto worked in international projects such as You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger (2010) and Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (2011), among others. But the Mumbai girl is yet to work in a Bollywood movie. Ask her about the same, and she says, I have never been someone who has divided her work in this industry or that industry. I have never maintained a stance that I will only do this or I will not do that. Because of this, I work in all kinds of productions from across the globe.

But the actor says she doesnt feel she will be suitable for a typical song-and-dance routine in a Hindi film. I have made it clear that I will only do something if Im comfortable with it, and if I know that I can give my 100% to it. I dont like to set myself up for failure. If Im expected to do what Deepika (Padukone; actor) did in a heavy skirt [in Bajirao Mastani; 2015], and I know that people will say, Yeh kya kar rahi hai (what is she doing)?, then why would I do that? I think doing such roles requires a certain talent, which a lot of actresses have. I applaud them for that, says Freida.

Read: Sharmila Tagore, Freida Pinto, Deepa Mehta invited to vote for Oscars

The 31-year-old is also looking at production, and already has three stories that she is considering. I will be producing the stories that I have fallen in love with. But I follow a certain process, which is a bit unconventional. I believe in looking for investors, co-producers and actors from different parts of the world, as I love cultural exchanges. My first three films will be South Asian stories, she says.

Watch: Freida Pinto in a song from Slumdog Millionaire

Last week, the actor travelled to Morocco with the US first lady Michelle Obama, and her daughters, Sasha and Malia, and Hollywood actor Meryl Streep, for an initiative aimed at helping girls obtain quality education. I dont want to be just an actor. I love doing other things that are important. I feel the need to do things for a generation, which is deprived of its dreams. There are 62 million girls in the world who dont have the opportunity to study. Im just using my position to empower people with the best I can offer, says Freida.

Read: Freida Pinto is shooting in Mumbai for the first time since 2011
Remember Kajols younger sister Chutki in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge ?

Yes, we are talking about that cute little kid. (YouTube grab)

Cute Pooja Ruparel, who essayed the role, is now making heads turn in Bollywood with her looks. She was recently seen in Rajat Kapoors film X: Past is Present, which released in 2015.

That's how Chutki from Dilwale Duhaniya Le Jayenge looks now

Some melted hearts with their innocent looks, others wiser-beyond-their years, spouted profound dialogues while others annoyed with over-acting. We take a look at child actors and how they have transformed over the years.

Darsheel Safary

Playing a dyslexic child, Darsheel Safary with his mischievous eyes stole many a heart in Taare Zameen Par. He also swept away several awards and accolades. Having acted in Bum Bum Bole and Zokkomon, Darsheel is almost a forgotten face today. We last saw him as a participant in Jhalak Dikhlaa Jaa and there is buzz he might act in a TV serial. At 17 hes moved behind the lens, learning direction, scripting and editing, making short films for college projects, and studying commerce at HR College in Mumbai..

Hansika Motwani



Her toothless grin, cute looks and impish fringe made Hansika Motwani the obvious choice for cute, little girl roles. With hits like Koi Mil Gaya behind her, she soon grew into a gorgeous babe and Himesh Reshammiya chose to cast her as the heroine in Aap ka Suroor. The wrong debut can ruin it all in Bollywood, as it did for Hansika. She wisely chose to move South and today is a hot number in Tamil and Telugu films.

Shweta Basu Prasad



She shone on the silver screen as an 11-year-old child star in Makdee. A National Award in her kitty and some interesting roles later, she simply vanished. She re-emerged in dubious circumstances when she was arrested by Hyderabad police. A local court later declared her not guilty in a prostitution case. Last heard, the actor was assisting filmmaker Anurag Kashyap in a short film he was making.

Jugal Hansraj



Jugal played Masoom to the hilt with his innocent eyes, touching innumerable hearts. He was one of the most popular childstars, and with his good looks and light eyes he was considered perfect hero material. Ten years later, his debut as hero in Aa Gale Lag Ja flopped miserably. He continued to be visible in multi-starrers for a while and finally chose direction as his forte with Roadside Romeo but then vanished from the public eye.

If you are wondering which black hole the rest of the little shooting stars have fallen into, we bring you the truth

Chubby Master Raju



He melted hearts in Parichay with his large limpid eyes, graduated to character roles in films and was last seen in Hum Aapke Dil Mein Rehte Hain. Raju Shreshtha spends more time working in TV serials.

Baby Guddu



She was the most popular choice in the 70s for kids roles. Baby Guddu (Shahinda Baig) quit Bollywood and is now settled in Dubai.

Junior Mehmood



Nayeem Saiyyad aka Junior Mehmood was the pocket edition of Bollywoods best-known comedian Mehmood! At 8, his ability to mimic Mehmood and his buffoonery created ripples of laughter in every role he played. Today, he directs Marathi films and occasionally plays with an orchestra.

Follow @htshowbiz for more.
NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Saturday accused Delhi Police of downplaying a brawl in Deshbandhu College because of the alleged involvement of BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuris son.

AAP MLA from Laxminagar Nitin Tyagi accused Himanshu Bidhuri of thrashing a student Abhinav, who had to be admitted in a trauma centre. But the police have not registered an FIR because he is the son of a BJP MP.

The accused is son of an MP and there is political pressure on the police, which is the reason no action has been taken, alleged Delhi AAP spokesperson Dilip Pandey.

Bidhuri said his son, an ABVP activist, wasnt even there at the time of the incident. The accusations are baseless and the AAP leaders are desperately trying to mar BJP leaders image, he said.

DCP southeast Mandeep Singh Randhawa said they awaited medical reports.
NEW DELHI: The Delhi government is preparing for another dengue outbreak this year with the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) predicting 106% rainfall this year.

The monsoon arrived in Delhi on Saturday, three days behind schedule.

Last year, Delhi saw its worst dengue outbreak since 2010 even when there was deficient rainfall. This year, with excessive rainfall predicted, we need to be on our toes. The weather will be conducive for mosquito breeding, said Dr SM Raheja, in charge of the Delhi governments dengue control cell.

Since aedes aegypti, the mosquito that transmits dengue, breeds in clean, stagnant water, the dengue cell is planning to break the breeding cycle by promoting a dry day once a week. The mosquito takes 8 to 10 days to mature.

On that day, people will be asked to empty clear stagnant water out of vessels such as the tray under the fridge, pots, feng shui plants, coolers or tumblers. We will ask them to keep these dry for a day. This will prevent mosquitoes from breeding inside homes, said Dr Raheja.

If possible, once a week people should also clear their surroundings of any solid waste, such as cups and tyres, which can hold rainwater.

The government, he said, was not of the view that outbreaks were cyclic because communities became immune. This means fewer cases occur in the years that follow an outbreak.

Dengue is endemic in the region. It will spread whenever there are mosquitogenic conditions. There was an outbreak in 2006, then in 2010, 2013 and 2015. It happened at an interval of three years, two years and a year. There is no cyclical approach here, said Dr Raheja.

The dengue cell is spreading awareness about the prevention of mosquito breeding.

At the moment, we can prevent an outbreak by not letting the aedes aegypti breed. We are informing schools, colleges, offices and resident welfare organisations about the preventive steps that need to be taken, said Dr Raheja.

On Friday, Union Minister of Health JP Nadda reviewed dengue preparedness across India. The Centre has increased surveillance hospitals to 527 and linked them with 15 apex referral labs that have advanced diagnostic facilities.

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NEW DELHI: The admissions under the extra curricular activities (ECA) category in Delhi University will start from July 23, three days after the July 20 deadline when the last list is out, the varsity said on Saturday.

This year the university will come out with five cutoff lists, with the last one to be announced on July 20.

The admission process will be completed by July 22.

After July 22, colleges will notify the number of vacant course-wise and category-wise seats on their website and notice board.

The same information will be available on the Delhi University website www.du.ac.in.

The ECA trials are scheduled to start from July 7 and continue till July 14. The university will release the list of shortlisted candidates on July 14 after which the final trials will be conducted from July 15 to July 18.

The final result will be displayed on the university portal on July 19 after which counselling and verification of original documents will happen at the colleges concerned from July 20 to July 21.

The notification for the first admission list will be out on July 22 and admissions under the list will start from July 23 and will continue till July 25.

Three such lists will be brought out.

If the ECA seats remain vacant after 3rd list, the colleges will notify the same on their website and notice board and proceed as per the previous procedure.

After the approval of admission, the candidate has to log on to the DU undergraduate admission portal to make online fee payment.

This can be done till 12.00 noon of the next day of the given admission list deadline.
FREE STATE OF JONES

Director: Gary Ross

Actors: Matthew McConaughey, Mahershala Ali

Rating:3.5 stars

For his first film since the futuristic fantasy The Hunger Games (2012), writer-director Gary Ross turns to the past to narrate the true story of an insurgency during the US Civil War of the 19th century.

An impoverished Mississippi farmer and former Confederate soldier (McConaughey, impassioned) leads an armed uprising against his former comrades.

Disenchanted with the savage ry of the ongoing conflict, he deserts his post. Rallying struggling White farmers and runaway slaves to his cause, they declare war on Southern soldiers and prosperous cotton plantation owners.

For a brief period, the ragtag biracial community even succeeds in creating their own separate state, independent of both the Union and the Confederacy.

Despite the fractious relationship with his first wife (Keri Russell) and remarriage to a former house slave (British actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw), he remains loyal to both women, who cohabit peacefully.

Director Ross spends too much time (at 140 minutes, the film is unduly lengthy) in establishing subsidiary characters such as a villainous colonel (Thomas Francis Murphy) and an escaped Black freedom fighter (Ali).

The production design evokes the Civil War era of the old South in painstaking detail. But while the battle sequences are appropriately chaotic, they generally fail to translate as exciting drama. Benoit Delhommes striking cinematography and Lucinda Williamss rendition of the dirge, Im crying over the end credits, are highlights.

As if to highlight how injustice for some leads to injustice for all, the narrative frequently fast-forwards 85 years to a miscegenation trial involving the heros great-grandson. Evidently, racial prejudice and social oppression are still a scourge in modern times.

All in all, this little-known chapter of a turbulent epoch in American history is definitely worth a watch.
I met Angel after work at a cafe in Connaught Place. Over a cup of coffee, talks ensued on Delhis sultry weather, our tastes in music and how Raghuram Rajan is undoubtedly Indias hottest RBI governor. I decided the theme of our conversation. After all, I paid Rs 600 an hour.

Angel is a friend I rented on a website devoted just to that  friends for rent.

Underlining a marked shift the way lonely people  especially youngsters  are seeking friendships without any strings attached, several websites providing companions for cash have cropped up in recent times.

Rentafriend.com offers a range of companions who could accompany you for dinner, a movie night or a random get together. There are others such as rentalocalfriend.com and findfriends.com. And then there are Facebook pages devoted to similar activities.

The charges depend on the purpose for hiring the friend. For a casual evening at a coffee shop, the price starts at Rs 600 an hour, and for more, such as a movie date or dinner with parents, costs more.

An initial membership fee of between Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,500 is also charged by some of these portals.

I was expecting to meet someone older, said 27-year-old Angel, who is into garment export. After a few minutes of awkward silence, she started talking about her Nigerian heritage and how she moved to Delhi about five years ago.

It seems like an interesting concept especially for me. I have a few native friends but I want to know the local people. There is definitely great uncertainty but there are also chances of meeting like-minded people. Plus, there are no obligations, said Angel, who lives with her sister at a rented two-room apartment in Malviya Nagar.

Though at first the idea of getting friends online might sound suspicious, but these websites claim to be platforms which are strictly for platonic friendship purposes only.

There are, however, also some which have a wider range of services such as providing lovers but for dates only. We are not a dating website or an escort agency. We provide service for friendly activities only, a representative of rentafriend said in response to an email query from HT.

However, the website mentions that no background checks are carried out on enrolled members, potentially leaving the risk of a meeting gone awry.

Facebook pages such as Meet friends here, Love on hire and BFs of NCR are few pages which offer friends and lovers on an hourly basis. Love on hire has over 25,000 followers.

A 28-year-old who gave his name only as Dey described himself as a superb loving and caring person in one such FB page. Another profile by the name Jaanu claims to be a soft hearted boy who cooperates with all because everyone is special for me as god.

Payal Khuranna (name changed) had listed herself as a friend on a website in 2015 but has become a dormant user because of random requests from men after giving away her phone number during an interaction.

Since there is no filter in these websites, you run the risk of meeting all kinds of people I no longer check in to my profile.

Dr Shobhana Shankar, sociologist, said that this trend among youngsters was a mirror to the growing no baggage relationships.

The youngsters these days do not want to commit easily and such a platform provides them with an option of not having to see the person again after a few meetings. Meeting someone new is also exciting and that thrill is what keeps people engaged, Shankar said.

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DHAKA: Islamist militants armed with sharp weapons slaughtered 20 people, including a young Indian woman, at an upscale cafe in Dhaka before government forces stormed the building to end a 12-hour standoff on Saturday.

The Islamic State (IS) said it was responsible for the attack, but that claim is yet to be confirmed by Dhaka which has in the past denied the presence of the group on its soil.

Hours before the government announced the fatalities, the ISs news agency Amaq said 20 hostages, mostly foreigners, had been killed. It also posted photos of bodies and blood smeared across floors that it said were dead foreigners at the popular Holey Artisan Bakery. Indian and western intelligence agencies told Hindustan Times the attack was carried out by the ISs Bangladeshi module.

Among those killed was Tarishi Jain, 19, whose family moved to Dhaka about 20 years ago, and who was on a break from classes at University of California, Berkeley.

Foreign minister Sushma Swaraj tweeted: Extremely pained to share that the terrorists have killed Tarushi, an Indian girl who was taken hostage in the terror attack in Dhaka, using a different spelling for the victims name.

Another Indian national, a doctor identified only as Satyapal, had a lucky escape after he spoke Bengali and posed as a Bangladeshi, sources said.

Reports quoted survivors as saying the militants told locals to stay out of the way, and hacked and butchered those who couldnt recite from the Quran. One of the attackers cursed a diner for sitting with non-Muslims during Ramzan.

Ali Arsalan, co-owner of the restaurant located in Dhakas diplomatic area, said his staff told him the attackers shouted Allahu Akbar (God is Great) as they stormed the building around 9pm on Friday.

About 7.40am Saturday, Bangladeshi troops stormed the bakery, killing six of the attackers and detaining a seventh.

Nine Italians, seven Japanese nationals and a US national were among the dead. Thirteen hostages were rescued, including one Japanese national and two Sri Lankans.

The attack marks a major escalation in a campaign by militants over the past 18 months that had targeted mostly individuals advocating a secular or liberal lifestyle in majority-Muslim Bangladesh.

Among those dead was the wife of an Italian businessman killed by a machete. She was found by her husband after he spent all night hiding behind a tree outside the cafe while the gunmen were inside, said Agnese Barolo, a friend who lives in Dhaka and spoke to him.

The hostage crisis began when security guards in the Gulshan district of Dhaka, popular with expatriates, noticed several gunmen outside a medical centre, officials said. When the guards approached, the gunmen ran into a building housing the restaurant, packed with people waiting for tables.

Police said the assailants exchanged sporadic gunfire with police outside for several hours.

Prime Minister Sheikh Has in a condemned the attack and vowed to fight the militants.

Anyone who believes in religion cannot do such act, Hasina said in a nationally televised speech. They do not have any religion, their only religion is terrorism.

(With input from agencies)
NEW DELHI: Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia has sought 5% relaxation for students who have passed their Class 12 boards from Delhi and seek admission to colleges funded by the Delhi government.

In a letter to HRD Minister Smriti Irani, Sisodia also suggested that there should be an entrance exam for admissions to Delhi University.

Due to anomalies in the admission process of DU which is based on cutoffs, lakhs of Delhi students suffer as applicants from other state boards have more marks than them. Recently, the scams behind the Gujarat and Bihar board toppers have come to light and because of such practices, students here are suffering, he said in his letter.

Sisodia, who is also Delhis education minister, suggested that an entrance test should replace the cutoffs method for enrolment of students in DU.

This will ensure students from all areas get equal opportunity, he said.

He said that as Delhi government is funding 28 colleges annually, students from the city should be granted a relaxation of 5% while seeking admission to these colleges. He said that 2.5 lakh students pass out from Delhi schools annually and it is unfair if they are not able to get admission in DU colleges.

Delhi government is giving Rs 300 crore annually for 28 DU colleges run by it. So at least in these colleges, Delhi students should get relaxation of five marks from the current session, Sisodia said.
NEW DELHI: A scuffle among a group of drunk teenagers triggered a clash between the Jatav and Valmiki communities in south Delhis Asola village near Fatehpur Beri on Friday. Over a dozen people, including policemen, were injured.

A senior officer said the clash broke at around 7pm on Friday when a group of teenagers from the two communities started fighting over a minor issue, though it is unclear what they were fighting over. Their argument turned into a fight and elders from both communities joined in.

Within minutes, the area turned into a battle ground. Rioters pelted bricks, stones and bottles at each other. They damaged each others properties, said police.

Rioters threw bricks at the local police when they came to control the situation. Two cops suffered minor injuries and a few police vehicles were also damaged. The injured were taken to AIIMS Trauma Centre from where they were discharged after medical attention.

The situation was brought under control by late Friday night, said police.

A case of rioting has been registered at the Fatehpur Beri police station and efforts are on to identify those who actually triggered the issue and turned it into a riot, said a senior police officer. He said the two groups had clashed in the past as well. Police detained over two dozen people from both communities.

Cops deployed in the area to prevent further clashes remained at the spot on Saturday as well. Additionally, CRPF personnel were also deployed on Saturday to help the police.

While police are yet to find out the reason for the clash, residents told police that tension erupted over a recently solemnised inter-caste wedding that was opposed by members of both communities.
NEW DELHI: A gang of cheats, which has allegedly duped over 100 unemployed youths on the pretext of granting them a loan under the Prime Ministers Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP), has been busted.

Two gang members were arrested after a raid was conducted at their Laxmi Nagar office in east Delhi. They ran a fake call centre there, police said on Saturday.

Ravindra Yadav, joint CP (crime), said the alleged mastermind of the racket, Rakesh Bhardwaj, ran a daily newspaper, Saksham Bharat. It is published from Delhi, Dehradun, Varanasi, and Gorakhpur. In Delhi, Bhardwaj owned an office in Laxmi Nagar in the name of Saksham Media.

He ran the newspaper and booked advertisements in one portion of the office. In the other, he ran a fake call centre, said Yadav.

Bhardwaj, who is evading arrest in the cheating cases, has hired two armed personal security officers (PSOs) for his safety. He often overawes the victims with the guards, he said.

Bhisham Singh, DCP (crime), said the arrested persons had been identified as Rajesh Kumar, 31, and Kamal Choudhary, 30. They worked for Bhardwaj.

A few months ago, several youths in Pune and Maharashtra had received messages on their mobiles, which said they were selected for unemployment loan facility scheme launched by the Centre.
NEW DELHI: Tarishi Jain, Faraaz Hossain and Abinta Kabir were friends for long who shared many things in common. They were together in death too.

The three were among the 20 people killed on Friday night at the Holey Artisan Bakery where they came together for one last time. They might have been at the cafe for three hoursmaximum. Then it was all over for the three friends, said an acquaintance of the father of one of the slain youngsters. He did not wish to be identified.

Nineteen-year-old Tarishi  the only Indian killed in the terrorist attack  was on a holiday in Dhaka from the Universityof California, Berkeley, in the US. So were Faraaz and Abinta, both of them Bangladeshi citizens studying at Emory University in Georgia.

Tarishis father Sanjeev Jain is in the garments business and the family has been based in Dhaka for close to two decades. Her family hailed from Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh.

Members of the extended Jain family based in Firozabad described Tarishi as a cheerful girl who was loved by all.

She was a lovely girl and fond of smiling and was loved by the whole family. It is hard to believe that she met such an end, said Rajeev Jain, her fathers brother.

Shashank Singhal, a childhood friend of Sanjeev, remembered Tarishi from her visit five years ago to Firozabad, where even basic amenities are still a luxury.

But Tarishi adjusted well to the city where her father was brought up.

Tarishi studied at American School in Dhaka, where she was known for her badminton skills.

Her Facebook profile said she was a member of the International Students Association at Berkeley.

Her brother Sanchit is studying engineering in Canada.

Photographs posted by her showed her with friends and family, smiling and apparently happy, from past vacations in Switzerland and Turkey.

In a June 24 post last year, Tarishi wished her mother on her birthday. To the most selfless, compassionate, and devoted mother..., she said in a caption under a photograph with her mother. According to her profile, she enrolled at the Berkeley Institute in 2011 and was awarded an internship by the Eastern Bank Limited of Bangladesh this year.

(With inputs from HTC, Agra)

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Delhi Universitys academic calendar is likely to get affected this year with teachers continuing to boycott the evaluation of answer sheets.

While the universitys new academic session will start in two weeks, there is no clarity on the results for the current first and second year batches.

University officials said there cant be any promotions without checking students results. It is a very complicated process and we do not know what will happen. Students can be given conditional promotion but this is also problematic, said a university official, requesting anonymity.

DU teachers have been boycotting evaluation since May 24 to protest the University Grants Commission (UGC) changes to the Academic Performance Indicator (API) the point system which determines their promotion levels. The teachers say the notifications terms would cause around 5,000 ad-hoc teachers to lose their jobs, make promotions difficult and drastically decrease pupil-teacher ratio in higher education.

On Saturday in a meeting, DU vice-chancellor Yogesh K Tyagi asked principals to convince teachers to join the process.

Even if the teachers start evaluating answer sheets, it will take the university at least 30 days to declare results.

Till now we were thinking that the result will be declared soon, but now it is becoming a cause of concern. If the teachers have boycotted the evaluation and admissions, it seems like they will also boycott teaching. It is going to be a great loss for us, said a second year student of Ramjas College. She did not want to be named.

The teachers have also boycotted the DU admission process. Earlier, they refused to check the answer papers of final year students if their demands were not met. But they relented following students representation to the Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA). The final-year result is yet to be declared.

Read more: DU colleges look at non-teaching staff for admission process

The teachers said they understood students concern, but were forced to take these steps to pressure the government into rolling back UGCs changes.

On Monday, the teachers will hold a protest march near ITO demanding the withdrawal of API.

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The Delhi government on Sunday launched Call102, an application that will help city residents hail ambulances, just like app-based taxis, under the Home to Hospital Care scheme.

The app  which will be an extension of the existing ambulance helpline number 102  was launched by Delhi health minister Satyendra Jain on Sunday. The health minister also flagged off 53 new Centralised Accident & Trauma Services (CATS) ambulances during the occasion. Two fire-proof ambulances had mysteriously caught fire and been gutted on Friday.

According to officials, a control room will trace the location of a user using the app and then use GPS to direct the nearest ambulance to their location.

The scheme will use 155 existing CATS ambulances, with another 100 basic life support and 10 advanced life support ambulances being inducted in next one month. The advanced ambulances will be equipped with portable ventilator and defibrillator apart from oxygen delivery system, syringe pump and lifesaving injectables, which will be present in the basic ambulances as well.

The ambulances can be used to transport patients from their home to any hospital, public or private, or from one hospital to the other.

Earlier the ambulances were used to transport only accident victims and women in labour. Now, anyone who needs emergency care can call for the free service. When you call 102, you will get an ambulance. You can take it to whichever hospital you prefer, said Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain.

All the ambulance will also be equipped with a tab, which can be used to upload patient data. All hospital that handle trauma will be provided such tabs and they will be able to receive data about the condition of the patient from the ambulance itself so that they can start treatment immediately, an official said.

Read more: Two new fire-proof ambulances gutted two days before launch in Delhi

A modern control room equipped with cloud storage, caller location identification system, real-time vehicle tracking system and computer aided dispatch of the nearest ambulance, with an emergency doctor, has been put in place.

The health minister urged the people not to dial 102 unless there was a real emergency. The control room received around 2,000 calls since last night. Of them, only 50 were genuine. It is an emergency service, please let it be so, he said.

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Yoga has been steadily netting students and practitioners in the Capital, spurred on by the marking of the discipline with an International Day, it appears.

The four-week foundation course at the Morarji Desai National Institute of Yoga, an autonomous organisation under the AYUSH ministry, attracts 200 participants every month.

Almost 90% of them want to stay on and learn more, said institute director Dr Ishwar Basaraddi. People who once experience the benefits of yoga want to definitely continue it, he said.

Huaz Khas-based yoga instructor Seema Sondhi attributed Yogas rising popularity among Delhiites to the Yoga Day. Although Europeans and Americans were increasingly doing yoga, it was dying in India. We were too focused on modernisation and gymming. The Yoga Day has brought our traditional practice to the forefront, said Sondhi, who has been running classes in Delhi for the past two decades.

She felt the trend is also fuelled by Delhiites becoming more health conscious and open to a holistic approach.

Similarly, the number of applications for a diploma to train as yoga trainers at the Morarji institute has almost tripled.

After the celebration of the first Yoga Day, we got 569 applications. The year before, we got 220. The interesting thing is that doctors, engineers and people from other professions are also choosing to do the course, said Dr Basaraddi.

Read more: Delhi: International Yoga Day attracts first-timers from all walks of life

This year on International Yoga Day, twice as many people turned up at Atre Yoga Studio in south Delhis Shahpur Jat, said instructor Zubin Atre. The people who came for this class stuck on for regular classes, said Atre, also the author of It takes two to Yoga.

After the first International Yoga Day last year, he saw a surge in the number of queries for a 200-hour teacher training course that he runs.

Yoga trainer Preeti Kumari echoes the view. Since June 21 this year, she has been getting 30 calls every day.

There is usually a surge in the number of people enquiring for classes right after the Yoga day, but this year we are seeing that most people who called followed through and joined the class, said the trainer with Nityam Yoga Centre in east Delhis Laxmi Nagar.

The celebration is also making Yoga a mass movement, felt Dr Basaraddi. This year, several organisations volunteered to conduct the event and train people before Yoga Day. People spontaneously joined the celebration across 200-odd locations in the city. People, several times more than what was expected, turned up at the venues where the event was organised by the AYUSH ministry, he said.

Taking a cue from peoples positive response to Yoga, the AYUSH ministry is also trying to make it more accessible by stationing trainers at parks.

Hospitals such as the All India Institute of Medical Institute have also integrated Yoga with their treatment regimen. Yoga classes have been happening at the institute for the last 10 years maybe, but, there is more focus now, said Dr Rima Dada, a professor at the lab for molecular reproduction and genetics at AIIMS. She said they have been studying Yogas impact on ageing, infertility, rheumatoid arthritis and glaucoma for three years now.

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At least 10 people are believed dead after a jeep fell into a gorge as rains continued to lash the hill state of Uttarakhand on Saturday night, taking the death toll from the rains up to 25.

The heavy rainfall from a cloudburst triggered landslides, blocking roadways and burying settlements. Official sources said the jeep fell into a 500m deep gorge when the driver was trying to negotiate a damaged road, killing most on board.

Read | Four things to know about cloud bursts which caused Uttarakhand rains

The district administration received information of the accident only around 5 am on Sunday though it occurred around 11:30 pm the night before. Local villagers from the nearby Khunna village, 180 kms from state headquarters, had already begun rescue operations by the time officials reached the scene.

Police said the jeep was carrying 14 passengers, two of who were injured and rushed to the nearest hospital in Vikasnagar. Two of the others were missing while the remaining passengers are dead.

Read | 15 bodies pulled out in Uttarakhand villages flattened in cloudburst

The rains have wreaked havoc in the state with landslides and swelling rivers sweeping away villages, bringing normal life to a standstill in the past 72 hours. The death toll is expected to rise from the two dozen found so far, especially in Pithoragarh and Chamoli, the worst affected districts.

In many areas, rivers were close to breaching their danger mark by Sunday morning.

The National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Fund, Army, Indo Tibetan Border Police, Sashastra Seema Bal, the state police and the revenue department teams have been pressed into rescue operations though the weather has been hampering it.

Pithoragarh district magistrate, HC Semwal, said rescue teams have been working to open the road connecting Kanalicheena in the Didihat area. Villagers in Dhumakot area say that more than 20 people could still be trapped in the debris of the landslide, Semwal added.

Chief minister Harish Rawat said the state had mobilised relief works and were monitoring the situation. He further announced a compensation of Rs 2 lakh to families of the deceased.

We are using whatever facilities at our disposal to work swiftly and effectively. Choppers are ready, medical teams have been deployed. Long distance communication is a bit of an issue and we have spoken to the Centre for licenses for satellite phone. We have asked for free of cost, free of service charge wireless license, Rawat said.

Meanwhile, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Sunday morning took stock of the situation. As per Surendra Kumar, spokesperson for Rawat, the Congress president expressed satisfaction on the rescue works going on in the state.

When the rains first fell on July 1, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also expressed his solidarity.

I am grieved by the loss of lives caused due to cloudburst and heavy rain in parts of Uttarakhand. Condolences to bereaved families, he tweeted.

Meanwhile, Rishikesh-Badrinath national highway is still blocked at some places.

The Gangotri and Yamunotri national highways have also been disrupted at several places in Uttarakashi district.

The Border Roads Organisation and the Public Works Department have been working on war footing to reopen all three yatra routes.

Stating that incidents of cloudbursts were likely to increase due to climate change, minister of state for environment and forests, Prakash Javadekar said the government is working on plan of action to tackle these natural eventualities. Expressing grief over the loss of lives in Uttarakhand, he added that around 27 research projects have been initiated on the Himalayan mountain range.

Meanwhile, a special Uttarakhand Assembly session slated for July 4-5 has been pushed to later in the month.

(With inputs from agencies)

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Punjab Police will question Delhis AAP lawmaker Naresh Yadav in a case of alleged desecration of the Quran that led to arson in the states Muslim-majority town of Malerkotla on June 24.

Yadav, who represents Mehrauli (South) in the Delhi assembly, was named as the conspirator by the main accused, Vijay Kumar, a Delhi-based businessman, on Saturday, a day before Delhi chief minister and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal was to begin a three-day tour of Punjab.

We will summon AAP MLA Naresh Yadav to question him regarding Malerkotla incident, Sangrur SSP Prithpal Singh Thind said.

Yadav, who has been booked on charges of promoting enmity between two communities, has denied the accusation, saying it was a conspiracy to malign the partys image ahead of the assembly polls.

Punjab goes to the polls next year and AAP is set to make its electoral debut in the border state, positioning itself as the third alternative to the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP combine and the opposition Congress.

Yadav would be brought face to face with Kumar, Thind said. Police also claim to have call records that placed the two men together.

Kumar told mediapersons he tore some pages of the Quran at the behest of Yadav, who is co-incharge of AAPs Punjab affairs.

Yadav lured me into his criminal design to disturb Punjabs communal harmony to help AAP win the state in 2017, Kumar told the media at a Patiala hospital where he was brought for a check-up.

Kumar claimed Yadav offered him big money and he reached Malerkotla after meeting the MLA in the Capital on the morning of June 24. His bio-fertiliser business had collapsed and he was in dire need of money.

Kumar said he knew Yadav for 15 years but denied he was associated with AAP. He was arrested with the father-son duo of Nand Kishore Goldy and Gaurav three days after the alleged desecration. Goldy is a member of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.

Yadav has denied the charges, saying he knew many Vijays and didnt recall the one police are talking about. And as far as call details are concerned, Im in public life and everyday many people call me. It doesnt mean that I know each one of them.

He had come to know of the charges from the media and was open to investigation, said the AAP leader, latest among the string of party lawmakers to fall foul of the law after the outfit swept to power in Delhi in 2014.

A mob set some vehicles on fire and damaged property of the local MLA after some pages of the Quran were found torn outside a cemetery in Malerkotla. Some policemen were among those injured in a clash with the mob.
An alert was sounded along the 856km long border with Bangladesh in view of the terrorist attack in a restaurant in Dhaka late Friday night, a top police official in Agartala said on Sunday.

The official said that as soon as the report of terrorist attack was received, BSF and all other security forces including state police, were alerted so that no unwanted element could cross the border to enter in Indian territory.

Twenty hostages, including 19-year-old Indian woman Tarishi Jain, were hacked to death by terrorists inside the cafe popular with expats in the diplomatic zone before commandos launched an assault killing six attackers and capturing one alive.
A 22-year-old Canadian has been sentenced to 10 months in jail for punching and kicking a Sikh man in a racially motivated attack that had drawn strong condemnation from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Gabriel Royer-Tremblay, 22, was convicted for assaulting Toronto resident Supninder Singh Khehra on a street in Quebec City in March.

Khehra had said at the time that Tremblay and two of his friends shouted and swore at him in French and pointed at his turban, before he was punched in the eye and kicked.

29-year-old Khehra said his turban flew off of his head during the assault.

Police arrived at the scene a short time later and arrested Tremblay and another man, who was later released without charges.

The incident had drawn widespread condemnation in Canada, including from Prime Minister Trudeau, who said at the time that such hateful acts have no place in Canada.

Royer-Tremblay was also convicted of several other offences, including obstructing police and methamphetamine possession.

His lawyer, Benoit Labrecque, told CTV News Toronto that six months of the sentence was for the assault against Khehra, and the other four were tied to the other offences.

Royer-Tremblay was also given two years probation on Thursday. The crown had sought a total jail term of 18 months, while Labrecque argued for a 90-day jail stint served on weekends.

Khehra submitted a victim impact statement to the court that said he no longer feels safe when walking alone on the street, and is coping with a great deal of stress related to the incident.

With credit for pre-trial custody, Royer-Tremblay will spend eight more months in jail.
A complaint was filed on Sunday against the AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi over his statement that he would provide legal help to five city-based persons arrested by NIA on charges of involvement in an alleged IS terror module.

K Karunasagar, a Hyderabad-based advocate, lodged the complaint with Saroonagar police station in Hyderabad, and sought registration of a case.

However, Saroor Nagar police station Inspector S Lingaiah told PTI on Sunday evening, We have received the complaint against the Hyderabad MP. No case has been registered and we are seeking legal advise.

In his complaint, Karunasagar said Owaisi had resorted to betrayal of the country by offering legal aid to the suspected IS operatives who were involved in the terror module.

The stand of Owaisi is giving oxygen to terrorists and he appears to be standing by these extremists. He is directly or indirectly helping the ISIS which has come up with a video in which it threatened to target India, he said.

The lawyer pointed out that the revelations of the arrested youth to carry out terror attacks on police stations, religious places and prominent persons from right wing organisations was shocking. But, Owaisi providing legal aid to these terrorists amounts to treason, promoting terrorism and boosting the moral of anti-nationals, he said.

On Saturday, Anil Kumar Bakshi, a member of UP Bar Council, had filed a petition seeking registration of a case against Owaisi for alleged offences including sedition charge alleged his remarks amounted to treason and promoted terrorism.

Owaisi, addressing the gathering after Iftar prayers on Friday, had announced that his party would provide legal help to the youth arrested by the NIA on charges of involvement in an alleged ISIS terror module. However, the Hyderabad MP asserted his party does not support terrorism.

(With inputs from PTI)
Tarishi Jain, Faraaz Hossain and Abinta Kabir were friends for long who shared many things in common. They were together in death too.

The three were among the 20 people killed on Friday night at the Holey Artisan Bakery where they came together for one last time.

They might have been at the cafe for three hoursmaximum. Then it was all over for the three friends, said an acquaintance of the father of one of the slain youngsters. He did not wish to be identified.

Nineteen-year-old Tarishi  the only Indian killed in the terrorist attack  was on a holiday in Dhaka from the University of California, Berkeley, in the US. So were Faraaz and Abinta, both of them Bangladeshi citizens studying at Emory University in Georgia.

Read | Black Friday for Jains as family awaits Tarishis body

Tarishis father Sanjeev Jain is in the garments business and the family has been based in Dhaka for close to two decades. Her family hailed from Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh.

Members of the extended Jain family based in Firozabad described Tarishi as a cheerful girl who was loved by all.

She was a lovely girl and fond of smiling and was loved by the whole family. It is hard to believe that she met such an end, said Rajeev Jain, her fathers brother.

Shashank Singhal, a childhood friend of Sanjeev, remembered Tarishi from her visit five years ago to Firozabad, where even basic amenities are still a luxury.

But Tarishi adjusted well to the city where her father was brought up.

Tarishi studied at American School in Dhaka, where she was known for her badminton skills.

Her Facebook profile said she was a member of the International Students Association at Berkeley. Her brother Sanchit is studying engineering in Canada.

Read | Dhaka restaurant siege: 20 people, including an Indian, killed in IS attack

Photographs posted by her showed her with friends and family, smiling and apparently happy, from past vacations in Switzerland and Turkey.

In a June 24 post last year, Tarishi wished her mother on her birthday. To the most selfless, compassionate, and devoted mother..., she said in a caption under a photograph with her mother.

According to her profile, she enrolled at the Berkeley institute in 2011 and was awarded an internship by the Eastern Bank Limited of Bangladesh this year.

(With inputs from HTC, Agra)

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Crime Branch officials were left startled when an unusual message flashed on their online help service Crime Watch, which was sent by a farmer seeking their help in tracing his stolen buffalo.

A farmer from Shajapur district sent a message yesterday night on our online help service Crime Watch that his buffalo has been stolen. District police have arrested the thief but the bovine remains untraced, Crime Branch police additional superintendent of police (ASP) Vinayprakash Paul said on Sunday.

The farmer wrote, Saheb, you are a big name, help me to get back my buffalo, the ASP said.

We asked the farmer, whose name is being withheld, to pass on the information, if any, on the place where his buffalo might have been kept, Paul said, they are working with Shajapur police to trace the bovine.

The ASP said Crime Watch linked to WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter was launched in November 2015 to check anti-social activities.

The service has paid off and names of those who pass on information are kept secret, he added.


Aspiring physiotherapists will have to study Indian epics and Hindu scriptures as part of their bachelors programme under a university syllabus prepared by a panel headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modis yoga guru.

The syllabus approved by the Ayush ministry includes epics such Ramayana and Mahabharata, the religious treatise Bhagavad Gita and Narad Bhakti Sutras, a collection of religious discourses by the mythological sage Narada.

The Smriti Irani-led human resource development ministry has also asked the University Grants Commission (UGC) to look into the possibility of giving preference in admission to graduate courses in physiotherapy to students who have requisite expertise in yoga.

The governments move could potentially invite a backlash by critics who accuse the BJP regime at the Centre of trying to saffronise education.

Ever since coming to power in May last year, the BJP-led NDA government has set about what it calls a reform of the education system by focusing on Indias culture and heritage instead of eulogising people which it considers invaders.

The opposition led by the Congress accuses the Modi government of attempting to introduce Hindutva ideology in textbooks and also of vitiating scientific temper by highlighting myths and legends.

The new syllabus has been uploaded on the website of the Ayush ministry, set up by the BJP government to promote ayurveda, yoga, naturopathy, unani, siddha and homeopathy.

Sources said the human resource development ministry and University Grants Commission (UGC) have asked all universities to include the new syllabus prepared by a panel headed by HR Nagendra, Modis yoga guru. The UGC has also asked all universities to include yoga training in the curriculum on physiotherapy from this academic session.

The HRD ministry spokesperson did not respond to HTs calls while a UGC official said they have merely followed the syllabus provided by the Ayush ministry. The template of the syllabus uploaded by Ayush ministry states that first semester students should be taught, Brief to Upanishads and yoga in principal Upanishads, yogic perspective of epics; Ramayana, Adhyatma Ramayana and Mahabharata; yogic perspective: Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Vasishtha, Narada Bhakti Sutras.

UGC wrote to all central universities in May stating that the syllabus should be incorporated in their existing physiotherapy courses run by them and their affiliated colleges.

The move has already started generating political heat.

@Smritiirani changes syllabus of physiotherapy and ads yoga as a subject and non medical contents which has no relation with medical science, Jitendra Awhad, an NCP MLA wrote on Twitter.

Syllabus includes Narad Bhakti Sutras, Puranas, Concept of ishvar.. Ramayana/Mahabharata .. Its a joke not a remedy. Can all this cure any remedy? he said in another tweet.

The HRD ministry set up the yoga committee in January following a consultative meeting chaired by Irani. The committee had suggested that six courses at various levels  including certificate, diploma, degree, post-graduate degree/diploma and research  be launched at all central universities.

Noting that varsities currently slot yoga under various disciplines such as sports, philosophy and education, it also recommended that a separate faculty  called yogic art and science  be created for it.

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The Assam government served eviction notice in 1994 to settlers occupying 22,905 acres of public land in Sipajhar, about 50km northeast of Guwahati.

The settlers, alleged Bangladeshi immigrants, stayed put. And in more than two decades, 32 government schools, three health centres and toilets under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan came up in the area.

A similar story unfolded in Hatimuria, about 40km east of Guwahati, with more than 300 houses added to the area in the past two years. The settlers were provided solar lights that neighbours belonging to indigenous groups were allegedly denied.

These are just two of many such examples, said Prabrajan Virodhi Manch (PVM), a group of legal experts monitoring illegal immigration in Assam, an emotive issue in a state where local animosity against illegal Bangladeshi immigrants runs deep.

Many in Assam believe the indigenous communities would be wiped out by Bangladesh-origin people who account for the bulk of the states 34% Muslims. This fear triggered the anti-foreigner Assam agitation from 1979-1985.

Government records say that non-Indians and non-citizens were ordered on May 9, 1994, to vacate 77,420 bighas (22,905 acres) in Sipajhar. But as their number grew to yield at least 25,000 voters, the government extended all facilities. Despite pending cases, authorities are now proceeding with electrification of 1,500 Indira Awas Yojana houses there, Upamanyu Hazarika, convenor of PVM, told Hindustan Times.

More than 300 households were added, solar electricity provided and encroachment upon land provided for a cremation ground in Hatimuria by June 2016. (HT Photo )

The Supreme Court had in 2015 entrusted Hazarika with surveying the India-Bangladesh border in Assam and submit a report. In October that year, his report suggested creation of a sterile zone to check influx through unfenced water masses along the border.

Expecting action from the new BJP-led alliance government in Assam, Hazarika said the administration has powers to evict encroachers under section 165 of the Assam Land Revenue Regulation.

About 3,000 bighas in the Sipajhar area encroached upon is grazing reserve, where law does not allow settlement. But no government lawyer has appeared in 19 hearings till date, he said.

PVM members in Darrang district, where Sipajhar is situated, said the deputy commissioner on December 5, 2015, promised to clear the encroached land by February 15 this year. But the decision to provide electricity to the area under a rural electrification scheme was taken soon after.

The Morigaon district superintendent of police on June 27 assured eviction from Hatimuria within 15 days.

We are working on the complaints and checking where the encroachers have come from. But it cannot be said for sure they are Bangladeshis or illegal foreigners, a Morigaon district official said, not wishing to be named.

The Bangladeshi issue has often polarised voters in Assam. The issue helped BJP and its regional allies win this years assembly election and end 15 years of rule by the allegedly pro-Bangladeshi Congress.

Last year, Tarun Gogois Congress government decided to update the National Register of Citizens, 1951, to counter this allegation.

The updating process is nearing completion with several cases of submission of fake documents having been unearthed from Muslim-dominated districts such as Barpeta and Dhubri.

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A college student allegedly hacked an 18-year-old young woman to death on Saturday afternoon in a busy street in Telanganas Adilabad district after stalking her for months as she rejected his offer of marriage, police said.

The incident comes days after an Infosys techie S Swathi was murdered in a busy Chennai neighbourhood allegedly by a man who was infatuated with her.

Authorities in Bhainsa town said 21-year M Mahesh, a first-year degree college student was pressurizing his neighbour Sandhya to marry him for months but she rejected his overtures repeatedly.

A few days ago, Sandhyas mother Saroja, a widow and a beedi worker  fixed her marriage with another man but Mahesh scuttled the match, police said.

Saroja complained to the police, who summoned Mahesh and warned him against harassing the woman.

A resentful Mahesh developed a grouse against Sandhya, who was out for grocery shopping when he allegedly attacked her and slit her throat in full public view, police said.

Before they could stop him, he ran away. Sandhya died on the spot, Bhainsa deputy superintendent of police Ande Ramulu said.

Police registered a murder case against Mahesh and are looking for him.

Read | Chennai techie murder: Prime suspect attempts suicide during arrest

Read | Living under the gaze: How to recognise, and survive, a stalker
Pakistans advisor to the Prime Minister on foreign affairs, Sartaj Aziz has said that the strengthening US-India relations were not a matter of concern for Islamabad, as long as the co-operation between the two did not increase the strategic and conventional gap between the nuclear-armed rivals of the subcontinent.

Aziz said in an interview that the United States has constantly assured Pakistan that both countries were of equal importance to them.

I think US has itself emphasised number of times that our relations with India are not at the cost of Pakistan; both are important for us. India is important in the south Asian and East Asian context, whereas Pakistan is important in west Asia and central Asian context. We are one of the largest Islamic, democratic country, and we have a role vis a vis Afghanistan and in this region, Aziz said.

Aziz also stated that the United States is an independent country and in terms of economic and other relations it can go ahead with India as it desires and as its national interests require.

Aziz asserted that there is only one dimension which they have been emphasising and that is that their co-operation with India should not increase the gap, the strategic and conventional military gap, between India and Pakistan.

If that happens, then of course we have to respond. So the objective of strategic stability should be kept in view in whatever co-operation they extend, and they have acknowledged that these are legitimate concerns because they dont want an arms race - a nuclear arms race - in the subcontinent. So thats the only dimension on which we are concerned. Otherwise, the US and India relationship are not a matter of concern, he added.

However, he said that Pakistan would not compromise on adequate deterrence, so the United States must persuade India not to expand its nuclear power.

When they (India) started the Cold Start doctrine in which they moved 10 cantonments close to the Pakistan border so they can act on our forces at short notice and from across the border, the tactical nuclear weapons were a response to that particular threat. So - the independent variable in this case is India. We are the dependent variable, he said.

He further stated that if the US has to persuade Pakistan to respond in a positive way, they have to persuade India not to expand its nuclear and initiate the dialogue to reduce tensions and resolve disputes.

But Pakistan has of course clarified that the decision: what is adequate deterrent, how to protect our security, this is our own national sovereign right. This we cannot share with anyone, Aziz said.

It should be noted that the US and many other Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) member countries have supported Indias inclusion based on its non-proliferation track record.

The US, however, did not subsidize the sale of eight F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan.
BRICS nations will chalk out a plan for enhancing cooperation in energy efficiency when they meet at Visakhapatnam for a two-day deliberation starting from Monday.

India, a member of BRICS, will also showcase its efforts in energy saving, energy efficiency, particularly the LED street lighting programme and PAT (Performance Achievement & Trade) programme for industrial energy efficiency.

The first meeting of the BRICS Working Group on Energy Saving and Energy Efficiency will be held during July 4-5, 2016. Participation from all BRICS countries, viz., Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa has been confirmed, a statement from power ministry said.

According to the statement, during the deliberations, the BRICS countries will make presentations on measures taken by them in the field of energy saving and energy efficiency.

The Working Group on Energy Saving & Energy Efficiency will deliberate on a plan on development of cooperation in energy saving and energy efficiency within BRICS, it said.

India has assumed the BRICS chair for 2016 and will accordingly shape and steer the BRICS agenda.

Consequently, the power ministry will host the meeting of the Working Group and will also showcase energy saving initiatives in the country.

On November 20, 2015, BRICS energy ministers signed a Memorandum of Mutual Understanding in energy saving and energy efficiency in Moscow.

They agreed to pursue their energy cooperation through joint research and technology projects; technology transfer; conferences, lectures and seminars; and exchange of experience and best practices.
A phone call from the police on Saturday changed their lives in a second.

The family of Bhawan Das  a 60-year-old rickshaw trolley puller  was barely out of bed in the morning when the phone rang. Das was informed that his only son, 31-year-old Jethanand, had been mowed down by a BMW car that was driven errantly by an MLAs son the previous night.

Jethanand was unmarried, and used to work as a salesman at a readymade garments shop in Badi Chaupar, said Inder Kumar, his brother-in-law. He was working late that day because the shop had delayed the closing time on account of Eid.

Jethanands employer had called his phone that night to ensure that he had reached home safe, only to speak to a policeman on the other end. This was how Jethanands body was identified.

A police official interacts with a relative of Jethanand at Ashok Nagar police station.

For the family of another victim, 45-year-old Vishnu Lekhwani, they remained unaware of his death until much later on Saturday. His relatives had to make enquiries at various police stations and hospitals before finding him.

Lekhwanis nephew, Harish Kumar visited hospitals and police stations looking for him. When they yielded nothing, he then turned to mortuaries. He began looking after his aunt called up in the morning saying Lekhwani had not returned the previous night and wasnt answering any calls either.

Enraged at the incident, Kumar demanded that the culprit be prosecuted.

He had three sisters but no brother. His family is ruined. I demand strict action against the MLAs son, he Kumar.

The third victim  the autorickshaw driver  was identified as Kailash, but police were yet to contact his family.

The accident took place on late on Friday night when a BMW car rammed into an auto and a police van near St Xaviers school. Aside from the three deaths, four police personnel were injured, including an assistant sub-inspector (ASI) who is being treated at Sawai Man Singh hospital.

In his statement to the police, the ASI alleged that the car was being driven at a speed of over 120-km per hour.

I was sitting on the front seat of the PCR van along with the driver. First we heard an earsplitting crash and even before we could realise that a BMW had crashed into the autorickshaw, the car hit our van from the rear.

The police officer had hit his head on the dashboard from the impact, aside from injuring his elbow. The remaining personnel in the van also sustained injuries.

Due to the initial shock it took us some time to understand what had happened. Apparently, the BMW had lost control after ramming into the autorickshaw. I am sure that Siddharth, 20, was driving the car. I saw him behind the wheel, he said.

Siddharth Mahariya, the son of independent MLA Nandkishore Mahariya, is being held by police for the accident. It is believed that he was driving the car and was under the influence. Police also said the 20-year-old had failed a breath analyser test.

However, Nandkishore has countered the polices version of events, claiming a driver was handling the car and had fled after the accident.

Maharia also said that the auto had collided with the car but CCTV footage shows the car hitting the auto.

Read | Jaipur: MLAs son arrested after his BMW rams into auto; three killed
A high alert has been sounded on the Indo-Bangla border in the five states of West Bengal, Tripura, Meghalaya, Assama and Mizoram in the wake of the terror attack in Dhaka.

Security agencies across Kolkata have stepped up security in the wake of Fridays terror attack in neighbouring Bangladesh that left 20 dead.

The National Investigative Agency (NIA), CID and state police officers have jointly decided to increase the security of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen (Bangladesh) (JMB) members who are currently housed in jail in connection with the 2014 Khagragarh blast.

There are fears that the jailed members may have connections with Islamic State (IS) elements, who can try to snatch them up when they are produced in court.

Read: Bangladesh blames Paks ISI, homegrown militants for Dhaka terror attack

Security in establishments such as shopping malls and restaurants in Kolkata has been beefed up while vehicles at airports, railway stations and bus terminals have been put under special surveillance. The police have also been checking all traffic coming into the city.

Kolkata police have ordered the traffic department to maintain all CCTV cameras in perfect working condition.

The police in both coastal and border areas of the state have been asked up intensify surveillance and patrolling.

Keeping in mind of Eid festival, the maximum number of BSF personnel and officers have already been posted on the border area. Apart from this, we have also stepped up our intelligence system and are in regular touch with the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and the state police, said Sandeep Salunke, inspector general, BSF, South Bengal Frontier.

The Indo-Bangladesh border area is one of the highest densely populated areas on the border in the world, he added.

Read: Dhaka cafe attackers photos out, minister says they are from rich families

Terrorists have, in the past, used the state as a safe haven for hideouts and transit, and the most glaring example was the NIAs findings in the Khagragarh explosion of 2014.

In the charge sheet in submitted last September, the NIA described how JMB members set up extensive network in at least four districts of Bengal and made IEDs to try and overthrow the government of Bangladesh. The members conducted training in firearms and explosives, making IEDs, radicalisation programmes and organisational meetings, the agency said.
Patriotic fervour has taken over Delhiites already. In the run up to August 15, a city-based NGO Nehru Singh Bal (NBS), has opened entries for various competitions, which it organises every August as part of the festival Jashn-e-Azadi.

Youngsters aged between 14 to 19 can participate in competitions such as on-the-spot painting, chorus singing and music band/orchestra competition. Independence Day is truly a national festival, which needs to be celebrated by each and every Indian, says Ashok Sahota, president, NBS.

He says that the purpose of organising this festival is to make people aware that August 15 is much more than just a holiday. Its a day to rejoice and we should celebrate it like any other festival, rather than just enjoying it as an off.

Read: Delhis oldest Bengali Club is back in action!

In its fourth edition, the festival will add patriotic fervour to the city dwellers lives through a two-week long extravaganza, from August 2 to 15. We will also have flash mobs at various places in the city, informs Sahota adding that the focus is on youngsters because if they understand and engage in the celebrations around Independence Day, then others will follow too.

Read: Govt plans to celebrate patriotism, diversity ahead of Independence Day

While the painting competition will be themed on portraits of freedom fighters or incidents of freedom struggle, the band competition will feature around 20 music groups battle it out for attractive cash prizes.

This year, South Korea is a partner and will showcase its rich culture, during the event. Those interested in participating, can send in their details to nehrubalsangh2016@gmail.com.

A scene from a patriotic play that was staged in 2015.

Competitions:

1. Quizzes/Screening of Video Films, August 2  8, Various schools and colleges

2. Conceptualised and choreographed audio video dance, August 9, Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium

3. Painting Competition, August 10

4. Dance competition based on patriotic songs, August 11, India Islamic Cultural Centre, Lodhi Road

5. Chorus singing competition, August 12, India Islamic Cultural Centre, Lodhi Road

6. Orchestra Competition, August 13

7. Dance competition, August 14 and 15, Cyber City, Gurgaon and Central Park, Connaught Place

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MUMBAI: Heavy rains lashed the city for a second consecutive day on Saturday bringing Mumbai to a standstill with traffic congestion and waterlogging reported from various locations.

Weather men said that the Konkan coast including Mumbai can expect heavy to very heavy rain on Sunday and Monday.

Between 8.30am to 8.30pm on Saturday, the Santacruz weather station recorded 86mm rain and Colaba recorded 36.2mm. Under the IMDs new classification, 15.6mm to 64.4mm of rain is moderate, 64.5mm to 115.5mm is heavy, 115.6mm to 204.4mm is  very heavy and more t han 204.5mm is extreme.

Over the last 24 hours, between 8.30am Friday and 8.30am Saturday, Santacruz and Colaba recorded 77mm and 60.8mm rain. At 77mm, private weather-forecasting agency, Skymet ranked Mumbai as the tenth wettest city in the last 24 hours across the central and southern parts of the country.

Six of the top ten wettest cities have been identified from Maharashtra with Harnai, Raigad district recording the maximum rain at 251.2mm followed by cities like Mahabaleshwar, Vengurla, Dahanu and Ratnagiri, said GP Sharma, vice-president, meteorology, Skymet.

A strong low pressure area over the Bay of Bengal has allowed winds to pick up speed over the western coast and has intensified a deep offshore trough extending from south Gujarat to Kerala. This will result in widespread rain for the Konkan coast, which means 76-100% rain at most weather stations in t he area, said an official from the Regional Meteorological Centre, Mumbai of the India Meteorological Department.

On Saturday, the maximum temperature at Santacruz was 27.2 degrees Celsius, 3 degree Celsius below nor mal and Colaba recorded 28 degrees Celsius, 2 degree Celsius below normal. However, minimum temperatures were recorded closer to normal levels.

Moisture levels were high as Santacruz and Colaba recorded 95% and 92% humidity.
NEW DELHI: The first squadron of the Indian Air Forces light combat aircraft (LCA) took flight on Friday morning. However, getting the two Tejas fighters in the air was a long, three-decade journey plagued with multiple problems.

The project was sanctioned in 1983 as a replacement for the Soviet-origin MiG-21 fleet. However, the Indian Air Forces ( IAFs) plan to get the indigenous war planes airborne in 1994 missed several deadlines due to various factors. The failure to build an engine indigenous ly was one of them, leading to a domino effect of delays.

Over a third of the components used in Tejas, including the current American-built engines, are imported. Sanctions imposed by the US after India conducted nuclear tests in 1998 nearly brought the project to a halt for it cut off access to certain imported technologies.

In an interview in 2013, VK Sara swat, then director general of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), said the sanctions pushed the development back by over two decades .All suppliers cancelled their agreements and European firms also stopped cooperation. When such a situation occurred, we had to do everything ourselves. This was a major setback, Saraswat said.

This situation continued from 1980 till 2000 when the first aircraft was rolled out. Time was taken to also overcome the blocks created by Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). India became a member of the MTCR only this week.

The sanctions led to key design changes and a further delay in setting up production facilities which, according to the DRDO, had to create components from scratch.

The deadline stretched further with the Air headquarters involving itself in the project only in 2006, five years after the LCAs first test flight. The longer it took, the more expensive the project became. Initially green-lit at a cost of Rs 560 crore, the development cost of the fighter stood at Rs 13,390 crore last year.

A 2015 report by the Comptroller and Auditor General revealed the delay set the I AF back by more than Rs 20,000 crore as it had to spend on temporary measures such as upgrading its existing war planes. It also revealed Tejas was riddled with 53 significant shortfalls that could compromise its survival in combat. Fixing deficiencies in the limited series meant more time .The delay upset our calculations but raising of the L CA squadron is significant for IAF. We do not have adequate number of fighter squadrons and Tejasw ill help address that to some degree, said an IAF officer. With this weeks induction, IAFs 45 Squadron, also known as Flying Daggers, has been resurrected.
The block development officer (BDO) of Buarijore in Godda district on Saturday lodged a complaint at the first class judicial magistrate s court against Jharkhand BJP chief Tala Marandi, his son Munna Marandi and one Bhagan Baskey in connection with Munna s alleged marriage to a minor.

Munna was said to have married Baskeys daughter on June 27 this year.

BDO Vijay Prakash Marandi, appointed by the Godda deputy commissioner as the child marriage prohibition officer, urged the Godda court to take cognisance of the offences under Sections 9, 10 and 11 of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act-2006. The BDO lodged the complaint on the basis of statements obtained from five witnesses, legal opinion of the public prosecutor, and the school records of Baskeys minor daughter  which mentions her date of birth as July 25, 2005.

Read | Jharkhand BJP chief, son may be arrested over sons marriage to minor

Godda deputy commissioner Rahul Kumar Sharma had constituted a three-member committee headed by the BDO on Friday to probe the alleged child marriage.

Munna had tied the knot with a Class 6 student, reportedly aged 11 years. The matter came to light when a 19-year-old woman alleged before the State Womens Commission that he had ditched her to marry a minor. The complainant alleged that Munna had been sexually exploiting her for over two years.

Munna was originally slated to be married off to another woman. However, when his former lover caught wind of this, she filed rape charges against him at a local police station. The family of Munnas would-be bride backtracked at the last minute when they heard about this. Fearing social disgrace, Tala Marandi reportedly solemnised Munnas marriage with the minor on June 27.

Taking suo motto cognizance of media reports, the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights on Friday wrote to the Godda district commissioner  asking him to probe the matter and invoke the Child Marriage Act against the accused family. The commission gave the Godda administration three days time to respond with details of the action taken. Because of the media, at least things are moving now, said Godda district Congress president Deepika Pandey.

Pandey said a team would soon meet Baskey and his wife to determine the reasons that compelled them to marry her off to Munna when they still had two older yet unmarried daughters. She was the third among four sisters, the district Congress president added.

Local villagers told HT on the condition of anonymity that soon after his marriage was called off, Tala paid a visit to Baskeys residence and picked the minor as his future daughter-in-law.
NEW DELHI: Finance minister Arun Jaitley is the first and only minister in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government so far to make public the details of his personal assets and liabilities this year.

Jaitleys financial statement, uploaded on the website of the Prime Ministers Office, shows a decline of 8.9%  from Rs 67.01 crore to Rs 60.99 crore  in the value of assets as compared to the last financial year.

The value of jewellery has gone up by Rs 9.9 lakh, but his bank balance reduced from Rs 3.52 crore in FY 2014-15 to Rs 1 crore in FY 2015-16.

Jaitley owns four instead of five cars, and has less money in bank and hand.

In a bid to maintain transparency in public life, Union ministers are required to submit the annual declaration of their assets and liabilities, as well as those of their wife and dependents.

For the last financial year, however, the asset declaration of 13 ministers, including home minister Rajnath Singh and women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi, was not available on the PMO website.

Some of the other ministers whose declarations were not available were Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Babul Supriyo, Rajiv Pratap Rudy and Sarbananda Sonowal, who recently took charge as the chief minister of Assam.

A quick look at Jaitleys declaration shows that he owns six properties across Delhi, Haryana, Gujarat and Punjab. All are jointly held and five of them have his wife, Sangeeta Jaitley, as co-owner.

The finance minister has no investment in mutual funds or any other market instruments. He has company deposits of Rs 16 crore in Empro Oils and DCM Shriram Consolidated.

Jaitley owns two Mercedes, one Toyota Fortuner and a Honda Accord. In the last financial year, he also had a BMW. All his cars have registration numbers ending with 6666. He has three savings accounts with HDFC Bank and one with the State Bank of India.
DHUMAIL/BALTAL: At dawn on Saturday, thousands of pilgrims began their journey to the holy Amarnath shrine in south Kashmir from the Baltal base camp, some 120km from Srinagar.

Its my 18th Yatra and all I will ask Bhole Baba once I reach the cave is to bless all humanity, said Satpal Verma, 53, from Rajasthan, as he began the trek with a walking stick.

The 48-day pilgrimage to the holy shrine, located at an altitude of more than 3,880 metres, through the two routes of Baltal and Pahalgam is expected to be taken by about 400,000 visitors. Inside the cave, a natural ice formation is considered the Shiva Lingam by Hindus.

As cold winds swept the camp, pilgrims began their 16km trek on foot, horses and palkis, chanting Bum Bum Bholey amid a massive security set-up comprising personnel from the state police, army, CRPF and BSF.

Since Friday evening, the scene at the Baltal base camp was that of exuberance  with tents put up for lodging the pilgrims by various religious bodies, multicoloured lights and devotional songs blaring out of loudspeakers.

Hundreds of pilgrims crossed the arduous security checks to enter the camp and the langars put up in a large tent adorned with posters of Shiva serving vegetarian meals.

The security arrangement for the annual pilgrimage became a major concern this year following a series of militant attacks in Kashmir in the last few weeks, including a major one on a CRPF convoy in Pampore.

Late on Friday night, a CRPF camp was attacked by militants, leaving three personnel injured, hours after Union home minister Rajnath Singh reviewed the security arrangements for the Yatra.

Sources said more than 12,500 central paramilitary personnel and 8,000 state police officers were being deployed.

But pilgrims who spoke to HT said although they were aware of the spike in attacks in the Valley, they were not scared because of their faith.

We are not scared. For whom we have come this far, will protect us no matter what. The heart says, He is there. We want to come again and again, said Atul Dhir, a clothes trader from Ludhiana, who is on his second pilgrimage.

Some pilgrims also said the presence of a large number of troopers and personnel was reassuring.

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MUMBAI: Vijay Mallyas Kingfisher House is set to be auctioned again as bankers cut the reserve price by 10% to Rs 135 crore to auction the debt-laden Kingfisher Airlines headquarters on August 4.

Defunct since three years, Kingfisher Airlines now owes banks dues of Rs 6,963 crore at the end of January 2014, with further interest from February 2014 with expenses and costs, according to the auction notice. As per information given to the SC, the total amount, including the interest and principal loan due, is about Rs 9,000 crore. Apart from the bank dues, the airline also owes Rs 350 crore to the I-T department and Rs 100 crore to the service tax department.

The lenders have put the property on the block as part of their efforts to recover dues from Mallya. The consortium of lenders led by State Bank of India has cut the reserve price to Rs135 crore, 10% lower from the earlier Rs 150 crore auction held in March 2016, which failed to find any bidders.

The date for the new electronic auction is August 4 and the last date of registration or submitting the bids is August 1, said the notice by SB I CAPS Trustee Company that is coordinating the auction.

Previous attempts to auction the Kingfisher logo, brand, taglines, other trademarks, and his private jet, have also failed to find any takers so far.

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Sounding the poll bugle in Punjab, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday said his party would end the drug menace and mafias in Punjab within a month.

Addressing a rally in Amritsar to announce partys youth manifesto, Kejriwal claimed that the AAP will register an impressive win in the assembly elections in Punjab. He said surveys have shown that the AAP would win 100 of the 117 seats in the state.

Hitting out at the SAD-BJP government in the state for its failure to control drug problem, the Delhi CM said all those involved in the drug trade, including revenue minister Bikram Singh Majithia, police officials and politicians would be put in jails once the AAP forms government in Punjab.

Majithia had filed defamation cases against Kejriwal, AAPs Punjab affairs in-charge Sanjay Singh and Ashish Khetan accusing them of tarnishing his image and also of his family members through false, malicious allegations.

We will form a special drug task force to make Punjab a nasha mukt state. The Akalis and Congress are hand in glove... they both have looted the state for years. But you have an alternative now as AAP will provide clean governance, he said.

With the anti-drug campaign one of the major focus in the 51-point Manifesto, Kejriwal announced that, When in power, AAP will start round the clock Anti-drug toll free number, bring special law to give life imprisonment till life for guilty drug peddlers, facilitate post treatment rehabilitation of addicts.

Announcing the AAP youth manifesto, Kejriwal promised 25 lakh jobs to the youth and said no application fee would be charged from job seekers. He also announced to do away with interviews for jobs in the state.

AAP leaders Bhagwant Mann, Such Singh Chhotepur, Ashish Khetan, Kanwar Sandhu and Gurpreet Ghuggi also targeted the government in their address.

What youth manifesto promises

Welfare

 AAP will not withdraw any subsidy

 Schemes such as atta-dal, free electricity to farmers to continue

 No change in reservation policy

 Subsidy schemes for farmers, Dalits and poor to continue

 No politician or relative will be eligible for government contracts

Drugs

 To chalk out a comprehensive anti-drug policy

 Break drug supply chain in a month

 Special drug task force to check menace

 Round-the-clock anti-drug toll free number

Employment

 To provide 25 lakh jobs in five years

 Training academy for girls vying for police and paramilitary forces

 Abolition of application fee from job seekers

 To open skill development university in the Doaba region

 Will set up foreign employment youth board

Education

 Raise standard of education in government schools

 CCTV cameras in all government schools

 29,000 vacant posts of schoolteachers to be filled

 Special scheme for meritorious girls

Sports

 Reward for medal winners to be hiked

 Establish sports university in state

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Aimed at formulating a strategy for the Punjab assembly polls due early next year, the two-day BJP state executive meeting ended here on Saturday on a stormy note. The Day-1 bombshell by party MLA Dr Navjot Kaur Sidhu, that red beacon vehicles ferry drugs in Punjab and there is nothing left for the BJP in Punjab now, cast a shadow on Day 2, with senior leaders demanding action against her.

She also came under attack for her statement that her husband, Rajya Sabha MP Navjot Singh Sidhu wont attend Punjab BJP core committee meetings till the alliance with the Shiromani Akali (SAD) continued. The first sharp attack came from Punjab Khadi Board vice-chairman Harjit Grewal, considered the right-hand man of state BJP chief Vijay Sampla, who demanded disciplinary action against leaders demeaning the party, it is learnt. Later, Sampla at a press conference claimed to have not yet read statements by Sidhu, who is also a chief parliamentary secretary (CPS).

Grewal was quoted as saying, By giving such statements against their own government, some leaders are demeaning the party and creating big embarrassment for the alliance. When it is clear that the party high command has decided to contest the polls with the SAD, its very bad on our part to target the governments functioning.

Health minister Surjit Jyani, too, said that targeting chief minister Parkash Singh Badal by some party leaders was derailing the agenda of the government. The party was left with no answers when media grilled ministers on such issues, he said. At the same time, the issue of some controversial appointments by Sampla in Kapurthala district was also raised by Phagwara MLA and CPS Som Parkash.

Parkash, who remains at loggerheads with Sampla, cited appointment of Pankaj Chawla, against whom a criminal complaint is pending, as block unit president for Phagwara. On the one hand, the party says sitting MLAs have to work hard to get re-elected; whereas on the other hand we are not kept in the loop and leaders with criminal background are appointed on key posts. Will people vote for us if we go with such criminals? I have never seen such a state of affairs in the party, said Parkash as he stood to raise his points before BJPs national secretary (organisation) Ram Lal. A delegation of 20 councillors led by Parkash also met Ram Lal demanding Chawlas removal.

Next meeting in Oct

Later, Sampla gave some details of the meeting at a press conference and said the next state executive meeting would be held on October 1 and 2. Further, he said the party would hold four rallies, one each focused on farmers, Dalits, women and the youth, in the coming months. If all goes well, the meeting of partys national executive too would be held in Punjab before the elections, he added.

Drug menace: Sampla defends Centre, contradicts Sukhbir

Contradicting the claims of deputy chief minister and SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal that deployment of Border Security Force (BSF) personnel along the Punjab border was far less due to which drugs easily flowed into the state, BJP state unit chief and Union minister Vijay Sampla said there was no need to increase the BSF strength. Our soldiers are guarding the borders effectively, and the situation has improved, he said in response to media queries at the end of the two-day BJP state executive meeting. Sampla had earlier denied that Punjab has a drug abuse problem, arguing that if it existed, why havent any rave parties been busted in the state? On statements by Dr Navjot Kaur Sidhu that drugs were being ferried in official vehicles in Punjab, Sampla said: I have not read such a thing.

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Punjab Congress chief Capt Amarinder Singh on Sunday sought an independent and credible probe into the allegations against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA in Delhi, Naresh Yadav, that he masterminded the desecration of Quran in Malerkotla.

Given the sensitivity of the matter, we need to be cautious and get the issue probed by an independent agency to bring out the truth, he said.

Pointing fingers at the SAD-BJP alliance and AAP, Capt said it was an act done deliberately to hurt the sentiments of a particular community for vested interests. Amarinder said he was hopeful that Yadav, who was on camera named as the mastermind by one of the accused, will cooperate in the investigations.
Let me take some liberty since we share a surname and native district. Why does Pardeep Chhabra, Chandigarhs former mayor, always look so angry in the House? Its like someone ate his share of cake, and it was the last piece of cake on the face of our planet. He gets able backing from another former mayor, Subhash Chawla. Lets call them the Bearded Bros.

We all understand that they are from the Congress, a party that has a national justification for being frustrated. But my observation is not specific to them or their party. You will see that in the following paragraphs in which I will make a futile attempt to sound objective despite being only human.

I talk of the Bearded Bros upfront only because of a photo I saw of them reacting to a barb by nominated councillor Shagufta Parveen, who told Congress councillors in the June-end House meeting, Jab tum vote maangte they, tab to hamare paer dhotey they (When you came begging to us for votes, you were willing to even wash our feet.) This riled up the Congress councillors, though its not clear why: Did they not wash their feet, or did they not want people to know?

Shagufta, who was nominated to the MC during Congress rule in 2012 as part of the minority quota, was reacting to Chawlas remark that some nominated members were frustrated. (HT File )

Anyhow, quick recap: Shagufta, who was nominated to the MC during Congress rule in 2012 as part of the minority quota, was reacting to Chawlas remark that some nominated members were frustrated. Chawla later said her father-in-law Khaleel Ahmed, a former vice-president of the city Congress unit, had begged before (the then MP) Pawan Bansal for your nomination. Shagufta then claimed she was here today because of my capability and education.

Indeed, she is an educated woman. And her comment must be seen in light of the fact that she holds a doctorate (PhD) in Persian, a language known for its poetic beauty. No wonder that her terse comment, though made in Hindi, rhymed.

And at least she did not call someone Ravan, the ten-headed demon god, or Chhota Bheem, my nephews favourite cartoon character. At the meeting in May, Hitler, badtameez and chamcha too were thrown around.

There seems to be a particular problem between Chawla and language experts. In the May meeting, he was threatened with a slap by another nominated member, Aruna Goel, who happens to be a scholar of Sanskrit. For context, Shagufta made the feet-wash comment after Chawla demanded that the slap-threat be properly put on record of the MC House proceedings.

Anyhow, these comments every month lead to familiar walkouts and protests, which end in backslapping bonhomie. Bearded Bros laugh too, as do the finger-pointing current mayor Arun Sood of the BJP, the dramatic Poonam Sharma, and other councillors who tear agendas, hurl insults and wave their arms menacingly otherwise. Lets live to fight another day, buddies, they tell each other.

Its odd that the councillors  elected and nominated  manage not to get bored of the jibe-joke-fight-repeat routine. I wonder if they consider, once in a while, just for the sake of variety, to discuss what can be done to get water to get to the upper floors in southern sectors, or what should be done to ensure that sewerage cleaners wear gas masks and not die; or how to manage the crazy car population, or even clean the drainage system ahead of monsoon, which comes every year.

Elected councillors cannot stop beating their chests about the fact that they are elected, while the nominated members base their bloated egos on the assumption that they are special. The charade works well for a city thats used to being run by unelected bureaucrats. The joke, however, is on the people, most of whom do not even know the name of their elected area councillor, or which allegedly eminent person has been nominated to the House.

Or, as the Lady Herself, BSP councillor Jannat Jahan once said and walked out: I damn care about this f***ing House. At least she was honest.

(aarish.chhabra@hindustantimes.com)

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More than two weeks after a SAS Nagar-based accountant was arrested for carrying drugs and fake currency in his car in Sector 38 (W), a former UT police inspector and two others have been arrested for planting the contraband.

The accountant Bhagwan Singh, who is still in Burail jail, was caught with 2.6-kg opium and Rs 15 lakh in fake currency on a tip-off from retired inspector Tarsem Singh Rana, a resident of Sector 42, who is now among those arrested.

Advocate Jatin Salwan, a resident of Sector 15, practising at the Punjab and Haryana high court and a resident of Ludhiana Narinder Singh are the other two accused. We will get Bhagwan discharged from the case as he was falsely implicated, a police official said.

Why the case turned on its head

During questioning, Bhagwan, who works at SAS Institute of Information Technology and Research, Phase 7, SAS Nagar, claimed innocence.

The file that contained the drugs and money was given to me that day by a woman near a petrol pump in Panchkula. My boss Sukhbir Singh Shergill, the owner of the institute, had sent me to collect the file. He had told me that these were some papers related to a litigation from an NRI, he told the police.

We rounded up Sukhbir Shergill who claimed that he was supposed to have collected the file in his car and not Bhagwan. He said he had received calls and text messages from a Canadian number +1 (204) 400-0940 with the man at the other end identifying himself as Bansal. Bansal offered to help Shergill in a case that he had filed against Punjab Infotech and claimed to have documents relating to an alleged Rs 100-crore scam at Punjab Infotech, said RR Sharma Maloya SHO.

Bansal had told Shergill that his daughter has been terminated by Punjab Infotech after implication in a scam and thus he wanted to teach these officials a lesson.

The day of Bhagwans arrest

On June 16, the day of the arrest, Bhagwan went to take the documents ostensibly sent by Bansal, even as Shergill was supposed to be the ones receiving the packet.

The same say retired UT inspector Tarsem Rana informed the police. The trap was meant for Shergill, but Bhagwan was found to be carrying drugs and fake currency in his car, the SHO added.

Shergill also told the police that he suspected Narinder Singh against whom he had filed a cheating complaint of Rs 50 lakh. He also names Jatin Salwan, Singhs lawyer.

In the process of verification of this claim using mobile call details, police claimed that Tarsem, Narinder and Salwan had been in regular touch with each other.

We also questioned Tarsem, who acted as our informer. He claimed that Salwan had informed him of drugs being carried. Salwan claimed that Narinder had given him the information, the SHO added.

All three have now been booked under Sections 29 (planting drugs) of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act at the Maloya police station.

The accused have been remanded in one-day police custody.
Chief minister Parkash Singh Badal said the Punjab government had already done so much for farmers and it cannot waive their loans.

Speaking on the sidelines of a sangat darshan here on Saturday, the CM said no other state government could match Punjab in launching welfare schemes for the farmers. Badal said waving the bank debt was the prerogative of the Centre and the state had no role to play in it.

The state government has launched a scheme to provide interest-free crop loans to the farmers and it was also providing free electricity for tubewells worth Rs 5,000 crore annually to them, he added.

Reacting to state Congress chief Captain Amarinder Singhs remarks on the Justice Zora Singh Commission report, Badal the report had been prepared by a retired judge and not by the state government.
A political blame game between the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party (SAD-BJP) alliance and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has begun over the alleged desecration of the Quran in the Muslim-majority town of Malerkotla in Punjab.

WHAT HAPPENED

Tensions flared after the prayers on the third Friday of the holy month of Ramzan as news spread of torn pages of the Quran were found in a drain in front of the cemetery on Khanna Road. Within minutes, a mob had gathered.

Punjab Muslim Front chairperson Shehzaad Hussain claimed more than 1,000 pages of two new copies of the holy book were found torn. The pages were later buried in the cemetery.

Read: Malerkotla Quran sacrilege: Cops to summon AAP MLA as accused claims link

WHO WAS ARRESTED

A businessman, who is known to be a Pakistan-basher, is among three men arrested on the charges of burning the Islamic holy book. Police say the trio wanted to start a communal riot to avenge the Gurdaspur and Pathankot terror attacks by Pakistani intruders in July 2015 and January 2016, respectively.

The main accused, Vijay Kumar of Jind in Haryana, has stayed in Canada and his alleged accomplices, Nand Kishore Goldy and his son, Gaurav, are from Begowal village in Taragarh area of Pathankot district.

A day after the police announced the arrest, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) said one of them was its Punjab unit secretary (organisation) and being framed.

The affiliation of Nand Kishore Goldy  whose son Gaurav too is under arrest along with Delhi businessman Vijay Kumar  became known when the VHPs state vice-president Devinder Kumar and other functionaries held a press conference in Sangrur.

In the violence that ensued after the alleged desecration, people burnt tyres to block the national highway at Malerkotla. (HT Photo)

AAP LINK?

Vijay Kumar claimed on Saturday that he did it at the behest of the AAPs Delhi MLA Naresh Yadav, who was his friend. Yadav, however, has denied his role in the incident.

I know many people named Vijay. But I am learning through the media about such an incident in Malerkotla, Yadav said.

Sangrur superintendent of police Pritpal Singh said the MLA will be summoned based on Vijays claim, which came on the eve of Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwals three-day Punjab tour.

BLAME GAME

Restless SAD-BJP alliance hatching conspiracies: Naresh Yadav

Yadav alleged that a restless SAD-BJP alliance in Punjab was hatching conspiracies.

He said the alliance had become restless as the people of Punjab have decided to give absolute majority to the AAP in the upcoming assembly elections.

I have become a victim of false conspiracies. I am working in Punjab. So now they (BJP-SAD alliance) are trying to falsely trap the people one after another. Their restlessness is evident, he said.

AAP disturbing communal harmony, says BJP

Demanding strict action against the AAP MLA, the BJP said the incident exposed the real face of the Arvind Kejriwal-led party, which hatches conspiracies and spreads hatred for electoral benefit.

Taking a jibe at Yadavs remark, BJP leader Manoj Tiwari told ANI: They will disrupt communal harmony and divide the people. This is the real face of the AAP. There should be strict probe against him (Yadav).

Read: Malerkotla Quran sacrilege: One of 3 arrested men is VHP Punjab secy

SAD calls for strict action against AAP MLA

Asserting that the charges against Yadav were extremely serious, the SAD called for strict action after a thorough probe into the matter.

SAD leader Manjeet Singh called on the AAP to be cautious as they proceed with their campaign because Punjab is a border area.

Right from the 80s, Punjab has seen many problems. First the Guru Granth Saheb was disrespected and now Quran Sharif is being desecrated. AAP is welcome to fight the elections, however, they should not create any troubles there, Singh said.

With inputs from agencies
Chief minister Parkash Singh Badal on Sunday urged Union water resources minister Uma Bharti to revise the construction norms for water courses, especially in Punjab, allocations of funds for Swan River and for Upper Bari Doab Canal (UBDC). Badal called on Bharti at her New Delhi residence on Sunday.

Badal sought Rs 35,000 per hectare as construction cost for water courses instead of Rs 25,000, as the average discharge in Punjab was 2.5 cusecs against one cusec in rest of the country.

He also sought immediate release of Rs 209 crore for the channelisation of 17km Swan river in Punjabs territory, informing Bharti that Himachal Pradesh had already started the work on 55km on its side.

The CM requested Bharti to approve the rejuvenation of Doab Canal that was in a dilapidated condition, which was affecting its water-carrying capacity.

Bharti asked Badal to send a team of irrigation department officials to Delhi to discuss the issues.
The defence arguments couldnt start in rape trial against Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh on Saturday as the CBI special court took up his application for deciding the Ranjit Singh murder case against him along with the sexual assault case.

The court issued notice to the CBI for reply by July 11.

It is the oldest running rape trial of Panchkula district courts.

On Friday, the Supreme Court had dismissed a plea of dera chief seeking more handwriting samples of an alleged rape victim in the case.

Ram Rahim had submitted before the court in an application through his counsel SK Garg Narwana that a number of witnesses were common in Ranjit Singh murder and sexual assault cases. He added that even investigating officer (Satish Dagar) in both the cases is the same.

He prayed that the propriety, justice, judicial discipline and the principals of fair trial demand that both these cases must be heard and decided simultaneously, as from the bare reading of the chargesheet of both the cases it is evident that these cases are interwoven.

He added that if one of the cases was decided first, the comments about truthfulness of common witnesses of the second case would prejudice the either party.

In the rape case, there are 2 alleged victims. Some anonymous letters addressed to then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and chief justice of the Punjab and Haryana high court, alleging sexual exploitation of female followers at the Dera Sacha Sauda in Sirsa, were circulated in 2002. The high court had then ordered then Sirsa district and sessions judge to look into the matter. In his report, the sessions judge had stated that the possibility of sexual exploitation could not be ruled out.

On September 24, 2002, the high court had handed over the case to the CBI.

Dera member Ranjit Singhs murder took place on July 10, 2002. The CBI has been alleging that Ram Rahim suspected him to be behind circulation of an anonymous letter of a female dera follower levelling allegations of sexual exploitation against him, which led to his murder. Along with the dera chief, Krishan Lal, Jasbir, Indersen, Avtaar, and Sabdil are accused in the case.
Pakistani actor Adnan Siddiquis television shows have made him a popular face in India as well. While he gets Bollywood movie offers, the actor is very clear about the roles he does not wish to take up.

I am in that age where I cannot replace actors like Akshay Kumar, Shah Rukh Khan or Salman Khan. They are great actors and are really famous in Pakistan. If I want to come in that league, I will be kicked out so badly that I wont be able to see myself. I want to adopt the formula in India what Irrfan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, KK Menon and Manoj Bajpayee have taken up. I want to fit in that kind of role. I want to prove my metal in that area, says the 46-year-old actor, who has been part of successful Pakistani shows such as Mere Qatil Mere Dildaar, Kaisi Ye Qayamat, Ru Baru and Ruswaiyaan.

Read: Adnan Siddiqui feels Pakistan needs to learn a lot from Indian TV industry

The content of Pakistan television shows has made place in the hearts of Indian audience and Siddiqui is grateful for this kind of response. Its a great feeling all together when you see your work being appreciated. The grass is always green on the other side and we also have loved the shows in India. I feel that my contemporaries and I want to produce the shows the same way and give good content, he says.

Read: We would love to see Indian actors working in Pakistan, says Adnan Siddiqui

While the curiosity towards the culture and work in India and Pakistan towards each other have always been high, Siddiqui feels we are very much similar. We both have same kind of culture. I hardly see any difference. What is the difference in two countries? I think it is just P and I. I cannot help but think that once they were the same country. There is not much cultural change. People do ask me about Pakistani shows and I tell them that they have two ways of doing it and we have different way of doing it. It is just about the mind and thought, he says.

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Pakistani filmmaker Sabiha Sumar, best known for directing films like Khamosh Pani, Good Morning Karachia and Chotay Shah, feels the evolution of the digital media has brought the people of India and Pakistan closer.

Sumar, whose film Chotay Shah was the opening film of the 7th Jagran Film Festival along with Ketan Mehtas Toba Tek Singh, feels Indias Bollywood has a huge impact on the entire sub-continent and many Pakistanis have learned Hindi language by seeing Bollywood films.

While speaking at a panel discussion, titled Cinema Beyond Borders, on Saturday, she said, Internet has brought India and Pakistan together. Even when I went to college at the Cambridge University, I met students of my age from India. They were just like us. I remember going to one of my friends home and she started playing Begum Akhtars song and I was like You also listen to her songs. I feel with internet, now the connectivity is even stronger.

Watch: Trailer of Khamosh Paani

About the demand of Indian films across the border, Sumar said, Bollywood has definitely had a huge impact on the entire subcontinent. Even many people have learned Hindi by watching Bollywood films. When I went a village in Sindh, people there talk about Govinda. Even when I go to Thar Desert, people there say that we see everything on our phones only.

She said that Indians and Pakistanis connect with each other through music and stories as they are an important part of our culture.

I dont think a nation can survive or thrive without storytelling.

Read: Divided by border, united by cinema

Apart from Sumar, the panel also included Indian filmmakers Sudhir Mishra and Bejoy Nambiar, and veteran Pakistani actor-director Khalid Ahmed.

Asked why Pakistani cinema didnt get chance to evolve, Ahmed said, Its difficult to tell this. I think it was because of two factors. Firstly the tradition of Bollywood films has been going on since the pre-Partition era and it continues to do so.

Watch: Sabiha Sumar on Indo-Pak collaborations in films

When the film industry was setup in Lahore, it was a new beginning. A lot of people from here went there and started a new thing. Also talent, expertise and technology were always there in Mumbai which was not available on that side of the border. Even the market is small there.

The five-day Delhi leg of the Jagran Film Festival, which is taking place here at the Siri Fort Auditorium, will next showcase films like Aligarh, Airlift, Natsamrat, Talvar and Sarbjit among others.

After its Delhi leg, which will conclude on July 5, the festival will travel to different cities like Kanpur, Lucknow, Allahabad, Varansi, Agra, Meerut, Dehradun, Hisar, Ludhiana, Patna, Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Raipur, Indore, and Bhopal. The final leg of the festival will take place in Mumbai.

Follow @htshowbiz or more.

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The horrific slaughter of diners at a Dhaka cafe has fanned fears that surging Islamist violence may imperil the giant garment industry in Bangladesh, which built its economy on cheaply supplying fashion to the worlds big-name brands.

Gunmen stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery in the capitals diplomatic quarter on Friday evening, rounding up foreign hostages before murdering 20 people with explosives and machetes, in a brutal targeting of the small expat community.

Islamic State jihadists released gruesome images of corpses lying in crimson pools on the cafe floor as they claimed responsibility for the deadly 11-hour siege. Most of the victims were Italian or Japanese.

This attack will turn away foreigners, said Faruque Hassan, senior vice-president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, which represents 4,500 factories.

Read: Dhaka attack: Gunmen were from Bangladesh group, not IS, says minister

The impact of this attack will be very damaging for the industry. We are now extremely worried, added Hassan, whose Giant Group supplies clothes to retailers including Britains Marks & Spencer and Next.

Even before the cafe siege, Bangladesh, the worlds second-biggest exporter of apparel after China, was reeling from a wave of Islamist-linked killings of religious minorities, liberal activists and foreigners, including an Italian aid worker last September.

Concern is mounting that the South Asian nation, wracked by political instability since independence in 1971, is sliding into deeper chaos, with under-pressure police arresting 11,000 people last month in a desperate crackdown.

The hostage crisis in Dhaka is a terrible tragedy reflecting how security has deteriorated in the country, said Sarah Labowitz, co-director at the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights in New York.

The violence presents a serious threat to the economy, Labowitz said. This kind of attack will surely keep (fashion) buyers away in the months leading up to the holiday shopping season.

Although a quarter of its 160 million people still live below the poverty line, Bangladesh has clocked growth of around six percent nearly every year since the turn of the millennium.

Thats largely thanks to garment exports, the lifeblood of its economy, accounting for more than 80% of total outbound goods last year.

Between them the nations clothing factories employ more than four million people, most of them impoverished rural women.

Ulrica Bogh Lind, a spokeswoman for H&M, which sources many of its clothes from Bangladesh, told AFP the Swedish chain was deeply sad about the tragic incident.

We are of course monitoring the situation in Dhaka closely.

Read: Dhaka attack: Bangladesh may be confronting a more fearsome militant foe

Echoes of Pakistan

Trade-dependent Bangladesh may suffer the same fate as its restive rival Pakistan, fears Ahsan Mansur, a former representative for the International Monetary Fund in Islamabad.

I saw the decline of a promising economy into a terrorist hotspot. This attack reminds me of those days, although I hope things wont turn out that way, said Mansur, now executive director of the Policy Research Institute in Dhaka.

When extremist violence began to spread in Pakistan, he said, the first sign of financial malaise was expat families packing their bags, then trade and investment crumbled.

The perception that Bangladesh is a potential terrorist hotspot can seriously hit our export potential and growth prospects.

Read: Dhaka restaurant siege: Indian woman killed by terrorists was visiting family

Yet plucky Bangladesh has ridden out numerous storms, seeing off threats from labour unrest, mass transport blockades and large-scale political paralysis -- as well as workplace disasters.

Clothing exports swelled nearly 10% in the year to June, to $27.3 billion, industry figures show.

The deadly Rana Plaza factory collapse that killed at least 1,138 workers in 2013 shocked the world, heaping opprobrium on Western retailers seen as exploiting impoverished workers.

But the tragedy prompted retailers to act on appalling safety conditions in their factories, where fires and other accidents are frequent.

Brands set up two global alliances to make workshops safer and cleaner -- although it remains a work in progress.

Read: Dhakas 26/11-like attack: Why Sheikh Hasina needs to wake up

Global threat

While retailers will watch Bangladesh closely, industry experts point out that unrest plagues many developing countries where labour is cheap.

As Islamist attacks in France, Brussels and the United States over the past year show, the threat of extremist violence is not confined to single countries.

If foreigners give in to fear, terrorisms political mission will have succeeded, said Devangshu Dutta, chief executive of Third Eyesight, a retail consultancy in New Delhi.

Exports and foreign investment are both critical (in) the upliftment of a very large poverty-stricken population, Dutta told AFP.

The contribution of foreigners is vital. It is important for everyone to remain engaged.
At least 83 people have been killed and 176 wounded in two separate bomb attacks in the Iraqi capital this morning, Iraqi officials said.

In the deadliest attack, a car bomb hit Karada, a busy shopping district in the center of Baghdad, killing 78 people and wounding 160, according to police and hospital officials. It struck as families and young people were out on the streets after breaking their daylight fast for the holy month of Ramzan.

Iraqi men stand inside a damaged building at the site of a suicide car bombing claimed by the Islamic State group on July 3 in Baghdad's central Karrada district. (AFP Photo)

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the bombing in a statement posted online, saying they had deliberately targeted Shiite Muslims. The statement could not be independently verified.

At dawn on Sunday, fire fighters were still working to extinguish the blazes and bodies were still being recovered from charred buildings. Many of the dead were children, according to Associated Press reporters at the scene. Ambulances could be heard rushing to the site for hours after the blast.

An eyewitness said the explosion caused fires at nearby clothing and cellphone shops. Hours after the bombing, Iraqs prime minister visited the blast site. Video footage uploaded to social media showed an angry crowd, with people calling Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi a thief and shouting at his convoy.

Firemen hose down a burning building after a suicide car bomb occurred in the Karrada shopping area in Baghdad. (Reuters)

In the second attack, an improvised explosive device went off in eastern Baghdad, killing 5 people and wounding 16. No group claimed responsibility for the attack.

The casualty figures were confirmed by police and hospital officials, who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to release information to the press.

The Baghdad attacks come just over a week after Iraqi forces declared the city of Fallujah fully liberated from IS. Over the past year, Iraqi forces have racked up territorial gains against IS, retaking the city of Ramadi and the towns of Hit and Rutba, all in Iraqs vast Anbar province west of Baghdad.

Iraqi women wait for their family members who are missing after a car bomb at a commercial area in Karada neighborhood, Baghdad, Iraq. (AP Photo)

Despite the governments battlefield victories, IS has repeatedly shown it remains capable of launching attacks far from the front-lines.

Before the launch of the operation to retake Fallujah, Iraqs prime minister was facing growing social unrest and anti-government protests in Baghdad sparked in part by popular anger at the lack of security in the capital. In one month, Baghdads highly-fortified Green Zone, which houses government buildings and diplomatic missions, was stormed twice by anti-government protesters.

IS still controls Iraqs second largest city of Mosul as well as significant patches of territory in the countrys north and west.
Security officials searched on Sunday for evidence and the possible masterminds of the weekend hostage-taking in an upscale restaurant in Bangladeshs capital. The government has denied the Islamic State groups claim of responsibility for the attack that left 28 dead, including six attackers and 20 of the hostages.

Police released photographs of the bodies of five attackers, along with their first names: Akash, Badhon, Bikash, Don and Ripon. The men belonged to the banned domestic group Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh, or JMB, and their families hadnt heard from them in months, according to police. Asked whether they might also have had Islamic State ties, Police Inspector General AKM Shahidul Hoque said authorities were investigating that possibility.

Read: Dhaka cafe attackers photos out, minister says they are from rich families

Despite the police saying IS links were being investigated, the home minister refuted the possibility that the Islamic State directed the attack from abroad. Bangladeshs government insists the extremist Sunni Muslim group based in Syria and Iraq has no presence in the country, and in the past has suggested that any claims of responsibility for violence waged in the South Asian country are simply opportunistic attempts at grabbing global attention.

They are all Bangladeshis. They are from rich families, they have good educational background, Khan said of the attackers. One surviving suspect was detained when paramilitary forces ended the 10-hour standoff Saturday morning, and authorities said he was being interrogated.

The siege marked an escalation in the militant violence that has hit Bangladesh with increasing frequency. Most of the attacks in the past several months have involved machete-wielding men singling out individual activists, foreigners and religious minorities.

Read: Bangladesh blames Paks ISI, homegrown militants for Dhaka terror attack

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has blamed her political opponents of trying to create chaos by backing domestic militants.

Policemen stand guard along a road leading to the Holey Artisan Bakery and the O'Kitchen Restaurant after gunmen attacked, in Dhaka, Bangladesh. (Reuters)

Anyone who believes in religion cannot do such an act, Hasina said Saturday. They do not have any religion, their only religion is terrorism.

On Sunday morning, the first of two days of national mourning for the victims, police were blocking all access to streets near the Holey Artisan Bakery where the siege occurred. Investigators from both Bangladesh and Japan visited the restaurant to collect evidence.

The 20 hostages who were killed included nine Italians, seven Japanese, three Bangladeshis and one Indian teenager. Two police officers were killed by the attackers, and 13 people were rescued when commandos stormed the restaurant Saturday morning. Another 25 officers and one civilian were wounded, and some of the rescued hostages had injuries. The hospitals treating them would not give fresh information on their conditions Sunday.

Read: Portrait of blood: Dhaka victims and the fate that brought them together

The attack was the worst in the recent series of attacks by radical Islamists in the moderate, mostly Muslim nation of 160 million. Unlike the previous attacks, the assailants were well-prepared and heavily armed with guns, bombs and sharp objects that police later said were used to torture some of the 35 captives.

That the attackers targeted a popular restaurant in the heart of the diplomatic quarter of Bangladeshs capital signaled a change in tactics. The restaurant overlooking a lake serves Spanish food and is patronized by residents of Gulshan, an affluent neighborhood where most of the foreign embassies are located.

The hostages were asked to recite verses from the Quran, to prove themselves Muslim, according to a witness. Those who passed were allowed to eat. Those who failed were tortured and slain.

Western embassies issued travel warnings to their citizens, advising those in the country to be vigilant and avoid places frequented by foreigners in the diplomatic zone. The US Embassy also urged its citizens and personnel to avoid traveling on foot or in open vehicles exposed to potential attackers.

Read: Dhaka attack: Bangladesh may be confronting a more fearsome militant foe

In its claim of responsibility, the Islamic State group said its operatives had targeted the citizens of Crusader countries in the attack, warning that citizens of such countries would not be safe as long as their warplanes kill Muslims. The statement was circulated in a manner consistent with past IS claims of responsibility.

The Amaq news agency, affiliated with IS, also published photos of five smiling young men, each holding what appear to be assault rifles and posing in front of a black IS flag, and identified them as the restaurant attackers, according to the SITE Intelligence Service, which monitors jihadi online activity. The men in those photographs appeared to match the bodies shown in police images of the dead assailants in the restaurant after the hostage crisis ended.

Amaq identified the five by noms de guerre indicating they were all Bangladeshis. It said the fighters used knives, cleavers, assault rifles and hand grenades, and had verified the identities of the hostages in order to spare the Muslims and kill the foreigners.
Bangladesh, faced with the worst militant attack in its history, is probing deeper for possible ties between the men who murdered around 20 people in a restaurant and trans-national Islamist extremist groups, security officials said.

Until Fridays attack in an upscale part of the capital Dhaka, the government had blamed two home-grown groups for mounting violence, but these were attacks on individuals, most of them with crude machetes and knives, and never a coordinated mass killing.

So the storming of the restaurant, taking diners hostages, apparently singling out foreigners for death and then fighting a gunbattle to the finish marked a new level of sophistication and scale, anti-terrorism officials and security experts said.

Read | Dhaka restaurant siege: 20 people, including an Indian, killed in IS attack

We cannot say immediately which group is behind this. But they were terrorists who were trained well, said Brigadier General Naeem Ashfaq Choudhuri, director general of military operations for the Bangladesh army.

One line of inquiry being pursued is whether the attackers received any guidance from Islamic State or al Qaeda in the run-up to the attack, an official in the police counter-terrorism wing said.

People react near the Holey Artisan restaurant after Islamist militants attacked the upscale cafe in Dhaka, Bangladesh, July 2, 2016. (Reuters Photo)

Police were also looking into whether the Dhaka assault was part of, or inspired by a series of attacks elsewhere in the world including on Istanbul airport last month, he added.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Dhaka attack, and even while the siege was still on, the group published grisly pictures from inside the restaurant apparently sent by the assailants.

The authenticity of the images has not been established, however.

A US government source said some US government experts were now leaning towards the view that Islamic State was behind the attack, in which an American citizen was among the dead, along with at least nine Italians and seven Japanese.

Read Dhakas Holey Artisan Bakery: Popular hangout to a scene of massacre

Al Qaeda versus Islamic State?

Bangladesh, a predominantly Muslim country of 160 million people, has long maintained that there are no foreign fighters on its soil, although some Western security experts have questioned that.

Officials have said that all seven gunmen in Friday nights attack and overnight siege were local.

It is not yet clear whether they belonged to either of the two main domestic militant movements blamed for a spate of attacks in recent months on bloggers, university teachers and members of religious minorities.

Ansar-al-Islam, considered the better coordinated and more dangerous of the two until now, had pledged allegiance to al Qaeda, while Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen had claimed to represent Islamic State in Bangladesh.

Security experts in Bangladesh, India and the United States said that even if there were no foreign fighters involved, whichever group mounted the restaurant assault appeared to have benefited from external support.

Read | What kind of Muslims are these: Sheikh Hasina on Dhaka attackers

This attack was of a level of sophistication that suggests the involvement of a group well schooled in intricately choreographed terror operations, and ISIS and al Qaeda fit the bill, Michael Kugelman, a senior South Asia associate at the Wilson Center, said.

Army soldiers take their positions near the Holey Artisan restaurant after Islamist militants attacked the upscale cafe in Dhaka, Bangladesh, July 2, 2016. (Reuters Photo)

Four pistols, an AK-22 semi-automatic assault rifle, four unexploded IEDs and several sharp weapons were recovered from the scene, Brigadier General Choudhuri said.

The targeting of people in a restaurant appeared more in line with Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, which has focused its attacks on non-Muslims, whether a poor rickshaw-puller or a grocer.

Ansar-al-Islam, in contrast, has laid down strict targeting criteria under which its fighters attack people carrying out anti-Islamic activities such as bloggers criticising radical Islam or activists promoting gay rights.

It has said it will not carry out random killings.

Bangladesh counter-terrorism officials say Ansar follows the ideology and methods of al Qaeda, and has a fugitive former army major playing a key role that could make it more potent.

But they and foreign experts also see the risk of an escalating rivalry between al Qaeda and Islamic State, or their local proxies, in Bangladesh.

Read| Dhaka attackers spared hostages who could recite Quran verses: Survivor

Read| Dhakas 26/11-like attack: Why Sheikh Hasina needs to wake up
Sadness, insomnia, frustration and confusion: the Brexit blues have gripped many European Union supporters since Britains shock decision to leave the bloc last week.

I would say I am currently suffering from anxiety and/or depression, EU backer Mick Watson, 41, told AFP.

I hadnt felt anything like this before Fridays referendum result. I am worried, very worried.

I am constantly online, my work and home life has suffered. I feel like my way of life is threatened and thats scary, added the University of Edinburgh researcher.

Turbulence ahead

The seismic vote has forced Britain to recognise the deep divisions within its society, a profound realisation that heralds a turbulent and uncertain future.

Around 17.4 million people voted to leave the EU, while 16.1 million voted to stay, leaving huge numbers fearful of life outside the bloc.

Our reactions are multiple. The first is shock and a sense of betrayal felt by Remain voters, many of whom feel that they no longer recognise the UK they live in, explained Jay Watts, of Queen Mary University of London.

It has shattered peoples sense of what British values are.

Worse than divorce

Brexit proponents argue it is similar feelings of alienation and powerlessness -- ignored for decades -- that saw so many working class communities voting to leave the EU, and resent the blame cast upon them.

Many Leave voters feel at times angry that they are being rubbished as ill-informed and racist, she said. The main emotion for everyone is uncertainty.

Remain supporters have compared the trauma to a relationship breakdown, or a death in the family.

The main feeling is of irreversibility, so in that sense its worse than a divorce, and more like an avoidable death, explained Will Davies, from Goldsmiths, University of London

It feels like a terrible accident, that should have been foreseen and should have been prevented.

British-US actor David Schaal, star of The Inbetweeners and The Office, said the result had triggered a bout of introspection.

I am waking up in the night, worried about the future of the country and how I personally fit in, he told AFP.

This isnt just a vote about coming out of Europe, its a vote about our national identity.

Its a sense of grief. A sense of loss of our tolerance and fairness for which I believe Britain used to stand for, he added.

Some have turned to gallows humour to express their anxieties on social media.

For the first time EVER I am working in my pyjamas. I think I have #brexitblues, wrote Twitter user Lucy Mann.

Resisted temptation to hug my Polish delivery driver and tell him I still love him. #BrexitBlues, added Charlotte Day.

Physical symptoms

The fog of depression has also consumed immigrants, crippled by doubts about their adopted country, whose arms suddenly do not appear to be as open.

I swing between depression, anger, sadness, worry and hope, Aurore Valantin, a 37-year-old French blogger based in Worthing on Englands south coast, wrote on her blog Croqlife.

I have very close friends that actually have physical and psychological symptoms.

One hardly eats, has lost weight, and is tempted by Valium and alcohol as a way of dealing with Brexit, she added.

But Aurore is in no mood to pack her bags, preferring to drown her sorrows and blog about the England she loves, a country of tolerance and eccentricity.

London newspaper the Evening Standard has already offered advice on banishing the Brexit blues, producing a tour of the best food and drink the EU has to offer, without leaving London.

The guide points readers in the direction of the finest French wine, Romanian porridge and Spanish tapas.

Others are seeking solace in a motivational poster issued by the government during World War II, whose message now suddenly appears to be acutely relevant: Keep Calm and Carry On.
The seven militants who killed 20 people at a restaurant in Dhaka were local Bangladeshis, five of who authorities had tried to arrest before, police said, as the country began a two-day period of mourning on Sunday.

Gunmen stormed the upmarket restaurant popular with expatriates in the citys diplomatic zone late on Friday, before killing 18 foreigners in a coordinated mass killing that experts said marked a level of scale and sophistication not previously seen in the South Asian country.

Most of the victims were hacked to death with machetes before commandos entered the building, killing six of the militants and capturing a seventh, after a 12-hour standoff, police said.

Read| Dhakas Holey Artisan Bakery: Popular hangout to a scene of massacre

All gunmen were Bangladeshi. Five of them were listed as militants and law enforcers made several drives to arrest them, national police chief Shahidul Hoque told reporters in Dhaka late on Saturday.

Police have yet to comment on Islamic State (IS)s claims of responsibility, but security sources said authorities were probing deeper for possible ties between the gunmen and trans-national Islamist extremist groups given the scale and sophistication of the attack.

Read| Dhaka attackers spared hostages who could recite Quran verses: Survivor

Bangladesh has blamed two home-grown groups for a series of grisly killings targeting liberals or members of minority groups over the past 18 months, and local authorities have maintained that no operational links exist between Bangladeshi militants and international jihadi networks.

The IS posted photos on Saturday of five fighters it said were involved in the killings but its claim has not been confirmed.

Police said nine Italians, seven Japanese, two Bangladeshis, an Indian and a US citizen were killed during the attack at the Dhaka building, split between the Holey Artisan Bakery and the OKitchen Restaurant.

Italian media said several of the Italians victims worked in the garment industry, and the attack will frighten expatriates working in the $26 billion garment sector that accounts for 80% of its exports.

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina announced two days of national mourning on Saturday and said the country would stand up and fight the terror threat.

Flags were being flown at half-mast in government offices and at other sites across the country while funerals of the two Bangladeshi victims were expected to be held.

Read| Dhaka restaurant siege: Indian woman killed by terrorists was visiting family

Read| Dhakas 26/11-like attack: Why Sheikh Hasina needs to wake up
The seven terrorists who attacked an upscale cafe in Dhaka and butchered 20 hostages were Bangladeshi citizens, authorities said on Sunday.

Bangladesh home minister Asaduzzaman Khan said the attackers, who were armed with sharpened weapons and firearms, were not linked to the Islamic State militant group, which has claimed the assault.

Let me clear it again, there are no ISIS (an acronym for the Islamic State) or al Qaeda presence or existence in Bangladesh...the hostage-takers were all home-grown terrorists, not members of ISIS or any other international Islamist outfits, he said, identifying the attackers as being part of the banned Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh (JMB).

They are all Bangladeshis. They are from rich families, they have good educational background, the minister told news agency Associated Press.

Khan said it has become a fashion to become militants, The Daily Star reported.

Police chief Shahidul Hoque said investigators will explore the possibility of an international link, but added primarily, we suspect they are JMB members.

Read: After Dhaka cafe slaughter, fear for Bangladesh garment industry

In recent months, Bangladesh has seen a spate of attacks targeting the minority Hindus, gays, secular bloggers, intellectuals and foreign nationals. Even though the IS and al Qaeda have claimed responsibility for many of the attacks, the government has maintained the groups have no presence in Bangladesh.

The US-based SITE intelligence group released photos of the attackers who laid siege to the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhakas diplomatic quarter on Friday night, the Bangladeshi media said.

The identities of the persons in the undated photos were not provided, bdnews24.com reported. Another group of terrorism observers, Terrorism Monitor, identified the same persons as Abu Omar, Abu Salmah, Abu Rahim, Abu Muslim and Abu Muharib al-Bengali.

Read: Dhaka attackers spared hostages who could recite Quran verses: Survivor

The report said police, too, released photos of the attackers -- six of them were killed and one taken alive after a 12-hour siege at the popular restaurant.

Four persons seemed to be in both sets of photos published by police and IS, the report said.

Five of the gunmen shot dead were listed as militants and police had been looking for them. They were identified as Akash, Bikash, Don, Bandhon and Ripon, police said.

A law enforcement source told the Dhaka Tribune that all of them (attackers) were Bangladeshi nationals aged between 20 and 28.

All of them were students and communicated at the crime scene in both Bengali and English, the report quoted the source as saying.

Classmates in Bangladeshs North South University, an expensive private institution, identified one of the attackers as Nibras Islam, bdnews24.com reported. The university authorities could not be reached for comment.

An expatriate Bangladeshi has posted on Facebook a photo of one Mir Sabih Mubashsher along with the photo of an attacker, it added.

He quoted one of Mubashshers classmates in Scholastica School in Dhaka as saying that Mubashsher went missing in March before his A-Level exam, an IANS report said.

(With agency inputs)
Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, the Romanian-born Holocaust survivor whose classic Night became a landmark testament to the Nazis crimes and launched Wiesels long career as one of the worlds foremost witnesses and humanitarians, has died at age 87.

His death was announced Saturday by Israels Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. No other details were immediately available.

The short, sad-eyed Wiesel, his face an ongoing reminder of one mans endurance of a shattering past, summed up his mission in 1986 when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize: Whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation, take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

President Barack Obama said of Wiesel on Saturday, As a writer, a speaker, an activist, and a thinker, he was one of those people who changed the world more as a citizen of the world than those who hold office or traditional positions of power. His life, and the power of his example, urges us to be better.

For more than a half-century, Wiesel voiced his passionate beliefs to world leaders, celebrities and general audiences in the name of victims of violence and oppression. He wrote more than 40 books, but his most influential by far was Night, a classic ranked with Anne Franks diary as standard reading about the Holocaust.

Night was his first book, and its journey to publication crossed both time and language. It began in the mid-1950s as an 800-page story in Yiddish, was trimmed to under 300 pages for an edition released in Argentina, cut again to under 200 pages for the French market and finally published in the United States, in 1960, at just over 100 pages.

Night is the most devastating account of the Holocaust that I have ever read, wrote Ruth Franklin, a literary critic and author of A Thousand Darknesses, a study of Holocaust literature that was published in 2010.

There are no epiphanies in Night. There is no extraneous detail, no analysis, no speculation. There is only a story: Eliezers account of what happened, spoken in his voice.

Wiesel began working on Night just a decade after the end of World War II, when memories were too raw for many survivors to even try telling their stories. Franks diary had been an accidental success, a book discovered after her death, and its entries end before Frank and her family was captured and deported. Wiesels book was among the first popular accounts written by a witness to the very worst, and it documented what Frank could hardly have imagined.

Night was so bleak that publishers doubted it would appeal to readers. In a 2002 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Wiesel recalled that the book attracted little notice at first. The English translation came out in 1960, and the first printing was 3,000 copies. And it took three years to sell them. Now, I get 100 letters a month from children about the book. And there are many, many million copies in print.

In one especially haunting passage, Wiesel sums up his feelings upon arrival in Auschwitz:

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. ... Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.

Night was based directly on his experiences, but structured like a novel, leading to an ongoing debate over how to categorize it. Alfred Kazin was among the critics who expressed early doubts about the books accuracy, doubts that Wiesel denounced as a mortal sin in the historical sense. Wiesels publisher called the book a memoir even as some reviewers called it fiction. An Amazon editorial review labeled the book technically a novel, albeit so close to Wiesels life that its generally  and not inaccurately  read as an autobiography.

In 2006, a new translation returned Night to the best-seller lists after it was selected for Oprah Winfreys book club. But the choice also revived questions about how to categorize the book. Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com, both of which had listed Night as fiction, switched it to nonfiction. Wiesel, meanwhile, acknowledged in a new introduction that he had changed the narrators age from not quite 15 to Wiesels real age at the time, 15.

Unfortunately, Night is an imperfect ambassador for the infallibility of the memoir, Franklin wrote, owing to the fact that it has been treated very often as a novel.

Wiesels prolific stream of speeches, essays and books, including two sequels to Night and more than 40 books overall of fiction and nonfiction, emerged from the helplessness of a teenager deported from Hungary, which had annexed his native Romanian town of Sighet, to Auschwitz. Tattooed with the number A-7713, he was freed in 1945  but only after his mother, father and one sister had all died in Nazi camps. Two other sisters survived.

After the liberation of Buchenwald, in April 1945, Wiesel spent a few years in a French orphanage, then landed in Paris. He studied literature and philosophy at the Sorbonne, and then became a journalist, writing for the French newspaper LArche and Israels Yediot Ahronot.

French author Francois Mauriac, winner of the 1952 Nobel in literature, encouraged Wiesel to break his vowed silence about the concentration camps and start sharing his experiences.

In 1956, Wiesel traveled on a journalistic assignment to New York to cover the United Nations. While there, he was struck by a car and confined to a wheelchair for a year. He became a lifetime New Yorker, continuing in journalism writing for the Yiddish-language newspaper, the Forward. His contact with the citys many Holocaust survivors shored up Wiesels resolve to keep telling their stories.

Wiesel became a U.S. citizen in 1963. Six years later, he married Marion Rose, a fellow Holocaust survivor who translated some of his books into English. They had a son, Shlomo. Based in New York, Wiesel commuted to Boston University for almost three decades, teaching philosophy, literature and Judaic studies and giving a popular lecture series in the fall.

Wiesel also taught at Yale University and the City University of New York.

In 1978, he was chosen by President Carter to head the Presidents Commission on the Holocaust, and plan an American memorial museum to Holocaust victims. Wiesel wrote in a report to the president that the museum must include denying the Nazis a posthumous victory, honoring the victims last wishes to tell their stories. He said that although all the victims of the Holocaust were not Jewish, all Jews were victims. Wiesel advocated that the museum emphasize the annihilation of the Jews, while still remembering the others; today the exhibits and archives reflects that.

Among his most memorable spoken words came in 1985, when he received a Congressional Gold Medal from President Ronald Reagan and asked the president not to make a planned trip to a cemetery in Germany that contained graves of Adolf Hitlers personal guards.

We have met four or five times, and each time I came away enriched, for I know of your commitment to humanity, Wiesel said, as Reagan looked on. May I, Mr. President, if its possible at all, implore you to do something else, to find a way, to find another way, another site. That place, Mr. President, is not your place. Your place is with the victims.

Reagan visited the cemetery, in Bitburg, despite international protests.

Wiesel also spoke at the dedication of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington in 1993. His words are now carved in stone at its entrance: For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.

Wiesel defended Soviet Jews, Nicaraguas Miskito Indians, Cambodian refugees, the Kurds, victims of African famine and victims of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Wiesel was a longtime supporter of Israel although he was criticized at times for his closeness to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu. When Netanhayu gave a highly controversial address to Congress in 2015, denouncing President Obamas efforts to reach a nuclear treaty with Iran, Wiesel was among the guests of honor.

What were you doing there, Elie Wiesel? Haaretz columnist Roger Alpher wrote at the time. Netanyahu is my prime minister. You are not an Israeli citizen. You do not live here. The Iranian threat to destroy Israel does not apply to you. You are a Jew who lives in America. This is not your problem.

The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, which he established in 1988, explored the problems of hatred and ethnic conflicts around the world. But like a number of other well-known charities in the Jewish community, the foundation fell victim to Bernard Madoff, the financier who was arrested in late 2008 and accused of running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

Wiesel said he ended up losing $15.2 million in foundation funds, plus his and his wifes own personal investments. At a panel discussion in February 2009, Wiesel admitted he bought into the Madoff mystique, a myth that he created around him that everything was so special, so unique, that it had to be secret. He called Madoff a crook, a thief, a scoundrel.

Despite Wiesels mission to remind the world of past mistakes, the greatest disappointment of his life was that nothing changed, he said in an interview.

Human nature remained what it was. Society remained what it was. Too much indifference in the world, to the Other, his pain, and anguish, and hope.

But personally, he never gave up  as reflected in his novel The Town Beyond the Wall.

Wiesels Jewish protagonist, Michael, returns to his native town in now-communist Hungary to find out why his neighbors had given him up to the Nazis. Suspected as a Western spy, he lands in prison along with a young man whose insanity has left him catatonic.

The protagonist takes on the challenge of awakening the youth by any means, from talking to forcing his mouth open  a task as wrenching as Wiesels humanitarian missions.

The day when the boy suddenly began sketching arabesques in the air was one of the happiest of Michaels life. ... Now he talked more, as if wishing to store ideas and values in the boy for his moments of awakening. Michael compared himself to a farmer: months separated the planting from the harvest. For the moment, he was planting.
The frail, dapper man who sometimes greeted reporters in his Madison Avenue office spoke in an almost hushed voice, but with urgency, his hands gesturing gently for emphasis. Elie Wiesels smile was wry, diffident, a thin facade over the sadness imprinted in the weary eyes and deep creases of a face that mirrored his brutal past.

The Auschwitz survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has died at age 87, was an ongoing reminder of one mans endurance of the Nazi Holocaust. His words, destined to last far into the future, are a testament to some of the most unfathomable atrocities in recorded history.

Whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation, take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented, he said in 1986, upon accepting the Nobel.

Wiesels death was announced Saturday by Israels Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. No other details were immediately available.

The state of Israel and the Jewish people bitterly mourn the death of Elie Wiesel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. Elie, a master of words, expressed in his unique personality and fascinating books the victory of human spirit over cruelty and evil.

One of the worlds foremost witnesses and humanitarians, Wiesel for more than a half-century voiced his passionate beliefs to world leaders, celebrities and general audiences in the name of victims of violence and oppression. He wrote more than 40 books, but his most influential by far was Night, a classic ranked with Anne Franks diary as standard reading about the Holocaust.

Night was his first book, and its journey to publication crossed both time and language. It began in the mid-1950s as an 800-page story in Yiddish, was trimmed to under 300 pages for an edition released in Argentina, cut again to under 200 pages for the French market and finally published in the United States, in 1960, at just over 100 pages.

Night is the most devastating account of the Holocaust that I have ever read, wrote Ruth Franklin, a literary critic and author of A Thousand Darknesses, a study of Holocaust literature that was published in 2010.

There are no epiphanies in Night. There is no extraneous detail, no analysis, no speculation. There is only a story: Eliezers account of what happened, spoken in his voice.

Wiesel began working on Night just a decade after the end of World War II, when memories were too raw for many survivors to even try telling their stories. Franks diary had been an accidental success, a book discovered after her death, and its entries end before Frank and her family was captured and deported. Wiesels book was among the first popular accounts written by a witness to the very worst, and it documented what Frank could hardly have imagined.

Night was so bleak that publishers doubted it would appeal to readers. In a 2002 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Wiesel recalled that the book attracted little notice at first. The English translation came out in 1960, and the first printing was 3,000 copies. And it took three years to sell them. Now, I get 100 letters a month from children about the book. And there are many, many million copies in print.

In one especially haunting passage, Wiesel sums up his feelings upon arrival in Auschwitz:

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. ... Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.

Night was based directly on his experiences, but structured like a novel, leading to an ongoing debate over how to categorize it. Alfred Kazin was among the critics who expressed early doubts about the books accuracy, doubts that Wiesel denounced as a mortal sin in the historical sense. Wiesels publisher called the book a memoir even as some reviewers called it fiction. An Amazon editorial review labeled the book technically a novel, albeit so close to Wiesels life that its generally  and not inaccurately  read as an autobiography.

In 2006, a new translation returned Night to the best-seller lists after it was selected for Oprah Winfreys book club. But the choice also revived questions about how to categorize the book. Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com, both of which had listed Night as fiction, switched it to nonfiction. Wiesel, meanwhile, acknowledged in a new introduction that he had changed the narrators age from not quite 15 to Wiesels real age at the time, 15.

Unfortunately, Night is an imperfect ambassador for the infallibility of the memoir, Franklin wrote, owing to the fact that it has been treated very often as a novel.

Wiesels prolific stream of speeches, essays and books, including two sequels to Night and more than 40 books overall of fiction and nonfiction, emerged from the helplessness of a teenager deported from Hungary, which had annexed his native Romanian town of Sighet, to Auschwitz. Tattooed with the number A-7713, he was freed in 1945  but only after his mother, father and one sister had all died in Nazi camps. Two other sisters survived.

After the liberation of Buchenwald, in April 1945, Wiesel spent a few years in a French orphanage, then landed in Paris. He studied literature and philosophy at the Sorbonne, and then became a journalist, writing for the French newspaper LArche and Israels Yediot Ahronot.

French author Francois Mauriac, winner of the 1952 Nobel in literature, encouraged Wiesel to break his vowed silence about the concentration camps and start sharing his experiences.

In 1956, Wiesel traveled on a journalistic assignment to New York to cover the United Nations. While there, he was struck by a car and confined to a wheelchair for a year. He became a lifetime New Yorker, continuing in journalism writing for the Yiddish-language newspaper, the Forward. His contact with the citys many Holocaust survivors shored up Wiesels resolve to keep telling their stories.

Wiesel became a U.S. citizen in 1963. Six years later, he married Marion Rose, a fellow Holocaust survivor who translated some of his books into English. They had a son, Shlomo. Based in New York, Wiesel commuted to Boston University for almost three decades, teaching philosophy, literature and Judaic studies and giving a popular lecture series in the fall.

Wiesel also taught at Yale University and the City University of New York.

In 1978, he was chosen by President Carter to head the Presidents Commission on the Holocaust, and plan an American memorial museum to Holocaust victims. Wiesel wrote in a report to the president that the museum must include denying the Nazis a posthumous victory, honoring the victims last wishes to tell their stories. He said that although all the victims of the Holocaust were not Jewish, all Jews were victims. Wiesel advocated that the museum emphasize the annihilation of the Jews, while still remembering the others; today the exhibits and archives reflects that.

Among his most memorable spoken words came in 1985, when he received a Congressional Gold Medal from President Ronald Reagan and asked the president not to make a planned trip to a cemetery in Germany that contained graves of Adolf Hitlers personal guards.

We have met four or five times, and each time I came away enriched, for I know of your commitment to humanity, Wiesel said, as Reagan looked on. May I, Mr. President, if its possible at all, implore you to do something else, to find a way, to find another way, another site. That place, Mr. President, is not your place. Your place is with the victims.

Reagan visited the cemetery, in Bitburg, despite international protests.

Wiesel also spoke at the dedication of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington in 1993. His words are now carved in stone at its entrance: For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.

Wiesel defended Soviet Jews, Nicaraguas Miskito Indians, Cambodian refugees, the Kurds, victims of African famine and victims of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Wiesel was a longtime supporter of Israel although he was criticized at times for his closeness to Netanhayu. When Netanhayu gave a highly controversial address to Congress in 2015, denouncing President Obamas efforts to reach a nuclear treaty with Iran, Wiesel was among the guests of honor.

What were you doing there, Elie Wiesel? Haaretz columnist Roger Alpher wrote at the time. Netanyahu is my prime minister. You are not an Israeli citizen. You do not live here. The Iranian threat to destroy Israel does not apply to you. You are a Jew who lives in America. This is not your problem.

The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, which he established in 1988, explored the problems of hatred and ethnic conflicts around the world. But like a number of other well-known charities in the Jewish community, the foundation fell victim to Bernard Madoff, the financier who was arrested in late 2008 and accused of running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

Wiesel said he ended up losing $15.2 million in foundation funds, plus his and his wifes own personal investments. At a panel discussion in February 2009, Wiesel admitted he bought into the Madoff mystique, a myth that he created around him that everything was so special, so unique, that it had to be secret. He called Madoff a crook, a thief, a scoundrel.

Despite Wiesels mission to remind the world of past mistakes, the greatest disappointment of his life was that nothing changed, he said in an interview.

Human nature remained what it was. Society remained what it was. Too much indifference in the world, to the Other, his pain, and anguish, and hope.

But personally, he never gave up  as reflected in his novel The Town Beyond the Wall.

Wiesels Jewish protagonist, Michael, returns to his native town in now-communist Hungary to find out why his neighbors had given him up to the Nazis. Suspected as a Western spy, he lands in prison along with a young man whose insanity has left him catatonic.

The protagonist takes on the challenge of awakening the youth by any means, from talking to forcing his mouth open  a task as wrenching as Wiesels humanitarian missions.

The day when the boy suddenly began sketching arabesques in the air was one of the happiest of Michaels life. ... Now he talked more, as if wishing to store ideas and values in the boy for his moments of awakening. Michael compared himself to a farmer: months separated the planting from the harvest. For the moment, he was planting.
Though Dhaka insisted the Gulshan cafe massacre was instigated by local Islamist fundamentalists, Indian and western intelligence agencies confirmed that Fridays attack was mounted by the Bangladeshi module of the Islamic State led by Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif with foreigners as the main target.

Top government sources told HT that Indian agencies were briefed by their Bangladeshi counterparts on Saturday afternoon after being tight-lipped about the attack for more than 12 hours. The attack led to Indian agencies alerting the police in West Bengal and Assam, where the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) has been active since 2006.

The JMB terror group, which owes allegiance to the IS, declared West Bengal its 65th chapter in 2006. After a October 2, 2014 explosion in Burdwan, Indian security agencies busted the JMBs bomb-making modules in West Bengal, Assam and Jharkhand, which had already sent five or six bomb consignments to Bangladesh. The chief bomb maker was identified as Hath Kata Nasrullah, who absconded and has been at large since.

Read | Dhaka attack: Bangladesh may be confronting a more fearsome militant foe

Though the Sheikh Hasina government blamed recent attacks on local Islamists opposed to her regime, IS propaganda magazine Dabiq carried an article titled The Revival of Jihad in Bengal with the spread of light of the Khilafah in May.

The first evidence of IS activity in Bangladesh was available when Asif Adnan, Mohammed Faile Elahi and Samiun Rahaman were arrested for planning to travel to Syria to join the IS.

There has been a series of Indian intelligence inputs that a large number of Bangladeshis have been radicalised by the IS over the internet.

Consequent to the ban on the Hizb-ut-Tehrir, JMB, Harkat ul Jihad al-Islam, Ansarullah Bangla Team and Shaheed Hamza Brigade, their leaders formed groups with different names.

The crackdown by the Bangladeshi government on terror groups has furthered the inclination of some radicals towards the IS. The mushrooming of radical Islamists has added to terrorist activity, with these groups capturing the online space in Bangladesh, a senior intelligence official said.

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A suicide car bombing claimed by the Islamic State group ripped through a busy Baghdad shopping district Sunday, killing at least 119 people in the deadliest attack this year in Iraqs capital.

The blast hit the Karrada district early in the day as the area was packed with shoppers ahead of this weeks holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

It came a week after Iraqi security forces recaptured Fallujah from IS, leaving Mosul as the only Iraqi city under the jihadist groups control.

The bombing also wounded more than 140 people, security officials said.

Prime minister Haider al-Abadi visited the site of the attack and vowed punishment for its perpetrators, his office said.

The blast set buildings ablaze, and firemen were still working to extinguish them some 12 hours later.

Men carried the bodies of two victims out of one burned building and a crowd of people looked on from the rubble-filled street as firefighters worked at the site.

Hussein Ali, a 24-year-old former soldier, said six workers at his familys shop were killed in the attack, their bodies burned so badly that they could not be identified.

I will return to the battlefront. At least there, I know the enemy so I can fight him. But here, I dont know who Im fighting, Ali told AFP.

IS issued a statement claiming responsibility for the suicide bombing, saying it was carried out by an Iraqi as part of the groups ongoing security operations.

Cowardly and heinous act

The jihadist group said the blast targeted members of Iraqs Shia Muslim majority, whom the Sunni extremists consider heretics and frequently attack in Baghdad and elsewhere.

UN Iraq envoy Jan Kubich condemned the cowardly and heinous act of unparallelled proportions, calling on authorities to bring those responsible to justice.

An Iraqi Man looks for victims at the site of a car bomb attack at a commercial area in Karada neighborhood,Baghdad. (AP Photo)

Officials said another explosion in the Shaab area of northern Baghdad killed at least one person and wounded four on Sunday, but the cause of the blast was disputed.

US National Security Council spokesperson Ned Price said the attacks only strengthen our resolve to support Iraqi security forces as they continue to take back territory from IS.

Bombings in the capital have decreased since IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in June 2014, with the jihadists apparently occupied with operations elsewhere.

But the group has struck back against Iraqi civilians after suffering military setbacks.

A video posted on social media showed men -- apparently angry at the governments failure to prevent the carnage in Karrada -- throwing rocks towards what was said to be Abadis convoy.

A bystander could be heard cursing at Abadi in another video.

In May, Baghdad was rocked by a series of blasts that killed more than 150 people in seven days.

With thousands of vehicles moving in and out of the city each day, such bombings are difficult to prevent.

But there are also flaws in Iraqi security measures in the city, especially the continued use of fake bomb detectors at checkpoints years after the man who sold them to Iraq was jailed for fraud in Britain.

IS defeat in Fallujah

Iraqi forces completely recaptured Fallujah, a city 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad, from the jihadists a week ago.

Anti-government fighters seized Fallujah in early 2014 and it later became one of ISs main strongholds in the country.

ISs defeat there was compounded by a devastating series of air strikes targeting jihadist forces as they sought to flee the Fallujah area.

Iraqi and US-led coalition aircraft destroyed hundreds of IS vehicles and killed dozens of fighters in two days of strikes against jihadist convoys after the end of the Fallujah battle, officials said.

Iraqi firefighters extinguish a fire as civilians gather after a car bomb. (AP Photo)

With Fallujah retaken, Iraqi forces are now setting their sights on second city Mosul, the last major population centre held by IS in Iraq.

Initial operations aimed at setting the stage for a final assault on the city have begun, and the US-led coalition is carrying out strikes in the area.

The Pentagon announced on Friday the coalition had killed two senior IS leaders in the Mosul area the previous week.

In addition to Mosul, IS still holds significant territory in Nineveh province, of which it is the capital, as well as areas in Kirkuk to its west and Anbar to its south.

The jihadist group seized control of large parts of Iraq and Syria in mid-2014, declaring an Islamic caliphate, committing widespread atrocities and organising or inspiring a series of deadly attacks in Western cities and across the Middle East.
At least two police officers were killed and seven others were wounded in car bomb explosion overnight in one of the busiest districts of Libyas eastern city of Benghazi, officials said.

Benghazi Medical Centre spokesperson Khalil Gwaider on Sunday said the two killed were traffic police monitoring a busy intersection from their parked car. The neighbourhood was particularly crowded due to the upcoming Eid holiday, which begins on Wednesday and marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Several Islamic militant groups operate in Libya, where they have exploited the chaos that followed the 2011 overthrow of long time dictator Moammar Gadhafi. An Islamic State affiliate has been locked in heavy fighting with other local militias in its last remaining stronghold of Sirte, a central coastal city.
A doctor headed for morning prayers at a Houston mosque was reportedly ambushed by three masked men who shot and wounded him on Sunday, a day after a Muslim man was beaten outside a Florida mosque.

The victim of the Texas incident, identified as Dr. Arslan Tajammul, an eye specialist, was undergoing surgery and was expected to survive, according to KTRK, an ABC television affiliate.

The doctor had parked his car and was walking to the Madrasah Islamiah mosque when he was ambushed and shot twice at about 5:30 am EST. His three attackers fled on foot, KTRK reported.

The victim was able to toss his cell phone to someone at the entrance to the mosque on Bintliff Drive and DeMoss Drive , in southwest Houston, and ask them to call 911, the TV station said.

Houston police did not immediately respond to a request for information.

The shooting took place a day after a Muslim man was beaten outside a Florida mosque that had been attended by the gunman who killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub.

The victim in that case was punched in the head and face outside the Fort Pierce Islamic Center just after 4 am on Saturday, the St. Lucie County Sheriffs Office said.

Taylor Anthony Mazzanti, 25, was arrested in the attack and was charged with felony battery, the sheriffs office said.

No racially motivated comments were made to the suspect during the incident, said the sheriffs office, which added the case is under investigation.

The Florida branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), however, said the attacker uttered racially offensive comments including You Muslims need to get back to your country before assaulting the victim.

The Islamic Centers imam had requested extra security in the wake of last months mass shooting by Omar Mateen at the Orlando gay nightclub Pulse. Mateen had worshipped at the center.
This Sunday, Justin Trudeau will become the first sitting Canadian Prime Minister to march in a Gay Pride parade, in Toronto, the largest such gathering in the country.

That will be a milestone but the Indo-Canadian LGBTQ community will be creating a bit of history itself as it has grand marshals leading parades in two of the countrys largest cities  Toronto and Vancouver. In that sense, at least, this could be the year the community truly comes out.

Justin Trudeau at the Pride parade last year when he was leader of the Liberal Party. He will return this year to be the first sitting PM to march in the parade. (Courtesy: Pride Toronto)

With the shadow of the massacre at Orlandos Pulse nightclub by Omar Mateen, who claimed allegiance to the Islamic State, hanging over the Toronto Pride Parade, its organisers have interfaced with police and the Prime Ministers Office over security measures. The parade will begin with a moments silence in memory of the victims of the June 12 attack. But the celebrations are unlikely to be muted.

Among the national grand marshals will be Toronto-based Vivek Shraya, who Pride described as an acclaimed voice for Torontos trans community and a multimedia artist who expresses her experiences and views as a trans woman of colour through music, performance, literature and film. From albums and poetry to films and novels.

In an interview, Shraya said, Being asked to be grand marshal is a tremendous honour, especially because I haven't always felt welcome at Pride as a trans bisexual person of colour.

On the West Coast, activist Alex Sangha will feature as a grand marshal at Pride Vancouver at the end of July. LAst year, Bollywood actor Celina Jaitly was an international grand marshal at Pride Toronto. But 2016 is the year where the Indo-Canadian community will be marching at the front.

Alex Sangha (right) who will be a grand marshal at the Pride parade in Vancouver this year. (Courtesy: Alex Sangha)

While there is accomplishment, the challenges are nowhere near being resolved. Sangha formed the support group Sher Vancouver in 2008 to deal, partly, with the crisis of youngsters being bullied and committing suicide. A lot of the youth are afraid they will be rejected, neglected, abandoned; their families will be shamed, Sangha said.

Read | Indo-Canadian activist Vivek Shraya pushes gender and creative boundaries

When he formed Sher, the president of a gurdwara in the Vancouver suburb of Surrey asserted there was no such thing as a gay Sikh. That state of denial largely persists. Just before last years general election in Canada, a clutch of Indo-Canadian candidates nominated by national parties were outed for their homophobic statements in the past.

Its something the older generation doesnt really accept yet, specifically when it comes to marriage, said Sachil Patel, production manager at Pride Toronto.

This is despite gay activism having a history in Canada, with the pioneering South Asian group Khush being formed in 1987. Two years later, the Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention was created and emerged as an important centre for sexual health promotion and counselling.

Ramraajh Sharvendiran, mens sexual health coordinator, said, Theres already a deficit of examples of same-sex relations. Its represented in the mainstream media more frequently, but is still very limited in representation of South Asian folk, and that also feeds into narrative within the community. That narrative is largely one of the absence of a LGBTQ population within the Indo-Canadian community.

Visitors to Bend It Like Bombay, a celebration held on the sidelines of Toronts Pride parade last year. (Courtesy: Pride Toronto)

I think its a cultural taboo, but thats slowly changing, Sangha said, pointing out that the same Sikh temple that denied the existence of gays reached out to him in 2014 with a request to work together on sexual health matters.

Pride Torontos Patel concurred, The new generation is going to bring it forward. Were progressing very well but a lot more work needs to be done. Among the positive developments was the formation of a community support group in a Toronto suburb earlier this year for parents with gay children.

As those like Shraya and Sangha fly the rainbow flag for the community this summer, that will be part of the process of upping visibility for this minority within a minority. But that march still has much ground to cover.

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Mohammad Ali sits before a painting of a semi-naked man and declares his work has never been censored in conservative Muslim Pakistan, where an artistic vanguard are challenging taboos in the chaotic city of Karachi.

I have done some pretty bold and risky works but luckily I did not face any (censorship), says the 27-year-old, a rising star who paints figurative, contemporary images exploring gender, politics and sex.

Ali has a theory about why, in a developing country where women are traditionally veiled and even unproven allegations of blasphemy can stir mob violence, he has been so free.

People, a lot of them dont have access to even a decent meal and if they are starving you cannot make them interested in art instead of food, he says.

Pakistan remains deeply bound to strict religious norms, though art bursts from unexpected places, such as the acid-trip trucks wild with bells and bright, elaborate images that traverse the country.

But in recent years Karachis concrete sprawl has become home to a rush of galleries and dealerships bullish on the countrys art market as a new generation challenges constraints that date back to the Islamisation of the 1980s.

In the port citys trendy Canvass Gallery, owner Sameera Raja takes AFP on a tour of the nude and homosexual art on display.

Hadiqa Asif, a third-year student at the Visual Arts department of Karachi University,works on a sculpture at her workshop in Karachi. (AFP)

These are not the things which are taboos in our society, at least not in the art-related population, she says.

Having said that, it doesnt that mean I am going to socially risk the artist by putting it up on a the public platform. Absolutely not, she swiftly adds.

Raja is all too aware that, despite the confidence of artists such as Ali -- whose paintings have so far been confined to galleries and private spaces -- such art only finds safe haven in showrooms like hers and in the bedrooms of the Pakistani elite.

Her caution is echoed by other artists, such as third-year visual arts student Hadiqa Asif at Karachi University.

If we want to make a sculpture so we must be aware that it should not cause any harm to the society, she says, chiselling at a piece of wood.

Some artists point to the Islamisation of Pakistan by military dictator Zia ul-Haq in the 1980s as a ground zero of sorts for conservative taboos, and other forms of art that flourished because of them, such as calligraphy.

Pakistani Sameera Raja, the owner of Canvass Gallery, a hot spot for Pakistan's artists to exhibit their work, explains an art work at the gallery in Karachi. (AFP)

During the regime of Zia ul-Haq there was much noise of imposition of Islamic government in the country, prominent Pakistani artist Mashkoor Raza, famous for his abstract images of women and horses, recalls.

Our seniors would draw nudes, but fearing their arrest they started calligraphy of the religious verses and Sufi poetry.

He said he found himself unable to earn a living, and worked in a textile mill as a designer for nearly a decade, using his savings to buy brushes, paints and canvas.

But Zia was assassinated in 1988, and the 1990s saw galleries and art shops mushroom in urban centres like Karachi.

After the 90s, I became the owner of my own home, car and whatnot, says Raza, who now lives in a posh neighbourhood fanned by the citys sea breezes.

Estimates by gallery owners and art critics put the number of galleries, framers and dealers in Karachi alone in the hundreds.

They are growing exponentially, its a huge market, I think, comments Raja the gallery owner.

Despite the shift and the brimming confidence of artists, change, already decades in the making, remains slow.

For many sex -- contrary to the received wisdom -- still doesnt sell.

I dont think that there is a room for the nude in Pakistan other than what an artist makes privately for themselves, Durriya Kazi, head of the visual arts department at Karachi University, told AFP.

I dont think it is relevant to our society.
A wave of suicides committed by government officials in China has set off alarm bells in the quiet corridors of power here amid President Xi Jinpings ongoing anti-corruption drive.

Over 150 officials from different levels of government have committed suicide since 2013, data scattered across Chinese media, including official ones, reveal.

The broad break-up: 46 in 2013, 54 in 2014 and 30 in 2015.

The tragic trend till mid-2016 indicates that this year could turn out to be the worst  till Sunday, 28 government officials had committed suicide.

Most jumped to their deaths from their offices or homes.

A Beijing-based senior academic said the suicides were being described as an epidemic in official circles but declined to comment further.

An official commentary appearing in the South China Morning Post said between 2003 and 2012  when Hu Jintao was President  at least 68 officials killed themselves. That number was surpassed in the first two years of President Xi Jinpings administration, with at least 77 officials committing suicide.

Experts said it might not always be easy to link the suicides to the anti-graft campaign that has netted officials from all hierarchies.

The official reason is usually depression.

But many of those who committed suicides were or could have been under the scanner for graft.

There could be multiple reasons to commit suicide. Not one. But sometimes, people might kill themselves to save their families from being shamed, Paul Yip, director of the Hong Kong-based Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention, told HT.

(AP file photo)

Eminent psychiatrist Zhao Guoqiu told ThePaper.cn that the Chinese Criminal Procedure law says a defendant cannot be investigated for criminal responsibility after death.

If he was already under investigation, the case should be withdrawn. For that reason, some officials find ending their lives before a prosecution will save his or her whole family and elated people, and the benefits it brings is much more attractive than that of spending the rest of their lives in jail, Zhao said.

Intra-party ideological differences within the Communist Party of China (CPC) and officials could be another reason for the deaths.

Yip said official data released by the government was needed to carry out a full analysis.

That seems unlikely, with the government having reportedly sent out a directive sometime in 2014 that media houses should not report on accidental deaths of officials.

In a response emailed to HT, the government side-tracked the likelihood of the deaths being linked to the anti-corruption campaign.

The integrity of officials, incorruptibility of the government and fairness of politics is the CPC's rigorous requirement to itself, and is also the common expectation for people, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

It said the CPC was focused on law-based governance and that the anti-graft campaign was welcomed by the people.

Ever since the 18th CPC National Congress, the CPC has been insisting on promoting law-based governance in all-round ways, strengthening self-discipline of the party, and resolutely punishing corruption. These efforts have been supported and welcomed by the whole party and people of the whole nation, it added.

That hasnt stopped thousands of Chinese citizens from discussing the suicides on Weibo, the countrys Twitter-like micro-blogging platform.

Government is expected to give reasonable explanations. We have the right to know the truth and the meaning behind these cases, said netizen, Tiaozhen Yu Guidaqiang.
WASHINGTON: The US on Friday released figures for the first time that showed that between 64 and 116 civilians were killed in drone strikes outside areas of active hostilities on President Barack Obamas watch.

These casualties, the US count of which is significantly lower than that estimated by non- governmental bodies, occurred outside Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, the so-called areas of active hostilities .

The release by the Director General of Intelligence (DNI), which oversees the US intelligence community, did not, however, give a location-specific breakdown of these numbers.

But Pakistan is likely one of them, especially its northwestern parts where the US has used drones to kill terroristssuch as Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour in May.

The US has also used drones extensively against al-Shabaab terrorists in Somalia, killing 150 of them in strikes last March, according to an announcement made by the Pentagon then.

The DNI said between 2,372 and 2,581 combatants, intended targets, were killed in a total of 473 drone strikes outside areas of active hostilities from January 2009 to December 2015.

Figures cited by non-governmental bodies are much higher at least 325 by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism ,219 by New America Foundation and 212 by Long War Journal.

Acknowledging these differences between its figures and those of non-governmental bodies, the D NI said the first official count is based onpost-strike methodologies that have been refined and honed over the years and that use information that is generally unavailable to non-governmental organisations.

And, it added, non-governmental bodies sometimes count combatants as non-combatants because they do not have the kind of follow-up information available to officials.

Second, US government post-strike reviews based on multi-source intelligence from before, during and after the strike are unique and not available to non-governmental bodies.

Third, non-government counts may have been compromised by deliberate spread of misinformation by some actors .

An executive order issued by President O ba ma along with DNI release makes it incumbent upon the president, those who follow him, to publish these figures every year.

And it also enjoins upon the government to offer condolences, including ex gratia payments to civilian skilled in such strikes, and coordinate casualty figures with non-government bodies. This is a very deliberate attempt to ensure that the architecture... is durable, sustainable and lasting well beyond next seven months, a senior official said, according to Washington Post.
WASHINGTON: The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) interviewed Hillary Clinton on Saturday in connection with its ongoing investigation over her use of a private email server as secretary of state.

The presumptive Democratic nominee was interviewed at the FBI headquarters in Washington for more than three and a half hours, a campaign aide said.

Nick Merrill, her spokesman, said in a statement, Secretary Clinton gave a voluntary interview this morning about her email arrangements while she was Secretary.

She is pleased to have had the opportunity to assist the Department of Justice in bringing this review to a conclusion. Out of respect for the investigative process, she will not comment further on her interview.

The email controversy, which has dogged her campaign since it surfaced in a congressional committee investigation of the death of four Americans in the 2012 Benghazi, Libya attack, hit the headlines this week after an unscheduled meeting between Clintons husband, former President Bill Clinton, and attorney general Loretta Lynch, whose department is investigating her, at an airport in Arizona.

The attorney general has since said she should not have met the former president as people who have questions about how we in the government do our business will have another reason to have questions and concerns.

Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, couldnt agree more. He said the meeting had opened up a Pandoras box. Trump said it was an example of how the special interests are controlling your government .

The probe is an unwelcome distraction for Clinton, who had just vanquished rival Bernie Sanders.
WASHINGTON: Amid the clamour a year ago to release the still-secret 28 pages of a congressional inquiry into the September 11 terror attacks, the US government quietly declassified a little-known report, listing more than three dozen people who piqued the interest of investigators probing possible Saudi connections to the hijackers.

The document, known as File 17, offers clues to what might be in the missing pages of the bipartisan report about 9/11.

Much of the information upon which File 17 was written was based on whats in the 28 pages, said former Democratic senator Bob Graham of Florida, co-chairman of the congressional inquiry. He believes the hijackers had an extensive Saudi support system while they were in the United States.

File 17 said, Here are some additional unanswered questions and here is how we think the 9/11 Commission, the FBI and the CIA should go about finding the answers, Graham said.

Former President George W Bush classified the 28-page chapter to protect intelligence sources and methods, although he also probably did not want to upset US relations with Saudi Arabia, a close ally. Two years ago, under pressure from the families of those killed or injured in the attack, President Barack Obama ordered a declassification review of the 28 pages. Its unclear when all or some may be released.

File 17, first disclosed by 28 pages.org, an advocacy website, names people the hijackers were in contact with in the US before the attacks. Some were Saudi diplomats, raising questions about whether Saudi officials knew about the plot.

The 9/11 Commissions final report stated that it found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded al-Qaeda.

This conclusion does not exclude the likelihood that charities with significant Saudi government sponsorship diverted funds to al-Qaida, the report said. Releasing the 28 pages might answer some questions, but could also lead to more speculation about the key Saudi figures investigated by the US.
LOS ANGELES: An Illinois man accused of breaking into the Apple iCloud and Gmail accounts of celebrities to obtain their private photos and videos has agreed to plead guilty to a felony computer hacking charge, prosecutors said on Friday. Edward Majerczyk, 28, facing up to five years in prison, is the second man charged in a federal investigation into the leaks of nude photos of several actresses including Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence.

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BELGRADE: A man shot dead five people, including his wife, and injured another 20 in a cafe in northern Serbia on Saturday, police said, with jealousy the suspected motive. The man entered the cafe and opened fire with an automatic rifle, killing his wife and another woman, then he continued to shoot at other citizens in the cafe, a police statement said. It was the third mass shooting in recent years in Serbia, which has tried to shrink the large number of illegal weapons in circulation since the 1990s Balkan wars. Police arrested the alleged shooter, born in 1978 and identified only by his initials Z.S., and opened a probe into the killings.

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YANGON: A mob wielding weapons razed a mosque in northern Myanmar, state media reported on Saturday, the second attack of its kind in just over a week as anti-Muslim sentiment swells in the Buddhist majority nation.

Myanmar has struggled to contain bouts of deadly religious bloodshed in recent years, with bristling sectarian tensions and rising Buddhist nationalism posing a steep challenge to the new government led by Aung San Suu Kyi.

On Friday villagers in Hpakant, a jade-mining town in northern Kachin state, ransacked a mosque wielding sticks, knives and other weapons before burning it down, according to the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar.

The mob was unresponsive and entirely beyond control. The building was razed by the riotous crowd, the paper reported, adding that the rampage was sparked by a dispute over the mosques construction. No arrests have been made, it said.

A local NGO worker who visited the town on Saturday told AFP security forces had been deployed to maintain order.

The riot came eight days after a Buddhist mob destroyed a mosque in central Bago, forcing the Muslim community to seek refuge in a neighbouring town.

Tensions are also rising in western Rakhine, a state scarred by deadly riots in 2012 that have left communities almost completely divided along religious lines. The region is home to the stateless Rohingya, a Muslim minority largely relegated to displacement camps.
BAGHDAD: The Pentagon said two senior Islamic State commanders were killed in a US airstrike in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on June 25. The strike killed ISs deputy war minister Basim Muhammad Ahmad Sultan al-Bajari and a military commander named Hatim Talib al-Hamduni, it said. The announcement comes less than a week after Iraqi ground forces backed by coalition airstrikes retook the city of Fallujah from Islamic State.

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TORONTO: On Sunday, Justin Trudeau will become the first sitting Canadian Prime Minister to march in a Gay Pride parade, in Toronto, the largest such gathering in the country.

That will be a milestone but the Indo-Canadian LGBTQ community will be creating a bit of history itself as it has grand marshals leading parades in two of the countrys largest cities  Toronto and Vancouver. In that sense, at least, this could be the year the community truly comes out.

With the shadow of the massacre at Orlando s Pulse nightclub by Omar Mateen, who claimed allegiance to the Islamic State, hanging over the Toronto Pride Parade, its organ is er shave interfaced with police and the Prime Ministers Office over security measures. The parade will begin with a moment s silence in memory of the victims of the June 12 attack. But the celebrations are unlikely to be muted.

Among the national grand marshals will be Toronto-based Vivek Shraya, who Pride described as an acclaimed voice for Torontos trans community and a multimedia artist who expresses her experiences and views as a trans woman of colour through music, performance, literature and film. From albums and poetry to films and novels.

In an interview, Shraya said, Being asked tobe grand marsh al is a tremendous honour, especially because I havent always felt welcome at Pride as a trans bisexual person of colour.

On the West Coast, activist Alex Sangha will feature as a grand marshal at Pride Vancouver at the end of July. Last year, Bollywood actor Celina Jaitly was an international grand marshal at Pride Toronto. But 2016 is the year where the Indo-Canadian community will be marching at the front.

While there is accomplishment, the challenges are nowhere near being resolved. Sangha formed the support group Sher Vancouver in 2008 to deal, partly, with the crisis of youngsters being bullied and committing suicide .A lot of the youth are afraid they will be rejected, neglected, abandoned; their families will be shamed, Sangha said.

When he formed Sher, the president of a gurdwara in the Vancouver suburb of Surrey asserted there was no such thing as a gay Sikh. That state of denial largely persists. Just before last years general election in Canada, a clutch of Indo-Canadian candidates nominated by national parties were outed for earlier homophobic statements.

Its something the older generation doesnt really accept yet, specifically when it comes to marriage , said Sachil Patel, production manager at Pride Toronto.

This is despite gay activism having a history in Canada, with the pioneering South Asian group Khush being formed in 1987. Two years later, the Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention was created and became a key centre for sexual health promotion and counselling.

Ramraajh Sharvendiran, men s sexual health coordinator, said ,There s already a deficit of examples of same-sex relations. Its represented in the mainstream media more frequently, but is still very limited in representation of South Asian folk, and that also feeds into narrative within the community. That narrative is largely one of the absence of a LGBTQ population within the Indo-Canadian community.

I think its a cultural taboo, but thats slowly changing, Sang has aid, pointing out that the same Sikh temple that denied the existence of gays reached out to him in 2014 with a request to work together on sexual health matters.

Pride Torontos Patel concurred, The new generation is going to bring it forward. Were progressing very well but a lot more work needs to be done.

As those like Shraya and Sangha fly the rainbow flag for the community this summer, that will be part of the process of up ping visibility for this minority within a minority.

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london: Terrorists who claim to support the Islamic State have used Twitter to threaten an attack on Londons Heathrow airport, a media report said on Saturday. An alert from the SITE Intelligence Group warned that a pro-Islamic State account had issued threats against aircraft flying from Heathrow to the US this weekend, which coincides with the American Independence Day holiday, The Times daily reported.

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LONDON: A 27-year-old UK woman named Isis was denied access to her Facebook account and asked to send an identity proof by the social networking site as part of its stringent policy to erase all traces of IS terror group. Isis Thomas, a resident of Bristol in Britain, was asked to change her name after logging on to the site on June 27, according to a report in The Sun newspaper.

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1/1/1808  Transatlantic Slave Trade Ended

A new federal law banned the importation of slaves into the United States. After a 20-year moratorium on any legislation dealing with the issue, President Thomas Jefferson urged Congress to finally end the transatlantic slave trade. The final bill, passed in 1807, made it illegal to import slaves, but the internal trade in human chattel continued (right). The turbulent debates over the law underscored a growing rift between North and South.

2/15/1898  Remember the Maine!

An explosion sank USS Maine in Havana Harbor, Cuba. The navy battleship had been dispatched to Havana to protect American interests as the three-year-old Cuban uprising against Spain reached a tipping point. The blast killed 266, and initial reports blamed the explosion on a mine in the harbor. The American Yellow Press goaded the U.S. government into exacting revenge, and Congress declared war on Spain in April. Spurred by the rallying cry Remember the Maine, American troops won a decisive military victory in four months. A 1976 study concluded that the explosion had occurred onboard the ship, although the exact cause is still in dispute.

2/15/1933  Assassination Attempt on FDR

President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt had just finished a speech at Bayfront Park in Miami, Fla., when gunshots rang out. Roosevelt was unhurt, but Chicago Mayor Anton Tony Cermak (above center), who had accompanied FDR to Miami, was wounded. Giuseppe Zangara, an immigrant anarchist, confessed to the crime and was later executed. Cermak had revitalized the Democratic Party in Chicago, but he had run afoul of mob boss Al Capone, leading to speculation that the mayor, not FDR, was the real target of the shooting. Cermak died on March 6.

1/12/1973  Roe v.Wade

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a 7-2 decision striking down most state laws that restricted abortion. In 1970 Norma L. McCorvey had filed suit in Texas as Jane Roe, demanding the right to an abortion; the state was represented by Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade. After a district court found in McCorveys favor, the U.S. Supreme Court accepted the case on appeal. Justice Harry Blackmun wrote the courts majority opinion. Justices William Rehnquist and Byron White were the only two dissenters. Roe v. Wade instantly polarized the nation, making abortion rights a seminal ethical and political issue and widened the divide between those on the left and the right.
Late in the afternoon of July 1, 1863, after a full day of fierce fighting, Confederate troops finally drove the Union defenders from the fields west of Gettysburg. As the Union troops fled east toward the haven of Cemetery Hill, General Robert E. Lee sent the following order to Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell, commander of the II Corps, whose men had gained victory that day: The enemy [is] retreating over those hillsin great confusion. You only need press those people to secure possession of the heights.Do this, if possible. Legend tells us that, at that crucial moment, Old Bald Head lost his nerve. Instead of pursuing the fleeing Union soldiers, who were so panicked they could not defend themselves, Ewell held back, allowing the Federals to entrench atop Cemetery Hill. The advantage of holding the heights led to the Union victory at Gettysburg. Ewells indecision supposedly cost the South the battle.

While this is an interesting storyand one that has been repeated again and again in many books about the Civil Warit is also a lie that libels Ewell. The story was concocted by Lees apologists in a postwar attempt to shift the blame for losing the battle from their hero onto Ewell. In truth, Lee sent no definitive orders directing Ewell to pursue the enemy when the Union lines broke at Gettysburg, and Ewell was not benumbed by indecision when he should have been chasing the Federals to prevent them from establishing an impregnable position on top of Cemetery Hill. The proof of this lies in a close study of the battle, including the location and strength of the opposing forces once the first days fighting had ended, and in how the key participants reacted to the changing events of the day.

It all began because too many Rebels were barefoot. A large supply of shoes were stored in Gettysburg, but there was evidently a [Union] cavalry force occupying the town, Confederate Maj. Gen. Henry Heth stated, and [my] men reported the beat of drums, indicating infantry. There was always the risk of battle, but Heth went to his superior, Lt. Gen. A.P. Hill, chief of the III Corps in Lees Army of Northern Virginia. If there is no objection, I will march my divisionto Gettysburg, and secure those shoes, Heth requested. Do so! Hill replied.

Heth started his column of 7,500 troops, including the infantry brigades led by Brig. Gens. James J. Archer, Joseph R. Davis, John M. Brockenbrough and James J. Pettigrew, down Chambersburg Pike toward Gettysburg at 5 a.m. on July 1. About three miles west of the small crossroads village, Heths advance was met by Federal skirmishers from Colonel William Gambles brigade of Maj. Gen. John Bufords cavalry division. This confrontation started about 5:30 a.m.

Gambles objective was to delay the Rebels until Union infantry reached the field. The Union Army of the Potomac, under Maj. Gen. George C. Meade, was hurrying through Maryland to intercept the Confederates, who were concentrating just north of the border.

When the Union pickets opened fire, Heth halted, formed into battle line and began to slowly probe his front to test the strength of the force that was blocking his way into Gettysburg. Two hours passed. When the Confederates finally climbed Herr Ridge, they saw ahead a meandering creek, Willoughby Run. On the opposite bank, the ground sloped upward to McPhersons Ridge, where Gambles 1,600 men were posted. Heth sent Archers and Davis brigades, totaling 3,800 troops, ahead to face the Union line. They exchanged fire from a distance with the Federal cavalry for two more hours.

At about 10 a.m., Union Maj. Gen. John Reynolds infantry corps came marching into Gettysburg. Brigadier General James A. Wadsworths division, including the brigades led by Brig. Gens. Lysander Cutler and Solomon Meredith, arrived first and pressed forward to relieve Gambles exhausted troops, who were still aligned along McPhersons Ridge. The cavalry withdrew to the left, below the slope, as a reserve force. Just as Wadsworths men took their post, the Confederates under Archer and Davis charged. Both sides absorbed terrible losses in the one-hour melee. At first the Southerners prevailed, but a Northern counterattack pushed them back.

The two sides then resumed their original positions, content to continue the battle by exchanging artillery fire. During the clash, Archer was captured and taken to the rear, where he was warmly greeted by Maj. Gen. Abner Doubleday, an old friend from prewar days, who had just taken command of I Corps after Reynolds had been killed by a sniper.

Archer! Doubleday exclaimed on seeing him. I am glad to see you.

Well, I am not glad to see you, Archer snarled, not by a damned sight, Doubleday!

When the I Corps remaining divisions, led by Brig. Gens. John C. Robinson and Thomas Rowley, arrived at Gettysburg at 11 a.m., the latters two brigades pushed ahead to reinforce Wadsworth; Robinsons brigades were held in reserve in Gettysburg to face the enemys II Corps, reported to be approaching from the north.

Ewell, with only Maj. Gen. Robert E. Rodes division in hand, arrived at Gettysburg at about noon. As he came out of the woods that crowned Oak Hill, Ewell saw the exposed Union flank below him and knew he had an unparalleled opportunity to rout the enemy.

After giving Rodes orders to deploy his 8,125 soldiers for battle, Ewell sent Major Campbell Brown, his stepson and principal aide, to find Lee and tell him that Ewell meant to join the fray. Brown found Lee on Herr Ridge, where both he and Hill had come after hearing the bark of muskets and bellow of cannons. Lee sent Campbell back to Ewell with an astounding order: Do not charge; I want to avoid a general engagement.

Had Stonewall Jackson sent Ewell those instructions, he would have meekly complied without question. Jackson, who had died in May, never granted his subordinates any discretion. Lee, however, was a different type of commander, one who expected his leaders to use their own judgment. He had, for example, told Ewell to bypass Winchester while heading through the Shenandoah Valley to Pennsylvania. When Ewell saw that he could rout the Yankees occupying the small village, he decided to disobey Lees orders, attacked the enemy and won a decisive victory over the Northern defenders. Lee did not reprove Ewell for disregarding his instructions at Winchester. Now Ewell saw a similar chance for glory at Gettysburg, and he again elected to flout Lees directive.

Brown advised that now was not the time to disobey Lee. He described Lee as seething with anger, showing a querulous impatienceI never saw before. Lees ire was the result of cavalry head Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuarts disregarding his instructions. Hes gone off around the Federal Army, Lee groused, failing to keep in constant communication with me.

Despite Browns warning that Lee was in no mood to see his orders ignored, Ewell could not pass up the opportunity to assault the open Union flank. The enemy troops were so vulnerable that they could be quickly routed, which would not be a general engagement, Ewell reasoned. He decided to gamble his rank and career by proceeding with a charge. In giving the written order to his division commanders, Rodes and Maj. Gen. Jubal Early, Ewell stressed that, after driving the enemy from the ground, they must break off their engagement. This point was also verbally emphasized by the messengers dispatched to both Rodes and Early.

Before he could launch his attack, Rodes had to switch from column into battle formation. He moved Brig. Gen. Junius Daniels brigade west to flank the Federals along McPhersons Ridge; Brig. Gen. Alfred Iversons men would slip behind the Union forces on the hill to take the enemy from the rear. Meanwhile, Brig. Gen. Edward A. ONeals troops would come down Oak Ridge, where they would be in a position to block a Union retreat. Brigadier General George Doles would guard Rodes left flank; Brig. Gen. Stephen Ramseurs brigade would be his reserve.

As the Confederates filed into position, the Federals hastened to meet the enemy threat. Brigadier Generals Gabriel Paul and Henry Baxter rushed their troops, 2,600 men in all, out of Gettysburg and into a line facing northwest along Oak Ridge.

About that same time, the Union XI Corps, led by Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard, reached the battlefield. Howards command included divisions under Brig. Gens. Carl Schurz, Francis C. Barlow and Adolph von Steinwehr. Schurzs two small brigades rushed into position on the right, northwest of Gettysburg; Barlows 3,400 men extended the line east to Rock Creek. The Union soldiers grimly awaited the arrival of Earlys division.

Rodes alignment took much longer than he had expected, and the arrival of fresh Federal troops added desperation to his assault. As a result, when Rodes troops finally advanced at about 2 p.m., their charge was delivered piecemeal. ONeal had 1,800 soldiers at hand, and in his haste to attack the Federals he sent only three of his five regiments down Oak Ridge against Paul, who easily repulsed the charge.

Iversons 1,500 troops moved ahead at about 2:30 p.m. As the men advanced, looking for the enemy on their right, they failed to spot Baxters force, hiding behind a stone wall to their left. The Federals waited until the Confederates were opposite their position, then rose and poured a savage salvo into Iversons flank. Five hundred men, a third of the brigade, fell from the withering fire of Union rifles. Almost 400 more were quickly captured.

To the right, Daniel started his 2,300-man brigade down McPhersons Ridge. When they saw Iverson under assault near the stone wall, three of the five regiments swerved left to the rescue. They not only were too late to save Iverson but also left Daniel with just two regiments for his own assault. As a result, Daniel was easily repulsed.

Heth, on Herr Ridge, saw Ewells attack falter. Turning to Lee, he asked if he should press Pettigrews and Brockenbroughs brigades into the fray. No, Lee curtly replied. I am not prepared to bring on a general engagement today. He was determined to shun battle that day, and no doubt was incensed at Ewell for having defied his orders.

Atop Oak Hill, Ewell watched as Rodes attack disintegrated. His expectations of a quick victory had vanished, and he knew that Lees wrath was sure to come his way. Having drawn the Federals into battle, however, Ewell had no choice but to continue the fight. After ordering Rodes to gather his troops for a second charge, Ewell rushed east to check on Doles, who was posted north of Gettysburg. When he reached that front, he found Doles and his 1,500 Georgians under attack by two Union brigades, whose superior numbers enveloped both Confederate flanks. Ewell hurried back to his command post on Oak Hill to bring Ramseur, his only reserve, to Doles rescue. As he rode west, an enemy artillery shell crashed nearby, killing Ewells horse and throwing Ewell to the ground. Shaken but otherwise unhurt, the one-legged general gallantly mounted a spare mare and continued his dash back to Oak Hill.

When Ewell finally reached his field headquarters, he was surprised to learn that the battle had shifted dramatically in his favor. Ramseur had taken his 1,100 men, plus a few of ONeals troops, and charged the Federals defending Oak Ridge. Both Paul and Baxter had been driven from the field, all the way back to Cemetery Hill. Ramseur was pursuing the fleeing Union soldiers.

Meanwhile, at 4:15 p.m., Daniel had charged again into a railroad cut. He, too, had routed his adversary out of his strong position, and the Federals were reeling in retreat toward Gettysburg. The assault, however, had exhausted Daniels men, and they had halted along Oak Ridge.

When Lee saw the tide of battle shift in his favor, he suddenly turned aggressive and ordered A.P. Hill to have Heths reserve brigades (Pettigrew and Brockenbrough) charge the Union line along McPhersons Ridge. The Federals greeted the attack with repeated salvos, dropping hundreds of Confederates, but Heths troops refused to falter. They clambered up the slope, pushing the enemy back to Seminary Ridge, an extension of Oak Ridge, below Chambersburg Pike. Their lines shattered, Pettigrew and Brockenbrough halted along McPhersons Ridge. Hill sent three of Maj. Gen. Dorsey Penders brigades chasing after the retiring Federals.

To the east, the threat to Doles position had been reduced by the sudden appearance of Earlys division. He had arrived at about 3 p.m., but paused for half an hour so that his infantrymen could catch their breath after their hard march to the field. Early then charged out of the northeast, sending the brigades led by Brig. Gens. John B. Gordon, Isaac E. Avery and Harry T. Hays against the Union line. The Federals repelled the initial attack from Gordon out of the north, but when Hays came up from the east, the blue-clad troops broke and began running for Gettysburg. The retreat opened the flank to Gordon, who led his brigade toward the Federal ranks. The Union defense collapsed, and the soldiers rushed in disarray toward Gettysburg and the safety of Cemetery Hill. Gordons troops had exhausted their ammunition in the charge, and they halted above the town; both Hays and Avery pursued the fleeing enemy.

Howard, attempting to stem the Southerners advance, rushed troops off Cemetery Hill to intercept the oncoming Confederates. As they moved north, however, the reinforcements collided with the Federals running for the rear. The new men panicked and turned to join their compatriots fleeing for the heights.

When the Union right broke, the flank held by Brig. Gens. George von Amsberg and Wladimir Krzyanowski was exposed. They probably did not notice their problem, however, since they were busy dealing with the menace to their front. Doles had charged their line, and as the Federals braced for Doles blow, Ramseur suddenly exploded against their left flank and rear. The Union defense collapsed, and the troops under von Amsberg and Krzyanowski joined their XI Corps comrades in a desperate run for the haven of Cemetery Hill. Doles and Ramseur followed close on the heels of the enemy.

Howard, upon seeing his corps routed, sent word to the I Corps on Seminary Ridge that the Rebels were coming across its rear, and the I Corps must retire before the Confederate troops closed the gap. The message was never received, and Doubledays soldiers held their ground, weathering several assaults on their front.

At about 4:30 p.m., the Confederate superiority in numbers began to tell, and although Union fire opened gaping holes in their ranks, Hills men finally pushed the Federal I Corps off Seminary Ridge. With the Yankees in full retreat, both Rodes and Early called a halt to their pursuit, following the instructions issued by Ewell at the onset of the battle.

No one disputes this detailed description of the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg. The controversy begins with the Federal retreat. Those who blame Ewell for losing the battle claim that when Lee saw the enemy fleeing the field, he sent Ewell orders to press those people [and] secure possession of the heights. They charge that Ewell lacked the courage to carry out Lees instructions, thus allowing the Federals to entrench on Cemetery Hill, the ultimate key to their victory. How true are the charges?

At about 4:30 p.m., as the Union line began to break, Lee and Hill stood atop Seminary Ridge and watched the Federals retreating through Gettysburg and up Cemetery Hill. While they were thrilled by the Rebel success, they were also stunned by the cost of that victory. Hill had thrown seven brigades into the battle and suffered terrible losses. Archer and Davis, who opened the fray, had taken about 1,400 casualties, one-third of their original number. Their troops lay exhausted on Herr Ridge. Brockenbrough and Pettigrew had lost 648 men, 20 percent of the force that had charged the Union troops on McPhersons Ridge. Their brigades were strewn along the dearly bought ground. Brigadier Generals Abner Perrin, James H. Lane and Alfred Scales, who had pushed the attack against the Federals on Seminary Ridge, had seen more than 1,000 of their men, one-fourth of their commands, fall in the fight. Only Perrin had continued the pursuit of the enemy troops into Gettysburg.

Lee, who was personally commanding Hills troops (he had at first refused to order them into battle, then changed his mind and sent them forward), decided at the time to accept what had been accomplished that afternoon. He did not instruct Ewell to mount a charge against Cemetery Hill. He allowed Perrin to return to Seminary Ridge. Had Lee wanted to deny the enemy the heights, he could have sent Maj. Gen. Richard Andersons divisionjust now arriving and ready to fightahead to Cemetery Hill. Instead, Lee told Anderson to prepare to camp for the night.

When he wrote his report, Hill recalled Lees words, Prudence led me to be content with what had been gained [in the fight], and not push forward troops [who were] exhausted and necessarily disorderedto encounter fresh troops from the enemy.

Lees actions were sensible. He had just fought and won a punishing battle, during which he had committed every man available. Lieutenant General James Longstreet and his I Corps were approaching with reinforcements, but they were not expected to arrive before sunset. If Lee was to continue the fray, he would have to do so with the troops at hand, most of whom had spent all day in battle.

At the same time, the entire Union Army was known to be rushing toward Gettysburg, and the lead elements had already arrived and offered battle. Were Meades other corps about to come into line? Lee did not know, but since more Federal infantry were apt to appear at any moment, he could not gamble on sending weary troops against Cemetery Hill, which was likely to be defended by fresh enemy troops.

Ewells forces were in just as bad shape as Hills. Rodes had sent all five of his brigades into the battle, but only two, Doles and Ramseurs, were at the front and in position to continue the fighting. ONeal had lost almost 25 percent of his force, and most of his survivors (except the few who had joined Ramseurs charge) remained on Oak Hill. Daniel, too, had taken huge losses; almost 35 percent of his troops had fallen in battle. Iverson had suffered the most. His casualties exceeded 900 men, 60 percent of his brigade, and the remnants lay exhausted atop Oak Hill. And even though both Doles and Ramseur were ready for more action, their numbers, too, were diminished. They had entered into battle with 2,600 effectives; only about 2,000 remained.

Only one of Earlys four brigades was still positioned for action. Averys 2,000 men had advanced to the base of Cemetery Hill, where they were still attracting the enemys attention. We were subject to galling fire, remembered Lieutenant Warren Jackson. I spent about two hours as miserably as I ever did in my life.

Earlys other brigades were unavailable for Ewell to send into action. William Smiths men were posted east of the village, on the York Pike, guarding the corps flank; Gordons troops were north of Gettysburg, awaiting a resupply of ammunition; and Hays soldiers were in the town, encumbered with 3,000 Union prisoners.

Ewell had no thought of continuing the battle, but his rationale for holding in place was not based on having fewer than 4,000 men available for action. He was more concerned over having disobeyed his orders. General Leeinstructed me not to bring on a general engagement, he replied to the subordinates who urged an assault against Cemetery Hill. I will wait for those orders.

While Ewells reasons for not challenging the Federals crowded on Cemetery Hill were perhaps wrong, was he right in not mounting an assault against the slope? Experts who have studied Gettysburg say yes. They base their analysis not only on the impotence of the Confederate forces but also on the strength of the Union forces.

When the Federal lines collapsed north and west of Gettysburg, the Union troops drew back to Cemetery Hill, the designated haven in case of defeat. Colonel Orland Smiths 2,000-man brigade, supported by a battery of six guns, was atop the knoll, eager to greet any oncoming Rebels. As the fleeing Federals climbed the slopes, their officers guided them into imposing defensive positions. Gambles 1,500 troopers were sent south, in front of and along Cemetery Ridge, where they guarded the left flank from Confederate assault. Most of the I Corps fell in atop Cemetery Ridge behind the cavalry; Wadsworths division rushed to Culps Hill to protect the right flank; and Howards corps augmented Smiths men on Cemetery Hill. A total of about 12,000 Union soldiers were ready to defend the heights.

Reinforcements were also at hand. Five hundred veterans from the 7th Indiana came forward, and Maj. Gen. Henry Slocums XII Corps had arrived. The leading columns of the 1st Division, led by Brig. Gen. Thomas Ruger, began filing into position behind Cemetery Hill at about 4:30 p.m. Brigadier General John W. Gearys 2nd Division reached Gettysburg about half an hour later. These 8,000 fresh troops brought the Union strength to about 20,000 soldiers.

In addition to the reinforcements, the Federals had most of their artillery pieces, which they had salvaged during their retreat. Almost 40 cannons had joined Smiths six guns, and the entire array was emplaced, unlimbered and ready to fire, atop Cemetery Hill.

Ewell, of course, saw the enemy digging in on Cemetery Hill. Although he no doubt suspected that the Union soldiers would be impossible to dislodge, he knew that sooner or later he would have to charge the heights. When Early urged an immediate assault, Ewell agreed, but insisted that Lee must approve their attack and Hill had to provide reinforcements. James Power Smith, an aide who had spent the afternoon with Lee and had just now come to Gettysburg (without bringing any orders from Lee to Ewell), was dispatched back to Lee with those two requests.

Back on Seminary Ridge, when Lee saw that the Federals had aligned their guns shoulder to shoulder across the crest of Cemetery Hill, he also recognized that the Southerners would have to attack the heightsperhaps better now than on the morrow. Lee had already recalled Hills men from the field; therefore only Ewells troops were available to dispute the enemys new front.

After 5 p.m., just prior to Smiths arrival with Ewells proposal to charge Cemetery Hill and long after the Union retreat had started, Lee sent an aide, Colonel Walter Taylor, to Ewell with instructions to challenge the Federals. The enemy is retreatingin great confusion, Lee said in his message. You only need to press those people to gain possession of the heights.Do this if possible.

Lees order seemed to assume that it would be relatively easy for Ewell to dislodge the Federals from their post atop Cemetery Hill. After the Civil War, apologists for Lee ignored the fact that the Union position was virtually impregnable, and they used this order as proof that Lee was not responsible for the Southern defeat at Gettysburg. Ewell was to blame because he had failed to pursue the defeated Northern army, allowing them to entrench on the critical high ground.

When Taylor found Ewell in Gettysburg and presented the message, Ewell made no comment. He may have been dumbfounded by Lees apparent assumption that the enemy could be easily pushed off Cemetery Hill; more likely, he knew that the note was meaningless. He could not move until he received Lees response to his plea for reinforcements. Years later, Taylor would claim that Ewells silence meant that he had agreed to charge Cemetery Hill, another attempt to clear Lee by discrediting Ewell.

When Smith arrived at army headquarters, he handed Ewells request for reinforcements to Lee. Tell General EwellI regret that my people are not [able] to support his attack, Lee responded, butI wish him to take Cemetery Hill if practicable. He then added an impossible conditionshould Ewell advance against the hill, he must avoid a general engagement.

Smith returned to Gettysburg, where he found Ewell and gave him Lees instructions. Ewell saw at once that his new orders were paradoxical. He could not drive the enemy from the heights without reinforcements. The force at hand, 4,000 men, was no match for the hordes of Federals, backed by cannons, atop Cemetery Hill. To attack would bring disaster to his corps. And even if Ewell mounted the suicidal assault, how could he assure Lee that reopening the battle would not bring on a general engagement? He had no choice. Ewell dropped his plan for a direct charge against Cemetery Hill.

In the fighting that followed on days two and three at Gettysburg, the Confederates had numerous chances to defeat the enemy, but in each instance, they failed to take advantage of their opportunities. Ewell blundered more than once, and he manfully admitted his errors. He was as much responsible for the Souths losing the battle as any of the other commanders involved.

But Ewell was not frozen by indecision, unable to find the courage to charge the Union forces on Cemetery Hill on the first day. Lees order to press those peopleif possible was not sent during the Union retreat. He issued the directive after he recalled Perrins force from Gettysburg, after the Federals had fled the field and after the enemy troops had consolidated their position atop the heights. Ewell, refused the reinforcements he believed necessary for a successful attack on Cemetery Hill, elected not to charge, a good decision in retrospect, because the Federals were never really vulnerable to being driven off the high ground. Ewell did not lose Gettysburg by himself. *

Retired business executive Samuel J. Martin of Hilton Head, S.C., now concentrates on full-time historical research. For further reading, he suggests his own biography, The Road to Glory: The Life of General Richard S. Ewell, or Warren W. Hassler, Jr.s Crisis at the Crossroads: The First Day at Gettysburg.
Only a legacy of battlefield butchery is needed to become a Whig candidate for president, according to this 1848 campaign poster. The man in the plumed hat is most likely General Winfield Scott, who had racked up victories in the Mexican Warand distinguished himself ever since the War of 1812 where he first made his name. Scott would lose his bid for the presidency in 1848 to Zachary Taylor and in 1852 to Franklin Pierce, both subordinates to Scott in the Mexican War. Yet those political failures never obscured Scotts military distinctions. At 6 feet, 4 inches, he towered over his peers, and his career, serving 14 different presidents over 50 years, overshadowed all others. Throughout, he weathered accusations of treason, misconduct and overreach. Few Americans with a character so flamboyant and contributions so monumental remain so unfamiliar to the public. By the start of the Civil War, Scott weighed nearly 300 pounds, suffered from dropsy and gout, and had to be carried from place to place on a door. These physical limitations, however, did not diminish his insight, which proved sharp enough to spot Southern sympathizers in the federal government, warn that secession would lead to a lengthy war and put forth the blockade strategy that would ultimately end the rebellion. Scotts greatest legacy was the training of career soldiers and, ironically, many of the talented generals in the Civil War, including Stonewall Jackson and George McClellan, had either studied with him at West Point or had served under him in Mexico. West Point cadet Ulysses S. Grant recalled Winfield Scott as the finest specimen of manhood my eyes ever beheld. Two decades later, in 1861, when the aging Scott had to choose a commander for the Union Army, he selected the man who had served him so well as a staff officer in the Mexican War. The officer declined. His name was Robert E. Lee.
Paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh were great rivals, and their mutual animosity fueled the search for fossils in theAmerican West.

By Tom Huntington

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, scientists as well as society at large were fascinated by the ancient, often enormous, fossils that were being unearthed in great quantities from North America. Many of the most exciting finds were due largely to the efforts of two men, Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh, who stood at the forefront of vertebrate paleontology. Between 1870 and the late 1890s, the two men classified 136 new species of North American dinosaurs. Scientists had previously known of only nine.

The extinct animals that Cope and Marsh introduced to science include many dinosaurs commonly known today, such as Triceratops, Allosaurus, Brontosaurus, Diplodocus, and Stegosaurus. They also named and catalogued innumerable, long-vanished species of mammals, fish, and birds. Today, more than a century after their great discoveries, the names Cope and Marshlike Lewis and Clark or Stanley and Livingstoneremain linked together in history books. Unlike these other famous duos, however, Cope and Marsh hated each other with a passion.

As their intense competition to uncover dinosaur bones raged across the fossil fields of the American West, Cope and Marsh quarrelled continuously in the press and amid the government circles of the nations capital. As a result, not all of the animals that they described became permanent additions to the roster of extinct species. Their race for preeminence sometimes caused the two paleontologists to give different names to the same species and announce discoveries of new animals without having adequate evidence. Yet while their mutual hatred often expressed itself in petty ways, it did spur activity in the field and greatly increased mans knowledge of extinct creatures.

Born in 1831, Othniel Charles Marsh inherited at age 21 a dowry that his rich uncle, George Peabody, had provided for Marshs mother. He used the money to attend preparatory school where his advanced age earned him the nicknames Daddy and Captain. After graduating valedictorian, Marsh decided to pursue a career in the sciences, and he persuaded his uncle to finance his education at Yale College. He earned an undergraduate degree there in 1860 and a masters degree from Yales Sheffield School of Science two years later. The scholar then traveled to Europe to study, and while visiting his uncle in England Marsh approached him with the idea of awarding money to Yale for a museum of natural sciences, which Marsh could run as a professor. After some negotiationPeabody preferred HarvardMarsh got his way. In 1866 he became the first professor of paleontology in North America.

Unlike Marsh, Edward Drinker Cope was an early achiever. Born in 1840, at the tender age of six he recorded his impressions of a fossil known as Icthyosaur. When Cope was 18 he published a scientific paper on salamanders, the first of some 1,400 writings he would produce in his lifetime. Like Marsh, he was attracted to the natural sciences, but Copes education consisted of briefly attending the University of Pennsylvania, studying abroad, and working at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. Copes Quaker father sent his son to Europe not only to study, but to keep the volatile young man from signing up to fight in the Civil War. Both Marsh and Cope were attending Germanys Berlin University in 1863 when they met and initially became friends. A year later Cope returned to the United States and joined the faculty of Pennsylvanias Haverford College as professor of zoology and botany. In 1867 he left Haverford and moved to Haddonfield, New Jersey, to study fossils found there.

At that time, the study of dinosaurs was relatively new. British scientist Richard Owen had coined the word dinosaur (from the Greek word for terrible reptile) in 1841. Discoveries made in the United States, however, soon revised Owens hypothesis of low-slung, lizard-like creatures. In 1855 fossil-hunter Ferdinand Hayden found some Iguanodon-like teeth in Montana that were the first North American fossils determined to be from dinosaurs. But it was Joseph Leidys study of the fossils found in Haddonfield in 1858 that changed the conventional view of the creatures. These bones from a dinosaur called Hadrosaurus showed that the animal must have walked erect rather than on all fours like a lizard. The find attracted both Marsh and Cope, and the two men spent a week together in 1868 exploring the fossil fields there.

perhaps marsh and cope were fated to clash. Both men were notoriously flawed personalities competing in a relatively exclusive field. Paleontologist William Berryman Scott sided with Cope but was forced to admit that Despite his greatnessin some measure, indeed, because of ithe had some unfortunate personal peculiarities, was pugnacious and quarrelsome and made many enemies. Scott had even worse to say about Marsh. Indeed, I came nearer to hating him than any other human being that I have known, he wrote. Marsh, who never married and had few if any intimate friends, earned the nickname The Great Dismal Swamp at one of his clubs. Throughout his life his detractors said that he was autocratic and petty; that he appropriated the work of his assistants and published it under his own name; and that he was a tightwad who never paid his employees on time.

Marsh and a dozen students set out on his first Yale-sponsored expedition in August 1870. He picked up an army escort in Nebraska and explored portions of Kansas and the territories of Wyoming and Utah. (For one day his guide was Buffalo Bill Cody.) The expedition returned to Yale in December with 36 boxes of specimens, which included a hollow bone fragment that appeared to be from the wing of a flying reptile known as a Pterodactyl. Marsh himself had found the fossil in a narrow canyon in western Kansas. He calculated that the creature must have had a wingspan of 20 feet, truly a gigantic dragon even in this country of big things, where hitherto no Pterodactyl large or small had yet been discovered.

As the race to discover extinct species intensified, Cope and Marsh began to clash. In 1872 Cope attempted to search for fossils in a part of Wyoming Territory that Marsh considered his turf. Thus began the intense rivalry in field exploration and the bitter competition for priority of discovery and publication, which led to an immediate break in the previously friendly relations between Cope and Marsh, wrote Henry Fairfield Osborn in his biography of Cope. By 1873 the two were exchanging heated letters. Marsh was particularly incensed when Cope temporarily lured away one of his field collectors, Sam Smith, and then somehow gained possession of Marshs fossils. The information I received on this subject, Marsh wrote to Cope, made me very angry, and had it come at the time I was so mad with you for getting away Smith I should have gone for you, not with pistols or fists, but in print . . . . I was never so angry in my life.

The dinosaur rush began in earnest in 1877 after a mining teacher named Ar-thur Lakes wrote to Marsh about fossil bones he had discovered near Morrison, Colorado. When Marsh did not reply, Lakes sent some samples to Cope. That move galvanized Marsh, and he quickly sent $100 to Lakes, who dutifully asked Cope to send the bones on to his rival. Marsh then dispatched one of his field collectors, Benjamin Mudge, a professor at the Agricultural College of Kansas, to look over Lakes find. Satisfactory arrangement made for two months, Mudge cabled back, adding that Jonescode for Copecannot interfere. Within a few weeks Mudge and Lakes shipped a ton of bones back east. The shipment included the first remains of a Stegosaurus.

At about the same time that Lakes made his discovery, another Colorado teacher, O.W. Lucas, found fossil bones near Canon City, Colorado, and contacted Cope. Unlike Marsh, Cope responded quickly. Among the first specimens Lucas sent to him were the vertebrae of a huge animal that Cope named Camarasaurus (chambered reptile) after its hollow bones. Yet Lakes had come upon portions of the same species of creature, and Marsh had already named it Titanosaurus. Marsh had published first, and according to scientific tradition he won the right to name the animal. Cope declared that Marshs designation was already taken, and Marsh changed the name to Atlantosaurus.

Taken all together, Copes Colorado fossils were preferable to Marshs, because they were larger and easier to remove from the surrounding rock without breaking. In the spirit of underhanded competition that would characterize the relationship, Marsh asked Mudge to woo Lucas over to his side, but the schoolmaster remained loyal to Cope. For his part, Cope would try several times to win over Mudge, to no avail.

Marsh got his chance to trump Cope in July 1877, when he received a letter from William Reed and W. E. Carlin, two railway workers from the Como, Wyoming, station, who wrote that they had discovered a large number of fossils. Marsh sent collector Samuel Williston to check out their find. Williston cabled back, They tell me the bones extend for seven miles and are by the ton . . . . The bones are very thick, well preserved, and easy to get out. Perhaps even more important, he added, I think for three months the matter can be kept perfectly quiet & by that time I hope you will have the matter all your own.

The site at Como Bluff proved to be a mother lode of dinosaurs from the Jurassic Period, a stage in the Mesozoic Era that ended 135 million years ago. In the first year of digging alone, Marshs men shipped 30 tons of bones east, including those of Allosaurus, Diplodocus, Stegosaurus, Camptosaurus, and many others. From Como came another dinosaur, Brontosaurus (thunder lizard), which Marsh had the privilege of naming. Although perhaps the worlds best known dinosaur, the designation Brontosaurus was eliminated on a technicality. After Marshs death paleontologists determined that his Brontosaurus was really another example of a dinosaur Marsh had earlier named Apatosaurus.

Digging for dinosaur remains wasnt easy. The men working for Cope and Marsh had to carefully extract the fossil bones from the surrounding rock, laboring through searing summer heat or frigid winter cold. They toiled in the West during a time when hostile Indians were a very real threat.

Cope and Marsh made occasional visits to the digs but usually continued their feud by proxy. After the discovery at Como Bluff, Reed became one of Marshs best collectors while Carlin transferred his allegiance to Cope. The competition between the rival camps grew in intensity and animosity. If Reed accumulated more bones than he could use, he smashed them so Carlin wouldnt get them. Marshs man Samuel Williston was so paranoid about Cope that when a man arrived at his camp one day in 1878, Williston contrived to obtain a handwriting specimen to determine if the man was really Cope in disguise.

One day a year later, Cope really did show up at a Marsh dig and managed to charm his rivals men. Lakes wrote in his journal that Cope entertained his party by singing comic songs with a refrain at the end like the howl of a coyote. After Copes departure, Lakes wrote, I must say that what I saw of him I liked very much his manner is so affable and his conversation very agreeable. I only wish I could feel sure he had a sound reputation for honesty.

While Cope displayed genius in his work, Marsh had a financial advantage in the support he received from Yale and later the U.S. Geological Survey, which allowed him to hire many collectors. Some of them, like Williston and John Bell Hatcher, eventually went on to make their own names in paleontology. Williston, forbidden by Marsh from publishing in any competing fields, became an expert on extinct flies! Hatcher made his name recovering wonderful specimens of horned dinosaurs known as Ceratops, collecting portions of 50 of them between 1889 and 1892. The best-known example of these is a three-horned creature Marsh named Triceratops. Hatcher discovered it after some cowboys showed him horns they had broken off a huge skull embedded in the side of a canyon. They had tried to dig out the rest of the skull, which had horns as long as a hoe handle and eye holes big as your hat, but the fossil broke free and tumbled to the bottom of the canyon. Hatcher found and recovered the shattered skull.

In later years the Cope-Marsh battlefield shifted to Washington, D. C. Marsh proved himself an able power broker, and Cope saw his own prospects decline, helped along by poor investments that dried up his funds. In 1882 John Wesley Powell, director of the newly formed U.S. Geological Survey, named Marsh the surveys vertebrate paleontologist. When the government cut off Copes funding for publication of work from an earlier survey, he suspected that Powell and Marsh were behind the decision. He haunted government offices in an attempt to get Congress to restore his funding. A great deal depends on official position, he wrote bitterly to his wife. It regulates everything, especially society. It makes less difference what a man knows than what office does he hold. Hence inferior men like Powell and Marsh may have great influence, simply because they have gotten position. It makes little difference how this was done.

For Cope, the last straw came in December 1889 when the secretary of the interior ordered him to turn over some of his specimens to the government. Cope, who had collected the specimens at his own expense, was outraged, and he went on the attack, using the press as a weapon. I dont think writing private letters of a critical kind to such hardened sinners as Marsh and Powell does the least good; especially in the case of Marsh, he wrote to another paleontologist. But when a wrong is to be righted, the press is the best & most Christian medium of doing it. It replaces the old time shot gun & bludgeon & is a great improvement.

On January 12, 1890, the New York Herald printed the first of a series of articles about the feud. Cope had been preparing his attack for years, and he let loose with everything he had. Unable to properly classify and name the fossils his explorers secured, Cope said, Marsh employed American and foreign assistants who did the work for him and to which he has signed his name. After citing a number of works that Marsh had allegedly either plagiarized or had his assistants write, Cope did give his rival credit for one workthe most remarkable collection of errors and ignorance of anatomy and the literature on the subject ever displayed.

Powell counterattacked in the same article. Cope, he said, was what he considered a species fiend, one who would ransack the earth for leaves or bones or fragments of shell and then rush into print that their names may be quoted as the discoverers. The fact that Marsh was equally culpable apparently didnt trouble him. Powell wrote that . . . Professor Copes mental and moral characteristics unfit him for any position of trust and responsibility. In addition to his great vanity, which leads him into vicious species work, he is inordinately jealous and suspicious of every other worker, and these two traits combined give him that hysterical temper and gift of voluble denunciation rarely found in persons of his sex.

Marshs comments appeared a week later. If my language may seem severe, he wrote in a tone of pained resignation, it should be remembered that for ten years I have suffered these attacks in silence, because it seemed to be due to the positions I have held to abstain from all personal controversy. He went on to describe his first meeting with Cope in 1863, claiming that even then he had some doubts as to his sanity.

He saved his most damning story for last: the tale of the Elasmosaurus. In the 1870s Cope had written extensively about this large aquatic reptile, and he had set up a reconstructed skeleton at the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences. When Marsh examined the skeleton, he told the Herald, he noted that Cope had transposed tail and neck. When I informed Professor Cope of it, Marsh reported, his wounded vanity received a shock from which it has never recovered, and he has since been my bitter enemy. Furthermore, Marsh contended that Cope then attempted to recall all the copies of his scientific paper with drawings of the incorrect restoration. I returned to Professor Cope at his request the one he sent me, Marsh said, but have two others, which I since purchased.

The newspaper battle petered out on January 26. According to William Berryman Scott, who was quoted in support of Cope, the Herald series was not even a nine days wonder; it fell completely flat. But Copes attack may have merely taken time to hit home. In 1892, Congress, eager to cut government spending, pounced on Marshs work for the Geological Survey as an example of waste. Some congressmen thought the professors book about extinct birds with teeth, called Odontornithes, was particularly disgraceful. It was irrelevant that Marsh had paid for the publication himself, or that Charles Darwin commented that the book has afforded the best support to the theory of evolution, which has appeared within the last 20 years. The phrase birds with teeth became a catch phrase for government waste, and paleontology became the perfect place to start trimming the budget. As a result, Powell sent Marsh a telegram on July 20: Appropriations cut off. Please send your resignation at once. With the Surveys financial support gone, Marsh was forced, for the first time in his career at Yale, to accept a salary. He died in 1899.

Cope had died two years earlier and had willed his body to science as an anatomical specimen for students to study. But that wasnt the end of his story. In 1993 a National Geographic photographer named Louis Psihoyos obtained Copes skull from the University of Pennsylvania and took it with him as he traveled around the world interviewing paleontologists for a book. He referred to the skull as Eddie. Later, he and paleontologist Robert Bakker tried to have the skull named as the type specimenthe standard of a species to which all others are comparedfor Homo sapiens. In all branches of Natural Science, type specimens are the lights that mark the present boundaries of knowledge, wrote one scientist in the nineteenth century. They should be, therefore, not will-o-the-wisps, leading unwary votaries of science astray, but fixed beacon lights to guide and encourage investigators in their search for new truth.

Those words were written by Othniel Charles Marsh, and its safe to assume he wouldnt have wanted them applied to his hated rival. In any event, the effort to turn Cope into a type specimen was a futile one. It turned out that Swiss botanist Carolus Linnaeus, the man who created the scientific naming system that classes specimens based on genus and species, had received that honor in 1959. Edward Drinker Cope had been trumped one last time.

Tom Huntington is editor of American History and Historic Traveler magazines.

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According to a statement by California's Secretary of State, the recreational use of marijuana has received more votes than needed, 402,468 valid signatures, to qualify for General Election Ballot scheduled for November 8. The election is officially taking place on the said date, unless Donald Lyman and Michael Sutton, the promoters of the vote, decide to withdraw it.

If the California vote turnout is positive, the state agencies will be placed in charge of regulating the marijuana industry. There will be an excise tax, 15% of the sales price, that will be levied on retail sales of marijuana. However, medical marijuana will be exempted from certain taxes. The statute will also prohibit sales, marketing and advertising of marijuana to minors.

NPR reports that if passed, the measure will allow residents of California, aged above 21 years, to own up to an ounce of marijuana and grow up to six plants for personal recreational use. If marijuana-related laws are relaxed, California will get $100 million excess budget, with sales and production reaching over a billion dollars. This money would be allocated towards education, prevention as well as treatment of substance abuse.

Reports point out that the hospitals, California doctors and health promoters are split over the issue. According to Rachel Barry, University of California, there is no room for preventive strategies in the marijuana measure and that the industry would try to maximize sales to increase their profits. Supporters, on the other hand, claim that the once marijuana is legalized, millions will be earned in local and state government taxes.

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
NEW YORK - More than five months after President Barack Obama requested $1.9 billion to fight the Zika epidemic, members of Congress are going home to July 4 barbecues without approving a spending bill. While Washington's dysfunction is predictable given the current electoral climate, less noticed has been the global inertia facing efforts to combat the mosquito-borne disease.

The World Health Organization has only $7.9 million dedicated to fight Zika, which is spreading in 60 countries and blamed for more than 1,600 serious birth defects, mostly in Brazil. The planet has never seen a mosquito-borne virus that causes microcephaly, resulting in babies born with small heads and brain damage. In the Americas, Zika is racing through populations that have never been exposed before and thus haven't developed any natural immunity.

No time for politics

To put the lack of funding in perspective: The three-month Olympic torch relay that ends with the start of the games in Rio de Janeiro this summer, sponsored by the Coca-Cola Co., Nissan Motor Co., and Brazil's Banco Bradesco SA, has a bigger budget than the WHO to fight Zika over two years.

"Activities proposed by WHO and its partners have been underfunded to date, and without sufficient funding the response is likely not to succeed," the WHO wrote in its Zika Strategic Response Plan.

One lesson from the Ebola epidemic in West Africa is that the world must respond swiftly to outbreaks, said Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"We need the world to surge, and we can't wait for all the politics and all the issues to get worked out," Schuchat said in a June interview. While health authorities are responding with the money they have, no surge has materialized. "It's a little bit stalled right now, in terms of that real response."

The WHO, part of the United Nations, sought $25 million for the first six months of the crisis, which it declared an international public health emergency on Feb. 1.

Governments and philanthropies have pledged just $4.1 million to date, with donations from Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Norway and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The U.S., U.K. and major powers of the European Union haven't contributed at all.

To try to make up for the shortfall, the WHO borrowed another $3.8 million from an emergency fund established after the Ebola epidemic - a fund set up because of the delay in funding and inadequate global response to that crisis. The Geneva-based organization said it expects to require another $122 million for Zika through the end of next year. "We have to shuffle funds and staff from other programs to be able to support the response," WHO spokeswoman Nyka Alexander said in an email. "This is not sustainable long term."

Not equipped enough

The situation shows that the one global health authority charged with battling epidemics isn't equipped for the challenge, said Lawrence Gostin, professor of global health law at Georgetown Law.

"If you look at its record in response to diseases, whether it's yellow fever, Ebola, now Zika, you'll find that they constantly underestimate the amount that it will cost, and then are unable to mobilize the funding for the small amounts that they even said they need," Gostin said. "We don't perceive a health crisis until it's actually here, in which case it's too late.
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As a Virginian who lives only a few miles from Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington, I often ponder what if Washington had been a bad leader. What if he had lacked vision, been selfish and failed to empower his fellow Founding Fathers? What if he had allowed his ego to accept the accolades of the people who wanted him to be their king for life? After all, he had just won a hard fought war against the British. He was a hero. Wasnt he importantimportant enough to be King? If George Washington had been a bad leader, America would be a very different place and we could not boast being the worlds oldest democracy. George Washington had fought to realize his vision of Americaa free nation, free of tyranny. Selflessly, he retired his cherished commission in the Army to serve as a civilian president. And despite his enormous popularity, he refused to serve more than two four-year terms as president. He established a presidential tradition that was respected for more than 100 years after his presidency. What Washington taught an eager and anxious new nation is that America, its principles were more important than one man. He stepped aside in favor of a new generation of leaders to enjoy Americas victory over tyranny and continue its pursuit of liberty. Thats what great leaders do. They embrace change; they welcome it. They take no pride in their expertise but rather their vo...
A family camping trip in southern Alberta turned tragic when a three-year-old boy died after his father accidentally drove over him.

The incident happened the day before Canada Day at Castle Falls Campground, according to Pincher Creek RCMP.

After they finished setup for their campsite, the father moved the family car and accidentally struck his son, the CBC reports.

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The child was severely injured and witnesses tried to administer medical care at the scene, before rushing him and his parents to a hospital 40 kilometres away, Global News reports.

The three-year-old died at Pincher Creek Hospital later that evening.

The RCMP say criminal charges are not being considered at this time and alcohol was not a factor.

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Pride Toronto

Toronto's 2016 Pride set firsts and broke records left, right, and centre.

June was Canada's first ever Pride Month, a slew of drag kings and queens broke the Guinness world record for "Largest Drag Artist Stage Show", and on Friday, Toronto hosted the world's largest-ever trans march.

An initial police estimate reported by the Toronto Star said 4,000 people participated, but an updated count has put the number at a whopping 11,000, according to BlogTO.

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This year's march was led by Black Lives Matter Toronto, which also participated in the other Pride processions including the Dyke March and the official Pride parade Sunday.

The Trans March was started by community members in 2009 due to the lack of representation of trans, Two-Spirit and genderqueer people in Toronto's usual Pride programming, BlogTO reports.

In memory of the victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting where 49 people were killed, marchers staged a 10-minute sit-in.

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Take a look below for photos from the massive event!

Black Lives Matter leads the largest-ever Trans March, now heading west on Bloor towards Yonge: pic.twitter.com/Hn2BTpn5XD  Jonathan Goldsbie (@goldsbie) July 1, 2016

As a storm rolls over the horizon, we continue to sit and occupy the intersection in honor of #Orlando. #transmarchpic.twitter.com/KORQXj2UtW  Andrea Houston (@dreahouston) July 2, 2016

My first Trans March as trans. Didn't expect this to be so emotional and magical  #PrideTOpic.twitter.com/obMyJbaxS4  VIVEK SHRAYA (@vivekshraya) July 2, 2016

Many 1000s in the Toronto Pride Trans March currently going down Yonge St. pic.twitter.com/IDQRcjAhz5  Shawn Micallef (@shawnmicallef) July 2, 2016

Just got to Trans March!! @pridetoronto A photo posted by Aydian Dowling (@alionsfear) on Jul 1, 2016 at 4:16pm PDT

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#PrideTO #transmarch #transmarchto #transmarchtoronto A photo posted by  (@torontogay69) on Jul 1, 2016 at 8:54pm PDT

Proud of our trans community. #transmarch2016 A photo posted by F Darryl Burton (@fdburton) on Jul 1, 2016 at 5:02pm PDT

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Nicola Tree via Getty Images

This week I have read many things in newspapers and online that are utter rubbish. Just simply not true. I've been sent messages about my "grand plans" by people who, I can only assume, think that the moon landing was a hoax and that Lord Lucan is currently sunning himself in a mankini sat with Anastasia and Rasputin on at a hedonism resort in Jamaica, sipping cocktails from a bar staffed by Tom Cruise and Brian Brown. Oh, if only I could join them for some fantasy lols. I'm in desperate need of some lols.

Yes, the Parliamentary Labour Party meeting was angry. Yes, people told our Leader he was not popular with the people in their constituencies. There were cross words and angry moments. Most of the anger spilled over when MPs stood and talked of the threats and abuse we and our staff have suffered at the hands of some Corbyn supporters. I've read accounts, not by him I hasten to add, about how Jeremy was close to tears, bullied to silence. It is simply not true. He was not silent, he said his piece. There were tears in the meeting, they were not his I can assure you. After the PLP meeting I went to the bar and had a drink with two of my colleagues Emily Thornberry and Clive Lewis. "How can that be?" say the feverish conspiracy theorists. "Surely this mudblood treacherous woman can't be friends with two pureblood Corbyn cabinet builders?" Guess what, the facts are far less delicious and divisive than the fiction.

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It is so easy to think about this whole episode in the Labour Party as binary, where one side is good, another bad. There is good and bad on both sides. I don't think Jeremy lunged at the female journalist as was reported, but he was definitely losing his rag. Similarly, myself and others in the PLP have lost our rag over the last week. The truth is we are all rung out, tired, emotional and, above all else, I am scared.

It has been an awful week. I have barely eaten or slept and I've been sick. I've talked my children to sleep because they are scared by the man who came to our house and put in new security to keep us safe. I've had to call the police to attend my surgeries. I sat in my surgery this weekend and hoped that every time someone went to pull something out of their bag that it was paperwork. None of it is rational perhaps, but this is how I feel. I wonder if those sending me hate, bile and threats in Corbyn's name care.

I can put up with all of this anxiety if what I am fighting for has a chance of coming true. I can face fear, hatred and insomnia when I'm fighting a war to keep funding for refuges, save our NHS, help every kid get the opportunities they deserve and end the current misery faced by many disabled people. It becomes unbearable if you feel that you have no chance of achieving those things because the vehicle you are using to do it is faulty.

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I've been asked every day this week to appear on telly, radio or write articles. I've said no to hundreds of requests mainly because I felt too ill. The conspiracy theorists chatter on my Twitter that I was silent because I'm ashamed of a plan (which I knew nothing about) or that I have no answers. They call me a weasel for not facing the public. Incidentally these are the same people who slag me off for going on the telly and call me a media whore. Oh, and the same ones who say Jeremy is principled for not going on the telly. Pick a lane dudes, and stick in it. The truth is far less fanciful, I just wasn't well enough to face it. I feel empty and pointless. (Please refrain from sending me messages saying I am empty and pointless, it is too predictable not to make you look, well predictable).

When Jo Cox died my son asked me if it was worth being an MP, I gently tried to reassure him that the privilege of helping people meant that it was. I was wrong, it is not worth it if I can change nothing. I'd rather sleep in my own bed every night, take my kids to school every day and have my weekends to myself if all I'm going to achieve is that I had a few years bobbing up and down on some tired benches in a palace.

I wish some of the things that have been said about me this week were true. I sound like a genuine sleeper cell badass. I wish that it wasn't just my principles, beliefs and my heart that guided me last week; if I'd had a ten point plan for dastardly duplicity it might have been more fun. The truth is it hurt.
Child prodigy extraordinaire Autumn de Forest rose to fame a few years ago when, at the tender age of seven, the Discovery Channel labeled her a "child genius." Media outlets at the time were enamored with her painting abilities, praising the child for her tendency to create canvases that, well, looked like the work of established artists.



Autumn de Forest, "Jasper Map"

You see, most of de Forest's works are Easter egg-colored reinterpretations of iconic pieces by Andy Warhol or Jasper Johns or even Grant Wood. One painting, for example, turns Warhol's Marilyn Monroe image into a Barbie doll. An adult artist might get slapped with the ugly term, "derivative," but how can one do that to a child? It's not fair. We're reminded of Joan Acocella's 1994 New Yorker piece, "Discussing the Undiscussable, where she writes of an artist being "beyond the reach of criticism." And yet, how can we approach the work if not critically? Are we to ignore de Forest until she comes of age, or simply keep praising her for making art in the spotlight?

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Since her heady days in the single digits, the young artist has spoken at Harvard, shown at galleries across the U.S., and attracted $25,000 for a single artwork.



Autumn de Forest, "Barbie Marilyn"

Next month, the 11-year-old artist is back in the limelight with another set of her signature canvases and a special tribute painting to those affected by Hurricane Sandy, which will be on view in July at Ocean Galleries in Stone Harbor, New Jersey. Just in time for the show, the "pint-sized Picasso" has released a video online which shows the media-ready adolescent explaining her origin story as a painter.

"At that time, when I started, I wanted to change the world for the better. And I realized I want to do this through painting."

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Sooner or later, someone is going to mess something up. The odds say it all. Whether it's you or an employee, you are going to have a bad interaction with a customer that goes public. It could be someone you offended or someone you didn't treat right, but it's going to happen. And 67% of consumers place the same weight on online reviews and recommendations, so a bad reputation can be fatal.

But startups can bounce back and it is possible to salvage your reputation. Profile Defenders is one company that has helped thousands of clients repair the damage caused by online reputation blunders. They remove unwanted Google search results through forcing down negative stories with positive press, thus transforming the perceptions people have of your company.

Cross the Offline and Online Worlds

The chances are you don't have an in-house PR team who can handle your digital management duties for you. The average small business has little experience when it comes to crisis management. That's why companies like Profile Defenders are called in to put out the flames.

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You should handle the crisis both online and in the real world. You may not be able to turn back time and repair that digital disaster, but you can definitely take action to mitigate the damage. What you do and say right now will be the next chapter in the story.

Go out of your way to take affirmative action by releasing statements, taking action, and making sure that it fits into your overall strategic vision.

Do You Need an Expert?

This is the first question many people ask. If a toxic employee has held your company hostage by damaging your relations with your customers, it may feel impossible to change things around. And that's where startups start to fall. When panic sets in, it's difficult to counter that.

Instead, you should consider finding an expert to help. Profile Defenders regularly helps clients repair their online reputation. They are able to utilize the rules of SEO to force down negative press and promote the positive things. They can't remove stories from the Internet, but they can make sure they aren't defining your brand.

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Get Started Early

You have to make sure that you get started early. As soon as problems arise, it's time to take action. The longer you wait the more people are going to see the negative press caused by a major blunder. The best companies react within hours of a bad story hitting the news.

Be sure to apologize for your actions and show that you are reaching out to anyone you may have upset. Only through doing this can you make sure that the damage isn't too significant.

The Concept of Reverse SEO

As part of your multi-step emergency plan, focus on reverse SEO. This is something that was touched upon earlier, but it's the key to making sure that your online reputation isn't damaged permanently.

Reverse SEO is about populating the search results with positive stories about yourself. It's about making sure that bad stories are buried deep in the Internet where nobody is going to come across them. This is a perfectly legal method of managing your online reputation, so you don't have to worry about taking a hit from Google.

Just make sure that you are producing positive stories around the same time. Go out of your way to take positive actions. Apologize for what happened and take actions that demonstrate you are not going to allow this to happen again.



The Key is Be Active

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Overall, the most important tip you should take away from this is that you shouldn't act in a passive manner. Sitting back and hoping these things are just going to go away is never going to work. The flood waters won't recede, they are only going to grow, and they could very well engulf your company entirely.

If you are going to try to stick it out, you'll soon find that it kicks up a stink that defines your company, at least in the short-term. The loss of funds could be critical, so you need to make sure that you take a proactive role.

Hire an expert to help you and figure out how to avoid making the same mistakes again.

Last Word - Get the Right Help

The right help is critical to your success. Organizations like Profile Defenders are the type of experts you need by your side. They can act quickly to make sure that your company isn't too badly damaged by your latest online blunder. Through removing bad search results, you can rest assured that your brand isn't losing sales.
Weddings are supposed to be a happy time. For those who have actually lived through one, you know this is never really the case. While the idea of the wedding is happy, the preparation can be a nightmare. Thankfully, ingenious minds from the service industry have disrupted the way we plan our weddings, and have slowly replaced stress with that happiness we all dream about.

The dreaded groomsmen fittings:

The groomsmen (and the groom) hate getting fitted for tuxedos. In fact, it is probably one of the least likely things they look forward to when preparing for the wedding. No longer do you need to wait at the tailor to have someone take your exact measurements (and countless hours you will never get back on your life). Websites such as Menguin have surfaced that take care of everything without having to leave the house.

Here's how it works:

Simply place the order online for the style and color you want. You can enter your size online (and there is a video to show you how to measure) and your tux comes a week before the wedding. If there are any issues with the fit, they replace what is needed in time for the wedding. When the wedding is over, simply mail it back in the package provided.

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Getting the right gift without the legwork:

The way we register for gifts has also taken a major turn. Just about every store now allows you the option of an online registry. Simply log into your account, add items, and then email your guests. But some websites are taking it a step further.

Take MyRegistry.com for example, a website recently used by Princess Madeleine of Sweden for her wedding registry. It allows couples to register for gifts from various stores all in one location. No longer is there a need to go to Target, Walmart, Macy's, and 10 other stores to register for gifts. You can do them all online in one place without having to go through the stress of pulling the trigger on a pricing gun in a crowded store. For those expecting children, MyRegistry also does the same for baby registries.

Choosing and saving money on the venue:

Yes, there is even an easier way to pick out a wedding venue other than visiting place after place and bartering for the perfect discount (assuming the day you want is available). Along come websites such as Wedding Spot which allow you to search for and compare local wedding venues. It's like Priceline.com for wedding halls.

Instead of using Google to narrow down a list of venues, you simply enter a zip code into the search on Wedding Spot and you will be presented with a list of venues. You can check dates as well as compare prices, all of the questions you normally have when visiting one of these places in person.

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Conclusion:

While wedding planning will never be completely stress free, various service providers are doing their part to move us in that direction. With the help of online registries, mail order tuxedos, and venue comparison services, we can hopefully enjoy more of the happiness and fewer of the nightmares associated with the planning.
While it takes a village to make a television show, Starz's intense drama Outlander wouldn't be close to the hit it has become without the riveting performance of Caitriona Balfe.

Outlander wraps up its second season with a 90-minute episode July 9 at 9 p.m. ET, and it can celebrate with, among other things, a renewal from Starz for two more seasons.

Like the past two years, they will be based on the Outlander novels of Diana Gabaldon. They will continue to star Balfe and Sam Heughan as Claire and Jamie Fraser, who are making their rocky way through the most complicated love story in all of mid-18th century Scotland.

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To recount briefly, Claire is really from the mid-20th century. She was a nurse in World War II before being mysteriously hurtled back to 1743 Scotland, where she met Jamie (above).

She also met Black Jack Randall (Tobias Menzies), a deplorable, depraved British officer who is a direct ancestor of her 1945 husband, a gentle and kind man named Frank Randall.

Frank is a history student, so Claire knows a lot about what happened in 18th century Scotland - specifically, that the Highlanders' Jacobite rebellion against the British would be crushed with great loss of life.

Not by chance perhaps, Jamie is part of Clan MacKenzie, whose people are major rebels.

So Claire decides to try the old "change history" trick, which anyone who has seen Back to the Future knows is fraught with pitfalls. She and Jamie ultimately fall in love and marry, along which path she tells him her unlikely story and convinces him to join her in trying to stop the rebellion.

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A prince, that Jamie. What are the odds of finding a guy who would buy all that?

Meanwhile, the unspeakably awful Black Jack Randall continues to make their lives miserable, and Claire also still battles occasional residual guilt over "leaving" Frank, though it wasn't exactly her fault.

So there's plenty of drama here, and while in one sense that makes the role a juicy delight for an actress, it would also be very easy for the whole thing to slip into a period soap opera with minimal dramatic credibility.

Some skeptics may still see Outlander that way. But the ratings say a loyal and sizable audience is buying it, and that would not be the case if Balfe weren't making Claire believable.

That might seem mildly surprising to those who knew her, before Outlander, mostly as a fashion model. But she studied acting before she went into modeling, so this isn't just a case of a pretty face being drafted to seduce the camera.

In fact, one of the most impressive aspects of Balfe's performance is that she isn't always pretty.

For long stretches of the series, including the last few episodes, she has looked almost ragged, with uncomfortable clothes, her hair held together with a prayer and her countenance drawn and harried.

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Some time ago viewers stopped remembering the model thing, not because Balfe isn't attractive, but because that isn't the important tool in Claire's arsenal.

Earlier this season the show shifted to France for a time, reinventing Claire and Jamie as socialites of wealth and position. Balfe was stunning in elegant gowns, but even then it wasn't a fashion show. She and Jamie were there on a high-stakes mission that did not turn out as they had hoped.

Yes, some Outlander scenes still play like throwbacks from an old Errol Flynn swashbuckler. In one recent episode, Jamie pretended to threaten Claire as a means of tricking another man into helping her, and the looks she shot him during that scene flirted with camp.

In the broader arc, though, the 36-year-old Irish actress has created one of TV's best characters, a woman who is complex, humane, not always entirely sympathetic, smart, clever and always struggling to make sense from and find peace with an impossible situation.
I don't often think about my age or "act my age" (because I have no idea what that is supposed to mean) or feel my age (again, whatever that is supposed to feel like). Truly, there have only been two times I've felt ... well ... older than I used to be.

The first was sometime in the mid 90s. We live part of the year on North Carolina's Outer Banks. One day, Bob, the developer who built our home, brought some people by who were interested in the house next door. He introduced us to a mother and her two 20-something kids, her son and daughter. We chatted for a bit and told them how much we liked the area and the community. They left but Bob returned shortly thereafter, alone.

"Well," he said, sporting a gigantic mischievous smile, "How'd you like my surprise? I knew you'd get a kick out of it."

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The puzzled expression on my face telegraphed I had not gotten the kick.

"Debby," he said exasperatedly, "the guy was Dave Grohl." My blank face elicited more explanation. "The drummer from Nirvana."

To which I replied (and to this day I still cringe when I recall it), "What's Nirvana?"

Bob answered, and he might have rolled his eyes too, "They're bigger than the Beatles."

I thought, "Oh crap, it's as if Bob brought George Harrison over and I was too old to know who the Beatles were." By the way, Grohl did buy the house. He was a pleasure when we met him again by which time I finally heard about Nirvana (and loved the music, I might add). He was quite nice, sweet with my then adolescent daughters, giving them autographs that read, "From your friend at the beach," and since I knew his work, I was duly impressed.

Fast forward about 20 years to my recent road trip to Syracuse to eat waffles for four consecutive meals, aka, the second time I felt a twinge of the "olds." (Side note: please don't think I'm using "old" as a negative. I'm not saying old is bad. It's just the most expedient way to express that time is passing quickly and I'm feeling the issues of aging.) We were psyched about this trip with four friends, all about my age. We loaded up the car, a vehicle we had to rent because no one had a car that could seat six. So, that's the first thing I noticed. In earlier years we'd have just squeezed four of us into the back with no thought for our lack of sufficient seat belts, or we'd have had bench seats that sat three and three but we most certainly wouldn't rent a vehicle just to be comfortable and safe!

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Once we were settled in -- my husband and I being the only ones willing to sit in the "way back" because everyone else was afraid they'd be nauseous -- we ran a check list to make sure we had the necessities.

Water Bottles? Check. Stainless steel or glass only.

Medications? Check. For every person in the car.

Car Snacks? Check. God forbid we spend money at road stops to buy snacks.

Medical (I use the term loosely) Marijuana? Check, with vape pens so we don't inhale smoke.

Wine and Vodka? Check and oh hell yes.

Prunes? Alas, yes.

E-Z Pass? Of course. You think we have patience to sit in traffic at the tolls?

Handicapped hang tag? Sigh. Yes.

Geezers on Wheels. Woo Hoo, hit the gas!

We had a blast. Time marches on ... but it's okay.

If you would like to read more about my philosophy on aging and other things I delude myself about, please visit me on Grand Magazine.

Earlier on Huff/Post50:
On her father's behalf, SueZann worked for 10 1/2 years to spare the life of his murderer, James Bernard Campbell, and found it in her heart to forgive him. She in turn helped found the organization Journey of Hope (https://www.journeyofhope.org/) consisting of family members of murder-victims opposed to the death penalty.



The organization believes the death penalty is an act of revenge that will not bring back their loved ones but perpetuate an endless cycle of violence and that it is foolish to show people killing is wrong by killing.



This holiday weekend Journey of Hope organized a four day vigil and teach-in in front of the Supreme Court in conjunction with the national abolitionist organization Starvin' for Justice to coincide with the anniversary of the 1972 Furman v. Georgia and 1976 Gregg v. Georgia Supreme Court cases abolishing and then reinstituting capital punishment.



As David Garland points out in his book Peculiar Institution: America's Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition, the Furman case vacating the death sentences of 587 condemned men and two women ignited an immediate backlash by white conservatives and death penalty advocates supportive of the Nixon administration's law and order agenda. Georgia's Governor Lester Maddox called the decision a "license for anarchy, rape and murder."



Florida was the first state to reintroduce capital punishment just months after the Furman decision followed by California under Governor Ronald Reagan and Georgia under Governor Jimmy Carter. The Gregg v. Georgia case which followed suit was premised on the argument that democratically elected legislators and not the Supreme Court should determine whether the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment.



Garland points out that the reinstitution of the death penalty was key to the conservative backlash against civil rights, the Great Society, the liberal Warren Court and cultural changes of the 1960s, and was a product of a new culture of control synonymous with harsh sentencing, mass imprisonment and neoliberal economic policy.



Studies have shown that the death penalty does not serve as a deterrent to murder or coincide with declining murder rates, as there are many other variables effecting this, and that it costs two to six times as much to kill one person than to incarcerate him for life.



The strongest argument against the death penalty is that it could lead to innocent men or women being killed. It is estimated that four percent of the approximately 3,000 death row inmates are likely innocent, which amounts to over 100 innocent people who could be killed.



In 2003, Illinois Governor George Ryan became convinced the system that had produced so many errors could not be trusted to determine life and death verdicts, even for the guilty, and he emptied death row, granting four pardons and 167 commutations for those with death sentences.



Jenn Meeropol spoke outside the Supreme Court at the Starvin' for Justice teach-in last Wednesday about her grandmother Ethel Rosenberg who appears innocent of the charges of espionage directed against her that led to her execution with her husband Julius in 1953. The Rosenberg's did not receive a fair trial in the hysterical climate of McCarthyism.



Grand jury testimony released only last year shows that David Greenglass, who worked for the army weapons lab at Los Alamos and served ten years for conspiracy, changed his story between the Grand Jury and actual trial about Ethel having typewritten blueprints of a cross-section of the bomb and having persuaded his wife Ruth to recruit him into a spy ring led by her husband Julius in order to protect Ruth from prosecution.
A draft of the 2016 Democratic Party platform was leaked to Diane Ravitch, who urged her readers to read it and respond with our best ideas. Ravitch notes that the section on education "contains a lot of reformer lingo. Zip codes. Options. Accountability.," and it "brings echoes of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top." Moreover, "the party favors 'high quality charters,'" which probably means corporate charter chains like KIPP, Achievement First, and Success Academy. It doesn't oppose "corporate replacements for neighborhood public schools." Neither does it explicitly insist "that charters accept English language learners and students with disabilities at the same rate as the neighborhood public school," or oppose the charter management organization's "draconian disciplinary policies and suspensions."

I hope non-education reporters understand why Ravitch asks:

How about a clear statement that the Clinton administration will no longer permit school closings as academic punishment? How about a clear signal that the Clinton administration intends to protect and strengthen our nation's essential traditional public schools, which serve all children? How about signaling a new direction for federal education policy, one that promises to support schools and educators, not to punish them?



I also hope that political reporters understand why educators are so angry about the punitive, technocratic reforms imposed on our profession, the union-bashing that Democrats wouldn't impose on any other working people and, above all, on the damage inflicted on poor children of color by the test, sort, reward, and punish approach to education policy. I hope they remember that school reform began as a "Sister Soldja" tactic allowing Democrats to use the word "accountability," over and over again, and to sound macho by beating up a loyal constituency - which had long been a team player in the battle for equality and justice.

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As test-driven, accountability-driven, top-down micromanaging of schools morphed into corporate reform, market-driven reformers ratcheted up the teacher- and union-bashing. According to the Billionaires Boys Club's top-dollar public relations campaign, competition-driven reform was supposedly necessary to get rid of "bad teachers," who were defended by bad teachers unions, i.e "the status quo." Mandates requiring test scores and invalid statistical models to evaluate teachers were touted as a means to improve teacher quality. But, actually they were a club to hit the unions upside the head, so that they would allow the Obama administration to impose the entire Bill Gates/Eli Broad/Walton Foundation agenda.

The Obama administration even issued regulations, crafted by "astroturf" corporate-funded, foundations, which deterred urban teachers from defending the rights of poor children of color to engaging instruction. Teachers and administrators who opposed bubble-in malpractice could be labeled as "culture-killers" and "exited" from federally-funded "turnarounds" and "transformations."

Programs like the Race to the Top and School Improvement Grants encouraged mass closures of neighborhood schools. They often would be replaced by nonunion (and anti-union) charter management associations (CMOs). The result was the mass dismissal and/or transfer of veteran teachers (with their higher salaries and benefits) and of those who argued for both holistic instruction and a focus on the health and mental health issues that too many of the poorest children bring to class. As the former Gates Foundation and Obama administration official James Shelton put it, our calls for full-service community schools were ridiculed as "so much kumbaya."

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In other words, the Obama administration made a pact with the financial elites. In order to enact a slimmed-down, neo-liberal Democratic agenda, educators were sacrificed. Teachers and our unions were treated as the one constituency that was not deserving of any of the progressive policies that the party supported for others. Little did they know that by treating the education profession and teachers unions as disposable, Democrats undermined one of the primary institutions that advocates for children's welfare. So, maybe we should read the platform draft as a whole, not just the education section, and ask what changes should be made in order to re-empower teachers, so that we can once again fight effectively for our kids. My suggested changes to the document are in bold.

Democrats will invest in early childhood programs like Early Head Start and provide every family in America with access to high-quality childcare and high-quality pre-K programs. ... To close the opportunity gap, we also must find ways to encourage mentoring programs that support students in reaching their full potential and make schooling a collaborative, team effort.

We must renew and expand our commitment to Community Health Centers, as well as ... full-service community schools.



Democrats are committed to reforming our criminal justice system and ending mass incarceration. ... We need to provide greater investment in jobs and education, and end to the school-to-prison pipeline, by funding Restorative Justice programs and opposing the mass suspension of students from No Excuses charter schools.



Democrats believe that we should not be contracting, outsourcing, or privatizing work that is inherently governmental in nature, including postal services, school services, and traditional public schools.

A major reason for the 40-year decline in the middle class is that the rights of workers to bargain collectively for better wages and benefits have been under attack at all levels. ...Democrats believe so-called "right to work" laws are wrong for workers and wrong for America. We will continue to vigorously oppose Vergara v California and the other lawsuits led by Campbell Brown's The 74, which would strike down laws protecting the due process rights of teachers.

We believe that personnel is policy. We will nominate and appoint regulators and officials who are not beholden to venture philanthropists who would silence the teaching profession and curtail its ability to contribute our professional judgments in debates over education policy.

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The Evolution of Sunni Insurgency

Talk by Luay al-Khatteeb at Al Khoei Foundation, CASS, 1 July 2016

The 2003 regime change in Iraq ignited a different type of militancy in the Middle East. This involved state actors who opposed the Shia domination in Iraq. It started with the emergence of Ba'athist holdouts, including members of the Republican Guard and Fedayeen Saddam -- the latter group having been formed to fend-off a second uprising but ended up becoming an insurgent group. Many of these groups then formed an alliance with al-Qaeda in Iraq (2004) and other groups such as non-Baathist nationalists and Salafist-jihadists, who evolved into the Islamic State in Iraq (2006), and then dissolved and merged to operate under the banner of ISIS from 2013 onward.

The 2003 regime change in Iraq was not only a 'shock and awe' campaign to oust Saddam's Ba'ath Party, but also served as a wakeup call for all regional powers in the Middle East. However, establishing democracy and allowing people to exercise any degree of freedom of expression is still considered a taboo in the region, seeming to pose an existential threat to the national security of many ruling regimes in the Arab World. For many regional powers, extreme radicalism has become preferable to democracy. Virtually all of Iraq's neighbors provided shelter, support and in some cases finances and training to different insurgent groups. Iraqi Ba'athists were able to organize attacks from the safety of Amman and Damascus, while some Gulf States either tolerated or oversaw funding for Salafist-jihadist groups.

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In fact, all Sunni-dominated provinces in Western and Northwestern Iraq were already killing zones -- pre and post-ISIS -- posing a threat to any Iraqi who welcomed the U.S.-led regime change of 2003. This was the region the U.S. forces failed to tame, and where they incurred the most casualties during their stay. The U.S. failed to sell democracy to a group who knew they would end up in the minority.

There is no doubt that all political factions are responsible for Iraq's security deterioration, mismanagement and corruption for the past 13 years. However, one cannot say that one power was the dominant player over all. In post-2003 Iraq, political consensus replaced the democratic process by international pressure (as an excuse) to accommodate minorities. This resulted in forcing 60% of the population, the Iraqi Shias, to only enjoy less than 35% of decision making at the Councils of Ministers and Representatives. This arrangement led to crippling the governing process and hindered the passing of much needed federal laws to shape a civil state and implement the terms and directives of the 2005 constitution. Yet, the mainstream media continued to depict Iraqi authority as a Shia-led government, and by regional stereotype, an Iranian-backed regime!

The final result of such a government arrangement (mohasasa -- that is, the political quota system) resulted in the Sunnis and Kurds enjoying the maximum authority, benefits and presence but no accountability, while a multiplicity of factions developed their own plans that conflict with the Federal Union of Iraq. The KRG have always dealt with Baghdad as cash-cow to subsidize their future independence while offering anti-Federal Govternment factions a platform in Erbil to launch their government conferences and political campaigns. As for the Sunni leaders, they initially rejected federalism in the 2005 constitution, but seeing the success of the KRI they eventually lobbied for a Sunni region to emulate the KRG's confederal practice on finance, security and foreign policy. Such arrangements have always contributed to a sectarian and inflammatory atmosphere, which eventually accelerated the insurgency to different levels.

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Before the arrest warrant of Tariq al Hashimi in December 2012 and later Rafi al Essawi and Ahmad al Alwani in 2013, most of these groups benefited financially from Iraq's budget allocations to Sunni dominated provinces. Key Sunni politicians have all failed to use the multibillion USD funds budgeted for their provinces to spend on strategic projects and develop local economies. Instead, just like many corrupt politicians across Iraq, they have squandered the cash and funneled most of it to serve personal gains, while some have opted to finance the insurgency through ghost employment and phantom projects. In some Shia areas such as Basra between 2004 and 2008, some organizations followed similar practices, effectively robbing the state through oil smuggling to fund armed groups. This may have given some Sunni politicians a feeling that their own actions were justified in terms of corruption and maintaining irregular armed forces.

In 2013, it was from Anbar province, where the Sunni protests ignited strife against the Iraqi government after December 2012, calling for radical reforms which included many illegitimate demands, while ISIS and al-Qaeda splinter groups moved freely to parade their weapons and fly their flags publically long before the fall of Mosul in June 2014.

Chanting for regime change was commonplace. The protest platforms were supported by almost all Sunni leaders who were expected to be partners of a democratically elected government of the new Iraq. They found it too difficult to accept the democratic outcome which replaced their dominant power pre-2003, even though they were only a minority.

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Since the announcement of the ISIS Caliphate in mid-2014, militancy moved to a different level that required resources far beyond the traditional financial and logistical support that al Qaeda enjoyed. In less than 6 months after the occupation of Mosul, ISIS managed to:

Unify a number of Sunni insurgent groups to operate under their banner - for this to happen it may have required a regional broker to align the agendas of proxy sponsors.

Launched a massive recruitment campaign to increase its foreign fighter base to over 30,000 - for this to happen, it required sustained and significant funding and sophisticated cross border arrangements to control the mobility of the masses across 3 countries: Turkey, Iraq and Syria.

Secured a sustainable supply of high quality refined oil and gas products, continuous provision of weapons and ammunition, to support a military campaign across two countries against 2 regular armies, outmaneuver an international coalition over two years, while fighting various paramilitary groups in a territory the size of the UK spread across 2 countries as well as keeping control of the local population of nearly 5 million people. For this to happen, they needed an energy supply equivalent to Jordan (over 120kb/d), sophisticated intelligence and a budget allowance of around USD1bn per month.

Adopted the ideology of Wahhabism with a further configuration to maximize fear and terror across all non-ISIS followers through torture, execution and wide-scale suicide bombing. First, they relied primarily on foreign fighters, but later on young Iraqi suicide bombers that had been recruited - this was an easy task after decades of social radicalization to the Sunni triangle, arguably going back to Saddam's return to faith campaign.

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Employed high-end social media and filmmaking resources and capabilities that could only be available to well-funded institutions or states.

Given the above reasons, the evolution of militancy in the region has moved forward a light year compared to the conventional militancy of groups such as the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria in the 1990s. Such militancy cannot possibly survive on traditional means of localised or fundraising organizational support. I therefore think that the war on terror will continue to evolve into more a dangerous form that has never been seen before if the "day after" ISIS defeat is not managed well. If the international community does not confront regional sponsors to reconcile their differences and put an end to this sectarian conflict, we will see ISIS version 3.0.
Which of the 28 countries in the European Union has the most citizens living abroad as immigrants?



Includes all citizens living anywhere in the world (Source: U.N. Population Division / Metrocosm)



Answer: the United Kingdom

Immigrants vs. expats



While the U.K. takes the drastic measure of approving the Brexit to stop the flow of foreign immigrants, the fact that 4.9 million of its own citizens are living as immigrants in other countries goes completely unmentioned.

For that matter, when was the last time you even heard the term "immigrant" used in connection with U.K. citizens, or citizens of any developed western country? Instead, we call them "expats," a word which carries very different connotations, but means basically the same thing. Here is how Wikipedia defines them (immigrant, expatriate).

An immigrant is a person who moves to another country.

An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person temporarily or permanently residing, as an immigrant, in a country other than that of their citizenship.

In theory, the definitions are essentially the same. But in practice, there is almost no overlap.

I spent a few years working in London, along with several other Americans, some of whom are still there. And never did I think of myself as an immigrant or hear any of my fellow expats described as immigrants. Likewise, immigration may be the single most discussed topic in this year's U.S. presidential election, but not once have I heard Mexican workers living in the U.S. described as expats.

What's the difference?

An immigrant is someone from a poor country who moves to a rich country looking for a better life. An expat is someone from a rich country who goes to work abroad.

The fact that we have two different terms, one for rich countries and one for poor countries, is just one clear illustration of how silly our way of talking about immigration is here in the West.





Where are the facts?



As discussed in a previous post, public opinion about immigration has become a deciding factor in some of the most important geopolitical events in the world.

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Views on immigration have shaped the world's response to the refugee crisis, our policies on the war on terror, and this year's U.S. presidential race. Yet, the basic facts about immigration almost never come up at all in the debate.

How well do us westerners know the basic facts about immigration? Here's what a study by IPSOS has to say.







For such a fundamental question, developed countries around the world are terribly misinformed. U.K citizens believe the number to be twice as high as reality. The average American overestimates the immigrant population by an even larger amount.







One of the major concerns around immigration is the risk of terrorism by Islamic extremists. How well do countries know the size of their Muslim populations?

At the low end, Germans believe their Muslim population to be 3.2x bigger than it actually is. At the high end, Hungarians overstate their Muslim population by 70x!

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What these numbers mean



A few months ago I posted another "perceptions-vs-reality" graphic (Support for ISIS in the Muslim World), which some people misunderstood to be an argument for a particular political view. So in this case, I want to make sure I don't send any wrong messages about what my point in all this is.

Do these numbers mean the U.K. is wrong to leave the E.U.?

No. Personally, I really don't know whether the U.K. made the right decision or not. Maybe U.K. voters would feel the same regardless of anything mentioned here.

What these numbers do highlight is the silly way we talk about immigration here in the West.

If "too many immigrants" is going to be our reason for making important decisions (and who knows, maybe it should be), "how many immigrants are there?" is a question we should be able to answer. And before taking measures to stop immigration, we should be brave enough to acknowledge we also have countrymen who live abroad and benefit from the immigration policies of other countries.
In the weeks since losing the June 14th Democratic Primary in the District of Columbia Bernie Sanders managed to turn the goodwill and power he won from running a strong campaign into an overall loss for himself and what he says he believes in. Until then he was seen as a winner because he actually gave Hillary Clinton a run for her money.

Here was a 74 year old man, with a disheveled look and not many actual successes to his credit, who excited a younger generation with his Anti-Wall Street, single payer healthcare, and free college message. They treated him like a rock star with thousands coming to his rallies chanting Bernie! Bernie! Thirteen million came to the polls and pulled the lever or connected the arrows to vote for him. They saw him as their vehicle to send a message to the establishment in Washington they wanted change.

It was a great campaign destined to come up short but that shouldn't take away from its power. Bernie himself managed to do that by his actions and statements since the primaries ended. He alone is diminishing the chances to accomplish what all those millions of people who donated their $27 to him sought to do. Success and accomplishment in politics are an art. One part is the ability to get elected, something Sanders has been able to do for the past thirty-three years, and for a short time it even looked as if he would come close this year. But the art and finesse needed to get something done after the campaign apparently still escape him.

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He had the chance to be a hero and a mensch at the same time. He should have taken a cue from how Hillary handled her loss to Obama in 2008 when she came away looking like a star, and a star with power. Instead he frittered away his chances, rather whining his way close to irrelevance.

He said he will vote for Hillary and work his hardest to defeat Donald Trump. Then went on to parse his support by explaining the difference between saying he will vote for her and endorsing her, which hasn't happened yet. Then he had a conversation with Vice President Biden apparently telling him he will endorse Hillary and Biden repeated the conversation on national television. Sanders should know telling Joe Biden is like telling the world. One of Biden's greatest charms is his lack of a filter in what he says. On Saturday in Aspen an affable Biden gave rave reviews to Newt Gingrich as a VP candidate for Trump; then backtracked to make it clear he still wouldn't endorse Trump.

Bernie's most ardent supporters, the 'Bernie of Bust' crowd, saw their leader give up the clout they worked to give him. Real progressives among Sanders' voters, even those in the 'Bernie or Bust' contingent, will end up voting for Clinton because they understand electing Trump would end the chance of getting anything they claim they want accomplished.

The end to Bernie's campaign is likely the best example of turning a win into a loss I have ever seen. Some are calling it an extreme case of 'white privilege' and sexism.

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Lauren Rankin writes "If Bernie Sanders is such a progressive revolutionary, why does he insist on undermining an eminently qualified female presidential candidate who can beat a fascistic demagogue?" She goes on to write "Moving the Democratic platform to the left is a laudable goal, but it isn't one that he alone has led. There have been many movements, including the movement to end the Hyde Amendment, the "Fight for 15," and the #BlackLivesMatter movement, that have pushed the Democratic Party to the left. But Bernie Sanders is presenting it as if he himself is the leader of this progressive revolution, as if he and his candidacy have been doing all of the work. This is privileged ignorance at best, and sinister appropriation at worst. Sanders has constructed himself as the progressive revolutionary savior that we have all been waiting for, a privileged and entitled point of view if there ever was one. He is unwilling to stop mansplaining to the country that he's right because either he believes so deeply that he is right and we are wrong or does he sense that this is the one time that he will ever be this relevant to American politics and his male ego is unwilling to let this go?" I go with the last explanation.

Hillary Clinton is probably the most prepared person to ever run for President. She is brilliant and hardworking. She has worked for The Children's Defense Fund and a Congressional Committee. Been recognized as one of the top 100 lawyers in the country; was First Lady of Arkansas; First Lady of the United States; two-term Senator from New York; and Secretary of State.

For twenty-five years Republicans have attacked her and spent over a billion dollars of their and the governments money trying to prove Hillary is evil and dishonest without ever proving anything. Yet the attacks have left their mark and a majority today wrongly see her as dishonest and untrustworthy. Still Clinton leads Trump by more than two-to-one when people are asked who is more prepared to be President. Nate Silver gives Hillary an eighty percent chance of becoming the 45th and first woman President of the United States.

So whatever becomes of Bernie Sanders my prediction is Hillary Clinton will be sworn in as President on January 20, 2017 and people's views of her will once again become positive as they always do when she is in office and not running for office. She will continue to be seen by Americans as the most admired woman in the world as has been the case for the past twenty years.
Turkish policy, whether local, regional, European, or international, is going through an interesting phase, if not a surprising one, reflecting a tactical change in the vision and strategy of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The man who hardly admits mistakes apologized this week to Russia, and drank the poisoned chalice as he bowed his head down to the arch foe, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had demanded a Turkish apology for downing a Russian jet several months ago. The man who backed Hamas and challenged the Israeli leadership, and engaged in one-upmanship with the Palestinian leadership, decided this week to seek reconciliation with Israel and restore ties with Tel Aviv, claiming that Israel had met Turkish conditions, drawing ire both in Turkey and abroad. His policy on Syria has changed a lot, and the Turkish president is no longer the spearhead of the battle against his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad, or the spearhead of the support for the armed Syrian rebels, as he appears ready to climb down from both these positions. Moreover, ISIS's war on Turkey did not come from vacuum, but is the result of a radical change in Turkey's dealings with fighters it previously allowed to cross into Syria via its borders, before it became a partner in the US-led coalition against ISIS, opening its airports for planes to strike the radical group in Syria and Iraq. The war being waged by ISIS on Turkish cities is a retaliatory war for what the group considers the betrayal of the Turkish leadership, whose backing ISIS assumed to have had. Perhaps ISIS was infuriated by Ankara's detente with Israel and Russia, its arch-enemy, but most likely, the radical terror group had prepared the attack on Ataturk Airport in Istanbul in response to Turkey's new alignment on the side of the implicit American-Russian agreement in Syria and explicit agreement against ISIS. Today, following the results of the referendum on Britain's EU membership in favor of Brexit, Turkey and Russia are likely to gain from European weakness and possibly fragmentation after London leaves the EU, each for its own reasons. But clearly, the Turkish president has returned to the drawing board to review his policies that he had boasted of and pledged not to reverse. This requires a close watch on his coming positions, locally, regionally - e.g. vis-a-vis the Gulf, Iran, and Egypt - and internationally, for example as regards restoring ties with Russia and Israel. One will also have to watch the implications for the Syrian opposition represented by the High Negotiations Commission (HNC) and the internationally backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which comprise both Arab and Kurdish factions. The deal struck by Erdogan with Hamas and Israel were a slap in the face of the leadership of the Palestinian Authority represented by President Mahmoud Abbas and Egypt and its president Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, given the direct Turkish presence in Gaza along the border with Egypt now and the boost it gives to the Muslim Brotherhood both in Gaza and Egypt.

Practically speaking, the Turkish president dealt a blow to the reconciliation negotiations in Palestine and to Palestinian national unity, because he affirmed Hamas's weight in the Palestinian arena at the expense of the Palestinian Authority and its leadership. He engineered a truce between Israel and Hamas, and an agreement among the three parties that it would be a permanent truce. The lifting of the blockade will normalize life in Gaza, into which Turkey will bring building material and build hospitals as a prelude to having a permanent say in Palestinian affairs.

This is a big achievement for Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as it consecrates his role in Gaza and his support for Hamas, his understanding with Israel, his support for the Muslim Brotherhood, his challenge against Sisi's Egypt, and his assault on Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority. There is no change here, but there is affirmation of Erdogan's attitudes against the Palestinian Authority in support of Hamas. Erdogan converges with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the common desire to destroy the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian unity, and Hamas stands to benefit by acting as the guarantor of the common Turkish - Israeli vision.

Egypt will not be comfortable by this great breakthrough achieved by Turkey, and will see Turkish presence in Gaza as directed against Egypt. What will the Egyptian leadership and diplomacy do? They have started efforts with the Palestinian Authority and Israel but the proposals are not clear yet. Nevertheless, there is no doubt the issue is a very serious one for Cairo for both its Palestinian and Muslim Brotherhood angles, and it is no doubt preparing to respond in one way or another to Ankara.

Ankara made a demarche this week with Moscow, which considers Cairo a strategically important asset in its Middle East and North Africa outlook. Both Moscow and Cairo are categorically opposed to the rise of Islamists to power. Ankara adopts the opposite position, because Erdogan is the engineer of the rise of Islamists to power and a proponent of spreading the Turkish model of "moderate Islam" as the West views it.

The Russian leadership may not adopt hostile attitudes towards the Turkish leadership for challenging the Palestinian and Egyptian leaderships in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. But it will keep its gazed fixed on Egyptian-Turkish relations. For Russia, Egypt is a strategic friend while Turkey is a strategic rival.

The Russian leadership understands that Erdogan's apology was out of necessity rather than volition. The Turkish president found himself in a predicament in Syria, and decided he needed Russia to extricate himself. Vladimir Putin has benefited from this about-face, not only because he enjoyed hearing Erdogan apologize, but also because he won him over in Syria.

Putin is fighting a fateful battle in Syria. He is determined not to make true the dreams of those who want him to venture into a quagmire. Putin knows he is not yet out of the woods, and thus sees a huge advantage in Erdogan reconsidering his Syria policies, where he has become a de-facto partner of the US and Russia in the war on ISIS, especially after the latter decided to target Turkey and its security and economy in retaliation.

Putin also realizes that ISIS must be planning similar attacks against Russia. Indeed, Russia is the logical next stop for ISIS, given that Moscow is a military ally of the regime in Damascus and is staging strikes against ISIS meaning to destroy it. ISIS's attacks have struck in European capitals, US cities, and several Turkish sites, and perhaps the group is preparing its most formidable attacks yet against Russia. Therefore, the Russian leadership is willing to accept Turkey's apologies and open a new page, as hard as that will be, because it too needs the Turkish partner in the war on ISIS.

The other element in the page of open accords among the members of the international coalition, including the US, Europe, Russia along with the latter's Iranian ally in Syria and Turkey and its friends in the Gulf, has to do with the question of which Syrian rebel faction can be the most effective on the ground, and which groups fighting in Syria should be added to the list of terror organizations. Among the groups the international coalition and Russia both believe to be militarily effective on the ground are the SDF, which comprise both Arab and Kurdish factions. If Turkey is now a backer of this grouping, because it is fighting ISIS on the ground with air cover from coalition planes flying out of Turkey, the question is whether the deals include the Kurdish element, at least in Syria.

The common denominator between Turkey and Iran is their shared problem related to the Kurdish element, which they both see as a threat to their national security. Both are determined to block Kurdish security if it is at the expense of Turkish or Iranian security.

Erdogan has a working relationship with Iran that intersects with his good relations with Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Indeed, he believes that containing Iran helps reassure Gulf countries, and he believes he is able to navigate complex relations regionally and internationally along a trajectory that secures his internal political positions.

His relations with the European Union overlap with his local calculations. To Erdogan, Brexit creates two opportunities simultaneously: the prospect of Turkey acceding to the union in light of the latter's drive to expand its borders. And the possibility of further "exits" from the EU by one or more of its 27 member states, and the possibility of the EU weakening or even collapsing. Both possibilities benefit Turkey, whose efforts to join the EU have so far been blocked despite being a NATO member.

If a miracle happens and Russia and Turkey seek a serious partnership, they will both benefit greatly from a weakened and fragmented Europe. But now, it is too early to tell whether Putin will remain at the height of his power because victory in Syria is still elusive and the prospect of a quagmire there is very real. It is too early to tell as well whether Erdogan's new tactics will be rewarding, especially since he is in the eye of the storm blowing from Syria.



Translated by Karim Traboulsi

http://www.alhayat.com/Opinion/Raghida-Dergham/16379204/%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%A7-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%AD%D8%A7%D8%AC%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%89-%D8%B4%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%83%D8%A9-%D8%AA%D8%B1%D9%83%D9%8A%D8%A7-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AD%D8%B1%D8%A8-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89-%C2%AB%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%B4%C2%BB
Attend a major climate or development event these days, and you can't help but hear about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

"My ideal goal will be that every [company] will run its business plan and its objectives along the Sustainable Development Goals," said Unilever CEO Paul Polman at this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

"With the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals, you have opened the opportunity to meet the climate-change challenge," said Christiana Figueres, the outgoing Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, at recent climate talks in Bonn.

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"Around the world, more and more people understand that climate resilience supports progress," said UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon, also in Davos, as he implored the private sector to stand up and take notice of the SDGs.

"Trillions of dollars will be invested in infrastructure in the coming years," Ban added - reminding the audience that many of those dollars will - or at least should - be deployed in accordance with the SDGs.

This story has been adapted and condensed from a recent episode of the Bionic Planet podcast. Feel free to check it out in its entirety below - or, better yet, subscribe on iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Our research shows that carbon offset project developers believe the SDGs will help quantify the value of co-benefits by providing a degree of recognition and standardization that existing carbon and co-benefits standards simply don't offer.

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But what are the SDGs, and why is everybody talking about them?

What are the SDGs?

Taken by themselves, the SDGs are easy to dismiss as mere words, but they don't exist by themselves: they're woven into the Paris Agreement and into the lending guidelines of development banks around the world. If Polman gets his way, they'll become a sort of universal benchmark for sustainable investing around the world - Generally-Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) for the planet.

There are 17 of them, and they include things like ending poverty, ensuring good education, and building pipes, bridges, roads, and flood-plains that will work in a changing climate.

More than 150 world leaders signed off on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals last year, and proponents hope they'll become the guiding benchmarks for businesses around the world.[/caption]

Basically, it's stuff you can't argue with - but how do you get there?

First, by breaking the broad goals down into specific targets, and the SDGs are broken down into 169 of those, and each of them has billions of dollars in financing attached to it. Second, by weaving them into existing frameworks to get buy-in across the planet. Third, but drawing in the private sector.

Goal 13, for example, is the one dealing with climate change, and it delineates five specific goals - from integrating climate change into national policies to helping people understand the science - but it also explicitly recognizes the UNFCCC as the primary vehicle for fixing this mess, and the UNFCCC has about a million financing mechanisms embedded in it.

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"Probably 13 or 14 of the [SDGs] have climate change written into them," said Polman. "If you look at the goals on forestry or oceans... or the one on fragile states...climate change permeates the whole [of the] Sustainable Development Goals."

He's on a crusade to win over the private sector one CEO at a time, but his success on that front will hinge on the uptake from investors, lenders, and consumers - groups that, he points out, stepped up big in Paris.

Forests as Focal Point

Sustainable Development Goal #15 aims to ramp up conservation and restoration of forests, farms, fields, and mountains by 2020, Daniel Duncan, the Prime Minister of Cote d'Ivoire, says his country aims to meet that goal by helping farmers boost productivity.

"We have to have agriculture that's friendly with the environment," he said in Davos, as he outlined the country's five-year agricultural development program - a $4 billion initiative that aims to ratchet up production while reducing the amount of land used for farming and restoring forests. But for the plan to work, it will need to draw investments of more than $2 billion from the private sector, and he sees that money coming through a combination of carbon finance and long-term investment in sustainable agriculture.

Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, also speaking in Davos, drew a direct link between the SDGs and forests.

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"If we don't reach the SDGs, if we don't manage this, then [limiting warming to 2C] will not be possible," She said. "Because then a lot of countries will look to cut down forests [instead of investing] in decarbonizing their economy, because it will mean losing jobs."

The Peace Parallel

Last year, in a piece called "Why the Sustainable Development Goals Matter", Colombia University economist Jeffrey Sachs pointed out that the Millennium Development Goals did help guide policy and practices that slashed extreme poverty, and he argued that clear goals like the SDGs have a long history of focusing massive numbers of minds on a common cause.

To bolster his case, he drew on a speech that John F Kennedy made 50 years ago to drum up support for the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) with the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union.

"By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all people to see it, to draw hope from it and to move irresistibly towards it," Kennedy said.

I've always respected Sachs, who helped Poland and other countries navigate their way out of Communism and into functioning economies, so I decided to dig up some audio of that speech for my podcast, Bionic Planet, and it's even more relevant to the climate crisis than I expected.

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"Our problems are man-made," Kennedy said. "Therefore, they can be solved by man."

He went on to dismiss the "absolute, infinite concept of universal peace and good will of which some fantasies and fanatics dream," but implored us to keep it real.

"I do not deny the values of hopes and dreams, but we merely invite discouragement and incredulity by making that our only and immediate goal," he said. "Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace - based not on a sudden revolution in human nature, but on a gradual evolution in human institutions - on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned."

To put these words into perspective, let's remember when he delivered them: June, 1963 was just eight months after the United States went "toe-to-toe with the Ruskies" over the Cuban Missile Crisis. When the two countries, together with the UK, finally signed the treaty in August, it was one day shy of the 18th anniversary of the day the US dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. Three months later, Kennedy was dead.

Nuclear proliferation was the climate-change of its day, and it's still out there, lurking in rogue nations like North Korea, but the threat of nuclear annihilation isn't what it used to be.

"Though the LTBT certainly did not end the Cold War, it provided proof that negotiation and agreement were possible, and laid the groundwork for future pacts," wrote Sachs.

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The Complexity Conundrum

The Paris Agreement isn't perfect, and it isn't neat and tidy, like the Kyoto Protocol was - but that's one reason the Kyoto Protocol failed.

The Paris Agreement is complex and often appears unnecessarily nebulous to people who are just now awakening to the climate challenge, and there is a dangerous trend among the mainstream media to dismiss it rather than try to understand it. The populist writer Naomi Klein, for example, has made the best-seller lists by dismissing the Paris Agreement as a "a pretty good definition of safety coupled with a concrete plan for disaster," or "a step in the right direction, but a very small step."

Such characterizations completely miss the point of the Paris Agreement and the SDGs, which aren't "steps" at all but frameworks within which giant leaps can take place. The Paris Agreement, in particular, is more of a giant slide, decades in the making, that we can now glide down, and at speeds that are already sending shock waves through the fossil-fuel sector.

While the Kyoto Protocol provided sound-bite-sized objectives but no clear way of achieving them, the Paris Agreement provides a workable, upward-adjusting, all-encompassing bundle of thousands of individual agreements hammered out through decades of scientific research and political negotiation in conjunction with thousands of other agreements and national laws.
Hindustan Times via Getty Images BATHINDA, INDIA - JANUARY 14: Aam Aadmi Party supporters during a public rally of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on the occasion of Maghi Mela (festival) at Muktsar on January 14, 2016 in Bathinda, India. Giving a kick-start to AAPas campaign for 2017 Punjab polls, its convener Arvind Kejriwal launched a scathing attack on both Akalis and Congress, accusing them of being hand in glove with each other, and asked people to vote for AAP to end corruption, drug abuse, farmer suicides and put the state back on right track. (Photo by Sameer Sehgal/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)

CHANDIGARH-- Ahead of Arvind Kejriwals three-day visit to Punjab beginning today, Aam Aadmi Party MLA from Mehrauli (South) in Delhi, Naresh Yadav, was on Saturday named in an FIR related to a recent case of alleged desecration of the Quran.

Punjab police will question MLA Naresh Yadav in a case of alleged desecration of the Quran that led to arson in the states Muslim-majority town of Malerkotla on June 24.

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The police had claimed that Vijay Kumar wanted to take revenge for Dinanagar and Pathankot terrorist attacks and had told them he hated Pakistan and Muslims, reported Indian Express.

Refuting the allegations, Yadav alleged that it was a conspiracy to malign the party's image ahead of Assembly polls in Punjab.

"We will summon AAP MLA Naresh Yadav in order to question him regarding Malerkotla incident," Sangrur SSP Prithpal Singh Thind said.

He said the MLA's name has appeared while questioning the accused who had been arrested for their alleged role in the sacrilege of a religious book in Malerkotla.

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"During our investigation and questioning of accused, it was revealed that accused had met him (AAP MLA).

"Calls were also exchanged between the accused and AAP MLA," claimed Thind.

Asked whether police suspected Mehrauli MLA as the mastermind behind the sacrilege incident, SSP said it will be known after questioning Yadav.

The Sangrur police had arrested three men Vijay Kumar, Nand Kishor Goldy and Gaurav - on June 27 in connection with the Malerkotla case.

AAP also lashed out at the ruling SAD-BJP alliance over the issue. Its leader Ashutosh said it reflects BJP's desperation as his party is "sweeping" the polls scheduled to be held early next year.

"Now ruling Akalis do not have any issue with them for contesting polls and they know that they are losing their ground.

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"Therefore they have resorted to these things which are highly condemnable. It is a political conspiracy to defame AAP ahead of elections. We knew that ruling party will indulge in such cheap moves," AAP's Punjab Convener Sucha Singh Chhotepur said.

Kejriwal is in Amritsar today as part of his three- day visit to Punjab. He will release the party's youth manifesto, besides meeting different section of the society at Gurdaspur, Ludhiana, Malerkotla, Jalandhar and Khanna.

BJP and Congress attacked AAP over the issue saying Arvind Kejriwal's party has been exposed.

"People have seen the real face of AAP, which is trying to create communal tension in Punjab for electoral gains but it will not be successful," BJP MP Manoj Tiwari said.

Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit said AAP was led by a person who is "mad with lust of power". "AAP is a communal party and it will exploit any emotive issue," he said.
ASSOCIATED PRESS People help an unidentified injured person after a group of gunmen attacked a restaurant popular with foreigners in a diplomatic zone of the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, Bangladesh, Friday, July 1, 2016. A group of gunmen attacked a restaurant popular with foreigners in a diplomatic zone of the Bangladeshi capital on Friday night, taking hostages and exchanging gunfire with security forces, according to a restaurant staff member and local media reports. (AP Photo)

DHAKA -- Bangladesh today blamed "homegrown" Islamist terrorists and Pakistan's spy agency ISI for the country's worst terror attack in which 20 hostages were hacked to death, ruling out the role of the Islamic State, as the shocked nation began observing two days of national mourning.

"Let me clear it again, there are no ISIS or al-Qaeda presence or existence in Bangladesh...the hostage-takers were all home-grown terrorists not members of ISIS or any other international Islamist outfits," Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told PTI.

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A relative tries to console Bangladeshi woman whose son is missing after militants took hostages in a restaurant popular with foreigners in Dhaka.

"We know them (hostage-takers) along with their ancestors, they all grew here in Bangladesh...they belong to homegrown outfits like JMB (Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh)," he said.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the killing of the hostages, mostly foreigners, and two police officers during an 11-hour siege that ended yesterday after the army stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery popular with expats in the diplomatic zone, killing six attackers and capturing one alive.

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Hossain Toufique Imam, the political advisor to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said that the way in which the hostages were killed with machetes suggests the role of a local terrorist group, the banned Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen.

Bangladeshi police stand guard outside the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe.

"Pakistan's ISI and Jamaat connection is well known...they want to derail the current government," Imam told a TV channel.

The arrested terrorist chickened out at the last minute and he holds the key to crucial details, he said.

Hostages who were killed include 19-year-old Indian girl Tarushi Jain. Nine Italians, 7 Japanese, one American of Bangladeshi origin, and two Bangladeshis were also among the people who were killed.

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Most of those killed were found with their throats slit.

Among those rescued were Indian, Sri Lankan and Japanese nationals, media reports said. Around 30 people were injured.

Bangladeshi security officers cordon off an area after heavily armed militants attacked a restaurant in Dhaka.

A police source was quoted as saying by the Dhaka Tribune that all the attackers were Bangladeshi nationals aged between 20 and 28.

Police said the attackers were well-educated and most came from rich families.

"All of them were students and communicated at the crime scene in both Bengali and English," the police source said.

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The government has consistently ruled out the presence of the dreaded terror group in the Muslim-majority nation though experts have been maintaining that series of brutal attacks on minorities and secular activists had the hallmarks of ISIS group.

Meanwhile, police have released the photos of the six gunmen killed during the raid by commandos. A seventh was arrested and is being interrogated by Bangladeshi intelligence officers.

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NEW DELHI -- An Indian girl was among 20 foreigners who were hacked to death by ISIS militants in a terror attack at a restaurant in Bangladesh capital's high-security diplomatic zone.

Firozabad (UP): Family members mourn death of Tarushi Jain who got killed in #DhakaAttackpic.twitter.com/ALRE0hV4l1  ANI (@ANI_news) July 2, 2016

"I am extremely pained to share that the terrorists have killed Tarushi, an Indian girl who was taken hostage in the terror attack in Dhaka," External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj tweeted.

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"I have spoken to her father Shri Sanjeev Jain and conveyed our deepest condolences. The country is with them in this hour of grief," she said in another tweet.

I am extremely pained to share that the terrorists have killed Tarushi, an Indian girl who was taken hostage in the terror attack in Dhaka.  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) July 2, 2016

Tarishi was 19 years old. She passed out from American School Dhaka. Presently, she was a student at Berkeley. https://t.co/oeTViJ8Xqa  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) July 2, 2016

According to government sources, Tarushi Jain was a student at University of California, Berkeley in the United States and was on vacation in Dhaka. Her father, Sanjeev Jain, runs a garment business in Bangladesh, reported Business Standard.

#Dhaka (B'desh): Visuals from outside cafe Holey Artisan where attack took place y'day killing 20 including 1 Indian pic.twitter.com/ko9PHkERlS  ANI (@ANI_news) July 2, 2016

While another Indian who was taken hostage, a doctor, was released by the militants as he spoke fluent Bengali.

Dr Satyapal was spared and kept as a hostage, along with some others, as he spoke fluent Bengali and was taken to be a Bangladeshi.

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Heavily armed militants chanting Allahu Akbar asked hostages to recite Quranic verses and those who couldnt were killed, eyewitnesses were quoted saying.

Twenty foreigners were brutally murdered by the militants inside the restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic zone before commandos launched an assault yesterday, killing six attackers and capturing one alive, ending Bangladesh's worst terror attack.

Director of Military Operations Brigadier General Nayeem Ashfaq Chowdhury said the militants slaughtered 20 hostages before the joint operation led by the armed forces began. Most of those killed were found with their throat slit, he added.

He said the bodies of the victims were recovered during a search in the Holey Artisan Bakery compound after the operation. The bodies were shifted to the Combined Military Hospital morgue for autopsy to confirm their identity.

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(With PTI Inputs)

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Buhler JV and freshman football will not be defeated

The Buhler JV squad capped its unbeaten season with a 34-22 victory at McPherson Monday night with help from members of the freshman team.
We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector

We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector

We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector

We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector
Mammootty's Rorschach hits all the right notes, except in the end | Movie Review
Slowing Down a Quick Heartbeat

Rochester, Minnesota - For 10 years, Jim Davis had a rapid heartbeat. He was otherwise healthy, though, so Jim wasn't particularly worried about it. He blamed the quick heart rate on his morning coffee.

In time, however, the condition began to affect his daily life. Medication didn't seem to help. When Jim sought care at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, his doctor discovered an underlying heart disorder that had gone undiagnosed.

Doctors were able to address his heart problems with a procedure called cardiac catheter ablation.

Today Jim's heart is still in rhythm. The rest of his life picked up the beat. "The ablation totally changed the quality of my life," Jim says. "Before it, I couldn't be the husband and father I wanted to be. The impact is priceless."

Troubling symptoms

A dentist from New Smyrna Beach, Florida, Jim has always enjoyed being active. For years he was an avid runner, but eventually arthritis in his left knee made that too difficult. It was when he switched to biking that Jim realized there might be more to his fast heartrate than just too much caffeine.

"I was biking four or five times a day, and my heart rate would go way up," Jim says. "I asked one of the other bikers if his heart rate ever got up to 210. He suggested I see a cardiologist."

In spring 2009, during a trip to his wife's native Holland, Jim saw a cardiologist who diagnosed him with sinus tachycardia, a resetting of the normal heartbeat to a higher rate. The doctor wasn't too concerned and told Jim he could try a beta blocker medication. Jim wasn't convinced and wanted another opinion.

"The ablation totally changed the quality of my life. Before it, I couldn't be the husband and father I wanted to be. The impact is priceless." - Jim Davis

"I would wake up, and my heart rate would be around 140 while lying in bed," he says.

He visited two other cardiologists, both of whom agreed with the original diagnosis and medication.

"As I continued taking the medication, my quality of life went way down," Jim recalls. "I couldn't enjoy my baby daughter because I was so tired all the time. I had cut back my work schedule. And if I rode my bike, I'd go to bed afterwards. This condition was affecting my whole life."

Uncovering the cause

One evening, Jim happened upon a TV broadcast featuring Mayo Clinic cardiologist Fred Kusumoto, M.D., who was discussing the latest treatment options for heart arrhythmias. Desperate to regain his active lifestyle, Jim called Mayo Clinic and requested an appointment.

In March 2015, he traveled two hours north to Jacksonville, Florida, to see Dr. Kusumoto.

"It was evident the first time we met that Mr. Davis had a very bad quality of life," says Dr. Kusumoto, who performed a series of tests in an attempt to gain an accurate diagnosis.

There are several types of tachycardia. While all cause rapid heartbeat, according to Dr. Kusumoto, there are differences based on the location of and the cause of the abnormal beats.

"The question I was trying to answer was 'Was his normal beat set too high or was it really an arrhythmia?'" Dr. Kusumoto says.

"Over a period of several months, I gave Jim different medication that works on abnormal beats rather than normal beats," he says. "Ultimately, his response to the medication allowed us to discover that sinus tachycardia was not actually the cause of his fast heartbeat."

Seeing clear results

With additional studies, Dr. Kusumoto identified that Jim had a nest of cells in the right atrium of his heart. Those cells were causing his abnormally rapid heartbeat. This condition is known as cristal atrial tachycardia.

"This was something we could fix," says Dr. Kusumoto, who recommended minimally invasive cardiac catheter ablation to destroy the small area of tissue that was responsible for the arrhythmia.

Jim underwent the procedure in October 2015. The results were immediate.

"He gets to know you. He listens to you. It's a combination of competence and genuine compassion." - Jim Davis

When he recovered from the anesthesia, his heart rate was normal. Two weeks later, Jim competed in a 30-kilometer bike race, coming in second out of 40 competitors.

"It was like a miracle. I hadn't felt that good in 20 years," he says. "I felt young. I cried with joy."

Jim says he is grateful to Mayo Clinic and recommends Dr. Kusumoto whenever he can. "He gets to know you. He listens to you," Jim says. "It's a combination of competence and genuine compassion."
Imperial County Road Closed Due to Oil Spill

Imperial, California - Today at approximately 3:15 p.m. the Imperial County Department of Public Works (ICDPW) was notified by the Imperial County Sheriffs Office dispatch that a diesel fuel spill had occurred at Austin and Brewer Roads in Imperial. ICDPW arrived on site within minutes and with the assistance of Imperial County Fire Department and the California Highway Patrol, officials proceeded to close Austin Road from Worthington Road to Aten Road.

EFR Environmental Services, Inc. has been dispatched to safely and appropriately clean up the hazardous material. We are asking residents to please avoid the area while the closures are in place and use alternate routes. It is estimated that Austin Road will be reopened by tomorrow afternoon.

Again, please avoid the area until the closure is lifted. ICDPW and partners are working diligently to address the situation in a timely manner. The communitys patience and cooperation is greatly appreciated.
Terrorist Attacks in Baghdad

Washington, DC - We condemn in the strongest possible terms the terrorist attacks carried out by Da'esh in shopping districts in Baghdad today. Nearly one hundred people in total, many women and children, were killed as they broke fast for the holy month of Ramadan.

We extend our deepest condolences to the victims families and friends, and wish a full and quick recovery to the many people who were injured.

These acts of mass murder are yet another example of Daeshs contempt for human life. From Baghdad to Istanbul, Brussels, Dhaka, and Paris, Da'esh terrorists murder the innocent to attract attention and recruits. They will not succeed. We will continue to unite the world against this evil, remove their safe havens in Syria and Iraq, and uproot their global networks. Our partnership with Iraq and its people, who serve on the front-lines of this global fight, remains steadfast and unwavering.

We are in close contact with Iraqi authorities, and stand committed to supporting Iraqi Security forces as they take the fight to Daesh strongholds, and bring all responsible for these terrible crimes to justice.
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Every winter, groups of Native American hunters wait on the edges of Yellowstone National Park for herds of wild buffalo to leave the park in search of food. Only then can the hunt begin.

Accompanying them are a group of scavengers, collectively calling themselves Buffalo Bridge, who live off the remains of bison from the hunt. Working with the Native American hunters these primitive skills practitioners assist in butchering and help in field dressing the animal after the kill.

They have access to animal parts that are commonly left behind by most contemporary big game hunters, and are occasionally given parts of the animal from tribe members in return for their work.

Ania pulls buffalo fat from a gut pile as Epona waits with backpack. Buffalo Bridge will occasionally be gifted a hide, bones, and even organs like the heart and liver (Matt Hamon)

When Yellowstone National Park was created in 1872, hunting was strictly banned within it, even for the Native Americans who had lived and hunted there for generations. It wasnt until 2006 that the Nez Perce, Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes successfully petitioned the government to be able to hunt bison when they left the park and within the annually regulated cull  an initiative started to manage and combat bison from spreading diseases to other livestock outside the park.

"The image of Josh carrying the buffalo backstrap over his neck is one of my favourites," says Hamon. "Its simple and graphic. As a portrait photographer it also has that primary aspect" (Matt Hamon)

Himself a hunter, US-based photographer Matt Hamon spent a memorable week living in the Buffalo Bridge tent camp, working with and documenting the scavengers, or "The Gleaners", to create the so-named series of images.

Often the animal is field dressed far from the road and members of Buffalo Bridge will help by carrying large pieces back to the Native Americans' cars (Matt Hamon)

I bumped into one of the members of the Buffalo Bridge group while reading a blog about butchering elk, says Hamon. Their buffalo scavenging project looked interesting so I contacted them via Facebook about visiting and making portraits. They were very welcoming but also very weary of media attention - theyd like their project to stay small and unnoticed.

Josh loads buffalo quarters into a Native American hunter's truck (Matt Hamon)

The work is heavy and conditions are harsh, with high winds and temperatures below freezing, but Buffalo Bridge see their efforts as a way of honouring the buffalo, by utilising as much of the animal as possible.

Wall tents with wood stoves and plenty of warm food and warm chores make it cosy, he adds.

Alex carries his son as he works at fleshing a hide for tanning (Matt Hamon)

Primitive skills practitioners exist in groups all over the United States, and possibly Europe, although those groups tend to be much more about fetishising culture, aesthetic, and dress of American Indians, says Hamon.

Epona nurses her son in the meat processing shed (Matt Hamon)

In contrast to any common misconceptions of scavengers as hipsters or invasive to the Native American culture, the photographer says Buffalo Bridge group is purely motivated by having a more direct connection to food and resources.

They operate further outside common modes of industrial production and consumption, he says. They are also motivated by an interested in conservation and preservation of wild buffalo [American Bison].

While they cooperate with the Native American hunters, they have zero interest in appropriation of Native American culture.

Matt Hamon lives and works in rural Montana, US  www.matthamon.com
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Thousands of people could be denied life-saving medicine on the NHS following Brexit, it has been reported.

As the pounds value has dropped following the Leave vote, the relative price of drugs has increased raising concerns the NHS may no longer be able to afford them.

13-year-old kidney patient Abi Longfellow told The Sunday People the cost of her medication went increased by 16,000 overnight due to Brexit.

The NHS had initially agreed to purchase the drug from the US, when it cost 136,000 but the pounds depleted value now means it will cost 152,000- raising concerns the drug may be delayed or outright denied.

The teenager has a rare kidney disease which will kill her before her 18th birthday unless she receives a transplant. She says she was expecting confirmation on Friday that she will receive the medicine, but instead received an email saying: I understand [the delay] is because our finance team need more time to check that the costings we have based our prioritisation decisions on are all still correct post Brexit and the changes in the value of Sterling.

The NHS buys some of the drugs it uses in euros and dollars as many of the big pharmaceutical companies are not UK based.

Abi, who experiences acute pain due to her condition and is on dialysis 10 hours per day, said: I just want the delays to stop. I want to have a transplant and lead a normal life which doesnt involve my mum and dad constantly fighting for me.

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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. 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The potential impact of Brexit on the NHS was fiercely disputed during the EU referendum campaign by both sides.

NHS English Chief Executive Simon Stevens suggested leaving the EU could damage healthcare provision, warning that Brexit would be a terrible moment for the NHS.

The Leave campaign had suggested funding sent to Brussels could instead be redirected to the NHS, however this pledge was back tracked on following the referendum result.

The Independent has approached NHS England for comment.
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There are at least six things the Government, when we have new leadership in place, should do to support the economy.

The first is that it needs to acknowledge that the Brexit vote will damage growth for the next year, maybe longer. Whatever view you take about the long-term implications  and there is a significant minority of economists who think in the long run it may be positive  in the short-term it is bad news. There may or may not be a recession next year, but a first step in reassuring the global business and financial community would be to show that the Government is well aware of the danger. Project fear failed to frighten the voters, or at least enough of them to continue to support Brexit, and the fears were overdone. But now denial of the real risks ahead would be deeply damaging.

Next, we need some business-friendly actions. Saying the country is still open for business wont wash. The Government has to take practical steps to prove it. There have been suggestions of cut in corporation tax to 12.5 per cent to match Ireland, or even below, but there are other (and cheaper) options such as easing the ability of companies to recruit high-skilled staff from outside the EU. What is needed is not grand gestures but a detailed pro-growth package.

Third, the country needs clarity on future fiscal policy. Abandoning the rigid commitment to a balanced budget by 2020, as suggested by Theresa May, is a helpful start. Actually what will probably be needed will be a repeat performance of policy in the last parliament: keeping the objective of cutting the deficit in place but being prepared to slow down the timetable. This fits in with the monetary easing already signalled by Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England.

Fourth, the Government will need to talk directly to European businesses that have large UK investments and/or substantial exports to the UK. As and when negotiations begin, the prime allies in Europe will be the business communities of the remaining members. They need to maintain their access. They need to be reassured that this will happen if the EU negotiators are prepared to maintain UK access to EU markets.

Fifth, the Government would be wise to start informal talks with other trading partners, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India, to explore how trade could be boosted further. India is particularly important, given that it has now become the second-largest inward investor in UK manufacturing.

And finally, the Government needs to show much more concern for the parts of the economy, and country, that have either failed to benefit from globalisation or have actually been threatened by it. The business community needs a stable society, and if governments pay insufficient attention to parts of the country that are butting into tough headwinds that undermines that stability. Quite aside from the ethical and moral case for governments paying more attention to parts of the country that feel left behind, there is a powerful business case too. The whole economy needs to thrive, not just the parts that have done well up to now.
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A Muslim man on his way to morning prayer has been shot and stabbed outside a mosque in Houston, Texas.

Mohammed Imaduddin, a spokesperson for the Madrasah Islamiah Masjid Noor mosque near Bellaire, told news local news agencies the victim was a doctor, who had parked along the street before walking towards the mosque for the morning service.

Witnesses said the victim was appraoched by three masked men on foot before being stabbed without warning.

One of the individuals pulled out a gun and shot him, before the three attackers fled from the scene.

It is very scary right now given the current political climate, Mr Imaduddin told news station ABC 13, adding that there were children outside at the time of the incident.

From what I hear, this is the third incident this week in the Houston area involving a Muslim getting shot. This is a community place, we have kids that come here, we have people young and old comes here.

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Investigators say the doctor was shot twice, and will remain in ICU for 24 hours, but is expected to survive his injuries. There is no known motive known for the attack.

The incident comes the day after another Muslim man was beaten up outside a mosque in Florida.
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Kim Jong-un has gained roughly 40 kg (90lb) in weight since he became the leader of North Korea four years ago and binges on food, according to a report by South Koreas spy agency.

The national intelligence service told a closed session of the South Korean parliament that the countrys head of state also suffers from insomnia and is constantly worried about his personal safety.

Lee Cheol-uoo, a South Korean ruling party lawmaker, informed journalists the 33-year-old saw his weight surge from 90kg to 120kg by 2014 and he is now believed to weigh 130kg.

He keeps a close tab on any potential threats to his power, including the military, and he is obsessed with ensuring his personal safety, Lee said, referring to intelligence reports to back his statements up.

Inside the daily life in North Korea Show all 19 1 /19 Inside the daily life in North Korea Inside the daily life in North Korea People reading a newspaper at the metro station Inside the daily life in North Korea Thoughts of the leaders on the tram. They have about a dozen of these on every tram, all with different thoughts Inside the daily life in North Korea Young people training for a big upcoming festival Inside the daily life in North Korea People at the Pyongyang's annual marathon Inside the daily life in North Korea Many stars on one of the trolleys in Pyongyang Inside the daily life in North Korea An intimidating poster in a primary school in North Korea. Inside the daily life in North Korea Solar panels installed on a street lamp. Inside the daily life in North Korea A poster on the window next to one of the venues we visited in Pyongyang Inside the daily life in North Korea Kids playing football next to the Arch of Triumph. After a while tourists were allowed to join, so some of us did Inside the daily life in North Korea Class in an educational center in Pyongyang (where people over 17 years old can attend any classes they choose after school, for free) Inside the daily life in North Korea People waving at me during the Pyongyang marathon Inside the daily life in North Korea People having a great time dancing at a public park Inside the daily life in North Korea A metro driver in a metro station in Pyongyang Inside the daily life in North Korea Fireworks to mark the birthday of the Eternal President Kim Il Sung on our last night in Pyongyang Inside the daily life in North Korea My wonderful tour guide at a public park Inside the daily life in North Korea One of the parks in Pyongyang Inside the daily life in North Korea A person rowing some boats for the day at a river in Pyongyang Inside the daily life in North Korea The National War Museum Inside the daily life in North Korea Public park in Pyongyang

Because of his habitual binge eating and drinking, he is likely to develop adult [lifestyle] diseases.

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Kim Jong-un has purged a number of senior officials who were accused of challenging his authority over the past few years. The most high profile execution was that of his uncle Chang Song-thaek who was executed for treason.

There has been a great deal of speculation surrounding Kim Jong-Uns health in recent years, with rumours emerging that he suffers from high blood sugar, gout and diabetes. He is reputed to be a heavy smoker and a massive fan of Swiss cheese.

Speculation reached its peak after Kim Jong-un didnt appear in public for three weeks, failing to turn up to a session of the supreme peoples assembly - North Koreas national legislature.

Kims father Kim Jong-Il and grandfather Kim Il-Sung both suffered from obesity and gout and they also smoked. Kims father and grandfather both died from heart attacks.

Although the vast majority of North Koreas 25 million citizens endure the threat of starvation, obesity is a growing problem among North Korean kids and teenagers from elite families.
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Michael Cimino, the Oscar-winning director whose film The Deer Hunter became one of the great triumphs of Hollywood's 1970s heyday, and whose disastrous Heaven's Gate helped bring that era to a close, has died.

Cimino died on Saturday at age 77, Los Angeles County acting coroner lieutenant B Kim confirmed. He said Cimino had been living in Beverly Hills but did not yet have further details on the circumstances of his death.

Eric Weissmann, a friend and former lawyer of Cimino's, said friends had been unable to reach Cimino by phone for the last few days and called the police, who found him dead in his bed. He said Cimino had not been ill as far as he was aware.

Cimino's masterpiece was 1978's The Deer Hunter, the story of the Vietnam War's effect on a small steel-working town in Pennsylvania. The film won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Cimino. It helped lift the emerging-legend status of Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep. Christopher Walken also won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

"Our work together is something I will always remember. He will be missed," De Niro said in a statement.

Despite controversy over its portrayal of the North Vietnamese and use of the violent game Russian roulette, the film was praised by some critics as the best American film since The Godfather six years earlier.

Roger Ebert, writing in Chicago Sun-Times, called it "one of the most emotionally shattering films ever made."

Cimino's emerging career then took a U-turn with 1980's "Heaven's Gate," a Western starring Kris Kristofferson and Walken that was a critical and financial disaster.

The film became synonymous with over-budget and out-of-control productions, and a cautionary tale for giving artistic-minded directors too much power in a new Hollywood that had been defined by directors such as Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese.

Notable deaths in 2016 Show all 42 1 /42 Notable deaths in 2016 Notable deaths in 2016 Debbie Reynolds was an American actress, singer, businesswoman, film historian, and humanitarian. She died on December 28 in Los Angeles Rex Notable deaths in 2016 Actress Carrie Fisher died on December 27 aged 60 Rex Notable deaths in 2016 Comedian and Actor Ricky Harris died on December 26 aged 54 Rex Notable deaths in 2016 British singer George Michael died on 25 December aged 53 Getty Notable deaths in 2016 Rick Parfitt OBE was an English musician, best known for being a singer, songwriter and rhythm guitarist in the rock band Status Quo. He died on December 24 in Marbella, Spain Rex Notable deaths in 2016 Lord Jenkin of Roding died at the age of 90 on the 21 December PA wire Notable deaths in 2016 Rabbi Lionel Blue died on the 19 December Rex Notable deaths in 2016 Zsa Zsa Gabor died on December 18 Getty Notable deaths in 2016 Leonard Cohen died on 7 November Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Grand secretary of the Orange Order Drew Nelson died on 10 October aged 60 after a short illness PA Notable deaths in 2016 Aaron Pryor, the relentless junior welterweight died Sunday, Oct. 9, at the age of 60 at his home in Cincinnati after a long battle with heart disease AP Notable deaths in 2016 Polish Director Andrzej Wajda died on October 9, aged 90 Reuters Notable deaths in 2016 Stylianos Pattakos has died following a stroke on 8th October. He was 103 years old. AP Notable deaths in 2016 Dickie Jeeps, was an English rugby union player who played for Northampton. He represented and captained both the England national rugby union team and the British Lions in the 1950s and 1960s. He died on 8th October. He was 84 Getty Notable deaths in 2016 Duke of Westminster Billionaire landowner the Duke of Westminster, Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor has died on 9 August, aged 64 Rex Features Notable deaths in 2016 Christina Knudsen Sir Roger Moores stepdaughter Christina Knudsen has died from cancer on 25 July at teh age of 47 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Caroline Aherne The actress Caroline Aherne has died from cancer on 2 July at the age of 52 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Christina Grimmie Christina Grimmie, 22, who was an American singer and songwriter, known for her participation in the NBC singing competition The Voice, was signing autographs at a concert venue in Orlando on 10 June when an assailant shot her. 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He was 62-years-old PA Notable deaths in 2016 Denise Robertson Denise Robertson, an agony aunt on This Morning for over 30 years, has died on 1 April, aged 83 Notable deaths in 2016 Zaha Hadid Dame Zaha Hadid, the prominent architect best known for designs such as the London Olympic Aquatic Centre and the Guangzhou Opera House, has died of a heart attack on 31 March, aged 65 2010 AFP Notable deaths in 2016 Ronnie Corbett British entertainer Ronnie Corbett has passed away on 31 March at the age of 85 2014 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Imre Kertesz Hungarian writer and Holocaust survivor Imre Kertesz, who won the 2002 Nobel Literature Prize, has died on 31 March, at the age of 86 REUTERS Notable deaths in 2016 Rob Ford Rob Ford, the former controversial mayor of Toronto, has died following a battle with a rare form of cancer. 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Its initial budget of $11.5m (8.7m) would balloon to $44m after marketing. While those numbers are meager by today's standards, at the time they were enough to hasten the demise of United Artists, and of Cimino's career. Some say it helped bring down the director-driven renaissance that had fuelled much of the great work of the 1970s, giving way to a business-and-blockbuster mentality that would dominate the decades that followed.

Steven Bach, a former executive vice president at United Artists, documented the production in the 1999 book Final Cut: Art Money and Ego in the Making of Heaven's Gate.

Vincent Canby, The New York Times film critic not known for his harshness, said that the film was an "unqualified disaster" that "fails so completely that you might suspect Mr Cimino sold his soul to the devil to obtain the success of The Deer Hunter, and the devil has just come around to collect."

But Cimino always stood by the movie as an artistic accomplishment, or at least a project worth undertaking.

"I never second-guess myself," he told Vanity Fair in 2010. "You can't look back. I don't believe in defeat. Everybody has bumps, but as Count Basie said, 'It's not how you handle the hills, it's how you handle the valleys."'

Cimino nearly brought down a studio with his overblown Heaven's Gate (AP)

Clint Eastwood, a lifelong friend, also defended him in Vanity Fair.

"George Lucas made Howard the Duck, and the guy who made Waterworld  those films didn't destroy them," Eastwood said. "Critics were set up to hate Heaven's Gate. The picture didn't work with the public. If it had, it would have been the same as Titanic. Titanic worked, so all is forgiven."

He became an eccentric figure even for Hollywood, living in solitude, constantly changing his appearance, claiming allergies to both alcohol and sunshine.

Born in New York City and raised on Long Island, Cimino graduated from Yale in 1961, and he earned a master's degree from the University of New Haven in 1963, both in painting.

His first film came with 1974's Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, a heist picture with Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges playing the title characters.

Cimino worked only sporadically in the years that followed Heaven's Gate, and with no success. His remaining films were 1985's Year of the Dragon, 1987's The Sicilian, 1990's Desperate Hours, and 1996's Sunchaser.

AP
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Rachel Johnson has launched into a scathing attack on Michael Gove, describing him as a Westminster suicide bomber and a political psychopath.

Writing in her weekly Mail on Sunday column, Boris sister rebuked the Conservative leadership candidate for running against her brother.

Mr Gove shocked fellow Conservatives when he announced his decision to stand in the party leadership race at the eleventh hour on Thursday. The Justice Secretary had been widely expected to throw his weight behind fellow Leave campaigner Boris.

Michael Gove is the man who has said many times that he is prepared to put his principles before his friends, that he will sacrifice anything and anyone on the high altar of his ideology, Rachel said.

Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Show all 12 1 /12 Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Brexit protest: Thousands march in London A woman poses with a home-made European Union flag as Remain supporters gather on Park Lane in London to show their support for the EU in the wake of Brexit PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Remain supporters demonstrate in Parliament Square PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Tens of thousands of people gathered to protest the result of the EU referendum PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London A majority of people in the capital voted to remain in the European Union Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Protesters chanted: What do we want to do? Stay in the EU PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The march follows a similar rally in Trafalgar Square that was cancelled due to heavy rain  but which tens of thousands of people turned up to anyway Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Britain voted to leave the European Union in a referendum by 52 per cent to 48 per cent Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London But support for the Leave campaign in urban areas and among young people was significantly lower Rex features Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Marchers gathered at Park Lane at 11am and marched towards Parliament Square PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Some protesters held up baguettes in a display of affection for our continental neighbours PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The disparity between different parts of the country has promoted a four million signature petition calling for a second referendum and even a renewed push for Scotland to cede from the UK PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The events organiser, Kings College graduate Kieran MacDermott, wrote: We can prevent Brexit by refusing to accept the referendum as the final say and take our finger off the self-destruct button" Reuters

But he must see, after what he has done, that he is now cast in the public mind not as a heroic man of conviction, but as a sort of Westminster suicide bomber, whose deadly belt of explosives has been detonated not by his own hand, but by his own wife.

She then argued that his last minute decision to enter the contest was the combination of guidance from his wife and columnist Sarah Vine, his former advisor Dominic Cummings, and George Osborne.

"However much Gove tries to remind us what a nice, caring guy he is in his long leadership pitch, the signalling around this personable and civilised candidate is, Im afraid, that hes acted like a political psychopath," she added.

Rachel criticised Mr Gove for going back on his long-time insistence he did not want to be Prime Minister. Throughout his political career, Mr Gove has frequently said his political colleagues were far better equipped for the role than him and he lacked the capability to lead the country.

Michael Gove knifed Boris Johnson in the back and in the front, she said.

Pushed him under a bus, ran over him several times (thank you Piers Morgan for this image) and then declared he was running for the leadership himself.

Rachel was an outspoken supporter of the Remain campaign throughout the EU referendum and argued the Conservative leadership campaign was now serving as a distraction from dealing with a post-Referendum strategy.

A representative for Mr Gove did not immediately respond to request for comment.
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I am sitting in the University of Huddersfield facing a large crowd of people who have come to listen to Ben Miller, the comedian and writer, speak. He has been talking about his latest book and, as moderator and interviewer, I am facilitating questions from the audience.

One woman has not so much a question, but a statement of fact. She saw, she says, what can only possibly have been an alien spaceship passing over the West Yorkshire town. Possibly on its way to the bright lights of Leeds, I can only surmise.

Miller, known for his sketch shows with comedy partner Alexander Armstrong and sitcoms such as I Want My Wife Back is, however, not playing this one for laughs. At this literary festival event he suggests that there are all kinds of rational explanations for what the lady in the audience saw, and probably none of them are that it was a spacecraft of extraterrestrial origin.

The woman folds her arms and fixes him with that particular Yorkshire stare that made the Lancastrians quake in their boots at the Battle of Towton. I know what I saw, she says resolutely.

And in a way, its Ben Millers own fault. His book is called The Aliens Are Coming!, after all, and it features a trio of B-movie flying saucers on the cover. It is billed as the exciting and extraordinary science behind our search for life in the universe.

And thats not wrong. But it turns out Miller isnt just about the comedy. He studied at Cambridge for a PhD in solid state physics and his book is indeed extraordinary and exciting. However, what it definitely doesnt do is offer much succour to those who, like David Duchovnys Fox Mulder in The X-Files, desperately Want To Believe not only in the existence of intelligent life on other planets, but also in the fact that theyre regularly visiting us.

Instead, Millers book suggests that if there is life out there, its going to be in bacterial or primitive form  and to back up his theories he uses some quite incredible examples of how life on earth has flourished in the most unlikely and unforgiving environments.

Its food for thought but, to be honest, its not exactly little green men with ray guns, is it? And while our heads  and an increasing number of scientists  might tell us that Miller is on the right track, our hearts continue to declare that The Truth is Out There.

And never more so than today, which you will of course know is World UFO Day, celebrated annually since 2001 and according to its website, aiming to raise awareness about the undoubted existence of UFOs and with that intelligent beings from outer space.

One thing the World UFO Day people are not is po-faced. They have some ideas on their website about how you can celebrate today, including making your own UFO t-shirts, taking pictures of strange objects in the sky (hey, if its going to happen on any day) and throwing a UFO spotting party. Its all rather jolly and has a bit of a Eurovision guilty pleasure vibe to it  though the exhortation to create original-looking UFOs out of frisbees doesnt seem quite to be in the spirit of proving beyond a doubt the existence of alien life-forms.

Jeff Goldblum and Charlotte Gainsbourg in Independence Day: Resurgence (20th Century Fox/Courtesy Everett/Rex)

It also brings to mind the ill-fated revellers who welcomed the UFOs in the first Independence Day movie in 1996  you know, the ones who gathered on top of skyscrapers with homemade posters saying things like We are your friends and were the first to be fried by the death-ray. But the Independence Day aliens are back in our multiplexes, of course  blowing London to smithereens and putting Jeff Goldblum through the wringer  and that doesnt seem to be an accident; there appears to be an appetite for tabloid UFO stories like never before.

The internet has revitalised our interest in UFOs, perhaps, because who can resist a link that offers up a picture of a squashed bluebottle on a car windscreen with some clickbait headline questioning if this is not, finally, incontrovertible proof that the aliens are among us? Certainly the Express, Mirror and Mail seem particularly fond of UFO stories at the moment. Some sample headlines from the last week alone: Is this a crashing UFO captured on camera?; Is this the secret military base where bodies of aliens were taken?; Alien hunter blown away by fleet of UFOs flying around volcano; Has a UFO been spotted leaving Saturn? And those are just from the Express, as is the simple but effective: Aliens took me to Durham.

A journalist on one of those newspapers, who shall remain unidentified lest he get a visit from the Men In Black who turn up to silence flying saucer witnesses, confirms their popularity: X-Filesy stuff, Large Hadron Collider-y, quantum weirdness etc, etc will always go down well for us. And while we might roll our eyes at the space given, online at least, to such oddball stories, its also true that they wouldnt be running them were we not clicking on them in our thousands.

The tabloids present them just as mysteries, theres no attempt to investigate them, says Heather Dixon. (Investigation is her thing; she is head of the national investigations committee at BUFORA  the British UFO Research Association.) And theres nothing wrong with that, we all love a good mystery. The problem is that for most people aliens are the modern-day equivalent of fairies and leprechauns.

BUFORA has been running since 1962 and, although it is staffed entirely by volunteers, it brings a scientific and uncompromising rigour to its investigations. T-shirts and pimped frisbees are not its thing. We conduct very robust research, says Dixon. These days we get a lot of visual reports  photos and videos from peoples phones. But most of it can be explained away; in fact Id say 98 per cent of sightings have a rational explanation. Its that two percent that fascinates us, though. And, like Fox Mulder, we want to believe. What I call the human factor is very strong in sightings, says Dixon. People want to believe in UFOs. We are human, we all have our beliefs.

Of course, the search for aliens is by no means limited to tabloid clickbait and enthusiastic amateurs. Last year the Breakthrough Initiatives was launched by the Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, a $100m (75m) project to use the most powerful radio telescopes on the planet to mine the galaxy for specific clues suggesting the existence of other life-forms. Part of this is a competition to come up with a message to be sent out across the cosmos to represent the whole of humanity. And among entrants will be the Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) at the University of Oxford, which has links with the group of British astronomers and scientists who make up the UK research network arm of SETI  the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

The network is entering the competition to provide a message, but Anders Sandberg, of FHI and SETI, says quite seriously that there has been a lot of concern among members about doing so  because we might actually be waving a flag at intergalactic neighbours who might not have given us much thought before. The cliche of being invaded by aliens was not really on our minds, says Sandberg. But the thinking was that the silence in the skies might be because alien civilisations are hiding from us, and that it might be stupid to attract attention.

An exhibit at the X-Files Out-Of-This-World Experience in Los Angeles in January 2016 (DDP USA/Rex)

Ben Miller is all for making the first move. In fact, he thinks we should be doing more than sending out a simple message proclaiming We come in peace for all mankind or similar; we should send them the entire internet. The first thing the aliens will want to do is work out whether there might be any information in our message, he says, and to do that they will need a lot of data.

He tells the Huddersfield audience a story about a man who discovered microbes in hot pools of water in Wyomings Yellowstone National Park. Not very sexy to the committed UFO watcher, perhaps, but the point was microbes shouldnt have been able to survive in the 90C heat, in fact, anything above about 60C and they check out. If life can thrive where its not meant to here on Earth, then that gives us hope that somewhere out there in the universe theres single-celled life, says Miller. And if its as widespread as we believe it is, complex intelligent life wont be far behind.

How far behind is up for discussion; if bacteria is all there is, we might have to wait a few billion years until theyve evolved enough for us to say hello. But for those of us who have seen bright lights across the sky and been unable to explain them, the mysteries of the universe are already here (if tantalisingly out of reach). Our appetite for believing in UFOs shows no signs of abating. And while Ben Miller is dubious about the existence of little green men, he does think that well find evidence of extraterrestrial life in some form in the next ten years. Its just that to understand it, we might have to get a better grip on the miracle of life right here on Earth.
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Israel's former foreign minister was reportedly summoned by Scotland Yard over alleged war crimes ahead of her visit to the UK this weekend.

Tzipi Livni was summoned on Thursday for a "voluntary interview" by police for questioning over suspicions she was involved in war crimes during the Gaza War in 2008, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports.

However, the summons was cancelled after diplomatic talks between Israel and Britain.

Ms Livni was granted diplomatic immunity and agreed to meet with Tobias Ellwood, the Foreign and Commonwealth minister in charge of Middle Eastern affairs.

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 questioning was reportedly intended to discuss Ms Livni's alleged involvement in war crimes and violations of the Geneva Convention as foreign minister and vice prime minister, and as a member of the diplomatic-security cabinet of Israel during the 2008 Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.

The three-week conflict began when Israeli forces attacked the Gaza Strip with the goal of stopping rocket fire into Israel.

Israeli forces targeted police stations and political institutions, as well as suspected rocket firing teams during the offensive, while Palestinian groups fired rockets against civilian targets in Israel in response to what they perceived as "massacres".

The conflict resulted in up to 1,417 Palestinian deaths and 13 Israeli deaths.

The UN-commissioned Goldstone Report harshly criticised the conduct of both Israel and Hamas and accused them both of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.
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A man on the London Underground was seen doing Nazi salutes and yelling this lot lost the election while sitting across a woman wearing a hijab.

Arfah Farooq, who was travelling home from work on the District Line, has described how she stood up to the drunk man, who was ranting and shouting racist abuse.

She has called on the public to speak out when they witness racist abuse, after being angered by a woman who told her to ignore the man.

She told the Evening Standard: He started mouthing off, I couldnt tell if he was talking to his friend or the train, but he said this lot lost the election and he kept doing Nazi salutes.

There was a hijabi girl sitting opposite him and she was clearly terrified.

Ms Farooq said the man was saying this is our country, go back and she stood up to him, saying its my country too, where do you want me to go back to?

She said the man turned on her, and left her shaking, but another passenger stood also stood up to the man: He got up and said you know what, youre a disgrace.

Following the incident, Ms Farooq has called on other British people to stand up and act when they see racist abuse happening.

When he stood up it made me really happy, at that point I was this one girl on the Tube that decided to shout something, but when he stood up I felt somebody had my back.

Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Show all 12 1 /12 Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Brexit protest: Thousands march in London A woman poses with a home-made European Union flag as Remain supporters gather on Park Lane in London to show their support for the EU in the wake of Brexit PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Remain supporters demonstrate in Parliament Square PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Tens of thousands of people gathered to protest the result of the EU referendum PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London A majority of people in the capital voted to remain in the European Union Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Protesters chanted: What do we want to do? Stay in the EU PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The march follows a similar rally in Trafalgar Square that was cancelled due to heavy rain  but which tens of thousands of people turned up to anyway Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Britain voted to leave the European Union in a referendum by 52 per cent to 48 per cent Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London But support for the Leave campaign in urban areas and among young people was significantly lower Rex features Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Marchers gathered at Park Lane at 11am and marched towards Parliament Square PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Some protesters held up baguettes in a display of affection for our continental neighbours PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The disparity between different parts of the country has promoted a four million signature petition calling for a second referendum and even a renewed push for Scotland to cede from the UK PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The events organiser, Kings College graduate Kieran MacDermott, wrote: We can prevent Brexit by refusing to accept the referendum as the final say and take our finger off the self-destruct button" Reuters

The National Police Chiefs Council said the number of reported hate crimes has gone up to five times the usual amount following the UKs vote to leave the EU.

NPCC Chairwoman Sara Thornton said: "In a number of forces, migrants are reporting verbal abuse, negative social media commentary including xenophobic language, anti-migrant leafleting and, in very limited numbers, physical assaults."

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has urged police to be extra vigilant after an unusually large number of reports came in following the vote.

Its really important we stand guard against any rise in hate crimes or abuse by those who might use last weeks referendum as a cover to seek to divide us, the mayor said.
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A group of ultra-Orthodox Jewish students nearly drowned after being taken on a hiking expedition by unqualified teachers working at an illegal faith school that the Government has known about for five years but which remains open.

The children, who were dressed in traditional Orthodox clothes instead of hiking gear for the trip on 6 June and were unable to read warning signs because they can't speak any English, had to be rescued by emergency services after the tide came and nearly swept them out to sea.

The Independent understands that the teachers put the childrens lives in further danger because, once they realised they were at risk of drowning, they initially contacted community leaders in Stamford Hill, north London, instead of contacting authorities for fear of the illegal school being discovered.

The school is understood to be one of dozens which an investigation by The Independent revealed in April are operating illegally in the Stamford Hill area of Hackney. More than 1,000 children are believed to be taught at the ultra-orthodox Jewish schools which follow only a strict religious education as they belong to very devout orthodox Jewish families.

Government authorities have known about many of the schools for several years, including the school involved in the hiking expedition for five years, but not shut them down.

The schools teach boys from the age of 13 onwards following their Bar Mitzvah. Lessons often last from 6am to 11pm and take place in cramped and squalid buildings, with teachers who have no training or child protection checks. The schools ban secular knowledge and teach only religious texts in Yiddish and Hebrew meaning many leave unable to speak English or with any academic qualifications.

Campaigners and former pupils have said not enough is being done to close down the schools and to protect children, despite it being a criminal offence to run an illegal school.

The 34 children and 2 adults were rescued by emergency services after becoming trapped when the tide came in. The group had walked past a number of danger signs in English warning the cliff was impassable and were wearing ultra-Orthodox Jewish traditional dress rather than appropriate hiking gear.

The adults are said to have told authorities they were from a community centre in Stamford Hill, while the boys reportedly told authorities that they were just friends [who decided] to group together and go for a day out.

However, concerned members of the local community have told The Independent that the boys have been recognised as being pupils of an illegal Stamford Hill school out on a school trip with untrained and unregistered teachers. This has also been reiterated by a news report in Israeli media which describes the children as belonging to an illegal ultra-Orthodox Jewish school in Stamford Hill.

It is understood that the men lacked the basic awareness of child protection and safety issues involved due to lack of training.

It is also understood that the men and children walked past the warning signs as they were unable to speak or read English and were further endangered because they weren't wearing safe hiking gear for religious reasons.

An Independent reporter visited the school site following the events and multiple members of the public confirmed that the illegal school was operating and was involved in the incident.

Furthermore, internal documents from local authority Hackney council seen by The Independent show that they were first warned that the school was operating illegally in 2011 yet the school remains in operation. Campaigners and former pupils say the authorities are turning a blind eye to the schools and failing to protect children.

The Independent has chosen not to publish the schools name or address to protect the childrens identities.

In response to the allegations, a spokesperson for the group told The Independent that they are not an illegal school but a community centre: We take the concerns of health and safety and wellbeing of children in our care very seriously. We believe that as a result of the incident there are a lot of lessons that need to be learnt.

We have therefore asked a foundation to carry out an independent internal investigation and make recommendations for the future. It is our [intention to] learn lessons for the future and to fully implement all recommendations. In the interim we have suspended all outside activity.

A spokesperson for GesherEU, a charity which supports people leaving the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, said: This is not the first time childrens lives have been put in danger by, apparently, incompetent staff. Next time we could be seeing mothers wailing at the funerals of their sons or daughters unless ministers, the Department for Education and Hackney listen to our call for these settings to be properly monitored, for them to employ properly trained staff, and to ensure that these children are given the skills and secular education they will require to have choices and contribute to society when they are older.

Both the Department for Education and Hackney continually say that they are liaising with each other, and nothing seems to happen. We know that the legislation relating to the monitoring, safeguarding and education standards in independent schools, unregistered settings and for home-educated children, is confusing and that it is inadequate when fundamentalist religious bodies are set on following their own narrow curriculum. We urge them to go to the ministers responsible to push through urgent changes to the legislation to give them the powers to make real change."

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA UK news in pictures 25 October 2022 King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters after becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party Reuters 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. 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A spokesperson for the British Humanist Association said: Unfortunately this school is far too typical of the illegal schools in Stamford Hill, in that both the Department for Education and Hackney Council have known about it for a long time, and yet in spite of repeated scandals involving the lack of any education the boys receive and the dire health and safety breaches, neither body has managed to take any concrete steps in shutting it down.

As if it isn't controversial enough that these boys are denied any education, we now have an incident like this. What will it take for the Government to actually close the schools down? We will continue to put pressure on the Government to ensure that closure happens.

In response to the allegations, a spokesperson for the Department for Education said: Nothing is more important than keeping children safe. Where there are safeguarding issues local authorities must take immediate action to protect children and we are in contact with Hackney council to ensure they make this happen.

A spokesperson for Hackney Council told The Independent they do not have any legal powers to close the schools and are conducting an investigation into the incident. They stated that they believed the children were from a school rather than the community centre but said that the school is not an illegal secondary school but a nearby legally run private primary school. After it was highlighted that this was not possible as the children in the incident were not of primary school age and sources outside the school site had confirmed it was the illegal school involved, Hackney Council declined to comment further.
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Barack Obama was right: the UK will be at the back of the queue for trade deals with the US now it is leaving the EU, the American Ambassador to Britain has said.

Reacting to the EU referendum result, Ambassador Matthew Barzun said President Obama had been right to issue his warning about the consequences of Brexit in April.

Mr Barzun told BBC Radio 4s Desert Island Discs: The tone in which it was said, there was nothing punitive about it.

 Obama on Brexit

The point was, you are at the front of the queue right now  he [Obama] was saying back in April  because we are doing this big trade deal with the European Union, [the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)] of which you are a member.

But if you step out of the front of the queue, by definition you are no longer at the front, and some notion that you can jump further ahead: you just want to say that is not the trend for the types of big deals we are doing these days.

Mr Barzuns repeat of Mr Obamas back-of-the-queue warning comes after the Vote Leave campaign went into the EU referendum insisting that Brexit would mean Britian gaining the power to strike its own trade deals.

Its website said: We can speak for ourselves and sign new deals with countries all over the world, creating new jobs and new investment opportunities.

This was despite the comments of Mr Obama when he visited Downing Street in April.

Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Show all 12 1 /12 Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Brexit protest: Thousands march in London A woman poses with a home-made European Union flag as Remain supporters gather on Park Lane in London to show their support for the EU in the wake of Brexit PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Remain supporters demonstrate in Parliament Square PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Tens of thousands of people gathered to protest the result of the EU referendum PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London A majority of people in the capital voted to remain in the European Union Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Protesters chanted: What do we want to do? Stay in the EU PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The march follows a similar rally in Trafalgar Square that was cancelled due to heavy rain  but which tens of thousands of people turned up to anyway Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Britain voted to leave the European Union in a referendum by 52 per cent to 48 per cent Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London But support for the Leave campaign in urban areas and among young people was significantly lower Rex features Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Marchers gathered at Park Lane at 11am and marched towards Parliament Square PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Some protesters held up baguettes in a display of affection for our continental neighbours PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The disparity between different parts of the country has promoted a four million signature petition calling for a second referendum and even a renewed push for Scotland to cede from the UK PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The events organiser, Kings College graduate Kieran MacDermott, wrote: We can prevent Brexit by refusing to accept the referendum as the final say and take our finger off the self-destruct button" Reuters

Mr Obama had said a post-Brexit, US-UK trade deal would be a long time coming  because America would focus first on big blocs such as the EU.

Its not going to happen any time soon, Mr Obama said, because our focus is on negotiating with a big bloc, the EU. The UK is going to be in the back of the queue.

Mr Obama also advised the British electorate against voting to leave the EU, saying: If, right now, I have got access to a massive market where I sell 44 per cent of my exports and now I'm thinking about leaving the organisation that gives me access to that market and that is responsible for millions of jobs in my country and responsible for an enormous amount of commerce and upon which a lot of businesses depend  that's not something I would probably do.

Brexit campaigners dismissed the warning, however, with Nigel Farage accusing Mr Cameron of putting words in the US Presidents mouth and Leave.Eu co-founder Richard Tice insisting: Obama doesnt have the authority to deny us a deal, as he will be long gone before any such proposals are on the table."

Mr Barzun, who helped orchestrate the grassroots campaign that was a key part of Mr Obamas first presidential election victory in 2008, told Desert Island Discs that the President had felt compelled to warn about Brexit because of the special relationship between the UK and the US.

We did what best friends do, said Mr Barzun, 45. So before the referendum when we were asked  and President Obama said it probably most forcibly  [we said] of course, its up to you but if you ask us, we will tell you what we think, which was: We value a strong UK in a strong EU.

What friends should do to each other, he added, is to be honest.

But in the interview, which was broadcast today, Mr Barzun did also insist that the special relationship would survive Brexit.

It sure is still special, he told presenter Kirsty Young. I think we are best friends, as it were, as countries.

You think about the cultural, the commercial, the emotional and the intellectual connections between our countries. Those are unbreakable. Not unbreakable because they are some rigid thing. The opposite. They are unbreakable because they are flexible.
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A German jobs website has reported hundreds of thousands of UK users flooding its site in the wake of the Brexit vote  to the point that its servers were on fire as it received four times more British visitors in June than it did in May.

Hessam Lavi, the Berlin-based founder of Jobspotting.com, said the rapid increase in traffic was a clear sign that Britons now feared for their jobs and their futures.

His comments will add to concerns that the UK may now experience an exodus of workers to countries that are still in the EU.

Mr Lavi, an Iranian-born Swede who lives in Berlin, told news network The Local that his website nearly crashed on the morning after the referendum vote.

He said: Friday morning we woke and basically all of our servers were on fire.

For us its obvious that people are worried about their work, about their jobs, about their future. This is a side effect of what do we do next.

Mr Lavi said between May and June there was a fourfold increase in the number of UK visitors to Jobspotting.com, and In the past ten days, the increase is in the hundreds of thousands of more UK visitors."

He added that it was hard to tell whether those accessing the website were British citizens, or EU nationals who may have been further motivated to leave the UK by a Brexit vote that seems to have led to a 57 per cent increase in reports of race hate crime.

Mr Lavi said the biggest group of UK users of Jobspotting.com, accounting for 44 per cent of the total, were in the 25 to 34-year-old age range.

Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Show all 12 1 /12 Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Brexit protest: Thousands march in London A woman poses with a home-made European Union flag as Remain supporters gather on Park Lane in London to show their support for the EU in the wake of Brexit PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Remain supporters demonstrate in Parliament Square PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Tens of thousands of people gathered to protest the result of the EU referendum PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London A majority of people in the capital voted to remain in the European Union Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Protesters chanted: What do we want to do? Stay in the EU PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The march follows a similar rally in Trafalgar Square that was cancelled due to heavy rain  but which tens of thousands of people turned up to anyway Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Britain voted to leave the European Union in a referendum by 52 per cent to 48 per cent Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London But support for the Leave campaign in urban areas and among young people was significantly lower Rex features Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Marchers gathered at Park Lane at 11am and marched towards Parliament Square PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Some protesters held up baguettes in a display of affection for our continental neighbours PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The disparity between different parts of the country has promoted a four million signature petition calling for a second referendum and even a renewed push for Scotland to cede from the UK PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The events organiser, Kings College graduate Kieran MacDermott, wrote: We can prevent Brexit by refusing to accept the referendum as the final say and take our finger off the self-destruct button" Reuters

Mr Lavi, who has previously described himself as a child of the EU having left an oppressive regime to live in European countries that respected human rights, added: Without freedom of movement, London is going to suffer.

The framework of the EU and the stability that London will lack means it can easily attract talent from across the EU given the freedom of movement.

He said many UK users of his website seemed to be looking for jobs in Berlins tech industry, which may affect Londons status as Europes startup capital.

London has been the de facto startup hub for a long time, said Mr Lavi, But Berlin is catching up and with this change, its accelerating clearly people are looking for alternatives.

Another popular possible destination seems to be Ireland. With long queues forming outside Irish passport offices and some post offices running out of Irish passport forms, Irelands foreign affairs and trade minister Charles Flanagan has had to intervene to tell anxious Britons there was no need to rush.

The increased interest clearly points to a sense of concern among some UK passport holders that the rights they enjoy as EU citizens are about to abruptly end, Mr Flanagan said. I want to state clearly that this is not the case.

Other jobs websites have also noted a surge in interest from the UK, with Indeed seeing the share of UK users looking for opportunities in other European countries double in the 48 hours that followed the Brexit vote.

Mariano Mamertino, Indeeds economic research analyst, said this mirrored what happened in Greece after it held a referendum rejecting the EUs bailout terms in 2015.

Mr Mamertino said: We see a striking resemblance in post-Brexit job search patterns with those following the Greek referendum in 2015. The share of job seekers looking for opportunities outside of the UK in European countries doubled in the 48 hours that followed the announcement of a Brexit, just as it did for Greece.

These could be early signs of British jobseekers collective vote of no confidence.
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Immigration fears that fuelled the vote for Britain to quit the European Union were driven by concerns that public services are being put under strain by migrants, research has found.

Nearly three quarters of voters, 71 per cent, believe the pressure schools face from migrants is greater than any benefits that may be gained through their tax and staffing contributions, according to the 2015 British Social Attitude survey.

More than six in 10, 63 per cent, also think the National Health Service is being stretched by immigration, the NatCen's study discovered.

But just 35 per cent believe immigration is bad for Britain's economy, down from 47 per cent in 2013, while 40 per cent think it undermines the country's cultural life, down 5 per cent on three years ago.

The next Prime Minister will face intense pressure to curb immigration as the UK severs its ties with Brussels, but EU leaders have warned they will not compromise on freedom of movement if the country wants continued access to the single market.

A breakdown of the research by NatCen, an independent not-for-profit organisation, underlined the social divisions that lay behind attitudes to immigration.

Just 15 per cent of graduates believe immigration is bad for the economy compared to 51 per cent of voters who do not have any educational qualifications.

One in five degree holders think that immigration undermines cultural life, compared to 54 per cent of those without one.

But the gap closes significantly when it comes to public services with 67 per cent of graduates and 76 per cent who did not go to university believing immigration is increasing pressure on schools and hospitals.

Professor John Curtice, senior research fellow at NatCen, said: "This survey highlights that it is the belief that immigration puts pressure on public services that now appears to be the driving force behind public concern about the level of immigration into Britain.

"Even during a period where the public appeared less concerned about the economic and cultural consequences of immigration, substantial majorities still said that migrants were having a net negative effect on British schools and the NHS.

"It would appear that assuaging this concern will be a key priority for the next Prime Minister as the Government tries to meet the concerns about immigration that were evident during the EU referendum."

Brexit reactions  in pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Brexit reactions  in pictures Brexit reactions  in pictures Supporters of the Stronger In campaign look at their phones after hearing results in the EU referendum at London's Royal Festival Hall AP Brexit reactions  in pictures Leave supporters cheer results at a Leave.eu party after polling stations closed in the Referendum on the European Union in London Reuters Brexit reactions  in pictures Mr Cameron announces his resignation to supporters Getty Brexit reactions  in pictures Donald Tusk proposes that the 27 remaining EU member states start a wider reflection on the future of our union Getty Brexit reactions  in pictures Ukip leader Nigel Farage greets his supporters on College Green in Westminster, after Britain voted to leave the European Union PA Brexit reactions  in pictures Supporters of the Stronger In Campaign react as referendum results are announced today Getty Brexit reactions  in pictures Boris Johnson leaves his home today to discover a crowd of waiting journalists and police officers Getty Brexit reactions  in pictures Leave EU supporters celebrate as they watch the British EU Referendum results being televised at Millbank Tower in London Rex Brexit reactions  in pictures Supporters of the Stronger In Campaign react as results of the EU referendum are announced at the Royal Festival Hall Reuters Brexit reactions  in pictures Supporters of the Stronger In campaign react after hearing results in the EU referendum at London's Royal Festival Hall PA

Formal negotiations for Britain's exit from the bloc have been put on hold while the Conservative Party stages a leadership contest to replace David Cameron.

Business Secretary Sajid Javid, who is standing on a joint ticket to become Chancellor under Stephen Crabb, is asking businesses to help shape future trade negotiations.

A letter setting out the action taken so far along with the next steps has been sent to more than 100 of the country's top companies and trade organisations in the UK.

The study saw 4,328 interviews carried out between 4 July and 2 November on a representative, random sample of adults in Britain with a response rate of 51 per cent.

PA
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Tony Blair should be stripped of all honours if the long awaited Chilcot report reveals he lied about Iraq, a senior Tory backbencher has said.

Sir David Arness said that even if Mr Blair is not called before the International Criminal Court to face war crimes charges he should be stripped of his right to sit on the Privy Council.

The Privy Council is a largely ceremonial body whose members are supposed to act as the Queen's formal advisers.

All serving and former Prime Ministers, Leaders of the Opposition and high ranking or long serving MPs are given the honour and are entitled to receive briefings from the security services.

Sir David told the Mail on Sunday: I suspect the report will be shocking and a damning indictment of that Government and particularly Tony Blair who was in charge.

The Chilcot report is due to be published on Wednesday - seven years after the inquiry began.

The report will be 2.6 million words long and has collected evidence from more than 150 witnesses and over 200 cabinet meetings, and has analysed 150,000 government documents.

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It is expected to be critical of Mr Blair - suggesting he ignored experts warnings on the lack of evidence for the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Former SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars also claimed in the Scottish Daily Herald last month that Mr Blair could face charges in Scotland if retrospective legislation was introduced.

He said: While retrospective legislation is usually regarded as obnoxious, in respect of Nazi war criminals there has been retrospective legislation.

Blair is in no different category as them. So the same should apply to him.

Tony Blair has always denied lying over the Iraq War. Pictured: Stop the War Coalition protester wearing a mask depicting Mr Blair with blood on his hands (Getty Images)

A spokesman for the former prime ministers office declined to comment, telling The Independent Mr Blair had repeatedly said he would comment on the report when it was published.

The politician has repeatedly denied lying in the run-up to the invasion in May 2003 in the past.

In October 2015, he apologised for "mistakes" in the planning of the operation and said the intelligence they received was wrong but told CNN he found "it hard to apologise for removing Saddam".
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A Conservative MP has threatened to sue the Government if the next Prime Minister didnt support Brexit.

Prominent and long-standing Eurosceptic Bill Cash has said Brexit supporters could seek a judicial review in the High Court if they were denied the option of voting for a pro-Brexit candidate in the next election.

He told The Times that to install the frontrunner for the Conservative leadership Theresa May without a vote would be defrauding the verdict of the British people.

He said: Theresa May has never been a Eurosceptic, its as simple as that. After 30 years I can tell the difference between a Eurosceptic and a Europhile.

May is the leading the race to replace David Cameron in 10 Downing Street, after the Prime Minister announced he was stepping down after failing to secure a Remain vote in the EU referendum.

Michael Gove, Stephen Crabb and Andrea Leadsom are also running in the leadership election.

Mays popularity has proved contentious among Brexit backers as she supported the Remain campaign. Mr Gove has claimed she does not have the moral authority and mandate to lead the UK into Brexit negotiations as she did not support it.

Justice Minister Michael Gove, Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb, Energy Minister Andrea Leadsom and disgraced former defence secretary Liam Fox are also running in the leadership election.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA UK news in pictures 25 October 2022 King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters after becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party Reuters 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

After long-held speculation that he was running for the role following his prominent support of the Leave campaign, Boris Johnson made the surprise announcement this week that he would not be standing. Former cabinet minister Michael Hesletine criticised his intentions saying: I have never seen anything like it. Hes ripped the Tory party apart, he has created the greatest constitutional crisis in peacetime in my life.

I have never seen anything like it and he must be answerable for the consequences. But the pain of it will be felt by all of us, and if it doesnt get resolved shortly, by generations yet to come.

A new leader will be selected by early September, in time for the partys annual conference.
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The initial reaction in Dublin to the Brexit vote was dismay. Most Irish people believe the UKs departure will damage the economy, according to a survey published on Friday.

But the city is now sensing an opportunity to capitalise on the UKs exit from the EU  by becoming London-on-Liffey, attracting corporate headquarters from the City and foreign investment previously directed at Britain. Even easyJet  which doesnt even fly to the Republic  could set up its HQ in Dublin.

The Irish capital shares many of the advantages of London: the English language, an enterprise culture and the same time zone  enabling contact with both the Far East and the US west coast in a single working day. The term Dublon has been coined to describe the citys possible future status.

Recommended Read more Brexit has exposed how ignorant the educated are about modern Britain

The survey of Irish attitudes was commissioned by Dan Pender, managing director of marketing firm PR360. While 56 per cent feared damage to the Irish economy, one in three could see opportunities.

When you look though the prism of foreign direct investment, Londons loss could be Dublins gain, said Mr Pender. The most obvious opportunity is financial services. We have low corporation tax, an educated workforce and pro-enterprise approach. Those are the qualities that resonate with business.

Many UK-based companies are searching for potential bases in the rest of the European Union, to enable them to continue to trade in the same way when Britain leaves the EU.

The biggest budget airline, easyJet, is looking widely for a possible EU location to set up a subsidiary. An Air Operator Certificate (AOC) from another European nation would allow easyJet to retain all the advantages of the current open skies rules, which entitle it to fly between any two EU airports.

Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Show all 12 1 /12 Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Brexit protest: Thousands march in London A woman poses with a home-made European Union flag as Remain supporters gather on Park Lane in London to show their support for the EU in the wake of Brexit PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Remain supporters demonstrate in Parliament Square PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Tens of thousands of people gathered to protest the result of the EU referendum PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London A majority of people in the capital voted to remain in the European Union Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Protesters chanted: What do we want to do? Stay in the EU PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The march follows a similar rally in Trafalgar Square that was cancelled due to heavy rain  but which tens of thousands of people turned up to anyway Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Britain voted to leave the European Union in a referendum by 52 per cent to 48 per cent Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London But support for the Leave campaign in urban areas and among young people was significantly lower Rex features Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Marchers gathered at Park Lane at 11am and marched towards Parliament Square PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Some protesters held up baguettes in a display of affection for our continental neighbours PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The disparity between different parts of the country has promoted a four million signature petition calling for a second referendum and even a renewed push for Scotland to cede from the UK PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The events organiser, Kings College graduate Kieran MacDermott, wrote: We can prevent Brexit by refusing to accept the referendum as the final say and take our finger off the self-destruct button" Reuters

Another option for easyJet is to set up a legal HQ abroad, and Dublin is a strong contender. There are frequent flights from the Irish capital to the airlines biggest base, Gatwick, and its existing headquarters at Luton airport. None of them, though, are operated by easyJet  which currently does not serve the Republic.

While Dublin airport handles only one-sixth the number of airline passengers as Londons airports, links to the city are growing rapidly. This year new routes have been launched to Athens, Los Angeles, Vancouver and Hartford in Connecticut.

Last week the UK government announced another delay on the decision about the location of the next runway to serve London. In Dublin, permission for a second runway has already been given, and work on the project is due to begin later this year.

A spokesperson said: Dublin airports north runway development has the potential to open up connectivity to a range of long-haul destinations, particularly in fast growing economies in Asia, Africa and South America. The delivery of a new runway could support a further 31,000 new jobs over the next two decades, contributing 2.2bn (1.9bn) to GDP.

 Britain WILL be at the back of the queue after Brexit, says US Ambassador

Some businesses, though, have expressed serious concern about a drop in tourism from the UK. Nearly half the tourists to Ireland are from Britain, with 3.5 million arrivals in 2015.

Padraic Og Gallagher, owner of Gallaghers Boxty House in Temple Bar, Dublin told Bloomberg News: From 2009 to 2014, the English were not coming, because of the currency. They have started coming back in the last two years.

They are penny conscious, they know their pound.

There are also worries about the possibility of a hard border between the Republic and Northern Ireland. At present there are no controls on the international frontier, but it will become an outer frontier of the EU.

While the Northern Ireland Secretary, Theresa Villiers, was a prominent member of the Leave campaign, it appears she did not discuss the border with the key players until after the vote.

In an article for The Guardian, she wrote: Ensuring that our one land border with the EU remains as open and free-flowing as it is today is also vital for Northern Ireland. So in the hours after the referendum result became clear, I discussed this issue with the Irish foreign minister, Charlie Flanagan, and with Northern Irelands first and deputy first ministers.

Dan Pender, whose survey shows six out of seven Irish citizens are against frontier controls, said: Its a serious issue for the island of Ireland, with historic as well as economic considerations. The vast majority of people would regard border controls as a retrograde step.
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The leader of Britains biggest union has accused a public relations company of being the sinister mastermind behind the current crisis engulfing the Labour leadership.

Jeremy Corbyn is expected to face a leadership challenge in the coming week after Labour MPs voted by 172-40 last week that they have no confidence in him. He has defied calls to resign from former shadow cabinet colleagues, and several ex-leaders of the Labour Party including Ed Miliband.

The latest call came from Neil Kinnock, who led Labour from 1983 to 1992. He told the BBCs Andrew Marr Show that there is no basis on which Jeremy really could or should stay after losing the support of his fellow MPs.

Dave Brown on Jeremy Corbyn Show all 12 1 /12 Dave Brown on Jeremy Corbyn Dave Brown on Jeremy Corbyn Dave Brown on Jeremy Corbyn Dave Brown on Jeremy Corbyn Dave Brown on Jeremy Corbyn Dave Brown on Jeremy Corbyn Corbyn's reshuffle Dave Brown on Jeremy Corbyn Corbyn and the Syria bombing vote Dave Brown on Jeremy Corbyn Corbyn asks questions from the public at PMQs, meanwhile backbenchers plot to oust him Dave Brown on Jeremy Corbyn Corbyn is unavailable to attend the Privy Council Dave Brown on Jeremy Corbyn Conference rejects Corbyns call to debate Trident Dave Brown on Jeremy Corbyn At Labour conference Corbyn and McDonnell press for a Robin Hood tax Dave Brown on Jeremy Corbyn Corbyns hopes for a new politics look optimistic in the face of a media barrage Dave Brown on Jeremy Corbyn Corbyn enters Labour leadership race

But the general secretary of the Unite union, which helped Jeremy Corbyn win his leadership victory last year, claimed that left wing MPs who have joined the call for Mr Corbyn's resignation have been manipulated by Portland Communications, a public relations company set up by Tim Allan, who previously worked under Tony Blair as a Downing Street spin doctor.

During his appearance on the Marr programme, Len McCluskey did not give any evidence to support the allegation, which Mr Allan claimed is completely untrue.

Mr McCluskey said: Ill be honest: Im amazed that some of the MPs have fallen into a trap. I think theyve been seduced by sinister forces.

If the BBC want to do an investigatory programme of a company called Portland, feel free to do so. This is a PR company with strong links to Tony Blair and right wing Labour MPs whove been involved in this orchestrated coup, and the coup has failed.

A tweet from Portland Communications demanded that he retract the allegation, saying: This is a ridiculous conspiracy theory and completely untrue. He should withdraw.

Mr McCluskey also brushed aside the calls from ex-leaders for Mr Corbyn to go. He said: Its not helpful for ex-leaders to be wheeled out . Neil (Kinnock) is a nice man but the reality is he was leader of the Labour Party for eight years and lost two elections; Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour Party five years, and lost an election; Gordon Brown  13 years at the top of our party  lost an election. Grandees being dragged out to be part of this unedifying coup is quite outrageous.

 Watson on Corbyn

He added: This has been a political lynching of a decent man  undermined, humiliated, attacked in order to push him out. The truth is, its failed  the coup has failed. Jeremy Corbyn is made of sterner stuff. He is a man of steel who has made it clear that he will not step down.
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Jeremy Corbyn says he will stay on as Labour leader out of respect for the internal democracy of the party and the views of its membership.

Mr Corbyn has said he is offering a peace deal to the rebel MPs so the party can unite and offer the "alternative the country needs" to the Conservatives.

After Britain voted to the leave the EU, the nature of Mr Corbyn's leadership during the campaign has come under heavy criticism. Hilary Benn was sacked from the Shadow Cabinet following reports he was talking to colleagues about trying to remove the party's leader, which in turn sparked the resignation of various cabinet members.

In addition, a motion of no-confidence in his leadership was tabled by Labour MPs Margaret Hodge and Ann Coffey.

Despite losing the vote by 172-40 on 28 June, Mr Corbyn declared his intention to continue as leader.

He wrote in the Sunday Mirror: "I was elected nine months ago, by 60 per cent of Labour members and supporters, for a new kind of politics in a country that clearly wants real change.

"During that time, Labour has repeatedly forced the Government to drop damaging policies, won every by-election with an increased share of the vote, and beaten the Tories in Mays local elections.

 Watson on Corbyn

Mr Corbyn, who has represented Islington North since 1983, warned members of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) that he would take on any challengers in a democratic contest.

He reminded critics of the 60,000 people who have joined the party following the attempted coup against him and their importance in any leadership election.

Mr Corbyn said: "I am ready to reach out to Labour MPs who didnt accept my election and oppose my leadership  and work with the whole party to provide the alternative the country needs.

"But they also need to respect the democracy of our party and the views of Labours membership, which has increased by more than 60,000 in the past week alone.

"Those who want to challenge my leadership are free to do so in a democratic contest, in which I will be a candidate."

 Labour exodus - The list of MPs who have left Corbyn's shadow cabinet

The Labour leader reaffirmed the priorities of the party as becoming a "united opposition" to the Conservative Party, fighting for the an economy for all and winning the next general election.

He said: "The responsibility of our whole party is to stand up in united opposition to the Tory Government  and in support of decent jobs and pay, affordable housing, rights at work and an economy that works for all.

"Its not just our own supporters who need Labour to work together."

 UK: Corbyn supporters rally behind Labour leader after Hilary Bens dismissal

A new YouGov poll found increasing concern amongst Labour members about Mr Corbyns leadership, there is little support for any of the alternative candidates vying to topple him.

While a slim majority of Labour members would like to see Mr Corbyn step down before the next general election, a similar majority is also supportive of him staying on for now.
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Tony Blair will not be put on trial for war crimes but British soldiers could be, prosecutors at the International Criminal Court have said.

Ahead of the long-awaited publication of the Chilcot report on Wednesday, lawyers at the court have ruled out prosecuting the former prime minister for war crimes because it says the decision to go to war is outside its remit.

Instead the ICC says lawyers will comb through the 2.6 million word document for evidence of war crimes committed by British troops during the war.

The decision has outraged the families of the 179 British soldiers who were killed during the eight year conflict. They blame Mr Blair for dragging the UK into the war under false pretences.

In a statement to the Sunday Telegraph, the ICC said it had begun a preliminary examination of claims of abuse by British soldiers from human rights lawyers on behalf of Iraqi victims.

A spokesperson for the Office of the Prosecutor at the ICC in The Hague said: We will take note of the Chilcot report when released in the context of its ongoing preliminary examination work concerning Iraq/UK.

A preliminary examination is not an investigation but a process aimed at determining whether reasonable basis exist to open an investigation.

As already indicated by the Office in 2006, the 'decision by the UK to go to war in Iraq falls outside the Courts jurisdiction.

The US-led invasion began in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein (PATRICK BAZ/AFP/Getty Images)

The statement said the court was considering introducing a crime of aggression to deal with illegal invasions but stressed they could not apply it retroactively.

Roger Bacon, whose son Matt was killed by a roadside bomb in 2005, condemned the court's stance.

He told the Telegraph: It is outrageous. It is double standards.

These soldiers have gone out to do their best for us and here they are being hounded and yet the guy who took them there is not being looked at.

The most iconic images from the war in Iraq Show all 20 1 /20 The most iconic images from the war in Iraq The most iconic images from the war in Iraq U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman HM1 Richard Barnett, assigned to the 1st Marine Division, holds an Iraqi child in central Iraq, March 29, 2003 Reuters The most iconic images from the war in Iraq An explosion rocks Baghdad during air strikes March 21, 2003 Reuters The most iconic images from the war in Iraq An Iraqi woman watches U.N. weapons inspectors leave Saddam airport in Baghdad March 18, 2003 Reuters The most iconic images from the war in Iraq An Iraqi girl holds her sister as she waits for her mother (R) to bring over food bought in Basra March 29, 2003 Reuters The most iconic images from the war in Iraq U.S. Marine Corp Assaultman Kirk Dalrymple watches as a statue of Iraq's President Saddam Hussein falls in central Baghdad's Firdaus Square, April 9, 2003 Reuters The most iconic images from the war in Iraq US Marines kick in a door while securing a building next to the main hospital in central Baghdad April 15, 2003 Reuters The most iconic images from the war in Iraq A soldier of U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division (Task Force Ironhorse) searches through dense vegetation around the Diala river where Iraqi militants are hiding outside Baquba early November 13, 2003 Reuters The most iconic images from the war in Iraq An Iraqi detainee gestures toward U.S. soldiers through bars of his cell at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad May 17, 2004 Reuters The most iconic images from the war in Iraq Mays, a young Iraqi Shi'ite girl, cries after a mortar shell which landed outside the family's home in a Najaf residential area injured her uncle August 18, 2004 Reuters The most iconic images from the war in Iraq U.S. Marines carry an injured colleague to a helicopter near the city of Falluja, November 10, 2004 Reuters The most iconic images from the war in Iraq An Iraqi man suspected of having explosives in his car is held after being arrested by the U.S army near Baquba, Iraq, October 15, 2005 Reuters The most iconic images from the war in Iraq A wounded Iraqi woman is helped after several bomb attacks in central Baghdad, July 27, 2006 Reuters The most iconic images from the war in Iraq A man runs down a street warning people to flee shortly after a twin car bomb attack at Shorja market in Baghdad, February 12, 2007 Reuters The most iconic images from the war in Iraq An Iraqi girl holds her hands up while U.S. and Iraqi soldiers search her family house in Baquba early June 30, 2007 Reuters The most iconic images from the war in Iraq An Iraqi woman tries to explain that she has nothing to do with illegal fuel as soldiers from the 2nd battalion, 32nd Field Artillery brigade patrol search for illegal fuel sellers in Baghdad August 6, 2007 Reuters The most iconic images from the war in Iraq U.S. President George W. Bush (L) walks in front of Humvees with Defense Secretary Robert Gates (C) and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice following remarks to the press after nightfall at Al-Asad airbase in Anbar Province September 3, 2007 Reuters The most iconic images from the war in Iraq U.S. soldiers blindfold an Iraqi man after arresting him during a night patrol at the Zafraniya neighborhood, southeast of Baghdad September 4, 2007 Reuters The most iconic images from the war in Iraq An Iraqi baby lies in a cradle while a woman argues with U.S. soldiers of 1/8 Bravo Company searching for weapons, explosives and information about militants in the area during a foot patrol in a neighbourhood of Mosul June 26, 2008 Reuters The most iconic images from the war in Iraq Policemen cry during a funeral of their colleague a day after a bomb attack in Baghdad's Jihad district November 3, 2010 Reuters The most iconic images from the war in Iraq Staff Sgt. Keith Fidler kisses his wife Cynthia, as their son Kolin looks on, during a homecoming ceremony in New York, April 8, 2011 for the New York Army National Guard's 442nd Military Police Company's return from Iraq Reuters

That is completely wrong and disgusting.

Last year, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said Mr Blair could be made to stand trial over the war  saying he believed the invasion was illegal.

He said: We went into a war that was catastrophic, that was illegal, that cost us a lot of money, that lost a lot of lives.

The consequences are still played out with migrant deaths in the Mediterranean, refugees all over the region.

Tony Blair refused to be drawn on the outcome of the Chilcot report when interviewed by Sky News (Sky News)

Speaking on Sky News' Murnaghan today, Mr Blair said: "I have said many times over these past years I will wait for the report then I will make my views know and I will express myself fully and properly.

"I'm not getting into the politics or the detail of it before we actually get it".

Recommended Read more Everything we know about the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War so far

He has repeatedly denied lying in the run-up to the invasion in May 2003. In October 2015, he apologised for "mistakes" in the planning of the operation and said the intelligence they received was wrong but told CNN he found "it hard to apologise for removing Saddam".

He compared the invasion of Iraq with inaction in Syria saying the West had stood back while hundreds of thousands of people had been killed by President Bashar al-Assad and Isis.

An estimated 460,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in the conflict after a US-led invasion toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

The occupation officially ended in 2011 but the UK began operations in the country once more in 2014 to help Iraqi forces push back Isis which rose to prominence in the political vacuum following withdrawal.
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Andrea Leadsom has defended her U-turn on the European Union saying she has been on a journey since claiming that Brexit would be a "disaster" for Britain.

The senior Leave campaigner, who has likened herself to Margaret Thatcher in her bid to be the next Conservative leader, previously said that leaving the 28-member state bloc would be a "disaster"  despite being one of the leading voices in the Brexit campaign.

The junior energy minister, who is also emerging as a serious contender in the Conservative leadership contest, said in a recording three years ago at the Hansard Societys annual parliamentary affairs lecture that she was going to nail my colours to the mast here.

In the recording, obtained by the Mail on Sunday, Ms Leadsom added: I dont think the UK should leave the EU. I think it would be a disaster for our economy and it would lead to a decade of economic and political uncertainty at a time when the tectonic plates of global success are moving.

Like the rise and fall of the Roman and Greek Empires we are seeing the rise of the Asian and South American economies at a time when our own future is less certain. And to be honest economic success is the vital underpinning of every happy nation. The wellbeing we all crave goes hand in hand with economic success.

A spokesperson for Ms Leadsom told The Independent that the recording was taken completely out of context. It is complete nonsense, they added.

Ms Leadsom also told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show: "It has been a journey.

"When I came into Parliament, like most people in the country I'd grown up as part of the EU and it's absolutely part of our DNA and I came into Parliament, set up something called the Fresh Start Project, which took hundreds and hundreds of hours of evidence about how the EU impacts on the UK on everything from immigration to fisheries and so on.

"During that process I travelled all across Europe with lots of parliamentary colleagues  up to 100 Conservative colleagues supporting this work  to try and get a really decent, fundamental reform of the EU."

She added: "When the Prime Minister came back with his reform, with his renegotiation, with the certainty of a referendum behind it...it was very clear the EU is just not reformable.

"So that speech was April 2013, and things have so moved on."

On when to trigger Article 50 and start the process for Brexit talks, Ms Leadsom said: "We need to get on with it. We need to seize the opportunity."

The favourites in the Tory leadership race Show all 5 1 /5 The favourites in the Tory leadership race The favourites in the Tory leadership race Theresa May The longest-serving Home Secretary in 100 years took a back seat in the referendum campaign. While backing Remain, she did not hit the campaign trail and delivered only a handful of speeches and interviews, and was critical of many aspects of the EU, particularly the European Convention on Human Rights. Hedging her bets allows her to now emerge as a unity candidate, and she is said to have been building up her back-room staff in preparation for a leadership bid. She has the significant advantage of having served in one of the great offices of state, in a steady and competent manner that has won her many admirers within party and the civil service. At a time of great instability, it may be that she is viewed as steady hand on the tiller. Mrs May does however, lack the star quality of a Boris Johnson and party members may doubt her ability to connect with ordinary voters PA The favourites in the Tory leadership race Michael Gove The Justice Secretary may be able to set himself up as the thinking Torys Brexit candidate. Made an enormous political and personal decision to back Leave, taking on his old friend David Cameron. He performed well during the TV debates, and will be an admired figure among Eurosceptic Conservatives. Along with Johnson, he will be hindered by the fact that he led a very divisive campaign, characterised by blue-on-blue action. MPs may also judge that he lacks Boris Johnsons wider appeal with the electorate. Possibly more likely that he will settle for being his new bosom buddy Boriss Chancellor Getty The favourites in the Tory leadership race Stephen Crabb Highly-rated Work and Pensions Secretary, raised on a council estate, so could reach out to non-traditional working class Tory voters Getty Images The favourites in the Tory leadership race Andrea Leadsom Minister of State for Energy at the Department of Energy and Climate Change is one of the most prominent figures in the Leave campaign, seen to have performed well in TV debates Rex Features The favourites in the Tory leadership race Liam Fox British Conservative MP and former Secretary of State for Defence, as sources said he will stand for the leadership of the Conservative Party AFP/Getty

Meanwhile, Ms Leadsom has praised the ability of the late Prime Minister Mrs Thatcher to mix toughness with personal warmth in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph. As a person, she was always kind and courteous and as a leader she was steely and determined, she said.

I think that's an ideal combination  and I do like to think that's where I am.

It comes as the most recent polling of the Conservative leadership contest places Theresa May, the Home Secretary, as racing towards victory in her bid to succeed David Cameron. Ms May was backed by 60 per cent of Tory voters, with Mr Gove second on 10 points and Ms Leadsom on six, according to the ICM poll for the Sun on Sunday.

Among the party members who will vote to decide the winner of the leadership contest, some 46 per cent say Ms May would make the best Prime Minister. She has also been backed by more MPs, who select the final two candidates to go on to the ballot paper.

An assured performance in the televised debates during the referendum campaign earned Ms Leadsom praise among Leave MPs in Westminister.
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Michael Gove, a contender for the Conservative leadership, has said that it was love of country and strongly held principles  not low ambition  that drove him to knife his friends Boris Johnson and David Cameron.

Ive taken some difficult decisions, but I have always taken those because I have put my country and my principles first, he said on the BBC1s Andrew Marr programme.

Since the extraordinary circumstances of his entry into the Tory leadership race, Mr Gove has been denounced by Boris Johnsons furious sister as a psychopath and others have suggested that his apparent treachery made him unfit to be party leader.

The favourites in the Tory leadership race Show all 5 1 /5 The favourites in the Tory leadership race The favourites in the Tory leadership race Theresa May The longest-serving Home Secretary in 100 years took a back seat in the referendum campaign. While backing Remain, she did not hit the campaign trail and delivered only a handful of speeches and interviews, and was critical of many aspects of the EU, particularly the European Convention on Human Rights. Hedging her bets allows her to now emerge as a unity candidate, and she is said to have been building up her back-room staff in preparation for a leadership bid. She has the significant advantage of having served in one of the great offices of state, in a steady and competent manner that has won her many admirers within party and the civil service. At a time of great instability, it may be that she is viewed as steady hand on the tiller. Mrs May does however, lack the star quality of a Boris Johnson and party members may doubt her ability to connect with ordinary voters PA The favourites in the Tory leadership race Michael Gove The Justice Secretary may be able to set himself up as the thinking Torys Brexit candidate. Made an enormous political and personal decision to back Leave, taking on his old friend David Cameron. He performed well during the TV debates, and will be an admired figure among Eurosceptic Conservatives. Along with Johnson, he will be hindered by the fact that he led a very divisive campaign, characterised by blue-on-blue action. MPs may also judge that he lacks Boris Johnsons wider appeal with the electorate. Possibly more likely that he will settle for being his new bosom buddy Boriss Chancellor Getty The favourites in the Tory leadership race Stephen Crabb Highly-rated Work and Pensions Secretary, raised on a council estate, so could reach out to non-traditional working class Tory voters Getty Images The favourites in the Tory leadership race Andrea Leadsom Minister of State for Energy at the Department of Energy and Climate Change is one of the most prominent figures in the Leave campaign, seen to have performed well in TV debates Rex Features The favourites in the Tory leadership race Liam Fox British Conservative MP and former Secretary of State for Defence, as sources said he will stand for the leadership of the Conservative Party AFP/Getty

Mr Gove had been expected to support his fellow Brexit campaigner in the contest to be prime minister but at the last minute declared he was going to run instead because he did not believe Mr Johnson had the necessary leadership qualities. After his intervention, Mr Johnson unexpectedly pulled out of the contest. Earlier, the Justice Secretary helped bring down his old friend David Cameron by joining the Brexit campaign.

Mr Marr half-jokingly compared with the main character in the drama series House of Cards  a ruthlessly ambitious politician, who becomes becomes US President in the Netflix series, through intrigue and cold-blooded murder. Mr Gove said that he has seen the original BBC version that features a similar character, Francis Urquhart, who becomes the prime minister, but not the American one.

You are our Frank Underwood, a lot of people are saying this morning  so turn to that camera and say something sinister, and it would be perfect, Mr Marr challenged him.

The Justice Secretary avoided cracking the obvious joke, which would have been to repeat Frank Underwoods famous catchphrase: You might say that: I couldnt possibly comment. Instead, he replied: There are all sorts of people who will say disobliging things about me. I dont mind that because I would rather people said this is a man who sticks to his principles than this is a man who is worried about popularity.

 Gove says he has no charisma

One of the people being disobliging is the journalist Rachel Johnson, writing in The Mail on Sunday. She blamed the wreckage of her brothers political career on Mr Gove, his ambitious journalist wife, Sarah Vine, his abrasive adviser Dominic Cummings, and his ally, George Osborne.

She wrote: However much Gove tried to remind us what a nice, caring guy he isIm afraid that hes acting like a political psychopath run by his wife (Vine), an acknowledged psychopath (Cummings) and a lame duck Chancellor. And this Machiavelli still wants us to want him to be prime minister.

But Mr Gove repeatedly denied being driven by personal ambition. He protested: If I had really wanted to be leader out of personal ambition I could have announced my leadership last weekend. I deliberately did not do that because I wanted to put my country first.

I came to the conclusion reluctantly after throwing my heart and soul for four or five days into trying to get Boris to become the leader of the Conservative Party that he could not do that job.

"Right until the 11th hour I was talking to colleagues and friends seeking to persuade them that Boris could lead this country and could be prime minister, but in the final 24 hours there were actions that were taken, decisions that were ducked.

Boris had the opportunity to build a team. Boris had the opportunity to lay out a particular vision in the last 24 hours and I felt he did not step up that challenge.

He also denied that his sudden, unexpected intervention had forced Mr Johnson to drop out of the leadership contest.

He said: Boris could have chosen to go on if he wished to. The fact that he didnt, I think is telling.

He added: I enjoyed working with Boris during the referendum campaign. I think he has great talents and great abilities, but you need something else to be prime minister  you need to have that grip, that executive authority, that sense of purpose. I had hoped that Boris would show that but in the end it was not there.
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Andrea Leadsom, who is emerging as a challenger to Theresa May in the Conservative leadership election, sacrificed her chance of a place in David Camerons Cabinet on the day she told George Osborne he should say sorry, according to one of her backers.

Ms Leadsom, a junior energy minister, is said to have earned the Chancellors enmity four years ago when she was a member of Commons Treasury committee.

Mr Osborne was under fire because he had implied people around Gordon Brown had given Barclays bank the green light to manipulate its interbank lending rate at the height of the 2008 crisis. This was taken to be an attack on Ed Balls, who at the time was shadow Chancellor.

 The 5 contenders for Prime Minister

The manipulation of the so-called Libor rate blew up into a major banking scandal in 2012, but the suggestion that Ed Balls might be implicated was squashed when Paul Tucker, the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, gave evidence to the Treasury committee.

Mr Osborne never apologised for his comments, although after hearing Mr Tuckers evidence, Ms Leadsom said he should. She told the BBC: Obviously he made a mistake and I think he should apologise.

One of her supporters said: She was someone of real principle, and she paid the price. She was stacks ahead of other people who were promoted to the Cabinet. She had 25 years of city experience and financial experience, and rose to be one of the top 120 people in banking. You dont achieve that unless you are a really serious person. The only reason she wasnt in the Cabinet was that she had offended George Osborne.

Ms May, the Home Secretary, is so far ahead of all the other four contenders in the number of MPs who have declared their support for her that her place in the final two is a near certainty. Under Conservative Party rules, MPs whittle the list of would-be contenders down to two names in an exhaustive ballot. Party members then choose between the final two.

Ms May supported the Remain campaign during the referendum, so Brexit supporters say that her challenger ought to be an MP who supported Leave. Three former brexiteers, Michael Gove, Ms Leadsom and Liam Fox have entered the the race.

Answering questions from the Daily Telegraph, all five candidates have ruled out the idea of a second referendum, saying that the outcome was final. All say that they will seek to restrict immigration to Britain from the EU, and all have ruled out calling a snap general election.

The early signs are that Mr Fox is a long way behind the other two former Brexit supporters. Paul Goodman, a former Tory MP who edits the influential Conservative Home website, wrote that the momentum is with Ms Leadsom, whose campaign was boosted by support from former Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith. If that is correct, the UK will soon have its second woman Prime Minister.

The favourites in the Tory leadership race Show all 5 1 /5 The favourites in the Tory leadership race The favourites in the Tory leadership race Theresa May The longest-serving Home Secretary in 100 years took a back seat in the referendum campaign. While backing Remain, she did not hit the campaign trail and delivered only a handful of speeches and interviews, and was critical of many aspects of the EU, particularly the European Convention on Human Rights. Hedging her bets allows her to now emerge as a unity candidate, and she is said to have been building up her back-room staff in preparation for a leadership bid. She has the significant advantage of having served in one of the great offices of state, in a steady and competent manner that has won her many admirers within party and the civil service. At a time of great instability, it may be that she is viewed as steady hand on the tiller. Mrs May does however, lack the star quality of a Boris Johnson and party members may doubt her ability to connect with ordinary voters PA The favourites in the Tory leadership race Michael Gove The Justice Secretary may be able to set himself up as the thinking Torys Brexit candidate. Made an enormous political and personal decision to back Leave, taking on his old friend David Cameron. He performed well during the TV debates, and will be an admired figure among Eurosceptic Conservatives. Along with Johnson, he will be hindered by the fact that he led a very divisive campaign, characterised by blue-on-blue action. MPs may also judge that he lacks Boris Johnsons wider appeal with the electorate. Possibly more likely that he will settle for being his new bosom buddy Boriss Chancellor Getty The favourites in the Tory leadership race Stephen Crabb Highly-rated Work and Pensions Secretary, raised on a council estate, so could reach out to non-traditional working class Tory voters Getty Images The favourites in the Tory leadership race Andrea Leadsom Minister of State for Energy at the Department of Energy and Climate Change is one of the most prominent figures in the Leave campaign, seen to have performed well in TV debates Rex Features The favourites in the Tory leadership race Liam Fox British Conservative MP and former Secretary of State for Defence, as sources said he will stand for the leadership of the Conservative Party AFP/Getty

Another Leadsom backer, the senior Tory MP Bernard Jenkin, said: She has steel, grit and self-possession, and commands the room. She doesnt let herself be pushed around and made to say things she will later regret.

A spokesman for her rival, Mr Gove, admitted that the unconventional circumstances of his entry into the race meant that he was off to a slow start. Mr Gove has often declared that he had no wish to be Prime Minister and was expected to back Boris Johnson until he unexpectedly announced that he did not think Mr Johnson had the steadiness of character to be prime minister.

His spokesman added: He has got more experience than Andrea, and people will want that experience. Were ahead of her, and there will be more people coming for Michael in the next few days. Im confident he will be in the final two.

Mr Osbornes spokesman denied that he had prevented Ms Leadsom being promoted to the Cabinet, saying: I don't recognise that at all.
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White House and intelligence officials are deciding whether to declassify 28 pages of a congressional investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks. The still-secret chapter could answer or raise new questions about possible Saudi links to the attackers.

The documents, kept in a secure room in the basement of the Capitol, contain information about possible sources of foreign support for some of the hijackers while they were in the United States.

Former Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., co-chairman of the joint congressional inquiry, has said the pages "point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as being the principal financier."

In pictures: President Bushs immediate response to 9/11 Show all 12 1 /12 In pictures: President Bushs immediate response to 9/11 In pictures: President Bushs immediate response to 9/11 11 September 2001 President Bush was visiting Emma E Brooker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida as news of the attack on the World Trade Center broke In pictures: President Bushs immediate response to 9/11 11 September 2001 The president and his staff, including Press Secretary Ari Fleischer (L) were then brought to a holding room at the school, where he prepared to address the nation In pictures: President Bushs immediate response to 9/11 11 September 2001 President Bush was then rushed onto Air Force One and was flown to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. He watched television coverage of the attacks from his office on the plane In pictures: President Bushs immediate response to 9/11 11 September 2001 President Bush talks on the telephone at the General Dougherty Conference Center at Barksdale Air Force Base In pictures: President Bushs immediate response to 9/11 11 September 2001 President Bush is seen with his senior adviser Karl Rove at Barksdale Air Force Base In pictures: President Bushs immediate response to 9/11 11 September 2001 The president with White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card at Barksdale Air Force Base. Before leaving the base, the president held a press conference at which he said, Make no mistake: The United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts In pictures: President Bushs immediate response to 9/11 11 September 2001 The president was consoled by Lt Col Cindy Wright of the White House Military Office aboard Air Force One. After leaving Louisiana, the president was flown to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska before he headed back to Washington In pictures: President Bushs immediate response to 9/11 11 September 2001 President Bush arrived at the White House Presidential Emergency Operations Center around 7 pm. Here he is shown with his wife, First Lady Laura Bush, Vice President Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice In pictures: President Bushs immediate response to 9/11 11 September 2001 At 8:30 pm, the president addressed the nation from the White House. In his speech, he set the tone for the wars to come in Afghanistan and Iraq In pictures: President Bushs immediate response to 9/11 11 September 2001 Ive directed the full resources for our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and bring them to justice, the president said. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbour them In pictures: President Bushs immediate response to 9/11 11 September 2001 The presidents speech on the teleprompter In pictures: President Bushs immediate response to 9/11 11 September 2001 Immediately following the speech, the president had a national security meeting with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and others

Saudi officials say there's nothing to the allegations. Relatives of the 9/11 victims say Saudi Arabia's relationship to al-Qaida has never been fully investigated by anyone  before or since the attacks.

A look at the varying viewpoints about possible Saudi links to 9/11 and the missing 28 pages:

The 9/11 commission

The commission, led by former Gov. Tom Kean, R-N.J., and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., was created partly to continue the work done by the bipartisan congressional inquiry, whose report  minus the 28 pages came out in December 2002.

"The 28 pages were based almost entirely on raw, unvetted material that came to the FBI," Kean and Hamilton said this year. "The material was then written up in FBI files as possible leads for further investigation. ... The congressional panel never had a chance to check out any of these leads."

They said the commission and its staff spent 18 months investigating "all the leads contained in the 28 pages, and many more." The 567-page report was released in July 2004.

The commission report stated that it found "no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded" al-Qaida. "This conclusion does not exclude the likelihood that charities with significant Saudigovernment sponsorship diverted funds to al-Qaida."

Some critics of the commission's work don't think the commission ran down every Saudi lead and say various agencies obstructed its work. Kean and Hamilton complained that various government agencies withheld relevant information.

What does the CIA say?

CIA Director John Brennan says the 28 pages contain preliminary information about possible Saudi links to the attackers that, at the time, had not been corroborated or checked out. He said the commission looked "very thoroughly" into allegations ofSaudi government involvement and concluded that there was no evidence to indicate that the Saudi government as an institution or Saudi senior officials individually had supported the Sept. 11 attacks.

A CIA inspector general report in June 2015 also said there had been no reliable information confirming Saudi government "involvement with and financial support for terrorism prior to 9/11." But it also said that people in the CIA's Near East Division and Counterterrorism Center "speculated that dissident sympathizers within the government may have aided al-Qaida."

 Last surviving 9/11 search dog saluted in hero's send-off in Texas

What do the Saudis say?

Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said in Washington: "I believe that if people looked at the 28 pages and looked at the results of the investigations (into the attacks), they will come to the conclusion that these allegations are unsubstantiated, unproven and nobody should make a big deal out of them."

"There is no there there," Jubeir said.

He noted that in 2002, Saudi Arabia called for the release of the 28 pages so the government can respond to any allegations and punish any Saudis who may have been involved in the attacks. "We cannot ... respond to blank pages," he said.

What does the FBI say?

In 2015, Congress created the 9/11 Review Commission to look at evidence gathered in recent years. This commission interviewed key FBI personnel to identify any new information that had surfaced about 9/11.

In its March 2015 report, the commission stated that "there is no new information to date that would alter the original findings of the 9/11 Commission regarding the individuals responsible for the 9/11 attacks or for supporting those responsible for the attacks."

The 9/11 families

"What needs to be understood by anyone who looks at just these facts surrounding the Saudi connection to the 9/11 attacks and the USS Cole bombing is that the Saudis and their relationship to bin Laden and al-Qaida have never been fully investigated  by anyone  either before or after 9/11," Kristen Breitweiser, a 9/11 widow and activist, wrote in a recent column.

The Cole, a Navy destroyer, was bombed in 2000 while in a Yemeni port.

Associated Press
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The FBI is being sued by survivors of the deadly attack on a church in Charleston who say that mistakes by investigators allowed alleged shooter Dylann Roof to purchase a gun.

Nine people were killed in June 2015 as they attended a bible study at the Emanuel AME Church in the South Carolina city. Dylann Roof, 22, a white supremacist, has been charged with nine counts of murder over the shootings and he faces the death penalty if convicted.

In a lawsuit filed by three people who survived the attack and the estates of five of those who died, the FBI is accused of being negligent when it carried out a background check of Mr Roof before he bought the gun last year.

If the agency had done its job, Mr Roofs prior arrest for drugs would have shown up, and the bureau would have denied his request to purchase a handgun, the lawsuits allege.

Lawyer Andy Savage said on Friday that his clients hoped the litigation would lead to improvements in gun safety.

In this case, you had an unqualified purchaser that slipped through the cracks, Mr Savage told the Associated Press. And the result is what happened on June 17.

 USA: Church shooting survivor gives emotional statement to Dylann Roof in court

Justice Department spokesman Patrick Rodenbush declined to comment on the pending litigation.

The shootings by a young white man of nine black parishioners who had welcomed him to their church renewed debates about race relations in the US. In the aftermath of the attack, a racist online manifesto authored by Mr Roof was discovered, along with images of him posing with Confederate flags and at locations from the US Civil War.

The shooting led to the removal of the battle flag  long considered a symbol of enduring racism  removed from government offices and universities.

Law enforcement agencies have acknowledged since last summer that mistakes were made involving Mr Roofs April 2015 gun purchase. FBI Director James Comey has said the transaction should have been denied, and he promised a full review.

Lexington County Sheriff Jay Koon told the AP that a jail clerk entered incorrect information for Mr Roofs February 2015 drug arrest, and that while the mistake was noticed within days, it was not fixed in a state database.

In pictures: Images attached to Dylann Storm Roof 'manifesto' Show all 10 1 /10 In pictures: Images attached to Dylann Storm Roof 'manifesto' In pictures: Images attached to Dylann Storm Roof 'manifesto' Dylann Storm Roof 'Manifesto' pictures Dylann Storm Roof poses with a gun In pictures: Images attached to Dylann Storm Roof 'manifesto' Dylann Storm Roof 'Manifesto' pictures Dylann Storm Roof spitting on the American flag In pictures: Images attached to Dylann Storm Roof 'manifesto' Dylann Storm Roof 'Manifesto' pictures Dylann Storm Roof poses with a confederate flag and a gun In pictures: Images attached to Dylann Storm Roof 'manifesto' Dylann Storm Roof 'Manifesto' pictures Dylann Storm Roof poses with a gun In pictures: Images attached to Dylann Storm Roof 'manifesto' Dylann Storm Roof 'Manifesto' pictures Dylann Storm Roof outside the 'Museum and Library of Confederate History' In pictures: Images attached to Dylann Storm Roof 'manifesto' Dylann Storm Roof 'Manifesto' pictures The number 1488 is often associated with neo-Nazi culture In pictures: Images attached to Dylann Storm Roof 'manifesto' Dylann Storm Roof 'Manifesto' pictures Dylann Storm Roof In pictures: Images attached to Dylann Storm Roof 'manifesto' Dylann Storm Roof 'Manifesto' pictures Dylann Storm Roof In pictures: Images attached to Dylann Storm Roof 'manifesto' Dylann Storm Roof 'Manifesto' pictures In pictures: Images attached to Dylann Storm Roof 'manifesto' Dylann Storm Roof 'Manifesto' pictures Dylann Storm Roof

So when Mr Roof sought to buy the gun two months later, an FBI examiner spotted the arrest, but called the wrong agency to get his record. Without the necessary documents, the purchase had to go through.

Congress has limited federal background checks to three days, although states can extend this window.

South Carolina legislators filed a number of bills to increase the window after the shootings, but none have advanced.

The Senate Judiciary chairman ultimately promised a hearing this summer, but it still has not been scheduled.
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A Kansas church is asking a court to punish two young girls who sued them over sexual abuse by a former Bible school volunteer by forcing them to reveal their identities.

The volunteer, Kessler Lichtenegger, pleaded guilty last year to attempted rape and attempted electronic solicitation involving two girls under the age of 14, who attended the church.

The girls and their families filed a lawsuit last month, alleging that Church officials at Westside Family Church in Lenexa, Kansas knew about Lichteneggers history of violent and sexual crimes involving children, and still allowed him to volunteer.

The suit alleged that one of the girls was raped on church property, and that Lichtenegger had forced her to perform sexual acts on him by threatening that he would go after her younger sister if she did not comply.

Lichtenegger was sentenced to 17 years in prison after reaching a plea deal.

During the case, the identities of the two girls were not revealed, as is usual under rape shield laws which protect the identity of rape victims, as well as restrictions when it comes to releasing the identity of a person under 18 who has been a victim of a crime.

Westside Family Church has petitioned the court to release the identities of the girls' families, and accused the support organisation SNAP (Survivors Network of those abused by Priests) of leaking their complaint to the press without first informing the congregation they were being sued.

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. 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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 church accused the families and the organisation, of launching a "Pearl Harbour-styled barrage of negative publicity for the Defendant Church", after SNAP organised a protest at the church on the same day as their Vacation Bible School event.

The church acknowledge that in cases of minor sexual abuse, the prosecution would usually use a pseudonym, but they say the girls' parents and attorneys have "chosen a different path."

"They should not be able to hide behind pseydonyms after systematically and intentionally initiating a campaign specifically designed to damage Defendant's reputation," the memorandum says.

David Clohessy, executive director of SNAP, said the organisation was appalled at the actions of the church.

This mean-spirited move will deter others who see, suspect or suffer child sex crimes into staying silent, enabling more predators to hurt more kids.

It will also rub more salt into the already deep and still fresh wounds of this suffering family.

It is a shameful move by officials who profess to be Christians.
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Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, the memory keeper for victims of Nazi persecution, and a Nobel laureate who used his moral authority to force attention on atrocities around the world, died on Saturday at his home in New York. He was 87.

His death was confirmed in a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

By the time of Mr. Wiesels death, millions had read Night, his account of the concentration camps where he watched his father die and where his mother and younger sister were gassed. Presidents summoned him to the White House to discuss human rights abuses in Bosnia, Iraq and elsewhere, and the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee called him a messenger to mankind.

But when he emerged, gaunt and near death, from Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945, there was little indication that he  or any survivor  would have such a presence in the world. Few survivors spoke openly about the war. Those who did often felt ignored. Decades before a Holocaust museum stood in downtown Washington and moviegoers watched Steven Spielbergs Schindlers List, Mr Wiesel helped force the public to confront the Holocaust.

The voice of the person who can speak in the first-person singular  This is my story; I was there  it will be gone when the last survivor dies, Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt said in an interview with The Washington Post. But in Elie Wiesel, we had that voice with a megaphone that wasnt matched by anyone else.

Notable deaths in 2016 Show all 42 1 /42 Notable deaths in 2016 Notable deaths in 2016 Debbie Reynolds was an American actress, singer, businesswoman, film historian, and humanitarian. She died on December 28 in Los Angeles Rex Notable deaths in 2016 Actress Carrie Fisher died on December 27 aged 60 Rex Notable deaths in 2016 Comedian and Actor Ricky Harris died on December 26 aged 54 Rex Notable deaths in 2016 British singer George Michael died on 25 December aged 53 Getty Notable deaths in 2016 Rick Parfitt OBE was an English musician, best known for being a singer, songwriter and rhythm guitarist in the rock band Status Quo. He died on December 24 in Marbella, Spain Rex Notable deaths in 2016 Lord Jenkin of Roding died at the age of 90 on the 21 December PA wire Notable deaths in 2016 Rabbi Lionel Blue died on the 19 December Rex Notable deaths in 2016 Zsa Zsa Gabor died on December 18 Getty Notable deaths in 2016 Leonard Cohen died on 7 November Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Grand secretary of the Orange Order Drew Nelson died on 10 October aged 60 after a short illness PA Notable deaths in 2016 Aaron Pryor, the relentless junior welterweight died Sunday, Oct. 9, at the age of 60 at his home in Cincinnati after a long battle with heart disease AP Notable deaths in 2016 Polish Director Andrzej Wajda died on October 9, aged 90 Reuters Notable deaths in 2016 Stylianos Pattakos has died following a stroke on 8th October. He was 103 years old. AP Notable deaths in 2016 Dickie Jeeps, was an English rugby union player who played for Northampton. 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Elie Wiesel was one of the great moral voices of our time, and in many ways, the conscience of the world, President Obama said in a statement, describing Mr Wiesel as a dear friend.

After we walked together among the barbed wire and guard towers of Buchenwald where he was held as a teenager and where his father perished, the president continued, Elie spoke words Ive never forgotten  Memory has become a sacred duty of all people of goodwill. 

Mr Wiesel was in his 20s when he wrote the first draft of Night after 10 years of silence about the war. It puts readers in Auschwitz within the first 30 pages.

The volume captures all of the most salient images of the Holocaust: the teeming ghettos where many struggled to believe that the worst was yet to come, the cattle cars, the barracks, the smokestacks. The book also contains one of the most famous images in the vast theological debates surrounding the slaughter: the vision of God with a noose around his neck.

For Gods sake, where is God? Mr. Wiesel hears a man ask as they watch a boy hanged at Auschwitz.

And from within me, I heard a voice answer, he writes. This is where  hanging here from this gallows.

To forget the Holocaust, he always said, would be to kill the victims a second time.

Eliezer Wiesel was born 30 September 1928, in Sighet, a town in modern-day Romania that he would later describe as a Chagall-style Jewish city in the Carpathian Mountains.

He grew up in a tightknit Jewish family, the only son of a grocer, Shlomo, and his wife, Sarah. So great was the boys religious fervour, instilled in him by his Hasidic grandfather, that he wept in prayer at the synagogue. Mr Wiesel was 15 years old, a new arrival to Block 17 at Auschwitz after being swept up in the last transport from the Sighet ghetto, when the number A-7713 was tattooed on his left arm. He said that when he turned 18, he wasnt really 18, the camps having turned him prematurely into an old man.

According to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, SS units evacuated Auschwitz in January 1945. Mr. Wiesel and his father were transferred to Buchenwald, near Weimar, Germany. His father would die in January, and Mr. Wiesel was liberated upon the arrival of US troops in April.

Mr. Wiesel taught for more than 30 years at Boston University, where his classes were blockbusters. He wrote more than 40 works of literature, including novels, plays, memoirs and essays that were rooted in the Jewish thought he learned first from his grandfather and rabbis in Sighet.

His son Shlomo Elisha Wiesel survives him, as does his wife, the former Marion Erster Rose, a Holocaust survivor whom he married in 1969.

In his lectures, he often looked small and fragile behind the heavy lectern. He commented that he hoped not to live long enough to be the last survivor because the burden would be too great.

Wise men remember best, Mr. Wiesel said in his Nobel lecture. And yet it is surely human to forget, even to want to forget. . . . Only God and God alone can and must remember everything.



Washington Post
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A German tourist fell to his death after posing for a photograph at the Machu Picchu ruins in Peru.

Oliver Park, 51, jumped for a mid-leap photograph but lost his footing and slipped from a ledge.

Peruvian officials said Mr Park had bypassed a security cordon and entered an off-limits area for his photograph, according to El Comercio.

Peruvian tourist Guillermo Mestas, who witnessed the incident, told Canal N: "He asked a man who was there to take a photo of him

"The man came over to take the photo and in the moment he was handing him the camera, he lost his balance and fell."

It took rescuers one and a half hours to reach his body which was then transported by train to a morgue in Cusco.

While this may be the first photograph-related death at Machu Picchu, there have been other accidental deaths in recent times.

July: Peak timing: rediscover Machu Picchu this month Show all 4 1 /4 July: Peak timing: rediscover Machu Picchu this month July: Peak timing: rediscover Machu Picchu this month 526842_1.bin AP July: Peak timing: rediscover Machu Picchu this month 526843_1.bin AFP July: Peak timing: rediscover Machu Picchu this month 526844_1.bin Getty Images July: Peak timing: rediscover Machu Picchu this month 526845_1.bin AFP

In May 2014, a Belgian man died climbing Huayna Picchu, a steep mountain overlooking the 1450 Incan palace.

In February 2013, a rock fell on a German couple visiting the ruins. Heize Beat, 49 fell down a slope to his death while his girlfriend, Hein Achira, 46, was injured but survived.
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A young man has suffered severe injuries after an object exploded underfoot as he was scrambling on rocks in New Yorks Central Park, police have said. Conner Golden, 19, who was visiting the city from Washington DC, was climbing on the rocks with two friends when the explosion occurred at around 11am on Sunday.

Emergency medical personnel were seen bandaging his lower leg at the scene before he was transported to nearby Bellevue Hospital with what authorities reportedly described as a possible amputation. It remained unclear what had caused the blast, but police said they thought it likely to be fireworks, given that tomorrow is the countrys Independence Day.

A bomb-sniffing dog was sent in to investigate the rocks near Manhattans Fifth Avenue and the Central Park Zoo, an area that would be bustling with tourists even on a regular weekend. Some witnesses heard the explosion as they left the funeral of Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, but the blast was not thought to be connected to the service.

One witness, John Murphy, told the New York Post that Mr Goldens foot appeared to have been severed at the ankle. He was severely injured. His left leg was severely damaged, all bone and muscle, he said, adding that Mr Golden nonetheless remained conscious until the emergency personnel arrived. He was an absolute trouper, Mr Murphy said.
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In July 2014, Michelle Carters 18-year-old boyfriend took his own life in a Kmart parking lot.

After his death, Carter texted a friend.

"Like, honestly I could have stopped it," she wrote.

But instead of trying to stop her teenage boyfriend from taking his life, prosecutors in Massachusetts believe that Carter pressured Conrad Roy III to go through with the act.

And on Friday, the states highest court ruled that she could go to trial for her alleged role in his death.

"I hope they hold her accountable for her actions," Roys grandfather, Conrad Roy Sr., told the Boston Globe. "She told him to get back in the truck. She prodded him on. All of the text messages are pretty much self-explanatory."

Recommended Read more Teen who sent texts urging boyfriend to kill himself to stand trial

The Supreme Judicial Courts ruling  which found that a grand jury was justified in returning an indictment in Carters case  was unanimous, the Associated Press reported. Justice Robert Cordy wrote:

"We conclude that, on the evidence presented to the grand jury, the verbal conduct at issue was sufficient and, because a conviction of involuntary manslaughter is punishable by imprisonment in State prison and inherently involves the infliction of serious bodily harm, the grand jury properly returned an indictment under the youthful offender statute."

Carter, who was 17 at the time of Roys death, faces a charge of involuntary manslaughter.

"We appreciate the courts thorough review of the law as it pertains to the facts of this case, and its decision to uphold the juvenile courts denial of the defendants motion to dismiss, Gregg Miliote, spokesman for the Bristol County District Attorneys office, said in a statement. We will now focus our efforts on preparing for the upcoming trial in this case."

Prosecutors have alleged that Carter pressured Roy to go through with suicide, counseled him on his fears and researched suicide methods. Text messages between the two propelled the case into a national spotlight and highlighted Carters alleged role.

"I mean, youre about to die"

For more than a week in July 2014, Carter and Roy exchanged hundreds of messages in which Carter insisted that Roy would be better off dead.

"Youre finally going to be happy in heaven. No more pain," she told him in one message. "Its okay to be scared and its normal. I mean, youre about to die."

According to prosecutors, the two had struck up a romantic relationship  mostly online  in 2012. Her attorney says they had met only a few times in person over the course of two years prior to Roys death.

Roy had a history of depression and had attempted suicide in the past, but his family was hopeful that he would get through it.

He seemed to be pulling out of it, his grandmother Janice Roy told WBZ.

Text messages recovered by police, however, suggest that by 2014, Carter had tired of Roys idle talk of suicide and wanted him to go through with it  now.

You always say youre gonna do it, but you never do, Carter complained. I just want to make sure tonight is the real thing.

Another time, she texted: You cant keep pushing it off, though. Thats all you keep doing.

Carter was insistent, even when Roy steered the topic to other things:

ROY: How was your day?

CARTER: When are you doing it?

Roy said he was having a good day, but Carter wasnt satisfied.

CARTER: Really?

ROY: Yes.

CARTER: Thats great. What did you do?

ROY: Ended up going to work for a little bit and then just looked stuff up.

CARTER: When are you gonna do it? Stop ignoring the question???

Roy had doubts and was scared, according to his texts. What if it didnt work and he ended up injured for the rest of his life? How would his family cope with the loss?

Carter had answers.

He would be her guardian angel in heaven.

She would comfort his family, and they would move on.

If he followed the directions he had found online for killing himself with carbon monoxide, it would 100 percent work, she said.

There isnt anything anyone can do to save you, not even yourself, she told him.

The day of Roys death  July 12, 2014  he and Carter exchanged texts in the early morning hours.

You cant think about it. You just have to do it, Carter said, telling him she didnt understand why he was hesitating.

Im gonna eventually, he replied. I really dont know what Im waiting for but I have everything lined up.

She suggested that he take medication to fall asleep and allow the fumes to work.

She worried that he wouldnt go through with it because the sun would soon be coming up.

She suggested that he go to an empty parking lot.

They texted throughout the day about the plans, about Roys doubts and about Carters insistence that the time is right and that he was ready.

The day before his death, she told her friend: Im thankful that our last words were I love you.

At some point on the night of July 12, Roy went through with the suicide. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning inside the cab of his pickup truck.

While he was in the truck, he was on the phone texting and talking with Carter, she told her friend.

Like, honestly I could have stopped it, Carter texted Samantha months later. I was on the phone with him and he got out of the car because the carbon monoxide was working, she said. She added that she told him to get back in.

Roy had a history of depression and had previously attempted suicide. Details of his struggles with mental health were presented to the grand jury, according to the ruling; Roy had been receiving treatment since 2011, according to the filing, and attempted suicide in 2013 by trying to overdose on acetaminophen.

A friend saved his life by contacting emergency services, they note.

Court documents note a conversation that took place weeks before Roys death, weeks before Carter was pushing him to take his own life:

ROY: we should be like Romeo and Juliet at the end

CARTER: Haha. Id love to be your Juliet :)

ROY: but do you know what happens in the end

CARTER: OH YEAH F NO! WE ARE NOT DYING

Days later but still weeks before Roys suicide, Carter urged him to get help:

CARTER: But the mental hospital would help you. I know you dont think it would but Im telling you, if you give them a chance, they can save your life

CARTER: Part of me wants you to try something and fail just so you can go get help

ROY: It doesnt help. trust me

CARTER: So what are you gonna do then? Keep being all talk and no action and everyday go thru saying how badly you want to kill yourself? Or are you gonna try to get better?

ROY: I cant get better I already made my decision.

But in the days leading up to Roys death, Carters tone seemed to have changed.

She was the one brainstorming ideas with Roy on how he should kill himself, according to prosecutors, but she feared that Roy would make up an excuse to explain why it wouldn't work.

"You always seem to have an excuse," she texted him.

When Roy decided to use a generator, Carter was impatient.

Do you have the generator? she asked him.

Not yet LOL, he replied.

WELL WHEN ARE YOU GETTING IT? she wrote.

Eventually, Roy did find a generator  his fathers  but it was broken. Carter told him to take it to Sears for repairs, and suggested alternatives.

In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Show all 30 1 /30 In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People gather at a vigil in solidarity for the victims of the Orlando nightclub mass shooting, at Taylor Square in Sydney EPA In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Brett Morian, from Daytona Beach, hugs an attendee during the candlelight vigil at Ember in Orlando AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People and members of the gay community holding the peace rainbow flag gather for a vigil near the Beaubourg art center in downtown Paris AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A man places a hand print on a makeshift memorial in a parking lot near the Pulse nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People attend a candlelight vigil for the victims of the Orlando attack against a gay night club, held in San Francisco REUTERS In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People place candles by a statue of Abraham Lincoln during a candlelight vigil for the victims of the Orlando attack against a gay night club, held in San Francisco REUTERS In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Tel-Aviv city hall lit up with rainbow flag colors in solidarity with Florida's shooting attack victims AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Juan Mantilla (L) stands with his partner during a vigil in memory of the victims of the Orlando mass shooting, in Miami Beach AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A couple shares a kiss as they embrace each other under a pride flag while residents of San Francisco and the Bay Area gather to mourn, honor, and remember the victims of a mass shooting at a LGBT nightclub in Orlando EPA In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Austin Ellis, a member of Metropolitan Community Church, carries a cross with a sign in memory of the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting as he marches in the 2016 Gay Pride Parade in Philadelphia Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A rainbow flag flies at half mast on the Space Needle in Seattle, in honor of the victims of the nightclub shooting in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People at the LA Pride event in West Hollywood, write signs and light candles showing solidarity with victims of the mass killings in Orlando AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims In reaction to the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida people hug outside the Stonewall Inn near a vigil for the victims in New York AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A woman offers free hugs in Washington, in reaction to the mass shootings at a gay club in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A U.S. flag is flown at half staff at the White House after the Orlando mass shooting Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A man lays flowers on a rainbow flag in front of the embassy of the United States in Madrid, to pay tribute to the victims of the shooting of Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims The Michael Fowler Centre is lit in rainbow colours by the city council during a candle lit vigil across the road at Frank Kits Park in Wellington, in remembrance of victims after a gunman opened fire in a gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Participants hold candles during a vigil at Frank Kits Park in Wellington, in remembrance of victims after a gunman opened fire in a gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Vixon Noir (R) consoles Trashina Cann, both of San Francisco, during a vigil at Harvey Milk Plaza in the Castro district of San Francisco AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People gather in the Castro District for a vigil for the victims of the Orlando shooting at a gay nightclub, in San Francisco REUTERS In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A couple joins residents of San Francisco and the Bay Area to mourn, honor, and remember the victims of a mass shooting at a LGBT nightclub in Orlando EPA In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Mourners pay tribute to the victims of the Orlando shooting during a memorial service in San Diego AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims The Orlando Eye observation wheel lights up in rainbow colors, to remember the people killed and injured in the Pulse nightclub shooting AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People sit by the water with candles during a vigil in a park following a mass shooting at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Members of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence carry a sign of remembrance for mass shooting victims in Orlando, at the 46th annual Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade in West Hollywood REUTERS In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Former Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra and Shawn Lang of Hartford embrace after Segarra spoke, during a vigil organized by the state's Muslim and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, on the steps of the state Capitol building in reaction to the mass shooting in Orlando AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims The City Hall Building is lit in the rainbow colors in New York, in reaction to the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims One World Trade Center is lit in the rainbow colors in New York, in reaction to the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People hold a vigil after the worst mass shooting in U.S. history at a gay nightclub in Orlando, in front of the White House in Washington REUTERS In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A man lays down 50 roses to honor each victim of the gay Orlando night club shooting as people gather outside of the Stonewall Inn as a vigil is held following the massacre Getty Images

Roys body was found by police the morning of 13 July.

Dana Curhan, an attorney for Carters appeal, said he had argued that Carters words alone were not enough to constitute manslaughter. Instead, he said, it had to be words plus  words plus a threat, or words plus intimidation.

"This is not what we were hoping for, he told The Washington Post in a phone interview. I have not seen any case in Massachusetts where somebody was charged with manslaughter based on words alone.

A message left for another of Carters attorneys, Joseph Cataldo, was not immediately returned Friday.

"They still have to prove manslaughter beyond a reasonable doubt, Curhan said. And that may be a much harder thing for them to do."

Looking at all the evidence, the court decided that there was probable cause to show that the coercive quality of the defendants verbal conduct overwhelmed whatever willpower the eighteen year old victim had to cope with his depression, and that but for the defendants admonishments, pressure, and instructions, the victim would not have gotten back into the truck and poisoned himself to death, Cordy wrote in his statement.

Consequently, the evidence before the grand jury was sufficient for a finding of probable cause that the defendant, by wanton or reckless conduct, caused the victims death.

Abby Phillip contributed to this report.

Copyright: Washington Post
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French MPs have voted unanimously to pass a law banning the denial of crimes against humanity.

The amendment was passed as an extension of the current French holocaust law and includes denial or trivialisation of all events classed as genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes or slavery as punishable crimes.

The act means that denial of events such as the Armenian genocide will be punishable by up to one year in prison and a 45,000 Euro fine (approximately 37,760).

The French parliament passed an Armenian genocide law in 2001 and tried to ban denial of it in 2012. The law, which made it illegal to negate acts that parliament had decided were crimes against humanity, was blocked by the Constitutional Council, however, on the grounds that it was a limit on freedom of expression.

While the new motion is yet to be passed by Frances Senate, backers of the amendment hope for it to be implemented by the end of the year.

The bill also allows NGOs that campaign on slavery issues to take legal action against related denial crimes.

Recommended Read more Nicolas Sarkozy to run for 2017 French presidency

Nearly 1.5 million people were executed by Ottoman armies during World War One.

Turkish officials have said the killings were part of a collective tragedy during which both Turks and Armenians died, but Armenians have long campaigned for the mass murders to be categorised as a crime against humanity.

Last month, Germany voted to recognise the Armenian killings as genocide  a term rejected by ministers in Ankara.
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Bangladeshs prime minister has said Islamist terrorists are maligning the name of Islam in response to a terror attack in Dhaka which killed at least 22 people.

Sheikh Hasina asked: What kind of Muslims are these who kill others during Ramadan? during her second televised address to the nation following the terror attack on a Dhaka cafe which saw jihadists torture and massacre 22 people on Friday evening.

She said: I want to ask those who are aiding terror, what do you get by taking innocent lives? Islam is a religion of peace, you are maligning its name.

Anyone who believes in religion cannot do such an act. They do not have any religion, their only religion is terrorism.

Ms Hasina did not directly comment on Isis' claim of responsibility for the attack  her government has previously denied the group has a presence in Bangladesh  and instead accused opposition parties of orchestrating violence to destablise the country.

In total, 13 hostages were released by jihadists but nine Italians, seven Japanese people, an Indian teenager, two Americans and a Bangladeshi woman were killed.

Two local policemen were also killed in the attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe.

The father of a survivor told Bangladeshs Daily Star newspaper that hostages were rounded up and asked to recite from the Quran to prove they were Muslim.

Relatives of the Dhaka attack victims arrive at the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe to identify their loved ones (EPA)

Rezaul Karim said: Those who could recite a verse or two were spared. The others were tortured.

Photographs released by an Isis-affiliated propaganda agency allegedly show five of the militants who carried out the attack dressed in black with Arab-style headscarves, smiling and posing with assault rifles in front of the groups flag.

Isis gave all of the men pictured war names ending in al-Bengali  suggesting they were from Bangladesh.

Police said six gunmen were killed in the explosion with one more caught alive.

In pictures: Bangladesh attacks Show all 10 1 /10 In pictures: Bangladesh attacks In pictures: Bangladesh attacks Bangladesh attacks Hindu ashram worker Nityaranjan Pande, 62, was hacked to death in Pabna on 10 June 2016 AP In pictures: Bangladesh attacks Bangladesh attacks Hindu priest Anando Gopal Ganguly, left, was murdered in Jhenidah in Bangladesh on 7 June 2016 EPA In pictures: Bangladesh attacks Bangladesh attacks Mahmuda Khanam Mitu, wife of the Deputy Commissioner of Chittagong Metropolitan Police, was murdered in Chittagong, Bangladesh on 5 June 2016 EPA In pictures: Bangladesh attacks Bangladesh attacks Bangladesh Students Union arranged a torch procession in protest over recent murders of free thinkers in Dhaka NurPhoto In pictures: Bangladesh attacks Bangladesh attacks Murdered gay rights activist Xulhaz Mannan, who was editor at Bangladeshs only LGBT magazine Rex In pictures: Bangladesh attacks Bangladesh attacks A Bangladeshi policeman stands guard at the site of the murder of a law student, hacked to death by four assailants the night before, in Dhaka on April 7, 2016 AFP/Getty In pictures: Bangladesh attacks Bangladesh attacks People have protested against the murders around the world, seen here in Kolkata AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Bangladesh attacks Bangladesh attacks A relative of dead Bangladeshi blogger Washiqur Rahman reacts after seeing his body at Dhaka Medical College in Dhaka on March 30 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Bangladesh attacks Bangladesh attacks People gather on the spot where Bangladeshi blogger Avijit Roy was killed in a street in Dhaka (EPA) EPA In pictures: Bangladesh attacks Bangladesh attacks Bangladeshi social activists shout slogans during a protest against the killing Avijit Roy in Dhaka on February 27, 2015 AFP/Getty Images

The cafe is popular with tourists and expats and is situated in the affluent diplomatic quarters of Dhaka near several international embassies.

Ms Hasina said she would eradicate extremism from the country.

She said: People must resist these terrorists. My government is determined to root out terrorism and militancy from Bangladesh.

Members of the Japanese Embassy arrive to pay their respects. Seven Japanese citizens were killed in the attack (EPA)

The attack followed an increasing number of attacks on Bangladeshi academics and well-known atheist bloggers by Islamist extremists.

Last month, al-Qaeda affiliate Ansar al-Islam claimed responsibility for the murder of an LGBT magazine editor who was killed in his Dhaka apartment by a group of men posing as couriers.

Isis supporters also claimed responsibility for hacking an elderly Hindu priest to death as he made his way to his temple in Karatipara, Jhenaidah district in June.
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Australia's era of political chaos continued on Saturday, with a general election failing to deliver an immediate victor and raising the prospect of a hung parliament.

Hours after the polls closed, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull sounded a confident tone despite early results showing his conservative Liberal Party-led coalition in a virtual tie with the opposition center-left Labor Party.

"Based on the advice I have from the party officials, we can have every confidence that we will form a coalition majority government in the next parliament," Turnbull said in a speech to cheering supporters early Sunday morning.

Recommended Read more Australian voters cast ballot for Harambe the killed gorilla

Opposition leader Bill Shorten did not speculate on a Labor victory but celebrated the strong swing to his party only three years after it was convincingly dumped from power in the last election.

"There is one thing for sure. The Labor Party is back," he said in a speech to supporters.

Parties need to hold at least 76 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives to form a government. When the count was suspended early Sunday, the Australian Electoral Commission said Labor was leading in 72 seats, Turnbull's coalition in 66 seats, and minor parties or independents in five seats. Counting was less clear in another seven seats.

The final tally was not expected to be known until Tuesday, after mail-in ballots and those cast ahead of Saturday's election were counted. In past elections, these votes have favored the conservatives.

Just two possibilities remain: The coalition will win by the slimmest of margins, or there will be a hung parliament.

Turnbull called the rare early election  dubbed a "double dissolution" because both the House and the Senate are dissolved  in a bid to break a legislative deadlock over a bill that would have created a construction industry watchdog. But the result of the election may bring further deadlock: If neither party earns a majority of seats in the House, both Labor and the coalition will be forced to try to forge alliances with independent lawmakers to form a minority government.

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

Hung parliaments are extremely rare in Australia, with only two since 1940. The most recent was in 2010, when then-Prime Minister Julia Gillard's ruling Labor Party was forced to secure an alliance with the minor Greens party and three independent lawmakers to form a fragile minority government. Three years later, the coalition swept to power after winning 90 seats.

Treasurer Scott Morrison said he thought the coalition would ultimately be able to form a majority government once all the votes were counted. But Labor's only hope was to form a minority government.

Tony Abbott, the prime minister ousted by Turnbull in September in an internal party showdown due to poor opinion polling, declined to say on Sunday whether he would have led a stronger campaign.

"I'm just not going to speculate on that. The fact is that I didn't," Abbott told reporters outside his Sydney home. "It's obviously been an extremely tight result."

Saturday's elections continue an extraordinarily volatile period in the nation's politics, where internal party squabbling and fears over sagging poll ratings have prompted five changes of prime minister in as many years.

Amid the chaos, Labor and the coalition each tried to paint themselves as the safer, more stable choice. But selling stability was a tough job for either party, both of which have been marred by infighting in recent years. Bill Shorten played a key role in ousting two of Labor's own prime ministers in the space of three years, and Turnbull himself ousted Abbott less than a year ago. Up until 2007, conservative John Howard served as prime minister for nearly 12 years.

On Saturday, Shorten accused Turnbull of failing to deliver the economic reform and steady leadership Australians want.

"Whatever happens next week, Mr. Turnbull will never be able to claim that the people of Australia have adopted his ideological agenda," Shorten told supporters. "He will never again be able to promise the stability which he has completely failed to deliver tonight."

Monash University political expert Nick Economou said Turnbull's leadership had been terminally damaged by his decision to call the early election. It involved the longest campaign since 1969 and appeared to have delivered several hard-line social conservatives and right-wingers to the Senate that the moderate prime minister would have difficulty working with if his government survives, Economou said.

"What an amazing amount of political damage Malcolm Turnbull has been able to inflict in a very short period of time as prime minister," Economou said. "I think his credibility is shot to pieces."

Associated Press
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Police in New Zealand have seized a record-breaking haul of cocaine smuggled inside a giant diamante-encrusted horse head from Mexico.

Officers discovered the Class A drug in the form of 35 1kg bricks stored inside the 400kg sculpture, which was headed to an address in Auckland.

The haul is the largest the country has ever recorded and has a street market value of around NZ$14m (7.5m).

Detective Superintendent Virginia Le Bas, from the organised crime unit, said officers were still working to establish the final destination of the haul.

This is a significant win for New Zealand, she said. This is a great success, we should be proud to have detected it at the earliest of stages.

The drug shipment had been air-freighted from Mexico to Auckland where it was detected inside the horse-head statue in May.

World's 10 deadliest street drugs Show all 10 1 /10 World's 10 deadliest street drugs World's 10 deadliest street drugs Whoonga Whoonga is a combination of antiretroviral drugs, used to treat HIV, and various cutting agents such as detergents and poisons. The drug is widely available in South Africa due to South Africas high rate of HIV sufferers, and is believed to be popular due to how cheap it is when compared to prescribed antiretrovirals. The drug is highly addictive and can cause major health issues such as internal bleeding, stomach ulcers and ultimately death Getty World's 10 deadliest street drugs Scopolamine Scopolamine is a derivative from the nightshade plant found in the Northern Indian region of South America (Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela). It is generally found in a refined powder form, but can also be found as a tea. The drug is more often used by criminals due its high toxicity level (one gram is believed to be able to kill up to 20 people) making it a strong poison. However, it is also believed that the drug is blown into the faces of unexpecting victims, later causing them to lose all sense of self-control and becoming incapable of forming memories during the time they are under the influence of the drug. This tactic has reportedly been used by gangs in Colombia where there have been reports of people using scopolamine as way to convince victims to rob their own homes World's 10 deadliest street drugs Heroin Founded in 1874 by C. R. Alder Wright, heroin is one of the worlds oldest drugs. Originally it was prescribed as a strong painkiller used to treat chronic pain and physical trauma. However in 1971 it was made illegal under the Misuse of Drugs Act. Since then it has become one of the most destructive substances in the world, tearing apart communities and destroying families. The side effects of heroin include inflammation of the gums, cold sweats, a weak immune system, muscular weakness and insomnia. It can also damage blood vessels which can later cause gangrene if left untreated World's 10 deadliest street drugs Crack cocaine Crack cocaine first came about in the 1980s when cocaine became a widespread commodity within the drug trafficking world. Originally cocaine would have attracted a high price tag due to its rarity and difficulty to produce, but once it became more widespread the price dropped significantly. This resulted in drug dealers forming their cocaine into rock like shapes by using baking soda as a way of distilling the powder down into rock form. People were doing this because it allowed for them to sell cocaine at a lower quantity and to a higher number of people. The side effects of crack cocaine include liver, kidney and lung damage, as well as permanent damage to blood vessels, which can often lead to heart attacks, strokes, and ultimately death World's 10 deadliest street drugs Crystal meth Not just famous because of a certain Walter H White, but also because it is one of the most destructive drugs in the world. First developed in 1887, it became widely used during the Second World War when both sides would give it to their troops to keep them awake. It is also believed that the Japanese gave it to their Kamikaze pilots before their suicide missions. After the war crystal meth was prescribed as a diet aid and remained legal until the 1970s. Since then it has fallen into the hands of Mexican gangs and has become a worldwide phenomenon, spreading throughout Europe and Asia. The effects of crystal meth are devastating. In the short-term users will become sleep depraved and anxious, and in the long-term it will cause their flesh to sink, as well as brain damage and damage of the blood vessels World's 10 deadliest street drugs AH-7921 AH-7921 is a synthetic opioid that was previously available to legally purchase online from vendors until it became a Class A in January 2015. The drug is believed to have 80% of the potency of morphine, and became known as the legal heroin. While there has only been one death related to AH-7921 in the UK, it is believed to be highly dangerous and capable of causing respiratory arrest and gangrene World's 10 deadliest street drugs Flakka Flakka is a stimulant with a similar chemical make-up to the amphetamine-like drug found in bath salts. While the drug was originally marketed as a legal high alternative to ecstasy, the effects are significantly different. The user will feel an elevated heart rate, enhanced emotions, and, if enough is digested, strong hallucinations. The drug can cause permanent psychological damage due to it affecting the mood regulating neurons that keep the minds serotonin and dopamine in check, as well as possibly causing heart failure World's 10 deadliest street drugs Bath salts Bath salts are a synthetic crystalline drug that is prevalent in the US. While they may sound harmless, they certainly arent the sort of salts you drop into a warm bath when having a relaxing night in, they are most similar to mephedrone, and have recently been featured throughout social media due to the zombification of its. The name comes from the fact that the drug was originally sold online, and widely disguised as bath salts. The side effects include unusual psychiatric behaviour, psychosis, panic attacks and violent behaviour, as well as the possibility of a heart attack and an elevated body temperature World's 10 deadliest street drugs Purple Drank One of the more unusual drugs around at the moment, purple drank was popularised in 90s hip hop culture, with the likes of Jay Z and Big Moe all mentioning it in their songs. It is a concoction of soda water, sweets and cold medicine, and is drunk due to cold medicines high codeine content, which gives the user a woozy feeling. However it can also cause respiratory issues and heart failure World's 10 deadliest street drugs Krokodil Krokodil is Russias secret addiction. It is believed that over one million Russians are addicted to the drug. Users of krokodil are attracted to the drug due to its low price; it is sold at 20 a gram while heroin is sold for 60. However, krokodil is considered more dangerous than heroin because it is often homemade, with ingredients including painkillers, iodine, lighter fluid and industrial cleaning agents. This chemical make-up makes the drug highly dangerous and likely to cause gangrene, and eventually rotting of the flesh

Two men have been arrested in connection with the crime following a six-week police investigation. One is a 44-year-old Mexican and the other is 56 and from the US.

They have been charged with importing a Class A drug and possession for supply of a Class A drug, namely cocaine, and appeared in the Manukau District Court on Saturday morning.

New Zealand police said a third man, also from Mexico, was arrested on Saturday in Christchurch following a series of house-searches.

It is believed at least some of the drug was destined for Christchurch, which has attracted workers from around the world since the rebuilding of the city in 2011.

Before this 35kg haul, the average amount of cocaine seized at New Zealand borders each year was around 250 grams.

Ms Le Bas said some people in Christchurch were using the drug and the rebuild had created a change in demand for some illicit substances.

Drug researcher Chris Wilkins, from Massey University, told reporters the drug may also have been destined for Australia where demand was high Sydney and Melbourne.
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Jean-Claude Juncker is becoming a problem Angela Merkel will soon have to deal with, according to sources within the German government.

The President of the European Commission has faced criticism from a number of directions over his conduct following the outcome of Britains referendum on EU membership.

A German minister told the Sunday Times that Chancellor Merkel had come to regard Mr Juncker as part of the problem with the EU.

The source said: Juncker has time and again acted against the common interest, and his reaction to the British referendum has been very damaging.

Mr Junckers rhetoric about Northern Ireland and Scottish independence - and especially his meeting with SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon in Brussels - were seen as unnecessarily provocative, the newspaper reported.

This is not a time for institutional bickering, the source added, but the pressure for him to resign will only become greater and chancellor Merkel will eventually have to deal with this next year.

 Jean-Claude Juncker asks Farage "Why are you here?"

The European Commission President has been a key driver of increased European federalism and some regard his efforts as part of the reason for the reaction against the EU.

While Ms Merkel is the most powerful European politician to apparently level criticism at Mr Juncker, she is not the only one.

Shortly after the referendum result in June, the Czech foreign minister Lubomir Zaoralek called on Mr Juncker to resign.

Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Show all 12 1 /12 Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Brexit protest: Thousands march in London A woman poses with a home-made European Union flag as Remain supporters gather on Park Lane in London to show their support for the EU in the wake of Brexit PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Remain supporters demonstrate in Parliament Square PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Tens of thousands of people gathered to protest the result of the EU referendum PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London A majority of people in the capital voted to remain in the European Union Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Protesters chanted: What do we want to do? Stay in the EU PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The march follows a similar rally in Trafalgar Square that was cancelled due to heavy rain  but which tens of thousands of people turned up to anyway Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Britain voted to leave the European Union in a referendum by 52 per cent to 48 per cent Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London But support for the Leave campaign in urban areas and among young people was significantly lower Rex features Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Marchers gathered at Park Lane at 11am and marched towards Parliament Square PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Some protesters held up baguettes in a display of affection for our continental neighbours PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The disparity between different parts of the country has promoted a four million signature petition calling for a second referendum and even a renewed push for Scotland to cede from the UK PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The events organiser, Kings College graduate Kieran MacDermott, wrote: We can prevent Brexit by refusing to accept the referendum as the final say and take our finger off the self-destruct button" Reuters

"Right now I can't see the European Commission chairman as the right man for the job," Mr Zaoralek told Czech television.

Recommended Read more German academics urge Merkel to show solidarity with Remain voters

"I don't want to call on anyone [to resign], but... someone in the EU maybe should contemplate quitting, because [Brexit] is a responsibility someone should have assumed."

He also said the EU Commission president did not do enough to prevent the loss of Britain from the EU.

Mr Zaoralek added: "I would imagine the Commission is led by an honourable, trustworthy man who, in a situation when we are facing the loss of a leg or arm, might go to the country and tell the Britons: 'We want you to stay'."

Officials from Poland, Hungary and Estonia have also criticised Mr Juncker.
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Germany should offer citizenship to young Britons living in the country because it was largely older voters who voted to leave the European Union, the German Vice-Chancellor has said.

Speaking at a meeting with the Social Democratic Party in Berlin on Saturday, Sigmar Gabriel, who is also the Economy Minister, said the UKs referendum was a further reason to campaign to relax the rules on dual citizenship in Germany.

Let us offer it to young Britons who live in Germany, Italy or France, so they can remain European Union citizens in this country, he said.

 Brexit - Some Leave voters are regretting their vote

German law normally requires that anyone applying for citizenship must relinquish their old citizenship. But last months EU referendum, which split the UK in terms of area and age range, provides good reason to consider citizenship on a case by case basis, the minister has suggested.

Thats why we shouldnt just pull up the drawbridge, said Mr Gabriel. Europe is the best place in the world for freedom, democracy and the chance of social progress.

Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Show all 12 1 /12 Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Brexit protest: Thousands march in London A woman poses with a home-made European Union flag as Remain supporters gather on Park Lane in London to show their support for the EU in the wake of Brexit PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Remain supporters demonstrate in Parliament Square PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Tens of thousands of people gathered to protest the result of the EU referendum PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London A majority of people in the capital voted to remain in the European Union Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Protesters chanted: What do we want to do? Stay in the EU PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The march follows a similar rally in Trafalgar Square that was cancelled due to heavy rain  but which tens of thousands of people turned up to anyway Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Britain voted to leave the European Union in a referendum by 52 per cent to 48 per cent Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London But support for the Leave campaign in urban areas and among young people was significantly lower Rex features Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Marchers gathered at Park Lane at 11am and marched towards Parliament Square PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Some protesters held up baguettes in a display of affection for our continental neighbours PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The disparity between different parts of the country has promoted a four million signature petition calling for a second referendum and even a renewed push for Scotland to cede from the UK PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The events organiser, Kings College graduate Kieran MacDermott, wrote: We can prevent Brexit by refusing to accept the referendum as the final say and take our finger off the self-destruct button" Reuters

Volker Bouffier, premier of the German state of Hesse  home to Germany's financial capital Frankfurt  told German newspaper Welt am Sonntag that quite a number of Brits were currently applying for German citizenship.

Recent opinion polls suggest as many as 67 per cent of voters aged 18-24 said they felt angry about the Brexit result, with more than 70 per cent of young people overall having voted to remain in the EU last month.

Thousands of demonstrators took part in a march through central London on Saturday in protest at Britain's vote to leave the EU.
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A 25-year-old trainee lawyer took the German state of Bavaria to court, and won, after she was told she could not wear her hijab at work.

Aqilah Sandhu, reported to have been a star student at Augsburg University law faculty, began a traineeship with the Bavarian judicial system after completing her state law exams, but was told in a letter that she was not allowed to interrogate witnesses or appear in courtrooms while wearing her headscarf.

Ms Sanhu requested an explanation for the rule, and was told that religious clothing or symbols can impair the trust in religious neutrality of the administration of justice, reports in The Local say.

Recommended Read more Iranian woman on why she cut her hair short and dresses like a man

I felt very strongly discriminated against. I felt neglected in my training, she told the court.

She added that she had been excluded from certain activities at her traineeship because of her headscarf.

I believe in the principle of merit here in Germany, and I think it is a shame that I am being reduced to my outward appearance, Ms Sandhu said.

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Judge Bernhard Rothinger ruled that Ms Sandhu was right, and there was no legal basis for banning her from wearing religious dress at work.

German media reports say Sandhu is now seeking 2,000 euros in compensation.

State Justice Minister Winfried Bausback has said that the regional government will appeal the decision.

He said all participants in legal proceedings must be able to trust in the independence and neutrality of judges and prosecutors, and that there confidence must not be shaken by appearance.

Last year, authorities in Berlin reportedly considered not hiring Muslim lawyer Betul Ulusoy for a traineeship because they saw she wore a headscarf when she came to the town hall to sign her contract, after being told her application had been successful.

The town hall eventually ruled that Ms Ulusoy would be accepted onto the traineeship, and permitted to wear religious clothing.
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A controlled explosion has been carried out at a stadium in France ahead of a Euro 2016 match.

Fans have reported hearing a bang while arriving for this evenings France v Iceland match at the Stade de France shortly before 5pm. Fans are currently being refused entry to the venue while investigations are on-going.

Isis has previously said they intend to attack the tournament. However, it is not yet known why the explosion occurred.

Local media reports that an unattended car was exploded by police after they identified it as a suspicious vehicle.

There are no reports of any injuries.

In November the terror group attacked the stadium while President Francois Hollande was attending a match, as part of the multiple coordinated attacks which included the Bataclan theatre.

More follows shortly
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Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has blood on his hands for the social media websites part in the murder of a 13-year-old girl in her bed, an Israeli MP has said.

Israels Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan lambasted Facebook for allowing Palestinian hate speech to remain online despite its moderation rules, and noted that the teenagers murderer had announced his intentions on the social media site prior to committing the crime.

Hallel Yaffa Ariel was stabbed to death last week as she slept in her bedroom in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Ara. The killer has been identified as Muhammad Nasser Tarayrah, 17, who stabbed a civilian security guard soon afterwards and was shot to death by other security guards at the scene.

Speaking in an interview on an Israeli state television channel, Mr Erdan said: I have no doubt that Facebook, today, which brought a positive revolution to the world, unfortunately since the rise of ISIS, has simply become a monster.

The young generation in the Palestinian Authority suckles all of its incitement against Israel from Facebook and, in the end, goes and commits murders. Some of the blood of the victims of the recent attacks, including that of Hallel - may her memory be blessed - is unfortunately on the hands of Mark Zuckerberg, because the police and security forces could have been told about the post of that vile murderer.

Mr Erdan accused Facebook of sabotaging the work of the police, by not cooperating with them when regarding residents of Judea and Samaria. He said the site also places a very high standard for what is considered incitement in posts.

In order to pressure Zuckerberg into changing the Facebook policy guidelines, Israelis should flood him in every possible place with the demand to monitor the platform he established and from which he earns billions, said the MP.

If other media outlets were to demonstrate how to murder Jews, they would have been closed immediately, he said. This is the time for citizens of Israel to demand, in any way they can, that he [Zuckerberg] monitor the platform he created from which he has made billions and remove inciting content. The responsibility is his.

Zionist Union member Erel Margalit responded to Mr Erdan by saying: Last time I checked, Zuckerberg was not elected prime minister of Israel and is not a member of our security cabinet, so he will not stop the terrorism.

Facebook responded to Mr Erdan that the company works regularly with security organisations and decision makers around the world to guarantee that people know how to use Facebook safely.

In a statement, a company spokesperson said: There is no place for content that encourages violence, direct threats, terror or words of hate on our platform.

Facebook has a regular dialogue with the [Israeli] government on such issues.

The company called on the public to report content that violates its rules.
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The remains of the Isis fighters still lie on the desert floor outside the sand ramparts of the Kuweires air base in northern Syria. A skull, sockets staring at the sun; bones protruding from a military boot; and rotted torsos beneath a grey tarpaulin lie beside the colossal, burnt-out suicide tank they tried to drive through the earthen wall.

For three years, Syrian government soldiers and air force cadets and cooks and military teachers fought them off. By the count of air force Brigadier General Munzer Zaman, Syrian group commander of Kuweires, around 1,100 men defended their base. Eight hundred of them died.

Twice Isis managed to break through the perimeter of the 15-sq-km air base on the main highway to Raqqa, driving captured Syrian armoured vehicles packed with explosives and smashing them into hangars and an administration block. An intelligence officer called Maher leads us to a 30-metre high pile of concrete.

Five of my friends died here, he says. We found a hand, part of a body, thats all, and he held his arms apart to show how little was left of them. The rest still lay beneath the rubble. One of them was a general, he says.

If the Syrian army survives this terrible war, the story of the siege of Kuweires, north of the great salt lakes in the desert 38 miles east of Syrias largest city of Aleppo, will be told and retold as an epic of endurance and bravery. If it is defeated, the battles here will be denigrated as the brutal stand of a regimes forces against the "martyrs" of Islam, the smashed villages and mosques surrounding the air base testimony to the cruelty of war. The crumpled villages are there all right, shell-holed, roofless, a cupola roof of a mosque lying on its own broken walls, a cemetery of powdered gravestones.

Syrian Air Force Group Commander Munzer Zamam Commander in his office at Koyeress airbase (Nelofer Pazira)

But after General "Tiger" Suheil and Major Saleh blasted their way down the highway to the relief of Kuweires six months ago, the battle did not end. All day while I am here, the batteries of 122mm guns are still banging their shells across the desert. Brig Zaman constantly breaks off his conversation to receive battlefront requests for artillery support from shouting soldiers, and he scrawls over his computer maps to check their coordinates and give permission to fire. The windows of his office rattle constantly with the blasts.

Even today, the lonely road to Kuweires runs up the eastbound side of the dual carriageway between burnt fields, scorched factories and blasted homes. "Liberating" besieged soldiers is a destructive business. You might find the villages of Fah and Meer el-Hossen on a map. But they are dead. Brig Zaman insists that Syria will be rebuilt more beautiful than it was before the terrorists came and one can only hope he is right.

 30,000 Syrian children 'starving' on Jordan border

"Terrorists" means Isis and the al-Nusrah Front  Zaman makes no difference between them  and he has a bleak, harsh memory of the battles to defend his air base. Our enemy, he says, had two choices: death and death. There was no other. When I ask if he knew the Syrian pilot, Major Nowras Hassan, who had just bailed out over Nusrah territory on the Syrian-Lebanese border far to the west and been promptly executed by his captors, Brig Zaman nods. Of course I knew him well. He was a married man, no children. But the ways of terrorists will not terrorise us. Our base was under siege for three and a half years. It was the largest siege in history after Stalingrad.

Captured homemade Isis mortar on the Syrian airbase at Koyeress (Nelofer Pazira)

The casualties and the geography may be a miniature version of the German Sixth Armys siege of the Soviet city, although there were some clear historical parallels. The "liberation" of Kuweires earlier this year could not have been achieved without Russian air support; and the graveyard of smashed Mig fighter-bombers, shell holes, dismembered trees and gun-pits have a distinctly Second World War flavour. So do the casualties. Nine air force students died when a suicide truck was crashed into the hangar in which they were sleeping. The Syrians buried their dead in cemeteries around the runways, 79 of them in separate graves beside the air-base swimming pool.

Our mufti said prayers over them under the shellfire but there were no shots fired over their graves, a major says. When we were liberated, the bodies were dug up one at a time and placed in new coffins and inside was a glass jar with their names and details. A wooden board with "grave No. 7" on it is marked: Ahmed Ali Zohoud from Lattakia, died 7 July 2015. Almost exactly a year ago. A mile away, rows of captured homemade mortars constructed by Isis mechanics lie in the grass near to an American-made construction vehicle attached to a massive iron drill that had ben used to build tunnels beneath the base.

They tried to call up the officers on the base, Brig Zaman says. They sent papers over the walls with numbers of mobile phones our men could ring to defect. They offered safety corridors from the base if they wanted to desert. But our men were loyal. I even received a message with telephone numbers to ring in Saudi Arabia and Turkey. I gave the numbers to our intelligence people. These countries work for the Americans and for Israel. The only slogan we sent back was that we will win or face the consequences of being martyrs.

Missile with origin defaced, fired at Syrian troops at Koyeress airbase 40 km east of Aleppo (Nelofer Pazira)

For two years, helicopters could still land under fire in the base, but then flights became too dangerous. They then relied on air drops for essential supplies. General Hasham Mohamed Younis, a teacher at the air academy at Kuweires, was in charge of air drops throughout the siege. Our helicopters flew over at an altitude of 4km, he says. Our problems were wind, the weight of the 75kg and 120kg packages  because the parachutes used in the drops were made for the weight of men  and the terrorists shooting at the drops when they were parachuted down to us. Some drifted down over the enemy, but not many. We successfully received most of the diesel and kerosene and food and letters for cadets from their families.

War stories there were aplenty. Gen Younis recalls how one package of food from a cadets family was packed beneath a parachute which was blown down into the Isis lines. After a few hours, a message was thrown over the wall addressed to the cadet. The enemy said they had enjoyed his mothers food, Younis recounts. They asked him to tell his mother to send more for them.

One fuel-carrying helicopter was shot down en route to Kuweires, all but one of its crew burnt to death. The other, Pilot Ali Hosman, jumped out of the machine holding on to one of the parachutes and landed on a 14-year old boy on the ground. The boy lived. Hosman died five minutes later.

Driving across the runways and perimeter ramparts of this huge air base  the first Western journalist ever to visit Kuweires  it isn't difficult to see what a prestigious target it made for Isis. Battered Mig jets  one with its tail broken off  stand beside more captured ordnance, two unexploded missiles clearly bear Latin letters and numbers of Western origin, another bears the inscription of an Arab government depot with its country of origin carefully scratched out. The tanks and BMP armour Isis used appear to have been captured from the Syrians at the start of the war  they include a T-72 tank which has its own Isis numbering ("311" is stencilled below the rear chassis) and it is remarkable that any serviceable aircraft still survive. But I drive past untouched Hind helicopters and several new Migs.

The soldiers at Kuweires are in some ways lucky. At least one other air base was overrun by Isis and its defenders captured - they were then beheaded on film. No wonder Brig Zaman is harsh in his commentary of war. We had no messages for our enemies  we replied with our weapons. These people who have this ideology, you cant change them  but you can kill them. And he makes a reference to Hama in 1982, where Syrian forces killed thousands following a Muslim Brotherhood uprising. His lesson is a grim if rather startling one. In Syria, we are defending all the worlds humanity. If Syria is defeated, even Britain will not escape, nor France, nor Turkey, nor Jordan. They will be darkened with the same blood.

There are many, however, who would point out that Britain has not escaped Isis, nor France, nor Turkey, nor Jordan. All countries which  along with America, Israel and the Gulf  Syria blames for the "conspiracy" to destroy the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
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Saudi Arabia should be suspended from the UN Human Rights Council (OHCHR) over its conduct in Yemen, two leading human rights charities have said.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch released a joint statement calling for the country to have its membership rights immediately suspended from the group as it has committed gross and systematic violations of human rights during its time as a Council member.

It highlighted the actions of a Saudi-led coalition in Yemen  where it is alleged to have carried out indiscriminate air attacks on civilian targets such as several Medecin Sans Frontieres run-hospitals.

The statement also accused Saudi Arabia of repeatedly using banned cluster munitions in heavily populated civilian areas.

It said: Despite well-documented violations by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, there has been no accountability.

Saudi Arabia has failed to conduct credible, impartial and transparent investigations into possible war crimes and has used its position on the Human Rights Council, aided by its allies, to effectively obstruct the creation of an independent international investigation, as urged by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Saudi Arabia began airstrikes in Yemen in March 2015 in a bid to push back Shia Houthi rebels  who had gained control of vast swathes of the country  and prop up the ousted President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

International commentators have called the Yemen conflict a proxy war between Shia-dominated Iran and Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia.

Yemeni children walk on stones in front of buildings damaged by air strikes in Sanaa. More than 9,000 civilians have been killed in the 15-month conflict (AFP/Getty)

More than 9,000 people are believed to have been killed in the 15-month conflict with 14 million  approximately half the population  in need of emergency humanitarian assistance.

But Riyadh said in a statement it was alarmed and outraged by the claims, saying the coalitions main goal in Yemen was the protection of civilians.

A statement by the Saudi UN mission said: Saudi Arabia and the coalition have complied with international law at every stage in the campaign to restore Yemen's legitimate government.

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

We deeply regret any loss of life.

Saudi Arabias appointment to the 47-member OHCHR in 2013 caused widespread outrage as the country has been dubbed one of the most human rights abusing regimes on Earth.

The UK Government has been accused of voting for Saudi Arabia to join the council in a secret vote-swapping deal.
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Q Ive taken early retirement and before the referendum I was intending to go to Salamanca in Spain, learn Spanish and then settle somewhere in the country. Can I still go and live there - or do restrictions apply immediately?

Jacqueline F

A You can certainly go and live in Spain now. Until the day the UK leaves the European Union, British citizens are fully entitled to move freely, to live, study and work in any of the other 27 countries. That is likely to end two years after Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty is triggered.

What happens next, though? The short answer is: no one knows. Calling a referendum with no clear picture of what the alternative was to the status quo was an act of staggering incoherence.

Voters knew what the UKs relationship quo was like, and many people were unhappy with it. But the fundamental flaw of the referendum was that Leave voters could have no clear idea of what the relationship would look like after a Brexit. While the Remain side warned of dire consequences, the Leave lobby depicted a world in which the UK could break free from all the aspects of Europe that are unpopular, while retaining the parts that we like  such as the right to go and live in Spain.

Of course before Spain joined the European Community (as the EU was) in 1986, many British people lived and worked in Spain and vice versa. No doubt that situation will prevail once again, and it is unlikely that Spain will put up barriers to UK pensioners who are effectively transferring wealth from Britain to Spain. But neither I, nor you, nor anyone else knows what the rules will be.

Every day, our travel correspondent Simon Calder tackles a readers question. Just email yours to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder
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There were flickers of an idea, in the immediate aftershock of the Brexit vote, that a second referendum might soften, or even reverse, the separation of the UK from the European Union. It should now be clear, both from the response of EU leaders and from the statements of intention by all five candidates for the Conservative Party leadership, that there is no going back. At least not in the near future, and not on the same privileged terms as the UK currently enjoys.

Even the compromise models of semi-detachment  Norway and Switzerland  that would leave the UK as a member of the European Economic Area (EEA), but not the EU, have been effectively rejected because they presuppose free movement. It would be to fly in the face of the vote to accept essentially the same terms the UK has now, but without a seat at the decision-making table.

More to the point, there is no sign whatsoever that an EEA deal minus free movement would be on offer from the EU, both because of the risk of contagion  other countries seeking referendums on membership and special deals  and because the UK was already, to an extent, semi-detached in not being a member of either the Schengen zone or the euro. This special status is one reason why the immediate impact of the UKs departure on the European Union may be less, as seen from Brussels, than from London. The UK was never a full member of the club, either for economic or security purposes.

The UKs financial contribution, as the EUs second largest economy, will be missed  but not as much as it would have been without the Thatcher rebate. And when the chips were really down and the EU needed funds to help bail out first Ireland and then Greece, the UK preferred to work through the International Monetary Fund (IMF) so as to avoid the danger, for domestic politics, of appearing to share liability for improvident euro economies. The same would be possible again, if a post-Brexit UK saw it as being in its interests to fend off the collapse of the euro, which is not impossible, given the likely continuation of euro-denominated trade.

Without the UK, there would seem to be two ways for the EU to adjust and evolve, and a third  its eventual collapse, if the centre fails to hold under the pressure from the centrifugal forces unleashed by the UKs departure. In the longer term, complete disintegration cannot be ruled out. Doubts about the sustainability of the euro would be a big reason. But Brexit would be another. The UK is not only the first EU member to vote to leave  summarily reversing more than a half century of growth and expansion  but the second largest in terms of economic weight. It cannot be excluded that others might be tempted to follow.

For the time being, however, this looks unlikely. While Germany and France have been talking about increasing, rather than decreasing, cooperation, Angela Merkel has also spoken, in the immediate aftermath of the UKs vote, of how the EU needs to change to serve its members better, implicitly recognising a disconnect between Brussels and European electorates. One consequence could be a looser, more a la carte, European Union, with no expectation, for instance, that all members present and future would join the euro and an acceptance of national distinctions in benefits that could make it more difficult to move elsewhere for work. In that event, the UKs departure could spur the EU to develop in a way that might, paradoxically, have persuaded the UK to stay.

It is not at all apparent, however, that Germany, in particular, is ready to give up on the idea of ever closer union, if not in those exact words. Merkels first move after the UK referendum was to convene the six original members of the EU (then the Common Market), which offered a reminder of the early idealism. A revival of the political project, as envisaged at Maastricht in 1989, could speed evolution towards a two-speed Europe, with non-euro and non-Schengen countries, relegated to associate membership or similar, and others  such as Greece  leaving the euro to join them.

Such a pattern might make further expansion possible  even to the contested east, to include countries such as Ukraine. But there would be ambivalence in the countries of new Europe. On the one hand, they regarded EU membership as proof of their European credentials and would oppose any change that smacked of second-class status. On the other, they are loath to give up any of their sovereignty as newly restored nation states, as seen in their resistance to quotas for non-European refugees. So they might have no choice but to accept a two-tier Union, especially as the UK would no longer be there to champion their cause.

Which leads to a further conclusion. Whatever course the EU now takes, it is bound to look and feel rather different. Without the UK, it will be less Atlanticist and more Continental, in allegiances as in character. The US may maintain its presence and influence, but it will be as an outside power; the UK will not be there as bridge or proxy, and no amount of talking between Berlin and Washington will alter that.

The distinction between the EU and Nato, which had been lessening, could also sharpen again, as the UK leaves the former but remains a force in the latter, and Germany  with its queasiness about military engagements  becomes the ultimate arbiter in the EU.
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Its hard to imagine now, but for the 15 or 20 years following the event no one talked about the Holocaust. The capture and trial in Israel of Adolf Eichmann was the moment when that began to change. But no one did more to imprint the memory of the 20th centurys European genocide on our collective consciousness than Elie Wiesel, with his haunting writing, his face etched with time and experience and the irreparable sadness in his eyes.

In his later years, he was not so much witness of the unspeakable as a metaphor for Israel. If you disagreed with Israels policies towards the Palestinians, if you believed that a people who had suffered so much should understand the miseries they were inflicting on another people, then you would not appreciate Wiesel and his blind spot towards the Palestinians.

He fought for the rights of the oppressed and persecuted elsewhere in the world  the Soviet Jews, the Bosnians and Kosovans in the former Yugoslavia, and the victims of the Rwandan genocide. Constantly, he warned of the abyss into which racism might lead us. But he seemed indifferent to the plight of the people next door to Israel, under effective occupation, the rump territory allotted to them eroded by settlements, their rights as a state denied to them.

If you disliked the grip that Israel had on the politics of America, its great protector in the world, and Americas reflexive support for the Jewish state, then Wiesel would make you uneasy. If there was a prime mover for the creation of a Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, rather than in Europe where the crime was committed, it was Elie Wiesel.

Oddly, despite his unswerving devotion to its cause, and his towering international standing, he was never as revered in Israel itself, even though he was twice offered the countrys presidency (a prestigious but purely symbolic office). That reflects the countrys inherent disputatiousness: the feeling of the Israeli left that he never criticised the government, the belief of the right that because Wiesel didnt live in Israel he wasnt really part of the national debate. There was also the simple fact the country was full of Holocaust survivors.

Yet all this pales beside his service to history. The Holocaust was the most unspeakable, unhuman event of modern human history. Yet for a while it was almost passed over in silence. Wiesels life mission was that that immeasurable atrocity should never be forgotten. That determination has sometimes not suited everyone. Whatever you think of his bias towards Israel, never forget that it was born of a determination the like should never happen again. A vain hope perhaps; awareness of history is no guarantee that it will not be repeated  such is the immutability of human nature.

And who are we who never suffered to judge? I wasnt a boy at Auschwitz, with A-7713 branded on his arm, who watched his family, and his people, die.
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Of the many inane things uttered during the referendum campaign and its aftermath possibly the most fatuous came from the mouth of Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi last Thursday morning on Radio 4.

You dont have to have a trade-off, Mr Zahawi insisted several times, when John Humphrys of the Today programme pressed him about the future of Britains economic relations with the rest of the European Union. Actually the opposite is true. In this world, one almost always has to have a trade-off.

But what is a trade-off? So grievously misled and woefully under-informed have ordinary people been left by politicians and large sections of the media in recent months that its worth spelling it out.

Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Show all 12 1 /12 Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Brexit protest: Thousands march in London A woman poses with a home-made European Union flag as Remain supporters gather on Park Lane in London to show their support for the EU in the wake of Brexit PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Remain supporters demonstrate in Parliament Square PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Tens of thousands of people gathered to protest the result of the EU referendum PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London A majority of people in the capital voted to remain in the European Union Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Protesters chanted: What do we want to do? Stay in the EU PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The march follows a similar rally in Trafalgar Square that was cancelled due to heavy rain  but which tens of thousands of people turned up to anyway Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Britain voted to leave the European Union in a referendum by 52 per cent to 48 per cent Reuters Brexit protest: Thousands march in London But support for the Leave campaign in urban areas and among young people was significantly lower Rex features Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Marchers gathered at Park Lane at 11am and marched towards Parliament Square PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London Some protesters held up baguettes in a display of affection for our continental neighbours PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The disparity between different parts of the country has promoted a four million signature petition calling for a second referendum and even a renewed push for Scotland to cede from the UK PA Brexit protest: Thousands march in London The events organiser, Kings College graduate Kieran MacDermott, wrote: We can prevent Brexit by refusing to accept the referendum as the final say and take our finger off the self-destruct button" Reuters

To put it simply, in life you cannot have everything. There are sometimes two or more desirable things that you want but which you cannot enjoy simultaneously. Having one thing means you cannot have the other. Or it means having more of one thing means you must have less of the other. In choosing, you have to trade off different benefits.

To put the point in terms even an obtuse Conservative MP might understand, the party can elect a new leader with Theresa Mays track record of administrative competence or it can elect a leader with Michael Goves iconoclastic zeal. But the party cannot do both. These are two different people and there is only one position of leader. There has to be a choice made by MPs; there must be a trade-off.

This logic dominates decision making in families, in economics, in politics, in international relations  indeed, in just about every element of our individual and collective lives.

There are, it is true, sometimes win-win scenarios out there. Loving one of your two children does not mean you have to love the other any less, for instance. But these examples are vanishingly rare. In most areas of life, we do have to choose.

Recommended Read more Brexit could finally spark reform of the EU

And the trade-off logic certainly applies in relation to the most important question of the moment: Britains future relations with the rest of the EU.

It might be possible for Britain to retain access to the European Unions single market for goods and services without being a full part of the bloc. Norway has this arrangement. Thats certainly a very important benefit as far as the UKs exporters are concerned. And its something many pro-Brexit Tory politicians appear to want.

But theres another benefit these politicians desire: a liberation from the European Union rules which give people the right to work in any of the countries of the bloc. While the UK might secure a Norway-style arrangement, European politicians have made it very clear they will not agree to this while also permitting the UK to opt out of free movement of people. Norway is required to allow free movement as the price of its single market access.

The reasons are obvious. Britain is not the only country where there is popular opposition to immigration. If the UK is allowed to retain the manifold benefits of the single market while also pulling up the drawbridge in the face of EU migration, many of the other 27 member states would surely demand similar deals. Eventually the single market  which is built on the foundation of free movement  would collapse.

So, in the real world, the Brexiteers two desires have to be traded off: freedom of movement versus the single market.

And, in truth, this was always the trade-off that would need to be faced in the event of a Brexit vote. The scandal of the referendum campaign is that Leave politicians never admitted it, or discussed how they would approach it. They encouraged the public to believe that in voting to leave their livelihoods would not suffer (thanks largely to retaining single market access) but that Britain would also be able to drastically reduce immigration.

Its not just anti-immigration Brexiteers who refuse to recognise trade-offs. Trade unionists often demand that governments make it much harder for firms to shed workers, failing to acknowledge that this can have the side effect of curbing overall employment. Environmentalists lobby against new housing developments that might harm local wildlife, failing to acknowledge that putting a brake on construction means fewer homes for young families in the area.

That a particular course of action has a negative side effect does not make it wrong. But there is a depressing tendency to deny that those negative impacts exist  or to seek to blame them on other outside forces, such as the wickedness of employers, or greedy outsiders hogging scarce local housing.

 Brexit: Queen calls for calm amid complex and demanding times

Speaking of which, how long will it be before the economic pain of Brexit is cynically attributed to the vindictiveness of the rest of Europe and its refusal to give the UK everything it demands?

My policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it. That line can be found in a book titled The Wit and Wisdom of Boris Johnson. Yet, as weve seen, theres no wisdom in there. And the jokes really not funny anymore, as Britain is left to navigate an agonising trade-off that he and others denied.

Conviction politicians are often admired. We tend to think its a good thing when people have strong principles and stick to their guns, even when we disagree with them. Yet conviction needs to be married to honesty and openness to be admirable.

When politicians deny the existence of trade-offs they are not only deluded  they are dangerous.
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All that glisters is, of course, not gold ... and all that is gold doesnt necessarily shine, especially dirty gold.

We wear it, we trade it and  if youre the sort of person who frequents the restaurants where gold leaf on food is the highest mark of ostentatious opulence  we even eat it. But most of us dont worry too much about where the gold comes from.

Gold mining is considered to be one of the most environmentally unfriendly forms of mineral extraction. The process creates massive amounts of toxic waste  20 tonnes for every gold ring  and it ravages landscapes such as the Amazon. Plus its not the most ethical of industries. For gold miners in developing countries, the wages are low and the risks are high  especially for the estimated 600,000 children working in the industry worldwide.

And gold-rich countries are often riven by war, the horrors in the Democratic Republic of Congo being a case in point.

Santiago Ramirez Castro (Linda Sharkey)

But if youre looking at that ring in the jewellers window with a fresh pair of eyes, and a rather unpalatable taste in your mouth, dont despair. Theres a growing movement against dirty gold utilising the Fairtrade practices that are common in the food and textile industries, and aim to provide gold that is ethically sourced, environmentally sound and gives those who mine it a much better deal in life.

Youll find Fairtrade gold mines in South America, especially Peru, Bolivia and Columbia, and in Africa. In Peru the gold-mining industry isnt regulated and three-quarters of the mines there are whats politely called informal  in fact, its said theres more illegal gold than cocaine in Peru.

The Macdesa mine, an 11-hour drive from Lima through unforgiving dusty, rocky mountains, is one example of a mine that operates on more ethical lines. Its run by 300 partners, miners and former miners who started up the business, then managed to get organise and reinvest in the development of the mines. Today they produce 25 kg of Fairtrade gold a month and serve as home to 550 families from different backgrounds, housed in the town that has sprung up around the mine. And on a visit there, I saw the fruits of their labours: their modern machinery and trucks. (In the past, they used to carry 60kg of rocks on their back up the hill.) They have decent living standards, and a school properly equipped with spacious classrooms, computers, a playground and a healthy canteen.

We had a vision and we believed in this, said Santiago Ramirez Castro, partner and legal advisor of Macdesa. The co-op reinvested everything they earned for years to buy machinery, efficient equipment and new clean technology, as well as engineering skills and transport.

On a bigger scale but run on similar lines is the nearby Sotrami mine, where  thanks to Fairtrade  says miner Cesar Neira: Weve managed to work together with technologies that wont affect the environment, weve prohibited the use of toxic substances such as mercury, and eradicated child labour. And the next biggest improvement for the community? Clean drinking water.

Its all very commendable, of course, but is there an actual market for Fairtrade gold in the developed world? Do we care where our gold comes from? Well, if we dont, we should, says Alan Frampton, owner and chief executive of ethical British jeweller Cred.

When you buy a wedding ring and its a token of love or commitment to somebody and you dont know where it comes from, I find that atrocious, he says. Some 248,000 people got married in the UK in 2014, and they want to know that their contracts of love, represented in those rings, are made of materials that have been bought with integrity, because otherwise its nonsense.

Cred began dealing in Fairtrade jewellery a decade ago. It was the first retailer in Europe to sell independently certified products, while sticking to high street prices. And since 2011, all its products have been Fairtrade, selling worldwide and online  and challenging many other jewellers in the UK.

Says Frampton: You buy food in England and on the packet it will tell you the ingredients and what its made of, but not in the jewellery trade. You buy an engagement ring for between 2,000 and 5,000 and you know nothing about it! So yes, I saw it as a business opportunity but I also felt compassionate for the people producing that gold. I felt I wanted to do something to improve their standards.

(Linda Sharkey (Linda Sharkey)

In March this year, a shipment of 15kg of Fairtrade gold was delivered to the UK, landing on the doorstep of the ethical jeweler  thats enough gold to make more than 3,700 wedding bands. But compare that to the latest UK gold import figures from the Observatory for Economic Complexity which show that in 2014 we brought into this country gold to the value of a whopping 8 billion.

Still, while there might be a long way to go before Fairtrade gold is widespread in the developed world, more and more companies are getting involved, among them Welsh jewellery giant Clogau As Sonia Menezes, Head of Brand Development, explains: We have seen, first hand, the positive impact the Fairtrade foundation is having on the gold mining communities in Peru, which is so much more than just paying a miner a fair price.

Also visiting the mines in Peru was British jeweller Alexis Dove, who runs a shop in Lewes, East Sussex, and is now offering Fairtrade gold as an option. I came here because you want to see if its a genuine thing. We dont want to see that what we most love doing is making other peoples life hard and unhappy. So this is an opportunity to do some good.

However, one of the biggest bars to Fairtrade gold taking off is that, like anything ethical, it comes at a premium. Fairtrade gold costs $2,000 (1,350) per kilogram on top of the current gold price. Yet, says Creds Alan Frampton, thats not just a price worth paying; its also hardly noticeable to the consumer:

Lets say a ring costs 400. The actual cost of the gold in that ring has probably cost you about 80, so the difference in paying the extra for Fairtrade is very little  about 2 per cent more.

You have the power to choose how you spend the pound in your pocket, he continues. And you can even raise the gold standard.
A woman holds a sign in Whitehall, London, as Remain supporters march to Parliament Square to take part in the March for Europe rally to show their support for the European Union in the wake of Brexit. Photo: Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA Wire

The UK's decision to leave the European Union has dramatically reversed the return of tentative public confidence here, a landmark Sunday Independent/Millward Brown opinion poll has found.

The Brexit impact immediately led to a massive eight-point drop in the percentage of people who felt that they would be better off next year.

The poll has also found an increase in support for Fine Gael and Fianna Fail and a sharp drop in support for Independents which, along with other findings, may reflect a desire for political stability here post-Brexit.

While the Brexit vote has flattened but not totally shot public confidence, today's opinion poll will cause deep concern at Government level and throughout the business community.

Read more: Poll excluisve: Public confidence in Independents crashes

The finding underlines how urgent it will be for the Government to secure a good deal for Ireland in trade talks between the EU and the UK.

The state of the parties is: Fine Gael (30pc), up four points; Fianna Fail (26pc), up two points; Sinn Fein (20pc), up six points; Labour (7pc), unchanged and Independents/others (14pc), down 13 points.

In the Sunday Independent today, Paul Moran, associate director of Millward Brown writes: "On paper, it would seem that Sinn Fein have seen a dramatic boost in their fortunes. But Sinn Fein is a party that often flatters to deceive when there is no general election."

However, the poll has also found that just a quarter (25pc) think Enda Kenny should remain as Taoiseach, and 56pc think he should resign. A slim majority (54pc) of Fine Gael voters think he should remain.

Read more: A national unity government can help us navigate uncharted waters

The Fianna Fail leader, Micheal Martin (43pc), up 16 points since the last comparable poll taken during the election in February, is by far the most popular party leader.

"It would seem that Micheal Martin's statesman-like decision to support the Government (in some circumstances) is paying dividends," Mr Moran writes today.

The nationwide poll was conducted among a 1,000 representative sample over 13 days before and after the Brexit vote up to June 30. The margin of error is 3.1pc.

The most significant finding was that the percentage of people who thought they would be better off next year plummeted during polling from 27pc to 19pc immediately after the Brexit vote.

Overall, 22pc of people feel they will be better off and 22pc feel they will be worse off next year.

However, before the Brexit result, 27pc felt they would be better off and 20pc felt that they would be worse off.

At 27pc, the number of people who felt they would have been better off had returned to late Celtic Tiger levels and was at its highest level since the economic crash in 2008.

But virtually overnight, and throughout the week after the Brexit vote, public confidence nosedived to levels not seen since 2013 and 2014.

Read more: Our economy depends on Kenny being stronger in the face of a dual crisis

In tandem, the percentage of people who feel they will be worse off, or in the same situation next year, has increased.

The Government will also be anxious to restore consumer confidence in the period before those talks get under way and are concluded in two to three years' time.

Writing in the Sunday Independent today, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Paschal Donohoe states: "As a small open economy, Ireland is also particularly susceptible to external risks.

"The biggest of these is, of course, the decision taken by our neighbours in the UK to leave the European Union."

Also writing in this newspaper, the Transport Minister, Shane Ross predicts: "The 'Leave' decision will be reversed. Britain and Europe will breathe a collective sigh of relief. Democracy will be pronounced to have prevailed.

"The entire venture will be deemed a lucky escape. No one will be luckier than Ireland if Britain remains in the Union."

Today's opinion poll also finds that the new Government's satisfaction levels remain similar to the previous administration, at 28pc.

However, the instability caused by Brexit may well prolong the life of the Government.

More than seven in 10 (72pc) believe that the Government will last no more than two years.

But an analysis of interviews conducted before and after the Brexit result suggests that people are drifting towards the upper end of that time scale: those who believed the Government would last 18 months to two years shifted from 29pc to 38pc.

"It may well be that stability, in the short-term at least, is the most sensible option," according to Paul Moran of Millward Brown.

Read more: Martina Devlin on Brexit: The game changer that could finally bring unity

Read more: Post-Brexit, and post-Boris, Ireland needs Britain to get the 'right' deal
As Irish exporters deal with the implications of the UK vote to leave the EU, Enterprise Ireland is working closely with clients to respond to the situation as it unfolds.

It is important to remember that it will be over two years before any new trade agreement can be put in place. The UK must first formally inform the other EU member states of its intention to withdraw, and only then can the two-year withdrawal period commence.

The key issue in the short term for Irish exporters is managing their exposure to currency volatility.

We have been in contact with hundreds of Irish exporters to the UK in the past week, many of whom have put in place currency risk-management policies. We are advising clients who have not already done so, to take professional advice if they do not have experience in this relatively complex area.

To help companies understand the key considerations in managing forex risk, we have published a webinar on our website, in which John Finn of Treasury Solutions outlines some of the issues exporters should be thinking about, including reviewing foreign exchange policy, hedging options, calculating break-even currency rate for UK sales and bank loan agreements.

The UK is and will remain a key market for Enterprise Ireland clients who recorded over 7.5bn in exports last year. This will continue to be the case, and we will be continuing to actively help exporters deepen and strengthen their presence there by helping them become as lean and as innovative as possible.

We are advising companies to seek new UK opportunities, through our UK office which is active in identifying openings in financial services, aerospace, health, infrastructure and more.

That said, over recent years, we have been working with companies to help them diversify globally.

Enterprise Ireland recently announced record export results by client companies, breaking the 20bn threshold for the first time. This represents an increase of 10pc on the previous year. In terms of the UK, we have actually seen more companies diversify and as a result the proportion of exports to the UK has declined from 45pc in 2005 to 37pc last year.

Our results also show how Irish exporters' diversification strategies into other markets is working. Exports increased across most territories with those to the USA and Canada increasing by 27pc to almost 3bn; and exports to Northern Europe were up 8pc to 4.2bn.

In general terms, we are driving competitiveness in Irish companies through a suite of supports that help companies reduce supply-chain costs and become leaner; increasing efficiencies and reducing costs as a means of improving operating margins. Another area we are focusing on is our international clustering strategy which involves bringing sectoral clusters of companies to global markets.

We will also be hosting an International Markets Week in early October where we will bring over 70 of our international market advisors back to Ireland to meet clients and help them map out their market diversification strategies.

As this period of uncertainty and currency volatility continues, Enterprise Ireland will continue to develop and implement supports for client companies. Next week, we will publish a practical guide on key areas such as tax, legal, supply chain, market diversification and competitiveness.

In order to assist clients, we have set up a dedicated UK export page on the Enterprise Ireland website, and a UK export help line. The website answers some FAQs, which we will add to over time and also will provide access to a range of relevant information. We have also published a Five Pillars of Enterprise Ireland Support - an information guide for Irish exporters to the UK which outlines our plans.
Two sites in Castleblayney, Co Monaghan for which Zurich Bank extended a loan of 32m in 2007 to finance the development of a shopping centre were sold prior to being offered for auction by Allsop last Thursday at a fraction of their boom-era valuation.

The 25-unit Castleblayney Shopping Centre had been due to go under the hammer in Dublin's RDS at a reserve price of between 320,000 and 440,000.

An adjoining 2.27 acre parcel of land meanwhile carried a reserve price of 70,000.

Both properties were however acquired by a single buyer in advance of being offered for sale for "significantly above their reserves", said a spokeswoman for Allsop auctioneers.

The Castleblayney centre's former owner and developer, Jim McConnon, began assembling the site in 2004 with a view to expanding his existing shop - a Supervalu which he owned and operated on the town's Main Street. With property prices already spiralling, McConnon paid a combined 6.5m for two sites. Following the addition of 1.6m in groundworks and other costs the shopkeeper's total outlay ended up approaching 10m - borrowed from AIB.

Professional plans drawn up for the completion of the centre assessed the total cost at 32m. However AIB pulled its support for the project in late 2006.

Following AIB's withdrawal, Zurich Bank took its place as lender on the project, extending a loan for the 32m to McConnon.

While he continued to work on the Castleblayney Centre up until 2009, by March of that year, the project was on its knees.

Prior to the collapse of the economy, a professional valuation appraised the sites as being worth 15.5m and 14.5m apiece.

McConnon was adjudicated bankrupt after Zurich Bank obtained a 32m judgment against him over his unpaid loans.

In the course of delivering a judgement in McConnon's case in 2012, Mr Justice Peter Kelly told him he was sorry for him, saying: "Every day of the week, I am dealing with people in similar circumstances. I know it's no consolation to you, but you're not alone."
The opening half of 2016 has been disappointing for the Irish residential market, with a deepening of the crisis in terms of the lack of stock available to buy and rent across the country.

Despite the underlying strength of the economy and of consumer sentiment, the residential market has failed to respond. Data available from the Property Price Register (PPR) reveals that the level of transactions in the opening three months of 2016 was 9pc lower than the comparable period in 2015. Notably, a comparison between sales recorded in the PPR and the mortgage drawdown data suggests that cash buyers accounted for 48pc of all residential transactions in the opening months of 2016.

Secondly an analysis of the stock of property available to sell reveals that it has fallen to the lowest point on record, with only 26,800 units advertised for sale in Ireland in January. This represents 1.4pc of the private housing stock.

Equally disappointing is an analysis of commencement data, which suggests that the quantity of stock completed this year could well fall below the low levels of construction in 2015.

Furthermore, the mismatch between the quantity of private investors entering and leaving the market still persists. An analysis of the profile of vendors who sold their property through Sherry FitzGerald in the opening quarter of 2016 revealed that 34pc were selling investment properties, while the sales that occurred as a result of bank repossession stood at 12pc. This suggests that potentially 46pc of all sales were investors off-loading their investment properties. In contrast, only 19pc of properties were purchased by investors.

This trend suggests that for every one private investor who has bought into the market during the year to date, two have exited. This is not a new trend, it has been evident for over five years and it is having a debilitating impact on the rental sector. As such, the crisis in the housing market has deepened and this is placing a significant burden on our competitiveness, with rising rents damaging the viability of our cities for foreign direct investment (FDI).

It is vital that our new minister for housing addresses the barriers to activity and development in the market and seeks to halt the loss of rental accommodation from the market. If anything, this has become even more urgent, given the shocking result from the UK referendum.

Brexit is clearly not good news for the Irish economy in so many ways; however, there may be a small silver lining. There is a growing view that Ireland may see an uplift in occupier demand from the FDI sector. In particular, Dublin is likely to benefit from increased demand from financial services companies in need of an EU base. This will also lead to increased demand for housing.

As such, it is imperative that the Government takes immediate action to remove the barriers to both construction and activity in order to allow a more normally functioning and responsive market to re-emerge.
Ireland has lost one of its prime filming locations to property development, setting the film industry back at least 20m in revenue.

Clancy Barracks in Islandbridge, Dublin 8, home to BBC period dramas Ripper Street and Quirke, is being developed by US property investment firm Kennedy Wilson, which owns the Clancy Quay apartment complexes on site.

Expand Close The spot was used to shoot scenes in Ripper Street. Pic credit; Damien Eagers / Facebook

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The former military barracks, spread across 13 acres, was the perfect backdrop for period dramas, with cobbled ground, original red-brick buildings and horses' stables.

Purchased by Kennedy Wilson for 82m in 2013, the barracks was partially developed into apartment blocks. Phase two of Clancy Quay launched last week, with planning permission for 800 units in total.

Edmund Sampson, a film and TV locations manager who scouted the site for Ripper Street and Quirke in 2012, said: "Of course it would be nice for that property to remain within the film industry, but I don't see how we can do anything about that. Clancy Barracks provided a varied mix of red-brick and cottage terraced visual backdrops, which is incredibly attractive, and it was an empty space and a controlled environment."

Ripper Street, a drama set in 19th-century London and based on the Jack the Ripper murders, was shot in Clancy Barracks for two seasons for 19 weeks at a time in 2012 and 2013. The show, which was a co-production between Dublin-based Element Pictures and the UK's Tiger Aspect Productions, brought in 8m to the Irish economy. Production on season three had to move to Dublin city-centre locations as construction had begun on Clancy Quay apartments.

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Another BBC drama, Quirke, starring Gabriel Byrne as a pathologist in 1950s Dublin, shot all three episodes at the former barracks in 2012.

Other productions filmed there include 2012 film Shadow Dancer and the 12-parter Titanic: Blood and Steel, which contributed 12m to the economy. Ireland remains an attractive location, with Section 481 - the incentive allowing film-makers to avail of 32pc tax relief - still in position.

James Hickey, CEO of the Irish Film Board, says Ireland is open for business as usual to UK and overseas productions, despite the UK voting in favour of Brexit. Section 481 still applies to UK productions filming here, as the UK did not vote to leave the Council of Europe, which is the organisation the tax relief programme falls under.

"Our continued membership of the EU is part of the reason we'd be saying to people they should consider locating production in Ireland," he added.
Number 23 Ely Place in Dublin city centre was in need of substantial refurbishment and sold recently for just under 900,000

The Georgian office market in Dublin 2 has been attracting growing interest from a range of buyers, both owner-occupiers and investors, including some overseas investors.

Stephen Conway of Colliers International says the typical profile of purchasers is generally local and international high net worth investors. "There is also an increase in interest from parties looking to convert Georgians back into residential - this is particularly evident on the squares (Merrion and Fitzwilliam)," he adds.

David Bennett of DTZ Sherry FitzGerald agrees, adding: "There is a steady flow of cash buyers for purchasing Georgian properties spread across Irish, European and US purchasers. UK purchasers have been quiet recently in the lead-up to Brexit."

Prices can vary widely depending on the condition and location of the property. Those in good condition on the squares are considered to be prime Georgians, achieving in the region of 600 per sq ft.

At the other end of the market, prices are much cheaper, especially in Dublin 1. The exception is North Great George's Street, which experiences demand from both office and residential purchasers, while Eccles Street continues to benefit from demand from consultants attending the Mater Hospital.

"Prices (for prime) are still well short of the highs of 1,500 per sq ft achieved in 2007 but they represent a substantial increase on the 500 to 550 per sq ft levels achieved last year," says Conway.

DTZ sold 17 Merrion Square in an off-market transaction in early 2015 for a price which equated to 500 per sq ft, which was a strong price at the time and reflected the premium that can be achieved in Merrion Square.

Since then, the scale of price recovery could be as much as 30pc over the last 12 months. Last July, a Georgian in good condition - 63 Lower Leeson Street, Dublin 2 - sold for 462 per sq ft when it sold for 1.56m at an Allsop auction.

Georgian office rents have also been increasing, but again vary depending on the location and condition of the properties. David Bennett says they have crept up in the last year, with rent in excess of 35 per sq ft being secured. Conway says a rent of around 45 per sq ft was achieved recently for 98 and 99 St Stephen's Green, a "very nice space, substantially refurbished" Georgian.

Number 23 Ely Place, which sold recently for just under 900,000, attained the equivalent of just under 400 per sq ft but was in need of substantial refurbishment.

An interesting feature of the Georgian market is that it attracts the interest of investors who enjoy undertaking refurbishment work, which can add value to the property. Such investors are more likely to seek vacant properties even if it means losing existing tenants.

Take the example of a property let to a number of tenants on short-term five-year leases which were negotiated during the crash at low rents. While some investors prefer tenanted properties with, the potential to generate income from day one, with demand and rents rising, a growing number of Georgian buyers prefer vacant properties which they can work on immediately, refurbish and then let to a single tenant on a better covenant for a longer lease of 15 years.

Stephen Conway says while there is a continued upward trend in capital values for Georgian properties, the demand for prime, well-presented Georgians overlooking Fitzwilliam Square is "particularly acute".

Colliers recently sold two properties on this square to international investors.

The most recent of these was 40 Fitzwilliam Square, which went for 2.1m, or 100,000 over its guide price, equating to 507.80 per sq ft. The four-storey over-basement property extends to 4,135 sq ft and includes a two-bedroom apartment and five car-parking spaces.

Conway says there was a keen response to the recent launch of 26 Fitzwilliam Square, which he describes as "one of the finest Georgian buildings to come to the market over the last year or so". Interest in the property was particularly strong, with the property appealing to both owner occupiers and investors.

David Bennett plans to launch a pair of Georgians on Lower Baggot Street and Leeson Street in the near future at prices in the 1.35 million to 1.9 million range.

Many of the value-added investors will opt for the smaller Georgians in Dublin 4 and Dublin 6 which are in poorer condition as they are more affordable. These are also more likely to be restored to residential use.
Construction on the solar plant is set to start this month on an 800-hectare plot, about half of which will be covered with solar panels. Photo: Stock Image

Irish solar energy group BNRG has committed to developing $200m worth of solar assets in the US.

The company has acquired rights from local developers in Oregon and New England to develop 140 megawatts of large, utility-scale solar energy projects.

Each project already has a state-backed power purchase agreement - a commitment by a US state to buy power at an index-linked price for 20 years.

It will cost around $200m in total to develop everything. Construction should begin next year.

This is BNRG's first foray into the US. Until now it has been mainly focused in Europe.

The company is led by Irish environmental scientist David Maguire. His decision to target the US was partly prompted by a decision by Congress last year to extend investment tax credits for renewable energy until 2021.

The US was already one of the world's biggest clean-energy investors. Last week it joined Mexico and Canada in setting a goal that at least 50pc of North America's energy will come from "clean" sources by 2025.

"The US has policy certainty and has made a clear commitment to renewable energy," Maguire told the

At home, he and other solar energy com- panies are calling on the Government to introduce subsidies for solar energy.

The Irish Solar Energy Association said solar is the only renewable energy technology that does not qualify for any form of a subsidy in Ireland. It claimed this puts Ireland's ability to meet EU 2020 targets for renewable energy at risk.

"Despite the successful deployment of wind energy in Ireland, which had considerable state support, wind alone will not ensure we reach that goal. However, solar, which is a material part of the established solution for other countries, is still in its embryonic state here," it said.
The MSC Splendida cruise liner being towed stern first into Dublin Port last year. The Splendida, ranked the 11th-longest cruise ship in the world, is the longest ship ever to call at the port.

Dublin Port Company, the wholly State-owned commercial company that operates Dublin Port, is poised to buy 40 hectares of motorway-connected land adjacent to the capital to support its future growth.

The DPC, which is enjoying a record growth phase and is set to pay a 10.9m dividend to the State this year, has just commenced a 230m redevelopment of the Alexandra Basin.

The redevelopment, which involves rebuilding more than 40pc of the port and increasing the basin's depth to 10 metres, will allow the port to host some of the world's largest cruise ships, such as the 18-deck MSC Splendida and the Disney Magic, whose horn blast plays an excerpt from Disney's famous flagship tune,

The redevelopment, which will allow cruise ship passengers to travel by Luas or foot to Dublin city centre, will be completed by 2020.

However, Ireland's premier deep-water port, currently operating on a 260-hectare area of land, plans to double its container business from 20 Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEU) per annum to 40 TEUs and to handle 60 million tonnes a year by 2040.

The DPC handled some 32.8 million gross tonnes last year and has paid dividends of almost 90m to the State since 2007.

To ensure that its estate maximises its cargo-handling capacity, the DPC is contemplating the acquisition of a significant, 40-hectare (almost 99 acres) land bank adjacent to the motorway and accessible by the Dublin Port Tunnel.

Over 30pc of all goods arriving in Dublin port remain within the M50 area, while 60pc of all goods arriving at the port remain within 80km of the port.

It is anticipated that the motorway-connected site will, in future, accommodate non-core activities, such as trade car storage.

The company did not respond to queries about the planned acquisition.

However, it is understood that the purchasing proposal has already been approved by the DPC board. The company says that integrating Dublin Port with Dublin city and its people is "a core aim" of its Masterplan 2012 to 2040.

But it insists it cannot relinquish land that may be required for port purposes in the future.

Earlier this year, DPC boss Eamonn O'Reilly warned that it may have to revisit plans to infill 21 hectares (52 acres) of Dublin Bay if Dublin City Council does not change the city development plan to accommodate the port.

The redevelopment of the Nama-controlled former Irish Glass Bottle site is expected to see the provision of up to 3,000 homes in the Poolbeg peninsula in Dublin.

Bought for more than 400m in 2006, but worth less than 50m today, the site is part of a 34-hectare land bank in Dublin 4 that will benefit from a fast-track planning process.

However, the port company, which is planning an average annual growth rate of 3.3pc over the 30 years between 2010 and 2040, wants 18 hectares of its lands excluded from the plan.
Several of the country's biggest property developers have said Ireland's economy is poised to reap the potential benefits that could flow from the UK's decision to vote in favour of Brexit.

In interviews with today's Sunday Independent, developers Michael O'Flynn, Paddy McKillen and Luke Comer express the view that Dublin is especially well-placed to attract international compan- ies and financial institutions seeking to locate their operations in the European Union following Britain's departure.

Mr O'Flynn says it is time for the IDA "to go into overdrive" to ensure that the nega- tive impact of Brexit on the Irish economy is offset by the gains Ireland could make by virtue of its location and status as an EU member state.

Read more: Developers weigh up opportunities for Ireland following UK Brexit decision

He warns, however, that the country's housing crisis could deepen as a consequence of the increased demand for rental accommodation that would arise from the movement of thousands of jobs from the UK to Ireland.

The Cork-based developer calls on Housing Minister Simon Coveney to factor the effect of Brexit into his plans to address the issue.

"I think Minister Coveney's problem has just become a bigger one. Thankfully, the problem has come within his first 100 days, so that gives him the opportunity to be even more ambitious now, so Ireland will at least be in a position to take up the opportunities that might come our way," he says.

Mr McKillen says Ireland needs to "step up our welcome" in the wake of the Brexit vote.

"There has to be a positive there for Ireland. If an American or Asian company or bank wants to launch into Europe from an English-speaking base, then Ireland's the place," he says.

Comer Group chief Mr Comer says he would expect Brexit to be good for Dublin if any of the major banks based in London decide to move to a European base.

"They could look at Frankfurt and ask, 'Do we need to be in Frankfurt? Or can we just go to Dublin where we can operate in the very heart of Europe using the English language?' he says.

"Ireland is one of the strongest members of the EU. I think they might say, 'We'll go to Dublin'."
The ISEQ index of Irish shares posted further losses as the repercussions of the UK's vote to leave the European Union continued to unfold.

The index closed the week down 2.18pc at 5,749.96, its lowest Friday close since February last year.

The ISEQ lost almost 8pc on Friday, June 24 after the Brexit result, and this week it underperformed the FTSE 100, which closed higher on Friday than it was on the day before the referendum was held.

BoI, Dalata and Kingspan, each with significant exposure to the UK, were the biggest laggards of the Friday-to-Friday period in Dublin, losing 34.2pc, 26.1pc and 23.9pc respectively.

Kerry and Glanbia were among the few companies who posted weekly gains, up 1.7pc and 0.4pc. Irish 10-year bond yields hit a record low during the week, with analysts saying the fall was due to expectations that the ECB would do more to stimulate the European economy after the Brexit vote.

The FTSE 100 ended June as the best performer among developed markets tracked by Bloomberg. The weakening of the currency and Bank of England governor Mark Carney's reassurance that the bank is ready to loosen policy pushed the gauge to its highest level since August. The FTSE 100 rallied 7.2pc in the week, its biggest jump since 2011, as it surged 10pc in four days.

Meanwhile, the Stoxx Europe 600 Index added 0.7pc on Friday, capping its biggest weekly gain in a month.

Shares extended gains on Friday after Michael Gove, in the fray to become the next prime minister, said he does not expect the formal mechanism for leaving the EU to be triggered this year. Home Secretary Theresa May, the bookies' favourite to replace David Cameron, has said the same.

Additional reporting by Bloomberg
Providence will be given a "new lease of life" by the cash injection, which will allow it to pay off debts, drill a new well and find a partner to develop its most valuable asset, said O'Reilly. Photo: Finbarr O'Rourke

Providence Resources chief executive Tony O'Reilly Junior will up his stake as part of a 66m share sale designed to rescue the exploration company.

Existing shareholders were invited to take part in the sale and O'Reilly is choosing to do so, opting to invest more than is required to maintain his stake.

Providence will be given a "new lease of life" by the cash injection, which will allow it to pay off debts, drill a new well and find a partner to develop its most valuable asset, said O'Reilly.

Long-term institutional London-based investors have committed to buying shares alongside some existing investors.

Shareholders will vote on the plan in less than a fortnight.

Providence has had a difficult few months. Shares were suspended last April following a ruling by the Court of Appeal in London, which ordered it to pay up to $7m to drilling services firm Transocean.

The ruling threatened the firm's viability at a time when it was struggling to secure investment for its flagship Barryroe Field off the coast of Cork.

O'Reilly said he felt years of investment in offshore Ireland have been "vindicated" by recent interest from the world's biggest oil companies in Irish waters.

"My family, from my father's earliest forays in this sector, has probably invested around $70m in it - and we haven't seen it back yet," he said.

"But we fundamentally believe that offshore Ireland has huge potential."
The controversy surrounding Nama's sale of its 5.6bn par value Northern Ireland loan book to US private-equity giant Cerberus has intensified, with Independent TD Mick Wallace alleging that a senior executive at Fortress, an unsuccessful bidder, told him that the bidding process was "horrifically uncompetitive".

Speaking in the Dail last Wednesday, during the debate on a private member's motion in which he called on the Government to establish a commission of investigation into Nama's sale of Project Eagle, Wallace used parliamentary privilege to dispute Nama's insistence that there had been "sufficient competitive tension" between Cerberus and Fortress to continue the bidding process.

Ultimately, Cerberus secured Nama's Northern Ireland loan portfolio, paying 1.241bn (1.48bn) - or just 1m above the reserve price of 1.241bn. Fortress, its sole rival for Project Eagle following the withdrawal of Pimco from the process, bid 1.1bn.

Addressing Nama's handling of the transaction, Wallace asked the Dail what evidence had been provided at the time of the sale to show that competitive tension still existed once Pimco had pulled out following the detection by its compliance team of a request for a 15m success fee.

The proposed fee was to have been divided up between three parties: the US law firm Brown Rudnick, the Belfast-based solicitors Tughans and former Nama Northern Ireland Advisory Committee member Frank Cushnahan.

Referring to a conversation that Wallace claims to have had with a senior Fortress executive, the Wexford TD said: "I have spoken to a senior executive in Fortress, who confirmed there was no competitive tension. He said that the lack of tension was 'horrifically uncompetitive'. They were his words."

Commenting on the difference between Fortress's offer of 1.1bn and Cerberus' successful bid of 1.241bn, he added: "Let us not get into the argument of whether it (Fortress) knew the reserve price and whether it wanted to get back into the process or not. It was not a competitive tendering process by any stretch of the imagination. It does not stack up."

Wallace reminded the Dail that Fortress had to write to the Department of the Taoiseach to "gain entry to the sales process" following Pimco's withdrawal.

A spokesman for Fortress declined to comment.

A spokesman for Nama said: "The Project Eagle sales process was robust and competitive and delivered the best achievable outcome for the taxpayer. Fortress did not raise any issues regarding the process with Nama at any stage."

Wallace's efforts to have a commission of investigation established immediately have been frustrated by both the Government and by Fianna Fail. Following a lengthy debate, the Dail agreed to a Fianna Fail proposal allowing for the establishment of a commission of investigation if necessary once the outstanding criminal investigations taking place in Northern Ireland have been concluded.
'So the unfortunate kitchen porters who receive only 21 per year (which effectively is a paltry tax saving of either 4.20 per year) are dwarfed by the RTE Concert Orchestra, who are entitled to a deduction of 2,476.' (file photo)

I'm a waiter full-time at a hotel in the city. We have to supply our own uniforms (bar the shirts, which are supplied by my employer).

However, my sister is a nurse and she told me recently that I should be claiming some tax relief for the cost of what I wear to work. Apparently, she gets some money from Revenue. So am I entitled to the same amount of tax relief?

Michelle, Dublin City

What you are referring to is the flat-rate expense (FRE) allowance, which most non-union PAYE workers seem to be unaware of, in our experience. FREs may be claimed as a deduction from your taxable income based simply on your job description.

Standard flat-rate expense allowances are set for various classes of employee. For example, shop workers are granted flat-rate expenses of 121 per year and bar trade employees get 97 per annum. Nurses who supply and launder their own uniforms can claim a deduction of 733 - which is what your sister is referring to.

I have checked with Revenue and as a waiter you are entitled to an annual allowance of 97. Waitresses are entitled to a deduction of 64 per annum.

FRE levels were set mainly through negotiation with representative bodies of various trades and professions over an extended period of time (at least 20 years), leading to many inconsistencies. This had two inequitable effects.

Firstly, the level achieved by each union or representative body was largely dependent on the skill of the respective negotiators.

So the unfortunate kitchen porters who receive only 21 per year (which effectively is a paltry tax saving of either 4.20 per year) are dwarfed by the RTE Concert Orchestra, who are entitled to a deduction of 2,476.

Secondly, it's likely that levels negotiated during recessions will have been negatively affected. Furthermore, there is a well-known anomaly whereby waitresses are entitled to less than waiters (which dates from the late 1950s).

We would always advise waiting staff of either sex to claim the male 'waiter' rate.

To its credit, we have not had a case yet where Revenue has contested this and sought to impose the gender-based penalty on a female waiter, but it was the representative bodies that initially distinguished between the sexes on this one and not the Revenue themselves.

Nurses receive the same allowances whether male or female. It works in reverse for cardiac technicians, again for undocumented reasons. Female technicians are allowed 212 per year, while the men have to make do with 107.

The allowances are great in principle and are undoubtedly welcomed by those who are entitled to them. And another good thing about flat-rate expenses is that there is no need to keep receipts to claim this relief - it is granted once you confirm that you are in a qualifying employment. Another benefit is that - like medical expenses - you can claim this relief for the last four years.

Last year my father became ill and as my mother passed some years previously, I decided to move in with him to look after him. Sadly, my father passed away earlier this year. He has left the family home to me.

I have no idea about the tax and/or the financial implications of this. Is it something that I should be talking to the Revenue about? I plan to continue to live in this property for the foreseeable future but I just want to ensure that I'm on the right track compliance-wise.

Andrew, Kilbeggan, Co Westmeath

My sympathies on your loss. With regard to your question, you should note that receipt of gifts or inheritances are subject to Capital Acquisitions Tax (CAT). Various reliefs from CAT exist, depending on the circumstances. In addition, every individual is allowed a tax-free amount which can be received without incurring a tax liability.

The relationship between the person who provided the gift or inheritance (i.e. the disponer) and the person who received the gift or inheritance (i.e. the beneficiary), determines the maximum tax-free threshold, known as the 'group threshold'.

Inheritances received by a son or daughter from a parent are subject to the 'Group A' threshold, which is currently 280,000. This means that you can receive up to 280,000 during your lifetime from your parents without tax consequences for you. So any gift/inheritance received previously from your parents must be deducted (if it is above the small gift exemption level of 3,000 annually).

Therefore, if the house has a value lower than 280,000, no tax will be due (though you may still be required to notify Revenue if you are over 80pc of the threshold). If the total inheritance received is now above 280,000, CAT will be due at 33pc on the excess, subject to other reliefs.

One of the potential reliefs that may be available is known as Dwelling House Relief. To qualify, you must have occupied the dwelling house continuously as his/her main residence for a period of three years immediately prior to the date of the inheritance.

As it would appear that this condition has not been met, as you moved into the family home only one year ago, this relief will not be available in this instance.

My wife and I own a holiday home in Wexford - which we actually no longer use and hadn't been able to sell because of the negative equity.

However, now that the market is changing a bit we're thinking about trying to put it up for sale now. The thing is, though, money has been tight and we haven't paid our LPT (local property tax) on this property.

Will this make a difference when we go to sell? What should we be doing to tidy up our affairs? I really want to avoid paying any penalties if at all possible.

Robbie, Bray, Co Wicklow

It is standard practice for solicitors involved in the sales process to check to see if the LPT has been paid. If it has not, the unpaid LPT charge will "attach" to the asset and the sale will not be executed until such time as the liability has been discharged. This will often involve payment of interest and penalties due.

You may also wish to consider whether this complication could jeopardise any potential sale.

Revenue's website has a facility which allows you to file and/or pay your Local Property Tax and to manage any LPT/Household Charge arrears online. Usually, there is also a greater chance of mitigating any penalties through proactive engagement with Revenue on any tax arrears, rather than taking a passive approach.

Email your questions to lmcbride@independent.ie or write to 'Your Questions, The Sunday Independent Business Section, 27-32 Talbot Street, Dublin 1'.

While we will endeavour to place your questions with the most appropriate expert to answer your query, this column is a reader service and is not intended to replace professional advice.

Barry Flanagan is senior tax manager at Taxback.com
'Taking on the Springboard programme at the UCD Innovation Academy was the best decision I made,' says Maryrose Simpson. Photo: Mark Condren

Last year, 28-year-old Maryrose Simpson set up Ireland's first period subscription box service, MyLadyBug.ie, which delivers sanitary and other customised products to customers each month.

The Laois native is passionate about providing more options for women in a sector of the marketplace which she believes is often unexplored, partly due to the area's long-standing taboo status.

"At MyLadyBug.ie, we don't use euphemisms for periods, we don't whisper about 'your aunt flo visiting' or ask if you 'have the painters in'. Instead, we've decided to make getting your period a little bit nicer and easier to deal with," Maryrose explains.

"Our mission is to take the drama out of period drama and help customers to instead have a stress-free, organised period. Our website makes the entire process as simple as ordering your favourite beauty products online - you just set it and forget it."

"The boxes are delivered to women each month, with products customised to their cycle and their needs and we will also throw in some nice things, like herbal teas and chocolate and a gift every now and then as well," Maryrose adds.

"I think every woman has been in the position of being caught short and promising themselves that they won't let it happen again.

"So the idea for MyLadyBug.ie came from that simple thought; what if there was a service that delivered the right products to women at the right time of the month?"

Maryrose, who is also a graphic designer, graduated from the Limerick School of Art and Design in 2012.

"I was freelancing for a number of different design agencies when I left college and I was designing a lot for a number of different start-ups, so I found myself really leaning over to their side and getting almost overly interested," Maryrose says.

"I was interested in finding out exactly how they were doing things, where they were getting their funding from and how the brand was really being put together. I really loved watching that journey, seeing brands evolve."

Over time, Maryrose was inspired to put her own business idea into action.

"I felt really passionate about it, so I decided to go for it and when I did, my background in graphic design was a huge benefit to me.

"I have always believed that the only boundary to what you can create is your imagination - so by having that skill set behind me, I was able to build my brand in my mind before I'd actually created anything.

"I built the website and designed all of the packaging myself, did all of the branding and sourced all of the products."

Maryrose believes that her entrepreneurial spirit was largely informed by growing up in her family business, a local newsagent and bakery.

"I have grown up surrounded by that sense of movement and wanting to grow and build in a business sense. My mum owns a Gala newsagent and we opened a bakery in-store in 2012 in the recession, when my mam had to re-evaluate things and look for something that made them a little bit different and it has done really well."

Armed with her own ideas, Maryrose applied in 2014 to a postgraduate course in innovation and entrepreneurship through the Springboard programme at the UCD Innovation Academy.

"It was the best decision I made, as it gave me the opportunity to validate my idea - and I was able to learn how to take my idea from that initial concept to a refined business model.

"So when it came to module two, where we could work on our own products, I began digging down into the groundwork of MyLadyBug.ie."

Maryrose carried out her own primary market research and then spoke to a further 250 women in her potential target market.

"I basically went out and about in the middle of shopping centres and asked women about their periods and as difficult as that was, the minute I approached people and brought up the topic, it was amazing how responsive they were. Women really wanted to share their stories.

"So I researched what brands people were using and why and if they had ever switched brands and I found out some fascinating things. For example, a lot of women inherit the fem-care brand that their mother uses. So it is not necessarily the product that suits their body."

Maryrose believes that more education is key in terms of enabling customers to make informed decisions on the products they use.

"There is a huge lack of education about what individuals should be using as well as the variety of products available in this market. There is very little experimentation, most people either use what their mothers use or they pick up the first thing they see on the shop shelf. But with MyLadyBug.ie you can pick and mix your brands and try out new ones, some of which you may not be able to get as readily in most shops around Ireland."

In fact, Maryrose is so passionate about giving her customers a wider choice of fem-care products that she turned down a significant financial offer from a market leading brand, which wanted MyLadyBug.ie to exclusively stock its products.

The MyLadyBug subscription costs 9.99 a month and the price includes post and packaging. Discounted rates are also available on subscription prepay plans for three-, six- and 12-month options. MyLadyBug ships worldwide and currently has subscribers in a number of countries including Canada, America, New Zealand, Australia, France and Italy.

"I wanted to offer comfort and convenience at a reasonable price," Maryrose explains. "It needed to be a charge that was passive, something that you really wouldn't notice coming out of your bank account too much. It couldn't have been 25 a month, because that just wouldn't work for a lot of women."

Now a year into business, MyLadyBug's subscriptions continue to grow each month.

"The customers have become like brand ambassadors in their own right because every month after the packages go out, there is a huge increase in subscriptions and interaction on our social media pages," Maryrose says.

"It's funny because you will see a lot of people sharing pictures of their subscription boxes online, which is something I never expected because nobody goes into a pharmacy and takes a picture of a box of Tampax and shares it on Twitter saying, 'Look what I got!'.

"I think that is a testament to our packages and our service - the fact that our deliveries have become a little moment of celebration each month for some people.

"Each month, this causes an influx of new subscribers and it has grown very organically, which is great because it can be difficult to promote products relating to periods.

"Our customers are great and I get loads of emails thanking us.

"There was one particular woman who had a daughter with special needs who hated getting her period every month and our service has helped her to embrace it and look forward to it because she gets this parcel in the post," Maryrose adds.

"So it is all about looking at things a little differently. It is bizarre if you think about it - we grow up with these ads on TV with twirling yoga teachers in white pants, and yes it is true that having your period shouldn't stop you from doing anything - but you cannot ignore it completely. That is not possible. So it is time to have a conversation about it and get practical."

Customer feedback has played a huge role in the evolution of MyLadyBug.ie over the last 12 months. And through Maryrose's very hands on and personable approach, the website has also grown into a platform for discussion, concerning all manners of female health issues.

"I spend a lot of time responding to emails from girls with different queries about their periods and I love that whole side of things and connecting with the customers," Maryrose says.

"I could easily just have a section of the website for 'Frequently Asked Questions' and leave it at that - but I love that connection and getting feedback. Many of my customers for example, got onto me looking for organic brands, so that is something that we now offer.

"There's Veeda, which is an Australian organic brand, with no synthetics, no chemicals and no dyes - and that has been a real hit. For a brand that had no shelf presence in Ireland beforehand, the uptake has been amazing and it's beginning to outdo all of the others."

Last year MyLadyBug.ie was awarded the 'Best New Business Idea' title for County Laois in Ireland's Best Young Entrepreneur competition and the company went on to reach the regional final in the overall national award.

Maryrose received a prize of 10,000 and has used her winnings to further refine her packaging, apply for trademarks and expand the search engine optimisation (SEO) of her website.

"Ideas do not change or impact our lives; it's the implementation of ideas that makes the difference," Maryrose says. "As young people we have the opportunity to break current boundaries and to disrupt current practices with new methods and approaches through technology and innovation."

www.myladybug.ie
Grey's Anatomy screenwriter Debora Cahn could be penning the script for Coronado High, which George Clooney is producing, according to reports.

Debora, a long-time writer and consulting producer on the medical drama, is tipped to work on the movie, said the Hollywood Reporter.

Coronado High, based on Joshua Bearman's Atavist article, follows a hippy teacher in the Californian beach town who comes up with the idea of smuggling drugs from Mexico via swimming and paddling boards in 1969.

It developed into a criminal empire in the 1970s, which was later taken down by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

George's producing partner Grant Heslov and David Klawans will also be involved in financing the film.

Debora, who started her screenwriting career on The West Wing and has won a Writers Guild of America award, wrote The Special Program, which made the 2013 Black List. The script was an adaptation of Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency by Washington Post's investigative reporter Barton Gellman.
A film made with a micro budget of just 300 is expected to be one of the big hitters at Galway Film Fleadh this week.

The film Staid has already been named Best Foreign Feature Film at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival.

Wexford writer and director Paul OBrien describes it as a tiny little movie which has brought him huge joy.

The budget was 300 and 250 was spent on one scene, OBrien told the Sunday World.

It is a tiny little movie, 90 per cent of it is in one location and now it is being embraced internationally, which brings me huge joy.

O'Brien's lighting system comprised of two lamps which cost just 30.

Staid, which is OBriens first film, is based on his own play One Last Long Breath which he first staged 15 years ago.

Staid was also chosen to feature in film festivals in Dublin, Sydney and Hong Kong.

The stars of 'Staid' are Adrienne Meyler, Stephen Murphy, Paul Creane and Phil Lyons.

The plot centres around the lives of four people who are feeling stuck in their life, but all that is about to change.

Staid is showing at Galways Town Hall Studio next Saturday, July 9, at 4.30pm.
Tributes have poured in for comedian and actress Caroline Aherne after her death from cancer aged 52.

The star was best known for hit sitcom The Royle Family and the riotous chat show The Mrs Merton Show, which both won a string of awards.

Aherne, who more recently narrated Channel 4 show Gogglebox, had been battling lung cancer and had previously been treated for bladder and eye cancer.

After her death was announced on Saturday her Royle Family co-star Sue Johnston, who played her on-screen mother, said: "I am devastated at her passing and I am numb with grief."

And another Royle Family co-star Ricky Tomlinson, who played her character's father Jim, said he was "so bloody shocked" at her death.

"She was absolutely wonderful and amazing to work for. Kind, funny, witty. A true professional and one of the most generous people I have ever worked with," he told the paper.

Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Photo: BBC File photo dated 29/04/1997: Caroline Aherne with her BAFTA award for Best Talk Show for the Mrs Merton Christmas Show. Photo: Fiona Hanson/PA Wire File photo dated 15/05/1999: Eastenders actress Carol Harrison (left) with Sue Johnston (centre) and Caroline Aherne at the Whats On TV/Carlton party following the British Soap Awards. Photo: Michael Walter/PA Wire File photo dated 27/01/2000: Caroline Aherne with fellow comedian Steve Coogan at the South Bank Show award. Photo: Fiona Hanson/PA Wire File photo dated 03/04/1998 of Caroline Aherne starring in an advert for PG Tips. Photo: PA Photos/PA Wire File photo dated 21/09/1999 of Caroline Aherne at the Elle Style Awards. Photo: Michael Crabtree/PA Wire Caroline Aherne and her mother Maureen arriving at the BAFTA Television Awards in 1999. Photo: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire Caroline Aherne at a party to launch the FilmFour channel in 1998. Photo: Ben Curtis/PA Wire Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash, who starred as mother and son in the comedy series Mrs Merton and Malcolm, at the Royal Television Society Programme Awards in 1999. Photo: Peter Jordan/PA Wire Award winning TV writer and comedian Caroline Aherne revealed she was fighting lung cancer in 2014 File photo dated 25/01/01: Caroline Aherne (centre) with fellow stars of The Royle Family Liz Smith (left) and Sue Johnston after they won the Comedy Award at the South Bank Awards, as Aherne has died at the age of 52 after a battle with cancer, her publicist has said. Photo: Fiona Hanson/PA Wire File photo dated 25/01/01 of actress Caroline Aherne attending the South Bank Awards, as she has died at the age of 52 after a battle with cancer, her publicist has said. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Saturday July 2, 2016. See PA story DEATH Aherne. Photo credit should read: Fiona Hanson/PA Wire File photo dated 31/05/2000: Caroline Aherne (centre) with the cast of The Royle Family (left to right) Craig Cash, Ricky Tomlinson, Sue Johnston and Ralph Little at the premiere of the film Maybe Baby. Photo: Peter Jordan/PA Wire File photo dated 18/02/99: Actress Caroline Aherne who has died at the age of 52 after a battle with cancer, her publicist has said. Photo: Matthew Fearn/PA Wire File photo dated 14/05/2000: Actress Caroline Aherne with her BAFTA award for best comedy performance for The Royle Family. Photo: Rebecca Naden/PA Wire Royle Family creator Caroline Aherne / Facebook

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Tomlinson, 76, revealed how Aherne over the two years she was battling the disease "never talked about her health" and that he could "never, ever remember her complaining".

He added: "She must have gone through a lot but I never saw her looking unwell. She never flagged in work and the atmosphere when she was writing and acting was brilliant."

He recalled the time when the actress's character Denise Royle went into labour and she sobbed with her dad Jim as he comforted her.

He said the tears that they both shed in the memorable 1999 Royle Family special scene were real.

And he revealed the tears they both shed that day were real.

Without a shadow of a doubt it is the one that most sticks in my mind.

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I think it was so special to her because she didnt have children.

And it was so special to me because my own little girl, my Kate, was born on Christmas Day. And thats why the tears were real.

The cameraman who shot that scene was the son of a former Corrie star called Stan Ogden and at the end he was crying and said, Thats it. We dont need another take. It just stands out in my mind.

Recalling his time of working with her, Tomlinson said Aherne would always make sure the cast would have a beautiful dressing room filled with flowers, a card and a bowl of sweets, and would often sending out for takeaways if they filmed late.

He added: "Every week when you finished filming there would always be a little present. A little bag of goodies and a Lottery ticket for everyone. It was those little things I loved her for. She was one of a kind."

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Alan Partridge comic Steve Coogan hailed his "incredibly funny" long-time friend, telling ITV News: "It was almost like an honour to have her make fun of you because you couldn't help but laugh. It's hard to imagine not hearing that laughter."

Aherne gained public attention as the Checkout Girl in The Fast Show. But she became a household name as straight-talking blue-rinse granny Mrs Merton in The Mrs Merton Show, which first aired on BBC Two in 1995 and won the best talk show Bafta in 1997.

The Royle Family was born after she and friend Craig Cash, who played gormless Dave Best in the show, threw themselves into their work after a suicide attempt, which she described as her lowest ebb.

It is considered to be a classic British sitcom, despite the unusual format of a working class family sitting in a living room.

The BBC show was the toast of the 1999 British Comedy Awards, scooping four trophies including best actress for Aherne.

It went on to take home the best sitcom Bafta in 2000 and 2007.

Aherne was nominated for Baftas for her performance in both shows, as well as her directing of The Royle Family in 2001.

BBC director general Lord Hall said: "She was a brilliant, award winning comedy writer and performer, much loved by audiences - especially for The Royle Family and Mrs Merton and for her wonderful voicing of many shows. Our thoughts are with her family and friends."

Ralf Little, who starred as Antony Royle, brother to Aherne's Denise in The Royle Family, tweeted: "Sorry for silence - I just ... don't know what to say. What a sad, sad day. We've lost another one of our best.

"A character. A legend. A boss. A sister, real and (for me) fake. A boss. A writer. An actor. A genius. A friend. Big, big heart. Goodbye. X"

Aherne's death was announced by her publicist Neil Reading, who said she died on Saturday at her home in Timperley, Greater Manchester.

The star, who had been a smoker, struggled with health problems for years.

Born to Irish immigrant parents in London before being raised in Manchester, she was diagnosed with a rare cancer of the retina as a child - like her older brother Patrick.

She was sent to Lourdes in search of a miracle cure but was left with severely impaired sight in one eye.

She later fought depression and drink problems - giving a rambling and slurred acceptance speech at the British Comedy Awards in 1996 after being named best female performer.

She spent time in the Priory clinic following a suicide attempt, before moving to Australia to avoid the glare of publicity.

The star also had a string of failed relationships - her marriage to former New Order guitarist Peter Hook ended and she began a romance with TV researcher Matt Bowers.

They split, but she was devastated when he died of cancer at the age of 28.

She once admitted alcohol was an attempt to block out her problems.

Debbie McGee, the widow of magician Paul Daniels, said that Aherne's death was "very sad news".

She was on the receiving end of one of Mrs Merton's most famous lines, when she was asked in a 1995 episode: "What first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?"

McGee tweeted on Saturday: "Just heard the very sad news about Caroline Aherne, she was wonderful especially as Mrs Merton. My interview will be a treasured memory RIP."

John Thomson, Aherne's co-star on The Fast Show, said his friend had "raw talent" and "no agenda".

He said: " We've lost a great comedienne, actress and writer and sadly I've lost a very dear, very old friend.

"When I say lost, sadly a lot of us lost Caroline years ago. Thanks to the cumulative effect of the regular intrusion into her private life and particularly her personal relationships, Caroline opted out and became a virtual recluse, only to bless our screens at Christmas in the latest rendition of the Royle Family.

"Who can blame her? I know only too well, the pain that comes with the moniker 'celebrity'. She never wanted fame, she was a raw talent who accepted that fame was a mere by-product of her skill set."

He added: " She wasn't political, she never saw herself as a feminist or representing the minority of female comics. She didn't need to, there was no agenda, she was just funny.

"She was an incredibly funny woman on and off screen, whose raw talent and 'funny bones' never failed to make me roar with laughter."

Thomson said the last time he saw Aherne was while they were working on Sky comedy After Hours in 2014.

He said: " She'd just gone into remission again. Her hair, beneath her wig, had regrown and she was painfully thin, but despite all this she was on amazing form, the Caroline I knew and loved working with. This was the last time I saw her. I'm grateful for that fact, as that was how I would want to remember her."
The 400kg sculpture was headed to an address in Auckland, New Zealand. Photo: New Zealand Police

Police in New Zealand have seized a record-breaking haul of cocaine smuggled inside a giant diamante-encrusted horse head from Mexico.

Officers discovered the Class A drug in the form of 35 1kg bricks stored inside the 400kg sculpture, which was headed to an address in Auckland.

The haul is the largest the country has ever recorded and has a street market value of around NZ$14m (9.02m).

Detective Superintendent Virginia Le Bas, from the organised crime unit, said officers were still working to establish the final destination of the haul.

This is a significant win for New Zealand, she said. This is a great success, we should be proud to have detected it at the earliest of stages.

The drug shipment had been air-freighted from Mexico to Auckland where it was detected inside the horse-head statue in May.
Almost half of over 40-year-olds would like to see internment without trial brought back for drug crimes, a Sunday Independent poll has shown.

The survey by MillwardBrown was carried out last week in the days before the latest gangland feud murder last Friday of David Douglas (55), a member of the IRAs Dublin unit, which has been heavily involved in drug smuggling for almost two decades.

Read more: Latest gun murder in Dublin: Criminal was victim of ruthless double-cross outside wife's shop

The poll found that 46pc of people felt that 'internment without trial' was an appropriate response to gangland activity. In groups aged from 35 up to 44, over 65 and across Labour, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael voters there was more than 50pc support for internment.

In order to introduce such legislation, the State would have to derogate from major international justice treaties including the European Convention on Human Rights. Internment has not been used in the Republic since the IRA's 'Border Campaign' of 1957-1961. It was last used in Northern Ireland between 1971 and 1976 but was not introduced in the Republic.

The findings in the poll reflect views shared with the Garda's own Public Attitude Survey based on a nationally representative base of 6,000 respondents. It found that 98pc of the population thought that crime was a serious problem and also showed low levels of expectation about the Garda's ability to counter organised crime.

The latest gangland murder of David Douglas (55) near the Oliver Bond flats complex in south inner Dublin, garda sources say, is part of the feud between the south Dublin-based Kinahan gang and its north Dublin rivals, the Hutch gang.

Douglas had close links to the Hutch gang, despite having previously worked along with other IRA figures in importing drugs for the Kinahan cartel. An attempt was made to murder Douglas last November near his home in Cabra, in north Dublin. He was hit by at least three bullets in the chest but recovered in hospital.

Read more: Former zookeeper survived earlier attempt on life by Cabra mob

Local sources said yesterday that Douglas made entreaties to the Kinahan gang and had been assured that he was no longer a 'target'. This may have led him to feel confident enough to visit a business he ran near the Oliver Bond flats, the Council complex where Christy Kinahan lived before his ascent through the Dublin crime world and eventual move to the Costa del Sol.

The murder of David, also known as Daithi, Douglas is the first time that a man known in Dublin as a senior IRA figure has been murdered due to the organisation's direct involvement in the drugs trade. Garda sources said that while they do not expect the IRA to become engaged in feuding, they are concerned that IRA members may retaliate and that this might lead to a further escalation of violence.

Gardai also suspect the murder was carried out on behalf of the Kinahan cartel by a hired assassin who is one of the main suspects in the murder of Eddie Hutch (59), brother of Gerry Hutch, who was shot dead at his home in north-inner Dublin in the days after the Regency Hotel attack in February in which leading Kinahan associate David Byrne (32) was shot dead.

The hitman, in his 20s, is a relative of a former major drug dealer in northwest Dublin who is believed to have been murdered by associates of the Hutch gang during one of the bouts of feuding around a decade ago.

The latest murder may also be tied to the shooting dead of Douglas's associate, Darren Kearns (34), who was shot as he left a public house in Blackhorse Avenue on December 30 last.

Read more: Shocking daylight killing is the fifth gangland murder this year
The latest gangland feud victim, David Douglas, was a key figure in the 'finance' wing of the IRA, which moved from 'anti-drugs' activities into the centre of drugs importation for the main south and west Dublin gangs now referred to as the Kinahan Cartel.

Douglas was an 'active service unit' (ASU) volunteer with the Provisional IRA employed in 'fund raising' for the organisation from the early 1980s. He was caught by gardai during a robbery of a post office in Tallaght in which he pointed and fired a rifle at a garda. He received a 12-year sentence for attempted murder.

He was closely associated with the Dublin IRA group which transformed from the 'Concerned Parents'' movement, which protested against drug dealers in the inner city, to extorting money from drug dealers and then moving full-time into the trade.

He was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for possession with intent to supply 562,000 worth of cocaine in April 2008.

Douglas was closely associated with the IRA 'unit' in Dublin which was working for the then major heroin and cocaine supplier in the state, the 'businessman' and property speculator, Jim Mansfield.

Mansfield, who died in 2014, was importing drugs through Weston Aerodrome in Lucan, which he bought through the profits of drugs money laundering and his considerable legitimate profits from successful property development.

Read more: Latest gun murder in Dublin: Criminal was victim of ruthless double-cross outside wife's shop

The drugs were being supplied by the Kinahan operation in Spain and Belgium. The Garda Special Branch had for years known of the connections between Mansfield/Kinahan and the Provo smugglers, who adapted their arms importation routes seamlessly to drugs importation in the 1990s.

Garda sources said that the senior IRA finance officer, Joe Cahill, one of Gerry Adams's mentors, called at Mansfield's home on the last Friday of each month to collect 'protection' money for the 'movement' - at the same time the Provos claimed to be fighting the "scourge" of drugs in inner city Dublin.

The Provos were able to move into drugs under cover of the peace process when a de facto blind eye was turned to their activities in the mistaken belief the terrorist group would opt for purely constitutional political activity.

Gardai regarded this as a farce which allowed the IRA to make massive profits from drugs, tobacco and fuel smuggling, with an estimated 25pc of profits going into the central finances of the republican movement. The rest of the money was shared out among the 'volunteers'.

Douglas, according to local people, came from a very decent and highly thought of family in the Cabra area, who were shocked to learn he had fallen in with the thuggish local IRA 'unit'. It was no surprise locally when the 55-year-old gravitated from political terrorism into the narcotics trade with his associates.
The disgraced CEO of suicide bereavement charity Console was picked up by gardai for his own personal safety, it has emerged.

Paul Kelly had not been sighted since leaving Consoles office in Celbridge, Co Kildare on Tuesday afternoon.

A previous sitting of the High Court last Friday heard that he had not been in contact with his solicitors for a number of days, and concerns had been raised about his personal safety.

It has now been established that Mr Kelly was picked up by gardai in south Dublin on Thursday evening.

Officers had become aware of fears over his well-being, and detained him near the Dun Laoghaire area.

He was brought to a garda station in the capital where he was assessed by a medical professional, before being taken into care.

A source stated that the garda matter was solely in relation to his well-being.
Console's interim CEO David Hall checking the cars belonging to Paul Kelly & his wife. Picture by Fergal Phillips

The husband-and-wife team who headed the suicide bereavement charity Console relinquished their top-of-the-range company cars, credit cards, company records, a computer and keys yesterday after 10 days of turmoil over revelations of massive spending.

Paul Kelly, who resigned as chief executive of Console, and his wife, Patricia, who was its chairperson and director, failed to show up for the handover, which took place in Bewleys Hotel, Ballsbridge shortly before 2pm yesterday.

Expand Close Console's interim CEO David Hall & Stephen Curtis checking the cars belonging to Paul Kelly & his wife Patricia from Console at Clayton Hotel today. Picture by Fergal Phillips / Facebook

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Instead, solicitors for the couple arranged for the 2010 Audi Q5 used by Patricia Kelly and a 2009 Mercedes CLS driven by her husband to be collected from their home in Clane, Co Kildare, yesterday morning. The cars cost the charity more than 87,000.

The high-end motors were driven to Bewleys Hotel, where David Hall, the charity's interim chief executive, took possession of them.

Read more: Console scandal: Elaborate web of deceit of an 'untouchable' charity founder

Read more: DJ Gareth O'Callaghan: 'Paul Kelly asked me to be Console CEO ... I'm sick from what I'm hearing'

Expand Close Console's interim CEO David Hall taking the cars belonging to Paul Kelly and his wife at Clayton Hotel today. Picture by Fergal Phillips / Facebook

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He also collected a number of credit cards used by Paul and Patricia Kelly, and their son Tim, a computer, files, records and cheque books.

After a week of silence, the Kellys made contact with David Hall through an intermediary on Friday night, the day after the High Court had ordered them to return Console's assets and prohibited them from interfering with the charity.

Mr Hall confirmed that the cars had been taken to auction house, where they will remain for the immediate future.

"I will be getting an inventory of what was returned and will be updating the High Court on Tuesday," he said.

The Sunday Independent has also learned that:

A draft HSE audit internal report, seen by this newspaper, reveals how Paul Kelly made three trips to Australia at the expense of Console in 16 months. His son Tim accompanied him on two of those trips, which took in Dubai, New Zealand and Singapore

The HSE transferred 53,000 in state funds to the charity's bank account last month, despite concerns about its governance. When asked, David Hall confirmed that the funds were received by Console on Friday, June 24, the day after RTE Investigates highlighted serious financial concerns.

The Department of Foreign Affairs is to send auditors to London this week to examine Console's UK books. The department paid grants of 130,000 to Console UK.

A draft HSE internal audit report found that credit card bills for Paul, Patricia Kelly and Tim Kelly came close to 500,000 between 2012 and 2014. The charity received 1.3m in HSE funds in this period and a further 3.7m in public donations, fundraisers and other sources.

Read more: Further investigations into Console charity bring to light transactions between its sister organisation in the UK, court hears
LAWLESS STREETS: Gardai outside the Shoestown shop on Bridgefoot Street, Dublin, where David Douglas was shot dead. Photo: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin

David Douglas, his wife Yumei and the scene of the shooting last week

The wife of gangland shooting victim David Daithi Douglas has written a heartfelt message to him, and has responded to taunts that he was "drug dealing scum" and deserved to die.

The father-of-one died on Friday afternoon after being shot in the head and chest by a lone male gunman.

Douglas (55) was killed outside his wife Yumeis Shoestown shop on Bridgefoot Street, in Dublins south inner city.

Just hours after Douglas was shot, a man posted a message on the shops Facebook page describing him as drug dealing scum.

Expand Close Yumei Douglas, wife of Cabra shooting victim David Douglas / Facebook

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Another drug dealer shot Good! Who cares about scum like the owner of this shop. Drug dealing scum, he wrote.

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Ms Douglas took to Facebook to respond: I dont know what to say. Are you ... another evil come to us?

She also thanked her friends for their support and added that she will be ok.

Last night, she shared a touching message for her late husband, writing: Hiya Dathi, just want say something. I know you must be somewhere, maybe sat on the sofa, I try to see you there, and say good night, as normal.

She continued: Still remember that day, last kiss from you before I rush to the work, can't believe from that time we were in different world.

Ms Douglas ended the message noting that they were so happy to be together and that she would wait for you to come to my dream.

Douglas, who was living in Cabra, was the target of another assassination attempt last year and had previously been convicted of drug dealing.

In 2008, Douglas was sentenced to 10 years in prison, with five suspended, after he was caught with 8kg of cocaine, worth 562,000, concealed in a black holdall bag.

Expand Close LAWLESS STREETS: Gardai outside the Shoestown shop on Bridgefoot Street, Dublin, where David Douglas was shot dead. Photo: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin / Facebook

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Whatsapp LAWLESS STREETS: Gardai outside the Shoestown shop on Bridgefoot Street, Dublin, where David Douglas was shot dead. Photo: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin

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He was released from jail in 2013.

In November, an attempt on Douglass life was made when a car pulled up alongside him as he was walking his dog and shot him three times in the chest.

Speaking about the attack last year, Ms Douglas told the Herald that he had turned his life around since he was released.

I dont care about whatever his history is, but hes on the good way now, she said at the time.

Since he is out (of prison) two years ago, he didnt do anything wrong. I know he has some background history, but thats the past. Everybody wants to change.

Im from China and if you try to do good, you will get a chance to make your life.

Ms Douglas met her husband 14 years ago when she was working in a bar near his house, and together they have a daughter.

She described their time together as a happy life for me and him", adding: He enjoys his life and he loves all of us and his family.
Michael Herr, who has died aged 76, was the author of Dispatches, the definitive account of the war in Vietnam; John le Carre called it "the best book I have ever read on men and war in our time".

"I went to cover the war and the war covered me," wrote Herr, who, from 1967 until 1969, was in Vietnam as correspondent for Esquire.

"Have you come to write about what we're wearing?" a soldier asked him, alluding to the magazine's traditional focus on men's fashion.

However, it had also begun to publish articles by the likes of Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe that used techniques of reportage traditionally reserved for literature. Although he actually filed very little from Vietnam, Herr became a central figure in this 'New Journalism' with the publication in 1977 of Dispatches.

It conveyed the mood of the war, in which the eternal certainties of death and defeat were dulled by drugs and embraced by a soundtrack of rock 'n' roll. So intense was the experience he rapidly abandoned any notions of objectivity. But the price of this revealed itself when he returned to New York.

"Within 18 months of coming back, I was on the edge of a major breakdown," he said. But when he managed to finish the memoir, it was at once seen as a masterpiece.

Of Jewish descent, Michael David Herr was born on April 13, 1940, in Lexington, Kentucky. The family soon moved to Syracuse, New York, where his father worked as a jeweller. David attended Syracuse University, but dropped out to travel. He picked up occasional commissions and got his job with Esquire after pitching the idea of a monthly letter from Vietnam. Although Dispatches satisfied his ambition to be recognised, he loathed the consequences of fame. He especially disliked being asked by newspapers to write about Vietnam. In 1980 he moved to London in search of a quieter existence. Yet both the subsequent works for which he was best known drew on his Vietnam experiences.

In 1979, he wrote the narration spoken by Martin Sheen's character in Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola's film of the war. John le Carre subsequently introduced Herr to another director, Stanley Kubrick. They became good friends and eventually collaborated on Full Metal Jacket (1987). As well as a brief memoir of Kubrick, Herr published two other books. The Big Room (1987) contained profiles of stars of Hollywood's golden age, while Walter Winchell (1990), was a biographical novel about the broadcaster.

Latterly, however, he had devoted more time to Buddhism and attributed his coming to terms with Vietnam to the healing powers of meditation. He is survived by his wife Valerie and their two daughters.
Despite a disappointing turnout at yesterdays protest against rising car insurance costs, organisers said they are not giving up .

The demonstration, organised by motoring blog Ireland Underground, hoped to see thousands of cars making their way to Dublin from across the country.

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There was so much interest in the event that the rallying point had to be moved from Kildare Street to Merrion Square.

Organiser Kian Griffin (25) said earlier this week: We are expecting 6,000 cars from all parts of the country to turn up.

With multiple passengers in each car, it was estimated that the event would draw up to 15,000 people.

While close to 2,500 people had responded to an online campaign to say they would attend the rally, far fewer turned up on the day, as just 100 people gathered at Merrion Square to hear speeches from opposition TDs.

Among the speakers was Sinn Fein MEP Lynn Boylan, who addressed the rally and urged protestors not to be disheartened by the poor turnout.

Dont be disillusioned by the small crowd. This is not a reflection of how big an issue this is, Fianna Fail TD John Lahart added.

Mr Griffin, who started the Ireland Underground blog, admitted he was disappointed with the size of the crowd.

Its a bit disappointing the turnout, but its not as if its a failure because we have got a lot of coverage in the national media, we have brought the issue to the fore, he told Independent.ie.

Its been discussed in the Dail and theres been a lot of traction on social media, so this is the trickle before the flood, its the beginning of something not the end.

Mr Griffin noted that although the Dail will soon take a summer recess, he and other activists fighting against car insurance premiums will keep working in the background.

We want to make sure the conversation keeps going and isnt forgotten about when they come back again in September, he said.

He added that he would consider planning a second demonstration later in the year.

Well see what the feeling is like in September. If there is significant progress, there wont be need for another protest, but if there isnt we will keep coming back again and again until this is resolved.
Enda Kenny: 'the man who will lead Irelands team in Europe to find the best possible outcome for the country after Brexit.' Picture Conor McCabe Photography

Ask anybody at the coalface of business, where commerce and consumers meet, and they will tell you that the last few months have been tricky.

That is where 'confidence' can be detected, in the shops, the cafes, pubs and restaurants, or maybe one step short of that, on the main street, in the business houses whose job it is to encourage people to part with their hard-earned cash.

In recent months, there has been something of a slowdown, barely reflected in the official figures, the GDP growth rates, which still look healthy here, boosted as they are by foreign direct investment in the hi-tech world and pharmaceutical business.

But on the main street, creeping consumer caution is the watchword again: ask any shopkeeper or, better still, any marketing firm and they will tell you.

In the absence of other rational causes, at a time of economic growth and falling unemployment rates, they will sum up the cause in a single word - Brexit.

Now that the UK has voted to exit the EU, business here has reason to be more fearful, as our opinion poll confirms.

We frequently ask a relatively simple question designed to detect the mood of the country: this time next year, do you think that you personally will be better off, worse off or in the same situation as you are now?

Last November, for the first time since the economic and banking crisis, deep recession and austerity which followed, the number of people who felt they would be better off next year exceeded those who felt they would be worse off.

It was something of a Eureka moment: optimism as to the future, to be followed, as it is, by consumer confidence, was measured to have returned, relatively speaking, in our poll.

These were the official figures back then: 23pc believed they would be better off, 17pc felt they would be worse off and, in the middle, 43pc felt they would be just about the same.

Now fast forward seven months and the same question was asked. This time, 22pc felt they would be better off, 22pc felt they would be worse off and 48pc felt they would be the same.

The poll was conducted between June 18-30, slap bang in the middle of the business end of the Brexit campaign.

Read more: Poll excluisve: Public confidence in Independents crashes

But here is the most telling finding: pre-Brexit, that is before the UK actually voted to leave the EU, 27pc felt they would be better off next year, a four-point increase since November; but post-Brexit, that figure plummeted to 19pc, while the percentage who felt they would be the worse off and the same also increased commensurately.

This is the finding that will be of most concern to those on the high street, the business owners who bore the brunt of the recession and who are now struggling to their feet again, and, alongside those, all businesses and enterprises who depend either directly or at a remove on the magic that is consumer confidence.

It will also be of great concern to the Government, notably the Minister for Finance, and specifically the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, whose task it now is to manage Ireland's response to the UK's withdrawal from the EU.

In this regard, the public is not full of confidence either: 37pc believe the Government will last for a year; 35pc believe 18 months to two years and just 16pc believe three years or more.

But that is not the real issue of concern for Enda Kenny. The poll also finds that just 25pc think he should remain as Taoiseach, 56pc think he should resign, while 12pc don't know and 7pc say it depends.

Read more: How historic week of Brexit turmoil shaped our future

A little over half (54pc) of Fine Gael supporters think Mr Kenny should remain and just a third (32pc) of well-off, or what are referred to as AB voters, think so.

Enda Kenny was never the most popular politician in the country, so perhaps that finding should not come as too much of a surprise.

The most popular politician by far is the Fianna Fail leader, Micheal Martin, who records a 43pc satisfaction rating, up 16 points since the last such poll was conducted in February, during the election.

That said, Enda Kenny is the man in situ, who has been elected Taoiseach for a second term after a relatively poor election for Fine Gael, and after 70 days of tortuous negotiation, at the end of which his fragile minority government was formed.

As such, he is the man who will lead Ireland's team in Europe to find the best possible outcome for the country after Brexit.

There is something to be said for that. He has experience around Europe, after all, not entirely a good experience, but he knows his way around the corridors of power in Brussels; as does Michael Noonan, and those teams of civil servants and diplomats, the permanent government, whose job it is now to deliver at this most difficult, not to mention unprecedented, of times.

Who do people want to succeed Enda Kenny? Well, 25pc say Leo Varadkar and 18pc say Simon Coveney, with the rest also-rans.

But ask yourself - do you really want either of these relatively young and inexperienced politicians with their hand on the tiller, or would you feel more secure with Enda Kenny, for all his perceived faults and failings.

Certainly, the poll detects an underlying desire for stability: Fine Gael (30pc) is up four points since the election and Fianna Fail (26pc) is up two points.

The Independents (14pc), who were all the rage before the election, are down 13 points, perhaps a reflection of those 70 days of negotiations and the fact that they put Enda Kenny back in power.

Sinn Fein (20pc) has also benefited, the party is up six points since the election - but then that's the story of Sinn Fein, widely popular until it really matters.

At this difficult time, it seems the people are turning to Fine Gael and Fianna Fail for stability, but would prefer Micheal Martin to be their leader.

They have Fine Gael, supported outside government by Fianna Fail, and Enda Kenny has the greater responsibility thrust upon him.

In short, it could be worse.

Read more: A national unity government can help us navigate uncharted waters
Paschal Donohoe: We know the unaffordable wage increase of today is the savage wage cut of tomorrow. And Ireland does not want to go down that path again. Photo: Frank McGrath

Last week, I made the important decision to allow for the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest legislation - known as FEMPI - that underpins many of the reductions in public sector pay of the last few years to continue.

This has, understandably, caused reaction and debate. But opposition from some should not be at the cost of recognising broader issues about our public wages and services.

Nobody expects public servants not to benefit from an improving economy. Moderate pay restoration is a reasonable expectation within our public service, just as it is for other workers across the economy.

That is why the government last year agreed, when it negotiated the terms of the Lansdowne Road Agreement, to budget for pay increases across the three-year period with a total cost of 844m in 2018.

By way of example, a public servant earning 30,000 will receive an extra 2,170 under the agreement.

So, our public servants are not facing wage cuts. They are experiencing gradual wage increases.

Furthermore, this deal has now been accepted by the vast majority of public servants.

Over 280,000 of them are now working within the agreement. Twenty three unions have now voted for it. Three remain outside it.

I made the decision to renew the FEMPI legislation because we must continue to plan sensibly for the future. Too many have learned that the unaffordable wage increase of today is the savage wage cut of tomorrow. Ireland does not want to go down that path again.

Our borrowing is down. Our national debt is decreasing. However, much needs to be done to bring both to acceptable levels.

As a small open economy, Ireland is also particularly susceptible to external risks. The biggest of these is, of course, the decision taken by our neighbours in the UK to leave the European Union.

These are all reasons as to why we must plan for the future. This planning also delivers benefits now.

The Lansdowne Road Agreement allows the Government to hire more public servants to meet increasing demands for public services.

By the end of 2016, we will have been able to hire an estimated additional 18,000 public servants to teach in our classrooms, to help the elderly, to police our streets and work in our hospitals.

That is at a cost of an extra 1.1bn to our pay bill over three years - necessary spending to help our citizens every day.

The agreement is also flexible enough to allow for the concerns of recent recruits to the public service to be addressed in a negotiated way.

Read more: We're ready to go to jail over pay freezes - angry gardai

Read more: GRA issues its most severe warning to date of the prospect of strike action

That is clear from the deal reached with the two unions that represent firefighters, who, in return for more effective delivery of that critical public service, have negotiated a single common pay structure for all firefighters, including new recruits.

That structure sets a precedent for similar arrangements for other newly recruited public servants - a negotiated arrangement within the terms of the Lansdowne Road Agreement to deliver better public services in return for restructured pay arrangements.

In fact, officials at my department will have an initial engagement with the two teacher unions who have signed up to the agreement next week to hear their concerns on this very issue as well.

I also intend to engage shortly with public service unions and associations on the establishment of a Pay Commission, which also formed part of the terms of the Lansdowne Road Agreement.

The commission will help Government, union negotiators and the taxpayer to come to a mutual understanding of the challenges of managing the public pay bill over the coming years.

The Government has to, and will, respect the decisions of the vast majority of public servants to come within the Lansdowne Road Agreement.

We cannot give some unions the benefits of being within the Agreement without delivering the productivity needed to provide much-needed services to the public at a reasonable cost.

That isn't an arrangement that the Government could sign up to while keeping faith with all other public servants and their representatives.

The Government does not want to be in dispute with any group of people working for it. We want to collaborate on improving how we go about our business.

Invitations have been extended to those unions that remain outside the Agreement - the GRA, PDFORRA and the ASTI - to come and talk to their respective ministers on issues of mutual concern. I urge them to do so.

Paschal Donohoe is Public Expenditure Minister
The under-fire semi-state company, which has been ravaged by controversy since its establishment, defended the spending and said the figure accounted for 3,641 work-related trips

Irish Water staff racked up a bill of nearly 1m last year on planes, trains and automobiles, the Sunday Independent can reveal.

Staff at the embattled utility clocked up more than 1.7 million kilometres while on duty in 2015, ultimately costing 874,751.18.

This substantial bill included all money spent on public transport, as well as flights, mileage and taxi fares for Irish Water employees last year.

Almost 90pc of the total - some 780,000 - pertained specifically to "car travel expenses", which according to Irish Water, included claims from staff submitted for "mileage, toll charges and car parking expenses".

A total of 15,542 was spent on flights, while 67,686.61 was spent on trains, Luas and bus fares, according to documents released to the Sunday Independent through a Freedom of Information request.

A separate 11,982 was spent on taxis by Irish Water in 2015, an average of almost 1,000 per month.

The under-fire semi-state company, which has been ravaged by controversy since its establishment, defended the spending and said the figure accounted for 3,641 work-related trips.

However, this means that each trip cost an average of almost 237 each.

Read more: Irish Water boss admits conflict of interest to board

Irish Water defended the bill and said the company's policy stipulates that its 700 staff in 14 different locations should use "public transport where possible and use their own car only when absolutely necessary".

It said: "Journeys by car, subsequently claimed back in expenses, should only be undertaken when there is absolutely no suitable option available on public transport.

"Travel expenses are paid upfront by the employee and claimed back as an itemised business expense. Receipts must be provided before an expense claim can be signed off by a supervisor."

Of the 15,542 spent on flights, the company said they were all booked in economy class and at the lowest available price.

It added: "All of the flights were taken within Europe, well over half of them were to the UK.

"Personnel travelled to attend expert conferences, visit other water utilities and to attend meetings with the purpose of developing best practice in Irish Water and to share our expertise around operational issues and asset management, among other business concerns.

"All flights were economy class and booked to take advantage of the lowest available fare."

Last week, former trade union leader and senator Joe O'Toole was appointed to chair the expert commission to decide the future of charges and Irish Water.

Read more: Revealed: The experts tasked with solving the water charges debacle

The other members are OECD environmental director Dr Xavier Leflaive; former Scottish minister Peter Peacock, who currently chairs the Customer Forum for Water Scotland; Bill Emery, the chair of the Northern Ireland Utility Regulator; Brendan O'Mahony, the chair of the National Federation of Group Water Schemes; Sarah Hendry, an academic lawyer from the University of Dundee; Dr Andrew Kelly, an environmental economist and founder of EnvEcon; and Gritta Nottelman, a strategy consultant for Waternet in the Netherlands

The group will make recommendations on the future of Irish Water to an Oireachtas Commission before a Dail vote on water bills.
Elspeth Hanson went to bed on Thursday, June 22, fully expecting to rise to the news that Britain had voted to remain a member of the EU. She woke to the sound of her husband, John, shouting from the living room that the unthinkable had happened - the Leave side had won.

"I just couldn't believe it," says Elspeth, a 30-year-old mother-of-one who has lived in Dublin for three years. "When I sent my postal vote the previous week, I imagined it would be a close result, but I never envisaged what happened happening."

The result, coupled with the antics of Nigel Farage and Ukip, has made her feel slightly embarrassed about her nationality. Now, something as simple as seeing a "produced in Great Britain" sticker on a tub of strawberries in the supermarket doesn't carry the sort of pride it used to.

"It's a backwards step that's particularly out of tune with what the majority of young British people want," she says. "It's not progressive and it's been extremely divisive, particularly when you look at how Scotland and Northern Ireland voted."

The overriding uncertainty in British politics over the past week has made her nervous for the future, one where the true ramifications may not be felt for many years.

"It's all up in the air," she says. "Most of my income is paid in sterling, so I've yet to see what that income will be."

At present, she is the music programmer of the Christian station Spirit FM and she is also a member of the well-known English crossover classical act Bond.

Since the vote, she has already begun the process to become an Irish citizen. The fact that she is married to an Irishman will expedite her case and she believes many more British people living in this country will do the same. Enjoying the sort of unfettered movement throughout the EU that she has been used to all her life will be a priority, and it saddens her that the people of her generation and the one coming after her will be denied this right.

Elspeth is one of almost 300,000 British people who live in the Republic, comfortably making them the largest nationality after the Irish here. It's also a figure that is higher than any other place in Europe, with the exception of Spain, which illustrates that movement between Ireland and the UK is not a one-way thing.

Ian Nunoo (32) moved to Dublin two years ago to set up his digital marketing company Base2Digital. He, too, voted Remain and has been reeling from the news. But the result, while a surprise, has not shocked him.

"Two months ago, I would have said there was no way the Leave side would win," he says, "but the gap kept getting closer and I was nervous before the vote.

"The impact of this is likely to be felt for years, and many of the older people who voted for it, on regaining our sovereignty grounds, or whatever, won't be around to see what its far-reaching effect will be. I would like to have 16 and 17-year-olds being given the vote because it's going to have an effect on them for 50 years."

Ian says in the wake of the vote that he feels fortunate to live and work in Ireland, especially as he finds the country to be so European in outlook.

"I think a lot of British people might look to move here," he says. "Being the only English-speaking country in the EU will be a huge advantage to Ireland."

He says he fears for the immediate future of his own country.

"There's so much uncertainty in both the main parties. We don't know who our next prime minister will be or what will happen in Labour. The rest of the world looks on and sees a country that's doesn't seem to know what to do with itself. Where's that famous British sense of resolve?"

Ian suggests that the listless manner in which England crashed out of the Euros, at the hands of minnows Iceland, is symptomatic of the unfortunate place the country finds itself in at present. Not all British residents in this country see Brexit as the disaster it's being portrayed in some quarters.

One 60-something Englishman who has lived in Co Wicklow for more than 20 years, but does not wish to be named, believes his country did the right thing.

"The EU was great for big business but what about the ordinary man or woman on the street?" he says.

"They felt no positive connection with the EU and probably saw it as something that didn't have their interests at heart. I think that's why there was such a strong 'No' vote in the north of England and in Wales. And, when you think about it, the EU wasn't exactly behind the ordinary citizens of this country when it came to bailing out the banks."

As this retiree has lived in Ireland for more than 15 years, he was not eligible to avail of a postal vote. Today, he says that he is dismayed that the narrative tars all those who wished to leave the EU as xenophobic.

"I have no time whatsoever for Farage and I think that [Ukip] poster [depicting a long line of immigrants] was disgusting. But just because Ukip supported leaving the EU, doesn't mean that those who also want Britain to go it alone should have been dissuaded. And only a small portion of those who voted 'No' would support Ukip - otherwise they would have swept into power during the last [general] election."

While he concedes that he will not be able to travel with quite the same ease as before, he points out that the situation where Irish and British people can travel freely between their two countries has long pre-dated EU membership.

"That will not change because the people of both countries stand to lose too much. We'll still be able to travel between here and Britain as easy as we always did - and only one country being in the EU doesn't change that."
This Millward Brown Poll, conducted over 12 days up until last Thursday, is our first since the General Election. It is therefore our first measurement of public opinion since the tortuous period of government formation.

Interviewing also coincided with the lead-up and aftermath of the UK Brexit referendum - a result that undoubtedly has huge ramifications for Ireland, and this poll identifies some of them.

First off, the state of the parties. Compared with the General Election result, there has been some movement of late. Fine Gael will be relieved to see some momentum upwards in support since its disastrous General Election performance. It now stands at 30pc, up four points from February's national vote. Fianna Fail has also improved its position since then, albeit by a more modest 2pc to 26pc.

The election of Brendan Howlin as leader has done little to resuscitate Labour's drift towards obscurity; just 7pc opt for the party.

What is more fascinating is the contrasting fortunes of Sinn Fein and Others/Independents.

On paper, it would seem that Sinn Fein has seen a dramatic boost in its fortunes. But Sinn Fein is a party that often flatters to deceive when there is no general election on the immediate horizon - the value of its stock can be often overpriced, as its inability to get its supporters to vote on the day is well documented. In addition, the hard left will continue to nibble at its flanks.

There is, however, potentially a more important development. Whilst parties such as AAA, the Greens and Social Democrats have maintained their support, the proportion of the electorate opting for Independent candidates has dropped back significantly.

It may well be that following the huge groundswell of support for them in February, the public has realised that creating such a fractured parliament isn't necessarily a good thing - taking 63 days to form a Government tends to fray the nerves somewhat (not that they were the only ones to blame).

In addition, there are now Independents sitting around the Cabinet table, batting for Government policy; the voting public may have assumed they were electing them to bowl.

This new Government's satisfaction levels remain similar to the previous administration - a rather underwhelming 28pc are happy with their performance so far. Of course, these are early days, but three in five are unhappy. With such an eclectic mix of characters propping up this Government, this will be one metric to watch closely in the coming months.

Looking at Party Toxicity (that is, which grouping people would NOT vote for), results have remained relatively stable. Of the main parties, Sinn Fein, followed by Fine Gael and Labour, remain the most likely to alienate. As before, Fianna Fail are the least toxic of them (although one in four would not consider it). This measure provides an important yardstick to understand where Dail seats will go, given the complexity of the Irish electoral system.

Reflecting this to a certain extent is that Micheal Martin is by far the party leader attracting most satisfaction - 43pc are happy with his performance - up 16 points since the last comparable poll (although at 31pc, Gerry Adams is second most effective). Enda Kenny and Brendan Howlin bring up the rear at 27pc respectively. It would seem that Martin's statesman-like decision to support the Government (in some circumstances) is paying dividends. Of course, focusing on the domestic political scene in a vacuum this weekend is rather pointless. The impact of Brex it has cast, and will continue to cast, a long shadow over the political and economic fortunes of this country for some time to come. This poll highlights this in perfect clarity.

From the outset, the Irish population was firmly in favour of Britain remaining within the EU. A pan-European Poll, conducted by Millward Brown in Ireland, and our TNS Colleagues across Europe earlier in June, found that 70pc of Irish people wanted the UK to remain, second only to Germany (79pc). With Britain leaving, the narrative has changed utterly. From Enda Kenny's point of view, this is a political nightmare. He is now stuck between protecting the interests of Anglo- Irish trade and cross-border relationships, and appeasing the EU. This will be a very fine tightrope to walk.

The problem for Kenny is that for him to negotiate with Europe on a special deal for Ireland will potentially expose his perceived weakness - to stand up to Europe. An unforgiving Europe may be in no mood to offer anything in terms of appeasement to the UK.

A hawkish attitude has already been signalled by Jean- Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, Francois Hollande of France and his Belgian and Spanish counterparts. Of course, they have their own motives (both national and European) to do so, but it means that Kenny will be very much fighting off the back foot. In addition, he will not have his traditional ally, the UK, to back him up.

Under any circumstances this would be extremely difficult, but Kenny and Finance Minister Michael Noonan have additional baggage - they are still haunted, and taunted, by the perceived ineffectiveness of the last time they played hardball with Europe - their "seismic shift" in European Policy on debt last time out was anything but.

Ironically however, the instability that Brexit causes may well prolong the life of this Government. There is a general consensus that this is a transitional administration - over seven in ten (72pc) believe it will last no more than two years.

Yet an analysis of interviews conducted before the Brexit result announcement versus the post-result announcement suggests that people are drifting towards the upper end of that time scale; those believing the Government will last 18 months to two years shifted from 29pc to 38pc. It may well be that stability in the short term at least is the most sensible option.

There is no doubt that Brexit has spooked the nation. One of our longer term tracking questions asks if people believe they will be financially better off, worse off or about the same this time next year. When we asked this last in February, it measured a positive result for the first time since the crash (more said they would be better off than worse off). This has regressed more recently. We are equally as likely to have a positive or negative outlook (22pc each). What is of note, however, is that positivity was trending at 27pc up until the Friday of the Brexit announcement, and slipped to 19pc once the announcement was made.

It illustrates that the Irish electorate are observant of the world around them and the implications that certain decisions can have.

Looking at the political turmoil across the water, it seems that for some of them, this trait was sadly lacking.

Paul Moran is an Associate Director of Millward Bown
When Paul Kelly was invited to speak at a conference in Auckland, New Zealand in September 2012, he made the most of it.

He was, after all, the boss of a suicide bereavement charity, Console, and had yet to be found out. No one remembered that he once got the Probation Act in 1983 for pretending to be a doctor, or that he went on to call himself a priest to boost donations to a dubious counselling charity that folded with a reported 100,000 tax debt. Now here he was, being invited to share a podium with leading international thinkers on suicide prevention at a conference on the other side of the world.

According to the draft report by the Health Service Executive's internal auditors, Paul Kelly took along his 20-something son, Tim, and a bunch of Console credit cards for a 17-day trip that also took in Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Kelly told the internal auditors that they stopped off in Singapore to hold meetings with "the Irish community". In Sydney, they met the McKillop Foundation, a charity dealing with social isolation. In Auckland, Tim Kelly busied himself with a workshop on suicide prevention, while his father spoke at the conference.

Read more: Former Console CEO Paul Kelly and wife relinquish company cars and credit cards after 10 days of turmoil over finances

Paul Kelly provided details of this trip - and others - but "no financial information" according to the draft audit report. The auditors studied credit card statements to shed further light on their activities. There were visits to the Singapore Zoo on September 19 (almost 100); the Singapore Museum the next day (26); the National Maritime Museum in Sydney on September 23 (32); and cash withdrawals from Auckland to Woolloomooloo to Sydney to Perth, 4,000km away, where Kelly is said to have relatives. The 590 cost of the hotel in Singapore appeared on Kelly's wife, Patricia's credit card, according to the draft audit, although she was not named as being on the trip.

Expand Close CHARITY BOSS: Paul Kelly was honoured with a People of The Year award. Pic. Robbie Reynolds / Facebook

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Whatsapp CHARITY BOSS: Paul Kelly was honoured with a People of The Year award. Pic. Robbie Reynolds

The 1,400 cost of a stay at the Blue Sydney Taj hotel in Woolloomooloo on October 5 was billed to another Console staff member. In total, 4,458 was racked up on three Console credit cards. Paul Kelly's mobile phone bill for the trip came to 1,101. Console picked up the tab for that too.

Two months later, Kelly left for Perth, Australia again, in December of 2012 and spent the New Year there. Kelly's explanation to the auditors was that he was there to "speak at the Jesuit centre". Exactly a year later, he made his third trip to Australia in 16 months. In December 2013, Kelly and his son, Tim, flew to Sydney to visit the St Joseph's Motherhouse in Sydney to discuss a "growth" programme Console wanted to roll out in Ireland. They visited Perth to meet "suicide prevention facilitators" and stopped off in Dubai to "meet the Irish community" to "discuss their planned fundraiser for Console".

According to the HSE's draft internal audit report, Console spent 71,460 between 2012 and 2014 on foreign travel. But Paul Kelly defended each and every trip, insisting that all were undertaken on Console business and rejected any suggestion that "personal expenditure" might be mixed up in the costs he was racking up to his charity.

Read More

Console's foreign travel proved to be just one manifestation of the dysfunction at the top of the charity founded by Paul Kelly in 2002, seven years after the death of his sister from suicide, and run by him ever since.

Since RTE's Prime Time Investigates was broadcast last Thursday week, Kelly's house of cards has come tumbling down. The programme exposed Kelly's "history of deception" and questionable financial controls at his suicide bereavement charity. It has been a week of High Court injunctions to keep the Kellys out of the charity, bank accounts have been frozen and its future State funding is under review.

Read more: Console scandal: Elaborate web of deceit of an 'untouchable' charity founder

Those who crossed Paul Kelly's path came out of the woodwork to share with Joe Duffy's Liveline stories of Kelly's shameless deception, carried off with boundless confidence and charm.

Expand Close Father Aidan Troy with then-President Mary McAleese and Console founder Paul Kelly in 2011. Photograph: Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews.ie / Facebook

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Whatsapp Father Aidan Troy with then-President Mary McAleese and Console founder Paul Kelly in 2011. Photograph: Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews.ie

He was born in Ballyfermot, Dublin, to a large family, became a novice with St John of Gods order, spent a stint in a seminary in Scotland, worked as a porter and then a lab aide in St James's Hospital, before applying and getting a job as a casualty doctor with no qualifications whatsoever.

He worked in Aer Lingus, as security guard in the US embassy, but charity was his "calling". He passed himself off as a priest and set up Christian Development Services, a counselling service which, like Console, took in cash donations. It ended up closing down after he was confronted by his own staff. Kelly next surfaced in 2002 with his Console charity which he claimed was in tribute to his late sister.

The HSE's internal audit suggests it was run like a family business, with Kelly at its head. Kelly opened the post and handled the donations. He drove a Mercedes CLS 2009, worth 30,613, and during the period of the audit, 2012 to 2014, he received consultancy payments of 218,516, and a credit card spend of more than 250,000 on two cards. His wife, Patricia, Console's chairperson and director - a post that is supposed to be unpaid - was paid 67,149 in that period, drove an Audi Q5, and ran up bills of 134,924 on a charity credit card. Their son, Tim, who ran Console's London office since July 2012, was on a salary of Stg31,308 a year and owned a credit card that racked up spending of 77,597 in three years. Between them, the family Kelly accounted for 464,777 of the total expenditure of 736,022 on Console's 18 active credit cards between 2012 and 2014.

Their family home in Celbridge - which they still own - became Console's head office, and Paul and Patricia Kelly moved into a second home on an estate called Alexandra Manor in Clane, Co Kildare.

According to the credit card statements, the Kellys dined 48 times at their local Zest Cafe in Clane, between 2012 and 2014, at a cost of 3,942. Paul Kelly said he met potential donors and fundraising teams in "a social capacity".

Kelly charged dental bills to the tune of 1,340 to Console. Kelly first explained that there was an "incident" between a client and staff member at Console in Tralee. Later, Kelly told the HSE he had been assaulted at Limerick's Console Centre by "an intoxicated homeless man" and produced an "incident report" to back up his assertions.

He charged a motoring fine of 80 to his Console card on January 23, 2012. He explained that he was "attending a critical incident of suicide". "A payment of a motoring fine is a payment in relation to a person breaking the law and is not an appropriate use of public funds and charitable donations," the auditors noted.

The auditors questioned why Patricia Kelly should have her mobile phone paid for by Console, as her husband had described her as a "volunteer" who wasn't paid (even though auditors later discovered that she was). Kelly insisted that her phone was for work with Console.

Auditors were also struck by the purchases of clothes in boutiques, such as Ralph Lauren and Hugo Boss in Kildare Village, and various high street shops in London. They created a table of 12 examples of the different explanations they received for the same purchase; a 95 purchase at Moss Bros was at first described as "clothing for poor homeless clients", then as a raffle prize for a fundraiser in Cricklewood, and finally as clothing for staff. In fact, the first time the HSE auditors heard about this clothing policy was in August 2015, according to the draft audit report. Console UK provided a clothing allowance for staff, volunteers and contract counsellors. They asked Kelly for a copy of the policy and he emailed it to them. It was dated 2010 but auditors established that the document had been created on the same day he had sent it.

Read more: Further investigations into Console charity bring to light transactions between its sister organisation in the UK, court hears

On the night RTE's Prime Time report was broadcast, Console announced the resignations of Paul and Patricia Kelly. That same evening, Kelly met the HSE auditor with a final chunk of paperwork. They completed the audit the next day but by then the scandal had already exploded.

Five investigations are now under way into Console, including an "assessment" by the Garda fraud squad.

The business man and mortgage campaigner, David Hall, and a forensic accountant, Tom Murray, are leading the charge. They were asked by Aidan Eames, solicitor for Console, to review the charity. They found an organisation in chaos. The director of services told them of the shock and disappointment of staff. Debts were mounting up. Staff were using a company credit card to pay off the phone bill. Wages were paid sporadically.

The remaining directors Angela McGovern, Gerard Tiernan and Ursula Mulkerrins, claimed they were also betrayed. In court documents, David Hall, Console interim CEO, said they didn't even know they were directors and never attended board meetings.

Paul and Patricia Kelly did not go quietly. According to Hall's High Court affidavit, Console's solicitors tried to contact them after the Prime Time programme, but the Kellys said they were "too upset" to meet. But on Monday, Kelly turned up at the Console office in Celbridge and told staff it was "business as usual".

Kelly and his wife called to Eames Solicitors in Smithfield for what was intended to be an "orderly handover" following their resignations. Instead, Kelly told the lawyers that he hadn't resigned and still intended to run the charity. Later, David Hall was told by staff in Celbridge that the computer containing all the payroll details had been removed from the office and couldn't be found.

By Thursday, Hall and Murray were in the High Court, seeking court protection because Console was in "serious and exceptional danger." They were back in court on Friday, looking for more freezing orders, because of concerns over three properties including an eight-bedroom house in Galway, a PayPal account set up for donations, and transactions on an English bank account.

Read more: 'We exposed Kelly 26 years ago, I guess some people never change'

The court heard that the Kellys could not be found to serve court papers on them but Hall and Murray could tell that their emails had been read.

By Friday night, after more than 10 days of intense scrutiny, Paul and Patricia Kelly decided to make contact with Hall through an intermediary. They agreed to hand over the cars, credit cards and other Console assets to David Hall at a meeting in Dublin yesterday afternoon.

Despite the scandal, Paul Kelly presided over a charity that many of its users hailed last week as providing an essential and compassionate service. Hall hopes it will rise from the ashes. His attempts to protect it will be back in the High Court on Tuesday.
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Dan O'Brien Opinion While we catastrophise about Covid, we ignore risk of running out of cash

We Irish view the world in an increasingly strange and unhealthy way. We catastrophise about Covid in a way other European countries do not. We focus on how bad the effects of the virus could get, on how many more restrictions might be imposed by Government and how helpless we are in the face of the virus.
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Radio review: The thing about the Wolfe Tones is not that their music is Irish, but that its bad

We have established that nationalism in general is eejitry taken to such extremes it becomes a form of evil. And in the case of our version of nationalism, perhaps the ultimate eejitry is that many of us would broadly agree in theory with a United Ireland if it wasnt for the nationalists themselves  they have contrived somehow to be the main obstacle to their own ambitions.
Naturally, as a teenager, I knew that my parents were wrong about everything. Then I grew up and accepted that perhaps they were right after all. As middle-age crashes in on me, I worry that my teenage self might have had a point. While I raged and slammed doors, they preached stoicism.

For them, it's not merely a tool for managing life's disappointments, but a moral issue. No one owes you a living and the only valid response - the only moral response - is to keep one's head up, smile, work hard, and justice may or not be done in the end.

After I'd spent one full day in the company of my children this week, I decided that wasn't going to work for me. So I concocted an urgent meeting in Dublin on Friday, put on my make-up and fled the house.

Yes: I've turned into one of those middle-class mothers whose worst nightmare is the obligation to care for one's children. As the summer holidays commenced, the nightmare became reality. They don't listen to me. All they crave - all day - are screens and sugar. They don't go to bed. They speak like Californian teenage girls; which for boys is not a good look. They fight with each other and almost inadvertently inflict bizarre acts of vandalism on the home.

The only real moments of joy are when I shower them with attention and affection. Then we can laugh. And then they see an opportunity and ask for sweets or the Playstation. Sigh.

I used to be a proud, capable housewife. I cleaned doors. I planned educational days out. I categorised towels. I baked cakes, for heaven's sake. I was clearly insane. And I've had enough. I want to read a paragraph without interruption. I want to start and complete tasks without refereeing a fight. To be fair to them, I can't see why they'd want to spend time with a crazy woman who makes them repeat every sentence without saying "like".

The school hours provide some release but to have each other all day? To hell with stoicism. I can't do it this summer.

Others of my ilk blame teachers when faced with this reality. It's their fault for taking too-long holidays! But I think modern teachers are saints to put up with modern children and their modern parents. If I can't control three children, how do they keep 30 quiet, teach them something, and tolerate outraged lectures from parents when discipline is required?

In fairness I'm still only dealing with primary school children. I find by the time it gets to June they've stopped taking anything in and the teachers need a decent break. I write them guilty letters thanking them for putting up with my lot as gracefully as they do.

Don't try to tell me that our mothers had us all for summer holidays and they were fine. They weren't fine. They were overworked and miserable. They just had no choice and a prescription for Valium. These days things are different. They prescribe Xanax instead.

And fine! I grew up in the country where we roamed for miles each day, built dens in the hay shed and did jobs on the farm. True, we fought over the telly too, but we had only two stations. There were limits. But as my kids say - that was the olden days. They are of Generation Paranoid, where I don't so much fear that something might happen to them should they go out of sight, but that I'd be blamed for it. Accidents I can handle. Judgement I can't.

Our parents were expected to feed, clothe and educate their children. We're expected to make sure ours are "happy" and succeed in a world of neo-liberal ethics where pre-teens are primed to call each other "losers". It's not just that the obligations of parenting have intensified - but we're supposed to enjoy it too. That's what grates with me.

So what to do? As with everything else, class dictates all. I might have an overdraft but I also have a credit card. I whipped it out and panic-booked summer camps, wondering guiltily how poor people cope. The GAA and FAI run brilliant camps and in a fit of aspirational madness, I found a coding class for kids in the hope they take their place among the technological aristocrats of the future. The current indications are that this is highly unlikely, but at least they won't be able to blame me if it doesn't work out. When secondary school starts, so will the stint in the Gaeltacht. As they move on presumably I'll have to upgrade to student exchanges in Europe. You see what's happening? Summer holidays have become another opportunity for the middle class to up-skill the next generation while we get them out of our hair. It's virtuous avoidance.

The point being: why do I feel so defensive about that? Surely it's what feminists have been arguing for generations?

The psychoanalyst Colman Noctor said on my Newstalk show recently that expectation minus reality equals happiness. So let's hear it for the Consumerist Capitalist Conspiracy which defeated feminism by hysterically inflating the concept of idealised motherhood. That's the problem here.

As feminists argued that women needed to get out of the house, my generation has been relentlessly brainwashed with the idea that reproduction is not simply some evolutionary imperative and economic necessity but the emotional fulfilment of our human destiny. Having children isn't something we do because we can; because we need heirs, or an unfortunate side effect of having sex. Apparently, we do it because it will make us happy. In fact, without them, we can never be happy. That's got to be tosh, right?

Now, don't get me wrong. I loved having babies and I loved minding them. I'm glad I stayed at home when they were little. In fact, I think I was most contented at that stage. These days, I love it when they say funny, clever things and it's nice when I ignore everything else and just have a cuddle with them. I'm conscious too that they'll matter more to me as I age. Especially as I age.

I just don't want to be around them all the time and so summer crystallises the issue, making children a problem to be solved. Which is sad really; a consequence of industrialisation and the idealisation of family life. I know what the 'good' mother would do. She'd surrender to it all gracefully. If I do that, then family life will work.

But I am not a 'good' mother and the fact that such a concept still exists makes me wonder how anyone can claim we live in a post-feminist world.

It's time to rediscover my teenage self and slam a few doors on the way out. 'Tis the end of stoicism for me.
FURORE: If Theresa May is elected prime minister, her government will be negotiating a deal without an ounce of conviction. Photo: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

Last Friday, just a week after Britain's Brexit 'disaster', the UK stock market had enjoyed its best week since 2011. Bond yields hit record lows. Boris Johnson, the big winner, had been fatally wounded. The favourite to succeed David Cameron at Number 10 was not the man entitled to the spoils of war but a loser, Remain supporter and Home Secretary Theresa May. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn was fighting for his political life. His crime: only lukewarm support for the Remain side. An earthquake was taking place. Those who had won were losing. Those who had lost were winning.

Armageddon was not beckoning, after all. The markets were clearly signalling that Britain would soon enjoy a boom. The nation had been prematurely spooked.

Expand Close PATIENCE: Germanys chancellor Angela Merkel / Facebook

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Buyers were returning to UK stocks in their droves, expecting an early economic stimulus. Meanwhile, shares in Germany, France and, above all, Ireland were nursing nasty losses.

The Scottish charmer, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, was cold-shouldered in Brussels, by nearly everyone bar Enda Kenny. Europe was not quite ready to ditch the mighty Brits in favour of the plucky Scots. Separate negotiations with Scotland were judged premature. Nicola returned to Scotland empty-handed.

Europe was hesitating. So was the UK. A clear undercurrent was running through European leaders' post-trauma behaviour. No one, including the Brits, quite believed the historic decision was the last word on the story.

A comforting creature crept into the chaotic narrative: Britain had maybe suffered from a national aberration. While France's Francois Hollande and European Commision President Jean-Claude Juncker petulantly insisted that Britain take its leave quickly, others were not so hasty. Angela Merkel suggested that sober heads should not be in such a hurry.

Europe was playing for time. Britain was playing for time. Even Ireland was playing for time. Shell-shocked leaders began to talk hopefully of the negotiations taking years. Protagonists on both sides of the channel wondered whether time would allow a change of heart. They even whispered that, over time, the decision could be reversed. Most countries in Europe were now destined for downturns, as their economies nearly all stood to suffer from Britain's withdrawal. The UK looked less vulnerable than most as Sterling's dive offered exporters an opportunity.

The penny began to drop in some key European quarters that there were no easy economic solutions to a British withdrawal; that knee-jerk reactions prompted by anger, followed by punitive measures against the UK, could cause self-inflicted wounds to the remaining 27 members of the Union, but not to the errant one.

Zealots among the Remain lobby in Britain made demands for another referendum. Wild claims that the electorate were peddled lies (they always are!) made them look like bad losers, but a more cunning agenda began to emerge. Time was to be their weapon.

If Theresa May is elected British prime minister, if she does not pull the Leave trigger until next year or later, if the negotiations drag on beyond the minimum two years, if the talks get deadlocked, what next? All bets will be off. Theresa's government will be negotiating a deal without an ounce of conviction. Few at the top tables in Europe will favour the final departure of Britain. Neither side will even favour reaching agreement. Not exactly auspicious omens for a rapid result.

And even if they do agree terms, what is to stop Theresa calling another referendum on the final deal? She could even suggest that while the terms agreed are the best on offer, the voters should reject them. The Leave decision will be reversed. Britain and Europe will breathe a collective sigh of relief. Democracy will be pronounced to have prevailed. The entire venture will be deemed a lucky escape. No one will be luckier than Ireland if Britain remains in the Union.

The economies of the European nations will breathe easier. There are plenty of precedents, pretty close to home, for second referendums. It happened here after Nice and Lisbon when the Irish people, suddenly confronted with the economic unknown, reversed gear and returned to the warm womb of Europe.

Referendums are dangerous animals. Like by-elections, they give voters a chance to deliver governments hard kicks in the posterior, usually in mid-term without changing regimes. So the first referendum is an opportunity for protest about peripheral issues, the second to reverse the first. In Ireland, many of us who voted against some European referendums initially voted with our hearts. The second time we voted with our heads.

Ten days ago, British citizens voted with their hearts. They opted to leave Europe, mainly down to raw emotions. Yet the real consequences will be in their pockets. This is where their heads will come into play. Some voted for the exit for racist reasons. Others yearned for the old days of empire. Others were protesting against austerity.

Others simply loved Boris. They voted for his theatrical anti-European polemics, not his non-existent economic analysis. Few fretted about big-ticket items like gross domestic product, Foreign Direct Investment or their wage packets. Boris was charismatic, an emotional luxury. The old Etonian has suddenly been exposed as an indulgence they cannot afford. His own exit has left his mesmerised followers abandoned.

The common voter objection to the European Union at referendums in Britain and Ireland has been a gut dislike of the entire institution. The most offensive feature of Europe is not its economy or the internal market , it is the way European institutions conduct themselves. Older British people (who vote more than their younger counterparts) do not like anonymous apparatchiks dictating laws and customs to a nation with proud traditions. They detest European "directives", bureaucracy , the ECB and all commissioners. Ordinary United Kingdom citizens are acutely aware that Europe is a gravy train for an elite that is unaccountable to its citizens.

They have witnessed the patronage dished out by European politicians to political favourites as they land overpaid jobs in Brussels. They do not enjoy being equal partners with France and Germany, countries they have vanquished in war after war.

They are right in their disgust at the largesse and arrogance associated with the European top brass. But now that they have sent that message to Brussels loud and clear - job done - those who support Remain are likely to reassert themselves over coming weeks.

So, do not bank on Brexit. The Remain political establishment in the UK is already regrouping. Winners, like Boris, are leaving the stage. The Labour Party is looking to replace Corbyn with a more energetic Remain supporter.

A general election is almost certain before exit terms are agreed with Europe. It will be a second referendum on Europe. They are likely to follow Ireland's example and do a volte face.

And despite the rather spiteful noises coming from some European leaders in recent days , a nation that went walkabout will be welcomed back into the fold.

Shane Ross is Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport
Talk about an exciting finish - the victory of Harzand in the Irish Derby lifted the vaulted roof of the luxurious marquee where Colm McLoughlin (4, with rugby players Luke McGrath and James Tracy), Executive Vice Chairman and CEO of Dubai Duty Free, hosted the great and good of Irish industry and sport at the Curragh last weekend.

The man with the biggest smile on the day was undoubtedly His Highness the Aga Khan, who happily accepted congratulations for the success of the three-year-old Colt who clinched the English-Irish Derby double.

It was a busy few days for Colm and his wife, Breeda. The previous night, they hosted a ball in aid of the Jack & Jill Foundation charity at the K Club where the 270 guests included HE Pat Hennessy, the Irish Ambassador to the UAE, birthday girl, Sinead El Sibai, Vice President Marketing of Dubai Duty Free and her husband, Jihad (2).

When I arrived, Gaybo signalled that his wife wanted to speak to me. Turns out Kathleen Watkins was rather smitten with my travel report on the Uniworld river cruise in France. The grandmother of five will celebrate her 82nd birthday in October, a week before launching Pigin of Howth, based on stories she used to make up for her grandson, Cian when he was three and living in London.

Kathleen posed with Breeda McLoughlin (1) and then treated me to an exclusive preview of Pigin's adventures on the Dart and his dapper suit "made with Magee tweed spun by the fairies."

Always the supreme raconteur, Gay has just finished a nationwide roadshow, with 46 two-hour shows in which he recites, amongst things, golden oldies from Cecil Sheridan.

I had fashion matters to attend to as Style Ambassador for the Curragh for the weekend. Our Best Dressed winner, Eva Hayes Morrissey from Limerick, brought her hubbie, Paul, and their baby, Tristan, back to celebrate at the marquee.

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Ringo Starr has praised the UK's decision to leave the European Union, saying Brexit will allow the country to get back on its "own feet".

The former Beatles drummer said he was "huge fan" of the EU when it started but it had failed to turn into a "love fest".

Reacting to the referendum result, Starr told the Press Association: "I think (it's) good. Get back on our own feet.

"I was a huge fan when (the EU) started. I've lived all over Europe so I thought 'how great'. But it never really got together, I didn't think.

"Maybe in a business way it got together but everyone kept their own flags ... it didn't really turn into a love fest."

Starr, who lives in Los Angeles, said he rarely returned to Liverpool but he still felt close to his home city.

"I don't get back to Liverpool much at all," he said. "I get back when I play there and that's about it really."

Asked whether he still felt a close connection to Liverpool, Starr replied: "Oh yeah, are you kidding? I came from there. I'm a scouser. I know I haven't lost my accent."

Starr ruled out reuniting with ex-Beatle Sir Paul McCartney at the California music festival Desert Trip in October because he is away on tour.

The festival will feature Starr's son Zak Starkey, who plays drums for The Who, along with Sir Paul, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Roger Waters from Pink Floyd.

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Despite a career spanning six decades, Starr said he still suffers with nerves before he performs with his all-star band.

"I get nerves every time," he said. "There's like five seconds before I go on, I want to go home.

"That's why I run on. If I run on and grab that mike then I'm fine. My aim is to saunter on one time but it hasn't happened yet."

Starr will celebrate his 76th birthday on Thursday by encouraging people to say his trademark phrase "peace and love" at noon around the world.

Former Eurythmics musician Dave Stewart will join Starr and his wife Barbara for the eighth annual Peace and Love event outside Capital Records Tower in Hollywood.

Starr said: "There's been a lot of violence out of there so I just go 'peace and love'. It's the alternative."
Australians have woken up to a government plagued by uncertainty after a stunningly close general election failed to deliver a clear winner, raising the prospect of a hung parliament.

The gamble by prime minister Malcolm Turnbull to call a rare early election may have failed, with his conservative Liberal Party-led coalition on track to lose a swathe of seats in the House of Representatives - and potentially control of the country.

On Sunday, a day after the election, the race remained too close to call, with postal ballots and early votes yet to be counted. Still, Mr Turnbull sounded a confident tone during a speech to supporters.

"Based on the advice I have from the party officials, we can have every confidence that we will form a coalition majority government in the next parliament," he said.

Parties need to hold at least 76 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives to form a government. When the count was suspended early on Sunday, the Australian Electoral Commission said the centre-left opposition Labor Party was leading in 72 seats, Mr Turnbull's coalition in 66 seats, and minor parties or independents in five seats. Counting was less clear in another seven seats.

Though the initial count showed Labor ahead, postal and early ballots have traditionally favoured the conservatives, meaning Mr Turnbull's party is likely to gain seats once those are factored in. The final tally is not expected to be known until Tuesday.

Opposition leader Bill Shorten did not speculate on a Labor victory but celebrated the strong swing to his party just three years after it was convincingly dumped from power in the last election.

"Whatever happens next week, Mr Turnbull ... will never again be able to promise the stability which he has completely failed to deliver tonight," he told cheering supporters.

Given the close result, just two possibilities remain - Mr Turnbull's coalition will win by the slimmest of margins, or there will be a hung parliament.

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie said Mr Turnbull telephoned him on Sunday morning, apparently because the prime minister was contemplating a hung parliament.

Mr Turnbull called the early election - dubbed a "double dissolution" because both houses are dissolved - in a bid to break a legislative deadlock over a bill that would have created a construction industry watchdog.

But the result of the election may bring further deadlock: If neither party earns a majority of seats in the House, both Labor and the coalition will be forced to try to forge alliances with independent lawmakers to form a minority government.

Hung parliaments are extremely rare in Australia, with only two since 1940. The most recent was in 2010, when then prime minister Julia Gillard's ruling Labor Party was forced to secure an alliance with the minor Greens party and three independent MPs, including Mr Wilkie, to form a fragile minority government. Three years later the coalition swept to power after winning 90 seats.
Pope Francis hailed his predecessor for helping expose problems in the church

Pope Francis has said his predecessor as pontiff is having trouble getting around, but remains sharp of mind and memory, according to an interview published on Sunday.

"His mind and his memory are intact, perfect," Francis said of Benedict XVI in the remarks published by La Nacion.

He also praised the 89-year-old emeritus pope as a "revolutionary".

Francis said Benedict's abdication "exposed all the problems of the church" and was itself "an act of government, his final act of government".

The interview was published five days after the current and former popes appeared together at an unprecedented Vatican ceremony celebrating the 65th anniversary of Benedict's ordination as a priest.

The event underscored the continuity from Benedict to Francis even as some conservatives have expressed nostalgia for Benedict's tradition-minded papacy.

In the interview, Francis said he avoids conflict with ultra-conservatives.

"They do their work and I do mine," he said. "I want a church that is open, compassionate, that accompanies wounded families. They say no to everything."

But he added: "I'm not a head-hunter. I've never liked doing that."

Francis waved aside suggestions that he has a cool relationship with Argentina's conservative new president Mauricio Macri, describing him as "a noble person".

He acknowledged that as archbishop of Buenos Aires, he had had a difference with Mr Macri, then mayor, when city officials declined to appeal against a court ruling that granted a marriage licence to a gay couple.

He said that was their only dispute in six years.

"That's a very low average," he added.

AP
Oscar-winning director Michael Cimino, whose film The Deer Hunter became one of the great triumphs of Hollywood's 1970s heyday and whose disastrous Heaven's Gate helped bring that era to a close, has died.

Los Angeles County acting coroner's lieutenant B Kim said Cimino, 77, died on Saturday. He said had been living in Beverly Hills at the time of his death.

Cimino had his directorial breakthrough with his second film, The Deer Hunter, in 1978, the story of the Vietnam War's effect on a small steel-working town in Pennsylvania. The film won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Cimino.

But his emerging career then took a U-turn with 1980's Heaven's Gate, a Western starring Kris Kristofferson that was a critical and financial disaster.

Eric Weissmann, a friend and former lawyer of Cimino's, told The New York Times police found his body at his home after friends were unable to reach him by phone.

The Deer Hunter helped lift the emerging-legend status of Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep. Christopher Walken also won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

"Our work together is something I will always remember. He will be missed," De Niro said in a statement.

Despite controversy over its portrayal of the North Vietnamese and use of the violent game Russian roulette, the film was praised by some critics as the best American movies since The Godfather six years earlier.

Roger Ebert, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, called it "one of the most emotionally shattering films ever made".

But Heaven's Gate, which also starred Walken, became synonymous with over-budget and out-of-control productions, and a cautionary tale for giving artistic-minded directors too much power in the new Hollywood that had been defined by directors such as Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese.

Its initial budget of 11.5 million dollars (8.6m) would balloon to 44 million (33m) after marketing. While those numbers are meagre by today's standards, at the time they were enough to hasten the demise of United Artists, and of Cimino's career.

Some say it helped bring down the director-driven renaissance that had fuelled much of the great work of the 1970s, giving way to a business-and-blockbuster mentality that would dominate the decades that followed.

Steven Bach, a former executive vice president at United Artists, documented the production in the 1999 book Final Cut: Art Money And Ego In The Making Of Heaven's Gate.

Vincent Canby, the New York Times film critic not known for his harshness, said the film was an "unqualified disaster" that "fails so completely that you might suspect Mr Cimino sold his soul to the devil to obtain the success of The Deer Hunter, and the devil has just come around to collect".

But Cimino always stood by the movie as an artistic accomplishment, or at least a project worth undertaking.

"I never second-guess myself," he told Vanity Fair in 2010. "You can't look back. I don't believe in defeat. Everybody has bumps, but as Count Basie said, 'It's not how you handle the hills, it's how you handle the valleys.'"

Clint Eastwood, a lifelong friend, also defended him in Vanity Fair.

"George Lucas made Howard The Duck and the guy who made Waterworld - those films didn't destroy them," he said.

"Critics were set up to hate Heaven's Gate. The picture didn't work with the public. If it had, it would have been the same as Titanic. Titanic worked, so all is forgiven."

Cimino became an eccentric figure even for Hollywood, living in solitude, constantly changing his appearance, claiming allergies to both alcohol and sunshine.

Born in New York City and raised on Long Island, Cimino graduated from Yale in 1961, and he earned a master's degree from the University of New Haven in 1963, both in painting.

His first film came in 1974 with Thunderbolt And Lightfoot, a robbery picture with Eastwood and Jeff Bridges playing the title characters that led to his landing The Deer Hunter.

Cimino worked only sporadically in the years that followed Heaven's Gate, and with no success. His remaining films were 1985's Year Of The Dragon, 1987's The Sicilian, 1990's Desperate Hours, and 1996's Sunchaser.

AP
File photo dated of Michael Gove and Boris Johnson (right) on the Vote Leave campaign bus: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

BORIS Johnsons allies have launched a fightback against Michael Gove, drawing up a dossier of evidence that they say proves he is a Machiavellian psychopath who had been plotting to knife his friend in order to win the leadership from the beginning.

The fraught atmosphere intensified at Westminster, with some of the former Mayor of London's supporters claiming that Mr Gove was simply a suicide bomber who was being used by allies of Prime Minister David Cameron and George Osborne to take out their rival.

Expand Close Britain's Justice Secretary Michael Gove (L) speaks as Vote Leave campaign leader Boris Johnson listens at the group's headquarters in London, Britain June 24, 2016. REUTERS/Stefan Rousseau/Pool/File Photo / Facebook

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Whatsapp Britain's Justice Secretary Michael Gove (L) speaks as Vote Leave campaign leader Boris Johnson listens at the group's headquarters in London, Britain June 24, 2016. REUTERS/Stefan Rousseau/Pool/File Photo

However, allies of both Mr Gove and Mr Cameron strongly denied that Downing Street had any hand in a plot.

The British Prime Minister told friends he was deeply shocked by Mr Goves behaviour and felt a sense of sympathy for Mr Johnson.

One friend of the Prime Minister said Mr Cameron was astounded by Mr Goves actions, but recalled how the Justice Secretary had betrayed him in the referendum campaign.

Mr Cameron believes Mr Gove failed to honour a promise that he would not campaign vigorously for Brexit.

Expand Close Michael Gove arrives at the Policy Exchange in London, as he prepared to set out his case for becoming prime minister: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire / Facebook

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Whatsapp Michael Gove arrives at the Policy Exchange in London, as he prepared to set out his case for becoming prime minister: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire

The extraordinary feud between Mr Johnson and Mr Gove ended the former mayors leadership bid and has damaged the Justice Secretarys chances of progressing in the contest.

With two leading Brexit campaigners suffering from their bitter personal clash, Andrea Leadsom is quickly emerging as the preferred candidate among Tory grandees and Eurosceptics.

On Saturday, she won the private backing of a senior Thatcherite grandee, as well as public support from Lord Tebbit, and Sir William Cash, the chairman of the Commons EU scrutiny select committee.

Mr Gove has faced accusations of "treachery" since his decision to pull his support for Mr Johnson and stage his own bid for the top job.

He told The Daily Telegraph his confidence in the former London mayor had "evaporated".

"Over the past week, to my deep regret, my confidence evaporated. That led me to make the difficult decision, at no little cost, to put friendships aside and act in the national interest," he said.

With levels of support stronger than the combined total of her four rivals, Theresa May appears to be on course to take the keys to No 10 Downing Street.

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
File photo dated of Michael Gove and Boris Johnson (right) on the Vote Leave campaign bus: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

BACKING Boris Johnson to become the next British prime minister would have been a "betrayal" of the country, Michael Gove has said.

London's former mayor "ducked" crucial decisions and failed to show the qualities needed to take over from David Cameron, according to the Justice Secretary.

Explaining his shock decision to withdraw support from Mr Johnson, a move which has been branded treacherous by some Tory colleagues, Mr Gove insisted he had been putting the country first.

"I've taken some difficult decisions, but I've always taken those because I've put my country and my principles first," he told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show.

Mr Gove said he took the decision "very late" on Wednesday evening after talking to close colleagues and wife Sarah Vine.

He insisted he had tried to ring Mr Johnson to tell him about the decision "but the clock was ticking" in the leadership contest.

Expand Close Michael Gove arrives at the Policy Exchange in London, as he prepared to set out his case for becoming prime minister: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire / Facebook

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Whatsapp Michael Gove arrives at the Policy Exchange in London, as he prepared to set out his case for becoming prime minister: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire

"I came to the conclusion reluctantly after throwing my heart and soul for four or five days into trying to get Boris to become the next leader of the Conservative Party he could not do that job," he said.

"Right until the 11th hour I was talking to parliamentary colleagues, friends seeking to persuade them that Boris could lead the country and could be prime minister but in the final 24 hours there were actions that were taken, decisions that were ducked that led me to believe...

Mr Gove added: "Boris had the opportunity to build a team, Boris had the opportunity to lay out a particular vision in the last 24 hours and I felt that he did not step up to that challenge."

He said: "I knew that by taking that decision all sorts of people would attack me personally but I love my country, I could not recommend that Boris was prime minister, I had tried to make that work and, therefore, it would have been a genuine betrayal of principal and of this country to have allowed Boris's candidacy to go ahead with my support."

Mr Gove said it was "telling" that Mr Johnson had failed to press on with his leadership bid.

"Boris could have chosen to go on if he wished to, the fact that he didn't, I think is telling," he said. "My judgment about what is right for this country will always guide me and on that basis I came reluctantly and with a heavy heart...

"I enjoyed working with Boris during the referendum campaign, I think he has great talents and great abilities but you need something else to be prime minister, you need that grit, that executive authority, that sense of purpose, that clarity.

"I'd hoped that Boris would show that but in the end it wasn't there."

In an uncompromising interview, he was told by Andrew Marr he was viewed as the "Frank Underwood" - the Machiavellian character from the US version of House of Cards - of British politics and had "betrayed" his friends.

But Mr Gove said putting friendship first in politics did not serve the country.

The leading Leave campaigner also insisted the decision to quit the European Union would not lead to the break-up of the UK.

"I don't believe that we will need to go down that path," he said.

"There is no appetite for a second referendum."

Pressed on his past comments describing the Northern Ireland peace process as a "moral stain" and a "capitulation to violence", he insisted the negotiations "could have been handled in a different way".

"There was a problem with the Northern Ireland peace process," he added.

Mr Gove agreed to publish his tax returns before the end of the contest.

House of Cards author Michael Dobbs, a former deputy chairman of the Conservative party, criticised the way the leadership contest was developing.

Lord Dobbs told Radio 4's The World This Weekend: "I keep reminding everybody that House of Cards is fiction and I'm rather fed up with everybody rushing around and seeing it as if they are auditioning for parts in the next series.

"This is serious stuff. We are talking about the future of the country, the future of Europe and somehow it's been reduced to not House of Cards, more like St Trinian's.

"It's like a posh boys' punch up and frankly, I and millions of people around the country are rather fed up with it."
The FBI interviewed Hillary Clinton for more than three hours (AP)

Democratic White House hopeful Hillary Clinton has said she has been eager to be interviewed with the FBI about her use of a private email server while she was US secretary of state.

Mrs Clinton used a private email server for her government and personal emails rather than the State Department's email system during her tenure. The FBI has been investigating whether sensitive information was mishandled.

The agency interviewed her for more than three hours on Saturday and Mrs Clinton told NBC's Meet The Press that she was pleased to have the opportunity to assist the department bringing its review to a conclusion.

She described the tone of the FBI session as civil and businesslike.

Mrs Clinton said she had no knowledge of any timeline for the review and would not comment on whether she was given an indication that charges would not be filed.

For Mrs Clinton, the interview indicates that the US Justice Department's year-long probe is drawing to a close only four weeks before she is set to be formally nominated as the Democrats' choice to succeed President Barack Obama.

The interview with NBC's Chuck Todd will be shown on Sunday.

In a tweet posted on Saturday, Mrs Clinton's Republican rival Donald Trump said "it is impossible for the FBI not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton. What she did was wrong!"

But Mr Trump also created his own stir on social media by posting online an image of Mrs Clinton with what appeared to be a Star of David and a background of dollar bills.

He took Mrs Clinton's old Twitter avatar celebrating her status as the first presumptive female presidential nominee and added a background of dollar bills along with the words "Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!" written over a six-point star.

The image quickly drew scrutiny online, raising accusations of anti-Semitism. Mr Trump deleted the tweet later in the day and replaced it with a version that uses a circle in place of the star.

Meanwhile former president Bill Clinton has reflected on his controversial meeting with US attorney general Loretta Lynch, concluding that, like her, he would not do it again.

Mr Clinton met Ms Lynch on an airport tarmac in Phoenix, Arizona, on Monday when their travel schedules coincided. Ms Lynch later said their discussion did not include the Justice Department investigation of Mrs Clinton's email server.

She also said she understood why a controversy erupted over her talking to Mr Clinton and would not do it again.

On Saturday, an aide to Mr Clinton said his conversation with Ms Lynch was unplanned and entirely social in nature, but Mr Clinton now recognised how others could take another view and agreed with Ms Lynch that he would not repeat it.

AP
Elie Wiesel (pictured being presented with the 2009 National Humanities Medal by US president Barack Obama) passed away on July 2. The Holocaust survivor and writer was 87.

Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, the Romanian-born Holocaust survivor whose classic Night became a landmark testament to the Nazis' crimes and launched his long career as one of the world's foremost witnesses and humanitarians, has died at 87.

His death was announced on Saturday by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.

Mr Wiesel summed up his mission in 1986 when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, saying: "Whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation, take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

US president Barack Obama said: "As a writer, a speaker, an activist, and a thinker, he was one of those people who changed the world more as a citizen of the world than those who hold office or traditional positions of power.

"His life, and the power of his example, urges us to be better."

For more than half a century Mr Wiesel voiced his passionate beliefs to world leaders, celebrities and general audiences in the name of victims of violence and oppression. He wrote more than 40 books, but his most influential by far was Night, a classic ranked with Anne Frank's diary as standard reading about the Holocaust.

Night was his first book and its journey to publication crossed both time and language. It began in the mid-1950s as an 800-page story in Yiddish, was trimmed to under 300 pages for an edition released in Argentina, cut again to under 200 pages for the French market and finally published in the United States, in 1960, at just over 100 pages.

Mr Wiesel began working on Night just a decade after the end of the Second World War, when memories were too raw for many survivors to even try telling their stories.

It was so bleak that publishers doubted it would appeal to readers. In a 2002 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Mr Wiesel recalled that the book attracted little notice at first.

"The English translation came out in 1960 and the first printing was 3,000 copies. And it took three years to sell them. Now I get 100 letters a month from children about the book. And there are many, many million copies in print," he said.

In one especially haunting passage, Wiesel sums up his feelings upon arrival in Auschwitz.

"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never."

Night was based directly on his experiences, but structured like a novel, leading to an ongoing debate over how to categorise it.

Mr Wiesel's prolific stream of speeches, essays and books, including two sequels to Night and more than 40 books overall of fiction and non-fiction, emerged from the helplessness of a teenager deported from Hungary, which had annexed his native Romanian town of Sighet, to Auschwitz.

Tattooed with the number A-7713, he was freed in 1945, but only after his mother, father and one sister had died in Nazi camps. Two other sisters survived.

After the liberation of Buchenwald in April 1945, Mr Wiesel spent a few years in a French orphanage, then landed in Paris. He studied literature and philosophy at the Sorbonne, and then became a journalist, writing for the French newspaper L'Arche and Israel's Yediot Ahronot.

French author Francois Mauriac, winner of the 1952 Nobel in literature, encouraged Wiesel to break his vowed silence about the concentration camps and start sharing his experiences.

In 1956 Mr Wiesel travelled on a journalistic assignment to New York to cover the United Nations. While there, he was struck by a car and confined to a wheelchair for a year. He became a lifetime New Yorker, continuing in journalism writing for the Yiddish-language newspaper, the Forward. His contact with the city's many Holocaust survivors shored up Mr Wiesel's resolve to keep telling their stories.

He became a US citizen in 1963 and six years later he married Marion Rose, a fellow Holocaust survivor who translated some of his books into English. They had a son, Shlomo.

Based in New York, Mr Wiesel commuted to Boston University for almost three decades, teaching philosophy, literature and Judaic studies and giving a popular lecture series in the autumn.

He also taught at Yale University and the City University of New York.

Some of his most memorable spoken words came in 1985, when he received a Congressional Gold Medal from President Ronald Reagan and asked him not to make a planned trip to a cemetery in Germany that contained graves of Adolf Hitler's personal guards.

"May I, Mr President, if it's possible at all, implore you to do something else, to find a way, to find another way, another site. That place, Mr President, is not your place. Your place is with the victims," he told Mr Reagan.

Mr Reagan visited the cemetery in Bitburg, despite international protests.

Mr Wiesel also spoke at the dedication of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington in 1993. His words are now carved in stone at its entrance: "For the dead and the living, we must bear witness."

Mr Wiesel defended Soviet Jews, Nicaragua's Miskito Indians, Cambodian refugees, the Kurds, victims of African famine and those of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.

He was a long-time supporter of Israel although he was criticised at times for his closeness to prime minister Benjamin Netanhayu.

Despite Mr Wiesel's mission to remind the world of past mistakes, the greatest disappointment of his life was that "nothing changed", he said in an interview.

AP

Mrs Wiesel described her husband as "a fighter".

"He fought for the memory of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust and he fought for Israel," she said in a statement.

"He waged countless battles for innocent victims regardless of ethnicity or creed."
These 5 players could be the Anderson-area football player of the year
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By Ray Chandler

David Chavez was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison for the murder of his wife, Wendoli Chavez, in October 2009.

Judge Alex Macaulay handed down the sentence, which is without the possibility of parole, after a seven-woman, five-man jury returned with its verdict of guilty of murder.

The jury had deliberated about two hours Tuesday but returned Wednesday to continue. After less than an hour, the jury requested the sentences for both murder and voluntary manslaughter, which was a verdict option Macaulay had given the jury if members could not agree that Chavez was guilty of murder.

The judge restated to the jury the elements of both murder and manslaughter but declined to pass on the requested information on the differences in sentences for the two crimes.

The jury was to judge the facts and decide guilt or innocence, Macaulay said, and it was the task of the judge to decide punishment.

Shortly before noon, the jury foreman sent Macaulay a note that the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict.

Macaulay recalled the jurors to the courtroom but sent them out again eight minutes later, asking them to once again to try to reach a verdict.

The jury returned after about two and a half hours with the guilty verdict.

A hint of the drama that played out in the jury room before the unanimous decision was apparent in one juror who sat wiping away tears following the announcement of the verdict. The same juror on Tuesday requested the replaying of a recorded portion of the interview Chavez had with Lt. Rory Jones of the Seneca Police Department. The portion involved Chavez giving his statement that he had killed his wife.

Chavez, 25, was arrested on Oct. 14, 2009, after placing a 911 call requesting that police officers to be sent to the house at 501 S. Depot St. in Seneca. He told the dispatcher he had just stabbed his wife.

Examination revealed that Wendoli Chavez had died of strangulation before being stabbed once under the left rib cage.

His attorney, public defender Danny Day, told the jurors in his opening statement Monday that there was no question that David Chavez had killed his wife. But Day said the absence of malice, an element required to meet the legal definition of murder, made the act one of voluntary manslaughter.

Before the trial, the 10th Circuit Solicitor's Office turned down a defense offer of a plea to the lesser charge, which could have still drawn Chavez a 30-year sentence.

Co-workers of Chavez from the mailroom of the Seneca Journal testified Tuesday that Chavez had often spoken of killing his wife in the month they were estranged before Wendoli Chavez's death.

Chavez said he would kill her, the two testified, if he ever caught her seeing another man. According to other testimony at the trial, Wendoli Chavez had become involved with another man and had told David Chavez the day of her death.

The father and sister of Wendoli Chavez asked that David Chavez receive the maximum sentence under the law.

"I understand what happened," said Carlos Perez. "I think he deserves life because he took the life of a 21-year-old girl. He took the life of someone we will never see again."

Public defender Day reminded the court that Chavez had not fled after killing his wife and had cooperated in the investigation.

"We ask the court to be as merciful and lenient as possible," Day said.

With his tearful mother, Maricela Chavez, beside him, David Chavez offered his own last statement before hearing his sentence.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I did wrong."

Jones, the Seneca Police Department's lead investigator on the case, said he believed the verdict was correct.

"I feel like we put on a good, strong case," Jones said. "You never know what's on a jury's mind, but you hope for a good outcome ? and we got one today."

Tenth Circuit Solicitor Chrissy Adams said, "This case was another tragic example of domestic violence which is a serious problem in South Carolina. Mr. Chavez murdered his wife in a brutal fashion and freely admitted that he killed her. We are pleased with the jury's verdict and with the sentence handed down by Judge Macaulay, which will send Mr. Chavez to prison for the rest of his life."
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I have often said that change begins with difficult conversations that must be had. So while we continue our fight for repealing Section 377 in our country, we certainly can begin working at the grass root levels in laying our foundation towards equality for all.

In India, a staggering 56% of white collar LGBTQI report discrimination. A certain percentage also report sexual harassment at work just because they happen to be gay. Many of these incidents have been personally narrated to me by very senior established LGBTQI persons, who had to either comply with it for years or continuously change jobs.

BCCL

If organisations and corporates run by the so-called maximum of the educated elite are unable to include within their policies a safe, indiscriminate working environment and opportunities for the LGBTQI, I wonder what the lesser mortals are going to do?

The poverty stricken, educationally challenged and ostracised Kothis (hijra) are as it is marginalised to the outskirts of society. 64% of Kothis had incomes below $70 per month, 66% of MSM in Chennai below $1.50/day.

Associated Press

At the very bottom of the pyramid, inspire the socially excluded and ostracised to even think of taking any step forward in a positive direction despite deeply embedded homophobic and transphobic poverty stricken environments combined with a lack of adequate legal protection. LGBT individuals may experience multiple forms of marginalisation - such as racism, sexism, poverty or other factors - alongside homophobia or transphobia that negatively impact on mental health. Hence, when big organisations and corporates come together to support an inclusive work environment they actually also set inspirational standards and goals that contributes towards a progressive society.

This in turn presents opportunities and inspires all levels of the progress pyramid to pursue their best capabilities and not waste valuable effort muting their authentic selves.

BCCL

Just as companies must comply with health and safety regulations, environmental protection standards and minimum wage provisions, so too must they adhere to international human rights standards even if doing so increases the cost of doing business. Imagine the business and political world without legendary LGBTQI heads like Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir who came to power in Iceland following the country's economic collapse in late 2008 or Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo who became leader of Belgium in late 2011, ending an infamously long period in which a deadlocked parliament was unable to assemble a workable coalition to govern the country.

Imagine Apple without Tim Cook, Google without Arjan Dijk (Vice President of Marketing at Google), Paul Wood, (Chief Risk & Compliance Officer at Bloomberg), Alex Schultz, (VP, Growth at Facebook). The list is never ending as it leaves us in India with a humongous amount of uncelebrated genius locked in deary closets.

I think it is evident that we need businesses to make a stand.

BCCL

Taking steps towards an inclusive workplace and measuring the results will send the message that a business wants progress, that it wishes to have the LGBT community onboard and that it is serious about diversity. Taking steps such as these will enable participating states, corporates and organisations to enrich peoples lives.

It will also see them fulfill their international human rights obligations and, as we will hear today, help them to reap significant economic dividends.

The price of exclusion is heavy and affects everyone hence Companies & organisations not having inclusive policies leads to exclusion, a waste of human potential, a loss of creative talent, and a loss of productive capacity.

UN

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein hits the nail on the head with his historic statement of inclusion that :

Companies must either decide to actively combat discrimination against LGBTI people or accept that they are, in effect, facilitating it. There is no neutral position available.

Having said the above,I sincerely hope to see a coalition of committed organisations big & small, corporates and hopefully one day our government too, to reach out to those with different perspectives and respectfully engage them in promoting greater LGBT inclusion promises and legal obligations to bring real and substantial inclusive environments at work for all.
When a woman is raped, she is often blamed for her obvious carelessness. The society blames her for her short skirt or her friendly nature and that it happened because she was too drunk. Yana Mazurveck, a Belarusian has shot a photoset after the recent Stanford rape case which shook the world.

Yana perfectly captures the blame game, which a survivor has to go through in her photoseries where women are smeared with colour and are holding placards of why the rape happened.

This Photoseries Shows How The Society Plays The Bulls**t Blame Game With A Rape Survivor.

Image Credit: Yana Mazurveck

Image Credit: Yana Mazurveck

Image Credit: Yana Mazurveck

Image Credit: Yana Mazurveck

Image Credit: Yana Mazurveck

Image Credit: Yana Mazurveck

Image Credit: Yana Mazurveck

Image Credit: Yana Mazurveck
For 26-year-old Vinaya and her parents, its a proud moment as she cracked Service Selection Board Examination (SSB) with flying colours. She is now all set to undergo the strenuous 11-month training at the Air Force Academy in Hyderabad.

Image Credit: dna

A journalist by profession, what inspired her to change her profession was her husbands accident. Life changed for Vinaya, when her husband, Flight lieutenant Shashikant Damgude lost his life in a road accident. It was then, she decided that she would follow her husbands footsteps and decided to become a pilot.

While juggling her job at a leading newspaper daily in Mumbai, she also started preparing for the tough SSB exams. Along with her parents, her mother-in-law is beaming with pride for her daughter-in-law.

A similar case is of Swati, the widow of Col. Santosh Mahadik who died while fighting the militants in Kupwara, Kashmir. She, like Vinaya too decided to serve the army like her brave husband. These are indeed stories of sheer courage and determination of how these army widows choose to continuing their late husbands legacies. More power to them!
Communal tensions are flaring in Myanmar, after 200 Buddhists ransacked a mosque in central Myanmar, forcing Muslims to seek refuge overnight in a police station.

The incident was triggered after a dispute between neighbours spilled into religious violence, officials and residents said on Friday.

Reuters

Bouts of anti-Muslim violence have left scores dead across the country since 2012 and the febrile atmosphere poses serious challenges for Aung San Suu Kyi's new government.

The violence erupted on Thursday afternoon as a mob of around 200 Buddhists rampaged through a Muslim area of Thuye Tha Mein village in Bago province following an argument between neighbours over the building of a Muslim school.

"It started when a Muslim man and a Buddhist women started to argue and then people came to fight him," Hla Tint, the village administrator, told AFP. "Parts of the mosque were destroyed... they also destroyed the fence of the Muslim cemetery," he added.

BCCL

Around 70 Muslims, including children, sought shelter in a police station overnight on Thursday, he said, adding there were no serious injuries and peace had been restored. Police and the secretary of the mosque confirmed the damage, while a Muslim resident told AFP his community of around 150 people is now living in fear.

"We had to hide as some people were threatening to kill Muslims. The situation has never been like this before," Tin Shwe OO, 29, told AFP, adding his family stayed at the small police station overnight.

Reuters

"I do not dare to stay at my house. For the safety of my family, I want to stay somewhere else for about a week or so." Outbreaks of deadly violence have roiled the country threatening to unpick democratic gains since the army began loosening its stranglehold on the country in 2011.

The worst violence struck central Myanmar and western Rakhine State which is home to the stateless Rohingya Muslim minority, tens of thousands of whom still languish in displacement camps after rioting.

Buddhist nationalists vigorously oppose moves to recognise the Rohingya as an official minority group, instead labelling them "Bengali" -- shorthand for illegal migrants from the border with Bangladesh.

BCCL

Democracy champion Suu Kyi, who is currently visiting Thailand, has come under fire for failing to speak up for the Rohingya -- although she recently caused surprise by using the incendiary term during a visit to Myanmar by America's top diplomat.

Religious tensions pose a unique challenge to the new government and to Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate once garlanded for her fight for rights for all. Her party is dominated by ethnic Bamar Buddhists and did not field any Muslim MPs in the election last year that drove it to power. Hardline monks -- known as the Ma Ba Tha -- are accused of stoking violence and tensions with hate speech.
Even after these cops in Mumbai rescued a sex worker, she was still at their whims and mercy - and still treated as a sex worker. Chunabhatti cops have been reported for 'gifting' a sex worker to their informant, 35-year-old Rikesh Jha.

jagran

20 hours later, the 20 year old girl returned to the station, to file a rape case against Jha, Mid-Day reported.

The police that they sent her with the informant in "good faith" - Jha had served as an informant about a prostitution ring being being operated out of a spa and salon in Chembur, following which the spa was raided.

representational purpose only | bccl

The woman's complaints are being investigated under Sections 341, 364, 376 and 506 of the Indian Penal Code, while Jha has been taken into police custody.

Criminal lawyer Abdul Wahab Khan said, "In this case, the police should first charge Jha with robbery  because he snatched the complainant's PAN card at the hotel  and kidnapping because he told her he is taking her to meet a police officer and instead took her to the hotel and raped her." Jha later told the cops that the woman in question was his source, asking her to be let off. "We trusted Jha as such informers help us in cracking big cases in future," said a police officer.
Bangladesh began two days of national mourning Sunday after 20 hostages were slaughtered at a restaurant, for not being able to recite verses from the Quran.

BCCL

These Are The Smiling Terrorists Who Killed Anyone Who Couldn't Recite The Quran In #DhakaAttack

Early in the morning, the gunmen released a group of women wearing hijabs and offered a young Bangladeshi man, Faraz Hossain, the opportunity to leave, too, said Hishaam Hossain, Hossain's nephew, who had heard an account from the hostages who were freed.

Hossain, a student at Emory University, was accompanied by two women wearing Western clothes, however, and when the gunmen asked the women where they were from, they said India and the United States. The gunmen refused to release them, and Hossain refused to leave them behind, his relative said. He would be among those found dead on Saturday morning.

BCCL

Amid mass condemnation of the killings in Dhaka, whose victims included 18 foreigners, the Islamic State group said it had targeted a gathering of "citizens of crusader states" on Friday night at a Western-style cafe.

But a government minister insisted the killers, six of whom were gunned down at the end of the siege, were members of a homegrown militant outfit and had no links to international jihadist networks.

BCCL

"They are members of the Jamaeytul Mujahdeen Bangladesh," Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told AFP, referring to a group which has been banned in Bangladesh for more than a decade.

As many as the 20 slain hostages whose bodies were found amid pools of blood after commandos stormed the cafe to end the siege, two policemen were also shot dead in a fierce gunbattle at its outset. Security officials said most of the victims were slaughtered with sharpened machete-style weapons.
The city police, which recently busted a multi-crore drug racket, is probing some Bollywood and television actors for their alleged involvement in the case.Former film actress Mamta Kulkarni has already been named as a prime accused in the case linked to international drug lord and her partner Vicky Goswami.

thehawk.in

According to a senior Thane police official, they are probing the leads received about the involvement of a Bollywood personality, who acted in films in the 80s and 90s, besides a TV actress and some small-time actors in the case after their names cropped up during investigations.

These people, who are under the scanner, allegedly attended meetings in Mumbai hotels, where Mr Goswami discussed the mode of drug supply. Also, some of them are in close contact with kingpin Mr Goswami, the official said without taking any names.

Earlier, Thane Police had told media persons that one of the arrested persons in the case had in a statement under section 164 of CrPC given details of the modus operandi and about the crucial meetings held in Kenya and Dubai regarding the ephedrine sale.

indianexpress.com

In all, there were 17 accused in the case, of whom seven were still at large. The remaining 10 have been arrested and are now in judicial custody. The arrests were made when police seized around 18.5 tonne of ephedrine, worth approximately Rs. 2,000 crore, after raiding the premises of Avon Lifesciences Ltd in Maharashtra's Solapur district in April.

According to police, ephedrine, which is a controlled drug, was allegedly being diverted from the Solapur unit of Avon Lifesciences and sent abroad after processing. The ephedrine power is used for sniffing and is also used to produce popular party drug methamphetamine.

bollywoodbingo

The accused currently in jail are: Sagar Suresh Powle, Mayur Suresh Sukhdhare, Rajendra Jagdambaprasad Dimri, Dhaneshwar Rajaram Swami, Puneet Ramesh Shringi, Manoj Tejraj Jain, Hardipsingh Indersingh Gill, Narendra Dhirajlal Kacha, Babasaheb Shankar Dhotre and Jai Mulji Mukhi.

Those on the run include Kishore Rathod, said to be the son of a former politician, and an accused identified only as Dr Abdullah, who is based abroad, as well as two of his associates, police said.

The entire drug racket first came to light when Thane Police arrested a Nigerian national in a drug case on April 12. His interrogation led police to Solapur, where they conducted raids in the premises of Avon Lifesciences on April 14.
An innocent outing with friends turned out to be a nightmare for Tarishi Jain's family. Back home from the US for her summer vacation, Tarishi was one of the many victims who were present in the restaurant which got infiltered by Islamic state terrorists. Her two friends Abinta Kabir and Faraaz Hossain were also killed in the attack

Sometime before 6 am on Saturday when her phone went dead, her father Sanjiv Jain, who had been waiting outside Gulshan Cafe through most of the night after he got to know that heavily armed terrorists had stormed the restaurant in upscale Dhaka and were butchering guests, got a call.

Facebook/Tarishi Jain's

It was from his daughter, cowering inside a toilet with two of her friends, Faraaz Ayaz Hossain and Abinta Kabir, hiding from the rat-tat-tat of gunfire outside the washroom's door. " Terrorists have entered the restaurant," she told her father, who was planning just a day earlier to bring his wife and two children to Firozabad in UP for a short holiday before Tarishi headed back to the US where she was an Economics undergraduate at the University of California. "I am very afraid and not sure whether I will be able to come out alive. They are killing everyone here."

It had been a long and harrowing night for Sanjiv as he gathered with dozens of anxious family and friends of those huddled in the cafe to know how the bloody strike on innocent and unarmed men and women would end. By the time the terrorists were neutralised, 20 people, mostly foreigners and among them Tarishi - the only Indian among the casualties - had died.

Reuters

Tarishi was a recipient of an internship with a Bangladesh bank through the Institute for South Asia Studies at her university in California.

"After coming to know that Tarishi is among the hostages, we remained glued to our TV set the entire night and remained in touch with Sanjiv (her father) Rakesh Mohan Jain, Tarishi Jain's uncle. "She said, `I'm hiding in the toilet with friends, I think we will be killed one by one'. He was standing outside the cafe the whole time. We were in touch with him throughout," he said.

twitter.com

Her brother Sanchit, who has done his engineering from Canada, had landed in Delhi a day earlier so that the family of four, along with mother Tulika, could all head to Firozabad  where Sanjiv's three brothers Rakesh, Rajiv and Ajit have a flourishing trade in glass  on Saturday. That family reunion was never to be. At the Jains' Suhag Nagar home in Firozabad, there is both anger and deep grief. "We don't want her to be cremated in the land where she was brutally murdered. Terrorists killed her for being a Hindu," Sanjiv's younger brother Rakesh Mohan Jain told TOI.
At 24, he weighs 175 kg - and most of it is muscle. And now power lifter Sajad Gharibi is taking it all to Hulk-smash ISIS. Gharibi has volunteered to join Iranian forces fighting ISIS in war-torn Syria, BBC reported. He plans defend Shia Shrines in Syria against Islamic State militants

A photo posted by original page (@sajadgharibii) on Apr 16, 2016 at 2:24am PDT

Known as the Persian Hercules and Iranian Hulk, Sajad has become an internet sensation since he was first noticed. Not much is known about the young man from the Middle East, except that he loves to lift. While the man who can lift 175 kgs does provide an intimidating prospect physically, those close to him maintain that he has a kind heart.

Here are 5 more stories that may interest you:

1. Leading Bollywood Stars To Be Interrogated In The 2000 Cr Drug Scandal Involving Mamta Kulkarni

thehawk.in

The city police, which recently busted a multi-crore drug racket, is probing some Bollywood and television actors for their alleged involvement in the case.Former film actress Mamta Kulkarni has already been named as a prime accused in the case linked to international drug lord and her partner Vicky Goswami.

According to a senior Thane police official, they are probing the leads received about the involvement of a Bollywood personality, who acted in films in the 80s and 90s, besides a TV actress and some small-time actors in the case after their names cropped up during investigations.

These people, who are under the scanner, allegedly attended meetings in Mumbai hotels, where Mr Goswami discussed the mode of drug supply. Also, some of them are in close contact with kingpin Mr Goswami, the official said without taking any names. Read more details here

2. These Are The Smiling Terrorists Who Killed Anyone Who Couldn't Recite The Quran In #DhakaAttack

DailyMail

Islamist militants killed 20 people inside an upmarket restaurant in Bangladesh's capital in the name of religion - and they did with a smile. This hostage situation was ended 12 hour later, after security forces stormed the building.

Islamic State took credit for what is one of the most brazen attacks in the South Asian nation's history. But Bangladesh has seen increasing attacks by militants who targeted mostly individuals advocating a secular or liberal lifestyle in majority-Muslim Bangladesh with 160 million people. Read more details here

3.200 Myanmar Buddhists Go On Rampage Through Muslim Area, Destroy Mosque After Religious Violence

Reuters

Communal tensions are flaring in Myanmar, after 200 Buddhists ransacked a mosque in central Myanmar, forcing Muslims to seek refuge overnight in a police station.

The incident was triggered after a dispute between neighbours spilled into religious violence, officials and residents said on Friday.

Bouts of anti-Muslim violence have left scores dead across the country since 2012 and the febrile atmosphere poses serious challenges for Aung San Suu Kyi's new government.

The violence erupted on Thursday afternoon as a mob of around 200 Buddhists rampaged through a Muslim area of Thuye Tha Mein village in Bago province following an argument between neighbours over the building of a Muslim school. Read more details here

4. After Rescuing Sex Worker, Mumbai Police Gift Her To Their Informer Who Then Rapes Her

jagran

Even after these cops in Mumbai rescued a sex worker, she was still at their whims and mercy - and still treated as a sex worker. Chunabhatti cops have been reported for 'gifting' a sex worker to their informant, 35-year-old Rikesh Jha.

20 hours later, the 20 year old girl returned to the station, to file a rape case against Jha. Read more details here

5. She Was About Jump From Howrah Bridge And End It, But This Cop Talked Her Out Of Suicide

BCCL

Assistant sub-inspector S S Pal had barely taken his seat at the outpost on the Howrah Bridge on Tuesday night when he noticed a woman stopping right at the edge of the flyover. It was 11pm and the flow of men heading towards the station had lessened. There was a slight hesitation, then she proceeded to get rid of her slippers.

Pal has been posted at the North Port police station  often labelled "Jal thana" for its proximity to the Hooghly and the numerous drowning incidents it has to handle each day  for the past three years. Most of the cops there have by now become adept at reading the body language of people who plan to jump off the bridge. Read more details
At 24, he weighs 175 kg - and most of it is muscle. And now power lifter Sajad Gharibi is taking it all to Hulk-smash ISIS. Gharibi has volunteered to join Iranian forces fighting ISIS in war-torn Syria, BBC reported. He plans defend Shia Shrines in Syria against Islamic State militants

A photo posted by original page (@sajadgharibii) on Apr 16, 2016 at 2:24am PDT

Meet 'Persian Hercules' Sajad Gharibi - The 24-Year-Old Power Lifter From Iran

Known as the Persian Hercules and Iranian Hulk, Sajad has become an internet sensation since he was first noticed. Not much is known about the young man from the Middle East, except that he loves to lift. While the man who can lift 175 kgs does provide an intimidating prospect physically, those close to him maintain that he has a kind heart.
Islamist militants killed 20 people inside an upmarket restaurant in Bangladesh's capital in the name of religion - and they did with a smile. This hostage situation was ended 12 hour later, after security forces stormed the building.

DailyMail

Islamic State took credit for what is one of the most brazen attacks in the South Asian nation's history. But Bangladesh has seen increasing attacks by militants who targeted mostly individuals advocating a secular or liberal lifestyle in majority-Muslim Bangladesh with 160 million people.

The gunmen ordered all to stand up before they began killing foreigners, a source said.

AP

"Let the people of the crusader countries know that there is no safety for them as long as their aircraft are killing Muslims," Islamic State said in a statement, also posting pictures of five fighters it said were involved in the attack. Survivors said the killers made hostages recite verses from the Quran, to check who was Muslim - the unlucky few were killed. Most of those killed were found with their throats slit.

"All the hostages were killed last night. The terrorists used sharp weapons to kill them brutally," said Brig Gen Nayeem Ashfaq Chowdhury of the Army Headquarters on Saturday.

AP

But Friday's attack was different, more coordinated, with the attackers brandishing assault rifles as they shouted "Allah hu Akbar" (God is Great) and stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery while dozens of foreigners and Bangladeshis were dining out during the holy month of Ramzan. Six gunmen were killed during the police operation and one was captured, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said in a TV broadcast after more than 100 commandos concluded their operation to clear the cafe. Two police were killed in the initial assault.

AP

It was not immediately clear whether the attackers had a specific goal, and Bangladesh authorities did not say if they had made any demands. Ten of 26 people who were wounded when the militants opened fire were in critical condition, and six were on life support, according to hospital staff.
EU Army To Face Russia

Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Mr Juncker: Nigel Farage

Video



Nigel Farage accuses EU of 'poking Russian bear with stick' over Ukraine.
Brexit  Let the UK Screw Itself!





By Andre Vltchek

July 03, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - Oh that poor old United Kingdom! Armies of political commentators based on all continents are now feverishly trying to define to what extent the Brits got fooled, or how severely they will soon get punished for their bold move.

All over Europe, the neo-Nazis and other right-wingers are celebrating, while most of liberals are panic-stricken, running around like a herd of headless chickens, or howling at the moon at night in despair. The Euro-left (as pathetic and bogus as Euro business class on domestic European flights) is trying to put the recent referendum into some sort of philosophical perspective, blabbering something about a working class rebellion against the ruling elites.

Some Europeans are even blaming Mr. Putin for the outcome of the referendum, while others see behind the outcome of the vote the specter of an American conspiracy or even a Zionist lobby.

Things are much more simple. A few million bigoted British voters, many of them old retirees and traditionally conservative, even racist bunch, got scared that their country was soon about to be invaded by unkempt hordes of refugees, or more precisely  by un-people (to borrow from George Orwells lexicon). While for others, the referendum became a way to express their frustration with the fact that the British working class has lately been getting an increasingly awful deal (read: an increasingly smaller cut from that enormous global loot plundered by both Europe and North America).

Dont search for any flickers of internationalism or traditional Left-wing ideals in the hearts of those who voted for Exit. A great majority of the anti-EU warriors was simply demanding better benefits for itself (the British people), as well as Britain for the Brits (whatever that really means in this increasingly multi-racial nation).

Of course, the same can be said about the opposite camp! Those who were voting for remaining in the Union were doing so for strictly practical reasons.

Almost no commentator bothered to notice what was truly shocking about the entire referendum process: an absolute lack of progressive ideology, of internationalism and concern for the world as a whole. Both sides (and were there really two sides there) presented a fireworks of shallow selfishness and of pettiness. The profound moral corruption of the West was clearly exposed.

***

Everybody in Europe now wants more, more and more. Screw austerity! Give us more benefits! Provide us with better wages, job security, and shorter working hours!

What is shocking is that (oh so innocently!) those demands are only made for the chosen bunch  for the Europeans and North Americans  not for the rest of the globe that is actually paying the bill And has been paying it for hundreds of damned years, suffering horribly from everything, from slavery, colonialist plunder, genocides triggered by Europe, terrorism against its liberation struggle, to the multi-national corporate looting.

It is high time to re-visit Fanon and Sartre, but in that comfortable, lazy and sclerotic Europe, no one seems to be in the mood for old, solid left-wing internationalist, anti-colonialist ideologies.

Yes, the global decolonizing process was never completed, but that is not on the agenda of those referendums-seeking Europeans. All they want is to have a better life, live longer, and to grow richer! They find it thoroughly unfair, that in the UK, France, Spain or Greece, those big corporations and banks are keeping most of the loot. They want their share. They want a much bigger share. They want it now! That is why they hate capitalism, the system. Not because it murders millions of innocent people in all corners of the globe, far away from Europe (such stuff doesnt bother Europeans one tiny bit). Not because it ruins cultures, kills the freedom of the others, oh no! They hate it because the system is too stingy with its own members!

True, those who are sustaining Europe often have nothing left, not even a few huts, not even the right to keep their own native plants or trees. True, many unemployed Europeans are still driving their cars, flying all over the world in search of perfect vacations, enjoying virtually free education, medical care, parks, cultural institutions, public transportation and countless other benefits. True, most of the refugees are escaping from once rich and independent countries, raped and exploited by the West. But all that is not worth mentioning, there is no need for referendums discussing such irrelevant moral issues. And anyway, what would such referendum be exactly about: To loot or not to loot? And where are those millions of European citizens who should be signing petitions, demanding it?

It is never pronounced, but there is no one, virtually no one in Europe left, who would want to change this present global system, from top to bottom, and to stop the plunder of the insignificant others!

***

The European left is as selfish and hypocritical as the right. In fact, there is no real left there, anymore, if the left actually means demanding absolutely equal treatment for all the inhabitants of our Planet.

Many Europeans like to blame the United States for the present state of the world (mostly abstractly, anyway). Such accusations are thoroughly hypocritical, bordering on being intellectually deranged. For the United States is nothing else other than a grand European project, or to quote Jean-Paul Sartre, a super-European monstrosity.

In the so-called New World (what a chauvinist term anyway; as if the ancient world of native people who were crushed, matters nothing), European settlers robbed natives of their land first, and then exterminated almost all of them. To increase productivity, they brought millions of slaves from across the ocean. When it suited them, they declared independence, but independence still strictly based on the European exceptionalism, racism, on traditions of superiority complexes and on fundamentalist Christian beliefs.

No matter how barbarically the United States has been behaving abroad, in both 20th and 21st centuries, it has never really managed to catch up (although it certainly tried hard) with that unbridled European savagery, with those horrific extermination and ransacking campaigns the old continent has been undertaking for centuries, in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the Indian Sub-Continent and virtually in all corners of the globe.

European workers are now victims of US imperialism and the capitalist system, the pseudo-left constantly tells us. Oh, is that so?

Actually, how thoroughly ridiculous!

What is the capitalist system really, if not the legitimate (although philosophically and ethically perverse) brainchild of the West, unnaturally and violently forced down the throats of people on all continents of our Planet?

It is a direct product of European culture (not vice-versa), and was later adopted and perfected by the United States.

There is no doubt that Europe is the closest ally of the United States. Or, more precisely, there is hardly any difference between the two, as they were both created on the same conceptual lines (the European ones), on the same religion and on a chauvinistic world-view (open spite for everyone who is not white and religiously/culturally Christian, and on the glorification of expansionism).

Let us finally face the reality: a great majority of Europeans would never want to change the global world order! Western imperialism feeds them, makes them live much richer lives than anyone else on the Planet, while allowing them to work pathetically little. Sub-consciously, even those deprived (what a joke!) European workers are deeply grateful to both Washington and to its gladiators. Their main demand is only that ordinary Europeans should be getting an even better deal than the one they are getting now. The commonly voiced grievance is that the deal was much better and more satisfying some 20 years ago than it is now.

A better deal at the expense of the others, of course! But that is never mentioned.

Less shillings for those at Goldman Sachs or HSBC, and a bit more for the common folks of Europe please!

All the rest is fine, really! Those Americans are actually really nice people. Like us, Europeans Hey, we went there last year, on vacation

Oh, and remember: we dont want those bloody niggers and dirty Arabs in our cities and villages. They belong where they are, working for us, plundering their own lands so we can retire early, have access to free top medical care and fly to Southeast Asia to shag their young girls after we retire! You give all this to us, and more, or else: screw you, we will leave the European Union which does not care for its people, anymore!

Of course it is almost never articulated like that. But one has to read between the lines.

Or do my readers really think that those countries ready to follow the British example actually care much about anything else other than their own selfish, petty interests?

I have talked to Greeks! I have talked to Spaniards. Most of them really hate foreigners. Most of them know nothing, absolutely nothing; about what the West is doing all over the world. And frankly, they dont want to know anything.

And what do the East Europeans want? What about those poor and disappointed Czechs, Poles and Hungarians? Well, they also want more and more and more, as they always have done. Does anyone really believe that in the 1980s they were dreaming about freedom and democracy? They were dreaming only about one thing: how to get rid of that Russian romantic idea of internationalism, and how to return to Europe, read; how to stop helping the deprived and robbed parts of the world, and instead join the West  the real masters of the world  how to become part of the imperialist and neo-colonialist clique. Those nations, (lets be honest) are racist to the core, while almost all now members of the EU, are simply loving and admiring the United States! And they are showing open spite for the victims of Western imperialism.

How sorry can one really feel for all of them  for those European victims of the system?

Forgive me, but I feel absolutely no sympathy for them! Perhaps it is because I have spent too much time in Congo, Kenya, Uganda, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, sub-Continent, Oceania, in Brazilian Amazonia and Peru; with those people that I consider are the real victims of the system, of the globally enforced Western regime.

Therefore, I only feel growing outrage over the cynicism that covers like a thick blanket, those discussions about the British referendum (and all other potential European referendums). I am shocked by the shallowness and hypocrisy.

It really appears that the entire continent consists of stubborn global holocaust deniers, people who sit in front of the chimneys of crematoriums, where their victims are being burned alive, unable to think about anything else except their own comfort and privileges.

For as long as such a mentality prevails (and it has been prevailing for endless centuries), to the rest of the world it will matter very little or nothing whether one or two or five countries opt to leave the European Union.

Whether it is more centrally run, or decentralized, the continent will continue plundering the Planet together with its mighty North American offspring.

It will continue, because the European people want it; they actually indirectly demand it! Like some spoiled, heartless and thoroughly immoral brats, Europeans shout more, more and damn more!

And they hate, with naked fanaticism, each and every country on Earth, from China to Russia, which is standing on its feet and refusing to accept Western dictates. It is not like that primitive racism that one can detect in some parts of the United States; European racism is as profound, fundamentalist, cultural, institutionalized, as it is vitriolic and ancient. Thanks to it, dozens of cultures and nations have already been annihilated, all over the world. And dozens are being ruined right now as this essay is being written.

The referendum in the UK has proved all this, and more.

Back to Fanon and Sartre: it is clear that the world will not change because the Europeans suddenly got enlightened, realizing that they are living off theft. It cannot be expected from them. There is no remorse. There is not even any recognition of guilt! Look at those thousands of European experts, sitting in all the UN and development agencies, or flying all over the world, preaching to the world about how it should be governed, or those Protestant preachers who are helping to overthrow progressive governments. They do it with absolutely straight faces and no shame! Look at those schools and universities in Europe and the US, giving scholarships to the elites of colonized countries, brainwashing them, and conditioning them for the purpose of committing treason.

Western empires (in the past) and now the Empire have already destroyed most of the world, and the masses in Europe and even in North America have been greatly benefiting from those countless heinous crimes against humanity. This terrible process still continues. The world will have to return to the unfinished business of the de-colonization struggle if it wants to survive.

There can be no morally acceptable discussion in Europe about the future of the world, of Europe, of the UK or any other European country that would not begin like this:

We ruined the world. We robbed the world. We are still ruining and robbing it. Because of the Wests imperialism, fundamentalism and greed, hundreds of millions, perhaps a billion human lives have been lost. We are not qualified to govern the Planet and we never were. We cannot indefinitely reward ourselves with ridiculously generous benefits and outrageously high standards of living, as they have been financed by many centuries of looting, genocides and holocausts. Our present-day institutions, from NATO to the EU, are helping to sustain such criminal global order. Some of us now want to dismantle them, on strictly ethical grounds, in the name of the humane race. Therefore we are calling for a referendum

Unthinkable, of course! And that is why that entire Brexit charade is thoroughly irrelevant for our Planet.

No change will come from within. The wretched of the Earth cannot count on the compassion, on kindness and the decency of the Western public, or on its solidarity. They will have to expose what is behind the civilized mask of European culture  a horrible, gangrenous skull reflecting greed and a pathological lust for power. Then, the wretched of the Earth would have to demand, in one united voice, what is truly theirs. Not beg, not ask politely, but demand! And eventually, theyd have to take it!

Whether the UK, one of the cradles of Western imperialism and colonialist bigotry, leaves or remains in the EU may have some influence on how the booty is to be divided internally, but not on much else.
The Tragedy of Turkish Treachery By Zaakir Ahmed Maye July 03, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - The reactions of the Turkish-Israeli rapprochement deal have been have been met with a plethora of emotions. Some Palestinians have argued that despite Turkish rhetoric, national self-interest would always supersede that of the Palestinian people. Others have reflected sentiments of disillusionment at the about turn taken by Turkey which appears to be diametrically opposed to its erstwhile stance on the Palestinians issue. President Recep Tayyip Erdogans profile in the solidarity community skyrocketed with his stance Vis-a-vis Shimon Peres in his one minute display. There is another grouping that views the by-product of the agreement to be beneficial to the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip and are adamant in depicting a silver lining. The actual text of the agreement has not filtered into mainstream circulation as yet however the terms contained therein are gradually surfacing. An extensive expose emerged in the leading Israel publication Haaretz which painted a shocking picture of the deal. There is not a shadow of doubt that one of the crucial motivators behind this deal was economics. Israels Netanyahu alluded to this crucial aspect on the 27th June 2016 stating that the deal has immense implications for the Israeli economy. Haaretz ventured to shed further light on the matter by alluding to a gas pipeline deal between Turkey and Israel. Turkey is viewed as the gateway to Europe and the portrayal of Turkey is a lucrative incentive for both countries. Interestingly, the first gas fields were found off the coast of the Gaza Strip in the early 2000s. This was viewed even by the Israeli regime as property of the Palestinian people. In 2011, Israel National News ran a story titled PA Claims Israel Steals Gas in Exploration of Gaza Waters which would come as no surprise as the State of Israel is premised on the dispossession of Palestinian natural resources which include but are not limited to land and water resources. In 2012 the fields of Tamar Field and the Leviathan Field were found off the coast of Haifa. Judging from Israels dubious history of dispossession, it would not be far-fetched to suspect that part of the gas being alienated by Israel via this Turkish gas deal may actually belong to the Palestinian people. Knowledge of this possibility and the existence of these fields are within the grasp of the Turkish leadership which compounds the treachery. Other shocking concessions by the Turkish government related to the 2010 massacre in which nine Turkish citizens were murdered by the Israeli armed forces on board the Turkish humanitarian vessel the Mavi Marmara. It is reported that the Turkish government will effectively pass legislation immunising the perpetrators of this heinous crime in exchange for a 20 million dollar donation. Despite this being a travesty of justice, Turkey has agreed to this amount being paid as a donation instead of compensation to protect Israel from future claims of compensation for their acts of wanton murder and blood-lust. This concession is pregnant with both meaning and implication in that Turkey has agreed to be an active participant in preventing the setting of a precedent which seeks to protect Israel at the detriment of not only their own Turkish victims but also those who have been touched by the hand of Israels murderous behaviour. Erdogans political linage vests him within the movement of the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikwan). It therefore was no surprise when the Palestinian offshoot of Ikwan, Hamas welcomed his ascent to power and found an ally within him. The sacrificing of Erdogans political brethren in favour of Israeli shekels and geopolitical containment policies seems to be lifted from the Shakespearean tragedy Julius Ceaser. The agreement to prevent any planning or coordination between the political wing Hamas and the armed wing Izz ad-Din al-Qassam not only seeks to fragment the resistance against Zionist occupation but firmly vests Turkey as an agent of the colonial settler state. To exacerbate the treachery, it has been reported that Erdogan has provided a written undertaking to release his intelligence agents to get back two Israeli soldiers and two Israeli civilians who went missing in Gaza and are held by Hamas. Et tu Brute? Those seeking the silver lining have latched onto the easing of the siege on Gaza and the Israeli concession to expedite reconstruction of facilities such as building a hospital, a power station and a desalination station, all subject to Israeli security considerations. This easing has not been precipitated by Turkish intervention as it being portrayed by Turkey in the media. To the contrary, this has been the plan and recommendation of the Israeli security establishment. A recent report by Israeli security stalwarts referred to Gaza as a ticking humanitarian timebomb which required urgent intervention. They recommended that Israel take steps to alleviate the crisis in Gaza, even at the risk that some of the goods can be utilized by Hamas for its tunnels industry and other belligerent purposes. This is supported by the statements of Netanyahu who commented When electricity is short, sanitation problems arise that can cause plagues that dont stop at the border. That is why this is a clear Israeli interest. Negotiation by definition is power play between parties to achieve concessions which necessitate the shifting of positions which are originally entrenched. The only perceived boon of this agreement was something Israel was going to do in any event. Not only is this so-called easing of the siege fictitious and broad, it perpetuates the conduct of sustaining the status quo of occupation instead of dismantling it. The extraction of Israel from the mortuary freezer is accurately described by Netanyahu as one of strategic importance to Israel, and the nett effect of which is to create islands of stability. This runs as a counter current to the global movement to isolate Israel under the Boycott Divestment and Sanction movement which correctly views Israel as a bastion of colonialism and apartheid in the modern world. The conduct of Turkey has disillusioned many who viewed the country as a glimmer of hope for the Palestine people. Two prominent figures of the Resistance movement Hamas have expressed their disgust in relation to this normalisation deal. This does however underscore a striking realisation, that the only means of liberation is through resistance as political and geopolitical partners have become slaves to coinage. The only door to the liberation of Palestine is that of Tehran. After treachery of such a colossal nature, the words of English poet William Blake encapsulate the sentiments of many Palestinians and those in the solidarity movement: It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend. Zaakir Ahmed Mayet is Chairman of Media Review Network - https://twitter.com/ZA_Mayet
Former CIA Officer: Listen To Your Enemy



Amaryllis Fox is still in the process of getting her CIA cover rolled back.



By Cavan Sieczkowski



July 03, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " HP " - Amaryllis Fox is a writer, a peace activist and a former CIA Clandestine Service officer.



She recently sat down with Al Jazeeras AJ+ to discuss what shes learned from working undercover in counterterrorism for nearly a decade.



Her takeaway? Listen to your enemy. If I learned one lesson from my time with the CIA, it is this: Everybody believes they are the good guy, Fox said in a video shared by AJ+ on Facebook Monday.



When it comes to the Islamic State militant group, Fox says the public conversation is more oversimplified than ever and encompasses stories manufactured by a small minority of powerful people who remain in power by convincing the rest of us to keep killing each other.



She believes understanding comes with listening.



The only real way to disarm your enemy is to listen to them, she said. If you hear them out, if youre brave enough to really listen to their story, you can see that more often than not you mightve made some of the same choices if youd lived their life instead of yours.
Turkey On The Ropes By The Saker



July 03, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Unz Review "- This has been an amazing week which saw the first clear sign of the collapse of the EU and Turkish President Erdogan presenting his excuses to Russia for the downing of a Russian SU-24 over Syria 7 month ago. While the latter event was largely eclipsed by the former, it might be the sign of something even more dramatic taking place: the collapse of Turkey. Does that seem like hyperbole? Lets look again. The Presidency of Erdogan has been nothing short of cataclysmic for Turkey which resulted in a perfect storm of crises, each of the very serious: 1) Crisis in Syria: the Turkish policy of support for Daesh to overthrow Assad has failed. Abjectly so. Not only is Assad still in power, but the latest bombing in Turkey seem to indicated that Daesh is turning against Turkey now (assuming the official explanations is true, which it might not be as we will discuss below). The entire Syria policy of Erdogan is now in shambles. 2) Crisis with the EU: the last thing the Brits did before Brexiting was to tell Turkey that it could join the EU in 3000 years. Other EU member states were not as direct, but everybody knows that this is true. Furthermore, the grand Erdogan-Merkel friendship and alliance has completely fizzled out. 3) Crisis with the Armenians: when the German Parliament recognized the genocide of the Armenians and, soon thereafter, so did the Pope, it was pretty darn clear that the western powers that be were sending Turkey a simple message: a raised middle finger. Love story over, screw you! 4) Crisis with the USA: US special forces have now been spotted in Iraq wearing Kurdish badges. While minor, this incident is telling and has greatly angered the Turks. Bottom line: the Empire needs the Kurds in Iraq and Syria and Turkey takes second place right now. 5) Crisis with Iran: by supporting Daesh, by trying to sabotage the Islamic pipeline and by trying to overthrow Assad, Turkey has completely alienated Tehran. 6) Crisis with the Kurds: by engaging in an even more brutal level of anti-Kurdish violence the Turks have basically re-ignited a full scale civil war and the Kurds are showing no signs of getting weaker. In fact, they are currently more powerful than ever, courtesy of the US invastion of Iraq. 7) Crisis with NATO: following the downing of the Russian SU-24 NATO clearly indicated to Erdogan that he was on his own and that NATO would not get involved in an Turkey-triggered war. 8) Crisis with Russia: the downing of the SU-24 did not result in the expected Russian military response, but resulted in 7 months of crippling economic sanctions by Russia and an enormous loss of prestige by Turkey. More about this later. So, this can be all summed up by saying that Turkey under Erdogan has shown a truly Ukrainian-level of incompetence, arrogance and delusion. It is in this, truly dramatic, context that Erdogan had to write his letter of apology. The first thing which should be said about this is that Erdogan took a major political risk: after spending months chest-thumping and declaring uri et orbi that Turkey will never, ever, apologize if only because Turkey was in the right, this sudden zag! puts Erdogan is a very difficult position. Hence the initial rumors that the letter said that he was sorry but not apologizing or, second variant, that the apology was only to the family of the murdered Russian pilot, but not to Russia. This did not last too long and pretty soon the bewildered Turks gave up trying to give this apology a face-lift. It was exactly what everybody understood it to be: a real full and humiliating apology. Next there was a statement of the Turkish foreign minister categorically denying that any compensation would be paid. That too lasted a couple of hours until it was admitted that not only would Turkey pay, but Turkey would pay whatever was demanded. Finally, there is a very real possibility that the bombing of the airport in Ankara Istambul might be a very direct message sent to Erdogan: if you try to appease the Russians we will unleash hell on you. And while Daesh is a prime candidate for sending that kind of message, there are other possible candidates: the US, of course, and the Turkish deep-state. To make matters even more complicated, we should not discard any scenario as impossible, including the possibility that Erdogan himself, and his supporters, engaged in a false-flag event to justify 1) cooperation with Russia against terrorism and 2) turning against Daesh. Right now, the official version (Daesh did it) makes sense to me, but I would not discount any other possibility. What is certain is that the stakes in Turkey are now sky-high and that Erdogan is fighting for his future and, possibly, the future of Turkey as a state. His opening towards Russia and, at the same time, Israel is a clear sign of despair. If only because Russia is unlikely to offer much in terms of rewards for the following reasons: First, the Russians are now deeply suspicious of Erdogan and consider him a loose cannon, possibly a lunatic, who cannot be trusted and who can make a zag after every zig. Second, the letter was a first, necessary, step to reopen negotiations, but the negotiations themselves will be a long process. Foreign Ministers Lavrov and Cavusoglu will begin these negotiations this week, but the number of issues to be discussed in very long. Most importantly, the Russians will demand tangible and important steps from Turkey, especially in Syria and in regards to Turkey sponsored terrorism in Russia and the Ukraine. It is by no means clear to me that Erdogan will be willing to make such major concessions. Officially, I expect a lot of smiles and hopeful declarations, but behind closed door the Russians will be making many tough demands. It is not clear to me that Ergodan could yield to the Russian demands even if he wanted to. Erdogan really appears to have deluded himself that he is some kind of major player and he is now discovering that he is not. What is even worse, he now probably realizes that he has many dangerous enemies and no friends at all. Potentially, Russia could offer Turkey a lot, way more than just a return to better relations, tourists and a market for Turkish vegetables. But my feeling is that Erdogan is turning to Russia in despair and to improve his bargaining position towards all the others enemies he has made. The problem is that he Russians probably see that too and that they will be very cautious, even if they hide this caution behind all manners of nice diplomatic language. I might be wrong here, but I think that the Russians want Erdogan out. In their minds they have already Saakashvilized him if only because Turkey is an extremely important country, strategically located and Russia cannot afford to have a delusional lunatic ruling it. Furthermore, the Turkish people have a major problem on their hands: a severe case of multiple personality disorder. They have to decide if they want to be secular Europeans, Young Turk neo-Fascist nationalists, Islamic radicals, Kemalist secularists? Do they want a impossible mono-ethnic Turkey or can they accept that others not only live there too, but also that these others lived in these lands long before the Turkic nomads invaded them? Right now, Turkey is anti-European, anti-Russian, anti-American, anti-Kurdish, anti-Armenian, anti-Christian, anti-Arabic, anti-Persian, anti-Greek, etc. That makes Turkey a big powder keg which any spark could detonate. And the problem for Russia is that this powder keg is uncomfortably close and deeply involved in the Ukraine, Crimea, the Caucasus and Central Asia. What this all means is that it is in Russias strategic interest to have a responsible and trustworthy partner to deal with. Sadly, I dont see that as very likely because, just as in the case of the Ukraine and Israel, the problem with Turkey is that this an artificial, illegitimate and fundamentally unsustainable country. Israel, the Ukraine and Turkey are all built on a rabidly nationalist/racist worldview which offers no hope to anybody that does not agree with this worldview. This is why, for the Turks, the Kurds are either mountain Turks or terrorists who deserve to be shot. It would be naive to the extreme to think that the mindset which made the genocide of Armenians, along with many other minorities (Christian Assyrians, Syrians, Chaldeans and Greeks), has somehow disappeared especially if we keep in mind that a) the Turks still deny the reality of this genocide and b) that this genocide has never stopped, but only slowed down: Genocide, besides the actual physical destruction of the members of the target group, aims also to erase all traces of the target groups identity, through forced assimilation. In the Armenian case, it was mainly women and children who were forced to convert to Islam, adopting Turkish or Kurdish names and thus lost their Armenian identity over time. Another measure of the genocidal process is deleting all traces of the population who have been massacred or driven away by such deportations. This includes destruction of all buildings and monuments while renaming all the names of villages, towns, rivers, and other things that can attest to the presence of Armenians in the area. In 1914, the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople presented a list of Armenian sacred places that were under his supervision. The list contained 2,549 religious sites of which 200 were monasteries while 1,600 were churches. A survey in 1974 showed that only 916 Armenian churches could be identified within Turkeys borders, half of which were almost completely destroyed and among the rest only ruins of 252 items remained. The authorities have also renamed almost all villages, towns, mountains, and rivers in Armenia and changed their historical Armenian name to Turkish ones. This policy continues even in our days when, for example, the Turkish Interior Ministry announced in 2005 that it would rename certain animal Latin names since they had separatist tendencies. Armeniana Ovis (sheep) would be renamed Ovis orientalis Anatolicus, while Capreolus Capreolus Armenus (deer) would be called Capreolus Capreolus capreolus. Even Vulpes Vulpes Kurdistanica (red fox) was to be renamed Vulpes Vulpes. The proposal was rejected by UNESCO, the UN agency in charge of these data, referring to the unfounded the Turkish reasons for the changes (source) And then there is Cyprus, which the Turks still illegally occupy. Again, such levels of violence in and around artificial and illegitimate countries is something normal and not a temporary fluke (see: the Ukraine and Israel). What this all means for Russia is that while the Kremlin will warmly welcome Erdogans latest zag and while efforts will be made to return to a more or less situation, the only possible long term goal for Russia is to support either the break-up or the federalization of Turkey into some kind of more or less civilized country. The good news for Russia is that she really need not make any special efforts towards that goal as the Turks, just like the Israelis and the Ukrainians, are doing a splendid job making sure that their political project never becomes viable. The best thing Russia can do at this point in time is to brace for the likely flare-up of violence in Turkey and try to protect herself, and her allies, from the inevitable fallout. As for Turkey  the future looks very grim. The latest move to court Russia and Israel will not meaningfully improve the strategic situation for Turkey. At best, it will give the *appearance* of a pseudo-regional detente. But nothing else will change unless the Turkish state itself changes and that is something that the Turkish people do not seem to be willing to accept, at least not in the foreseeable future.
Whitewashing Libya

House Report on Benghazi Reveals Nothing, Hides Everything By Eric Draitser July 03, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " NEO "- The Republican dominated House Select Committee on Benghazi has released its long awaited final report on the 2012 Benghazi attack which killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others. And, surprise, the report reveals absolutely nothing of substance that wasnt already known. Naturally, Democrats running interference for Hillary Clinton have continually charged that the probe was simply an act of partisan politics designed more to hurt Clinton in the presidential campaign than to uncover the truth about what happened. No doubt there is truth to such an allegation. But the most important fact about this whole manufactured drama, the one that neither Democrats nor Republicans want to touch, is the simple fact that what happened in Benghazi was perhaps the most complete encapsulation of everything wrong and criminal about the illegal US war against Libya. Moreover, it exposes the uncomfortable truth that the US harnesses terrorism, using it as one of the most potent weapons it has against nations that refuse to submit to the will of Washington and Wall Street. In effect, it was not merely terrorists that killed the four Americans in Benghazi, it was US policy. The Benghazi Report: 800 Pages of Almost Nothing Despite the triumphal pronouncements of Republican political opportunists, the new report reveals very little that is new. As the Wall Street Journal noted: Congressional Republicans most comprehensive report yet on the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, outlined few new criticisms of Hillary Clinton, highlighting more broadly what it called an array of failings by the Obama administration The report largely confirmed the existing story linethat a group of anti-American Libyan militants stormed U.S. installations in a carefully planned assault, killing four Americans, including Christopher Stevens, the ambassador to LibyaThe latest document presented few notable facts not found in earlier investigations As the Wall Street Journal correctly notes, the new report is mostly just a rehashing of prior conclusions reached from previous reports, while doing yeomans service for the political establishment by confirming and, consequently, concretizing a completely distorted narrative about what happened. Essentially, the final report amounts to a whitewash that is more about scoring political points than revealing the truth about what happened. Why? Well, put simply, the truth of what happened in Benghazi implicates both wings of the single corporate Republicrat party. There is mention of the CIA facility near the US diplomatic facility in Benghazi, but absolutely no context for what exactly the CIA was involved in there, and how it relates to a much larger set of policies executed by the Obama administration, of which Hillary Clinton was a key player. Indeed, the very fact that this critical piece of the puzzle is conspicuously missing from the Official NarrativeTM demonstrates that the House Select Committee on Benghazi report is more about concealing the truth than revealing it. Take for instance the fact that the report totally ignores the connection between the CIA facility and mission in Benghazi and the smuggling of arms and fighters from Libya to Syria in an attempt to export to Syria the same sort of regime change that wrought death and destruction on Libya. As Judicial Watch noted in regard to the declassified material it obtained: Judicial Watch obtained more than 100 pages of previously classified Secret documents from the Department of Defense (DOD)and the Department of State revealing that DOD almost immediately reported that the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was committed by the al Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood-linked Brigades of the Captive Omar Abdul Rahman (BCOAR), and had been planned at least 10 days in advance The new documents also provide the first official confirmation that shows the U.S. government was aware of arms shipments from Benghazi to Syria. The documents also include an August 2012 analysis warning of the rise of ISIS and the predicted failure of the Obama policy of regime change in Syria. Just this one small excerpt from a set of publicly available documents sheds more light on the real story of Benghazi and the Obama administrations disastrous and criminal wars in Libya and Syria than 800 pages of the House report. Were it really the mission of the House committee to expose the truth of what happened, perhaps they could have started with a Google search. Indeed, the connection goes further. As a Department of Defense memo in 2012 indicated, During the immediate aftermath of, and following the uncertainty caused by, the downfall of the [Qaddafi] regime in October 2011 and up until early September of 2012 weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles located in Benghazi, Libya were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya, to the ports of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. This revelation should be a bombshell; the US and its proxies inside Libya were actively shipping weapons to Syria for the purposes of fomenting war and effecting regime change. Further, it would be shockingly negligent to omit the fact that early September 2012 is when the shipments stopped  the attack on the CIA annex in Benghazi, not coincidentally, took place on September 11, 2012  and not connect it to the Benghazi incident. One could almost forgive such an omission if one were naive enough to believe that it was simply an error, and not a deliberate obfuscation. A serious analysis of these events would reveal an international network of arms and fighters being smuggled from Libya to Syria, all under the auspices of the Obama administration and the agencies under its control. But of course, the report focuses instead on the utterly irrelevant negligence on the part of the Obama administration which really obscures the far greater crime of deliberate warmongering. But hey, political point scoring is really what the House committee was looking for. The Larger Story Completely Ignored As if it werent offensive enough that the House committee report has completely whitewashed the events in Benghazi, the congressional hearings and subsequent report do absolutely nothing to bring clarity to what exactly the US was doing with respect to the arming, financing, and backing of terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda and other well-known terror groups. There is no discussion of the fact that Washington was knowingly collaborating with some of the nastiest al-Qaeda elements in the region, including the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group led by Abdelhakim Belhadj. This terror group, which was in the vanguard of the US-backed effort to topple the government of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and Muammar Gaddafi, was a known quantity to all counterterrorism experts specializing in that part of the world. As the New York Times reported in July 2011, in the midst of the war against the Libyan Government: The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group was formed in 1995 with the goal of ousting Colonel Qaddafi. Driven into the mountains or exile by Libyan security forces, the groups members were among the first to join the fight against Qaddafi security forces Officially the fighting group does not exist any longer, but the former members are fighting largely under the leadership of Abu Abdullah Sadik [aka Abdelhakim Belhadj]. Perhaps the enlightened truthseekers of the House committee would have thought it prudent to note that the Benghazi incident was the direct outgrowth of a criminal US policy of collaboration with terrorists, the leader of whom is now, according to some sources, connected to ISIS/Daesh in Libya. But, alas, such explosive information, publicly available to those who seek it out, would have been deeply embarrassing to the undisputed grandmasters of wrongheaded political posturing, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, both of whom gleefully posed for pictures with the hardened terrorist leader Belhadj. Oops. It would also have been nice had the House committee bothered to look at the studies conducted on that part of Libya vis-a-vis terrorist recruitment, to get a sense of the scale of the issue with which they were allegedly dealing. They might have considered examining a 2007 study from the Combating Terrorism Center at the US Military Academy at West Point entitled Al-Qaidas Foreign Fighters in Iraq: A First Look at the Sinjar Records which explained quite clearly that: Almost 19 percent of the fighters in the Sinjar Records came from Libya alone. Furthermore, Libya contributed far more fighters per capita than any other nationality in the Sinjar Records, including Saudi Arabia The apparent surge in Libyan recruits traveling to Iraq may be linked [to] the Libyan Islamic Fighting Groups (LIFG) increasingly cooperative relationship with al-Qaida which culminated in the LIFG officially joining al-Qaida on November 3, 2007 The most common cities that the fighters called home were Darnah [Derna], Libya and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with 52 and 51 fighters respectively. Darnah [Derna] with a population just over 80,000 compared to Riyadhs 4.3 million, has far and away the largest per capita number of fighters in the Sinjar records. It certainly might have been useful had the House committee taken even a cursory look at a map to see the Benghazi-Derna-Tobruk triangle (the stronghold of the anti-Gaddafi terrorist forces linked to al-Qaeda) and to understand the broader context of the events of September 11, 2012. The investigators  that term being used rather loosely, and somewhat ironically, in this case  should have been able to discern the larger significance of what they were examining. One could almost assume that, like the proverbial ostriches, House Republicans were busy hiding their heads in the sand, or perhaps in other, more uncomfortable places. Ultimately, the House Select Committee on Benghazi report will achieve absolutely nothing. It will not even score the political points that the Republicans leading the effort have been after for three years now. Hillary Clinton will continue her presidential bid completely unaffected by the information and, if anything, will likely benefit from this charade as it will lend credence to her endless assertions of a vast right wing conspiracy against her. Never mind the fact that she is a right wing neoconservative herself. Never mind the fact that the blood of tens of thousands of Libyans is on her hands. Never mind the fact that, as President, she will undoubtedly unleash more death and destruction on the people of the Middle East and North Africa. There is only one lasting achievement upon which the House committee can hang its hat: it has done an excellent job of cementing an utterly shallow and superficial narrative about the events of September 11, 2012 in Benghazi, one which will be endlessly repeated by the mouthpieces of corporate media and mainstream historians. Indeed, a false history will be written, with the US as a victim of incompetence and its own poor planning. Nothing will be said of the blatant criminality of the US effort in Libya. But, as Kurt Vonnegut was fond of saying, So it goes


And it was announced that Lagos State Government has banned buying and selling on road sides. As we all know that Lagos is a very busy city and most people hustle to get their daily bread. As this rule has been enforced, INFORMATION NIGERIA hereby bring to you the 10 set of hustlers that would be affected by this new rule:

1. Gala sellers

2. Soft drinks hawkers e.g lacasera, cocacola

3. Belts, sunglasses and wristwatch sellers

4. Household items hawkers e.g photoframes, shoe racks

5. Local Insecticides and rat killers sellers e.g ota piapia

6. Pepper, vegetables, yam and other food items sellers. Especially on the mile 12 -kosofe axis

7. Tools sellers e.g screwdrivers

8. People that wipe car windscreen for a token

9. Beggars, physically challenged and their helpers

10. The buyers of the above mentioned items.
The political logjam in Abia State may be resolved this week with the arrival of the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN) from Saudi Arabia.

Malami was in the Holy land for lesser Hajj when a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja sacked Governor Okezie Ikpeazu from office and ordered the immediate issuance of certificate of return to Sampson Ogah.

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, complied with the court order last Thursday and issued Ogah with a certificate of return.

However, Gov. Ikpeazu said a notice of appeal and stay of execution had been filed and served on INEC, vowing not to vacate office until he has exhausted every legal avenue to challenge the high courts ruling.

The situation has created a legal conundrum in Abia as two persons  Ikpeazu and Ogah  are laying claim to the governorship seat.

It was learnt that the AGF had to cut short his pilgrimage to return to the country to give President Muhammadu Buhari legal advice on the governorship tussle in the Southeast state.

Malami may return to the country tomorrow in connection with the development, a source said.

In the meantime, the president has ordered security agencies to ensure that there is no breakdown of law and order in Abia.

A top government source said: The president is awaiting legal advice from the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice who has been away to Saudi Arabia for the lesser Hajj.

In line with his commitment to the Rule of Law, there is nothing the president can do without a legal opinion.

The AGF is expected back in the country on Monday and from then we may get a legal opinion on the situation in the state.

Another source said President Buhari had taken appropriate steps to prevent a breakdown of law and order in the state.

The source said: All security agencies have been ordered to beef up security and prevent acts capable of causing unrest and breaches in the state.

In line with the directive, security agencies have extracted commitment from Ikpeazu and Ogah that they will not take the laws into their hands. This was why the state Director of DSS had audience with Ogah on Thursday. The sitting governor has also given assurance to continue to ensure peace in the state.
The Abia State Government says it has uncovered plots by those it termed desperate politicians, to abduct judicial officers in the state.

The State Governor, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, who made the allegation in a terse statement issued by his Chief Press Secretary, Enyinnaya Appolos on Sunday, warned those behind the unholy plot to desist from it for their own good.

He said, We call on security agencies in the state to increase surveillance and protection services around all the judicial officers in the state. We wish to warn those involved in this plot to desist from their nefarious activities as the government will not hesitate to apply the full weight of the law against them.

We also call on Abians to be vigilant and report any suspicious movement around them to the security.
The Acting Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim K. Idris, at the weekend, conducted on-the-spot assessment and evaluation of security situation in some flash points in the creeks of Delta State.

The state and indeed, some riverine communities in the oil-rich Niger Delta have recently witnessed renewed militancy occasioned by pipeline and oil installations vandalization, thereby, leading to tension build-up in the region.

In a move that will go a long way to de-escalate the rising tension and build trust with host communities, Mr. Idris said that one of the strategies he would deploy to tackle crimes in the country will be the formation of Eminent Persons Forum in collaboration with State Governments and various communities.

According to him, The Eminent Persons Forum will be engaged in conflict resolution arbitration.

The Acting IGP made the disclosure during a courtesy call on the Governor of Delta State, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa.

In his remarks, Governor Okowa congratulated Idris on his well-deserved appointment and promised to cooperate and assist the Acting IGP in the task of crime management.

Mr. Idris, who was accompanied on the visit by the Commissioner of Police in charge Police Mobile Force, Commissioner of Police in charge Border Patrol, Heads of Operational and Tactical Teams as well as the Commissioner of Police, Delta State conducted aerial surveillance/patrol of some riverine communities, which include Ugborodo, Madawo, Oparaza and Camp Five.

The police chief later held an interactive session with elders, youths and members of Ugborodo and Oparaza communities, admonishing them to be law abiding and cooperate with law enforcement agencies by exposing criminal elements in their communities.

He assured the communities that the Police under his leadership will engage every community in accordance with international core values of policing with integrity, respect diversity, operate within the principles of democratic policing and cultivate the culture of professionalism.

In their separate responses, the community leaders assured Idris of their unalloyed support, cooperation and active partnership.
The Osun State Government has announced the schedule of the year 2016 Eid-el-Fitri free train ride between Lagos and Osogbo, the state capital.

The government said Saturday the train rides will commence on Tuesday, July 5.

The government is extending the welfarist gesture to residents despite facing severe financial hardship that has made it difficult to pay workers salaries.

According to the government, the free train ride is in line with the Rauf Aregbesola administrations tradition of facilitating convenient movement of its citizen in and out of the state during festive seasons.

A statement from the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Cooperatives and Empowerment disclosed that the free train would start on Tuesday and end on Saturday.

The statement said the free train would convey people from Lagos to Osogbo on Tuesday July 5 by11am.

Similarly, the return journey from Osogbo to Lagos was fixed for Saturday, July 9 at 11am prompt.

According to the statement, the provision of the free train ride is with a view to facilitating a hitch-free homecoming during the Muslim festival period.

Similar arrangements apply during every eid el-Kabir, Christmas and Easter celebrations.

This gesture is from the government of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola to the people, to provide the opportunity for indigenes and non-indigenes, who would like to visit the state during the festive period.

The free train ride commences with the ascension to power of Aregbesola in 2010 and has been a regular gesture from his government to the people during Christian and Muslim festival periods since 2011.

This government wants transportation comfort for its citizens, who hitherto normally encounter hardship and fare hikes during the festive periods, the statement noted.

The Government therefore enjoined people from Lagos, Ogun and Oyo States to utilize the free train opportunity offered by the Aregbesola government to come home and celebrate the sallah with their relatives.
Abiodun Agbele (a.k.a Abbey), an aide to Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State who was arrested last Wednesday in respect of his alleged role in the launder huge sums of money from of the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) between 2014 and 2015 , has started telling investigators how he was used by the governor and former Minister of State for Defence Mr. Musiliu Obanikoro. INFORMATION NIGERIA in this piece bring to you his revelations.

He said the money was sourced from the SAS Imprest Account of the ONSA under Col. Sambo Dasuki, immediate past NSA, before the 2014 governorship election in Ekiti State.

He also said out of the sum, about N1.219billion was transferred to Fayose through him and a company De Privateer Limited, which is owned by him.

He equally said that the ONSA allegedly wired the N4.745billion via Sylvan Mcnamara Limited, a phony company run by former Obanikoro and his sons.


The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) is set to start arresting motorists who are yet to install the speed limiting device on their vehicles soon.

This came as the National Assembly last Thursday lifted the suspension on the enforcement of the device in commercial vehicles and trucks

The Corps Marshall, Mr Boboye Oyeyemi, told journalists in Abuja that the federal lawmakers lifted the suspension of the programme last Thursday.

He added that a new date for the enforcement of the policy would be announced shortly.
An enstranged political associate of the embattled Ekiti State Governor, Dr Tope Aluko, yesterday debunked the claims by the governor Ayodele Fayose that his campaign for the gubernatorial election in 2014 was sponsored by Zenith Bank.

The Director General of the Fayose Campaign Organisation, said contrary to the governors claims, his campaign was financially backed directly by the Presidency through the office of the then National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki and some oil contractors.

Dr Aluko said in a statement Before the primaries of March 28, 2014, funding came from the Presidency only. After the primaries, various individuals, banks, corporate organisations registered with token amounts (so as to play along).

But after the elections, contractors came in with funds to solicit for patronage. The current Secretary to the State Government was secretary of Fayoses campaign organisation while a member of the state assembly representing Ekiti South II, Mr. Awodumila was treasurer.

We know as a party that there was no record of Zenith Bank sponsorship of our elections.

Dr Aluko claimed Fayose was broke before the election campaign and that he could not boast of N10 million in his account before then.

In fact, he sold one of his houses in Ghana and showed me the cash in the trunk of his white Lexus Jeep at his private residence in Afao Ekiti. The recently mentioned funds are the funds he is using within his accounts in the banks, he stated.

The Head of Fayoses campaign team who fell out with the governor after the election gave details on how former President Goodluck Jonathan gave $2 million cash to Fayose for the PDP primaries and another $35 million for the election proper.

He also claimed the governor engaged the services of his personal friend, Mr. Abiodun Agbele to launder money and pay various sums paid into the governors personal accounts after the election.

On August 22, 2014, Agbele paid in N50 million cash and another N118.706 million into Fayoses Account No. 1003126654. Agbele also paid N49 million cash into Spotless Account No. 1010170969 on June 17, 2014 (four days before the election).

On August 4, 2014 when Fayose became governor-elect, he deposited the following amounts in cash himself -N40 million, N36 million, N35 million, N24 million, N20 million and N14 million, totalling N170 million in one day.

So Zenith Bank gave him these funds to lodge in his account with the bank after becoming the governor-elect? So which election was the bank sponsoring?

The questions are many because Ayo Fayose was already governorship candidate and governor-elect during this period and Zenith Bank could not have been sponsoring him from their bank and using aircraft to bring cash from Abuja/Lagos to Akure.

Aluko also said governor Fayose benefitted hugely from the cash deployed for Jonathans 2015 re-election project with funds coming from the Office of the National Security Adviser.

Ayo Fayose was sworn-in on October 16, 2014.By January 30, 2015 he made cash deposit of N145 million into the account of De-Privateer Limited and also on April 18, 2015 he paid cash of N70 million into the same account.

The N300 million fixed deposit no. 9013074033 in April 2015 from Abbey in Ayo Fayoses name cant be from Zenith Bank but from ONSA /Dasuki for presidential campaign and presidential election.

These funds were used to purchase choice properties in Abuja, Lagos and Dubai through other banks in Ekiti which the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is working on he said.
The Deputy Governor of Cross River State, Prof. Ivara Esu, has dispelled reports that some militants held him hostage in his office on Friday.

A group of young men, led by one capon, who said they belonged to the Bakassi Volunteer Force, invaded the Leopard Road, Diamond Hill office of the Cross River Governor and held everyone hostage for about three hours.

It was learnt that the daredevil militants arrived the Governors office shortly after Prof. Esu reported for duties.

Governor Ben Ayade was not on seat when the militants stormed his office as he was said to be out of the country for about two weeks now.

The militants, who stormed the states seat of power in apparent protest over alleged abandonment of the Bakassi returnees by the government, reportedly held the deputy governor and the staff hostage for several hours.

Debunking reports that the group gained access into the Government House and held him hostage, Esu said: Those reports claiming that the Government House in Calabar was invaded by militants is false.

A statement issued by Mr. Christian Ita, the Special Assistant on Media and Chief Press Secretary to Governor Ben Ayade, said the report was not only misleading but a sad demonstration of ethical bankruptcy.

The report is a regrettable sensationalisation of a peaceful protest by some ex-militants over their three months unpaid allowances by the Federal Government.

The ex-militants were not armed and so could not have invaded the Government House. Rather, they were very civil in their conduct as they sought audience with the officials of the state government whom they hoped would take their message to Abuja. Once attended to, they peacefully dispersed, he said.
ISIL has claimed responsibility for Sundays deadly bombings in the Iraqi capital.

Two separate suicide bomb attacks left 126 people dead and several others injured.

Sundays attack comes just weeks after the Iraqi government claimed that it had cleared the city of Fallujah of ISIL forces.

The terror group claimed responsibility for the bombing in a statement it released online on Sunday afternoon.

It is the second deadliest attack in Iraq this year as many Iraqis are calling for the Prime Ministers head.
The wife of the President, Aisha Buhari, has presented about N30 million cash support to parents of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls in Borno State.

The wife of the president, represented by Borno Governor, Kashim Shettimas wife, Hajiya Nana, presented the cash to the parents at a ceremony in Maiduguri, the state capital on Sunday.

According to Mrs. Buhari, the gesture was aimed at assisting the parents with some financial support towards alleviating their sufferings.

She noted that the presentation was in fulfillment of her promise to assist the less privileged and victims of insurgency in the North East.

Todays presentation was in fulfillment of the promise I made earlier in the year during my book launch in Abuja.

I made a promise that the proceeds will be used to better the lives of women and victims of insurgency in the North East, she said.

She, therefore, urged the beneficiaries to invest the money in productive ventures, so it can better their living conditions.

This money is not a sort of compensation, but a kind of support for those in need.

Our immediate prayer is for God to help trace and rescue the abducted girls so that they can be safely re-united with their families, Mrs. Buhari said.

The wife of the president also commended the military for their efforts in fighting the Boko Haram insurgency and expressed optimism that the search for the abducted Chibok schoolgirls and others, would soon yield dividends.

It was learnt that each of the 215 parents (representing the number of schoolgirls still in Boko Haram captivity) was given a cash of N139,000 during the event.

(NAN)
The Kogi State Government has reacted to the seven days ultimatum given by the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, to the state governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, to reopen the state university in Anyigba or face a mother of all protests in the state capital.

The association, in a statement issued yesterday by its National President, Tijani Shehu, threatened to pass a vote-of-no-confidence on the Bello administration even as it accused him of insensitivity to the plight of the students of the state-owned university, who have been at home for about three months now.

Reacting to the ultimatum by NANS, the Kogi Government on Sunday said the association spoke from an uninformed position, adding that it was ridiculous to insinuate that Governor Bello is not sensitive to the plight of the students at the state-owned university.

Kingsley Fanwo, the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, who said these in a statement issued on Sunday morning in Lokoja, listed different initiatives Bello has embarked on to solve the crises bedeviling tertiary education in the State since his assumption of office, including payment of four months salary arrears to lecturers of the Kogi University.

Fanwo, however, lamented that despite the gesture, the lecturers, who said they were embarking on strike because of nonpayment of their salary arrears, have not reciprocated the governors gesture by resuming work.

The statement reads in part: Immediately after his inauguration, authorities of the various higher institutions in the State were the first to be invited for briefing by the Governor. He assured them of his determination to reposition tertiary education in the State, saying his New Direction agenda was built on the platform of education.

The Academic Staff Union of University told the whole world that they were going on strike because of unpaid salary arrears owed by the previous government.

But, out of commitment to the need to prioritize education, Governor Yahaya Bello has paid six months salaries to the university staff since assuming office on January 27, 2016; the latest being the four months salaries paid even as he awaited the final report of the staff verification exercise.

The State Government negotiating team has continued to engage ASUU on the need to resolve the industrial dispute and reopen the university.

If for any reason, it is expected that the students body would have directed its angst at the lecturers, who have not reciprocated the good gesture of government. Directing tirades at the government, despite its efforts, is the height of irresponsible activism and misplaced intervention.

NANS should have been properly informed about the real reasons why salaries were delayed. Hundreds of millions of Kogi State resources had been going into ghost pockets. In a bid to block the corruption by a fiefdom, the Governor took the bull by the horn by directing a scientific and holistic staff verification exercise.

Reports of the exercise have been mind-boggling. We expect the student body to commend the government for blocking the leakages, which have been depriving the students their bursary and improved facilities on campuses. Choosing to satisfy the destabilization intent of their sponsors instead of the interest of the students they represent is unfortunate, appalling and a clear aberration of the ideals of the founding fathers of the body.

Since the completion of the staff verification exercise, salary payments have been ongoing as over 80% of the workforce have received their salaries.

The present administration has restored credibility to the civil service, overseeing the ongoing Lokoja Township road project, ensured a cleaner environment through proactive measures and set the State on the path of progress.

As a matter of emphasis, education remains the number one priority of government. It is the bulwark of our economic re-engineering and social reconstruction as well as the cultivation of minds that are ready to take on the world.

Government is working hard to make state-owned tertiary institutions world class citadels of learning.

We urge the National Association of Nigerian Students to imbibe the spirit of knowing the facts before accepting the merchandise of fallacies.

The Governor Yahaya Bello administration will continue to work with men and women of goodwill to create a better, prosperous and respected Kogi State.
Thisday

The operator of Ikorodu-CMS Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), Primero Transport Services Limited yesterday said no fewer than 48 vehicles were vandalised due to violence that erupted at Ojota on Wednesday.

Vanguard

Tunde Olaniyan, an Ordinary National Diploma, OND student of the Lagos State Polytechnic , can be described as the proverbial cat with nine lives owing to his recent narrow escape from a suicidal act.

Punch

One would have thought that with the court declaring Emeka Ike as the president of the Actors Guild of Nigeria, peace would reign in the association once again. But that is becoming farfetched as the crisis keeps brewing every day.

The Sun

Nigerians have been told to stop complaining about the present economic hardship in the country and accept their fate with equanimity.

Daily Times

President Muhammadu Buhari has solicited patience and understanding from all citizens as the administration moves to rebuild Niger Delta in particular and Nigeria in general.

Guardian

Mr Gideon Aremu, Chairman, Oyo State House of Assembly Committee on Information and Security, has been shot to death by gunmen at his residence.

Daily Trust

The election petition tribunal for the rerun election in Benue State siting in Makurdi yesterday struck out the petition brought against former Senate president, David Mark by the candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC), Daniel Onjeh.

Leadership

A middle-aged man, Surajo Sule, of Filim Samji area in Katsina municipal is currently cooling his heels at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for allegedly raping two little girls.

National Mirror

Lagos state governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, has ordered a full scale investigation into the attack on some Bus Rapid Transit, BRT, buses said to have been vandalised on Wednesday, by rampaging miscreants over alleged killing of a hawker by one of the buses at Maryland area of Lagos State.

The Nation

The Department of State Services (DSS) announced yesterday it had uncovered a plot to bomb Nigerias largest computer market, the Computer Village in Ikeja, Lagos.
Punch

THE federal governments proposed peace talks with rampaging Niger Delta militants on Sunday morning suffered a major setback as the Niger Delta Avengers blew up several oil facilities belonging to Chevron and Nigerian Petroleum Development Corporation.

Vanguard

President Muhammadu Buhari has been hailed for his commitment towards the empowerment of returning Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the northeast part of the country.

Thisday

The Cross River State Government says a report by some online news portals claiming that the Government House in Calabar was invaded by militants is false.

The Sun

The Niger Delta Avengers has announced fresh attacks on major oil and gas installations in Nigeria.

Daily Times

The Governor was issued a certificate of return by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC),following a court ruling ordering Governor Okezie Ikpeazu to vacate office.

Guardian

Mrs Aisha Buhari, the Wife of the President, on Sunday presented about N30 million cash support to parents of the abducted Government Secondary School (GSS) Chibok students in Borno.

Daily Trust

President Muhammadu Buhari will announce more capital projects in Cross River and Akwa Ibom States before the year elapses, national vice chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC) for South- South, Ntufam Hilliard Eta, has said.

Leadership

The Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), Edo Chapter, has decried the non-inclusion of teachers in public primary schools in the N25,000 new minimum wage for workers in the state.
Sources speaking to SaharaReporters in an ongoing investigation disclosed that the Nigerian Prisons Service, under the leadership of the Controller-General Ahmed Jaafaru and Minister of the Interior Abdulrahman Dambazau, has hired around 538 recruits without following established laws for public recruitment exercises.

This latest finding follows similar illegal employment schemes by the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Godwin Emefiele and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) Executive Chairman Tunde Fowler. It will be recalled that Mr. Emefiele oversaw a monumental recruitment fraud where he illegally hired the children and relatives of powerfully connected Nigerians throughout the Federal Government. Mr. Fowler, similarly, illegally recruited the friends and relatives of prominent personalities in Nigeria. SaharaReporters also published the sponsor list of illegal FIRS hiresthe majority of whom were chosen by Mr. Fowler, Senator Owan Enoh who sits on the Senate Finance Committee, and by various people around President Muhammadu Buhari.

Sources leaked two separate lists of names of new recruits who were to undergo new hire training in Lagos or Kaduna. The title of the first list is List of Newly Recruited ASP in Training and that it is to take place at the Prisons Training College in Kiri-Kiri, Lagos State. The second list is titled List of Newly Recruited Trainees June 2016 and that it is to take place at Prisons Training School in Kaduna State.



It was also revealed that the majority of these illegal hires are from northern states, according to these same sources. A casual tally of all 538 names found that around 370 were from 14 northern states, or about 68% of total illegal hires. This calculation was based on the state of origin of the illegal hire and not whether any one person belongs to a specific ethnic group.

SaharaReporters reached out to the spokesman for the Nigerian Prisons Service, Francis Enobore, with some of these allegations and findings.

Mr. Enobore told SaharaReporters that he cannot recollect any recruitment announcement in the recent months.

He added that he cannot speak to the authenticity of the list of hires unless SaharaReporters is in possession of their letters of appointment.

Mr. Enobore also said that no hire can undergo training with the NPS unless they have been formally hired and possesses a letter of appointment.

Sources at the NPS told SaharaReporters that, in an effort to cover their tracks and conceal their illegal activity, officials backdated letters of appointment for the illegal hires to attempt to have plausible deniability if their crimes ever surface.

These same sources also explained that a massive training exercise, with the number of NPS staff listed on these training sheets, only takes place when there is an influx of new hires.

You see when NPS staff are re-trained or brought in for refresher it is usually in small batches rather than more than 500 people at a time, according to this same source.

This source added that a training of this size would be considered strange in any circumstance other than massive training for new hires.

Speaking again on the matter Mr. Enobore confirmed that there is a legal process to hire employees at the NPS. He explained that the NPS would need to make their case before the Federal Government, request to declare new vacancies, and have that request approved.

Mr. Enobore also confirmed that the Federal Character Commission would need to be involved to ensure no single ethnic group or State receives preferential hires. He would not comment on the list having many more new hires from northern States other than to say that letters of appointment are needed to confirm.

News of this illegal employment scheme follows a jailbreak of several prisoners from Kuje Prison in Abuja, allegations that the escapees had assistance from NPS staff, and removed a prison officer Musa Tanko under suspicion that he may have been involved.

Source: Sahara Reporters
The caretaker Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has warned against the judiciary being used to threaten democracy in the country.

The committee issued the warning against the backdrop of developments in Abia, Edo and within the party.

The spokesperson of the caretaker committee, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, who spoke in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, decried the way and manner politicians were shopping for injunctions and court orders, stressing that if not checked, the trend could truncate the nations democracy.

Dismissing as bizarre and unsustainable a court order that the Independent National Electoral commission, INEC, should only deal with candidates that emerge through primary elections conducted in Edo and Ondo State by the Ali Modu Sheriff faction, Adeyeye said efforts so far by the sacked national chairman and his team to go round securing court orders was absurd.

Continuing, the caretaker committee spokesperson said with the recent judgments, Sheriff was no longer a Chairman of the party and had never even being Chairman of the party.

Sherif has no legal basis to parade himself as chairman. One of the judgments is that Sherif was never chairman of the party. Then the convention of the party in Port Harcourt sacked Sherif and its team. So the political angle also does not see him as chairman of the party, he said.

Adeyeye assured that the Ahmed Makarfi led caretaker committee was on course, adding that the governorship candidate of the party recognised by INEC was Pastor Ize Iyamu.

We already have a candidate for the Edo state election. He is Pastor Ize Iyamu. INEC was not in Sheriffs elections. Pastor Iyamu has completed his form with INEC. I am saying we have a candidate in Edo and will have in Ondo state. Sherif is being used. Sherif and co are agents of APC. The candidates of Sherif participated in our primaries and came second, how did they come with their delegates? he queried.

Adeyeye said the style of using court to want to force executives on political parties should be discouraged, warning that if not checked, it would get to a time when courts will declare somebody who did not participate in an election as the winner.

When has it become the fashion for court to choose executives for the party? Sherif keeps saying I am chairman by court order. This kind of thing should be discouraged. All the organs of the party dont want you. When it becomes the order to use court order to install executive then we should say bye bye to democracy.

A time will come when people who did not contest election will be made governor by the court. Its like we will surrender all sovereignty to the judiciary to choose for us, he asserted.
The Lagos State Police Command have issued a warning to residents alerting them on the new schemes of criminals in the state, particularly at night, before carrying out their criminal acts.

SP Dolapo Badmos, spokesperson for the command in an interview on Sunday issued this warning as a result of the recent spate of robbery attacks on residents in the state.

She said criminals now engage in switching off running power generating sets or turn on tap water to lure unsuspecting residents out in an attempt to rob or kidnap them.

The spokesperson however, advised residents to be vigilant and not come out at night, if they notice tap running within their compounds or when their generators suddenly stopped working.

Residents should be careful when they discover that their generators stop working or notice water gushing out from their taps, at night.

They should watch carefully before going out. If they notice strange movements, they should call the nearest police station.

she said This is why residents are advised to know the telephone numbers of the Divisional Police Officers (DPOs) or station phone numbers close to them.
The Oyo State Police command have vowed to fish out and prosecute the killers of the State House of Assembly member, Gideon Aremu who was murdered in front of his residence on Friday night at Alakia area of the state capital.

The 40-year-old lawmaker representing Oorelope constituency was said to be returning from a function at Bodija to his Akobo residence where three gunmen waylaid him on a motorcycle and shot him several times before fleeing the scene. Report has it that he died at the hospital as a result of multiple gun shots.

The Oyo State Police Commissioner, Adeleye Oyebade, who led journalists to the scene of the crime described the incident as an unfortunate event which has long been forgotten in the state. He however, assured the residents of the state and relatives of the deceased that full scale investigation would be launched to catch the perpetrators.

Meanwhile, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has described the incident as most shocking and disturbing. They called for thorough investigation into the matter by the relevant security agencies with a view to bringing the culprits to justice.

Hon. Gideon Aremu was the Chairman, House Committee on Information, Public Relations and Security under the Labour Party, until his death in the hands of suspected hired assassins.
At least 126 people are feared dead following one of the deadliest terror attacks in Baghdad.

Two separate attacks have left Iraq reeling in what is the latest in a spate of attacks.

One of the suicide bombers blew an expeve laden truck outside a busy shopping mall in Karada. The second bombing took place at another busy shopping center as people prepared for Ramadan breakfast.

Over 100 people have been reported injured as firefighters and rescue personnel rushed to the scene.

Sundays bombing will come as a big blow to the Iraqi government following their recent progress in fighting terrorists.
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Former leader of the defunct Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, Government Ekpemupolo alias Tompolo, has denied sending one Selky Kile Torughedi to assassinate a serving army officer, Major M.B Yahaya in Kaduna.

The Department of State Services, DSS, said Friday it arrested Torughedi, a close associate of Tompolo in Calabar, Cross River State, after he had allegedly carried out reconnaissance on the home of Major Yahaya in Kaduna.

The suspect allegedly identified the former MEND leader as the person that sent him on the kill mission.

But Tompolo denied the claim by the DSS, saying it was a farce by the security agency to get at him.

Speaking through his media consultant, Paul Bebenimibo on Sunday, the former militant leader said he never at any time recruited Torughedi, also known as Young Shall Grow, to assassinate Major Yahaya as reported.

Bebenimibo asserted that the suspect used to be close to Tompolo just as any other agitator involved in the Niger Delta struggle and there was nothing more to their association.

Apart from him, they are also using another ex-militant leader now. Like I said, I cannot tell you that Tompolo does not know Young Shall Grow. He definitely had met many of them with his position in the struggle. Some are his contemporaries, others are his boys, but that is not to say that he is in control of what they do, he said.

The first time they used him against Tompolo was shortly after ex-militants accepted amnesty in 2009. And if you know Tompolo, he is not the kind of person that goes for revenge, he leaves revenge for God. So I can tell you categorically that Tompolo did not send Selky to kill anybody.

In 2006 when a Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, representative was kidnapped at Letugbene in Bayesla State and Tompolo facilitated his release, nine of his boys who went on the rescue mission were killed by soldiers, who opened fire on them when they were returning. Tompolo as their leader did not seek to revenge.

Also in 2009 when soldiers were hunting for him, they destroyed Gbaramatu Kingdom, he did not revenge. During the latest invasion of Oporoza, nobody fired a single shot at the soldiers that ransacked the town. So, what is he avenging against Major Yahaya that he would send somebody to Kaduna to kill him?
Il Burkina Faso  precedentemente conosciuto con il nome di Alto Volta  e un Paese dellAfrica Occidentale con una popolazione di oltre 20 milioni di abitanti con capitale Ouagadougou, lo stesso e una ex colonia francese che ha acquisito lindipendenza della stessa il 5 agosto 1960 e dal 1984 dopo linizio della presidenza di Thomas Sankara, che diede inizio a numerose riforme istituzionali e programmi di sviluppo sanitario, assunse il nome attuale che letteralmente significa Terra degli Uomini Integri.

La situazione attuale

Tanto premesso, allo stato attuale, a causa del terrorismo di matrice jihadista e del cambiamento climatico, il Paese si trova in una condizione di instabilita politica e carestia che hanno provocato un tasso di poverta e malnutrizione che coinvolge oltre il 40% della popolazione che e costretta a vivere con poco piu di 1 dollaro al giorno.

In particolare, oltre a quanto sopra detto, dal 2015 il Paese e incalzato dal terrorismo jihadista che attraverso continui attentati e violenze nei confronti della popolazione civile ha causato innumerevoli vittime e numerosi sfollati interni.

Lomicidio dei giornalisti

Rispetto agli attentati terroristici sopra descritti  nei giorni scorsi  vi e stata una notevole recrudescenza degli stessi che e sfociata in un vile agguato omicida nei confronti del giornalista David Berian, delloperatore video Roberto Fraile e dellattivista Rory Young i quali stavano realizzando un documentario sul bracconaggio e sono stati assaliti da un gruppo di terroristi che ha cagionato la loro morte ed il ferimento di numerosi militari della scorta.

Debellare il terrorismo

In conclusione, rispetto a quanto precedentemente esemplificato, e fondamentale che le istituzioni internazionali preposte intervengano per debellare la minaccia jihadista e garantire la sicurezza della popolazione civile attraverso linvio di una cospicua forza di peace enforcement che consenta anche e soprattutto linvio di aiuti umanitari per arginare con celerita leffetto delle carestie, creare nuove infrastrutture e garantire un imprescindibile approvvigionamento alimentare quotidiano alla popolazione civile inerme e stremata in ossequio al fulgido pensiero di Martin Luther King che era solito ripetere: Lingiustizia commessa in un luogo qualsiasi del mondo e una minaccia della giustizia in tutto il mondo.
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.
Alphonsus (Alphie) McCourt, youngest brother of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Frank McCourt, died on July 2nd in Manhattan. He would have been 76 on July 29th. He is survived by his wife Lynn, his daughter Allison, and the last surviving McCourt brother, Malachy.

He was feeling unwell this afternoon and thought hed lie down, Ellen McCourt, Franks widow, told IrishCentral, and he never woke up.

McCourt was the author of A Long Stones Throw (Sterling and Ross, 2008), a memoir. The primary theme of the book, he told Jerry Tallmer of the The Villager newspaper, was the familys chronic indigence: Poverty flew in, love flew out, he said, matter-of-factly.

His book details his life in Ireland, Canada, and the United States and his battle for survivalwhich was manifested in the amazing range of odd jobs he held over the years: You know how all the jobs some writer has had are listed on the jacket of the book? Well, my life is like a big book jacket.

He went on to detail, in hilarious fashion, his factotum work life: Working on a great glop-a-da-glop mainframe computer on Wall Street; issuing tickets for British and Irish Railways; a one-day job as bellhop in a Montreal hotel; a bank teller in Montreal; an encyclopedia salesman  for a month; working at the Army and Air Force Exchange Service on 14th Street as a buyer of luggage and musical instruments, knowing nothing about luggage and less about musical instruments; filing clerk; and, oh yes, teacher.

He is also the author of Heartscald, The Soulswimmer and several Hachette Audios.

There will be a gathering at Riverside Funeral Home (180 West 76th Street) on Wednesday, July 6th, at 6 p.m.
A leading Irish American psychiatrist has written how he believes the devil does possess certain people and that there is such a thing as demonic possession. He is currently writing a book on the topic and has written about individual cases he believes were demonic possesions in the Washington Post.

Doctor Richard Gallagher, Yale and Columbia University trained, who has worked closely with Catholic priests who are exorcists, instances a small number of cases where the persons symptoms give him no other option but to diagnose possession.

Gallagher writes of one such person he met In the late 1980s,

I was introduced to a self-styled Satanic high priestess. She called herself a witch and dressed the part, with flowing dark clothes and black eye shadow around to her temples. In our many discussions, she acknowledged worshipping Satan as his queen.

Im a man of science and a lover of history; after studying the classics at Princeton, I trained in psychiatry at Yale and in psychoanalysis at Columbia. That background is why a Catholic priest had asked my professional opinion, which I offered pro bono, about whether this woman was suffering from a mental disorder... I was inclined to skepticism. But my subjects behavior exceeded what I could explain with my training.

She could tell some people their secret weaknesses, such as undue pride. She knew how individuals shed never known had died, including my mother and her fatal case of ovarian cancer. Six people later vouched to me that, during her exorcisms, they heard her speaking multiple languages, including Latin, completely unfamiliar to her outside of her trances. This was not psychosis; it was what I can only describe as paranormal ability. I concluded that she was possessed. Much later, she permitted me to tell her story.

The priest who had asked for my opinion of this bizarre case was the most experienced exorcist in the country at the time, an erudite and sensible man. I had told him that, even as a practicing Catholic, I wasnt likely to go in for a lot of hocus-pocus.

Well, he replied, unless we thought you were not easily fooled, we would hardly have wanted you to assist us.

"Julia" is a middle-aged, self-supporting Caucasian woman who lives in the U.S. She first approached her local clergy on her own, and was soon referred to an official priest-exorcist (who collaborated on this article) to explore getting help. She herself was quite convinced from the start that she was being "attacked" in some way by a demon or Satan.

During the course of her lengthy and thorough evaluation, she was eventually seen by this writer, a board-certified academic psychiatrist, who was asked to provide a medical and psychiatric opinion.

In 2008 in the New Oxford Review, Gallagher revealed further details about the possessed woman he calls Julia.

Julia revealed a long, disturbing history of involvement with explicitly Satanic groups (an obvious, historical antecedent to her then-present condition and to her accompanying "psychic" abilities, as they might be characterized). Though raised a Catholic, she no longer practiced the Faith. But, with considerable ambivalence, she stated she might need the Catholic Rite of Exorcism.

Julia was not the typical type of individual who frequently importunes the Church for help but who is really in need of psychiatric or other medical intervention. She was in no way psychotic; in fact, she was consistently logical, highly intelligent, and even quite engaging at times, despite her obvious turmoil.

Periodically, in our presence, Julia would go into a trance state of a recurring nature. Mentally troubled individuals often "dissociate," but Julia's trances were accompanied by an unusual phenomenon: Out of her mouth would come various threats, taunts, and scatological language, phrases like "Leave her alone, you idiot," "She's ours," "Leave, you imbecile priest," or just "Leave." The tone of this voice differed markedly from Julia's own, and it varied, sometimes sounding guttural and vaguely masculine, at other points high pitched. Most of her comments during these "trances," or at the subsequent exorcisms, displayed a marked contempt for anything religious or sacred.

When Julia came out of these trances, she strongly professed no recollection of these remarks or of having said anything at all. An experienced psychiatrist might well conclude that we were probably, therefore, dealing with a dissociated personality or, more precisely, even Dissociative Identity Disorder (elaborated on later). What quickly made this understandable hypothesis implausible, however, were several other peculiar though obviously related phenomena, but a sampling of which is covered here.

Because of the complexity of this case, we assembled a team to assist. At varying points, this group comprised several qualified mental-health personnel, at least four Catholic priests, a deacon and his wife, two nuns (both nurses, one psychiatric), and several lay volunteers. We made a number of phone calls to arrange gathering together to help Julia. Julia herself was not in on these phone discussions; she was far from the area at the time.

Astonishingly, Julia's "other" voice -- again sometimes deep, sometimes high pitched -- would actually interrupt the telephone conversations and somehow come in over the phone line! The voice(s) would espouse the same messages: "Leave her alone," "Leave, you idiots," "Get away from her," "She's ours." Julia, again, said later that she was unaware of any such conversation. And yet this speech was heard distinctly by several of the team on a number of occasions.

As mentioned, even outside her trances, Julia unmistakably displayed "psychic" abilities; put another way, her presence was clearly associated with paranormal events. Sometimes objects around her would fly off the shelves, the rare phenomenon of psychokinesis known to parapsychologists. Julia was also in possession of knowledge of facts and occurrences beyond any possibility of their natural acquisition.

She commonly reported information about the relatives, household composition, family deaths and illnesses, etc., of members of our team, without ever having observed or been informed about them. As an example, she knew the personality and precise manner of death (i.e., the exact type of cancer) of a relative of a team member that no one could conceivably have guessed. She once spoke about the strange behavior of some inexplicably frenzied animals beyond her direct observation: Though residing in another city, she commented, "So those cats really went berserk last night, didn't they?" the morning after two cats in a team member's house uncharacteristically had violently attacked each other at about 2 AM.

As another example, Julia once described not only the actual surroundings (including the decor of his room) but the exact state of mind (skeptical and dismissive) of a priest peripherally involved, whom she had never met. The facts were subsequently precisely confirmed. Julia could also consistently depict, from afar and with amazing detail, the activity of one of the principal priests involved. She would repeatedly report, from her distant vantage, whether and when he was in pain (he suffered from a recurring illness), often where he was (e.g., walking on a beach), and remarkably, even what he was wearing at the time (e.g., a windbreaker).

Rounding out the picture of this case, finally, were the happenings during the lengthy exorcism rituals, that Julia herself requested. There were two series of such sessions separated by a period of time. (Ultimately, due to her hesitations, these efforts were interrupted and may or may not be resumed. Exorcism per se, a worthy and complex topic in itself, is not the focus here. This article looks rather to the reality of the subject of possession and its counterfeits.)

The exorcism began on a warm day in June. Despite the weather, the room where the rite was being conducted grew distinctly cold. Later, however, as the entity in Julia began to spout vitriol and make strange noises, members of the team felt themselves profusely sweating due to a stifling emanation of heat. The participants all said they found the heat unbearable.

Julia at first had gone into a quiet trance-like state. After the prayers and invocations of the Roman Ritual had been going on for a while, however, multiple voices and sounds came out of her. One set consisted of loud growls and animal-like noises, which seemed to the group impossible for any human to mimic. At one point, the voices spoke in foreign languages, including recognizable Latin and Spanish. (Julia herself only speaks English, as she later verified to us.)

The voices were noticeably attacking in nature, and often insolent, blasphemous, and highly scatological. They cursed and insulted the participants in the crudest way. They were frequently threatening -- trying, it appeared, to fight back -- "Leave her alone," "Stop, you whores" (to the nuns), "You'll be sorry," and the like.

Julia also exhibited enormous strength. Despite the religious sisters and three others holding her down with all their might, they struggled to restrain her. Remarkably, for about 30 minutes, she actually levitated about half a foot in the air.

The presumptive target of the exorcism, the entity (or entities) that was possessing Julia, could also distinguish between holy water and regular water. She would scream in pain when the blessed water was sprinkled upon her, but have no reaction to clandestine use of unblessed water. During the ceremonies, she also, as previously, revealed hidden or past events in the lives of the various attendees, including information about deceased relatives completely unknown to her.

While many other details could be added, the above sufficiently convey the general picture. As noted, the exorcisms were seen as helpful, but have not yet resolved the matter of the possession. It should again be noted that Julia herself had no recollection at all of what occurred during the ceremonies.

For twenty five years now Gallagher has helped Catholic authorities deal with what he describes as demonic possessions as there is no other possible diagnosis.

He write Careful observation of the evidence presented to me in my career has led me to believe that certain extremely uncommon cases can be explained no other way.

Gallagher writes that the problem appears to be getting worse and the Catholic church now has 50 exorcists in America up from 12 just a few decades ago.

Despite the skeptics, Gallagher believes he has seen the real thing.

He writes: Assaults upon individuals are classified either as demonic possessions or as the slightly more common but less intense attacks usually called oppressions. A possessed individual may suddenly, in a type of trance, voice statements of astonishing venom and contempt for religion, while understanding and speaking various foreign languages previously unknown to them.

The subject might also exhibit enormous strength or even the extraordinarily rare phenomenon of levitation. (I have not witnessed a levitation myself, but half a dozen people I work with vow that theyve seen it in the course of their exorcisms.) He or she might demonstrate hidden knowledge of all sorts of things  like how a strangers loved ones died, what secret sins she has committed, even where people are at a given moment. These are skills that cannot be explained except by special psychic or preternatural ability.

I have personally encountered these rationally inexplicable features, along with other paranormal phenomena. My vantage is unusual: As a consulting doctor, I think I have seen more cases of possession than any other physician in the world Gallagher says

As to why he does it, Gallagher writes it should be impossible to turn ones back on a tormented soul.
Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams TD, speaking in Dublin this afternoon, has called on the Irish government to consider establishing a National Forum to discuss how the vote of the clear majority of citizens in the North who want to remain in the EU can be respected and defended.

The purpose of this Forum would be to bring together all of the different strands of opinion on the island of Ireland to discuss our future in the EU following the Brexit vote.

Gerry Adams said: I have written to the Taoiseach to ask him to consider establishing a Forum to discuss the future for the people of this island  North and South  and the European Union following the Brexit vote. I have asked him to meet with me and other political leaders to discuss this proposal.

This Forum should aim to have island wide participation and involve the Assembly parties, the Oireachtas, European Parliament and civic society.

The vote of the clear majority of citizens in the north who want to remain in the EU must be respected and defended.

The Remain vote brought together unionists, nationalists, republicans and others in common cause on the same platform. Those who campaigned for a Leave vote should also be invited. There is an imperative on all of those who are concerned about the consequences of the Brexit vote to work together in the time ahead.

There is a particular onus on the Irish government to defend the Good Friday Agreement and its institutions, and to work closely with the Executive to achieve maximum co-operation.

A Forum, similar to the New Ireland Forum and the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation, should be open to all political parties on the island. It would have the clear objective of discussing the implications of Brexit and producing papers on strategies and policies that might assist in coordinating efforts in the time ahead.

Such a Forum could be invaluable in providing information both to the public and to all of those sectors of our society likely to be affected by Brexit.

The Forum could reach out to those in Scotland who voted to remain in the EU.

It could also hold plenary sessions to which experts on aspects of EU policy could give evidence.

Critically, the agenda for such a Forum would need to be agreed with the participants to ensure maximum buy-in.
Irelands crazy, unpredictable weather might actually be beneficial for the people that live there. New research has suggested that changing weather makes people less violent and aggressive.

The study, CLASH (Climate Aggression, and Self-control in Humans), reveals why hot weather combined with less variation in seasonal temperatures can lead to a faster life strategy, less focus on the future and less self-control, all of which contribute to aggression and violence, the Irish Independent reports.

Dr. Brad Bushman, co-author of the study and professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University, said: We see evidence of a faster life strategy in hotter climates with less temperature variation  they are less strict about time, they have less use of birth control, they have children earlier and more often.

People who live in regions with frequent warm spells are irritated and are more likely to be outdoors interacting with people so naturally run into more opportunities for conflict, states the study.

The research also suggests that the problem is not just with hotter temperatures. Climates that have less seasonal variation in temperature can also invite to violence.

Study co-author Maria Rinderu, of Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, said: Less variation in temperature, combined with heat, brings some measure of consistency to daily life.

According to researcher Paul Van Lange, people have to plan and prepare more when there are variations in temperature, thus leaving less time for conflict.

Planning in agriculture, hoarding, or simply preparing for cold winters shapes the culture in many ways, often with people not even noticing it, he said.

If there is less variation, youre freer to do what you want now, because youre not preparing foods or chopping firewood or making winter clothes to get you through the winter.

You also may be more concerned with the immediate stress that comes along with parasites and other risks of hot climates, such as venomous animals."

Said Bushman: We believe CLASH can help account for differences in aggression and violence both within and between countries around the world. We think it provides a strong framework for understanding the violence differences we see around the world.
A Lithuanian man has appeared in court, charged in connection with an incident in which another man was shot by a garda, last week, writes David Raleigh.

The driver of the car, aged 36, is being treated for his injuries at University Hospital Limerick, where he is in a serious but stable condition.

The shooting occurred near Foynes, Co. Limerick, at about 2:30am last Wednesday morning.

The matter was referred to the Garda Siochana Ombudsman (GSOC), which independently investigates incidents whereby gardai cause harm or death to members of the public.

At Kilmallock District Court, Detective Garda Michael Brosnnan, of Kinsale Garda station, gave evidence of arresting Aurimas Petraska, (aged 31), at Henry Street Garda station, Limerick, at 10.06am yesterday.

He also said that he charged Mr Petraska, originally from Kaunas, Lithuania, but with an address at Church Street, Rathkeale, Co Limerick, with three counts of burglary, at two pharmacies and a fashion store in Co Cork, Co Tipperary, and Co Limerick.

Mr Petraska is accused of stealing clothes and shoes worth 100,000 during a burglary at Isobel boutique, on Main Street, Adare, Co Limerick, on June 21, 2016.

He is also charged with stealing perfumes and cosmetics worth in excess of 40,000 during a burglary at O'Connors Pharmacy, Kinsale, Co Cork, on January 13, this year.

He is further charged with stealing cosmetics and perfumes worth in excess of 20,000 during a burglary at O'Brien's Pharmacy, Cahir, Co Tipperary, on September 10, 2015.

Dtc Gda Brosnan said Mr Petraska "made no reply" to the charges.

John Herbert, solicitor told the brief court hearing he would not be seeking bail on behalf of the accused.

He told Judge Marian O'Leary he did not anticipate seeking bail at the next court hearing.

Prosecuting Inspector Paul Reidy, Henry Street Garda station, Limerick, told the court he did "not yet" have directions from the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

Judge O'Leary remanded Mr Petraska in custody to appear before Newcastle West District Court for DPP directions, on July 8 next.
Update 4.54pm: The death toll from the car bomb attack claimed by the so-called 'Islamic State' group in central Baghdad has climbed to at least 115, Iraqi officials said.

Hospital and police officials said on Sunday that another 187 people were wounded in the overnight attack, and nearly a dozen people remain unaccounted for and feared dead.
Rogalska, a co-presenter on the show 'Questions for Breakfast' was left in agony after a roulette style trick by magician and Poland's Got Talent contestant, Pan Zabek, went terribly wrong.

The trick involved three paper bags, one with a nail inside.
Ikladios brings with him 20 years experience in technical leadership roles, including the last seven years establishing and growing VCPro. Before that, he held senior roles with local IT services businesses including Defence Force Recruiting, KAZ Group, and Ernst and Young.



Blue Central acquired VCPro  and a new MD  to deliver a valuable new set of services and capabilities to its Australian customers. By integrating VCPros assets and services, Blue Central can now provide a new range of services and solutions to deliver hybrid cloud offerings to customers.



Ikladios said, I am excited by the opportunity to take the helm at Blue Central and help our customers gain better results from their technology. Many Australian businesses are confused by the complexities IT presents, and as a result, are not gaining maximum benefit from their investment. Our new strategy and direction means customers can now work with Blue Central as a one-stop shop for all their technology needs, simplifying the IT process.

Benoit Droulez, chief strategy officer, IPMG, said, Peters experience and VCPros areas of specialisation perfectly complement Blue Centrals core strengths. The enhanced capabilities of the merged businesses give us the opportunity to expand our footprint outside the highly competitive managed hosting market and bring more value to our existing customer base. At the same time, we will be able to reach new customers in high-value industries like telecommunications, government, and education. Were pleased to welcome Peter and VCPro to Blue Central and the IPMG team.

Ikladios replaces George Kazangi, who joined in mid-2012 as managing director who will remain with the business until the end of July.
Lenovo has announced the immediate appointment of Sumir Bhatia as the companys new vice-president of Data Centre Group (DCG) for Asia Pacific. Based in Singapore, Bhatia will report directly to Ken Wong, senior vice-president and president, Lenovo Asia Pacific.

Bhatia will succeed Amar Babu as Asia Pacific Data Centre Group lead, driving growth in Lenovos data centre business across the region.

"Asia Pacific presents tremendous opportunities for Lenovo, where the data centre business continues to be a critical focus. I am excited to lead the charge in expanding our data centre business here, with the support of a talented, motivated and committed team, said Bhatia.

Bhatia joins from Dell, where he built an exceptional track record over six years in Asia Pacific leadership roles. He brings more than two decades of IT industry experience across sales, business development and marketing in top multinational organisations.

He has held senior roles across sales, business development, channels and marketing in multinational corporations such as Nortel Networks, HCL Group, Thakral Group and Motorola JV.

He has a Bachelor of Engineering and Computer Science from the BMS College of Engineering, India, and is presently based in Singapore with his family.

Wong said, Bhatia comes with a proven track record and a wealth of industry experience across the region. The US$87 billion data centre space is one of Lenovos three growth engines across the world (with mobile and PCs), and it is aggressively investing in the right talent and portfolio to accelerate its momentum in Asia Pacific. He is a timely and valuable addition to our leadership team and we look forward to even more success with him at the helm.

Bhatia added, Asia Pacific presents tremendous opportunities for Lenovo, where the data centre business continues to be a critical focus. I am excited to lead the charge in expanding our data centre business here, with the support of a talented, motivated and committed team. I believe that the biggest growth is still ahead of us  as we focus on delivering an arsenal of IT offerings that are unencumbered by legacy thinking or traditional technologies.

The announcement comes after the Lenovo Tech World event in San Francisco on 9 June, where the company announced its intensified focus on the data centre technology market.
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The last few days at the Legislative Building in Raleigh have been dominated by strong rumors of proposed changes to HB2, the sweeping anti-LGBT legislation passed in a rushed special session in March that has prompted businesses to cancel projects in the state and damaged North Carolinas brand around the world.

There have been secret meetings, leaked drafts of bills, even an appearance by Gov. Pat McCrory at a closed meeting of all Republican members of the House and Senate.

By the time you read this, the legislation that some are absurdly calling a fix to HB2 may have passed the House or Senate or at least be on the way, most likely stuffed into an unrelated conference report to avoid debate or more controversy.

Never mind open government or giving the public the chance to speak.

Regardless of the legislative rules they bend or break, the intent is clear. Republican lawmakers are desperately trying to save face with an election only a few months away and trying to persuade the NBA not to cancel its all-star game in Charlotte because of the law. Sadly it appears the NBA may be falling for it.

The details of the proposed revisions to HB2 have changed several times, but all the versions continue to deny the rights of the majority of transgender people to use the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity, leaving them vulnerable to harassment and violence.

Under HB2 only transgender people who have had sex reassignment surgery and have changed their birth certificate can use a bathroom in line with their gender identity.

The new legislation permits transgender people born in states that do not allow birth certificate changes to obtain a creepy certificate of sex reassignment from the State Registrar with a notarized statement from a physician.

Transgender people who have not had the surgery  and that is the majority of transgender people  are still banned from using the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity.

The secret legislation does restore the right of workers illegally fired to sue in state court and changes the states nondiscrimination standard to track federal law. But that still means no protections for LGBT people in employment or public accommodations that many states provide.

The bill creates a special anti-discrimination task force appointed by legislative leaders to make recommendations to the General Assembly, with one version having the commission report its findings next spring, well after this years election and after the NBA all-star game in Charlotte.

Theres nothing wrong with commissions and open hearings and public dialogue, but that ought to come before controversial legislation is passed, not after it is rushed through a one-day special session.

And if legislative leaders truly wanted to hear from the public and have open discussions about changes to HB2, they could have held extended hearings in the current legislative session that began in April.

Many of the news accounts of the secret negotiations are calling the proposed changes to the discriminatory law a compromise, which is as inappropriate as claiming its a fix.

It is neither.

If HB2 had not passed, LGBT people in Charlotte would be protected against being fired from their job or being denied service at a restaurant or hotel simply because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

HB2 took those protections away and the new legislation does not restore them.

If HB2 had not passed, transgender people in Charlotte would have been able to use the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity, just as they do in 22 states and more than 200 cities across the country without incident.

HB2 took that right away from transgender people and the new legislation does not restore it.

If HB2 had not passed, local governments could enact their own nondiscrimination policies to protect their residents and could adopt ordinances requiring government contractors to pay a living wage. HB2 took those rights of cities and counties away and the new legislation does not restore them.

If Gov. McCrory and legislative leaders were serious about sending a clear message to businesses and tourists and performers that North Carolina does not tolerate discrimination, they could have included in the new bill a statewide nondiscrimination standard that protects people based on their sexual orientation and gender identity.

That was the least they could have done and they didnt do it. People in North Carolina can still be fired from their jobs or refused a room at a hotel in North Carolina because they are gay or bisexual or transgender.

Leaving discrimination in place is no fix. And there is no compromise. People either have basic civil rights or they dont.

The name of one of the draft bills making the rounds at the legislative building was the Privacy, Safety, and Dignity for All Act.

But its not for all. Not even close.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who campaigned in Janesville before Wisconsin's April presidential primary, performed poorly in the conservative ring counties around Milwaukee. His prospects in Wisconsin during the general election hinge on turning that around. Credit: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By of the

When Donald Trump lost Wisconsins April primary, he did his absolute worst in the most Republican part of the state: the conservative collar counties outside Milwaukee.

In short, he flopped with the partys base, and it ruined his chances of winning here.

Three months later, that problem lingers. And until he solves it, Trumps ability to contest Wisconsin this fall will be suspect.

There are a lot of my constituents that are not enamored of Trump, and they voted that way, said GOP congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, whose overwhelmingly Republican district on the outskirts of Milwaukee gave Ted Cruz a 35-point margin over Trump in the April primary.

It was the biggest losing margin for Trump in any congressional district in the country where primary results are available. It also came in a region the party relies on in fall elections for massive GOP turnouts.

The concern I have is they are not going to vote (in November) because they dont like either of the candidates, Sensenbrenner said of his Republican constituents. Weve got a turnout problem and we have to address that.

Wisconsin is an unusually stark example of one of the chief perils facing Trump in this election  that a lack of enthusiasm in his own party will depress GOP turnout, cripple his chances of defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton and damage Republican candidates for U.S. Senate and other offices. That danger seems especially acute in more upscale and educated Republican communities (like those outside Milwaukee) where Trump showed less appeal during the primaries.

If you look at the people who have not been for Trump, historically it is (more) educated people, said Sensenbrenner, whose district has more college graduates than any other GOP congressional seat in the state.

Polling shows Trump has improved his abysmal ratings among Wisconsin Republicans since March. But his standing in his party remains weaker in Wisconsin than in many other battleground states. And its shakier in southeast Wisconsin -- the partys geographic base -- than it is in the rest of the state.

I do think youre seeing persisting division in the GOP despite Trump clinching the nomination, said Marquette pollster Charles Franklin.

In southeastern Wisconsin, you see more of that divide, he said. It still remains to be seen whether the (Republican) convention can get him past that.

GOP national chair Reince Priebus conceded in an interview Friday that unifying the party is a little tougher in his home state of Wisconsin than in some other battlegrounds, but it doesnt mean it cant be remedied.

In a statewide Marquette poll done before the April primary, Trumps net favorable rating with Wisconsin Republicans was minus 15 (36% viewed him favorably, 51% unfavorably). In a poll last month, it improved to plus 17 (52% favorable, 35% unfavorable).

But Trump is still less popular with Republicans in the southeast, home to the states most important GOP counties. Trumps net favorable rating among Republicans in the 10-county Milwaukee TV market is only plus 9 (47% favorable, 38% unfavorable). In the rest of the state, it is plus 22.

The contrast with the partys last nominee, Mitt Romney, is striking.

In the summer of 2012, Romney had a net favorability rating among Republicans in the Milwaukee media market of plus 67 (74% favorable, 7% unfavorable), based on Marquettes June and July polls from that year.

Why is Trumps weakness in this region such a problem?

Because of its huge importance to the party. The Milwaukee TV market is home to more than 40% of Wisconsins GOP voters, and those Republicans typically vote in disproportionate numbers. The area includes three of the most politically mobilized counties in America. Ozaukee had the highest turnout in 2012 of any U.S. county with more than 50,000 people; Waukesha and Washington were fourth and eighth.

Much of the region lies within Sensenbrenners U.S. House district, which routinely produces more votes for its GOP congressman than any district in America.

Yet the district was a disaster area for Trump in the primary, when he clashed with conservative talk radio and the states GOP leaders. Sensenbrenner said his voters are conservatives who like consistency, and that is not the case with Trump.

Recent polls hint at how Trumps problems with the partys base could dampen November turnout.

In Marquettes June poll, Republicans were less likely than Democrats to say they were certain to vote this fall, a reversal of the typical pattern and a warning sign about the enthusiasm level of GOP voters.

In a recent set of state surveys by CBS and YouGov, Wisconsin Republicans were less loyal and more negative toward Trump than in the two other key battlegrounds those organizations polled: Florida and Colorado.

In those two states, Trump got roughly 80% of the GOP vote in matchups with Democrat Hillary Clinton. But in Wisconsin he got only 69%.

In Wisconsin, only 29% of GOP voters said their support for Trump was very strong, compared to 51% in Florida and 33% in Colorado.

In Wisconsin, just 47% of GOP voters said Trump was prepared to be commander-in-chief, compared to 60% in Colorado and 70% in Florida.

And in Wisconsin, 41% of Republicans said the Trump campaign made them feel scared, compared to 23% in Florida and 29% in Colorado.

Clinton, Trumps Democratic opponent, also lost the Wisconsin Primary. She was also badly beaten (by opponent Bernie Sanders) in one of the states most important Democratic strongholds -- Dane County. And the Wisconsin polling suggests she has not yet unified her party.

But her weaknesses are not as pronounced as Trumps. She doesnt face the same resistance among party leaders and activists. And she has consistently led Trump in the Wisconsin polls.

When the GOP convention begins in Cleveland two weeks from now, it will provide Trump a vital opportunity to shore up the party base. In Wisconsin, that base is anchored in the counties north and west of Milwaukee. Those counties have to turn out Republican voters in droves for the party to even compete at the presidential level. Short of that, Wisconsin wont be truly in play.

Follow Craig Gilbert on Twitter @WisVoter

Graphic: Trump favorability weak in state
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One man died and two were wounded in separate shootings Saturday, Milwaukee police said.

A 32-year-old man was fatally shot in the 3600 block near N. 3rd St. and W. Keefe Ave. at about 6 p.m.

That man and another 22-year-old man were sitting on the porch of a house when the shooter opened fire. Both men were transported to the hospital and attempts to save the 32-year-old man's life were unsuccessful, said police.

The second victim is being treated for an injury that is not believed to be life-threatening.

Police said they are seeking suspects.

A second shooting occurred at 7:15 p.m. in the 5800 block of W. Ruby Ave, according to police.

A 26-year-old man was sitting in his car when a gunman fired multiple shots into his vehicle. Police said the man's injuries do no appear to be life-threatening.

Police say they are still seeking a suspect.
Jill Hapner, executive director of the Southeastern Wisconsin Invasive Species Consortium Inc., stands in front giant hogweed plants in Sheboygan last month. Credit: Credit: James Reinartz

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A showy new invasive plant with toxic sap that can burn the skin and grow to a height of 15 to 20 feet has been positively identified for the first time in southeastern Wisconsin.

Hundreds of plants known as giant hogweed were confirmed in Sheboygan in early June, according to the Department of Natural Resources.

Aside from the plant's size  the leaves alone can grow to 3 feet  and ability to crowd out native species, giant hogweed also poses potential health dangers.

According to Michigan State University, the plant's sap contains glucosides that react with ultraviolet rays of the sun and can severely burn the skin, cause blisters or cause temporary blindness.

Hundreds of the plants were sprayed with an herbicide on several properties in a neighborhood on the south side of Sheboygan last week  a "rapid response" effort organized by the Southeastern Wisconsin Invasive Species Consortium Inc. (Small plants can be dug by hand, but people must wear protective clothing because of the sap, according to the DNR.)

"It's a big deal, from my perspective, because it's a prohibited species that's not yet widespread," said Kelly Kearns, a conservation biologist with the DNR. "When we find the plant, we try to get it under control."

The good news in Wisconsin, Kearns said, is that authorities think they have been able to control all known populations.

The plant's discovery in Sheboygan is the closest it's been found to metropolitan Milwaukee.

A native of the Caucasus region of Eurasia, between the Black and Caspian seas, it was bought to the United Kingdom and then in 1917 to the United States as an ornamental plant. Giant hogweed is found in states with similar climate zones: Michigan, Illinois, Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Washington.

Fast-growing, the plant invades roadsides, the edges of woods and empty lots. It prefers shade, especially along the banks of streams, where it can lead to soil erosion.

Giant hogweed was first recorded in Wisconsin in 2004, Kearns said. There have been confirmed reports in Iron County, in far northern Wisconsin, Waupaca County and Manitowoc County.

A single plant produces thousands of seeds, which can be dispersed by flowing water or animals. The most common way the plant invades new territories, however, is humans who are attracted by its size and sheer novelty.

"These are probably the most amazing plant you will ever see," said Jennifer Grenz, coordinator of the Invasive Species Council of Greater Vancouver, Canada, in a YouTube video, where she is dwarfed by plants in their flowering stage.

Said Kearns: "Some people think the plant is really cool and they decide to plant it."

However, regulators take a dim view of the plant, which is sometimes called giant cow parsley. It is listed as a prohibited species, which means the plant is not widespread and is found only in small stands in isolated spots, but is likely to spread if not controlled.

If necessary, the DNR can obtain a court order to inspect and eradicate prohibited species. But in Sheboygan, the homeowner supported the spraying.

Giant hogweed can be mistaken for a pair of native plants, angelica and cow parsnips. Natural resource agencies have posted online videos to show the differences between them.

Last week, a control crew from Brodhead-based Applied Ecological Services surveyed the Sheboygan neighborhood and sprayed more than 800 plants with an herbicide, according to Scott Horzen, a board member of the Southeastern Wisconsin Invasive Species Consortium, which helped to oversee the eradication plan.

Neighbors say the plants may have been present for as long as 10 years, Horzen said.

He was present for the spraying. He described the plants as "ginormous  it stands out in a spot because it's so big," he said. "It's unlike any other plant in Wisconsin."
By ,

Madison  A federal official who has long sat in judgment of disability claimants reduced them to racist and sexual tag lines such as "gorilla-like" and "buxom" in his case notes, according to copies of those forms and whistleblower interviews.

The conduct of administrative law judge John H. Pleuss toward his own co-workers and applicants for disability payments and their representatives raises questions not only about his official decisions but also about whether proper oversight is being exercised at the federal Social Security Administration's Madison Office of Disability Adjudication and Review.

An inspector general's investigation has been opened into issues in the administration's Madison office, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has learned. Pleuss has temporarily stopped hearing cases here but has not been put on leave and was in the office on Friday, a union official said.

"Young, white, female; long brown hair; attractive; looks innocent," reads one of Pleuss' handwritten hearing notes about a claimant in the form's "overall appearance" portion.

"Very black, African looking woman (actually a gorilla-like appearance)," Pleuss wrote of another claimant.

Pleuss' hearing notes and instructions to others were obtained by the Journal Sentinel and then shown to people who have worked in the office who verified they were notes that were written by Pleuss in recent years and then were scanned into electronic case files by other staff.

Machelle Keller, a lead case technician and one of those who confirmed the case notes are genuine, said she is facing retaliation from SSA management for speaking to the press and a Senate committee about the "toxic" work environment in the Madison office. Keller also testified in a whistleblower complaint about Pleuss' conduct, including his treatment of his co-workers, and about retaliation against whistleblowers by Laura Hodorowicz, the Madison office director.

In addition, an armed security guard has sat in a cubicle among the Madison office employees since June 20 to ensure safety in the office, said Keller and another source who spoke to the Journal Sentinel on the condition of anonymity.

Keller said SSA employees have been ordered not to speak to the media and to direct questions to the administration's regional headquarters in Chicago.

Pleuss has not received any apparent discipline for his comments, which were first reported by the conservative website Wisconsin Watchdog in June, besides being asked not to hold hearings or sign decisions for a two-week period, according to Marilyn Zahm, president of the Association of Administrative Law Judges.

The federal union represents about 1,300 judges around the country, including Pleuss, who also serves as his office's local union representative. If a person seeking Social Security disability payments has received multiple unfavorable decisions, he or she can appeal and have an in-person hearing on the claim before one of these administrative law judges.

Pleuss can't respond to interview requests from the Journal Sentinel, Zahm said.

She acknowledged that Pleuss should not have used the language that appeared in his notes, which can be seen by other SSA employees but not the public. She said Pleuss doesn't discriminate against claimants based on their race or appearance.

"Judge Pleuss regrets ever writing these notes," Zahm said.

Doug Nguyen, the SSA's regional spokesman, said that the agency cannot discuss personnel matters, but it is taking the claims seriously.

"We will not tolerate harassment, retaliation or other wrongdoing, and we take aggressive steps to investigate reports of inappropriate or illegal activity and address any findings," Nguyen said in an email.

The SSA's Office of Inspector General also could not comment on any possible investigation, spokesman Andrew Cannarsa said.

Zahm said she knows Pleuss personally and is saddened "that his name would be dragged through the mud, because I don't think he deserves it." She praised his conduct around her at conferences and said he has served in the Peace Corps in Ghana and worked for the Indiana Civil Rights Commission.

Zahm said the notes by Pleuss were "shorthand descriptions" that were meant to be used by him alone to jog his memory. They had been "taken out of context," she said, but did not offer any appropriate context for the quotes.

Other comments Pleuss has written in his hearing notes about applicants and their attorneys include observations that a white, female claimant "looks like a man," another "obese, young" white female was wearing a "skimpy black top" and a "young, black female" was "obese" and "buxom."

"I'll pay this lady when hell freezes over!" Pleuss also wrote in one of the documents.

Keller said that judges usually document applicants' characteristics that would be relevant to their disability claims  for example, if an individual had to use a wheelchair or cane, if he or she struggles to form sentences or if he or she is missing a limb.

"You don't need to have 'ape-like appearance' in order to remember that claimant," Keller said. "It's totally inappropriate."

Zahm gave examples from her own service as a judge in which she wrote down characteristics related to a disability or apparent lack of one, but could not give an example where she had noted a claimant's physical attractiveness.

Keller said she cannot confirm whether Pleuss' views of women and people of color affected his rulings on their cases.

But, Keller said, "why would you have to write something like that if it wasn't swaying you one way or the other?"

Keller also said Pleuss has hugged her in a way that makes her feel uncomfortable.

"I used to have to say, 'My eyes are up here,' as did a bunch of other (women) in the office," she told the Journal Sentinel.

Rebecca Salawdeh, a Wauwatosa attorney who handles federal employment disputes, said she has represented long-term federal employees who were fired "for far less" than what Pleuss is said to have done.

If the allegations are true, she said, "there's no reason why (Pleuss) shouldn't be fired."

Keller said SSA management has taken negative actions against her since she has begun speaking out about Pleuss, including revoking her work-at-home privileges and sending representatives from the Office of Inspector General to her home the week after Wisconsin Watchdog first reported her allegations.

So far, Keller said, she has reached out to a number of governmental entities for help since November.

In May, Keller also filed a complaint with the U.S. Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and contacted the committee's chairman, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). She received a prompt call back from a staffer.

After the SSA declined to answer questions from the committee about any actions taken against Keller and other whistleblowers without a formal request from Johnson, he submitted a letter June 14 to acting SSA Commissioner Carolyn Colvin requesting the information.

Keller sought additional help from the office of Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) but did not receive as much follow-up.

John Kraus, Baldwin's communications director, said Baldwin has followed up on Keller's request and contacted the Office of Special Counsel to express interest in the complaint.

Keller said she has doubts about whether the SSA will address any of her complaints and those of the other whistleblowers about Pleuss, or cease what she views as retaliation.

"I'm hoping, but, you know, I've hoped for a while, and they just keep throwing stuff at me," she said. "They've had so many opportunities to fix this."

A JUDGE'S NOTES

Administrative law judge John H. Pleuss wrote these descriptions of claimants appearing before him:

 "Young, white, female; long brown hair; attractive; looks innocent."

 "Very black, African looking woman (actually a gorilla-like appearance)."
Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) says the state Legislature may cut the Milwaukee Public Schools budget. Credit: John Hart / Wisconsin State Journal

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We're frustrated with Milwaukee Public Schools, too  especially with the district's "failing" schools where so few students are receiving an adequate education.

But state Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) has exactly the wrong solution: He says lawmakers may cut the budget for MPS even further.

Such a rash move would only punish the very kids that he and other Republicans say they want to help. Just as he did when Rep. Janel Brandtjen (R-Menomonee Falls) floated the idea of trimming aid to Milwaukee if the city didn't get a better handle on crime, Gov. Scott Walker should reject Fitzgerald's meat cleaver approach.

Fitzgerald's frustration is understandable, though, after the resistance to a turnaround district to improve schooling prompted the official leading those efforts to resign. Demond Means, Mequon-Thiensville superintendent and turnaround commissioner appointed by Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele, quit last week.

The Opportunity Schools and Partnership Program law, passed as part of the 2016-'17 state budget by Republican legislators, was aimed at improving the worst MPS schools. The commissioner was given the authority to take over up to five schools a year and turn those schools over to outside operators. Means and Abele, though, offered a reasonable compromise plan: Under it, Means would have operated the schools under a contract with MPS. It was a good deal for everyone.

Unfortunately, the district rejected it.

"Unfortunately, I think the only hammer is, 'Listen, if you're not going to participate, if you're going to try to work around the law and we're going to end up in court over this thing, then you're probably going to see some significant reduction in revenue for MPS schools related to the opportunity schools.' And I hope it doesn't come to that, but I can see already that it's kind of being teed up that way," Fitzgerald said Thursday in an interview on "UpFront with Mike Gousha" on WISN-TV.

Fitzgerald even hinted that the Legislature might consider stripping the School Board of its power. "I wouldn't take anything off the table when it comes to MPS," he said.

Abele should appoint a new commissioner and take another shot at persuading MPS leadership that a partnership  and make no mistake, that's what Abele and Means proposed  is far better than a takeover, which is what MPS and its backers wrongly claimed their offer represented. Abele told us he will continue to push for that partnership. MPS has had its chance to improve failing schools; the district now should find a way to work within the new law to help its students.

Fitzgerald, Walker and the other Republican leadership will not be helping MPS students by cutting state funding. They should renounce that idea.

But MPS administrators and the School Board need to find a way to work with Abele and a new commissioner or else risk losing control of the district.
"I wouldn't take anything off the table when it comes to MPS."

OK. So what might be on the table when Republicans in the state Legislature sit down for a meal of ideas about Milwaukee Public Schools?

The quote is from an interview with Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) for an "UpFront with Mike Gousha" program at WISN-TV on Thursday.

I thought it might take more time for the heat to rise on discussions about the future of Milwaukee Public Schools following the resignation Wednesday of Demond Means as commissioner of the Opportunity Schools and Partnership Program. Frankly, it was so likely that nothing productive was going to come from the effort to improve poor-performing MPS schools that I didn't expect such swift and strong reactions to Means' surrender.

Fitzgerald accelerated things by talking almost immediately of cutting funding for MPS because it had not cooperated with reform ideas.

I understand the frustration, but really? To paraphrase the Anacin commercials of the 1960s, sure, you have a headache, but don't take it out on the kids. How would funding cuts help?

So, what else might be considered?

Governance reform comes up often. The thinking goes that the Milwaukee School Board obstructs so much change. Get rid of it, put leadership in better hands.

Not so fast, folks. A bid to put MPS under a board largely appointed by the mayor of Milwaukee was launched in 2009. It went nowhere and the wounds from that are still fresh. Democrats, mostly allied with the still-influential teachers union, won't budge on that. And do Republican leaders honestly have the appetite for the fight that would be required?

How about breaking up MPS into smaller districts? Scott Walker suggested that before he was elected governor in 2010. There hasn't been serious talk about it since then. It would be a logistical nightmare, if it's even possible, and what would it really change?

Or how about creating a real "recovery district"?

New Orleans and Memphis get the most attention as places where public schools were taken from a conventional district and put into a "recovery" network of charter schools, with the goal of getting better results. There is strong debate about what this has accomplished.

For Milwaukee, it's sort of like this: If you didn't like what amounted to "recovery district light" under the Opportunity Schools law, how about a serving of the real thing, involving a lot more schools being taken from MPS.

In 2015, the Legislature created a University of Wisconsin System office for charter schools. It is authorized to open independent schools only in Milwaukee and Madison and it is just getting started. The office is headed by Gary Bennett, who previously was education aide to state Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills), co-author of the Opportunity Schools law. Is Bennett's operation waiting to be the new version of what Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele and Means were trying to create? Just wondering.

A big recovery district would raise big questions such as: Who's going to run the schools? I don't know of many great candidates out there.

Another possibility: I have floated in the past a fantasy of creating a school oversight board that would control the faucet for public money for schools in Milwaukee. Leave the structure of MPS, vouchers and charters in place, but put a board above them that would require individual schools to show good cause why they are worthy of public support. Sort of like a super chartering authority.

Of course, there is the option of not doing much to change things. Every year, the percentage of Milwaukee children enrolled in the conventional MPS system goes down by one to two points. Most likely, within three to four years, less than half will be in MPS, with the rest generally in charter schools, private schools, or suburban public schools available through the open enrollment option. In other words, MPS is in deep long-term trouble already. Maybe those who don't like MPS can just let existing trends keep working.

Ultimately, if Milwaukee  and I mean everybody, not just MPS  doesn't want Madison to impose potentially drastic steps, Milwaukee needs to come up with a solution. There are far more important reasons to pursue this thought than the ugly political warfare of the past, present and likely future. In short, it's time to look boldly, honestly, and wisely at what's best for kids.

MPS overall, private voucher schools overall, charter schools overall  no sector has changed the reality that thousands and thousands of Milwaukee kids are not getting on paths for good futures and many schools in all sectors have unsatisfactory results year after year. The need for doing better in Milwaukee education overall is enormous.

What if key figures of all kinds came together, broke barriers, set aside their own agendas, and agreed on a proposal that could give all kids and all schools better chances? What if everyone agreed kids shouldn't be going to chronically listless schools, and united around changing that?

Even in Madison, who would want to oppose a united front arising from Milwaukee that had true promise for making things better?

As for leaving things to the politics we have now, remember the wisdom of Bob Dylan. "You better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone," he once wrote.

So, politicians, civic leaders, please heed the call. Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall, for the one who gets hurt will be the one who has stalled. There's a battle outside that is raging...

Alan J. Borsuk is senior fellow in law and public policy at Marquette University Law School. Reach him at alan.borsuk@marquette.edu.
Brooks guilty on all 76 counts in Waukesha Christmas Parade rampage

A jury has convicted Darrell Brooks Jr. of killing six people and injuring dozens of others by driving through the 2021 Christmas parade.
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Madison A man police shot and killed after he allegedly came at an officer with a pitchfork struggled with mental illness for much of his adult life, according to the head of a program that provided him with support services.

Dean Loumos, executive director of Housing Initiatives and a Madison school board member, told the Wisconsin State Journal that 41-year-old Michael William Schumacher wasn't a dangerous person.

Loumos said Schumacher had been with Housing Initiatives, which provides housing and support for people with mental illness, since 2008.

He said Schumacher graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison but soon after he finished his mental illness began to manifest itself. He said he was legally prohibited from disclosing Schumacher's medical diagnosis.

"I cannot explain why he did something like this," Loumos said. "He's never done anything like that."

UW-Madison spokesmen didn't immediately respond to an email Sunday seeking confirmation of Schumacher's graduation. Online court records show Schumacher was cited in August 2012 for disorderly conduct, possession of a dangerous weapon, possession of marijuana and unauthorized use of a student center or union.

Police said they received a call on Thursday evening of a man chest-deep in Lake Monona who was talking to himself and slapping the water. The man then threw a rock into a nearby home, went inside and started smashing things, driving the residents to flee. When police arrived he advanced toward them brandishing a pitchfork and ignored commands to stop. An officer opened fire, killing him.

Alderwoman Marsha Rummel and Dane County Supervisor John Hendrick have said the shooting has eroded community trust in police. Schumacher was the third person officers have shot and killed on the city's near east side since 2012.
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A University of Wisconsin-Madison student studying abroad in Italy has gone missing, according to a statement released by the school Sunday.

Beau Solomon, 19, was reportedly at a bar with friends in Rome on Thursday night when the group, upon leaving, noticed he had disappeared.

When he didn't show up to class the next day, a friend reported him missing.

The native of Spring Green arrived in Italy Thursday and went missing that evening.

His brother, 26-year-old Jake Solomon, has not heard any updates on Beau's status, but said if he's been taken, his kidnapper "has it coming."

"All three of us (brothers) are aligned on the fact that Beau is the toughest S.O.B. that we've ever met," he said.

Jake described Beau as "an awesome brother" with "a big heart" who dreams of becoming a lawyer. The 19-year-old battled cancer for 10 years until the age of 12, after which he went on to participate in high school sports, work as a camp counselor for Badger Boys State and teach at youth quarterback camps around Wisconsin.

Beau is the third of four boys. He's closest with his 12-year-old brother Max, Jake said. His other brother is Cole, 23.

Parents Nick and Jodi Solomon left for Italy Sunday to assist in the search for their son. The couple won't return to Wisconsin "until they find Beau and bring him home," Jake said.

"We're doing everything we can to try and find him," he said. "If anybody can help by spreading the word, one small connection is all it might take."

Solomon had just completed his first year at UW-Madison in personal finance. Previously, he studied at Southwest Wisconsin Technical College and University of Wisconsin-Richland, the statement said. He was taking classes at John Cabot University in Rome.

"We are deeply concerned about Beau and are working with John Cabot University in Rome and American and Italian authorities to assist in any way possible as they seek information on his whereabouts," Vice Provost and Dean of Students Lori Berquam wrote in a statement Sunday. "We ask all Badgers to keep Beau and his family in their thoughts and prayers."
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A mob has burned down a mosque in the second attack of its kind in just over a week.

Scores of Buddhists ransacked a mosque in northern Myanmar forcing Muslims to seek refuge overnight in a police station after another violent dispute caused religious intolerance, officials and residents said Friday.

The problem started because the mosque was built near a (Buddhist) pagoda. The Muslim people refused to destroy the building when the Buddhists discovered it, Moe Lwin, a local police officer, told the AFP news agency.

Bouts of anti-Muslim violence have left scores dead across the country since 2012. This volatile atmosphere poses serious challenges for Aung San Suu Kyis new government.

The violence erupted on Thursday afternoon as a mob of around 200 Buddhists rampaged through a Muslim area of Thuye Tha Mein village in the Bago province following an argument between neighbors over the building of a Muslim school.

It started when a Muslim man and a Buddhist women started to argue and then people came to fight him, Hla Tint, the village administrator, told AFP.

Parts of the mosque were destroyed  they also destroyed the fence of the Muslim cemetery, he added.

Around 70 Muslims, including children, sought shelter in a police station overnight on Thursday, he said, adding there were no serious injuries and peace had been restored.

Police and the secretary of the mosque confirmed the damage, while a Muslim resident told AFP his community of around 150 people is now living in fear.

We had to hide as some people were threatening to kill Muslims. The situation has never been like this before, Tin Shwe Oo, 29, told AFP, adding his family stayed at the small police station overnight.

Antipathy toward Muslims is deeply entrenched in Buddhist society and few politicians have been unwilling to support them for fear of angering the countrys influential monks and Buddhist majority.

The governments refusal to tackle rising anti-Muslim violence, particularly against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state, has prompted international outcry calling on the government to address the ongoing tension between Myanmars majority Buddhist population and its ethnic Muslim minorities.

The government must demonstrate that instigating and committing violence against ethnic or religious minorities has no place in Myanmar, said Yanghee Lee, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar.

Myanmars government does not recognize Rohingya as an ethnic group, arguing instead they are really Bangladeshis. An estimated 1 milllion Rohingya people living in Myanmar have been denied citizenship under the 1982 Citizenship Law, and face severe restrictions on movement, marriage and even reproduction. More than 100,000 refugees are confined to internal camps.

Via TeleSur



Press TV: Buddhist extremists destroys Mosque in northern Myanmar
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By Sibel Oktay | (Informed Comment) |  

You dont have to be an avid follower of international news to have heard about the terror attack at Istanbuls Ataturk airport  Turkeys biggest and Europes third largest hub for air travel. Most likely carried out by ISIS, the attack killed 42 people and wounded hundreds of others on June 28.

The attack overshadowed two major headline events. Both these events, ironically, had to do with Turkey attempting to change course on policies that may well have opened the door to the airport bombing.

As a scholar who focuses on foreign policy analysis and political leadership in Europe and the Middle East, Id like to explain how all of these events can be seen in the broader context of what I call Turkeys six foreign policy sins.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan recently sent a letter of apology to Russian President Vladimir Putin, expressing his regrets for downing a Russian jet in late 2015 near the Turkey-Syria border.

The news surprised many. Since the onset of the Syrian civil war in 2012, Turkey emphasized its right to take any necessary measures against airspace violations. Erdogans apology suggests either an admission of negligent behavior  Russia has denied allegations of violation  or an indirect confession of how badly Turkey needs Russia. It may be both. A plunge in the number of Russian tourists visiting Turkey might explain Erdogans apology, not to mention Moscows embargo on Turkish agricultural products or the constraints that Turkish businesses face in Russia.

Erdogans apology to Putin came amid a recent deal between Israel and Turkey. The two countries have been in a rift since May 2010. Thats when the Israeli navy intercepted a humanitarian aid flotilla headed to Gaza. The shipment was sent by Turkish charity organizations. In stopping it, Israeli soldiers killed nine Turkish citizens. The parties agreed yesterday to restore diplomatic ties. Turkey accepted Israels blockade of Gaza and its authority to monitor Turkish aid to Gaza. In return, Israel agreed to allocate US$20 million to compensate the families involved and agreed to allow Turkish businesses to develop water and energy infrastructure in Gaza. Israel is also expected to work with Turkey to transport natural gas to Europe.

Both of these developments now pale in the face of yesterdays horrific attacks. Those following Turkish foreign policy say the country is paying for its sins of the past.

What are Turkeys past sins?

Problems close to home

Turkish foreign policy has experienced tectonic shifts over the last decade. Whereas the AKPs initial foreign policy playbook was dubbed soft Euro-Asianism, emphasizing Turkeys southern and eastern neighborhood including Russia, it later morphed into zero problems with neighbors. Under this new approach, Turkey would use its rich historical and cultural capital in the Middle East, the Balkans, and the Caucasus to create a zone of political and economic influence. Championed by its architect Ahmet Davutoglu, the zero problem policy was meant to forge new economic and security ties across the region, generating peace and stability.

Sadly, things did not go as planned. As Piotr Zalewski explains, the zero problems with neighbors policy soon turned into zero neighbors without problems.

Erdogan walked out on Israeli President Shimon Peres at the World Economic Forum in 2009. The fragile detente with Armenia fell apart in 2010. Friction with Azerbaijan and Israel followed. Against the backdrop of the Arab Spring revolutions, relations with Egypt deteriorated.

The last and biggest domino to fall was Turkeys Syria policy. Although Turkish-Syrian relations were turbulent throughout the 1990s, the AKP government managed to rebuild ties. They opened their borders to each other. The Erdogans even cultivated family relations with the Assads, inviting them to join them on vacation. This ended when Assad began to brutally repress civilian revolts in Syria. Erdogan and the AKP government pledged to remove Assad from power. His days are numbered, Erdogan said in 2011.

Thats when Turkey committed what I see as its first sin. The country began to provide support to moderate Syrian rebels like the Free Syrian Army to topple Assad. It was later revealed that Turkey also supported more radical groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra and transferred weapons to others to oust Assad.

Meanwhile a new radical movement was maturing in Iraq. It was known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq, before rolling out in Syria and becoming ISIS. As ISIS got stronger, elements from the Free Syrian Army joined its ranks as well as those of others such as al-Nusra. Ahmet Davutoglu, the architect of zero problems foreign policy, called it a group of angry young men in 2014, spectacularly discounting their cause and capabilities  committing the second sin. ISIS had occupied the Turkish Consulate in Mosul, Iraq that same year, taking 49 consulate staff hostage and not releasing them until 101 days later. A Turkish daily revealed in 2015 that Turkey had transferred arms to ISIS.

Third, Turkey did not tighten border controls on its southern border until late 2015. By that time ISIS had already established itself in Syria and in southeastern Turkey. The city of Adiyaman became a well-known hub for ISIS militants. The reports suggest that at least two terror attacks that took place in Turkey last year can be traced back to this hub.

By August 2014, the international community had realized the severity of the power vacuum in Syria and how it facilitated the reincarnation of Islamic terrorism. Although the United States was initially reluctant to lead the global effort to curb ISIS, it later decided to take initiative only to find out that Turkeys preferences were simply misaligned with the Obama administrations. Thanks to the power vacuum, the Kurds living in the northeast provinces of Syria not only declared their autonomy, but also proved to be the most effective element in the region to fight against ISIS. They took Kobane back from ISIS, demonstrating their ability to engage in armed resistance. The United States therefore thought Kurds would make a powerful proxy to fight against ISIS, while Turkey saw them as the top threat against its own national security. The wave of sympathy that the Syrian Kurds received became a concern for Ankara, which later committed the fourth sin: engaging in airstrikes against the Kurds in northern Syria in October 2014.

The rest is history. Turkeys aggression toward the Kurds disappointed the United States and others in the West. While the West was counting on Turkeys commitment to eradicate ISIS, Turkey chose to go after the Kurds and Assad instead. Eventually, Turkeys behavior raised questions about its willingness to curb the terrorist group at all, undermining its credibility in NATO as well as in Washington. (Thats sin #5.)

By the time Russia intervened to cushion the Syrian regime, Turkey was fighting allegations of giving material support to ISIS, including by purchasing oil from the organization. When Turkey downed the Russian jet (sin #6), the country was already on the blacklist of the international community for turning a blind eye to Islamic radicalism brewing in its backyard. Indeed, ISIS committed four other heinous attacks in Istanbul, Ankara and the southeastern city of Sanliurfa in the last 12 months.

So this week Turkey proposes a clean slate to both Israel and Russia. It attempts to bounce back from the depths of its foreign policy fiascoes. Turkeys tarnished membership in NATO will likely improve now that it has agreed to lift its veto against Israel to align with NATOs wishes. Relations with Russia should also normalize soon.

More importantly, Turkeys attempts to bridge the rifts with Russia and Israel signal more substantive changes in its foreign policy. Turkey might finally give tacit support to Russian activity in Syria, even if it means leaving Assad in power for now. Rebuilding ties with Israel will lead to intelligence sharing between Turkish and Israeli agencies, which should help Turkey strengthen its increasingly disappointing security apparatus.

The efforts to normalize relations with Israel and Russia are bold initiatives from the Turkish leadership, which had become much less flexible and more aggressive in its foreign policy rhetoric in recent years. Burying the hatchets with Russia and Israel might make Turkey more secure in the region, and signal to the rest of the international community that more substantive positive changes in Turkish foreign policy are yet to come. Only time will tell if they would include a more resolved Turkish response against ISIS.

Sibel Oktay, Assistant Professor of Political Science and Global Studies, University of Illinois at Springfield

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.



CCTV:  Istanbul blast: Turkish officials say two of three suspects identified
KEARNEY  Southwest Kearney residents started their morning with the sight of a mountain lion running through their yards and the sound of a gunshot.

A young male mountain lion was killed by Kearney Police Officer Jolissa May-Werner about 7:15 a.m. in a back yard at 1330 12th Ave.

Nick Fryda, a wildlife biologist with the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission in Kearney, said this is the first confirmed mountain lion in Kearney.

Weve actually had multiple reports over the years of mountain lion sightings, he said, but there never was the required photo, footprint, hair sample or scat for confirmation.

This is the first confirmation, he continued. Some reports that we got could have been this one, but there was not a confirmation.

Sky Oldham, who lives across the street and just north of the yard where the mountain lion was killed, knew what she was seeing on her yards chain link fence just after 7 a.m. She said the family dog Max, a bloodhound, was barking at the big cat on the fence, which jumped off and ran.

Good thing we have a hunting dog, Sky said.

Her mother wasnt so sure about her daughters report.

I just thought she was exaggerating, that it was a raccoon or something, Candi Oldham said.  I came outside and the cop said, Theres a mountain lion on the loose.

Sky added with a smile, It was amazing.

Ashley Hilton, who lives at 1331 13th Ave., was one of the last people to see the mountain lion alive. Hilton is pregnant. She and her husband, Jesse, are expecting their first child in a few weeks.

It could have sent me into labor, she said about the excitement.

KPD Sgt. Kyle Harshbarger said he first saw the mountain lion in the 1200 block of Ninth Avenue. He was probably five feet away from me when he came out and started running west.

Neighbors on either side of the yard where the mountain lion was killed never saw it. One was warned to stay inside by law enforcement officers, and the two next-door neighbors were alerted to a problem when they heard the gunshot.

I was going out to get some creamer for my coffee, said Monte Dakan, who lives two doors north of the site. He must have run across the street just before I opened the door.

Two officers yelled at him to get into his house.

Toddlers live in the homes on either side of the property where the mountain lion was killed.

Cassy Kvasnicka, on the south, said she didnt know anything was going on until she heard the gunshot. I looked out and then I saw them (officers with guns) on the neighbors deck, she said.

As she held her 21-month-old son, Liam, on her front step after all the excitement was over, their Irish terrier, Blue, looked outside from the screen door. She had brought the dog inside just a few minutes before the mountain lion ran by.

He didnt bark, Kvasnicka said. Hed been out all morning, and I thought he needed to come inside for breakfast.

When asked what she thought about having a mountain lion come within a few feet of her front door, she replied: Oh my gosh, wow. Its just frightening.

Mattie Curtiss, who lives north of where the big cat was killed, also was alerted by the gunshot. Thats when she saw officers on a staircase on the north side of her house. She said they were using it as a vantage point to look over fences into back yards.

I heard the gunshot. I thought it was the trash can going over, Curtiss said, her 2-year-old Sophie standing beside her.

I feel bad that it got into town and had to be shot. But there are so many dogs and so many kids around  Im so nervous that it was so close to us, Curtiss said.

Fryda understands the concern, but he said this mornings incident was uncommon.

This is rare, he said. People dont need to be afraid of it (a mountain lion). If you do come across one, dont corner it. Stay away from it. Most of the time, they will run away.

Its believed that the mountain lions now reported more commonly in central Nebraska originate in South Dakota and the breeding population in the Pine Ridge area of northwest Nebraska. Fryda said the single males must move out on their own.

The mountain lion in southwest Kearney was in good condition.

Their main diet is deer, and there are plenty of deer, Fryda said. Theres plenty of game around.

So why was a mountain lion so far into town? The first reports of sightings were along Ninth Avenue, or about four to six blocks from Kenwood Elementary School.

I think he got into town and just couldnt get out, Fryda said. Almost every yard has a fence. Hed jump one fence, and there would be another.

He noted that the mountain lion was moving to the west, toward the edge of town, when it was killed.

Kearney Game and Parks officials will take the body to the commissions Lincoln headquarters for its weight and age to be determined  Fryda defined it as a subadult  and probably will take blood tests for disease.

Fryda said the body initially was taken to the Kearney offices shop. It could be transported to Lincoln later today, depending on instructions from the commissions non-game biologist there.

The mountain lions presence in southwest Kearney was compounded by the time of day, with people going to work and children going to school. Fryda said KPD was well within our protocol to kill the mountain lion because of the safety issues.

He said its still safe to go to the parks and walk or bike the trails around Kearney. There is no reason to be afraid of mountain lions, Fryda said. Just be aware of them.

If given the opportunity, theyll try to run away.

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Assistance urged for remote area teachers

Officials and teachers are pressing for more government assistance for school teachers in remote areas.





A teacher guides her Voong Village Primary School student in Tay Giang District  a remote mountainous area in central Quang Nam Province.





Nguyen Dinh An, Head of the Education and Training Department in the mountainous Nam Tra My District of central Quang Nam Province, said almost half of the 565 district teachers did not receive incentive pay because they were hired on short-term contracts.

Incentive pay accounts for 70 percent of each teachers monthly salary. It is paid to entice teachers to work in the most deprived areas. But incentive pay is only paid to teachers with permanent or long-term contracts, by government decree.

An said short- and long-term contracts both require teachers to work hard and face the same difficulties.

According to an earlier government decree, teachers have also been eligible for another type of incentive pay based on geography since 2006 if they teach in disadvantaged areas for five years, before teaching in more desirable locations such as big cities.

Senior teachers who worked in disadvantaged areas before 2006 did not receive such incentive pay, according to An.

Such experiences depress teachers, An told the Nhan dan (People) newspaper.

In addition to incentive pay, housing and extra work hours are also needed. For example, teachers can practise forest-related farming in mountainous areas if forest land is allocated to them, according to An.

Hard work

The Principal of Tra Van Primary School, Ho Van Hanh, said that during his 18 years of working in the remote mountainous area he saw teachers crossing springs and climbing mountains to reach schools.

In rainy season or between-crops, students from Co Tu ethnic groups usually drop out of schools because of hunger, he said. Teachers visit students houses to encourage them return to class during such times. Sometimes teachers even give families rice and salt to help relieve their hunger and gain their trust, Hanh said.

Nguyen Thi Tho, a teacher from Quang Nam Provinces Duy Xuyen District, said she lives far away from the school where she teaches.

My students also become my children and sisters. They share with me their daily joy and sadness, since they live far from home, she said.

Teacher Vo Thi Kim Anh said she and her husband have both worked at the school for six years, but they do not have their own house. They had to send their son to be cared for by his maternal mother in her hometown, according to Anh.

Teacher Doan Thi Quyen, who is 26 years old, usually hangs her mobile phone on tree branches in the front yard to get a signal so she can talk with family.

VNA
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By Mary Earl

Some names for eastern Washington vineyards, AVAs and mountains are derived from animals  such as Ciel du Cheval (French for horse heaven), Horse Heaven Hills, Badger Mountain and Rattlesnake Hills. Native American names like Yakima, Naches, Tapteil, Wahluke and Ancient Lakes are also found on the vineyards and AVAs. Some vineyards are named for some early wine pioneers like Mercer, Sagemoor, Weinbau, Dionysus and Bacchus.

But how the heck did Red Mountain get its name? Year-round, there are at least 50 shades of beige on the mountains in and around Columbia Valley.

But then I've never been there in April, when the spring cheatgrass turns the mountain dark red  except for the green patches under vine.

The Red Mountain AVA is the smallest AVA at 4,040 acres with just over half planted to Cabernet, Merlot, Sangiovese, Cab Franc, Syrah, Carmenere and the newest darling, Malbec.

There is still a smattering of white grapes, most notably Kiona's old vine Chenin Blanc, with some Semillon, Marsanne, Viognier and Chardonnay. Cooler climate grapes are planted in the nooks and crevices of the hills where shade provides relief from the sun for part of the day.

All that sunshine makes Red Mountain the hottest AVA in Washington State; both in heat units and because some of the 52 vineyards have contributed beautiful bunches of grapes to internationally acclaimed wines.

So what makes this AVA so hot, hot, hot? The climate. The soil composition. The great viticulturists formerly known as farmers.

Being hot and windy is an asset, creating an unfriendly environment for mold and mildew. The soil is high in calcium carbonate and low in pH, which along with its granular consistency, promotes well-established root systems.

The predominant soil types are windblown and include the Warden, Hezel and Scootenay. These types of soils are a combination of sand, silt and loam  a proper mix for exceptional vitis vinifera.

And who's making those internationally acclaimed wines, you may well ask?

Well, it all began in the mid-70s, when some of us were still sporting bell bottoms and dancing to the Bee Gees. Kiona's John Williams and Jim Holmes planted the first vines on the south side of Sunset Road. Fortunately, some of those same vines are still in production.

Later, Blackwood Canyon, Hedges Cellars, Oakwood Cellars, Seth Ryan, and Terra Bianca began planting. At the time, Red Mountain was in the Yakima Valley AVA, which is in the really big Columbia Valley AVA. Being defined by something that huge didn't quite give Red Mountain its due. The long crusade for a Red Mountain AVA began and was finally granted in 2001.

Today, a row of Red Mountain grapes from Ciel du Cheval, Klipsun, Kiona, Blackwood Canyon, Obelisco, or Tapteil Vineyards is in high demand. There are even wineries that produce wine from Red Mountain fruit in their Walla Walla wineries.

Knowing a good thing when they saw it, California's Duckhorn, Chateau Ste Michelle and Tuscan giant Antinori invested tidy sums to purchase land, plant vineyards and build wineries.

The Vancouver Canucks owners decided to make their first spectacular foray into the wine industry a couple of years back when they bought a chunk of parcels (518 acres with water rights) for $8.3 million.

Red Mountain's Bordeaux varietals are rich, colorful, powerful and known for incredible balance with intense black fruit flavors, minerality and good structure. The widely planted Cabernet clone #8 produces a wine similar to Bordeaux with concentrated fruit, fine-grained tannins and a lovely mineral quality.

Malbec, merlot, Syrah and Carmenere are also red hot commodities on Red Mountain. Carmenere and Malbec have fallen out of favor in Bordeaux but are lighting up the scoreboard when grown on Red Mountain.

Cooper Wine Company has 41 acres on the corner of Sunset and Hwy 224. Eight of those acres are planted to Carmenere and they have produced a wine called Vinizio that includes all six of the Bordeaux grapes. Neil Cooper explained the chocolate aromas and flavors come from the calcium carbonate in the soil of the Scootney Flats.

Frichette Winery is the newest boutique winery on the mountain. The owners, Greg and Shea, changed careers and relocated to Red Mountain to be closer to family. As with most Red Mountain wineries, its portfolio is chalk full of Cabernet, Merlot and a Malbec that stains your glass purple, with blackberry pie aromas and flavors of blackberry and cocoa and a touch of minerality.

Fidelitas has a great deck to sit, sip wine and watch the vineyards grow. Owner winemaker Charlie Hoppes, a much-sought-after consulting winemaker, just completed his 28th vintage of Washington wines. His 12 acres are planted to Bordeaux varietals. The 2013 Malbec is another with very dense color, aromatic with black fruits and spice. It's a wonderful medium-bodied wine to enjoy on the deck with a wedge of aged Gouda and some crusty bread.

Hamilton Cellars is another boutique winery halfway up Sunset Road. Stacy and Russ Hamilton have 10 acres, with 9  planted three years ago under the supervision of veteran Dick Boushey. They also have veteran Charlie Hoppes as their winemaker. Their 2012 Red Mountain Malbec is from the Scootney Vineyards while waiting for their vines to mature. This Malbec has cocoa and black cherry flavors; a dense, glass-staining color and soft tannins.

Premium land, ideal growing conditions, talented farmers and skilled management are qualities that make Red Mountain fruit highly prized by the likes of Quilceda Creek (the highly awarded Washington winery that sources Red Mountain). Upchurch Cab, Andrew Will and Long Shadows Pedestal have also scored high 90s using Red Mountain fruit.

Another rare and outstanding wine, Kiona Estate 2014 Chenin Blanc Ice Wine, scored 93 points from an AVA not known for whites.

For more information for your next wine country get-a-way, Visit Tri-Cities (www.visittri-cities.com) can handle your needs. And for a designated driver, let me recommend something slow, easy and lots of fun: Red Mountain Trails for a horse-drawn wagon ride through the vineyards to the next tasting room. Treat yourself; it's really a unique way to go.
A rendering shows the vision of an apartment complex composed of modular residences under development by OneBuild. The project, on Burwell Street in Bremerton, is expected to be renting to tenants in spring 2017. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)

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By Josh Farley of the Kitsap Sun

BREMERTON  The prototype unit for the city's newest apartment project is coming together nicely, its developers say, even though it's about 5,700 miles away.

Just outside Shanghai, China, Seattle-based OneBuild is starting to manufacture steel-framed, modular residences that will in time board a cargo ship, cross the Pacific, and land in Bremerton to be stacked together like building blocks on Burwell Street.

"It will be the first of its kind, ever, in America," says Cameron Day, OneBuild's Chief Operating Officer.

The company is joining a growing number of developers either constructing new housing in Bremerton or remodeling existing stock. Its competitive advantage, Day says, is the Chinese manufacturing sector. Its efficiencies, lower labor wages and costs, and expertise are making it possible. Day talked about a towel rack that here would cost $106. In China, the company can purchase them for $6 each.

OneBuild was founded in 2010 by longtime Bainbridge Island resident Dale Sperling, who once ran Unico Properties, a commercial real estate behemoth in the western United States. Day characterizes the company's model using the Chinese supply chain as a "disrupter" of the entire real estate market.

Its plan in Bremerton is a four-story building, built atop the site formerly home to Nite Shift Tavern and Evergreen Upholstery. It will include 42 studio apartments and nine two-bedroom apartments. Rents will be market rate for "affordable workforce housing," Day said.

He sums up the company's gamble on Bremerton this way: would at least 93 people working in the shipyard like to live blocks from work and the Seattle ferry?

"That's a bet we're willing to make," he said.

Their plans in Bremerton are being overshadowed this week by Paul Allen's donation of $1 million to a Seattle nonprofit that will operate 13 units for the homeless that are constructed out of OneBuild's modules.

Day cautioned anyone from linking the two, however. He said the steel modules heading for Bremerton will be durable, strong and of high quality.

Building in China also enables OneBuild to develop the site in Bremerton and construct the units at the same time. It also changes how they're inspected  the company must send an official with the state Department of Labor & Industries to China to do the work and make approvals.

OneBuild anticipates site work to start in September, with the modules arriving by winter, Day said. The company hopes to open the units for rent in spring 2017.
Stuff reports:

Vogel House will not be returned to the Vogel family, the Crown land commissioner has ruled. The $4.1 million former ministerial home was offered to the Vogel Charitable Trust and the Wellington SPCA  both beneficiaries of Jocelyn Vogels estate  in January, to the dismay of Jocelyns descendants. Tim and Geoff Vogel, her grandsons, appealed against the decision in a bid to keep the home in which they were raised within the family. The Crown land commissioner announced on Thursday that the brothers application had been declined. The applicants submitted that it would be equitable to allot Vogel House to them, because of their special circumstances and the hardship that it would cause if public applications were sought, said John Hook, Crown property group manager at Land Information New Zealand (Linz).

How does it cause them hardship to not get a house which has not been in their family for 50 years?

Tim Vogel, a Wellington lawyer, said he and his brother felt they had been shafted, and might take the matter as far as the High Court. Its not over yet. This decision is subject to a judicial review, and thats certainly possible. He was confident he and his brother would win a judicial review, and said the law supported their fight. Vogel House was built for the Vogels, bought for the Vogels, lived in by the Vogels. Who do you think the property should go back to?

It should go to the beneficiaries listed in Jocelyn Vogels will.

He believed the two charities would sell the house.

As could Mr Vogel if he and his brother get it. What has that to do with things?

My grandfather didnt even like animals, theres no way he would be leaving Vogel House to the SPCA.

A red herring. It was his grandmothers will. Is he saying that is in anyway legally relevant?

We feel angry, we feel aggrieved, and we dont feel we have been given a fair hearing. We cannot let that go unchallenged.

Yes you can.

You want a $6 million house for nothing. Cant blame you  so would I. But stop bleating to the media and making you you are a victim.

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Wednesday's Cancer Moonshot Summit at the University of Iowa shared ideas on how to double the rate of progress in ending cancer. (uihealthcare.org)
Who will bail out the US government?

The U.S Treasury reports the federal debt at $19.2 trillion, a figure that both overstates and understates the federal government's true obligations by trillions of dollars.

In absolute, an entity's debt level is irrelevant. A money manager could reasonably carry more debt than someone making sandwiches at Jersey Mike's. Likewise, the debt capacity of the U.S. must be considered in the context of our current and expected national income, or Gross Domestic Product.

In 2015, U.S. GDP, totaled $18.2 trillion. Of our $19.2 trillion in stated federal debt, however, $5.3 trillion is intragovernmental debt that, if the federal government used the same Generally Accepted Accounting Principles -- GAAP) -- required of public companies, would be netted against the $19.2 trillion for reporting net debt at the "holding company" level.

The net public-held U.S. debt of $13.9 trillion is only 76 percent of our GDP, a manageable and not-rare level for our economy.

Using GAAP, however, would require the U.S. to report as liabilities the present value of all future obligations, not just its Treasury notes and bonds.

The future payments to Social Security beneficiaries isn't included in that $13.9 trillion, although it is a real debt. Politically, Social Security is likely as sacred as any bond the government has outstanding. But even this amount of liability isn't as disastrously onerous as is often warned.

The present value of future unfunded Social Security benefits is $10.7 trillion. Combined with the $13.9 trillion in explicit Treasury debt held by the public, the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio is 135 percent, a manageable level, but similar to that of world economic powers such as Portugal and Italy. Fortunately, however, this funding gap is easily fixable, without cutting benefits, if politicians will simply implement some combination of the proposals proffered by Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles six years ago.

The real looming crisis isn't Social Security; it is Medicare/Medicaid. Unlike Social Security, these can't easily be fixed. The Affordable Care Act, a program designed to retard rising health-care costs, caused  or at least coincided with  the problem getting worse.

The most-reasonable estimates of the present value of unfunded future Medicare and Medicaid obligations exceed $40 trillion, or almost three times the outstanding explicit publicly-held debt of the U.S. Treasury. Combined with Social Security and Treasury obligations, this places the U.S. sovereign liabilities at 355 percent of GDP, or more than twice the debt-to-GDP ratio of Greece. It is the rough equivalent of a family earning $100,000 a year with $310,000 of total debt outstanding, all of which is, to some extent, variable rate.

General Motors failed in 2009 because, from a practical standpoint, the company existed solely to fund its retiree benefits, eventually resulting in a federal government bailout.

Who will bail out the federal government?
In this June 25, 2016 photo, a cargo ship prepares to cross the Miraflores locks, as seen from the visitor's observation deck, in Panama City. As a major Latin American hub of finance, commerce and transportation, the Panamanian capital is a growing destination for business travelers. For anyone looking to duck out of a convention center for a few hours, fill a gap between meetings or even if you've just got a long layover at the airport, a visit to Panama City's No. 1 attraction and its newly expanded locks makes for the perfect side excursion. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

SHARE associated press Tourists take a break June 24 during their walk at the seaside Balboa Avenue in Panama City, Panama. As a Latin American hub of finance, commerce and transportation, the Panamanian capital is a growing destination for business travelers.

By Juan Zamorano, Associated Press

PANAMA CITY  Dozens of spectators gawk from an observation deck as a bulk freighter carrying grains from the United States to China inches its way closer. Forty-ton locomotives known as mules latch onto the massive vessel with cables and guide it inside the Miraflores locks, employing a mechanical precision that keeps it from banging into the concrete walls despite the tight fit.

The ship's crossing through the Panama Canal is nearly complete as the 700-ton steel doors swing shut. While most of their bulk is hidden underneath the water, they're as tall as an eight-story building and the same ones that have been doing the job for over a century.

As a major Latin American hub of finance, commerce and transportation, the Panamanian capital is a growing destination for business travelers. For anyone looking to duck out of a convention center for a few hours, fill a gap between meetings or even if you've just got a long layover at the airport, a visit to Panama City's No. 1 attraction and its newly expanded locks makes for the perfect side excursion.

Shipping geeks in particular will delight at this engineering marvel that revolutionized global maritime trade when it opened for business on Aug. 15, 1914, but it also appeals to a broader audience with nearly 3,000 people visiting each day during the January-April high season.

The Miraflores Visitor Center offers several stories of space with an up-close view of the machinations of the canal, where ships pass through about 35-40 times a day. With each crossing, an enthusiastic guide informed visitors on a recent sticky, tropical morning, the locks fill with about 26 million gallons (100 million liters) of fresh water that then spill into the Pacific Ocean.

"I'm impressed by the magnitude of this operation," said Vicky Londono, a Colombian traveler who flew into the airport that day with her husband and hopped in a cab to see the canal before continuing to their final destination, Madrid.

The Canal Authority threw a big bash on Monday to formally inaugurate its new Cocoli locks, which doubled the waterway's capacity and can accommodate huge New Panamax-class vessels that carry up to three times as much cargo as those previously able to fit. There will be no separate viewing platform at Cocoli for at least two years, but for now you can see some of the action at a distance from Miraflores. Tip: Bring binoculars.

"This is spectacular," said Tom Matz, a retired lawyer from New York, as a sky-blue liquid petroleum gas ship emerged from Cocoli bound for the Atlantic. "The past, present and future of the canal, all right here."

Getting to the canal is a snap, with a host of travel agencies and hotel tours competing for your business. For $30 or so, depending on your willingness to haggle, taxi drivers will take you from the city center and pick you up a couple of hours later. Plan on $60 or more if you're starting from the airport, as well as a 30- to 45-minute cab ride there  possibly longer due to Panama City's chronic traffic congestion.

If no ship is passing through right when you arrive, while away the time in the facility's theater and museum for comprehensive exhibits on the canal and its construction  which claimed the lives of more than 25,000 workers, most of them from Caribbean islands, and mostly from tropical diseases such as malaria and yellow fever. A simulator lets you play captain and virtually maneuver a ship through the locks. There's also a snack bar, and a pricier restaurant upstairs that stays open into the evening.
Knoxville leader takes helm as Urban League CEO after national search

The Knoxville native and public servant brings community leadership experience and a passion for equality to follow Phyllis Nichols as its leader.
Knoxville Police Department Investigator Mark Taylor serves as president of the Fraternal Order of Police lodge in Knoxville. (AMY SMOTHERMAN BURGESS /NEWS SENTINEL)

By Don Jacobs of the Knoxville News Sentinel

Authorities took a wrecking ball to the Knoxville Police Department's old moonlighting policy early this year, but the new policy still doesn't conform with many national best practices.

Under the old policy, well-connected officers controlled many outside jobs, scheduling their colleagues  and sometimes their supervisors  in exchange for fees.

The new policy corrects that. A captain now serves as the department's secondary-employment coordinator, handling requests for outside work.

But officers still are paid by outside employers, and some officers work for businesses that make the bulk of their money selling alcohol, both practices that experts say can lead to corruption.

Officers also are permitted to work up to 80 hours per week, more than experts recommend to prevent fatigue that can affect job performance.

Work on the Police Department's new moonlighting policy began in the fall of 2014 after complaints about the old policy  approved in 2013 by Police Chief David Rausch  began to surface. An investigation ordered in 2015 by Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero deemed the old policy a failure on several fronts, and a complete re-examination was undertaken.

Knoxville Deputy Law Director Ron Mills led the process, reviewing policies of various agencies, researching the internet for information and speaking to representatives of professional law enforcement organizations.

"I put together a draft, and we went back and forth on it for a while," Mills said.

Input was sought from Knoxville Law Director Charles Swanson, Rausch, the Police Department's command staff and the local lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police. Swanson said the vested parties provided "varied feedback," with some liking and some disliking the proposals.

Rausch objected to some of the changes. He wanted individual officers to be able to collect fees for scheduling their fellow officers  even their supervisors  as he had done before he became chief.

Mills disagreed.

"I consider the single worst practice (to be) when officers are scheduling supervisors," he said.

A 2011 report of a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into the New Orleans Police Department cited officers scheduling other officers  especially their supervisors  as disruptive to the agency. The report noted the officers who controlled the outside work wielded too much power and that supervisors were reluctant to discipline them or give them poor performance evaluations. The report deemed moonlighting issues as the single largest corruptor of the New Orleans police.

The practice creates "cliques" among officers, said law director Swanson, and can result in claims of favoritism and unfairness.

"We made it pretty clear to the chief that broker fees were gone," he said.

Swanson said there also was discussion about the city payroll department collecting and distributing money from moonlighting jobs. Under such a system, outside employers would pay the city for the off-duty officers' services, and the city would process the payments for taxes and include the remainder in regular payroll distributions.

That approach is recommended in model policies and by the Commission on the Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies, which certifies Knoxville's police department.

Capt. Eve Thomas, the head of KPD internal affairs who investigated the moonlighting problem, also liked that approach.

Upon Thomas' graduation in 2008 from the FBI National Academy, she questioned the practice of officers accepting cash for extra jobs. She even approached KPD's payroll division about processing payments for outside jobs and was told it couldn't be done.

"In my opinion, I think it would be a better system," Thomas said.

Rausch opposed the idea.

"There are risk management issues for the city and there are cost factors for the community," the chief said.

Swanson ultimately determined "it would be inconvenient for folks who employ off-duty officers to pay the city."

Experts acknowledge that costs increase when the government processes and distributes payments. Moonlighting officers, however, are held to higher standards and ethical lapses are less likely.

"When cash is exchanged you are opening the door to all kinds of problems  gratuities, bribes  so it's not a good practice," said Jim Bueerman, president of the Police Foundation. The national foundation was created in 1970 to promote law enforcement through science and innovation, according to its website.

Bueerman also warned against allowing officers to work for businesses that make the bulk of their money selling alcohol.

The Police Chief magazine, the official publication of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, in an April 2012 article counseled police administrators to "consider banning details" from businesses that depend on alcohol sales. Officers working at such businesses can "detract from the status of the officer or the agency or pose a conflict of interest," the article said.

Rausch dismissed the concerns. His new policy allows officers to work security in the parking lots of nightclubs, if he and Swanson, acting as city ethics officer, agree "there is a demonstrated need for additional police services."

The chief said clubs that hire off-duty officers in hopes of getting a break from law enforcement are disappointed.

"The establishments we work are actually scrutinized more than others as our officers will not allow illegal activities to take place in their presence," Rausch wrote in a 2011 email, a belief he said he still holds.

Since the new policy was instituted, officers have been approved to work at several businesses that sell alcoholic beverages, including Barley's and Carleo's in the Old City, Whiskey Bend on North Broadway and The Alley on Kingston Pike in Bearden.

Police Department spokesman Darrell DeBusk said clubs approved for parking lot security under the old policy were grandfathered under the new policy. He said officials decided "there were no questions as to their appropriateness" so requests for off-duty officers at those locations did not have to undergo the vetting process mandated under the new policy.

Among the officers approved to moonlight at a nightclub this year was Joshua Hurst. Hurst was arrested in April by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation on charges of conspiracy to possess opioids with intent to deliver in a drug-free zone. The TBI launched its probe in late February after Rausch alerted the agency to "possible criminal conduct." Agents say they observed Hurst dealing drugs at a variety of locations, but there was no indication the charges against him were tied to his moonlighting work.

Increasingly, law enforcement administrators are recognizing the problems caused by fatigue and how lack of sleep can impair an officer's judgment and interaction with the public.

In the same 2012 edition of The Police Chief, administrators were advised to put a limit on the hours officers work. In New Orleans, a revamped policy mandated six hours of rest between an extra job and reporting for regular duty. The policy also limited officers to 76 total hours of work in a week. In Portland, Ore., officers are restricted to 60 hours of work in a week, with a limit of 20 moonlighting hours weekly.

Under the Knoxville Police Department's new moonlighting policy, officers can work 80 hours each week.

The same limitation was included in the previous policy, but police administrators had no way of tracking overtime or time on extra jobs. Rausch's new policy carefully monitors moonlighting hours, and administrators are trying to develop a computer program that will add departmental overtime to the system to more closely monitor fatigue.

One change the city didn't seriously consider was discontinuing moonlighting by officers.

"It's one of those things they couldn't stop if they wanted to," said Vince Dauro, Commission on the Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies regional program manager for the Southeast. "Citizens go crazy when they try to stop this."

Business owners, event organizers and private citizens keep law enforcement agencies nationwide busy with requests for off-duty officers. Private security companies just don't fill the bill for outside employers.

"The citizens know the difference between a security guard and a police officer," Dauro said.

The arrangements help the taxpayers, who enjoy the benefit of additional officers on the street without a hike in local taxes.

"Another benefit is the city gets retention because the officer can make extra money," said Mark Taylor, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 2.

Moonlighting offers officers an opportunity "to take care of their families."

He also believes the outside work develops the Police Department's ties with the community.

"That's one of the most important things to me is the relationships you build with the employers and their customers," Taylor said.

Those relationships, Taylor said, often provide valuable information in stopping and solving crimes.

"It's a big benefit," he said.

Taylor rejected the idea that cozy relationships between officers and outside employers could create ethical pitfalls for the Knoxville Police Department. Neither officers nor the community would allow corruption to flourish, he said.

"I don't think that's the case and if officers thought it was, it would be addressed," Taylor said. "You can get fired here for things that wouldn't even be a blip on the radar of other agencies."

He was appreciative that the city asked the FOP to be involved in developing the new policy.

"I think for the most part, the officers don't have any problems with the changes that have been made," Taylor said. "But cops are human and they have opinions, and I have heard them go both ways."

Rogero said she'll be watching the evolution of the new policy.

"Any policy is a work in progress," the mayor told the News Sentinel. "As we move forward, as with any policy, you should continue to follow it. You're always open to being better."

Moonlighting Blues: A News Sentinel investigation

Sunday: A Knoxville Police Department internal probe of outside jobs led to policy changes but raised some questions left unanswered.

KPD moonlighting investigation left questions unanswered

KPD officers inquiry first went nowhere, until it went to the mayor

Chief David Rausch often allowed policies he set to bend

Circus job got officers in trouble; Rausch says mistake made

Moonlighting Investigation Timeline

Photos: Moonlighting Blues

Monday: The Knoxville Police Departments revised policy on moonlighting falls short of national best practices, experts say.

Experts question parts of KPDs new moonlighting policy

Knoxville Police assigns one officer to handle extra jobs

Knoxville Police outside-employment policies

Tuesday: Police officers moonlighting jobs generate millions in extra annual income.

Off-duty paychecks huge in first 4 months of 2016 for KPD officers

Former KPD chief Phil Keith saw risks, rewards in moonlighting

Officers worked at Pilot HQ during federal probe

Some extra jobs worked by officers

Wednesday: Many state policies ignore best practices.

Many state policies ignore best practices; KCSO has few rules

Extra-job policies vary according to agencies

Officers outside work linked to fatigue

Fatigued officers
SHARE Knoxville's Pete Drew, who is running against indicted Democratic Rep. Joe Armstrong, has picked up an endorsement from Tennessee Right to Life. (Submitted photo) .

By Tom Humphrey of the Knoxville News Sentinel

NASHVILLE  Tennessee Right to Life's political action committee has endorsed 68 Republican candidates for the Legislature along with three Democrats and one Independent, while giving its blessings to five GOP candidates in Tennessee congressional races.

The sole Independent is Pete Drew, running against Democratic Rep. Joe Armstrong in Knoxville's 15th House District. The anti-abortion organization bills most of the endorsements last week as applying in the Aug. 4 primary elections, but Drew as an Independent won't appear on the ballot until November.

Drew, 76, was elected to the state House as a Democrat in 1982, but subsequently changed parties to become a Republican and was defeated by Armstrong in 1988. He has since run repeatedly and unsuccessfully for legislative seats and other positions.

Armstrong, who is awaiting trial on federal tax evasion charges, has no opponent in the August primary. Many of the other legislative candidates endorsed by Right to Life have no primary opposition, so the group's support may be seen as symbolic  as may be the case in backing Drew early. Armstrong is a supporter of abortion rights.

At the congressional level, the PAC is backing state Sen. Brian Kelsey in the crowded 8th Congressional District Republican primary and incumbent Rep. Diane Black, who faces a potentially serious challenge from former state Rep. Joe Carr and others in the 6th Congressional District. Incumbent Reps. Phil Roe in the 1st District, John J. Duncan Jr. in the 2nd District and Chuck Fleischmann in the 3rd District are given Right to Life blessings over underdog primary opponents.

Notably omitted from endorsements are Republican U.S. Reps. Marsha Blackburn in the 7th District and Scott DesJarlais in the 4th.

Blackburn, who has no primary opponent, currently chairs a Republican-launched congressional investigation into sale of fetal tissue obtained by abortion providers  widely supported by anti-abortion activists while condemned as a "witch hunt" by some Democrats. While generally anti-abortion, she has in the past supported exceptions in the case of rape, incest and for saving the life of the mother.

DesJarlais, a physician, has been widely criticized for personally approving abortions in the past for patients and his former spouse. He faces a well-funded opponent in Grant Starrett of Murfreesboro, but he was not endorsed.

In legislative races, the PAC backs Republicans in 13 state Senate races, all but one of the candidates an incumbent. The exception is state Rep. Jon Lundberg of Bristol, who has a contested race in the GOP primary to replace retiring Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey in the 4th Senate District.

In state House races, there are endorsements in 59 races, including Drew. There are three endorsed Democrats who have no primary opposition: Reps. Kevin Dunlap of Rock Island, Joe Pitts of Clarksville and John Mark Windle of Livingston. Dunlap and Windle face Republican opponents in November; Pitts does not.

The others endorsed in House races are all Republican, most without any opposition to re-election. Exceptions include five favored incumbents with primary opponents: Reps. Jeremy Faison of Cosby, John Ragan of Oak Ridge, Courtney Rogers of Goodlettsville, Mike Sparks of Smyrna and Jay Reedy of Erin.

There are also endorsements in three House Republican primaries where there's no GOP incumbent on the ballot. One is an open seat  West Tennessee's 94th House District  where Ron Gant of Williston gets the nod. The other two are in districts now held by Democrats. Andy Cole of Alamo is supported over his primary opponent in the 82nd House District for the right to run against House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh in November. In the 53rd District, support went to Davette Blalock, one of three Republicans seeking the party nomination to run against Rep. Jason Powell, D-Nashville.
SHARE State Sen. Doug Overbey, R-Maryville. (AP Photo/Erik Schelzig, file)

By Tom Humphrey of the Knoxville News Sentinel

NASHVILLE  Americans for Prosperity's Tennessee chapter, an increasingly powerful lobby for conservative causes at the Legislature, has given a majority of members in both the House and Senate top ratings in a ranking of their performance in the 2016 legislative session.

Nineteen senators and 54 representatives, all Republicans, were placed in the "taxpayer heroes" category by AFP. House Speaker Beth Harwell and Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey are on the list.

Twenty-eight legislators  four senators, 24 representatives  are declared "taxpayer zeroes," the lowest ranking. All but one  Sen. Doug Overbey, R-Maryville  are Democrats.

The AFP rating system gives or subtracts points based on whether a legislator's votes on bills conform with the group's position. Extra points are given for sponsoring bills the group promotes  repeal of the state tax on investment income being an example this year. AFP, initially founded with funding from the billionaire Koch brothers, also made a priority of opposing Gov. Bill Haslam's Insure Tennessee plan for Medicaid expansion.

In the "Taxpayer Scorecard" ratings, the top rating is a score of 93 or above; lowest a score of 65 or below.

With bonus points for sponsorship, several legislators had more than 100 points. Tied at the top with 105 points were Republican Sens. Mark Green of Clarksville and Delores Gresham of Somerville along with Republican Reps. Mike Carter of Ooltewah, Martin Daniel of Knoxville and Debra Moody of Covington. Gresham, Carter and Daniel are all currently facing serious opposition in Republican primary elections.

AFP's lowest ratings  23 points  went to House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh, D-Ripley, and Rep. Sherry Jones, D-Nashville.

Highest ranking Democrats were Rep. John DeBerry and Sen. Reginald Tate, both of Memphis and tied at 86.

Lowest-ranking Republican in the House was Rep. Kent Calfee of Kingston at 66. Overbey had a 54, the lowest GOP score.

"We want Tennesseans to clearly see which lawmakers are standing up for their interests by supporting sound economic policies," said AFP state director Andrew Ogles in a news release.

AFP has spent more than $1 million per year in its "grass roots lobbying" efforts in Tennessee, including broadcast ads and direct mail fliers denouncing or praising a given legislator. But by not specifically urging a vote for or against the candidate, the group has such efforts categorized as "educational" under relevant state and federal laws and avoids disclosure of donors and the amount spent on individual ads.

It's highly likely that the "scorecard" results will be cited in ads as this year's legislative campaigns develop.
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My name is Tammy Pritchard, and according to the state of Tennessee, I am a loser and I need to accept that.

I've lived in Memphis all my life, and until recently I was under the impression that my government worked for me and for my best interests.

I've now had a rude awakening.

I filed a lawsuit with the help of the Beacon Center of Tennessee against the state Board of Cosmetology regarding its occupational licensing law that requires a license to do something most Americans do every day: wash hair.

Not only does the state require a license to shampoo hair, which takes 300 hours worth of training and can cost up to $3,000 in tuition, it hasn't even guaranteed that a school in the state offers the program.

Since there is currently no school offering the shampooing curriculum, I can't get a job washing hair without becoming a fully licensed cosmetologist, something that I can't afford to do and would make no sense for me financially even if I could.

Our case has received the attention of several national news outlets, including the New York Times, Forbes and the Wall Street Journal. It seems that most people all across the country agree this is a silly law.

Imagine my surprise when I received the first response to my lawsuit from the state recently, and in the response the government stated, "Much of what states do is to favor certain groups over others on economic grounds. We call this politics.  Favoritism of this sort is certainly rational in the constitutional sense."

What the state is essentially saying is that picking winners and losers, showing favoritism to some citizens while impeding others, is a rational role of government.

They're saying that it is perfectly legal for the government to decide who succeeds and who does not. And the outcomes of this favoritism, even if they are terrible, are not their concern.

Because that's just politics.

The fact that this law has hurt my ability to earn a living is of no importance to the state of Tennessee. The government may think that is acceptable, but I certainly do not.

I'm currently a resource officer at a high school in Memphis. But several years ago I worked in a salon as a natural hair braider  another job the state decided to demand a cosmetology license to do.

I desperately miss working in a salon. I enjoyed giving women confidence in themselves and their heritage, and I liked hearing about their lives. I thought perhaps I would start washing hair for a friend of mine in her salon after work a few nights a week. This would help my friend see more clients, while helping me save for retirement. I was shocked to find out that the government requires a license to do even this meager task.

This is why I decided to take action.

Everyone has a right to pursue an honest living. This licensing law senselessly hinders those without means from pursuing the careers that they are best suited for and would prefer to spend their time on. There is no public safety concern involved with washing hair, and therefore no need for this law to exist.

It is an outrage that my state government would take the position that it can keep me from getting a job just to protect someone else who already has that job in the name of "economic favoritism." Our success or failure should be determined by our own merits, work ethic and skill set  not by a bunch of bureaucrats rigging the system for the politically well connected. Because when we allow government to pick the winners, there are always going to be losers.

Tammy Pritchard is a Memphis police officer and the plaintiff in Pritchard v. Board of Cosmetology, which is challenging the state law requiring a license to wash hair.
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Tennessee has one of the worst opioid abuse problems in the nation, an epidemic so devastating that the Obama administration has singled out the state and others in Appalachia for increased aid.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack came to the Volunteer State last week to outline the administration's proposal to spend $1.1 billion to expand treatment opportunities throughout the nation. Tennessee would receive $24 million over two years.

The initiative, which is part of President Barack Obama's proposed budget, deserves the same bipartisan support that allowed the passage of bills aimed at curbing opioid abuse earlier this year. We urge Tennessee's largely Republican congressional delegation to work with their Democratic colleagues to fund anti-addiction measures.

The White House is focusing its efforts in rural areas, where heroin and opioid addiction is rampant and treatment centers are few. Vilsack traveled to Abingdon, Va., on Thursday for a town hall meeting on the plan. He was joined by Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe. The previous day he briefed reporters and editors at the News Sentinel.

Obama tapped Vilsack to head up an interdepartmental task force to tackle the problem. The Department of Agriculture, Vilsack said, is well positioned to take the lead because it already has resources in the rural areas that need the help.

The scale of the problem is staggering. In 2014 opioids  primarily prescription drugs and heroin  were involved in more than 28,000 deaths. Nearly half of all Americans said they personally know someone who has been addicted to painkillers, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation Report.

Tennessee and other Appalachian states have been particularly hard hit. The age-adjusted drug poisoning rate in Tennessee was 19.5 per 100,000 people in 2014. Drug overdose deaths jumped 7.7 percent from 2013 to 2014  a total of 1,269 Tennesseans.

West Virginia's age-adjusted drug poisoning rate in 2014 was the highest in the nation at 35.5 per 100,000 people and drug overdose deaths in 2014 soared more than 10 percent over the previous year.

Vilsack said an integrated strategy  involving prevention, treatment and recovery  is needed.

Since 1999, opioid prescriptions have quadrupled in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a new guideline for pain management earlier this year that recommends doctors avoid prescribing opioids for chronic pain, with the exception of cancer treatment, palliative care and end-of-life care. The Drug Enforcement Agency offers a program for people to safely rid themselves of unneeded medications.

The administration's proposal aims to address one of the biggest obstacles in rural areas, the lack of treatment options. More addiction therapy training for providers is needed. Naloxone, a lifesaving drug that reverses overdoses, must be distributed to more first responders. Earlier this year the Department of Health and Human Services proposed doubling the limit on patients for qualified physicians who prescribe buprenorphine, an anti-addiction medication. Vilsack said the administration is proposing pilot programs that would allow nurse practitioners in some areas to dispense buprenorphine. Support systems for recovering drug abusers is vital.

Despite the high addiction numbers, Tennessee is taking some of the necessary steps to turn the tide, Vilsack said. The state has improved its prescription reporting system and expanded its network of drug courts, which can provide alternatives to jail for drug offenders.

Without funding, any legislation that is passed to fight opiate abuse looks more like election-year posturing rather than problem-solving. Addiction knows no party, however, and abuse cares nothing about elections. Congress needs to fund these anti-addiction measures.


The following is the second of a three-part series on implications for South Korea of Britain's decision to leave the European Union.



Protectionism to threaten Korean economy slowly, silently

By Kim Jae-kyoung

SINGAPORE  The most profound question the Britain's exit from the EU is posing is what will come in the coming decades. For Korea, a small, open economy vulnerable to external shocks, the Britain's historic decision has bigger implications.

Market analysts said that UK's vote to leave the 28-member bloc should be seen as the beginning of a shift from decades-long globalization toward "deglobalization" and "protectionism."

In other words, the UK's divorce from the EU is not an isolated problem in Europe but part of a global phenomenon  the process of diminishing interdependence and integration.

"Brexit is the first step in deglobalization. The short term impact is limited to financial markets, especially the ones in a bubble state. All the bubbles will blow up," independent economist Andy Xie told The Korea Times. He is a former Morgan Stanley economist.

"Popular uprisings (against globalization) are inevitable. The Brexit is the first step. The U.S. presidential election is more important. If Donald Trump is elected, globalization is basically finished."

It will take many years for the world to crystallize what Brexit will look like eventually but it is obvious that uncertainty created by the event will linger long, destabilizing financial markets and thus leaving the global economy in the lurch.

Niall Ferguson, a world-renowned British historian from Scotland, said that the 2008 global financial crisis was the harbinger of deglobalization, expecting Brexit will provide the impetus for accelerating the development.

"Deglobalization has been underway since September 2008  measured by volumes of trade as well as by political commitment to globalization," Ferguson said via email.

"This is just the biggest step down since then," added Ferguson who is a history professor at Harvard University specializing in international economic and financial history.

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's popularity can also be explained in this context.

Sick and tired of soaring immigrants and U.S.'s growing role in international conflicts, more Americans are being attracted to Trump who has vowed to place a top priority on protecting U.S. interests.

On Wednesday, Trump pledged to rip up international trade deals, describing the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal as a "rape of the country."

According to the latest report released by Nomura, the demographic profile of Brexit supporters is found to be strikingly similar to that of American Trump supporters.

The report said that the UK polls showed the Brexit and Bremain camps to be close to neck and neck going into the referendum, as are the U.S. polls on the two main U.S. presidential candidates, Trump and Hilary Clinton.

Silent threat

Shin Jang-sup, an economics professor at the National University of Singapore, said that this phenomenon can be understood in the context of deglobalization  the result of anger and outrage against globalization and capitalism.

"If you look at economic data from 1950s and 1980s when globalization had yet to begin in earnest, there was a strong middle class and they lived in better conditions than now," Shin said.

"Globalization gained momentum in 1990s with financial capitalism taking center stage in the global economy. Total global output has since increased but wealth has not been distributed fairly, which is shrinking the middle class," he said. "More people have come to believe that they are worse off due to globalization."

Once deglobalization materializes it is likely to deal a blow to Korea. What makes the situation more demanding is that it won't be easy to see the threat coming because it comes very slowly and silently.

"Korea is export oriented. It ultimately depends on trade. When globalization unwinds, the economy will suffer. It will be a prolonged process. It doesn't feel much in the short term. But, in ten years, we will find a big difference," Xie said.

Taking this long but slow process of global shift into consideration, Korea should take a two-pronged strategy in order to survive in a post-Brexit era.

In the short term, the country must deploy all policy tools  fiscal and monetary  to stabilize financial markets and keep the economy afloat.

In the longer term, the government should develop its economic model into a more sustainable one through structural reforms to better respond to changes triggered by deglobalization and protectionism.

"There's still some buffer for Asia to hold up growth. But there isn't enough ammo to go into a prolonged battle," Frederic Neumann, co-head of Asian economics research at HSBC, wrote in a report titled "Brexit Ripples."

"What the region really needs, therefore, is a more sustainable growth model. And that will not come until structural reforms are tackled."
Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin gets into a car at Gimpo International Airport in western Seoul, Sunday, after returning from Japan. Shin, who left the country several days before the prosecution began an investigation into the group early this month, said he will fully cooperate with prosecutors. / Yonhap



Shin Dong-bin says he will fully cooperate with prosecution



By Lee Hyo-sik



Embattled Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin returned home Sunday, following a month-long overseas trip. He expressed regrets for causing concern over a host of allegations ranging from the creation of a slush fund to inter-subsidiary dealings and tax evasion.



Shin, who is expected to be summoned by the prosecution, said he will fully cooperate with prosecutors.



"I am sorry for causing grave concerns," Shin told reporters at Gimpo International Airport in western Seoul, upon returning from Japan. "I will fully cooperate with the prosecution."



The chairman also said he is not worried about his older brother Dong-joo's attempts to take away control of Korea's fifth-largest conglomerate from him.

He refused to comment on the health of his ailing father and group founder Kyuk-ho.



On June 7, three days before hundreds of investigators raided Lotte Group headquarters, offices of group affiliates and the chairman's residence, Shin left the country for Mexico where he attended the annual meeting of the International Ski Federation.



He then went to the United States to take part in a ground breaking ceremony for Lotte Chemical's joint plant with U.S. chemical firm Axiall.




By Lee Hyo-sik



Sales of Hyundai Motor and its affiliate Kia Motors have hit an all-time high in the United States, as more American consumers prefer vehicles made by the two Korean carmakers to those of European and Japanese brands.



According to Hyundai Motor Group, Sunday, Hyundai and Kia sold a combined 702,388 vehicles in the first six months of this year, up 3 percent from the same period last year. The figure was the largest since the two automakers began selling cars in the world's largest automobile market.



U.S. consumers bought 374,061 sedans and SUVs from Hyundai and 328,327 from Kia.



In particular, SUV sales soared as the growing number of American motorists are returning to driving larger vehicles in line with low gasoline prices.



Hyundai sold 42,664 Tucson SUVs, up 88.5 percent from a year earlier, while Kia's Sportage sales jumped 76.3 percent to 42,229.



In June alone, Kia sales rose to an all-time high of 62,572 on the back of the growing popularity of the Sportage, Sorento, Soul and other models. Sportage sales surged 141 percent to 8,549, while those of the Sorento and Soul reached 12,118 and 12,229, respectively.



Among Hyundai vehicles, U.S. consumers bought 7,193 Tucson and 18,345 Santa Fe SUVs, up 99.5 percent and 75.6 percent, respectively, from a year earlier.



"Our U.S. sales reached the record-high in the first half on the back of the better than expected performance, fueled by our SUVs," a Hyundai Motor Group official said. "The SUVs now account for 40 percent of our U.S. sales and will likely continue to grow in the coming months. We will introduce new SUV models over the next few years to capitalize on Americans' growing preference for crossover vehicles."



Hyundai plans to launch a new mid-sized SUV in 2019 and a compact SUV under its premium Genesis brand in 2020. Kia will begin selling a compact hybrid SUV, Niro, later this year.



In addition, Hyundai and Kia are found to have fared well in the domestic market for the first six months, due mainly to lower consumption taxes that made it cheaper for consumers to purchase cars.



Volkswagen's emission cheating scandal and other problems dogging imported car brands have also been said to help bolster the sales of domestic automakers, according to industry analysts.



Hyundai sold 351,124 vehicles at home, up 4.5 percent from the previous year, while Kia sales jumped 14.1 percent to 276,750.



The combined sales of five automakers that manufacture cars here rose 10.9 percent to 812,265. The other three are GM Korea, Renault Samsung and Ssangyong Motor.



But the sales of BMW, Mercedes-Benz and other imported car brands dropped 2.3 percent to 93,314 during the January to May period.




By Yoon Ja-young



Korea and Saudi Arabia will strengthen cooperation in diverse industrial sectors such as shipbuilding and automobiles, by holding a biannual industrial cooperation committee meeting.



According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE), Minister Joo Hyung-hwan met Khalid Al-Falih, Saudi Arabia's Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources, in Seoul, Friday, where they agreed to hold the biannual industrial cooperation meetings.



"The two countries agreed that cooperation should be expanded to automobile, shipbuilding, electronics and infrastructure from investment and oil trade," an official at the ministry said.



Saudi Arabia is a country of strategic importance to Korea. It imports 30 percent of its crude oil from Saudi Arabia, which is also Korea's sixth-biggest trading partner globally and its top trading partner in the Middle East.



The two countries have been strengthening cooperation, including a visit by President Park Geun-hye to the country in March 2015 and another by Prime Minister Hwang-Kyo-ahn in May this year.



At the meeting, Joo cited the oil refinery upgrading project of Aramco's S-Oil, cooperation between Hyundai Heavy Industries and Aramco as well as investment in POSCO E&C by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund as fruits of cooperation between the two countries. Saudi Arabia's state-run oil firm Aramco is investing 5 trillion won to upgrade facilities of local oil refiner S-Oil in which it is the biggest shareholder with a 63.46 percent stake. Al-Falih served as president and CEO of Aramco between 2009 and 2015.



Hyundai Heavy Industries and Aramco signed an MOU last November, on the joint development of a shipyard and ship engine factory in the Middle Eastern country.

Based on the trust built in oil and plants, the two countries plan to expand cooperation to other sectors such as shipbuilding, petrochemicals and new energy.



Saudi Arabia is seeking cooperation with Korea for its Vision 2030, a long-term blueprint aiming at industrial diversification from an oil-dependent economy. The Saudi Arabian minister said the country plans to expand investment in new renewable energy and infrastructure, diversifying the scope of cooperation to the automobile, shipbuilding, chemical, electronics and IT industries. He added that the country is considering Korea as a strategic partner for this.



At the industrial cooperation committee meeting, the two countries are likely to discuss concrete measures for expanding economic ties, including joint investment in automobiles or jointly investing in another country. Saudi Arabia, which will be setting up huge funds through privatization of state-run enterprises, is considering diverse investment options.




Ballet dancer Lee Eun-won poses for a photo at the rehearsal studio of the Korea National Ballet in the Seoul Arts Center, southern Seoul, June 29. She will join the Washington Ballet led by Julie Kent starting August.

/ Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk



By Kwon Mee-yoo

Becoming a ballerina in a tutu is every girl's dream after watching a great ballet performance. Lee Eun-won, 25, of the Korea National Ballet (KNB), was no exception when she saw "The Nutcracker" at the age of seven.

"My parents took me to The Nutcracker which features many child dancers. So I began learning ballet just because I wanted to wear those pretty costumes back then," Lee said in an interview with The Korea Times last week, ahead of her departure for the Washington Ballet this summer.

Though starting small, her ballet career has always been on track  she studied under Kim Sun-hee, dance professor at Korean National University of Arts (K-ARTS), and Kim Hae-shik, founding dean of the K-ARTS School of Dance, and attended a preparatory school for K-ARTS (now the Korea National Institute for the Gifted in Arts) and Yewon School. She skipped the high school course and entered K-ARTS with a three-year early admission.





Lee Eun-won as Black Swan in "The Swan Lake



"Ballet is a part of my everyday life. For me, it's just like waking up in the morning, having breakfast and brushing your teeth," she said.

However, she hit a slump when she suffered a knee injury around age 18.

"I had to take about eight months off from ballet. I always wondered whether ballet was my way or not, but while catching my breath away from ballet for a few months, I realized what I really like and want to pursue is ballet," Lee said. "Ballet is something you cannot continue if you don't like it because it's really hard and exhausting. I have seen some of the greatest dancers quit ballet because they didn't have enough passion and love for ballet."





Lee Eun-won as Katerina in "The Taming of the Shrew"



She joined the KNB as an apprentice in 2010, taking the lead role of Marie in "The Nutcracker" in the same year. After being officially accepted to the KNB in 2011, she was rapidly promoted to a principal within two years and danced a variety of roles including Giselle from "Giselle," Yegina in "Spartacus" and Nikiya and Gamzatti in "La Bayadere."

The KNB principal dancer recently staged her farewell performance in Korea for now as feisty Katherina in John Cranko's "The Taming of the Shrew."

"Shrew requires much energy. It is different from other classical ballets and I get to fly into a temper and jump on stage a lot," Lee said. "Katherina is poles apart from traditional characters in ballet who are mostly innocent and benign. She is honest about her feelings. Coincidentally, my baptismal name is Katherina, too."





Lee Eun-won as Kitri in "Don Quixote"



Lee will leave the KNB to join the prestigious Washington Ballet led by Julie Kent, one of the most celebrated ballerinas of her generation, for the 2016-17 season.

Kent retired from her 29-year career last year and took the helm at the Washington Ballet, which celebrates its 40h anniversary this season. Kent knew of Lee through recommendations from her Korean therapist and former K-ARTS professor Kim Hae-shik and officially asked Lee to join her company in early June.

"I always thought of dancing abroad, so I seized the opportunity when the chance offered itself to view," she said. "Ballet is basically a foreign culture and I wanted to go overseas and work with diverse people. I also wanted to stand on my own feet as a grown-up."

Since Lee studied ballet and danced thoroughly within Korea, this is literally going to be the 25-year-old dancer's first independence, breaking away from her family to live on her own.

"I am working on documents and visa now. I will leave for Washington in August and find a place to stay there. I try not to stress out about it," she said.

In Washington, she will run into a totally new environment and face a wide range of different works. "I wonder about how I will change there. Of course I will learn new ballet repertoire, half filled with anticipation and half with worry, but I am more curious about how the experience will reshape my life and profundity of thoughts."

Her first dance in the U.S. is going to be the timeless classic "Giselle," which is the first piece she performed after formally entering the KNB. Lee is also thrilled to take part in new works in the Washington Ballet's repertoire as most of them are new to her except for "The Nutcracker" and "Giselle."

"I am the most excited over Frederick Ashton's 'The Dream.' A few years ago, I saw 'The Dream' in New York, presented by the ABT, and Julie Kent was playing Titania. I thought she was really like a fairy and have great expectations for the piece," Lee said.

Her KNB colleagues who worked for international ballet companies advised her. "Kim Ji-young told me not to bite off more than I can chew from the beginning and rather be like what I used to do. Being overzealous from excitement might lead to an injury so I will try to balance myself," she said.

Balancing ballet and her personal life was another keyword in Lee's life. "As a dancer, I want to be a dancer with heart. As a human I want to find the equilibrium between ballet and me. In Korea, though it has changed now, many dancers retire after marriage or childbirth. I don't want to give up my private life because or ballet or the other way round," Lee said.

Now she is about to spread her wings at a wider stage, but Lee said she will ultimately come back to her homeland.

"I am a Korean, born and raised in Korea and I want to be back someday. I hope I would be a better, well-experienced artist then," Lee said.
/Courtesy of Twitter



By Lee Han-soo

Police on Friday arrested a teenager who allegedly robbed a salon while naked.

The teenager, wearing only a black plastic bag over his head, allegedly robbed the salon in Gunsan, North Jeolla Province, on June 25.

Police arrested him after analyzing CCTV footage from the crime scene and nearby area.

They matched the footage with a slipper the teenager allegedly wore.

Asked why he was naked, the teenager allegedly told police he had learned it from an American TV crime drama.
By Lee Kyung-min



The Supreme Prosecutors' Office (SPO) has launched an investigation into the suicide of a junior prosecutor surnamed Kim, 33, which allegedly resulted from a senior prosecutor's repeated abuse.



The SPO will question the senior prosecutor, also surnamed Kim, 48, and his subordinates at the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office over whether he abused his authority or forced his subordinate to carry out tasks unrelated to the job, it said Sunday.



The investigation comes amid various evidence backing the allegation, including text messages the junior Kim exchanged with his parents, friends and colleagues.



The junior Kim was found dead on May 19 in his home in Mok-dong, western Seoul, leaving behind a suicide note.



In the note, he expressed pressure dealing with cold cases. He also said he could not sleep much due to stress and had no time to go to the hospital. "If I said I would quit, I'll be forever remembered as a loser," he said.



The SPO initially concluded that Kim killed himself out of work pressure as the ambitious young prosecutor sought to achieve beyond his capacity. But recently revealed text messages between Kim and his friends since late February showed a series of verbal and physical abuses he suffered, mainly from the senior prosecutor.



In one message Kim said, "I am losing weight rapidly because of my boss' verbal abuse. I want to die." In another, he said, "I was at home in Mok-dong and Kim called me to come to Yeouido in less than 15 minutes to take him to his home in Apgujeong in Gangnam. Then, he beat me telling me to serve him right.' I want to kill myself."



Kim also said, "I wrote a suicide note because I was so depressed, but then I thought of my mom, dad and you guys."



According to his mother, Lee Ki-nam, Kim only slept two hours a day, and woke up one morning with his ear bleeding.



"The last time I talked to my son was May 7. He cried during the entire phone call, saying he couldn't take it anymore, a drastic change in tone compared to his first year," she said during a radio interview.



Kim's father filed a petition with the SPO and Cheong Wa Dae on June 2 claiming the senior prosecutor was responsible for his son's death.



A total of 72 prosecutors, judges, and lawyers, who studied with the junior Kim at the Judicial Research and Training Institute, plan to issue a statement Wednesday to demand a thorough investigation of his death.




By Jun Ji-hye



President Park Geun-hye will not budge on tightening the noose around North Korea until it gives up its nuclear weapons program. However, in the United States, some groups are skeptical of the effect of sanctions alone and stress the need to thaw frozen ties with the North for both humanitarian and political reasons.



They have been calling for Washington to also engage in talks with Pyongyang, as sanctions are not enough to mitigate the threat from the North which vows to conduct more nuclear and missile tests.



The latest in a series of such demands was the U.S. House of Representatives' introduction of a resolution calling for resuming talks with North Korea to recover and bring home the remains of thousands of American soldiers who died during the 1950-53 Korean War behind enemy lines.



Though the talks for an operation to uncover fallen U.S. soldiers buried in the North are more humanitarian than political, supporters say the talks could be the starting point of the eventual improvement of bilateral relations.



Three Korean War veterans in the House  Reps. Charles Rangel (D-NY), John Conyers (D-MI) and Sam Johnson (R-TX)  introduced the resolution on June 24, on the eve of the 66th anniversary of the outbreak of the war. The remains of at least 5,300 Americans are believed to be buried in the North.



"The House of Representatives calls upon the United States government to resume talks with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to make substantial progress in the research, investigation, recovery, and identification of missing and unaccounted members of the United States Armed Forces from the (1950-1953) Korean War," the resolution said.



Leon Sigal, director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council, said, "It does reflect a recognition among some legislators that to get our way with the North, we have to negotiate and address some of their concerns."



Terence Roehrig, professor of National Security Affairs and the Director of the Asia-Pacific Studies Group at the U.S. Naval War College, also said there may be a secondary benefit to opening a small channel for dialogue, though the resolution is chiefly about returning the remains to their families.



In 1996, Washington and Pyongyang launched a joint operation to exhume remains of American soldiers but suspended it in 2005 amid high tensions over the latter's nuclear and missile programs.



Then in 2011, amid signs of improving bilateral relations, the two sides resumed operation but soon suspended it again after the North fired a long-range rocket in April 2012.



Start from small talks



On June 23, former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson also called on the U.S. government to resume the operation to repatriate the remains of U.S. soldiers buried in the North, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Voice of America.



During a forum held at George Washington University, he said once the two sides resume talks for such an operation, they could extend the scope of the agenda to political issues.



Roehrig noted that the United States should resume talks with the North on this issue, as returning the soldiers' remains is an important humanitarian effort. At the same time, however, he urged the country to maintain a cautious attitude.



"These negotiations should be undertaken with great care and as best as possible, and not allow North Korea to conduct a propaganda and extortion exercise," he said.



The calls for dialogues are coming at a time when bilateral relations between the United States and the North, as well as between the two Koreas, have reached the bottom after the communist state's fourth nuclear test in January and long-range rocket launch in February.



Following such provocative actions, the United Nations Security Council imposed the harshest sanctions yet on the Kim Jong-un regime in early March, and sanctions from major countries, including the United States, followed.



However, in its May 2 editorial, The New York Times said sanctions alone are not enough to mitigate the threat, raising the need for resuming talks with the North.



"Backing an inexperienced and reckless leader like Kim Jong-un into a corner is risky and might lead to even more dangerous responses, like aiming a weapon at South Korea or Japan, with potentially catastrophic results," it said.



At some point, the United States, along with China, South Korea, Japan and Russia, will have to find a way to revive negotiations aimed at curbing North Korea's nuclear program, it said.



Still, the editorial said the idea of talking with the North is politically unpopular in the United States, especially because this is an election year.



Meanwhile, Sean King, an East Asia specialist with the Park Strategies consulting firm in New York, said, "There is no point in talking to North Korea, as they won't change. We should rather tighten the screws on Pyongyang wherever we can."




By Jun Ji-hye



The main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea (MPK) is demanding a parliamentary hearing over Cheong Wa Dae's alleged control of the state-run media's news coverage about the Sewol ferry tragedy in 2014.



The call comes after the transcripts of phone conversations between Rep. Lee Jung-hyun, a former senior presidential press secretary, and Kim Si-gon, former newsroom chief of the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), were revealed on Thursday.



In the transcripts, Lee pressured Kim to tone down KBS's critical reports on the ferry sinking that killed more than 300 people.



At the time, the presidential office and the government as well as the now-defunct Korea Coast Guard were facing mounting criticism over their bungled management of the manmade disaster and lackluster rescue operation.



MPK floor leader Rep. Woo Sang-ho said Sunday that Lee's behavior was "very shocking" and "an absolute impossibility."



"Lee emasculated the independence of the broadcaster that is stated in the Broadcast Act," he told reporters at the National Assembly. "The MPK will cooperate with civic groups in unearthing the truth behind Lee's behavior institutionally and legally."



MPK spokesman Rep. Ki Dong-min also said Saturday that the Assembly Science, ICT, Future Planning, Broadcasting and Communications Committee should push for a hearing into Cheong Wa Dae's alleged intervention in the media coverage.



"The Assembly needs to verify whether Lee's behavior was a usual activity as a senior presidential press secretary or whether it was an attempt by his superiors to control and suppress the media," said Ki.



Ki added that Cheong Wa Dae should be fully engaged in a hearing as it said it will seek a judicature judgment for having refused to make an apology and denied the allegation.



MPK lawmakers belonging to the committee, including Reps. Park Hong-geun and Park Beom-kye, also held a news conference at the Assembly, Friday, vowing to actively push for a hearing at the committee.



In response to growing criticism, Rep. Lee denied the allegation, saying that he was just devoted to his role as a senior presidential press secretary.



"I believed that the role of the press secretary was to promote the government's policies and cooperate with the press to overcome a national crisis or danger," he told reporters Friday. "I just tried to fulfill those duties."



Lee explained that he asked KBS not to dilute its reports about the disaster, but to ask the broadcaster to reflect the Ministry of National Defense's correction in its initial announcement in the coverage on April 30, 2014, as it was not included in the original coverage.



At the time, the ministry initially announced that the Korea Coast Guard did not allow Navy personnel to join the rescue operation, but later corrected it.



"I had to tell KBS that the ministry's initial announcement was untrue," he said.



The ruling Saenuri Party dismissed the MPK's move as a "political offensive," saying that the opposition party was turning the rightful action by the presidential press secretary into full-scale controversy.



"We hope this case can be an opportunity for all political parties to communicate with the press in the right way and in the right procedure," said spokesman Rep. Min Kyung-wook.




French Ambassador to Korea Fabien Penone speaks during a reception at his residence in Seoul on June 28 to mark the occasion of the "Discover Charcuteries" event that featured six charcuterie producers from France.

/ Courtesy of the French Embassy

By Rachel Lee



France, a country with undeniably great food and culture, has brought a culinary specialty to Korea for the France-Korea Year that marks 130 years of friendship.

A range of charcuterie, prepared meats such as sausages and pates, was on show at the "Discover Charcuteries" event that featured six producers from the European country.

In France, there are about 250 companies exporting these goods  worth over 300 million euro  to 70 countries.

"Charcuterie is very important in the French cuisine and gastronomy, which foreigners discover during their touristic or business trips to France," French Ambassador to Korea Fabien Penone said at a reception at his residence in Seoul on June 28 to mark the occasion.

The history of charcuterie goes back to ancient times. Commonly made with pork, the meat is chopped, salted and cooked slowly until it becomes tender. Salting and smoking were used to preserve it for a long period of time back then. Now, over 400 products are available in France.

The ambassador said French charcuterie had not had much promotion in Korea, but that was changing.

"The opening of the Korean market is very recent," he said. "The procedures for importation were finalized at the end of 2013."

French Minister for Food Industry Guillaume Garot came to Seoul then to celebrate the market's opening.

"I think that the word charcuterie' is not yet known in Korea," Penone said. "I hope that we will together make this word enter the Korean vocabulary."

"I also commend the French businesses in the sector of charcuterie attending tonight and who wish to develop their activities in Korea. We are helping them to obtain the approval to export to Korea. Communications campaigns will also be launched in Korea because our products of charcuterie will develop in the Korean market in time."

Tallec Export Manager Marie Pushparajalingam said: "I feel Koreans are open to experience new things, which gives a lot of potential for us. We hope that our high-quality products become a trend here and one that represents European culture."

Tallec, established in 1947 as a pig slaughterer, is recognized as a premium charcuterie maker nationwide, specializing in traditional French terrine, pork liver terrine and bacon. Terrines are a mixture of minced meat or seafood and vegetables.

According to the French Embassy, all the products are made under the country's strict food quality control standards.

The embassy co-organized the promotion with the French Federation of Industrial Deli Meat Producers, Delicatessens and Meat Processors and France AgriMer as part of celebrations for the Year of France in Korea, which continues until the end of the year.

Some of the highlights have included the exclusive creation of Jose Montalvo with the National Dance Company of Korea, and French designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac's installation, "King of Signs," surrounding the statue of King Sejong the Great in the capital.
Irkutsk Governor Sergey Levchenko, third from right in front row, attends the "Presentation of Investment Potential of the Irkutsk Region" organized by the Trade Representation of the Russian Federation in Korea at the Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Seoul on June 29.

/ Courtesy of the Trade Representation of the Russian Federation in Korea



By Rachel Lee

Representatives from Russia's mineral-rich Irkutsk region have come to Seoul in search of more investment.

The Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), the Trade Representation of the Russian Federation in Korea and the Irkutsk administration organized "Presentation of Investment Potential of the Irkutsk Region," at the KCCI on June 29.

The region, the largest in East Siberia, takes up 4.6 percent of Russia's territory and has a population of 2 million.

During the meeting, representatives from companies like Courtyard Marriott Irkutsk and Energoteknomash spoke about the region's economic and investment potential, pharmaceutical products made from natural raw materials and travel programs for visitors. A business meeting followed the seminar.

"We aimed to give very detailed information on Irkutsk, which has seen a steady increase in trade volume on the basis of good bilateral relations between Russia and Korea," Irkutsk Governor Sergey Levchenko told The Korea Times.

He said the region's geographical position is a huge advantage for Korean investors  it functions as a "bridge" between Europe and Asia.

"It is located near the centre of the Asian continent, at the intersection of major transport routes," he said. "For Koreans, it takes much less time to get to Irkutsk compared to Moscow. Only three hours in total."

Other competitive advantages included low-cost electricity, abundant resources, historical and cultural tourism spots, tax incentives and state support for investors.

According to the Trade Representation of the Russian Federation in Korea, Irkutsk has the country's most extensive resources: gold (31 percent), wood (11 percent), natural gas (8 percent), coal (7 percent), oil (3 percent) and muscovite (80 percent).

The driving forces behind the area's growth include metallurgy, the gas and petrochemical industry, a machine-building complex, pharmaceuticals, an agro-industrial cluster, the timber industry and wood processing, construction material production, tourism and recreation.

Total trade between the Irkutsk region and other countries was $8.3 billion last year. Foreign trade partners include 96 countries and former USSR republics. Korea is one of the leading trade partners, along with Japan, the Netherlands and India.

When it comes to tourism, Irkutsk also has much to talk about.

Lake Baikal  the world's deepest freshwater lake  is in the region and tourism-recreation infrastructure is being developed south of it. Thanks to its uniqueness, Lake Baikal was among the first Russian natural features listed on UNESCO's World Heritage List. In 2015, 129,000 tourists visited the region.
By Rachel Lee



The ASEAN-Korea Centre has hosted a seminar to promote investment in Cambodia's agricultural industry.

Co-organized with the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC), the "Investment and Business Environment Seminar on Cambodia" was held at Hotel Shilla in Seoul on June 29. About 70 Koreans attended.

"The Cambodian agricultural industry has been rising as an attractive investment destination, with high-quality products and steady growth," ASEAN-Korea Centre Secretary General Kim Young-sun said. "Following the Korean delegation dispatched by the centre who explored the business environment in Cambodia last February, the seminar served as a platform for Korean companies to further expand their businesses into Cambodia."

Representatives from government organizations, including the Cambodian Investment Board and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, gave briefings on the investment environment and business opportunities in Cambodia.
Le Figaro's Shanghai correspondent Sebastien Falletti

/ Courtesy of the French Embassy

By Rachel Lee



The first few of years of life as a foreign correspondent in Seoul for Sebastien Falletti were stressful, but now he feels attached as if Korea is his second home, thanks to warm "jeong."

Now Le Figaro's Shanghai correspondent, Falletti believes this Korean culture-specific emotion jeong, or "the link between people" as he described it, built gradually during the five years he was here from 2009. And he often comes back to meet people because of it.

"I realized that jeong' only grows with time, not because of mutual interest," the French journalist said. "Koreans are, I think, very emotional and warm-hearted, unlike the French, who can be rather cold."

He was recently in Seoul to present one of his publications at the 2016 Seoul International Book Fair  "A Thousand Miles to Freedom: My Escape from North Korea," co-written with North Korean defector Kim Eun-sun in 2012. During the event, he lectured about his work and met readers.

The book covers the harrowing story of a mother's escape from North Korea with her daughter, which took nearly a decade to complete.

"Not just sad to read, I wanted a real and different story that has the human touch," Falletti said.

Despite his young years, Falletti has become a Korean expert.

In his new book, "South Korea, A Taste for Miracle," Falletti tries to show the country's essence from a subjective point of view  based on his "personal" experience.

Falletti said Korea's transformation in a short time, in particular, has always amazed him, and he believes Korea's can-do competitive attitude was the driving force behind it.

"The new book is for those who are really curious about Korea," he said. "It's not about just boring statistics or figures, but my deep insight into the country's mentality.

"Looking back on my life in Korea, I came to realize it meant a lot more to my job as well as myself than I would have felt back then."


Panama, Korea link up on education



Korea and Panama have agreed on educational cooperation between the country's institutions.

Mokpo National Maritime University signed a memorandum of understanding with the International Maritime University of Panama in Mokpo, South Jeolla Province, on June 22.



According to the Embassy of Panama, the signing means the two countries will promote the academic and educational exchange of students and researchers.



The two sides are expected to work together on research and lectures.



A day before, the Panamanian college agreed with the Korean Maritime and Ocean University in Busan to cooperate on educational exchanges, the embassy said.



Chile gets down to business



The Chilean Embassy is holding a business forum to mark former President Eduardo Frei's visit to Seoul this month.

The "Korea-Chile Business Forum" will be at the Federation of Korean Industries' Conference Room in Yeouido, Seoul, on July 12.



According to the embassy, the meeting is designed to seek ways to expand cooperation between the two countries.



The former Chilean president and Andres Rebolledo, head of the country's Directorate of International Economic Relations, will attend, the embassy said.



Chile was the first Latin American country to sign the free tradeagreement that came into force in 2003.






By Chung Hyun-chae



The nation's international medical aid to Laos has come to fruition, the Korea Development Institute School of Public Policy and Management (KDI School) said Wednesday.



The KDI School held a seminar on Wednesday at Fraser Place Namdaemun in central Seoul to evaluate the results of the past five years of the official development assistance (ODA) program named Dr. Lee Jong-wook Seoul Project in Lao PDR.



According to the KDI School's evaluation report, the faculty members of the Lao University of Health Science (UHS), who were trained through the program, have improved their teaching capacity, while their students have shown higher academic achievements.



Nonetheless, the KDI School noted that it remains to be seen whether the improved academic performance of the medical school's graduates has directly led to the improvement of healthcare in Laos.



The Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Korea Foundation for International Healthcare and the Seoul National University (SNU) College of Medicine initiated the aid program in 2011 with the aim of improving the health of Laotians.



The program, named after Dr. Lee Jong-wook, the late director-general of the World Health Organization, was benchmarked on the Minnesota Plan, a seven-year U.S. assistance program that educated 226 SNU medical professors beginning in 1955 and supplied medical equipment.



Through the Dr. Lee Jong-wook Seoul Project, 10 UHS professors participate in the one-year training course at the SNU College of Medicine every year. During the training, the participants take various medical courses and are also provided with equipment for their own research and education.




North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made inspecting a secondary school for orphans in Pyongyang his first order of business after assuming a new title as chairman of State Affairs Commission, state-run media reported Sunday.



Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim initiated the building of the school with the aim of creating the best educational environment and living conditions for orphans. The media report did not say when Kim made the visit, but it probably took place after he was tapped by the Supreme People's Assembly on Wednesday for the newly created chairmanship of the state commission.



The official news outlet monitored in Seoul said the school's overall floor area stands at 24,050 square meters and has dozens of class rooms, laboratories and practice rooms as well as a gymnasium for various sporting activities including swimming and a hostel.



"The leader guided the layout of Pyongyang Orphans' Secondary School and solved all the problems arising in its construction," the KCNA said. "Thanks to the efforts of party members and other working people and officials in Pyongyang City, the school has been completed in a short span of time."



The news agency said that Kim went round the school building, outdoor playing ground, gymnasium, hostel and other places to learn details about the construction and preparations for operating the school.



"Underscoring the need to do the work for training orphans as pillars of the country, he said that the officials concerned and teaching staff of the school should dedicate themselves to the orphans with a noble outlook on the younger generation and future, parental deep love and clear and pure conscience as educators," the report said.



The North's leader told school administrators to carry out the opening ceremony for the school and let orphans move into the new school as soon as possible.



The KCNA said he was accompanied by Jo Yong-won, vice-department director of the Central Committee of the ruling Worker's Party of Korea, and Ma Won-chun, director of the Designing Department of the State Affairs Commission. (Yonhap)




North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspects a secondary school for orphans in Pyongyang in this photo, released by the North's Korean Central News Agency, Sunday. The visit was Kim's first order of business after assuming his new title as chairman of the State Affairs Commission on Wednesday. / Yonhap



By Kim Hyo-jin



The South Korean military has been closely watching North Korean troops for possible provocation, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), Sunday.



The JCS said there has been a possibility that Pyongyang would launch a provocation on or around U.S. Independence Day today as well as the North's Strategic Rocket Force's founding day on Sunday.



"The North Korean military has yet to show any particular signs, but we are on alert as it may launch an attack at anytime," a JCS official said.



On June 25, North Korea designated July 3 as the anniversary of its Strategic Rocket Forces. Pyongyang made the decision at a meeting of the Supreme People's Assembly.



The North has a record of carrying out military provocations around U.S. Independence Day, displaying missile capabilities as part of psychological warfare.

In 2006, it test-fired a Daepodong-2 long-range rocket, followed by launches of two Rodong mid-range missiles in 2009.



According to the South Korean military, the North this time may fire a Musudan intermediate-range missile or its Scud or Rodong missiles.



The military also strengthened surveillance of islands near the Northern Limit Line (NLL), a disputed maritime border between the two Koreas, after detecting the deployment of weapons, surveillance assets and troops by North Korea to Galdo and Arido islands.



The military said about 50-60 troops have been stationed on previously deserted Galdo along with six 122-millimeter multiple rocket launcher systems.



On Arido, another formerly uninhabited island, about 20 soldiers have been sent along with surveillance radar and camera systems. The South believes special forces elements could try to infiltrate the nearby South Korean island of Yeonpyeong.



North Korea has continued its military provocations even after the U.N. introduced its toughest sanctions in March because of the North's fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch the following month.



On June 22, North Korea launched two Musudan intermediate-range missiles, referred to them as a "Hwasong-10," claiming later that the tests did not put the security of neighboring countries at risk.
By Stephen Costello

There are many important dimensions to the tragic vote of the UK electorate to exit the EU on 23 June. Ramifications of the vote will be profound and negative. Both political parties descended into crises as the two main factions within each one  always in tension  went to war with one another. The Scottish may leave Britain to rejoin the EU. Moves are underway to delay or cancel the Brexit public referendum. As the UK begins to grapple with its biggest political and identity crisis in a generation, are there lessons for Korea?

Let's see. A middle power in a key region leaves its leadership position and retreats into a go-it-alone nationalism. The arguments made  that the previous efforts at regional integration were too hard, that their neighborhood partners will surrender to them, that it will be better alone  aremostly unworkable fantasies. Many of its friends regret that it will not carry the weight it did before. The US is its main ally. This sure sounds familiar Oh yes, now I remember. Something similar happened to South Korea over ten years ago. There are differences, of course, but the similarities should provoke some thinking.

In several ways the UK vote should give Koreans  both political leaders and everyone else  a wake-up call about what is important for them and what direction would preserve stability, progress and peace. It should also remind Koreans of the dangers from certain myths and illusions that have become regular talking points among many leaders and much of the media.

The United Kingdom, like South Korea, is a modern middle power. The two share a unique set of attributes: wealth, stability democracy, luck. But among the most valuable is their alliance with the US, which expands both their hard and soft power. The UK has occupied a critical space in its region, wielding far more influence due to its soft power, geography and alliances than it could ever have if standing alone. The Brexit vote is now about to destroy much of that.

Korea has the potential to play a similar role in northeast Asia, much as itdid once before. It's ability to "punch above its weight" is based on the same set of attributes. When Korea last played this role, spearheading a strategic North-South detente that would change regional power in Korea's and the US's interests, prevent nuclear weapons in North Korea, lower tension and increase security, its US ally first provided crucial support and complimentary diplomacy.












By Tong Kim

The Supreme People's Assembly (SPA)  the legislative branch of the North Korean government that rubber-stamps decisions made by the Korean Workers' Party and the DPRK government  elected Kim Jong-un as "chairman of the State Affairs Commission" (SAC). Kim Yong-nam, president of the presidium of the SPA, said the new title represents "the top post" of the DPRK.

The SAC replaces the National Defense Commission (NDC), which was set up by Kim Jong-il to carry out the "military-first" policy, and the younger Kim served as the NDC's "first chairman."

The latest titular change in the DPRK's power structure was made in Kim Jong-un's presence during the fourth meeting of the 13th SPA on June 29, attended by about 700 deputies. Kim did not attend two previous annual SPA meetings.

In May, the seventh party congress changed his party position from "first secretary of the party" to "chairman of the party." Kim Jong-un did not use the same title of "general secretary of the party" that his father held. By the DPRK constitution, the party provides leadership for all activities for the state.

Like Kim Jong-il, who reserved the DPRK presidency "eternally" for his father Kim Il-sung, the incumbent leader set aside the NDC chair "permanently" for his father, observing what has become a Confucian tradition of the Kim dynasty.

The titular evolution, from "first secretary" to "party chairman" and from "first chairman of NDC" to "chairman of the State Affairs Commission," sheds light on the completion of an elaborate process in the transition of power from Kim Jong-il to Kim Jong-un over the past four years.

After succeeding his father in 2012, the young leader was called "supreme commander" of the Korean People's Army, a title Kim Jong-un still holds today. In the wake of the recent SPA meeting, Kim Jong-un is coming out of the shadows of his father and his grandfather to open an era of his own rule.

Kim Jong-un is fully in control of the party, the administration, and the military  three cornerstones of the North Korean ruling system. It is more critical than ever to deal with the North as it is, not as we wish it to be, when devising new ways forward for the resolution of Korean issues  such as security and peace, denuclearization, human rights, inter-Korean relations, or unification.

It is ironic that only a few years ago many in the Western world questioned the viability of Kim Jong-un in power  on the grounds of instability because of his young age, inexperience, short temper, cruelty, unpredictability and belligerence. It is also ironic that North Korea is still moving on its own political, military and economic agendas, defying the pressures from international sanctions, and still making stunning progress in its nuclear and missile programs.

North Korea's test-firing on June 21 of the "Hwasong 10" rocket, called a Musudan missile by the U.S.-ROK alliance, may not have been a complete success. John Schilling, an aerospace engineer at the Air Force Research Laboratory, called it "a partial success," writing for the 38 North website on June 28. Nevertheless, it was an undeniable sign of significant progress in North Korea's missile technology.

One may discount some of Pyongyang's claims that the intermediate-range ballistic missile, designed for a range of 3,500 km, was fired at a high angle to reach an altitude of 1,415.6 km, without affecting the safety of any neighboring countries, splashing in the targeted waters 400 km away, and probing "the reentry heat resistance capability" of the rocket.

This success, full or partial, came after five preceding failures of similar tests. It may suggest that the Musudan missiles, already deployed, are not operational today, but it does suggest that North Korea is working fast toward the perfection of technologies to develop a reliable, functional nuclear warfare capability equipped with ICBMs that can strike the continental United States.

The Korea Central News Agency quoted an elated Kim Jong-un as saying: "We have the sure capability to attack  the American bastards in the Pacific operations theater (that should include Japan, Guam, and Hawaii)  The real foe for our nuclear force is a nuclear war itself " It also reported that Kim Jong-un kept up the morale of the rocket scientists throughout repeated failures by showing "more care and encouragement" for them.

Ironically, the media in Seoul predicted Kim's embarrassment and anger over the earlier failures of the missile test. Pyongyang keeps silent on its failures and makes big propaganda out of its successes. Seoul relishes its detection of Pyongyang's failures. This time Seoul seems to have been caught off guard by Pyongyang's success in the test.

In Beijing last week, representatives of the six-party talks came together in a Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue meeting, where Choe Son-hui, deputy director of North American affairs at Pyongyang's foreign ministry, said the "six-party talks are dead," as her country is "not in a position to talk about denuclearization."

The North Korean issue is likely to be turned over to the next administration of the United States. However, North Korea will be one of the top priority security concerns besides ISIS and cyber-security, as viewed by CIA director John Brennan at a recent Senate hearing, and one of the five threats along with Russia, China, ISIS and cyber-security, as described recently by Defense Secretary Ash Carter.

North Korea continues a mixed policy of provocation and dialogue towards Seoul and Washington, which respond only to Pyongyang's provocations. Time is running out as the North is rushing to become a fully functional nuclear state. What's your take?

Tong Kim is a Washington correspondent and columnist for The Korea Times. He is also a fellow at the Institute of Korean-American Studies. He can be contacted at tong.kim8@yahoo.com.
By Shin Sung-won

The referendum held on June 24 in the United Kingdom resulted in a win for "Brexit" which could turn into suicide for the U.K. economy. Brexit represents a failure to gain the trust of the elite from the ordinary people of the U.K. and a failure of globalization. The U.K. referendum is a competition between free trade/open borders vs. protectionism/closed borders. A Japanese owned Nissan plant is located in Sunderland, which was one of the first cities to declare for the leave campaign. Britons might have thought that they should remain in the E.U. in their minds, but leave in their hearts.

Prime Minister David Cameron has promised to quit his post in September. Having voted against joining the EEC in 1975 and having remained critical of E.U. "shortcomings," Jeremy Corbyn, the opposition Labour Party leader, has been seriously criticized because even though he was in the "Remain" camp, he did not support it fully. It is a rare case for the two major party leaders in the U.K. to be unfavorably affected by a national decision at the same time.

It seems that one of the major reasons for the approval of Brexit is immigration. Britons are worried about the lack of autonomy when it comes to border control of this island nation. Since 2004, more than 2 million immigrants have come to the U.K. It also stops the U.K. from casting a vote against Turkey, which has a refugee crisis and is now negotiating to join the E.U. The immigration crisis in Europe last year also soured Britons who might have remained in the E.U. In addition, the Britons could feel frustrated by the burden of paying 30 billion dollars annually to the E.U., knowing that Germany actually has led the course of the E.U. As the U.K. chose the path of leaving, its economy will probably shrink, and within two years, a half million jobs could disappear and its GDP could shrink by 3.6%. Trade and foreign investment also might decline.

Brexit will entail geopolitical implications in many respects inside the E.U. as a whole and throughout Asia as well and in the U.S. The possibility that Scotland which has been part of the U.K. since the 18th century, and which voted to Remain overwhelmingly, might seek its independence again. The U.K. would like to remain in splendid isolation and play a balancing role as it has done historically. As the U.K. tries to strengthen its special relationship with the United States, it will also double its efforts to strengthen its economic relations with China. More than a few of the 27 countries remaining in the EU might also look for a chance to leave which would further weaken the EU's consolidation. The United States which has pursued a pivotal role in Asia during the Obama administration should pay more attention to Europe. The trans-Atlantic partnership between the U.S. and Europe which has been the world's most important alliance for nearly 70 years, is now weaker and less relevant than at any point in decades.

Brexit will not automatically be helpful to the U.S. Republican Presidential candidate, Donald Trump. Whether Brexit will be good for Trump depends on Trump himself. If Trump continues to speak abusively about Hispanics, women and Muslims, and keeps threatening to unravel U.S. alliances worldwide, he will have no chance of becoming the next president of the United States.

Brexit which on the face it seems to be a crisis and challenge to Korea could actually be an opportunity in disguise. The Republic of Korea should make every effort to have closer relations with the countries of the E.U. as well as with the U.K. in order to ensure cooperation with them in economics, diplomacy and security.

Shin Sung-won is the director-general of the Department of International Economy and Trade Studies at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, the Korea National Diplomatic Academy.
By Yang Dong-hee

Looking at the famous LOVE sculpture by pop artist Robert Indiana in downtown Philadelphia for over a decade, I sometimes, oddly enough, think of many interesting love stories of people who once lived in the "City of Brotherly Love" in the 1980s when I was living there. (I didn't know for a while, that there are as many as 42 LOVE sculptures all over the world, following the first one for the Indiana Museum of Art in 1970.)

Among the people I met during the period, John Kelly Jr., the only brother of American actress Grace Kelly, was somewhat special:

Grace Kelly's father, John B. Kelly Sr., was a successful Irish-American businessman who owned a brickwork contracting company that was well-known on the East Coast. He was a noted sculler who won three Olympic gold medals, and he taught sculling to his only son on the Schuylkill River that runs through downtown Philadelphia to the Atlantic Ocean.

John Kelly Jr., who also won Olympic gold medal in sculling, was the president of the U.S. Olympic Committee when I met him in the early spring of 1985. I went to his house in East Falls, western Philadelphia, with his neighbor who was the president of the Korean Association of Philadelphia, to deliver the Korean government's invitation to him to Korea during the l988 Seoul Olympic Games.

He was 58 at that time but his well-tanned skin and muscular arms were telling us that he was an ardent athlete who was still doing some kind of exercise on a daily basis. Proudly smiling, he said, "I run two hours every day, rain or shine" along the Schuylkill River Drive by the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Our conversation naturally flew to the younger years of Grace Kelly before she went to Hollywood and then to Monaco. John Jr. showed us the high school yearbook of Grace Kelly. The yearbook listed her favorite actress as Ingrid Bergman of "Casablanca." While attending Ravenhill Academy, a prestigious Catholic girls' School, she was a fashion model at local social events with her mother and older sister Margaret. Kelly's mother, Margaret K. Majer, was a German-born athlete who taught physical education at the University of Pennsylvania. She was noted for her beauty and modeled for a time in her youth.

I was curious about what led the wealthy young country girl to the cutthroat world of the silver screen. When I was invited to his house a couple of times more during that spring, John Jr. said Kelly did not go to college. Owing to her low mathematics scores, Kelly was rejected by Bennington College in l947. This however moved up her career in American movies.

It was the legendary director John Ford who first noticed Kelly in a screen test when she flew to Lost Angeles for an audition. Ford said, "she showed breeding, quality and class." With just one screen test, she was offered a seven-year contract with a salary of 850 US Dollars a week.

Her role in MGM's "Mogambo" directed by John Ford, co-starring with Clark Gable and Ava Gardner, garnered her a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in l953. She won the Oscar for Best Actress and another Golden Globe the next year with "The Country Girl." Kelly's last appearance in Hollywood was in "High Society," starring with Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra.

Asking Mr. Kelly about untold stories about his sister's marriage to Rainier, alarming stories came out of his mouth.

In December 1955, Rainier came to America on an official trip, but it was speculated that he was seeking a wife, as there was a treaty between Monaco and France in l918 that had stated "if Rainier did not produce an heir, Monaco would revert to France."

Earlier that year, Kelly headed the U.S. delegation at the Cannes Film Festival in April. While there, she was invited to participate in a photo session at the Palace of Monaco with Prince Rainier III, the sovereign of the principality. After a series of delays and complications, she met him in Monaco. (At the time of her initial meeting with him, she was dating French actor Jean-Pierre Aumont.)

John Jr. recollected that she began a private correspondence with Rainier after she came back to America. According to his memory, Rainier came to Philadelphia to meet Kelly and her family in January, l956, and after three days, he proposed. She accepted and the family began preparations for the "Wedding of the Century,"

Two big problems broke out. First, Kelly and her family had to provide a dowry of two million U.S. Dollars in order for the marriage to go forward. It was way over sixty million U.S. Dollars by today's value. Rumors travelled fast around the globe that the financial situation of the small European monarchy was very bad. Secondly, the monarchy asked for Kelly to come over Monaco so the doctors there could "examine her state of health." It was for all intents and purposes an outright request to send her over to examine her virginity. Besides her French boy friend, Kelly had several romantic relationships with her co-stars, including Gary Cooper in "High Noon."

"Negotiations were so tough. Lawyers from both sides stood up and left the negotiation table in the middle of the meetings three to four times. After a series of delays for over two months, the lawyers finally agreed to accept the health certificate provided by an American doctor that says she was healthy enough to deliver an heir," John Jr. said. But the Kelly's could not "readjust" to the two million U.S. Dollars not even a penny.

My relations with John Jr. were abruptly over in six months when he was found dead on the Schuylkill River Drive while jogging in July, l985. He was eagerly waiting for his first trip to Korea.

The accident took place about three years after the tragic death of Grace Kelly, who was driving back to Monaco from her country home with her daughter Stephanie when she had a stroke like her brother. As a result, she lost control of her 1971 Range Rover and drove off the steep and winding road. She died at the age of 52 after Rainier decided to take her off life support on the next day.

Grace Kelly, the epitome of being a lady along with Audrey Hepburn and Princess Diana, was immortalized through a wax sculpture on a movie set with Gary Cooper in "High Noon" by Movieland Wax Museum in Buena Park, California. The wax figures are now waiting for the long-term public exhibition in Jeju Movieland, Joongmun, Jeju Island, the new owner of America's oldest wax museum which was demolished.

The writer worked as a reporter for The Korea Times and the Hankook Ilbo-New York and as a stringer for the Wall Street Journal. He was thefirst managing director in Korea of the U.S.-based International Management Group (IMG).
Questions have been raised about the competency of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) regarding its handling of its Korean Chief Risk Officer (CRO) Hong Ky-ttack's long-term leave of absence.



Even considering the regional development bank has just turned six months old, the Hong case takes it back to its formation stage when there were concerns about whether China, which spearheaded the AIIB inauguration effort, could run this organization according to global standards despite its lack of experience and its history of a lack of transparency.



The AIIB main office in Beijing has reportedly failed to explain why Hong took a six-month vacation, except for saying "for personal reasons." CRO is one of the five C-level positions taken up by the vice president and together with the chief investment officer (CIO) they regarded as the two most important positions.



The AIIB also failed to reveal whether it would appoint a replacement or wait for Hong to return, another moot point that may force it to revisit the issue of transparency. This also goes against the vow made by its President Jin Liqun, who said on its January inauguration that the bank would hire based on one's competency, not by the nationality of the passport he or she holds.



Jin's words were immediately subject to doubt as top posts were apparently allocated among the biggest contributors. Korea was the fifth largest and got the CRO post.



AIIB apparently didn't adhere to its own principle by accepting the Korean government's recommendation for Hong, who just finished his tenure at the state-run Korea Development Bank (KDB). AIIB didn't even enforce its requirement that Korea should provide multiple candidates as Korea insisted on Hong's single candidacy. It was reported that Hong took the KDB job despite his lack of experience allegedly because his close ties to President Park Geun-hye.



Furthermore, it failed to vet Hong adequately because Hong was at the center of a brewing scandal over his handling of Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME), the shipbuilder that was under KDB control, over the losses soaring to the tune of billions of dollars. The irony was that he took the job as the bank's top manager of risk, the area where he monumentally failed during his KDB stint.



(See the editorial of The Korea Times under the title, "AIIB shortchanged," on Feb. 5).



It is true that Hong took his vacation after he blew the whistle on the DSME debacle claiming it was the work of the presidential office and financial authorities by naming the pertinent officials. A rumor had it that after the report he was under government pressure to step down.



Now, the Korean government is asking AIIB to replace Hong with another Korean and we don't object to it but this time we expect AIIB to apply President Jin's nationality-blind criteria in selecting Hong's replacement. That would be one of the tests it should pass to shake off doubts.




Dhaka attack raises questions on readiness



Is Korea prepared for terrorist attacks in Itaewon, Hongdae or Gangnam, where crowds of many nationalities intermingle? How would it respond if its nationals are taken hostage or killed by terrorists in foreign countries?



The deadly assaults by armed terrorists at the cafe in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka Friday endow these questions with an ever more clear and present sense of danger for Koreans, who have by and large been spared the direct brunt of international terrorism.



During the hostage situation at the Holey Artisan Bakery, 20 civilians were killed: nine Italians, seven Japanese, one American, one Indian and two Bangladeshis. Reports had asserted that Koreans were included but those reports were later confirmed to be untrue. The Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack.



The Dhaka attack should raise alarm among Korean law enforcement authorities for three reasons.



First, it represents IS's attempt to expand its theater of operation in Asia. The extremist group has thus far focused on Europe, which is closer to its stronghold in the Middle East. Al-Qaeda had previously been more active in Asia. After Dhaka, IS could become territorial with an eye on Asia. Previous IS attacks took place in Paris, Brussels and, most recently, in Istanbul.



Second, IS is targeting so-called soft targets  civilians  after its military campaigns were pinned down by a coordinated counterattack from the international community. This change in tactics may inflict big collateral damage and force opposing governments to relent.



These two reasons could make Korea a tempting target. The country has a growing number of foreigners, is not fully experienced with dealing with international terrorism and has a great number of Christians with its churches sending missionaries even to the Middle East. God forbid! If an attack on a restaurant or theater in a populated area occurs, the results would be catastrophic.



For this, the nation should be ready to err on the side of caution. First, this calls for a thorough check on our preparedness to the last imaginable detail.



The checklist includes having enough negotiators who can communicate in languages that potential terrorists could use and experienced commandos on standby to engage the terrorists as a means of last resort. The government's crisis management plan should start with a designation of a control tower and include coordination with the governments of hostages or victims.



Also important is a manual in the event that Korean nationals are killed or taken hostage in a foreign country. We can take a lesson from Japan, which suffered the second-largest number of casualties after Italy in the Dhaka attack, but stopped short of vowing to take revenge contrary to other affected nations. Obviously, Japan's response was calculated not to invite terrorism to its shores.



IS has already designated Korea as one of 60 target nations over its alliance with the United States, more recently specifying U.S. airbases in Osan and Gunsan. The two cities and other areas have plenty of places where IS or other extremists may attack. Throw in the government's recent warning of acts of terrorism by North Korea alone or in tandem with extremist groups and there is no denying that the nation should double down on its anti-terrorism efforts at all levels. It is about safeguarding our way of life and, therefore, we should do what it takes.




LG Chem Vice Chairman Park Jin-soo, third from left, poses with participants at the company's recruitment event at the Hotel New Otani in Tokyo, Saturday. / Courtesy of LG Chem



By Yoon Sung-won



LG Chem Vice Chairman Park Jin-soo went to Japan seeking R&D human resources, the company said Sunday.



The nation's top chemical company held a recruitment event in Tokyo, inviting undergraduates and graduate students from the country's top universities including the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University.



"LG Chem could continue its growth during the last 69 years on the back of our pursuit of the founding idea that we create value for customers," Park said during the event, Saturday. "We are here to seek talented workers with craftsmanship that will create the best value without compromise in any circumstance."



Park's move is in line with the mission of LG Group and its chief Koo Bon-moo's longstanding focus on human resources. Seeking talented recruits through events every year, LG has also invested in fostering talented experts not only in technology sectors but also in business, economics and humanities.



Park cited a Japanese metalworking rule that measures seven times before manufacturing a metal product and stressed craftsmanship for a business' sustainable growth.



He also talked about longstanding Japanese companies with more than 200 years of experience despite a shortened average lifespan of businesses amid uncertain conditions.



"There are more than 3,000 businesses that have operated more than 200 years in Japan," the vice chairman said. "They have lived long as businesses as they have stuck to principles and basics without seeking short-term profits."



Park has continued to concentrate on human resources since taking office as CEO of the company in 2012. He has personally hosted the company's overseas recruitment tour named "Business & Campus" every year. In May, he visited Beijing for the event and is scheduled to travel to the United States in October for the same occasion.



On the back of such a strong drive by the vice chairman, LG Chem has established a taskforce dedicated to discovering promising recruits and scouting out experts such as professors and talented students from vocational high schools.
The SLFP does not condone the continuation of the Emergency Regulations (The Public Security Ordinance) more than a day necessary

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PRESS RELEASE

Rep. Jones and the 9/11 Families To Hold Press Conference July 6 on Capitol Hill To Force Obama To Release the 28 Pages

July 2, 2016 (EIRNS)Pressure is mounting on President Obama to release the 28-page chapter from the original Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11, as weeks have now passed since the date the White House promised to make the final decision. Former Sen. Bob Graham, who co-chaired the Joint Inquiry and has championed the release of the secret chapter, told The Daily Beasts Eleanor Clift that the White House official who had told him that the decision would be made by mid-June no longer takes his phone calls.

According to representatives of the 9/11 families, Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) will be holding a press conference on July 6 on Capitol Hill with family members to escalate the pressure on both President Obama and the presidential candidates.

Associated Press Deb Riechmann published a news account today of the 47-page File 17 document from the 9/11 Commission, which was declassified by the Interagency Security Clearance Appeals Panel (ISCAP) a year ago. That document spelled out investigative leads on the Saudi government ties to the 19 hijackers. Riechmann began her story, which has been picked up in newspapers around the country:

Amid the clamor a year ago to release 28 still-secret pages of a congressional inquiry into the Sept. 11 attacks, the government quietly declassified a little-known report listing more than three dozen people who piqued the interest of investigators probing possible Saudi connections to the hijackers.

She quoted Senator Graham, who confirmed that Much of the information upon which File 17 was written was based on whats in the 28 pages.... File 17 said,

Here are some additional unanswered questions and here is how we think the 9/11 Commission, the FBI and the CIA should go about finding the answers."

Riechmann noted that

File 17 ... names people the hijackers were in contact with in the United States before the attacks. Some were Saudi diplomats, raising questions about whether Saudi officials knew about the plot.

After noting that the final report of the 9/11 Commission had found no evidence of high-level Saudi Royal Family or government ties, she reviewed some of the most important individuals with ties to both the Saudi government and the 9/11 hijackers. She reviewed the cases of Fahad al-Thumairy, Omar al-Bayoumi, Osama Bassnan and Mohdar Abdullah. Abdullah served as the driver and translator for the two 9/11 hijackers who arrived in Southern California in early 2000, al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi. The 9/11 Commission Report noted:

During a post 9/11 search of his possessions, the FBI found a notebook (belonging to someone else) with references to planes falling from the sky, mass killing and hijacking.

In an accompanying article, which may have derived from the 38-page Saudi talking points refuting their involvement, Riechmann quoted from 9/11 Commission co-chairs, CIA Director John Brennan and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, all denying any Saudi complicity. But she ended by quoting from 9/11 widow Kristen Breitweiser:
PRESS RELEASE

NATO-Russia Council To Meet on July 13

July 2, 2016 (EIRNS)The NATO-Russia Council will meet on July 13, a few days after the NATO summit concludes, to discuss air safety issues over the Baltic Sea, and possibly other topics.

"Currently, the issue of aviation safety over the Baltic Sea is on the agenda of the Russia-NATO Council at the level of Permanent Representatives, which is scheduled for July 13, 2016,"

the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Reuters reports that Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu also said that Russia is starting work on a set of measures to improve aviation safety over the Baltic Sea, including a measure that would require Russian military aircraft to fly with transponders turned on. This follows Putins meeting with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, at Niinistos summer residence in southern Finland, yesterday. Niinisto made the proposal about transponders over the Baltic and Putin said he would direct work to begin on that very topic, taking note that NATO has twice the number of flights in the area as Russia. Shoigus statement reflects implementation of Putins directive.
As offshore wind farms gain momentum in the U.S., the industry predicts a clean-energy bonanza from the West Coasts steady and powerful breezes that may go a long way to help the state meet its ambitious clean energy mandates.

But reaping the wind off Californias coast must first overcome not only economic and political challenges but also requires technology that is still being developed.

So far, just one company, Trident Winds, has applied for a lease to construct an offshore facility in California. But the Seattle company has laid out plans for a wind farm that would dwarf offshore sites proposed along the East Coast or the Great Lakes.

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Oceans present the largest amount of renewable energy to the planet, said Alla Weinstein, founder of Trident Winds, which wants to place its wind farm off the coast of Morro Bay, along the Central Coast.

The company is targeting 2025 as its start-up date. Thats nine years beyond the expected debut this fall of the countrys first offshore wind project, the Block Island Wind Farm off the coast of Rhode Island.

Other projects are expected to follow in places such as Virginia, New Jersey and Cleveland  yes, Cleveland.

Why is the Golden State, a place so proud of its renewable energy record, lagging behind the rest of the country when it comes to offshore wind?

Blame the Pacific Ocean and its underwater terrain.

Unlike the Atlantic Ocean, where offshore wind farms can be bolted into the seabed in relatively shallow water, the West Coasts continental shelf plunges quickly and steeply.

That leaves just one other option: floating wind farms.

You have to talk about floating wind because the ocean floor is too deep to fix a turbine to it, said Nancy Sopko, manager for advocacy and federal legislative affairs at the American Wind Energy Assn.

Floating wind projects are tethered to the ocean floor by cables rather than the massive steel pilings used for conventional offshore wind turbines. And the technical know-how required to build a floating city of wind turbines is still at an early stage, Trident acknowledged in its lease application.

Offshore wind farms are common off the coast of European countries such as Denmark, but Sopko said shes not aware of any commercial floating wind projects operating at utility scale.

Its an emerging technology, she said.

See the most-read stories in Local News this hour >>

Trident Winds plans to build a floating array of about 100 wind turbines, each with a hub height of 400 feet  which works out to up to 600 feet in height when one of the turning blades is at the 12 oclock position  some 33 nautical miles off Morro Bay. One transmission cable running along the seafloor would send electricity to the shore by connecting to the Morro Bay substation owned by Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

Bringing power from a resource thats right off your coastline and can feed into the existing infrastructure onshore, that makes a lot of sense, Weinstein said.

The long time frame for the project will allow the technology and permitting process to catch up with Tridents ambitions, she said.

Thats why I believe its a good idea to start the project now because by the time technology will become commercially available, which is post-2018, 2019, permitting will take a lengthy time, five to seven years, Weinstein said

The Trident project would have to go through an obstacle course of permitting, regulatory and environmental hearings on the federal, state, local and tribal levels before becoming a reality.

But there are signs of movement.

While offshore renewable energy resources have not yet played a significant role in Californias energy system, they present important potential future opportunities, Gov. Jerry Brown said in a recent letter to Sally Jewell, secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

In response, a task force is being formed by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which is also checking to see if other companies are interested in competing with Trident Winds for a potential lease.

The Brown and Obama administrations have each made reducing greenhouse gas emissions a major priority and an expanding offshore wind program is seen as a way to help meet those goals.

Brown signed a law last October mandating that utilities generate 50% of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2030.

On the federal level, the U.S. Department of Energy has handed out $190 million for 73 offshore wind projects since 2006 through the agencys wind program.

So far, offshore wind projects in the U.S. have concentrated on the East Coast, with some growing interest in the Great Lakes.

But the electricity generation from those projects is considered tiny compared with what is promised from the West Coast.

Its estimated that nearly a terrawatt of electricity will be generated off the coast of California, 13 times more capacity than all the land-based wind farms across the country generate.

Trident sees its flotilla of turbines eventually growing to a net capacity of 1,000 megawatts. The typical land-based wind turbine has a capacity of 2 to 3 megawatts.

But the project has met with some local opposition.

There are more environmentally friendly options, said Joey Racano, who has launched a Facebook page opposing the project.

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Racanos complaints include what effect the turbines vibrations may have on fish, whales and sharks. He worries about spinning turbine blades that could disrupt the migratory patterns of seabirds or kill the birds.

Tridents proposed lease area is 67,963 acres, which equals 106 square miles.

Last December, about 100 Morro Bay residents turned out for a public forum and grilled Trident Winds officials.

There is no such thing as no impacts, said Weinstein, who spent 20 years as an engineer at Honeywell. We as humans impact our environment, period. The question becomes whether the impacts can be mitigated and minimized.

The $2.6-billion Cape Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts has been debated for more than a decade with loud opposition coming from some homeowners complaining about the wind farms ruining their views.

Citing visibility charts from the Coast Guard, Trident says the Morro Bay project would be so far from the coast that the turbines would not be seen from the shoreline.

It will not ruin anyones view, Weinstein said.

Another challenge is the cost.

One analyst from the Bloomberg New Energy Finance research group projected that floating wind projects by 2020 could cost more than twice per megawatt than conventional offshore wind, which itself has been estimated, on average, to cost about three times more per megawatt than many new natural gas and coal power stations.

Wind energys boosters say the costs of land-based wind projects have come down over the last three decades  In the past six years, costs have come down two-thirds, Sopko said  and they believe that offshore wind will follow the same pattern.

David Hochschild, a member of the California Energy Commission, said offshore wind is on track to generate 250 gigawatts of electricity by 2020 but noted that floating wind projects in California are in the very, very early stages.

At the end of the day, Hochschild said, floating offshore wind is going to have to compete against onshore wind, against solar and the other resources in the renewable energy family.

rob.nikolewski@sduniontribune.com

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Starbucks Chief Executive Howard Schultz has spoken out on gun control, race relations and the cynicism, despair, division, exclusion, fear and yes -- indifference in America today.

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at a developer conference this year that I hear fearful voices calling for building walls and distancing people as they label others, even if he didnt directly mention GOP nominee Donald Trump.

And Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff has become a ringleader, in the words of one state senator, of big-business executives who have opposed state legislation that limits gay rights.

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CEOs have increasingly begun taking on social issues, shedding long-held fears of offending certain groups of employees, customers or investors for taking risky political stances. In doing so, companies often cite a philosophy that its simply the right thing to do.

But a new survey released last week from the public relations firm Weber Shandwick and KRC Research finds that the average person doesnt see it that way. The survey, which looked at consumer views of what it calls The Dawn of CEO Activism, reveals that 36% cite media attention as the reason for CEOs vocal viewpoints more than anything else.

The next most-cited reason (21% of respondents) was to build the CEOs reputation. A similar percentage said CEOs were speaking out to be open and honest about how they personally feel about an issue.

Just 14% of the 1,027 adults surveyed thought a reason CEOs were getting more political was that they wanted to do what is right for society.

Even if CEOs really are trying to use corporate muscle to make broader changes or do something to protect employee rights, that message is not getting communicated, said Leslie Gaines-Ross, Weber Shandwicks chief reputation strategist. The motivations behind why CEOs speak up have to be more clearly [expressed] if this trend continues.

That could very well happen, because despite consumers cynicism, the research also found an encouraging link -- if a nuanced one -- between socially active CEOs and the publics views. In general, more people saw CEOs as favorable if they took a public stance on hotly debated current issues. But if the issue was seen as being wholly unrelated to the companys business, the results flipped, with more having an unfavorable view.

In addition, millennials -- now the largest generation in the workplace and a demographic marketers salivate over -- are especially drawn to CEO activism, with significantly more than other generations saying they would be more loyal to an employer if the CEO spoke out publicly on a controversial issue.

Yet when it comes to their plans to buy anything from companies with more political CEOs, the results are mixed. Forty percent of respondents said they would be more likely to purchase something from a company if they agreed with the CEOs public views. But 45% said they would be less likely to buy if they disagree with him or her.

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Still, while CEOs may be speaking out more on political issues or social policies, Gaines-Ross says political endorsements are likely to remain something of a taboo. CEOs have long given money to political candidates, and plenty of business leaders do speak out. But it remains relatively rare to see sitting CEOs of Fortune 500 companies vocally endorse a particular presidential candidate.

Still, Gaines-Ross says she also believes that the overall trend of greater CEO activism will continue, with top business leaders becoming even more politically engaged and socially active on hot-button issues.

I think it will grow in time, she said. Employees and company cultures are so important today that CEOs are going to take on some of these social issues in the name of their employees.

Jena McGregor writes a column analyzing leadership in the news for the Washington Posts On Leadership section.

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It is impossible to mourn the death Saturday of Michael Cimino without confronting the loss of what he and his New Hollywood ilk represented: an audacious, ecstatic, sensuous, deranged and ultimately staggering vision of what the movies could be, and a willingness to pursue that vision utterly without compromise.

It was a costly vision, to be sure  by which I mean more than just the well-documented financial fiasco of Heavens Gate, the ravaged and ravishing 1980 western that broke United Artists, hastened the death of a 70s auteur renaissance and dealt Ciminos career a blow from which it never recovered. Coming on the heels of his critical and commercial success with the Oscar-winning The Deer Hunter (1978), Heavens Gate remains, for many, the definitive Hollywood cautionary tale of filmmaker hubris run amok (as compellingly detailed in the tell-all book Final Cut by Steven Bach, a former UA executive who was involved with the production).

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Three decades after being critically eviscerated, yanked from theaters and largely kept out of public view, Ciminos epic of community and class warfare may yet experience the happy ending that eludes its characters as they lurch across the frontier terrain of 1890s Johnson County, Wyo. No shortage of critics and cinephiles have reclaimed the picture as a misunderstood masterpiece, many of them arguing on the strength of a beautiful Criterion Collection restoration, supervised by Cimino himself, that began playing festivals and repertory houses in 2013.

To experience Heavens Gate anew  and it is indeed a thing to be experienced, with an open eye and an even more open ear (some of the dialogue remains famously muddled)  is to gape at its magnificence and also sense the price that the director paid for his perfectionism. Cimino was clearly bleeding more than just his budget dry. You can still feel his heart pouring out on-screen in every dust-swept frame of Vilmos Zsigmonds cinematography, in stunning outdoor shots where Cimino seems to have choreographed the very movement of the sun and the clouds. And you can feel it, too, in a drama poised on a knifes edge between grandeur and arrogance, and in performances (from Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, John Hurt, Jeff Bridges and Isabelle Huppert) that, however striking, struggle to cohere under the force of the directors unyielding gaze.

What the director was looking for, amid the endless reshoots and nearly 250 miles of accumulated footage, was not just a narrative but a panorama  a full-bodied portrait of working-class American life, filled with moments of languorous intimacy that would soon be subsumed in a whirlwind of violence. Its no overstatement to suggest that he was trying to give cinematic form to the lost, brutalized soul of America itself, and to create an epic human tragedy that would not just equal but eclipse his earlier landmark.

Michael Cimino in Berlin in 1979. (Edwin Reichert / Associated Press )

If the legacy of Heavens Gate continues to shift and expand, then The Deer Hunter still retains its raw and unruly dramatic power; it may have long since given up its claim to being the definitive movie about the Vietnam experience, but it remains a shattering and indelible one nonetheless. What Ciminos portrait of a Pennsylvania family of Russian-American steelworkers may have lacked in credibility and nuance, it made up in the blazingly committed performances of Robert De Niro, Walken, Meryl Streep and John Cazale, and in its bone-deep empathy with characters whose pain and disillusionment reverberated with the audiences own.

By dint of its confrontational subject matter, The Deer Hunter had direct access to a nations shell-shocked psyche in a way that the more historically remote Heavens Gate would not. Yet the films are best appreciated now less as polar opposites (triumph vs. failure) than as companion pieces  twin monuments to his towering ambition that scorn the rules of traditional narrative construction and conform to no expectations but Ciminos own. The long and justly celebrated wedding set piece that occupies the first act of The Deer Hunter finds an echo in the leisurely, lovingly choreographed scenes of dancing and roller skating in Heavens Gate, and in the ungovernable swirl of the characters romantic passions, gathering just before the storm.

Few American directors working inside or outside the contemporary mainstream are willing to subject their audiences to this sort of full-scale immersion. Cimino, hailing from an earlier era of artistic freedom, was willing to indulge his longueurs because for him, they werent beside the point in a film about the beauty and fragility of community; they were precisely the point. It was essential to his purpose that we felt  as much on a sensory level as a narrative one  the weight and texture of lives that were about to change forever.

Writing about Heavens Gate in 2012, the New Yorker critic Richard Brody suggested that, had the film been released in the Internet age, critics would have turned it into a succes destime, not after 32 years but from the start. Its hard not to wonder if Cimino might have benefited still further from the support of such an adventurous critical fan base  one that, with its willingness to defend challenging art and defy consensus, might have helped this great and famously difficult American iconoclast shake off his inertia and reclaim, or even reinvent, his identity as a filmmaker.

There are fleeting glimpses in Ciminos lesser-known pictures of what that identity might have been. He began his career as a co-screenwriter on films as different as Douglas Trumbulls 1972 oddball sci-fi classic Silent Running and the 1973 Dirty Harry sequel, Magnum Force (which he scripted with John Milius, another New Hollywood contemporary). It was Clint Eastwood who gave him his big break by letting Cimino direct his own script for Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974), a hugely entertaining buddy action-comedy that remains as notable for the effortless rapport between Eastwood and Bridges (who received an Oscar nomination for the role) as for its underlying grit and intensity, plus Ciminos already clear fascination with the endlessly expressive qualities of the American landscape.

Five years after Heavens Gate, Cimino reemerged with some of his flair and seriousness regained in Year of the Dragon (1985), a propulsive crime thriller that cast a terrific Mickey Rourke into the seedy criminal underworld of New Yorks Chinatown  a world that, as with the immigrant communities populating his earlier work, Cimino delved into with furious abandon. He didnt entirely pull it off; the charges of xenophobia that greeted his portrait of the Viet Cong in The Deer Hunter were echoed by similar criticisms of Dragons Chinese-American characters, who, despite Ciminos honest attempts to explore rather than exploit their marginalized culture, were let down by unpersuasive performances and banal plot turns.

In a lengthy 2015 interview with the Hollywood Reporter, his first after years spent in retreat from the industry and the public eye, the director said, Your favorite film is always the film you havent made yet. Burned out after a string of flops and misfires including The Sicilian (1987), Desperate Hours (1990) and the Woody Harrelson-starring The Sunchaser (1996), and with countless unfinished dream projects abandoned by the wayside, Michael Cimino didnt live to see the promise of that statement fulfilled. Its something to be lamented, perhaps, with more resignation than regret: The industry that might have sustained his career, in all its thrilling and ludicrous enormity, collapsed long before he did.

justin.chang@latimes.com | Twitter: @JustinCChang

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In the hills above the 118 freeway, mansions are being built. Restaurants and grocery stores are packed. Cyclists pedal up and down wide-open streets.

On the surface, the community of Porter Ranch is returning to normal four months after the largest methane leak in American history was capped in the nearby Aliso Canyon natural gas storage field. The leak, which started in October, released more than 97,000 tons of methane into the atmosphere and was so massive it could be seen from space.

But fears about property values and future gas leaks have cast a shadow.

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Its never going to be the same, because now we know the full extent of the threat.  Porter Ranch resident Susan Gorman-Chang

Its never going to be the same, because now we know the full extent of the threat, Susan Gorman-Chang said recently while campaigning for a seat on the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council.

Her family was among the thousands who evacuated when odorants from the methane leak began to cause headaches, nosebleeds and nausea.

The relocation program had cost Southern California Gas Co. nearly $465 million as of March 31, according to the most recent available company filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Part of that money went toward the cleanup of about 1,500 homes.

The program ended June 13, by which time most residents had returned to Porter Ranch  good news for retailers who saw a drop-off as a result of the four-month-long leak. According to spokeswoman Yolanda Stokes, the U.S. Small Business Administration has approved $879,000 in disaster-related loans for business owners in the community.

But questions remain about how the leak will affect property values in Porter Ranch, particularly in the long term.

Home sales dropped 44% in the three months after the leak was reported, according to data provided by RealtyTrac. However, the median sale price increased 5.7%, and the number of cash purchases jumped 50%.

See the most-read stories in Local News this hour >>

For lots of these folks, their homes are their biggest assets, said attorney Paul Kiesel, one of the more than 80 lawyers representing clients in cases against Southern California Gas Co.

There are residents who are uncertain about what the property values are going to be like in the future.

The decision to buy in Porter Ranch will probably be similar to the decision to relocate, said Jamie House, who lives near the gas field and has seen traffic congestion pick up as neighbors return.

I feel like there are going to be people who are like, Its fine. Its not a big deal. Theres going to be something everywhere you go. And theres going to be people who think this is a really huge deal, House said.

Developers, however, seem optimistic that Porter Ranchs location and schools will be enough to draw buyers.

A subdivision under construction, with properties going for as much as $1.8 million, has homes that boast city views and infinity swimming pools.

The gas leak is important, but its not the only problem we have.  Resident David Lasher

At a recent ribbon-cutting ceremony, Los Angeles City Councilman Mitch Englander said the construction was a sign Porter Ranch was regaining its footing. Two days later, he hosted a welcome home party for families at Holleigh Bernson Memorial Park, which not long before had been coated in oil from the leak.

Its absolutely symbolic, Englander said. We are starting to get back to the great community we are.

To members of the group Save Porter Ranch, however, it would be a better community without a natural gas storage field behind their homes.

Were not haters. Were concerned citizens. Were not fear mongering  were stating facts, said Jennifer Milbauer, a recently elected member of the neighborhood council.

In part to address those fears, state Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) has introduced SB 887, which calls for improved safety oversight and maintenance of gas wells. Specifically, the bill would set minimum standards for inspections and require subsurface safety values.

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We continue to learn from this horrible, perhaps preventable, accident and were working very hard to minimize any risk to the residents, she said.

That element of risk, however, is accepted by many people in Porter Ranch as a new normal.

There are so many wells up here, it just seems like its probably a matter of time before it happens again, resident Brad Gilmore said recently as he walked his dog in the park. The fact is, itll happen again. Theres too many of them and theyre too old to hold up forever.

The clearest sign that things are returning to the way they were before the leak may be residents complaints about quality-of-life issues.

The gas leak is important, but its not the only problem we have, said David Lasher, citing residential burglaries, illegal street racing, litter and overgrown trees  a problem that one City Hall staffer suggested Lasher should take care of himself.

I dont pay my taxes so my councilman can tell me to become a volunteer tree trimmer, Lasher said.

alice.walton@latimes.com

Twitter: @TheCityMaven

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Hundreds of firefighters continued to battle a wildfire in the Sespe Wilderness north of Ojai on Sunday with no containment in sight.

The Pine fire started Thursday morning about 11 miles north of Ojai. As of Sunday morning, the fire had consumed 1,590 acres and was threatening 50 structures, said Helen Tarbet with the Los Padres National Forest.

The areas very remote and steep and rugged terrain has made it difficult for the more than 350 fire personnel to get a handle on the blaze, Tarbet said. The fire could be partially contained by Sunday night.

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The cause of the fire remains under investigation. Voluntary evacuations are in place for the Camp Scheideck community, Reyes Creek Campground, and the Grade Valley area including Thorne Meadow and Fish Bowls.

See the most-read stories in Local News this hour >>

Meanwhile, in San Bernardino, crews extinguished a fast-moving fire Saturday that destroyed four homes and damaged a fifth, officials said. The fire along West Kendall Drive burned eight to 10 acres before it was 100% contained by mid-afternoon.

Three firefighters sustained minor injuries, and one resident suffered from smoke inhalation. One of those firefighters was hospitalized after rescuing a homeowner.

After five years of historically dry conditions around the state, this fire season has again proven to be very active and destructive, said Mark Ghilarducci, director of the California Office of Emergency Services.

Other wildfires continued to burned Sunday around the state.

The California National Guard deployed four helicopters Sunday to assist in fighting the 2,000-acre Deer Fire in Kern County and the 2,900-acre Curry Fire near Coalinga in Fresno County. The helicopters can transport equipment and personnel, perform water drops and conduct medical evacuations.

This is a call weve been anticipating, so our air crews are geared up and ready to support, said Maj. Gen. David S. Baldwin with the California National Guard.

These latest fires come after deadly fires in Kern and San Diego counties where more than 150 structures were destroyed. The fires were fueled by strong winds, high temperatures and low humidity.

The Los Angeles County area can expect a cool down for Mondays Fourth of July holiday, forecasters said.

Were looking at near normal to slightly below normal temperatures with night and morning low clouds and fog giving to afternoon sunshine with high temperatures near 70 near the coast to around 80 downtown, said meteorologist David Sweet with the National Weather Service.

alice.walton@latimes.com

Twitter: @TheCityMaven

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To understand the dilemma Colorado Republicans wrestled with at a conservative gathering this weekend, one only had to look at the range of speakers, whose positions on Donald Trump ran the gamut from enthusiastic support to vehement opposition.

Trump himself came to Colorado for the Western Conservative Summit, an annual weekend-long confab organized by a local Christian university. As did Hugh Hewitt, the radio personality and one-time Trump skeptic turned reluctant supporter. Yet so did Ben Shapiro, a conservative writer staunchly against Trump.

Perhaps nowhere does Trumps candidacy vex Republicans more visibly than Colorado, which is home base for the latest effort to block his nomination at this months national convention, and where Republicans faced Trumps ire during the primaries for its complex caucus system.

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We call it the Frontier State for a reason. Theres a lot of independently minded thinkers out here, said state GOP Chairman Steve House. We have a lot of unaffiliated voters for a reason. I think that its just that we have delegates who are not convinced hes the right guy.

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Trump tried to make amends, acknowledging the pivotal role this swing state will play in November. We do have to win Colorado, he told a crowd of several thousand Friday. Ill be back a lot.

He also gave a nod to two of the states core conservative constituencies  gun rights advocates and evangelical Christians. But the mentions struck some attendees as discordant.

Hes at a think tank aligned with a conservative Christian college. And then he says, Are there any evangelicals here? Its a weird way to talk about it when youre in [front of] this audience, said Ryan Call, a former chairman of the Colorado Republican party.

That may not be harmful for an unconventional politician like Trump, Call said, who could tap into Colorados independent voters.

He is rewriting the playbook, Call said. He is coming at it from a very different orientation and perspective of what makes up a Trump voter. I will tell you, they dont make up traditional Republican voter in a lot of ways.

But Trump also dwelt on his past squabbles with the states establishment, lamenting the complicated delegate selection process that left him without any loyalists in its delegation to Cleveland. In the spring, Trump loudly denounced the system as corrupt, stoking a pushback against state Republicans that was so fierce that House received death threats.

Trump turned off some summit-goers by bringing up his complaints about the states delegate process again.

Hes here to unify, supposedly, and get us on board with his message. And he comes and drives a dagger in us again, said Kendal Unruh, a Denver-based schoolteacher and longtime conservative activist who said Trumps original tirade against the Colorado caucuses hardened her opposition to him.

She has since become one of the most public faces of the free the delegates movement that seeks to enable convention delegates to vote for whomever theyd like, instead of being bound to the results of their states caucus or primary.

House, the state party chief, said he was not taking a position on the effort, but said he didnt expect it would make a difference even if the delegates were unbound.

I dont think enough delegates will vote against him who are currently pledged to him to matter, he said.

At the gathering, Trump had a contingent of vigorous backers, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who dismissed the movement as Republicans Against Trump  or RAT for short.

Republican Senate candidate Darryl Glenn, looking to unseat incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) in a closely watched race, pledged to stand with Trump and pleaded with attendees to do the same.

But the anti-Trump faction was also prominent at the weekend gathering. Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, one of the Republicans most ardently against Trump, spoke to student groups and at a donor dinner, where, according to attendees, he talked about the importance of virtue and how neither candidate struck him as having strong enough morals to earn his support.

Some of the most vocal Trump holdouts in conservative media, including Erick Erickson and Shapiro, were also given prominent speaking slots.

Conservatism is in danger of slaughtering its principles on the altar of Trump, Shapiro said in scathing remarks that drew a mix of boos and cheers.

Jeff Hunt, the director of the Centennial Institute, the conservative think tank that organized the event, said he heard objections from all sides about the conferences mixed fare.

Why are you inviting Donald Trump? Hes not a conservative. I heard that from the Ben Sasses of the world, Hunt said. And then from the other side I heard, Why are you inviting Ben Sasse and Erick Erickson? Because right now if we want to advance conservatism, we need to stop Hillary Clinton.

Listen, this isnt about one particular election, he added. Were family here. If we cant get together at the Western Conservative Summit, where can we get together?

Outside the gathering, anti-Trump protesters tangled with supporters. Three people were arrested on Friday according to Denver police, two for public fighting and another for interference.

Inside the convention center, many summit-goers expressed a grudging acceptance for their partys likely nominee.

Of the 17 candidates, he was the bottom of the heap for me, said Tim McTavish, who runs an online-giving platform for nonprofits. Nevertheless, he came around to Trump this weekend, swayed by the pragmatic argument of preventing a Democratic president from filling likely Supreme Court vacancies.

Joan Tupper, a retiree from Arvada, said she had initially preferred Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

Im pretty much a Coloradan that way, she said. But she sides with Trump over Clinton for the general election.

Still, she appreciated the debate rippling through the weekend summit; its one happening in her own family.

My twin sister  she does not like Trump at all, said Tupper, 82. Shed vote for Hillary before shed vote for Trump.

melanie.mason@latimes.com

Follow @melmason for the latest on national politics.

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Four years ago I saw President Reagan weep.

He attended a White House ceremony that was his first public appearance after the attempt on his life. He was visibly moved as he listened to the reciting of the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead, and watched the lighting of six candles, each standing for 1 million victims.

As at such functions, the mood was somber, subdued, solemn. The candle-lighting was followed by a short address given by the chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. He spoke of the importance and implications of memory. He recalled the tragedy, or at least parts of it, and the silence surrounding it.

Then the President rose. He had a prepared speech in his hand, but he could not read it; he was too moved, with tears welling up in his eyes. So he improvised.

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It was one of his best improvisations.

He attacked those who denied that the Holocaust ever occurred; he spoke of the concentration-camp pictures that he had seen as an Army officer while the war was still on; he stressed his resolve to oppose oppression anywhere, in any form, for whatever purpose.

In short, it was a superb address in favor of human rights.

When asked for comments, White House aides later said that the President was carried away by emotion; he didnt mean what he said. However, about two weeks later President Reagan called me to thank me for the ceremony. He was kind, compassionate, generous. Before hanging up, he remarked, By the way, I meant every word I said.

I believe him.

I believe that he is a good, warm, sensitive person. I believe that the tragedy of the Jewish people pained him. I believe that the memory of the Holocaust is important to him.

But then how is one to understand the recent incident with regard to his visit to West Germany?

Why did he change his mind and decide not to go to Dachau? Could not he speak about reconciliation there ? Is there a better place to denounce war and its ugliness, to repudiate hate and its consequences?

Reconciliation is an ideal that is possible only if it is based on memory rather than distorting it. The President knows that, for the President is committed to memory. He has proved it more than once by his support of Holocaust Memorial Council projects. In fact, he is the honorary chairman of the Councils Campaign to Remember. Why then did he decide to prefer honoring enemy soldiers over their victims? Is it politics, only politics? A desire not to hurt Germany or German sensitivities? What about survivor sensitivities?

Whatever the answer, I am afraid that it is the wrong answer.

The plan as proposed to the President, including a visit to a cemetery with SS graves, is unacceptable--unacceptable not only to Jews but also to all the thousands of American families whose sons and daughters fought against SS battalions in the Battle of the Bulge. How can they, how can we, forget that SS units butchered American war prisoners in Malmedy? The SS was declared by the Nuremberg tribunal as a criminal organization, and therefore to visit a cemetery where there are SS graves is wrong, period.

It is wrong also for the President. His image and his place in history are at stake. He is a moral person with a sense of history. And therefore it is also for his sake that we plead with him to do anything and everything not to go to that cemetery in Bitburg.

Elie Wiesel, chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, is a survivor of the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. An author and human-rights activist, he is Andrew W. Mellon professor in the humanities at Boston University.

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To the editor: The author states that the effort to find similarities between Israels brand of apartheid and that of South Africas is different because there are too many people in the world who admire Israel as if this specious assertion absolves the state of Israel of any responsibility for its brutal military occupation of the Palestinians for the last six decades. (Re An immoral boycott, Opinion, June 29)

Do those who may admire the achievements of Israel understand that Palestinians were forced from their homes and land during the creation of Israel and now live in shelters in surrounding countries?

Not to allow the indigenous people to return to their homes is the moral issue facing the Jewish state and its standing in community of nations.

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To demand that a state retain its Jewish majority at the expense of the native people is a supreme act of hubris and arrogance that lacks the essential components of both ethics and morality.

Joseph Tillotson, Redondo Beach

::

To the editor: Israel itself is the immoral threat to peace.

It was imposed upon the existing inhabitants without their consent and with the intention of expelling them and stealing their land and their nation.

For what? To create a nation of immigrants defined by racial/religious/ethnic characteristics that exclude the existing population.

When we recognize that Israel is a pariah state, BDS will be national and international policy.

Paul Larudee, El Cerrito

::

To the editor: Kudos to Yossi Klein Halevi for the succinct article explaining how the international, anti-Israel boycott divestment and sanctions movement, or the BDS, is at once immoral and a threat to peace.

It is indeed painful and puzzling to recognize the fact that even after the Holocaust there are still segments in the international community who seem to resent a Jewish presence in the world as well as the existence of Israel.

BDS is immoral because it denies the anti-Jewish hate education on which generations of Arab children have been raised and it spreads its hateful philosophy even in American universities.

Rhya Turovsky, Pasadena

::

To the editor: If the majority of Israelis favor two states, as Halevi notes, why does Israel continue to build settlements on the West Bank, the future Palestinian state?

It is unfair to blame the Palestinians for the decades-old conflict. Both sides have rejected peace proposals for various reasons.

It is past time for Israel and the Palestinians to end the impasse and establish two states, or a bi-national democratic state.

In the meantime, a peaceful boycott may persuade Israel, the stronger party, to stop building settlements and initiate peace talks.

Ruth Shapin, Orange

::

To the editor: Heres a question for BDS: Why does the State of Israel not appear on Palestinian maps of the Middle East?

The answer is obvious: When Palestinians talk about the occupation, theyre not just talking about the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Theyre talking about Israel itself.

So who are the real bad guys in this never-ending conflict? The evidence speaks for itself.

Bruce Friedman, Los Angeles

::

To the editor: Halevi may be correct that the underlying BDS goal is to destroy Israel. But Halevi is wrong to use that as an excuse for Israel not to end the occupation and accept a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Halevi says BDS supporters who want two-states are being duped. Maybe, but he refuses to understand that best way to destroy the BDS movement is for Israel to end the occupation, and let the BDS movement collapse when it loses the majority of its supporters whose goal is ending the occupation. Halevi does not seem to recognize that Israels constant expansion of settlements is the underlying strength of the BDS movement.

Rather than stop stealing Palestinian land by ending settlement expansion, Halevi prefers Israel to consolidate its hold on all the land.

The way forward to peace is for the U.S. to end its unflinching support of Israel that enables Israels refusal to make peace with Palestinians.

Jeff Warner, Los Angeles

::

To the editor: Divestment and boycotting Israeli goods is the least violent way to say NO to the State of Israel and its growing injustice against a people almost powerless in their fight for a homeland.

I am a Jewish American who once supported and loved Israel.

I am supporting the BDS movement not because I am an Israel hater but because of Israels vicious and often stupid actions. It has destroyed the moral fiber of a country I once saw as a beacon and haven for my people.

As long as we keep feeding Israel the billions of dollars that go to them every year, we are working against any peaceful solution.

Judith Markoff Hansen, Los Angeles

::

To the editor: I disagree that the anti-Israel boycott movement is a threat to peace. On the contrary, it is a non- violent form of resistance to decades of Israeli occupation, theft of Palestinian land, and monopolization of water.

As a non-Zionist Jew, I support equal rights for all in Israel, Palestine and the right of Palestinians to return to their homeland.

To deny them the right of return is analogous to barring Native Americans from their sacred land, something we would never expect the indigenous inhabitants here to accept because it would be tantamount to saying they had no right to exist in their homeland.

Marcy Winograd, Santa Monica

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
GOP Sen. Cotton says Trump can make the case for himself

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), sometimes mentioned as a possible running mate for Donald Trump, shied away Sunday from making a vigorous case for Trumps candidacy aside from sharply criticizing Hillary Clinton.

As Trump prepares to make his pick as early as next week, Cotton passed on several chances to praise the billionaire candidate in an interview, even when Meet the Press host Chuck Todd explicitly asked him to make the case for Trumps election.

Donald Trump can ultimately make the case for himself, said Cotton, before making his only affirmative statement about Trumps qualifications: Donald Trump, like most Americans, like most Republicans, believes in protecting Americas core national interests.

Todd noted that Cotton didnt seem like an enthusiastic Trump supporter.

Maybe I dont just demonstrate enthusiasm much in life, Chuck, especially in such dangerous times as these, said Cotton, who spent much of the interview talking about national security threats.

But its also a risky time for Republicans in elective office, forced to choose between embracing their partys volatile presumptive presidential nominee and distancing themselves from him. The safest route for many is to sidestep direct questions about Trump and turn the conversation to their critiques of Clinton.

Cotton argued that Clinton is disqualified to serve as commander-in-chief because of her cavalier attitude about transparency in government.

He also blamed her for difficulties in President Obamas administration, in which she served as secretary of State, including the rocky relationship with Russia and the instability in Iraq and Libya.

Fine, said Todd, but you just gave the case against Clinton. Whats the case for Trump?

Well, Chuck, the case against Hillary Clintons judgment in foreign policy is very strong, said Cotton, who was a prominent opponent of the nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers, including the U.S.

Asked about Trumps foreign policy, Cottons answer suggested he has another job in mind besides vice president.

Im a senator, Cotton said. We play an important role. And Im going to continue to play that role whoever is president.
The day after California voters helped patch the states recession-battered budget by approving Proposition 30s temporary tax hikes in 2012, Gov. Jerry Brown promised to treat the money as a short-term stopgap.

It will be my goal to make sure the state is in such fiscal health that we can keep gliding into the future without having to go back to the well for more taxes, he told reporters at the time.

Four years later, making good on both of those commitments  keeping the taxes temporary and keeping red ink out of Californias budget  has presented a predicament for Brown.

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A coalition of unions and other advocacy groups is pushing a new initiative, which will be on the November ballot as Proposition 55, that would keep some of Proposition 30s taxes instead of letting them expire as Brown pledged.

Proposition 30 raised the sales tax by a quarter-cent through 2016, and it increased levies on individuals making at least $250,000 annually until the end of 2018. The new marginal tax rates start at 1% and reach 3% on income of more than $500,000. Proposition 55 would let the sales tax hike lapse but keep the higher income tax rates until 2030.

Without the increased revenue, the state could face a $4.3-billion deficit in the coming years, according to Brown administration estimates. The gap would be even larger if Californias economy slows down or is struck by another recession.

Rather than gliding into the future, Brown would be forced to slash spending shortly before finishing his final term.

The scenario is not pretty and education funding could face billions of dollars in cuts, said Jennifer Wonnacott, a spokeswoman for this years tax campaign.

Schools are just beginning to recover from the cuts that were made during the recession, she said. But theres still a long way to go.

The money from Proposition 55, which nonpartisan legislative analysts estimate would range from $4 billion to $9 billion annually, would go to local schools, community colleges and public healthcare.

Brown has not endorsed the initiative, but neither has he opposed it. Once it became clear that the tax campaign was moving forward earlier this year, Brown insisted that supporters tweak the proposal and ensure that some of the money raised would be deposited into the states newly strengthened rainy-day fund. The original version had exempted the revenue from that requirement, which Brown called a fatal flaw.

Brown has insisted that the state can manage any deficit that could occur, whether or not voters pass Proposition 55.

I am prepared to manage without it, he said in May. I am prepared to manage with it.

Critics feel Brown is trying to have it both ways  keep the budget balanced but avoid backtracking on his promise that the taxes would be temporary.

Theres a wink involved, said Joel Fox, a conservative political consultant who campaigned against Proposition 30 four years ago.

The tax extension is being pushed by some of the states most powerful organizations, including the California Teachers Assn., the California Medical Assn., the Democratic Party and the Service Employees International Union.

Also on board are top Democrats, including Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and Treasurer John Chiang, who are jockeying to succeed Brown in the governors office. Legislative leaders in the Capitol endorsed the initiative too.

Its something we need in order to continue to make sure that our fiscal shape continues to be healthy, said Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount). I think we need it in order to preserve programs I think are important at the current funding levels.

Brown pushed for Proposition 30 in 2012 after promising voters he wouldnt raise taxes without asking for their permission. At the time, the state was facing a multibillion-dollar budget deficit and Brown was slicing money from government programs for the poor to make ends meet. Without the taxes, he said, there could be billions of dollars more in cuts to schools.

In the years since Proposition 30 passed, the states economy has rebounded, contradicting opponents warnings that higher taxes would choke growth. Brown has also restored spending that was cut during the recession, although not as much as his fellow Democrats in the Legislature would like. Theyve urged him to loosen the purse strings even more when it comes to child care, public healthcare and other programs.

Brown has refused, warning about the possibility of another recession and insisting on bigger deposits into the state rainy-day fund.

The surging tide of revenue is beginning to turn, he said in May.

California is particularly vulnerable to economic downturns because it relies heavily on taxing the wealthy, whose incomes rise and fall with an unpredictable stock market. Roughly half of the states income tax revenue came from 1% of taxpayers in recent years, according to state statistics. State Sen. John Moorlach (R-Costa Mesa) joked during a Wednesday hearing that lawmakers should send Californias wealthiest residents a fruit basket to thank them for not moving to more lightly taxed states.

Its an issue Brown and the Democrats who control the Legislature have not addressed. Betty Yee, the state controller in charge of managing Sacramentos cash flow, has called for changes to stabilize Californias finances, but shes also endorsed extending the Proposition 30 income taxes.

The revenues generated by this temporary tax on higher incomes will be needed to pay Californias bills with minimal reliance on external borrowing, Yee said in a statement. However, this is not a permanent fix, but rather another sign that we must immediately get to work on comprehensive tax reform in this state.

It appears that Californians are inclined to agree. In a poll released in April by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, 62% of likely voters said they supported extending the taxes.

Its unclear how much opposition there will be.

I dont see much money for the campaign, Fox said. There will be people on radio talk shows, maybe some mail.

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., a reliable opponent of tax measures, said it would oppose the extension. The National Federation of Independent Business, which represents small business owners, has spoken out against it as well.

If voters agree to extend the taxes, what happens when they come close to expiring a second time? Wonnacott didnt make any promises.

Any decision to whether to pursue another extension or not would be made in the future, she said.

For his part, Brown isnt telling voters how they should treat Proposition 55.

Im leaving that to the people of California, he said.

chris.megerian@latimes.com

Twitter: @chrismegerian

ALSO:

Tax proposals by unions, activists may loosen Browns grip on budget

California officials eyeing stock market plunge, hope it wont last

Updates on California politics

Updates from the campaign trail
Is Trump trending downward?

Donald Trump is another Bernie  Bernie Madoff, that is. Just like Madoff, Trump is a con man, a downright crook (think Trump University), but hes even more than Madoff. Trump is an egotistical madman who cannot stand up to scrutiny. And that is what will be his downfall.

I believe that Trump is on the verge of imploding after Hillary Clinton threw back in his face all his crazy rants and ravings hes been spouting the last few months. Twenty-four hours passed after Clintons gotcha and the Donald had really nothing to hit back with on Twitter except to lamely protest that she isnt presidential.

It wouldnt even surprise me if the man has a complete meltdown and suffers a nervous breakdown.

Molly Shore

Burbank

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Aim for better gun laws

There have been recent opinion pieces by Ray Richmond and Rep. Adam Schiff about gun control after the Orlando massacre by shooter Omar Mateen.

The gentlemens ideas about denying gun purchases to people on the TSA No-Fly List make for great headlines and seem to make sense, but they are anathema to those with an understanding of our Constitution.

We need to start legislating where it will help. There is real change that can be done. In California, you cant buy a gun at a gun show without going through a background check, but you can in some other states. This should be changed. Congress also needs to provide funding so that the criminal database used to conduct background checks is complete.

Everyone (including the NRA) has a vested interest in criminals and the mentally ill not acquiring guns. It is simply good policy to have common-sense laws that protect the rights of law-abiding citizens to have a firearm if they so choose, and keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill.

Robert Carlborg

Burbank

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Other things need control

Rep. Adam Schiff offers a simplistic solution to gun violence in his op-ed Congress must stand up to the NRA. In his op-ed he barely mentions mental illness but heaps blame on the NRA. The common thread in most of the recent mass shootings is the shooter was mentally ill. In most cases a young person committing suicide is mentally disturbed and in several mass shootings the killers commit suicide.

Now were seeing a new threat, homegrown terrorists committing mass murder in the U.S. An article in the L.A. Times of Sunday, June 26, Diary of terror, tells about the month of April worldwide including, 180 incidents, 1,385 injuries and 858 killed. Bombs  worn in vests, planted by roads, concealed in cars and motorcycles  were the weapons of choice, though some victims died by the gun, the knife or the machete.

More gun control laws will not make us safer. We need more control of dangerous mental patients and terrorists.

Tim Elliott

Burbank

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In defense of In Theory

I have been a resident of Burbank for 51 years. I enjoy reading the Burbank Leader and in particular the In Theory column. For some time it was not printed, and I sent an email to that effect and it was restored. At this moment it seems to appear off and on. Some weeks only the question is posed and the reader has to go to the Leaders website and try to find the responses. Well, that is fine for those who have computers, but useless to those who do not.

Many residents enjoy reading the In Theory article. It gives them the opportunity to measure the traditional-values pulse of our community. I would therefore ask that it be in the Burbank Leader on a consistent basis. If for some reason it cant fit due to a space problem, then drop some other worthless article, but not In Theory.

John Janssen

Burbank

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Survey betrays union stance

As a former police commissioner in Burbank and a retired LAPD commander, it distresses me to see the attack by the Burbank police union on the upper staff of the department. Lets cut through all of the phony issues stated by the union and get to the crux of their complaints: For the first time they are not in a position of trying to manage the department.

Their opposition to predictive policing is contrary to the direction taken by every major professional department. Their wish to go back to undirected policing would lead to an upswing in crime. Their opposition to the promotion process comes from the fact that in the past promotions were given by seniority, not qualification, with the union having great sway on the process. Their opposition to fair, objective investigations of accusations of police misconduct is contrary to their expressed desire to serve the community.

The current chief and his staff are on the right track in leading the department in a cultural change that would hire a more diversified force, shift the department into a professional model and reduce crime and increase safety for the community. The police union has opposed the new chief since the first day of his hiring and this phony survey is nothing more than an attempt to force his removal. They would be better served by cooperating with the chief in his quest to make Burbank Police a better department. If they cant do that, it might be better for them to resign so that more professional officers can take their place.

Joseph Gunn

Burbank

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Fourth loses its origin story

I took it upon myself to walk around the Burbank mall and talk to folks about the real meaning of the Fourth of July. Bottom line, if they cannot drive it or drink it, or wear it or smoke it, it has no real meaning! For most, it is a three- or four-day holiday from work and a chance to party. If they have to work, they want overtime. One interesting gentleman gave me a full lecture. It is the wrong day, he claimed. It should be July 2 that we celebrate, not July 4. July 4 was the first day they could get all the parties together to sign off on what they had agreed to on July 2.

I was depleted when I decided to end my personal survey  depleted and sad! The Fourth of July means very little to most: BBQ steaks and good wine and beer and time off from work. I might add, the younger the people I spoke to, the less they knew about the real meaning of this date. How utterly tragic, and to look deeper, it is obvious that it is not going to get any better the older the country gets. If we care so less after just 240 years, imagine what it will be like when we hit 300 years. If you really want to know what is wrong with America, it is us, we the people. We have met the enemy and it is us!

Joseph Di Sante

Burbank
If funding can be considered a primary catalyst to providing hope for cancer patients, then the recent Lets Be Frank About Cancer gala benefiting City of Hope was a resounding success.

More than $2.65 million was raised at City of Hopes second annual Orange County event, held Feb. 20 at the Balboa Bay Resort in Newport Beach. It is reported to be the highest grossing charitable effort ever recorded in the county.

The high numbers are the result of the unbridled generosity of honored guest Sebastian Paul Musco of Newport Beach joining with his friend and fellow platinum sponsor for City of Hope, Milan Panic, former prime minister of Yugoslavia.

Both men came together to rally around event chair Frank DiBella, a cancer survivor and major City of Hope booster. DiBella has widely credited City of Hope  and in particular Dr. Sumanta Pal  with saving his life when many other medical voices proclaimed a death sentence upon him. Pal is the assistant clinical professor of the hospitals department of medical oncology and therapeutics research. He is also the co-director of its kidney cancer program.

For the past two gala events held at the Balboa Bay Resort, Pal has been a focus of attention and his words have inspired the crowd to give  and give mightily.

More than 400 donors in the black-tie affair gathered to support Pal and to honor DiBella, Musco and Panic.

The triumvirate of old-world gents style put on a Vegas-themed night created around the swingin 60s, with a nod to the late icon of American crooners, Frank Sinatra.

VIPs attending included Muscos elegant wife and partner, Marybelle Musco. The philanthropic duo is readying for another big night in the O.C. this coming March 19 to open the Musco Center for the Arts at Chapman University. The gala is set to be fronted by Placido Domingo.

City of Hope Provost and Chief Financial Officer Dr. Steven Rosen, who is also director of its Beckman Research Institute and Comprehensive Cancer Center, was front and center with Dr. Michael Friedman, emeritus cancer center director.

Also supporting City of Hope in a serious way were Mary Jo and Teri Hausman, both representing the Hausman Family Foundation; Wayne and Sherry Smith; John Postma and Kristilyn Goff; and Newport barrister Art Kazarian.

Additional major donors spotted in the black-tie crowd sharing dinner of filet and lobster  created by executive chef Rachel Haggstrom  included Bret Hardin, Michael and JoAnn Sweig, Claudette Kraus, James Meyer and Jody Harvey. Television personality Jann Carl served as mistress of ceremonies.

The centerpiece of the night was the rousing yet emotional honors presented to platinum sponsors Musco and Panic, along with accolades bestowed on event chair DiBella.

Musco, founder of Santa Ana-based Gemini Industries, along with his wife Marybelle have become leaders in Orange County philanthropic circles, very much in a class above and beyond. In addition to providing major funding for the Musco Center for the Arts, the Muscos have created the Marybelle Musco Dance Center at the Orange County School of the Arts in Santa Ana. This in addition to support for countless O.C. efforts in the realm of culture, education, science and civic pursuits.

Panic, now president of MP Biomedicals, a worldwide firm in the pharmaceutical industry, has also used his considerable clout to make a difference for people fighting cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Among them, Panic joined his friend DiBella in supporting research to assist victims of muscular dystrophy.

In a touching moment during the honors, a 16-year-old named Abbey Umali, whos fighting muscular dystrophy, came onstage to sing a song especially for DiBella, Musco and Panic. The young woman shares history with her benefactors, with a friendship developed over years of supporting research for a cure and interacting with the young girl sharing her story with the public.

I am so happy that after so many years of you supporting my cause, I can now support yours, Umali told the audience that had come to support cancer research at City of Hope.

After Umali sang I Wont Let Go by Rascal Flatts, it earned a standing ovation and was followed by Musco and DiBella announcing they will offer a four-year scholarship to Umali to attend Chapman.

Panic jumped in and offered to pay for any additional education Umali wished to pursue. The crowd went wild.

Following the completion of dinner, auction and fundraising, guests danced the night away to the music of Pete Jacobs Big Band and the special performance by entertainer Matt Mauser.

Founded in 1913, City of Hope is ranked as one of Americas best hospitals in cancer treatment by U.S. News & World Report. To learn more, visit www.cityofhope.org.

--

B.W. COOK is editor of the Bay Window, the official publication of the Balboa Bay Club in Newport Beach.
A permit to allow Starbucks to sell beer and wine at its Montrose location was revoked by the Planning Commission Wednesday with its decision being primarily based on the large number of minors who frequent the coffee shop.

Commissioners voted 4-0 to reverse the approval made by the Planning Hearing Officer in December to let the coffee giant serve alcohol, but only if it satisfied 32 conditions.

Starbucks representatives at the meeting on Wednesday requested dropping some of those conditions, such as requiring customers to first buy food if they want to have a glass of beer or wine.

The coffee chain operates whats called the Starbucks Evenings program at 52 locations in California and 238 throughout the country, where patrons can buy a glass of beer or wine  not hard alcohol  typically beginning in the late afternoon or evening hours.

Despite the approval of a conditional-use permit in December, Starbucks had yet to start serving beer and wine at the Montrose storefront.

Also at the meeting was Kim Mattersteig, who, along with a group of neighbors, filed the appeal, in which they said they felt the Starbucks at Honolulu Avenue and Ocean View Boulevard was a bad fit for serving alcohol.

Starbucks is categorized as a fast-food restaurant, one Mattersteig said is too small compared to a sit-down restaurant that serves alcohol. The Starbucks in question is also a popular spot for children and teens after school, Mattersteig said.

And for a youth to be able to acquire a little shared drink is quite doable, she said. I dont see how you could keep an eye on somebody 100% of the time.

However, Keith Glassman, a consultant hired by Starbucks to apply for the conditional permit to sell beer and wine, said the baristas would be trained on how to serve. Beer and wine would be poured into transparent containers and handed directly to customers, unlike a coffee-drink order that would be left atop a counter to be picked up.

Mattersteig also said theres already an oversaturation of businesses selling alcohol in Montrose and more could be on the way with the recent closings of some restaurants.

Whats happening tonight is a sense of fear ... A year from now, I can guarantee all of your fears are going to be nothing.  Keith Glassman, Starbucks consultant

There are currently 31 establishments that serve alcohol in the Montrose Shopping Park, according to the states Department of Alcohol Beverage Control.

Commissioner Greg Astorian agreed that several minors visit the Montrose Starbucks, which was his main issue with adding beer and wine to the menu.

Its the nature of the business that, in [the appellants] opinion, does not mesh with serving beer and wine because it attracts a lot of younger kids, and I tend to believe that, he said.

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The lack of parking at the Montrose Starbucks was another issue, said Commissioner Stephanie Landregan.

The coffee shop was given the OK from the city to operate initially without providing additional spots given its intended use.

The parking needs for a drinking establishment, whether its just beer and wine, is vastly different than the parking requirements for a take-away coffee or breakfast place, Landregan said.

Landregan said the success of the Montrose location would make it difficult to monitor serving beer and wine. Allowing a fast-food restaurant to sell alcohol versus a sit-down restaurant would be pushing the envelope, she added.

Glassman argued that there have been no issues regarding the Starbucks Evenings program at the 52 existing stores where it operates and its not the coffee chains desire to be a bar.

The point of the program is to have a few added menu items for adults in the evening hours, he said.

Whats happening tonight is a sense of fear, Glassman said. A year from now, I can guarantee all of your fears are going to be nothing.

A list of findings to revoke the conditional-use permit based on what commissioners and residents said will be brought back for final approval at the next commission meeting.

Starbucks can appeal the revocation, which would be heard by the City Council.

--

Arin Mikailian, arin.mikailian@latimes.com

Twitter: @ArinMikailian

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A few weeks ago, the Los Angeles Times reported: Edric Dashell Gross, whom police said is a transient known to frequent Santa Monica, was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder.

And with that, we have another entry for our Dont Use Whom Unless You Know What Youre Doing file. This sentence contains a very common error that serves as a good cautionary example. The whom in The Times story is wrong. It should be who.

But wait, youre thinking, its the object of police said. And because whom is an object, the sentence is correct.

Nope. In The Times sentence, the object of said isnt a single word. Its a whole clause. And clauses need subjects.

MORE: Read past columns on all things grammar from June Casagrande >>

Look at two simplified twists on the sentence: Police said him is a transient and Police said he is a transient.

Whats the object of the verb said? If its a single word, the object pronoun him would be correct: Police said him is a transient. But clearly, the thing that police said was a complete clause, with the subject he performing the action in the verb is: Police said he is a transient.

Who and whom work the same way as he and him.

He and who are subjects. They perform the action in a verb. He runs fast. Who runs fast?

Whom and him are objects. They receive the action of a verb: Joe hired him. Joe hired whom? They also serve as objects of prepositions. In Joe, we have a true leader. In whom do we have a true leader?

But none of that matters when the object is a whole clause, as is illustrated so clearly in the incorrect Police said him is a transient.

Another problem I noticed in media reporting this week isnt about grammar at all. Its about sourcing  a topic quite clear to every student who ever passed Journalism 101. Or so youd think.

Heres a sentence I noticed in a story on CNN.com about the recent heat wave.

Its the hottest start to summer ever in three states  California, New Mexico and Arizona  according to CNN meteorologist Pedram Javaheri.

This sentence contains a problem that, by itself, isnt a concern for most readers. But its part of an alarming trend in news reporting: Journalists not understanding the basics of news reporting.

Specifically, Im referring to the phrase that begins with according to.

This method of attributing information is perfectly appropriate in some cases. The bill will be introduced on Thursday, according to Sen. Jones, author of the legislation. But in other cases, its not appropriate: The bill was introduced on Thursday, according to Sen. Jones.

Whats the difference? In the first example, the information cannot be independently verified by the reporter. He has no choice but to pass off responsibility onto someone else: the person who knows better than anyone else whether this event will really happen.

But the news reported in the second sentence, because its in the past, is now verifiable by the reporter. He has no excuse for placing responsibility for its accuracy on another person. Its his job to confirm that it happened then report the event in his own words, with his own reporting as the official source.

I see this confusion a lot in the advertiser-sponsored feature articles I edit. I once had to explain why its not appropriate to write Pearl Harbor was attacked on Dec. 7, 1941, according to Wikipedia.

I wasnt explaining this to the writer. I was explaining it to an editor whod already approved the article.

As the lines between journalism, amateur writing and advertiser-sponsored content continue to blur, it might be good to keep this in mind: When a reporter doesnt know which information to attribute to a third-party and which to back up with his own byline, its a red flag that you may not be reading real journalism at all.

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JUNE CASAGRANDE is the author of The Best Punctuation Book, Period. She can be reached at JuneTCN@aol.com.
Sixteen classified employee positions at La Canada Unified School District have been eliminated for the upcoming school year, after school board members adopted a resolution Tuesday confirming the layoffs due to a lack of work.

Assistant Supt. of Human Resources Jeff Davis explained that each year in June, the district conducts a position-control review to make sure the number of employees staffed match the needs at each school site.

The special-education program is one area in which staffing needs are regularly reviewed for changes, Davis said, explaining the district often hires paraprofessional II employees to work with students in that program. For the past two years, the need for such employees had been on the rise, leading to the hiring of additional staff.

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Unfortunately, this year, we have the opposite situation, Davis said, adding that LCUSD projections show an overage of 59.50 hours per day, the equivalent of 16 positions.

This years figures indicate approximately 13 students have either left school, graduated or no longer need paraprofessional support.

According to the Classified School Employee Assn. contract, such an overage amounts to a lack of work, which is a justifiable reason for implementing layoffs. District officials spoke with CSEA labor relations representatives about the reductions.

They completely understand that we have to do this, Davis said.

All affected employees have been contacted and are being scheduled for individual meetings with officials who will explain the process and next steps. Those laid off will be placed on the districts rehire list and will be automatically rehired if new positions open up in the next 39 months.

We do believe through resignations, terminations, transfers and new students moving in  most, if not all of these employees are likely to be hired back. Theres a lot of ebb and flow that happens over the summer, Davis explained.

The governing board voted 3-0 (Dan Jeffries and Brent Kuszyk were absent) to approve the resolution.

Groundwork laid for new facilities master plan

In other news, school board members voted unanimously on Tuesday to approve a $124,500 contract with San Antonio-based architectural firm LPA, Inc. to prepare a new districtwide Facilities Master Plan that will guide facilities modernization and improvements in future decades.

The document, created with the input of the school and broader La Canada community, is an important precursor to LCUSDs placing a general obligation bond measure before voters in the near future. In a February school board meeting, Supt. Wendy Sinnette suggested officials consider pursuing an election in November 2017.

Jim Kisel and Lindsay Hayward, representatives with LPA, shared their companys background and gave a rough timeline for how the work would be completed. Once board members signed off on an agreement, the contractors would spend the summer months touring school sites to get a lay of the land and then spend the first semester of the new school year seeking input from district stakeholders and members of a Facilities Master Plan Committee.

Chief Business and Operations Officer Mark Evans explained LPA, which specializes in working with school districts and has completed about 50 master plans in California, would likely be able to complete a draft of a master plan by March to present to the board in April, in keeping with the districts own bond-planning timeline.

Hayward said she was excited to work with LCUSD and ensured seeking input from all stakeholders as to the districts unique needs was chief among the firms priorities. Sinnette said the district researched a variety of firms and found LPA to be a solid choice.

We were looking for someone that would really help us garner stakeholder enthusiasm and dialogue, she said. We felt an innate enthusiasm (from LPA) that was a good match for our district.

Board members voted 3-0 to approve a contract with the firm.

Board aims to edit textbook adoption policy

Also on Tuesday, the governing board discussed possible changes to board policies regarding the selection and evaluation of instructional materials and supplementary instructional materials. The discussion follows a recent flap led by parents over LCUSDs selection of the Common Core math curriculum Everyday Mathematics for grades K-5.

Anais Wenn, assistant superintendent of Educational Services, explained that the new policy included language explaining how parents might be included, on an advisory basis only, in a selection committees consideration of new texts and materials. Guidelines for how materials could be reviewed by members of the public were also included in the draft of the new regulations.

LCUSD parent Belinda Randolph asked Wenn for a version of the changes that explicitly showed what had been changed. Wenn said she would prepare that information for the districts July 19 meeting, when the item will come back for a second reading and possible adoption.

--

Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com

Twitter: @SaraCardine
A flash flood struck a hamlet in a rugged area of northern Pakistan, killing at least 29 people, leaving 43 others missing and feared dead, officials said Sunday.

Among the missing were eight soldiers billeted along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and at least 10 people who were praying in a mosque that was swept away by the floodwaters.

The flooding was caused by cloudbursts that hit the village of Ursoon in the mountainous Chitral District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near the Afghan border late Saturday night. Recovery efforts were complicated because many of the bodies were believed to have been carried across the border into Afghanistan.

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About 30 people were reported injured.

People gather around damaged houses in the Pakistani village of Ursoon on Sunday. (Gul Hamaad Farooqi / AFP/Getty Images )

Commanders of the Pakistani army were in contact with their Afghan counterparts to bring bodies back to Chitral, said one senior official. Rescue teams of the army, civil administration and private relief groups have started search and rescue operations in the border area, looking for both survivors and bodies, according to provincial Disaster Management Authority spokesman Latifur Rehman.

Residents said that flooding washed away 37 houses and damaged another 48. The militarys public relations office said food, tents and medical aid was being provided to those who were in need.

A spokesman for the provincial government, Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani, said bad weather was hampering relief operations.

Ali is a special correspondent

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The sari shops, halal confectioneries and Sikh temples along Soho Road in Birmingham, Britains second-largest city, wouldnt seem like fertile ground for anti-immigrant sentiment.

But residents of this famously multiethnic enclave echo many of the concerns expressed by white voters over the pressures created by recent immigration from Europe.

This country before was very good, said Mahmood Kafil, 42, a British citizen who immigrated 12 years ago from Sylhet, in northeastern Bangladesh. The people who are coming now are very different. They dont know how to live in Britain.

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The discomfort among Birminghams more established immigrant communities  mainly from South Asia  with an influx of Central and Eastern Europeans was a surprising factor in the June 23 referendum in Britain and helped tilt the vote in this city toward leaving the European Union.

Birmingham, a former industrial center of slightly more than 1 million people, favored leaving the EU by a margin of less than 4,000 votes. The vote nationwide was 52% to 48% in favor of exiting the bloc, which was formed after World War II to promote regional peace and economic cooperation.

Before the referendum, some analysts believed that Britains ethnically diverse cities would not be sympathetic to the rhetoric of the Leave campaign, which blamed European immigrants for straining public services and warned that Middle Eastern refugees landing on European shores could make their way to Britain.

Yet working-class immigrant communities  many of which pride themselves on having integrated into British society  were more divided over EU membership than many in the Remain camp had predicted. The battle played out in places such as Soho Road, a mile-long stretch of shops in west Birmingham that has been a destination for minority communities since the end of World War II.

1 / 11 In Birmingham, England, which voted to leave the European Union, Mahmood Kafil, 42, left, who emigrated 12 years ago from Bangladesh, said, This country before was very good. The people coming now are very different. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 11 Joga Singh, 75, left, and Steven Singh Jagpal, 39, worship at Sikh Gurdwara on Soho Road in Birmingham, England. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 11 Clothing shop owner Rajesh Gupta, 44, says the drop in the British pound has hurt profits. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 11 Students leave school in Birmingham, England. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 11 Tejinder Singh, 59, works as a taxi driver in Birmingham, England. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 11 In the multiethnic city of Birmingham, the majority voted to leave the EU. Immigration was the key issue. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 11 Pavitar Singh Doah, 60, center, voted to leave the EU. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 11 Postal worker M.G. Gala walks past two Romanian women who were begging behind a supermarket in Birmingham, England. It was never like this before, Gala said. I dont think Britain is getting many qualified migrants. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 11 Soho Road in Birmingham reflects the citys multiethnic status. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 11 Tamana Akther, 17, center, works at a dress shop on Soho Road. She has no problem with Britain leaving the EU. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 11 People make their way on Soho Road in Birmingham, England. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Standing outside an Indian-run jewelry store with silver baubles arrayed in the window, Kafil, who voted Leave, recounted how his grandfather was the first member of his family to move to Birmingham in 1964. When Kafil arrived here, he struggled to master English while working at an Indian restaurant, eventually becoming the chef.

We have lived here a long time, and we learned the British culture, Kafil said.

In his grandfathers time, South Asian immigrants often were taunted with, Go home, Paki! Kafil was only slightly less derisive when he described the families from Romania, Bulgaria and other Eastern European countries that have moved into his apartment building in the last five years.

They dont know the law, Kafil said, his wife nodding in agreement. They are shouting at all hours. They park their cars all over the place. They are drinking and smoking. They beg on the streets and pick things out of the dustbins. It is a shame for Britain.

M.G. Gala, a postal worker who lived off Soho Road a quarter of a century ago after emigrating from New Delhi, voted Remain to make it easier for his children to travel and work in mainland Europe.

But Gala, 51, also acknowledged the arguments of Leave voters who said the area had taken a turn for the worse. As he left his car in a parking lot, he motioned toward two Romanian women sitting on the sidewalk next to bags of recyclables, surreptitiously begging for change.

It was never like this before, Gala said. I dont think Britain is getting many qualified migrants.

Mirroring nationwide trends, results in Birmingham showed that more ethnically diverse areas tended to support remaining in the EU. But Birmingham is a solidly blue-collar city, where immigrant communities have been equally vulnerable to the stagnating wages and living standards that drove many disillusioned voters to reject the status quo.

Undoubtedly, arguments that have purchase in white working-class communities also have purchase in migrant communities, and those are the pressures on housing and schools and the social problems that everyone faces, said Jon Bloomfield, a research fellow at Birmingham University who specializes in European policy.

There are lots of ethnic communities that are at the lower end of the labor market, and its fair to say the vote for Remain wasnt as solid in those areas as you might have expected.

M.G. Gala walks past two Romanian women who were begging for change. It was never like this before, Gala said. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times )

Nearly half of Birminghams residents are ethnic minorities, a share that has grown steadily since the first waves of British Commonwealth citizens from India, Pakistan and the West Indies migrated to the city after World War II. They were followed in the 1990s by Africans and Arabs fleeing conflict and persecution, turning areas such as Soho Road into vibrant mash-ups of ethnic and religious diversity.

Yet the communities have not always coexisted harmoniously. Friction between Muslims and Sikhs, as well as other communities, has sometimes resulted in violence.

Some Sikh voters said they were swayed by arguments from the Leave campaign that quitting the EU would prevent migrants from Syria and the wider Muslim world, who arrived in Europe by sea, from ending up in Britain  even though few such arrivals have been recorded.

People are coming to Europe in boats and no one is doing anything about it. People wanted to put a stop to this, said Dipinder Kaur Chana, who came to Birmingham as a child when her parents migrated from the Indian state of Punjab in the 1950s.

Its not about racism. We also faced racism when we came here. But people in the campaign were saying that in Britain there is no housing and no jobs, so we need to control immigration.

Residents of Birminghams famously multiethnic Soho Road enclave echo many of the concerns expressed by white voters over the pressures created by recent immigration from Europe. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times )

Chanas son, Parminder Singh, was worried about new migrants from poor countries who compete directly with other immigrant groups for jobs.

A London School of Economics study said British workers wages have not been hurt by immigration, but that did not mesh with Singhs experience. As a pharmacist for a national chain of drugstores, he said his hourly wage of about $30 had shrunk by about 20% over the last two years, which he blamed on more competition in the workforce.

Its putting pressure on us, he said. People come in who will do the job for less money, so it impacts us.

Residents here now eye the future warily. Many have been upset by an increase in incidents of racism nationwide, causing some Leave voters to worry theyve helped unleash greater intolerance.

Harminder Singh Bansal, whose family migrated from Uganda in 1968, said his fellow Sikhs often were thought by non-Asian communities to be Muslim.

Whenever theres an instance of Islamic extremism, we bear the brunt. We should be more tolerant of one another, said Bansal, 52, who said he voted Remain for the sake of his young daughters, 9 and 7.

When we came in 1968, we also suffered problems and struggles to fit in. So I hope we dont close the door. People should have the same opportunity we had.

shashank.bengali@latimes.com

Follow @SBengali on Twitter for more news from South Asia

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Democratic lawmakers are aiming to make the issue of immigration an official element of the party's 2016 platform.

Immigration reform activist were recently thrilled to learn an early draft of the party's platform finds democratic candidates taking a liberal-minded stance on the issue.

That's is sharp contrast to Republicans, who led by presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump have taken an anti-immigration stance that includes Trump vowing to deport millions of undocumented immigrants and building a wall along the Mexican border to further to keep them out.

Hispanic Vote key to 2016 Election

With Hispanics expected to turn out at the ballot box in record numbers come November's general election, democrats deemed the issue of immigration "a defining aspect of the American character and history."

The platform also calls for a path to citizenship "for law-abiding families who are here," expressing support for President Obama's executive actions on immigration and the end of immigration raids against children and families.

"The platform recognizes the pressing need and the status of the more than 11 million undocumented migrants living and raising their families in the Unites States," said Maureen Meyer, director of the Washington Office on Latin America's Mexico Program. "It provides assurances that the raids that have been threatening recently arrived Central American families and which have caused fear in the immigrant community will be stopped."

Trump not Popular Among Latinos

Democrats also marked the occasion to further criticize Trump, who has also called for a ban on Muslims traveling to the U.S

"Finally, Democrats will not stand for the divisive and derogatory language of Donald Trump," the platform maintains. "His offensive comments about immigrants and other communities have no place in our society. This kind of rhetoric must be rejected."

The updated, 2016 platform document items are in sharp contrast to those laid out by Democrats as part of their 2012 manifesto. Back then, party leaders also touted the need for comprehensive immigration reform, but added of undocumented immigrants the need to "get right with the law, learn English, and pay taxes in order to get on a path to earn citizenship."

Latino turnout is widely perceived as crucial in the presidential election as well as in down-ballot races and in key swing states like Colorado, Florida and Nevada.

A recent Washington Post/ ABC News poll found that nearly nine in 10, or 89 percent, of all Hispanics have a negative image of Trump largely based on his views around immigration.
A Lehigh Valley nonprofit is getting ready for a first in the region-- a one-stop-shop center to help families with autistic and special needs children.

Live Learn & Play's space at the South Mall, 3300 Lehigh Street in Salisbury Township, will include a sensory gym, resource center, and space for classes, support group meetings and social events.

"There's nothing like it in the valley," said Jill VanKuren, the group's president. "It will be a local place where people can come and get information, so if families have questions about where they can go get services, we'll be able to send them in the right direction."

Live Learn & Play is a nonprofit dedicated to helping families with autism and special needs children. The group is known for its annual Superhero 5K at SteelStacks.

VanKuren works in the behavioral heath field and said her experiences showed clients and families needed a site to connect them with resources and each other.

VanKuren said she didn't know anything about autism until she had a client with the diagnosis. The client's mother was a "huge advocate" for her child, and had found numerous programs and resources for him.

"When I starting working with more kids, I realized the huge difference between what she had in place for him versus a lot of other kids I was working with," VanKuren said. "We'll provide that little bit of extra support to make sure they're getting the services they need."

The center will fill that gap, not just by providing resources, but allowing parents to talk to each other.

"You network for business, why not as a parent?" she asked.

Speaking of business, the center will also collect a list of autism-friendly businesses as well as offer training opportunities, VanKuren said.

Classes for the kids will include social skills, movement and dance, yoga, art and music.

The classes and events will be inclusive, open to all kids. VanKuren said programs like social skills classes, summer programs and after-school programs, are mostly limited to just special needs children.

"They completely exclude the siblings and family friends that could really benefit from that type of program," she said. "They can learn about kids that are a little bit different."

Right now, the group is planning tours of the space in July. The nonprofit is depending on volunteer work to get the site ready, and the contractor is donating time.

The goal is for the center to open sometime in August, before school starts, with a grand opening in September, VanKuren said.

In the meantime, the group is looking for volunteers, is accepting donations on its website, and has a wish list of items and supplies on its Facebook page.

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
An intruder whose hand was severed when he burglarized a Northampton Borough home Saturday is facing a slew of charges following the attack.

Northampton Borough Police Chief Ronald Morey said the hospitalized suspect, who is yet to be identified by authorities, will be charged with at least aggravated assault, simple assault, burglary, criminal trespass and reckless endangerment.

Another man involved in the home invasion, who is yet to be identified, was taken into custody by Allentown police around noon Sunday from a home in the 300 block of South Madison Street, said Allentown Capt. Bill Reinik.

Reinik did not know if the man actually lived at that address. He said he was turned over by Allentown police to Northampton Borough police.

"We found the person without incident," Reinik said.

Morey said Allentown police also seized a Hyundai connected with the crime, but Reinik did not have information about the vehicle.

Police still don't have a motive behind the home invasion and it's unclear if the victim knew the attackers. Borough police continue to investigate, Morey said.

"We're still searching for it (motive)," the chief said.

The home invasion occurred around 11:45 p.m Saturday when 28-year-old Troy Imbody left basement doors unlocked and went to sleep, Morey said.

Two male attackers in masks burst through the doors and began to intimidate Troy, according to Robert Imbody, Troy's father. The victim fought back and cut off one of the attackers' hands with a machete, Morey said.

Robert Imbody described the attack as a "life or death struggle." The father said a BB gun was pointed at him by one of the suspects when he ran outside and spotted the attackers.

Troy Imbody had BBs "lodged in his head and chest," Robert Imbody said.

Morey said nothing was stolen during the burglary.

About 25 minutes after the home invasion, a car dropped off the burglar with the severed hand at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Muhlenberg in Bethlehem for treatment. He has since been moved to a hospital out of the area and the severed hand was recovered, according to Morey.

Troy Imbody also went to the hospital and received treatment for injuries. Robert Imbody said Troy has since been released from the hospital, but is staying at another location.

Later on Sunday, signs were hung on the front door of Troy's apartment, stating, "Come with two, leave with one" and "Beware of Troy" with sketches of hands.

Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @pamholzmann. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Sludge fields in Palmer Township

These signs warn of the use of biosolids on fields off Tatamy Road near Van Buren Road in Palmer Township.

(Rudy Miller | lehighvalleylive.com)

It's been nearly 19 years since Pennsylvania reviewed the use of sludge fertilizer and lawmakers have requested a new study.

State Rep. Joe Emrick, R-Northampton, authored a resolution that asks Pennsylvania's Legislative Budget and Finance Committee to review the state's program for the beneficial use of sewage sludge on land.

House Resolution 60, which passed unanimously on June 23, requests a study to gather as much information as possible about the pros and cons of using sewage sludge, or biosolids.

Critics say sludge contains pathogens and toxic metals that are risks to public health.

Biosolids are a byproduct of the treatment of human waste from domestic sewage.

Proponents argue they are a safe and inexpensive form of fertilizer.

"There have already been exhaustive studies on biosolids," said Layne Baroldi, director of regulatory and legislative affairs for Synagro, a national wastewater treatment company.

Baroldi said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has performed and continues to conduct multiple studies and those studies have concluded that sludge is safe.

Another state study would likely be a waste of money, Baroldi said, but his company would be willing to participate in helping the state in any way it can.

John Gorman, president of Sludge-Free Upper Mount Bethel Township, said plans for a new study are a good start but he wants to make sure it is performed by an independent agency and not the state's Department of Environmental Protection.

Gorman said he believes the DEP is pro-sludge and would not be fair if it performs the study.

"If it's an independent study, I have no doubt it will prove sludge is not safe," Gorman said.

The DEP regulates the use of biosolids and issues permits for their use on farms. Applying the sludge as fertilizer in Upper Mount Bethel Township has stirred a long-running dispute.

The resolution asks that the study review the DEP's processes that are used to administer and enforce biosolids use, and also to include any potential alternative beneficial use, including electric power generation or abandoned mine reclamation.

"I've heard the concerns from all sides on this issue," Emrick said. "We're trying to gather information if there are any health concerns or public interest concerns."

The resolution requires the budget and finance committee to report its findings to the House within one year.

John Best is a freelance writer. Find lehighvalleylive on Facebook.
A piece of 211-year old stitched artwork that recently returned to Mountmellick from Australia, is bringing tourism to the town.

On June 7 the rare sampler, depicting a map of Europe, was unveiled in its new home in Mountmellick Museum, by the Australian Ambassador Dr Ruth Adler.

Also present was Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan, and the Davis family from Wexford, whose ancestor gave it to the Beale family from Mountmellick, as they left for Australia in 1852.

The sampler is now on permanent display. Curator Dolores Dempsey has seen a surge in visitors to the museum, which also displays Mountmellick embroidery and has a genealogy database of Quaker family records.

We have had a very positive reaction. Just yesterday we had four groups visiting to see it, from Dublin, Limerick and also Portlaoise, she said.

The rare Sampler was donated by Bronwyn Mutton of Western Australia.

She is a descendant of Hannah Davis who made it in 1805 and in 1852 gifted it to her niece Margaret Beale, wife of Joseph Beale, as they emigrated to Australia, having lost their business by helping famine victims.

The sampler lay wrapped and forgotten until Bronwyn found it while sorting out her late fathers papers.

She contacted us in 2013 to see if we were interested in acquiring it. She then contacted all her relatives to see if they agreed that it return to Mountmellick, said Dolores.

In 2014 MDA Director, Marie Walsh while on a family holiday in Perth, met Bronwyn and accepted the Sampler from her.

Back in Ireland, it was carefully restored by Rachel Phelan in 2015, a textile conservationist, grant aided by the Heritage Council.

It it a very valuable and treasured acquisition. We will ensure that it will survive by being appropriately stored, exhibited and preserved for future generations to view, said Dolores

A second Sampler is also restored and on display, donated by Mountmellick Community School.

It is of a Map of England worked by a Deborah Manly, Mountmellick Boarding School in 1899.

At the launch, Minister Flanagan recalled his father Oliver J telling him of Mountmellick's title as 'the Manchester of Ireland.

Much of what made Mountmellick different was its strong presence of Quakers with their flair for entrepreneurship and creativity and commitment to philanthropy and social justice. These values continue to inspire, he said.

www.mountmellickdevelopment.com/museum.htm
Sunshine aided the annual Saint John of God Community Service Ltd fete in Celbridge this month.

Sunshine aided the annual Saint John of God Community Service Ltd fete in Celbridge this month.

The fete at St. Raphaels, run by the Parents and Friends Association, provide much needed income for the organisation.

It will be particularly welcome this year following cuts in Government funding.

This year, St. John of God experienced a 2.5% cut this year but just recently there was a lot of upset among service users at a move to cut canteen facilities.

Over the past five years St. John of Gods have experienced a cumulative cut of 17%.

It operates HSE funded services in the areas of intellectual disability, adult mental health and child & adolescent mental health Services.

Andy Heffernan, CEO Saint John of God Community Services, including Kildare, told the Leader recently that there was of 2.5% applied in the Dublin-Mid Leinster region which includes Kildare.  Services are left with no choice but to operate within these allocations and plan accordingly with an emphasis on maintaining services to those who are supported through enhanced efficiencies and reconfiguration. The planned changes in Kildare are part of this process and follow on from cumulative reductions in allocation in the region of 17% over the past 5 years.

He said staff have managed to maintain service levels despite the level of budgetary reductions.

Recently, users of the St. Raphaels facility at Celbridge were told that canteen services were being cut.

Sources have told the Leader there is a lot of upset over that. Contractors have laid off as well.

- Henry Bauress
Article 50 of the EU treaties, the one that sets out the terms for leaving the EU should perhaps have been read and understood by those arguing for Brexit, because a lot of rubbish is being spoken by people who ought to know better.

The full text is here

1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements. 2. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament. 3. The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period. 4. For the purposes of paragraphs 2 and 3, the member of the European Council or of the Council representing the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it. A qualified majority shall be defined in accordance with Article 238(3)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. 5. If a State which has withdrawn from the Union asks to rejoin, its request shall be subject to the procedure referred to in Article 49.

I draw peoples attention in particular to part 4. It is abundantly clear that the UK will have no part in deciding the terms of our withdrawal. The 27 will meet and decide what the terms are and what it will cost and the UK will be told what those terms are and how much we will have to pay for the privilege of access to the single market and any other areas of the EU and the UK will have absolutely no say in determining those terms.

So when we hear Dr Liam Fox saying that we can have the negotiations in advance of activating Article 50, he is talking utter nonsense. There is nothing to discuss until article 50 is activated and then the UK will be excluded from the process.

This was said during the referendum and dismissed as scaremongering. People were told exactly how the Norwegian arrangement operated and chose not to believe it. They wanted to believe the UK could have its cake and eat it.

Although the treaties will cease to apply after 2 years, the process of unravelling 43 years of law making is a monumental task that will take much longer to do than 2 years, but that will be the UKs problem not the EUs.

I fully support the Lib Dems campaigning to rejoin, but we must be clear that if we ever do so apply, we will do so as a newcomer to the EU and will have to accept the Euro, the Schengen agreement and all the other things the UK opted out of during our 43 years membership. There will be no rebate. There is also a serious question as to whether our electoral system would meet the democratic requirements of the EU.

* Dr Michael Taylor has been a party member since 1964. He is currently active in the Calderdale Party.
Tim Farron has set out why the Liberal Democrats will fight for those EU citizens who have made their homes in Britain to be allowed to stay post-Brexit.

Both David Cameron and Theresa May have only guaranteed their future to the conclusion of the negotiations. How awful, how unfair would it be if people who had settled, worked hard, married, had families here were forced to leave after the goalposts changed?

How cruel is it to put these people through years of uncertainty?

Tim said:

There is real, and legitimate, upset and worry from European citizens across our country about their long-term status in the UK. Liberal Democrats will not stand by whilst our communities are divided by uncertainty. Regardless of the outcome of any negotiations with Europe around Brexit, EU citizens who have made Britain their home must be allowed to stay. To Europeans whose lives are now rooted in the UK my message is simple  the Liberal Democrats stand with you, and will speak for you. To the French family raising their children in Manchester, to the Polish mother working to pay her mortgage in Portsmouth, to the German graduate starting his business venture in Birmingham  the Liberal Democrats value you, we will stand by you and we will champion your future here in Britain. There are plenty of decent people who voted for Leave, who do not want to see Europeans who live in the UK in our communities forced to uproot their lives. There must be a cast iron guarantee that their futures can be in the UK, the country they now call home. We are the party who recognises that British people are compassionate and open-hearted. I have always been proud that Paddy Ashdown and the Liberal Democrats took the brave stance on the issue of Hong Kong passports  we will do the same today.

And here he is talking at the March for Europe in London yesterday:

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
Labour MP Diane Abbott is being roundly mocked in various parts of the internet because of a question she asked as Shadow International Development Secretary, a position she held until last week when she was promoted to Shadow Health Secretary.

She asked:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps she has taken to assist people in the Indonesian province of Province of Davao del Norte affected by the drought in that province.

The reply was crushing:

There is no province called Davao del Norte in Indonesia.

Actually, there is a place called Davao del Norte suffering droughts. In the Philippines. So a staffer in Diane Abbotts office made a mistake. We all do it. Why make a fuss?

The Guido Fawkes blog has been one of those poking fun at Abbott. Its not surprising behaviour from a right wing sensationalist site.

Ultimately, Diane Abbotts question was well-intentioned and focused around helping some very vulnerable people. Her successor, if she has one who stays in office for more than five minutes, can resubmit it with the correct details. Its not a big deal.

I was more concerned seeing the story being shared by Liberal Democrats on social media. Maybe we need to get past being amused by genuine mistakes and concentrate on what really matters.

Abbotts error is a million miles away from the spectacle weve seen over the past few months of self-serving politicians setting out to deceive the country  and succeeding  purely to further their own ambitions. The tragedy of that is double-edged.

Firstly, that sort of self-serving politician is actually a pretty rare thing. Most of them, from all parties, are decent people who want to make the world a better place.

Secondly, the idea that politicians are just a bunch of self serving useless individuals is most popular amongst those who feel disengaged from politics and who have just been manipulated and deceived by the likes of Michael Gove, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage and Andrea Leadsom. Two of these are in the running to be Prime Minister. That is scary.

I disagree with Diane Abbott more often than I agree with her, but with so much else going on in politics at the moment, we need to concentrate on what actually is important. There are economic, political and constitutional crises emanating from the Brexit referendum to be sorted. There are many reason to worry about Labour, who seem to be caught up in the most irreconcilable differences when we need a coherent opposition, but this question isnt one of them.

Everyone makes mistakes. The right response to Abbotts is there but for the grace of the Flying Spaghetti Monster go I.

Labour of course would have been all over it had the mistake been made by someone else.

The way we conduct our politics needs to change. Rather than scoring cheap points, we need to be showing that we really are tackling the issues of the day. That way, if people see that their concerns are being heard and tackled, they will regain confidence and thats good for all of us.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
A COUNTY Limerick man was disqualified from driving for four years after he pleaded guilty to multiple charges relating to a head-on collision last summer.

Kilmallock Court was told Tony Hayes, aged 31, who has an address at Devalera Park, Bruree was the driver of a Nissan Micra car which collided with a Volkswagen Transporter van in the townland of Clonbrien near Athlacca on the afternoon of September 27, last.

Garda John Curtin of Ballylanders garda station who attended the scene of the collision shortly after 1pm said there were no road markings in the area and that the ditches were high on both sides of the road.

He noted the Nissan had left skidmarks which measured 17 feet in length and said he later established the Micra had failed to take the bend resulting in the head-on impact.

Judge Marian OLeary was told the defendant sustained serious injuries in the collision as did the occupants of the van.

During the proceedings, Garda Curtin submitted a number of photographs which were taken at the scene along with a sketch which he drew on the day.

Sergeant John Moloney, prosecuting, said the defendant, who fully cooperated with gardai, was not insured to drive the vehicle and did not have a valid driving licence.

Solicitor Brendan Gill said his client made admissions to gardai at the scene of the collision before he was removed by ambulance to University Hospital for treatment.

He told the court the car, which belonged to Mr Hayes mother, was of some vintage and that the accident happened as a result of his ankle becoming stuck between the pedals as he was approaching the bend.

He suffered significant leg injuries and spent some time in hospital, he said adding that the defendant accepts his driving was not as it should have been, on the day.

Judge OLeary noted Mr Hayes has been convicted of a separate no insurance offence since the incident but that he did not receive a disqualification.

Imposing sentence, she said his actions were out of order and will have repercussions for an awful lot of people.

She disqualified him from driving for a total of four years and imposed fines totalling 650.

A number of charges relating to the non-production of certain documents, including a driving licence and valid insurance certificate, were taken into consideration.
IN LESS than three weeks, elected representatives will be asked to approve of Limerick City and County Councils proposals for the controversial city footbridge.

Last Thursday, the council held numerous briefings for councillors and the media on preliminary plans for the project, which has faced criticism from politicians, members of the community and lobby groups for a number of months.

During the all-day briefings at City Hall, led by economic director Pat Daly and senior council planners, there were presentations on the project history, the cost range and the proposed designs.

Mr Daly told the press that the footbridge will require approval from the councillors and, finally, An Bord Pleanala. He said that if councillors reject the plans, on July 18, the project is dead and money for the project is lost.

Newly elected metropolitan district mayor Cllr Michael Hourigan said he found the information sessions very positive and that he is keeping an open mind in relation to the advancement of the proposals.

I am not just thinking of the bridge. This is the start of a bigger, bigger picture. It is all about the development of the city. I am very open-minded about it. If you look at it in isolation, you will find negative things to say about it, but when you tie it into the rest [city development plans], it is all very positive, he said.

He said that a footbridge could be iconic in the city centre, and that projects like the boardwalks have been a tremendous success.

Though a large number of councillors are still considering their vote, Independent councillor John Loftus said that he is voting absolutely no to the project.

They told us nothing new. If anyone thinks that this is going to attract tourists to the city, you are either a liar or a joker. They have to get real, here.

Senior executive planner, Kieran Reeves stated that the council has an indicative cost estimate that the bridge, depending on the chosen design, could cost between 8.1m and 17.1m.

Mr Reeves said that the project has secured 6m from the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, and will secure matched funding from an anonymous philanthrophic source, if the plans are approved.

The three project concepts include a regular platform bridge that stretches out from Sarsfield House to the side of the courthouse, adjacent to the Curragower Boat Club; a bridge with a centre point that engages with the river; and the familiar twin-arch bridge that starts at Arthurs Quay Park and finishes at Merchants Quay.

In response to criticisms that relate to environmental damage and a possible impact on the King Johns Castle view, Mr Reeves said that the council still has to carry out a full environmental assessment, but it is not seen as a major impediment to the project.

He added that the bridge will also make the castle view more iconic to the public.

He also compared the concept to the 14m Derry Peace Bridge and the 22m Gateshead Millennium Bridge in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.

AAA councillor Cian Prendiville said that he feels they are being kept in the dark in relation to the projects particulars.

One of our key questions that we [Cllr Prendiville and Cllr Paul Keller] asked was that we wanted to get more information on where this idea came from. We feel that someone is pushing or driving this project, he said.

Mr Reeves said that the project initially started in response to research undertaken by Failte Ireland for the Limerick 2030 economic development plan.

It stated that the Shannon and its riverway were integral parts of Limerick city, and that they offer a new way of experiencing the city.

Cllr Prendiville said that it will be a difficult decision and that they will consider it fully. However, he added that his gut feeling is that there are other projects that are more important. The real question is that, is this the best use of public money? We need to develop the city for the people who live in it, first and foremost.

Sinn Feins Seighin OCeallaigh said that the council should definitely take the views of the public into account and they should be updated, instead of reading it in the newspaper.

Meanwhile, Labour councillor Joe Leddin has submitted a motion for the July meeting to invite Failte Ireland to attend a future meeting to discuss and debate the development of tourism in the city.

Mr Daly said that last Thursdays discussions were very positive. We have had good feedback and looked at a number of issues, and we will go back then with a formal presentation in answering those remaining questions and then seeking consent on the day.

He added that, because the money is on offer, there is a sense of immediacy to bring the plans forward.

Letters to the Editor, page 18
TRIBUTES are being paid on both sides of the Atlantic to Alphie McCourt, Frank's youngest brother, who passed away suddenly in New York at the age of 75.

His only surviving brother Malachy McCourt, 84, confirmed the sad news in a message on Facebook in the early hours of Sunday morning, saying he had passed away while taking an afternoon nap.

We have no celebrations of his life or the books yet but we won't let him go gentle into the good or bad night, Malachy added.

Dominic Taylor, of the Limerick Writers' Centre, who invited Alphie to a plaque unveiling of his brother Frank last year outside South's bar, said he was saddened to hear this news but said "it was a privilege to have known him".

Adam Howell, who produced the musical of Angela's Ashes, staged for five nights in the Lime Tree theatre in Limerick in 2013, also paid tribute.

"He became a great supporter, confidant, advisor and friend. I used to joke with him that I had to pinch myself sometimes because he'd always been a 'character' in a book and film and now I knew the real person. He always found that funny, I think. He was extremely generous and giving," he wrote.

Born in Limerick in July 1940, Alphie grew up in the city, before emigrating to America in 1959, spending a good part of his life in the restaurant and bar trade. During his youth he toyed with the idea of journalism, and later undertook a degree in law at University College Dublin, which he didnt finish.

While Alphie grew up in the citys back lanes, went to the Christian Brothers, played rugby with Young Munster and was a member of the Limerick Debating Society, he said he always felt "a little bit removed" from Limerick life.

He left for the land of opportunity at the age of 19, and alternated between living in New York, then Montreal in Canada, before moving down to California, and settling back in New York, with his wife Lyn and daughter Alison.

He built swimming pools in California - a different kind of university - and was drafted into the Army for two years, where he was a food inspector.

The youngest of seven, Alphie was the last to leave Limerick, and left with his mother Angela, now immortalised in his brother's first memoir, Angela's Ashes, which won the Pulitzer Prize.

It was very difficult breaking away, he recalled in an interview with the Limerick Leader in 2010, especially as there was a polite understanding with his mother that he would come back.

But I knew I wouldnt come back. She eventually settled in New York and it was Okay [for her], just Okay, never good. If youre going to New York, you have to go at a young age, 19 or 20. Going away from Limerick at that time was par for the course. Just about everybody I knew left, except people who had family businesses or something. Our situation would have been enormously different if we had a piece of land.

"We were pretty much first generation in Limerick. We didnt have the close connections that other people had. I always felt a little bit one step removed.

He also spoke about death in that interview.

When we were landing in Dublin [Airport] I had a touch of it [nostalgia], because I began to realise all the people who arent here. All the time that has passed. I dont want to get too deeply into that, but were here today and were gone tomorrow. We had our good times, enjoyed each other and made the most of each other. Were all passing on through.

A celebrated writer, his works have appeared in the Washington Post, and the Villager (New York), and in 2009, he published his own memoirs, entitled A Long Stones Throw in 2008, joking that he didn't want to be just a footnote in his family's history.

Frank published his trio of memoirs - selling more than 10 million copies to date - and a childrens book, Malachy followed with a further two memoirs, and Alphie then succumbed to the repeated queries of When is your book coming out? and wrote is own version of history, which has since been reprinted.

I felt I should tell my part of it because my experience was very different from my brothers. Somebody asked me that before and I said So I would not be a footnote in the history of my own family!

Last September, his brother, Michael, a much loved bar-tender, passed away in San Francisco aged 79.

Quieter in nature than his older brothers, Alphie described his older siblings as "heavyweights".

Maybe its in the nature of things that when youre the youngest brother you tend to be quieter in the company of your big brothers. I dont know if its typical...I think it probably is, especially when youve had such heavyweights as Ive had to deal with. They were men of accomplishments; men of large, large vision. But they always encouraged me, and I had a particular understanding with Frank. And I think we had a respect for each other.

He is predeceased by his siblings Frank, Michael, Oliver, Eugene and sister Margaret, and survived by brother Malachy, wife Lyn and daughter Alison.

Funeral arrangements have yet to be announced.
A new book detailing the results of eight years of archaeological excavations at King Johns Castle has been welcomed as a wonderful resource to explore Limericks rich heritage.

Entitled A Place Of Great Consequence, the publication by author Ken Wiggins outlines the fascinating history of the castle through the 13,000 artefacts uncovered during excavations between 1990 and 1998.

From early medieval pottery and arrowheads to jewellery, coins and building materials spanning some 800 years, these items provide a unique insight into life in Limerick from its earliest settlements up to the present day.

Alongside descriptions and illustrations of many of the items uncovered, the author also details the history of the castle and the settlements that pre-date it, with a series of maps and other illustrations showing what it would have looked like at different times in its history.

Beginning with pre-Viking days, the narrative moves on to show how the Hiberno-Norse inhabitants of Limerick further developed the site before the Anglo-Normans arrived, and the decision to build the castle was made.

All aspects of the castles development are explored, from construction in the medieval period down to reinvention as a heritage property in the late twentieth century.

What emerges is as complete a picture as has yet been provided of life in Limerick from before the Viking settlement to the last days of the Castle Barracks.

More than 13,000 artefacts, including ceramics, objects of copper-alloy, iron, wood, leather, bone and stone, were found during the course of the excavations. Among the finds was a pistol with a copper alloy barrel, iron firing mechanism and wooden stock, used during the great siege of the castle in 1642, as well as contemporary written accounts of the events. A pamphlet printed that year, reporting the capture of the castle, described Limerick as a place of great consequence, a phrase that provides the title for this major new book.

Pottery found during the excavations also offers proof that the castle was a centre for trade with Europe during the middle ages, with goods being transported by sea. During the 1993 excavation Limericks oldest house, built on the castle site before 1175, was uncovered. Limericks oldest road, dating from the same period, was also discovered by archaeologists five metres below the courtyard of the castle.

Also of great interest are the items relating to the settlement of Limerick by the Vikings and their descendants - the Hiberno-Norse inhabitants in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

They established a thriving community on the site with their own houses, laneways and property boundaries, which had to be abandoned when the castle was built during the reign of King John in the early thirteenth century.

Original nails used in the construction of a Hiberno-Norse house dating from around 1190 were uncovered, as was a thirteenth-century gold stirrup finger ring, set with a small oval sapphire.

Speaking at the launch of the book at King Johns Castle, Ken Wiggins said: It has been my pleasure to explore the treasure trove that is King Johns Castle. The book provides a unique insight into life at the castle through the ages and is written in a way that will appeal to the general public and academics alike.

John Ruddle, chief executive of Shannon Heritage congratulated Mr Wiggins on his achievement in writing the book We are delighted to be managing the castle as a visitor centre and understanding the castles past through these fascinating artefacts and interpreting them for our visitors has been crucial. I know that this publication will be a wonderful resource to explore Limericks rich heritage and I wish Ken every success, he said.

Published by Wordwell in association with Shannon Commercial Properties, the book is available from www.wordwellbooks.com and all good book shops, retailing at 30.
#Samsung Electronics Samsung Group's de facto leader Lee promoted to chairman Samsung Electronics Co.'s new Chairman Lee Jae-yong called on employees Thursday to rise up to challenges and to focus more on technology development. "Now is time for us to mou...
Jul 1, 2016, 12 PM

This 1851 cover sold at the Schuyler Rumsey sale paid a 10 transcontinental rate using three and a half 3 stamps, a rare use of this bisect on cover. It sold for $25,300.

The June 1 auction conducted by Schuyler Rumsey at World Stamp Show-NY 2016 included a 1918 Jenny Invert error stamp from the top row of the sheet of 100. The reperforated stamp sold for $218,500.

By Matthew Healey, New York Correspondent

They came, they saw, they raised their paddles.

For the tens of thousands of visitors attending World Stamp Show-NY 2016, a remarkable string of auctions by five different firms over six days brought excitement and opportunity during late May and early June.

Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries kicked off the action on Sunday, May 29, with a pair of big-name sales: the William H. Gross collection of Hawaii, and the second part of the Steven Walske collection of trans-Atlantic mail between the United States and France.

Christoph Gaertner, of Germany, picked up the gavel on Monday, May 30, with a day-long session devoted to worldwide rarities that included an impressive selection of U.S. and Confederate postmasters provisionals.

Siegel resumed on Tuesday, May 31, with a record-breaking sale of the highest-graded example of the iconic American airmail rarity, the Inverted Jenny, followed by other U.S. rarities.

Wednesday, June 1, saw Schuyler Rumsey celebrate his firms 20th anniversary with a sale of U.S. and worldwide rarities, including U.S. Official issues collected by Robert L. Markovits, while Thursday saw the Daniel F. Kelleher firms offering of the Alfred J. Capurro collection of worldwide, mostly mint stamps.

H.R. Harmer, a member of the Global Philatelic Network, wrapped things up on Friday, June 3, with the award-winning Erivan Haub collection of U.S. and Confederate postmasters provisionals, among many other items.

Linn's Stamp News is breaking them all down in a multi-part U.S. Auction Roundup series:

Robert A. Siegel, Part I, May 29 | Christoph Gaertner, May 30 | Robert A. Siegel, Part II, May 31 | H.R. Harmer, July 3

Schuyler Rumsey also offered an Inverted Jenny (Scott C3a), in this case the example from position 8, in the top row of the original sheet.

The top row (like the right side of the sheet) had a natural straight edge, and the position 8 stamp, with perforations all around, had obviously been reperforated at top at some time in the past by someone looking to improve the stamps aesthetic appearance.

With fresh color and slightly disturbed original gum, the stamp sold for $218,500 including the 15 percent buyers premium that Rumsey adds to all lots.

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An 1851 cover with the 10 transcontinental rate paid using three-and-a-half 3 stamps (Scott 11Ad, 11A) was described as one of just 14 examples of this bisect known on cover, and one of just five in which the bisect helped pay the 10 rate. It sold for $25,300.

A beautiful cover with four examples of the 1847 5 Franklin (Scott 1), tied by blue Philadelphia postmarks to a cover going to Greenville, Va., was described as one of the most attractive domestic uses of the 5 1847 issue. With a long and equally attractive provenance, it sold for $19,550.

After you finish the U.S. Auction Roundup, check out our International Auction Roundup:

Christoph Gaertners WSS-NY 2016 auction totals $5.74 million

Possibly the rarest classic imperforate stamp of British North America highlights Schuyler Rumsey WSS-NY 2016 sale

Kellehers WSS-NY 2016 sale topped by high-denomination World War I-era overprint

H.R. Harmer sells first piece of mail from the first German expedition to Antarctica
Jul 2, 2016, 11 PM

By Michael Baadke

Though his birthdate is uncertain, many references suggest that portrait artist John Singleton Copley was born July 3, 1738, in Boston, Mass. His parents were Irish-born merchants who came to the United States just two years before the birth of their son.

The 5 stamp honoring Copley (Scott 1273) was issued Sept. 17, 1965, and shows a detail of his painting The Copley Family, an oil-on-canvas painting completed about 1777. The stamp design depicts Copleys six-year-old daughter Betsy; the full painting also includes the artist and his wife, her father Richard Clarke, and the Copleys three other children.

The painting is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art. The stamp is part of the 1961-75 American Artist commemorative series.

When Copley was still a youngster his own father died, and his mother remarried in 1748. Copleys stepfather, Peter Pelham, was a limner and engraver who contributed to Copleys introduction to the arts. Though Pelham died just three years later, Copley was soon creating portraits, well on his way to becoming an admired Boston artist.

Copleys paintings were exhibited in Europe and were in demand in Boston and New York. He left for England in 1774 and was joined by his family the following year. There he continued to create and exhibit portraits while also completing historical paintings. Copley died in London on Sept. 9, 1815.
As Missouri moves ahead with implementing its voter-approved medical marijuana law, neighboring Iowa sees a bill vetoed by a GOP governor, and more.

Alabama

Alabama Medical Marijuana Patients Push for Bill Approval. With the House set to vote on a medical marijuana bill today, patients rallied at the state capitol to urge its passage. The bill, SB 236, allows medical marijuana use for specified conditions if other treatments are not working. At least 2 physicians must sign off on the recommendation, and patients must submit to random drug testing. Republicans were threatening Tuesday to change the bill to create a commission to study the issue for the next session.

Arizona

Arizona Supreme Court Rules Hash Is Medical Marijuana. The state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that registered medical marijuana patients can use hashish without fear of legal consequence. The ruling comes in the case of a Phoenix man who was arrested with a tiny amount of hash and sentenced to 2 years in prison. An appeals court had ruled against him, but heres what the Supreme Court said: We hold that the definition of marijuana in  36-2801(8) includes resin, and by extension hashish, and that  36-2811(B)(1) immunizes the use of such marijuana consistent with AMMA. We reverse the trial courts ruling denying Joness motion to dismiss, vacate the court of appeals opinion, and vacate Joness convictions and sentences.

Iowa

Iowa Governor Vetoes Medical Marijuana Bill. Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) last Friday vetoed a medical marijuana expansion bill, HF 732. The bill would have removed the 3% cap on THC and replaced it with a 25-gram limit per patient every 90 days. Reynolds said she vetoed the proposal because the cap of 25 grams over 90 days would allow an individual to consume more THC per day even than a recreational marijuana user. If approved, it would drastically expand Iowas medical CBD program far beyond its original scope of CBD-based treatments and could open the door to significant unintended consequences to the health and safety of Iowans, Reynolds said in a statement.

Missouri

Missouri Medical Marijuana Rules Finalized. The state Department of Health and Human Services posted a list of 11 regulations for the medical marijuana industry on its website. The revised rules will be implemented starting next week. Under an initiative passed by voters last fall, the state is required to license 60 growing facilities, 86 manufacturers and 192 dispensaries, 24 for each of the states 8 congressional districts.

Texas

Texas Senate Unanimously Approves CBD Medical Marijuana Expansion Bill. In a surprise move, the Senate voted to approve HB 3703 Wednesday. The bill would expand the states limited Compassionate Use program to allow CBD cannabis oil to be used for a number of new specified disorders, including epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, and autism. The bill now goes back to the House, where it has already passed, for changes to be approved or ironed out in conference committee.

By Phillip Smith

Paul Ebeling, Editor

For extensive information about the medical marijuana debate, presented in a neutral format, visit MedicalMarijuana.ProCon.org.

Permission to Reprint: This article is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license.Looking for the easiest way to join the anti-drug war movement? Youve found it!
Fleadh Fervour, a documentary film made by Anna Kavanagh and Deirdre OByrne, will be launched in Fays bar, Granard next Tuesday, July 5 at 9pm.

An Outtake Community Media production, the film captures the enthusiasm, passion and excitement of the participants in the 2016 County Longford Fleadh Cheoil.

Anna and Deirdre travelled around the county and went behind the scenes to meet with the committee members of Longford CCE, teachers and musicians as they prepared for the competitions.

While many attend a Fleadh to enjoy the sessions and the excitement, they dont see the weeks and months of hard work and dedication that go into the preparations.

According to Anna, great credit is due to the likes of Damien McGuinness, Pauline Flood and Jackie Callaghan who go above and beyond to ensure that the tradition of Irish music is kept alive. This film, scripted and directed by Anna, endeavours to acknowledge the work that goes on behind the scenes to enable Longford musicians and dancers to compete alongside their counterparts from all over the country.

Explaining how the film came about, Deirdre OByrne, who operated the camera and sound, said; "Anna was one of the participants in a training course in TV production that I facilitated along with Seamus Clarke and Shane Crossan at the Outtake studio last year.

Students of all ages and from varied backgrounds took part and we encouraged them to team up and use their newfound skills to make programmes allowing Longford people to narrate their own story.

Deirdre went on to describe how a number of favourable factors came together to create the film, the principal one being the recent move to a new purpose-built studio, complete with new editing suite.

Hoping for a large crowd at the launch, which is sponsored by Sinead Fay, Anna also revealed that after the viewing, some of the countys best musicians will host an open session.

Outtake Community Media is available to film all community events and for details of this and the next training course contact Seamus on 085 119 1118.
Last week the electorate in the United Kingdom voted in favour of the nation revoking its membership of the European Union, a decision which has sent shockwaves across the globe.

The Prime Minister, David Cameron, subsequently resigned; falling on his sword after the message he professed as leader of the Remain campaign failed to resonate with voters. The path is clear for a pro-Brexit successor, likely to be Boris Johnson, who will trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and officially begin the process of the UK's departure.

But with such a fine margin in the voting (51.9 per cent chose to leave, 48.1 per cent wanted to stay), and with a myriad of economic and social issues now to be faced, Brexit remains an emotive issue. The Longford Leader contacted local people who now call the UK home to hear their views on how they view the outcome:

Padraig Stapleton

Originally from Killashee, now working as a graphic designer in London

Be grand, they said. The bookies never get it wrong, they said. The polls usually get it spot on, they said. It was with this knowledge, that I thought that by the morning, it'll be all ok once this is over with. 5am, the notifications on my phone popped up. And it was the surreal headline 'Britain votes to leave the EU'. Nobody expected this.

I thought it wasn't real. It was only then that the first thing on BBC News this morning when I switched on, was Nigel Farage, lording it at the House of Commons, stating the Leave won the referendum 'without a bullet being fired'. A huge statement of insensitive idiocy, the week after Jo Cox, a Labour MP was shot and stabbed. But the Brexit referendum was the most toxic, poisonous display of electioneering I've ever witnessed, that has brought out the absolute some worst in people.

The worst thing is that it was so needless. David Cameron declared a promise in the general elections last year, that he would introduce an EU Referendum to appease the Eurosceptics in the Tory party. I felt then that it was a display of arrogance and thought it would backfire. And how it has. He gambled with people's futures, and while it's easy to blame the Brexit voters, I feel the buck stops with him, and he'll be forever known as the PM who took Britain out of Europe and indeed could be yet responsible as the PM who broke up Britain.

I've plenty of EU national friends who are worried for their jobs, including myself. I've also seen English friends who passionately wanted Britain to stay openly looking for alternative passports, and declaring they want to leave. I feel the right wing press have certainly a lot to answer for. Certain newspapers have been anti-migrant and anti-European, stoking up the flames, plus there's the presence of the inflammatory Britain First Facebook page.

I was lucky enough to have a vote at this referendum, but I feel that EU nationals should have had a vote too, as they pay their taxes, work hard, contribute so much and have made their home here. At this moment in time, what I feel is alienation, and feel I can't look people I know who voted Out in the eye. It could also have a devastating effect on the Irish economy, could lead to the break up of the UK and what is going to happen to Northern Ireland? More questions than answers.

Personally speaking, I've been in the UK for 12 years, and have never had any problems from anyone here. But there are people that I thought I knew, that I feel that I can never talk to again as a result. Thankfully I've made some lifelong friends in Britain, and many feel truly ashamed of the backwards step that has been voted for.

'Taking Our Country Back' was the slogan of the Leave campaign. The way it's beginning to unfold, little England, shunned by it's neighbours, will be truly a reality. Careful what you wish for.

Boris Johnson potentially as PM. Farage as cheerleader-in-chief. Trump potentially US President. Stop the world and let me off as the great Declan Nerney once sang.

Paul Devaney

Originally from Killoe, now working as an aerospace consultant in London

The result is a political and economic earthquake here in London. This city is the multicultural, multinational, economic powerhouse of western Europe and is at the centre of Irelands biggest trading partnership. London voted 60% to remain in EU and there is a sense of bewilderment at the result. The election has revealed the real political and societal disconnect between London, Scotland and Northern Ireland on one side, and England and Wales on the other.

Many of my friends in London are aghast and angry. But many of the people I know from the East Midlands believe the vote is a good thing. It is all too easy to label those who voted Leave as bigots or racists, but the truth is much more nuanced. For some voters, this was a protest vote against the Conservatives who have decimated the NHS and Eduction budgets over the past 5 years. Others felt that weak Labor leadership will not give them any voice in general elections, so this was their only hope to unseat the Tories. Others see their towns or villages changing with what appears to them as uncontrolled immigration and they simply don't like it. Some are closet racists and some just miss the old world of the British Empire with comments such as 'We want our country back' or 'we want Britain to be British again'. What they mean is that they want the feel of empire and they want their village to be white, British and loyal.

The campaign was a smorgasbord of misinformation, outright lies and scare stories. Tactically the Remain side got it horribly wrong. Their decision to fixate on the economic scaremongering angered many, and George Osbornes 'punishment budget' tactic was seen as a form of establishment blackmail which deepened resolve to use the EU vote as a protest against government. The Leave side peddled lies and misinformation on costs, migration and consequences at levels I've never seen before and much of it went unopposed as the Remain team pushed economy-economy-economy, not realising that nobody was listening anymore.

Ultimately the electorate is to blame - voters no longer have any interest in the gradation of complex issues. Everything has to be black or white, right or wrong, In or Out. The news media in the UK fed into the 'them and us' narrative, and the outcome was a result which at its core is not what the majority really wants, but at a headline level fully represents the superficial media-fed beliefs of the majority of ill-informed voters who can't be bothered digging into the argument and entertaining open debate to wrestle complex issues to the ground properly.

I am no cheerleader for the EU. You only have to look at Jean Claude Junkers arrogant statement the night before the vote to see that there are major problems with how the EU is managed. Moves towards full political unity, EU Army and a still struggling and incompetent Eurozone, should have us all focussed on major reform (we in Ireland are not, but we should be). But the answer to those challenges is not to cut and run, as the UK has chosen to do.

Historic divisions notwithstanding, Ireland has effectively lost its closest political ally in EU, who had more of our interests than the remaining big countries will ever have. We need to contend with that new elephant in the EU room. The sands have shifted and like it or not (and we don't) we have to review our arrangement too.

It remains excruciatingly perplexing that Little Britain never grew up.

Peter Geoghegan

Originally from Longford town, now working as a journalist based in Glasgow, contributing to Channel 4, The Guardian, Al Jazeera and other news outlets

Englands difficulty is Irelands opportunity, as the old republican saying went. Well, in the wake of last Thursdays Brexit vote it could be Scottish nationalists chance, too.

While the UK as a whole voted to leave the UK, Scotland voted by a large margin to say in. Overall, 62 per cent of Scots voted for continuing membership of the European Union, with all 32 local council areas voting to remain.

On Friday morning, as a shell-shocked David Cameron and Boris Johnson faced the press as the respective faces of the remain and leave campaigns, the only politician in the UK who looked prepared for the result was Scotlands first minister Nicola Sturgoen.

Flanked by the Scottish Saltire and the starry European Union standard  not a union flag in sight  the Scottish National Party leader began by telling EU migrants in the country that they were welcome here and ended by saying that a second referendum on Scottish independence was now highly likely.

Whether there is another vote on leaving the UK remains to be seen, but already it is clear that those who orchestrated Brexit gave little or no thought to the impact it would have on the United Kingdom. Scottish nationalists have long argued that Scotland is politically distinct from England: we vote social democratic, they vote conservative, the nationalists say. In the wake of Thursdays result, that statement has never looked truer.

Early opinion polls suggest that most Scots now favour independence. In the wake of Brexit many internationalist no voters among my friends say that they would seriously consider voting yes if there is a re-run.

Right now, however, Sturgeon and the SNP are exploring whether Scotland can remain in the European Union without leaving the UK. There has been much talk here of Greenland, which did the reverse in the 1980s.

But if such an unlikely deal proves impossible, we could be back at the ballot box again in the next couple of years. Voters might not welcome yet another election (since 2010, Ive voted six times in Scotland) and the economic situation is worse than 2014, but by voting to leave the EU, England has put clear blue political water between its northern neighbour. In voting to leave one union, they might have spelled the end of another.

Ciaran McGann

PRO with the Longford Association in London

My view of the reaction was a bit of shock, not at the result but the behaviour of the In campaign to it. It was on the cards but they kept their heads in the sand hoping that the scare tactics would influence the voting public. I work with a number of nationalities, some from Europe and outside it, and a lot agreed that things had to change.

Is it a good thing? Probably in the long run but I am sure we will need to feel the pain for a few years before the storm clouds roll away.
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Columnists Press Releases
The Supreme Court of China released a new set of judicial interpretations governing the patent infringement lawsuits in March, which has entered into force on April 1 2016. The new judicial interpretation is intended to further enhance and clarify the way patent infringement lawsuits are done in China. Before going into the details, it may helpful to note that the Supreme Court is taking active steps to ensure the courts are playing dominant roles in handling patent disputes, as the State Intellectual Property Office is openly calling for more powers to enforce patents through administrative routes. The dual-track enforcement system in China, which was never given too much attention the past, is somehow a topic in today's China patent world. Some aspects of the new rules clearly give the courts a bigger say in driving the patent litigation proceedings.

The new rules made by the Supreme Court addresses a wide scope of issues, such as claim construction, impact of validity proceeding, design patent protection, determination of damages, standard essential patents.

Impact of invalidation proceeding on infringement proceedings

Like the German system, Chinese courts do not have powers to address validity issues in an infringement proceeding. The invalidity request needs to be handled by the Patent Review Board.It has always been a concern how the invalidity proceeding interacts with the infringement proceeding. The prior judiciary interpretation makes it clear that the courts do not have to stay the infringement proceedings after the defendant initiatives the invalidity proceeding.

In this new rule, the Supreme Court allows the court to dismiss the plaintiff's claims without prejudice, if the PRB invalidates the asserted claims. The plaintiff may refile the claim once the plaintiff successfully overturns the PRB decision in the judicial review. This arguably relieves the defendant of some pressure.

The new rule also allows the court to stay the infringement proceeding, if the claims could not be construed properly due to inherent ambiguity and the defendant indeed filed the invalidity action in time.

All these changes seem to provide more certainty for infringement and invalidity proceedings.

Some people have been asking for radical reforms to allow the courts to adjudicate patentability issues. This may not be possible any time soon. The judges may be willing to look at prior art defence, which could somehow let judges review the validity issues.

Claim construction

The amendments aim to reach a balance between the certainty and fairness in determining protection scope of the claim. Under the new court rules, the factors in claim construction include the elements recited in the preamble and characterizing portion of a claim, the use-environment feature defined in a claim, and the specific order of steps performed. In a way, the Supreme Court raises a higher standard about drafting of patent application documents while maintaining some limited flexibility in claim construction. The Supreme Court seems to be mindful of the level of professional capability in claim drafting in China.

Patentees should be aware of these amendments so as to avoid any unnecessary limitation of a claim when filing the patent application.

Design patent

The new rules have a lot to do with design protection, which may be exciting to some industries. What is particularly useful is that the new court rule introduces a concept of "design space", which refers to the extent of freedom of creation in designing relevant features. The bigger the design space is, the less likely a consumer may notice those "small" differences between the accused product and the patented design. Put another way, if a product has very limited ways of designing ("small" design space), even small changes in the design may result in non-infringement defense.

Damages

Chinese IP judges have been openly agreeing to increase damages awards. The trade mark law was amended in a way that the burden of proof is shifted in favour of the plaintiff. The new rules followed the same approach: if the patentee provides preliminary evidence about the profits of infringer for patent infringement, but the defendant fails to provide evidence such as account books, the court may determine damages based on the patentee's evidence. This might offer something dramatically new for the litigants.

Indirect infringement

The Chinese patent community has been discussing the indirect infringement liability in the patent law for past two decades. It is of big surprise that the new rules endorse them earlier than what we all expected. The new court rules recognise contributory and induced infringement  any party who for commercial purposes knowingly provides materials, devices or components to others for their having committed the direct infringement should be liable. It seems clear that the Supreme Court does not require the direct infringer must be named as a co-defendant. We probably expect to see more cases involving indirect infringement soon.

Standard essential patents

The new court rules address injunctive remedies related to SEPs. While the issue of unwilling licensee is often at the centre of the debate whether or not SEP owners are entitled to injunctions, the Supreme Court seems to look at both sides. Under the new rules, the courts will look at (a) whether or not the licensor "intentionally" violates its FRAND obligations, which leads to failure in concluding the licence and (b) whether the licensee has no "obvious fault"  which appears to be somewhere close to a standard of gross negligence. No published decisions have been available to let us know the courts actually applied such rules or thinking underneath.

The same new rules allow the licensor and potential licensees to ask the court to decide on licensing terms, including the royalty rate, if the negotiation fails. The new rules states that the courts will look at (a) the "degree of innovation" of such SEPs and the role of SEPs in the standards  which reminds us of the rule of apportionment, (b) technical fields, (c) nature of standards and (d) how the standards are implemented and related licensing terms. It will be interesting to see if licensing parties are indeed willing to use courts to mediate on the royalty rates.

Liability of bona fide infringer

The Patent Law exempts a bona fide infringer from paying damages, if such a party has no knowledge about the infringement and discloses legitimate sources of the goods.

However, the new rules carve out a new exception to such a bona fide infringer: if the user of the infringing product has paid reasonable consideration, the user does not need to stop the usage of the infringing product. The Supreme Court has stated that the amendment is intended to maintain some balance of interest. The Court is convinced that the source of infringement is the manufacturer and not the users who have no knowledge of the infringement and have paid a reasonable price. This new exception may cause some concerns to patentees, for example those who wish to stop the use of the infringement products that are in the supply chain.

Exciting changes

The new court rules provide various exciting changes to patent practice in China. We expect that a line of new decisions will come out soon based on the new court rules. Arguably, some of the language in the new court rules is not entirely clear. We anticipate the upcoming decisions will help clarify them soon. At the same time, it will be interesting to watch how the pending amendment of the Patent Law will adopt all the changes in the new court rules. The State Council has not increased the priority of the patent law amendments. We might not see any new draft of the amendments in new future.

He Jing Liu Liangyong

AnJie Law Firm26/F, Tower D, Central International Trade Center6A Jianguomenwai Avenue, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100022, PR ChinaTel: +86 10 8567 5988Fax: +86 10 8567 5999wuli@anjielaw.comwww.anjielaw.com
A Russian warship carried out aggressive and erratic maneuvers close to a U.S. Navy ship in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the second such Cold War-style incident there in a matter of weeks, the U.S. military said on Saturday.



The U.S. European Command said the Russian frigate, Yaroslav Mudry, came unnecessarily close to the guided-missile cruiser USS San Jacinto on June 30 and maneuvered in its wake.



In a statement, EUCOM said the U.S. ship had not been threatened and it maintained course and speed. "But the closing distance by Yaroslav Mudry before the ship turned away from San Jacinto is considered a high risk maneuver, highly unprofessional, and contrary to international maritime regulations."



Referring to the Yaroslav Mudry's close "aggressive, erratic maneuvers", EUCOM SAID: "These actions can unnecessarily escalate tensions between countries, and could result in dangerous miscalculations or accidents."



There have been several similar incidents - reminiscent of Cold War confrontations between the rival superpowers - at sea and in the air in recent months, with the U.S. and Russian militaries accusing each other of dangerous approaches in international waters and airspace.



U.S. officials said earlier this month that on June 17, the Yaroslav Mudry came within 315 yards (288 meters) of the USS Gravely. They termed that incident "unsafe and unprofessional." The Russian Defense Ministry disputed this.



At the time of the incident, the San Jacinto was carrying out operations against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria with the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.



In another incident in April, the U.S. military said Russian SU-24 bombers had simulated attack passes near the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea.



U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said at the time that the behavior of the Russian pilots was provocative and dangerous, adding that "under the rules of engagement that could have been a shoot-down".



(Reporting by Idrees Ali and David Brunnstrom; Editing by Andrew Hay and Richard Balmforth)
Starting in July, the Port of Gothenburg will be the new port of entry for Mazda cars imported into Sweden. All cars destined for the Swedish market will now reach their owners via the largest port in Scandinavia.



"This is tangible confirmation of the excellent collaboration between all those operating in the automotive sector at the Port of Gothenburg. By joining forces we have succeeded in linking yet another highly respected car manufacturer to the port, which is extremely positive," said Claes Sundmark, Vice President, Container, RoRo and Rail at the Port of Gothenburg.



The majority of Mazda cars are produced in Japan. The frequent departures from Japan that the Port of Gothenburg was able to offer proved pivotal when Mazda chose its new port of entry for the Swedish market. Mazda cars bound for the Swedish market were previously shipped to Malmo.



With effect from July, the shipping company CLdN will be responsible for the sea transport. On arrival at the port, Logent Ports and Terminals will handle the transloading of the cars for onward transport in Sweden.



Mazda's Swedish head office is located in Kungsbacka, just outside Gothenburg. Stefan Sandberg, Aftermarket Manager for Mazda Sweden, feels that proximity to the port is a definite advantage but it was not the most important factor when choosing a new port of entry.



"We regard it as a bonus. The most important factor is that by using the Port of Gothenburg we have a greater arrival frequency and a more efficient flow, which means that our cars can reach the customers even quicker than before."
Vietnam has called for an international tribunal in The Hague to deliver a "fair and objective" ruling in an arbitration case lodged by the Philippines that challenges China's expansive claims in the South China Sea.



In a carefully worded statement two days after the court announced July 12 as the verdict date, Vietnam's foreign ministry said it hoped the ruling would provide a basis for peacefully resolving rows.



Vietnam is not a direct party to the case but stands to gain if the verdict favours Manila. Like the Philippines, it is also at odds with China, although it is wary not to push too far against a major trade partner.



"Vietnam has always been observing the development of the case and wants the arbitration court to deliver a fair and objective decision, creating a basis to peacefully resolve disputes in the (South China Sea)," Vietnam's foreign ministry spokesman, Le Hai Binh, said in a statement late on Friday.



Though the wording was similar to those used by numerous countries, Vietnam's statement stopped short of calling for the ruling to be respected.



China has gone to great efforts to show the Permanent Court of Arbitration has no jurisdiction on the case, and Beijing will therefore not recognise it. China's official Xinhua news agency called it a "law-abusing tribunal".



The case seeks an interpretation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), to which Beijing is a signatory.



The South China Sea is one of the world's most vital shipping lanes, with about $5 trillion of goods passing annually through waters contested in parts by six countries, several of which are undergoing military buildups.



(Reporting by Mai Nguyen; Editing by Martin Petty)


Anti-Brexiteers Hit London Streets

On June 23, referendum results showed most Brits for Brexit, an anti-neoliberal/pro independence rebellion wanting change.



Union beholden to Brussels sacrifices political sovereignty to a higher offshore authority. Independence may not change much but at least would let Brits chart their own way.



Sovereign independence is sacrosanct, inviolable - the inalienable right of all nations. Union destroys it.

On July 2, thousands protested against Brexit in London, mostly youths, largely pro-union nationwide.



A statement issued by organizers and speakers said (t)oday we joined thousands of people backing March for Europe and we called for the country to come together in a positive democratic discussion over the new partnership with Europe.



We condemn the misinformation over Brexit and believe we need a properly informed debate on the way forward. We cannot pull up the drawbridge to Europe and call on our politicians to set out a clear route map for this partnership.



Politicians must be prepared to put to the British people their prospectus for the new way forward through a general election or second referendum.



Powerful interests likely orchestrated things behind the scenes, one of early-going anti-Brexit shots across the bow, lots more coming, an organized effort to build majority pro-union public sentiment.



Chances for Brexit are virtually nil. Monied interests on both sides of the Atlantic reject it. Referendum results changed nothing. Parliamentarians alone have final say.



Expect pressure brought to bear to build majority support for union. Things will likely play out for months, status quo prevailing when the dust settles - the worst outcome for most Brits.



Ordinary ones against Brexit fail to understand whats at stake. Sovereign independence isnt pull(ing) up the drawbridge to Europe.



Partnership should depend on mutual cooperation benefitting all parties equitably. EU membership denies it - a straightjacket giving Brussels and above all Washington control over member states.



(D)emocratic discussion ahead should focus on whats most important. Should Britain declare independence or remain a Brussels/US colony?

By Stephen Lendman

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com

His new book as editor and contributor is titled Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.

http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html

He lives in Chicago and can be reached in Chicago at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.



Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday through Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national topics. All programs are archived for easy listening.

 2016 Copyright Stephen Lendman - 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.




Independence Day Hypocrisy, Not Democracy

On July 4, 1776, America gained independence from Britain. Everything changed but stayed the same under new management - the way the framers planned it.



Today we'd call them a Wall Street crowd - a deplorable bunch, including bankers, merchants, planters, ship owners, lawyers, politicians, judges, slave owners and traders, speculators, smugglers, privateers, and other type wheeler-dealers.



We the people, meant them, not us. They created a government of men, not laws. Property owners alone had rights. Ordinary people didn't matter, entirely left out.

Americas first chief Supreme Court Justice John Jay said America should be run by men who own it. John Adams stressed having the rich, well-born and able in charge.



Government of, by and for the people was doublespeak, the general welfare for the privileged few, democracy verboten. Americas founders had their own interests alone in mind.



The Constitution they created was no masterpiece of political architecture. Alexander Hamilton called it a shilly shally thing of mere milk and watera frail and worthless document. Benjamin Franklin had doubts, Americas grand old man, an enfeebled figurehead at the time.



Mischaracterized father of the Constitution James Madison said I am not of the number, if there be such, who think (its) a faultless work. After its adoption, he explained (s)omething, anything, was better than nothing. Later he spent years disapproving of whats in it.



None of the 55 framers believed the Constitution was the glorious achievement its portrayed to be. Only 39 signed it. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were abroad at the time, serving in ambassadorial roles to Britain and France respectively.



Adams was the leading constitutional theorist of his time. He spent years criticizing it privately. Jefferson was disaffected. Until it was added, he objected to the omission of a Bill of Rights - belatedly included to protect the interests of the nations privileged, not its ordinary people.



Jefferson believed Americas founding document couldnt stand the test of time. He urged a new convention every 20 years to fix problems and make the Constitution relevant to the times.



It was the product of duplicitous framers and close allies, scheming to cut the best deals for themselves, democracy never considered.



Expanding America from sea to shining sea followed, the beginning of its global imperial project, today threatening world peace and humanitys survival.



The supreme law of the land deters no president or sitting government from doing what they please, inventing reasons as justification. We the people are entirely left out.



Powerful interests control things, usurping coup detat authority, duopoly power with two right wings in charge.



Elections are farcical when held, mocking legitimacy, an illusory veneer of democracy. Americas sham system disregards the real thing. The framers designed it this way.



We the People of the United States, the constitutions opening words, are meaningless window dressing. Free-wheeling/self-serving politicians operate in their own self-interest. Popular needs and concerns dont matter.



Americas deplorable state reflects Franklins warning about (a) republic, if you can keep it. He understood significant challenges ahead, likely never imagining how bad things would get.



Tyranny today is on a slippery slope toward becoming full-blown, fundamental freedoms disappearing.



War on humanity rages, survival perhaps threatened like never before. Celebratory weekend activities distract from whats most important.



Americas shameful state should focus attention on how to change things. Otherwise were all doomed.

By Stephen Lendman

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com

His new book as editor and contributor is titled Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.

http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html

He lives in Chicago and can be reached in Chicago at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.



Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday through Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national topics. All programs are archived for easy listening.

 2016 Copyright Stephen Lendman - 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.




In its 18th year, Celebration 2016 will kick off on Independence Day at 3 p.m. at Martinsville Speedway when the carnival rides open. The Rogues will begin the music at 6:30 p.m., with the headlining Gatlin Brothers taking the stage around 8:30 p.m., followed by the biggest fireworks show in the area.

Nearly 70 local businesses have come together to donate the more than $100,000 needed to put on Celebration, according to a news release on the Martinsville Speedway website.

Jeb Bassett, who leads the fund-raising efforts, said in the release that the businesses that support Celebration are what has kept it going for nearly two decades.

Due to their generosity, we are able to keep this event free for the families of Martinsville and Henry County, Martinsville Speedway President Clay Campbell said in the release. A heartfelt thank you goes out to all who realize the importance of this celebration and feel the need to give back to the entire community to make this happen.

Campbell added: While were able to provide the venue, this wouldnt be possible without the local business community stepping forward and helping with the costs of Celebration. When you see 60 businesses coming together, some of which are competitors with each other, it shows how important this is to the community as a whole.

The following businesses are the sponsors for Celebration 2016:

American Global Logistics, American National Bank, Ameristaff, Appalachian Power, Applied Felts, Bargain Galore, Bassett Funeral Home, Bassett Furniture, Bassett Office Supply, BB&T, Beeson Industrial Supply, Blue Ridge Aquaculture, Bubba Judy, Burch Hodges, Stone, Carter Bank and Trust, Carter Machinery, Casting Logos, City of Martinsville, Collinsville Printing, Cool Knobs & Pulls, Chambers Partnership for Economic Growth, Cunningham Tire, Debbie's Catering, Dillon Insurance, Eastern Panel, Eastman, Fidelity Bank, First Piedmont, Frith Construction, G.S. Industries, HanesBrands, Henry County Baptist Association, Henry County, Henry County Sherriffs Department, Hooker Furniture, J&R Management, jobs.martinsville.com, Kings Mountain Animal Clinic, Martinsville Speedway, Memorial Hospital of Martinsville and Henry County, Martinsville-Henry County Chamber of Commerce, Millards Machinery, Monogram Foods, Nelson Automotive, Norris Funeral Home, Ohio Foam, One Hour Martinizing, Parker Insurance Agency, Pepsi, Ridgeway Volunteer Fire Department, River Community Bank, RTI, Sarver Cleaning Services, Shenandoah Furniture, Southwestern Virginia Gas, State Farm / Chris Starnes, Steve Martin Trenching, Stone Dynamics, Taco Bell, Tarheel Paper, The Greene Co., The Lester Group, The Results Co., TR Properties, ValleyStar Credit Union, Virginia Blower, Virginia Mirror, West Window, Zenith Logistics.

Bassett said: I hope everyone comes out and enjoys it, on the Fourth of July. I do hope they remember the purpose of the Fourth of July celebration; our independence both in the past and the current armed services all allow us to have our freedom and independence every day.

The Gatlin Brothers are best known for their hits All the Gold in California, Houston (Means One Day Closer to You) and Broken Lady, according to a previous Martinsville Speedway news release. Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers have played the Grand Ole Opry, the Worlds Fair and the White House.

Celebration 2016 will culminate with the fireworks display at the conclusion of The Gatlin Brothers concert.

According to VisitMartinsville.com, the Fuel for Families Food Drive will be held in conjunction with Celebration. Everyone attending the event is urged to bring non-perishable food and personal care items and drop them off at one of several collection areas at entrance gates and in the carnival rides area.
A judge in Patrick County Circuit Court on Friday sentenced a Spencer man to a total of 55 years in prison on charges of first-degree murder, grand larceny and concealment of a dead body.

Anthony Octavius Joyce, 37, was charged in the strangulation death of Shelly Dawn Gravely, 34, of South Mayo Drive, Stuart, on Nov. 15, 2014.

At a hearing in April, Judge Jonathan Apgar accepted Joyces guilty pleas to first-degree murder, an amended charge of grand larceny and concealment of a dead body. Under a plea agreement, the commonwealth amended a charge of robbery to grand larceny. The plea agreement did not specify what the sentences would be and left that up to Apgar.

Apgar conducted the sentencing hearing Friday.

Patrick County Commonwealths Attorney Stephanie Vipperman has said that first-degree murder carries punishment ranging from 20 years in prison to life, concealing a dead body carries punishment of up to five years in prison, and grand larceny carries punishment of up to 20 years in prison.

At the hearing Friday, Vipperman argued that Joyce should receive the maximum sentences for first-degree murder and concealing a dead body.

Vikram Kapil of the Public Defenders Office argued that Apgar should consider the lesser of two sets of sentencing guidelines (without a weapon vs. with a weapon) when sentencing Joyce, and Apgar agreed.

Ultimately, Apgar said he would give Joyce some credit for pleading guilty, which eliminated the need for a jury trial. Apgar said he felt a jury likely would have given Joyce a life sentence for first-degree murder. However, Apgar felt the sentencing guidelines do not adequately reflect the harm Joyce did. So Apgar sentenced Joyce to 40 years in prison for first-degree murder, 10 years in prison for grand larceny and five years in prison for concealing a dead body  a total of 55 years. Joyce also will have period of post-release supervision.

Gravely and Joyce had been involved in a romantic relationship on and off for about five years. Most recently, Gravely broke up with Joyce on Nov. 14, 2014.

Dr. Jennifer Bowers, assistant chief medical examiner for Virginia, testified that an article of clothing may have been used to strangle Gravely. (An article of clothing was found on her dead body about or near her neck.)

According to Bowers and commonwealths evidence, Gravely had injuries including extensive hemorrhaging in her throat area; a cut on her forehead; black eye; small pinpoint hemorrhages under the skin on her right side of her face and both eyes; cut and bruise on her lip and mouth, and bruises, scrapes or contusions on her collar bone, abdomen, arms and legs.

Sarah Reynolds, a friend of Gravelys, testified that several months before her death that Gravely had a black eye. Reynolds said Gravely told her Joyce had hit her. Kapil contended that was hearsay and that Reynolds did not see that alleged incident herself.

Vipperman also played part of an audio tape from an unrelated case in which Joyce was convicted of misdemeanor assault in Henry County General District Court in 2002, in connection with a 2001 incident.

According to that audio and information Vipperman provided, in that case the woman who was the victim said she was riding in a vehicle with Joyce, that he started to drive past places she didnt recognize, and she asked where they were going. She said she asked what he wanted, and that he said she knew what he wanted. She said he pulled over and said he was running out of gas, that she got out and tried to run away, but that he grabbed her and threw her into the back seat and then drove away.

Kapil argued that case happened years ago and did not relate to the current cases.

Vipperman also tried to provide evidence about some other charges in connection with the 2001 incident that were dropped, but Kapil objected and Apgar ruled in favor of Kapil.

Vipperman also tried to show video surveillance about a fight in jail that she said Joyce was involved with, but he has not yet been tried. Kapil objected and Apgar ruled in Kapils favor.

Mike Bowman, currently chief deputy for the Franklin County Sheriffs Office, was a special agent for the Virginia State Police in 2014 and assisted the Patrick County Sheriffs Office with the investigation of Gravelys murder. He said he retrieved images and information from Joyces phone and that after Gravelys death Joyce downloaded images where he had researched some unsolved homicides or homicides that took a long time to solve, and that Joyce had visited some pornographic sites and also had some romantic-related emails with women.

Kapil called two witnesses: Chevelle Witcher and Rosemary Howard, both sisters of Joyce.

Witcher testified that Joyce would give people the shirt off his back, that he is not violent, and that as far as she knew, Joyce had a good relationship with Gravely and her children.

Vipperman asked Witcher if she was aware that Joyce and Gravely had had a number of breakups, and Witcher said she was not.

Howard testified that Joyce and Gravely took trips together and that they were kind to her and other relatives. Shelly loved us, she said. She added that she feels sorry for her family and for Gravelys family.

In her closing argument, Vipperman said Joyce has a history of violence, that he is a huge threat to the community, and that he brutally beat and strangled Gravely as she fought for her life.

She saw death coming for at least 30 seconds, Vipperman said.

According to Bowers testimony, the average person has enough blood circulating to stay conscious for an average of 30 seconds when being strangled, and after that, it takes minutes of continued pressure and restriction of the airway and blood flow for a person to die.

Vipperman also argued that Joyce planned the incident; that after strangling her, he did not call 911 or try to resuscitate her; that he cleaned up the crime scene; that he drove her body to a remote location and dumped in a ravine (near a bridge) without even burying it, which she called deplorable; and that he lied to law enforcement officers about various aspects of the incident and evidence. She also contended that Joyce has not taken responsibility for his actions and has not shown remorse, among other things.

Kapil argued that the only thing he agreed with Vipperman about was that the actions hurt the two families, friends and the children. He contended the commonwealth tried to introduce unadjudicated acts into the hearing. Kapil said Joyce makes no excuses, takes responsibility for his actions, and is remorseful. There are no words to describe how much pain he has caused you and how sorry he is to the victims family. He did not wish for this to happen.

Kapil said Joyce had an up-and-down relationship with Gravely, he felt things were slipping away, he was desperate to find out what was going on, he reacted with anger, and a disaster happened.

Kapil also said Joyce wanted his family to know they had nothing to do with this.
Scientists from the Virginia Museum of Natural History are on an excavation in Wyoming, digging up the fossilized bones of a dinosaur to bring back to the museum to study.

They are Dr. Alex Hastings, Assistant Curator of Paleontology at the Virginia Museum of Natural History (VMNH); Dr. Kal Ivanov, Assistant Curator of Invertebrate Zoology; and Ray Vodden, paleontology research technician and laboratory manager.

They are joined by Dr. Brooke Haiar of Lynchburg College, who has excavated at the site on and off for 10 years, five Lynchburg College students and a few other volunteers, Hastings said.

The crew are camping in Graybull, Wyoming, about a 30-minute drive from the excavation site in Shell, Wyoming, in the middle of nowhere, Hastings said.

The ridge where they are digging is on federal property, managed by the United States Bureau of Land Management. The site where they are taking out whats left of the dinosaur is about 20 feet by 15 feet.

All dinosaurs are exciting finds, Hastings said, adding that it is marvelous to be able to understand these bizarre and awesome giants of the past.

Sauropod

They are digging up the fossil of a sauropod, a long-necked dinosaur.

The sauropod dates back about 120 million years, from the Jurassic Period, in the middle part of the Mesozoic Era  the Age of the Dinosaurs, Hastings said.

They arent sure yet of the exact genus. Its looking like it could be an Apatosaurus, Hastings said  theyll only be able to figure that out after they study the fossil in detail, back at the laboratory.

The excavation is in partnership with Lynchburg College. Haiar has been involved with the Shell excavation in the 10 years its been going on, Hastings said. A group goes there almost every year.

Haiar had encountered this particular sauropod fossil before  she was last there in 2014  and on this trip she and the crew are finding new parts of the skeleton, he added.

The dinosaur they are digging out has been known (about) for over 100 years, Hastings said, but its something you dont ever get a complete skeleton for during excavations, only some bones.

This one probably will come out incomplete as well, but it already has some important parts that the existing sauropod fossil skeletons dont have  for example, a really important bone in the ankle.

By finding bones that have not been found before in other excavations of the same dinosaur, were able to help flesh out these animals, he said.

In fact, Hastings added, there is a chance that this is a new species. They wont know until the bones have been studied thoroughly, back in the lab at VMNH.

Since the dinosaur was so big, it takes a lot of time to work through ginoromous bones, he said.

Safe packaging

To bring the bones back to Virginia, they are being safely packed in plaster jackets. Strips of burlap are dipped in plaster and wrapped around a bone. A barrier, such as newspaper, toilet paper or aluminum foil, first is wrapped around the bone so the plaster wont stick to it. A plaster jacket creates a custom-made protective shell around each fossil bone, Hastings said.

Theyve done about half a dozen plaster jackets so far, he estimated, and should get another half a dozen before they leave.

We want to get out as much of this skeleton as we possibly can in the time that weve got  a little over two weeks, Hasting said. They arrived June 21 and will leave on July 9.

If they dont get all of it, they will be able to return for more another time, according to their understanding with the Bureau of Land Management, he said. They have to go through a permitting process each time they go, but Haiar has been doing it so long that the paperwork isnt too cumbersome.

Camping and working in 100 degrees

Funding from Memorial Hospital of Martinsville and Bassett Furniture allowed them to rent a truck (Dodge Ram 2500) that can handle rough roads and carrying lots of heavy stuff out, Hastings said. The drive there took two and a half days.

Its hot in Wyoming  it got over 100 several days, and a few times was a nice, even, cool 85. The paleontologists just suffer through the heat with plenty of water and sunscreen.

They cant go earlier in the year, when temperatures are cooler, because since digs general depend on the help of students and professors, they need to work around the academic calendar, he said. Also, they need the increased hours of daylight summer provides to get a lot done.

The crew dig all day and return to their site each evening. Most of them are staying in tents. Haiar is staying in a cabin with air conditioning  which is important to store the glue for the plaster jackets.

We need a lot of glue to keep these bones safe, Hastings said. The glue would dry out in the intense heat of a Wyoming summer if not left in a climate-controlled area.

In other excavations he has done, Hastings has stayed in far more stark conditions, he said. This one has cell phone reception, bathrooms and showers.

They have a camp cook who prepares their meals. The cook is a very experienced cook from Colorado who is interested in paleontology, Hastings said. She charges a very reasonable fee for the meal preparations, and when shes not working on meals, she helps them dig.

Giant dinosaurs, tiny ants

The researchers are hoping to learn about more than just the dinosaur: also the harvester ant.

This ant, which is common out West, picks up small things and puts them around its mound, Hastings said. When their mounds are near areas with fossils, they are surrounded by tiny fossils. Looking for mounds surrounded by those tiny fossils is a trick paleontologists have had for many, many years in finding dig sites, far more productive that looking for them on our own, he said.

However, not a lot of studies have been done on the ants, he added.

When Hastings has told Ivanov before about the practice of finding dig sites based on harvester ant leavings, Ivanov was intrigued, because his specialty is ants.

Ivanov joined them on this trip to study the harvester ants, so that will be a second type of research to come out of this trip, according to Hastings.
Al Horford

Al Horford has agreed to sign with the Boston Celtics.

(David Goldman/AP)

The Boston Celtics have landed their man (or at least one of their men) in free agent big man Al Horford.

Horford tweeted out "Celtic Pride" Saturday night, confirming multiple reports he has opted to leave the Atlanta Hawks for the Celtics. Horford agreed to a maximum contract offer that will pay him something in the vicinity of $113 million over the next four years.

The Celtics' ultimate dream is to pair Horford with Kevin Durant, becoming a contender basically overnight. It's probably wise to take some time to appreciate they just landed the top center on the market and should continue their rise up the Eastern Conference ranks, but now they have a better pitch for Durant (just in case Tom Brady isn't enough).
Amir Johnson, Paul Millsap, Al Horford

The Boston Celtics are trying to sign Al Horford, but the Atlanta Hawks are reportedly fighting to keep him.

(AP Photo/John Bazemore)

Tom Brady has joined the Boston Celtics' meeting with Kevin Durant and Al Horford's free agency decision is expected later Saturday, so, yeah, this is a pretty big day for the Boston Celtics.

The latest on Horford comes from The Vertical's Adrian Wojnarowski:

Sources: Hawks continue to shop Millsap, believing Horford will warm to return. It will likely take another bump in Atlanta's contract offer  Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 2, 2016

Sources: Talks ongoing between Horford, Hawks' camps today. Late ATL push. Horford's had 5-year offer all along there; engaging on salary.  Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 2, 2016

After signing Dwight Howard and Kent Bazemore, the Atlanta Hawks need to clear cap space to afford Horford. They could do that without moving Paul Millsap, but keeping him would likely push Horford away -- having three really good big men would be tough on everyone involved. Though Millsap may actually have more on-court value than Horford -- and seems like a better fit next to Howard -- Millsap could test free agency in a year and it might be best to keep Horford if he's willing to sign a long-term deal.

If Horford does not return to the Hawks, the Celtics and Washington Wizards are reportedly the frontrunners to land him. Neither team can offer him a fifth year, which -- in addition to sentimentality, ties to the city and all that -- might put the Hawks in the lead if they can find the room.

This promises to be a crazy next few days -- and a really important time for the Celtics, one way or another. If they get an indication Horford is likely to return to Atlanta, I wonder if they would get involved with the Millsap bidding. But maybe that's thinking too far ahead.
Kevin Durant

Kevin Durant has reportedly told the Los Angeles Clippers he will not sign with them this summer.

(Nate Billings/The Oklahoman via AP)

And then there were five.

Kevin Durant's list of six teams has been shortened by one after news he has informed the Los Angeles Clippers he will not join them this summer.

Seems obvious by now but Clippers have been told that Kevin Durant will not be joining them.  Ben Bolch (@latbbolch) July 3, 2016

After receiving the news, the Clippers reportedly reached agreements with two of their own free agents: Austin Rivers, who will sign a three-year, $35-million contract, and Wesley Johnson, who will make $18 million over the next three years. The team no longer possesses enough cap flexibility to even dream about squeezing Durant in next to their preexisting list of stars.

One other effect of the Clippers' roster moves: USA Today's Sam Amick reported Jamal Crawford received an offer from the team that will "very likely lead to him leaving." That news might have encouraged Boston Celtics All-Star Isaiah Thomas to publicly recruit his close friend on Twitter:

Despite Thomas' claim, the Celtics don't seem like a probable landing spot for the high-scoring guard. Even with Evan Turner leaving, the perimeter rotation is crowded with Thomas, Avery Bradley, Marcus Smart and Jae Crowder all likely to earn a load of minutes plus youngsters Jaylen Brown, Terry Rozier and R.J. Hunter expected to be in the mix. The Golden State Warriors have registered interest in Crawford, according to ESPN's Ramona Shelburne, but that pursuit will need to wait until Durant decides where to play.

The Celtics met with Durant on Saturday and have now signed Al Horford to bolster their pitch. For more about them landing Horford, check out the latest episode of the Locked on Celtics podcast with the Rainin' Js featuring me and Red's Army's John Karalis:
On this weekend during which our nation pays tribute to patriots and those who founded our country 240 years ago, Army Specialist Ronald C. Hurst is remembered as a patriot, too.

His is a "phenomenal story," says his older brother, Frederick A. "Rick" Hurst, of Springfield. It's also a story of what might have been, save for the twists and turns that we encounter along the road of life.

Ronny Hurst dropped out of the High School of Commerce in the 12th grade; he had different plans than those of his mother, Jeanette, who had been intent on seeing all of her five children complete their educations.

"That almost ruined my mother," recalls Rick Hurst. "Her whole thing was education for all of us. He was the last one, the youngest of five. He had different plans. He bought himself a car and within weeks had wrecked the car. And, within weeks of that, he joined the Army and was shipped to Germany."

When word came that his wife, Carol, was encountering a difficult pregnancy, Ronny Hurst received a compassionate transfer back to the states to be with her and was stationed at Fort Devens. By then, the war was raging in Vietnam, and, soon after the birth of their son, he wound up being shipped out on a tour of duty to southeast Asia.

From the accounts of those who served with his brother, Rick Hurst knows Ronny Hurst was "quite the leader, the kind of guy people followed." It wasn't surprising to him, Rick Hurst says. Ronny's enlistment in the military hadn't come without full recognition of what he could face down the road.

"He was a smart kid, street wise and tough as nails. That kid watched my back as I did his back in the day. He knew what he was doing," Rick Hurst says.

"He was popular in the Army. He wound up having some men under his command. He had a couple of months left to go, and they needed someone to go somewhere from their base on Mekong Delta. He went himself, and, along the way, his Jeep hit a (land) mine."

Army Spc. Ronald C. Hurst,of Springfield, was killed April 12, 1967,when the Jeep he was driving struck a land mine in Vietnam.

News of his brother's death arrived for Rick Hurst in Washington, D.C., where he was attending Howard University and where he had completed all the arrangements for Ronny to begin classes there when he got home from Vietnam in a matter of months.

"He had gotten his GED in the Army. It was all worked out for him to enroll in Howard. Just a couple of months, and he would have been there," Rick Hurst remembers.

This spring marked 49 years since the day in April 1967 that Ronny Hurst became the 11th casualty for the city of Springfield in Vietnam.

He was 21 years old.

Rick Hurst remembers those spring days of 1967 as if they were yesterday. "When you lose a family member, that close you never ever forget it," he says. "Overall, it was devastating, but believe it or not, he probably saved my life. I was in my last semester in college. I came back to Springfield, went to the draft board and told them my brother had been killed, another brother returned from Vietnam with a disability and the other was stationed on the (demilitarized zone) in Korea. The lady gave me a permanent deferment."

He knows he "surely would have gone to Vietnam," had it not been for that woman's actions.

A recent trip to Vietnam introduced Rick Hurst to the country where his brother spent the final days of his life. "The Vietnamese were not hateful. They were very conciliatory. I felt good about being there," he says.

During a boat trip along the Mekong River that brought him close to where Ronny Hurst was stationed and had been killed, Rick Hurst's emotions got the best of him. "I did tear up. It did engender some emotions," he recalled.

Overall, the trip brought a measure of both understanding and peace for Rick Hurst. "Both in being there, where (Ronny) spent his last days and talking to the Vietnamese, I came to understand that we all understood we all made mistakes. The Vietnamese seemed as honest about things as we have become. It was good to know that something positive came out of it even though it was not positive for my family."

For Rick Hurst, the concept of patriotism is not one filled with drama, pomp and circumstance. "It's just the commitment to your country, to defend it if you have to," he shared. "I don't really use the term patriot so much as loyalty. I'm a very loyal person, and loyalty to your country is part of that."

He stresses, "That doesn't mean at all that you can't criticize your country or some of your country's behavior. I don't just buy that. It may be more patriotic if you can criticize your country."

Indeed, a quotation sometimes attributed to Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence that this holiday celebrates, reads, "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."

Ronny Hurst is among the 58,000 U.S. soldiers whose names are engraved on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C.

This summer, the Wall That Heals, a traveling replica of the national monument to Vietnam and a project of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, will arrive at the Eastern States Exposition grounds in West Springfield on Aug. 17. It will be open for free, around-the-clock viewing by the public from Aug. 18 through 21, another time for us to celebrate some of our nation's patriots.

Cynthia G. Simison is managing editor of The Republican; she may be reached by email to csimison@repub.com.
Gen. Sean Collins 2.jpg

Brig. Gen. Sean T. Collins, center, of the 104th Fighter Wing, of Southwick, is flanked by Gen. Gary Keefe and his wife,Sharon Collins, after his pinning ceremony at the Springfield Armory National Historic Site.

(AIR NATIONAL GUARD PHOTO)

SPRINGFIELD - The Springfield Armory National Historic Site was the backdrop for the recent promotion ceremony for a native son who has risen to the rank of brigadier general in the Air National Guard and will serve at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

Brig. Gen. Sean T. Collins, of Southwick, a veteran of more than 20 years with the Air National Guard's 104th Fighter Wing, based in Westfield, will serve as the assistant for mobilization and reserve affairs in the office of the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs.

His promotional ceremony, attended by family, friends, military and civic leaders, was held on June 12. Collins is the grandson of a well-known Springfield police officer, Capt. James J. Collins, and his father, Dr. James J. Collins, served as medical director for many years at the former Springfield Municipal Hospital. His father and mother, Jane Collins, were present for the pinning ceremony.

In his new role, Gen. Collins will be a principal advisor to the director of health affairs on Guard and Reserve matters at the Pentagon. Collins was most recently commander of the 104th Fighter Wing Medical Group.

During four combat tours with the 104th, Collins received multiple awards and recognition, serving with distinction. In 2011, he deployed as a senior researcher for the Joint Combat Casualty Research Team in Afghanistan, providing theater wide support to vital research activities while in Helmand Province.

"(Gen.) Collins mentors several people in every area of his life and gives back to his community continuously," said Maj. Gen. Gary Keefe, the state's adjutant general who previously served with Collins at the 104th. "I am happy for the Collins family who has a long and rich military career. (He is a) great officer, great airman and truly a great friend."

Collins headed the medical group at the 104th, based at Barnes Regional Airport, for 11 years. In that capacity, he was responsible for the health and wellbeing for more than 1,200 military members assigned to the wing as well as more than 60 medical personnel. He entered the Air Force in 1995 after being commissioned as a first lieutenant in the 104th Medical Squadron.

"The enlisted core is the one who gets the work done and you have to listen to," said Collins. "I was fortunate at the 104th for an outstanding enlisted force. It's because of the enlisted core I am (a general today)."

Collins is a board-certified nurse practitioner. In his civilian career he is an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, with a joint appointment in medicine and the graduate school of nursing. He also holds a clinical appointment in the diabetes center for excellence at UMass Medical Center in Worcester.

He also serves as president of a family-owned business, Governors America Corp., located in Agawam; the manufacturer of engine control products employs nearly 100 people.

"I am from a hard working family," said Collins. "My father as a residence medical director was up at three in the morning, doing rounds. I scratch my head when he says I am working too hard."

Collins earned his bachelor degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and his master degree from UMass Worcester as a clinical nurse specialist in dialysis and transplantation. He also holds a Ph.D. from UMass-Worcester.

He and his wife, Sharon, make their home in Southwick; they are the parents of three children, sons Mackenzie and Cameron and daughter Gabrielle.
SANDWICH

 An Orleans man died as he was diving for lobsters in Cape Cod Bay.

The Cape and Islands District Attorney's Office told the Cape Cod Times that Michael Dearth, 55 of Orleans was found floating near his boat off Town Neck Beach in Sandwich Saturday. He was in his SCUBA gear.

A spokesman for the DA said a kayaker called the Coast Guard to report seeing Dearth's body shortly after 1:30 p.m. Saturday. A rescue boat was dispatched from the Cape Cod Canal station. A boat was also launched by the Sandwich Fire Department.

Authorities said Dearth had drowned. His body was recovered from 5 to 6 feet of water.
HAVERHILL

 A Methuen man has been indicted after police said he forced a pregnant woman's car off the road, then rifled through her car as she lay injured.

Josef Leavitt, 24, was indicted on charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon resulting in serious bodily injury and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon by an Essex County grand jury, the Andover Eagle Tribune reported.

According to court records. Leavitt is accused of forcing a Jeep Cherokee off a road in Haverhill and into trees, seriously injuring the woman and critically injuring her unborn child.

The woman was airlifted from the crash scene after she was extricated from the wreckage, and the baby was delivered two months early by emergency C-section in a Boston hospital. Both mother and child survived.

According to Haverhill police, Leavitt admitted he went to Haverhill to sell marijuana. The man he was to deal with allegedly stole a jar of marijuana "nuggets" from him, and escaped in the Jeep the woman was driving. Leavitt allegedly chased the Jeep in his 2007 BMW 328xi and used the luxury car to ram the SUV, forcing it off the road.

An off-duty police officer who was at the crash scene testified earlier that Leavitt ignored the injured woman's pleas for help and rifled through the car looking for his marijuana.

Leavitt is scheduled to be arraigned in Salem Superior Court July 21.
Social entrepreneurs trying to solve tough problems are tapping into tech industry veterans who have the skills to nurture startups and grow businesses, thanks to Santa Clara Universitys Global Social Benefit Institute

By Michelle Quinn, [email protected]

Full Story: http://www.mercurynews.com/michelle-quinn/ci_30075996/quinn-paying-it-forward-santa-clara-program-pairs

***

MSU Outreach and Engagement Council awards four seed grants

Boardroom Bobcats, submitted by Laura Demmel, project manager in the MSU Leadership Institute http://www.montana.edu/leadership/ , is a partnership between the MSU Leadership Institute and several local nonprofit organizations. The aim of the project is to place upper-level undergraduate and graduate MSU students as non-voting members of regional nonprofit boards.

"Boardroom Bobcats offers regional nonprofit boards the chance to utilize the diverse perspectives and skills of MSU students and at the same time gives students an opportunity to experience boardroom service firsthand. Its a win-win for both parties," Demmel said.

Seed grant funds will support student recruiting, match-making opportunities with nonprofits, and professional development training on mentoring, governance, marketing, networking and other topics.

http://www.matr.net/article-72316.html
This season of 'Love Is Blind' is shaping up to be absolute madness  here's what people are saying about it
Currently, when a woman is diagnosed with the earliest stage of breast cancer  called ductal carcinoma in situ  there is no way of knowing if it is going to be aggressive or not. Because of this, to be safe, most patients undergo aggressive treatment. Now, a new method that combines math with fluorescent microscopy can predict if this form of breast cancer is going to be aggressive or not. Share on Pinterest The new BRIM technology enables pathologists to identify whether a DCIS is aggressive or not. In this image of a DCIS sample, the biomarkers for aggressive cancer are highlighted.

Image credit: University of Michigan Health System The new method, called biomarker ratio imaging microscopy (BRIM), is the work of researchers at the University of Michigan, who describe how they used it to identify aggressive forms of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) in a study published in the journal Scientific Reports. One of the researchers, Howard R. Petty, professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences and of microbiology and immunology, explains how a patient with DCIS typically undergoes treatment as if the disease is invasive. This is easy to understand, he notes, and adds: When women hear breast cancer, theyre petrified. And physicians are keenly concerned about outcomes as well. But, DCIS is not the same disease for everyone. If we can identify potentially non-aggressive lesions, perhaps those women dont need aggressive treatment. BRIM combines traditional microscope techniques that pathologists use to examine tissue with mathematical analysis. The technique compares levels of different biomarkers, which can be seen as different fluorescent colors in stained tissue under a microscope.

No way of knowing if DCIS will become aggressive Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is a noninvasive condition where abnormal cells are found in the milk ducts of the breast. In situ means the abnormal cells have not spread to other tissues in the breast  that is, they are localized within the milk duct. In some cases, DCIS may become aggressive and invade surrounding tissue, but currently, pathologists have no way of discerning which lesions could become invasive. Long-term studies of women whose DCIS lesions were untreated because they were originally misclassified as benign found that 20-53 percent of them were diagnosed with an invasive breast cancer in the 10 years following original diagnosis. DCIS can appear as a mass than can be felt, but it is most often detected from a mammogram, where it shows as tiny white dots signifying deposits of calcium. The deposits themselves are harmless, but they could indicate the presence of in situ or invasive cancer. Because there is currently no certain way of knowing whether a DCIS lesion will lead to aggressive breast cancer, surgery and sometimes radiation and/or hormonal therapy is the usual treatment following a diagnosis. DCIS accounts for over 80 percent of in situ breast carcinoma diagnoses, of which there were an estimated 60,290 cases in the United States in 2015. The other 20 percent or of cases are lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS), which is generally not thought to be a precursor of invasive cancer.
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"As genetic testing has become more complex, it's being applied across many more medical specialties and into primary care," said Krantz, a clinical geneticist. "These tests will move toward broad use in screening healthy populations, and our recommendations aim to help people better integrate testing results into clinical practice."Krantz and co-author Sarah Bowdin of the Center for Genetic Medicine at the Hospital for Sick Kids in Toronto, spearheaded the two Clinical Genetics Think Tanks, hosted at their respective hospitals in 2014 and 2015.Co-authors of the recommendations are other Think Tank participants: clinical geneticists, genetic counselors, and laboratory professionals and bioinformatics experts. "Our co-authors represent the main stakeholders in this field," said Krantz. "We also included patients and parents in the Think Tanks, to incorporate their experiences in dealing with these concerns on an everyday basis."Krantz added that he and Bowdin launched the Think Tanks after hearing from colleagues struggling with many similar issues as other institutions established clinical genomic and exome sequencing programs. Among those challenges were how to best interpret DNA findings, how to report to patients and clinicians about gene variants of uncertain significance, how to report secondary findings unrelated to the primary reason for the testing, and how to share findings with other centers. "As each institution independently developed its own procedures, we thought that exchanging experiences across our field could improve overall practice."The recommendations address the pretesting process (including selecting patients and obtaining insurance coverage), patient and clinician education, interpreting sequence data, and posttest patient care (including how to return test findings and offer reevaluation of data). Another broad area, added Krantz, is phenotyping - establishing consistent terminology for patients' clinical characteristics, so that clinicians can better interpret the significance of DNA results, share data across centers, and ultimately standardize care for patients.Krantz compared these new challenges to a more straightforward clinical situation - obtaining a targeted genetic test for fragile X syndrome - in which a test reveals whether a patient has a specific DNA change that causes fragile X symptoms. In contrast, current clinical genome and exome sequencing produces many unknowns: for each individual, test results yield many variants of uncertain significance, as well as secondary findings, which are genetic variants unrelated to the primary condition for which a patient is tested.Facing a flood of DNA data, families told other Think Tank participants that they often preferred two post test sessions to discuss test findings - one to learn the principal diagnostic results, and a second session to discuss secondary findings that are medically actionable.Crucially, Krantz added, the data from genomic testing are dynamic - as new scientific knowledge accumulates, the significance of data changes: some findings of uncertain significance will become clearer, and will become medically actionable in the future, so that healthcare providers will need to devise ways to systematically offer future reevaluation of a patient's genome. "We need to make these data longitudinal, not static," he said.One emerging issue raised in the Think Tanks is how to best integrate genomic results into each patient's electronic health record. This becomes all the more important, said Krantz, as clinical sequencing moves toward general screening of healthy patient populations, including newborns, as part of the progression toward precision medicine.One conversation with a family, added Krantz, helped to drive home that issue. He was explaining results of genomic testing in a child with multiple medical issues. After learning the unexpected secondary finding that their child carried a cancer predisposition gene, the parents asked about performing the test for their healthy child too."We have framed this document not as a set of overt guidelines, but as recommendations, which we expect to change as our field evolves," said Krantz. He added that future Think Tanks may meet to address new challenges.Source: Eurekalert
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Praising the work of Indian doctors in the US who are estimated to number about 80,000, the envoy said, "You have excelled in your fields of medicine, and thus make significant contributions through hard work, commitment and dedication to your profession and the people you are committed to serve."Speaking at a business session at the convention, New York Republican Congressman Lee Zeldin, said Indian doctors are known around the world for their compassion, passion for patient care, research, and leadership. "Indian-Americans constitute about one per cent of the country's population, but you account for 9% of the American doctors and physicians, serving one out of seven patients being treated across the nation," Zeldin said.He called Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address to the US Congress last month inspiring and asserted that Modi's leadership was steering the world's largest democracy to new heights.At the inauguration, Prasad Srinivasan, a Republican Connecticut state legislator, gave the 1,500 fellow doctors at the convention tips on aspiring to public offices, saying they should work with dedication on public causes and stay focused on their mission and profession."We have the choice to be at the table or on the table," said Prasad, who is serving his third term as a State Representative. "Given our heritage, we the Indian Americans belong at the table. Get actively involved in the affairs of the local community and that's the path to larger role in the nation."AAPI President Seema Jain said the profession must prepare for the challenges faced by profession on the cusp of monumental changes and her organisation was helping ready them for it."The Future is now," she said. "Its time to step up to a new era of innovation through a new age of digital health care that transcends biological and chemical medicine into the future. As physicians we must be equipped to tackle the next generation's unique set of challenges and opportunities in health care."Source: IANS
MEMRI mourns the passing of Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, renowned author, Romanian-born educator, and MEMRI Board Member, whose singular voice sounded a clarion call to the world's conscience to never forget the victims of the Holocaust and man's inhumanity to man. Prof. Wiesel, who published 57 books including Night, his personal account of his harrowing experiences in Auschwitz, was a relentless champion of human rights and tolerance. Recipient of hundreds of awards and honors, including the Congressional Gold Medal and the United States Medal of Freedom, Wiesel was a passionate and acclaimed educator who raised awareness of hate and intolerance and its perils, through both the lens of the Holocaust and more recent genocides and ethnic cleansings. Cautioning the world against indifference in his Nobel acceptance speech in Oslo in 1986, he said: "Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant."

In his January 28, 2014 video address on Capitol Hill at the Fifth Annual MEMRI Tom Lantos Anti-Semitism and Holocaust Denial Archives Commemoration, Prof. Wiesel, an ardent supporter of MEMRI research and one of the distinguished speakers at the event, stated: "MEMRI is an important organization. It is because it gives information that can be found in very few other places. It's always well-documented. It always gives us an insight into an area - which is disturbing - the other side, those who are not our allies, those who are not our friends, those who are not with us. And so, thanks to MEMRI, we know what they think, what they plan, and this is actually what MEMRI is all about... So, in the years, of course what MEMRI has tried to do is to give us the historical background... Whatever we see now simply cannot be judged in the present, we must go beyond it, and above it, not without it, ever. MEMRI, I believe, is essential... in the world. We need to know more. And this is MEMRI, it always gives us more. So, what we think of MEMRI, we all can say with gratitude that we are glad, we are happy, we are grateful, that MEMRI exists." (View these statements in full here ).
Sometime before 6 am on Saturday when 19-year-old Tarishi Jain's phone went dead, her father Sanjiv Jain, who had been waiting outside Gulshan Cafe through most of the night after he got to know that heavily armed terrorists had stormed the restaurant in upscale Dhaka and were butchering guests, got a call.

It was from his daughter, cowering inside a toilet with two of her friends, Faraaz Ayaz Hossain and Abinta Kabir, hiding from the rat-tat-tat of gunfire outside the washroom's door. "Terrorists have entered the restaurant," she told her father, who was planning just a day earlier to bring his wife and two children to Firozabad in UP for a short holiday before Tarishi headed back to the US where she was an Economics undergraduate at the University of California. "I am very afraid and not sure whether I will be able to come out alive. They are killing everyone here."

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It had been a long and harrowing night for Sanjiv as he gathered with dozens of anxious family and friends of those huddled in the cafe to know how the bloody strike on innocent and unarmed men and women would end. By the time the terrorists were neutralised, 20 people, mostly foreigners and among them Tarishi - the only Indian among the casualties - had died.

Tarishi was a recipient of an internship with a Bangladesh bank through the Institute for South Asia Studies at her university in California.

"After coming to know that Tarishi is among the hostages, we remained glued to our TV set the entire night and remained in touch with Sanjiv (her father), said Rakesh Mohan Jain, Tarishi Jain's uncle."She said, `I'm hiding in the toilet with friends, I think we will be killed one by one'. He was standing outside the cafe the whole time. We were in touch with him throughout," he said.

 Reuters

Her brother Sanchit, who has done his engineering from Canada, had landed in Delhi a day earlier so that the family of four, along with mother Tulika, could all head to Firozabad  where Sanjiv's three brothers Rakesh, Rajiv and Ajit have a flourishing trade in glass  on Saturday. That family reunion was never to be. At the Jains' Suhag Nagar home in Firozabad, there is both anger and deep grief. "We don't want her to be cremated in the land where she was brutally murdered. Terrorists killed her for being a Hindu," Sanjiv's younger brother Rakesh Mohan Jain told TOI.

(Originally published in The Times Of India)

Photo  TOI (Main Image)
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Efstratios Efthymiou stated the following in response to a journalists question regarding todays call to Muslim prayer within the space of the world monument of Hagia Sofia, in Istanbul:



We express our intense concern and discomfort at yet another step that undermines the nature of Hagia Sophia as a monument of global cultural heritage and that obviously is not compatible with the principles that should govern a modern, secular state.



We have repeatedly stressed, in a series of actions aimed at keeping states and international organs apprised, that the attempt to alter the use of Hagia Sophia  which UNESCO has designated a world heritage site -- from museum to mosque is an international issue. An issue of major importance that concerns the protection of the identity of a monument that belongs to global human culture.



This must be realized, first of all, by Turkey. We call on Turkey, once again, to adapt to the requirements of European culture and stop supporting anachronistic and incomprehensible activities. Turkey needs to show, at long last, the requisite respect for international law and the international obligations it has undertaken to respect all of the monuments  Christian and non-Christian  that are within its territory.
Authorities used boats pulling ropes attached to the tail to pull it off the sand during the evening high tide, taking the whale far out to sea and avoiding a foul stench and grim scene on the beach as Fourth of July weekend crowds began arriving.

Authorities had earlier attempted the procedure at midday, with a bulldozer pushing, but it was unsuccessful because of the low tide.

The huge whale washed onto Dockweiler Beach, a long stretch of sand near the west end of Los Angeles International Airport, just before 8 p.m. Thursday and holiday beachgoers began arriving in the morning.

Lifeguards posted yellow caution tape to keep people away and biologists took samples to determine what caused the death of the humpback, an endangered species. Beachgoers watching from a distance covered their noses.

Tail markings were compared with a photo database and found that the same whale had been spotted three times previously off Southern California between June and August of last year by whale watchers who gave it the nickname Wally, said Alisa Schulman-Janiger, a whale research associate with the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

At the time of the prior sightings the humpback was covered with whale lice, which usually means a whale is in poor physical condition, but it was also actively feeding and breaching, she said.

Schulman-Janiger said she noticed healed entanglement scars on its tail indicating that in the past it been snarled in some sort of fishing line. The carcass was in relatively good condition which meant the whale could have died as recently as Thursday morning, she said.

The whale was about 46 feet long and at least 15 years old, meaning it had reached maturity, said Justin Greenman, stranding coordinator for the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Skin and blubber samples were taken for DNA testing along with fecal matter to be tested for biotoxins.

The experts had hoped to more extensively open up the whale but due to the holiday weekend authorities decided to get it off the beach as soon as possible, Greenman said.

North Pacific humpbacks feed along the West Coast from California to Alaska during summer, according to the Marine Mammal Center, a Sausalito-based ocean conservation organization. Although the species' numbers are extensively depleted, humpbacks have been seen with increasing frequency off California in recent years, the center's website said.

Humpbacks, familiar to whale watchers for their habits of breaching and slapping the water, are filter feeders that consume up to 3,000 pounds of krill, plankton and tiny fish per day, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The whale that washed up is not the same one spotted earlier in the week off Southern California tangled in crab pot lines. That animal was identified as a blue whale. Efforts by a rescue crew in a small boat to cut away the line failed, and it disappeared.

California has seen a number of whales on beaches this year. A humpback carcass that appeared off Santa Cruz in May had to be towed out to sea, while a massive gray whale that ended up on San Onofre State Beach in April had to be chopped up and hauled to a landfill.

The same month, a distressed humpback was freed from crabbing gear in Monterey Bay. In March, a dead gray was removed from Torrey Pines State Beach.
An Army aviation unit at Fort Rucker, Alabama, responsible for training helicopter pilots, including Muslims from Saudi Arabia and Jordan, is being criticized and threatened with legal action for using the Crusader Cross as a unit patch.

"It's just sad, and the command is just -- they want to push their own views on everyone, the soldiers and civilians, on their version of Christianity, whether we like it or not," a UH-60 Blackhawk systems instructor told Military.com Thursday in a telephone interview.

"It's horrible. We have Saudi students coming through, Jordanian, Israeli Defense Force students coming through -- and they look at this patch and they've said, 'How can America be going into the Middle Eastern countries with a patch that has a red cross that says Crusaders across the front of it?'" he said.

"I mean it [the Crusades] was a horrible time, where even the Catholic Pope said that was a dark time in Christianity, in our history," he added.

The instructor, who spoke to Military.com on condition of anonymity because he fears reprisals, said the international students do not complain to the command because they fear they would be reported to their own militaries and sent home.

Last November the same unit, Echo Company, 1st Battalion, 212th Aviation Regiment, came under fire by a religious watchdog group for itsuse of the Crusader Cross and shield. Military.com was unable to learn on Thursday whether the Crusader image still appeared on the unit sign, but it does show up on the company's military-only website, according to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which was provided screen captures of the site.

The site also includes a feature called "Crusader of the Month," highlighting the work of unit members.

Military.com's call to Fort Rucker's public affairs office was not returned. Military.com also reached out by email to Capt. Stephen Tamborelli, commander of E Company, and several others in the command chain, including Maj. Gen. William K. Gayler, commander of Fort Rucker. No one has responded to date.

Mikey Weinstein, president of the foundation, said he has sent a letter to Gayler on behalf of 42 civilian and military personnel at Rucker, demanding he "immediately cease and desist from utilizing all 'Crusader' terminology and imagery with Echo Company."

Weinstein said Gayler has had seven months to consider and act on the foundation's demand from November "and have done nothing."

"If you do not immediately comply with our demands, our foundation will go into Federal Court to force you to so comply," he said.

Weinstein said using Crusader imagery is a boost to groups like Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, the Taliban and al-Qaida, who frame their fight against the U.S. as part of a centuries old fight against Christian Crusaders attempting to dominate the Middle East.

Weinstein told Military.com that 23 of his group's Rucker clients are Christians, while others are Muslim, Jewish, atheist and agnostic.

But it's not only Muslims feeling upset with the alleged pro-evangelical Christian command climate. The Blackhawk instructor, a member of a smaller Christian denomination, said even he has been subjected to disparaging comments and actions because of his faith.

"I've had the lights turned off on me when I was going the bathroom," he said, adding that his complaints to command went nowhere. "I've had nothing but problems."

The instructor said that some six weeks ago unit members were told they would have to take Army training programs, including on safety, suicide prevention and more, at Enterprise Baptist Church, about nine miles from Fort Rucker. Other times training has been held at Grace Place Church, also in Enterprise, he said.

After he told his supervisors he was not comfortable being forced to attend a church for training and asked for an alternative venue, he said: "They ended up responding with a blast email [to the unit] that we were unprofessional and not supporting our unit and so forth."

The instructor said there is no shortage of space on the fort that would justify holding Army training at a church. He and others who balked at going to the church for training were told they could take leave time if they had a problem with the venue, he said.

"This was not right," he said.

-- Bryant Jordan can be reached at Bryant.jordan@military.com. Follow him on Twitter at@BryantJordan.
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.
Diamondbacks right-handed prospect Yoan Lopez left Double-A Mobile on Wednesday for the second time in as many seasons, this time with the intention of giving up the sport, reports Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic. The Diamondbacks have since convinced Lopez to avoid making a definitive decision on his future for the time being, per general manager Dave Stewart, who conceded that the 23-year-old is not having a good time and is dealing with serious emotional issues. Lopez signed with the D-backs for a sizable $8.27MM bonus in January 2015, but the Cuba native has since posted subpar numbers (4.89 ERA, 5.7 K/9 and 4.3 BB/9) across 116 minor league innings. That could at least be thanks in part to Lopezs traumatic experience immigrating to the United States, as Stewart pointed out: Its the escaping, crossing the water in a raft  or however he got here  living in Haiti and then going to the Dominican, leaving family members  its all of it. As of now, Stewart and the organization are working to help Lopez get back on track.

More from the National League:
BAY CITY, MI -- Thousands oohed and aahed on both sides of the Saginaw River beneath a dazzling canopy of sky flowers on the last night of the 2016 Bay City Fireworks Festival.

The 37-minute final show began about 10:12 p.m. on Saturday, July 2. Crowds flocked to Wenonah Park on the city's East Side and Veterans Memorial Park on the West Side for the skybound spectacular that launched about 1,000 shells per minute.

Driving home the patriotic atmosphere was a soundtrack accompaniment of tunes such as "You Raise Me Up" and "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)."

Historical side note: It's fitting the finale was on July 2, as the that is the date on which the Continental Congress voted to secede from Great Britain.
American Girl

Audrey Vermeulen, 8, dressed as and holding the American Girl doll named Kit in this 2009 Kalamazoo Gazette file photo from The Gagie School. (Tyler Tjomsland | MLive file)

(Tyler Tjomsland | MLive)

NOVI -- An American Girl store is preparing to open at Twelve Oaks Mall, according to listings on the websites of both the the doll retailer and suburban Detroit shopping center.

Update: Twelve Oaks manager Daniel Jones said the store is scheduled to open Aug. 6.

"We are thrilled that American Girl has chosen Twelve Oaks Mall and are very anxious to get the store open," Jones said.

The store is set to open on the mall's upper level, near Nordstom, according to the mall's website.

Job listings for a store manager and a two temporary sales positions in Novi were listed on American Girl's website.

Messages seeking comment were left for America Girl spokespeople.

A Chicago location was previously American Girl's closest store to Detroit.

American Girl is a Mattel company that sells high-end dolls that come with elaborate background stories.

The company earlier this year released a doll with a Detroit background, "whose story reflects the changing face and history of the nation during (the Civil Rights movement)."
FLINT, MI - Millions of pounds of food have been deployed to agencies throughout Flint in hopes of mitigating potential effects of lead damage in Flint residents after being exposed to the city's once toxic water.

The efforts started in February as Food Bank of Eastern Michigan officials began sending mobile food pantry trucks to partner agencies. Since then, officials say Food Bank has delivered more than 1.3 million pounds of food to an estimated 54,000 people.

"It's important to note it just hasn't been the Food Bank," said Kelly Belcher, marketing and communications manager for Food Bank of Eastern Michigan. "It's been the community organizations across Genesee County and in some cases across the state. It has been a community effort to find solutions."

A number of agencies including local churches have partnered with the Food Bank to help distribute the food to Flint residents.

Pastor Eric Marks of No Greater Faith Missionary Baptist Church said local churches are working together to distribute food in the community.

"We've collectively come together because we see the need," Marks said. "We're in the trenches."

A group of volunteers helped sort and distribute food to families on June 28 at the church on Flint's north side. By noon they had given food to more than 100 cars, some representing multiple families.

"We see a need in the community," said Marks. "We follow the Bible and it's that simple for us. Jesus says go and do what he did and so that's what we do."

The mobile food program isn't new for the Food Bank but Belcher said they added various foods to help fight lead damage and increased their efforts because of Flint's water crisis including milk for some of the mobile drops.

"We were just able to jump in and we had to ads some hips, some staff but we were able to take care of a lot of the distribution without having to build a whole network," Belcher said. "This is the first time it's been put out with specific nutrition in mind."

As of June 28 the agency had delivered 1,332,873 pounds of food to local partners wanting to help find solutions for Flint's water crisis.

In 2015, Food Bank distributed an estimated 25 million pounds of food for the entire year. This fiscal year they have distributed about 43 million pounds of food with nearly half of that being just water alone. Belcher said 24,528,380 pounds of this year's distributions is water.

"What we were specifically proud of is we have also increased our food distributions," said Belcher. "In the midst of the water crisis we have still grown. It wasn't a question of if we could do it. It was a question of how."

By September officials say they anticipate having to send out at least 132 mobile units total to fight potential lead damage.

For more information or to donate to the Food Bank click here.
JACKSON, MI -- Eight-year-old Gabe Fulmerhouser is making a name for himself.

This Jackson boy, who attends Sharp Park Academy, built a "lemonade" stand with his father, and since early June has been selling history lessons from his front lawn near the corner of Glenwood Avenue and Sixth Street.

Gabe charges 25 cents per lesson, and says all the money he earns is going to veterans, his church and possibly cancer patients.

Gabe's mother, Lesli Fulmerhouser, said it all started with finding something to do during summer break.

"He came running downstairs and said, 'Mom, I have a great idea for the summer,'" Lesli Fulmerhouser said. "I was in shock when he told me he wanted to do this."

She said Gabe wanted to sell his knowledge for a modest five cents at first, but she talked him up to a quarter.

Gabe searched the internet for how to make a "lemonade" stand, built one out of pallets with his father, painted it red, white and blue, and the rest is history.

"I thought it was just very cute, so I posted it and my post went viral," Lesli Fulmerhouser said. "I am so proud of him."

Gabe's story was picked up by CBS Evening News after multiple local television stations gave him airtime.

"I keep track of him on Google now," she said.

But the attention isn't what Gabe is in this for, although he said friends from school have all been talking about it.

"I like teaching people about the history," he said. "That's my favorite part, and meeting veterans."

Gabe's grandfather Larry Henning, 68, is a veteran of the Vietnam War. Henning said Gabe's fascination with American history began when his grandson was three years old.

"I am so proud of him," Henning said. "This means the world to me. How did he ever think of something like this? I never thought of this when I was a kid."

Gabe replied to his grandfather's question. "Because I have a smart head," he said.

Henning said more than 100 people have stopped at Gabe's stand, and Thursday, June 30, three of those people surprised him in a pretty special way.

Sgt. First Class Peter Postma and specialists Daniel Wilson and Sarah Ray of the 303rd Military Police Company, U.S. Army Reserve, showed up in a military humvee to meet Gabe.

Postma presented Gabe with a variety of gifts, including one for his "smart head," as he gave him his personal military beret cap.

"It's wonderful; I was really surprised," Gabe said. "I mean, I get to keep those forever."

Postma gave Gabe and his brother, Alan, 9, a tour of the humvee. He then taught Gabe how to properly salute.

"It means so much to the soldiers when we see the community reach out and support us," said Postma, who is also a patrol officer for the Jackson Police Department. "We always then want to give back to them."

Gabe's dreams include visiting the Washington Monument in Washington D.C. and meeting President Barack Obama. Gabe also said he wants to be an infantry officer in the Marines.

Lesli Fulmerhouser said Gabe has made $140.25 thus far and can be found at his stand any day, whenever he has free time.

"It would be nice to take a break on Sunday," Gabe said while sitting in 80-degree heat wearing a military vest.

But rest assured, sun blazing or not, Gabe will certainly give a lesson whenever somebody asks.

"Oh, a customer!" he said before running from the sidewalk to his stand. "I gotta go!"
NAPOLEON TOWNSHIP, MI -- A 17-year-old boy was airlifted to University of Michigan Medical Center on Sunday, July 3, after a tree was cut down and fell on his head, police said.

Napoleon Township Police Sgt. Duane Pittman said there was concern of significant head injury, as the boy suffered from "real trauma" and "quite a bit of bleeding."

Pittman said the boy's father cut down the tree, and when it fell, it bounced off another tree and ricocheted into the boy's head.

The father told police the tree was about 10 inches in diameter.

Napoleon police and fire responded at approximately 2:40 p.m and Jackson Community Ambulance transported the boy to Napoleon Airport.

Pittman said the boy was conscious and breathing when the ambulance departed.

Columbia Township assisted at the airport and U of M Survival Flight was en route to the medical center by approximately 3:15 p.m.
Sunday, July 3, 2016

Folks, I have read and unpacked the news report suggesting that Ghana's Foreign Affairs Minister (Ms. Hannah Tetteh Kpoda) is unhappy that the Outreach Director for the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom, Colin Bloom, has made public utterances favouring the NPP's Akufo-Addo and creating the impression that there is doom and gloom for the incumbent at Election 2016.

According to the news report, Mr. Bloom said, among others, that:

1. Ghana needs to change government ahead of this years elections and that the people of Ghana deserved better.

2. "Those of us in the Conservative Party, we can choose where in the world we work; we can work in the Caribbean, we can work in Latin America, we can work in Europe, we can work in Africawe choose to work in Ghana because we believe in the man [Nana Akufo-Addo] who is going to speak to you next; we believe he is a man of both great intelligence and also great integrity.

3. Akufo-Addo is someone, who will transform Ghana; he is a man who will, we hope and pray later this year, take on the leadership of this nationbecause we know and you know that Ghana deserves better.

4. Akufo-Addo is the the next president of Ghana.

Mr. Bloom said so when speaking at the International Young Democrat Union (IYDU) Freedom Forum organised by the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Accra last week, (See http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Mind-your-own-business-Hanna-Tetteh-tells-top-UK-politician-452364).

As is to be expected, Ms. Tetteh has reacted strongly to these public utterances by Mr. Bloom, using the opportunity to ask Mr. Bloom and the political system that he represents (Great Britain) to "mind its own business", apparently referring to the Brexit thunderstorm that is tearing Britain apart. She is right on that score; but there is more to the issue.

Instead of being angered by Mr. Bloom's utterances, Ms. Tetteh and the entire NDC family should ponder seriously over issues and plug the loopholes seen by Mr. Bloom and all others thinking that Akufo-Addo can do better than President Mahama has been doing so far.

I don't see anything particularly new about Mr. Bloom's opinions except that they are coming from him as an outsider. But what should we expect from someone like him speaking on a political platform commonly binding his cause with that of the NPP? And where was he before Elections 2008 and 2012, anyway?

News reports have already told me how local chiefs and others have mounted the rooftop to project Akufo-Addo as Ghana's saviour. The latest has come from the Chiefs of Nsawam/Adoagyiri, Aburi and Anum Boso. The truth, though, is that Ghanaians know what is what and will make their electoral decisions at Election 2016, no matter what comes from any detached foreign observer.

That is why it is needless to take umbrage at what Mr. Bloom has said. If anything at all, his utterances should be an eye-opener for the government to do whatever it can within the few months left for Election 2016 to plug the holes through which the Akufo-Addo admirers are seeing him as a redeemer. Doing so means addressing issues properly to allay fears, doubts, and suspicions that a renewal of President Mahama's tenure won't worsen the existential problems that the people are grumbling about.

Whatever the government can do should be done and a heart-to-heart conversation held with the people. Only then will the truth save anybody. Anger will not do so. Neither will any other measure that doesn't address the concerns of the people.

Mr. Blooms blast and bluster wont really turn my crank, anyway. In such situations, people say anything to captivate the crowd!! Although his utterances may be regarded as an instance of a subtle interference in Ghana's political affairs by a foreigner like him, I think that some slack can be cut for Mr. Bloom, especially given the political ambit within which he made those utterances. Whatever binds the International Young Democrat Union (IYDU) and the NPP is a pure ideological strand that need not be contested.

The NDC also has its affiliations with foreign political entities and can look up to them for whatever fillip it needs to reinforce its relevance.

What matters most is the reality on the ground. No amount of whitewashing by outsiders can influence the outcome of Election 2016. Once the voters know who is who and what will inform their electoral decisions, they will go where they deem fit to choose their national leader. That is why Ms. Tetteh and others thinking like her must seize the opportunity to cash in on Mr. Bloom's timely expression of opinions to do serious introspection of their performance so far. If they know where they are lacking, nothing prevents them from making amends and connecting with the voters to be sympathized with, appreciated, and supported to remain in power.

Whether the voters will agree with Mr. Bloom or not is in the womb of time. And whether President Mahama's performance will ensure a renewal of his tenure is on the laps of the voters. But much has to be done and seen as such. Over to you, Ms. Tetteh, President Mahama, and all. No need for anger at all. Instead, there is a strong imperative for actions to speak louder than words.

And for Akufo-Addo, particularly, if reliance on such "external damage-control doers" becomes the political tool for influencing voters, I say "Due"!! The reasons for Akufo-Addo's defeat at Elections 2008 and 2012 have nothing to do with the opinions of characters of Mr. Bloom's type. Has Akufo-Addo been able to deal with those inadequacies? If not, let him know it now that no matter who says what for him or about him, he can't jump the hurdle.

What Election 2016 will bring about cannot be narrowed down to mere speculation on the basis of emotions or wishes. And Ms. Tetteh and Co. need to know that the challenges facing Britain as a result of Brexit will also have a bearing on Ghana in one way or the other, which they must factor into local politicking!! So, even as it may be right to ask Mr. Bloom and the British establishment to mind their own business, there is need for us in Ghana to gear up too for the fallouts.

Whether the Brexit crisis is handled successfully by Britain or notand whether Mr. Bloom has any role to play in it, which may warrant why Ms. Tetteh has asked him and his political front to "mind their own business"the implications of Mr. Bloom's utterances are clear that the outcome of Election 2016 in Ghana means a lo, not only to Ghanaians but also to outsiders. That is why all must work hard to ensure that everything leading to it is transparent and honestly pursued to give the country only what it needs to move on.

Those who have already taken a pre-meditated stance and threatening mayhem had better behave. And all that has to be done to smooth the rough edges must be done in accordance with the constitution so the voters'; decision will fetch the best for Ghana. A democracy that is designed to grow (to create conditions for decent living by the citizens) doesn't need anger, subterfuge, or mayhem. It needs level-headedness and a genuine, conscientious approach. That is our challenge today.

Once there is a common understanding that wishes are not horses for beggars to ride, those who seek political power must ensure that they do what will win the goodwill of voters just as it is for those already wielding political power to ensure that they use the mandate to justify their retention in power. Senseless muscle-flexing and abuse of opportunities won't solve any problem; it will only compound existing ones and create new ones to bother the system. Ghana doesn't need that woe!!

I shall return
The flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has ctiticised President John Mahama for what according to him is the lack of meaningful message in the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC)s 2016 campaign.

Addressing a gathering at the Asesewa market, in the Upper Manya constituency of the Eastern Region, Nana Akufo-Addo said he will not join the fray to put out a meaningless message like e dey be kO'kO'  which means life is good.

Our message is about bringing jobs to the people of Ghana, reviving our economy, improving our agriculture, diversifying our agriculture, that is the business we are coming to do, said the NPPs 2016 presidential candidate on Friday July 1.

The leader of the largest opposition party in Ghana said the claim by President Mahama that the NPP has no message is laughable, because the party, since 2008, has remained consistent with the message of industrialising Ghanas economy, whereas ruling NDCs has been an empty e dey bee kO'kO'.

Mahama says we in the NPP have no message. His message of e dey bee kO'kO' is one I will never put before the Ghanaian people. Is e dey bee kO'kO'a message? What do you understand by e dey bee kO'kO'? If this is the kind of message he wants from the NPP, he will never get it, the NPP flagbearer said.

Nana Akufo-Addo is on a 5-day campaign tour of the Eastern Region ahead of Presidential polls in November 7 this year.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | GN
03.07.2016 LISTEN

Kodjo Adams, GNA

Accra, July 03, GNA - The Very Reverend Richard Ako-Adjei, the Resident Pastor of the Reverend J.C Methodist Church, Dansoman, has urged Christians to prepare for Christ's return by shunning lifestyles that are not pleasing to God.

He said Christians had been mandated to uphold the tenets of the Bible so that they would enjoy eternal life following the Judgement Day.

The Very Rev Ako-Adjei said this at the weekend, in Accra, at a service to mark the final funeral rites of the Naa Densua IV, the Queenmother of Otublohum, one of the 13 clans of the Ga State.

He said there was no better time to contemplate the eternal future of man than this period when the Second Coming of Christ was close.

Therefore, he said, it was important for all to examine the related prophecies, which had been captured in many scriptures.

The Very Rev Ako-Adjei said irrespective of the sinful nature of man, God was prepared to grant mercy on all who would repent from their wayward lives.

He advised Christians to establish a good relationship with God to be empowered physically and spiritually to resist any temptation that may cross their path.

'We have to stand for the truth, irrespective of the persecution; the truth shall set you free, it shall unite a gathering and ensure peaceful coexistence in society,' he stated.

Christians should, however, not be judgemental but be patient with their offenders, he said, because God had stated that it was His prerogative to pass judgement.

Paying tribute to the departed Queenmother, he said Naa Densua discharged her duties diligently on earth, and prayed the Lord to grant her a resting place in His bosom.

Naa Densua was born in July 1926; enstooled the Paramount Queen Mother of Otublohum on July 23, 1973; and reigned till her passing in August 2015.

She left behind four children, 11 grandchildren and 14 great grandchildren.

The mortal remains of the queenmother was later laid to rest at the Otublohum Royal Mausoleum at Pokuase, in the Greater Accra Region.

GNA
Flag bearer of the All Peoples Congress (APC), Hassan Ayariga, has described as poor judgment, a decision by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) not to invite some political parties for the ongoing Evening Encounters with flag bearers.

This year, the Institute cut out parties without representation in parliament from participating in the presidential debates and the encounters.

But speaking to JOYNEWS, Mr Ayariga said that decision defeats the purpose for which the IEA was set up.

"I don't think the IEA platform determines who wins elections. For us, we have said that we don't want a situation where institutions who are supposed to be deepening democracy is dividing the fronts of the political parties," Mr Ayariga said.

"The IEA came up with their own way of accepting or engaging political parties that they want and one of it was political parties with representation in parliament," he added.

The APC flag bearer is charging the Institute to give new formed political parties a platform to also be heard.

"If you say the National Democratic Congress (NDC), New Patriotic Party (NPP) and Convention People's Party (CPP) are all going to debate, and the situation where the EC decides to crack the whip and the CPP or People's National Convention cannot contest the election, what have you done?" Mr Ayariga quizzed.

He said the IEA is not listening and that is the reason why "we are not part of people who are promoting democracy."

The party says it will stage debates for its parliamentary aspirants to help build their capacity ahead of the November polls.

Meanwhile, the APC says its embarking on a nationwide campaign tour starting next week. Mr Ayariga says hell use the tour to conscientise Ghanaians to be bold and speak out against bad governance.

"It is starting in the Greater Accra Region after the Ramadan fast. We will start campaigning meeting with everybody that really matter to the nation. We don't believe in partisan politics; we believe in the principles, the commitments and policies," he said.

According to him, Ghana's suffering is not because the NDC is in power, neither is it suffering because NPP has ruled before, but the rather the nation is suffering from the silence of Ghanaians.

"These are the principles that we think we must begin to look at so that we can move this country forward. We are tired of partisan politics which has plunged this country into a situation that no one can resurrect us," Mr Ayariga stressed.

He urged all Ghanaian to unite in the development of the country because everyone matters in managing the affairs of the nation.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Abubakar Ibrahim | Email: [email protected]
Another police officer has died after he was shot by suspected armed robbers, as he attempted to foil a robbery attack at Kukuom in the Brong Ahafo Region.

This is the second time such an incident has occurred in the region in barely two months. Corporal Humphrey Lumor was shot and subsequently taken to the Goaso Government hospital for treatment but died a few hours later.

The robbers reportedly blocked a section of the Kukuom-Bibiani Road to steal from commuters.

The Public Relations Officer of the Brong Ahafo Regional Police Command, ASP Christopher Tawiah,told Citi News the armed robbers fired shots at Police officers who upon a tip off had come to rescue the victims.

Armed robbers blocked a section of the road, that is from Kukuom to Bibiani road and started robbing. Later the Police had information and the patrol team started moving but when they arrived there, the robbers saw the Police and shot them quickly and one of them was actually wounded. He was hospitalized at Goaso Hospital but unfortunately he died yesterday [Saturday] at the hospital, and his body is at the Police hospital morgue, ASP Tawiah narrated.

ASP Tawiah appealed to the Roads and Highways Ministry to employ people to weed along highways, since most robbers hide in these weeds to attack commuters.

We have noticed that the armed men hide in these bushy areas to carry out their activities so we are appealing to the institutions concerned to clear the roads so that the place will be visible

2 policemen, 3 others arrested in Kwame-Danso robbery

This is the second robbery in the Brong Ahafo Region, that has led to the death of an officer .

Two Police officers and three others were arrested in June by the Brong Ahafo Regional Police for aiding the robbery attack that led to the death of a Police constable in Kwame-Danso, near Atebubu.

The number brings to six those arrested, after the Police picked up the prime suspect on Sunday, June 12.



By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
It started off as another normal working day for 42 year old Sumaila Balla Yakubu, who worked as a commercial vehicle driver from Kumasi to Yeji. He left Kumasi on 30th July 2011 for Yeji with passengers in his vehicle, telling friends and colleagues he will be back the day after. But that was not meant to be. Mid way through the journey, his vehicle broke down and he had to hop into the front seat of another commercial vehicle to go get a mechanic to come fix it. His worst nightmare was yet to come.

It was after 11 pm and the sky was dark. About 45 kilometers from Yeji, the vehicle was stopped by some men who had mounted a roadblock, flashing torch lights at the vehicle. They were not policemen; they were not commuters needing help. They were armed robbers wielding guns and other dangerous weapons. There were about six of them.

One of them ordered occupants of the vehicle to switch of the light In it and get down. Sumaila attempted doing just that from the drivers seat in obedience to the gun wielding men. They misinterpreted his move as an attempt to drive off. One of them shot Sumaila in the fore head and eye.

Remember how painful it was the last time you mistakenly hit your head against the wall and imagine the pain that a bullet riddled through your head will evoke. A lot of Sumailas blood was spilled that night. The pain was unbearable. He could hardly see anything but little did he know that this was just the beginning of a life-long period of sight loss. He had been blinded by the bullets of the armed robber. Four other passengers sustained gunshot wounds. The robbers made away with cash, mobile phones, and other valuables.

There was no ambulance to convey him to the hospital. Another commercial vehicle was called in to do that. He was initially sent to the Mathias Hospital at Yeji for treatment and later referred to the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH). A doctors report from KATHs Emergency Medicine Directorate referring him to the Ophthalmology Directorate for further care said: the patient was admitted with a case of pellets in the eyes after gunshot injury. CT scan revealed pellets in the orbits and skull.

Sumaila spent the next three months undergoing one surgery after another at KATH, as doctors made efforts to remove the pellets and help him recover his sight. They were unsuccessful and he was sent back to his home at Yeji as a blind man. He was supposed to return to KATH for further treatment but by then, all his savings had been exhausted, making it impossible for him to continue paying for that. His family took to the services of traditional healers, several of whom have administered countless concoctions on him but Sumaila has not been able to get his sight back.

Today, the father of four wakes up every day not only with a lot of tears in his blinded eyes, but with a lot of self pity in his heart as family and friends on whom he has become too dependent continue to abandon him. His wife has divorced him and his children have had to relocate to live with family and friends. Sumaila feels his life has been shattered. He complains about stigmatization by people who used to be his friends in the Yeji community. He feels deprived of love and care. And he is worried society has turned its back on him since he lost his job as a driver after losing one of his most important senses, his eyes. He struggles to feed and clothe himself now, and is unable to take care of his family.

Sumaila goes to bed everyday cursing the sun that went down on that fateful July day, allowing the wicked robbers to rob him off the ability to see the beautiful things of this world again in the den of the night.

It is the hope of every young man to live and see how beautiful his children grow as well as appreciate the beauty of his wife, mother, sisters and nature. However, some are not lucky enough to appreciate this and would only have to resort to imagination, he said.

Sumaila is appealing for help to get treatment for his sight and to possibly get his life back on track. In a letter requesting for support, he lamented, things have become so difficult and unbearable. Sumaila is determined not to give up on life whether he recovers his sight or not. He has a firm belief in the popular saying that disability is not inability. He is confident he will be able to regain his sight and re-discover himself as the hardworking, independent man he used to be.

By Joseph Opoku Gakpo / www.josephopokugakpo.wordpress.com
The name Prince Tonye Princewill does not need any introduction to any person who has been a keen observer of the political milieu or terrain in the Niger Delta region and to be more specific the Rivers State political game.

Born into the famous Princewills family in Buguma of the ancient Kalabari Kingdom in Asari-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State, Tonye who is fondly called TP has made a name for himself not only as an entrepreneur, philanthropist, politician but also as a producer of home movie in collaboration with other famous and seasoned movie producers such as Izu Ojukwu and Adonijah Owiriwa.

For the sake of time, and because of Prince Tonye Princewills entrepreneurship activities as well as his political incursions and philanthropic works are issues that are in the public domain, which can easily be scooped even from the internet, suffice it say that this piece is going to dwell briefly on Princwills currently found love  movie making.

Apart from TPs initial hand in the sponsorship and production of NNENDA and Kajola, another breathtaking, awe-inspiring, suspense-filled, sit-on-the-edge and top-notch movie that is currently trending is 76.

76 is a romantic movie which tells the story of a young military officer from Nigerias Middle Belt region who gets entrapped in a steaming relationship and eventually marries a beautiful student from the South-Eastern part of Nigeria.

The couple blossoming romance is jeopardized by endless military transfers, and they face the ultimate test when news of the soldiers involvement in a botched coup attempt hits the headlines of newspapers.

When the movie was initially screened to select viewers in Lagos early February this year, the satisfaction of the viewers was glaring as the movie brought tears coursing down the chicks of everyone in the hall including one of the star actresses, Rita Dominic.

According to TP, 76 is about Nigeria. My hope is that as people watch this powerful film, they see what I saw, escape from the day to day hassles and then immerse them in how life should be. If we succeed, we will get more youths empowered and that is the ultimate goal. Over 200 cast and crew were used in 76.

76 is a deeply emotional movie, and it resonated deeply with me as I am sure it will do for viewers not just in Nigeria, but around the world.

The movies message presents a number of questions including how we got here, amongst many other issues.

No doubt, 76 is the first movie we did on celluloid, first movie to be shot in an army barracks, first blockbuster in our pack, first movie to do a private screening within post production. First this, first that. But as it was challenging, it has also been very rewarding. To see the child grow into a man leaves a smile on the face. All in all it took us seven years to get here. I am my own worst constructive critic, but I can look back on 76 and say, wow, we tried! TP commented.

76, directed by award winning director, Izu Ojukwu, is also inspired by events that culminated to and followed the failed 1976 coup detat, and features real life, archived, actual footage that contributes to the movies overall authenticity.

For Izu Ojukwu, 76 is a tale of love in a time post war.

The movie deals with a range of issues including the plight of the African woman, and the usually invisible pain of a soldiers wife, he said.

76 highlight the enduring Nigerian cultural values of courage, resilience, patience, loyalty, faith and family and the nations ability to surmount all challenges.

76 set at the Mokola Army Barrack in the ancient city of Ibandan, Oyo State, the movie features famous Nollywood names including Rita Dominic, Ramsey Nouah, Chidi Mokeme, Ibinabo Fiberesinma, Memry Savanhu, Ada Ofoegbu, Daniel K. Daniel and a host of others.

The movie which is scheduled to be release officially by the 4th Quarter of this year, promises to be one of the turning points in the movie making industry or rather Nollywood as many awaits its formal release with much expectation.

Faustinus wrote in via [email protected]
03.07.2016 LISTEN

Oyibi (GAR) July 03, GNA - The Valley View University is processing eleven programmes for accreditation in addition to its 28 programmes to offer more opportunities in developing Ghana's human resource.

Professor Daniel Bediako, the Vice Chancellor of the University, announced this at the 22nd Congregation ceremony of the Adventist institution, at its main campus at Oyibi, in the Greater Accra Region.

They programmes include a Bachelor of Science in Mental Health Nursing; Bachelor of Science -Procurement and Supply Chain Management; Bachelor of Science- Environmental and Waste Management.

Others are a Master's programme in Business Administration in Accounting and Master's Programme in Education Leadership and Administration.

A total of 2391 graduands, comprising 190 post graduate students and 2,201 undergraduates were awarded with degrees and diplomas.

The graduands, from 11 African countries, included more than 67 per cent males.

Prof Bediako said the institution offered value-based Christian education that fostered the balanced development of all students.

He said each student by the end of his or her training process would have benefitted socially, intellectually, physically and spiritually.

The university, Prof Bediako said operated on three campuses - Oyibi, Techiman and Kumasi - with a total enrollment of 9614 students. Sandwiched students constitute 50 per cent enrolment.

He said over the year under review, the various Departments and Institutions all achieved various successes in their efforts.

In the Chaplaincy Department, Prof Bediako said, their outreach services had resulted in the baptism of 568 souls and this was a 38 per cent increase over the previous year's figure of 411 souls.

Mr Joseph Nii Laryea Afotey Agbo, the Greater Accra Regional Minister, who was the special Guest of Honour, advised the graduates to lead responsible lives wherever they found themselves.

He said graduation ceremonies often 'marks the end of a long journey but it is the beginning of another journey - 'life's journey' - and urged the students to acquaint themselves creditably in all their endeavours.

Nii Afotey Agbo urged lecturers and the academic authorities to continue to work hard for their students to improve their lot to ensure their total development.

'The one who graduates and stops learning will soon find himself behind on the path to success,' he said. 'Don't forget your alma mater in all your successes'.

The event, which saw the presentation of awards to distinguished students, was attended by various dignitaries from the Seventh Day Adventist fraternity, traditional rulers, and the public.

GNA
you are here:
Army soldiers atop an armored military vehicle drive near the Holey Artisan restaurant after Islamist militants attacked the upscale cafe in Dhaka, Bangladesh, July 2, 2016. REUTERS/Mohammd Ponir Hossain

By Ruma Paul and Promit Mukherjee

DHAKA/MUMBAI (Reuters) - Some leaders of Bangladesh's $26 billion garment industry expect Western fashion retailers to review their ties with the world's second-largest garment exporter after 18 foreigners were killed in an attack on a Dhaka restaurant.

Bangladesh, one of the world's poorest countries, relies on garments for around 80 percent of its exports and for about 4 million jobs, and ranks behind only China as a supplier of clothes to developed markets like Europe and the United States.

Militants killed 20 people, including nine Italians, seven Japanese, an Indian and an American, inside an upmarket restaurant in Bangladesh's capital, before security forces stormed the building and ended a 12-hour standoff on Saturday.

Islamic State said it was responsible for one of the most brazen attacks in the South Asian nation's history, but that claim has yet to be confirmed.

It marks a major escalation in a campaign by militants over the past 18 months that had targeted mostly individuals advocating a secular or liberal lifestyle in majority-Muslim Bangladesh with 160 million people.

"An incident like this will definitely impact us, in as much as our importers from places such as (the) U.S. and China will be wary to visit because of the security concerns," said Shahidul Haque Mukul, managing director of Ananta Garments.

The industry had been recovering strongly from a major tragedy three years ago, when a factory building collapsed, killing more than 1,100 people, prompting safety checks that led to many factory closures and the loss of exports and jobs.

It had also seemed little touched by a spate of recent murders on liberals, gay people, foreigners and religious minorities in sporadic attacks claimed by Islamic State and al Qaeda.

Between October and January, its exports surged 14 percent from a year earlier.

But Friday's attack signalled a more chilling threat to foreigners. The militants targeted a building housing two upmarket eateries popular with foreigners, and several of those killed were Italian garment entrepreneurs.

Story continues

Italy's textile imports from Bangladesh more than trebled in the last decade to reach $1.31 billion last year, as low cost garment production moved outside the European country.

"Bangladesh has never seen such a horrific incident," said Mohammad Siddiqur Rahman, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

"It is a strong slap to our image. It will put pressure on our business, but we cannot say to what extent at the moment."

A Bangladesh-based executive for a French-based garment buyer said he feared a deep slump in business in the coming days.

But other industry figures said heightened security fears could be managed and that manufacturers could hold more meetings with Western customers outside Bangladesh, in Asian cities such as Singapore or Hong Kong, a trend that had begun some time ago.

"Concerns on visiting our factories, holding meetings, etc, by foreign nationals will be there for a few months but I believe within six months, the intensity will thaw and things will be back to normal," said Abdullah Hil Rakib, head of exporter Brothers Fashion Ltd.

At least two European retailers which source clothes from Bangladesh, Sweden's H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB and Britain's Marks and Spencer Group PLC, say their operations in the country are not immediately affected.

Both said their workers are unaffected, adding they were monitoring the situation.

"There are no plans in changing any sourcing but we are following the development closely," Ulrica Bogh Lind, spokeswoman for H & M, told Reuters.

She said the company had "safety routines" for workers, adding the company was in contact with its office in Dhaka.

The industry owes its resilience to some of the world's lowest wages, the right skills and the fact that China has become less competitive as a producer in recent years.

The minimum monthly wage for garment workers in Bangladesh is $68, compared with about $280 in mainland China.

(Additional reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in Mumbai, Serajul Quadir in Bangladesh, Ethan Lou in Toronto, Anna Ringstrom in Stockholm, Francesca Landini in Milan; Writing by Mark Bendeich; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Ros Russell)
July 03, 2016

Baghdad, Brexit And The Chicken Coup

A few issues I meant to write about (but from which family issues keep me away):

Last night two bombs by Islamic State terrorists killed 172 and wounded some 200 people in Baghdad. At the same time the New York Times had a piece up, with zero evidence for its thesis, which was headlined Appealing to Its Base, ISIS Tempers Its Violence in Muslim Countries. (The headline was since changed.) The people in Turkey, Bangladesh, Yemen, Iraq and Syria - all place where IS committed mass murder last week, likely have a different view than the NYT expressed.

Will there be a Je Suis Baghdad campaign tonight? Will the colors of the Iraqi flag be projected onto the Eiffel Tower, the Berlin Gate or the White House? No? Why not? Are the mostly Shia kids, women and men killed in Baghdad the wrong kind of people?

I strongly agree with this paragraph: Brexit Is Just The First Earthquake Of Its Kind

People want a new order in which a sense of belonging and a sense of security, nationalism and economics, go together. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this democratic desire. At base, this is what this vote is about. The British people are of course not alone in this search. In searching for a vision in which nations can be economically strong in a connected world, some opportunists will pair up with genuinely racist elements to make political capital. But to see this as merely the resurgence of some archaic, parochial, provincial populism is to miss the wood for the trees.

The Canary has an excellent series on the long planned but failed Chicken Coup in the British Labour party.Tony Blairs crony elite want to snatch Labour back from the working class, How a PR company manufactured the Labour coup  Part I, Senior Labour Party insider reveals plan to oust Corbyn was in play 10 months ago (EXCLUSIVE). The coup was publicly announced in The Telegraph ten days before it happened: Labour rebels hope to topple Jeremy Corbyn in 24-hour blitz after EU referendum. This coup attempt was an embarrassment. The Blairite masters of spin have obviously lost their abilities.

Posted by b on July 3, 2016 at 18:16 UTC | Permalink

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By Aditya Kalra, Serajul Quadir and Ruma Paul DHAKA (Reuters) - Seven militants who killed 20 people at a Dhaka restaurant were Bangladeshis and authorities had earlier tried to arrest five of them, said officials who denied claims by Islamic State of responsibility for the attack. The gunmen stormed the upmarket restaurant in the diplomatic zone late on Friday and killed their mostly non-Muslim hostages, including nine Italians, seven Japanese and an American. Claiming responsibility, Islamic State warned citizens of "crusader countries" in a statement that they would not be safe "as long as their aircraft are killing Muslims". It also posted pictures of five grinning fighters in front of a black flag who it said were involved in the attack, according to the SITE monitoring website. But Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told Reuters late on Saturday that neither Islamic State nor al Qaeda were involved. He reiterated the government statement that home-grown militants were responsible for a spate of killings in the country over the past 18 months, including the latest one. "This was done by JMB," Khan said, referring to Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, which claims to represent Islamic State in Bangladesh but has no proven links to it. Islamic State also claimed responsibility for two bombings overnight in Baghdad that killed nearly 120 people and wounded 200, most of them in a busy shopping area while residents celebrated the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. [nL8N19P049] Reacting to the two attacks over the past three days, Pope Francis asked people attending noon prayer at the Vatican in Rome to pray for the victims and their families. Late on Sunday in Bangladesh, hundreds of men, women and children held a candle light vigil near Dhakas Shaheed Minar (Martyr's Monument) to pay respect to those who lost their lives. "We don't want this," Nasima, a textile industry worker, told Reuters Television. "Please stop this, stop this, stop this from our society, from our country, I want to live in peace." As Dhaka limped back to normal life, security experts questioned the delay in launching the offensive against the militants. More than 100 commandos stormed the restaurant nearly 10 hours after the siege began, under an operation code-named 'Thunderbolt'. Analysts say that as Islamic State loses territory in Iraq and Syria and its finances get drained, it may be trying to build affiliates in countries such as Bangladesh for jihadists to launch attacks locally and cheaply. [nL3N18L3LK] RICH FAMILIES Deputy Inspector General of Police Shahidur Rahman told Reuters on Sunday that authorities were investigating any connection between the attackers and transnational groups such as Islamic State or al Qaeda. He said the militants were mostly educated and from well-off families, but declined to give any more details. National police chief Shahidul Hoque said all the gunmen were Bangladeshis. "Five of them were listed as militants and law enforcers made several drives to arrest them," he said. Whoever was responsible, the attack marked a major escalation in violence by militants demanding Islamic rule in Bangladesh, whose 160 million people are mostly Muslim. Previous attacks have mostly singled out individuals advocating a secular or liberal lifestyle, or religious minorities. RECITING KORAN VERSE Friday night's attack, during the final days of Ramadan, was more coordinated than the previous assaults. Gunmen singled out foreigners as soon as they stormed through the doors of the restaurant popular with expatriates. They ordered all Bangladeshis to stand up before the killing began, a source briefed on the investigation said. The Bangladeshis were later told to close their eyes and recite verses from the Koran. One militant cursed a Bangladeshi for eating with non-Muslims during Ramadan, the source said. The Islamic State-affiliated Amaq news agency claimed in a report on Saturday that the militants identified and released Muslim patrons from the Dhaka restaurant, SITE said. The victims also included at least three Bangladeshis or people of Bangladeshi descent.[nL1N19O0B2] The militants hacked most of their victims with machetes, leaving their bleeding bodies on the floor. A standoff of nearly 12 hours with security forces ended when the commandos stormed the building, killing six of the militants and capturing a seventh after attempts at negotiations proved fruitless, authorities said. They recovered explosives and sharp weapons from the scene.[nL8N19O0BU] It was not clear if the attackers had made any demands. HOME-GROWN GROUPS Up until Friday's attack, authorities had maintained no operational links existed between Bangladeshi militants and international jihadi networks. Bangladesh has blamed JMB and another home-grown outfit for the wave of grisly killings over the past year and a half. One line of inquiry being pursued was whether the restaurant attackers received any guidance from Islamic State or al Qaeda, an official in Bangladesh's counter-terrorism wing said. "Pictures (uploaded on Twitter) indicate they might have been encouraged by ISIS (Islamic State) activities abroad," said Muhammad Zamir, a former senior foreign ministry official. "But this does not show a direct link to ISIS. This is exactly what was done and disputed later in the case of the Orlando attack," he said, referring to the killing of 49 people last month by a man who pledged allegiance to Islamic State. Friday's attack in Dhaka was the worst since 2005, when JMB set off a series of bombs throughout Bangladesh in the space of an hour that killed at least 25 people, mostly judges, police and journalists. The authorities executed six top JMB leaders in March 2007 and police have continued to hunt for group members, often detaining suspected militants following intelligence tips. In February, Bangladesh police arrested three JMB members suspected of killing a Hindu priest. Islamic state has claimed responsibility for a series of other attacks in Bangladesh in recent months since first taking credit for a killing in September last year. An Italian missionary was shot and wounded in the neck last November. Another Italian and a Japanese citizen were killed in attacks at the end of September and early October last year. "SAVE ME, SAVE ME" In a run-down government hospital in Dhaka, two police officers who were on patrol duty on Friday night were treated for gunshot wounds, with bandages and plasters on their cheeks and legs. Behind their beds, a sheet of paper carried details of their wounds. Struggling to speak, 30-year-old officer Pradip, who gave just one name, recalled rushing to the spot after receiving a message that night. A blood-smeared man lay in front of the restaurant, shouting "save me, save me". The police officers called for backup after they were shot at from inside the restaurant. "At some point, I felt blood was rolling down my cheek," Pradip said. "We did respond with fire and the attackers stopped. We then rescued the man, who was the driver of some of the Japanese citizens who were inside." After meeting the officers in the hospital, police chief Hoque told Reuters they had gleaned some preliminary details on the identities of the attackers, but gave no details. GARMENT INDUSTRY The seven Japanese killed were working on projects for the Japan International Cooperation Agency, an overseas aid agency, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said on Saturday. Six of them were in Dhaka to work on a metro rail project, said Bangladesh's communication minister Obaidul Quader. Italian media said several of the Italians victims worked in Bangladesh's $26 billion garment sector, which accounts for 80 percent of the country's exports. [nL4N19O0BZ] A Bangladeshi garment exporter who supplies six European countries said his customers generally visit every two months but will now rethink that. "I feel they will be afraid," he said, declining to be identified. "Even I am afraid." (Additional reporting by Reuters Television in Dhaka; Writing by Tommy Wilkes and Krishna N. Das; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Tom Heneghan)
Water Board names West Texas field office manager

AUSTIN  The Texas Water Development Board recently hired Jerry Millsaps as the project manager and outreach specialist at the TWDB West Texas field office. The office, located in Lubbock, provides local outreach for the Panhandle, South Plains, and western portions of Texas, as well as management for area projects receiving financial assistance from the TWDB.

Jerry is a production engineer with more than 25 years of experience in the civil engineering, workforce management, environmental, and safety management fields. He honorably retired from the U.S. Air Force after serving 22 years as a civil engineer production manager and air traffic control specialist. Jerry also served as the operations director at the Lubbock Reese Redevelopment Authority.

Midland Dominos franchise owners nationally recognized

James and Cassie Gerety, owners of 15 Dominos stores in Midland and surrounding areas, was awarded the esteemed International Franchise Association Gold Franny Award for operational excellence, their third time to receive the award. They have been Domino's franchise owners for 12 years.

The Gold Franny Award is the most prestigious honor bestowed on a Dominos franchise owner. The Geretys earned this award as part of an elite group within about 850 franchise owners in the United States. The awards are based on several key factors including operational audit scores, community involvement, store safety and security, and team member morale.

The Gold Franny Awards were created more than 20 years ago by the International Franchise Association and designed to honor excellence among franchise owners.

Midland Park Mall designated StormReady by National Weather Service

Midland Park Mall has been awarded the StormReady and Weather-Ready Nation Ambassadors designations by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Weather Service.

The designations follow the malls continued efforts to increase shopper safety in the face of severe weather and recognize Midland Park Mall for its preparedness to handle all types of severe and potentially life-threatening weather situations through communications infrastructures, community outreach and hazardous weather training. Simon is the first real estate investment trust (REIT) to achieve this status at all of its locations nationwide.

We are grateful to the National Weather Service for providing us with this distinction, said Javier Loera, Director of Marketing and Business Development. Our center plays a key role in the area, and the safety and security of area residents and visitors is of utmost importance. Leading by example, our hope is that other organizations that serve as community gathering places will follow suit.

Simon Property Group proactively shares NOAAs vision of building a Weather-Ready Nation, said Chris Maier, national warning coordination meteorologist of NOAAs National Weather Service. We welcome Midland Park Mall as a StormReady and Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador partner. Their comprehensive emergency management and security program helps their tenants and patrons stay ready, responsive and resilient to extreme weather events.

Midland Texas Roadhouse supports Special Olympics

During the entire month of July, the Midland Texas Roadhouse restaurant will be selling paper peanuts to help raise funds for providing Special Olympics programming and training for children and adults with intellectual disabilities in the Midland, Odessa and surrounding Permian Basin/Big Bend Areas. Paper peanuts can be purchased for $1 at the restaurant, located at 4512 N. Loop 250 W. next to Wal-Mart and Chick-fil-a.
The United States became an exporter of liquefied natural gas this year with Cheniere Energys first shipments from Louisiana, but a glut of LNG globally is creating questions about when a second wave of LNG export projects will move forward.

Five U.S. LNG export projects are under construction, including ones in Freeport and Corpus Christi, but many others are awaiting both regulatory approval and corporate decisions on whether to invest billions of dollars during a market downturn.

Perhaps the most brazen project is The Woodlands-based NextDecades Rio Grande LNG project in Texas. NextDecade proposes building what could be the nations largest LNG export facility, with the first of three phases scheduled to come online in 2020. The $6 billion project would be constructed on 1,000 acres at the Port of Brownsville near the Mexican border.

We want to be the leader of the second wave of export projects out of the U.S., said NextDecade CEO Kathleen Eisbrenner, a former executive at Royal Dutch Shell before founding the company in 2010.

Despite the large supplies of natural gas coming from Australia, Russia and the Middle East, many industry analysts and executives expect LNG demand to pick up at some point after 2020 as countries reduce their reliance on coal, in part from international accords on climate change. The expansion of the Panama Canal, which will be able to accommodate LNG tankers, will make Asian markets more accessible to Texas and other Gulf Coast exporters.

Its like a drug, Eisbrenner said. Once a country gets a taste of LNG they never want to go back.

These projects are risky though, particularly since it remains unclear how long it will take for demand to work through the supply glut. Most analysts expect LNG demand and prices to rise over the long term, but it remains unclear when that might happen. So, for companies investing billions in projects that take years to complete, timing is everything.

Luana Siegfried, energy analyst with Raymond James in Houston, said it might take longer than many in the industry believe, noting weaker European demand, slowing growth in China, and the potential for Japan to return to nuclear power now that more than five years have passed since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

Spencer Dale, BPs chief economist, expects liquid natural gas supplies to grow by 40 percent over the next four years as new LNG facilities begin operations, meaning it could take another decade for demand to catch up and prices to rise. As a result, many new projects won't be profitable at first, he said.

But, he added, Over a period of time, that big growth market in Asia is going to mean youre going to need a lot more gas.

The shale boom turned the United States into the worlds largest natural gas producer and drove energy companies to seek new markets. Transforming the gas into a liquid through a supercooling process known as liquefaction allows it to be shipped worldwide. LNG terminals that once accepted imports are being retooled to ship exports.

The first project online, developed by Houstons Cheniere Energy, began exporting in late February to South America, Asia and Europe.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in May began reviewing NextDecades Rio Grande application. Eisbrenner hopes to begin construction as soon as September 2017 to bring the first of six liquefaction units, called trains, online by the end of 2020.

All six trains would produce 27 million tons of LNG a year or 3.6 billion cubic feet a day  roughly the same size as Chenieres Sabine Pass project in Louisiana, if its built to capacity.

The biggest challenge for NextDecade is locking in long-term contracts with LNG buyers. Without guarantees from customers to buy the LNG at set prices over periods of 20 years or so, the risk would be too great to secure the investment needed to build the project. NextDecade only has non-binding agreements thus far.

NextDecade has financial backing from a few New York firms and hedge funds  York Capital Management, Halcyon Capital Management and Valinor Management. NextDecade declined to disclose the amount it has raised.

Eisbrenner recently canceled NextDecades proposed Pelican Island LNG project in Galveston partly because of concerns about not having enough property, as well as to keep the focus on Brownsville.

NextDecade is facing both competition and opposition in Brownsville. Two smaller LNG export projects, one by Houston-based Texas LNG, the other by Chicagos Exelon Corp. are also under review. Analysts expect only one proposal to move forward.

Environmental and community activists in the Rio Grande Valley also are pushing a Save RGV from LNG campaign to oppose all three projects.

Still, Eisbrenner believes future market demands and access to Texas cheap and abundant shale gas are on her side.

I like our timing, she said. There needs to be a break between the first and second wave.
By Jordan Blum

Houston Chronicle

Financially struggling Harvest Natural Resources is abandoning its presence in Venezuela after focusing heavily on production in the politically unstable nation for more than a decade.

Houston-based Harvest said Thursday its selling its Venezuelan stake in a deal close to to $100 million to the Italian-Venezuelan consortium, CT Energy Holding SRL, which had partnered with Harvest last year.

Harvest has struggled to stay afloat the last couple years and is currently facing a potential de-listing from the New York Stock Exchange with its shares trading below $1.

The deal, which is expected to close at the end of September, would leave Harvest only with assets in Indonesia and in Gabon along the African west coast. But Harvest said Thursday it will also continue to seek opportunities to sell its Gabon assets.

In the Venezuelan deal, Harvest will receive $80 million in cash, an additional $12 million to be paid over six months, $4.25 million in Harvest stock that was owned by CT Energy, and warrants held by CT to buy up to 34 million Harvest shares. In exchange, Harvest also will pay more than $30 million in outstanding debt to CT Energy at the close of the deal.

Harvest has long held a strong position in Venezuela, but government intrusion has repeatedly caused consternation.

Last year, Harvest CEO said the company faced a severe liquidity problem after Venezuela blocked a previous sale of assets there to Argentinas Pluspetrol.

At the time, Edmiston said he was disappointed and frustrated by the government intervention.

Going further back, in 2013, the Indonesian government rejected the $725 million sale of Harvests assets sale to that nations state-owned PT Pertamina, saying that Harvest had raised its price.

Harvest has suffered from both the dispute over the blocked assets sale and the crude oil price collapse that made its offshore oil prospect in the West African nation of Gabon less attractive.

Oil trader Gunvor to open Houston office with up to 30 workers

By Bloomberg

Gunvor Group plans to open a U.S. office as the oil trader moves away from its Russian roots, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Gunvor is looking for more staff after hiring at least one senior energy trader for the planned Houston office, two of the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. The company is considering opening an office with 20 to 30 people before the end of the year, trading petroleum products and possibly crude, one person said.

The plans to establish the U.S. office come after the company severed links to Gennady Timchenko, the Russian oligarch who co-founded Gunvor with Swedish national Torbjorn Tornqvist more than a decade ago. Timchenko struck a deal to sell his 44 percent stake in the trading house to CEO Tornqvist in March 2014, the day before the U.S. imposed sanctions on the Russian for his ties to Vladimir Putin.

A Gunvor spokesman declined to comment on the plans for a U.S. office. The company has previously denied it has ever had links to Putin.

Gunvor, which has its main trading operations in Geneva, hired gasoline trader James Hutchinson from Valero Energy to join the new office, two of the people said. Hutchinson was formerly a trader at Trafigura.

One of the worlds five largest independent oil traders, handling about 2.5 million barrels of crude and petroleum products a day, Gunvor would join rivals such as Vitol Group and Trafigura Group with a Houston presence. The company reported record profit of $1.25 billion in 2015.

Over the past year, Gunvor has sold the bulk of its Russian assets, including its majority stake in the Ust-Luga oil-products terminal, according to company statements. Russian crude and oil products now account for 12 percent of Gunvors trading activity. The company has said 40 percent of the crude it handles originates from North and South America, including the U.S.

Founded 16 years ago by Timchenko and Tornqvist, a former BP trader, Gunvor got its start trading Russian crude oil. At one point it handled about a third of Russian seaborne crude exports, according to the company.

Appeals court clears LNG expansion in Texas, Louisiana

By James Osborne

Houston Chronicle

Environmentalists efforts to block expansion of U.S. export facilities for liquefied natural gas were struck a blow Tuesday when a federal appellate court ruled two projects in Texas and Louisiana could move ahead.

The Sierra Club had sued to block the expansion of Cheniere Energys Sabine Pass terminal, which began shipping LNG earlier this year, and the construction of Freeport LNGs new terminal on the grounds they threatened to worsen climate change by increasing natural gas production.

The liquefied natural gas tanker Asia Vision left Cheniere Energy's Sabine Pass export terminal in Louisiana on Wednesday with the first cargo of U.S. shale gas. The carrier ship is shown Wedneday in an aerial photograph taken over Sabine Pass, Texas. (MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Lindsey Janies)

But the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that environmental analysis by the federal government was limited to local impacts of a facility. It also found no evidence the new facilities would expand drilling on new lands and rather would draw from the large quantities of gas already flowing from shale fields in Texas.

The ruling comes as a relief to the oil and gas industry, which has faced increasing legal challenges from environmental groups over infrastructure projects, including LNG terminals and pipelines.

The consequence of these rulings is that the U.S. LNG industry will continue to grow, said Charlie Riedl, executive director of the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas.

But the fight does not appear to end here. A spokesman for the Sierra Club said the conservation group planned to sue the Department of Energy, which also regulates LNG export terminals.

This disappointing decision fails to address the significant environmental harms of increased gas exports, and is not the end of the road in this fight, Lena Moffitt, director of Sierra Clubs Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign, said in a statement.

Sage Grouse fight rises again in West

By James Osborne

Houston Chronicle

WASHINGTON  Republicans called on the Obama administration Tuesday to back off a new plan to protect the Greater Sage Grouse, a ground bird living in gas-rich regions of the U.S. high plains whose numbers had fallen to dire levels over the past century.

At a Senate hearing Tuesday, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, said the new program unnecessarily interfered with conservation efforts already underway at the state level and threatened energy production across the Western United States.

Im concerned that [the federal government] plans will further reduce natural gas production on federal lands in Wyoming and other western states, he said.

The hearing comes nine months after Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced that the grouse would not be placed on the national endangered species list, avoiding more severe conservation efforts. But at the same time, federal wildlife and land use officials have put into place new rules to protect the bird and its habitat, angering many state officials.

They were available to talk, but the federal government did what they wanted, Kathleen Clark, director of the Utah Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office, testified Tuesday.

The debate comes during a renewed debate around the sage grouse. In May, the oil and gas industry sued in North Dakota federal court to block the new federal conservation rules. At the same time the U.S. Court of Appeals found earlier this year the Bureau of Land Management had not adequately considered the threat to the grouse when it approved a wind farm in southeastern Oregon.

At Tuesdays hearing, Catherine Macdonald, of the Nature Conservancy, described the federal conservation plan as critical to protecting a bird whose population has fallen 97 percent.

The fight heated up last month when House Republicans introduced an appropriations bill preventing the Fish and Wildlife Service from putting the sage grouse on the endangered list in the future.

The decision not to list was a referendum on how working together actually pays off, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, said Tuesday. Its very troubling to see some of our colleagues think it makes sense to seize defeat from the jaws of victory with this poison pill.

Weatherford to cut 90 jobs in Katy

By Collin Eaton

Houston Chronicle

HOUSTON - Weatherford International plans to cut about 90 jobs at an oil-equipment facility in the Houston area, the company told Texas regulators this week.

Its a small part of the mass layoffs that have swept across the oil industry for two years and cost Texas more than 100,000 jobs. Weatherford, an oil-field service company that has its U.S. headquarters in Houston, has shed 20,000 workers and has shut down more than two dozen oil-equipment facilities since the oil bust began.

The companys latest cuts, at a Katy facility where it makes artificial lift systems that pump crude oil out of wells, will come in mid-August. It said the layoffs are due to a loss of business opportunities.
I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer. We already have begun our summer school sessions, and students and staff are all working very hard. The MISD administrative and support staff members are also working to prepare for the new school year coming up very quickly in August.

To begin my article this week, I want everyone to know that the last month of school and June has been a whirlwind ride for my family. As was reported last week, we are leaving Midland for a position with another school district. Ive been involved in that interview process since early May, and the process ended Monday with the decision by the Northwest ISD board to name me lone finalist. The decision to move from Midland is absolutely one of the most bittersweet issues weve dealt with as a family, and because this will be my last article to the community, I want to leave my parting thoughts for Midland and for the school district.

As a family, the Warren crew will never see living in Midland as anything but a complete blessing. This entire community has helped us raise our children for the last six years, two of our three children have graduated from MISD, and all of our children were positively affected by this community.

As stressful and as demanding as my job is, we see ourselves as blessed by being a part of Midland. As parents, we never go into any situation without knowing the challenges of the district and the community, so we knew the academic challenges the district was dealing with when we came here. But as educators, we also know state test scores are not true reflections of Texas school districts or communities. The scores are important, but they do not tell the whole story.

The challenges of Midland and MISD have been the most pressing of my career. We faced the budget cuts we had to make in 2011. Soon after, came the cost-of living-issues and the student growth we sustained during the boom and beyond. The statewide challenges of the new accountability system, the new test and the new learning standards have pressed us, along with the requirements of the Texas school finance system and the Robin Hood effects. Intertwined with all of that were the horrible issues weve faced concerning teen suicide. All of these issues have been front and center every day of our professional and personal lives in Midland.

Any community in Texas could look at these external challenges and give up, but not Midland. That one fact is the most important aspect of our community we will take with us to our next challenge. Midland does not and will not give up. That fact, and the actions that have accompanied that attitude, is what I am most proud of as we prepare to leave. I want to make sure everyone understands what is going on in our community and in the district right now -- the work that has been done and the potential effects of that work on the future.

Please know that these days anyone can attack. As recognizable public figures in Midland, the school board members and I have long understood that being the targets of these kinds of attacks goes with the territory, but for those Midlanders who have really been paying attention, moving beyond the complaints, moving beyond the need to blame and moving beyond the historical stance of inaction has been the mantra of Midland for more than a year, and we cannot afford to slide backward.

An unprecedented group of community leaders, political leaders, parent leaders and district leaders (including our teacher leaders) has been working toward an initiative that will change the face of education forever in Midland. Weve partnered as a team to make this change, and there can be no barriers that impede this process.

Weve just completed one of the most exciting spring semesters of my career because of this group. As reported multiple times by the Reporter-Telegram and our other media partners in the community, the educational leadership group -- Educate Texas -- has come in and facilitated this initiative, and our group -- Educate Midland -- will sprout its wings and fly this fall. The most important thing to remember in this is that we cannot give up. We cannot let differences of opinion, philosophies or egos stand in the way of turning our district into the educational organization that will serve our kids forever with excellence.

Now is the time to invest to make MISD into a premier district. Know that the state is not going to give a lot of help with this. With the horrible shape that the Texas public education accountability and testing systems are in right now, no school district is getting the scores they want, but the Midland initiative is so much more than state test scores. It is about changing the culture of our community, so every effort in our town is geared to support our children and to support the most important adults in the community -- our classroom teachers. This is what Educate Midland is going to accomplish if everyone can move away from their own individual needs and work together, side by side, to make these changes.

And let me make one more controversial statement: the school environment matters. Most communities understand this, but some community members in Midland do not. Investing in our schools also is about money. Investing more money into the operational budget and into the facilities of MISD will not be money wasted. Ive been here long enough to completely understand that we see having one of the lowest school district tax rates in the state as a point of pride, but it really shouldnt be.

As a community, we must put our kids and our staff into better environments. This community has more than 3,000 individuals working for the school district, and I am very proud to say the vast majority of them come to work every day to make positive impacts on our children. Putting the more than 1,600 teachers into modern, technologically appropriate settings will move this district forward. Investing in the school district should not be a reward for hard work and better test scores. It should be seen as an obligation the community embraces.

The only thing my family and I can say to Midland as a whole is thank you. Thank you for taking us in for six wonderful years in our lives. Thank you for helping us instill the Midland values into our children, and thank you for supporting all of our kids in the community. If everyone continues to work together, all Midland stakeholders will be very proud.

The final part of my article is my yearly tribute to a group of wonderful young Midlanders. I want to recognize a group of young men and women who need to be held up and honored in front of our entire community. There is a truth in the school business that the school year will rise or fall depending on the strength of the senior class, and I can confirm to everyone that we completed one of the most positive years to date because of our graduates.

Our graduates from MISDs four high schools -- Midland High School, Lee High School, Coleman High School and Early College High School at Midland College -- finished with excellence. I personally thank our former students for their leadership in our schools, and they need to know theyve set the bar very high for other classes to follow. I also truly thank our students parents and guardians. The support these caregivers gave to the graduating seniors was very apparent throughout the year.

Our first graduation ceremony in May was for Early College High School at Midland College, and I am very pleased to report that Early College HS continues to be our shining star. This was our fourth round of graduates from ECHS at Midland College, and we had 65 graduating seniors. The really awesome fact is that 60 of those graduates also completed the requirements to receive their associate degree from Midland College, and the other five students should have their degree by the end of the summer. We are very proud of our students, our staff and our supporters of Early College High School.

MISD, in partnership with Midland College, Pioneer Natural Resources, Abell-Hanger Foundation and other supporters and benefactors, has developed our campus into one of the model early college high schools in the state. We are seeing a huge amount of success in the ability to graduate our students from the secondary and the higher education settings, and we are going to research even better methods and programs to offer our ECHS students and give them even more opportunities to grow.

I am also very pleased to report that our high school students at Coleman High School continue to excel in our credit-recovery campus that serves our nontraditional learners. More than 60 students earned their high school diplomas this year, and although many of them have dealt with real adversity and challenges in their young lives, they have managed to stay on course to complete high school. I am very proud of these young men and women.

The last two groups to be highly commended are our graduating seniors from Midland and Lee high schools. We graduated more than 1,200 students, and as I stated above, this class has set the success bar very high for the senior classes to come.

I do want to take time this year to personally commend seven specific students because of their hard work and determination in their academic endeavors. I want to pay a special tribute to our valedictorians and salutatorians from MHS, LHS and ECHS, I want to commend our shining star student at Coleman.

Brandon Kam and Claire Lancaster were our valedictorian and salutatorian for Midland High School. Lee High Schools val and sal were Thomas Rubio and Oluwaseun (Sean) Okimi. Our two top students at Early College High School at Midland College were JaCobey Gonzales and Sierra Dominguez, and the CHS top student was Lourdes Duran.

To excel at this level over four years of high school takes an extraordinary amount of discipline, perseverance, intelligence and a commitment to be the very best. I absolutely honor our seven top students this year for having the character to achieve at this high level, and I know their futures are very bright.
By Osamu Tsukimori and Wilda Asmarini

TOKYO/JAKARTA (Reuters) - BP gained final investment approval to an $8 billion expansion of the Tangguh liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Indonesia on Friday, clearing the way for a third train to start operations in 2020.

BP is going forward with expansion of Tangguh despite announcing it would rein back on spending this year due to weak oil prices. It also approved investment on an Egyptian gas field last week.

The investment will boost annual LNG production capacity at the Tangguh project in Indonesia's West Papua province by 50 percent to 11.4 million tonnes.

Three-quarters of the gas from the new Train 3 will be supplied to Indonesian power utility Perusahaan Listrik Negara, BP said. The rest will go to Japan's Kansai Electric Power Co.

Officials at Indonesia's upstream energy regulator SKKMigas said the project was worth $8 billion, although BP declined to confirm that figure.

"We are finalising details with potential lenders and at this point I'm not able to disclose who they are," Christina Verchere, BP regional president Asia Pacific, told reporters.

In May BP cut its budget for the project to $8-10 billion from $12 billion.

"This final investment decision was made after confirmation with Tangguh production-sharing contractors and is based on commercial considerations," said Indonesian energy minister Sudirman Said.

BP leads the Tangguh project with a 37.16 percent stake. Its partners include MI Berau, China National Offshore Oil Co and a venture between Mitsubishi Corp and Inpex.

Friday's decision also sealed a $2.43-billion onshore building contract for a consortium led by Tripatra, part of Indonesia's Indika Energy Group, SKKMigas chief Amien Sunaryadi said.

A $448-million offshore contract was awarded to the Indonesian unit of Saipem, he said.

"(These) are the contractors who did the front end engineering designs, so we hope the (results) aren't too different from that," Sunaryadi said.

(Writing by Fergus Jensen; editing by Himani Sarkar and Jason Neely)
Speaker is totally wrong in his ...
Donald Trump

Donald Trump has launched an all-out assault on America's free-trade agreements, hitting a peak in his antitrade message that has swept him through the primary season and into the general election.

And in doing so, he is breaking with decades of Republican orthodoxy, staring down party leaders and some of their top messengers over an issue that has helped define the GOP.

During a speech titled "Declaring American Economic Independence" last week, Trump called for pulling out of the North American Free Trade Agreement and for Congress to refuse to ratify the landmark Trans-Pacific Partnership. He also demanded that presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton pledge to withdraw from TPP on her first day in office, should she be elected.

During his speech, given just outside Pittsburgh on Tuesday, Trump called Nafta the "greatest jobs theft in history." He later said during a rally in southeast Ohio that night that TPP was "another disaster done and pushed by special interests who just want to rape our country."

"A continuing rape of our country," he said. "That's what it is, too. It's a harsh word. It's a rape of our country."

Trump's tough stance on trade aligns him much closer with the liberal left than it does with the traditional Republicans. As Trump was blasting trade in a series of speeches and events this week, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont called for ensuring that TPP doesn't get a vote before Congress. Even Clinton, the candidate most aligned with the Obama administration, having served in it as secretary of state, has come out against TPP as it's currently structured.

"Democrats must do all they can to defeat the TPP. #StopTPP," Sanders wrote in a tweet.

But no one's antitrade message has been as hard-line as that of Trump, who places the blame for economic hardships at home squarely on increased globalization.

Donald Trump

GOP Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, a fierce critic of Trump, told Business Insider in an interview last week that he thought the Manhattan billionaire's message of "economic independence" was simply a code for "Fortress America."

Story continues

"Anybody who believes that we're going to grow economically and deal with the huge fiscal problems that we have from shutting ourselves off from the rest of the world is just certainly not what I'd call a Republican," Flake said. "I mean we believe in free trade. We still do. Nafta is not a dirty word."

Trump, whose clothing line is produced overseas, has made an antitrade argument that is "easier to identify," Flake said. He added that focusing only on the image of people who have lost their jobs because a factory closed or relocated oversimplified the issue.

Jeff Flake

"But it's more difficult to identify on the net, companies that have benefited from exports, cheaper goods," he said. "Not just cheaper goods but cheaper inputs. So takes a lot longer than a 30-second sound bite. It's incumbent on us who have six-year terms to be talking about this, and I mean in an election campaign, you certainly prioritize what you play up and play down, but boy, to play into the rhetoric and not challenge it that is going on is inexcusable I think."

He said Congress needed to "suck up" and ratify TPP because "it has to be done."

"I do still think there are enough people that realize we've got to do it," he said.

Tony Fratto, the deputy press secretary in the second Bush administration who is now a managing partner at Hamilton Place Strategies, was heavily involved in the administration's international-trade policy. He told Business Insider in May that an "overwhelming majority of our job loss, especially in manufacturing, has nothing to do with trade at all."

"It has to do with the application of technology," he continued. "It's productivity and management and technology that is being applied to a lot of complex manufacturing that is reducing the need for workers. That is not going to change."

"There are lots of presidential candidates who have opposed trade  there are no presidents who have opposed trade," he added. "In the postwar period, there have been no antitrade presidents. Every president has been pro-trade. Even if they hadn't been as presidential candidates."

The sentiment about technology, and not trade, being the reason for so many jobs becoming obsolete was exactly what President Barack Obama expressed in his State of the Union address earlier this year. But the argument has fallen mostly on deaf ears.

During this week's North American Leaders Summit in Ottawa, Ontario, the subject of trade was front and center as Obama stood onstage and answered questions next to his Canadian and Mexican counterparts  Justin Trudeau and Enrique Pena Nieto.

Feeling the growing tide of antitrade and anti-Nafta sentiment brewing back home, Obama said people with concerns over trade had "a legitimate gripe about globalization."

"As the global economy is integrated, what we've seen are trend lines across the advanced economies of growing inequality and stagnant wages, and a smaller and smaller share of overall productivity and growth going to workers, and a larger portion going to the top 1%," he said. "And that's a real problem."

Barack Obama

If the trend continues, he said, the "social cohesion" and "political consensus needed for liberal market economies starts breaking down."

Such sentiment helped, in part, to put the Leave vote over the top in last month's British referendum on the UK's membership in the European Union.

To address the issue, Obama called for investments in education, rebuilding infrastructure, and having "fair" tax policies.

"And what is absolutely true is that too many folks who have been in charge around the world have neglected that side of the equation," he said. "So we're going to keep on pushing hard to shape an international order that works for our people. But we're not going to be able to do that by cutting off trade, because that's going to make all of us poor."

He later added a line that has been all-too-common along the trail with Trump: "Free trade also has to be fair trade."

Bruce Andrews

Bruce Andrews, the deputy secretary of commerce in the Obama administration, in a recent interview with Business Insider did not place the blame for "job disruption" on America's trade agreements.

He said the job loss that has come as a result of globalization has "happened without any trade agreements."

The deputy secretary also called out people  without naming any individuals  who "cite competition with China" as an example of such a reason to oppose a trade deal such as TPP because "we don't have a free-trade agreement with China."

"Globalization is going to take place whether we do these trade agreements or not," he said. "The question is do we want to write the rules. Do we want to make sure that American companies have the same access that companies from other countries are going to have?"

Donald Trump

Along with Mexico, the chief reason he is in opposition to Nafta, Trump has used China as a punching bag for his antitrade message.

During an event in New Jersey in May, Trump insinuated that trade deals led to the US being "viewed as the stupid country," shrugging off the potential consequences of a trade war with other countries.

"These dummies say, 'Oh, that's a trade war,'" he said. "Trade war? We're losing $500 billion in trade with China. Who the hell cares if there's a trade war?"

Andrews cited various reasons to stand behind TPP: He considers it a renegotiation of Nafta with Mexico and Canada, raising standards with the two countries; it cuts thousands of tariff lines, which he called "essentially a tax cut" for Americans; and it opens up a much larger portion of the global markets to unrestricted access for American corporations.

He, like Obama, emphasized that the US had to do a better job of training people for the jobs that are available.

"We can't turn the clock back on globalization," he said. "Globalization is going to happen whether we like it or not. What we can do is prepare the United States to be competitive, create the technologies of the future, invest in research and development, make sure they're manufactured here, making sure our workers have the skills to do them, then give the products access to other markets through trade deals."

The argument that trade deals provide cheaper goods to all Americans, a point that is made by both Republicans and Democrats who support TPP, was ripped by Trump. During a speech in New Hampshire on Thursday, he said "we're better off paying a little bit more and having jobs."

"It's a much better system, the way it used to be," he said. "We manufacture goods and sell them to other countries. And a lot of people say the goods will come in and they'll be cheaper, yeah, but we lost all our jobs. So we're better off if the goods aren't quite as cheap but we keep our jobs. And the goods will be of a higher quality because we do a higher-quality good. And we're known for that. But all of a sudden the jobs are gone."

Michael Froman

In a recent interview with Business Insider, US Trade Representative Michael Froman said the antitrade message from the campaign  the message championed by Trump  was simple.

"The fact is, you don't get to vote on automation," he said. "You don't get to vote on whether the next generation of computers or robots are going to be brought into your workplace. You don't really get to vote on globalization. It's a force. It's a fact. It's a reflection of the containerization of shipping, the spread of broadband, the integration of countries like China and Eastern Europe that used to be closed to the global economy are now part of the global economy."

"Trade agreements become the vessel into which people pour quite legitimate economic insecurities," he continued. "And you do get to vote on trade agreements, and they do get to become a scapegoat for a lot of the other concerns, legitimate concerns."

NOW WATCH: FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: If Trump gave this order, the military wouldn't listen





More From Business Insider


Update at 1:45 p.m.: Cal Fire reports the Appaloosa fire is now 425 acres and 15 percent contained. Cal Fire spokesperson Lindy Shoff states, Cal Fire is conducting firing operations to secure the perimeter of the fire. As first reported by Clarke Broadcasting here, the cause of the fire was electrical and a property owner has been cited but the person has not been identified.

Additionally, all power has been restored to the last 18 PG&E customers in the Stallion Way area out of the more than 10,800 that were without lights originally after the fire began. (More details on the power outage is below.) Their lights went on just before noon Sunday.

Update at 10 a.m.: Cal Fire dispatch reports that crews have stopped the flames forward rate of spread in the Appaloosa Fire. The blazes size is holding at 325 acres and 10 percent contained.

Original post at 8 a.m.: Angels Camp, CA  Cal Fire dispatch reports that the size and containment of the Appaloosa Fire remain unchanged.

The containment is still 10 percent with the acreage sitting at 325. Overnight ground crews worked on laying and securing lines around the flames. As Clark Broadcasting first reported yesterday, the flames broke out in some grass around 1 p.m. Saturday on Appaloosa Road between Pinto Drive and Hunter Street south of Highway 4 outside of Angels Camp.

This morning just 18 PG&E customers are without electricity from the more than 10,800 in Calaveras and San Joaquin counties that were without power shortly after the fire broke out until around 10:30 p.m. Saturday. CAL Fire Company spokesperson JD Guidi reports that those remaining customers are in the Angels Camp area around Stallion Way. He states, CAL Fire is not allowing us to re-energize that area just yet but gave us a time of possibly around 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. The power was originally shut off Saturday soon after the fire began at the request of CAL Fire, according to Guidi.

Additionally, the CHP had closed several roads in the fire area including Appaloosa Road north of Hunter Street and Stallion Way and Roan Road at Highway 4. Sunday morning the CHP reports those roadways have reopened.

A special thanks to our community news partners Celia Friesen, Darin McKinney, Jenny Lee, Kyle Hampton, John Adema, Richard Treadway and Martin Miles for sending in photos. Pictures can be e-mailed to news@clarkebroadcasting.com.
Ethiopian Airlines Chief Executive Officer Tewolde Gebremariam speaks during an interview with Reuters in his office in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa August 18, 2015. REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri

By Aaron Maasho

TOULOUSE, France (Reuters) - Ethiopian Airlines is weighing whether to expand its fleet with the 366-seat Airbus A350-1000 or the latest version of the 777 long-haul jet built by its traditional supplier Boeing, widely known as the 777X, its chief executive said.

Tewolde GebreMariam was speaking to Reuters after taking delivery of the first of 14 A350-900 jets to be placed in the airline's fleet, leased from Dutch-based AerCap. The aircraft delivered to Ethiopian has 343 seats.

"We have 14 of these A350 and we have more (Boeing) 787s. We are comparing the A350-1000 and also the 777X. Depending on which performs well out of Addis Ababa at altitude and high temperature, we are going to make that decision," GebreMariam said.

Asked how many extra aircraft the airline could order, he said, "between 15 and 20".

He did not say when the airline planned to make a decision.

"We want to know more about the A350-1000," he said.

Earlier this month, GebreMariam told Reuters the airline was considering whether to order 10 to 15 Boeing 777-8s, one of two planned models still widely known as 777X, the label used before they were launched on the market.

The 777-8 will carry about 350 people.

Until now, Ethiopian Airlines has mainly stuck to aircraft from Airbus's U.S. rival.

"The concern has always been not to diversify too much because different types add complexity to the operation and make the cost of operation very high, so it is not recommended. But we are growing," GebreMariam said.

"The fleet is around 80 now. So any fleet type on its own will be around 20: the minimum size to justify the training of new pilots and technicians. This is the right time. At the same time, for competition reasons, it is required."

Ethiopian Airlines plans to double its fleet by 2025 under a plan called Vision 2025, but Boeing will continue to dominate the airline's fleet as Ethiopian flies the short-haul 737 as well as the long-haul 787 and 777 models.

"They (Boeing) will continue to take the larger share but Airbus will continue to grow," GebreMariam said.

(Additional reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
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Michael Short / Special to The Chronicle 2016

Four people were killed in two separate shootings in Oakland over the holiday weekend.

The first incident occurred just before 3 p.m. Saturday, when a man and a woman were shot on the 3300 block of MacArthur Boulevard. Paramedics attempted to save the victims, but both died at the scene from their injuries, according to police officials.
The identity of a man who was shot dead Wednesday while walking on a North Side street was released Saturday.

Eric Perez, 22, was walking at about 7 p.m. in the 4700 block of West Avenue when he was fatally shot once in the chest, the Bexar County Medical Examiner confirms.
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Despite increased security and temperatures that reached the high 90s, all signs pointed to 2016's gay Pride Festival and Parade being San Antonio's biggest yet.

This year's annual Pride event broke records for parade entries, vendors and entertainers, said Autumn Summers, a longtime San Antonio drag performer and Saturday's Pride MC.

RELATED: 15 (mostly free) events to celebrate the Fourth of July in San Antonio area

For a second year, a mass wedding was conducted on the event's main stage in Crockett Park. But unlike last year, when 20 same-sex couples were married a week after the Supreme Court legalized the unions, only one couple arrived to be married by state District Judge Ron Rangel, one of three marshals of the Pride Parade held later in the evening.

The crowd cheered loudly anyway.

"It's a basic human need to feel that you belong," said Rangel, who performed last year's weddings.

This was the city's 13th gay Pride "Bigger Than Texas" Festival and Parade. The theme was "Peace. Love. Pride."

Last month's mass shooting in a gay nightclub in Orlando was present in many people's thoughts. But the San Antonio event was still marked by joy and fun: there was glitter and rainbow outfits, body paint and drag performances on a stage in one corner of the park.

Brooke Kenneally, 17, went to the festival Saturday "to celebrate who I am and to be able to be accepted by all the people around me," as she stood wrapped in a rainbow American flag.

She and a friend stood beside a booth run by the Ryan White Program, which administers HIV funding for medical and social services in Bexar County. They scribbled out messages in support of the Orlando shooting victims. In her note, Kenneally wrote, "Keep Strong and Stay Positive."

Extra law enforcement was on hand throughout the festival. The Bexar County Sheriff's Office manned activities inside the festival, in Crockett Park. Sheriff's Captain Don Tijerina confirmed there were more deputies on site this year than in 2015 because of the Orlando shooting.

The San Antonio Police Department was also monitoring social media for any potential threats, said SAPD spokesman Sgt. Jesse Salame.

RELATED: Squeezebox on the St. Mary's strip had quite the grand opening

"The main goal is to be visible, and through that visibility, everyone feels safe," said Police Chief William McManus, who stopped by the festival and was the first police chief ever to be grand marshal of the gay Pride Parade, back in 2007.

Proceeds from Pride will benefit BEAT AIDS Coalition Trust, the LGBTQ organizations at San Antonio College and Texas A&M University-San Antonio, Fiesta Youth for LGBTQ young people between the ages of 12 and 24, and the San Antonio Spay-Neuter & Animal Wellness Clinic.

vdavila@express-news.net
Melida De La Garza Gonzalez taught her children the value of family and philanthropy.

Known for her handmade quilts and crocheted gifts, she was quick to pick up a crochet needle, even toward the end of her life. With hands finding it hard to be idle, she was making Christmas booties for the residents at the assisted living facility, daughter Irma Gonzalez-Strautman said.

Gonzalez died June 24 on her 71st wedding anniversary. She was 91.

Melida De La Garza married Raymond Gonzalez in 1945, a year after graduating from Lanier High School. It was during World War II, and my father had orders to go to England, Gonzalez-Strautman said. They married before he left.

As the years passed, three children were added to the family.

Because Gonzalez had six sisters, holidays were always large, joyful events.

More Information Melida De La Garza Gonzalez Born: October 8, 1924 Died: June 24, 2016 Preceded by: Parents Candelaria and Francisco De La Garza; husband Raymond Elizondo Gonzalez; sisters Alice Morales, Julie Garza, Horence Herrera, Estella De La Garza, Emma Muniz, and Yolanda De La Garza. Survived by: Son Dr. Raymond Gonzalez and daughter-in-law Beth; daughters Irma Gonzalez-Strautman and son-in-law Gus, Laura Gonzalez-Buentello and son-in-law James; four grandchildren and numerous great-grandchildren, family and friends. Services: Visitation at 6 p.m., rosary at 7 p.m., Tuesday at Porter Loring, 1101 McCullough Ave. Mass 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, at St. Anthony de Padua Catholic Church, 102 Lorenz Road followed by burial at San Fernando Cemetery II. See More Collapse

When we were growing up, every Christmas Eve, the aunts met early in the morning to make tamales at grandmothers house, Gonzalez-Strautman said.

They formed an assembly line and the gossip would fly, she remembered.

As a stay-at-home mom, Gonzalez was active in her childrens schools, helping at PTA functions and school fundraisers.

She also belonged to sewing and quilting clubs. Each year the sewing club held an event to show off the members sewing skills. The kids would model the clothes, Gonzalez-Strautman said.

Changing seasons brought new family adventures.

We went to Mexico every summer to help my grandfather with his orange orchard, Gonzalez-Strautman said. Tour buses would stop on their way to Mexico City, and we would serve the tourists fresh squeezed orange juice.

A tradition was passed down from Gonzalezs mother, Candelaria De La Garza to her daughter. Every summer they went into the Mexican mountains to give clothing and supplies to the poor, Gonzalez-Strautman said

Tragedy struck when, at age 51, Gonzalezs husband died. After many years of being a stay-at-home mom, she entered the workforce.

Her son who had recently become a dentist, trained her how to manage a dental office. The business skills he taught her allowed her to land a job at a local dental practice. She changed jobs seven years later to work at Northeast Baptist Hospital.

Along the way she cemented friendships at the Loma Park Bunko Club. The club continues today as daughters take the place of mothers and grandmothers long gone.

Gonzalez had a habit before bidding her family goodbye, her daughter said. She would advise: Always be good to your parents and always be good to your family.

iwilgen@express-news.net
Many of you know me as Old Man Water, but I also spent many years working on public pension issues.

I served as a City Council trustee (1986-1993) and later as executive director (1993-1999) of the San Antonio Fire and Police Pension Fund, which provides retirement security for public safety employees and their families. My involvement with fire and police issues may surprise some of you who know that I voted against the 1986-87 fire and police collective bargaining agreements, the provisions of which are still being litigated today.

More than 20 years ago, I worked closely with the board of the fund to ensure that our city would have a well-funded, prudently managed defined benefit plan. One of our most important decisions was to require unanimous approval before we made any change in the governing statute of the fund, which is a statutory trust created by the Texas Legislature.

All parties would have to agree: the citizens represented by council; the trustees of the fund; the fire and police unions and public safety retirees through their elected representatives; the independent external auditor and actuary; our regulator, the Pension Review Board; and the local Bexar County legislative delegation. Only then would we request changes to our plan in the Legislature, be it changes in contributions or benefits.

This policy has served our community well. It has partially helped our city achieve a AAA bond rating as a result of being the best-funded municipal pension plan in the state. It has attracted and kept our fire and police personnel employed for an average of 28 years-plus and provided disability, line of duty death and retirement for them, their spouses and their children.

Recently, there has been a movement in favor of local control to remove these checks and balances on pension funds by allowing City Council to make all decisions regarding funding and benefits. Nothing could be worse for these funds.

As political bodies, councils may be subject to the prevailing wind. Unions could seek to increase benefits, or council could redirect pension funding to other city projects, thereby breaking the cardinal rule of pension funding  consistent, regular funding to amortize the unfunded liability.

As you look around the country, there are countless examples of local control creating most of the pension underfunding problems we read about.

Lets not allow our city to fall into this trap. Local control may be a popular conservative mantra, but as a conservative, I cannot recommend a change in our policy of consensus that has served us so well. Our citys strong fiscal standing and our experienced public safety employees are at risk.

Weir Labatt is a former member of City Council.
By all indications, Americans have reached a level of disenchantment with our political system, and with politicians specifically, that could lead one to believe a revolution is at hand. I sometimes share this frustration.

But recently, I had an experience with our political process that I found very uplifting. As is often the case with uplifting experiences, it was borne out of a painful one.

I recently drove to Austin to provide testimony to the Texas Senate Committee on Health and Human Services. My purpose was to create awareness and seek support for mental health services, and for the San Antonio Clubhouse, the nonprofit where I am the director.

The hearing began at 9 a.m. I registered to provide open testimony, which always follows invited testimony. By looking at the agenda, I knew I was in for a long wait before my turn at the microphone. After signing in, I sat in one of the hard wooden chairs on the periphery of the Senate chamber.

Now for the painful part. While sitting, I turned in the wrong way and strained a muscle in my lower back. In significant pain, I limped to the Capitol gift shop for some Advil and returned to the chamber. And then I listened to people give testimony. And I listened, and waited, and listened, and waited. I sat, with my back throbbing, from 9 a.m. until I was finally called about 4 p.m. to give testimony, leaving only twice to use the restroom, stretch or grab a snack.

Now for the uplifting part. I observed as the committee members listened to long, sometimes excruciatingly detailed testimony from 15 or more people. Some of the senators on the committee would leave for a while and return; some left and didnt return.

Throughout the proceedings, two senators never left  Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Bryan, the chair of the committee, and Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, the vice chair. For seven hours, they were present and accounted for. No lunch break, no recess. And unless I missed it the two times I stepped out, I dont believe Sen. Schwertner rose from his chair the entire day.

Now, lest you think that Im using this as an opportunity to endorse these senators, know that I do not share their same political party or ideology, and would probably disagree with them on how to solve many of the issues our state is grappling with.

But thats not the point. The point is I got to see our system working. What I saw were two public servants who were engaged and informed about the issues up for discussion. I was impressed with their commitment to the political process, what we often refer to as the sausage-making. They were asking pertinent questions and by all indications were giving their full attention to every person testifying.

Im not naive enough to believe this is always the way it works at our Capitol, or any other. I know there is posturing, grandstanding, ignorance and indifference. But on that particular day, I received confirmation that our system, for all its drawbacks, is the one that best serves the needs of its citizens.

Mark Stoeltje is director of the San Antonio Clubhouse.
Posted on 07/03/2016, 1:00 pm, by mySteinbach

An amendment to the Mental Health Act (MHA) will allow police officers to transfer custody of individuals awaiting an involuntary medical examination to a trained, qualified individual as defined under the act, Health, Seniors and Active Living Minister Kelvin Goertzen announced.

Our government recognizes the importance of keeping those in need of involuntary medical examinations safe while in custody and to protect health-care workers and the public, said Goertzen. We believe it is equally important to promptly return police officers to their policing duties in the community. This amendment to the MHA will facilitate the transfer of custody while maintaining the safety of all involved in receiving or providing health services.

Currently, a police officer must wait with a patient until a medical examination is completed. The minister said this amendment will enable police to transfer custody of an individual detained under the MHA to a qualified person, other than a police officer, who would remain with an individual detained under the MHA until they have received the assessment.

The amendments define a qualified person as one who holds a position specified in the regulations or who has received training specified in the regulations. Consultations will be undertaken with the regional health authorities, mental health professionals, law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders to develop appropriate training requirements to ensure these qualified people are properly equipped for this role, Goertzen said.

The minister noted the province has already empowered Winnipeg Police Service cadets through the City of Winnipeg Charter and First Nation safety officers and community safety officers through the Police Services Act to assist police officers with this function.

Having our members return to the communities they serve as soon as possible is in the best interest of public safety, said Scott Kolody, commanding officer, RCMP D Division. This will allow our officers to focus on core policing functions while ensuring the continued safety of individuals awaiting an involuntary medical examination.

Additional details on the amendments to the Mental Health Act can be found online.
This documentary on the California primary is very disturbing. It has accounts from numerous poll workers of voters being told that the computer system showed specific voters as having requested to vote by mail, which meant they were supposedly mailed a ballot. Not only did many say they never got a ballot, many said they had never signed up to vote by mail. And this includes voters who said they had never heard of vote by mail.

Those voters who showed up at the polls who were listed as vote by mail would only be given provisional ballot. On top of that, if they were registered no party preference they would have to ask specifically for a crossover ballot in order to vote. In fairness, I was told that many poll workers were more helpful, but this description from Greg Palast makes clear how the intent was to suppress their vote:

This is from the official [California] Election Officer Training Manual page 49: A No Party Preference voter will need to request a crossover ballot from the Roster Index Officer. (Do not offer them a crossover ballot if they do not ask). Theyre not kidding. Poll worker Jeff Lewis filed a description of the training in an official declaration to a federal court: Someone raised their hand and asked a follow-up question: So, what if someone gets a nonpartisan ballot, notices it doesnt have the presidential candidates on it, and asks you where they are? The answer poll workers are instructed to give: Sorry, NPP ballots dont have presidential candidates on them. Thats correct: even when people ask questions of that nature, obviously intending to vote with a party.

Remember, no party preference voters were expected to skew heavily to Sanders. In addition, there are first person accounts of voters who were registered as Democrat listed at the polling station as no party preference or Republican, or similarly that their party preference had been switched when they got their mail-in ballot.

Moreover, if someone filed a provisional ballot and there was a ballot mailed in for them, the vote by mail ballot takes precedence. Doesnt this seem like a prescription for fraud?

Please circulate this post (or the video) widely. And thank Catherine A for making sure I didnt miss it.
Submitted London Bay Homes has selected Romanza Interior Design to create the interior of its Claremont model at 271 First Ave. N. in Naples.

SHARE Submitted The Claremont by London Bay Homes features 5,727 square feet of living space.

Submitted By Gravina, Smith, Matte & Arnold Marketing And Pr

London Bay Homes has selected Romanza Interior Design to create the interior design for the Claremont custom model home at 271 First Ave N. in the Old Naples area. Romanza's Michael Scott will complement the contemporary coastal architecture of the five-bedroom Claremont with midcentury and modern classic furnishings and a palette of ivory, ocean blue, charcoal and mocha throughout its 5,727 square feet of living space.

Located a block from the Gulf of Mexico and minutes to Fifth Avenue South's shops, restaurants and theaters, the two-story Claremont will offer a study, second-floor recreation room and lounge, and a private guest cabana above its alley loading, three-car garage. Located behind the main kitchen, an adjoining butler's pantry, wine room and office area will collectively function as a catering kitchen.

"The Claremont would be the perfect home for entertaining and enjoying Southwest Florida's outdoor lifestyle," said Scott. "It will have a number of spaces inside and out to accommodate large groups along with more intimate areas. There will be several wet bars, balconies, an outdoor bar, and a summer kitchen with lots of extra features."

The Claremont also will offer a fireplace in the large covered outdoor living area with motorized retractable screens, as well as a poolside fire pit and lounge area under a trellis.

Interior design features will include limestone flooring in the main living areas; pale gray French oak wood flooring in the master bedroom, study, cabana and recreation room; built-in cabinetry in several rooms; and vaulted and sloped ceilings, some accented with beams, as well as stained and glazed tongue-and-groove detailing. Extensive ivory-painted trim work throughout the model will add to its coastal ambience and enhance an open floor plan introduced in the foyer. With stacking panel doors, the living and dining rooms flow to covered outdoor rooms featuring vaulted tongue-and-groove ceilings.

"The coastal architecture and openness created by the accordion doors will resonate with buyers," said Scott. "As people explore the model, they'll discover a number of special places, including the private cabana with its own balcony."

The al fresco dining area will offer an extended bar with seating for four and an outdoor kitchen featuring a 36-inch grill with a separate burner and warming drawer, under-counter refrigerator and graphite-finished cabinetry. A trellis will accent an open-air sitting area next to the kitchen.

The zero-edge custom pool, a water feature and raised spa will be finished with ocean blue glass tile. A second trellis at the back of the pool provides shade for a sunken fire pit and lounging area.

Scott also plans to embellish the study's wall with extensive woodwork and include built-in cabinetry and open bookshelves. A private full bath will allow the study to function as an additional guest room.

Double doors in the master bedroom will be just steps from the pool's staircase. Scott's design will incorporate ocean blue accents against ivory walls and pale gray wood flooring paired with dark anigre veneered modern classic furniture.

The master suite will offer separate walk-in closets, and its bathroom will feature dual areas, including double water closets and glass-veneered, wall-mounted vanities. Additional finishes will include a freestanding tub, glass-enclosed shower, white marble floor and ocean blue accents.

The Claremont will offer an elevator and a staircase, the latter fashioned with shaped steel handrails, balusters and newel posts below a vaulted tongue-and-groove ceiling. An alcove between the second-floor landing and elevator will create a niche for a lounge area with a couch against the windows and an L-shaped wet bar.

Scott's interior design and attention to detail  right down to rectangular rosette embellishments in door knobs  will complement the Claremont's coastal-inspired architecture. The model's facade features Bahama shutters, board-and-batten and lap siding, multiple pitched roofs, corbel accents, transom windows, and even a porthole window.

The Claremont, offering more than 8,000 total square feet, is priced at $7.675 million. It is one of several custom homes being built as part of London Bay Homes' Naples Collection created for individual homesites from Park Shore to Port Royal.

London Bay Homes recently completed another fully furnished estate nearby  the three-bedroom, three-and-a-half bath Chelston  which is available for viewing at 631 Broad Court in Old Naples and offers 4,227 square feet of living space.

The builder has also started construction of two luxury single-family grand estates which will be available for viewing soon. Both offer private boat docks overlooking Cutlass Cove in Port Royal.

The two-story luxury custom home at 4375 Gordon Drive spans 6,394 square feet of living space and offers five bedrooms, including a VIP suite and second-floor guest apartment.

Nearby, the custom home at 4395 Gordon Drive features four bedrooms, including a second-floor master suite and private balcony oriented to water views, and 4,648 square feet within a two-story floor plan.

London Bay Homes, a leader in the Southwest Florida luxury home market for 25 years, has been named America's Best Builder by Builder magazine. The company builds luxury custom homes from $1 million to more than $10 million in many of the region's most exclusive neighborhoods and communities. The company also builds private residences on individual homesites in Old Naples, the Sarasota Keys and along the Gulf of Mexico.

Its commitment to Private Label Living ensures quality, attention to detail, an enjoyable building process and homes that are a unique expression of their residents.

For more information about London Bay Homes' exclusive downtown opportunities offered through its Naples Collection, visit www.LondonBay.com.
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It was a good legislative session this year when it comes to condos, HOAs and co-ops if your idea of good is that nothing much at all was passed. All of the bills, that would have had major direct affects on community associations that were filed, died in committees. This was probably a good thing because the content of most of these bills did not look favorable for associations.

One bill that did pass and became effective July 1 was Senate Bill 184 adopting a new Section 83.683, Florida Statute. This bill to accommodate service members which include "any person serving as a member of the United States Armed Forces on active duty or state active duty and all members of the Florida National Guard and the United States Reserve Forces."

Military personnel many times get change of orders and their family must then relocate to a new place quickly. What this new Florida Statute does to accommodate the quick moves required by our armed forces personnel is to say that if a condominium association, homeowners association or cooperative association requires a perspective tenant to complete a rental application before residing in a unit or parcel, the association must complete processing of the rental application submitted by a service member within seven (7) days and must notify the service member within that seven (7) days of approval or denial. If denial, the reason for the denial must be given. Absent a timely denial, the association must allow the unit or parcel owner to lease to the service member.

Most condos, HOAs and co-ops in Florida require a rental application, and most of their governing documents give the associations 20 to 30 days to process the applications once the applications have been fully completed and all information requested by the prospective tenants have been provided.

Because military personnel have to move many times on a moment's notice, it could be very expensive for the service members to have to relocate to a temporary place such as a hotel or motel while waiting for association approval. This expensive inconvenience to our dedicated men and women in uniform should not have to happen now in Florida under the new law.

As background checks can be done quickly now electronically, seven days should usually be sufficient to weed out any military persons with questionable backgrounds sufficient to legally support grounds for denial.

Remember, although you cannot discriminate based on race, religion, sex or color, you still can discriminate against bad actors and keep bad characters out of your community. This includes keeping out persons convicted of a felony involving violence to persons or property, a felony involving possession or sale of a controlled substance, or a felony demonstrating dishonesty or moral turpitude. Also, possible reasons for denial include a history of financial irresponsibility such as prior bankruptcies, foreclosures or bad debts, a history of disruptive behavior or evidences an attitude of disregard for association rules or the rights of others by past conduct.

It is not very often when an association runs into a prospective tenant that should be denied, but when a background check does come back with a lot of red flags, associations must review the facts closely and should consult with legal counsel before deciding to deny.

With the sacrifices made by our servicemen and women and their families, it is great to see that our Legislature has found another way to accommodate their upended way of life by providing for prompt review and approval of the vast majority of their rental applications so there is no unnecessary delay in the relocation as they carry out their duty to country.
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Real estate show

Jim York, a local Realtor, hosts a real estate update show each week on current issues or trends. Join York every Thursday afternoon from 1:30 to 3 p.m. There will be a different guest who specializes in a current topic each week. Any questions about upcoming topics or to be an audience guest, contact U.S.A. Marketing LLC by email: usamrktggroup@cs.com. All shows can also been seen at NaplesYorkRealEstate.com or their Real Estate News Blog: YorkRealEstateGroupSWFL.com.

Hearing center opens

Ave Maria Hearing Inc. has opened in the Town Center at Ave Maria. Owners Sylvia and Craig Horgan have been Naples residents since 2003 and recently moved to Ave Maria to open the hearing center. The Horgans are also owners of Hearing in Paradise and Beautiful Hearing in Naples as well as Bayside Hearing in Fort. With more than 34 years of experience, the Horgans will offer several hearing services at the Ave Maria location including audiometric evaluations, hearing aids fittings and repairs, custom ear molds, Bluetooth accessories, and more. Ave Maria Hearing Inc. is open Tuesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Online at www.avemariahearing.com

New offices open

On June 14 and 15, Naples-based Premier Sotheby's International Realty celebrated the official opening of its newest offices in Blowing Rock and Asheville, North Carolina, with ribbon cuttings and receptions. Premier Sotheby's International Realty has 36 locations throughout Florida and North Carolina. In 2016, the annual Real Trends 500 survey ranked the firm number 30 in its survey of the top U.S. residential sellers by volume, the highest ranking for a Florida-based brokerage.

Transactions

Premier Commercial Inc. closed on the following transactions:

Coconut Point OE LLC and Coconut Point ST LLC purchased 10 office condos totaling 8,533 square feet at The Offices at Coconut Point in Estero from Coconut Point Properties LLC for $2,436,553.44. Andrew DeSalvo and Matt Stepan negotiated the transaction.

Richardson Land & Cattle Co. LLC leased 961 square feet at 6621 Willow Park Drive, Suite 1, Naples, to Florida Hometown Title and Escrow LLC. Andrew DeSalvo and Matt Stepan negotiated the transaction.

Investment Properties Corp. (IPC) brokered this transaction:

Dollar Tree Stores Inc. leased 10,400 square feet from Renos Properties Inc. at 9061 College Parkway, Fort Myers. Patrick Fraley negotiated this transaction.
A blackboard behind the counter at Sweet Melissa's lists all the flavors and sizes of ice cream. Patrick Riley/Staff

SHARE Slices of mango (far left), raspberry (middle, front) and classic key lime pie are shown on a table at Sweet Melissa's, on June 24. Patrick Riley/Staff Employees work behind the counter at Sweet Melissa's, Friday, June 24. Patrick Riley/Staff A large, inflatable ice cream cone greets visitors at Sweet Melissa's on Bonita Beach Road. Patrick Riley/Staff A waffle cone filled with heath bar crunch and coconut almond fudge is shown at Sweet Melissa's. Patrick Riley/Staff

By Patrick Riley of the Naples Daily News

I grew up in a sleepy village, tucked away behind rolling hills and towering mountains. A small, little nest that when I was little had less inhabitants than Estero High School has now.

So naturally the sole restaurant in town only had four flavors of ice cream to offer during those long, hot summer days.

Strawberry. Chocolate. Vanilla. Stracciatella.

I was a strawberry man through and through. That's all I knew, all I needed, all I desired.

Fast-forward to 2016.

Today the possibilities are endless.

There's the decadent  like Bourbon Pecan Pie (Sorry, Florida, this Ben & Jerry's Flavor is only available in Texas.) There's the weird  like Candied Bacon (What food group doesn't have a bacon-flavored proxy these days?) And there's the outright gross  like Octopus (Japan, man. Can't make this stuff up.)

To witness how far we've come in this ice cream (r)evolution I decided to visit Sweet Melissa's, a new ice cream parlor off Bonita Beach Road.

Accompanied by colleagues Joey Cranney (who found Sweet Melissa's) and Maryann Batlle (who is a true and tried Hidden Gems taste tester), I pass the giant, inflatable ice cream cone baking in the June sun and enter the unassuming parlor.

Inside, we are greeted by three friendly faces behind the counter, some classic rock and an abundance of adventurous flavors. A big blackboard, covered in colorful scribbles, lists them all: birthday cake, maltwhooper fudge, rum raisin, rocky road, brownie batter, coffee toffee, and on and on.

After overcoming the initial feeling of helplessness when confronted with so many options, we approach the counter and dig deeper into the offerings.

"Is this your first time in?" John Coffman, the ice cream store's manager, asks us.

"Yeah," we reply in unison.

"Take your time," Coffman, 49, tells us. "Let me know if I can help you with anything."

We scan the list.

Among the standouts for me are the blue moon (I had to ask if they meant the beer, which they do not), heath bar crunch, coconut almond fudge and maltwhooper fudge, which sounds like the most compelling of the bunch.

Batlle tries the salted caramel while I taste the maltwhooper fudge.

I'm intrigued by the flavor, but decide to go with a different combo instead: heath bar crunch and coconut almond fudge. In a waffle cone, of course.

Meanwhile, Cranney, a big proponent of soft-serve (we'll get to that later), opts to go with a chocolate-vanilla concoction in a cake cone.

"I'm a very minimalist kind of ice cream eater," he tells me.

Batlle decides to be our designated key lime pie taster and orders the three variations the store offers: classic, mango and raspberry. (Coconut will be added soon, Coffman tells me later.)

Armed with calorie bombs and an ungodly amount of sugar, we migrate to a table near the window.

As we sit down, Cranney explains to us his ice cream eating philosophy.

"I'm an ice cream purist," he says. "Here's the thing, there's not that many places that you can get soft-serve ice cream."

Somewhat surprisingly, Cranney's take makes sense: You can buy tons of variations of regular ice cream in stores, but to get soft-serve you almost always have to visit an ice cream parlor.

"The soft-serve is special because it's the only experience  you can't get this experience anywhere else," he says. "You can't get this experience at home.

"You can't recreate this."

Meanwhile, on the key lime pie front, Batlle tries mango first ("Delicious!"). Then comes the classic.

"Classic is my favorite, I almost felt a little sacrilegious ordering things that were not just classic key lime pie," she confesses.

It seems I have surrounded myself with ice cream and key lime traditionalists.

"It tastes a little bit more cheesecake-y than what I'm used to," Batlle says about the classic pie.

Then  out of nowhere  Cranney reveals the biggest scoop of the afternoon.

"I've never eaten key lime pie," he tells us.

Batlle and I are justifiably shocked. But, like a pro, she shakes off her initial disbelief and tends to the key lime pies again.

"I'm going to say that the raspberry key lime is my favorite," Batlle says. "I like it."

As Cranney contemplates opening his own ice cream store, I dig into my heath bar crunch scoop. The chocolate-y flavor is sweet, but not overpowering. And every once in a while a crunchy bit of chocolate reveals itself like a pleasant little surprise.

But then comes the real winner of the afternoon: the coconut almond fudge.

My taste buds delight as my greedy tongue pushes deeper and breaks into the wonderfully creamy second layer of my cone. The almonds hidden within are crisp and bursting with flavor while the rest of the ice cream is equally tasty.

After Cranney makes some history by breaking his dry spell as presumably the only Florida resident who has lived in the state for more than a year and never tried key lime pie ("I find it to be very tart. Not unpleasant. Just tart. The consistency I would compare it to cheesecake"), it's time for me to taste the three pies.

The classic has a nice, subtle lime aftertaste and a wonderfully creamy consistency. The raspberry, meanwhile, is sweeter than the classic. And finally, the mango's flavor kind of sneaks up on you and adds an interesting new twist to the dessert.

But my favorite is the classic with its generous graham cracker crust. With respect to key lime pie, I guess I'm a purist, too.

When it comes to ice cream, Coffman, the parlor's manager, likes simple, as well.

"I personally think the chocolate is awesome," he says.

Luckily, for adventurous ice cream lovers like myself, Sweet Melissa's with its more than 30 flavors of hard ice cream has a lot to choose from.

The quaint store opened in early May and is owned by Melissa Floyd and Brad Lewis who also own and operate Coconut Jack's Waterfront Grille down the road, Coffman tells me.

The pies are home-baked and the ice cream is made by Love Boat Homemade Ice Cream, a local ice cream parlor with locations in Fort Myers and Sanibel.

For those who don't want to have to choose between ice cream and pie, there is even a compromise.

"One of our specialties is (we) take our home-baked key lime pie and freeze it, put a stick in it and dip it in chocolate," Coffman tells me. "We call that 'key lime pie on the fly.' "

Key lime pie on the fly

We've come a long way from strawberry ice cream.

IF YOU GO

Sweet Melissa's

Where: 4445 Bonita Beach Rd SW, Bonita Springs, FL 34134

Hours: Daily from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. (summer hours)

Information: Visit jasonwilson5.wix.com/sweetmelissa or call 239-330-4559
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By Liz Freeman of the Naples Daily News

A seasoned emergency room physician remembers a patient storming off after being refused narcotics for back pain that supposedly made walking difficult.

"The patient jumped off the bed (and) got right in my face," said Dr. Jay Falk, an emergency room physician at Orlando Regional Medical Center.

The patient was a drug seeker who threatened to complain to hospital administrators.

Physical and verbal assaults are ever present in emergency rooms and elsewhere in hospitals. State legislatures are being pressed to pass tougher penalties for violence against health care workers.

Georgia and Utah became the latest states this spring to act, according to the Emergency Nurses Association, based in the Chicago area. Eighteen states have taken steps since 2012 to toughen penalties, and another dozen are looking at measures. Florida is not included, according to the group.

Nearly 56 percent of emergency room nurses in recent surveys said they faced physical or verbal violence in the prior week, said Lisa Wolf, director of research with the nurses group. Historically, they are reluctant to report it or press charges, she said.

The assumption is that dealing with combative patients is part of the job. That's a mindset that needs to change, especially among hospital leadership in light of one-third of emergency room nurses considering a switch to a less risky environment, Wolf said.

The potential for an enormous amount of experience and expertise to walk out the door is pretty significant, she said.

More than 75 percent of emergency room physicians experience at least one incident of violence each year, Falk said. He is incoming president of the Florida College of Emergency Physicians.

Combative patients are not just intoxicated or drug seekers but include older patients with dementia, people with psychiatric disorders, and people angry over long waits, he said. Uninsured patients also believe physicians and nurses don't want to treat them, he said.

So far the Florida chapter of emergency physicians has not approached the state Legislature about tougher penalties against violent patients or family members, Falk said.

Hospitals are reluctant for the public to learn about violence in emergency rooms out of concern patients won't seek care when they need it, he said.

There's also potential backlash to emergency department staff when negative patient satisfaction surveys are submitted by patients who faced long waits or from drug seekers who get sent away empty-handed, he said,

"Some of these people are very creative and very manipulative," he said. "And there's a huge number of patients caught in the middle, and it is heartbreaking for the guy in chronic pain."

The Florida Hospital Association doesn't have current data on violence in hospitals but is starting to collect it, coupled with broader information about injuries for a safety campaign, said Martha DeCastro, vice president for nursing.

She disagrees that hospital administrators are more focused on positive patient satisfaction surveys over the judgment of emergency room staff when it comes drug seekers or other combative patients.

"I've never heard any practitioner was pressured in any way to provide a drug not in the best interest of the patient," she said. "They are focused on patients having a satisfying experience, but it wouldn't be at the expense of their overall care."

Dr. Eliot Goldner, an emergency room physician with the Lee Memorial Health System, a publicly operated system in Lee County, said combative patients take a toll on staff and mean resources are directed at problem patients and away from others.

In March the health system's security department started using better software for tracking physical and verbal confrontations, Mary Briggs, the system spokeswoman said. Since March through late June, 99 incidents have been logged at the system's four emergency rooms treating adults.

"I think we see it on a daily basis but not always for the same reason," Goldner said. "I think it is something you always keep in the back of your mind and the (safety) of the department."

Drug seekers hoping to get pain drugs feel if they create a scene, the emergency room doctor may give the narcotics to get them out the door, he said.

When Florida created a prescription database as part of a crackdown on pill mills in 2010, the database became a resource to recognize drug seekers and enables the staff to have a conversation with these individuals about treatment, Goldner said. Some pill abusers simply leave and others will ask where to get help, he said.

The pill mill crackdown likely means more drug seekers go to the emergency room due to reduced street availability of pills, and that situation runs head on to the drug database and doctors being able to identify drug seekers, Falk said. In turn, they get turned down and become angry.

The emergency nurses group has found 5 percent of prescriptions for narcotics are written by emergency room physicians, and there is a big push to not write them, Wolf said.

"It is usually the nurse who delivers the news 'You are not getting the prescription,' " she said. "This is worrisome; the nurses, they are in front of them."

At the NCH Healthcare System in Collier County, emergency rooms historically were not reporting physical or verbal confrontations with combative patients, said Betsy Novakovich, director of emergency services.

"We realize we were somewhat deficient in collecting that data," she said.

The data is collected now and helps with training staff hospitalwide how to recognize signs of potentially combative patients, said John Griffith, NCH director of security.

Still, the emergency room is not the place with the most combative patients; incidents are reported everywhere, and there is no pattern, Griffith said. Last year there were 221 calls for security combined at NCH's two hospitals.

When it comes to drug seekers, the emergency room department has to remember addiction is a disease, Novakovich said. On the issue of patient satisfaction surveys, some may be filled out by drug seekers, but anyone can fill out the forms.

"You want that patient to be safe and sometimes to be safe is not what they want," she said. "Physicians are in a tough spot making those decisions."
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Shares of most Chinese stocks trading on U.S. exchanges moved higher Wednesday after a sharp sell-off Monday following the end of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) National Congress over the weekend. Near the conclusion of that event, President Xi Jinping secured his third term as party leader, breaking with a longstanding tradition of Chinese leaders only serving two terms, and further consolidating his power and position as the head of the country for at least the next five years. Shares of electric vehicle maker Nio (NYSE: NIO) rose about 2% Wednesday, while shares of vaping company RLX Technology (NYSE: RLX) rocketed more than 45% higher and shares of fintech Lufax (NYSE: LU) ripped more than 14% higher.
FILE -- 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/Naples Daily News)

By Arek Sarkissian of the Naples Daily News

TALLAHASSEE  Leaders of Enterprise Florida, the state's public-private economic partnership under scrutiny for overspending, increased their executive payroll by $600,000, or 75 percent, over six years, while only adding two employees, according to salary information obtained by the Naples Daily News.

The total amount for executive salaries increased from $800,494 for seven positions in 2010-11 to $1.4 million for nine positions in May, the summary information shows.

The agency has refused to release details about those salaries and others, providing only summaries to the Daily News.

Enterprise Florida spokesman Mike Grissom said past agency directors have maintained that Enterprise Florida's public-private status protects specific salary information from public records laws that cover other state agencies. He did not cite an exception in state law, but said lawyers for the agency would offer their opinion on whether the salary information is public in the coming days.

However, state law specifically requires Enterprise Florida to follow the same public records rules as other state agencies.

"Public policy dictates that Enterprise Florida, Inc., operate in the most open and accessible manner consistent with its public purpose," the statute creating the agency states. "To this end, the Legislature specifically declares that Enterprise Florida, Inc., and its boards are subject to the provisions of chapter 119, relating to public records."

"There's no doubt that Enterprise Florida should be subject to the public records law," Florida First Amendment Foundation President Barbara Petersen said.

Despite the refusal to release specific salary information, the totals and other information provided by the agency show former Enterprise Florida President Bill Johnson expanded the executive staff, adding a senior vice president and a chief of staff after he was hired in January 2015. Johnson also created another vice president position from an existing executive post.

The salary increases began before Johnson took the job, the agency's information shows. The total amount of executive salaries jumped to $1.5 million in fiscal year 2012-13, a $700,000, or 87 percent, increase from 2011 under former Enterprise Florida President Gray Swoope. Swoope reduced the salaries to $1.1 million before leaving in late 2014.

Swoope said the increases he approved reflected an increase in the amount of work the agency completed. For example, he said the agency experienced the greatest number of domestic and international projects in its history in 2014, and the number of agency investors was at an all-time high.

But Swoope, reached by phone Saturday, said he could not list the projects completed during that time.

"There were a lot of records we were breaking in those years in terms of the amount of work we had taken on," Swoope said. "It was definitely a different climate before I got there."

Johnson did not return a phone message Friday on his cellphone and there was no answer at a phone tied to a property he owns in Miami Beach. He also did not return a message sent to a personal email account. His last day with Enterprise Florida was June 24.

Johnson and Swoope increased the Enterprise Florida payroll by 30 percent in six years, from $6.6 million for 86 employees in fiscal year 2010-11 to $8.7 million for 92 employees as of April 2016, according to salary information included in an audit ordered by Gov. Rick Scott.

Now facing critics in the Republican-controlled Legislature, the Enterprise Florida board voted Friday to lay off 12 people, eliminate 12 open positions and force two senior vice presidents into retirement. The move will save the agency $2.14 million. Scott has said the agency would need to cut $6 million to make up for the loss of $250 million in incentive funding denied by the Legislature.

The board's action comes after excessive spending by the agency was identified in the review Scott ordered, which was conducted by David Wilkins, former chief of the Florida Department of Children and Families. Wilkins identified increased spending in professional service contracts, agency salaries, leases for offices across the world and other expenses like travel. But the summary released in May by Wilkins offered no details about the professional service contracts or how the agency's executive structure changed over the years.

Fox 13 Tampa reported in April that Johnson spent $92,000 on custom-made office furniture and high-tech gear for a new Enterprise Florida headquarters he created inside a Coral Gables office building. The report also detailed how Johnson's expansion increased rent for the office space from $178,000 a year to $250,000.

The Daily News detailed some of Johnson's spending on professional service contracts, including no-bid agreements for his former PortMiami colleagues.

Enterprise Florida Senior Vice President Diana Gonzalez said in an interview Friday she was one of the fired employees. She was an executive hired by Johnson, given a $60,000 no-bid six-month contract before she was hired full time. Gonzalez and Johnson have worked together before: she had hired Johnson more than 30 years ago, and she worked as a contractor for him when he was director of PortMiami.

Gonzalez, who said she made $142,000 a year, had no comment.

"You guys got what you wanted and you did a great job," Gonzalez said. "I have nothing else to offer or add."

Johnson also brought his former PortMiami assistant, Lisa McMillion as his Enterprise Florida Chief of staff. It was unclear if she was another employee who was asked to leave. She was still considered a Miami-Dade employee as she worked for Enterprise Florida under a complicated agreement that allowed her to continue being enrolled under the lucrative pension plan for the Florida Retirement System. Other Enterprise Florida employees are not able to enroll in FRS.

Efforts to reach McMillion on Friday failed.

House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O' Lakes, said he was outraged by the increase in agency salaries and said the House would subpoena the agency if needed if more information is not released to the public.

"This report further demonstrates that corporate welfare enriches an elite few at the expense of hardworking taxpayers," Corcoran said. "The House will not stand for one second their desire to conceal records from the public.

Enterprise Florida's board last week voted to save $767,858 by closing four international offices, $771,558 by ending events and sponsorships, $620,175 by canceling 15 outstanding professional service contracts, and $242,758 in terminated leases. The agency already has saved $150,000 by adopting cost-savings in the state's travel policy and $200,000 on office expenses. Another $1 million in state money will be saved by tapping that amount the agency now holds in cash.

Committee Vice Chair Alan Becker said the cuts, especially at the top, were necessary to meet the goal of cutting $6 million in spending.

"I think one of the things David Wilkins said in his audit was that we were too top heavy," Becker said. "And now we're doing what it takes to get that number back down."

The Enterprise Florida board also voted to sublet parts the Coral Gables office and the sprawling penthouse space towering over Downtown Tallahassee. The agency for 20 years paid $108,000 a year for office space four miles north of downtown. It left that space in 2014 for a $267,648-a-year office three blocks from the Capitol, records show.
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's air force flew tons of grain to the southern state of Oaxaca on Friday as protests by teachers opposed to education reform spread across the country and road blocks led to dwindling food supplies in some remote regions. Tension in the state intensified after eight people died last month in clashes between police and the protesting teachers, and unrest has flared throughout Mexico. Local media reported protests by factions of Mexico's CNTE teachers union on Friday in the states of Guerrero, Oaxaca, Michoacan, Chiapas, Nuevo Leon and in Mexico City. The union has blockaded 11 highways in Oaxaca, a hotbed of dissent for protesters opposing President Enrique Pena Nieto's education reform that allows the federal government to remove teachers who fail evaluation exams. The protests have prevented food trucks from reaching remote coastal villages in Oaxaca, where some of Mexico's poorest people live, the country's federal food distribution chief Juan Manuel Valle said. Valle said 108 tons of corn would be flown in on a Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft by the end of the weekend, with additional provisions on standby in case the situation deteriorated. Araceli Hernandez Ramirez, manager of a grocery store in Puente de Coyula, a small town of some 500 inhabitants close to the beach resort of Huatulco, and located about 146 miles (235 km) from the state capital, said she had no rice, corn or flour. "There are no products," said Hernandez, waiting for a shipment from Diconsa to supply customers. "They go home empty-handed." Fifty tons of corn were also sent from the neighboring state of Guerrero by truck, in addition to regular shipments of beans, and rice. On Friday, Mexico's Secretary of the Interior promised action against the blockades in Oaxaca, saying dialogue with teachers' unions could not continue without respect for citizens' rights. "Blockades and public damage must end," Miguel Osorio Chong said. "Therefore, soon, we will be taking necessary decisions to allow traffic on strategic routes and supplies for communities." He did not specify what action the government would take. Osorio said the protests affected thousands of families, forcing businesses in Oaxaca and neighboring Chiapas to close and impeding shipments of medicine. A spokesperson for the CNTE union could not be immediately reached for comment. The protests have affected fuel distribution in parts of Oaxaca, but a Pemex official said operations at Salina Cruz, the company's largest refinery, had not been affected. (Reporting by Natalie Schachar; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Richard Chang)
Oil pumps are pictured at AN oil field outside the town of Siazan, Azerbaijan, June 20, 2016. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

TOKYO (Reuters) - Crude prices extended gains on Monday in Asia, supported by comments from the Saudi energy minister saying the oil market is heading towards balance.

London Brent crude for September delivery was up 17 cents at $50.52 a barrel by 2247 GMT on Sunday, after settling up 64 cents at $50.35 on Friday.

NYMEX crude for August delivery was up 5 cents at $49.04 a barrel, after closing up 66 cents, or 1.4 percent, on Friday. There will be no West Texas Intermediate crude settlement on Monday as U.S. financial and commodity markets are closed for the Independence Day holiday.

The energy minister of Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, and the secretary general of OPEC agree that the global oil market is heading towards a balance and that prices are starting to settle, according to comments carried by Saudi state news agency SPA.

U.S. drillers last week added oil rigs for a fourth week in five, according to a closely followed report Friday, in the best month of producers returning to the well pad since August that signalled a near-two year rout in drilling may have ended.

The Niger Delta Avengers, a militant group that has been carrying out attacks on Nigerian oil facilities in the past few months, claimed responsibility on Sunday for five new attacks in the southern energy hub since Friday.

Attacks in the Niger Delta have pushed Nigerian crude production to 30-year lows, although the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said last week that output was rising because of repairs and a fall-off in attacks.

Russian oil output stood at 10.84 million barrels per day (bpd) in June, up from 10.83 bpd in May, Energy Ministry data showed on Saturday.

Norwegian offshore oil workers and employers signed a new wage deal on Saturday, avoiding a strike that would have cut the output from western Europe's top oil and gas producer by about 6 percent, employers and unions said.

Money managers cut their net long U.S. crude futures and options positions in the week to June 28, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said on Friday.

(Reporting by Osamu Tsukimori; Editing by Joseph Radford)
By Paul Taylor BRUSSELS (Reuters) - After the self-inflicted wound of voting to quit the European Union, Britain's best option to limit the mutual economic and political damage could be called the "Hotel California" model. As in the 1977 Eagles hit, "You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave". Once the dust settles, Britain could "check out" of the EU by handing in its notice, but effectively stay half-way in the world's biggest trading bloc by joining the European Economic Area along with Norway. It could negotiate enhanced political cooperation in foreign policy and security, and might even get a voice, though not a vote, in some EU deliberations. Yet that next-best solution seems unlikely to prevail. It may take months for a British political leadership in meltdown to redefine the national interest in relations with the EU in a way that is compatible with the public will expressed in the June 23 referendum, if that is possible. That is one reason why outgoing Prime Minister David Cameron did not immediately "check out" by giving notice to withdraw under the EU treaty's Article 50 exit clause, which would trigger two years of negotiations on the divorce terms. An overwhelming majority of the financial and business community wants to retain free access to Europe's lucrative 500-million strong single market, which would mean keeping swathes of EU rules and accepting continued free movement of workers. Since these are the people who fund the ruling Conservative party, they ought to have influence on the next prime minister. But Britons voted to leave the bloc they joined in 1973 chiefly due to anger over immigration from EU countries and in a desire to "take back control" of borders and lawmaking. Those two agendas are mutually exclusive. Cameron left the poison chalice of giving notice and starting the divorce negotiations to his successor. The main contenders to replace him as Conservative party leader and premier in a leadership ballot set for Sept. 9 are in no hurry. Both justice minister Michael Gove and interior minister Theresa May have said they would not notify the EU this year, hoping to take informal soundings first about what terms may be on offer for future ties. Gove declined to put a timetable on withdrawal, while May, who had favoured remaining in the EU, said Brexit would take several years. The 27 other EU members are determined to avoid harmful prolonged uncertainty and want the issue resolved before the campaign for the 2019 European Parliament elections, in which Britain is not expected to participate. Hence they are pressing London to give notice as soon as possible and warning there will be no negotiations, formal or informal, until it does. They also spelled out at their first meeting without Britain that single market access requires full respect of the so-called "four freedoms" of movement for goods, capital, labour and services. British politicians may think time is on their side and they can get a better deal by playing it long. But while the other EU countries cannot compel Britain to trigger Article 50, they hold most of the cards. EU governments hold the keys to the single market gates. Now that it is on the way out, Britain no longer does. Prolonged uncertainty will chill investment in Britain and may prompt financial companies to drift away from the City of London as the euro zone prepares for life without the UK. "The longer they drag out notification, the more Brexit will happen de facto. The money is already walking away from London," an EU official said. Clearing trades in euros would move to the euro zone without waiting for an exit deal. Yet some Leave politicians remain in denial about the hard choice they face. Their leitmotiv is that Europe wouldn't dare. Chris Grayling, a senior Leave campaigner in Cameron's cabinet, told Reuters in an interview that the EU had a strong interest in a "sensible" trading arrangement with Britain. "It is as much about their access to the UK market as it is the other way round," he said, adding that Britain's financial services sector, by far Europe's biggest, would have to be protected in any negotiation. Nigel Farage, leader of the anti-EU UK Independence Party, went further, telling EU partners in the European Parliament: "If you were to cut off your noses to spite your faces and reject any idea of a sensible trade deal the consequences would be far worse for you than it would be for us." Thousands of German car workers' jobs would be at risk if the two sides imposed tariffs, he said. For now, the main Conservative leadership candidates seem to be leaning away from staying in the single market because of the electorate's overriding priority to control immigration. Some hope they can still get another special deal giving Britain a stronger brake on free movement of workers. That calculation could change if a recession, job losses and more currency turmoil, forecast by international financial institutions and economists, start to bite. The financial services sector is desperate to keep the "passport" that allows London-based banks and financial companies to sell services across the continent without having to set up costly subsidiaries there. Despite Cameron's plea to his final EU summit last week to rethink freedom of movement, labour mobility within the EU is not a big issue for Britain's partners. Changing the rules would be deeply divisive. Labour-exporting states such as Poland, Hungary and Romania feel they went as far as they could to help London by agreeing in a February deal to let it deny in-work welfare benefits to new arrivals from their countries for up to four years. So there is no disposition to do special favours for Britain on free movement that might make it easier to accept the "Hotel California" model. (Writing by Paul Taylor; Editing by Susan Fenton)
'We deserve armed protection but YOU don't'

Why do they hate our self-reliance?

(NaturalNews) It never ceases to amaze me that political leaders can be so reliant on men and women with guns for protection, but so tone deaf and authoritarian when it comes to allowing ordinary citizens the right to self-protection This may not be an issue for a majority of Americans, since, contrary to popular belief, most Americans don't own even a single gun . But itbe, because there are larger issues at stake. Liberty, once gone, is historically difficult to get back , and the one constitutional amendment designed to ensure that Americans retain theirs, has been under repeated assault since Barack Obama became president.In recent days the nation was shocked by a terrorist attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., in which some 50 Americans were murdered and scores of others wounded. Rather than correctly point the finger at a radicalized version of a centuries-old religion as the underlying cause, Obama and Democrats in Congress and in legislatures across the country instead blamed the jihadi'sTo sensible people that is about the most idiotic thing you could say about the attack. But sadly, far too many Americans have bought into our leaders' politicization of that and earlier terrorist tragedies, believing that if only we eliminated the the Second Amendment long ago, that would have prevented the attacks.France and all of Europe have never recognized the inalienable right to keep and bear arms for self-defense and protection of country, yet their citizens are being shot and killed by radicalized Islamists by the hundreds. Explosives aren't legal either, but tell that to the bombing victims recently at airports in Belgium and Turkey.As reported by, Rep. Charles Rangel "has now even gone so far as to say that law-abiding citizens shouldn't even have guns at all, even as he defended the need for armed guards for Congress." Rangel, by the way, is an Army veteran of the Korean War.And thenoted further:[,]That kind of hubris is only possible after spendingin a protected little bubble where you can live a pampered life that 99.99 percent of Americans will never experience.It's not just guns, either. These peopleanyone who doesn't need them for their daily existence  people who are individualists, and can get along without government handouts, favors, "benefits" and other largess paid for by someone else.In fact, those people are actually going to besomeday if, for whatever reason, we suffer a societal breakdown. As reported byrecently, Uncle Sam will cook up anti-hoarding regulations to give them the "authority" to take your stored food and water (either to feed themselves or feed others, leaving you to starve):So, there you have it. Far too many elected officials not onlywant you to have the power to defend yourself, but would also deprive you of your ability to take care of yourself in the event of an emergency.Isn't it time thatof us as Americans  regardless of our political ideology  demand that our leaders stop depriving us of our rights to self-defense and self-reliance?
Online identity impersonation  a clear violation of the American Medical Association (AMA) code of ethics for doctors

[email protected]

(NaturalNews) There is evil in this world. Remember Hitler? He poisoned people to death on purpose  millions of people. What if you found out right now that medical doctors are engaged in poisoning millions of Americans, yet under the "radar," and under the canopy of a crooked, insidious form of medical malpractice that goes completely unpunished and has even been declared legal by rogue regulatory agencies?Some of these doctors not only brag about it online, but they violate a code of ethicsthat applies to their profession and that is illegal. So, now this begs the question: Who will enforce the law? So far, nobody. But you can protect yourself and your loved ones from getting caught up in the "gas chambers" of modern chemical medicine . After all, chemotherapy was invented by Nazi scientists to make cancer tumors recede, but only to create new cancers of the blood that later invade other parts of the body. But wait, you didn't know that, did you? Let's discuss the crux of a severely flawed American medical system that's rotten to the core. Here's where to start:The American Medical Association (AMA) code of ethics states the following Imagine if the AMA did their job and enforced this code of ethics. Hundreds if notof medical doctors and oncologists across America would be fired for pushing toxic chemotherapy on patients who do not want to suffer needlessly and who have expressly voiced their desire to seek second opinions and natural remedies for cancer . Some parents are locked up in prison or have their children taken away by protective services for simply seeking second opinions about chemotherapy for their children or simply saying "No!" to the doctors.Then there are the insidious doctors who go online provoking, propagandizing and literallynatural health enthusiasts who seek normal, non-toxic, non-invasive treatments for cancer. Where in the world is the AMA to shut these freaks down?Riddle: What looks like a duck, smells like a duck and quacks like a duck? Answer: A quack doctor who spends more time blogging about his intense hatred for natural medicine than he does actually working at his job as a surgical oncologist at Karmanos Cancer Center in Detroit. His name, if you care at all, is David H. Gorski, and he may well be thepracticing medicine in America today. Here are just a few of the online aliases he uses to terrorize and victimize his self-proclaimed enemies:: So proud of his secret number one alias name "Orac" is Dr. Gorski, that he floods the internet with 20,000 word blogs of hatred for anyone who voices concern over toxic chemical medicine. Under this pseudonym, Gorski vandalizes medical comment boards, blatantly and repeatedly violatingof AMA codes of conduct.: The popular term in social media, "internet trolling," means viciously vilifying any discussions to which one is opposed. Gorski created this fictitious name to troll everyarticle that discusses the dangers of vaccines and chemotherapy. He's been caught and banned under that alias by the editors.: This is the troll's cave and "home base" main blog site where Gorski violates the AMA code of ethics daily.: Gorski also pretends to be a woman under the blog name "SoCalGal."sources have revealed that Gorski is using the name "MastCell" to vandalize entries on Wikipedia, such as the entry on, the documentary film exposing the link between mercury in vaccines and autism : If this internet troll is not Gorski himself, then he is a close friend and cohort of Gorski who blogs and trolls in a very similar manner and language that Orac utilizes regularly, attacking many of the same subjects and people.Gorski can be found using a "secret" made-up language in the psychotic rants he blogs from Karmanos Cancer Center computers. Who can stop this freak? Shouldn't his cancer center executives and administration heads step up to the plate : Another Gorski alias for posting abuse online.: Gorski is a member and contributor to an online health terrorism group where he gets his "revenge" on his "enemies" (natural health supporters).Gorski's hasto, and associations with, a known pervert (amateur magician James Randi ). That's right, freaks usually associate with other freaks who get caught by the law. The "amazing" Randi was caught in a court-documented and taped telephone conversationfrom a teenage boy. Randi is one of Gorski's best friends and cohorts in their online health-terror campaign of scaring people into taking deadly chemo.: More internet health "terrorism" (the guerrilla skeptics) Gorski assists.There is an entire Facebook page dedicated to exposing Dr. Gorski How can a doctor who is this unethical "off duty" be ethical in his practice? How many patients may he have killed? David H. Gorski purposely targets and attacks individuals in his writing, while refusing to clearly identify himself or his institutional affiliations, which is clearly a breach of AMA ethics.We here atby those who employ this psychopathic, schizophrenic surgeon who isoperating, while taking breaks to blog hate crimes on the internet. If you would like to help end this madness by this multiple personality medical doctor, let your voice be heard and make contact by email or phone at the following:Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute4100 John R StreetDetroit, MI 48201(313) 966-85271-800-527-6266
Psychosis not clear  was Mateen's search of anti-psychotic meds just a ruse?

Pledged allegiance to ISIS

(NaturalNews) Scores of Americans are still in shock over the horrific terrorist attack in Orlando, Fla., in which a lone jihadi walked into a gay nightclub and spent the next several hours gunning down patrons.As investigators continue to look into the attack, additional information is beginning to emerge, including this tidbit: Prior to his attack, terrorist gunman Omar Mateen stayed up all night to research anti-psychotic medications.Now, why would he do that?Perhaps to give the appearance that he might not be a " soldier of ISIS " as he claimed to be in a phone call to authorities while the attack was still in progress. And maybe it was to give the American media something to chew on and regurgitate as most mainstream media outlets looked fornot to blame the terrorism on Islam.Asreported, Mateen told an acquaintance that the night before the attack he stayed up all night researching anti-psychotic medications. That was plenty of "evidence" for thereporter and a number of Obama administration officials to surmise:ReutersWell, that would be simple, wouldn't it  that is, simple for anyone who doesn't want to say that radical Islam was responsible for the attack. Blame it on the meds After all, it's not like other mass murderers were not affected by anti-depressants and other mood-altering medications, as noted at PsychDrugShooters.com . There, you will find a wealth of information about past mass murderers in the U.S., all with the common theme of "medication."But, that doesn't sound like Mateen. With a jihadi, what others try to pass off as erratic, unstable behavior may simply be the actions of a cold, calculating terrorist. And why isso hard to believe?Then again, as noted by the acquaintance  who professed that he did not know Mateen all that well  he witnessed some changes in Mateen's personality in the weeks leading up to the attacks. About three weeks before the attacks, the acquaintance passed through the security gate where Mateen worked, and when the Afghan descendant appeared agitated, the acquaintance asked if he was okay."The last month, he looked worried, he looked upset, he looked confused," the acquaintance said. "He didn't seem himself.""He'd been real worried about whether or not he'd slipped into psychosis ," the acquaintance told. "He wasn't as friendly. He was obsessed with researching medication online."As noted by, in the early morning, about 18 hours before the June 12 attack , the acquaintance said he noticed that Mateen was not there as he usually was to open the gate. He appeared a couple of minutes later and was silent, with a completely transformed look: A shaved head and face, minus his usual short beard and glasses. When the acquaintance asked about him, Mateen responded: "What's it to you, anyway?"Obviously this paints a picture of a Mateen whose mental condition may have been deteriorating. He had discipline problems, and he had been kicked out of a police academy. But could this perhaps be the behavior of a man who was becoming more radicalized and preparing himself mentally to commit a heinous act of terrorism?In the end, medication or not, Mateen pledged allegiance to ISIS during his attack.
The (non) GMO labeling bill

We no longer rule ourselves

(NaturalNews) What is it about large corporations and transparency that the two seldom mix? And here's another question: If you don't have any morals or a soul, then is there ever a point where you think you've gone too far or have actually done something wrong?These two questions immediately came to my mind when I readeditor Mike Adams' bombshell expose this week that organic food retailer Whole Foods has aligned itself with GMO-manufacturing giant Monsanto , to endorse what amounts to little more than sham legislation that, to the uninformed observer mayto call for the labeling of GMO foods , but which really. And what's more, if companies don't comply with the legislation it won't matter, because there won't be any penalties leveled against them anyway.So, a "labeling" bill that won't actually require GMO labeling or punish those who ignore it. Truly a piece of legislation made in today's dysfunctional, ineffectual Washington, where the special interests actually "govern" the country via the puppets posing as lawmakers.Whole Foods, of course, has quickly come out to deny this, posting this partial response on the company's Facebook page And yet, according to the Center for Food Safety, which monitors food-related legislation and has been advocating for GMO labeling:According to Adams, after two years the new bill would "roll out a GMO labeling 'compromise' that would allow companies to use QR code (machine language) labeling that isn't readable by humans."But don't take just our word for it.(article is behind a paywall) reported:Furthermore, regular readers ofshould ask themselves: was there ever aGMO labeling law thatwould support? When has therebeen a real GMO labeling bill that Monsanto , king of GMOs, has supported?Finally, as Adams, the Health Ranger, has pointed out, the legislation would nullify Vermont'sGMO labeling law  which is what Monsanto and others have been trying to accomplish since before it passed.The American people have simply lost control over their government. We are ruled by men and women who show no allegiance to any of us, except at election time. Worse, far too many of us simply roll over and send them back to Washington  where they can continue to abuse us. This (non) GMO labeling legislation is a perfect example.As for us, we're all far better off growing our own food anyway
Sample and genotyping

The sample was drawn from the Twins Early Development Study (TEDS), a multivariate longitudinal study that recruited over 11 000 twin pairs born in England and Wales in 1994, 1995 and 1996.28, 29 TEDS has been shown to be representative of the UK population.30 Supplementary Table 2 shows that the genotyped subsample of TEDS is representative of UK census data from first contact through age 16 years.

The project received approval from the Institute of Psychiatry ethics committee (05/Q0706/228) and parental consent was obtained before data collection.

DNA data were available for 3747 children whose first language was English and had no major medical or psychiatric problems. From that sample, 3665 DNA samples were successfully hybridized to Affymetrix GeneChip 6.0 SNP genotyping arrays (Affymetrix, Santa Clara, CA, USA) using standard experimental protocols as part of the WTCCC2 project (for details see Trzaskowski et al.).31 In addition to nearly 700 000 genotyped SNPs, more than one million other SNPs were imputed from HapMap 2, 3 and WTCCC controls using IMPUTE v.2 software.32 A total of 3152 DNA samples (1446 males and 1706 females) survived quality control criteria for ancestry, heterozygosity, relatedness and hybridization intensity outliers. To control for ancestral stratification, we performed principal component analyses on a subset of 100 000 quality-controlled SNPs after removing SNPs in linkage disequilibrium (r2>0.2).33 Using the TracyWidom test,34 we identified 8 axes with P<0.05 that were used as covariates in GCTA and polygenic score analyses.

Measures

Educational achievement

Educational achievement was operationalized as performance on the standardized UK-wide examination, the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), taken by almost all (>99%) pupils at the end of compulsory education at typically at the age of 16 years. English, mathematics and science are compulsory subjects. Five or more GCSEs with grades A*C are required for further education, including GCSE English and GCSE mathematics. The joint performance on these three compulsory subjects determines admission to further education and employability.

The data for the present study were collected by questionnaires sent by mail and by telephone interview of parents and twins themselves. After completed forms were received from the families, the grades were coded from 11 (the highest grade: A*) to 4 (the lowest pass grade: G); no information about failed results was available. For 1729 individuals, self- and parent-reported GCSE results were verified using data obtained from the UK National Pupil Database,35 yielding correlations of 0.99 for mathematics, 0.98 for English and 0.96 for science.

The GCSE measure for the present analyses was the mean grade of the three compulsory core subjects, mathematics, English (mean grade of English Language and English Literature), and science (mean of any science subjects taken), requiring at least two measures to be nonmissing. Scores on the three compulsory core subjects were highly correlated (0.650.81).

Intelligence (IQ)

Individuals were assessed at the ages of 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, and 16 years on general cognitive ability using a battery of parent-administered and phone- and web-based tests. At ages 2, 3, and 4, tests were parent-administered and validated against standard tests administered by a trained tester. At age 7, tests were administered over the phone; at age 9, parents administered the tests; and at the ages 1016, tests were web based. At each testing age, individuals completed at least two ability tests that assessed verbal and nonverbal intelligence. Psychometric properties of the tests have been described in detail elsewhere,36 with the exception of the measurements used at age 16 years, where subjects completed a web-based adaptation of Ravens Standard and Advanced Progressive Matrices and the Mill-Hill Vocabulary Scale.37, 38, 39

For each composite measure at each of the nine ages, scores were regressed on sex and age, outliers above or below 3 s.d. from the mean were excluded and the standardized residuals were quantile normalized. Subsequently, a mean composite scale was created as the mean across the nine ages, performing mean-imputation for missing measurement occasions to avoid list-wise deletion.

Family SES

Converging evidence suggests that a composite of variables including parental education and occupation represents SES better than any single indicator.18 To index family SES, we combined parental education and occupation assessed when children were aged 2, 7 and 16 years. At age 2 years, SES was constructed as the mean of mothers and fathers highest education level, mothers and fathers occupation assessed by the Standard Occupational Classification 2000,40, 41 and maternal age at birth of eldest child. The SES composite when children were age 7 years was created similarly but without the variable of age of mother at birth of eldest child. At age 16 years, SES was composed as the mean of household income, maternal and paternal education level and maternal and paternal occupation. Mean composites were standardized and quantile normalized. The correlations between these three SES estimates ranged from 0.70 to 0.77. To increase reliability and maximize sample size, the final measure of family SES for this study was created as the mean composite score of parental SES reported when children were aged 2, 7, and 16 years, performing mean-imputation for missing data points.

Statistical analyses

GCTA

The GCTA model decomposes the trait variance into an additive genetic component ( G ) captured by the available SNPs (and correlated markers in linkage disequilibrium with the genotyped SNPs) and a residual component containing all nonadditive genetic variance, interaction effects, environmental factors, error variance and additive genetic variance that is not tagged by the sampled SNPs. Hence, the GCTA model estimates lower-bound additive genetic variance for both phenotypes (V G GCSE, V G SES); and the correlation between the additive genetic components ( G ). The  G is not biased in the same way V G is. This is because the estimate of genetic correlation is a function of the ratio between SNP-tagged covariance and SNP-tagged variance that are biased to the same extent (that is, the estimates are subject to the same imperfect linkage disequilibrium between causal variants and genotyped SNPs) and hence cancel each other out.42

Using genome-wide SNP data, we estimate genetic variation and covariation from a representative sample of 3000 unrelated children. Our estimates were obtained by restricted maximum likelihood using the published algorithm for GCTA.11 GCTA estimates the proportion of phenotypic variance of a trait tagged by sampled SNPs by fitting the polygenic effects of all SNPs simultaneously as random effects in a mixed linear model using a restricted maximum likelihood function. The so-called genetic relatedness matrix holds the mean pairwise genomic similarity (weighted by allele frequency) between all pairs of individuals in the sample across all SNPs. The variance tagged by all SNPs is estimated to be >0 when genetically more similar individuals are phenotypically more similar. The bivariate extension of the model relates the pairwise genetic similarity matrix to a phenotypic covariance matrix between traits (here family SES and educational achievement).17 To prevent confounding of the SNP estimate by shared environment effects and the effects of causal variants that are not tagged by the SNPs, cryptic relatedness was removed from the analyses. This default procedure eliminates one individual from a pair whose genetic similarity is 0.025 or greater; a coefficient that approximates at least fifth-degree relatives. The removal of close relatives ensures that estimates reflect the tagging of causal variants through population linkage disequilibrium. This criterion removed seven individuals from the analyses. Analyses were executed using GCTA11 and R software.43

The present sample size of ~3000 yields 80% power to detect a GCTA heritability estimate of 30% (=0.05) and genetic correlation estimate of 0.6 (=0.05; V G 1=0.20; V G 2: 0.30; r Ph =0.50).

Polygenic scores

We created polygenic scores from genome-wide data of over 3000 unrelated children using GWA results for total years of schooling from an independent discovery sample.13 The same quality control criteria as for the GCTA analyses were applied to the data. Polygenic risk scores were constructed using the P-values and -weights from the recent large (N=126 559) GWA based on years of education.6 Quality-controlled SNPs were pruned for linkage disequilibrium based on P-value informed clumping in PLINK,44 using R2=0.25 cutoff within a 200-kb window. We removed the major histocompatibility complex region of the genome because of its complex linkage disequilibrium structure. 144 890 SNPs survived linkage disequilibrium pruning. For each individual, multiple polygenic scores were generated using the PLINK score option based on the top SNPs from the GWA analysis of educational attainment for varying significance thresholds (from 0.01 to 0.50). Numbers of SNPs per threshold are summarized in Supplementary Table 3. The scores were calculated as the sum across SNPs of the number of reference alleles for each SNP multiplied by the effect size (-coefficient) derived from the GWA analysis of years of education.

Polygenic scores were tested for association with the same quantitative measures used in the GCTA analyses (family SES, educational achievement (GCSE), intelligence and educational achievement controlled for intelligence) in linear regressions. These analyses were corrected for the first eight ancestry-informative principal components by entering them as covariates into the regression models. Analyses were performed in PLINK and R.
As a Bay Area police sex scandal investigation continues, two Richmond police officers have been reassigned from positions where they interacted regularly with youth, Mayor Tom Butt said in an electronic forum today.

Lt. Andre Hill will no longer serve as manager of the Youth and Special Services Division. Hill also serves as a spokesman for the Police Department.

Officer Jerrod Tong will no longer be a school resource officer. Tong had already stepped down from his duties with the Police Explorer Program. That program aims to create interest in law enforcement among youth.

Tong is listed on the Police Department's website as a school resource officer at Lovonya DeJean Middle School at 3400 Macdonald Ave.

A Livermore police officer, whose name has not been released, is the latest to be investigated in a scandal that has now touched the sheriff's offices in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, San Francisco police, the Alameda County District Attorney's Office and the Defense Logistics Agency, a branch of the Department of Defense.

Investigators are looking into whether the law enforcement officers had a sexual relationship with a woman with the alias Celeste Guap. Guap is now 18, but allegedly was a minor when some or all of the sexual relationships took place.

The scandal started to unfold last September when Oakland police began investigating the suicide of one of its officers Brendan O'Brien.

Butt said in his statement that the Richmond Police Department's Office of Professional Accountability is continuing its investigation into the actions and nature of the relationship the city's officers had with Guap.

Butt added that "there are no early indications of illegal, predatory or like deviant behavior in the performance of duty that suggests the public at large is at risk."

Butt's report of the reassignment of the two officers comes a day after officials with the RYSE Youth Center in Richmond said in a Facebook post that they are distraught that the officers had not been quickly removed from their positions working with youth.

Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia said on Facebook that he agreed and added, "These police officers who work with our local schools should be immediately placed on administrative leave while the allegations against them are investigated."

"Respect our youth," he said.
The Bay Area geared up for its annual Independence Day celebrations on Sunday, leaving cities across the region teeming with fireworks, festivities and police officers on high alert.

In San Francisco, professional pyrotechnics companies were preparing for Sundays display by setting up along the pier.

Jeff Thomas, a pyro show producer for Pyro Spectaculars, told NBC Bay Area that his team planned to have 10,000 devices go off in a span of 23 minutes, with the help of specially designed computer programs. On Saturday, the crew was busy setting up the hardware, tubes and launching devices.

Although fireworks displays have been an Independence Day staple long before computers, Thomas said technological advancements have become integral to the design of some modern shows.

We take a computer program, and we design the show, he explained. We have a soundtrack and music, we listen to music and decide the different types of shells that go with that type of music. Its kind of technical, but thats how it all takes place.

He added that Pyro Spectaculars recently unveiled an app that allows people to keep up with the displays even if they cant attend the shows in person.

In the East Bay, Richmond was one of the cities celebrating Independence Day early, with music, fun and a fireworks display on Sunday.

Crowds gathered early at Marina Bay Park, despite the fog.

"It's still gorgeous," said Sana Webb, who brought her grandsons to see the fireworks. "Just a little bit of fog, but theyre still gorgeous."

Earlier, at the nearby Craneway Pavilion, the Oakland Symphony performed, and then those who enjoyed the music got a great encore with the fireworks.

For many residents of the South Bay, it wasn't the tech-heavy, elaborate shows that caused the most excitement.

In Gilroy, where safe and sane fireworks can still be sold and used legally, residents were gearing up by purchasing sparklers, dazzlers and other decidedly low-tech devices. Unlike traditional fireworks, those labeled "safe and sane" lack aerial effects and do not explode.

With proceeds going toward local nonprofits, 16 fireworks stands prepared to offload supplies to happy customers. Sellers warned that all fireworks must be used or disposed of by 12 a.m. Tuesday, when the dazzlers and sparklers and other fireworks go back to being illegal.

Gilroys leniency toward Fourth of July fireworks has puzzled some nearby counties. Officials explained the reason for their lawful use to the Gilroy Dispatch, suggesting that Gilroy may have an easier time with regulation.

Historically, all other cities in Santa Clara County found it easier to ban all fireworks than try to regulate the use of safe and sane fireworks, Gilroy Fire Marshal Jackie Bretschneider told the Dispatch. He added that 20 extra patrol officers would be working should an accident or emergency arise.
Employees at a Foster City Jewish community center were forced to evacuate the building Saturday morning after an alleged bomb threat, according to police.

At 9:06 a.m., police dispatchers received a call reporting a bomb at the Peninsula Jewish Community Center at 800 Foster City Blvd., police said.

Police, along with fire personnel, immediately responded to the center, according to police.

The center's staff closed the building and emailed members, advising them of the closure. All staff was evacuated from the building and police restricted pedestrian and vehicle traffic in the area as well, police said.

The San Mateo County Bomb Squad, along with a K9 unit, also responded to the scene. Bomb technicians searched the area and found no suspicious devices, according to police.

The building was secured by about 2:10 p.m. The center's staff, however, chose to remain closed for the remainder of the day.
Six Bay Area cities are home to the countrys most dangerous drivers, according to a report released by Allstate insurance company.

San Francisco scored the worst, at rank 191 out of 200, beating out Oakland, which was ranked number 186. Other cities included Hayward at 173, San Jose at 164, Fremont at 161 and Sunnyvale at 158. The data was collected in cities where the population exceeds 50,000 people, which explains why no other Bay Area cities were included.

Glenn Shapiro, executive vice president of claims at Allstate said: The Best Drivers spotlights Americas safest cities as we continue to heighten awareness around increasing roadway collisions that have unfortunate consequences such as rising fatalities and potentially higher insurance costs.

In the report conducted by Allstate Insurance Company, the 2016 data measured the frequency from 2013-2014 of vehicle collision to determine which city has the safest drivers.

Brownsville, Texas came up on top as Allstate ranked it the #1 safest driving city, considering that drivers experience a collision every 14.6 years in comparison to the nations average of every 10 years.

San Francisco holds a low ranking and has a relative collision likelihood of over 50% whereas a city like San Jose only has a 30% chance of collision. Either way, Allstates data proves that the Bay Area needs to up its game in driving safely.

Check out how other cities in the country ranked.
A father and his 8-year-old son were killed Saturday when two jet skis collided in the coastal waters of southern New Jersey, authorities said.

The victims, who were from Maryland, but whose names haven't been disclosed by police, were riding one of the watercrafts around 4:45 p.m. in Patcong Creek in Somers Point.

The father was sitting behind his young son when their watercraft slammed head-on into another jet ski as they both rounded a sharp turn in the creek, state police said.

The driver of the other watercraft, a 55-year-old woman from Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, sustained a wrist fracture, police said.

The watercraft collided at a bend of the creek just north of the Mays Landing Road bridge.

The damaged jet skis were taken out of the water and placed on racks at the marina. A large section on the front of one watercraft was smashed and torn open. Damage to the other appeared minimal

Investigators said there was no indication that alcohol consumption was a factor.
Four men were killed and at least 62 other people, including three children, were wounded in shootings across Chicago over the Fourth of July holiday weekend.

Two children, 8-year-old Corey Bondurant and 5-year-old Taniyah Williams, were playing with fireworks outside in the 5500 block of South Hermitage about 11 p.m. when someone on the street started shooting, according to relatives and Chicago Police.

The boy was shot in the right leg and the girl was shot in the left leg, police said. They were both taken to Comer Childrens Hospital, where their conditions were stabilized. The children, who are cousins, are expected to survive.

A 30-year-old woman and 19-year-old man who were also wounded in the shooting later showed up at University of Chicago Medical Center, police said. They were each shot in the left leg and listed in good condition.

Police said the shooting appeared to be gang-related.

An 11-year-old boy was also injured in a shooting Monday night on the Lower West Side. The boy was sitting on the porch of a home in the 2000 block of South Western about 9:30 p.m. when he suffered an injury to his right arm that he thought was caused by an errant firework, police said. He was taken to St. Anthony Hospital, where it was discovered that his wound was actually caused by gunfire. He was listed in good condition.

The most recent fatal attack happened early Tuesday in the Humboldt Park neighborhood on the West Side.

A 34-year-old man was standing outside in the 1100 block of North Ridgeway talking to two women who were sitting in a parked vehicle at 1:35 a.m. when he got into an argument with a pair of males in the street, police said. One of the males then opened fire.

The man was shot in the head and was dead at the scene, police said.

A 29-year-old woman was shot in the right shoulder and taken to Stroger Hospital in serious condition, according to police. The other woman, 31, was shot in the right hand and taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in good condition.

About 9:20 p.m. Monday, a man was shot to death in the South Shore neighborhood. Officers responding to a call of a traffic crash with injuries in the 6900 block of South Clyde found the man  thought to be in his 30s  lying in the street with a gunshot wound to his abdomen, police said. He was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he died.

The Cook County medical examiners office did not confirm the deaths early Tuesday.

About 10:50 p.m. Sunday, officers responding to a call of a person down in the 2200 block of South Lawndale found a man lying on the ground with a gunshot wound to the back of the head, according to police.

He was pronounced dead at the scene, in a lot across the street from Paderewski Elementary Learning Academy in the Little Village neighborhood. The man was thought to be in his 20s, but the medical examiners office was still working to identify him Monday night.

Early Saturday, a man was killed and another wounded in an East Garfield Park neighborhood shooting on the West Side.

Hector Badillo Jr., 31, was standing outside an auto repair shop about 3:30 a.m. in the 700 block of North California Avenue when a gunman came out of an alley and opened fire, according to police and the medical examiners office.

Badillo, of the 400 block of North Trumbull, was shot in the neck and pronounced dead at the scene at 3:41 a.m., authorities said. Family members said his father owned the repair shop.

A 44-year-old man sitting in a car nearby was shot in the left leg, police said. His condition was stabilized at Stroger Hospital.

At least 54 more people have been shot in separate attacks across the city since about 5 p.m. Friday. Additionally, police say a man fatally stabbed his brother in self-defense early Saturday on the South Side.

At least 63 people were shot over the Fourth of July weekend in 2015, leaving 10 dead.
Connecticut State Police seized a cache of illegal fireworks from a residence in East Haven.

Officials say detectives from the Fire and Explosion Investigation Unit received a tip that commercial grade and consumer grade fireworks were being stored at a home in East Haven for private use.

State police detectives, East Haven police and FBI New Haven responded to residence where there they found large amounts of commercial fireworks shells, commercial multi shot "cakes," improvised explosive devices, homemade commercial-style shells, and consumer grade packages containing several thousand shots, rockets and manufacturing and firing equipment.

Detectives from the Connecticut State Police Emergency Services Unit Bomb Squad seized the fireworks and explosive devices.

The investigation is ongoing and criminal charges including possession of fireworks and explosives, manufacturing of improvised explosive devices and reckless endangerment are expected.

Most fireworks are illegal in Connecticut with the exceptions of sparklers and fountains, which are non-explosive and non-aerial.
Condolences and tributes began pouring in after Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize winning writer Elie Wiesel died at the age of 87.

President Barack Obama issued a statement Saturday, calling Wiesel "one of the great moral voices of our time."

Elie was not just the world's most prominent Holocaust survivor, he was a living memorial, he said. I was also honored and deeply humbled to call him a dear friend. I'm especially grateful for all the moments we shared and our talks together, which ranged from the meaning of friendship to our shared commitment to the State of Israel.

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Former President George W. Bush said he was grateful for Wiesels insight on the value of human life.

Wiesel, who was appointed founding chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council in 1980, led the effort to conceive the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The world feels incomplete with the loss of Elie Wiesel, Museum Chairman Tom A. Bernstein said in a statement issued by the museum. He was a transformative figure who exemplified the very ideals that the Museum encourages all to aspire tothat memory calls us to action. We all bear the tremendous responsibility to carry on his legacy.

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Boston University, where Wiesel was a professor of humanities since 1976, posted a tweet about the news.

We are heartbroken at the passing of Elie Wiesel. BU is losing an iconic teacher who we were privileged to know. He will be deeply missed.

"#ElieWiesel taught at @BU_Tweets Boston University for nearly 40 yrs. on Literature of Memory. His students loved him. We will miss him," read a tweet from the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies at Boston University.

We are heartbroken at the passing of Elie Wiesel. BU is losing an iconic teacher who we were privileged to know. He will be deeply missed.  Boston University (@BU_Tweets) July 2, 2016

Messages also came in from prominent world leaders.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wiesel "personified the triumph of the human spirit over the most unimaginable evil."

"His life and work were a great blessing to the Jewish people, the Jewish state and to all humanity," he said in a statement.

"The Jewish people and the world lost a larger than life individual - Holocaust Survivor, Author and Noble Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel," Israeli President Shimon Perez tweeted.

The Jewish people and the world lost a larger than life individual - Holocaust Survivor, Author and Noble Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel.  Shimon Peres (@PresidentPeres) July 2, 2016

Wiesels son, Elisha Wiesel, confirmed his fathers death Saturday, saying the family was observing Shabbat and was requesting privacy. The family said a press release from Wiesel's foundation will be released at the end of Shabbat.
Yu Darvish will be breaking out the Roughriders uniform this 4th of July.

The Rangers righty will rejoin Double-A Frisco and make a rehab start Monday at Northwest Arkansas. Hes slated to throw three innings or 45 pitches.

Darvish is trying to recover from shoulder discomfort that landed him on the disabled list in early June. This is his second time around with Frisco this season, as his he made a couple of rehab starts while coming back from Tommy John Surgery. Darvish earned a win and had 14 strikeouts in 13 innings pitched.

Once Darvish returned to the Rangers, he went 2-0 with a 2.87 ERA in three starts. The Rangers dont want to rush him, but they could use him as soon as possible. The four and five spots in the rotation have been inconsistent, which has caused extra work for the bullpen. Not the ideal scenario going into the dog days of summer.

Getting Darvish back and combining him with Cole Hamels forms one of the best 1-2 pitching tandems in the majors. It also helps set the rest of the rotation.

But first things first, and it starts with Darvish finding his way back to Arlington.
The parking lot was full and dozens of perspective pet owners were inside the Dallas Animal Services Shelter early Saturday morning on the search for a new friend, and thats a welcomed sight for staff members who are caring for more animals than theyve seen in a while.

We are just out of space, said Director Cate McManus. I mean, we have over 600 animals here ready to be adopted, and its pretty much as one [cage] gets empty, one fills it right away.

McManus said the shelter always sees big stray and surrender populations during the summer, but this year she believes they may be dealing with even more than usual, and she said other shelters are reporting similar situations.

The Dallas shelter has already discounted their adoption fees for the month as they join NBC 5 in kicking-off the Clear the Shelters campaign.

For the month of July, 67 animal shelters in DFW and hundreds around the US will join forces to get as many animals as possible out of the shelters and into forever homes with loving families.

This will be the third year NBC 5 has participated and the second year NBC Universal stations across the country will take part with last years event leading to more than 20,000 adoptions nationwide.

The main Clear the Shelters Day will be on July 23rd when participating shelters, including Dallas, will offer free or reduced adoption fees.

Stay tuned to NBC 5 and NBCDFW.com throughout the month for updates.
On the penultimate day of the U.S. Olympic Team Trials, Florida wrapped up its prelims with six swims in two events.Four current and former Gators and one incoming freshman competed in the men's 1500 free.had the most improved swim, cutting 9.46 seconds of his qualifying time to win his heat in 15:38.65. Brady was projected for 94th place but finished at 37th.placed highest of the Gators at 29th, swimming 15:34.39.swam in Heat 3, finishing at 15:46.77. Like Brady, he greatly improved his seed, placing 53rd when he was initially projected for 81st.was next in Heat 5, swimming 15:48.67 en route to 57th place.Florida signee Drew Clark also made his first appearance at the trials in the 1500 free. He placed 74th at 15:58.33.closed things out on the women's side in the 50 free, swimming a 26.08 en route to a tie for 55th place.The Gators conclude their trials' run tonight. Elizabeth Beisel , who has already qualified for Rio with her second-place finish in the 400 IM, will swim in the 200 back finals., set to swim the 100 free in Rio, could add the 50 free to his Olympic slate with a good finish in the finals.Day 7 of the U.S. Olympic Team Trials closes with event finals and semifinals at 8 p.m. EST. The event schedule for tonight's session can be found on the USA Swimming website . Event semifinals and finals will air live on NBC and online . The full TV schedule is available here FloridaGators.com will recap the Gators' performance after each day of trials. Follow along on Twitter at @GatorsSwimDv @GatorsOlympics and @USASwimming , and check out the hashtags #GatorsAlways and #SwimTrials16 for more immediate coverage.Follow all of our Olympic Gators this summer in Rio!Official Social Media:
An analysis of cases in Travis County found that most felony domestic violence defendants had their charges reduced.

The Austin American-Statesman reports that in a review of more than 900 felony cases from October 2013 to October 2014, 65 percent were either dropped or pleaded to a lesser charge. Nearly half of the defendants involved had previously been accused of felony family violence.

State lawmakers have made intimate partner strangulation and suffocation felony crimes, and given prosecutors the option to seek felony charges in other cases where the defendant has previous convictions.

Despite that push, prosecutors throughout Texas face longstanding challenges in prosecuting abusers.

Victims in many cases retract their allegations under pressure from an attacker or family members. A prison term might also put financial pressure on a household, leading some victims to try to drop charges.

"These are complicated cases, and the truth is many victims and offenders will continue to be connected because of shared children," said Noel Bridget Busch-Armendariz, an associate dean at the University of Texas' School of Social Work. "It's not so simple to say, `We are going to prosecute them all and put them in jail,' because these are not just emotional connections, but financial connections."

Prosecutor Kelsey McKay says she tells police officers to try to get everything they will need at trial the day of the assault, "as if they are never going to see the victim again."

"That takes the pressure off the victim and takes the power away from the abuser," she said.

Just more than 1 percent of the more than 7,300 domestic violence cases in the last decade went to trial in Travis County, according to the Statesman. But many cases are handled with an agreement before trial and are more difficult to assess through statistics, experts said.

"There are some cases where you clearly need the victim to proceed, and there are some cases where you don't," said Margaret Bassett, a domestic violence counselor.
The Fourth of July fireworks may be fun for those of us on two legs, but for a lot of four-legged friends out there, it's not the same story.

The loud noise from fireworks shows during the holiday can often cause serious anxiety for pets and can even send some running out of fear.

Cate McManus with Dallas Animal Services said its common to see a rush the day after the yearly Fourth of July display as their already packed shelter takes on even more pets that got away from home.

When animals just freak out from fireworks, they get out of fences or break down doors," she said. "I mean some dogs really go to extremes to get away  theyre so scared."

There are a lot of options available to deal with the anxiety such as wearable options, while others include herbal or over-the-counter pills offered at pet stores.

Last May, when Southlake veterinarian Dr. Tom Holbrook was seeing similar anxiety from dogs during thunderstorms, he showed NBC 5 a new medication being prescribed to dogs during such situations called Sileo.

"You put it in the cheek and gums, said Holbrook. Just put the syringe right in the gum right there and just squirt so many dots, and the dots are on the syringe itself."

The fast acting gel calms the pet and wears off after just a few hours. Holbrooks office warns that it does require a checkup and prescription from your local vet to get the gel.

McManus said her best advice for avoiding problems during the fireworks is to keep your animals indoors and comfortable in a spot where they feel safe.

Keeping them confined, well confined, certainly with a collar and tags on just in case, she said.

If you do come across a stray after the fireworks, local animal services leaders ask that you contact them right away so that they can work to get that pet back home.
Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has created a stir on social media by posting online an image of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton with what appears to be a Star of David on a background of dollar bills.

Trump took Clinton's old Twitter avatar celebrating her status as the first presumptive female presidential nominee and added a background of dollar bills along with the words "Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!" written over a six-point star.

The image posted Saturday quickly drew scrutiny online, raising accusations of anti-Semitism.

Trump deleted the tweet later in the day and replaced it with a version that uses a circle in place of the star.

A Trump campaign spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment by the Associated Press.
A man suspected of beating and attempting to sexually assault an 80-year-old woman in her Hollywood apartment has been arrested, police said.

Marcus Datwione Peete, 33, of Los Angeles was arrested Friday in connection with the June 18 crime, the Los Angeles Police Department said.

The suspect faces charges of attempted murder, burglary and assault to commit a felony during a first-degree burglary, police said.

Peete is accused of entering the victim's retirement complex near Hollywood Boulevard and Ivar Avenue in the early morning hours. The accused attacker was caught on surveillance video pressing buttons on the call box until somebody buzzed him in.

Somehow, the man made it past a security guard in the lobby of the senior subsidized housing complex. The suspect took an elevator to an upper floor and knocked on the victim's door.

When the woman opened her door, Peete pushed his way in, attempted to sexually assault her, severely beat her and then fled, police said.

The woman, who lives alone, fought him off, police said.

She was taken to a hospital with unspecified injuries.

City News Service contributed to this report.
The leader of the California State Senate says the legislature's passage of landmark gun control legislation now makes Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom's ballot measure on the same issue "irrelevant."

"We've done our roll," said State Senate President Pro Tem Kevin De Leon. "Any individuals who want to further their own political interests, that's their own business. But we have taken care of business and as far as I am concerned any ballot measure in the fall is irrelevant."

De Leon and Newsom, two of the state's top Democrats, have been in a feud over how best to address the issue of gun control.

Dan Newman, a spokesman for the Safety for All Act slammed De Leon as being "sickeningly cynical" for insuring that even if the ballot measure passes, the law passed by the legislature will supersede the initiative's regulation of ammunition sales.

De Leon says he wasn't familiar with Newman, adding that if Newsom wanted to discuss the issue he could "pick up the phone, anytime."

"I'm not into political gamesmanship," he said on NBC 4's News Conference Sunday morning.

De Leon's dismissal of Newsom's gun control ballot measure comes despite the inclusion of an element in the initiative he favors. Currently, as a result of Proposition 47 passed in 2014, anyone who steals a gun that is worth less than $950 can only be charged with a misdemeanor.

The Newsom ballot measure would increase the penalty to a felony. While agreeing that penalties for stealing a gun need to be increased, De Leon said the legislature this August will work to submit its own measure to achieve that goal.

"We are going to try to do that again later this year, We have to go back to voters to do that but we are willing to do that," he said.

Also appearing on the program was Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis on the region's minimum wage increase, now in effect, and Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin on the city's proposed bond issue for homeless services.
A central Florida hospital got an unwelcomed guest recently: an alligator.

Staff at Regional General Hospital in Williston called authorities Wednesday about the gator.

Williston Police Chief Dennis Strow told the Ocala Star-Banner they worked with animal control to catch the 5-foot-10 reptile. A Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission trapper took the gator for proper disposal.
While many are relaxing and enjoying the long holiday weekend, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue is hard at work spending Sunday afternoon teaching some simple, but important boating practices.

Javier Perez with Miami-Dade Fire Rescue says channel 16 is monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week by the U.S. Coast Guard and Miami-Dade Fire Rescue crews. Javier has 20 years of experience working local waterways.

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue says this fourth of July weekend two of their boats are equipped with four divers, paramedics and firefighters. One diver is always in uniform.

"So we're going to be ready with medical equipment as well as dive gear for any kind of incident that could occur," says Perez.

This holiday weekend brings plenty of boaters eager to spend some time out on the water. Rescue crews say not paying attention leads to dangerous, even deadly emergency situations.

Perez says people under the influence of alcohol are just as dangerous as boaters using fireworks while aboard.

"We see a lot of boaters taking there stuff out and then shooting it out of there fiberglass boat. It's a very bad mix when you have fire and fiberglass," Perez added.

Their goal is for everyone to abide by simple rules like having enough water everyone on the boat and to always strategize.

Perez urges boaters to have their information readily available: "Make sure that you leave your information along with the passengers' information, which boat ramp will you be launching out of, what type of vehicle are they using, and the phone numbers of the people that will be on the boat with you."
The Miami Heat will meet with Kevin Durant on Sunday in New York while Dwyane Wade continues talks with other teams.

Miami is looking to swing for the fences and land the biggest star on the market this off-season. Durant has met with several teams thus far and it appears Miami may give the last sales pitch. The All-Star will likely command a max deal and that could prove difficult for the Heat.

The Heat have already come to terms with Hassan Whiteside this off-season on a large new contract. Miami also has sizable commitments with Chris Bosh and Goran Dragic. Outside of that, the Heat will need to pay Wade handsomely if it wishes to retain his services.

For Miami to bring Durant on-board and retain Wade, it would have to get creative. Team president Pat Riley is not afraid of thinking outside the box, but this would require a lot of thinking and maneuvering. Trades would be needed and there could be some talk of a rarely used provision.

Bosh's status complicates matters for Riley greatly, as he does not know if the big man will be able to play next season. Miami could opt to use the stretch provision on Bosh which would reduce his cap number in 2016-17. The provision which teams hardly use would cut Bosh's salary number in half and stretch it over seven seasons. Currently, Bosh is set to be paid max money over each of the next three seasons.

Even if Miami fails to sign Durant, it will still likely have to free up some money. With roughly $20 million left, the Heat could end up giving all of that to Wade. The team would still need to fill out its roster at that point. With Luol Deng and Joe Johnson heading elsewhere on Saturday, Miami's options are getting thin.

Durant can make more money elsewhere and arguably has a better chance to win a title in other cities. That being said, Riley and the Heat have a history of making the seemingly impossible happen.
Long Island Railroad service was disrupted Sunday morning after a false report of a bomb aboard a train stopped at the East Hampton train station, police said.

MTA Police notified the East Hampton Village Police Department that they received a call about a bomb on a train at the station just before 8 a.m., East Hampton Police said in a press release.

The train was evacuated and searched by a bomb-sniffing dog, police said. All train service east of Speonk was temporarily suspended.

Police later said no threat was found, and train service was restored, though the MTA reported delays with trains on the Montauk branch due to the police activity.
A high-speed chase on Long Island ended Saturday with the arrests of the driver on a stolen vehicle charge and his passenger on a prostitution warrant, state police said.

The chase began at about 8 a.m. when NYPD officers responding to a report of an accident on the Southern State Parkway encountered a van at the border of Queens and Nassau County.

As officers approached the van, it sped away. The officers followed and were joined by state police in the pursuit.

The van pulled off the parkway at Nassau Road and soon pulled up to a house and parked in a flower bed in the front lawn.

The driver, Shean Wills, 26, of Copiague, bolted on foot, but was quickly nabbed by an NYPD officer, police said.

Troopers determined the van was stolen in Suffolk County and charged Wills with third-degree criminal possession of stolen property, unlawfully fleeing a police officer, criminal mischief and criminal trespass.

Kimberly Rivas, 26, of Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, was arrested on two outstanding New York City warrants for prostitution, police said.

There was no information available as to whether Wills and Rivas have obtained lawyers who could comment on the charges.
A Long Island man faces a charge of boating while intoxicated after a police marine patrol say they spotted his craft heading toward them on a collision course.

William Lindemann, 54, was arrested at about 9:45 p.m. Saturday when marine officers noticed his boat cruising along without navigation lights in the Great South Bay, said Suffolk County police.

The marine officers reversed their craft to avoid a collision with Lindemann's approaching boat, police said.

They stopped and arrested Lindemann, who had to adult passengers aboard.

There was no available information as to whether Lindemann had obtained an attorney who could comment on his behalf.
Elie Wiesel was memorialized Sunday at a private service in Manhattan, as family and friends gathered and praised the endurance and eloquence of the Nobel Peace Prize winner and mourned him as one of the last firsthand witnesses to the Nazis' atrocities.

"This is really the double tragedy of it, not only the loss of someone who was so rare and unusual but the fact that those ranks are thinning out," Rabbi Perry Berkowitz, president of the American Jewish Heritage Organization and a former assistant to Wiesel, said before the service at Fifth Avenue Synagogue.

"At the same time anti-Semitism, Holocaust revisionism keeps rising," he said. "The fear is that when there are no more survivors left, will the world learn the lesson because those voices will be silenced."

Millions first learned about the Holocaust through Wiesel, who began publishing in the 1950s, a time when memories of the Nazis' atrocities were raw and repressed. He shared the harrowing story of his internment at Auschwitz as a teenager through his classic memoir "Night," one of the most widely read and discussed books of the 20th century.

The Holocaust happened more than 70 years ago and few authors from that time remain. Another Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor, Hungary's Imre Kertesz, died earlier this year. Like Wiesel, he was 87.

While Berkowitz and others worry that the Holocaust's lessons will be forgotten, some note that Wiesel himself worked to make memories endure. Abraham Foxman, former national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said before the service that Wiesel had written dozens of books. Sara Bloomfield, director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., credited Wiesel with making organizations like hers possible.

"'Night' really put Elie Wiesel's personal memories into our personal consciousness and it ended up spawning a global remembrance movement that is very vital today," she told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

"He carried a message universally, he carried the Jewish pain, the message of Jewish tragedy to the world but he took it way beyond," Foxman said. "He stood up for the people in Rwanda, he stood up for the Yugoslavians, he stood up for the Cambodians," said Foxman, who has known Wiesel for decades.

On Sunday, mourners shared personal memories. Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, remembered visiting Auschwitz with Wiesel in the 1980s and was struck that Wiesel's response was not one of hate, but of "great sadness."

"And he said to me what I think was one of the most important statements: 'The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference, it was indifference that brought anti-Semitism to Germany and it was indifference that brought the Holocaust,'" Lauder explained.

Foxman said that in recent months he and Wiesel would reminisce, in Yiddish, and talk philosophy.

"We talked about forgiveness, we talked about God. He was struggling with it," Foxman said. "Well now he's a little closer. Now he can challenge the Almighty much closer and maybe he'll get some answers, which he asked, but never got the answers to."

Associated Press writer Martin Di Caro contributed to this report.
Two pit bull attacks in the city have sent five people to the hospital, including a 3-year-old girl with minor bites to the face, police said Saturday.

Police shot and killed a pit bull attacked several people Friday afternoon outside the Thomas Jefferson Houses in East Harlem, authorities said.

Residents of the public housing complex told NBC 4 New York that the dog bit four people, including a 9-year-old girl. They were all taken to a local hospital.

When police arrived, the dog turned on them and one officer shot and killed it.

"The dog was very aggressive, very aggressive," said Felicia Armstrong, who witnessed the shooting. "So the cops had to take the dog down."

The other attack occurred in Queens at about 1:30 p.m. Friday when a pit bull bit a 3-year-old girl who was walking with her mother on a sidewalk in the Elmhurst neighborhood.

The girl was rushed to a hospital with what police said where minor injuries to her cheek, nose and left ear.

The dog and its owner left the area before police arrived.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., spoke out against Hillary Clinton Sunday on NBCs Meet the Press.

"She has been responsible for many of the worst decisions of the Obama administration," he said.

When asked repeatedly, Cotton could not provide a positive case for why Donald Trump is the better candidate, nor would he directly answer how Donald Trumps foreign policy worldview squares with his own.

"Donald Trump can ultimately make the case for himself," he said. "Donald Trump, like most Americans, like most Republicans, believe in protecting America's core national interests. He believes as do I, as do most Americans, that we aren't yet doing enough to take the fight to the Islamic State.
A disabled St. Jude Children's Research Hospital patient was injured, and then arrested, by security workers at a Memphis International Airport checkpoint, a lawsuit alleges.

News media outlets report that 19-year-old Hannah Cohen was flying home to Chattanooga on June 30, 2015, after receiving treatment at Memphis-based St. Jude. Attorneys say Hannah Cohen has an impairment from radiation and removal of a brain tumor, and she is limited in her ability to talk, walk, stand, see and hear.

The lawsuit says an alarm went off as she and her mother were going through a security checkpoint operated by the Memphis International Airport Police Department and the Transportation Safety Administration. Hannah Cohen became disoriented by the alarm and the security workers' attempts to search her, the lawsuit says.

"The security personnel failed to recognize that she was confused because of her obvious disability and was unable to cooperate with the search," Cohen's lawyers, Kelly Pearson and William Hardwick, wrote in the lawsuit.

Her mother, Shirley Cohen, said she tried to tell TSA agents about her daughter's disability, but she was kept away by police.

"She's trying to get away from them but in the next instant, one of them had her down on the ground and hit her head on the floor. There was blood everywhere," Shirley Cohen told WREG-TV.

The lawsuit alleges the security personnel assaulted Hannah Cohen at the checkpoint, "causing her physical and emotional injury as well as emotional injury" to her mother.

Hannah Cohen was arrested, but the charges were later dropped. The family filed a federal lawsuit against the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority and the TSA for damages that include pain, medical expenses, personal and emotional injury, and embarrassment.

The lawsuit alleges that the TSA and airport police discriminated against Cohen because of her disability and failed to provide reasonable accommodation for screening her. The suit asks for a "reasonable sum not exceeding $100,000 and costs."

TSA spokesman Mark Howell and Jerry Brandon, chief of public safety of the Memphis International Airport Police Department, said they could not comment on pending litigation.

"Anybody can file anything, and we don't comment on active litigation," Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority president and CEO Scott Brockman told The Commercial Appeal newspaper. "Clearly there are additional facts in this matter, and we won't comment until we address the litigation."
Police are investigating after a man was found dead on a Philadelphia street early Sunday morning.



The victim, who is estimated to be in his 30s, was found lying on Thayer Street just off of Kensington Avenue, in Kensington, just before 5 a.m. Police said the man has a gunshot wound in his chest.



It was unclear how long the man had been there before his body was found.



Police are investigating.
A burned body found in the rubble of a small brush fire is being investigated as a homicide, San Diego Police Department (SDPD) Lt. Manny Del Toro said.

"There are many circumstances that lead us to believe this was a deliberate act," Del Toro told NBC 7.

Just after 8 a.m. Sunday, police and fire officials responded to several 911 calls for a small brush fire on the 2700 block of Morena Boulevard, right off Interstate 5 in San Diego's Bay Park community.

Police found a fully engulfed man who appeared to be unconscious with a lot of debris around him between I-5 and the train tracks, Toro said. The victim, an adult man, was pronounced dead at the scene when crews quelled the flames. The identity of the victim is not known.

Toro said it is unclear exactly what happened or if the man was already dead at the time of the burning or if he suffered any additional trauma.

Toro said the San Diego County Medical Examiner's office will determine a cause of death. It is too early to say what may have been the cause of death.

Callers claimed to have seen a man running south on the train tracks nearby, then across the freeway. Another witness said the person was carrying gas cans. Police say this person is a person of interest, but not a suspect.

Police do not have a clear description of this man, but are examining gas station surveillance as well as a transit surveillance camera which may have caught some activity.

SDPD officers will be on scene for up to six hours. Heavy police activity in the area may slow traffic. Morena Boulevard is shut down between Ingulf and Gesner Streets.

Anyone with information related to this incident is encouraged to call the San Diego Police Departments Homicide Unit at (619) 531-2293 or Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477.

Learn more about a person of interest wanted in connection with this crime and several others by clicking here.

No other information was immediately available.

Check back for updates on this breaking news story.
A brush fire sparked Saturday in a campground at the Viejas Reservation in San Diegos East County, scorching approximately one quarter-acre of land, officials said.

The wildfire, dubbed the Brown Fire by authorities, started around 2:20 p.m. at 29 Browns Road, approximately 36 miles east of downtown San Diego.

Officials at the Cleveland National Forest said flames and smoke could be seen billowing from the campgrounds. The blaze initially spread at a moderate rate, but fire crews were able to quickly build a containment line around the flames.

By 3 p.m., firefighters had the upper-hand and canceled several units headed to the scene. No injuries were reported.
On July 2, 1966 the Ocean Beach Pier opened to great crowds, parades, and bathing beauties; fifty years later its still going strong.

The pier celebrated its fiftieth birthday Saturday with more crowds, nostalgic photos and a backdrop where people could take a selfie to make it look like they were at the opening. The original contractor and the man who commissioned the pier, both in their late 80s, were also on hand to answer questions.

In 1966 there were only about 600,000 people living in San Diego and 7,000 of them showed up for the opening.

Todays a big day because its not only the year of the pier, its the day of the pier, Barbara Iacometti, President Ocean Beach Main Street Association, told NBC 7.

A pier was going to originally be built in the 40s out of stainless steel, but when the war broke out stainless steel was rationed so the project was scrapped.

While the pier was under construction the community decided to raise an extra $100,000. They brought it to the contractor and said can we have more pier? Iacometti said.

Originally called the San Diego Fishing Pier, it is 1,971 square feet, and is the second longest pier on the west coast. It is also likely the longest concrete pier in the world.
One person was seriously injured after a car crashed into a power pole early Sunday morning, according to a Montgomery County fire and EMS spokesman.

Spokesman Pete Piringer said the crash, which occurred about 2:20 a.m., caused life-threatening injuries to one person. The victim has not been identified.

The crash at Montgomery Village Avenue and Wightman Road in Gaithersburg, Maryland, knocked down power lines and left as many as 200 people without power Sunday morning. Pepco crews have been working to restore power and expect everyone to have service by 8 a.m.

There is no word on the cause of the crash.
A group of Maryland firefighters gave a helping hand to a few four-legged furry friends Saturday morning  saving one from a hot car.

Prince George's County firefighters were called to the Home Depot in the 6000 block of Oxon Hill Road after a man reported having chest pains.

The man was in his vehicle in the store's parking lot with three dogs. He told the firefighters he had been drinking and was intoxicated, fire officials said.

Firefighters offered to take him to the hospital, but he declined. The concerned firefighters then called police who told the man he was in no condition to drive home. They suggested he walk to his house nearby.

The firefighters then noticed a dog left in another parked vehicle in the lot. All of the vehicle's windows were closed.

The crew found a door unlocked and rescued the dog. They tended to the pup until its owners returned to the vehicle, fire officials said.

Firefighters then gave the three other dogs an adventurous ride back home on-board the fire engine.
What to Know Fireworks-goers, take heart: Heavy rain is expected to ease off before fireworks displays tonight, though light rain or drizzle will remain.

So far, the National Park Service says the fireworks on the National Mall will take place as scheduled at 9:09 p.m.

Fireworks shows have been postponed in several Maryland cities because of rain. But so far, officials say the big fireworks display on the National Mall will go on.

The fireworks planned in Frederick, Maryland, have been postponed until July 24, Frederick Police tweeted at about 5 p.m.

College Park, Maryland, have been postponed to Tuesday evening, Mayor Patrick Wojahn said. The show scheduled for Monday in Greenbelt, Maryland, also was rescheduled for Tuesday, the city said on its website. So are the fireworks in Dundalk and Salisbury, Maryland.

The city of Gaithersburg, Maryland, also preemptively canceled their fireworks show. The display was rescheduled for Friday, according to the Twitter account for the city. The fireworks on Solomons Island also were moved to Friday.

The Independence Day parade in Annapolis was cancelled, though the fireworks were still on as of 5 p.m.

The National Mall is soggy from todays rain, but thats not stopping thousands from heading down to see the fireworks. Transportation reporter Adam Tuss reports.

Rain is expected in the D.C. area for much of Independence Day, but a downpour on the National Mall during the fireworks display appears unlikely.

At 8 p.m., the National Park Service said that it still expected to begin the fireworks at 9:09 p.m., though a final decision will be made closer to the time of the show.

There are smaller crowds on the National Mall because of weather. But the National Park Service still hopes the fireworks show happens as scheduled. Meagan Fitzgerald reports.

If you are headed out to see fireworks tonight, you may get rained on -- or at least drizzled on -- but the rain is not expected to be heavy when the fireworks are booming at about 9 p.m., said Storm Team4 Meteorologist Lauryn Ricketts. Temperatures are expected to be in the low 70s, and it will be humid, even foggy.

The damp forecast has the National Park Service watching the skies closely.

"Low visibility, high winds, heavy rain, thunder and lightning, obviously -- if any of those things contribute and would mar the performance or put the safety of our employees or our visitors in danger, then we'd look at postponing or delaying the start of the show," National Parks Service spokesman Mike Litterst said.

The display has not been postponed in 25 years.

The White House canceled its annual Fourth of July picnic and fireworks watch because of the weather.

Scheduled performances by rapper Kendrick Lamar and singer-songwriter Janelle Monae will go on indoors. The artists will perform in the White House East Room for an audience of military families, administration staff, and supporters and guests of President Barack Obama and his family.

It's the second consecutive year that rain has led Obama and his wife, Michelle, to cancel its annual Fourth of July barbecue for military members and their families.

The Smithsonian's Folk Life Festival closed down outdoor activities at 2:45 p.m. Monday, though activities will continue until 5:30 p.m. in the Smithsonians Arts and Industries Building at 900 Jefferson Ave. SW. Click here for an updated schedule.

Parades celebrated Independence Day throughout the D.C. area Monday . News4s Mark Segraves found people who are moved by the annual display of patriotism, including a man from Mauritania, a new Fairfax resident, politicians  and a woman who has embodied Lady Liberty at her parade since 1997.
Five people were killed and 25 were injured when a bus carrying farmworkers collided with a tractor trailer causing both vehicles to burst into flames Saturday on a highway in the Panhandle, sheriff's officials said.

Deputies responded to a gruesome and chaotic scene as the front and the back of the bus were on fire when they arrived.

The Blue Bird bus from Georgia, carrying about 34 adults and children, ran a flashing red light before hitting the tractor trailer, spinning around and hitting the semi again.

One of the bus passengers killed was a small child. The driver of the semi-truck, Gordon Sheets, 55 of Copiague, New York, also died, said Wakulla County Sheriff Charlie Creel.

"Our deputies are heroes ... our deputies got on the bus and started pulling people off, people that were not able to get off by themselves. They pulled out two deceased victims,'' Creel said.

According to Creel, deputies continued to rescue victims until the bus was fully engulfed in flames, forcing them to stop.

"If these deputies had not done that, we would have had a lot more fatalities,'' the sheriff said in a phone interview.

Fire officials had to wait for the area's power to be shut off in order to douse the flames as both vehicles were resting against live wires. The two vehicles eventually burned out, Creel said.

The Tallahassee Democrat reported the intersection was strewn with bloody medical gear, clothing, pillows and coolers packed with food littered the road. The accident happened on US-98, a highway that follows the Florida coast around the Gulf of Mexico.

No one on the bus spoke English and authorities had to bring in interpreters, Creel said.

Florida Highway Patrol officials were also investigating the wreck and were in the processing of notifying victims' family members.

The driver of the bus, 56-year-old Elie Dupiche of Belle Glade, was hospitalized in critical condition. A passenger in the semi-truck, 21-year-old Rafael Nieves of Sound Beach, New York, was not injured, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
Two men are in custody and a third is in critical but stable condition after a physical confrontation at a Winthrop party ended in an overnight shooting, Winthrop Police Chief Terence Delehanty and Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

Andrew Guilfoyle, 31, and Jared Damelio, 28, have both been charged with assault and battery witha dangerous weapon and are expected to be arraigned in East Boston Municipal Court on Tuesday.

The victim, a 27-year-old Stoneham man, is being treated after surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital.

preliminary evidence suggests the victim was involved in a fistfight at a Revere Street party Saturday night. The man left the party and returned shortly after midnight.

When a second fight broke out, Damelio alledgedly struck the victim in the head with a baton and encouraged Guilfoyle to "get the gun". Guilfoyle then alledgedly retrieved a rifle, which he owns legally.

Guilfoyle allegedly fired the rifle once at the victim, striking him in the abdomen.

Police recovered the rifle at the scene.

Police are still scene investigating.
Authorities say a man has died after his vehicle rolled onto him while he was inspecting it in a Connecticut state forest.

The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection says it happened at about 7:30 p.m. Saturday in Nepaug State Forest along the New Hartford town line.

DEEP says Brendan Kohrer, of Granby, had pulled off from the access road and onto an unauthorized side trail to either inspect or repair his 2001 Ford Explorer when the vehicle rolled over onto him. The 41-year-old Kohrer was apparently underneath the vehicle.

Motorists traveling on the access road contacted police after seeing Kohrer's vehicle.

No further details were immediately available.
The New Hampshire police were engaged in a multi-state car chase before apprehending and arresting a Kingston man on Saturday evening.

Eric Earle, 20, was alledgedly traveling down the wrong lane of the Merrimac rotary, hit a sign post, drove into a chain-link gate and crashed intoa wooded area.

Earle then fled on foot from the vehicle and was later apprehended.

He is being charled with reckless operation of a vehicle, assault with a dangerous weapon and Melicious Destruction of properly, among other charges.

Earle is being held on $2,500 bail at the Middleton House of Corrections pending his arraignment in Newburyport District Court on Tuesday.
Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

A mix of clouds and sun in the morning followed by cloudy skies during the afternoon. High 57F. Winds E at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Overcast. Low 38F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph.
New Delhi: The overall monsoon deficiency has reduced to 9% after several parts of the country received a good amount of rainfall.



From June 1 to July 2, the country has received 164.9 mm of rainfall as against the normal limit of 180 mm, the Meteorological department said, adding that the situation is expected to improve as good rainfall is predicted for the months of July, August and September.



But the rainfall deficiency in east and northeast India has gone up to 28% as the region has received only 274 mm of rainfall as against 381 mm, which is the normal limit, they said.



According to India Meteorological Department (IMD), monsoon deficiency in central India is around 12%.



As per the IMD predictions, other parts of the country are expected to receive good rainfall but the east and northeast India and parts of Tamil Nadu likely to get less precipitation. Meanwhile, the Southwest Monsoon has advanced further to remaining parts of west Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, most parts of Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Punjab and some parts of east Rajasthan.



The Northern Limit of Monsoon (NLM) passes through Dwarka, Vallabh Vidyanagar, Bundi, Jaipur, Hissar and Bhatinda.



"Conditions are favourable for further advance of Southwest Monsoon into some more parts of north Arabian Sea and Gujarat State, remaining parts of East Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab and some more parts of West Rajasthan during next 48 hours," the IMD said in its forecast.
Indore: Crime Branch officials were left startled when an unusual message flashed on their online help service 'Crime Watch', which was sent by a farmer seeking their help in tracing his stolen buffalo.



"A farmer from Shajapur district sent a message on Saturday night on our online help service 'Crime Watch' that his buffalo has been stolen. District police have arrested the thief but the bovine remains untraced," Crime Branch Police Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Vinayprakash Paul said on Sunday.



The farmer wrote, "Saheb, you are a big name, help me to get back my buffalo," the ASP said.



We asked the farmer, whose name is being withheld, to pass on the information, if any, on the place where his buffalo might have been kept, Paul said, they are working with Shajapur police to trace the bovine.



The ASP said "Crime Watch" linked to whatsapp, facebook, twitter was launched in November 2015 to check crime. The service has paid off and names of those who pass on information are kept secret, he added.
Jodhpur: A research team at IIT Jodhpur has claimed success in using Rajasthani sand to produce 100 per cent pure Squalene, a naturally occurring compound used by cosmetics, nutraceutical and pharmaceutical industries.



The discovery will also help curb the killing of sharks, the primary source for Squalene, and reduce the Indian industries' dependency on foreign companies for the essential hydrocarbon, the researchers said.



The researchers -- Rakesh K Sharma, a Chemistry faculty, and postdoctoral fellow Vineet K Soni-- succeeded in producing Squalene, using Rajasthani sand as a catalyst under a project titled 'Catalytic upgrading of algal oil into transport fuel'.



Squalene, a naturally occurring compound helpful in treating heart disease, diabetes, arthritis and hepatitis besides use in skin care, is found in the liver of sharks but in very meagre concentration of three per cent.



In low quantities, Squalene is also found in olive and palm oils.



The team, for the first time, used Rajasthani sand as a catalyst to produce 100 per cent pure saturated hydrocarbon, Squalene.



"During our research with Rajasthani sand, we first used the sand as water-purification agent and then proceeded to put it to some industrial application because of the pillared structure of this sand and its stability at high temperature up to as high as 1,000 degree centigrade," said Sharma, an expert in catalytic agents and reactions.



"So, we first took normal sand, homogenised it followed by its purification using water and acid and crushed it into fine powder form. "It was then mixed with an inexpensive metal salt and the algal oil obtained from the refinery waste and heated up to 500 degree centigrade, which provided 100 per cent saturated hydrocarbon called 'Squalene'," Sharma explained.



Assistant Registrar of IIT Jodhpur Amardeep Sharma said, "We have already filed for the patent of this discovery and are pleased to announce that a provisional patent has been granted."



Sharma claimed this was for the first time that a research on such an important ingredient in cosmetics has taken place in the country. He said industrial queries have started pouring in due to both the compound being 100 per cent saturated and being many times cheaper than the product available now.



The research has also found a place in a reputed European scientific journal 'Chemcatchem', Sharma said, adding, "We are receiving inquiries from different industries." The team has now proposed to crack 'Squalene' into pieces to convert it into a high grade Jet fuel.
"It was around 1.30 a.m. when we got a call from Tarishi. She told us that gunmen were around and that she had locked herself in one of the toilets of the restaurant," her uncle Rakesh Mohan Jain informed.

Nineteen-year-old Tarishi Jain, who was killed in the Dhaka terror attack, had made a terrified call to her family in Uttar Pradesh from a toilet of the Holey Artisan Bakery as Islamic State gunmen went on the rampage.That was at 1.30 a.m. the last time her family spoke to her.The Jain family, based in Suhag Nagar area of Uttar Pradesh's Firozabad district, on Saturday recalled the last conversation they had with her during the siege.They said Tarishi called at around 1.30 a.m. and informed that she had locked herself in the toilet of the Cafe as armed assailants opened fire.He added that they tried to connect with her but the call went unanswered.It was only answered at 6.30 a.m. but no one spoke from the other end.Tarishi Jain was among the 20 killed by Islamic State terrorists in the siege late Friday night on the cafe in the Bangladeshi capital.
New Delhi: National Award winning filmmaker Sudhir Mishra feels if India and Pakistan want to improve their relationship both politically and culturally, then it is important that people from both sides should address various issues that they have with each other.



Mishra, best known for his films like Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, Dharavi and Chameli, was here on Saturday to attend the 7th Jagran Film Festival.



During a panel discussion, which was aimed at how cinema can help people of India and Pakistan bridge the cultural gap between them, he said: "Even we people remain a bit confused about what impact does cinema has on people. Often people belonging to the industry say that we can never have a negative impact on the society.



"But it's important to have these conversations between the two nations - India and Pakistan - and to share stories through cinema with each other. The way of storytelling is same on both the sides."



Mishra said that he is never seen as a foreigner when he travels to Pakistan.



"I can speak Urdu, so when I go to a shop in Karachi, the shopkeeper doesn't get to know whether I'm from their country or from India. There are a lot of tensions between the two nations that we don't even try to address.



"Indian and Pakistani stories are very much similar, especially in the north Indian context. So I feel this exchange of stories between the two sides is very important. And this should not stop," he said.



Apart from Mishra, the panel also included director Bejoy Nambiar, veteran Pakistani actor-director Khalid Ahmed and Pakistani director Sabiha Sumar.



Asked why there isn't enough exchange of film ideas between India and Pakistan, Nambiar said: "I think the very impact that the shows on Zindagi channel had and how it resonated with the Indian audience - that itself showcases that there is so much scope for this exchange to happen.



"Our (Indian and Pakistani) stories resonate well with each other. I am sure with the help of internet; we will definitely get to see more of Pakistani cinema in coming years.



The "Shaitan" fame director also pointed out that the Pakistani TV industry has evolved as their writers feel more empowered. He said in India, TV writers don't get enough limelight.



"From the little conversations that I have had with Pakistani directors, what I have seen is that they have really empowered their writers in the television dramas. If you ask them names they will all know who has written what. Whereas in India we don't know who has written this show and who has directed it," Nambiar said.



"Television in India works on a concept note and broad idea of how this story is going to progress. In India, producers decide -- based on TRPs -- how many episodes a show is going to have. In Pakistan the writers decide the same," he added.



The five-day Delhi leg of the Jagran Film Festival, which started here at the Siri Fort Auditorium on Sunday, will next showcase films like Aligarh, Airlift, Natsamrat, Talvar and Sarbjit among others.



After its Delhi leg, which will conclude on July 5, the festival will travel to different cities like Kanpur, Lucknow, Allahabad, Varansi, Agra, Meerut, Dehradun, Hisar, Ludhiana, Patna, Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Raipur, Indore, and Bhopal. The final leg of the festival will take place in Mumbai.




New Delhi: Veteran Pakistani actor-director Khalid Ahmed, whose romantic drama film Laloolal.com was screened at the 7th Jagran Film Festival here on Saturday, said that Pakistani films are currently not in a state to compete with Indian films, which he feels are a "threat" to them.



During a panel discussion titled Cinema Beyond Borders, Ahmed, accompanied by Pakistani filmmaker Sabiha Sumar and prominent Indian directors Sudhir Mishra and Bejoy Nambiar, also talked about how cinema from both India and Pakistan can help bridge the cultural gap between the two nations.



Ahmed said that he feels happy to see Indian films getting screened in Pakistan but complained why their films are not showcased in India.



"We (Pakistani artistes) have this compliant that when most of the Indian films get released in Pakistan, why our films don't work here. Indian films are actually a threat to our films because their level is way beyond ours," said Ahmed, who is uncle of Indian filmmaker Imtiaz Ali.



"Films made in Pakistan mostly have budget of around five to six crore Pakistani rupees. That is our scale. But Indian films are made on a budget of 70 crore or 100 crore Indian rupees, which is way more in Pakistani terms. So, there is no comparison between the two in terms of its scale. Our films can never be a threat to Indian films.



"I really don't know why our films are not shown in India. May be it's because our films can't be economically feasible here," he added.



"Laloolal.com" stars Pakistani actors Faisal Qureshi and Natasha Portess in the lead.



The seventh edition of the Jagran Film Festival, which kick-started on Saturday will screen over 400 films this year in 16 cities. The five-day Delhi leg of the festival will end on July 5.




Normally people apologise to get rid of the problem but, I meant it hoping that the problem would be over.  Salim Khan (@luvsalimkhan) July 3, 2016

But the commercial compulsion of the media wanted to carry it to the saturation point. I regret not knowing this.  Salim Khan (@luvsalimkhan) July 3, 2016

What is the meaning of getting an apology from a person under the guillotine, who knows rightly or wrongly that he has not committed a crime  Salim Khan (@luvsalimkhan) July 3, 2016

The National Commission for Women (NCW) and Shiv Sena, among others, demanded a public apology from Salman.

After Salman Khan refused to apologise to the National Commission for Women (NCW), his father Salim Khan took to Twitter to hit out at the media on Sunday.Salim Khan said he had hoped that apologising on behalf of son Salman Khan for his "raped woman" comment would put an end to the problems that surfaced. However, he is upset with how the media has taken the issue to "saturation point"."Normally people apologise to get rid of the problem but I meant it hoping that the problem would be over. What is the meaning of getting an apology from a person under the guillotine, who knows rightly or wrongly that he has not committed a crime. But the commercial compulsion of the media wanted to carry it to the saturation point. I regret not knowing this," the 80-year-old tweeted.Trouble ensued when Salman used an inappropriate simile of having "felt like a raped woman" while describing his ordeal during the shooting of "Sultan". He made the statement during a press interaction, and his comment last month snowballed into a controversy.Later, his father Salim Khan contended that Salman meant no wrong when he said he felt like a "raped woman" and even apologised on his behalf after the latter was condemned on social media.The NCW did receive a response from Salman via his lawyer but officials at the rights body said it was not an apology.The NCW has now summoned the actor for a personal appearance before it on July 8.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA from South Delhi, Naresh Yadav, has been named in an FIR related to alleged desecration of the Quran in Punjab's Malerkotla.



Sangrur police booked him on Saturday after the alleged mastermind of the desecration, Vijay Kumar, claimed he committed the crime at the behest of Yadav and that he was offered Rs 1 crore for carrying out the act.



Vijay Kumar alleged he met Yadav in Delhi and was told to tear the pages of Quran and throw them near a drain on Khanna road in Malerkotla, a Muslim-dominated town in Punjab.



Kumar said the intention was to create communal tension in Punjab ahead of 2017 polls and instigate people on communal lines so that they vote for AAP.



Yadav has been booked under sections 109 and 153-A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) which deal with abetment and causing enmity between two groups on grounds of religion.





Malerkotla remained tense on June 25, with miscreants burning vehicles and damaging property after torn pages of the Muslim holy book were found in a cemetery.



The development comes just three days ahead of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal trip to Punjab to launch AAP's poll campaign. Party spokesperson Sanjay Singh defended Yadav saying there were political motives behind the FIR.



"SAD-BJP can see their defeat clearly in the upcoming polls, so our MLA is being falsely implicated to defame AAP. It is political vendetta," Singh said.
Beijing: Apple is being sued by a subsidiary of China's broadcasting regulator over a propaganda film more than 20 years old, in the latest legal wrangling for the tech giant in China in recent weeks.



A Beijing court says the case has been brought by a production center that alleges that Apple has infringed its exclusive online rights to broadcast a film that depicts Chinese fighting against Japanese soldiers in northern China in the early 1930s.



The plaintiff is also suing the developer and operator of the Youku HD app available on Apple's App Store that it says enabled users to watch the film and caused it "huge economic losses," according to the Beijing Haidian District People's Court.



The court says it has accepted the case brought by Movie Satellite Channel Program Production Center that comes under the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.



The plaintiff alleges that Apple has infringed its exclusive online rights to broadcast "Xuebo dixiao," which loosely translates as "Bloody Fight with the Fierce Enemy" and was first shown in 1994.



The production center is also suing Heyi Information and Technology (Beijing) Company Ltd., which developed and operated the Youku HD app, the court said in an online statement Thursday.



The app is sold by Youku.com, according to information on Apple's iTunes site. The Youku site is one of China's best known movie and TV program streaming sites and is owned by Youku Tudou Inc., which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.



The plaintiff wants the two companies to immediately stop broadcasting the film and is seeking compensation of 50,000 yuan ($7,500) plus its "reasonable expenditure" of 20,158 yuan ($3,000) in attempting to stop the infringement of its rights, the court said.



Emailed requests for comment to Apple spokespeople were not answered Saturday, and a spokesman for Youku Tudou was not able to immediately comment.



Apple Inc. has recently faced legal setbacks and other obstacles in China, its second-biggest global market.



In April, it suspended its iBooks and iTunes Movies services, reportedly due to an order by Chinese regulators.



In May, a Beijing intellectual property tribunal in Beijing ordered Apple to stop selling its iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in the city after finding they look too much like a model made by a small Chinese brand. Sales of the phones are continuing while Apple appeals.



Also that month, Apple suffered another setback when a court ruled that a Chinese company is allowed to use the iPhone trademark on bags, wallets and other leather goods.




Washington: An undersea cable backed by Google and Asian companies aimed at boosting trans-Pacific broadband was put into service this week, the consortium announced.



The 5,600-mile (9,000-kilometer) FASTER Cable System is aimed at meeting the growing demand for broadband Internet connections between North America and Asia.



"From the very beginning of the project, we repeatedly said to each other, 'faster, Faster and FASTER,' and at one point it became the project name, and today it becomes a reality," said a statement from Hiromitsu Todokoro, chairman of the FASTER management committee.



Built by Japan's NEC Corporation, the project was backed by China Mobile International, China Telecom Global, Global Transit, Google, KDDI and Singtel.



Kenichi Yoneyama, project manager at NEC's submarine network division, said, "This epoch-making cable will not only bring benefits to the United States and Japan, but to the entire Asia-Pacific region."



Singtel vice president Ooi Seng Keat said the new cable "provides continuous connectivity and sufficiently high capacity for cloud, video streaming, analytics and the Internet of Things, that will help spur innovation on both sides of the Pacific to stimulate the growth of the digital economy."



The project was announced in 2014 with the cost estimated at $300 million.



The cable lands in the US state of Oregon and two points in Japan, but also connects to hubs to boost connectivity to other locations in the United States and Asia.
Stockholm: Spotify confirmed on Friday that it has complained to Apple Inc after the US technology company rejected an updated app for the Swedish music streaming service on iPhones.



The companies have gone head to head in the battle for music streaming customers since Apple Music was launched in more than 100 countries last year, and Spotify said the rejection of its revised app for iPhones was causing it "grave harm."



The complaint was in the form of a letter sent by Spotify's lawyer to Apple this week, technology website Recode reported.



The letter said Apple's rejection of the revised app raised "serious concerns" under competition law in the United States and Europe and the move was causing "grave harm to Spotify and its customers," Recode first reported on Thursday.



"It continues a troubling pattern of behavior by Apple to exclude and diminish the competitiveness of Spotify on iOS and as a rival to Apple Music," Recode quoted Spotify general counsel Horacio Gutierrez as saying in the letter.



"We cannot stand by as Apple uses the App Store approval process as a weapon to harm competitors," Gutierrez said.



A Spotify spokeswoman confirmed the accuracy of the report.



Apple did not respond to requests for comment.



Launched a decade ago, Spotify is the world's biggest paid music streaming service with about 30 million paying users in 59 markets while Apple Music has some 13 million.



According to Recode, privately owned Spotify said Apple turned down the app under "business model rules," and demanded the Swedish service use Apple's billing system if it wanted to "use the app to acquire new customers and sell subscriptions."



Music streaming is a crowded business. Alphabet Inc's Google Music and YouTube units also compete with Spotify and Apple Music to attract users prepared to pay for music, as does Pandora Media Inc and rapper Jay Z's Tidal.



Amazon.com Inc is also preparing a standalone streaming service, sources have told Reuters.
London: Women employees at the social networking giant Facebook are often told not to wear "revealing" dresses that may "distract" co-workers, a former Facebook employee has claimed in his book.



According to a report in The Telegraph, Antonio Garcia Martinez who worked at Facebook before being fired, made these allegations in his book titled "Chaos Monkeys."



"Our male HR authority, with occasional backup from his female counterpart, launched into a speech about avoiding clothing that 'distracted coworkers. Id later learn that managers did in fact occasionally pull aside female employees and read them the riot act, Martinez claimed.



The Facebook team is still dominated by white and Asian men. Diversity improved only marginally although Facebook added 2897 employees this year, TechCrunch reported last year, citing the company's latest demographic report.



The 10,082-person company has only one percent more women as a share of all employees than a year ago despite a 40 percent increase in the head count.



Ex-Facebook workers have claimed that allegations of sexism are not taken seriously.



One such example happened in [the advertising department], with an intern who looked about sixteen coming in regularly in booty shorts. It was almost laughably inappropriate, but such was our disinhibited age, Martinez wrote in his book.



Martinez also claimed that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is prone to angry outbursts.



After an unknown employee leaked details of a new feature to the press, Zuckerberg reportedly emailed the entire office with the subject line 'Please resign', claiming that the person in question had betrayed the team, The report said, citing Martinez.



A Facebook spokesperson did not comment on Martinez' allegations, the report added.



In a blog post about the demographic report, Facebook had admitted, "It's clear to all of us that we still are not where we want to be".



"Cognitive diversity or diversity of thought matters because we are building a platform that currently serves 1.4 billion people around the world. It is vital for us to have a broad range of perspectives including people of different genders, races, ages, sexual orientations, characteristics and points of view," the blog read.



"Having a diverse workforce is not only the right thing to do - it is the smart thing to do for our business."



The company has launched several initiatives to improve diversity, out of which the most noticeable is its diverse slate approach, which aims to "present hiring managers with at least one qualified candidate who is a member of an under represented group to fill any open role".
Heavily armed militants chanting "Allahu Akbar" asked their hostages at a popular eatery here to recite Quranic verses to know who among them were Muslims.



Others were hacked to death, according to one of the many eyewitness accounts of the gory Bangladesh carnage that has shocked the world.



The Daily Star citing a father of a hostage said the militants who stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery, a popular hangout for foreigners in the high-security and affluent Gulshan diplomatic zone of the Bangladesh capital, performed a religion identity check on their captives and asked them to recite the Quran.



Those who recited verses from the holy Muslim book were spared, the daily said. "The others were tortured by the gunmen," said Rezaul Karim, father of one of the hostages Hasnat Karim.





Hasnat had gone to celebrate his 13-year-old daughter's birthday along with his wife Sharmin Parvin and son Rayan, 8. The family was rescued early in the morning.



Rezaul quoting his son said the gunmen did not behave "rough with the Bangladesh nationals" and provided dinner to all of them.



He said the gunmen killed all the foreign nationals dining in the eatery by 11 Friday night.



By the end, five gunmen sustained bullet injuries and "probably died".



Hasnat's mother told Bangladesh News 24 that Parvin, her daughter-in-law, was treated well "as she was wearing a hijab (veil)".



Some of the other witnesses said they saw militants, one of them armed with a sword and the others carrying "small firearms with big magazines" raiding the restaurant.



The men shouted 'Allahu Akbar' (God is great) on their way in and started firing at the dozens of guests inside -- several of them foreigners, the restaurant's supervisor Sumon Reza, who managed to escape, was quoted as saying by Bangladesh News 24.



The restaurant has 50 staff but only 20 were present at the time of the attack.



A kitchen staff of the bakery, who managed to escape, said the chief chef was among the hostages. "They set off several crude bombs triggering panic."



Gruesome pictures emerged on social media showing the inside of the bakery, splattered with blood and broken furniture.
The terrorists involved in the Dhaka cafe massacre were all young men from affluent families and had studied in elite schools in the city, sources in the Bangladesh government said on Sunday.The men were all aged 20 or 21 years old and were students of Dhaka's North South University, the sources told CNN-News18 in Dhaka.All of them had passed out of top-notch schools in the city like Scholastica and the Turkish International School, confirming concerns that students from elite educational instituions were being lured into terror.Meanwhile, Islamic State released names and pictures of men whom they claimed were behind the attack and warned even more severe attacks on citizens of "crusader countries."The names given were Abu Omar, Abu Salmah, Abu Rahim and Abu Muharib Al-Bengal. The names and pictures were yet to be confirmed by the Bangladesh government.The claim comes even as Home Minister Asaduzzaman said the jihadists were not from ISIS but members of the banned local militant group Jamaeytul Mujahdeen Bangladesh."They have no connections with the Islamic State," Asaduzzaman told AFP adding that all the attackers came from wealthy families."They are all highly educated young men and went to university. No one is from a madrassa," the minister said.22 foreign nationals, including an Indian girl, were hacked to death by the terrorists after they stormed a restaurant in an upmarket Dhaka locality on Friday night. Hours later Bangla police commandos gunned down six of the terrorists and arrested and interrogated the seventh one.
Baghdad: A suicide car bombing claimed by the Islamic State group ripped through a busy Baghdad shopping district on Sunday, killing at least 119 people in the deadliest attack this year in Iraq's capital.



The blast hit the Karrada district early in the day as the area was packed with shoppers ahead of this week's holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.



It came a week after Iraqi security forces recaptured Fallujah from IS, leaving Mosul as the only Iraqi city under the jihadist group's control.



The bombing also wounded more than 140 people, security officials said.



Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited the site of the attack and vowed "punishment" for its perpetrators, his office said.



The blast set buildings ablaze, and firemen were still working to extinguish them some 12 hours later.



Men carried the bodies of two victims out of one burned building and a crowd of people looked on from the rubble-filled street as firefighters worked at the site.



Hussein Ali, a 24-year-old former soldier, said six workers at his family's shop were killed in the attack, their bodies burned so badly that they could not be identified. "I will return to the battlefront. At least there, I know the enemy so I can fight him. But here, I don't know who I'm fighting," Ali said.



IS issued a statement claiming responsibility for the suicide bombing, saying it was carried out by an Iraqi as part of the group's "ongoing security operations".



The jihadist group said the blast targeted members of Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority, whom the Sunni extremists consider heretics and frequently attack in Baghdad and

elsewhere.



UN Iraq envoy Jan Kubich condemned the "cowardly and heinous act of unparallelled proportions," calling on authorities to bring those responsible to justice.



Officials said another explosion in the Shaab area of northern Baghdad killed at least one person and wounded four today, but the cause of the blast was disputed.



US National Security Council spokesperson Ned Price said the attacks "only strengthen our resolve to support Iraqi security forces as they continue to take back territory" from IS.



Bombings in the capital have decreased since IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in June 2014, with the jihadists apparently occupied with operations elsewhere. But the group has struck back against Iraqi civilians after suffering military setbacks.



A video posted on social media showed men - apparently angry at the government's failure to prevent the carnage in Karrada - throwing rocks towards what was said to be Abadi's convoy.
New York: A man was severely injured in an apparent blast on Sunday in the city's popular tourist destination the Central Park, with authorities investigating the incident, according to a US media report.



A blast in the New York Central Park severed the foot of a young man, who was not identified, a report in the New York Daily News said.



The New York Police Department's bomb squad was investigating the area of the park where the incident occurred.



The report cited witnesses as saying that the victim stepped on a device or fireworks, causing the blast. His foot was "all but gone," another witness said.



A friend of the victim's said there was a "small explosion and then dust", adding that they could not determine what caused the blast.



Police said they were responding to an "amputation incident" and the victim was rushed to a local hospital.



Witness John Murphy, 53, said he tried to keep the young man conscious following the explosion.



"I saw his friends standing there panicking. I saw the young man laying on the grass. His foot was all but gone. His friends claimed he was walking down the rocks and he stepped on it. It looks like there was an explosion," Murphy said in the report.



He said the blast was caused by an "explosive of some sort" and that there was no metal.



The incident occurred just a day ahead of the American Independence Day holiday on July 4, atime when the city isinundated with touristsfrom allover the world. Variousfirework displays areplanned acrossthe city as well as the country tocommemorate the holiday.
A dessert chef who is only one of two Italians to survive the Dhaka restaurant siege says he took refuge in an adjoining house and stayed there long after the massacre ended.



Jacopo Bioni, 34, told Sky TG24 TV in a phone interview broadcast on Sunday that after jumping two stories down onto the property of a nearby house, the residents, although "understandably" frightened by his sudden appearance, welcomed and hid him. Bioni said when he saw an attacker point a rifle at a table of Italian diners, he fled to the roof without thinking twice.



Bioni says police came to talk to him Saturday morning and then he left the house in the afternoon.



"I grabbed two things and my passport, headed to the airport and caught the first flight out," he says.



He says he has no desire to look at attack photos on social or other media, since he prefers to remember Bangladesh in happier times.



The 20 hostages who were killed included nine Italians, seven Japanese, three Bangladeshis and one Indian teenager. Two police officers were killed by the attackers, and 13 people were rescued when commandos stormed the restaurant Saturday morning. Another 25 officers and one civilian were wounded, and some of the rescued hostages had injuries. The hospitals treating them would not give fresh information on their conditions Sunday.



The attack was the worst in the recent series of attacks by radical Islamists in the moderate, mostly Muslim nation of 160 million. Unlike the previous attacks, the assailants were well-prepared and heavily armed with guns, bombs and sharp objects that police later said were used to torture some of the 35 captives.
Thanks to FDA, Women Will

Be Told of Their Breast Density
(Newser)  Rather be paid in beer than money? You might've enjoyed life in Mesopotamia. Scientists have discovered one of the earliest examples of writing in the form of "the world's oldest known payslip." Dating to around 3300 BC, the clay tablet found in the Mesopotamian city of Uruk in modern-day Iraq and now housed at the British Museumwritten in a picture language known as cuneiformis just one example of how people kept records at the time, including of payments owed, per Ars Technica. As there was no real money, people were paid in other waysin the case of this tablet, with beer. "We can see a human head eating from a bowl, meaning 'ration,' and a conical vessel, meaning 'beer.' Scattered around are scratches recording the amount of beer for a particular worker," Alison George writes at New Scientist.

The exchange is actually pretty normal, according to historical records. They show builders of the Egyptian pyramids at Giza were paid about a gallon of beer a day, while Richard II paid poet Geoffrey Chaucer some 252 gallons of wine per year in the Middle Ages. While it isn't clear how workers managed to focus on the job at hand, beer was thought of as a meal, so it was sort of like working for food. Apparently some wish we had stuck with the Mesopotamian custom. It's "a form of remuneration which seems pretty awesome when you first think about it... and then just keeps on staying awesome the longer you think about it," writes Peter Dockrill at Science Alert. George adds the tablet suggests "the concept of worker and employer was familiar five millennia ago." (These clay tablets might rewrite math history.)
(Newser)  A 25-year-old woman taking advantage of Chicago's bike-sharing service died Friday morning after she and a flatbed truck turned at the same time and crashed reportedly making her the first bike-share fatality in the US since the service first debuted in Oklahoma in 2007, a bike-sharing consultant tells the Chicago Tribune. Per DNAinfo, the woman on the Divvy bike, IDed by the Cook County medical examiner as Virginia Murray, tried to make a turn east from Sacramento Avenue to Belmont Avenue and smashed into the truck making the same turn; a witness says she was thrown 6 feet into the air before crashing to the ground. Murray suffered severe injuries to her upper body and was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

Bike-sharing programswhere riders pay a fee to pick up a bike at a self-serve station, then drop it off at another location when they're doneare increasing in popularity around the US, with the Wall Street Journal noting there are about 40 currently in existence. And while the Mineta Transportation Institute has noted bike sharing can be seen as being "inherently unsafe" for bicyclists (including riders not using helmets and not being familiar with a city's landscape), a study found "collision and injury rates for bikesharing are lower" than rates for regular cyclists. (Police say Murray was wearing a helmet, per the Journal.) Still, an Active Transportation Alliance director tells the Tribune that Murray's death is "a tragic reminder that we still have work to do to make our streets safe for everyone." In a statement, Divvy and Chicago's DOT shared their "deepest condolences to the rider's family and loved ones," per the Tribune, with the paper noting that Divvy has provided almost 8 million rides since it was introduced in the Windy City three years ago. (A GOPer thinks bike sharing is a conspiracy.)
(Newser)  British politics remain mired in Brexit turmoil, but from the ashes of the UK-EU split a most interesting proposition is starting to emerge: That of a united Ireland, reports Reuters. Like Scotland, Northern Ireland voted against leaving the European Union, with 56% in favor of staying. Now, facing the prospect of England going it alone, and Scotland threatening to leave, the United Kingdom isn't looking so united anymore, Reuters notes, and it's got the Irish "(thinking) the unthinkable." "People are saying for the first time in their life they would vote for united Ireland, having never contemplated it before," says the leader of Northern Ireland's Green Party.

Rather than the religious strife that split the six Protestant-heavy counties off into Northern Ireland, the issue is mainly economic: Northern Ireland depends more heavily on European Union funding than other parts of the UK, as well as the stability provided by both the UK and the EU. "We are in danger of a return to conflictat a low intensity level  if those funds are taken away," says a former IRA member. Sinn Fein wasted little time, with rallies for a united Ireland as the party chair claimed the Brexit signaled Britain had "forfeited any mandate to represent the interests of the people here." And though all in Northern Ireland are eligible for Irish passports, most unionists had staunchly refused a stance Reuters observed softening this week in the form of lines to apply for passports. "I am softening to the idea of Irish unity, purely on economic issues," says one 25-year-old from Belfast. "I am a European." (Read more Brexit stories.)
(Newser)  Maybe it was just John Adams' favorite number, but America's second president was a big proponent of a different Independence Day: Specifically, July 2nd, the day that the Continental Congress voted in favor of independence, reports CBS News in a bit of an Independence Day history primer. July 4th was the day that Congress passed the Declaration of Independence.

In a letter dated exactly 240 years ago Sunday, he wrote to his wife Abigail that "I believe that (July 2nd) will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival ... It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more." The Fourth of July eventually proved fatal for Adams, who died on that day in 1826the nation's 50th Independence Day, and the very day on which Thomas Jefferson died. (Read more Fourth of July stories.)
(Newser)  Texas Gov. Greg Abbott isn't on board with a "Texit," but is seizing a chance to take advantage of Brexit. Abbott announced Saturday the state will run digital ads on British websites over the July 4th weekend urging companies to "declare independence from high taxes" and relocate to Texas, reports the AP.

The campaign follows Britain's vote to leave the European Union and is funded through Texas One, the state's quasi-governmental marketing arm. Abbott spokesman John Wittman said he didn't have specifics on how much the ads cost. The British vote reinvigorated Texas secessionist groups that in May nearly forced a floor vote on its fringe cause at the state Republican convention. But although Abbott has long accused the Obama administration of impeding on state sovereignty, the governor says Texas isn't going anywhere. (Read more Brexit stories.)
(Newser)  Bad weather is keeping rescuers in Pakistan from helping survivors and recovering bodies after torrential monsoon rains caused flash floods that swept away homes, an army post, and a mosque Saturday into Sunday, killing dozens, CNN and the BBC report. And many others are feared missing, with an official in the northern Pakistan district of Chitral telling Al Jazeera that "some bodies might have been washed away to Afghanistan." The death toll in Chitral is said to be between 30 and 40 people. Meanwhile, NDTV says at least 40 people in the Indian states of Uttarakhand and Arunachal Pradesh have also perished from flash floods and landslides over the past few days.

Worshippers, including women and children, were in the mosque in the Chitral village of Ursoon offering a special Ramadan prayer when the floodwaters carried it away. A local disaster management authority rep says at least 16 from the mosque are believed to have died, CNN notes, with officials saying the far-flung village didn't receive an evacuation warning before the floods hit, per ABC.net. In a Sunday Facebook post, Pakistan's army says it's trying to get food, medical assistance, and tents to the displaced in Chitral as part of their rescue efforts. Al Jazeera notes that July and August rains caused by monsoons are usually very heavy and that shoddily built homes, especially in rural areas, are particularly vulnerable to being destroyed. At least 127 people died in April from heavy rain and landslides in northern Pakistan and Kashmir. (Read more Pakistan stories.)
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Washington:

In the aftermath of the ISIS attack on a Bangladesh restaurant that left 20 people dead, Democratic White House hopeful Hillary Clinton has asserted that the US stands firmly with its allies in the fight to defeat the terror group.



She said her thoughts and prayers were with the people of Bangladesh, and stressed that the terror groups campaign of fear, hatred and violence would not succeed.



The terrorist assault on a bakery and restaurant in Dhaka is a reminder that an attack halfway around the world is still an attack on all of us, in the everyday places we hold dear, Clinton said in a statement.



The victims in Dhaka came from all overItaly, Japan, India and Bangladesh, she said, adding that at least three, including an American citizen, attended college in the United States.



Today, we say with one voice: this campaign of fear and hatred and violence will not succeed. We will not retreat, Clinton said.



We will not turn our backs on each other. The United States stands firmly with our friends and allies in the fight to defeat ISIS and radical jihadism around the world. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families, and the people of Bangladesh, she said.



Mourning the loss of life in the attack, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said the United States is ready to help Bangladesh.



With heavy hearts, we pray for the victims, survivors, and the loved ones affected by this horrific assault. With determined spirits, we will continue to stand firm against these vicious acts wherever they occur, she said.



We must continue to confront terrorists with strength, unity, and a comprehensive strategy. Extremists fuelled by hatred can never extinguish the light of international cooperation and the beacon of hope aflame in communities around the world, Pelosi said.

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New Delhi :

Nineteen-year-old Tarishi Jain, who was killed in the Dhaka terror attack, had made a terrified call to her family in UP from a toilet of the Holey Artisan Bakery. Around 1.30 a.m. she spoke to her family and informed about the hostage crisis.

The Jain family, based in Suhag Nagar area of Firozabad district, on Saturday recalled the last conversation and said Tarishi called at around 1.30 a.m. and informed that she had locked herself in the toilet with her two friends. She also added the attackers open fired at people in cafe.

"It was around 1.30 a.m. when we got a call from Tarishi. She told us that gunmen were around and that she had locked herself in one of the toilets of the restaurant," her uncle Rakesh Mohan Jain informed.

He also added that they tried to connect with her but the call went unanswered. It was only answered at 6.30 a.m. but no one spoke from the other end.

Tarishi was a recipient of an internship with a Bangladesh bank through the Institute for South Asia Studies at her university in California.

Tarishi Jain was among the 20 killed by Islamic State terrorists in the siege late Friday night on the cafe in the Bangladeshi capital.

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New Delhi :

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA from South Delhi, Naresh Yadav was booked in connected with the recent case of alleged religious book desecration' in Punjab. The AAP lawmaker was named in an FIR ahead Kejriwal's three-day visit to Punjab starting from today.

Yadav was booked by Sangrur police after the alleged mastermind in the case, Vijay Kumar, told the police that the MLA had offered him offered him Rs 1 crore and he 'desecrated' the religious book at the behest of Yadav.

Yadav has been booked under sections 109 (Punishment of abetment if the act abetted is committed in consequence and where no express provision is made for its punishment) and 153-A (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) of IPC.

Police have so far arrested three people - Vijay Kumar, Nand Kishore Goldy, zonal secretary of the VHP in Pathankot and Gaurav who allegedly 'helped' Vijay in the conspiracy. The police also said that they will be seeking an arrest warrant for Yadav from the court.

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Baghdad:

A suicide car bombing claimed by the Islamic State group ripped through a busy Baghdad shopping district on Sunday, killing at least 119 people in the deadliest attack this year in Iraq's capital.



The blast hit the Karrada district early in the day as the area was packed with shoppers ahead of this week's holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.



It came a week after Iraqi security forces recaptured Fallujah from IS, leaving Mosul as the only Iraqi city under the jihadist group's control.



The bombing also wounded more than 140 people, security officials said.



Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited the site of the attack and vowed "punishment" for its perpetrators, his office said.



The blast set buildings ablaze, and firemen were still working to extinguish them some 12 hours later.



Men carried the bodies of two victims out of one burned building and a crowd of people looked on from the rubble-filled street as firefighters worked at the site.



Hussein Ali, a 24-year-old former soldier, said six workers at his family's shop were killed in the attack, their bodies burned so badly that they could not be identified.



"I will return to the battlefront. At least there, I know the enemy so I can fight him. But here, I don't know who I'm fighting," Ali told AFP.



IS issued a statement claiming responsibility for the suicide bombing, saying it was carried out by an Iraqi as part of the group's "ongoing security operations".



The jihadist group said the blast targeted members of Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority, whom the Sunni extremists consider heretics and frequently attack in Baghdad and elsewhere.



UN Iraq envoy Jan Kubich condemned the "cowardly and heinous act of unparallelled proportions," calling on authorities to bring those responsible to justice.



Officials said another explosion in the Shaab area of northern Baghdad killed at least one person and wounded four today, but the cause of the blast was disputed.



US National Security Council spokesperson Ned Price said the attacks "only strengthen our resolve to support Iraqi security forces as they continue to take back territory" from IS.



Bombings in the capital have decreased since IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in June 2014, with the jihadists apparently occupied with operations elsewhere.



But the group has struck back against Iraqi civilians after suffering military setbacks.



A video posted on social media showed men  apparently angry at the government's failure to prevent the carnage in Karrada - throwing rocks towards what was said to be Abadi's convoy.

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Lucknow:

Hitting back at BJP Chief Amit Shah after he needled her on desertions in BSP, former chief minister Mayawati today said his childish remarks betrayed BJPs nervousness ahead of Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh.

The BSP supremo lashed out at Shah, saying the BJP-led government at the Centre should have imposed Presidents rule in Uttar Pradesh to fullfil its promise to improve law and order situation in the state but it failed to fulfil its constitution obligation.

Our growing base has made BJP nervous so much so that its president Amit Shah is making childish remarks on Uttar Pradeshs law and order situation and not taking any action, Mayawati said at a press conference here.

Shah had said the manner in which leaders were exiting BSP, by the time elections come Mayawati will be the lone person left in the party.

This was Mayawatis fourth impromptu press conference in a span of less than a fortnight which has led her political opponents to claim that the desertions from BSP have left her jittery.

Mayawati said while Akhilesh Yadav government has failed to control crime, Shah has been saying that law and order is a state subject and it was not for US President Barack Obama to set things rights.

I want to say that the NDA government at the Centre has failed to carry out its constitutional obligations, she said, adding that imposition of Presidents rule in the state was the only answer.

Shahs remarks are not only childish, they are irresponsible, she said, targeting the BJP chief who is going hammer and tongs at both ruling Samajwadi Party and main opposition BSP in the state in the build to the Assembly polls due next year.

During a series of recent meetings in UP in the run up to the Assembly elections in early 2017, the BJP chief accused SP and BSP of giving a prop to then UPA government at the Centre for 10 years.

Mayawati charged the BJP with dabbling in all sort of dirty designs and playing politics in the name of Ram Mandir to return to power in the state.

She said the SP government has failed to control crime in Uttar Pradesh where, she pointed, even policemen were paying with blood.

The BSP supremo said that before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, BJP had promised to ensure better law and order in UP the moment it came to power at the Centre.

But what happened? It has failed to carry out its constitutional duties, she rued, and mocked at Shah for punctuating his speech with expressions like jungle raj and goonda raj in UP and just doing nothing.

In back-to-back setbacks to BSP in last fortnight, two senior leaders and once close confidants of MayawatiSwami Prasad Maurya and R K Chaudharyquit the party accusing her of auctioning tickets for the upcoming Assembly polls, ignoring Kanshi Rams ideology and running the organisation like her private real estate company.

Maurya belongs to other backward caste while Chaudhary is a Dalit, the two important votebanks of BSP.

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Peshawar:

At least 31 people, including eight security officials, were today killed after torrential rain hit the south west of Chitral district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, triggering flash floods in the area, officials said.

Around 30 houses were demolished in the rainstorm caused by continuous heavy rainfall in the area near the Pak-Afghanborder. At least 31 people, including eight security officials, were killed and 17 people were reportedly missing in Ursoon Village while as many were injured due to flash flooding in the area occurred due to the over flow of the Chitral river, DPO Chitral Asif Iqbal was quoted as saying by The Express Tribune.

The floods also washed away a mosque at the time when special Ramzan prayers were being held inside, he added. Pakistan-Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan shared his condolences to the victims families and have asked the government to take urgent steps to trace the missing people.

PTI is the ruling party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) was in constant contact with the district administration for rescue and relief efforts, according to a statement released by the authority.

KP Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra has expressed deep grief and sorrow over the losses caused by the flooding and directedthe authorities concerned to speed up the rescue and relief efforts in the affected area. He also directed the administration to take all precautionary measures to save the lives and properties of the people.

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New Delhi:

President Pranab Mukherjee today extended greetings to the US President Barack Obama on the eve of his countrys Independence Day and said the recent high-level contacts between the two countries have brought them closer to realizing the true potential of a multi-faceted partnership.

In his message to Obama, Mukherjee said it was a matter of satisfaction that the close relations between India and the US are based on shared values of democracy, pluralism and rule of law and strengthened by our increasing convergence on bilateral, regional and global issues.

Over the years, we have built on our numerous synergies to achieve the common goals identified by us for the good of our two peoples and peace, progress and prosperity in the world.

He said the recent high-level interactions have helped enhance mutual understanding and brought the two countries closer to realizing the true potential of our multi-faceted partnership.

I am confident that the positive outcomes of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modis recent visit to the US will contribute to the further strengthening of our strategic partnership, he said while extending greetings on behalf of India.

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Srinagar:

More than 13,000 pilgrims have paid obeisance at the Amarnath cave shrine in south Kashmir during the first two days of pilgrimage, officials said today.

While nearly 9,000 pilgrims performed darshan yesterday, more than 4,000 devotees have paid obeisance till 3 PM today, an official of Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board (SASB) said.

He said the final figures for the number of devotees who have visited the cave shrine today will be disclosed in the evening. The official said more than 14,000 devotees set off on the trek from Baltal and Pahalgam base camps this morning.

While 7,471 pilgrims left from the Baltal base camp, 6,177 pilgrims started their journey on the traditional Pahalgam route from Nunwan base camp, he said.

Though there were no specific inputs about militants planning to strike the ongoing yatra, authorities have made unprecedented security arrangements to foil any nefarious design by subversive elements to sabotage the yatra.

Special rescue teams have also been deployed at vulnerable spots along the tracks to meet any eventuality. The yatra, which began yesterday, is scheduled to end on August 18, coinciding with Shravan Purnima and Raksha Bandhan festivals.

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Hyderabad:

A 10-year-old girl was allegedly raped and murdered after being kidnapped by a man suspected to be a habitual offender in Bollarum area here, police said.



Accused Anil Kumar, who was recently released from jail, took away the girl, a class III student, from near a toddy shop last evening where she was with her mother, after luring her to buy some chocolates and chips.



He then allegedly raped the minor and brutally killed her by smashing the girl's head with a boulder last night, Bollarum police station Sub-Inspector M Satish Kumar said.



A complaint was lodged in this regard at around midnight and a search was launched following which the girl's body was found in an isolated place, the SI said.



Police teams have been formed to nab the absconding accused, he further said.



A case under relevant IPC sections for rape and murder and POCSO Act has been registered, he said, adding further probe is on.

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New Delhi:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday paid rich tribute to Sikh warrior Banda Bahadur at an event to commemorate his 300th martyrdom anniversary.



Calling him more than a 'warrior', PM Modi also highlighted his key attributes towards the common people.



"Baba Banda Singh Bahadur was not just a great warrior but was also very sensitive towards common people," said PM Modi.



"After getting inspiration from Guru Gobind Singh ji, he imbibed values of a warrior and embarked on a new journey for social development," he added.



PM Modi also talked about how common man felt empowered during his time.



"During Baba Banda Singh Bahadur's time, for the first time, farmers were given their rights, common man felt empowered," said PM Modi.



Mr Modi ended his speech in style with 'Waherguru ji da khalsa, waheguru ji di fateh'.

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London:

Coffee lovers, rejoice! Drinking moderate amounts of coffee may have more benefits than risks in adults, a new study has found. Researchers from Ulster University in the UK reviewed 1,277 studies from 1970 till date on coffees effect on human health.

They found the general scientific consensus is that regular, moderate coffee drinking (defined as 3-4 cups per day) essentially has a neutral effect on health, or can be mildly beneficial.

The review was used to create a list of the potential health benefits and risks of coffee consumption on total mortality, cardiovascular disease, cancer, metabolic health, neurological disorders, gastrointestinal conditions and other miscellaneous health outcomes.

Researchers found that the potential benefits of moderate coffee drinking outweighed the risks in adult consumers for the majority of major health outcomes considered.

The findings were published in the journal Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety.
Bhubaneswar:

Motilal Gouda, who had been hiding after being accused of defrauding Odisha government by issuing fake gazette notification and swindling public money, was today arrested from Andhra Pradesh, police said.

Motilal Gouda, who had gone into hiding after rejection of his anticipatory bail plea by the High Court, was caught by a police team from Vizag-Vijaynagaram area in Andhra Pradesh, DG, Crime Branch (Special), B K Sharma told reporters here.

On the basis of certain specific information, the team of the crime branch of state police had been tracking Gouda for the last four days, he said, adding the accused is being brought from Andhra Pradesh.

A number of charges including forgery, cheating, criminal conspiracy and attempt to destroy evidence have been slapped against him, Sharma said. Three persons had earlier been arrested in this connection, he said.

BJD government in the state had come under sharp attack on the issue from different quarters including opposition Congress and BJP as they alleged that Gouda was enjoying the backing of the ruling party leaders.

Orissa High Court had last month rejected anticipatory bail application of Gouda, who was suspended from the post of assistant director (Medical) in Directorate of Factories and Boilers after his name surfaced in a health check-up scam arising out of alleged fake gazette notification.

Gouda, stated to have strong political links, is accused of being the mastermind behind issuance of a recent fake gazette notification in which corporate houses and private companies were asked to get their employees health check-ups in certain selected pathological laboratories.

It is alleged that Gouda received huge kickbacks from these empaneled laboratories, police said.

Meanwhile, vigilance sleuths yesterday raided the his house following allegations of possession of assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.

The raids were conducted at Goudas official residential quarters here, his native place located at Chandiput in Gajapati district and his father-in-laws house at Ashok Nagar in Berhampur town, vigilance officials said.

Some diagnostic centres were also raided as they were allegedly in Goudas network, who is an accused in the health insurance scam, they said. According to an official statement, Gouda acquired properties worth lakhs of rupees during his service period of around seven years.

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Lucknow:

Eminent lawyer and RJD MP Ram Jethmalani today said he felt "guilty" and "cheated" for helping Prime Minister Narendra Modi who failed to deliver on his promise of bringing back blackmoney stashed abroad.

While addressing a regional convention of Samajwadi Sindhi Sabha, Jethmalani claimed he contributed to making Modi the Prime Minister after BJP leaders promised to bring back blackmoney parked in foreign banks.He said, however, after becoming PM, Modi failed to bring back blackmoney and now it seems that the latter would not be able to fulfil his promise.

"I feel cheated and consider myself guilty that I helped Modi. I have come here to tell you not to believe Modi," he said.

Jethmalani said UP CM Akhilesh Yadav has a clean image and described him as the future of the country.

Speaking on the occasion, Rajya Sabha MP Amar Singh said he respected Jethmalani a lot as he speaks about justice.

He appealed to the members of the Sindhi community to actively participate in Assembly polls so that SP comes to power again.

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Kuala Lumpur:

A 76-year-old man in Malaysia has been arrested for allegedly sharing a "crude" photo of Prime Minister Najib Razak on a WhatsApp group which "insulted and hurt feelings of Malaysians", a media report said today.

The elderly man, who goes by the name Pa Ya, was arrested in Kampung Tunku, Petaling Jaya yesterday, Johor police chief Comm Datuk Wan Ahmad Najmuddin Mohd said.

The suspect, who can be fined over USD 12,000 or jailed for a year or both, had uploaded the photo into a WhatsApp group called "Bicara Politik Melayu", The Star reported.Police arrested him for sharing a crude photo insulting the Prime Minister in a WhatsApp group, the report said.

"The photo has insulted and hurt the feelings of Malaysians," he said in a statement, adding that the man's mobile phone has also been seized. A police report in this regard was lodged on Friday following the posting of the photo.

Ahmad said that the suspect would be remanded at the Johor Baru court for investigations under relevant provisions of the law which carries a maximum fine of 50,000 Malaysian Ringgit

(USD 12,526) or up to a year's jail, or both upon conviction. A task force had been formed within the police force to monitor, identify and take action against those who misuse social media, Ahmad said.

"I advise the public against misusing social media applications without thinking about the consequences. We will not hesitate to take action and eventually charge those who do," he added.

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Dhaka:

The US and Japan have offered assistance to Bangladesh in its efforts to track down the perpetrators of the terror attack at an eatery here as the brazen assault was globally condemned in one voice.

Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe called his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina while Japans junior foreign minister Seiji Kihara today called on her and said Tokyo would join hands with the Bangladeshi government in fighting terrorism. Hasina has vowed to track down the perpetrators of the attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhakas Gulshan diplomatic zone.

The Japanese premier talked to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina over phone (last) morning, Prime Ministers Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim told BSS new agency. Abe lauded the prompt steps taken by the government to tackle the situation and reaffirmed Japans support to Bangladesh.

The United States yesterday offered assistance in efforts to track down the culprits and reiterated support for Bangladesh Premiers commitment to combat violent extremism.

We remain in close contact with the government of Bangladesh and have offered our assistance in their efforts to bring to justice those responsible for these attacks, State Department spokesman John Kirby said.

Acting British High Commissioner in Dhaka Alison Blake today called the attack a senseless act of terror against innocent people living and working in Bangladesh.

Russia denounced the terror attack, saying, what happened in Dhaka once again proves that it is necessary to immediately combine efforts of all the global community to fight international terrorism.

We are indignant at this yet another inhumane terrorist attack, which has no justification, Information and Press Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation said in a statement.

Canadian High Commissioner in Dhaka Benot-Pierre Larame today said his government expressed its deepest sympathies to the loved ones of the victims.

In another statement, Canadian foreign minister Stephane Dion said Canada stands with the Bangladeshi people in the face of this act of terror and reaffirmed its commitment to fight terrorism. The European Union (EU) also strongly denounced the killings.

I condemn in the strongest terms the brutal attack in Dhaka, which cost the lives of several Italians, Japanese, Bangladeshi and other foreign nationals. I extend my condolences to the families and relatives of all the victims, President of European Council Donald Tusk said in a statement.

France also expressed solidarity with Bangladesh with its foreign office issuing a statement that said, terrorism is a global scourge. France is determined to strengthen international cooperation to combat terrorism everywhere. Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay condemned the attack yesterday. Australia had also denounced the terrorist attack.

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New Delhi:

Soon after the deadly attacks in Bangladeshi capital that claimed 20 lives, a high alert has been sounded on the Indo-Bangla border in the five states of West Bengal, Tripura, Meghalaya, Assam and Mizoram.

India and Bangladesh share the fifth-longest land border in the world of 4,096 km-long international border, with West Bengal having the highest length with 2,217 km. The length of the border in the other four states is Tripura(856km), Meghalaya(443km), Assam(262km) and Mizoram(180km).

West Bengal administration has asked the state police to be on high alert and take serious note of any suspicious movement in the border districts.

All police stations along the Indo-Bangla border have been alerted and all border districts have been told to keep a close eye on any suspicious movement, a senior police official of the West Bengal Police said.

All kinds of vehicles are being checked at at various entry and exit points in the districts bordering Bangladesh, which has declared a two-day state mourning after the attack on a cafe in Dhakas diplomatic zone on Friday night resulting in the killing of 20 persons, all foreigners, who were taken hostage.

As it was a festival season with Eid and Ratha yatra to be celebrated, a strict vigil was being maintained on the border. But after the attack in Bangladesh, the BSF had further intensified the vigil and special operations were on, IG BSF Sandeep Salunke had told PTI yesterday.

Salunke also said that the BSF was in touch with Border Guard Bangladesh and keeping a close eye on the situation. A top police official in Agartala said that as soon as the attack broke out BSF and all other security forces including Tripura police, were alerted so that no unwanted elements could cross the border to enter Indian territory.

BSF Inspector General (Meghalaya Frontier) P K Dubey said the force has been put on very high alert along the Indo-Bangladesh border in Meghalaya.

The force has been put on very high alert along the Indo-Bangladesh border following the armed attack in Dhaka. Security has been tightened, Dubey said.

Dubey said he had spoken to officials of Meghalaya Police for coordination and sharing of information as soon as news of the killings came in.

Meghalaya state itself has over 100 gaps consisting of streams, rivers and drains apart from the unfenced 90-km stretch along its 443-km border with Bangladesh.

BSF also has sought cooperation of all state and central intelligence units to ensure that no illegal cross-border movement takes place, he said.

Police personnel posted close to the border have been alerted and asked to keep strict vigil in close coordination with the BSF, a senior police officer said.

The Assam police said it had instructed SPs of all districts, especially the border ones, to keep a strict vigil for any possible ISIS activity in the state.

According to a press release by the Assam Police, all the SPs have been instructed to gear up their intelligence machinery and keep a close watch on the situation.

Although authorities have not perceived any footprint of ISIS in Assam in the recent past, considering the gravity of the situation in the neighbouring country the alert has been issued, it explained.

The SPs of Cachar, Karimganj and Dhubri, and BSF along the Assam-Bangladesh border have also been cautioned to be on maximum alert, the statement said.

Several modules of JMB in Assam were busted in the aftermath of Khagragarh blast in Burdwan district of West Bengal on October 2, 2014.

(With inputs from PTI)

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Chandigarh:

Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh today described the Aam Aadmi Partys 51-point youth manifesto as a 'bunch of stolen ideas from the Congress' including those related to a drug and corruption-free Punjab.

This is not even the old wine in new bottles, but stolen wine in stolen bottles, he said while challenging the AAP to prove that its manifesto is not a carbon copy of the Congress announcements made in the recent past.

Sounds strange that they did not even make an attempt to hide their theft, Amarinder remarked, adding the AAP has simply copy-pasted our ideas of drug free and corruption-free Punjab, besides generating employment and cancelling all the false cases, which we promised under oath at the Badlaav Rally in Bathinda on December 15.

Not that we had expected something miraculously novel or new from the AAP particularly with someone like Kanwar Sandhu, with a worn out mind, heading the committee, but we certainly did not expect it to be an act of shameless and senseless plagiarism, he said.

He said while AAP has announced it will provide 25 lakh jobs, he had promised at least one job per family so that each family has a reasonable and respectable monthly income to sustain itself.

Referring to the AAPs announcement of drug free Punjab, Amarinder said, While they say they will finish it within six months, I have promised to do it within four weeks and I will do it even before that.

On corruption-free administration, the former CM said, I have already announced that there will be zero tolerance to corruption. He said he had already announced that all the false FIRs will be cancelled on day one and that will be the first decision of his government.

About the AAP announcement that it will scrap the application fee for recruitment in the government jobs, he said he has been repeatedly saying it in all his meetings and interactions with the youth.

About providing free Wi-Fi hotspots in colleges, the PCC president taunted the AAP, I am sure it will meet the same fate like that in Delhi where AAP promised free Wi-Fi before elections. However, he added, we have announced provision of such facilities in colleges and universities and we will do it.

About setting up a Foreign Employment Youth Board and Punjab Overseas Employment Corporation, Amarinder said, It is a poor copy of our Immigration Promotion Board that we have already announced.

Similarly, he said, the AAP has announced it will end the monopoly of the rulers over business and will offer government contracts to the youth. Let me ask them, how is it different from our announcement of finishing the monopoly of the Badals, he asked.

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Taipei, July 3 (CNA) China should have received a notification from Taiwan about the Navy's accidental launching of a missile into the Taiwan Strait on July 1, given that Taipei has used all available means of communication with Beijing, a senior Taiwanese official in charge of cross-strait affairs said Sunday.
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A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Mr Femi Falana said any president or governor who committed criminal act could be arrested while in of...





A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Mr Femi Falana said any president or governor who committed criminal act could be arrested while in office and taken for trials.Falana said this while speaking on: Limit of executive immunity in Benin to mark the 60th birthday of the Secretary to the State Government (SSG) of Edo, Prof. Julius Ihonvebere.Falana said that immunity did not also extend to electoral fraud.He urged the Senate President, Bukola Saraki and his Deputy, Ike Ekweremadu to face the forgery charges against them rather than politicking about it, saying they have no immunity to dodge the charges against them.Falana said that according to the Supreme Court ruling, there was no longer absolute immunity therefore governors involved in criminal charges, including the leadership of the National Assembly must face the law.He faulted the invitation extended to the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami by the leadership of the senate over the forgery allegation against the senate president and his deputy.The senate is now politicising the issue, saying it is political victimization but not that the offence was not committed. As leaders of the National Assembly, you are supposed to be above board and that is even the more reason you must be careful.But I want to remind the senate that the Attorney General of the Federation is only answerable to his boss, who is the president and nobody else.The same thing applies to the states, so there is no longer absolute immunity in this country. And that is why what is happening in Ekiti today about money found in a bank and the governor is saying it is illegal to freeze his account that is not true.Any issue that is criminal in nature must be treated as such, he declared. Falana however described Ihonvbere as a resourceful Nigerian, who fought doggedly for the nations democracy.Gov. Adams Oshiomhole, the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Pastor Usani Uguru, Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Elizabeth Ativie and other members of the State Executive Council were present at the occasion.
Men of the Nigeria Police have arrested a soldier for smoking Indian hemp in Kurmin Mashi area of Kaduna State.

Men of the Nigeria Police have arrested a soldier for smoking Indian hemp in Kurmin Mashi area of Kaduna State.The soldier was trailed to the area by men of Operation Yaki who arrested him while smoking the substance Sunday afternoon.According to reports, when the police officers arrived the smoking zone, the soldier, who was clad in his full military regalia tried to run but was overpowered by the heavily armed officers who arrested and bundled him into their van.One Zakari, a roadside recharge card vendor, told reporters that the soldier has been a regular guest in the area.He comes here everyday to smoke.The worst thing is that each time he comes here, he foments trouble.If you dare tell to him, he will beat the hell out of you, Zakari lamented.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has arrested a former Deputy Governor of Osun State, Senator Iyiola Omisore, who was declare...

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has arrested a former Deputy Governor of Osun State, Senator Iyiola Omisore, who was declared wanted about a month ago.It was learnt that Omisore was arrested in his Abuja home on Sunday morning as part of investigations into the N4.7bn that was siphoned from the imprest account of the Office of the National Security Adviser in 2014.The commission had alleged that Omisore received about N1.3bn from the money during the build-up to the August 9, 2014 election in the state.Omisore had, however, denied the allegations and even sued the EFCC for defamation.The spokesman of the EFCC, Wilson Uwujaren stated that Omisore was being elusive and refused to report to the Commission after invitation was extended to him on April 7, 2016 requesting him to come and make clarification on the ongoing investigation.Instead of responding to the Commissions investigation Omisore had approached the Federal Capital Territory High Court for the enforcement of his fundamental human rights, Uwujaren stated.However Justice Husseini Baba Yusuf consequently ordered that Omisore should only be arrested through a due and legal process, Uwujaren said.
An estranged political associate of Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State, Dr. Tope Aluko yesterday punctured holes in the claims by the gov...

Aluko, Director General of the Fayose Campaign Organisation, said that contrary to the governors claims, his campaign was bankrolled directly by the Presidency through the office of the then National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki and some oil contractors.Before the primaries of March 28, 2014, funding came from the Presidency only. After the primaries, various individuals, banks, corporate organisations registered with token amounts (so as to play along), he said in a statement.But after the elections, contractors came in with funds to solicit for patronage. The current Secretary to the State Government was secretary of Fayoses campaign organisation while a member of the state assembly representing Ekiti South II, Mr. Awodumila was treasurer.We know as a party that there was no record of Zenith Bank sponsorship of our elections.On Fayoses financial worth prior to the election campaign, Aluko said he could not boast of N10 million in his account before then.In fact, he sold one of his houses in Ghana and showed me the cash in the trunk of his white Lexus Jeep at his private residence in Afao Ekiti. The recently mentioned funds are the funds he is using within his accounts in the banks, he stated.Aluko who fell out with Fayose after the governorship election, had earlier alleged that former President Goodluck Jonathan gave $2 million cash to Fayose for the PDP primaries and another $35 million for the election proper.Aluko gave details of how Fayose used his personal friend, Mr. Abiodun Agbele to launder money and pay various sums paid into the governors personal accounts after the election.On August 22, 2014, Agbele paid in N50 million cash and another N118.706 million into Fayoses Account No. 1003126654. Agbele also paid N49 million cash into Spotless Account No. 1010170969 on June 17, 2014 (four days before the election).On August 4, 2014 when Fayose became governor-elect, he deposited the following amounts in cash himself -N40 million, N36 million, N35 million, N24 million, N20 million and N14 million, totaling N170 million in one day.So Zenith Bank gave him these funds to lodge in his account with the bank after becoming the governor-elect? So which election was the bank sponsoring?The questions are many because Ayo Fayose was already governorship candidate and governor-elect during this period and Zenith Bank could not have been sponsoring him from their bank and using aircraft to bring cash from Abuja/Lagos to Akure.Aluko also said Fayose benefitted hugely from the cash deployed for Jonathans 2015 re-election project with funds coming from the Office of the National Security Adviser.Said he: Ayo Fayose was sworn-in on October 16, 2014.By January 30, 2015 he made cash deposit of N145 million into the account of De-Privateer Limited and also on April 18, 2015 he paid cash of N70 million into the same account.The N300 million fixed deposit no. 9013074033 in April 2015 from Abbey in Ayo Fayoses name cant be from Zenith Bank but from ONSA /Dasuki for presidential campaign and presidential election.These funds were used to purchase choice properties in Abuja, Lagos and Dubai through other banks in Ekiti which the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is working on.
The Catholic Church in Enugu State on Saturday held mass rallies protesting violent activities of herdsmen in the state. The three Cath...

The Catholic Church in Enugu State on Saturday held mass rallies protesting violent activities of herdsmen in the state.The three Catholic dioceses in the state, Nsukka, Awgu and Enugu, staged separate rallies and expressed their anger at the menace posed by herdsmen.Priests and lay members of the Catholic Church turned out in their thousands for the peaceful rallies in Nsukka and Awgu dioceses.However, the Enugu Catholic diocese shelved its plan to march to the Government House, where they intended to deliver a petition to Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi.The Diocese had earlier announced that it would march from the Holy Ghost Cathedral, through the streets of Enugu metropolis, to the Government House on Saturday.The march was tagged Diocesan peaceful prayerful protest march.But the planned march failed to hold after Ugwuanyi and some members of the state executive council visited the church.It was learnt that the church leadership called off the march after they were informed of an alleged plan by miscreants to hijack the event.The miscreants allegedly including pro-Biafra activists, planned to use the protest march to cause a breakdown of law and order.Addressing the Catholic faithfuls at the cathedral during the visit, Ugwuanyi said his administration was determined to protect lives and property in the state.He said, On the issues you have raised in this rally, I wish to state that I address you today not only as a Catholic but as your governor and the Chief Security Officer of Enugu State. While taking my oath of office, I swore to do everything within my powers to preserve the security of lives and property of the people of Enugu State.You can therefore be assured that I will not fail in this responsibility and be further assured that whatever message you convey through me to the appropriate authorities at Abuja, will be promptly delivered.The church also made known its opposition to the proposed grazing bill in a joint press statement read by the Catholic Bishop of Enugu Diocese, Rt. Rev. Callistus Onaga, and the bishops of Awgu and Nsukka dioceses.The free grazing of cattle in our area has now become a threat not only to the growing of crops, which is the mainstay of our sedentary people, but also to our lives. The nomadic lifestyle makes policing and the pursuit of criminals much more complex and hazardous, while providing terrorists like Boko Haram operatives with ready cover for penetrating every nook and cranny of our country, the statement said.
Super Eagles striker Odion Ighalo has for the second time rejected a big money offer to play in the Chinese league and as a result his c...

Super Eagles striker Odion Ighalo has for the second time rejected a big money offer to play in the Chinese league and as a result his club, Watford turned down another 37.5million bid from Shanghai SIPG for Odion Ighalo  because the striker does not want to go to China.The Hornets were left reeling by the massive bid for the Nigeria international  who scored 17 goals last season  with Shanghais ex-England boss Sven Goran Eriksson keen to land him. Last summer, he rejected a 300,000-a-week deal with Qinhuangdao-based Hebei China Fortune, and instead went on to sign a five-year deal with his Hertfordshire club. I told them its not about the money, Ill wait for God to give me directions, Ighalo said.
Kelechi Iheanacho has insisted he has no concerns, with Pep Guardiola taking over as Manchester City manager.

Kelechi Iheanacho has insisted he has no concerns, with Pep Guardiola taking over as Manchester City manager.The Spaniard was officially unveiled on Sunday and Iheanacho, who scored 14 goals in his senior debut campaign last season, says he can feature prominently under him.Everyone knows Pep and what he can do, Iheanacho said. I think hes a great manager and I think hell bring many things to this team.I havent met him yet and havent spoken to him. I think well meet him in training.It was a great season last season. I worked hard and did very well, but last season is the past and in the next season I need to work hard and Ill get my chanceI can play number nine, 10, seven and 11, so I dont have any [concerns]. I can play different positions. Anywhere I can fit in, I will play.We have great players and weve made some great new signings, so I just need to work hard and Ill get my chance to play.Everyone wants to start games and work hard. I need to work extra hard and Ill get a chance. Itll be a big season for me and for every player.Im happy with what I did last season and now I have to work really hard this season to get something for the team and work for the team as well.
Palpable tension has continued to grip the people of Abia State as the governorship crisis gets messier.

Palpable tension has continued to grip the people of Abia State as the governorship crisis gets messier.Apart from the two warring personalities, Uche Ogah and sitting governor Okezie Ikpeazu, a third contender has emerged to fight for the coveted seat of governor of Abia State.A Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship aspirant in the state, Friday Nwosu, filed a suit against the judgment of the Federal High Court which declared Ogah as governor-elect.Nwosu averred that the court, having disqualified Ikpeazu as the governorship candidate of the PDP in Abia in the 2015 polls, should have declared him as governor-elect and not Ogah.The PDP governorship aspirant argued that the court ought not to have allowed Ogah to benefit from the primary election he condemned by refusing to sign the result while also petitioning the leadership of the party and asking it to conduct another primary election.Meanwhile, Ogah, yesterday, described as an affront on the rule of law the refusal of the Abia State Chief Judge, Theresa Uzoukwu, to swear him in as the only elected governor of the state.In his Suit No.FHC/ABJ/CS/71/2016, filed at the Federal High Court, Owerri against Ogah, the PDP, Ikpeazu, and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Nwosu is seeking five reliefs: An order setting aside the declaration of the 1st respondent, Uche Ogah, as the elected governor of Abia State as declared by the trial court, an order that the 1st respondent is stopped from claiming any right or benefit from the 2nd respondents (PDP) gubernatorial primary election of 8/12/2014 in Abia State having waived his right to do so; an order striking out the 1st respondents (Uche Ogah)s suit on the ground that it constitutes an abuse of court process; an order that the suit of 1st respondent i.e. (Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/71/2016) is incompetent and the trial court lacks the jurisdiction to hear and determine the suit.He further stated: The judgment is in error and cannot stand judicial scrutiny. Dr. Uche Ogah should not be allowed to benefit from an exercise he totally condemned by refusing to sign the result and petitioning the party to conduct another primary election. He should wait for the rerun of the PDP primary which he prayed for in his petition to the party. In the eyes of the law, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu and Sir Friday Nwosu were the only candidates who ran for the party primary. Since Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu has been disqualified, I remain the lawful candidate of the PDP and ought to be declared governor.Justice A.I. Allagoa of the Federal High Court, Owerri has fixed tomorrow and Tuesday to hear Nwosus suit against Ikpeazu and Ogah.Sunday Vanguard gathered that Nwosu was the first aspirant to file a tax forgery suit against Ikpeazu and joined Ogah as one of the respondents in Suit FHC/ABJ/CS/184/2015, FHC/UM/CS/64/2015 and FHC/CS/OW/191/2015. The suit, filed at the Federal High Court 7, Abuja, and presided over by Justice Adeniyi Ademola, had suffered several delays before it was transferred to Umuahia after which Nwosu petitioned the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Ibrahim Auta, accusing Justice F.A. Olubanjo of bias. As a result of the petition, Auta transferred the matter to the Federal High Court, Owerri, then presided over by Justice S.M.Shuaibu. Shuaibu was soon transferred to Kaduna Division, but was granted an assignment order to hear and conclude the matter. The assignment order was later revoked by Auta when Ikpeazus counsel, C.C. Elele, protested and accused Shuaibu of bias.
A security officer, Mohammed Ibrahim Ogbanago , at United Bank for Africa (UBA) in a display of integrity returned $10,000 (Black ma...





"Last month, Mohammed Ibrahim Ogbanago, a security guard at the @ubagroup branch in Oba Akran, found $10,000 outside on the ground at his branch. In an unparalleled display of integrity, he decided to return the money.

When I heard about this story, I knew I had to meet the man who despite facing rising petrol & transportation prices and tomato ebola returned such a huge sum of money without recourse to himself. It was a pleasant surprise to hear him tell this story and about how he came to be in the board room with us. Even more surprising was hearing him speak about his passion for governance and integrity in leadership. Mohammed Ibrahim Ogbanago is an exemplary ambassador of the UBA spirit and it was fulfilling to meet and reward him for his conduct. The @UBAGroup management is proud to have this caliber of staff at all levels. Congratulations to Mohammed and keep up the good work".

A security officer,, at United Bank for Africa (UBA) in a display of integrity returned $10,000 (Black market exchange rate = N3.5 Million) he found outside his branch at Oba Akran.Chairman of the UBA Group Plc.,revealed this in an Instagram post on Saturday, praising Ogbanagos unparalleled display of integrity even in the present economic crisis.
Walter Wagbatsoma, the Managing Director of Ontario Oil and Gas limited, has been extradited to UK from Germany to face money laundering c...

Walter Wagbatsoma, the Managing Director of Ontario Oil and Gas limited, has been extradited to UK from Germany to face money laundering charges.According to Lincolnshire Echo, Wagbatsoma was detained in Germany on Monday, June 6 after Police issued a European Warrant for his arrest.He was extradited to the UK on Thursday, June 30 when he was charged with conspiracy to money launder. Authorities are investigating him for offences of fraud and money laundering in excess of 12m, the report said.In addition, Wagbatsoma is wanted in Nigeria. Along with others, he is facing a nine-count charge bordering on fraud involving N1.9bn oil subsidy scam.
The caretaker committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) insisted yesterday that the partys embattled National Chairman, Alhaji Ali...

The caretaker committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) insisted yesterday that the partys embattled National Chairman, Alhaji Ali Modu Sheriff, was only out to destroy the party.Spokesman for the committee, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, said in a statement that Sheriff was in cahoots with agents of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) on the mission.Intelligence report available to us shows that Senator Sheriff is in league with some agents of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) having nothing to lose and everything to gain if it helps destroy the PDP, has continued to enjoy the support of non PDP members to carry out their nefarious acts, he said.PDP members across the country, Adeyeye said, are already aware of the evil desires of the former Borno State Governor and have chosen to ignore him.He also alleged that Sheriff and his group have been shopping and approaching the courts with dubious information for interlocutory orders to keep them afloat until they frustrate PDPs gubernatorial elections in Edo and Ondo states as designed by their sponsors.His words: Legitimacy in politics is not given through a procured interlocutory injunction but through the mandate of the people and Sheriff and his cohorts will soon realise this.We are aware that Sheriffs sponsors have urged him to sustain his illicit role for a while and create a semblance of a faction in the party to give way for some elected PDP members to take the advantage to decamp but unknown to them, members of our great party are aware of their game and have vowed to resist them.The party urged the judiciary to be wary of dubious information and always block anything that could diminish their enviable role as the pillar in the sustenance of democracy in the country.The party assured its members that the caretaker committee under Senator Ahmed Makarfi remains committed to discharging the assignment given to it by members and has refused to be distracted.The party warned its members to beware of Greek gifts being offered by agents whose mission is to kill the party.
About 100 soldiers and police officers were on Saturday evening sighted keeping watch at Nigerias largest computer market, the Computer...

About 100 soldiers and police officers were on Saturday evening sighted keeping watch at Nigerias largest computer market, the Computer Village in Ikeja, Lagos State.The Acting Inspector General of Police, Mr. Ibrahim Idris, ordered the deployment of the security personnel after the Department of State Services uncovered a plot, on Friday night, to bomb the market.The number of soldiers and police officers within and outside the market has risen from about 50 in number on Saturday morning, to more than 100 by this (Saturday) evening, a trader said told our correspondent on phone.The trader, who simply identified himself as Nonso, however, said that the presence of the soldiers had led to the harassment of passers-by, traders and unsuspecting customers, as well as threats of arrests from the security agents.With these harassments and threats by the soldiers and police officers, the roads around the market suddenly became calm, when compared to other Saturdays, and most of us were forced to close shop as early as 2pm today, he said.Meanwhile, some members of the traders union  the Computer and Allied Products Dealers Association of Nigeria  revealed that the presence of the security agents had restored normalcy to the market after the bomb scare.Although they might have been aggressive in their approach, we are very happy now that there is no more fear and tension in the market. Everyone is going about his or her normal duties, a presidential candidate in CAPDANs July 12 election, Mr. Ahmed Ojikutu, said.He said the traders had also secured the services of special security groups, who were familiar with the market terrain, to assist in guarding the market.Aside the presence of vigilance and special security groups, the police have also made available sniffer dogs and armoured tanks to aid in surveillance activities around the market and environs, Ojikutu added.Also, the Secretary of CAPDANs Electoral Committee, Mr. Okogua Obasuyi, said that seven persons had been arrested in connection with the plot to bomb the market.A statement from the DSS had read, Sequel to increasing threat posed to public peace by the activities of the Independent People of Biafra, this Service arrested one Chidiebere Onwudiwe, a graduate of Mechanical and Chemical Engineering and known member of IPOB, on June 22, 2016.Onwudiwe and his associates, within and outside the country, were planning to carry out coordinated attacks against religious bodies/edifices, police checkpoints and the Computer Village in Ikeja, Lagos State, with Improvised Explosive devices. The suspect was apprehended while making logistics supplies for their nefarious plan.
There was wide jubilation on Friday in many parts of Kano State, as news spread that the state government has released N1.2 billion from...

There was wide jubilation on Friday in many parts of Kano State, as news spread that the state government has released N1.2 billion from the wallet of its Internally Generated Revenue to local government councils in the state for the payment of salaries. Coming a few days to the celebration of the Eid-Fitri, many local government employees received the news with much joy.There has been anxiety in the state following speculations that most of the Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the state wouldnt be able to pay salary for the month of June because of further dwindling of their finances. The councils had on many occasions appealed to the state government to help them out with bailout funds.It was gathered that in many of the LGA secretariats across the state, workers were seen celebrating and praying for Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, after receiving assurances that salaries would be paid before the Sallah holiday. Our sources added that most of the council workers had lost faith of getting paid before now.It would be recalled that administrators of the local councils in Kano State had told the workers a few weeks back that they were relying on the much-expected bail out from the state government to be able to pay June salary. The situation was so bad that many LGA bosses pleaded with their workers not to look forward to being paid before the holiday.According to one of the Council bosses, the bail out they are seeking for is to enable them meet their salary obligations to workers, most of whom are being owed salary arrears.It was also learnt that though the state government did not reject the request of the LGAs, the dwindling financial fortunes of the state were also a source of worry to many.While we were happy that the governor sympathised with our plights and was willing to help us out, we were also not oblivious of the fact that the state government was also struggling with its finances. So, nobody could say how soon the bailout would come. That got our workers too worried as we all had to wait and hope for the best, our source added.But in an unexpectedly swift response to the prevailing situation in the Councils, Kano State government during the week released N1.2 billion from the wallet of its Internally Generated Revenue to the affected 44 local government councils in the state. The government said the move is to enable them augment their federal allocations, so that they can meet their salary obligation for the month of June to staff of the Council.The state governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, said that the move became imperative as the monthly allocation to the councils from the Federation Account is no longer sufficient for the Councils to pay salaries, not to talk of carrying out developmental obligations. The governor added that the only option left for states is for them to find out ways of boosting their Internally Generated Revenue, in order to withstand the current economic realities.He recalled that during the immediate past administration, the state government used to have a balance of N4  N5 billion after paying salaries monthly, pointing out that with the dwindling capital receipts from the federal government now, his government is compelled to look inwards in order to remain afloat.It was aslo learnt that many of the workers found the early release of the bailout a good development. According to our sources, many who were being owed salary arrears had been wondering how they would get money to celebrate the Eid-Fitri festival.Many Council workers found the early release of the bailout a good development. Many who were being owed salary arrears were before now wondering how they would get money to celebrate the Eid-Fitri festival. But as we speak, they are happy with the situation because with the release of the bailout fund, they are hopeful.Many of them trooped to their various offices happily on Friday. They were then assured by the authorities that June salary would be paid before the holiday next week. We have two days to sort that out now that we have money. The mood amongst the LGA workers in Kano as we speak is that of jubilation, our source added.The Council administrators themselves are happy with the respite they got from Governor Ganduje. According to a reliable source, the LGA bosses are glad to be able to meet the need of their workers, especially considering that it coincides with the end of the Ramadan season.To tell you we are relieved is to tell you the obvious. Some of these workers were being owed salary arrears before now. Failure to pay them their salary at the end of June would have been terrible. We were worried the bailout wouldnt come soon enough. But it did and that gave all of us something to be happy about.Workers across the state would be paid June salary before they go on holiday next week. It is a good thing that everybody will have some money to use in celebrating the end of the fasting season, he said.
ATLANTIC CITY -- Fireworks and a new Multimedia Light and Sound Show illuminated the sky at Tropicana Saturday night.

The fireworks show occurs at 10 p.m. every Saturday night through Sept. 10. If you're looking to catch another fireworks show to celebrate Independence Day, Atlantic City will light up the night sky with a show projected to start at 9:30 p.m. Monday, along with numerous other fireworks displays scheduled throughout the weekend in New Jersey.

The weekly show is produced by Fireworks by Grucci, a sixth-generation family-owned company "world-renowned for their pyrotechnic artistry and scientific innovation," according to a press release on Tropicana's web site.

The Multimedia Light and Sound Shows -- produced by Moment Factory -- consist of five fantasy-themed shows: The Illusion Show, The Sailor's Log, Pinball Magic, Fauna and The Stroll. The shows play nightly, every half hour starting at 8:30 p.m., on the boardwalk.

Both the fireworks and Multimedia Light and Sound Shows are free and can be viewed from the beach or boardwalk.

Tim Hawk may be reached at thawk@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @photogthawk. Lori M. Nichols may be reached at lnichols@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @photoglori. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
CAMDEN -- Four firefighters were treated for heat exhaustion today after battling four fires in Camden, officials said.

Emergency responders were called to the first blaze at 1120 Jackson Street, which is a vacant building, city spokesman Vincent Basara said. He did not know what time firefighters were sent to the scene.

The second fire occurred at 1832 South 6th Street, where three firefighters were transported to Cooper University Hospital for heat exhaustion, Basara said. They have been treated and released.

Emergency responders were then called to the third fire shortly before 5 p.m. to abandoned buildings at 730 and 732 on Mt. Vernon Street, Camden County spokesman Dan Keashen said. That fire, which at one point fully engulfed the two buildings, was put out at 5:57 p.m., Keashen said.

Basara said there was considerable damage when emergency responders arrived at the two-alarm fire, where part of the structure collapsed. Another firefighter, who had been at the two previous scenes, was also taken to Cooper hospital. He was "just released," Basara said at 9:45 p.m.

The fourth fire, which Basara described as small, broke out in the first floor and basement of a vacant building at 743 Walnut Street. Firefighters were alerted to the area after a neighbor flagged them down to say there was smoke coming from the building.

Officials do not know the origins of the fires, Basara said, and are unsure if they should be considered arson. Authorities do not know if the incidents are connected, he said.

No citizens have reported injuries in any of the "back-to-back-to-back" incidents, Basara said.

The Camden County Fire Marshal is investigating the incidents.

CAMDEN: 700 Blk of Mt Vernon, DWELLING, HEAVY FIRE, PHOTOS BY: John Amet pic.twitter.com/8ZK7YpcAPT  SouthJerseyFireWire (@SJFireWire) July 2, 2016

.@SJFireWire Here's how the Camden fire looked from the @Phillies game a few minutes ago; looks better now. pic.twitter.com/qHvtsKIwLg  Jim MacMillan (@JimMacMillan) July 2, 2016

Luke Nozicka may be reached at lnozicka@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @lukenozicka. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
NEW BRUNSWICK -- State prison inmates are now eligible for federal Pell grants to pay for Rutgers University courses as part of an experiment ordered by the federal government.

A new federal initiative, the Second Chance Pell pilot program, partners 67 colleges or universities nationwide with more than 100 state and federal prisons. It will help enroll about 12,000 inmates in college courses beginning this month, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Rutgers expects that at least 500 New Jersey state prison inmates will receive Pell grants, including many who are already working toward degrees while in prison without the help of federal financial aid, said Todd Clear, a criminal justice professor who will oversee the program.

While inmates in county jails and halfway houses are already eligible for Pell grants, the Second Change program is the first time federal and state prisoners are eligible since 1994, when Congress discontinued financial aid for prison inmates.

The Second Chance project targets inmates who are scheduled for release within three-to-five years, he said.

"It is in the interest of everybody to create an opportunity for these students to turn their lives around and join their peers," Clear said.

Pell grants are the federal government's core program to help low-income students attend college, and the financial assistance does not need to be paid back.

The majority of students currently receiving Pell grants nationwide come from families with an income of less than $30,000, according to federal data. Students can receive up to $5,815 for the upcoming school year depending on their financial need and the cost of the courses.

The Second Chance program will not have any significant impact on the amount of federal aid available to the more than 150,000 students currently receiving Pell grants to attend New Jersey colleges and universities, said Alberto Betancourt, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Education.

Raritan Valley Community College is also participating in the program, and inmates must earn an associate's degree from the the college before being able to enroll in Rutgers University courses, Clear said.

To participate, inmates need a high school diploma or GED along with satisfactory scores on tests that gauge college readiness, Clear said. Some inmates, including sex offenders, are not eligible for the program under state Department of Corrections rules, he said.

Inmates who are released from prison and want to attend courses on campus must go through a review process to ensure they are both socially and academically prepared, Clear said. They must apply for financial aid or work study programs to cover the remaining costs of college, he said.

A 2013 study funded by the Department of Justice found that prisoners enrolled in educational programs were 43 percent less likely to return to prison within three years than those who did not take classes.

The same study found that for every dollar spent, four to five dollars are saved.

The Obama administration was able to restart the program, which had been discontinued in 1994, without legislative approval for the grants because the Department of Education has the power to experiment with pilot programs.

"That data is already conclusive," said Sen. Cory Booker, who supported Rutgers' application for the program. "We know that this works."

Booker said he hopes the pilot program will generate more data that can be used to show that educating prisoners reduces recidivism and saves taxpayer money, he said.

If so, he will push Congress to fully reinstate Pell grants to inmates, he said.

"Whether you are fiscally conservative or driven by moral values, this is the right way to go," Booker said.

Hundreds of state prison inmates in New Jersey are already enrolled in college courses through a program called the New Jersey Scholarship and Transformative Education in Prisons Consortium.

The privately-funded program headquartered on the Rutgers-Newark campus provides courses for inmates that are accepted at a number of public and private universities across the state, including Princeton University.

About 5 percent of the former inmates who have participated in the state program have been arrested again, Clear said.

In a visit to Rutgers-Newark last year, President Obama praised the NJ-STEP program.

"We need to make sure Americans who paid their debt to society can earn a second chance," he said at the time.

Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on twitter at @realAdamClark. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
"It's Not a Perfect World But I'll Take It: 50 Life Lessons for Teens Like Me -- Who Are Kind of (You Know) Autistic"



By Jennifer Rose



(Skyhorse Publishing, 116 pp, $12.99)

Jennifer Rose is a promising writer with a great eye and a keen sense of humor. She is not, though, simply a promising autistic writer with a great eye and a keen sense of humor.

Rose, of Morristown, has written this slim book of life lessons in the form of short essays. The essays are fine, albeit a tad repetitive. The repetition is the book's main problem, but the most obvious flaw is a 23-word title. It's ungainly and smacks of a certain cynicism on the publisher's part: Are they fearful people with autism and those who love them would not buy the book unless this never-ending title were on the cover?

Rose has a great point of view, an excellent sense of herself, which gives her what many writers search decades for -- a unique voice. Rather than guide her a little, this felt as if she were left too much on her own. How else to explain the repetition? Either Rose needed to live more then write more, or challenge herself with different pieces. Either way an editor needed to step in.

Still, her essays are heartbreakingly pure and if you can somehow dislike this young woman I definitely do not need to know you.

In Lesson 25, "Celebrate Autistic Kids Without Celebrating Autism" Rose writes:

"You should celebrate an autistic kids accomplishments, but you shouldn't really celebrate a disability. When we celebrate the achievements of Franklin D. Roosevelt, we celebrate the things he did despite having polio. We don't celebrate polio itself. After all, when we celebrate a disability, we forget the burdens it imposes on people."



Rose was diagnosed with autism when she was 4. Her loving parents are tireless advocates for her and her younger sister, who also has autism.

When Rose writes about her dreams of show business, she very much sounds like every other girl drawn to the glittery life. The first person she quotes is Tyra Banks: "The road to success is not a straight line, it's a zigzag line." And that marks Rose as a very typical tween and teen.

A book of 50 very heartfelt essays from the author, who has autism, a sly wit and great determination.

What makes her special is that she does something about it. She writes and uses her fine imagination. I can't say her recommendations, such as for acting, are on the money when she tells people in Rule 1: "Live in an 'acting place' like Hollywood or New York. You know, not Morristown, New Jersey." And she goes on in Rule 3 and 6 to say to not live in New Jersey. It's amusing but remember many young actors, including Anne Hathaway, came out of New Jersey.

If Rose were not as likeable as she is, the repetition would be more annoying. In Lesson 27 " ... meanwhile, enjoy what you have" she writes about getting angry at a classmate so her mom suggested focusing on being a happier person. Rose set out to make a list of 100 Reasons to Be Happy. This, too, becomes repetitive with six separate "Diary of A Wimpy Kid" books and the movie.



I'm doubtful I could come up with 100 separate reasons to be happy, but perhaps the editor could have suggested reducing the list. This was one of those essays that made this feel more like random notes from someone's computer than a polished book.

Rose knows how much her parents love her and in a very mature essay, she writes:

"For example, a lot of parents of autistic children divorce -- 80 percent the last time I checked. Meanwhile, Mom and Dad have one of the best marriages of the twenty-first century."

She's a sweet, determined young woman who has made it to college. Rose understands when she is overwhelmed and has learned many coping skills along the way.

And she helps us understand what goes on inside the head of an autistic girl; how she can get too upset to deal but has learned to do so with the guidance and patience of her parents and doctors and ultimately herself.

"Throughout college, I've had some really busy days. What I've learned about them is I can't always adjust life; sometimes I need to adjust myself to life instead and make sure to include the things that will help me deal with the stress."



That may sound simple as many truths do. It's also wise and excellent advice, worth hewing to whether one is autistic or not.
Jersey City unveils new fire trucks 6-24-15

Ten residents were relocated late last night after a fire broke out in the Bergen-Lafayette section of the city, officials say.

JERSEY CITY -- Ten residents were relocated late last night after a fire broke out in the Bergen-Lafayette section of the city, officials said.

At about 11:30 p.m., firefighters were called to 130 Grant Avenue -- between Bergen Avenue and Martin Luther King Drive -- for a roof fire at a three-story home, city spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill said.

The one-alarm fire was placed under control in about 15 minutes, she said.

No injuries were reported, and the cause of the fire remains under investigation.

Ten residents in the building are staying with family members after the fire, Morrill said.


CLINTON TWP. - The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection's Division of Fish and Wildlife announced Friday that a routine dye test will take place at Round Valley Reservoir beginning Tuesday.

The test is being done by the New Jersey Water Supply Authority as part of routine dam monitoring, according to a news release.

The active ingredients in this dye fall into the lowest toxicity category for fish, mammals, and invertebrates (practically nontoxic), according to the release. Both red and green dyes will be used in distinct locations along the dams over several days and are anticipated to dissipate rapidly.
fwBLOGhorizonal.jpg

(Painting by Fran Wood)

Julian Fellowes' "Belgravia" (Grand Central Publishing, 352 pp., $26) captures the British aristocracy, though it's set a century earlier (in the years following the Napoleonic wars) than his long-running Masterpiece series "Downton Abbey."

As a supplier of food and goods to British troops, James Trenchard and his family are residing in Brussels in the weeks prior to the Battle of Waterloo. A social climber, James' indispensability to the military gets him, his wife and daughter Sophie invited to the Duchess of Richmond's legendary ball - an event that will go down in history because of the evening's merriments having been interrupted by news that Napoleon's troops are amassing nearby.

Two disparate families will be among the legions irrevocably impacted by that storied battle - the aristocratic Earl and Countess of Brockenhurst, whose only child and heir, Edmund Bellasis, will lose his life in the battle's early hours, and the merchant-class Trenchards, whose daughter Sophia will die during childbirth nine months later.

Having requested and been granted permission by her father to marry Sophia, Edmund and Sophia are secretly wed in a private ceremony the day before the ball. But as the soldiers ride off, Sophia realizes she's been duped when she spots Edmund joking with a fellow officer she recognizes as the supposed cleric. It will be some weeks before she discovers she's with child and the family will be back in England before she tells her mother.

Knowing a child out of wedlock not only will ruin her daughter but destroy her husband's livelihood, Anne Trenchard takes Sophia to "visit relatives" in the north of England, where the girl dies giving birth to a baby boy.

Trenchard safeguards their shameful secret by providing funds for the child to be reared in the home of a clergyman and his wife, and no one is the wiser.

Fast-forward 25 years. Trenchard has prospered in post-war England as a builder of town homes for the nouveau riche in posh Belgravia Square. His wife - though indifferent to London society - is routinely invited to teas, often hosted by the occupants of those homes. At one such event, she meets the late Edmund's aunt and soon is approached by his mother, Lady Brockenhurst, who inquires about her time in Brussels. When Anne informs her that she knew Edmund, the woman presses her for any memories she can share. Anne tells her only that Edmund was a frequent guest in their home and that she liked him.

Haunted by the woman's sadness, Anne later decides she has a right to know they have a common grandchild. But when she calls on her, she is shaken by the woman's reaction to the news. Lady Brockenhurst calls Sophia a slut and worse, implying Sophia attempted to entrap Edmund.

As the knowledge she has a grandchild settles, however, Lady Brockenhurst becomes obsessed with getting to know him. She seeks out the enterprising merchant and invites him to a party, to which she also invites the Trenchards. The latter fear the secret they have spent two decades to protect will finally sully their daughter's reputation and ruin them financially and socially.

Only slightly more ancillary to the plot than in "Downton Abbey," there is also a downstairs to this story. (When did Fellowes not give his fans a downstairs?) Personality-wise, the butler and housekeeper at first seem carbon copies of the stuffy Carson and the even-tempered Mrs. Hughes - but no, there are notable differences.

Fellowes, in his usual, smooth style, weaves in several engaging subplots - the jealousy of Sophia's brother over the handsome young merchant in whom his parents have taken such an interest, the reckless behavior of his attention-seeking wife, intrigues carried out by disloyal servants engaged by the Brockenhursts' nephew and heir, and more.

This is a great read for "Downton Abbey" fans and just what the doctor ordered for anyone still afflicted with the blues following the finale (sob!) of America's favorite PBS Masterpiece series.

Fran Wood, retired op-ed columnist and books editor for The Star-Ledger, blogs at nj.com.
Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange has "expanded" to the African continent with giraffes. The African Adventure Exhibit, located behind the Animal Hospital and Train Station, opened May 17 and features four Masai giraffes, eland, whistling ducks, ostrich and tortoises.

"Of all the new natural habitat-themed exhibits and attractions we have introduced through the years at Turtle Back, the African Adventure Exhibit with our four giraffes probably has created more excitement among the community and our visitors," said Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo Jr.

All of the giraffes are of the Masai subspecies, which are typically found in southern Kenya and Tanzania, are the largest subspecies of giraffes and are the tallest land mammals. Current estimates by the Giraffe Conservation Foundation put the giraffe population at about 80,000, which is down from 140,000 in 1999. Giraffes are endangered because they often are victims of poaching. Turtle Back Zoo is now among 29 zoos accredited by the Association of Zoos.

The giraffes enjoy a barn specifically constructed for them, which incorporates some of the latest features for the care of the species, putting Essex County at the forefront of zoological design, according to Dr. Jon Bergmann, Turtle Back's veterinarian. The structure includes floor and ceiling heating, a large roaming area for indoor exercise, a mezzanine level to put caretakers at head level, and a padded "squeeze" pen, which keeps the animals stable during examinations, equipped with removable panels allowing access up and down the giraffe's lofty frame.

For more information, visit turtlebackzoo.com.

For more news and features about healthy living, click here.
TRENTON - For nearly a year, the Attorney General's Office has refused to release the names of three officers involved in the shooting of 14-year-old Radazz Hearns last year - but that could soon change.

On Thursday, Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson ruled on a lawsuit brought forward by activist John Paff last year; she ordered the office to publicly release the names of the officers involved in the Aug. 7 incident.

Hearns was shot seven times in the buttocks and legs while running from police. Police claimed he pointed a gun at them and the teenager was later charged with aggravated assault, possession of a handgun and possession of a defaced firearm.

An investigative document obtained by NJ Advance Media named State Police Detective Doug Muraglia and Mercer County Sheriff's Officer James Udijohn as the officers who ran after and fired at Hearns. The document said State Police Trooper Blair Astbury arrived at the scene but did not chase Hearns.

The names were published in the Trenton Times two months after the shooting but the Attorney General's Office still stayed mum on the topic - refusing to confirm whether the three officers were involved.

That didn't sit well with Paff, who sued the Attorney General's Office, the Mercer County Sheriff's Office and New Jersey State Police last year, demanding that they release the names publicly. The leak of the three names in October was just a rumor, he said.

"I wanted confirmation from the Attorney General's Office," Paff said Saturday after Jacobson's decision. "The public needs to have enough information about what law enforcement is doing in order to hold law enforcement accountable."

A representative for the Attorney General's Office was not available for comment Saturday.

In her decision, Jacobson also considered two lawsuits brought forth by activist and former West New York police officer Richard Rivera.

In one, Rivera was calling for New Jersey State Police to release the names of officers involved in the fatal shooting of 35-year-old Daniel Wolfe last spring. Wolfe was shot by police who were pursuing the stolen car he was driving, authorities have said.

In the other suit, Rivera demanded state police release records, including arrest forms, related to a concert that turned violent last summer. Police clashed with concert-goers and used pepper spray, tear gas and armored vehicles to subdue the crowd, according to court documents.

Jacobson grouped the suits together in her decision, saying that they, "touch upon topics of great national importance and public debate."

But, she added, the state is right in their concern for officer safety if the names are released.

In the end, Jacobson said she had to follow the exact language of New Jersey's public records laws and ordered the names of the officers to be released by July 20.

For Paff, the decision is an important step in bringing more transparency to police departments.

"It's starting to become unclear to people whether civilians are in charge of police or police are in charge of civilians," Paff said.

"We have a responsibility to bring this around."

Anna Merriman may be reached at amerriman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @anna_merriman Find The Times of Trenton on Facebook.
With Friday's severe thunderstorms behind them, beachgoers flocked to the Jersey Shore on Saturday as Fourth of July weekend kicked off with plenty of sunshine and mostly blue skies.

New York City resident Karen Franz arrived at the beach in Asbury Park with her 7-year-old daughter, Edith, by 10 a.m.

"We come here as many summer weekends as we can. It's fun, it's a close trip from the city, with lots of good food and lots of good restaurants and just a fun crowd here," said Franz, as Edith was searching for sand crabs on the beach. "We'll be back here tomorrow."

Asbury Park residents Heather and Ryan Collins spent Saturday morning at the beach with their 4-year-old son, Lucas, and 2-year-old daughter, Sydney, before going to a barbeque with all of their neighbors.

"It's nice to see Asbury Park coming along with the crowds and all of the kids," Heather Collins said of the crowded beaches near Convention Hall. "The more the merrier."

North Brunswick resident Jackie Jefferys spent Saturday morning with a group of friends on the beach in Asbury Park.

"Fourth of July weekend is time for celebration, so you want to be with your friends," said Jefferys, 28. "The plans for the rest of the day are just enjoying the beach and getting drinks at one of the beach bars or McLoone's."

Rob Spahr may be reached at rspahr@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TheRobSpahr. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
UPDATE: As of Sunday afternoon, the hotel is now accepting bookings for July 4 and beyond. Earlier today, the site indicated bookings were unavailable through July 17.

ATLANTIC CITY -- A strike by employees at Trump Taj Mahal has entered its third day with no apparent plans in the works to renew negotiations.

Workers with Unite-HERE Local 54 walked off the job Friday morning as efforts to reach a contract failed. Four other casinos reached last-minute agreements with the union ahead of the busy July 4 weekend at the resort.

The nearly 1,000 striking Taj Mahal employees include servers, cooks, luggage handlers and housekeeping staff.

As of this morning, the picket line remains strong and strikers are upbeat, said union spokesman Ben Begleiter.

He also reported a supportive attitude from many Atlantic City visitors. "There are lots of customers who are choosing not to cross the line," Begleiter said.

About 300 to 400 picketers are out this morning, stationed at three locations around the sprawling Taj Mahal property.

The major sticking points in the contract dispute appear to be restoring heath care and pension benefits that were terminated during the casino's 2014 bankruptcy filing. The lost benefits issue was specific to Taj Mahal workers and was not a factor in recent negotiations with other casinos, Local 54 officials confirmed.

Taj Mahal workers went on strike, "to fight for decent wages, basic benefits, and the future of their middle class livelihoods," the union said in a Friday announcement of the action.

As for future negotiations to settle the stalemate, "There is nothing scheduled that I know of," Begleiter reported.

The casino, once owned by Donald Trump, is now owned by billionaire investor Carl Icahn. The Taj Mahal has remained open, though hotel bookings are unavailable through July 17, according to its website.

An employee working the front check-in desk told the Associated Press that no rooms would be available through next week because of the strike.

The last strike by Local 54 took place in 2004 and lasted 34 days, according to the Associated Press.

@UHLocal54 I tried shaming #whitesnake on Twitter for crossing the picket and he BLOCKED me. Can you toss him some extra shame for me plz?  Josh Rosenbaum (@joshrosenbaum24) July 3, 2016

Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattGraySJT. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook.
By Chris Christie

For 61/2 years, I have been able to effectively ignore the liberal, fact-twisting rantings of The Star-Ledger editorial board. But the stakes of this debate on property taxes and urban education are too great to ignore the newspaper's latest emotional screed against my Fairness Formula.

On property taxes, our residents pay the highest in the nation. Why? First, our school funding formula has allocated grossly disproportionate amounts to 31 School Development Authority districts for 30-plus years. Second, urban municipal governments spend disproportionately compared with most other local governments in the state. Third, union dominance of work rules costs taxpayers a fortune.

Ninety-seven billion dollars in taxpayer money has been given to 31 SDA districts over 30 years. Eighty-eight billion dollars has been divided among all the other 546 districts over the same time period. All that money -- just from state income tax payers -- for a 66 percent graduation rate in Asbury Park, a 63 percent rate in Camden and a 69 percent rate in Newark.

The Star-Ledger justifies that failure by saying we are better than other states.

But while The Star-Ledger may define this as "success," I don't. And here is the real truth: The overwhelming number of those "graduates" need remedial training for at least a year to even sit in a college classroom. Those diplomas are an illusion, and that failed system, they say, we must pour more money into it every year.

It is a system that urban parents and students are trying to run away from every year by the thousands. For example, more than 1,330 applicants were turned away from admission into the Paterson Charter School of Science and Technology because there were only 99 spots available. Yet, the unions and their servants in the Legislature continue to make it harder for students and their parents to escape the failing urban classrooms.

BIG DIFFERENCE IN SPENDING

The Star-Ledger complains that the SDA districts don't have the money in their property tax base to fund their schools. But let's look at the numbers. The average New Jersey town spends 52 percent of its property taxes on schools; the SDA districts just 26 percent. If the state blindly pays a disproportionate share of operating those schools, then why should SDA property tax payers feel any obligation to pay more? Yet, there is no mention from The Star-Ledger's editorial page about the failure to fairly fund these SDA schools with local property tax dollars.

Furthermore, the editorial page writers complain about higher property tax rates in SDA districts. However, they do not explain that one big reason those rates are so high is that the average amount of property taxes spent on municipal government in the SDA districts is 54 percent. In all other districts, the figure is 30 percent. The higher municipal spending in SDA districts is not just for police and fire costs, although those costs are higher than they should be. Those districts also grow bloated local governments and use them as a patronage mill. As a result, they choose to neglect funding their school systems because they get away with it.

COMMUNITIES MUST MAKE A CHOICE

It is often said that budgets are evidence of your priorities. In the SDA districts they speak loudly: Education is half as important as it is to the rest of the state (if someone else is willing to pay), and big local government is nearly twice as important as is it to the rest of New Jersey. Those are the numbers and they are beyond dispute.

Liberals like the editorial board of The Star-Ledger continue to believe -- 30 years of evidence to the contrary notwithstanding -- that pouring money into a demonstrably failed system is an essential element to any salvation for our failed urban education system. They cite Newark charter schools' success sending Newark children to college. Yet they fail to explain how they do it at one-half to two-thirds the cost of the failed traditional public schools without the handcuffs put on them by the Democratic Legislature they endorse or the failed public educators they quote such as Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. Layoffs based on seniority rather than merit. A strangling tenure system that requires us to pay awful teachers in the SDA districts not to teach. And those are just two examples of the madness.

And on that charter school success? It is this administration that has focused charter growth on the SDA districts to give parents a choice. It is this administration that has nearly doubled the number of charter school seats to give those urban children a chance to reach their full potential. A real chance; not just more money thrown at failure to assuage liberal guilt. We are proud of that record of empowering poor families to choose schools for their children regardless of their income.

Liberal apologists in New Jersey have turned a knowing blind eye to the failure of urban education. What we need to do is obvious and isn't about money. Let's provide vouchers for poor families to make choices for what is best for their children; reform LIFO (last in, first out) hiring policies and demand higher standards. Let's stop opposition to testing and stop opposition to more charter school seats. Let's demand accountability from bad teachers and merit pay for good ones.

Washing your hands of guilt with even more taxpayer money hasn't effectively educated our urban children.

STANDING UP FOR FAIRNESS

As for that childish Star-Ledger "dare" that I promote the Fairness Formula in an SDA district, I say this: I have spent as much or more time in Newark and other cities discussing and debating issues that affect our urban centers and our citizens than any governor in recent history, including this past week in Paterson. I will continue to do so.

We have enacted economic incentives that have led to the economic growth we are seeing in our cities like Newark and Camden. We have enacted Renaissance schools to give parents even more choice. We have supported responsible local mayors including Camden's Dana Redd, Union City's Brian Stack and Cory Booker, former Newark mayor, with regular assistance during difficult times. We have increased the earned income tax credit for our working poor to record levels. We have ended a bail system that discriminated against the poor and we have increased the availability of drug rehabilitation and second chances through enhanced prisoner re-entry programs.

The "dare" has already been met by this administration. We have produced real results through bold action -- not just inaccurate attacks based on failed liberal orthodoxy and tossed from safely behind a laptop. It must be comfortable never being held accountable for the failures of the very policies you advocate.

Chris Christie is governor of New Jersey.
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WASHINGTON (AP)  The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has issued a subpoena to Donald Trump. The nine-member panel sent a letter to the former president's lawyers on Friday, demanding his testimony under oath by mid-November and outlining a series of corresponding documents. The decision by lawmakers to exercise their subpoena power comes a week after the committee made its final case against the former president, who they say is the "central cause" of the multi-part effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election. It remains unclear how Trump and his legal team will respond to the subpoena, if at all.
The Iowa Supreme Court on Thursday upheld  by a slim 4-3 margin  that convicted felons are permanently stripped of their voting rights, except for those who successfully petition the governor.

With the decision, Iowa retains its dubious position of being alongside Kentucky and Florida as having the tightest restrictions on felons right to vote. Only these three states have automatic lifetime bans, with approval by the governor the lone way for felons to regain these rights.

Now, we agree that some felony convictions should absolutely lead to the revocation of voting rights. In particular, felonies that undermine the American democratic system  such as political corruption or treason  are prime examples. Other charges such as murder and kidnapping that come with automatic life sentences are, in essence, a lifetime ban.

Our qualms with the current system are raised by stories like that of the southeastern Iowa woman on whose behalf the case was brought to court.

Kelli Jo Griffin, of Montrose in Lee County, was convicted on a nonviolent felony drug charge. Her crime wasnt one that injured innocent bystanders or tilted the political system in her favor.

Yet, unless Griffin applies for reinstatement and has her application approved by Gov. Terry Branstad, she remains one of more than 56,000 Iowa felons  nearly 2 percent of the states total population  unable to cast a ballot in any election. Furthermore, only about 100 convicted felons have seen their rights restored annually since Branstads return to Terrace Hill in 2011, according to the Associated Press.

If the true intent of the penal system is, in fact, to reform criminals, we struggle to see why those who have paid their dues to society  particularly in the case of nonviolent offenders locked up on drug and theft charges  are unable to fully participate in that same society.

The ability to vote is a sacred thing in the United States, one that was for far too long denied to far too many Americans based on their gender or race. Iowa is instead unduly disenfranchising an entire minority population within the state through a blanket rule.

Instead, the two obstacles that block felons full reintegration into the political process remain. We encourage Branstad and lawmakers to take a closer look at the hurdles that linger, as voting rights are a critical piece of democracy in this country.
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Good thing Ford keeps harping about how good this is for Toronto.Torontos Pride Festival evolves into economic powerhouseOn the day before Torontos annual Pride Festival, Cafe California manager Vince Moneva sat in his restaurant, talking excitedly about what the event means to his business.The festival is a big draw for the downtown area annually, and this year promises to be significantly bigger as Toronto hosts WorldPride, expecting a 66-per-cent increase in attendance.The Pride Festival, which began Friday night and runs through to next Sunday, with the annual parade, means a lot to the bottom line of independent businesses such as Cafe California.Pride Week represents our profit for the year, said Mr. Moneva, who has managed the establishment with his wife Leticia since 1988, with as many sales during the week as in a busy month.If it wasnt for Pride, we wouldnt be able to survive.Prides economic weight has grown with its popularity, now a 10-day festival expected to draw nearly 2 million visitors, with concerts from Melissa Etheridge, Carly Rae Jepsen, and Tegan and Sara, and sponsors like Toronto-Dominion Bank, Air Canada, and Telus Corp.SPONSORED CONTENTOne big thing Canada could learn from Saudi ArabiaPride Toronto, the non-profit organizer of the festival, estimates that the 2013 economic impact was $286-million, and that this year will be significantly bigger.Its a huge event economically, said Sean Hillier, co-chair for Pride Toronto, citing a study commissioned from market researcher Research House that indicates the festival created 3,470 jobs and generated $61-million in tax revenue in 2013.David Roberts, a lecturer at the University of Toronto who teaches a course on cities and mega-events, agreed the festival is an economic powerhouse, though suggested the estimates were high.He also argued the festival means a lot for the citys image. It shows they can host large events, he said in an interview. It fits Torontos brand image as a tolerant and diverse city.Andrew Weir, vice-president for Tourism Toronto, said the growth of Pride is something to be excited about,One of the most encouraging things about Pride is how it stretches across the city, he said. Its not just a parade.Scott Dagostino, the manager of Glad Day Bookshop, described Pride as our Christmas, adding the store makes three times as many sales during the event. For Glad Day, its a welcome boost.This year has been kind of bad, he said of the struggling bookselling industry. To be honest, Pride kind of rescues us.While Pride Week is not an economic cure-all for businesses in the area, there is some reliance on the festivals economic impact to fend off the rapidly rising rents that have closed a number of shops.It makes the steady growth of Pride that much more important for the businesses that depend on it.While Pride cant always be expected to have the resources of World Pride, theres pressure to deliver, Mr. Weir said.We have to make sure that [World Pride] sets a new floor, that we keep some of the equity weve built up in the festival. We have to make sure its always World Pride here.Follow us on Twitter: @GlobeBusinessTwo million expected to attend WorldPride festival in Toronto
Happy 4th of July to all my American friends!



P.S. As a citizen of the world, I have to apologize about the British. They are very selfish and expect all the attention. This is a picture of one to keep them quiet.
Perhaps you already knew that Cedar Lake was a popular resort town a century ago. Passenger trains frequently took riders on excursions to Cedar Lake resorts, where they would resort to  wait for it  "drunken orgies" at one site, according to a July 3, 1918, story in The Lake County Times.

It was a big news day, with Socialist Eugene V. Debs indicted by a federal grand jury for violating the federal espionage act. Debs had run for president repeatedly as the Socialist Party candidate.

There was a big auto crash involving a train and an auto, "when practically an entire family was wiped out."

And "Superintendent Carr of the Gary Screw and Bolt was painfully injured" when his auto crashed into an interurban car near Woodville Junction, north of Valparaiso.

But the biggest news of all was about hanky panky in Cedar Lake.

"CEDAR LAKE RESORTS DRUNKEN ORGIES," screamed the top headline on the front page that day.

"SHOCKING CONDITIONS REVEALED BY DOCTOR," one of the headlines proclaimed. "Near-Nude Women Revel In Woods, Immoral Creates Imported. Soldiers Victims of Theirs," the subhead below it teased.

It was quite a story. It told of "two drunken women, practically destitute of clothing," dancing in the woods at the east end of the lake.

Dr. John Iddings, a Lowell surgeon and chairman of the Cedar Creek Township Defense Council, testified before the Lake County Defense Council that "any one who wanted whiskey at Cedar Lake could get it without trouble."

This was before Prohibition, mind you, but Indiana had passed a "dry" law, and the Indiana Supreme Court had just upheld it. That story appeared on the same page.

Iddings said 15 prostitutes in the past two weeks had been transported to the lake, "and the resort was being run wide open."

The doctor treated a number of soldiers for "loathsome disease contracted at the Cedar Lake resorts," the story said.

One innkeeper was jailed after an intoxicated motorist returning home drove into a ditch and another into a telephone pole.

The Lake County Defense Council was incensed.

"John Perry, chairman of the Center Township council, said that if Sheriff Barnes and Prosecutor Hunter didn't get busy he would lead torches to clean out the dumps," the story said. "The council sent out to find Sheriff Barnes, but he was reported to be in Gary. One of the most shameless of the resorts is what was known as Moriarty's place."

Today, Cedar Lake is a much quieter town. It still welcomes tourists, but not in the same way as 98 years ago, at least according to this July 3, 1918, story from The Times' archives.
GARY  Jenn Addo took a year off medical school, not to backpack Europe or climb the Himalayan mountains  but to attend Harvard.

In May, the Indiana University Northwest student was awarded her master's degree in public health from the Ivy League university. This summer, she finished doing clinical rotations in Northwest Indiana and is heading to Indianapolis for her last year of med school.

When she was an undergrad, Addo got the itch to study public health while doing humanitarian work in Ghana, the west African country her parents emigrated to the U.S. from (she grew up in Georgia). She outfitted a local hospital with electronic fetal monitors, but soon realized they wouldn't do much good since many women live in rural hospitals far away from the facility.

She concluded that improving outcomes in Ghana will require an overhaul of the entire health care system.

"I realized that medicine doesn't solve all of the issues," said Addo, 25. "It definitely solves a portion of the issues but not all, and definitely not on a population level."

Addo applied to IU School of Medicine in 2012 after earning her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan. She was placed at the IUN campus in Gary. She's glad she was.

She liked the small class sizes and all the face time she was able to get with local doctors. She did rotations in Dyer, Gary, Portage and Merrillville. She hopes to become an obstetrician-gynecologist.

Pat Bankston, dean of the medical school at IUN, sees big things in Addo's future. "I predict that she's going to be a tour-de-force when it comes to public health," he said.

Addo hopes to one day practice in an underserved urban area similar to Gary. She also wants to work on improving health education. She gave the example of a patient during one of her rotations who refused to take insulin for gestational diabetes because her sister told her it wasn't good for her.

"To gain back trust, you have to involve the community," she said. "When a big initiative is taking place or policies are being developed, it's important you have community members sitting at the roundtable."

Her ultimate goal is to one day set up a clinic in Ghana.

"I'd like to potentially work with its Ministry of Health to help with changing the constructs of the health care system," she said. "It's big plans, but it starts with a dream."
Conor Knighton didn't take the easy route when he proposed a "CBS Sunday Morning" story on the National Park Service's centennial.

His idea approved, he's in the midst of a yearlong journey to spend time in each of the 59 national parks. His "On the Trail" reports air every two weeks, and today's piece about Depression-era park improvements will be the show's cover story.

Knighton, 35, gave up his Los Angeles-area apartment, put his belongings in storage and is spending much of the year in budget motels and a Subaru provided by the segment's sponsor. And he swears that he's loving it.

"When I'm at these parks, I constantly have to remind myself that 99 percent of the people who are there are on vacation," he said by phone from outside Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. "They planned a year for this. And I'm there for work?"

His goal was to avoid the sort of stories you might see at a park's visitors' center, realizing they would quickly become boring.

Knighton began his journey by hiking in the dark on New Year's Day to a mountaintop in Maine's Acadia National Park to catch the first rays of sun to hit the U.S. mainland in 2016. He produced a story about what happens to a park, and the surrounding communities, during the desolate offseason.

He's donned scuba gear to examine underwater shipwrecks in Florida's Key Biscayne, shown how time has changed the appeal of the hot springs in Arkansas and detailed the competition for tourists' attention at caves in Kentucky. One story examined overcrowding in Utah's four national parks, although Knighton concluded, "There are worse places to be stuck in traffic."

"It's a very weird headspace to be in," he said, "because I'm constantly trying to experience the park where I am, I'm writing a piece for a park that I visited two months ago, and I'm planning a piece for a park that I'm visiting two months from now."

Rand Morrison, executive producer of "CBS Sunday Morning," acknowledged some skepticism but praised Knighton for delivering interesting stories. Getting a sponsor calmed worries about how much it would cost.

"It helps that he was willing to basically camp out for the year," Morrison said. "We're hardly spending lavishly."

Knighton said one of the saddest moments came "when I realized it made financial sense to sign up for the Chili's rewards program." He's been trying to sample native cuisine and, since most dishes are bad for him, hiking a lot to keep weight off.

He drives to most destinations  parks in Alaska, Hawaii, the Virgin Island and American Samoa are exceptions  and travels only with a cinematographer.

"I'm at peak '90s music knowledge right now, because that's the only station (we) ... can agree on," he said.

Knighton said he's enjoyed getting to know lesser-known parks, like the rock-climbing mecca Black Canyon in Colorado, and is eager to go to American Samoa.

"Half the work is done for me because I'm just mentioning that they exist, and for half of the country, that is news," he said.

Knighton said he knows how he wants to wrap up his year, but is keeping that a secret. While his plan was to be out for a year, Morrison is a little more flexible. He said he's willing to cut it short if he feels the stories have run their course, or even go longer.

"It hasn't run out of gas yet," Morrison said.
INDIANAPOLIS  The Indiana Court of Appeals appears to have definitely resolved a Crown Point property ownership dispute that has lingered in courts for a quarter century.

At issue are three vacant lots in an industrial area that were purchased for $541 by the late Kathryne Borchert at a 1988 Lake County tax sale after the original owner of the properties, Gregory Schafer, stopped paying taxes on them in 1984.

According to court records, Schafer asked the Lake County auditors office about the lots in 1991 and was told they had been sold to Borchert, who received a tax deed for the land in 1989.

Schafer then clouded Borcherts title to the land by attempting to transfer it to other individuals, which could not be completed since Borchert was the owner, court records indicate.

Borchert sued Schafer on May 28, 1991, to firmly eliminate Schafers claim to the land. Schafer countersued, asking the court to set aside the results of the 1988 tax sale.

The case was transferred to Newton County where various procedural maneuvers, motions for dismissal, a failed attempt at mediation, numerous status hearings and repeated continuances reminiscent of a Dickens novel kept the case unresolved  until a trial finally was held in 2015.

In court, Schafer claimed the tax sale to Borchert on Oct. 3, 1988, was invalid because notice was mailed to him only 20 days prior to the sale, not the 21 days required by the law in effect at that time.

Newton Circuit Judge Jeryl Leach rejected Schafers argument by finding that the auditor substantially complied with the statute, and declared the estate of Borchert, who died in 1997, the rightful owner of the land.

The judge noted the extra day would have made no difference as Schafer still would not have received notice and been able to protect his interest in the properties, since he did not correct his address on file with the auditor after moving in 1986 to Porter County from Lake County.

The appeals court, in its 3-0 ruling, effectively removed all doubt that Borchert owns the land after determining the auditors office actually complied  not just substantially complied  with the 21-day notice requirement.

Appeals Judge Robert Altice Jr. said Schafer and Leach incorrectly tallied 20 days by counting from the day after the tax sale notice was mailed, when the law required them to count backward 21 days from the day prior to the Oct. 3 tax sale.

Properly applying Trial Rule 6(A) to the statute at hand establishes as a matter of law that the notice mailed on Sept. 12, 1988, was timely, Altice said.

Schafer still can request the Indiana Supreme Court review the appellate decision.
EAST CHICAGO  The City Council is questioning how a tattoo shop opened recently at the corner of Chicago and Tod avenues without the council's approval.

Council President Juda Parks said a previous tattoo shop that opened in the city had to come before the City Council and the Planning and Building Departments.

"I'm not understanding why this company was able to open without going through all that," Parks said.

He requested that City Clerk Adrian Santos send a letter to the Planning and Building Departments to find out how the Black Diamond tattoo shop was able to open without coming before the council.

Councilman Robert Garcia, D-5th, asked that a letter be sent to the building department regarding another matter involving the new business.

"They have signage outside on the sidewalk," Garcia said.

Council Attorney Stephen Bower said the council in 2013 adopted an ordinance that regulates tattoo parlors.

He said none were in operation in the city at the time the ordinance was adopted.

Alberto Vasquez, owner of Evil Ways Tattoos at 805 W. Chicago Ave., said his business has operated in the city for three years.

He said he was told told his shop could not have residences above or around it and said he wants to see the new tattoo store held to the same standards.

The City Council also discussed the recent investigation conducted by consultant Tom Dabertin regarding the alleged theft of tires by an employee of the Public Works Department.

That employee resigned earlier this year.

Garcia said the investigation should have been conducted by an outside agency instead of by a human resources consultant paid by the administration.

Garcia made a motion to request that Dabertin provide the council with a copy of his investigation. Garcia's motion was approved by a 6-2 vote.

Councilwoman Christine Vasquez, D-4th, abstained from voting on the matter.

"I'm in favor of just getting the facts so that we as a council know whether a crime occurred or it didn't," Councilman Richard Medina, D-at-large, said.
CEDAR LAKE  The Hanover Community School Corp. is now outsourcing its pool of substitute staff with a decision handed down by the School Board.

The board approved an agreement with Professional Services Group of Indiana, LLC. Substitutes for any position will now be obtained through the company, which has offices throughout Indiana and the rest of the country.

Business Services Director Eric Kurtz said the substitutes currently on deck in Hanover may apply to work with PSG and the background checks already conducted through Hanover may be used during that process.

Hanovers sub pool is not currently a large one, and it is hoped that working with PSG will give Hanover access to a larger array of choices, Kurtz said. The agreement applied to most positions, save for bus drivers.

The PSG process is also automated and likely will streamline the task of finding substitutes on short notice. For example, PSG has a phone app in which teachers or other staff may input as soon as they know they wont be able to come to work. Phoning into the district first thing in the morning usually meant the Hanover often had to scramble to fill the spot before class started. PSGs automated process begins once the staff member uses the phone app, however, and staffers will have access to it on a 24-hour basis.
LOWELL  After more than four years of contemplation and planning, the Town Council has annexed the Republic Services construction and demolition landfill west of town.

The move connects the dots for the municipal leaders goal of stretching the towns boundaries to U.S. 41 and positioning themselves for growth north.

The unanimous and final decision was unchallenged although there were objections over the years.

When an earlier Town Council first began investigating the possibility of bringing the landfill, then owned by Waste Management, inside town borders, it was with the idea of not only reaching U.S. 41, but also creating a new revenue source through tipping fees.

Council President Chris Salatas, R-4, said the council has been considering tipping fees and they could become part of negotiations with the landfill owner.

Specifically, Republic already had petitioned the county to expand the landfill vertically by 9 feet, and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management has been awaiting Lowells response to that before taking its own action.

Salatas said the injection of tipping fees into the mix is a possible tool for landfill expansion talks with Republic.

Town Manager Jeff Sheridan reported the town has no ordinance on the books that would place such limitations, but state Sen. Rick Niemeyer, R-Lowell, told the council he believes the town could create a law.

Councilman Edgar Corns, R-5th, is the sole member of the current council who was on the Town Council when the annexation was first broached. Corns had opposed creating the landfill so close to the town, but once it was in suggested in 2012, he said annexing to acquire tipping fees should be investigated.
MERRILLVILLE  Town officials believe there is a need for expanded broadband service in Merrillville, and they're ready to show they won't hold up future investments in broadband infrastructure.

The Town Council recently approved the first reading of an ordinance that would help Merrillville receive a broadband ready community designation from the Indiana Economic Development Corp.

It's about time, Councilwoman Chrissy Barron said of taking efforts to show the town supports increasing broadband service in Merrillville.

Councilman Shawn Pettit said he has heard from many residents who don't have access to high-speed internet service in their neighborhoods, but they want it in their homes.

Receiving a broadband ready community certification doesn't guarantee internet providers would invest in expanding service to more locations, but it could help to encourage it, according to the IEDC. The town can receive the designation at no cost.

The ordinance associated with the certification would create broadband deployment procedures that would include appointing a person to handle all matters involving broadband development projects. The procedures also would require the town approve or deny all permit applications for such projects no longer than 10 business days after they are filed.

Town Attorney John Bushemi said adopting the ordinance could show Merrillville is a technology progressive community.

That's a plus, Bushemi said.

The measure could be adopted on second and final reading later this month.

In another matter involving the internet, Councilwoman Roxanne LaMarca announced the town has created a Facebook page.

It can be viewed by visiting www.facebook.com/TownOfMerrillville, and the town will post information there regarding community events, road closures and other matters, LaMarca said.
INDIANAPOLIS  A Merrillville native who faked his own death in 2009 while trying to escape state and federal financial fraud investigations is featured in a new documentary that warns Hoosiers about investment scams.

Marcus Schrenker did not participate in the making of "$cammed: Investment Fraud Revealed." But the story of his high-flying financial escapades, and the damage they did to his victims, comprise a sizeable portion of the 30-minute film, produced by Indiana's secretary of state, WFYI-TV and the Investor Protection Trust.

The program is set to air on public television stations and can be viewed at nwi.com.

It details how Schrenker, a 1989 Merrillville High School grad, used money entrusted to him for investments to fund his lavish lifestyle, complete with a large house in a trendy Indianapolis neighborhood, an airplane and five Lexus automobiles.

Former airline pilot Ron Johnson, of Batesville, Indiana, says in the documentary that he was lured to Schrenker by a shared love of flying.

Ultimately, Johnson would become one of 76 Schrenker clients in 10 states who lost upward of $4 million to the corrupt money manager, according to the documentary.

"I felt very betrayed by him for having done that to us. Especially considering that I treated him like a very close friend," Johnson said.

"I met his children, got to know him quite well and to think that he was doing this behind our backs, it was very hurtful."

Chris Naylor, the former Indiana securities commissioner who helped uncover Schrenker's misdeeds, said scammers often will do anything they can to build trust with potential victims.

"Like many fraudsters, Marcus Schrenker was a skilled liar," Naylor said.

Schrenker achieved national notoriety in January 2009 when he fled state and federal investigators closing in on his scams by taking off in his plane from Anderson, Indiana, and flying south.

He made a distress call over Birmingham, Alabama, telling air traffic control that his windshield had burst and he was bleeding profusely.

In fact, Schrenker had parachuted out of the plane and made his way to a pre-positioned motorcycle that he drove to a campground hideout. The plane crashed in Milton, Florida, after flying more than 200 miles with no one at the controls.

Schrenker was arrested in Florida on Jan. 13, 2009. He later pleaded guilty to federal charges of destroying an airplane and five counts of securities fraud in Indiana.

He was released from prison last September and is believed to be living in the Tallahassee, Florida, area.

Secretary of State Connie Lawson said the Schrenker case is not an isolated incident.

Every year, her office gets about 200 investment fraud complaints from Hoosiers and her securities division currently has about 60 active investigations.

"These criminals are often hard to stop," Lawson said. "These are people that lie and steal for a living, and they are good at it."

The film recommends potential investors be wary of unsolicited offers, "no risk" claims, quick deadlines on complex investments, a refusal to allow investment information to be shared with attorneys or other financial advisers and unusually consistent returns.

"I travel the state telling people about the investment fraud cases that come into our office, but hearing these stories from the victims themselves has a powerful impact," Lawson said. "Going forward, we will use this film to educate Hoosiers across the state."
WINFIELD  With the Lakes of the Four Seasons Fire Force needing a new ladder truck, the council voted recently to re-establish the cumulative fire fund levy.

Town Clerk-Treasurer Rick Anderson said Winfield had a levy for fire equipment and buildings for about eight years prior to the countys property tax freeze a few years ago. Now that the freeze is lifted, the Town Council agreed to re-establish it at the previous maximum level of 3.33 cents per $100 of assessed valuation.

Anderson said the actual budget will be set to collect about $15,000 a year, which will not require the whole 3.33 cents. The LOFS fire force has used the money mostly to buy ambulances in recent years but now needs to replace a 1991 ladder truck. Winfield Township and the West Porter Township Fire Protection District also will contribute to the cost of the truck.

Fire Chief Jeremy Campbell said the department hopes to get a demonstration model for about $750,000. Crown Point put a new 100-foot aerial truck in service this week that cost $1.1 million. The LOFS department has a total of 12 trucks at two stations.

The council also opened bids for its 2016 road paving program. Anderson said the town has a little more than $1 million to spend on road repair and maintenance, most of that from a bond issue the town plans to pay off over a five-year period.

Rieth-Riley and Walsh & Kelly were the only two bidders for the work, and the bids were taken under advisement for review by the town engineer and the town attorney and a recommendation this month. Several residents attended the meeting to complain about the condition of Decatur Street.

Deborah Yagelski, 11841 Decatur, said one of the pieces of farming equipment her family owns had a tire blow out because of the potholes on Decatur. She said the roads are a big problem for farmers equipment and for school buses using the road.

The council told her Decatur will be paved. Also, 121st Avenue from Decatur to the west town limit will be chip and sealed while 121st from Decatur to Gibson Street will be ground down and turned into a gravel road. In both cases, it will make the road easier to maintain, she was told.

Im more powerful than I thought, Yagelski said upon hearing the news.
Sessions are held in the mornings for grades kindergarten-5 from 9 to 11 a.m. and afternoons for grades 6-12 from noon to 2 p.m. All children who are enrolled in any schools or who are home schooled are welcome. Civic organizations that serve youth in LaPorte County are welcome to share the opportunity with children and families. The week-long program encourages a donation of $25 and scholarships are available based on need. Children are welcome to attend for a portion of the week to accommodate busy schedules. Parents are also invited to stay if they wish.
Chesterton High Schools radio station, WDSO-FM 88.3, will be celebrating 40 years of broadcasting this fall. Current students and alumni will be invited to celebrate this milestone on Oct. 8.

There will be a program, tours of the station, memorabilia and refreshments from 2 to 5 p.m.

WDSO will be sending out invitations to anyone who was a member of WDSO.

All alumni are welcome to attend. However, contact the station with your name and current address so that you will receive an invitation.

Call CHS at (219) 983-3730, ext. 7219, or send the information to WDSO; 2125 S. 11th St., Chesterton 46304.

On the Duneland School website you can access this information by going to Schools  Chesterton High School, then Programs & Services to the Alumni/Class Reunion page. There is also an e-mail address included where you can send the needed information.
VALPARAISO  Porter County Museum director Kevin Pazour has a new role to add to his repertoire.

In April, the Indiana Historical Society appointed Pazour Porter County historian, a role previously held by Larry Clark, head of the genealogy department at the Porter County Library.

Clark, who died in January 2016, had been county historian since 1999.

The Indiana County Historian program, created in 1981 by the Indiana Historical Society, charges county historians with being disseminators of local historical information.

We look for someone who is pretty well-versed in local history, connected with historical resources, and willing to connect people with those resources, said Jeannette Rooney, the societys assistant director of local history services. The county historian is mainly a connector.

After Clark died, the society and Pazour consulted with Porter County historical societies to generate ideas about who could take Clarks place.

The general consensus was that the role should go to Pazour.

At some point it clicked, and I felt I could do some justice in the role, Pazour said. I expressed my interest and hoped they would support me, and it was a resounding yes from all the groups. I owe them a great deal for their vote of confidence.

Pazour said he will execute the role differently than Clark, since his primary function at the museum is to promote Porter County history.

Im definitely lacking in local knowledge. I dont know as much as Larry did, Pazour said. But Ive been interested in Porter County history for a long time.

In taking Clarks place, Pazour said he has big shoes to fill.

Larry was proud of his role and very good at it, Pazour said. He was just a great guy and really did know everything. He was an encyclopedia of Porter County history.

County historians may hold the position for three-year terms, which can be renewed, Rooney said. At the end of each term, the historian must re-apply and be approved for the position.

Rooney said the same person is welcome to occupy the position, which is unpaid, as long as they are doing the best job and still willing to do it.

Its such a neat opportunity, Pazour said. Im one of the youngest, if not the youngest, (county historians) in the state of Indiana, which is really cool, said Pazour, who is 31.

Pazour said many people dont realize there are six museums in Porter County, and he vowed to promote them as well as the Porter County museum.

I was already doing that, but with a little more effort it could be that much greater, Pazour said.

Pazour said the county has many talented residents who specialize in the history of specific areas of the county, and he hopes to connect those people with others who have questions.

When we can share information we all win, Pazour said.
PORTAGE  Within the next couple of months, both Portage Police and Fire departments will be snug in their new homes.

Work is nearing completion on both projects on Central Avenue.

Portage Fire Station 3 will move from City Hall to its new station likely in early September with an operational date of Sept. 18, Fire Chief Tom Fieffer said.

The $4 million building is being completed by The Pangere Corporation of Gary.

Portage police will likely move into their new headquarters and be operational the first week of August, Police Chief Troy Williams said.

The $2.5 million project, which retrofitted the former University Center into the new police station, is being completed by Gibson-Lewis of Mishawaka, Indiana.

Fire Station

There wont be much moving from the present fire station 3 to its new facility, Fieffer said. Whats there is old and being replaced, from bedding to kitchen equipment. Only the apparatus, turnout gear and weight room equipment will make the trek east on Central Avenue to the new facility.

The new station features four bays in the 12,000-square-foot facility. The tower truck will be moved from station two on Old Porter Road, said Fieffer, to provide a more central location in the city.

The remaining bays will be filled with an engine, rescue unit and division chiefs vehilce.

The only administrative office in the new station will be for the division or turn chief. Seven personnel will initially work out of the station, but there will be room for growth. The new house can hold 12 personnel.

The new station, said Fieffer, isnt only bigger than the one it is replacing, but meets todays standards and requirements for fire station.

Theres a separate turn out gear room along with gear washers. Theres separate storage for emergency medical supplies and breathing apparatus.

The officers office is a throw back to a traditional watch office with glass windows on both sides. There are also offices for the division chief.

And, yes, there is a fire pole. The building is deceptive, Fieffer said. Technically it is three stories, but the bays take up two stories of the building. The top floor contains bunk rooms for each apparatus crew, a commercial grade kitchen and a common area.

While there is an elevator, Fieffer said on-duty firefighters wont be allowed to use it for concern of it possibly breaking down as a crew heads for a call. Theyll have to take the stairway or come down the pole.

Police Station

The new 33,000-square-foot police station is nearly triple the size of the present building on Irving Street.

Its size, Williams said, provides the department not only the space needed for today, but will serve the city for the next 50 years or more.

Contractors added a sallyport  or garage  to the northwest portion of the building. The enclosed area, Williams said will allow officers to bring suspects into the station in a secure area and straight into the booking area or interview room.

In addition to the first floor squad room and second floor detectives bureau, each specialty unit, from SWAT to K-9, reserves, crash team and animal control will have its own office.

The new facility will also resolve one of the biggest issues with the current building. An elevator will allow it to be ADA compliant.

Other highlights of the new building will include a larger lobby area which Williams said he hopes to offer as a safe place for both custody exchanges and for buyers and sellers on social media sites to meet and finalize purchases.

Another new addition is a safe room, located just inside the first interior doors. Bulletproof, Williams said, the room would allow someone to enter the station, even when it was closed, and find a safe harbor if they felt their lives were in danger. A telephone inside the room would put them in contact with police.

The facility also includes a larger training room; a space to work major cases and improved evidence storage, lab and processing areas.

The department will also provide a gym for officers, something it doesnt have in the present facility, Williams said. It is located adjacent to new, larger locker rooms which will provide officers their own double-sized lockers. The locker rooms  both mens and womens  also have showers, another first.

The move for the police will be more complicated than that for firefighters.

We are not going to bring junk over here. If we dont need it, we wont bring it, he said, adding specialty units will be responsible to bring over their own items.

Williams said they will likely contract with a company to move large items and will utilize much of the furniture already in the building.

Hes hoping the actual move will take no more than two or three days and as soon as the new building is up and running, the old station, which has been earmarked for demolition, will be closed.

Both Williams and Fieffer said once the buildings are operational they are hoping to host open houses and tours of the new facilities.
Its no surprise that trust in the government is at an all-time low. Government failures and broken promises by administration officials in the last eight years alone have been plentiful.

Take the botched recovery after the Great Recession, for example. The Obama administration promised that if the government spent $800 billion in stimulus, unemployment wouldnt rise above 8.8 percent. The plan was adopted, the spending was on its way, and yet the unemployment rate shot up above 10 percent and hovered at this painful level for months.

When the rate started to fall, it was months into the slowest recovery since World War II. It was also mostly because people gave up on looking for a job, and many of those lucky enough to have a job were still under-employed. Economic growth has been weak at 0.5 percent in the last quarter and 1.4 percent before that. Thats why 70 percent of Americans feel we are on the wrong track.

Then, theres the utter failure of the launch of the Affordable Care Acts federal exchange. After months of promising people that if they liked their insurance plans and their doctors, they could keep both, the American people awoke to a very different reality. The president was wrong; their insurance plans were canceled, and then they faced serious premium hikes to replace those plans.

It was made worse by the confession from one of the architects of the health care law, MIT professor Jonathan Gruber, that Obamacare was written in a tortured way to make sure (the Congressional Budget Office) did not score the mandate as taxes. The whole point, of course, was to mislead people about the law so it could be pushed down their throats  whether they wanted it or not.

Then came the Veteran Affairs scandal, exposing how the Department of Veterans Affairs was plagued with massive inefficiencies and mismanagement leading to the unforgivable deaths of veterans waiting for care after they came home from war.

These failures arent unique to the Obama administration. Every past administration has had its share of scandals, deceptions or epic government failures happening under their watch. Just since 2001, weve had: an intelligence breakdown that failed to prevent 9/11; a botched response to hurricane Katrina; the misleading claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that created the momentum for the war in Iraq; flu vaccine and cancer treatment shortages triggered by mismanagements at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, along with the Federal Drug Administration; and so much more.

But these are just some of the big failures that come on top of the multitude of government programs that promise to: end poverty but dont; support small businesses or exports but simply amount to picking winners and losers; or fix the underlying causes of the last financial crisis but just end up building a wall of protection around the traditional interest groups on Wall Street at the expense of small banks and consumers.

It doesnt matter who is in office; more often than not, government will fail you. Thats because government is inherently incapable of performing certain tasks well, even if all of our most visible elected officials were smart, compassionate and well intentioned.

An unseen army of bureaucrats and administrative agencies are just as self-interested as the worst of the politicians that we elect, but theyre considerably less accountable. Honorable politicians who want to truly do the right thing would find themselves battling with the bureaucratic structures, which supposedly serve the public but in reality only serve themselves. This means that most government expansions are bound to fail from the start, despite who is in charge.

In his 1974 Nobel Prize lecture, economist F.A. Hayek warned his profession against the dangers of what he called the pretense of knowledge. He might as well have been addressing the army of well-intentioned lawmakers and bureaucrats who want to intervene in our life on a daily basis through new regulations and government programs. He urged economists and social scientists to maintain humility about the limits of their own knowledge and reject the impulse to bind themselves with the heady authority of expertise by experimenting with and controlling the populations that they believe need their guidance.

That pretense of knowledge applies to government, and it explains why it fails and why we shouldnt trust it.
Often lost in parades, barbecues and fireworks displays is the true meaning of Independence Day and its importance to our nation's very existence.

It's a lesson of revolution that should resonate in Northwest Indiana where a political transformation is long overdue, courtesy of the voters. And what better time to consider such a revolution than the 2016 election year?

With the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, our Forefathers sent the strongest of messages to Britain.

Chief among the complaints were that colonists were being compelled to tolerate certain taxes without being represented in the decisions adopting such taxes.

The nation-building document solidified a revolution of the American colonies against a form of perceived bad government at the hands of the British. Volunteers from the original 13 colonies took up arms, ultimately defeating the English army and winning the independence proclaimed in the July 4, 1776, declaration.

Fast-forward to 2016, and Region voters find themselves in a position in which many of them have been languishing for decades.

Political cronyism and wasteful patronage continue their prominent roles in Lake County government.

Each year, it seems a handful of public officials  many of them elected to serve our interests  are serving or completing federal prison terms, facing criminal indictments or being convicted of crimes against taxpayers.

Federal law enforcement probes of government offices in Lake and Porter counties remain ongoing.

Clearly, we've seen our share of public officials not in this for the right reasons.

Shouldn't we reject the status quo and seek leaders who want to take us somewhere other than perennial patronage largess?

This broken record of bad government plays out in all corners of our nations political system.

Most taxpayers aren't part of the patronage machine in which one gets a government job and benefits based on political allegiances.

Very few of us cast votes believing our chosen candidates will fleece us, wastefully spend our tax dollars or commit selfish crimes for their own personal gain.

Many of the Region public officials caught doing this ultimately lost their positions in government  not at the ballot box, but by criminal convictions won by the U.S. Attorney.

We the people must be more proactive than that.

A revolution against a repugnant status quo is long overdue.

Our Forefathers summoned great courage in their 1776 revolt against England, choosing to either "hang together, or assuredly we will all hang separately," as Benjamin Franklin said upon signing the Declaration of Independence.

If Northwest Indiana voters fail to unite behind what is right in this election season, our entire system will continue to hang in the balance.

Chief among the ideals Independence Day signifies is the ability of modern voters to peacefully revolt for change at the ballot box.

That right was purchased in blood by those who fought the Revolution and other defining wars in our nation's history.

Let's not waste that sacrifice. Let's "hang together, or assuredly we'll all hang separately."
Holocaust survivor, Nobel Prize-winner and long-time New Yorker Elie Wiesel died Saturday. His family says he had been sick for a long time. They say he died peacefully surrounded by family members and close friends in Manhattan. Wiesel touched the lives of many. Now everyone from city residents to the President are remembering the Nobel Laureate. Our Gene Apodaca has that part of the story.

"He lived a good life he left a good legacy something to remember him by and I hope the younger people can also remember him," said one woman.

Outside his Manhattan home Saturday, those familiar with Elie Wiesel remembered him not only for the words he left behind in his books but, for his efforts to end injustice.

"He's one of the witnesses of what happened many years ago and for all of those we lose, those witnesses the history becomes a little more distant," one man said.

He was a world renowned figure, but he also left his mark on the city.

In 2014, he was honored with the John Jay Medal of Justice by City University of New York, a school where he taught Judaic studies in the 1970s. His memoir, 'Night,' a popular teaching tool about the Holocaust.

"He wrote very well about it," one man said. "It was an effective book that described his experience and a lot of people read it so I think that he's a documentarian of that horrible time period"

"It's a huge loss," said another. "He was the preeminent writer about the Holocaust about what happened and for Jewish history he was a great chronicler of that."

President Obama, who had travelled with Wiesel back to the Nazi camp where the writer spent much of his teenage years, released a statement, calling Wiesel more than a holocaust survivor, saying:

"Elie Wiesel was one of the great moral voices of our time, and in many ways, the conscience of the world."

That conscience can still be seen through his foundation, named after him, which is based here in the city.

A lasting reminder some hope will not be lost upon his death.

Wiesel is survived by his wife Marion, one son and a stepdaughter.
A private funeral was held Sunday for legendary Holocaust survivor and activist Elie Wiesel. NY1's Natalie Duddridge has the story from the Upper East Side.

Friends and family filed into the 5th Avenue Synagogue to pay their respects to a man they call a hero.

"He's really one of the greatest Jews if not the greatest Jew of the 20th and 21st century," said Rabbi Perry Berkowitz, president of the American Jewish Heritage Organization.

Elie Wiesel died Saturday at age 87, surrounded by loved ones after being ill for some time. His family says they will announce public services for Wiesel soon.

"In the last year when he was becoming more fragile, we would meet at least once a week reminisce in Yiddish and talk about childhood and philosophy," said Abraham Foxman, a former director of the Anti-Defamation League. "Very special human who touched the world and experienced pain that most people couldn't comprehend."

That story of Weisel's survival was told in his memoir "Night," published in the 1960s. It details Wiesel's experiences at the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps in Nazi Germany.

His father, mother and sister were all killed during the Holocaust. After the war, Wiesel was able to reunite with two older sisters who had survived the camps, but it took him years before he wrote or talked about the horrors he experienced.

"He said to me which I think is one of the most important statement the opposite of love is not hate it's indifference," said Ronald Lauder, with the World Jewish Congress.

Wiesel dedicated his life to fighting for human rights after moving to the city in 1956. Thirty years later, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to promote human dignity around the world.

Mourners say the mood inside the synagogue was solemn but many happy stories of Wiesel's life were shared. Including his role as a professor at several universities here in the city throughout the 1970s. Some of his former students we spoke say they hope the younger generation will continue his legacy.

"His book 'Night' is read in thousands of schools and I think his words will live on," said Rabbi Berkowitz.

The holocaust survivor's work will continue through his group 'The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity.'
Mr. Cimino first wanted to become a fine artist, but that didn't seem, in his words, quite respectable, so he studied architecture and art history instead; just short of his doctorate, he dropped out of Yale. I felt the need to unlearn my formal education, he explains. Most people I knew had been crippled by their educations. Some were even dying spiritually. So Mr. Cimino joined the Army about the time of the Tet offensive in 1968 and was assigned as a medic to a Green Beret unit training in Texas, but was never sent to Vietnam. After the Army, he studied acting and ballet.

Because he had been trained in the visual arts, Mr. Cimino was able to land a job with a small company in New York that produced documentary and industrial films. They taught me to use a Movieola, he recalls. I operated the Movieola and I swept the floors. I was hooked  I decided to become a filmmaker.

He began by writing screenplays, including those for Silent Running and Magnum Force, for which he received a coauthor credit. Eventually Mr. Cimino wound up in Los Angeles where he sent his screenplay Thunderbolt and Lightfoot to Clint Eastwood, the star of Magnum Force. Mr. Eastwood quickly hired him to direct it ('he couldn't have had the property without me). The film was both a critical and commercial success  it cost $2.2 million without Mr. Eastwood's fee, and grossed some $25 mil.. lion in the U.S. alone.

Yet, it wasn't until four arid years, and 800 produced movie script pages, later that Mr. Cimino was sought out by EMI, the British conglomerate. When he presented his idea for The Deer Hunter to them, he was so stunned to win approval that I said, What do you mean by O.K.? And they said, O.K., go make a movie.  The picture was begun in 1976 and completed twoandonehalf years later. Its final cost  nearly $15 million.

Mr. Cimino's two films have in common an emphasis on male bonding between bank robbers Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, and GIs Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken in The Deer Hunter.

Friendship and sentiment and the giving of one's words are very important, Mr. Cimino says. This is a lonely country, and people die of loneliness as surely ?? they die of cancer. But I also know that in every friendship there's the potential for destructiveness as well as for nourishment.

The Deer Hunter was filmed on location in various parts of the United States and Thailand, which is more like Vietnam than the Philippines, where Francis shot Apocalypse Now,  says Mr. Cimino. This was partly because audiences have come to expect the authenticity of location shooting, and also because the director believes that encountering a real place changes the performances of actors in subtle ways, and changes the spiritual texture of the film.
Times Insider delivers behind-the-scenes insights from The New York Times. In this piece, Didi Kirsten Tatlow, a Times correspondent based in Beijing who has Anglo-Irish, German-Swedish roots, travels to Munich and unpacks a lot more than her suitcase.

It was fitting that the moment of clarity came at a border crossing.

As I got in the immigration line at Beijing Capital International Airport, I glanced at the Irish passport in my hand and saw two familiar words, newly precious, in gold letters: European Union in English, An tAontas Eorpach in Irish.

It was the day after news broke that Britain had voted to leave the European Union.

Just two generations ago, two European families  one Anglo-Irish, one German-Swedish  were at war with each other, literally.

As my father tells it, his father was the captain of a British Navy minesweeper in World War II, a job that required finding and blowing up mines laid by the navy of the Third Reich to disrupt shipments of war supplies from the United States to Britain. He survived.
Bhavjyot Kaur Singh, a daughter of Preetinder K. Singh and Davinder P. Singh of Youngstown, N.Y., was married July 2 to Prabtej Singh Chawla, the son of Khushjiwan Kaur and Amardeep Singh of Roselle, Ill. Granthi Bhai Mohinder Singh, a Sikh priest officiated at the Sikh Religious Society of Chicago in Palatine, Ill.

Mrs. Chawla, 29, is a corporate associate in the New York office of the Chicago law firm Baker & McKenzie. She graduated magna cum laude from Cornell and received a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

Her father is a Sikh classical musician who specializes in violin and other string instruments. Her mother is a customer service representative at First Niagara Bank in Niagara Falls, N.Y.

Mr. Chawla, 28, is an emerging markets investor at the World Bank in Washington. He graduated cum laude from Northwestern University. In August, he will begin studying for an M.B.A. at Harvard.
Christine Elizabeth Feliciano, a daughter of Suzzette M. Giordano of Yorktown Heights, N.Y., and Albert Feliciano Sr. of Middletown, N.Y., was married July 2 to Daniel Pulido Galeon IV, a son of Zenaida Pulido Galeon of Ketchikan, Alaska and Daniel O. Galeon III of Edmonton, Alberta. The Rev. Epifanio B. Marcaida, a Roman Catholic priest, performed the ceremony at the Church of the Resurrection in Rye, N.Y.

The couple, both 29, work for Goldman Sachs. The bride is a vice president in the investment management group in New York where she is responsible for retaining, expanding and supporting existing client relations; the groom is a vice president in the asset management group in Jersey City where he oversees regulatory reporting and reform initiatives.

Mrs. Galeon graduated magna cum laude from Pace University and received an M.B.A. in finance from the University of Pennsylvania.

Her father is the senior pastor at Soul Purpose Evangelical Church, a Protestant church, in Middletown. Her mother is the director of patient accounts at Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, Conn.
Dr. Joanna Ellen Schwartz, a daughter of Meryl K. Schwartz and Dr. Richard P. Schwartz of Concord, Mass., is to be married July 3 to James Eliseo DiTullio, the son of Rosemary A. DiTullio and Fausto DiTullio of Saugus, Mass. Rabbi David B. Kudan is to lead the ceremony at the Royal Sonesta Boston in Cambridge, Mass.

The couple graduated from Yale, he cum laude.

The bride, 36, who will keep her name, is an internist in Waltham, Mass., at Primary Care Associates, a group practice run by Massachusetts General Hospital West. She received a medical degree from the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Her father is a gastroenterologist in Concord. Her mother, who is retired, was a geriatric social worker based in Concord. She is on the board of the Council on Aging in Concord.

The groom, 37, is the counsel and chief policy adviser in Boston for Stanley C. Rosenberg, the president of the Massachusetts State Senate. Until last year he was the undersecretary of education and the general counsel in the administration of Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts. He received a Master of Philosophy in international relations from the University of Cambridge, England, and his law degree from the University of Virginia.
Laura Catharine Wilson and Toby Brian Fallsgraff are to be married July 3. William M. ONeill, an Ohio Supreme Court justice, will officiate at Lacuna Lofts, an event space in Chicago.

The bride, 31, who will be taking her husbands name, is a documentary filmmaker and the director of engagement for the Kindling Group, a documentary production company in Chicago. She was an associate producer for Radical Grace, a film that followed nuns who challenge the Vatican, which debuted at Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in Toronto in April 2015.

She graduated from Georgetown and received a masters degree in international development studies from George Washington University.

She is the daughter of Vicki A. Thompson and Bruce G. Wilson of Kenilworth, Ill.

The groom, 34, will soon join Hillary Clintons presidential campaign as the director of digital communications. He graduated from Ohio University and received a masters degree in political management from George Washington University.
Mindy Karen Diamond and Kyle Andrew Brack are to be married July 3. Rabbi Irvin M. Wise is to officiate at the Pinecroft at Crosley Estate, a historic house and event space in Cincinnati.

Mrs. Brack, 27, works in business operations and strategy for Twitter in New York, where she is part of the media partnerships team working with industries on how best to use the platform. She graduated from Syracuse.

She is a daughter of Amy C. Diamond of Cincinnati and the late Fred J. Diamond, also of Cincinnati.

The groom, 32, is a vice president working on the funding and underwriting of real estate deals for JEN Partners, a New York-based real estate investment firm. He graduated from McGill University and received an M.B.A. from Harvard.

He is the son of Catherine Brack of Toronto and William A. Brack of Cobourg, Ontario.

The couple met in 2011, when the bride was in college and the groom in graduate school, during spring break in the Dominican Republic.
Neha Rukmani Sahni, the daughter of Madhu B. Sahni and Sham L. Sahni of Lexington, Mass., is to be married July 3 to Dr. Shantanu Kadir Gaur, the son of Vandana Gaur and Dr. Abhay K. Gaur of Canonsburg, Pa. Pandit Raman Kumar, who received permission from Massachusetts, is to officiate at the Ocean Edge Resort in Brewster, Mass.

Mrs. Gaur, 30, is the senior director of inpatient clinical operations at Boston Medical Center. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor of arts in philosophy and science, and a bachelor of science in economics. She also received a masters in biotechnology there.

Her father is the controller at ACT Leasing, a car-leasing company in Woburn, Mass. Her mother is a customer service representative in Lexington for Brookline Bank. Until 2014, the brides parents were the owners of New Mother India, an Indian restaurant in Waltham, Mass.

Dr. Gaur, 29, is a founder and the chief scientific officer at Allurion Technologies, a medical device company in Wellesley, Mass., that manufactures and sells an appetite-reducing balloon that can be swallowed in a pill by individuals who want to lose weight and forego invasive weight-loss surgery. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard, from which he also received his medical degree.
Sarah Hunter Burghart and Joshua Aaron Weiss are to be married July 3. Judge Edward C. Prado of the Federal Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, who has chambers in San Antonio, is to officiate at San Sophia Overlook, a mountaintop event space at the Telluride Ski Resort in Telluride, Colo. Judge James P. Jones of the Federal District Court for the Western District of Virginia, with chambers in Abingdon, Va., will lead the couple through the vows and the exchange of rings.

Mrs. Weiss, 31, is an assistant United States attorney, in Denver, assigned to the civil division. She graduated from Northwestern University and received her law degree from Columbia.

She is the daughter of Gary R. Burghart of Colorado Springs, Colo., and the late Barbara Hunter Burghart. Her father is the director of originations, working to acquire distressed assets and other special investments, at Republic Financial Corporation, a private investment company in Greenwood Village, Colo. The bride is also the stepdaughter of Karen M. Burghart.

Mr. Weiss, 30, is a litigation associate at the Denver law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. He graduated cum laude from the University of Florida and received his law degree with high honors from George Washington University.
Michael Cimino, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker who earned a reputation as one of Hollywoods boldest directors with the haunting 1978 Vietnam War drama The Deer Hunter, and then all but squandered it two years later with the sprawling and widely panned Heavens Gate, was found dead on Saturday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 77.

Eric Weissmann, a friend and former lawyer of Mr. Ciminos, confirmed the death.

He said Mr. Ciminos body was found by the police after friends were unable to reach him by phone. The cause of death had not been determined, Mr. Weissmann said.

The Deer Hunter, just the second feature directed by Mr. Cimino  a former painter, art student and commercial director  seemed to exemplify a decades worth of groundbreaking motion pictures by writers and directors who were given wide latitude to fulfill their visions by mainstream studios.

In the tradition of Arthur Penns Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Francis Ford Coppolas The Godfather (1972), Martin Scorseses Mean Streets (1973) and Roman Polanskis Chinatown (1974), The Deer Hunter cloaked a mood of existential uncertainty beneath layers of violence.
Vying for votes, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are each promising to do more to preserve American jobs at a time of slowing global economic growth.
The study lays out Kiribatis future in apocalyptic detail. Causeways would be washed away, crippling the economy; degraded coral reefs, damaged by warming water, would allow stronger waves to slam the coast, increasing erosion, and would disrupt the food supply, which depends heavily on fish supported by the reefs. Higher temperatures and rainfall changes would increase the prevalence of diseases like dengue fever and ciguatera poisoning.

Even before that, scientists and development experts say, rising sea levels are likely to worsen erosion, create groundwater shortages and increase the intrusion of salt water into freshwater supplies.

In response, Kiribati (pronounced KEE-ree-bas in the local language) has essentially been drawing up plans for its demise. The government has promoted migration with dignity, urging residents to consider moving abroad with employable skills. It bought nearly 6,000 acres in Fiji, an island nation more than 1,000 miles away, as a potential refuge. Fijis higher elevation and more stable shoreline make it less vulnerable.

Anote Tong, a former president who pushed through the Fiji purchase, said it was also intended as a cry for attention from the world. The issue of climate change is real, serious, and wed like to do something about it if theyre going to take their time about it, he said in a recent interview.
Elie Wiesel was mourned Saturday by politicians, artists and others who were touched by his emotionally searing writing about the Holocaust and the questions he raised about the nature of humanity and God.

Mr. Wiesel came to prominence in 1960 with the English translation of Night, a memoir chronicling the brutalities and degradations of life in Nazi concentration camps. (He was liberated from Buchenwald at age 16.)

Many of those who eulogized Mr. Wiesel, including Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, praised him for refusing to let the world forget the Nazis atrocities.
The first to be killed was a jogger, gunned down last September during his daily run in the leafy diplomatic quarter of Bangladeshs capital, Dhaka. He was identified as a 50-year-old Italian aid worker, and the police say the men who murdered him had been given instructions to kill a white foreigner at random.

In October, a Japanese man was killed. In November, gunmen riding a motorcycle pulled alongside a Catholic priest in northern Bangladesh and opened fire, wounding him.

For the Islamic State terrorist group, which broadly advised operatives it sent to Europe to kill anyone and everyone, the groups tactics in Bangladesh have seemed more controlled. In the past nine months, it has claimed 19 attacks in the South Asian country, nearly all of them targeted assassinations singling out religious minorities and foreigners. They included hacking to death a Hindu man, stabbing to death a Shiite preacher, murdering a Muslim villager who had been accused of converting to Christianity and sending suicide bombers into Shiite mosques.

For years, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, has pursued a campaign of wholesale slaughter in Syria and Iraq. And in the attacks the group has directed or indirectly inspired in Western countries  including the coordinated killings in Paris and Brussels and the mass shooting inside an Orlando, Fla., nightclub  the assailants killed at random.
For George W. Bush, the summer already looks unbearable. The party he gave his life to will repudiate him by nominating a bombastic serial insulter who makes the famously brash former president look like a museum docent by comparison. And a renowned presidential biographer is weighing in with a judgment that makes Mr. Bushs gentlemans Cs at Yale look like the honor roll.

If Mr. Bush eventually gets a more sympathetic hearing by history, as he hopes, it will not start with Jean Edward Smiths Bush, a comprehensive and compelling narrative punctuated by searing verdicts of all the places where the author thinks the 43rd president went off track. Mr. Smiths indictment does not track Donald J. Trumps, but the cumulative effect is to leave Mr. Bush with few defenders in this season of his discontent.

Mr. Smith, a longtime academic and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, made a name for himself in part with masterly biographies of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ulysses S. Grant, offering historical reassessments of underrated presidents who looked better with the passage of time. With Bush he sticks to the original conventional assessment, presenting a shoot-from-the-hip Texan driven by religiosity and immune to the advice of people who knew what they were talking about.

While not a fresh portrait, it is one worth debating at a time when the political class is struggling to understand the meaning of Mr. Trumps rise. Mr. Trumps name appears nowhere in Bush, but it is clear the populist revolt that propelled him to the verge of the Republican nomination had its roots in Mr. Bushs presidency, so much so that he easily overcame the former presidents brother Jeb. Mr. Trump rejects much of what George W. Bush stood for, from the war in Iraq and more forgiving immigration policies to free trade and the very notion of compassionate conservatism.
In the lead-up to the startling vote there to leave the European Union, and for many years before, the larger and more conservative newspapers ran aggressive campaigns pushing for what became known as Brexit.

One of the biggest proponents of the exit was former Mayor Boris Johnson of London, who was, after all, a onetime reporter for The Times of London and The Daily Telegraph, where he still writes a column. (He was fired from The Times for fabricating a quote.)

As Martin Fletcher, a former associate editor of The Times of London, wrote last week in The New York Times, Mr. Johnson made his name as a journalist writing about the plans of bureaucrats in the European Union to ban Britains favorite potato chips and standardize condom sizes. The articles, Mr. Fletcher wrote, bore scant relation to the truth, but they helped spawn an anti-European Union movement in British journalism just the same.

As the vote approached, pro-Brexit newspapers  including The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Express and The Telegraph  wrote stories that exaggerated how many immigrants were coming to Britain because of its E.U. membership and their effects on social services, reported that Queen Elizabeth II was secretly pro-Brexit, and quoted claims from pro-Leave politicians that Britain was sending 350 million pounds ($464 million) a week to the European Union that could be used instead to shore up the National Health Service.

The Independent Press Standards Organization in Britain issued several rulings for inaccuracy  including one for the headline Queen Backs Brexit, which ran in The Sun. But the partisan press climate meant all facts were up for debate. Nothing could stand out as Platonic truth.

After the vote passed, Nigel Farage, a leading Brexit campaigner, said the Vote Leave campaign had been mistaken in saying the savings from the 350 million that supposedly went to the E.U.  itself misleading  could be used for the health service. That was followed by various expressions of regret by some pro-Brexit voters who now believe they were misled.

The context for the referendum vote was a public which had been poorly informed, if not misinformed about the issue, the former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger told me.
Over the decades, the case file on the murder has been passed down from one investigator to another. The most recent handoff, to Investigator Andrew D. Kinderman from Investigator Browne, took place in 2014. The men met over bags of evidence last week, a startling display of possible  yet thus far fruitless  clues found on the mans person.

His money consisted of five bills: three fifties, a five and a single. In addition to his green suit and dark necktie, he wore an overcoat. Beneath his white dress shirt were more layers: a long-sleeved, olive shirt, a T-shirt and pale blue pajamas.

Image A police sketch of what the man might have looked like when he was alive, released in March. Credit... New York State Police

There were signs of modest means. His shoes were imitation leather. A hole in his underwear had been mended with a needle and thread.

The wardrobe was a hodgepodge of international trade. The tag on one shirt was marked Hering, from Brazil; another, Rimrock from Taiwan. The galoshes were from Canada, his underwear from Korea and his tie from Playboy Neckwear.

For Men Who Think Young, the label on the tie read.

He had a plastic comb, a toothpick and, pinned inside a coat pocket, a small key. His most valuable possessions were a gold ring with a red stone and markings indicating that it had been made in Portugal, and, on his left wrist, an Omega Seamaster watch.

Omega, based in Switzerland, made the watch that Neil Armstrong had worn on the moon about six months earlier, and the one President Kennedy wore at his inauguration eight years before that. Investigators contacted Omega, and the company was able to track the mans watch from its manufacture to the store it was shipped to in 1960  Portugal again.
With a bright sun and an easy breeze, the morning had the makings of a perfect Sunday in Central Park for strolling visitors.

Then, around 11 a.m., an explosion interrupted the quiet. Officials said a young man walking in the southeastern end of the park stepped on what turned out to be explosive material that had been left behind. Investigators believe it was part of an experiment with fireworks, police officials said, and declined to call the material a device. The police said they do not believe it was connected to terrorism.

It is not unusual for the public to make or try to create homemade fireworks around the Fourth of July, said John OConnell, a deputy police chief for counterterrorism with the New York Police Department.

Soon after the blast, social media posts circulated describing a grisly scene, the victim bloodied and maimed. And there was a rush of journalists and police officers who, coincidentally, were already nearby for the funeral services of Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Peace Prize winner. Even President Obama was briefed about the explosion.
PARIS  And now, Frexit? For the French, the most visible consequence of the Brexit referendum is the return of Marine Le Pen. In February the leader of the far-right National Front stated on her blog that she wanted to take a break to think about the future of the country and nurture a project. After that she conspicuously retreated from the mainstream media.

As soon as the result of the British vote was announced on June 24, though, Ms. Le Pen was back with a vengeance and a huge grin. Everywhere to be seen, she used Twitter to call for a French referendum on the European Union, held a news conference and met with President Francois Hollande at the Elysee Palace, along with leaders of the other political parties, to discuss Brexit. She even popped up in Brussels to pour scorn on the European Union from the benches of the European Parliament, which she despises so deeply yet finds so useful as a bully pulpit.

Anticipating the possibility of victory for the Leave camp, the National Front had posters on hand proclaiming, And now, France? In the current tense domestic and global situation, with a presidential election only 10 months away, Ms. Le Pens party, which got 28 percent of the vote in the regional poll held last December, couldnt have dreamed of such a godsend.

But France doesnt seem to be ready for Ms. Le Pens Frexit dream. A TNS Sofres poll taken in the immediate aftermath of the British vote and published on June 29 showed that less than half of the electorate, 45 percent, would favor holding such a referendum. If it were held, 45 percent of French voters would have chosen Remain and 33 percent would have voted Leave. Three days later, after giving it cooler thought, 55 percent of French voters rejected the idea of a referendum, according to a C.S.A. poll, and the Remain camp had grown to 61 percent. These figures dont reflect a revolt on the scale of the British one. Until late June, Frexit was not even part of the public debate.
For a half century, presidential candidates have routinely claimed that there are no bigger stakes in the election than the next appointments to the Supreme Court.

This year, for the first time since 1968, the dire warnings could actually have an important effect on voting behavior.

Since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February, the court has deadlocked 4-4 on four cases, including a few big ones. On a number of others, a single vote determined the outcome. In addition, Judge Merrick B. Garland, the nominee to replace Mr. Scalia, will still be waiting for review by the Senate on Election Day; two other justices will be in their 80s, and one will be 78.

It is likely that Hillary Clinton or Donald J. Trump will have at least two or three appointments in a first term. And that will shape a number of important issues, including immigration, racial preferences, the role of unions and environmental issues.
His timing is pretty good, said David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to Mr. Obama. If he arrived the week before, the party would have been rip-roaring. Now everybody is sitting there with an ice pack on their forehead. They might be ready to listen to some sensible advice.

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.

The departure of Britain from the European Union is likely to have significant, if not immediate, effects on Europes security. Some experts express fear that it will weaken the response to Russian aggression in Ukraine, for example. At the Warsaw meeting, a senior administration official said, Mr. Obama plans to emphasize the need for the European Union to cooperate more closely with NATO.

This has long been a goal of the United States, but the exit of Britain from the union makes it more urgent, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in advance of the NATO meeting. NATO and the European Union could collaborate in countering cyberattacks, coordinating military exercises and patrolling the central Mediterranean.

But Britains departure could pose problems for NATO. European diplomats said they expected France and Germany to consider closer military integration within the European Union  something Britain and the United States have resisted because they view it as competing with the alliance.

Mr. Obama spoke out publicly against a leave vote when he visited Britain in April, and the outcome of that debate was perhaps a harbinger of the challenges he faces in resisting antiglobalism at home. In his speeches, he emphasizes that leaders must recognize the fears and resentments that people feel because of economic dislocation.

For them, globalization is inherently rigged toward the top 1 percent, Mr. Obama said in an address to the Canadian Parliament. I understand that vision. I know why its tempting.

The problem, the president said, is that it is too late to turn back.

Restricting trade or giving in to protectionism in this 21st-century economy will not work, Mr. Obama said. Even if we wanted to, we cant seal ourselves off from the rest of the world. The day after Brexit, people looked around and said: Oh! How is this going to work?
Thank God I managed to hit Abadi with stones to take revenge for the kids, Mr. Ahmed said.

As those scenes unfolded and with anger swelling in the streets of the capital, many are now sure to wonder how long Mr. Abadi may remain in power; at the very least, the chaos is likely to presage the resumption of street unrest that had calmed during Ramadan and the military operations in Falluja.

The scenes that unfolded across the city on Sunday were another brutal illustration of the paradox Iraq faces as its security forces  and the American military, which is training the Iraqi Army and carrying out airstrikes and raids by Special Forces  make gains against the Islamic State. As more territory is won back, the group is reverting to its roots as a guerrilla insurgency, turning Baghdad again into an urban killing field.

Assaults like the one early on Sunday, as well as a string of attacks in Baghdad in May that killed more than 200 people in a week, make it difficult, if not impossible, for Mr. Abadi, a Shiite, to make meaningful progress in reconciling Iraqs majority Shiites with Sunnis.

But the ferocity of the attack, and the ease in which the Islamic State is able to carry out mass murder in Baghdad, demonstrate another monumental challenge if the extremist group is driven from areas under its control: Not only will reconciliation be paramount, but any lasting peace will also require a lengthy counterinsurgency campaign that will challenge the Iraqi security forces and, perhaps, require a deepening involvement by United States forces.

After Mr. Abadi was forced to retreat with his bodyguards, he issued a statement saying that it was his moral duty to visit the site of terror attacks, and that he understood the feelings and emotions and the actions of some people in their moment of sadness and anger. He also declared three days of national mourning for the bombing victims.
The police said after officers interviewed the hotel clerk, they concluded there had been a clear miscommunication with her relatives, and that Mr. Menhali had not made any statements related to ISIS. The police said the episode was being investigated, and the findings would be forwarded to the prosecutors office for review.

Julia A. Shearson, the executive director of the Cleveland chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in an interview Sunday: It is shocking this happened. The bottom line is we understand the American people are on edge, and theres definitely violence in the world, but weve come to this brute level of giving in to our fears.

Ms. Shearson also told The Independent that the way the police referred to Mr. Menhalis clothing in their report  as a criminal indicator  was very concerning.

In a statement Monday, Marriott International, which owns the Fairfield Inn and Suites, said that it deeply regret what happened to Mr. Menhali. The company said it planned to discuss with the hotel diversity and inclusion training designed to help prevent this type of situation.

Avon officials apologized to Mr. Menhali Saturday night at the councils Cleveland office. The mayor, Bryan K. Jensen, told Mr. Menhali, There were some false accusations made against you, and those are regrettable. The chief of the Avon police, Richard Bosley, said, You should not have been put in that situation like you were.
We still have a ways to go before were able to say that we have made some significant progress against them, Mr. Brennan told an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations here last week.

He warned that the trajectories for the ISIS religious state, or caliphate, and global violence point in opposite directions. As the pressure mounts on ISIL, he said, we judge that it will intensify its global terror campaign to maintain its dominance of the global terrorism agenda.

In an audio message released May 21, the Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammed al-Adnani made clear that the organization would revert to its roots as a guerrilla insurgency, implicitly acknowledging that it would eventually lose its strongholds in Syria and Iraq and the very caliphate that has distinguished it from Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Mr. Adnani, who also oversees the Islamic States external operations, repeated his call for supporters to attack the groups enemies wherever and however possible.

The Islamic State operates clandestine terrorist cells in Britain, Germany and Italy, similar to the groups that carried out the attacks in Paris and Brussels, James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, said in April. Other intelligence officials said the Islamic State operated similar cells in Turkey, which were most likely involved in last weeks assault on the airport in Istanbul.

Some counterterrorism officials say the Islamic States lashing out may backfire. ISIS wants to deter and divide its enemies with these attacks, but it usually ends up provoking them, said Will McCants, a former State Department counterterrorism official now at the Brookings Institution. He said he anticipated that the attack in Istanbul would push Turkey to escalate its efforts against the Islamic State, just as the Paris attacks did for France.

Against this shifting adversary, President Obama has sought to strike an upbeat message. Weve seen that this continues to be a difficult fight, but we are making significant progress, Mr. Obama said in a statement on June 14 after meeting with top national security advisers about combating the Islamic State. This campaign at this stage is firing on all cylinders.

Nearly two years into the American-led air war against the Islamic State, military officials say they have finally corrected the poor intelligence collection and clumsy process for identifying targets that initially plagued the campaign, and are now hitting targets like oil rigs and secret cash coffers that finance the terrorist groups war machine.
MALIBU  The operators of the Paradise Cove restaurant in Malibu came under investigation again for charging people access to its nearby public beach and pier.

State regulators began investigating last month complaints from beachgoers that the restaurant was charging $20 daily beach club membership fee to access the shore, The Los Angeles Times reported.

The California Coastal Commission threatened in a June 16 letter to Kissel Co., which operates as Paradise Cove Land Co., to impose up to $11,250 in fines per day for blocking public access.

A message seeking comment from the company has not been returned Saturday.

The company has since complied with the law, and its website no longer mentions any membership fees, The Times said.

Public trails to the beach have been blocked in a number of Southern California coastal communities, and the fines have been an effective tool in ensuring access, said Andrew Willis, an enforcement supervisor for the commission.

In 2014, the commission sent a letter telling Kissel it was violating state law by posting signs banning surfing and surfboards and closing the pier behind a locked gate. The commission threatened hefty daily fines.

The owner agreed to stop charging a walk-in fee, remove all signs banning surfing and unlock a gate to the beachs pier shortly after.

People think of gates and fences, but there are other ways to chip away at access  fake garages, access fees, no parking signs, Willis said.
The majority of Americans feel alienated from the federal government. Political estrangement has become so acute as to present a fundamental challenge to the principle of self-rule, vital to the American republic. To regain a sense of empowerment, Americans need to rebuild civic culture from the ground up. The path to a healthy national politics runs through American burgs, cities and states.

The Harris Alienation Index reached 70 percent in 2014, the highest level since its 1966 debut at 29 percent. There were variations among demographics, but none scored below 64 percent, and 89 percent agreed that people in D.C. are out of touch with the rest of the country. In an Ipsos poll, 58 percent agreed that I dont identify with what America has become, and 53 percent said I feel like a stranger in my own country. Some analysts see in these figures pure unabashed nativism, but they raise the question of whether the fundamental principle of our system that legitimate government proceeds only by the consent of the governed is meaningfully operative in American politics. The data cast serious doubt that it is.

Consider Americans attitudes toward the institution designed to directly express their voice: Congress. A June 2014 Gallup poll marked a new low for confidence in the Legislature at 7 percent, the lowest rating for any public institution since the poll began in 1973. Trust in Congress is especially low in election years with significant turnover: 1994, 2010 and 2014. These elections signaled frustration of the Republican electorate; as electoral victory failed to yield fundamental changes, frustration has deepened into estrangement.

Donald Trumps campaign against political correctness and incompetent government elites has allowed some of the estranged to express contempt for the system. Meanwhile, support for the Sanders campaign emerged from a different sort of alienation, welling up from a social justice narrative. Advocates of this narrative see our society as fundamentally unfair. They want to expand the reach of the federal government to address the root causes of economic inequality, for instance.

The remedy to our dyspeptic politics cannot be a takeover of the federal government but a rollback of federal power. We believe this is the only path toward protecting American liberties, self-rule, and a deep experience of belonging and participation. We envision the American future as a national mosaic of little platoons and self-governing communities instead of as a national community absorbing over 300 million individuals into an administrative state.

The 19th-century Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville judged that the long experience of township freedom was the wellspring of American liberty. Local self-government offered countless tangible experiences of active political participation. In conjunction with the network of federated non-governmental associations dotting the civic landscape that social scientist Theda Skocpol describes, local civic engagement was the beating heart of the American experience of citizenship.

The shriveled state of civic life underlies our alienation. An August 2012 Pew Research Center report showed that less than half of Americans had been involved with a civic group or activity in the past year and only 35 percent had worked with other citizens to solve a problem in their community. Voter turnout for local elections is far lower than for presidential elections.

Yet state and especially local governments have suffered nothing like the decline in trust that the federal government and other public institutions have, consistently retaining a solid majority of citizens trust since 1972. Perhaps Americans can build on our strengths to regain a sense of representation and empowerment.

A syndrome of estrangement, including alienation from the federal government, seriously imperils American civic health. No outcome of this election can solve the alienation it reflects or engage with the complex forms of injustice that riddle American communities, real or imagined. For that, we must concentrate on rebuilding our local patchwork of self-governing communities where the people can participate in governance, learning the neglected art of neighborliness.

Ted McAllister holds the Edward L. Gaylord Chair at the Pepperdine School of Public Policy. Benjamin Peterson is a doctoral student in Texas A&Ms Dept. of Political Science.
Tens of thousands of Pashtuns on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border fear they will not be able to pay customary visits to friends and families during the Eid al-Fitr holiday this week in the wake of ongoing border tensions between the two neighbors.

Many tribes and clans among the estimated 50 million Pashtuns are divided into the two countries by the Durand Line. The 19th century border, more than 2,500 kilometers long, has haunted relations between the two countries for decades.

In the latest episode of bilateral tensions, Islamabad is attempting to enforce border controls and closed the Torkham border crossing following clashes between Pakistani and Afghan security forces last month.

Every day, tens of thousands of Pashtuns cross through Torkham connecting northwestern Pakistan with eastern Afghanistan across the famed Khyber Pass.

The recent closure and following strict border controls are now testing Pashtun families whose members live on both sides and frequently travel to take part in celebrations, ceremonies, and funerals for members of their closely knit communities bound by blood relations and ancient tribal codes.

Not accustomed to carrying passports or having to apply for visas, members of the Pashtun border tribes say the recent measures have restricted their free movement across the Durand Line.

I miss my daughter. I fear I will not be able to see her and her family this Eid, said Riwaj Khan. A member of the Pashtun Shinwari tribe, Khan lives in Pakistan's northwestern Khyber tribal district. But his daughter is married to another Shinwari family across the border in Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar Province.

Qudratullah, 35, an Afghan who goes by one name only, has lived most his life in Pakistan as a refugee. He recently returned to his native Marko village in Nangarhar Province.

He is now wondering whether he will be able to visit friends and relatives -- most still live in Pakistan. "I dont think I will be able to meet my family members and friends across the border this Eid, he said.

Since the demarcation of the Durand Line in 1893, members of the border communities have been able to freely move between the two countries. The practice continued after the creation of Pakistan in 1947.

But last month Islamabad declared that only those with valid passports and visas will be allowed to enter Pakistan from Afghanistan.

Pakistani authorities say the measures are meant to ensure better border management and prevent terrorists from entering the country from Afghanistan.

The issue, however, is more complex and controversial. Since 2001, Kabul has accused Islamabad of harboring Taliban and other hard-line militants. Islamabad counters that the leadership of Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan, a deadly faction that often claims credit for violence in Pakistan, has operated from hideouts in eastern Afghanistan since 2009.

Afghans link the renewed border tensions to the fallout from the killing of Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansur in a U.S. drone strike in the southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan on May 21. For years Kabul has claimed that Quetta, Balochistan's capital, served as a de facto headquarters of the Taliban.

Mutual recrimination after the Taliban leader's killing intensified with Islamabad's efforts to build a gate at the Torkham border crossing. Afghanistan opposed the construction, and tensions at Torkham soon led to a cross-border exchange of gunfire and shells, resulting in many casualties on both sides.

While people were allowed to cross the border again late last month, new rules by the Pakistani authorities at Torkham have made it a difficult undertaking.

A few days ago, our family celebrated a wedding, and we invited our relatives from across the border to join," said Abid Shinwari, a resident of Khyber district's main town, Landi Kotal. "Security officials stopped them and [after much back and forth] only allowed our female relatives to enter Pakistan, while the men were turned back.

Border tensions have also created serious problems for an estimated 3 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan.

On June 30, Islamabad extended their stay for six more months -- hours before registration cards were set to expire.

The government of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, however, resented the federal governments decision and said there should be no deadline extension.

Last month, police in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa detained thousands of Afghan refugees. There were reports that hundreds were forcibly deported after their stay was declared illegal.

Such harsh treatment of Afghan refugees provoked a sharp rebuke from global rights watchdogs. The New York-based Human Rights Watch said the uncertain residency status of Afghan refugees in Pakistan has encouraged police harassment, threats, and extortion."

The tensions prompted politicians to call for restraint and an amicable solution of the problem.

Tensions between the two governments is increasing hatred among the people, who share the same language and culture," said Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao, a Pashtun politician and leader of the Qaumi Watan Party. "This is spreading animosities, which will not only harm people-to-people contacts, but also wont end well for the two governments.

Another politician, Afrasiab Khattak, said the cross-border movement of Pashtun border tribes was not hampered by the British Empire and was largely tolerated by Islamabad.

Closing the border for a people who share the same language, culture, and even blood ties is illogical, he said.

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Peter Belden walked over to an enlarged photograph of a perfect surf break and a van in which he was living while in Australia. It was the day he came up with the idea for his Newport Beach surf business.

He was at the tail end of a nearly year-long, soul-searching surf adventure, and while the waves were epic that day, his board just wasnt working right for that particular surf break.

Why cant I have access to a bunch of different boards? the 33-year-old thought.

That was the moment the idea for The Board Club was born, a gathering place that launched in late May for surfers to have access  for a monthly fee  to a quiver of about 100 boards they can check out and use for weeks at a time.

Belden grew up in Newport Beachs water, a seasoned surfer, water polo player, a junior lifeguard turned seasonal guard in his later years. But after college, he found himself behind a desk doing a range of jobs away from the surf and sand.

He started his own business selling manufactured homes, but after the real estate crash, he switched gears and sold computer software, and later, worked for a startup data analytics company.

At that point, I was working for career advancement and money and not happiness, he said. I was working 10 to 12 hours everyday, dedicating my life to it. I wasnt happy.

Then, tragedy hit. One of his best friends, Ben Carlson, was killed while on duty as a lifeguard during a big swell. The two-year anniversary of his death is July 6. Carlsons death made Belden realize life is too short.

I quit my job, sold my car and put everything into storage, he said. Im not coming back until I figure it out.

After the surf business idea hit him on the beach in Australia, he posted up at coffee shops, developing his business plan. He returned to Orange County in May 2015, and while scouring Newport for a place to plant his new company, he worked the summer as a lifeguard by day and an Uber driver by night.

He used those nights driving strangers around as a way to practice his pitch and get the word out about his new business.

It was a constant revolving door of people who were forced to listen to me and get the pitch, he said with a chuckle. I got a lot of genuine feedback.

He was nervous because in his research, he couldnt find any existing business that had a similar model. So he took inspiration from his travels and previous careers.

In Australia, board clubs are common at beaches, a gathering place where locals and lifeguards congregate after their surf sessions to eat, drink and tell stories. These places become community cornerstones that help build relationships and friendships.

Then, he looked to his data analytics background to set up the infrastructure.

Belden swiped on his iPad to show how a members profile is set up, complete with name, weight, height and photo. Each available board includes a barcode, so that data can be input easily, such as who has checked out the board, and any previous dings or repairs  similar to a car rental company that logs information on its fleet. It also shows trends on how many times a board has been checked out, so Belden can track whats popular for members.

He looked to the big trend of subscription-based businesses, similar to what food delivery service Blue Apron offers. He developed relationships with surfboard makers, hopeful The Board Club would help bring more exposure to their brands.

Costa Mesa resident Tim Burnham, a surfer who has spent time at surf clubs in Australia, was the third member to sign up.

The idea is amazing, he said. Its something thats missing from the U.S. surf culture.

Burnham said its a great way to try out boards without having to drop $600 to $1,000 on a model he hasnt had a chance to ride yet.

So far, Belden has about 50 Board Club members. The company operates out of a 1,000-square-foot building in the Cannery district of Newport Beach. A private investor is helping fund the venture.

In a room where surfboards line the walls, a computer screen streams Surflines live feeds, so surfers can check out real-time conditions and pick the right board for their session.

Belden wants to be clear: The business is more than just about board rentals.

This isnt a board exchange. This is a surf club first, and board exchange is just part of it, he said.

He plans to do movie nights and stream World Surf League contests on a projector set up in a communal gathering space, with monthly member dinners, ding repair demos, surf art shows, and even CPR certification classes.

Surf photos and paintings for sale by local artists adorn the walls, and theres even an area with surf magazines and books, where Belden wants to create an old school library check-out system.

Grom boards allow members to check out boards for their kids, so parents dont have to fork over big bucks before trying them out. Theres also lockers and a hot shower for early-morning surfers headed to work after their sessions, and a coffee station for those cold morning sessions. A garage holds longboards, a kayak, and every-day beach items like chairs, beach games or coolers that members can load up to take to the sand.

The monthly fee is $80 with a minimum three-month membership. Surfers can keep the board they rent for up to three weeks. A surfer can rent one board at a time, until Belden builds up a larger inventory, then premium members can rent two boards at a time.

Belden hopes he can one day franchise the business so Board Clubs dot beaches around the world. If business booms, surfers will no longer have to haul their surfboards on vacation and pay steep airline fees. Members would simply show up at a local Board Club and check out boards.

But for now, hes working on getting the first Board Club up and running. Demand was greater than he expected, and Belden had to create a waiting list until he could get more boards in stock.

Among the quiver, there are only two boards off-limits to his members. The first one is a shiny, cherry red board that Belden is keeping up in the rafters until he gets the chance to ride it first.

The second surfboard is one that will never be used again: Ben Carlsons surfboard was signed by hundreds of people at his paddle-out off the Newport Pier, and given to Belden by Carlsons parents.

I couldnt be more honored that they wanted to put it here, he said, voice trailing.

His friends board serves as a daily remember that Carlson was the catalyst for him to pursue his passion. As he next to Carlsons board, surrounded by 100 other surfboards lining the wall, he took a moment to soak it in.

Wow, this is my job now. I used to sit and make cold calls and sell computer software, he said. Now Im surrounded by the people I love being with and my favorite thing and passion, surfing. Thats my day now, to make other people happy. Its the most important thing Ive ever done.

Contact the writer: lconnelly@ocregister.com
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July Fourth wasnt the day the Continental Congress decided to declare independence; they did that on July 2, 1776. It wasnt the day they signed the document either. So what happened on July 4? The Continental Congress approved the final wording. Take our quiz below to see what else you may or may not know about Americas birth certificate signed 240 years ago.

In a vote held by the National Archives and Records Administration, 75.9 percent of the participants named the Declaration of Independence the most influential document in American history. The original was engrossed on parchment and paper copies were sent to the colonies.

http://www.queness.com/resources/html/toggle/js/jquery.js

1.The Declaration of Independence was signed on what date? July 4, 1776

Aug. 2, 1776

Aug. 12, 1776 The Declaration of Independence was signed on what date?

VIEW ANSWER #1 + Answer: B, It took almost a month before the document was signed by the whole Congress. It was approved by vote on July 4th, 1776.

2.How many signatures are on the Declaration of Independence? 50

13

56 How many signatures are on the Declaration of Independence?

VIEW ANSWER #2 + Answer: C, 56 men signed the Declaration; two members of Congress never signed.

3.How many of the 56 signers of the Declaration were born in England? 56

8

1 How many of the 56 signers of the Declaration were born in England?

VIEW ANSWER #3 + Answer: B, Eight of the signers were born in either England, Ireland, Scotland or Wales.

4.Put a face with a name. Most people know that John Hancock famously signed his name very large so the king of England could see it. What portrait below is his? A.

B.

C. Put a face with a name. Most people know that John Hancock famously signed his name very large so the king of England could see it. What portrait below is his?

VIEW ANSWER #4 + Answer: A, John Hancock was orphaned as a child and adopted by a wealthy uncle. He later became the governor or Massachusetts. Portrait B is John Adams, and portrait C is his cousin Samuel Adams, also from the state of Massachusetts.

5.How old was Benjamin Franklin when he signed the Declaration of Independence? 55

70

60 How old was Benjamin Franklin when he signed the Declaration of Independence?

VIEW ANSWER #5 + Answer: B, Franklin was the oldest member of Congress. He lived another 14 years and also signed the U.S. Constitution in 1788.

6.Where is the Declaration of Independence on display now? The National Archives rotunda

The Jefferson Memorial

Independence, Calif. Where is the Declaration of Independence on display now?

VIEW ANSWER #6 + Answer: A, On average, about 6,000 people see it a day.

7.How many signers of the Declaration became U.S. presidents? 3

2

1 How many signers of the Declaration became U.S. presidents?

VIEW ANSWER #7 + Answer: B, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. The grandson of Benjamin Harrison, William Henry Harrison, became a president as well.

8.How old was Thomas Jefferson when he drafted the document? 45

33

30 How old was Thomas Jefferson when he drafted the document?

VIEW ANSWER #8 + Answer: B, Jefferson was one of the younger members of Congress. The youngest was Edward Rutledge at age 26.

9.Where was the Declaration of Independence held during WWII? Fort Knox

The U.S. Capitol

Area 51 Where was the Declaration of Independence held during WWII?

VIEW ANSWER #9 + Answer: A, From 1941 to 1944 the document was kept in the Bullion Depository at Fort Knox, Ky.

10.How long did Thomas Jefferson take to write the first draft of the Declaration of Independence? One day

Two and a half weeks

One month How long did Thomas Jefferson take to write the first draft of the Declaration of Independence?

VIEW ANSWER #10 + Answer: B, Jefferson worked on his first draft between June 11 and June 28, 1776.

11.The Declaration of Independence is now kept in a bullet-resistant, titanium-and-aluminum case. How many feet does the case descend when the archives close at night? None

1,776

22 The Declaration of Independence is now kept in a bullet-resistant, titanium-and-aluminum case. How many feet does the case descend when the archives close at night?

VIEW ANSWER #11 + Answer: C, The case is kept in a vault below the National Archives.

12.The signers of the document grouped their signatures by colony. What colony had the most signatures? Virginia

Pennsylvania

Georgia The signers of the document grouped their signatures by colony. What colony had the most signatures?

VIEW ANSWER #12 + Answer: B, Pennsylvania had nine delegates.

13.About how wide is the actual document? 12 inches

24 inches

36 inches About how wide is the actual document?

VIEW ANSWER #13 + Answer: B, the document is 24 1/4 inches horizontal and 29 3/4 inches vertical.

14.The Declaration hung on a wall exposed to sunlight for 35 years, from 1841 to 1876. What building was it in? The U.S. Capitol

The U.S. Patent Office

The White House The Declaration hung on a wall exposed to sunlight for 35 years, from 1841 to 1876. What building was it in?

VIEW ANSWER #14 + Answer: B, the document along with George Washingtons commission as commander in chief were mounted side by side.

The three parts of the Declaration of Independence

Click image below to view.

General principles

States people have certain unalienable rights to Life,

Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Natures God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. Supporting evidence

A list of complaints with the English. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. Final declaration

Lays the foundation for prosperity in America. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

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ACTUAL SIZE







Hover above to view John Hancocks signature at actual size.

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Sources: National Archives; The New York Times; Independence Hall Association

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Its a widely abused practice that was imposed on America by past state legislatures and the federal government. Civil asset forfeiture has been used to take innocent peoples property for decades, and is perhaps better known as legal plunder.

As such, theres nothing particularly civil about civil asset forfeiture, and a California state senator wants to do something about that in the Golden State.

In many states, under civil asset forfeiture, law enforcement can seize private property without a search warrant or an indictment, much less a conviction, based solely on suspicion that the property has been involved in, or is the ill-gotten gains of, criminal activity.

Never mind that that stands the jurisprudential concept of innocent until proven guilty on its head and that its incompatible with the constitutional prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures set forth by the Fourth Amendment.

In California, the bar has been set higher, with state law requiring police and prosecutors to obtain a conviction before forfeiting property such as a car, boat, plane, home or cash under $25,000. These same protections must apply to all property and seek to require a uniform conviction standard for property forfeitures. The proposals in SB443 would also require that a conviction be obtained before state and local law enforcement could benefit from federal forfeiture actions.

To that end, Senate Bill 443 was resurrected  a bill that was on the verge of passing the California Legislature last summer  from the inactive file. With amendments aimed at addressing law enforcement objections, there are hopes to have the legislation put to a new vote before the end of this years session.

In a June 2015 study for the FreedomWorks Foundation, Civil Asset Forfeiture: Grading the States, author Michael Greibrok rated Californias laws governing the procedure a C-plus. Americans commonly look at California to see the direction the nation is heading. On civil asset forfeiture however, it is being left behind.

And while a C is better than the D-plus earned by neighboring Nevada, not as bad is hardly a satisfactory standard.

Originally devised as a tool to combat drug trafficking, pimping, money laundering and the like by expropriating their ill-gotten proceeds, civil asset forfeiture has become widely abused, for reasons that are hardly surprising.

It creates a perverse financial incentive  to say nothing of a conflict of interest  for police departments in California when they get to keep 65 percent of the proceeds from the sale of property seizures and of any cash thats seized.

One of the major goals of the proposal is to close a loophole in California and federal law that allows state and local law enforcement to keep seized proceeds and assets, even if the defendant is only suspected  not convicted  of a crime when the bust is the work of a joint task force with federal law enforcement officials.

In this so-called equitable sharing arrangement, state and local police and prosecutors get to keep up to 80 percent, with the federales getting the remaining 20 percent.

It comes as no surprise, then, to learn that according to a study by the Drug Policy Alliance, which supports SB443, joint state-federal forfeitures more than tripled between 2005 and 2013, while forfeitures without federal involvement remained largely constant.

Police and prosecutors budgets should never be balanced on the backs of innocent property owners and our law enforcement officials should not be relegated to tax collectors. In fact, many states  including New Mexico, Florida, Maryland and Minnesota  have taken steps to limit the use of civil asset forfeiture. Their communities did not collapse and neither will California.

Quite the opposite. By respecting due process and property rights, trust between the police and the communities they protect will deepen.

The bill is not perfect. In fact it only addresses civil forfeiture related to offenses involving controlled substances. But it is still a step in the right direction.

In Michigan, the Michigan Association of Police Organizations threw its support behind last years round of reforms.

Last June, SB443 passed the California state Senate overwhelmingly on a bipartisan vote of 38-1, and then cleared the state Assemblys Judiciary Committee 7-0 on July 14 and its Appropriations Committee on Aug. 27 before stalling. Hopefully, California will build on the progress of other states and put their innocent property owners first.

Grover Norquist is president of Americans for Tax Reform and a partner of the U.S. Justice Action Network.
Walter Mondale and George H.W. Bush were home runs. Spiro Agnew and Thomas Eagleton were strikeouts. Now its Hillary Clintons turn to name her running mate. Its a position with paradoxical job requirements: Be an energetic attack dog on the campaign trail, but if your side wins, morph into a pliant presidential minion.

And then theres the maddening near-miss quality of the vice presidency, described vividly by the first person who held the office. In this I am nothing, said John Adams. But I may be everything.

In modern times, the veeps job has become much more than nothing. Even so, in the last 100 years, only five vice presidents have ascended directly to the Oval Office, three upon the death of a president, one elected and one because of resignation. Experience as a former presidential primary candidate doesnt help your chances of being picked, either. Joe Biden was only the third unsuccessful presidential candidate in the last 50 years to be tapped by the party nominee  and he finished back in the pack both times he ran for president. Finishing a close second in the primaries, as a certain Vermont senator did this season, may make it even worse.

So history suggests that Bernie Sanders is not Clintons likely choice. But whom should she pick  and why?

News accounts have floated the names of possible running mates, focusing on their personal pros and cons. I also canvassed several prominent Democrats to see what names they are hearing.

The list is composed of six members of the U.S. Senate, including both Virginia senators, Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, along with Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Cory Booker (New Jersey) and Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota); three members of President Obamas cabinet  Julian Castro, Thomas E. Perez and Tom Vilsack; and two House members, Reps. Tim Ryan and Xavier Becerra.

Three former White House aides also mentioned three different long-shot candidates: Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and Leon Panetta, the veteran California Democrat who has been a congressman, White House budget director, defense secretary and CIA director.

Assessing the pros and cons of each person on the so-called short list is traditionally how the running-mate topic is broached. But there is another way to look at this process: What does Clinton want from her running mate?

First principle  Do no harm: Democrats view Donald Trump as a kind of one-man circular firing squad and they just want to stay out of his way. This theory argues for a vanilla pick: someone whose main qualification is that they dont have skeletons in their closet, wont say anything stupid, and are acceptable to most Democrats and a good number of independents. Kaine fits the bill here, as does Panetta. To a lesser degree so do Ohios Ryan, Patrick and Klobuchar.

Kaine checks other boxes in the identity politics-obsessed Democratic Party: Hes Roman Catholic, speaks fluent Spanish and is personally loyal to the Clintons, a factor that carries perhaps undue influence with Bill and Hillary.

Balancing the ticket: Ticket balance was once a very serious business, especially for Democrats. A northern state candidate was paired with a slave state senator, a liberal with a conservative, a governor with a senator that sort of thing.

Modern ticket balancing is subtle: George H.W. Bush was a Greatest Generation war hero who tapped baby boomer Dan Quayle, presumably to appeal to younger voters and women. Famous family man Al Gore  whose wife Tipper had challenged the music industry over kid-unfriendly lyrics  was selected by Bill Clinton after his campaign was nearly derailed by what it called bimbo eruptions. Dick Cheney was chosen by George W. Bush to assuage concerns that Bush had too little foreign policy experience.

But Walter Mondales selection of Geraldine Ferraro and Barack Obamas ascension in 2008 expanded the notion of ticket balancing. So who does Hillary pick if she wants to push at glass ceilings?

Kaine doesnt do much for her on this score. Neither do Warner, Vilsack or Panetta. Sens. Warren and Klobuchar, however, might solidify the Democrats advantage among female voters. Warren, as well as fellow economic progressive Sherrod Brown, might also neutralize lingering resentment among young Sanders primary voters still feeling the Bern. African Americans Cory Booker and Deval Patrick could rekindle the pro-Obama passion in the black community that helped Democrats in 2008 and 2012. Castro, Becerra Perez would do the same with Hispanics.

Presidents are mortal: Eight U.S. presidents have died in office. I suspect that Hillary, who will turn 70 next year, has considered this  if, for no other reason, than that her husband gave serious thought to the issue when he was nominated.

In Al Gore, Bill Clinton tapped someone close to his own age who hailed from a neighboring state, and was in sync with him ideologically. Clinton, whose father died before he was born, picked someone he believed could carry on his policies in the event of a tragedy as he told friends and even some journalists.

So who does Hillary believe would be a faithful steward of her policies? Thats hard to know, but Id say that both Virginia senators fit that mold, as do Klobuchar and Vilsack. Then again, everyone on Hillary Clintons short list has demonstrated personal loyalty to the Clintons  or they would not be under consideration.

Help governing: Even if Mrs. Clinton remains robust and healthy for the next four years, the vice presidency has evolved to the point where nominees are looking for a partner in their new endeavor, a sort of super-senior adviser whose judgment and temperament they trust.

This trait might be especially important in a second Clinton White House, expressly because of the long shadow cast by Bill Clinton himself. Who could be a counterweight to him? Panetta is the obvious answer, but not the only one. Kaine, who once ran the Democratic National Committee, is another.

Positioning the party for the future: The obvious problem with Panetta is that he turned 78 last Tuesday. If one sees the vice presidency as a stepping stone Leon Panetta is not your man. Neither are Warren (67) or Vilsack (65), while Brown (63) and Warner (61) are on the cusp.

Warner merits consideration because of the Trump factor. Virginias senior senator, a centrist Democrat who made a lot of money in the private sector, is unabashedly pro-business and a kind of walking, talking rebuttal to the Republican argument  and its not a specious one  that Democrats say they love jobs while seeming to hate employers.

Last year at this time, I would have told you it wouldnt be Kaine or Warner, but instead Julian Castro. Can you imagine the enthusiasm hed generate among Mexican Americans still bristling at Trumps talk about building a wall and about Mexican rapists?

Then again, she doesnt need a Latino running mate to gin up that kind of enthusiasm against Trump  any more than she needs another woman to drive home the point that shed be the first female president in U.S. history. My guess? Viva Tim Kaine!

Carl M. Cannon is executive editor of RealClearPolitics.com.
Have the U.S. Supreme Courts latest decisions thrown a few more curves into the weird, twisting path of the 2016 presidential election?

Probably so. Some of the courts decisions could directly affect turnout, while others may have a dramatic effect on fundraising and other activities that go on behind the blue velvet drapes of the political stage.

The Supreme Courts ruling in Whole Womans Health v. Hellerstedt, striking down two provisions of a Texas law as an unconstitutional burden on women seeking an abortion, was a reassuring victory for supporters of abortion rights. But Hillary Clinton sounded the alarm. This fight isnt over, she tweeted after the decision was announced.

Clinton has reason to be concerned that female voters who support legal abortion  especially independents  will feel that their right to choose isnt currently threatened. Instead of voting based on that single issue, they may vote for president based on economic issues, where Clinton routinely trails Donald Trump in national polls.

Pro-life voters, on the other hand, could regard the courts 5-3 decision as a warning bell calling them to action. Although they were never going to vote for Clinton, they could become a force multiplier in close U.S. Senate races. Soon, the fundraising letters will begin to go out, dangling the prospect of shifting the balance on the Supreme Court for a generation if Republicans win the White House and hold the Senate.

One decision that might have affected the election  but probably wont  is the courts 4-4 tie in United States v. Texas, in which 26 states sued to stop the presidents deportation deferral programs from going forward. The case now returns to a lower court, where it will live out its days until President Obama leaves office. Any political effect this case might have had has already been swamped by the twin tidal waves of voter anger and voter registration, both unleashed by Donald Trumps campaign promise to build a wall and deport all undocumented immigrants.

As it relates to the 2016 election, the Supreme Courts most significant actions may be the ones it hasnt yet taken.

Following a 4-4 split in March after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, the court has declined to rehear Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, in which 10 California teachers are challenging their unions mandatory dues. The issue now starts over in a lower court. If it returns, the next presidents appointees are nearly certain to tip the balance either for or against the political power of public employee unions. Thats likely to motivate a lot of door-knocking and phone-banking on behalf of Clinton this fall.

The most important political impact from the courts future calendar may relate to Second Amendment rights and gun-control laws.

Recently, an 11-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed an earlier victory for gun-rights advocates in the case of Peruta v. San Diego. The case turns on the constitutionality of a good-cause requirement for a permit to carry a concealed firearm. Its an issue likely to land at the Supreme Court eventually.

The high courts recent Second Amendment decisions  District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008 and McDonald v. Chicago in 2010  left many questions unanswered. The personal views and values of the justices will play a role as the future court considers the reasonableness and necessity of different gun-control laws, as well as the standard of constitutionality which has yet to be clarified.

Youd never know that the framers of the Constitution excluded the judiciary from any role in policy making. Reflecting the Founders concern about the overreach of government power, Alexander Hamilton once called the federal judiciary the least dangerous branch.

Today the country waits helplessly on the steps of the Supreme Court while the justices wrestle with policy decisions that affect the lives of millions of people. No wonder the answer we get is often reminiscent of a message from a Magic 8 Ball: Ask again later.

Susan Shelley is an author, a former television associate producer and was two-time Republican candidate for the state Assembly.
Nine-hundred and forty-four guns.

From Glocks, Sig Sauers and Remingtons to sniper and assault rifles.

They used to belong to law enforcement officers across California, but a Bay Area News Group investigation found that hundreds of police-issued weapons have been either stolen or lost or cant be accounted for since 2010, often disappearing onto the streets without a trace.

A year after a bullet from a federal agents stolen gun killed 32-year-old Kate Steinle on a San Francisco pier, the news organization surveyed more than 240 local, state and federal law enforcement agencies and discovered an alarming disregard for the way many officers  from police chiefs to cadets to FBI agents  safeguard their weapons.

Their guns have been stolen from behind car seats and glove boxes, swiped from gym bags, dresser drawers and under beds. They have been left on tailgates, car roofs and even atop a toilet paper dispenser in a car dealerships bathroom. One officer forgot a high-powered assault rifle in the trunk of a taxi.

The tally includes Colts, Rugers, Smith & Wessons, a Derringer, a .44-caliber Dirty Harry hand cannon and a small snub-nosed revolver called a Detective Special.

In all, since 2010, at least 944 guns have disappeared from police in the Bay Area and state and federal agents across California  an average of one almost every other day. Fewer than 20 percent have been recovered.

Little attention had been paid to the issue before Steinles highly publicized death. But at least 86 weapons were snatched from officers vehicles from January 2010 to the June 2015 smash-and-grab burglary of a U.S. Bureau of Land Management rangers gun recovered after Steinles shooting. Police have not determined who stole it, but an illegal immigrant is charged in her killing.

You just cant leave a gun alone in a vehicle, said retired FBI agent Jim Wedick. You just cant do it. It has to be in a compartment, or in chains an inch thick wrapped around a lead box, because, God forbid, someone gets hurt.

Even after Steinles death, law enforcement agents have continued to leave guns in their cars. Four FBI guns have been stolen from vehicles in the Bay Area this year, including three in Benicia. Three guns were stolen from Salinas police cars in a six-week period in April and May. And a San Jose police cadet resigned on the eve of becoming an officer after his gun was stolen from his car in late October while he was in the Benihana restaurant at Cupertinos Vallco Shopping Mall.

Scope is staggering

The thefts are revealed in records obtained from government agencies in one of the most comprehensive examinations of missing police guns of its kind. While last years killings of Steinle and Oakland muralist Antonio Ramos brought attention to the tragic consequences of stolen police guns, the scope of the problem has been far less clear  until now.

The numbers are staggering, said Frank Pitre, an attorney representing Steinles parents, Jim Steinle and Elizabeth Sullivan, in a federal lawsuit over their daughters death. The BLM is one of three defendants.

The news organizations investigation also uncovered that a gun stolen from a Tracy police officer in 2010 was used to kill a man in Contra Costa County four years later, and a now-retired Piedmont police chiefs gun, stolen in 2012, was used that same year in a San Francisco gang shooting.

Many departments struggle to keep track of weapons. Oakland police, for example, has lost track of 370 weapons since 2011, including 30 this year that later turned up. Its unclear how many guns could be missing from local departments that havent audited their inventory of weapons.

While most of the missing guns in the analysis were listed as lost or unaccounted for, 192 were listed as stolen.

This needs to stop, said state Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, who is sponsoring legislation that would make it illegal in California for a police officer to leave a gun in an unattended car unless it is locked inside a hidden compartment or secure case.

Officers become complacent with their weapons because they are so used to the guns always being there, Hill said. They dont take it as seriously as they should, and what the effects of it could be if it gets lost to the wrong hands.

Late last year, after Steinle and Ramos were killed, U.S. Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, urged President Barack Obama to issue an executive order requiring all federal guns left in parked vehicles to be locked down. The White House took no action, DeSaulnier said in an interview.

Nearly 100 federal agencies employ agents who use guns, and regulations on how to store those guns in vehicles vary widely. DeSaulnier said he will soon introduce legislation to make regulations uniform by requiring lockable compartments in any parked vehicle where a government gun is left.

He also is considering a requirement that any police department in the country that receives federal funding put strict policies in place about safeguarding guns in unattended vehicles.

It was very staggering for me to find out that there is no set, universal policy at all for state, local and federal government, DeSaulnier said. Thats crazy.

Records show a pattern: 60 percent of the guns that were stolen were swiped from vehicles, almost always a personal car or truck, where a gun was left vulnerable.

Rather than securing their guns, officers sought to hide them under or behind car seats, placed them in glove boxes and center consoles, or stowed them in exposed equipment bags and backpacks before dropping into coffee shops, health clubs, grocery stores, bars, a Bass Pro Shop, a Nordstrom or their homes.

Its a movie that keeps getting repeated, said Pitre, who also represents Ramos parents in a claim against the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in their sons death.

Ramos, the Oakland street artist, was painting an anti-violence mural on West Street under an I-580 overpass when he was shot with a gun stolen from an ICE agents parked car in San Francisco. It had been left in a bag, Pitre said. Marquise Holloway was charged in the slaying.

Steinle and Ramos werent the only ones killed with stolen police weapons in the region since 2010. In March 2014, a gun stolen from the vehicle of a Tracy police officer was used in the killing of Jesus Orozco, 34, a laborer and father of two, in a dispute over a woman that a prosecutor called a little love triangle.

Tracy police Chief Larry Esquivel, a former San Jose police chief, said, The circumstances were truly unfortunate for everybody involved. I cant stress enough the importance of proper storage (and) care of any weapon.

Running the gamut

Officers whose guns were lost or stolen run the law enforcement gamut, from ICE and Drug Enforcement Administration agents to forest rangers, officers with the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, sheriffs deputies, game wardens, welfare fraud investigators and parks police. A California Highway Patrol officers gun was stolen from his wife after she took it without his knowledge.

Losing a gun, especially when it was left vulnerable, is one of the worst things to have happen to a police officer, said CHP Capt. Josh Ehlers.

Forty government-issued and personal guns were stolen from CHP officers during the period analyzed. Three more were reported missing.

CHP Officer Antonio Garrett left six guns  two shotguns, two pistols and two assault rifles  inside his Chevrolet Tahoe while he stopped at a Claim Jumper restaurant in Southern California in 2013. He didnt notice the cache of weapons was gone until he got home and found that a lock on the SUV was broken. The guns have not been found, Ehlers said. Garrett had been returning from a CHP gun range.

Stolen police guns have ended up in the hands of members and associates of notorious gangs such as the Bloods, the Aryan Brotherhood and the Nortenos. One fell into the hands of a pimp in Reno after a prostitute took a Kensington police officers Glock pistol and badge from his hotel room when he fell asleep. The gun was recovered after the pimp accidentally shot himself in the leg during an altercation.

Thats not the only bizarre discovery of an officers stolen gun: In 2014, a Washington woman in a Seattle suburb was pounding on the rattling glove compartment of a used car she had just bought when it popped open and out fell a .40-caliber Sig Sauer pistol that had been hidden in the air bag compartment. Three years earlier, a thief swiped it from a Stockton police officers car.

Discipline appears rare

Strong discipline would help curb thefts, experts say, but it isnt clear whether such discipline happens; Californias secretive police personnel laws often make it difficult to find out what happened to officers who left guns unsecured.

A few cases show punishment is far from severe.

When an unidentified Napa police officer left an assault weapon in the trunk of a taxi  the driver later turned it in  the discipline was a written reprimand, Chief Steven Potter said. When another officers weapon was stolen from his house, he received a lecture and was told to buy a gun safe.

An officer leaving a gun unsecured in a vehicle can be gross negligence, Stephanie Wheaton, a senior DMV investigator, wrote in a January memo after investigating an underling whose gun was stolen in Los Angeles County last year.

Wheaton found the investigator changed his story, first claiming he left a bag containing the gun in the car, then saying he took the gun into his house.

She wrote that, at a minimum, the investigators punishment should be to pay the state the cost of the weapon  more than $700. A DMV spokesman would not say if or how the investigator was disciplined.

Alameda County Sheriff Greg Ahern said none of the thefts of guns from his deputies personal vehicles resulted in the kind of internal affairs investigations that can lead to serious discipline. Rather, he said, the department took administrative measures, such as an informal counseling session and what he called a formal record of conversation.

Unaccounted for

Far more guns are listed as lost, missing or unaccounted for than stolen  designations that can seem charitable, with police saying they sometimes use that listing when they suspect but arent sure that the weapon might have been stolen.

Stockton police list two Colt assault rifles as lost, although Lt. Rodney Rego said they probably were stolen when a police building being closed was burglarized.

We just dont really know what happened to them, he said.

The department also listed 15 12-gauge Remington shotguns and two Bushmaster assault rifles as unaccounted for in 2014. Two of the shotguns have been found. Some of the others might have been cannibalized for parts, lost, traded in for newer weapons or stolen, Rego said.

San Jose lost track of 324 guns, with records showing the citys lax controls failed to track whether officers took their weapons with them when they retired. The city recovered 14 of the missing weapons, records show. Like Oakland, San Joses numbers are eye-popping, but experts argue that other large departments likely would show similar numbers of missing weapons if they conducted similar audits. San Francisco, the regions other large department, keeps documented track of rifles and shotguns, a spokesman said, but not pistols.

Oakland police have historically done a very poor job of keeping track of weapons, working with a system that is really lousy, said Lt. Sekou Millington, commander of the departments training office.

A 2011 report showed 305 missing weapons, and follow-ups have added to the total. Forty-seven have turned up, but most are gone, Millington said, sold, perhaps, but not documented. The department has little idea where the weapons might be and in whose hands. Millington said he hopes the city will buy software to track when guns enter or leave the station and signal alerts when one is gone too long.

As bad as this is, Millington said, I hope it is going to get us the technology we need to fix it.

Human error

Some departments are exploring technology that would help track down lost and stolen guns, similar to GPS trackers that help people locate missing cellphones, Ahern said.

That could have helped in a variety of scenarios in which guns vanished in a flash. A Gilroy officer and a Marin County deputy each left weapons on the tailgates of their trucks. They fell off. The Marin gun was found in a field and returned.

Sometimes guns were temporarily misplaced. An investigator for the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Department reported his weapon stolen to Fresno police after he put his state vehicle through a local car wash.

Officers interrogated car wash workers and searched their homes as part of a full-scale investigation, documents show. Days later, the investigator was cleaning at home when he found a bag.

Surprise surprise, he began an email to his bosses. The gun had been inside the bag all along.

Then there was what Wedick, the retired FBI agent, called an unfortunate fact about gun holsters: Its difficult to use a toilet without taking one off.

People have to go to the bathroom, Wedick said.

Last year, San Mateo County sheriffs Capt. Jeff Kearnan  a homeland security expert with a recent masters degree from thenaval school in Monterey  left his duty weapon on the toilet paper dispenser in the bathroom of a Dublin car dealership.

He drove away but raced back as soon as he realized he was unarmed.

The gun was gone. It remains missing.
Re: Final Benghazi report: No smoking gun pointing to Clinton [News, June 28]: The Associated Press article made a political statement not shared by many that there was no smoking gun pointing to Hillary. Why would that be important? And, why does this arm of the mainstream media gloss over all of the incriminating evidence that has been uncovered the last few years? The facts that have been uncovered by the Benghazi Committee point to a total lack of responsibility on the part of Hillary when she was secretary of state.

The White House made a big show of no man left behind with a deserter (and then traded him for five of the worlds most dangerous criminals), but left our men behind in Libya on Sept. 11, 2012. No attempt was made to make sure the embassy was safe, a responsibility of the State Department headed by Hillary. A heroic attempt was made to fight off the terrorists on that fateful evening with no effort on the part of our government to send in the military to assist  even though they were standing by. Sad, disgusting and very disturbing for us as a nation and for the families who lost their loved ones. When is it okay to condone the morally reprehensible actions of those who are responsible for our nations safety and security?

We all know that those who should be held accountable will not be. That is the status quo of the last eight years of this administration  lack of accountability, lack of responsibility, lack of morals.

Norma Yarbrough

Fountain Valley

  

Now that the Benghazi Committee has come out with their final report showing that the American people have been lied to by the president and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, it only proves that this administration has been the most corrupt and inept, making the Nixon administration look like the childs play. There is a rumor going around that Hillary Clinton may take Elizabeth Warren on as a running mate while she campaigns for president. I guess in that way Hillary can tell lies and Warren will swear to Clintons lies. I hope that people read the Benghazi Committee report and realize Hillary, the president and his administration, in an effort to get re-elected, let four brave men die in Libya without sending any help.

Tony Barone

Huntington Beach

  

Many new facts of the Benghazi attack have been revealed in spite of the obstruction by the Obama/Clinton team. On Sept. 11, 2012 President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and others were watching a live drone feed of an overwhelmed American diplomatic station and CIA compound being defended by a small group of Americans that were fighting for their lives. To his credit, Panetta ordered a military rescue operation. His order must have been countermanded by the president.

The State Department under Hillary Clinton refused the numerous requests for better defenses and, along with President Obama, lied to America, and the world, at the United Nations, claiming the attack was the results of a YouTube video that was disrespectful to Islam. The failed policies of the Obama administration werent known during the 56 days prior to his re-election, while a talk show campaign of lies had his and Hillarys backs. Unlike Benghazi, where the commander-in-chief and his secretary of state put politics over the lives of those that serve the U.S.

Frank Householder

Huntington Beach

  

What difference, at this point, does it make? Sadly, it isnt at all surprising that Hillary Clinton has been exonerated from any and all responsibility pertaining to the Benghazi deaths. Our present administration fails to take responsibility for anything of consequence. The Democrats are so eager to continue with the mess that Obama has made that they will do whatever is necessary, legal or otherwise, to get Hillary elected. Our country deserves better, much better.

Barbara Shepard

Huntington Beach
The following are letters sent to Kelly Richardson in recent weeks.

Q. Kelly, with the issue of renting by the day/week becoming red hot in the San Diego market, can the homeowners association amend the bylaws/CC&Rs to say rentals must be a minimum of one month? As it stands now, there is no language about rentals of any kind. Thanks.

 S.H., San Diego

A. Many associations already have short-term rental bans. Except in the rare association in which members wish to be able to offer weekend or vacation rentals, most associations are better served by requiring a minimum length for initial lease terms. Short-term hotel type rentals are arguably not residential and therefore may conflict with the requirement in most CC&Rs that the property be used for residential purposes.

Its an important issue that bears discussion by the membership regarding whether it desires a possible CC&R amendment adding that requirement.

Q. I read one of your articles, Owners must give board tenant information under new law. I also read the law as you indicated, Civil Code Section 4740(d). However, it said the law has to be included in the HOA governing document. Do we need to make an amendment or add it to our governing document in order to enforce the law?

I mentioned it to our HOA management company to request renters information from homeowners, but they think that its not necessary and are reluctant to get the information. Thank you.

 H.F., Garden Grove

A. Civil Code 4740(d) requires that, in associations with a complete or partial rental ban, landlords provide the association certain information. This statute requires the landlord provide verification of the date the owner acquired the residence and the name and contact information of the prospective tenant or representative.

This information is necessary for the HOA to know if the automatic grandfathering of 4740(a) applies because rental bans put in place in 2013 or later apply only to future owners, not those who were owners at the time the ban began. This is important for the association to know when someone other than the owner is entitled to live there.

However, even without a rental ban or limit in place, your association could adopt a rule requiring that information be provided, for everyones safety.

Q. I am on the board of a large HOA. We have trouble with some of the residents not returning their yearly information update, which requests the owners and tenants names, phone numbers, vehicle information and emergency contact info. If the owner or resident does not comply, can we assess a fine until either the owner or tenant complies? Thank you.

 P.H., Torrance

A. Associations can help both landlords and resident owners by thinking about their rental policies and placing them in their CC&Rs. One very basic requirement would be that resident contact information must be kept current with the association. If this requirement is adopted as a use restriction or rule, then yes, the association could enforce it with a fine, imposed after a hearing process complying with Civil Code 5855.

Kelly G. Richardson, Esq.,

is a fellow of the College of Community Association Lawyers and senior shareholder of Richardson Harman Ober PC, a law firm known for community association advice. Submit questions to KRichardson@RHOpc.com. Read past columns at HOAHomefront.com.
LOS ANGELES  The Dodgers placement of Clayton Kershaw on the disabled list this week caused plenty of consternation.

But their starting rotation again looked stable on Saturday night.

One day after Bud Norris, who took Kershaws scheduled start after being acquired in a five-player trade with Atlanta, threw six scoreless, two-hit innings, Scott Kazmir nearly replicated the feat.

The veteran left-hander surrendered three hits in six shutout innings, as the Dodgers went on to defeat the Colorado Rockies, 6-1, for their third consecutive victory.

You win with starting pitching, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. You sustain winning with starting pitching. These guys came out and set the tone for us.  Some good things are happening.

They are five games back of San Francisco in the National League West, gaining three games over the last week on the Giants, who lost Saturday.

For Kazmir, it was the first time he hit the 100-pitch mark since May when he threw 106 pitches in 52/3 innings against the Padres in San Diego.

Facing the Rockies on Saturday, Kazmir tossed 100 pitches with 10 strikeouts, no walks and one hit batter. His two-seam fastball was as sharp as it had been all season long, touching 95 mph a season-high four times.

I felt like it jumped a little more, Kazmir said.

He did not allow a hit until DJ LeMahieus leadoff single in the top of the fourth inning. Colorado had a runner in scoring position only twice, thanks to a one-out doubles by LeMahieu in the sixth and Cristhian Adames in the fifth.

Each time, Kazmirs performance appeared to rise.

To end the sixth, Kazmir struck out Nolan Arenado for the third time, along with Carlos Gonzalez, their Nos. 3-4 hitters. Arenado began Saturday with 44 strikeouts in 345 plate appearances, a rate of 12.8 percent that stood as the lowest among NL third baseman according to FanGraphs.

Kazmir similarly fanned two to get out of the fifth.

Thats the Kazmir we know, Roberts said.

It helped that he got off to a quick start. Kazmir threw 18 pitches in the first inning, setting down three straight batters after hitting leadoff man Charlie Blackmon with an inside fastball.

In the first 16 starts this season, he had given up 16 earned runs in the first inning.

That prompted a slight adjustment to his pregame routine. After warming up, he threw a simulated inning in the bullpen, seeing three at-bats.

It seemed to lock me in a little bit, Kazmir said.

The idea came after a conversation with pitching coach Rick Honeycutt. Kazmir said he has tried this in the past.

Obviously it paid dividends, Roberts said.

In two games this weekend at Dodger Stadium, the Rockies have scored one run, though their first one did not come until the ninth inning on Saturday, when Arenado hit a solo home run 395 feet into the Dodgers bullpen. It was the eighth homer that Chris Hatcher has given up this season.

Meanwhile, the Dodgers have scored 11 runs in two games.

They began with a parade of hits in the bottom of the first inning. Four consecutive singles, beginning with one by Corey Seager, led to a pair of runs that moved them ahead, 2-0.

Seagers ground ball to left field extended his hitting streak to a major-league leading 15 games.

Among the Dodgers eight starting position players, seven of them recorded a hit and two of them had multi-hit games, including Justin Turner who went 3 for 4 with a double and Trayce Thompson who was 2 for 4 with a double.

On their three-game winning streak, the Dodgers have tallied 19 combined runs.

I think guys are just starting to come around, Thompson said. JT, I think it all starts with him. Whenever he has a good game, we usually have a pretty good game as an offense. Coreys going to do what Coreys going to do. But I think it all starts with JT. I think a lot of credit should be given to him.

Contact the writer: jkaufman@ocregister.com
UC Irvines motto is Fiat Lux, which is Latin for let there be light. Unfortunately, our College Republican chapter recently saw that far too often, universities fail to live up to this enlightening creed.

About a week ago, we were suspended for a year, mere hours after administrators found out we planned on bringing Breitbart journalist and social commentator Milo Yiannopoulos back to UCI. The reason cited by administrators was that there was an infraction stemming from a lack of insurance for four private security guards at the event.

Never mind that the guards were not hired by our club. Never mind that no mention of insurance was made until the day before the event in an offhand comment that had no follow-up email, instructions or explanations of its importance. Never mind that there is documented evidence of other clubs avoiding trouble for far more egregious infractions. Never mind that the issue for which our club was being suspended was not mentioned during the event debrief.

We were determined to fight this injustice, and thankfully, we were not alone.

A surprising number of lawyers offered us pro bono legal assistance in order to keep us from being suspended. Local elected officials such as our local Assemblyman Matthew Harper wrote letters and gave quotes of support. Additionally, there was an outpouring of support from College Republicans and everyday Americans all over the country, and a successful petition was made in support of us that reached a thousand signatures within a day. Most surprisingly, the Bernie Sanders club at UCI stood with us on the grounds of common principles  in support of freedom to assemble, debate and disagree as opposed to supporting political suppression that could be abused by administrators to stifle any act of political expression they deem problematic.

In response to the rest of the country rising up for freedom of speech and assembly, the school first tried to play a game of semantics, arguing that we were not suspended but were merely barred from booking meetings, events and tabling spots.

Let this be clear: If a club is barred from its basic functions, it is no different than a suspension.

The school eventually decided they will drop the charges so long as we submit an appeal. We chose not to do so, as appealing would have legitimized the politically motivated attack and would set a precedent for further targeting of not only our club, but other clubs as well.

Thankfully, last week, UC Irvine officially dropped its charges against our organization and left us with a warning instead. Ironically enough, according to its written consequences for the Level II violation we were hit with, a written warning was supposed to be the punishment in the first place, as opposed to a suspension.

Nevertheless, this is an important victory for free speech and free assembly. Our club will be vigorous this fall in promoting free speech on campus, fighting against the rampant anti-Semitism we see at UCI and bringing Milo back to speak at UCI.

Now that our chapters name is cleared, we would like to ensure that such incidents do not occur again against any political clubs, regardless of position on the ideological spectrum.

The reaction to our clubs suspension from all over the country and across the political spectrum has drawn a strong, precedent-setting rebuke against the culture of censorship that administrators have pushed against political activity on campus, especially against conservatives and Jewish students who face constant anti-Semitic attacks.

According to a study by sociologist George Yancey, 30 percent of academics claimed they would be less likely to support a Republican job seeker. This discrimination, loss of opportunity and suppression of student expression cheats students out of a complete education.

As the administrators of the largest public school system in the world, the UC Regents have an important opportunity to stand up for the principles their universities champion in their slogans. UC President Janet Napolitano and the rest of the regents must make a stand against political discrimination and establish a resolution against administrative bias and ideological intolerance on campus.

If a university really wants to Let there be light, it would encourage the flourishing of free speech and intellectual debate on campus instead of practicing censorship.

Robert Petrosyan is California College Republicans Southern Region Vice Chair and College Republicans UCI Chairman Emeritus.
Turkmenistans Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov made a rare and little publicized visit to three northwestern Afghan provinces at the end of June. Meredovs trip was the latest evidence that Turkmen authorities are having to adjust their policies toward their southern neighbor in light of the breakdown in security in northwestern Afghanistan.

Weve been discussing events in northern Afghanistan in the Majlis podcast and in Qishloq Ovozi for many months. But Meredovs visit to Jowzjan, Faryab, and Balkh provinces was something unseen previously.

The trip, and what it means to Turkmenistans posturing toward Afghanistan, bears a closer look. So RFE/RLs Turkmen Service, known locally as Azatlyk, assembled a Majlis panel to consider recent events in northwest Afghanistan and review how Turkmenistan has reacted and how Ashgabat might react in the future.

Moderating the discussion was Azatlyk Director Muhammad Tahir. Gennady Rudkevich, assistant professor of political science at Georgia University and a specialist in Central Asian affairs, joined the talk. And in the studio in Prague, Amin Mudaqiq, the director of RFE/RLs Pakistani service, known as Radio Mashaal, participated. And I tossed in a few tidbits here and there, as well.

Mudaqiq started the discussion by recounting the recent fighting in northwest Afghanistan. Mudaqiq said the return of Afghanistans vice president, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, to the region has once again brought a modicum of stability to parts of northwest Afghanistan.

Two months ago, the Taliban had almost encircled the provincial capitals of Faryab and Jowzjan and Sari Pul, Mudaqiq explained. I have relatives, Ive been talking with them, they evacuated their families...because it was expected that the Taliban will overrun [their city] in hours.

Mudaqiq said the situation changed after Dostum came back to northwest Afghanistan in the spring, the fourth time in less than a year that Dostum had returned to lead security operations against the militants.

The Taliban has been driven from some districts. But Rudkevich pointed out that a pattern has emerged where we see Dostum coming in, Dostum clearing out the militants, Dostum leaving, the Taliban coming in.

For Turkmenistan, one of the more alarming developments in northwest Afghanistan is the rise of a new group of Taliban, as Mudaqiq explained.

To my surprise, [it is] the Turkmen commanders, Turkmen Taliban, who are the most resistant, the toughest fighters in this area, Mudaqiq said. These are the local Turkmen commanders, but they studied in Pakistan, they came [back] from Pakistan. And he added that these Turkmen fighters are a departure from previous Turkmen groups.

Traditionally, the young Turkmen would obey their elders, but right now they dont obey their elders, Mudaqiq said. The elders are also not pushing so hard because they have their own grievances against Dostum.

Mudaqiq also mentioned local Taliban, local militants who are not ideological Taliban but [who] joined the Taliban either for their own security or [because of] their economic problems.

Mudaqiq described these people as essentially hired guns and said they are often accepted back onto the government side after making vague oaths of allegiance. During Dostums offensives in the northwest, there have been several instances of Taliban commanders making peace with Dostum and joining the government side.

Rudkevich said this tactic might not pay off for long.

If these local actors change sides so quickly and without punishment, apparently, then one day, whether its a month from now or a year from now or five years from now, we could have a situation where they decide that being on Dostums side, or being on the governments side, is not in their interest," he said. "And in that case, the fighting will end up in a very different direction than what it is right now.

Part of the reason for Foreign Minister Meredovs trip to northwest Afghanistan was probably to get a first-hand look at these events so the Turkmen government can better assess the situation south of the border. His planned visit to a border town where Turkmenistan is building a retaining wall along the Amu-Darya River was abruptly canceled when unfortunately there was a mine blast, which hit his convoy, and he returned, Mudaqiq said.

Officially, Meredov was there to discuss bilateral projects. He participated in a groundbreaking ceremony for the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan railway in the town of Akina in Faryab Province and he discussed plans for Turkmenistan to export electricity to areas in northwest Afghanistan. Such discussions could just as easily, and more usually, have been held in Ashgabat or Kabul. Mudaqiq mentioned that Meredovs meetings with local officials were all conducted behind closed doors.

Azatlyk already reported that the commander of the paramilitary Arbaky units and some local police officials were just in Ashgabat. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu also made the first-ever visit by a Russian defense minister to Turkmenistan at the start of June.

So it could be that Turkmenistan, which for some 20 years has prided itself on being a neutral country, is choosing a side in the Afghan conflict.

But Mudaqiq drew attention to Turkmenistans projects in northwest Afghanistan and suggested that Turkmenistan does have a policy toward this region.

This electricity, this railway project, these road projects do not benefit only the government. [They] benefit the whole population, which includes the Taliban, Mudaqiq said. Turkmenistan electricity in Faryab is distributed in villages, which are under the Taliban, so when the Taliban starts a disturbance against Turkmenistan, they will lose electricity as well.

Mudaqiq said Turkmenistan might be seeking to make the Afghan provinces across the border dependent on Turkmenistan so that no matter who is in control in northwest Afghanistan that party will need to have friendly relations with Turkmenistan.

It would be a better policy than simply trying to stay out of Afghan politics altogether, which has already proven to be impossible.

Rudkevich said, [The Turkmen government} wants to have stable borders with Afghanistan, and it looks like theyve seen the situation degenerate to such an extent that theyre willing to make some sacrifices in the neutrality policy. But Rudkevich cautioned, I cant see them going much further without really jeopardizing the whole neutrality policy, which, again, has been what their whole identity is based on for the last 20 years.

The panel agreed we are likely to see a very flexible policy from the Turkmen government toward neighboring areas in Afghanistan, but not a coherent strategy, as Ashgabat is in the position of having to react to Afghan events without being able to do much to influence the situation.

The panel discussed these issues in greater detail and looked at other topics that are shaping the situation in northwest Afghanistan and forcing policymakers in Ashgabat to regularly make adjustments to Turkmenistans ties with its southern neighbor.

Listen to or download the Majlis podcast above or subscribe to Majlis on iTunes.
As a 3-year-old boys parents frantically searched for him on the sand in Newport Beach, his small body was buried alive, trapped under the sand.

Had it not been for a bystanders quick thinking, the boy may not be alive, authorities said.

Jesse Martin, a 35-year-old visiting from Arizona, overheard two frantic women asking lifeguards for help when they couldnt find a lost 3-year-old boy near 40th Street around 2:30 p.m.

Its not an uncommon occurrence, especially on a busy holiday weekend when the sand is packed. At least 10 missing children calls were received that day in Newport alone, authorities said.

But what was unusual was what happened next.

Martin, in town with his family for the holiday weekend, decided to help in the search. He called in some nearby uncles and cousins to help. He noticed a group of kids playing in a hole where the boy was last seen. He asked them to get out, and on a hunch, he started digging.

After a couple big scoops I felt him under there, Martin said.

Martin said the boy was white and blue when he pulled him out of the sand. Two uncles, Steve and Stuart Frost, rushed over and started doing CPR and chest compressions.

They got him moving and breathing before paramedics could get there, Martin said.

When tower lifeguard Fletcher Norseen arrived on scene, he continued rescue breathing.

Newport Beach Lifeguard Battalion Chief Brent Jacobsen said the boy had been tunneling  digging one hole that connected to another hole  when it collapsed on top of him. Authorities believe the hole was about 3 feet deep.

Martin said the boy had been under the sand at least 3-4 minutes.

The boy was transported to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach.

Martin, who has children ages 9 and 12, said he did what anyone would do.

Im not a hero. I have two kids of my own, it scares me. I just like to help out and help anyone we can, he said. I knew (the mom) was frantic and scared. Kids have gotten away from me, I know the feeling. I just tried to jump in and help.

Sand entrapment is a danger many beachgoers dont know about, Jacobsen said.

Lifeguards warn that no one should ever dig a hole that is deeper than 1 foot, and digging a tunnel and trying to climb into it is extremely dangerous.

It is very easy to become entrapped, he said. Sand can weigh several hundred pounds and you dont even realize it.

Jacobsen said it was a close call.

We probably just narrowly missed a fatality, he said.

Martin said the family has sent photos showing the boy healthy at home.

Thats what makes it all worth it, he said. I was nervous and shook up seeing him how he was when he first came out of the hole.

Contact the writer: lconnelly@ocregister.com
California Gov. Jerry Brown just signed the states $171 billion budget, but voters will have a chance to weigh in on even more state spending during the November election. One likely ballot measure would extend Proposition 30s tax increases, which passed in 2012 and are supposed to expire at the end of 2018.

The Prop. 30 tax hikes mostly go to education spending, so its not a surprise the ballot initiative to extend them is supported by the California Teachers Association, which is already sounding scary alarm bells warning of a looming education catastrophe should the tax hikes fail to pass. Californias schools and colleges are still recovering from the severe economic downturn that slashed education funding, and the governors message today was very clear that unless we pass the ballot initiative to maintain the income tax rates on Californias wealthiest, the state faces a $4 billion deficit and a $4 billion cut to education, CTA President Eric Heins cautioned voters.

A primary justification cited by the CTA and others is that California ranks among the lowest-spending states in the country when it comes to per-pupil spending on education. According to Education Weeks 2016 Quality Counts study, California ranks 46th in per-pupil expenditures after adjusting for regional cost differences. But upon closer examination, such rankings paint a woefully misleading picture.

First, it would be absurd to judge a state, school or business based solely on its spending. For Californias public schools, the end goal is not to spend as much as money as possible, but rather to maximize student outcomes while effectively employing tax dollars.

Unfortunately, Californias students are lagging in achievement. Recent 4th and 8th grade National Assessment of Educational Progress scores show that California is among the lowest-performing states in math and reading. And despite the fact that Californias per-pupil expenditures were reduced by nearly $1,400 between 2008 and 2013, the states NAEP test scores actually improved during that time.

Unlike many things where spending is a reliable indicator of quality, such a relationship does not exist in the realm of public education. This is best illustrated by the weak correlation between NAEP results and per-pupil expenditures. For example, New York ranks third-highest in adjusted spending, yet its 8th grade reading scores are just 33rd overall. And despite being dead last in spending, Utah ranks an impressive ninth-best in reading.

Importantly, this phenomenon is also observed when differences in demographics are accounted for. Economically disadvantaged students from low-spending states such as Florida and Kentucky consistently outperform their peers in higher-spending states such as Connecticut and New Jersey on NAEP exams.

In their book Schoolhouses, Courthouses, and Statehouses: Solving the Funding-Achievement Puzzle in Americas Public Schools, school finance experts Eric Hanushek and Alfred A. Lindseth conclude, After hundreds of studies, it is now generally recognized that how money is spent is much more important than how much is spent.

Californians know this all too well. A textbook example is the states class-size reduction efforts, which spent billions of dollars on student-to-teacher ratios that research has failed to link to demonstrable improvements in student achievement.

Taxpayers should be skeptical of state spending claims and comparisons that have little connection to student achievement. They should instead consider two simple questions when evaluating funding decisions in November and beyond: Are the states current education dollars being spent productively, and would additional education dollars be spent in a manner that would actually improve student outcomes? Until taxpayers can answer both of these questions in the affirmative, they shouldnt rush to throw more money at the states public schools.

Instead, Californias educational leaders would be wise to focus on eliminating wasteful spending being directed at failing programs, to replicate plans that are successfully increasing student outcomes at high-achieving schools and to push to give individual schools and principals more control over how they spend per-pupil funding.

Instead of just voting on potential tax increases, they should give parents a chance to vote with their feet by implementing school choice programs that allow students and parents to choose the public schools they believe are best for them.

Aaron Garth Smith is an education policy analyst at Reason Foundation.
ISTANBUL  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared Saturday that Syrian President Bashar Assad was a more advanced terrorist than Islamic State, despite the deadly attack on Istanbuls Ataturk Airport that Turkish officials blame on the militant group.

Speaking in the town of Kilis near the border with Syria, Erdogan said the Syrian leader was responsible for the deaths of some 600,000 of his own citizens and was the root cause of the war in Syria.

He is a more advanced terrorist than a terrorist from the PYD or the YPG, Erdogan said. He is a more advanced terrorist than Daesh. PYD and the YPG are acronyms for Kurdish groups that Ankara accuses of terrorism because of their affiliation with Turkeys Kurdish rebels; Daesh is an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

Three militants armed with assault rifles and suicide bombs attacked one of the worlds busiest airports on Tuesday night, killing at least 44 people. Although no one has claimed responsibility for the attack, Turkish officials say they believe it was the work of Islamic State.

Turkish authorities have detained at least 24 people in raids in several Istanbul neighborhoods over possible connections to the attack. Seventeen other people were detained in the province of Gaziantep, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Erdogan paid an unannounced visit to the airport on Saturday, saying a prayer in front of a memorial set up for the victims, which features the pictures of airport employees killed in the rampage.

He later flew to Kilis, where the number of Syrian refugees is higher than the local Turkish population. Islamic State militants have also attacked the town with cross-border rocket fire, killing 21 people there since January.

Erdogan said countries he did not name were supporting the Syrian Kurdish militia and Islamic State in a bid to prevent democracy in Syria and for their dirty calculations in the region. He also announced that his government would allow Syrian refugees in Turkey to take on Turkish citizenship.

Turkey has been accused of long turning a blind eye to jihadi fighters who crossed into Syria from Turkish territory in the hope that they would hasten Assads downfall. Turkey has also been accused of not doing enough to fight Islamic State, despite allowing the U.S.-led coalition to use a key air base to conduct air strikes against jihadists.

Turkey denies the accusations but such statements from Erdogan help reinforce beliefs that fighting Islamic State is not a priority for Ankara despite the extremist groups attacks on Turkish territory.
At a time when the state is struggling to balance its budget, failing to adequately fund basic road and water infrastructure and bracing itself for a potential economic downturn in the near future, extravagant projects like the bullet train simply do not make sense.

But none of this has stopped state lawmakers from stepping up efforts to spend the money made available by Proposition 1A, which voters approved in 2008, providing for $9.95 billion in general obligation bond authority to finance the system.

On Tuesday, the Senate Housing and Transportation Committee narrowly approved Assembly Bill 1889, a proposal from Assemblyman Kevin Mullin, D-South San Francisco, authorizing the sale of high-speed rail bond funds to pay for upgrades to the cash-strapped Caltrain system in the San Francisco Bay Area.

AB1889 will help facilitate the expenditure of previously appropriated Prop. 1A funding on the high-speed rail systems bookends, explained Mr. Mullin to the committee. That is including the electrification of Caltrain, a vital transit project on the [San Francisco] peninsula and in the South Bay region.

Matt Robinson, representing Caltrain, which understandably endorsed the proposal, argued that the $600 million proposed to fund the Caltrain corridor  will ultimately be used by high-speed rail trains as part of the blended system.

Sen. Cathleen Galgiani, D-Stockton, who authored Prop. 1A, was notably skeptical of the proposal, which would free up $1.1 billion in bond funds to finance upgrades at both ends of the proposed high-speed rail system to make them suitable for use by the high-speed trains.

We are far from having enough money to do all of it, she said. So the concern is that if both bookends are ready to go and theres nothing to connect them, its not a high-speed rail system. Its not a system if we have a grade separation in Southern California, and we have Caltrain, and we have a stranded system in the Central Valley  then youve got pieces but you dont anything thats whole.

Despite this sensible rationale for holding off on spending the money, the committee voted 6-4 to move the proposal along.

The bullet train sold to California voters in 2008 is not the project that might someday be completed. It will certainly cost more, do less and siphon resources away from things that would benefit the average person. At some point state lawmakers will need to truly represent the will of the public and help put an end to the bullet train.
In a small glade in Weir Canyon, next to a three-foot wide stump, a coastal oak tree lies on the ground, hacked apart and stripped of its bark.

Hatchet in hand, horticulturalist and retired UC Cooperative Extension advisor John Kabashima chips at the top layer of a five-foot long log. Inside, he uncovers a warren of black trails through which a small BB might roll.

The snaking spaghetti trails surround the tree, dug by an invasive beetle that eventually killed its host. Orange County Fire Authority crews then cut the tree down and apart, their chainsaws working like scalpels to remove a tumor from Orange Countys emblamatic coast live oak woodlands.

But they might have been too late.

The goldspotted oak borer, originally from southeast Arizona, is rampant across San Diego County, where it was discovered in 2008, and its been in Orange County since at least 2014. In Weir Canyon, painted blue spots mark the tiny D-shaped exit holes where the beetles have burrowed their way out of the tree.

Were not sure we caught it in time, Kabashima said.

The oak borer infestation is killing oak trees that are already weak, thirsty for water after four years of drought. The dying trees raise the risk of wildfire during what is starting out as a summer of record-breaking heat.

But the goldspotted oak borer is not the only beetle striking Orange Countys trees.

Another invader  the polyphagous shot hole borer  favors the sorts of trees that cities plant in street medians, homeowners plant in their yards and universities plant to shade their campuses.

The shot hole borer, from Southeast Asia, is wreaking havoc in urban Orange County, and has killed hundreds of trees at UC Irvine. Severe drought actually harms that beetle, but urban trees are irrigated, so the shot hole borer has managed to flourish in spite of the drought.

The two beetles are creating a continuous front of dead trees that could allow fires in wild areas to leap into cities.

DRY SUMMER

Some of Orange Countys worst fires started in the Inland Empire and spread here through Santa Ana Canyon.

The canyon can act like a funnel, pushing air to higher speeds as it squeezes through a small space. When those winds emerge on the Orange County side, the air and flames eddy north and south, to places like Weir Canyon.

A decade has passed since a fire last passed through Weir Canyon. Then, the grass burned but the flames only scorched the bottoms of the trees, said George Ewan, a wildland defense planner for the Orange County Fire Authority.

If a fire comes here this summer, its doubtful the mark would be so little.

A thick mat of grass  three crops from the winter rains  lies golden and crisp on the forest floor. Many of the trees stand tall, but theyre dry and dying.

The drought and the beetle are working hand in hand to kill everything, Ewan said as he drove a truck down a bumpy, gravel road.

Dead trees ignite easier than live ones, and the trees act as fire ladders. This allows flames to reach higher and throw embers farther afield. The trees also burn longer and hotter than smaller fuels, such as grass or shrubs, and their radiant heat can be so intense that it pushes nearby shrubs and grass to their flash points.

Fire danger is already severe.

Ewan samples shrubs in Orange Countys back country weekly and tests them to see how dry they are. In June, the plants were already reaching critically dry levels  months ahead of normal, in September or October.

The trees are stressed. The canopies are thin and meager, and the green leaves are scant enough that gray bark in the upper reaches shows through. If the canopies are green, Ewan said, theyre OK; if theyre gray, the trees are in serious trouble.

There is a combination. Is it drought or beetle, or that the drought has weakened the trees so the beetles can hit it? Ewan said.

For hundreds or possibly thousands of years, the goldspotted oak borer never left Arizona. There, it doesnt pose much of a problem since another insect that flourishes during monsoonal storms controls the beetle population.

There is no such control here in Southern California. And when the beetle arrived near El Cajon in San Diego County in the mid-1990s  a hypothesis scientists developed by examining tree stumps  it started to spread, aided by humans who transported the beetle in infested firewood.

First, it reached coastal San Diego County and La Jolla, then Idyllwild in Riverside County in 2012, then Orange County a year later. In 2015, it showed up in northeast L.A. County, in Green Valley.

Response to the goldspotted oak borer was, at first, minimal. The U.S. Department of Agriculture considered it a native species, since it lived in other parts of the U.S.

Its becoming more and more clear theres a need to address the native oaks and sycamores down here, said Brian Norton, a battalion chief for the Orange County Fire Authority.

We need to stop transporting firewood from one area to another.

BEETLE ECONOMICS

In Mason Regional Park near UC Irvine, the sycamores and willows look sickly, with black stains shotgunned across their trunks.

A separate invasive beetle, the polyphagous shot hole borer, is killing these trees, along with urban maples, elders, cottonwoods and oaks  the types of trees that city landscapers plant in medians, homeowners nurture in their yards and universities grow to shade their campuses, 41 species in all.

It costs about $1,000 to remove a tree, but many homeowners dont have that kind of money. Standing dead trees can fall hurt people or damage buildings. They also can spread fires.

The potential damage to crops is more severe, especially avocados. Starting in 2010, the California Avocado Commission funded research on the beetle. Avocado groves infested with a closely related beetle in San Diego County are being monitored.

Were in an epidemic now in Southern California. We let it get away from us. This beetle fell through the cracks, said Kabashima, the retired UC Cooperative Extension advisor. We dont normally see this reaction from these trees, because we dont have a pest like this.

The shot hole borer infests riparian trees that grow near waterways. Pregnant females land on trees, burrow holes the size of a pen tip through the bark, and dig tunnels.

The beetles bring with them a fungus that feeds on the trees cambrial layer  between the bark and the wood. The beetles feed on the fungus, which actually does the job of killing the trees. The fungus needs some moisture to grow in the tree, so a truly drought-stressed tree may not be as susceptible.

It takes two to three years from infection to the trees starts to die, even though the shotgun wounds appear much sooner. Multiple generations of the miniscule beetles will live and mate in a tree until it dies, when tens of thousands of beetles take off to find new trees.

The beetle arrived in the U.S. in wood products from Southeast Asia, arriving first in Los Angeles County, either Long Beach or Whittier Narrows. In Southeast Asia, a monoculture of non-native trees grown for wood products got hit by the beetle, which flourished in those uniform stands of trees.

It could have come in on a wooden pallets for all we know. There could be hundreds of beetles in a pallet, said Kabashima.

In San Diego County, along the Tijuana River, 100,000 willows have been struck by a closely-related beetle. Its like Armageddon, said Kabashima, who worries that the same thing could happen in the riparian areas of the Santa Ana River.

The drought did not prompt the shot hole borers rise, since the beetle attacks trees in wet areas and on irrigated landscapes. But when those trees die next to other dead trees in dry, wild areas, it creates a contiguous swath of dead trees, Kabashima said.

Fires that feed on trees in wild areas can more easily jump to urban areas because of the dead trees there. Normally, well-watered trees along creeks and river beds act as an impediment to fire. But if those trees are hit by the beetle and die, the fire defense fades.

DEAD FORESTS

In the Sierra Nevada Mountains, trees are perishing en masse because of native bark beetles that have flourished during four consecutive years of drought and heat.

Since 2010, at least 66 million trees have died, according to aerial surveys. And the problem is ramping up: while 40 million of those trees died between 2010 and October 2015, 26 million died between October and June.

Drought is definitely a big stressor, particularly consecutive years of drought, said Kevin Turner, who works on beetle issues for the UC Cooperative Extension. Trees that normally pitch insects out cant produce enough sap to push them out.

Those native beetles are also attacking conifers, white firs and pines at higher elevations in Southern California forests, but not at nearly the same rate as further north, in the Sierra Nevada. The vast stands of dead trees can fuel raging wildfires.

The beetles release a pheromone that draws other beetles to the tree until it succumbs, Turner said.

That pretty much goes on until the drought ends.

Contact the writer: aorlowski@ocregister.com. Twitter: @aaronorlowski
With the Republican party nominating convention in Cleveland right around the bend, Donald Trumps support among delegates still isnt in the bag. Although that seems like bad news  both for the candidate and for the party  what happens between now and the floor vote could end up bringing the drama over the Donald to a decent conclusion.

To be sure, Trumps opponents are busy nibbling away at his support from the edges as well as from the center of the party. A handful of Republicans, for instance, are pushing delegates to dump Trump over just one issue  his tax returns. In a letter, party activists in Vermont and Virginia called on the conventioneers to exercise due diligence and set an acceptable standard for future elections.

And then, surprise surprise, theres a federal lawsuit. Virginia Republican delegate Beau Correll filed a First Amendment challenge to Virginia law, which requires state delegates to vote for the candidate receiving the most votes in the primary.

But another group is aiming right for the heart of Trumps claim to inevitability. Free the Delegates, an independent Republican group, claims about 400 delegates are prepared to jump ship the minute theyre allowed to vote their conscience. The group believes it has a green light from the party leadership, or whats left of it; on Meet the Press, Speaker Paul Ryan said, it is not my job to tell delegates what to do, what not to do, or to weigh in on things like that. They write the rules. They make their decisions. It all comes down to a planned vote on unbinding the delegates.

Unfortunately for the Dump Trumpers, thats where things get dicey. According to Politico, which surveyed all of the 112 members of the convention committee that will write the rules capable of tossing out Trump, at least half of the Rules Committee is publicly committed to helping Trump win the partys nod at the convention, enough to defeat any insurgent proposal. In addition, of the 47 who havent publicly endorsed Trump and didnt respond to a Politico inquiry, 33 hail from states and territories where Trump won the popular vote or local conventions. Four indicated they were still deciding what theyd do about the proposals.

So it looks like the GOP delegates who matter most  the rule-makers  just arent willing to dump Trump. That could change as time goes on, but because they tend to see a switch now as unseemly and illegitimate, theyre even less likely to overhaul the rules the closer to Cleveland.

This means that if Trump does indeed go on to secure the nomination  and go down to the sharp defeat thats now expected of him by most thoughtful analysts  its those delegates who deserve the blame. They have the chance, right now, to fire him for poor performance  an act of disqualification that would be politically legitimate because it wasnt fueled by sour grapes or ideological axe-grinding, unlike earlier pushes for a new candidate. If they neglect that responsibility, theyll take on responsibility for what happens as a result.

On the other hand, if Trump manages to win the White House  something that cant be ruled out quite yet  anti-Trump Republicans unable to throw him over now should at least enjoy a clear conscience. This month, they made the most robust, fair and even-handed argument possible for dumping Trump. If it doesnt move the needle with the folks who write the rules, at least they did all they could. You win some, you lose some, and ultimately, the legitimacy of the rule-writing delegates isnt in question, no matter how much else may be.

As of now, it certainly seems that Trump will owe his nomination to 112 Republicans when almost nobody is willing to challenge. That may lead to a depressing outcome for those deeply worried about what Trump will do to the GOP as its nominee. But at least it offers a sort of firewall for the outrage and disrespect roiling the party. Its hard for internecine conflict to blow over when the system designed to persist in rough weather is seen as irredeemably corrupt at its center. Only now, however, has the fight over Trump shifted to the Republican Party systems stable and untainted core  the conscience of the conventions rule-writers. Thats ultimately good news for all Republicans worried about permanent and lasting damage to the GOP.

The convention in Cleveland may be ugly and acrimonious. But it now seems likely that the ordeal will come to a relatively neat and tidy conclusion. Once that happens, no matter how many Republicans object to Trump on account of their own consciences, the sense of betrayal and of a palace coup will fade. Something resembling party unity might not be as far off as Republicans think.
WASHINGTON  Donald Trump may be one of Barack Obamas toughest critics, but when it comes to the presidents use of executive orders to circumvent Congress, the Republican sees him as a role model.

Trump has already promised to be as aggressive as President Obama on executive orders on a wide range of issues. Early in his campaign, for instance, he vowed to use the power of the pen to give all cop killers the death penalty. For months, Trump said he would use executive power to implement a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States. On Monday, his campaign said the ban would focus on terrorist countries, but offered few specifics.

In addition to immigration restrictions, here are other policies Trump has proposed that he could try to accomplish without help from Congress:

-End special tax treatment for carried interest: Trump  along with Hillary Clinton, his likely Democratic opponent  calls for taxing carried interest as regular income. A presidents administration could accomplish that change by writing new regulations, said Eric Toder, co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank. But while Obama has repeatedly asked Congress to address carried interest, the Treasury Department under his administration has shied from the regulatory approach. Treasury continues to explore its existing authority for ways to address the loophole, a spokeswoman for the agency said.

The portion of investment-fund profits paid to managers of private-equity and other funds known as carried interest is treated as capital-gains income and taxed at a rate as low as 23.8 percent, well below the top individual rate of 39.6 percent.

Administration officials project that taxing carried interest as ordinary income would mean $19.3 billion in additional revenue over a decade. But in a Trump administration, the change might actually wind up costing the Treasury. His plan calls for a hefty rate cut on ordinary business income that would mean taxing carried interest at 15 percent, even lower than the 23.8 percent rate its eligible for now.

 Tighten regulations on money-transfer companies: The cornerstone of Trumps candidacy has been a promise to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. While Congress approves spending for construction projects, Trump says he can force Mexico to pay for it by taking control of an estimated $26 billion that is wired to Mexico from the United States every year.

Trump has said he would halt these remittances on day one by rewriting banking rules to expand the federal regulations on companies like Western Union and PayPal. Hed then add a new rule to block undocumented immigrants from wiring money outside the borders.

Trumps administration would have the authority to write these rules, said Peter Wallison, former White House counsel in the Reagan administration. But Wallison and others  including Republicans and Democrats  questioned the practicality of implementing such a plan. The notion that were going to track every Western Union bit of money thats being sent to Mexico, you know, good luck with that, Obama said after Trump unveiled his proposal in April.

 Cancel visas and increasing visa fees: Trump says he could increase his leverage on Mexicos leaders by making it harder for their people to live and work in the United States. The country accounted for about 14 percent of the 10.9 million visas issues by the U.S. in 2015, according to State Department data. Only Chinese visitors, who received one of every four U.S. visas last year, took more. Trumps administration would have broad discretion in choosing who to give visas, and how much to charge, said John Sandweg, a former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security.

 Increase wages for certain foreign workers, and require companies to hire Americans first: Foreign workers hired for high-skilled jobs, like software engineering and research, must be paid a prevailing industry wage, as determined by a Labor Department database.

Trump says requiring higher wages for those who receive H1-B visas will deter companies from hiring foreign workers. U.S. companies want more of these visas, not fewer, but its something President Trump could do with the rule-making process, Sandweg said. Similarly, Trump could change rules to try to force companies to search for new hires first from the countrys pool of unemployed workers before turning to overseas labor.

 Mandatory deportation for all undocumented immigrants with criminal records, and detentions for those caught at the border: Like Obama and President Bush before him, the Trump administration would set parameters on how to focus the deportation budget. Obama has focused resources on violent criminals, but Trump could undo that to go after those with traffic offenses. The changes would require 200,000 detention beds per day, Sandweg said. Congress has appropriated money for an average of 34,000 detention beds per day.

 Stop defending NATO allies: Trump used his foreign policy address on April 27 to echo concerns shared by many U.S. officials that most of the 28 nations in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization dont spend at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, as required by the agreement. The countries we are defending must pay for the cost of this defense  and, if not, the U.S. must be prepared to let these countries defend themselves, Trump said. As commander-in-chief, Trump could take that unprecedented step, foreign policy experts said.

He would risk blowing up the entire alliance over what could be an exchange rate or accounting issue, said Michael OHanlon, a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution.

 Cancel the Paris climate accord and stop paying U.S. tax dollars into U.N. global warming programs: During a May 26 speech in North Dakota, Trump said he would yank U.S. support from the Paris agreement to slash carbon dioxide emissions that 195 nations endorsed last December.

There isnt much Trump could do to kill the accord itself. The deal isnt a treaty, and it doesnt require Senate ratification. Instead, it goes into force automatically when at least 55 parties, accounting for 55 percent of global emissions, have ratified the pact.

Still, under Trump, the U.S. could sit out future United Nations negotiations designed to deepen carbon cuts over time. And because individual country commitments are voluntary, Trump could easily walk away from the U.S. pledges at the cost of alienating other world leaders.

 Scrap job-destroying energy regulations: Trump singled out Obamas new limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and the waters of the U.S. rule that defines what waterways are under the governments jurisdiction. He would also rescind any regulation that is outdated, unnecessary, bad for workers or contrary to the national interest.

A Trump administration could relax enforcement of some rules, but courts wouldnt look kindly on dramatic regulatory reversals, said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Rob Barnett.

It would be unprecedented to come in and take a final regulation and just wipe it out without a process, Barnett said. You may be able to start a new process that alters it, but thats very slow moving.

 Approve the Keystone XL pipeline: Trump has repeatedly pledged to green light the proposed oil pipeline if developer TransCanada Corp. reapplies  with conditions attached. At a January rally, Trump said TransCanada would have to fork over a big, big chunk of the profits or even ownership rights. During a May 26 speech in North Dakota, he insisted Keystone profits should be shared with the U.S. so the American people can get some more money out of it.

The first part of Trumps pipeline pledge is an easy lift. If TransCanada were to reapply, he could easily approve the project, perhaps truncating any new State Department reviews in the process. But adding a tariff or tax on the project likely would require approval by Congress  and that kind of tariff completely breaks with Republican orthodoxy on trade and a longstanding regulatory approach to pipelines.

 Reverse moratorium on coal leasing on federal lands: Trump has pledged to give coal producers some help on the supply side by swiftly reversing Obamas moratorium on coal leasing on federal lands and paring safety checks that he has cast as excessive. But supply isnt the real problem for coal producers, which are being pushed into bankruptcy by low demand, as power utilities switch to cheap, cleaner-burning natural gas.

The fate of coal has much greater concerns than whether the Bureau of Land Management quickly reopens the leasing process, said Barnett of Bloomberg Intelligence.

Trumps options for reviving the U.S. coal industry are limited because its not a question of regulation, ClearViews Book. You cant convince the public utility commissions who have already approved the shutdown of plants and the investors of utilities that have already moved on to the next rate-based investment that they should go back to something thats gone.

Trump acknowledged those market realities in North Dakota: The market forces will be whatever they are. All I can do is free up the coal.

 Declare China a currency manipulator: Trump says that China isnt a fair trading partner, and that its Great Wall of Protectionism is hurting U.S. workers and companies. To even the playing field, Trump says his administration would declare the country a currency manipulator on day one, echoing a promise that 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney made during the campaign that year.

Trumps Treasury Department would make that declaration, but its unclear if it would have any impact. China was labeled a currency manipulator in the early 1990s, and while the county agreed to reform its foreign exchange system, trade deficits have continued to increase.
The OECD Observer online archive takes you on a journey through half a century of public policy and world progress.

Since November 1962, the OECDs experts and leading guests offer insights on the questions facing our member countries with concise and authoritative analysis, and provide our audiences with an excellent opportunity to understand policy debates and consider solutions.

Each edition of the OECD Observer reports on a core theme of the OECDs on-going work, from economics and society through governance, finance, and the environment, and articles are bolstered by tables and graphs.
What happened?

We blurt it out without thinking; its a common question when someone has died unexpectedly. What happened, where did it happen, why, how? Knowing the answer can help make sense of the senselessness of death. And in the new book Morgue: A Life in Death by Dr. Vincent Di Maio and Ron Franscell, knowing what happened could lead to a conviction.

Even as a little boy, Vincent Di Maio assumed he would become a doctor.

It was not a conscious decision, he says, but many family members had taken that route so he entered medical school, which he detested. When it was time to finally choose a specialty, he remembered how his father (also a physician) had dragged him to various New York City morgues on his rounds. Di Maio was comfortable with and fascinated by death and corpses. He chose pathology, too.

Pathologists, says Di Maio, are doctors doctors but the science itself is imperfect. Most coroner systems dont produce quality work, he claims but yet, theyve solved many, many crimes. The work isnt nearly as glamorous as TV makes it, but pathology has answered all kinds of questions about death.

That doesnt mean that it doesnt affect its practitioners.

Di Maio says that pathologists learn not to let violence bother them. You cant live expecting everyone to be  a psychopath, he says, and he learned early that What I have on the tray [during an autopsy] is not a person but a body . The person, the soul, is gone. In his long career, Di Maio has seen his share of dead bodies, and hes solved a lot of crimes  some of them, decades old.

In Maryland , he weighed in on the deaths of multiple infants by their mother.

I am angry, he says, that I still dont know her true death toll.

He was involved in the solving of a Civil-Rights-Era bombing. He was there at the last exhumation of Lee Harvey Oswald, and he consulted on the Phil Spector trial. He solved a few secrets and puzzles. He even saved a man from capital punishment.

Overall, he says, when looking at forensic evidence, its all about reasonable doubt.

In matters of death and life, thats our only moral standard.

There was one mistake I made with Morgue  I had it by my bedside.Not only did authors Vincent Di Maio and Ron Franscell keep me up reading way past my bedtime, but they also kept me awake with real-life gruesomeness and tales of murder and mayhem solved. Yes, there are times when a strong stomach is required to proceed, but theres also an element of cant-look-away, too. Di Maios stories are well-told and true crime fans may recognize them; if so, youll also enjoy knowing how those cases were closed and buried.

Sensitive readers, know that this is probably not a book for you. Nope, but CSI lovers and true crime fans will be overjoyed with it, so get your hands on Morgue. Miss it, and youll forever wonder what happened.
When Mercy Casanellas laid eyes on her baby after her emergency cesarean last year, it was love at first sight. He had her sharp nose, her husband's blue eyes. Then, because he was born prematurely, he had to spend the night at the specialist ward.

"He was just passed by me, and I gave him a kiss and then he was taken to the nursery and that was the last time I saw him," Casanellas told the BBC.

The next day, the baby who was returned to her looked different  he had a darker complexion. Casanellas told the nurses, "This is not the baby I saw last night."

Casanellas, who met her British husband Richard Cushworth at a Texas missionary school, had returned to her native El Salvador to give birth. The hospital staff insisted that it was the same baby, so the couple relented. They named the baby Jacob and took him back home to Dallas.

For a couple of months, Casanellas cared for Jacob and came to love him dearly. But she couldn't shake the suspicion that he wasn't really hers.

She decided to take a DNA test, although doing so left her racked with guilt. "I thought I was betraying him," she told the BBC. "That was the feeling I had  I'm betraying my son but I cannot live with this."

The test results revealed there was a less than 1 percent chance that she was Jacob's biological mother.

"I fell on the floor," Casanellas told WFAA-TV in Dallas And then she wondered: "Where's my baby?"

So began a yearlong fight to find her actual son and bring him home. Even after Casanellas and Cushworth were reunited with their own baby in El Salvador, immigration hurdles prevented them from bringing him back to the U.S. for another nine months. He entered the country for the first time this week.

The family walked into the arms of waiting relatives at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, as a smiling Casanella held her son.

It was a belated homecoming.

"Overwhelming," Cushworth told WFAA. "This has been a long process."

It started with switching the babies back. After alerting the authorities in San Salvador, the couple was connected with the parents who had their child. By that time, the babies were 4 months old  they had spent a third of their first year in mistaken families.

Despite their joy at seeing their baby again, the two were anguished to let Jacob go.

"I think that was the most difficult part," Casanellas told WFAA. "We raised him like ours."

When the couple received their own baby, they gave him a new name: Moses. But the ordeal didn't end there.

Because Cushworth is British and Casanellas is Salvadoran, they had to procure extensive paperwork before the El Salvador government granted them Moses' birth documents to travel to the U.S. The entire process took nine months, according to the BBC, and caused the couple considerable financial stress.

After all that, it remains unclear how the mix-up occurred.

The gynecologist who delivered Moses, Alejandro Guidos, had been arrested, but charges against him were dropped earlier this month. CNN reported that Salvadoran authorities were spurred to review protocols in hospitals to prevent a similar occurrence in the future.

Now, Casanellas is just relieved to be reunited with the son she birthed.

"There are no words to express what our heart feels to have our baby at home!" the couple told CNN. "Thanks to all who joined our pain and fed our hope."

***

Yanan Wang is a reporter on the Morning Mix team.
ConAgra Foods is almost certainly the best known of the grain and milling companies that put Omaha on the food biz map, and although the headquarters is now gone after almost 100 years, it has been a good ride for investors.

The stock of ConAgra  now moved to Chicago  has outperformed the Standard & Poors 500 in the past 30 years, with a compound annual growth rate of 11.1 percent versus 10.3 percent for the wider index.

In dollar terms, the results have been good enough to turn a one-share investment in 1973, when shares were first listed on the New York Stock Exchange, into a noteworthy sum.

Should one have been lucky enough  and we hope you were  to have purchased one share of ConAgra stock for $16.50 in 1973, that share, adjusted for dividend reinvestments and stock splits, would now equate to approximately 42.5 shares valued at approximately $2,032 based on the June 30, 2016, closing price of $47.81, said Chris Kircher, the companys vice president of corporate affairs.

The listing on the NYSE was followed shortly after by the tenure as CEO of Mike Harper, who took over in 1976 and transformed ConAgra from a cereal processor into a consumer foods company that eventually came to own grocery store icons such as Chef Boyardee and Hunts.

The 1980s were lush: From July 1980 to February 1986 ConAgra shares rose at an annual equivalent of 44 percent, more than tripling the 13 percent rise in the S&P 500 during the same period. It was during those years that ConAgra made some of its biggest acquisitions, such as Banquet frozen foods and the Lamb Weston potato processing company now being spun off.

All of which is a long way from the company that started in Grand Island, Nebraska, from the combination of four separate flour milling companies. Nebraska Consolidated Industries was formed in 1919 and moved to Omaha in 1922. Flour was the main business, and as late as 1969 was responsible for 40 percent of the companys sales.

But that all changed under Harper, who inaugurated the modern era that included the addition of dozens of brands, including La Choy Asian entrees, Hebrew National hot dogs and Swiss Miss cocoa.

And the latest period has been even better for shareholders, since New York-based investment firm Jana Partners last year bought a large stake in ConAgra and pressed for operational changes. Shares have jumped 30 percent since June 2015, almost doubling the Standard & Poors 500 consumer index and trouncing the overall index, which has risen only 2.6 percent.

Janas involvement has pushed the stock price higher, acknowledged Ted Bridges, principal at Omahas Bridges Investment Management, which oversees about $1.8 billion that includes ConAgra shares.

Bridges said Janas involvement is a bit curious. It is a Wall Street activist investor that tries to identify undervalued companies, buy a large stake, and then use that stake as a bully pulpit to demand cost cuts and strategy changes. But Bridges said that since 2010, ConAgra shares have outperformed the S&P 500, with a total return of 157 percent versus 87 percent.

That makes it reasonable to question how much more value Janas involvement might create, he said.

While a strong stock, ConAgra in recent years was seen as lagging its peers in the packaged foods business, such as Kraft Foods. ConAgra had come to be seen as spending too much money on brands that had lost some of their luster  brands seen as second or third in their categories.

Compared with peers, ConAgras expenses have been high and profit margins low. A World-Herald analysis last year found that ConAgras gross profit margins from 2010 through 2015 were in the low to mid-20 percent range, lagging the 35 percent to 45 percent margins earned by peers such as Campbell Soup and Hershey.

In another measure of management effectiveness expressed as a percentage called return on equity, ConAgra had been struggling. ROE gauges how well executives have deployed the money that shareholders have invested. ConAgras ROE from 2010 to 2015 ranged from below zero to the high teens, based on calculations by more than one researcher. Hershey scored returns of 55 percent to 71 percent in roughly the same period. Campbell Soup did not return less than 43 percent on equity. Hormel Foods recorded ROE in the mid- and high teens during the same period.

What isnt in doubt is that it has been Jana spurring the past years actions at ConAgra. Since Janas stake was announced  the period during which shares have risen by 30 percent  ConAgra has:

 Moved its headquarters to Chicago, joining other large food companies based in the area, a move described by some as a bid to be more contemporary and relevant.

 Said it plans to split into two companies. Conagra Brands will house the consumer staples such as Slim Jim meat snacks, Orville Redenbachers popcorn and Rotel relish. The Lamb Weston potato business selling to restaurants will stand as its own company.

 Sold the private-label unit that made cookies, soups and other supermarket staples sold under grocery store brand names.

As for what the next era will hold for ConAgra investors, much depends on the response of consumers, said Russ Kaplan, principal at Omahas Russ Kaplan Investments. He said he doesnt own any ConAgra shares and isnt recommending them to clients, and with shares near their high and with a price-earnings ratio of about 20, theyre hard to classify as a bargain.

There is a lot of uncertainty with all of the bold moves ConAgra has been making, he said. This involved selling its private label business and splitting into two independent companies. I think it would be best to wait until the dust settles to see how things turn out.

Still, Kaplan said ConAgra is a great company and that he might recommend shares in the future.

I do like the packaged consumer foods industry and especially the fact these companies have brand names with loyal customers, he said.

Not everyone does. Another Omaha investment adviser, Jerry Pettit of Pettit Funds, said the packaged foods industry is facing social change. Lots of people, he said, are shunning canned, frozen, heavily processed and packaged food.

Im not real enamored of the food packaging companies, he said. Im no vegan, but looking at packaged foods, I see a lot of things I would absolutely avoid. My overall opinion of the packaged consumer foods industry is low.

Thats a viewpoint with which ConAgra CEO Sean Connolly is familiar. Last week, during the companys first investor conference call as a Chicago-based company, Connolly said ConAgra historically has lagged in premium gourmet and natural, organic products.

And by not really tapping into those consumers, we are missing incremental sales and profit opportunities, he said.

Contact the writer: 402-444-3197, russell.hubbard@owh.com
PHILADELPHIA  At 4-foot-9, Mindee Hewitt is a dynamo with a can-do personality.

But finding clothes that fit her tiny frame often becomes deflating.

Its getting harder for Hewitt and other women 5-foot-4 and under, as department stores scale back or dissolve their petite divisions.

Where are we supposed to shop? Hewitt, 71, asked as she recently combed through Macys shrunken petite section at a Philadelphia-area mall.

Barbara Rosenberg, a lawyer in her mid-60s who stands 5 feet tall, has experienced petites waning profile while shopping for herself.

The first to go was Saks many years ago, then Bloomies, now Lord & Taylor, she said. Nordstrom is shrinking rapidly and seems to think that all we need are jeans or very expensive traditional professional clothes.

Rosenberg said shes also noticed fewer petite offerings from in-house Macys brands such as Charter Club and INC.

At Macys, the higher-quality brands are gone, and all that is left is ugly styles and shoddy fabrics, she said.

In Macys defense, a spokeswoman said theres been no overall scaling back on petite clothing. The line is just being marketed differently in the store.

We are now integrating petite sizes into the standard size offerings within the various brands we carry, Elina Kazan said.

We remain committed to providing the best selections for our petite customers, including expanding our styles online with select brands.

Lord & Taylor closed its petite department at a popular Philadelphia-area mall this spring, and La Petite Femme, an area boutique, closed within the past three years.

I cant find clothes anywhere, Rosenberg said, as one store after another closes its petite department and one manufacturer after another stops making petites. What do the tiny people wear?

Rosenberg, like Hewitt, is anticipating that her tailoring bill will keep rising.

Its not a matter of just getting pants hemmed, she said. Sleeves often end in buttons or zippers which cant be altered. Often, straps or distance from bust to shoulders is too long in regular sizes, and so on.

Some say the law of supply and demand applies here  and petites poor profit showing means less floor space.

If the retail presence contracts, the number of vendors does, too, resulting in further retail decline, said national retail consultant Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates in New York. Department store changes may be driven by efforts to reduce costs.

Petite women, those 5-foot-4 and under, represent about half of U.S. women, according to a 2008 National Health Statistics study.

However, for many women, myself included, the fit isnt right, since you may have longer body proportions in some areas and not others, said Christa Hart, senior managing director at FTI Consulting. I am too long-waisted for petite sizes even though I am 5-feet-4-inches tall.

In addition, most petite sizes range from 2P to 14P, which rules out more full-figured women because the proportions will again be off, she said. As a result, this is a size range that has difficulty in achieving comparable sales per square foot to other apparel segments.

Recently department stores have been putting more emphasis on plus sizes because that group has been growing rapidly. More than half of American women wear larger than a size 14, and a third wear larger than a size 16, according to a 2015 study by the NPD Group Inc., a global research firm.

The petite market has been falling. Total sales of petites fell 1.2 percent to $6.86 billion in the year ending May 2014, down from $6.94 billion in the preceding year, NPD Group found.

Meanwhile, sales of straight-size and plus-size clothing together grew about 5 percent in the same period.

Stores are constantly looking to rebalance categories to gain the most productivity from the space in the stores, Hart said. Its a case of economics, and the customer has spoken with her wallet.
Big Pharma is creeping back into the development of new antibiotics after decades of largely ignoring the business because of the scant rewards offered by such medications.

With the planet on the brink of losing its miracle cures for bacterial diseases, research incentives from governments are spurring drugmakers to renew efforts to fight antimicrobial resistance and replenish the arsenal of infection-fighting drugs. Giants such as Roche Holding and Merck are stepping up their efforts in the field while a host of startups seek partners to help market new products.

Some large pharmaceutical companies are re-entering the space, and new companies focused on antibacterial development are emerging as industry darlings, said Ankit Mahadevia, chief executive officer of Spero Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company in Massachusetts thats developing novel treatments for bacterial infections.

In January more than 80 pharmaceutical, biotechnology and diagnostics companies including Roche, Pfizer, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline pledged at the World Economic Forum to fight the threat of antimicrobial resistance.

A Bloomberg survey of 18 such companies conducted in May and June found that they expect to boost antibiotics research spending by an average of 36 percent this year, while expanding research staff by 6.5 percent. Survey respondents had five drug candidates in the initial stage of patient testing, four in midstage trials and nine in advanced studies.

Theres definitely more activity, said Deborah ONeil, CEO of NovaBiotics, a Scottish company developing a drug aimed at making existing antibiotics more effective by weakening bacterial defenses. Big Pharmas eyes are open.

After penicillin was introduced in the 1940s, antibiotics became known as lifesaving superdrugs, able to fend off previously lethal bacterial infections.

But scientists soon recognized that bacteria morph rapidly and develop resistance to the drugs. While a series of new antibacterials kept doctors ahead of the germs for many years, in recent decades bacteria have come roaring back, and today some new superbugs can evade virtually any treatment.

The antibiotics in our arsenal are becoming increasingly less effective, said Carolyn Shore, an officer with the Pew Charitable Trusts antibiotics resistance project.

Until the past few years Big Pharma companies had largely given up on new antibiotics because developing them can cost billions of dollars yet deliver little profit. Any successful formula will be prescribed sparingly to ensure that bacteria dont build up resistance; and unlike cholesterol pills or diabetes treatments, which patients often take for decades, antibiotics are prescribed only until the infection clears.

Without added inducements, it just isnt profitable to search for new antibiotics, said Martin Blaser, an infectious diseases researcher who is chairman of a panel advising President Barack Obama on the bacterial health threat.

Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and other pharma companies have closed antibiotics research labs, trimmed budgets or left the field in the past 15 years. But thats starting to change after much cajoling from world health authorities, lawmakers and charities.

The U.S. governments Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority said it will invest as much as $170 million to help AstraZeneca move new antibiotics toward the market and has similarly supported Glaxo with as much as $200 million. Last year Britain and China established a joint fund to finance research aimed at tackling antimicrobial resistance. And a 2012 U.S. law added five extra years of protection from low-cost copycats for certain new medications.

Big drugmakers are getting the message. Roche last year joined with Japanese and Canadian partners to buy rights to an experimental compound thats in early patient trials to treat severe infections. Glaxo, which has spent about $1 billion on antibiotics research over the past decade, is preparing to move a new product called gepotidacin into the most advanced phase of clinical testing, aiming to see whether it can defeat multi-drug resistant E. coli and gonorrhea and be used against biothreat pathogens.

New offerings from startups also appear promising, and Melinta Therapeutics, a closely held U.S. drug developer dedicated to antibiotics, is working on a treatment thats undergoing tests in patients with acute bacterial skin infections. The decision to invest in the project was helped by the U.S. law offering extended patent protection, said Eugene Sun, Melintas CEO.

Without some kind of support, no one  not even us  would invest in development, Sun said. You cant make your money back; its simple arithmetic.
Warren Buffett sounded like many investors when he was asked this spring whether the United Kingdom should leave the European Union.

I hope they stay in, but they have to make their decision, obviously, based on what they think is best for the U.K., Buffett told Becky Quick on CNBC during an interview in Omaha.

Why should Britain stay in the EU?

Stability, said the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Im hoping the European Union works out well, and the more Europe learns to work together, the better.

You know, we started out in our own arrangement with 13 states and we had a lot of problems to work through, Buffett said. ... Its up to the citizens of the U.K. to figure out whats the best for themselves. My hope is they stay in.

If Britain does leave the EU, he said, it wont make any difference to anything Berkshire does. I mean, if I was assured by (British Prime Minister David) Cameron that they were going to stay or leave, it wouldnt change one iota what Im doing in businesses or in stocks.

Israeli university benefits from shareholders gift

Two longtime Berkshire shareholders are donating, posthumously, $400 million to Israels Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

The desert university said the money is from the estate of Dr. Howard and Lottie Marcus of San Diego. She died in Decem

ber at age 99, and he died in 2014 at age 104.

I met Howard and Lottie more than 50 years ago through a mutual friend, my lifetime hero Ben Graham, Buffett told the university. We hit it off, and they joined my investment partnership. Knowing them, it comes as no surprise that they elected to use their financial success to enhance the lives of thousands of Israeli young people.

The Marcuses had fled separately from Nazi Germany in the 1930s, but most members of their families died in the Holocaust. They met and married in New York City, Howard becoming a dentist and Lottie working in the secretarial pool at a Wall Street firm where she met Graham.

According to the university, Graham told the Marcuses that one of his students at Columbia University was a prodigy and introduced them to Buffett. They put most of their nest egg into the partnership and later shifted it to Berkshire, leaving it there to accumulate.

Their donation will more than double the universitys permanent endowment, the university said, calling it the largest bequest to an Israeli university and possibly the largest donation ever made to any institution in Israel.

The Marcuses had supported the universitys research into water, desalination and desert studies since 1997, including a laboratory and scholarships. They believed that solving problems with water is the key to peace in the Middle East.

The university gave the couple honorary doctorates in 2004 and named its campus in Beer-Sheva after them in 2005. Said university President Rivka Carmi:

Howard and Lottie Marcus were rare and special people, Holocaust survivors who lived a simple and humble life and joined their fate and their legacy to that of the State of Israel. Just as they viewed their fortune as merely a way to fulfill a greater mission, so, too, were they themselves larger than life.

Influential research

A five-member research group funded by the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation was instrumental in last months U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down a Texas law on abortion clinics, Bloomberg News reported.

The foundation, named after Buffetts late wife and funded by him, supported the Texas Policy Evaluation Project, known as TxPEP, Bloombergs Esme E. Deprez reported.

The project at the University of Texas at Austin studied the impact of reproductive health laws passed in Texas, gathering data from abortion providers, public records and interviews with women.

Their findings supported the argument that the Texas law in question, which required abortion clinics to be affiliated with hospitals, among other rules, created outsized burdens for women seeking a medical procedure that is legal.

Bloomberg said the court referenced TxPEPs findings in its decision, and the groups principal investigator, Dan Grossman, was an expert witness in the case.

The group was formed in 2011 after Texas legislators cut the states family-planning budget, and then studied the effects of the 2013 law that was the subject of the latest ruling.

TxPEP was able to collect and analyze Texas-specific data about the impact of this law in real time, said Stephanie Toti, the Center for Reproductive Rights attorney who argued before the Supreme Court.

The research group has received $4.6 million in private funding and is applying for grants through 2019, the story said.

Bloomberg said the groups research showed that the law, although only parts were in effect because of a court order, required women to pay more, travel farther and wait longer for abortions, pushing some to obtain later abortions or to try self-induced abortions.

The Buffett Foundation has a long history of support for womens reproductive rights, including contributions that helped make the morning-after birth-control pill widely available.

Celebrating Kraft Heinz

There was plenty of criticism in Pittsburgh of Berkshire and its investment partner 3G Capital of Brazil when they began cutting costs after buying H.J. Heinz Co. in 2013.

Food processing plants closed, jobs went away, top management was replaced and the company became privately owned.

Then 3G and Berkshire bought Kraft Foods, merged it with Heinz and sold shares to the public, with the headquarters of Kraft Heinz Co. in Pittsburgh, not far from where Heinz was formed as a horseradish maker 147 years ago.

Now the Pittsburgh Business Times is celebrating Kraft Heinz as the citys largest publicly traded corporation, with $18.3 billion in annual revenue.

Heinz jumped to the top of the list over U.S. Steel and PPG Industries, the glass and coatings manufacturer, thanks to the Kraft merger, which nearly doubled its revenue, the Times said.

Dispute in Texas

Berkshires ownership of McLane Co. and stock holdings in Walmart Inc. are in conflict in Texas.

McLane, which delivers a wide range of consumer goods to retailers nationally, is suing the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission for barring it from distributing alcoholic beverages in the state.

According to the beverage industry website Shanken News Daily, McLane argues that the commission was wrong in denying a distribution license based on its rule against overlapping ownerships among alcohol producers, distributors and retailers.

Berkshire owns McLane outright and holds a 2 percent stake in Walmart Stores.

McLane argues that other states prohibit such arrangements only if one tier in the alcohol business controls or influences the business activities of another. And other companies with similar ownership arrangements have been granted distribution licenses, McLane argues.

McLane has $48 billion in annual sales and distributes alcohol products in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee. A commission official declined to comment.

The Omaha World-Herald is owned by Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

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Jackson Jack D. White

MASON CITY  Jackson Jack D. White, 89, of Mason City, died Friday, July 1, 2016, at Rockwell Community Nursing Home in Rockwell.

A funeral service will be 11 a.m. Thursday, July 7, at Wesley United Methodist Church in Mason City. Burial will be in Memorial Park Cemetery in Mason City with military honors provided by the Mason City Veterans.

Visitation will be from 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, July 6, at Hogan-Bremer-Moore Colonial Chapel in Mason City.

Family suggests memorial contributions to the V.F.W. Post 733 in Mason City.

Arrangements are with Hogan-Bremer-Moore Colonial Chapel, Mason City.
The Jeff Ahl Memorial Foundation Ride/Poker Run will be held Saturday. The event involves riders traveling 100 miles as they spread the important message of motorcycle safety.

During the event, riders and friends of riders will be wearing brightly colored T-shirts conveying the message Look Twice. Save a Life. Free registration begins at 10 a.m. at Edwards Full Throttle, 1010 34th Ave. in Council Bluffs. The ride begins at 11 a.m. The finish line and after party is at Loess Hills Harley-Davidson, 57408 190th St. in Pacific Junction, Iowa.

For more information, visit The Jeff Ahl Memorial Foundation page on Facebook.

Other fundraisers, donations, other charitable efforts in the Midlands:

Duffels 4 Dignity: Bellevue Travel, 1508 J.F. Kennedy Drive, Suite 101 (off of Galvin Road), in Bellevue, is participating in Duffels 4 Dignity by collecting travel bags of all sizes to help area foster care youth in transition. To make a donation, drop off new or gently-used bags at Bellevue Travel. For more information, call 402-292-6600.

Pet food donation: On June 22, Omaha Animal Medical Group delivered 200 cans of pet food to the Midwest Dog Rescue Network, an Omaha-based nonprofit animal shelter. The donation was part of the local business launch of its Facebook page. For every like generated on the Omaha Animal Medical Groups homepage during the month of May, the animal-crazy practitioners provided the shelter with a can of much-needed pet food.

Blood drives: Blood donations often decline in the summer months, especially around summer holidays when donors are less available to give. The need for blood doesnt decrease though  every two seconds, someone in the U.S. requires blood or platelets. Upcoming blood donation opportunities include:

Bellevue

Wednesday: 12:30 to 6:30 p.m., Bellevue Public Library, 1003 Lincoln Road

Thursday: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Nebraska Medicine, 2500 Bellevue Medical Center Drive

Saturday: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Bellevue Public Library, 1003 Lincoln Road

La Vista

Thursday: Noon to 6 p.m., LaVista Public Library, 9110 Giles Road

Saturday: 7:15 to 11:45 a.m., Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church, 7706 S. 96th St.

Omaha

Tuesday: Noon to 6 p.m., Cabelas, 12703 Westport Parkway

Thursday: 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., Bland & Associates, 450 Regency Parkway, No. 120

Friday: 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., Immanuel Medical Center, 6901 N. 72nd St.

Friday: 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., NEI Global Relocation, 2707 N. 118th St.

Friday: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Marcotte Insurance, 9394 W. Dodge Road Suite 250

Saturday: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Westroads Mall, 1000 California St.

Saturday: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Banhzai Cafe, 2625 S. 120th St.

Papillion

Saturday: 7 a.m. to noon, Trinity Lutheran Church, 330 W. Halleck

Saturday: 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Lowes-72nd Street, 8707 S. 71st Plaza
Its hard not to view a legislative race in South Omaha through the lens of immigration, especially when the candidates are named Synowiecki and Vargas.

The names and stories of the candidates in the most diverse district in the city tell the history of South Omaha. Its an area that has rolled out the welcome mat for untold numbers of immigrants over the last 120 years or so.

John Synowiecki, 52, represents one of the older waves of immigration. His grandmother was born in Poland and his father worked in meatpacking plants before starting Dinkers Bar, a landmark in one of the citys older Polish neighborhoods.

Tony Vargas, 31, represents the Latino immigrants that began to pour into the district in the 1990s, giving it a distinctly Mexican and South American vibe. Vargas himself is a newcomer. He was born and raised in New York City to Peruvian immigrants. His father was a machinist. His mother was a bank teller.

Four years ago, Vargas moved to Omaha to follow his then-girlfriend and soon-to-be-wife, who had been accepted into Creighton University School of Law.

Vargas hopes to become the first Latino to represent the district in the Nebraska Legislature, while Synowiecki is hoping his long roots and experience in the district  he is a former state senator who served for eight years  will carry Election Day in November.

Both Democratic candidates said it is far too simplistic to describe their race as a contest between the old guard and the new guard  or between the new immigrants and old immigrants of South Omaha. Both also disliked the idea of talking about the race in terms of ethnicity, each saying they planned to appeal to all voters.

Its a diverse community in every way, shape or form, said Vargas, an Omaha Public Schools board member who was the clear winner in Mays three-way primary.

The race is not going to be decided by race or ethnicity. Its going to come down to issues, said Synowiecki, who came in second in the primary. He barely edged out incumbent Sen. Nicole Fox, the only Republican in the primary, who had been appointed last year by Gov. Pete Ricketts to fill a vacancy.

Legislative District 7 is a big district that encompasses not only the area traditionally known as South Omaha but the downtown Omaha area, with its high-priced condos and urban dwellers.

It is one of the youngest and poorest districts in the state, with the highest percentage of foreign-born people, according to a report compiled by the Center for Public Affairs Research at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

About 27 percent of the people living in the district were born in another country, while 30 percent live in poverty, according to the 2014 report.

Latinos make up nearly half of the districts population of 38,000 at 49.6 percent, while whites account for 41.4 percent.

It has never been an affluent  or homogeneous  district. Its history is one of working men and women who toiled in the meatpacking plants and stockyards to ensure an education for their sons and daughters and, possibly, bigger homes in central or west Omaha.

In South Omaha, the saying was, the people work on the kill floor, so their kids dont have to, said Gary Kastrick, a former teacher at Omaha South High who is the areas unofficial historian.

Work in South Omahas stockyards and packing plants was hard, but immigrants in need of a paycheck in their new country took the jobs. They were Polish, Irish, Croatian, Serbian and Czechoslovakian, among other groups.

There is still a pretty good contingent of Europeans in South Omaha, Kastrick said. There are just pockets of them.

The Latino immigration wave came after most of the meatpacking plants and stockyards had gone. This time, the immigrants did not come to South Omaha for the jobs, but more for the affordable houses and the chance to live in a neighborhood with people who shared their background.

Although the Latino population has steadily grown over the past several decades, few have found the time or the inclination to venture into politics.

Kastrick argued that, too, is a pattern followed by previous waves of immigrants. New immigrants are too busy to be too political. The initial immigrants are more concerned about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, he said. Now that theyre established, they are more and more concerned about politics.

Vargas said he has seen that on the campaign trail. He and his campaign worked to register new voters and mobilize the Latino community to exercise the right to vote.

They clearly had some success. Nearly 2,700 district residents voted in the primary, a 40 percent jump over the 2008 primary. And 40 percent of the people who voted had never cast a ballot in any of the last three primary elections, according to data compiled by Vargas campaign.

Vargas said his campaign did a good job of targeting and driving new voters to the polls  a fact that Synowiecki readily acknowledged.

Vargas also said turnout in the district also may have been helped by the candidacy of Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Trump is viewed warily by many people within the districts minority communities because of comments he has made about Latinos, Muslims and others, said Vargas.

Vargas expects that with Trump on the ballot in the fall, turnout in South Omaha will be high in November. Its going to drive people to the polls, said Vargas.

Synowiecki said his campaign plans to expand its own outreach in the general election. In the primary, Synowiecki said he focused on voters who were known to routinely go to the polls. For the November contest, Synowiecki said, he and his campaign are knocking on every door. Were significantly expanding the universe were knocking, he said.

Synowiecki also said he had no plans to cede the Latino vote to Vargas. He believes that he is as pro-immigrant as Vargas, noting that when he was in the Nebraska Legislature the first time around, he supported allowing illegal immigrants brought into this country by their parents to receive in-state tuition rates at Nebraskas universities and colleges.

That vote got him plenty of criticism, Synowiecki said, but it was the right thing to do. Immigrants are a vibrant part of the community, said Synowiecki.

Contact the writer: 402-444-1309, robynn.tysver@owh.com
Tuesday is now No Meeting Day in Haryana and officers to be with people on Friday

President appreciates Haryana govt for its initiatives

Chandigarh

oi-PTI

New Delhi, Jul 3: President Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday appreciated Haryana government for undertaking various initiatives for rural development, including fixing of minimum educational qualification for representatives of Panchayati Raj Institutions.

The President said with the fixing of educational qualifications for representatives of PRIs, those elected would understand their responsibilities, a Haryana government statement claimed.

The President was speaking at Rashtrapati Bhavan at the inauguration of a smart model village pilot project under which five villages of Haryana adopted by him - namely Dhaula, Alipur, Harichandpur and Taj Nagar in district Gurgaon and Rojka-Meo in district Mewat- would be developed as Adarsh Gram.

He thanked the Haryana government for taking many initiatives, including establishment of 'Gram Sachivalaya' in 619 villages and stressed every village should have a separate Sachivalaya to run the government at village level, instead of one secretariat at state headquarters.

He also commended the state government for providing all amenities to 1,000 villages and for making efforts to cover the remaining villages at the earliest, it said.

Appreciating the election of women representatives, he said they could solve all problems and run panchayats, Vidhan Sabhas and the Lok Sabha.

The President, who also interacted with Sarpanches and other Panchayat Members of these villages, said in nearly four years of his Presidency, it was for the first time that he had the privilege of interacting with Sarpanches and village-level functionaries at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

He said since assuming office, he had been emphasising on opening the Rashtrapati Bhavan to the people and said he felt the Presidential Residence had been truly opened to the public since the village representatives were present there.

He said only the representatives of the villages could transform this country, which has more than six lakh villages. Progress and development could be achieved at desirable speed only in partnership with decision-makers in the villages.

There was also a need to empower women and youth, he said and expressed confidence that the initiative would not remain confined to the five villages but would spread to the entire country. The President termed it a landmark initiative and said it sought to replicate the experience in transforming the President's Estate into a smart model township, in five selected villages.

The President had earlier announced this pilot project on the occasion of inauguration of the Intelligent Operations Centre (IOC) in Rashtrapati Bhavan and launching of a Mobile App 'Monitor' for transformation of Presidents Estate into a smart township.

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said it had been decided that several new schemes, including 'Haryana Swarna Jayanti Gramin Vikas Yojana', would be launched during the Golden Jubilee year of the state from November 1.

He said a sum of Rs 275 crore has been proposed for 2016-17 for Haryana Swarna Jayanti Gramin Vikas Yojana which to accelerate the pace of rural development in the state.

Similarly, 'Swarna Jayanti Mahagram Vikas Yojana' has been launched with an aim of planned and regulated development of villages, having population of more than 10,000, with provision of facilities similar to urban areas.

This scheme would be implemented for three years. He said the devolution of assured package of funds to all Panchayats would be made annually on the basis of population under 'Swaran Jayanti Vikas Nidhi scheme'.

Rural Development Minister Birender Singh said the President's decision to adopt the villages and develop them as model villages had brought cheer to the villagers. He said the 14th Finance Commission had made provision of Rs 2,00,292 crore for rural development, which would provide share of Rs 80 lakh to each village.

PTI
Infosys techie murder case: Accused's statement recorded by police

Chennai

oi-Shalini

Chennai, July 3: A day after his arrest, Ram Kumar, accused of brutally murdering S Swathi was on Sunday, July 3 further questioned by the Chennai police after his long drama to attempt suicide got over, when policemen surroundeded him .

24-year-old, Ram Kumar was arrested by a police team at his village Ponpozhi near Senkottai after long search operation.

Ram Kumar was rused to a nearby hospital and admitted to ICU. Doctor, treating him, said that " Ramkumar is in stable condition and eighteen stitches are given to him."

He was taken to police station in a van along with his family, police said.

According to reports, Ram Kumar somehow managed to speak and confessed his crime. Police has recorded his statement [Infosys techie murder: Swathi's friend reveals shocking information about the killer]

In his statements to cops, Ram Kumar said "I proposed Swathi several times and was following her since last year (December) .

On June 24, Ram Kumar again approached Swathi but the talk ensued into a heated argument and that made him to kill Swathi.

"No other person, except Ram Kumar is involved in Swathi murder", her bereaved family members said. Swathi was brutally hacked to death on the platform of Nungampakkam railway station in the early morning of June 24.

After this case, another similar case came into light on Sunday, July 3 where 18 year-old girl was hacked to death in Telangana in a broad-day-light.

OneIndia News
Uttarakhand HC wants state govt to give detailed report on UKSSSC recruitment scam

Uttarakhand: Bus carrying around 45 to 50 people falls into a gorge

In line with tradition, portals of Kedarnath Dham to close on Oct 27, Badrinath on Nov 19

Uttarakhand: BJP leader's wife killed in crossfire between cops and mining mafia

Uttarakhand rains claim 30 lives

Dehradun

oi-Shalini

Dehradun, July 3: Heavy rainfall and landslides triggered flash floods in many parts of Uttarakhand. On Sunday, July 3, the death toll due to heavy rains climbed to 30. Five intelligence officials are said to be missing in Uttarakhand.

Several Teams of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), the Army, Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), State disaster management department, the local administration, the police, and teams of the revenue department continued the relief and rescue operations in the disaster-affected areas in Pithoragarh and Chamoli.

The water level of major rivers in the state have reached above danger mark levels.

Dehradun Metrological Department issued warning of heavy to very heavy rainfall in next 48 hours.

Extreme rainfall could occur at isolated places in Nainital, Champawat, Usham Singh Nagar, Almora, Pauri, Haridwar, Tehri and Dehradun districts.

Meanwhile, Border roads organisation is clearing the Gangotri highway road which was closed due to a landslide.

The government official provided a government school building as a temporary shelter for the affected families.Due to rains, water, electricity and transportation facilities are heavily affected in the flood-hit state.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat said "Work is underway for roads that've been blocked due to landslides,will be cleared soon.

Rishikesh-Badrinath NH-58 which is blocked due to heavy rains and landslide, being cleared in Joshimath, Rawat said."

As per report of the State disaster management department, on Saturday, July 2 evening, 12 bodies had been recovered, while 15 persons remained missing. Of the 13 persons who were injured, three are critical.

#Uttarakhand cloudburst: ITBP carrying out rescue operation in Pithoragarh. 2 dead bodies recovered. pic.twitter.com/doRBqxAFTm  ANI (@ANI_news) July 2, 2016

Visuals of rescue operations carried out by SDRF & NDRF in affected areas of Pithoragarh #Uttarakhand yesterday pic.twitter.com/mgTkzvRKg6  ANI (@ANI_news) July 3, 2016

Water level at many major rivers in #Uttarakhand above the danger mark (In Pic: An overflowing river in Dharchula) pic.twitter.com/scyUlOiyrF  ANI (@ANI_news) July 3, 2016

#Uttarakhand Cloudburst: Earlier visuals of rescue operations by SDRF & NDRF teams in affected areas of Pithoragarh pic.twitter.com/6YwpnPrEra  ANI (@ANI_news) July 3, 2016

Work is underway for roads that've been blocked due to landslides,will be cleared soon: #Uttarakhand CM Harish Rawat pic.twitter.com/J6b8vavhVx  ANI (@ANI_news) July 3, 2016

OneIndia News
India to Host BRICS Meeting on Energy Saving and Efficiency

Feature

oi-Lisa

By Lisa

India has assumed the BRICS chair for 2016 and will accordingly shape and steer the BRICS agenda wherein several sectoral meetings and activities will be hosted across various cities in the country, which apart from being innovative will also serve the purpose of branding India globally.

In accordance the first meeting of the BRICS Working Group on "Energy Saving and Energy Efficiency" will be held in Visakhapatnam on the 4th and 5th July, 2016. Participation from all BRICS countries, Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa has been confirmed.

During the two day deliberations, the BRICS countries will make presentations on measures taken by them in the field of energy saving and energy efficiency. India will also showcase its efforts in energy saving, energy efficiency, in particular the LED street lighting programme and PAT (Performance Achievement and Trade) programme for Industrial energy efficiency.

Realising that BRICS brings together five major emerging economies and keeping the energy growth scenario of BRICS nations in view, the Working Group on Energy Saving and Energy Efficiency will deliberate on a Work Plan on development of cooperation in energy saving and energy efficiency within BRICS.

During the meeting, a Joint Statement will be agreed upon which will be a guiding tool for the BRICS Working Group on "Energy Saving and Energy Efficiency".

Background:

The meeting of the BRICS Ministers of Energy was held in Moscow on 20th November 2015, wherein the BRICS energy Ministers signed a Memorandum of Mutual Understanding in Energy Saving and Energy Efficiency, agreed to pursue their energy cooperation through joint research and technology projects; technology transfer; conferences, lectures and seminars; and exchange of experience and best practices.

The Ministers also decided to create a Working Group on Energy Saving and Energy Efficiency to coordinate their cooperation.

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Story first published: Sunday, July 3, 2016, 11:43 [IST]
Delhi LG and CM greet people on Diwali, ask people to be mindful of pollution

Kejriwal confident Delhi would choose AAP over BJP in MCD polls this time

BJP shreds Kejriwal's demand for Lakshmi on notes; calls it his 'new mask'

Arvind Kejriwal begins Punjab tour from Golden Temple

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Amritsar, July 3 Thronged by hundreds of people, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday started a three-day political tour of Punjab with prayers at two famous shrines in this Sikh holy city.

A lone protestor threw some pamphlets towards Kejriwal as he stepped out of the Golden Temple complex, blaming the AAP leader for the razing of a 'piao' (drinking water point) outside the historical Sis Ganj Gurdwara in Delhi's Chandni Chowk area.

The man was taken away by security personnel as an unfazed Kejriwal continued with his programme.

Kejriwal offered prayers at the holiest of Sikh shrines, the Harmandar Sahib, popularly known as Golden Temple, and later went to the nearby Hindu Durgiana Temple.

This is Kejriwal's second tour of a longer duration to Punjab this year. He made a five-day trip to various parts of Punjab in February.

The visits are in connection with the assembly elections to be held in Punjab in February next year for which the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is posing a serious challenge to the ruling Akali Dal-BJP combine and the opposition Congress.

The AAP leader's visit to the state started under the shadow of an AAP legislator in Delhi, Naresh Yadav, being named in a case filed over the sacrilege of Quran, the holy book of Islam, in Punjab's Muslim dominated town of Malerkotla in Sangrur district recently.

Yadav has been booked by Punjab Police in the conspiracy behind the sacrilege incident.

The AAP legislator is the party's co-incharge for Punjab affairs. AAP leaders say the Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP alliance government of trying to implicate its leaders in false cases.

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Sunday refused to be drawn into the controversy over the criminal case against the AAP legislator saying that the police were investigating the matter.

During Kejriwal's visit, the AAP leadership will focus on youth and other categories of voters in Punjab, whose 117 assembly seats go to polls early next year.

The AAP has four MPs in the Lok Sabha from Punjab. Two of them are under suspension from the party.

IANS


Coastal Andhra to get heavy rainfall in next 2-3 days: IMD

Visakhapatnam: More than half of Jana Sena workers released but situation still tense

BRICS' meeting on energy efficiency begins on July 3

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, July 3: BRICS nations will chalk out a plan for enhancing cooperation in energy efficiency when they meet at Visakhapatnam for a two-day deliberation starting on Sunday,July 3.

India, a member of BRICS, will also showcase its efforts in energy saving, energy efficiency, particularly the LED street lighting programme and PAT (Performance Achievement & Trade) programme for industrial energy efficiency.

"The first meeting of the BRICS Working Group on 'Energy Saving and Energy Efficiency' will be held at Visakhapatnam during July 4-5, 2016. Participation from all BRICS countries, viz., Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa has been confirmed," a statement from power ministry said.

According to the statement, during the deliberations, the BRICS countries will make presentations on measures taken by them in the field of energy saving and energy efficiency.

The Working Group on Energy Saving & Energy Efficiency will deliberate on a plan on development of cooperation in energy saving and energy efficiency within BRICS, it said. India has assumed the BRICS chair for 2016 and will accordingly shape and steer the BRICS agenda.

Consequently, the power ministry will host the meeting of the Working Group and will also showcase energy saving initiatives in the country.

On November 20, 2015, BRICS energy ministers signed a Memorandum of Mutual Understanding in energy saving and energy efficiency in Moscow.

They agreed to pursue their energy cooperation through joint research and technology projects; technology transfer; conferences, lectures and seminars; and exchange of experience and best practices.

PTI
Staff Selection Commission to hold CGL examination online

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, July 3: The Staff Selection Commission (SSC) has decided to conduct its flagship Combined Graduate Level Examination (CGLE) online to check malpractices and make the test more transparent.

Besides, the Commission has also changed the pattern of the examination and included descriptive portion (essay writing) in it for the first time.

Hundreds of students are selected through the CGLE every year for various mid-level central government jobs, including as Assistant in Intelligence Bureau and Inspector in Income Tax. "It has been decided to conduct the CGLE through online mode rather than Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) based. It is a historic decision that will bring in more transparency in the examination process," SSC Chairman Ashim Khurana said.

He said a video walk through on the SSC's website has been put up to help the aspirants understand the new pattern.

About 38 lakh aspirants, who had already applied for CGLE 2016, will have to take the test under the new pattern which will be conducted in the next two months.

"A notice mentioning the changes in pattern of examination has been issued. The new online system will effectively put a check on any incident of leakage of exam paper or tampering with the examination process," Khurana said.

He said the Commission is getting positive feedback from the students across the country on the recently announced changes. The decision to hold the CGLE online was endorsed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi also, senior officials in Personnel Ministry said.

The SSC is one of the largest recruiting agencies in the country mandated to conduct eight exams. It will fill about 89,000 government posts this year alone from among about two crore applicants. The Commission's flagship CGLE is for filling vacancies in 30 different services in the central government.

There will be no fresh application for CGLE 2016 and those who have already applied will have to take the exam on computer rather than OMR mode, which was prone to malpractices by tech-savvy syndicates, the officials said.

The computer-based examination will ensure greater confidentiality and faster processing of results, they said. The SSC has for the first time been authorised to make recruitment for gazetted posts of Indian Audit and Accounts department.

As per the changed pattern, the CGLE will now be conducted in three tiers instead of two. In phase I, there will be 100 questions as against 200 earlier. The aspirants will get 1.15 hours instead of two.

There will be no change in tier II and two papers of 200 marks each would continue. Those who qualify in both tier I and II, will have to take tier III exam of 100 marks which will be descriptive in nature, the officials said.

They said the descriptive portion will help in checking candidates' comprehension and analytical skills.

PTI
12 people killed in car bomb attacks in Baghdad

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Baghdad, July 3: At least 12 people were killed and 27 others injured in two car bombings at busy commercial areas in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad early Sunday, July 3 an Interior Ministry source said.

One attack occurred at about 1:00 a.m. local time when a suicide bomber detonated his car bomb at a crowded thoroughfare in Karrada-Dakhil in southern central Baghdad, killing 11 people and wounding 22 others, the source said.

Several shops were damaged and several cars were destroyed by the powerful blast, the source said.

Another explosion ripped through the capital after midnight when a booby-trapped car went off at Shallal popular market, killing at least one and wounding five others along with destroying several nearby shops and stalls.

Iraq has been hit by a new wave of violence since the Islamic State terrorist group took control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions in June 2014.

IANS
OLIVE BRANCH, Mississippi  A Buffalo Center native who served in Vietnam and Iraq has spent 31 years in the armed forces as a Marine and soldier.

In 1966, Mark Smith had the choice of taking a site test or enlisting in the Marines.

With all the wisdom of an 18-year-old, I joined the Marines, said Smith, who was attending Mason City Junior College at the time.

He enlisted with two others from Buffalo Center  Jerome Jensen and Walt Calhoun, who were his roommates and classmates at the junior college.

They went through boot camp together and were in Vietnam at the same time with different units in close proximity, but never saw each other.

Smith, who worked in general supply, was sent to northern Vietnams An Hoa Combat Base later that year. As a supply runner he saw a fair amount of action, especially July 4, 1967.

The bad guys decided to make that a special holiday, Smith said. They provided all the fireworks.

After completing his two-year enlistment, Smith returned to college as an education major, later teaching in Iowa for 20 years.

During that time, he sought to join the Marine Corps Reserve, but ended up in the Army Reserve as there wasnt a Marine unit available.

In 1996 Smith was asked to enlist full-time in the Army. As a former Marine, he says, soldiers looked up to him.

Smith was deployed to Iraq for a year in 2004, working in counterintelligence. While he said he cant talk much about what he did in the Middle East, he worked briefly at the Abu Ghraib prison, assisting interrogators with information they received.

He was later moved to Baghdad, where he says he lived in a tent and worked as an analyst in a palace  one of many formerly owned by Saddam Hussein.

Smith found combat situations in Vietnam and Iraq to be similar.

We had a lot of trouble with booby traps along the road in Vietnam, he said. In Iraq, it was the same thing, but they were much more powerful and sophisticated.

He struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder after Vietnam, which was reignited in Iraq.

I had come to grips with Vietnams demons but Iraq opened that can of worms again, he said. I had two to deal with but I got help. I was encouraged to get help.

The experience returning home was day and night.

When you came back from Vietnam, you didnt tell anyone you were there other than family and close friends, Smith said. When I came back from Iraq, there were people at airports applauding and welcoming people home.

He retired in 2008 after 29 years in the Army, 12 of which were active duty. He and his wife, Barbara, live in Olive Branch, Mississippi, a suburb of Memphis, Tennessee.

He feels it was an honor to serve his country.

Without hesitation, Id do that again, Smith said. I miss it  the military is like a close-knit community.
31 killed in flash floods in Pakistan

International

oi-PTI

Peshawar, July 3: At least 31 people, including eight security officials, were today killed after torrential rain hit the south west of Chitral district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, triggering flash floods in the area, officials said.

Around 30 houses were demolished in the rainstorm caused by continuous heavy rainfall in the area near the Pak-Afghan border.

At least 31 people, including eight security officials, were killed and 17 people were reportedly missing in Ursoon Village while as many were injured due to flash flooding in the area occurred due to the over flow of the Chitral river, DPO Chitral Asif Iqbal was quoted as saying by The Express Tribune.

The floods also washed away a mosque at the time when special Ramzan prayers were being held inside, he added.

Pakistan-Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan shared his condolences to the victims families and have asked the government to take urgent steps to trace the missing people. PTI is the ruling party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) was in constant contact with the district administration for rescue and relief efforts, according to a statement released by the authority.

KP Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra has expressed deep grief and sorrow over the losses caused by the flooding and directed the authorities concerned to speed up the rescue and relief efforts in the affected area.

He also directed the administration to take all precautionary measures to save the lives and properties of the people.

PTI
Prosecutions story may be attractive but should be backed by evidence

Acknowledge it is the ISIS: Terrorists at Dhaka said during negotiations

International

oi-Vicky

Dhaka,July 3: The negotiations with the terrorists in Dhaka had clearly failed and this led to the security forces launching an offensive.

At first the security forces attempted negotiating the release of the hostages with the terrorists, but after several attempts it failed.

The ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack, but the authorities in Bangladesh are not ready as yet to credit them with the same.

The police are exploring all angles in the case including the role of the home grown outfits. The reason why the police believe that it could be the handiwork of a home grown outfit is because of the demands made by the terrorists.

What were the demands?

The first demand was to release two Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, Bangladesh terrorists who were arrested recently. The the JMB which is a Bangladesh based outfit has been responsible for a series of attacks. In fact this was the same outfit which was part of the Burdwan module that had been busted last year.

The next demand was to accept that the attack was the carried out by the ISIS. The terrorists insisted that the government announce that the attack was staged by the ISIS. It appears that the government was not willing to give into this demand.

However, the terrorists continued to insist that credit for the attack be given to the ISIS.

The second demand was nothing but a desperate attempt to have the government acknowledge the ISIS. The ISIS has been attempting to announce its entry in Bangladesh and the rest of the sub-Continent.

Any announcement by the government in this regard would have given the group the necessary mileage it has been looking for.

These demands are in fact interesting and it throws open a question as to who carried out the attack. An officer with the Intelligence Bureau in India explains that it could well be the JMB.

The group has the capability of striking. However one cannot ignore the ISIS or the al-Qaeda angle as well. The JMB which had been leaning with the al-Qaeda earlier appears to have made a gradual shift towards the ISIS today, the officer also added.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Sunday, July 3, 2016, 9:21 [IST]
Dhaka attack- We are here to kill the non-Muslims, terrorists told hostages

International

oi-Vicky

Dhaka, July 3: We are here to kill only the non-Muslims said the terrorists who attacked Dhaka yesterday.

They were attempting to send out a strong message it is the non-believers who they were going to kill. Each of the terrorists were well equipped and communicated in both Bengali and English as they killed the hostages in the most brutal fashion.

Investigators in Bangladesh have kept the probe wide open and are not yet ready to state that it was an attack by the ISIS which claimed responsibility for the same yesterday.

All investigators say that the terrorists were in the age group of 20 and 28 and each of them had a crime file on them.

Instructions to hostages:

The terrorists went about asking for the names of the hostages. They had made it clear that they were not here to kill Muslims. The police which has been recording the statements of the survivors have learnt that the terrorists would ask for the names of the hostages.

They were particularly brutal with the foreigners. When they came across a Muslim, they would advise that they follow the religion correctly. Pray five times a day was the message to the Muslims. Police officials have identified each of the terrorists and say that all were Bangladeshi nationals.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Sunday, July 3, 2016, 9:12 [IST]
Dhaka attack: With ISIS being ruled out focus now on JMB

International

oi-Vicky

Dhaka,July 3: With Bangladesh ruling out the role of the ISIS in the Dhaka attack, the focus is now back on local militant groups such as the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh.

Minutes after the attack, the ISIS and the al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the same, but the government was unwilling to credit the attack to the two outfits.

In fact when the negotiations were on the terrorists repeatedly demanded that the attack be credited to the ISIS.

The Dhaka police have learnt during the probe managed to identify five of the terrorists. The police said that they all had criminal antecedents.

Those identified are all in the age group of 20 to 28. Their names are Akash, Bikash, Don, Badhon and Ripon.

The probe currently is focused on the role of the JMB.

The investigators are also trying to ascertain if they were aided by the Pakistan ISI. Officials say that all these angles are part of the probe. The focus is currently is on the JMB.

The JMB is the same outfit which was preparing bombs in Burdwan, West Bengal with an intention of carrying out a series of attacks in Bangladesh. The JMB is in a running battle with the current establishment and had planned on destabilizing the regime.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Sunday, July 3, 2016, 12:18 [IST]
ISIS campaign of fear and violence will not succeed: Clinton

International

oi-PTI

Washington, July 3: In the aftermath of the ISIS attack on a Bangladesh restaurant that left 20 people dead, Democratic White House hopeful Hillary Clinton has asserted that the US stands firmly with its allies in the fight to defeat the terror group.

She said her "thoughts and prayers" were with the people of Bangladesh, and stressed that the terror group's "campaign of fear, hatred and violence" would not succeed. "The terrorist assault on a bakery and restaurant in Dhaka is a reminder that an attack halfway around the world is still an attack on all of us, in the everyday places we hold dear," Clinton said in a statement.

The victims in Dhaka came from all over-- Italy, Japan, India and Bangladesh, she said, adding that at least three, including an American citizen, attended college in the United States. "Today, we say with one voice: this campaign of fear and hatred and violence will not succeed. We will not retreat," Clinton said. "We will not turn our backs on each other.

The United States stands firmly with our friends and allies in the fight to defeat ISIS and radical jihadism around the world.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families, and the people of Bangladesh," she said. Mourning the loss of life in the attack, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said the United States is ready to help Bangladesh.

"With heavy hearts, we pray for the victims, survivors, and the loved ones affected by this horrific assault. With determined spirits, we will continue to stand firm against these vicious acts wherever they occur," she said.

"We must continue to confront terrorists with strength, unity, and a comprehensive strategy. Extremists fuelled by hatred can never extinguish the light of international cooperation and the beacon of hope aflame in communities around the world," Pelosi said.

PTI
'India won't listen to anyone': Anurag Thakur gives strong reply to PCB

Pakistan off the FATFs grey List: What this means

Pakistan again seeing 'good' and 'bad' militants?

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Islamabad, July 3: Asking Pakistan to have a clear stand against terrorists, a leading Pakistani newspaper on Sunday,July 3 wondered if Islamabad was again differentiating between "good" and "bad" militants.

"The security of Pakistan and the region lies in an unambiguous policy against militancy and terrorism in all their manifestations by all countries," the Dawn said in an editorial.

But it said Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz's remarks had added to the confusion and called for an "immediate and emphatic clarification".

It said that citing fears about so-called blowback from militant groups, Aziz seemed to defend Pakistan's lack of action against sanctuaries of the Haqqani network and the Afghan Taliban on Pakistani soil.

It said that he appeared to suggest that decisions were yet to be made regarding how far and on what scale the state would eventually act against some groups.

"Has Aziz backtracked on the state's explicit commitment that there will no longer be a policy of differentiating between so-called good and bad Taliban?" the editorial asked.

"That would be an alarming and astonishing reversal made all the worse by the casual - almost careless - manner in which the remarks were given."

Dawn said Pakistan's policy was to treat all militant groups as a problem "that must be solved by eventual elimination...

"Pakistan's pledge to try and deliver the Afghan Taliban to the negotiating table should not be allowed to become a reason to differentiate between militant groups over the long term.

"What threatens the stability of Afghanistan inevitably threatens the stability of Pakistan - the security establishment and political leadership here cannot lapse into old, damaging habits of denial and obfuscation."

Both India and Afghanistan accuse Pakistan of harbouring and training terrorist groups acting against New Delhi and Kabul. Islamabad denies the charge.

IANS
At UNSC, US calls on world to tell Russia to stop its nuclear threats

US envoy discusses Afghan peace process in Pakistan

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Islamabad, July 3: The US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Olson, met with top Pakistani diplomat in Islamabad on Saturday and "discussed the regional security situation and efforts for peace and stability in Afghanistan," officials said.

Ambassador Olson is visiting Pakistan at a time when relations between Pakistan and the US are tense over the drone strike that killed Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour and the US blockade of the F-16 fighter plane sale, Xinhua reported.

The visit is also seen important at a time when relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan are also tense over recent border skirmishes that had caused casualties on both sides last month.

Both sides also had the opportunity to discuss the efforts by the Quadrilateral Coordination Group involving Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and the US to push for the Afghan peace process.

Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry while talking to Ambassador Olson reiterated Pakistan's commitment to as an effective forum to facilitate Afghan-owned and Afghan-led reconciliation process.

"The Foreign Secretary underlined Pakistan's focus on effective border management on Afghanistan-Pakistan border with a view to enhancing security and counter-terrorism efforts," a Foreign Ministry statement said.

IANS
White House condemns Dhaka terror attack

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Washington, July 3: The White House on Saturday condemned the terrorist attacks carried out by Islamic State (IS) terrorists in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in which 20 people were killed, including an American and Indian citizen.

"We remain in contact with Bangladeshi authorities and have offered any assistance necessary," Politico.com quoted White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest as saying.

"Our deepest condolences go out to the families and loved ones of those killed, and we hope for a speedy recovery for those wounded," a statement from the White House continued.

"This is a despicable act of terrorism, and the United States stands with Bangladesh and the international community in our resolve to confront terrorism wherever it occurs," the statement added.

All the attackers in the assault on a cafe in Dhaka were Bangladeshi citizens and five of them were wanted by police.

Police Inspector General Shahidul Hoque said that police had tried to arrest these five militants previously.

Authorities also released the nationalities of the 20 hostages who were found dead inside the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe after Bangladeshi troops stormed the cafe early Saturday morning, ending an overnight siege.

According to the country's Joint Force Command, nine of the victims were Italian, seven were Japanese, one was from India, two were Bangladeshi and one was a US citizen of Bangladeshi origin. Eleven of the victims were male and nine were female.

Two police officers were also killed in a gunfire exchange earlier in the standoff, authorities said.

Security forces rescued 13 hostages and killed six gunmen on Saturday morning, ending the nation's worst hostage crisis, being termed as Bangladesh's '7/16'.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has called a two-day state mourning for the victims, who included nine Italians, seven Japanese, three Bangladeshis and an Indian teenager, at the Holey Artisan cafe in the diplomatic area of Gulshan in Dhaka.

One of the gunmen, injured in the shootout, was captured, while 13 hostages were rescued at the end of the 12-hour siege. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Indian President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee have condemned the attack.

Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj confirmed the killing of 19-year-old Tarishi Jain of Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh.

"Tarishi was 19 years old. She passed out from American School Dhaka. Presently, she was a student at Berkeley," Sushma posted.

The attack began at 8.45 p.m. when around 20-22 guests were at the Holey Artisan Bakery downstairs and the O'Kitchen Restaurant upstairs, a cafe popular with foreigners.

The gunmen, shouting "Allahu Akbar" raided the cafe and took hostages, and slaughtered those who were unable to recite the Quran, said rescued hostages.

Officials said the 13 rescued hostages included a Japanese and two Sri Lankans.

The Bangladeshi branch of the Islamic State claimed the attack through its mouthpiece, the Amaq news agency, saying 24 people "of different nationalities" were killed and 40 others were injured.

The Daily Star reported that hostages were made to recite verses from the Quran and those who could were not harmed.

The attack has also been condemned by other countries, including Pakistan and Malaysia, while the European Union has also voiced condemnation.

IANS


Raipur: Woman constable accuses IGP of harassment, probe ordered

Raipur

oi-PTI

Raipur, July 3: A woman constable has accused the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Bilaspur range, of harassing her after which the Chhattisgarh Government today ordered a probe.

The woman constable, posted in Mungeli district of Chhattisgarh, filed the complaint before the DGP yesterday, accusing IGP Pawan Dev, a 1992-batch IPS officer, of making late night calls, using lewd language and asking her to come to his bungalow, a senior police official said.

She had earlier lodged a written complaint with the Bilaspur superintendent of police and Chakrabhatta police station in Bilaspur district. She also produced recording of a telephonic conversation where Dev is purportedly heard speaking to her while being drunk and asking her to visit him at his house at night.

According to her, this conversation took place on the intervening night of June 17-18 when she was in Bilaspur on duty during the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh's visit. The IGP denied the charge, calling it a conspiracy.

"The woman is close to a police inspector....whom I had dismissed from the duty on Thursday following several complaints against him. Hence, the duo hatched this conspiracy," he told reporters.

Chhattisgarh Home Minister Ramsewak Paikra told PTI that he had ordered the Director General of Police A N Upadhyay to investigate the complaint.

The state commission for protection of women rights also wrote to the DGP today, seeking a probe, its chairperson Harshita Pandey said.

PTI
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Jerusalem Post 25 Oct 2022

An anti-Israel and pro-Iranian regime activist, Firas al Najim drove at a high rate of speed in the direction of a crowd of..
Open trans service in the military is a necessary step toward protecting and recognizing the humanity of trans people, but the military's proposal falls far short of what is needed.

When I first heard about Thursday's announcement I was grinding and sanding metal to a polish at my prison job. The news was both a relief and reminder of how little we can count on the principles of equality and institutions like the military to bring justice to our community.

Even within the military inclusion framework, many issues remain unresolved and concerning. Right away, something didn't sit right with me. We don't need the military to be the gatekeeper of our gender expression and identity. We should be able to define ourselves.

The policy outlined by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter would require new recruits to be "stable in their identified gender for 18 months, as certified by their doctor, before they can enter the military." How many young trans people like myself fit this criteria? The idea of having a gender certification process is a misuse of the medically accepted standards of care. What is the stability of gender? Isn't gender an inherently unstable concept -- always being constrained by the various context and rules under which we live?

I worry that this type of requirement will further entrench the gender binary and further legitimize the control that administrators and medical providers have over our bodies and our identities.

And what about those of us who are incarcerated? Will these rules apply to us? I am deeply concerned that like so many policies, the impact of this change won't penetrate the prison walls. What does it mean that the military will recognize our gender, unless and until we are arrested, and then what? This core identity is then stripped away and our birth-assigned sex is imposed on us?

But defining ourselves for who we are is one of the most powerful and important rights that we have as human beings. No one knows my gender more than I do. You do not know my gender better than I do. A doctor doesn't know it better than I do. My parents don't know it better than I do. No one experiences my gender in the way that I experience it. Presenting myself and my gender is about my right to exist. With this policy, the military is essentially saying "you can exist, but only on our terms." What they are doing is taking away the control of our identity.

Gender presentation should reflect the person that you are. When you lose control of your gender presentation you lose an important aspect of your identity and existence. By setting so many caveats, time lines, standards, and training, the military is making this far, far, more complicated and bureaucratic than it needs to be. The simple reality is that we are who we say we are.

When it comes to trans inclusion in the military, at this point, there are still too many questions. We don't yet know whether this policy of "inclusion" will be in name only and whether medical providers and commanders will find ways to push us out, dehumanize us and cast us as freaks.

Of course, this is not the first time the military has confronted its own entrenched prejudice.

But if history is any guide -- for instance the racial and gender integrations of the 20th century -- the US armed forces are more than capable of overcoming such obstacles.

No matter how this shift in policy rolls out, I hope that we remember that if our most powerful institutions cannot take us on our own terms, then perhaps we should fight to change those institutions.
GOP Presidential contender Donald Trump was so happy he couldn't jump high enough when Bill Clinton met briefly with Attorney General Loretta Lynch. This supposedly was irrefutable proof that Lynch, and by extension President Obama, and Hillary Clinton, were in cahoots to cook the books on the FBI and Justice Department probe into Hillary's alleged misuse of State Department related emails. Trump got what he wanted; namely much GOP lambasting of Bill for alleged deal-making to scuttle the probe, the quick recusal of Lynch from any direct hand in the probe, much chatter that Clinton was shady and a liar, and much media attention to the meeting that Hillary had with the FBI.

The three-hour meeting at FBI headquarters in Washington D.C. was the icing on the attack Hillary cake. It supposedly was even more proof that Clinton was in real hot water, and maybe, just maybe, there could actually be charges brought against her.

There, of course, won't be. For the simple fact that's been a fact from the moment the whiff of scandal arose about Clinton's use of a private server to read and send State Department related emails, there was no wrong doing involved. There was never a shred of evidence that Clinton jeopardized national security by the use of her private server. The protocols about the use of a private email server to conduct official government business were tightened after Clinton's state Department tenure.

However, there is indeed some momentary political fall-out from Bill's meeting with Lynch.

The fact that Clinton did meet with Lynch at all, no matter what the circumstances and no matter that there wasn't a word spoken about the probe, gave Trump and the GOP more ammunition to plant the seed even deeper in the general public that the Clintons are the personification of sleaze, and that President Obama is anything but a neutral arbiter in the Justice Department probe. That in turn reinforced the very widespread notion that Clinton is prone to shade the truth about embarrassing or compromising issues. This all comes on top of incessant polls that practically join Hillary at the hip with Trump as the two presidential candidates who have the highest negatives in living presidential memory. The presidential campaign is fast getting the moniker of the race to the bottom and the impression that if Clinton wins it won't be about her sterling political competence, qualities, leadership, experience and acumen, just that fewer people held their noses about her than Trump.

The Bill-Lynch meeting was also a case of horrible timing. It came days after the report on the Benghazi debacle that found that Clinton had no culpability in and for the attack. This seemed to presage the expectation that the same finding would be made with the email flap. The probe would find nothing on Clinton. Bill's meeting with Lynch hitting the news cycle hard drowned that notion out at least for the moment.

Then there's the recent polls. Trump's stock has been going South in most polls. And virtually every time he lets fly a fresh zinger about firing TSA employees with hijabs, slandering a Mexican judge, or tweeting with an anti-Semitic construed emblem about Hillary, this knocks another point or two off his popularity. This makes the anti-Trump panic among many GOP party regulars and potential donors and handlers soar higher. So, for the moment, Bill's meeting and the FBI interview seemed to offer welcome pause in the downhill run for Trump.

The single slender thread that Trump clings to about the email probe is that Clinton is indicted in the days before the election. This won't happen. But this won't stop Trump from dropping strong hints every chance he gets that it should happen and if it doesn't he'll circle back and plop the blame for this on the alleged collusion to kill charges by variously, Bill, Hillary, Obama and Lynch.

The great pity is that the continued GOP, media and public obsession with Clinton's emails at times blur, ignore and flat out dodge any real talk about tax reform job growth and the economy, health care, wealth and income inequality, civil rights, environmental concerns and criminal justice reforms. These are the issues that any election should be about, and what the media and the public should care about.

Bernie Sanders famously said at one of the early debates with Clinton that he was sick and tired of hearing about the damn emails and said the only thing that should be on the table for debate and discussion were the real issues. He got loud cheers from the mostly Democratic audience for telling the truth. There was never much chance though that the email scandal would fade to the non-issue that it is and should be. But Bill notwithstanding, whenever it's dredged up it's still much ado about nothing.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is the author of Let's Stop Denying Made in America Terrorism, (Amazon Kindle) He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on Radio One. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles and the Pacifica Network.
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The Daily News will run a weekly Political Round-up, highlighting the campaigns of candidates for both the 98th House and 99th House races. All five candidates have been contacted and asked to submit items for the round-up.

In the 98th House District, Republican Gary Glenn, R-Midland, will be facing Democratic challenger Geoff Malicoat in the Nov. 8 general election. The 99th House race will have Democrat Bryan Mielke squaring off against the winner of the Aug. 2 primary between Republicans Roger Hauck and Robin Stressman.

ROGER HAUCK

Roger Hauck is running for state representative in the 99th district. The 99th district covers Isabella County and ten townships in Midland County. These townships are Mills, Hope, Edenville, Warren, Geneva, Greendale, Jasper, Porter, Mount Haley, and Ingersoll. This also includes the City of Coleman.

Hauck has received the following endorsements:

 Michigan Right to Life PAC

 Farm Bureaus AgriPac

 Michigan Chamber of Commerce

 Isabella County Commissioner George Green.

Hauck will host a barbecue at 6 p.m. July 20 at 1150 E. River Road, Mount Pleasant.

For more information about Hauck: rogerhauck.com of his Facebook page: Roger Hauck for State Representative

BRYAN MIELKE

According to Bryan Milke, Michigans current tax system is flawed. In 2011 a new party took over the state house and decided that the best way to facilitate growth for our economy  in the wake of the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression  was to cut taxes for corporations. They thought it would attract new businesses to our state, and would boost employment for Michigan families.

Thanks to those tax cuts, this was the first year that Michigan gave more in tax refunds back to corporations than they received in revenue, he said.

And what does our state have to show for it? Families with empty wallets who struggle to stay on top of mounting debt. University graduates who flee the state as soon as they receive diplomas, unable to find a job that pays a living wage here at home. Kids who think their destiny is to wait tables or clean houses because they know there is absolutely no way theyll be able to afford even community college. Why? Because those tax cuts came at a cost for our middle class.

To pay for the tax cuts for corporations, things that families relied on, like the Earned Income Tax Credit, were reduced, and other deductions and credits were cut altogether. Worse, the corporate welfare our state has offered  paid for by the hard work of everyday Michiganders hasnt just hurt working men and women, its hurting our cities and communities as well. Without revenue generated from a more equitable tax structure, public services like police and fire protection, health care and education, all go painfully underfunded. All this, so wealthy CEOs can mortgage another yacht.

Its time we revisit how Michigan treats the corporations that profit from it. We need a tax structure that makes sure everyone pays their fair share, and that doesnt reward companies who ship good jobs out of state. We are just one of four states that doesnt reward job creation with tax credits and we need to get creative and responsible in our economic incentives.

As a taxpayer, Mielke said he want good paying jobs for our money that we hand out to companies. If companies invest in Michigan, we need to invest in them. In having a more fiscally responsible economic policy, we will be able to restore tax credits that give low and middle income families the cushion they need to get ahead, and allow young adults and college graduates the opportunity to succeed.

For more information about Mielke: bryanmielke.com

GARY GLENN

Rep. Glenn has earned the following endorsements for his 2016 reelection campaign

 The Michigan Chamber of Commerce has endorsed Glenns candidacy, noting he voted with the Chambers position on 13 out of 15 votes measured by their 2015-16 legislative scorecard. Glenns 87 percent score tied for 7th highest in the House.

The two issues on which Glenn didnt vote with the Chamber? As promised in the No Tax Hike Pledge he signed as a candidate in 2014, Glenn voted against raising the motor fuel tax and the vehicle registration fee.

 The Small Business Association of Michigan has also endorsed Glenn. Former state Sen. Tony Stamas, now SBAM vice president for government relations, wrote Glenn, Your strong responses to our questionnaire show that you will continue to be an elected official who will support small business and help Michigan create the jobs it so desperately needs.

 The Associated Builders and Contractors of Michigan PAC also endorsed Glenn, who has been a leading voice in support of ABCs drive to repeal the states so-called Prevailing Wage law, which requires union scale wages, benefits, and work rules on all state and local government construction projects such as public schools and roadways. ABC estimates the state would save as much as $224 million a year on construction of public schools alone, enough savings to have built 300 new elementary schools over the last decade, Glenn said.

For more information: GaryGlenn.US

GEOFF MALICOAT

After news broke that at least 700 Dow employees would be losing their jobs, Geoff Malicoat spent much of the week listening to uneasy Midland residents discuss their concerns about the future.

It is a travesty, and folks are angry, and they have every right to be angry. We have CEO Liveris leaving town with $40 million dollars and 700 families will have their lives thrown into turmoil to pay for that golden parachute. Its wrong, Malicoat said.

We simply cannot afford business as usual in Lansing. These corporations demand massive tax cuts while retirees and middle class families see their tax bills go up, their gas taxes go up, their schools fall apart, and their roads crumble, all for the promise of jobs that never seem to appear. Instead they ship jobs overseas to squeeze out a few extra pennies of profit. We need to put Michigan families first and stop the influence peddling in Lansing that creates an environment where corporations can run roughshod over our communities.

Over the next couple months you will see many political signs going up, and sadly, you will see hundreds of for sale signs as well. As our friends and neighbors leave their homes and our community as a result of this first round of layoffs, every single for sale sign that you see is an advertisement for the status quo. Please join me in bringing positive change to Lansing and returning the power back to our citizens instead of special interests.

For more information about Malicoat: malicoatforhouse.com
EAU CLAIRE, Mich. (AP)  A man nicknamed "Pellet Gun" has won a cherry pit spitting contest in southwestern Michigan for the 16th time.

Rick Krause of Tuba City, Arizona, had a pit spit of 48 feet, 2  inches Saturday, defeating son Brian Krause by more than a foot at the 43rd annual contest.

Brian Krause is known as "Young Gun." He also finished second last year but is a past winner.

A member of the Krause family has won 27 contests since the event began in 1974 to celebrate tart cherries. It's held at Tree-Mendus Fruit Farm in Eau Claire, 100 miles from Chicago.

About 200 people competed in the early round, with roughly 45 advancing to the final round in different categories.

___

Online:

http://www.treemendus-fruit.com
MONDAY

 The owners of Basil Thai Bistro are moving forward with plans to relocate the restaurant to Ellsworth Street in downtown Midland.

 The Midland County Board of Commissioners approved the 2017 budgets for County EMS and Central Dispatch Authority/911.

TUESDAY

 The Dow Chemical Co. announced it will cut 4 percent of its global workforce, with 700 of those jobs coming from the Great Lakes Bay Region.

 Members of the former Midland High School class of 1956 gathered to celebrate their 60th (and final) reunion.

WEDNESDAY

 Classmates, teachers, family and friends of Seth Enszer, who died in April, gathered at the former Parkdale Elementary School site in remembrance.

 A Rochester Hills woman was sentenced to one year in jail for being an accessory after the fact to a felony.

THURSDAY

 According to a report by Bill Mayhew, the M-20/U.S. 10 roundabout is performing well in terms of decreasing traffic accidents.

 A Linwood man was killed after his motorcycle struck a deer in Mills Township.

FRIDAY

 Abnormally dry conditions, with very little rain and high temperatures, are putting pressure on local farmers.

 The Beaverton City Council recently adopted an ordinance to ban sky lanterns and limit the use of consumer fireworks.
Several years ago, when the Michigan Department of Transportation first proposed the idea of constructing a $1 million roundabout on Business Route M-20/U.S.10 near Washington Street, we were among the skeptical.

The cost was the biggest issue for us, particularly when it seemed there were other, less expensive alternatives that might have made the Patrick Road crossover less hazardous.

A number of Midland Daily News readers felt the same way, but in the end MDOT was not persuaded and proceeded with the project.

That was two years ago.

Today, we have to admit that the roundabout has worked far better than we would have anticipated. While it still can be confusing because the traffic heading into the roundabout from Business Route M-20/U.S.10 has to yield for vehicles already in the roundabout, the number of injury accidents in that area has significantly decreased.

During a recent Midland City Council meeting, Bill Mayhew, a manager with MDOT, said there have not been any angle crashes, which can result in serious injuries, since the roundabout opened. In that time, there have been only two minor injuries in accidents at the roundabout, and neither required hospitalization.

Contrast that with the five years before the roundabout was built, when an average of 5.8 angle crashes occurred a year resulting in 5.6 injuries, and those injuries were much more serious than what we have seen in the past two years.

The first year the roundabout was open did see a greater number of minor accidents  12  than occurred during the days of the Patrick Road crossover. However, last year there were only three, so accidents are definitely trending in the right direction.

We are seeing a trend of decreasing accidents. The frequency is going down, and I think we will continue to see that trend, Mayhew told city council.

We have to agree. While we still are not thrilled with the cost of the roundabout, we cannot argue against its effectiveness. The roundabout has made what used to be a sometimes hazardous crossover into a relatively safe roadway, virtually eliminating injury accidents and perhaps saving some lives.
It would be easy, looking at the situation from afar, to ask Worth County supervisors, What took you so long? to add traffic-control measures at a proven dangerous rural intersection.

But finger-pointing wont undo whats been done.

We just know that it appears to have taken a crash that killed two women to finally prompt action to hopefully increase the safety at a deadly intersection. We hope the measures there and at other dangerous sites accomplish their intended goal.

Lahoma Counts, 86, of Mason City, and Evelyn Mallo, 85, of Clear Lake, died when the car they were riding in collided with another vehicle at Thrush Avenue and 390th Street, near Grafton.

Those familiar with the road know it as not only a nicely paved, well-maintained county road typical of many in North Iowa, but also as a great shortcut from Mason City, Manly and Plymouth to Interstate 90 in Austin, Minnesota, and points east  most noticeably Rochester, Minnesota. Thats where the two women were heading last Friday: Mallo driving Counts to a medical appointment.

But their lives ended horribly when Mallo ran a stop sign, colliding with an eastbound car driven by Sam Bergan, 18, of Hanlontown. They died at the scene. He suffered several injuries, and has since been released from hospital care.

However, what his father told Worth County supervisors at their meeting Monday no doubt echoed what other county residents believe: If you made that intersection a four-way stop, in my opinion you cut the chances of an accident by 50 percent.  And I guarantee you that if that wouldve been a four-way stop, that accident would not have happened on Friday.

Others also criticized supervisors for not acting fast enough to install safety upgrades, because this was not the first bad collision there. In May, Terry Haxton, 55, of Grafton, was hurt when a sport utility vehicle ran a stop sign. In December 2013, two female motorists were hurt when one of them drove into the path of another vehicle. Two more were hurt in a crash in September 2013.

Thats not a large number of accidents, but it is still significant enough that supervisors earlier this year discussed the potential benefits of lighted signs, rumble strips and other measures.

Now, improvements will be made. Rumble strips and flashing stop signs will be installed at that intersection. Rumble strips also will be cut into roads at more than 20 other rural intersections.

Supervisor Merlin Bartz disputed the criticism Monday and on social media that the county didnt act fast enough. Right or wrong, theres no sense belaboring the point: It wont bring back Lahoma Counts or Evelyn Mallo or undo the injuries and trauma to those injured or involved in other accidents.

Lets all just hope and pray that these new measures reduce dramatically the accidents on that and other rural Worth County roads, and that perhaps what has taken place will serve as an impetus for other counties to act if theyve not done so already.
Question: True or false? If you swear you saw Peggy  Mikes mouthy, tell-it-like-it-is mom on the popular CBS sitcom, Mike & Molly  at Redbird IGA in Normal back in the late '60s, you probably really did.

Answer: That's true. In the long, impressive list of actors and actresses to attend Illinois State University, actress Rondi Reed is another. Besides playing Peggy on Mike & Molly, she has played Roseannes therapist, appeared in Seinfeld, originated the role of Madame Morrible in the Chicago production of Wicked and won a Tony on Broadway for her role in "August: Osage County." She is 64, went to ISU in the early 1970s and is from Dixon, hometown also of Ronald Reagan.
Across the centuries, Great Britain has given the world many things uniquely British  the Puritans, Andrew Carnegie, The Beatles and, as we Americans again celebrate this Fourth of July, the United States.

On June 23, it gave the world another significant gift: a big step into the dark abyss of a go-it-alone future in todays ever-globalizing world.

Sure, most of the United Kingdoms citizens who voted late last month to the leave the European Union, or Brexit, had what they thought were good reasons to do so: an incoming tide of mostly poor, often-illegal immigrants; a costly, decidedly Europe-centered Common Agricultural Policy; an ever-growing bureaucracy in Brussels; and a river of English money flowing out of the U.K. and only a trickle of E.U. funds flowing back in.

Now, though, with the step taken, the Leaves have discovered an unpleasant truth: their politicians didnt tell them the whole truth about leaving. In fact, much that was said was not true. For example:

The majority of the U.K.s record setting, net 270,000 immigrants last year were E.U. citizens exercising their legal right to move freely within the 28-nation bloc;

Love it or hate it, CAP is crucial to U.K. farmers; from 2010 to 2013, the latest data available, 40 percent of all U.K. farm income came from Brussels;

E.U. bureaucracy is relatively tiny, about 33,000 civil servants, compared to the number of U.K. civil servants, 410,000, according to The Wall Street Journal, and

The Leaves claim that the U.K. sends the E.U. 350 million pounds a week (about $465 million) is a lie, according The Guardian, a leading national newspaper in England. A more accurate figure is 136 million pounds (or $180 million), less than 40 percent of the amount claimed by Leave proponents.

While the vote is not legally binding to Parliament (whose members favored staying in the E.U. by an almost 4-1 margin) U.K. politicians are dancing carefully as they discuss what to do next.

Prime Minister David Cameron, who advocated for a Brexit vote during his 2015 reelection bid, was ambushed by its results; hes out come September. His opposition, the Labour Partys Jeremy Corbin, was soundly gobsmacked by colleagues in a no confidence vote June 28 and he looks to be history, too.

So far, the only possible winner, according to one leading Leave advocate, might be British farmers who, claimed the politician, ought to receive the lions share of any former E.U. duties left after the nation strengthens its national health care system.

Even if Parliament agrees  a very, very long shot at best  no one has any idea if the money will cover the farmers soon-to-go CAP payments or when it might flow. For two years at least, however, CAP will remain the key farm income scheme in the U.K.

Writing for the blog CAP Reform.eu, Irish ag economist Alan Matthews believes any E.U.-U.K. farm program changeover (something, he says, he will deeply regret) will be a long time coming.

When it comes, however, the vote means that trade costs will rise because U.K. exports to the E.U. will no longer be considered internal trade.

Even then, he suggests, U.K. farmers should strive to remain in EU programs like its European Food Safety Authority, the European Chemicals Agency, and the European Emissions Trading Schemes to maintain as much mobility of goods, services, capital, and people as possible.

Ultimately, however, its people  not markets, not politics, not regulations  who will be most affected by the dramatic Brexit choice. Nationwide it was a narrow victory for the Leaves; in the countryside, though, farmers voted more than 2 to 1 to go it alone.

Possibly, explains economist Matthews, this was because U.K. farmers are in the older age group
LOWER MERION TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- At first glance, it appears 21-year-old Rachel Levin and her boyfriend are hosting an epic pool party in her backyard.

To document the festivities, maybe a few selfies or video clips will find their way to Snapchat -- because, you know, that's the average social-media output for a Gen Z-er.

Except that Levin is RCLBeauty101. Her YouTube handle might not mean anything to you if you are a twinkle older than 25, but to the makeup world of tween and teen girls, Levin is a superstar.

A make-your-own-beauty-products-guru-turned-comedienne, Levin has 8.3 million YouTube subscribers -- also known as Levinators -- ranking RCLBeauty101 92nd in the world for YouTube subscribers. (She ranks higher than rapper Wiz Khalifa, who is 94th.) Her videos receive 100 million views a month, making her channel among YouTube's fastest-growing.

"I never thought I would ever be that popular," Levin says. "I'm shocked every single day."

Clearly, anytime Levin is near a camera -- whether cellphone or Canon -- it's serious social-media business.

That pool party Friday at the house she shares with her mom and siblings? She was filming an original comedy, "If Google Was on Summer Break." A handful of Levin's friends ask a poolside Google -- played by a tankini-clad Levin -- a series of questions, from "What do you do when a boyfriend calls you fat?" to "How can you get a workout body in five minutes?"

The answers are funny, if not just as arbitrary. For the workout question, Google just throws up her hands and walks away.

By early Saturday afternoon, after posting a flurry of teasers on Twitter (1 million followers), Instagram (2.4 million), and Snapchat (900,000), "Summer Break" was up. In the first 25 hours, the video -- sponsored by gaming app Best Fiends _ cracked 2 million views. As of Tuesday morning, views approached 3.3 million. Yup, about a million views a day.

"Rachel's video significantly moved the needle on downloads," said Phil Hickey, vice president of marketing and communications at Seriously, the Los Angeles company that produces Best Fiends.

Like other YouTubers with at least 1,000 subscribers, Levin gets income from ads that run on her YouTube channel, which she splits with parent company Google. Sponsors also pay her directly for verbal mentions and product placement.

That said, Levin is hesitant to divulge how much money she makes. Doctors and lawyers don't share their salaries, she says defensively. (Her dad is a doctor; her mom, a lawyer.)

Also, adds Naomi Lennon, who manages Levin and a roster of YouTube stars via her Lennon Management Co. in Los Angeles, wealthy YouTube stars seem to get more than their fair share of hate.

"They are young, in their early 20s," Lennon said, "and making a lot of money for doing what people think looks easy."

Even if Levin isn't making quite the kind of cash as YouTube's top star PewDiePie -- Forbes estimates the Swedish game reviewer has a net worth of $12 million -- one can assume Levin is doing pretty well.

She spends thousands to hire actors and rent swank Airbnb mansions to host videos such as "Disney Princess Slumber Party." That video -- her most popular, with a record 60 million views and counting -- is part of a series in which she stars as Belle.

Levin rewards contest winners with iPhones and iPads (a common practice among YouTube stars). She has a New York stylist and an entire room in her house that acts as a second closet, for her clothes and accessories -- including a pair of Louboutins.

Even with all the fame -- she was on the cover of Adweek's May 2 video issue -- her fans still find her down-to-earth. That's because the on-screen Levin embodies Lena Dunham's deadpan humor with a hefty dose of Carrie Bradshaw's whimsical fashion forwardness. And it helps that her boyfriend, Isaac Nakash, who occasionally stars in the videos, looks like he just walked off the set of HBO's Entourage.

"I just love everything about her," said 11-year-old Sharon Tyler. "I want to meet her boyfriend. I want to hang out in her room. I even want to meet her fish."

Last month, Sharon and her 12-year-old sister, Madison, serendipitously ran into Levin at the City Avenue Target.

"She's different because most girls only do makeup tutorials and DIYs," Madison chimed in. "She's like really smart and funny. Very unique."

Although Levin has found fame with comedy, she doesn't make light of the makeup tutorials, which she started as a teenager after experimenting with concealers for her dark, under-eye circles.
As academics, we may live in something of a bubble. Days, or even weeks, may go by before we talk to anyone with a world view fundamentally different from our own.

One of us has spent his career teaching our students about archaeology and the distant past, while the other has taught about how language develops and is processed. These are very different areas of study, but there are important overlaps as well. Like in all of the liberal arts and sciences, we teach our students logical thought, reason, communication, and evidence-based decision making.

However, there seems to be a paradox in the way our society views universities and their role. A college degree is seen as valuable, but the work that occurs at a university, the pursuit of knowledge, is poorly understood or even derided.

The paradox makes sense, though, if we recognize that many in our society, including some of our leaders, see the purpose of universities as not to educate students, but to prepare them for jobs. Anything other than the job-training aspects of college is seen as intellectual elitism.

Anti-intellectualism is not new in the United States, which has always respected populist movements and trusted the wisdom of ordinary Americans. We share that respect, but we see an increasing trend toward a more dangerous brand of anti-intellectualism, an aggressive and willful ignorance.

The late Isaac Asimov, biochemist and science fiction writer, referred to anti-intellectualism as the cult of ignorance, which is the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge, that all arguments are equally valid.

Our most notorious modern example is climate change. The overwhelming majority of climate scientists concur that global warming is not only dangerous but is also caused by humans (as reported in 97 percent of scientific papers on the subject published in the last 20 years).

Yet a lot of the public, and many members of Congress, deny the science. As easy as it is to gain access to the foundational research that backs up claims of climate change, it is equally easy to find websites claiming that decades of research is a hoax.

This denial of evidence could have dangerous consequences. We realize, of course, that politicians often take positions based on who votes and who contributes to their campaigns, and energy companies have financial interests that may make science denial attractive, but it is troubling that such ideas get so much traction.

The ultimate danger is that irrational political ideas taken to the extreme can be a blueprint for fascist, totalitarian control. We hope this would never happen in the United States, but historically, every totalitarian government has persecuted, imprisoned, or killed intellectuals, including in places as near as Argentina and Brazil.

What is the answer to this growing trend toward anti-intellectualism? We immodestly suggest that it is a liberal arts and sciences education. Here a person learns how to think critically, understand how to evaluate data, and make rational decisions about our world.

This would require returning to an understanding that a universitys mission is to educate people for life in a democratic society, not solely to train people for jobs.

When there is an absence of critical thinking and evidence-based decision making, there is room for individuals to make decisions based on emotion and fear. When we do not seek information, particularly information that may be in conflict with our own beliefs or opinions, we make ourselves vulnerable to demagoguery. Perhaps Benjamin Franklin said it best: It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins.

J
SPRINGFIELD  Municipalities and utility companies that have been waiting many months for the Illinois Department of Corrections to pay power, water and sewer bills should see some money soon, the state comptrollers office said late last week.

The short-term budget deal that Gov. Bruce Rauner signed Thursday frees up $321 million for operational expenses in the states prison system. Those funds were held up in the yearlong budget impasse between the first-term Republican governor and the Democratic-controlled General Assembly.

As of last week, Corrections had racked up more than $34 million in unpaid utility bills at facilities statewide, according to records released to the Springfield bureau of Lee Enterprises in response to a request under the states Freedom of Information Act.

Rich Carter, a spokesman for Comptroller Leslie Munger, said checks should be going out soon.

Comptroller Munger knows the municipalities and utility companies have been waiting a long time to receive these payments, and she has directed staff to pay these bills immediately after receiving the vouchers from the Department of Corrections, Carter wrote in an email Friday.

The largest share of money  $12.9 million  is owed to Constellation Energy Services, a subsidiary of utility giant Exelon Corp., but the state also is in arrears to local municipalities where correctional facilities are located.

The state owes the southern Illinois city of Chester nearly $1.2 million for utility services at the Menard Correctional Center.

To a city the size of Chester, it hurts us and it creates some extreme difficulties in moving money around and paying our bills, Mayor Tom Page told The Southern Illinoisan last week.

As of Friday afternoon, the mayors office hadnt received word of when the bills would be paid.

The situation is similar at Pontiac Correctional Center, which has a total of about $2.8 million in outstanding utility bills, including one for about $733,000 for city sewer service.

City Administrator Bob Karls said Pontiac has had to make some adjustments to its plans as a result of the states overdue bills.

Weve kind of slowed down some capital improvement projects, he said, adding that it mostly involved work that was still in the design phase.

While hes happy that Illinois now has a partial budget, hell be happier when its bills are paid in full.

The sigh of relief will come when we get our checks, Karls said, adding the situation is much less dire than when the state proposed closing the prison back in 2008.

Pontiac isnt the only Central Illinois city waiting for its check from Corrections. The state owes about $446,000 to the city of Lincoln and about $134,000 to Decatur.

The Lincoln and Logan correctional centers, both in Lincoln, together owe about $2 million in unpaid utility bills.

Karls said Pontiac never considered disconnecting its prisons sewer service, but municipalities elsewhere grappled with the idea.

Leaders in the west-central Illinois city of Mount Sterling, which the state owes about $314,000, weighed shutting off the water at Western Illinois Correctional Center. The City Council unanimously rejected the idea last month, however.

Municipalities have little leverage in the situation because if they shut off utilities, the Department of Corrections would have to remove inmates from the facilities. That, in turn, would call into question whether the inmates  and the jobs of those who guard them  would ever return.

If water had been shut off, it becomes a public health issue and the state would have no choice but to move inmates, Rauner spokeswoman Catherine Kelly wrote in an emailed statement. Before a facility could be reopened, IDOC would have to complete any repairs due to a water shutoff, which would be subject to available appropriations, and have the entire complex pass inspection.
Some experts believe that the educational sector in Britain will not take much of a hit after the country's exit from the European Union, but this does not appear to be the general consensus. The United Kingdom Department of Education has recently come up with an official statement, which provides an update to the state of their education. Luckily, so far, the update contains some good news.

The official statement reads, "Our goal is to provide world-class education and care that allows every child and young person to reach his or her potential, regardless of background." It also claims that more than 1.4 million students have been receiving a high quality of education since the turn of the decade, resulting from the efforts of both students and their instructors alike.

The exit of the country from the European Union through this referendum, however, means that students who could have found it easier to go to the United Kingdom before and study there can now face a tough time, considering all the fees and processes that will be mandated once the Brexit is officially completed. However, the Department of Education claims that there will be no drastic or immediate changes that will be taking effect because of the referendum.

"Current arrangements will continue to apply to European pupils and their families, and to teachers, early years and social work professionals and all others who work with children," says the official statement. This would apply to living, working, and of course studying in the United Kingdom.

They say that schools will continue to promote the high quality of education available in the country. In spite of this, there could be a problem since The Independent has reported that some students do not want to take part in their exams as a direct result of "depression" brought about by the Brexit.
Education has had a fairly big year in 2016, but that does not mean that all of the news surrounding this subject matter has been of the positive variety. There has been good news, yes, but there has also been bad news as well as news that even the most qualified of people cannot label good or bad at this point in time.

Luckily, The Washington Post has compiled the best and the worst education related news so far this year. With this compilation serving as a basis, it looks as though things have been looking promising these past six months.

The first of the good news was when a major effort to dissolve teachers' union in the United States was thwarted by the Supreme Court when they deadlocked in the Friedrichs case. The Gates foundation also admitted their mistakes in various "strategic mishaps" and now plans to make some very welcome changes. Two other pieces of good news were when a California appeals court overturned the Vergara decision and when Supreme Court refused to weaken the efforts of educational institutions to promote diversity among their students.

Changes in the GED have also been made after a previous referendum to it led to disastrous results. Research also shows that ethnic studies have helped students become more academically active and could pave the way for it to be implemented in more schools. The results of the Every Student Succeeds Act have still yet to be fully visualized so it cannot be called a success nor a failure.

However, bad news can almost never be avoided, as nine people were killed in Mexico during demonstrations against educational reform. The issue of the poor physical state of Detroit schools has also not been settled as of writing this article. Six million kids have also been found to be missing 15 or more school days every academic year, according to reports from KPCC.
"Scream Queens" Season 2 has danger in store for Taylor Lautner as Dr Cassidy Cascade, whom Emma Roberts' Chanel Oberlin and her Chanels might have to save from death. "Twilight" star Taylor Lautner will portray Dr Cassidy Cascade as a closet mental health case who will be suspiciously linked to the "Scream Queens" Season 2 deaths.

However, given the talent "Scream Queens" writers have with twists, Taylor Lautner may actually find danger on hand for Dr Cassidy Cascade. Fortunately, Emma Roberts' Chanel Oberlin and faithful Chanel 3 (Billie Lourd) and 5 (Abigail Breslin) seem to have a natural ability to rebuff "Scream Queens" murderers.

The Daily Mail reports that anticipation for Taylor Lautner as the cookie Dr Cassidy Cascade in "Scream Queens" Season 2 is high. "Scream Queens" Season 2 viewers would certainly be looking out for the health of Taylor Lautner in the show.

Deadline Hollywood reports that newcomer John Stamos, who plays Dr Brock Holt, is just as suspicious as the "Glee" actor will guard many strange secrets in "Scream Queens" Season 2. Fans will have to see if the mysteries of "Scream Queens" Season 2 have any connection to the bloody events of S1.

According to Deadline Jamie Lee Curtis, who is hospital administrator Cathy Munsch in "Scream Queens" Season 2, is looking forward to being in danger in the Ryan Murphy thriller. As Dean Cathy Munsch in "Scream Queens" Season 1, Jamie Lee Curtis single-handedly beat up the Red Devil twins.

"Scream Queens" Season 2 may showcase the mixed martial arts that Jamie Lee Curtis' Cathy much supposedly picked up in Asia. However, the "Scream Queens" Season 2 killer(s) may be of a different ilk and Jamie Lee Curtis may not actually survive easily or at all.

Jamie Lee Curtis, Taylor Lautner and Emma Roberts will be joined by Glen Powell and Niecy Nash in when "Scream Queens" returns. FOX will air the "Scream Queens" Season 2 premiere on September 20.
Kate Middleton and Prince William on Friday attended the 100th-anniversary commemoration of the Battle of the Somme in France. But amid the memorial, some people were quick to notice how exhausted the Duchess of Cambridge looked like. Is the stress in her face an evidence of her rumored eating disorder and infertility?

Kate Is Shockingly Skinny

Kate Middleton has reportedly been losing weight, and according to Celeb Dirty Laundry, palace insiders revealed that Kate's weight has gone down to less than 100 pounds. That's why she looks "shockingly skinny" because, given her height of 5 feet and 9 inches, she should weigh at least around 130 pounds.

What's driving her weight loss? Speculations are that she's trying to be thin for egotistical reasons and is having an eating disorder. Some suppose Kate is having a hard time managing all her royal duties while taking care of her two toddlers at the same time.

William Also Looked Stressed Out

Not only is Kate's being skinny giving her face wrinkles and making her look older, but her husband also seems to be aging prematurely. CDL noted that Prince William has visible less hair than his father Prince Charles. Are they stressing out over baby number three?

Kate and William appeared at the war memorial with Prince Harry and Prince Charles. CBC News reported that the royals joined British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande in a tribute ceremony, Thiepval Memorial to the Missing in France, to the millions of soldiers who died at the Battle of the Somme, which is one of the bloodiest battles in history. It was a clash of Britain and France against Germany that began on July 1, 1916, and ended in November of that year. The first day of the battle killed roughly 20,000 British soldiers alone.
Do you like clowns or do you find them creepy? If your response is the latter, perhaps you're one of those kids who was haunted by the child-killing clown Pennywise in the '90s television mini-series adaptation of Stephen King's "It." But now, Pennywise is getting ready to torment new generation of kids through the upcoming movie adaptation.

For years, reports about a new movie adaptation of Stephen King's "It" have circulated. Unfortunately, it was until the latter days of June that the start of production has been confirmed.

Stephen King's 'It' Delayed

In fact, the new version of Stephen King's "It" has been plagued with delays in its production, especially with director Cary Fukunaga's exit. According to Coming Soon, Fukunaga was originally hired as the director of the two-part film project with "The Maze Runner" actor Will Poulter as Pennywise but they and New Line Cinema parted ways in 2015 due to creative differences.

"I was trying to make an unconventional horror film," Fukunaga told Variety. "They wanted archetypes and scares. I wrote the script. They wanted me to make a much more inoffensive, conventional script. But I don't think you can do proper Stephen King and make it inoffensive."

Stephen King's 'It' Release Date

After a series of delays and setbacks, Stephen King's "It" is finally happening. As a matter of fact, "Mama" film director Andy Muschietti recently announced the start of production on Instagram. The new version of Stephen King's "It" is scheduled for released on Sept. 8, 2017 while the release date for the second installment has yet to be revealed, NME notes.

Day one A photo posted by Andy Muschietti (@andy_muschietti) on Jun 27, 2016 at 12:04pm PDT

Stephen King's 'It' Part 1 And 2 Plot

Despite the fact that Fukunaga is no longer part of Stephen King's "It" production, his vision to retell the Pennywise's child-killing spree in two movie projects will still remain. As for the first part, the film will follow the main protagonists' journeys (as youths) as they fight against their own fears, bullies and Pennywise during the heyday of the murderous clown's child-killing binge, Screen Rant reports. Stephen King's "It" part 2, however, will depict the main characters' "reluctant reunion" of the Loser's Club members as adults to end what they started together as It returns to Derry, Maine. The second installment of Stephen King's "It" will follow the events after "decades of dormancy."

Stephen King's 'It' Cast

As for Stephen King's "It" cast, it includes Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise the clown. Skarsgard will also be joined by Jaeden Liberher as the young Bill Denbrough, Jack Grazer as Stan Uris, Chosen Jacobs as Mike Hanlon, Owen Teague as Patrick Hockstetter, Nicholas Hamilton as Henry Bowers, Javier Botet as The Leper, Sophia Lillis as Beverly Marsh, Wyatt Oleff as Eddie Kaspbrak, Finn Wolfhard as Richie Tozier and Jeremy Ray Taylor as Ben Hanscom, Digital Trends learns.

Are you excited for Pennywise's comeback in Stephen King's "It" next year? Sound off below and follow Parent Herald for more news and updates.
Kevin Mckidd and his wife Jane decided to end their marriage. After 17 years, the actor of "Grey's Anatomy" fame and his wife are all set for a divorce.

Kevin, who portrays the role of Owen Hunt in "Grey's Anatomy" TV series and his wife have two children. Their son Joseph is 16 years old and daughter Iona is 14.

"Kevin and Jane have jointly decided to end their marriage," the actor's rep told E! News on Saturday. He also stated that the couple actually looks forward to continue to co-parent their children. The couple's top priority has always been their children. Even after the divorce, they will to continue to share a close and caring relationship.

On screen, the "Grey's Anatomy" actor has been praised for his romances in the medical drama series. The same chemistry did not reflect in his personal life as his wife Jane filed for divorce just few weeks before their 17th anniversary.

Kevin Mckidd and Jane Taylor was married in 1999 and the family who was originally Scottish, became American citizens in August 2015. They had an emotional ceremony at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Washington, D.C. However, the couple separated in October 2015.

The actor, over the years, has been carefully balancing his work and family. The hardworking actor joined "Grey's Anatomy" as a recurring role but was quickly promoted as a series regular. His character was introduced in the 5th season of "Grey's Anatomy" series. He also had the opportunity to direct few of the episodes in the series, reported Daily Mail.

Kevin McKidd started acting in "Grey's Anatomy" since 2008. Recently, he went ahead and signed on for the upcoming 13th season after renegotiating and entering a new contract.

McKidd has also acted in Trainspotting, Rome and Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.


Johnny Depp's tattoo troubles went a bit too far this time. He has altered the tattoo on his knuckles which read "SLIM" to now read "SCUM". The "SLIM" tattoo was a tribute to his ex-wife of 15 months, Amber Heard.

Johnny Depp had to auction some of his prized art collection to fund the divorce from his wife Amber Heard, who was wedded to him for 15 months. The whole experience was bitter as well as expensive.

The 53-year old actor seems to have used self-expression to cope with the unpleasant scenario of the divorce, according to Daily Mail. Even in the past, Johnny Depp had used alteration to body art to cope with relationship troubles. Earlier he had altered "Winona Forever" to "Wino Forever" after his separation from Winona Ryder.

Fans spotted the alteration to Johnny Depp's knuckle art when he was holding a microphone to record a video message for 95.5 KLOS.

Johnny Depp -- Amber Heard is SCUM to Me Now (PHOTOS) https://t.co/OiLLEIz3qQ  TMZ (@TMZ) July 2, 2016

The couple did not have a pre-nuptial agreement and because of this Amber was entitled to half the money that he made during the course of their marriage. This amounted somewhere between $20 and $30 million. Amber had also appealed for spousal support and demanded that her legal fees be covered during the divorce. However, this was denied by the court.

Johnny Depp whipped up $11.5 million by selling two out of his eight prized Jean-Michel Basquiat paintings. Now, he intends to sell the other six paintings too. The actor had spent 25 years collecting these groundbreaking pieces which the Brooklyn artist created.

Despite the unpleasantness of it all, Johnny Depp smiled as he arrived in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania for a gig on Friday night. He was performing along with fellow band mate of the Hollywood Vampires - Joe Perry.

Johnny Depp was spotted in a pair of dark jeans and boots along with black waistcoat. He wore a button down shirt, the sleeves of which were rolled up to the biceps. He also wore several accessories like earrings, chains, scarves, rings, neck chains, wallet chains and strips of metal.
Uh oh! Are Tara Wallace and Peter Gunz back at each other's arms again? Well, latest reports suggest that the two controversial "Love & Hip Hop: New York" stars were seen on a "date" recently. What makes it even more scandalous is the fact that Wallace is Gunz's ex and baby mama while his pregnant wife Amina Buddafly is living in another state with their daughter.

After the highly controversial and intense "Love & Hip Hop: New York" season 6 finale in March, two of the show's cast members, Tara Wallace and Peter Gunz, are currently stirring up some controversies regarding the possibility of a reconciliation between the two exes. The reports came amid Gunz's separation from his pregnant wife Amina Buddafly, who's currently living in Los Angeles with their daughter Cori.

'Love & Hip Hop: New York' Stars Tara Wallace And Peter Gunz Dating?

Last week, exes Tara Wallace and Peter Gunz were reportedly spotted together at the United Negro College Fund's Masked Ball in New Jersey. According to International Business Times, it's unclear whether the ex-couple attended the event together but a photo has been uploaded on social media showing Wallace and Gunz sharing a table together.

The latest reports seemed to further complicate the scandalous love triangle of Wallace, Gunz and Buddafly. In fact, Wallace and Gunz spent 13 years together and shared three children.

Tara Wallace, Peter Gunz, Aminda Buddafly's Love Triangle In 'Love & Hip Hop: New York'

In 2013, however, Gunz married Buddafly while he was still living with Wallace. Complicated, right? But wait, the complication still doesn't stop there because "Love & Hip Hop: New York" fans got the biggest shock of their lives when Wallace and Buddafly got pregnant at the same time.

#PeterGunz and #TaraWallace spotted together at the #UNCF Mayor Masked Ball a few days ago in New Jersey A photo posted by The Shade Room (@theshaderoom) on Jun 29, 2016 at 2:05pm PDT

Unfortunately, Buddafly terminated her pregnancy upon learning that Wallace was expecting her third child with Gunz. But during "Love & Hip Hop: New York" season 6 reunion special, Buddafly announced that she's pregnant again.

Tara Wallace Mocking Amina Buddafly On Instagram?

As Tara Wallace continues to fight for her right in Peter Gunz's life, several fans on Instagram took notice of Wallace's posts that could be suggestive of "taking shots" at Gunz's wife, Amina Buddafly. In fact, her latest Instagram post has differentiated the meaning of a "baby mama" and a "mother of your child, stressing that she's a mother and not a baby mama, Inquisitr notes.

And I love it! A photo posted by Taranasha Wallace (@iamtarawallace) on Jun 26, 2016 at 10:51am PDT

Peter Gunz, Amina Buddafly Still Married Despite Separation

Meanwhile, "Love & Hip Hop: New York" star Amina Buddafly has recently opened up about the status of her relationship with husband, Peter Gunz. In an interview with TMZ's "Rock Rants," Buddafly admitted that she and Gunz are not together but they're contemplating on the next steps that they should take. She also confessed that she's sleeping with Gunz whenever he came to Los Angeles to visit their daughter and she could never be friends with Wallace again.

Amina Buddafly Confirms Return In "Love & Hip Hop: New York" Season 7

In spite of the incessant heartaches she experienced on the previous "Love & Hip Hop: New York" seasons, Amina Buddafly still has plans to make a comeback on the VH1 show's seventh season. For more details about "Love & Hip Hop: New York" season 7, check out this Parent Herald report here.

What are your thoughts on the messy love triangle of "Love & Hip Hop: New York" stars Tara Wallace, Amina Buddafly and Peter Gunz? Sound off below and follow Parent Herald for more news and updates.
On May 30, Patently Mobile posted a patent report titled "Samsung Continues to Work on a Foldable Galaxy Smartphone," which showed us a basic foldable smartphone form factor that they were working on. Then on June 6 Bloomberg posted a report titled "Samsung May Release Phones with Bendable Screens in 2017." Bloomberg's sources further noted that Samsung's 'Project Valley' smartphone project could in some form come to market as soon as February, when Mobile World Congress takes place in Barcelona. That timing would give Samsung a head-start on Apple's iPhone using OLED screens that may be released later in 2017. Last week the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office published yet another patent application from Samsung which further supports not only foldable smartphone designs but also possible future foldable Galaxy tablets.

Unlocking a Folded Tablet Concept

Samsung's patent FIGS. 24A, 24B, and 25 presented below illustrate diagrams for explaining an example of unlocking the flexible display unit #115 based on a gesture that relates to unfolding the foldable tablet device #100.





As shown in FIG. 24A above, user icons which respectively correspond to a plurality of users may be displayed on the first edge display area a1. Number icons for inputting a password may be displayed on the second edge display area a2.

For example, a user may unfold the foldable device while touching a user icon i30 and a number icon i31 respectively by using fingers f41 and f42. If the foldable device determines that the user icon i30 and the number icon i31 which are selected by a touch input correspond to each other, the foldable device releases a locked state of the foldable device and displays a wallpaper on the flexible display as illustrated in patent FIG. 24B above.

Alternatively Samsung's patent FIG. 25 above illustrates diagrams for explaining an example of inputting a password.

For more on this Samsung invention, see our full Patently Mobile report here.
Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai, has a clear mission: he wants people to stop thinking about Google primarily as a means of searching for publicly available information but as a full-on 'assistant', helping people to live their lives in all sorts of ways. Achieving this would require solving complex computational problems, and Google is investing vast amounts in machine learning - a form of artificial intelligence (AI). This is central to the company's long term future; it permeates everything it now does.

In addition to further refining and advancing his core products, he is targeting the home and the car as Google's next frontiers. Crucially, he wants to liberate us from having to rely on computers and phones when interacting with his company. He would like us to be able to talk to our house or car, instructing Google to order some takeaway, asking it what the temperature will be in Ibiza next week, requesting an item be added to the family diary or shopping list and then be reminded that it's time for that medical appointment.

One Future Smart Home Example: The Smart Baby Crib

This past week alone the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published a series of seven smart home related patent applications filed by Google mainly covering home security and home intrusion detection. One that stood out from the pack was one for a smart baby crib as noted in the patent figure from that invention noted above.

Google notes in their patent overview that "Baby cribs are routinely purchased on the basis of safety and aesthetic features. Typically a mattress for the crib is separately purchased for similar reasons. Many users separately select a baby monitor that includes a camera and/or microphone. More sophisticated monitors may have an infrared camera and/or a speaker. The monitor may include a camera that can be placed in a position that overlooks the baby crib. In some configurations, the camera and/or microphone may be affixed to the crib using child proof and safe mechanism. The baby monitor may contain a controller (e.g., head unit) to which the signal from the camera and/or speakers is transmitted. The head unit may contain indicators for the volume of sound detected by the microphone. The head unit may contain various buttons that activate or deactivate the display and/or speakers on the head unit. Thus, a baby monitor may be retrofitted to a baby crib.

Google's patent filing further notes that "The sensors may communicate with one another and/or with other devices, such as a smart home network or associated devices, to generate a notice based upon the combined data from the different sensors."

Google also notes that one of the cameras associated with the crib may be an infrared camera to provide nighttime or dark vision (e.g., passive infrared or "PIR").

Other notables are new kinds of sensor to monitor the air in the baby's room that are extra sensitive to not only monitor for carbon monoxide but also if the baby has vomited, has a dirty diaper, has heart palpitations, unusual lack of movement and even detecting that the child has a fever.

Though as important as that is, the underlying focus is on Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Google's Primary Focus: Artificial Intelligence (AI)

You could tell that Google's on a PR campaign to promote their vision with the press that Google will be the leader in the coming post-mobile revolution. I remember when Apple's late co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs told Walt Mossberg years ago that we were entering a post-PC era just as the iPhone and iPad were about to really take off and kill the traditional PC industry. An industry that IDC says still won't see the daylight until 2018 at the earliest.

Google's Sundar Pichai is now 'borrowing' Jobs' terminology to capture the imagination of consumers. Yesterday it was the Telegraph and earlier this week it was a Forbes contributor wrote Apple off and saw them as Google's roadkill when it came to the post-mobile revolution centered on AI.





The world is only just getting used to the smartphone revolution, but the bespectacled Pichai is already thinking "post-mobile. The Telegraph notes Pichai stating that "Today, we pull out a black rectangular piece of something. It's much better than what's been before, but it's still a physical device with which we interact. But as we move away from this over time the experience will become much more intuitive, much more natural."

The Telegraph learned in their interview with Pichai that "Teaching computers to understand casual, contextual conversation in every language and accent is key to this quest to normalize our interactions with computers and to place Google even more squarely at the centre of our lives. Achieving this would require solving complex computational problems, and Google is investing vast amounts in machine learning - a form of artificial intelligence (AI). This is central to the company's long term future; it permeates everything it now does.

It's no longer enough to program machines with all the answers or to rely on traditional statistical analysis to allow them to work out what's what - instead, the firm now relies on techniques such as neural networks that allow computers to teach themselves by sifting through massive amounts of data, learning from patterns, regularities and interconnections." Interestingly this past week we discovered another 'Neural Network' Google patent application surfacing in the US Patent Office's database that you could review here.

The Telegraph report further noted that Pichai believes that the potential for AI is massive. "We've been making very meaningful progress in machine learning and AI. The rate has reached an inflection point.'

'Technology is always disruptive. But it's a force for making people's lives better. It's also an incredibly democratizing force over time.'"

If you have the time, you could read the full Telegraph report here. Pichai also talks about taxes in the UK, politics through specific issues and let it slip that they have a 3D printer project in the works and that Amazon, after killing off their Fire branded smartphone, will be back in the market soon with new Android based smartphones.

Google will introduce 'Google Home' this fall to take on Amazon's Echo. It will be the first test for Google on expanding their reach into the home via Artificial Intelligence. It will be a direct hit against Apple's Apple TV with Siri. It will be Google's first post-mobile device. But will Google Home end up being another high profile fumble like Google Glass?

While Google's PR blitz currently has a rosy exterior to it, remember that their home-automation leader Tony Fadell  who had also taken on the task of reviving their Google Glass project  was basically shown the door just weeks after Google Home was introduced at their annual developer conference in May. Obviously their Home Automation project wasn't sailing along as smoothly as Pichai would like us all to think.

And have you noticed that Google always seems to be on the cusp of major breakthroughs of one sort of another with one PR blitz after another every year to capture the imagination of Wall Street and consumers. And yet we're still waiting for their next great thing from them that never seems to materialize.

Is Google's dream of executing on Artificial Intelligence really going to deliver post-mobile devices? Will it overtake Apple's post-PC device revolution? While only time will tell, I think not  at least in the near term.

It was Apple who saw the potential of AI with Siri on devices before Google or Amazon ever did. So to assume AI is a Google led revolution is a little egotistical if not delusional. True, perhaps Apple had temporarily fallen asleep at the wheel and squandered their AI lead, but they've since acquired Vocal IQ who once called Siri a toy.

Apple's next generation of AI technology will no doubt be able to go toe to toe with Google Amazon and anyone else on the horizon. Vocal IQ's technology is extensive by covering an auto-pilot driver assistance, home automation and wearables. Apple is far from missing the post-mobile revolution which is still years away from being meaningful and making money.

In the end, Google's AI vision according to the Gospel of Google is still vaporware until proven otherwise.

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Patna: The student wing of the Jan Adhikar Party (JAP) in Patna on Saturday took out a candle-light protest near Kargil Chowk following the death of a female activist in Samastipur on Friday.

Demanding full probe into the death of one Pinki Devi, an 'Education for All' resource officer, and arrests of hospital officials for failing to save her life, protestors accused the Nitish administration of negligence and ignoring the plight of volunteers and lower level government employees involved in various social schemes.

As reported, Pinki Devi, along with 15 other 'Education for All' workers had been on a hunger strike at the Samastipur district office since last Tuesday demanding payment of their salaries for the last several months.

Her condition, however, worsened on Friday night and was rushed to a local hospital where she died shortly.

Protestors then blocked the Samastipur-Patna Highway for more than three hours demanding arrest of several senior officials for failing to provide timely medical care to Pinki Devi and at least three other activists whose condition also deteriorated after two days of hunger strike.

FIRs have been lodged against three district officials, reports said.
FIVB Volleyball World League 2016: Iran defeats Serbia, but falls to Italy

07/03/16

Source: FIVB

Italy crush Iran's hopes with straight-set victory

Tehran, Iran, July 2, 2016 - Italy led by Vettori and Juantorena smoothly beat Iran 3-0 (25-20, 25-20, 25-21) in Tehran on Saturday. This is the eighth time Iran and Italy have clashed in the World League and the first time since 2014. Italy have won four of the previous seven World League meetings.

Both teams came out on the court looking confident, with Iran counting on the home support to carry them to a victory. Italy took an early lead 8-4 and Belgini called a time-out as the Iran narrowed the gap to 13-11. The visitors regained their four-point advantage at the second technical time-out. Italy take advantage of Iran's errors to close out the set 25-20.





Video: Iran v Italy - Group 1: 2016 FIVB Volleyball World League

Iran came back to the match in the opening moments of the second set to galvanize the fans but could not hold on their lead for very long as Italy's Osmany Juantorena made it even at 8-8. When Italy went 16-13 up Lozano called his players to remind them of the critical closing points. Three substitutions helped the home side reduce the margin to 20-19 but Italy's Vettori helped his team hold on to their lead. The set also ended with 25-20 for Italy.

Lozano who felt concerned with his consecutive mistakes and the brilliant performance of Italy in the third set put substitues Mobasheri and Zarini on. Iran managed to build a 13-11 for Iran after trailing 8-4 at the first technical time-out. Belgini pushed the bell to call the players out to stop the flow of the match. Iran tried to make a comeback in the match but Zarini equalized at 14-14. A rare error by Zaytsev allowed Iran do save the first match point, but Mousavi put his serve out to finish the set 25-21.



Mousavi's eight blocks bring Serbia's winning streak to an end

Tehran, Iran, July 1, 2016 - A stunning all-round performance by Seyed Mohammad Mousavi, who scored 17 points for Iran, broke Serbia's winning streak by contributing to a 3-2 (16-25, 22-25, 25-22, 25-23, 16-14) victory over the southern European opponent.

Mousavi impressed with 8 blocking points while Marko Ivovic was the best scorer with 19 points for Serbia.

With this victory, Iran re-balanced the World League head-to-head record with Serbia with each team having won twice against the other.

In the first set, the good performance of Seyed Mohammad Mousavi could not make up the mistakes made by Iran team and Serbia led 8-5. Although Serbia had practically qualified to the final six, they came to Tehran with all their powers to stay unbeaten. This is why Iran could no more process the power serves of Aleksandar Atanasijevic and lost by 18-25.

Lozano did his attempt to change the plan as some substitutions were made. Mobasheri came in to assist the team after Serbia was in the lead at the first technical time-out. The difference was reduced down to one point at the second technical time out. The home crowd went ecstatic as Zarini leveled it at 20-20 for. It was by no means a lone hand from him, with captain Marouf and also Ebadi enjoying a big night out.

The Iranian players who decided not to be ashamed of home fans came back in the third set and managed to dominate the play by changing mentality. Mousavi led the team to 3-2 as Serbia maintained the power in a breathtaking rally. Mirzajanpour brought hope back to the home team by leveling the score at 7-7. The shot were long enough to lose the sight. Finally Marouf downed Serbia for 11-10 and a rigorous moment tore any trace of fighting mentality on the Serbian side and Iran lead by 16-13 for the first time. The substitute players of Serbia were called on as Uros Kovacevic was in to annul the plans of Raul Lozano. It worked not so well. Nikola Grbic called time-out as Serbia were down 22-24 to stop Iran to take the last point but finally Mousavi closed the set at 25-22.





Video: Iran v Serbia - Group 1: 2016 FIVB Volleyball World League



In the fourth set Iran led by 8-7 and points were exchanged towards the 16-15 at the second technical time-out. Grbic changed the libero and Majstrovic equalized and again the set went on point for point. When they were 20-22 down, Serbia called a time-out, but no working plan was found and the Serbs were disappointed as Iran closed the set at 25-23.

Iran stepped into the court with an improving confidence and clinched the opening points but it was Serbia that took the lead by 8-6. Iran turned things around for 11-9 and a time-out was inevitable for Grbic. It worked and Serbia made it equal at 11-11. Iran led on as the fans were on the edge of their seats waiting to see the final decisive point. Finally the camera recorded the winning score 16-14 in favour of Iran.





Related information:

FIVB Volleyball World League 2016

FIVB Volleyball World League 2016 - Schedule

FIVB Volleyball World League 2016 - Teams
ROYAL OAK, Mich., July 03, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Thermal imaging is a welcome addition to the suite of veterinary services that will benefit pets and their owners, reports Woodside Animal Clinic. The veterinarian at this Royal Oak animal clinic can address painful ailments and trauma with non-invasive thermal imaging. The procedure painlessly addresses chronic and debilitating conditions in animals. Thermal imaging complements x-rays and diagnostic testing and offers more accurate diagnosis for care and treatment of acute and chronic pet painful health problems. The goal at Woodside Animal Clinic is for pets to return to pain-free and active lives.



Thermal imaging can address a number of painful conditions. X-rays are useful for diagnosing broken bones and fractures but are not helpful when it comes to soft tissue tears, inflammation or certain back issues. Thermal imaging uses a high-tech infrared camera to provide an image of temperature changes along an animals body and limbs. Unusual changes in temperature can indicate inflammation and can be used to identify areas of soft tissue injury with compromised or increased blood flow. Thermal imaging has been used to identify injured limbs or joints where the location of pain is not obvious. Hidden back problems can also be identified. If the specific site of the pets pain can be identified using the thermo imaging, therapies such as acupuncture and laser therapy may prove much more effective.

Thermal imaging is a unique approach available at our clinic to help diagnose soft tissue injury and inflammation in pets, said Dr. John Simon. We often see pets come into the clinic with painful conditions and trauma that cannot be fully diagnosed with x-rays. Thermal imaging provides veterinarians and pet owners more information as to the reason for an animals change in behavior and can detect the source of subtle lameness and certain soft tissue back problems. A treatment program can then be developed to help affected pets get back to their old selves.

Dr. Simon, veterinarian, owner and only vet of the Woodside Animal Clinic, offers veterinary services to pets and their owners in Royal Oak, Berkley, Ferndale and Detroit for over 30 years. Dr. Simon and staff provide holistic treatments and medical care for pets and small animals including, dogs, cats and birds. Because Dr. Simon is the only vet, pets will see him every visit. He will get to know each pet better and provide a higher level of care. The clinic offers traditional veterinary medicine, including wellness screenings and vaccinations, and holistic treatments such as pet acupuncture and chiropractic therapy.

Call (248) 756-4884 to schedule an appointment at Woodside Animal Clinic, find out more about thermal imaging or visit http://doc4pets.com/ for more detail on their full range of veterinary services for cats, dogs and other small pets.
Saudi Arabia: When Anger Substitutes for Diplomacy

07/03/16

by Eldar Mamedov (source: LobeLog)

When the EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini meets with her counterparts from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) at an EU-GCC ministerial meeting on July 20 in Brussels, the mood will be far from jubilant. Not only will Brexit overshadow the meeting, Great Britain being the Gulfs key partner in the EU, but some fundamental disagreements between the EU and the GCCs most powerful state-Saudi Arabia-will ensure that the meeting will be little more than a catalogue of good intentions.

At the root of these disagreements are conflicting policies toward Saudi Arabias great nemesis, Iran. From Riyadhs perspective, the EUs decision to terminate the nuclear-related sanctions against Iran as part of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JPOA) legitimizes Tehrans regional ambitions. Saudi Arabia sees an existential threat not only in what Iran is alleged to be doing-like controlling four Arab capitals and undermining others-but also in what it represents: a revolutionary, anti-western, self-reliant republic, with a predominantly Persian and Shia population, that challenges the Arab Sunni-centric conservative regional order.

Saudi Arabia sees Western, predominantly American, support for this regional order as a vital insurance against an Iran free to pursue its hegemonic aspirations. But the Saudis worry that America is withdrawing from the region and that Europe is either too irrelevant to fill the security void or is directly colluding with Iran against Saudi interests. Such is the case when the EU, for example, criticizes Saudi Arabia for its conduct of the war in Yemen. Saudi Arabia wants the West to address its feelings of abandonment and vulnerability by pushing Iran back into its box. When the Saudis refused to grant Mogherini meetings with King Salman and any of the crown princes during her visit to the Kingdom on May 31, they intended to send a message to the EU of how angry and frustrated they were about Brussels warming ties with Tehran.

Anger and frustration, however, are poor substitutes for diplomacy, and, in the long term, could damage the Saudi Kingdom.

Riyadh needs to understand that the EU decision to normalize relations with Iran is strategic. Iran can bring to bear key resources in tackling the three principal challenges that feed the populist assault on the very existence of the EU, of which Brexit was only the latest, and probably not the last, incarnation: sclerotic economic growth, terrorist threat, and chaotic migration.

What Iran Offers

On the economic front, the promise of the 80-million strong Iranian market is too strong for European businesses to ignore. Iran is the 18th largest economy in the world in terms of purchasing power parity, and the only major economy still outside the World Trade Organization (WTO). Since trade is a prerogative of the EU as a bloc, not individual member states, Brussels has signaled its intention to speed up Irans accession process to the WTO. Where Western governments used to discourage trade with Iran, now the ministers of foreign affairs of UK, Germany, and France, joined by Mogherini and the US Secretary of State John Kerry, encourage businesses to seize the opportunities opened by the sanctions relief.

On counter-terrorism, Iran is a useful ally against the Islamic State (ISIS or IS) and al-Qaeda. In Iraq, in particular, de facto cooperation between the US and Iran has enabled Iraqi forces to make steady progress against IS in the province of Anbar. The EU has also actively supported the participation of Iran as one of the key stakeholders in the International Syria Support Group.

Iran is both a source and a transit country for illegal migration to Europe, particularly for citizens of Afghan origin. After Syria, Afghanistan is the second largest source of illegal migrants to the EU. To tackle this challenge, the EU and Iran announced a migration dialogue during Mogherinis visit to Tehran in mid-April.

None of this means that the EU and Iran will become the best of friends or that disagreements, be it on regional security or Irans domestic policies, will disappear. But European security has become just too intertwined with the Middle East for the EU not to have functional relations with one of the regions pivotal countries. It is unreasonable to expect the EU to sacrifice those for the sake of reassuring the Saudis. In fact, the new EU Global Strategy on Foreign and Security Policy, unveiled on June 25, explicitly states that the EU will pursue a balanced engagement with the Gulf and Iran on regional conflicts and counter-terrorism, seeking to prevent the contagion of existing crises and foster the space for cooperation and diplomacy.

From Threat to Opportunity

Rather than treating this balanced engagement as a threat, the Saudis should see this as an opportunity. In reality they have little other choice. The isolation of Iran is no longer a realistic option. Hillary Clinton, the presumptive next US president, may sound on Iran more hawkish than the Obama administration. But once elected, shell be more likely guided by pragmatism than ideology and wont renege on the JCPOA. And even if she or Donald Trump does so, in the absence of a major Iranian provocation, of which there are no signs so far, the EU is unlikely to just play second fiddle to Americans on Iran.

The Saudis will also not benefit much from lobbying individual EU member states, such as the UK and France. Both London and Paris have close ties with Riyadh, but they are also eager to reach out to Tehran. Besides, public opinion in Europe, increasingly aware of the role the Saudi kingdom has played in promoting militant Wahhabism of the sort that today threatens European societies, makes it ever more costly for politicians to be seen as too cozy with the Saudis.

Saudi assertive unilateralism and efforts to cobble together a Sunni coalition against Iran are also failing. Riyadhs performance in Yemen is far from awe-inducing. Big and militarily capable Sunni countries, such as Turkey, Pakistan, and Egypt, are reluctant to fight for the Saudi geopolitical agenda. Even the smaller Gulf states have their own agendas with Tehran, which are not necessarily always in line with Riyadhs thinking. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Saudi Arabia needs to focus on internal reform, particularly on how to reconcile such aspects of the reform blueprint Vision 2030 as an emphasis on modernization, privatization, and competitiveness with the need to preserve the internal cohesion of the society. To succeed, it needs a stable and secure regional environment.

Saudi diplomats would be wise, therefore, not to indulge in the demonization of Iran. Instead, Saudi Arabia should capitalize on the EUs emerging ties with Tehran to discuss the kind of inclusive regional security order for which the EU stands, starting with specific confidence-building measures to de-escalate tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

This article reflects the personal views of the author and not necessarily the opinions of the European Parliament.





About the Author

Eldar Mamedov has degrees from the University of Latvia and the Diplomatic School in Madrid, Spain. He has worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia and as a diplomat in Latvian embassies in Washington D.C. and Madrid. Since 2007, Mamedov has served as a political adviser for the social-democrats in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament (EP) and is in charge of the delegation for inter-parliamentary relations between the EP and Iran.
Executives of top Iran fund forced to resign en masse

07/03/16

Source: Press TV

President Hassan Rouhani has accepted the mass resignation of those on the board of trustees of Iran's sovereign wealth fund as revelations about high compensation packages at state-owned firms take new casualties.



Read related articles by

Part I, Part II



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"Minutes ago, the board of trustees of the National Development Fund held a session with President Rouhani in attendance, where the mass resignation of the director and executive board members was accepted," the Fars news agency said Saturday.

Several senior officials, including ministers of economy, petroleum and labor, as well as the country's attorney general also attended the session, the news agency reported.

Among those who stepped down on Saturday was Safdar Hosseini, the managing director of the National Development Fund, who is said to have received $18,700 a month in salary and other compensation.





Safdar Hosseini cartoon by Firoozeh Mozaffari, Farheekhtegan daily





Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Ali Tayebnia had already removed the heads of Mellat, Bank Saderat, Refah Bank and Mehr banks for receiving "unconventionally" high salaries.

The head of another bank is also to be fired, but the decision has been delayed for "further review," the IRNA news agency said on Thursday.

Those implicated in the paycheck palaver are accused of receiving large bonuses, interest-free loans and, in some cases, tax evasion.

Investigations were launched after Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei called for immediate action amid reports that executives at some state-owned firms were earning more than 50 times the base government salary.

Iranian law states that the top salary in the government should not be more than seven times that of the lowest-paid government employee.

The paycheck leaks showed some senior managers at a company were paid up to 870 million rials ($28,339 at the official exchange rate) in March.

Rouhani has pledged to investigate and punish government employees receiving excessive salaries.

The government has made weeding out corruption a top goal. In March, Iranian tycoon Babak Zanjani was sentenced to death over fraudulently pocketing $2.8 billion.
Iran Leader Says Will Not Coordinate With U.S. Over Syria

07/03/16

Source: RFE/RL

Iran's supreme leader says Tehran will never coordinate with the United States on Syria and other regional conflicts. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in remarks published on his website July 3 that "we don't want such coordination as their main objective is to stop Iran's presence in the region."

The remarks were transcriptions from a recent speech to students.

Khamenei also repeated demands for the United States to stop interfering in the region, where Tehran views Washington as a hostile rival.

The two are on opposite sides of the Syria conflict, where Tehran supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against rebel groups, some supported by the West.

Tehran also rejects any coordination with the U.S.-led coalition that is bombing the Islamic State extremist group in Syria and Iraq.

However, Tehran does separately support Baghdad and Damascus in their battles with the group.

Based on reporting by AFP and BBC

Copyright (c) 2016 RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org
"Salesman" Awarded Best Film at Munich Festival

07/03/16

Source: Tehran Times

Asghar Farhadi's acclaimed drama "The Salesman" won the ARRI/Osram Award, which is presented to the best film in CineMasters -- the international competition -- at the Munich International Film Festival, the organizers announced on Saturday.





Shahab Hosseini (L) and Taraneh Alidusti act in a scene from "The Salesman".



German-based Iranian actress Pegah Fereydoni, French producer Stephane Tchalgadjieff and former Munich mayor Christian Ude were the members of the CineMasters jury.

"We choose to give the award to a film that we found contemporary and yet universal and, most importantly, with an opening to the future; a story that was both thrilling and full of surprise," the jury said in their statement.

"The Salesman" brought Farhadi the best screenplay award and its star, Shahab Hosseini, the Palme d'Or for best actor at the 69th Cannes Film Festival in May.







"Rabin: the Last Day" by Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai received a special mention in CineMasters.

The CineVision Award, which goes to an international newcomer filmmaker, was presented to French director Houda Benyamina for her "Divines" while the audience award went to "The Three of Us" by Kheiron from France.

A total of 207 films from 62 countries went on screen during the event, which was held in the capital of the German state of Bavaria from June 23 to July 2.
Love him or hate him, presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump isnt going anywhere.

I do what I do, he told NBC News earlier this week. Ive listened to this for a long time  at the beginning of the primaries, He should do this, he should do that. I won in a landslide.

From the moment he announced his intention to seek the presidency, Trump has been a divisive figure.

When Mexico sends its people theyre not sending their best, he said in his June 16, 2015, speech announcing his presidential bid. Theyre sending people that have lots of problems, and theyre bringing those problems with us. Theyre bringing drugs. Theyre bringing crime. Theyre rapists, and some, I assume, are good people. But I speak to border guards and they tell us what were getting.

POLITICS: Could Trump win California?

And hes remained a divisive figure in the year since.

For Californias Republican officials and candidates, Trumps candidacy poses a challenge  the state is home to large minority and immigrant populations, but his appeals to working class populism resonate with many voters, especially the further inland one goes.

Democrats have already stated their desire to tie Trump to local Republicans seeking (or already occupying) elected office. But turning on the most prominent Republican in this years election means violating beloved California Republican Ronald Reagans 11th Commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.

For many elected Republicans and those seeking to join them in Sacramento or Washington this year, the answer seems to be to focus less on the candidate himself and more on his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

Republican voters nationwide have spoken, and its clear Donald Trump has earned the nomination, Rep. Paul Cook, R-Yucca Valley, wrote in an email. Hes tapped into the discontent and frustration pent up over the last eight years, and he represents an alternative to the normal political channels that have turned off so many Americans. I will support Donald Trump just as I have supported every Republican presidential nominee. While we dont agree on every subject, our country cant afford Hillary Clinton as President. We have too many challenges, and she represents a continuation of the Obama policies that have harmed our nation.

Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, is likewise supporting Trump as the nominee and as a bulwark against Clinton.

For all of my life, I have supported and fought for conservative principles, Republican candidates and a safer, more prosperous future for our country, Calvert wrote in an email. Donald Trump is our presumptive nominee and I intend to support him. On November 8, 2016, I hope all Republicans, a majority of independents and a large number of free-thinking Democrats will unify to prevent Hillary Clinton from carrying out a third term of President Obamas damaging policies.

Trumps ability to shape the Supreme Court is uppermost in the mind of state senator Mike Morrell, R-Rancho Cucamonga.

POLITICON: Former Mexican president calls Trump false prophet

One of my greatest concerns this election is the future of the Supreme Court, Morrell wrote in an email. With the passing of Justice (Antonin) Scalia, the next president has the opportunity to shape the court for generations. I believe that Trump will appoint an originalist who will defend the Constitution, limit governments power in our lives, and rank the citizen above the state.

There is no question that Los Angeles County Republican Party Chairman Mark Vafiades wouldnt support Trump, he said in May.

In the old days  maybe 30 years ago  when there were Democrats who were conservative and Republicans that were more moderate, there were possibilities that a Democrat could be looked at and be more conservative than the Republican nominee, Vafiades said. Thats not true today, and this time the choice is clear.

Some Southern California Republicans were willing to criticize Trump  or at least his presidential campaign thus far.

To win and to be an effective president, Donald Trump must pick a vice presidential nominee and cabinet members with the experience, perspective, and appeal to balance out the ticket, Cook wrote. I hope he will do so before the Republican National Convention in July.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, said last week, that hes done with trying to articulate or explain or answer for what Donald Trump says.

Since last July, I have been critical of inflammatory comments made by Donald Trump about Hispanics, women, Asians, the disabled and many others, Assemblywoman Ling Ling Chang, R-Brea, wrote in an email. His comment that a U.S. District court judge was unqualified to hear a case simply because he was Hispanic is only one of many statements he made that embarrassed the Republican Party and deserve condemnation.

But shes no fan of Clinton, especially her use of a private email server while she served as Secretary of State.

Frankly, I dont like the choice between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and I am going to focus on doing my job in the Assembly and hope Americans are given a better choice by the time both parties conclude their national conventions, Chang wrote. I realize that may not happen, but I think I speak for a lot of Americans when I say we deserve a better choice.

For some Republicans on the ballot in November, its easiest to just focus on the local race and issues closer at home.

Paul will support the Republican nominee but the fact is hes running on his record of serving as a commander in the Navy, fighting terrorists in Iraq, reserve deputy sheriff and working to keep kids out of crime and gangs with afterschool programs, wrote John Thomas, the spokesman for Paul Chabot, whos attempting to unseat Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-San Bernardino. Our district has been destroyed economically because of the disastrous policies of Pete Aguilar and this administration.

Its a similar story for Assemblyman Marc Steinorth, R-Rancho Cucamonga.

To be blunt, Im much less concerned about party. Im much more concerned about whats in the best interests of my community, he said. I have not endorsed Trump. And I find some of his comments troubling, particularly his comments about women and minorities.

Im wholly focused on my own race and how I can best serve my community.  To me, the presidential race is a distraction.
David Doc Hooper is proud of whats on the walls of his local Hooters restaurant.

Flags from each branch of the U.S. military drape one end of the wood paneled back room of the place, which sits just off Interstate 215 on Riversides eastern border. Carved wooden emblems from each branch are clustered in an arrangement on one wall. And several collections of photographs showing young men in combat gear, many smiling for the camera and backed by tropical jungle, decorate the walls.

There are even some black-and-white images from World War II of the last mounted cavalry unit from Fort Riley, Kansas. The man on the horse is Hoopers father.

We started with that small wall, said Hooper, 73, of San Bernardino, pointing to one of the shorter end walls. And we said, can we bring in more pictures?

Restaurant officials gave their approval and the Veterans and Military Hall at the Moreno Valley Hooters was established.

Local Hooters officials say this is the only restaurant they know of with an area designated to pay homage to veterans. Although, manager Camile Camacho said theres no reason others couldnt follow suit.

Theyre never going to say no to the military, Camacho said of the Hooters corporation. Company leaders have visited the store in the three years since the veterans took over the room. All of corporate loved it, she said.

At least once a month  usually for lunch on the first Monday  the Old Farts Club meets here, a group of Vietnam veterans who have found more success in the support they enjoy with one another than in any program theyve been part of. And the restaurant, they say, provides a less structured setting than most veteran organizations.

None of the men served together in Vietnam in more than a glancing way. But they have known each other for more than three decades and it shows in the familiar needling they give one another. Laughter erupts regularly from their table.

We all kind of met each other through the vets center back in 81-82, said Zack Earp, reaching for an onion ring from the top of a stack. Weve been friends ever since.

Earp, 67, of Riverside, is a retired teacher and middle school principle who served on the Alvord School Board. He served in the Marines from 1967 to 1969 and spent nearly a year in Vietnam before stepping on a land mine and suffering multiple shrapnel wounds.

He said the group is tight knit and there for each other whenever theres a problem. Alex Candeleria says their reliance on one another stems from the way they were treated as outcasts by many long after the Vietnam War had ended.

Nobody wanted us when we got back except for each other, said Candeleria, 68, of Riverside, who served as an Army specialist in Vietnam from 1967-1968 as part of a three-year stint in the service.

Another Army veteran, Pat Kelly, 68, of Perris, said the rejection he and his fellow Vietnam vets felt was potent. On the way home from the airport after being discharged in 1971, he asked his cab driver to take a detour.

I said, Take me to the city dump, he recalls. I kicked the whole duffle bag with my stuff in it out of the cab. Its buried out there.

Earp said he and the rest of the group credit a VA counselor, Frank Irlanda  whom they refer to as Saint Frank  for putting us all back together in the mid-1980s. But without their continued friendship, Earp said, the progress they made might not have held.

Wed have the group, Candeleria said, but wed be in San Quentin.

 If we have bad days, we call each other, Earp said.

And we have bad days, Kelly said.

Some are filled with post-traumatic stress disorder fueled flashbacks.

I see things still, Hooper said. I remember seeing some of the bodies and the conditions they were in.

Some of the bad days have little to do with the horrors of war. Hooper said he and other group members have helped Earp on several occasions when hes had bouts of bad health.

He has been on the verge of not coming out of the hospital and weve been there to make sure he was getting the help he deserved, Hooper said.

And saving the nurses, Kelly said with a laugh.

They saved my life, Earp said, getting serious. Alex has been there, not just here, but (when Earp was) in hospitals in New Mexico and on the East Coast.

The group has also worked together on service projects. They helped tour a prototype of a veterans memorial that stands in Sacramento, driving it around to Southern California events to raise money for the now completed project.

We were instrumental in getting that plaque at Riverside National Cemetery for all the Vietnam veterans on the wall behind the amphitheater, Hooper said.

They emphasize that the room at Hooters isnt theirs, but for all their military comrades, either veteran or active duty. Members of the public are invited as well.

A lot of people like to sit back there, manager Camacho said, noting that customers enjoy seeing the photos and memorabilia on the walls. They always ask for that back room.

Earp said for him and his buddies its a little bit of home.

Its a safe landing zone, he said, using a military field term. No ones shooting at us and the friendlies are friendly. We can come here and relax.

Contact the writer: mmuckenfuss@pressenterprise.com or 951-368-9595
All of us would like to think we have enough money set aside for lifes unexpected emergencies, whether its a major car repair, a medical crisis or a leaking pipe that floods the kitchen.

But a new report from Bankrate.com reveals that more than a quarter of Americans have no emergency savings at all.

Gen Xers are in the worst position, as 33 percent of Americans between the ages of 36 and 51 dont have any emergency savings on hand.

Greg McBride, Bankrates chief financial analyst, recommends an emergency savings fund that will cover at least six months worth of daily expenses for things like groceries, gas, utility bills and other routine costs that arise.

Just 28 percent of Americans have saved that much. But thats still a six-year high and a big jump over last years 22 percent.

This underscores the fact that it takes time, especially because expenses grow faster than many Americans can save during the homebuying, family-raising years, McBride said in a statement.

The likelihood of having saved at least six months worth of expenses increases steadily after age 25, the report said, with the Silent Generation  those age 71 and older  leading the way at 47 percent.

The report also highlights a correlation between how much education someone has and the amount of emergency funds he or she may have saved up.

Forty-two percent of those with a high school degree or less have no emergency fund. By contrast, 27 percent of Americans with some college experience have no emergency savings and only 10 percent of college graduates are in that boat.

Dwight Johnston, chief economist with the Ontario-based California & Nevada Credit Union Leagues, had some thoughts on the situation.

People can go to any large credit union website and see what they have in the way of financial literacy, he said. You can also get books on this, or you can use the universal method by Googling it. Theres no excuse for someone to not have some kind of basic knowledge of this anymore. The information is out there, and its in many forms and completely easy to understand.

The American Bankers Association offers a variety of programs that are designed to increase financial literacy among Americans. The associations Teach Children to Save Day organizes bank volunteers to help young people develop a lifelong savings habit. Since the program began in 1997, some 146,600 bankers have taught savings skills to more than 6 million students.

The Richard Myles Johnson Foundation provides financial education resources for credit unions throughout California and Nevada through a program called Bite of Reality.

Tena Lozano, the associations executive director, explained how it works.

Its a 2 1/2-hour financial reality fair for teenagers, she said. Its a simulation that allows kids to play the role of adults. They are each assigned an identity along with a salary. They could be a carpenter, a pilot or a bank teller. They will also have a spouse, kids and obligations like credit card debt, student loans and health insurance co-pays.

Participants move around the room to various merchants who deal with issues like housing and transportation.

All of the volunteers who play those roles are primed to do a hard sell but the kids dont know that, Lozano said. In most cases they will run out of money. But then they can go to the credit union table and they will show them where they might have gone astray. Then the kids can go back to the table where they might have spent too much and exchange it.

Last year 40 credit unions hosted the Bite of Reality program at 90 different events at schools, youth organizations and church groups. All told, the program reached about 9,000 teens.

Well exceed that this year, Lozano said. Our goal is 11,000.

Contact the writer: KevinSmith@sgvn.com or @SGVNBiz
Re: POLITICON: Former Mexican president calls Trump false prophet [News, June 26]: Former Mexican president, Vicente Fox has the gall and temerity to criticize the presumptive Republican presidential nominee  calling Trump selfish, blind and ignorant, among other things.

If Mr. Fox is so passionate about the need to get involved in American politics, he should direct some of that passion and criticism toward his own country.

As a former president of Mexico he bears some responsibility for the condition his country is in. Corruption and malfeasance is widespread in Mexico with the poor Mexicans suffering so much that millions of them have immigrated (legally and illegally) to the United States. Plus, the continual persecution of Christians, having their lives taken away and their churches burned down, for simple exercising their faith in God.

Mr. Fox is a hypocrite and has no business getting involved in our affairs. I wonder what the Mexican people would say if one of our former presidents went to Mexico and criticize one of their presidential candidates? Shame on you, Mr. Fox!

A. Calderon

Wildomar

  

The article covering the Politicon convention is a joke, and so is the former president of Mexico, Vicente Fox. First of all, Mexico is as corrupt a country as there ever was and its leaders do nothing for their people, which is why they flee to America.

Fox says we should choose leadership based on compassion and we should legalize drugs. Once again, this coming from a man who allowed cartels to basically run roughshod over his country and corrupt politicians through extortion, murder and the drug trade.

Fox also goes on to say Mexico can find new friends. Good luck with that, the only reason you have any semblance of a country is because youre attached to the greatest nation on earth.

Jason Rhodes

Corona
Is marijuana an addictive gateway drug that lowers IQs, triggers psychotic episodes and makes roads less safe?

Or is it a miracle plant that can ease pain or provide a pleasant buzz with health risks on par with forgetting to floss?

Clashing portrayals of cannabis have endured through decades of research and a gradual easing of public resistance to the drugs use.

Twenty years after California legalized medical marijuana  and as the state prepares to vote on allowing recreational consumption of weed  sorting fact from fiction, anecdotal evidence from rigorous research and Reefer Madness-type scare tactics from legitimate health concerns still isnt easy.

RELATED: Is pot as dangerous as heroin?

Scientists have been limited in their ability to assess long-term effects of marijuana. Thats largely because the federal government classifies cannabis alongside heroin as a top-tier illegal substance, which among other things means researchers must comply with an ultra-strict set of requirements that they say can prove insurmountable.

Also, as with most drug studies, researchers are forced to rely heavily on self-reported data that are often muddied and can skew results, such as gauging health effects among cannabis consumers who also smoke cigarettes.

We do need more research, said Madeline Meier, a psychologist at Arizona State University whos authored several widely cited studies on marijuana. Really, in the big scheme of things, this is a new area, an emerging area where we dont have strong conclusions yet.

California voters may not have years to wait for science to catch up with public policy choices.

On Nov. 8, voters will decide whether to legalize recreational pot use in the state. And if the Adult Use of Marijuana Act is approved, all residents 21 and over will be free to legally partake.

Big players in the medical community are split on the issue.

The California Medical Association, which represents more than 41,000 physicians, was an early supporter of the legalization initiative. The group stresses it isnt encouraging marijuana use. But, it adds, the most effective way to protect the public health is to tightly control, track and regulate marijuana and to comprehensively research and educate the public on its health impacts, not through ineffective prohibition.

However, the California Hospital Association, which represents hundreds of hospitals and health care systems, has joined law enforcement groups in opposing legalization. In May testimony before a legislative committee, the hospital groups Connie Delgado expressed concern that emergency room visits and infant exposure to marijuana might increase as they reportedly did in Colorado following legalization.

So how do adults make an informed decision with the science largely unsettled?

Theres a cost-benefit analysis that voters have to make, said Dr. Igor Grant, a psychiatrist who oversees the Center for Medical Cannabis Research at UC San Diego.

One the one hand, Grant said, there are costs tied to prohibition. They include lost opportunities to collect tax revenue and spending on law enforcement. He also pointed to studies showing criminal enforcement efforts have disproportionately penalized minority populations.

On the other hand, research suggests marijuana use poses some potential risks  particularly for vulnerable populations, such as teens and those prone to mental illness.

Theres no safe about it, said Arizona states Meier.

At the same time, theres growing evidence that the health effects arent as severe as many people have believed. And, if precautions are taken  such as limiting access for minors  advocates say many remaining risks are modest and manageable.

In research released this month, Meier used data from a New Zealand study that tracked more than 1,000 people for 20 years to compare the health of cannabis users and nonusers.

In general, she said, people who use marijuana did not show poor physical health by midlife with one exception: They are more likely to have gum disease.

With the November campaign already gearing up, surveys and studies on marijuana that might otherwise only draw attention from the scientific community are being endorsed and critiqued, lauded and torn apart by the population at large.

Against that backdrop, The Press-Enterprise is beginning an occasional series that will survey current research and interview experts on common questions about marijuana use: the potential health risks, issues of government regulation and the experience of states where recreational use of cannabis is legal.

Q. Is marijuana addictive?

A. For some consumers, yes  but less so than with alcohol.

About 9 percent of people who use marijuana become dependent on it, according to research from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The study found the dependence rate is about 15 percent for people who drink alcohol, 17 percent for cocaine users and 32 percent for tobacco users.

Some people can drink normally. Some people can smoke weed normally. But some people cant, said Corey Richman, an admissions coordinator at Hope by the Sea drug addiction treatment center in San Juan Capistrano.

Roughly 2 percent of patients at Hope by the Sea are there for marijuana abuse, said Richman, a former addict himself. Theyre almost always teenagers brought in by concerned parents, he said.

The earlier young people start using marijuana, the more likely they are to get hooked, with the National Institute on Drug Abuse reporting dependence jumps to 17 percent for teen users.

Stopping heavy marijuana use is often more of a mental struggle than a physical one, said Kevin Alexander, clinical manager at Hoag Hospitals ASPIRE program in Newport Beach. It can trigger mild withdrawal symptoms similar to quitting tobacco, including irritability and sleep issues. In rare cases, he said, patients experience psychosis.

At the same time, doctors are tapping marijuanas painkilling benefits to help patients avoid riskier substances such as opioids. A study published in 2014 by the American Medical Association found lower rates of opioid overdoses in states where medical marijuana is legal.

Waiting until at least 18 to start using marijuana lessens the chances of becoming dependent, as does avoiding heavy use of potent pot products, experts say. And people with a family or personal history of addiction might consider avoiding marijuana altogether.

Q. Does marijuana cause brain damage?

A. More studies are needed to answer this complex question. But while a growing body of research indicates even heavy marijuana use seems to have few long-term health effects for adults, it may negatively affect developing teen brains.

People who started using cannabis as teenagers lost about eight IQ points by the time they were 38, according to a 2012 study by Meier.

Overwhelmingly, studies by Staci Gruber, a psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School and director of the Marijuana Investigations for Neuroscientific Discovery team at Bostons McLean Hospital, show that chronic marijuana smokers who start using before age 16 perform more poorly on cognitive tests. They show reduced impulse control and issues with staying focused on a task, she said.

Even the brain structure itself can be altered in young smokers, she said, decreasing the amount of white matter, which affects how we learn.

Its not as if these people appear to have brain injuries, she said. In all actuality, these people are able to function the same as people who dont smoke.

Other studies contradict such results, and some researchers question whether family environment and other factors account for some of the cognitive decline. And even if IQ declines are correlated to marijuana use, its tough to know whether the drug changed the brain or subjects simply werent paying attention in school because they were high.

I think its fair to say, as far as heavy adolescent use, we have an open question here, said UC San Diegos Grant.

Most researchers agree such unanswered questions justify regulations  akin to those in the proposed California legalization measure  that are aimed at keeping marijuana away from young people. So, where should the age line on legal use be drawn?

In her study, Meier said negative impacts on IQ disappeared for people who started using at age 18, which is the age limit for California medical marijuana patients.

However, four states that have legalized recreational use set 21 as the age limit  the same being proposed for California.

Gruber said brain development continues until around age 25, making it tough to say that marijuana users are out of the woods at 21.

Q. Can you overdose on marijuana?

A. Unlike with alcohol and most other drugs, researchers say theres been no recorded death attributed to using too much cannabis. But experts say overdoing it can cause highly unpleasant and, rarely, dangerous experiences.

Consuming large amounts of potent pot can temporarily trigger rapid heartbeats, nausea and hallucinations.

Its not that youll die from it, Gruber said. But you might be so sick that youll wish you could die.

Bad trips typically happen when inexperienced consumers try a cannabis-infused food, dont feel anything after 30 minutes and eat more. Since the effects of cannabis edibles can take up to two hours to be felt, its easy to overindulge.

Most adverse symptoms wear off within a couple of hours, so medical experts suggest users relax and have a sober friend watch over them. They stress driving while impaired can be dangerous, as can the actions of someone who slips into a severe state of psychosis.

A lawsuit pending in Denver against an edibles company claims a man ate large quantities of cannabis-infused candy, started hallucinating, then killed his wife. And in the last two years, officials or family members have attributed two Colorado suicides to high doses of cannabis edibles.

Colorado now requires edibles to be sold in serving sizes of 10 milligrams, which it considers one dose. Theres also a push for stricter packaging and labeling requirements to help consumers dose more wisely.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7963 or bstaggs@ocregister.com
A fire that broke out Saturday afternoon, July 2, in San Bernardino has left at least one firefighter and one civilian injured and prompted an arson investigation, according to on scene fire officials.

The fire is burning in the vicinity of Edgerton and Skylark drives. A thick plume of grey smoke can be seen rising up from the hills near the Castaway Restaurant at 670 Kendall Drive.

UPDATE: Three hurt, five homes burn in Kendall Fire

On scene firefighters made mention of possible evacuations of homes on the hills where the blaze was burning, but it wasnt clear when those evacuations might happen.

It wasnt immediately clear Saturday what the acreage of the blaze was. Messages left for San Bernardino County Fire Department spokesman Jeff Allen were not immediately returned.

This is a developing story. Check back for additional details.
EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J., July 03, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Freedman Chiropractic Center, LLC is cautioning patients against prescription painkiller use to manage chronic pain, citing a break-through study that found chiropractic care to be a safer strategy than opioids. East Brunswick chiropractor Dr. Ken Freedman is a long-time advocate for drug-free, conservative care for back pain and neck pain. Dr. Freedman is concerned about the current painkiller epidemic and committed to educating patients about safe, drug-free pain management alternatives.



Legal opioids including OxyContin, Percocet and Vicodin are now associated with more overdose deaths than heroin and cocaine combined, according to a recent study on the dangers of opioid prescription painkillers. The study, Chiropractic: A Safer Strategy Than Opioids, is blowing the whistle on the current epidemic of prescription painkillers and cautioning medical practitioners and patients alike to consider alternative options, including chiropractic care.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are all calling for a shift away from opioid use toward non-pharmacological approaches to address chronic pain.

America is in the grips of a prescription painkiller epidemic, says Dr. Freedman. Nearly three out of four doctors and nurses incorrectly believe that morphine and oxycodone are the most effective ways to treat pain. Study after study finds this to simply not be true. There are safe, effective drug-free alternatives for addressing chronic pain. Chiropractic care is one such option.

Chiropractic: A Safer Strategy Than Opioids found that more than 70 percent of doctors say they prescribe narcotic painkillers for back pain, despite evidence favoring conservative treatments such as chiropractic care.

According to the study, chiropractic care offers a drug-free, non-invasive and cost-effective alternative to opioid drugs for patients who suffer with chronic pain.

CDC guidelines and FDA guidelines both recommend a non-opioid and non-pharmacological approach to chronic pain. Dr. Freedman follows these guidelines when caring for patients with chronic and acute back pain, neck pain and other pain conditions.

We need a cultural transformation that places the patient at the center of a personalized, tailored, multi-disciplinary care model that draws upon all available evidence-based modalities, says Dr. Freedman.

Acute and chronic chiropractic patients experienced better outcomes in pain, functional disability and patient satisfaction, reports the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics.

Despite these studies, painkiller prescriptions remain high. Americans account for only 4.6 percent of the worlds population, yet consumes 80 percent of the global opioid supply and 99 percent of the global hydrocodone supply, reports the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians.

We need to put patients first and consider all available care options, rather than relying on medication to mask pain symptoms, continued Dr. Freedman. Drugs are not a solution. They are part of the problem.

Freedman Chiropractic Center LLC provides personalized chiropractic and wellness care. For more information, call (732) 254-6011 or visit www.FreedmanChiropracticCenter.com.
Professional photographer Steve Kaye will present a program entitled Meet the Bird, at the Tuesday, July 5 meeting of the San Gorgonio chapter of the Sierra Club. He will show photos of mostly local birds, talk about his subjects and give tips for taking better photographs.

The meeting, open to the public, is 7:30 p.m. at the San Bernardino County Museum, 2024 Orange Tree Lane.

Information: sangorgonio2.sierraclub.org

Contact the writer: community@pressenterprise.com
'From Asawase's Aboabo Market to Adobewura, Kumawu to Kuntunase and from Ofinso to Obuasi one name was on the lips of the people; they called the President 'Oseadieyor''



The Ashanti region is huge in many ways from population, through natural resources to mere land span. So, when the announcement of the President's tour of the region came, it looked like any other tour of the country. There was no hype and no lengthy discussions about what the Ashanti Region was to churn out. What was going to be new about this one this time? That is the question the President's seventh tour of the Ashanti Region answered forcefully, not in rhetoric, but in tangible outcomes.





Consensus For Peace and Stability



The President carefully, unlike the other regional tours met with the leaders of moral society in the region, namely the Muslim, traditional and Christian. In all those engagements the President made a strong case for peaceful conduct of Ghanaians in the coming campaign and elections appealing for the religious leaders to assert their voices of conscience for the sake of national stability. He called on the youth not to become tools for politicians needing to use them for their own ends. But he also assured the leaders of those communities of his readiness to play his part as Commander-In-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces in order to preserve the stability of the country noting also the importance of that in national development.



Even if no impact was made at all, one thing was consistent throughout these engagements of the President with the moral society of Ashanti; consensus was built not only for peace in the coming elections but also towards national stability.



Socio-Economic Infrastructure



Perhaps what excited the people of the Ashanti Region most was the level of progress chalked by the President's government in the region in the past three and half years. At every gathering, the mention of projects completed or being constructed by the government of the National Democratic Congress under President Mahama attracted wild cheers. From Asawase's Aboabo Market to Adobewura, Kumawu to Kuntunase and from Ofinso to Obuasi one name was on the lips of the people; they called the President 'Oseadieyor', meaning a man who promises and delivers. This is not only a recognition of the President's hard work but also the people's recognition of the fact that compared to other political leaders, the President has been the one who lives up to his words.



In Kumawu the people called him Oseadieyor because he promised and is building for them a brand new 120 bed hospital plus an ultra-modern water system. In Kuntunase they hailed him because the President cut sod for the construction of a brand new campus of the Kumasi Polytechnic and also inaugurated two centres, one for Renewable Energy and the other for Entrepreneurship, for the Polytechnic. An Adobewura in the Atwima Mponua District the President inaugurated a brand new Community Day Senior High School. On the same day the President also inaugurated a bigger day Senior High School at Adugyama in the Ahafo-Ano South District which has attached to it a Headteacher's bungalow, a block of staff flats, a canteen, a security post built like the national Independence Arch. Each of these two schools has the capacity to enrol 2500 students.



In Fomena, the Adansihene Nana Pegyakotwene Bonsra Afriyie II who is the paramount chief of Adansi could not hold back his joy at the work of the President in his kingdom. The Chief in excitement exclaimed "wow" at the size and quality of District Hospital in Fomena under construction which he and the President inspected together. As if in a bid to outdo their paramount chief the people of Fumso in Adansi thronged the street in large numbers blocking the road and insisting that unless the President came out and spoke to them, which he did, they would not let him through to his New Edubiase destination. The President then proceeded to New Edubiase to cut sod for a new stadium to be built for the people in that area which is also a mining area. The President also made clear while there that he is in talks with the investors of the Obuasi Gold mines to revive mining in the area since that would have a positive impact on the lives of the people.



If the projects above got the chiefs exclaiming "wow", one can imagine the response of the people in who learned about the next two game-changing projects. At Afari, when the President went there to inspect work on the massive 500 bed military hospital which according to the him is the second military hospital in Ghana after the first was built during the second world war, the approving excitement was quite loud. Many of the locals who had never seen the project until this inspection could not hide their appreciation. This hospital is slated , according to the contractor, to be soft opened in the third quarter of 2017. The second jaw-dropping one is the Kumasi Central Market project which according to the President will be the biggest and most modern market in the whole of Africa when completed. He also explained that its construction is necessary because of Kumasi being a focal point of business people from Mali and Burkina Faso. Again, chiefs who normally did not clap on public occasions now clapped when the President announced his plan to dualise the trunk road from Kumasi to Accra in his next term.



At all the places the President went to, and the people he met, the embrace was warm as the confessions of his contribution to the socio-economic infrastructure development of Ashanti Region was ever present. To Ashanti, he went, he saw and he got loved the more.



After the trip one can only look back at this beautiful region and remember the crowds that turned up at Fumso through Fomena to Ofinso and Manhyia, just to welcome and appreciate President Mahama for the progress he is making in their lives. One cannot forget the wild jubilations by the youth of Adansi, the chants of support given him during his walk from the Mosque to the Market in Asawase and the warm embrace of the Chiefs and students of Bekwai when he inaugurated the brand new ultra-modern girls' dormitory block at the SDA Secondary school to accommodate 1200 girls; an investment aimed at bridging the gender gap in educational attainment in the area. One cannot forget the faces of excited young people across the length and breadth of Ashanteman who thronged each venue planned of unplanned during this tour. In all, one thing was clear, Ashanti region has truly fallen in love with John Mahama for one reason; He is their 'Oseadieyor'.

Source: [email protected]









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The 2016 presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, says Ghana cannot afford four more years of President Mahamas governance, and has therefore charged Ghanaians, as well as members of the NPP, to work hard and effect the change they desire in this years elections.



According to him, ever since the ruling National Democratic Congress government assumed the helm of affairs some 7 years ago, every sector of the Ghanaian economy is in decline, evident in worsening living standards of the Ghanaian, widespread and rampant corruption and rising levels of unemployment.



These developments, the NPP flagbearer said, require a change in government in 2016, stressing that four more years under President Mahama would be a bad thing for Ghana, and will only spell doom for Ghanaians.



Nana Akufo-Addo was addressing residents of Ofoase/Ayirebi on Saturday, July 2, 2016, at the commencement of day-4 of his tour of the Eastern Region.



The NPP presidential candidate, wondering why President Mahama was desperate for a 2nd term in office, asked the gathering if the President wanted to impose further hardship and suffering on the people, hence his desire for another 4 years in office.



Is he coming to continue to bring poverty to Ghanaians? Is he coming to increase the unemployment rate? Today, businesses are collapsing and business owners are suffering. Is this what he wants to come and continue? Nana Akufo-Addo asked.



In the presence of the NPPs parliamentary candidate for Ofoase/Ayirebi, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Nana Akufo-Addo urged residents, and Ghanaians, to use their thumbs to change Mahama, and, thereby, change Ghana so we can bring jobs to Ghanaians.



Oil palm processing factory



With the mainstay of the people of Ofoase/Ayirebi being agriculture, the NPP flagbearer indicated that the times of over-reliance on cocoa are over, assuring that his government is going to pay particular attention to the diversification of the countrys agriculture.



Improving agricultural productivity, he noted, will be spurred on by the production and marketing of additional cash crops such as cotton, coffee, oil palm, cashew and maize, which will boost export earnings for the country.



Citing the example of Malaysia, which earned $16.1 billion in 2015 from the exports of palm oil and palm-based products, Nana Akufo-Addo indicated that his government, God-willing from January 2017, will help establish an oil palm processing factory in the district, to help create jobs for the teeming masses of unemployed youth in the constituency, as well as earn foreign exchange revenues for the country.



He further added that it is only though rapid industrial expansion and an increase of agricultural productivity that Ghana can generate the hundreds of thousands of jobs that the young people of Ghana need.



No skirt and blouse voting



With the NPP aiming at securing a decisive majority in the popular vote, as well as securing the majority of parliamentary seats, Nana Akufo-Addo appealed to residents not to entertain any thoughts of voting skirt and blouse, either in the presidential or parliamentary election.



The 8,501 margin of victory secured over President Mahama in 2012, he urged, must be increased, and therefore every vote for the NPP, in both elections, was of the utmost priority.



He urged all candidates in the 2015 parliamentary primary to rally behind the partys candidate, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, recounting his own experience in 1998 when he fully supported then candidate John Agyekum Kufuor to enable the NPP win the 2000 elections.



"A true NPP member always accepts the decision of the partys Electoral College. When its your turn, the party will reward you. That is why I am also here today as flagbearer of the NPP. So those trumpeting skirt and blouse should stop, and rather, help Kojo Oppong Nkrumah and push him to parliament, he said.



He continued, This is a gentleman who is well-known in every part of Ghana. As an advocate in Parliament, the concerns of Ofoase Ayirebi will be put before parliament. The NPP needs such men in government.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The 2016 presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, rounded off his 5-day tour of the Eastern Region on Sunday, July 3, with an appeal to the people of the region to vote massively for him and the partys parliamentary candidates in this years elections, so Ghana can be returned onto the path of progress and prosperity.



According to him, the NPP is the only party with a proven track record of implementing policies and programmes that impacted positively on the lives of all Ghanaians across every part of the country, without discrimination.



Touring the Atiwa East, Atiwa West, Fanteakwa South and Abuakwa South constituencies, Nana Akufo-Addo indicated that there is no political party in Ghana that has the track record of fashioning out policies and programmes like the NPP, adding that we have the men and women who can govern this country in a manner that will bring jobs, wealth and prosperity to all part of the country.



Nana Akufo-Addo noted that all government and social intervention policies, in recent memory, are ones instituted and implemented by the NPP, namely the National Health Insurance Scheme, School Feeding Programme, Free Maternal Care, Metro Mass Transit, and Mass Cocoa spraying exercise.



However, anytime a policy is to be implemented to the benefit of Ghanaians, you have skeptics and naysayers telling Ghanaians that it cannot be done and it is not possible.



He recounted the period, prior to the 2000 elections, when then candidate John Agyekum Kufuor told the electorate that he would introduce the National Health Insurance Scheme, to which members of the then ruling NDC government, including the late Prof. Mills, retorted by stating that it was not possible.



Didnt Kufuor do it? Didnt it help us? Didnt it benefit Ghanaians? Akufo-Addo asked, to which the response from the gathering was in the affirmative.



Likewise, when I said I was going to implement the Free SHS policy, Mahama said it cannot be done, and that I was deceiving Ghanaians. But, later he turned around and tried to implement it, albeit ending up in failure.



Again, the NPP flagbearer noted that the same way I proposed the Northern Development Authority to help the three Northern Regions, so as to help bridge the developmental gap between the North and South, there was the usual talk of it cannot be done, he cant do it. Again, he (President Mahama) tried, through the creation of SADA, to implement my idea. He failed woefully at it. SADA has now become the vehicle for the wanton theft of public resources



He continued, So, between us (in the NPP) and President Mahama, who has the policies for Ghanas forward movement? Who is telling Ghanaians the truth? Who has the vision to lift up Ghanaians onto a higher pedestal?



Nana Akufo-Addo reiterated his pledge of setting up a factory in each district, stressing that when you help put me into Office, the 1-district-1-factory policy will be implemented for the benefit of all Ghanaians, as it will create the hundreds of thousands of jobs our young people need.



He also assured farmers of his governments support in modernizing countrys agriculture, as well as actively promoting the production of other cash crops like cotton, coffee, cashew, oil palm and maize, with the support of his government.



The NPP flagbearer, thus, appealed for the unalloyed support of the Eastern Region to help push the Elephant into Jubilee House, God-willing, come 2017.



This is my third attempt at unlocking the door (to the Presidency). I am here to appeal for your support. I need your strength and backing to help me, so I can come and do a job for Ghana, to the benefit of us all. Trust me and try me this year, and God-willing, when I get there, I will not disappoint you, he added.





Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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A day after an absolute flurry of Aussies received dodgy-looking texts from Medicare that urged them not to vote for the Coalition, the Labor Party has copped to sending the dubious messages out.

Has anyone else received this text message? Is Labor pretending to be Medicare? #ausvotes #democracysausage pic.twitter.com/u5rimbWIPu  David Lewis (@dlewis89) July 2, 2016

In a statement to Fairfax, the Queensland branch of the party copped to the texts. However, they said they had no intention of labelling Medicare as the apparent source of the messages.

Todays admission also comes after another Labor spokesperson initially denied having the faintest of clues as to their provenance. Funny, that.

To contextualise this clusterfuck, the messages came after weeks of Labor flogging the Coalition over their apparent desire to privatise (read: gut) Medicare.

Millions of Australians are relying on us to protect Medicare & properly fund schools. This election is about them.https://t.co/8sqNKIW7S8  Bill Shorten (@billshortenmp) June 29, 2016

Despite constant disavowals from Malcolm Turnbull & Co., the claim eventually became a defining part of the ALPs campaign.

In a speech made late last night amid the vote-counting quagmire, Turnbull labelled the texts an extraordinary act of dishonesty.

The SMS message came from Medicare. It said it came from Medicare No doubt the police will investigate.



Funnily enough, the feds are now involved. According to news.com.au, the Federal Police are looking into that sneaky bit of politicking.

Either the party really did impersonate a vital (and apolitical) part of our healthcare system to rustle up some votes, or somebody really needs to improve their texting etiquette.

Source: news.com.au.

Photo: @dlewis89 / Twitter.




Good evening, Australia. If youve only just now awoken from your democracy sausage-induced hangover, heres a live visual from Canberra:

A day after the polls closed at yesterdays federal election, neither the Liberal Party nor Labor have been fortunate enough to reach that hallowed 76-seat mark in the House of Representatives.

As such, the two big players in Aussie politics have been left without an absolute majority in the House. Votes are still being counted, and Malcolm Turnbulls gang could still walk away with a majority, but well probs have to wait until Tuesday to know for sure.

Until then, as we re-acclimatise ourselves with the notion we may be facing another hung parliament scenario, weve got the time to have a bit of a ponder about some of the key issues surrounding the election  and wildly speculate as to how they might play out.

One of the more prominent issues the Liberals brought forward to the election was the marriage equality plebiscite. Of course, while LGBT advocates and allies obviously want equality enshrined in law, the push for the massive vote has been heavily criticised.

Many complaints focus on the seemingly foregone conclusion that, yes, broader Australia wants marriage equality, so why bother with a a public vote when the pollies could pass it with a vote of their own?

The cost of the possible vote has also caught some flak. Some estimates pin the plebiscites cost at a stonking half a billion dollars  thats a lot of cash to splash, especially considering the previous point.

So, since a Liberal majority government aint certain, how exactly could they come through on the slated 2016 plebiscite? Well, factors theyd need to assess include:





THE LABOR PARTY



If Labor make their way out of this muck as the eventual winners, theyve promised to to introduce marriage equality legislation law within their first 100 days in office without an expenno vote. Its unlikely Labor will budge from its stance on the issue in opposition.

Leader Bill Shorten asked why he should have to accept and sign-up to Malcolm Turnbulls grubby deal with the right wing of his party in the lead-up to the election.

If he keeps that viewpoint, hell will likely freeze over before the Coalition can squeeze any votes in favour of the plebiscite from Labor.

Furthermore, Labor Senator Penny Wong drew from her personal experiences a lil while ago to rip into the plebiscite. She said allowing the public vote will just stir up needless homophobic sentiment.

(Of course, the other angle consider is that if Labor are in opposition again  and their goal is marriage equality ASAP, instead of 100% on their terms  they may begrudgingly let the plebiscite pass.)

So, thats a probable dead-end for the vote  but we kinda already knew that. Things get more interesting when you think about

THE GREENS AND INDEPENDENTS

Hooo boy. This, right here, is where the wheeling and dealing really begins. As it stands, there are five members from the minor parties that will be crucial to the Coalition if theyre to do well, absolutely anything, let alone a plebiscite.

Their views are as varied as their locations. Weve got The Greens Adam Bandt in the aptly-named electorate of Melbourne; Cathy McGowan in Indi, Victoria; Bob Katter in Kennedy, Queensland; Andrew Wilkie of Denison, Tasmania; and Nick Xenophon Teams Rebekha Sharkie down in Mayo, South Australia.

Straight off the speculative bat, Wilkie and McGowan have stated they wont be making deals with the LNP (nor with Labor) should a hung parliament come to pass. Thats a very hard sell for the Libs, without even considering their personal stances.

Wilkie has been a strong supporter of putting marriage equality to a conscience vote for years now, and McGowan also spoke in favour of the stalled plebiscite-free Marriage Legislation Amendment Bill.

Regarding Katter, well hes not a fan of same-sex marriage in any incarnation. At all. He once said its a proposition deserves to be laughed at and ridiculed. So.

Still, although his electorate largely remains in favour of the traditional definition of marriage, Katter seems pretty chuffed with the likely position of powerbroker hell inherit if the current vote counts hold. A Turnbull government would likely be gunning for his cowboy-hatted favour.

Nick Xenophon himself has said hed ask the leader of the day to reconsider a plebiscite due to its financial ramifications; Sharkie would be very, very likely to follow that party line herself.

As for Bandt of the pro-equality Greens? While the Libs and the Labs said they wouldnt strike deals with the Greens in circumstances like this they werent in circumstances like this when they said that.



Anyway, Bandt has previously labeled the move shambolic. And that doesnt even take his partys concerns over how binding the results would even be into account.

Itd be another incredibly hard sell to get the Greens on board.

Divisive #equalmarriage plebiscite wont bind hard-right MPs, says Turnbull, but hard-right MPs have clearly bound him. What a disgrace.  Adam Bandt (@AdamBandt) June 24, 2016

Which leads us to

INTERNAL PRESSURE

Divining the internal machinations of the Liberal Party is generally an exercise in futility, but following an election that was supposed to deliver the party a clear mandate, you best believe the right-wing probs arent chuffed with Turnbull RN.

Of course, the perception from opponents is that the PM was more or less pushed to support the plebiscite, a remnant of the Abbott government. Were no prognosticators, but if he cant deliver on this one for the conservative faction no bueno.

For the record, were not even going to pretend to address what could happen to the plebiscite in the Senate (Pauline Hanson, anyone?), because its currently a dumpster fire that almost defies description.

But hey, thats a double dissolution for ya.





TL;DR

The same-sex marriage plebiscite is in very, very tenuous territory. While proponents of a simple conscience vote might be cheering, the eventual political fallout of the plebiscite going tits up might stall the issue even further.

Unless a conscience vote could be installed in its place from the crossbench, the political grandstanding over the plebiscites demise would be a pyrrhic victory for the men and women of Australia who, you know, just want to get hitched to the person they love.



Source: ABC / Australian Marriage Equality / Sydney Morning Herald.



Photo: Facebook / Anadolu Agency/Getty / Facebook / Stefan Postles/Getty / Darrian Traynor/Getty.
In 1989, when Johnny Depp was dating Winona Ryder, he had WinonaForever inked on himself, but after the two broke up in 1993, he had the tattoo amended to say WinoForever.

This week, Depp has taken the passive aggressive body art game to the next level, altering yet another of his tattoos, this one in honour of his now-estranged wife Amber Heard.

Until recently, the 53-year-old actor had the letters S.L.I.M. inked across his knuckles, an apparent reference to the 30-year-old Heards nickname of Slim.

At an event at the Sands Casino in Pennsylvania, where Depp played a show with his band Hollywood Vampires, fans noticed that some of the letters had changed, with the L now a C and the I now a U.

This means that the tattoo now reads S.C.U.M.

The pair married in February 2015, but their relationship broke down earlier this year, with Heard making serious allegations of domestic abuse against Depp. The two had been due to appear before a California court in June, but the date was postponed to August.

Source: E Online.

Photo: Andreas Rentz / Getty.
Last month, it was reported that the producers of Tens The Bachelor went as far as to employ members of the Indonesian military to keep prying paparazzi eyes away from the all-important final rose ceremony, which was shot in Bali.

Though The Bachie went to pretty extreme lengths to keep the finale under wraps, at least one photographer discovered the outcome, the man in question reportedly approaching host Osher Gunsberg at Sydney airport and correctly identifying the winner.

Today, it has been reported that paps were likely tipped off to The Bachelors filming location because someone involved in the production messed up the crews permits, holding them up on their arrival in Indonesia.

Per The Daily Telegraph, a number of crew members were left stranded while the proper paperwork was maintained, and the fuss created when they were held up for questioning alerted paparazzi to their presence in Bali.

Last years finale was famously spoiled when paparazzi shots of Sam Frost and Sasha Mielczarek were published online just hours before the episode went to air.

Frost, however, is betting that we wont have a similar situation this year, as the public backlash last time it happened was simply too great. She told Rove and Sam listeners last month:

No one in the general public wants to know the outcome. Were not even invested in the show yet  The finale photos are worth too much money for the photographers not to do it  the production company will pay a lot of money to get those shots and so they own the shots so no one can ever see them  thats probably the likely choice.

Endemol Shine, will you accept this  blackmail attempt?

Source: Daily Telegraph.

Photo: Instagram.
Egg suspect

Police have released the photo of a man who purchased a large quantity of eggs as person of interest in the investigation of a series of eggings in Manchester and East Manchester Township.

(Northeastern Regional Police Department)

Buying large quantities of eggs outside of Easter isn't a crime, but it has drawn the attention of police in one York County community.

Northeastern Regional Police turned to Facebook for the public's help in identifying a man who purchased several dozen eggs from a Giant Food Store in East Manchester Township.

He's a person of interest in a series of recent car eggings reported in Manchester and East Manchester Township.

"That's an awful amount of eggs for one person," Northeastern Lt. Howard Daniels told the York Daily Record. "I don't think he's going home for breakfast."

Police say the person of interest was driving a dark red Ford Ranger with a skull decal in the rear window.

Anyone with information is asked to call the department at 717-266-6195, ext. 115. Police say tipsters can remain anonymous.
Steven Esworthy and Shamir Hunter

Steve Esworthy held numbers highlighting the date of his brother's wedding. The date is now bittersweet after he was killed walking home from the wedding celebration.(Photos by Paul Vasiliades.)

An ancient African proverb suggests that it takes a village to raise a child.

But what if the village doesn't do its part?

A Harrisburg man named Shamir Hunter, 19, has been arrested and charged with robbery and murder in connection with the death of Steven Esworthy, 32, last weekend.

Police say Hunter clubbed Esworthy in the back of the head with a piece of wood around 1:30 a.m.as Esworthy walked home through Midtown Harrisburg. He'd served as the best man at his brother's wedding.

As PennLive's Christine Vendel reported, Hunter apparently took to Facebook to brag about his alleged crime, stomach-churningly referring to Esworthy at one point as a "stain."

He was anything but.

Esworthy was the best man at his brother's wedding. And now that day of celebration and love will forever be marred by that one, wanton act.

If he's eventually found guilty, Hunter could end up spending the rest of his life behind bars. And if he's guilty, that's where he belongs.

There's no getting around the fact that Hunter made a choice by allegedly clubbing Esworthy, robbing him and leaving him there to die on the sidewalk in the 1200 block of Green Street on a June night.

But it's worth asking - what other forces drove Hunter to make that life-altering decision. And, somewhere along the line, could he have turned out differently?

Hunter lived in Harrisburg, a majority-minority city, where children who look like him are given a small portion of the opportunity pie that exists in Harrisburg.

Before photos that depicted Hunter as an icy faced killer were released, he was a boy who was undeniably lost. Hunter was parentless, yearning for a father and mother's attention.

The peer pressure that seethed around Hunter goaded him to kill a man and then brag about it on social media effectively mocking the victim and the victim's family.

According to a September 2015 Facebook post, Hunter felt neglected by his mother. I believe these circumstances encouraged him to turn to the streets for social validation.

It is safe to say that Hunter did not have much going on in his life. He threw his life away (and brutally killed a man) because.

Were there any resources available that could have prevented this child from growing into a tormented teenager? Did he have a mentor? A teacher?

A pastor? A boss?...A therapist? It was revealed that Hunter had previously been incarcerated.

Should he have been imprisoned a bit longer? Should he have been in a mental institution instead? The crime was so brazen and unnecessary that it is proof (for me) that Hunter was beyond damage.

One of the ways adulthood differs from childhood is that adults take responsibility for their actions. My hope is that Hunter takes responsibility for his actions.

As Hunter awaits his fate in the judicial system, I hope he matures and eventually preaches words of wisdom and reason to other children like him.

These crimes are preventable, but someone must reach the children.

Children like Hunter are all around us. Most of them are black, but plenty of others are white or Latino.

They are failed by families and institutions meant to enhance them and keep them safe. They are vulnerable to the negative media images that promote diabolical machismo.

They're locked out of economic opportunities and wait in the dark for their next victim to purchase their next meal.

We pass them by and label them ruthless, thugs, and degenerates. They're living among us, but they aren't really living. In truth, they're only surviving.

And because of society's reticence, Hunter apparently grew up without guidance, resources, or opportunities. We gave him our silence when he wanted and needed our attention.

And in the end a life was lost and we, the community, sat around and watched and complained only when it is too late. When Hunter's parents failed him his community did not step up to the plate, and unfortunately Esworthy died as a result.

Police called Esworthy's murder and robbery a crime of opportunity. But I will also call it a despicable crime of desperation.

Hunter walked around our city, raising himself. We must investigate what children like Hunter are doing with their lives and if they have any goals.

Left unchecked, these children turn violent and perpetuate a nasty cycle that can kill us and the environment around us. If Hunter is found guilty, whatever opportunities he could have availed himself of will be gone.

Harrisburg is a village, and it's time we all raise our children. Hunter, unlike the fallen tree in a deserted forest, made a sound. But no one was around to hear him until it was too late.

And we will mourn Steven Esworthy who was an innocent and undeserving of his fate.

Jamar Thrasher, of Harrisburg, is a frequent PennLive Opinion contributor.
Washington, D.C., July 03, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Israel Project mourns the passing of Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor, Noel Peace Prize Winner, eminent writer and one of the great moral authorities of the Jewish world.



TIP CEO Josh Block said, "Elie Wiesel has been a profound influence on every Jewish generation since the creation of the State of Israel. His life a testament to human strength and survival, he became not only a voice for the voiceless, but also a conscience for the world. His impact and meaning transcended his Judaism and his love for the Jewish people. His influence on the lives of millions knew no religious bounds.



"Through his writings, we were blessed with his personal account of the cruelty of the Nazis, allowing us to understand just that a little bit more. Through his speeches, achievements and example, we were honored to have Elie Wiesel as a loved and revered leader of the Jewish people, and a persistent, eloquent voice on behalf of the human rights of all.



"Among Wiesel's honors are the Congressional Medal of Freedom, awarded in 1985, and the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded in 1986. His writings included "The Oath," "The Fifth Son," and his best-known work "Night," his searing memoir of the Auschwitz concentration camp.



"Z'chrono L'vracha. May his memory be a blessing."







About The Israel Project

The Israel Project (TIP) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan educational organization that provides factual information about Israel and the Middle East to the press, policymakers and the public. Founded in 2003, TIP works in multiple languages to provide real-time background information, images, maps, audio, video, graphics and direct access to newsmakers. To learn more about TIP, visit http://www.theisraelproject.org.
Good Sunday Morning, all.

We hope you're enjoying your long holiday weekend. From our beachfront redoubt, here's the skinny on who's winning and who's losing this weekend.

DOWN ARROW END The House, Senate and Gov. Tom Wolf: Yes, the state House and Senate approved a general appropriations bill before the June 30 deadline. But a bunch of ones and zeroes doth not a completed budget make. As the sun set on the Capitol on Friday, all concerned were trying to reach agreement on a revenue bill that would pay for the $31.6 billion spending plan for fiscal 2016-17. The Legislature is set to reconvene on Tuesday for another run at approving a revenue bill.

DOWN ARROW BEGIN

DOWN ARROW END Attorney General Kathleen Kane: With an August trial date beckoning, the state House ramped up an investigation that could lead to impeachment proceedings against the Scranton Democrat. Last week, House Republicans signed a contract with outside legal counsel to defend any legal challenge Kane mounts against their efforts and to obtain court orders protecting witnesses from reprisal, similar to ones issued during the grand jury investigation against Kane that ultimately resulted in criminal charges against her. Rep. Todd Stephens, the Montgomery County Republican who chairs the subcommittee tasked with determining if Kane's conduct warrants impeachment, declined to comment on who he planned to subpoena or how many he expects to issue, PennLive's Wallace McKelvey reported last week.

DOWN ARROW BEGIN

DOWN ARROW END Hillary Clinton: Yep, she's up in the polls, but the former secretary of state still had a bummer of a Saturday. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee sat down with FBI agents for a long-expected conversation about the personal email server she used while serving as the nation's top diplomat. The interview came on top of the release, earlier in the week, of the long-awaited Benghazi report(s) that, depending upon which one you read, either lets her slide, dings her a tad, or blames her entirely for the deaths of four Americans at the U.S. compound in Libya in 2012.

UP ARROW BEGIN

UP ARROW END Donald Trump: The Republican front-runner endured another week of bizarro headlines (A Mexican plane? Coming to bomb us?), but amongst all that was the news that he's steadily upping his game in Pennsylvania. Last week, the Inquirer reported that Trump will name longtime GOP operatives David Urban (a former Arlen Specter aide) as his senior adviser for Pennsylvania, and another vet, Ted Christian, as his Pa. state director. Trump also barnstormed suburban Pittsburgh last week, visiting an industrial site in Monnessen, where he made that controversial comment about America being 'raped' by foreign competition.

UP ARROW BEGIN

UP ARROW END 'Murica: Happy 240th Birthday, old girl. For all your imperfections, there's still no equal.

That's your Sunday. Enjoy the weekend. We'll see you back here on Monday.
pennsylvania capitol building

It looks like Pennsylvania lawmakers will be home for the 4th of July... but without that completed budget they'd hoped for after a surprisingly sturdy season of bipartisanship this spring.

While a $31.5 billion spending plan is ready for Gov. Tom Wolf's signature, there is no agreement on a tax and revenue package needed to pay for it.

So it's another round of state budget limbo for Pennsylvania.

Few expect this logjam to be anything like the impasse that stretched into a nine-months last year, but for the moment schisms on taxes and the scope of a proposed gambling expansion bill are keeping the sides from completion.

Sources close to the ongoing talks said there were no significant breakthroughs to report Saturday, though staffers in the House and Senate were expected to continue to trade ideas through the weekend.

In the meantime, there is a Plan B.

Wolf Administration staffers were placing calls to some key moderate House Republicans in preparation for a possible attempt to build its own bipartisan coalition in case leadership talks falter.

One recipient of those calls, Rep. John Taylor, a Philadelphia Republican, said more education on the specifics of a tax package - including a proposed gross receipts tax on natural gas - is needed.

"It's hard to ask members for a vote without a lengthy explanation," Taylor said, noting members are interested in hearing more about how that tax would work, the potential impacts on utilities and households, and how much it would yield.

"We've not seen any proposal on revenue at all" to date, Taylor said. "So it's like: 'What package are we talking about?'"

As of Saturday night there were no expectations that rank-and-file lawmakers would be called back to session any time before Tuesday, at the earliest.
Wakulla County first responders work on the scene of an accident on Saturday, July 2, 2016 in Wakulla, Fla. The Florida Highway Patrol says a bus and tractor trailer collided on a highway in the Panhandle. Florida Highway Patrol Capt. Jeffrey Bissainthe says the bus was carrying between 30 and 35 passengers and was from Georgia. (Joe Rondone /Tallahassee Democrat via AP)




The Philippines has been slow to embrace the types of reforms necessary to address these issues. Such reforms include the privatization of airports and the commercialization of air traffic control services, which have already been adopted in many countries around the world and been integrated successfully.





Unlike the Philippine government, commercialized air traffic control agencies and investor-owned and operated airports such as the Mactan-Cebu International Airport are in a much better position to respond to changing market conditions. In addition, they are able to freely tap debt and equity markets for capital expansion to satisfy growth in demand.





In a report published in the United States and authored by Robert Poole, Director of Transportation Policy for the Reason Foundation, Poole advocates that such enterprises are also better equipped to address workforce issues and complex technology implementation as a result of greater management flexibility.





Poole highlights vast foreign experience that can be used as a model in the pursuit of reforms for the aviation industry including the privatization of airports in Europe and the commercialization of air traffic control in Canada. Although the majority of commercial airports in the Philippines are owned by the Philippine government, the trend around the world is for airports to be viewed more as a business enterprise, rather than a monopolistic public service.





Even former Philippine Transportation Secretary Joseph Abaya came to the realization that airports perform better when operated as a business enterprise . "It should be run like a hotel," said Abaya. "There should be an attention to detail, and the importance of customer service and efficiency should be a main priority." Consequently, governments in developed and developing nations are now looking to the private sector for airport development and management.







Poole notes in his report that the simplest form of privatization for existing airports is to contract out management of the airport on a short-term basis. However, long-term leases are more likely to provide incentive to private operators to invest more in the development of the airport, shifting responsibility from the government to the private sector.



In terms of the development of new airports, the private sector can either be granted a long-term contract to finance, design, and operate the facility, or they can be granted full private ownership and management as is seen in many airports throughout Europe. Britain led the way in 1987 as the British Airports Authority was privatised. Some other examples of privatised airports include London, Rome, Sydney, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam. In the case of Australia, most of the nation's major airports have been



Another benefit of airport privatisation can be derived from the deregulation of the airline industry. As deregulation occurs, new airlines enter the market, prices fall, and the volume of air traffic increases significantly. This enables more people to travel and consumers to save money.



Unfortunately, under the existing system, existing airlines operating in the Philippines are unable to expand and new entrants are unable to enter the market as Ninoy Aquino International Airport is already too congested and there are limited slots available for new entrants, which stifles the growth of air traffic and competition. Most recently, this issue led the President of Philippine Airlines to ask the Duterte administration to



Since its inception, the Ninoy Aquino International Airport has been run in an old-fashioned and bureaucratic manner. However, investor-owned airports are operated like businesses with the goal of making profits and tailoring services to meet the varying needs of customers including passengers and airlines. In his report, Poole cites detailed



Meanwhile, air traffic control in the Philippines is predicted to face challenges as air travel demand outpaces the ability of the existing system to expand capacity. One issue is whether future projected system funding will be in line with the rising air traffic, as the system already faces shortfalls in labour due to poor remuneration in the industry.



The best way to address this issue is to remove the Air Traffic Control system out of the hands of government and to create a self-supporting entity that would be funded directly by its customers. Instead of charging aviation related taxes, fees for air traffic control services would be paid directly by customers to a new self-sustaining Air Traffic Control organization. This would enable revenue to grow at a consistent pace with increased flight activity. In addition, commercialization would also address management problems such as the labour shortage, enabling a new organization to attract the best skilled labour necessary to adequately satisfy the demands of the industry.



Canada was one of the first countries to pioneer the commercialization of the ATC system. In 1996, a private, not for profit ATC corporation was set up by the Canadian government called Nav Canada. The system has earned worldwide praise for its sound finances, solid management, and investment in new technologies, which are all self-supporting and funded by charges levied on aviation users.



Overall, studies have determined that the commercialization of air traffic control has typically resulted in improvements to service quality, better management, and a reduction in cost. More importantly, air safety has remained the same in countries that have pursued such reforms.



Airline competition can expand, which would benefit consumers, if the Philippines reformed the antiquated ownership and management structures of Philippine airports. As the world shifts to operating airports as a for-profit enterprise as opposed to a government subsidised service, the Philippines must adopt a similar paradigm that is more consistent in fostering a dynamic and competitive airline industry.



References: Airports & Air Traffic Control An entrepreneurial approach to airport management will increase operating efficiency, improve passenger amenities, and lead to rapid expansion to reduce congestion. Ultimately, all major stakeholders from passengers to airlines and taxpayers benefit from this commercial approach to airport management.Poole notes in his report that the simplest form of privatization for existing airports is to contract out management of the airport on a short-term basis. However, long-term leases are more likely to provide incentive to private operators to invest more in the development of the airport, shifting responsibility from the government to the private sector.In terms of the development of new airports, the private sector can either be granted a long-term contract to finance, design, and operate the facility, or they can be granted full private ownership and management as is seen in many airports throughout Europe. Britain led the way in 1987 as the British Airports Authority was privatised. Some other examples of privatised airports include London, Rome, Sydney, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam. In the case of Australia, most of the nation's major airports have been privatised or contracted out under long-term leases.Another benefit of airport privatisation can be derived from the deregulation of the airline industry. As deregulation occurs, new airlines enter the market, prices fall, and the volume of air traffic increases significantly. This enables more people to travel and consumers to save money.Unfortunately, under the existing system, existing airlines operating in the Philippines are unable to expand and new entrants are unable to enter the market as Ninoy Aquino International Airport is already too congested and there are limited slots available for new entrants, which stifles the growth of air traffic and competition. Most recently, this issue led the President of Philippine Airlines to ask the Duterte administration to prioritise addressing congestion at the nation's airports to enable the national flag carrier to expand.Since its inception, the Ninoy Aquino International Airport has been run in an old-fashioned and bureaucratic manner. However, investor-owned airports are operated like businesses with the goal of making profits and tailoring services to meet the varying needs of customers including passengers and airlines. In his report, Poole cites detailed research performed by scholars at Oxford University , which demonstrates that the management approach of privatised airports is significantly more "passenger friendly" than that of traditional airports.Meanwhile, air traffic control in the Philippines is predicted to face challenges as air travel demand outpaces the ability of the existing system to expand capacity. One issue is whether future projected system funding will be in line with the rising air traffic, as the system already faces shortfalls in labour due to poor remuneration in the industry.The best way to address this issue is to remove the Air Traffic Control system out of the hands of government and to create a self-supporting entity that would be funded directly by its customers. Instead of charging aviation related taxes, fees for air traffic control services would be paid directly by customers to a new self-sustaining Air Traffic Control organization. This would enable revenue to grow at a consistent pace with increased flight activity. In addition, commercialization would also address management problems such as the labour shortage, enabling a new organization to attract the best skilled labour necessary to adequately satisfy the demands of the industry.Canada was one of the first countries to pioneer the commercialization of the ATC system. In 1996, a private, not for profit ATC corporation was set up by the Canadian government called Nav Canada. The system has earned worldwide praise for its sound finances, solid management, and investment in new technologies, which are all self-supporting and funded by charges levied on aviation users.Overall, studies have determined that the commercialization of air traffic control has typically resulted in improvements to service quality, better management, and a reduction in cost. More importantly, air safety has remained the same in countries that have pursued such reforms.Airline competition can expand, which would benefit consumers, if the Philippines reformed the antiquated ownership and management structures of Philippine airports. As the world shifts to operating airports as a for-profit enterprise as opposed to a government subsidised service, the Philippines must adopt a similar paradigm that is more consistent in fostering a dynamic and competitive airline industry.

The future growth of the Philippine economy will depend heavily on reliable and affordable air transportation. With the introduction of low-cost carriers to the Philippine market, commercial aviation is no longer a luxury reserved for the elite but rather a service that is now available to a wide segment of the Filipino population. But by the same token that the Philippines is estimated to lose P2.4 billion daily due to traffic congestion in Manila, the same can be said for the nation's primary international gateway where airlines cannot open new routes or increase service due to congestion at Ninoy Aquino International Airport.Air transportation plays a major role in the economy as it fuels tourism, business travel, and trade. But growth of air transportation relies heavily on the nation's aviation infrastructure. At present, the nation's major commercial airports are virtually all owned and operated by the Philippine government with the exception of Caticlan and Cebu Airports, which are operated by the private sector.Many analysts have already written reports indicating that the demand for air travel in the Philippines is expected to surge. However, the nation is not presently equipped to handle the growth with the current aviation infrastructure in place. In addition, there is a shortage of air traffic controllers in the country as many have been lured to work overseas. Major change is necessary as the increased air traffic will one day prove to exceed the limits of the present air traffic control system in the Philippines.
thebogie17 wrote:

In a certain appliance store, each model of television is uniquely designated by a code made up of a particular ordered pair of letters. If the store has 60 different models of televisions, what is the minimum number of letters that must be used to make the codes?



A. 6

B. 7

C. 8

D. 9

E. 10





I think the official answer supplied by PR is incorrect.

I Feel that D is the correct answer, they say C.

Am I missing something?

Notice that we are not told that letters in two-letter code must be different. For example three letters A, B, and C give the following codes:AA;BB;CC;AB;BA;AC;CA;BC;CB.So, if we have \(n\) distinct letters, then we can make \(n^2\) different codes (since each X in XX code can take \(n\) values). As there are 60 different models of TV then \(n^2\geq{60}\) must hold true. Since \(n\) must be an integer then the least value of \(n\) is 8.Answer: C.Similar questions to practice:Hope it helps._________________
Question #1: Do you prefer GRE or GMAT?

Question #2: What is your preference for other English language tests?

Question #3: What do you think about GMAT retakes?



Question #4: How do you value IR scores?

Questions #5: Do you think the applicants with low GPA or GMAT should take extra courses from a community college or from a reputed university?



Question #6: What is too old or too young for MBA program?



Question #7: How do you approach the waitlisted candidates?

Question #8: Do you have any advice on rankings?





Email:poonam@myessayreview.com



MyEssayReview - A personalized and dedicated consulting serviceEmail:poonam@myessayreview.com Signature Read More

Admissions consultants from around the world met with admissions directors from most of the top schools at the 9th AIGAC conference at MIT. Held at MIT (June 14-15) with visits to Tuck (June 13), HBS (June 16), and Babson and Fletcher (June 17), the conference was an enriching experience. The MIT Panel discussions on the first day provided valuable insights into various offerings by the school. On the second day, representatives from more than 20 business schools attended the conference and shared their insights on admission trends, challenges, and client expectations/ questions.Below are highlights of the panel discussions on common questions from applicants. The panelists were from Darden, Stern, Rotman, Haas, Yale SOM, and Owen.Almost all the panelists said that they dont have a preference; they accept both GRE and GMAT. Here are some additional insights: Yale- Some candidates do better on GMAT while some do better on the GRE, so it is up to the candidates to choose either of the tests. Rotman- We dont have a preference for GMAT or GRE, but some recruiters may prefer one over the other. Owen- We prefer GMAT, and we expect the quant part of GRE to be very high.All the school representatives were in agreement that they accept all English language tests.All the schools emphasized that they like to see them applying with good scores. Some additional insights were: Darden- We dont see people improving after retaking tests more than three times. We dont think they are perfectionists; we rather feel that they are obsessed with their score. Owen- If they send us a score that they got the first time and its not very good, we think they are not taking initiatives.All the school reps admitted that the schools are still trying to figure how much weight they should be giving to IR.Most school reps agreed that the bigger concept is to take initiative so they are better prepared. Darden We want to see that they are taking initiative. Taking Coursera course is a great way to show their intuitive. Rotman Taking community college course definitely shows that they are taking initiative. Stern- We recommend that they simply retake the GMAT because that is the most rigorous tool.There was a consensus that they do accept older candidates if their story appeals to the admission team. Some additional insights were: Rotman- We recommend two years of work experience. But we dont have maximum or minimum. We try to identify the applicants fit with the program. Darden- The average age of the admitted students is 22-27, but we still dont consider age as a bar, and we do accept older candidates if they demonstrate their fit with the school. Yale- There is no minimum age for admission. It depends on their story; their story has to make sense. Military candidates are generally older, but they bring maturity and perspective to the classroom. Haas- There is no maximum age for MBA program. We have students with as many as 15 years of work experience. Some candidates are from regions where they have more experience. Some students take longer in finishing their studies. Darden- We have waitlist counselors who give them detailed feedback. Owen-We also give them specific feedback. If they do what we tell them to do, their chances are good. Yale- All waitlisted applicants are qualified to be in. At Yale, we follow up and ask them if they are still interested. Rotman We waitlist some candidates because we feel confident about them. If their GMAT is not competitive, they should retake it and submit the new test scores. Stern- We dont give feedback at all. We expect the candidates to figure out themselves. It is evident that the waitlisted candidates are not as strong as other candidates. If their GMAT is not competitive, they should give another shot at GMAT. Darden- Rankings are a good place to start. We care about rankings. However, sometimes candidates get too wrapped up in rankings and dont see the other aspects. Stern- I think they should look beyond numbers. Sometimes the perception of these schools may be different. Rotman- The rankings need to be viewed in reference to each candidates stats. The rankings can provide some value, but other factors also need to be factored in.Overall, the panel discussions with the representatives from the top schools on All Schools Day at the MIT on June 15 provided extremely valuable insights on the common questions that the applicants usually ask me.For more questions, email me at poonam@myessayreveiw.com This post was first published in blog. http://myessayreview.com/blogs/?p=2813 _________________
Police say a woman fought off a man who tried to sexually assault her on a Brooklyn sidewalk yesterday morning.

The incident happened near 7th Avenue and Garfield Place in Park Slope around 4:40 a.m. Saturday. According to the NYPD, the 23-year-old woman was walking down the street when the suspect "approached her from behind, pushed her the ground and began to pull down his pants. The victim threw her purse at the individual, who fled the location in an unknown direction."

The authorities released surveillance footage of the suspect, who is described as being approximately 25-30 years old, 5'10-6'0" tall and 150-170 pounds. He was last seen wearing black hoodie and black sweatpants.

In May, a woman was nearly raped on 2nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues in Park Slope. Last week, a woman was nearly raped on 16th Street in Windsor Terrace. In both instances, the victims were able to fight off their attackers.

Anyone with information in regards to this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS or for Spanish 1-888-57-PISTA (74782)

The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers Website or texting their tips to 274637(CRIMES) then entering TIP577.
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Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) fell apart doing an interview on Meet The Press the moment he was asked about Donald Trumps foreign policy.

Video:

Transcript via Meet The Press:

CHUCK TODD: Okay, fine, but you just gave the case against Clinton. Whats the case for Trump? You just did a whole speech by the way earlier this weekend. You didnt even mention his name. You laid out a strong case against her. But you did not make a case for him. Make the case for him.

SENATOR TOM COTTON: Well, Chuck, the case against Hillary Clintons judgment in foreign policy is very strong to say nothing of her support for Obamacare or immigration or the fact that she would-

CHUCK TODD: Okay, but whats the case for Donald Trump? I understand the case against Hillary Clinton. Whats the case for Donald Trump?

SENATOR TOM COTTON: Donald Trump can ultimately make the case for himself. But Donald Trump, like most Americans, like most Republicans, believe in protecting Americas core national interests. He believes as do I, as do most Americans, that we arent yet doing enough to take the fight to the Islamic State.That the intervention in Libya was ill-considered and slapdash at the time. And were living with the consequences of it now. That we have to get tougher when it comes to our intelligence and law enforcement practices to stop Islamic terrorism. On those matters, our party is largely united. And I say that we have the vast majority of Americans with us.

CHUCK TODD: You dont come across as an enthusiastic Trump supporter. Is that fair?

SENATOR TOM COTTON: Maybe I dont just demonstrate enthusiasm much in life, Chuck, especially in such dangerous times as these.

Sen. Cotton could defend Trumps foreign policy because Donald Trump has no foreign policy. Trump is also completely toxic, which is why Tehran Tom gave an entire speech about foreign policy where he never mentioned the Republican presidential nominees name.

Cottons performance on Meet The Press was a debacle as soon as Trumps name was mentioned. Republicans are trying to pretend like Donald Trump doesnt exist. They are running two campaigns. There are Donald Trumps presidential campaign and the Republican Partys fight for survival.

Republicans wanted to make the election about Hillary Clinton, but they are facing a referendum about Donald Trump. Sen. Cotton squirmed and dodged, but in the end, he could not avoid the quicksand that is Donald Trump.
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Rep. Xavier Becerra, who is rumored to be on Hillary Clintons VP short list, stormed Fox News and shredded one of the biggest lies about Hillary Clinton and Benghazi.

Video:

Transcript via Fox News Sunday:

BREAM:, of course, all of the e-mail information, the server, the private server, came to light because of the Benghazi investigation. This week we got the report from the Benghazi committee, out of the House.

We did learn some new things we didnt know before. There is a story about an account about military assets that were waiting in Spain. They were on a plane for three hours there, they were told four times to change in and out of their uniforms because the State Department was worried about the optics of having Americans in uniform on the streets of Libya.

In the meantime, no military assets were ever sent directly to Benghazi while the attack was unfolding. Four Americans died in the process.

Whos to blame?

BECERRA: Actually, Shannon, thats not new information. That was disclosed back in 2013. It was 

BREAM: About the uniform changes?

BECERRA: Yes.

BREAM: Thats not something Ive heard before this week.

BECERRA: That was out there 

BREAM: Four times.

BECERRA: 2013. We knew that information.

The military testified to that and talked about the fact that while there was some sense of disagreement about how to make sure you send out the assets, those assets were going to be sent to Tripoli. Not to Benghazi.

BREAM: Right.

BECERRA: And the military subsequently made clear that even if they had been sent out, they wouldnt have made it in time, because they were being directed to Tripoli not to Benghazi.

And so, the conclusions of the report that first discovered that particular fact were that there was no way that our military assets could have made it in time. And so, the conclusions can of our military were that there was no way to change what happened on the ground because it happened so quickly, was confusing information and there werent enough assets close enough to make a difference.



The Republicans wanted to talk about the Loretta Lynch/Bill Clinton meeting. They also wanted to talk about the Benghazi report that the right is trying to spin into something. Instead, it was another week of the Donald Trump show. First, Trump invited then denied invited convicted rapist Mike Tyson to speak his convention. Reports surfaced that Trump doesnt understand how political conventions work, and he topped off his week by attacking Jews with a bigoted tweet that came directly from neo-Nazis.

Fox News was trying to right the GOP by pressing Rep. Becerra by lying about the Benghazi report, and the California Democrat was having none of it. The truth is that there was no new information in the Benghazi report which is why it landed with a thud and was quickly forgotten. Rep. Becerra was having none of what Fox was selling.

The Republican ship is taking on water, and not even Fox News can save the GOP from the damage that Trump is doing, but just to be safe, Democrats arent giving Fox an inch, because they only thing that can save the Republican Party now is a Fox News endorsed pack of lies.

Rep. Becerra did his part to make the bad Republican week even worse.
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The source of Donald Trumps anti-semitic Star of David meme attack on Hillary Clinton has been revealed to be a neo-Nazi message board.

Here was the original tweet from Trump, which he has since deleted:

It turns out that the meme was not created by the Trump campaign.

Mic reported, Mic discovered Sunday that Donald Trumps Twitter wasnt the first place the meme appeared. The image was previously featured on /pol/  an Internet message board for the alt-right, a digital movement of neo-Nazis, anti-Semites, and white supremacists newly emboldened by the success of Donald Trumps rhetoric  as early as June 22, 2016, over a week before Donald Trumps team tweeted it.

You can see the meme as it was originally published archived here:

The Trump campaign is pulling material off of white supremacist message boards for their own use. They are having their candidate tweeted racist and bigoted material from white supremacist forums.

The media can no longer deny Trumps appeals to bigotry and racism. The KKK love Trump and believe that he is going to lead them back to prominence. What Trump is tapping into goes beyond the politics of a presidential campaign. Donald Trump is openly promoting bigotry and racism as a part of his presidential platform.

The country has a moral duty to shine the light of truth on the Trump campaign. Voters deserve to know what Donald Trump is really all about, and Republicans like Paul Ryan, who intentionally sweep Trump appeals to racism and bigotry under the rug dont deserve to serve the American people. Trump is just campaigning on bigotry and racism. He is promoted bigoted and racist propaganda as a part of his campaign.

Anyone who supports Trump is supporting bigotry and racism.
During Friday night's rainstorm, a 24-year-old man had to be rescued from nearly drowning in the Hudson River.

Police got a 911 call just after 10 p.m. that evening reporting that a man was struggling in the water. When police arrived at the location, near West 132nd Street, they saw Khalid Esmail, 24, about 60 feet from the pier, struggling to stay afloat and in severe distress. Esmail was naked, and it appears he may have jumped into the river of his own accord.

Three officers jumped into the river amidst the rain and wind, and one was able to grab onto Esmail, who'd lost consciousness and started sinking. The three got him to shore, and EMS transported him to St. Luke's Hospital.

The New York Post reports that Esmail is (or was) a student at Columbia University, had struggled in the past with his mental health, and posted two photos of the Hudson River and a painting of an exit sign hours before the incident. He may have been on drugs, according to the tabloid.

Coincidentally, the man arrested after taunting police for over an hour while pacing naked on a Times Square structure earlier this week is also a Columbia student, though he's currently on a gap year.

Esmail was in stable condition as of Saturday, and none of the officers involved in his rescue sustained any injuries. He told the Post he was "very grateful" to the officers for helping him out of the river, and wasn't sure why he jumped in in the first place.
The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is investigating an officers shot a man Saturday morning during a traffic stop in Winona.

The incident happened shortly after midnight when two Winona Police Department officers pulled over a vehicle for erratic driving on the 1800 block of Gavin Heights Road in Winona, according to Minnesota Department of Public Safety news release. At one point both officers fired their guns, hitting the suspect.

The suspect fled the scene in his vehicle. Officers pursued the vehicle and were joined by the Minnesota State Patrol and Winona County Sheriff's Office deputies. The chase covered five miles an ended at Minnesota Highway 43 and Interstate-90 after deputies used stop sticks.

The suspect initially refused to get out of the car. After an hour of negotiating with authorities, the man eventually agreed to get out of the vehicle. He was taken by ambulance to Winona Health hospital and later transferred to Saint Marys Hospital in Rochester. The suspect was treated for non-life threatening injuries and released. He is in custody at the Winona County Jail.

Authorities found a .45 caliber handgun on the front seat of the suspect's vehicle. The two Winona Police Department officers are on standard administrative leave following the shooting.

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According to the news release, "The BCA's investigation into the incident is in its very early stages. More information will be available once the initial round of interviews with all witnesses and persons involved are complete."

Once the investigation is complete, the BCA will turn over its finding to the Winona County Attorney's Office.
A 32-year-old Rochester man is recovering at Mayo Clinic Hospital -Saint Marys Campus after being shot Saturday night at Bear Creek Park.

Police responded to reports of a shooting shortly after 8 p.m., according to Rochester Police Sgt. Ryan Manguson. When they arrived, they found the victim in the pavilion at the Rochester park with a small caliber gunshot wound to the leg. He was taken to to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Authorities are still looking for the suspect. Anyone with information about the shooting in encouraged to call law enforcement at 507-328-6800.
ALBERT LEA  An 8-year-old girl died Saturday after her bicycle was struck by a car.

Authorities are not releasing the girl's name but WCCO-TV has identified the girl as Sophie Stultz of Albert Lea. A GoFundMe page has been set up for the girl's family.

Emergency personnel responded shortly after 11:30 a.m. to reports of a car versus bicycle crash at the intersection of Frank Hall Drive and East Eighth Street in Albert Lea, according to a news release from the Albert Lea Police Department. Authorities determined that a 70-year-old Albert Lea man driving a 2003 Mercury Mountaineer hit the bicycle being ridden by the girl.

Emergency responders attempted life-saving measures at the scene and the victim was transportation to Mayo Clinic Health System  Albert Lea. She later died from her injuries. The crash is under investigation.

The Albert Lea Police Department was assisted by the Freeborn County Sheriff's Office, Albert Lea Fire Department, Gold Cross Ambulance and the Minnesota State Patrol.
MANKATO  Prosecutors have charged a Woodbury man with stealing funds from the Minnesota Army National Guard.

Thirty-one-year-old Matthew Hite was charged this week with felony theft in Blue Earth County District Court.

According to a criminal complaint, Hite was responsible for paying vendors for a banquet the National Guard set up at the Treasure Island Resort and Casino in 2014. He was supposed to pay out of a National Guard Paypal account but instead diverted Paypal funds into his own account, resulting in the theft of $11,430.

No residential telephone listing could be found for Hite in Woodbury.
MINNEAPOLIS  A torrent of complaints has forced a Minnesota man to lower his Nazi flag.

Residents of the Pleasant Street neighborhood in Lauderdale first noticed the flag in Robert Walter's yard on Wednesday. The flag was flying next door to a Jewish family's home.

Neighbor Ben Holsen said the Jewish family was terribly afraid. He said he called City Hall but was told there was nothing anyone could do.

He posted a photograph of the flag on his Facebook page, stirring a flood of reaction. Most people expressed anger and sorrow, although some pointed out it's not illegal to hoist such a flag on private property.

Walter told the Star Tribune on Friday that he's "not no skinhead neo-Nazi guy." He ordered the flag through the mail and put it up because he likes the pattern, he said. He added that the flag is a German navy flag and the navy wasn't responsible for rounding up Jews.

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Still, he took the flag down because he was receiving multiple calls from people complaining, he said.

City Administrator Heath Butkowski said the city hasn't had any previous problems with Walter, and no one plans to confront him about the flag. She said Walter has a First Amendment right to fly it.

"I feel disappointed in my city," Holsen, the neighbor, said. "You had multiple neighbors raising a concern ... most of them fearing for their safety."

Steve Hunegs, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, released a statement Friday calling the flag a "hateful display." He said the council stands with Jewish and non-Jewish communities that are disgusted and outraged by what he called a symbol of genocide and tyranny.

Lauderdale is a city of about 2,400 people located in the middle of the Twin Cities in Ramsey County.
A 22-year-old Minneapolis woman was killed in a crash early Saturday in Rice County.

The crash occurred at about 12:43 a.m. on Interstate 35, west of Northfield, according to the Minnesota State Patrol.

A Buick Regal driven by 22-year-old Callista Boe, of Minneapolis, was southbound on the interstate when Boe lost control and the car hit the median guard cable. Boe got out of the car and was hit by a passing Toyota Camry that was also headed southbound.

The driver of the Camry, 28-year-old Faisal Aden, of Albert Lea, suffered non-life threatening injuries.

Boe had two passengers in her car. Thirty-five-year-old Jason Erhardt of Owatonna suffered non-life threatening injuries and 29-year-old Vincent Laforgia was not injured.

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The Rice County Sheriff's Office and Northfield police department assisted on scene.
PETERSON  A Mankato man is recovering from injuries after his motorcycle struck a deer on Sunday afternoon.

Mark A. Fromm, 59, of Mankato, was airlifted to Mayo Clinic Hospital Saint Marys Campus in Rochester with non-life threatening injuries.

According to the Minnesota State Patrol, the crash happened shortly after noon on Minnesota Highway 16 west of Peterson in Fillmore County. Fromm was traveling eastbound on Minnesota Highway 16 when he struck a deer. Rushford Fire and Ambulance assisted at the scene.
Tom Cotton is rapidly earning a reputation as the hardest-hitting spokesman for the conservative cause. Earlier today he spoke at the Western Conservative Summit. Breitbart has a report on his speech:

The Arkansas senatortold activists Saturday at the Western Conservative Summit that Hillary Clintons reckless and criminal behavior disqualifies her to become Americas commander-in-chief.

He also delivered that message forcefully at this years Lincoln-Reagan dinner in Minnesota.

A combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, Sen. Thomas Cotton (R.-Ark.) said he was glad [to] make it on time for his speech after a series of travel delays. We were on the tarmac, I thought Bill Clinton might be boarding my plane to talk to me, said the former Army Airborne Ranger officer.

Heh.

Clintons decision to conduct all her official business on her own private email account on her own private server and the way she has handled official and media inquires about it was just teaser of how her administration will approach transparency and national security, Cotton said.

Thats true. Barack Obama has run the least transparent administration in modern history, but the paranoid Mrs. Clinton would undoubtedly be more secretive still.

The FBI still does not have 30,000 emails the expected Democratic nominee for president claimed to have deleted. It has gotten so bad, the FBI is on the verge of asking Vladimir Putin for his copies of Hillarys emails, Cotton said.

Ouch again. Humor is a powerful weapon.

In addition to the criminal nature of the former first ladys scheme, he said, conducting official and classified business on an unsecured server exposed American national security to our enemies. Americans should not be surprised that the former secretary of state would put America at risk, he said. Working with President Barack Obama, Clinton oversaw a foreign policy that treated allies as troublemakers and our enemies as victims with legitimate complaints about the United States. Chief among the enemies is the Islamic Republic of Iran, which Obama-Clinton empowered by lifting sanctions, thawing frozen assets, and ignoring Irans support of violent terrorism.

Some have speculated that Tom Cotton is on Donald Trumps list of potential vice-presidential candidates. I have no idea whether that is true, nor do I know whether Cotton would accept the post if it were offered. (I believe he has downplayed that speculation.) But I do know that we need someone on the ticket who will hit Hillary hard and effectively, with the sort of credibility and stature that Toms history and abilities bring.
Considering the Democratic presidential nominees since 1992  Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton  we find a parade of repugnant characters. What a crew. Who is the most repugnant of them all?

We can be overwhelmed by the present. At the time I thought Bill Clinton was an extraordinarily bad man, but Barack Obama has helped me understand how good we had it with Bill Clinton. Not to say that Clinton isnt the most repugnant, but we now have a larger context within which to judge him. Perhaps Hillary Clinton will lend a similar context to our judgment of Obama. Ah, the uses of history.

Have the Democrats ever nominated a more repugnant human being for president than Hillary Clinton? Now that is a difficult question. The questions comes to mind in connection with her seven-minute interview with Chuck Todd about her session with the FBI yesterday (summary and video accessible here). She had graciously consented to give Todd five minutes. She told NBCs Todd she was eager for the meeting and pleased to have the opportunity to assist the department [sic] in bringing its review to a conclusion. It was a historic occasion; she is the first presidential candidate to be summoned by the FBI to give evidence as the subject of a pending criminal investigation.

The question also comes to mind in connection with the release of the House Benghazi Committee report last week. The supplemental report by Jim Jordan and Mike Pompeo does an excellent job of setting forth Madam Hillarys duplicity on the Benghazi attack. Steve Hayes takes up this aspect of the supplemental report in The Benghazi lie in black and white. Like her husband, Clinton is a sickening liar. And that may not be her worst trait!
The Niger Delta Avengers has announced fresh attacks on major oil and gas installations in Nigeria.

The militant group said it carried out attacks on facilities operated by Chevron and the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC.

It said it bombed an NNPC pipeline conveying crude to Warri refinery in Delta State on Friday night.

Between Saturday night and early Sunday morning, the group announced four more attacks against oil facilities. All the reported attacks happened in Delta State.

At 11:26 p.m. on Saturday, @NDAvengers blow up (sic) two NPDC major crude trunk lines close to Batan Flow Station in Delta State.

At 1:15 a.m. on Sunday, @NDAvengers blow (sic) up two major Chevron oil wells. Well 7 and Well 8 close to Abiteye Flow Station in Delta State, the group said in tweets posted on its Twitter handle.

The group also said all the attacks were carried out by one strike team.

The NNPC, which owns the NPDC, has however said it is not aware of the attacks.

Garbadeen Mohammed, the spokesman for NNPC, said the state-run oil corporation was not aware of any damage to its facilities in the region.

Also, a front desk officer at Chevron Nigeria Limited could not speak on the attacks. She told PREMIUM TIMES that the companys media department only works on weekdays.

It is not clear the reason for the new attacks after two weeks of what appeared cessation of hostilities by the militants. There have, however, been reports of breakdown of negotiation between the group and the Nigerian government.

The latest attacks, if confirmed, also underscore the capabilities of the group whose activities had cut deeply into Nigerias oil exports, affecting the operations of oil companies in the Niger Delta.

In June, Shell Nigeria announced that it would keep its Forcados Export Terminal shut until security of its staff stationed around there could be guaranteed.

In an attempt to pacify the militants, the Nigerian government in June ordered troops to cease further assault.
The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, has warned all airlines selling flight tickets in foreign currencies in Nigeria to desist from the practice forthwith.

The NCAA issued the warning in a statement issued by its Acting General Manager, Public Relations, Sam Adurogboye, in Lagos on Sunday.

The statement said the act contravened the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, guidelines on the cost of products or services in Nigeria.

The CBN, via a circular issued on April 17,2015, has directed that pricing of any product shall continue to be in naira only and it is illegal to price or denominate the cost of any product or service (visible or invisible) in any foreign currency.

The NCAA is disturbed by reports that some foreign airlines are declining to accept Nigerias local currency  the naira  as payment for tickets.

In other words, some foreign airlines have blatantly resorted to selling tickets only in foreign currency, it said.

According to the statement, the act is considered insensitive to passengers who have elected on their own volition to choose the airlines for their travel.

The statement said such act also contravened the provisions of the Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) between Nigeria and other countries as contained in Article 8 (4).

As a consequence of this action, the regulatory authority has written warning letters to such erring airlines to immediately comply with the provisions of BASA and CBN directive.

Sales of tickets and services should henceforth be offered to air travellers in naira without further delay, it said.

The statement added that the Federal Government had taken measures to ameliorate the subsisting foreign exchange issues.

(NAN)
The Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, has warned members of the public against buying ponzi or pyramid schemes not approved by the commission.

The Director General of SEC, Mounir Gwarzo, gave the advice while speaking on the News Agency of Nigeria Forum in Abuja on Sunday.

Those pyramid schemes have not been approved by SEC, and we have been telling investors that anybody that is selling any scheme that is not approved by SEC, investors should not buy.

If they buy, then they are on their own because people are being pushed to buy those kinds of schemes.

And I think it is also a fault on our own parts because by the time somebody tells you that if you buy this thing you will get 50 per cent discount, you know it is not true.

So we too as individuals do not have to be greedy, because it is all driven by greed.

How can somebody give you 50 per cent return? Where is he going to get the 50 per cent from?

Where is he going to put the money? What is he going to do?

And this has been the trend that we have seen in recent times and we have been continuously telling people through radio jingles not to accept all those schemes not sanctioned by SEC.

A Ponzi scheme (also a Ponzi game or a Ponzi) is a fraudulent investment operation where the operator, an individual or organization, pays returns to its investors from new capital paid to the operators by new investors, rather than from profit earned through legitimate sources.

A Pyramid scheme is a form of fraud similar in some ways to a Ponzi scheme, relying as it does, on a mistaken belief in a nonexistent financial reality.

Operators of Ponzi schemes usually entice new investors by offering higher returns than other investments, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent.

Ponzi schemes occasionally begin as legitimate businesses, until the business fails to achieve the returns expected.

The business becomes a Ponzi scheme if it then continues under fraudulent terms.

Whatever the initial situation, the perpetuation of the high returns requires an ever-increasing flow of money from new investors to sustain the scheme.

The scheme is named after Charles Ponzi, who became notorious for using the technique in 1920.

The SEC DG advised Nigerians not to subscribe to any financial investment plan without first checking the registration status of the operating company on the commissions website.

He added that even if the company was registered with SEC, potential investors should endeavour to find out from the commission whether the companys activities had been approved by the commission.

He said the commission was collaborating with the police and other relevant law enforcement agencies to check the activities of the operators of such schemes.

(NAN)
The United States has pledged to ensure no stolen public funds from Nigeria are laundered through American banks.

The outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, James Entwistle, said on Saturday that the Obama administration was committed to stand with Nigeria in its fight against corruption, particularly by ensuring no stolen funds are laundered through the American banking system.

Mr. Entwistle said the U.S. government has offered technical assistance to Nigerias anti-graft agencies for the training of investigators and prosecutors.

The diplomat, speaking at the 240th United States Independence Anniversary celebration cocktail party in Abuja, said his country looked forward to deeper cooperation with the Nigerian government to ensure freedom for Nigerians.

Not just the political freedom you exercised last year, but freedom from fear, freedom from want, freedom from sickness, and freedom from corruption. The last election was tremendous democratic success, not only for Nigeria, but the growth of democracy across Africa.

As you fight Boko Haram and secure and rebuild the Northeast, and you strive for harmony in the Niger Delta and across the land, we will continue to help in every appropriate way.

Indeed, let us redouble our efforts on the humanitarian front in the Northeast. Nigerians are dying of starvation in Nigeria.

The United States stands with every Nigerian who believes that Nigeria can be healthier, safer, and more prosperous, he said.

On the economy, the envoy said Nigeria at the moment was headed in the right direction on issues like fuel subsidy removal and foreign exchange rate. He urged government to continue to create an environment that would attract more foreign investments.

The biggest U.S. companies in Nigeria, he said, have been here for decades. He added that it was important for government to maintain an environment that would attract more foreign investments to the country.

As you continue privatization of the power grid, through President Obamas Power Africa initiative, we stand ready to, among other things, help companies invest in building more electricity infrastructure, especially environmentally-friendly power generation.

As you increase your commitment to healthcare and education, we support those efforts too, he assured

Mr. Entwistle, who is expected to round off his role in Nigeria this month, described his stay in Nigeria as a fascinating time. He said he would be leaving with a great sense of hope and optimism, especially with a truly inspiring experience with young Nigerians.

The diplomat again declined to comment on his controversial letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, over allegations of sexual misconduct preferred against three Nigerian lawmakers while on official trip to the U.S. few months ago.

At the end of his assignment in Nigeria, Mr. Entwistle said he would be retiring from the U.S. Foreign Service at the end of the month after 35 and a half years.
Names and faces

Dr. Dale Chamberlain is in private practice in Helena. He received his DDS degree from Creighton University in 1988. From 1989-2010 he had a private practice in Lewistown and also worked two days a month at NEXUS, a methamphetamine treatment center, for five years. Chamberlain moved to Helena in 2012 and started a private practice as well as working as a staff dentist for the Butte Community Health Center two days a week.

Chamberlain has been with the Western Regional Examining Board since 2006. As a member of this organization, he travels to dental schools around the country to test new dental grads for licensure. Chamberlain was recently elected as the president elect for the WREB organization and will take the position in January 2017.

News and notes

West Mont receives grant

West Mont has received a $20,000 Strategic Grant from the PacificSource Foundation for Health Improvement. The grant will be used for West Monts newest facility Rons Place and will provide general operating support for its first year.

Rons Place is a six bed innovative care model group home for medically fragile adults with developmental disabilities. Residents will have professional nursing care available that will provide a higher quality of life for them.

Rons Place is West Monts 13th group home. It is located at 3293 Cabernet Drive. This facility is only the second medical group home built in the state of Montana for people with disabilities.

In addition to its residential facilities, West Mont also has four vocational centers. All of their facilities are located in Helena. For additional information, contact West Mont President Kris Bakula or Arlene Flynn, VP of development at 447-3100.

***

State Bank of Townsend, Dutton State Bank merge

The boards of S.B.T. Financial, Inc., the parent company of The State Bank of Townsend, and Big Muddy Bancorp, Inc., parent company of Dutton State Bank, announced today that a definitive merger agreement has been signed between two of Montanas most historic community banking organizations. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2016, subject to regulatory approval.

The State Bank of Townsend has served Broadwater County since 1899. After a 2015 merger with Farmers State Bank of Denton, Dutton State Banks footprint expanded to include full service branches in Dutton, Denton, and White Sulphur Springs. Dutton State Bank also maintains a loan production office in Lewistown and is opening its fourth full service location in Choteau in July.

In the merger, S.B.T Financial, Inc. will be merged into Big Muddy Bancorp, Inc., leaving one parent company.

***

Awards and honors

Kessler recognized by board

Opportunity Bank of Montana would like to recognize Don Kessler for being named by the Montana Board of Housing as the Top Lender in Montana.

A Helena native, Kessler has more than 17 years experience and enjoys helping clients, especially first-time buyers, achieve homeownership. He works at the Opportunity Bank of Montana branch on Prospect Avenue.

Guidelines

The IR welcomes reports of hiring, promotions, awards, recognition, learning opportunities and other news from local companies and nonprofits. We accept press releases and photos (digital images at 300 dpi or more are preferred, but we can also use regular photos; we dont guarantee return of these).

There is no charge for items appearing in the Business Briefcase. Items are run on a space-available basis, and we reserve the right to edit and use information as we see fit.

The deadline is Tuesday at noon to be considered for publication the following Sunday.
The American government has urged its Nigerian counterpart and other partners to redouble efforts at ending the humanitarian crisis in the insurgency-ravaged North-East geopolitical zone.

The outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, James Entwistle, said more needed to be done on the humanitarian front particularly as Nigerians were dying of starvation in their own country.

Nigeria is oil-rich and is the largest exporter of crude in Africa. Yet majority of its citizens are poor, living on less than a dollar a day, mainly due to corruption and misgovernance.

Reports recently emerged from the North-East that starvation deaths had become rampant in some Internally Displaced Persons camps in the region.

Mr. Entwistle, who spoke at the 240th United States Independence Anniversary celebration cocktail party in Abuja, said there was an urgent need to arrest the situation, and that his country was willing to help.

As you fight Boko Haram and secure and rebuild the Northeast, and you strive for harmony in the Niger Delta and across the land, we will continue to help in every appropriate way, the ambassador said.

Indeed, let us redouble our efforts on the humanitarian front in the Northeast. Nigerians are dying of starvation in Nigeria.

The ambassador said the Obama administration remained committed to standing with Nigeria in its fight against corruption, particularly by ensuring no stolen funds are laundered through the American banking system.

Mr. Entwistle, who said the U.S. government was offering technical assistance to Nigerias anti-graft agencies for the training of investigators and prosecutors, said he looked forward to more partnership for the freedom of all Nigerians.

Not just the political freedom you exercised last year, but freedom from fear, freedom from want, freedom from sickness, and freedom from corruption, the envoy said. The last election was tremendous democratic success, not only for Nigeria, but the growth of democracy across Africa.

He described the outcome of last years presidential elections as historic, and a demonstration of commitment to democracy, saying Nigerias future belonged to all Nigerian people, especially Nigerias heroes  men and women who are brave enough to believe that they can change the world.

The United States stands with every Nigerian who believes that Nigeria can be healthier, safer, and more prosperous, he said.

On the economy, the envoy said Nigeria was now headed in the right direction on issues like fuel subsidy removal, foreign exchange rate, urging government to continue to create an environment that would attract more foreign investments.

The biggest U.S. companies in Nigeria, he said, had been here for decades, pointing out that it was important for government to maintain an environment that would attract more foreign investments to the country.

As you continue privatization of the power grid, through President Obamas Power Africa initiative, we stand ready to, among other things, help companies invest in building more electricity infrastructure, especially environmentally-friendly power generation.

As you increase your commitment to healthcare and education, we support those efforts too, he assured.

Mr. Entwistle, whose tour of duty of U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, comes to an end this July ending, described his stay in Nigeria as a fascinating time, saying he would be leaving with a great sense of hope and optimism, especially with a truly inspiring experience with young Nigerians with energy and dynamism.

For the umpteenth time, Mr. Entwistle told reporters he had nothing to say about his controversial letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, over allegations of sexual misconduct preferred against three members of the House while on official trip to the U.S. a few months ago.

At the end of his assignment in Nigeria, Mr. Entwistle said he would be retiring from the U.S. Foreign Service at the end of the month after 35 and a half years.
The Nigerian government has expressed its commitment to dialogue with militants in the Niger Delta.

The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, said on Saturday that the presence of soldiers in the region does not mean the government was opposed to dialogue.

Speaking specifically about the Niger Delta Avengers, whose recent activities have caused a decline in Nigerias oil and power output, Mr. Lawal said the group needed to identify its representatives for a dialogue.

Government is not averse to discussing with them (militants) but we need to know who is in charge and who we can discuss with meaningfully; thats the dilemma of the government at the moment, he said.

There are so many groups making it difficult to know who to talk to and the level of control that group will bring to the process.

He appealed to leaders of Niger Delta communities to intervene by calling the militants to order, pointing out that the activities of the militants were more inimical to the region than other parts of the country.

When they blow up oil pipelines, the spill destroys their water and lands, a development that will take years to recover. They are more victims than the rest of Nigerians, he said.

Mr. Lawal said the activities of the militants, which he described as pure act of sabotage, had seriously affected the nations crude oil export and energy supply.

Nigerias power generation dropped by over half while crude production declined about a third mainly due to sabotage by the Niger Delta Avengers.

The group this weekend announced some of its recent sabotage of pipelines in Delta State.

It said it bombed an NNPC pipeline conveying crude to Warri refinery in Delta State on Friday night.

Between Saturday night and early Sunday morning, the group announced four more attacks against oil facilities.

At 11:26 p.m. on Saturday, @NDAvengers blow up (sic) two NPDC major crude trunk lines close to Batan Flow Station in Delta State.

At 1:15 a.m. on Sunday, @NDAvengers blow (sic) up two major Chevron oil wells. Well 7 and Well 8 close to Abiteye Flow Station in Delta State, the group said in tweets posted on its Twitter handle.

The group has rejected dialogue with the government and is demanding resource control for the Niger Delta.

Rebuilding North East

While speaking with journalists in his home state of Adamawa, Mr. Lawal said the federal government is committed to rebuilding the Boko Haram ravaged North East.

We are very lucky in the North East because the president is passionate about the region; we have in the president a sympathiser to our problems, he said.

The Federal Government has started implementing this years budget, and there was substantial amount of money budgeted for projects in areas of infrastructure and rehabilitation in the region.

The North East is going to experience a lot of reconstruction and rehabilitation this year.
Workers at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, on Friday celebrated the dissolution of the universitys Governing Council by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The workers, members of the Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU) and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), took over the University Senate building singing and dancing.

The excited workers believe that the dissolution of the council by President Buhari was linked to issues surrounding appointment of a new Vice Chancellor for the institution.

This is a victory for all and one that is well deserved, the Chairman of SSANU, Ademola Oketunde, told the workers. We have seen that President Buhari has a listening ear and we will continue to appreciate him for dissolving the Governing Council.

However, we have not won totally as we will stay here till we have an Acting VC who will steer the affairs of the university.

In the mean time, we are still here and will keep vigil day and night, we do not even want anyone to steal documents here.

The Federal Governments action is coming after several petitions by NASU and SSANU, who are also in court to challenge the imposition of a vice chancellor on the institution.

The disagreement over the appointment of a vice chancellor began on June 6, 2016. A protest by the unions, led to the closure of the institution.

We are not above them, the President can dissolve the Council, the Public Relations Officer of the University, Olanrewaju Abiodun, said.

The Registrar of the Institution, David Awoyemi, acknowledged the dissolution and said he is waiting for further directives.
The Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, NSCIA, has asked every Muslim in the country to look for the new moon between Sunday and Monday for the Eid el-Fitri.

The Secretary-General of the council, Is-haq Oloyede in a statement on Sunday, said the council, under the leadership of the Sultan of Sokoto, Saad Abubakar, enjoined all Muslims to look for the moon.

Mr. Oloyede said the Sultan has therefore put in place a National Moon Sighting Committee, NMSC, to that effect.

The Shehu of Borno and NSCIA Deputy President-General is among the 34 Muslims across the country as members of the committee.

NMSC has advised the President-General that the crescent of Shawwal should be searched for on Monday, July 4, 2016 equivalent to 29th Ramadan 1437 AH.

If the crescent is actually sighted by informed persons on Monday night and His Eminence is so advised by the experts, he would declare Tuesday, July 5, 2016 as the first day of Shawwal (Id day).

If, however, the crescent is not sighted on Monday night, Wednesday, July 6, 2016 automatically becomes the first of Shawwal 1437 AH (Id day), Mr. Oloyede said.

He enjoined Muslims all over the country to be on the lookout for the directive of the President-General of NSCIA on the completion of this years Ramadan fast.

He said as soon as the NMSC confirmed the sighting of the crescent, the committee would advise the president-general of the NSCIA, who will announce the completion of Ramadan and the observance of `Idul-Fitri prayer.

Muslims are also strongly advised to fast for six days between the second and the end of Shawwal, Mr. Oloyede said.

The secretary-general also said Muslims should see it as necessity, paying `Zakatul-Fitri with the intention of lifting the hearts of the indigent members of the community.

The council urges all to ensure the delivery of Zakatul-Fitri to the appropriate recipients the poor and guard against its diversion by any agent or intermediary, he said.

Mr. Oloyede said Ramadan might come and go, the lessons in it must continue to reflect in the lives of Muslims.

The council encourages Muslims to continue praying for peaceful co-existence in Nigeria, as they keep the virtues and gains of the sacred month as a spiritual guide towards accelerated development as individuals and a nation, he said.

(NAN)
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana, on Saturday said the era of absolute immunity had gone and that President Muhammadu Buhari, his deputy, Yemi Osinbajo and governors who committed criminal act could be arrested while in office and taken for trials.

Mr. Falana said this while speaking on: Limit of executive immunity in Benin to mark the 60th birthday of the Secretary to the State Government (SSG) of Edo, Prof. Julius Ihonvebere.

Mr. Falana said that immunity did not also extend to electoral fraud.

Mr. Falana said according to a Supreme Court ruling, there was no longer absolute immunity. Therefore governors involved in criminal charges, including the leadership of the National Assembly must face the law.

Mr. Falana had earlier in an article published by PREMIUM TIMES on June 22 quoted the Supreme Court as ruling in Chief Gani Fawehinmi vs. Inspector General of Police (2002) 23 WRN 1:

That a person protected under section 308 of the 1999 Constitution, going by its provisions, can be investigated by the police for an alleged crime or offence is, in my view, beyond dispute. To hold otherwise is to create a monstrous situation whose manifestation may not be fully appreciated until illustrated The evidence may be useful for impeachment purposes if the House of Assembly may have need of it. It may no doubt be used for prosecution of the said incumbent Governor after he has left office. But to do nothing under the pretext that a Governor cannot be investigated is a disservice to the society.

He urged the Senate President, Bukola Saraki and his Deputy, Ike Ekweremadu, to face the forgery charges against them rather than politicking about it, saying they have no immunity to dodge the charges against them.

He faulted the invitation extended to the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, by the leadership of the senate over the forgery allegation against the senate president and his deputy.

The senate is now politicising the issue, saying it is political victimization but not that the offence was not committed.

As leaders of the National Assembly, you are supposed to be above board and that is even the more reason you must be careful.

But I want to remind the senate that the Attorney General of the Federation is only answerable to his boss, who is the president and nobody else.

The same thing applies to the states, so there is no longer absolute immunity in this country.

And that is why what is happening in Ekiti today about money found in a bank and the governor is saying it is illegal to freeze his account that is not true.

Any issue that is criminal in nature must be treated as such, he declared.

Mr. Falana however described Mr. Ihonvbere as a resourceful Nigerian, who fought doggedly for the nations democracy.

Governor Adams Oshiomhole; the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Usani Uguru; Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Elizabeth Ativie and other members of the State Executive Council were present at the occasion.

(NAN)
The Borno Government says it has so far received cash donations of N345 million for the upkeep of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the state.

Governor Kashim Shettima stated this while speaking with journalists in Maiduguri on Sunday.

He said the state never received any cash donation from international donors for IDPs in the last four years.

I want to say that many Nigerians may be shocked to know that a total of N345 million is the overall amount received as cash donation by the state government from May 2011 to date, he said.

He explained that the Federal Government during the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan donated N200 million in four years.

Lagos State Government gave N50 million in October, 2015, Edo donated N25 million in 2013, Kano gave us N20 million in 2013 and Adamawa donated N20 million in 2013.

Ekiti donated N10 million in 2013, Osun and Kaduna State gave N10million and N5million respectively in 2013 while Unity Bank Plc. donated N5 million.

There was a woman who prefers her name not to be mentioned; she donated N100, 000 cash.

He said the state was spending N600 million every month to cater for the IDPs.

He also said that all other interventions had been in kind through donation of food items or medical supplies, which included donation of 1,200 bags of rice by Kebbi.

According to him, Ebonyi donated 5,000 bags of rice; Taraba, three trucks of highland tea; and Gombe, six trucks of assorted food items.

He said that were many other groups who visited and donated food items in the last five years but certainly not cash to Borno Government.

We have received tremendous support from international community but no foreign country or any international partner within or outside the UN and major world donors gave any cash to our administration from 2011 to date for the IDPs.

He noted that the World Food Programme also made intervention of food and recently they were doing conditional cash transfers which was being handled by officials of the organisation.

(NAN)
The National Association of Nigeria Students (NANS) on Saturday gave seven days ultimatum to Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State to unconditionally reopen the state university in Anyigba.

A statement signed by the National President of NANS, Tijani Shehu, made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja, stated that the ultimatum would take effect from July 4.

It said that the association called on the governor to immediately address their requests bothering on the states economy, welfare of Nigerian students of Kogi State origin and state workers.

It said the failure of the government to do so; the association student would stage a protest on the streets of the state capital, Lokoja.

It said the position of the association was based on the preliminary report from its Joint Campus Committee, Kogi State chapter.

The statement said that the association expressed displeasure on perpetual refusal to resolve the crisis that led to the continued closure of the university.

It said that the strike had kept the students at home for about three months, thereby, making most of them vulnerable to social vices and crimes.

We also decried the refusal of Kogi State Government to continue the age long policy of bursary and scholarship payment to Kogi students even when we know the state has not been this buoyant in the last one year.

It is our advocacy that the educational sector be accorded it rightful place in accordance to the UNESCO resolutions on educational development globally.

Also of serious concern is the continue withholding of three state allocations plus bailout funds meant to ameliorate the long suffering workers whose children are already out of school, it added.

The statement said that the association also condemned what it described as the crippling of the banking sector in the state as a result of the poor policy of the state government.

It said that the state government had directed all staff to use only designated banks (Access and Zenith Bank) in eventual payment of their arrears.

This is leading to banks closing shops and leading to high retrenchment of staff, thereby worsening the state of already battered labour force and overriding their fundamental human right to basic freedom of choice, it said.

It added that the association demanded the reversal of the state policy on restricted banking, which they said was killing the one time viable sector with the negative consequences on our tiny economy.

It stated that the association called for immediate commencement of disbursement of students scholarship and bursary as well as prompt payment of staff salaries as at when due.

The National Secretariat hereby issues a seven days ultimatum with immediate effect from Monday July 4, on the governor to respond to our prayers.

The governor should do the needful before we pass a vote of no confidence on his administration.

We have resolve to start mobilising Nigerian students down for a total shutdown of Kogi economy to occupy the street of Lokoja in solidarity with the poor masses and civil servant, it stated.

(NAN)
The plot to remove the Speaker of the Cross River State House of Assembly, John Lebo, continued as 11 of the 24 lawmakers reportedly signed a notice to remove him from office.

The anti-Lebo group, known as the Restoration Family, has accused Mr. Lebo of treating them with disrespect.

Its leader, Simon Nkoro, in an interview with PREMIUM TIMES accused the speaker of incompetence.

He said he and 10 of his colleagues signed the impeachment notice, and that seven other lawmakers recently agreed to sign the document in the coming week.

Those of us planning to remove the speaker are the most experienced lawmakers in the house and who had overlooked the excesses of the speaker since he assumed office, he said.

Mr. Nkoro, who doubles as the deputy leader of the Assembly, further alleged that the speaker oppressed some members by constantly denying them opportunities to contribute during proceedings.

The lawmaker, who represents Ikom 2 state constituency, added that, There is no water in the assembly complex and no welfare package for lawmakers and their aides, yet the speaker has deliberately refused to take action to address these issues.

The beauty of democracy is that they must be divergent views. So the impeachment plan is part of legislative proceedings and an internal legislative affair that cannot be done from the outside.

Last year when Hilary Bisong made the move for the speakers impeachment, most of us, who were more experienced felt it was too early, even when there were serious issues that would have warranted his impeachment, he said.



Although the ruling Peoples Democratic Party and the Deputy Governor, Ivara Esu, met with the aggrieved lawmakers, they have insisted that Mr. Lebo must go.

What we can assure you is that we are not going to do anything in the governors absence. Immediately he is back, we will present the impeachment notice to him, Mr. Nkoro said.

In his reaction, Mr. Lebo denied that he was under any impeachment threat from his colleagues

He, however, acknowledged that there was disaffection among lawmakers over welfare issues resulting from the non- payment of their quarterly oversight and aides allowances.

The speakers reaction was contained in a statement signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Azogor Ideba.

With regards to all the welfare issues, payments and official vehicles complained about by the members, the speaker is also affected, Mr. Ideba said.

This is the first speaker, who resides with the members in the same quarters. In fact, he is still occupying the same house that was allocated to him in his first term as a member.

Cross River State House of Assembly is not the only house of assembly in the country where members are unhappy about their welfare due to the economic downturn in the country.

The Speaker enjoys the full support of the assembly and this is evident in the response of members to plenary and committee meetings.
The Ijaw Youths Council, IYC, on Sunday condemned the Niger Delta Avengers for its renewed sabotage of oil and gas facilities.

The Niger Delta Avengers in an online statement claimed to have blown up two oil wells operated by Chevron near Abiteye flow station, Delta.

According to a statement issued by Eric Omare, the spokesperson for the IYC, the attacks were a setback to ongoing peace talks.

He called on the group to halt attacks on oil installations to pave way for meaningful dialogue.

It is unfortunate and worrisome that there is a resumption of fresh attacks on oil facilities in the Niger Delta region by the Niger Delta Avengers.

The visit of the Minister for State, Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwus to the creeks some weeks ago generated so much goodwill and commendation from the people of the region.

The IYC had expected the federal government to take advantage of that goodwill to engage stakeholders on how to find short and long term solutions to the problem.

IYC also call on the Niger Delta Avengers to halt further attacks on facilities considering the negative effects of the attacks on the Niger Delta environment and give room for constructive dialogue, Mr. Omare said.
Gov. Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa on Sunday asked the federal government to pay outstanding allowances to ex-militants.

He appealed to ex-militants under the amnesty programme to shelve planned protests over non-payment of their allowances.

The governor urged the ex-agitators to be calm and exercise patience with the Federal Government over delay in the payment of their stipends.

The appeal was made in a statement issued on Sunday in Yenagoa by the State Commissioner for Information, Jonathan Obuebite,

The statement quoted Dickson as advising all stakeholders in the Niger Delta struggle to eschew violence and live in peace as issues concerning their welfare will soon be addressed by the Federal Government.

He also called on the Presidential Amnesty Office to urgently pay whatever was due the ex-agitators.

The governors call is coming amidst plans by the ex-agitators to disrupt the peace and national asset.
MISSOULA -- Robert Howe knows full well how hard it is to find and keep a permanent place to live after spending time in prison for a felony conviction.

During a low point in his life and after a series of what he calls very poor decisions, he found himself locked up for felony DUI. After he got out in May 2012, the only place that would hire him was Taco Bell. In Montana, job-seekers are forced to check a box on their application if theyve ever had a felony conviction. And when employers are sifting through big piles of applications, the ones with that box marked yes often just get tossed aside.

Without a good-paying job, its hard to pay rent. Also, most returning citizens dont have any credit, so thats another knock on their application. They might not have good references, and they often have to check the same box for a felony conviction when filling out a housing application. Many studies have shown that not finding a job or a permanent place to live are good indicators that a convict will re-offend and return to the cycle of imprisonment.

Thats why Howe has decided to make it his lifes mission to help recently released inmates find stable housing in Missoula. He and a business partner Steven Smith currently manage Good Neighbors Missoula, an organization that is in the process of becoming a nonprofit. They provide Missoulas only transition housing for those returning from incarceration.

Ive had my own struggles trying to find housing, you know, with a conviction on my record, Howe said. Its not easy because you dont know anybody. So since Ive been released Ive made it a real point to give back to my community and provide whatever else I can for people who need it. I remember the desperation, knowing what that felt like.

Theyve recently opened up their third location, and nearly a dozen men  they hope to open up a fourth location for women soon  are living together as they seek to find a more permanent solution.

I essentially act as a landlord  but I like to call myself a peer  to provide opportunities for those who are in transition, Howe explained. Everything is self-funded. We get no grants, no state or federal funding, everything is funded by the business and individuals who pay rent.

The men in the housing range from teenagers to guys in their 50s. Some have been locked up for just six months, but others have spent years in prison.

Because the properties are privately owned, Howe cant accept people with sexual assault convictions but he can accept people who have been convicted of violent crimes on a limited basis.

We dont tolerate violence, threats of violence or substance abuse, he said. The tenants must also abide by curfews and attend all screenings and meetings required by their probation officers.

Howe knows most returning citizens dont have a lot of cash, so he only charges a $150 move-in fee. He also doesnt require credit and all utilities are paid. The tenants live there as long as they need to until theyre comfortable enough to move out.

They have to learn to live together as roommates, but Howe says he hasnt seen any disputes bigger than what you would find at any typical dorm room or shared housing situation.

He said that the property owners found him through another organization in town, Partners for Reintegration. Once he got started, other landlords began contacting him because they believed in what he was doing. He says his tenants are busting many common stereotypes about those who have served time in prison.

One of my tenants saw that an elderly neighbors grass was getting long, so he went over there and cut her lawn for her, he explained. "They do things like that all the time."

His tenants find out about him in a variety of ways as well.

People get connected to me in a lot of different ways, Howe explained. Im housing one person that I met at McDonalds. I went to grab lunch and a gentleman asked if I could spare some change. I got to talking with him, and ended up housing him. I work with the Department of Corrections and the faith-based community here in town and Partners for Reintegration. People come to me from all over.

Although he hasnt made any money off the entire operation yet and has expended a lot of sweat and time, Howe said its the success stories that motivate him.

He recently had one of his 19-year-old tenants move out and get his own place.

It gives me goosebumps just thinking about it, Howe said.

***

William Harvey, 27, is one of the young men that lives in a property managed by Howe. He got caught with marijuana when he was a senior in high school, or as he puts it, a month into adulthood.

That kind of set the tone for what has been a nine-year journey through the system, he explained.

He was eight months from completing that sentence when he was caught with another three ounces, so he had to start his sentence over and a judge tacked on an additional five years.

I take full accountability for having the weed and making the choices I did, he says. I dont necessarily agree with the consequences, but thats a whole other issue.

Like many other former inmates who transitioned into the Missoula Prerelease Center, his first home outside of jail was a motel room. He got a good deal on the fee because he worked there, but other guys were paying $1,000 a month. A lot of other people end up at the Poverello Center, a homeless shelter in town.

The Pov is not ideal if youre trying to find a job, Harvey explained.

He sent applications to 10 different property management places in town. On almost all of them, he had to check a box acknowledging that he was a convicted felon. And, not surprisingly, he didnt get a single call back.

They would tell me the place was already rented, but I would see it was still for rent on Craigslist, Harvey explained. Or I would just not hear back from them after I paid the application fee. One agency wanted me to jump through a bunch of hoops with a bunch of paperwork. So this place is a godsend. If this had fallen through, I probably would have had to wait it out at the Pov.

The Good Neighbors Missoula house where he lives with five other guys has tomato plants, a cut lawn and a nice exterior. Theyre good neighbors, and Harvey has a professional job now.

Harvey said that that the prerelease center should focus as much on trying to find stable housing for people transitioning back into society as they do on getting them employment. He believes housing could prevent a lot of prison recidivism. He says that a lot of men who find themselves in a situation similar to his, recently released into society and having no luck finding a place to live, are tempted to do drugs or commit the same offenses that landed them in jail in the first place.

If I had had to live at the Pov, that would have been my first experience with homelessness, he said. It would not have been good. I dont think I would have been able to secure the position Ive secured, employment-wise, living out of the Pov. So it would have all bad. It would have affected a lot of different aspects of my life. When you have an expiration date at your residence and you dont have a place lined up, (the possibility of using drugs again) is always in the back of your mind.

***

Jana Staton, a volunteer with Partners for Reintegration, said that landlords arent required to ask potential tenants if theyve had a felony conviction, but many do anyway.

Its not required, but its a practice and the practice is pretty customary, she said. The practice locally is tenants who check that box never get considered. Thats probably because theres so many people trying to get housing. Its hard to say that they deliberately discriminate.

Staton said some private landlords dont ask the question, but many do.

A lot of them are told to be up front about it so its not a problem later on, but then of course it is a problem," she said.

She said Howes work has been incredible in the community.

Hes certainly a shining light for someone who has taken on the private landlord model, she said. What hes done is incredible, because theres not money behind it. Hes got no big agency behind him. If we didnt have Robert Howe, we'd have a big problem.

Good Neighbors Missoula is currently seeking donations of toilet paper, toothpaste, beds, furniture, laundry detergent and other basic supplies. For more information text Howe at 406-498-5437.
The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, has said that he has not taken any position on the Abia governorship crisis because his view has not been sought.

Mr. Malami, however, advised parties involved in the crisis to await the decision of the court before taking any action.

This is contained in a statement signed by Salisu Isah, the Chief Press Secretary to the Minister and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday in Abuja.

In the statement, Mr. Isah said that as far as the minister was concerned, the constitutional powers for the legal opinion of his office had not been sought on the issue.

He said that so far, nobody had approached the minister to proffer any legal opinion on the matter.

As a strong believer in the rule of law, it is my belief that the law should naturally take its cause; the attorney-general will not be dragged into this controversy at this point.

The parties involved should await the decision of the courts.

Governor Okezie Ikpeazu was sacked by the court after he was found guilty of tax evasion. The court also ordered the electoral commission, INEC, to issue a certificate of return to Mr. Ikpeazus main challenger for the Peoples Democratic Party ticket, Uche Ogah. Although INEC complied with the directive, Mr. Ikpeazu has filed an appeal against the court judgement and still sits as governor.

Mr. Malamis statement said the federal government was not involved in the dispute.

The attention of the attorney-general has been drawn to the insinuations and crass lies being peddled by a cross-section of Nigerians and various media platforms alleging his involvement in the legal logjam in the state.

He wishes to clarify that those canvassing this position have no basis to do so. Of particular concern are those who have peddled ill-natured rumours with a view to misinform our discerning populace.

They want to misinform them that it was the minister, and by extension, the Federal Government that gave directives to INEC to issue Certificate of Return to Dr Uchechukwu Ogah declaring him governor-elect.

The attorney-general has definitely not taken any action either by spoken words or body language as far as this Abia governorship crisis is concerned.

The press secretary said the rumours were not true.

(NAN)
The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, has commenced demolition of houses and shops erected on pipelines in Ogun State, an official said.

The spokesperson of the NSCDC in Ogun, Kareem Olanrewaju, told PREMIUM TIMES on Sunday that the demolition started on Friday.

The demolition exercise which started on Friday covers gas pipelines located around Oju-Ore in Ota, Adodo-Ota Local Government Area of Ogun State where some people in defiance to several warning by the Corps had erected different types of illegal structures on Shell gas pipeline that supplies industries in Sango and Agbara, he said.

Mr. Olanrewaju said the corps sent several warning letters to owners of the affected buildings before the demolition began. He said members of the communities were also warned of the dangers of such buildings.

The spokesperson said subsequent demolitions will cover Ota, Oju-Ore, Obasanjo road, Petedo and OPIC areas of Agbara.

The Corps hereby appeals to communities around the location of gas pipelines not to or allow any person to erect structure on gas pipelines as the consequence of such action will have direct impact on their lives and environment, he said.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Sunday arrested Iyiola Omisore, a former deputy governor of Osun State.

Hours after online media, Sahara Reporters, broke the news of Mr. Omisores arrest, a family friend of the politician confirmed it to PREMIUM TIMES.

Mr. Omisore, a former senator, was arrested on Sunday morning in Abuja, the source said.

The Osun politicians arrest is believed to be related to allegations that he, through firms linked to him, received N1.3 billion from the former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki.

Mr. Dasuki is currently being prosecuted for allegedly mismanaging about $2.1 billion meant for purchase of arms for the military.

The EFCC in March declared Mr. Omisore wanted for his alleged roles in the scandal. In response, Mr. Omisore, who was the Peoples Democratic Party candidate in the last Osun governorship election, threatened to sue the anti-graft agency for N500 million damages for defamation.

The spokesperson for the EFCC, Wilson Uwujaren, did not return PREMIUM TIMES calls and text messages seeking an update on the arrest. The PDP spokesperson in Osun, Diran Odeyemi, was yet to reply an e-mail sent to him at the time of publishing.

More details soon
The Lagos State Police Command has said it has recovered eight stolen vehicles from a member of a syndicate specializing in trans-border crime and stealing vehicles in Lagos and moving them to Ogun and neighbouring countries to sell.

In a statement on Sunday, the police said officers of the Rapid Response Squad, who were working on a reported case of stolen Toyota Corolla from where it was parked in Ikeja Business District, Lagos, tracked the vehicle on Thursday night to a compound in Kobape, Abeokuta, belonging to a car dealer.

It was gathered that the Toyota Corolla, grey, 2004 model with registration number, KRD 759, belonging to Olaitan Lawal, was removed from the car park during a church programme at Ikeja, at about 6:00 p.m. on Thursday before it was found around 1:00 a.m. on Friday.

I took my car to the church and I parked it at the space designated for parking, the police quoted Mrs. Lawal as saying.

After the church service, I went back to pick my car to go home, but I couldnt find the car.

Immediately, I called Lagos emergency line on 112 and I reported to the representative. As if that was not enough, I went straight to Area F in Ikeja, to equally lodge the complaint.

At the police station, Mrs. Lawal said the Divisional Police Officer, DPO, connected her to the Commander of RRS, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Olatunji Disu, to help her with the case.

The DPO also gave me the Commanders phone number, and, when I called him, he assured me that my car would be found, said Mrs. Lawal.

By this time, it was around 9:00 p.m. at night. At home, I couldnt sleep until around, 12:15 a.m. after midnight when I saw the Commanders call requesting that I describe my car. I gave him, and he told me that he had found my car in somewhere in Abeokuta. I couldnt believe my ears. In about six hours interval, my car was found.

The police said the RRS surveillance team moved to Abeokuta that same night which led to the arrest of two prime suspects who had confessed their connections with the recovered Corolla and seven other stolen cars currently at the RRS headquarters.

The suspects, Samuel Adebeshin, the receiver of the stolen vehicles, who lives at 13 Kobape Road, Abeokuta, and an accomplice, Adeyemi Kamoru, repeatedly maintained that the eight vehicles were all stolen at different locations in Lagos, according to the police.

I have been in auto business for thirty years, the police quoted Mr. Adebeshin, 56, as saying in his confessional statement.

I know all these cars brought to me were all stolen cars but I thought I was safe enough here in my palatial compound.

He said he met Mr. Adeyemi, who acted as a middleman, about two years ago.

He was the middleman between me and the car thieves, Mr. Adebeshin said.

He was the one who introduced Alhaji Tajudeen and one honourable, both still at large, to me as car dealers and crossers from Benin Republic.

Later on, I discovered they were car snatchers from Lagos. At this point, I couldnt back out from the deal. Anytime they bring cars to me, it was Adeyemi who I give money to pay them because I didnt want people to identify me with them.

Mr. Adebeshin said he bought a Honda from his accomplices for N300,000 in 2014, although the vehicles market value at the time was N900,000.

The money was given to Adeyemi. I later sold the car for Four Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira six months after, he said.

Also, in the month of January 2015, I bought another Honda Accord 2000 model from them again; I also paid the thieves through our middleman, Adeyemi.

The suspect, who is married with two wives and seven children, noted that he had built two houses, two flats and an 8-room bungalow from his business.

I built my first house, an 8 room-bungalow in 2006, and the second one, two flats in 2015 where I keep the stolen vehicles as they arrive from Lagos, he said.

Once they bring the cars for me, we would repaint it, change their number plates and chassis numbers, and take them to neighbouring countries for sale.

Occasionally, I sold to people at my car mart, S. Aro Motors situated at 1, Kuto Road, Isabo, Abeokuta. On this penultimate day, at about 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, Adeyemi called me that our boys have brought another Toyota Corolla for sale.

By this time, I wasnt at home, but I instructed my first son to open gate for them. The car was parked in my premises, awaiting the usual refurbishment and painting.

However, at about 12:30 a.m. a team of policemen came to my house and asked me to give account of the Toyota Corolla car. I opened up to them. I told them that all those involved are Adeyemi, Alhaji Tajudeen Bello and Honourable. They brought all those cars to me. I took the Police to Adeyemis residence where he was arrested while others were still at large.

On his part, Mr. Adeyemi said poverty pushed him into crime.

I met Adebeshin some years back, the police quoted Mr. Adeyemi, 50, as saying.

Before now, I do assist him to cross vehicle from Benin to Nigeria. Anytime those boys went for operation and succeeded, they will call me, and I will inform him that we have another car.

And I will drive the car to his premises in Kobape where buyers usually come to buy them.

Mr. Adeyemi said he received N30,000 after every deal.

On this day, one of the car snatchers called me to meet them at K. interchange. On getting there, I found out they have another stolen car.

I led them from Sagamu interchange to Adebesins house. Alhaji drove the stolen car, while Bello drove Pontiac black colour. This was the first time I will be arrested in connection with stolen cars. It was poverty and frustration that led me to this criminal act.

The other seven vehicles recovered from Adebeshins compound were Mercedes Benz 230; Acura MDX; Murano, Volkswagen Passat station wagon, Renault, Pontiac and Toyota Camry.

Dolapo Badmus, the Lagos State Police spokesperson, said the suspects are helping the police with investigations, adding that efforts are ongoing to arrest other fleeing members of the syndicate.
( Read 10438 Times)

Udaipur : Further to its customer centric initiatives, Tata Motors today organised a special meet and greet for Xenon customers with the U Mumba team players, in Jaipur. Held at the companys dealership, the event saw the presence of Mr. Rakesh Kumar, former vice-captain of the Indian kabaddi team, Mr. Surender Nada and Mr. Nitin Kumar, star players of the U Mumba team who felicitated Tata Motors Xenon customers in the city.Commenting on the association, Mr Anurag Dubey, Business Head- SCV, Pickups and LCV CargoCommercial Vehicle Business, Tata Motors said, "We are delighted to host Team U Mumba at the Tata Motors dealership in Jaipur. Today is indeed a joyful day for our customers, who have been felicitated by the teams star players. Tata Motors is committed to enhancing dealer networks and customer experiences, and our association with Team U Mumba for Season 4 of the Pro Kabaddi league, is yet another focused initiative by the company. The Xenon represents strength and ruggedness, which further reiterates our association with Team U Mumba. We wish all the players the very best for this season and look forward to many more such successful associations."Kabaddi, a popular sport in India connects with the masses across rural and urban areas. Tata Motors association with team U Mumba reiterates the values the vehicle shares, with both the sport and the team, i.e. tough, rugged, consistent performance, zeal to overcome obstacles & win. Currently, Pro Kabaddi is the second most watched sport on Indian television. The Pro Kabaddi series is gaining popularity every season and team U Mumba has proven its skills in every season. In the coming days, Team U Mumba will visit Tata Motors dealerships across India. Currently leading the chart with sixty points, the team will play Patnaat the SawaiMansingh Stadium, Jaipur tomorrow.The Tata Xenon reinforces Tata Motors endeavour to continuously provide new and varied offering to its customers. Through the companys rural marketing initiative Neev that began in 2010, Tata Motors aims to penetrate remote markets and grown the companys small commercial vehicle business.
( Read 5300 Times)

Udaipur : Bosch Household Appliances, Europes largest home appliances brand renowned for its German Engineering, superior quality and great performance;has inaugurated its first exclusive retail brand store in Udaipur today.The 840 sq. ft Bosch Home appliances store located in Ashok Nagar, Udaipurwill display an array of Bosch free standing and built in appliances. With this new brand store, Bosch will make the leading German patent application technology more accessible to its valued customers in the region. Bosch has created a landmark in the Indian consumer durable space with its free standing range that includes refrigerators, washing machine, dryers and dishwashers and the built in range of cooking hobs, hoods and ovens.With the34th store opening, the German engineered company is poised to present its leadership in innovative consumer technology space that offers 100% performance. Bosch believes in delivering great looking products that are of top quality, energy efficient and user friendly. With this first exclusive brand store in Udaipur,Bosch not only increases its presence in the Rajasthan market but also reaffirms its India commitment of making superior technology and top notch service more accessible.Commenting on this footprint expansion, Mr. Gunjan Srivastava, MD & CEO, BSH Household Appliances Manufacturing Pvt. Ltdsaid, NorthIndia is a strategicgeography for Bosch and we aim for it to play a key role in Bosch India chapter growth. Bosch has an incredible customer base in the northern states of India, whove remained loyalists and further contributed to our growth.Our brand new store in Udaipur will furthermore strengthen our commitment of delivering best in class products, which deliver quality with 100% performance in India.He further added, We, at Bosch,just like our Indian consumers believe that home appliances mustlook perfect and also work perfectly; we are also sticklers for quality and performance. We run a number of tests on our perfectly crafted products before introducing them into the market. At Bosch we are passionate about the technology that we use in our machines and hence want to deliver the absolute best to our customers in Udaipur. This store will take forward our home appliance legacy and ensure that the customers work lessand our machines deliver more. This will be our 34thBosch store in India.Bosch has recently launched a No Damage campaign for its new series of washing machines which marks its entry in the 6.5 to 8 kg laundry category. This range is Equipped with Variodrum Technology with unique wave droplet design, the Bosch washing machines ensure that clothes are washed gently with no damage whatsoever.Though the Bosch range of free standing appliances is made by German engineers, they are approved by Indian women. In a country where the women pick nothing less than perfect, Bosch is pleased to be authenticated by them. The features of the free standing appliances are specially customized to meet the Indian needs. For example, the north market raised voltage fluctuations and the possible damage to their electronic appliances, as a major concern. The new range of free standing appliances of Bosch hasVoltCheck that detects erratic voltage fluctuations and stops the electricity supply to the machine. When the voltage is stable it starts the program from where it stopped thus saving energy and the machine.Boschs built in appliances offer world class quality and design that easily fit into the kitchen cabinets, advanced technology to deliver perfect results and safety features to protect the children and consumers from harm.The brand store is located inGodha Enterprises, 222 Ashok Nagar, Main Road, Udaipur. Bosch and Siemens home appliances have a manufacturing unit set up in Chennai and with this brand store, Bosch aims tostrengthen its foothold in the northern states of the country. Bosch is at present Europes leading household appliance brand that defines superior German technology which facilitates convenience.
MISSOULA -- Gov. Steve Bullock allowed 875 bills to become law during his first term, but the 129 measures he vetoed highlight core differences with Republican legislators that have been the topic of repeated campaign attacks.

The Legislature holds lawmaking authority, but the governors job, in part, is to drive the divided group toward solutions on key issues. Some, like infrastructure funding, are priorities for both parties that will pass or fail because of details, such as whether to use cash or go into debt. Other proposals, like lowering income tax, are sought by one party but denounced by the other.

Whether Bullock wins re-election or loses to Republican Greg Gianforte will set the tone for 2017 lawmaking. Some bills vetoed by Bullock would likely become law if Gianforte is elected to lead the state, while some measures passed by a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans, such as Medicaid expansion and tightened campaign finance laws, could be more susceptible to repeal or revisions.

The possibility has fueled speculative attacks by Democrats, who highlight contributions by Gianforte to organizations that lobbied against some of those measures. Likewise, Gianforte has repeatedly denounced many of Bullocks vetoes as failed leadership. He declined to name specific policies he knows he would veto if they reached his desk.

At a simplistic level, Im going to sign the good bills and veto the bad bills, Gianforte said, saying he would have supported tax reductions, infrastructure funding, regulation tweaks to strengthen natural resource development and bills to expand gun rights.

Bullock has a different definition of good bill.

A Lee State Bureau review of his vetoes shows where Bullock has drawn the line on favored Republican proposals. He has consistently vetoed bills to lower income taxes, citing the need for a balanced budget, and those that would loosen water regulations to encourage new development but potentially harm water quality.

With nine vetoes, Republican Sen. Cary Smith of Billings has had more bills killed by Bullock than any other legislator, including proposals to expand monitoring for welfare fraud that the governor called redundant, a measure to define the scope of sex education in schools that Bullock said is a decision best left at the local level, a measure to limit the time window patients have to file malpractice lawsuits that would have set a different standard from other negligence suits, and bills to allow out-of-state insurance companies to sell policies in Montana, which Bullock argued would be tough to monitor.

Greg (Gianforte) would be certainly a governor more on the same lines of policy that I am, Smith said.

Republican Sens. Roger Webb of Billings and Duane Ankney ranked second, having accrued five vetoes apiece for measures that ranged from barring state health officials, for privacy reasons, from collecting basic identifying information about home health workers aiding the elderly to adding a new definition of a natural stream that likely would have helped Arch Coal permit the proposed Otter Creek mine.

Lucky me, Webb laughed. You cant write an article big enough. That man seriously is such a detriment to the people of Montana and most of that stuff is common sense stuff. Man, this things been looked at by 150 people. What gives one guy the right to say its not a good bill when 150 people said it was?

Webb said he spoke with Gianforte about all his vetoed bills and received a favorable response.

Ankney admitted that one of his vetoed measures, which would have provided $35 million to local governments in eastern Montana stretched thin by the Bakken boom, was one of several spending bills given to Bullock to test the governors commitment to a $300 million rainy day fund, which Republicans called excessive.

That was a bad one, Ankney said. Because all indications were he was signing that bill, so I was really surprised.

Rep. Keith Regier, R-Kalispell, said that if Gianforte is elected, other proposals might surface that legislators have not brought forward with a Democrat in the governors office.

Ive heard from other people, Why go through all the trouble of getting it through both chambers to put it on his desk if hes just going to veto it? he said, unsure of what those proposals might be.

Bullock said some bills that he vetoed, like the 2015 proposal to lower income tax rates, were likely pushed through the Legislature for political posturing.

By the Legislatures own balance sheets, they were already upside down $500 million. But maybe that bill was chosen so they could say, That governor is vetoing tax cuts, he said. Maybe in 2013 they said, Well really show him. Well hold all these bills and put them on his desk the last day, so they left me no choice but to veto them or sign them even if it busts the budget because the ammendatory veto window had run out.

The number of gubernatorial vetoes spiked in recent years from a handful to several dozen each session. In 2009, Democrats controlled one chamber and fellow party member Gov. Brian Schweitzer vetoed 11 bills. In 2011, when Republicans gained majorities in both the House and Senate, Schweitzer registered veto as a brand, burning the word into dozens of printed-out bills on the Capitol steps, a tally that would reach a 20-year high of 80 vetoes. Bullock, who inherited the same divided government, issued 73 vetoes in 2013 and 56 in 2015.

If you have a governor from one party and both houses of the Legislature are controlled by the other party, its not surprising that the Legislature is going to pass some bills that the governor isnt going to like, University of Montana political scientist Robert Saldin said. The other thing is that our parties have become more polarized. The Republican party has become more conservative and the Democrats have become more liberal over time, so there are fewer of those people in the middle who can broker compromises than there were several decades ago.

In a more general way, to me, the fact theres a lot of vetoes isnt necessarily a problem. Vetoes can be an important part of reaching a compromise, too, Saldin said. That can be part of the negotiation process of how governments function. I dont think weve gotten to the point where the governor refused to sign anything and we have a standoff. Bills do get passed.

Most bills that fail to become law are killed by the Legislature. Committees kill them, the House or Senate votes against them or the measures fail to move to the next chamber by transmittal deadlines. When Bullock had 56 vetoes in 2015, 677 bills died in the Legislative process and 454 became law. About a third of the passed bills were sponsored by Democrats, including some priority pieces of legislation that only passed because the governor helped broker a coalition with some moderate Republicans.

I think Democrats will pick up seats and I think the primary fight in the Republican party, the outcome of that helped him, Montana State University political scientist David Parker said, noting that moderate Republicans were not unseated by more conservative challengers that would be less likely to compromise with the governor. Theoretically, Gianforte going on should have more of his Legislative packages passed, but Bullocks always going to have more vetoes because the Legislature starts from a position where theres less agreement.

Saldin agreed, but said that even if Gianforte is elected, the bipartisan coalition might remain.

It would put those moderate Republicans a little bit more in the drivers seat, he said. They could just as easily work with more conservative Republicans as they would the Democrats.

At the Republican partys recent platform convention, Gianforte called for party unity, saying if elected he would work to bring GOP legislators together. But if a coalition-backed bill crosses his desk, he might be left in the position of deciding which faction of his party to support.

If Gianforte is elected governor and Republicans maintain control of the Legislature, they will probably see eye-to-eye on economic issues and tax issues, Carroll College political scientist Jeremy Johnson said. On other topics, It depends on which line Republicans push.
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.




Ideally, Richard Buswell should be interviewed out on some overgrown path as he sets out by jeep and foot in search of his quest -- the decaying remains of a Montana ghost town.

These are the places where the sounds of voices and footsteps have long ago faded but traces are left of those who once lived here decades ago.

Buswell, a retired Helena physician who is now 71, is in pursuit of what has been his passion for 45 years, the perfect black-and-white photo that captures his unique vision of the relics left behind.

Buswells quiet pursuit of perfection hasnt gone unnoticed.

NEW BOOK AND MAJOR YALE ACQUISITION

His fifth black-and-white photography book, What They Left Behind, is due out by the University of New Mexico Press in January 2017.

And the Yale University Collection of Western Americana just completed its purchase of 331 of his photos, Buswell said, almost my total output of the past 45 years.

At this time, 225 museums, nationally and internationally, have collected his photos, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Corcoran Gallery of Art.

The Holter Museum of Art is planning a solo exhibit of his work and the Montana Museum of Art and Culture plans a 2017 exhibit.

Buswell has had 46 solo exhibitions since 1992.

When Buswell sets out on his photo quests, he carries a 42-pound pack that holds the same 35mm Nikkormat camera he purchased 45 years ago.

In fact, it holds two of the same camera bodies, four lenses, three tripods and accessories.

THE QUEST

A perfect day for an outing is overcast, giving him just the natural, atmospheric light he prefers.

Ill wait hours for the lighting to be just right, he said. Its an exercise in patience.

Although hes often driven and hiked hours to reach his obscure destination, Buswell doesnt just snap dozens of pictures to ensure a good shot.

Instead, he shoots maybe 10 or 20 photos in an entire year.

My biggest aesthetic dilemma is finding something fresh, he said, finding something Ive never seen before.

When he gets his perfect shot, he develops the film and prints in his home darkroom, using the same equipment he purchased 45 years ago.

A single print typically takes days of work to get the paper, developer solutions and developing time just right.

When hes finally happy with the result, Buswell puts the print in a selenium bath to ensure its archival quality, so it can last for centuries.

Its very permanent, Buswell said. The photo will remain even when all the buildings are gone.

Although the camera and basic subject are the same, Buswells eye for the perfect photo has changed over the decades.

CLOSE UP AND ABSTRACT

My interest in photography has shifted from representative imagery to more close up and abstract, he said.

His interest in ghost towns dates back to childhood adventures -- ghost town outings with his parents.

Although, hes been visiting ghost towns in Western Montana for more than a half century, hes never grown bored with his subject nor run out of ideas.

I keep a master list of places I want to visit, he said. I will have to live to be 100 to visit them all.

He also keeps a list of where hes been, which he doesnt share -- in order to protect the sites from being plundered.

Its truly a privilege, he said, to do this work in Montana. In more populated states, all this stuff would be gone.

A self-taught photographer and historian, he learns about ghost towns by word of mouth and his own research.

UNIQUE EYE

The places that Buswell visits often exhibit an understated natural beauty, wrote George Miles, curator of the Yale Collection of Western Americana, in the foreword to Buswells fourth book, Close to Home.

He notes that Buswell doesnt seek out the theme park environments of famous ghost towns, but rather the quiet, sober reality of truly abandoned mills, mines, ranches, and homes, places that were probably no more than marginally successful in their heyday.

Buswells images--even at their most abstract--seem to exult in revealing to us the qualities of a particular thing or place, Miles wrote.

The Yale Collection purchases manuscripts, photos, artworks and rare books that depict the people, the places and the history of the North American West, Miles said in a phone interview from Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

It is generally regarded as one of three or four of the largest, most significant collections on the history of the 18th and 19th century of the history of the North American West.

For the past decade Miles has been seeking ways to integrate the history of the more recent West into the collection of the historic West, he said. Richards work is particularly interesting in that vein. ...Weve built probably the most extensive collection of his work.

"Richard took an interest in the remnants, in the surviving objects of Montanas early history, but not with a nostalgic eye. ...I thought his eye ... was quite original and uniquely unsentimental. He had an interesting eye for how nature was reclaiming places.

While Buswells earlier work was more representational, Miles finds is current work fascinating for its abstraction of objects.

Youre not sure what youre looking at in some cases, he said, but you find beauty and symmetry and fascinating patterns of light and dark in the ways in which he looks at an old buffalo skull...or the remnants of an old used up tire, or an old industrial object...as it rusts out.

Richard works in a distinguished tradition of abstraction and he had great fun doing that over the last decade.

Barbara Koostra, director of the Montana Museum of Art and Culture, said the museum, which has worked with Buswell since 1991, will hold its fifth exhibit of his work, What They Left Behind, in 2017 to accompany the publication of the new book, and then travel the exhibit nationally.

He creates a storyline that really intrigues people, Koostra said. I think he gets better and better as he progresses. Thats the hope and dream of all artists.

I think Montana should be extremely proud that his output has such a home as Yale University...at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library within the Western Americana Collection.
"We are demanding the immediate end of police abuse of power in Kenya in solidarity with our dear colleague, Willie; client, Josephat; trusted driver, Joseph; and all those who have fallen victim to the outrageous impunity that has come to plague the nation of Kenya in this era," said Gary Haugen, CEO of International Justice Mission. "Today, we're calling on President Kenyatta to quickly align himself on the side of justice by taking bold action in the swift prosecution of all those involved in this horrific murder and removal of the head of the Administration Police, Deputy Inspector General Samuel M. Arachi."

On Monday, July 4, the Civil Society of Kenya will be joined in Nairobi by orginanizations and individuals in a march for justice in solidarity with Willie Kimani, Josephat Mwenda and Joseph Muiruri, calling for an end to police abuse of power and extrajudicial killings.

Several organizations, governments, and global entities have expressed support for IJM in the pursuit of justice in this case and in ending impunity for police in Kenya. U.S. Ambassador to Kenya, Robert F. Godec and Kenyan Heads of Mission issued the following joint statement:

"The individuals responsible for these crimes must face prosecution regardless of whether they are private citizens or members of the NPS. Holding police officers accountable for violations of human rights and other forms of misconduct is vital to end impunity in the police service and to establish safety and security for all Kenyans."

IJM is closely collaborating with Kenyan local and national law enforcement officials who are leading the ongoing investigation.

Within hours of learning of the incident, IJM leadership activated crisis response teams in Nairobi as well as Washington, DC, to work closely with police officials on the ground and to support the families involved.

IJM's focus moving forward is to ensure the well-being of the families and staff affected by this crime as well as the swift conviction of all involved.

International Justice Mission is a global organization that partners with local authorities to rescue victims of violence, bring criminals to justice, restore survivors, and strengthen public justice systems.

For global media inquiries:

Contact: Julie Kilcur

jkilcur@ijm.org

+1-443-878-5996 (m)

For local Kenyan inquiries:

Contact: Sanjay Sojwal

ssojwal@ijm.org

+254-079-072-3475

Related Links

http://www.justiceinkenya.org



SOURCE International Justice Mission (IJM)
AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France, July 3, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

For the 16th edition of Les Rencontres Economiques d'Aix-en-Provence, the Cercle des economistes calls for a redefinition of the architecture of international, European and French sovereignty.

We are convinced that the existence of countries willing to preserve a large share of their sovereignty needs to come hand in hand with stronger cooperation structures in order to be in line with current global changes.

Sovereignty implies the existence of complete and unshared responsibility. With this in mind, we have come out with twelve measures, constituting a coherent whole. We believe that they will reshape cooperation models in a time of growing global uncertainty, brought about by a third globalisation and the turmoil that came with it - namely the rise of national populism, various forms of violence, isolationist tendencies and the perception of an increase in inequalities.

On a global scale, sovereignty centres around four aspects: environment, finance, numerical data and peacekeeping. In order for this sovereignty to be carried out, traditional international institutions need to fuel their negotiations through a dialogue involving decision-makers, business leaders, civil society representatives and local authorities, as recently exemplified by the COP21.

On a European level, we need to establish a distinction between what must be handled by the European Union and what must be handled by the Euro zone. The European Union should be responsible for European fiscal policies, border control, innovation, and to some extent, European defence. Within the Euro zone itself, integration and sovereignty need to materialise through the implementation of a policy mix and via different forms of industrial policies. Needless to say this requires a significant budget.

Finally, any French political agenda must be inscribed within the territory of its sovereignty. Obviously, diplomacy and a large part of defence should be taken into consideration, but the main focus needs to be social cohesion, economic growth and personal development policies. This definition of national sovereignty entails the priority given to education and housing, and the construction of a second chance society. Reforming fiscal policies as a way to stimulate investment falls within French sovereignty -the creation of an evolving single employment contract, for instance.

For more information, please visit the website of the Rencontres Economiques d'Aix : lesrencontreseconomiques.fr

Press Corps /

Le Cercle des economistes : Anais Paccard / +33(0)6-24-62-55-45 - anais.paccard@cercledeseconomistes.fr

Marion Joubert / +33(0)6-21-94-35-70 -marion.joubert@cercledeseconomistes.fr

Publicis Consultants : Thomas Antoine / +33(0)6-23-34-00-18 - thomas.antoine@consultants.publicis.fr

Romain Sulpice / +33(0)6-64-04-46-84 - romain.sulpice@mslfrance.com et Aubane de Gelis / +33(0)6-30-74-55-27 - aubane.de-gelis@consultants.publicis.fr

SOURCE Cercle des economistes
HEIDENHEIM, Germany, July 3, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Voith announces sale of its stake in KUKA AG for approx. 1,2 billion

Resulting l iquidity to be applied entirely for the fu r ther develo p ment of the portfolio

Further enhancement of Voith's future readiness

Voith accelerates its transformation under its digital agenda. This has been made possible by its successful investment in KUKA AG. After a thorough and comprehensive assessment, the shareholders unanimously voted on 1st July to tender the KUKA stake of 25.1 percent into Midea's voluntary public take-over offer. Voith expects a liquidity inflow of approx. 1.2 billion from the transaction. This means that the KUKA stake has more than doubled in value within about one and a half years.

"Our investment in KUKA has proven a major strategic success. I am convinced that Voith is one of the winners from this take-over bid," says Dr. Hubert Lienhard, the CEO and President of Voith GmbH.

Prior to undertaking the investment in 2014, the company defined six areas of activity as part of its digital agenda: automation, IT security, software platforms, sensors/robotics, data analysis and industrial software development. At the same time, it systematically searched the market for attractive opportunities in these areas. "The investment in a robot manufacturer was always envisaged as an additional element contributing to the digitalisation of the Voith product portfolio," Dr. Lienhard adds. Under the current conditions it makes business sense to sell the share in KUKA. "Disposing of this investment will free up previously tied resources and give us flexibility for investments in organic growth as well as attractive acquisitions. Consequently, the liquidity inflow will be used entirely for the accelerated digital and development transformation of our portfolio."

Voith has made a clear commitment to play an active role in shaping the digital transformation in its markets. With its four divisions, Voith presents an extensive range of facilities, products and services covering the energy, oil and gas, paper, raw materials, and transport and automotive markets. On this basis, Voith is able to digitalise its entire business portfolio, gain access to complementary segments and successfully support and guide new and existing customers in their digitalisation efforts. As the established technology leader with extensive domain knowledge and a large installed base in the market, Voith believes that this approach presents substantial growth potential, which it intends to utilise in the coming years.

Voith sets standards in the markets for energy, oil & gas, paper, raw materials, transport & automotive. Founded in 1867, Voith employs more than 20,000 people, generates 4.3 billion in sales, operates in over 60 countries around the world and is one of the largest family owned companies in Europe.*

* Excluding the discontinued Group Division Voith Industrial Services

Contact:

Lars A. Rosumek

Senior Vice President

Group Communications

Tel. +49-7321-37-38-79

Cell +49-151-2-77-171-44

lars.rosumek@voith.com



Twitter

https://twitter.com/voithgmbh

https://twitter.com/voith_hydro

https://twitter.com/voith_paper

https://twitter.com/voith_turbo

https://twitter.com/Voith_Career

LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/company/voith-gmbh

https://www.linkedin.com/company/voith-hydro

https://www.linkedin.com/company/voith-turbo

https://www.linkedin.com/company/voith-paper

https://www.linkedin.com/company/voith-digital-solutions

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/user/VoithTurboOfficial

https://www.youtube.com/user/VoithPaperDEU

https://www.youtube.com/user/VoithPaperEN

https://www.youtube.com/c/Voith_Hydro

SOURCE Voith GmbH
"We are demanding the immediate end of police abuse of power in Kenya in solidarity with our dear colleague, Willie; client, Josephat; trusted driver, Joseph; and all those who have fallen victim to the outrageous impunity that has come to plague the nation of Kenya in this era," said Gary Haugen, CEO of International Justice Mission. "Today, we're calling on President Kenyatta to quickly align himself on the side of justice by taking bold action in the swift prosecution of all those involved in this horrific murder and removal of the head of the Administration Police, Deputy Inspector General Samuel M. Arachi."

On Monday, July 4, the Civil Society of Kenya will be joined in Nairobi by organizations and individuals in a march for justice in solidarity with Willie Kimani, Josephat Mwenda and Joseph Muiruri, calling for an end to police abuse of power and extrajudicial killings.

Several organizations, governments, and global entities have expressed support for IJM in the pursuit of justice in this case and in ending impunity for police in Kenya. U.S. Ambassador to Kenya, Robert F. Godec and Kenyan Heads of Mission issued the following joint statement:

"The individuals responsible for these crimes must face prosecution regardless of whether they are private citizens or members of the NPS. Holding police officers accountable for violations of human rights and other forms of misconduct is vital to end impunity in the police service and to establish safety and security for all Kenyans."

IJM is closely collaborating with Kenyan local and national law enforcement officials who are leading the ongoing investigation.

Within hours of learning of the incident, IJM leadership activated crisis response teams in Nairobi as well as Washington, DC, to work closely with police officials on the ground and to support the families involved.

IJM's focus moving forward is to ensure the well-being of the families and staff affected by this crime as well as the swift conviction of all involved.

International Justice Mission is a global organization that partners with local authorities to rescue victims of violence, bring criminals to justice, restore survivors, and strengthen public justice systems.



For global media inquiries:

Contact: Julie Kilcur

[email protected]

+1-443-878-5996 (m)

For local Kenyan inquiries:

Contact: Sanjay Sojwal

[email protected]

+254-079-072-3475

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160702/385862

SOURCE International Justice Mission (IJM)

Related Links

http://www.justiceinkenya.org


Name : php

Product : Fedora 23

Version : 5.6.23

Release : 1.fc23

URL : http://www.php.net/

Summary : PHP scripting language for creating dynamic web sites

Description :

PHP is an HTML-embedded scripting language. PHP attempts to make it

easy for developers to write dynamically generated web pages. PHP also

offers built-in database integration for several commercial and

non-commercial database management systems, so writing a

database-enabled webpage with PHP is fairly simple. The most common

use of PHP coding is probably as a replacement for CGI scripts.



The php package contains the module (often referred to as mod_php)

which adds support for the PHP language to Apache HTTP Server.



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-

Update Information:



23 Jun 2016, **PHP 5.6.23** **Core:** * Fixed bug php#72275 (Integer Overflow

in json_encode()/json_decode()/json_utf8_to_utf16()). (Stas) * Fixed bug

php#72400 (Integer Overflow in addcslashes/addslashes). (Stas) * Fixed bug

php#72403 (Integer Overflow in Length of String-typed ZVAL). (Stas) **GD:** *

Fixed bug php#72298 (pass2_no_dither out-of-bounds access). (Stas) * Fixed bug

php#72337 (invalid dimensions can lead to crash) (Pierre) * Fixed bug php#72339

(Integer Overflow in _gd2GetHeader() resulting in heap overflow). (Pierre) *

Fixed bug php#72407 (NULL Pointer Dereference at _gdScaleVert). (Stas) * Fixed

bug php#72446 (Integer Overflow in gdImagePaletteToTrueColor() resulting in

heap

overflow). (Pierre) **Intl:** * Fixed bug php#70484 (selectordinal

doesn't

work with named parameters). (Anatol) **mbstring:** * Fixed bug php#72402

(_php_mb_regex_ereg_replace_exec - double free). (Stas) **mcrypt:** * Fixed

bug php#72455 (Heap Overflow due to integer overflows). (Stas) **Phar:** *

Fixed bug php#72321 (invalid free in phar_extract_file()). (hji at dyntopia dot

com) **SPL:** * Fixed bug php#72262 (int/size_t confusion in

SplFileObject::fread). (Stas) * Fixed bug php#72433 (Use After Free

Vulnerability in PHP's GC algorithm and unserialize). (Dmitry)

**OpenSSL:** *

Fixed bug php#72140 (segfault after calling ERR_free_strings()). (Jakub

Zelenka)

**WDDX:** * Fixed bug php#72340 (Double Free Courruption in wddx_deserialize).

(Stas)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-

References:



[ 1 ] Bug #1351175 - CVE-2016-5772 php: Double Free Corruption in

wddx_deserialize

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1351175

[ 2 ] Bug #1351173 - CVE-2016-5771 php: Use After Free Vulnerability in

PHP's GC algorithm and unserialize

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1351173

[ 3 ] Bug #1351171 - CVE-2016-5770 php: Int/size_t confusion in

SplFileObject::fread

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1351171

[ 4 ] Bug #1351168 - CVE-2016-5768 php: Double free in

_php_mb_regex_ereg_replace_exec

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1351168

[ 5 ] Bug #1351070 - CVE-2016-5769 php: Integer Overflows in mcrypt_generic()

and mdecrypt_generic() resulting in heap overflows

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1351070

[ 6 ] Bug #1351069 - CVE-2016-5767 php: Integer Overflow in

gdImagePaletteToTrueColor() resulting in heap overflow

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1351069

[ 7 ] Bug #1351068 - CVE-2016-5766 php: Integer Overflow in _gd2GetHeader()

resulting in heap overflow

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1351068

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This update can be installed with the "yum" update program. Use

su -c 'yum update php' at the command line.

For more information, refer to "Managing Software with yum",

available at https://docs.fedoraproject.org/yum/.



All packages are signed with the Fedora Project GPG key. More details on the

GPG keys used by the Fedora Project can be found at

https://fedoraproject.org/keys

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-

_______________________________________________

package-announce mailing list

package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org

https://lists.fedoraproject.org/admin/lists/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org


New Delhi, June 29 : Oracle has signed an agreement with ICT Academy of Tamil Nadu (ICTACT) to implement Oracle Academy curriculum across 450 educational institutions in the state to help foster the next generation of IT talent, Oracle here on Wednesday.

"Through this collaboration, we will offer faculty members up-to-date course materials, pedagogical tools and software to use while training other teachers and students. This access to modern curriculum and industry-leading technology will help make the learning process interesting, relevant and effective," said Shailender Kumar, Managing Director of Oracle India.

Under the programme, educators will learn to teach computer science fundamentals, and then train other teachers at ICTACT-affiliated schools in their local communities.

The initiative is expected to benefit 45,000 students and 450 faculty members over the next three years. Once the initial 450 faculty members are trained by Oracle Academy, ICTACT aims to train another 300 faculty.

"This collaboration will help students gain a better understanding about the types of career paths and jobs that are available to them," said Sivakumar M, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ICTACT.

Oracle Academy currently collaborates with more than 1,700 educational institutions in India. During Oracle CEO Safra Catz's recent visit to India, the company announced that it would expand its educational partnerships to another 1,000 institutions with a goal of reaching 500,000 students annually.
Guwahati, June 29 : The army, Assam government, the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) and other rescue and relief agencies carried out an exercise for tackling urban flooding, and provide humanitarian assistance and disaster relief on Wednesday.

The exercise was carried out on the southern bank of the Brahmaputra river near Bhutnath in Santipur area of Guwahati.

Called Jalrahat, the over hour-long drill, kept the spectators on the edge of their seats as personnel from the army, navy and air force, the National Disaster Management Authority, the ASDMA and other agencies worked in tandem to rescue marooned people.

The exercise also showcased how people can save themselves by adopting simple techniques with materials that are available in their surroundings.

The highlights of the drill were aerial recce, rescue by boats, rooftop rescue using helicopters, rescue by aerial ropeway, diving operation, small team incision and extrication operation, manual rescue from multi-storey buildings and dropping of food supplies by helicopters.

Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, who was present on the occasion, said that the plan put in place will help to rescue marooned people in the event of flooding in Guwahati city.

"With the kind of sophistication induced in our technology systems, the rescue and relief operations have got a shot in the arm," he said.

Thanking the armed forces and other agencies, Sonowal pointed out that such exercises should be carried out in rural and interior areas so that people there get valuable tips on how to save themselves at the time of calamities.

"It will be a good endeavour if such exercises are carried out in the rural, far-flung and interior areas of the state to create awareness. People in those areas will get valuable tips as to how to fend themselves," he said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi released the first National Disaster Management Plan 2016 on June 1 and India will host the Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in November.

Lt. Gen Devraj Anbu who heads the army's 4 Corps said the key facets of the National Disaster Management Plan 2016 have been integrated into understanding of disaster risks, disaster risk reduction and enhancing disaster preparedness to save precious lines.

"The aim of the exercise is to synergise the efforts of all stakeholders for enhancing disaster preparedness, assess the effectiveness of the plan, organisational skills and decision support system at each stage of the flood rescue and relief efforts," he said.

Anbu said disaster management right from the planning stage has been evolved with coordinated efforts of the armed forces, National Disaster Management Authority, Assam State Disaster Management Authority and other agencies.
My columns try to call for a common sense perspective in our government and politics. While I approach things from a progressive or liberal bent, in my comments I try to bring facts and reason to bear. In that vein, I believe the impact of Montanas current medical marijuana legal situation on over 12,000 patients calls for the immediate application of some common sense from our state courts.

First, a brief disclaimer: my daughter and son-in-law own and operate a small medical marijuana dispensary that provides specific help to nearly 100 Montanans -- just 7/10th of 1 percent of the 13,640 patients statewide. She tells me that each of their patients has individualized medical needs that are met by use of medical marijuana in specific forms designed to address their individual problems, ranging from glaucoma to rheumatoid arthritis, cancer to epilepsy, Crohns disease to AIDS.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday said that it would not take up a legal appeal of the Montana legal action, just as it does not consider 97-99 percent of the appeals sent its way. That U.S. Supreme Court rejection throws the legal ball totally back into Montanas Court System, where some good government common sense needs to be applied.

Earlier this year data from the state Department of Public Health and Human Services showed 13,640 as the statewide number of medical marijuana patients, ranging from 18 to over 90 years old, and an average patient age of 47 years from nearly every county. Those patients were served by 471 medical cannabis providers, ranging from 1 to over 700 patients. Therein lies the rub and the common sense challenge.

The February 25, 2016, Montana Supreme Court decision restricted each provider/dispensary to three patients, effective Aug. 31. The most patients the 471 providers in Montana could provide medication to would then be 1,413 patients, leaving 12,227 patients without a provider. Most likely, many providers will have to close down. What business or medical provider could operate with just three legislatively mandated patients? So the number of unprotected Montanans will likely be even higher -- more than 12,227 Montanans left hanging, swaying in the wind, come Aug. 31.

That might be the way it is as they say, but there is an intervening fact. Just 80 days later all Montanans will decide at the ballot box whether or not to too re-enact a new and improved responsible and accountable administration of our medical marijuana program. Initiative 182 turned in 42,156 signatures to Clerk & Recorders by the deadline, way more than the 24,175 signatures needed and likely to qualify in 40-50 legislative districts (34 districts required). Based upon history (62 percent voted FOR medical marijuana in 2004) and current strong current support, its likely that every one of those 12,000 plus Montanans ruthlessly thrown off their medicines Aug. 31 will be able to sign up come November.

But, life disruption to what purpose? Thats the common sense challenge. Does this life-altering situation for 12,000 Montanans -- jolting them in and out of their important medical regimes for 80-100 days -- seem to be the best way to handle this technical deadline issue? After all, the implementation of this draconian statute has been in limbo for more than five years. Delaying it another 80-100 days to avoid serious disruption in the lives of over 12,000 Montanans seems to be a no-brainer.

Our courts need to enforce the law, but our system has room for the humane administration of justice. District Judge James Reynolds, who now has the case, or the Supreme Court itself, should do the common sense and humane thing and delay the deadline until after the election. Attorney General Tim Fox ought to also apply common sense and compassion and not further appeal anything. In fact, he should remove his objection to the current post-election date appeal and show some respect and concern for the 12,000 Montanans who need his help.

In this case, justice delayed will not be justice denied. It will be the demonstration of compassion and common sense by elected officials who ought to know whats right. There is no reason to subject 12,000 of our fellow Montanans with cancer and other debilitating diseases to anything but common sense.

Evan Barrett, who lives on the Butte Hill, recently retired after 47 years at the top level of Montana government, politics, economic development and education.
Srinagar, July 1 : Three people including a police officer and two civilians were injured when guerrillas fired outside a mosque after the Friday prayers in Jammu and Kashmir's Badgam district, police said.

Police said militants fired pistol shots at Assistant Sub-Inspector Abdul Rashid outside a mosque in Pakherpora town of Badgam district after the prayers on the last Friday of Ramadan.

Two civilians were also injured in the firing. All the injured have been shifted to hospital, police said.
New Delhi, July 1 : The annual Amarnath Yatra will commence from Saturday and will continue till August 18 through the two routes of Baltal and Pahalgam, the Union Home Ministry announced on Friday.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who is on a two-day trip to Jammu and Kashmir from Friday, is scheduled to hold a security review meeting about the Yatra at Raj Bhawan in Srinagar.

Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) has advised the pilgrims to carry sufficient woollen clothes, umbrella, raincoat, and waterproof shoes as the weather in the Yatra area is unpredictable.

It has also advised the pilgrims to carry their identity cards and Yatra permit, and travel in a group.

The gates of Access Control at Domel and Chandanwari would open at 5 a.m. and close at 11 a.m. The SASB has asked the pilgrims to reach the gates on time as no one would be allowed to undertake pilgrimage after the closure of the gates.

Prepaid SIM cards from other states would not work in Jammu and Kashmir and the Yatra route. Yatris can purchase pre-activated SIM cards at the base camps of Baltal and Nunwan, the SASB said.

Also, the SASB has asked the pilgrims to not do "anything during the entire Yatra which could cause pollution or disturb the environment".
Ghaziabad, July 1 : A city realtor Jitendra Tomar, reported missing since Monday, has been found murdered in Rishikesh in Uttarakhand, police said on Friday.

His son Amit along with his driver has been arrested in the case while Tomar's wife Malti is missing, police added.

Police said during interrogation, Amit confessed to his crime and led police to the spot where the body was dumped.

Tomar was a brother-in-law of Samajwadi Party leader Anand Chaudhary and was living in RDC-13. His disappearance was reported to police by his driver Brahma Pal.

Police said three persons -- including realtor's son Amit and wife Malti -- were seen barging into the house around 9.30 p.m. on Monday, as caught on a CCTV clip.

The accused took away two CCTVs installed at the entrance to Tomar's house but failed to notice the third one installed in the drawing room. Amit was caught on this CCTV. A police team has been dispatched to seize the body from Narendra Nagar near Rishikesh," Inspector Ashok Sishodia of Kavi Nagar police station told IANS.

Amit reportedly told police that he killed Tomar as his father had disinherited him from family property. Amit and his mother were living in Karmu-Kheri village in Shamli while Tomar lived alone in Ghaziabad.

On Wednesday, Tomar's daughter, who lives in Raipur in Chhattisgarh, reached home. She came to know about her father's disappearance when she found his mobile phone switched off.
Dhaka, July 2 : Condemning the terror attack on a restaurant popular among foreigners in Dhaka, Bangladesh opposition leader and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia on Saturday asked the government to initiate an all-party effort to crush "extremist forces".

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Chairperson thanked the security forces for neutralising the attack, the first of its kind in Bangladesh where foreigners were held hostage, bdnews24.com reported.

Khaleda described the terrorist attack by gunmen at the Gulshan eatery, in which Islamic State terrorists killed 20 hostages, as "blind violence and animal cruelty".

Seven gunmen barged into the Holey Artisan Bakery at the Gulshan diplomatic zone around 8.45 p.m. on Friday and took the guests inside hostage.

The attackers shouted 'Allahu Akbar' (God is great) on their way in and started firing before taking the guests inside hostage.

The hostage standoff ended almost 12 hours later after army commandos initiated "Operation Thunderbolt" on Saturday to free the hostages.

The army said that they rescued 13 hostages and found bodies of 20 foreigners inside the restaurant, who they said were slaughtered with sharp weapons late on Friday, hours before security forces moved in.

It also said that one of the seven gunmen was captured alive while the rest were killed.
Los Angeles, July 3 : Reality TV personality Kim Kardashian West has hit back at rumours that she wears butt pads.

The "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" star insists she has never needed to wear the derriere-enhancing item but admits to always wearing "shapewear", reports femalefirst.co.uk.

Writing on her website, she explained: "A couple years ago, I wore a skirt in Miami that was totally sheer. I had no idea it was SO see-through on my butt. I definitely never want that to happen again, so now I always wear shapewear".

"Sometimes, they have a sheer cutout like these capris from Body Wrap, so that's actually what you're seeing in the picture at the top," she added.

She said that everyone has seen her "butt naked", so it's clear that she doesn't need them.

"So, the fact is: I don't wear butt pads! At this point, I think everyone has seen my butt naked and knows I don't need them," Kim wrote.
Islamabad, July 3 : The US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Olson, met with top Pakistani diplomat in Islamabad on Saturday and "discussed the regional security situation and efforts for peace and stability in Afghanistan," officials said.

Ambassador Olson is visiting Pakistan at a time when relations between Pakistan and the US are tense over the drone strike that killed Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour and the US blockade of the F-16 fighter plane sale, Xinhua reported.

The visit is also seen important at a time when relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan are also tense over recent border skirmishes that had caused casualties on both sides last month.

Both sides also had the opportunity to discuss the efforts by the Quadrilateral Coordination Group involving Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and the US to push for the Afghan peace process.

Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry while talking to Ambassador Olson reiterated Pakistan's commitment to as an effective forum to facilitate Afghan-owned and Afghan-led reconciliation process.

"The Foreign Secretary underlined Pakistan's focus on effective border management on Afghanistan-Pakistan border with a view to enhancing security and counter-terrorism efforts," a Foreign Ministry statement said.
Islamabad, July 3 : At least 30 people were killed, 35 injured and scores went missing after flood hit Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, officials said on Sunday morning.

Chitral district mayor Maghfirat Hussain said a mosque and 30 houses were washed away due to the flood in the district on Saturday night, Xinhua news agency reported.

The mosque was completely destroyed when people were offering Ramadan prayers. The flooding occurred due to the over flow of the Chitral river.

According to the media reports, 30 people were killed, 35 people were critically injured and 31 went missing in the flood.

Army, paramilitary troops and rescue teams were called for rescue operations.

The mayor said the rescue teams were facing problems due to heavy rains in the district.
New Delhi, July 3 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set on Sunday to release here a book on Sikh military commander Banda Singh Bahadur to mark the 300th anniversary of his martyrdom.

"The Prime Minister will release a book and souvenir on Baba Banda Singh Bahadurji on the occasion," the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said in a series of tweets.

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal will be part of the programme, the PMO said.

"A recently released commemorative coin on Baba Banda Singh Bahadurji will be presented to the Prime Minister and Chief Minister of Punjab," said another tweet from the PMO.

Last month, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had released a commemorative silver coin to mark the 300th martyrdom day of Banda Singh Bahadur.

Delhi's Arvind Kejriwal government has also been keenly associating itself with the Sikh military commander's martyrdom anniversary, recently putting out newspaper advertisements to announce renaming of the Barapulla flyover after Banda Singh Bahadur.

These commemorations and announcements come months ahead of the assembly elections in Punjab to be held in 2017.

Banda Singh Bahadur is believed to have been born in 1670 in Rajouri, now part of Jammu and Kashmir state. At a young age he became a disciple of Guru Gobind Singh and assembled a force to fight the Mughal Empire.

He is credited with establishing Sikh rule in Punjab, starting with the sack in 1709 of the Mughal provincial capital, Samana, now part of Patiala district.

He was captured and executed by Mughals in Delhi in 1716.
Dhaka, July 3 : Bangladesh on Sunday mourned the victims of the horrific terrorist attack on a Dhaka cafe that left 22 persons, dominantly foreigners including an Indian, dead and the nation traumatized.

The national flag flew at half-mast as a two-day mourning declared by the government began.

People would wear black badges and prayers would be offered in mosques, temples and other places of worship, the Daily Star reported.

At least seven Islamists said to be Islamic State militants stormed the popular Spanish Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's diplomatic zone on Friday night, taking more than 30 people hostage.

The 20 persons were brutally murdered during the 12-hour siege before Bangladeshi forces stormed the cafe and rescued 13 hostages, including one Japanese and two Sri Lankans.

The victims include 10 males and 10 females, Xinhua news agency quoted an unnamed official as saying.

Six terrorists were killed in the 50-minute army-led "Operation Thunderbolt". A seventh attacker was captured alive. All the attackers were Bangladeshis and five of them were wanted by police.

Inspector General of Police Shahidul Hoque told CNN that police had previously tried to arrest the five.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, saying its gunmen "killed 24 persons and injured more than 40 in the attack at a cafe in Dhaka".

Two police officials were also killed in gunfire earlier in the standoff, authorities said.

The Bangladesh Army said those killed included nine Italians, seven Japanese, an Indian girl, two Bangladeshis and a US citizen of Bangladeshi origin.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Saturday declared a two-day mourning for the victims.

Condemning the "extremely heinous act", she vowed to root out terrorism from the country which has seen a spate of deadly attacks by the IS and Al Qaeda-linked militants on academics, writers, activists and religious minorities in the Muslim-majority country.

"We'll establish Bangladesh as a peaceful state... No conspiracy can hinder our advancement," she said.

"What kind of Muslims are these people? They don't have any religion. People must resist these terrorists. My government is determined to root out terrorism and militancy from Bangladesh," she said.

In India, President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee condemned the attack.

Modi telephoned Sheikh Hasina to condemn the "despicable attack" and said India "stands firmly with our sisters and brothers of Bangladesh" in this hour of grief.

Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj confirmed the killing of 19-year-old Tarishi Jain of Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh. She had passed out from American School Dhaka and was studying at Berkeley.

The hostage crisis, the first such incident in Bangladesh, began around 8.30 p.m. on Friday after the attackers carrying firearms, bombs and swords barged into the cafe.

The gunmen, shouting "Allahu Akbar", slaughtered those who were unable to recite the Quran, said rescued hostages.

The siege ended around 8.30 a.m on Saturday morning.

The Italian Foreign Ministry identified the Italian victims as Adele Puglisi, Marco Tondat, Claudia Maria D'antona, Nadia Benedetti, Vincenzo D'allestro, Maria Rivoli, Cristian Rossi, Claudio Cappelli and Simona Monti.
Manila, July 3 : At least five suspected drug dealers were on Sunday killed in a shootout with police in Manila to emerge as the latest fatalities in newly-installed President Rodrigo Duterte's avowed crackdown on crime.

Members of the Philippine National Police's Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO) on Sunday examined the bodies of the five men which lay bloodied on a majority Muslim community's ground in the Philippines capital, Efe news cited an epa (european pressphoto agency) report.

Police Chief Inspector Michael Garcia said authorities had been monitoring the suspected drug dealers for some time.

Around 200 grams of methamphetamine were seized from the scene, along with money and a couple of guns, he added.

No police officers were injured in the shootout, which reportedly began at 7.00 a.m. local time (11.00 p.m. Saturday GMT).

The number of alleged drug traffickers killed in the Philippines since Duterte won last month's elections has increased by 200 per cent, according to police data.

The tough-talking politician won in a landslide after a campaign dominated by threats to kill tens of thousands of criminals in a relentless war on crime and drugs -- two of the biggest issues in the country.
Ankara, July 3 : Turkish armed forces have killed at least 11 Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria, media outlets reported on Sunday.

Turkish military General Staff said an attack on Saturday in northwestern Aleppo province also destroyed two rocket launchers and two IS vehicles, Efe news reported.

The targets destroyed were reported to be preparing missile launches into Turkish territory.
Damascus, July 3 : Al Qaeda-backed Al Nusra Front has handed over the remains of a slain Syrian pilot they had killed to the Syrian authorities, officials said on Sunday.

The body of Lt. Col. Nawras al-Hasan, who was executed by the group when he parachuted from his crashing warplane over a rebel-held area in Damascus last week, was delivered to the Syrian authorities, Xinhua news agency reported.

Al-Hasan was executed in Jairud town in the eastern countryside of Damascus.

Al-Hasan was on a training mission when his plane malfunctioned and crashed after he ejected from the aircraft, local media reported. However, the group claimed they downed the plane.

On Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Syrian air force carried out intense airstrikes and shelling on Jairud, killing 43 people, and injuring tens of others, some of whom were in critical condition.
Norwich, July 3 (IANS) Realistic workloads and ongoing emotional support are essential if social workers are to manage stress and perform their job effectively, says a study by British researchers.

Involving 209 child and family social workers across eight local authorities in Britain, the study by University of East Anglia's Centre for Research on Children and Families (CRCF) examined the relationship between emotional intelligence - the ability to identify and manage emotions in oneself and others, stress, burnout and social work practice.

"The study confirmed that social work is an emotionally demanding profession, suggesting that particular attention should be given by social work employers to the workplace environment and social worker support," said Laura Biggart, lecturer in social science research and psychology.

The researchers recommend that if social workers are to be most effective, it is essential that they have realistic workloads and good administrative support and that the demands for more recording and regulation should come with provision of sufficient resources.
Zurich, July 3 : With Swiss francs (CHF) 1.2 billion (around Rs 8,392 crore) held by its citizens in Switzerland's banks, India has slipped to the 75th position, its lowest since the Swiss National Bank began releasing such data in 1997, as per latest figures released earlier this week.

The data for 2015 placed India at 61st place, while it used to be among top 50 countries in terms of holdings in Swiss banks till 2007.

India was also lowest ranked among the BRICS countries - Russia was ranked 17th (CHF 17.6 billion), China 28th (CHF 7.4 billion), Brazil 37th (CHF 4.8 billion) and South Africa 60th (CHF 2.2 billion).

Britain and America were the only two countries that accounted for Swiss bank holding of double-digit percentage share each.

While Britain accounted for the largest chunk at about CHF 350 billion, or almost 25 per cent of the total foreign money with Swiss banks, the US came second with nearly CHF 196 billion or about 14 per cent.

The total money held in Swiss banks by all their foreign clients from across the world fell by nearly 4 per cent, by over 58 billion Swiss francs to 1.41 trillion Swiss francs ($1.45 trillion).

India was ranked 75th with CHF 1.2 billion, which is not even 0.1 per cent of the total foreign money in Swiss banks.

India was ranked among the top 50 continuously between 1996 and 2007, but started declining thereafter - 55th in 2008, 59th in 2009 and 2010 each, 55th again in 2011, 71st in 2012 and then 58th in 2013.

Pakistan was placed higher at 69th place with CHF 1.5 billion, while others ranked higher than India included Mauritius, Kazakhstan, Iran, Chile, Angola, Philippines, Indonesia and Mexico.

Indian-held funds in Switzerland banks fell by 596.42 million Swiss francs to 1,217.6 million Swiss francs at the end of 2015, marking the second straight year of decline.

Last year also marked the lowest amount of funds held by Indians in the Swiss banks ever since the country started making the data public in 1997.

Total funds held in Swiss banks by Indians directly at the end of 2015 stood at 1,206.71 million Swiss francs, which was down from 1,776 million Swiss francs the year before.

Further, money held by Indians through fiduciaries or wealth managers was down at 10.89 million Swiss francs, from 37.92 million Swiss francs at the end of 2014. The total, at the end of 2014, stood at 1,814 million Swiss francs.

The funds, described as "liabilities" of Swiss banks or "amounts due to" their clients, are official figures released by the central bank.
New Delhi, July 3 : Allegin conspiracy by the SAD-BJP alliance in Punjab, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said its leaders will meet Punjab Director General of Police Suresh Arora on Monday in connection with the desecration of the Quran in Malerkotla town.

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislator from Mehrauli in Delhi Naresh Yadav, who has been booked by Punjab Police in the desecration case, and party leader Sanjay Singh will meet the DGP.

Yadav was booked in the case after main accused Vijay claimed he was paid Rs 1 crore by Yadav to do so.

The police said they will summon Yadav for questioning.

"We will meet Punjab DGP at 10 a.m. on July 4 in connection with the Malerkotla case. The people of Punjab understand the dirty politics of the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) alliance and will give a befitting reply to them," Singh, the AAP convenor for Punjab, tweeted.

The party leaders said the ruling alliance in Punjab was hatching conspiracies ahead of the 2017 assembly polls.

Singh said: "The Badals have cooked up a false case. If the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) and the VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) worked at the behest of Naresh Yadav, then he (Yadav) is working for (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi and (BJP chief) Amit Shah."

Meanwhile, Yadav denied the charge in the desecration case and said he was ready to be "hanged" if there was any proof against him.

"It's a conspiracy. Why would I do such a thing when we know we are winning the elections in Punjab? Everyone knows that the SAD-BJP (alliance) always indulges in communal politics. I'm ready to be hanged if any evidence is found against me," he said.

Sangrur police have arrested Vijay Kumar, Gaurav and Nand Kishore on charge of desecration of the Quran and said they belonged to right-wing Hindu organisation VHP.

There was arson in Malerkotla on June 24 night after pages of the holy book were found dumped near a drain.

A mob attacked and set Akali Dal MLA Farzana Alam's home on fire leading to communal tension.

The mob also exchanged gunfire with the police, leaving several injured.
Baghdad, July 3 : At least 130 people, including children and women, were killed in two overnight bombings in Baghdad, most of them in busy areas, as residents shopped ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr, police and medical sources said on Sunday.

In the deadliest bombing -- the most lethal single attack in Baghdad this year -- which hit Karada, a busy shopping district in the centre of Baghdad, 125 shopers were killed and over 100 others wounded, according to police and medics.

The second blast -- of an improvised explosive device -- in eastern Baghdad left five people dead and 16 others wounded. It was earlier reported that a bobby-trapped car blew up in the area. No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Karada street in the mainly Shia area thronged with crowds shopping ahead of the Eid festival.

The blast struck as families and young people were out on the streets after breaking their daylight fast for the holy month of Ramadan, which ends later this week.

The Islamic State terror group claimed responsibility for the bombing in a statement posted online, saying it had deliberately targeted Shia Muslims.

The group considers Iraq's Shia Muslim majority to be heretics and frequently targets them in attacks in the country. The statement,however, could not be independently verified.

In May, Baghdad was rocked by a series of blasts that killed more than 150 people in seven days.

IS issued a statement claiming the suicide car bombing, saying it was carried out by an Iraqi as part of the group's "ongoing security operations".

Hours after the bombing, Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited the blast site. Video footage uploaded to social media showed an angry crowd, with people calling Abadi a "thief" and shouting at his convoy.

"The terrorist groups carried out such desperate deadly attack as a result of being crushed in the battlefield," a statement from Abadi's office said, referring to the latest defeat of the IS in the country's western province of Anbar.

The Baghdad attacks came just over a week after Iraqi forces declared the city of Falluja "fully liberated" from the group. Over the past year, Iraqi forces have racked up territorial gains against IS, retaking the city of Ramadi and the towns of Hit and Rutba, all in Iraq's vast Anbar province west of Baghdad.

Before the launch of the operation to retake Falluja, the Iraqi Prime Minister was facing growing social unrest and anti-government protests in Baghdad sparked in part by popular anger at the lack of security in the capital.

In one month, Baghdad's highly fortified Green Zone, which houses government buildings and diplomatic missions, was stormed twice by anti-government protestors.

IS still controls Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, as well as significant patches of territory in the country's north and west.

At the height of the extremist group's rise to power in 2014, IS snatched nearly a third of the country out of government control. The militants are estimated to control only 14 per cent of Iraqi territory now, according to Abadi's office.
Los Angeles, July 4 : Michael Cimino, Oscar best director winner for his seminal Vietnam War drama "The Deer Hunter", has died at the age of 77 in Los Angeles.

His body was found by police Saturday at his home after friends said they were unable to reach him by phone, Xinhua reported.

According to the Los Angeles County Coroner's website, Cimino died on Thursday at his residence, but the office did not give the reason of death, pending further investigation.

Cimino was born in New York City on February 3, 1939. He directed eight films in his career.

In 1979, Cimino won an Oscar and a Golden Globe best director award for "The Deer Hunter", which also won four other Oscars including Best Picture.

Some film makers expressed their appreciation for Cimino after he passed away.

"Our work together is something I will always remember. He will be missed," actor Robert De Niro said in a statement Saturday.

"I wish I had paid tribute to Michael Cimino while he was alive, " tweeted William Friedkin, who directed the landmark 1970s films "The French Connection" and "The Exorcist."

"He was an important and masterful film maker. We will always have his work."
Eye doctors in Princeton, NJ say misconceptions surrounding consumer fireworks lead to thousands of eye injuries on the Fourth of July.

Eye injuries caused by fireworks have more than doubled in recent years, and Outlook Eyecare (http://www.outlookeyecare.com), a group of eye doctors with locations in Princeton, Monroe Township, and the Hamilton, New Jersey area, is joining the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) to highlight the dangers posed by this Independence Day tradition.

"The last place you want to be on the Fourth of July is in an emergency room getting treated  or worse, having your child treated  for an eye injury caused by fireworks," says Dr. Wayne Grabowski, one of the leading eye care specialists in the tri-state area and founder of Outlook Eyecare. "To help prevent these injuries, our practice and the ophthalmology academy are getting the word out about common misconceptions regarding fireworks."

On its website, the AAO cites the most recent fireworks injury report from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which said that an estimated 10,500 Americans visited the emergency room for fireworks injuries in 2014. Of those, 1,300 were eye injuries, a sharp increase from the 600 reported in 2011.

The ophthalmologist says the safest way to celebrate is to attend professional fireworks shows in Hamilton and throughout Mercer County. For example, Hamilton Township is opening Independence Day weekend with a concert and fireworks show on July 1 at Veterans Park, and there are Fourth of July festivities planned at the East Brunswick Community Arts Center.

"Gathering with friends and family for a picnic and concert on the Fourth of July is a wonderful American tradition," Dr. Grabowski says. "Plus, you'll be treated to a spectacular fireworks show -- staged by professionals."

If members of the community do choose to set off their own fireworks, Dr. Grabowski says it's important to be educated about how to do it properly, which he also addressed in a blog post.

In that post, Outlook Eyecare says that sparklers should not be given to children because they are the most common source of injury in children under 5. The practice also says that all participants should have protective eyewear, including bystanders, and that unexploded fireworks should be left alone.

Dr. Grabowski, whose Princeton-based ophthalmology practice also has an office in Monroe Township, says anyone who does suffer an eye injury should seek emergency medical care and avoid rubbing or rinsing the eye or applying pressure. If an object is in the eye, Dr. Grabowski advises that the patient leave it in place until a doctor can examine it. Dr. Grabowski also advises against applying any ointments.

"We want everyone to enjoy an injury-free Fourth of July," he says. "I urge New Jersey residents to take advantage of one of the many professional firework displays planned for the weekend."

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Outlook Eyecare (http://www.outlookeyecare.com) is a full-service eye care center offering top-quality, comprehensive services for patients from Monroe Township, Princeton, and Mercerville, New Jersey, as well as the surrounding communities. The 3 Outlook Eyecare locations are staffed by a carefully assembled team of eye care professionals, all of whom are at the top of their fields and highly esteemed in the medical community. As a result of the specialized training each of the doctors has achieved, Outlook Eyecare is able to meet a full range of eye care needs  vision, medical, surgical, and cosmetic  from the most basic to the most complex.
GLASGOW, Scotland. (PRWEB) July 3, 2016, Holy Fire Publishing (http://www.holyfirepublishing.com) releases Theology in Education & Political Culture (Paperback, U.S. $12.98,

ISBN# 978-1-60383-511-4). Donald S. Gillespies essays present the nature, scope and benefits of a Christian classical education.

Mr. Gillespies essays began as an analysis of the trends in Catholic education quarantined in modernitys secular cordon sanitaire. His prime purpose is to show the importance and far-reaching implications of integrating sacred science with all other sciences, an indispensable process for sound social teaching and collective political action. Faced with the distractions of a progressively intrusive pagan society, his subsidiary object is to clearly outline the nature, scope and benefits of a Christian classical education in accordance with the guidelines of the Holy See.

Normative and orthodox Catholic identity radiates in its education and political culture, as manifest in the Ex Cordia Ecclesiae and Sapientia Christiana encyclicals. To that end, Gillespies volume is divided into four parts. Part I treats of the optimistic epistemic principles supporting Catholic education for integral character development and the syllabuses taught. They follow the heuristic guidelines laid down by St Thomas and Cardinal J. H. Newman in his The Idea of a University.

Part II and III apply this framework to Catholic higher education, specifically to the nature and scope of theological training in evangelising culture, and serving the Churchs mission. The fatal fatalities of liberalism, with its operose collection of opinions and fabulous fables, are exposed, stamping their peril instantly and indelibly on the mind.

Part IV is a codicil, less didactic than narrative, in response to anti-Catholic criticisms in the US media, with a view to demonstrating the Churchs crucial function at the order of political culture. It resolves to put church-state relations into realistic and historical perspective, especially regarding theologys role in renewing and humanising society.

The books modest intent is to restore systematic theology as a credible and integral part of higher education; to show that Catholic teaching not only serves the Church, but gives Christians a unique identity that enables them to contribute positively to society at large.

In political culture, its practical value is in scrutinising church-state relations and confirming how theological doctrines have profound personal and social consequences: not that theology is utilitarian and therefore true, but because it is true it is utilitarian.

Withal, the lay apostolate will develop a wariness of specious political innovations that ultimately have iniquitous ethical and moral implications. By maturing their understanding theologys true nature and scope as a sacred science, they will cultivate a real sense of personal worth and so elicit its practical value for daily living.

Donald S. Gillespie was born and educated in Scotland. An abbreviated CV of Mr. Gillespie's qualifications and background experience is provided in the appendix of the book. His personal charity for autistic children receives all royalties from his writings.

Holy Fire Publishing (http://www.christianpublish.com), publisher of hundreds of Christian books, helps Christian authors reach the world through the printed word.

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Lifestyle brand, Free People, will bring its apparel to Fair Mall, Connecticuts second largest shopping mall located in Danbury, CT on Friday, July 8th 2016. At 4,641 gross square-feet, Free People is excited to open its third store in Connecticut. This will be the brands 122nd store across the United States and Canada.

The store will be designed in the brands Black Smiths Cottage concept. Highlighting the more rugged side of the Free People girl, the space is designed to feel like her personal studio workshop by featuring a mix of rugged elements and feminine details throughout. Customers will be welcomed through a custom steel and glass storefront featuring double entry doors and custom hardware. A natural brick base will adorn the storefront, with natural brick pavers positioned at the alcove entry and a 3 brass backlit Free People sign installed on top of a large blackened laser cut panel on the stores facade. Inside the space, the palette is soft and light. Reclaimed wide plank wood flooring changes direction within the store for easy customer navigation. Intricate wood beam details on the ceiling, featuring white washed wood slats and hemlock joists, further help delineate the stores multiple shopping areas. Reclaimed white painted bead board, soft maple cladding, plaster walls, and blackened leaning floor mirrors help complement the studio theme, while mica plaster and twinkle lights throughout further speak to the feminine aspect. 7 fitting rooms will be nestled towards the rear of the store featuring white washed wood slats, dusty pink plaster walls, and special coin curtains. Customers will be able to checkout through a central 3 POS cashwrap featuring a reclaimed bead board backwrap with yarn filled cubbies.

Free People Danbury will be filled with a range of fashionable apparel full of bright colors and prints perfect for summer. The store will have a large denim shop featuring basic denim styles, shorts, and one pieces to pair with FP essential and graphic tees. A large selection of dresses will be available from maxi, mini and romper styles. Danbury will have a large assortment of shoes from boots, sandals, and other options. FPs Intimately line will be available in store highlighting bra and undie match sets as well as a few lifestyle pieces such as lacey bodysuits, robes, and sleep shirts. Accessories will include essentials bags, hats, belts, and jewelry.

The store will be opening on Friday, July 8th. To celebrate the opening, the brand is launching a sweepstakes for local customers. From July 1st through July 8th, local customers can enter for a chance to win $500 worth of Free People product. To enter, customers must visit: http://www.freepeople.com/danbury-fair-sweepstakes/

Each Free People store offers personalized shopping experiences from a team of expert stylists. Free People Danbury, CT customers can schedule a one-on-one appointment with their favorite stylist, as well as interact and gain inspiration through the brands online Style Community, FP Me.

Free People Danbury, Connecticut will be located at Fair Mall 7 Backus Avenue 06810. Store hours will run Monday through Saturday 10AM-930PM, and Sunday 11AM-7PM.

For more information, images, to request an interview, or to discuss a TV opportunity, please call Katerina Patouhas at 215-454-3871 or email kpatouhas(at)freepeople(dot)com.

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About Free People

Free People is a specialty clothing brand featuring the latest trends and vintage collections for women who live free through fashion, art, music, and travel. The eclectic look consists of quality apparel, shoes, and accessories that invoke attributes of femininity, spirit, and creativity with its design. Free People is distributed globally via direct channels including the Free People Global site, the Free People UK site, and the Free People China site as well as specialty boutiques, top department stores, and the brands free standing retail locations in the U.S. and Canada.
Jennings in uniform before deploying to Iraq Ray risked his life for our country. This is the least we can do to pay him back.

A social-media campaign called #RepayRay has raised almost $10,000 dollars to help Sgt. Jennings rebuild his life after 11 years behind bars as an innocent man. Organizers hope to raise enough money to help Jennings five children, who have lived in poverty since his arrest.

Donations are being collected at http://www.GoFundMe.com/RayJennings.

During the Iraq war, Jennings commanded a team that searched door-to-door for high-value terrorists. On one mission he was nearly killed when an IED exploded beneath his Humvee.

While visiting home, he was arrested at gunpoint and charged with the 2000 murder of 18-year-old Michelle OKeefe in a commuter parking lot. Jennings had witnessed the shooting while working part-time as a security guard to earn extra income for his family.

The physical evidence all pointed away from Jennings. There was no gunshot residue on his uniform, and no DNA, hair, or fibers to suggest he had any contact with OKeefe. Another mans blood was found beneath her fingernails.

In February 2005, the D.A.s office declined to prosecute the case. There is simply insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Jennings did the killing, wrote Deputy District Attorney Robert Foltz.

Ten months later, without any new evidence, Foltz charged Jennings with first-degree murder. I cant put my finger on precisely what the difference is, Foltz told the Daily News on December 14, 2005, but it was clear we had a fileable case.

Two juries in Los Angeles were unwilling to convict Jennings. But prosecutors prevailed when the third trial was moved back to the small desert community where the murder occurred. A local jury convicted Jennings after prosecutor Michael Blake told them in closing argument that they could presume the defendant was guilty.

Last week, the DA's office admitted that Jennings appeared to be innocent. "The people no longer have confidence in the conviction," Deputy District Attorney Bobby Grace told the judge at a June 23 habeas hearing in Superior Court case number MA033712.

Jennings walked out of court a free man, but the State did not offer him any compensation for his 11-year ordeal. He was released onto the street with no money, no clothes, and nowhere to stay.

Thats why we started #RepayRay, said Clint Ehrlich, the law student who spearheaded the campaign to free Jennings. Ray risked his life for our country. This is the least we can do to pay him back.
DECATUR  At a challenging time for many small businesses, when the popularity of big-box liquor stores seems to be growing, the Decanter Fine Wines & Spirits recently celebrated its 10th birthday.

Co-owners Mike Delaney, Jay Emrich and Kevin Graham opened the business at 215 N. Main St. on June 30, 2006. They say the service they provide customers  guiding them toward wines they might like, helping choose the perfect complement for a meal and even carrying purchases out to cars  plays a key role in the shop's longevity.

You come in and you're serving a certain dinner, and you want to match a couple of different wines with dinner. We can help out with that, Delaney said. We keep bringing in new wines all the time, kind of rotating our inventory.

Another big attraction is the free wine tastings that the Decanter holds on Friday evenings from 4 to 7 p.m. and Saturday afternoons from 1 to 6 p.m. Those have been part of the plan from the beginning, Emrich said.

Although none of us really had much or any retail experience, we knew the best way to sell the product was to get it in people's mouths, he said.

For example, Laura Hutchins usually sticks with what she knows she likes: moscatos and rieslings. But she tried the Old Soul Red Wine on Saturday and was surprised to find how much she enjoyed it. She ended up buying a bottle for her mother.

I like that it's locally owned, Hutchins said of the Decanter. It's one more thing that helps keep me coming downtown.

Hutchins decided to stop in after having lunch with her sister-in-law, Amber Hutchins, and Jamie Bond, who had never been to the Decanter before and was impressed by the selection and the tasting options.

The Decanter sees its fair share of new customers, sometimes with little idea what they like or what they should purchase for a friend, owners say.

But there are also regulars, such as Duane Cunningham, who has been coming in most Saturdays for about a year.

He took a Wine 101 class that Graham teaches through Richland Community College to learn a little more about wine, including an overview of different grapes and how to read a wine label. He likes chatting with the owners, whom he described as genuine, like-minded people.

Cunningham also likes being able to support a local business, especially one that fosters a welcoming atmosphere. When visiting larger wine stores in other cities, Cunningham said he has sometimes met with much more intimidating setups.

Honestly, I'm sorry, but some places you go, there's genuine snobbery. Not here, he said. This is very friendly and inviting, and they're nice guys.

Other wine stores sometimes charge for their tastings, he said, but the Decanter's are always free, and the selection rotates. For instance, several of the wines offered Saturday were meant to go with traditional Fourth of July foods: hot dogs, hamburgers, steaks.

It's close. It's accessible. They've got the best crackers, too, Cunningham added, popping one in his mouth.

The Decanter carries about 500 different types of wine, including some Illinois varieties that are kept in a special section near the front. Those include wines from Willow Ridge Winery in Shelbyville, as well as others from different parts of the state.

About eight years ago, the Decanter began selling spirits, and then added salamis, cheeses and crackers about four years ago. The business can also be rented out for parties and events.
NORMAL  Illinois State University's solar car team has a sunny outlook on this year's competition.

This is the solar car the team always wanted, said team leader Nick Reichman of Crystal Lake, a graduate student in project management.

The team is doing the final assembly on this year's car, a combination of old and new, before heading east later this month for the Formula Sun Grand Prix and the American Solar Challenge.

We're using the top half of an old car with a new chassis on the bottom half, explained Jim Dunham, a model maker at ISU who works with the team.

The carbon fiber composite chassis is a much lighter design and more efficient than the metal frame the team has used in the past, Dunham and Reichman said. The car also has new hub motors that Dunham described as top of the line.

We should be fairly competitive this year, he said.

Reichman helped build the 2014 car that is part of the new one and said he is excited to rebuild and re-engineer it to overcome some shortcomings.

I can't wait until the car gets done, he said.

The competition starts July 22 with four days of inspections and scrutineering to ensure the car is safe and meets technical requirements for the Formula Sun Grand Prix track race at the Pittsburgh International Race Complex in Wampum, Pa.

Having kids who've gone through a previous race and gone through inspections is helpful, Dunham said.

That will be followed by three days of track racing. The team with the most laps wins. The track race also is the qualifier for the 1,800-plus-mile American Solar Challenge road race.

Dunham said, based on previous races, the team probably will need to complete at least 200 miles on one day, or a total of 300 miles on consecutive days, to qualify for the road race.

The keys to success are having a reliable car that stays on the track, with minimal repairs or adjustments, and the ability to make needed changes quickly.

Reichman said a major strength of ISU's team is how directly involved the students are in putting the car together.

We're able to troubleshoot a lot of things more quickly than other teams, Reichman said.

The road race takes place every other year and this year, race organizers are partnering with the National Park Service, which is celebrating its centennial.

The road race will start at Cuahoga Valley National Park in Brecksville, Ohio, on July 30 and end at Wind Cave National Park in Hot Springs, S.D., on Aug. 6. Those two parks are among nine national parks, historic sites or partner properties along the route that covers seven states.

Twenty-four colleges and universities from the United States and Canada are expected to participate, including Northwestern University and Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.
Gov. Bruce Rauner called it a bipartisan bridge to reform. To us, the stopgap spending plan approved Thursday feels more like a rickety bridge over still deeply troubled waters that will not hold up for long.

To readers weve heard from, it is both business as usual, and simply not good enough.

Thats because nowhere in its 800-plus pages will worried Illinoisans find a road map for where to go next. Nor does it hint at the ultimate price tag for this temporary solution as Illinois continues to spend money at a rate we cannot afford. It also doesnt fix everything that has been broken.

As the Heartland Alliance on Policy and Advocacy said in a letter to the governor and the legislature Friday, The failure to act for so long has had consequences that will outlive this impasse. By failing to pass a fully funded, comprehensive budget, you are choosing to shut down programs and services permanently. Even if you arent voting to end youth programs or mental health services, failing to pass a real budget is a passive decision to cut services -- all without a debate and without accountability.

Yes, thank goodness, schools will open this fall. But districts still must scramble to deal with the short- and long-term costs of this long budget impasse. College students still must worry about the viability of several state universities -- some of which will take years to recover whats already been lost -- and some students forced to take a break from the classroom because they didnt receive MAP grants may never get back on track.

Wisely, most of those we elected to govern in Springfield appear to be hanging onto the celebratory confetti. They know the natives still are restless. Indeed, that is precisely why, with an eye to the November election, our elected officials HAD to do something.

And therein lies the one thing worth celebrating in this long, costly and embarrassing saga: Illinoisans who wondered whether they can make a difference can answer with a resounding, Yes! There is strength in numbers and everyone who joined this successful public revolt should celebrate this victory. But winning a single battle does not mean weve won the war.

This is no time for citizens to stand down. We must press our advantage, especially with such an important weapon in our arsenal: Our votes. In the Quad-Cities theyre particularly powerful. Voters here have a number of competitive legislative races on the November ballot. In turn, the politics and views of the people WE send to Springfield are important to leaders of both parties.

This is likely to be a divisive, noisy campaign. With so much at stake it must also be a substantive one. There are big and small ideas being debated here. Indeed, we continue to believe that the November election should be a referendum on the states future. It wont be however, if we let the candidates hide behind sound-bytes, attack ads and mailers.

Politicians wont feel compelled to answer the tough questions unless they are asked. In the weeks ahead, when you meet the candidates on the campaign trail, ask the hard questions that need to be asked, and demand answers. We promise to do the same when our editorial board meets with candidates and when our reporters encounter them on the campaign trial.

We also plan to ask statehouse candidates to write a series of op-eds for Viewpoints. You can help by sharing topics and questions you think need to be addressed.

Send them to letters@qconline.com or mail them to Viewpoint Op-Eds, 1720 5th Ave., Moline, IL 61265. Aug. 10 is the first day for voters to request absentee ballots, and early voting is set to begin Sept. 29. Balloting is right around the corner, so please dont wait.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP)  Illinois has redefined what it means to have a late budget.

Other states have gone several months without a spending plan before, and Illinois has had prior delays that caused great anxiety. But going an entire fiscal year without a full budget? It's the only time in post-World War II history it's happened in the country.

"Late budgets will have a new meaning after you guys are done," said Arturo Perez, a fiscal analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures who has researched past overdue budgets nationally.

So what did past budget delays here and elsewhere look like? And how did Illinois get to this point? Here's a look.

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JUST A MOMENT

Jim Edgar found himself in an unsettling position as Illinois governor in 1991 when the state went 18 days without a budget.

"We thought '91 was protracted and it looks like child's play compared to what they've gone through this year," the former Republican governor said.

The 1991 standoff, which Edgar said "seems like just a moment" compared to today, kept staff at colleges from collecting their paychecks.

At the time, Edgar said the state had not experienced a budget delay like it.

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REASONS FOR PAST DELAYS

Back then, Edgar found himself disagreeing with Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, much like current Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner. The sticking point now is Rauner wants business-friendly, union-weakening legislation as a condition of raising taxes to pass a full, balanced budget.

In 1991, a bad economy forced layoffs and budget cuts, but the gridlock was over what to do about a temporary two-year income tax surcharge that brought $700 million annually to schools and local governments. Edgar and legislators resolved their differences by agreeing to make the surcharge for education permanent, while extending the tax for local governments for another two years.

There were other late-budget scares in the 1980s and '90s that had state workers worried about getting paid, said Kent Redfield, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois in Springfield. One of those times, Redfield said he considered getting a short-term bank loan to make a mortgage payment, but the budget was resolved in time.

In the late 2000s, the state had three straight years where the budget was delayed for several weeks.

"Other times, it was how much you want to spend, what do you want to spend it on, but it was never tied to a policy ultimatum," Redfield said.

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The passage of Prohibition in 1919 unwittingly sparked one of the more violent decades in Illinois history. The liquor still flowed freely in much of Illinois, with bootlegging operations of various criminal intent.

Some local economies were decimated by Prohibition. Peoria had earned the nickname Whiskey Capital of the World from its 24 breweries and 73 distilleries. Many closed during Prohibition, and even after repeal in 1933, the local industry never recovered. In northwestern Illinois, the act hammered the lucrative wine industry of Nauvoo.

But in many locales, alcohol was easy to find. Thirteen illegal taverns, called speakeasies, opened in the Logan County village of Mount Pulaski, attracting daily customers by rail. As trains approached the town, wry conductors called Next stop, Vinegar Hill, a moniker for a wet town derived from the practice of filling pickle or vinegar barrels with booze.

Other efforts to circumvent Prohibition had less charm. In Chicago, an organized crime body called the syndicate dated to the 1870s, and by the 1920s, it was an open secret. The syndicate controlled liquor, gambling and prostitution, raking in massive profits. In 1927, gross revenues reportedly reached $110 million.

The syndicate was run by a series of notorious crime bosses, most notably Al Capone, who became a Chicago celebrity, receiving huge ovations at Wrigley Field and local racetracks. Capone pointedly declared that if people didnt want beer and wouldnt drink it, a fellow would be crazy for going around trying to sell it.

He had plenty of takers. His business was protected by a string of bribes and buy-offs that kept judges, policemen and officials quiet. Mayor Big Bill Thompson freely consorted with mobsters.

Rival gangs tried to topple the syndicate, with bloody results as mob warfare escalated. The worst example was the St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929, when some of Capones gunmen mowed down seven members of rival Bugs Morans gang on Chicagos North Side.

Elsewhere, liquor, gambling and prostitution in Rock Island were controlled by John Looney, the publisher of the Rock Island News, who bribed politicians and gunned down rival gang members. Twelve murders and three suicides were reported in Rock Island in 1922, most connected to Looney.

On Oct. 6, 1922, four former associates attempted to ambush Looney outside a downtown hotel. Looneys 24-year-old son died in the exchange, but Looney was eventually taken down by his murder of a saloon keeper, who squealed to authorities after paying protection money. Looney served nine years at the Stateville Penitentiary in Joliet.

In Herrin, concerned citizens and law-enforcement officers turned to none other than the Ku Klux Klan, whose members vowed to stamp out bootlegging and gambling. The Klan hired S. Glenn Young, a self-serving former federal agent, and 500 Klansmen were deputized in December 1923. Gun battles became common between bootleggers and Klansmen, who carried weapons into courtrooms and even fired guns in a hospital.

Finally, Gov. Len Small sent in the National Guard. Young, two of his guards, and a sheriffs deputy were killed in an Old West-style gunfight at a Herrin cigar store on Jan. 24, 1925. The last of the National Guard withdrew in the summer of 1926, but 20 men had died in two years of conflict. The flow of liquor never stopped.

A war over bootlegging subsequently broke out in the area between local boss Charlie Birger and three of the infamous Shelton brothers: Carl, Earl and Bernie. Gunfire erupted across many small towns of southern Illinois, and 14 men, including two mayors and a state policeman, eventually lost their lives.

The Shelton brothers, whose territory stretched as far as Peoria, even dropped homemade bombs from a biplane on Birgers headquarters in Harrisburg on Nov. 12, 1926. While ineffective, the incident is considered the first aerial bombing on American soil.

Then and now, many Americans romanticize gangsters as modern-day Robin Hoods who stay a step ahead of the government, choosing to overlook their murderous ways. During Prohibition in Illinois, there was plenty of that to go around.
Sometimes we dont realize how fortunate we are until we see what others have experienced. Ruth and I were reminded of this when we spent some time in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary earlier this summer.

Last weeks column recalled a visit to a Nazi concentration camp. That is only part of the story. Both Czechoslovakia (prior to the peaceful dissolution of the union in 1993, the Czech Republic and Slovakia were one country) and Hungary were subjected to unspeakable horrors during the Nazi occupation.

The defeat of Nazi Germany brought the war in Europe to an end but not the oppression to which the people of Czechoslovakia and Hungary were subjected. Nazi oppression was succeeded by 40 years of communist oppression.

During those years, there was no freedom of speech or freedom of the press.

With the Communist Party the only legal political party, there were no free elections. In short, the people in Czechoslovakia and Hungary did not have any of the freedoms that we take for granted today here in the United States.

Efforts were made to change the political situation, most notably during the 1956 Hungarian uprising, which began as a peaceful student demonstration on October 23 of that year.

Their demands included the end of Soviet occupation. Early the next morning, Soviet military units entered the city and seized key positions. Many more citizens, including Hungarian soldiers, joined the protest, shouting Russians go home and defacing communist party symbols.

The situation eased a bit when Imre Nagy, a reform-minded communist party official, was appointed prime minister. His Soviet handlers, however, were in for a surprise. He freed political prisoners and announced plans to end one-party rule.

On Nov. 1, he announced that ungary was withdrawing from the Warsaw Pact and would become a neutral country.

Furious with Nagy, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev ordered the Soviet Army to crush the uprising. Hungarian forces were quickly defeated. Nagy was arrested as he was leaving the Yugoslav Embassy. He was charged with treason and executed.

The brutal suppression of the 1956 Hungarian uprising cast a cold shadow over those in Soviet-controlled countries yearning for change. But by the late 1980s, the Soviet Union itself was falling apart and those hoping for political change were emboldened. In Czechoslovakia, a series of peaceful strikes forced the hand of the government. In contrast to Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev chose not to send in troops to suppress the uprising.

On Nov. 29, 1989, the Czechoslovakian Federal Assembly deleted the reference in the constitution to the leading role of the Communist Party, in effect ending communist control of Czechoslovakia. It was a key moment in what became known at the Velvet Revolution, so-called because it was essentially non-violent.

On December 19, 1989, playwright and human rights activist Vaclav Havel was elected president in a free election.

While in Prague, Ruth and I stood on the square in front of the balcony from which he spoke after his election.

With considerable emotion, our tour guide recounted the euphoria of the moment.

Hungary and other Warsaw Pact countries also replaced communism with democratically-elected governments and free-market economies. It was the beginning of a new era, an era of freedom and hope.

Tomorrow, we celebrate our nations birthday. The U.S. Declaration of Independence, which announced the birth of our nation, boldly asserts that all people are created equal and that they are endowed with unalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

We take these rights for granted. Seeing what people in Czechoslovakia, Hungary and other countries have endured ought to make us appreciate how fortunate we are.
Lets just sit down for a moment and take a deep breath.

Its been quite a week. And, for a change, it was not the politicians and financiers alone, but ordinary citizens who threw the world for a loop.

You cant absolve the pols completely; they told transparent lies and stirred up nativist fears and resentments. But, in the end, it was British voters who got it wrong: voting to take the United Kingdom out of the European Union, thereby threatening their nations integrity and the financial stability of Western nations; perhaps, the world.

It was not an informed decision, but rather the kind of unthinking tantrum voters in this country have been throwing of late. The world seems to be veering back over a century to the kind of recklessness that saw the rise of isolationism and fascism in Europe and the United States.

Mercifully, we were able to channel those strong emotions into the New Deal, a three-decade anomaly in which government turned its attention to the needs of ordinary citizens rather than financial institutions. But, despite a slight resurgence with the Great Society, we have slid steadily back into the kind of economic imbalance that can unhinge normally peaceful folks and make them easy prey for hucksters and charlatans.

Make no mistake: there is ample and valid cause for citizen anger both here and abroad. There is a growing divide between the governors and the governed, one that has been papered over by directing resentment away from real causes to phony ones: immigrants, minorities, science, women, the sick, the poor, the elderly.

People who dont know much can be sold almost anything. Here and abroad, the workaday citizen has been sold a bill of goods about our capitalistic democracy; principally that it isnt about the welfare of society as a whole, but the increasing wealth of those who control the levers of power.

High finance rather than average income seems the focus of government; with services to citizens taking a backseat to insuring that those able to play at the Wall Street Casino never take a loss. The average person doesnt resent the rewards due industry and innovation; but when they become excessive at the cost of living wages, folks get restive.

On a broader scale, the fracturing of the European Union may very well mean that the noble attempt to overcome centuries of brutal, continental wars may well founder on a resurgence of nationalism. Parties of the extreme right are on the rise across Europe. A new breed of fascists are going after Muslims as vigorously as the Nazis hunted down Jews. Victims may change, but the bloody path-to-power scenario is all too familiar.

Admittedly, timid politicians were afraid to work for a truly united Europe. A common market plan and a common currency were not enough. Without a real political and financial center, the EU was more a hope than a fact. Some kind of workable federation was possible in the immediate aftermath of World War II, but the likelihood diminished with each passing year.

If a democratic republic is to work, voters have to know exactly what they are doing. They deserve hard facts from their leaders, not fabrications and half-truths which may make the nakedly ambitious more electable. There is a magisterial function in government which is largely ignored: an obligation to teach rather than dance around hard facts.

The British are now having to deal with a national mistake. The question is whether or not there is the means or the will to correct it. The Brexit can give some marginal characters a shot at political advancement, but is it worth such wholesale dislocation? If it holds, Scotland and Northern Ireland are sure to bolt from the U.K. How great will Great Britain be, if reduced to England and Wales? (Assuming Wales doesnt leave as well.)

This month, we Americans celebrate our independence from Great Britain; but are we free from the same shabby politics and unthinking reactions that produced such an unsettling upheaval?

Our major political parties convene this month amid unprecedented turmoil. We have had our fair share of anger and fear leading up to them, from many kindred sources, over the past two years. May we hope for a less traumatic outcome?
The frustrations over the devastation our elected representatives are causing in Springfield bubbled over long ago.

For years we have been advocating on our Viewpoints page for the politicians to change the way things are done.

Frequently I field calls from frustrated readers challenging the paper to do something about the mess in Springfield. My response is along the lines of Havent you been reading our editorials?

Even with social media and the digital world, editorials still have a powerful place -- both in politics and providing community leadership.

We know the politicians are listening because they often ask for editorial support of their positions and legislation.

These days, our opinions are immediately available and can be shared around the state.

Most of the states daily newspapers have addressed the dysfunction of state government. From Chicago to Cairo, the Quad-Cities to Decatur people are being hurt, businesses moving out and social service agencies closing because of unstatesmanlike behavior of elected officials from both parties.

We share our readers frustration and will continue using our bully pulpit to bang the drum for reform. There has been no interest by our elected officials in speaking up for us. Instead, both sides are mesmerized by unions, lobbyists and powerful political leaders who they believe can ensure their reelection -- as if our votes dont matter -- while the general welfare of the state has collapsed.

Wednesday marked an unprecedented action by Illinois newspapers. First, they spoke out with editorials  most ran on the front page. Second, they spoke with one voice saying ENOUGH and taking the governor and legislators to task for the state budget crisis.

The Chicago Sun-Times entire front page said simply:

The Sun-Times editorial:

$8,031,269,046.06

The price

of being

a deadbeat

state.

Its time to fix it now

It then gave the page number for its editorial inside.

This effort included not only our newspapers and the State Journal-Register in Springfield, but papers in Rockford, Peoria, Bloomington, Chicago, Decatur, Arlington Heights, Pekin, Galesburg, Lincoln, Freeport, Mattoon-Charleston, Macomb, Benton, Marion, Du Quoin, Harrisburg, Carmi, Olney, Sterling, Dixon, Crystal Lake, Joliet, DeKalb, Ottawa, Kankakee and many others.

The effort was begun by the State Journal Register in Springfield which dedicated its entire Wednesday front page to an editorial.

The majority of the states daily newspapers have said both sides of the aisle need to be held responsible and find a compromise that will release the state from the burden of operating without a budget as a first step.

Our front page editorial, and many others, called for immediate action on a stopgap budget with the states new fiscal year beginning Friday, as the first step toward climbing out of the hole that has been dug.

The Southern Illinoisan in Carbondale went one step further with the headline: Enough stopgaps. Do your job.

Stopgaps and insulting votes to spend billions more than we have are irresponsible. Our elementary and high school students are not stopgaps. Our educators are not stopgaps. Our universities do not employ or instruct stopgaps. Our social service agencies serve us, serve our neighborhoods and serve our community, the editorial said.

We do not have stopgap lives. We are people. We are your constituents. We demand you finally do your jobs.

The paper in Ottawa ran the headline: We need our leaders to lead. It said, each (legislative) session failing in ways small and large to better the position of the state for anything resembling the long term is a significant contributing factor to what has come to be a quite dismal status quo.

Did the newspapers effort make a difference? Perhaps it was the editorials. Perhaps it was timing, but progress was made, although there is still much heavy-lifting to do.

Knowing newspapers from all corners of the state -- on behalf of their readers -- think Republicans and Democrats have failed and they went to great lengths to coordinate such a powerful statement, is probably the best chance we have of getting the attention of politicians who otherwise dont seem to care.
SPRINGFIELD -- As soon as the Brits voted to depart from European the Union, I began listening for the first rumblings of discontent in Illinois.

You know what Im talking about: Should Chicago and the rest of the state part ways?

There are plenty of downstaters who would just as soon see Chicago depart the Land of Lincoln.

And hey, I know more than a few Chicagoans who view Downstate as a parasite leaching away a great citys life blood.

In case you are wondering, Im using a political scientist definition of downstate -- not a geographers. Downstate in a political sense is anyplace in Illinois that is not part of Chicago or its suburbs.

Even northern Illinois communities like Rockford, Ottawa, Kankakee and Freeport are considered downstate.

The deep-seeded political animosity has been around for more than a century. And while some political commentators have written off downstate antipathy toward Chicago as being racial in nature, I disagree.

The political divide long predates the great migration of southern blacks to northern industrial cities such as Chicago.

The divide is more cultural than racial.

When someone in Southern Illinois thinks of coal, its a source of jobs.

For Chicagoans, its a source of pollution.

For many downstaters guns represent a source of recreation. For many Chicagoans they are viewed as a source of danger.

And lets be honest. Chicago has a long history not only of political corruption but of flexing a unified political muscle.

Downstaters are many fine things. But politically united they are not.

For decades they have complained about getting whacked on their collective political noggins by their neighbors to the north.

And downstate voters have come to resent the political successes Chicago lawmakers have scored in Springfield along with a certain arrogance that has accompanied it.

Folks in Springfield are still grumbling about Rod Blagojevich and Pat Quinn refusing to live in Springfield. They viewed it as a snub, which it was.

By the way, these intrastate rivalries are hardly unique to Illinois. When I was reporter in Nevada, the same animosity could be detected between Las Vegas and the rest of the state.

When I spoke to the Alaska Press Club a decade ago, reporters were complaining that their then unknown governor, Sarah Palin, was spending too much time in Anchorage and snubbing Juneau, the state capital.

For decades Ive seen politicians stir up Illinois regional rivalries for their own political gain.

Im disappointed Gov. Bruce Rauner, who I generally agree with on policy issues, is doing the same thing.

Rauner has been tromping around downstate telling audiences that he doesnt want their hard-earned tax dollars to get taxed away and sent to the Chicago Political Machine.

I agree we should not pour more tax dollars into that sump hole without first getting reform.

But exasperating the states long simmering cultural and geographic animosities isnt going to make for a better state.

And might I add, you dont get any more downstate than me.

I grew on a hog farm near Galesburg. I drive a pickup. I like guns.

And Im uncomfortable in traffic.

But that doesnt mean I hate Chicago.

When Congress made Illinois a state in 1818, it was for better or worse.

Were stuck with each other.

It may be a bad marriage, but it is a marriage nonetheless.

Rather than pointing fingers, we should be uniting behind solving the states staggering problems: a massive debt, a moribund economy and political culture that resists reform.
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP)  The hostages were given a test: recite verses from the Quran, or be punished, according to a witness. Those who passed were allowed to eat. Those who failed were tortured and slain.

The 10-hour hostage crisis that gripped Bangladesh's diplomatic zone ended Saturday morning with at least 28 dead, including six of the attackers, as commandos raided the popular restaurant where heavily armed attackers were holding dozens of foreigners and Bangladeshis prisoner while hurling bombs and engaging in a gunbattle with security forces. The victims included 20 hostages, mostly foreigners, and two Bangladeshi police officers.

The attack marks an escalation in militant violence that has hit the traditionally moderate Muslim-majority nation with increasing frequency in recent months, with the extremists demanding the secular government revert to Islamic rule. Most previous attacks have involved machete-wielding men singling out individual activists, foreigners and religious minorities.

But Friday night's attack was more coordinated, with the attackers brandishing assault rifles as they shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great) and stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's Gulshan area while dozens of foreigners and Bangladeshis were dining out during the Ramadan holy month.

The gunmen, initially firing blanks, ordered restaurant workers to switch off the lights, and they draped black cloths over closed-circuit cameras, according to a survivor. He and others, including kitchen staff, managed to escape by running to the rooftop or out the back door.

But about 35 were trapped inside, their fate depending on whether they could prove themselves to be Muslims, according to the father of a Bangladeshi businessman who was rescued Saturday morning along with his family.

"The gunmen asked everyone inside to recite from the Quran," the Islamic holy book, according to Rezaul Karim, describing what his son, Hasnat, had witnessed inside. "Those who recited were spared. The gunmen even gave them meals last night."

The others, he said, "were tortured."

Authorities were interrogating one of the attackers captured by commandos in dramatic morning rescue.

It was not immediately clear whether the attackers had a specific goal, and Bangladesh authorities would not say if they had made any demands.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility, saying it targeted the citizens of "Crusader countries" in the attack, warning that citizens of such countries would not be safe "as long as their warplanes kill Muslims." The statement was circulated Friday by ISIS supporters on the Telegram messaging service and resembled previous statements by ISIS.

The government did not directly comment on the ISIS claim but has denied in the past that the extremist group has a presence in Bangladesh. The government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina instead has accused her political enemies of orchestrating the violence  which the opposition denies.

On Saturday, the Amaq news agency published photos of five smiling young men each holding what appear to be assault rifles and posing in front of a black ISIS flags whom the agency identified as the attackers, according to the SITE Intelligence Service, which monitors jihadi online activity.

The 20 hostages killed included nine Italians, seven Japanese, three Bangladeshis and one Indian, government sources said. The White House confirmed Saturday that a U.S. citizen was among the hostages killed, but did not release any further identification.

"All the hostages were killed last night. The terrorists used sharp weapons to kill them brutally," said Brig. Gen. Nayeem Ashfaq Chowdhury of the Army Headquarters.

Two Bangladeshi police officers also died from injuries sustained while exchanging gunfire with the attackers Friday night.

In New Delhi, Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said the terrorists killed eighteen-year-old Tarushi Jain, who had been on holiday from her studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Emory University in Atlanta, Ga., said two of its students were killed in the attack: Abinta Kabir, of Miami, Fla., a sophomore at the school's Oxford, Ga., campus who was visiting family and friends in Bangladesh, and Faraaz Hossain, of Dhaka, a junior at the university's Goizueta Business School.

Ten of 26 people who were wounded Friday night when the militants opened fire were in critical condition, according to hospital staff.

Paramilitary troops rescued 13 hostages, according to Lt. Col. Tuhin Mohammad Masud, commander of the Rapid Action Battalion that conducted the rescue operations.

The commandos killed six of the attackers and recovered explosive devices and sharp weapons from the scene, said Chowdhury of the Army Headquarters.

"Anyone who believes in religion cannot do such an act," Hasina, the prime minister, said. "They do not have any religion, their only religion is terrorism."
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The issue of all or part of downstate Illinois seceding from the state gets brought up now and then, sometimes seriously.

But did you know that Chicago folks think about the same thing? Columnist Mark Brown, of the Sun-Times, posed that question earlier this week after Britain voted to exit the European Union. He pondered whether it was time to for Chicago to leave the rest of the state.

He called in Chexit, which he went to great pains to explain should be pronounced "shex-it, since it was short of "Chicago exit. Brown didnt want the idea confused with some new recipe for Chex Mix.

Locally, Rep. Bill Mitchell, R-Forsyth, has occasionally brought up the idea of downstate seceding from Chicago. Some political commentators said that hurt Mitchell when he was lobbying to keep jobs at the nuclear power plant in Clinton. Its doubtful thats true, but offering up secession legislation may not be the best way to build credibility.

The idea is certainly attractive, in a populist way, for those in both areas. Folks in Chicago, according to Brown, see downstate as "a vast wasteland bereft of value  cultural, economic and otherwise. Brown, a native of downstate, quickly asserts that isnt the case.

Meanwhile, a lot of folks in downstate see Chicago as a massive hole where their tax money disappears in enormous proportions.

Politicians play into those perceptions. Mitchell has done it on occasion and several Republicans complained about an education bill as a "bailout for Chicago Public Schools. That point plays well in downstate, even though Chicago schools CEO Forrest Claypool claims city residents pay 20 percent of the states individual income taxes but receive only 15 percent of total school funding.

It is true that Chicago is treated differently by the General Assembly, but thats not always an advantage. Its for certain that if the Clinton plant had been located closer to Chicago there would have been more political pressure to save those jobs. The legislature has been willing in the past to give several companies state incentives to basically move jobs from downstate into Chicago.

At the same time, as just one example, Chicago taxpayers pick up the tab for pensions paid to Chicago school teachers. In the rest of the state, that money is paid by the state. So, Chicago taxpayers pay pension for their teachers, and a portion of the money for teachers downstate.

Alas, the world isnt always fair, whether you live north or south of I-80.

The fact is that Chicago and downstate both need each other and would do well to appreciate what each brings to the party. The Chicago area, because of its reputation as a world trade and tourism center, brings millions of dollars into the state from other states and countries. Although I find plenty to do in Decatur, its nice to be within a few hours of the third largest city in the nation.

At the same time, the agricultural and industry in downstate feeds a lot of money and commerce into Chicago. How many international companies would locate in Chicago if it werent near the best farmland in the world? Having wide open spaces, and less crowded areas, within a few hours has to be a respite for Chicagoans.

The fact inescapable; downstate and Chicago are good for each. This is beneficial since, as Brown concluded and I agree, were stuck with each other.
Concerns that the Brexit vote could weaken NATO are overblown. There will likely be a wide range of fallout from the vote that will spread beyond the economic realm, but the European Union is not NATO  it's far too early to expect dramatic outcomes like the rise of Russian influence in Eastern Europe or a significant weakening of NATO.

Even before the Brexit vote, former NATO commanders expressed concern on the grounds that support for Brexit would undermine Britain's ability to remain engaged in the alliance. After the British voted for Brexit, observers noted that it would undermine NATO by sowing division within Europe. One compared Brexit to East Germany's departure from Moscow's orbit, which was followed by the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Another saw the diminishment of British ability to enforce sanctions against Russia.

Commentators who chalk Brexit up as a win for potential Russian adventurism in Ukraine, the Baltics or elsewhere are jumping the gun. Concerns about the broader implications of nationalist sentiment in Britain, Europe and the United States are understandable, but in the case of British support for NATO, we are nowhere near the point of crisis. Politicians championing independence from others and reluctance to engage in international cooperation is nothing new, and it doesn't inevitably lead to the doom forecasted by so many at present.

Britain has traditionally been ambivalent about cooperating with Europe. Some of this is grounded in British views of their independence and an understandable reluctance to cede sovereignty to EU bureaucrats in Brussels, but the story is a mixed one. Winston Churchill called for a kind of United States of Europe (PDF) in 1946, and after years of working with the European Economic Commission and other precursors to the EU, the U.K. joined the European Community upon its inception in 1973. In 1990 the U.K. even linked the pound to other European currencies in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, a precursor to the Euro. Shortly afterwards, the British signed the Maastricht Treaty, which created the EU.

These moments of British enthusiasm for European integration have been limited at best. British reluctance to cooperate with their European neighbors has a long history dating back to their role as the keeper of the balance of power on the European continent. During periods of historical calm, the British preferred to stay out of continental politics, but when their presence could restore order, they applied their resources toward this goal.

More recently, the British have expressed concerns about growing German economic strength following World War II and French efforts to use European integration as a platform to forward its interests. The British refused to take part in discussions over the failed European Defence Community in the 1950s (although they did play a role in later efforts to build common European military capability). In 1992, during the Black Wednesday currency crisis, the British withdrew the pound from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, and later abstained from joining the Euro, which would have abolished the pound altogether.

Casual observers point to individuals like Margaret Thatcher, or, in the current crisis, Boris Johnson, as champions of British sovereignty and claim that there is a British predilection for independence. A similar sentiment underlies concerns that Brexit implies a weakening of NATO. A few points are in order.

First, the British aren't alone in championing their independence from international cooperation. For example, when it comes to NATO in particular, the French have expressed less of a desire to cooperate. While France was one of the founding members of NATO in 1949, it did drop out of the alliance's integrated military command in 1966 under Charles de Gaulle, another European leader known for trumpeting the importance of national independence.

When it comes to NATO, the British have been among the stoutest supporters of the alliance ever since its formation.

The French defection forced a move of the alliance's command center as well as the withdrawal of NATO forces from France. In the heat of this moment, it is important to note that this move had little impact on NATO's effectiveness, as it did not encourage Soviet aggression. Later, in 2009, the French returned to the integrated military command. In international cooperation, there are second acts.

Second, when it comes to NATO, the British have been among the stoutest supporters of the alliance ever since its formation. The British have shown much more willingness to work with NATO, a transatlantic group, than with their fellow Europeans in the absence of the United States. A 2015 poll found that 60 percent of British respondents expressed support for NATO, 10 points higher than respondents from the United States.

It is easy to get caught up in the moment, to become distracted by the statements of flamboyant individuals and to see cross-national trends that seem to point toward dissolution. There are those who rail against globalization and related economic disruption, which will certainly put a strain on institutions that rely on international cooperation like the EU and NATO. Nevertheless, it is important to note the differences between these groups. The EU does have a defense component, but it has primarily been focused on European economic integration. NATO is affected by economic trends, but it is a transatlantic security organization.

It is tempting to string different circumstances together, but instances like Brexit, Russian activism and the fate of NATO are not the same thing. They affect one another, but their interaction is more complex than some of the immediate reaction to Brexit implies. It is good to be wary, but it is far too early to panic.

Michael Spirtas is a senior political scientist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation.

This commentary originally appeared on U.S. News & World Report on June 29, 2016. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
Major US wireless carriers are urging the FCC to stick to its schedule for TV station repacking following the spectrum auction, despite the adoption of the ATSC 3.0 transmission standard.

The new standard is designed to integrate with the Internet and features a transmission capability that will power multiple mobile uses, improvements in video and audio quality, localised programming and advertising and data-casting businesses.The ATSC says that by using the new standard, broadcasters will now be able to provide robust, mobile, Ultra HD video and enhanced, immersive audio with geo-targeted programming and advertising.Broadcasters, commercial and non-commercial, have petitioned the FCC to allow them to roll out the interactive ATSC 3.0 transmission standard during the repack, in part so that if they have to buy new equipment, it could be ATSC 3.0-compliant.CTIA, the main wireless industry trade group in the US, said that it applauded the fact that broadcasters want to "continue to evolve and serve their viewers; but its not interested in holding up the loosening up of spectrum in order for them to do that."Neither Congress in the Spectrum Act nor the Commission at the time it adopted rules envisioned that a technology upgrade would accompany the repacking," said CTIA . "Particularly given broadcast concerns about the sufficiency of the $1.75 billion [relocation] fund, broadcasters should be responsible for any costs associated with ATSC 3.0 equipment that are beyond the costs associated with repacking based on current technology."To boot, CTIA has advocated that the FCC denies any broadcaster reimbursement requests for any added costs for ATSC 3.0.The National Association of Broadcasters said that its constituency wasnt seeking such reimbursements from the repacking fund.Most broadcast transmission equipment on the market today is compatible with or easily upgradeable to support next generation transmissions," said NAB spokesman Dennis Wharton. "Broadcasters may have to make additional investments on their own to take full advantage of the ATSC 3.0 standard, but we neither seek nor do we expect additional costs associated with upgrading to ATSC 3.0 to be borne out of the repacking fund.CTIA didnt stop there with its concerns though. It also wanted assurances about potential interference stemming from ATSC 3.0 adoption."Just as NAB argued that detailed technical information regarding wireless deployments was essential to minimising inter-service interference to broadcasters [in the post-auction repack], so too should broadcasters provide interested parties with a clear understanding of how the change to ATSC 3.0 will impact the interference environment in the 600 MHz band."The standard is getting a trial already. Triveni Digital, for instance, has teamed up with Capitol Broadcasting Company, owner and operator of WRAL-TV, WRAZ-TV, and WILM-TV in North Carolina, to broadcast the first live commercial ATSC 3.0 simulcast in the US.Triveni Digital is providing the station group with several essential components, including the GuideBuilder XM signalling and announcement system, ROUTE encoder and StreamScope XM ATSC 3.0 analysis system, as part of a unified PSIP and ATSC 3.0 broadcast station workflow."Our goal is to set up a test-bed to learn all we can about ATSC 3.0 and to be ready to leverage all the new functionalities that it brings," said Pete Sockett, director of engineering and operations for WRAL TV. "Our relationship with Triveni Digital dates back to the earliest days of digital TV in the US, when we jointly implemented the first data broadcast system over ATSC 1.0. By partnering with Triveni Digital again, we are helping local television stations get one step closer to implementing a system that supports the wide variety of new and enhanced services."Triveni Digital's systems offer seamless integration with other ecosystem partners and will be part of a complete ATSC 3.0 broadcast workflow."Triveni Digital has been a key developer, educator, and demonstrator of ATSC 3.0," said Ralph Bachofen, vice president of sales and marketing at Triveni Digital . "We're excited to work with Capitol Broadcasting Company on this next step, showing channel sharing stations how to make a seamless migration to ATSC 3.0 to start deploying the new revenue-generating features and services, while still supporting the current broadcast infrastructure during the transition phase."
HTC Vive has announced a $10 billion initiative to fund virtual reality efforts, dubbed the VR Venture Capital Alliance (VRVCA).

Participants include both VR-centric VC houses, in addition to bigger, broader firms like Sequoia Capital and Redpoint Ventures. In total, 27 firms have joined the effort, which will be headed up by Alvin Wang Graylin, China regional president of VR at HTC. The VRVCA will be meeting every two months in SF and Beijing to hear pitches.This initiative is in addition to the $100 million Vive X accelerator fund for start-ups, announced in April.The news comes as VR is on the verge of hitting the accelerator in the US, at least according to research from Parks Associates A study of 10,000 US broadband households showed that 2% of such homes, 2.3 million, already own a virtual reality headset. It also revealed that 5% of US broadband households plan to buy a VR headset in 2016, an increase from only 1% who made a purchase the year prior.The big change in VR for 2016 has been the availability or pending availability of VR headsets from companies such as Facebook (Oculus Rift), Google (Google Cardboard) and HTC (Vive). Sony PlayStation VR is expected to be released in October. We expect gamers to be the initial market for VR, explained Barbara Kraus, director of research, Parks Associates and an author of the VR report. VR is an immersive experience, and more is better for gamers - more immersion, better sound, better graphics, and more players. The mass market is more likely to adopt mobile VR, which will be less expensive and uses a tool - the smartphone - that the majority of US consumers own.Parks believes that as more households adopt VR devices, and become part of the consumer-based Internet of things (IoT), they will emerge as a new way to experience content streams coming into the home and a new interface for other connected devices throughout the home.In a call to action, Parks Associates recommends that CE companies that are developing VR headsets provide simple methods to add (and remove) multiple content streams while giving the user the tools to personalise their experience with this device. Parks believes that for consumers, the division between device and content is already blurred, and innovations in virtual and augmented reality could finally erase the distinction."The CE industry is moving from one defined by hardware to a business of virtualised products, OTT content, and new advertising models, which could be integrated into a VR interface for users to control and interact with their homes," Kraus added.
Mail Online, June 28, 2016

The Afghan government says it will punish police officers involved in the institutionalised sexual abuse of children after an AFP report found the Taliban are exploiting the practice of paedophilic 'bacha bazi' - literally 'boy play' - to launch insider attacks.

Militants in Uruzgan province have killed hundreds of police after turning their child sex slaves against them, exploiting a centuries-old practice in Afghanistan that observers call one of the most egregious violations of human rights in the country.

Powerful warlords, commanders, politicians and other members of the elite often keep 'bachas' as a symbol of authority and affluence.

Bachas, dressed as women, are widely used by these men as dancers at private parties and are sexually exploited.

Bacha bazi is not widely seen as homosexual behaviour - popularly demonised as a deviant sexual act, prohibited in Islam - and is largely accepted as a cultural practice.



Shukur was just 12 when he was stolen away from his family and made to be a 'bacha bereesh'. It took him five years to escape, and he now uses the dances he learned to make a living. When he was a bacha bereesh, Shakur would not have earned anything from his evenings dancing - but would have been 'kept' by his master, who would provide food and clothing for the boy, or boys, in his ownership. (Photo: Barat Ali Bator) Shukur was just 12 when he was stolen away from his family and made to be a 'bacha bereesh'. It took him five years to escape, and he now uses the dances he learned to make a living. When he was a bacha bereesh, Shakur would not have earned anything from his evenings dancing - but would have been 'kept' by his master, who would provide food and clothing for the boy, or boys, in his ownership. (Photo: Barat Ali Bator)

'Women are for child-rearing, boys are for pleasure' is a common saying across many parts of Afghanistan.

The ancient custom, banned under the Taliban's 1996 to 2001 rule, has seen a resurgence in recent years.

It is said to be widespread across southern and eastern Afghanistan's rural Pashtun heartland, and with ethnic Tajiks across the northern countryside.

Tight gender segregation in Afghan society and lack of contact with women have contributed to the spread of bacha bazi, rights groups say.

Several other factors such as an absence of the rule of law, corruption, limited access to justice, illiteracy, poverty, insecurity, and the existence of armed groups have also resulted in the spread of bacha bazi, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) said in a report in 2014.

AIHRC points out that Afghanistan's criminal law prohibits rape and pederasty, but there are no clear provisions on bacha bazi.

'There is a gap and ambiguity in the laws of Afghanistan regarding bacha bazi and the existing laws do not address the problem sufficiently,' the report said.

'Many of the perpetrators have connections with the security organs and by using power and giving bribes they get exempted from punishment.'

Bachas are typically aged between 10 and 18. Sometimes they are kidnapped, says AIHRC, but often desperate poverty drives their families to sell them to abusers.

'The victims of bacha bazi suffer from serious psychological trauma as they often get raped,' AIHRC's report said.

'Such victims suffer from stress and a sort of distrust, hopelessness and pessimistic feeling. Bacha bazi results in fear among the children and a feeling of revenge and hostility develop in their minds.'

In turn, many adolescent victims are said to grow up to have boy lovers of their own, repeating the cycle of abuse.

'In the absence of any services to recover or rehabilitate boys who are caught in this horrendous abuse, it's hard to know what happens to these children,' said Charu Lata Hogg, a director at London-based charity Child Soldiers International.

'We have heard anecdotal reports that many grow up to keep their own bachas, perpetuating the revolving door of abuse.'

Bacha bazi is having a detrimental bearing on the perpetual state of conflict in Afghanistan, helping the Taliban to infiltrate security ranks in provinces such as Uruzgan, officials say.

The abusive practice in security ranks also undermines support for Nato-trained Afghan forces.

'To date, the US has provided over $60 billion in assistance to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), including nearly $500 million to the Afghan Local Police,' the US Congress said in December.

'Predatory sexual behaviour by Afghan soldiers and police could undermine US and Afghan public support for the ANDSF, and put our enormous investment at risk.'

The practice also continues to embolden the Taliban's desire to reassert sharia law in Afghanistan and is fuelling their insurgency.

'Such wild abuses of the predatory mujahideen forces in the early 1990s drove the popularity of the austere Taliban, helping them sweep to power across most of the country. Similar behaviour of the government forces after 2001 is also helping to inspire the insurgency,' a Western official in Kabul told AFP.
The sari shops, halal confectioneries and Sikh temples along Soho Road in Birmingham, Britain's second-largest city, wouldn't seem like fertile ground for anti-immigrant sentiment.

But residents of this famously multiethnic enclave echo many of the concerns expressed by white voters over the pressures created by recent immigration from Europe.
Donald Trump is not a professor, but for years he will be yielding insights to every student of economics. His Tuesday address on trade did a masterful job of combining antiquated fallacies with misinformation and ignorance to create an encyclopedia of error. Instructors have never had so much free help constructing their lesson plans.

The vision Trump conjures is one of alluring simplicity. He promises to achieve "economic independence" by abandoning globalization, instead using American workers to produce American goods. This change, he said, would "create massive numbers of jobs" and "make America wealthy again."

It's a scam, skillfully pitched to fool the gullible. His framework is a house of cards built on sand in a wind tunnel. Its most noticeable feature is a total divorce from basic economic realities.

He scoffs at those who warn he would start a trade war. "We already have a trade war, and we're losing badly," he said. But what he objects to is everyday global commerce, which is not a form of war. It's a form of peaceful cooperation for mutual advantage.

In a war, the Japanese drop bombs on Pearl Harbor that we don't want. In trade, they sell us TV sets and cars that we do want. See the difference?

In war, both sides lose, because their people get killed. In trade, buyers and sellers in each country win, which is why they trade with each other. What's true of individual consumers and producers is also true of nations.

Trump, however, thinks our economic troubles stem from the destruction of manufacturing production and employment, which he blames on foreign competitors. He's wrong on every point of this addled argument.

In the first place, the expansion of manufacturing jobs is not synonymous with prosperity. As countries grow richer, manufacturing's share of employment declines. South Korea, singled out by Trump for killing American jobs, has seen it shrink by nearly half since 1991. Japan and Germany have followed a similar path.

But U.S. manufacturing output is 54 percent higher today than in 1994 and 27 percent higher than in 2001. Those years are pertinent because 1994 was the year NAFTA took effect and 2001 is the year China gained entry to the World Trade Organization, events Trump portrays as catastrophic for American industry.

Manufacturing jobs have vanished not because we don't manufacture anything but because companies have learned to produce more goods with fewer people. Higher productivity is what eliminated most of the jobs Trump mourns. He's no more capable of restoring them than he is of bringing back the dodo.

"NAFTA was the worst trade deal in the history of this country," he exclaimed. But he gives no sign of knowing what it actually did. The main provision was removing import duties among the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Before, the average tariff on Mexican goods coming here was 4.3 percent while the average tariff on U.S. goods going there was 12.4 percent.

So under NAFTA, Mexico had to cut its import duties much more than we cut ours. Even by Trump's logic, how could that have been bad for Americans?

Trump would have us believe that producers abroad succeed only because they have a free hand to cheat. "When subsidized foreign steel is dumped into our markets, threatening our factories, the politicians have proven ... they do nothing," he charged.

Wrong again. At the moment, the U.S. government is punishing allegedly unfair trade practices with special duties on 338 different imports, nearly half of them steel products.

Blaming Mexico and China for the fate of our steel industry is like blaming email for the decline of telegrams. The biggest reduction in steel jobs came before the globalization of the past two decades. The number fell from 450,000 to 210,000 in the 1980s.

The total today is about 150,000. Even if Trump could manage the impossible feat of doubling the number of steelmaking jobs, it would be a blip in the overall economy, which adds more jobs than that every month.

All he would achieve by putting up trade barriers, imposing tariffs and treating our trading partners as enemies is to inflate the cost of imported goods, which would lower the living standard of every American household.

A Trump presidency would be useful for economists because it would serve to refute his misconceptions about trade, just as a massive mudslide in Los Angeles is useful to physicists in dramatizing the power of gravity. But everyone else is advised to flee.
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QUINCY (AP)  A nearly $5 million water system has been installed at the Illinois Veterans Home to combat a severe form of pneumonia caused by a bacteria.

The facility in Quincy unveiled the water treatment plant and delivery system Wednesday after they went online the previous week, The Quincy Herald-Whig reported.

"We've got the cleanest water, probably, in the state," said Erica Jeffries, Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs director.

The water system was put in place to keep residents safe from Legionnaires' disease, which sickened 53 people and led to 12 deaths at the Illinois Veterans Home last year.

The system provides safeguards against legionella bacteria, which causes Legionnaires' disease, and other waterborne organisms, according to project leader Tom Buchheit of Bric Partnership in Belleville.

Water from the Quincy water system enters the treatment plant, where it's tested and treated with additional disinfectant chemicals each day. It then travels to individual buildings and is heated to 165 degrees to kill bacteria. Mixing valves cool the water before it's released within the building's water system.

The water is treated multiple times before it's used, according to Dave MacDonna, Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs spokesman.

Backflow valves were installed within the water system to prevent the growth of legionella bacteria.

During the Legionnaires' disease outbreak, which started in August 2015, the Illinois Veterans Home shut down water sources, including water fountains and cooling towers, and used bottled water for cooking, drinking and bathing.

When the health crisis passed, the Illinois Capital Development Board provided the funds to upgrade the facility's water system.

"Because of the unique design and structure of the water system, and legionella's ability to be anywhere that water is aerosolized, it was necessary to remediate the entire system," said Shay Drummond, director of clinical and environmental services at the Adams County Health Department. Drummond was part of the team of medical professionals who responded to the outbreak.

Drummond and other public health officials continue to meet each week.
FILE - In this June 11, 2015, file photo, Anton Yelchin arrives at a special screening of "Burying the Ex" held at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles. Yelchin, a charismatic and rising actor best known for playing Chekov in the new "Star Trek" films, has died at the age of 27. He was killed in a fatal traffic collision early Sunday morning, June 19, 2016, his publicist confirmed. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

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By The Associated Press

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP)  A new lawsuit against Fiat Chrysler prominently mentions "Star Trek" actor Anton Yelchin, who was killed last weekend by an SUV under recall.

The suit was filed Thursday in California federal court on behalf of four people who own cars that are among the 1.1 million FCA vehicles recalled worldwide amid complaints from drivers. Some have said they can't tell if the transmission is in park after stopping.

The lawsuit says the shifter issue potentially caused Yelchin's death Sunday, when his 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee rolled backward and pinned him against a brick mailbox. Police are still investigating, but the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says the death may be related.

An FCA spokesman says the company hasn't been served with the lawsuit and it would be inappropriate to comment.
SHARE Robert Lee Croninmills Date of birth: April 27, 1991 Vitals: 6 feet, 1 inch; 145 pounds; brown hair, hazel eyes Charge: Sale/transportation of a controlled substance Alicia Renee Bailey Date of birth: Feb. 17, 1992 Vitals: 5 feet, 4 inches; 155 pounds; brown hair, brown eyes Charge: Possession of a baton Andrea Rae Wilson Date of birth: March 9, 1976 Vitals: 5 feet, 5 inches; 175 pounds; brown hair, green eyes Charge: Robbery Gabriel Leroy Britton Date of birth: Sept. 30, 1973 Vitals: 6 feet, 1 inch; 170 pounds; brown hair, blue eyes Charge: Corporal injury of spouse

By Staff Reports

Shasta's Most Wanted, featured in the Record Searchlight in cooperation with local law enforcement agencies, targets people who have failed to show up in court for sentencing after being convicted.

Authorities say they have seen an increase in criminals failing to appear in court since the onset of Assembly Bill 109. Also known as prison realignment, the state program shifted certain state prison inmates to county supervision.

Redding Police Chief Robert Paoletti said court appearances have been going up since the rollout.

Five new people are added each week. Those caught will be held until at least their next court appearances. Shasta County Secret Witness is offering a reward of up to $250 for information leading to an arrest. Tips can be provided anonymously at 530-243-2319 or at www.scsecretwitness.com/home/submit-a-tip.

Anyone with information also can call SHASCOM at 245-6540. The feature appears Sundays in the Record Searchlight's Northern California section and on Redding.com.
An artist's rendering shows the proposed design for the new Shasta County Superior Courthouse.

SHARE Record Searchlight file photo Plans to replace the aging Shasta County Courthouse are on hold again as the statewide construction fund for new courthouses is running short.

By Jim Schultz of the Redding Record Searchlight

The fate of a new six-story Shasta County Courthouse expected to open in 2020 is once again up in the air.

Construction on the estimated $165 million courthouse was slated to begin next year, but that project and 22 other court projects throughout the state face potential long delays.

Why? Chief among several factors is a sharp decline in traffic tickets and other fines that help fund the court system as well as the state taking money from the statewide construction fund to pay for other things.

"It's very discouraging," said Shasta County Court Executive Officer Melissa Fowler-Bradley, noting there's about $226 million in the 2015-16 construction fund  about $100 million short of what's needed to start the courthouse projects. The money in that fund goes to bond payments on court construction projects.

Court officials throughout California face the same grim situation, including Shasta County.

"We are all pretty much in the same distressed state right now," Fowler-Bradley said.

Six of those 23 projects are already under construction, and the balance are in some stage of site acquisition, scope definition or design.

The delay won't affect the construction of the Tehama County Courthouse in Red Bluff, which is nearing completion.

Fowler-Bradley made her comments Wednesday, the day after a court advisory committee of the Judicial Council of California received a somber update on the status of the construction fund.

"There were a lot of long faces" at the meeting, she said.

Still, she tried to remain upbeat and is hoping a possible solution can be found to get the Redding project moving forward.

"I will never give up" on the new Shasta County Courthouse project, she said.

Brad Hill, the presiding justice of Fresno-based Fifth District Court of Appeal who serves as chairman of the Court Facilities Advisory Committee, is also trying to remain optimistic.

"We are going to find a path forward," he wrote in a message to his colleagues and the public. "We have to. It is imperative that all of us, working together, find a way to continue on with this vital program."

Hill said several forces have undermined the stability of the construction fund. The Great Recession led state officials over the past several to redirect construction funds  some $1.4 billion  to the state's general fund and to local trial court operations.

Additionally, Hill wrote, a steep decline in revenues from traffic-related fines, civil fees and other assessments is to blame.

Fowler-Bradley said a traffic fine amnesty program played a role in that revenue drop. Also, law enforcement officers around the state are writing fewer traffic tickets.

She said she's puzzled about the decline in traffic tickets.

"I don't know" (the reason), she said. "Maybe law enforcement is shifting focus. That's not the case here. Our traffic court couldn't be any busier."

Hill said in his message that money from those types of fines and fees helps drive the construction program.

"The cumulative impact of the fund redirections and the reduction of revenue from fines and fees creates a perfect storm," Hill wrote.

In the meantime, new and improved courthouses remain urgently needed across the state, he said.

The advisory committee's next meeting is scheduled for Aug. 4 and, Hill wrote, it's hoped the group will be able to start developing a framework to move the program forward.

"We will have to wait until August to determine whether there's a way to rectify this," Fowler-Bradley said.

"It's a matter of what can be done."

As envisioned, the new 165,296-square-foot Shasta County Courthouse, which has seen delays before due to state budget problems, would sit on about 2 acres and occupy a block bound by Court, Yuba, Oregon and Butte streets.

"Everybody is waiting to see if they will be allowed to move forward," Fowler-Bradley said. "We are on hold for about a month to wait and see."

FAST FACTS

$165 million: Projected cost of new courthouse

173,350: Square-footage of the new courthouse

14: Number of projected courtrooms

NBBJ: The Seattle-based architecture firm hired to design the courthouse.

Sundt Construction: The Arizona-based construction company chosen to build the courthouse.

May 2012: Date final parcel purchased for courthouse project.

Mid-2017: The most recent expected time to begin construction.
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By Nathan Solis of the Redding Record Searchlight

It was no surprise to anyone familiar with mental health in Shasta County when a grand jury report said officials should look into expanding services across the board to help overcrowded emergency rooms.

It certainly wasn't a surprise to Adult Services Director Dean True, because most of the report read like a list of goals for his department  some in progress and others that have not materialized.

When the report said the county should look into funding a mobile crisis unit to meet people at their homes, True knew why that hasn't taken off yet and it hasn't been for a lack of trying.

"The challenge is funding," he said. "Mobile crisis teams are common in large urban centers. Here it becomes a matter in economy of scale  what would the Shasta County team be responding to?"

In 2013, Shasta County applied for a grant to sponsor a mobile team and psychiatric beds, but the county lost out as most of the state funding went to larger counties with dense populations.

A 2015 update on Senate Bill 82 showed most of the funding went to Southern California, while Shasta, Tehama, Modoc, Trinity, Siskiyou and Lassen counties were skipped. Shasta County did receive half a million dollars to for crisis stabilization funding.

"It's a matter of numbers," said True. Smaller counties have the burden to show there is a demand for these services.

On Tuesday the Shasta County Board of Supervisors responded to the grand jury report, saying they will have a better idea later this year about what can be done to create a mobile unit.

Last year the grand jury made the same recommendation and county officials said it was in the process of securing that money, which it ultimately lost out on.

About $1.36 million went to Butte and Mendocino counties for 20 residential beds and $35 million went to Los Angeles County for 560 beds.

"It's one of those tricky things," True said. "You've got L.A. County and you can imagine their budget, but they also have a large population and so one can say a mobile crisis team and bed space would be (used more) versus Shasta County. That's not lost on those determining the grant outcomes."

The grand jury also recommended all local law enforcement officers receive training every two years to de-escalate potentially dangerous situations when someone is having a mental health crisis.

About two-thirds of deputies in the Shasta County Sheriff's Office have received the crisis intervention training, according to Sheriff Tom Bosenko.

That's not to say deputies and personnel are not familiar with speaking with someone having a mental crisis, because they receive other training that includes de-escalation and communicating with someone to avoid the officer or the person getting injured.

But sending officers to crisis intervention training can be costly, Bosenko said. Deputies receive de-escalation training in the academy before they come to work for the Sheriff's Office. All jail staff take a refresher course each year that includes communicating with people who are mentally ill and how to de-escalate a volatile situation, he said.

"I recognize the value of CIT," Bosenko said about crisis intervention training. "But we also have to balance that with the rest of our training needs and priorities. I will not be making it mandated to have officers take it every two years."

Another option is to certify officers in crisis intervention training so they instruct other local officers, as opposed to the off-site 32- to 40-hour course.

Knowing how to de-escalate a mental health crisis benefits patients and their families  as Susan Power knows firsthand.

Power said she's grateful sheriff's deputies were able to speak to her 17-year-old son when he experienced a mental health emergency last week. He was released from a residential treatment facility six months ago. Since he returned home, Power has called 911 twice as her son posed threats to himself and others. Deputies each time have been able to communicate and calm her son.

"To have that both times, with officers who are trained with the right training  it was beautifully handled," said Power, president of the Shasta County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. "We all have to respond to these crises and if it can be handled at home then that's what you want. That's the ultimate goal, isn't it?"

When mentally ill patients need more intensive help that can only be found in an inpatient setting, there is little available for them in Shasta County, the grand jury found. The grand jury reported that a patient waited about 45 days in a Shasta County hospital room while Health and Human Services officials tried to find a psychiatric inpatient bed. This highlights the need for more psychiatric bed space in the county and while the county's official response said it has been working at this, True said it is a complex process.

"There's a reason why a lot of people are not lining up to take on building these institutions," he said.

"They're expensive and the resources to get them in place are complicated," including finding a location, securing permits with the state and then waiting to find out if the resources are in place.

For a time Shasta County was in talks with Restpadd Inc. The county's provider for psychiatric bed space currently has 16 adult beds in Redding. Plans to increase the number of beds in the county and include beds for children were in the works but ultimately fell through.

Now it looks like that facility will be setting up in Tehama County.

Last year Shasta County sent 595 adults to psychiatric hospital facilities and 89 children out of county. The county has no bed space for children. Restpadd is the first place the county looks to when it places an adult, said True.

The Health and Human Services budget is a quilt work of various funding sources, including the Mental Health Services Act, or sometimes called the Millionaire's Tax.

Shasta County is in the process of developing a center through MHSA funding where people in the county can get access to mental health services after business hours and during the weekend.

The grand jury report said the county should expand the hours of its existing mental health clinic until that new center opens. But again, it comes down to money.

"We'll continue to analyze funding," said True on extending hours at its existing clinic.

One program the county initiated this year places workers in local emergency rooms to assess mentally ill people. It's not quite the same as a mobile crisis response team, which would send health professionals and law enforcement officers to people's homes to help.

But the workers now helping in the hospitals could be pegged to help with a future mobile response team.

"We're trying to see if these workers make sense  if they have enough work in the hospitals," True said.

"If we decide they're not as busy as they could be, those people could on occasion join law enforcement in the field. It's still something we're reviewing."
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Shasta County sheriff's deputies Friday afternoon arrested a 33-year-old man following a domestic violence call in the Mountain Gate area north of Redding.

Deputies at about 4:45 p.m. went to Tunnel Road, off Wonderland Boulevard, for a report of possible domestic violence. There, they encounted a woman, who said her boyfriend, Thomas Gidibmaa, had been drinking heavily throughout the day and had only slept two hours in the last day, sheriff's Sgt. Steve Grashoff said.

The woman told deputies she and Gidibmaa got into an argument over the food she'd made for him and Gidibmaa grabbed her throat and shoved her into a wall while she was holding her child, Grashoff said.

Gidibmaa then punched a framed picture causing glass to break and shards of glass cut the child's right eye, the woman told deputies. He then kicked the woman and told her he had a gun and machete and that he would kill her if she tried to get away, Grashoff said.

The woman managed to escape and call 911 from a neighbor's home, according to the sheriff's office.

Gidibmaa drove off, but deputies found him on nearby Wonderland Boulevard, conducted a traffic stop and arrested him.

The woman wasn't injured. Deputies booked Gidibmaa into Shasta County Jail on suspicion of criminal threats, false imprisonment and child endangerment.
Amber Sandhu/Record Searchlight

Jamie Graham (left) helps her mother Deborah Stevenson with baked goods at Saturday's fundraiser and vigil for Ember Graham at the Frontier Senior Center in Anderson.

SHARE Amber Sandhu/Record Searchlight A photo of Ember Graham is displayed Saturday during a fundraiser and vigil in Anderson.

By Amber Sandhu of the Redding Record Searchlight

It's been exactly one year since baby Ember Graham went missing from her Happy Valley location, but it doesn't deter her mother, Jamie Graham, from holding out hope that her daughter, who would be 17 months old, is still out there somewhere.

"Ember needs that kind of hope," Jamie Graham said. "This is a vigil to celebrate Ember and basically promise awareness for her," she said.

On Saturday afternoon, Graham, along with her family and several friends, made their way to the Frontier Senior Center in Anderson to hold a bake sale fundraiser to help them pay for a private investigator. Graham said she needs to raise a total of about $25,000 and hoped to raise at least $5,000 to start the first round of payments to a Texas-based firm, Klein Investigations & Consulting.

Graham said she hasn't heard much from local law enforcement about Ember's disappearance, which prompted her and the Graham family to look into hiring a private investigator.

"We're pretty much relying on Klein at this point," Graham said. "It's worth the money to me."

At the senior center, where each of the tables had a picture of Ember alongside a decorative candle, volunteers donned their pink shirts, a color Graham has come to associate with Ember after friends celebrated Graham's baby shower in a pink theme.

"Pink is her color, definitely," Graham said.

In December, Graham organized a rally in downtown Redding to push a petition that requested the Shasta County Sheriff's Office involve the FBI to help with Ember's case. In a past interview with the Record Searchlight, Sheriff Tom Bosenko said that Matthew Graham, father of Ember, and the last person seen with her, was the "sole person of interest in the case."

Ember's pacifier was found in Ono on July 10, and Matthew Graham was killed in a shootout with police July 13, after he stole a vehicle and led officers on a chase to Dunsmuir.

Bosenko said it was unlikely he would refer Ember's case to the FBI. Secret Witness of Shasta County is offering a $10,000 reward for information about Ember's case.

Jamie Graham said she just wants people to know about Ember and be aware that people in and around the county go missing too.

"It's a real thing. This happens to people and it happened to our Ember and we need her home," she said. "We're not going to give up and we're not going to be quiet. We want answers."
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Law enforcement officers were searching Saturday for a Lakehead man described as a survival expert who said he was going to kill his mother and grandmother and then fired a gun in his room.

The incident began about 9 a.m. Saturday when Shasta County sheriffs deputies were told Gary Shawn Due, 51, fired an unknown type of firearm after an argument inside the family residence on Zola Street, deputies said.

Due left the home with two handguns and a rifle as officers from the California Highway Patrol, U.S. Forest Service, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and Department of Fish and Wildlife wardens rushed to the scene.

The officers werent able to find Due. Family members said the man is an expert at survival and can live in the woods for a long time.

Due is a white man, 5 feet, 11 inches tall, weighing 170 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing a flower-patterned shirt, unknown colored pants and carrying a backpack.

The sheriffs office says Due is an ex-felon and should be considered armed and dangerous. If anyone see him, deputies said dont approach him but call 911 immediately.

Due said he was going to kill his mother and grandmother following an argument, then went into his bedroom and fired a bullet, deputies said. After that, Due slung a rifle over his back and took two handguns with him as he left the residence on foot, the sheriffs office said.

Officers searched the area, including the town of Lakehead, without success.
The Reading Fire in Lassen Volcanic National Park grew to more than 11,000 acres Friday evening and shut down a swath of Lassen National Forest.

SHARE Firefighters work to extinguish the Reading Fire on Friday. Paul Peterson and Helen Peterson talk to National Park Service Public Information Officer Betsy Coffee on Friday about the Reading Fire at the Hat Creek Rim Scenic Viewpoint.

11,000 acres burned at Lassen; portion of forest closed

By Sean Longoria and Joe Szydlowski of the Redding Record Searchlight

A weeks-old blaze in Lassen Volcanic National Park grew to more than 12,500 acres Friday evening, closing down a swath of the Lassen National Forest and prompting agencies to warn residents about smoke dangers.

The lightning-sparked Reading Fire has raged across 12,540 acres, consuming trees, brush and grass as it expands eastward and north into the Lassen National Forest.

It is 7 percent contained, as of 9 a.m. today.

Firefighters issued a warning residents to take precautions due to smoke levels, suggesting they visit http://www.cdc.gov/Features/Wildfires/ for smoke safety tips.

The Shasta County Air Quality Management issued an alert Thursday warning residents of eastern Shasta County about smoke inhalation, advising the elderly, children and those with lung and heart problems to avoid strenuous activities outdoors for extended periods of time.

The Reading fire, which began July 23, initially was allowed to burn to rid the ground of overgrowth.

Within the past six days, it's grown by 12,340 acres.

The fire has burned about 10,510 acres inside the park and 2,030 acres of the Lassen National Forest, which the Forest Service has closed east of Highway 44.

"They're trying to keep recreational folks out of there," said Yvonne Jones, a public information officer with fire crews.. "There's no way to warn those individuals (if they go in the forest) they could be in eminent danger."

Residents can still use the roads, according to the closure order.

Jones said no one has been injured or evacuated, and no structures are threatened.

The fire closed Highway 89 between Kings Creek and the Crags Campground, around six miles north of Summit Lake.

The Lost Creek, Crags and Summit Lake campgrounds and many trails are closed. The trail closures include Paradise Meadow, Terrace, Cliff, Shadow Lakes, Hat Lake In-holder Road from Hat Lake to the northern park boundary, Twin, Cluster Lakes Loop, Nobles Emigrant Trail from Painted Dunes to the northern park boundary, and the Pacific Crest Trail from Lower Twin Lake to the northern park boundary.

Hikers heading north on the Pacific Crest Trail will need to detour at Lower Twin Lake and follow the

trail past Rainbow Lake to continue onto Butte Lake. From there, hikers will access Highway 44 to Old Station where they can continue north on the trail.

Officials expect containment Aug. 21. Some 1,019 people are battling the fire, a fight that so far has cost $1.5 million.

But officials likely won't know how badly the park has been damaged until after crews put out the blaze, fire information officer Phyllis Swanson said.

"Typically at the end of an incident like this, they start to do rehab," Swanson said.

Meanwhile, at least a half-dozen other fires are burning in the north state, with two fires sparked in Shasta County, and a more than 60,000-acre blaze just over the Nevada border.

Combined, they've burned just under 100,000 acres.

In Shasta County, two fires burned Friday night: a 12-acre fire scorched brush and trees on Iron Mountain Road near the Keswick Trailhead Boat Launch around 4:40 p.m. It was contained by 6:10 p.m., said Linda Galvan, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

"With this 100-degree weather, it's hot, it's dry," she said. "You have to be careful when out there working or recreating."

Another fire burned around 9 acres and caused $1,000 worth of damage on Airport Road just south of Argyle around 5:30 p.m. and was contained by 6:10 p.m.

The Chips Fire on the Plumas National Forest grew to 20,040 acres Friday and was about 16 percent contained, officials said. A 200-acre spot fire broke out Thursday north of the fire containment lane, forcing crews to expand that line, officials said.

But as of 8 a.m. Saturday, the fire had grown to 30,000 acres, and was only 8 percent contained.

The Fort Complex, three fires on the Klamath and Rogue River-Siskiyou national forests, has so far burned 716 acres. The lightning-sparked blazes are burning "extremely difficult terrain" and are all zero to 10 percent contained, Forest Service officials said.

About 30 miles east of Modoc County, the Lost Fire in Nevada has burned 61,273 acres and is 80 percent contained, officials said.

The Parks Complex about nine miles west of Weed was called contained late Thursday after burning about 17 acres on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. Crews Friday contained the 1,666-acre Lake Complex in the Modoc National Forest.
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Gail Hansen, Shingletown

We live in a society where nothing is "your fault." Young girls go to frat parties and get drunk and get raped. Not their fault, knowing this stuff goes on. Sure go to the party, have fun, don't drink so you can stay in control.

Two girls entice their friend out into the woods and stab her 19 times. Luckily she lives. But the parents are upset because their daughter is tried as an adult. Not the crime she did but the sentencing. What if that young friend had died instead?

Last year the 16-year-old boy who killed two people because he was drinking and driving, his excuse was his parents never taught him right from wrong. Then mommy took him out of country to save him from sentencing.

Catch a criminal and he says yes he's guilty, but then he goes into court and is told to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But the attorney says to plead not guilty because it's the prosecutors' place to prove the defendant did the crime. It's called presumed innocent until proven guilty. So where does the truth and responsibility come for one's own actions? Anyone else just a little tired of this way of thinking like I am?
Pakistan's military can go to any length to inflict harm on India, so don't write off the possibility of an ISI-IS alliance, says Rajeev Sharma.

IMAGE: Afghan security forces take position at the scene of the May 2014 attack on the Indian consulate in Herat.

If it strikes a deal with Islamic State, the ISI would have yet another organisation to try and inflict damage on India's interests in Afghainistan.

Photograph: Mohammad Shoib/Reuters

The advent of Islamic State in Bangladesh -- demonstrated by the 26/11 Mumbai-type July 1-2 hostage crisis in an upscale Dhaka eatery frequented by foreigners -- should pose a question for the Indian security establishment.

What happens if officers in Pakistan's anti-India military establishment struck a devilish deal with Islamic State and turned IS's gaze towards India or Indian interests abroad?

Pakistan is itself witnessing a groundswell of support for Islamic State. A British newspaper report (external link) reveals how Islamic State is infecting Pakistani universities and schools.

Islamic State is also filling the vacuum left by a weakened Al Qaeda and the Taliban, emerging as a terrifying terror alternative.

Pakistan's military -- especially its Directorate of Inter Services Intelligence, the ISI -- is capable of running with the hares and hunting with the hounds. The Pakistan military and the ISI have a track record of keeping gunpowder and matchsticks together.

Pakistan harboured on its territory two of the most wanted terrorists on earth -- Osama bin Laden and Taliban chief Mullah Omar. All this when Islamabad declared itself a key ally of the United States-led international coalition's war on terror, securing billions of dollars in aid from Washington for its assistance in 'combating' Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Both bin Laden and Omar perished in Pakistan, one in a May 2, 2001 attack mounted by US Navy Seals, the other from natural causes in April 2013.

The possibility of the ISI striking a ghoulish deal with Islamic State, currently floating below radar screens in Pakistan, cannot be ruled out.

India's security establishment knows that Pakistan has more strategic leverage over non State actors of all hues and kinds than any other nation on earth.

Pakistan's terror planners are well placed to play another strategic and tactical game with Islamic State, the newest, most diabolic, non State actor on the block.

Pakistan's Deep State can offer Islamic State assistance in return for two things:

One, Islamic State spares Pakistan and Pakistani territory from terror attacks;

Two, Islamic State terrorists turn their murderous attention towards India.

If such an alliance were to happen, Pakistan's military establishment would meet many strategic objectives while keeping the deniability quotient very high.

Pakistan's Deep State can ask Islamic State terrorists present on its territory to go after targets in India in exchange for freedom of movement within Pakistan.

For the Pakistani security establishment, whose single point obsession is to bleed India through terrorism, Pakistan would facilitate a fearsome terror outfit to spread mayhem in India.

Of course, this high stakes gamble -- if it is undertaken -- has the potential of going horribly awry. Islamic State's leadership is known to be unpredictable and could easily turn on the cocky masterminds in Pakistan's terror HQ.

But Pakistan's military can go to any length to inflict harm on India, so don't write off the possibility of an ISI-IS alliance yet.

Rajeev Sharma, an independent journalist and strategic affairs analyst, tweets @Kishkindha
'I have noticed how a certain country wants to establish the presence of ISIS in Bangladesh.'

'Are these terrorists working under some religious inspiration or they are being lured by an obnoxious amount of money?'

'For some mysterious reasons, no action is taken by the government against suspicious organisations.'

Bangladesh journalist Nazrul Kabir discusses the Dhaka carnage with Rediff.com's Indrani Roy.

IMAGE: Bangladesh security personnel outside the restaurant. Photograph: Mahmud Hossain Opu/Getty Images

Senior Bangladesh journalist, activist and writer Nazrul Kabir, who has covered terrorism for years, spent Saturday, July 2, covering the hostage crisis and its aftermath at the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's upscale Gulshan area.

The terror attack left 20 dead and many injured.

Five attackers were killed in the Bangladesh army operation. One injured terrorist is in police custody.

According to some reports, two terrorists escaped.

On his way back late on Saturday evening, Kabir shared with Rediff.com's Indrani Roy his observations about the murderous terrorist attack.

Terrorists chose a Friday and the month of Ramzan for this attack. Does Islamic State intend to send out a signal to the Bangladesh government?

I don't want to read too much into this Ramzan and Friday issues.

To CNN, it was a Black Friday, to us, it was a sad day.

It's still highly debatable whether there is ISIS in Bangladesh.

I have been working as a journalist for decades.

I have noticed how a certain country wants to establish the presence of ISIS in Bangladesh.

My country has seen violence for quite some time.

There have been severe repercussions over the prosecution and subsequent hanging of Bangladeshi war criminals.

Charges against one such war criminal and Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mir Quasem Ali's prosecution is under review at the moment.

And we, the common people of Bangladesh, were apprehensive of some major 'incident' here.

Moreover, photos of the Gulshan terrorists released by the police to the media clearly indicate that they were Bangladeshis who featured in the police's most wanted lists for long.

Some media reports say the attackers were conversing in Hindi and chanting Allah Hu Akhbar.

A particular section of the media with a distinct political affiliation is desperate to prove the Gulshan terrorists' foreign links.

Without any concrete proof, some newspapers are even reporting that the attackers hailed from India.

Such reportage is irresponsible and baseless and should be boycotted.

I think the Holey Artisan Bakery incident is an attack against the present government of Bangladesh; it's a challenge posed at the secular forces.

Quite a few Hindu priests have been killed recently. Who has killed them?

We need to find out.

You think ISIS does not exist in Bangladesh?

I don't want to get into that debate.

From the experience that I have gathered as a journalist, I can tell you I don't find any similarity between the carnage that we identify ISIS with and that which took place in Dhaka.

There is a possibility, however, that small militant outfits operating in Bangladesh intend to align with Al Qaeda and ISIS and want to draw their attention.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the Holey Artisan Bakery attack, according to its media branch Amaq.

While this has been reported in some section of the Western media, I have reasons to doubt this.

Who created Al Qaeda and ISIS?

It's time we asked ourselves these questions.

The Holey Artisan Bakery incident needs to be dealt with very seriously.

One needs to find out what is motivating youth to join the militant outfits.

Are they working under some religious inspiration or they are being lured by an obnoxious amount of money?

One also needs to probe if any national or international group is conspiring against the government of Bangladesh.

Let us not forget that the economy of Bangladesh has been improving significantly in recent times.

Is there some conspiracy to cast a shadow over the country's economy?

Let us also not forget that there has been a series of attacks against our prime minister Sheikh Hasina in the recent past.

What do the police say?

Inspector General of Police A K M Sahidul Haque has told the media that all five terrorists who have been killed during the army operation were Bangladeshis.

The terrorist who has been captured alive will be an important source of information, right?

I hope the Bangladesh police and security forces work efficiently in this regard.

Don't you have confidence in them?

(Pauses).

The police recently claimed to have arrested Khaled Saifullah alias Jamil alias Afif Kaifi, the mastermind of the machete attack on Madaripur college teacher Ripon Chakrawarty.

According to sources, soon after the arrest, certain militant outfits have made some demands to the police. These are:

Khaled Saifullah should be freed;

He should be given safe passage

It should be declared that he is associated with a group that is spearheading the Islamist movement in Bangladesh.

These are, however, unconfirmed reports. There has been no statement from the government as yet.

It is being heard that the attackers killed non-Bangladeshis and that they freed those who could recite the Holy Quran or were clad in burqa.

This is also propaganda by a part of the media.

If the attackers intended to kill only non-Banglaeshis, why was Ishrat Akhond, a human resources director at a private firm, killed?

She was known as one of the finest human beings.

Another victim, Transcom chief Latifur Rahman's daughter Simeen Hossain's youngest son, Faraaz Hossain, was a devout Muslim.

The third victim Abinta Kabir's father is the son of Manzur and Nilu Murshed of Lavender, a super store in Gulshan.

Are we to assume all these people could not chant verses from the Quran?

Gulshan is a diplomatic area. How did the terrorists enter that high security zone?

A highly placed government source told me that there are numerous close circuit television cameras in the Gulshan area barring a narrow strip of road along the lake.

There is a possibility that the terrorists might have used that route.

It also needs to be found out if they carried the weapons with them or if they had a source inside the bakery.

All these issues need to be investigated.

What is your opinion on the recent killings of bloggers, secular voices, Hindu priests etc? Who are behind these murders?

Bangladesh Intelligence came to know that BNP (the Oppostion Bangladesh Nationalist Party) joint secretary Aslam Chowdhury recently had a meeting in India with Mossad's representative.

Chowdhury was arrested on his return to Bangladesh. The matter is sub judice.

During interrogation, Chowdhury said he had met Mossad's representative to set up an international forum to fight the attack on minorities in Bangladesh.

Does the killing of minorities here have any link to this so-called 'meeting'?

This question keeps haunting me.

It is to be noted that the Bangladesh police recently have charged seven people, including senior BNP leader M A Kayum for their alleged involvement in the murder of an Italian aid worker Ceasre Tavella last year.

Therefore, all these so-called 'target killings' have strong political links.

In an interview, Professor Ajoy Roy, father of slain Bangladeshi-American blogger Avijit Roy, told me that many NGOs fund militant outfits in Bangladesh. Is it true?

Of course! Sources told me that huge amounts of money were distributed in the villages through two NGOs.

While working as a reporter in 2004-2005, I found out that four mosques were built in a remote Chittagong village with that money.

At that time, the infamous terrorist, Siddique ul-Islam, also known as Bangla Bhai, was hiding there.

Villagers told me that Bangla Bhai indoctrinated 10 suicide squad members in those mosques.

I had interviewed the father of one of the members of that suicide squad in early 2000. The man told me, 'My son got derailed while studying at a madrassa.'

Many NGOs in Bangladesh fund terrorist outfits. There is no doubt about it.

Why does the government not take action against these NGOs?

Secularists have a lot of grievances against the present Awami League government on this.

Because of some mysterious reasons, no action is taken against these suspicious organisations.

Professor Abul Barkat, a senior professor at Dhaka University, researched the funding methods of Bangladeshi terrorist groups.

Professor Barkat stated that Islamic political parties have so far invested in 13 different economic sectors, including finance, insurance, retail, education, real estate, communication, media, health care and pharmaceuticals.

But the present government just chooses to turn a blind eye.

Do you fear many more terror attacks in Bangladesh in the future?

It is difficult to foresee anything as far as Bangladesh is concerned.

We could never imagine that the architect of Bangladesh's freedom Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his family would be assassinated.

The killers would kill, terrorists will unleash violence, but the spirit of the common people can never be smothered.

We, the people of Bangladesh, are free, alive and determined to fight this attack against humanity.

This morning, the people of Bangladesh gathered at the Press Club and formed a human chain.

They vowed to fight against terror of every form.

Do you think this incident will affect India-Bangladesh ties?

As I said, some media organisations are trying to portray that some of these attackers were Indians.

During the War of Independence (the movement to free the then East Pakistan), the freedom fighters were tagged as 'agents of Russia and India.'

The intent is loud and clear.

I know that the Indian Constitution is a secular one and that it believes in the spirit of democracy.

There is a strong bond of camaraderie between the two countries that can never be broken.
'If a bloodbath of this nature can occur in a high security area like Gulshan, I shudder to think how vulnerable other parts of this country are,' Bangladesh activist Dr Lelin Choudhury tells Rediff.com's Indrani Roy

IMAGE: An injured man receives help after the attack. Photograph: Mahmud Hossain Opu/Getty Images

"The Bangladesh government has to take immediate steps to counter terrorism. Bloodshed has to stop. People of this country have every right to live," medical practitioner and human rights activist Lelin Choudhury told Rediff.com's Indrani Roy the over telephone from Dhaka.

Like many other social and political activists in Bangladesh, Dr Choudhury believes the Holey Artisan Bakery attack on Friday evening was not masterminded by Islamic State operatives, but by some local fanatic Islamist groups.

According to the Western media, Islamic State terrorists carried out the gruesome killings at the Holey Artisan Bakery.

A few Western countries, especially the US, is desperate to prove the existence of IS in Bangladesh.

The moment the attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery took place, IS' involvement hit the headlines in some sections of the media.

Why?

If America can prove that there is IS -- or for that matter Al Qaeda -- in Bangladesh, it can garner support among South Asian countries for its consistent fight against these two terror groups.

Also, it will provide America an opportunity under the pretext of friendship to interfere in the politics and economy of Bangladesh.

(Pauses) There is a saying in Bangladesh -- if you have a friend like America, you don't need enemies.

How are you so sure that some local forces are responsible for the carnage?

The pattern of the attack as has been reported in the media indicates that.

First, the terrorists were carrying unsophisticated weapons -- some crude bombs, three pistols, one rifle and a few improvised explosive devices.

IS is known to use more sophisticated arms.

Moreover, the photos released by the police to the media revealed that all the attackers were Bangladeshis whom the police were looking for some time.

They were known to be war criminals' sympathisers (Editor's note: War cirminals refers to those who collaborated with the Pakistan army in the atrocities in then East Pakistan in 1971. Many 'war criminals' have been found guilty by Bangladesh courts and executed.).

We hear that there was some kind of negotiation between the Bangladesh police and the attackers before the terrorists killed 20 hostages.

Yes.

Unconfirmed reports suggest that in the early hours of the hostage crisis, the terrorists had raised the following demands with the police:

Freedom for Khaled Saifullah;

Safe passage for him out of Bangladesh;

An official statement declaring him a member of the group that is spearheading the Islamist movement in Bangladesh.

Saifullah, arrested by the police a few days ago, allegedly planned a machete attack on Madaripur college teacher Ripon Chakrawarty.

This clearly suggests a link between Saifullah and the eatery assailants.

Are you happy with the army operation and the role of the police?

Yes. I think the Bangladesh government has been extremely efficient and prompt in dealing with the crisis.

Initially, when the police were at work, they were not well prepared to counter the terrorists, which is why two officers got killed.

However, with the army launching Operation Thunderbolt, the situation was brought under control in no time.

Of late, bloggers, writers, publishers, activists and priests have been hacked to death in Bangladesh. Who, do you think, are behind these killings?

A group of Islamic fundamentalists who want to challenge the country's secularism carry out these murders.

Their sole motive is to initiate a communal riot.

They have been unsuccessful so far, thanks to the positive vibes of the common people.

Islamist forces have been active in Bangladesh in recent years. What is the reason?

Islamist forces have existed in Bangladesh for decades.

When the common people of this country launched the Shahbag Movement (external link) in February 2013, those forces, including some notorious members of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, were in for a rude shock.

According to media reports, they started gathering steam through a series of clandestine meetings.

If you look at the records, you will find that the rate of killing of minorities by these Islamist groups too went up in this country post 2013.

Has the Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party supported these Islamists?

Oh yes!

BNP has always supported them to gain political mileage.

But now things have gone out of control and the BNP too has lost its hold over these divisive forces.

Yes. I am worried stiff.

All the more so because the episode exposes the futility of security measures that exist in this country.

If a bloodbath of this nature can occur in a high security area like Gulshan, I shudder to think how vulnerable other parts of this country would be.

What has been the effect of this attack on the common people?

Yesterday (July 2), I visited some market places in Dhaka and was shocked to find them almost empty.

Id-ul-Fitr is just round the corner, yet there is no enthusiasm among the people.

There were very few cars on the streets too.

It is quite clear that the Gulshan killings have left a deep scar on Bangladeshis' minds.

What does Sheikh Hasina's government need to do now?

It has to identify the Islamist terror modules that operate in this country.

It has failed to nab the suspicious organisations that fund these terror outfits.

It is high time the government took action against them and brought the offenders to book.

The people of Bangladesh are seething with discontent over this government's failure to curb terrorism.

The government has to launch a massive manhunt at the earliest.

It just cannot afford to be indifferent to the issue any longer.

Will the Gulshan attack have any impact on India-Bangladesh ties?

Though a section of the media and some groups with vested interests are desperately trying to sour the bilateral relationship, the governments of both countries are keen on maintaining the warmth and camaraderie.

Common people on both sides of the border too are eager to stand together in their consolidated fight against terrorism.

Before the elections, BNP leader Begum Khaleda Zia had said, 'If the Awami League (Prime Minister Sheikh Hasima's party) wins, people won't be allowed to perform namaz in mosques.'

But despite this threat, people voted the Awami League to power.

I have great confidence in the power that lies with the people -- it is strong enough to counter terrorism of every kind.
Three students from United States universities, including Indian girl Tarushi Jain, were among 20 hostages hacked to death by suspected Islamic State militants in a terror attack at a restaurant in Bangladesh capital's high-security diplomatic zone.

Tarushi Jain, an Indian student at UC Berkeley, was on vacation in Dhaka when the attack happened.

The two other students -- Abinta Kabir and Faraaz Hossain-- were studying at Atlanta's Emory University, varsity officials said, mourning the loss of their lives.

Bangladeshi-origin Abinta, who was from Miami, was a rising sophomore at Emory's Oxford College. Faraaz, a junior from Dhaka, was a graduate of Oxford College and a student at the university's Goizueta Business School, the university said.

"The Emory community mourns this tragic and senseless loss of two members of our university family. Our thoughts and prayers go out on behalf of Faraaz and Abinta and their families and friends for strength and peace at this unspeakably sad time," the university said in a statement.

The attack has drawn widespread condemnation from several US Senators, with Georgia lawmaker David Perdue asserting that "these senseless acts of terror must come to an end."

Mourning the loss of the two Emory students, Senator Perdue said innocent people were being massacred across the world at the hands of Islamic State.

"These senseless acts of terror absolutely must come to an end. It is deeply disturbing to hear that two of the victims of the most recent attacks are Emory University students...keeping Abinta Kabir, Faraaz Hossain, and their loved ones in our thoughts and prayers during this terrible time," Perdue said.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio said he was saddened to learn that Miami's Abinta Kabir was among the victims.

"My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Bangladesh and all those countries who lost citizens in this horrific attack" Rubio said.

Image: (From left to right) Tarushi Jain, Abinta Kabir and Faraaz Hossain. Photograph: Facebook
Carnage in Baghdad, ahead of Eid.

IMAGE: The devastation caused by a suicide car bomb attack in the Karrada shopping area in Baghdad. Photographs: Khalid al Mousily/Reuters

Over 100 people have been killed and many more injured in two bombings that hit Baghdad, nearly all of them in a blast targeting a busy shopping area.

A car bomb exploded near a restaurant and shopping area in the central district of Karrada while the second bomb exploded in a predominantly Shia area north of the capital, killing another five people, BBC reported.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi was met by angry crowds while visiting the scene of the blast on Sunday.

IMAGE: Firemen at the site of the suicide car bomb attack in the Karrada shopping area.

The bombing is the deadliest in the country since Iraqi security forces last month dislodged Islamic State terrorists from Falluja, the IS stronghold just west of Baghdad that had served as a launch pad for such terror attacks.

IMAGE: The body of a victim killed in the attack is taken away from the site.

Islamic State said it carried out the attacks in a online statement.

There are reports that the source of the blast was a refrigerator van packed with explosives.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has set a two-year deadline to seal the border.

Supratim Dey reports from Guwahati.

Checking infiltration from Bangladesh was the main poll promise of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2016 Assam assembly election.

Soon after assuming charge as chief minister, Sarbananda Sonowal declared the Bangladesh border would be sealed in two years.

Influx of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants is an emotive issue in the state.

Besides the fear of loss of identity, pressure on land and resources has fuelled anti-Bangladeshi sentiments in Assam. The Assamese want the influx ended once and for all.

The Assam agitation of the 1980s, led by the All Assam Students Union, was centred on the issue. The agitation culminated with the signing of the Assam Accord, whereby the Centre, among other promises, agreed to seal the border. The sealing is still incomplete.

Assam shares 263 km of international boundary with Bangladesh. Securing the riverine boundary, which is approximately 100 km, has become an uphill task for the BSF.

On June 4, Sonowal held a meeting with BSF Director General K K Sharma where he asked for expeditious fencing and use of smart technological solutions like laser walls and surveillance gadgets.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has set a two-year deadline to seal the border. According to the ministry, a 223 km fence has been constructed.

The National Register of Citizens of 1952 is being updated in Assam to detect illegal foreigners. The process was started by the previous Congress government under supervision of the Supreme Court and is nearing its end.

State government figures do not indicate large-scale influx of Bangladeshi immigrants into Assam. According to government figures, around 38,000 people were declared illegal immigrants since 1985 and 2,442 were expelled. Most of those detected went missing soon after.

Census figures, however, show a steady rise in the Muslim population of Assam. With a 34 per cent Muslim population, it is the second largest Muslim-populated state after Jammu and Kashmir.
West Bengal has a 2,200 km porous border with Bangladesh over 10 districts.

Ishita Ayan Dutt reports from Kolkata.

IMAGE: Border Security Force troopers patrol the Brahmaputra near the border with Bangladesh. Photograph: Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters

Hours after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee warned the North 24 Parganas administration on infiltration, one of Bangladesh's worst terror attacks occurred, killing 20 foreigners.

'What are you doing? Infiltration is increasing, law and order has touched a low, anti-socials are moving freely. I won't tolerate this. Arrest them. Don't see their political affiliation,' she told the district administration after a review meeting.

West Bengal's 2,200 km porous border with Bangladesh over 10 districts has been a problem that a blast in Bardhaman in 2014 brought to the fore.

Investigations linked the blast to the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, Bangladesh, JMB. Last year, the National Investigation Agency filed a chargesheet in the blast case, naming 21 people in a conspiracy hatched by the JMB.

"Stopping infiltration is a priority. A series of meetings have taken place with BSF (Border Security Force) officials on border fencing. The BSF will purchase land and we will help them," a West Bengal official said.

Yet, successive state governments lose interest in curbing infiltration before elections. West Bengal's Muslim population of 29 per cent can swing election results.

Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju recently informed Parliament that 437,958 heads of cattle were seized between 2013 and 2016.

But it is fake Indian currency notes that make West Bengal a safe transit corridor for terrorists.

Most of the attacks in India have had some tenuous link with Kolkata. Indian Mujahideen chief Yasin Bhatkal, believed to be the mastermind behind the Bengaluru stadium blast in 2010, Pune's German Bakery blast in 2012, and the Hyderabad blast in 2013, spent several years on Zakaria Street in central Kolkata.

The ammonium nitrate for explosives that killed 21 people in Varanasi in 2006 was bought from Kolkata. The attack on the American Centre in 2002 was the only aberration where Kolkata was targeted by terrorists.
IMAGE: Members of the Rapid Action Battalion are seen outside the Holey Artisan restaurant, where gunmen had taken hostages, in the upscale Gulshan area of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Photograph: Reuters TV

Bangladesh on Sunday blamed "homegrown" Islamist terrorists and Pakistan's spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence for the country's worst terror attack in which 20 hostages were hacked to death, ruling out the role of the Islamic State, as the shocked nation began observing two days of national mourning.

"Let me clear it again, there are no ISIS or al-Qaeda presence or existence in Bangladesh...the hostage-takers were all home-grown terrorists not members of ISIS or any other international Islamist outfits," said Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan.

"We know them (hostage-takers) along with their ancestors, they all grew here in Bangladesh...they belong to homegrown outfits like JMB (Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh)," he said.

The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the killing of the hostages, mostly foreigners, and two police officers during the 12-hour siege that ended on Saturday after the army stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery popular with expats in the diplomatic zone, killing six attackers and capturing one alive.

Hossain Toufique Imam, the political advisor to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said that the way in which the hostages were killed with machetes suggests the role of a local terrorist group, the banned Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen.

"Pakistan's ISI and Jamaat connection is well known... they want to derail the current government," Imam told a TV channel.

The arrested terrorist chickened out at the last minute and he holds the key to crucial details, he said.

Two teams of CID investigators and a bomb disposal squad visited the Spanish restaurant to collect evidence after Bangladesh's worst terror attack.

A police source was quoted as saying by the Dhaka Tribune that all the attackers were Bangladeshi nationals aged between 20 and 28. The plice said the attackers were well-educated and most came from rich families.

"All of them were students and communicated at the crime scene in both Bengali and English," the police source said.

Police chief AKM Shahidul Hoque said five of the dead gunmen were listed as militants and the police had been looking for them. The police identified them as Akash, Bikash, Don, Bandhon, and Ripon.

Hostages who were killed include 19-year-old Indian girl Tarishi Jain. Nine Italians, seven Japanese, one American of Bangladeshi origin, and two Bangladeshis were also among the people who were killed.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina vowed to trace the "roots" of the culprits who supplied weapons and explosives to the terrorists.

Her remarks came during a meeting with Japan's State Minister of Foreign Affairs Seiji Kihara at her official residence Ganabhaban.

Most of those killed were found with their throats slit.

Among those rescued were Indian, Sri Lankan and Japanese nationals, media reports said. Around 30 people were injured.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh Nationalist Party Chairperson Khaleda Zia called the Gulshan cafe attack a "cowardly act" and urged for a national unity to rid Bangladesh from militancy.

"All our achievement will go in vain if we cannot ensure security and eliminate militancy. Let us come forward, unite, forgetting all our differences," she said.

The government has consistently ruled out the presence of the dreaded terror group in the Muslim-majority nation though experts have been maintaining that series of brutal attacks on minorities and secular activists had the hallmarks of ISIS group.

The police have released the photos of the six gunmen killed during the raid by commandos. A seventh was arrested and is being interrogated by Bangladeshi intelligence officers.

Bangladeshi media reports said that after United States-based SITE Intelligence Group published photos of five gunmen holding assault rifles who, the Islamic State claims, killed the hostages, former classmates have started identifying by posting their old pictures on social media.

Warning "crusader countries" that their citizens would not be safe "as long as their aircraft are killing Muslims", the ISIS also posted pictures of four fighters, who it said were involved in the attack, smiling in front of a black flag of the outfit.

According to the reports, three of the five attackers have so far been identified by their friends.

The gunmen did a background check on religion of the captives by asking them to recite Quranic verses and tortured those who could not do so.

Announcing a two-day state mourning for those killed in the worst terror attack in the country, Prime Minister Hasina vowed to do everything to eliminate terrorists from the country and asked extremists to stop killing in the name of religion.

She asked all, including the general public, to get united to resist a "handful of terrorists".

The national flag was kept at half mast as the country began two-day mourning period.

A huge number of people joined the mourning wearing black badges or posting black badges on their social media accounts, including Facebook.

Hasina will also pay her respects to the victims of the terror attack at Gulshan cafe in a ceremony on Monday. The ceremony will be held at the army stadium in Dhaka.
A petition seeking lodging of a case against All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen Chief Asaduddin Owaisi was filed in a court in Meerut by a member of Uttar Pradesh Bar Council who alleged his remarks on the

youths held by the National Investigation Agency amounted to treason and promoted terrorism.

"The remark from Owaisi that his party will provide legal aid to five youths arrested by the NIA amounts to treason," the petitioner, Anil Kumar Bakshi, said.

"Owaisi's remark also shows that he is supporting terrorism," he alleged.

According to Bakshi, he filed a complainant with Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate seeking filing of cases under section 114 (abetting the crime), 115 (abetment of offence punishable with death or imprisonment for life), 117 (abetting commission of offence), 121 (waging against the government of India), 121A (conspiracy to commit offences punishable by section 121), 124A (sedition), 131 (abetting mutiny), 132 (abetment of mutiny), and 200 (using as true such declaration knowing it to be false).

Besides, sections 153 (promoting enmity between different groups), 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty), 153A (act of promoting enmity between different groups), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) of the Indian Penal Code were also mentioned in the complaint.

The hearing on the complaint will be held on July 6, said the court.

Owaisi on Friday said his party would provide legal help to the youths arrested by the NIA on charges of involvement in an alleged ISIS terror module, but asserted his party does not support terrorism.

Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi alleged that Owaisi is giving "oxygen" to terrorists and that he is seen as "standing with extremists".

"Owaisi is directly or indirectly helping the ISIS which had come up with a video in which it threatened to target India. This is betrayal of the country. On the one hand you condemn the ISIS and on the other hand you support those who are involved in such acts.

"One should not stoop down to this level in politics that you are seen standing with terrorism and those who support it. Those who give such statements are giving oxygen to terrorism. You do politics but refrain from actions that make it seem like you are supporting terrorism," Naqvi said.

"The investigating agencies should take action against him within the legal framework. Those who support terrorism directly or indirectly should be condemned," Bharatiya Janata Party National Secretary Shrikant Sharma said.

BJP spokesperson Nalin Kohli said before jumping onto anything, Owaisi should have weighed the pros and cons because the evidence suggests that the arrested youths were allegedly planning to carry out terror-related activities during Ramzan.

"The media is clearly pointing towards evidence that clearly seems to suggest that this is the plot and there is evidence to back it up.

"Now before jumping into it, one should weigh the pros and cons because tomorrow if the court finds that the evidence is sufficient, they are convicted for an act of terror, they are sentenced, then Mr Owaisi will definitely answer a question. Was he openly helping terrorist and that he was very eager to help terrorists?" Kohli said.

Sharma said terrorism should not be seen through religion and also took a dig at those who had targeted the Modi government over intolerance issue as he questioned their silence.
'It is not just a loss for India or UC Berkeley, it is a loss for the world.'

Friends and teachers at Tarishi Jain's university in California remember the teenager murdered by IS killers in Dhaka.

Ritu Jha/Rediff.com reports from California.

Faculty members and friends at the University of California, Berkeley, are shocked to learn that Tarishi Jain was one among the 20 people murdered by Islamic State terrorists at a restaurant in Dhaka on Friday, July 1.

"All of us at Berkeley are devastated by the loss of our undergraduate student Tarishi Jain," Professor Lawrence Cohen, Director, Institute for South Asia Studies, told Rediff.com

Tarishi, 19, was on a summer internship from the Subir and Malini Chowdhury Centre for Bangladesh Studies at UC, Berkeley.

The internship placed her at the Eastern Bank Limited -- a commercial bank headquartered in Dhaka -- where Tarishi was studying the growth of e-commerce.

An Indian citizen, Tarishi had done her high school at the American International School in Dhaka. Her father Sanjeev Jain has a textile business in Dhaka.

"Tarishi was a dedicated student, passionate according to all I have spoken with about her work as a social entrepreneur," Professor Cohen said. "Her loss is devastating and words fail me."

Subir Chowdhury, who in 2014 donated $1 million to UC, Berkeley to set up the Subir and Malini Chowdhury Foundation, told Rediff.com, "We are devastated. Tarishi was a very talented young lady with passion to make a positive difference to the world."

"It is not just a loss for India or UC Berkeley," Chowdhury said, "it is a loss for the world. Our deep condolences to her family and friends.

Tarishi was planning to major in economics at Berkeley and was very involved in social entrepreneurship, Professor Cohen said.

She was working with a clothing line, EthiCal to produce clothes with the UC Berkeley insignia, the profits of which would support micro-credit projects through Kiva.

EthiCAL Apparel is a student-run social business based in Berkeley, California that designs and sells custom apparel, donating all profits through Kiva, a non-profit that work as microloans to support entrepreneurs worldwide.

"We are a student-run social business," Jacinta Lu, President, EthiCAL Apparel, told Rediff.com, "Our success is driven by the passion and commitment of our members, and we are made unique by our members who make us family. Tarishi was all of these things. She was beautiful, kind, sweet, and dedicated."

"She made EthiCAL better in every possible way and we will miss her very, very much. We are in complete shock over what has happened," Lu said.

"We are devastated at the loss of our girl," Professor Isha Ray, Associate Professor, Energy and Resources Group and Co-Director, Berkeley Water Centre, told Rediff.com

"It is our worst nightmare and we at the Bangladesh Centre and the Institute of South Asian Studies are in shock and grief. We are all so so sad," Professor Ray said.

"There will be a vigil on the Berkeley campus," Professor Cohen said, "to honour and remember her and to mark the violence and pain of her being taken from our community and from her family and friends."

On April 5, Tarishi posted about EthiCal: 'We are so excited to launch our new clothing line! .......Pleeease support us in our mission to help rising entrepreneurs and fight poverty all around the world.'

Friends and classmates posted condolences messages on Facebook.

'Tarishi was one of the most hard working people that I met at Ethical,' Zargham Aamer of EthiCAL wrote. 'Even though we worked in different departments, we worked together on several giveaways. Her positive cheerful personality made working with her an incredibly amazing experience.'

'We both were thinking of majoring in economics and recently talked at length about it at our EthiCal banquet dinner. I was really looking forward to working with her in the coming semester,' Zargham remembered.

'I am truly at a loss of words and completely heartbroken by this tragic loss. I've had the opportunity to meet and work with Tarishi last semester in EthiCAL, and I was always so impressed by her,' another student Vanessa Kim wrote. 'She had the brightest smile and such a positive energy that was contagious to people around her. She was such an integral part of our EthiCAL family, and I wish I could have told her how much we appreciate her hard work and her passion.'

'Tarishi, we all love you so so much and we'll miss you,' Vanessa wrote. 'You'll always be remembered in our hearts. Rest in peace, Tarishi.'
Share your opinion on this topic by sending a letter to the editor to tctvoice@madison.com. Include your full name, hometown and phone number. Your name and town will be published. The phone number is for verification purposes only. Please keep your letter to 250 words or less.
In this image from video provided by House Television, House Speaker Paul Ryan gavels the House into session on the night of June 22.
Community leaders discuss future of mental health services in Morgan County

A large crowd gathered at First Christian Church to learn about local efforts that are underway to manage growing mental health pressures facing the city and all of Morgan County.
ROSEVILLE, Calif.: When Phoebe Ferguson was born in a Sutter Roseville delivery room this August, she weighed 9 pounds, and her skin was pink and warm. The absence of a cry, however, brought a harsh reminder that the newborn had died in her mother's womb earlier that day.

Her parents had only a few hours to hold her before nurses sent her to the morgue. Later the nurses brought her back, slightly more mottled and cooler to the touch, so that her parents could cradle her body a little longer. They took turns holding Phoebe for two more days before saying a final, heart-wrenching goodbye.

"I carried her for nine months, I wanted to see her," said mother Stacy Ferguson. "I wanted to memorize every part of her. Giving her back was the hardest thing."

"Every time they brought her back, it was a reminder," said her father, Gavin Ferguson. "If she were in the room with us and it were more gradual, it wouldn't be as bad."

For parents, parting with a stillborn baby is the first step in a long and difficult grieving process, one that can take a lifetime to come to terms with. A new device called Cuddle Cot, installed at Sutter Roseville Medical Center this week in Phoebe Ferguson's honor, aims to make that journey a little easier.

The cooling device preserves a stillborn baby's body in a bassinet or crib so that he or she can remain up to five days in a hospital room, extending the time a family has to photograph the infant, sing to it, take its measurements or show it to loved ones.

When not kept cold, babies' bodies begin to deteriorate after delivery. About 24,000 babies are delivered stillborn in the United States every year.

"What no one prepares you for is how quickly the baby's body starts to break down," said Sharon Cox, who birthed a stillborn son 14 years ago and now runs the Sharing Parents support group for grieving parents at Sutter Roseville. "Here you are with a limited amount of time to say hello and goodbye. "It's very traumatic to see that happening to the baby."

Cox, a chaplain, said bidding a proper goodbye is crucial to a healthy grieving process. Losing a newborn brings on a particularly complex grief, she said, because it's so unexpected and so drastic.

"You're constantly dealing with the longing, the wondering," she said. "We're always rushed through grief to get to the other side. But if we don't take the time to work through grief during those hard moments, we're always going to regret not having that time."

When Rebecca Makris, of Livermore, Calif., lost her newborn son Tucker last year, she had 15 hours to spend with his body and to memorialize him as best she could.

"I got him dressed, I took photos, I kissed every inch of him," she said. "I cried all over him and told him I was sorry and wished that things were different. You just try to take it all in, because these are the only memories you're ever going to have."

Within weeks of losing Tucker, Makris wanted to help other parents cope with such tragedy, she said. She found a promising tool in the Cuddle Cot, a product developed in the United Kingdom and brought to the United States in 2013. Introducing other grieving parents to the device could give new meaning to her life after the loss, she said.

"It really helps me to know that my son's life ended, but I'm helping another family," Makris said. "It gives the baby more dignity, and it really lets the parents go through the motions a little easier."

Makris launched into activism with the U.S. Cuddle Cot Campaign Initiative and raised more than $10,000 for new cots. At a cost of about $3,000 for each cot, she's placed three of the five in use in California so far, with the Sutter Roseville cot the first in Sacramento, Calif.

The national campaign has placed about 90 cots in hospitals since 2014, said Lori Esteve, an organizer with the Florida-based nonprofit effort.

Esteve said that when she delivered a stillborn son 30 years ago, she was told to simply go home and not think about it.

"When you go from planning a future to a funeral in a heartbeat, choices become very important," she said. "Whether you choose time to be with your baby or not, having the choice makes a huge difference."

The Cuddle Cot comes in a cobalt blue toy chest containing a cooling unit with a hose that attaches to a mat underneath the baby. The chest also contains a book for grieving parents.

The cot at Sutter Roseville holds a letter from Makris about her own journey of loss and recovery. Soon it will also contain a letter from the Fergusons.

On top of the chest is a gold plaque, noting that the gift is in memory of Tucker Makris, to honor Phoebe Ferguson.

"Every time I see her name on something, it's beautiful," Gavin Ferguson said. "It's a physical reminder that she existed."

"They always say that mothers protect their children, and mothers of stillborns protect their children's memories," Stacy Ferguson said. "With the plaque here, it's like she's making a difference somehow."
In Cisco, you can have your pie and eat it, too. Or three. Or more ...

Greg Jaklewicz
When the Abilene Zoo was built at what now is Nelson Park, it was the second dynamic use of open land southeast of downtown.

Previously, the area was home to Kinsolving Field, named for the Kinsolving family that had owned the land and started by a local dentist, Dr. M.T. Ramsey. It's hard to picture an airport there today, what with the current airport to the south, a man-made lake abutting the zoo and other familiar landmarks in place for years.

But the zoo parking lot once was a runway, as was the midway for September's West Texas Fair & Rodeo. The first airport covered both the zoo and Taylor County Expo Center layouts.

Ironically, Grady Kinsolving, who led the local Chamber of Commerce in the 1920s, helped start the Abilene Zoo in what today is Rose Park.

So, over the years, an airport was relocated  what's the big deal? But where lions and tigers and bears since have found a home, two of America's  in fact, the world's  most famous aviators once flew into Abilene.

The first was Charles Lindbergh, who landed the Spirit of St. Louis here Sept. 20, 1927  four months to the day after taking off from Long Island to fly across the Atlantic Ocean to Paris. He flew to Abilene from Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The second was Amelia Earhart. Her visit was a smash, in more ways than one  she crashed taking off and after staying overnight at the Oldham home, had to stay a little longer. Lindbergh was here for just two memorable hours, then flew to Fort Worth to continue his 82-city celebratory tour.

Lindbergh arrived about 9:30 a.m., according to a story in the Abilene Daily Reporter. He taxied to an enclosed area, where his plane was guarded.

After walking to a Nash car, which had been equipped with a 'throne' for him to sit in for a downtown parade. Lindbergh, the story goes, was a bit embarrassed and told Mildren (Paxton) Moody, wife of Gov. Dan Moody and an Abilene native: 'Please. I would much rather not ride up there. I would appreciate it if you would let me ride on the back seat with you.'

The velvet-covered seat was removed and tossed aside, but only after a crowbar was used.

Still, First Lady Moody tried to get in the front seat but Lindbergh again asked her to join him.

The driver was L.E. Derryberry, whose homemade plane built in 1935 is displayed today inside the Abilene Regional Airport terminal. Derryberry was the first airport manager and quite the pilot in his day. He knew Lindy from pilot training in San Antonio.

Next to Derryberry was Mayor Thomas E. Hayden Jr. and C.W. Bacon, president of the Chamber of Commerce.

Lindbergh was wildly cheered at the airport, then during the parade and at a gazebo appearance at Federal Park, near the current location of the downtown post office and federal courts.

He told the governor's wife that people who had come a long way to see him should get a good look but 'I can't go these thrones.'

Why Abilene? Besides knowing Derryberry, Abilene was one of the few airports in Texas back then.

Almost four years later, Earhart came to Abilene. Her arrival June 10, 1931, from the Big Spring, where she had refueled, was history making, but the 1,500 or so on hand for her departure got a real jolt. She did, too, crashing on takeoff.

She said her takeoff was too slow and she had 'underestimated my distance.'

She was not hurt and, according to the Daily Reporter, stood in the cockpit to reassure her fans.

The plane, an autogiro  cross between a plane and helicopter that later was called 'the Edsel of aviation'  was taken apart by mechanics and otherwise cleared away by souvenir-hunters. It also had struck three vehicles trying to lift off the ground.

An area pilot, Dick Young, flew Earhart to Oklahoma City to get another autogiro and a few days later, she returned to Abilene to show folks she indeed could fly one without crashing.

The beloved aviatrix disappeared flying over the Pacific Ocean six years later.

More irony  she vanished July 2, 1937. The current zoo opened 29 years later, on July 2.

A historical marker at Abilene Regional Airport notes only Lindbergh's visit. Otherwise, these fly-ins are bound to history, and only exotic birds and butterflies fly now at the present-day zoo.
'... Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples ... Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly ... had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.' (Acts 19:1-10).

Ephesus was a historic Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the Aegean Sea coast in Asia Minor (present-day Turkey).

It was one of the largest cities in the Mediterranean world during the 1st and 2nd centuries BCE (before common era) until its decline several centuries later. The ruins of ancient Ephesus are well preserved and considered to be one of the best excavation and reconstruction archaeological sites in the world.

Ephesus was an important location for early Christianity because it was reported by the New Testament to be the destination of Jewish apostle Paul's third missionary journey in the mid-50s CE (common era), the subject of the book of Ephesians, one of seven churches addressed in the book of Revelation, and believed to have been where a Jewish biblical author named John spent his last years.

Today, Ephesus is a major international visitor destination on the Eastern Mediterranean. It is a few miles inland now because the sea has receded over the centuries, but easily accessible from the port city of Kusadasi, Turkey, a resort community on the Aegean Sea. My wife and I have traveled to Ephesus and visited the famous ancient ruins, an incredible and impressive outdoor archaeology museum.

Entering the massive ruins of Ephesus, we walked by the Magnesia Gate, and proceeded to the Odeon indoor theater, Prytaneion town hall, Temple of Domitian, Trajan's Fountain, Hercules Gate, Roman Baths, Temple of Hadrian and Latrina, open side-by-side public toilets (no gender controversy among these early Christians!). Also to the Celsius Library, Arcadian Way, Great Theater of Emperor Tyrannus (where Jewish evangelist Paul is reported to have preached to Ephesians), Church of Mary (dedicated to the Jewish mother of Jesus and his siblings), and many more enduring examples of the life and times of ancient Ephesus.

At a nearby restaurant, we enjoyed a meal served with ingredients contained in Hebrew (Old Testament) and Jewish (New Testament) Scriptures called the 'God's Grace' feast. It consisted of olive oil with oregano and mint, dried fruits and seeds, natural honey, goat cheese with dill weed and garlic, wheat bread with herbs, garbanzo beans with tahini, vinegar and cumin, lentil pottage with mustard seeds, lamb and fish with pomegranate sauce, fig cake and apricot and holy wine.

We also visited the ruins of St. John's Basilica on a hill nearby overlooking Ephesus where a Jewish biblical author named John is claimed to be buried. Next to this site are the remains of the Temple of Artemis, a pagan mother-goddess of fertility worshipped during Greek and Roman times, considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and the reason for Ephesus' early fame.

Unfortunately and like the Holy Land, there are always tourist traps that exploit gullible visitors for commercial profits. In the Ephesus area, it is the 'Virgin Mary House' that has no basis in fact, history or Scripture. It is a constructed place on the backside of a mountain several miles from Ephesus and can be easily avoided.

Our visit to the ancient city of Ephesus was enriching, enlightening and enjoyable. We recommend it to anyone interested in pagan, Greek, Roman, Jewish and Christian history in Asia Minor.

Although Ephesus is remotely located on the west coast of Turkey and safely visited by sea by countless numbers of international travelers, visitors must be careful about travel to other parts of Turkey. It is a Muslim country with religious conflicts and recent domestic terrorism. The U.S. Department of State advises avoiding many parts of the country. Always check the travel advisory before planning a trip there.

'The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.'  Augustine (African theologian)

'Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it solely on these accounts.'  Mark Twain (American humorist)

John Compere is an area rancher and 'aspiring traveler' who lives in Callahan County.
On Oct. 16, 1991, Suzanna Hupp pulled up to the Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen to meet her parents for lunch. She normally carried a handgun in her purse but left it in her car because Luby's had posted a large sign saying 'No Firearms Allowed Inside Luby's.'

A short while later, while she and her parents were eating, there was a crash as a truck came through the front door. A man got out with a gun and started shooting, killing 23  including Hupp's parents  and wounding 27, including her. Years before the shooting, Gov. Ann Richards, a Democrat, had vetoed several bills to give Texans the right to get a concealed handgun license for self-defense.

The next governor, George Bush, a Republican, signed the CHL bill largely because of the Luby's massacre. If Richards had signed instead of vetoing the CHL bill, Suzanna Hupp and others would have had their weapons at Luby's that day and the outcome would have been far different. But with Democrats, it is always the gun's fault and Democrats don't want law-abiding citizens to have weapons to defend themselves.

On April 16, 2007, a gunman at Virginia Tech entered classrooms and killed 32 and wounded 17. If students and teachers would have had the right to be licensed to carry a concealed handgun, the outcome would have been far different. If the students had received any self-defense training such as throwing their books and backpacks at the attacker and then rushing and subduing him the outcome would have been different.

Democrats don't want people to have the right to defend themselves.

On Nov. 11, 2009, Maj. Nidal Hasan, a U.S. Army officer, attacked an unarmed group of soldiers at Fort Hood, killing 13, wounding 30. If the soldiers had been armed, they wouldn't have been attacked because terrorists such as Hasan only attack helpless unarmed people.

President Obama labeled the incident 'workplace violence' instead of what it was  Islamic terrorism. Democrats just can't udder the words Islamic terrorism. Not learning anything from the Fort Hood massacre, the Obama administration's policy six years later still was unarmed military personnel on duty when July 7, 2015, five unarmed recruiters were attacked and killed in Chattanooga, Tennessee, at their recruiting station by an Islamic terrorist. Democrat Obama's policy today is still unarmed military personnel.

In Orlando, Florida, a lone armed Islamic terrorist entered the Pulse nightclub and for the next three hours shot unarmed patrons there, killing 49 and wounding 53. Most patrons tried hiding and/or pretending to be dead, so the terrorist could then take his time executing them.

There were no news reports of the victims trying to defend themselves by attacking the terrorist.

Why did they not attack the terrorist? They were armed with all sorts of potential weapons they could have thrown at the attacker: chairs, bar stools, liquor and beer bottles. If several of the victims would have launched an attack of throwing things at the attacker, they could have either driven him away or overpowered him. If any of the managers of the bar had concealed handguns, they might have shot the terrorist.

Why did the victims choose just to let him shoot them? He had to reload several times and his gun reportedly jammed. In addition, he was preoccupied several times with making phone calls to claim alliance with ISIS. During any of those times he could have been overpowered.

A much better plan would be one like the 'Let's roll' example of Todd Beamer and the men who helped him.

On Sept. 11, 2001, the United Flight 93 that Beamer was on was taking off when just six minutes later the first of two planes crashed into one of the twin towers in New York City. The crew was warned by United to be aware of a possible hijacking and passengers found out about the terrorist attack by cellphone.

Minutes later, when the terrorists took over the cockpit of the United flight, Beamer and several other men decided that since they were going to die anyway they would try to take control of the plane and at least stop it from being flown into another building. They said 'Let's roll' and stormed the cockpit, overpowering the armed terrorists. The plane went out of control and crashed into a field that was just 20 minutes flying time from the U.S. Capitol. Their heroic action saved an untold number of lives in some D.C. buildings. They died heroes.

In recent news, a Houston area CHL school offered reduced rate classes to LGBT people, more than 450 immediately applied for the class, some from more than 100 miles away.

They had learned from Orlando that the playing dead defense doesn't work. Let's roll!

John Matthews lives in Abilene.
On the Fourth of July, many Americans will take the opportunity to read the Declaration of Independence. It is a long document, but the passage that is most likely to stir feelings of patriotism comes early, at the start of the second paragraph:

'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.'

As unalienable rights go, the meaning of 'life' and 'liberty' are indeed self-evident, but what did Thomas Jefferson mean when he inserted the 'pursuit of Happiness' into this short list? And 240 years after he wrote it, does that phrase still hold meaning?

In a letter to James Madison in 1823, Jefferson said, 'I turned to neither book or pamphlet while writing' the Declaration, but historians have long noted that the document's most famous passage had two obvious precedents.

Nearly a century before Jefferson put quill to parchment, English philosopher John Locke in 'The Second Treatise of Government' wrote 'That all men by nature are equal' and that nature also gave each man the right 'to preserve his property, that is, his life, liberty, and estate against the injuries and attempts of other men.'

Jefferson's fellow patriot George Mason invoked those ideas in June 1776, writing in Virginia's Declaration of Rights, 'all men are created equally free and independent and have certain inherent and natural rights  among which are the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.'

Jefferson may not have had 'book or pamphlet' open in front of him when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, but he certainly borrowed freely from Locke and Mason, and his phrase 'the pursuit of Happiness' admirably streamlined Mason's 'pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.'

The Bill of Rights gave tangible form to the natural rights of life and liberty. The right to life is expressed in prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment and unlawful imprisonment. The right to liberty is laid out in freedoms of religion, speech and assembly. The framers never attempted to define happiness in the Bill of Rights, nor did they guarantee it to anyone elsewhere in the Constitution.

Is it possible that Jefferson's 'pursuit' was just a rhetorical flourish, a bit of purposefully vague window dressing inserted to give universal appeal to the colonists' cause against King George III?

If that was Jefferson's intent, he certainly succeeded  we are far more likely to quote Jefferson's distillation of Lockean principles in the Declaration's second paragraph than anything contained in the long list of grievances that makes up the rest of the document.

However, Jefferson was not alone when he wrote about happiness. Many of his contemporaries pondered the same issue: What is happiness and what is the best way for individuals and societies to pursue it?

The short answer that Jefferson and other Enlightenment thinkers came up with was that happiness had its roots in humankind's inherent capacity for reason and desire for material security. Reason was the faculty that enabled humans to manipulate and control their environment. Happiness meant being able to provide for your family without fear of famine, incessant warfare or an exploitive aristocracy. In his essay 'Information to Those Who Would Remove to America,' Franklin called this condition a 'general happy mediocrity.' Today, we call it a stable, middle-class society, where people who work hard can reasonably expect freedom and prosperity for themselves and their children.

With that context in mind, Jefferson's 'pursuit of happiness' becomes much more than a pleasing turn of phrase. It was a remarkably succinct expression of the American dream, a confident look to the future rather than a backward nod to Locke. As such, it remains foundational to how we define ourselves as a nation.

Pursuing happiness doesn't mean we get it, but abandoning the pursuit seems a much worse alternative.

Email Timothy J. Shannon, who wrote this for The Philadelphia Inquirer, at tshannon@gettysburg.edu.
Seeing is believing.

Danny Sims, who heads Abilene-based Global Samaritan Resources, recently spent a week in Iraq. Six days where most of us wouldn't want to be.

Global has been part of a relief effort led by the Barzani Charity Foundation for the Yazidis in northern Iraq, a target of ISIS. The foundation was started in 2005 by Kurdish leader Masrour Barzani to aid refugees and the internally displaced.

One million soup meals have been shipped to the region via U.S. Air Force C-130s. That's not nearly enough, Sims knows, but he wanted to make sure the supplies we were sending were getting to the people in need.

He flew commercial to the region to see for himself. His connections put him in contact with a former member of special forces, now in his 60s, who is volunteering his know-how and knows his way around.

Back in Abilene last week, Sims reported that, yes, the meals are getting to the right destination and that the horrific impact of ISIS is everything we've heard, and more. His photos of a bleak landscape made more bleak by mass destruction are compelling.

He was taken to Sinjar, a city with a population estimated to be that of Abilene. The city is in ruins and is largely a ghost town. Bodies in the open were untouched, an appalling thought. Why? They could be booby trapped.

The residents who survived slaughter and abuse in 2014 fled to nearby Mount Sinjar, where water is scarce. ISIS personnel then blew up the city. Photos show exactly that  ruins and few people.

A cross stands atop the rubble of a Christian church in one photo. While the Kurdish people are mostly Muslim, a minority are Christians.

Their is no infrastructure to recover, as there would be here and in other countries. About 70 families have tried to move back into the city. Or what's left of it.

Part of Global's mission is serve the people who would be considered our enemy. What Sims reemphasized is that the huddled masses there are not our enemy. In this region, they are begging for the world to help and wish for peace. They do not want to be international refugees or refugees in their own country. They want ISIS pushed out and to be able to live in their homeland.

'Maybe 99.9 percent of the people wants the same things we do, peace and prosperity and to be able to raise their families,' Sims told us. They do not agree with the ideology of radical Islam, he said.

Americans have heard this many times. So had Sims, but he wanted to see for himself.

Their homeland is Kurdistan, which sounds like one of the several 'stan' ('place of') countries but is a Middle East region inhabited by mostly Kurdish people that is centered between Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

Carpet bombing ISIS, as one former presidential candidate suggested, also could mean killing these innocent people, Sims said. He can't imagine more horror being heaped on those who've suffered already.

When Dr. Kent Brantly recovered from Ebola, he emphasized that the battle against the deadly disease must be waged in Africa, where it originates. A front line there not only would provide a quicker response to an outbreak, it would better ensure Ebola does not leap across oceans  our greatest fear. Cases in the United States startled us  scared us  to that reality two summers ago.

Sims believes the same logic can be applied to the immigration issue. If people were not forced to flee, immigration would be less of an issue in the U.S., Europe  wherever. Our fears that people from this war-torn region intend us harm on our soil, or ISIS would mix in with refugees, would be mitigated.

Sims carefully walks the fine line of humanitarian efforts and turbulent politics. It's easy to step enthusiastically but blindly one way or the other. Sims said our view of the Middle East is a conflict itself: Truth vs. fear.

Global's mission requires it to stay away from politics and simply help people. Even our 'enemies.' He plans to go to churches and groups here to raise money to provide 24 million meals. The cost for 1 million meals? About $5,000, or 0.005 cents per meal. That seems a shockingly low price to keep people alive.

As we let our leaders and leaders-to-be hash out the political strategies, the need for people-to-people connection remains. We are proud that Abilenians and West Texans are united in this effort. On this July 4 weekend, it's a reminder of America's great giving power and world leadership. Our examples are followed.

Information on how to help with any GSR project can be found at www.globalsamaritan.org.
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MOUNT PLEASANT  Police and fire investigators Saturday were trying to determine the cause of a house fire late Friday night in which a 49-year-old woman was found dead.

Mount Pleasant police late Saturday afternoon identified the victim as Lori L. Liesner, a resident of the home. The cause of her death was still under investigation as of late Saturday afternoon, Sgt. Jason Vaccaro of the Mount Pleasant Police Department reported.

Battalion Chief Steve Salvo of the South Shore Fire Department reported that Liesners body was found after firefighters arrived at the home at 6618 Durand Ave. at 11:08 p.m. Friday  four minutes after being dispatched  and found heavy fire and smoke visible from several windows.

Firefighters located Liesners body within five minutes of entering the home to attack the fire, Salvo reported.

Racine County Medical Examiner Mike Payne said Liesners parents, who live in Racine, were notified of the incident early Saturday morning.

The Racine County Medical Examiners Office was called to the fire scene early; first responders had covered Liesners body with a sheet as it lay in the yard in front of the house. The house is located on the north side of Durand, a little more than a block east of the Walmart Super Center and west of Highway 31 near Stuart-McBride Park.

Payne and neighbors said Liesner lived alone. Her body has been sent for an autopsy to determine the cause of death.

According to South Shore Fire Department Battalion Chief John Radewan, the Racine County Fire Investigation Task Force was at the scene Saturday afternoon investigating the cause of the fire.

Fire scene report

Upon arriving on scene, Salvo reported a working fire with smoke and flames visible. The smell of smoke from the fire could be detected as far east as Ohio Street.

Within the first 15 minutes of the fire, Salvo requested mutual aid to the scene.

In between questions from police and fire officials, the owner of the home told The Journal Times that Liesner had been a tenant of the house for 15 years and worked at the nearby Menards. Neighbors said Liesner frequently was observed walking to and from work and to nearby stores.

Adela Hernandez, 72, who lives just east of the fire scene, said she saw Liesner only from far away, but said she would wave and say hi and bye.

Hernandez and her son, Alfredo Hernandez, 38, of Janesville, had just returned to the home Adela has rented for the past year.

Alfredo said they noticed a burning smell, almost like burning rubber cable, he said. Then they saw a man walking in the yard of 6618 Durand who was shining a flashlight in the windows of the home. That man, apparently another neighbor, directed Alfredo to call 911 saying there was a fire in the residence.

Alfredo, who works at the Ardagh glass plant in Burlington, said he could see flames inside the residence and observed firefighters pull Liesners body from the house.

Salvo said the home, which the owner said dates to the 1940s, incurred heavy fire, heat and smoke damage and is likely unlivable. Early estimates peg damage at $70,000, Salvo said. The fire and police departments and Medical Examiners Office were assisting the county Fire Investigation Task Force with the investigation.

Durand Avenue was closed for about three hours late Friday night and early Saturday morning between Oakes Road and Storybook Drive while fire crews worked the fire, packed up equipment and investigators began their work.

South Shore firefighters received assistance at the scene from the Racine, Caledonia, Raymond and Somers fire departments and from the Racine Fire Bells. Kansasville, Somers and Oak Creek fire crews manned South Shores Sturtevant firehouse during the call.

Mount Pleasant police received assistance with traffic control from the Racine County Sheriffs Office and the State Patrol.
Ukrainian troops are holding out against attacks near two towns in the eastern Donbas region, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy reported on October 26, saying the front line has not significantly changed.



Zelenskiy said the fiercest battles were taking place near Avdiyivka and Bakhmut.

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.

"This is where the craziness of the Russian command is most evident. Day after day, for months, they are driving people to their deaths there, concentrating the highest level of artillery strikes," he said in his nightly address.



Russian forces have repeatedly tried to seize Bakhmut, which sits on a main road leading to the cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk. British intelligence has said Moscow may see the capture of Bakhmut as a prerequisite for advancing to the two cities -- the most significant Ukrainian-controlled parts of the Donetsk region.



Russian-installed authorities in Shakhtarsk, east of the city of Donetsk, said Ukrainian shelling had set ablaze fuel tanks at the town's railway station.



The reports could not be independently verified.



Zelenskiy did not provide an update on the situation in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine, which has been the scene of recent movements on both sides.



"Generally, we are strengthening our positions all over the front line, reducing the invaders' capabilities, destroying their logistics, and preparing good news for Ukraine," he said.

Russia, meanwhile, repeated the unfounded claim that Ukraine plans to set off a dirty bomb.



This time it was Russian President Vladimir Putin who made the accusation, speaking in remarks carried by Russian TV.



Putin said Ukraine plans to use a so-called dirty bomb as a provocation. It was the first time the Russian president made the unsubstantiated allegation, which his officials have been repeating since the weekend.



Putin made the remarks as he monitored drills of Russias strategic nuclear forces.



"Under the leadership of...Vladimir Putin, a training session was held with ground, sea, and air strategic deterrence forces during which practical launches of ballistic and cruise missiles took place," the Kremlin said in a statement.



Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Putin that the exercise simulated a massive nuclear strike retaliating for a nuclear attack on Russia.



The United States said Russia provided advance notice of the annual drills, which are taking place as NATO carries out its own annual nuclear exercises.



NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called Russias unsubstantiated statements about the use of a dirty bomb "absurd."



The NATO allies reject this blatantly false accusation, and Russia must not use false pretexts to escalate the war further, Stoltenberg told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels.



Ukraine and its Western allies have denied the claims and contend that Russia might itself try to detonate a dirty bomb, a weapons that would use the explosion of a conventional warhead to spread radioactive, biological, or chemical materials over an area.



Shoigu on October 26 called his counterparts from India and China to share Moscows concern about possible Ukrainian provocations involving a dirty bomb, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.



Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on October 26 that Russia would "vigorously" continue to make the case to the international community that it believed Ukraine intended to detonate a "dirty bomb" with radioactive contaminants.

U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said the United States has communicated directly and very clearly to the Russians the consequences of such an attack.



Blinken, speaking at an event sponsored by the U.S. news outlet Bloomberg, did not specify when the Russians were informed or who did it.



Blinken repeated that the United States is "very closely" following Russias comments about the use of nuclear weapons but "does not see any reason to change its nuclear position."



Russia's statement that Ukraine is considering the possibility of using a dirty bomb is "another fabrication and is the height of irresponsibility on the part of a nuclear state," Blinken said.



He noted that Russia has a history of accusing others of doing something they themselves have done or are about to do. He also said the United States was in direct communication with the Russians about their attempts to use the false claim as a pretext for any escalation.



Moscow over the weekend claimed Ukraine was preparing to use a so-called dirty bomb on its own territory, drawing immediate dismissal from the United States and other countries that have backed Ukraine.

Kyiv and its allies suspect Russia might have made the claim to set up a "false flag" attack in which it would use a dirty bomb itself but would blame the attack on Ukraine and use it to justify the use of conventional nuclear weapons by Moscow.



"Let me just say Russia would be making an incredibly serious mistake were it to use a tactical nuclear weapon." U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters on October 25 . "I cannot guarantee you that it is a false flag operation yet. We dont know. But it would be a serious mistake."

Shoigu presented no evidence for the claim when he spoke on October 23 with his counterparts from several NATO countries, including Britain, France, and the United States, who dismissed the claim after the series of calls.

WATCH: Speaking to Current Time in Riga on October 22, Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks said Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot change the course of war in Ukraine by dropping nuclear bombs.

Moscow took its accusations against Ukraine to the UN Security Council on October 25, and the country's UN ambassador, Dmitry Polyanskiy, said afterward that Russia was "satisfied because we raised the awareness."

Speaking to reporters, he added: "I don't mind people saying that Russia is crying wolf if this doesn't happen because this is a terrible, terrible disaster that threatens potentially the whole of the Earth."



The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said earlier on October 25 that it was preparing to send inspectors to two Ukrainian sites in the coming days in reaction to Ukraine's request for an inspection following Russia's claims.



Enerhoatom, Ukraines nuclear energy operator, issued a statement on October 24 voicing its concern that Russias statements may indicate that Russia is preparing an act of nuclear terrorism.

Russian troops have occupied Ukraines Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, since March. It is still run by Ukrainian engineers though Russia claimed after its illegal annexation of the Zaporizhzhya region that it is on Russian territory.

Enerhoatom said that Russian forces have carried out unauthorized, secret construction work over the last week at the plant in the area of the spent nuclear fuel storage facility.

Russian officers controlling the area wont give access to Ukrainian staff or monitors from the IAEA that would allow them to see what they are doing, the operator said.

Enerhoatom added that it assumes the Russians are preparing a terrorist act using nuclear materials and radioactive waste stored at the plant.

With reporting by AFP, dpa, BBC, and Reuters
Ukrainians have increasingly woken up to the sound of suicide drones as Russia turns to Iranian-made imports to destroy civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. Now they may have another deadly Iranian weapon to worry about -- ballistic missiles.

Cheap but effective, Shahed-136 and Shahed-131 "kamikaze" drones have already made a deadly impact in Ukraine.



If U.S. intelligence assessments pan out, Russia will soon be able to supplement its use of Iranian suicide drones and its own cruise and ballistic missiles with powerful short-range Iranian Fateh-110 and Zolfaghar ballistic missiles.



Coming as the Kremlin is reportedly struggling to maintain its depleted stockpile of aerial weapons as it ramps up strikes, the missiles would potentially boost Russia's ability to continue its costly air campaign.



Jeremy Binnie, a Middle East defense specialist at the global intelligence company Janes, said having more missiles gives Russia the ability to sustain the bombardment against Ukraine."



Going Ballistic



The Fateh-110, which was unveiled in 2001 and has a stated range of 300 to 500 kilometers, was developed from a heavy artillery rocket dating from the 1980s. To increase the weapon's accuracy, the Fateh-110 was given a guidance system and movable fins that allow it to be steered as it approaches its target.



The Zolfaghar, which debuted in 2016 and also has guidance capabilities, comes from the same family as the Fateh-110 but boasts a much longer range due to its use of a lighter carbon-fiber airframe and a smaller warhead.



Binnie said the Zolfaghar's use against the Islamic State (IS) extremist group in eastern Syria confirmed that the missile was capable of reaching at least 650 kilometers, which he said is "a statement of how much the Iranian tactical missile program has really advanced over the years."



Iran's claim that the Zolfaghar can travel even farther -- up to 700 kilometers -- would put the western Ukrainian city of Lviv within range of strikes launched from Russian territory, while the more powerful Fateh-110 could potentially hit the city from Belarus, which has served as a staging ground for Russian attacks.



While there has been no indication that Russia plans to purchase launching systems from Iran, Binnie suggests that the Russian military could pair the missiles with existing equipment because the Iranian launchers were adapted from a Soviet-era system.



"It might be possible for the Russians to quickly adapt some old equipment they have lying around into launch systems," Binnie said.



The Iranian military, he added, fitted the Soviet system to trucks, allowing for mobility and concealment.



"Those civilian trucks can be covered over to make it hard to spot that they're actually missile launchers," Binnie said.



'Lawnmowers' And 'Mopeds'



Iranian military drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), have been homing in on targets across Ukraine since late August, according to the United States.



The buzzing sound of the Iranian Shahed-136 and Shahed-131 drones, built with off-the-shelf components, have earned them derisive monikers such as "lawnmowers" and "mopeds." But the slow-moving, low-flying drones, which are maneuvered to crash into their target, have proven themselves capable of hitting their mark both in terms of military effectiveness and cost.

It is capable of extracting or delivering attrition and damage when launched, but it costs little compared to other UAVs that Russia has in its own arsenal," said Samuel Bendett of the Virginia-based Center for Naval Analyses (CNA).

Ukraine alleges Russia has ordered 2,400 of the Iranian suicide drones, and its military has claimed to have shot them down in great numbers, often using conventional anti-aircraft guns or even small-arms fire. But their ability to be launched in bunches of five -- often from the cover of civilian trucks -- improves their chances of reaching their target.



"The Ukrainians are stopping most of these, but the whole point of these drones is that they fly in a large mass," Bendett said. "The air defense does not always catch all of them. All it takes is for several or even one to make it through."

The estimated range of the Shahed-136 varies, but Iran says it is capable of traveling 2,500 kilometers. The slightly smaller and older Shahed-131, which has been used by Huthi rebels in Yemen to attack Saudi targets in the Arabian Peninsula, has been estimated to have a range of 900 kilometers, according to tests conducted by the Ukrainian military.



Ukraine's Defense Ministry has published multiple images of downed Shahed-136 drones in recent weeks, and the Ukrainian National Guard on October 19 claimed to have shot down a Shahed-131.



Ukraine has also claimed to have shot down a more advanced Iranian combat UAV, the Mojer-6 drone capable of carrying out both reconnaissance missions and aerial strikes within a range of 200 kilometers. There have also been reports of Russian interest in obtaining Irans Shahed-129 and Shahed-191 combat drones.



"When launched from any territory that Russia controls or is allied with -- anywhere from the south, from the Donbas, from Belarus -- they're able to strike a lot of Ukrainian targets," Bendett said.

In addition to the U.S. intelligence assessment that Russia will soon boost its arsenal with Iranian ballistic missiles, as first reported by The Washington Post on October 16, the White House on October 20 said that Iranians are now "directly engaged on the ground" in Moscows war against Ukraine after sending "a relatively small number" of personnel from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to assist Russian forces in using the Iranian drones.

Iran has denied sending combat drones to Russia, and Moscow has rejected claims that it is using Iranian UAVs.

Images of downed Iranian drones appear to show that they have been rebranded to look Russian-made, experts say, with the markings in Cyrillic naming them as the Geran-1 (the Shahed-131) and Geran-2 (the Shahed-136).

Observers are widely skeptical of Russia's denials, noting that the drones are essentially identical right down to the font of the serial numbers. Even Russian Defense Ministry experts have unwittingly admitted that the suicide drones are Iranian.



But the rebranding of the drones to make them appear to be Russian has opened the possibility that Moscow could, if it is not already doing so, seek to manufacture or assemble the Iranian drones on its own territory.



Sustaining A Campaign



The new aerial weaponry fits well with the Russian military's renewed focus on striking military and civilian targets far from the front lines in southern and eastern Ukraine. The air assault has ratcheted up following the October 8 appointment of Colonel General Sergei Surovikin, a former Aerospace Forces commander, to lead the Russian war effort.



Just days after Surovikin's appointment, Russia launched the biggest air strikes since the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine in February. Moscow said the drone and missile strikes, which targeted civilian areas and infrastructure in cities throughout Ukraine, were in response to a bomb blast that damaged a key bridge linking Russia to the occupied Crimean Peninsula.

While the Kremlin has accused Ukraine's intelligence services of carrying out the "terrorist" attack on the Crimea Bridge, Ukraine has denied responsibility.



Since the initial air assault in response to the bridge blast, Russia has continued to pound Ukrainian infrastructure, often targeting power plants in what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said is a deliberate effort to wear down the Ukrainian people by denying them heat and electricity as winter approaches.



"Civilian infrastructure is obviously the new layer in this war. The Ukrainian economy is now the target, the Ukrainian population is now the target," Bendett said.



Hard To Stop



The hypersonic speed and high trajectory of Iran's Fateh-110s and Zolfaghars, should they arrive, would be extremely difficult for Kyiv to counter without a network of high-tech and costly antimissile batteries it currently does not possess.



Ukraine has repeatedly requested more advanced missile-defense systems from the West, and in the face of the threat of the delivery of Iranian ballistic missiles reportedly sent an official request to Israel this week for components of its "Iron Dome" system.



While the United States has said that it is seeking to expedite the process of sending two U.S. air defense systems known as NASAMS, Washington has appeared reluctant to provide more advanced Patriot missile systems.



Janes' defense expert Binnie is skeptical that the delivery of the Patriot system, which has proven to be successful in shooting down ballistic missiles, is realistic for Ukraine.

"It's eye wateringly expensive and it's probably not really practical because each [missile] battery only covers one city," he said. "You would never get enough batteries to get the coverage you would want. You just wouldn't be able to find them, produce them, and train enough Ukrainians."
At least 119 people have been killed and nearly 190 people injured in suicide car bombing claimed by the Islamic State (IS) extremist group in a crowded Baghdad shopping center, Iraqi police say.



The blast hit the central Karrada district in the early hours of July 3 when hundreds of people were out on the streets after breaking their dawn-to-dusk fast for the holy Islamic month of Ramadan.



Officials said most of the victims -- including many women and children -- were inside a multistory shopping and amusement mall, where dozens burned to death or suffocated.



The bombing in Karrada, a mainly Shi'ite area, is the deadliest in Iraq this year.



A second bomb also exploded at about midnight in Baghdads northern Shaab area, killing another five people.



The White House condemned the bombings, saying the attacks only strengthened the United States' resolve to confront IS.



"We remain united with the Iraqi people and government in our combined efforts to destroy ISIL," a White House statement said, referring to IS.



The U.S. State Department extended condolences to the victims of the two bombings and condemned acts of extremist violence.

Based on reporting by AP, AFP, Reuters, dpa, and the BBC
A U.S. Senate delegation led by John McCain, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, has visited a Pakistani tribal region that has long been considered a stronghold of militant groups such as Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.



The four-member delegation visited North Waziristan, near the Afghan border, on July 3, Pakistans Foreign Office said in a statement.



It said the senators had held talks with Sartaj Aziz, the prime minister's top foreign-affairs adviser, to discuss Pakistani-U.S. ties, as well as the situation in Afghanistan.



McCain posted pictures from the trip on his Twitter account and also tweeted that the delegation had a "good meeting" with Pakistan Army chief Raheel Sharif, "discussing regional security challenges."



Foreigners and journalists are largely banned from the tribal region, where the Pakistani Army launched an operation in 2014 to root out militancy there.

The United States carries out drone attacks in the area, targeting Taliban and Al-Qaeda leaders.



The relationship between the United States and Pakistan has been strained in recent years.



Some U.S. officials accuse Pakistan of not doing enough to use its influence to persuade the Afghan Taliban to renounce violence.



Pakistan has been critical of the U.S. drone campaign, which has killed scores of civilians over the years.

Based on reporting by AP and AFP
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Its been a common demand from some Madison activists since they began drawing attention to police shootings and alleged police misconduct here and across the nation: Give us community control over police.

And here I thought Wisconsin already had community control over police. The community elects a mayor and city council, who appoint and approve, respectively, the members of police and fire commissions, which hire, fire and discipline police. More direct control comes when the council sets the police budget and its in the ability of the council and mayor to set various police policies and procedures.

I guess nothing is that simple these days. Nor is it always democratic, or even legal.

In an article in the most recent issue of the Wisconsin Law Review, M Adams and Max Rameau outline a proposal that would give total control over  if not total responsibility for  policing to neighborhood-specific Civilian Police Control Boards.

Each CPCB would consist of two panels  one to oversee police priorities and policies, and another to oversee implementation of those priorities and policies  in each neighborhood. Serving on them would be people chosen at random from those living in the neighborhood. Terms on the boards would be short, and those who didnt want to serve wouldnt have to  but all would be given the opportunity.

Adams and Rameau eschew the election of CPCBs because they believe the current electoral process is so flooded with campaign spending and self-interested politicians as to be unrepresentative of the peoples wishes.

Black people do not feel as if the police work for them, Rameau told me, because we do not, in fact, have control. Having greater access to the ballot has not resolved that underlying problem.

Of course, Americans of all races have long been electing the mayors, city council members and other officials who oversee police  suggesting that the ballot box might not be the primary culprit in black communities problems with police.

For funding, CPCB operations are financed using the exact same mechanism currently financing police administration and operations, Adams and Rameau write  meaning the same local, state and federal sources used to fund police now would be used to fund police under the control of CPCBs.

Its not unusual for people to pay taxes for a government service they arent likely to use because its provided in some other city or state. But if the tax dollars being used are collected by the state or federal government, people at least have some say over their use by way of state and federal elections.

It might be unprecedented to pay taxes toward a municipal police service over which citizens of the municipality have no direct democratic control because, well, the people spending the money on the police service arent democratically elected.

Unclear to Rameau is who would accept liability under the CPCB model for police actions that result in injuries or property damage  the city or the local, CPCB-controlled neighborhood police force. Although its hard to see why the city would insure a police force that doesnt have to answer to elected city officials.

Insurance coverage might not be the most exciting thing about running a city, but it is pretty important. Madison paid $409,745 for liability coverage for its departments this year.

I tried contacting a few of the elected officials who have at times aligned themselves with activists who have been calling for community control of police.

State Rep. Chris Taylor, and Madison Alds. David Ahrens, Samba Baldeh and Zach Wood all appeared with Adams and other activists at a Tuesday press conference to call for police reform in the wake of the forceful videotaped arrest of black 18-year-old Genele Laird.

It would be elected officials like them, after all, who would have to pave the way for CPCBs. The state, for instance, would have to change the state law on police and fire commissions.

Ahrens was the only to respond to my inquiries. He called CPCBs laughable as a policy proposal that will add little to the debate and likely be used to marginalize efforts for reasonable reform.

What is tragic, however, is the summary dismissal of the notion that popularly elected representatives might actually represent the interests of their constituents, he said.

CPCBs take up 10 pages of what is mostly a 25-page treatise on race and policing in an America that Adams and Rameau dont think has changed all that much since the days of slavery and Jim Crow.

Or as they put it: The Root Issue is that African/Black people lack power and control over our own communities and that a subset of Whites  who also happen to be racist  hold power and exercise control over both their communities and ours through the system of domestic colonization enforced by an armed military occupation known as the police.

Its not surprising that out of such a view of reality would come such an unrealistic proposal for police.
Scenic Virginias annual Virginia Vistas Photo Contest, now in its ninth year, showcases the depth and breadth of scenic beauty that exists in our commonwealth.

Scenic Virginia, a private and nonprofit conservation organization, is dedicated to preserving, protecting and enhancing the scenic beauty of the state, particularly its significant views and vistas.

Virginians are passionate  and rightly so  about this glorious scenic beauty that serves as a backdrop for our lives, said Leighton Powell, executive director of Scenic Virginia. Beauty delights the senses and soothes the soul, and Scenic Virginia couldnt be more pleased to share this years gorgeous winners. They are truly a sight to behold!

Judges for the 2016 contest, which garnered more than 500 entries, were Ben Greenberg, a professional photographer and author of Natural Virginia; Judy Watkins, special projects manager at Virginia Tourism Corp.; Tom Saunders, a professional photographer with the Virginia Department of Transportation; and Eugenia Anderson-Ellis, a Scenic Virginia advisory board member and former president.

Notecard sets of the winning photos are available for purchase. A set of 10 cards (one of each winning photo) is $20, plus $3 for shipping and handling. To place an order, contact Scenic Virginia at (804) 643-VIEW (643-8439) or email@scenicvirginia.org.
Graduate students have long relied on health insurance subsidies awarded as part of financial-aid packages as they try to earn a living and a degree.

But the future of that benefit could be jeopardized by the Internal Revenue Services interpretation of a provision of the Affordable Care Act that casts the subsidies as an attempt to elude ACAs employer mandate.

Seventeen U.S. senators, including Virginia Sens. Mark R. Warner and Timothy M. Kaine, both Democrats, wrote a letter last month urging the Obama administration to clarify the IRS language and warning that it runs counter to ACAs primary goal to expand insurance coverage.

At issue is the double status of students who are also employees. IRS guidance in February describes the subsidies to students working as teaching and research assistants as an impermissible premium-reduction arrangement as part of an employer payment plan.

The senators letter argues the coverage is a form of scholarship aid and that universities providing it are not seeking to elude the ACAs employer shared responsibility requirements.

The IRS notice in February allowed colleges and universities to continue the coverage through the next academic year, but the letter points out that the schools soon will begin negotiating terms and costs for student health insurance for 2017-18.

Thousands of graduate students at campuses across the country could potentially be affected, costing students and schools millions of dollars, the letter says.

That could include about 2,000 graduate students at the University of Virginia who receive subsidies for insurance costs, according to spokesman Anthony P. de Bruyn.

The university subsidizes 100 percent of the cost of a single-coverage premium through Aetna Student Health.

De Bruyn said the subsidy is part of a students overall funding package. Students employed as graduate research or teaching assistants earning at least $5,000 a year qualify for the subsidy.

But it also is sometimes provided as part of a fellowship package to students who do not hold such positions, he said.

In either case its a significant part of a students overall funding package, he said. The university supports the senators efforts to gain more clarity from the federal agencies on their interpretation of graduate student health insurance subsidies under the ACA.

Health-insurance policies vary widely among universities.

Virginia Commonwealth University does not offer student health insurance and provides no subsidies for graduate students, according to spokesman Thomas M. Gresham.

VCU previously offered health insurance to all students, he said, but it was discontinued this year because of declining participation, significant premium increases and higher out-of-pocket expenses for students.

The College of William & Mary offers health insurance to all full-time students, including graduate students, said spokeswoman Erin Zagursky.

Although there is no university-wide policy on subsidies for graduate students, some individual departments provide subsidies that can be used to offset the cost of insurance. Our policies regarding graduate students and health insurance are currently under review, she said.

The senators letter, which is addressed to the secretaries of Labor, Treasury, and Health and Human Services, calls for a permanent solution allowing subsidized health insurance for graduate students.

ACA explicitly protects the right of universities to offer a student health insurance plan, the letter notes. The IRS previously allowed an exception to the withholding of FICA taxes for students engaged in paid services that are incident to and for the purposes of pursuing a course of study.

Similarly, it makes no sense to penalize universities for offering students access to lower-cost, high-quality health coverage while they are pursuing a course of study, the letter says.
The city of Hopewell celebrated its 100th anniversary Saturday. State and local officials gathered for a ceremony at the city's municipal building, followed by a celebration concert downtown where The Commodores performed. Fireworks over the Appomattox River were scheduled for 9:30 p.m.
On the evening of Jan. 27, 2009, a Tuesday, Chesterfield County Superintendent Marcus J. Newsome stood before the School Board to present his budget for the coming fiscal year. The country was in the midst of the Great Recession that left nearly every school system in the nation in severe fiscal distress. Chesterfield was no exception.

That night, Newsome proposed slashing $52 million from the divisions operating budget and to further cut 550 positions.

For Newsome, now 62, who took the helm of Virginias second-largest school division in 2006, it was a moment that will stay with him. On Thursday, he departed Chesterfield to take on a new challenge as the superintendent of Petersburg City Schools, making room for his 38-year-old successor, James F. Lane.

I will say that night that I presented the budget to the board  that was probably the most difficult night of my career, he said in a recent interview on one of his last days at his office at the School Administration Building on Krause Road.

Newsome remains proud of having steered the division through the economic downturn, even restoring the budget to pre-recession levels and leaving behind a financially sound division.

But reflecting on the past 10 years, Newsome expressed regret that his tenure may be defined by the recession.

I wish I could have been superintendent during good times, but that was not to be. So I had to do the best I could to move the school system forward, he said.

With a budget of $892 million  an increase of $298 million compared to 2009  and a 3 percent across-the-board pay raise for school employees for fiscal 2017, one might argue that Newsome was successful.

He oversaw the roll-out of the nations largest Chromebook program, distributing 32,000 laptops to high school and middle school students, allowing them to study anywhere, at any time.

And he leaves Chesterfield as the division began implementing a major school renovation and construction program funded by a $304 million bond referendum.

But Newsomes tenure has not been without controversy.

The division has repeatedly come under fire for how it has handled referendum projects. This criticism has prompted the Board of Supervisors to create a joint oversight committee.

And several audits of the construction department faulted the school system for its record-keeping. Last year, a new chief operations officer came aboard to oversee facilities, transportation, food services and new construction.

Newsome brushed off criticism alleging that the division has not been transparent enough under his leadership.

Obviously, if I thought there was something that we could have done better, I would have. But I did not perceive that to be the case, he said. The vast majority of citizens that we interact with are very pleased, and most of them are parents. There are a small group that feel that we could be more transparent, and perhaps members of the media, and we try to adapt to the changes and the times.

But as Newsome cleaned out his Chesterfield office, school officials focused on highlighting a positive legacy, especially his role in keeping the division on course in tough economic times.

He was steadfast and worked diligently with the county administrator to not just single this out as a school system problem, but he understood the complexity of the situation of the entire county. And sometimes its not just what you do when you are in a situation like that, but what you learn about what not to do, said School Board Chairman Dianne H. Smith.

Sara Gilliam, president of the Chesterfield County PTA Council, said Newsome, who she said has been very supportive of her organization, is leaving behind a positive legacy, especially considering the impact of the recession on the division.

Anytime someone has to make those tough calls with budgets, he handled it as well as he could, Gilliam said. He has helped to strengthen our school system, and he brought us back to pre-recession levels. He did a great job, and he got us through  and we are still a nationally recognized school system.

A man guided by faith

Newsomes career in education began 35 years ago in his native Washington, where he taught arts and math in the capitals poor neighborhoods.

Before coming to Chesterfield, Newsome was superintendent of Newport News Public Schools. He also worked in Prince Georges County, Md.

A man of strong faith, Newsome said his religious convictions have guided him through difficult times. My faith is the fabric of who I am and the lens through which I see the world. It gives me a sense of peace and calm in the midst of the storm, he said.

The Great Recession, Newsome said, was one of those times when his faith was tested.

The morning after that gloomy January day in 2009 when he brought the bad news to the School Board, Newsome set out to visit schools and talk to teachers and employees who he thought would be among the first round of layoffs.

Their response to me was something I had not anticipated; they were just very gracious and understanding, Newsome remembered. Some of them were telling me how bad they felt for me when I was grieving for them. Then I began to meet with the faculty of each school, and they expressed their concerns and anxiety.

But Newsome had no illusions that cutting teaching positions would not affect his relationship with at least some educators who did not trust him after that.

Without question, this had an effect, he said. I am the person that is seen as the chief executive to the school system and, even though the recession was not my fault, any executive will be looked upon differently.

New opportunities

Almost every initiative that he had implemented during his first two years in Chesterfield was derailed by the unexpected economic downfall, Newsome said.

One of them was his program to bring every students reading up to grade level, specifically by third grade. By Newsomes second year in office, the School Board had approved the funding of 60 new reading teaching positions.

We really established that as a primary issue. But two years later, we had to eliminate all 60 of those positions and more. That was the core of our comprehensive instruction, Newsome said.

Advanced placement courses and dual enrollment courses also took a hit, Newsome added. But the desperate times brought about new opportunities, because they called for innovative measures to make up for the losses in teaching and instruction.

It was during that time that I realized if we were going to continue to move the school division forward that we needed to re-calibrate the way we did business, Newsome said.

After a series of community meetings, school officials developed a new phase within their strategic plan called Design of Excellence 2020.

We brought in experts to talk about future trends, and we designed our plan around those trends, Newsome said. We became much more dependent on technology. I think it was the recession that forced us to move that process along faster than we would have.

The result was the Chromebook program that was launched in 2014, when the school system distributed 14,000 Dell Chromebooks to middle school students. The $5.1 million program was expanded last fall when more than 18,000 high school students received their laptops.

Chesterfield schools are gearing up for the next step, which is aimed at increasing the number of devices available to students in kindergarten and elementary schools, beginning this fall.

PTA president Gilliam said Newsomes fiscal stewardship during the recession and his successful plan to update the divisions technical learning procedures may be the most important parts of his legacy in Chesterfield.

He has been universally recognized for making a tough call and getting us through a terrible situation. When he made those cuts, he still focused on the students and tried to keep everything focused on the kids. Our student achievement stayed; it wasnt significantly impacted. It was a rough time, but we made it through, Gilliam said.

And the Chromebook technology has become a part of the fabric of our life under Newsomes tenure, Gilliam said.

Coming full circle

At 62, with a 35-year career in education, Newsome could have just called it a day and enjoyed his retirement with his wife, Patsy, and their three children and two grandchildren. But in April, he announced that he would accept the position in Petersburg, one of Virginias most challenged school divisions.

I have been blessed beyond measure. I am at a point in my life where I want to give all that I have left to make life better for children who need the best support system possible, he said of the decision.

For Newsome, the new chapter in his life is more than just a job, its a mission.
A Richmond woman has been arrested in connection with a June 26 shooting in Highland Park.

Kamaria M. Walker, 19, of the 3900 block of Chamberlayne Avenue, turned herself in to Richmond police Sunday morning. She is charged with malicious wounding and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony.

At about 10:25 p.m. on June 26, officers responded to VCU Medical Center after a man suffering from an apparent gunshot wound was brought to the emergency room with life-threatening injuries.

An investigation determined the shooting occurred in the 2100 block of First Avenue.
A 31-year-old man turned up at an area hospital early Sunday morning with a gunshot wound after he was robbed on the Near East Side, the Madison Police Department reported.

Police said the victim told them he was robbed at the intersection of Williamson Street and Baldwin Street around 2 a.m. The man was admitted to the hospital for non-life threatening injuries for a gunshot wound to the groin area, according to police.

Police said the man has been "uncooperative" in providing additional details, and the police incident report doesn't specify if the injuries were the result of the robbery.

The investigation is ongoing, police said.
WHITFIELD, Michael Lipscomb, 66, of Chester, Virginia, passed away on Thursday, November 27, 2014, after a lengthy illness. He was preceded in death by his parents, Ralph Whitfield and Marguerite Lipscomb Whitfield. He is survived by his loving daughter, Rachel Whitfield of Henrico, Virginia; a brother, R. Bryan Whitfield of Timonium, Maryland; and a son, Michael O. Whitfield. Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, he grew up in Arlington, Virginia. After graduating from American University, he received a master's degree in piano performance from East Carolina University. He was an extraordinarily talented musician who taught high school band in Shenandoah County, Virginia, played professionally in bands, composed cantatas and other religious music, and served as organist and choir director for numerous churches over a span of 40 years. At the time of his death, he was the organist and choir director for Wesley United Methodist Church in Hopewell, Virginia. After retirement from the Defense Supply Center Richmond, he devoted his time to music, his true passion, and his daughter Rachel, his greatest love. He was a devoted, loving father who will be greatly missed by family and friends. A memorial service will be held at Wesley United Methodist Church in Hopewell, Virginia, on Friday, December 5, at 2 p.m. A private interment will be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the American Diabetes Association.
The man who was fatally shot by a Madison police officer Thursday night struggled with mental illness for much of his adult life, according to the head of the local program that provided him with housing and other support services.

Michael William Schumacher, 41, of Fitchburg, was identified Friday as the man police said broke into a Morrison Street residence and aggressively advanced toward officers while brandishing a pitchfork, ignoring commands to stop.

Mike was not a dangerous person, said Dean Loumos, executive director of Housing Initiatives and a Madison School Board member. He was just someone who struggled with his illness.

Police Chief Mike Koval said a neighbor called 911 around 9 p.m. to report that a man was chest-deep in Lake Monona and acting oddly, seemingly talking to himself and slapping the water. The man then reportedly threw a rock into a nearby home, went inside and began smashing things, causing the residents to flee.

I cannot explain why he did something like this, Loumos said. Hes never done anything like that.

According to online court records, Schumacher was cited in August 2012 for disorderly conduct, possession of a dangerous weapon, possession of marijuana and unauthorized use of a student center or union.

Loumos said Schumacher was an interesting guy who had been with Housing Initiatives  an independent living program that provides housing and support services to people suffering from mental illnesses  since 2008.

As with many people, Loumos said, Schumachers mental illness began to manifest in his early adulthood, shortly after he graduated from UW-Madison.

Schumacher was quite bright, Loumos said. After graduating at the UW and being successful for a little while, this illness just took him and for 15 or 16 years he was just struggling.

Many people in the Housing Initiatives program have post-secondary education and some have masters degrees, said Loumos, who described mental illness as all-consuming.

It will grab you and completely change you and destroy your life, he said.

Loumos said he was legally prohibited from disclosing Schumachers medical diagnosis.

When (Schumacher) was on his program he would be fine, but something must have happened, Loumos said.

These incidents are rare and they make the news because theyre tragic, said Ronald Lampert, CEO and president of Journey Mental Health Center.

The insidious part is when people have a severe mental illness and they hear voices or see things, and the voices tell them to do things, no one knows except them that the voices are telling them to do things, Lampert said. Thats part of the impulsiveness that causes people who have a mental illness to do things out of their normal pattern.

Sometimes those types of situations can be averted through community-based programs, Lampert said.

One example is the Madison Police Departments Mental Health Liaison program.

Capt. Kristen Roman, who oversees the liaison program, said it was chosen in 2010 by the Council of State Governments Justice Center in conjunction with the Bureau of Justice Assistance as one of six in the country to act as a resource for other agencies who want to enact a similar program.

While all Madison police officers are trained in mental health response and de-escalation, about 20 officers act as volunteer liaisons who follow up with individuals in their service areas who have been contacted by police.

In 2015, the department added five full-time mental health officers who take the work the liaisons do part time and do more focused, concentrated follow-up, Roman said.

Part of the role of the mental health officers is to create care guides for the individuals that they come into contact with so that any future encounters can be handled as smoothly as possible.

The more information we have, the better the outcome will be moving forward, Roman said. Mental health officers put together plans to help a responding officer so that, if the situation allows as the officer is responding, they can then bring the information and contact case managers and family members that they wouldnt otherwise have.

At the beginning of 2016, the department gained one crisis worker who works three days a week through Journey, Roman said.

That worker is funded by Journey because we think its the right thing to do, Lampert said.

Lampert said Journey would like to expand the program with the police department, adding that such programs can help to prevent incidents like Thursdays fatal shooting.

The police want it, we want it, and the community deserves it, Lampert said.

Since the initial liaison program was created in 2004, Roman said she believes it has made positive impacts in the community because she hears good feedback every day.

But even with protocols and strategies in place to help de-escalate situations, people sometimes struggle internally and act out.

On Friday, Ald. Marsha Rummel and Dane County Sup. John Hendrick said Thursdays fatal police shooting  along with the fatal police shootings of Paul Heenan in 2012 and Tony Robinson in 2015  has eroded trust among some residents of the Near East Side, where all three shootings took place, in the departments capacity to handle a crisis.

Rummel also said Madison should have a higher bar than the state standards permitting police to use deadly force when there is potential for death or great bodily harm to an officer or another person, particularly in cases involving people with mental illnesses.

Whenever situations like this happen, its tragic, Lampert said.

Its almost a personal battle that you lost one, he said.

Were all looking back at this  were all going to wonder if we couldve done something more, Loumos said.

We havent had many things like this. This is the first time anything like this has ever happened and I hope its the last with someone Im working with, he said.

No one is going to be able to explain how this happened, Loumos said. There are many successful treatments you can maintain and have a good life. Unfortunately, this is an example of where that goes wrong.
A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
Henrietta Ruth Gary Manning, 91, of Roanoke, Va., passed away on Tuesday, June 28, 2016 reuniting with her loved ones that were waiting for her in the kingdom of Heaven. Henrietta, known to her family and friends as "Het," was born on February 19, 1925 in Wichita, Kan. to the late Reverend Dr. Paul E. Gary and Marietta C. Gary. In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her brother, the Reverend Richard E. Gary and his wife, Dorothy; daughter, Jane M. Hogge; and son-in-law, Herbert S. Hogge.She was a graduate of Sand Springs High School in Sand Springs, Okla., class of 1942, and Phillips University in Enid, Okla., class of 1946. She was a member of Hilton Christian (Disciples of Christ) Church in Newport News, Va. for 38 years. While there, she was a member of the choir, a Sunday school teacher, youth group leader, and the first woman Elder in the church. She led groups of the youth from Hilton Christian to camp at Craig Springs where she participated as a counselor and camp director for many years. She was currently a member of Westhampton Christian (Disciples of Christ) Church in Roanoke.Her early years were spent growing up in rural areas of western Kansas during the Great Depression. She lived through the "Dust Bowl." As a child her mother asked her what she wanted for her seventh birthday. Of all the things she could have asked for, typical of her character, she asked to take her friend from school to the movies, because her friend was from a poor family and had never seen one before. Her mother granted her wish and off to the movies they went. As a teenager, she spent her high school and college years in Oklahoma much of it during World War II. She was a charter member of the nations "Greatest Generation." She always placed others before herself.Henrietta met her husband to be when he was stationed in Enid, Okla., while serving in the United States Air Force. They wed on August 3, 1952, and she returned with him to Virginia. While in Virginia, she taught school in Montgomery County, Roanoke, and Newport News. As a teacher she had a talent for taking the most challenging children and preparing them for the next level and beyond. During this period of her life, she took time off to raise her three children and returned to teaching once they were in school. The year prior to her return to teaching, she volunteered in a fourth grade classroom where she took three children that could not read, taught them, and raised them up to a fifth grade level. She was a first class teacher, mother, and devoted wife. She was one of a kind and will most certainly be missed by all of those that knew her.Henrietta is survived by her husband of 63 years, James Carroll Manning; her son and daughter-in-law, Gary and Maria Manning of Virginia Beach; her daughter and son-in-law, Ruth Ann and Therrell Hannah of Roanoke; her sister, Pauline Saunders of Miami, Okla.; and sister, Marietta Drummond of Austin, Texas. Also surviving are six grandchildren, James Hannah and wife, Janlyn, Raymond Bracken, Katie Hannah, Huston Manning, Emily Hannah, Sara Manning; and one great-grandchild, Jay Hannah. She is also survived by a number of nieces and nephews that she was always very fond of and in many ways thought of as her own children.The family would like to offer their heart felt gratitude to the loving care that was extended by her caregivers. The family would especially like to thank caregivers Robin Hale and Mary Woolwine, for the extra love and attention that they gave to our beloved Het in her final days.A memorial service will be held at a later date. Arrangements by Simpson Funeral Home & Crematory, 540-366-0707.
Mary (Etzler) Hawks Steinhardt, 93, of Roanoke, Va., and Hancock Point, Maine, passed away from natural causes on Friday, June 24, 2016, at Brandon Oaks Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Roanoke. She was affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Church of Roanoke.Mary was born in Mount Airy, N.C., on November 26, 1922, the oldest child of Ruth Etzler Hawks and Howard Washington Hawks of Lambsburg, Va. She was predeceased by her parents and by her two brothers, Howard Warren Hawks and Richard Eugene Hawks.Mary received her Bachelor of Science degree from Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Class of 1944, and was one of the first women admitted to the school. She later addressed the Virginia Legislature on the value of co-educational education. She also received a Master of Arts degree in Psychology from Hollins College in 1967, writing her thesis on language acquisition in infants. She later worked with Dr. Ronald Webster in the Hollins Communications Research Institute, which treats stuttering.For many years, she taught developmental psychology and early childhood education at Virginia Western Community College in Roanoke, where she was known to be a committed and inspiring teacher. She also worked with the Total Action Against Poverty Program in Roanoke and the Child Health Insurance Program (or CHIP). She was tireless in pursuing the well-being of children in Virginia and was recognized for her work by the Governor of the Commonwealth and by the Virginia Association for Early Childhood Education.Mary was active politically, especially as a member of the League of Women Voters in Bethlehem, Pa., and in Roanoke, where she served on multiple boards for a variety of civic groups. She is also remembered for her role as a supportive and hospitable faculty wife when her husband, Ralph Steinhardt, taught chemistry at Hollins. They met and fell in love at VPI, where they shared joie de vivre that lasted until Ralph's death in 1994. Mary also worked briefly at the library at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where Ralph had served during World War II on the Manhattan Project.Mary was a distinguished cook and reader, passing these afflictions happily to her children. She enjoyed music passionately, looking forward especially to the annual Bach Festival in Bethlehem, Pa. She and her family enjoyed sharing a summer house in Hancock Point, Maine, where her infectious wonder and appreciation for the natural world found much to rejoice in, a quality she maintained until the very end.Those who knew her best will remember her for a brilliant mind, a sympathetic heart, and an eye and an ear for beauty. They will also remember her habitual farewell, "Be careful crossing the Hudson!" and her observation late in life that "we live in a wondrous world!"She will be joyfully remembered and sadly missed by her survivors, her daughter, Theresa Ruth and her husband, Walter B. Neilsen-Steinhardt; her daughter, Sarah Jean Steinhardt, her husband, David Turkheimer, and her daughter, Anna Ruth Cantor; her son, Ralph Gustav Steinhardt, his wife, Donna Scarboro, and their children, Ruth Jackson Steinhardt and Ralph Gustav Steinhardt Jr.; as well as her beloved sisters-in-law, Kathleen Joan Culbreth Hawks and Louise Myers Hawks; and many nieces and nephews and their children.There will be a memorial service in Roanoke, Va., on Saturday, September 24, 2016, at a venue to be determined later. Following the service, her remains will be interred with those of her husband in Lambsburg, Va.The family wishes to thank the staff and administration of Brandon Oaks Retirement Community, especially its Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, where Mary spent her last years. In lieu of flowers, mourners wishing to remember Mary may donate to the Bach Choir of Bethlehem (bach.org) or to the Mary and Ralph Steinhardt Fund (Science Seminars) through Hollins University (hollins.edu).Arrangements by Oakey's Roanoke Chapel and Crematory, 540-982-2100. Online condolences may be expressed to the family at www.oakeys.com.
SPRING GREEN  There are toys like little green and tan Army soldiers, classic games such as Cootie, Yahtzee and Monopoly, and racks of greeting cards.

The aisles under the pressed tin ceiling hold health and beauty products, laundry soap, pot holders, candles, picture frames and party supplies. The back corner is home to an extensive yarn shop while the front half houses womens clothing from popular lines like Woolrich, Tribal and Yest.

Need a stocking cap or sweatshirt to show your support of River Valley High School or maybe a pair of swim goggles and a few sand toys? Its all here, packed into a 3,500-square-foot space that is a retail anomaly.

Ninas Department & Variety Store should have closed years ago just like virtually every other family-owned department store in the state. Instead, Ninas is a staple for the locals of Spring Green and a regular stop for the tourists who come to this village to take in a performance at American Players Theatre, browse Arcadia Books, tour Taliesin or camp at nearby Governor Dodge State Park.

Were a working store. There are, what they call, country stores, which look like an old-fashioned store but really its a tourist trap. You go in there and you cant find anything basic that you need, said Joel Marcus, the fourth generation of his family to own Ninas. With us, you come in and you find all these cool things but its still a real working variety store. All the basics for day-to-day living are here.

Small-town department stores arent yet extinct but theyre definitely endangered. Sheboygan Falls has Evans, an 18,500-square-foot store founded in 1936. Bradleys in Delavan was established in 1852 and has been in the same location since 1887, while the Tomah Cash Department Store opened in 1900 and has three floors and 30,000 square feet of merchandise.

Ninas is one of the oldest businesses in Spring Green. The Post House restaurant, founded in 1857, was destroyed by fire in 2004. The former State Bank of Spring Green building down the street is a restaurant and the former Royal Blue Grocery building is home to Country Sampler, a quilt and sewing shop. Hottmanns mens clothing and Jo Ans, a womens clothing store, have also disappeared from the downtown retailing landscape.

Ninas has remained true. And on Saturday the store will celebrate 100 years of ownership by the Marcus family with music, refreshments, door prizes and historical displays in the front windows.

Shoe strings, socks, clothespins, silk flowers, irons, mens shirts and cookware are among the 52,000 items that will also help draw in the crowds.

This is not the same store that my great-grandfather purchased in 1916, Marcus said. The one constant is that were continually reinventing ourselves.

That philosophy helped the store survive the Great Depression and bankruptcy in the 1930s that shuttered his familys three other stores in southwestern Wisconsin. Frank Lloyd Wright was a customer for years and in the 1960s many referred to Ninas as a dime store but the Marcus family worked to change its image back to a department store. When Walmarts were constructed in Dodgeville and Richland Center in the 1980s, the store adjusted and, unlike many other small retailers of the time, was able to retain many of its customers.

In its early days, Ninas sold groceries, work clothes for farmers and even furniture. Beginning in the mid-1930s, the store was called The Economy Store as a way to better market itself in the dire economy of the time.

Ninas is housed in a building constructed in 1911 by B.L. and I. W. Cohen who had come to Spring Green in 1905 to open a general store. The brothers had a disagreement and in 1916 sold the business and the building to Harris Marcus who had emigrated from Russia in 1884. He first arrived in New York, went to Chicago and ended up at the home of cousin, Max Marcus, who operated a store in Columbus north of Madison but had no work for him in the store.

But cousin Max set up Harris with a pack filled with sewing supplies and folds of fabric to peddle to farm women in the Wisconsin River Valley, a job he would do for nearly nine years.

As he sold he was able to amass money to buy a horse and saddle bags to sell and carry more merchandise and eventually buy a wagon so that he could carry all kinds of merchandise out to the rural areas, Joel Marcus said. By 1893 he was able to open his first small store in Muscoda. Its really an American success story.

The store closed in 1886 and Harris Marcus went back to peddling. Less than a year later, however, he opened another store in Muscoda that by 1912 had grown to a 15,000-square-foot department store. Branch stores followed in Boscobel, Viola and, in 1916, downtown Spring Green under the name of Harris Marcus & Sons.

In 1946, more than 10 years after the Muscoda, Boscobel and Viola stores had closed, the Spring Green store was renamed Ninas Inc., after Sam Marcus wife. When Sam died in 1946, George Marcus took over the family business until his death in 1978. Thats when Joel Marcus, a UW-Madison graduate, returned from law school in St. Paul, Minnesota, with the intention of closing the store.

I just couldnt bring myself to do it, Joel Marcus said. It was just the attraction of it being in the family and the history and what the store meant to the community. Theres no shortage of lawyers out there but there are very few people doing what I do at the store.

But Marcus, 63, doesnt do it alone. He has three part-time employees and his wife, Judy Swartz Marcus, whom he met through a yarn salesman. Marcus aunt owned the Knitting Tree in Madison and Swartz was working at a yarn store in Chicago. The rep thought the two might make a good couple.

A blind date was had in 1998 and Joel and Judy married in 1999. Joel now has a partner for life and Ninas a spectacular yarn selection that includes cotton, wool and silk, and knitting books written by Swartz Marcus, who managed a yarn store in Chicago for 13 years and has a strong background in textiles. When she first arrived, the sparse yarn department was located across from mens underwear. Its now in the former shoe department in the back of the store.

I had always eyed this little alcove so when shoes were done, I moved in and expanded it, said Swartz Marcus, 62, who grew up in Madison. When I came here the yarn selection was very minimal, like a dish cloth cotton and basic acrylic but I didnt want to alienate the local people. We depend a lot on tourism but we dont want to be a tourist store. We want a balance between what weve always been to the local people and attracting tourists. No customer is left behind.

Sales peak in December but August is a strong second thanks to the tourists and the many items made in America or not typically found in big-box retailers. They include socks from Vermont and handbags from Colorado.

In 2002, as the store was undergoing a $40,000 renovation, Judy and Joel changed the name of the store from Ninas Inc. to Ninas Department & Variety Store to help visitors recognize the stores mission.

We love the business, Joel Marcus said.
Perhaps humans are destined by dint of our primal instincts to forever fear the other, to revolt continually against living peacefully in close proximity to those whose skin is a different hue, whose language lends a different sound, whose gods go by different names. Maybe there is no antidote for the evolutionary proclivity to distrust those who dont look or sound like us.

But it is certainly true that those instincts would be less volatile if they were not continuously stoked by pandering and opportunistic politicians. From the United States to Great Britain to Austria, politicians have found advantage in fueling a dangerous xenophobia that blames immigrants for every lost job, every bad debt, every savage crime.

It was into that climate that the U.S. Supreme Court disgorged its decision overturning President Barack Obamas temporary reprieve for several million undocumented immigrants. (The vote was a deadlocked 4-4, but its effect was to allow a lower court ruling against the president to stand.) The subject of immigration has been a dominant theme in this unruly election season. The high courts action will only serve to make it more incendiary.

In Great Britain, reckless politicians have already ridden anti-immigration fervor to a regrettable vote to leave the European Union, promising, among other things, that the flow of foreign workers would be slowed to a trickle.

Here at home, Donald Trump has established himself atop the Republican Party with a campaign of nationalism and unabashed xenophobia. He has branded Mexicans as criminals. He has promised to wall off the southern border of the United States. And he has pledged to bar many, if not all, Muslims from entry.

Thats too bad. The simple truth is that native populations need the industry, the vitality and the ambition of immigrants. The United States, particularly, has a history of accommodating immigrants and assimilating them into the cultural and economic mainstream. Trumps white working-class supporters hail from immigrant ancestors.

Much of the population of 11 million or so who live among us without papers is trying hard to assimilate: They work, they pay taxes, they even buy homes. They join churches and community organizations. They send their children to school.

Those who came to this country as children usually speak English fluently and consider themselves Americans. Obamas 2012 executive order targeting the so-called Dreamers, who came to this country without papers before they turned 16, was not voided by the court. It allows about 750,000 young adults without papers to obtain drivers licenses, to work and to attend college.

Research shows that the benefits immigrants bestow on this country are greater than the cost of absorbing them. Unskilled laborers may contribute to a depression in wages for native workers, but the effect is slight. They are not the leading cause of wage stagnation or job loss.

Still, the economic uncertainty of our time has made many American-born workers much more suspicious of competition from foreign-born laborers. Those who have suffered job losses, stagnating wages and disappearing savings accounts are looking for scapegoats, and immigrants are easy to blame.

They are also angry about something else: the loss of power and privilege inherent in changing demographics. By the year 2040, as the nation grows browner, white Americans will no longer constitute a numerical majority. Those simple statistics have fueled a furious backlash.

Indeed, the struggle over cultural identity has been the thematic music, the background noise, of Obamas tenure. He assumed the Oval Office not just as the first black president but also as a harbinger of a much more diverse nation. Its an accident of fate that Obamas father came to this country from Kenya on a student visa, hinting of the wave of globalization to come. Its no wonder that immigration has been among the most volatile issues of his presidency.

It didnt have to come to this. As recently as the presidency of George W. Bush, Republican elites supported a strategy for giving legal status to undocumented immigrants. But a vicious opposition from the grassroots scared them into a reversal. They didnt try to lead. They dropped their principles and ran to get ahead of their constituents.

Theyre still running. They lack a trait less common than the primal instincts of fear and resentment: courage.
De Beers Forevermark launches its first exclusive boutique in Bihar De Beers Forevermark opened its first exclusive boutique in Patna, the first in the state of Bihar. Situated at City Centre Mall, the new boutique showcases a wide selection of the brands iconic jewellery collections including the signature Forevermark...

Copper Mark extends to Nickel, Zinc & Molybdenum The Copper Mark announced on 24 October 2022 is extending its responsible mining assessment already covering a fifth of global copper production to molybdenum, nickel and zinc with the launch of a pilot program.

In the third quarter of 2022, Norilsk Nickel produced 59,000 tons of nickel, 113,000 tons of copper, 712,000 ounces of palladium and 171,000 ounces of platinum According to Norilsk Nickel, in the third quarter of 2022, the company produced 59,000 tons of nickel (+22% QoQ), 113,000 tons of copper (+1%), 712,000 ounces of palladium (+0.4%) and 171,000 ounces of...

Implats lifts stake in RBPlat to 40.66% Impala Platinum (Implats) has further increased its shareholding in Royal Bafokeng Platinum (RBPlat) to 40.66% from 40.49%. The platinum miner said it concluded agreements to acquire a further 507 000 RBPlat Shares constituting...
Michael Gove, a surprise candidate for the Tory Leadership and new U.K. Prime Minister, said Friday that he was in the fray out of conviction.

In a speech made to make his case for the top position, Gove said, "I had to stand up for my convictions."

The Justice Secretary, who campaigned for the U.K. to leave the European Union, surprised many on Thursday when he threw his hat into the ring, after repeatedly saying that he did not want to become the PM.

He was widely expected to back former London Mayor and lead "Leave" campaigner Boris Johnson, who bowed out of the race after the former's surprise bid.

In the June 23 referendum, 52 percent of Britons voted to leave the EU.

A day after, Prime Minister David Cameron, who had passionately campaigned for the country to remain in the EU, said he will step down in October and the exit negotiations should take place under a new PM.

The U.K. needed a leader who both believed in a new path and who could build and lead a united team to guide through the challenges ahead, Gove said.

"I believed that Boris Johnson - who had campaigned alongside me with such energy and enthusiasm - could build and lead that team," he said.

"...But I came to realise this week that, for all Boris's formidable talents, he was not the right person for the task."

The days ahead will not be easy for the U.K., Gove said, adding that he will be guided by principle and govern as "captain of a team".

"This country voted for change - and I am going to deliver it," Gove said.

"...I am the candidate for change."

The Conservative politician noted that he has been driven by conviction, and not ambition, throughout his career. He also claimed to have "the burning desire to transform" the country.

Elsewhere on Friday, the BBC reported, citing sources, that ministers are urging Gove to withdraw from the race and allow the party to unite behind Home Secretary Theresa May, a "Remain" campaigner.

However, Gove said, "The best person to lead Britain out of the European Union is someone who argued to get Britain out of the European Union."

"That is best for the country - to retain the trust of millions of voters -and it is best for the Conservative party too," he added.

Thus far, most of the 329 Tory members of parliament have backed May, signaling that she is likely to remain in the lead ahead of the first round of voting next Tuesday. The winner will be announced on September 9.

Others who are in the race are the Works and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb, former defence secretary Liam Fox, and "Leave" campaigner and junior minister Andrea Leadsom.

By leading the U.K. out of the EU, Gove promised to end free movement and to introduce an Australian-style points-based system for immigration, and bring numbers down.

He also asserted that the money currently being contributed to Brussels will be channeled mainly to the NHS and to cut VAT on domestic fuel.

Responding to reporters, Gove said the Article 50 of the Treaty of EU that governs the exit process is unlikely to be triggered before the end of this year.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Forex News
The Swiss stock market ended Friday's session in the green, brining its winning streak to four sessions. The market was up slightly in early trade and extended its gains after the positive opening of the U.S. . Despite the weakness at the beginning of the week, the market turned in its best weekly performance since the spring of 2015.

The mood among investors has calmed since the initial shock of the "Brexit" at the end of the prior week. Central banks have convinced investors that they are ready to step in if necessary. Bank of England Governor Mark Carney hinted at providing further stimulus in a speech on Thursday.

On the economic front, disappointing Chinese manufacturing data was offset by the recovery in the euro area manufacturing. The stronger than expected U.S. manufacturing report also provided a boost to investor sentiment.

The Swiss Market Index increased 0.81 percent Friday and finished at 8,085.21. The SMI ended the trading week with an overall gain of 4.4 percent. The Swiss Leader Index climbed 1.05 percent and the Swiss Performance Index added 0.88 percent.

The banks turned in a solid performance Friday. Credit Suisse climbed 2.1 percent and Julius Baer gained 2.4 percent. Shares of UBS also finished higher by 0.7 percent.

Among the insurance stocks, Baloise rose 1.2 percent and Swiss Life increased 1.8 percent. Zurich Insurance also advanced 0.8 percent, after JP Morgan upgraded its rating on the stock to "Overweight" from "Neutral."

Lonza gained 3.2 percent. The company announced that it has agreed to acquire U.S. company Triangle Research. Galenica rose 3.0 percent after its subsidiary Vifor Pharma has signed an agreement with Helsinn Group to market Aloxi in Spain.

Clariant advanced 2.6 percent after a price target increase by JP Morgan. Adecco gained 1.5 percent, while LafargeHolcim and Schindler both added 1.2 percent each.

Among the index heavyweights, Roche rose 0.2 percent and Novartis climbed 0.4 percent. Shares of Nestle also finished higher by 1.2 percent.

Swatch and Richemont both increased by 1.1 percent. JP Morgan lowered its price target on both stocks, but maintained their "Neutral" rating.

In the broad market, Temenos jumped 3.1 percent after Standard Chartered selected its wealth management program.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Market Analysis
Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, the Romanian-born Holocaust survivor whose classic "Night" became a landmark testament to the Nazis' crimes and launched Wiesel's long career as one of the world's foremost witnesses and humanitarians, has died at age 87.

His death was announced Saturday by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. No other details were immediately available.

The short, sad-eyed Wiesel, his face an ongoing reminder of one man's endurance of a shattering past, summed up his mission in 1986 when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize: "Whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation, take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

President Barack Obama said of Wiesel on Saturday, "As a writer, a speaker, an activist, and a thinker, he was one of those people who changed the world more as a citizen of the world than those who hold office or traditional positions of power. His life, and the power of his example, urges us to be better."

Wiesel's wife, Marion, described her husband as "a fighter" in a statement Saturday night.

"He fought for the memory of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust, and he fought for Israel," she said. "He waged countless battles for innocent victims regardless of ethnicity or creed."

For more than a half-century, Wiesel voiced his passionate beliefs to world leaders, celebrities and general audiences in the name of victims of violence and oppression. He wrote more than 40 books, but his most influential by far was "Night," a classic ranked with Anne Frank's diary as standard reading about the Holocaust.

"Night" was his first book, and its journey to publication crossed both time and language. It began in the mid-1950s as an 800-page story in Yiddish, was trimmed to under 300 pages for an edition released in Argentina, cut again to under 200 pages for the French market and finally published in the United States, in 1960, at just over 100 pages.

"'Night' is the most devastating account of the Holocaust that I have ever read," wrote Ruth Franklin, a literary critic and author of "A Thousand Darknesses," a study of Holocaust literature that was published in 2010.

"There are no epiphanies in 'Night. There is no extraneous detail, no analysis, no speculation. There is only a story: Eliezer's account of what happened, spoken in his voice."

Wiesel began working on "Night" just a decade after the end of World War II, when memories were too raw for many survivors to even try telling their stories. Frank's diary had been an accidental success, a book discovered after her death, and its entries end before Frank and her family was captured and deported. Wiesel's book was among the first popular accounts written by a witness to the very worst, and it documented what Frank could hardly have imagined.

"Night" was so bleak that publishers doubted it would appeal to readers. In a 2002 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Wiesel recalled that the book attracted little notice at first. "The English translation came out in 1960, and the first printing was 3,000 copies. And it took three years to sell them. Now, I get 100 letters a month from children about the book. And there are many, many million copies in print."

In one especially haunting passage, Wiesel sums up his feelings upon arrival in Auschwitz:

"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. ... Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never."

"Night" was based directly on his experiences, but structured like a novel, leading to an ongoing debate over how to categorize it. Alfred Kazin was among the critics who expressed early doubts about the book's accuracy, doubts that Wiesel denounced as "a mortal sin in the historical sense." Wiesel's publisher called the book a memoir even as some reviewers called it fiction. An Amazon editorial review labeled the book "technically a novel," albeit so close to Wiesel's life that "it's generally  and not inaccurately  read as an autobiography."

In 2006, a new translation returned "Night" to the best-seller lists after it was selected for Oprah Winfrey's book club. But the choice also revived questions about how to categorize the book. Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com, both of which had listed "Night" as fiction, switched it to nonfiction. Wiesel, meanwhile, acknowledged in a new introduction that he had changed the narrator's age from "not quite 15" to Wiesel's real age at the time, 15.

"Unfortunately, 'Night' is an imperfect ambassador for the infallibility of the memoir," Franklin wrote, "owing to the fact that it has been treated very often as a novel."

Wiesel's prolific stream of speeches, essays and books, including two sequels to "Night" and more than 40 books overall of fiction and nonfiction, emerged from the helplessness of a teenager deported from Hungary, which had annexed his native Romanian town of Sighet, to Auschwitz. Tattooed with the number A-7713, he was freed in 1945  but only after his mother, father and one sister had all died in Nazi camps. Two other sisters survived.

After the liberation of Buchenwald, in April 1945, Wiesel spent a few years in a French orphanage, then landed in Paris. He studied literature and philosophy at the Sorbonne, and then became a journalist, writing for the French newspaper L'Arche and Israel's Yediot Ahronot.

French author Francois Mauriac, winner of the 1952 Nobel in literature, encouraged Wiesel to break his vowed silence about the concentration camps and start sharing his experiences.

In 1956, Wiesel traveled on a journalistic assignment to New York to cover the United Nations. While there, he was struck by a car and confined to a wheelchair for a year. He became a lifetime New Yorker, continuing in journalism writing for the Yiddish-language newspaper, the Forward. His contact with the city's many Holocaust survivors shored up Wiesel's resolve to keep telling their stories.

Wiesel became a U.S. citizen in 1963. Six years later, he married Marion Rose, a fellow Holocaust survivor who translated some of his books into English. They had a son, Shlomo. Based in New York, Wiesel commuted to Boston University for almost three decades, teaching philosophy, literature and Judaic studies and giving a popular lecture series in the fall.

Wiesel also taught at Yale University and the City University of New York.

In 1978, he was chosen by President Carter to head the President's Commission on the Holocaust, and plan an American memorial museum to Holocaust victims. Wiesel wrote in a report to the president that the museum must include denying the Nazis a posthumous victory, honoring the victims' last wishes to tell their stories. He said that although all the victims of the Holocaust were not Jewish, all Jews were victims. Wiesel advocated that the museum emphasize the annihilation of the Jews, while still remembering the others; today the exhibits and archives reflects that.

Among his most memorable spoken words came in 1985, when he received a Congressional Gold Medal from President Ronald Reagan and asked the president not to make a planned trip to a cemetery in Germany that contained graves of Adolf Hitler's personal guards.

"We have met four or five times, and each time I came away enriched, for I know of your commitment to humanity," Wiesel said, as Reagan looked on. "May I, Mr. President, if it's possible at all, implore you to do something else, to find a way, to find another way, another site. That place, Mr. President, is not your place. Your place is with the victims."

Reagan visited the cemetery, in Bitburg, despite international protests.

Wiesel also spoke at the dedication of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington in 1993. His words are now carved in stone at its entrance: "For the dead and the living, we must bear witness."

Wiesel defended Soviet Jews, Nicaragua's Miskito Indians, Cambodian refugees, the Kurds, victims of African famine and victims of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Wiesel was a longtime supporter of Israel although he was criticized at times for his closeness to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu. When Netanhayu gave a highly controversial address to Congress in 2015, denouncing President Obama's efforts to reach a nuclear treaty with Iran, Wiesel was among the guests of honor.

"What were you doing there, Elie Wiesel?" Haaretz columnist Roger Alpher wrote at the time. "Netanyahu is my prime minister. You are not an Israeli citizen. You do not live here. The Iranian threat to destroy Israel does not apply to you. You are a Jew who lives in America. This is not your problem."

The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, which he established in 1988, explored the problems of hatred and ethnic conflicts around the world. But like a number of other well-known charities in the Jewish community, the foundation fell victim to Bernard Madoff, the financier who was arrested in late 2008 and accused of running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

Wiesel said he ended up losing $15.2 million in foundation funds, plus his and his wife's own personal investments. At a panel discussion in February 2009, Wiesel admitted he bought into the Madoff mystique, "a myth that he created around him that everything was so special, so unique, that it had to be secret." He called Madoff "a crook, a thief, a scoundrel."

Despite Wiesel's mission to remind the world of past mistakes, the greatest disappointment of his life was that "nothing changed," he said in an interview.

"Human nature remained what it was. Society remained what it was. Too much indifference in the world, to the Other, his pain, and anguish, and hope."

But personally, he never gave up  as reflected in his novel "The Town Beyond the Wall."

Wiesel's Jewish protagonist, Michael, returns to his native town in now-communist Hungary to find out why his neighbors had given him up to the Nazis. Suspected as a Western spy, he lands in prison along with a young man whose insanity has left him catatonic.

The protagonist takes on the challenge of "awakening" the youth by any means, from talking to forcing his mouth open  a task as wrenching as Wiesel's humanitarian missions.

"The day when the boy suddenly began sketching arabesques in the air was one of the happiest of Michael's life. ... Now he talked more, as if wishing to store ideas and values in the boy for his moments of awakening. Michael compared himself to a farmer: months separated the planting from the harvest. For the moment, he was planting."

-AP
A great marriage is not when the perfect couple comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.

These words by Dave Meurer guided a wonderful and intimate wedding ceremony for Andrew Peter Elisara and Pauline Faaolotoi Reupena in front of their families and friends at the Mulivai Cathedral on Friday.

The ceremony was followed by a reception at Robert Louis Stevenson Museum, Vailima.

Pauline is the daughter of Samoas Consul General in New Zealand, Faaolotoi Reupena Pogi and the late Tamato Rasch Reupena. She is 29 years old and works as a Principal Officer for the Water Sector.

She hails from the villages of Lepa and Palisi. Andrew on the other hand hails from the villages of Sili, Salelavalu and Vaivase-uta. The youngest son of Fiu Mataese Elisara and Betty Roebeck-Elisara, the 29-year old is an A.C.E.O at the Office of the Attorney General.

Paulines father, Faaolotoi, said the day was a special one for the fifth of his children and the eldest of his girls. Pauline and Andrew have been courting each other for eight years now, he said. In 2009 in June, Paulines mother passed away in New Zealand and I know she would have been so proud of Pauline. He wished them well.

As parents, the grooms mother, Betty Roebeck-Elisara, said they are excited for their son.

He is very passionate about his work, she said. He loves his family especially his parents.

In wishing the new couple well, she said: My last words to you both is, it wont be an easy journey, there will be times that you will disagree on some things but bear in mind that love conquers everything and whatever life throws your way. The couple met in Fiji while studying.
Dear Editor,

I thank you for allowing me to pen my respect to my friend, the late Peseta Lavea Margaret Malua. As C.E.O of S.B.E.C, Peseta Margaret helped lead the Samoa delegation to the Two-Samoa Talks on Economic Integration since 2013. Peseta Margaret along with C.E.O of Samoas Chamber of Commerce Ane Moananu spearheaded the Two Samoa trade and fashion show in Pago Pago highlighting the American Samoa 2015 Flag Day.

Together we marched in solidarity during the 2015 Flag Day parade with our respective contingencies where we were greeted with jubilation because of the successful results of our combined efforts.

I had the honor of co-chairing the Talks with the new C.E.O of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Labour Peseta Margaret, held in American Samoa in December 2015 and in Samoa this past May.

On June 1, 2016 during Samoas 2016 Independence Day parade Peseta Margaret proudly led the M.C.I.L. delegation and as they passed the grand stand their cheers expressed to the American Samoa delegation was wholeheartedly reciprocated as our friendship between our delegations have grown greatly due to our collective work to bring about positive growth to our economies.

Her smile and enthusiasm that day is reflective of her life.

While commerce - trade, investment, transportation, and immigration remains a work in progress of the Two-Samoa talks, the improvements made in these areas to date are not insignificant. Afioga Peseta Lavea Margaret Malua will be remembered as a fearless leader not only in these Two-Samoa talks but as a remarkable colleague that will be dearly missed by all that had the pleasure of her friendship.

Keniseli Faalupe Lafaele
Dear Editor,

I spent my working life in IT, closely dealing with many Asian suppliers and customers, so I have a high regard for most in a business and personal perspective.

However, many of the Chinese we see in Samoa are here to get everything they can out of the Samoan economy, at whatever the cost.

They get around the law reserving retail businesses to Samoan citizens by leasing the business license along with the buildings they operate from. A simple loophole left open to benefit the invaders at the cost of those the law was drafted to protect.

The Chinese small business mentality is to discount to the minimum profit and sell in bulk. To do we now have to endure the cheapest quality goods that do not last and sometimes dont even work. Profit is essential for small business to remain viable, so the introduction of such predatory competition is a virtual death sentence for neighboring local small businesses.

Read Sun Tsus The Art of War, to get a better understanding of Chinese business, there is no win-win, it always has to be a win-loss and patience is key to doing so over a long term, which Samoans are not known for.

Foodstuffs are imported into Samoa that do not comply with health requirements in Australia or New Zealand, a situation that I think is untenable for Samoa with all the health challenges we face.

Chinese aid is virtually non existent relative to Australia and New Zealand, with all these big infrastructure projects being funded by the Chinese Eximbank loans. Nothing to pay for five years then 15 years of quarterly payments to pay off the loan at 3per cent interest. Sounds like a dodgy used car deal!

Do the Maths and it is frightening to realise that US$15-20 will need to be found every quarter to service these loans, which were well over US$500 million when I lost count. Add to that an airport upgrade we dont really need and the bills keep going up.

Forget the idea of the loans being turned to grants, like sometimes happens with other sources, as the Eximbank has never done this in the many years they have been raping African and other Pacific economies.

Ask a Tongan how happy they are with the Chinese businesses that have come in after they started selling out to the Eximbank.

Samoa needs to stop this debt escalation and work out how the loans will be serviced over the next 20 years as our kids work to pay them off.

K.H
Leaders and members of the Samoa Methodist Church are gathering at Faleula this week for their annual conference.

For the past few days, hundreds of church members making up the different delegations from overseas have been arriving for the meeting.

Yesterday, a service at the Wesley Church offered up thanksgiving and petitions before the conference begins proper today.

The service was conducted by Reverend Kolani Fiti from Australia.

As well as the main conference, the Au-uso Fealofani or Council of Women meeting gets underway this week followed by the main conference.

A pastors wife from Victoria Australia, Vaosina Mapesone, said the meeting is an opportunity for women to share ideas about how to improve their work.

Away from the developments of the church, Elderly mother from Faleu Manono, Sii Emosi said the meeting is a chance to fellow ship and share about the goodness of God.

As for the main conference, the meeting will discuss issues about the development and strategic plans of the church.
Bluesky Samoa yesterday confirmed plans by its parent company, Amper SA, to sell its South Pacific business to Fijian company, Amalgamated Telecom Holdings (A.T.H).

In a statement issued by the Bluesky Samoas Chief Commercial Officer, Sanjeewa Perera, it confirmed that Amper and A.T.H have started the negotiations.

Blueskys parent company Amper SA released a statement on Wednesday 29th June, 2016 announcing it has signed a non-binding letter of intent to divest its South Pacific holdings to Fijian group, Amalgamated Telecom Holdings (A.T.H), the statement from Bluesky Samoa said yesterday.

The strong performance of Bluesky Pacific Group operations in American Samoa, Samoa, New Zealand and Cook Islands has attracted the attention of key telecom operators in the region such as A.T.H.

According to Bluesky Samoa, the intention of both parties is to engage in dialogue regarding a potential acquisition.

These discussions have now commenced. A potential acquisition is subject to agreement by the parties on price, terms of acquisition and regulatory approvals.

Bluesky fully supports its parent companys decision to explore this opportunity and is involved in the discussions to ensure the best commercial decision is made not only for Amper SA and Bluesky Pacific Group operations, but also for its existing local investors, customers and community.

Bluesky Samoa is part of the Bluesky Pacific Group, which is regional telecommunications group, with its companies providing Fixed Line, Mobile, Broadband and I.P.T.V services to consumers in American Samoa, Samoa, New Zealand and Cook Islands.

Bluesky Communications was the first company to launch in American Samoa in July 1999. From its beginnings as a mobile phone company, Bluesky then expanded to also being an internet service provider and then acquiring the local cable TV operator in American Samoa in 2009.

Since then Bluesky and the services offered has grown to what it is today.

Having expanded into Samoa in March 2011 by acquisition of SamoaTel, Cook Islands and New Zealand in early 2015. Bluesky operates the only submarine fibre optic cable connecting Samoa and American Samoa to Hawaii.
Two young men say they owe their lives to a courageous Alatasi who was shot and killed at Faleula-uta last week.

Sione Emara and Ropati were on their knees pleading with the gunman, Sale, to spare their lives when Alatasi walked in.

He confronted the gunman and when he couldnt persuade him to change his mind, he offered his life instead so the two could be spared.

In tears, Sione described Alatasi, who hails from Poutasi Falealili, as a courageous man who saved our lives.

We owe our lives to him, said Sione. We would have been dead. We thought we were dead because Sale was a mad man in murderous rage but Alatasi was our guardian angel.

Ropati and Sione, who are cousins, said they still couldnt believe what transpired that night.

When I finished work that Friday, I called Ropati to meet me at the house where Sale is staying for a catch up and a few drinks as usual, Sione said.

Sale is staying there to look after one of our relatives land; usually that is where we meet for drinks. We are related, blood and flesh.

That evening when Ropati and Sione went to the house, Sale was not there.

So we sat down but not long after, we saw Sale come back. He was really drunk. He started talking and asking all these questions. He also asked for a beer and we chatted not knowing anything would happen.

Later, Sione said Sale told Ropati to fetch the gun from inside the toolbox.

We were surprised when he asked us to go bat shooting. We told him we needed to go home as it was getting late but that made him really angry.

He turned around and pointed the gun at Ropatis forehead. I thought he was joking but he wasnt.

He was sitting on a chair and he told us to get on our knees. When I was trying to ask him what he was doing, he told me to shut up because he was about to shoot Ropati.

Sione said any alcohol he might have had quickly disappeared as the sobering reality of what was happening sunk in.

We were on our knees, in tears, he said. We were shocked, I felt like I wasnt drinking alcohol at the time. I was begging him to please not to do anything,

I pleaded with Sale, I said please Sale, dont kill Ropati, hes just a kid, please Saledont kill him.

Then he turned to me, and put the gun on my forehead as we both kneeled with our hands over our heads. I was crying. All I was thinking at the time was God to help me.

I was thinking about my mother, my sisters and brothers. My body was numb, I was totally lost and shaken.

It was at that time when Alatasi arrived.

The voice I heard was a man, said Sione. We didnt know who he was because we were on our knees with our backs to where he was coming from.

Sione said he heard Alatasi tell Sale to stop what he was doing.

When he saw that Sale was not changing his mind about shooting us, he pleaded with him to spare us as we were only boys but to shoot him instead.

At that point, Sale told him to open his mouth. He put the gun there and shot him on the spot.

The shot felled Alatasi.

We were both shaken, said Sione. But the moment Sale stood up to pull the body of the man to the other side of the house, we fled and called the police.

Ropatis mother, who asked for her name not to be published, said she is grateful to Alatasi for sparing her sons life.

As a mother and a family member, this is really shocking, she said. I cannot bring myself to imagine what would have been if my son had been shot.

The mother said Sale is not a bad person and they cant work out why he did what he did.

Sione and Ropati both understand that Sale is not a dangerous person to hang around with especially hes one of our relatives.

Hes a hardworking young man, he always provides for his family. Hes a father as well to his three children. Were not so sure what made him act this way.

According to Ropatis mother, one of the saddest aspects of the shooting is the fact Sales 3-year-old son witnessed it.

The very next day, Sales son was murmuring and recalling every single action his dad made that night. Hes just a young boy but he captured everything,

If you ask him, hell explain it allthat Saturday after the incident on Friday night, he kept saying: dago daddy, fana dama, dodo umapau lalo damadodo gutu (daddy shot man, blood all over, he fell and blood coming from his mouth).

Police Media Officer, Maotaoalii Kaioneta Kitiona, confirmed the shooting, saying the accused man faces a murder charge.
NESMITH, S.C. - Kendall Lamont Ellis, 43, of 33 F.C. Cox Road, Hemingway, was arrested and charged by the Williamsburg County Sheriffs Office Saturday with one count of attempted murder.

On July 1 Ellis turned himself into the WCSO, PIO and Sheriffs Investigator Alex Edwards said. Ellis was arrested in connection with the June 28 shooting incident on Nesmith Road, Nesmith. According to investigators, Ellis shot Aldell Pressley, 33, of 84 Staggers Road, Andrews, after an altercation.

According to investigators, Ellis fired a handgun after Pressley refused to pay a debt for participating in a drag race.

The booking report said Ellis discharged a handgun two times, with one shot hitting the victim in the leg. Once the victim was down, Ellis reportedly assaulted him with the handgun. The victim was flown to the Grand Strand Medical Center Trauma Unit for medical treatment, where he is recovering from his gunshot wound.

Ellis will appear before a Williamsburg County Magistrate for an explanation of the charges against him. Until then, he will remain at the Williamsburg County Detention Center until bond is posted. The investigation into this incident is ongoing.
But he is confident that the Norwegian firm is better-placed than most, having successfully passed all of the US Coast Guards (USCG) tests and trials, with the first official USCG type approval expected within the next few weeks.

USCG type approval is a key differentiator, Andersen said. It gives customers complete reassurance that Optimarins UV/filtration system, suitable for ballasting rates of up to about 2,000 cu m per hour, meets the worlds strictest regulatory requirements. These include pumping rates, power requirements and a capability of functioning effectively in marine, brackish and fresh water.

The companys potential market, following research by its analysts, comprises around 25,000 vessels, Andersen says, and it has already teamed up with marine engineering specialists Goltens and Zeppelin to assist on 3D engine-room scans, piping arrangements, detailed drawings and on-site installation if required. Andersen and his team have also taken the precaution of ensuring that suppliers will be able to cope with the surge in demand for systems following ratification.

The IMO Convention, probably requiring only one more signatory  possibly Finland  could tip over the 35% of global tonnage required for ratification within the next few weeks. Measured monthly in tonnage figures, ratification will give ship operators a 12-month window before suitable treatment systems will need to be installed at the next intermediate or special survey docking.

Andersen, however, is confident of Optimarins position in the market. The company has closed around 100 contracts so far this year, taking its total to about 480 of which some 200 remain to be installed. There is a strong pipeline of business, he says, with a range of other deals under negotiation right now. The company is owned by its employees, a branch of the Klaveness family and its local bank. It has no debt and five to seven years of exponentially rising revenues, Andersen said.
Legendary aviatrix Amelia Earhart most likely died on an uninhabited tropical island in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati, according to researchers at The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR). Tall, slender, blonde and brave, Earhart disappeared while flying over the Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937 in a record attempt to fly around the world at the equator. Her final resting place has long been a mystery. For years, Richard Gillespie, TIGHAR's executive director and author of the book "Finding Amelia," and his crew have been searching the Nikumaroro island for evidence of Earhart. A tiny coral atoll, Nikumaroro was some 300 miles southeast of Earhart's target destination, Howland Island. A number of artifacts recovered by TIGHAR would suggest that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, made a forced landing on the island's smooth, flat coral reef. According to Gillespie, who is set to embark on a new $500,000 Nikumaroro expedition next summer, the two became castaways and eventually died there. "We know that in 1940 British Colonial Service officer Gerald Gallagher recovered a partial skeleton of a castaway on Nikumaroro. Unfortunately, those bones have now been lost," Gillespie said. The archival record by Gallagher suggests that the bones were found in a remote area of the island, in a place that was unlikely to have been seen during an aerial search. A woman's shoe, an empty bottle and a sextant box whose serial numbers are consistent with a type known to have been carried by Noonan were all found near the site where the bones were discovered. "The reason why they found a partial skeleton is that many of the bones had been carried off by giant coconut crabs. There is a remote chance that some of the bones might still survive deep in crab burrows," Gillespie said. Although she did not succeed in her around-the-world expedition, Earhart flew off into the legend just after her final radio transmission. Books, movies and television specials about her disappearance abound as well as speculation about her fate. Theories proliferated that she was a spy, that she was captured by the Japanese, that she died in a prisoner-of-war camp, and that she survived and returned to live her life as a New Jersey housewife. A new biopic about Earhart's life, starring Hilary Swank and Richard Gere, opens this weekend.The general consensus has been that the plane had run out of fuel and crashed in the Pacific Ocean, somewhere near Howland Island. But according to Gillespie, the "volume of evidence" TIGHAR has gathered suggests an alternative scenario. "Propagation analysis of nearly 200 radio signals heard for several days after the disappearance make it virtually indisputable that the airplane was on land," Gillespie said. Eventually, Earhart's twin-engine plane, the Electra, was ripped apart by Nikumaroro's strong waves and swept out into deep water, leaving no visible trace. "The evidence is plentiful -- but not conclusive yet -- to support the hypothesis that Amelia landed and died on the island of Nikumaroro," forensic anthropologist Karen Ramey Burns told Discovery News. The author of a book on Earhart, Burns believes that the strongest of the amassed evidence comes from the report related to the partial skeleton found by Gallagher. "The skeleton was found to be consistent in appearance with females of European descent in the United States today, and the stature was consistent with that of Amelia Earhart," said Burns. According to Burns, another piece of documentary evidence comes from the accounts of Lt. John O. Lambrecht, a U.S. Naval aviator participating in the search for Earhart's plane. Lambrecht reported "signs of recent habitation" on what was an officially uninhabited atoll. Lambrechet's report begs the question: Why did no one follow up? "I have stood in plain sight on Nikumaroro in a white shirt waving wildly as a helicopter flew over me and was not noticed until the video tape of the flight was examined," Burns said. "I find it very easy to believe that Amelia and Fred would not have been seen by the pilot. If the Electra was not visible at the time, their last chance of rescue was lost in Lambrecht's notes," she added. Abandoned on a desert island where temperatures often exceed 100 degrees, even in the shade, Earhart and Noonan likely eventually succumbed to any number of causes, including injury and infection, food poisoning from toxic fish, or simply dehydration. The coconut crabs' great pincers would have done the rest, likely removing some of the last physical traces of this pioneering aviatrix.

As the search for Amelia Earhart's plane probes the waters off Nikumaroro, a tiny uninhabited island in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati, a new paper has reconstructed what may have happened to the legendary aviator 75 years ago. style="text-align: left;"> Written by Thomas King, the senior archaeologist on Amelia Earhart search project, the paper summarizes 23 years of interdisciplinary research by the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (or TIGHAR). It will be published by the academic journal Pacific Studies in October. style="text-align: left;"> "In the Earhart case, strong circumstantial evidence supports the hypothesis that the pilot and navigator Fred Noonan landed their Lockheed Electra 10E safely on Nikumaroro, made repeated efforts to radio for help, and eventually died as castaways," King told Discovery News.



style="text-align: left;">The Facts: Earhart sent her final radio transmission on July 2, 1937 during a record attempt to fly around the world at the equator. Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared in the final minutes of a flight from Lae, New Guinea, to Howland Island in the Pacific. At 07:42 local time, as she flew toward the target destination, Earhart called the Coast Guard cutter Itasca, stationed at Howland Island for support. style="text-align: left;"> "We must be on you, but cannot see you -- but gas is running low. Have been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at 1,000 feet," she said. Earhart's final inflight radio message went out an hour later, at 08:43. "We are on the line 157 337. We will repeat this message. We will repeat this on 6210 kilocycles. Wait," she said. style="text-align: left;"> What happened after that last radio message has remained a mystery for 75 years.

style="text-align: left;">The Hypothetical Reconstruction: TIGHAR researchers believe that Earhart and Noonan reached the vicinity of Howland Island, but were unable to see it, perhaps due to difficult morning light conditions or because they were somewhat off-course to the south. Unable to communicate with the Itasca, and to see Howland Island, they flew southeast and in the late morning sighted Nikumaroro, at that time known as Gardner Island. style="text-align: left;"> According to the researchers' hypothetical reconstruction, the pair made an emergency landing on the island's northwest reef flat, north of the wreck of the British steamer SS Norwich City, which went aground on the island's reef in 1929.

style="text-align: left;">Nikumaroro: A desert atoll, less than five miles long and 1.5 miles wide, with a lagoon at its center, Nikumaroro is far from a dreamy island getaway. The island has no fresh water and has roasting temperatures often exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit -- even in the shade. style="text-align: left;"> The island is wooded in indigenous forest dominated by the Buka, a large tropical softwood tree, feral coconut and shrubs known as Scaevola frutescens. The island was uninhabited when Earhart disappeared in 1937, but was colonized in late 1938, with the colony lasting until 1963.

style="text-align: left;">Distress Calls: As soon as they landed, Earhart and Noonan are believed to have begun sending dozens of radio distress calls using the Electra's equipment. TIGHAR re-examined all the 120 known reports of radio signals suspected or alleged to have been sent from the Earhart aircraft after 12 noon on July 2, 1937 through July 18, 1937, when the official search ended. They concluded that 57 out of the 120 reported signals are credible.

style="text-align: left;">The Photograph: After a few days, however, TIGHAR postulates that flood tides lifted the Electra and carried it over the reef edge, leaving behind the landing gear, which was inadvertently photographed by British Colonial Service officer Eric R. Bevington three months later in October 1937 The airplane either broke up in the surf on the reef edge, or was obscured by waves when the U.S.S. Colorado flyers flew over on July 9 during high tide. The Colorado flyers also did not see Earhart and Noonan. style="text-align: left;"> "TIGHAR's experience is that in the highly contrasting visual environment of the Nikumaroro shore it is very difficult to see people on the ground from the altitude flown by the Colorado planes," King said.

style="text-align: left;">Fred Noonan's Fate: Noonan may have not survived long. The content of some of the recovered radio messages suggests that he may have been injured in the landing.

Exploring the Island: With the plane lost, TIGHAR believes that Earhart -- and Noonan, if still alive -- went to explore the island. They carried with them a few supplies, such as cosmetics for protection from the equatorial sun and Earhart's compact with its handy mirror. style="text-align: left;"> When he visited the island three months later, the British officer, Bevington, reported signs of someone's "overnight bivouac" near the lagoon on the southwestern side of the island.

style="text-align: left;">Map of the Island: From the western reef slope, where she landed, Earhart is thought to have reached an area that TIGHAR calls the Seven Site, in the island's remote southeast end. There she may have survived for some days or weeks, but finally succumbed, probably to thirst.

style="text-align: left;">Crabs Consumed Remains: TIGHAR researchers believe that her body was largely consumed by the site's numerous hermit and coconut crabs, leaving only 13 bones, a few artifacts, and the remains of her cooking fires.

Skeletal Remains: A partial skeleton was found in 1940 at the Seven Site. The remains were recovered by British Colonial Service Officer Gerald Gallagher and described in a forensic report. According to that report, the bones probably belonged to an individual "more likely female than male," "more likely white than Polynesian or other Pacific Islander," and "most likely between 5 feet, 5 inches and 5 feet, 9 inches in height." style="text-align: left;"> Unfortunately the bones have been lost. A woman's shoe, an empty bottle and a sextant box whose serial numbers are consistent with a type known to have been carried by Noonan were also found near the bones.

Clam Shells: Amelia may have survived on Nikumaroro for weeks and possibly months, according to Ric Gillespie, executive director of TIGHAR. Archaeological investigations at the Seven Site unearthed significant clues that suggest a castaway presence. style="text-align: left;"> "We found several small and large fires. The fire features contained bird, fish, and turtle bones. We also found two clusters of giant clam shells," King said. style="text-align: left;">He added that many of the clams appeared to have been opened by someone who tried to pry them apart on the hinge side, others have been opened by smashing them with rocks. Whoever camped there was catching small reef and lagoon fish, cooking them on the coals, not consuming the heads, and disposing of their bones in the fires. "None of this behavior is consistent with fishing and fish preparation by indigenous Pacific islanders," said King.

Artifacts: Apart from the fire features, the researchers also found a knife that was beaten apart to detach the blades, and several broken, partially-melted bottles in the remains of a cooking fire. They were probably used to boil or distill drinking water. style="text-align: left;"> "These objects tell a fascinating story of ingenuity, survival and, ultimately, tragedy," Gillespie said.
Rhinoceros horns have been prized in various cultures for thousands of years. In China and other Asian countries, the material is still valued as a component in traditional medicinal remedies. Due to a recent resurgence in demand, a single three-kilogram horn can sell for as much as $300,000.

Because of these prices, poachers have hunted rhinos to near extinction. That's a phrase that gets tossed around a lot, but the current situation is severe. This new surge in demand, especially in Vietnam, has led experts to conclude that the rhinoceros will be extinct in 10 years.

The cruel irony of it all, as Trace Dominguez reports in this DNews special, is that rhino horn almost certainly has no real medicinal value. Its reputation as a cure-all is based on ancient traditional medicine practices that have zero basis in science.

RELATED: 'Rhino Cam' Captures Day in Life of Orphan

Rhino horns are similar to hooves in composition, mostly constructed of keratin with some calcium, nitrogen, carbon and melanin. A study out of Ohio University took a closer look and determined that rhino horns are essentially the same as bird beaks or even human fingernails.

Another study published in the Journal of Anatomy went even further, looking for medicinal benefits in keratin from every conceivable angle -- pH, atomic structure, polarization, molecular weight, chemical characteristics, genetic basis, source, evolution. No dice. In short, as far as modern science is concerned, rhino horn has no medical value apart from what are presumably placebo effects.

In 1993, China, Taiwan and South Korea finally banned the use of rhino horn in medicine -- after 3,000 years of use in traditional Chinese medicine, or TCM. The ban reduced demand for a while, but now it's up again thanks in part to its reputation as -- of all things -- a hangover cure.

For wildlife advocates, it's a tragic and infuriating state of affairs. On the bright side, the effort to stop rhino poaching has generated some interesting strategies. For instance, check out Laura Ling's new report on an effort to replicate rhino horn via biotechnology and 3D printing.

-- Glenn McDonald

Learn More:

The Atlantic: Why Does Rhino Horn Cost $300,000? Because Vietnam Thinks It Cures Cancer And Hangovers

National Geographic: Rhino Horn: All Myth, No Medicine

Journal Of Chinese Medicine: Alternatives To Rhino Horn
Legarda Hails PHL's Improved Rank in Trafficking Efforts,

Says More to be Done

Senator Loren Legarda today said that greater effort is still needed to address human trafficking even as she hailed the Philippines' upgrade in the US State Department's Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report of 2016.

In the 2016 TIP Report, the Philippines upgraded from Tier 2 to Tier 1, which means that the government has acknowledged the existence of human trafficking, made efforts to address the problem, and complies with the minimum standards for the elimination of international human trafficking.

Legarda, principal sponsor of the Expanded Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act (R.A. 10364), said, "The promotion of Philippines to Tier 1 ranking is proof of the significant efforts being undertaken by the Philippine government to curb human trafficking and exploitation from and within the Philippines."

"I hope that our promotion to Tier 1 status will not lull us into a false sense of complacency. We should continue our fight against human trafficking through public awareness campaigns, capacity building, and continuous coordination and collaboration with key stakeholders," she added.

The Senator expressed confidence that the new administration will continue to strengthen anti-human trafficking efforts and champion the rights of many Filipino workers trapped in modern-day slavery.

Legarda also said that new measures have been enacted which will surely improve the Philippines' anti-human trafficking efforts and combat modern forms of trafficking such as cyber trafficking.

These measures are the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Modernization Act, which Legarda co-authored, and the law creating the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), which she principally authored.
California voters will be able to make a statement on the role of money in politics this November. Last week, Gov. Jerry Brown approved for the ballot an advisory measure that will allow voters to say whether Congress should amend the U.S. Constitution to overturn the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission.

Six years after the Citizens United, the decision has become a catchall phrase for everything thats wrong with campaign financing.

The court opened the floodgates to unlimited spending by corporations and unions, as long as that spending was not done in concert with the candidate or a political party.

The result has been the rise of dark money, whereby the public has little idea of which groups are behind campaign advertisements, and the rapid deterioration of the citizens voice.

Californias ballot measure will be strictly advisory, as Brown took pains to spell out. To be clear, this bill and the advisory vote it requires has no legal effect whatsoever, Brown wrote.

The only way to overturn a Supreme Court decision is through a constitutional amendment. The California Legislature has already passed a resolution calling on federal officials to take that action.

What, then, is the case for this advisory measure?

Advisory measures are usually a waste of everyones time and energy. They can also be confusing to voters, allowing them to believe theyve taken an authoritative action when the opposite is true.

Neither Brown nor our editorial board has any fondness for nonbinding statements. Brown allowed the measure to proceed to the ballot without his signature, as a signal that I am not inclined to repeat this practice of seeking advisory opinions from the voters.

When San Francisco officials put anti-Citizens United advisory measure Proposition G on the 2012 ballot, this page noted that advisory measures amount to only a snapshot of voter mood and may divert City Hall from more important chores.

But its such a struggle to enact even the most modest campaign finance reforms that even an advisory measure serves as an important reminder to elected officials that the voters care deeply about the matter of money in politics.

Americans are deeply disenchanted with the outsize role of money in campaigns. It makes them feel disempowered about their own ability to affect democracy.

In a national Bloomberg poll taken in September 2015, a whopping 78 percent of respondents said they believed the Citizens United ruling needs to be overturned. The fact that Congress hasnt even tried to address this is proof that political leaders arent listening to their citizens.

Under these conditions, an advisory measure may serve as encouragement to officials who are willing to tackle Citizens United head-on  this is an issue that matters to voters.

Its another way for citizens to pressure their leaders to take action. Right now, its the only way.
BEIJING  A protest against an incinerator in a southern Chinese town turned violent Sunday as some people attempted to break into government offices and police officers were injured, residents and authorities said.

The protesters in Lubu town in Guangdong province oppose a project to build an incinerator that would also generate power. Residents reached by phone said they took to the streets by the thousands because they fear the incinerator might contaminate the air and drinking water.
If you remember the dreaded fog that turned last years San Francisco fireworks show into a flash of orange mush, get ready for more of the same.

Im pretty confident it will be overcast, said Duane Dykema, forecaster with the National Weather Service in Monterey. Whatever it was last year it will be this year again.

Dykema said Saturdays maddening weather pattern, with summer fog advancing and retreating throughout the day before advancing for good when the sun goes down, will hold true for Sunday and Monday and maybe throughout the week.

The western half of San Francisco should stay cloudy all day, he said. Everything east of Twin Peaks will clear out in the early afternoon and stay clear until early evening.

The culprit is a weak low-pressure trough stuck along the coastline from Marin to Monterey. That has caused the marine layer to build to 2,000 feet, maybe twice as thick as normal for this time of year. On the plus side, Dykema said there is hope that the fog will be higher off the water than last year, leaving around 500 feet of clearance.

You might be able to see the lower fireworks, he said, but the higher ones will be in the clouds.

Temperatures wont top the 60s along the coast, 70s and 80s inland.

In the Lake Tahoe region, Saturdays thunderstorms will clear out nicely for Sunday and Monday, with temperatures rising to the mid-70s and maybe mid-80s, Dykema said.

Sam Whiting is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: swhiting@sfchronicle.com
Five months ago, The San Francisco Chronicles newsroom proposed an experiment in local news reporting. The concept was simple but untried: Could San Franciscos varied media outlets join together for a single day of reporting about homelessness, its causes and solutions?

The founding members of the SF Homeless Project agreed that we, the journalists of the Bay Area, would ensure that you, the residents of this beautiful yet imperfect metropolis, were given a fully informed perspective on one of the biggest humanitarian crises of our time. Each outlet would report stories in our own style, for our own audiences, however big or small.

The outcome exceeded everyones expectations.

Over the past several days, including the day of mass coverage June 29, more than 70 news organizations produced in excess of 300 videos, articles, radio shows and television reports. The SF Homeless Project inspired similar collaborations in more than half a dozen cities in the U.S. and others around the world.

Today, The Chronicle caps our weeklong coverage with something we havent done in more than two decades: a front-page editorial. But this is not the end of the project for our newsroom, and many of our competitors and colleagues have also agreed to continue the collaboration throughout the year.

Many of you have asked how you can get involved. Today, our opinion writers have suggested some actions you can take. For those who wish to lend financial support, consider The Chronicles Season of Sharing Fund, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. Every dollar given to the fund goes directly to people on the brink of homelessness because administrative costs are covered by The Chronicle and the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund. For more information, go to www.seasonofsharing.org.

In the past week, weve reported on what can be done to increase our regions supply of supportive housing, what can be done for the untreated mentally ill people who live on the streets, how we can improve our emergency shelter system and what role law enforcement can play. Some of the ideas you may agree with; others you may abhor. Thats the role of the Fourth Estate: to inspire, inform and, most importantly, provoke a productive civic discussion.

Our region deserves a media and government that are as innovative and forward-thinking as its residents. We hope you agree that we have met our responsibility to explore solutions to a societal failure that affects the most vulnerable among us. Now it is up to you to use that information to demand change.

Audrey Cooper is the editor in chief

of The San Francisco Chronicle.

Email: acooper@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @audreycoopersf

Full coverage

For a complete look at The Chronicles solutions-oriented news coverage, go to www.sfchronicle.com/homeless. To see all the stories produced by the SF Homeless Project, go to www.sfgate.com/homeless. You can also join the online conversation at facebook.com/sfhomelessproject and on Twitter @bayareahomeless.
The Honest Co. is sincere about its IPO plans  but its not in a hurry.

Best known for creating diapers, sunscreen and cleaning products that are light on chemicals and heavy on green marketing buzz, the shopping startup co-founded by actress Jessica Alba had $275 million in revenue last year, sources close to the company said. Thats ahead of previous expectations and a healthy increase from the $150 million in revenue reported for 2014.

In addition to growing sales, Honest has cash on hand. The startup, which has raised $222 million from Glade Brook Capital Partners, Fidelity Investments, Institutional Venture Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners and others, still has the majority of that money on its balance sheet, CEO Brian Lee said.

No one is in a rush, said Jeremy Liew, a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners and Honest board member since 2011. Thats the luxury of having a good company thats growing quickly, is well-financed and isnt a capital hog. You can choose the best time and place for the IPO.

That golden moment isnt now for Honest, despite Twilios blockbuster IPO last month. Although the communications software company had a great debut  shares are now trading at more than double the IPO price  it was just the second venture-backed tech IPO of 2016. Hopes that it could open the public market for other unicorns were tempered after British voters decided to leave the European Union. Angst over the potential impacts of that decision have since dented the global financial markets and added volatility  not a great ingredient for public stock listings.

$1.7 billion valuation

An IPO would be a financing and branding event for us, said Lee, adding that the company isnt starved for either at the moment. Investors valued Honest at $1.7 billion in a financing round last year. Lee declined to comment on a report this year that Honest is working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley on such an offering.

Alex Wilhelm, editor in chief of data service Mattermark, said hes been hearing little enthusiasm from unicorns to enter the public market. He sees no reason for Honest to go public, unless their investors are hungry for liquidity.

The sole focus now for the Santa Monica startup is on releasing more products and owning the U.S. market. It 2011, it started selling 17 products exclusively online. Now it has deals with Costco Wholesale Corp., Target Co. and others to carry the most popular of the 1,200 items it now offers. Honest has sought to distinguish itself from other packaged goods brands by promoting what it says are healthy, natural products for babies, moms and their homes.

Not all products have been a success. Customers using its sunscreen filed a class-action lawsuit last year saying the product didnt work, and questions persist over the legitimacy of Honests marketing claims that its laundry detergent is free of sodium lauryl sulfate. In April, the Organic Consumers Association filed suit against the company, alleging that its organic baby formula includes 11 synthetic substances that are not allowed in organic products. Attorneys representing the association did not respond to a request for comment. The sunscreen suit was transferred to the Central District Court of California in November, and attorneys representing the plaintiffs did not respond to a request for comment.

Standing behind safety

Lee said the company stands behind the safety of its infant formula. He also said the company learned a lot from last years complaints about its sunscreen and has since worked to educate consumers on how to use it. Online sunscreen sales are up 50 percent in the second quarter of this year over the same period last year, and sunscreen sales at Costco are up 42 percent during that same period, Lee said.

Although the brand has played well on the coasts, heartland states have been slower to embrace it. Awareness of Honest overall nationwide  when prompted  hovers around 35 percent, according to a survey Honest commissioned. The next big push comes this fall when the company begins selling hair care products  its third category.

Honest has also hired Laurence Dryer to head product development and innovation. She previously developed brands and formulas for Valeant Pharmaceuticals, Obagi Medical Products, Neutrogena and others.

The companys next category could be nail care, according to Lee. Liew said the focus is on continuing to introduce more products in the U.S. and learning to behave like a public company. Honest established internal controls including audit and compensation committees more than a year ago, he said.

Eric Liaw, a general partner at Institutional Venture Partners and also on the Honest board, said he also has no interest in going public prematurely.

Honest is a stock I personally could hold for 10 years, 15 years or maybe longer. The category and growth is that large, he said.

Lizette Chapman is a Bloomberg writer. Email: lchapman19@bloomberg.net.
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UPDATE 12:10 p.m.: Manager Bruce Bochy has had to ham-and-egg some interesting lineups with so many players on the disabled list. Sundays lineup in the series finale against the Diamondbacks is, um, wow.

Keep in mind that Denard Span is not available with a neck injury. He had an MRI on Sunday morning and the disabled list cannot be ruled out.

Manager Bruce Bochy said Angel Pagan needed a day off due to general soreness. Also, Bochy wanted Buster Posey to play first base because he is going to catch a lot during the final week before the break.

Bochy originally wrote a lineup with Gregor Blanco leading off and playing center field. Bochy considered, then discounted, the idea of Brandon Belt playing left field because Belt has played one inning there this year. Then, 45 minutes before the first pitch, a new lineup emerged with Belt in left, Blanco scratched with a sore left knee and Jarrett Parker in center for the first time this year.

The lineup against Robbie Ray:

Tejada 3B

Green 2B

Belt LF

Posey 1B

Crawford SS

Williamson RF

Brown C

Parker CF

Suarez P

The bigger issue at the moment is not the lineup, but the bullpen, which helped blow a 5-1 lead Saturday night and another 5-1 lead the last time Albert Suarez pitched, in that crazy 13-11 loss to the As on Tuesday.

Were dong a good job scoring runs, Bochy said. Weve got to hold these late leads.

The fans might say, Go out and get relief help, and general manager Bobby Evans certainly is but the arms in the pen now are capable of being better.

The left-hand side of the bullpen is interesting. Bochy has gone to Josh Osich more that Javier Lopez of late. Lopez has not had a typical season allowing left-handed hitters a .278 batting average and .826 OPS. Compare those to his career numbers of .205 and .577.

Bochy scrunches his brow at the notion that Lopez has fallen behind Osich on the pecking order.

Both of them Im confident in bringing in against lefties, Bochy said. Why wouldnt I be? One is a power guy. Ones a situational guy.

Saturday night seemed like a Lopez situation, but with a runner on second, one out in the eighth, the Giants leading 5-3 and Jake Lamb due up, Bochy summoned Osich. That was tactical.

Bochy is more apt to use Osich than Lopez against right-handers, so Bochy was covering the possibility that the Diamondbacks would pinch-hit one of their righties on the bench capable of hitting a two-run homer. The plan backfired when Osich walked Lamb, putting two guys on for Welington Castillo.

With Cory Gearrin unavailable after pitching seven times in 11 days, Bochy brought in Hunter Strickland, Castillo took him deep and the Diamondbacks won 6-5.

It will be interesting to see how Bochy redoes the bullpen roles when Sergio Romo comes off the disabled list after nearly three months away, probably Monday.

*****

ORIGINAL POST: The Giants are preparing to welcome back several injured players, but their return will challenge the front office because some of the depth that has helped the club fill gaps could disappear.

Sergio Romo's impending return should be easy to handle on the 25-man roster. The Giants could option Albert Suarez to Triple-A after Sunday's start. He has been a crucial contributor, but the Giants plan to skip his next turn Saturday and he will not be available out of the bullpen for several days.

If so, by rule they could bring him back as soon as the July 15 second-half opener in San Diego.

But the Giants will need to create a 40-man spot for Romo, who did not count against that roster because he is on the 60-day disabled list.

Soon thereafter, infielders will start returning, Joe Panik as soon as his concussion symptoms allow him to play; Kelby Tomlinson, who went 2-for-4 in a rehab game with Class A San Jose on Saturday and could be back before the break; and Matt Duffy, sometime shortly after the All-Star break.

Also, Matt Cain should be back just after the All-Star Game.

General manager Bobby Evans will have a lot to juggle because Conor Gillaspie, Grant Green, Ramiro Pena and Ruben Tejada all have exhausted their minor-league options.

The Giants would have to run these four through waivers. The way some have played, they could get plucked by other teams. Even if they clear waivers, these four have the right to choose free agency rather than return to Sacramento.

Some pure speculation: Tejada could be the first to be designated for assignment because already this season he has cleared waivers twice, with the Mets and Cardinals. He is the least likely to be claimed.

Journeymen such as these often clear waivers because other teams value their 40-man spots and prefer to provide opportunities to their own prospects first. Also, players often accept outright assignments because they like the organization do not want to forfeit their contracts.

*****

Suarez faces lefty Robbie Ray in the series finale at Chase Field on Sunday. Suarez is coming off a good start, 5 2/3 innings and three runs against the As. He left with a 5-1 lead in that nutty game that ended 13-11 As.

Cain, whose spot Suarez has taken, pitched 3 1/3 innings in the Arizona League on Saturday night. He allowed two runs on three hits, including a homer, and struck out six. The object there is just reaching a pitch count, and he reached 46. Bochy said Cain likely will need two more rehab games to get his pitch count around 90.

If all goes well he will return just after the All-Star Game.

Henry Schulman is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: hschulman@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @hankschulman.
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Jeff Staton is a fan of vintage firecracker packaging art and has collected hundreds of labels from around the world.

The labels range from the fantastical to the absurd. Most are crudely drawn with animal motifs or carry patriotic themes. Staton collects most firecracker packages from before 1972.

I look for labels on eBay and antique shops as well as trading with other collectors, Staton says. There are nearly 1,000 known brands of firecrackers he writes on his website.

A BIGGER BANG: Video shows 20K pounds of fireworks go up in smoke

Some firecracker labels can go for hundreds of dollars on eBay according to a recent search of the auction site. The earlier labels feature artwork reminiscent of traditional sailor tattoos or Asian tapestries.

Staton says that if youd like to get into collecting, it can get pricey. Some of the vintage brands that are the most sought after include Anchor, Rocket, Dixie Boy and Red Devil, according to Staton.

The Black Cat brand has remained timeless.

California native Staton says that he started collecting the labels as a kid, keeping the labels he found on the beach the day after Independence Day.

Most firecracker packaging made after 1972 is worth less than a dollar per package.

"The most I've ever spent by far is $1,400 for a Flamingo label," says Staton.

When I got older, I was fascinated to learn that there were other collectors. Of course, I'm always on the lookout when travelling. I've even made two trips to Macau, he says.

TRAGEDY: Child burned in Mexico fireworks explosion doing well at Shriners Galveston

The former Portuguese territory of Macau is a favorite of firecracker fanatics like Staton, who often make pilgrimages to the area to see now-shuttered factories and wharves where some of the firecrackers came from.

"When I went the first time, I met five other collectors in Taiwan and then we all flew together to Macau. It is a very small place with a lot of people, so it is very congested," he says.

According to Collectors Weekly, President Richard Nixons lift of a trade embargo with China in 1972 led to that country becoming a firecracker superpower. It was cheaper to manufacture them there.

There is even a grading system for the packaging, not unlike comic books or trading cards.

Firecracker label collectors like Staton are a special breed as they are chasing an item that was usually thrown away right after all the fun was had.

The 2000 book Firecrackers: The Art and History by Warren Dotz, Jack Mingo, and George Moyer serves as a great primer on the world of firecrackers.
WASHINGTON  Hillary Clinton and her high-powered campaign stand-ins are talking about trust everywhere they speak these days, and for good reason.

On Sundays news shows, Sen. Sherrod Brown, R-Ohio, and Labor Secretary Tom Perez explicitly talked about Clinton and trust. And the candidate herself acknowledged that she has work to do to earn the trust of voters in her likely general election matchup against Republican Donald Trump, who suffers from a public trust deficit of a different sort.

This week, President Obama will personalize the I trust Hillary theme during his first appearance with his former secretary of state in battleground North Carolina. And Vice President Joe Biden will reinforce the message Friday in his hometown of Scranton, Pa., with Clinton at his side.

Its all evidence of a remarkable vulnerability that persists both despite and because of Clintons decades of public life. But the timing of the trust campaign is no accident. Husband Bill Clinton, the former president, met last week with the FBIs boss, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, on the tarmac in Phoenix in a session both say was innocent but regrettable.

FBI interview

The FBI interviewed Clinton for more than three hours Saturday about whether she exposed government secrets by blending personal and official business on a home email server. Clinton immediately taped a television interview in which she denied wrongdoing and repeated an acknowledgment she had slipped into a speech last week on the same day Sen. Elizabeth Warren vouched for her.

In remarks aired Sunday on NBCs Meet the Press, Clinton said she will do everything I can to earn the trust of the voters of our country. I know thats something that Im going to keep working on, and I think thats, you know, a clear priority for me.

Last week just after Warren endorsed her, Clinton acknowledged shes made mistakes. I dont know anyone who hasnt.

Questions about Hillary Clintons ethics have dogged her from her days as first lady of Arkansas and later the United States during husband Bill Clintons governorship and presidency, through her service a senator from New York, her failed 2008 presidential campaign and as Obamas secretary of state. So pervasive has the image been that her opponents have only to utter buzzwords like Whitewater  the name of the Clintons failed land deal in which neither was implicated in wrongdoing  to invoke the image of what Trump terms crooked Hillary.

Character witnesses

Clintons supporters are leaping in with defenses of her overall character.

I trust Hillary Clinton in part because for a whole lot of reasons, Brown, a potential vice presidential pick, said on ABCs This Week. I know how she started her career advocating for the Childrens Defense Fund. She didnt go off to Manhattan or to Washington to make a lot of money.

Perez repeated Clintons reasoning that in the quarter century since her husband was first elected president, some accusations against her have stuck, rightly or wrongly.

The Hillary Clinton that Ive gotten to know well and the Hillary Clinton that the voters of New York got to kick the tires on very well, they have always said and consistently said that we trust her, Perez, another vice presidential possibility, said Sunday on NBCs Meet the Press.

Republican Trump also suffers from a lack of trust, stemming from opposite circumstances: his political inexperience and impulsive style.
1 Gas explosion: A driver took a wrong turn, crashed through a fence and ruptured a natural gas line in suburban Detroit, causing a dramatic explosion in the early hours Saturday that forced the evacuation of nearby residents and even melted siding off a house, police said. The towering fireball in Melvindale could be seen for miles. The 24-year-old driver was in stable condition after a friend driving behind him rescued him from the crash, Police Chief Chad Hayse said. Alcohol was a factor in the crash, which occurred around 3 a.m. at a DTE Energy property, Hayse said. Police went door to door in an 18-block area to evacuate residents who were allowed to return around 9 a.m.

2 Dead whale removed: The reeking carcass of a dead, 46-foot-long humpback whale was towed back out to sea about 24 hours after washing up at a popular Los Angeles County beach. Authorities used boats to pull it off the sand during Friday evening high tide, taking the whale far out to sea and avoiding a foul stench and grim scene on the beach for Fourth of July weekend crowds. The whale washed onto Dockweiler Beach, near the west end of Los Angeles International Airport, just before 8 p.m. Thursday. The whale was about 15 years old, said Justin Greenman, stranding coordinator for the National Marine Fisheries Service. Skin and blubber samples were taken for DNA testing along with fecal matter to be tested for biotoxins.
Getty Images

QUINCY, Mass.  Police have identified a San Francisco man who apparently drowned off the coast of Massachusetts while trying to free his familys boat from a mooring line.

Jesse Loubiers body was pulled from the waters off Quincy, in the Boston suburbs, on Saturday evening, the Norfolk district attorneys office said.
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While a blanket of clouds may take some of the razzle-dazzle out of Monday evenings fireworks over San Francisco, the weather isnt going to stop the throngs from whooping it up at Fishermans Wharf this Fourth of July.

The early summer weather is classic San Francisco, where rolling fog is as recognizable as the Golden Gate Bridge. And fog or no fog, the usual hordes will pack in around Pier 39 to celebrate Americas birthday under the pyrotechnic display.

In the evening, as with most July Fourth-type weather, the clouds will start to roll in, meteorologist Matt Mehle with the National Weather Service said. The transition will be right after sunset when most places are doing fireworks.

Mondays fireworks, which begin at 9:30 p.m., will light up the cloudy night sky with every color under the rainbow, the shows producer, Jeff Thomas, said Sunday as workers with Pyro Spectacular prepared the presentations various rockets on a barge in San Francisco Bay.

Its going to be exciting, he said. Weve launched the show in San Francisco for 40-some years, and theres been clouds and fog before.

Many of the whizzing rockets and mortars in the 23-minute array will be visible despite any possible clouds, exploding at different altitudes and rumbling in harmony with a stirring soundtrack, Thomas said.

There have been years, though, where the fog comes in so thick that San Franciscos fireworks become a dim soup of banging blurs. Organizers will make a game-time decision on where to set the barge as the weather develops.

If the fireworks go off east of Pier 39, customers at Players Sports Grill and Arcade at the end of the promenade will get front-row seats to the show.

Two years ago there was a lot of fog, but we could see the fireworks because were right at the end of the pier, Players manager Chris Baker said.

The Fourth of July, he said, is the restaurants busiest day of the year, and everyone there is super pumped for Monday.

This year, spectators watching the show from city rooftops or even more distant spots dont have to miss out on the music. In true San Francisco fashion, folks can download the Pro Spectaculars app to live-stream the soundtrack to their smartphone.

Monday will start out cloudy in the city before the patchy fog peels back to the coast, where it will hang out for most of the day, Mehle said. Temperatures will peak in the mid-60s before the fog makes its inevitable creep back through the Golden Gate toward the East Bay.

Some clouds may nudge into Oakland and Berkeley, but they probably wont have a significant impact on any fireworks shows like the one at 9:15 p.m. at Craneway Pavilion in Richmond or the 9:30 p.m. display at the Berkeley Marina.

Farther inland, skies will be cloud-free, and temperatures will be in the 80s in Dublin and Lafayette  much lower than last week, when some areas saw triple-digit heat.

Those who are worried about the fog in San Francisco and dont want to risk missing fireworks can head to the Marin County Fair in San Rafael, where shows have been running nightly since June 30. The Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton will feature the Oakland Symphony when the show starts at 9:30 p.m.

Back at the Golden Gate, officials hoping to ease holiday weekend traffic congestion will shut down the Vista Point parking lot at the north end of the bridge until the fireworks end.

Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky
Michael Cimino, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker who earned a reputation as one of Hollywoods boldest directors with the haunting 1978 Vietnam War drama The Deer Hunter, and then all but squandered it two years later with Heavens Gate, died Saturday. He was 77.

Eric Weissmann, a friend and former lawyer of Mr. Ciminos, confirmed the death.

He said Mr. Ciminos body was found at his home in Los Angeles on Saturday by the police after friends were unable to reach him by phone. The cause of death had yet to be determined, Weissmann said.

The Deer Hunter, just the second feature directed by Mr. Cimino  a former painter, art student and commercial director  seemed to exemplify a decades worth of groundbreaking motion pictures by writers and directors who were given wide latitude to fulfill their visions by mainstream studios.

In the tradition of Arthur Penns Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Francis Ford Coppolas The Godfather (1972), Martin Scorseses Mean Streets (1973) and Roman Polanskis Chinatown (1974), The Deer Hunter cloaked a mood of existential uncertainty beneath layers of violence.

The film, for which Mr. Cimino shared a story credit, chronicled a group of friends from a Pennsylvania town whose lives were scarred by their experiences in Vietnam.

Russian roulette sequence

With a cast that included Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep and John Cazale, The Deer Hunter is perhaps best remembered for a nail-biting sequence in which De Niro and Walkens characters, having been taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese, are forced to play Russian roulette with one another.

The Deer Hunter received nine Oscar nominations and won five, including best picture  prevailing over Coming Home, another drama about Vietnam and its aftermath.

Mr. Cimino, who won the Oscar for best director, seemed to have the film industry at his feet and the freedom to do what he wished.

He had already leveraged the intense anticipation surrounding The Deer Hunter to reach a deal at United Artists to make a movie from a screenplay he wrote, called The Johnson County War. It focused on a conflict between immigrant homesteaders, landed cattle ranchers, mercenaries and U.S. marshals in 1890s Wyoming.

Mr. Cimino was given a budget of around $12 million and a timetable of about 2 months to film a feature that the studio, with a schedule full of movies that were delivered late and over budget, had hoped to have ready in time for Christmas 1979.

Instead, Ciminos film  renamed Heavens Gate  took almost a year and more than $40 million to make. Widely panned and a commercial failure, it entered theaters with a running time of more than 3 hours and seemed to stand as a cautionary tale of an intemperate director permitted to indulge his every whim by timid executives who all but brought their studio to the ground.

Although the reputations of Mr. Cimino and of Heavens Gate would improve to varying degrees, the saga surrounding the film ensured that Hollywoods auteur period was effectively over.

Variety, the industry trade publication, has cautioned that, where Mr. Cimino is concerned, many facts about his life are shrouded in conflicting information. Several sources give his birth date as Feb. 3, 1939, and he was raised on Long Island.

He attended college at Michigan State University, where, according to a Vanity Fair profile, he said he earned a bachelor of arts degree in less than three years and went on to study at Yale, where he earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1961 and a graduate degree two years later.

After directing television commercials in New York, he moved to Los Angeles to work as a screenwriter. He contributed to the scripts of the 1972 science-fiction film Silent Running and of Magnum Force, the 1973 action movie that starred Clint Eastwood in his second outing as Dirty Harry.

Successful comic caper

His first effort as a feature director was Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, the 1974 comic crime caper starring Eastwood and Jeff Bridges as a pair of mismatched criminals.

Mr. Cimino, who wrote the script, worked quickly  Eastwood was said to have never wanted to do more than three takes of any scene  and the movie was a hit, earning Bridges an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor.

In a 2010 interview with Vanity Fair, he expressed hope that Heavens Gate would eventually be seen as a masterpiece.

Nobody lives without making mistakes, Mr. Cimino said. I never second-guess myself.

You cant look back. I dont believe in defeat. Everybody has bumps, but as Count Basie said, Its not how you handle the hills, its how you handle the valleys.'

Weissmann said Mr. Cimino left behind no survivors.
UC Berkeley

BERKELEY (BCN)



A memorial vigil will be held Tuesday to honor the life of a University of California at Berkeley student, and others slain in a terrorist attack in Bangladesh Friday.



The U.S. Embassy in Dhaka first reported a hostage situation at Holey Bakery in the city's Gulshan 2 neighborhood around 10:55 p.m., Bangladesh Standard Time.



Tarashi Jain, 19, along with several others was inside the bakery, when a group of gunman reportedly stormed the business and began taking patrons hostage.



Jain was among the hostages who were killed during an hours-long standoff with Bangladesh authorities, Indian Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj said on Twitter.



After about 10 hours, Bangladeshi authorities were able to free the surviving hostages and reportedly killed six of the gunmen.



Jain had gone to high school in Dhaka and began studying at UC Berkeley in 2014, according to UC Chancellor Nicholas Dirks.



The vigil is scheduled to take place at the UC campus's Sproul Plaza on Tuesday from noon to 1 p.m.




















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When you spend your life waiting to see something special, you dont want to blow the deal with your camera when it finally happens.

So it was last weekend amid the best whale watching in several years at Southeast Farallon Island off San Francisco. Some aboard the boat Salty Lady who saw the spectacle nailed their photos. Others, well, not so much.

Theres a reason for that.

In a series of encounters that lasted two hours, humpback whales provided hundreds of sightings at close range. At first, the whales would swim past the boat in formations. When Capt. Roger Thomas turned off the engine, the big show commenced: Humpback whales rocketed out of the water in full breaches, showed off with tail lobs and peck slaps, and then before diving raised their tails high in fluke salutes.

Naturalists aboard counted 54 humpback whales, 15 bottlenose dolphins and two thresher sharks, along with additional sightings of gray whales, harbor porpoises, a Steller sea lion and 13 species of marine birds highlighted by tufted puffins.

Chris Biertuempfel of the Oceanic Society captured the encounters in a series of spectacular photos. He may not use world-class photo equipment, noted Thomas, but with the right approach, he gets world-class photos.

Whale surfacing is unpredictable, Biertuempfel said. I keep one eye on the viewfinder of the camera, my other on the open ocean. Then when I see something through my open eye, I can then home in with my camera eye.

Another key, Biertuempfel said, is to grasp how much time you have to get your shot.

What often happens to people is that they see a whale, panic, and take a bunch of photos as fast as they can, he said. They get blurry whales where the water is in focus.

Instead, be ready, but dont panic, he said. When a whale comes up, you often have two to five seconds, more time than you think. You have time to focus on the whale, so your photo is sharp.

He keeps the horizon level in the background by maintaining a wide stand, and, if the boat is rolling, keep a hand ready to come off the camera and grab a rail.

Thomas called the feed conditions the best in several years across the Gulf of the Farallones.

I shut the engines off and had whales around us the whole time, Thomas said. We had bunches of three, four and five come right up to the boat, swim under the boat, blow their spouts right alongside so close you could smell the fish theyd been eating in the whale breath.

Thomas said he believed whales have converged on the area for hundreds of miles from across the ocean.

We had a lot of upwelling here, 51-degree water and a lot of feed, and the whales moved up here from Monterey, Thomas said. All the critters are here now. On the island, you see nesting murres, puffins and, within a mile or so, spouts everywhere.

The phenomenon started two weeks ago, he said, the result of several weeks of strong winds out of the northwest. That set off upwelling, cooled the ocean and launched the marine food chain.

The feed includes shortbelly rockfish, forage for most shorebirds, large fish and whales, and a new crop of anchovies, as well as krill, which blue whales devour by the relative truckload.

These are conditions that can be sustained through July and likely well into August, Thomas said. That bodes well for whale watching and salmon fishing.

Because of strong winds this spring, many have stayed off the ocean. The result is the Oceanic Society has plenty of space for whale watching trips, and the same is true for salmon boats. I checked the calendar and whale watching boats are available for every weekend in July. Info: Oceanic Society, San Francisco, (800) 326-7491, www.oceanicsociety.org.

Sightings

Bobcat vs. goose: After reading your article on the Bay Area wildlife baby boom, I was on a bike ride heading south on the bike path between Mill Valley and Sausalito. Looking to the east, I noticed a huge commotion as a flock of geese were fleeing into the water from a small patch of land. I noticed one honker was making a lot of noise but not getting away. Something had it. I was fascinated to see a bobcat pulling the goose out of the water for its breakfast.  Vic Rago

Kent Lake eagle: The bald eagle that has taken up residence at Kent Lake in the Marin watershed has been sighted on tours of the area, including last week at the nearby Pine Mountain Fire Road by Bob Klock.

Rare chukar: A wayward chukar, more common in eastern Oregon than about anywhere, somehow found its way to the back deck of a home outside of Fairfield, reported Rosemary Yull. We have heard the sound nearby of other chukar early in the morning, she wrote.

Big year for deer: High nutrition means big fawn crops, and at China Camp State Park on San Pablo Bay, Mark Neely camped two nights and counted 15 deer, including several fawns with spots.

Peninsula eagles: In the Stanford foothills, the bald eagles that were verified building a nest this spring at Felt Lake produced two chicks, and last week, reports John Richards, they fledged and were practicing flying for the first time. If they survive, that means four verified resident eagles for the Peninsula.

Wary dog hiker: After encountering a mountain lion, bear, coyote and rattlesnake, Patty White wrote in from the central Sierra in Stanislaus National Forest that her dogs now wear bells on hikes and have been immunized against rattlesnake bites.

Backyard visits: In Kensington, a gorgeous patio that looks perfect for a Fourth of July barbecue has been getting visits instead by a small fox, which Anita Bohn has been able to photograph right outside her kitchen window.

Joining the club: Sheana Davids sighted a mountain lion near her Sonoma home.

Big Fish Club: A 27-inch mackinaw trout at Gold Lake in the Lakes Basin Recreation Area, located on the divide of Tahoe and Plumas National Forests, for Jeff Byrne.

Tom Stienstra is The Chronicles outdoor writer. He is the author of Moon California Camping. Email: tstienstra@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @StienstraTom
BEIRUT  The call came around noon, about four hours after U.S.-backed Syrian fighters announced they had taken over an air base outside a town held by the Islamic State group near the Iraqi border. We are trapped. Pray for us, a commander called into the operation room.

Then communication was cut. Six hours later, the exhausted fighters from the group, known as the New Syrian Army, returned to their base in Tanf, nearly 150 miles across the desert to the west, having lost four fighters, four vehicles and ammunition.

The swift, humiliating defeat last Wednesday marked the end of a widely advertised offensive launched less than 24 hours earlier with intense U.S.-led air cover. The fighters had hoped to capture Boukamal, a prized possession of Islamic State and the extremist groups last border crossing between Iraq and Syria.

The Boukamal offensive was the first serious attempt to take on the militants in the northeastern province of Deir el-Zour, and the first major test for the nascent force of some 1,000 fighters, formed in November from a coalition of Syrian army defectors, local militias and Islamist fighting groups, many of them from the area.

The quick collapse of the offensive reflects the difficulties the U.S. faces in creating an effective Syrian force against Islamic State, given the complex terrain, competing personal and tribal loyalties  and the extremists continued ability to fight on multiple fronts.

The U.S. has struggled to find local partners in Syria. The exception has been the Kurds, who heavily dominate the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which have had success wresting territory in the north.

All other known attempts to train rebel groups have largely failed, in part because of Washingtons focus on the fight against Islamic State rather than toppling the Syrian government, and its failure to protect its partners from better-equipped rivals.

The offensive on Boukamal, a city of nearly 160,000 people along the Euphrates River  mostly Sunni Arab tribes that move freely between Iraq and Syria  aimed to take advantage of Islamic States focus on defending its northern stronghold of Manbij, which is under attack by the SDF.

Some 200 New Syrian Army fighters took part in the Boukamal operation, according to activists and media reports. They had extensive air support from the U.S.-led coalition, a vote of confidence in the new force, said Jennifer Cafarella, of the Institute for the Study of War. But the group is definitely not off to a good start, she said.

The spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, Col. Christopher Garver, described the Boukamal operation as a very tough fight, and acknowledged it had been a setback. He said the implications will need to be analyzed to determine the way forward.
BAGHDAD  A devastating truck bombing on a bustling commercial street in downtown Baghdad killed 115 people early Sunday, brutally underscoring the Islamic State groups ability to strike the capital despite a string of battlefield losses elsewhere in the country.

It was the deadliest terror attack in Iraq in a year and one of the worst single bombings in more than a decade of war and insurgency, and it fueled anger toward Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

When al-Abadi visited the site of the suicide blast in the citys Karada district, a furious mob surrounded his convoy, yelling expletives, hurling rocks and shoes and calling him a thief.

Many Iraqis blame their political leadership for lapses in security in Baghdad that have allowed large amounts of explosives to make their way past multiple checkpoints and into neighborhoods packed with civilians.

Karada, a mostly Shiite section, is lined with clothing and jewelry stores, restaurants and cafes. The blast struck during the holy month of Ramadan, with the streets and sidewalks filled with young people and families after they had broken their daylight fast.

Eleven people were missing and 187 were wounded, authorities said. Many of the victims were women and children who were inside a multi-story shopping and amusement mall. Dozens burned to death or suffocated, a police officer said.

Islamic State swiftly claimed responsibility in a statement posted online, saying the organization had targeted Shiites. The bombing came just after the group took responsibility for an attack on a restaurant in Bangladesh that killed 20 people. And it followed by a few days the coordinated suicide attack on Istanbuls main airport that killed more than 40 people, for which Turkish authorities blamed the Islamic State.

A second bombing early Sunday on another busy commercial street in a Shiite-dominated neighborhood, in east Baghdad, killed five people and wounded 16, authorities said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Iraqi forces, supported by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, have secured a string of victories against the militants over the past year and a half, retaking the cities of Tikrit, Ramadi and Fallujah, which was declared fully liberated from the extremist group just over a week ago.

But the Islamic State has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to carry out large-scale operations in territory removed from the front-line fighting.

The New York Times

contributed to this report.
JERUSALEM  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads to Africa this week, where Israel has found much-needed partners in the battle against Islamic militants and allies in countering the rising Palestinian influence at the United Nations.

Israel is hoping that the visit  the first by an Israeli premier to sub-Saharan Africa in three decades  will usher in a new era in which it provides African states with security and agricultural assistance in return for support in international forums.

Netanyahus visit caps a budding rapprochement in recent years initiated by Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who, as foreign minister a few years ago, toured the continent on two occasions after no Israeli foreign minister had visited in two decades.

In turn, dozens of African dignitaries have visited Israel in recent years, including Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Dore Gold, a senior Israeli diplomat, traveled to South Africa in March, hoping to mend ties with a country that is strongly supportive of the Palestinian quest for statehood.

Israel is coming back to Africa; Africa is coming back to Israel. Its happening in a big way, Netanyahu told African ambassadors at the launch February of the Israeli parliaments caucus for Israel-Africa relations.

Israel played a prominent role in assisting newly independent African countries in the 1960s, but those relations crumbled in the 1970s, when Arab countries, promising aid, pressured African nations to limit or cut ties with Israel. African states were also opposed to Israels close ties to South Africas apartheid government.

With the rise of jihadism across the continent, from Boko Haram in Nigeria to al Qaeda-linked al-Shabab militants in Somalia, Israel has found common ground with countries like Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria.

Any victory of radical Islam in any part of Africa immediately impacts us, said Avi Granot, the former head of the Israeli Foreign Ministrys Africa division.

In exchange for its expertise in security and other fields, Israel wants African states to side with it at the U.N., where the General Assembly overwhelmingly recognized Palestine as a nonmember observer state in 2012.

Netanyahu departs Monday, and will spend a total of four days in Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia.
1 Mideast tensions: The Israeli military struck a series of militant sites in Gaza early Saturday in response to a rocket attack that hit a kindergarten in the Israeli border town of Sderot. No injuries were reported on either side but buildings were damaged. The exchange comes amid an escalation of violence in the West Bank following a pair of fatal attacks against Jewish settlers that has sparked Israels largest military surge in two years. On Friday, a Palestinian gunman ambushed a family traveling in a car in the southern West Bank, killing an Israeli man. The previous day a Palestinian teen stabbed a 13-year-old Israeli-American girl to death as she slept in her bedroom. The attacks prompted Israels military to send hundreds of troops to the area.

2 Iraq bombings: Bombs detonated early Sunday in two crowded commercial areas in Baghdad, killing at least 23 people and wounding 61, according to hospital and police officials. The bombings came near the end of the holy month of Ramadan when the streets were filled with young people and families out after sundown. In the first attack, a car bomb exploded in the Karada district in central Baghdad, killing 18 people. Shortly afterward, an explosive went off in eastern Baghdad, killing 5 people. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the Karada attack. There was no claim for the second.
The New Zealand dollar gained against its Australian counterpart after the federal election across the Tasman left neither major party with a clear majority as the final count is awaited.

The kiwi dollar rose to 96.04 Australian cents from 95.55 cents on Friday in New York. It traded at 71.58 US cents, little changed from 71.62 cents at the end of last week.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who gambled on a double-dissolution election to seek a clearer mandate, suffered a swing to Labor at the weekend with 78.8 percent of the vote counted. The coalition won 65 seats to Labor's 71 with six not yet determined, and six going to minor parties. Counting resumes tomorrow, with 76 seats needed for a clear majority, otherwise, Australia has a hung parliament. The Australian dollar dropped to 74.47 US cents from 74.92 cents on Friday.

"The uncertainty about the result for the next few days and potential for a hung parliament will likely see the AUD under a bit of downward pressure at the start of the week," said Kymberly Martin, senior market strategist at Bank of New Zealand. The week was likely to get off to a subdued start with US markets closed on Monday for the Independence day holiday, she said in a note.

The kiwi was little changed at 53.96 British pence from 53.99 pence on Friday in New York, to remain near the highest in more than two years. Theresa May, the Conservative frontrunner to replace David Cameron as British prime minister, said she would delay any Brexit move until next year and her short-term focus would be to unify the Conservatives and the country.

The trade-weighted index slipped to 76.57 from 76.63 at the end of last week. The kiwi fell to 4.7628 yuan from 4.7654 yuan and was little changed at 73.41 yen from 73.45 yen. It traded at 64.28 euro cents from 64.35 cents.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Members of Young Israel of Eltingville are locked in a $1 million legal battle with a Jewish organization affiliated with the Kars4Kids charity, according to a report by the New York Post.

Oorah, a charity funded by Kars4Kids, has filed a lawsuit claiming the congregation owes it $1M -- a sum that members afraid of losing the synagogue say they cannot pay, according to the report.

The situation began in 2007, when a Young Israel founder added Oorah to the deed for $250,000 and the organization renovated the building, according to the report, which cites information obtained from legal papers.
Your history, our history, Staten Island's history: take a look back at the way The Rock once was through the eye of a camera's lens.

Our historic photos take a walk down Memory Lane -- and down Hylan Boulevard and Bay Street and Richmond Avenue.

Each week enjoy a visual exploration of a different Staten Island community.

Up this week: South Beach.

ABOUT SOUTH BEACH

Settled as Oude Dorp, Dutch for Old Town, this was the site (1679) of the Island's permanent European settlement, later home to fine hotels and bathing beaches. This major resort area rivaled Coney Island from 1880 until 1920. Today, the refurbished FDR Boardwalk and cleaner waters are again attracting beachgoers.
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Political uncertainty after the weekend's indecisive federal elections could further hinder Australia's development of business tools needed to tackle climate change, leaving it lagging further behind other nations, analysts say.

Investors are stepping up funding for so-called "climate-aligned" or green bonds, with the tally rising 16 per cent compared with 2015 to $US694 billion ($924 billion), according to the fifth annual report, Bonds and Climate Change: The State of the Market in 2016 compiled by HSBC.

Senator Chris Back has called for a moratorium on new wind farms after the RET "debacle". Credit:Bloomberg

The tally, which counts bonds explicitly labelled green or those whose main target is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or build resilience to climate impacts, must multiply if economies are to finance their decarbonisation in time to avoid dangerous warming.

"Some $US2.5-3 trillion of capital is needed each year in climate change-related investments, with 60-70 per cent of that going to emerging markets," the report said, adding an "adequate" level of such bond issuance should be in the order of $US1 trillion a year by 2020.
Every day Rania Awad reaches out to some of Roy Young Chemist's most important customers through a social media app you've probably never heard of.

The shoppers are 9000 kilometres away in mainland China, where Facebook is blocked by the country's so-called Great Firewall.

Rania Awad says engaging customers on WeChat is driving significant sales.

But Chinese of all ages have taken to the homegrown all-in-one social media platform WeChat in droves.

The app is basic to look at but boasts a suite of features akin to Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, Tinder and Chatroulette rolled into one.
Local shares were poised for a positive MOnday but the shock election result has set up an uncertain start to the week.

What you need2know

Sharemarkets are set to struggle with the result in the short-term. Credit:Jim Rice

SPI futures up 32 points or 0.6% to 5235 at 8am Sydney time on Saturday

AUD at 74.98 US cents, 76.41 Japanese yen, 66.89 Euro cents and 56.21 British pence
Asian property developer Salcon has swooped on ragtrader Roger David's former headquarters in Melbourne in response to a slowing property market in Malaysia.

Salcon Development paid $37.88 million for the site in Claremont street, South Yarra, which has been earmarked for development.

An artist's impression of 16-22 Claremont Street.

The group said in a statement to the Malaysian exchange that it was targeting Australia because of the "general slowing down in the Malaysian property market".

"This acquisition will allow the group the opportunity to establish a presence in the Australian property market, where the demand for Australian properties has remained strong in key cities such as Melbourne, in particular in the inner-city areas," it said.
The Coalition will struggle to get its controversial anti-union legislation passed even though it was the reason for calling an early federal election.

A Liberal Party representative admitted the Coalition was unlikely to have the numbers to pass the Australian Building and Construction Commission and Registered Organisations bills, which triggered the double dissolution election.

Unions have taken credit and been blamed by Liberal Party candidates for a ground campaign that contributed to swings to Labor in key marginal seats including seven in NSW.
TAFE NSW has refused to release information about how much it paid for a controversial Boston Consulting Group report or the questions the government asked the consultants to answer.

The request for the documents, made under freedom of information laws, comes after the NSW government promoted a private college network which the Australian Federal Police investigated for fraud.

TAFE NSW commissioned Boston Consulting Group to report on ways to make TAFE more efficient. It reported TAFE was uncompetitive compared to private education operator Australian Careers Network which collapsed and was the subject of police raids and allegations of fraud in April.
China's factories flatlined in June as exports shrank and jobs were cut, a worrying trend evident across Asia that argues for yet more policy stimulus as doubts gather over the potency of measures taken so far.

The hard times signalled by a range of surveys was not what the world needed a week after Britain's vote to leave the European Union condemned that bloc to months, if not years, of political and economic instability.

China has resorted to ever-looser fiscal and monetary policy to support growth and jobs. Credit:Reuters

Most of the responses from manufacturers also preceded the Brexit vote, suggesting July could be even tougher.

"The unimaginable has happened and the UK vote will cast a long shadow over the UK, Europe and global markets for some time to come," warned Westpac head currency strategist Robert Rennie.
If it's defeated, the Coalition won't countenance a free vote of MPs to decide the question instead, given what that would spell for Malcolm Turnbull's control of the party room. There's a reason Peta Credlin predicted a "very big schism" within the Liberal Party, and the Coalition, if it were decided by Parliamentary vote unguided by a plebiscite. Turnbull won't be eager for that.

Given Opposition Leader Bill Shorten called the plebiscite a "taxpayer-funded platform for homophobia", and The Greens are even more stridently opposed, it's unlikely they would vote for the legislation to allow a $160 million national opinion poll.

If Malcolm Turnbull hangs on, Australia won't have marriage equality for at least another three years. That depressing prospect flows from the likely composition of the next Senate. The promised plebiscite won't pass the upper house unless Labor, the Greens or the Nick Xenophon Team change their positions of opposing it, and let it be held.

So unless something gives, or Labor somehow cobbles a win, the possibility of that most benign and modest of reforms will be kicked off into the next term. The political numbers mean Australia will continue to lag much of the western world. It will remain behind even Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia.

Illustration: Jim Pavlidis

Despite 70 per cent of Australians supporting marriage equality, according to last week's Fairfax Ipsos poll, and just 22 per cent against, it will not be passed. Despite many Australians just wanting it to be done with so we can stop talking about it, we will talk about it for years to come. Despite there now being three gay members in the House  and all of them Liberal  the election's big winners are those few who can't abide the gays being wed.

The Senate results will not be finalised for weeks, but the analysis of the likely results broadcast on the ABC Insiders program makes the probable position clear enough.

The Coalition will have 30 senators, Labor 27, The Greens will get nine, and the Nick Xenophon Team three. Rounding out the rest, Pauline Hanson will get two and there will be at least one each for Derryn Hinch, Fred Nile, Jacqui Lambie, and the Liberal Democrats. The final seat will likely be a companion for one of the last five.
It's hard to see much other than tough and turbulent times ahead. Although the final outcome of the election is uncertain, one thing is clear ... it's very close.

It's equally clear that, with so many people voting early and thus so many votes not being counted on the night, we won't know the result for a fair while. The trend towards voting early may mean that, unless there's a landslide, in future we will be unlikely to have a result on the night in the way we have in the past. It's uncertain, but it looks like a very narrow government win. That scenario deserves reflection.

One of the key indicators of where the government needs to go is the Xenophon vote. He says he wants to drag the major parties towards the centre. It's not rocket science; the bell curve of votes tells us all that's where the majority of Australia sits. It's always been that way.

Xenophon may not have directed preferences, leaving the voter to decide. But once Xenophon candidates are elected he will be the key influence on where their votes go. Someone who wants to take politics more to the centre now plays a pivotal role in Australia's future. Nobody will get anything done without Xenophon. This is no time for bruised egos to try to drag the Liberal Party to the right.
In a recent paper by Australia's Drug Policy Modelling Program, researchers outlined that there are are nearly 100 supervised injecting facilities, sometimes more broadly called drug consumption rooms, across the globe. They exist in about 10 countries in more than 60 cities.

Many are focused on injecting drug users and some also have "inhalation rooms" for smoking drugs like methamphetamine  ice. There have been more than 130 papers and reports on the efficacy of drug consumption rooms consisting of at least 29 evaluations, 15 policy and legal papers, 12 qualitative studies, eight literature reviews and seven cost-benefit analysis.



Of the cost-benefit analysis, all seven clearly show the savings outweigh the associated costs.



There are also a variety of positive outcomes associated with these facilities including a reduction in fatal and non-fatal overdoses, they reduce risky injecting practices, they improve access to drug treatment, health and welfare services and they improve public amenity: one evaluation showed a decrease of about 50 per cent of discarded dirty needles around inner Sydney. They also reduce crime.

Where to put one? The answer at this stage is, any community that has a need and asks for one. There are calls for one in Western Sydney but the community needs to go through a detailed conversation first. The fear needs to drop from the debate and the conversation needs to begin.

Premier Bob Carr initially opposed the medically supervised injecting centre in Kings Cross but was persuaded by the arguments. Upon his retirement, Carr identified the centre as one of his 10 proudest achievements.

It is a staggering indictment of Australia's failed approach to drugs that the injecting centre in Kings Cross is, after 15 years, the only one in the country. We need more  urgently.
Davies at home. Credit:Jacky Ghossein Davies said he never got to know the David Bowie behind his characters. "There was a very famous clothes designer out of London in that period, named Anthony Price, who made extraordinary clothes, mostly beautiful suits," he said. Davies is a seasoned performer with a string of classic hits to his name. Credit:Wayne Taylor "He made those suits for Robert Palmer and Bryan Ferry and I had one made  and for Duran Duran  and he of course made most of David Bowie's clothes in that period."

Bowie came backstage one day to the catering marquee to "mill with the crew" and get his lunch. "I remember that he was wearing denim jeans and a denim jacket and I sort of looked at it and thought there was something not quite right about it. "And, of course, they were designer Anthony Price denim jeans and an Anthony Price denim jacket. "And I thought, this is how David Bowie dresses down to mix with the crew, he wears this designer denim." Icehouse and singer-songwriter Iva Davies were everywhere on Australian radio in the 1980s and 1990s.

They were an acclaimed live act and recorded smart, atmospheric singles with hooks so big they forced you to sing the chorus as soon as you heard them a second time. Before Icehouse, Iva Davies (who played oboe and cor anglais) formed Flowers in 1977 with original bass player Keith Welsh in Sydney, playing a mix of pub covers including songs by Bowie, Lou Reed, Television and Marc Bolan. In 1980 their first album Icehouse was released  but the band subsequently swapped the names of the album with that of the band. It included the singles Can't Help Myself, We Can Get Together, and Walls. By 1982 we got Hey Little Girl, the brooding, pulsing Great Southern Land and Street Cafe. By the band's third's album Sidewalk in 1984, listeners had Taking the Time and I Don't Believe Anymore.

In 1987, their fifth album Man of Colours contained four big singles: Crazy, Electric Blue, Nothing Too Serious and the sweeping Man of Colours. Man of Colours became Icehouse's biggest-selling album and their live shows included almost all top-10 hit singles from the glory days of Australian live music of the late '70s, '80s and '90s. Davies is a generous interviewee and has scores of memories of a wonderful time in music when the new technology of its time  the Linn drum machine and a suite of new synthesisers - changed songwriting forever. Artists simply recorded albums at home by themselves. Iva Davies was one of them. He remembers stealing back the recordings of Icehouse's second album Primitive Man (1982) and re-recording it in four hours in a small studio in Hollywood called El Dorado Studios run by Steve Jerden, who went on to produce Jane's Addiction.

Billy Idol's producer at the time  a drummer who had played on all of Donna Summer's hits  intended to replace Davies' drum tracks, much to his horror. "His secret plan was to replace all my Linn drum parts with real drums which he was going to play," Davies remembered. When Chrysalis, Davies' record company at the time, heard the drummer/producer's recordings, they were shocked and kept sending it back. Davies took back the recordings, grabbed his Linn drum synthesiser and did it all again himself in four hours, by duplicating his original home demo recordings.

"It was sent off to the record company and they said, 'Yes, yes, yes, that's it.' And that is the version that you bought," Davies said. "That was the point when I basically fired the producer and the engineers and took over the album," he said. "And the album didn't turn into Billy Idol, which it would have done. "And the Linn drum remained and it was very much a very large part of the sound of that album. "And that characteristic is pretty much showcased on Great Southern Land, I think."

Davies has done considerable film score work, among them writing the highly commended score for the Peter Weir's 2003 film Master and Commander. He says the internet keeps Icehouse's music alive 35 years after the songs were recorded, meaning their fans in 2016 range from their teens to their 60s. He notices it through his 19-year-old son and 22-year-old daughter. "They walk around now with 10,000 songs on their smartphones, whereas at the equivalent age of, I reckon I had three albums, which I had painstakingly saved up to buy," he laughs. And for the record, one was Pink Floyd's Ummagumma.
Built around long, unsparing takes that are scrupulously observant, Stephen Brize's contemporary drama follows the struggle of Thierry (Vincent Lindon), an ageing French machinist who has been unemployed for almost a year. Battered by indignity and bureaucracy, he moves from one jarring encounter to another  a prospective employer dismisses him over Skype, while a class critique of his presentation skills at a training program is quietly humiliating. Brize never interjects scenes of emotional release or scripted articulation, and the sparse storytelling segues into a job as a supermarket security guard, which provides no satisfaction as Thierry finds himself spying on his workmates. Quietly compelling, the movie makes clear the importance of employment as a means of not just economic but mental underpinning, even as the modern workplace treats workers as items that are ultimately deprived of their humanity. The easy outcome would have been a cathartic explosion, but The Measure of a Man holds steady and true until the final frame.

Full of shotgun swift dolly shots and lengthy pans around leading man Griffin Dunne to emphasise the story's eccentric change in perspective, Martin Scorsese's 1985 black New York comedy remains one of the great outliers of his storied career. Boyishly blank, Dunne's Paul Hackett travels downtown to Soho one night, hoping to meet up with Marcy (Rosanna Arquette), who like virtually every character in the story keeps him at a frustrated distance even when pledging their assistance. Without money or satisfaction, Paul has his psychological kinks tickled by the likes of Kiki (the wonderful Linda Fiorentino), a punk sculptor and Marcy's roommate, before stumbling through neighbourhood-specific set-pieces like a punk club where it's literally mohawk night, before becoming a fugitive from both a mob and reason. The film is riddled with cryptic mysteries, not to mention Cheech and Chong, and it plays as an urbane older brother to David Lynch's psychosexual masterpiece Blue Velvet.

INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE



M, 120 minutes. Now screening

Time is up for Roland Emmerich, the German master of disaster whose eye for unfettered destructive imagery has previously given us Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow and 2012. His sequel to the first of that planet-trashing trio invariably ups the scale, as the vanquished aliens who were seen off by a computer virus and Will Smith's pilot return for vengeance against a united and militarised world. Everything is bigger, including the sardonic streak of Jeff Goldblum as a scientist once more on the front line, but even as Asia is dropped on Europe the film lacks the comic book enthusiasm and clear-eyed momentum of the 1996 original. Liam Hemsworth gets the unenviable job of playing the new picture's heroic US Air Force pilot, and if he comes up short compared to Smith, who wisely chose not to return, then he can take comfort in the fact that little else here improves on what preceded it.
That sound of music outside could be Jack Chambers driving into Sydney. He's heading up from Melbourne with musical Singin' in the Rain for its opening on Thursday at the Lyric Theatre.

The 27-year-old triple threat, who plays Cosmo Brown in the show, compiled a special play list for his road trip. He wouldn't tell if the musical's famous numbers were on it, but he loves performing them live.

Jack Chambers (centre) reprises a stage role he first played at the age of 10 in the musical Singin' in the Rain (pictured with Meghan O'Shea, left, and Hayley Martin). Credit:Jeff Busby

"It's almost a crime, I enjoy this show so much," he says. The love affair began when Chambers was just 10, and he played the young Cosmo  his first ever stage role. Now he's acing the grown-up version, attracting acclaim and a Helpmann Award nomination. Co-star Gretel Scarlett has also been winning praise playing Kathy Selden.

While stunning to watch, Singin's choreography is notoriously demanding. The show's leading man, Adam Garcia, is out of action for up to six weeks with a torn calf sustained on stage last week and has been temporarily replaced by Grant Almirall, who has performed the role overseas.
Extreme weather is the greatest fear of any television production shooting on location, threatening lost days and a budget blow-out. But for the producers of Trapped, a new 10-part Icelandic crime drama, it was a necessity. In a show set on the tiny island nation's remote eastern side, with a plot built around a blizzard snowing in a small town during a murder investigation, filming required the kind of snow only nature could provide.

"We were seeking bad weather for two reasons," admits the Icelandic actor Olafur Darri Olafsson, who plays Andri, the chief of police in the small coastal town of Seyoisfjorour. "Firstly, we didn't have the budget to make Hollywood bad weather. Secondly, it looks fantastic if you can get as much of the weather as you can for real."

The Arctic-like winter did not let them down. "Even I was amazed at how much snow there was and how long the ice laid on the ground," Olafsson adds. "But when I mentioned that to the locals they almost laughed at me  'There's hardly any snow at all', or 'Usually our winters are worse than this' they said. All I can say is, thank God that it was not a usual winter."

The genial 43-year-old actor is speaking from Brussels, where he's shooting the second season of The Missing, the British anthology thriller series. In recent years, with a face that can as easily suggest malignant evil as soulful warmth, Olafsson's been a distinctive presence in American productions such True Detective and the movie A Walk Among the Tombstones, but he's delighted to be part of a landmark Icelandic television production.
MURDOCH MYSTERIES



9pm, 7Two

Especially nutty instalment of Murdoch Mysteries tonight that once again drags a thoroughly modern concept back in to the 19th century. This time it's not forensics, ballistics or mechanics, though. It's psychiatry. What soon becomes obvious is that the axe murder of an abusive husband and father was thoroughly deserved. What's not at all clear is which of the people who hated him actually did it? Once again, I feel Detective Murdoch is extremely fortunate to (a) have such an accommodating boss and (b) have so many cutting-edge experts on tap.

Murdoch Mysteries turns to psychiatry.

CLEVERMAN

Season final 

9.30pm, ABC

The ratings haven't been world-beating and the first season of Cleverman hasn't been without its problems but I have still loved every minute of it, and tonight's finale is fantastic. The two brothers, especially, have been terrific  the development of Waruu and Koen has made complete sense and there's real poignancy in the showdown tonight (even if the evil creature from the spirit world is less convincing). Frances O'Connor hasn't had a lot to do, but she's done it beautifully, and Ryan Corr just keeps getting better and better. This ep ends on a fair-dinkum cliffhanger. Bring on season two.
I suspect students of North American history might have a whole lot of fun with Sleepy Hollow, which often builds its outlandish supernatural storylines around rare factoids from the War of Independence. But even for those of us excluded from the in-jokes there's always something to enjoy. Tonight's is another crossover episode with Bones, which to be honest doesn't add a lot to proceedings, but the details about Greek Fire, Samuel Adams  and the reimagining of Betsy Ross as a sharp-shooting commando  are all good fun.

CAR CRASH TV



Thursday 9.30pm, Discovery Turbo

If you're not already terrified every time you get behind the wheel of your car, this should do it. Compiled from dashcam footage from regular drivers in Europe and the UK, it is hair-raising and incontrovertible evidence that most of the people in (nominal) control of cars are dangerous idiots. A jolly narration in the best British tradition attempts to make light of it all (as he repeatedly points out, no one was actually injured in any of these events) but it's definitely a case of if you didn't laugh, you'd cry.
SPOTLESS

New series 

9.30pm, SBS2

Terrific new drama-with- funny bits that brings together some familiar ideas in a very entertaining package. It all opens with a nice misdirect: the boss of a specialist crime-scene-cleaning business is apparently in therapy. Only he's not. But perhaps he should be. The "bad" brother turns up. But who's good and who's bad in this scenario becomes less and less clear. There's a nice subtlety to the writing across the board  particularly in the way the characters are drawn  that makes this both engaging, and very entertaining.

Spotless.

GALAVANT



5.30pm, 7Flix

Poor old Galavant is limping along to its conclusion (this is the eighth of 10 episodes) with the spark definitely sputtering in the song and dance numbers. (And they were, after all, what really made this worth watching.) That said, it remains deliciously absurd. Tonight Galavant is attempting to lead an army of zombies against Valencia; Isabella is contemplating fighting the same war using only kitchen utensils (and an unusually pointy potato); and Madalena frightens the bejesus out of the world's most evil wedding planner.
Alana Wade's rescued greyhound Sugar flinched at her touch when she was first adopted.

She would hide behind the couch and recoil from her new owners.

Alana Wade of Flynn at her home, with her two adopted greyhounds, Tiffany, left and Sugar. Credit:Graham Tidy

"It was really evident to us that she had never been treated well," Ms Wade said.

"Ultimately the dogs are treated as commodities, they're not animals. It's all about the making of the money," she said.
After the endless campaign comes the continuous count and, very likely, the inconclusive finale. Welcome to limbo land.

Australia is facing a re-run of 2010, except that this Parliament promises to be messier, nastier and more fractured than the one that ended in tears in 2013.

Malcolm Turnbull is quietly confident of being able to form a majority government, but he faces the prospect of being a lame duck leader in a poisonous Parliament.
Southerners, those who live below the Rio Tweed, are outraged that Queenslanders have re-elected Pauline Hanson. Which simply shows how much they understand about the Sunshine State. In the Senate contest Queensland had a slew of right wing minor parties. Pauline just happened to be the most popular.

In the Senate, Hanson outpolled The Greens 9.15 per cent to 7.57 per cent. Of the other minor contenders the Liberal Democrats were next with 2.58 per cent, followed by Family First 2.04 per cent, Xenophon 1.9 per cent, Katter 1.85 per cent and Lazarus on 1.67 per cent. Hanson and The Greens get at least one Senate seat each, the LNP at least four; the ALP at least three. It is too early to know where the remaining three Senate seats will come from, but it won't be Lazarus, or Xenophon.

Hanson ran candidates in 12 seats out of 30 in Queensland. Her strongest appeal in is the Wide Bay Burnett region, rural areas west-south-west of Ipswich, and Maranoa on the Western Downs. All are strong, traditional National Party territories. The electorates are Wright, covering the Lockyer Valley (21 per cent), Hinkler, based on Bundaberg (19.6 per cent), Flynn, south and west of Gladstone, (nearly 17 per cent), and Wide Bay, covering Maryborough and Gympie, (nearly 15 per cent).

She also polled strongly in the Townsville-based seat of Herbert, picking up 13 per cent of the vote, in competition with other minor parties, Family First, Katter and Lazarus, who together scored 12 per cent of the vote. The Greens could only carve out 6.1 per cent in Hebert. Not a lot of support for cleaning up the toxic waste at the nickel plant.
According to the latest count, Labor secured 51.7 per cent of the two-party preferred vote in Victoria. That represents a gain of 1.5 per cent from the 2013 election.

The Premier, who congratulated Bill Shorten on an outstanding campaign, said Labor had produced solid swings in key Victorian seats, with the state recording one of the highest two-party preferred results.

A defiant Daniel Andrews has hit back at claims his botched handling of the CFA pay dispute could have cost Labor a federal election victory by depriving the party of key seats in Victoria.

Several seats in Victoria remain on a knife's edge, including Chisholm, where the Liberals are closing in on a victory, and Batman, where Labor is holding off a Greens push and a more than 9 per cent swing. There are also close races in Dunkley and La Trobe where the Liberals are expected to hold on.

Premier Daniel Andrews at Bentleigh station the day after the federal election. Credit:Paul Jeffers

"What we had was talk of wipe-outs, talks of all sorts of armageddon. [but what we have seen is] swings to Labor. More people voted for the Labor party in those seats which are very much covered by CFA," Mr Andrews said on Sunday.

Mr Andrews pointed to Labor swings in the regional seats of McEwen, Bendigo and some suburban seats like Dunkley in the south-east.

He said Corangamite was always going to be a tough fight. Labor sources highlight internal polling suggesting Labor was trailing in the Surf Coast seat 47 to 53 per cent as far back as May.
The fallout from Saturday night's election sees some new faces entering the upper house for the first time, in a blow to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's attempt to clean out the minor parties.

While some results won't be known until later in the week, we already know some of the characters who will fill the crossbench.

Their votes will prove crucial to passing the legislation of whoever eventually forms government.
"I think the union movement can take huge amount of credit [for the campaign's success], absolutely no question. Just look at the statistics  we got a 5.5 per cent swing in the seats we targeted." Risky gamble: Labor spent the last fortnight of the campaign almost entirely on Medicare. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen In NSW, where Labor's results were a standout with an anticipated seven-seat gain, party powerbrokers were quick to heap praise on Kaila Murnain, the 29-year-old state secretary who only took the helm of the party in February. She had been planning a military-style onslaught on key seats in western Sydney from last July when, as the party's then assistant secretary, she started interviewing more than 100 applicants for field directors' positions in seats like Macarthur, Macquarie, Dobell, Eden Monaro, Barton, Lindsay, Paterson, and Greenway. Mr Shorten's personal touch was seen to be a plus for the campaign. Credit:Justin McManus

They were trained by party organisers at the ALP headquarters in Sussex Street before being dispatched to target seats to fund-raise, work up local campaigns on local issues and mobilise volunteers. She tells Fairfax Media: "I remember doing a teleconference with all our candidates on the last weekend of April and saying then that this election was going to be a referendum on Medicare. One in three people knows someone with cancer, they were really worried about the prospect of fees going up for scans and blood tests." Old-fashioned people power: Bill Shorten votes in Marribyrnong with his wife Chloe and their family. Credit:Justin McManus I think the Labor campaign was near-perfect. Former NSW premier Bob Carr. A leading Labor strategist said on Sunday: "Kaila is going to emerge from this thing as one of the most powerful people in the Labor party."

But there was high praise too for the ALP federal director George Wright, who worked smoothly with Mr Shorten's travelling campaign team, in stark contrast with the 2013 federal campaign when there were constant strains between Mr Wright's campaign headquarters in Melbourne and the on-the-road team led by Kevin Rudd. The key inflection point in Mr Shorten's campaign was his decision, two-and-a-half weeks out from the election day, to rest the last fortnight of the campaign almost entirely on Medicare. It was a risky gamble. As one party strategist said on Sunday: "We launched the Medicare ads with Bob Hawke [warning about privatisation] and then talking about Medicare was pretty much all we did for the last two weeks. That's not a small call to make, putting all our eggs in one basket." While some inside the party were privately critical of Mr Shorten's over-egging of the scare campaign, former NSW premier Bob Carr was among those on Sunday who defended the tactic. "I think the Labor campaign was near-perfect," Mr Carr told Fairfax Media.

"As for Medicare, that worked because the right of Australian politics had given the impression for years that this was precisely the kind of thing they would do if they could get away with it." He said after the way John Howard had used the Tampa crisis in 2001, "the conservatives could hardly complain that this was unfair". Labor could come under fire however if it is linked clearly to warning text messages sent out on Saturday about Medicare which seemed in some cases to come from Medicare itself. Writing on the Guardian website, another former Labor premier, Kristina Keneally, also described the Labor campaign as near-flawless. Shorten, she wrote, was "in excellent physical and mental shape. And this matters."
Re-elected Canberra MP Gai Brodtmann has vowed to fight as hard as ever for ACT residents to have a voice in Parliament, stridently denying that Labor had taken the seat for granted.

"That is complete and utter nonsense. I have always treated this seat as if it was a marginal seat. We've lost Canberra in the past ... but I've always worked and advocated as if it was a marginal seat," she said.

"I'm a very active local member. They [the Liberals] say this all the time, but I do not take this seat for granted. I've learnt that ... you can assume nothing in life and you've got to work hard for everything in life and that's the approach I take to this seat."
In an election where the boundaries between victory and defeat have blurred, one clear winner was Rebekha Sharkie, the Nick Xenophon Team candidate who took the lower house seat of Mayo in South Australia from former Liberal minister Jamie Briggs.

She and Senator Xenophon may now help decide which party is to form government.

The fight for Mayo was at times bitter and personal. Mr Briggs was the minister who fell on his sword after an incident in a Hong Kong bar late last year and Ms Sharkie is not only a former member of the Liberal Party, but a former member of Mr Briggs' staff.
Far-right One Nation leader Pauline Hanson is pushing for a royal commission into climate science and Islam and wants to abolish the Family Law Court, in an extreme policy agenda set to frustrate a future government trying to pass laws through the Senate.

The federal election has resurrected the political career of the controversial figure, whose party is expected to snare at least one Senate spot 18 years after she lost the Queensland seat of Blair.

Ms Hanson has said her party will likely collect a second Queensland Senate position, and AAP reports there is speculation she is also in the running for a seat each in NSW and Western Australia.
Tony Abbott has called on his colleagues not to rush to judgement following a shock election result that has seen voters desert Malcolm Turnbull in droves and rocked the Liberal Party to its core.

The recriminations in the Liberal Party have already begun, with one Liberal senator calling on Mr Turnbull to return the man he knifed for the leadership to the ministry if the Coalition forms government, and a second senator labelling the result a "political disaster" and suggesting party strategists need to be held to account.

A Fairfax Media analysis of the results on Sunday morning gave Labor a certain 64 seats, the Coalition 71 seats, independents five seats and the Greens two seats, with eight seats too close to call.
"I haven't heard from him at all," she said. "I think he's waiting for the postal votes to be counted, so maybe he'll call after that. "But my phone's on and I'll be ready when he wants to give me a call." Comment has been sought from Mr Roy. There were some big celebrations for Brisbane's new MP-elect, the LNP's Trevor Evans, on Saturday night, having achieved one of few swings towards the Coalition in Queensland.

At the height of festivities, his brothers wrapped his car in campaign material. Member-elect for Brisbane Trevor Evans's brothers wrapped his car in election material at the height of Saturday night's celebrations. Mr Evans was too exhausted to speak with Fairfax Media on Sunday, but provided a short statement in the wake of his victory. "I feel honoured and excited at the prospect of working hard for Brisbane for the next three years, to repay the faith put in me by Brisbane voters," he said. Mr Evans made some history on Saturday night when he won the first contest between two openly gay major party candidates, having defeated Labor's Pat O'Neill.

Across town, Queensland Labor heavyweight Milton Dick, a former party state secretary, was celebrating his new status as member-elect for the south-west Brisbane/Ipswich electorate of Oxley. Labor retained the seat, vacated by the retiring Bernie Ripoll, at the same time gaining a swing of 5.7 per cent, as of counting on Sunday. Milton Dick enjoyed a swing towards Labor as he claimed the seat of Oxley Credit:Michelle Smith Mr Dick, who was until March the leader of the Brisbane City Council opposition, said Labor had run a very effective campaign across Queensland and Australia, which was reflected in the nationwide swing against the Turnbull government. "The Labor campaign about education and affordable health care has clearly resonated and connected with voters, not only in Oxley but just about every electorate in Queensland," he said.

"I think Bill Shorten's style of campaigning, of real engagement and being comfortable and relaxed, but determined to set a policy agenda has really shown that people are ready to support Labor." But as for whether he would go to Canberra as a government or opposition MP, Mr Dick said it was now a waiting game. "There are a number of seats in play and we have to allow every vote to be counted and I'll be eagerly anticipating being sworn in as the federal member and I'd like to hope it's a Labor government," he said. "But we've still got a long way to go and it's a tough fight for us, with the amount of seats still in play." Queensland Senator-elect Murray Watt, who led the Labor ticket on Saturday, said the party could pick up as many as five Queensland seats  Longman, Herbert, Capricornia, Flynn and Forde.

"We've claimed Longman and we're very confident about Herbert," he said. "We are fairly confident about Capricornia  not as much as Herbert  and then I think Flynn's about the same. "Forde is probably more a hopeful than a confident." The party was less optimistic about Petrie, which Luke Howarth looked to have retained, although neither party was ready to claim the northern Brisbane seat. Senator-elect Watt said he expected Queensland's 12-seat Senate allocation to include at least five LNP senators, four from Labor, one Green and Pauline Hanson.
The Liberal Party has filed a police complaint over a Queensland Labor election day text message to voters that appeared to be from Medicare.

A number of people, including journalists, said on Saturday they had been sent the same text message urging them not to vote for the Coalition, from a sender that appeared under the name "Medicare".

"Mr Turnbull's plans to privatise Medicare will take us down the road of no return. Time is running out to Save Medicare," it said.
Business leaders have expressed disappointment at the uncertainty around the election result, saying the country can "ill afford gridlock, recriminations or infighting" as economists warn the "messy" result could hit credit ratings and force the Reserve Bank's hand on interest rates.

The outcome is "not a great outcome for the economy and investment markets", Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP Capital, said.

"The prospect of another three years of de facto minority government coming on the back of the minority Gillard/Rudd government over 2010-13 and the 2013-16 Coalition government's inability to pass much of its economic and budget reform agenda through the Senate is not a good outcome for the Australian economy," Dr Oliver said.
Australians might not know the full results of the federal election for up to a month as the process of counting nearly 16 million votes continues. What happens between now and then?

Here's what we know so far:

About 11 million ballots for the House of Representatives were counted on election night, including the votes cast in polling places on Saturday. A portion of the record 2.54 million early votes cast before July 2 were counted.
Business is disheartened by the uncertain election result, warning Australia cannot afford another three years of politicking as the mining boom fades.

Andrew Bassat, the chief executive of job search firm Seek, said a hung parliament "would clearly be a bad outcome for Australia".

Malcolm Turnbull: does he have a mandate for corporate tax cuts? Credit:Janie Barrett

"For some time we have had prime ministers having to worry both about their support within their own party and then having difficulty getting legislation through. This is definitely not conducive to the long-term leadership this country sorely needs," Mr Bassat told Fairfax Media.

"I am concerned that a weakened coalition government will find it hard to not only get [corporate] tax cuts through but to generally focus on supporting business growth, which is so critical to the prosperity of this country and to employment outcomes."
Regarding your answer on June 19 about a granny flat being rented out. There was no mention of the value of property area used for the granny flat being added to the value of assets counted, which is what happens and the Centrelink value is quite hefty, as I found when I retired. I was unaware of it and nor was it pointed out at a Centrelink retirement seminar I went to just prior. It's counted just as financial assets are but, of course, one can't sell it separately or raise capital. As you know the situation worsens on January 1, 2017, especially in the modest/medium range of $300,000-$400,000 and from my experience of Centrelink's granny flat values, it could take them over the limit. Another thing that wasn't in the Info Pack at Centrelink retirement seminar some years ago is what happens with a property investment loan if you still have the loan at retirement? This is why your column is helpful, to clear muddy waters. E.M.

You are right, it can prove a complex matter, so let's clarify. When you, as an age pensioner, rent out your granny flat, the rent (excluding expenses) is counted by the income test. However, where you have a lodger in your home, you can choose a simpler formula that counts expenses as 30 per cent of the rent, to which you can include any mortgage interest or even rent, if you yourself are living in a rented property.

Centrelink's rules on granny flats can be complicated. Credit:Roger D'Souza

If the area being rented is a self-contained living area, and rented to anyone other than a member of your immediate family, it will also be assessed by the assets test. Its value will be based on a pro-rata percentage of the floor space of the overall property. Obviously, if you have a home in a capital city, this asset value could amount to many tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

However, if the area being rented is an integral part of the customer's home, for example, a room with an en suite rented to a lodger but with no kitchen or lounge area, it will not be counted by the assets test.
The NSW government has declared almost six hectares of land at Soldiers Point in Port Stephens as an Aboriginal Place in recognition of its significance to the Worimi Aboriginal community.

Environment and Heritage Minister Mark Speakman said the declaration celebrated the special cultural, spiritual, social and historical Aboriginal significance of Soldiers Point.

"Soldiers Point has a continuous history of Aboriginal settlement and cultural activity," Mr Speakman said.

The declaration comes at the beginning of NAIDOC Week. According to NAIDOC's website, the week is a celebration of "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, culture and achievements and is an opportunity to recognise the contributions that Indigenous Australians make to our country and our society".

Parliamentary Secretary for the Hunter and Central Coast Scot MacDonald said: "I'm delighted to be able to recognise the Worimi people's spiritual and emotional connection to this area.
Controversial lender of last resort, Ian Lazar, is behind bars after his bail was revoked for threatening to kill a car dealer.

Mr Lazar, 45, was already facing a string of criminal charges including using a gold bar, allegedly stolen from a crime figure, as payment for the intimidation of a police officer.

SMS claims: Ian Lazar will remain in jail pending his committal hearing on August 1 following evidence of threats by text. Credit:Courtesy: Four Corners

Also facing criminal charges for conspiring with Mr Lazar to intimidate the police officer in the execution of his duty is former KPMG accountant "Big Al" Constantinidis.

Mr Constantinidis, a one-time business partner of the recently convicted former MP Eddie Obeid, rose to fame over his 1994 partnership with then-prime minister Paul Keating in a piggery. Their business dealings ended in tears and recriminations.
Two Gold Coast men are in hospital and another will face court on assault charges after an alleged extortion attempt ended in violence late Sunday night.

A 41-year-old Molendinar man was accused of beating two men with an iron bar and smashing into four parked cars while driving.

Two men have allegedly been struck with an iron bar at Southport.

Police alleged he drove to a home on Woomera Crescent in Southport about 11pm and began causing a disturbance outside "in relation to a debt".

He fled after the assault before eventually being arrested back in Molendinar, but not before ramming four cars in the Southport street, police alleged.
The RACQ rescue helicopter has arrived at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital and delivered the 18-year-old female who fell six metres on Mount Tibrogargan on Sunday morning.

An RACQ Careflight spokesperson said the victim arrived at hospital about 1.25pm and was conscious and stable.

The RACQ rescue helicopter has winched the injured 18-year-old woman off Mount Tibrogargan. Credit:Nine News Brisbane

She was suffering multiple trauma injuries, including extensive facial injuries, limb injuries and a possible spinal injury.

The woman is from Brisbane and was climbing with friends on the standard trekking routes just before she fell.
Just before the spacecraft Juno finishes a five-year trip to Jupiter on Monday, NASA has decided to extend the missions of nine older robotic explorers that have lived beyond original expectations.

The nine are still producing bounties of observations for scientists, and most of the extensions were expected. The New Horizons spacecraft, which flew past Pluto last year, already had been steered toward a new target, known as 2014 MU69, one of the small icy objects in the ring of debris beyond Neptune.

But one of NASA's decisions, about the Dawn spacecraft orbiting Ceres, the dwarf planet in the asteroid belt, was somewhat of a surprise  as well as a disappointment  to some working on the mission.
A boy who was airlifted to hospital with serious face and chest injuries after the car he was travelling in struck a tree near Warrnambool is in a stable condition.

The driver of the car, a 35-year-old woman, was also taken to hospital with abdominal and head injuries in a serious but stable condition.

A 5-year-old boy is in hospital with life-threatening injuries.

The woman was driving a silver Holden sedan north along Wangoom-Warrumyea Road in Wangoom when the vehicle veered right off the road and struck a tree near the intersection of Adams Road about 3pm on Sunday, Leading Senior Constable Paul Turner said.

"The cause of the crash is yet to be determined," he said.
Twenty years ago, Dhananjay Mehra launched Werribee's first Indian restaurant.

The owner of the Indian Roast says that before issuing him his planning permit, the local council made him include a car park: "They didn't let me operate without it."

Dhananjay Mehra in front of his Werribee restaurant, which he says is being overrun by food trucks on the vacant lot next door. Credit:Daniel Pockett

Which is fortunate for the owners of up to seven mobile food trucks that, last spring, started parking on a vacant block next to the Indian Roast on Heaths Road, opposite Werribee Plaza shopping centre.

Now, on Friday and Saturday nights in particular, this food truck hot-spot is pumping with customers looking for good Indian food, and drivers looking for somewhere to park.
The Greens remain hopeful of knocking off Labor in two key inner-city electorates that will be decided in coming days when counting resumes, but both Labor incumbent MPs were ahead in the vote count.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale hailed the "extraordinary" election result despite the likelihood of the party losing a Senate seat in South Australia.

He said the Greens had achieved major swings in the electorates of Melbourne Ports and Batman.

But Labor was leading in both seats on Sunday.
The former partner of a woman who has been missing with their three young daughters for five days has pleaded for her to hand herself into police.

Jason Latta said he was distraught as the search for Tracey Heuston and their children Jaylee, 11, Matika, 9, and Zahara, 8, dragged on.

The Latta siblings, from left, Zahara, 8, Matika, 9, Jaylee, 11.

Ms Heuston went missing with the girls from their home in Watsonia, in Melbourne's north east, on June 28.

Mr Latta said he and Ms Heuston's eldest daughter Kiya had searched nearby streets and made inquiries at hotels in the hope of finding their family.
Police believe a mother missing for five days with her three young daughters is still in Melbourne's north-east.

Tracey Heuston disappeared with her children Jaylee, 11, Matika, 9, and Zahara, 8, last Tuesday.

Sergeant Allen O'Donnell said the mother made some worrying comments before the family went missing from Watsonia.

She's believed to have contacted a welfare worker on Friday afternoon but has not accessed her bank account and has left her telephone off.
Important views of the Yarra River corridor will be ruined by a VCAT ruling upholding a developer's proposed nine-storey apartment building at Abbotsford, the river's advocate says.

The National Trust and Planning Minister Richard Wynne have hailed VCAT's directive that views of the famous Skipping Girl Vinegar sign be preserved by reducing the size of the podium of 647-649 Victoria Street.

Yarra riverkeeper Andrew Kelly is disappointed at VCAT's approval of a nine-storey apartment tower close to the Yarra River at Abbotsford. Credit:Joe Armao

But Yarra riverkeeper Andrew Kelly was disappointed calls to reduce the building's overall height were ignored.

Mr Kelly said such a high building  more than 30 metres  at the north-eastern corner of Victoria and Walmer Street will intrude into the river corridor and dominate river views from the Walmer Street bridge.
Victoria could face the brunt of another winter storm this week, bringing a soggy end to what had been a brief blast of sunny weather.

Beachgoers braved a dip in the icy waters off Altona on Sunday as temperatures reached 15 degrees without a drop of rain in sight.

But another cold front is on the way with a low-pressure system likely to develop off the coast this week, sending Victorians indoors or reaching for their umbrellas as it begins a slow, wet trek across the state.

Weather bureau senior forecaster Keris Arndt said the Gippsland region could see up to 100mm of rain by mid-week, along with strong winds, and dangerous surf conditions.
An injured man dumped outside a Melbourne hospital has died with police retracing his last steps to a crime scene behind a service station.

The man had been severely beaten in Kealba before he was driven more than 20 kilometres away to the Werribee hospital in the city's outer west, police said.

He died from his injuries shortly after arriving at the hospital at 5am on Sunday.

Homicide squad detectives traced his movements back to an empty lot used as parking behind a 24-hour Caltex service station on Sunshine Avenue, just off the Western Ring Road.
"If IS is indeed behind this attack, this would be a declaration of war," Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy told The Washington Post. "This attack is different in scope, impact and the death of dozens in the heart of the country's economic capital ... [Erdogan] cannot afford to let this go." Passengers embrace as they wait outside Istanbul's Ataturk airport, following their evacuation after the attack. Credit:AP In Dhaka, at least 20 hostages are confirmed dead in an 11-hour siege that ended when Bangladeshi security forces stormed the up-market Holey Artisan Bakery, killing six of the gunmen who had hacked the mainly foreign breakfast patrons to death and capturing a seventh alive. IS claimed the attack almost immediately. Iraqi security forces in Fallujah on June 26 after defeating Islamic State militants. Credit:AP

Istanbul's airport is named in memory of the founder of the modern, secular Turkish state  Mustafa Kemal "Ataturk", who dissolved the Ottoman caliphate in 1924. Islamic State has declared its territory in Syria and Iraq as the start of a new caliphate that would take in Turkey and the rest of the region; and in the reckoning of some observers, Erdogan is possessed by similar ambitions, seeing himself as a leader of the entire region. A busy week in diplomacy for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Credit:AP But in the carve-up of the Ottoman Empire, its substantial Kurdish population was fractured as new borders delineated Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Armenia. Today, the Kurds are estimated to number up to 32 million and to varying degrees - with the paranoia running highest in Turkey - any development that might lead to autonomy for the Kurdish enclave in any of the five countries is perceived by the others as a national security threat. Demonstrators chant pro-IS slogans in the Iraqi city of Mosul, which Iraqi forces have promised to retake by the end of the year. Credit:AP

The Kurds in Iraq have achieved a substantial degree of autonomy. And through the five-year course of the conflict in Syria, that country's Kurdish communities have been carving out their own autonomous territory  and earning chits on which they expect Washington to pay at a later date, by providing some of the only seriously capable fighters for the US-led war on IS. And that was the basis for Erdogan's dirty deal with IS. A PKK fighter in a house in the south-eastern Turkish city of Nusaybin in February. Credit:Getty Images In any other circumstance, IS would have been thrilled to have a NATO member  which Turkey is  positioned like a sitting duck on the periphery of its Iraqi-Syrian war zone. But IS was more thrilled to have Turkish authorities turn a blind eye to its use of their airports and roads as a jihadists' highway for thousands of foreign volunteers travelling to Syria.

Ejnad Akkad, a fighter for the rebel Free Syrian Army, at a hospital in Kilis, Turkey. Credit:AP The Erdogan rationale was that if IS was fighting Syria's Kurdish community, then the Turkish leader was happy to serve as a doormat. Further, in miscalculating that Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad would be a pushover, Erdogan was happy for fighters who might take him down to traipse through Turkey. The border region became a combat commerce zone  fighters coming and going; weapons and supplies into Syria; and oil smuggled out through Turkey. One news report described it as "a rear base, a transit hub and a shopping bazaar for the Islamic State". Turkish artillery fire from the border near the town of Kilis towards northern Syria in February. Credit:AP The border region is also thought to be home to a good number of IS foreign fighters, any number of whom can be activated for attacks on Turkish targets as needed; which is why, some analysts speculate, IS does not claim responsibility for its attacks in Turkey  it's one thing to "stir up paranoia and fear in Turkey", says Aymenn al-Tamimi, who blogs on IS, but not to the point of provoking Erdogan to disrupt the infrastructure on which IS still depends in Turkey.

However in 2015, as the Syrian crisis became intractable and Turkey's regional horizons shrank, Erdogan flipped  giving the US access to the Incirlik air base and flying its own missions against IS [and at the same time, using them as cover for attacks on Kurdish forces]; rounding up and deporting suspected Islamist fighters, but holding out on other US demands in the hope that Washington would abandon Syria's Kurds. An official sits in Ataturk Airport in Istanbul ahead of a memorial event on June 30. Credit:AP In the last year in Turkey, more than 670 people have died and more than 1700 have been wounded in a total of 434 attacks five of which are attributed to IS and most of the rest to Kurdish separatists. Analysts expect more such attacks in and beyond the region as IS changes gears  in the last 18 months it has lost about half of its Iraqi territory and maybe 20 per cent of what it had in Syria, there's been a fall-off in the arrival of volunteers and its key supply lines are under intensifying military pressure from the US-led coalition and others that are in the fight in Syria and Iraq. A member of Bangladeshi security personnel is taken for medical attention after gunmen attacked a restaurant in a diplomatic zone of the country's capital Dhaka. Credit:AP

To compensate, Western intelligence officials conclude, IS is well into a brutal strategic overhaul  the territorial caliphate it wanted has become less important than marauding attacks across the globe, in the manner of its erstwhile rivals al-Qaeda. Fallujah was a significant centre for IS, but holding it required the ongoing support of local Sunni fighters who very likely, as the military noose tightened in the course of the last month, made the same decision that the Sunni tribal sheikhs made back in 2003  just as they decided that Saddam Hussein was not worth fighting for, neither was IS worth dying for in Fallujah. In Islamic State's sights: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with his US counterpart Barack Obama on the cover of the IS magazine Dabiq in August. It doesn't mean that the Sunnis suddenly support the Shiite-dominated government that presides over gridlock in Baghdad  more likely, that they will find other methods and allies to settle their scores. The loss of Fallujah leaves IS with just one very significant stronghold in Iraq  the northern city of Mosul. And while the Iraqi security forces proved more competent in taking Fallujah than they did in the recent recapture of Ramadi, to the west of Fallujah, and in their abandonment of Mosul in 2014, it remains to be seen if they are up to the task of taking back Mosul.
Reacting to the two attacks over the past three days, Pope Francis asked people attending noon prayer at the Vatican in Rome to pray for the victims and their families. Security has increased following the violence. Credit:AP Late on Sunday in Bangladesh, hundreds of men, women and children held a candle light vigil near Dhaka's Shaheed Minar (Martyr's Monument) to pay respect to those who lost their lives. "We don't want this," Nasima, a textile industry worker, told Reuters Television. "Please stop this, stop this, stop this from our society, from our country, I want to live in peace." A relative of a police officer who was killed in the standoff. Credit:AP

As Dhaka limped back to normal life, security experts questioned the delay in launching the offensive against the militants. More than 100 commandos stormed the restaurant nearly 10 hours after the siege began, under an operation code-named 'Thunderbolt'. Analysts say that as Islamic State loses territory in Iraq and Syria and its finances get drained, it may be trying to build affiliates in countries such as Bangladesh for jihadists to launch attacks locally and cheaply. Johura Begum shows a photograph of her brother-in-law Saidul Islam, who was missing during the hostage siege. Credit:AP 'Militants from rich families' Deputy Inspector General of Police Shahidur Rahman told Reuters on Sunday that authorities were investigating any connection between the attackers and transnational groups such as Islamic State or al-Qaeda.

He said the militants were mostly educated and from well-off families, but declined to give any more details. National police chief Shahidul Hoque said all the gunmen were Bangladeshis. "Five of them were listed as militants and law enforcers made several drives to arrest them," he said. Whoever was responsible, the attack marked a major escalation in violence by militants demanding Islamic rule in Bangladesh, whose 160 million people are mostly Muslim. Previous attacks have mostly singled out individuals advocating a secular or liberal lifestyle, or religious minorities. Reciting the Koran

Friday night's attack was more coordinated than the previous assaults. Gunmen singled out foreigners as soon as they stormed through the doors of the restaurant popular with expatriates. They ordered all Bangladeshis to stand up before the killing began, a source briefed on the investigation said. The Bangladeshis were later told to close their eyes and recite verses from the Koran. One militant cursed a Bangladeshi for eating with non-Muslims during Ramadan, the source said. The Islamic State-affiliated Amaq news agency claimed in a report on Saturday that the militants identified and released Muslim patrons from the Dhaka restaurant. The victims also included at least three Bangladeshis or people of Bangladeshi descent.

The militants hacked most of their victims with machetes, leaving their bleeding bodies on the floor. A standoff of nearly 12 hours with security forces ended when the commandos stormed the building, killing six of the militants and capturing a seventh after attempts at negotiations proved fruitless, authorities said. They recovered explosives and sharp weapons from the scene. Home-grown groups Up until Friday's attack, authorities had maintained no operational links existed between Bangladeshi militants and international jihadi networks. Bangladesh has blamed JMB and another home-grown outfit for the wave of grisly killings over the past year and a half. One line of inquiry being pursued was whether the restaurant attackers received any guidance from Islamic State or al-Qaeda, an official in Bangladesh's counter-terrorism wing said.

"Pictures (uploaded on Twitter) indicate they might have been encouraged by ISIS (Islamic State) activities abroad," said Muhammad Zamir, a former senior foreign ministry official. "But this does not show a direct link to ISIS. This is exactly what was done and disputed later in the case of the Orlando attack," he said, referring to the killing of 49 people last month by a man who pledged allegiance to Islamic State. Friday's attack in Dhaka was the worst since 2005, when JMB set off a series of bombs throughout Bangladesh in the space of an hour that killed at least 25 people, mostly judges, police and journalists. The authorities executed six top JMB leaders in March 2007 and police have continued to hunt for group members, often detaining suspected militants following intelligence tips. In February, Bangladesh police arrested three JMB members suspected of killing a Hindu priest.
London: On June 23, the British people were asked whether they wanted to remain part of a bossy and self-indulgent bureaucracy in which everything happened at a snail's pace.

Everything, that is, except the invention of control-freak regulations and the spending of taxpayers' money on Eurocrats' perks, privileges and deluxe parliament buildings.

And the British people replied: "Now that you've finally got round to asking us, the answer is no."

The day after the vote, there was something beautiful and unfamiliar in the air: a belief in Britain's ability to flourish as an independent country. It was beautiful because this is a lovely, generous and inventive nation. It was unfamiliar because the decision to choose our own destiny came from right across the political spectrum.
Christchurch: A multimillion-dollar shipment of cocaine - smuggled to New Zealand inside a diamante-encrusted horse sculpture - may have been destined in part for Christchurch, where the rebuild after the devastating 2011 earthquake appears to be fuelling a demand for hard drugs.

The record 35 kilogram seizure, with an estimated $NZ14 million ($13.5 million) street value, was air freighted from Mexico to Auckland International Airport where it was discovered by authorities in May.

The cocaine shipment was found stashed in a horse head sculpture. Credit:NZ Police

Police and Customs revealed the haul of high-grade cocaine after a six-week covert investigation, which used various surveillance techniques, came to a head on Friday.

On Monday, three men  two from Mexico and another from the US  will appear in courts in Auckland and Christchurch charged with importing and possessing the class A drug.
Clinton was reportedly 'Cooperative" today as 3 FBI Agents grilled her for 3 hours.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton met agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigations on Saturday. When investigators meet with the "target defendant," it generally means their investigation is swiftly coming to a conclusion, legal experts say.

The investigators were ready to meet her because theyve met with everyone else on her staff, and now they know what questions to ask. Depending on Mrs. Clinton's responses, they will recommend to the prosecutors whether or not charges are appropriate. They questioned the target defendant, while of course video-taping her, to try to trip her up. And to see how she might look to a jury after 3 and a half hours of questioning.

After her now infamous meeting with former President Bill Clinton at Sky Harbor tarmac on Thursday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said that she would accept whatever the FBI agents working on the case decided. In other words, she'll file charges if the FBI wants to proceed, and not file charges if they advise her to instead just close the file. So it's OK that she met with the FBI target's husband--she's not the decision maker. Besides, no ethical rule applicable to attorneys forbids it.

So where do we go from here? Mrs. Clinton will probably have to appear in Federal Court and plead Not Guilty at an arraignment. At that time, her attorneys and Justice Dept. attorneys might discuss resolution of the matter. In fact, they may have already agreed to a plea arrangement, which may be put on the record the afternoon of the morning Clinton is arraigned.

The Justice Department's goal is to complete the investigation and make recommendations on whether charges should be filed before the two major party conventions take place toward the latter half of July, sources said.

Why? Because at the end of the day, they're all Democrats. It's in the interests of everyone involved in the Clinton Email matter, for the American electorate to choose Clinton Continuity over Trump Disruption. I'm not saying the system is rigged, I'm just saying everyone with any power or interest in this, is wearing blue not red. And they all know it.

From the perspective of the investigators and the US Attorney's office, it is in the interest of the Clintons, the Attorney General, President Obama, and the greater American public, to get this thing out of the way ASAP, n'est-ce pas? Not to mention in the Interests of justice.

How Did We Get Here?

Last year, it was revealed that Clinton had exclusively used her family's private email server for official communications during her tenure as secretary of state. The officials communications included thousands of emails that were later marked classified by the U.S. State Department.

In March 2015, it became publicly known that Hillary Clinton, during her tenure as United States Secretary of State, had exclusively used her family's private email server for official communications, rather than official State Department email accounts maintained on federal servers. Those official communications included thousands of emails that would later be marked classified by the State Department retroactively.

Debate continues as to the propriety and legality of various aspects of Secretary Clinton's arrangement. Some experts, officials, and members of Congress have contended that her use of private messaging system software and a private server violated State Department protocols and procedures, as well as federal laws and regulations governing record-keeping. In response, Clinton has said that her use of personal email was in compliance with federal laws and State Department regulations, and that former secretaries of state had also maintained personal email accounts.

Nearly 2,100 emails on the server were retroactively marked as classified by the State Department, including 65 emails deemed "Secret" and 22 deemed "Top Secret". Government policy, reiterated in the non-disclosure agreement signed by Clinton as part of gaining her security clearance, is that sensitive information should be considered and handled as classified even if not marked as such. After allegations were raised that some of the emails in question fell into this category, an investigation was initiated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) regarding how classified information was handled on the Clinton server.

In May 2016 the State Department's Office of the Inspector General released an 83-page report about the State Department's email practices, including Clinton's, but the FBI did not do so. The controversy continues against the backdrop of Clinton's 2016 presidential election campaign and hearings held by the United States House Select Committee on Benghazi.

A plea bargain (also plea agreement, plea deal, copping a plea, or plea in mitigation) is any agreement in a criminal case between the prosecutor and defendant whereby the defendant agrees to plead guilty to a particular charge in return for some concession from the prosecutor. This may mean that the defendant will plead guilty to a less serious charge, or to one of several charges, in return for the dismissal of other charges; or it may mean that the defendant will plead guilty to the original criminal charge in return for a more lenient sentence.

A plea bargain allows both parties to avoid a lengthy criminal trial and may allow criminal defendants to avoid the risk of conviction at trial on a more serious charge. For example, in the U.S. legal system, a criminal defendant charged with a felony theft charge, the conviction of which would require imprisonment in state prison, may be offered the opportunity to plead guilty to a misdemeanor theft charge, which may not carry a custodial sentence.

The Precedent: The Strange Case of David Petraeus

Former CIA director David Petraus is a man of exceptional skills and service to his Country. Like Clinton, four years ago he was an Obama cabinet member with Presidential potential. But one day in 2012, he basically invited a biographer of his, Paula Broadwell, to enter his private office alone and review classified documents. It was a momentary lapse of judgment--a favor for his mistress.

The interviews purpose was to get her answers, then compare them to those of Clinton's aides, who have already been interviewed.

In January 2015, the New York Times reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department had recommended bringing felony charges against Petraeus for providing classified information to Broadwell. Petraeus denied the allegations and was reported to have had no interest in a plea deal. However, on Tuesday, March 3, 2015, the U.S. Justice Department announced that Petraeus agreed to plead guilty in federal court in Charlotte, North Carolina to one misdemeanor count of unauthorized removal and retention of classified information. On April 23, 2015, a federal judge sentenced Petraeus to two years' probation plus a fine of $100,000. The fine was more than double the amount the Justice Department had requested.

The Clinton Email case is somewhat similar. But unlike Petraeus, Clinton allowed access to her private, classified e mails to any hacker with the skills of Russian hacker Gucifer. Nevertheless, the resolution of People v. Hillary Clinton, will probably resemble the People v. David Petraeus resolution. Her intent is probably less clear than Petraeus', and intent is important in criminal matters.

Note: A misdemeanor conviction is not the same as a felony conviction. The former does not bar one from holding public office. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony

Do you think Hillary Clinton should be allowed to plea bargain out of this? Post this story on Twitter or Facebook, and let us know what you think!
Quintessential Holocaust Survivor lauded for his writings worldwide

Mr. Wiesel first gained attention in 1960 with the English translation of "Night," his autobiographical account of the horrors he witnessed in the camps as a 15-year-old boy. He wrote of how he had been plagued by guilt for having survived while millions died, and tormented by doubts about a God who would allow such slaughter.

Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel died Saturday at 87, of congestive heart failure. The Auschwitz survivor became an eloquent witness for the six million Jews and two million others slaughtered in World War II and who, more than anyone, seared the memory of the Holocaust on the world's conscience, died on Saturday at his home in Manhattan. He was 87.

When Ronald Reagan agreed to speak at an SS cemetery in Germany called Bitberg, Wiesel confronted him at a public event. "You are the President of the United States," said the man who had been liberated by US Soldiers 40 years before. "Your place is with the victims of the Nazis, not with the SS." By the time Wiesel finished, he had the US President in tears.

"Mr. Wiesel was the author of several dozen books and was a charismatic lecturer and humanities professor. In 1986, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But he was defined not so much by the work he did as by the gaping void he filled. In the aftermath of the Germans' systematic massacre of Jews, no voice had emerged to drive home the enormity of what had happened and how it had changed mankind's conception of itself and of God. For almost two decades, both the traumatized survivors and American Jews, guilt-ridden that they had not done more to rescue their brethren, seemed frozen in silence."

"But by the sheer force of his personality and his gift for the haunting phrase, Mr. Wiesel, who had been liberated from Buchenwald as a 16-year-old with the indelible tattoo A-7713 on his arm, gradually exhumed the Holocaust from the burial ground of the history books", said the New York Times.

He was an American Romanian-born Jewish writer, professor, political activist, Holocaust survivor, and Nobel Laureate. He was the author of 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and Buchenwald concentration camps. Wiesel was also the Advisory Board chairman of the newspaper Algemeiner Journal. He was the Andrew Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Boston University, in Boston, Massachusetts.

When Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, the Norwegian Nobel Committee called him a "messenger to mankind," stating that through his struggle to come to terms with "his own personal experience of total humiliation and of the utter contempt for humanity shown in Hitler's death camps", as well as his "practical work in the cause of peace", Wiesel had delivered a powerful message "of peace, atonement and human dignity" to humanity.

Elie Wiesel was born in Sighet, now Romania in the Carpathian Mountains. His parents were Sarah Feig and Shlomo Wiesel. At home, Wiesel's family spoke Yiddish most of the time, but also German, Hungarian, and Romanian.

Wiesel's mother, Sarah, was the daughter of Dodye Feig, a celebrated Vizhnitz Hasid and farmer from a nearby village. Dodye was active and trusted within the community. In the early years of his life, Dodye had spent a few months in jail for having helped Polish Jews who escaped and were hungry.

Wiesel's father, Shlomo, instilled a strong sense of humanism in his son, encouraging him to learn Hebrew and to read literature, while his mother encouraged him to study the Torah. Wiesel has said that his father represented reason while his mother Sarah promoted faith.

Wiesel had three siblings  older sisters Beatrice and Hilda, and younger sister Tzipora. Beatrice and Hilda survived the war and were reunited with Wiesel at a French orphanage. They eventually emigrated to North America, with Beatrice moving to Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Tzipora, Shlomo, and Sarah did not survive the Holocaust.

Mr. Wiesel first gained attention in 1960 with the English translation of "Night," his autobiographical account of the horrors he witnessed in the camps as a 15-year-old boy. He wrote of how he had been plagued by guilt for having survived while millions died, and tormented by doubts about a God who would allow such slaughter.

"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed," Mr. Wiesel wrote. "Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live long as God himself. Never."

After 1960, Weisel wrote novels, books of essays and reportage, two plays and even two cantatas. While many of his books were nominally about topics like Soviet Jewry or Hasidic masters, they all dealt with profound questions resonating out of the Holocaust: What is the sense of living in a universe that tolerates unimaginable cruelty? How could the world have been mute? How can one go on believing? Mr. Wiesel asked the questions in spare prose and without raising his voice; he rarely offered answers.

In early 2006, Wiesel traveled to Auschwitz with Oprah Winfrey, a visit which was broadcast as part of The Oprah Winfrey Show on May 24, 2006. Wiesel said that this would most likely be his last trip there. In September 2006, he appeared before the UN Security Council with actor George Clooney to call attention to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. On November 30, 2006, Wiesel received a knighthood in London in recognition of his work toward raising Holocaust education in the United Kingdom.

During the early 2007 selection process for the Kadima candidate for President of Israel, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reportedly offered Wiesel the nomination (and, as the ruling-party candidate and an apolitical figure, likely the presidency), but Wiesel "was not very interested." Shimon Peres was chosen as the Kadima candidate (and later President) instead.

In 2007, Wiesel was awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's Lifetime Achievement Award. That same year, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity issued a letter condemning Armenian genocide denial, a letter that was signed by 53 Nobel laureates including Wiesel. Wiesel has repeatedly called Turkey's 90-year-old campaign to downplay its actions during the Armenian genocide a double killing.

Famous photo from the day Buchenwald concentration camp was liberated. Weisel is the 7th from the left, second row from the bottom.

Wiesel was a member of the International Advisory Board of NGO Monitor.

Wiesel and his wife invested their life savings, and the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity invested nearly all of its assets (approximately $15.2 million USD) through Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme, an experience Wiesel later spoke about at a Conde Nast roundtable. Although an exact recovery percentage is not yet known, as of April 2013, 53% of victims' monies have been recovered and returned to them. In a New York Times article, Wiesel called Madoff a "thief, scoundrel, criminal."

Wiesel accompanied Pres. and Mrs. Barack Obama when the two toured Buchenwald in 2012.

In 2009, Wiesel criticized the Vatican for lifting the excommunication of controversial bishop Richard Williamson, a member of the Society of Saint Pius X.
No evidence of Jaguar Breeding Populations in New Mexico or Arizona, after the Pleistocene Era

The myth that jaguars populated the USA prior to 1900 was started with a paper written by a political activistt, and unfortunately accepted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service without due scientific diligence.

I am writing to inform you that your recent article, "Amazon jaguar shot dead after Olympic torch ceremony" contains statements of "fact" that are totally inaccurate.

The myth that jaguars populated the USA prior to 1900 was started with a paper written by a political activist, and unfortunately accepted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service without due scientific diligence.

There is no documented evidence of any naturally occurring female jaguar in New Mexico since the Pleistocene.

The article is here: http://www.smobserved.com/story/2016/06/22/news/amazon-jaguar-shot-dead-after-olympic-torch-ceremony/1507.html

Errors are confronted below:

Error 1. "Apart from a known and possibly breeding population in Arizona (southeast of Tucson) and the bootheel of New Mexico, the cat has largely been extirpated from the United States since the early 20th century."

Correction: No "breeding population of jaguars" exists in Arizona or New Mexico-or ever did. (Your article contains perhaps the tallest tale ever printed on this subject.) There is no verifiable evidence there ever was a post-Pleistocene, naturally occurring population of jaguars in either state. (There are only speculative claims that there were, but three stories about female jaguars killed with cubs in Arizona are entirely unverifiable and therefore nothing more than unscientific urban legends. This is confirmed in the comments the Arizona Game and Fish Department submitted to the US Fish and Wildlife Service during the public comment period on the critical habitat designation. (See p. 4 here-- http://www.azgfd.gov/w_c/es/documents/130808.FWS.Jag.Critical.Habitat.Ltr.pdf ) Moreover, there is no documented evidence of any naturally occurring female jaguar in New Mexico since the Pleistocene--so it would be impossible for a breeding population of jaguars to have occurred in New Mexico in recorded history.

The myth that jaguars populated the USA prior to 1900 was started with a paper written by a political activist, and unfortunately accepted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service without due scientific diligence. The writer plotted a histogram of the numbers of jaguars killed in Arizona and New Mexico since 1900. He did not present the actual data he plotted.) What the writer did not document is the fact that jaguars were observed no more frequently in Arizona or New Mexico prior to the exact year 1900 than they are seen today. Rather than showing an abrupt spike from zero to about 20 in jaguar numbers exactly in the year In 1900, the activist's histogram deceptively excludes records prior to 1900--which would show a spike from zero to 20+ records exactly in 1900. Exactly beginning in 1900, suddenly and dramatically, jaguars appeared in Arizona in significant numbers. Their numbers tapered off after trucking began to replace railroads for shipping cattle. Scientists prior to 1900 documented that scientists believed at that time that jaguars were either rare or absent from Arizona. The influx of jaguars occurred very suddenly, and shortly following establishment of a rail system with cattle pens and watering facilities at every depot from Phoenix all the way south to Guadalajara.

 Elliot Coues (1867) wrote in an article, "The Quadrupeds of Arizona,"

"Two other species of true long-tailed cats may possibly exist, particularly in the south- eastern portions. These are the Ocelot (F. pardalis Linn.), and the Jaguar (F. onzaliinn.). Within the limits of the United States, however, they have as yet only been found in the valley of the Rio Grande of Texas."

 John Duncan Quackenbos et al. (1887 Smithsonian team of biologists)wrote,

"It is true that the Jaguar, the largest of American Cats, has been taken along our southern border, but it can be regarded only as a very rare straggler from the tropics."

 An article in the July 18, 1901 issue of the Arizona Silver Belt, p.2 states,

"The jaguar is a beautifully spotted black and yellow creature and is exceedingly rare in Arizona, though quite plentiful in some portions of Mexico."

 C.M. Barber (1902) in recording his findings on the presence of jaguars in New Mexico stated:

"The present paper is intended to record certain species of mammals not previously known to occur in New Mexico."

 Vernon Bailey (1931) wrote,

"Distribution and habitat. - A few large spotted cats (pl. 16, A) have been found over southern New Mexico, where they seem to be native, although generally supposed to be wanderers from over the Mexican border."

Sources:

E. Coues, "The Quadripeds of Arizona" P. 285-286, The American Naturalist, Volume 1. University of Chicago Press, 1867

Quackenbos, J.D., Newberry, J.S., Hitchcock, C.H., Stevens, W. Le Conte, Gannett, H., Dall, W., Merriam, C.H., Britton, N.L., Kunz, G.F., Stoney, Lt. G.M .; Physical Geography Prepared on a New and Original Plan, Appleton's American Standard Geographies Based on the Principles of the Science of Education. D. Appleton and Co., NY. 1887

Barber, C.M. 1902. Notes on little-known New Mexican mammals and species apparently not recorded from the territory. Biological Society of Washington Proceedings. 15:191-193.

Bailey V, 1931. Mammals of New Mexico. North American Fauna 53:283-285.

Error 2.

" The USFWS was ultimately ordered by the court to develop a jaguar recovery plan and designate critical habitat for the cats."

This error on your part is understandable, because unfortunately this utter falsehood has been published by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and is repeated often by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, even though they know it is utterly false. The court actually stated the following:

there is no documented evidence of any naturally occurring female jaguar in New Mexico since the Pleistocene--so it would be impossible for a breeding population of jaguars to have occurred in New Mexico in recorded history. A young jaguar in a zoo in Belize.

"IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiffs' Motions for Summary Judgment (Doc. Nos. 44& 45) are GRANTED in PART and DENIED in PART. The FWS determinations to not designate critical habitat or prepare a recovery plan are set aside, and this case is remanded to the FWS so that it may, consistent with this opinion, consider whether to designate critical habitat and prepare a recovery plan for the jaguar. The FWS shall make a determination as to critical habitat and recovery planning by January 8, 2010.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Federal Defendants' Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. No. 53) is DENIED.

15 The Court expresses no opinion or conclusion in this matter regarding the construction of vehicle or pedestrian impediments along the international border."

Source: http://elr.info/litigation/39/20073/center-biological-diversity-v-kempthorne

Best regards,

Cindy Coping
Franklin D. Roosevelt's flagship for trip to Tehran to meet Winston Churchill, Josef Stalin in 1943

Volunteer shows a visitor how to hold a hundred-pound bag of gunpowder . The USS Iowa boasts special quarters created for Franklin D. Roosevelt for his trip to Tehran to meet with Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin in 1943

Battleships, once thought to be the ultimate weapon, are now a relic of the past. For a chance to visit this past - and enjoy 360-degree breeze-swept views of Los Angeles Harbor, the USS Iowa at Berth 87, is a great place to go.

A self-guided tour takes one in and out of sailors' quarters, mess halls and up and down ladders leading to almost all levels of the ship's significant superstructure and winding around the impressive armaments. It's easy to get distracted by views of yachts sailing in and out of the channel and the work of the giant cranes unloading ships from China.

The USS Iowa, Battleship 61, was constructed beginning in 1939 and completed in 1942. She's the only battleship of her class to have served in the Atlantic during World War II. Her biggest claim to fame is possibly the special quarters created for Franklin D. Roosevelt for his trip to Tehran to meet with Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin in 1943. A bathtub - the only one in the entire navy - was installed in his quarters as well as an elevator to transport him between decks. Roosevelt had suffered polio and was paralyzed from the waist down.

Upon her transfer to the Pacific Fleet in 1944, the Iowa participated in shelling of beachheads in the Marshall Islands and was present at the surrender of Japan in Tokyo Bay. After some service during the Korean War, the Iowa was mothballed until 1984, with Ronald Reagan sought to beef up the navy's fleet. Following a tragic accident in 1989 in which 47 sailors were killed by a mysterious explosion in her No. 2 gun turret, the Iowa was decommissioned for the final time.

Alyssa Ganezer View of the famous 16-inch guns on the foredeck, USS Iowa Battleship, Long Beach.

In other words, there's a lot to see here, especially if you're at all interested in World War II, the navy, or armaments.

Parking is easy, right next to the ship in her permanent home. A ramp onto the ship shifts in steepness according to the tide, but they'll get you onboard if you're in a wheelchair, no matter the time of the month or day. Prices are discounted for military, seniors, and children. They're not cheap, but this tub receives no government money and relies entirely on admission and donations.

Often, you run into a few of the tens of thousands of men who served aboard the USS Iowa during her more than 50 year tour of duty. Some of them are volunteer docents. Talking to them is in itself, worth the drive to Long Beach.

For more information, visit http://www.pacificbattleship.com/
By PTI: Hyderabad, Jul 3 (PTI) A 10-year-old girl was allegedly raped and murdered after being kidnapped by a man suspected to be a habitual offender in Bollarum area here, police said today.

Accused Anil Kumar, who was recently released from jail, took away the girl, a class III student, from near a toddy shop last evening where she was with her mother, after luring her to buy some chocolates and chips.

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He then allegedly raped the minor and brutally killed her by smashing the girls head with a boulder last night, Bollarum police station Sub-Inspector M Satish Kumar said.

A complaint was lodged in this regard at around midnight and a search was launched following which the girls body was found in an isolated place, the SI said.

Police teams have been formed to nab the absconding accused, he further said.

A case under relevant IPC sections for rape and murder and POCSO Act has been registered, he said, adding further probe is on. PTI VVK GK SUK JMF

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Powerball numbers for Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022

Here are the winning Powerball numbers and results for the lottery jackpot drawing on Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022.
By PTI: Lahore, Jul 3 (PTI)Two Chinese engineers and as many Pakistanis were killed during the extension work of Tarbela Dam today when the shuttering of a portion caved in.

A spokesman of the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) said the work on the fourth extension of Tarbela Dam was underway when the shuttering fell.

"Three Chinese nationals and eight Pakistanis were trapped under the fallen shuttering. They were rescued and shifted to nearby health facility where doctors pronounced two Chinese engineers and as many Pakistanis dead. The condition of third Chinese who has been shifted to a hospital in Islamabad is stated to be critical," the spokesman said.

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Tarbela Dam on the Indus River is the largest earth filled dam in the world and fifth largest by structural volume and located 50 kms from Islamabad.

WAPDA has announced compensation for the dead and injured.

"The WAPDA chairman has also constituted a committee to probe the matter," he said. PTI MZ KUN

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According to Karnataka State Commission for Protection of Child Rights' chairperson Kripa Alva, first the men tortured the boys in an electric shop and later took them to an isolated location where they tortured them for hours.

Six men forcefully stripped three class 8th students, who were on fast (Ramzan)and brutally torturing them.

By Siddharth Tiwari: Three minors were stripped naked and thrashed mercilessly for reportedly shoplifting near Hoskote in Bengaluru's rural district.

The video of the incident, that went viral over social media, shows six men forcefully stripping and brutally torturing three class 8 students, who were on fast (Ramzan).

DEATH OF INNOCENCE

According to Karnataka State Commission for Protection of Child Rights' chairperson Kripa Alva, first the men tortured the boys in an electric shop and later took them to an isolated location where they tortured them for hours.

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"They beat them, accused them of stealing from the shop. There are bruises all over their body," said father of one of the victims, who sustained injuries from the assault and was rushed to hospital.

While the police claims to have arrested four out of six accused, two are still absconding.

"Who gave them the right to strip these kids naked and thrash them. Police should immediately file a case under the juvenile justice Act as well as under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and take serious action," activist Brinda Adige said.



NO COUNTRY FOR MINORS

In another case of minor abuse, on June 29, a 17-year-old girl was stripped naked in full public view by four persons, including two women.

Earlier this year in April, a case of three Dalit boys being stripped and beaten by a mob and paraded naked was also reported in Rajasthan's Chittorgarh district.

In a yet another case of death of innocence, a seven-year-old girl was raped and later murdered in Allahabad. The police allegedly tried to bury the body to destroy evidence. However, the victim's parents stopped the police from cremating the body.

"These crimes of humiliating minors is very disturbing. It has a lasting impact on the person's psychology and in turn negatively affects their growing up process. These crimes need to be dealt seriously both at judicial and policy making level,"said Dr. Ranjana Kumari, Director, Centre for social research.

All these and many such incidents point out towards the alarming state of crimes against minors in India. The data revealed by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) indicates towards steep rise of such cases. A total of 38,172 cases, 58,224 cases and 89,423 cases were registered under crime against children during 2012, 2013 and 2014 respectively.

FAULT IN OUR STARS?

Most of these crimes are against socially deprived classes--socially deprived in terms of class, religion, caste, and financial sustainability.

According to NCRB, in 2014, 47,064 cases of crimes against Dalits were registered, up from 39,408 in 2013 and 33,655 in 2012. These crimes include rape, murder, public humiliation, and violence related to land matters

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"Most of the crimes against minors have one thing in common. People in top of the hierarchy try to inflict pain and humiliation to the ones at the bottom," Ranjana said.

Commenting over the serious lack of data on 'crimes against minors', Ranjana added, "These institutions like National Commission for Protection of Child Rights are politically driven. Unless a parliamentarian raises a question the data isn't readily available. Almost every state has these commissions for children and women but advocacy from their end is very minimal."

ALSO READ:

FIR against Jharkhand BJP president's son for marrying a minor

Three arrested for pushing minor girl into flesh trade: DCW



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Brussels, July 3, 2016 (SPS) - The Belgian Committee of Support to Sahrawi People reiterated Saturday its support to the respect of these peoples fundamental rights, reaffirming its opposition to any agreement between the European Union (EU) and Morocco which includes the territories of Western Sahara.

The Belgian Committee of support to Sahrawi people reaffirms its support to the respect of the Sahrawi peoples fundamental rights and expresses no objection to EU/Morocco agreements respectful of the territorial boundaries, said the source in a communique issued following a meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Belgiums support to the conclusions of the EU Council in the appeal on the decision of the Court of Justice concerning the cancellation of the EU/Morocco agricultural agreements.

The head of the Belgian Committee of Support to Sahrawi People Pierre Galand reaffirmed, on the occasion, his support to the EU/Morocco partnerships provided that they are concluded in the geographical boundaries of Morocco.

We are questioning the territorial expansion of the Moroccan territory as part of these agreements, he said, underlining that the international law and the commercial law must prevail.

After learning about Belgiums support to the conclusions of the EU Council in the appeal on the decision of the Court of Justice concerning the cancellation of the EU/Morocco agricultural agreements on 10 December 2015, the Belgian Committee of Support to the Sahrawi People asked for an appointment at Foreign Affairs Ministry to enquire about the reasons behind this position. (SPS)

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London, July 3, 2016 (SPS) - The founder of the British association "Sandblast" of support to Western Sahara Danielle Smith affirmed Saturday evening, in London, that the referendum on Sahrawi peoples self-determination must be organized, regretting Moroccos stubbornness to challenge the international legality.

In a statement on the sidelines of the Mid-Summer Western Sahara Festival, Smith said that the situation of the Sahrawi people has become really very difficult and that there is no evolution in the close future because of the stubbornness of Morocco in refusing to apply international laws.

Smith said she is puzzled about Moroccos dreadful position vis-a-vis Sahrawi people and its arrogance vis-a-vis the international community which pushed it to expel the members of the United Nations mission in the region.

Morocco doesnt respect human rights in Western Sahara, even worse, it exploits the Sahrawi peoples natural resources for the European market with complete impunity while the people of the region are deprived of all the necessities of a decent life, she said. (SPS)

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Chitral district mayor Maghfirat Hussain said a mosque and 30 houses were washed away due to the flood in the district on Saturday night.

By Indo-Asian News Service: At least 30 people were killed, 35 injured and scores went missing after flood hit Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, officials said on Sunday morning.

Chitral district mayor Maghfirat Hussain said a mosque and 30 houses were washed away due to the flood in the district on Saturday night, Xinhua news agency reported.

The mosque was completely destroyed when people were offering Ramadan prayers. The flooding occurred due to the over flow of the Chitral river.

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According to the media reports, 30 people were killed, 35 people were critically injured and 31 went missing in the flood.

Army, paramilitary troops and rescue teams were called for rescue operations.

The mayor said the rescue teams were facing problems due to heavy rains in the district.





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The last time I was in the Statue of Liberty was in summer 1984, when I was a Boys & Girls Club camp counselor. The outdoor temperature lapped 90, so we felt like we were in a boiling copper tea kettle as we climbed.

Most parents opted out of the ascent. The campers, between ages 8 and 12, would not be denied. I was game too. Then one mom asked for a favor.

Can you take my son in? Hes only six.

I was fearless at 20. That changed when the clammy boy ran out of steam before we reached the Mother of Exiles armpit. I carried him on my chest to the top, and all the way back down the 354 steps.

Never again, I pledged.

Alas, 32 years later, my 4-year-old son has developed a crush on Lady Liberty. This is YouTubes fault. As his Mona Lisa obsession faded, he developed an eye for emerald women that rivals that of Capt. James Tiberius Kirk.

YouTubes voice recognition software is forgiving when The Kid demands Statue of Wiberty! He sings along to the statue lip-synching to Linda Ronstadts cover of Rescue Me, and swivels his hips as his green dance partner shimmies to Lola by French popsters Superbus. I confess to being amused by YouTube sensation and makeup guru Kandee Johnsons wry short in which she adds lipstick and a smoky eye to her dull jade-tinted patina, but remain paranoid that hell try it out on me when I doze off.

Often, though, his attention strays to his social studies. From the many documentaries, he prefers the homegrown Olivia Goes to the Statue of Liberty, a 2012 short in which the adorable 12-year-old co-star gives a two-minute history lesson The Kid seems determined to memorize (The copper skin of the statue is less than two pennies thick).

I hate to break it to you Olivia, but that recent spike that boosted your audience to 126,045 views is an unreliable count. The Kid is responsible for 124,088 of those as he sucks the life out of my phones data plan. On the plus side, dont feel bad about those 22 thumbs down. He thinks hes being cute.

Olivia seems to be helping him with math. The crown has seven points (which he gives a thumbs up to because there are that many slots in the grill of a Jeep), and the tablet she lugs (No, you cant get YouTube on it, I mumble) is embossed with July IV, MDCCLXXVI.

He also loses his head over footage of LL losing hers in Cloverfield and Escape from New York, and hunts down similarly undignified cameos in everything from Planet of the Apes to Ghostbusters II.

It never occurred to me that iPhone footage could skew his perspective. Strolling near Central Park two days after Christmas, he thought he had a street meet with his fave film star when a 10-foot Lady Liberty appeared on West 59th Street (wearing sunglasses no less). He was so thunderstruck that she handed him the torch. Hes been carrying one for her ever since.

I figured the spell would break over time, but he recently demanded a one-on-one with the real thing, which is at least a cheaper excursion than his similar requests to see Mount Rushmore and the Eiffel Tower. With the height of tourism season looming, I opted to tease the romance a little longer and brought him to Liberty State Park in New Jersey last weekend.

Upon spotting the familiar silhouette, he stormed the walkway, frantically alerting everyone in his path as though Lady Liberty had magically appeared for all to see.

Statue of Wiberty! Statue of Wiberty!

He kept pausing to share trivia.

You know she actually is French?

Once he reached the shoreline, he kept leaping as though trying to take flight across the bay. He contained his enthusiasm long enough to thrust his right arm skyward to emulate her pose. Then he paraded along the coast, keeping pace with joggers to point out the 305 feet (and 1 inch) monument they seemed to overlook. Finally, he grabbed a yard sign bearing an arrow and held it up to point the way. He posed for photos with strangers. At some point, he snagged my phone and snapped a selfie.

A few days later, I tried to interview him about his encounter.

What can you tell me about the Statue of Liberty?

That was a present.

She was a present?

Yeah, that was a present of the United flag. From America.

So, France gave the Statue of Liberty to the United States?

Hmmm, mmm.(Editors note, thats a yes).

A lot of hamburgers, he continued.

What about hamburgers?

Theyre inside the Statue of Wiberty.

The interview ended when he noticed I was recording it.

I want your phone.

He took it and shared some of his research into Lady Liberty.

His enthusiasm has not flagged since the visit, so we seem destined for a closer look. I will break my pledge out of allegiance to The Kid. I just need to keep stalling until hes big enough to carry me down.

John Breunig is editorial page editor of The Advocate and Greenwich Time. John.breunig@scni.com; 203-964-2281; twitter.com/johnbreunig.
By PTI: Peshawar, Jul 3 (PTI) At least 33 people, including eight Pakistani security personnel, were today killed when torrential rains hit a region bordering Afghanistan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, triggering flash floods, officials said.

Around 30 houses were demolished in the rainstorm caused by continuous heavy rainfall that began late yesterday and were concentrated mainly in the northwestern province of Khybher Pakthunkwa.

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The worst hit district was south west Chitral district, where flood waters swept away a mosque at the time when special Ramzan prayers were being held inside, dozens of houses and army post in the remote village of Ursoon, a media report said.

At least 33 people, including eight security officials, were killed and 17 people were reportedly missing in Ursoon Village while as many were injured due to flash flooding in the area occurred due to the over flow of the Chitral river, DPO Chitral Asif Iqbal said.

Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) was in contact with the district administration for rescue and relief efforts, according to a statement released by the authority.

Around 82 houses were affected by the waters and efforts were underway to provide food and relief items to the villagers, the statement said.

KP Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra has expressed deep grief and sorrow over the losses caused by the flooding and directed the authorities concerned to speed up the rescue and relief efforts in the affected area.

He also directed the administration to take all precautionary measures to save the lives and properties of the people. PTI AMS AKJ AMS

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F ans have flocked to Wembley for the second sell-out London show in Beyonce's Formation world tour.

The megastar delighted her legion of fans, known as the BeyHive, when she got emotional during her first night in London yesterday.

She told fans in the packed-out stadium: "I started singing a very, very long time ago. The first concert I ever saw was Michael Jackson.

"And I started dreaming that one day, I'll be in stadiums. All the way in London.

"I just want to say thank you. Most of you guys made me your Destiny's Child 19 years ago and I want to say thank you for supporting me for so long and allowing me to grow and evolve, I love you so much. Thank you to my BeyHive!"

Emotional: Beyonce performs during the Formation World Tour at Wembley stadium ( Joel Ryan/Invision for Parkwood Entertainment/AP Images) / Joel Ryan/Invision for Parkwood Entertainment/AP Images

Queen Bey took to the stage after support acts Zara Larsson and Tinie Tempah warmed up the crowd, and performed hits including Crazy In Love, Halo, Love On Top, Run The World (Girls), and Drunk in Love to the rapturous fans.

The show also included a tribute to late star Prince, with the stage at Wembley lit up in purple in his honour as Beyonce performed his seminal hit Purple Rain.

The thousands of fans in Wembley were joined by Beyonce's husband Jay-Z, Victoria Beckham, Kim Kardashian, Kendell Jenner and rugby star Maro Itoje, who all turned out to watch the show.

The star will perform for a second night at Wembley this evening, before heading on to Manchester for a show at the Emirates Old Trafford stadium on Tuesday.
A n ambulance had its tyres slashed while paramedics were helping to treat a pedestrian critically hurt in a road accident in west London.

Traffic officers used CS spray to detain a man after he used a knife on the London Ambulance Service (LAS) response car in Greenford, Scotland Yard said.

It had gone to the scene on the A40 after a car hit the male pedestrian, in his 40s, at 11.30pm on Saturday.

The victim is currently in a critical condition after being taken to hospital, a Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said.

Blade: police seized a knife at the scene / @MPSRTPC

Police seized a knife at the scene of the incident.

The spokeswoman added: "A man approached an LAS response vehicle parked at the scene and (proceeded) to slash the tyres with a knife.

"Traffic officers deployed CS spray and the man was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and possession of a bladed article. He is in custody at a west London police station."

Paul Gibson, LAS's assistant director of operations, said it has sent four vehicles to the scene to help a man with multiple injuries.

He said: "While our ambulance crews were treating the patient, a man slashed two tyres of one of our response cars.

"Criminal damage to our vehicles puts lives at risk as the paramedic using that car was not able to respond to patients until it was repaired."
C elebrities including Katie Price have shared a desperate appeal to find a missing London schoolgirl after she vanished four days ago.

Family members are said to be "worried sick" for 16-year-old Bethany Taylor as police mount their search for the teenager.

Her brother Billy posted on Twitter: "If anyone has seen my sister Beth let me know she has now been declared a missing person and we're all worried sick.

"She is missing around the Enfield area was last seen late Wednesday in Enfield town. Wearing white jeans and a red and black top."

Katie Price / PA

TV personality Price has joined other high-profile figures in calling for members of the public to look out for her, sharing a message with her two million Twitter followers.

Radio presenter George Shelley also tweeted: "Bethany Taylor has gone missing from Enfield area, if you have info or see her please contact the police."

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "Bethany Taylor, 16, has been missing since Wednesday, 29 June.

"She was seen by a relative on Friday, 1 July, at around 5pm on a route 491 bus in Enfield.

"Bethany is described as a white girl, 5ft 5ins tall and has long mousy brown hair. She was last seen wearing a red top and white jeans."

Contact police on 101 with any information, quoting reference number 16MIS028090.


T housands of people have march peacefully through the streets of central London in support of Palestine in a Quds Day demonstration.

Muslims were joined by Jews in the rally against Zionism that started near BBC Broadcasting House in Portland Place, central London, at around 3.30pm.

Pro-Palestinian protestors were met by a counter-demonstration in support of Israel outside the US Embassy.

A few hundred pro-Israel demonstrators and the opposing march exchanged a battle of words while lines of police kept them physically separated.

Ahead of the march, protestor Mohammad Saeed, 58, of Kingsbury, north west London, said: "Our demonstration shows we do not agree with what's going on in Palestine."

Peaceful: Orthodox Jews joined Muslims on the march / Rick Findler/PA Wire

Pesach Shloime Hirsch was one of around a dozen Orthodox Jews who joined in with anti-Zionism protestors.

Mr Hirsch, a 47-year-old nutrition researcher who travelled from Manchester to take part, said: "We are here to show solidarity with the Palestinians who are suffering."

Counter-protest: Pro-Palestinian protestors were met by a counter-demonstration in support of Israel outside the US Embassy / Arieh Miller

The two protests met in Grosvenor Square, Westminster, west London, at around 5pm.

Eileen Martell, 59, of north London, was among the pro-Israel counter demonstration held behind railings.

Al-Quds Day: the last Friday in the Islamic holy month of Ramadan is set aside as a day for uniting against Israel and showing support for Palestinians. / Rick Findler/PA Wire

She said: "Our presence is to show a peaceful demonstration in support of peace, not hate."

A Metropolitan Police officer at the scene confirmed no violence had broken out.

Crowds: Thousands of people joined the march through the streets of central London / Rick Findler/PA Wire

A force spokesman said: "We have not been informed of any violence. We had an appropriate plan in place."

The Islamic Human Rights Commission, which organised the march, said the end point was selected as a rallying point against the USA's "unyielding support" of Israel.

Quds Day, also know as Al-Quds day, is an annual international event held towards the end of Ramadan.

It has been marked globally since being inaugurated in 1979 by Ayatollah Khomeini, who asked for the last Friday in the Islamic holy month of Ramadan to be set aside as a day for uniting against Israel and showing support for Palestinians.
A n historic 700-year-old gate outside a cathedral has been demolished after it was smashed into by an alleged drink driver.

The Grade I listed Harnham Gate at Salisbury Cathedral was hit by a white van at around 2am on Saturday.

Cathedral officials have said the repairs could prove costly and take months to complete.

The wooden gates are believed to be about 80 years old, while the stone work around them dates back as far as the 14th century.

The Cathedral's clerk of works Gary Price said he was bitterly disappointed to find the gates hanging off their hinges.

He said: "The gates and the stone work are very old and it will take a lot of work to fix them.

"When I first heard about the gate I thought that someone had maybe just knocked into them.

"But when I got there and saw for myself I was shocked - I wasn't expecting to the see the carnage that I did and the gates hanging off their hinges.

"It looked as if a herd of elephants had come crashing through them."

Wiltshire Police said that a 51-year-old man had since been arrested on suspicion of failing to stop, criminal damage and driving with excess alcohol.

Anyone with information on the incident is asked to call Local Crime Investigator Tony Boulton on 101 or 01380 826614, or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
D onald Trump is a feminist who has "lived" gender equality, his daughter has said.

Ivanka Trump said that the US Republican presidential hopeful had "employed women at the highest levels" of his businesses.

Her 70-year-old billionaire-cum-politician father has consistently polled badly with women in the US in the recent months of the election campaign, which comes to a head in November's election.

A Fox News poll at the end of June showed him 19 per cent behind Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton among female voters.

He has previously come under fire for his disparaging remarks about women, including when he appeared to call Fox News presenter Megyn Kelly a "bimbo" on Twitter, and appeared to suggest her line of questioning was down to her menstruating.

The Republian hopeful has also said abortion was "punishable", and suggested Democrat rival Hilary Clinton was an "enabler" of her husband's affairs.

But Ivanka, 34, who works on his campaign, told the Sunday Times her father's feminism was "a big reason I am the woman I am today".

She added: "He always told me and showed me that I could do anything I set my mind to if I married vision and passion with work ethic. He's also surrounded me with strong female role models who have done just that since I was a little girl.

"People talk about gender equality. He has lived it, he has employed women at the highest levels of the Trump Organization for decades, so I think it's a great testament to how capable he thinks women are and has shown that his whole life."
H olocaust survivor and Nobel prize winner Elie Wiesel  praised as a great moral voice of our time  has died aged 87.

The extraordinary man was liberated from Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945 and went on to write a landmark book detailing the crimes of the Nazis, Night.

His death was announced on Saturday evening by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.

The staunch humanitarian, who lost his parents and sister in the Holocaust, spent the rest of his life speaking out for victims of violence and oppression.

Accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, he said: "Whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation, take sides.

"Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

Reacting to the news on Saturday US president Barack Obama tweeted: "Elie Wiesel was a great moral voice of our time and a conscience for our world.

"He was also a dear friend. We will miss him deeply."

Former foreign secretary and current president of the International Rescue Committee David Miliband also expressed his sadness at Mr Wiesel's passing.

He tweeted: "Elie Wiesel told me that while the word refugee may not be popular, everyone needs refuge. Extraordinary man, great humanitarian."

Sir Mick Davis, chairman of the Jewish Leadership Council, said Mr Wiesel "dedicated every waking moment" to Holocaust commemoration and to "preserving the of those darkest of times for future generations".

"As burdened as he was with his own suffering and that of all of the victims of the Shoah, he was living proof of the capacity of the human spirit to heal and overcome evil," he said.

"He constantly reminded us that the 'opposite of love is not hate but indifference' and challenged all of humanity to be accountable for their fellow man and to defend the weak and the oppressed.

"Elie called for us never to stand idly by in the face of injustice, for 'neutrality helps the oppressor' and 'silence encourages the tormentor'."

Mr Wiesel wrote more than 40 books and many essays during his lifetime, lectured around the world and served as a living reminder of the atrocities carried out by the Nazis.

He lived in New York and in 1963 became an American citizen. He eventually met and married fellow Holocaust survivor Marion Rose and they went on to have a son, Shlomo.

Additional reporting by PA
M ore than 100 people have been killed in a suicide bomb attack in Baghdad, the deadliest in months in the Iraqi capital.

The car bomb went off in shortly after midnight in a crowded shopping area in the central Karada district, killing at least 115 people and wounding 187, according to a police official.

Many of those killed and injured were out shopping and celebrating early Sunday ahead of Wednesday's Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of Ramadan, security and medical officials said.

The attack, which the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for, came despite a series of recent gains against the extremists, including the capture of Fallujah, which was believed to have been a source of such attacks.

The dead include at least 15 children, 10 women and six policemen. At least twelve other people were still missing and feared dead.

Most of the victims were inside a multi-story shopping and amusement mall, where dozens burned to death or suffocated, police said.

Blast: Iraqi firefighters and civilians gather at the site after a car bomb at a commercial area in Karada neighborhood / AP Photo/Hadi Mizban

It was the deadliest attack in Iraq since July 2015 and among the worst single bombings in more than a decade of war and insurgency.

"It was like an earthquake," said Karim Sami, a 35-year-old street vendor. "I wrapped up my goods and was heading home when I saw a fireball with a thunderous bombing," the father of three said.

"I was so scared to go back and started to make phone calls to my friends, but none answered." He said that one of his friends was killed, another was wounded and one was still missing.

As with many previous attacks, IS swiftly claimed responsibility for the bombing in an unverified statement posted online, saying it had targeted Shiite Muslims.

Firefighters and civilians could be seen carrying the dead away, their bodies wrapped in blankets and sheets, while a group of women sat on the pavement, crying for their loved ones.

Smoke could be seen billowing from the shopping centre, which was surrounded by the twisted and burned wreckage of cars and market stalls.

Aftermath: Iraqi security forces look for victims as civilians gather at the site / AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed

Elsewhere in Baghdad, a roadside bomb went off in the mostly Shiite Shaab neighborhood, killing five people and wounding 16, another police officer said. No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but it bore the hallmarks of IS militants.

The U.N. envoy for Iraq, Jan Kubis, described the Karada attack as "a cowardly and heinous act of unparalleled proportions" and urged the Iraqi government to redouble its security efforts to protect Iraqis during the Eid al-Fitr celebrations.

IS militants who "have suffered defeats at the battlefront are seeking to avenge their losses by targeting vulnerable civilians," Kubis added.

The White House also condemned the bombings, saying in a statement from National Security Council spokesman Ned Price: "These attacks only strengthen our resolve to support Iraqi security forces as they continue to take back territory from ISIL, just as we continue to intensify our efforts to root out ISIL's terrorist network and leaders."
A Muslim doctor was shot and stabbed as he headed to morning prayers at a mosque in Houston, Texas.

The incident came just a day after a Muslim man was beaten outside a Florida mosque.

The victim of the Texas incident, Dr. Arslan Tajammul, an eye specialist in his 30s, was undergoing surgery and was expected to survive, according to Mustafaa Carroll, executive director of the Houston branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

The doctor had parked his car and was walking to the Madrasah Islamiah mosque for the day's first prayers when he was ambushed and shot twice at about 5.30am local, before the three attackers fled on foot, Carroll said.

"Police said it was an attempted robbery so we're waiting to see what the investigation finds," he added.

"It's a real strange occurrence because the mosque is in a poor neighborhood, and they were wearing masks, which could mean all kinds of things."

Some people who pray at the mosque have been sleeping overnight there in the final days of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month that ends next week, he said.

Houston police did not immediately respond to a request for information.

The shooting took place a day after a Muslim man was beaten outside a Florida mosque that had been attended by the gunman who killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub.

The victim in that case was punched in the head and face outside the Fort Pierce Islamic Center just after 4am on Saturday, the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office said.

Taylor Anthony Mazzanti, 25, was arrested in the attack and was charged with felony battery, the sheriff's office said.

No racially motivated comments were made to the suspect during the incident, said the sheriff's office, which added the case is under investigation.

The Florida branch of CAIR, however, said the attacker made racially offensive remarks including: "You Muslims need to get back to your country" before the assault.

The Islamic Center's imam had requested extra security following last month's mass shooting by Omar Mateen at the Orlando gay nightclub Pulse.

Mateen had worshipped at the centre.
The Baghdad attacks come just over a week after Iraqi forces declared the city of Fallujah "fully liberated" from IS.

People gather at the site of a suicide car bomb in the Karada shopping area, in Baghdad. (Photo: Reuters)

By AP: At least 83 people have been killed and 176 wounded in two separate bomb attacks in the Iraqi capital this morning, Iraqi officials said.

In the deadliest attack, a car bomb hit Karada, a busy shopping district in the center of Baghdad, killing 78 people and wounding 160, according to police and hospital officials.

It struck as families and young people were out on the streets after breaking their daylight fast for the holy month of Ramadan.



ISLAMIC STATE CLAIMS RESPONSIBILTY

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The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the bombing in a statement posted online, saying they had deliberately targeted Shiite Muslims. The statement could not be independently verified.

At dawn today, fire fighters were still working to extinguish the blazes and bodies were still being recovered from charred buildings. Many of the dead were children, according to Associated Press reporters at the scene.

Ambulances could be heard rushing to the site for hours after the blast.

An eyewitness said the explosion caused fires at nearby clothing and cellphone shops. Hours after the bombing, Iraq's prime minister visited the blast site. Video footage uploaded to social media showed an angry crowd, with people calling Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi a "thief" and shouting at his convoy.

In the second attack, an improvised explosive device went off in eastern Baghdad, killing 5 people and wounding 16. No group claimed responsibility for the attack.

The casualty figures were confirmed by police and hospital officials, who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to release information to the press.

OPERATION TO RETAKE FALLUJAH

The Baghdad attacks come just over a week after Iraqi forces declared the city of Fallujah "fully liberated" from IS. Over the past year, Iraqi forces have racked up territorial gains against IS, retaking the city of Ramadi and the towns of Hit and Rutba, all in Iraq's vast Anbar province west of Baghdad.

Despite the government's battlefield victories, IS has repeatedly shown it remains capable of launching attacks far from the front-lines.

Before the launch of the operation to retake Fallujah, Iraq's prime minister was facing growing social unrest and anti-government protests in Baghdad sparked in part by popular anger at the lack of security in the capital. In one month, Baghdad's highly-fortified Green Zone, which houses government buildings and diplomatic missions was stormed twice by anti-government protesters.

IS still controls Iraq's second largest city of Mosul as well as significant patches of territory in the country's north and west.

--- ENDS ---
In a bid to impress voters in the upcoming 2017 Punjab Assembly election, AAP on Sunday unveiled its youth manifesto.

By Press Trust of India: With an eye on the 2017 Punjab Assembly election, AAP today unveiled its Youth Manifesto here promising 25 lakh jobs in five years, free Wi-Fi hotspots in villages and a special law for ensuring imprisonment till death for drug dealers.

Delhi Chief Minister and AAP National Convener Arvind Kejriwal unveiled the party's manifesto for the youth. The party, which is aiming to capture power in the state, will come out with separate manifestos for different sections of society.

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"Our endeavour is to make the Punjab youth job creators, instead of job seekers," the party said in the manifesto, prepared by Punjab Dialogue Committee Chairman Kanwar Sandhu, adding that 25 lakh jobs and employment opportunities will be created in the next five years.

AAP, if it forms government in the state, will create employment and entrepreneurship opportunities in both rural and urban areas, it said.

PROMISES CORRUPTION-FREE ADMINISTRATION

The party has also promised to make the administration corruption-free. "AAP government will launch a massive drive to root out corruption from all levels of administration and restore the credibility of the government of Punjab and the prestige of the state as the pre-eminent destination for setting up businesses, industry and trade," it said.

AAP will also set up 147 entrepreneurship and skilling centres, one in each block of the state. Special emphasis will be laid on agriculture and allied industries, including food processing, dairy farming and horticulture.

Incubation centres, called Punjab Launch Pads, will be set up in 10 major cities -- Mohali, Batala, Pathankot, Ludhiana, Patiala, Jalandhar, Bathinda, Hoshiarpur, Ferozepur and Amritsar.

"This will help the youth of Punjab turn their dreams of becoming innovators and entrepreneurs into reality with access to technology, infrastructure, finance, industry mentors and market opportunities," the party said.

FOREIGN EMPLOYMENT YOUTH BOARD TO BE SET UP



Foreign Employment Youth Board with five branches in Jalandhar, Amritsar, Mohali, Ludhiana and Sangrur will be established to advise and train the youth for foreign jobs.

A skill university, called Kanshi Ram Youth Skill University, will be set up in Doaba Region, with two regional campuses in Malwa and Majha. The university will conduct advanced studies in skill development.

Free Wi-Fi hotspots will be set up in all villages, cities and government colleges. This will provide connectivity to hundreds of thousands of youths in both rural and urban areas, it said.

AAP, if comes to power, will root out the mafia raj from government contracts. No MP, MLA, minister and their relatives will be eligible for government contracts. Youths will be preferred for the award of government contracts, it said.

On the issue of drug menace, the manifesto states that AAP, if voted to power, will "annihilate" the drug supply chain within one month of forming government.

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IMPRISONMENT TILL DEATH FOR DRUG DEALERS

A special law will be enacted to give imprisonment till death for drug dealers. Assets of all such convicts would be seized and auctioned, it said.

"A special drug task force will be created within Punjab Police at state and district levels for crackdown on sale and supply of drugs and high-level investigation will be launched to investigate the involvement of politicians and police officers in drug trade," AAP promised in its manifesto.

All "politically motivated and false cases" against youths will be withdrawn. Action will be taken against guilty policemen and politicians for "implicating" the youth of Punjab in "false" cases, it said.

A round-the-clock anti-drug help line number will be started.

Trade and industry will be incentivised in different ways to encourage them to give jobs to rehabilitated drug addicts.

This step aims at bringing the victims of drug trade back into the mainstream and enable them to lead a normal life, it said.



FREE DE-ADDICTION TREATMENT

Free de-addiction treatment will be provided in all government de-addiction and rehabilitation centers. Methods of de-addiction in all government and private de-addiction centers will regulated and standardised, it said.

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All candidates contesting local body and panchayat polls will have to compulsorily sign an affidavit declaring themselves to be "drug-free".

"We will also campaign for appropriate changes in the Representation of People's Act to make it mandatory for the assembly and parliamentary election candidates to also sign similar affidavits," the party said.

The party also said no fee will be required for applying to government jobs, it said.



JOB QUALIFYING EXAM CENTRES TO BE SET UP

Job Qualifying Exam Centres will also be set up in every district headquarter to make them easily accessible to job seekers from far flung areas. Interviews will be done away with and selection will be done purely based on merit to root out 'sifarish' (favouritism) and graft, the party promised.

Punjab is set to witness a three-cornered fight in the Assembly election. Ruling SAD-BJP alliance, Congress and AAP are the main contenders.

CCTV cameras will be installed in government schools.

On admission to Class IX, students will be given laptops under the Chief Minister's Student Benefit Scheme.

"All private education institutions in Punjab will have a mandatory annual audit for greater transparency in their functioning. Private schools will be disciplined and arbitrary and unreasonable fee hike will be stopped," it said.

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"Our government will enact a law to end exploitation of teachers in many non-government schools to ensure quality teaching in private schools too," it said.

THREE NEW MEDICAL COLLEGES TO BE SET UP

Three new medical colleges with training facility for nursing and para-medical will be established. The existing three medical colleges will be upgraded by increasing their seats, it said.

An institute for film and media studies will be established in Mohali to cater to the increasing interest of Punjabi youth in film and television industry.

"Punjab Olympic Mission" will be launched in 2017 to motivate and encourage sportspersons to earn laurels for the state, it said, adding that reward for those winning medals in sporting events will be enhanced.

For those winning gold, silver and bronze medals in Olympic Games, prize money will be hiked to Rs 5 crore, Rs 4 crore and Rs 3 crore respectively from Rs 1 crore, Rs 50 lakh and Rs 25 lakh at present, the party promised.

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: Agartala, July 3 (PTI) An alert was sounded along the 856-km long border with Bangladesh in view of the terrorist attack in a restaurant in Dhaka late Friday night, a top police official said today.

He said as soon as the report of terrorist attack in Dhaka was received here, BSF and all other security forces including state police, were alerted so that no unwanted element could cross the border to enter in Indian territory.

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Twenty hostages, including 19-year-old Indian teenager Tarishi Jain, were hacked to death by terrorists inside the cafe popular with expats in the diplomatic zone before commandos launched an assault killing six attackers and capturing one alive. PTI JOY SUS IKA

--- ENDS ---
A friend once commented to me that, This isnt America anymore. Thats pretty profound, for if it is not America anymore, what is it?

It still looks like America. I see amber waves of grain and purple mountain majesty above the fruited plain. These words from America the Beautiful have taken on an almost reverent meaning. They were penned in the summer of 1893 from atop Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Katharine Lee Bates, the author, had taken a wagon ride to the top of the 14,000-foot peak, and was gazing out across this great land.

What she saw was inspiring. What she wrote about was patriotism, as verses in her poem wandered from the obvious; the amazing view, focusing more on the people of this great nation.

She mentions the first time pilgrims feet landed in America. These were people strengthened by an impassioned stress, a thoroughfare for freedom beating across the wilderness.

She mentioned our heroes who more than self the country loved and mercy more than life. She mentions the citizens, the benefactors of those brave souls who gave their lives so we could remain free. She simply calls these people Patriots, and thought it important enough to mention their dreams, more often referred to today as the American Dream.

As Bates poem draws to a close, she writes that this land of 1893, and the people who called it home, were blessed, God shed His grace on thee. She ends with a very important line, Till nobler men keep once again.

Could this be what my friend was talking about when he told me this is no longer America? You see, high atop Pikes Peak, looking over what must have been an amazing view, Katharine Lee Bates had faith in people, our Patriots, our veterans and yes, in our leaders so much faith, she was convinced she could even see into the future, believing more noble men (leaders) would continue to govern as the free people of America intended.

From my view of America today, on our 240th birthday, with an obvious disconnect between our federal leaders (Congress) and those of us they try to govern, when only one in ten of us approve of their job performance,

I wonder what Katharine Lee Bates would think of our leaders today.

I can only speculate, but I think she may be a bit disappointed in those leaders, but would still have great faith in the American Spirit. I think she would remain convinced the real strength of our nation lies in the people, that the people will guide us to Thine alabaster cities gleaming and that God will continue to shed His grace on thee.

Happy 240th America!

Is the Spirit of America still alive and well? Let me know at greg.awtry@starherald.com
It is believed there were 10 people on board the plane, which had been missing since Friday, so the death toll could rise.

By Reuters: At least eight people have died after a Russian plane on a fire-fighting mission crashed in Siberia, Russian news agencies reported on Sunday.

Rescue workers found the Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane in the early hours of Sunday morning in Russia's Irkutsk region, according to a statement on the Emergency Situations Ministry website.

A photo accompanying the statement showed the plane smashed to pieces in dense forest, with the tail but little else intact.

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RIA news agency said six bodies had been found at the scene of the crash. It is believed there were 10 people on board the plane, which had been missing since Friday, so the death toll could rise.

A search-and-rescue operation has been launched involving land and air teams.

Russia has been criticised for its poor air safety record, and airplane crashes are frequent.

The multi-purpose Il-76 plane has been used by the Russian air force during Russia's military campaign in Syria.





--- ENDS ---
I dont understand why people hate cable TV companies so much. Theyve always been patient with me.

Take the last time I phoned Charter Communications. I couldnt get the cable to work on my daughters new TV.

Is the cable plugged into the box? asked the service rep.

Of course it is, I said, a little irritated at the question. Does he think Im an idiot?

Then I glanced around the back. Oops. I forgot to plug it in.

The Charter rep was polite when I admitted this. He didnt laugh at the idiot.

That was nice of him.

But other folks arent treated as sweetly as I was. Pay TV and internet services companies hold the two last places among 43 industries ranked in the American Consumer Satisfaction Index, taken from a survey of 70,000 customers.

Something about cable companies just ticks people off.

Dissatisfied consumers have been giving Congress an earful. So, staffers on the Senate Subcommittee on Permanent Investigations dug into it.

Cable and satellite companies often overcharge people  billing them for equipment they dont have or services they didnt want, the staffers found.

Charter Communications  which dominates the business in St. Louis  overcharges 5,897 Missouri customers $494,000 each year, the report said.

That may be because Charter didnt try to track down overcharges on its own until recently. It waited until a customer complained. Even then, it didnt give refunds.

Charter changed both policies after the Senate began asking about it. The company now promises a 12-month credit for people who are overcharged for equipment.

Those thousands of overcharges were only a tiny part of its overall billing, says Charter, claiming that 99 percent of its equipment charges are correct.

But William Lamb says his own bill is still wrong. He used to have three cable receivers, until he returned one several months ago. But three keep showing up on his bill, costing him an extra $6 a month.

Hes called Charter 15 or 20 times, said Lamb, who turned to the Post-Dispatch in frustration. Its unbelievable how they do you.

Why doesnt he just switch to the competition, AT&Ts U-Verse service or the Dish or Direct TV satellite companies?

Theyre all demagogues and tyrants, says Lamb, a retiree living in south St. Louis.

Charter spokeswoman Kimberly Noetzel said the company is checking his complaint. If an error has been made, we will absolutely work to make things right for this customer, she said.

Overcharges arent the only problem. The Senate report tells of a customer with poor vision who couldnt update his payment information online, and called Charter for help last December. The agents response  correct, according to Charter  was to refer the subscriber back to the website, which the customer could not see, the subcommittee reported.

Even U.S. senators get ticked off. Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, recorded her own testy call to her own provider, apparently Direct TV.

She was being charged $7.99 a month for a protection plan that covered service calls. She didnt remember signing up for it, and wanted it stopped. The phone rep said it would cost $10 to cancel it.

For you to stop charging me for this service, Im paying you $10? McCaskill asked, sounding outraged.

After threatening to switch TV companies, and being transferred to a retention agent, McCaskill got the protection plan canceled without charge, plus a $10 credit on her bill. The call took 15 minutes.

That gets to another irritant about satellite and cable companies. People often end up paying more than they expect. The price advertised in big type often doesnt include a lot of extra charges and taxes.

Theres often a fee for government regulation, and one for carrying local broadcast channels, for HD service and for various equipment. Fees alone can make up 40 percent of a bill.

Companies lure new customers with temporary low prices. Then customers are shocked when the discounts end, and prices jump as much as 50 percent.

McCaskill, who helped lead the investigation, said the industrys model is to rope in customers, then deal with the anger when the price goes up and hand them goodies temporarily to calm them down.

Big bills prompt customers to try to cancel or reduce service. But thats not easy to do, according to a separate report by the subcommittees Democratic staff. They found that canceling service takes a long chat with a specially trained agent.

The report quotes a training document from Time Warner Cable, which merged with Charter this spring. One of the most challenging things about being a retention agent is that to be successful, you have to do the opposite of what the customer is calling in for, the training document said. If the customer is calling into cancel, your goal is to not cancel the services! And if the customer wants to lower the bill, youre going to try to avoid that, and perhaps even raise the bill!

In fact, agents are trained to see all customer calls as an opportunity to upsell them into higher-priced services.

They use psychology. Dish and Time Warner train agents to use an assumptive close. Instead of asking Would you like HBO? they ask, Would you prefer HBO or Showtime on your account?

They may not ask at all. Dish suggests using this line; So you can start enjoying these movies immediately, I will add HBO to your account.

McCaskill complained that companies hide their lowest-priced station packages, while pushing the higher-priced ones. Sometimes customers arent given the cheapest package until theyre threatening to cancel service.

They dont know that companies may drop a fee if the customer complains. Dish, for instance, will drop its HD fee on request.

Nobody knows how to get the best price from you guys, McCaskill told the cable execs. Theres a secret sauce somewhere, and I think it has to do with being really mad.

Charter says its making its pricing simpler and easier to understand.

And that simplified approach is working, said Noetzel in an email. In the first quarter of 2016, Charter reported a 15 percent reduction in billing and service phone calls and a 19 percent reduction in service calls at the home  even as we added video, internet and phone customers.
To my grown grandchildren:

I want to explain to you  to justify  my vote in the tumultuous year of 2016.

Evelyn is the only one of you old enough to remember that year, and her memories are surely sketchy at best. She might remember kindergarten, her first experience at summer camp, but she will not remember the national angst of that political season.

The Democrats nominated Hillary Clinton. Her campaign belonged in a banana republic. Her husband was a former president who was constitutionally disqualified from running for a third term. Her theme song should have been, Dont Cry for Me, Argentina. She was the most corrupt presidential candidate in my memory.

More corrupt than her husband? Yes, but that was a matter of timing rather than morality. When the Clintons first arrived in Washington, they were ambitious  who in Washington is not?  but they were financially unsophisticated. They carried the baggage of low-rent scandals from Arkansas. A real-estate project called Whitewater was one. Also, Hillary had allegedly turned a $1,000 investment into $100,000 by shorting cattle futures. Cynics claimed the deals had been rigged by people eager to befriend her husband, a rising political star. Hillary contended she had studied the market. The Journal of Economics and Finance published an article that said the chances of an investor making those trades was 1 in 31 trillion.

By the time of the 2016 campaign, the Clintons were infinitely more sophisticated. The symbol of this sophistication was the Clinton Foundation. It was sheer genius. By moving out of the political realm into the world of charity, the Clintons could seek unlimited money from anybody, including foreign nationals and even foreign governments.

If a secretary of state had influence to sell, think what a president could offer potential donors.

Almost certainly, this co-mingling of the financial and the political is what led Hillary to establish a private email server during her tenure at the Department of State.

Back in 2016, I was concerned about this country becoming an oligarchy. The middle class was disappearing. The wealthy were becoming ever more wealthy. So I spent the spring of that year supporting a 74-year-old socialist. I hope history remembers Bernie Sanders fondly. He wanted to reform a political system that needed reforming. He fought the big banks.

Hillary supported the big banks. She accepted six-figure speaking fees from them. Chelsea Clinton married a Goldman Sachs banker, who then became a hedge fund manager. Most of the early investments in his fund came from Friends of Bill. (Oh, there were so many ways to give money to the Clintons! Even their critics had to admire their creativity in that regard.)

By the way, the son-in-laws father was another FOB, Edward Mezvinsky. He went to prison for fraud. He made off with $10 million of investors money. His victims included his mother-in-law.

Thats the thing about the Clintons. They had interesting friends. Hillarys longtime aide was Huma Abedin, who was married to Anthony Weiner, the former congressman who achieved infamy for sexting. Got caught and did it again. Then cooperated in a documentary about it all.

Maybe thats why my 74-year-old socialist lost. He wasnt interesting enough.

Did I say interesting? The Republicans nominated Donald Trump.

I was never a big viewer of cable television news. But during that primary season, I was glued to the television as Trump took on the Republican establishment. It was like watching a student election at a ritzy prep school. That was the intellectual level of it, anyway. Egged on by Trump, the candidates took turns debasing themselves. Only John Kasich, who seemed like a scholarship kid, maintained his dignity.

I was thrilled  I admit it  when Trump defied the pundits  know-it-alls!  and brought his opponents to heel, one after another, until finally only Lying Ted Cruz stood in his way. Then down went Lying Ted, and a certain reality took hold.

If the Clintons campaign had the smell of the Rio de la Plata, the Trump campaign had more than a whiff of the Rhine. There was the promise to round up and deport 11 million people. There was the suggestion of a database for American Muslims. What was that if not a 21st century version of sewing the Star of David onto the jackets of Jews?

I hope you have read Christopher Isherwoods The Berlin Stories. I hope you have watched Cabaret. The theme song for the Trump campaign could have been Tomorrow Belongs to Me.

Or maybe not. All comparisons to the Third Reich are overstated. Perhaps the wackiness of 2016 played havoc with my reasoning. At any rate, the country was faced with a terrible decision. I chose corruption. I hope it worked out.
MINEOLA, N.Y.  Scientists have deployed a buoy 22 miles off the coast of New Yorks Fire Island to monitor several species of great whales in near real-time.

The high-tech acoustic device will eavesdrop on the songs of the whales to better understand and safeguard their movements near two busy shipping lanes entering New York Harbor.

We know theyre there, but we know very little about them, said Dr. Howard Rosenbaum, director of Wildlife Conservation Societys Ocean Giants Program.

His New York-based organization, in collaboration with the New York Aquarium, has teamed with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts on the research project.

Scientists last week deployed the buoy, which is 4 feet in diameter with a mast standing 6 feet above the sea surface south of Long Island.

The buoy is connected by stretch hoses to a weighted frame that sits 125 feet below on the sea floor. The frame features high-tech listening devices connected to an underwater microphone.

The devices will focus on obtaining data on the sounds of several species of baleen whales because they are endangered, said Dr. Mark Baumgartner of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

The data will be transmitted back to scientists in near real-time, for analysis within about two hours, Rosenbaum said.

The buoy also will collect the sounds of other whales, but that information will be archived in the listening devices at the bottom of the sea and analyzed when the buoy is retrieved after a year, Baumgartner said.

The scientists noted that all whales rely on their acoustic environment to socialize and navigate, and they are vulnerable to underwater noise, ship strikes and fishing gear entanglements.

The research collected could help prevent ship strikes, and may be helpful as the federal government and New York state consider placing a massive wind energy farm offshore in the coming years.

The buoy has been placed inside what is called the New York Bight, which features busy shipping lanes and lucrative fishing grounds. The Bight is home to seven species of great whales, including the humpback whale  known for its acrobatics and long, haunting songs  and the blue whale.

The highly endangered North Atlantic right whale  one of the worlds rarest whale species  migrates through New York waters, and fin, sei, minke and sperm whales also have been seen or heard, the scientists said.

Similar buoys were deployed off the coasts of Massachusetts and Maine earlier this year, and a Cornell University project has deployed near real-time buoys in shipping lanes near Boston to help protect the animals from ship strikes in that area, Baumgartner said.

Scientists around the world deploy listening devices to study whales, but the projects off New York and New England are the only known projects that relay information in near real-time, he added.
There is a debt of service due from every man to his country, proportioned to the bounties which nature and fortune have measured to him.

Thomas Jefferson wrote these words 20 years after he wrote the Declaration of Independence, whose 240th anniversary we celebrate on this Fourth of July. They were part of an odd letter to his friend and fellow signer of the Declaration, Edward Rutledge of South Carolina.

Jefferson was writing to order 20 bushels of black-eyed peas from Rutledges farm, but he went on to protest the abuse visited on those in public service. This was a man whod just been elected vice president and who, four years later, would be elected to the first of two terms as president after helping to heap abuse on his old friend John Adams.

But he wanted Rutledge to understand he wasnt seeking power; he was in public life only because he had a debt of service.

On the nations 240th birthday, debt of service is no longer a universally embraced concept. Many Americans skate by. Roughly 40 percent of eligible voters dont show for presidential elections. Far fewer show up for off-year and local elections.

Only one in 14 of us has ever served in the military. Police officers, firefighters and other first responders pay their debt of service. So do elected officials, though too many of them see public service as a means of personal enrichment. They deserve the abuse that Jefferson spoke of.

Complaining about taxes has become a national pastime. Some of those on whom nature and fortune have bestowed the most bounty dont pay taxes at all and stash their money overseas.

Poll after poll shows a staggering lack of knowledge of civic affairs. Newspaper readership is down and so are audiences for TV and radio news. Microsoft estimates that a mere 4 percent of web users pay active attention to news sites  which is doubly troubling when matched with the numbers of presumably uninformed voters participating in elections.

Democracy cant work if its citizens dont pay attention. Demagogues and plutocrats will take advantage. False narratives can have disastrous consequences. See the Brexit election in Great Britain. That result was foreshadowed in April when an online survey found Britons eager to name a $300 million polar research vessel Boaty McBoatface. Rue, Britannia.

Patriots pay attention. They dont take their country for granted or treat participation as a joke.

In the United States, the very word patriot has been appropriated by right-wing extremist groups. The Southern Poverty Law Center uses patriot movement as shorthand for conspiracy-minded groups that see the federal government as their primary enemy. There were 149 such groups before the nation elected its first black president in 2008. Now there are over a thousand.

We want the word patriot back. It belongs to anyone who pays his or her debt of service, even if its just by paying attention to civic affairs. Anyone who seeks out facts and refuses to accept distractions and easy answers is a patriot. America is not just a name on a beer can.

Thats a pretty low bar. Consider Jefferson, Rutledge and the 54 others who signed that Declaration in 1776. Benjamin Franklin is said to have told them, We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.

Jefferson wasnt exaggerating when he wrote in the declaration that our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor were on the line. Those who today sneer at elitists should consider that the Declaration was written and signed by the colonial elite. All of them would have been better off trying to get along with King George III.

Instead they led a revolution. They found huge and engaged support in the colonies for independence. Within four months of its publication, Thomas Paines call to arms, Common Sense, had sold 400,000 copies in a fledgling nation of 3 million people.

Not everyone was willing to pick up a musket and fight; George Washingtons army at first was plagued by desertion and low re-enlistment rates. But when soldiers were offered land and opportunity, they stayed and fought, enduring dreadful casualty rates. Americas revolution was won, with a little help from France, by sharing the wealth.

This was an engaged citizenry. These were patriots. These were men and women who paid a debt of service for ideals they believed in. This is how the nation began, and this is the only way it will endure.
Sue Groenewegen is dressing conservatively. Dan Church plans to blend in. And Robin Smith is wearing less bling.

It was bound to happen, with all the recent incidents of terrorism and dire State Department warnings. The last thing anyone wants to do this summer, it seems, is to look too American, even when traveling domestically. But how do you avoid it?

As it turns out, clothing designers have anticipated this trend and are offering stylish summer threads that dont stand out. The options go beyond low-key shirts, pants and dresses in dark or muted colors; some of the attire is designed with security in mind. These clothes could save your life.

Thats important to people such as Groenewegen, an interior designer from Woodbridge, Calif. Before she left for a recent trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina, her tour leader warned her to dress conservatively, and she complied, choosing darker colors and more-subdued styles. She didnt pack any of her real jewelry (costume jewelry only, she says) to minimize losses.

Smith has gone a step further. I am wearing less bling, says the manager for a school district in Saxton, Penn. Part of the reason is to draw less attention to herself, but another part is to speed up the travel process. I recently flew to Tampa, and because my sweatshirt had sequinlike embellishments, I was pulled by security for an extra check, she recalls. I had to go through the pat-down because of all the metal on my shirt. Lesson learned. Wear plain clothing with nothing shiny or flashy on it.

Church, a retired newspaper editor, is more aware than ever of his appearance when he travels, particularly when I see fellow tourists clad head to foot from chain outlets in U.S. malls, he says. This summer, his intent is not so much to mask his national origin  after all, he says, when hes in Asia, theres not much he can do about being Caucasian  but rather to respect prevailing clothing norms.

So what to wear?

With all that is going on in our world today, travelers have many concerns, says Brian Thompson, general manager for the Seattle-based travel apparel company ExOfficio. Their clothes shouldnt be one of them.

ExOfficio offers several new products that are finding favor with the down-dressing crowd this summer. They include a womens Air Space shirt ($70), which comes in black, has a hidden security pocket and an understated style; and a mens Corsico shirt ($75), also lightweight, with sun protection and a security pocket.

Products such as the new Cubed Travel Jacket ($380), developed by New York apparel manufacturer Clothing Arts, are also resonating with security-conscious travelers. Adam Rapp, the companys founder, rolled out the minimalist, waterproof jacket at the beginning of the summer travel season, and says interest has been strong. One of the main selling points is that it looks inconspicuous, allowing travelers to blend in wherever they are.

The Cubed jacket offers copious pockets to protect your devices and valuables from thieves. The protection, however, would be pointless if you looked like a tourist or were dressed in attention-grabbing colors, Rapp says.

But does fitting in mean giving up your sense of style?

No, says Sarah Thies, a manager for adventure outfitter Orvis in Sunderland, Vt. Dressing conservatively does not mean that you have to forgo fashion, she says. For example, Orvis has several lines that are both stylish but not too in-your-face, including its womens guide pants ($89), which come in neutral colors and are lightweight for warmer temperatures, and its stretch-linen utility jacket ($159), which offers full cover without too much bulk.

One of the standard things I tell women to travel with, from an accessory standpoint, is a pareo or large scarf, says Lori Hirons, who founded the New York apparel company Island Contessa. It has multiple uses, including keeping you warm on a frigid plane, dressing up a more casual travel outfit and serving as a head scarf in Muslim countries where you dont want to stand out so much as a Westerner, out of respect. (Naturally, Island Contessa sells scarves that come in midnight blue, with an understated design, for $40.)

In addition to headgear, Maria Pinto recommends packing clothes that are functional but discreet. Pinto, who founded and designs the Chicago-based label M2057, advises wearing a long coat paired with a simple shift dress or a pair of comfortable pants. She recommends her Reefer coat ($645 list) for its clean lines and her Diana dress ($325 list). They make an elegant match but dont stand out.

Safety isnt the only reason to try to fit in. I also want my focus to be on absorbing the place and the people, she says. If youre dressed to draw attention to yourself, you might be missing what youve come to see.

All of which brings us to the things you should not wear this summer. If youre traveling overseas, avoid T-shirts and sweatshirts, particularly those with college or high school names. Often, they identify you as an American  and a target.
Bangladesh Minister Hasanul Haq Inu said that Pakistan maintains links with several terror networks.

Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka which was attacked on Friday night. (Photo: Reuters)

By India Today Web Desk: Bangladesh minister Hasanul Haq Inu on Sunday blamed Pakistan government and their Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) for the Dhaka restaurant terror attack in which 20 foreign nationals were hacked to death.

He said that Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI had connections with the Jamaat-e-Islami cadres in the past too.

Information Minister Hasanul Haq also revealed that the Bangladesh government had sacked few Pakistani diplomats who were involved with armed networks.

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"And recently few diplomats, who were working undercover in the Pakistan Embassy, were thrown out of the country because they were involved in armed networks," said the minister.

PAK GOVT, ISI HAVE RELATIONS WITH ARMED NETWORKS



Hasanul Haq went on to say that Pakistan government and the ISI network maintained clandestine relations with certain armed networks.

"They are openly supporting war criminals. So politically they are with Jamaat-e-Islami, politically they are with the militants. So that is a sad thing in the regional politics," he added.

NO ISIS, AL-QAEDA PRESENCE IN BANGLADESH

Following the incident, Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan refuted the reports claiming presence of ISIS and Al-Qaeda.

"Let me clear it again, there are no ISIS or Al-Qaeda presence or existence in Bangladesh. The hostage takers were all home-grown terrorists and not members of ISIS or any other international Islamist outfits," said Khan .

On Friday night, 20 people were killed after gunmen barged into the upscale Holey Artisan Bakery in Gulshan locality of Dhaka. Six militants were killed and one was captured alive by the security forces.

Meanwhile, security has been beefed up in Dhaka and surrounding areas. Police are engaged in combing operations across sensitive points in the capital city.

Also read:

Dhaka attack: One of the terrorists was educated boy from rich family, who once met Shraddha Kapoor

Dhaka terrorists have no connection with Islamic State, says Bangladesh minister

Dhaka attack: Five of killed IS terrorists were Bangladeshi citizens and wanted by police





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By PTI: Kolkata, Jul 3 (PTI) West Bengal has sought easing of National Clean Energy Fund (NCEF) norms for a Rs 7,047 crore 1,200 MW solar project in Purulia.

"There is a ceiling of 25MW for NCEF eligibility. In a recent meeting with Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal, we had asked to remove the 25MW ceiling and he has assured to do so," West Bengal State Power Minister Sobhandeb Chatterjee told PTI.

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West Bengal had sought 40 per cent funds under Viability Gap Funding (VGP) totalling around Rs 2,800 crore for the Turga mega power project.

Chatterjee said there are a lot of funds in the clean energy fund and government should provide money for such projects.

The 1,200 MW solar project would require 5000 acres but as the project is in Purulia, land is not likely to be an issue, a power department official said.

The state government wants to set up the solar plant to feed the second 1000 MW pump storage power plant in the same location to be built at cost of Rs 5200 crore.

Process for obtaining environmental and forest clearance is in progress.

Chatterjee said the Centre has given a target of 5000 MW of solar capacity in the state.

The Central government has set a target of solar power capacity of 100 GW by 2022. PTI BSM KK SUS ABM

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Rachel Martin

FAMILY and friends said an emotional goodbye to Stratford mum Rachael Martin on 23rd June during a funeral service at Oakley Wood Crematorium.

Around 150 mourners gathered at the crematoriums North Chapel to pay their respects to Rachael, who died in a tragic road traffic collision whilst saving her young daughter Keiras life on 20th May.

Keira, who suffered serious injuries to her pelvis and lower spine in the incident, has already undergone operations at St Georges Hospital in London and is currently undergoing treatment at Birmingham Childrens Hospital.

Six-year-old Keira arrived at the service in an ambulance, while her older sister Leah, who witnessed the accident on Western Road also attended.

The service was led by Reverend Patrick Taylor of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford and gave the opportunity for family and friends to pay tribute to a much-loved mother, daughter, sister and friend.

Speaking at the service, Rachaels father Bill Simpson, said: Your mum, dad, daughters, sisters, close relatives and friends are all here today because we miss you and love you so very much. Our brave heroic girl.

You have touched the hearts of everyone here today. Your ultimate sacrifice in saving little Keira's life will always be remembered with pride, respect and love.

We will miss your smile, your laughter, cheekiness and your stubbornness. Your mum and I will not miss your music or your cooking but we will miss your positive attitude to life, your strong will and determination and your love and devotion to Leah and Keira. We will miss all these things and more. Be at peace now our lovely daughter.

Leah and Keira are here today to show how much they love and miss you so very, very much. When I first saw Keira at the hospital she kept on saying mummy saved me, mummy saved me.

Rachael you have two remarkable daughters. You must be very proud of them. They have strong personalities  confident, outward going and fun to be with, just like you!

Speaking through tears, Bill went on to thank all those who had assisted at the scene of the accident, the work of the NHS in treating Keira, the emergency services, the air ambulance and Ronald McDonald House in Birmingham.

He added: Sue and I have not had the chance to fully grieve for our daughter Rachael but we know that one day when we suddenly find ourselves alone together we will be able to talk about Rachael and all the great times we had, and, as for all parents, the laughter and the tears. I am sure once the tears really come it will be difficult to stop.

We will cry and cry and cry. Then we will hold each other tight, wipe the tears from our eyes and leave to pick Leah and Keira up from school. They will greet us with smiles of joy and happiness and talk of their day at school and we will laugh and laugh and laugh.

Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much and with the help of family and friends, their school and school friends, Leah and Keira will have a good childhood. They will be deeply loved and cared for and will grow up always remembering their heroic mother Rachael.

Reading a tribute from Rachaels sisters Emma and Laura, Rev Patrick Taylor said: Although Im sad without you and wish that you were here, within my heart your lovely smile still shines bright and clear. I treasure all those memories of growing up with you, the secrets we would always share, the childish things wed do. As the years passed quickly by we grew closer still, I miss you dearest sister and you know I always will, love Emma and Laura.

Speaking later in the service Rev Patrick Taylor said that although physically Rachael was no longer here, she would live on through Keira and Leah.

He added: Im sure weve all heard parents say Id do anything for my kids, I must have said it myself. But words are one thing, the action of actually laying down your life for someone you love is quite another. Yet this is what Rachael did. She did it because of her love for her children.

In a tearful tribute to her best friend, Rachael Taylor, said herself and Rachael used to laugh and joke together like sisters, describing her as a fantastic, loving and beautiful mother and the best friend she could have asked for.

She added: Sleep tight my dear friend, we give you to the rest of the angels up there.

Donations at the service were given to Ronald McDonald House and the Warwickshire and Northamptonshire Air Ambulance.

Speaking after the service Mr Simpson said: I thought the vicar was very good and he said some lovely things about Rachael, he took the girls in after the service to Rachaels coffin so they could say a little prayer for their mum.

The ambulance staff from Birmingham Childrens Hospital were great too, Keira has a nurse called Dan and he came with her, even though it was his day off, to make sure she was alright.

Bill went on to thank staff from the Audi garage on Western Road for coming to the funeral and for looking after Leah following the accident.

A reporter from the Stratford Herald attended the funeral with permission of Rachaels family.
The logo of Germany's Federal Financial Supervisory Authority BaFin (Bundesanstalt fuer Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht) is pictured outside the former finance ministry building in Bonn, Germany, Germany, April 5, 2016. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German financial watchdog Bafin is opening a new office on Monday dedicated to corporate whistleblowers, aiming to encourage more business insiders to expose wrongdoing.

The move is designed to make more efficient use of the growing role whistleblowers are playing in uncovering bad behavior by individuals and companies within the financial sector.

Bafin said the new office will centralize the collection of details from whistleblowers and follow a special protocol to ensure identities are kept secret. The watchdog can also be contacted anonymously under the procedure.

"Protecting the people providing the information will have the highest priority," Bafin said.

Whistleblowers and leaks to the media have exposed a series of scandals in recent years, such as tax evasion or the setting up of shell companies by global banks on behalf of clients.[nL3N1781XE][nL2N1891KM]

A Luxembourg court this week handed out suspended sentences to two former accounting firm employees who leaked data about Luxembourg's tax deals with large corporations, highlighting the problems of balancing some countries' secrecy laws while protecting whistleblowers.[nL8N19L47B]

(Reporting by Jonathan Gould; Editing by David Goodman)
Business has picked up in Tirau since the opening of the new Cambridge Expressway.

The Cambridge expressway has had a positive impact on Tirau.

Since it opened last December, business have reported increased customers through their door.

The small increases were welcomed even though it meant more traffic.

TAMARA THORN Navdeep Shaglani, Tirau Subway store manager, said they've seen a 3 per cent increase in sales.

Carol Crocker from the Loose Goose said that the traffic had increased since the opening, but it had also brought a 5 per cent increase in business.

"Anyone who stops and shops is good for the area," she said.

Subway manager Navdeep Shaglani agreed, and said they'd seen an average increase in sales by 3 per cent since the expressway opening.

TAMARA THORN Melanie Farenas says customers have been telling her that it is easier to come straight to Tirau rather than stop in Cambridge.

He said the roads were becoming very busy with more traffic and tourists in the area.

"There have been huge lines out the door and sometimes it is hard for people to find a car park."

But it's not just food joints feeling the impact - retailers and petrol stations have also benefited.

Jassi Singh works at Caltex and said that business had taken off - weekends were extremely busy.

"All the traffic comes off the highway and stops here," he said.

Cambridge petrol stations used to be extremely busy, but since the expressway has been put in Tirau is busier because of all traffic coming directly from Hamilton.

"Summer will be crazy", Singh said, with the amount of people travelling to places such as Rotorua and Taupo, especially with tourists.

Retail worker Melanie Farenas, who runs her family business at Tirau Shell and Jade, said the bus stop had increased her business especially with tourists because it was just across the road.

"Customers said that it is easier to come straight to Tirau rather than stop in Cambridge," she said.

She said although the expressway has had a positive growing impact on Tirau it would also benefit Putaruru and Tokoroa.

Clothing manager Karen Wallace of Ebony Fashion said that her business was steady but every day was different.

"It did get busier to start with but the weather has had an impact."

If the busses stopped in the middle of town it would be more beneficial for everyone.
The court upheld an order by the authority for Tauranga Boys College to repay school fees.

A Tauranga school has lost its bid to challenge a report that found it was unlawful in removing students from its school for smoking marijuana.

Tauranga Boys College took disciplinary action after five German exchange students admitted smoking pot at a nearby park, outside of school hours.

Two of the boys were thrown out and one withdrew. The other two boys were allowed to stay because the school board believed they had a different attitude than their peers.

The school took the case to the high court after they were criticised by the Independent Education Appeal Authority.

READ MORE: School did not accept remorse of dope-smoking German students

The report has not yet been published, however, the authority upheld complaints made by two of the boys' families.

Jason McHerron, a lawyer assisting the court, said a perception by the board of a lack of remorse was held against the two students.

He said one of the boys cried his way through the disciplinary hearing, which was held in April, 2014.

The authority thought all the boys deeply regretted their actions and wanted to return to the school, McHerron said.

A lawyer for the college, said the process went astray in 2014 when the International Education Appeal Authority became involved.

The boys were not dealt with under normal disciplinary rules, lawyer Jessica Dickson told the court. The school had a contract with their parents, which included abstaining from taking illegal drugs, and the school acted under that contract.

McHerron said he could not find any evidence supporting the submission that the board of trustees terminated the contracts with the boys' families.

The board now appeared to concede that the process it followed was unlawful, McHerron said. International students enrolled at state schools such as Tauranga Boys College had to be treated the same as domestic students.

One of the school's challenges is over a decision that the boys should have been interviewed with the chance to have a lawyer present.

Justice Rebecca Ellis expressed surprise that the school thought one boy, who did not speak English well and whose position was at risk, should not have a lawyer to advise him.

The judge said there were some "reasonably fundamental human rights" involved, not just the right to education, but also touching upon immigration issues.

Justice Rebecca Ellis upheld the decision by the authority, which included refunding school fees for two of the students and an accommodation placement fee of $200 for the other student.

The school was also ordered to revoke the expulsion order for the two students and to advise Immigration New Zealand of the decision.
Owaisi on Friday said his party would provide legal help to the five youths arrested by the NIA on charges of involvement in an alleged ISIS terror module.

By Press Trust of India: BJP MLA T Raja Singh today demanded immediate arrest of MIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi for announcing that his party will provide legal help to five city-based youths arrested by NIA on charges of involvement in an alleged ISIS terror module. Alleging that the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) government in Telangana supports Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM), which in turn supports terrorists, the MLA from Goshamahal seat here also demanded the Centre to derecognise the MIM party.

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"On one hand Prime Minister Narendra Modi is touring the world to gather support to combat terror, which is a good initiative, but on the other hand, TRS government in Telangana is friends with MIM, which in turn, has friendship with terrorists," he claimed at a press conference in Hyderabad.

POLICE IS SLEEPING

Singh, known for his controversial statements who had also been booked for alleged hate speeches, further claimed that the Telangana Police is "sleeping", and asserted that the 'cordon and search' operation conducted by Hyderabad police is done only in the areas as directed by MIM. The NIA averted major "attack" not only in Telangana but in the country by arresting the five persons which the agency did only after thorough investigation, he said.

"I congratulate the NIA officers," added Singh.

"The revelations of the arrested accused to carry out terror attacks on religious places among others is shocking. The conspiracy has been foiled. But, Asaduddin Owaisi talks of providing legal aid to five IS suspects arrested by the NIA," Singh said and asked Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, whether it will be right to support MIM under such circumstances.

Owaisi on Friday said his party would provide legal help to the five youths arrested by the NIA on charges of involvement in an alleged ISIS terror module, but asserted his party does not support terrorism. Noting that the family members of the arrested youths met him and claimed they are innocent, the Hyderabad Lok Sabha MP had said he directed a senior advocate to provide legal help to them.

ARREST HIM IMMEDIATELY

Meanwhile, Singh claimed "earlier also, maximum number of terror suspects were arrested from old city and they all have been helped financially and in other ways by MIM. He sought to know why the TRS government was not initiating any action against them and claimed that the TRS indulged in 'vote bank politics' and, hence, was not taking any action against them. "Think over it, I request the chief minister to ban MIM party and book sedition case against Asaduddin and arrest him immediately. This is the time to initiate action," he said. The BJP MLA said he will next week meet Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and give him in writing all information he has on the "terrorist activities going on in Telangana".

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Legal pundits want expansion of CIABOC, FCID powers By Sunimalee Dias View(s): View(s):

A Sri Lankan team of legal experts are planning to make recommendations to the government calling for the expansion of powers of the key institutions looking into bribery and corruption and the polices new financial crimes division. The Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) requires an enhancement of its powers to cover money laundering to ensure they could issue an indictment on a case, Deputy Solicitor General Yasantha Kodagoda said addressing the public forum held on Tuesday in Colombo to discuss Combating corruption and Fraud: A Pragmatic Approach for Sri Lanka by the Bar Association of Sri Lanka.

This was carried out with the aim of obtaining the views and discussing issues pertaining to the implementation of the laws on bribery and corruption today in Sri Lanka and its gaps as part of a study funded by the American Bar Association. He said only the three main offences under the Penal Code namely Cheating, Criminal Beach of Trust and Criminal Misappropriation of Property did not cover the entire spectrum of fraudulent activity, he noted. Focusing on the law enforcement agencies and the statutory mandates it was understood that CIABOCs mandate to investigate and prosecute only bribery and corruption and illegal acquisition of assets did not cover instances of money laundering, which is the whitewashing of the proceeds of crime that arises out of bribery and corruption, Mr. Kodagoda explained.

In this respect, he pointed out that if an individual engages in corruption and financially gains the steps taken to conceal that crime by money laundering is not within the powers of CIABOC. Further people who engage in bribery and corruption engage in forgery of documents and criminal breach of trust, misappropriation and cheating, it was noted. As a result the view that emerged among the legal experts was that CIABOC should have the authority to investigate these matters. Another body that was identified was the Financial Crimes Investigation Division (FCID), which the legal experts pointed out should act in a more independent manner with powers similar to CIABOC to cover Penal Code offences and money laundering, market manipulation and insider trading.

In addition Mr. Kodagoda also explained it was imperative to enhance the flow of cases since the average time of committing a serious offence and the end of a High Court trial is a staggering 10 years and two months. In this respect, specialized High Courts need be established in the provinces to hear these cases by not just one judge but with specially trained judges on rotation to hear such cases in a bid to avoid being stereotype and ensure fair trial. Further Mr. Kodagoda during the discussion pointed out that it was necessary to empower the CIABOC with local and foreign investigating agencies. Law and Society Trust Chairman Chandra Jayaratne questioned the availability of adequate laws and regulations to address the issues pertaining to bribery and corruption and the impact of implementing these.

He highlighted that while naming and shaming may work in the villages but with those elected to power this method could help them to get into power. Further, Mr. Jayaratne noted that there is a need to create an environment to hand over the country to the people who are just not charged and also be considered fit and proper. As part of the regulation to declare the assets of public officials, it was found that the police receives about 120,000 which is a roomful of documents, but it was uncertain as to their accuracy, he noted. Questions were also raised on the matters pertaining to whether accountants were reporting on related party transactions and also noted that it was necessary to find the incentives and the dis-incentives that would bring the media to do their professional role.
Plans to upgrade state bungalows to cater to Chinese tourism demand By Duruthu Edirimuni Chandrasekera View(s): View(s):

The Ministry of Tourism is planning to upgrade all holiday bungalows in state plantations in a bid to cater to the rising demand from Chinese tourists, ministry officials said. The Ministry will be calling for tenders on Public Partnership (PPP) when upgrading these properties, an official told the Business Times. According to him therere many hoteliers and interested parties who want to set up exclusive operations catering to the Chinese tourists. Therere many who wanted these bungalows (plantation) in order to upgrade them and cater to maybe a group of 10 Chinese tourists. What the tourists want are the facilities that are authentically Chinese. So what these hoteliers want is to tailor authentic Chinese cuisine, Chinese settings, etc for these tourists.

Also Chinese tourists are mostly young and look towards adventure and discovery, he said adding that bungalows in heritage destinations such as Dambulla, Sigiriya, Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Kandy and Kurunegala will be ideal in this respect. Also bungalows in national parks and sanctuaries: Kumana, Uda Walawa, Wilpathtu, Yala, Habarana and Sinharaja are earmarked to be upgraded, he said adding that the prospective developers are interested in plantations in the hill country- Kandy, Nuwara Eliya, Bandarawela and Hatton. The official who joined the Minister of Tourism Development John Amaratunga on his visit to China last month to participate in the World Conference on Tourism for Development said that many Chinese want to hold their weddings in Sri Lanka.

He said that Sri Lanka has always been an ideal destination for exotic wedding ceremonies and currently it enjoys the third spot on most popular destination for weddings and honeymoons in the world. In this scenario, the bungalows will serve as an ideal setting, he added. He said that some Chinese parties have already expressed interest in destination weddings in the island. While a proper count of how many properties the government owns hasnt been done, the official said they will call on all state plantations to submit these details. Sri Lanka received some 230,000 tourists from China last year.
Some cancellations as SriLankan Airlines seeks to cut routes By Sunimalee Dias View(s): View(s):

Some tourists visiting Sri Lanka have made immediate cancellations and flight changes following SriLankan Airlines announcement to pull out of the European sector barring London. But industry spokesmen were divided on the outcome with some optimistic the show will go on. Sri Lanka Association of Inbound Tour Operators (SLAITO) President Devendra Senaratne told the Business Times on Friday that there was a definite impact with some travellers changing their flights and a few bookings getting cancelled. This week the airline said it was pulling out of Paris and Frankfurt with flights ending on November 6 this year though in a February announcement the airline said the Frankfurt sector will continue.

The tourism industry sees SriLankan Airlines moving out of the European sector as a very big move since this sector brings in about 58 per cent of the turnover from this key market. After a major marketing drive to push the brand in Europe, about 20 years ago the carrier pulled out of this sector, which led to Emirates moving in. He said that it is possible that in future some of the West Asian airlines might take over this route.

In fact plans at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) to close operations due to maintenance for three months next year is also sparking some anxiety as this too had led to cancellations since most of the Arab carriers arrive during this time and there would definitely be an impact, he explained.

In the wake of these developments, Mr. Senaratne noted they have asked tour operators to reschedule flights and fly on carriers that operate at other times. However, despite requests by SLAITO for information from Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) on details of the airport closure and times no feedback has been received to date. The SLAITO President estimated that at least a 15-20 per cent drop in arrivals is expected based on the airline rescheduling flights and the BIA closure next year. Earlier during the year, SLAITO had met with the SriLankan Airlines management to discuss issues regarding the flights to Europe and to insist on continuing their operations.

However, even at that stage, Mr. Senaratne explained the airline was open about the fact that they were likely to close this sector since it was not viable to the carrier particularly France and Germany. While some operators believe that Britain moving out of Europe is likely to impact tour operators and tourists alike others opine the show would go on all in good time. Britains exit from Europe will hurt the local tour operators who would lose based on six month contracts as they would be compelled to stick to the prices agreed upon. Moreover, new bookings would find the costs going up as most would not prefer travelling long haul except for the FIT market, Mr. Senaratne said.

Tourist Hotels Association of Sri Lanka (THASL) President Hiran Cooray commenting on the SriLankan Airlines pull out of Europe said that from a hospitality point of view they are going to give away the business to other competitors and are moving out at a wrong time since the French and Germans dont have a place to travel to and Sri Lanka is a sought after destinations. He noted that the industry was likely to be impacted but some other carriers might take over and it is always better to fly direct to a destination than stopping in West Asia. Sounding more optimistic Mr. Cooray noted that Britains exit from Europe, however was very unlikely to impact on Sri Lankas tourist arrivals since it is expected to have a bit of a shake up until they sort things out but after that the show will go on.
Sri Lanka gears up for economic transformation with McKenzie By Bandula Sirimanna View(s): View(s):

Sri Lanka is gearing up for a significant economic transformation in the next one and a half years with the expertise of a Hong Kong-based law firm amidst a global economic meltdown and the ripple effect of Brexit on the global economy. Law firm Baker & McKenzie has been assigned with the task of coordinating economic transformation in the island, Advisor to the Ministry of National Policies and Economic Affairs R. Paskaralingam told the Cabinet Committee on Economic Management (CCEM) recently. According to Finance Ministry sources, changes are being made to increase economic competitiveness and growth and new strategies, both mid-term and long-term, to support production and Foreign Direct Investment will be unveiled soon.

Baker & McKenzie will extend its expertise in accelerating programme management operations including the building of the capabilities of the key government officials and intensify implementation of problem solving procedure for selected priority projects, a senior Finance Ministry official said. The Hong Kong-based law firm will also conduct initial preparatory work to set up delivery labs which bring together 20 or 30 people from all appropriate departments to develop solutions for problems in the implementation of priority projects. Several selected retired senior military officers are to be assigned the task of coordinating certain projects at district level.

The Malaysian model for project monitoring developed by McKenzie will be introduced to Sri Lanka under this initiative, he added. Sri Lanka has assigned McKenzie to draft new laws as well as to revise existing laws relating to fiscal and the monetary sector, restructuring insolvency, real estate, assets, residency and property, intellectual property and tax. The company will be entrusted with the task of also drafting new laws for the establishment of the Colombo International Financial Centre (CIFC).
Sri Lanka Megapolis initiative kicks off with light rail project View(s):

A Light Rail Transit (LRT) system for mass transit in the Western Province has been approved by the Cabinet of Ministers, kicking off Sri Lankas much-hyped Megapolis project., While the long term plan developed by the Megapolis team includes an LRT network of approximately 75 km, the initial investment is to cover around 25 km connecting Fort, Kollupitiya, Bambalapitiya, Borella, Maradana, Rajagiriya, Battaramulla and Malabe, the Megapolis project team said in a media release. The initial segments of the LRT system will be elevated, given the high density of existing development. The LRT system is also expected to interconnect with the rail and bus networks to provide part of an integrated solution.

Funding for the project is being sought by the Government through a concessional financing facility from Japan. The Megapolis transport strategy places a sharp focus on improvement of mass transit. The overall plan includes introduction of a light rail system, electrification of railways, modernisation of the bus transportation system as well as an introduction of canal transport. It also includes the implementation of some immediate measures such as introduction of CCTV monitoring to strengthen enforcement, introduction of staggered working hours, synchronisation of traffic light systems, etc, the release said.

It quoted Ajita de Costa, Chairman of the Western Region Megapolis Project, as saying that Finding a sustainable and long term solution for the citys increasing congestion is one of the primary targets of the Megapolis project. The introduction of LRT will be truly transformation for our city. Achieving consensus within government around this critical intervention after much debate is also an achievement. Light rail, also referred to as light metro, is a proven technology used in many countries as the preferred mode of mass transit. It forms the backbone of transport networks in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, New Delhi, Calgary, Gold Coast, Dallas, Los Angeles and many other major cities worldwide.
The border sentinels of the nation have already increased vigil at the international boarder and senior officials told India Today on Sunday that alert levels which are normally very high have further been increased.

By David Laitphlang: Alert personnel of the Meghalaya Frontier of the Border Security Force on Saturday apprehended and repelled thirteen Bangladesh nationals who were trying to infiltrate into India from Mahadev, near Maheshkhola land customs station in South Garo Hills.

Twelve of them were Hindu pandits who were trying to enter India after recent attacks on minorities by Islamic fundamentalists of the Wahabi and Talibani variety.

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INCREASED VIGIL



Meanwhile, the border sentinels of the nation have already increased vigil at the international boarder and senior officials told India Today on Sunday that alert levels which are normally very high have further been increased.

"We have never been slack in our duty but after the Dhaka attack, our forces have been strictly instructed to maintain extreme high vigil throughout the 443 km stretch of the international boundary with Bangladesh which falls under our frontier," a senior official stated while requesting anonymity.

CATTLE SMUGGLING

In fact, the official added that the month being significant month for the Muslim community, the BSF was already maintain high vigil since cattle smuggling normally increases during such period.

"Besides the illegal immigrants driven back by our personnel, in the last two days itself we have seized more than fifty cattle head," the officer revealed while asserting, "This in itself clearly indicates our no nonsense approach while defending our nation's borders from any threat whatsoever."

Embedded sources in the BSF told EC that personnel strength in all outposts have been buttressed already even prior to the Dhaka attack on Friday night. "Significant manpower has been dispatched from frontier headquarters to all sectors and we are well prepared to handle any challenging situation," another official revealed.

ALSO READ:

Security beefed up in Kolkata after B'desh terror attack





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Sri Lankaspita-pita bond game View(s):

More than the uncertainty and guessing games over whether former Central Bank (CB) Governor Arjuna Mahendran is guilty or not in tainted Treasury bond issues is the very existence of the present administration. Both President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe have publicly given contradictory views on Mahendran exposing a major political leadership crisis in the government. This came to the fore on Thursday evening when the PM  despite the President announcing in a tweet on Wednesday that he would be appointing a new Governor within a couple of hours  sought to stall that announcement. On Thursday, the PM told state TV broadcaster, ITN in a televised interview, that the former Governor is so far not guilty having being cleared by a UNP Committee, the Supreme Court and a police investigation. A statement that is nice on paper but factually incorrect.

While the 3-man committee of lawyers, which came in for a lot of flak as the members were UNP supporters, cleared the Governor of any wrongdoing, it said further investigation was merited. The Supreme Court didnt fully investigate the allegations apart from refusing leave to appeal in a petition filed over the bond process while to the public at large, this is the first time one hears of a police probe into the February 2015 bond scam in which the Governor is accused of favouring his son-in-laws firm, Perpetual Treasuries. It was not only the PM who has faulted in this process but the President jumped the gun in announcing that he would appoint a new governor on Wednesday. And then there was absolute silence instead of informing the people as to why a new governor was not appointed as promised!

There were also reports that the President had gone to the bank on Wednesday armed with the appointment of Deputy Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe, the most senior deputy governor at the bank who has been sidelined by Mahendran in favour of Deputy Governor P. Samarasiri. However with the PMs sudden entry with Mahendran at the bank, the President appeared to have postponed his plan. Such a move by the President in addressing bank staff and planning to announce the appointment of a new Governor is also not established practice and sets a bad precedent. At stake is not only the urgent appointment of a Governor (by 10 am on Friday July 1 a new appointment was yet to be announced) but an emerging political fallout which threatens the continuation of the 2-party government.

After parliamentary polls in August, the two main political parties (UNP and SLFP) formed a national government for a period of two years. With one year almost over, the second year is set to be a tumultuous period given the emerging crises in the government with UNP and SLFP minister pulling in different directions and openly attacking each other. While the two leaders  President and PM  have by and large distanced themselves from the infighting, the CB crisis is threatening that smooth relationship at the top. According to reliable sources, the PM has said that if Mahendran is proved guilty in the report of the Parliamentary Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE), then he would bow to the verdict. But until the COPE probe is completed, the PMs nominee is UNP loyalist Charitha Ratwatte who would then step down to make way for Mahendrans return, if the latter is cleared by COPE.

The issues and developments over the past few days and statements made by different stakeholders in some cases have been from the sublime to the ridiculous. Some ministers have gone on record suggesting that an acting governor would be appointed not realising (or due to lack of knowledge plus shooting off the hip) that an acting appointment is not permissible under the Monetary Law (as pointed out in many of our previous editorials). However the Attorney General (AG) appears to hold the view that an acting appointment can be made, though how is unclear. On Thursday at an emergency meeting of the Monetary Board, Samarasiri had produced a letter from the AG stating such a view though Treasury Secretary R.H.S. Samaratunga pointed out that the Monetary Law doesnt permit such an appointment.

Legal experts from both sides have been studying the law, though until a few weeks back (at the time when the Business Times raised this issue) no one in the government realised that the law doesnt permit an acting appointment. However an acting appointment may be possible using Presidential powers, if the President is persuaded to by the PM. For instance though the Monetary Law explicitly says that the CB comes under the Minister in charge of Finance, the President, on the PMs recommendation brought it under the latters ministry, lock, stock and barrel last year, setting a precedent. A miffed Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake then said publicly that he had nothing to do with the CB.

Now with the evolving crisis, Karunanayake is back in the reckoning as the President has been persuaded to consult him as per Monetary Law on the appointment and that would happen only next week when the former returns from China after an official visit. However it is also possible that by the time this edition is on the newsstands or in the hands of readers, a new appointment would have been made. In the year-long drama, the Finance Minister and 30-year old Arjun Aloysius  Mahendrans son-in-law, have becomes pawns as both leaders play games and keep the public guessing. The end result is that the appointment of the Governor which historically has been a smooth and unruffled process has led to a political deadlock causing many precedents and possible changes in law  all for the love of a Singaporean banker and his son-in-law.
A series of raps over the yahapalanaya knuckles View(s):

There is a singularly wretched problem confronting the Sri Lankan people. Stripped down to its essentials, this means that the countrys politicians must not be allowed to dilute democratic gains of January 2015 by replacing abject Rajapaksa non-governance during the last decade with appealing labels on institutions which make us all feel a bit more comfortable about ourselves but with the underlying failure of democratic systems still continuing.

Not enough merely to dissent

It should not suffice merely to trumpet gladly that citizens have the right to dissent and to protest. Dissent was also possible during the Rajapaksa era if citizens had exhibited basic courage and determination. Probably if that fortitude had been displayed by greater numbers, the Rajapaksa regime might have been brought to its knees much sooner and without causing such extensive degradation to institutional governance.

But Sri Lankas political landscape is certainly stubbornly resistant to change. As a regrettable case in point, one has only to look at last weeks deadlock between President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe over the Governorship of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL).

In all respects, former Governor Arjuna Mahendran should not have generated such extraordinary tension. Given the controversy that surrounded his actions for an unacceptable period of time, the Prime Minister and his confidantes should have heeded that apt Shakespearean warning that like Ceasars wife, the CBSL Governor should not only be above suspicion but seen to be above suspicion as well. Instead, sturdy defences were advanced to justify their positions. The damage done to the reputation of the CBSL was considerable. And the passing of the proverbial buck to the Parliamentary Committee on Public Enterprise (COPE) had all the calamitous potential for an implosion in the unity Government.

External appearances and internal dysfunctions

What occurred thereafter was akin to a page turner of a tense crime novel. On Friday, insulting the intellect of citizens, we were told to await, with presumably bated breath, the arrival of the Finance Minister to decide on the new appointment of the CBSL Governor even though this would have been quite supremely extraneous to the issue. To add hilarity to the mix, a release issued by the Information Department to that effect was denounced as false in subsequent agitated denials. On Saturday, the deadlock was seemingly resolved by the Presidents announcement of a new Governor.

But this is no reason for contentment. This appointment means very little if the enabling environment is not conducive to the independent functioning of the CBSL. One has only to look at the recent resignation of the Director General of Wildlife Conservation, a well regarded professional. And for the future, the appointment of the CBSL Governor should be included in the schedule of appointments to key positions that are vetted by the Constitutional Council.

That said, the CC itself must be divested of its obnoxiously political character. Its record so far under the 19th Amendment has not been reassuring with inconsistent decision making in conflict with its constitutional role. Responding to public concerns, the CC recently issued an explanatory statement on its functioning. But there is no real clarity thereto. This is directly in contrast to both the composition and functioning of its predecessor under the 17th Amendment. It is important that external appearances should not be belied by internal (political) dysfunctions.

The dross of good looking labels

Indeed, the extent to which good looking labels are skillfully employed in this yahapalanaya age is well seen in last months judgment of the Supreme Court relating to bids for the supply of coal for the Lakvijaya Coal Power Plant (SC FR No. 394/2015, SCM 24/06/2016) The Court administered a well deserved rap over the government knuckles for the blatant ignoring by all senior government agencies of the Government Procurement Guidelines in favouring a particular bidder.

The order reveals an astounding subversion of procurement guidelines by government agencies operating under the banner of yahapalanaya. These include the Standing Cabinet Appointed Procurement Committee brought to task for ignoring essential steps of the evaluation procedure in directing the Technical Evaluation Committee (TEC) to re-evaluate the bids. Equally grievously, the Standing Cabinet Appointed Procurement Committee had permitted lobbying of itself by the favoured bidder during the evaluation of bids.

In ruling that the contract entered into with the favoured bidder may be terminated after giving reasonable notice and fresh bids may be called for in terms of the law in regard to the supply of coal following competitive bidding procedure, the judicial conscience was proclaimed as shocked.

Dexterous evasion of public accountability

One cannot resist the mischievous aside that it is heartening to see Sri Lankas judicial conscience alive and well after years of suspected atrophy. Nonetheless, the judges must be commended for examining the merits of the case despite their predictable conclusion that the petitioner company in Singapore (and a rejected bidder) had no locus standi to invoke the jurisdiction of the Court. Refusing to let this technical bar stand in the way of substantially considering the matter, the Court reminded that otherwise, a government agency will be left free to violate the law which is contrary to the public interest in violation of the Rule of Law.

Notably, the judges observed that every organ of the State must act within the limits of its power and carry out the duty imposed upon it in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution and the law; the Court cannot close its eyes and allow the actions of the State or the Public Authority go unchecked in its operations, in the public interest.

The Court also reprimanded the Procurement Appeal Board for failing to give a right to be heard to the rejected bidder despite holding out an expectation in that regard. But regardless of judicial conscience and the last minute appointment of the Governor of Sri Lankas Central Bank, the devilish dexterity with which politicians manipulate public opinion which they hold so clearly in contempt, is manifest.

So that dilemma before us continues. Dissent and criticism should not result in the same failures of public accountability, albeit in a more sophisticated manner and with a somewhat more acceptable face.

That, by itself, is very clear.
President calls the shots: Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy Central Bank Governor View(s):

PM, Malik called for meeting yesterday to be told of decision; Ranil agrees though he preferred Charitha Ratwatte

Sirisenas strong stand strengthens his position within SLFP and hold on Govt., VAT revision, revolutionary measures to liberalise economy

CID acts against Sajin Vass after demand by civic action groups; shocking details of alleged extortion; 15 bank accounts for Rs. 610 million

By Our Political Editor

President Maithripala Sirisena yesterday appointed Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy a renowned diplomat and economist, as the Governor of the Central Bank  ending weeks of speculation over who will take the post.

The move which climaxed a behind-the-scenes drama this week had pitted the two key players of the Government  the United National Party (UNP) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP)  on a virtual collision course.

The first intimation of Dr. Coomaraswamys appointment came in the Presidents twitter account. It said: After consulting all parties relevant, I appointed Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy to head the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.

Ahead of the appointment, Sirisena met Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and Development Strategies and International Trade Minister Malik Samarawickrema last morning. He conveyed his decision to appoint Dr. Coomaraswamy. The Premier agreed and Minister Samarawickrema also agreed to release Dr. Coomaraswamy who was serving as Advisor in his Ministry.

Premier Wickremesinghe told the Sunday Times: Dr Coomaraswamy is a capable person. He comes in at a time when there will be a new Foreign Exchange Act, a Financial and Business Centre (at the Colombo Port City), and measures to strengthen Bank Regulations. He said the country needed a person who could interact with the international community when we are opening ourselves to the outside world.

PMs letter on Thursday

Aggravating the situation was an urgent letter Prime Minister Wickremesinghe wrote to President Sirisena on Thursday. It was on this day (June 30) that Arjuna Mahendran ceased to be Governor. He had assumed office on January 26, 2015 after the resignation, just after the presidential election, of the previous incumbent Ajith Nivard Cabraal. Mahendran served the remainder of Cabraals term.

Premier Wickremesinghe declined to reveal the contents of his letter except to say he had made some observations. Other well-placed sources, however, revealed that he told Sirisena (in the letter) that he had the concurrence of the Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake to recommend Charitha Ratwatte as the new Governor. According to UNP sources, this was for a limited period until the COPE investigation against Mahendran was concluded. It was believed that the COPE would rule that there were no charges against Mahendran. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL), he had said, has been gazetted under him as Minister of National Policies and Economic Affairs.

Nevertheless, he had acknowledged that the Monetary Law Act, as it stood now, said: The Governor of the Central Bank shall be appointed by the President on the recommendation of the Minister in charge of the subject of Finance. Hence, he had pointed out that the appointment could not be made by the President. It would have to await the return of the Finance Minister who is now abroad. The President and I have a clear understanding on this, said Wickremesinghe.

However, Sirisena is learnt to have replied asking the Premier to recommend more names  an indication that he was not in favour of appointing Ratwatte, which appeared a temporary measure. The Premier had not done so. Sources close to the President said he sent the Premier a list of five names, which included Dr. Coomaraswamy, and urged him to recommend one. Wickremesinghe was of the view that if it was not Mahendran, it should then be Ratwatte who should be the Governor. Sirisena had not received any more recommendations.

Thereafter, these sources said acting in accordance with the Monetary Law Act, President Sirisena appointed Dr. Coomaraswamy. This was after a recommendation had been made by the acting Finance Minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena in keeping with provisions of the law. Ahead of the move, a leading Colombo lawyer was consulted on the legal aspects. He opined that the acting Minister was empowered to make a recommendation since he was performing the functions of the Minister of Finance. The son of Raju Coomaraswamy (Roving Raju) an accomplished diplomat, Dr Coomaraswamy had previously served in different positions in the Commonwealth Secretariat and even the Central Bank.

On Friday night there was heightened activity after the Government Information Department issued a news release. It said, President Maithripala Sirisena will appoint a new Central Bank Governor in consultation with the Prime Minister once the recommendation is received from the Minister of Finance. The recommendation of the Finance Minister is also required to appoint the Central Bank Governor. Accordingly he will be appointed once the Finance Minister who is presently abroad on an official mission returns to the country and submits his recommendation..

Barely an hour after this was issued, Ranga Kalansuriya, Director General of Media at the Government Information Department contacted media outlets and urged them not to use this news release. Evidently, it had been released without the Presidents approval. Later on Friday night, Nimal Bopage, Secretary to the Ministry of Media (a nominee of President Sirisena) said in a statement that no media statement has been issued by the Department of Information on the subject of the Governor of the Central Bank.

In remarks he made before the appointment of Dr Coomaraswamy, Premier Wickremesinghe told the Sunday Times, There is no question of an interim or acting Governor. Such things dont exist. There is no provision in the law for it. He said a person should be named for the tenure stipulated in the law  six years. It was up to him or her to prematurely end their term, he pointed out. He revealed that draft legislation was ready to be introduced in Parliament to bring the Central Bank (among other institutions) under the Ministry of National Policies and Economic Affairs. Then, it would be this Minister (at present the Premier) who will make the recommendation. Wickremesinghe was disappointed that a planned bond issue on Monday did not materialise. He said a new date would be set soon.

Karunanayake summoned

On Thursday, the Prime Ministers Secretariat was telephoning Karunanayake who was overseas, to ask him to return to Sri Lanka immediately. He was first in Beijing for a meeting of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Thereafter, he had flown to Tokyo for a meeting of finance ministers. Premier Wickremesinghe spoke to Karunanayake on the telephone to tell him that his presence in Colombo was essential and to cut short his visit. As a result, he will return to Colombo today (Sunday). He was told yesterday there was now no need to rush back.

The fact that a new Governor has been appointed is in itself a significant development. Sirisena has thus shut the door on Mahendran. Earlier, some UNPers believed a new appointees term may be limited by arrangement. This assumption was on the basis that the impending report by the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE), the Parliamentary oversight committee, where the majority are UNP members, would clear Mahendran.

Sirisena loyalists asserted that Dr. Coomaraswamys new appointment would be for the next six years, and declared it was a move which sent a strong signal locally and internationally that the President was calling the shots. In doing so, he also makes sure he does not offend the senior SLFP ministers who wanted Mahendran out, said one of them. Surely, he (the President) will not want to be seen as doing everything the UNP way, he said. He added he has to be assertive to strengthen the SLFP and make it a strong force.

Even before the new CBSL Governor issue aggravated to become a bone of contention between the UNP and the SLFP, a tripartite meeting of the President, the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister was due though not on the same day. This was to discuss further relief measures arising out of the VAT increase that has led to a countrywide campaign by small traders. The campaign is fast gaining momentum. Other far-reaching revolutionary measures to liberalise the economy by lifting controls in many spheres were to be discussed. The Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai models have been examined. The likelihood of this being announced through a policy statement is not being ruled out. These measures including VAT revisions were to be made public this month. This week there was a lockdown of shops in Anuradhapura, Kandy, Serunuwara, Kiribathgoda and Warakapola.

Those who are behind the campaign to close shops are opposition politicians against whom probes are under way for bribery or corruption, Karunanayake told the Sunday Times speaking on the telephone from Tokyo. He said the move to increase the tax base was envisaged to give relief to those affected by the VAT. However, Joint Opposition leader Dinesh Gunawardena defended the protests. We are supporting the consumers and the traders who are badly hit. The VAT was not approved by Parliament. It was not in the budget proposals for which the majority voted, he told the Sunday Times. He said that the Joint Opposition welcomed the appointment of a new Governor, an experienced professional and respected in his field. He said he hoped the new Governor would restore Central Banks credibility.

The issue over the CBSL Governor zoomed into a heated controversy on Wednesday. This began with a one line message from President Sirisenas official twitter account at 11.46 a.m. on Wednesday (June 29). It said I will appoint a new Governor to the Central Bank in the coming hours. It has obviously been tweeted by his staff. Sirisena was airborne by that time in an Air Force helicopter to the Mahaweli Grounds in Girandurukotte. There too he told a public meeting that within hours a new Central Bank Governor would be named. Making strong forecasts of coming events and not ensuring that they are a reality is not new to Sirisena. Perhaps he is savvy enough to become wiser after advertising coming attractions. Once he told a public meeting in Polonnaruwa that he would send home officials responsible for placing tax burdens on the people. Yet, the officials and the burdens remain. He cannot be blamed for this since he is giving leadership to a coalition where a wide communication gap exists. His dilemma is reflected in some day-to-day developments. Sirisena once told a meeting in the North Central Province that there would be changes in the VAT. A Government Minister had been quoted in a state-run newspaper in its front page lead story as saying there would be changes in VAT but no mention was made about the President saying it.

Flying back to Colombo, Sirisena decided to make a sudden visit to the Central Bank. Unconfirmed reports said he had in fact signed a letter naming Nandalal Weerasinghe, the present Deputy, as the new Governor. He had carried the letter, according to these reports. Governor Mahendran had got wind of Sirisenas arrival. He stood with a sheaf of betel to greet him. Sirisena ignored him and walked past to meet others and was later talking to senior officials. It was around 4 p.m. and Premier Wickremesinghe was at home readying to travel to Temple Trees. A meeting of the Ministerial Committee on Economic Affairs was scheduled to be held there.

Instead he went straight to the Central Bank where no one was aware he was due. He joined President Sirisena. Premier Wickremesinghe, told his ministerial colleagues that as Minister in charge he would have to be present when the President visits an establishment coming under him. During the conversation with President Sirisena at the Central Bank, the Premier had re-iterated the need to act on the recommendation of the Minister of Finance, as stipulated in the Monetary Law Act.

Premier Wickremesinghes strong assertion had been that Mahendran should have been re-appointed. Strange but true, even some very noteworthy players in the opposition including a former VVIP, were privately supporting Mahendrans continuation in office. Those backing Mahendran believed the COPE would exonerate him of any accusations.

Bond issue: COPE probe and Auditor Generals report

At present the COPE is probing how bond issues were made by the CBSL and whether there was any impropriety on Mahendrans part. Its report, which will take into account the findings of the Auditor General, is expected next week. In the event it does not reveal anything incriminating, the UNP leaders thought they could press for his re-appointment. Now, senior Joint Opposition members are asking what the Governments position would be if indeed any improprieties or shortcomings are pointed out in the COPE report. Would any action be taken against Mahendran, they ask.

In this backdrop, Auditor General H.M. Gamini Wijesinghe has formulated his report on bond issues by the Central Bank. Here are some relevant edited highlights:

The avoidable estimated loss of Rs. 889,358,050 (or over Rs. 889 million) mentioned (in an earlier paragraph) and avoidable estimated loss of Rs. 784,898,755 (or over Rs 784 million) mentioned in (another paragraph) amount to a total of Rs. 1,674,256,805 (or over Rs 1.6 billion) in bond issues conducted on February 27, 2015 and March 29, 2016. It is revealed that authorities are responsible for not taking action to prevent the estimated loss of total of Rs. 1,674,256,805 (or over Rs 1.6 billion).

Moreover if other bond issues conducted during the period in which direct issue of bonds were temporarily suspended  from February 27, 2015 to March 2016  are calculated for benefits and losses, the likelihood of the above estimated total loss may go up.

In the information revealed to the Auditor General when compiling this report and facts reported in the above mentioned paragraphs, it is not established that the Central Bank Governor acted with professional due care when performing his duties.

It is emphasised that this report is compiled within the parameters of the responsibilities and subjects of the Auditor General. Beyond that, it was not examined whether any criminal or illegal acts which the Auditor General could not determine occurred. If there is a need to conduct such examination, I recommend that the assistance of a specialised agency be obtained.

The Auditor Generals findings speak of a colossal loss to the Central Bank  a position which has been repeatedly countered by Governor Mahendran. That would naturally necessitate a detailed probe to determine whose assertions are correct. Another aspect which the Auditor General points out that is beyond his remit is whether any criminal or illegal acts were committed. Here again, the issues related to this could only be established if there is a probe by a state investigation agency. Thus the UNP is caught up in a Catch 22 situation. If indeed the COPE report contains any adverse findings including testimony from the Auditor General, the UNP could no longer have pressed for Mahendrans re-instatement. On the other hand, pressure to see a logical end to the allegations of alleged financial discrepancies revealed by the AG would place the UNP in a bigger dilemma.

Civil society groups were also agitated by the delay in the appointment of a Governor. Prof. Sarath Wijesuriya, convenor of the National Movement for Social Justice, told a news conference on Friday that they would be forced to react if an appointment was not made immediately. He was one of seven persons from civil society groups who met President Sirisena on June 17 to discuss matters related to bribery, corruption and other issues.

There was a factual error in the report connected to this meeting in these columns last week. Contrary to what was said, President Sirisena did not switch on the speaker phone when he called the Police Chief Pujith Jayasundera. I am the one who raised the issue about Sajin de Vass Gunawardena during the meeting with the President. He did not switch on the microphone for us to hear when he telephoned the IGP, Gamini Viyangoda a co-convener of the Puravwesi Balaya (Citizens Force), a civil society group, said. He is correct. However, in the presence of the civil society delegation President Sirisena did telephone the Police Chief. It is from him that he learnt that Special Task Force (STF) security for Sajin de Vass Gunawardena had been ordered by his predecessor, N.K. Ilangakoon. After the meeting ended, the President was unable to reach Illangakoon on the first occasion.

hereafter, he spoke with him and learnt that the security had been sought by a member of the Cabinet of Ministers. The call, as reported last week, had come to him from Temple Trees. That was how President Sirisena ordered the withdrawal of security. I reported in these columns last week that the Police will proceed with action against the former Monitoring MP on the cases they are investigating.

Sajin Vass and alleged ghost contracts

De Vass Gunawardena was arrested by Criminal Investigation Department (CID) detectives on Monday, produced before a Magistrate and remanded until July 5.

This time it is the result of a lengthy investigation directed by Ravi Seneviratne, Senior DIG of the CID. The case involved the transfer of funds from Carsons Management Services and Equity Two PLC which were allegedly forced to have links with de Vass Gunawardenas Cosmos Aviation and Cosmic Construction. In statements to the CID, Krishna Selvanathan and A.P. Weeratunga, directors of the management and equity companies, have allegedly revealed that they transferred funds to de Vass Gunawardenas companies.

Selvanathan has said he met de Vass Gunawardena at a get-together. The latter had made inquiries about Selvanathans business activities. Thereafter, de Vass Gunawardena had found that the premises No 55 Janadipathi Mawatha was being reconstructed by Equity Two PLC. De Vass Gunawardena had then allegedly summoned Selvanathan to his Borella office and wanted a sub contract handed over to his Cosmic Construction (Pvt.) Ltd. By this time all sub contracts had been awarded.

Selvanathan has claimed that since de Vass Gunawardena was an influential figure and the manner in which he was allegedly threatened, there were fears for his life. This was because he was a Tamil. Hence he claimed that he handed over a sub contract to inspect the construction work of Cosmic Construction (Pvt.) Ltd. though in reality there was no work involved. The documents concerning this matter, Selvanathan had alleged, had been prepared according to de Vass Gunawardenas wishes. When the building in question was completed, the former Monitoring MP, Selvanathan alleged, had demanded ten million rupees without carrying out any work.

He claimed that there were death threats from unknown parties who wanted him to pay the money. Hence, two different payments amounting to five million rupees each in cheques were deposited in the Standard Chartered Banks York Street Branch. CID detectives have obtained the account details and cheque numbers and recorded statements from those concerned to confirm the transaction. Detectives say Cosmic Construction (Pvt.) Ltd.s accountant Prasad Dimuthu Kumara, had made a statement and submitted the account books of the company but there was no entry to suggest that ten million rupees was received. Detectives claim this information has been concealed.

Another instance which Selvanathan cited in his statement was about a casual conversation with de Vass Gunawardena. The latter had mentioned that his company managed several hotels. Selvanathan has alleged that de Vass Gunawardena had wanted him to rent helicopters from Cosmos Aviation to ferry tourists to their hotels. Selvanathan had replied that tourists were not coming in large numbers and did not require a helicopter service. He has alleged that de Vass Gunawardena threatened him and forced him to hire a helicopter for four months. Fearing for his life, he has claimed, he agreed. De Vass Gunawardena had demanded Rs. 20 million on the day documents for the deal were prepared.

The payment was made through the Standard Chartered Bank (Fort branch) to Cosmos Aviation and deposited in its account in National Development Banks Havelock Town branch. Selvanathan has claimed in his signed statement that he has so far not seen any helicopter nor is he aware where they are operating from. CID detectives have recorded that the summary of accounts reflects this transaction and confirms the money was received by Cosmos Aviation. However, the transaction, their records say, is not reflected in the Cosmos Aviation account. Here again they allege that the transaction has been concealed.

During the CID investigations it was revealed that de Vass Gunawardena, after being elected as an MP has resigned from the post of Director of Cosmos Aviation on February 19, 2010. However, indirectly he has been acting as the Managing Director, according to CID records. They say that according to the Assets declaration of de Vass Gunawardena for 2010/11, 2012/13, 2013/14 he had declared only his monthly salary as an MP and an additional income of Rs. 300,000. He had reconfirmed this in the statements made to the CID on March 16, 2015 and again on March 19, 2015. CID detectives claim they have established through documentary evidence that de Vass Gunawardena, the Managing Director of the companies (during January 13, 2009 to December 24, 2014), allegedly maintained 15 accounts totalling Rs. 610,904,450.50 (or over Rs 610 million). Statements provided by Accountant Prasad Dimuthu Kumara and Assistant accountant Ramya Kumari confirm this position, detectives have recorded.

However, this is not mentioned in the assets declaration by de Vass Gunawardena according to findings by the CID. During the period January 12 2009-December 19 2014, withdrawals amounting to Rs. 156,411,256.00 (over Rs 156 million) have been made by de Vass Gunawardena stating that they were drawn by the Managing Director. He has signed a company receipt to this effect confirming the transactions, the detectives have recorded giving details of it. Statements from different bank managers to the CID, seen by the Sunday Times, have confirmed the financial transactions. They have also made available documentation including cheque numbers, details of accounts, deposits made, withdrawals and other related information. CID sources said yesterday further investigations into the circumstances of how de Vass Gunawardena inherited a further Rs. 144 million were now under way.

These cases against de Vass Gunawardena are only accusations at this stage. He has not been proven guilty and therefore the law deems he is innocent. It was well known that this former Monitoring MP for the Ministry of External Affairs was a powerful personality under the previous Mahinda Rajapaksa administration. He was perhaps the only politician who was able to ensure that the Central Bank transferred millions of dollars to US-based public relations companies with just a hand written chit.

This week the entire Government was involved in an issue that revolves around one man  Arjuna Mahendran who was steadfast in his intention to continue as the Governor of the Central Bank. This has angered a sizeable section. Yet the UNP leadership continued to support him.

Paradoxical enough, under the United National Front (UNF) Government de Vass Gunawardena was treated with velvet gloves. He moved around with armed, camouflage-wearing Police commandos (STF) ordered on the telephone by a politician on the Government side. He sat on the stage in Galle when the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) May Day rally was held. State investigation agencies probing him took a step back fearing they would face reprisals if they pursue the cases against him.

It took representatives of the civil society to raise this issue with President Sirisena. Thus, at least one case is being pursued vigorously. Those representatives may not be aware of more such instances where those responsible for bribery, corruption and other similar crime are enjoying a better life now, all because of the protection and support they receive from their cronies.

The public discontent can be gauged to some extent by what the civilian intelligence agencies of the state discovered. This week there were 56 protests countrywide by different groups for different reasons but all directed at the Government. Therein lies a strong message.
Thewarapperuma in hotel brawl View(s):

Deputy Cultural Affairs Minister Palitha Thevarapperuma has been involved in a series of controversies in recent months.

This week, in addition to his protest at a school in the Kalutara district over admission of children, he was involved in a clash at a hotel outside his constituency.

During a drive to recruit more members to his party, he had stopped over at the hotel for dinner. There he entered into an argument and allegedly assaulted a waiter. After the incident he had gone on to check the hygienic condition of the hotel.

It was then he received a call from an influential cabinet minister in the district who told him If you have come for a duty to my district, complete it and leave without getting involved in unnecessary work.

The Deputy Minister apologising to the cabinet minister immediately withdrew from the area with his supporters.

This week he figured in a suicide attempt drawing uncharitable comments from some of his colleagues. One of them said rather sarcastically that he should be made the Deputy Minister of Suicide. Others did not take so nicely to the remarks.

Gotabaya: Surprise visitor and surprise announcement

There was a society wedding in Los Angeles the other day. The daughter of a close friend of the Rajapaksa family tied the knot on June 24.

In attendance were around 500 guests. Several of former President Mahinda Rajapaksas siblings have bases in Los Angeles. It was where former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa spent the many years between his departure from and return to Sri Lanka.

The nuptial festivities were in full swing when the host made an announcement. A special guest had arrived in Los Angeles with his wife to participate at the wedding, he said. Gotabaya Rajapaksa is here, he said, adding, without missing a beat, The future President of Sri Lanka!

Polls group getting millions for spreading lies and damn lies

Some western Governments are getting their moneys worth from Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), including local polls monitoring bodies, after doling out millions of their dollars to spread good governance and preach democratic values.

However, not all what they receive through their diplomatic missions in Colombo is the truth and nothing but the truth. Periodic e-mails circulated among these missions, perhaps to keep their dollars flowing, are so well hand crafted that they appear realistic. They are not even closer to the truth.

Here is one such e-mail a prominent polls monitoring body circulated under the headline PM INSISTS ON CHARITHA RATWATTE  WILL THE UNP LEAVE UNITY GOVERNMENT?

This is what their story says: The crisis in appointing a new governor to the central bank has culminated to the point where the UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe is pondering taking his party out of the unity government.

After President Maithripala Sirisena rejected Wickremesinghes request to appoint his right hand man, Charitha Ratwatte, the UNP leadership has advised all its MPs not to leave the country in the coming days as the party is attempting to form a government on its own. We have learnt that the UNP leadership has commenced negotiations with some Joint Opposition MPs (UNP has 105 MPs and they can form a government with another poached 8 MPs).

Former CB Governor Arjun Mahendran has also called the UNP MPs and asked them to remain in Colombo. The UNP MPs have been told that former president Mahinda Rajapaksa has promised to provide the necessary number of MPs for the UNP to form a government and a new government, led by Wickremesinghe, will be formed in the next three days.

Today (Friday) Wickremesinghe and Malik Samarawickrama will meet President Sirisena and stress that Ratwatte must be appointed the CB Governor. If the President does not agree, the UNP will leave the government, the UNP MPs were told yesterday (Thursday).

UNP parliamentarians have not been told to remain in the country and refrain from travel abroad. The UNP has not started any negotiations with pro-Mahinda Rajapaksa MPs who are in the opposition side. Premier Wickremesinghe and Minister Malik Samarawickreme met President Sirisena for talks on Samarawickreme recent visit to Beijing.

PrIme Minister Wickremesinghe scoffed at this note to diplomatic missions. We would have to write to the same missions to tell them not to believe their lies and pay more money to spread false stories, he told the Sunday Times.

Its a case of the foreign governments funding and building local groups to feed them with lies, lot of damn lies.As the recent Wikileaks documents show, some similar assertions, perceived to be true, were reported back from Colombo to the State Department in Washington DC. As the reveleations showed, they were bunkum.

CCTV camera conflict at Colombo airport

Moves by the Airport and Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Ltd to install CCTV cameras at the Bandaranaike International Airport were first met with resistance from Immigration officers and now the Customs officials too are unhappy.

Customs spokesperson Dharmasena Kahandawa, who is also Director- Compliance and Facilitation, says they already have their own security system including their own CCTV cameras and therefore there was no necessity for installation of new cameras fitted by another organisation.

The Customs have taken up the position that they are an investigative body which carefully investigates passengers arriving and leaving the country and sometimes suspected drug peddlers are body checked.

One of the questions the Customs is raising is as to who will take responsibility of protecting the privacy of passengers if there was another agency responsible for the CCTV footage.

Earlier it was the Immigration and Emigration officials who opposed the move. They had different reasons: One was that they were not informed about a move to install CCTV cameras and the other was that they did not want another agency monitoring them.

The move has now left the Airport and Aviation services (Sri Lanka) Ltd in a quandary on how to go ahead with its plans. Officials there are due to meet with Immigration and Customs officials tomorrow to find a way of going ahead with the plans.
Lessons from Brexit View(s):

An opinion poll conducted in the United States after Britons voted to leave the European Union (EU) has thrown up results that Sri Lankans can well relate to.

The USA TODAY and Suffolk University survey finds Americans agreeing by an overwhelming margin that the outcome of the referendum was a sign of anger and dissatisfaction that can be seen in other countries, including the United States  an indication of a broader feeling among people around the world, where they are feeling more and more helpless about controlling things in their own countries, as defined by one participant. Another reflects that a lot of people were unhappy with the status quo, feeling, like many Americans did, that we kind of lost control over our own destiny.

Then, there were those revelatory comments made in April by EU President Jean-Claude Juncker. He said the bloc faced ruin because of a backlash by voters angered by a lack of respect for the powers of national governments. This mea culpa, welcome as it is, offers small consolation to the countries in whose internal affairs the EU and other nations in the West have liberally meddled, Sri Lanka firmly included.

It was only in May that this newspaper reported how the EU  purportedly the very embodiment of free commerce  had laid down a sprawling list of non-trade conditions in exchange for Sri Lanka winning back duty concessions under the blocs GSP Plus facility. Back then, we called this neocolonialism. Millions more have now echoed us in decrying the EUs institutionalised culture of holding sovereign governments to ransom.

As we emphasised, the GSP Plus concession is trade, not aid: If economically developing countries are being encouraged to be self-reliant, sanctions in any form, the Wests latest weapon of war cannot be used selectively to bring countries in line with its foreign policy.

On the one hand, the EU is employing sanctions to cow others down to its foreign policy. But, on the other hand, the British people have reacted against the blocks protectionist policies that impacted on their fellow member States.

Sri Lanka has since lodged its application for the GSP Plus concession after, no doubt, bending over backwards to appease the bloc. This administration has shown little skill in negotiating itself out of untenable situations; if anything, it seems to hurtle faster and deeper into more and more deeply compromising positions.

For instance, the Government is now brazenly yielding to pressure from New Delhi to finalise the controversial Indo-Lanka Economic and Technology Cooperation Agreement (ETCA). Some junior ministers are even dressing up the deal as essential to counter balancing the negative economic impact (which is yet to be analysed or understood fully) of Brexit. This is disingenuous, to say the least. Further, the Government is considering issuing permits to Indian fishing trawlers to operate legally in Sri Lankan waters  a proposal that has only ever emanated from the Indian side and to which there has been fierce resistance by the Sri Lankan industry and fisheries officials.

Even in the past, the Western nations deployed a whole gamut of tools to bend developing countries to their demands. They repeatedly slapped travel restrictions on Sri Lanka citing security concerns and human rights violations. Today, it has come to pass that no corner of the world is safe from the scourge of terrorism; and that human rights are ever more being trampled upon by nations struggling, as we did, to contain this plague.

In that process, increasingly, peoples power is asserting itself when people see their mandates to the Governments they elected being ignored by the ruling class.

Conviction of the prison system

The 2015 annual performance report of the Department of Prisons presented recently to Parliament contains some worrying statistics. It reveals that a vast majority of inmates in jail  by a yawning marginwere remand suspects not yet convicted in a court of law.

Of 113,734 prisoners, a shocking 89,586 were suspects in remand. Only 24,184 were convicted prisoners. This meant that three in four inmates have not been found guilty of any offence. As our news report (see story on Page 12) reveals, one of the reasons that many are wasting away in lockup continues to be their inability to meet often needlessly harsh bail conditions. Sri Lankas prisons are today 53 percent overcrowded.

This is a travesty of justice, one that has long been highlighted by legal experts as being unacceptable in a modern democracy. Our prisons are filling up simply because remand suspects are incarcerated for long periods of time  without ever being convicted  or because others who have committed minor offences are kept inside for several weeks without bail. This is worsened by long lamented laws delays for which successive governments have provided no solution.

The very rationale behind placing a defendant in custody pending the adjournment of a trial is being violated. Persons who are neither violent nor posing a threat to society, have no history of previous offences and show no signs of absconding arrest are today inflating prison numbers and guzzling up precious resources.

Even worse is a repeated judicial failure to specify when sentences should be served concurrently by convicted prisoners. This results in some inmates languishing in jail without legal aid for months, if not years. Lives are going to ruin due to identified, remediable flaws in the prevailing system.

Experts are pushing  and have done so for many years  for more accurate interpretations of the Bail Act that do not violate the fundamental rights of a person enshrined in the Constitution. Among other things, there is a need for a new Bail Act to go through without further delay.

Yet, there has been little or no movement in the direction of meaningful change. After the 2012 Welikada prison riots, in which 27 people died, a comprehensive Prisons Bill aimed at improving prison conditions was drafted by a multi-sector ten-member committee headed by Justice Hector Yapa. They studied international and local legislation, rules and prisons practices to create an all-inclusive Act. Special attention was given to the aspects of rehabilitation and reformation of prisoners as well as alternatives to incarceration as a solution to overcrowding.

But it came to nought. After the draft was finalised, it disappeared and is no longer spoken of. It would not take much to resurrect this Bill and to proceed from where previous policymakers left off.
Gearing for comedy By Duvindi Illankoon View(s): View(s):

On previous occasions when Vinodh Senadeera staged Playing Doctor, it was received with resounding success by theatregoers. This time too Vinodh will usher this trusty script out from retirement with a cast of eight this month at the Lionel Wendt, marking his 60th production.

Playing Doctor is Rob Brewster, a young man who has gambled away his college fund on the excesses of life as a struggling writer. Robs parents thinks hes a doctor, Rob thinks he has his parents duped, and both are in for a nasty surprise when the Brewsters decide to pay their son a visit. As Rob scrambles to cast friends in his make believe life as a doctor, hilarity ensues.

Vinodh first brought this script to the stage with a young cast of Thomians in 1996, exactly 20 years ago. Three actors who were members of that first production will return to this one (meet them next week in our cast interviews). This third take on the play will be different to the first two, promises Vinodh. The story is the same, of course. But the dynamics of the cast are different so this will be quite different to what theatregoers may have seen before. For example, he grins, this time around the female characters are played by actual females!

The director is currently based with the Colombo International School as its Head of Performing Arts. This being his 60th production, Vinodh is keen on a play that will make his audience a happy bunch, noting a lack of good comedic stage productions in Colombo.

Together with producer Marlon Jesudason hes also bringing back the Combined Theatre Company from retirement of over a decade-their plan is to stage a good, well written script once a year.

The cast- Michelle Herft, Delon Weerasinghe, Shanaka Amarasinghe, Ashini Fernando, Danu Innasithamby, Jivan Goonetilleke, Ravin Fernando and Pramukshi Kariyawasam.

Playing Doctor is on at the Lionel Wendt from July 15-17 from 7.30 pm onwards. Tickets priced at Rs 1500, 1000, 800 and 600 (balcony) are available at the venue. The play was written by Billy Van Zandt and Jane Milmore. This production is staged by arrangement with Samuel French Inc.
Slipping in to 3D fashion By Duvindi Illankoon View(s): View(s):

A few months ago a wedding dress took headlines by storm when it became the worlds first wedding dress manufactured in part using 3D-printing technology. Sri Lankan designer Charlene Thuring and the 3D Concept Studio worked together to make this record breaking dress a reality; here they speak to us about the potential for this technology in the fashion industry.

Charlene had been waiting for a chance to print a dress in 3D ever since she was introduced to the team; I was a little sick of seeing the same thing over and over again, she tells us. When she was approached by a client who was willing to take a chance, she jumped at the opportunity  the studio had never applied their brilliant work to a garment and I had never seen Sri Lanka attempt it either so it was a no brainer to take this opportunity.

The 3D concept studio is a rapid prototyping company that was founded in 2013. The company offers services including 3D printing, laser cutting, 3D/2D design, 3D video walk-throughs and 3D scanning. When they were approached by Charlene, Chief Executive Officer Milinda Perera was immediately on board. 3D printing just makes sense in certain cases, he notes. Its consistent and can be converted from design very quickly.

In some cases it can even be more cost effective. Manufacturers often use prototype models printed using 3D technology. However when manufacturing a final product, it is usually only cost effective to use 3D printing if the commodity has a low volume but a high markup cost  for example an airline part or a hip replacement or even a prosthetic limb  a service currently offered by the 3D Concept Studio. The technology can also be used to manufacture items in materials that are not found on the market  Charlenes dress was printed in flexi PLA (flexible poly lactic acid).

In Charlenes case the wide, removable skirt of the wedding dress was printed using the technology because her design would have taken a much longer time to be made into a garment had she used a traditional manufacturing method. The skirt is made up of 70 intricately designed panels  each panel took the studio two hours to print, with a total time of 140 hours. A panel had a hook on one end and an eye on the other  allowing Charlene to assemble it once printing was complete.

Other designers have also begun using the studios services for their work. Ruani Wijenaike, a handbag and jewellery designer, uses a laser cutting technology for her designs. The studio has been approached by a number of designers and design students in the industry looking to print their work, says Milinda; they often make a decision based on cost, time and practicality.

As a method of manufacture, 3D printing has revolutionized the fashion industry. This years Met Gala theme was ManxMachina, a nod to the exciting new strides being made in hi-tech fashion. Designers are manufacturing everything from clothes to lingerie, belts, shoes, handbags and even jewellery using 3D printing technology. Coupled with Sri Lanka reportedly targeting USD 8.5 billion in apparel export earnings by 2020, and showcases such as Colombo Fashion Week setting the benchmark for fashion designers, its an exciting time to be in the countrys fashion industry.
Thank you for the music literature By Susitha R. Fernando Multi-talented Solangaarachchi honoured with a Doctorate View(s): View(s):

Multi talented musician, writer on music, painter and electronic expert, Sumathipala Solangaarachchi was recently honoured with a doctorate by the Dharmapala-Olcott Memorial International Research Foundation (DOMIRF) in recognition of his great contributions to music literature.

Solangarachchi was honoured for his literary contributionhis two books Deshiya Bhavitha Sangeethya Ha Aparadiga Sanghatha (Local practical music and western chords) and Swara-Mela-Raga (Notes-Scales-Ragas) which were products of extensive researches both western and eastern music and their theories.

Mr. Solangaraarachchi was conferred the doctoral title Doctor of Music Literature by the DOMIRF at a ceremony held at the Public Library Auditorium, Colombo. His latest book Rupavahini Saha Chandrika, an extensive study on the complex and complicated subject of TV and Satellite TV digital TV technology was also launched on the same day.

Dr. Solangaarachchi, mastered theoretical and practical music systems, study methods through sheer enthusiasm and his deep love for music.

While playing music with musical bands, I studied music by informal and non-formal ways. I understood what aspects of the subject matter that I should rather concentrate on. I did not discriminate among systems of music. I respect all the music systems that are in use in this sub continent, Dr. Solangaarachchi said speaking about how his thirst for music started.

My prime interest fell on the North Indian classical music. I also wanted to know about South Indian Karnataka music, Local folk music and Western music as well. Selecting the varieties of music, I tried to find appropriate books to study, he said.

His first music book Deshiya Bhavitha Sangeethaya Ha Aparadiga Sanghata (Local practical music and western chords) has become a hot favourite, in a short time.

And his second music book Swara-Mela-Raga serves as a supplement for the first one as it expresses the basic knowledge of musical notes and many oriental and western scales. It contains details of North Indian Ragas (Raga Visthara) of more than 280 Ragas. The book reveals the history of Indian music and how the Karnataka South Indian music came to light with more than 800 scales (Ragas) of the Karnataka system. This book also presents a directory of Raga names.
Coal or LNG for Sampur power plant, SL yet to confirm: India By S. Rubatheesan in New Delhi View(s): View(s):

Despite environmental concerns raised by the Sri Lanka Government on the proposed Sampur coal power plant, Sri Lanka is yet to officially inform India whether it is for coal or Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) replacing the project completely, a senior Indian official said.

Indias Ministry of Power, Secretary, P.K. Pujari said Sri Lanka has to decide, after addressing local agitation against the project on environmental grounds, after which India will extend its fullest cooperation to see the project materialise.

There have been indications recently from the Sri Lanka side to switch the power plant from coal to a LNG based plant, but we havent got any official response to date, said NTPC Ltd Chairman-Managing Director, Gurdeep Singh, the joint venture partner of the project.

He said that a comprehensive Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) prepared by the Central Environmental Authority (CEA) of Sri Lanka cleared the project in February this year, while putting forward some specific conditions to comply

with.

We will continue to work with our local partners in Sri Lanka to ensure that all these specific conditions are complied with, and the environmental concerns of the local communities too addressed, he said.

According to the joint venture agreement signed in 2011 with the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), NTPC Ltd agreed on 50% promoters equity to set up two 250-MW coal based power project in the Trincomalee region.

Mr. Singh also stressed that a decision to switch to an LNG based plant would not be feasible for a country like Sri Lanka, where the price of gas in the world market is volatile and may cause further delay of up to 10 years to complete the project.

This is a joint venture, which, as of now, stands out clearly that coal power plant technology is commercially viable and durable up to the next 25 years. More importantly, much groundwork has already been done for the coal plant at present, he said.

Referring to the local public protests and agitations in the Eastern Province against the project as being the agendas of some Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) with vested interests, he said India too, faced the same issue in many parts in the past, when setting up coal plants, but were able to implement them through transparency and clearance from the relevant government institutes.

However, Sri Lankas diplomatic sources said that, when President Maithripala Sirisena visited India in May, he took up the coal power plant issue with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and requested to switch to an LNG based plant.
Dhaka attack: Lankan couple escape unhurt View(s):

The Sri Lanka High Commission in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka put out a warning to Lankans residents to avoid unnecessary travel in public places in the wake of the terrorist attack there which left at least 20 persons, all foreigners, dead.

A Lankan couple who were dining at the ill-fated Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka were among the few who were rescued when the terrorist attack began on Friday night. The couple identified as Harikesha and Shyama Wijesekera was among the few who escaped unhurt.

Ms.Sesath Thambugala, Sri Lankas Acting High Commissioner in Dhaka said the couple, longtime residents of Dhaka, did not suffer physical injuries but was suffering from trauma. They are at a hospital in Dhaka undergoing counselling.

Foreign Affairs Deputy Minister Harsha De Silva said that from the moment MFA heard of the incident, the Lankan Mission in Dhaka had kept monitoring the situation and was in touch with security and diplomatic officials in Dhaka.

The two Lankans were among a large number of diners at the cafe which is popular with diplomats and expatriates when the terrorists entered the cafe and took the staff and diners hostage. After several hours of a standoff, Bangladeshi troops stormed the cafe .The attack left 20 foreigners dead, mostly Italian and Japanese nationals, while six of the attackers were also killed.

President condemns Dhaka attack President Maithripala Sirisena yesterday condemned the terrorist attack on a restaurant in the diplomatic conclave in Dhaka, Bangladesh. In his message of condolence to the Government and the people of Bangladesh, the President said the Government and the people of Sri Lanka strongly condemned terrorist acts in all their manifestations, as they involved the lives of innocent civilians. At this hour of grief, the Government and people of Sri Lanka stand in solidarity with the Government and people of Bangladesh, in their fight against terrorism and violent extremism, a statement from the Presidents Office said, stressing the need for urgent and sustained regional and global cooperation to eliminate the menace of terrorism. (Please see ST 2 for detailed story)
Terming the allegations levelled against AAP MLA Naresh as deep rooted conspiracy, Kejriwal said BJP and Akali Dal are hell bent on maligning his party.

By Manjeet Sehgal: AAP national convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday lambasted Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal led SAD-BJP government on the issue of Quran sacrilege which took place in Malerkotla on June 24.

Terming the allegations levelled against AAP MLA Naresh as deep rooted conspiracy, Kejriwal said BJP and Akali Dal are hell bent on maligning his party.

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"From June 24 onwards the Punjab Police kept saying that the holy Quran was desecrated by the members of Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) but on July 2 suddenly they began to accuse AAP for the same. It was done with an intention to scuttle my three day visit to Punjab which was to begin from July 3," said Kejriwal while addressing a large gathering of people at Ranjit avenue in Amritsar.

Kejriwal said first he was of the opinion that he should not bring up the topic of holy Quran on the occasion when the youth manifesto of the AAP was being released. "But then I thought it was extremely important to expose the obnoxious face of SAD-BJP government which wanted to derail my visit even at the cost of the desecration incident," he said.

Kejriwal said he was more saddened to know that Punjab led Badal government tried to malign his party by accusing AAP of desecrating the holy Quran. "There are hundreds of other ways to malign us. But why they had to tear the pages of holy Quran to give design to their nefarious intentions," asked the chief minister.

Kejriwal said Vijay Garg the prime accused in the desecration of holy Quran was associated with VHP. He vowed that, once in power, he will arrest him and his 'baap' (mastermind).

Kejriwal said after forming the government in Punjab AAP would not tolerate such incidents of desecration in the state. He said AAP government in Punjab would punish and put all those elements in jail who have desecrated Guru Granth Sahib, the Bible or Holy Quran in Punjab to cause communal divisions.

During his speech he said that a real Hindu would not disrespect any religion or its holy book. "It appears that Badals and the BJP have gone completely berserk and would stoop to any level to malign AAP. Both Akalis and the BJP have have gone absolutely crazy especially after all surveys in the last three months are indicating that AAP would form the next government in Punjab by securing minimum of 90 to 110 seats in the state," said Kejriwal.

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He also appealed to entire bureaucracy of Punjab especially the Punjab Police to stop adhering to the the diktats and unconstitutional orders of the Badal government.

"I have learnt that Badals are putting lot of pressure on the Punjab police officers to register false cases or to perform unconstitutional tasks against their political opponents. I will tell these Punjab officers to stop taking illegal orders from the Badals as they are on their way out. From now onwards only listen to the voice of your conscious to perform your task," said Kejriwal.

Kejriwal also promised to put and end to the prevailing drug menace and mafias in the state. AAP also warned Akali minister Bikram Singh Majithia about impending arrest.



CAPTAIN AMARINDER FOR PROBE INTO ALLEGATION AGAINST AAP MLA

Advising caution and restraint, Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president Captain Amarinder Singh today sought an independent and credible probe into the allegations, of masterminding the desecration of holy Quran, against the Aam Aadmi Party MLA Naresh Yadav.

"Since the needle of suspicion now points towards the both, the Akali-BJP as well as the AAP, it is important that there is a credible probe to find out the actual truth", he said in a statement issued here today.

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"Given the sensitivity of the matter we need to exercise utmost restraint and caution", Capt Amarinder warned, while adding, at the same time no guilty should be allowed to go scot-free. He said, it was a clear act of provocation done deliberately to hurt the sentiments of a particular community for vested interests.

The PCC president hoped that the AAP MLA Naresh Yadav, who was publicly named by one of the accused, will cooperate with the investigations. "In order to reach to the root of the matter, it needs to be investigated by an independent agency whose credentials are above board", he said, while adding, "since the needle of suspicion points at both the SAD-BJP and the AAP, it is important that the probe conducted should be above board and acceptable to all".





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Madushanka case: Maldivians cant question family here View(s):

The Government has rejected a request from the Maldivian government for its detectives to question a Sri Lankan family.

The move came on the advice of the Attorney General. This was on the grounds that Sri Lankan law does not allow any foreign investigators to question or record any statement from any citizen.

Maldivian detectives wanted to question the family of Lahiru Madushanka, who is now in their custody in connection with the alleged plot to kill Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen.

However, Sri Lanka has suggested that the Police and the CID could assist the Maldivian investigators.

Meanwhile, Foreign Ministry officials said that they were giving consular assistance to Mr. Madushanka in line with the legal process of the Maldives.

The suspect has been held in custody since October last year and the detention is extended on a regular basis after he is produced in courts. He has been re-remanded on 20 occasions within the nine months. Officials said they believed Mr. Madushanka was being treated well in detention and they had requested that more time be given to him to communicate with his family members over the phone.

At present, the family members are given the opportunity to speak once in two weeks for five minutes.

I just want my son to come back. We know he is not involved in this. He has been there for nearly a year without evidence against him. He has a wife and a four-year-old son, who suffers deeply without his father, Mr. Madushankas mother told the Sunday Times.

The 27-year old Mr. Madushanka was arrested on October 24 last year by the Maldivian Police at the airport for alleged involvement in the plot to assassinate the Maldivian President.Investigators initially identified him as a sniper in the Special Forces, but the Sri Lanka Army denied the claim. Later in December, three Maldivians were arrested for allegedly hiring Mr. Madushanka but were released by the criminal court for lack of evidence.
Military boffins now into R&D to meet peacetime situations By Namini Wijedasa View(s): View(s):

In the mid 2000s, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam started using claymore mines against the Sri Lanka military in earnest. They hid them everywhere, on roadsides, in trees, under vehicles. And they started detonating them via wireless remote control.

The war had started in earnest and the troops found their movements greatly hampered by the use of these mines. Military convoys were particularly vulnerable. The solution was to acquire remote control jammers to block the signals and prevent detonation. But the Government faced difficulty buying enough of them at short notice on the international market.

So, in 2006, the Ministry of Defence set up a Centre for Research and Development (CRD) which it housed at the Panagoda cantonment. A core group of Army personnel was tasked with building jammers. Expertise was gained from the engineering faculties of various universities, primarily the University of Moratuwa. And not only was a jammer made, the CRD enhanced it so that it could detect and detonate a claymore mine planted by the Tigers.

The jammers were subsequently used whenever the Army provided security to VIPs. For a time, they also helped prevent inmates from dialing out from inside the Welikada prison using smuggled mobile phones. This proved problematic, however, as calls outside the range of the jail were also hindered. The CRD is doing research towards developing another solution along with the mobile service provider.

The Centre now has a long list of other technologies and instruments that have been developed in-house. Led by Dr. Thiran De Silva, its Director General and the youngest ever Colonel in the Sri Lanka Army, the CRD aspires to provide them to Government institutions and private sector locally and internationally. But its main objective is to cover at least 50 percent of the countrys defence requirements.

The CRD is made up of five divisions: the Electronic Wing, the Information Technology and Geographic Information Systems Wing, Navy and Air Force Wing. Most of them are now located in a new headquarters building at Panagoda.

Much of the CRDs early work was modification of the militarys existing equipment to suit evolving needs and situations. For instance, the communication radios that the troops carried to the battlefield had handsets that fell into disrepair and were difficult to replace because spares were simply not available. The CRD swiftly repaired and installed them with switches.

But they soon moved beyond the rudimentary. The IT and GIS Wing had started using satellite imagery in wartime for reconnaissance and to update maps. Later, headed by Lt. Col. Rasika Kahandagamage, it developed a Global Disaster Risk Analysis, Prevention and Mitigation Application which won a silver medal at the National Best Quality ICT Awards in 2015.

This system uses aerial photographs and remote sensing (drones) to ensure accurate positioning and security of rescue teams during disasters. It includes a tracking system so that the control room is able to say where troops are. When the Aranayake landslide occurred in May, the CRD officers were the first at the scene. They combined this application with a drone manufactured in-house to provide the first accurate, aerial images of the disaster zone.

They also employed it at the site of the Bulathkohupitiya landslide and in Salawa, where an ammunition dump caught fire. Among other accomplishments, the IT and GIS Wing has provided a massive geo citizen information database for the Gampaha District, filling it with the details of 1.9 million people.

During the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Sri Lanka, the IT and GS Wing also successfully tracked the train that Britains Prince Charles took from Colombo to Kandy. It subsequently offered the Railway Department a system by which each rail journey could be tracked live from a control room, complete with maps and early warning for train drivers but there was resistance to change.

By contrast, the Elections Department has embraced a system designed by the CRD to track violence and develop a database. And the Health Ministry has requested the Centre to give it a dengue epidemic monitoring system.

One of the key achievements of the Air Force Wing was the development of a simulator for artillery fire training. This has saved the military large amounts of money in ammunition rounds, each of which can cost up to Rs. 50,000. We were poised to buy the simulator from India using a line of credit but we have now saved around US$ 1 million, said Dr. De Silva. In the pipeline is a pilot training simulator and a virtual reality parachute and sky dive simulator.

The Air Force Wing has also built unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) which usually cost around Rs. 1 billion on the open market. The local UAV was first designed to fly up to 10km but this gradually went up to 50km. Further research is being done to increase its range to 150km. The aircraft, ground station and communication link have all been set up at a fraction of the cost.

The UAV project came about as a wartime need. But today the technology is available for wider use. Several engineering graduates from the University of Moratuwa have been hired to the CRD to perfect an autopilot system, to ensure that the UAVs return to base if the communication link is broken.

The Electronic Wing, meanwhile, built drones using open source software. These were seen over recent disaster zones, capturing photographs. Working with the IT and GIS Wing, they capture photographs and live videos and are able to convey these in real time provided theres a working internet connection.

This provides an introduction to the disaster teams before they embark on rescue operations, said Lt. Col. Dhammika Vidanalage, head of the Electronic Wing. The data is used to create a map of the area and this helps the teams because, rather than go in blindly, they are able to gauge how the ground situation has changed, how houses have shifted, where the victims might be and so on.

The drones were particularly effective at Salawa because no human being could approach the site due to continuing explosions. The CRD was there before dawn to capture real-time data. Steps are being taken to buy night vision and thermal imaging technology to upgrade the drones.

The Navy Wing has created a stabilisation platform to ensure that guns installed on boats do not follow wave movements, thereby making it difficult to take aim. These can also be deployed on armored tanks. This is only a cross section of the projects undertaken by the CRD, said Group Captain Bandula Herath, Chief Controller, and Lt. Col. Ashoka Gunasekera, Staff Officer.

It is a lot, considering the Rs. 150 million that has been allocated for both research and development. The Centre is also engaged in top secret work which could not be elaborated upon. This year, taking on paid interns from universities has been started.
Now Lankan boat owners in North take to bottom trawling By Namini Wijedasa View(s): View(s):

Mechanised bottom trawlingthe harmful practice of scraping the ocean bed for catch such as prawns and sea cucumberis spreading rapidly in the North, perpetrated by a band of influential Sri Lankan boat owners inspired by Government lenience on illegal Indian fishing in local waters.

This group is buying up one-day boats in the South and transporting them to the North where they are repaired, converted for mechanised bottom trawling and put out to sea. The vessels were built in the 1970s and are typically 29 feet long and three-and-a-half tons in weight. They fell out of use as their owners deemed them uneconomical. The total cost of purchasing and renovating the boats is around Rs. 400,000, industry sources said.

These boats are now frequently taken to the North in lorries, sometimes several times a week. Bottom trawling by Sri Lankan fishermen is particularly prevalent between June and August when Indian intruders keep away due to an annual three-month trawling ban imposed by the State of Kerala.

But it also occurs during other times of the year. When increased policing by the Navy and Coastguard limits the Indians to their side of the maritime border, these Sri Lankan fishermen fill their space. They trawl mostly off the seas of Gurunagar and Velvettiturai in Jaffna and Pesalai in Mannar. Today, scores of converted bottom trawlers can be seen in these areas, moored and in various stages of renovation.

It is worsening now, reports A.S. Soosai, a Jaffna University Professor and fisheries researcher. He estimated that there were around 200 trawlers in Jaffna. Last year, there were around 100 boats in Pesalai in the Mannar district, he said. Now it has gone up to around 150. Weekly, three or four new trawlers are coming to Mannar. The vessels are owned by rich Sinhala or Tamil businessmen and fish merchants.

Fisheries Director General M.C.L. Fernando confirmed that Sri Lankan fishermen were also engaged in mechanised bottom trawling in the North. It is harmful, he said, but it would be unfair to try and stop the locals now when Indian boats repeatedly trespassed into Sri Lankan waters for the same purpose. He guessed that there were around 125 trawlers in Velvettiturai, 125 more in Gurunagar and more than 200 in Pesalai, where the problem is most pronounced.

Tamil National Alliance MP M.A. Sumanthiran is backing a total ban on bottom trawling in Sri Lanka, partly as a step towards stopping Indian illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing in local waters. In April, he presented a Bill in Parliament to give effect to the prohibition. The draft was sent to the Provincial Councils for their comment. But, as in India, the boat owners have proved a powerful lobby against the immediate ban that Mr Sumanthiran is pushing for.

The Bill was considered by the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) earlier this year. Members laid down conditions. The livelihood interests of the families of almost 1,800 trawler boat fishermen and their crew who are now engaged in trawler fishing in Velvettiturai, Gurunagar, Mannar, etc, have to be suitably safeguarded before implementing the provisions of the Act, NPC Chairman Kandiyah Sivagnanam said, in a letter to the Secretary General of Parliament.

Safeguard provisions should be embodied in the Bill, he continued. Alternate livelihood employment opportunities should be ensured before implementation of the Act. Sufficient period of time should be given to enable these families to acquaint themselves with the alternative opportunities provided.

These excuses are similar to the ones proffered by Indian politicians when the Sri Lankan Government urges them to clamp down on IUU fishing. In Sri Lanka, however, the problem is still relatively small and would be easier to eradicate. On the Indian side, there is now a massive flotilla of trawlers that habitually carries out IUU fishing.

Sri Lankas Fisheries Ministry has drafted regulations to give effect to a ban on mechanised industrial bottom trawling, officials confirmed. The proposal is now with the Legal Draftsmans Department. However, it makes an allowance for artisanal trawling by Sri Lankan fishermen to continue on the basis that it is not as harmful to the marine ecosystem as the invasive method used by Indian IUU fishers.

However, fisheries activists say that leaving space for any sort of trawling is a slippery slope. The Indian trawlers cause more harm than the local ones due to size, capacity, etc, accepted Mr. Sumanthiran. But, if any exception is made, that will be used as a loophole and also will not help to eradicate this menace once and for all.

According to information gathered by Mr. Sumanthiran, there are now about 800 boats carrying out bottom trawling in the North. I dont think its proper to delay the ban based on local trawlers, he insisted. Thousands of local fishermen are up in arms against these trawlers, which are owned by a handful of people. All the fisher societies of the Jaffna District unanimously requested me to bring this Bill.

Bottom trawling is universally recognized as being harmful to the marine ecosystem. It involves scraping the seabed of all its marine life, including fish fry. Between 80 to 90 percent of catch is discarded. Indian mechanised trawlers are massive in comparison with the Sri Lankan boats which are essentially single-day boats with inboard engines. The former are fitted with mechanical winches (hauling devices with ropes or chain) while many of the converted trawlers in Sri Lankas North are installed with pulleys that are used to bring up the catch.

There is currently no legislation banning mechanised bottom trawling in Sri Lanka. However, the Department of Fisheries has suspended the issuing of licences for the practice, in recognition of the serious environmental damage it causes.

Every trawler puts ten small fishermen out of business, said Steve Creech, a freelance fisheries consultant. Mechanised bottom trawling is bad for livelihoods and employment and is bad for the environment.
NPC orders inquiry into STF Chiefs remarks threatening the media By Chris Kamalendran View(s): View(s):

The National Police Commission (NPC) has ordered an inquiry into the remarks made by Special Task Force (STF) Commandant- Deputy Inspector General(DIG) of Police Ranjith Perera, threatening the media.

NPC Secretary, Ariyadasa Cooray said they were awaiting a report from the Inspector General of Police (IGP) about the STF Chiefs remarks at a Press conference.

Mr. Cooray said the STF Chief is currently on an extension of service, and keeping with a recent Cabinet decision not to extend the services of Police officers who reach retirement age, the STF Chief will have to retire by the end of this month.

The IGP had earlier ordered Senior DIG (Administration ) Gamini Nawaratne to conduct an inquiry into the STF Chiefs remarks.

SDIG Nawaratne told the Sunday Times that the inquiry was under way and its report will be handed over to the IGP by end of next week.

He said statements have already been recorded from journalists who covered the Press conference, as well as of DIG Perera. The recordings of the Press conference has also been collected.

The STF Chief made the remarks at a Press conference summoned to brief the media about the STFs role in the recent detection of 80 kg of cocaine in a container at a Customs warehouse in Orugodawatta.

There are drug traffickers and the underworld who buy over media persons and write against us. We know how to punish them like we deal with the underworld, he had said.

Why isnt anything written against the Army, Navy or the Air Force. Because, if you write anything against them they will send a team and break your hands and legs. We do not do that, he had said.

A day after the remarks were made, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Ajith Rohana (now DIG) said the STF Chief was not authorised to speak to the media, and on behalf of the IGP, they were apologising over the STF Chiefs comments.
Plan to grant licences to limited number of Indian trawlers By Namini Wijedasa Govt. considers controversial proposal, but strong opposition grows View(s): View(s):

The Sri Lanka Government is considering a proposal to issue permits to a limited number of Indian trawlers in an attempt to minimise mass-scale illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in sovereign seas by Tamil Nadu boats.

However, the proposal  which has been floated by the Indian side several times in the past as a solution to IUU fishing by their fishermen  is likely to be resisted by officials, fisher associations, exporters and others on the Sri Lankan side.

Defence Ministry Secretary Karunasena Hettiarachchi confirmed that the option of introducing a licensing system was being explored. We are now working on that, he told the Sunday Times. We have not finalised it. It is a very sensitive issue for both sides, India and Sri Lanka.

Technical proposals will be drawn up and submitted to the Indian Government through diplomatic channels, Mr. Hettiarachchi said, declining to give further details. He maintained that the issuance of fishing licences between India and Sri Lanka was not new.

In 1976, provisions were incorporated into the maritime boundary agreement binding the two countries to issue permits for up to six Sri Lankan vessels to fish in the Wadge Bank, south of Kanyakumari, for three years and subject to the total fish catch in any one year not exceeding 2000 tons. The Wadge Bank had been a traditional fishing ground of Sri Lankan fishermen but they lost access to it when it was declared to be within Indias Exclusive Economic Zone.

A close aide to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe also said the Government was working on the concept of a licence scheme but that there was nothing concrete yet.

Fisheries Minister Mahinda Amaraweera said the Defence Secretary had mentioned the proposal. It has been put forward as an idea and it is not necessarily a bad one, he explained. At present, 2,000 to 3,000 Indian trawlers fish in our waters. The aim is to reduce this to about 250 and to issue licences to them. But we must first speak to our people, especially our fisher associations. If they agree, we will implement it.

Fisheries Ministry Secrertary Mangalika Adikari said her office had not received a formal request. In the past, officials from Sri Lankas fisheries sector had stood firmly against moves to authorise any Indian trawlers to fish legally in local waters.

The policy has been that Sri Lanka will not issue licences for industrial mechanised bottom trawling, a senior official said, requesting anonymity. The Indian boats, most of them owned by rich Tamil Nadu businessmen with strong political connections, have trespassed into Sri Lankan waters for several decades, ravaging the seabed with their heavy trawls.

Sri Lankan fisher associations also opposed the suggestion to grant licences to Indian trawlers when it came up at talks with Indian fisher associations last year. However, officials like Defence Secretary Karunaratne feel that it is one way of breaking the stalemate on the issue, pending moves by the Indian Government to divert its fishermen towards deep sea expeditions.
Retired top cops death may point to medical negligence By Kumudini Hettiarachchi View(s): View(s):

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has submitted an interim report after probing allegations of possible medical negligence with regard to the death of a retired high-level police officer at the Police Hospital in Narahenpita.

While the interim report has been submitted to the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Pujith Jayasundara, the CID probe will continue on the circumstances under which Retired Senior Deputy Inspector General (DIG) M.E.P. Leo Perera died on October 28, last year, the Sunday Times learns.

The Sunday Times understands that the Police Hospital has come out adversely in the interim report. However, confirmation on the contents could not be ascertained.

The IGP had instructed the CID to investigate the death of Mr. Leo Perera, following a complaint made by his son, Rohan, alleging possible negligence and lapses at the Police Hospital.

Mr. Rohan Perera, in letters also sent to the Association of Chiefs of Police and the National Police Commission, states that Mr. Leo Perera was obtaining treatment regularly from the Police Hospital for low blood counts.

On October 26, last year, Mr. Leo Perera was taken to the Police Hospital at around 2 p.m. with high fever. He was taken there because his medical history was well-known at the Police Hospital, with records going back more than 10 years being available here, states Mr. Rohan Perera.

On arrival at the Police Hospital on October 26, he was examined by a Medical Officer (MO) who considered his condition to be serious, but as there was no room available for him to be admitted, prescribed oral antibiotics and sent him home.

He states that as there was no improvement in his condition, the next day (October 27), Mr. Leo Perera was once again taken to the Outpatients Department (OPD) of the Police Hospital at about 10.30 a.m. He was then admitted to Ward 6 as the rooms available for officers were occupied, with the only vacant/unoccupied room being reserved for the IGP.

With the condition of my father being considered serious by the MO, he was prescribed an intravenous antibiotic around 11 a.m., which however was administered only at about 8 p.m., after a nine-hour delay, alleges Mr. Rohan Perera, adding that the next day (October 28), an attendant of the Police Hospital informed the family that the patient had died.

He further states that the cause of death given after the Coroners Inquiry was septicaemia due to Myelodysplastic Syndrome. (A web search reveals that Myelodysplastic Syndrome is a blood disorder that causes a drop in the number of healthy blood cells due to the bone marrow producing abnormal cells that are not fully developed. Septicaemia, meanwhile, is blood poisoning or a very serious infection caused by large amounts of bacteria getting into the bloodstream.)

Mr. Rohan Perera alleges that:

 The outcome may have been different if the prescribed intravenous antibiotic was administered without a nine-hour delay.

 No senior doctor examined Mr. Leo Perera after admission to the Police Hospital.

 When Mr. Leo Pereras pressure was unstable, a junior doctor allegedly incorrectly diagnosed that his condition was stable around 7.30 p.m. on October 27.

 Mr. Leo Perera was compelled to use the common restroom of Ward 6 which was unclean and he may have contracted harmful bacteria.

Pointing out that as a senior officer Mr. Leo Perera should have been given the room reserved for the IGP which was vacant, Mr. Rohan Perera states that their request to use this room was denied.

When the Sunday Times contacted the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of the Police Hospital, Dr. Rohitha Fernando, who is the medical administrator, he declined to comment. He requested that the Police Spokesperson should be contacted. However, many attempts to contact the Police Spokesperson failed.

The Sunday Times learns that the Police Hospital which has more than 150 beds has 58 MOs, four full-time Consultants and six Visiting Consultants. The doctors have been seconded by the Health Ministry and some have permanent mobilisation with the Police Force.

Retired senior police officers told the Sunday Times that the dual control of the Police Hospital has led to its decline. The Police Hospital is under the CMO who is a Reservist Police Officer of Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) rank who looks after the medical functions as well as the Director of the Police Medical Services who is also of SSP rank who looks after the administrative functions. The Director is overseen by a Senior DIG (Support Services) based at Police Headquarters who has numerous other tasks as well.

What is lacking is a Coordinator, senior to both the Director and the CMO, to coordinate the medical and administrative functions. This has led to serious shortcomings at the Police Hospital, a retired DIG said.

Another retired DIG pinpointed the following:

n Non-appointment of a permanent Radiologist, a Microbiologist and two Physicians.

n Not activating the Hospital Development Committee which comprises medics and finance and logistic experts.

n Non-maintenance of the operating theatre, the intensive care unit, laboratories and sensitive equipment.
We lock them up and throw away the key By Chrishanthi Christopher Jails are bursting with inmates denied justice by muddled judges View(s): View(s):

Judges and magistrates who do not understand the Bail Act are contributing to dire overcrowding in prisons that sometimes hold close to twice as many inmates as they are designed to house, law reform activists say.

Statistics show that while prisons should hold 11,762 inmates, in 2015 they had a daily average of 16,000 to 19,000 with a daily average population of 8,406 remand prisoners.

For every convicted prisoner there are three remand prisoners in jail. The annual admission for the year 2015 is 113,734 of which 89,586 were remand prisoners. Only 24,148 were convicted by a court.

Some prisoners are awaiting decisions from appeals, others are awaiting trials/ cases postponed and have been granted bail but are still locked in due to rigid bail conditions that they have no capacity to fulfil.

Lal Wijenaike, Chairman of the Committee on Public Representations on Constitutional Reforms, said prisons were crowded because remand prisoners were kept behind bars for long periods. Even those who have committed minor offences are kept for two to four weeks without bail. They can be easily sent out on bail, he said.

Mr. Wijenaike maintained that a person should be denied bail only if s/he were violent and posed a threat to society or had a history of previous offences or might abscond.

About 10 per cent of those arrested and remanded were convicted. There is a serious flaw in the law, Mr. Wijenaike said. It is important to change the attitude of society and judges. Even young people and married men are being kept in remand. There is a dire need for the law to change.

Mr. Wijenaike said the judges interpretation of the Bail Act was wrong and the country needed a new Act.

He believes judges do not have the correct understanding of the Bail Act, leading to situations where, say, a person is given a six-month sentence after trial but has already served over 18 months to two years in remand.

Mr. Wijenaike further said the publics attitude towards the accused should change. If the case is not concluded the suspect is not guilty. The person may be enlarged on bail, he said.

A senior human rights lawyer, Kalyananda Thiranagama, is a voice crying out in the wilderness for the rights of prisoners. He said he has been pointing out unlawful sentences and procedural anomalies in the criminal system for several years.

Illegal jail sentences are issued by magistrates covering up to 30 years, he said. According to the Penal Code Act (PCA) a magistrate court can give a sentence not exceeding four years. But we find them announcing over 10, 12 sometimes up to 30 years. This is illegal, Mr. Thiranagama said.

He said judges and the lawyers were aware of this but were ignoring the issue. Consequently, prisoners stayed in prisons without Legal Aid for months, if not for years. This has been happening for the last 35 years, since 1981, resulting in crowding of prisons, he said.

The Judicial Services Commission (JSC) rejected these claims. The commissions Secretary, Pradeep Jayatilake, said suspects were charged according to varying statutes of the Penal Code and if there were any complaints the JSC would take them up.

The Lawyers for Human Rights and Development has taken up the cases of 25 prisoners and is contesting their sentences before the Court of Appeal. The prisoners have been picked from the Bogambara, Kalutara and Ratnapura prisons.

Mr. Tiranagama also pointed out that prisoners have to spend long sentences in prisons when they have multiple offences and judges omit to state their sentences should run concurrently. Consequently, the Prisons Department added up the sentences and incarcerated the prisoner for the term of consecutive sentences.

Prisons Commissioner-General H.M.N.C. Danasinghe said in instances where a prisoner has convictions on multiple counts the file is sent to the magistrate for advice. But if the magistrate does not reply the sentences are calculated in consecutive terms. We do not have authority to determine what is correct, he said. He said that under 300 of the CCPA only sentences given on the same day could be considered as concurrent sentences.

The Legal Aid Commission (LAC) has also stepped forward to help these unfortunate victims. Chairman Rohan Sahabandu said Legal Aid was being given to most prisoners who lack legal assistance. The Prisons Department writes seeking our assistance for prisoners locked in for a long time. We get a list from the Prisons Department and help out those who need assistance with bail. We take cases such as maintenance, divorces, domestic violence, he said.

LAC senior member U.R. de Silva said sometimes the police and the public alike want an accused to be kept behind bars. When there is a public outcry to keep the accused in prison saying that s/he poses a threat to society but the magistrate grants bail, the magistrate is suspected of being partial.

He said confessions made to the police or to the media are not acceptable by the law as there are concerns that they might have been made under duress. Under section 25/26 of the Penal Code only confessions made in courts are accepted. Exceptional circumstances would be under Prevention of Terrorism Act or under emergency regulation where the confessions are made in the presence of an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) or a higher-ranking officer.

According to the LAC there are currently about 956 suspects who have been given bail and yet languishing in jail as they cannot fulfil the bail conditions. This includes 140 from the Mahara Prison, 119 at the Magazine Prison and 100 at Bogambara.

The Bail Act, Mr. De Silva said, has no uniformity and as such sentences passed are completely at the discretion of the magistrate. When there are multiple offences tried in different courts, one court might grant bail and another does not, depending on the attitude of the judges. Sometimes two different orders are given  one to remand and other to grant bail. We are trying to bring in guidelines so that justice will be served in the courthouse, he said.

Another factor that hinders bail is the complexity of the bail conditions. Bail conditions require that the sureties the suspects produce are high-ranking public servants. Many remand prisoners are unable to produce these sureties and languish in jail. Even if they find such a guarantor that person has to reside in the area where the incident occurred. Their Identity Cards are checked and in addition have to produce a letter from the Grama Sevaka confirming that s/he is a resident of the area.

Additionally, the person giving the surety has to possess property worth Rs. 500,000 or over and has to obtain a certificate from the Grama Sevaka to this effect. To get this certificate a payment of 1.5 per cent of the value of the property has to be paid as fee. Sometimes the passport of the guarantor is impounded.

With such restrictions it is seldom that people come forward to help the accused. This has resulted in many people being kept in jail for a longer period than the offence entails.

Another problem faced is the practice of requiring the accused to report to the police station in the area where the incident took place. This also breeds corruption where police officers are bribed for favours.

Mr. de Silva said the LAC had put forward many suggestions to circumvent these problems where the persons on bail could visit the closest police station to mark his attendance.

In non-summary cases including rape, murder and child abuse the Magistrates Courts and the High Court often send the file to the Attorney-Generals office for advice. The no date cases, as they are called, very often get misplaced and the accused languishes in remand jail for months or years. There is no one assigned to follow up the cases.

In other instances, the police sometimes fail to submit the Information Book (IB) to the AGs office. The IB is important as the Attorney-Generals office acts on the evidence logged in the book to make decisions.

Sad list of forgotten suspects behind bars Among the 126 no-dates cases languishing in prisons is case No. NS 168 at the Kaduwela Magistrates Court where, although police have forwarded the Information Book (IB) to the Attorney-Generals office the accused has been in remand prison for the past 10 years (since September 2006) with the Attorney-General still to make a decision on processing the case, the Legal Aid Commission (LAC) said. In another non-summary case (No. 2924 at Walasmulla Magistrates Court) the accused has been in remand since 1994, for 12 years. There is no clue about the whereabouts of his file. The LAC is trying to trace it. The police have not forwarded the IB extract to the Attorney-Generals office. In case No. 28158 at the Udugama Magistrates Court the suspect, who was arrested for murder in 2006, is still in remand. The LAC has requested details from the Attorney-General and has also written to the Magistrates Court and to the police to find out the exact position of the charge. In case No.98305 at the Mahiyangana Magistrates Court the subject was arrested in 2008 and is still in Badulla remand. LAC senior member U.R. de Silva said that there were several cases from 2010 involving people arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, Emergency Regulations, and for the possession of narcotics. The Penal Code requires that a maximum period a suspect could be kept in remand prison is two years, after which s/he should be released. The LAC said about 1,195 people are in jails for small offences and cannot pay fines. These people are unnecessarily in remand. The crowding in prisons can be solved easily. Stringent bail orders should be relaxed and non-summary cases heard quickly, Mr. de Silva said. Most importantly, judges had to be educated in the law and their attitude changed. The bail is in the law and there is a provision for bail order, he said.
Kudiramalai :Mystery of a buried city By Dr. Wimal Guneratne View(s): View(s):

R.L. Brohiers book, Discovering Ceylon, first published in 1973, states that there had been an ancient settlement close to Kudiramalai, now buried under the sand. Brohier writes that the first to discover this habitation was surveyor H.G.A. de Silva in 1923 while doing a topographical survey for the Survey Department off the north western shores of the island. The map makes reference to an ancient harbour, well and ruins.

Subsequently Brohier had visited the site and found three ancient wells, large amounts of broken bricks, plates, pottery, water collecting vessels and other household items between the surface sand layer and the underlying lime stone layer. The eroding sea has made it easy to observe these artifacts.

Three of my friends and I were interested in seeing this unexcavated archeological site and on March 25, we set out early from the Mahawewa bungalow, Wilpattu. The site is about 40 km from Mahawewa and it took us about three hours to reach Kudiramalai, a popular place for visitors to Wilpattu.

On the way we visited the ruins of Kuvenis palace. According to legend, princess Kuveni lived in this palace and ruled Kali Villu, which is the present Wilpattu area. No archeological excavations have been done to confirm whether these ruins are of a palace. It took us about one hour to travel from Kuvenis palace to Kudiramalai.

History of Kudiramalai

Kudiramalai, the famous ancient port city, lies in the north western coast between Mannar and Puttalam. It is in the northern most part of the Puttalam district and is within the Wilpattu national park. The natural harbour which opens into the Gulf of Mannar, world famous for its pearl banks, was named Hipporus harbour by the ancient Greeks.

According to the Mahawamsa, when Prince Vijaya and his companions were close to the Sri Lankan shore, they saw a mountain and sailed towards it, landing close to it. According to Brohier, the only mountain visible to the sea on the north western sea coast is the Kudiramalai Mountain. He had gone out to sea and made this observation. After landing Prince Vijaya and his companions rested on the shore and observed that their hands were reddish due to the red coloured sand. Thus he named the country Tambapanni which means copper coloured. This name is still used by the locals to refer to the area.

According to history and legend, the north-west of Sri Lanka was governed by Malabar kings of India in ancient times. During that period, Alli Arasani, a famous Malabar Queen, also called Alisabrani, or Aliran had governed this area and it is said that her palace and settlement was close to Kudiramalai. During this time she traded pearls found in plenty in the famous pearl banks for horses, brought by Arab traders. It is believed that the name Kudiramalai meaning horse mountain was derived from this horse trading. According to legend, Queen AlliArasanis palace and settlement was buried following a cyclone or a tsunami.

During the reign of Emperor Claudius, a Roman tax collector by the name of Annius Placamus was caught up in a storm while in the Red Sea and blown off the coast of Arabia, landed at the Kudiramalai harbour. This is believed to be during the reign of King Chandamukasiva. It is possible that Prince Vijaya landed here as well. The Roman historian Pliny mentions about the Hipporus harbour and also about a settlement in close vicinity to a hill, which is most likely the Kudiramalai Mountain. According to the Bible (Old Testament 1 Kings 10:22) during the reign of King Solomon, (around 1000.B.C.) ships came to Tarshish and took sandalwood, gems, ivory, gold, silver and peacocks. French Biblical scholar Samuel Bochart is of the view that Tarshish was Kudiramalai.

Buried city

After visiting Kudiramalai we travelled southwards along the Mannar Puttalam road for about 3 km. to reach Pallugathurai. After 3km further south we arrived at Kollankanatta. Both these are migrant fisher villages. According to Brohier there were three ancient wells and eroding ruins between Pallugaturai and Kollankanatta. We walked a few hundred yards along the sea shore towards Pallugaturai and were amazed to find broken bricks, pottery, building materials, between the top sandy layer and the coral layer as mentioned by Brohier in his book Discovering Ceylon. At one spot we observed the walls of a large building being eroded by the sea. The walls were very thick and the building must have been large, it may have even been a palace. Several other walls of buildings were washed away by the erosion. We were informed that the three wells mentioned in Mr. Brohiers book were washed away to the sea some time back. The sea shore is being rapidly eroded and most of the buildings covered by sand will be washed away in a short period of time. There is no doubt that an ancient settlement with large buildings lie buried between Kollankanatta and Pallugaturai close to the sea shore. If archeological excavations are not done soon, we will not be able to find out what this buried city is.

Other buried cities of Sri Lanka

Several large ancient cities mentioned in Mahawamsa have not yet been discovered. Tambapanni, Uruvela, Upatissagama, Ujjeni and Vijitha are the more important ones.

The city of Uruvela founded by King Vijayas chieftain may be this buried city. It can be supported by several facts:

The Mahawamsa says that, Uruvela was five yojanas (40 miles) west of Anuradhapura. The site mentioned is also about 40 miles from Anuradhapura.

Fishermen of Uruvela, which had been a port city and situated close to the pearl banks had donated pearls and corals when Ruwanweliseya was constructed in 100 B.C. In Ptolemys 3rd century map of Taprobana, a port city by the name of Margana is prominently marked in the north western coast. B.J.Perera in his study of The Ports of Ancient Ceylon states that Margana and Uruvela are the same. (Ceylon Historical Journal vol. 1.)

Mahawansa mentions that Valli Vehera built by King Suba in 60-67 A. D. is close to Uruwela. Valli Vehera has been discovered by the Archaeological Department and is close to the site.

Pomparippu, the ancient urn burial ground, which was discovered by R.L. Brohier in 1923 is also close to the site and is estimated to have 10,000 to 12,000 burials and may have been the burial ground of Uruvela.

Alternatively, this could be the settlement and palace of Queen AlliArasani, which was situated close to Kudiramalai, and this buried city may well have been built by her. Or it could be Tambapanni, the first city and capital of Sri Lanka founded by King Vijaya close to Kudiramalai.

It is very important to identify this place for Sri Lankan history. One has to see for oneself the buried eroding city. I hope the Archaeological Department will enlighten us.
Party all night at one venue, on three levels and three themes View(s):

Three different genres of music under one roof! This is what  3 Floors of Sound will offer party-goers on Saturday, July 9 from 8 p.m. onwards at Flamingo House, on Horton Place, Colombo 7.

One venue, three levels, three themes- each offering an array of exotic beverages enticing tunes, and electrifying atmospheres; the perfect concoction for an evening of fun! The event is organised by Colombo VIP Night and Flamingo House.

- The first floor of the setting will display a Salsa themed bar, festooned with flamboyant Latin inspired decor. This floor will be brought to life with salsa music and live performances and dance lessons by professional dance Instructors .

- The second floor will bear an old-school Disco Inferno theme and will feature the Resident DJ Hitch as he spins all the favourite hits from the 70s 80s & 90s to now. The classic Retro decor is bound to provoke the grooviest of moves.

- The third floor will be staged as a night club and will feature two well known DJs, Muku and DJ Rev, spinning electrifying Deep House tunes.

Lux, the events main sponsor will give guests an unique experience with their new infused Floral Fusion Oil that makes its perfume superior to real roses. This scent will be diffused in the air across the 3 Floors of Sound. For those who seek to dine amidst the revelry, Flamingo House will be providing a bespoke menu with an assortment of delectable items at affordable prices.

Complimentary canapes and welcome drinks will be served to those arriving before 9.30 pm which is included in the ticket price of Rs 3,500.

Latika Alok, Event Producer says: 3 Floors of Sound is set to be Colombos first triptych event and will be a euphoric affair for the A List who like to dance. Flamingo House, is our Venue & Hospitality Partner, known for its eccentrically chic and whimsical ambience that accentuates the splendour of harmonized diversity, making it the ideal venue for this unique one night event.

Colombo VIP and Flamingo House are delighted to collaborate with Zonta Club III of Colombo and a percentage of funds raised from 3 FS will go to fund projects to rehabilitate the recent flood victims of Colombo. Zonta is partnering with SEVANTHA Urban Resource Centre, an NGO working in urban areas, to replace the housing and livelihood damage caused to these victims.

An ongoing programme is planned to reach out to 250 families in Kelanimulla Grama Niladhari Division of Kolonnawa Divisional Secretary area. Funds raised will be used in providing assistance to affected families in repairing their houses and acquiring livelihood support.

Shiranthi Gunawardene, President, Zonta Club III of Colombo, says: During any natural calamity, its the woman and child that is most affected. A home is the epicentre of a womans life and any loss or damage to her house has grave consequences on her mental and physical well-being. The details of affected families are being collected and family profiles will be prepared in order to deliver the required assistance to target families and subsequently to document the progress achieved after the assistance. We are extremely grateful to Colombo VIP Nights and Flamingo House for their generous contributions to this cause.

No VIP night would be complete without the ladies receiving an exclusive door gift. This time it is courtesy of MOSH. Other supporting sponsors include Wine World  Beverage Partner Dynamic AV Technologies (PVT) Ltd  Audio Visual Partner, EFM  Electronic Media Partner and The Wijeya Group  exclusive Media Print Partner. Book early to avoid disappointment as Tickets are limited and will not be sold at the door. Call the Ticket Hotline on 0778591846.

For event updates please visit www.facebook.com/ladies.vip.night.colombo
Will Brexit have political ramifications at the UN? By Thalif Deen View(s): View(s):

UNITED NATIONS (IPS)  The much-ballyhooed British exit (Brexit) from the 28-member European Union (EU) is likely to have political ramifications at the United Nations  both in the short and the long term. If Scotland and Northern Ireland eventually decide to break away, as expected in the not-too-distant future, the United Kingdom (UK), as it is formally known in the world body, may be reduced to a minority of one: a kingdom sans unity.

Still, will Brexit make any significant difference at the UN?

At first glance, the answer seems to be not much, James Paul, a former executive director of the New York-based Global Political Forum, told IPS.

After all, the UN is composed of nation states, he said, pointing out that the United Kingdom will continue, as before, to participate in its national capacity in all UN activities, most notably the Security Council where it is one of five key Permanent Members.

On closer examination, though, the impact will be very considerable, though it will be various across the world body, he noted.

The European Union has become a powerful force at the UN over the past five years and all EU member diplomats closely coordinate with one another, in intense daily rounds of meetings at the EU Mission.

Paul, who monitored the politics and inner workings of the UN for nearly 19 years from an office just across from the UN Secretariat, said: They hammer out common policy positions and strategise how to work together to achieve common goals.

He pointed out that the UK has been a lead player in this process, benefitting from the large EU delegation and the information networks that the EU member state delegations provide. But now no more.

The Brits, now in splendid isolation, will find their UN perch rather lonely, saidJames Paul.

It will be out of the club, no longer a participant, a loner in the diplomatic process. Its diplomats, for all their well-known talent, will be hard pressed to sway UN policy debates when differences arise with the EU. said Paul, a one-time chair of the NGO Working Group on the Security Council and editor of the Oxford Companion to the Politics of the World.

Along with Russia, France, China and the United States, the UK is a veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council, the most powerful body in the Organisation.

Barbara Crossette, currently the UN correspondent for The Nation and former UN Bureau Chief of the New York Times, told IPS the little Englanders dont seem to have a problem with the UN, which indeed they might cling to, as proof that the country still matters.

Still, Britain was not always a united kingdom, she pointed out. And the recent Scottish referendum (in 2014) while it did not back independence, reminded everyone that the issue is still always in the background.

As for Northern Ireland, she said, this might speed up a move to be united with the Irish Republic  or, much less likely, with Scotland. Both voted heavily against Brexit.

Crossette said UK has been a member of the Security Council from the creation of the UN, and survived the loss of most of its remaining colonies after World War II.

Yes, it has been a big player at the UN  with a good foreign service and record in training diplomats  and I dont see that changing, at least in the near future. After all, France remains in the P5 with far less global influence, said Crossette, who is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Now, having said that, if this referendum  based in some part on (presumptive US Republican presidential nominee Donald) Trumpesque lies or fabrications in the Brexit camp  as commentators are suggesting and some British people who voted to leave are now regretting and wanting to reverse  brings on an unexpected global recession, and London loses a lot of financial clout, that may set back British credibility and influence more generally. But that would take time, she predicted.

Jayantha Dhanapala, a former UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs, told IPS Chapter VIII of the Charter of the United Nations provides for Regional Arrangements, especially in the maintenance of international peace and security and the EU was thus included in all consultations with the UN Security Council.

This will go on with or without the UK in the EU although the UK role going it alone  perhaps minus Scotland and Northern Ireland at some future date  will be greatly diminished in influence, he noted.

A corresponding increase in the importance of UK membership in the Commonwealth, said Dhanapala, may compensate for this in an increasingly multipolar world.

Far more importantly however are the trends that Brexit signifies.

He said post World War II in the 1950s Jean Monnet and his European pioneers set a precedent for regional organisation and trans-national planning because of its economic rationale and were followed in other continents.

Today, under pressure from parish pump politics, many countries are turning inward to populism as a reaction to immigration issues, widening economic disparities and enforced austerity, argued Dhanapala, who serves as member of the Board of Sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and a governing board member of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

If right-wing extremism in politics spreads growing intolerance, tension and conflict will increase and fundamental UN values will be under threat imperilling international peace and security, the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and agreements reached on vital global issues like Climate Change.

It is an urgent challenge where the UN must show collective leadership without waiting for a new Secretary-General to be elected, said Dhanapala, who ran for the post of Secretary-General nine years ago when the current UN chief Ban Ki-moon was elected to office.

Paul told IPS in the Security Council the picture is somewhat different.

The UK acts on its own in the Council, as one of the five influential Permanent Members, not subjected to EU common policy positions. France does the same. Here continuity from pre-Brexit seems more the order of the day, he noted.

But in fact, the Brits will have to contend with some of the same policy isolation they will suffer in other fora. They will be drawn ever closer to their special relationship partner, the United States, and find that they are even less able than before to produce policy of their own and hence to justify their own Permanent seat.

He predicted the UK role in the Council may face an uncertain future.

We have to wonder what might happen if the Scots (as now seems likely) withdraw from the UK, declare their independence, and then join the EU. Might Northern Ireland (where the Remain vote was also strong) also take the same course? What then would become of the United Kingdom as a Permanent Member, having lost important components of its national territory and not insignificant numbers of its population?

Providing a historical background, Paul said those who remember the collapse of the Soviet Union know that there is a fairly recent case of such instability in Security Council history.

But the potential threat to Russian permanent membership in the Council was given a quick fix. For all the loss of Soviet territory and population, the emergent Russian Federation was declared by the Council to be the successor to the USSR and the case was rapidly closed, he noted.

It could (and probably would) happen this way again. The Club would certainly try to put in a fix again. But would it really be so simple this time around? Perhaps the European Union would make a play to take over the fifth Permanent seat? Perhaps India would insist? In such a free-for-all, the whole charade of permanency in an impermanent world would come crashing down. A more democratic Security Council might then emerge.

Brexit, Paul warned, is a clear sign that the political iceberg of the post-war period is melting fast. Institutions are wavering and publics are angry.

The UN, like the European Union and nearly all governments, is taking the heat. Public fury can produce bad outcomes, but the current debates and movements are revealing clear failures of governance and leadership. The UN could benefit from a fundamental post-Brexit shake-up and the Security Council needs such a change more than ever, Paul declared.

(Thalif Deen is the UN Bureau Chief and Regional Director, Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency)

He can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has called a two-day state mourning for the victims, who included nine Italians, seven Japanese, three Bangladeshis and an Indian teenager, at the Holey Artisan cafe in the diplomatic area of Gulshan in Dhaka.

By Indo-Asian News Service: All the attackers in the assault on a cafe in Dhaka in which Islamic State terrorists slaughtered 20 civilians, mostly foreigners, including an Indian, were Bangladeshi citizens and five of them were wanted by police.

Police Inspector General Shahidul Hoque told CNN that police had tried to arrest these five militants previously.

Authorities also released the nationalities of the 20 hostages who were found dead inside the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe after Bangladeshi troops stormed the cafe early Saturday morning, ending an overnight siege.

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According to the country's Joint Force Command, nine of the victims were Italian, seven were Japanese, one was from India, two were Bangladeshi and one was a US citizen of Bangladeshi origin. Eleven of the victims were male and nine were female.

Two police officers were also killed in a gunfire exchange earlier in the standoff, authorities said.

Security forces rescued 13 hostages and killed six gunmen on Saturday morning, ending the nation's worst hostage crisis, being termed as Bangladesh's '7/16'.

HASINA CALLS TWO-DAY STATE MOURNING

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has called a two-day state mourning for the victims, who included nine Italians, seven Japanese, three Bangladeshis and an Indian teenager, at the Holey Artisan cafe in the diplomatic area of Gulshan in Dhaka.

One of the gunmen, injured in the shootout, was captured, while 13 hostages were rescued at the end of the 12-hour siege. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Indian President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee have condemned the attack.

Modi called up Sheikh Hasina and condemned the "despicable attack" and said that India "stands firmly with our sisters and brothers of Bangladesh" in this hour of grief.

Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj confirmed the killing of 19-year-old Tarishi Jain of Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh.

"Tarishi was 19-years-old. She passed out from American School Dhaka. Presently, she was a student at Berkeley," Sushma posted.

In Dhaka, Brigadier General Nayeem Ashfaq Chowdhury, director of military operations, told reporters that "most of the victims were killed brutally with sharp weapons".

The attack began at 8.45 pm when around 20-22 guests were at the Holey Artisan Bakery downstairs and the O'Kitchen Restaurant upstairs, a cafe popular with foreigners.

The gunmen, shouting "Allahu Akbar" raided the cafe and took hostages, and slaughtered those who were unable to recite the Quran, said rescued hostages.

OPERATION THUNDERBOLT

Later, the area was sealed off, and following directives from Prime Minister Hasina, the armed forces along with the Rapid Action Battalion and police launched an assault, codenamed 'Operation Thunderbolt', in the morning. The siege ended at 8.30 am.

Prime Minister Hasina, condemning the "extremely heinous act", vowed to root out terrorism from the country, which has seen a spate of deadly attacks by Islamic State and Al Qaeda-linked militants on progressive academics, writers, activists and religious minorities in the Muslim majority country.

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"We'll establish Bangladesh as a peaceful state...No conspiracy can hinder our advancement," she said in a nationally televised address.

"What kind of Muslims are these people? They don`t have any religion. People must resist these terrorists. My government is determined to root out terrorism and militancy from Bangladesh," she said.

Officials said the 13 rescued hostages included a Japanese and two Sri Lankans.

The Bangladeshi branch of the Islamic State claimed the attack through its mouthpiece, the Amaq news agency, saying 24 people "of different nationalities" were killed and 40 others were injured.

The Daily Star reported that hostages were made to recite verses from the Quran and those who could were not harmed.

The attack has also been condemned by other countries, including Pakistan and Malaysia, while the European Union has also voiced condemnation.

ALSO READ: Another Hindu priest attacked in Bangladesh, condition critical





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Government has announced a new $1 billion housing infrastructure fund to help councils like Tauranga accelerate the supply of new housing says Finance Minister Bill English.

The contestable fund will be open to applications from councils in the highest growth areas  currently Tauranga, Christchurch, Queenstown, Hamilton and Auckland.
A $100,000 dinosaur hunt is about to start within the central North Islands Te Urewera in association with GNS Science and Ngai Tuhoe.

The project, with input from Victoria University of Wellington, involves searching for dinosaur and other prehistoric fossils within Te Urewera.
Te Puke residents are being asked whether they support the introduction of a temporary 40km/h speed restriction on roads surrounding a number of local schools.

Western Bay of Plenty District Council is proposing to create a school zone around Te Puke Primary School, Te Puke High School and Fairhaven School in a bid to improve student safety.
Around 90,000 New Zealand children will receive a free book as part of Government Book Week which begins today, says Education Minister Hekia Parata.

Government Book Week is run by the Duffy Books in Homes programme. Each student at the 500 schools in the programme receives five free books of their choice every year, which they can take home and keep. The Ministry of Education funds one of these books during Government Book Week.

Reading is an essential skill for success in every aspect of life. This initiative is a great way to inspire a love of books in children and improve literacy skills, says Hekia.

More than 11 million books have been given to Kiwi kids since the Duffy Books in Homes programme started in 1995. Thousands more will be given out this week, just in time for the school holidays."

During Government Book Week many schools invite their local Member of Parliament to read to students and present them with books.

Government Book Week runs from July 4-8.

Source: Office of Hekia Parata.
Transport Minister Simon Bridges and Associate Transport Minister Craig Foss today announced a trial of Bluetooth technology to deliver audio safety messages to rental car drivers on the popular Christchurch to Queenstown route. The trial is being run by the NZ Transport Agency, in partnership with HMI Technologies and GO Rentals. It will see safety messages sent from roadside transmitters, via Bluetooth, to devices fitted in rental vehicles. The trial will run from 2 July along the key route between Christchurch and Queenstown with GO Rentals customers who volunteer to take part. This innovative trial shows how intelligent technology has the potential to improve the safety and resilience of our existing transport network. If the trial is successful the initiative may continue along the route and be implemented in other parts of New Zealand, Mr Bridges says. The New Zealand designed transmitters are in remote locations where there is no mobile coverage. This feature, and the use of Bluetooth technology, makes the trial the first of its kind in New Zealand for in-vehicle messaging. It is exciting to see a combined Government-industry approach to solving technology challenges unique to the New Zealand roading environment. Up to 50 devices, capable of receiving more than 70 safety and real-time messages along both directions of the route, will be installed in GO Rental vehicles. While the trial does not specifically target visiting drivers, Visiting Driver Signature project partners, led by the NZ Transport Agency, will assess whether this service could be added to their suite of safety measures, Mr Foss says. This technology has the potential to improve safety outcomes in remote locations, which are draw-cards for many overseas visitors. If the trial is successful, a second step could be to create a mobile phone application that allows communication with the vehicles internal audio system, making the initiative more accessible to all road users. The NZ Transport Agency is also investigating integrating the system more seamlessly with a vehicles internal GPS system. Audio has been chosen as the safest method of delivering the messages, which range from safety reminders about road conditions and New Zealand road rules, to suggestions about good places to break the journey and travel times to the next destination. Source: Office of Simon Bridges and Craig Foss.
Another Indian, a doctor by profession had a narrow escape as he spoke fluent Bengali and the terrorists mistook him for a Bangladeshi but young Tarishi did not have the advantage of speaking the language.

Tarishi Jain had accompanie d her two friend to the cafe on Friday. (Mail Today)

By India Today Web Desk: The body of slain Indian girl Tarishi Jain will be flown to New Delhi on Monday from where her family will take her to Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh for the last rites, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has said.

19-year-old Tarishi, a student at UC Berkeley, was among the 20 hostages killed in a gruesome attack at Holey Artisan Bakery cafe in Dhaka's Gulshan area on Saturday. Tarishi's family members living in Suhag Nagar neighbourhood of Uttar Pradesh's Firozabad town are waiting for her body to be flown in for the last rites.

I am extremely pained to share that the terrorists have killed Tarushi, an Indian girl who was taken hostage in the terror attack in Dhaka.&; Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) July 2, 2016

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Swaraj has asked MEA officers to arrange visa for Tarishi's family members and spoken to her father Sanjeev Jain in this regard.

TARISHI WAS HACKED TO DEATH WHILE ON HER VACATION



Tarishi accompanied her two friends to the cafe in Dhaka's diplomatic zone that was attacked by Islamic State terrorists where she was hacked to death. The girls got together after Iftar (breaking of fast during Ramzan) when terrorists stormed the place picking up people who could not quote the Quran, a Bangladeshi publication reported.

She was on a holiday visiting her family in Dhaka. Her father runs a garment business in Bangladesh for the last 15-20 years, according to officials. After graduating from American School, Dhaka she had moved to the US for higher studies. Quoting a rescued hostage, the Daily Star, a Bangladesh daily reported those who could recite a verse from the Quran were spared and the others were tortured before being killed.

Another Indian, a doctor by profession had a narrow escape as he spoke fluent Bengali and the terrorists mistook him for a Bangladeshi but young Tarishi did not have the advantage of speaking the language.

EAM SUSHMA SWARAJ EXPRESSES GRIEF



In a series of tweets, foreign minister Sushma Swaraj said," I am extremely pained to share that the terrorists have killed Tarishi, an Indian girl who was taken hostage in the terror attack in Dhaka. I have spoken to her father Sanjeev Jain and conveyed our deepest condolences. The country is with them in this hour of grief. We are arranging visa for the family. My officers are on the job," she said.

"I monitored this personally the whole night. Our Dy High Commnr in Dhaka Adarsh Swaika is with family since yesterday." Twenty foreigners, including eight Italians, were brutally murdered by the militants inside the restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic zone before commandos launched an assault killing six attackers and capturing one alive, ending Bangladesh's worst terror attack.

Director of Military Operations Brigadier General Nayeem Ashfaq Chowdhury said the militants slaughtered 20 hostages before the joint operation led by the armed forces began. Most of those killed were found with their throat slit, he added.

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He said the bodies of the victims were recovered during a search in the Holey Artisan Bakery compound after the operation. The bodies were shifted to the Combined Military Hospital morgue for autopsy to confirm their identity.

ALSO READ:

Dhaka attack: Indian girl killed, Sushma Swaraj expresses grief

Another Hindu priest attacked in Bangladesh, condition critical



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Meghalaya DGP, SK Jain told India Today, We are taking no chances and are already closely coordinating with the BSF which is the first line of defence of our nations borders.??

20 people were killed after gunmen barged into the upscale Holey Artisan Bakery in Gulshan locality of Dhaka. (PIC: AP)

By David Laitphlang: Maintaining its vigilant stance especially when it comes to cross border movement with several Meghalaya rebels being holed up in parts of Bangladesh, Meghalaya police has sounded red alert in all its border outposts of the state which shares a mammoth 443 km stretch of international boundary with the neighbouring country.

Meghalaya DGP, SK Jain told India Today, We are taking no chances and are already closely coordinating with the BSF which is the first line of defence of our nations borders.??

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Jain held a detailed interaction with Inspector General of BSF, Meghalaya Frontier, PK Dubey on Saturday to ensure close coordination between the state police and the border sentinels.

The IG whiled assuring focused alert in all sectors also expressed concern at the unfenced portions of the international border and this is one sector where we have to work in close tandem,?? Jain said adding that this issue is indeed a matter of serious concern??.

The DGP further informed that the state police as well as other security agencies are also focusing strongly in the Garo Hills sector of the international border with the ongoing anti-insurgency operation Operation Hillstorm yielding positive results. According to him, the additional DG (Law & Order), SB Singh had a proactive and successful review meeting with senior police officials on Saturday in Garo Hills.

We have more than ten police stations in locations that are close to the international border with Bangladesh, so obviously our alert levels are extremely high,?? Jain said while adding, Our men are dedicated, sincere and capable to attend to any situation.??

Also Read

Dhaka attack: Bangladesh minister blames Pakistan government, ISI



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Update: Syracuse police identify victim of Westcott Street homicide

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A 29-year-old man was shot and killed early Sunday morning, becoming the second person shot and killed in the city in two days and the 16th homicide victim in the city this year.

Police said they arrived on the 500 block of Westcott Street, which is near Dorian's Pizza restaurant on the high-pedestrian-traffic street, around 3:30 a.m. after getting reports of a shooting. There they found a 29-year-old man with a gunshot wound.

He was transported to Upstate University Hospital, where he died a short time later, said Syracuse police spokesman Sgt. Richard Helterline.

A 29-year-old man was shot and killed early Sunday morning on the 500 block of Westcott Street, marking the second homicide in as many days. Witnesses said they saw officers gathered in this corner of the Dorian's restaurant parking lot.

Police had limited suspect information except that the male suspect ran away from the scene through backyards on Victoria Place. Police ask anyone with information to call the police department and can do so confidentially at (315)422-5222 or anonymously through the department's SPD Tips app.

Ayala Pourat, who lives on Victoria Place, said she was awakened by three or four gunshots around 3:30 a.m. and then silence. Then she heard shouting and heard sirens, eventually watching around a dozen police vehicles arrive.

A detective knocked on the door and asked if she'd seen the suspect run down Victoria Place. She said she did not.

The homicide happened just more than 24 hours after Nathan Q. Chandler, 34, was found shot just in the street on the 600 block of North Salina Street. He also later died from his injuries.

The shooting is the second on Westcott Street in recent weeks. On June 5, a man was shot in the foot outside an anti-gun-violence concert at the Westcott Theater, and an SUV parked on the street was struck with a bullet.

Neighbor Majdi Essi, who was walking around the neighborhood Sunday morning, said he looking for evidence of the shooting.

"I've been here 50 years, and we've never had a problem," he said.

He said he saw police gathered at the Dorian's Parking lot at 7 a.m.

Dorian's owner Kostas Petkopoulus said he hopes the police department will step up patrols to protect the "beautiful" Westcott neighborhood from this type of violence. He said he might hire a security guard to patrol his parking lot as a last resort.

"We need police protection," he said, standing at his parking lot Sunday morning. He said his and other shops were all long closed at 3:30 a.m. when the shooting occurred.
This feature is coordinated by The Post-Standard/Syracuse.com and InterFaith Works of CNY. Follow this theme and author posted Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.

Dr. Sara French

The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) was founded in 1890 during a period of intense interest in America's history, when patriotic lineage societies flourished. Many of these societies excluded women and so four women decided to create their own group. On October 11, 1890, Daughters of the American Revolution began and in 1896 it was incorporated by an Act of Congress. The DAR's objectives are historic preservation, education, and patriotism. In June of 2016, DAR celebrated its historic 125th Continental Congress at their headquarters in Washington, D.C. At opening night, DAR members gathered to watch a historic tableau of visitors from DAR's past tell their stories. Over 4,200 members and guests attended and a Guinness(r) World Record was set with over 100,000 letters to active duty military personnel collected. In addition, the three-year total of community service hours reported to the Young Administration, whose goal was 12.5 million hours in honor of DAR's 125th birthday, was over 14 million.

The Daughters of the American Revolution devote themselves tirelessly to education with two DAR schools, Tamassee in South Carolina and Kate Duncan Smith in Alabama, providing education to significantly underserved populations. They also support Hillside School, Hindman Settlement School, Berry College, and Crossnore School. Two other schools supported by DAR serve Native American students: Bacone College in Oklahoma and Chemawa Indian School in Oregon. Support for education includes providing clothing, books, and money for students; maintaining facilities; housing boarding students; and giving scholarships and awards to both college and secondary school students. DAR also provides educational resources to teachers; awards for outstanding educators; recognition of Good Citizens; and materials to promote the celebration of Constitution Week in September for libraries and schools. DAR members volunteer in schools and tutoring programs as well as providing education programs and "read-ins" at national headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Sara French is a 30 year member of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). She serves as Chaplain of Comfort Tyler Chapter, Syracuse. Click here for more information about the DAR.
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Niagara County Sheriff James Voutour says Christina Karlak, of Hartland, stabbed her husband during a dispute at the couple's home late Friday, July 1, 2016.

(Niagara County Sheriff's Office )

HARTLAND, N.Y. -- An Upstate New York man drove himself to a hospital after his wife stabbed him during a fight, police said Saturday.

Christina Karlak, of Hartland, stabbed her husband during a dispute at the couple's home late Friday, Niagara County Sheriff James Voutour said.

The victim drove himself to Eastern Niagara Hospital-Lockport with stab wounds to the throat and arm. He was then airlifted to Erie County Medical Center, where he was in serious condition Saturday. His name was not released.

The 40-year-old Karlak was arraigned on a charge of first-degree assault. Bail was set at $10,000.

Information on an attorney for Karlak wasn't immediately available.
The Nebraska director is putting together an ensemble for his next, a satire.

By India Today Web Desk: Veteran filmmaker Alexander Payne has begun shooting for his next film, Downsizing, in Toronto. And his cast includes heavyweights like Matt Damon, Christoph Waltz and Kristen Wiig among others.

The film is a satire, and revolves around this Omaha man who is undergoing a process to become a fraction of his size, and joins one of the many colonies emerging around the world.

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ALSO READ: The impossible life of an action star, Tom Cruise

The filmmaker is also co-writing the screenplay with his Sideways collaborator Jim Taylor. The duo has together written screenplays for many films including Election, Jurassic Park III and About Schmidt.

Payne has been nominated for Best Director in his last two films, The Descendants starring George Clooney and Nebraska starring Bruce Dern. It will be interesting to see if the director can make it three out of three.



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A man from Chicago has pleaded guilty to using a phishing scheme to hack into the computers of celebrities to steal personal information and sensitive content.

Edward Majerczyk, 28 years old, was charged with illegally accessing more than 300 accounts on Apple's iCloud and Google's Gmail platforms, at least 30 of which belonged to celebrities.

Majerczyk agreed to plead guilty to one count of felony for unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information, in a deal with federal authorities in Los Angeles. The information that the hacker obtained was included in an incident in 2014, which is now referred to as the "Celebgate" scandal.

In the incident, private nude pictures of several actresses and models were leaked online, including Kate Upton, Jennifer Lawrence, Brie Larson and Olivia Munn.

However, none of the celebrities whom Majerczyk hacked within the period of November 2013 to August 2014 were specified in the plea deal.

The guilty plea of Majerczyk comes after 36-year-old Ryan Collins, another hacker linked to Celebgate, likewise pleaded guilty after being charged of gaining unauthorized access to protected computers between the time frame of November 2012 to September 2014. Collins was able to hack into at least 100 iCloud and Gmail accounts, with some of those belonging to celebrities.

Majerczyk and Collins both used the same phishing technique of sending their victims emails that were made to appear to have come from internet service and security providers. The emails contained links to websites that collected the username and passwords of their victims to gain entry into their accounts.

Once the hackers had the login details, they were able to access sensitive information, including nude pictures and videos.

However, according to the authorities, while Majerczyk and Collins both pleaded guilty to accessing the accounts, there is no direct evidence that points to the hackers being the ones who leaked the pictures and videos online.

"Hacking of online accounts to steal personal information is not merely an intrusion of an individual's privacy, but is a serious violation of federal law," said U.S. Attorney Eileen Decker.

FBI Los Angeles field office assistant director Deirdre Fike added that what the hackers did cause embarrassment and lasting harm, and so users with accounts and devices containing private information should always safeguard their data. This would be particularly more important for celebrities, who could be directly targeted by such attacks.

Both hackers are now facing imprisonment of up to five years.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The ozone layer, a region of the Earth's stratosphere that absorbs most of the ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun, serves as our planet's natural sunscreen protecting humans, plants and animals from DNA-damaging solar radiation.

In the 1980s, scientists noticed a dramatic thinning of the ozone above Antarctica. The damage was primarily attributed to gases known as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which were then popularly used in air conditioning units, refrigerators and chemical sprays.

In a bid to to protect the ozone layer, nations agreed to phase out the ozone-depleting substances through an international treaty known as the Montreal Protocol.

Now, scientists celebrate the success of this agreement as a new study revealed that the Antarctic ozone layer now shows signs of healing.

In a new study published in the journal Science on June 30, MIT professor of atmospheric chemistry and climate science Susan Solomon and colleagues found evidence that the ozone hole is healing with the Antarctic ozone hole believed to have shrunk by more than 4 million square kilometers (1.5 square miles) and is no longer as deep as it used to be.

The researchers likewise found that more than half of the shrinkage can be traced to the reduction in atmospheric chlorine. Very little chlorine naturally exists in the atmosphere, but using CFCs introduces chlorine into the ozone layer.

Although the improvement has so far been slight, and full recovery is not expected to happen until the middle of the century, experts said it is an indication that the 1987 treaty that aimed to phase out CFC is already seeing its intended effect.

"Industrial chlorofluorocarbons that cause ozone depletion have been phased out under the Montreal Protocol," Solomon and colleagues wrote in their study.

"A chemically driven increase in polar ozone (or "healing") is expected in response to this historic agreement. Observations and model calculations taken together indicate that the onset of healing of Antarctic ozone loss has now emerged in September."

The findings of the study by Solomon and colleagues support the results of a 2009 analysis made by NASA scientists that showed what could happen to the world if there was no international agreement to ban ozone-depleting substances.

Paul Newman, from the NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and colleagues simulated "what might have been" if CFCs and similar chemicals were not banned through the Montreal Protocol.

They found that if nothing has been done to stop the damages to the ozone layer, 17 percent of all ozone would be depleted globally by the year 2020. By the year 2065, UV radiation that hits mid-latitude cities like Washington D.C. would be strong enough to cause sunburn in as little as five minutes.

"We simulated a world avoided," said Newman."It's a world we should be glad we avoided."

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
In its recently held investor day in Tokyo, Japan, Sony announced that it will be "defocusing" its smartphone business in the United States, China, India and Brazil.

According to slides acquired by Xperia Blog, the purpose behind the planned business contraction is to reduce the significant operating loss that the company's smartphones division is experiencing in these countries.

In its presentation, Sony noted that the global average annual growth of the smartphone market has dropped to 1.4 percent because of the slowdown being experienced in emerging markets. Significantly, growth in China, India, Brazil and Indonesia, which is 45 percent of the volume market, has slowed down to only 0.3 percent.

With these factors in mind, Sony will instead be refocusing its mobile phone business on markets in East Asia, including Japan, the Middle East and Europe. The company will also be maintaining its standing in Latin America and other regions in Southeast Asia.

While it was previously known that the product strategy of Sony for its mobile division is mainly focused on the premium smartphone market, it was not known that the company also has regional strategies in place.

Its focus on premium smartphones will not be changing, as Sony noted that the division will continue to refocus into high value-added models.

The move to defocus in the United States, China, India and Brazil is an understandable one. Given Sony's mounting losses in the regions, coupled with the fact that these markets are among the most competitive in the industry, the company would do well in shifting its focus elsewhere. Top players Apple and Samsung will continue to expand their reach in the regions, while relative newcomers such as Xiaomi and Huawei are showing that they have the capability to widen and maintain market share.

Of course, the question is whether the defocusing would actually matter for Sony, particularly for the United States.

The argument is that Sony never really had any sort of focus in the United States to begin with, as only a handful of its products has entered the market through the traditional channels that will allow customers to gain awareness and try out Sony's smartphones.

Sony has had numerous issues with its smartphones in the country, with one of the more recent ones being the failed venture with Verizon to bring the Xperia Z4v into the United States.

The Xperia Z4v was supposed to be the only version of the company's mid-2015 flagship smartphone to enter the United States, which was to be exclusively distributed by Verizon. It was canceled as the two companies stalled in launching the smartphone, which led to the release of the more powerful Xperia Z5 being done first.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
In the state of Miranda, the municipalities of Zamora and Sucre have been affected by the rains, said the authorities. | Read More
Actor Balakrishna-starrer Gautamiputra Satakarni will have the climax sequence shot in Georgia from Monday (June 4).

By India Today Web Desk: Gautamiputra Satakarni is an upcoming historical Telugu film starring Tollywood megastar Nandamuri Balakrishna playing the ruler.

Ever since the first look poster was out, there was a buzz among fans as to how the director will bring life to the Telugu warrior.



ALSO READ: Balakrishna to romance Nayanthara in his 100th film?



The latest we hear from sources is that the team will start filming epic battle sequences which is said to be shot in Georgia from Monday (June 4).

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The sequence is touted to be an important portion in the film which will reportedly have 1000 soldiers, 300 horses and 20 chariots.

Speaking about the war sequence, director Krish said, "We will be shooting these scenes at Mt. Kazbek in Georgia, and this portion will feature over 1000 soldiers, 300 horses and 20 chariots. These scenes will be blended with computer graphics to enhance the overall effect."

"It's the battle of Satavahanas versus Greeks. The film features three such battle sequences," he added.

Directed by National award-winning director Krish Jagarlamudi, the film is based on life history of ruler Gautamiputra Satakarni.

The film also stars Shriya Saran, Hema Malini and Kabir Bedi and the music is composed by Devi Sri Prasad.

Produced by Y. Rajeev Reddy, the film will mark Balakrishna's 100the film and slated to release next year.



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Favorite entries in photo contest 'Vietnamese Dads' highlight the joy of parenting and promote gender equality

A man cuddles his child on Dang Tat Street in Hanoi in a photo by Dao Anh Tuan, which is one of more than 1,000 entries sent to the Vietnamese Dads photo contest organized by the Sweden embassy this year. Swedish ambassador Camilla Mellander said at the award ceremony that she was surprised by the huge interest in this theme.

A photo by Nguyen Xuan Chinh shows a man giving his baby a bath as his other son looking on with a smile. The selected photos will be exhibited at the Sweden embassy at 2 Nui Truc, Ba Dinh District and the Center for Women and Development at 20 Thuy Khue, Tay Ho District during July. The winners were announced June 29, 2016.

Another exhibited photo shows a father helping his daughter with a ponytail. The contest is expected to inspire discussions on mens roles in a Vietnamese family and gender equality.

A photo by Nguyen Cong Hung shows a father from the HMong ethnic group in Sa Pa in the northern highlands working the field while carrying his child.

A happy moment of a family in the southern province of Long An, as captured by Vo Van Bang.

This photo by Do Tuong Tuan depicts a familiar scene captured by many other pieces from rural Vietnam.

A baby is fed by the mother while riding on the fathers back in a photo by Doan Ky Thanh.

Huynh Nam Dong wins the top prize for this piece of a man giving kangaroo care to his daughter who was born premature in Da Nang. His wife delivered triplets.

The second prize winner is Tran Thiet Dungs photo of a father taking his children to their grandmothers in the northern province of Ha Giang.
Despite the governments determination to sell its stakes in 10 major companies, including dairy giant Vinamilk and information technology leader FPT, things are moving too slowly for frustrated investors, who are showing strong interest in Vietnam.

The State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC), Vietnams sovereign fund, recently announced a list of 120 companies in which it would sell the governments stakes worth more than VND6.3 trillion (US$278.06 million) this year.

But it includes only FPT and Sa Giang Import and Export Corporation of the major companies, in which SCIC holds 6 and 50 percent stakes.

Vinamilk, insurer Bao Minh Group, Binh Minh Plastic Joint-stock Company, and Vietnam Reinsurance Corporation are not in it. SCIC's stakes in them range from 37.1 to 50.7 percent.

"The SCIC will sell its stakes only when it has [identified] new investments that are more profitable," its chairman Nguyen Duc Chi said.

The fund's latest plan came less than two weeks after it and other shareholders of Vinamilk voted to scrap the 49 percent foreign ownership limit. The fund owns 45 percent of the dairy company, while foreign investors have already hit their limit with Singapore's F&N Dairy Investment holding 11 percent.

The SCIC move indicates that investors will have to continue waiting for a long time to buy into Vietnams best performing firms since it does not want to give up the big profits it earns from these businesses.

Vinamilk has consistently paid huge dividends over the years. The SCIC reportedly earned around VND5.06 trillion ($223.42 million) in dividends last year, more than 53 percent of it from Vinamilk.

In fact, plans to sell the governments stakes in many firms have been delayed for years. Foreign investors are frustrated by the lack of progress after the government announced plans to dismantle foreign ownership limits in many sectors.

Many companies made initial public offerings many years ago but have yet to list on the stock market as required under the law.

They include brewers Sabeco and Habeco. Sabeco made an IPO in 2008, but does not even have a roadmap yet for reducing government ownership.

The government owns more than 89 percent of Sabeco, which controls more than half of Vietnam's beer market with its iconic Saigon brand.

Explaining the reason for the slowness in the divestment, Dang Quyet Tien, deputy head of the finance ministrys corporate finance department, said selling the governments stakes in 10 firms at the same time could affect prices and so it is necessary to consider "a suitable time" to sell the shares.

But the SCIC does not have detailed plans for the divestment.

Some economists said to get the best prices for their shares, the 10 firms should be widely marketed abroad.

Vietnam has experience selling abroad. To issue US$1 billion worth global sovereign bonds in 2014, the country hired three foreign lenders -- Deutsche Bank, HSBC, and Standard Chartered Bank -- to make a pitch to international investors.

Meetings were held with potential investors in Singapore, Hong Kong, London and three cities in the US. The banks organized road shows.

The more investors evince interest in the governments divestment plans, the more likely the 10 firms shares will fetch high prices.

Vietnam is trying to speed up a share sale program that began in the 1990s as it seeks to spur economic growth to a four-year high of 6.2 percent this year.

Acceleration urged

Economist Pham Chi Lan said companies like Vinamilk and FPT have achieved successes thanks to having capable people in management and not because the state has continued to invest in them.

These firms are big enough to compete in the market and attract foreign investors, she said.

Giving SCIC a say in their running could in fact hinder them from making "daring" business decisions and seizing new opportunities because they would be bound by many rigid regulations, she said.

SCIC now has stakes in 197 companies that have a combined market value of nearly VND95.7 trillion ($4.22 billion), according to VnExpress.

Its holdings are equivalent to 23 percent of the companies' combined charter capital.

Bui Ngoc Son, another economist, said Vietnam would only have a genuine market economy when enterprises are totally privatized.

The state should stand back and collect taxes from them, instead of investing in them, he said.

Concurring, economist Le Dang Doanh said state enterprises could consider focusing only on vital industries like energy and security, and leave other businesses to the private sector.

For instance, it is not necessary for the country to have SOEs making garment and footwear since private companies are the ones that account for most of the exports, he added.
Vietnamese cement producers have struggled to boost exports because of increasing competition from Asian rivals, which are also faced with oversupply just like Vietnam.

They said China is expanding exports amid an oversupply of 670 million tons a year, offering lower prices and worsening their own prospects.

Tran Viet Thang, general director of the Vietnam Cement Industry Corporation (Vicem), said Chinese prices are $10 per ton lower.

With domestic cement consumption expected to increase 4 percent year-on-year to 56.5 million tons this year, Vietnam will have a surplus of 25 million tons.

In this situation, many cement producers will have to cut or stop production if exports are not boosted.

Vietnam exported some 16 million tons of cement mainly to Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines last year.

While struggling with low-priced Chinese products, local cement makers are also facing fierce competition from Thai rivals who offer quality products and rapid transportation, industry insiders said.

There are no dedicated ports and logistics systems to serve cement exports in Vietnam. Most cement factories are located far from seaports, meaning they find it hard in transport to ports at reasonable prices.

The Vietnam National Shipping Lines used to suggest that cement producers should cooperate with the Electricity of Vietnam and the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group to hire ships: The two companies would transport coal imported from Indonesia to Vietnam, while cement producers would use the same vessels to ship to the Philippines.
Bangladeshi soldiers patrol the scene of the attack at the Holey Artisan Bakery on July 2. Photo: AFP

Vietnam' Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh has expressed condolences to Bangladesh for the tragic loss of life in a "barbarous" terror attack in Dhaka on July 1.

Twenty people, many of them foreigners, were killed in the attack at the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka on July 1. Forty others were injured.

Le Hai Binh, Spokesman of the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry, said on July 3 that Vietnam condemns terror activities in any form and considers the Dhaka attack barbarous and unacceptable.

Vietnam sends heartfelt condolences to the Government and people of Bangladesh, the countries having their citizens killed, and families of the victims. We believe that the instigators will soon be punished appropriately, he said.

There hasnt been any information about Vietnamese citizens affected by the attack, Binh said.

According to him, staff members of the Vietnamese Embassy and the FPT company in Dhaka, located about 200 metres from the scene of the attack, are still safe.

They were advised to restrict their movements for a period of time and avoid crowded places after 6 pm every day, Hai said.
By India Today Web Desk: Harshvardhan Kapoor - the new Kapoor kid - on the block kept turning heads ever since the first look of Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's upcoming romantic drama film Mirzya released. Since the trailer was finally released on June 23, it has already amassed over four million views and Kapoor's chemistry with actor Saiyami Kher has been widely praised.

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WATCH debutantes Harshvardhan Kapoor and Saiyami Kher in the passionate Mirzya trailer

ALSO READ: Vikramaditya Motwane is adapting Stan Lee's Indian superhero comic book Chakra - The Invincible

Well now, reportedly the 25-year-old actor will be next seen in Lootera director Vikramaditya Motwane's next film titled Bhavesh Joshi. Bhavesh Joshi is the story of a young Gujarati man who has made it his life's mission to fight corruption in society.

According to a report in Filmfare, the Mirziya star is going through a drastic physical transformation to play the titular role in Bhavesh Joshi. He undertook rigorous physical training for Mirzya, for which he had to lose weight and then bulk up to get the muscular look that we saw in the trailer.

Well, for Bhavesh Joshi, Kapoor will have to lose all the muscles he gained and get a lean look for the film. In addition to this, he will also have to chop off the long hair and husky beard that he maintained for three years during the shoot of Mirziya.

At one point, Siddharth Malhotra was attached to Bhavesh Joshi but he dropped out of the film citing date commitments. The film was originally supposed to go on floors with Katti Batti star Imran Khan. Since then, the role has changed hands from Khan to Ranveer Singh to Shahid Kapoor to Sidharth Malhotra.

Now, the project, to be produced by Anurag Kashyap's Phantom Films is back on track. Bhavesh Joshi will go on floors pretty soon.

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Rescuers look for bodies of three female students of the Hanoi-based Foreign Trade University at a stream in Quang Ninh Province the night of July 2, 2016. Photo: Viet Dung/VnExpress

Three university students from Hanoi were drowned when crossing a flooded stream Saturday, during a charity trip to a mountainous area in the nearby Quang Ninh Province.

Bodies of the students, one 20 years old and the others both 19, were found early on Sunday morning. They were among a group of 21 students at the Hanoi-based Foreign Trade University (FTU) who joined the university's annual charity summer program in Quang Ninh's Binh Lieu District.

Representatives of the school said four of the students stopped by a stream to rest on Saturday afternoon and slipped. A male schoolmate in the area managed to save one of them while the rest were swept away.

Many universities in Vietnam organize annual Green Summer campaigns in which students register voluntary help in poor or remote communities, or with environment protection.

The Hanoi's FTU was having around 400 students doing such campaigns in the northern region, but has suspended all the activities following the incident.

Quang Ninh and Binh Lieu authorities have supported each victims family VND12 million (US$540).
Vietnam becoming a magnet for tech firms 'Capital inflows have shifted from low value-added industries to higher ones.'

Hanoi considers motorbike ban to solve traffic crisis The controversial ban is planned for the city's downtown area, starting from 2025.

Vietnamese splurge on children's education in Australia, US They are willing to pay top dollar hoping to give their children an advantageous start.

Formosa unit owns up to fish kill disaster in Vietnam Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Corp. leaders express apologies to the Vietnamese public and government.

Vietnamese restaurant chains attract foreign investors They have poured millions of dollars expecting the large population with a growing middle class to support the industry.
Seven militants who killed 20 people at a restaurant in Dhaka were local Bangladeshis and authorities had tried before to arrest five of them, police said, as investigators probed for possible links with international Islamist extremist groups.

The gunmen stormed the upmarket restaurant in the diplomatic zone late on Friday, before killing non-Muslim hostages, including at least nine Italians, seven Japanese and an American.

Islamic State claimed responsibility, warning citizens of "crusader countries" that their citizens would not be safe "as long as their aircraft are killing Muslims", the group said in a statement. It also posted pictures of five fighters grinning in front of a black flag who it said were involved in the attack, according to the SITE monitoring website.

The claims have not been confirmed, but Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told Reuters late on Saturday that neither Islamic State nor al Qaeda was involved. He reiterated the government's line that home-grown militants were responsible for a spate of killings in the country over the past 18 months.

Students hold placard and candles as they pray to show solidarity with the victims of the attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery and the O'Kitchen Restaurant at Dhaka, Bangladesh, during a vigil in Agartala, India July 3, 2016.

"This was done by JMB," Khan said, referring to Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, which claims to represent Islamic State in Bangladesh.

Rich families

Nevertheless, deputy inspector general of police, Shahidur Rahman, told Reuters on Sunday authorities were investigating any connection between the attackers and trans-national groups such as Islamic State or al Qaeda.

He said the militants were mostly educated and from rich families, but declined to give any more details.

National police chief Shahidul Hoque said all the gunmen were Bangladeshi.

"Five of them were listed as militants and law enforcers made several drives to arrest them," Hoque told reporters in Dhaka late on Saturday.

Whoever was responsible, the attack marked a major escalation in violence by militants who have demanded Islamic rule in Bangladesh, whose 160 million people are mostly Muslim.Previous attacks have mostly singled out individuals advocating a secular or liberal lifestyle or religious minorities.

Reciting Koran verse

Friday night's attack, during the final days of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, was more coordinated than the previous assaults.

Gunmen singled out foreigners as soon as they stormed through the doors of the restaurant popular with expatriates. They ordered all Bangladeshis to stand up before the killing began, a source briefed on the investigation said. The Bangladeshis were later told to close their eyes and recite verses from the Koran and one militant cursed at a Bangladeshi for eating with non-Muslims during Ramadan, the source said.

Policemen move a barricade on the road leading to the Holey Artisan Bakery and the O'Kitchen Restaurant after gunmen attacked, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, July 3, 2016.

The Islamic State-affiliated Amaq news agency claimed in a report on Saturday the militants identified and released Muslim patrons from the Dhaka restaurant, SITE said.

The victims also included at least three Bangladeshis or people of Bangladeshi descent.

The militants hacked most of their victims with machetes, leaving their bodies to bleed over the floor.

A 12-hour standoff with security forces ended when around 100 commandos stormed the building, killing six of the militants and capturing a seventh after attempts at negotiations proved fruitless, authorities said. They recovered explosives and sharp weapons from the scene.

It was not clear if the attackers had made any demands.

Home-grown groups

Up until Friday's attack, authorities had maintained no operational links exist between Bangladeshi militants and international jihadi networks. Bangladesh has blamed JMB and another home-grown outfit for the wave of grisly killings over the past year and a half.

One line of inquiry being pursued is whether the restaurant attackers received any guidance from Islamic State or al Qaeda, an official in Bangladesh's counter-terrorism wing said.

"Pictures (uploaded on Twitter) indicate they might have been encouraged by ISIS (Islamic Sate) activities abroad," said Muhammad Zamir, a former senior Bangladesh foreign ministry official. "But this does not show a direct link to ISIS. This is exactly what was done and disputed later in the case of the Orlando attack."

He was referring to the killing of 49 people last month by a man who pledged allegiance to Islamic State.

Friday's attack in Dhaka was the worst since 2005, when JMB set off a series of bombs throughout Bangladesh in the space of an hour killing at least 25 people, mostly judges, police and journalists.

A policeman searches a man on the road leading to the Holey Artisan Bakery and the O'Kitchen Restaurant after gunmen attacked, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, July 3, 2016.

The authorities executed six top JMB leaders in March 2007 and police have continued to hunt for group members, often detaining suspected militants following intelligence tips.

In February, Bangladesh police arrested three JMB members suspected of killing a Hindu priest.

Islamic state has claimed responsibility for a series of other attacks in Bangladesh in recent months. An Italian missionary was shot and wounded in the neck last November. Another Italian and a Japanese citizen were killed in attacks at the end of September and early October last year.

Garment industry

The seven Japanese killed were working on projects involving the Japan International Cooperation Agency, an overseas aid agency, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said on Saturday.

Six of them were in Dhaka to work on a metrorail project, Bangladesh's communication minister, Obaidul Quader, said.

Italian media said several of the Italians victims worked in Bangladesh's $26 billion garment sector, which accounts for 80 percent of its exports.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced two days of national mourning beginning on Sunday and said the country would stand up and fight the "terror threat".
U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton comments on the just-released Benghazi report as she speaks at Galvanize, a learning community for technology, in Denver, U.S. June 28, 2016. Photo: Reuters/Rick Wilking

The Federal Bureau of Investigation interviewed Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for three and a half hours on Saturday as part of the probe into her use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state, her campaign said.

The interview at FBI headquarters in Washington followed a week of intense public focus on the investigation and on Clinton's viability as a presidential candidate, with four months to go to the election. Her campaign has tried for months to downplay the controversy as a distraction.

In an interview broadcast on MSNBC, Clinton said she was happy to do the FBI interview, which her spokesman earlier described as "voluntary."

"I've been answering questions for over a year" regarding the private email server, Clinton said.

It was not clear if the questioning of Clinton signaled an imminent conclusion to the investigation in a pivotal time for the presidential race. It does follow FBI interviews of several of Clinton's former staff members, as well as her top aide Huma Abedin.

Clinton is expected to be formally nominated as the Democratic candidate for the Nov. 8 presidential election at the party's convention in less than four weeks.

"Timing of FBI interview, between primaries and convention, probably good timing for @HillaryClinton," tweeted David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama who served as the chief strategist for his two presidential campaigns. "Best to get it behind her."

Clinton is currently the front-runner for the White House with polls showing her leading presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.

In a tweet on Saturday, Trump said it was "impossible for the FBI not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton. What she did was wrong!"

He also criticized Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, for meeting privately with Attorney General Loretta Lynch earlier this week, which Lynch later said she regretted, though she said they did not discuss the investigation.

"What Bill did was stupid!" Trump tweeted.

The FBI is investigating whether anyone in Clinton's operation broke the law as result of a personal email server kept in her Chappaqua, New York, home while she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. One of the questions is whether they mishandled classified information on the server.

Clinton and her staff have struggled to respond to accusations that her use of the server in violation of State Department protocol means she is untrustworthy. Trump has said the investigation should disqualify her from being president.

"@HillaryClinton campaign statement says She "voluntarily" met w @FBI for 3.5 hours this morning - yeah, lots of people volunteer 2 do that," tweeted the Republican National Committee's communications director, Sean Spicer.

Week of tensions

FBI Director James Comey said in testimony to Congress in March he felt pressure to complete the investigation quickly. Adding to the uncertainty over Clinton is the FBI's refusal to say who is the target of its investigation.

Republican lawmakers have called for an independent investigation, saying they do not trust the Justice Department to handle the inquiry with impartiality. Republicans, including Trump, intensified their criticism of the process on Thursday after news emerged of Lynch's meeting with Bill Clinton.

Lynch said she would accept whatever recommendations the career prosecutors working on the case made about whether to prosecute Clinton.

The FBI probe and the partisan fight over the server have added an extra layer of uncertainty to one of the most tumultuous presidential races in recent memory. Trump, a political novice once dismissed by the Republican establishment, will likely emerge this month as the party's nominee and has set his sights on Clinton, who he has labeled "Crooked Hillary."

Clinton held a nine-point lead over Trump in a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic (R) attend a military parade to mark 70 years since the city's liberation by the Red Army in Belgrade, Serbia, October 16, 2014. REUTERS/Vasily Maximov/Pool/File Photo

Serbia is performing a delicate balancing act between its European aspirations, partnership with NATO and its centuries-old religious, ethnic and political alliance with Russia.

Belgrade is being wooed by the West which has sought to bring it into the fold since the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. Serbia is now a European Union membership candidate and the bloc is its top trade partner and benefactor.

Belgrade is also quietly moving toward NATO despite the reservations of most Serbians but it is wary of damaging its loudly proclaimed friendship with Russia that wants to boost its influence in the region and which is hostile to the military alliance.

"Serbia cannot entirely turn to NATO, it will maintain the maximum level of cooperation with it, without changing its (membership) status," said Genady Sysoev, Balkan correspondent for Russia's Kommersant newspaper and an expert on Moscow's policy in the region.

"Serbia cannot turn to Russia because ... no Serbian leadership would risk losing Western investment and aid."

Serbia is one of the few Balkan countries not in the 28-member NATO which is hugely unpopular among Serbs after its 1999 bombing campaign to drive Serbian forces out of Kosovo.

Alliance peacekeepers are also still deployed in Kosovo, Serbia's former southern province, whose independence in 2008 has not been accepted by Belgrade.

But in 2006 Serbia, which adopted military neutrality, joined NATO's Partnership for Peace program and in 2015 Belgrade signed the Individual Partnership Action Plan - the highest rung of cooperation between the alliance and a country not aspiring to join.

"Serbia has demonstrated great enthusiasm for the partnership with NATO, relations between NATO and Serbia will be developing, benefits for Serbia will increase," Gordon Duguid, Deputy Chief of the United States mission to Serbia, was quoted by the Tanjug news agency as saying on June 28.

Serbia is however, highly emotional about non-NATO member Russia, an ally that, for example, prevented Kosovo from becoming a member of the United Nations, at Belgrade's request.

Serbia also shares Slavic and Orthodox Christian traditions with Russia and depends on it for energy. The largest Serbian oil company, Naftna Industrija Srbije, is majority-owned by Russia's Gazprom and its gas imports come from Russia.

As a token of good relations, Belgrade in 2012 also allowed Moscow to set up a base for rapid response in emergency situations such as forest fires and floods in Serbia's southern city of Nis.

The Serbian military is loosely based on Russian technology, a legacy of former Yugoslavia's ties with the Soviet Union.

Fine line

Serbian politicians do not want to openly acknowledge the full extent of the partnership with NATO, because they do not want to alienate those inside the country who look to Russia or resent the Alliance.

"They are afraid that every mention of it (NATO) will affect their ratings as the alliance is very unpopular," said Milan Karagaca, a former military diplomat and a member of Belgrade's Center for Foreign Policy think-tank.

Belgrade, which refused to join the West's sanctions on Russia even though its pledged its respect for the territorial integrity of Ukraine, also treads a fine line to avoid upsetting Moscow.

Since 2000, Russia's Vladimir Putin, as President and Prime Minister, has visited Serbia several times, including a trip in 2014 when he was guest of honor at the military parade marking the liberation of Belgrade from Nazi Germany.

Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic and Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic have also traveled to Moscow on several occasions and their visits were followed by media reports of large-scale weapons purchases. On June 28, Vucic said Serbia wants to buy four Russian MIG-29 fighters for 260 million euros.

Pro-government media have speculated that a visit by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev tentatively set for this fall will also address military cooperation.

But so far the results have been modest. On June 28, the country received two Russian Mi17 utility helicopters, which it bought for 25 million euros. Their arrival, with Vucic present, was shown live on national TV, unlike comparable events involving NATO.

"Military-political cooperation (between Serbia and Russia) has not expanded significantly ... there has been a lot of talk," Sysoev said.

By contrast, in 2015, the Serbian army took part in 197 activities with NATO and another 370 bilateral activities with countries that are alliance members. Only 36 were organized with Russia. Out of 21 multinational training exercises, the Serbian military participated in only two with Russia.

"Serbia's goal is to join the European Union and the process will also include the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy agenda. Most NATO policies fit in that agenda," a Serbian defense official said, on condition of anonymity. "Russia remains a partner, we will not join NATO, but our road heads to the West." he said.
By PTI: Chandigarh, Jul 2 (PTI) Haryana Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma today said moral education will be included in the curriculum for the students of Class VI to 12 and the subject will be launched.

"All religion focuses on character building, extracts from religious texts like Bhagavad Gita, Quran, Bible and Guru Granth Sahib have been incorporated in the curriculum of the subject," he said.

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Haryana government has prepared the curriculum in collaboration with social organisations and educationists, he added.

The subject will be formally launched at a programme on July 5 at Kurukshetra University, an official said, after a meeting chaired by the Minister with senior officers of Education and allied departments regarding preparations for the programme. PTI CHS SMJ ZMN SMJ

--- ENDS ---
More than two thirds of complaints received in relation to a smell likely emanating from the tip on Mugga Lane have been passed on to Access Canberra by a local member.

This fact alone, despite other challenges faced in identifying the source of the smell, has made it difficult to pinpoint the stench, according to the ACT government.

The ACT government is yet to determine whether the tip is causing the stink over Tuggeranong. Credit:Rohan Thomson

Director of Regulatory Compliance, Construction, Environment and Workplace Protection at Access Canberra Greg Jones said in estimates last week the complaints about the smell were coming mainly from residents at homes in Macarthur and Fadden.

"It is pretty reasonable that it is coming from perhaps the Mugga area," Mr Jones said in estimates.
Late in the campaign Mr Abbott, crying in his beer, bemoaned the lack of focus on "border security". The Coalition needs to understand that the people are scared. They are scared of the right-wing ideologues running the government. Mr Turnbull's failure to get them on a leash explains the evaporation of his personal support and the election results. Furthermore, the ideologues' rabid scaremongering on border security has helped return Pauline Hanson to the Senate. Well done. John Everett, Eltham A case of deja vu We have all seen this before. A first-term prime minister is knocked off by a challenger who goes to an election and ends up forming minority government, or close to. Will it take another three years before Tony Abbott undertakes the final act? Peter Ramadge, Newport

The forum A true Seinfeld election. A double dissolution for reasons we've forgotten  if we ever knew them; a campaign over nothing except tax cuts to companies already avoiding tax; a result that isn't a result; and a Prime Minister trying to avoid the consequences of his actions. Meanwhile we can look forward to three more years of nothing. The budget will get worse, innocent refugees will remain in their hell-holes, Newstart recipients will go further into abysmal poverty, global warming will get worse and Pauline Hanson is back. There's never been a less exciting time to be Prime Minister, Malcolm. Graeme Scarlett, East Malvern Stealing from future

The real "inter-generational theft"  stealing from previous, current and future generations  isn't budget deficits. The real theft is the attack on public services and institutions that we have built up (and paid for!) by way of privatisations, excessive deregulation and chronic under-funding. And of course, there is the elephant in the campaign room; climate change. Linda Connolly, Malvern East Hamstrung by right As a Labor voter, I would have happily voted for the Liberals if only Malcolm Turnbull had lived up to his promise. Instead he was hamstrung by the crazy radical-right of his party. The Liberal power brokers should realise that Cory Bernardi and his ilk are more responsible for this result than Turnbull. Mark Ruseler, Geelong

Slogan was accurate It appears the slogan "jobs and growth" was pretty accurate after all. I suspect the Coalition never suspected it meant Mr Turnbull's job and the growth in the numbers of ALP seats. Ray White, Ringwood East Scrutiny a good thing According to Tony Abbott, a divided Senate means "Every bill, certainly every difficult bill, has to be fought for line by line, clause by clause". Isn't that a good thing?

Julie Egan, Kew PM just latest victim The Liberals are crying foul over Labor's Medicare scare campaign. How short are their memories? In the lead-up to the 2013 election, Tony Abbott promised there would be no cuts to health, education, the ABC, SBS, renewable energy and so on. He broke every promise. With the memory of this betrayal still fresh in people's minds, is it any wonder they chose not to believe Mr Turnbull's promise to leave Medicare alone? Mr Turnbull is simply the latest victim of Mr Abbott's ruthlessness. Chris Andrews, Kangaroo Ground Medicare is a metaphor

Medicare is in fact a border security issue: our borders are not merely physical or financial. The aspiration of a fair go for all is embedded in the Australian collective identity. Its boundaries are supported by legislation. Australia has led the world in outstanding humanitarian policies. These include the colonial policy of allowing redeemed convicts permission to own land, the 1856 eight-hour day, and the 1907 Harvester decision for a decent wage for workers. Legislation supporting good standards of public health and education ensued. However, humanitarian and relatively egalitarian innovations continue to be undermined. Medicare, a national public health insurance scheme for all regardless of income, is a powerful, practical and deeply symbolic manifestation of the "fair go for all". Jennifer Gerrand, Carlton North Disenfranchised voter I live in the CBD and wanted to vote in my electorate of Melbourne. On Friday, the queue for the booth at 144 Queen Street backed up to Bourke Street and only moved about two metres every 10 minutes.

I gave up and returned on Saturday morning. By 10.15am there were even longer queues, so I went to the Town Hall. The queue went down the front steps, along to Flinders Lane, and then coiled back on itself. A helpful official-looking bloke suggested the Little Lonsdale St booth. Ten minutes later I was in line. When I gave my address I was told I couldn't vote there. I tried again in the afternoon, but found the queues even longer than in the morning. I'm nearly 70, have health problems, and standing in lengthy lines ain't on. I hope my favoured candidates get in; I hope electoral organisers get some clues on how to do things better; and you can stick your fines up your bums. Terence Beath, Melbourne Beholden to donors The Coalition outspent Labor by 30 per cent on TV advertising this campaign  the usual pattern in Australian politics. When one party speaks so much louder than the other it isn't a two-party system, it's a one-and-a-half party system. If Mr Turnbull clings on to power in the next parliament, his party will be utterly beholden to its donors, and the MPs will know it. We need serious campaign funding reform now.

Ian Atkinson, Kew Show real contrition Foreign Minister Julie Bishop ought to be more contrite. Being "sorry" that she was using a mobile phone while driving, and promising to ensure it won't happen again, is an inadequate response to being caught flouting a law devised to increase safety on our roads ("Julie Bishop could get off scot-free", 1/7). As paying a $400 fine would not cause her too much pain, we might be more inclined to believe she was genuinely contrite if she apologised profusely for setting such a poor example, paid her fine and also donated double that amount to an organisation or charity set up to encourage road safety or support victims of careless drivers. Patricia Wiltshire, Montmorency

No consistency About 10 months ago I was fined $550 and lost four demerit points because my wife, who suffers from dementia, forgot to put on her seatbelt. I explained the situation to the WA police officer but my request to be let off with a warning fell on deaf ears. I subsequently wrote to the WA traffic department, supplying a letter from my wife's neurologist. Staff showed no compassion, and simply referred to the legislation. It seems like there is one rule for some, and one rule for the rest of us. We seem to live in a society that penalises disabled people and pensioners and lets lawmakers off scot free. Rocco Muscara, Keilor East

Politicians are hired Many politicians have demonstrated a frightening sense of entitlement, especially given their purpose is to represent the views and interests of one's electorate and the nation as a whole. Rather than referring to an election as a "contest" or a "prize" to be won, we should call elections what they are: a drawn-out job interview. Applicants present their qualifications and make their pitch to the selection committee (us), the committee deliberates and, ultimately, appoints the applicants they deem the best fit. An MP's job is similar to a job in food service, apart from the higher pay and nicer uniform. Furthermore, a kitchen hand who decides they don't want to serve certain people, or only do what they choose to, would find themselves promptly dismissed and perusing the employment listings. Food for thought. Rather than referring to positions of power as prizes to be won (and owned), let's talk about who got "hired". And make sure they do their jobs.

Marcus Mann, Morwell Put swings on table Despite commentary to the contrary, the CFA issue had no negative effect in Victoria. In seats that contain hybrid CFA stations, Labor reported swings in every one. In McEwan, Labor has an 8.3 per cent swing; in Bendigo, a 2.5 per cent swing; Ballarat (1.8 per cent swing), Corangamite (1.3 per cent). It is poised to take Dunkley from the Liberals, with a 5.3 per cent swing. Only three Victorian Labor-held seats recorded a swing against them  Chisholm, which contains those well-known CFA towns Box Hill, Burwood and Chadstone; Melbourne Ports, made up of Middle Park, St Kilda and Caulfield, and Batman which includes areas such as Thornbury and Clifton Hill. Labor will win more seats in Victoria than the Coalition and receive the second highest two-party preferred vote (after Tasmania). If every other state did the same, Labor would be in government with a majority of more than 20.

Paul Kennelly, Caulfield North Guess how it plays out Now that the election is over, it's time to play Cluedo politics. It's simple, and fun for all the family. Set up your usual suspects, put the cards in the secret envelope, and roll the dice. (Don't show anyone your cards unless they give you a huge under-the-table cash payment.) Find out: How long will the new leader last, and how and why will they be ousted? Who will the culprit be, and what will be their weapon of choice? 1. The revolver (shot in the foot)  PM himself; 2. The rope (hung out to dry)  media baron; 3. The candlestick (shone light on the wrong information)  party whip; 4. The lead pipe (pesky believer in environmental priorities)  hardline climate denier; 5. The dagger (stabbed in the back)  deputy leader; 6. The spanner (all in a day's work)  any frontbencher who isn't happy with their portfolio. Louise Moran, Belmont

AND ANOTHER THING... The election Why did the PM delay his departure from Point Piper to the ballroom? Was he worried his spells had been broken? Angela Smith, Clifton Hill

What a rant Malcolm gave when he deigned to leave his ivory tower, only to confirm how out of touch he really is. Cynthia Humphreys, South Yarra Call it what it was Malcolm  a double disillusion. Robin Martin, Coburg Well, that was a good idea, Malcolm.

Jennie Owen, Castlemaine Those born to rule will need to learn how to negotiate. Perhaps Julia can teach them. Sarah Russell, Northcote There has never been a more exciting time to be an independent. Peter Bainbridge, Altona

Mr Turnbull may now take a stronger interest in gambling reform. Joan Segrave, Healesville The election was ostensibly called to destroy a trade union, not a government. Malcolm McDonald, Burwood Wonder what advice Tony will give Malcolm on how to manage a "near death experience".

Francis Bainbridge, Fitzroy North And the winner is ... Tony Abbott. John Cummings, Anglesea I heard that Jobson Growth ran into Hugh Bris at the polling booth. Jacki Burgess, Port Melbourne

I wish to thank Daniel Andrews for actively campaigning against federal Labor. Mal Alexander, Vermont There is one clear result. More than 50 per cent of the population ignores Rupert Murdoch's propaganda. Mick O'Mara, Winchelsea It seems Channel 7 got last draft pick for commentators on the night  Mark Latham, Alan Jones and Jeff Kennett.
Propelled by a curious dewy-eyed utopianism  an artfully sustained holdover, perhaps, from the days when the non-military internet was peopled almost solely by kind-hearted geeks  sharing economy companies enjoy a degree of robust consumer goodwill that renders many people blind to the much grimmer and hard-hearted philosophy that propels them. Sharing economy operations let little folk trade with little folk, runs the spin. Ordinary people can empower themselves by becoming tiny taxi businesses, ad hoc hoteliers, proud self-employed tradies and so on. Yeah! Peer-to-peer, baby! "Bom-Bom, rock the nation," sang Michael Franti , "Bom-Bom, the truth shall come! Give the corporation some complication!"

And it's true. Airbnb is one of the great success stories of what's been termed the "sharing economy". The business model allows ordinary folks to utilise their spare capacity  bedrooms, in the case of Airbnb, lazy vehicles and unproductive hours in the cases of Uber and Lyft, shed space for Storagebuck, handyperson skills for Airtasker, and so on  to earn some extra income. Or, increasingly, one suspects, just an income.

Each advert extends the lure of a bargain des-res in an exotic location  an artist's loft in Tokyo, for instance, a hilltop high-spec three-bedroom bungalow in LA  and points out that spending a night or two in such a place on your next holiday is just a matter of downloading Airbnb's app and paying with Paypal.

There's just one problem with all this gushing optimism. Airbnb is valued by US business analysts at above $US25.5 billion ($34.1 billion), Lyft at more than $US5.5 billion and Uber at a whopping $US62.5 billion. It doesn't take much to figure that one of the keys to building that sort of insane value in such a comparatively short period of time involves not having to incur the bothersome costs associated with physical assets, employees, and, you know, material products. Sharing economy companies, bluntly, each own a proprietary app, and that is all that is necessary. Ways of doing business no doubt vary between them, but it is not essential that they own anything else: they can lease servers and data storage, hire PR companies. Strictly speaking, they can even outsource or automate pretty much all of the petty admin work needed just to keep a head office working.

So all they really need to do are the important bits: take a chunk from every transaction and collect massive amounts of data so they can, ultimately, take more chunks from more transactions. Disruption be damned. Meet the new boss; same as the old boss. Actually, though, the new boss is much more of a bastard than the old boss. At least the old boss employed people and had to adhere to minimum standards for remuneration, sick pay, holiday pay, that sort of thing. The new boss doesn't have to employ anybody: workers in the sharing economy are essentially independent contractors, who supply their own vehicles, or homes, as well as their own labour.

And, in the case of Uber for one, the contract is temporary at best. Anyone contemplating building a career as an Uber driver will be sadly and brutally disappointed. Chief executive Travis Kalanick has been open about his plan to replace Uber's cohort of self-employed drivers with a fleet of autonomous taxis as soon as possible. Prototypes have been seen undergoing tests in Pittsburgh.

This month, analysts at Morgan Stanley estimated that by 2030 the self-driving car market would be worth $2 trillion  with the bulk of the vehicles operated by companies such as Uber and Lyft. That is a shedload of cars. And no jobs. To the thousands of self-empowering battlers who thought the sharing economy represented a model of doing business that placed the welfare of the many above the enrichment of the few, it will come as a bitter surprise to discover that it was never about them, only about the empty back seat of their Commodores.

Whether other sharing economy behemoths find their bottom lines better served by disposing of privately owned beds and sheds and carpentry skills remains to be seen. What can be inferred, however, is that corporate strategies will be aimed squarely at enriching the company owners rather than the growing numbers of downstream plain folk who sell their spaces and sweat to make the whole gig work in the first place. The sharing economy is not a compassionate alternative to capitalism. It is laissez faire business at its most brutal and, from one perspective, most traditional. In a very real sense, it practices exactly the same self-serving, single-minded pursuit of unconstrained expansion as the older corporations it seeks to disrupt.
A Polish television presenter slammed her hand straight through a nail hidden in paper bag, as her smiling co-host watched on.

What was meant to be a light-hearted TV segment about magic ended in screams and a trip to hospital for a Polish television presenter, when a magician's trick went terribly wrong.

Question for Breakfast host Marzena Rogalska was taking part in a well-known trick, where the participant must slam their hand down on brown paper bags, while avoiding one which contains a nail sticking upwards.

But magician Marcin Pooniewicz, a semi-finalist in Poland's Got Talent, muddled the bags up - and Rogalska ended up impaling her hand, with the shocking stunt caught on camera.
Bafta-winning British actress Caroline Aherne has died of cancer at the age of 52.

The star was best known for her work in The Royle Family, The Mrs Merton Show and The Fast Show.

Caroline Aherne as Denise in The Royle Family.

"Caroline Aherne has sadly passed away, after a brave battle with cancer," Neil Reading, her publicist, said on Saturday.

"The Bafta award-winning writer and comedy actor died earlier today at her home in Timperley, Greater Manchester. She was 52. The family ask for privacy at this very sad time."
South Australian Nick Xenophon is poised to be kingmaker. He spoke to Malcolm Turnbull on Sunday morning. He told Fairfax's Nick O'Malley he thinks once the postals are in, the Coalition will sneak in with one seat spare. [Watch] 2. Far-right comeback after conservatives sidelined Pauline Hanson votes at Jamboree State School on Saturday. Credit:Robert Shakespeare Turnbull's attempt to clear out the Senate and replenish it with the majors backfired. The crossbench looks set to become more right wing if anything. [Neat digest on what the Senate newcomers and returning members stand for.] The Senate is set to welcome back One Nation's Pauline Hanson and possibly up to three other One Nation senators. It will be fascinating to watch Tasmanian Jacqui Lambie, re-elected in her own right, and Hanson compete for who can make the most incendiary comments on Islam.

Conservatives have long been warning that for as long as they are silenced or punished for speaking out on politically incorrect issues like Islam, elements of their support base risk drifting to far-right parties like the Australian Liberty Alliance and One Nation. What happens for the right, marginalised under Turnbull now? Former immigration minister Amanda Vanstone, a moderate, argues now is no time for the party to lurch to the right, but in the context of responding to Xenophon. But take note of Cory Bernardi in The Australian  he says: "The conservative revolution needs to either start within the Liberal Party or it will start outside of it." A space to watch. 3. Where to for Labor after Mediscare? Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Shorten looks set to copy Tony Abbott's tactic and paint any minority government as illegitimate by denying the governing side's mandate. "It's also known as being a bad loser," writes Peter Hartcher.

The union-backed Mediscare campaign was a tactic Tony Abbott would be proud of and it was the creation of Wayne Swan's daughter, reveals Pamela Williams. The first instalment of her brilliant trademark fly-on-the-wall campaign pieces is easily the read of the day. Deborah Snow has an excellent piece on how Labor rolled out its Medicare scare campaign  a must-read for anyone remotely interested in modern campaigning. Anthony Albanese casts his vote. Credit:Dominic K Lorrimer Anthony Albanese's leadership dreams seem sunk, at least for now. Any move against Shorten after his far better than expected result would be self-indulgent and "appear expedient and be divisive." [Michelle Grattan/The Conversation] Once Shorten managed to stare down Queensland right critics Wayne Swan and Jim Chalmers and hire the veteran campaign strategist Cameron Milner as his chief of staff who elevated the highly competent Ryan Liddell to direct the Opposition's slick communications operations, he tightened his message and his belt a few notches. Shorten deserves every credit for the late but timely burst of discipline and energy.

But a word of caution: a lot of the congratulations for Labor's success is in spite of Shorten, not because of him. There were pretty robust fights internally, with Opposition Treasurer Chris Bowen advocating the tough and necessary decisions Labor had to take to be considered credible. Shorten argued against some of them. Even the decision to raise tobacco taxes spooked some nervous Labor frontbenchers. Labor's success is a vindication of Bowen's strategy and policy positioning  imagine if he could have been allowed to take the final steps needed to beat the Coalition on the budget numbers. 4. Iraq There has been an horrific attack in Baghdad. More than 120 people have been killed and 212 injured in a bombing in a busy shopping area. Islamic State has claimed responsibility saying it targeted Shiite Muslims. 5. Bonkers British politics

Home Secretary Theresa May. Credit:Jeff J Mitchell Theresa May has opened up a big lead in the race to become the next Tory leader. [Jack Blanchard/Daily Mirror] May, the Home Secretary, supported Remain but says that should not diminish her chances as people want more than a "Brexit prime minister." [BBC] Michael Gove has revealed Boris Johnson has not answered his phone calls since he declared his own leadership bid which killed off BoJo's hopes. [David Wooding/The Sun] But an unabashed Gove says his backstabbing abilities show he is capable of standing up to Putin. [Tim Shipman/The Times ($)] Former British prime minister Tony Blair believes the case for Brexit "has crumbled" and Britain should keep its options, including a second referendum, open. [BBC] Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn continues to stare down the mass revolt within the parliamentary party. Writing in The Mirror he says "I am ready to reach out to Labour MPs who didn't accept my election and oppose my leadership."

Corbyn was reported to be refusing to meet with his Deputy Tom Watson out of fear he might bully "a 70-year-old man." [Daniel Boffey/The Guardian] This is a picture of Tom Watson. Nick Kyrgios beats Feliciano Lopez in the third round. Credit:Getty Images
Malcolm Turnbull is coming under massive pressure from within to recast the superannuation changes he took to the election amid widespread anger and despair in Liberal ranks over his election campaign.

Insiders are convinced the superannuation changes contributed to the loss of so many Coalition seats and the prospect of a hung parliament.

"It's now more obvious than ever that changes have to be made," declared John Roskam, the executive director of the Institute of Public Affairs, who predicted early in the campaign that Mr Turnbull would soften the policy rather than suffer a backlash.
Fairfax Media's analysis on Sunday afternoon shows the Coalition at 72 seats, Labor at 63, five to independents including two to the Nick Xenophon Team, and two to the Greens. Counting of lower house absentee and postal votes recommences on Tuesday, with nearly 30 per cent of votes yet to be counted.

With neither party able to secure the 76 seats needed for an absolute majority on polling night, the results of the election hinge on these eight key House of Representatives seats, which are still too close to call.

Forde: This seat is based around Logan in Brisbane's south, one of the fastest growing electorates in Queensland, where the sitting member, Liberal Bert van Manen, is under challenge from Labor's Des Hardman, who has edged ahead on first preferences on the latest count. It's the seat former Queensland premier Peter Beattie failed to wrest from Mr van Manen at the last election.

Chisholm: Outgoing Labor MP and former speaker Anna Burke has held the seat in Melbourne's east since 1998. Identified as one to watch by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in his National Press Club address on Thursday, it is closely fought between the Liberal candidate, corporate lawyer Julia Banks, and Labor's Stefanie Perri, the former mayor of Monash City Council, who is ahead by the barest of margins.

Gilmore: The Liberals have held this NSW South Coast seat for the past 20 years but unhappiness over the state Liberal government's proposal to amalgamate Kiama and Shoalhaven councils has posed a challenge for the Liberals' Ann Sudmalis, who won it in 2013. Though she retains a narrow margin at the latest count, the AEC shows a swing of 3.55 per cent to Labor whose candidate Fiona Phillips still has a chance.
An analysis by Fairfax Media put the result of the count so far as 71 Coalition seats, 65 for Labor, five independents, one Green and eight seats in which the count is too close to call. Both Mr Turnbull and Bill Shorten began courting the crossbench on Sunday, with horse-trading likely to ramp up in the week ahead. Mr Shorten spent the day after the election with wife Chloe and his family. Credit:Justin McManus

The political earthquake delivered by voters on the weekend sparked leadership ructions on both sides with suggestions that the Left's Anthony Albanese could yet contest the ALP leadership against Mr Shorten despite Labor's stronger than expected performance - assuming it fails to form a majority. But Mr Shorten declared on Sunday he had "never been more certain of my leadership than I am this morning". He received the strong backing of deputy leader Tanya Plibersek and sources close to Mr Albanese indicated that, given Labor looked to have gained at least 10 seats and possibly several more, a challenge was unlikely. The PM was "confident" of forming majority government in the early hours of Sunday morning. Credit:Wolter Peeters Mr Shorten said: "What I'm very sure of is that, while we don't know who the winner was, there is clearly one loser: Malcolm Turnbull's agenda for Australia and his efforts to cut Medicare. We want to make the 45th parliament work." The Opposition Leader restated he would not do a deal with the Greens.

Shorten says he will not be challenged for the Labor leadership. Credit:Justin McManus Shock and disappointment within the Coalition is threatening to morph into an outright insurrection, with MPs and senators grumbling about Mr Turnbull's performance and openly challenging his intention to deny Mr Abbott a return to the frontbench. Conservatives are also gunning for Assistant Treasurer Kelly O'Dwyer over superannuation changes announced in the budget and for which she is being blamed for a backlash in the Liberal heartland. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten says the PM should resign because he doesn't know what he is doing. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Two Liberal senators, WA's Chris Back and Queensland's Ian MacDonald, told Fairfax Media the Prime Minister should reach out to the conservatives and restore Mr Abbott to the ministry as a gesture of good faith and to rebuild party unity.

Mr Back told Fairfax Media that if Mr Turnbull formed government he should "look for the best skills to take the country forward". "I would be very surprised if Malcolm did not believe that Tony has the skills needed for the frontbench," he said. Senator MacDonald said the decision to call the early double dissolution was a political mistake, would lead to a "more chaotic Senate" and that "clearly, dumping Tony Abbott had spawned a resurgence of parties on the right". "First of all we have to see if we can form a ministry, but yes, I would expect Tony should be in there," he said. But Mr Turnbull said on Sunday he was "not proposing to bring back any particular individuals" even as he conceded there would have to be changes to his frontbench and positioned himself as the man to provide stable government in a deeply divided parliament.

"The focus is on completing the count, on ensuring we know who is in the parliament and then we can settle the form of the government after that," he said. "One million postal votes have not been counted at all. So they are a complete unknown in that respect. There are a lot of votes that remain to be counted. The counting has to be complete but it is my commitment to the Australian people to do everything I can to ensure that the next Parliament serves them." South Australian senator Nick Xenophon, who is set to see his NXT party claim the seat of Mayo from the Liberals, is still challenging in Grey and three Senate spots, said he would back whomever would form stable government. Senator Xenophon said his incursion into Labor and Liberal territory had "broken the duopoly" of the major parties but that he would not consider any formal coalition arrangement, nor a spot in a ministry. A third conservative MP, however, said the Prime Minister should promote the next generation of conservatives such as Victorian Michael Sukkar and the ACT's Zed Seselja to fill the vacancies created by the exit of Turnbull-supporting junior ministers Richard Colbeck, Wyatt Roy and Peter Hendy.
In awarding the Peace Prize in 1986, the Nobel Committee praised him as a "messenger to mankind" and "one of the most important spiritual leaders and guides in an age when violence, repression and racism continue to characterize the world."

By Reuters: Activist and writer Elie Wiesel, the World War Two death camp survivor who won a Nobel Peace Prize for becoming the life-long voice of millions of Holocaust victims, died on Saturday. He was 87.

Wiesel was a philosopher, speaker, playwright and professor who also campaigned for the tyrannized and forgotten around the world. He died at his home in New York City, the New York Times reported.

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The Romanian-born Wiesel lived by the credo expressed in "Night," his landmark story of the Holocaust - "to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time."

MESSEMGER TO MANKIND

In awarding the Peace Prize in 1986, the Nobel Committee praised him as a "messenger to mankind" and "one of the most important spiritual leaders and guides in an age when violence, repression and racism continue to characterize the world."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed Wiesel as a ray of light, and said his extraordinary personality and unforgettable books demonstrated the triumph of the human spirit over the most unimaginable evil.

"Out of the darkness of the Holocaust, Elie became a powerful force for light, truth and dignity," he said.

Wiesel did not waver in his campaign never to let the world forget the Holocaust horror. While at the White House in 1985 to receive the Congressional Gold Medal, he even rebuked U.S. President Ronald Reagan for planning to lay a wreath at a German cemetery where some of Hitler's notorious Waffen SS troops were buried.

"Don't go to Bitburg," Wiesel said. "That place is not your place. Your place is with the victims of the SS."



RELATIONSHIP WITH THE US

Wiesel became close to U.S. President Barack Obama but the friendship did not deter him from criticizing U.S. policy on Israel. He spoke out in favor of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and pushed the United States and other world powers to take a harder stance against Iran over its nuclear program.

Obama remembered him as "one of the great moral voices of our time, and in many ways, the conscience of the world."

Wiesel had raised his voice, not just against anti-Semitism, but against hatred, bigotry and intolerance in all forms, Obama said in a statement.

"His life, and the power of his example, urges us to be better. In the face of evil, we must summon our capacity for good. In the face of hate, we must love," Obama said.

Wiesel attended the joint session of the U.S. Congress in 2015 when Netanyahu spoke on the dangers of Iran's program.

German President Joachim Gauck wrote to Wiesel's wife Marion praising him as a "wonderful person and extraordinary scholar and writer" who will never be forgotten.

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"Your husband knew how to use vivid and empathic words to keep the memory of the darkest years of German history that he witnessed alive and to warn young people especially of the dangers of right-wing extremism and xenophobia," he added.

Wiesel and his foundation both were victims of the wide-ranging Ponzi scheme run by New York financier Bernie Madoff, with Wiesel and his wife losing their life's savings and the foundation losing $15.2 million. "'Psychopath' - it's too nice a word for him," he said of Madoff in 2009.

EARLY LIFE

Wiesel was a hollow-eyed 16-year-old when he emerged from the newly liberated Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945. He had been orphaned by the Nazis and their identification number, A-7713, was tattooed on his arm as a physical manifestation of his broken faith and the nightmares that would haunt him throughout his life.

Wiesel and his family had first been taken by the Nazis from the village of Sighetu Marmatiei in the Transylvania region of Romania to Auschwitz, where his mother and one of his sisters died. Wiesel and his father, Shlomo, ended up in Buchenwald, where Shlomo died. In "Night" Wiesel wrote of his shame at lying silently in his bunk while his father was beaten nearby.

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After the war Wiesel made his way to France, studied at the Sorbonne and by 19 had become a journalist. He pondered suicide and never wrote of or discussed his Holocaust experience until 10 years after the war as a part of a vow to himself. He was 27 years old in 1955 when "Night" was published in Yiddish, and Wiesel would later rewrite it for a world audience.

"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed ...," Wiesel wrote. "Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live."

Asked by an interviewer in 2000 why he did not go insane, Wiesel said, "To this day that is a mystery to me."

By 2008, "Night" had sold an estimated 10 million copies, according to the New York Times, including 3 million after talk-show hostess Oprah Winfrey made it a spotlight selection for her book club in 2006.

In 1985 Wiesel helped break ground in Washington for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the following year was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In typical fashion, he dedicated the prize to all those who survived the Nazi horror, calling them "an example to humankind how not to succumb to despair."



SOBERING INFLUENCE

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Wiesel, who became a U.S. citizen in 1963, was slight in stature but a compelling figure when he spoke. With a chiseled profile, burning eyes and a shock of gray hair, he could silence a crowd by merely standing up.

He was often described as somber. An old friend, Chicago professor Irving Abrahamson, once said of him: "I've never seen Elie give a belly laugh. He'll chuckle, he'll smile, there'll be a twinkle in his eye. But never a laugh from within."

A few years after winning the peace prize, he set up the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, which, in addition to Israeli and Jewish causes, campaigned for Miskito Indians in Nicaragua, Cambodian refugees, victims of South African apartheid and of famine and genocide in Africa.

Wiesel wrote more than 50 books - novels, non-fiction, memoirs, and many with a Holocaust theme - and held a long-running professorship at Boston University. In one of his later books, "Open Heart," he used his 2011 quintuple-bypass surgery as impetus for reflection on his life.

"I have already been the beneficiary of so many miracles, which I know I owe to my ancestors," he wrote. "All I have achieved has been and continues to be dedicated to their murdered dreams - and hopes."

He collected scores of awards and honors, including an honorary knighthood in Britain. Obama presented him the National Humanities Medal in 2009.

Wiesel was attacked in a San Francisco hotel in 2007 by a 22-year-old Holocaust denier, but not injured.

Wiesel and wife Marion married in 1969 and their son, Elisha, was born in 1972.

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Just two months ago Malcolm Turnbull declared the seat of Lindsay, around Penrith in western Sydney, "critical" to the Coalition's hold on power.

"If we hold this seat, then we will be returned to government and then we will be able to carry out our national economic plan," Turnbull said.

And in his final address to the National Press Club, Turnbull took time to single out the efforts of Liverpool mayor Ned Mannoun, who he said was a chance of what would have been a surprise win in the Sydney seat of Werriwa.
Professor Ben Howden (right), director of the Microbiological Diagnostic Unit at Melbourne's Doherty Institute, with Dr Jason Kwong and the gene sequencer that helped St Vincent's trace the source of a superbug infection in 2015 to a single toilet bowl. Credit:Pat Scala "We needed to find out if it was an outbreak." But traditional testing wouldn't help. All it would do was show that the babies had the bacteria, not whether they had got it from one another or from a common source. In Melbourne, Visvanathan too was faced with a potential outbreak. Over 2015 a further three patients tested positive for the carbapenem-resistant bug during routine swabs that were introduced after the earlier outbreak. Like the first patient, they were simply colonised. (A colonised patient is not infected and is unlikely to get sick; they simply carry the bacteria in their gut. CRE generally only infects those with weak immunity, but the more of it about, the more likely a sick person will be exposed). Associate Professor Sebastiaan van Hal (left) and Simon Burke, nursing unit manager of Royal Prince Alfred's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, next to one of the sinks that was redesigned following an outbreak of a superbug. Credit:Annabel Stafford Still, Visvanathan and the infection control team knew what CRE could do if it did cause an infection  and they didn't it want it roaming their hospital.

Because of the bug's resistance, the only options doctors had to treat it were antibiotics from the 1940s and 1950s "which have nasty side effects," Visvanathan says. Plus these antibiotics are relatively weak and their effectiveness, such as it is, is likely to wane the more they have to be used. When that happens, Visvanathan says, "We're in trouble". The World Health Organisation has warned that the rise of antibiotic-resistent superbugs could have catastrophic consequences. Credit:AP But back in 2015, Visvanathan and his team were concentrating on another puzzle. The four patients who carried CRE had all been in the hospital at different times, so they couldn't have passed the bug to one another  at least not directly. The only thing they had in common was that they'd stayed in the same ward. Either, "there was a big group of people outside in the community all walking around with CRE who had come in randomly, or there was some source in the hospital." In the mid-1800s, Dr John Snow traipsed the streets of London to pinpoint the source of a cholera outbreak to a single well. He is known as the father of epidemiology. Today genome sequencing promises to soon allow doctors to track an infection in real time.

To prove there was a hospital source, Visvanathan and the infection control team would have to show that the bacteria isolated from the four patients were from a related strain. But traditional testing only told them what kind of bug it was and what antibiotics it was resistant to. It wasn't enough. So the samples were sent to Professor Ben Howden, director of Melbourne's Microbiological Diagnostic Unit Public Health Laboratory. There, Howden and his team would do something that ten years ago was not possible: they would map the genome of each sample of bacteria and see whether  and how  they were related to one another. Think of the difference between a criminal profile saying a suspect is British and one giving the suspect's full name and street address and phone number and you get an idea of the precision with which whole-genome sequencing can work. Indeed it's so powerful that scientists can see a mutation on a single base pair (the building block of DNA) among five million such pairs. And they can do it for less than $100 a sample. By looking at these microscopic differences between bacteria they can follow the evolution of a particular branch of the bacterium  the passage of an outbreak  right back to its origins. And they can do it within days. They can even prevent an outbreak from occurring. "We can find out if a new patient is carrying the carbapenem-resistant bacteria and put in infection control measures to stop the bug spreading from that patient," Howden says.

In a recent case, scientists at the Microbiological Diagnostic Unit were able to trace a local case of listeria back to a stone fruit imported from California by comparing it to genome strains held by the US Food and Drug Administration. "In the future," Howden says, "scientists will be able to do this in real time, finding the strain as soon as an infection occurs and preventing infections in other people by removing the source." Dr Teresa Anderson, chief executive of the Sydney Local Health District that oversees Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, says whole genome sequencing "has the potential to totally change the impact of infection control forever". "This is particularly important with the increasing worldwide emergence of superbugs and other drug resistant infection," Anderson says. In Snow's time, finding the well was the only hope for halting a cholera outbreak because there was no cure for the disease. And with resistance to antibiotics growing  in May it was reported that a woman in the USA was infected with a bug that no known antibiotic could kill  today's doctors may soon find themselves in a similar position. Monitoring the outbreak of a disease and preventing transmission may become the only way to save patients.

Associate Professor Sebastiaan van Hal, who works for NSW Health Pathology and at the Royal Prince Alfred's Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, speaks with an abrupt South African accent and sees things precisely, which is a good trait for a genome sequencer. Two years ago he spent six months at Oxford University learning how to map superbug genomes. When Davis came to him with her green mucousy petri dishes, van Hal suggested they sequence the entire genome of the bacteria found in her samples as well as samples swabbed from the sinks and taps in the neonatal intensive care (pseudomonas is a hardy bug that thrives in moist environments). Davis, together with a registrar and infection control nurse, took samples from across the unit with a growing sense of urgency. "There were babies there that were very tiny and very premature," Davis remembers. "One had some conjunctivitis, so I wanted to make sure she wasn't going to get infected. It tears at the heartstrings a bit." The samples were returned to van Hal.

To put a complicated process very simply: van Hal extracted DNA from each sample, broke the circular DNA chromosome into multiple pieces so they could be read by the genome sequencing machine, and fed them into the machine. When the results came back, he looked at where each sample differed from the reference genome. It was an outbreak. Eleven of the samples had "no (mutational) differences whatsoever," van Hal says. "On a core genome level they were identical organisms." A further sample taken from one sink differed from the cluster by a mere nine mutations. The two strains were related. Much like Snow had done, van Hal and Davis plotted the bacteria samples on a map of the intensive care unit and found the identical samples came from beds clustered around the sink. They had their culprit. The sink was knocked out and all the ward's grouted tile splashbacks were replaced with smooth ones. None of the babies got sick and no further babies were infected.

In Melbourne, too, the bacteria samples St Vincent's had sent to Howden were clones of one another. But if the patients' hospital stays hadn't overlapped, there had been no direct patient-to-patient transmission. Where was the bug hiding? After the previous outbreaks, St Vincent's had cleaned and sampled carpets, sinks and beds and found nothing. "It was our registrar who thought of the toilet water," Visvanathan says. Samples taken from the toilet bowl contained the same antibiotic-resistant genes that had been found in bacteria collected from the patients. Indeed, the same resistance gene was found in several different bacteria in the toilet, suggesting it was being swapped between bugs. Still the mystery was not solved. After the earlier outbreak, the hospital engineers had tested the roof around the water tank, the water supply and other parts of the sewerage system and found no sign of the resistance gene. It wasn't until they broke the toilet apart that they found the bug hiding in a biofilm within the porcelain pan of the toilet bowl near the rim. It may have been brought there by a colonised patient, then colonised others when the toilet had been flushed without the seat cover down. "There's some data that suggests that a splash from a toilet flush can go 20 metres," Visvanathan says. "People have been infected with other faecal organisms through using a toothbrush near a toilet flush in the family home. Clearly, it is wise to put the cover down before flushing." St Vincent's replaced the toilet and since then, there have been no further sightings of this CRE superbug. But Visvanathan is too much of a realist to think he's seen the last of it. "Patients will come from overseas, there will be potential for new sources of infection," he says.
A jewellery shop in Melbourne's north has been robbed at gunpoint.

Detective Sergeant Rick Fletcher from Darebin crime investigation unit said the owner of Dev Jewellers in Reservoir was alone in his store on Saturday afternoon when three men wearing face masks broke into the shop about 3.10pm.

One of the offenders was armed with a sawn-off shotgun and another with a wheel brace.

He said the men appeared to have dark skin, were about 180 centimetres tall and had thin builds.
Four towering container cranes were shipped into Melbourne's port on Saturday, drawing a crowd of curious onlookers.

The giant "post-Panamax" cranes are destined for the Webb Dock container terminal in Port Melbourne, which is due to become operational at the end of the year.

The huge ''post-Panamax'' cranes arrive at the Port of Melbourne. Credit:Leigh Henningham

The cranes were shipped from China on the deck of Zhen Hua 21, a St Vincent and Grenadines-flagged vessel that specialises in transporting heavy container cranes.

Part of a $1.6 billion expansion of the capacity of the Port of Melbourne, the redevelopment of Webb Dock will see Philippine port operator ICTSI become the port's third stevedoring company.
Users of buy and sell social media websites have been given a reminder to be on guard when parting with goods after an alleged scammer was arrested.

Police arrested a Thornbury man, 36, after a series of Gumtree scams in Melbourne's north-east.

Banyule crime investigation unit detectives charged the Thornbury man with obtaining property by deception.

It is alleged the man contacted many victims who had advertised electronic devices for sale on Gumtree.

The man then allegedly met the victims and produced a screen shot of a false internet transfer showing the money had been paid to the seller's account.
Elie Wiesel arrives in the Hungarian Parliament building in Budapest, Hungary in 2009. Credit:AP The Nation called it "the single most powerful literary relic of the Holocaust," while The New York Times said it was "a slim volume of terrifying power." It also was recognised as one of the first books to raise a haunting question for people of faith: Where was God at Auschwitz? Wiesel later theorised that the public wasn't ready for such a graphic account of the Holocaust. "The Diary of Anne Frank" had sold well when it was published in the U.S. in 1952, but the diary of the Jewish teenager's life in hiding from the Nazis did not extend to the concentration camp where she died. This April 1945 file photo shows prisoners liberated by the US Army marching from the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany. The tall youth in the line at left, fourth from the front, is Elie Wiesel. Credit:AP When Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann went on trial in 1961, it brought the Holocaust renewed attention in mainstream America and heightened the visibility of Wiesel and other survivors who were writing their stories. Wiesel's books were largely well-reviewed, but over time, some critics questioned his role as a self-appointed witness to history.

In 1985, Wiesel received one of the highest U.S. civilian honours, the Congressional Gold Medal. The controversy caused by his acceptance speech inadvertently brought greater attention to "Night," he later said. The speech urged President Ronald Reagan to forgo a trip to West Germany that included Bitburg Military Cemetery, where many Nazi SS soldiers who deported Jews and ran concentration camps are buried. This April 16, 1945 file photo provided by the US Army shows inmates of the Buchenwald concentration camp. The young man seventh from left in the middle row bunk is Elie Wiesel. Credit:AP "That place is not your place, Mr. President," Wiesel said. "Your place is with the victims of the SS. The issue here is not politics, but good and evil. And we must never confuse them." Reagan went to Bitburg but added a stop at a concentration camp. By the 1990s, Night was a standard high school and college text, selling an estimated 400,000 copies a year. When Oprah Winfrey selected an updated version of the book for her television book club in 2006, it became a bestseller but reignited a debate over whether it was a novelised memoir. Wiesel maintained that it was a true account. Using his personal story as a testimonial and departure point for his writing, he earned a reputation as the leading spiritual archivist of the Nazi persecution of the Jews.

He never put to rest a question that had haunted him since the war: Why did those who knew about the Nazis' effort to exterminate the Jews not do more to prevent it? "The free world, including Jewish leaders in America and Palestine, had known since 1942, but we knew nothing," he wrote in his 1995 memoir, All Rivers Run to the Sea. "Why didn't they warn us?" Small in stature with a melancholy nature, he explored the themes of guilt, psychic trauma, endurance and the necessity to remain hopeful about the future despite the worst injustices. Questions about justice, human dignity and ethnic hatred that Wiesel repeatedly returned to soon were recognized as issues common to every race, ethnicity and culture. "Wiesel has taken the Jew as his metaphor - and as his reality - in order to unite a moral and aesthetic vision in terms of all men," The Washington Post said in 1968. When Wiesel received the Nobel peace prize, the committee called him "a messenger to mankind" who had come to speak for "all oppressed people and races," emerging as a spiritual leader and guide "in an age when violence, repression and racism continue to characterise the world." On a humanitarian trip to a Cambodian refugee camp in 1980, Wiesel explained his empathy for the oppressed: "I came here because nobody came when I was there. One thing that is worse for the victim than hunger, fear, torture, even humiliation, is the feeling of abandonment, that nobody cares, the feeling that you don't count."

Eliezer Wiesel was born September 30, 1928, in Sighet in what is now Romania, a remote farming community where his father, Shlomo Wiesel, was a grocer. Many relatives of his mother, Sarah, were rabbis, and he was raised an Orthodox Jew in the Hasidic tradition. He had planned a career writing about religion and "the great eternal subjects: love and happiness". Instead, near the beginning of Night, he describes the cattle car packed with Jews that took his family to Auschwitz: "On the third night, while we slept, some of us sitting one against the other and some standing, a piercing cry split the silence: 'Fire! I can see a fire!' ... There was a moment's panic. Who was it who had cried out? It was Madame Schachter ... "She continued to scream, breathless, her voice broken by sobs. 'Jews, listen to me! I can see a fire! There are huge flames! It's a furnace!' "Our terror was about to burst the sides of the train ... It was as though madness were taking possession of us all ... Some of the young men forced her to sit down, tied her up, and put a gag in her mouth."

Within hours of arriving in Poland at Auschwitz, Wiesel and his father were transferred to Buna in Germany, where they spent most of their imprisonment. "Logically, I shouldn't have survived," Wiesel wrote in his 1995 memoir. "Sickly, timid, fearful, and lacking all resourcefulness, I never did anything to stay alive." In January 1945, Wiesel and his father were forced to undergo a 10-day "death march" with other prisoners from Buna to Buchenwald in Germany. Upon arriving, his father died of dysentery, starvation and exhaustion. Three months later, the Nazis fled the camp as Allied Forces were about to break through the gates. Among 400 children taken to a Normandy youth home, Wiesel soon was reunited with his two older sisters, Hilda and Batya. "It was a miracle," he told UPI in 1987. Hilda had seen his picture with a newspaper article about child survivors.

From 1948 to 1951, Wiesel studied literature and philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris. Fluent in French, he worked as a journalist in France for Yiddish and French publications, which led to an interview with novelist Francois Mauriac, who encouraged him to write about his experiences and helped him find a French publisher. Wiesel turned to novel writing to explore the psychological turmoil of Holocaust survivors. In Dawn (1961), he wrote of a young death camp survivor who joins Palestine's freedom fighters and is horrified when he realises that he has become a killer. Wiesel had been a freedom fighter but never saw combat. In The Accident (1961), a journalist and death-camp survivor struggles with the idea that he may have attempted suicide when he was struck by car. Wiesel said he had wondered these same thoughts after being seriously injured in 1956 by a New York City taxi. A series of articles about the life of Jews in communist Russia soon followed. Collected into a 1966 book, The Jews of Silence, they established Wiesel as a leading voice against anti-Semitism. At 40, Wiesel married Marion Erster Rose in 1969. A Vienna native, she was a survivor of death camps and had a daughter, Jennifer, from a previous marriage. The couple had one son, Shlomo Elisha, and two grandchildren.

His wife was also his translator, turning most of his books from their original French - the language in which he usually wrote - to English. They included 2012's Open Heart, a reflection on his heart surgery and life in the face of death. Wiesel joined the faculty of City University of New York in 1972 and taught Jewish studies. Four years later, he moved to the humanities department at Boston University, commuting from his home in Manhattan. He had been a US citizen since 1963. In 1978, US president Jimmy Carter appointed him to a commission that eventually created the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. Wiesel realised his childhood goal to write about religion beginning in the 1970s and co-authored several books with religious and world leaders, including A Journey of Faith (1990) with New York Cardinal John O'Connor and Memoir in Two Voices (1996) with former French president Francois Mitterrand. The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity - established with his Nobel prize money - announced in 2008 that it had lost more than $US15 million through investments with Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff, whose Ponzi scheme defrauded thousands of individuals and charities of billions. Wiesel and his wife lost their life savings.
The Jammu and Kashmir Police has started biggest exercise of "profiling" Imams of mosque to find any correlations between rising anger in the valley, stone throwing and mosque sermons.

By Naseer Ganai: Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti is consistently asking Kashmiris to look towards thriving democracy in India instead of "war-ravaged" Muslim world. Even as she denounced the militant attack on the paramilitary Centre Reserve Police Force, saying she is ashamed of being Muslim, the Jammu and Kashmir Police has started biggest exercise of "profiling" Imams of mosque to find any correlations between rising anger in the valley, stone throwing and mosque sermons.

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SCANNING THE ROLE OF IMAMS

According to the sources, Jammu and Kashmir police's CID wing has mobilised men and material to get the details of Imams, including their name, family composition, and ideological affiliation and bank details to understand the relations between stonethrowing, militancy and role of Imams in it. The Imams of mosques run by Jamaate-Islami and Jamait-ulahlehadees are in focus. The CID has to collect details of political affiliation of Imam, their affiliation with NGOs, their property details, source of income, convictions, whether they have relatives in the rest of the country and Pakistan, their acquaintances in Pakistan, FIR details if any and proof of political allegiance.

A ROUTINE EXERCISE, THEY SAY

The ADGP CID SM Sahai, however, said the CID was only recording statements and it was a routine exercise. ALSO READ:

Pampore attack: Mehbooba Mufti's 'ashamed as a Muslim' remark draws opposition ire



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Gavin Wendt, MineLife

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Matsa Resources (MAT)

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All eyes are on the companys Killaloe project in Western Australia, which has been previously explored for nickel. Sirius Resources, and now S2 Resources, have a record of exploration success at Polar Bear, which is right next door to the Killaloe project. Killaloes potential to host similar high grade gold mineralisation is a major draw card for investors. We will be examining further exploration results with great interest.

Antipa Minerals (AZY)

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The stock maintains a first class acreage position within the mineral rich Telfer province of Western Australia. An agreement with mining behemoth Rio Tinto Exploration allows Rio to spend up to $60 million on Antipas Citadel project. Also, Antipa has separately started drilling on a new and highly prospective gold deposit called Minyari, where mineralisation was outlined by previous owners. Antipas projects already boast a sizeable 1.6 million ounce gold equivalent JORC resource.

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Aurora Minerals (ARM)

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Represents a mini resource investment house. Under a revamped and experienced management team, ARM has utilised its cash reserves to invest in three promising up and coming ASX-listed resource plays, encompassing gold exploration in West Africa and base metals, lithium and graphite in South Korea. Aurora has cash and investments totalling $12.9 million, which compares with a recent market value of just $5.8 million  a 55 per cent discount to net tangible assets.

West African Resources (WAF)

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The company continues to be boosted by high grade gold results from drilling on its M1 deposit in Burkina Faso. Gold mineralisation at its M1, M2, M3 and M5 deposits is so robust that the company in now investigating a larger scale CIL (carbon in leach) development scenario, where an expanded bankable feasibility study is underway. The key is the high grade nature of gold mineralisation being encountered, which should enhance project economics and boost overall mine life.

SELL RECOMMENDATIONS

BHP Billiton (BHP)

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The mining giant has recovered from its lowest levels since the GFC  below $15  to trade at $18.67 on June 30. In my view, the stock would have continued to fall if not for a minor rally in the iron ore price during the first half of 2016. The outlook for iron ore is static at best and BHP has its fortunes heavily tied to this one commodity, which accounts for around 50 per cent of its earnings.

Woodside Petroleum (WPL)

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Despite a robust performance by crude oil prices so far in 2016, Woodsides share price performance fails to reflect this, registering only modest gains. This is likely due to the companys big LNG exposure and not as much exposure to crude oil prices compared to other international petroleum heavyweights. Also, uncertainty exists around the profitability of expensive LNG developments, as the cost of energy falls.

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Matthew Litchfield, PhillipCapital

BUY RECOMMENDATIONS Crown Resorts (CWN)

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Crown management has taken proactive steps to unlock shareholder value by proposing to demerge most of its international assets into a separate company and by also considering a separate property trust float comprising most of its Australian hotels. Although further approvals are required, its a positive move, as share price performance was highly correlated to the troubled performance of its investments in Macau. Vocus Communications (VOC)

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A full service vertically integrated telecommunications player that was built organically and through numerous acquisitions over the years. We like Vocus because its growing earnings at a rapid rate, and I believe management will continue searching for growth opportunities. I see any price weakness due to Brexit as a buying opportunity. HOLD RECOMMENDATIONS Emerchants (EML)

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Uncertainty following the Brexit vote had a negative impact on EMLs share price. Regarding its UK operations, management expects the impact to be immaterial in fiscal years 2016 and 2017. We expect this payment solutions provider to continue benefiting from its growth and diversification strategy. Telstra (TLS)

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Investors seeking stability in the equity market should consider holding Telstra due to its defensive nature and solid dividend payments. Further, investors can expect details of a new capital management program to be announced at its August results given the sale of its Autohome investment. SELL RECOMMENDATIONS Medibank Private (MPL)

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News that the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission alleges the insurer engaged in misleading conduct by failing to notify members of changes to benefits is my reason to reduce exposure after a successful float in late 2014. While the outcome is unknown, I see better opportunities for growth and income elsewhere. WorleyParsons (WOR)

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Our research suggests this engineering group is trading above fair value. In our view, resource project activity has declined, shrinking the available pool of work. We believe any fall in oil prices would create further headwinds and reduce revenue and earnings.

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Simon Herrmann, wise-owl.com

BUY RECOMMENDATIONS

WPP AUNZ (WPP)

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Formerly STW Communications, this Australian services company focuses on advertising, marketing and communications. While STW, as a single entity, posted six consecutive years of revenue growth, merging with WPP should further enhance its competitiveness. Successful integration of the two individual businesses and consolidation of the industry are expected to be primary drivers of growth. Were bullish and expect to see upside during the next 12 months.

Adacel Technologies (ADA)

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Develops advanced simulation and control systems for aviation and defence. Adacel has a strong order pipeline and 60 per cent of revenue is recurring. The company has increased revenue for the past two years and generates free positive cash flow. Adacel has $11.3 million in cash and no debt. Recent implementation of dividends and enhanced liquidity could drive further capital growth.

HOLD RECOMMENDATIONS

Gold Road Resources (GOR)

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Offers speculative exposure to the domestic gold mining industry. Were attracted to the quality and the quantity of its land in the Yarmana region of Western Australia, existing reserves at Gruyere and track record of low discovery costs. Funding requirements and the volatile gold price are the risks. Gold prices have risen this calendar year, so we retain a hold on the stock.

Astro Japan Property Group (AJA)

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Government initiatives to re-inflate Japans economy could alleviate two decades of structural real estate market declines. Astro Japan is positioned to benefit after rationalising its portfolio and re-capitalising its balance sheet. Were attracted to its income profile and capital growth potential. But taking into account the recent share price rise, we believe a hold is appropriate.

SELL RECOMMENDATIONS

Computershare (CPU)

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This share registry company has been travelling in a down trend since reaching a high in March 2015. Earlier this year, the company announced a marginal fall in revenue. Recently, investors heavily sold the stock due to its UK exposure. The share price is down about 20 per cent this calendar year.

Cadence Capital (CDM)

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The share price of this listed investment company is significantly down this calendar year. In the 12 months to May 31, 2016, gross returns fell by 8.8 per cent. Compare this to a decrease in the All Ordinaries Index of 1.25 per cent during the same period. The stock is underperforming and we believe theres better opportunities elsewhere.

>> BACK TO THE NEWSLETTER: Click here to read other articles from this weeks newsletter

Please note that TheBull.com.au simply publishes broker recommendations on this page. The publication of these recommendations does not in any way constitute a recommendation on the part of TheBull.com.au. You should seek professional advice before making any investment decisions.
This July 4, as we mark the 240th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the declaration of independence we most need to be taking stock of is Britains from the European Union. At the moment, the biggest Brexit winner stands to be Russias Vladimir Putin, who now faces a weakened Western Europe.

In the past the U.S. has not been neutral about the European Union. The E.U. has historic roots in the Marshall Plan of 1947, when America came to the aid of a Europe struggling to recover from the devastation of World War II and made one of the conditions of our aid European economic cooperation.

The Marshall Plan was the brainchild of General George Marshall, Army chief of staff throughout World War II, who became President Harry Trumans secretary of state in 1947. By virtue of his military record, Marshall was eminently qualified to put such an aid plan into effect and not have his political motives questioned.

Prior to the Marshall Plan, America had sent help to Europe in the form of relief during and after World War I and Lend Lease military equipment prior to World War II. But the Marshall Plan was different. It was not conventional aid. It was the New Deal applied to foreign policy. The Marshall Plan sought, as Marshall observed in his1947 Harvard commencement speech outlining his plan, to provide a cure rather than a mere palliative to Europes ruined economies.

In the wake of World War II, Europe was struggling to feed itself. Its factories and infrastructure had been decimated, and European governments did not have the capital on hand to begin rebuilding and meet their citizens daily needs.

Marshalls motives in coming to Europes rescue were humanitarian ones, but they were driven by American political self-interest as well. The Marshall Plan was designed to thwart the danger posed to Western Europe by a hostile Soviet Union that sought to advance its interests by supporting indigenous Communist parties, particularly in France and Italy, and by threatening military intervention.

After meeting with Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin in the spring of 1947, Marshall was convinced that Stalin was buoyed by the suffering going on in postwar Western Europe, believing that it worked to the Soviet Unions benefit. Marshall also had no doubt about the Soviet Unions willingness to exploit Cold War military tensions. He used the Berlin Airlift in 1948 to deal with the Soviet Union when it cut off ground access to West Berlin, and in 1949, the second year of the Marshall Plan, with Marshall no longer secretary of State, America championed the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The response to the Marshall Plan by the British Labor government of Clement Attlee, which in 1945 had replaced Winston Churchills Conservative government, was enthusiastic. I felt that it was the first chance that we had been given since the end of the war to look at the European economy as a whole, British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin declared.

Britain, along with France, took the lead role in bringing about a gathering of European nations to figure out how to make the best use of Marshall Plan aid. On July 4, 1947, Britain and France sent out invitations to 22 European nations to meet with them in Paris. Sixteen countries responded favorably to the invitations, and on July 12, they met. The first steps toward a European Union were under way, as was the Wests growing division with the Soviet Union, which regarded the Marshall Plan as an example of American imperialism and kept the bloc of Eastern European nations that it controlled from joining it.

The 16 countries formed themselves into the Committee of European Economic Cooperation, and from this initial committee, a series of much tighter organizations emerged. In 1950 the European Payments Union was formed and with heavy American backing, the EPU created a clearinghouse from which its members could draw credits that allowed them to treat one another as members of an integrated market.

A year later an even greater step toward economic cooperation was taken when France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxemburg formed themselves into the European Coal and Steel Community. As a result of this step, Germany was integrated into the European economy as a good neighbor with no independent capacity for rebuilding its war industries.

Americas diplomatic role in this process was to do whatever it could to make European cooperation possible, but the United States also backed up its diplomacy with its money. Over its four years, the Marshall Plan cost America more than $13 billion (roughly $579 billion as a comparable share of four years of our current gross national product), and in its first fiscal year the Marshall Plan absorbed more than 10 percent of the federal budget.

Marshall put his prestige on the line to campaign for the Marshall Plan, and by February 1948 a Roper Poll showed that 86 percent of those questioned knew about the Marshall Plan, and 77 percent of them approved of it.

In addition Marshall managed to win over key Republicans. Arthur Vandenberg, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was a crucial supporter of the Marshall Plan. John Foster Dulles, who would become President Dwight Eisenhowers secretary of state, testified before Congress on behalf of the plan, and the first administrator of the Marshall Plan was Paul Hoffman, a former Studebaker Company president and lifelong Republican.

Today, that kind of Republican support for a Democratic foreign-policy initiative is impossible to imagine. But what has not changed is the need for European countries to deal jointly with the challenges they face.

Since the end of the Marshall Plan, the road to European unity has often been bumpy. When in 1957 France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxemburg signed the Treaty of Rome establishing the European Economic Community, better known as the Common Market, Britain opted not to join in.

Then in the 60s, when the British changed their minds about joining the Common Market, their entry into it was vetoed twice, once in 1963 and again in 1967, by French President Charles de Gaulle. It was not until 1973 that Britain finally made it into the Common Market, setting the stage for the formation of the European Union in 1993.

As Britain struggled to get into the Common Market, its efforts had no greater advocate than President John Kennedy. The United States government, under the leadership of both parties, has steadfastly supported the political and economic integration of Western Europe, Kennedy declared in his first year in office.

Kennedys words might easily have been borrowed from one of Marshalls speeches on the importance of aiding Europe. Kennedys thinking reflected his desire to make Americas rivalry with the Soviet Union as much about the economy as about armaments, but Kennedy also knew that in the 60s Americans remembered how Europes divisions had led to two world wars that cost thousands of Americans their lives.

Marshall Plan nostalgia is of no use today, but the internationalism of the Marshall Plan can guide us as we seek a foreign policy that will help Europe and Great Britain make the best of Brexit or even rethink it. Germanys Chancellor Helmut Schmidt was not engaging in hyperbole when on the 50th anniversary of the Marshall Plan he observed, The United States ought not to forget that the emerging European Union is one of its own greatest achievements: it never would have happened without the Marshall Plan.

Nicolaus Mills is professor of American studies at Sarah Lawrence College and author of Winning the Peace: The Marshall Plan and Americas Coming of Age as a Superpower.
Justin Timberlake and Limp Bizkits Fred Durst are in a booth at Los Angeles club. Verne Troyer, the two-foot, eight-inches tall star of Austin Powers, is with them, standing on a table. The unlikely trio is not the beginning of a walk into a bar joke, though that is precisely the sight that greeted former MTV VJ Dave Holmes when he walked into that bar after a network event 15 years ago.

Holmes worked at what was once Music Television during the last great moment of the networks music- and artist-driven pop culture reign, hosting shows like TRL, Say What Karaoke, and, during the beginnings of its descent into crass stunt madness, umpteen iterations of Spring Break programming.

It was a time in turn-of-the-millennium pop music when the likes of Britney Spears, blink-182, Destinys Child, Kid Rock, DMX, Eminem, Backstreet Boys, and Korn all co-existedand it was perfectly acceptable to be fans of them allmaking the halls of MTV prime real estate to be a celebrity-gawking fly on the wall. Which is precisely what Holmes got to be.

I was just thinking this is the weirdest thing thats ever happened, Holmes tells The Daily Beast at a cafe in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, a day after marching in New York Citys annual LGBT Pride Parade. Hes still shaking his head, all these years later, in disbelief while remembering the starry menage a odd.

You try to be cool and act like you belong, but everyones insecure and everyones weird, he continues. If I were to see Britney Spears and Fred Durst pass each other, I was too insecure to make anything happen in that moment.

He jars himself out of the absurdity of that hypothetical celebrity run-in, pausing reflectively: It took me like three years to stop feeling like a sweepstakes winner. Or loser, in my case. It took me a while to to realize I work here. I have this job. I dont have to keep applying for it.

That sweepstakes that Holmes wonwell, actually lostwas the networks first Wanna Be a VJ contest in 1998. He came in second place to living Edward Scissorhands performance art piece Jesse Campthe spacey six-foot, four-inches tall punk flamingo who continues to mystify the nation.

I get asked about Jesse Camp all the time, Holmes laughs, reciting his well-practiced script: Yes, he was always like that. No, I dont know what hes doing now. Yes, I know that Ill bump into him again at some point.

His performance in the VJ competition, even though he lost, got him a gig as a writer for the network and, quickly after that, a contract to be on-camera talent. Now a writer-at-large at Esquireheres his essay about coming out of the closet after meeting the Indigo Girls at an Applebees in 1992Holmes writes about the VJ experience in Party of One: A Memoir in 21 Songs, released this week.

The book is written from the perspective of a closeted Catholic teen in St. Louis for whom MTV in the 80s was a sanctuary. It showed me a world I wanted to live in one day, he says. When I looked around me and I didnt feel like I fit in, I turned on my TV and knew there was something out there that got me.

Adding a layer to the purview is the fact that Holmes actually worked at MTV and, in maybe the last years it could lay claim to it, observed its cultural impact first-hand. I dont disagree, he sighs when I ask how he feels when former fans trash whats become of MTV. Is Scream the series going to culturally reward young humans? I dont know.

Still, the dutiful fly, he gamely reports from his days on the wall, relaying a few juicy celeb stories in Party of One. He was the first person to interview Britney Spears, and she was a total pro.

Theres a wild one about Tara Reid arriving for a Spring Break shoot of Say What Karaoke towing a perennially drunk, nightmare diva of a friend behind her nicknamed Hard Thirty, because of the ambiguous age the crew guessed her to be. A month later reading a Page Six gossip item, he figured out who Hard Thirty was: a 16-year-old Paris Hilton.

And then theres the time, during that same 1999 Spring Break shoot, that Kid Rock crashed the hotel hot tub where Holmes was lounging and repeatedly croaked, All right, Holmes. Wheres the titty bars at? Lets go get some pusssaaaay! Holmess response: Yeah, no, Kid, Im gay.

That punchline, really, encapsulates what Party of One is actually about. More than a tell-all about his days hanging out with 2000s most ridiculous celebrities, its a sharp and sharp-witted reflection on what it was like to grow up gay and feeling like you never belong.

Tracing his experience coming to terms with his sexuality at a Catholic high school to coming to terms with expressing it at his Catholic university to coming to terms with actually enjoying it when he finally moved to New York City and eventually became a celebrity, Holmes grapples with his feelings of never fitting in at the partybut having a hunch that the party would be pretty fun if he ever figured out how to belong.

Theres the internet now, Holmes says. When youre young and gay or questioning, you can find your community. I didnt have that. I remember there was a recorded hotline for gay events, it was 36-PRIDE. It was just a recording of a guy saying at such and such community center theres this meeting or whatever. I would call it and listen to it just to hear the guys voice. Just to know there was somebody else out there.

Serving as the backdrop to his journey is MTV. Well, media and pop culture at large, reallyboth when he was a consumer of it as a kid roller-skating to the Xanadu soundtrack and when he was disseminating it live from Times Square each afternoon.

Holmes was out at MTV, but not on MTV.

Sure, hed playfully make an offhand comment about hot Justin Timberlake was, but he never overtly came out, so to speak, on air. And the fact is that I wanted to be out, because I had needed someone like to me to have been out when I was fourteen, he writes in Party of One. If [former 80s VJ] Kevin Seal had been gay and said something about it, that moment would have been a seismic event in my life.

He told an MTV talent executive, who was also gay, that he wanted to come out publicly. I think the executive began, I think you should be just exactly like you are.

He finally came out as gay in a 2002 Out magazine piece, which, with no correlation, ended up being right around the time he let his contract with MTV expire. It felt good to be an out television personality, he says. There were not many of them, and still arent.

The news didnt break the internetthat wasnt a thing back thenbut it did affect his career, and not always in the best way. There were hosting gigs he lost out on post-MTV because they were family shows.

Sometimes there would be a panel chat show looking to cast a gay member, and hed be passed over for not being really gay. Translation: a stereotype. Theyd be looking for a fountain of pizazz, someone who speaks in zingers, uses the word fierce, loves fashion talk, talks in constant sexual innuendo, and, most cripplingly, has chemistry with Tori Spelling.

I ask him if, now 45, he wishes that he had been more adamant about being an openly gay VJ from the get-go.

I wish I had been out, he says. I do wish that I had forcefully said it, because a younger generation couldve benefitted from that.

I was 11 when I started watching him on TRL, I say. I cant imagine the effect it would have had on me then for the guy hosting the show I was rushing home from school to watch had been publicly out.

Well, he begins, at the same time Im glad that I didnt because I also wasnt really put together yet. I still had that shitty feeling: Im out, but Im not like that guy. I dont do those kinds of things. I was still defining myself negatively.

Its a dumb stage in my gay life that lasted longer than it should have, he continues, where you have to prove to the world that youre not like the rest of gay guys. I was afflicted with that for much too long. And I think I was still very much caught up in that when I was at MTV, so maybe I wouldnt have been the best model.

Laughing about having missed out on his gay 20s and making up for it now in his 40s, he jokes that he and his friends are going through a second adolescence right now.

Having just marched in the pride parade, what does he think of the climate now for young gays? The ones who are, more than any generation before them, freer to express and be comfortable with their sexuality at earlier ages than ever?

Im happy for them? he says, almost as if a question. Im a little jealous, obviously. But also really happy. He thinks for a bit before ruling that hes ultimately glad he had to work hard to get to the place of self-acceptance hes now reached. It made him stronger. I hope we dont up with a generation of boring gay people, he laughs, taking a beat to reassess what he just said: Its a luxury to be boring.
The late historian Stephen Ambrose once remarked, More Americans get their history from Ken Burns than any other source. This quote, a polite stew of genuine reverence and thinly veiled critique of our dismal education system, is proudly displayed on the PBS website, on Burnss own website, and in every other profile of the renowned documentarian. While Ambrose wasnt exactly a paragon of sourcing himself, it remains highand many would say, accuratepraise from the man George McGovern once said reached more readers than any other historian in our national history.

Its also a convenient way to encapsulate Burnss ridiculously prolific 35-year career, spanning from his Oscar-nominated 1981 documentary Brooklyn Bridge and his magnum opus The Civil War all the way to his recent PBS miniseries Jackie Robinson. The SundanceNow Doc Club, a streaming on-demand service dedicated to documentaries and indie films, is currently presenting a retrospective of Burnss work that allows viewers to stream 11 of his documentary projects.

Burns has, throughout his career, harbored a unique fascination with race in America, and many of the films in the SundanceNow Doc Club collection explore just that, including: Thomas Jefferson, Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, and The Central Park Five.

Ive been dealing with the question of race in every subject, whether its Thomas Jefferson and covering the pre and post-revolutionary period to Jack Johnson in the early 1900s to Jackie Robinson to whatever subject were reminded of almost daily these days, particularly in the demagoguery of one of our presidential candidates, that race is still that hot-button issue that we havent been able to deal with, Burns tells The Daily Beast. Part of the accountability question is that were still judging people not on the content of their character, but on the color of their skinas Dr. King said.

The Daily Beast spoke to Burns about his storied career, the aforementioned presidential candidate spreading demagoguery, and much more.

One of the films included in the retrospective is The Central Park Five, which holds a special place for me as a New Yorker. A lot of young people probably dont know that Donald Trump took out a hysterical full-page ad at the time calling for the now-innocent kids to receive the death penalty, which inflamed public opinion.

He shamefully took out a full-page ad in all of the New York dailies asking for a restoration of the death penalty for two 14-year-old, two 15-year-old, and one 16-year-old innocent children. While New York State laws would not have permitted their execution, just the fact that there was a rush to judgment ought to be complete evidence of how temperamentally unsuited he is for the office he now seeks.

Do you feel Trumps rancor was racially motivated? Even when the city recently settled with the kids for $41 million for their wrongful convictions, Trump penned an op-ed calling the settlement a disgrace and writing these men do not exactly have the pasts of angels. Of course it was [racially motivated]. I found no outrage at the preppie killer. The problem was that the initial idea of the crime was that there were these wilding black youthsa wolf packthat attacked this innocent blond woman, and thats always been the primal fear of Americans as they tolerated slavery and then tolerated Jim Crow. You had newspapers in a progressive northern city sounding like a southern racist newspaper from the 1880s gleefully reporting on a lynching.

Hillary Clinton is somewhat guilty of this mindset as well, however. She did infamously refer to gangs of young black kids as super-predators in 1996.

What happens is I think things come into the language and get used by everybody, and it comes back. With anyone whos been around for a long time, you can dig up stuff like that. I find Donald Trump more of a super-predator. This idea that he can attack and attack and attack whole groups of people, and that we live in a media culture where thats permitted to be toleratedits the spectacle and not the truth of it. An amoral internet permits a lie to travel around the world three times before the truth can get started, and we live in a place where lying is OKwhere a lassitude develops where it doesnt matter what the truth isand thats how its possible for someone like him to be advanced who is so clearly temperamentally unsuited and has no idea about governing.

This problem didnt start with Trump, though. I feel theres been this undercurrent of racism in this country for quite some time. Trump just lit the fuse.

All through my professional life I have dealt with race as a central subtheme of American life, and how could it not be? The author of our creed who said, We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, owned other human beings and didnt see the contradiction or hypocrisy of it, and didnt see fit to free any of them in his lifetime. It set in motion an American narrative that has constantly had to deal with the question of race. Ive always gotten a lot of hate mail from peopleYou nigger-loving this, You nigger-loving thatand thats to be expected, but I also had, even among friends and historians and critics, this impatience with my constantly going back to race. When Obama was elected they said, Now will you shut up? and I said, Just you wait. Right. The election of Obama led to the rise of the Tea Party, which was in part racially motivated. And there are still a lot of foolish people in the country who think the election of Obama means were living in a post-racial America. The majority of people in the United States of America have, quite correctly and to their credit, elected this man president. But it doesnt mean that everybody is in this gigantic Kumbaya moment that my friends, colleagues, and critics presupposed. It in fact set a lot of people off, which is why the birther movementwhich Trump sponsored after trying to execute the innocent children of the Central Park Fiveis just a polite way of saying the N-word. Its just another way to say it. Look, when you have a Republican Party where 54 percent believe that Obamas not a Christian and hes a Muslim? I read Christmas messages from distant relatives who talk about him trying to turn the United States Army into the Muslim Army. I mean what is the Muslim Army?

Your guess is as good as mine. It seems that Trumps benefitted greatly from the 24-hour news cycle. It used to be that people just read the news, but now TV news is filled with all these ridiculous hot takes to fill up the time. Trump is keenly aware of this.

The problem with our media today is we have no perspective. History provides the ability for calm perspective and rational thinking. Nowhere in the history of the United States has their been a more unqualified personjust ask a historian. And yet, everyone within media gave him all the oxygen that hes been so starved for. Theres a limit on free speech and we ought to have had the wisdom to not provide the oxygen to this demagogue. This is what happened to Hitler in Germany: he tried out crazy rhetoric and was surprised when nobody pushed back on it so he just kept saying it, doubling and tripling down, and then look what happened to the German people.

One of the films in the SundanceNow retrospective is 1985s The Statue of Liberty. Given all the anti-immigration hysteria right now between Brexit and Trump, it seems the message of that monument is lost on so many people. In our Prohibition filmwhich is not part of thisPete Hamill talked about how metal and alloy is always stronger than its constituent parts, and Americans have known this in their guts that we are strengthened by the energy of new immigrants. Whether its the Irish, Germans, Catholics, Jews, or others, new immigrants have always had to face the opprobrium of those who are fearful, but what weve allowed in this 24-7 media culture is for that to get out of handfor the pitchforks to be raised, for the torches to be lit, and for the mob to be assembled. And that is pretty scary. It has always been the tactic of the very rich to get opposing groups of people who are struggling to be against each other rather than to be with each other. If the white blue-collar Americans of the world understood that they had common cause with the large immigrant populationdocumented or undocumentedas well as African-Americans, that power structure would be incredibly nervous.

It seems the Republican Party has been very good at convincing blue-collar white Americans to vote against their own interests for years. The GOP of late has been the party that opposes bills to help veterans and 9/11 first responders, and is consistently offering tax cuts to the rich. So, like you said, they convince working-class Americans to get riled up about things like terrorism and abortion and immigration instead of issues that more closely affect them. The Republican Party has been extraordinarily successful at getting many groups of people to vote against their self-interest. Evangelicals are voting for Donald Trump. What part of Donald Trump reminds you of Jesus Christ? Trump lusts after his own daughter on national radio, talks about womens bodies and breasts in such a disparaging way, and mocks them. How is this in any way Christian? When you make the other the enemy, how is that Christian?

Youre a very busy manperhaps one of the busiest filmmakers around. What do you have coming up?

Well, Im 63 next month and Im busier than Ive ever been in my life because theres an urgency there, of doing all the projects you want to do. Weve got a film called Defying the Nazis: The Sharps War out in September thats about a Unitarian minister and his wife who saved Jews and other refugees on the eve of World War II. Tom Hanks is the voice of the minister; a 10-part series on the history of the Vietnam War out next year; a series on the history of country music; were doing a biography of Ernest Hemingway and a biography of a Mayo Clinic; an urban renewal documentary on the worst neighborhood in Atlanta that got transformed into the best; and a documentary embedded in the New York State prison system filming inmates who are permitted to have access to college and post-graduate education.

Wow. Thats a lot.

Weve also got a biography of Muhammad Ali that we were working on well before he declined and died.

What approach are you taking in the Muhammad Ali project?

Most of the portraits of Ali have been wonderful, but When We Were Kings was one fight essentially, and we want to try to doas we did with Jackie Robinsona comprehensive portrait that also tries to liberate the fighter from a lot of the sentimentality thats been crust around him. So, as in Jackie Robinson, it turns out Pee Wee Reese did not put his arm around Jackie Robinson in a show of solidarity. It was just made up. It was for all the best intentions, but it was still a myth. We tend to focus on Jackie Robinson only during the years when hes turning the other cheek, when hes being what they called a good negro. We were more interested in the feisty, competitive person who refused to take a backseat literally in the bus, and in his life metaphorically. Were hoping to have a complete, nuanced, and dynamic portrait of Ali. It will probably be a two-part, 4-hour thing, but it could easily be longer. You never know.
The massacre in Dhaka has worried the sleuths as intelligence reports indicate a coalition between Bangladesh-based Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Islamic State.

By Abhishek Bhalla : The hours-long bloody terror siege in Dhaka that ended on Saturday has triggered alarm within the Indian intelligence setup amid fears that the Islamic State is within striking distance of the country. Growing radicalisation in neighbouring Bangladesh has made it a hotbed for ISIS-inspired extremists who could spill over to India or weave alliances to carry out attacks.

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ISIS: BANGLADESH A LAUNCHING PAD FOR ATTACKS IN INDIA



Top intelligence sources said agencies have been in constant touch with their counterparts in Bangladesh since the attack, trying to pick up every detail and not miss out on any information that could be crucial for India. "With the ISIS claiming earlier that Bangladesh will be a launching pad for targeting India, the attack in Dhaka means its serious business," said an intelligence official.

Indian agencies have been tracking ISIS sympathisers within the country and 54 recruits have been arrested over the last two years.

A COALITION BETWEEN ISIS & JMB

The massacre in Dhaka has worried the sleuths as intelligence reports indicate a coalition between Bangladesh-based Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Islamic State. India has the world's third-largest Muslim population at nearly 175 million but only a handful of them have joined the West Asian group.

However, JMB, which is aspiring to set up a Bangladeshi Caliphate, has been active in India and has set up base in states like West Bengal, Jharkhand and Assam. The outfit, banned in Bangladesh, is working with the objective of turning it into an Islamic country that will include parts of India too and is looking up to ISIS to achieve its goal.

JMB IS TRAINING IN PARTS OF INDIA

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) in the 2014 Burdwan blast investigation stated that JMB was involved in recruitment, radicalisation and training of vulnerable youths and had established organisational bases at certain districts of West Bengal such as Nadia, Burdwan, Murshidabad as well as Birbhum and Sahebganj in Jharkhand.

ISIS has also used Indian regional languages for spreading its propaganda and Bangla was the first and the most extensively used language targeting youths in Bangladesh. Sources said with the highest number of international tourists in India coming from Bangladesh, there is a need to maintain checks.

FOREIGNERS UNDER THE HAWK-EYE

Movements of visitors from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan will be under a hawk eye as growing radicalisation in India's neighbourhood has emerged as a major threat. ISIS and al-Qaeda may not be allies, but the threat from both groups cannot be ignored, counter-terror officials say.

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While AQIS, or al-Qaeda in the India subcontinent, has made inroads, ISIS-inspired youths within the country are being readied to carry out terror strikes. Last month, Delhi Police's special cell filed a charge sheet against 18 people who had allegedly set up base in India under the AQIS banner. India has adopted a three-pronged approach to fight the growing radicalisation. "Targeting the leadership of organisations, forming specialised groups to tackle them in their area and ensuring speedy development to provide support to the population may be considered," say sources.Also Read:

ISIS tells wannabe terrorists: Trim beard, use aftershave, pretend to be Christian

Torture ISIS terrorists, their families: Donald Trump

ISIS crucified Indian priest on Good Friday: Report

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A Houston optometrist is in critical condition after being shot outside a city mosque on Sunday morning.

The Texas attack is at least the second against a Muslim over the holiday weekend. Muslim communities are worried about an increase in bias attacks as a result of rising Islamophobic sentiment in public discourse, but police officials question whether the men were targeted because of their faith.

Arslan Tajammul, the Texas victim, is a native of Alberta, Canada and graduated from Nova Southeastern University - College of Optometry, according to his Facebook page. He had long been active in the Muslim communities in Canada, Florida, and Texas.

The Madrasah Islamiah Masjid Noor imam, Mohammed Wasim Khan, posted a call for prayers on his Facebook page after the attack.

Please do dua of Shifaa [prayer for healing] for my beloved student Dr. Arslan Tajammul who is going through surgery right now, Khan posted from a local hospital. I urge my Houston Muslims and Muslims in America in general to be vigilant and take necessary precautions.

Khan added that others gathered at the mosque for morning prayers were able to immediately come to Tajammuls aid.

Such senselessness is unprecedented, wrote Aziz Rahman, another member of the mosque. He's a unique gem given to Houston, always organizing and inviting everyone to halaqas [Quran study] and the masjid - now being tested on such auspicious nights.

Saturday marked Leilat al-Qadr, or the night of destiny. According to Islamic tradition, the day, which falls towards the end of Ramadan, is one of the holiest of the year, and is said to mark the day Allah revealed the first verses of the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad.

Initial reports suggested that Tajammul was attacked by three assailants near the mosque. But a spokesman for the Houston Police Department cautioned that there was no indication of a hate crime motive yet.

"The initial information I have is that the victim was shot down the street, and he made it to the mosque, and that's where he transported from, Victor Senties, the spokesman, told The Daily Beast.

There is no hate crime nexus here at the time, he added. The preliminary indication is that this was a robbery attempt.

But worshippers at the Madrasah Islamiah told ABC13 that the man was just trying to get to morning prayers at the mosque and that nothing was stolen.

"It is very scary right now given the current political climate," mosque spokesman Mohammed Imaduddin told the station.

"From what I hear, this is the third incident this week in the Houston area involving a Muslim getting shot. This is a community place, we have kids that come here, we have people young and old comes here."

On Saturday, another Muslim man was attacked outside the Fort Pierce Islamic Center, the mosque attended by Orlando nightclub terrorist Omar Mateen. Police found the victim bleeding from the mouth and put out an alert for the suspects vehicle.

The suspect was identified as 25-year-old Taylor Mazzanti, who was arrested and faces a felony battery charge. Mazzanti attended the same local community college as Mateen, according to Facebook.

There, too, police cautioned that there was no clearly identifiable hate motive.

Interviews by the deputies and supervisors on scene and a written witness statement completed by the victim do not indicate any racially-motivated comments were made by the suspect prior to, during, or after the incident, St. Lucie County Sheriff Ken Mascara said in a statement.

Mascara added that the department is still investigating the case, but blasted untruthful rhetoric from the mosque about the motivation, which he said is doing nothing more than trying to bring empathy to their cause.

But the Council on American-Islamic Relations said the suspect said, You Muslims need to get back to your country.

The Islamic Center of Fort Pierce has accused the local sheriffs office of failing to provide adequate security in the face of threats after Mateen killed 49 people in an attack on an Orlando gay club. The mosque condemned his actions, but said they have been repeatedly threatened since the attack.

In the days after the attack, the Islamic Center saw protesters, and some drivers by urged people to burn it down.

At the time, imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman told reporters that police said they were too busy to provide security. A Daily Beast reporter at the scene, however, saw a police officer on site to escort protesters off the mosques property.

After the Saturday attack, CAIR said it would be filing a complaint with the Department of Justice about the Sheriffs offices alleged refusal to provide the mosque with security after repeated threats. (The St. Lucie Sheriffs Office did not return a request for comment on these allegations.)

This should not have happened. For over two weeks, we have been emphasizing that the community from the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce needs to be offered security from the sheriffs office, said CAIR-Florida communications director Wilfredo Amr Ruiz. Unfortunately, our requests were repeatedly ignored.
Every few years, book publishing is hit by a major scandal. Someone like Jonah Lehrer is caught making up quotes. There were supposedly major factual inaccuracies in the controversial Primates of Park Avenue, and passages in Ben Carsons book were lifted and published without attribution. A few years back it was revealed that Herman Rosenblats planned Holocaust memoir was entirely fraudulent. Just this month, Gay Talese disavowed his own book and refused to promote the forthcoming The Voyeurs Motel because one of his sources proved to be uncrediblewhich he discovered only after the Washington Post fact checked his book when an excerpt of it ran in the New Yorker.

Though these high profile instances get a lot of attention (a headline for a 2015 New York magazine piece begins with Will Book Publishers Ever Start Fact-checking?), the reality is that these cases are really just examples of hubris and stupiditymisinformation is passed on to readers on a regular basis. Its usually unintentional.

There is a popular business book, Eat That Frog ! by Brian Tracy, that says in its introduction:

Mark Twain once said that if the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that that is probably the worst thing that is going to happen to you all day long.

Its really a brilliant observation. The only problem is that Mark Twain never said such a thing. Theres a loosely translated remark from Nicolas Chamfort along similar lines (we should swallow a toad every morning, in order to fortify ourselves against the disgust of the rest of the day) but certainly nothing from Twain along those lines. Imagine, misattributing the quote which not only serves as your title but as the entire thesis for a book.

And with the exception of a site called Quote Investigator, almost nobody has noticed. This is for a book that has sold, at least according to the claims on its cover, 1.5 million copies.

I dont mean to single out the author. Im just trying to point out something that has been pointed out before but most people still dont understand: Books are rarely fact checked.

While publishers do many rounds of editing for spelling, grammar, clarity, and even legality, they, for the most part, defer to the authors when it comes to the validity of the material. Certainly, none of the books Ive worked on in ten years in the industry have been given more than a cursory check by a publisher. Even college papers are checked for plagiarism, but books arent. While we know that blogs and most online journalism isnt always trustworthy, books carry a weight with readersimbued in them by centuries of leather bindings and cultural bibliophilia.

For a busy, overworked authorespecially one without a team of assistantsthis can be a recipe for disaster (and abuse). Particularly when there is so much to gain from neat writing that tells readers what they want to hear. As a fellow young author burning the candle at both ends, I wasnt so quick to see Jonah Lehrer as a monster. He was closer to a cautionary tale (especially when I found out that we had the same speaking agent and later, the same editor). There but for the grace of God go I...

Which is why in 2015, with all this weighing on my mind, I decided to subject the book I had finished, Ego is the Enemy, to a vigorous round of independent fact checking. Given that my book was primarily about the dangers of overconfidence and the toxicity of self-absorption, I figured it was only appropriate at this point in my careeron the heels of a successful bookthat I take my own assessment out of the picture and submit to an objective accounting from some third parties. So after the manuscript was accepted by my publisher but before it went to be copyedited and laid out, I embarked on what would be one of the most uncomfortable and interesting experiences of my writing career. I would put myself through the ringervoluntarily.

Despite my enthusiasm, the journey didnt get off to a great start. First off, there is no service designed specifically to check manuscripts for plagiarism. This struck me as odd in the world where more than a quarter of a million books are published every year (if thats not a market, what is?) In college, I had remembered hearing of a service that my professors used, so I reached out on Twitter for help.

I was sent to something called Turnitin, but without a university ID, I was out of luck. With some workat one point, attempting to break the manuscript into many paper-sized smaller piecesI was able to submit the entire 58,000 word manuscript to WriteCheck by Turnitin, purchasing 12 credits to cover the word count, at the cost of $101.70. Unlike the professional edition for instructors (Turnitin), WriteCheck for the general public does not show the sources of the suspected plagiarism and the papers submitted are not added to the Turnitin database, but did promise to check my work against 45+ billion webpages, 337 million student papers, and 130,000+ published works. Better than nothing.

Obviously I knew I had not intentionally plagiarized anyone, but what if I had accidentally written something down during the research process and the later confused it with an original thought? What if a line had come to me in the course of writing that was actually a quote or was dangerously similar to one? These are the fears that keep a writer up at night, especially If something like that could happen to talented and ethical writers Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin. Certainly, they were much more talented and organized than I ever hope to be, and yet

As Goodwin later explained in Time Magazine, the more intensive and far-reaching a historian's research, the greater the difficulty of citation. As the mountain of material grows, so does the possibility of error. This is compounded for those of us who still do even a portion of the work longhand instead of digitally. I have taken notes on hundreds of books over the years, which I then transfer to thousands of notecards, organized in file boxes by theme. These cards are what ultimately make up the details, quotations and facts I have used in my books. It seemed to me that it was inevitable that I would eventually slip upand the result might be some career ending mistake.

Which is why, as the book was being analyzed, I also asked my editor to refer me to a fact checker. Id already used a research assistant as Id written the book to check as we went, but I wanted someone with fresh eyes. There is not exactly a file of fact checkers on call at Penguin, but she was nice enough to help me track someone down, and I was able to reach out to Chris Morgan, a former editor for Vibe (now a writer for Vice) who also worked freelance as an editor and fact checker for other magazines and projects. We settled on $1,500 to check the manuscript (which I paid out of my advance).

I explained to Chris that my interest was in having an impartial third party audit and fact check every word in the book. Though it was important that all the literal facts be truedates, names, places, attributionsI also asked that he check assertions and claims I made. I wanted to make sure that each of these was backed by at least one trustworthy third party source. Since what I had written was a book of historical stories plus analysis, I needed to be sure that my analysis was as grounded in truth and fact as I believed it to be. And what we worked out was that for any claim that he couldnt find verification for, he would mark and I would provide him my claimswhich put me in the unique position of defending my work to a total stranger.

Once both of these two inspections were underway, the nervousness set in. I recalled a Mitch Hedberg joke about an AIDS testit doesnt matter what youve been doing, waiting for the results is terrifying. I knew I hadnt plagiarized anything. I believed Id done my research and erred on the side of caution with my facts. And yet, I was incredibly anxious.

Again, what if Id messed up? What if one of my important points turns out to be untrue? Would the publisher give me time to go back and fix things? Would I have to delete arguments I had come to believe in? Could my premise be wrong? Could I be a fraud and not even know it? I imagine its a bit like finding yourself being grilled in a police interrogation room, after a long enough time, you might think to yourself, Hey, maybe I am guilty.

Mercifully, the results soon came in. On the plagiarism front, I was clearedbut only after some review. WriteCheck had given the manuscript a similarity index of 3 percent and with a total of 122 matches. Seeing the swaths of yellow across the document was not a sight I expected. As I went through the flagged passages one by one, it became pretty obvious what had happened. In several instances WriteCheck flagged quotations not technically inside quotation marks (block quotes, poetry, acknowledged paraphrases, and allusions). On page 15 a verse from Shakespeare was highlighted, though obviously I was not claiming to have written To thine own self be true. In other cases, WriteCheck picked up instances of so-called self-plagiarization. On page 33, it highlighted a sentence from an article I had written months previously about the dangers of passion, while I was testing out material and exploring ideas I would adapt in the book. Obviously the software had no idea that I was the creator of the sentence I was supposedly stealingand if it had been, I would still argue that self-plagiarism is not a sin. Its my writing, I can do with it what I want.

I dont believe I made any significant changes to the manuscript based on the data from WriteCheck, though I certainly would have had it found anything. My interactions with the fact checker were far more fruitful.

Chris was able to help me get a quote by Bernard Baruch right, which I had either written incorrectly or had found mistaken at the source. In the book, I had also attributed the expression oceanic feeling to the French philosopher Pierre Hadot, when in fact, Hadot references the term throughout his writing, but is not the one who coined it (Romain Rolland deserves the credit). In another instance, I said that Glacier Bay was named by the naturalist John Muir when in fact there is a glacier in Glacier Bay that is named after Muir. I had mentioned a letter that Ben Franklin wrote urging restraint to a particularly frustrating and obnoxious colleagueChris found that Franklin ultimately declined to send this letter, meaning I had to fix my error but I feel like the new language actually strengthened my point. In one of the books most critical sections, Chris took issue with a quote from Howard Hughes. Not aware of my source, Chris had discovered Hughes saying nearly an identical line: If you had ever swapped places in life with me, I would be willing to bet that you would have demanded to swap back before the passage of the first week, to the one I had quoted but in a sarcastic context. Research revealed that he must have made this remark more than one timeso the line could stay.

As Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote a few years ago, Good fact-checkers have a preternatural inclination toward pedantry, and sometimes will address you in a prosecutorial tone. That is their job and the adversarial tone is even more important than the actual facts they correct. I wouldnt say that Chris was ever prosecutorial, but I certainly benefited from every inquiry. Even in areas where I disagreed with Chriss questioning or felt he was splitting hairs, I was motivated to address his concernseven if only to hedge or adjust my language to eliminate even the possibility of having to later defend a given remark or assertion. In other cases, being forced to go back to confirm against the source material allowed me a second chance to review and reconsider my position on the people I was writing about. In a book about ego, which requires harshly judging many historical figures, this second look was essential in developing the fair and considerate tone I hoped to achieve. The process made the entire book betternot just more technically accurate.

After making the changes, I was able to proceed back along the publishing track. In traditional publishing, the book is then sent for copy editing, which, depending on the editor youre assigned, can be either a miserable experience or quite helpful. I was surprised to find myself much less defensive with the fact checkers questioning of critical assertions in the bookwhether Howard Hughes actually said this or that, or whether my characterization of this historical figure was fair or notthan I was having a copy editor (who one never actually meets) question stylistic choices I had made. Or worse, finding that this copy editor had taken the liberty to revert these flourishes or delete important words and simply mark the changes with OK? No, maam, its not OK.

A book then moves on to the legal review, which was relatively easy. I had referred to a certain hedge fund as notorious in the bookthe lawyer asked if I would consider something a bit less judgmental. That was an easy change. We discussed the rights issues on two single lines of lyrics (which are notoriously difficult to get permissions for) and then we were done. One of the benefits about writing about mostly dead people is that they are unlikely to sue.

The book was then laid out and designed and printed in galley form for media purposes. Its at this point that changes are most difficult. In a somewhat unique circumstance, at this stage the audiobook rights to my book were acquired by a publishing company owned by the author Tim Ferriss, who was gracious enough to give a round of extensive notes (mostly cuts). Publishers hate making significant cuts at this stage, but my editor was patient enough to allow it. We then finished a final pass and the book was wrapped.

I mention those final rounds of edits in this article for one reasonand its a point I think most writers will appreciate. After what amounted to nearly a dozen different passesby me, the book agent, the research assistant, the editor, the fact checker, the copy editor, the lawyer, the managing editor and my own passes between these two as well as all the early readersall aimed at the complete elimination of errors and mistakes, one begins to feel pretty confident that theyve got everything right. Jonah Lehrer told Jon Ronson in So Youve Been Publicly Shamed that he wished he had the temerity, the courage, to do a fact check on [his] last book. Well, I had done that. And I patted myself on the back for it.

Yet even with all these eyes, not just diligently looking and parsing the words of the book, but some specifically hired to find errors, we missed something. My sense of elation came crashing down when the designer responsible for the book trailer sent me an email. He had no idea what the book had gone through, that Id been preparing this article to discuss fact checking in publishing. He just wanted to alert me to something hed noticed.

You probably already know, he said. On Page 200 there was a minor error about Tom Bradyhe went to the University of Michigan, and the copy lists Michigan State as his alma mater.

Figures. Although if thats our biggest miss, Ill consider myself very lucky.

Ryan Holiday is the bestselling author of Ego is the Enemy and three other books. His monthly reading recommendations which go out to 50,000+ subscribers are found here.
Barcelona would not be Barcelona without the work of two titans of the Modernista movementLluis Domenech i Montaner and the more famous Antoni Gaudi. From the Hospital Sant Pau to the Sagrada Familia, their colorful, nature-inspired, trippy works of art continue to enchant.

While Montaner was certainly a master, it was Gaudis work that made the Modernista movement world-renowned. His buildings made the phrase attention to detail seem like an understatement. At Palau Guell, for instance, he seamlessly blended masterworks of iron, wood, glass, and tile into a private home, the likes of which the world had never seen. His Barcelona masterpiece, Sagrada Familia, which is still under construction, is mind-numbing in large part because its hard to fathom how a building so awe-inspiring in size can be simultaneously unforgettable for its minute details. Sadly, his life ended in tragedy in 1926, as he was struck at age 73 by a tram, and because of his clothing (Gaudi dressed in clothes often described as rags) he did not receive immediate care and died.

Then, in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War, his studio and his papers were destroyed in a fire. However, in 1956 his former assistant put together a monograph showing that the Catalan master had once hoped to bring some of his architectural sparkle to New York Citys skyline with a futuristic curved tower that would have been the tallest in the world.
VATICAN CITY  Last month, Pope Francis told a little story during his weekly Catechism lesson about Jesuss first miracle at the wedding feast of Cana, a well known Biblical passage during which Jesus saves the party by turning water into wine.

In classic Francis form, he ad-libbed the better part of the lesson, explaining that at a certain point in the celebration the wine ran dry. How is it possible to celebrate the wedding and have a party if you lack what the prophets indicated was a typical element of the messianic banquet? he asked the crowd.

Water is necessary to live, but wine expresses the abundance of the feast and the joy of the celebration. And a wedding party which lacks winethe newlyweds feel ashamed of this. Imagine finishing a wedding party drinking teait would be shameful! There is no celebration without wine!

And who can argue with that?

Apparently, the Catholic Church does practice what it preaches. Vatican City, with a population of just 842 people, has the highest per capita wine consumption in the world, according to the California Wine Institute, an American organization that tracks such trends. They found that each Vatican City resident consumes an average of 74 liters of wine annually, which is twice the per capita consumption in the rest of Italy and seven times the per capita consumption in the United States.

One might automatically assume that the reason for the high quantity of consumption is surely the wine used at holy mass, but the so-called sacramental wine isnt even part of the equation, according to the Wine Institute. Wine used in mass can be red or white, sweet or dry, but it must be fermented naturally from grapes and not mixed with anything else, which is why the Vatican orders it from a special distributor.

An assistant to Monsignor Jose Avelino Bettencourt, who heads the Vaticans protocol office, told The Daily Beast that wine used in sacramental ceremonies inside the Vatican city state is not house wine or bottled wine, but rather comes in vats that are doled out as necessary, and therefore does not figure into the per capita consumption. Altar wine and table wine are two different things, he said. Sacramental wine is considered holy, table wine is of a different variety.

The most logical reason for the Vaticans high consumption of wine is likely demographics. Among those who live inside the fortification walls are families and the population is mostly made of up ageing prelates and nuns, many of whom live communally and dine in mess halls where wine flows freelyquite literally. Wine is one of the most common gifts to the pope, with several vineyards printing special labels and sending cases of various vintages to the Vatican so they can claim the pope drinks their wine, which he regularly shares with Vatican City inhabitants.

Pope Franciss own grandfather Giovanni Angelo Bergoglio was a winemaker from the Piedmont area of northern Italy, and he was known for making sweet Grignolino wine, which Francis (as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio) regularly had sent to Argentina. He has also blessed winemakers and his given several private audiences to producers and sommeliers at the Vatican. And when Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi first visited Francis, he brought a selection of Tuscan dessert wines that the pope was said to appreciate.

Bodegas Heras-Cordon, a Rioja Alta winery from Spain, started gifting wine to the Vatican under John Paul II. Now they produce a vintage with the papal seal on it they claim Francis orders and say it is one of his favorite sips.

American winemakers Tim and Steph Busch of Trinita Cellars also make special papal wine that sells for $75 a bottle. In 2014, at their second audience with the pope as part of his blessing of winemakers, they presented the pontiff with bottles of Cabernet FRANCis, a wine named after him, for which he thanked them and then said, Your wine is augmenting the popes vices.

As the Buschs tell the story, the popes assistants later called the couple to tell them how much the pope said he enjoyed the wine and asked if they had more with them in Rome. They say they then scrambled and called all the cardinals they had given bottles to and asked for them back to give to the pope. The California couple also made a Zinfandel wine for Pope Benedict XVI they called RatZINger and they produce a full list of religiously-inspired wines including Psalms and Roseary.

In the final analysis, of course, it really doesnt mean much that the Vatican is apparently full of winos. In vino, veritas, (In wine, truth), as the Latin saying goes, which may give a window into why the devout are such drinkers. Or, perhaps a better quote came from Pope John XXIII, who also enjoyed a glass of the good stuff. Men are like wine, he said. Some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age.
Elie Wiesel, who died Saturday [July 2, 2016] at the age of 87, lived a life of heroism and eloquence that word by word, honor by honor, distanced him from the human hell he experienced in the Holocaust without ever quite freeing him.

Even as he became famous, symbolizing the worlds desire to heal from World War II, bearing witness  and confronting the powerful wherever he saw injustice  anguished him. I witnessed the toll his efforts took on him in April 1985, after he confronted President Ronald Reagan, about a planned visit to a German military cemetery in Bitburg, despite 49 of Hitlers SS Stormtroopers being buried there.

White House strategists had anticipated a great moment, a meeting of two eloquent defenders of democracy: the strapping, perpetually-jaunty president and the wispy, tortured writer, a Holocaust refugee, thanking his President and his adopted nation for championing freedom. Reagan was scheduled to award the Romanian-born novelist Elie Wiesel the Congressional Gold Medal of Achievement at the White House, on April 19, 1985, the 42nd anniversary of the Polish Jews anti-Nazi uprising, the Warsaw Ghetto Revolt.
Nearly 600 years before the Fourth of July was a big deal for us Americans, it was a date for celebration across the Muslim world, which was then near its peak. That, obviously, takes a little bit of explaining.

So, back in late 1095 AD a Pope named Urban II gave a sermon in the French city of Clermont. In that sermon he put forth a call to arms to all Christendom to retake the Holy Land from the forces of Islam that had captured it several centuries earlier, while Europe was still trapped in the Dark Ages. With that Urban launched, however unintentionally, centuries (perhaps even millennia) of violence, and the first step was known as the First Crusade.

That Crusade found the Muslim forces, perceived in Europe as a unified entity, fractured and in some elements at war with itself. Truth be told, the European Catholics were pretty messed up too, just not as messed up, and that mattered. The result was a triumph, despite the logistic and political limitations of the ad-hoc First Crusade. However improbably, they took Jerusalem in 1099.
Youd think, in the wake of the Orlando massacre, anti-gay gang violence in Russia, and the gruesome murder of (alleged) gays by ISIS, that having a UN special rapporteur investigate discrimination against LGBT people would be a pretty reasonable thing to do.

But last weeks contentious vote to create such a position, which narrowly passed the UN Human Rights Council, led to fierce opposition, explosive rhetoric, and plenty of opportunism.

One of the ultraconservative organizations trafficking in all three is known as C-FAM, the far-right-wing Center for Family & Human Rightsformerly known as the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institutewhich focuses on international anti-LGBT advocacy. In a fundraising pitch (natch) that went viral last week, C-FAM called the possibility of investigating discrimination a major catastrophe because sexual revolutionaries are about to defeat the forces of truth and goodness.

Defeat the forces of truth and goodness! Let me add that to my gay agenda.

But C-FAM isnt (just) a joke. It is part of a list of international far-right religious organizations that are mostly unknown in the United States but active overseas, and especially at the United Nations. That group includes the World Congress of Families, the World Family Policy Council (funded by Brigham Young University), Family Watch International (headed by the ultraconservative Mormon Sharon Slater), Concerned Women for America (still crazy after all these years), the National Organization for Marriage (yes, they are still a thing), and now-discredited ex-gay organizations like the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH).

This consortium, in turn, works closely with antiabortion groups, including the Couple to Couple League, World Life League (to expand its reach), International Right to Life Federation, Campaign Life Coalition, and the World Movement of Mothers. Never heard of these groups? Thats part of the point; theyre interested in policy, not publicity.

At the UN, these groups have formed an unholy alliance with the likes of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Pakistan, and several African nations to advance a radical family agenda that favors what they call the natural family and denies any recognition to everyone else: single-parent families, LGBT people, and, most of all, women. Last year, these 25 countries formed an umbrella, the Group of Friends of the Family (GoFF)

The ironies are rich. The same right-wing that ostensibly opposes the United Nations and long railed against Russia is now firmly embedded within both. Although allied with various anti-Muslim preachers in the United States, these groups are cozying up to Iran. And although preaching religious liberty in the U.S., they are allied with some of the worlds worst oppressors of Christians and other religious minorities at the UN.

China, too, has generally supported the GoFF agenda. Thats right, Chinawhich has implemented the harshest, most draconian limitations on family freedom since Pharaoh threw Jewish babies into the Nile.

Finally, and complicating Pope Franciss recent statements that the Catholic Church owes LGBT people an apology, groups like C-FAM also work together with the Holy See (which has statehood status at the UN) and the Archdiocese of New York.

C-FAM was founded in 1997 by Human Life International, which had been plagued by corruption scandals and ostracized by the UN, and which had come under fire for anti-Semitic statements made by its founder, Paul Marx. C-FAM appears to have been a kind of front for HLI. The minutes of C-FAMs first meeting, obtained by the group Catholics for Choice, said Not public knowledge that HLI is funding office. Use discretion. Initially state that we are supported by multitudes of individuals/organizations. Dont hide the fact that HLI is funderjust dont volunteer that fact to uncertain/non-friendly persons.

Considering its reach at the UN, C-FAM is a small organization (budget only $1.2 million in 2012) and is essentially a platform for extremist Austin Ruse, a former journalist with a long history of inflammatory comments. He said that hard left, human-hating people that run modern universities should all be taken out and shot. He defended Russias vicious anti-gay laws that have led to a rash of violence. He has boasted of intimidating and disrupting UN meetings on the rights of women. And in contrast to Pope Francis, Ruse calls efforts to protect LGBTs from discrimination devilish.

Other than blowing hot air, what is this unlikely alliance of conservative Christians, far-right Muslims, and communists doing?

As we reported two years ago, a central focus of this consortiums work is the United Nations Human Rights Commission, which has an important role in defining and tracking human-rights abuses, and determining the allocation of UN funds. Americans often downplay the importance of UN bodies like the UNHRC, but in fact they have enormous influence on the findings of fact that underlie any UN action, such as sanctions, how development assistance flows, and how policy is set.

To take but one example, C-FAM and its ilk succeeded last year in passing a UNHRC resolution that the family is entitled to protection by society and the state. That sounds anodyne enough. But if family means married, heterosexual, procreating couple, as the conservatives insist, then anything anti-family must be opposed by the UN. That includes LGBT equality, funding for reproductive health care, and initiatives to empower women.

The UNHRC also determines specific challenges to address: themes like violence against women, migrant rights, religious freedom or, potentially, sexual orientation and gender identity.

Which brings us to last weeks debate over whether the UNHRC should appoint a special rapporteur to track human-rights violations against LGBTQ people.

A fundamental tenet of religious conservatives like C-FAM is that sexual orientation and gender identity do not, in fact, exist. I may be a man who has sex with men, but thats just my choiceor, more commonly these days, my mental illness. Likewise, they say, I may be a man who likes to wear dresses and who thinks of himself as a woman, but that, too, is a form a mental illness.

In other words, the very categories of sexual orientation and gender identity (often abbreviated as SOGI in international contexts) are a threat to the way these people see the world. Never mind the science of gender or sexual orientation; this is dogma.

In a way, how could it be otherwise? If sexual orientation is real, if there really is such a thing as a lesbian, then it would be cruel to oppress her, restrict her rights, drive her to self-hatred and suicide, and deny her the opportunity to pursue a full, loving life.

Therefore, either religion must evolve or reality must be denied. Most religious people have, by now, accepted the former. But places like C-FAM prefer the latter.

Thus, the mere mention of the existence of sexual or gender diversity cuts against the dogma of conservative Christians like those running C-FAM. Remember, this isnt some kind of international campaign against homophobia: This is about whether to investigate SOGI-based violence at all. But if SOGI-based violence exists, then SO and GI might be a thingand that is the catastrophe.

C-FAMs pitch letter went further, though, saying that It has been the long-term project of the sexual revolutionaries to undermine the teachings of the church and to impose a new sexual orthodoxy on the whole world. The new sexual orthodoxy is nothing more than a new religion celebrating a new god, an angry god, a jealous god.

Having followed the far-right for the better part of a decade, I have no idea what C-FAM is talking about here. The new religion line is familiarbut an angry, jealous god? Isnt that what God himself says in Exodus 20:5 (I am a jealous god)? And besides, if gays really were going to set up a new religion, wouldnt their god be one of love, lust, and pleasureto say nothing of Dolly Parton?

It would be easy to laugh off such absurdities, except that, like the Brexit, Donald Trump, and the Front Nationale, they have serious real-world consequences. C-FAM and its ilk are speaking to a very real fear on the part of religious conservatives that the world around them is changing. But like todays right-wing populists, they blame the changes on outsiders and turn fear into hatred. Its no laughing matter for a Muslim beaten up on the streets of New York, or a gay man lynched by one of C-FAMs coalition partners. On the contraryits a crying shame.
This week scientists found evidence that the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), may be able to remove the buildup of a toxic protein linked to Alzheimers. Its good news for the fastest growing group of marijuana usersseniorsand gives those above the age of 50 who havent come out of the pot closet a good reason to do so.

The study, published in the June edition of the Aging and Mechanisms of Disease journal, was performed by experts at the Salk Institute. Professor David Schubert, the lead researcher on the project, has long been searching for a way to treat the incurable disease. To perform the experiment, Schubert and his team grew neurons in a lab and manipulated them into producing large amounts of beta amyloida hallmark symptom of Alzheimers.

Normal brains metabolize the protein, using an enzyme to wash it from the brain. Those with Alzheimers, for reasons that are still unclear, do not. Left untouched, the stringy garbage protein clumps together and forms plaques in the brain, which interfere with cognition. When the scientist introduced THC into the nerve cells, these plaques disappearedas did the inflammation that they were causing.

The THC reportedly worked by activating receptors in the brain which are used for intercellular signaling, communicating to cells that the protein should be broken down.

Antonio Currais, a Salk researcher in Schuberts lab and one of the authors on the paper, highlighted the importance of the discovery. "Inflammation within the brain is a major component of the damage associated with Alzheimer's disease, but it has always been assumed that this response was coming from immune-like cells in the brain, not the nerve cells themselves," said Currais. "When we were able to identify the molecular basis of the inflammatory response to amyloid beta, it became clear that THC-like compounds that the nerve cells make themselves may be involved in protecting the cells from dying."

Cannabis has long been shown to reduce inflammation, with some scientists suggesting that it be used as a novel anti-inflammatory drug. Researchers explained this in a study from 2010, writing that the drugs active ingredients control the cellular pathways leading to inflammatory response. These properties are part of what makes cannabis an effective treatment for autoimmune disorders, as well as chronic pain.

Many studies have explored its benefits in this area, but few have investigated its potential to have an impact on those with Alzheimers. Its a population thats desperately in need of solutions.

Discovered in the early 1900s, Alzheimers is a disease that still mystifies scientists. A progressive neurodegenerative disease, it begins with short term memory loss and ends with severeand fatalbrain damage. More than 5 million Americans are currently living the disease, which (along with other types of dementia) kills one in three seniors.

While more than 44 million people suffer from the disease worldwide, it is particularly prevalent in the United States, affecting one in nine Americans over the age of 65. Beyond the implications for health, the condition takes a major toll on the economy. In 2016, it will cost the U.S. approximately $236 billion.

The mortality rates associated with the disease are grim, generally averaging about four to eight years. Although a wealth of research has been performed on the disease, the search for a cure is far from over. In the interim, the number of those affectedin part due to the increasing senior populationhas soared. In the past decade alone, the number of deaths from Alzheimers has increased 71 percent.

As of now, there is no known cause, treatment, or cure. Without one, there may be more than 16 million adults suffering from it by 2050.

Research on the beta amyloid protein and its connection to the disease has uncovered potential contributing factors. One study from last August suggested that the build-up may revolve around a lack of sleep, the time at which most brains rid themselves of the toxin. Another in May, from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, proposed that the buildup of the protein may signal an infection instead.

Rather than analyzing the potential cause of the buildup, the Salk researchers aimed to find a way to eliminate it once it is there. "Although other studies have offered evidence that cannabinoids might be neuroprotective against the symptoms of Alzheimer's, we believe our study is the first to demonstrate that cannabinoids affect both inflammation and amyloid beta accumulation in nerve cells," said Schubert.

The theory, to be sure, needs much more thorough testing before it can be deemed a potential treatment option. But for those who worry about the disease, theres never been a better time to jump on the marijuana train.
Kolkata police has received bomb threat in West Bengal Secretariat Nabanna. Bomb disposal squad rushed to spot.

By India Today Web Desk: In the wake of the recent terror attack in Dhaka, the entire city of Kolkata was holding its breath on Sunday night after the police headquaters received a call about a bomb scare in the West Bengal state secretariat, Nabanna.

The entire secretariat building was cordon off and sniffer dogs were brought in for checking.

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Nabanna houses West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's office and those of other cabinet ministers.

According police reports, the call might be a hoax.









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By BRANDON CREIGHTON

Special to The Eagle

As I join my fellow Americans in celebrating Independence Day, I'm especially thankful to do so in the state of Texas. Now, I'm not saying other states don't appreciate freedom as we do (Massachusetts and Pennsylvania in particular were Ground Zero in the battle to win independence from Britain), but our state's culture is deeply marked by the sacrifices that led to our own independence from Mexico.

As the descendant of a man who signed the Texas Declaration of Independence, I have a deeply personal connection to that era in our state's history and to an especially colorful character.

His name was Martin Palmer, but he was known as "the Ringtail Panther from the Fork in the Creek." He was the father-in-law of Alfred Morris, a man who not only was my great-great-great-great-great grandfather, but also held the Texas Senate seat I'm honored to occupy today. In a well-known photo of the signers, Palmer is the only one of a suit-wearing bunch wearing a buckskin vest. Although he was born in Virginia and lived in Missouri, he truly found his place in Texas.

In that regard, his story is a lot like that of the 27 million people who now call Texas home: "He wasn't born here, but he got here in a hurry." When he got here, he left his mark by standing up for essential Texas values: personal freedom, hard work and fighting for what's right. Like those other signers of that Declaration, he took his life in his hands when he put pen to paper, but he believed it was worth it.

In this day and age, as our nation's political conversation gets more animated and angry, it's wise for us to consider history and an essential lesson: tyranny is an unseemly human tendency that often manifests itself in government bureaucracies. Fortunately, we don't need to take up arms like my ancestor did. Instead, we can speak our mind and head to the ballot box, as we place our trust in essential documents such as the U.S. Constitution.

We can elect people who share our values and will poke the establishment in the eye as a way to preserve freedom. We can also become students of history, fully aware of that old adage, "those who forget history are destined to repeat it." The lessons of principled men and women standing tall against oppression bear repeating, generation after generation.

As a means of helping my fellow Texans remember our history so we can hold tight to the values and not repeat the mistakes, I often like to share a few quotes from a letter written by the Ringtail Panther, sent to his wife as the War for Texas Independence raged.

Knowing they were written in bitter cold near the Brazos River, in a drafty cabin with no glass in the windows, with the threat of government retaliation likely for their publication, make these words especially relevant to today.

My ancestor's letter, which can be read in its entirety at bit.ly/28MMZVC, contained the following timeless call to free-thinking people: "Texas has been declared free and independent, but unless we have a general turn out and every man lay his helping hand too, we are lost. Santa Anna and his vassals are now on our borders, and the declaration of our freedom, unless it is sealed with blood, is of no force. "

My ancestor understood that freedom and independence are not the cherished values of tyrants. Instead, they are God-given gifts that must be defended at every turn.

So, as we celebrate Independence Day together, let's strengthen our commitment to freedom, resolve to stand against those who would take it away and keep in mind and prayer the men and women of our armed forces willing to shed their blood in defense of our liberty.

Happy Independence Day.

 Brandon Creighton of Conroe represents District 4 in the Texas Senate.
This weekend, as we celebrate the Fourth of July, the world is in turmoil, under attack by terrorists who would destroy the way of life proclaimed by a handful of courageous men meeting in Philadelphia. They must not be allowed to succeed.

The world was in turmoil in 1776, too. America's colonies were fighting the tyrannical King George, seeking greater freedom from English rule. France and Spain continued to spat with England, taking the side of the colonies in their struggle. In fact, America's independence would not have been possible without the timely intervention of the French, who, barely a decade later would have their own revolution to overturn their monarchy.

It was on June 7, 1776, that Richard Henry Lee, a Virginia delegate to the Second Continental Congress, offered a resolution that said, in part, "Resolved: That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."

A Committee of Five -- Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Robert Livingston and Roger Sherman -- was appointed to draft what would become our Declaration of Independence. The committee presented Jefferson's declaration to the Continental Congress on July 2 and it was ratified two days later. Although Jefferson, Franklin and Adams later said the declaration was signed on July 4, other delegates and many historians say it actually wasn't signed until Aug. 2.

What an amazing, what a powerful document, so revolutionary, so unique. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. ..."

Now, 240 years later, we are a people once again uneasy, once again worried, once again struggling to live up to the ideals of our Founders. We have become suspicious of each other, hardened in our beliefs and our unwillingness to listen to each other. We fear each other based on faith, hate each other based on orientation. We demonize people who come here seeking a better life -- and do the work we don't want to do. We decry gun violence by buying more guns. We blame the victims of crime more than those who commit the crime. We try to force our will on other nations and then get angry when the people of those countries don't embrace our way of life. We pray to God but dismiss those who pray in a different fashion or not at all.

We denounce the people we elect to represent us -- but keep re-electing them. We turn to those who promise us everything but deliver us nothing. We hear the siren call of politicians who say "trust me" but give no reason on earth to do so.

And yet ... . And yet ... . We remain America, the best hope for the world.

We have been through hard times before. One hundred fifty-two years ago today, some 12,000 men under the command of Confederate Gen. James Longstreet stepped off Seminary Ridge in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to march more than a mile uphill, under intense fire, in what erroneously has been called Pickett's Charge -- in an effort to bring an end to the Civil War. Those brave men surely knew they had no hope of success, but yet they went. And, amazingly, they came so close to victory.

That war would continue for almost two more years and once it was over, reunited, we set about rebuilding America. That renewal wasn't always easy, but always, always, we looked to the future and kept moving forward. We've created change, in many ways embraced change and we've adapted. It hasn't been easy and much remains to be done.

But we think our Founders, where they to come to life today, would look around and recognize the fruits of their efforts. Of course, so much has changed in more than 200 years, but the basic tenets of America have remained above the changes.

This birthday weekend we are different, yet we are all the same. God bless us, and God bless America.
By PTI: Rajkot, Jul 3 (PTI) A leopard was beaten to death by villagers in Gujarats Botad district, prompting the forest department to order an inquiry into it.

A video of people from Rajmol village in Botad beating the male leopard went viral on social networking sites like WhatsApp a couple of days back.

In the video, about 7-8 persons were seen attacking the feline with sharp objects and sticks.

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"The incident happened on July 1, when the animal in search for prey may have entered in the village," Deputy Chief Conservator of Forest (Botad), A E Samuel said.

"The villagers attacked the leopard with sticks and sharp-edged objects and killed it," he said.

An inquiry has been ordered against the villagers who attacked the leopard and killed it, the official added. PTI VJA PD GK SC PTP

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SHARE Brian Lewallen Tina Bernot Craig Austin Cameron Klemczewski

Events

Farm to Table Dinner

July 11

6 p.m.  8 p.m.

Porter/Cates Pavilion

$25 per ticket

Kyndle on the Rocks

July 14

5 p.m.

Rookies

State of the County Luncheon

July 21

Noon

Elks Lodge

$18 Stakeholders

$23 Non Stakeholders

4th Friday Networking Luncheon

July 22

Noon

Location: TBA

State of the City Luncheon

July 28

Noon

Elks Lodge

$18 Stakeholders

$23 Non Stakeholders

personnel

Craig Austin, Cameron Klemczewski and Brian Lewallen have joined Northwestern Mutual as financial representative's, as of June 1.

Austin was previously the general manger of Wright Steel and Service. He graduated from the University of Southern Indiana, earning a bachelor of science in history.

Klemczewski previously interned with Northwestern Mutual in January 2015. Klemczewski was named the top performing intern in the Kentucky-Southern Indiana district, ranking sixth (out of 1,000 interns) for the Southern Region in the calendar year and ranked 24th (out of over 3,500 interns) in the country for the calendar year. Upon his graduation, in May 2016, from the University of Southern Indiana with a bachelor of science in business management, Klemczewski started full-time.

Lewallen is also a USI graduate, with a double major in Spanish and international studies. Lewallen previously worked as the associate director of recruitment for Sigma Tau Gamma.

For more information about the products and services Austin, Klemczewski or Lewallen have to offer please call the Northwestern Mutual office at 812-471-2200.

Murray State University has named Tina Bernot the new executive director of development. Bernot, hired after a national search, will lead the University's Office of Development which facilitates all aspects of corporate, foundation and individual major and annual giving on behalf of the University.

Bernot has more than 20 years of experience in planning, leading and executing development efforts. She has served Murray State University for eight years in various development roles, most recently as the interim executive director of development. She holds a bachelor's degree in business management from Edgewood College in Wisconsin and a master's degree in organizational communication from Murray State University.

The University's development staff focus on the solicitation of major and planned gifts.

Awards

Ten Adams has been recognized as a silver and bronze winner in the 37th Annual Telly Awards for their TV commercials with Augusta University Health. Over 13,000 entries were submitted from all 50 states and numerous countries.

Ten Adams earned the following awards:

Silver: "AUHealth Brand Launch Advance" Television Single

Bronze: "AUHealth Brand Launch Life" Television Single

"It is truly an honor to be consistently recognized for the work we create. Our team is made up of such brilliantly creative minds and it's humbling to be respected at such a high level," remarked Jon Headlee, President of Ten Adams.

The Telly Awards was founded in 1979 and is the premier award honoring outstanding local, regional, and cable TV commercials and programs, the finest video and film productions, and online commercials, video and films. Winners represent the best work of the most esteemed advertising agencies, production companies, television stations, cable operators, and corporate video departments in the world.
By PTI: Bengaluru, July 3 (PTI) BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav has said if the Centres decision to give refuge to persecuted minorities of Pakistan and Bangladesh is communalism, then it is happy to be called "communalist".

"As regards the 2015 central government notification that offers refuge in India to persecuted minorities of Pakistan and Bangladesh, the stand of the government is that such minorities are not just Hindus but also Sikhs, Jains, Christians, Ahmadiyas etc.

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"If giving them refuge is communalism, we are happy to be called communalists," Madhav said yesterday at an event to discuss the partys victory in Assam Assembly polls, "The Assam Triumph".

The government, last year, had decided on humanitarian consideration to exempt Bangladeshi and Pakistani nationals belonging to minority communities who have entered India on or before December 31, 2014, in respect of their entry and stay in India without proper documents or after the expiry of relevant documents.

He said borders in Assam will be sealed and constitutional steps will be taken to check infiltration.

Infrastructure is a priority for the North-East, and in this direction, Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari has allocated Rs one lakh crore for building roads in the region, he said.

"In last two yeas, the condition of roads in the North-East has improved tremendously," he said.

Madhav said the North-East is a gateway to South-East Asia, a region that is of strategic importance to India and the Centres Look East Policy.

"Assam has as many as five countries as neighbours and its development will contribute significantly to Look East Policy," he said.

By developing North-East and providing infrastructure to connect to South-East Asia, the potential for trade and connectivity will increase phenomenally, Madhav said.

"This connectivity will transform North East India. Already, there is increased connectivity between India and Bangladesh, thanks to initiatives of the Narendra Modi government," he said.

Talking about the problem of infiltrators, Madhav said by 2016-end, the government is committed to fence the entire Indo-Bangladesh border and implement joint patrolling by the two nations.

BJPs victory in Assam polls has opened doors of the North-East for nationalist forces, which hitherto was unheard of. "Until now, the North East was inaccessible to nationalist forces but through the grand entry into Assam, access to the entire region is now possible," he said. PTI BDN RC SMN

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For the last several summers Savannah Bryan has sat in the pews of Westwood Baptist Church in Anniston, Alabama, listening to others share their stories about their time serving with World Changers, a nonprofit geared toward helping cities across North America alleviate substandard housing.

This summer, Bryan will have her own story to share.

Bryan, 14, is one of 140 students who worked in Henderson this week representing one of nine churches. It was her first time traveling with the organization.

'Hearing everyone else's presentations and what they learned was really inspiring to me,' Bryan said as she helped construct a wheelchair ramp at a home on 7th Street last week. 'This has been really fun so far.'

The soon-to-be sophomore said she had just one goal in mind for the week  share the gospel, at least once.

'I've never done that before,' Bryan said. 'I think it would help not only the other person, but me, too.'

This was the group's 11th year in Henderson, and they worked on at least 15 different homes.

The work in Henderson is part of a national effort. Each summer, thousands of volunteers  usually made up of college, high school and middle school students  travel across the country to repair homes of those who qualify. This summer, World Changers will visit more than 50 cities.

Students also have to pay to serve on their respective mission trips, around $250 a person.

'I think that definitely shows their heart,' said Hannah Wells, missions and communication specialist for World Changers. 'If they're willing to put their money toward a cause like that, that shows how passionate they are about service.'

In the last 11 years, the organization has made repairs to around 213 homes.

Wells is from Henderson, North Carolina. As she watched students construct, clean and mingle, she said watching them grow spiritually was one of the most rewarding parts of working with the organization.

'To hear their stories from the beginning of the week and then at the end of the week, sometimes their perspective can completely change,' Wells said. 'It's completely amazing to see how God moves in their lives.'

Daniel Lee's visit to Henderson was his fifth trip with World Changers. The Macon, Georgia, native said meeting new people was always a highlight for him.

'I always find myself thinking about all of the people I have met,' Lee said. 'It's hard to forget about all of the people and the impact they have had on you.'

Lee said strangers quickly become close friends on these trips, and watching them grow and progress with their spirituality is an experience that can't be replaced.

'I always hope to grow more spiritually and try to spread the gospel,' Lee said. 'Overall I just hope to become a better person by the end of the week.'

Wells said making a difference in communities such as Henderson has always been the main mission of the organization.

'The ultimate goal here is to show God's love through construction,' Wells said. 'We want to show this community that there are people who care about it and will continue to care about it.'
Photos by DANIEL R. PATMORE / SPECIAL TO THE GLEANER Above: Frank Nalley (left) talks about the history of the building that houses Commonwealth Kitchen and Bar during a walking tour of the Downtown restaurants in Henderson Saturday morning. Top: Eight-month-old Eloise Laramie, of Henderson, samples the frozen yogurt held by her mother, Sarah Laramie, in the 2nd Street Treats yogurt shop.

SHARE DANIEL R. PATMORE / SPECIAL TO THE GLEANER Frank Nalley (left) talks about the sight where John Audubon's cabin was and Audubon's turtle pond at the corner of 2nd Street and Main Street during a walking tour of the downtown restaurants in Henderson, Ky., Saturday morning, July 2, 2016. Frank Nalley (left) talks about the 2nd Street Treats, a frozen yogurt shop, during the walking tour DANIEL R. PATMORE / SPECIAL TO THE GLEANER DANIEL R. PATMORE / SPECIAL TO THE GLEANER Sample cupcakes for the tasting at The Cake Stand during a walking tour of the downtown restaurants in Henderson, Ky., Saturday morning, July 2, 2016.

By Beth Smith of The Gleaner

According to Henderson legend, there was likely just one creature who got a kick out of the great flood of 1937.

Local historian Frank Nalley said a group of people rescued a mule from the rising Ohio River. Someone hurried to what was once a tavern/eating establishment called Puckett's, then located at the corner of Second and Water streets.

"They grabbed a quart of whiskey and poured the whiskey down the mule's throat. The mule heehawed and ran off," he said.

"Apparently, the mule was the only one who enjoyed the 1937 flood. Everyone else was just trying to save what they could."

"During the flood, people fled to Henderson because it was a higher (elevation)" than other cities along the river, Nalley said. "So Henderson became a city of refuge. But the mule was the only one to enjoy the flood  thanks to Puckett's."

This tale was one of several told Saturday during a walking tour called "The Flavor of Henderson" which took a group through some of Downtown Henderson's current and long-ago restaurants/taverns.

Nalley, the tour guide, provided a bit of history about some of the restaurants or the buildings where the businesses are located. A few of the restaurant owners passed out samples to the group, although many of the eateries are already favorites among those who participated in the tour.

"A lot of people, even local people, don't know what's all down here," Nalley said.

The hour-long tour included stops at Second Street Treats, The Cake Stand and CKB or the Commonwealth Kitchen and Bar.

"Anyone ever eaten at CKB?" Nalley asked the tour group, who then responded with a robust chorus of "Oh yes!"

"I think all of us in this group just like to eat," he said.

The CKB building, at 108 Second St.,"was actually built as a residence for a Mr. James Harding in 1883. It didn't turn into a residence though," Nalley said.

"It was turned into a hotel and has housed several restaurants over the years. One of the most interesting things here is that between 1913 and 1923 this was actually used as what history would call the 'Negro Hotel' and boardinghouse which is a unique tidbit of history," Nalley said.

Up the street from On Deck Riverside Bar and Grill, CKB and Rookies sits Hong Kong Foodie to Go. The restaurant, nestled in the Old Soaper Building, features Asian homestyle dishes.

"This was once an old hotel, and I wish it was once again still operating," Nalley said. "I can just imagine what it was like back in its heyday with the hotel."

"There have been several different restaurants in here over the years, but now it's Hong Kong Foodie," he said. "If you haven't checked out any of these restaurants, please do so. They do a good job."

"It's really good," said one member of the tour group. "They've expanded," she said.

"What I hate to admit," Nalley said, "is with us visiting all of these (eating) places, some of us have expanded as well."

The tour group went past The Whistle Stop Cafe, 227 N. Main St., the Brown Bag, 350 Fourth St., and what was once a turtle pond owned by John James Audubon, now home to Field and Main Bank.

"Audubon raised turtles for turtle soup," Nalley said.

The tour spent a great deal of time at Delker's and The Alley, both at 124 N. Elm St., enjoying the atmosphere of the relatively new Downtown establishments and getting the building's history from owner Randy Vaughn, who also provided food and drinks for the guests.

Nalley took the group to Wolf's Tavern, 31 N. Green St., telling the story of the building which was erected in 1874 and turned into a bakery in 1878. Later becoming a tavern, Nalley said the business "survived Prohibition by transforming into a candy store and a plumbing supply store."

It reopened as a tavern after Prohibition.

The business is now a pizza place with a full bar called Rockhouse at Wolf's. It opened in May 2013.

"The reason we picked this particular topic is to encourage local people to come Downtown and see what businesses are here," Nalley said. "It's kind of a nice way to advertise for our local businesses."
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By Deborah Yetter, USA TODAY NETWORK Louisville Courier-Journal

Gov. Matt Bevin's week-old proposal to overhaul the state Medicaid program already is under fire from critics, who say it will cut benefits and reduce health care for some of Kentucky's poorest citizens.

But a team of officials promoting Bevin's plan on Thursday told a group of health executives that they are confident of winning the required federal approval for a "waiver" to enact changes that the governor pledges will transform the $10 billion-a-year federal-state health plan that serves nearly one-third of the state's citizens.

"We're continuing to negotiate in good faith," Adam Meier, Bevin's deputy chief of staff, said at a 90-minute forum hosted by the Health Enterprises Network. "We're pretty confident they'll approve our waiver or something pretty close to it."

Mark Birdwhistell, a former Kentucky health secretary whom Bevin has called the architect of his Medicaid proposal, said "high-level" federal officials have been in direct contact with the Bevin administration and seem anxious to "solidify" a plan, given the national attention Kentucky has drawn for its successes under the federal health law known as Obamacare.

"Kentucky had been put out as the poster child of the Affordable Care Act," said Birdwhistell, a vice president at University of Kentucky Healthcare.

Under the Medicaid expansion, Kentucky added 440,000 people to the program that now serves about 1.3 million people, helping Kentucky achieve the sharpest reduction in the nation in the rate of citizens with no health coverage.

Federal authorities have been noncommittal since Bevin released his plan last week, saying in a statement only that they will "evaluate the waiver based on our longstanding principles of access to coverage and affordability of care, principles that we have repeatedly shared with the state."

The statement by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Ben Wakana didn't suggest any reason for haste in the plan Bevin has said he would like to have approved by September.

"We are prepared to continue our dialogue for as long as it takes to find a solution that continues progress for the people of Kentucky," Wakana's statement said.

Still, Vickie Yates Glisson, secretary of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, said at Thursday's forum that Bevin personally has met several times with Sylvia Burwell, secretary of HHS, to discuss Kentucky's Medicaid waiver proposal and the meetings have gone well.

"They are two individuals who really like and respect each other," Glisson said. "At the end of the day, I'm really hopeful they'll come to some kind of consensus."

Most of Thursday's forum focused on details about Bevin's proposal, similar to information officials provided at two public hearings this week, one in Bowling Green on Tuesday and the other in Frankfort on Wednesday.

Glisson and other top officials said the changes are needed to cut costs to make the program sustainable. Even though the federal government provides the majority of funding for Medicaid, Kentucky's share of the cost continues to increase and would demand a growing share of state general fund dollars, Medicaid commissioner Steve Miller said.

The governor's proposal would result in substantial savings, about $331 million in state money over five years, Miller said.

"We're trying to avoid the train wreck of tomorrow," he said. The plan is aimed largely at "able-bodied" adults added through the Medicaid expansion, which allowed anyone below 138 percent of the poverty level to enroll in the plan that, prior to the Affordable Care Act, had been available mostly to poor pregnant women, children, people with disabilities and low-income elderly in nursing homes. Bevin's proposal would require monthly premiums of $1 to $15 per month for coverage, except for pregnant women and children, that is now largely free. It would impose a "lockout" of coverage for some of those who don't pay. But only those above 100 percent of the poverty level would face a lockout of up to six months; those below that income level would still get health coverage but would have to make co-pays for services.

The proposal does not include basic dental and vision coverage for adults now covered by Medicaid.

It offers rewards for desirable behaviors, such as completing a health assessment or participating in stop-smoking classes by adding points to a "My Rewards" card people could use to purchase services such as eye or dental exams. But it would penalize consumers by deducting points for misuse of benefits, such as seeking care from a hospital emergency room for conditions not classified as emergencies.

It would require "ablebodied" adults with no dependents to work or perform some type of community service of up to 20 hours a week, a requirement federal officials have rejected in other states including Indiana, which the Bevin administration has cited as a model. And it would push people toward commercial insurance by requiring people on Medicaid who are working to transition to employer insurance, if available, after a year. Medicaid would subsidize employer premiums and other costs to the employee, such as deductibles and copays.

Birdwhistell said the goal of the new Medicaid proposal is to get people used to commercial insurance plans.

"This is commercial coverage on training wheels," he said. The final public hearing on the proposal is 11 a.m. July 6 at Hazard Community and Technical College. More information about the Medicaid proposal and how to comment is on the cabinet's website, chfs.ky.gov.
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By Jim Gray, Special to The Gleaner

Where are the Everett Dirksens, Wendell Fords and Howard Bakers? Where are the wise men and women who nobly served in the United States Senate and put country ahead of political party? The circus we now see daily in Congress is an embarrassment.

They can't pass a budget. They won't fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. And last week they couldn't even agree to stop the sale of weapons to suspected terrorists and other dangerous people, like convicted felons and violent criminals. In fact, it took a 15-hour filibuster just to get a vote that predictably failed.

Americans want to keep guns out of the hands of suspected terrorists. We are divided on many issues but we overwhelmingly agree on this one. How many more Orlandos or San Bernardinos will happen before Congress acts? How many senseless deaths will it take? How much blood of innocent citizens will be spilled? It is just common sense  if you are deemed by the government too dangerous to buy an airline ticket and fly, you are too dangerous to buy a gun.

Politicians like Rand Paul are more interested in partisan political games than in doing the work of the people.

Sen. Paul is doing what all professional politicians do: change the question, do a little slight of hand, and hope you don't catch him. To be perfectly clear, in December, Paul voted to protect the rights of potential terrorists. Every day that goes by without this legislation is an opportunity for suspected terrorists to buy weapons that could kill Americans.

The question before Congress is not about the gun rights of law abiding citizens. It is about terrorists.

How do we make ourselves safer? I want to protect the rights of all Americans to live and work safely in their homes, their churches, their schools, their movie theaters, and their night clubs. Rand Paul has voted to protect the rights of suspected terrorists. In this case it is a simple question: whose side is he on?

It is a recurring question I keep asking about Sen. Paul. His votes on national security are as baffling as they are dangerous. As our Senator, Paul tried and failed to stop the gathering of information to find and stop terrorists. He has proposed billions in cuts to the military. He has also voted against expanding veterans' benefits for our brave men and women who keep us safe and protect our freedom. His views are so far from the mainstream he has been criticized repeatedly by Senator Lindsey Graham, Donald Trump, and other fellow Republicans.

We need leaders who listen to the people and are looking out for the best interests of the country and Kentucky  not leaders looking to make headlines for their next Presidential campaign.

National security is one the most important issues facing America today. It is also a major distinction between Sen. Paul and myself. I look forward to continuing this debate. It's too important to let professional politicians get in the way.

Jim Gray is mayor of Lexington and a candidate for U.S. Senate.
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"One novel corrective action that the Governor could possibly take is an executive reorganization of the Board."

Guess which attorney general wrote that in regard to the University of Louisville Board of Trustees? The answer: Democrat Jack Conway.

The opinion was issued last September mainly to hold that the U of L board was not in compliance with requirements regarding minority representation, but, in a footnote, the then attorney general laid out a scenario similar to that used by the current governor, Matt Bevin, to reconfigure the U of L board in recent weeks, saying, "The Governor thus has the authority to reorganize the Board. ..."

Gov. Bevin's office notes that one element of Conway's opinion is out of date. The full footnote stated:

One novel corrective action that the Governor could possibly take is an executive reorganization of the Board. KRS 12.028(2) provides that "the Governor ... may, between sessions of the General Assembly, temporarily effect a change in the state government organizational structure as described in subsection (1) of this section if such temporary reorganization plan is first reviewed by the interim joint Legislative committee with appropriate jurisdiction." KRS 12.028(1) specifies that these reorganizations "may include the creation, alteration or abolition of any organizational unit or administrative body." The Governor thus has the authority to reorganize the Board in order to bring it into compliance with KRS 164.821(5).

The provision for review by the "interim joint Legislative committee" was struck down by the Kentucky Supreme Court in 1984 in the case Legislative Research Commission v. Brown, according to Amanda Stamper. She said Gov. Bevin delivered copies of the reorganization orders to the LRC, but based on that ruling it has "no power whatsoever over implementation of the reorganization orders."

Yet Bevin's move is being widely debated and challenged in court by the current attorney general, Andy Beshear. Coupling it with other board reorganizations and actions such as his Medicaid plan, Bevin's detractors are talking of his imperial governorship.

It is interesting to note that KRS 12.028 was also the statute cited by then Gov. Steve Beshear as his authority to create the kynect health exchange and later reorganize it again after the legislature failed to accept it (two of the more than 100 times Gov. Beshear used the provision to effect reorganizations during his eight years in office).

Gov. Beshear's use of that authority to create the exchange was challenged in court and upheld by Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd, who this week began hearing the case brought by Andy Beshear against Gov. Bevin's U of L board changes as well as a case challenging the revamping of the Kentucky Retirement Systems board.

"Imperial" may be in the eye of the beholder, but the General Assembly has clearly given governors the power to be such. If that troubles people, they need to change the statute.

This editorial was written by the Louisville Courier-Journal.
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Ruth Wallen Henderson

There was a letter in the forum Sunday with the warning "Be careful what you wish for, you might get it."

It seemed that writer was cautioning against voting for Trump. Well, I will use the same caution about Hillary Clinton. Personally, I think BHO has been the absolute worst person to ever occupy the Oval Office. He has tried to totally destroy the America most of us know and Clinton has promised to continue his destruction and go even further. It has been proven time and time again that she lies about everything.

Anyone else under FBI investigation would not have been allowed to run for president. Regardless of What she thinks, she is not above the law and she needs to be held accountable for all her crimes, including leaving four Americans to die on foreign soil, while she and BHO ignored their cries for help.

Trump is not a politician and I'm thankful for that. Politicians have got us into the mess we are in now. Trump has heard the cries of we the people and he wants to help us get our country back. Vote for Trump in November if you want to be able to recognize America in four more years.
Security concerns emerge after Columbus Junction school vandalism

A student alleged to have vandalized Columbus' secondary school reportedly was inside the building for two hours, raising security concerns.
By PTI: From Yoshita Singh

New York, Jul 3 (PTI) A 19-year-old man was severely injured in an explosion today in the citys popular tourist destination the Central Park, with authorities investigating the incident, according to a US media report.

A blast in the New York Central Park severed the foot of a young man, who was not identified and might face amputation, a report in the New York Daily News said.

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The New York Police Departments bomb squad was investigating the area of the park where the incident occurred.

The report cited witnesses as saying that the victim stepped on a device or fireworks, causing the blast.

His foot was "all but gone," another witness said.

A friend of the victims said there was a "small explosion and then dust", adding that they could not determine what caused the blast.

Police said they were responding to an "amputation incident" and the victim was rushed to a local hospital.

Witness John Murphy, 53, said he tried to keep the young man conscious following the explosion.

"I saw his friends standing there panicking. I saw the young man laying on the grass. His foot was all but gone. His friends claimed he was walking down the rocks and he stepped on it. It looks like there was an explosion," Murphy said in the report.

He said the blast was caused by an "explosive of some sort" and that there was no metal.

Theincident occurred just a day ahead of the American Independence Day holiday on July 4, atime when the city isinundated with touristsfrom allover the world and is under high-security vigil.

Variousfirework displays areplanned acrossthe city as well as the country tocommemorate the holiday. PTI YAS SUA SUA

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Every Tuesday night, when not in a Hartford session, I have been attending the Ridgefield Citizen Police Academy. It is coincidental that National Police Week is being celebrated at the same time as our citizen academy graduation ceremony. For the last eight weeks local residents have spent three hours weekly being taken through the steps that police academy recruits must complete to become a police officer in Connecticut. It has been a terrific experience and a great way to gain knowledge and respect for what law enforcement does every day for us.

SafeWise security professionals analyzed FBI crime statistics from all 50 states to find which communities are the most secure and released a report on the 2016's "100 Safest Cities in America. Ridgefield was placed No. 6 and Wilton No. 13. Police departments Citizen Police Academy was cited by the authors of the report as an important contributor to their rankings.
CENTRAL CITY  Tens of veterans saluted the colors during the dedication of the Heartland Veterans Memorial Wall in Central City Saturday.

The dedication, which was originally planned to be at the memorial, was moved to the Performing Arts Center at Central City Middle School due to weather. About 100 people attended the afternoon ceremony.

The memorial includes five walls in the formation of a pentagon, each representing different wars from World War I and on. The fifth wall depicts conflicts that happened between the wars. A sixth wall is dedicated to wars that happened before World War I, such as the Revolutionary War. One side of the walls holds information about the war, while the other is lined with names of local veterans who served in the particular wars.

The memorial also includes a monument dedicated to prisoners of war and those who were missing or killed in action. Each military branch is honored with a separate statue.

Jeff Hower, writer and historian, spoke at the dedication and honored those who served in the military.

Hard work and dedication are not the only qualities that went into the marvel in Central City, Hower said about the memorial.

Hower said when standing in the midst of the memorial, people can sense the love that was put into building it. Hower talked about patriotism and a recent poll that showed Americans werent as proud of their country as they have been in the past.

Each and every American should be proud as all get out, Hower said.

He said every veteran is worthy of recognition and should be thanked.

Thats all that any veteran really desires, Hower said. A genuine, heartfelt thank-you.

Steve Lamon, who was involved with the memorial project, spoke next and testified to the desired thank-you.

Lamon, who is a Vietnam veteran, said he stopped for breakfast in Ord on his way to the dedication. He wore a military hat, and three people, whom he didnt know, approached him and thanked him for his service.

He said tears filled his eyes when he received those kind words.

Those kinds of things do mean something to veterans, Lamon said.

He went on to speak about what the vision for the memorial was. He said the people involved made it a goal for the memorial, which cost nearly $250,000, to be educational.

We dont want to lose that history, Lamon said.

Norm Kaiser attended the dedication. His dad and two of his brothers are veterans and have their names on bricks on the memorial walls. Kaiser said it was special to be at the dedication ceremony and to have the memorial as a reminder.

It gives our whole family a sense of pride, Kaiser said of the memorial and having their family veterans names engraved in the brick.

Gary Berry, Merrick County veterans service officer, said he and a group of about four others were heavily involved in making the memorial happen.

He said hes retiring this year, so to see the memorial be dedicated and finished was meaningful to him.

This memorial is really, really special, Berry said.
By India Today Web Desk: Michael Cimino, best known for his Vietnam war-classic The Deer Hunter starring Robert Dr Niro, passed away on Saturday at the age of 77. De Niro expressed sadness in a statement to the press which read, "Our work together is something I will always remember. He will be missed."

Also known for the epic scale of his films, Cimino was a big believer of shooting on location, claiming the real places had the required effect on the actors to react in a certain manner. Cimino made his debut with Thunderbolt and Lightfooting (1974) with Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges.

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ALSO READ: Star Trek actor Anton Yelchin passes away in car crash

Heaven's Gate, his film after The Deer Hunter, brought down United Artists with its out of control, overbudget production. The film's name went on to enter the filmmaking lexicon of an expensive disaster on the cards.

The film spelled doom for the rest of the director's career, as he slowly faded into oblivion. Cimino studied to become an architect, and described his turn to film direction 'crazy and suicidal'. The late director will be remembered for his films 'Thunderbolt and Lightfooting' and 'The Deer Hunter'.



--- ENDS ---
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Linkedin Qraved (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, July 3, 2016

Rarely found in big cities outside Jakarta, nasi goreng gila (crazy fried rice) is arguably one of the best innovation that ever happened to nasi goreng, which is already delicious. If you're a fan of nasi goreng gila or interested in trying the dish, here are the best places in Jakarta to enjoy it.

Nasi Goreng Gila Gondrong

A photo posted by Jeanette  Larissa  Caca (@chubbytraveller) on Jan 25, 2016 at 7:29am PST



Nasi Goreng Gila Gondrong has an interesting alias: some people call it Nasi Goreng Gila Obama. Why Obama? Because it is located near the SDN 01 Menteng elementary school that the US president used to attend. It is one of the first eateries to serve nasi goreng gila and has stayed true to its original recipe for an addictively tasty and spicy dish.

Nasi Goreng Gila Jalan Sabang

A photo posted by Luke Nguyen (@lukenguyencooks) on Nov 11, 2015 at 9:40pm PST



For culinary adventurers, Jl. Sabang in Central Jakarta is one of the best destinations for great street food with a cozy ambiance. From sate Padang (Padang-style satay) to nasi goreng, youll find anything that your taste buds desire. Nasi Goreng Gila Jalan Sabang is one example of a perfect street food warung. It serves tasty food with good vibes and at low prices.

(Read also: Where to find authentic pempek in Jakarta)

Bubur Ayam Sukabumi

A photo posted by EnVie'dora  (+62) (@envie_dora) on Mar 18, 2015 at 8:58pm PDT



You might think that a place called Bubur Ayam (chicken porridge) is an odd choice for eating nasi goreng gila. But, strange as it may seem, Bubur Ayam Sukabumi actually has an impressive and massive selection on its menu; from cap cai (Chinese-style vegetables) to  you guessed it  nasi goreng gila. And, surprisingly, nasi gila and nasi goreng gila at Bubur Ayam Sukabumi are delicious.

Nasi Goreng Gila Obama

A photo posted by Kake_Foodie l #KAKEFOODIE (@kake_foodie) on May 7, 2016 at 8:19am PDT



If you live in the Pluit area of North Jakarta and don't have the energy to travel to Nasi Goreng Gila Obama in Menteng, Central Jakarta, you're lucky. Nasi Goreng Gila Obama has opened a branch in Muara Karang that serves the exact same tasty dish as the original outlet. It comes with the same cheap price as well, at less than Rp 25.000 (US$1.86) for a plate of nasi goreng gila.

Nasi Goreng Ndut Gandaria

A photo posted by Indra Ardiaputra (@pakindro) on Dec 12, 2014 at 12:01pm PST



It's impossible to talk about Jakarta's legendary nasi goreng gila eateries without mentioning this place. Nasi Goreng Ndut Gandaria has an insanely good taste, and most people will agree that this place serves the best nasi goreng gila in town. What's also great, the portions are so big that you can even share a plate with a friend. (kes)

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
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Linkedin Agnes Anya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, July 2 2016

Idul Fitri is just around the corner. All stakeholders in the capital are gearing up for the annual mass exodus, including the Jakarta administration and the Jakarta Police who are set to guard empty houses and offer road safety assistance.

With most residents joining in the homebound exodus, thousands of houses in the capital will be left empty and therefore prone to theft during the long holiday next week.

To prepare for possible crimes, the Jakarta administration has called in officers from the Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) to ensure security in all neighborhoods in the capital  although this means the officers are not allowed to take their leave during the holiday.

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, July 2 2016

The Jakarta Police arrested Polish citizen Pawel Cwiklinski, 36, in Green Lake City, West Jakarta, on Wednesday for allegedly defrauding a local woman of Rp 1.3 billion (US$98,800).

The Jakarta Polices violent crimes unit head Sr. Adj. Comr. Hendy F. Kurniawan said Cwiklinski, and an American accomplice, identified as Mark Collins, allegedly teamed up to deceive the unidentified woman.

Prior to staging the scam, Collins, who is still at large, befriended the woman via Facebook over a long period of time.

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Linkedin Agnes Anya & Corry Elyda (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, July 2 2016

In the wake of a scandal centering around land procurement in Cengkareng, West Jakarta, Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama has dismissed Jakarta Housing and Government Buildings Agency head Ika Lestari Aji.

Ikas replacement, former Central Jakarta Deputy Mayor Arifin, was inaugurated on Friday, with Ahok expressing hope that the latter would be able to resolve the problems that dog land procurement, a vital aspect in building low-cost apartments and other infrastructure.

If he fails to perform, he should step down, Ahok said.

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Linkedin Corry Elyda (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, July 2 2016

Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama has questioned the decision of a joint central government investigative team to impose heavy sanctions on the developer of man-made Islet G in Jakarta Bay, arguing that the construction of islets C and D has done more serious damage to the environment.



Speaking at City Hall on Friday, Ahok objected to the decision and queried why the team had declared that Islet G, constructed by Agung Podomoro Land subsidiary PT Muara Wisesa Samudra (MWS), was the only islet to have involved major violations.



If the reason is the underwater power and gas cable, [the developer of] Islet G has signed an MoU [memorandum of understanding] with PLN and PGN, he said, referring to the state-owned electricity and gas companies.



The governor argued that the construction of Islet G had been more in line with regulations. Islet Gs environmental impact analysis [Amdal] was conducted by the Dutch. Its neater. The mud was dredged first, so the sand did not overflow, he said.



MWS is scheduled to hold a press conference regarding recent developments on Saturday.



Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Rizal Ramli declared on Thursday that Islet G, for which Ahok issued a permit 2014, involved major violations, as it was constructed above power cables and in ship lanes.



Rizal said the ongoing construction should be stopped and the sand piled up to form the islet removed.



The investigative team, consisting of experts and officials from the Office of the Coordinating Maritime Affairs Ministry, the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry, the Environment and Forestry Ministry and the Transportation Ministry, has also finalized its examinations of islets C and D, owned by property giant Agung Sedayu subsidiary PT Kapuk Naga Indah (KNI), and Islet N, owned by state-owned port operator Pelindo. The team decided that the development of the three islets entailed only moderate violations, namely that they had not been constructed to initial designs.



The permit for Islet D was issued by then governor Fauzi Bowo in 2010; Fauzi also issued the permit for Islet C in September 2012.



According to Ahok, the latter two islets have caused pollution by spreading sand around the bay. The islets are also attached to each other, he said.



According to the 2012 Spatial Planning Bylaw, all islets, including C and D, must be separated by a canal at least 200 meters wide. Ahok has previously said, however, that the merger of the islets was simply part of the technical process.



The governor said he would now wait for a presidential decree that would have the final say on the controversial reclamation project.



I want to wait for the final decision. I dont want to speculate based on media reports, he said.



The decision, he added, will affect the investment climate in Jakarta, citing Agung Podomoro as a public company. Oswar Muadzin, the assistant to the governor on spatial planning and the environment, said the city administration would immediately send a second opinion to President Joko Jokowi Widodo regarding Islet G.



We want to tell the truth about the islet, he said.



Oswar said the city wanted the project to continue. The 17 islets are one and the same. [Losing one islet] is like losing your right hand, he said.



Fishermen based in Jakarta Bay are vociferously opposed to the reclamation, initiated by then president Soeharto in 1995, saying their hauls have decreased as a result of pollution caused by islet construction.



In September last year, fishermens groups, environmentalists and activists grouped under the Coalition to save Jakarta Bay Movement filed a lawsuit to the Jakarta State Administrative Court (PTUN), demanding the permit for Islet G be revoked.



On May 31, the court ruled in favor of the fishermen, ordering the governor to retract the permit. However, the city administration decided to appeal. The coalition is currently suing the city administration for issuing permits for islets I, F and K; all were issued by Ahok.

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Linkedin Anugerah Rizki Akbari (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, July 2 2016

Marking its 71st anniversary on Friday, the National Police welcomed its new leader, Comr. Gen. Tito Karnavian. Unlike the chaotic candidacy of Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan for the top police position last year, all parties supported without reservation President Joko Jokowi Widodos choice of Tito as his sole nominee for the post.

With his excellent professional and academic credentials, Tito, formerly the head of the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT), enjoyed a smooth process of approval by the House of Representatives, during which he pledged to transform the force into a better organization.

Nevertheless, Tito will face the same question posed to his predecessors: Will he fulfill his promises?

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, July 3, 2016

State-owned airport operator PT Angkasa Pura II (AP II) has prepared 500 extra flights at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport to anticipate an increase in passenger numbers during the Idul Fitri holiday this year.

The companys president director, Budi Karya Sumadi, told The Jakarta Post on Friday that the extra flights were being scheduled for 10 days, from June 28 to July 7.

Fifty extra flights will be operated every day for 10 days, Budi said. He added that it was estimated that nearly 100,000 passengers would travel via the international airport during Idul Fitri this year, an increase of about 10 percent over the approximately 90,000 people last year.

Budi said there were no additional flights prepared for other airports under its management as AP II did not see any significant increase in the number of passengers using them.

AP II operates 13 airports nationwide. The airports include Kualanamu International Airport in Medan (North Sumatra), Husein Sastranegara International Airport in Bandung (West Java) and Supadio Airport in Pontianak (West Kalimantan). (vny/ebf)
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Linkedin Eric Tucker and Ken Thomas (Associated Press) Washington  Sun, July 3, 2016

The FBI interviewed Hillary Clinton on Saturday about her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, her campaign announced after the meeting, as federal investigators neared the end of the probe that has hung over her White House bid.

Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate, gave a voluntary interview for 3 1/2 hours at FBI headquarters in Washington, her campaign said.

"I've been eager to do it, and I was pleased to have the opportunity to assist the department in bringing its review to a conclusion," Clinton said in describing the FBI session to NBC's "Meet the Press" for an interview to air Sunday. She agreed that the tone of the session was civil and business-like.

Clinton said she had no knowledge of any timeline for the review and would not comment on whether she was given an indication that charges would not be filed.

Spokespeople for the FBI and the Justice Department declined to comment Saturday.

For Clinton, the interview indicates that the Justice Department's yearlong probe is drawing to a close only four weeks before she is set to be formally nominated as the Democrats' choice to succeed President Barack Obama.

Clinton's FBI interview was expected, and it does not suggest that she or anyone else is likely to face prosecution. If Clinton and her aides are exonerated, it might help brush aside a major distraction throughout her campaign that has made many voters question her trustworthiness.

But as the past week shows, the case is complicated. Clinton sat down with the FBI just days after her husband, former President Bill Clinton, walked across a hot airport tarmac in Phoenix for an impromptu meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Lynch's husband. The couple had just landed.

The nation's top law enforcement official later expressed regret that she had met with the former president, whose plane was about to depart Phoenix, even though she said it was social in nature and they did not discuss the email review. Bill Clinton nominated Lynch as US attorney for the Eastern District of New York in 1999.

Lynch said Friday that she intended to accept the findings and recommendations of career prosecutors who have spent months investigating the case. As far as the meeting with Clinton, she said in hindsight that she would not do it again.

An aide to Bill Clinton said Saturday that the former president recognized how others could view his meeting with Lynch and agreed with her that he would not do it again. The aide was not authorized to be named and issued the statement on condition of anonymity, in response to news media queries.

For her part, Hillary Clinton told NBC that she learned about the meeting between her husband and Lynch through the news media and described it as they did  "It was purely social"  and said they didn't discuss the investigation.

"But obviously no one wants to see any untoward conclusions drawn, and they've said, you know, they would not do it again," she said.

The meeting raised questions about its propriety given the investigation, and congressional Republicans have renewed calls for the appointment of a special prosecutor in the case.

Donald Trump, the Republican Party candidate, has repeatedly said the email issue undermines Clinton's fitness for office, and he suggested she will receive leniency from a Democratic administration. Trump has called his opponent "Crooked Hillary" and said she cannot be trusted in the White House.

Following reports of Clinton's FBI interview, Trump tweeted: "It is impossible for the FBI not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton. What she did was wrong! What Bill did was stupid!"

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement that the FBI interview reinforces Clinton's "central role in deliberately creating a culture which put her own political ambitions above State Department rules and jeopardized our national security."

During the campaign, the former New York senator has argued that she is more trustworthy than Trump on handling the issues that matter to most Americans: foreign policy, national security and running the economy. But the investigation poses an unwelcome distraction just as Clinton has vanquished her primary rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, holds a huge fundraising advantage over Trump and polls show her well-placed to become America's first female president even as many voters question her honesty.

While she was Obama's secretary of state, Clinton exclusively used a private email server for her government and personal emails, rather than the State Department's email system. The Associated Press revealed the existence of the server in March 2015.

Clinton has said relying on a private server was a mistake but other secretaries of state had also used a personal email address.

The FBI is investigating the potential mishandling of sensitive information. The matter was referred last summer by the inspectors general for the State Department and intelligence community following the discovery of emails that were later determined to contain classified material.

Clinton has repeatedly said that none of the emails were marked classified at the time they were sent or received. As part of the probe, she has turned over the hard drive from her email server to the FBI.

The State Department's inspector general, the agency's internal watchdog, said in a blistering audit in May that Clinton and her team ignored clear warnings from State Department officials that her email setup violated federal standards and could leave sensitive material vulnerable to hackers. Clinton declined to talk to the inspector general, but the audit reported that Clinton feared "the personal being accessible" if she used a government email account.

Agents have already interviewed top Clinton aides including her former State Department chief of staff Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, a longtime aide who is the vice chairwoman of Clinton's campaign.

The staffer who set up the server, Bryan Pagliano, was granted limited immunity from prosecution by the Justice Department and has also cooperated with federal investigators. The FBI as a matter of course seeks to interview individuals central to an investigation before concluding its work.

__

On Twitter follow Eric Tucker at https://twitter.com/etuckerAP and Ken Thomas at https://twitter.com/KThomasDC (**)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, July 3, 2016

Denpasar, Bali and Sumedang, West Java, are among regions where its administrations have been criticized by the national rights body for their poor performance in resolving religious freedom violation cases.

The Denpasar and Sumedang administrations have been uncooperative in resolving religious freedom violation cases, the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) religion and faith freedom desk coordinator Jayadi Damanik said in Jakarta on Thursday.

Komnas HAM is monitoring the settlement of several religious freedom violation cases nationwide. The cases include the rejection of intolerant groups toward the development of a Mushola Assyafiiyah in Denpasar, Bali, a prayer room, and the prohibition of the congregation of the Pentecostal Church in Indonesia (GPDI) in Sumedang, West Java, from worshipping.

The GPDI case in Sumedang occurred in 2012 and has not yet been resolved due to difficulties in obtaining the church permit, said Jayadi. He further said that, earlier in June, the Sumedang administration had for umpteenth time rejected processing the permit.

Meanwhile, Komnas HAM has been handling the Denpasar case since February 2015. However, after a number of meetings attended by the Bali Religious Harmony Forum (FKUB), Bali-based Religious Affairs Ministry officials and Mushola Assyafiiyah management members, a settlement has yet to be reached. (vps/ebf)
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Linkedin Verena Dobnik (Associated Press) New York  Sun, July 3, 2016

Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, the Romanian-born Holocaust survivor whose classic "Night" became a landmark testament to the Nazis' crimes and launched Wiesel's long career as one of the world's foremost witnesses and humanitarians, has died at age 87.

His death was announced Saturday by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. No other details were immediately available.

The short, sad-eyed Wiesel, his face an ongoing reminder of one man's endurance of a shattering past, summed up his mission in 1986 when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize: "Whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation, take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

President Barack Obama said of Wiesel on Saturday, "As a writer, a speaker, an activist, and a thinker, he was one of those people who changed the world more as a citizen of the world than those who hold office or traditional positions of power. His life, and the power of his example, urges us to be better."

For more than a half-century, Wiesel voiced his passionate beliefs to world leaders, celebrities and general audiences in the name of victims of violence and oppression. He wrote more than 40 books, but his most influential by far was "Night," a classic ranked with Anne Frank's diary as standard reading about the Holocaust.

"Night" was his first book, and its journey to publication crossed both time and language. It began in the mid-1950s as an 800-page story in Yiddish, was trimmed to under 300 pages for an edition released in Argentina, cut again to under 200 pages for the French market and finally published in the United States, in 1960, at just over 100 pages.

"'Night' is the most devastating account of the Holocaust that I have ever read," wrote Ruth Franklin, a literary critic and author of "A Thousand Darknesses," a study of Holocaust literature that was published in 2010.

"There are no epiphanies in 'Night. There is no extraneous detail, no analysis, no speculation. There is only a story: Eliezer's account of what happened, spoken in his voice."

Wiesel began working on "Night" just a decade after the end of World War II, when memories were too raw for many survivors to even try telling their stories. Frank's diary had been an accidental success, a book discovered after her death, and its entries end before Frank and her family was captured and deported. Wiesel's book was among the first popular accounts written by a witness to the very worst, and it documented what Frank could hardly have imagined.

"Night" was so bleak that publishers doubted it would appeal to readers. In a 2002 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Wiesel recalled that the book attracted little notice at first. "The English translation came out in 1960, and the first printing was 3,000 copies. And it took three years to sell them. Now, I get 100 letters a month from children about the book. And there are many, many million copies in print."

In one especially haunting passage, Wiesel sums up his feelings upon arrival in Auschwitz:

"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. ... Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never."

"Night" was based directly on his experiences, but structured like a novel, leading to an ongoing debate over how to categorize it. Alfred Kazin was among the critics who expressed early doubts about the book's accuracy, doubts that Wiesel denounced as "a mortal sin in the historical sense." Wiesel's publisher called the book a memoir even as some reviewers called it fiction. An Amazon editorial review labeled the book "technically a novel," albeit so close to Wiesel's life that "it's generally  and not inaccurately  read as an autobiography."

In 2006, a new translation returned "Night" to the best-seller lists after it was selected for Oprah Winfrey's book club. But the choice also revived questions about how to categorize the book. Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com, both of which had listed "Night" as fiction, switched it to nonfiction. Wiesel, meanwhile, acknowledged in a new introduction that he had changed the narrator's age from "not quite 15" to Wiesel's real age at the time, 15.

"Unfortunately, 'Night' is an imperfect ambassador for the infallibility of the memoir," Franklin wrote, "owing to the fact that it has been treated very often as a novel."

Wiesel's prolific stream of speeches, essays and books, including two sequels to "Night" and more than 40 books overall of fiction and nonfiction, emerged from the helplessness of a teenager deported from Hungary, which had annexed his native Romanian town of Sighet, to Auschwitz. Tattooed with the number A-7713, he was freed in 1945  but only after his mother, father and one sister had all died in Nazi camps. Two other sisters survived.

After the liberation of Buchenwald, in April 1945, Wiesel spent a few years in a French orphanage, then landed in Paris. He studied literature and philosophy at the Sorbonne, and then became a journalist, writing for the French newspaper L'Arche and Israel's Yediot Ahronot.

French author Francois Mauriac, winner of the 1952 Nobel in literature, encouraged Wiesel to break his vowed silence about the concentration camps and start sharing his experiences.

In 1956, Wiesel traveled on a journalistic assignment to New York to cover the United Nations. While there, he was struck by a car and confined to a wheelchair for a year. He became a lifetime New Yorker, continuing in journalism writing for the Yiddish-language newspaper, the Forward. His contact with the city's many Holocaust survivors shored up Wiesel's resolve to keep telling their stories.

Wiesel became a U.S. citizen in 1963. Six years later, he married Marion Rose, a fellow Holocaust survivor who translated some of his books into English. They had a son, Shlomo. Based in New York, Wiesel commuted to Boston University for almost three decades, teaching philosophy, literature and Judaic studies and giving a popular lecture series in the fall.

Wiesel also taught at Yale University and the City University of New York.

In 1978, he was chosen by President Carter to head the President's Commission on the Holocaust, and plan an American memorial museum to Holocaust victims. Wiesel wrote in a report to the president that the museum must include denying the Nazis a posthumous victory, honoring the victims' last wishes to tell their stories. He said that although all the victims of the Holocaust were not Jewish, all Jews were victims. Wiesel advocated that the museum emphasize the annihilation of the Jews, while still remembering the others; today the exhibits and archives reflects that.

Among his most memorable spoken words came in 1985, when he received a Congressional Gold Medal from President Ronald Reagan and asked the president not to make a planned trip to a cemetery in Germany that contained graves of Adolf Hitler's personal guards.

"We have met four or five times, and each time I came away enriched, for I know of your commitment to humanity," Wiesel said, as Reagan looked on. "May I, Mr. President, if it's possible at all, implore you to do something else, to find a way, to find another way, another site. That place, Mr. President, is not your place. Your place is with the victims."

Reagan visited the cemetery, in Bitburg, despite international protests.

Wiesel also spoke at the dedication of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington in 1993. His words are now carved in stone at its entrance: "For the dead and the living, we must bear witness."

Wiesel defended Soviet Jews, Nicaragua's Miskito Indians, Cambodian refugees, the Kurds, victims of African famine and victims of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Wiesel was a longtime supporter of Israel although he was criticized at times for his closeness to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu. When Netanhayu gave a highly controversial address to Congress in 2015, denouncing President Obama's efforts to reach a nuclear treaty with Iran, Wiesel was among the guests of honor.

"What were you doing there, Elie Wiesel?" Haaretz columnist Roger Alpher wrote at the time. "Netanyahu is my prime minister. You are not an Israeli citizen. You do not live here. The Iranian threat to destroy Israel does not apply to you. You are a Jew who lives in America. This is not your problem."

The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, which he established in 1988, explored the problems of hatred and ethnic conflicts around the world. But like a number of other well-known charities in the Jewish community, the foundation fell victim to Bernard Madoff, the financier who was arrested in late 2008 and accused of running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

Wiesel said he ended up losing $15.2 million in foundation funds, plus his and his wife's own personal investments. At a panel discussion in February 2009, Wiesel admitted he bought into the Madoff mystique, "a myth that he created around him that everything was so special, so unique, that it had to be secret." He called Madoff "a crook, a thief, a scoundrel."

Despite Wiesel's mission to remind the world of past mistakes, the greatest disappointment of his life was that "nothing changed," he said in an interview.

"Human nature remained what it was. Society remained what it was. Too much indifference in the world, to the Other, his pain, and anguish, and hope."

But personally, he never gave up  as reflected in his novel "The Town Beyond the Wall."

Wiesel's Jewish protagonist, Michael, returns to his native town in now-communist Hungary to find out why his neighbors had given him up to the Nazis. Suspected as a Western spy, he lands in prison along with a young man whose insanity has left him catatonic.

The protagonist takes on the challenge of "awakening" the youth by any means, from talking to forcing his mouth open  a task as wrenching as Wiesel's humanitarian missions.

"The day when the boy suddenly began sketching arabesques in the air was one of the happiest of Michael's life. ... Now he talked more, as if wishing to store ideas and values in the boy for his moments of awakening. Michael compared himself to a farmer: months separated the planting from the harvest. For the moment, he was planting."

____

AP National Writer Hillel Italie contributed to this report. (**)
Advocate Farah Faiz pleaded with the court not to accept All India Muslim Personal Law Board's support to the practice and its contentions as the 'final word'.

By Harish V Nair: The Supreme Court's courtroom No. 1, presided over by Chief Justice TS Thakur, was witness to a gripping drama during a high-voltage hearing on the 'triple talaq' issue when a Muslim female advocate, who also works for the protection of rights of women in the community, made an emotional appeal, at times even breaking down, pleading with the court not to accept All India Muslim Personal Law Board's support to the practice and its contentions as the "final word".

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NOT THE FINAL WORD

"AIMPLB is only a registered society and what its members say cannot be taken as a final word. They have self-drafted aims and objectives. They have no right to decide on the personal laws of the community. They are not the guardians of the Muslims in this country," Farah Faiz, president, Rashtrawadi Muslim Mahila Sangh, told the CJI during the hearing on Friday.

WOMEN STAND IN SUPPORT

A bench headed by CJI is at present examining the effect of triple talaq and polygamy on the fundamental rights of Muslim women and inspecting if these practices are ending up in gender discrimination. Ever since the court began the exercise, several Muslim women's organisations have jumped on the bandwagon to attack the practices.

RESTRAIN THEM: ADVOCATE

Slamming the affidavit filed by the AIMPLB which stated that the SC cannot interfere with the personal laws of religions, Faiz said, "The Supreme Court is the actual guardian of the constitution. If they cannot interfere when gross violation of laws and individual rights is happening in the society, who can?" She added: "The sharia courts and Qazis supported by the AIMPLB do not allow women to enforce their rights. The board is also trying to give a religious colour to the debate on triple talaq by terming it a practice prescribed by the Quran."

She urged the court to restrain the AIMPLB from airing their views in the media and apprehended that "during the month of Ramzan, Muslim people gather for Taraweeh (to listen to the holy Quran) and they could be easily misled by such statements, which could be a danger to the society".

THERE WILL BE A DEBATE

But the bench retorted, "This is a very serious matter so there could be strong views. Let their be debate. We will keep your application pending. We will not restrain anybody at this stage. If we feel the issue is going out of hand, we will decide then."

MUSLIM PERSONAL LAW IS A CULTURAL ISSUE, IS IT?

In its affidavit, the AIMPLB has submitted that the issue of Muslim personal law is cultural issue, and it is inextricably interwoven with Islam. It has argued that it is the issue of freedom of conscience, guaranteed under Article 25 and 26 read with Article 29 of the Constitution. It has contended that the questions being examined by the SC has been dealt with by the Court in Ahmedabad Women Action Group v Union of India (1997).

Also Read:

Muslims remain backward for enslaving women, says AMU V-C Zameer Uddin Shah

--- ENDS ---

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Linkedin Bram Janssen and Suzan Fraser (Associated Press) Istanbul  Sun, July 3, 2016

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared Saturday that Syrian President Bashar Assad was a "more advanced terrorist" than the Islamic State group, despite the deadly attack on Istanbul's Ataturk Airport that Turkish officials blame on IS.

Speaking in the town of Kilis near the border with Syria, Erdogan said the Syrian leader was responsible for the deaths of some 600,000 of his own citizens and was the root cause of the war in Syria.

"He is a more advanced terrorist than a terrorist from the PYD or the YPG," Erdogan said. "He is a more advanced terrorist than Daesh." Erdogan was referring to Syrian Kurdish militia, which Ankara accuses of being a terror organization because of their affiliation with Turkey's Kurdish rebels, and to the IS group by its Arabic name.

Three militants armed with assault rifles and suicide bombs attacked one of the world's busiest airports on Tuesday night, killing at least 44 people. Although no one has claimed responsibility for the attack, Turkish officials say they believe it was the work of IS.

Turkish authorities have detained at least 24 people in raids in several Istanbul neighborhoods over possible connections to the attack. Seventeen other people were detained in the province of Gaziantep, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Erdogan paid an unannounced visit to the airport on Saturday, saying a prayer in front of a memorial set up for the victims, which features the pictures of airport employees killed in the rampage.

He later flew to Kilis, where the number of Syrian refugees is higher than the local Turkish population. IS militants have also attacked the town with cross-border rocket fire, killing 21 people there since January.

Erdogan said countries he did not name were supporting the Syrian Kurdish militia and the IS in a bid to prevent democracy in Syria and for their "dirty calculations" in the region. He also announced that his government would allow Syrian refugees in Turkey to take on Turkish citizenship.

Turkey has been accused of long turning a blind eye to jihadi fighters who crossed into Syria from Turkish territory in the hope that they would hasten Assad's downfall. Turkey has also been accused of not doing enough to fight IS, despite allowing the US-led coalition to use a key air base to conduct air strikes against jihadists.

Turkey denies the accusations but such statements from Erdogan help reinforce beliefs that fighting IS is not a priority for Ankara despite the extremist groups' attacks on Turkish territory.

Earlier, the Istanbul governor's office said 52 people were still in the hospital  20 of them in intensive care  four days after the devastating airport attack. It said 184 airport victims had been discharged from hospitals so far, including 13 people released Saturday.

Prosecutors have established the identity of two of the three airport attackers  giving their names as Rakim Bulgarov and Vadim Osmanov  and were trying to identify the third, Anadolu said. Other media reports have given different versions of Osmanov's name.

Investigators' attentions have reportedly focused on whether a Chechen extremist known to be a top lieutenant in the Islamic State group masterminded the attack.

US Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, told CNN that Akhmed Chatayev directed the attack. The CIA and White House declined to comment on McCaul's assertion and officials said the investigation into the airport bombings is still ongoing. McCaul could not be reached for further comment.

Turkish officials also were not able to confirm Chatayev's possible role in the deadly attack. The Sabah newspaper, which is close to the Turkish government, said police had launched a manhunt for him.

The Islamic State group, which has used the porous border with Turkey to establish itself in neighboring Syria and Iraq, has repeatedly threatened Turkey. In turn, Turkey has blamed IS for several major bombings in the past year in Ankara and Istanbul.

__

Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey. (**)
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Linkedin Arya Dipa (The Jakarta Post) Bandung, West Java  Sun, July 3, 2016

Corruption convicts Gayus Halomoan Tambunan and Muhammad Nazaruddin are among 9,592 prison inmates who will receive sentence remissions for Idul Fitri, an official has said.

The West Java chapter of the Law and Human Rights Ministrys head of correctional institution affairs, Agus Toyib, said all Muslim convicts had the right to receive Idul Fitri sentence reductions as long as they fulfilled rules and regulations stipulated in Government Regulation (PP) No. 99/2012 on remissions.

Agus said the further remission for Gayus, a former tax office official sentenced to 30 years in prison, was in line with regulations.

Gayus has shown good behavior since he was first moved to Gunung Sindur Prison. He will get a two-month remission, Agus said in Bandung on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Nazaruddin, a former Democratic Party treasurer, received a sentence remission of one month and 15 days.

In 2012, Nazaruddin was sentenced to four years and 10 months in prison after he was found guilty in a graft case relating to the construction of the Southeast Asian Games athletes village in South Sumatra in 2011.

Nazaruddin was serving his sentence at Sukamiskin Penitentiary in Bandung when a panel of judges at the Jakarta Corruption Court this year sentenced him in a different case to six years in prison and ordered him to pay Rp 1 billion ( US$76,336 ) in fines for gratification and money laundering when he served as a House of Representatives lawmaker.

One of the requirements for the submission of a sentence remission request is that a corruption convict must have paid fines or returned money as ordered in their sentence.

Agus said the 9,592 inmates set to receive remissions for Idul Fitri were currently serving time at 31 penitentiaries and detention facilities in the working area of the ministrys West Java chapter. As many as 177 inmates will be freed once they get their remissions, he said. (ebf)
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Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, July 3, 2016

Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama has claimed that the governments move to cease the development of islet G on the northern Jakarta coast by PT Muara Wisesa, a subsidiary of property firm Agung Podomoro Land, will spread fear among investors.

All investors will be surprised to hear this decision. I dont know why the government is only targeting islet G. This may be because I was once referred to as Podomoro governor by some people, Ahok said at City Hall on Friday. He referred to criticism he received for supporting the involvement of Agung Podomoro in realizing his reclamation project.

Ahok said Agung Podomoro had contributed to a low-cost apartment in Daan Mogot, West Jakarta. The developer has also fulfilled all of the projects requirements. Concerning those points, Ahok said, the governments order for the ceasing of the reclamation project was not fair.

Ahok believes the reclamation project is beneficial for the capital. If the reclamation of 14 islets is completed, he said, the administration may reap around Rp 77 trillion (US$5.88 billion) worth additional revenues for the city budget.

Ahok further said the governments decision to halt islet G development would burden the administration as he did not know what to do with a half-developed islet.

As an example, to dredge islet N, we will need around Rp 1 trillion. Would you want to provide such a huge amount of money? Ahok said. (ebf)
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Linkedin Erika Anindita Dewi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, July 3, 2016

The House of Representatives speakers are set to celebrate Idul Fitri, which will fall on July 6-7, with a string of activities before they depart for their hometowns.

In the first day of the festivities, House Speaker Ade Komarudin is scheduled to attend Idul Fitri prayers at the Istiqlal Mosque in Central Jakarta before he visits the official residences of President Joko Jokowi Widodo and Vice President Jusuf Kalla.

After visiting President Jokowi and Vice President Kalla, the Golkar Party politician will open his house to the public in the afternoon. Ade and his family will later depart for his hometown of Purwakarta, West Java, in the evening.

Ade said he would also spend some time with his wifes parents in Bandung, West Java,

These homebound journeys are an obligation because we want to visit our parents, Ade told journalists at the House complex in Jakarta on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Deputy House Speaker Fadli Zon is scheduled to give a sermon during the Idul Fitri prayers at Oerip Soemohardjo field, East Jakarta.

Ive been invited to give an Idul Fitri sermon. This will be my first time to give such a sermon although Ive been asked three times, said the Gerindra Party politician.

As with Ade, Fadli is also scheduled to hold an open house event for the public in the first day of the Idul Fitri festivities. Before that, he will visit Gerindra Party chairman Prabowo Subianto and other senior politicians at their official residences. Fadli will depart for his hometown in West Sumatra on the following day. (ebf)
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Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, July 3, 2016

The government has decided not to consider military action to help release seven Indonesian sailors being held hostage by Filipino militant groups as a show of respect toward Philippine territory and law.

Under its constitution, the Philippines government could not allow Indonesian military personnel to be directly involved in rescuing hostages held by terrorist groups, even though it was the third incident this year, Coordinating Political, Legal, and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan said.

"We don't have any Indonesian Military personnel in Philippine territory. All are on standby on our borders," he told journalists at his office on Friday evening.

Indonesian officials were still negotiating over measures to secure the rescue of the crewmen with their Philippines' counterparts under the administration of newly inaugurated President Rodrigo Duterte, Luhut said.

The Philippines government would allow Indonesia to assist Filipino military personnel only if another hostage-taking takes place in the future. The government did not want to be reckless either and seem like it was trying to intervene in the Philippines, he added.

Meanwhile, Indonesian Military (TNI) chief Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo said the force had prepared for any possible situation that could occur, adding that the TNI would always be ready to respond to the government's call whenever their assistance is needed.

"However, as neighboring states, we have our own laws," Gatot said. (rin)
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Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, July 3, 2016

The presumptive National Police chief, Comr. Gen. Tito Karnavian, has said that once he takes office in July, he will strive to improve communication and trust between the law enforcement institution and the public by pushing for greater involvement of police personnel in society.

I will ask district police chiefs to interact more with the public and urge them to engage in intensive dialogue with people as well, Tito said in Jakarta on Friday.

Tito said intensive communication between the police and society was key for the police force to attain greater understanding of the people's needs and to maximize efforts to serve the public.

He further said it was particularly important to boost the publics trust toward the police force because people tended to distrust the police on account of a string of incidents.

Tito asserted that the police should make better use of social media, as many people expressed their sentiments toward government officials through that platform.

Tito gave his statements during a commemoration of the 70th National Police Day at the National Police headquarters in Jakarta, during which the current police chief, Gen. Badrodin Haiti, who is scheduled to retire later July, gave a farewell speech.

Currently serving as the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) chief, Tito is the youngest three-star rank police general entrusted to take the helm of the National Police. He is the sole candidate favored by President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo to succeed Badrodin. (ebf)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, July 3, 2016

Homebound passengers traveling by buses from the Pulogadung station in East Jakarta are complaining they feel mistreated and are finding miserable public facilities there.

Nafisah, a passenger waiting for a bus to Bima, West Nusa Tenggara, complained that the bus station operator was not serving passengers well.

She said passenger services provided by the operator were unsatisfactory compared to services provided by state-owned railway operator PT Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI) at train stations.

Im unsatisfied with the poor services in this station, such as toilet cleanliness and the limited number of benches for waiting passengers. The bus station operation should serve the passengers just like what airport and train station operators have provided to their customers, Nafisah told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

Imelda Noviaputri, who was traveling to her hometown in Bangkalan, Madura, was also unsatisfied with passenger services at the Pulogadung station. She said the stations operator did not provide a direction board that would have made it easier for passengers to find the right buses.

The head of the Pulogadung bus station, Hengky Risakotta, blamed the situation on a lack of funding.

Since the Jakarta Transportation Agency built the Pulogebang bus station in East Jakarta, the agency had stopped funding service improvements and building renovations there, he told the Post on Saturday. (rez/ebf)
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Linkedin Liza Yosephine (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, July 3, 2016

East and Southeast Asia and North America together have annually accounted for the largest methamphetamine seizures globally since 2009, a recent UN report reveals.

"Indonesia is a source, transit and destination country in the trafficking of meth," the UN Office on Drugs and Crime's (UNODC) Indonesia country manager, Collie F. Brown, said on Friday during a media briefing on the 2016 World Drug Report.

Brown said there was evidence that crystal meth had been produced in Indonesia. Although it was easy, he said, setting up a meth lab was dangerous because the chemicals used in its production were very unstable and highly explosive.

While the US has consistently reported the largest amount of meth being seized each year, the numbers in East and Southeast Asia almost quadrupled between 2009 and 2014, the report said. In 2014, crystalline methamphetamine was the primary drug of concern in Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, the Philippines, Japan and the Republic of Korea.

Globally, seizures of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS), which meth falls under, have risen more than seven-fold from 1998 until 2014.

Brown credited Indonesia's efforts in implementing the UNODC's international guidelines for the prevention of drugs. He encouraged UNODC member countries, including Indonesia, to constantly review the effectiveness of the program to evaluate what worked and what did not in their respective countries.

In the briefing, Brown emphasized the importance of implementing drug response strategies and policies that were comprehensive and balanced. UNODC would continue to work in partnership with the Southeast Asian country to address drug issues, he said. "Indonesia has the capacity here; it's the support that they need," said Brown.

The report was published on June 23 following a UN General Assembly special session on the world drug problem (UNGASS) in April. This was declared a landmark moment in global drug policy and resulted in a series of operational recommendations. (ebf)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, July 3, 2016

Indonesia has condemned a terrorist attack and hostage-taking at a cafe in a diplomatic zone in Dhaka that left at least 20 of the hostages, mostly foreigners, dead and dozens of others injured on Friday and expressed its condolences to the families of the victims.

"The government and people of Indonesia convey their deepest condolences and sympathy to the victims and their families during this time of grief," the Foreign Ministry said in a press statement on Saturday.

The Indonesian Embassy in Dhaka reported no Indonesian casualties in the attack. The embassy said it is closely monitoring the situation and coordinating with local authorities as well as with Indonesian citizens residing in Dhaka.

The Indonesian government stated it stands in solidarity with Bangladesh in its fight against terrorism and called for closer international cooperation in combating the global threat.

There are 520 Indonesians living in Bangladesh, according to the Embassy. The Embassy strongly advised Indonesians to stay safe, remain alert and avoid public places that are possible terrorist targets, as well as to follow the directions and advice of the local authorities.

The embassy provided phone numbers for Indonesians seeking information on their families or on the current situation. Indonesian can contact Emir Faisal, the embassy's protocol and consular affairs official, at +880 161 4444 560 and +880 161 4444 552. (sha/rin)
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Linkedin Rod McGuirk (Associated Press) Canberra, Australia  Sun, July 3, 2016

Australia's era of political chaos continued on Saturday, with a general election failing to deliver an immediate victor and raising the prospect of a hung parliament.

Hours after the polls closed, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull sounded a confident tone despite early results showing his conservative Liberal Party-led coalition in a virtual tie with the opposition center-left Labor Party.

"Based on the advice I have from the party officials, we can have every confidence that we will form a coalition majority government in the next parliament," Turnbull said in a speech to cheering supporters early Sunday morning.

Opposition leader Bill Shorten did not speculate on a Labor victory but celebrated the strong swing to his party only three years after it was convincingly dumped from power in the last election.

"There is one thing for sure. The Labor Party is back," he said in a speech to supporters.

Parties need to hold at least 76 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives to form a government. When the count was suspended early Sunday, the Australian Electoral Commission said Labor was leading in 72 seats, Turnbull's coalition in 66 seats, and minor parties or independents in five seats. Counting was less clear in another seven seats.

The final tally was not expected to be known until Tuesday, after mail-in ballots and those cast ahead of Saturday's election were counted. In past elections, these votes have favored the conservatives.

Just two possibilities remain: The coalition will win by the slimmest of margins, or there will be a hung parliament.

Nick Xenophon, leader of the Nick Xenophon Team minor party, would not say on Sunday which side his party's sole lawmaker in the House of Representatives might support in a hung parliament.

"It still looks more likely than not that Malcolm Turnbull will have the numbers  just," Xenophon, a senator, told Nine Network television.

"But If he doesn't, then it's a question of sitting down in good faith with both sides to go through a number of key issues ... that are in the national interest," he added. These issues included maintaining manufacturing and farming jobs in Australia and reducing problem gambling in the community.

Turnbull called the rare early election  dubbed a "double dissolution" because both the House and the Senate are dissolved  in a bid to break a legislative deadlock over a bill that would have created a construction industry watchdog. But the result of the election may bring further deadlock: If neither party earns a majority of seats in the House, both Labor and the coalition will be forced to try to forge alliances with independent lawmakers to form a minority government.

Hung parliaments are extremely rare in Australia, with only two since 1940. The most recent was in 2010, when then-Prime Minister Julia Gillard's ruling Labor Party was forced to secure an alliance with the minor Greens party and three independent lawmakers to form a fragile minority government. Three years later, the coalition swept to power after winning 90 seats.

Treasurer Scott Morrison said he thought the coalition would ultimately be able to form a majority government once all the votes were counted. But Labor's only hope was to form a minority government.

Tony Abbott, the prime minister ousted by Turnbull in September in an internal party showdown due to poor opinion polling, declined to say on Sunday whether he would have led a stronger campaign.

"I'm just not going to speculate on that. The fact is that I didn't," Abbott told reporters outside his Sydney home. "It's obviously been an extremely tight result."

Saturday's elections continue an extraordinarily volatile period in the nation's politics, where internal party squabbling and fears over sagging poll ratings have prompted five changes of prime minister in as many years.

Amid the chaos, Labor and the coalition each tried to paint themselves as the safer, more stable choice. But selling stability was a tough job for either party, both of which have been marred by infighting in recent years. Bill Shorten played a key role in ousting two of Labor's own prime ministers in the space of three years, and Turnbull himself ousted Abbott less than a year ago. Up until 2007, conservative John Howard served as prime minister for nearly 12 years.

On Saturday, Shorten accused Turnbull of failing to deliver the economic reform and steady leadership Australians want.

"Whatever happens next week, Mr. Turnbull will never be able to claim that the people of Australia have adopted his ideological agenda," Shorten told supporters. "He will never again be able to promise the stability which he has completely failed to deliver tonight."

Monash University political expert Nick Economou said Turnbull's leadership had been terminally damaged by his decision to call the early election. It involved the longest campaign since 1969 and appeared to have delivered several hard-line social conservatives and right-wingers to the Senate that the moderate prime minister would have difficulty working with if his government survives, Economou said.

"What an amazing amount of political damage Malcolm Turnbull has been able to inflict in a very short period of time as prime minister," Economou said. "I think his credibility is shot to pieces."

Opinion polls had predicted a close race, but had largely tipped the government to win by a narrow margin. Several government ministers blamed the surprisingly strong result for Labor on what they dubbed a dishonest campaign that claimed the conservatives were threatening Australia's universal health care system known as Medicare.

"Even today people were talking about not being able to afford health care because we were going to get rid of Medicare. It was utter rubbish," Liberal Party Deputy Leader Julie Bishop told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. "But what do you do when one party relies on a monstrous lie to get elected?"

Two weeks before the election, Shorten ramped up his campaign on health policy by describing the poll as a referendum on the future of Medicare. A Labor government introduced the government-funded program in 1984 to provide free or subsidized health care for all Australian citizens and permanent residents.

Labor accused the government of planning to privatize Medicare  a claim Turnbull dismissed as an audacious scare campaign.

But aside from the privatization debate, Shorten also promised to better fund Medicare than the government. He vowed to increase the government subsidies paid to private doctors to treat patients. The government had frozen the subsidy rate for the next four years, with many patients likely to be charged more for consultations.

Shorten also promised to restore incentives paid to private companies to provide free X-ray and pathology services to patients. The government cut those incentives from July 1.

The government focused much of its campaign on a promise to generate jobs and economic growth through tax cuts to big businesses. Economic growth is a key issue for many Australians, who have seen thousands of jobs vanish from the country's once-booming resources sector amid China's industrial slowdown.

Labor has said it will keep the higher tax rates and use the revenue to better fund schools and hospitals.

Saturday's uncertain result suggests the era of volatility in Australian politics is set to continue, said Deakin University political scientist Geoff Robinson. It was difficult for modern governments to make tough and unpopular decisions as tax revenues decline with the slowing Chinese economy and low commodity prices.

___

Associated Press writer Kristen Gelineau in Sydney contributed to this report. (**)
The attack on the shopping area of Karrada is the deadliest since US-backed Iraqi forces last month scored a major victory when it dislodged Islamic State from their stronghold of Falluja, an hour's drive west of the capital.

By Reuters: Nearly 120 people were killed and 200 wounded in two bombings in Baghdad, most of them in a busy shopping area as residents celebrated Ramadan, police and medical sources said on Sunday.

The attack on the shopping area of Karrada is the deadliest since US-backed Iraqi forces last month scored a major victory when it dislodged Islamic State from their stronghold of Falluja, an hour's drive west of the capital. It is also the deadliest so far this year.

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Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had ordered the offensive after a series of deadly bombings in Baghdad, saying Falluja served as a launchpad for such attacks on the capital. However, bombings have continued.

A convoy carrying Abadi who had come to tour the site of the bombings was pelted with stones and bottles by residents, angry at what they felt were false promises of better security.



Here's what happened A refrigerator truck packed with explosives blew up in the central district of Karrada, killing 115 people and injuring at least 200. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement circulated online by supporters of the ultra-hard line Sunni group. It said the blast was a suicide bombing. A video going viral on social media shows people running after the SUV convoy of Abadi as he departed Karrada after touring the scene. They are seen throwing pavement stones, bottles of water, empty buckets and slippers, venting their anger at the inability of the security forces to protect the area. Another video shows a large blaze in the main street of Karrada, a largely Shi'ite district with a small Christian community and a few Sunni mosques. The toll climbed during the day as rescuers pulled out more bodies from under the rubble and people succumbed from their injuries. Comments posted on social media accused security forces of continuing to use fake bomb detectors at checkpoints filtering traffic in Baghdad, five years after the scandal broke out about a device commonly known as the 'magic wand'. A police officer in Baghdad confirmed these hand-held ADE 651 detectors were still in use. They were sold to Iraq and other nations by a British businessman who was jailed for 10 years in 2013 in the United Kingdom for endangering lives for profit.

AL SHAAB ATTACK

In the second attack, a roadside explosive device also blew up around midnight in a market in al-Shaab, a Shi'ite district in the north of the capital, killing at least two people, police and medical sources said.

Iraqi forces on June 26 declared the defeat of IS militants in Falluja, a historic bastion of Sunni insurgency, following a month of fighting.

Now the militants were "trying to compensate for their humiliating defeat in Falluja," said Jasim al-Bahadli, a former army officer and security analyst in Baghdad.

"It was a mistake for the government to think that the source of the bombings was restricted to just one area," he said. "There are sleeper cells that operate independently from each other."

Falluja was the first Iraqi city to fall to Islamic State in January 2014. Abadi said the next target of the Iraqi forces is Mosul, the de facto capital of the militants and the largest city under their control in both Iraq and Syria.



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Linkedin Aries Joseph Hegina (Philippine Daily Inquirer) Davao City  Mon, July 4, 2016

Despite President Rodrigo Dutertes icy relationship with the media, his officials are said to be preparing the draft of an administrative order (AO) which will put up a task force against journalist killings.

President Rodrigo Duterte is set to issue an executive order (EO) that would implement the proposed Freedom of Information (FOI) law.

A Palace official on Sunday said that the new administration will issue an executive order to implement FOI.

Former President Benigno Aquino III made the FOI a priority legislation during his term but failed to pass in Congress, despite urgent calls from various sectors.

In an interview over state-run radio dzRB, Presidential Communications Office Secretary Martin Andanar said that the Palace is already preparing a draft of the said EO.

Watch out for our draft this weekwe are preparing the draft of the executive order for the Freedom of Information and we will announce it, Andanar said.

The issuance of the said EO is the realisation of Dutertes commitment to impose the right to information which he made months before he assumed office.

If Congress does not want to pass it, I will start progressively so that we dont talk too much, Duterte said last May.

Despite the Presidents icy relationship with the media, Andanar said that the Palace is preparing the draft of an administrative order (AO) which will put up a task force against journalist killings.

Watch out for our draft being prepared by Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea.It has something to do with the presidential task force against media killings, he said.

We are doing this presidential task force against media killings so our media people will be at peace and the extrajudicial killings will be stopped, he added.

Duterte has boycotted the media since early June after international press group Reporters Without Borders asked its Filipino counterparts to shun covering the President because of his remark that some journalists deserve to die because they are corrupt.

Since then, all official pronouncements were coursed through state-owned television PTV4. Foreign and local media, except PTV4, were not allowed to cover the Presidents inauguration at the Rizal Hall in Malacanang.

Both issuances are expected to be released within this week or next week, Andanar said.
New Zealands capital, Wellington, is a nonchalant metropolis perched on the southernmost point of the Cook Strait. While it may be compact, the landscape is a diverse patchwork of cityscapes, azure harbours and sandy beaches.

Not stopping long? No sweat, weve got you covered.

Heres your guide to getting the most out of the city in 24 hours.

Wellington

Olive, Cuba Street

Start your day off the right way with brunch at Olive . Shabby-chic meets palm paradise; the restaurant is an oasis of Wellington cool.

Recover from your arduous journey (or night on the town), and take a seat in their courtyard under the warm morning sun. The eatery mixes French and Italian palettes along with a contemporary NZ twist.

When it comes to food their ethos is strictly seasonal, taking natures cues in crafting a protean menu. For a hearty fill try Olives Works, a take on the full English, with sourdough, sauteed spinach and hollandaise thrown in for good measure. For something a little different opt for their Black Pudding, a sweet and sharp bite with caramelised apple, pickled onion, pork crackle and spiced walnut.

Olive's courtyard

Te Papa Tongarewa

Te Papa is the national museum and art gallery of New Zealand. Its a drastic departure from those dusty, ethereal buildings with the emphatic dont touch signs that your parents used to drag you to as a child.

Brimming with innovation and interactive exhibits, its Wellingtons unexpected gem. Experience an earthquake in the simulation house, come face to face with a colossal squid, or take a walk through the journey of the Maori people. The museums Gallipoli exhibit, tracing the tragedy of the world war one campaign, is perhaps the most striking of all. Follow the lives of eight New Zealanders caught up in the turmoil of Gallipoli, each depicted in eerily life-like sculptures, 2.4 times human size.

And the best part? The museum is completely free.

Te Papa's Gallipoli exhibit

Capital Market

Feeling peckish? Wander down to Willis Street to the hidden gem of Capital Market. An undercover food court set back from Wellingtons premier shopping and business districts, its a vibrant hideaway hot spot boasting an eclectic mix of cuisine.

Whether you fancy Vietnamese, Indian, BBQ, Sushi or a greasy kebab, theres something for every stomach and wallet. Visit La Recette for a moreish slice of French toast, or if you had one too many the night before, stop at the juice bar for a Hangover Shoo smoothie - a sweet treat of pineapple, spinach, honey and yoghurt.

Entrance to Capital Market

Mt Victoria

To view Wellington in all its glory, venture up to the Mt. Victoria look out. At 196m high, it may be a slog, but the sweeping panoramas across the Eastern harbour and Miramar peninsular are more than rewarding.

If you cant hack the hike, the No 20 bus will deliver you near the summit.

For something a little different drop by the Mt Vic Chippery for a fish burger and kumara chips and drive up to neighbouring Brooklyn Hill at sunset. Chow down with the cityscape sprawled on your left, and the waters of the Cook Strait glistening to the right. On a clear day, you can even glimpse the South Island.

View from Brooklyn Hill by night

Motel Cocktail Bar

When the sun goes down, make your way to Forresters Lane. At first glance, its a dingy alley, with a neon Motel sign, flickering vacancy. Gingerly press the intercom by the door for admittance.

Motel is a part of that old school tradition of the speakeasy. Inside its dark and dingy, but as your eyes become accustomed to the dark youll make out the palms and the bamboo panelling of this tiki retreat.

Needless to say, the cocktails are a must. For a tropical hit, order the Hula Girl Hooch, a sugary concoction of peach, passionfruit and pineapple. Need an evening light on the wallet? Visit on a Wednesday and get double your money with 2 for 1 on cocktails.

Motel's colourful exterior

Shona is the winner of The National Student's Student Travel Writer 2015 competition and travelled round New Zealand with STA Travel and Kiwi Experience.

The winner's prize in the Student Travel Writer 2016 competition is a 12-day trip to Cambodia with Tripwire and Tru Travels . For more information and to enter click here.
That's right - Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee could well have been real, had it not been for our ancestors supposedly wiping our the world's only population of hobbits.

Evidence suggests that a race of 3.5ft tall humans were using stone tools on the Indonesian island of Flores 50,000 years ago, but then mysteriously vanished.

And scientists now believe modern Homosapiens may well have been responsible, after finding evidence to suggest they were using fire in the hobbits cave at least 41,000 years ago.

High ceilings for small humans in the Liang Bua cave (University of Wollongong/PA)

The discovery of hearths in the Liang Bua cave indicates that hobbits and modern humans both occupied the site within 11,000 years of each other - and r

esearchers are now working to uncover more evidence that will remove any alibi modern humans might have over the disappearance.

If it is found that the two species came together at the same place and time, it could explain how the hobbits came to be extinct.

An international team of scientists uncovered the remains of a previously unknown species of small-statured human, Homo floresiensis, in Liang Bua cave in 2003. Known as hobbits, after the characters invented by Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkein, the creatures were originally thought to have lived as recently as 12,000 years ago.

The real thing may have looked slightly different to Tolkeins idea (Fiona Hanson/PA)

Experts later dated the bones at between 190,000 and 60,000-years-old, while the most recent hobbit stone tools were thought to be 50,000 years old.

Although they used stone tools, there is no evidence that the hobbits had mastered fire  so by the powers of deduction it seems the hearth remains found in the cave were most likely left by modern humans.

Lead researcher Dr Mike Morley, from the University of Wollongong in Australia, said: We now know that the hobbits only survived until around 50,000 years ago at Liang Bua. We also know that modern humans arrived in South-East Asia and Australia at least 50,000 years ago, and most likely quite a bit earlier.

The hobbit skull looks pretty similar to a modern human one (Peter Brown/University of New England/PA)

This new evidence, which is some of the earliest evidence of modern human activity in South-East Asia, narrows the gap between the two hominin species at the site.

Fossilised remains of even smaller ancestral hobbits who lived on Flores 700,000 years ago have further persuaded experts that the creatures really were a distinct human species. They suggest that hobbits evolved from an earlier type of human, Homoerectus, that became marooned on Flores long ago.

The new findings are published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
Eyewitnesses say the victim was walking with a friend when he stepped on something and it blew up.

A man is loaded into an ambulance after he was injured after an explosion in Central Park, in Manhattan, New York, US. (Photo: Reuters)

By India Today Web Desk: A man was critically injured in an explosion in Central Park in New York today.

HERE IS ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW:



Eyewitnesses say the victim was walking with a friend when he stepped on something and it blew up. Neither of the two were carrying anything at the time. Cause of the explosion is still unclear and the authorities have closed off a section of the Central Park trying to determine what triggered the explosion. According to a witness, the man was climbing a rock structure when he stepped on something and it "exploded". Fire officials have called it "an amputation incident" and the man has been rushed to Bellevue Hospital for treatment.

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By Mail Today: Tarushi Jain, a 19-year-old Indian girl studying in the University of California Berkeley, accompanied her two friends to the caf in Dhaka's diplomatic zone that was attacked by ISIS terrorists where she was hacked to death. The girls got together after iftar (breaking of fast during ramzan) when terrorists stormed the place picking up people who could not quote the Quran, a Bangladeshi publication reported.

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She was on a holiday visiting her family in Dhaka. Another Indian, a doctor by profession had a narrow escape as he spoke fluent Bengali and the terrorists mistook him for a Bangladeshi but young Tarushi did not have the advantage of speaking the language. Her father runs a garment business in Bangladesh for the last 15-20 years, according to officials. Officials said her family is from Ferozabad in UP. After graduating from American School, Dhaka she had moved to the US for higher studies. Quoting a rescued hostage, the Daily Star, a Bangladesh daily reported those who could recite a verse from the Quran were spared and the others were tortured before being killed.

SUSHMA SWARAJ TWEETS

In a series of tweets, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said,"I am extremely pained to share that the terrorists have killed Tarushi, an Indian girl who was taken hostage in the terror attack in Dhaka. I have spoken to her father Sanjeev Jain and conveyed our deepest condolences.

The country is with them in this hour of grief. We are arranging visa for the family. My officers are on the job," she said. "I monitored this personally the whole night. Our Dy High Commnr in Dhaka Adarsh Swaika is with family since yesterday." Twenty foreigners, including eight Italians, were brutally murdered by the militants inside the restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic zone before commandos launched an assault killing six attackers and capturing one alive, ending Bangladesh's worst terror attack.

Director of Military Operations Brigadier General Nayeem Ashfaq Chowdhury said the militants slaughtered 20 hostages before the joint operation led by the armed forces began.



Most of those killed were found with their throat slit, he added. He said the bodies of the victims were recovered during a search in the Holey Artisan Bakery compound after the operation.

The bodies were shifted to the Combined Military Hospital morgue for autopsy to confirm their identity.

Also read: Indian girl among 20 killed in Dhaka attack, ISIS terrorists identified: Latest updates





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By PTI: Sukhbir

New Delhi, Jul 3 (PTI) Hitting out at the opposition over the issue of drug menace, Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal today said efforts are being made to defame the people of the state by dubbing them as "drug addicts" and argued had the state been suffering from the problem, it would not have progressed on various indexes.

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"I feel sad. Efforts are being made to defame the people and the state... First, we were dubbed as terrorists and now as nashedis (drug addicts)," he said at an event to mark the 300th anniversary of Sikh general Baba Banda Bahadur Singhs martyrdom here.

The event was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, among others.

The SAD leader said the state was high on development index. "We are the biggest producers of hand tools, mushroom, tractor combines... Had we been addicts, we could not have achieved so much," he said.

Sukhbirs father and state chief minister Prakash Singh Badal, Haryana and Punjab Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki, Haryana CM Manohar Khattar and some Union ministers were also present at the event.

Punjab Assembly election in early 2017 could well be Indias first state poll where drug abuse could be a central theme.

The movie Udta Punjab has already given opposition parties like AAP -- seeking to make inroads in the state -- a handle to attack the ruling SAD-BJP combine on the issue of drug abuse.

A Punjab minister had recently downplayed the spread of drug menace in the state, saying only one per cent of the population was affected. PTI NAB SMN SK SMN

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Australia in political limbo after voters punish government

CANBERRA: Australia is in political limbo today (July 3) after voters failed to hand Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull the stability he craved in calling an election, with the nation instead facing the prospect of a hung parliament.

politicseconomics

By AFP

Sunday 3 July 2016, 03:38PM

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Photo: AFP

The former banker went to the polls early looking to shore up support and deliver a strong government based on a jobs and growth agenda after ousting fellow Liberal Tony Abbott in a party coup last September to become the countrys fourth leader in recent years.

But he now faces the prospect of having to deal with independents and minor parties to stay in power after a near three-per-cent swing against his administration.

Despite a host of coalition MPs being dumped, Turnbull insisted he remained quietly confident while admitting to a flurry of phone calls in a scramble to broker deals with lawmakers he may need onside to retain office.

I remain quietly confident that a majority coalition government will be returned at this election when the counting is completed, he said on Sunday.

What we will do is ensure that we work constructively and effectively with all of the members of the new parliament to ensure that we deliver the stability and the leadership that Australians expect.

After a host of postal votes were added to running totals Sunday, his Liberal/National coalition had 65 seats to Labors 67, the Greens one and independents four, results showed.

That leaves 13 seats still too close to call with 76 needed to rule outright in the 150-seat House of Representatives.

A final outcome is not expected until Tuesday at the earliest, and it could take weeks, with millions of postal and absentee votes yet to be processed, with experts saying these traditionally favour the incumbent.

Out of touch

Turnbull had campaigned on tough asylum-seeker policies and a plan to hold a plebiscite on gay marriage, but mostly on reinforcing his economic credentials as the country transitions from a mining investment boom to a more diversified economy.

He also used the instability sparked by Britains shock vote to leave the European Union to warn that Australia must have calm heads, steady hands and a strong economic plan.

But polls and the official #ausvotes Twitter feed showed healthcare, followed by the economy, education and housing affordability, topped voters concerns.

Opposition leader Bill Shorten tapped into this, focusing his last days of campaigning on health which helped Labor bounce back strongly after being thumped by the conservatives at the last election in 2013.

His agenda was out of touch and a lot of Australians made that clear yesterday in the ballot booths right across Australia, he said of Turnbull.

Business leaders said the possibility of a hung parliament was bad news and urged a speedy resolution.

Business is appealing to Australia's political leaders to provide a road map as soon as possible through the uncertainty of an unclear election result to a functioning government, Business Council of Australia chief Jennifer Westacott told reporters.

Turnbull called the election not just to shore up support but because crossbenchers -- politicians who are independent or from minor parties -- held the balance of power in the upper house Senate.

They had failed to pass deadlocked legislation to overhaul unions, which provided the trigger for a double dissolution of parliament, where all seats in the upper and lower houses are contested.

But even if he manages to form government, there is no guarantee the new Senate will be more amenable.

Votes are yet to be finalised but the likes of One Nations Pauline Hanson, who once claimed Asians were in danger of swamping the country, is expected to be elected to the upper house.

She looks likely to be joined by a host of other unconventional candidates, including long-time journalist and broadcaster Derryn Hinch, known as the human headline, who campaigned on justice for the victims of criminals.
Bangkok broadcaster closes off Phuket beach access, charges entry fee

PHUKET: Bangkok Broadcasting & TV Co Ltd (BBTV), the company that broadcasts Thai TV Channel 7, has privatised access to Laem Singh Beach and is now charging B100 per person to cross beachfront land that the company claims to own.

landpropertytourism

By Eakkapop Thongtub

Sunday 3 July 2016, 01:54PM

BBTV announced the entry fees to access Laem Singh Beach with the posting of a large sign at the site. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

While BBTV starts charging entry fees to access Laem Singh Beach, sunloungers on the sand can easily be seen from the road. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

While BBTV starts charging entry fees to access Laem Singh Beach, sunloungers on the sand can easily be seen from the road. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

BBTV announced the entry fees to access Laem Singh Beach with the posting of a large sign at the site. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

While BBTV starts charging entry fees to access Laem Singh Beach, sunloungers on the sand can easily be seen from the road. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

Access across the land is open from 7am to 7pm, effective Friday (July 1), the company announced with a large sign recently posted at the site.

The sign notes that BBTV claims the land in question through land deed nos. 6868, 6869, 7828 and 7829, and is a plaintiff in the court case red no 1153/2558, 1157/2558-1165/2558 and 1240/2558.

Shopowners named in the above court cases will be provided identification to present to security guards who will patrol the area and collect fees from people wanting to cross the land, the sign announced.

Conflict over access to Laem Singh Beach came to a head in 2012, when local residents and shopowners protested a corrugated fence installed around the land.

The protesters called in popular graft buster Col Dutsadee Arayawut, at the time the secretary-general of the Public Sector Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC), to appeal to him to investigate ownership of land. (See story here.)

That call for justice was followed by Seri Lapmak, deputy chief of the Kamala Tambon Administration Organisation (OrBorTor), in 2014 noting that bars and other structures on Laem Singh Beach had been ordered to be removed as part of the beach clean-up campaign as ordered by the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO). (See story here.)

However, sun loungers and umbrellas on Laem Singh Beach could easily be seen from the road today (July 3).
Chinese tourist dies in Phuket resort pool

PHUKET: A 36-year-old Chinese tourist has died after being pulled from a resort swimming pool in Kamala last night (July 2). Police have yet to confirm whether the man drowned.

Chinesetourismaccidentsdeath

By Darawan Naknakhon

Sunday 3 July 2016, 12:24PM

When his family members arrived, they found Mr Ren at the bottom of the pool. Photo: Darawan Naknakhon

Staff at Patong Hospital notified Lt Col Somnuek Damkaew of the Kamala Police at 10:31pm that they were unable to revive a Chinese tourist Ren Zhifeng.

Doctors pronounced the man dead on arrival and confirmed that there were no injuries on his body, Col Somnuek said.

Mr Ren and his family checked in to the hotel on Friday (July 1), he added.

Around 9pm on Saturday, he asked his friends and family to join him and his son for a swim at the pool, Col Somnuek explained.

Mr Ren and his son went into the pool first while the others were still getting ready in their rooms.

One family member said they arrived five minutes later and saw Mr Ren at the bottom of the pool. When they suspected something was wrong, they dived in and pulled him out, Col Somnuek said.

Attempts to revive Mr Ren while waiting for the ambulance to arrive were unsuccessful.

Doctors said that he probably went into shock and then drowned, Col Somnuek noted. However, they will examine the body to find the true cause of death even though the family do not suspect anything else.

* Not Zhi Fengren as originally reported by police.
NZ police seize record NZ$14mn of cocaine in horse head

NEW ZEALAND: Police said Sunday (July 3) that they have seized a record NZ$14 million (B350.9 million) of cocaine hidden inside a large diamante-encrusted horse head from Mexico.

economicscrimepolice

By AFP

Sunday 3 July 2016, 04:20PM

The diamante-encrusted horse head from Mexico used to traffic $13 million worth of cocaine. Photo: New Zealand Police

The largest-ever haul of the drug in New Zealand has been linked to the rebuild of the city of Christchurch, severely damaged in a 2011 earthquake, and the Australian market.

Detective Superintendent Virginia Le Bas, from the organised crime unit, said they were still working to establish the final destination of the haul.

This is a significant win for New Zealand, she said. This is a great success, we should be proud to have detected it at the earliest of stages.

The 35-kilogramme shipment had been air-freighted from Mexico to Auckland where it was detected in the bejewelled horse-head statue in May.

Following a six-week investigation, a Mexican and an American were arrested in Auckland over the weekend as they prepared to fly to Hawaii and another Mexican was detained in Christchurch.

Police believe at least some of the drug was destined for Christchurch which has attracted workers from around the world to get involved in the rebuild over recent years.

Le Bas said some people in Christchurch were using the drug and the rebuild had created a change in demand for some illicit substances.

Drug researcher Chris Wilkins, from Massey University, told reporters the drug may also have been destined for Australia where demand was high in cities like Sydney and Melbourne.
Phuket Commerce: British legal expert shines light on visas and work permits

PHUKET: The British Chamber of Commerce in Thailand (BCCT) Business Dinner held in Phuket last week provided a clear refresher course for those not well acquainted with all the intricacies of Thailands visa and work permit requirements  and a few precious nuggets of insight into how the administration in Thailand enforces those laws.

economicsimmigrationtourism

By Chris Husted

Sunday 3 July 2016, 10:00AM

Stephen Frosts expertise shone in answering valuable questions from the audience. Photo: BCCT

Titled An Update on Visas and Work Permits, the event, organised in collaboration with the French, German and Netherlands chambers of commerce in Thailand, was held at the traditional venue, the Amari Phuket in Patong, on June 21.

The guest speaker was Stephen Frost, Director at Bangkok International Associates and member of the BCCT Board of Directors and Chairman of the BCCT Legal & Taxation Group, who delivered a lightning-fast skip-through the basics, including descriptions of the most popular basic visa types and their uses as well as how work permits work for the expat business community.

Visas

Among the updates were the introduction of 60-day tourist visas, the revised immigration blacklist penalties for overstay, and a reminder that there is a 90-day grace period for genuine lapses in overstaying a visa.

Also on the visa front, Mr Frost pointed out that language schools were under scrutiny to ensure enrolment by foreigners was authentic, not just a way of staying in the country, and a reminder that border runs to extend stay have been reduced from 30 days to 15 days.

The controversial 90-day reporting form introduced in Phuket in May reared its head, though apparently with the understanding in Bangkok that filling out the entire form remained optional, despite reports in Phuket that the form is being called mandatory by immigration officials on the island.

Yet it was the questions from the floor provided the most insight, including a brief explanation by one expat who had applied for a 12-month permit to stay for a retirement visa reportedly being told by immigration officials to return to his home country to start the whole process over again.

To this came a gem from Mr Frost, highlighting his legal experience of more than two decades in the Kingdom: That does not accord with my experience. Perhaps it is a difference between practice and procedure in Bangkok and Phuket.

It was also pointed out from the floor that none of the personal questions on the new immigration 90-day reporting social media form were asked when conducting 90-day reporting through the immigration website.

To this, Mr Frost noted, That is not considered a secure website. At this stage we recommend not using the website until the authorities make it secure.

Another pearl uncovered from an audience question was that there is no limit on the number of condos a foreigner may own. However, that fact came with a rider: If you own a lot of condos and are renting them out, or just buying them and selling them on, then you could easily be understood to be operating a business, for which you will need to abide by all the legal requirements for operating that business, Mr Frost said.

Work Permits

Regarding changes to work permit rules, during the main presentation Mr Frost pointed out that several key changes were made in 2015, and that the following activities were no longer considered as work and a work permit need not be applied for:

1. Attending a meeting or seminar

2. Attending an exhibition or trade fair

3. Visiting a business or engaging in business negotiations

4. Attending special or academic lectures

5. Attending technical training or seminars

6. Purchase of goods at a trade fair

7. Attending a meeting of directors of his/her own company

However, the changes also came under scrutiny. If they are willing to make attending meeting of directors (work-permit free), why not add attending a shareholders meeting? Mr Frost posed.

Also highlighted was that the authorities had clamped down on the emergency 15-day work permit exemption for urgent and necessary work available, and that back-to-back 15-day permits were no longer issued.

Also, these have been limited to two 15-day urgent work permits per person per year, as the authorities believe this privilege has been abused, Mr Frost explained.

Again, a question from the floor invoked another clear reminder: that work permits and visa were no longer issued in time with each other.

The important thing to remember is that a persons work permit and visa are no longer linked. The work permit no longer has to be issued linked to the same dates as the visa, Mr Frost said.

Future Reform

Mr Frost concluded his presentation with a note that the BCCT and other foreign chambers have submitted proposals for reform to visa and work permit procedure periodically so that the foreign business community would be able to better conduct business in the Kingdom.

The proposed reforms included:

 Visas and work permits to be granted initially for one year, then extendable by application every five years

 No work permit required for: unpaid work, English/foreign language teaching, those aged over a certain age in priority occupations eg English/foreign language teaching, IT services/IT training

 Reduction of the paperwork involved in visa/work permit renewal/avoidance of double policing approach

 Work permits to be valid throughout Thailand, not geographically limited.

 Descriptions of permitted duties in work permits to be drafted widely, or alternatively, to be valid for any occupation not prohibited by law.

 The 4:1 Thai/foreign employment ratio not to apply to certain priority businesses, e.g. English/foreign language teaching, IT services and training, etc.

 90-day reporting to be changed, so that reporting is only required within 14 days of a change of address actually occurring

 Regarding applications for residence permits, the basic principles to be proven residence for a period of years, income tax payment, good character, Thai language ability.

 Similar approach to nationality applications, made after a certain period of years of residence.

In concluding the proceedings, BCCT Executive Director Greg Watkins alluded to upcoming topics to be covered in the BCCT Business Dinner series.

We were working on holding a future event focusing on taxation, and we would like to hold another tourism panel, which was very popular last year, he said.

Suggestions for topics for future Business Dinner events are welcomed by email to greg@BCCTThai.com.

The Business Dinner on June 21 was sponsored by the Regus Royal Phuket Marina business centre, the Amari Phuket and Kajornkiet International School, Phuket. Class Act Media is a proud media sponsor of the BCCT Business Dinner series.
Phuket Opinion: Wired over roadside results

PHUKET: Last weeks online video rant by Jack Brown about expensive public transport in Phuket was topped this past week by more viral social media critical to Thailand, the latest jab dished out by none-other than billionaire Bill Gates.

constructioneconomicstourismpollution

By The Phuket News

Sunday 3 July 2016, 09:00AM

If Jack Brown can get results, why can't billionaire Bill Gates?

Mr Gates posted a picture of an unsightly entanglement of wires, allegedly taken in Thailand, where he claimed residents dangerously hacked into such wires just to gain access to energy.

The post struck a nerve with many locals, not so much for its debatable claims about inadequate access to energy in the Kingdom, but more for the messy light in which Thailand was blanketly portrayed in to the world, yet again.

Indeed, anyone whos been here for long enough knows that image is very important to the Thai people, who pride themselves on neat and orderly picture-perfect presentation, at least on the surface.

It is for this reason, officials in Phuket have, on a number of occasions over the years, vowed to eliminate such unsightly roadside blights  targeting not only the infamous wire entanglements, but the ugly billboard clutter infesting roadsides island-wide.

In one such vow, back in February 2013, then Phuket Vice Governor Chamroen Tipayapongtada demanded in a meeting for officials to produce results within a month.

Fast forward 40 months to the present day, in which you can take a quick (well, not that quick) drive down any main thoroughfare in Phuket to get an instant assessment on those results, or lack thereof.

One has to wonder if Mr Chamroen  who is no longer just a deputy, but now the Phuket Governor himself  has simply forgot about his own orders in 2013?

Fair enough, hes a busy man who has had a lot on his plate, having since also been the Vice Governor of Nakhon Pathom province, on the outskirts of Bangkok.

When he returned to Phuket to begin his new tenure on September 30, 2015, and was escorted from the airport to his mansion, surely Gov Chamroen noticed a difference along Phuket roads, where there are arguably even more wires and billboards now  even more unsightly clutter continuing to give Phuket a bad rap.

But more meetings in which more empty vows and promises are made for the local press to regurgitate is not what is needed.

No, we need results, real ones, please.
By PTI: Srinagar, Jul 2 (PTI) Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Jammu and Kashmir Governor N N Vohra today joined a group of devotees to offer prayers at the cave shrine of Amarnath in south Kashmir Himalayas, marking the beginning of the annual pilgrimage.

The Governor, who is also Chairman of Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board (SASB) which manages the 48-day-long pilgrimage, participated in Pratham Puja and paid obeisance at the 3,880-metre high cave shrine housing the naturally-formed ice-shivlingam, officials said.

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The Home Minister was among the first devotees to pay obeisance at the shrine. Singh had visited the Amarnath shrine on the first day of the pilgrimage last year as well.

Singh arrived here yesterday and reviewed the security situation at a high-level meeting in view of the recent spurt in militant attacks in the Valley.

The security for the pilgrimage, which is being held in the shadow of recent terror attacks in the state, was also discussed in detail at the meeting.

Amid a multi-tier security ring, comprising police, CRPF, BSF and Army, the yatra commenced from the twin routes - 42-km traditional Pahalgam route in Anantnag district in south Kashmir and shorter 12-km Baltal route in Ganderbal district of central Kashmir - as per schedule this morning.

The Baltal route is preferred by pilgrims who want to complete the yatra in a days time.

As many as 12,576 pilgrims left the base camps at Nunwan along Pahalgam route and Baltal in the wee hours today chanting religious slogans and by noon, 2,430 pilgrims offered their prayers to the Shivlingam at the cave shrine, the officials said.

They said while 7,486 pilgrims, including 1,130 women, 71 children and 18 sadhus, left Baltal before dawn, the first batch comprising 5,090 pilgrims including dozens of sadhus left Nunwan to offer their prayers at the cave shrine.

The authorities have made unprecedented security arrangements to foil any bid to sabotage the yatra and to ensure peaceful pilgrimage, the officials said.

They said special rescue teams have also been deployed at vulnerable spots along the tracks to meet any eventuality.

Meanwhile, a 53-year-old pilgrim from Delhi was found dead inside a camp at Dumail in Baltal area this morning.

The pilgrim, Vinod Kumar, had reached the Baltal base camp yesterday to join the first batch of pilgrims to offer prayers at the cave shrine but had apparently suffered heart attack and died, the officials said.

The yatra is scheduled to end on August 18, coinciding with Shravan Purnima and Raksha Bandhan festivals. PTI MIJ SMN

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By PTI: Mumbai, Jul 3 (PTI) Capital markets regulator Sebi has reshuffled the work allocation among its top officials, including for key departments like investigations and Special Enforcement Cell, following the exit of its veteran Whole Time Member Prashant Saran.

Saran, who demitted office late last month after a seven-year tenure, was handling some key units at the regulatory body such as Corporation Finance Department, Investigations Department, Special Enforcement Cell, Office of Investor Assistance and Education, Department of Economic and Policy Analysis and the Human Resources Development Division.

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As the government is yet to appoint the third person in place of Saran, the regulator has re-allocated the divisions that he used to supervise among the two existing Whole Time Members -- Rajeev Kumar Agarwal and S Raman.

The Corporation Finance Department, the Investigations Department and Special Enforcement Cell have been given to Raman, while the Department of Economic and Policy Analysis has gone to Agarwal.

The Office of Investor Assistance and Education would also now be handled by Raman.

Other divisions under Raman include Collective Investment Schemes (CIS), Enquiries and Adjudication Department, Office of International Affairs, Information Technology Department and the Enforcement Department.

The units under Agarwal include departments relating to investment management, Foreign Portfolio Investors and Custodians, market regulation, market intermediaries regulation and Supervision Department, as also legal affairs.

Besides, Agarwal also supervises the Integrated Surveillance Department, Commodity Derivatives Market Regulation Department, as also the Regional Offices (ROs) and National Institute of Securities Markets (NISM).

The Whole Time Members are assisted by Executive Directors and other officials at Sebi.

One more position of Whole Time Member is scheduled to fall vacant this year, while there is place for one more independent director as well on the board of Sebi, headed by Chairman U K Sinha.

Saran, who demitted office on attainment of 65 years of age on June 23, contributed significantly during his tenure in framing some major norms including on corporate governance, minimum public shareholding and primary market reforms.

He also passed a number of high-profile orders including those on the Pearl Group case and an order against more than 100 companies just a day after they failed to meet 25 per cent minimum public shareholding within the given timeline.

He was with Sebi as its Whole Time Member since 2009 and had served as Chief General Manager at RBI before joining the capital markets regulator.

At Sebi, he has also been known for his contribution to areas like primary market reforms, investor education and in improving the investor grievance redressal mechanism. PTI BJ ABM

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By India Today Web Desk: Sunny Leone, who was last seen in One Night Stand, is fond of traveling and this is the third time the Jism 2 actor has lost her luggage. Leone was holidaying in Los Angeles and while coming to Mumbai she lost her luggage.

ALSO READ: Sunny Leone very excited about film with Arbaaz Khan

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ALSO READ: Want Sunny Leone in a film? Make sure there's no kissing involved!

Sunny told Deccan Chronicle, "Losing your luggage is very disappointing and of course inconvenient. It had clothes and some money. I am thankful that the staff at the Mumbai airport helped me in tracing it. I will have my luggage with me within a few days."

The report also stated that Sachin Tendulkar who was in the same flight also lost his luggage.

On the work front, Sunny Leone will next be seen in Beiimaan Love. The makers of Beiimaan Love have released the official trailer of the film. Directed by Rajeev Chaudhari, Beiimaan Love is set to hit the screens on August 19 this year. Here's the trailer:

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By PTI: Kochi, Jul 3 (PTI) The Syro-Malabar Church, an influential Catholic community, today supported the BJP-led Centres proposed move to implement Uniform Civil Code, saying such a system would help strengthen the nation and unity among the people.

The minority community made clear its stand on the controversial issue amid a debate in the country over the Modi government asking the Law Commission to examine the issue that is dear to the BJP and the sangh parivar.

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Welcoming the governments initiative, the head of Syro Malabar Catholic Church, Cardinal George Alencherry, here said, "the uniform civil code would be useful for strengthening the unity of the country and its people."

However, he hoped that while formulating the code, the authorities concerned would consider laws based on traditions and conventions.

The Union government had last week asked the Law Commission to examine the issue of the implementation of Uniform Civil Code.

The Department of Legal Affairs had asked the Commission, a recommendatory body, to submit a report on the issue.

The move assumes significance as the Supreme Court had recently said it would prefer a wider debate, in public as well as in court, before taking a decision on the constitutional validity of triple talaq, which many complain is abused by Muslim men to arbitrarily divorce their wives.

Implementation of a common civil code is part of the BJPs election manifesto.

But the NDA, when it came to power in 1998 and 1999 and now under Narendra Modi, has kept the contentious issues, including the UCC, on the backburner.

BJP has batted for a uniform civil code and said it has been opposed due to vote bank politics despite finding a mention in the Constitution. PTI TGB APR KIS

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Montreal, CA (H4T1V6)

Today

Rain showers early, then sunny by the afternoon. Morning high of 61F with temps falling to near 45. Winds WNW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Mainly clear skies. Low 33F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph.
By Shashank Shekhar: A student of class XII has raised Rs 3 lakh for the treatment of a 30-year-old peritoneal cancer patient and is on a mission to raise funds for the needy through her medical start-up. Anisha Soin (16) is a science student of Shri Ram School, Aravali, in Gurugram, and has founded a medical start-up -www.vcanhelp.com - for a social cause.

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The barely nine-month-old start-up has successfully arranged over Rs 4.50 lakh for three international patients for their medical treatment. Along with it, she is bearing medical cost of half-a-dozen local patients.

THE BEGINNING

"This idea to start a medical start-up through crowd funding came last year. I accompanied my mother to a leading private hospital when I noticed a woman selling her utensils. When I enquired I found that her five-year-old grandson was undergoing treatment for which she had already sold her house and other valuables. This triggered the idea of helping needy by raising money for them," said Soin, who added that before the incident she used to remain glued to social networking sites and chats. The website was designed by Soin and she started getting in touch with doctors of leading hospital to get the details of the patients.

"We only feature those who are verified by the doctors and are in actual need of money. For authenticity each patients are physically verified and a proper video is made describing about the disease and their financial requirement which is again verified by the hospital and doctor," she said.

She also managed to raise a fund of Rs 90,000 for a two-and half-year-old Kenyan patient Mikkel. He was undergoing neuroblastoma treatment at the Fortis hospital.

"We got very encouraging response from our limited donors and managed to arrange money for his treatment which we gave it to his mother who travelled to India with him. But unfortunately he could not survive long and recently passed away," Soin said.

Similarly, her organisation funded Rs 60,000 for another international patient from Sudan. "Menar is just 18-month-old and had a congenital heart defect. Her father was a labourer who couldn't pay for her treatment but brought her to Artemis hospital for treatment," she said.

GOING TO THE GRASSROOTS LEVEL

The organisation has not only helped international patients but has stated working at grassroots level by organising free diabetes prevention camps. "My husband Manohar Lal (45) is diabetic and could not work. I have to run the entire house with my Rs 5,000 salary. I came in touch with the organisation. Now, it is paying for the medical expenses for my husband's medicine. It has brought great relief to us," Sheela, a housemaid, told Mail Today.

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Soin has been managing website and arranging funds single handedly from the little time she can spare from her studies but claims that she aims to reach out to maximum people by increasing their donors' base. "I want to expand by helping as many people I can. I also aim to start a micro-financing institution to arrange money for patients. At the moment I will approach the parents of my school friends to extend their help from the patients," she said.

Also read: Can coffee cause cancer? Only if it's very hot, say WHO scientists





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The jihadists who slaughtered 20 hostages at a Dhaka restaurant were members of a homegrown Bangladeshi militant outfit and not followers of the Islamic State group, a senior minister said Sunday.

"They are members of the Jamaeytul Mujahdeen Bangladesh," Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told AFP, referring to a group which has been banned in Bangladesh for more than a decade.

"They have no connections with the Islamic State."

Announcing a two-day state mourning for those killed in the worst terror attack in the country, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina vowed to do everything to eliminate terrorists from the country and asked extremists to stop killing in the name of religion.

She asked all, including the general public, to get united to resist a "handful of terrorists".

Twenty hostages, including 19-year-old Indian girl Tarushi Jain, were hacked to death by terrorists inside the cafe popular with expats in the diplomatic zone before commandos launched an assault killing six attackers and capturing one alive.

Most of those killed were found with their throats slit.

Of the 20 hostages slain 9 were Italian, 7 Japanese, one American of Bangladeshi origin, and two were locals, the army said.

Among those rescued were Indian, Sri Lankan and Japanese nationals, media reports said. Around 30 people were injured.

Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack through its Amaq news agency, nearly four hours after the hostage crisis unfolded.
The US and Japan have offered assistance to Bangladesh in its efforts to track down the perpetrators of the terror attack at an eatery in Dhaka as the brazen assault was globally condemned in one voice.

Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe called his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina while Japan's junior foreign minister Seiji Kihara on Sunday called on her and said Tokyo would join hands with the Bangladeshi government in fighting terrorism.

Hasina has vowed to track down the perpetrators of the attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's Gulshan diplomatic zone.

"The Japanese premier talked to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina over phone (last) morning," Prime Minister's Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim told BSS new agency.

Abe lauded the prompt steps taken by the government to tackle the situation and reaffirmed Japan's support to Bangladesh.

The United States Saturday offered assistance in efforts to track down the culprits and reiterated support for Bangladesh Premier's commitment to combat violent extremism.

"We remain in close contact with the government of Bangladesh and have offered our assistance in their efforts to bring to justice those responsible for these attacks," State Department spokesman John Kirby said.

Acting British High Commissioner in Dhaka Alison Blake Sunday called the attack a "senseless act of terror against innocent people living and working in Bangladesh".

Russia denounced the terror attack, saying, "what happened in Dhaka once again proves that it is necessary to immediately combine efforts of all the global community to fight international terrorism".

"We are indignant at this yet another inhumane terrorist attack, which has no justification," Information and Press Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation said in a statement.

Canadian High Commissioner in Dhaka Benot-Pierre Larame Sunday said his government expressed its deepest sympathies to the loved ones of the victims.

In another statement, Canadian foreign minister Stephane Dion said Canada stands with the Bangladeshi people in the face of this act of terror and reaffirmed its commitment to fight terrorism.

The European Union (EU) also strongly denounced the killings.

"I condemn in the strongest terms the brutal attack in Dhaka, which cost the lives of several Italians, Japanese, Bangladeshi and other foreign nationals. I extend my condolences to the families and relatives of all the victims," President of European Council Donald Tusk said in a statement.

France also expressed "solidarity" with Bangladesh with its foreign office issuing a statement that said, "terrorism is a global scourge. France is determined to strengthen international cooperation to combat terrorism everywhere".

Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay condemned the attack on Saturday. Australia had also denounced the terrorist attack.
Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, the Romanian-born Holocaust survivor whose classic Night became a landmark testament to the Nazis crimes and launched Wiesels long career as one of the worlds foremost witnesses and humanitarians, has died at age 87.

His death was announced Saturday by Israels Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. No other details were immediately available.

The short, sad-eyed Wiesel, his face an ongoing reminder of one mans endurance of a shattering past, summed up his mission in 1986 when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize: Whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation, take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

President Barack Obama said of Wiesel on Saturday, As a writer, a speaker, an activist, and a thinker, he was one of those people who changed the world more as a citizen of the world than those who hold office or traditional positions of power. His life, and the power of his example, urges us to be better.

For more than a half-century, Wiesel voiced his passionate beliefs to world leaders, celebrities and general audiences in the name of victims of violence and oppression. He wrote more than 40 books, but his most influential by far was Night, a classic ranked with Anne Franks diary as standard reading about the Holocaust.

Night was his first book, and its journey to publication crossed both time and language. It began in the mid-1950s as an 800-page story in Yiddish, was trimmed to under 300 pages for an edition released in Argentina, cut again to under 200 pages for the French market and finally published in the United States, in 1960, at just over 100 pages.

Night is the most devastating account of the Holocaust that I have ever read, wrote Ruth Franklin, a literary critic and author of A Thousand Darknesses, a study of Holocaust literature that was published in 2010.

There are no epiphanies in Night. There is no extraneous detail, no analysis, no speculation. There is only a story: Eliezers account of what happened, spoken in his voice.

Wiesel began working on Night just a decade after the end of World War II, when memories were too raw for many survivors to even try telling their stories. Franks diary had been an accidental success, a book discovered after her death, and its entries end before Frank and her family was captured and deported. Wiesels book was among the first popular accounts written by a witness to the very worst, and it documented what Frank could hardly have imagined.

Night was so bleak that publishers doubted it would appeal to readers. In a 2002 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Wiesel recalled that the book attracted little notice at first. The English translation came out in 1960, and the first printing was 3,000 copies. And it took three years to sell them. Now, I get 100 letters a month from children about the book. And there are many, many million copies in print.

In one especially haunting passage, Wiesel sums up his feelings upon arrival in Auschwitz:

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.  Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.

Night was based directly on his experiences, but structured like a novel, leading to an ongoing debate over how to categorize it. Alfred Kazin was among the critics who expressed early doubts about the books accuracy, doubts that Wiesel denounced as a mortal sin in the historical sense. Wiesels publisher called the book a memoir even as some reviewers called it fiction. An Amazon editorial review labeled the book technically a novel, albeit so close to Wiesels life that its generally  and not inaccurately  read as an autobiography.

In 2006, a new translation returned Night to the best-seller lists after it was selected for Oprah Winfreys book club. But the choice also revived questions about how to categorize the book. Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com, both of which had listed Night as fiction, switched it to nonfiction. Wiesel, meanwhile, acknowledged in a new introduction that he had changed the narrators age from not quite 15 to Wiesels real age at the time, 15.

Unfortunately, Night is an imperfect ambassador for the infallibility of the memoir, Franklin wrote, owing to the fact that it has been treated very often as a novel.

Wiesels prolific stream of speeches, essays and books, including two sequels to Night and more than 40 books overall of fiction and nonfiction, emerged from the helplessness of a teenager deported from Hungary, which had annexed his native Romanian town of Sighet, to Auschwitz. Tattooed with the number A-7713, he was freed in 1945  but only after his mother, father and one sister had all died in Nazi camps. Two other sisters survived.

After the liberation of Buchenwald, in April 1945, Wiesel spent a few years in a French orphanage, then landed in Paris. He studied literature and philosophy at the Sorbonne, and then became a journalist, writing for the French newspaper LArche and Israels Yediot Ahronot.

French author Francois Mauriac, winner of the 1952 Nobel in literature, encouraged Wiesel to break his vowed silence about the concentration camps and start sharing his experiences.

In 1956, Wiesel traveled on a journalistic assignment to New York to cover the United Nations. While there, he was struck by a car and confined to a wheelchair for a year. He became a lifetime New Yorker, continuing in journalism writing for the Yiddish-language newspaper, the Forward. His contact with the citys many Holocaust survivors shored up Wiesels resolve to keep telling their stories.

Wiesel became a U.S. citizen in 1963. Six years later, he married Marion Rose, a fellow Holocaust survivor who translated some of his books into English. They had a son, Shlomo. Based in New York, Wiesel commuted to Boston University for almost three decades, teaching philosophy, literature and Judaic studies and giving a popular lecture series in the fall.

Wiesel also taught at Yale University and the City University of New York.

In 1978, he was chosen by President Carter to head the Presidents Commission on the Holocaust, and plan an American memorial museum to Holocaust victims. Wiesel wrote in a report to the president that the museum must include denying the Nazis a posthumous victory, honoring the victims last wishes to tell their stories. He said that although all the victims of the Holocaust were not Jewish, all Jews were victims. Wiesel advocated that the museum emphasize the annihilation of the Jews, while still remembering the others; today the exhibits and archives reflects that.

Among his most memorable spoken words came in 1985, when he received a Congressional Gold Medal from President Ronald Reagan and asked the president not to make a planned trip to a cemetery in Germany that contained graves of Adolf Hitlers personal guards.

We have met four or five times, and each time I came away enriched, for I know of your commitment to humanity, Wiesel said, as Reagan looked on. May I, Mr. President, if its possible at all, implore you to do something else, to find a way, to find another way, another site. That place, Mr. President, is not your place. Your place is with the victims.

Reagan visited the cemetery, in Bitburg, despite international protests.

Wiesel also spoke at the dedication of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington in 1993. His words are now carved in stone at its entrance: For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.

Wiesel defended Soviet Jews, Nicaraguas Miskito Indians, Cambodian refugees, the Kurds, victims of African famine and victims of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Wiesel was a longtime supporter of Israel although he was criticized at times for his closeness to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu. When Netanhayu gave a highly controversial address to Congress in 2015, denouncing President Obamas efforts to reach a nuclear treaty with Iran, Wiesel was among the guests of honor.

What were you doing there, Elie Wiesel? Haaretz columnist Roger Alpher wrote at the time. Netanyahu is my prime minister. You are not an Israeli citizen. You do not live here. The Iranian threat to destroy Israel does not apply to you. You are a Jew who lives in America. This is not your problem.

The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, which he established in 1988, explored the problems of hatred and ethnic conflicts around the world. But like a number of other well-known charities in the Jewish community, the foundation fell victim to Bernard Madoff, the financier who was arrested in late 2008 and accused of running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

Wiesel said he ended up losing $15.2 million in foundation funds, plus his and his wifes own personal investments. At a panel discussion in February 2009, Wiesel admitted he bought into the Madoff mystique, a myth that he created around him that everything was so special, so unique, that it had to be secret. He called Madoff a crook, a thief, a scoundrel.

Despite Wiesels mission to remind the world of past mistakes, the greatest disappointment of his life was that nothing changed, he said in an interview.

Human nature remained what it was. Society remained what it was. Too much indifference in the world, to the Other, his pain, and anguish, and hope.

But personally, he never gave up  as reflected in his novel The Town Beyond the Wall.

Wiesels Jewish protagonist, Michael, returns to his native town in now-communist Hungary to find out why his neighbors had given him up to the Nazis. Suspected as a Western spy, he lands in prison along with a young man whose insanity has left him catatonic.

The protagonist takes on the challenge of awakening the youth by any means, from talking to forcing his mouth open  a task as wrenching as Wiesels humanitarian missions.

The day when the boy suddenly began sketching arabesques in the air was one of the happiest of Michaels life.  Now he talked more, as if wishing to store ideas and values in the boy for his moments of awakening. Michael compared himself to a farmer: months separated the planting from the harvest. For the moment, he was planting.

(AP)
Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Shabbos evening visited the site of the fatal Erev Shabbos shooting attack, near Yishuv Otniel in the Southern Hebron Hills area. Lieberman was accompanied by IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Major-General Yair Golan, Central District Commander Major-General Roni Numa and other commanders.

Lieberman explained the first item on the agenda is to apprehend the terror cell which perpetrated the attack. He explained that deterrent measures have been taken that were not implemented for a long time towards preventing additional attacks. The IDF is maintaining a ring around many PA (Palestinian Authority) villages in the Southern Hebron Hills area, making arrests and monitoring the activities of residents. The security ring impacts 700,000 PA residents.

In addition, permits were granted for 42 additional apartments in Kiryat Arba, which Lieberman explains tells terrorists that all they will accomplish with terror is a strong Jewish presence in the area.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu following the attack announced that monies paid by the PA to families of terrorists will be removed from the Israeli-collected PA tax funds prior to the money being released to the PA.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
The chairwoman of the Delta County Republican Party who was accused of favoritism and posting a racist meme on her Facebook page has resigned.

Party officials were upset after a photo compared President Barack Obama to a chimpanzee appeared on Linda Sorenson web page, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reported.

Sorenson stepped down after an accountability meeting was convened by the countys Republican Central Committee investigating the allegations. She announced her decision to resign in an email to supporters.

The committee was investigating allegations that Sorenson and others made that her Facebook page was hacked and whether she violated party rules by endorsing a primary candidate.

Sorenson said her Facebook page was hacked, but Colorado Party Chairman Steve House said that was not the case.

And in an interview in May after the image was posted, Sorenson said she didnt care if people were offended by the image.

Don Suppes, mayor of Orchard City, who is running for the Delta County Commission, said he wasnt at the meeting, but he got the email and agreed with the decision.

Theres no room for racism, intended or unintended, in society, he said. Its best for the party, best for the county, that she step down.

Party members said Sorenson also urged people to vote for U.S. Senate candidate Daryl Glenn, even though six Republicans were competing for the right to challenge Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet in the June 28 Republican primaries. Glenn won the primary.

Under party rules, officials of state and local parties, including their leaders, are not allowed to endorse one primary candidate over another.

That is one of the hardest parts of that job, Suppes said. You have to stay neutral no matter how strong your feelings are one way or another. You have to stay neutral.

(AP)
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Erev Shabbos 25 Sivan ordered that the amount of money being transferred by the Palestinian Authority to terrorists and their families be deducted immediately; this is in addition to action on the ground by the IDF and the security forces.

The Palestinian Authority transfers funds to terrorists by various laundering methods; the more severe the acts of terrorism, the greater the amount of funds. Prime Minister Netanyahu has ordered that the entire amount of support for terrorists and their families be deducted from the tax revenues that Israel transfers monthly to the Palestinian Authority.

Israel believes that the encouragement of terrorism by the Palestinian leadership  in the form of both incitement and payments to terrorists and their families  constitutes incentive for murder.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
By India Today Web Desk: Mihika Varma who played the eponymous character of Divyanka's younger sister in the popular TV series, Yeh Hai Mohabbatein, recently quit the show to get married.

Mihika who is married to a US-based NRI businessman has moved to New York and left millions of her fans heartbroken. Soon after her wedding, Mihika also shared pictures from her special day on Facebook, and we were amazed at how beautiful she looked as a bride.

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Also read: Yeh Hai Mohabbatein actress Mihika Verma ties the knot!

But recently, we also got an insight into her wedding celebration has well.

Mihika's brother Mishkat, who is also a TV actor, has uploaded a small clip from her wedding featuring himself, Mihika and her husband.

The video gives us a glimpse of Mihika's fairytale wedding. With bright lights, flowers, candles, music and dance, the TV actress can be seen smiling and dancing.

The video opens with Mishkant talking about his sister and admitting that he wished his girlfriends could be like her--talented, beautiful and intelligent.

Also read: This actress has replaced Mihika Verma in Yeh Hai Mohabbatein

And later in the video, it turns out that Mihika's biggest fan is none other than her husband!

Watch the video here.

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Residents of Geulat Tzion, a hilltop community near Shvut Rachel, report that the police and the Shin Bet have been harassing them on a daily basis for almost two months, including carrying out raids and detentions, with the intent to stop their yeshiva from operating at the site.

The raids are conducted at all hours of the day and night, and in one instance a police officer entered a structure with his pistol drawn.

Additionally the residents report that a coordinator named Oren from the Jewish Department of the Shin Bet in charge of the Gush Shilo area has been having threatening conversations with youth in the area. Several of the youths were threatened with administrative orders banning them from entering the region if they did not stop studying on the hilltop.

Recently, late at night on Monday, June 27, Yassam police and police detective forces raided Geulat Tzion. A minor was detained, taken to the Binyamin Police Station and interrogated on suspicion of entering a closed military zone.

At the completion of the interrogation the police decided that the minor would be released, and then decided to leave him in remand at the police station until the morning, at which time he would be brought before a judge in order to determine the conditions for his release.

Jerusalem Magistrate Court Judge David Shaul Gabai Richter, who presided over the case, censured the police, ruled that the minor had unnecessarily remained in remand overnight, and unconditionally released him. The petitioners handling of the case was completely unacceptable and rife with deficiencies, wrote Judge Gabai Richter. The defendant unnecessarily spent a night in remand when the petitioner knew that he intended to release him. In this situation there was no justification for remand and the aforementioned practice is in violation of the Arrests Law and the Basic Law of Human Dignity and Liberty, ruled the judge.

Also in his decision Judge Gabai Richter ruled that the conditions under which the minor had been held overnight at the police station, not at a detention center, were also not in accordance with the law: The defendant was unnecessarily left at the police station in violation of his rights as a detainee.

Judge Gabai Richter ordered the unconditional release of the minor and rejected the police demand to delay carrying out the decision: The violations [of a detainees rights] are violations of the basic rights of the defendant, who is a minor. This fact lends particular severity to the aforementioned violations, and given that, I order the unconditional release of the minor.

Honenu Attorney David HaLevi, who represented the minor, stated that, The decision of the court speaks for itself. The police would do well to learn the requisite lessons, and the sooner, the better.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
The frail, dapper man who sometimes greeted reporters in his Madison Avenue office spoke in an almost hushed voice, but with urgency, his hands gesturing gently for emphasis. Elie Wiesels smile was wry, diffident, a thin facade over the sadness imprinted in the weary eyes and deep creases of a face that mirrored his brutal past.

The Auschwitz survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has died at age 87, was an ongoing reminder of one mans endurance of the Nazi Holocaust. His words, destined to last far into the future, are a testament to some of the most unfathomable atrocities in recorded history.

Whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation, take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented, he said in 1986, upon accepting the Nobel.

Wiesels death was announced Saturday by Israels Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. No other details were immediately available.

The state of Israel and the Jewish people bitterly mourn the death of Elie Wiesel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. Elie, a master of words, expressed in his unique personality and fascinating books the victory of human spirit over cruelty and evil.

One of the worlds foremost witnesses and humanitarians, Wiesel for more than a half-century voiced his passionate beliefs to world leaders, celebrities and general audiences in the name of victims of violence and oppression. He wrote more than 40 books, but his most influential by far was Night, a classic ranked with Anne Franks diary as standard reading about the Holocaust.

Night was his first book, and its journey to publication crossed both time and language. It began in the mid-1950s as an 800-page story in Yiddish, was trimmed to under 300 pages for an edition released in Argentina, cut again to under 200 pages for the French market and finally published in the United States, in 1960, at just over 100 pages.

Night is the most devastating account of the Holocaust that I have ever read, wrote Ruth Franklin, a literary critic and author of A Thousand Darknesses, a study of Holocaust literature that was published in 2010.

There are no epiphanies in Night. There is no extraneous detail, no analysis, no speculation. There is only a story: Eliezers account of what happened, spoken in his voice.

Wiesel began working on Night just a decade after the end of World War II, when memories were too raw for many survivors to even try telling their stories. Franks diary had been an accidental success, a book discovered after her death, and its entries end before Frank and her family was captured and deported. Wiesels book was among the first popular accounts written by a witness to the very worst, and it documented what Frank could hardly have imagined.

Night was so bleak that publishers doubted it would appeal to readers. In a 2002 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Wiesel recalled that the book attracted little notice at first. The English translation came out in 1960, and the first printing was 3,000 copies. And it took three years to sell them. Now, I get 100 letters a month from children about the book. And there are many, many million copies in print.

In one especially haunting passage, Wiesel sums up his feelings upon arrival in Auschwitz:

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.  Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.

Night was based directly on his experiences, but structured like a novel, leading to an ongoing debate over how to categorize it. Alfred Kazin was among the critics who expressed early doubts about the books accuracy, doubts that Wiesel denounced as a mortal sin in the historical sense. Wiesels publisher called the book a memoir even as some reviewers called it fiction. An Amazon editorial review labeled the book technically a novel, albeit so close to Wiesels life that its generally  and not inaccurately  read as an autobiography.

In 2006, a new translation returned Night to the best-seller lists after it was selected for Oprah Winfreys book club. But the choice also revived questions about how to categorize the book. Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com, both of which had listed Night as fiction, switched it to nonfiction. Wiesel, meanwhile, acknowledged in a new introduction that he had changed the narrators age from not quite 15 to Wiesels real age at the time, 15.

Unfortunately, Night is an imperfect ambassador for the infallibility of the memoir, Franklin wrote, owing to the fact that it has been treated very often as a novel.

Wiesels prolific stream of speeches, essays and books, including two sequels to Night and more than 40 books overall of fiction and nonfiction, emerged from the helplessness of a teenager deported from Hungary, which had annexed his native Romanian town of Sighet, to Auschwitz. Tattooed with the number A-7713, he was freed in 1945  but only after his mother, father and one sister had all died in Nazi camps. Two other sisters survived.

After the liberation of Buchenwald, in April 1945, Wiesel spent a few years in a French orphanage, then landed in Paris. He studied literature and philosophy at the Sorbonne, and then became a journalist, writing for the French newspaper LArche and Israels Yediot Ahronot.

French author Francois Mauriac, winner of the 1952 Nobel in literature, encouraged Wiesel to break his vowed silence about the concentration camps and start sharing his experiences.

In 1956, Wiesel traveled on a journalistic assignment to New York to cover the United Nations. While there, he was struck by a car and confined to a wheelchair for a year. He became a lifetime New Yorker, continuing in journalism writing for the Yiddish-language newspaper, the Forward. His contact with the citys many Holocaust survivors shored up Wiesels resolve to keep telling their stories.

Wiesel became a U.S. citizen in 1963. Six years later, he married Marion Rose, a fellow Holocaust survivor who translated some of his books into English. They had a son, Shlomo. Based in New York, Wiesel commuted to Boston University for almost three decades, teaching philosophy, literature and Judaic studies and giving a popular lecture series in the fall.

Wiesel also taught at Yale University and the City University of New York.

In 1978, he was chosen by President Carter to head the Presidents Commission on the Holocaust, and plan an American memorial museum to Holocaust victims. Wiesel wrote in a report to the president that the museum must include denying the Nazis a posthumous victory, honoring the victims last wishes to tell their stories. He said that although all the victims of the Holocaust were not Jewish, all Jews were victims. Wiesel advocated that the museum emphasize the annihilation of the Jews, while still remembering the others; today the exhibits and archives reflects that.

Among his most memorable spoken words came in 1985, when he received a Congressional Gold Medal from President Ronald Reagan and asked the president not to make a planned trip to a cemetery in Germany that contained graves of Adolf Hitlers personal guards.

We have met four or five times, and each time I came away enriched, for I know of your commitment to humanity, Wiesel said, as Reagan looked on. May I, Mr. President, if its possible at all, implore you to do something else, to find a way, to find another way, another site. That place, Mr. President, is not your place. Your place is with the victims.

Reagan visited the cemetery, in Bitburg, despite international protests.

Wiesel also spoke at the dedication of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington in 1993. His words are now carved in stone at its entrance: For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.

Wiesel defended Soviet Jews, Nicaraguas Miskito Indians, Cambodian refugees, the Kurds, victims of African famine and victims of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Wiesel was a longtime supporter of Israel although he was criticized at times for his closeness to Netanhayu. When Netanhayu gave a highly controversial address to Congress in 2015, denouncing President Obamas efforts to reach a nuclear treaty with Iran, Wiesel was among the guests of honor.

What were you doing there, Elie Wiesel? Haaretz columnist Roger Alpher wrote at the time. Netanyahu is my prime minister. You are not an Israeli citizen. You do not live here. The Iranian threat to destroy Israel does not apply to you. You are a Jew who lives in America. This is not your problem.

The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, which he established in 1988, explored the problems of hatred and ethnic conflicts around the world. But like a number of other well-known charities in the Jewish community, the foundation fell victim to Bernard Madoff, the financier who was arrested in late 2008 and accused of running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

Wiesel said he ended up losing $15.2 million in foundation funds, plus his and his wifes own personal investments. At a panel discussion in February 2009, Wiesel admitted he bought into the Madoff mystique, a myth that he created around him that everything was so special, so unique, that it had to be secret. He called Madoff a crook, a thief, a scoundrel.

Despite Wiesels mission to remind the world of past mistakes, the greatest disappointment of his life was that nothing changed, he said in an interview.

Human nature remained what it was. Society remained what it was. Too much indifference in the world, to the Other, his pain, and anguish, and hope.

But personally, he never gave up  as reflected in his novel The Town Beyond the Wall.

Wiesels Jewish protagonist, Michael, returns to his native town in now-communist Hungary to find out why his neighbors had given him up to the Nazis. Suspected as a Western spy, he lands in prison along with a young man whose insanity has left him catatonic.

The protagonist takes on the challenge of awakening the youth by any means, from talking to forcing his mouth open  a task as wrenching as Wiesels humanitarian missions.

The day when the boy suddenly began sketching arabesques in the air was one of the happiest of Michaels life.  Now he talked more, as if wishing to store ideas and values in the boy for his moments of awakening. Michael compared himself to a farmer: months separated the planting from the harvest. For the moment, he was planting.

(AP)
After the release of the latest Arab incitement video, clearly threatening the life of MK Yehuda Glick, additional security has been placed on him.

The animated video shows Palestinian terrorists entering Yishuv Otniel, where Glick lives, shooting him down in cold blood when he leaves his vehicle in front of his home. The video is entitled Yehuda Glick you are next in line.

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, who is responsible for overseeing security for elected officials, met with the Chief of the Knesset Guard, Commander Yosef Griff, and the decision was made to take additional measures to protect the MK. Glick was already viewed as a high target and has had an around-the-clock security detail and escort when driving to and from home.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
EDFS workers committee is expected to demand today that a nuclear power plant at Hinkley, Somerset, is delayed.

The energy firm has yet to make a decision on how to raise 18bn of funds needed for the power station, and has put off deciding until September to allow time to consult the unions.

In the balance: Three unions issued a statement saying that the Brexit vote added new elements of uncertainty to the Hinkley Point project

The unions are obliged to deliver their opinion today on whether Hinkley should go ahead. But three of them issued a statement last week to say that Britains vote to leave the European Union added new elements of uncertainty.

It follows a legal action launched earlier this month in French courts by EDFs Works Council, who asked for the project to be put off.
The United States has reiterated its commitment towards fighting ISIS after the devastating bombings in Baghdad.

By Reuters: The White House on Sunday condemned Baghdad bombings in which nearly 120 people were killed and 200 wounded, saying the attack only strengthened the United States' resolve to confront ISIS.

"We remain united with the Iraqi people and government in our combined efforts to destroy ISIL," said the White House statement referring to the Islamic State.

There were two bombings in two bombings overnight in Baghdad in a busy shopping area as residents celebrated Ramadan.

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The attack is the deadliest since U.S.-backed Iraqi forces last month scored a major victory when it dislodged Islamic State from their stronghold of Falluja, an hour's drive west of the capital. It is also the deadliest so far this year.

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--- ENDS ---
Bail bondsman Maxie Green back in jail on high bond

A local bail bondsman has been in and out of jail himself and was back behind bars Wednesday.
Jim Monkres, Wichita Falls Utilities supervisor I, Water Distribution, assembles a cutout display of the new automated metering infrastructure water meter. The meters can be installed at a rate of about 200 per day, taking about 20 minutes each to install. Claire Kowalick/Times Record News

SHARE Claire Kowalick/Times Record News Wichita Falls Utilities Supervisor I, Water Distribution, Jim Monkres shows the inner-workings of a Sensus iPerl "smart" water meter. The city will be replacing 34,000 water meters with this new technology. Claire Kowalick/Times Record News Wichita Falls Utilities Supervisor I, Water Distribution, Jim Monkres shows the radio transmitter portion of a Sensus iPerl "smart" water meter. The city will be replacing 34,000 water meters along with new lids that will be outfitted with the new technology.

By Claire Kowalick, claire.kowalick@timesrecordnews.com

The city of Wichita Falls is about the take the plunge into the future of municipal water meters.

This month the city will start replacing residential water meters with state-of-the-art automated meters. These new meters are part of a system called an automated metering infrastructure (AMI). Over the next nine to 12 months, a private contractor hired by the city will replace 34,000 meters. The new meters, sometimes called smart meters, will transmit water usage information directly to the billing office, without the need for manual meter reading.

The process began back in February 2015, when the city contracted with consulting group Energy Service Co. to see if the city was a good fit for an AMI system. ESC concluded the city would indeed benefit from the switch. In February the City Council approved a service contract with Ameresco for $15,884,487. At that time they also approved an agreement with Bank of America to coordinate a financing plan of about $1 million annually for the project.

Residents will receive a postcard by mail about a month before their meter installation date. The card will provide information about possible service outage times and contact information to arrange a scheduled appointment if special arrangements are needed for an inaccessible meter. Breaks in water service should be minimal as staff said a meter can be removed and replaced with a new one in a matter of minutes.

In October, the water billing department switched to a letter-sized water bill as opposed to the old postcard-sized one. Once the new meters are installed, customers can expect more-detailed reports of their water usage to be included on their bills as well as access to a web portal to view their personal water usage up to hourly.

Benefits of the new system include: elimination of estimated water meter readings, meter accessibility issues and an expected reduction in billing errors. The new meters are sturdier than the old ones which may reduce failure rates and result in fewer customer service issues.

An AMI system reduces overall operational and maintenance costs, and the longer-lasting meters reduce yearly meter replacement costs.

The new AMI meters have a 20-year warranty, as opposed to a 10-year expected life span on the older models.

Access to real-time water-usage information through the web portal allows city staff and customers more detailed and accurate information about usage.

Deputy City Manager Jim Dockery said the first stage of the project including installation of relay towers and equipment in the billing office is complete. Installation of meters at residences should begin in mid-July. Through savings in operational costs and additional revenue from more accurate meter readings, Dockery said the project will pay for itself over the 20-year warranty period.

Upon completion of the system, water consumption data will be relayed to the billing office every six hours. Water usage can be broken down from that data into hourly increments. City staff said more information about the customer web portal and the system will be available once the AMI system is fully operational.
Claire Kowalick/Times Record News Italian air force Col. Paulo Baldasso speaks Wednesday about his time at Sheppard Air Force Base. He was the first Italian 80th Operations Group Commander. Baldasso will be leaving next week to become the chief of training of the department of combat air command in Rome. The incoming 80th OG commander will be German air force Col. Bernhard Hey.

SHARE Air Force File Photo Col. Paolo Baldasso, 80th Operations Group commander, prepares for a T-6 flight with 80th Flying Training Wing Commander Col. Gregory Keeton. The 80 OG provides operational support, flying training, air traffic control and evaluation of over 200 student pilots, 80 instructor pilot candidates and 150 Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals trainees annually. Air Force File Photo Col.Paolo Baldasso, 80th Operations Group commander, prepares for a T-6 flight with 80th Flying Training Wing Commander Col. Gregory Keeton. The 80 OG provides operational support, flying training, air traffic control and evaluation of over 200 student pilots, 80 instructor pilot candidates and 150 Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals trainees annually. Claire Kowalick/Times Record News Italian air force Col. Paulo Baldasso speaks Wednesday about his time at Sheppard Air Force Base. He was the first Italian 80th Operations Group Commander. Baldasso will be leaving next week to become the chief of training of the department of combat air command in Rome. The incoming 80th OG commander will be German air force Col. Bernhard Hey.

By Claire Kowalick of the Times Record News

Italian Col. Paulo Baldasso will be saying, "Ciao, y'all," after serving for three years as Sheppard Air Force Base's 80th Operations Group Commander.

After a string of German leaders, Baldasso was the first Italian to serve in this position.

The 80th OG commander is responsible for all of the flying and related operations at the base.

"Our job is to succeed in our mission  which is to be the premiere fighting pilot program in the world. To produce the best NATO fighter pilots on time," Baldasso said Wednesday.

The colonel said he was chosen in 2013, because he had the characteristics that met the Italian air force's priorities.

The 80th OG has a support staff of approximately 827 multinational personnel. Baldasso oversees four divisions and six squadrons, providing support and training for approximately 206 student pilots, 77 instructor-pilot candidates and 172 Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals course upgrade pilots each year for ENJJPT. The 80th FT performs more than 55,000 sorties (flights) in 61,000 flying hours per year.

Through ENJJPT, more than 7,100 undergraduate pilots have been trained for the NATO alliance since the Program began in 1981. The 13-partner nations include Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. Recently, Romania expressed interest in joining the ENJJPT program, but the county has not yet completed a memorandum of understanding.

"There's been pressure. To do good at the job, but also hidden pressure to do well so that Italy can benefit from it," Baldasso said.

Despite several challenges in the past few years, Baldasso said he is proudest that the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training (ENJJPT) program has continued to graduate the best pilots on time.

"There was a mishap with a T-38 when I first got here. But it turned out well because no one was injured. There's challenges with an aging team of aircraft. The weather  flooding, cold last year. T-6 maintenance issues that had them down for a few days," he said.

Though all that, the ENJJPT team overcame these obstacles and completed their mission.

This was Baldasso's third time stationed at Sheppard. He was here in 1991-1992, when he completed his own ENJJPT pilot training, graduating with the 92-06 class. He was a pilot for six years, mainly on the F-14, before returning to Sheppard as an AETC instructor pilot for the T-38A, in 1998-2001.

Baldasso and his wife have three children; the oldest daughter is 20 and graduated from the Hirschi High School IB program. Their second daughter, 16, was born in Wichita Falls. She and their son, 13, both attended Burkburnett schools.

After the change of command ceremony Wednesday, Baldasso and his family will return to Italy, where he will serve in Rome as the Italian air force chief of training for Combat Air Forces Command.

Baldasso said he feels fortunate for the wonderful opportunities and experiences in his air force career.

For military personnel new in their career, his best advice  be flexible.

"I've had some assignments that I not think I would like and then ended up crying when I had to leave. Work around whatever issues there are and you can get the best out of any situation. Be a professional. You're not going to get the same opportunities if you are not a professional. And always excel at whatever you do," Baldasso said.

The incoming 80th OG Commander will be German air force Col. Bernhard Hey, the 11th international colonel to take the position.
Lauren Roberts/Times Record News Wichita Falls police block entrances to the River Road Wastewater Treatment Plant Saturday evening. Two city workers from the plant were transported to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas in critical condition after being exposed to a gas while making routine repairs in the facility's basement. Officials said the gas was never a threat to the public.

SHARE Lauren Roberts/Times Record News hedy heyd Wichita Falls police block entrances to the River Road Wastewater Treatment Plant Saturday evening. Two city workers from the plant were transported to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas in critical condition after being exposed to a gas while making routine repairs in the facility's basement. Officials said the gas was never a threat to the public. Lauren Roberts/Times Record News Wichita Falls police block entrances to the River Road Wastewater Treatment Plant Saturday evening. Two city workers from the plant were transported to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas in critical condition after being exposed to a gas while making routine repairs in the facility's basement. Officials said the gas was never a threat to the public. Related Coverage Theories ruled out in wastewater workers deaths

By Patrick Johnston, pjohnston@gannett.com

Two city workers were flown to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas after being exposed to a gas in the basement of the River Road Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Wichita Falls Fire Department Battalion Chief Todd Mudd said the two employees were working in the basement of the facility completing a routine repair when they passed out around 5 p.m. Saturday.

WFFD turned the scene into a hazmat situation and rescued the individuals, who were taken to United Regional Health Care System in critical condition. They were taken via Air Evac to Parkland for treatment. Mudd said their current condition was unknown, but they were semi-responsive when they were rescued.

While Wichita Falls police were on scene to block traffic on nearby roads during the incident, Mudd said the gas was contained to the basement.

"The public was never in any danger," Mudd said. "The gas was contained to the area they were working in."
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Julie Young, Wichita Falls

Lack of response appalling

I was thoroughly disgusted when I heard Congressman Goudy recap the House Select Committee on Benghazi Report. Before flying off the handle, I followed his recommendation and read the Committee's report.

I am appalled by the lack of leadership from the president on down. After learning of the attacks, he told the Secretary of Defense, Mr. Panetta, to use whatever means necessary to save American lives. Mr. Panetta issued a deployment order to his military commanders who failed to execute his order in time to save two American lives.

The Department of Defense looked like the Keystone Kops and abdicated their responsibility to the State Department. Neither the president nor Mr. Panetta followed up to ensure their orders were followed and to determine the fate of the Americans under attack.

Shortly after Mr. Panneta issued his order, the Secretary of State Clinton, led a national security meeting at the White House with deputies instead of principles. As the top ranking official, Mrs. Clinton set the agenda and expected outcomes.

The concerns of Libya, an anti-Muslim video posted on YouTube, and the U.S. military fast reaction team's attire were the main topics of discussion. Mrs. Clinton completely misunderstood the deteriorating situation in Benghazi.

Without any corroborating evidence, she assumed the YouTube video demonstrations at the Cairo Embassy were occurring in Benghazi. She failed to grasp the urgency of finding a missing U.S. Ambassador and put the sensitivities of a failing Libyan government ahead of protecting American lives.

Mrs. Clinton failed as a leader. She has yet to take to responsibility for her actions. She refused to cooperate willingly with the investigations. She lied repeatedly to the American people. Her decisions cost 2 Americans their lives.

Do you want our next President to be someone who lies to you and puts the welfare of an unstable foreign government ahead of the lives of American people? I, for one, do not.

Richard Zentgraf, Wichita Falls

The unintended consequences

There is a time honored expression "United we stand, divided we fall." With the Brits leaving the E.U. others will follow. Vladimir Putin is grinning from ear to ear. The now weakened European countries will fall like dominoes to Russian adventurism and Putin will not have to fire a shot.

A repeat of WW II has begun just like Hitler running roughshod and swallowing up his neighbors. Since many of the European countries are NATO members we, the United States, are obligated to come to their aid.

God help us.
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"The United States is a Christian nation." Such an assertion would raise eyebrows, if not ire, in today's emphatically multicultural society, but in 1892, that declaration was part of the Supreme Court's ruling in Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States.

The issue before the Court was a federal statute, "The Alien Contract Labor Law," which prohibited importing immigrants for the purposes of employment. When an Episcopalian Church in New York City invited an English priest to serve as its rector, a summons was issued. But the Court ruled that Congress did not intend the law to apply in that situation, regardless of the clear language of the text. Justice David J. Brewer cited numerous examples of commonplace and historical religious practice, including the religious motivation of the Puritans and Pilgrims, the official oaths sealed with "so help me God," the businesses closed on Sunday, and the monumental work done by Christian charities. "These," Justice Brewer wrote, "and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation  We are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply engrafted upon Christianity." He also added, gratuitously, that the dispensation afforded the Anglican priest would not apply to the "doctrines or worship" of "the religion of Mahomet [sic] or of the Grand Lama," whom he insultingly labeled "impostors." In 1931, in U.S. vs. Macintosh, the Supreme Court reiterated much the same point: "We are a Christian people, according to one another the equal right of religious freedom, and acknowledging with reverence the duty of obedience to the will of God."

Supreme Courts change their minds, of course. In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in public accommodation was legal in Plessy vs. Ferguson. In 1954, in Brown vs. Board of Education, it ruled that segregation in public schools was not. That was a major step from injustice to justice. But the Supreme Court also went from U.S. v. Macintosh in 1931 to Engel vs. Vitale in 1962, which prohibited state-sponsored prayer in public schools. Despite the fact that Supreme Court rulings can be "as variable as the shade by light the quivering aspen made," the fundamental religious value of the United States remains freedom of religion, the first freedom in the Constitution's Bill of Rights. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and atheists all dwell under its protection. No Christian should ever cavil at that: religious coercion is not only un-American, but anti-Christian. When Jesus invited disciples, they always had the freedom to follow or not, to stay or to leave. They still do.

Despite the cultural trend toward atheism (a rising number of millennials choose "none" as their religious preference), the primary religious ethos of the country is a kind of nonsectarian "Higher Power" theism, as expressed in the national motto, "In God We Trust," and in the phrase "under God," in the Pledge of Allegiance. Congress added "Under God" to the original Pledge in 1954 at the behest of President Eisenhower, who said, succinctly if inartfully, "America makes no sense without a deeply held faith in God  and I don't care what it is." The phrase itself came from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Lincoln had come to consecrate a massive graveyard, furrowed in the wake of the carnage that was the Battle of Gettysburg. In words that have become immortal, he said, "from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

They were all tied together in that address, these great themes of our country's story: sons sacrificed upon the altar of liberty; slavery vanquished that freedom might be born again; a government whose authority rests upon the consent of the governed. This is the American ethos, the self-understanding that has sustained our country during its periodic descents into cynicism, corruption, and cruelty. What always turned those descents into ascents was the renewed remembrance  usually in the wake of some calamity  that we truly do dwell "under God:" under God's mercy and protection, but also under God's judgment. Whatever we living generations do with our country in the years she is entrusted to us, we will be judged by history, our descendants, and God.

Don't believe there is a God? In America, that's absolutely your right. But most of your countrymen do. As Phillip K. Dick noted, "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
New York

Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, the Romanian-born Holocaust survivor whose classic "Night" became a landmark testament to the Nazis' crimes and launched Wiesel's long career as one of the world's foremost witnesses and humanitarians, has died at age 87.

His death was announced Saturday by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. No other details were immediately available.

The short, sad-eyed Wiesel, his face an ongoing reminder of one man's endurance of a shattering past, summed up his mission in 1986 when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize: "Whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation, take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

For more than a half-century, he voiced his passionate beliefs to world leaders, celebrities and general audiences in the name of victims of violence and oppression. He wrote more than 40 books, but his most influential by far was "Night," a classic ranked with Anne Frank's diary as standard reading about the Holocaust.

"Night" was his first book, and its journey to publication crossed both time and language. It began in the mid-1950s as an 800-page story in Yiddish, was trimmed to under 300 pages for an edition released in Argentina, cut again to under 200 pages for the French market and finally published in the United States, in 1960, at just over 100 pages.

"'Night' is the most devastating account of the Holocaust that I have ever read," wrote Ruth Franklin, a literary critic and author of "A Thousand Darknesses," a study of Holocaust literature that was published in 2010.

"There are no epiphanies in 'Night.' There is no extraneous detail, no analysis, no speculation. There is only a story: Eliezer's account of what happened, spoken in his voice."

Wiesel began working on "Night" just a decade after the end of World War II, when memories were too raw for many survivors to even try telling their stories. Frank's diary had been an accidental success, a book discovered after her death, and its entries end before Frank and her family were captured and deported. Wiesel's book was among the first popular accounts written by a witness to the very worst, and it documented what Frank could hardly have imagined.

"Night" was so bleak that publishers doubted it would appeal to readers. In a 2002 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Wiesel recalled that the book attracted little notice at first. "The English translation came out in 1960, and the first printing was 3,000 copies. And it took three years to sell them. Now, I get 100 letters a month from children about the book. And there are many, many million copies in print."

In one especially haunting passage, Wiesel sums up his feelings upon arrival in Auschwitz:

"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. ... Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never."

"Night" was based directly on his experiences, but structured like a novel, leading to an ongoing debate over how to categorize it. Alfred Kazin was among the critics who expressed early doubts about the book's accuracy, doubts that Wiesel denounced as "a mortal sin in the historical sense." Wiesel's publisher called the book a memoir even as some reviewers called it fiction. An Amazon editorial review labeled the book "technically a novel," albeit so close to Wiesel's life that "it's generally  and not inaccurately  read as an autobiography."

Wiesel's prolific stream of speeches, essays and books, including two sequels to "Night" and more than 40 books overall of fiction and nonfiction, emerged from the helplessness of a teenager deported from Hungary, which had annexed his native Romanian town of Sighet, to Auschwitz. Tattooed with the number A-7713, he was freed in 1945  but only after his mother, father and one sister had all died in Nazi camps. Two other sisters survived.

After the liberation of Buchenwald, in April 1945, Wiesel spent a few years in a French orphanage, then landed in Paris. He studied literature and philosophy at the Sorbonne, and then became a journalist, writing for the French newspaper L'Arche and Israel's Yediot Ahronot.

French author Francois Mauriac, winner of the 1952 Nobel in literature, encouraged Wiesel to break his vowed silence about the concentration camps and start sharing his experiences.

Among his most memorable spoken words came in 1985, when he received a Congressional Gold Medal from President Ronald Reagan and asked the president not to make a planned trip to a cemetery in Germany that contained graves of Adolf Hitler's personal guards.

"We have met four or five times, and each time I came away enriched, for I know of your commitment to humanity," Wiesel said, as Reagan looked on. "May I, Mr. President, if it's possible at all, implore you to do something else, to find a way, to find another way, another site. That place, Mr. President, is not your place. Your place is with the victims."
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The return of sparklers, which are legal fireworks in 37 counties in New York state, is causing concern among local first responders and state officials in the second year of opt-in legalization.

Laws passed in 2015 allow for individual counties to authorize the sale of certain types of fireworks during two holiday windows  from June 1 to July 5 and Dec. 26 to Jan. 2.

In 2015, Albany County was the only one among Capital Region counties not to authorize the sale of fireworks. However, Albany voted to legalize their sale this year.

"The County Executive would not have signed something if he didn't believe it would be safe," said Mary Rozak, director of communications for County Executive Dan McCoy. Following safety guidelines will be key this Fourth of July season, she said. McCoy is a former city of Albany and county airport firefighter.

While most fireworks remain illegal in New York state, the sparklers have already caused problems. The tip of a burning sparkler can reach 1,200 degrees, which can cause third- degree burns on bare skin or even death. Two years ago, a Connecticut woman died from a sparkler being thrown through her window as a prank.

"We're not a fan of any type of firework in the hands of a non-licensed or trained person," Schenectady Assistant Fire Chief Michael Gillespie said. He cited a brush fire off Broadway last summer on the Fourth of July caused by a legal ground firework.

The state requires vendors to list myriad safety precautions on their fireworks, but Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services Commissioner John Melville has one safety tip that trumps all.

"The easiest way to stay safe this July 4th is to leave the fireworks displays to the experts."

jlahut@timesunion.com  518-454-5414  @JakeLahut
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Saratoga Springs

Brandon Hika had never done it before, and he had no intention of doing it now. He didn't want to register to vote.

"I don't believe in the system," the 29-year-old from Middle Grove said, as Phish fans heading to Saturday's concert streamed past.

"Well, then how are you going to change it?" asked Aaron Ghitelman.

"Not by voting," answered Hika.

Ghitelman works for HeadCount, a New York City-based nonprofit that sets up at concerts around the country to get the unregistered to reconsider.

Phish is from Vermont, as any fan knows, and it's a safe bet that liberal Vermonter Bernie Sanders was the presidential choice among many at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center show.

But HeadCount is non-partisan, and Ghitelman says Phish fans aren't easily pigeonholed. Many have a libertarian bent, he added, that makes them wary of the two major political parties.

"You get all kinds of people," Ghitelman said. "An 18-year-old Republican woman. A 50-year-old Democratic man. You can't judge a book by its cover."

Ghitelman's cover fits right in at a Phish show. The 25-year-old from New York City has a big red beard and on Saturday had his long hair pulled tight in a ponytail.

He's also a master pitchman, at least for voter registration. He worked and worked to sway the reluctant, all but begging them to register.

"It would really make me happy if you would register," he said more than once.

And if that didn't work, he and the others working in HeadCount's booth (mostly volunteers) had an additional tool of persuasion: free ice cream, donated by Ben & Jerry's.

Who can pass that up?

In New York's most recent presidential primary, just 21 percent of the eligible population voted, according to the United States Election Project. Many simply weren't registered.

But HeadCount says it has registered 350,000 voters since 2004  and is aiming for an additional 35,000 prior to the November election.

How many of those people actually vote? It's an open question, although HeadCount emails reminders of upcoming elections to many of the people it registers.

Walk into a Ben & Jerry's, and you have dozens of options from which to choose. Walk into a voting booth, and you often get just two.

Hika was among those at Saturday's show who said they didn't vote because they were dissatisfied with the offered choices. But Ghitelman did convince him to register.

"It's the power of the beard," Hika said.

cchurchill@timesunion.com  518-454-5442  @chris_churchill
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Wells

A Mohawk Valley group is offering a reward for information in the search for a 24-year-old Johnstown woman who disappeared while staying at her family's remote camp in the Adirondacks.

Authorities were continuing to search for Rachael Lynn Mattice over the holiday weekend, the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office said. Mattice left her parents' home in Johnstown on June 22 for the family's camp in Wells and has not been seen since. Mohawk Valley Crime Stoppers are teaming up with State Police to try to solve the case. The group is offering a $2,000 reward and promises those with information will remain anonymous.

"We know there's people out there who are afraid to call the police and want to remain anonymous, or they have information but they're not sure and they don't know who to call," said James Glorioso, executive director of Mohawk Valley Crime Stoppers. Glorioso said the group has received a couple of tips and forwarded them to state troopers.

More Information Police are looking for any leads or assistance from the public in their search for Rachael Lynn Mattice. Anyone with information may call the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office at 518-548-3113 or Mohawk Valley Crime Stoppers at 1-866-730-8477. See More Collapse

Friends made sure Mattice's story reached one of her favorite music stars, Shania Twain. The country star tweeted Thursday: "I've heard the story of Rachael Mattice & urge anyone with information to come forward to the police & help her return to her family."

Sheriff's deputies, state forest rangers and State Police using helicopters have searched since June 24 for Mattice. Sheriff Karl G. Abrams said there were no signs of struggle at the campsite, no suicide note and no indication that anyone other than Mattice had been on the property where she was staying in a camper.

Mattice's friends and family in Johnstown gave interviews suggesting Mattice showed no signs of being despondent and had no enemies, Abrams said.

Rachael's mother, Wendy Mattice, told the Times Union that the last week has been heart-wrenching and she believes her daughter was abducted.

"I've known the family a long time," the sheriff said. "I can't imagine what they're going through."

jlawrence@timesunion.com  518-454-5467  @jplawrence3
Dhaka, Bangladesh

The hostages were given a test: recite verses from the Quran, or be punished, according to a witness. Those who passed were allowed to eat. Those who failed were tortured and slain.

The dramatic, 10-hour hostage crisis that gripped Bangladesh's diplomatic zone ended Saturday morning with at least 28 dead, including six of the attackers, as commandos raided the popular restaurant where heavily armed attackers were holding dozens of foreigners and Bangladeshis prisoner while hurling bombs and engaging in a gunbattle with security forces. The victims included 20 hostages, mostly foreigners, and two Bangladeshi police officers.

The attack marks an escalation in militant violence that has hit the traditionally moderate Muslim-majority nation with increasing frequency in recent months, with the extremists demanding the secular government revert to Islamic rule. Most previous attacks have involved machete-wielding men singling out individual activists, foreigners and religious minorities.

But Friday night's attack was different, more coordinated, with the attackers brandishing assault rifles as they shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great) and stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's Gulshan area while dozens of foreigners and Bangladeshis were dining out during the Ramadan holy month.

The gunmen, initially firing blanks, ordered restaurant workers to switch off the lights, and they draped black cloths over closed-circuit cameras, according to a survivor, who spoke with local TV channel ATN News. He and others, including kitchen staff, managed to escape by running to the rooftop or out the back door.

But about 35 were trapped inside, their fate depending on whether they could prove themselves to be Muslims, according to the father of a Bangladeshi businessman who was rescued Saturday morning along with his family.

"The gunmen asked everyone inside to recite from the Quran," the Islamic holy book, according to Rezaul Karim, describing what his son, Hasnat, had witnessed inside. "Those who recited were spared. The gunmen even gave them meals last night."

The others, he said, "were tortured."

Detectives were questioning his son and his family along with other survivors as part of the investigation on Saturday, as scattered details of the siege emerged. Authorities were also interrogating one of the attackers captured by commandos in dramatic morning rescue.

It was not immediately clear whether the attackers had a specific goal, and Bangladesh authorities would not say if they had made any demands.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility, saying it targeted the citizens of "Crusader countries" in the attack, warning that citizens of such countries would not be safe "as long as their warplanes kill Muslims." The statement was circulated Friday by IS supporters on the Telegram messaging service and resembled previous statements by IS. It was not immediately clear if its leadership in Syria and Iraq was involved in planning the attack. The Amaq news agency, affiliated with IS, also posted photos purportedly showing hostages' bodies, though the authenticity of the images could not be confirmed.
Paris

You could say theirs is the Generation of Three E's.

There is Erasmus, the European Union program that organizes and subsidizes student exchanges among universities across its 28 countries and elsewhere. There is easyJet, the budget airline that lets them hop between European cities as simply and cheaply as it can be to trek across town. And there is the euro, the currency used in most of the member countries.

Young adults are now grappling with what Britain's vote to exit the European Union means for their profoundly European way of life. For them, it is perfectly normal to grow up in one country, study in another, work in a third, share a flat with people who have different passports and partner up without regard to nationality.

"It means that we are not going to be sisters and brothers of a big project," said Antoine Guery, 24, a Frenchman whose resume and network of friends provide a crash course in European geography.

"At best, we are going to be allies"  friends, but no longer family. "It feels less like home."

Guery works at a public-relations firm in Paris but had been looking for job opportunities in London  an exercise he shelved immediately after the "Brexit" vote June 23. His degree is from Sciences Po University in Paris, but he also studied at Stockholm University and Germany's University of Potsdam.

It was in Stockholm that two German women, Carolina Leersch, now 26, and Kim Seele, 28, joined his inner circle. In Berlin, Guery lived with Seele's aunt, had an Irish boyfriend and befriended Lauren Muscroft, who is British, and Marion Desbles, who is from Rennes, France.

This group and others like it are, to be sure, a subset within a subset, part of a fourth E  the elite  who studied at the Continent's top institutions and took advantage of the Pan-European doors open to them. Splitting Britain from the European Union may put a damper on future changes important to this globalized generation, like the move toward a single European digital market for movie and music streaming, and the end, by next year, of cellphone roaming charges when crossing European Union borders.

Days before the British referendum, Guery, Muscroft and Desbles jokingly wondered, while waiting in the passport lines at the airport in Barcelona, Spain, whether Britons like Muscroft would soon be kicked out of the European Union lane.

Now, the friends are wondering whether their children will be able to benefit from Erasmus as they did. If their European health insurance cards will still cover them in Britain. Whether France might soon follow with a "Frexit" vote, the Netherlands with a "Nexit," and who knows what else?

"My initial reaction when it happened was feeling like part of my identity had been stripped away," said Muscroft, 24, who works in London for an online food-ordering site. "One thing I've always really felt a strong connection to, with Europe, is a unified sense of fate  the fact that we are all in this together, and that we benefit each other through this union."

Perhaps the most profound force in creating this European identity was Erasmus, now called Erasmus+, which was created in 1987 and had supported 3.3 million students studying or training abroad by the end of 2013-14 academic year, according to a European Union report. (Yet, in the past five years, fewer than 5 percent of all university graduates in the participating countries were Erasmus students.)

Magali Ballatore, a sociologist at the University of Aix-Marseille in France who wrote a book on the Erasmus program, said it would be hard to tease out whether Erasmus alumni were internationally minded because of the experience, or whether that prospect had attracted them to the program in the first place.

But younger Europeans are more likely to report an attachment to the European Union than those 55 and older, according to the most recent Eurobarometer survey. In Britain before the balloting, surveys showed that 57 percent of voters ages 18 to 34 wanted it to remain in the bloc. (An identical percentage older than 55 supported the Leave campaign.)

In the vote's aftermath, many young voices have expressed fear and despair.

"I've never been so angry," Guery said. "I was texting friends, people who did Erasmus, people who lived in Britain or Germany. We are disgusted that this might be the trigger for the destruction of the only good thing that these governments have done in 50 years: peace."

It is still unclear what kind of relationship Britain will negotiate with the European Union, but trade is unlikely to screech to a halt and short-term travelers are not likely to face stringent visa requirements. As for the union's Erasmus program  in which Britain ranked fifth two years ago for students sent abroad and fourth for foreign students taken in  nonmembers like Iceland, Norway and Turkey are allowed to participate. Until Britain officially leaves the union, the program will continue there, too.

Guery has been thinking about his grandparents and great-grandparents, who bore the brunt of both world wars.

"So much of my family suffered from the stupidity of nationalism," he said. "I can't imagine my continent going back 50 years."
What you need to know about Colts starting quarterback Sam Ehlinger
[Provisional translation]



Last night, the deaths of seven Japanese nationals were confirmed. This is a truly regrettable outcome. I pray for the repose of the souls of those who lost their lives and also extend my condolences to the families of the victims.

All of those who lost their lives had gone to Bangladesh in the spirit of wanting to work for the good of that country. This matter truly grieves me deeply and I am rendered speechless to think of the regrets of the victims. This was an impermissible act of terrorism and I am profoundly outraged. We will prepare a governmental aircraft to assist the families of the victims in arriving at the scene of the incident as quickly as possible. Just now, I was in contact with State Minister for Foreign Affairs Mr. Seiji Kihara, who has arrived in Bangladesh. I instructed him to receive the bereaved family members and interact with the Bangladesh side in accordance with the requests of the families to the greatest possible extent. At any rate, although I fall entirely speechless when I think of how the bereaved family members must be feeling, I wish to respond to this incident in the spirit of doing everything possible while keeping the sensitivities of the family members firmly in mind.

We intend to continue to take all possible preparations to ensure the safety of Japanese citizens both at home and abroad. In order to do so, we will devote our utmost efforts to shed light on this incident. As such, I also intend for us to act in close coordination and communication with the Government of Bangladesh.

Also at the UN, a press statement by the United Nations Security Council was released. We intend to work in cooperation with the international community in order to root out terrorism.


Quick look at promo hype that's circulating among all the consultants paid to spam social media.Theline might be just a bit over the top.You decide . . .
Baptist News: Westside Family Church of Lenexa, Kan., filed a petition in district court June 15 requesting that the teenaged sisters and their parents who sued the church June 9 not be allowed to proceed with the case with their identifies protected by pseudonyms.

Christian Today: Westside Family Church of Lenexa has accused the girls' family of a "Pearl Harbor-styled barrage of negative publicity,"

Stop Baptist Predators Blog : "So desperate is this Southern Baptist church to pull out all the stops in trying to defend against the familys civil suit that it is : "So desperate is this Southern Baptist church to pull out all the stops in trying to defend against the familys civil suit that it is doing what virtually no other religious institution has previously done . It is seeking to publicize the names of children who were sexually violated."

Sex abuse victim's rights advocatessuccessfully argued against the tactics of Kansas City's Catholic clergy in a long running sex scandal the rocked the local diocese to its core and resonated all the way to the Vatican. Now, this group has set it's sights on a Johnson County megachurch and their arguments against a recent civil lawsuit are equally pointed, critical and strident in the defense of alleged victims of sexual assault.Check the case according to this group . . .Now, other websites have picked up the story and their reactions and reporting seem to signal serious doubts about this legal tactic . . .Important fact . . .And so, this Sunday morning we considerallegations of abuse andover a legal defense tactic that threatens common practice in abuse cases.You decide if this tactic is befitting of a faith community or an appropriate strategy in a contentious legal battle . . .
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his Chinese counterpart Li Keqiang are to sign a joint statement proclaiming an upgrade and extension of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between Greece and China first launched in 2006 when they meet in Beij

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his Chinese counterpart Li Keqiang are to sign a joint statement proclaiming an upgrade and extension of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between Greece and China first launched in 2006 when they meet in Beijing next week, sources said on Friday.

Tsipras and a large Greek delegation were scheduled to depart for a six-day visit to China on Friday, where he is to meet the Chinese premier on Monday.

The joint statement will have two sections, the first of which will concern a higher level of political dialogue between the two countries on international and regional issues of mutual interest. This is seen as exceptionally useful, given China's weight in world affairs and its position as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

The economic section of the statement will refer to bilateral cooperation in sectors such as technology, trade, investments, transport and infrastructure.

The two sides will also sign separate agreements on cooperation in culture, education, investments and exports during the Greek prime minister's visit, while the Greek delegation that is expected to have numerous contacts with world-class Chinese companies. More business meetings and the signature of agreements between Greek and Chinese companies are expected to take place during a business forum organised during the visit.

Sino-Greek economic and political relations

There are high hopes that Tsipras' visit will help raise Sino-Greek economic and political relations to a new level according to five academic institutions making up the Consortium for Chinese Studies in Greece. These include the International Economic Relations Institute (IDOS), the Panteion University's International Relations Institute, the Hellenic Foundation for European and Economic Policy, the Political Science and International Relations Department of the University of the Peloponnese and the Aegean University's Mediterranean Studies department.

According to an analysis issued by the consortium, emphasis has been given to cooperation between Greek shipping companies and Chinese shipyards, while efforts are being made to attract Chinese tourists with encouraging results. There is less progress, by contrast, on creating the conditions to increase Greek exports to China, despite the enormous size of the Chinese market, which ranks second in the world with a GDP of six trillion dollars.

The consortium noted that the prime minister's visit, which coincides with the 10-year anniversary of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between the two countries, should aim to achieve the following goals:

a) Confirm Greece's role as a transit centre on the Europe-East Asia maritime trade route, with support for logistics and intermodal transport services and rapid completion of the Piraeus port privatisation.

b) Further promote Greece as a focus of investment interest, encouraging links between Greek and Chinese firms.

c) Support Greek business in their efforts for an organised expansion into the Chinese market, in order to take advantage of an anticipated increase in private consumption and boost Greek exports.

d) Help increase the flow of Chinese tourists to Greece by facilitating access.

e) Develop cohesive strategic cooperation between Greek and Chinese educational and research institutions.

Source: ANA-MPA

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Kyriakos Mitsotakis, leader of Greeces main opposition party, New Democracy, blasted the Greek government in parliament, Thursday night, calling for general elections.

During the discussion on the controversy caused with the deal with Chinese company COSCO, Mitsotakis accused the government of preventing jobs from coming into the country with its unbelievably amateurish tactics, leading to unemployed Greeks missing employment opportunities. The opposition leader unleashed an acrimonious attack dubbing the government a mess.

The time when the Greek people will abandon you is approaching. You will be remembered as a nightmare, he said. Mitsotakis backed the deal with COSCO, characterising it very significant for the Greek economy.

But with your childish antics, you managed to politically nullify the deal. Mitsotakis said of the deal with COSCO. He continued by chastising the government for traducing the country and undermining investments in Greece. Mr. Tsipras and his government as a whole are the epitome of hypocrisy, unreliability and ineffectiveness, he pointed out.

Mitsotakis said that at a time when attracting investments should be the top priority for the county the Greek government was doing whatever it could to send away those few investors still remaining in Greece.

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
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Oman-based Meethaq, a leader in Islamic banking, has partnered with Ceramica Al-Hael, a joint Omani-Qatari company, to provide financing facilities to build a factory for producing ceramic and porcelain products, a report said.



The tiles and fittings production unit will be constructed in Wilayat Sur, added the Oman Observer report.



The agreement was signed by Mohammed Hael Al Omar, chairman of Ceramica Al-Hael and Sulaiman Al Harthy, deputy chief executive officer at Meethaq.



We look forward to exchanging mutual experience and collaborating with important institutions throughout the region in the near future. The agreement fits within the companys strategy to support cooperation with local partners, and provide added-value to the national economy, Al Omar as quoted as saying in the report.



Ceramica Al-Hael will benefit from the current financing options that are compatible with the provisions of Islamic Sharia law. This initiative from Meethaq confirms the Oman banking sectors ability to provide financing facilities for large enterprises which help serve the Omani economy, and contribute in the construction and implementation of new projects in various sectors, he added.
India's Iran oil imports rose about 39 per cent in June year on year, preliminary data obtained by Reuters shows.



In the first half of 2016 India's Iran oil imports surged by about 58 per cent to about 342,000 bpd, the data showed, in comparison with 216,500 bpd in the same period last year.



HPCL-Mittal Energy, majority owned by state refiner Hindustan Petroleum Corp, halted oil imports from Iran in November 2012 under pressure from Western sanctions over Iran's nuclear ambitions.



HPCL-Mittal Energy Ltd (HMEL), partly owned by steel tycoon Lakshmi N. Mittal, took a cargo from Tehran after a three-and-a-half year break.



Last month HMEL took a million barrels of Iranian oil, according to preliminary tanker arrival data from trade sources and ship-tracking services on the Thomson Reuters terminal.



Indian refiners took in about 381,500 barrels per day (bpd)of Iranian oil in June, the data showed.



The June shipments were about 0.6 per cent higher from Iranian volumes in May, the data showed. In June last year India shipped in about 274,800 bpd oil from Iran.



India's oil imports from Iran are set to surge to a seven-year high in the year that began April 1, with the nation's state-owned and private refiners together buying at least 400,000 bpd.



In April-June, the first quarter of the current fiscal year, India's Iran oil purchases rose 25.6 per cent to 384,500 bpd from about 306,000 bpd in the same year ago period, the data showed.



Private refiner, Essar Oil, was the top Indian client of Iran in June, importing about 180,600 bpd, followed by Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd with about 69,000 bpd, and Reliance Industries Ltd with about 64,000 bpd.



Indian Oil Corp, the country's biggest refineer, imported about 32,000 bpd, the shipping and terminal data showed.  Reuters
Bahrain-based Ilium, a key manufacturer of fibreglass structural composite reinforcements, has registered production increases amid growing demand for its innovative products in both eastern and western markets.



The company, which operates its plant at the Bahrain International Investment Park (BIIP), touched production of 1,000 tonnes in 2015, up 30 per cent over the previous year, and is expecting the output to climb 50 per cent this year, its business development manager Colin Leatham-Locke told Gulf Industry.



Illium, owned by a Bahraini group BFG International, began production in 2012, and has now an annual output capacity of 10,000 tonnes and utilises a patented technology process.



BFG International is a market leader and products innovator in the global composites industry. The company has 15 manufacturing facilities worldwide and employs more than 2,000 skilled staff.



The fibreglass structural composite reinforcements that Ilium produces are the outcome of a process in which polyester flow media are sandwiched between layers of chopped fibreglass, it stated.



The unique feature lies in the way we assemble the product and in the automation. All elements are made in line, in a single process from basic raw materials, said Leatham-Locke.



"We manufacture the polyester material we use, unlike others who buy it from a specialist nonwoven manufacturer. And while our competitors stitch with a polyester thread to accomplish the three-layer cohesion, we encapsulate our product with a lightweight polyester surface veil, and with our patented process technology assemble the three layers," he explained.



According to him, Ilium buys polyester in the form of staple fibre from Europe and makes from it nonwoven carded flow media, designed to optimise resin flow. The fibreglass is sourced in Europe, China and Saudi Arabia.



The companys plant has several bespoke machines imported from five manufacturers, most of whom are in Europe.

It has developed several specialisations with iSpring and iFlex as the standard lines and the two accounting for about 90 per cent of the turnover. iSpring sales are considerably higher than those of iFlex.



We have developed our range, but it takes time to gain traction in the market, remarked Leatham-Locke.



"The Bahrain market accounts for some 20 per cent of sales and exports go to a string of destinations including Turkey, Europe and North America. The company has not made much headway in Asia where competition from China is strong," he added.



Still, Ilium has customers in the Philippines and Japan and the official says it is targeting the Chinese market as well as we have a better technology product."



So far the GCC market has been limited as Iliums products have specific applications that the region does not cater to in high volume yet, but the company acknowledges there is potential, particularly in Bahrain, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.



The companys iSpring line has diverse applications including those in trailers, caravans and mass transportation products such as trains as well as water slides. Customers who make water slides include one in North America, one in Turkey and one the Philippines.



The company is currently focusing on customers and distributors who Leatham-Locke says see value in our products and recognise and understand the difference.



It is looking at growing its global sales network and on stepping up production to reach levels closer to capacity. The strategy is also to cater to specialities that take advantage of the companys technology and solve customers problems that its competitors cannot deal with on their own.



We can provide products or alternatives that our competitors cannot supply, affirmed Leatham-Locke.



"Our product development is through collaboration involving spending time with our customers and understanding their challenges. Through that process and through utilising our technologies and our capabilities we are able to develop a product that is completely new to market. We make sure there is no similar product in the market and foresee it will grow fast," he stated.



We consistently develop new versions of existing products in order to increase product diversity and customer suitability. We launched four over the past year, noted Leatham-Locke.



Spring is traditionally used in vacuum-assisted Resin Transfer Moulding, a closed mould process, which is ideal for cost-effective production of semi-structural, medium- to high-volume parts requiring complex geometry in a wide variety of applications.



Customer feedback shows a high level of satisfaction with our products in terms of quality and versatility. Using state-of-the-art technology and maintaining the highest levels of quality, improvements in resin flow and surface finish have resulted in products that outperform similar existing products in the market, he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Russia and the United States held fresh talks on Saturday on ways of cooperating to end the five-year conflict in Syria as intensive Syrian government air strikes killed at least 40 civilians in a town northeast of Damascus.



Moscow and Washington are seeking ways of brokering an end to a conflict that has killed more than 400,000 people, according to the United Nations, and has sent a wave of refugees streaming towards Europe.



In the latest diplomatic contact between the two powers, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry spoke by phone on Saturday, Russia's foreign ministry said.



"They discussed ... the possibility of Russian-American cooperation in the fight against terrorist groups in Syria," the statement said.



The statement did not identify the groups more closely.



Russia, which supports President Bashar al-Assad, is conducting airstrikes against various armed groups that are opposed to his rule including Nusra Front - an offshoot of al Qaeda - and Islamic State which the Americans also oppose.



But Washington says Moscow is also targetting moderate rebel groups which are ideologically opposed to al Qaeda and which are supported by the United States.



Fighting continued unabated in Syria with intensive strikes by the Syrian air force on Jayrud, northeast of Damascus, which killed 43 civilians a day after the reported execution of a Syrian air force pilot, a monitor and rebels said.



They said the raids targeted a medical centre, a school and a residential area in Jayrud, a heavily populated town that had been earlier spared heavy bombing after striking a local truce with the army. It had become in that time a sanctuary for thousands of civilians fleeing heavy battles nearby.



The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said scores were also injured in the aerial strikes as well as by shelling from army posts in the area.



A rebel spokesman said the strikes seemed to be in revenge for the killing of the air force pilot who parachuted near the town after his plane crashed on Friday.



"The strikes against civilians are in retaliation against the execution of the pilot by Nusra Front," said Said Seif al Qalamoni from the Free Syrian Army's (FSA) Shahid Ahmad Abdo brigade that operates in Jayrud alongside the al Qaeda's Nusra Front and other groups.



Rebels targeted a main army base in the region with Russian-made surface to surface missiles after the aerial strikes, al Qalamoni said.



Syrian state media said the crash was due to a technical fault and the pilot had ejected, while the rebel group Jaish al-Islam said it had shot down the plane, but did not say how.



Jaish al Islam said the pilot was arrested and was subsequently killed by a fighter from the Nusra Front while being held at a joint command centre.



Separately, Russian and Syrian planes intensified bombing on Saturday of a strategic rebel-held area of Aleppo that is near the only route into opposition-held parts of the northern city. If the Malah area were to fall to the army and its allies they would succeed in laying siege to areas where over 400,000 people live under rebel control.



In northern Syria, Islamic State fighters who are encircled in the town of Manbij launched a major offensive that pushed back US-backed forces for the first from areas inside the city they had secured during a month-long campaign to capture the strategic city from the militants.



In the western coastal province of Latakia, rebels who include al Nusra, consolidated gains in the strategic area just days after they retook Kansaba which overlooks much of the mountainous Jabal Akrad area close to the Turkish border .



The Syrian government forces had captured Kansaba in February, part of a wider advance in Latakia's northern countryside at the time, that was only made possible after Moscow embarked on a major military campaign on the side of President Bashar al Assad last September.  Reuters
Once-rival leaders of Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) have agreed on a structure for the group that aims to put to rest squabbles over who has the right to export the country's oil, according to a statement.



Oil industry leaders in Opec-member Libya have said they could quickly double production to over 700,000 bpd if conditions stabilized. Before a 2011 revolution, Libya was producing 1.6 million bpd.



The rival oil officials agreed in principle to unify the oil sector in May, but the agreement on the structure and leadership of a joint group took weeks of meetings to iron out.



Mustafa Sanalla, who led the Tripoli-based NOC, will remain chairman of the group, while the head of the eastern-backed NOC, Naji al-Maghrabi, will serve as a board member, according to a statement seen by Reuters.



A UN-backed unity government that arrived in Tripoli in March is seeking to replace two rival governments that were set up in Tripoli and the east, and to unite Libya's many political and armed factions.



A united oil sector would be a key support for the unity government. Libya relies heavily on oil exports as a source of income and hard currency.



"This agreement will send a very strong signal to the Libyan people and to the international community that the Presidency Council is able to deliver consensus and reconciliation," Sanalla said in the statement.



Al-Maghrabi said both men "made a strategic choice to put our divisions behind us" as there is "no other way forward".



Oil production sank to around 200,000 bpd in May after a political dispute between the eastern and western factions blocked loadings at Marsa al Hariga for more than three weeks.



A unified NOC structure could also smooth negotiations to reopen the El Sharara and El Feel fiels, which are closed due to disagreements with local groups.



The two sides also agreed a budget for the remainder of the year, taking steps to "address any imbalances resulting from the period of division", they said.



They also identified infrastructure rehabilitation as a big goal, particularly in the eastern city of Benghazi, "in preparation for the relocation of NOC's headquarters".



NOC aims to hold meetings of its board of directors meetings in Benghazi "if security conditions permit".



The joint NOC will also submit periodic reports to committees established by both the Presidential Council and the House of Representatives, which it recognised as the highest executive and legislative authorities within Libya.-Reuters
Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) will reinforce security measures at oil installations in co-ordination with the country's interior ministry, a KNPC official spokesman said on Sunday.



"Intensive security plans to protect oil installations and facilities will be supported by the military and taken up after co-ordinating with the Ministry of Interior and its subsidiary bodies," Khaled Al-Asousi was quoted as saying by state news agency Kuna on Sunday. He did not provide further details.



A year ago an Islamic State group suicide bomber killed 27 people when he blew himself up inside a Shi'ite Muslim mosque in Kuwait city, the first attack of its kind in the major oil-exporting state.



Opec-member Kuwait pumps 3 million barrels of crude per day and has three refineries with a combined capacity of 930,000 bpd.-Reuters
Iran Aviation Organization has granted Mahan Air the license for establishing new flights from Shiraz to Dubai, said a report citing director general of Fars Province Airports.



Reza Badiei-Fard told IRNA on Friday that Mahan Air has been given necessary licenses to operate three two-way flights each week between the two cities.



The announcement follows the latest flight from Shiraz Ayatollah Dastgheib International Airport to Georgia (Tbilisi), which started recently.



Badiei-Fard also said that there may have been discussions for establishing a cargo air link from Shiraz to Persian Gulf littoral states, however ti can only be verified once the license has been issued for that by Iran Aviation Organization, the report said.



When asked about resumption of Shiraz-Muscat flights by Kish Air, the official said no license has so far been issued for that.
AccorHotels, a leading international hotel operator, has announced the opening of a new seaside Novotel in Yanbu, the Red Sea port city in the western province of Madinah, Saudi Arabia.



With this latest addition, AccorHotels has a total network of more than 20,000 rooms in operation across the Middle East.



Novotel Yanbu is AccorHotels second property in the city, following ibis Yanbu, which opened in 2014. Novotel Yanbu is owned by Al Hokair Group and operated under franchise agreement with AccorHotels. It constitutes AccorHotels fourth property and second Novotel with its partner Al Hokair Group.



Olivier Granet, managing director & Chief Operating Officer of AccorHotels Middle East, said: AccorHotels is celebrating the opening of our 20,000th room in the region, and we are pleased to have reached this significant milestone in Saudi Arabia, which holds more than 50 per cent of our current pipeline. Our expansion in Yanbu is a perfect illustration of our strategy to cover key destinations for domestic travel and tourism in the kingdom. The city has steadily grown into a major industrial center, serving as an important terminal for the Red Sea, one of the kingdoms largest ports and the main port for the Holy City of Madinah.



AccorHotels noticed a gap in the local hotel infrastructure which had limited international-standard accommodation options. The new Novotel Yanbu brings the quality of our global know-how and expertise, allowing us to support the growth of the city while we simultaneously expand our network across the kingdom, he added.



Novotel Yanbu features 120 rooms and suites, and is further equipped with three meeting rooms, a ballroom, an indoor pool, a health club and a gift shop. Guests can also visit the hotel terrace, and dine at Belle Vue Cafe.



The new property is located on Prince Abdulmajeed bin Abdulaziz Road of Yanbu al Bahir, offering convenient access to the Corniche, nearby business and commercial centers, and Yanbu Airport.



Salah Oumoudden, vice president of operations at AccorHotels Saudi Arabia and Egypt, said: We are excited to introduce our leading international brand Novotel to Yanbu to support its expanding business segment. The hotel will also cater to leisure visitors looking to explore Yanbus rich coral reefs which have become a popular destination for shore excursions.



AccorHotels has a strong presence in Saudi Arabia with a network of more than 15 properties in operation featuring over 4,500 opened rooms and close to 35 properties under development bringing an additional 9,000 rooms. The Groups Saudi portfolio, set to encompass 50 hotels in total, spans a wide range of world-class brands from luxury Sofitel, upscale Pullman and Majlis Grand Mercure, to upper midscale Novotel, midscale Mercure, and the economy ibis.



AccorHotels currently operates over 75 hotels in the Middle East, presenting more than 20,000 rooms across the luxury to economy segments. The groups regional network also includes 55 hotels under development, bringing over 14,000 additional rooms to the Middle East. - TradeArabia News Service


Sheraton Bahrain Hotel, a leading five-star property in the kingdom, has donated over 1.7 tons of rice to Feed the Need Bahrain.



As a part of its ongoing support to local community, Sheraton Bahrain Hotel has partnered with Feed the Need Bahrain for a long-month campaign Brunch for Rice. Sheraton Bahrain donated a total 859 packets, each containing 2kgs of rice, totalling to 1,718 kgs.



We are delighted to provide over 1.7 tons of rice to the needy this Ramadan. We believe that its is very important to give back to the local community and we always try to find more ideas to help, said Thomas Flindt, general manager of Sheraton Bahrain Hotel.



Cristalyn and I thought of the best way we could help families stretch their budget. Rice is a staple and can be used in everything even desert. I'm thrilled with the ongoing support from our Sheraton Bahrain friends, said Michelle Bailey, founder of Feed the Need Bahrain. - TradeArabia News Service


Egypt's Nile Air has launched operations to Abu Dhabi with the introduction of four weekly flights between Cairo International Airport and Al Ain International Airport.



This is Nile Airs first flight to any destination in the UAE. Commenting on this new service, Ahmed Aly, chief executive officer of Nile Air, said: "Nile Air is pleased to announce our entry to the Emirati market, our 7th country, with a new route connecting Cairo and Al-Ain city in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. The new service to Al-Ain will provide an easy and convenient travel option between both cities for business travelers and tourists visiting Egypt, and the estimated 100,000 Egyptian nationals residing in the city of Al-Ain and its surrounding region who wish to travel home.



Mohammed Al Katheeri, acting chief operations officer of Abu Dhabi Airports, said: We are delighted that Nile Air has begun operations to Al Ain, as this will further strengthen tourism between the UAE and Egypt and build Al Ains prominence as a growing international tourist destination. The airline anticipates high demand for this route, particularly during the busy summer season, and we wish them every success.



The NIA 147/8 flights, operated on Airbus A320 aircraft, will take place on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Between July 1 and October 1 the flight will depart from Cairo at 1005 GMT, arriving in Al Ain at 1340 GMT, and the return flight will leave the UAE at 1440 GMT and arrive back in Egypt at 1830 GMT. In October the service will become bi-weekly, with flights on Fridays and Sundays.



A free shuttle service is available for passengers wishing to connect from Al Ain Airport to Abu Dhabi and Dubai. - TradeArabia News Service
Neeraj Bagga

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, July 3

A Chennai-based company, specialising in manufacturing of state-of-the-art 10-foot tall dustbins, has been engaged to provide as many as 64 large bins at 32 strategic locations in the city.

Its operation would turn entire garbage lifting and dumping procedure into a mechanical affair. Initially as a part of the pilot project, groups of two dustbins each have been installed. The project is a part of the proposed mechanical sweeping.

Gokulkrishnan, Director, EcoGarb International, said Smart deep collection bin in Amritsar were proposed to be managed through GPS/GSM and GPRS wherein the sensor installed in the bin would intimate the driver of the truck when it was full. These bins were of two types. Biodegradable waste would be collected in green-lidded bin and non-degradable waste in yellow lidded.

The bin has more dumping capacity. It is closely fitted with a lid having thick and durable bag which carry larger quantity for longer time until the removal of waste from it. It can store a minimum of 1800 kg. After attaining the 80 per cent of quantum, the signal through fill-level sensor and GSM will alert the truck driver and administrator through the GPRS and SMS alarm system. The smart vehicle would reach the bin site within the stipulated time after getting the alarm signal and unload the waste from the bin to the vehicle. The vehicle is fitted with a special crane for lifting the bag and sliding door on the top to avoid spillage, he said.

He said the technology had been successfully used in Latvia, a European country.

The Europe-based company that is located in Chennai in India, EcoGarb International, has proposed total 32 locations for smart semi-underground waste storage and collection points where each location will have two smart green and yellow colour coded bins.

The bins that are made of linear low-density polyethylene contain lifting bags made of two-layered durable materials in which the waste is kept.

As a pilot project, the company has installed four smart bins, two on the Majitha road and another two in the Hakima Gate area, and will operate the same for 15 days.

These smart bins offer greater holding capacity than of the same areas surface dumpsters/dins, requiring less frequent collection, compaction of the waste (through gravity), increasing their effective capacity by 1.5 to 2.5 times, improved aesthetics allowing their incorporation in the citys design, constant temperature conditions, slowing bacterial development and controlling the odour especially in summer time, limited maintenance requirements and superior protection against vandalism. These facilities were at much cheaper rates compared to the European implementation of similar solutions, he said.
Amritsar, June 2

The drug wing of the Health Department has seized 10 anti-snake vaccines from a chemist shop near Government Medical College here after a complaint regarding counterfeit medicines was received.

Officials stated that the labels of the 10 seized injections were tampered with, but these were not of the same batch of injections which are in government supply. The labels are usually tampered with by chemists if the medicines are physicians samples or for government supply. However, as the batch number is same as that of the government supply, we are investigating the matter, said drug inspector Bableen Kaur.

Earlier, the medical superintendent at the Guru Nanak Dev Hospital, Dr Ram Sarup Sharma, had filed a complaint with the department on the basis of an objection from a patient.

With government hospitals facing allegations that supplies for government hospitals are sold in the open market, the case seemed to belong to this category. However, with the hospital claiming that the medicines of the same batch number were not supplied to the hospital, it has created a suspicion as no chemist would tamper with the labels.  TNS
New Delhi, July 3

India has slipped to 75th place in terms of money held by its citizens with banks in Switzerland, while the UK remains on top.

India was placed at 61st place last year, while it used to among top-50 countries in terms of holdings in Swiss banks till 2007. The country was ranked highest at 37th place in the year 2004.

As per the latest annual update on Swiss banks, released by Switzerlands central bank SNB (Swiss National Bank), the total money held there by foreign clients from across the world fell by nearly 4 per cent to Swiss franc (CHF) 1.42 trillion (about Rs 98 lakh crore) at the end of 2015.

In terms of individual countries, the UK accounted for the largest chunk at about CHF 350 billion or almost 25 per cent of the total foreign money with Swiss banks.

The US came second with nearly CHF 196 billion or about 14 per cent. No other country accounted for a double-digit percentage share, while others in the top-ten included West Indies, Germany, Bahamas, France, Guernsey, Luxembourg, Hong Kong and Panama.

India was ranked 75th with CHF 1.2 billion (about Rs 8,392 crore), which is not even 0.1 per cent of the total foreign money in Swiss banks and is the lowest for the country in at least two decades or since 1996  the first year for which full comparable data is available.

Pakistan was placed higher at 69th place with CHF 1.5 billiona shade better than 0.1 per cent of total foreign money parked with Swiss banks.

India was also lowest ranked among the BRICS nationsRussia was ranked 17th (CHF 17.6 billion), China 28th (CHF 7.4 billion), Brazil 37th (CHF 4.8 billion) and South Africa 60th (CHF 2.2 billion).

Others ranked higher than India included Mauritius, Kazakhstan, Iran, Chile, Angola, Philippines, Indonesia and Mexico, while a number of so-called tax havens were also placed above, including Jersey, Cayman Islands, Cyprus, Marshall Islands, Bermuda, Belize, Gibraltar, Isle of Man, Seychelles and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

All offshore financial centres together held CHF 378 billion in Swiss banks. The total for developing countries stood at CHF 207 billion, while the same for the developed countries was much higher at CHF 833 million.

India was ranked in top-50 continuously between 1996 and 2007, but started declining after that -- 55th in 2008, 59th in 2009 and 2010 each, 55th again in 2011, 71st in 2012 and then 58th in 2013.  PTI
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 3

Punjab and Haryana High Court lawyer Jatin Salwan and another co-accused Narender were sent to three-day police remand by a local court today in a drug and fake currency case. The third accused, retired UT police inspector Tarsem Rana, was sent to judicial remand.

The police told the court that the recovery of Rs 15 lakh in fake currency was a national issue and they wanted to trace its source, besides finding out how it reached the accused. The police also wanted to trace others involved in the case.

The trio was arrested for allegedly planting 2.6 kg of opium and Rs 15 lakh in fake currency in the car of Bhagwan Singh, who was arrested by the police last month near Maloya. Tarsem, a resident of Sector 26, Salwan, a resident of Sector 15, and Narender, a native of Ludhiana, completed their one-day police remand today. They will now be produced before the court on July 6.

Police sources said Narender and Gurnihal Singh Peerjada, a retired IAS officer, had a property dispute with Sukhbir Singh Shergil. The latter reportedly received a call from Canada to collect a file so that the case could be disposed of. He sent his accountant, Bhagwan, to collect it. However, they allegedly put the cash and drugs in his car and later informed the police, who arrested him. However, during investigations, call records of all persons involved in the case were checked and it was found the three had allegedly planned to get Bhagwan and his boss Shergill trapped.
Tribune News Service

Panchkula, July 3

An abortion racket was unearthed today at Mauli Jagran. The mastermind of the racket, Dr Pandey, is at large while two women  Komal and Gudiya  have been arrested.

The women were arrested in a joint raid by the Panchkula and UT police following a tip-off from the Women and Child Development Department, Panchkula.

We are raiding different places to arrest the doctor. A case has been registered against the two women. On the basis of information provided by them, we are trying to trace the mastermind of the racket, said a police official of the Mauli Jagran police station, where the case was registered. The women will be produced in a local court here tomorrow.

One of the women undergoing abortion at the clinic had to be admitted to the Civil Hospital, Sector 6, after her health deteriorated. On a complaint of Ekta Thakur, a resident of Panchkula, the case was registered.

During the raid, instruments and other items used in the abortion were recovered from the clinic. The two arrested women had struck a deal for Rs 14,000 to abort a six-month-old foetus of the woman.

Dr Pandey and the two women called the woman to Mauli Jagran for the operation. As the operation began, the authorities raided the place and arrested the accused. The woman being operated upon was shifted to the Civil Hospital.
Satinder Pal Singh

Dera Bassi, July 3

One side of the Ghaggar bridge near Bhankarpur on the Chandigarh-Ambala highway was blocked today, resulting in a traffic chaos.

The traffic on the old two-lane Ghaggar bridge was suspended following damage to one of its expansion joints this evening. It led to a huge traffic jam on both sides of the highway.

Hundreds of commuters heading towards Chandigarh as well as Ambala were stuck in serpentine queues of vehicles. Those travelling by buses were the worst hit.

The situation turned worse during the peak hours with commuters getting stuck in traffic jams for over three hours. The diversion of traffic towards Ambala compounded the problem. Two-wheeler riders were seen risking their lives by driving on kutcha paths to reach their destination.

GMR company officials said plying vehicles on the bridge would have caused more damage. They said the completion of work might take a couple of days. One side of the old Ghaggar bridge from the Zirakpur side towards Ambala had been closed for repair work, sources in the GMR said.

The sources said the inconvenience to commuters was likely to persist for a couple of days till the work was completed. Commuters termed it apathy on the part of authorities.

Traffic in-charge Kulwinder Singh said, Due to damage to one of the expansion joints of the span on the bridge, the traffic was diverted. Traffic officials were there to ensure smooth flow of traffic.
Tribune News Service

Amritsar, July 3

The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum has directed Air India to pay a compensation of Rs 20,000 to a local resident whose flight was delayed by four-and-a-half hour. The airlines has also been directed to pay Rs 2,000 as litigation expenses.

Earlier, Sukhpal Singh, a resident of New Amritsar, had filed a complaint against Air India stating that he purchased tickets to travel from Amritsar to New Delhi and further to Bangkok on February 10, 2015, and then back from Singapore to New Delhi on February 17 by paying an amount of Rs 31,500.

He said when he reached the local airport on time for his flight scheduled for 10:30 am, it did not take off for more than four-and-a-half hour. The complainant along with other passengers were made to wait at the airport and was assured after every half an hour that the flight would be ready soon to take off. He alleged the staff was not courteous and they did not even offered them a glass of water to the passengers.

He stated that when they reached New Delhi, the connected flight had already taken off and the complainant and other passengers were left at the New Delhi Airport in the lurch.

He said they managed to reach Bangkok at 7:30 am on February 11, 2015. He said his schedule was disrupted due to delay in the flights.

He alleged that during the return journey also the flight was delayed by two hours.

The opposite party said the delay in flight was caused by previous centre due to time reaction. It stated that alternate flight was given to the complainant and snack boxes were also provided to passengers. It further stated that regarding rescheduling of the return journey, the passenger was informed through SMS on his phone.

The forum observed that there was no explanation on record as to why such an inordinate delay of four-and-a-half hour took place in taking off the flight from Amritsar to New Delhi. It stated that the complainant had a tour of three days to stay at Bangkok which was reduced to two days journey due to the deficient service on the part of the opposite party.
Gen V.P. Malik (retd)

Seventeen years ago, on July 4-5, 1999, the Indian army fought and won a magnificent battle victory during the Kargil war. There were two turning points in the Kargil war: the capture of Tololing which started the 'turn in the tide' and the back-to-back capture of Tiger Hill and Point 4875. Although Point 4875 was tactically more important, it was the capture of Tiger Hill which caused a physical and psychological blow to Pakistan and the 'end in sight' for us. Tiger Hill is 5,062-metre-high with sharp conical features and stands majestically among the mountaintops a few kilometres north of Dras. One cannot miss it, or help admire it, as one drives along National Highway 1A (NH 1A) from Zojila to Kargil. During the Kargil war, it was a delight for photojournalists as it provided some of the best pictures of that war.

From Tiger Hill, the enemy (one company of Pak 12 Northern Light Infantry) had a clear view of NH 1A from Dras to Bhimbat, and the road leading to Marpola on the Line of Control (LoC). They could effectively interdict vehicular movement on these roads with observed artillery fire. We were clear that unless Tiger Hill and Point 4875 (located 2 km to its South-West) were secured, movement along NH 1A will never be safe. Although Point 4875 was closer and dominated a larger stretch of NH 1A, Tiger Hill occupied by the enemy was more difficult to climb and assault.

In the second week of May, 1999, 8 Sikh moving from Udhampur to the Kashmir valley was diverted to Dras. On arrival, the Brigade Commander launched the unit into battle without acclimatisation and snow clothing to clear Tiger Hill. The unit suffered heavy casualties in its attempt to get close to the objective. It was then ordered to occupy dominating heights in the vicinity in the area called 'Parion ka Talab'. No further attempts were made to capture Tiger Hill for the next six weeks till we were able to clear the approaches and fully ready for it.

On June 27, 1999, I visited HQ 8 Mtn Div and 56 Mtn Bde at Dras. That evening, 2 Raj Rif was preparing to attack Three Pimples, another very difficult feature west of Tololing. After GOC, 8 Mtn Div, Maj Gen Mohinder Puri briefed me on the ground situation, I asked him about his next objective. He told me that after a few days, 192 Mtn Bde will attack Tiger Hill and Point 4875.

The attack on Tiger Hill was to precede the attack on Point 4857 by a day so that enemy attention would be diverted from the latter more strongly held objective. That I thought was a sound decision. Tiger Hill extends about 2,200 metres from west to east and about 1,000 metres north to south. The main extension is towards west on which there are two prominent protrusions. The first, approximately 500 metres west of Tiger Hill, had been named 'India Gate'. The second, another 300 metres to the west, was called 'Helmet'.

18 Grenadiers along with 8 Sikh, which were already in the area, were tasked to capture Tiger Hill on the night of July 3-4, 1999. They were provided a team of the High Altitude Warfare School, adequate artillery, engineer and other support. The Air Force could easily identify the prominent conical shape of Tiger Hill. It engaged the objective on July 2-3, 1999, and was able to score many bull's eyes in its missions.

The multi-directional infantry assault began at 1900 hours on July 3, 1999, with direct and indirect firing by artillery and MBRLs. 8 Sikh provided the firm base and engaged the enemy from 'obvious' approaches as part of a deception plan. 18 Grenadiers moved towards the objective from the south and north east. The weather assisted the battalions in achieving surprise. Lt. Balwan Singh led the Ghatak Platoon of 18 Grenadiers on the most difficult, north-eastern approach. His Platoon made use of ropes to reach the top at 4.30 hours and totally surprised the enemy which had already suffered due to heavy artillery shelling and air attacks. In the ensuring hand-to-hand fighting, the enemy lost 10-12 personnel. 18 Grenadiers suffered six fatal casualties. Grenadier Yogendar Singh Yadav, who was in the lead on the rope and wounded badly, earned India's highest gallantry award of Param Vir Chakra. The Ghatak Platoon with some reinforcements firmed in on the Tiger Hill top but came under enemy fire from the Western Spur. Brig Bajwa, Commander 192 Mtn Bde, quickly moved a company of 8 Sikh to occupy India Gate and Helmet. It was reinforced by another company of 18 Grenadiers. On the morning of July 5, the enemy launched a fierce counter-attack led by two officers. One, Capt Kamal Sher fought gallantly and was killed. Later, he was awarded Pakistan's highest gallantry award when we returned his body to Pakistan.

In New Delhi, I remained anxious all night till Lt. Gen Krishan Pal, GOC 15 Corps, rang up at 0600 hours on July 4, 1999, to inform me that 18 Grenadiers had reached the Tiger Hill top and heavy fighting was going on. After consulting him and the Director General Military Operations, we decided to wait for confirmation from Maj Gen Puri. At 0730 hours, Puri spoke to me and confirmed that the enemy would not be able to dislodge 18 Grenadiers from the Tiger Hill top. By then the Defence Minister was on his way to Amritsar. When he landed at Amritsar airport, I gave him this exciting news. I also informed the Prime Minister, who was to address a public meeting in Haryana at 10 am.

July 4, 1999, was an important date. Despite heavy commitments of Independence Day, President Clinton had agreed to meet Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan, who had conveyed desperation in wanting to meet. The meeting was to take place in the evening --early morning of 5th July in India. We made sure that the whole world got to know about the capture of Tiger Hill and thus, the likely outcome of the Kargil war.

That was a hard psychological blow for the Pakistan army. Initially, it tried to deny the existence of Tiger Hill and labelled the entire operations as a figment of the imagination. But with Indian media beaming live war pictures into drawing rooms, that kind of fooling was no longer possible. The Indian victory made Pakistanis realise the writing on the wall. It allowed Clinton to arm-twist Nawaz Sharif in Washington DC. In India, there was a wave of jubilation and relief in the mood of the people!

 The writer is a former Chief of the Army Staff
Vijay Sabharwal

THE imposition of Emergency in the country by Indira Gandhi 41 years ago saw most prominent opposition leaders behind bars, and most of the Congress leaders meekly bowing to the will of Gandhi. However, there were a few, including veteran Congress leader Gulzari Lal Nanda, who even then dared to oppose this move.

Nanda, who played a pivotal role in the creation of a separate state of Haryana when the Akalis were demanding a Punjabi Suba, was conferred the title of Bharat Ratna posthumously during the period I.K. Gujral was the Prime Minister.

Indira Gandhi had good regard for Nanda as he was instrumental in her becoming prime minister. Nanda became interim prime minister for the second time after the death of Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1965, but opted out of the race when Gandhi wanted to contest for the post of the Congress Parliamentary Party leader against Morarji Desai.

On this Emergency anniversary, an incident that demonstrates the terror prevailing at that time and the firm stand taken by Nanda comes to my mind. It was on July 4, 1975, birthday of Nanda, that I took late Dr Shanti Swaroop Sharma (a freedom fighter), late Devi Dayal Nanha (journalist), Lala Naurata Ram and my late father Dharambir Sabharwal, who were close associates of Nanda in his parliamentary constituency of Kurukshetra, in my car to his residence in Delhi. We reached in the morning to pay our best wishes to Nandaji. He came out to meet us in the small office in the lawns just opposite to the main door of the building.

While he was discussing some issues regarding the development of Kurukshetra, his personnel secretary Balraj Puri informed us that there was a call from the Prime Ministers residence. Nanda picked up the telephone and said, Thank you for the best wishes. After listening for a while more, he told the caller: Convey my thanks to Indiraji and tell her there is no need to come here personally to wish me. When the caller persisted, Nanda repeated emphatically, No, no, there is no need!

After putting down the phone, Nanda disclosed that Gandhi had wanted to come and wish him personally but that he had refused. Just a minute or so later there was another call from the PM House. The caller said that Gandhi had expressed her resolve to visit Nanda and that she would be starting for his residence within the next few minutes. Nanda was furious and asked, When I am making it clear that there is no need for this, why is she coming here?

Despite our efforts to try and pacify him, Nanda was quite tense. He rushed in to the house to inform his wife Gandhis visit. Meanwhile, a large contingent of police descended on Nandas residence. The security cover was very heavy as Gandhi was moving out of her house for the first time after the imposition of Emergency. One officer entered Nandas office and directed that we move into a small room at the rear from where nothing was visible outside. Dr Shanti Swaroop Sharma began to argue with the officer pointing out that the room was extremely dingy.

Meanwhile, Nanda returned and inquired what the matter was. When the officer informed him about his directions to us, Nanda became furious and said it was his house and nobody could dishonour his guests in such a manner. The officer immediately apologised and allowed us to remain seated where we were.

Nanda received Indiraji at the door and both of them, along with R.K. Dhawan, went inside the house. They came out after about 25 minutes.

Upon returning to rejoin us in the office after seeing off Gandhi, Nanda appeared to be significantly relieved. He narrated in detail to us the conversation that had taken place between him and Gandhi. He disclosed that Gandhi had explained the conditions that had forced her to take the extreme step of imposing Emergency and requested him to issue a statement in support of it, as was being done by other political leaders.

However, Nanda refused to appreciate her actions in this regard, instead pointing out that a large number of freedom fighters, including her father Jawahar Lal Nehru, had suffered a great deal to achieve freedom and democracy for the country. In fact, he criticised the cleanliness operation started in various parts of Delhi, especially Karol Bagh. He told Gandhi that we do not have to make Delhi a Paris, instead take steps to provide livelihood to the people. By throwing out rehriwallahs (hawkers) or roadside vendors, we are making them jobless.

After a few days, the latter part of the conversation between the two leaders regarding throwing out of rehriwallas appeared in a few vernacular papers but Nandas obvious displeasure at the Emergency and his outright rejection of Gandhis actions was not highlighted, possibly due to restrictions on the media.

Nandaji shifted to Kurukshetra and tried to remain there for most of the time during the period of the Emergency, keeping himself busy with projects like the restoration of the Brahmasarovar, which even today is the pride of this town. During this period many senior Congressmen came here to the city to hold talks with Nandaji, but he refused to have anything to do with the Emergency and, in fact, highlighted the atrocities being brought to his notice.

He resigned from the Congress and many of his associates in Kurukshetra deserted the party at that time. He even refused to contest the parliamentary elections after the lifting of the Emergency. Later, Nanda was always proud to narrate how he never supported the Emergency despite the odds.





The writer is a veteran journalist.
Kuldeep Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, July 3

Commuters and social activists have raised questions on the poor quality of work being undertaken on the 90-km Shimla-Kalka fourlane project and the safety of travellers on the narrow road being excavated by private contractor for the project.

The 8m to 10-m-high retaining crate walls are crumbling at many places under the nose of the NHAI, which is executing the project and the state PWD under whose jurisdiction the work is taking place.

The death of a Nangal-based pharmacist Subhash Saini when a mound of debris collapsed on their taxi near Shaklech on the underconstruction Solan bypass has exposed the carelessness of the NHAI, the CPWD and district administration of Solan.

The commuters face difficulties on the underconstruction highway between the Solan bypass and Dharampur as the NHAI and CPWD have almost given a free run to the contractor.

The traffic jams are common. There is no police men to guide heavy flow of traffic. The contractor has not even put up proper mandatory warning signboards on the narrow bottlenecks, alerting commuters, resented Dr Vineet Kumar, a scientist.

But what comes a real shocker for commuters is that the NHAI and PWD directed the NHAI contractor to change the design of the retaining walls as the crate walls of more than four feet are not successful in the hills. The NHAI woke up when a few crate walls crumbled or shown signs of crumbling, reveal insiders raising concern how this big project is being executed in the state.

We have pointed out earlier that the high retaining crate walls erected without proper foundation have collapsed near Dharampur and Solan bypass road, said Brig Daleep S Chhajta (retd), social activist, who travels daily from Shimla to Kumarhatti for work.

The NHAI and CPWD must be brought to task by the Union ministry as they owe explanation to people as to why the NHAI is not properly supervising the work, he demanded.

The commuters have urged Union Minister for Surface Transport and National Highways Nitin Gadkari to initiate action against the NHAIs top managers, who are not supervising works properly. We are taking up the matter with Gadkari, Brig Chhajta asserted. While the NHAI managers are tightlipped, Additional Chief Secretary, PWD, Narender Chauhan said they had suggested to change the design of the retaining walls as the crate walls exceeding four-metre height are not successful. The project is under the NHAI supervision and design is executed by the contractor under terms and condition of the EPC mode, he added.
Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, July 3

The axing of two senior Cabinet ministers from the Shivraj Singh Chauhan ministry in Madhya Pradesh has sent the alarm bells ringing among ageing and ailing septuagenarian BJP leaders in Himachal where Assembly elections are slated for November 2017.

Party leaders are skeptical about the age limit for giving tickets for assembly polls while fence sitters in the party are feeling uneasy as the party high command has given several indications of generation change and grooming the younger leaders.

The casual remarks of Union Health Minister JP Nadda during his recent visit to Himachal that he was not averse to coming to the state, if the high command desires so, had caused ripples in the party.

Nadda, who is not only one of the seniormost leaders of the party after two former chief ministers, Shanta Kumar and Prem Kumar Dhumal and has wide experience of holding ministerial posts and handling the organisational affairs has become more active and is visiting the state more frequently, giving rise to speculation about his future course of action.

The BJP high command is weighing the option of declaring the chief ministerial candidate ahead of polls and getting feedback from various sources and younger party leaders aspiring for party tickets are hoping that the older leaders who have been in the electoral politics for three or four decades would be retired to make room for them, said sources in the party. The BJP is making an all out bid to return to power in 2017 polls and although the elections are far away - Assembly elections in states of Punjab, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh will be held before Himachal  the high command is focusing on the hill state.

The transition in Himachal would not be a difficult task as besides Nadda (55), there are senior leaders in younger group like state BJP chief Satpal Singh Satti, former ministers Jairam Thakur, Dr Rajiv Bindal, Ravinder Singh Ravi, Narender Bragata and Mohinder Singh, former state BJP chief Suresh Bharadwaj and BJYM president Anurag Thakur, who is also the MP from Hamirpur.

Efforts are on in the party for merger of Himachal Lokhit Party (HLP) formed by BJP dissidents ahead of 2012 Assembly polls. Besides other leaders, both Shanta Kumar are Nadda are keen on return of HLP president Maheshwar Singh, who is also MLA from Kullu, back in the party.

Most of the HLP leaders were taken back into the BJP in the run-up to Lok Sabha polls in 2014 but they had not been accommodated in the party respectfully and are feeling marginalized. Maheshwar Singh, who had been a two-time Lok Sabha member, three-time MLA, a Rajya Sabha member and former state BJP chief, has already a group of supporters in his parent party.

The merger of HLP with the BJP will benefit the BJP as Maheshwar Singh wields considerable influence in Mandi and Kullu districts.
Tribune News Service

Srinagar, July 2

In the second attack in south Kashmirs Pulwama district is less than 24 hours, a CRPF jawan was injured in a grenade attack.

The police said a grenade was lobbed at a CRPF patrol party in Iqbalabad, Tral, 35 km from Srinagar, around 10.30 am today.

A CRPF jawan was injured in the blast, a police officer said. The condition of the injured is stated to be stable.

Security forces carriedout searches in the areato nab the attackers.

Three CRPF men were injured on Friday evening when militants fired a grenade towards a CRPF camp at Littar in Pulwama, 45 km from Srinagar.

In the past one week, CRPF personnel have come under attack from militants.

On June 26, the CRPF lost eight personnel and 27 others were injured.

There has been a spurt in violence across Kashmir. In the last month, 24militants and 15 security personnel were killed in various operations.
Arteev Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu, July 3

The education sector continues to remain in dire straits in Jammu and Kashmir due to the dismal performance of the successive regimes to utilise the funds allocated by the Centre under its two flagship programmesSarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA).

According to official statistics, J&K had access to Rs 9,000 crore under the SSA in the past six years, but it could utilise only Rs 5,500 crore, while an amount of Rs 3,500 crore remained unutilised.

Similarly, the state could spend a meagre 30 per cent out of the total access of Rs 1,750 crore under RMSA in the past five years. An amount of Rs 540 crore was utilised for the period while an amount of Rs 1,210 crore remained unutilised, the statistics revealed.

The SSA aims to achieve Universalisation of Elementary Education (UEE) in a time-bound manner. It seeks to open new schools in those habitations which do not have schooling facilities and strengthen existing school infrastructure through provision of additional class rooms, toilets, drinking water, maintenance grant and school improvement grants. The RMSA was launched in March 2009 with the objective to enhance access to secondary education and to improve its quality.

The state has invested a whopping Rs 40,000 crore in the education sector in the past 10 years (from 2005 to 2015) but it failed to make an significant impact in the education scenario of the state as J&K had been ranked third from the bottom among all the states and Union Territories (UTs) in National Achievement Survey, said Naeem Akhter, Minister for Education, in a candid confession recently

Former education minister Harsh Dev Singh, who is also the chairman of Panthers Party and under whose tenure the SSA scheme was launched in J&K, regretted that it was clear reflection of state of affairs of governance in the state. The government should fix the responsibility and take action against those who had done great loss to the state. There are several instances where the SSA and RMSA funds were swindled by the people who had political patronage. We made several complaints but no action was initiated against them. The government should also look into these cases, Harsh Dev Singh said.

Jammu-based activist Raman Sharma said, This is sheer negligence of political class and state administration that the state had not been able to utilise the funds properly. The government should find out the reasons and fix the responsibility for the lapses. Apart from this, the government should focus on capacity building of teachers as the governments centre of attention so far had remained on development of infrastructure.

Mahesh Koul, a research scholar, said the poor utilisation of funds was a clear indication that the government did not strategise its policy before implementation. The government should fix the accountability for any lapses on account of under-utilisation of funds, besides constitute local committees to keep a check on malpractices, if any, under the scheme, he said.
Srinagar, July 3

Security agencies have identified the driver of the car which ferried the 'fidayeen' militants who ambushed a CRPF bus killing eight personnel, as a probe pointed to the LeT attackers having infiltrated into Kashmir Valley through higher reaches of Gulmarg early last month.

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Official sources today said the driver, whose identity has been withheld, had driven four militants of Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) from Baba Reshi, 57 km from here, four days before the deadly attack in Pampore on June 25 and kept them in a safe house in Pulwama district in south Kashmir.

The driver, who has gone underground since the day of the attack, was considered as Over Ground Worker (OGW) of the militant outfit by the local police but no action was taken against him as there was no evidence so far, the sources said.

Security agencies are now hot on the trail of the driver.

Piecing together the evidence collected by the security agencies so far, they said the four 'fidayeens' (suicide attackers) infiltrated through the higher reaches of Gulmarg in north Kashmir and reached south Kashmir in a Tata Sumo vehicle.

Initially, all the four terrorists had carried out a reconnaissance of the National Highway and chose the attack spot which is barely 3 km from Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI), where LeT militants had gunned down two Army officers and three others ranks in February this year.

After the Pampore attack, raids were carried out at various places in Pulwama during which the security agencies gathered information that it was a group of four 'fidayeens' behind the attack.

Out of the four, two were killed in swift action by the Quick Reaction Team (QRT) of CRPF during the attack, while the third was killed in a gunfight in Malwari Newa village of Pulwama district on June 30.

While the identity of two fidayeens was yet to be ascertained, the third one killed in Newa village was identifed as 'Abu Ayan', the sources said, adding the fourth in the group is believed to have moved towards Shopian and Kulgam area where dense forests provide a natural cover for hiding.

The fidayeens behind the attack in Pampore, which is on the outskirts of the city, had chosen a spot from where they could have escaped through a side lane and take shelter in the congested lanes and bylanes which could have taken them to Tral area as well, the sources said.

Security forces carried out searches at the Baba Rishi area, 57 km north of Srinagar, during which they identified the place where the four terrorists had stayed after their infiltration in the Valley, the sources said, adding that they are believed to have entered through 'Haji Peer pass' in the upper reaches of Gulmarg and then trekked along the foot hills of Peer Panjal range before reaching the halting point.

The army has been asked to increase the vigil along this axis and teams have fanned out along the possible route used by the militants questioning nomads and shepherd who often take their cattle and sheep along these tracks, the sources said.  PTI
Samaan Lateef

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, July 3

The driver, who ferried the four Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) members to Pampore where they ambushed a 52-seater CRPF bus killing eight personnel, was gunned down in an encounter with the security forces on June 30 at Newa village of south Kashmirs Pulwama district.

Manzoor Ahmad Dar, 22, of Gundibagh-Kakpora village of Pulwama had picked up the fidayeen group from Baba-Reshi area, 57 km northwest of from here, two days before the deadly attack in Pampore on June 25.

Manzoor had become an active militant two weeks before his death as per the report filed by his parents. He was killed along with a Pakistani militant on June 30 at Newa village, Pulwama Superintendent of Police Muhammad Rayees Bhat told The Tribune.

His role in the Pampore attack is established. He ferried the LeT militants from Baba-Reshi, Bhat said.

Sources said that Dar was a close associate of LeT militant Ayub Lone, who has been active in Pulwama for the last one year.

Dar brought them in a white Sumo vehicle from Baba-Reshi to Qamarwari locality of Srinagar via Bandipora area before they struck at Pampore, the sources said. We are investigating the missing link that how the group reached Pampore from Qamarwari, senior police officials said.

The police have recovered the Sumo, bearing registration number JK13-6773, from Qamarwari.

Two of the fidayeen were killed in the Pampore standoff while as another one Abu Ayan  a Pakistani national  was killed along with Dar on June 30 at Newa village. The remaining one member of the fidayeen group is hiding in south Kashmir and we have launched a manhunt to nab him, they said.

The sources said the fidayeen group had infiltrated into the Kashmir valley through the Gulmarg-Boniyar belt five days before the Pampore attack. They stayed in Baba-Reshi forests for one day and were moved out in the Sumo vehicle, the sources said.

Following the Pampore attack, a three-member team of the Ministry of Home Affairs visited Kashmir and found gaps in the road opening procedure (ROP) on the strategic Srinagar-Jammu national highway.

The MHA team visited Pampore and Bijbehara in south Kashmir, the scenes of the recent deadly highway attacks in Kashmir, and interviewed officials linked to the investigation of the case.
Jasmine Singh

A film producer... what is the one image that comes closest to defining them? Apparently, the one that most of us have in our minds is of a man (sorry women) with a stack of notes tucked in his sleek-looking suitcase (the briefcases in Hollywood cinema are always sleek); someone who despite walking around with the I own this man look, would shriek even if a rupee extra is spent on a cappuccino! This is simply a brief sketch of a film producer, but hey, this man here is carrying another hat with creative producer written on it. Now where did this come from? Money and creativity, viola have the film producers, Hindi and Punjabi alike, just got hit by a creative tornado or was this the scenario always. We find out...

Our baby too

Recently, director producer Anurag Kashyap spoke about his film Udta Punjabs director Abhishek Chaubey maintaining silence over the entire censor board issue, Abhishek is the director of the film, he knows the best about it. Does this mean a film clearly belongs to only a director, and producers are not supposed to interfere? No, this isnt how it works, Chandigarh-based Punjabi film producer Gunbir Sidhu from White Hill Production has a point to make. Apart from keeping the budgets in check, a producer, and I am talking about the one who knows the art and business of movie-making, is always a part from of the film right from the inception.

Gunbir shares that as producer he is involved in listening to the final draft of screenplay sitting as well as thoroughly involved in the post production, I sit through the final edit for sure, because I know what the Punjabi audience want, and what kind of product should go out.

Well, if you were to look at Karan Johar, Aditya Chopra, they arent just money bag producers; they reserve a big chunk of creative right.

So, says the captain

It is not easy to imagine, how the director who steers the ship would like a presumed non-creative producer calling the shots on his turf. Film director Rakesh Mehta would welcome any suggestion from the producers, only if they have knowledge about film making and films at large. In case they dont know a thing about filmmaking, I would ask them to back off because I am the director at the end of the day, and I know my job.

Lets draw a line

So how much of creative input is too much for a producer, what is the point from where he needs to just sit back and watch. Pawan Gill, film producer for Mundeyan Ton Bachke Rahin and for an upcoming much-talked about project, knows well where to draw the line. Pawan is involved in the entire working of the film because of his experience adds, When it comes to budget, I put forth whatever I can offer, and leave it to the director to make the most of it, in a way he wants. Gunbir on the other hand, lets the director take a call on the technical aspect, My director gets to pick the DOP, make-up artist, fashion designers, and the rest of the technical team he wants to work with.

With money in one bag, and a sling bag full of creative skills, looks like film producers really mean business!

jasmine@tribunemail.com
Dhaka, July 3

As Bangladesh today blamed homegrown Islamists and Pakistans ISI for the countrys worst terror attack, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan made startling revelations about the attackers. Let me make it clear again, there is no ISIS or Al-Qaida presence in Bangladesh... the hostage-takers were all homegrown terrorists. They all grew here in Bangladesh...

A police source was quoted as saying by Dhaka Tribune that the attackers were Bangladeshi nationals aged between 20 and 28, well-educated and most of them belonged to rich families. All of them were students and communicated at the crime scene in Bengali and English, the police said.

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Hossain Toufique Imam, political adviser to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said the manner in which the hostages were killed with machetes suggested the role of the banned Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen. Pakistans ISI and Jamaat connection is well known... they want to derail the current government, he said.

Among the five gunmen who launched Fridays terror attack in Dhaka was Rohan Ibne Imtiaz, son of a ruling Awami League leader. His father had lodged a police complaint on January 4 that his son was missing.  Agencies
New Delhi, July 3

The overall monsoon deficiency has reduced to 9 per cent after several parts of the country received a good amount of rainfall.

From June 1 to July 2, the country has received 164.9 mm of rainfall as against the normal limit of 180 mm, the Meteorological department said, adding that the situation is expected to improve as good rainfall is predicted for the months of July, August and September.

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But the rainfall deficiency in east and northeast India has gone up to 28 per cent as the region has received only 274 mm of rainfall as against 381 mm, which is the normal limit, they said.

According to India Meteorological Department (IMD), monsoon deficiency in central India is around 12 per cent.

As per the IMD predictions, other parts of the country are expected to receive good rainfall but the east and northeast India and parts of Tamil Nadu likely to get less precipitation.

Meanwhile, the Southwest Monsoon has advanced further to remaining parts of west Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, most parts of Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Punjab and some parts of east Rajasthan.

The Northern Limit of Monsoon (NLM) passes through Dwarka, Vallabh Vidyanagar, Bundi, Jaipur, Hisar and Bathinda.

"Conditions are favourable for further advance of Southwest Monsoon into some more parts of north Arabian Sea and Gujarat state, remaining parts of East Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab and some more parts of West Rajasthan during next 48 hours," the IMD said in its forecast. PTI
Harriet May Goodding (Carlson), 93, Roseville, Minn., passed away peacefully on June 2, 2016. Harriet was a graduate of Havelock High School in Lincoln, and she attended the University of Nebraska. Her family and friends will always remember her generosity of spirit and the many ways she expressed her love.

She was preceded in death by her beloved husband, John; her parents; three brothers and one sister. Harriet is survived by her daughters, Judith (James) Kuusisto and Marcia (Tom Gould) Goodding; six grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren; nieces and nephews and many friends.

A memorial service will be held at 2:30 p.m., July 11 at House of Hope Presbyterian Church, 797 Summit Ave. St. Paul, Minn. Memorial gifts preferred to the Educational Loan Fund of PEO or the Goodding Learning Center, University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Harriet's family wishes to thank the staff at Presbyterian Homes Roseville, The Hearth, for their exceptional, loving care. Arrangements through Cremation Society of Minnesota. cremationsocietyofmn.com.
Hyderabad, July 3

Telangana BJP MLA T Raja Singh on Sunday demanded immediate arrest of MIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi for announcing that his party would provide legal help to five city-based youths arrested by the NIA on charges of involvement in an alleged ISIS terror module.

Alleging that the ruling TRS government in Telangana supports Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM), which in turn supports terrorists, the MLA from Goshamahal seat here also demanded the Centre to derecognise the MIM party.

On one hand Prime Minister Narendra Modi is touring the world to gather support to combat terror, which is a good initiative, but on the other hand, TRS government in Telangana is friends with MIM, which in turn, has friendship with terrorists, he claimed at a press conference here.

Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi also trained his guns on Owaisi accusing him of betraying the country.

Naqvi alleged that Owaisi was giving oxygen to terrorists and that he was seen as standing with extremists.

Owaisi is directly or indirectly helping the ISIS which had come up with a video in which it threatened to target India. This is betrayal of the country. On the one hand you condemn the ISIS and on the other hand you support those who are involved in such acts.

The investigating agencies should take action against him within the legal framework. Those who support terrorism directly or indirectly should be condemned, BJP National Secretary Shrikant Sharma said.

The NIA has arrested five persons from Hyderabad for their alleged links with the ISIS.  PTI
New Delhi, July 3

The mortal remains of Indian girl Tarishi Jain, who was among those hacked to death by Islamic militants in a terror attack at a Dhaka restaurant, will be brought here on Monday, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said.

It is a case of brutal killing  an unnatural death.

Some legal procedure has (to) be completed, the Minister said on twitter.

Swaraj said that Tarishis body will be taken to Delhi by plane on Monday. This is with concurrence of Tarishis father.

The family will take the mortal remains to Ferozabad (UP), she added.

Tarishi, a student at UC Berkeley, was on vacation in Dhaka. Her father runs a garment business in Bangladesh for the last 15-20 years, according to officials here.

Swaraj said the country is with Tarishis family in this hour of grief and visa has been arranged for them.

Twenty foreigners, including eight Italians, seven Japanese and the Indian student, were brutally murdered by the militants inside the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhakas diplomatic zone before commandos launched an assault yesterday, killing six attackers and capturing one alive, ending Bangladeshs worst terror attack.

The bodies of the victims were recovered during a search in the Bakery compound after the operation.  PTI
Tribune News Service

Mumbai, July 2

Heavy rain over the past 24 hours have flooded parts of Mumbai and thrown road and train transport services out of gear. However, it being a holiday at many offices, there were fewer people outdoors.

According to the police and fire brigade, low-lying areas of Central Mumbai have been flooded following a spell of downpour on Saturday afternoon which coincided with high tide. Officials of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporations Disaster Control Room said drains through which rainwater was pumped into the sea were shut due to the high tide, resulting in water logging.

At many places in the city, the traffic police were seen trying to help motorists move their stranded vehicles. Local trains, Mumbais lifeline, were running late after tracks were flooded with rainwater. However, the worst hit was the Harbour Branch of the Central Railway where a mechanical fault in the signalling equipment caused long delays.

Offices in many parts of Mumbai closed early in order to enable their employees to reach home without delay.

Police and fire officials said there were no casualties till afternoon, though there were reports of tree-falls and wall collapses from Mumbai and surrounding areas.

The weather department has predicted heavy rainfall for the next 24 hours in Mumbai, Goa and the entire Konkan region.
Kolkata, July 3

A high alert has been sounded on the Indo-Bangla border in West Bengal following the Friday night's terror attack in Dhaka, with the Border Security Force intensifying its vigil to prevent suspects from crossing over to India.

The administration has asked the state police to be on high alert and take serious note of any suspicious movement in the border districts.

"All police stations along the Indo-Bangla border have been alerted and all border districts have been told to keep a close eye on any suspicious movement," a senior police official of the West Bengal Police said.

Vehicles are being checked at various entry and exit points in the districts bordering Bangladesh, which has declared a two-day state mourning after the attack on a cafe in Dhaka's diplomatic zone resulting in the killing of 20 persons, all foreigners, who were taken hostage.

As it was a festival season with Eid and Ratha yatra to be celebrated, a strict vigil was being maintained on the border. But after the attack in Bangladesh, the BSF had further intensified the vigil and special operations were on, IG BSF Sandeep Salunke had told PTI yesterday.

Salunke also said the BSF was in touch with Border Guard Bangladesh and keeping a close eye on the situation.  PTI
GS Paul

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, July 3

In town to release the Aam Aadmi Party's "youth manifesto," party convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today faced resistance from unidentified Sikhs in the Golden Temple complex. He is on a three-day Punjab visit.

As Kejriwal and his party leaders, including Sucha Singh Chhotepur and Bhagwant Mann, came out of the Golden Temple complex at 2.30 pm, two Sikh youths threw pamphlets at them. They raised slogans against Kejriwal for razing a 'piao' (drinking water kiosk) outside Sis Ganj Sahib Gurdwara in Delhi. They were taken away by police personnel who were in mufti.

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The pamphlets claimed that neither Kejriwal nor his party MLA Alka Lamba had apologised to the Sikhs for demolishing the "historic piao" at the shrine. The kiosk was demolished on March 28, on the orders of the Delhi High Court, during an anti-encroachment drive. However, it was rebuilt after the drive.

Chhotepur accused the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) of launching a false propaganda against AAP. The Delhi Government has nothing to do with it. The Akalis are playing dirty politics, he said.The SGPC did not honour Kejriwal with a siropa (robe of honour), but he was accorded a warm welcome by the Durgiana Temple Committee.

Kejriwal's visit begins under the shadow of an AAP legislator in Delhi, Naresh Yadav, being named in an FIR related to the recent case of sacrilege in Malerkotla. But AAP leaders say the SAD-BJP government is trying to implicate its leaders in false cases. Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal refused to be drawn into the controversy, saying the police were investigating the matter.
Chennai, July 2

A 24-year-old engineering graduate was arrested in Tirunelveli late last night in connection with the sensational murder of a woman IT professional here last week. Cornered by the police, he attempted suicide by slashing his neck.

The accused, Ram Kumar, was arrested in Tirunelveli late last night. When the police went into his house, he hid in the backyard and inflicted an injury on his neck with a knife when surrounded by the police, Chennai Police Commissioner TK Rajendran told mediapersons here today. Ram Kumar was rushed to the Tirunelveli Medical College Hospital.

Swathi, 24, an employee of software giant Infosys, was hacked to death at 6.30 am on June 24 while she was waiting to board a train at the Nungambakkam railway station on the city outskirts. The Commissioner said Ram Kumar came to Chennai three months ago from his native T Meenkakshipuram village near Shencottah in Tirunelveli district. He stayed on rent in Choolaimedu, close to the victims residence.

He learnt that Swathi used the suburban train to go to her workplace near Chengelpet and began to stalk her, he said. Asked if Ram Kumar had tried to befriend Swathi, he said, Yes. He said a police team had gone door to door in Choolaimedu area to zero in on the culprit.

Ram Kumars image captured on a CCTV tallied with a photo in the register of inmates in a lodge in the neighbourhood. Details in the register, including the photograph, matched the description of the culprit, the Commissioner said.  PTI
Activist and writer Elie Wiesel, the World War II death camp survivor who won a Nobel Peace Prize for becoming the life-long voice of millions of Holocaust victims, died on Saturday. He was 87.

Wiesel was a philosopher, speaker, playwright and professor who also campaigned for the tyrannised and forgotten around the world. He died at his home in New York City, the New York Times reported.

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The Romanian-born Wiesel lived by the credo expressed in Night, his landmark story of the Holocaust  to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time. In awarding the Peace Prize in 1986, the Nobel Committee praised him as a messenger to mankind and one of the most important spiritual leaders and guides in an age when violence, repression and racism continue to characterise the world.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed Wiesel as a ray of light, and said his extraordinary personality and unforgettable books demonstrated the triumph of the human spirit over the most unimaginable evil.

Wiesel did not waver in his campaign never to let the world forget the Holocaust horror. While at the White House in 1985 to receive the Congressional Gold Medal, he even rebuked US President Ronald Reagan for planning to lay a wreath at a German cemetery where some of Hitlers notorious Waffen SS troops were buried.

Dont go to Bitburg, Wiesel said. That place is not your place. Your place is with the victims of the SS. Wiesel became close to US President Barack Obama but the friendship did not deter him from criticising the US policy on Israel. He spoke out in favor of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and pushed the United States and other world powers to take a harder stance against Iran over its nuclear programme.

Obama remembered him as one of the great moral voices of our time, and in many ways, the conscience of the world. Wiesel had raised his voice, not just against anti-Semitism, but against hatred, bigotry and intolerance in all forms, Obama said in a statement. Wiesel attended the joint session of the US Congress in 2015 when Netanyahu spoke on the dangers of Irans programme.

Wiesel and his foundation both were victims of the wide-ranging Ponzi scheme run by New York financier Bernie Madoff, with Wiesel and his wife losing their lifes savings and the foundation losing $15.2 million.

Psychopath  its too nice a word for him, he said of Madoff in 2009.

Wiesel was a hollow-eyed 16-year-old when he emerged from the newly liberated Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945. He had been orphaned by the Nazis and their identification number, A-7713, was tattooed on his arm as a physical manifestation of his broken faith and the nightmares that would haunt him throughout his life.

Wiesel and his family had first been taken by the Nazis from the village of Sighetu Marmatiei in the Transylvania region of Romania to Auschwitz, where his mother and one of his sisters died. Wiesel and his father, Shlomo, ended up in Buchenwald, where Shlomo died. In Night, Wiesel wrote of his shame at lying silently in his bunk while his father was beaten nearby.

After the war, Wiesel made his way to France, studied at the Sorbonne and by 19 had become a journalist. He pondered suicide and never wrote of or discussed his Holocaust experience until 10 years after the war as a part of a vow to himself. He was 27 years old in 1955 when Night was published in Yiddish, and Wiesel would later rewrite it for a world audience.

Asked by an interviewer in 2000 why he did not go insane, Wiesel said, To this day, that is a mystery to me. By 2008, Night had sold an estimated one crore copies, including 30 lakh after talk-show hostess Oprah Winfrey made it a spotlight selection for her book club in 2006.

In 1985, Wiesel helped break ground in Washington for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and the following year was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In typical fashion, he dedicated the prize to all those who survived the Nazi horror, calling them an example to humankind how not to succumb to despair.

Wiesel, who became a US citizen in 1963, was slight in stature but a compelling figure when he spoke. With a chiselled profile, burning eyes and a shock of gray hair, he could silence a crowd by merely standing up.

He was often described as sombre. An old friend, Chicago professor Irving Abrahamson, once said of him: Ive never seen Elie give a belly laugh. Hell chuckle, hell smile, therell be a twinkle in his eye. But never a laugh from within. A few years after winning the peace prize, he set up the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, which, in addition to Israeli and Jewish causes, campaigned for Miskito Indians in Nicaragua, Cambodian refugees, victims of South African apartheid and of famine and genocide in Africa.

Wiesel wrote more than 50 books and held a long-running professorship at Boston University. In one of his later books, Open Heart, he used his 2011 quintuple-bypass surgery as an impetus for reflection on his life.

I have already been the beneficiary of so many miracles, which I know I owe to my ancestors, he wrote. All I have achieved has been and continues to be dedicated to their murdered dreams  and hopes.  Reuters
GS Paul

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, July 3

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal here today unveiled the partys 51-point youth manifesto for the 2017 Assembly polls, terming it for the youth, of the youth and by the youth.

The manifesto, prepared by the partys Punjab Dialogue Committee  headed by veteran journalist Kanwar Sandhu  promises to end the drug menace in a month, revamp education and end unemployment.

Addressing a gathering, Kejriwal said the vision document was a commitment to the youth to make Punjab corruption-free, pass the Jan Lokpal Bill, crack down on the drug scourge, overhaul governance and revive the dying industry. He said the committee had finalised the manifesto after incorporating inputs from youngsters across the state.

Kejriwal, who started a three-day tour of Punjab by paying obeisance at the Golden Temple and Durgiana Temple here, claimed that AAP would win at least 100 of the 117 assembly seats in the state.

Addressing a rally, he said if his party came to power, those responsible for the desecration of Quran and Guru Granth Sahib would be behind bars within a month.

Why has the name of Naresh Yadav cropped up in the sacrilege case just a day ahead of my Punjab visit? The SAD is playing dirty politics, he said. First Amarinder looted Punjab, then the Badals did it, he added.
KV Prasad

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 3

Paying tributes to Banda Singh Bahadur, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said the life of the warrior who lived on the edge of the sword is an inspiration for all.

Addressing a large congregation marking the 300th martyrdom anniversary of Banda Singh Bahadur here, PM Modi said one event agitated Banda Bahadur and he turned a monk. He took inspiration from Guru Gobind Singh to turn into a brave soldier.

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Recounting the life of the warrior, PM said Banda Bahadur took along members from all communities to build an army. This showed his organisational ability and skill to carry them forward. He gave rights to poor, farmers and reflected socialist thinking by his administration. He believed in being an administrator without seeking any benefit for himself.

Banda Bahadur gave utmost respect to cultural and social diversity in the country. He was a Bairagi who turned into a brave warrior and embraced martyrdom, Modi said.

PM Modi also released a coffee table book on Banda Singh Bahadur brought out by the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee.

The PM was also presented with a siropa. Amid chants of Jo Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal, the PM presented a set of commemorative coins issued earlier to mark the occasion.

Ahead of the formal event, a multi-media event was hosted on the life and times of the Sikh warrior who fought against the mighty Mughal empire.

Sukhbir lashes out at AAP

Earlier, Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal ridiculed the Aam Aadmi Party for seeking to tarnish name of industrious people of the state as drug addicts.

Sukhbir said Punjab is foremost in industrial and other production that could not have been achieved without hard working people.

Without naming AAP, he said it is time to be cautious of those who are labelling industrious Sikh and Punjabi people of the state as nashedi.

Sukhbir Badal maintained that Punjab is progressive and people of the state, especially Sikhs, have been at the forefront in taking on challengers since time immemorial.

The speech in front of an audience, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, appeared to be the launch of the election campaign from the city where AAP runs a government.

On his part, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal underscored secular traditions of the state.

He urged the Prime Minister to build a national memorial in keeping up spirit of this tradition so that future generations can take pride and learn from heritage.
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 3

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today urged Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti to direct its ministry for an immediate revision of construction norms for water courses, especially in Punjab, allocations of funds for the Swan river and Upper Bari Doab Canal.

Badal met Bharti at her official residence in Delhi this morning and impressed upon her to allow Rs35,000 per hectare as construction cost for water courses instead of the existing Rs25,000 per hectare, as the average discharge in Punjab was 2.5 cusecs while it was only 1 cusec in the rest of the country.

He also sought funds to the tune of Rs209 crore for canalisation of the 17-km-long Swan river in Punjabs territory to save people and their property from floods. He told the minister that Himachal Pradesh had already started the work of canalising the river within its jurisdiction.

Bharti assured Badal that she would soon convene a meeting of officers concerned to address these issues. She also asked the CM to send a team of officers from the state Irrigation Department for a prompt solution.
The staff of Yankee Hill Brick took a collective breather recently for a cookout to celebrate the completion of brick artist Jay Tschetter's latest pieces, which looked a lot like what came off the grill -- only super, super-sized.

They ate in Tschetter's studio, flanked by the commissioned works that would shame all the grillers in town this holiday weekend: 6,500 pounds worth of burger and chili dog.

The burger is 22 feet wide and about 8 feet tall in its substantial center. The hot dog runs nearly a third of the way from home to first base, 26 feet long, with a circumference of roughly 4 feet.

The pieces are bound for Johnson City, Tennessee, home of the latest Pals Sudden Service in a historic district zone that requires conformance to the brick-heavy cityscape surrounding it.

So Pals, a regional Tennessee chain that prides itself on drive-thru staples and super-sized images of them, needed a brick burger and chili dog.

Tschetter, president of Images in Brick, is likely best known in Lincoln for his "Iron Horse Legacy" mural that has stood in the Haymarket since 1990 and features an engine cruising along the prairie, pushing out of the wall and into the third dimension. He's also been commissioned to make murals at the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and at Ponca State Park and the North Platte Veterans Memorial in Nebraska. A more recent project was an ornate nativity scene for a university in Indiana.

And then came the request for a 3,500-pound chili dog and a 3,000-pound hamburger.

What a weird turn of events, Tschetter said, and then he laughed -- hard.

The artistic brickwork market has, in his view, yet to rebound following 2008.

After the crash, people dont have the disposable income, Tschetter said.

But some -- including Pal's Sudden Service President Thom Crosby -- still find him or his website, imagesinbrick.com.

At the Yankee Hill barbecue, a few images of Pals storefronts spread across the folding tables showed a faraway Tennessee fast-food building adorned with a chili dog and burger made of fiberglass, the same material as the big chicken outside nearby Lees Chicken in Lincoln.

Tschetter said he got a call last fall from Crosby, who was in search of someone who could help Pal's comply with city code for its new store in Tennessee -- brick by brick.

And he said, I think youre the guy.

The ones built in Lincoln arent completely different from a typical Pals sculpture. If one chiseled through the brick, past the steel bracing and through the protective foam layer of the giant chili dog, he or she would eventually run into 1,300 pounds of fiberglass frankfurter.

Tschetters task was to encase the hot dog and burger (also fiberglass, and also hefty) with brick that stayed true to the drive-thru decor at the chains other burger joints.

A lot of head-scratching, his wife, Kathy Tschetter, said of his first few months on the project. So many brick cuts and little tiny pieces. A giant puzzle to figure out. But I think he enjoyed the challenge.

Jay Tschetter's description of the same time period: Great uncertainty!

And, he said, plenty of friends came by to ask, "Are you crazy?

His first plan crumbled like chili meat. His brother, Dean, superimposed a brick grid over the fiberglass. They put up scaffolding to suspend the hot dog from two sets of reinforced cables in the Yankee Hill brick studio. The burger, made to look like less than half of it is protruding through a wall, found a home on an exceptionally strong cart.

At first, Tschetter wanted to try to shape and bend thin wet brick around the existing structures. It was a first for him, and probably a last, too. The bricks warped back to their original shape after hed tried to apply them. Plus, he left fingerprints everywhere.

Plan B.

I just plot it all out, and then facet cut around all the curves, creating a mosaic pattern that works for the particular shapes and sexy curves of the Dog ... and that's out of brick that are already fired, he said in a Facebook post midway through the project.

Leave it to Jay to come up with something new and interesting, said Vicky Todd, the kiln manager who fired many of the Pals bricks.

He used lighter, mojave-colored brick for the chili dog buns interior and light ironspot for the exterior of both pieces. The burgers tomato and the hot dog share the same light red tone. The burger patty and the 34 6- to 8-inch pieces of rubble jointed together atop the hot dog -- the chili -- are the same, chocolate-brown shade of metro ironspot.

Each time he laid bricks on the chili dog, Tschetter said, he had to wait two hours for the section to dry before doing another. Gravity played a key role, he said, and each time a brick was placed the suspended chili dog had to be rotated.

The two-month job was arguably the most agonizingly slow rotisserie turn in the history of hot dogs.

Anything Jay does is not easy, said Vicky Todd, Nothing Ive ever seen him do is simple.

Including grouting, Tschetter estimates the two pieces took about 640 hours to complete.

To celebrate the finished products, he suggested the cookout at Yankee Hill Brick for everyone who works there and more than a few who don't and asked Crosby how much itd cost to ship 60 or 70 mouths worth of Pals to Nebraska. The answer turned out to be nothing.

Pals overnighted boxes frozen burgers, dogs, chili and a couple of bags of seasoning to the brickyard along with a few laminated sheets that instructed those unfamiliar (everybody) on how to Pals Style their meals. (Pals, it seems, keeps it simple: a proper dog includes the dog, mustard, diced white onion, chili and nothing else but the bun.)

Tschetter took the helm at the grill, and workers loaded up both their plates and cellphone cameras.

Actually, employees at the brickyard have been snapping photos of the fiberglass pieces since they arrived in December.

That was a day I had to call some family members, said Pat Weixelman, accounting and HR manager at Yankee Hill.

Another staffer recalled slipping in to marvel at the folds in the robes of the brick nativity scene that now adorns the outside of Alumni Hall at Marian University in Indianapolis.

But that project didn't end with a company-wide cookout.

Nothing like it ever before," Tschetter said of his work for Pal's, and laughed again. "OK, I can brick anything now."
Fatehgarh (Dirba), July 2

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today exhorted the farmers to stage dharnas in Delhi instead of Punjab, saying that it was the Centre which could waive their debts, especially bank loans.

Badal was interacting with mediapersons after holding a Sangat Darshan programme at Fatehgarh village in Dirba assembly segment of Sangrur district. During his two-day visit to Dirba, he distributed grants worth about Rs 22 crore among about 30 villages for development works.

The CM said district-level agricultural debt settlement forums and a state-level tribunal were being formed to resolve the farmers debt disputes. On Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwals visit to Punjab, Badal said everyone had the right to tour the state and conduct political activities.  TNS
G.S. Paul

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, July 3

Aam Aadmi Party convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his supporters had to face resistance from unidentified Sikh persons in the Golden Temple complex on Sunday.

Kejriwal is in Amritsar to release the youth manifesto, the first poll document of the party ahead of 2017 Assembly polls. It was his maiden day of three-day visit to Punjab.

Later, addressing a rally, Kejriwal said his party will win at least 100 seats of the 117 in Punjab.

As Kejriwal along with his supporters came out of the Golden Temple complex at around 2.30 pm, two Sikh youth started raising anti-Kejriwal slogans and threw pamphlets at them.

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This provoked Kejriwal's supporters who allegedly manhandled the duo. The situation was brought under control with the intervention of police who were present there in plainclothes.

The pamphlets titled as Mister Kejriwal tu Sikhan da doshi hain (Mr Kejriwal, you are an enemy to the Sikh community) held him responsible for demolition of a historic piao at Gurdwara Sis Ganj Sahib in Delhi and rued that no apology came either from him or his MLA Alka Lamba.

We, Sikhs, have never allowed anyone to point finger at our gurdwaras. You have run over our Sis Ganj with bulldozers! the leaflet said.

It was on the orders of the Delhi High Court that the drinking water kiosk near the gurdwara was demolished on March 28. A mob took to violent protests when the Delhi MC officials demolished a piao (water kiosk) during an anti-encroachment drive in Chandni Chowk. However, the kiosk was rebuilt after the drive.

While comparing Kejriwal with former prime minister Indira Gandhi, the protesters said the Sikh community will never forgive him and his partys ideology, which had hurt the sentiments of Sikhs.

Sources said the youth were taken into custody by the police.

Even as the SGPC task force and local police escorted Kejriwals entourage, his visit was hardly recognised by the SGPC. He was not presented a siropa (robe of honour) by the SGPC.

Kejriwal also paid obeisance at the Durgiana Temple, where he was honoured by the temple committee members.

At a rally, the Delhi Chief Minister said if AAP comes to power, the people behind desecration of Quran and Guru Granth Sahib will be booked to justice.

He also promised to end the menace of drugs business and mafias in Punjab within a month, saying, The Aam Aadmi Party if comes to power, it can curb and put an end to drugs business and mafias in Punjab within a month.

First Capt Amarinder looted Punjab followed by Badals, if AAP comes to power we will put behind bars those involved in corruption, he added.  With agency inputs
Syed Ali Ahmed

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 3

Paying tributes to Baba Banda Singh Bahadur, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said here today that the first Sikh ruler was not only a warrior but also a selfless administrator who gave rights to the farmers and the poor.

Addressing a gathering at Banda Bahadurs 300th Shaheedi Samagam (martyrdom day) at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium, Modi announced the allocation of Rs 100 crore for the celebrations to mark the 350th birth anniversary of Guru Gobind Singh next year.

Modi said Banda Bahadur took along members from all communities to build an army and gave utmost respect to the cultural and social diversity in the country.

The Prime Minister also released a coffee table book, Baba Banda Singh Bahadur, Pioneer of Indias Independence. Amid chants of Jo Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal, a set of commemorative coins issued earlier was presented to him, besides a siropa.

Speaking on the occasion, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal underscored the secular traditions of the state. He urged the Prime Minister to build a national memorial to commemorate Banda Bahadurs sacrifice.

Deputy CM Sukhbir Badal said it was time to be wary of the people who were labelling industrious Sikhs and Punjabis as nashedi (drug addicts). Without naming the Aam Aadmi Party or the Congress, he hit out at those who were tarnishing the image of Punjabis.

Meanwhile, a multi-media event was organised to pay homage to Banda Bahadur.

He was a Brahmin, claims Sabha

Chandigarh: Shri Brahmin Sabha, Punjab, on Sunday said it was wrong to term Banda Singh Bahadur as a Rajput as he was a Brahmin. In a press statement, president of the sabha Devi Dyal Prashar said the Brahmin community was pained over the wrong propaganda. He said Banda Bahadurs real name was Lachman Das Bhardwaj.  TNS
BD Kasniyal

Our Correspondent

Pithoragarh, July 3

The bodies of seven residents of Bastari village in Pithoragarh district, who were killed in landslides, were cremated at Charma Ghat here today. Jawans of 8 Assam Regiment retrieved three more bodies, including that of a resident of Naulara village, from the debris, district disaster management office sources said here.

Besides 100 jawans of 8 Assam Regiment, 100 jawans of the SSB, 140 of the ITBP, 26 of the NDRF and 30 SDRF personnel were engaged in the search operation to locate bodies. Around 150 members of the Didihat Youth Society and the Youth Foundation of India are helping the forces, said the sources.

They added over 100 affected persons were living in relief camps set up in schools and colleges near the affected villages. Meanwhile, the district administration gave relief money to the affected people today. We have sent 50 plastic sheets to the affected families of Udma village and have erected some tents to lodge them if space in schools and colleges proves to be short, said HC Semwal, District Magistrate, Pithoragarh.

According to reports received from Almora, heavy rains last evening caused extensive damages in the Someshwar valley. Debris entered several business establishments in the Lodh valley of Someshwar town in Almora district. Over 100 farmers and shopkeepers in nearby areas of Someshwar town have been affected as heavy mud and debris have covered their farms and shops, said Rekha Arya, former MLA from Someshwar.

Someshwar SDM Vivek Rai said some persons had been told to vacate their houses due to impending danger of landslides in their villages. Several bridges had been damaged and villages cut off from the rest of the district.

Meanwhile, the first batch of 55 Kailash Mansarovar pilgrims, which was returning to New Delhi via Almora, had to wait at Dharchula and Didihat for two days as roads ahead were closed. The pilgrims were sent to Almora from Didihat today, said a KMVN officer at Didihat.
Peshawar, July 3

At least 33 persons, including eight Pakistani security personnel, were on Sunday killed when torrential rain hit a region bordering Afghanistan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, triggering flash floods, officials said.

Around 30 houses were demolished in the rainstorm caused by continuous heavy rainfall that began late yesterday and were concentrated mainly in the northwestern province of Khybher Pakthunkwa.

The worst hit district was south west Chitral district, where flood waters swept away a mosque at the time when special Ramzan prayers were being held inside, dozens of houses and army post in the remote village of Ursoon, a media report said.

At least 33 persons, including eight security officials, were killed and 17 persons were reportedly missing in Ursoon Village while as many were injured due to flash flooding in the area occurred due to the over flow of the Chitral river, DPO Chitral Asif Iqbal said.

Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) was in contact with the district administration for rescue and relief efforts, according to a statement released by the authority.

Around 82 houses were affected by the waters and efforts were underway to provide food and relief items to the villagers, the statement said.

KP Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra has expressed deep grief and sorrow over the losses caused by the flooding and directed the authorities concerned to speed up the rescue and relief efforts in the affected area.

He also directed the administration to take all precautionary measures to save the lives and properties of the people.  PTI
Belgrade, July 2

A man shot dead five persons, including his wife, and injured 20 others in a cafe in northern Serbia early today, the police said.

The man entered the cafe and opened fire with an automatic rifle, killing his wife and another woman, then he continued to shoot at other citizens in the cafe, a police statement said. The incident happened at about 1:40 am (local time) in the town of Zitiste, around 80 kilometres north of Belgrade.

Police arrested the man, born in 1978 and named only by his initials Z.S., and opened a probe into the shooting. Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic visited the scene and was quoted by N1 television channel as saying that the weapon was illegal and jealousy was believed to be the motive.  AFP
Dhaka, July 3

Bangladesh on Sunday blamed home-grown Islamist terrorists and Pakistans spy agency ISI for the countrys worst terror attack in which 20 hostages, including an Indian, were hacked to death, ruling out the role of the Islamic State, as the shocked nation began observing two days of national mourning.

Let me clear it again, there are no ISIS or al-Qaeda presence or existence in Bangladesh... the hostage-takers were all home-grown terrorists, not members of ISIS or any other international Islamist outfits, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said.

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We know them (hostage-takers) along with their ancestors, they all grew here in Bangladesh... they belong to home-grown outfits like JMB (Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh), he said.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the killing of the hostages, mostly foreigners, and two police officers during an 11-hour siege that ended yesterday after the army stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery, popular with expats in the diplomatic zone here, killing six attackers and capturing one alive.

Hossain Toufique Imam, the Political Adviser to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said that the way in which the hostages were killed with machetes suggests the role of a local terrorist group, the banned Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen.

Pakistans ISI and Jamaat connection is well known...

they want to derail the current government, Imam told a TV channel.

The arrested terrorist chickened out at the last minute and he holds the key to crucial details, he said.

Nineteen-year-old Indian girl Tarishi Jain, nine Italians, seven Japanese, one American of Bangladeshi origin and two Bangladeshis were among the people who were killed in the attack.

Most of those killed were found with their throats slit.

Among those rescued were Indian, Sri Lankan and Japanese nationals, media reports said. Around 30 persons were injured.

A police source was quoted as saying by the Dhaka Tribune that all the attackers were Bangladeshi nationals aged between 20 and 28.

The police said the attackers were well-educated and most came from rich families.

All of them were students and communicated at the crime scene in both Bengali and English, the police source said.

The government has consistently ruled out the presence of the dreaded terror group in the Muslim-majority nation, though experts have been maintaining that series of brutal attacks on minorities and secular activists had the hallmarks of ISIS group.

Meanwhile, the police have released the photos of the six gunmen killed during the raid by commandos. A seventh was arrested and is being interrogated by Bangladeshi intelligence officers.

Awami League leader's son among attackers

Police chief AKM Shahidul Hoque said five of the dead gunmen were listed as militants and the police had been looking for them.

The police identified them as Akash, Bikash, Don, Bandhon, and Ripon.

One of the five gunmen who launched Friday's terror attack in Dhaka has been identified by an Awami League leader as Rohan Ibne Imtiaz, the son of another leader of the ruling party's city unit.

Rohan has been recognised as the son of S.M. Imtiaz Khan Babul, a leader of the party's Dhaka City chapter and Bangladesh Olympic Association's deputy secretary general.

Babul lodged a police complaint on January 4 this year stating that his son was missing.

"We have identified him (Rohan) as Imtiaz Babul's son after going through the pictures that came up in the media and on Facebook," Mukul Chowdhury, a vice-president of the recently defunct Awami League's Dhaka City unit committee, told bdnews24.com.

Babul was the youth and sports secretary of the same committee Chowdhury had served.

The Awami League currently rules the country and is one of the two largest political parties of Bangladesh.

Former classmates have uploaded a photo combo in the social media of Rohan with his parents and a photo -- reportedly released by the Islamic State -- that monitoring group SITE Intelligence published on Twitter as one of the Dhaka cafe attackers.

The gunmen did a background check on religion of the captives by asking them to recite Quranic verses and tortured those who could not do so.

Announcing a two-day state mourning for those killed in the worst terror attack in the country, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina vowed to do everything to eliminate terrorists from the country and asked extremists to stop killing in the name of religion.

She asked all, including the general public, to get united to resist a handful of terrorists.

The National Flag was kept at half mast as the country began two-day mourning period.

A huge number of people joined the mourning wearing black badges or posting black badges on their social media accounts, including Facebook.

We must find out the roots of the culprits who gave arms and explosives to the terrorists for committing the barbaric attack on the restaurant, state-run BSS news agency quoted Hasina as saying.  PTI/IANS
Once there was a house grand enough to shelter our lives, our dreams, our passions, our hopes. Frank Sinatra knew about the house. It was the house he lived in, the house that embraced the grocer and the butcher/and the people that I meet/The children in the playground/the faces that I see/All races and religions/thats America to me.

In a 10-minute paean to brotherhood (a rarely used word today) released in 1945, Sinatra asked:

What is America to me?

A name, a map, or a flag I see?

A certain word, democracy?

What is America to me?

Good question: What is America to me, to you, to everyone? And a fine question to ask today as we celebrate the birth of America, a birth that consumed  since our always evolving national experiment has too often demanded new deaths and new wars  1.4 million Americans who died in our multiple wars. That figure includes the dead in every American war, including the 25,000 killed in the Revolution, the 750,000 slain in the Civil War, and the 521,000 killed in the world wars. It also includes the one casualty killed in each of two little-known incidents: the Sheepeater Indian War of 1879, the last Indian war fought in the Pacific Northwest; and the Santo Domingo Affair of 1904, a brief altercation between U.S. and Dominican armed forces. These last two may seem insignificant adventures, yet the deaths were equal to anyone killed in other wars since, if each soul is equal in a democracy, then each casualty is equal to every other. And if not, then what are we fighting for, anyway?

America  the nation, the concept  is a problem if only because were not done defining it, and yet the memories of the dead and the wounded (wounded physically and psychologically, in foreign wars and in strife of all sorts here at home) keep pushing us toward some resolution about what we are and what we might be, as does a smash Broadway show about the only founding father killed in a duel and as does a certain presidential candidate who is testing our moral elasticity and our tolerance for intolerance.

Being an American is a conundrum and a test. As Langston Hughes wrote in 1935, looking both backward in time and toward the future:

O, let America be America again 

The land that has never been yet 

And yet must be  the land where every man is free 

The land thats mine  the poor mans, Indians,

Negroes, ME 

 Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Four years later, Paul Robeson also catalogued what it meant to be a citizen of this nation in his cantata, A Ballad for Americans, listing, as had Hughes, our vast multitudes: engineer, musician, street cleaner, carpenter, teacher, farmer, office clerk, factory worker, truck driver, miner, seamstress, ditch digger, all from many origins and all with many creeds. After hearing this civic litany, a member of Robesons chorus drew a deep breath and said admiringly, You sure are something.

Yes, we are, we Americans. We are a motley crew who came from hither and from yon, and fought like hell for these mountains and these valleys and these plains and for the rights and the privileges that America confers and obligates upon us. But let us be honest, even today  July Fourth. Some of that blood was just and some was not. Some came from the blast of an enemys cannon and some from the lash of a whip. That is our glory and that is our sin. But also let us recognize that each drop of blood built our house  rickety one day, well-scrubbed another, desperately in need of paint the next yet tall with the promise that it will welcome all, and shelter all.

And still we ask in the 240th year of this nation: What is America to me? The best answer to this ageless question may be Sinatras: America is a house for all races and religions  a name, a map  a flag I see  A certain word, democracy. Let us hope, for those alive and for those who perished, for those who suffered and for those who still suffer, that this is not only America to me. This is America to us.
Lahore, July 3

Pakistans Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs, Sartaj Aziz, has said that the strengthening US-India relations were not a matter of concern for Islamabad as long as the co-operation between the two did not increase the strategic and conventional gap between the nuclear-armed rivals of the subcontinent.

Aziz said in an interview that the US has constantly assured Pakistan that both countries were of equal importance to them.

I think US has itself emphasised number of times that our relations with India are not at the cost of Pakistan; both are important for us. India is important in the south Asian and East Asian context, whereas Pakistan is important in west Asia and central Asian context. We are one of the largest Islamic, democratic country, and we have a role vis a vis Afghanistan and in this region, Aziz said.

He also stated that the US is an independent country and in terms of economic and other relations it can go ahead with India as it desires and as its national interests require.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook and Twitter @thetribunechd)

Aziz asserted that there is only one dimension which they have been emphasising and that is that their co-operation with India should not increase the gap, the strategic and conventional military gap, between India and Pakistan.

If that happens, then of course we have to respond. So the objective of strategic stability should be kept in view in whatever co-operation they extend, and they have acknowledged that these are legitimate concerns because they dont want an arms race  a nuclear arms race  in the subcontinent. So thats the only dimension on which we are concerned. Otherwise, the US and India relationship are not a matter of concern, he added.

However, he said that Pakistan would not compromise on adequate deterrence, so the US must persuade India not to expand its nuclear power.

When they (India) started the Cold Start doctrine in which they moved 10 cantonments close to the Pakistan border so that they can act on our forces at short notice and from across the border, the tactical nuclear weapons were a response to that particular threat. So the independent variable in this case is India. We are the dependent variable, he said.

He further stated that if the US has to persuade Pakistan to respond in a positive way, they have to persuade India not to expand its nuclear and initiate the dialogue to reduce tensions and resolve disputes.

But Pakistan has of course clarified that the decision: what is adequate deterrent, how to protect our security, this is our own national sovereign right. This we cannot share with anyone, Aziz said.

It should be noted that the US and many other Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) member countries have supported Indias inclusion based on its non-proliferation track record.

The US, however, did not subsidise the sale of eight F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan.  ANI
Dhaka, July 3

Bangladesh today blamed "homegrown" Islamist terrorists and Pakistan's spy agency ISI for the country's worst terror attack in which 20 hostages were hacked to death, ruling out the role of the Islamic State, as the shocked nation began observing two days of national mourning.

"Let me clear it again, there are no ISIS or Al-Qaida presence or existence in Bangladesh... the hostage-takers were all home-grown terrorists not members of ISIS or any other international Islamist outfits," Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said.

"We know them (hostage-takers) along with their ancestors, they all grew here in Bangladesh...they belong to homegrown outfits like JMB (Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh)," he said.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the killing of the hostages, mostly foreigners, and two police officers during the 12-hour siege that ended yesterday after the army stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery popular with expats in the diplomatic zone here, killing six attackers and capturing one alive.

Hossain Toufique Imam, the political advisor to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said that the way in which the hostages were killed with machetes suggests the role of a local terrorist group, the banned Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen. "Pakistan's ISI and Jamaat connection is well known... they want to derail the current government," Imam told a TV channel.

The arrested terrorist chickened out at the last minute and he holds the key to crucial details, he said. Two teams of CID investigators and a bomb disposal squad today visited the Spanish restaurant to collect evidence after Bangladesh's worst terror attack.  PTI
Fort Lauderdale, July 3

Authorities said they have arrested a suspect for beating a man outside a Florida mosque that Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen had attended, and an Islamic group said the victim was a Muslim.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations said racial slurs were made by the attacker, though authorities said they had no immediate indication of any racially motivated comments. Authorities said, however, that they were continuing to investigate.

St Lucie County Sheriff Ken J Mascara said deputies were called to the Fort Pierce Islamic Center yesterday by a caller who said someone was attempting to burglarise a vehicle.

His statement said deputies found a man bleeding from the mouth who said he was approached by a man who "asked him what he was doing and then punched him several times in the face and head."

Mascara added that the man left but an officer's traffic stop minutes later halted a vehicle and the victim subsequently "positively identified the driver as the man who attacked him."

The sheriff's statement said a suspect identified as Taylor Anthony Mazzanti, 25, was arrested and has been charged with felony battery. Mazzanti was booked into jail on a $3,750 bond.

It wasn't immediately clear if Mazzanti had an attorney.

Mascara didn't identify the victim, but said he was treated for injuries at a medical center and released.

The Council, or CAIR, issued a statement earlier that a white truck stopped at the mosque early Saturday and that a man had made slurs, saying "You Muslims need to get back to your country."

Mateen's father is among the roughly 100 members that attend the mosque. Ruiz said Omar Mateen sometimes attended Friday prayers but didn't socialise with others.

Mascara said there was no initial indication of any such statements though he said more interviews would be conducted in the investigation. The sheriff's statement also reported no possible motive or any apparent link to the mosque or those attending it.  AP
You have probably heard the anti-trade rhetoric coming from both presidential camps the past few months. As farmers in central and western Nebraska, we want to set the record straight.

Trade is a boon for Nebraska and our country, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) presents a huge opportunity for farmers like us, as well as rural communities, businesses and consumers throughout our state.

Here in Nebraska, exports of corn and corn products, including ethanol and meat, added $1.4 billion to our state economy in 2014. The fact is, every farmer and rancher in Nebraska benefits from exports, even if they dont personally export anything  and that economic activity has a ripple effect in our rural communities across the state.

TPP can grow Nebraskas economy even more. TPP is a trade agreement between the United States and 11 countries along the Pacific Rim, which represent 40 percent of the worlds economy. This agreement is vital for farmers and ranchers in Nebraska and across the U.S. It will break down trade barriers and allow farmers and ranchers to compete on a level playing field in one of the fastest-growing regions in the world. With 95 percent of consumers living outside the United States, the future of American agriculture depends largely on the ability to sell to foreign markets.

With TPP, U.S. agriculture exports will grow significantly, particularly for pork and beef. Thats important not just to livestock producers, but also to us as corn farmers, because 40 percent of the U.S. corn crop goes to livestock feed. More exports mean more farm income, more rural economic activity, and more job growth. TPP will have a real impact here in Nebraska: $5.8 billion more in exports, supporting more than 100,000 jobs.

Without the TPP agreement, American farmers and ranchers risk losing market share to competitors in the Asia-Pacific region. Right now, we are at a disadvantage because of regional and bilateral trade agreements our competitors have, and will continue to negotiate. For example, USDA projects that U.S. beef exports to Japan will decline by $105 million under a new free trade agreement between Japan and Australia. In the years ahead, we can expect more agreements like these in the Asia-Pacific region. TPP will help level the playing field and give us a chance to compete.

Despite what you might hear on the campaign trail or in your local coffee shop, the benefits of trade and the TPP agreement are clear. Supporters of the TPP are a diverse group that includes Nebraska farmers like us. We hope Senators Fisher and Sasse and Representatives Fortenberry, Ashford, and Smith will stand with us in support of this historic trade agreement.
The PNM is saluting one of its former Senators, Dr Lester Henry, for his contribution to nat
The question of how much to spend on programming to keep more inmates from returning to prison presents Nebraska elected officials with a classic dilemma.

In the short term it saves money for the state to keep programming expenses low. But in the long-term it will end up costing more money, as well as increasing the risk to public safety.

Currently about 31 percent of Nebraska inmates return to prison within three years. Nebraska Corrections Director Scott Frakes wants to reduce, setting the initial target at 28 percent.

A report last month by analysts from the Council of State Governments Justice Center found numerous problems with Nebraskas programming.

The system is so inefficient that numerous inmates serve their entire sentence and leave without supervision. In fact about a third of inmates within a year of parole eligibility never even have a parole hearing because they have not finished their program requirements.

The state is already budgeting more than $5 million a year for programming, and in fact has some state-of-the-art risk-reducing programs, but because of vacancies in staff positions, it does not always spend all the money that is allocated.

Nebraska might also need to increase spending, the report said.

Another problem is lack of space to deliver programming in Nebraskas overcrowded prison system.

Analysts with the Justice Center recommended that the state make better use of the existing space by shifting staff responsibilities that that programming is delivered in the evenings and on weekends.

Other recommendations include:

--Increase the use of trained paraprofessionals who meet minimum educational requirements.

--Allow inmates access to multiple programs at the same time if needed.

--Provide incentives for community-based providers to treat people leaving prison and coordinate programming to allow inmates to start programs in prison and finish on post-release supervision or parole.

--The department should do a better job of tracking expenditures so that it can tell if it is investing appropriately.

Frakes told the Journal Star that the department is delivering more programming now than it was a year ago, and that its on a path to significantly increase that.

In quote used in the Justice Center report, Frakes said, Our mission is described in three words; Keep People Safe.

Programming is how we transform lives and keep our prisons and communities safe.

Thats the thought that elected officials need to keep at the top of their mind when it comes to making decisions on to hire and retaining staff and providing sufficient space needed to provide the programming.
This has been on my mind for a while so thought I would make other Lincolnites aware with the Fourth of July coming up. In our state of Nebraska, we can set off fireworks, sometimes some very loud and probably illegal ones. I love fireworks but we have a son who suffers from PTSD. I am guessing many military service people suffer from this. It would be nice if people would take into consideration what these men and women go through when the really loud bangs go off. It sends them right back into the fighting. It is as if they cannot escape it.

We send our son out of the state of Nebraska to states that do not allow everyone to set off the really big fireworks, except for at sponsored programs. He leaves from June 29 and doesn't come back until July 8. It is not always convenient for him to leave at that time but it is better than going through the hell of fireworks and having to practically lock himself up in a sound proof room.

So, for those out there that do like to set them off, please keep our vets in mind. Know that they dedicated their lives to keeping America safe. Please just follow the time limits and use only legal fireworks to help these men and women get through this holiday. They deserve at least that much for putting their lives on the line for our country.

Thanks for listening. God Bless America.

John and Shannon Baete, Lincoln
1876: A census taken by E.R. Sizer showed that Lincoln's population was 7,000.

Nearly 4,000 acres of land in Pawnee County was being sold for $7.50 per acre.

1886: More than 2,000 Crete Chautauqua members heard Lyman Abbott speak on "The Old and New Theology" at the State Fairgrounds.

1896: Nebraska Gov. Silas Holcomb appointed a committee to take charge of the Tennessee marble secured by John Currie to erect a statue of Abraham Lincoln on the grounds of the Capitol.

1906: W.J. Bryan announced his willingness to be a third-time candidate for the presidency but refused to fight for the nomination.

1916: Forty passenger cars, 28 freight cars and three engines were required to move Nebraska's 4th Regiment and the Signal Corps to the Mexican border.

Eight deaths and 190 injuries were reported as the Fourth of July casualty record for the entire 48 states.

1926: Grand opening of the Cornhusker Hotel at 13th and M streets was celebrated with a dinner dance and reception attended by more than 300 people.

1936: Deputy State Treasurer H.J. Murphy said Nebraska closed its books for fiscal year 1935-36 with a balance of $20,728,557 in cash and investments.

1946: A proposed state constitutional amendment that would bar closed-shop contracts was sponsored successfully by the Nebraska Small Businessmen's Association. Petitions to put it on the November ballot bore 101,551 signatures.

1956: Gov. Victor Anderson urged U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson to declare eight Nebraska counties drought disaster areas. Democratic presidential hopeful Adlai Stevenson visited farmers in Eastern Nebraska.

1966: Wheat yields as high as 80 bushels an acre astonished crop observers.

National Guardsmen helped restore order in Omaha's Near North Side; some African-American leaders blamed bad housing and employment conditions for unrest in the area.

Tax issues loomed large in the wake of a Nebraska Supreme Court ruling validating referendum petitions of the state income tax law.

1976: Lincoln's O Street beautification was on schedule, according to city officials.

Lincoln police began training with new semiautomatic weapons. Their training was separate from other police throughout the state for safety reasons.

1986: Stevie Wonder, Mr. Mister, Amy Grant, David Copperfield, Alabama and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra were scheduled to perform at the Nebraska State Fair.

Six Nebraska prisons, built to house 1,280 people, had 1,691 prisoners instead. Sleeping conditions were deteriorating but ... people are not sleeping in the hallways," said an assistant state corrections director.

1996: Mayor Mike Johanns lauded the city's new junk car ordinance, indicating a 79 percent compliance rate on warnings issued prior to the law taking effect on June 17.

Nearly 600 Canada geese were captured at Lincoln's Holmes Lake and transported for release at Lake McConaughy.

2006: A horse, Touchonemore, was euthanized and the countrys oldest active jockey, 62-year old Terry McGee, broke his shoulder blade in a rare pair of accidents in the $20,000 State Fair Futurity at State Fair Park.

This June has tied for the third driest on record in the Lincoln area and Lincoln is also in a precipitation deficit for the year. The month has been unusually hot with nine days of temperatures above 90.
The University of Missouri paid the federal government $2.2 million to reach an agreement about a claim that their health care program physicians committed fraud.

The University of Missouri, a public and a research university, was accused of defying the False Claims Act, by presenting claims for radiology services (such as Medicare and Medicaid) to federal programs - and affirmed that physicians have review the radiology images. As a physician who is involved with the review are paid by the Federal health care programs, according to Kansas City Star.

On Thursday, U.S. attorney for the Western District - Tammy Dickinson, stated that the federal investigation discovered the physicians did not reviewed the radiology images. And the Federal officials made an assertion of the truth that the reviews were carried out by resident physicians, STL Today reported.

The settlement compensated Medicare and other programs for charges billed by two former radiologists of the University of Missouri. And after the university made the allegations public in 2012, both physicians (Michael Richards and Kenneth Rall) immediately resigned.

Richards and Rall also are defendants in the case, which was initially filed by Alvin Galuten, who was a fellow and part-time faculty member in clinical radiology at the University of Missouri School of Medicine in 2010, based on the report of Columbia Tribune.

Based on a motion filed by federal prosecutors in March, Rall agreed to plead guilty to a health care fraud charge in federal court and give up his medical license. While negotiations over a criminal plea with Richards were still underway at the time.

During the radiology review investigation, it has been discovered that the University of Missouri is also paying back the federal government about $3 million for unrelated billing issues.

The payment corresponds to a series of the university's overpayments from 2001 to 2013, in which the health system did not satisfactorily pay the government for two specific tests and treatments.
For a reality check, education alongside technology has evolved much faster than expected. The Space VR and 3D technology media have yielded significant potentials of prepping up students for the future. The latest Google Space Virtual reality and 3D tools have been core-tested in several elementary schools in the U.S. The results were astonishing!

A support from a relatively techy name in the industry, Ken Blakeslee chairman of WebMobility Venture, immediately surfaced after the latest schools testing project. For a fact, the WebMobility Venture had since emerged as a formidably important company based in Europe, with its main goal of helping learning communities to transition in the face of rapid technological evolution. Quite interestingly, the company had also aided large Google units during a London Technology Expo event in 2015, the Factor reported.

Further speculations have also been projected by the Aptakisic-Tripp Elementary District 102 in Buffalo Grove, one of the receiving ends of the Google's major VR Expeditions program, saying that there is an even greater force at work beyond the Space VR products distribution, the Chicago Tribune reported.

As elementary school officials would put it- there had long been an organic and intuitive bond between kids and nature. It has long been there even before technology. The technology and thus, the Space VRs, only exist as consequence from such bond.

Obviously, the younger generations are more into new technology and outputs that the older ones, the Chicago Tribune again reported.

From the core-testing of the Space VR products, many academic observers noted how the 3D instructions help students understand the world, and from that understanding, a worldview is born, Wired stated.

Arrested by everything that transpired in the core-tests, the Google experts deemed to make the Expeditions program free and accessible to all schools, the Factor again reported.

Inspired by the same results, a number of elementary schools officials in nearby Districts like Lake County, Arlington Heights-based Township High School District 214 and many others currently plead for full-pledged and improved VR access in their systems. Google responds with the usual delight, hinting a very strong education plan partnership with the schools in the future, USA Today reported.

As per status report, there is an enormous load of experience educators are yet to accumulate before finally embracing the 3D and virtual reality learning in their schools, the Factor said.
MOUNT PLEASANT  After serving in the Civil War, Franz Wozniak unwittingly inspired several future generations of military service among his descendants.

His grandson, Frank, signed up  illegally, at age 16  to fight in World War I. Franks son, Tod, was in World War II as part of a 43-year military career, retiring as a colonel.

Four others also served in the Army Reserves. A fifth, Patrick, would have fought in the Vietnam War had he not flunked a physical.

The next generation carried on the tradition, with one fighting in Operation Desert Storm.

Photos and information Patrick Kulas lays out on the kitchen table of his Mount Pleasant house bring home the rich military history of the family. Other family members said they didnt think of the service as particularly unique  just something they were expected to do.

I just think weve always been a typical American family, Gary Kulas said.

Wozniak gets due

The Kulases didnt realize they had a family in the Civil War until they got older, Gary said. But recognizing Franz Wozniaks service has always been a struggle.

Wozniak did battle in Arkansas in the wars western theater, which got less publicity than the more well-documented battles in Gettysburg and elsewhere out east.

A Polish immigrant, Wozniak served from about 1864-66 and had the battle scars to prove it. He was sick throughout the war and after and became deaf from cannons going off close to his ears.

He was basically flanking the artillery and trains that were in that area, Patrick Kulas said.

Afterward, he struggled to get the pension he earned fighting in the Civil War. He finally got it in 1892  a $12 per month payment that began 27 years after the war ended and four years before Wozniak died.

It took Patrick 30 years to track down where Wozniak was buried and obtain enough information for a headstone, which he finally accomplished in 2014.

Frank Kulas joins early

Frank Kulas was so excited to join his brother in World War I he signed up before he was of legal age.

The war was over by the time he got to Europe, but not before he sailed the Atlantic Ocean in a journey that was a bit rough.

Could you imagine being packed in a ship with 3,000 guys or whatever and being in the high seas and everything going across the ocean? Kulas said.

Frank went on to have eight children  six boys and two girls. His oldest, Tod, served in World War II and was particularly involved in the clean-up in Europe afterward.

Gary Kulas said he still remembers hearing the war was over, which was also when he found out he had a brother, and the celebration that ensued  even if he couldnt appreciate why he was celebrating.

We had a lot of servicemen in our neighborhood. I remember the flags hanging in the windows, he said.

Except for Patrick, the rest of the brothers joined the Reserves. Gary said it wasnt a hard decision to join, even though he knew he could be called into a war.

Without thinking about it, that was just the thing to do, Gary said. All my buddies did. Everybody did.

In this day and age when you dont have the draft, and its all-volunteer army, you dont think of it that way.

Patrick was kept home from the Vietnam War due to cartilage problems in his knee. But he has contributed in his own way  he keep the memory of Wozniak and other heroes alive as a member of the Sons of Union Veterans, which promotes Civil War history.

Ive always felt bad that I was the only one that didnt go into the service in the family, Kulas said. But my brothers said, You didnt miss anything. It wasnt fun. 
Colleen Cason

Colleen Cason Columnist SHARE CONTRIBUTED PHOTO A relative with Alzheimer's gave away this family heirloom to a stranger.

If an empty semitrailer truck were to pull up to your house to move you, what would you take?

With that much real estate available, you don't have to be ready to let go of that salad spinner or the Barry Manilow eight-track tapes.

But if, instead of that 18-wheeler, you had only a knapsack, a bedroll or a satchel, the decision might be heartbreaking. What would you sacrifice? What would you save?

Those tough choices have been made by generations of immigrants who come to America seeking the freedom we celebrate this Independence Day weekend.

For Sofia Bean's family, it was a tapestry that survived the journey from Greece to America. Stitched by Bean's great-great grandmother, the handiwork depicts two women gathered at the village well.

In one of the most bittersweet turns of all, that heirloom now is missing.

In the throes of Alzheimer's disease, Bean's aunt gave it to a stranger who had done her a favor by driving her back to her Simi Valley home.

The keepsake was offered out of kindness to reward kindness.

"She was just trying to say 'thank you' to someone who helped her get home," said the 19-year-old Bean, who lives in Lakewood.

Bean and her family are hoping that good Samaritan or another witness can help them locate the tapestry.

For the past 15 years, the heirloom has graced the Rosalie Street home of Bean's Aunt Cathy. The family asked we not use the last name to save her embarrassment.

"She had a brilliant mind and was always generous. She would be the first one to pick up the check," said Dee Dee Bean, Sofia's mother and Cathy's sister-in-law.

Now 66, Cathy was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's a few years ago after a successful career in the aerospace industry.

No one in the family knows the exact day she gave away the needlepoint. It most likely happened in late summer or early fall of last year.

For some reason, Cathy left her home on foot. She stands 5-foot-10 and has white hair cut just above her shoulders and hazel eyes. She has a small piercing in her nose. Most likely she was wearing thicker-soled flip-flops, a T-shirt and capris.

"She has a beautiful smile with straight, white teeth," Dee Dee Bean added.

It's not clear where she ended up, but either a stranger sensed she was lost or she asked for help getting home.

Cathy later told her husband she tried to give the man money to cover the gasoline. When he refused the cash, she handed him the framed 3-by-4-foot tapestry instead. He reluctantly agreed to take that.

"He would have no idea the sentiment attached to it," Dee Dee Bean told me.

Sofia Bean learned of the tapestry's disappearance earlier this year when Cathy and her husband moved to the Kern County so family members could help with her care.

The desire to have the heirloom deepened when Sofia's grandmother died in late May at age 87. Zoe Kazamas Bean taught Sofia about her Greek heritage and how to say "I love you" in the language of her ancestors.

"Zoe was always there to soothe Sofia. She always had words of encouragement for her," Dee Dee said.

Sofia's grandmother was brought to America when she was 2 years old, after her mother died in childbirth. Her father and his brothers opened a grocery store in New Hampshire, and he was murdered there during a robbery. That left the woman Sofia calls Yia Yia  Greek for grandmother  and her brother orphaned. He died at age 16 of appendicitis, leaving Zoe as the last survivor of her family.

Through all these struggles, the tapestry was a constant warm memory of all who had come before her.

A grieving Sofia is organizing the memorial service for her grandmother, and it would give her solace to have the heirloom there on display.

The tapestry is a rich thread in the fabric of Sofia's family.

Contact me at the email address below if you have information on its whereabouts.

Email Colleen Cason at casonpoint101@gmail.com.
SHARE Karen Quincy Loberg / Star staff 02-04-10 Camarillo studio: John Weigle, columnist for the Ventura County Star.

By John Weigle, Special to The Star

It doesn't seem possible, but the Ventura County Fair will be here in less than a month. (It starts Aug. 3 and ends Aug. 14). Stamp collectors and others who want to enter exhibits can find all the information they need  when to deliver exhibits, judging rules and more at http://www.venturacountyfair.org/fair/entryguides.

As it has been doing for more than 20 years, the Ventura County Philatelic Society will have a booth where volunteers will give away stamps and answer questions about stamp collecting. Barring unexpected illnesses or other problems, at least one member will be at the table every hour the fair is open.

There will also be exhibits from adult and young collectors. It's always a thrill for the society members to see exhibits from young collectors because the society sponsors an annual Youth Stamp Fair to try to attract new collectors and then keep them collecting. Members of the Goebel Adult Community Center Stamp Club in Thousand Oaks plan to help young collectors from the east county prepare their exhibits.

If you don't collect stamps, there are plenty of other things to see at the fair and the Gem and Minerals building, where the stamp exhibits are. Rock hounds, model builders, genealogists and collectors of almost anything you can think of have exhibits in the building. Artists, photographers, cooks, bakers, quilters, wood carvers and others display their work in other buildings on the fairgrounds at Seaside Park in Ventura. And youths and adults display livestock galore during the event.

I hope to see you there.

Unusual stamps

If you'd like to see stamps that smell like chocolate, can be played as records, contain volcanic ash, are in unusual shapes and are made of unusual materials visit the website Dark Roasted Blend (http://bit.ly/29brtKP), which has a two-part series on such stamps. I doubt that anyone would win a major prize for an exhibit of such stamps at a big stamp show, but I bet it would attract lots of attention and maybe encourage viewers to start their own collection of such material.

Stamp displays at Oxnard Library

Society member Katherine Morris has become a regular stamp exhibitor at the main Oxnard Library at 251 South A St. Depending on the library's needs, her exhibits might be in the display cases near the youth area downstairs, in the display cases on the second floor and often both.

The topics vary depending on the time of year and the library's requests. If you visit the library, be sure to check the cases for the latest exhibit.

FOR COIN COLLECTORS

The American Numismatic Association's World's Fair of Money is scheduled for Aug. 9-13 at the Anaheim Convention Center, 800 W. Katella Ave.

The event will include ANA auctions by Stack's Bowers Galleries and Heritage Auctions, a museum showcase, including the 1804 dollar, 1690 Massachusetts 20-shilling note, ancient Syracusan Dekadracdhms, a Type 1 set of Liberty Head double eagles and rare California paper money. The U.S. Mint, Bureau of Engraving and Printing and mints from other countries will also have displays.

Details and an admission discount coupon are available at https://www.money.org/worldsfairofmoney.

County Stamp Clubs

Goebel Adult Community Center Stamp Club, Goebel Adult Community Center, 1385 E. Janss Road, Thousand Oaks. The club meets the first and third Thursday of each month at 6:30 p.m. For further information, call President Rick McHenry at 498-2085.

Website: http://stamps.org/Goebel-Stamp-Club.

Simi Valley Stamp Club, 1 p.m., first and third Monday of each month (except in January, February and September), at the Senior Citizens Center, 3900 Avenida Simi, Simi Valley. Information: Steve Thomas, phone 818-312-6898, email thomascwcc2000@aol.com or Allen Conrad, phone 818-489-7678, Email aconrad@socal.rr.com.

Website: http://stamps.org/Simi-Valley.

Ventura County Philatelic Society, Church of the Foothills, 6279 Foothill Road, Ventura, first and third Mondays of each month, doors open at 6:30 p.m., meetings start at 7:30 p.m.

Website: http://www.vcphilatelic.com/index.html.

USS Ronald Reagan Chapter No. 107 of the Universal Ship Cancellation Society meets on the third Wednesday of February, May, and September. The meeting location varies. For more information, call President Lee Zeller at 983-0683. E-mail: Leezeller@aol.com.

Website: http://www.uscs.org.

Shows and bourses

This list is compiled from a number of sources. If you plan to travel a long distance, it's a good idea to check to be sure the event has not been canceled. Bourses are commercial events where dealers show their goods. Stamp shows are sponsored by a club or federation (group of clubs) and feature competitive exhibits in addition to the bourse. For more information about shows around the world, visit http://www.stampshows.com.

To save space, details of monthly shows are printed once under the heading "Monthly show details," with references back to that from the date of the show. No more than three months of shows are listed.

Monthly show details

First Saturday: INTURPEX Stamp and Cover Expo, Arcadia Masonic Temple, 50 W. Duarte Road, Arcadia. Commercial. Free admission and parking.

The Original Van Nuys Sunday Stampshow: Masonic Hall, 14750 Sherman Way, Van Nuys. Commercial. Free admission and parking. Stephen Pattillo, email: number1banana@hotmail.com.

Web site: http://www.stampshowsteve.com.

5-Star Glendale Saturday Stampshow: YWCA Regency Room, 735 E. Lexington, Glendale. Commercial. Free admission and parking. (Pattillo, see above).

Quality Sunday Stampshow: Anaheim Plaza Hotel, 1700 S. Harbor Blvd., Anaheim. Commercial. Free admission and parking. (Pattillo, see above).

The shows (See above)

Today (July 2): Inturpex: (see monthly shows for details)

July 3: The original Van Nuys Sunday Stampshow

July 23: Five Star Glendale Saturday Stampshow

July 24: Quality Sunday Stampshow

Aug. 6: Inturpex

Aug. 14: The original Van Nuys Sunday Stampshow

Aug. 27: Five Star Glendale Saturday Stampshow

Aug. 28: Quality Sunday Stampshow

Sept. 3: Inturpex

Sept. 4: The original Van Nuys Sunday Stampshow

Sept. 17: Five Star Glendale Saturday Stampshow

Sept. 18: Quality Sunday Stampshow

Coming U.S. issues

Most U.S. issues can be obtained at any large post office or from the Stamp Fulfillment Services, Box 41936, Kansas City, Mo. 64141-6636. The center accepts credit card orders at 800-782-6724. Stamp Fulfillment Services accepts credit card orders by telephone (800-782-6724) or fax (816-545-1212). Unless otherwise noted, the stamps on the list are forever stamps.

This list is compiled from several sources, including USPS announcements, Linn's Stamp News and the Virtual Stamp Club. It is subject to change at any time.

To save space, no more than three months of issues are listed.

July 6: Two Star Quilts coil stamps for presorted first-class mail, Washington, D.C. 20090

July 13: Jaime Escalante commemorative, Washington, D.C.

July 15: Four Pickup Trucks commemoratives (1938 International Harvester D-2, 1948 Ford F-1, 1953 Chevrolet, 1965 Ford F-100), Syracuse, New York 13220.

July 31: 89-cent Henry James stamp (Literary Arts series), Dulles, Virginia 20103.

Aug. 2: 20 Pets stamps (puppies, betta fish, iguanas, hamsters, goldfish, kittens, rabbits, tortoises, guinea pigs, parrots, corn snakes, mice, hermit crabs, chinchillas, gerbils, geckos, cats, horses, parakeets and dogs, Las Vegas, Nevada.

Summer: Four Star Trek commemoratives (insignia and starship, crewman in transporter, starship silhouette, starship in hand salute).

Sept. 29: Four Jack-O'-Lanterns commemoratives, Anoka, Minnesota.

John Weigle's email address is jweigle@cipcug.org. He is a longtime collector and member of the Ventura County Philatelic Society.

On the Net:

http://stamps.org

http://www.virtualstampclub.com
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There seems to be a script. Each incidence of gun violence is followed by outrage, heartbreak, a moment of silence, a muddying of the waters by cable show pundits and then  nothing. Whether motivated by hate, a result of mental illness, driven by extremism, racism, or as a domestic dispute  the why varies but the response remains the same.

From Isla Vista to San Bernardino, Blacksburg, Killeen, Newtown and most recently Orlando, these tragedies, and far too many others, leave an indelible mark on us all. The victims have been children, college students, members of our armed services, and young gay men and women who simply wanted to dance in what they believed was a safe and welcoming environment.

Gun violence has plagued our communities for too long and has become so numbing that we sometimes don't even know where to begin to find solutions. According to the Brady Campaign, we lose 89 lives to gun violence every day. On average, 108,000 Americans are shot each year and 32,500 of them are killed.

In our own community I've gotten to know Tim Heyne from Thousand Oaks, who lost his wife and his best friend in 2005 when a mentally unstable man with a known history of violence opened fire on all three of them. He and his son Christian, forever altered by the tragedy, have turned to advocating for legislation that would curb gun violence.

Last year, I met Thousand Oaks resident Bob Weiss, the father of Veronika Weiss. Veronika, an athlete and aspiring financial wizard, was killed during the horrific shooting of UC Santa Barbara students in Isla Vista. Bob was in my office to talk about legislation that would make it more difficult for the shooter who killed his daughter to have such easy access to a gun. Bob carried his daughter's ashes with him to Washington for these meetings so that people better understood his loss and that of every parent who loses a child to gun violence. I'll never forget that encounter.

I support the Second Amendment, as do my colleagues, but I  along with the vast majority of the American people  support common-sense legislation aimed at reducing gun violence in our nation. From universal background checks, to stopping would-be terrorists from attaining guns, to keeping guns out of the hands of individuals with serious mental illness  the American people want action.

And yet, House Speaker Paul Ryan refuses to even allow legislation to come to the floor for debate and a vote. It is unconscionable, but as long as he is Speaker, he controls the legislative agenda.

But he does not control my ability to speak out. He does not control the ability of John Lewis to speak out. And he does not control the right of members of Congress from across the nation, especially those whose communities have suffered so much, to speak out, to protest and to encourage the American people to pressure him to do the right thing.

Enough is truly enough.

So, we staged a sit-in. John Lewis staged many sit-ins when he was fighting for civil rights reform. It got attention, it shifted the dialogue. People listened and eventually, Congress acted.

It was a very emotional 26 hours. Hearing my colleagues talk about the families from their districts, who were torn apart and forever changed by gun violence in their communities, was one of the most poignant moments of my time in public service.

After those 26 hours, just before day break, we walked down the Capitol steps to be met by hundreds of people gathered there to show their support.

As I walked into the crowd, I was greeted by Christian Heyne. The tragedy that took his mother's life led him to Washington to fight for change and to the steps of the Capitol at the same moment.

We were both overcome with emotion, we hugged, and we promised each other that we would continue to fight for our loved ones, for our community, and for our nation.

Julia Brownley, D-Westlake Village, is a member of Congress, representing the 26th District.
While Racine City Administrator Tom Friedel frequently makes headlines for his involvement in city issues and developments, many people may not realize he is also a Vietnam veteran and former Racine Unified School Board member. Friedel recently opened up about some of life experiences, in question-and-answer format. Here is that exchange:

What did you do just out of high school, and where did that lead?

I spent the first six months working at O&H Danish Bakery before deciding to enlist in the U.S. Army. After eight months of training in various locations, I was on my way to Vietnam.

Tell us a little about your experience in the Vietnam War.

Like many, many others, I chose to serve when I was asked. I spent my time on a military advisory team that supported local Vietnamese government operations in Binh Long Province. During the course of the war, ordinary people and their local government officials were trying to live their everyday lives. Our team lived and worked with them to provide information and coordination about the U.S. military operations that were taking place all around them. That experience probably planted the seeds that led to my decision to get involved in government here in Racine.

What is something that most people dont know about you?

I love the Fourth of July celebration in Racine and I have only missed the parade one time, for as long as I can remember. I was able to get a weekend pass home for it the year I was in training, and return home on leave from Vietnam for it in 1970, but went back there and missed the parade in 1971.

Why did you want to serve on the Racine Unified School Board, including as its president? Looking back, what was that experience like?

I saw a need for more opportunities for my children and learned quickly that the world is run, as they say, by those who show up. Although it was by far the most challenging work I have ever done, it was also the most important and necessary work for our community.

Whats the most difficult thing about your job as city administrator?

While there are many challenges, I find the personnel issues are the most difficult. People are any organizations most valuable resource and they are complex, demanding much time and attention if the organization is going to be successful.

You love local history. What are a couple of historical facts about Racine that fascinate you?

The depth and breadth of Racines manufacturing history is incredible for a city of our size.

Many people know about J.I. Case, SC Johnson and others. Some know that we made Mitchell automobiles, but I bet that few people know there were at least three other auto makers here. In addition to that there were many industries that made parts for automobiles. At one time between 1902 and 1915, the Racine Manufacturing Co. was one of the countrys leading makers of auto bodies. These were the wooden variety for cars like, Buick, Nash, Auburn, Kissel, and the local auto makers, Mitchell, Case, Pierce-Racine, and Piggens.
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With just six and a half months left in office, it's time to think about what President Obama's legacy will look like on one of his most difficult subjects: immigration.

What will history say about Obama's skill at the juggling act that will confront every U.S. president in the 21st century  securing our borders, providing a foreign workforce to do jobs that Americans won't do, and deciding the fate of millions of illegal immigrants living in the United States?

In truth, Obama has accomplished very little in pursuit of each of those goals. Where he excelled was in the politics. He is a master of convincing everyone  law-and-order conservatives, Latinos who want more immigration, working-class whites who want less, etc.  that he's on their side. We've never had a president who was this good at cynically manipulating the immigration issue to pretend to be something he's not.

And occasionally, Obama catches a major break when another branch of government steps in and prevents him from doing something that he never wanted to do anyway  like protecting undocumented immigrants from the 24/7 deportation machine that he helped create and used to expel nearly 3 million people.

The Supreme Court recently announced that it had deadlocked in a case challenging Obama's plan to use executive action to slow deportations and grant temporary work permits to millions of illegal immigrants. The 4-4 tie left in place an appeals court ruling that blocked the plan.

Obama is off the hook. His supporters will give him credit for trying, and he and the Democratic Party don't have to live with what could have been the negative consequences of achieving real change. It's the best of both worlds.

As usual, in dissecting these events, the partisans will retreat to their own fantasy worlds where they can close the blinds and keep reality from seeping in.

Democrats will be generous in saying that Obama tried to bring the undocumented out of the shadows though a series of executive actions aimed at curtailing deportations. But, they'll claim, he was unfairly thwarted by heartless Republicans at the state level who sued to block the program on the grounds that it could lead to the states having to provide driver's licenses and other services to the undocumented without compensation from the federal government.

Republicans will naturally be harder on Obama and repeat their favorite nonsensical talking point about how the president issued an "unlawful executive amnesty." The objective, they'll say, was to grow millions of future Democratic voters  completely oblivious to the irony that there is no more effective recruitment tool for Democrats with this population than the thickheadedness that is always on display whenever Republicans talk about immigration.

Neither of these narratives is 100 percent accurate. Obama's legacy on immigration is a mixed bag.

Obama should be remembered as the president who first wooed over skeptical Latino voters in 2008 with promises that he would make immigration reform a top priority  only to bury it at the bottom of his agenda for four years.

He's the president who criticized his predecessor for raids in which "nursing mothers are torn from their babies" but then went on to separate record numbers of families through deportation and detain women and children from Central America indefinitely.

He's the president who spent three years arguing with supporters that he didn't have the executive power to stop deportations only to reverse course in election years and miraculously find the power he said he didn't have.

He's the president whose executive actions to limit deportations were so badly crafted and so likely to be struck down by the courts that we have to wonder whether that was the idea all along.

He's the president who ramped up the deportation apparatus and gave Immigration and Customs Enforcement so much power that future presidents will find it difficult to rein in the agency. Record numbers of deportations could well become the new normal.

Finally, Obama is the president who shamelessly never missed an opportunity to use immigration to achieve his own political goals. He now leaves office with the appearance that he tried to find a solution  when the hard truth is he was a big part of the problem. As legacies go, that's a terrible one.

Ruben Navarrette's email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com. He writes for The Washington Post Writers Group.
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There seems to be a growing air of inevitability about the new power plant project at Mandalay Beach.

The plan by NRG Energy Inc. to build a 262-megawatt gas-fired peaker plant at the site of the Mandalay Generating Station received a generally green light from the California Energy Commission staff last week in its preliminary study of the project.

That means there is no state agency lining up on the side of the city of Oxnard, who along with some social justice and environmental groups have been loudly protesting the Puente Power Project.

A quiet driving hand behind the growing sense that the state will approve this plant is the larger mission of California regulators to shut off all ocean-sucking power plants in California by 2020, including three on the Oxnard shore.

Back in 2010, the California Water Resources Control Board endorsed a longtime environmental cause and ordered that all 19 power plants along the California coast that draw in ocean water to cool down the generating facility and then dump it back in the ocean either shut down in 10 years or install expensive facilities to clean the water before it is returned to the ocean.

The California regulators who peer into crystal balls to try to predict how much energy we need going forward began to worry about the loss of power generation from the two local plants on the list, Ormond Beach and Mandalay Power Generating plants in Oxnard. Even though both were operating only on an as-needed basis, about 10 percent of capacity, Ormond Beach had a capacity of 1,516 megawatts and each of the two plants at Mandalay could produce 280 megawatts.

The experts said they would need up to 290 megawatts of new power in a peaker plant in Ventura County to replace those units. A gas-fired backup plant was attractive because the utilities wanted something in the grid in case their solar and wind generating plants went offline.

Southern California Edison picked NRG, by then the owner of Mandalay and Ormond Beach plants, to build the smaller peaker plant at its Mandalay site. The land was there, used for power generating and already linked into the electricity system.

The job of the California Public Utilities Commission was to approve the deal between Edison and NRG. In January, a PUC commissioner suggested delaying that approval because of the safety, reliability and environmental justice concerns raised by Oxnard and others. A month later a different commissioner recommended approval as concern mounted that any PUC delay threatened completion of the plant in time to meet the target of shutting down the existing ocean-cooled Mandalay and Ormond Beach plants.

It was no surprise that, in May, the PUC went with the second recommendation.

Now the California Energy Commission, which must approve the project to build the plant, says in its preliminary staff report that it sees no obstacles.

The last card to be played by Oxnard is its altered general plan ordinance, which it passed last month prohibiting any power plants on the beach greater than 50 megawatts. The Energy Commission staff says it will deal with that in its final recommendation.

That leaves local opponents with a last chance this summer to have their voices heard during public comment period on the draft report and at a proposed late-July hearing.

We do not believe it necessary to place this emergency power station along our beach. But we fear that this voice, like the ones raised in Oxnard, are being drowned out. Greater forces seem aligned to meet the goal of shutting down the ocean-fed coastal plants, and the Oxnard gas-plant appears to be a sacrificial pawn whose approval is needed to accomplish that mission.


The Nellis Support Team (NST) and Las Vegas Country Club (LVCC) are celebrating Independence Day and honoring our military, as it hosts 100+ family members of deployed Nellis and Creech Air Force Base Airmen (Pictured: MQ-1 Predator on display last year).

The celebration will feature childrens activities with games, prizes, food and candy station.
UNION GROVE  Donna Stigler has never grabbed a weapon and stood a post to protect troops. Nor has she ever manned a warship  as her father and five brothers did  to make oceans safe.

Stigler has done her patriotic duty with her hands and a humble needle and thread, turning scraps of donated material into multi-patterned quilts for the aging and ailing residents of the Wisconsin Veterans Home at Union Grove, which is located in Dover.

For the past decade, Stigler has created her quilts, many of them patterned in red, white and blue, as her small contribution on the home front to support those who have served.

The people who have served this country have given up quite a lot, said the soft-spoken, redheaded Union Grove resident. If all I do is sew a few pieces of cloth together, well, thats pretty weak compared to what they have given. This is such a small thing.

Donnas twin sister, Dyanne Rogall of Eagle Lake, helped turn the small thing into a big thing. Dyanne works at the Veterans Home and thought Donnas handiwork would fit right in.

She thought it would be cool for the veterans to have something, Donna said. She felt that veterans coming there would appreciate having a homemade quilt on their bed instead of a plain, hospital-issued blanket. After all, thats going to be their home now.

Dyanne, who has worked at the 158-bed Veterans Home for 10 years, hands outs the quilts when new residents arrive.

The quilts make me look very, very good, Dyanne said. They are very home-like. Everybody absolutely loves them. She uses all donated material and what she can turn that into it something tremendous.

The process

Donna estimated she has made 450 quilts so far for the home. It takes her about 10 days to finish one from the time she picks out a design to when she hands it over at the Veterans Home.

A quilt for a hospital bed is 64 inches by 88 inches and takes about 35 blocks  a square section quilted together by a long arm machine  to make. In comparison, a quilt for a queen-size bed takes about 56 blocks, Donna said.

The quilts all start out in Donnas sewing center. When her Mark graduated from high school and left for the Navy, Stigler turned his room into her own little sewing universe. Needles, pins, thread and pieces of cloth lay scattered on a large desk on one side of the room.

Near the center of the table is a white Husqvarna Viking sewing machine, a Christmas gift from her husband Jim about 15 years ago.

I havent killed a machine yet, she said.

On the other side of the room, next to an ironing board, is a rack with a wedding dress, some altered jackets and christening gown.

Word of her sewing skill has spread and she does alterations, makes baptism and christening outfits, and produces specialty quilts.

All of it has been through word of mouth, she said. I have never advertised.

Deep-rooted patriotism

The sewing bug bit Stigler when she was growing up in Eagle Lake with her mother, father and 11 brothers and sisters. When Donna was in grade school her mother asked if she wanted to help make my sisters wedding dress. Thats when it all started, she said.

Donna and Dyannes mother, Virginia Minor, quilted quite a bit back in the day and gave the blankets to her many grandchildren. When she ran out of grandchildren, she donated them to church groups and other community groups.

Donna has remained as community-minded as her mother, but is probably even more patriotic. And that might be saying something, since Donnas father served in the Navy, as did all five of her brothers.

Her mother proudly displays a plaque she received from the Navy when her sons combined for 100 years of service.

Im from a big-time armed services family, Donna said.

And she has passed that on to her children. Stiglers son Ken, who lives in Whitewater, served in the Army for eight years. Her son Mark, now a Florida resident, was in the Navy for four years.

I love the Fourth of July. I love Flag Day. I love Veterans Day, she said with a small smile. I guess you could say Im kind of patriotic.
Photo by LOS ANGELES TIMES

In the town of Ebbw Vale, Wales, an European Union funding sign stands in a newly developed area.
Mehmet Soyer, Raindrop Foundation Director/Dallas, speaks to Dallas County Jail Muslim inmates and others after praying during the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan on June 17, 2016 in Dallas. (David Woo/The Dallas Morning News/TNS)
During the past three months 740 suspected drug smugglers have been arrested in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan Deputy Interior Minister for Anti-Narcotics Baaz Mohammad Ahmadi told VOA Afghanistan the arrests were made during 588 police operations across the country.

Police destroyed six narcotics-processing laboratories during these operations, said Ahmadi.

He added police also confiscated arms and ammunitions in addition to 111 vehicles and more than $2 million from smugglers.

The Afghanistan Interior Ministry claims police seized 123 tons of narcotics, but Afghan Anti-Narcotics Minister Khodaidad Hazara said compared to the 8,000 tons of narcotics produced in the country that can not be counted as a feat.

The Interior Ministry says charges have been filed and submitted to the Afghan Attorney Generals Office for prosecution.
Britain appears to be heading to having a woman prime minister again  26 years since the countrys first, Margaret Thatcher, left office after a Conservative Party coup largely mounted over the countrys membership in the European Union.

The leading candidates to replace David Cameron as leader of the ruling Conservatives and the countrys prime minister are now both women  the countrys tough-minded Interior Minister Theresa May, and Energy Minister Andrea Leadsom, a less experienced politician.

The three male contenders in the race appear to be losing ground fast among Conservative lawmakers, who vote in a series of secret ballots starting Tuesday to whittle the field until two candidates are left. The partys 150,000 grass-roots members make the final decision in a postal ballot scheduled to be held by September 2.

Leadsom, who campaigned for Brexit in the referendum, is attracting endorsements from MPs whod planned to back former London Mayor Boris Johnson before his withdrawal from the race in a bitter fallout with fellow Leave campaigner Michael Gove.

Women in leadership

She told the Daily Telegraph in an interview Saturday: I am a big fan of seeing more women in public life. Women have a huge amount to offer.

Coincidentally, Labour, too, could end up being led by a woman  Anna Eagle, who may announce Monday a leadership challenge to leftist Jeremy Corbyn. Women rule also extends to Scotland with female First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, and a Conservative Party leader north of the border also a woman.

An increasing number of Tory MPs are saying privately that only a woman can sort out the mess Britain is in now following the unexpected referendum result that has set the country upside down. It is a view Iron Lady Thatcher would no doubt have endorsed vigorously.

She had no time for feminism, saying once, I owe nothing to womens lib. But she was a firm believer that women are far more practical than men.

According to her biographer Charles Moore, She had quite a low opinion of the male sex. Men are lazy and vain, she thought, he wrote recently. And one thing she believed in was the female ability to take a real-life rather than an official view of what the country and its citizens needed, he added.

Commentators and Tory lawmakers are already drawing parallels between Thatcher and May, in particular. Like Thatcher, May, 59, is seen as unclubbable and aloof.

'Get on with the job in front of me'

May touched on this herself in a speech last week when she launched her leadership bid, saying: I dont gossip about people over lunch. I dont go drinking in Parliaments bars. I dont often wear my heart on my sleeve. I just get on with the job in front of me. She also  unlike most British lawmakers  avoids socializing with political journalists.

Some describe her as an Ice Queen, but like Thatcher  also a woman not good at small talk  she is said by colleagues to be warm and generous-minded in private. Also like Thatcher, she maintains a ferocious work schedule, focusing on detail and working through government papers until 2 or 3 in the morning.

A former top policeman, Peter Fahy, who clashed with her over police reform, told The Times: Shes politically astute, totally professional and very good on detail, which might come in useful when it comes to negotiating with Europe.

May is now garnering support not just from Tory lawmakers who backed the Remain camp in the Brexit referendum, but also from some who want to leave the EU but who see her as the best unity candidate as well as the contender best equipped to handle what will be fraught and prolonged negotiations with the EU.

Some senior Conservative MPs are now trying to persuade Mays rivals to withdraw, arguing that deciding on a new leader sooner rather than later and without a vote by lawmakers would benefit the party. They worry a drawn-out competition could become divisive and want to contrast Tory unity with the ugly divisions rending the opposition Labour Party.

But many Brexit-backing lawmakers doubt Mays readiness to implement a full break with the EU. She has already reversed herself on pulling Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights, saying there is not enough political support in the country at large to do so.

Human rights bugbear

The Human Rights Convention has long been a bugbear of Tories, who dislike the involvement of the European Court of Human Rights in British legal and political affairs.

And there are signs that May as prime minister might agree to modified freedom of movement in return for a trade deal with the EU. All the remaining 27 EU member states are insisting any trade deal would have to include the right of EU citizens to live and work in Britain, with Britons accorded the same opportunity in EU states.

Brexit lawmakers insist there should be no freedom of movement, arguing the British public wants a massive reduction in immigration. But in her speech launching her leadership campaign last week, Mays wording on what deals she would and would not agree to with the EU was careful.

On the free movement of people, she said there could be no deal as it has worked hitherto.

Those five words give her plenty of wiggle room, says a government official.

March for Europe

Meanwhile, police estimated that 30,000 pro-EU protesters marched through Central London Saturday to demand that Britain not break with Europe.

The protest was organized by grass-roots activists via Facebook and attracted a variety of speakers, including rock star Bob Geldof and Michael Cashman, a former British soap opera star who served many years in the European Parliament.

Now a working peer in Britains House of Lords, he told VOA: The government has got to go to the country with another option. I think there must be a second referendum with several different options."

He added: This is bigger than us. It will impact generations to come. When the decision is so huge, you need to pause for thought, and they have not done that. Across party lines I have never seen the House of Lords so somber. People are saying this is the biggest crisis we have ever faced in peacetime.

In Photos: March for Europe
Afghanistan has received its first batch of Chinese military equipment as part of Beijings commitment to provide millions of dollars of assistance to help Kabul fight terrorism.

The shipment on board a Russian cargo plane arrived Sunday in Kabul where Chinese Ambassador Yao Jing handed it over to Afghan National Security Advisor Hanif Atmar.

The cargo apparently contained among other things logistical equipment, parts of military vehicles, ammunition and weapons for the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF).



Jing said Beijing wants to have regular and normal state-to-state relations with the Afghan government and the Afghan people, which includes military cooperation.

Afghanistan is our close neighbor and a very important neighbor to China So, this is the beginning of our regular military-to-military exchanges and cooperation, Jing said.

Atmar declined to discuss further details or value of the Chinese equipment, saying such military matters required secrecy. He said the assistance shows a joint resolve against terrorism facing Afghanistan and China.

The military aid is just the beginning of our joint struggle against terrorism. I consider it a major change in Chinas relations towards Afghanistan that China is standing with the Afghan people in the counterterrorism fight, Atmar noted.

He said that a next shipment due later this year is expected to include more military equipment along with scanners for Afghan police to enable them to detect bombs such as vehicle-born improvised explosives devices. Afghan officials plan to install the scanners at four entry points to Kabul.

Both China and Afghanistan, we don't have any ambitions ... But we do have our own duty to safeguard our own peace and the sovereignty. So, in this regard China and Afghanistan are on the same front. We will fight together, Jing resolved.

China is also part of a Quadrilateral Cooperation Group or QCG, which also includes Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States, working to bring about a peaceful end to the Afghan conflict. But the four-nation process has been unable to start peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

The increased Chinese involvement in the conflict-torn Afghanistan, critics believe, stems from concerns that continued instability in its immediate neighborhood could fuel problems in the far western Xinjiang region where Uighur Muslims are waging a low-level separatist insurgency against Chinese rule.
The decision by British voters to leave the European Union has raised the question of whether France could one day follow suit in a "Frexit." Marine Le Pen, the head of France's far-right National Front party, has campaigned for years for her country to leave the 28-member grouping.

Stop pouting, an exultant Le Pen told fellow lawmakers at the European Parliament this past week, describing Britain's exit vote, known as "Brexit," as the most important event since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

This is a slap in the face against a European system increasingly founded on fear, blackmail and lies, she said to scattered boos.

The results in Britain offer a powerful affirmation of Le Pens anti-immigration, anti-Europe arguments, less than a year before French presidential elections.

Impact on French politics



Nor is she the only politician weighing in. With elections next year, presidential hopefuls of all political stripes are scrambling to capitalize on Brexits fallout.

Conservative politician Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, who heads the tiny Debout la France (France Arise) party, predicts the bloc is in a terminal phase, while far left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon calls for changing it or leaving it.

Former president Nicolas Sarkozy, who heads the center-right Republicans party, wants a new European treaty, while others want an overhaul of its institutions and purpose.

The European question and of course the Brexit vote are going to be one of the campaign issues, said analyst Bruno Cautres, of the Cevipov political institute in Paris. European questions divide the left and the right.

Like their British counterparts, French voters have little use for Brussels and its bureaucracy.

A June survey by the Pew Research Center in Washington found 61 percent of French view the EU unfavorably  markedly higher than among Britons (48 percent). Many here also disapprove of the way Brussels has handled issues like immigration and the economy.

Salesman Hugo Guillot, eating a hamburger at a British pub in Paris, said he might vote for a "Frexit" if France held a similar referendum today.

I want the EU to return to whats interesting for European people, he says,for politicians and European technocrats to realize the real problems we face and whats important for us.

Still, analyst Cautres said theres a big cross-Channel difference.

In the UK, its been mostly about national sovereignty, immigration and borders while in France, the dominant discourse on the left and the right is not whether we should be in or out of the EU," he said. "Its the EU for what reason? The EU for whose benefit?

Indeed, surveys show that however disillusioned French may feel about Brussels, theyre not ready to leave it.

A recent TNS Sofres-Onepoint poll found that 45 percent backed remaining in the bloc, while one-third supported leaving. Another 22 percent were undecided.

Parisian retiree Guy Maurette said, Europe needs to completely change the way it functions, even as he embraced the concept of a united Europe.

Europe is peace; Europe is civilization. The more we are a united family, the better things are, he said.

That hasnt stopped Le Pen from coasting on the grumbling. On and off the campaign trail, she vows to hold a Frexit if shes elected to office.

The prospect is not impossible. The Front scores strongly in popularity polls, although few experts believe Le Pen will win the second round runoff vote next May.

Other presidential hopefuls are also calling for fundamental reforms, if not overhauling the EU completely.

We cant respond to a historic crisis by small measures; we need to change the rules, said former president Sarkozy, who is eyeing another run. To change the rules, we need a new treaty.

If such discourse is not unique to France - populist parties elsewhere in Europe are embracing it - it has triggered some alarm bells.

Sarkozy has really intensified his anti-Brussels rhetoric, and thats a very big problem, said Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, head of the German Marshall Fund of the United States' Paris office. When you have mainstream parties adopting the anti-Brussels rhetoric from the far right, to me thats a very dangerous trend.

An opportunity for Hollande?

Meanwhile, Frances deeply unpopular leader is taking the opposite path, investing his shrinking political capital in Brussels.

While acknowledging the EU needs reforming, President Francois Hollande rejects calls for a French referendum, saying next years election will serve that purpose.

The British example will then be an example  or rather a counter-example, he told local media.

Some believe Hollande sees in Brexits chaotic fallout an opportunity to revamp his sagging fortunes.

Francois Hollandes popularity is very weak, the economic recovery is not good and the left is divided. So he badly needed something to happen - and now we have Brexit, said analyst Cautres. The Brexit is going to offer him the chance to look like a European leader, someone with a vision, who's going to propose a fundamental change in the EU.

Still, he doubts Hollandes chances of succeeding, predicting the vote will turn around issues  like increasing jobs and growing the economy - on which the president has failed to deliver.

He may be right. Asked about the Brexit, newsstand worker Louay Joud responds with a shrug. "Who cares?".
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the official launch of the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution by the Chinese government.

Mao Zedongs campaign to purge capitalist and traditionalist influences had disastrous consequences for millions of Chinese, but little of what was happening reached the outside world at the time because authorities tightly restricted movements by foreigners.

However, Canadian-American journalist Morley Safer, who died on May 19 2016, managed to persuade authorities to let him travel around China in 1967. Safer told VOA that his footage and observations provided a rare window into a tumultuous period of Chinas history.



WATCH: 'Everyone wanted to go to China at that time ...'

Safer recalled that though he had been in plenty of totalitarian societies  in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union  before he traveled to China, what he saw there was beyond anything I had experienced before.

From their [the Chinese] point of view, Westerners that arrived  be they visitors, tourists, journalists  were 'religious pilgrims,' so you had to say your prayers every morning, which were readings from the [Maos] little red book. You did it at lunchtime, and you did it again in the evening, in a fairly public manner  it became kind of a game," Safer said.

The game at times involved high stakes. Xian, the ancient capital of the highly acclaimed Tang Dynasty (618-907), was home to much of Chinas archeological treasure. There, Safer, who had said he was an archaeologist to gain entry to the country, underwent a knowledge test.



WATCH: 'When we got to Xian '

In addition to Xian, Safer and his small crew traveled to Shanghai and Nanking (Nanjing), as well as some rural areas that appeared to be less infected with the kind of fervor on display in the cities.

Shanghai was the most inflamed, he recalled. There was absolutely no cohesion in the country; fiefdoms run by groups of Red Guards, thugs in many cases.

Amid the chaos, there were touching moments, Safer said, such as the sincerity and warmth the travelers felt when the mother of a rural family insisted on having the visitors stay for dinner, sacrificing the familys rare commodity of a live chicken for the cross-cultural meal.



WATCH: 'There were funny moments '

At one point, Safer was arrested and frog-marched (pushed along) to an impromptu trial speedily set up at the hotel where he stayed, for sedition and insulting the peoples achievements.

I went on quite eloquently about how awful, how ill-intentioned I was," Safer recalled. I finished by saying, However, Im here to learn, to be open and really understand.' "

Hearing that, madam interrogator smiled, got up from her seat, shook the "archaeologist" by the hand and congratulated him: "That was very good! she said.

Safer likened the moment to the children's story Alice in Wonderland, when the protagonist falls down a rabbit hole into an alternate universe.

Asked how his fate might have ended up if he werent an actual archaeologist but rather a permanent resident or a citizen: I couldnt even contemplate it; I would be in jail within 10 minutes and possibly dead within 20," he said.

China has not released any official figures on how many Chinese might have died of unnatural causes during the 10-year Cultural Revolution (1966-76). Some scholars have estimated 500,000 to 2 million perished, based on published local records, but that was in rural areas alone and just between the years of 1966 and 1971.

Revolution redux?

Back in 1967, with the revolution in its infancy, CBS reporter Safer visited China's Great Wall and captured on film the smiling young people whose enthusiastic embrace of Marxism, Leninism and Maoism was the revolution's key force.

That which guides our thought and thought process is Marxism and Leninism! Long live the Communist Party! Long live Chairman Mao! Ten thousand years  ten thousand times ten thousand years!

Fifty years later, China's government has repudiated the Cultural Revolution, but not its Marxist roots.

A recent editorial published by Beijing's official Xinhua news agency reiterated a conclusion of top Communist Party leaders who denounced the Cultural Revolution, saying it was mistakenly initiated by the countrys leaders and brought havoc and catastrophe to the party, society and citizens of all ethnicities.

The editorial went on, saying that history has proven that the Cultural Revolution was thoroughly mistaken, both in theory and in practice, and could not have qualified as social progress in any meaningful sense of the word.

However, China's current president, Xi Jinping, embraces Marxist principles, telling top officials in a speech this month that Marxism, more than any other school of thought, including China's indigenous Confucian and Taoist beliefs, is still what China needs to fulfill its destiny as a world power.

WATCH: Full VOA interview with Morley Safer
A massive earthquake and tsunami in April 2011 caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan to melt down, releasing radiation into the surrounding environment.

While some of this radiation was released directly into the ocean, most of the radiation went into the atmosphere, where it spread and eventually rained into the ocean.

The ocean is full of radiation from natural sources, as well as from nuclear testing in the early 1960s. This radiation circulates throughout the ocean and is ingested by marine life.

While scientists had a gauge on levels of radiation in the ocean before the Fukushima incident, they werent sure what would happen with the additional radiation from the meltdown.

Monitoring the fallout in the oceans can be challenging. The biggest hurdle to testing is the sheer size of the ocean, which makes monitoring and sampling difficult. Another problem is that water is constantly in motion, affected by wind, competing currents and temperature, which can make predictions difficult.

International teams of scientists are working to discover how these radioactive particles are traveling throughout the ocean.

Going with the flow

A review, published in the Annual Review of Marine Science, of the condition of the oceans five years after Fukushima was presented at the Goldschmidt Conference in Japan this past week.

Its a really timely review. This particular group ... of experts ... have produced a really great overview of what has happened ... what is likely to happen and what that means for both environmental and public health, Jay Cullen, chemical oceanographer and head of the Fukushima InFORM project in Canada, told VOA.

Results of the study show radiation levels in the ocean spread much as the models had projected.

The main radiation plume from the disaster surfed along currents and reached western North American shores in June 2013. Radiation levels, steadily rising as the plume travels along the coast, are expected to peak before the end of this year.

The levels detected, even though they are rising, are very low and do not pose any risk to humans, scientists said.

Swimming in the ocean for eight hours a day for an entire year, even in the highest levels measured, would give you a dose of radiation 1,000 times smaller than what youd receive during a dental X-ray, Ken Buesseler, oceanographer and lead author of the review, told VOA.

In the U.S., individual states are responsible for monitoring radiation levels in the ocean to ensure the levels are safe for people and marine life. However, the level of monitoring done by states does not meet the level for research.

While the testing methods used by states cannot detect radiation at the low levels quoted in the study, states such as Alaska collaborate with researchers and federal agencies, sharing samples and testing results.

Better understanding

Buesselers work at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute gave Alaska a much better understanding of the movement of radioactive particles in the ocean, said Marlena Brewer, an environmental program specialist with the states Department of Environmental Conservation.

But, we dont really need to see down to ... those levels [of the study], because the established safety levels for foodstuffs is orders of magnitude higher," Brewer said.

Bob Gerlach, a state veterinarian for Alaska who also runs the states fish monitoring program, said understanding radiation transport in the oceans at the levels in the review is important, but it is also a tremendous economic investment. He said by having several agencies and groups work together, the cost of these types of studies is more manageable.

The collaborative effort shows ... the ability of these different agencies to work together to come up with information thats going to be a benefit to the general public, Gerlach said.

Five years on, Buesseler said, it's important to keep monitoring the radiation levels in the oceans.

Although the Fukushima radiation plume poses a low threat to humans, radiation is present throughout the ocean, from the surface to the floor. Small amounts of radiation are also entering the ocean because of runoff from radioactive particles in the land near the power plant.

Buesseler said that even though radioactive contaminants are getting lower," studies of radiation levels should continue, both to track ongoing releases and to be better prepared should an incident like Fukushima occur in the future.
The number of Syrian refugees who entered the United States in June more than doubled over the previous month, putting President Barack Obama's goal of resettling 10,000 by the end of the fiscal year on September 30 within reach.

The U.S. State Department's Refugee Processing Center reports 2,381 Syrian refugees arrived in the U.S. last month. They settled in 38 states, mostly in Michigan (570), California (500), Arizona (388), Illinois (343), Pennsylvania (340), Texas (321) and Florida (301).

To meet the administration's goal, the United States must welcome 4,814 Syrian refugees during the next three months.

Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, 4.1 million Syrians have fled the country, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Many have settled in the neighboring countries of Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. The war has contributed to the refugee crisis in Europe, which had taken in about 1 million Syrians in 2015.

The humanitarian crisis created by the war prompted Obama to call for a significant increase in the resettlement of Syrians in the United States. But efforts to accommodate them have been plagued by terror fears and congressional efforts to block the program.

The latest figures, though, significantly increase the likelihood that the administration's goal will be attained.

Meanwhile, there appears to be ample public support in the United States for Syrian refugees. A Brookings Institution poll released in mid-June found that most Americans, 59 percent, favored admitting refugees from Syria in particular and from other Middle Eastern countries.
As Gov. Scott Walker continues to be floated as a potential last-minute challenger to presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump, the governor insists he's focused on running for re-election in Wisconsin  that is, if he decides to do so.

Walker says he won't make a decision on another gubernatorial bid until after the state budget is completed next year. In the meantime, speculation has begun over which Democrats will run against him in 2018.

Here's who's on the list so far:

Tim Cullen: The former senator told WisPolitics this week he is considering a run, but is "a ways" from making a decision. The Janesville Democrat served two separate stints in the state Senate  one from 1975 through 1987, and one from 2011 through 2014. He served as Senate majority leader for several years in the 1980s, and spent one year as head of the state Department of Health and Family Services under Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson.

Cullen briefly considered running in the 2012 recall election against Walker, but opted not to, citing fundraising concerns. At the time, he described unions' attitude toward his campaign as "respectful indifference."

Known as a moderate in the Legislature, Cullen worked with Republicans in an attempt to broker a deal after he and the 13 other Senate Democrats went to Illinois hoping to block a vote during the fight over Walker's Act 10 legislation. In a book published last fall, Cullen detailed that fight and his experiences in Wisconsin government.

Sen. Kathleen Vinehout: The Alma Democrat told the Wisconsin State Journal last month that, after surveying delegates at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin convention, "they want me to run." Still, she said, she won't make a decision until early next year.

Vinehout has served in the state Senate since 2007. She won 4 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary in the 2012 recall election, and briefly considered running in 2014. She decided not to run after injuring her arm in a car accident.

Representing the western part of the state, Vinehout has appeal as a candidate not from the liberal strongholds of Madison and Milwaukee. But she could struggle to pull in endorsements and dollars from reproductive rights groups like Planned Parenthood, which rescinded its 2006 endorsement of her after she authored an amendment that would have allowed pharmacists to refuse to fill certain prescriptions, including contraceptives, based on their religious beliefs.

Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling: In the Senate since 2011, Shilling was elected to lead her Democratic colleagues in 2014. The La Crosse Democrat served in the Assembly for 11 years before entering the Senate.

Shilling was named one of the Washington Post's "40 Most Interesting Women in Politics" last year, sharing the ranks with politicians including Republican former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Her name has been floated by fellow Democrats for at least a year as a strong contender, but Shilling hasn't said much about it. Instead, she says, she's focused on the 2016 ballot.

Rep. Dana Wachs: The Eau Claire Democrat was elected unopposed to the state Assembly in 2012. He faces a Republican challenger this year, and has said he's focused on that race. His name only recently emerged as a potential gubernatorial candidate, and that chatter picked up at the party's state convention.

Dane County Executive Joe Parisi: Parisi's name is a familiar one in gubernatorial speculation, but he's often dismissed as a Madison liberal who may struggle to appeal to voters throughout the state.

Parisi served in the state Assembly for six years before he was elected county executive.

Asked about a gubernatorial bid in May, Parisi said he's "not ruling it out." But first, he's running for re-election in 2017.

U.S. Rep. Ron Kind: Kind is another frequently mentioned name, having represented the state's 3rd Congressional District since 1997. The La Crosse lawyer is chairman of the New Democrat Coalition, a congressional organization that describes itself as the party's "pro-growth, fiscally responsible wing."

Kevin Conroy: Conroy, CEO of Madison biotech company Exact Sciences, last considered a run for governor in 2009. He drew praise at the time from Democratic then-Gov. Jim Doyle. Conroy has since indicated he may still be interested in public office, and his name was frequently mentioned by Democrats looking at 2018. His company is still recovering from plummeting stock prices since the launch of its colon cancer screening test, but shares started climbing back up earlier this month. But this week, he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he is not considering running for governor, opting instead to focus on the company.
Turkey sent a giant shipment of humanitarian aid, including rice, flour and toys, to Gaza on Saturday, days after reaching a deal to normalize relations with Israel.

The rapprochement and consequent aid to Gaza came as unemployment in the Palestinian strip has reached 43 percent, electricity is available for only eight to 12 hours a day, and water resources are drying up. Unless radical steps are taken, it is not a question of if but rather when another escalation [eruption of violence] will take place, warned Nickolay Mladenov, U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process.

Turkey intends to build a power plant, a desalination facility, a hospital and houses there. Israel is going along with these plans. It no longer seeks to topple Hamas, realizing that the alternatives to it are Islamic radicals or chaos.

Gaza blockade

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been extremely sensitive to the situation in Gaza, which since 2007 has been governed by Hamas, a Muslim party like his own party, AKP. He was furious when Israel raided Gaza and when it forcibly foiled a 2010 attempt to break a maritime blockade of Gaza.

In that incident, Israeli marines stormed the Mavi Marmara aid ship, one of six civilian vessels trying to break the blockade, and killed 10 Turkish activists on board. In the aftermath of the attack, Turkey demanded a formal apology from Israel, compensation for the families of those killed, and the lifting of Israels Gaza blockade.

Turkey expelled Israel's ambassador and froze military cooperation after a 2011 U.N. report into the Israeli raid on the Mavi Marmara largely exonerated the Jewish state. Israel and NATO member Turkey, which both border Syria, reduced intelligence sharing and canceled joint military exercises.

But there was a breakthrough this past Sunday after months of talks between the two countries. And by Monday, Turkey announced that a deal would be signed normalizing relations with Israel.

Common interests

The compromise is part of a rapprochement that reflects the two countries common strategic interests. Moderate Sunni Muslim states are trying to contain Shi'ite Iran, which is involved in fighting in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Israel wants to cooperate with the moderates and help the struggle against radical Muslim militants, especially in Egypt and Jordan.

The rapprochement is an important step to prevent the creation of another Iran in the area. ... Lets isolate our enemies, the terrorists, and ... with big and strong countries like Turkey, conclude an alliance, agreements and cooperation, said Minister Yoav Gallant, a member of the inner Cabinet, which approved the agreement Wednesday.

In this volatile Middle East there are few countries that have the ability to act and are stabilized enough to feel that they do not endanger their existence [by intervening]. Turkey and Israel are two of those few countries, former National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror told reporters.

In the 1990s, after the Madrid Peace Conference  a watershed event that brought Israel into direct, face-to-face negotiations with Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the Palestinians  ties between Turkey and Israel grew closer.

Push by generals

Turkish generals pushed for closer relations, noted Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak, a Turkish researcher at Tel Aviv Universitys Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Turkeys army was fighting Kurdish rebels and sought weapons that Europeans and the Americans would not provide because of human rights concerns, he wrote.

Israel also upgraded Turkish fighter planes and tanks. Their navies held joint exercises. Israeli pilots practiced bombing runs in Turkey, and Israeli intelligence reportedly ran a station that spied on Iran.

The downturn came when Erdogan, then the prime minister, clamped down on the army. He arrested most of the generals that were involved with Israel, wrote former Israeli intelligence officer Yossi Alpher in his book Periphery. At that time, there was a peace process with the Turkish Kurds, and it reduced Ankara's need for Israels military support, added Yanarocak.

Turkeys security has been worsening as Syria's situation continues to disintegrate along Turkey's southern border. The Islamic State has ransacked the town of Kilis, forcing its evacuation.
A U.S. congressional delegation led by Republican Senator John McCain undertook a rare trip in a military helicopter to Pakistans restive North Waziristan tribal region Sunday, before concluding a two-day visit to the country and heading for neighboring Afghanistan.

The tribal territory, which borders Afghanistan, used to be a hub of local and international terrorists linked to groups, including al-Qaida, the Taliban and the Haqqani Network, and a staging ground for cross-border insurgent attacks. Until recently, the area was the scene of frequent U.S. drone strikes against suspected militant hideouts, killing scores of them.

But the Pakistan military says the Waziristan district has been mostly cleared of the insurgents since it undertook a massive ground and air offensive two years ago, destroying terrorist communication and bomb-making infrastructure there.

I was very impressed with the progress (on the ground)," McCain, who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told state-run television, PTV after visiting the Waziristan region.

Pakistani military commanders in Miranshah, the administrative center of the tribal district, briefed the U.S. lawmakers on the counterterrorism operations.



Other members in the delegation were South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican Senator Benjamin Sasse of New Jersey, and Indiana Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly. They held security-related talks with Pakistans military chief, General Raheel Sharif, on Saturday.

Improved relations a goal

McCain said he would like an improved relationship between Washington and Islamabad because they both face a common enemy in Islamic State and other extremist groups.

"I see us working together in confronting a common challenge  radical Islamic terrorism  and these kinds of meetings are very helpful to both those countries," the influential American senator added.

Pakistan and the United States have long had uneasy relations. Ties have been strained recently over allegations that Pakistans counterterrorism operations focus only on militants linked to the anti-state Pakistani Taliban, and that Islamabad is not doing enough to uproot sentries linked to Afghan militants, including the Haqqani Network terrorist group. Islamabad rejects the charges.





The alleged lack of progress on preventing Afghan insurgents from using Pakistani soil also recently prompted the U.S Congress to stop the Obama administration from subsidizing the purchase of eight F-16 fighter planes it had promised to Islamabad.



Relations have particularly deteriorated after a May 21 U.S. drone strike that killed the leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Akthar Mansoor, in Pakistan.



Officials in Islamabad remain critical of the drone attack, insisting it derailed the efforts Pakistan was making to arrange peace talks between the Islamist insurgency and the Afghan government.

While speaking to PTV, Senator McCain said, We look forward to closer relations and resolving the differences we have.

A statement issued after Sundays meeting said Pakistani foreign policy advisor Sartaj Aziz briefed the U.S. delegation on efforts his country has been making to promote peace and stability in Afghanistan and to strengthen security along the long and porous Afghan border.
The Democratic Party has released a nonbinding document that spells out the party's positions on international and domestic issues that party members are calling the most progressive platform in their history.

The first draft calls the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement among 12 Pacific Rim nations controversial within the party but said all Democrats believe that any trade agreement must protect workers and the environment.

In addressing global threats, particularly in Iraq and Syria, the draft says it will continue to press those parties in the region, especially the Gulf countries and local forces, to carry the weight of the fight.

In Syria, where they call the crisis "heartbreaking and dangerous," with its impact threatening not only the region but also Europe and beyond, the draft says Democrats will push to "bring together the Syrian opposition, international community, and our regional allies" in negotiating a political transition to end President Bashar al-Assad's rule.

The draft also says the U.S. should "lead the international community in providing greater humanitarian assistance" to the civilian victims in Syria and Iraq.

National issues

On the national front, the draft features commitments to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, expand community-based treatment for substance abuse disorders, abolish the death penalty, and respect gun ownership while keeping assault weapons off the streets.

We believe in protecting civil liberties and guaranteeing civil rights and voting rights, womens rights and workers rights, LGBT rights and rights for people with disabilities. We believe America is still, as Robert Kennedy said, a great country, an unselfish country, and a compassionate country,'  the document said.

The platform also asks for free community college and says the party will not forget about the millions of borrowers who need help with their debt right now.

The 187-member platform committee is scheduled to review the draft next week in Orlando, Florida. Changes can be made to the draft before it is presented and voted on at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia later this month.

Here are some key provisions in the first draft of the 2016 Democratic platform.

Economy

 Push to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and support the right for every American to join a union.

 Fight right to work laws. Democrats vowed to oppose laws that would eliminate the need to check procedures and that would abolish fair requirements to all American workers.

 Support equal pay for women and paid family leave to care for a new member of the family or sick relative with a serious health issue.

 Renew efforts to expand Social Security and continue to ask those at the top to pay more.

 Work with small-business owners to have access to credit in order to create more jobs.

Gun rights

 Support gun ownership but enact strict background checks and keep assault weapons off the streets and away from terrorists and other violent criminals.

Education

 Support access to income based-repayment of student debt and cut interest for future graduates.

 Support free community college and more investments in early childhood education.

 The draft calls for a national campaign to recruit and retain high-quality teachers and make sure educators receive the tools for professional development.

Immigration

 Supports visa programs and legal immigration.

 Ask urgently for the fixing of Americas immigration system by fighting for comprehensive immigration reform.

 Supports relief immigration actions such as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans.

 It rejects attempts to ban immigrants or refugees running away from persecution.

Health care

 Work to keep costs down and make premium insurance affordable.

 The party will also fight for the Affordable Care Acts Medicaid expansion to be adopted in every state.

 Supports the increase of community-based treatment for mental health conditions and substance abuse disorders.

Racial justice

 Promote racial justice and push for an equitable governing of all institutions.

 Eliminate the racial wealth gap and income gap.

 Invest in training for law enforcement officers on de-escalation and appropriate use of force.

 Support and encourage better police-community relations.

Terrorism

 Supports defeating groups like ISIS, al-Qaida and any affiliates.

 Calls for the update of the Congressional Authorization for Use of Military Force to create more precise efforts to defeat terrorists.

 Continue to push for peace in Afghanistan and press Pakistan to deny terrorists use of its territory.
Hundreds of people carrying red Turkish flags, some as long as 10 meters, marched Sunday to Josephs Square, Viennas iconic palace courtyard.



Protesting last weeks attack on an Istanbul airport that left 45 people dead and nearly 250 injured, marchers accused parts of the Austrian government of supporting Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants, considered terrorists in both Austria and Turkey.



The Austrian government needs to make a stand against them, said 27-year-old Metlhem. They allow it to be here.



If they are in any district, they must be cleared, added Mustafa Koca, a 19-year-old IT student.



Protesters were not thwarted by the news that the attackers are believed to have been Uzbek, Kyrgyz and Russian nationals. Turks and people of Turkish descent are one of Austrias largest minority groups, and protesters said they were marching against all hate groups, not just the PKK.



But it was chants against the PKK that drummed up the most enthusiasm. Previous smaller pro-PKK marches have been marred by attacks from other Turkish people. Protesters here say any PKK march or flag is banned.



We say Kurdish people and Turkish people are siblings, said Merve Ciger, a 16-year-old student among the dozens of people carrying one large Turkish flag. They say Turkish people kill Kurds.
The team investigating the May 19 crash of an EgyptAir jet said it expects audio will be obtained from the plane's damaged cockpit voice recorder. Authorities hope the recordings will shed more light on what caused flight M804 to crash into the Mediterranean while en route from Paris to Cairo, killing all 66 people aboard.

The Airbus A320's flight data recorders indicate there was smoke in the plane's lavatory and on some of the onboard electronics. Authorities say heat damage and soot was found on the front part of wreckage of the plane.

The cockpit voice recorder was recovered in June and sent to Paris for repairs.

The Egyptian-led investigation team said Saturday the recorder's memory chips were not damaged.

Repairing some connecting components on the recorder's circuit board "enabled the reading of the recorders" the statement read.

No one has claimed responsibility for downing the plane.

On Monday French prosecutors opened a manslaughter probe into the crash, but stressed the inquiry was an accident investigation, not as a terrorism probe.
Praise for the life of holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel is being heard from around the world.

Wiesel, who survived the hell of Nazi death camps, died Saturday at 87.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Sunday, "The world has lost one of its most important witnesses, and one of its most eloquent advocates of tolerance and peace." He added, "Elie Wiesel turned the nightmare of his youth into a lifelong campaign for global equality and peace.



Wiesel has been a UN Messenger of Peace since 1998, and Ban said he had called for constant vigilance in combating anti-Semitism and other forms of hatred.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power said, "With the passing of Elie Wiesel, the world has lost a great and wise man; those who fight injustice have lost a daily inspiration..."

Saturday, U.S. President Barack Obama called Wiesel a dear friend who was "one of the great moral voices of our time."

"He raised his voice, not just against anti-Semitism, but against hatred, bigotry and intolerance in all its forms. He implored each of us, as nations and as human beings, to do the same, to see ourselves in each other abnd to make real the pledge of 'never again.'"

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mourned Wiesel by saying he "gave expression to the victory of the human spirit over cruelty and evil."

"In the darkness of the Holocaust, in which our sisters and brothers were killed, six-million, Elie Wiesel served as a ray of light and example of humanity who believed in the goodness in people."

The Romanian-born Wiesel was shipped off to the notorious Auschwitz death camp in 1944 along with most of his immediate family.

His parents and a sister were murdered, but Wiesel survived Nazi brutality to start a career as a professional journalist.

A French writer persuaded him to tell his stories about the Holocaust and Wiesel's memoir, Night, was published in 1958.

It has sold millions of copies in 30 languages and is required reading in many schools around the world and for anyone who wants to know about some of the darkest years of human history.

Wiesel wrote other Holocaust memoirs along with works of fiction and non-fiction.

He won the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize for speaking out against war, discrimination, and suppression of human rights and for keeping memories of the Holocaust alive.

Among the numerous honors and awards given to Wiesel throughout his life are U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, the French Legion of Honor Grand Cross, and was knighted a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

In 1978, U.S. President Jimmy Carter appointed Wiesel as the head of the Presidential Commission on the Holocaust, which led to the creation of the Holocaust Museum in Washington.

Wiesel's words are carved on the outside of the building, spelling out the purpose of a museum documenting inhumanity  "for the dead and the living, we must bear witness."
In the fall of 2015, the international news was flooded with pictures of an Austrian train station where volunteers welcomed refugees with food, clothing and games for children.



Almost a year later, the train station now welcomes commuters and tourists. Media coverage focuses on a growing anti-immigration political movement poised to take another crack at the Austrian presidency.



At a quiet park in Vienna, Jesse de Pagter, a 23-year-old philosophy student from the Netherlands, said the outpouring of sympathy for refugees may have been a catalyst for an outpouring of intolerance.



It may have been the positive image that made the contrary true, he said. Its an image of a divided country.



On Friday, an Austrian court canceled the results of the countrys May presidential elections, citing widespread rule breaking. The re-vote, scheduled for the fall, essentially gives Austrias Freedom Party candidate, Norbert Hofer, another chance at becoming the European Unions first far-right head of state.



In central Vienna, a city that has consistently - and uniquely within Austria - voted against the Freedom Party. Henrik Neumayer, 17, has had a vote since he was 16-years-old. When asked who he supported in the upcoming election, he winced like he has just swallowed a rotten egg. Ehh, I think I dont like either of them, he said.



At his side, on the park bench by a serene duck pond, 16-year-old Sara Maksim is more certain. As far as she is concerned, Hofer is a racist, campaigning on impractical anti-immigrant policies. I think he just wants a second chance to get elected.I hate him, she said.

Van der Bellen? then says Neumayer, speaking of 72-year-old recently rescinded president-elect, the Green Partys Alexander Van der Bellen. He is a former economics professor who supports gay rights and open borders, winning the overturned election by about 1 percent of the vote. Actually I dont know what he wants.



Maksim pondered momentarily and laughed. I dont know what he wants either. But Hofer, no. Just no, she said.



Hofer is a 45-year-old trained aviation engineer often called the friendly face of the far right party and known for describing his staunch anti-immigrant policies in more moderate language than his party's leadership.



I think [Hofer] somehow wants to unite our country. But I dont think he can do it, said Neumayer.

Beyond Austria



At bench near the park exit, de Pagter from the Netherlands and his friend, 22-year-old Italian Damiano Ranzanigo, also a philosophy student in Vienna, rest after a night on the town. The university is closed for the summer.



They may not be able to vote in the upcoming election, but they said that the consequences of a Freedom Party win for their countries could be, in their view, terrible.



Its a very bad sign because it makes the rhetoric in other countries stronger, said de Pagter. Nationalist, and specifically anti-Islamic, political movements have been growing steadily across the continent and in the United States since the Paris attacks last November. You just need a few other terrorist attacks and they will become more severe, de Pagter added.



A victory for the Freedom Party could empower these movements as they seek to gain political power, despite the fact that the Austrian presidency is largely considered a symbolic office. Also, Austria is expected hold parliamentary elections within the next two and a half years, a vote that could be influenced by the success or failure of the growing right.



There are a lot of people taking them seriously, said Ranzanigo, speaking of European right-wing parties in general. Besides having more concrete plans, right-wing parties nowadays dont sound as extreme as their predecessors, making them palatable to a larger audience.



They are always trying to stay politically correct. They dont want to be called xenophobic, he said.



In a nearby grassy field, two brothers - both refugees from Syria - are reluctant to talk about the upcoming elections, or the uncertain future they face after fleeing a gruesome war to a country that was once more welcoming.



It could be a catastrophe, said one brother before walking away. But its not for us to decide.
A team from the Electoral Commission of Zambia is scheduled to leave soon to Dubai to monitor the printing of the ballot papers to be used for the August 11 general election, according to Priscilla Isaac, director of elections at the commission.The team is expected to be in Dubai until the end of July to witness the beginning and conclusion of the printing of the ballot papers and the subsequent dispatch of the documents to Zambia.

Isaac said the electoral commissions preparation to administer the presidential, parliamentary and local elections is on course. She made the comments after the electoral body distributed non-security items to districts across the country in readiness for the polls.

Things are in hand so as we get towards the end of July, like a week before the elections thats when we will distribute the security materials that would include the ballot papers to the respective districts for distribution to the polling stations. So that all the materials are in place in the polling stations in time for opening of polls on the 11th [August], said Isaac.

Fair and equal coverage

She also said the electoral commission is working with the Zambia Broadcasting Cooperation (ZNBC)  the state broadcaster  to ensure political parties get fair and equal coverage as they intensify their campaigns to garner more votes before the elections. Opposition political parties including the United Party for National Development (UPND) have complained that incumbent President Edgar Lungu and his Patriotic Front party enjoy more coverage or airtime on the state broadcaster than them.

They called on the electoral commission to enforce the electoral law, which demands the state broadcaster must ensure equal, fair and balanced coverage of all participating parties before the elections. Isaac said the electoral body has signed a contract with a company to help monitor the coverage of political parties by the state broadcaster ahead of the polls.

Weve had a meeting with the public media head and we did note they are making an attempt to provide fair coverage. I was listening to the news on radio and I think four political parties were mentioned: the ruling, the leading opposition party UPND and other opposition parliamentary candidate. So, there were mentions of not only the ruling party, but also some of the opposition, said Isaac.

What the public media head complained about is that they were not being availed the campaign schedule of the opposition political parties. So he said it is difficult for them to know when they have an activity and then they also complained of instances of intimidation of their reporters by some opposition political parties. But, we are hoping that there can be an improvement in this, so that at least the media is availed that opportunity to cover [political events].

We are engaging with somebody to assist us with the monitoring of media coverage, and I think they should be on board next week under the elections project. And our public relations team and all of us at the commission try and keep tabs of the coverage, she added.

Possible election violence

Meanwhile, Zambians have expressed concern about politically related violence during campaigns before the elections. They called on the electoral commission to enforce the electoral law by banning the parties who are involved in the violence from participating in the elections, citing supporters of the PF and the UPND as the worst offenders.

We are monitoring the situation and we are actually in the process of finalizing the regulation that would provide the procedure that would lead to disqualificationI think they would be shared with the stakeholders before we finalize so that they would be aware, which direction we are going. It is not something that should be a last resort, because even if we have those powers the same stakeholders if we were to enforce it would be the ones to start saying that we are picking on them, said Isaac.

The main thing is for the political parties to start being tolerant of each other. Its really sad to see the two: PF and UPND at loggerheads and if we suspend the campaign period its not just going to affect them, its going to affect everybody else. So the commissions appeal to the two parties is that can they restrain their cadres, can they exhibit tolerance towards each other? Concentrate on campaigning on issues, its not about pulling down each others posters battling each other. It just casts a cloud over the whole campaign and it becomes very discouraging to the voters.
Thousands of European Union supporters marched through central London Saturday, protesting the Brexit referendum result. Many participants in the 3-kilometer March for Europe, which went from Hyde Park to Parliament Square, said they hoped Britains lawmakers would block any moves to leave the 28-nation bloc. Britain voted to leave the EU on June 23.
Zimbabwean police say they have already prepared a docket for Acie Lumumba, who dropped an f-word on President Robert Mugabe when he officially launched his Viva Zimbabwe party last week.

According to the privately-owned Standard newspaper, family members of the leader of the newly formed party suspect that he was allegedly abducted by state security agents on the same day he dropped the f-word on Mr. Mugabe.

Lumumba blamed the 92 year-old Zimbabwean leader for all the social and economic problems, which are currently bedeviling the nation.

Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba dismissed reports that Lumumba was arrested last Thursday, noting that, in fact, they are looking for him as police have already opened a docket, to charge him for insulting the president.

Charamba said Lumumba should surrender to the police to face charges of insulting the president. But some family members and close party colleagues allege that Lumumba, a former Zanu PF activist, has been abducted by state security agents.

Charamba said Lumumba undermined the authority of the president when he dropped the f-word on Mr. Mugabe in contravention of Section 33 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act Chapter 9:23.

In this section, anyone can be punished for making a statement in a public place or any place to which the public or any section of the public have access and publishing it in any printed or electronic medium for reception by the public; statement includes any act or gesture.

Any person who publicly, unlawfully and intentionally (a) makes any statement about or concerning the President or an acting President with the knowledge or realising that there is a real risk or possibility that the statement is false and that it may (i) engender feelings of hostility towards; or - 33 - (ii) cause hatred, contempt or ridicule of; the President or an acting President, whether in person or in respect of the Presidents office; or (b) makes any abusive, indecent or obscene statement about or concerning the President or an acting President, whether in respect of the President personally or the Presidents office; shall be guilty of undermining the authority of or insulting the President and liable to a fine not exceeding level six or imprisonment for a period not exceeding one year or both.
20 hostages killed in Bdesh cafe attack

Islamist militants killed 20 people, including at least nine Italians, inside an upmarket restaurant in Bangladeshs capital, before security forces stormed the building and ended a 12-hour standoff on Saturday.
Seventeen Beitbridge residents on Sunday appeared before a local magistrate following their arrest on Friday after the border town was rocked by public protests on the import ban on some basic commodities.

In a statement posted on its Facebook page, the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said the 17 are facing charges of public violence.

The 17 residents made up of 16 men and one woman appeared before Beitbridge Magistrate Gloria Takundwa for initial remand, where their lawyer Reason Mutimba of Mawadze and Simwango Legal Practitioners, a member of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, raised complaints against Zimbabwe Republic Police officers, whom he accused of assaulting 10 of the residents during the time when the law enforcement agents rounded them up in the border town.

The 17 residents were arrested on Friday 01 July 2016 and charged with public violence in contravention of Section 36 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act Chapter 9:23 following a protest allegedly staged in the border town against the imposition of import duty on some basic commodities by the government.

The lawyers group said magistrate Takundwa remanded them in custody to Tuesday, when she will consider their bail application. The matter had to be postponed after prosecutors indicated that they could not fully respond to issues pertaining to the release of the residents on bail as they needed to consult their superiors on how to proceed.

ZLHR commends court officials for going out of their comforts by convening a court session on a Sunday in an unprecedented move, which ensured that the rights of the accused persons are recognized in terms of the provisions of the new constitution, which outlaws detaining accused persons beyond 48 hours without bringing them to court.

Business at Zimbabwes biggest border post, Beitbridge, came to a standstill Friday for about six hours after hundreds of people from either side of the border demonstrated against the banning of some goods from entering the country following the start of the implementation of Statutory Instrument 64 of 2016 on that day.

A Zimbabwe Revenue Authority warehouse was allegedly set on fire by the protesters who also smashed traffic lights and broke other infrastructure in the border town. Indications are that the warehouse, which had goods confiscated from travelers was ransacked before being set on fire.

On the other side of the border South Africans, Indians and Ethiopians together with the Zimbabweans marched from Musina, about 12 kilometers away, towards the border but were stopped by police who promised to engage with the Zimbabwe government to resolve the issue.

Police could not ascertain the value of the goods believed to be running into millions of dollars. As a result of the violence, Botswana Television reported Friday that the government was considering closing its borders with Zimbabwe.

The government argues that Statutory Instrument 64 of 2016, which was formulated by the Rhodesian government in 1974 as a way of countering sanctions, is a timely measure to reign in the ballooning import bill that has seen locally produced goods neglected because they are more expensive than imports.

Some of the banned goods include furniture, baked beans, potato crisps, cereals, bottled water, mayonnaise, salad cream, peanut butter, jams, maheu, canned fruits and vegetables, pizza base, yoghurts, flavoured milks, dairy juice blends, ice-creams, cultured milk and cheese, among several others.
The ghosts of Hell on Wheels past spirit through Laramie this evening. Governor Campbell arrives on the scene, with Doctor Major Bendixs cavalry and Native American trackers in tow, eager to exercise swift justice against the man who allegedly kidnapped Thomas Durant. But it was the specter of Sean McGinnes that haunts Mickey in Gambit, taunting him with the moral equation of cause and effect. By midway through the episode, Mickey knows the jig is up: He and Dandy John will be duly outed as Durants co-conspirator in the latters cockamamie self-ransoming scheme. Hes not an especially spiritual man, but he seems to appreciate the inevitability of his past misdeeds manifesting themselves in this ghastly predicament.

Eva, despite her complicated history with Mickey, feels a bit toward him like she does that dotty horse  inclined to impel him toward goodness through two parts tenderness and one part tough love. Who knows why, other than the series prevailing need to partner up surviving regulars as a concession to the audience after killing so many off, beginning way back with Lily Bell and onward through Elam, Joseph, Ruth, and now Maggie. (At what point did she became gaga enough over Thomas to ostensibly take a bullet for him, anyway?) By the hours climax, Mickey  a slobbering mess after dispatching of his cousin Johnny when their epic boondoggle of a heist met its inglorious end  brings himself to orgasm mere feet away from the steed shed so dutifully tamed.

But mostly, horses are on hand throughout Gambit to escort casualties back to their camps. Bendixs crew retreats back to Laramie after Mickey and Johns bomb-rigged cabin blow a soldier to smithereens, and in a bit of karmic quid pro quo, Durant slogs his way home after the cash-for-tycoon swap goes awry with Maggie slumped over a saddle, lifeless. You almost believe Thomas when he testifies to Campbell that hes weary from all the death, just as Mickey rings a convincing tone when he cautions John that blood brings guns, not money. Sincere as they may seem in the moment, their transgressions has rendered any eureka revelation too little and much too late.

And so, Mickey is condemned to a damnation of sorts, stuck with his wagon hitched to the fortunes and failings of this godforsaken transcontinental railroad. (Hell on wheels, indeed.) Durant, meanwhile, watches Nobles walk out the door of his train car with a bag full of $50,000 that literally cost Maggie her life, knowing all too well that hes finally sold his soul. Its the first bookend to the remaining chapters of his legacy, fated to be bound  as we know via a startling flash-forward cold open  by a lonely death with little to show for it but a working knowledge of high-society hangouts and a log-pile home kept lit by matchsticks and little else.

Louise  irksome muckraker that she is  has a point when she bemoans the pricelessness of humanity, even if shes the only one particularly broken up about Delaneys murder. As revealed in the aforementioned cold open, Durants old rival Jim Huntington never really had to reconcile that ethical dilemma, on account of having always bore in mind that, Only a fool doesnt diversify. He and his peers will become the hedge-fund hogs who precipitate economic recessions more than a century on, ensuring that a few careless capitalists sins might harm them, but the rest of us will carry on in a polarized culture that prizes cavalier fortune and plays passive witness to majority struggle. This is the American way that Durant so brazenly boasts of, and eventually finds himself humbled by: In a pawn shop several years after the Panic of 1873 (a crash he partially triggered), a man with half his education all but nails the golden spike into his coffin. With three episodes remaining  and to invoke both this episodes tragic leading men  the most compelling loose end is whether, by the mid-1880s, Cullen Bohannon will carve out something of a middle class.

Apart From All That:
Against economic colonisation

Brexit was a bold decision and an essential step towards global liberation
The Johnson brothers were more than brothers by blood  they were also brothers in arms. They came by that sense of obligation to serve their country as their father, Woodrow Wilson Johnson, a Temple native, was in the infantry and later the medical corps from 1944 to 1946 during World War II.

Each of his four sons  David Thomas, Woodrow Charles, James Earl and John Johnson, would go on to take their turn in the military, though not at the same time or in the same branch.

Today, only three of the brothers remain. James, a Waco native, did his duty in Korea and served with the 5th Army Aviation Group in the U.S. Army during Vietnam. He served as crew chief and gunner, manning an M60 machine gun on a gunship. During his service in Vietnam, he earned two Purple Hearts and a Silver Star. He died in Houston in 2005 at the age of 58.

The three surviving brothers all live in Central Texas. The eldest, David, was born near Lorena. Now 79, he joined the naval reserves in 1955.

Woodrow Charles was born in Bryan in 1942. Drafted into the Navy in 1966, he was attached to the Seabees Mobile Construction Battalion 9 in Vietnam with the 82nd Special Forces stationed in Minh Long.

The youngest, John, 68, was born in Waco and drafted into the Army in 1968. He initially worked stateside as a dog trainer before becoming a dog handler in Vietnam. Military life was a rich experience for all of them.

Join the Navy, see the world

During the Cold War, David served as a qualified helmsman on the USS Ashland, the first dock landing ship of the U.S. Navy. He navigated the Ashland through Hurricane Diane in 1955. I was doing my best to steer, he said. He took part in the U.S. naval blockade during the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962. The Ashland was one of several U.S. ships at the ready, waiting for orders from President John F. Kennedy.

David left the reserves but was eventually recalled and was deployed to France, Italy, Spain, Germany and Australia, followed by a fully armed patrol tour in the Black Sea, which today is bordered by Turkey, Georgia, Russia, Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria. He also did a second tour near Cuba, but we didnt have the horses lined up that time, he said.

While returning home, the ship blew a gasket on a steam line on the port side. Four men were trapped with 350 pounds of escaping steam pressure blocking their escape. David went down and helped the men to safety by diverting the steam from one boiler to another. The ship was able to continue on two boilers.

When David got topside he was soaked. Standing at the guardrail, he passed out from heat exhaustion and awoke in sick bay. He was discharged as an E-5 after serving 13 years of combined and active duty.

Navy man in the mountains

Woodrow, 74, also served in the Navy. His tale was equally riveting. He served in the Minh Long District of Vietnam, in the highlands with the Montagnards, the indigenous Mountain People of Vietnam. He helped build bunkers with the Seabees. He slept in a tent and lived on powdered eggs and milk. The only way you could get in and out was by chopper, he said.

Base camp was located at Camp Hoover near De Nang. Canadian forces crossed the border and assisted the Americans, as did the Australians, among others, Woodrow said. He noted that few people know that at least 134 Canadians  possibly more  were killed in action in Vietnam.

Woodrow served two tours of duty, the first of which lasted seven months. During a monthlong leave, he was able to return home and meet his daughter for the first time. He returned to Vietnam in 1967.

NEXT WEEK: Woodrow experiences unforgettable events in Vietnam while John leaves the States after working as a patrol dog trainer to scout for booby traps in the jungle as a member of the U.S. Army.

Voices of Valor, featuring stories about Central Texas veterans, publishes every Sunday in the Waco Trib. To suggest a story about a Central Texas veteran, email voicesofvalor@wacotrib.com. Voices of Valor is proudly sponsored by Johnson Roofing.
Independence Day 2016 arrives at a remarkable time in our history. A little more than a week ago, the people of our cherished, longtime ally, the United Kingdom, voted to leave the European Union, triggering financial panic, political confusion and possible breakup of the kingdom itself. While the holiday tomorrow marks our exit from Great Britain 240 years ago, we wish its people the best in their time of national anxiety.

Not too surprisingly, Brexit has encouraged Texas undaunted secessionist movement to press the idea of Texit. If Gov. Greg Abbotts Facebook page is any indication, some secessionists suggest the U.S. Supreme Courts 5-3 opinion striking down two key aspects of Texas legislators 2013 law regarding abortion clinics is clear justification for Texas once again leaving the union. Hogwash.

Independence Day champions liberty and equality, but its important to remember such concepts are but one-half of American exceptionalism. The other half is the 1787 Constitution, a sort of owners manual for how citizens, freed of monarchs reigning by divine right, can govern themselves without liberty running riot and heaping anarchy across our land.

Americans have always differed vigorously with one another. We as individuals sometimes celebrate the votes of our federal and state legislatures. We sometimes concur with the nations highest court and its meticulously researched opinions. We even sometimes welcome strong actions by our chief executives in the White House  so long as a decision is one we personally endorse.

But as Americans who pledge allegiance to the flag and the republic for which it stands (or, at least, those of us who actually take that pledge seriously), we must forsake any idea of tossing out the republic and our founding principles when congressional votes, court opinions or executive actions dont go our own way. You can live to fight another day for your candidate or issue. But skulking off in a secessionist funk or mounting a lawless action is contrary to our constitutional principles.

Last month our state leaders celebrated mightily the Supreme Courts ruling that President Obama had indeed exceeded his constitutional authority in suspending federal deportations of a certain class of illegal immigrants. Given similar actions by Republican presidents, we disagree with this opinion (which runs no more than a sentence, given that it was a split decision) but nonetheless we recognize all must now abide by it. This is our constitutional system.

Last week the same court negated two dubious provisions of the Texas Legislatures otherwise reasonable ban on abortions after 20 weeks gestation. State officials quit celebrating the immigration ruling and erupted in almighty indignation, vowing to defy the court in the 2017 legislative session. Secessionists cited the opinion as grounds for breaking away.

In a republic that cherishes liberty but also prizes law and order, in a system that provides for majority rule but allows significant minority protections as well, no one is ensured the privilege of seeing his or her viewpoint endorsed every single time. Only kings, queens and dictators get that right. President Obama cannot defy the U.S. Supreme Court on immigration law but must instead seek change through Congress, like it or not. By the same token, state legislators must accept the high courts strong constitutional protection of abortion rights  and instead seek novel ways to aggressively discourage unplanned pregnancies in the first place while protecting the sanctity of life among the children, aged and ailing now amongst us. Great place to start: Overhauling Texas Child Protective Services and ending the scourge of innocent children who have been abused, neglected and killed.
Army Chief Chhetri inspects military forces heading for UN missions

Chief of the Army Staff (CoAS) Rajendra Chhetri on Sunday reached Panchkhal, Kavre to inspect and examine the pre-deployment training for military forces heading to UN missions.
AXIS Capital Holdings Limited, through its subsidiaries, provides various specialty insurance and reinsurance products worldwide. It operates through two segments, Insurance and Reinsurance. The Insurance segment offers property insurance products for commercial buildings, residential premises, construction projects, and onshore energy installations; marine insurance products covering offshore energy, cargo, liability, recreational marine, fine art, specie, and hull war; and terrorism, aviation, credit and political risk, and liability insurance products. It also provides professional insurance products that cover directors' and officers' liability, errors and omissions liability, employment practices liability, fiduciary liability, crime, professional indemnity, cyber and privacy, medical malpractice, and other financial insurance related coverages for commercial enterprises, financial institutions, not-for-profit organizations, and other professional service providers. In addition, this segment offers accidental death, travel, and specialty health products for employer and affinity groups. The Reinsurance segment offers reinsurance products to insurance companies, including catastrophe reinsurance products; property reinsurance products covering property damage and related losses resulting from natural and man-made perils; professional lines; credit and surety; and motor liability products. This segment also provides agriculture reinsurance products; coverages for various types of construction risks and risks related to erection, testing, and commissioning of machinery and plants during the construction stage; marine and aviation reinsurance products; and personal accident, specialty health, accidental death, travel, life and disability reinsurance products. The company was founded in 2001 and is headquartered in Pembroke, Bermuda.
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Chitwan court seeks bail from 3 fake doctors

Chitwan District Court on Sunday sought bail amount from three doctors arrested from the district for allegedly possessing fake academic certificates.
Brookfield Asset Management is an alternative asset manager and REIT/Real Estate Investment Manager firm focuses on real estate, renewable power, infrastructure and venture capital and private equity assets. It manages a range of public and private investment products and services for institutional and retail clients. It typically makes investments in sizeable, premier assets across geographies and asset classes. It invests both its own capital as well as capital from other investors. Within private equity and venture capital, it focuses on acquisition, early ventures, control buyouts and financially distressed, buyouts and corporate carve-outs, recapitalizations, convertible, senior and mezzanine financings, operational and capital structure restructuring, strategic re-direction, turnaround, and under-performing midmarket companies. It invests in both public debt and equity markets. It invests in private equity sectors with focus on Business Services include infrastructure, healthcare, road fuel distribution and marketing, construction and real estate; Industrials include manufacturers of automotive batteries, graphite electrodes, returnable plastic packaging, and sanitation management and development; and Residential/ infrastructure services. It targets companies which likely possess underlying real assets, primarily in sectors such as industrial products, building materials, metals, mining, homebuilding, oil and gas, paper and packaging, manufacturing and forest product sectors. It invests globally with focus on North America including Brazil, the United States, Canada; Europe; and Australia; and Asia-Pacific. The firm considers equity investments in the range of $2 million to $500 million. It has a four-year investment period and a 10-year term with two one-year extensions. The firm prefers to take minority stake and majority stake. Brookfield Asset Management Inc. was founded in 1997 and based in Toronto, Canada with additional offices across Northern America; South America; Europe; Middle East and Asia.
They envisioned chilled cocktails amidst a tropical poolside setting, but the owners of popular Sydney bar Mrs Sippy have found themselves embroiled in an unfolding legal nightmare with Balinese authorities over their attempt to open a spin-off venue on the Indonesian island.

Sydney restaurateur Andrew Stanway has been threatened with criminal charges and ordered by police to immediately cease building Mrs Sippy Bali - a luxury restaurant and bar in Bali's upmarket Seminyak district - on the grounds he does not have a building permit.

The construction site for the new Mrs Sippy Bali at Seminyak.

Mr Stanway, 39, who co-owns the Double Bay bar Mrs Sippy with Ben May, Angus Abrahams, and Kate Stanway, travelled to North Kuta to oversee the construction of the new venture ahead of its grand opening in September.

But it is understood the venture has been thrown into disarray by a series of disputes, triggered by souring relations with a former business partner.
If Malcolm Turnbull falls in the aftermath of the cliffhanger 2016 election, either by losing a battle for minority government or being turfed by his party, he could finish up as the sixth shortest serving prime minister in Australian history.

As the blame game begins over the Coalition's shock underperformance, with conservative MPs livid over the party's conduct and right-wing commentator Andrew Bolt calling for Mr Turnbull's resignation, data shows his aborted term would be far briefer even than those of tumultuous predecessors Tony Abbott, Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd.

With the 24th longest term of the country's 29 leaders since federation, the member for Wentworth would also hold the dubious honour of having the shortest ever time in office for a Liberal prime minister.
Beaches in Perth's northern suburbs have been put on shark alert for the school holidays - with the Department of Fisheries urging people to reconsider swimming, surfing or diving between Hilarys and Trigg.

The warning comes after an increased amount of sightings of large sharks between the two spots over the end of last week and into the weekend.

The shark sightings have led Fisheries to put Perth's northern beaches on alert. Credit:Michael Genovese, Nine News

According to Fisheries, there were seven sightings between Mettams Pool and Watermans Bay - a 2.5-kilometre stretch - between Thursday and Sunday.

Five of the seven public reports were for sharks more than three metres and one of them was a great white shark.
Climate change warming Asian waters, altering monsoon: Study

Each year as temperatures rise across India, farmers look to the sky and pray for rain.
Three juveniles charged with robbing same Paducah store twice in one day
Advertisement

By Jim Waters

Jul. 03, 2016 | LEXINGTON, KY

By Jim Waters Jul. 03, 2016 | 11:07 AM | LEXINGTON, KY

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton backs a federal minimum-wage hike from the current $7.25 per hour to $12 per hour and praised the New York City Wage Board's decision that fast-food workers should make $15 an hour.



This move was predictably divisive.



Retail workers wanted to know: "Hey, what about us? Why should only McDonald's burger flippers get this raise?"



But the divide caused by such unilateral and arbitrary decisions extends beyond New York's tussle between MeDonald's order takers, who now will be paid $15 an hour  at least those lucky enough to keep their jobs will be  and cashiers at Costco next door who remain at a $9 hourly wage.



Bernie Sanders, the sloppy Socialist and Clinton's fast-fading primary opponent, conveniently dodges any discussion about how his plan to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour will threaten complete removal of the bottom rung of the employment ladder for young, inexperienced, low-skilled and less-educated workers.



The real head scratcher here is that those are the very same people who form the core of the Bern's campaign constituency.



Heaping helpings of hypocrisy on the part of labor unions regarding minimum-wage hikes also accompany the head scratching.



The AFL-CIO wants the Los Angeles City Council to exempt unions from the city's $15-an-hour minimum wage, even after it led a campaign earlier this year to force such a wage hike on the entire state of California while vehemently opposing any exemptions for restaurant workers, nonprofits or other small businesses.



The higher such hypocrisy rises here, the dizzier I get.



Some Kentucky big-government politicians are following Sanders' strategy of avoiding any discussion about the unintended consequences of hiking the commonwealth's minimum wage while offering preposterous positivity about such a move.



For instance, House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, categorically denied that his bill during this year's legislative session, which proposed an enormous 40-percent hike in the state's minimum-wage rate, would hurt Kentucky's unemployment rate, which currently stands higher than that of 30 other states.



Stumbo claims that unemployment rates actually fall in states that hike their minimum wages.



However, recent research by Jeffrey Clemens and Michael Wither at the University of California San Diego on the effect that the minimum wage had on the employment and income trajectories of low-skilled workers during the Great Recession reveals how 1.4 million jobs were destroyed by the increase of the federal minimum wage during the late 2000s.



The study reports that the federal government's minimum-wage increase from $5.15 on July 23, 2007, to $7.25 on July 24, 2009, caused the employment-to-population ratio to decline substantially  by 4 full percentage points among adults between 25 and 54 years old  and twice that amount among 15-to-24-year-olds.



Ben Gitis, American Action Forum's labor market policy director, notes a 22.5 percent average unemployment rate in 2013 among teens in states with minimum wages above the federal $7.25 federal mark.



Gitis claims that in Oregon and Washington  states often held up as trend setters by those obsessed with raising government-mandated minimum wages  teen unemployment rates increased by 8 percent and 9 percent, respectively, in 2013 alone.



But Sanders and his naive flock have little interest in, concern  or even knowledge about  the fact that when governments force businesses to pay a worker $15 to make a milkshake, the bottom rung of the employment ladder is removed and with it, the opportunity to give a greater number of young people the jobs and work experiences needed to help them climb the ladder of  and to  success.



Shepherd Stumbo apparently doesn't, either.



Jim Waters is president of the Bluegrass Institute; Kentucky's free-market think tank. Reach him at jwaters@freedomkentucky.com. Read previously published columns at www.bipps.org.
Ex-VCs demand parliamentary investigation

Former university vice-chancellors on Saturday demanded parliamentary probe into the CIAA intervention in post-graduate medical entrance examination at the Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences.
A day after Antonio Conte saw his Italy side dumped out of Euro 2016 by Germany, the new Chelsea boss oversaw his first signing for the Blues, with Michy Batshuayi from Marseille on a five-year contract.

The 22-year-old Batshuayi was a bright spark in a disappointing 2015/16 campaign for Marseille, netting 23 goals for the club. The striker also found the back of the net for Belgium at Euro 2016, scoring in their last 16 win against Hungary.

Batshuayi is reported to have cost Chelsea 33million and joins on a five-year deal. Speaking about the move, Batshuayi said:

I am delighted to sign for one of the biggest clubs in Europe. (My Belgium team-mates) Eden Hazard and Thibaut Courtois have told me many good things about the club, and with Antonio Conte coming in, its an exciting time to become a Chelsea player.

After last seasons disaster of a season, the powers that be will be hoping that Conte can re-energise the club, with Batshuayi the first of what should be a number of new signings for the Blues this summer.

We cant wait to hear what the likes of Paul Merson make of his name either.

(Photos: Chelsea FC)
Focus on deals as foreign secy visits Beijing

A four-member delegation led by Foreign Secretary Shankar Das Bairagi is arriving in Beijing on Monday for foreign-secretary-level talks for reviewing developments in bilateral relations amid the likelihood of a visit to Kathmandu by Chinese President Xi Jinping later this year.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 03/07/2016 (2307 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINNIPEG police are requesting the publics assistance in locating a man wanted for violating parole and asking anyone with information to contact the sex crimes unit.

Robert Paul Gillis, 48, is wanted on a Canada-wide warrant for parole revocation.

Gillis is described as a Caucasian male, 5-5 tall, 216 pounds with a heavy build and brown eyes.

Gillis is described as a Caucasian male, 5-5 tall, 216 pounds with a heavy build and brown eyes.

Police provided a photo of Gillis and the kind of 2003 red Ford Ranger that he may be driving with Manitoba plates HLL783.

Anyone with information regarding his whereabouts is asked to contact Winnipeg police sex crimes unit at 204-986-6245 or 204-986-6222 or Crime Stoppers at 204-786-TIPS (8477).

Police advise members of the public not to approach Gillis but to call police immediately.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 03/07/2016 (2307 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This sport is as mild or as wild as you want it to be, says Scott Hopper, co-founder of the Hardcore Surf & Paddleboard Company.

A couple of weeks ago, on a day when the mercury in southern Manitoba spiked to 31 C, Hopper drove to Patricia Beach to hook up with a group of friends, also accomplished standup paddleboarders. After unhinging their boards from the roofs of their vehicles, the guys paddled onto Lake Winnipeg until they were about a kilometre offshore.

Im a huge downwinder  thats what I love to do most  and that day, the winds were blowing directly out of the south and were reaching heights of six feet, says Hopper, who has gone by his surname for as long as he can remember. (Even my mom and sister call me Hopper. Its weird.)

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS A group of Paddle Canada Paddle Board students

It was absolutely fantastic. When we were in the bottom of a (wave) trough, we couldnt even see each other. We were climbing one wave at a time, dropping down and literally surfing to the next one, all the way to Grand Beach. It was the absolute ultimate, but, hey, thats where this sport ends, not where it begins.

  

The first time Hopper, 47, saw a standup paddleboard was during a trip to Hawaii in 2008.

He was relaxing on Waikiki Beach with his wife, Tracy Leclair, and his buddy Chris Hellesoe when he began noticing other tourists skipping over the waves on the colourful contraptions, which, as the name implies, are propelled by rowing in an upright position.

When he returned to Winnipeg, Hopper started looking around for a paddleboard, figuring it would be put to good use at the family cottage at Pelican Lake. Unable to find a place that sold the product, he and Hellesoe, who was interested in getting one as well, decided their only recourse was to build their own.

We made something like 12 that first summer and, if you give me a sec, I can probably find the last one of the bunch somewhere in the back, says Hopper, who studied autobody mechanics in school and later branched out into fibreglass repair, primarily boats and marine craft.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Scott Hopper, owner of the Hardcore Surf & Paddleboard Company, is simply known as Hopper to all.

Hopper and Hellesoe opened the Hardcore Surf & Paddleboard Company  the name is a play on the style of music Hopper listens to when hes riding the waves  in the lower level of a building at 248 Princess St. in 2009. If the idea of a surf shop on the Canadian Prairies strikes you as a risky proposition, rest assured the guys werent completely convinced the plan was going to hold water, either.

Nowadays, you cant pick up a magazine in a grocery store without seeing a picture of somebody paddleboarding, but seven years ago, yeah, Winnipeggers were just they had no clue, Hopper says with a chuckle.

But we posted some ads, put up this crummy low-track website and started renting our boards out to people curious about the sport. Wed take them out on the river to demo how (the boards) worked and after a while, we got a bit of a buzz going. Thats basically how this whole thing started.

This whole thing consists of the original site on Princess Street (now primarily a storage facility), a rental/sales kiosk at Grand Beach Provincial Park (where Hopper and associates teach the ins and outs and ups and downs of the sport every weekend from May to September) and a two-year-old retail presence at 211 Pacific Ave. (It wasnt an intentional move on Hoppers part to open up on a street named for the same body of water where he discovered paddleboarding. I wish Id put that much thought into it but, no, its ironic, for sure, but a total fluke.)

This summer, Hopper (Hellesoe left the business two years ago) has added Fun Mountain Waterslide Park to his itinerary. Every Tuesday and Wednesday evening, after the slides have closed for the day, interested parties can get their feet wet, so to speak, by working with a certified instructor in the parks wraparound pond.

The first question I ask is, Are you comfortable with water? says Hopper, who provides all necessary equipment, including life-jackets.

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Paddle Canada instructor Dayna Fryza (front) sets out with a class of novices last week. Devotees to paddleboarding say once a beginner finds out how easy the sport is, its instant love.

Next, we get into weight and height. We want people to be on a board thats nice and stable for them, especially if its their first time out. As soon as they realize how easy it is, its an instant, fall-in-love thing. My daughter, Jett, is six and shes totally into it. I have videos of her catching waves and striking her shaka (hang loose) pose. My moms 83, has her own board and comes out with us all the time.

Raquel Saniuk took her first paddleboarding lesson in May from Hopper, whom she now works for at the Pacific Avenue location. A quick study, the 24-year-old University of Winnipeg student took part June 26 in the Coney Island SUP Cup Challenge, an 11-km race at Lake of the Woods. The event, which was sponsored by Hardcore, drew participants from Manitoba, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta, and was the first leg of a two-part series. (The second competition, the Grand Beach SUP Cup, is scheduled for Aug. 6 at Grand Beach. For more information, go to www.hcsurf.com.)

The weather was crazy  it was cold and raining, and it felt like you were getting hit by these little ice pellets  but it was all smiles, the whole way, she says.

Saniuk, a seasoned canoeist, is enrolled in the U of W kinesiology program and says paddleboarding fits perfectly with her lifestyle.

I love being out on the water, first of all, but I also love using all of my muscles to pull me along, she says, taking a quick break from a class at Fun Mountain. When people comment it looks slow and la-di-da, I tell them no, its a great workout. And I so want to learn how to surf on a paddleboard, like what Hopper does. I mean, that just sounds insane.

According to Mens Fitness magazine, standup paddleboarding is the fastest-growing watersport in North America, with gear-related sales up more than 200 per cent since 2014. Thats great news for entrepreneurs such as Hopper, of course  but it comes with a price.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Hardcore Surf & Paddleboard Company, 211 Pacific Ave.

Thats the thing, eh? he says.

Lots of people get into whatever it is they do because they love doing it. But then it grows, and you find yourself spending less and less time doing what you love. There are definitely days when Im in the store when its sunny outside and the wind is just right, and it hits me right here, he says, tapping his fist to his chest.

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 03/07/2016 (2307 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Besides the invectives, misrepresentations and political calculation, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton recently provided revealing insights into their initial priorities and how each would lead the United States.

In broad-ranging speeches, the presumptive nominees included what they called their agendas for their first 100 days in office. Their lists illustrated the gulf between an experienced politician developing specific legislative initiatives and a non-politician talking in broader terms.

In a sense, that contrast also illustrated the preparedness gap between Trump, who speaks mostly in generalities without showing any real sense of details or priorities, and Clinton, who has a clear sense of how she would proceed in tackling the countrys principal problems.

Associated Press files Donald Trump

The first 100 days are crucial in establishing a new presidents political leadership and in getting things done. The most productive modern U.S. presidents, Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, all achieved their initial goals by moving quickly to enact priority proposals to energize the economy.

Regardless of any impact from the British vote to quit the European Union, Trump or Clinton will confront a challenge from the slow pace of economic growth next January. Here is what they have said:

TRUMP

No. 1, the first 100 days, Ill appoint judges who will uphold the Constitution of the United States, the presumptive GOP nominee said. Thats code language to assure conservatives about filling the current Supreme Court vacancy, but an odd initial priority that wouldnt affect most Americans for a long time.

I will change immigration rules to give unemployed Americans an opportunity to fill good-, really good-paying jobs, he added. Presumably seeking to tighten current rules, its immediate impact seems questionable, because illegal immigrants often fill low-paying jobs most Americans dont want.

Well stand up to countries that cheat on trade, of which there are many. Well cancel rules and regulations that send jobs overseas and everywhere but our country. Well lift restrictions on energy production. Executive actions.

After vowing to repeal and replace job-killing Obamacare (studies say it hasnt cost jobs), Trump finally focused on job creation, declaring, Well pass massive tax reform to create millions of new jobs and lower taxes for everyone. (Independent analyses say his plan would primarily benefit wealthy Americans such as himself and balloon the deficit.)

Finally, what seemed like mainly a gratuitous dig at his opponent, a pledge to impose tough new ethics rules to restore dignity to the office of secretary of state.

Trumps agenda fits the portrait the Wall Street Journals Joseph Rago painted last weekend of a man who, in the forward to a 2006 manual on Trump-style negotiation, said, I like to work in broad strokes, deal with the big picture and not the details.

CLINTON

The polar opposite, she deals in details, sometimes to a fault. But her 100-day agenda seems far more explicit, focused, and relevant.

Associated Press files Hillary Clinton

In my first 100 days as president, I will work with both parties to pass a comprehensive plan to create the next generation of good-paying jobs, she said. The heart of my plan will be the biggest investment in American infrastructure in decades.

That focuses both on the principal economic challenges  the need for more, better paid jobs and to upgrade the decaying infrastructure  and on the principal political one  trying to surmount partisan gridlock.

Other priorities fill in additional blanks: Lets connect every household to broadband by the year 2020. Lets build a cleaner, more resilient power grid with enough renewable energy to power every home in the country. Lets fix failing water systems renovate our public schools. Raise the minimum wage.

Another engine for growth and job creation would be comprehensive immigration reform, she said. It will bring millions of workers into the formal economy so you dont have an un-level playing field where employers hire undocumented workers at lower wages.

Her agenda, more suited for four years than 100 days, continued: make quality affordable child care and preschool available in every community in the next 10 years, provide debt-free college available to everyone (including forgiving past debt with national service), require companies to share profits with employees and shift fewer jobs and profits overseas, extend Dodd-Frank securities industry regulatory rules and make sure all Wall Street corporations and the super-rich pay their fair share of taxes.

Each would face the same challenges as president. But their prescriptions are quite different, and so, too, judging from their words, are their priorities.

 Dallas Morning News
Gathabandhan begins hunger strike in Rajbiraj

The Sanghiya Gathabandhan, an alliance formed by the protesting Madhesi and Janajati forces, has started a relay hunger strike in Rajbiraj, the district headquarters of Saptari.
MINNEAPOLIS  Managers at the Mall of America can often tell when an employee doesnt have a good place to sleep.

Sometimes, a worker shows up hours before his shift, a sign he doesnt have somewhere else to go. Other times, an employee might not make it in because she stayed somewhere too far away or didnt have enough money for bus fare. Or perhaps an employee opens up after being asked about a wrinkled shirt.

They come in and say, Oh, I just slept in a car last night, said Natasha Holt, manager of the malls amusement park.

The Mall of America is a world-famous symbol of American abundance, with four-plus miles of stores, rides and spectacles. But its having trouble finding people to work in todays tight labor market, leading its management to go to extraordinary lengths to hire and keep workers.

The latest step: bringing in a nonprofit agency to assist workers struggling at the margins, including those who are homeless or nearly so. There are folks who have some challenges getting work and maintaining work, said Sue Amundson, the malls human resources director. How can we as an organization really support them?

Keeping every employee is critical. Just the mall, not counting its stores, has 200 unfilled jobs, about one-sixth of its 1,200 positions. The amusement park, Nickelodeon Universe, is so short-staffed that mall executives sometimes pitch in by running rides. The malls nearly 500 retailers have hundreds of other openings.

Across the state and Upper Midwest, managers in offices, restaurants, factories and farms are having trouble filling jobs. Minnesotas unemployment rate, at 3.6 percent, has been better than the nations for several years. And with more baby boomers leaving the workforce than young people coming in, the labor pressure is likely to continue until the next downturn.

In the last year, the Mall of America bumped its base pay to $9.50 for part-time workers, 50 cents above the states minimum wage. Ride operators now make $11 an hour. Even so, Amundson, who has been with the mall for 12 years, said this is the hardest its managers and recruiters have ever had to work to fill positions.

Every year up until last year, we were able to fill our positions for the summer season, Amundson said. Last year was the first year we didnt. That was the light bulb for me.

In recent weeks, the malls leaders reached out to the Step-Up program of the city of Minneapolis and AchieveMpls, the nonprofit organization tied to the Minneapolis Public Schools, to attract more teenagers for summer jobs. And it has forged a partnership with Oasis for Youth, an area nonprofit that works with homeless youth in the southern suburbs, an effort that mall executives think can become a national model for retaining employees and creating stability for them.

Case management

Since she came on board as Oasis case manager at the mall two months ago, Jess Nelson has been sitting in on orientation programs for new employees. She has been walking around Nickelodeon Universe and stopping by the daily briefings before shifts start to introduce herself and hand her card to workers. She stresses that her office is a confidential, safe space that is separate from the malls human resources office.

If you know anybody who needs help, my office is right downstairs, she told a concessions stand operator on a recent day as she was making the rounds, raising her voice to compete with the roar of nearby rides.

In the cabinets of her office, Nelson keeps bus tokens, gift cards for meals and groceries, and toiletries such as toothpaste and body wash for anyone who may need them.

A couple of weeks ago, a young woman who recently started as a ride operator stopped by. The employee, who has been living in a homeless shelter for months, didnt have enough money for a Metro Pass to get to and from work. Nelson handed her a temporary one to help tide her over.

Another new employee came to Nelson for help cashing her first paycheck. No one would do it because the woman didnt have a bank account or even proper identification. Nelson offered to drive her to a Driver and Vehicle Services office to get a state ID card.

One young woman asked for options as she prepares to leave a transitional housing program. A young man said he was on edge about the possibility of getting kicked out of his familys house again.

A lot of folks are sort of temporarily staying with family, Nelson said. Its not atypical for youth to use whatever resources are out there to avoid shelters if they can, couch hopping or staying with family. But that can be overcrowded and stressful.

Janette Smrcka, the malls IT director, was at church last year when she heard a discussion about youth homelessness in the suburbs. It drove her to find a way the mall could help. She reached out to Oasis.

The timing was fortuitous. Nicole Mills had just come on board as the first executive director of the nearly 6-year-old organization, which operates a drop-in center for homeless youth at a church.

I had daydreamed about how to connect to the mall, Mills said. Then one day they literally called and they were like, Hey, were the mall. Is there anything we can do?

In the last year, Oasis has found more young people are turning to its services, aimed at 16- to 24-year-olds who live or work in Bloomington, the suburb where the mall is located, and nearby communities. Since 2013, the number of visits to Oasis has increased 74 percent. Last year, it served 215 people.

A number of Oasis clients have worked at the mall. And there have been a handful of instances in which Oasis case workers intervened to help save their jobs.

For the young adults it works with, finding a place to crash for the night can consume a lot of time and energy.

They might end up in St. Paul one night, Mills said, referring to an area city. And then theyll wake up and be like, Huh, now Ive got to figure out the bus routes to get back to the mall. And the next day theyre in Savage.

Just one thread can unravel everything. A person might risk taking the bus home from work and then getting caught for not having fare. Then they dont show up for work the next day and lose their job.

Mall managers are also becoming more explicit to employees about basics, such as the importance of giving notice if they cant make it to a shift. The mall has even brought in experts to talk with managers about how to deal with young employees.

They talked about how the teenage brain is not fully developed, said Amundson, the HR chief. It really began to resonate with us, because we hire a lot of teenagers. You expect that they get consequences and those kinds of things, but they dont necessarily.

One result is that managers are now more flexible about the rules as they try to understand the circumstances of their employees lives.

Maybe theres a reason somebody didnt show up today and maybe we need to figure that out, said Amundson. Its in our interest, too, because the market the way it is, if theyre good employees, wed like to retain them.

Adijatu Lafiaji, a 20-year-old community college student, started showing up at Oasis drop-in center a few months ago. She already had a job at the mall at Forever 21, a trendy apparel store for young women.

But a frequent source of tension was trying to arrange her work schedule around the cousin she was living with in Savage. The cousin often gave her rides to and from the bus stop or the mall. At one point, she had to cut back her workdays. When other issues emerged, Lafiaji decided to move out of her cousins home.

Things just werent going well anymore, so I was not comfortable living there, she said, vaguely mentioning a big fight.

Oasis helped her find an apartment in Bloomington and will help pay the rent for the first several months until she gets on her feet. Still, she needed another part-time job to pay the bills on her own. At Oasis drop-in center, where she stocks up on toiletries and underwear, Nelson told her about other job openings at the mall.

They brushed up her resume and she applied to be a ride operator. Within the span of a week, she landed that job and moved into the apartment.

Her new home is still sparse. But her face lights up when she talks about it.

I love it, she said. Its nice, its really quiet. Peaceful.

And the bus stop is just down the street  and the mall a 15-minute ride away.

Every year up until last year, we were able to fill our positions for the summer season. Last year was the first year we didnt. That was the light bulb for me.Sue Amundson, mall human resources director
Two Winona police officers shot at a man after being threatened with a gun early Saturday in the south bluffs, during an incident that led to a brief chase and shutdown of Interstate 90.

Two Winona Police Department officers, along with an unarmed reserve or off-duty law enforcement officer, attempted to pull over a vehicle for erratic driving about 12:15 a.m. Saturday on the 1800 block of Garvin Heights Road.

During the incident the man pointed a black handgun at the officers, according to initial scanner reports. At that point both officers drew and fired their weapons, striking the man a single time, according to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which is leading the investigation and whose involvement is standard following any officer-involved shooting.

The man has not been publicly identified, though scanner reports and jail logs identify him as Daryl Scott Jackson, 54, who was arrested early Saturday and booked later in the afternoon on initial charges of fleeing police officers in a motor vehicle and second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon.

Jackson fled with officers in pursuit, according to the BCA. The officers were soon assisted by Minnesota State Patrol Troopers and Winona County Sheriffs Department deputies, and continued the pursuit for about five miles.

The pursuit ended near the intersection of state Hwy. 43 and Interstate 90, with sheriffs deputies deploying stop sticks. Assisting law enforcement shut down the interstates westbound lanes for a period of time.

Officers observed Jackson start and stop his vehicle and talk on the phone, and he initially did not cooperate with requests to surrender, according to the BCA and scanner reports.

The Winona County Emergency Response Unit was called to the scene, according to the BCA, and after an hour of negotiations, Jackson shut the vehicle off, exited, was apprehended without incident.

Jackson was taken by ambulance to Winona Health, transferred to St. Marys Hospital in Rochester and treated for a non-life-threatening injury to his neck, according to the BCA and scanner reports, and then released and booked into the Winona County Jail. It wasnt known whether the injury was caused by gunfire.

A .45-caliber handgun was recovered from the front seat of Jacksons vehicle, according to the BCA.

The BCA is continuing to investigate, and said it will release more information following interviews with law enforcement and witnesses.

The two Winona Police Department officers are on standard administrative leave; their names have not been released.

The BCA plans to turn its findings, once complete, over to the Winona County Attorneys Office for review.
When Melissa Nadeau returned to Winona, she found the streets, the people and the environment were all just like she had left them.

But something was different.

The Saint Marys University grad had recently accepted a new job and relocated back to Winona after working in Boise, Idaho.

She was back in the city that gave her college memories, but this time she was a permanent community member trying to find her footing all over again in the small river city.

Nadeau, who today works at Winona Health, remembered attending Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce Young Professionals events with a friend, and decided to give Winonas version of the Young Professionals a try, just as the group was starting to reignite its presence in the town.

Its a decision she has not regretted, and today she's helping lead the group's efforts to revitalize its presence in Winona, several years after it was founded and has since build layers of connections among the city's younger working demographic.

Ive met so many people that all have really fascinating personal and professional development goals  meeting 12-20 YPs who all want to make something happen in Winona, said Nadeau, who chairs the group, which exist under the umbrella of the Winona Area Chamber of Commerce.

The Young Professionals has been re-establishing its position within the community as networking and outreach organization for young workers in the Winona area, said the Chamber's Jessica Hawthorne.

The original group was created 2008 and was instantly popular, holding several social and volunteering events each year. The group was born out of a clear message from Winona employers, that they were struggling to recruit and retain young workers.

We were hearing from our members that they were having trouble attracting and retaining young employees, especially if they were new to the area or werent from here originally, Hawthorne said.

In recent years, though, the Young Professionals' efforts and visibility ebbed as original members aged and moved on, said Michelle Alexander, one of the group's original members and now a member of the Winona City Council.

You get to be too old and then you leave and move on, to just the Chamber or other organizations, and then you lose some of that momentum," she said. "Baybe the people who started it are gone and that connection you have with the organization is gone."

Alexander left when she first ran for local office, but the skills and volunteerism she picked up from the group were crucial as she made the shift toward local government.

A lot of the people found that to be the case that when they went to their jobs  all have programs already that help you get engaged in the community, Alexander said.

Over the past year, a new group of young Winona residents have been working with the Chamber to restart the group

The re-launch of the Young Professionals in April is picking up where the original group left off, said, Aaron Pavek, who works at Leighton Broadcasting in Winona.

Its kind of passing of the torch, Pavek said. They had accomplished everything they set out to accomplish. Were still doing a lot of the same things.

The group has continued to help serve at the Chamber brat booth during Steamboat Days, volunteering to help with community events like Trinona and Family Night on the Farm, and is holding dinners, outreach activities, and other events.

For Pavek, its a chance to grow and do soft networking with like-minded residents.

Its a great way for us to reach out to community members,  Pavek said, adding that the group keeps in mind their core values of volunteering, recruiting and connecting to the community.

For Alexander, the Young Professionals served as a launch pad for her into a new dimension of her life and community service.

Ultimately, I think it builds a better community, Alexander said. Once you have ownership of part of a community its easier to stay.

She still uses connections she made with business owners and organizations like Home and Community Options through the Young Professionals in her daily life.

Moving forward in my professional life, its given me skills that you dont necessarily get in college, Alexander said. Its about networking and building your own network of people you can count on and call on when you need something, which every community has to have.

And for Nadeau, it finally means Winona is no longer just the place where she used to live, but a new home.
I vowed I would never vote for Donald Trump. I have written, at last count, seven columns explaining why he repulses me. That is still true; his being and character necessitate spiritual Dramamine. He is, to put it simply, the human equivalent of mayonnaise, the single most disgusting substance I have encountered in my 54 years on Earth.

And yet of course, the rest of this column will be devoted to why, barring some deus ex machina named Paul Ryan, I will be voting for him in November.

I dont expect you to care, one way or the other, about my choice. Friends will be puzzled, possibly angry, possibly pushed to the point of no return. I get that, and Im prepared to weather that exodus. The reason that I am turning myself into a hypocrite of the highest order at an epidermal level, is to keep myself from becoming a hypocrite at the deepest level of consciousness. I cannot put Hillary Clinton in a position to shape the Supreme Court.

This past week has been one that shook me to the core, and that is quite a hard thing to do these days. Life has sent me many disappointments over the past few years, and I have weathered some better than others but have, for the most part, survived. Men turning into women, or vice versa, is now to be accepted if one does not want to be considered a bigot. Same sex marriage has now become almost boring in its earnest claim on my attention. We have come a long way since Antonin Scalia predicted the apocalypse in his dissent to Lawrence v. Texas, the case that decriminalized sodomy. I am on the wrong side of history, and will remain there for consistency sake, but at least I have learned to live with what I consider to be an aberration. To quote my Pope (which I try not to do too often), Who am I to judge? Actually, its more like, Who really gives a damn about my judgment?

So, OK, Ive moved on and am dealing with the legalization of gay marriage at a comfort level somewhere between the ladies on The View and a Westboro Baptist. Yay me.

I look at Caitlyn Jenner and think that you can slap breasts on a man and let him pee next to you, but theres not enough Cover Girl in the world to hide that Adams apple. And still, you deal.

What I cannot do, as I realized this week, is live in a world where women who have just been told that they can terminate their pregnancies much more easily than they can acquire a tattoo can jump around in an estrogen-filled bacchanal in front of the Supreme Court and think that this is civilization. After I saw the reaction from abortion rights activists on Monday morning to the decision overturning Texas laws regulating abortion clinics, I felt sick. Lets call it mourning sickness.

I mourned many things, not the least of which were the children who would now never be born because five justices on the Supreme Court decided that it was much more important that their unwilling mothers not be inconvenienced than that a medical procedure be regulated.

But more than that, because I have been wearing spiritual black for those children for over 40 years now, I mourned the death of a belief to which I had clung for those same four decades: the idea that, at heart, Americans were decent people who really could acknowledge the difference between lies of convenience and inconvenient truths. I read someone elses column the other day that suggested Justice Stephen Breyer employed elegant words to send a simple message: Dont make s- up and expect us to buy it. The implication was that the regulations passed by Texas were simply a dishonest way of making abortion more difficult to obtain, not safer.

Frankly, I dont see the disconnect between those two principles, because while a plurality of the court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey did hold that the government could not unduly burden a womans ability to get an abortion even while trying to regulate it to promote her safety, there is nothing in that case or others that says, But hey, you have to give her abortions on a silver platter. The issue is what burden is undue, and Breyer and his friends in the majority bended over backwards to basically say pretty much anything.

Texas passed its laws in the wake of the horrific case of Kermit Gosnell. I always had the sinking suspicion that the pro-abortion voices that most loudly and stridently decried the Philadelphia butchers abortion mill were really upset because of the bad press for their beloved fundamental right. Nothing that happened this week has made me change my mind.

What has changed is my determination not to vote for Trump. Thats because it is not enough to not vote for Clinton. After the decision on Monday, she tweeted about how the decision was a victory for womens health. And it was then that I realized Ruth Bader Ginsburg was clinging to her gavel until a liberal could replace her, and the other four feminists (including Breyer and Kennedy) were in good health. Currently, the only thing standing between Clinton and the court is Trump.

I am like that animal, caught in a trap, who will do anything to survive, even if it means chewing off her paw. I am chewing off my paw by voting for the person running against Clinton. I am bleeding. But it is the only way that I can try to find my way to freedom from what is, to me, sophistry, egotism and barbarity.
All across our state, Minnesotans are gathering with family and friends to celebrate the Fourth of July. There will be picnics, parades, and  of course  lots of fireworks.

Its good fun, and its for a great reason  to celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence and to give thanks that American patriots were brave enough to risk everything in order to found a new nation.

Our founders knew something that still holds true today: Doing the right thing isnt always easy. As the 13 colonies discovered, sometimes you end up in a war with one of the most powerful nations on earth. Other times, you end up defending yourself against people who strongly disagree with your views. In either case, it takes commitment, and it takes courage.

As we celebrate our independence, its easy to feel like the state of our union is frayed around the edges. How to strengthen our economy, how best to engage with the rest of the world  these are important issues. And sometimes its easy to see only the divisions.

But as we celebrate what it means to be American, its a good time to remember that, as at our founding, there still is and always will be more that holds us together than tears us apart.

During that hot summer of 1776, the Continental Congress asked Thomas Jefferson to draft a declaration of American independence. From his pen emerged one of the most consequential documents in world history.

The power of his words helped forge a nation. And it still provides a potent reminder of what it means to be an American.

Americans believe that people should govern themselves. That we are all created equal. That life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are unalienable rights. These are the truths that members of our military have defended throughout our history. These are the truths that we all stand up for today.

So as we celebrate our nations independence, lets thank those who have served and sacrificed for our nation. And, second, lets respect one another. We wont always agree. But we can always approach our differences with open minds and the willingness to listen to our fellow Americans. After 240 amazing years, weve earned that, together.

I wish all Minnesotans a happy and memorable Fourth of July.
I read the Daily News Friday and saw the pictures of people carrying signs of concern about clean water at Thursday night's debate over banning frac sand. It reminded me of how uninformed the public can be about real situations of concern or how fervor can get misplaced.

Personally, I dont care a lot about frac sand mining; at the end of the day, it may well be an inconvenience we can do without. I think actual water cleanliness is one of the lesser concerns.

But do people not realize that in western Minnesota, where water tables are shallow, people pretty much have to buy water? Do they not know that the Minnesota River is one of the most polluted in the U.S.? The bulk of the waterways in southeast Minnesota are already above Minnesota Pollution Control Agency limits for contaminants judged harmful to humans. All of this is headed down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

The primary cause for all this is chemical-based row crop farming. We had a big fish kill on the Whitewater River last year that was closely correlated to the timing of the use of a pesticide labeled highly harmful to aquatic life. No one seems to be demonstrating down at the barge loading sites, or standing in front of the scores of trucks heading daily down Hwy. 14.
TOWN OF HAMPDEN A large fire completely destroyed a barn at the farm owned by James Schwoerer in rural Columbus on Saturday morning. The Columbus Fire Department and nine other agencies assisted in putting out a large barn fire at W2633 Highway 60.

The fire department was dispatched to the property at 9:15 a.m. according to Columbus Fire Department Public Information Officer Jerrod Fox. The west lanes of Highway 60 were closed for over three hours while firefighters battled the huge fire.

No people or animals were injured in the fire, however the barn and its contents including a tractor, tools and a vehicle were determined to be a total loss. Fox said, We were lucky. We were all at the fire station cleaning up for the Fourth of July so we had a great response. We were very lucky to all be at the fire station when the call came in.

Fox said that the fire department was able to save all the buildings and vehicles north of the barn from the fire. The home located on the property and a number of vehicles parked outside were also saved.

The cause of the fire is unknown at this time. Fox said that 38,000 gallons of water were used to battle the fire. It was a big fire and there were lots of buildings to save and lots of stuff to put out, Fox explained.
When Republican lawmakers run for office, they emphasize how important it is for citizens to have control over what happens in their communities. They claim government closest to the people is the best and reject the idea that most of the power should come from Madison or the federal government.

Then they get elected. Suddenly, their actions directly contradict what they said on the campaign trail. They ignore obvious differences between over-populated and less populated areas of the state and all the varieties of land use, geological features and populations that exist in the state. Instead, they eagerly pass one-size-fits-all legislation that benefits only their most generous donors.

They dont care that lakes ringed with resorts, condos and houses need more protective zoning than lakes whose shores hold only a few cabins. They ignore scientific evidence that proves set-back requirements and the presence of heavy vegetation like grasses and trees prevent water pollution and shoreline erosion.

They certainly had no problem passing a mining bill that allows the filling of wetlands with toxic iron ore tailings or allowing developers to fill in wetlands so they could erect commercial buildings. Cathy Stepp, the Walker-appointed Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources, is all for development, apparently no matter where it occurs.

Would it be too much to ask the GOP legislators to do some research on the value of those wetlands? Perhaps Stepp should read her own agencys website information that describes their benefits: fish and wildlife habitat, protection against flooding, preservation of water quality, reduced shoreline erosion and protection for many endangered plants and animals.

On June 7, 2015, a headline in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel stated: Budget weakens shoreline protection. Stiffer zoning rules would be barred. It explained that the Republican-controlled finance committee tucked a motion into the 2015-16 state budget that would bar communities from imposing stiffer zoning requirements along shorelines than those in state law.

Unlike other years, the finance committee made the decision without allowing any public input. Minority Democrats on the panel were given less than two hours to study the proposed rules that included other controversial natural resource issues such as funding for land purchases and cutting DNR science staff. Over and over again they prove they dont want us to know what theyre doing.

The article also mentioned that 20 Wisconsin counties have lakeshore zoning regulations that are stricter than the states. Under GOP-passed law, those local regulations are now defunct.

Less than two weeks ago, I was a bit amused to see this headline in the Wisconsin State Journal: Walker asks feds for help with bluff erosion problem. It seems that some overly-developed land along Lake Michigan is about to fall into the lake. Gov. Walker said, We are asking the U.S. Army Corps for assistance and we appreciate their attention to this serious matter.

After ignoring scientific evidence, rejecting the idea that a warming climate results in higher lake levels and after eliminating regulations that would prevent or diminish the threats of erosion and flooding, the governor wants a taxpayer-funded hand-out to deal with the consequences of erosion. And he wants it fast. Amazing.

We can see the shoreline erosion now, but most of the damage caused by the donor-friendly policies of Gov. Walker, Stepp and the compliant GOP-run Legislature wont be felt for several years. Although some lakes and streams in the Central Sands area are diminished, contaminated or already dry, it will be a few years before the results of their environment-damaging bills are evident in most of the state.

The increase of green algae and duckweed that clog lakes and cause fish kills wont show up right away, but it eventually will, and the GOP lawmakers that gave businesses another 20 years to reduce phosphorus discharges will be to blame. By that time, most of the current lawmakers will be collecting taxpayer funded pensions and benefits and wont be worried about re-election.

I know Democratic lawmakers arent perfect, but theyve fought against all these changes with everything they had. State environmental groups have testified against the drastic changes to DNR policies because they believe that clean water and air are worth fighting for. Even former DNR officials and employees are trying to raise awareness about the damage this administration is doing to the states precious resources. The GOP legislators ignore them all.

It really is time for a change. Lets make sure they wont be around after November.
Wisconsin company wrestles with the FDA over an infant formula

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Govt initiates process to set up infra academy

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Illegal land occupation sparks water scarcity

People in Tulsipur, Dang, have set up a settlement encroaching several water sources on the banks of Patu stream. Many water sources in the area are drying up because of illegal occupation of land.




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In majority of arrests, criminals using legally acquired weapons

Many of the notorious gangsters have been found to be using licensed arms to commit crime, and they have been even renewed when charges are filed against them, if what several recent arrests made by Lalitpur show are anything to go by.
Hannah Trent

By: Tanya Malhotra

A teenager was arrested on a charge of theft after allegedly stealing a box of condoms and a pregnancy test from a former employer, according to police in South Carolina.

Spartanburg police said that they have arrested 18-year-old Hannah Trent, after being accused of swiping several items from a supermarket, where she used to work.

Trent was charged with one count of theft. She was booked into the Spartanburg County jail before being released.

According to the police investigation, on Wednesday, Trent entered the Ingles supermarket, where she took condoms and a pregnancy test.

She left without paying for the items.

An employee told police that surveillance cameras recorded Trent stealing two packs of Trojan condoms and a pregnancy test.

The items were valued at $31.21.

When Trent returned to the store to pick up her final paycheck, she admitted to stealing the items after being confronted by the store manager.
Schaquana Spears

By: Mahesh Sarin

(Scroll down for video) A mother was arrested after she beat her children, causing them to bleed.

However, the woman of Louisiana, said that she was just doing her job as a mother and prosecutors seem to agree with her.

30-year-old Schaquana Spears, who is a mother of six children, was jailed for beating her three children after they were caught with stolen goods.

Spears was arrested in Baton Rouge, and charged with two counts of cruelty to juveniles after police said that she beat her three oldest children, who are 13, 12 and 10 years old.

The 12 and 13-year-old children had lacerations on their arms, which were bleeding. All of her children were taken from her custody.

Spears said that she was trying to be a good mother and teach her children not to steal after seeing them with items they stole following a break in at a neighbors house.

Spears said that her kids are everything to her and she is dedicated to raising them right. She said that she does not want her kids to go in the footsteps of their father, who is in prison.

After her arrest, Spears was booked into the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison, where her bond was set at $2,500.

However, the prosecutor decided to drop all the charges against her.
Marilee Gardner

By: Feng Qian

(Scroll down for video) Two young people were killed as police tried to stop a girl from committing suicide.

Police in Utah, said that the girl disabled the alarm system at her parentsa home in Layton, so she can leave without them knowing.

She then stole her parents car and drove off shortly before midnight.

Officer tried pull over 16-year-old Marilee Gardner, when she was spotted driving a car with a garbage can underneath it.

However, she refused to stop. Instead, she sped up at 98 miles per hour and crashed into a car, injuring both people inside.

Gardner then hit another vehicle, a trailer and a fence before trying to flee on foot.

When Gardner was arrested, she told police that she was on her way to her 17-year-old friend, and they planned to take drugs before committing suicide together.

Her friend confirmed their intentions.

According to detectives, Gardner said that she deliberately smashed into the Hyundai when police tried to stop her from committing suicide.

Sadly, Maddison Haan, 20, and her friend, Tyler Christianson, 19, were killed.

Gardner was charged with two counts of murder, leaving the scene of a crash and theft of a vehicle among other charges. She will tried as an adult.
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By: Feng Qian

A tourist died while trying to get the perfect photo at Machu Picchu, in order to upload the image on social media sites, according to police in Peru.

51-year-old Oliver Paps of Germany, plunged down the summit of Machu Picchu, after asking another tourist to take a photo of him while leaning dangerously close to the cliff.

According to the police investigation, the incident unfolded on Wednesday. Paps climbed over security barriers and entered a restricted area.

The tourist who took the picture, said that Paps wanted to jump in the air while being photographed. He wanted the photo as a souvenir and to upload it on social media sites.

As he jumped, he fell off the cliff. Police recovered the body on Thursday afternoon.
Economy Secretary Announces North Wales Summit

This article is old - Published: Sunday, Jul 3rd, 2016

Economy and Infrastructure Secretary, Ken Skates is to hold a summit this week focussed on driving economic development across North Wales and the Northern Powerhouse Region.

The North Wales summit, which will take place in Coleg Cambria on Friday, will consider the role factors like integrated transport, a clear cross-border economic development strategy and a strong cross-border economic team can play in driving economic growth.

The Economy Secretary has invited colleagues and partners from a range of organisations based in both Wales and England. These include the Wales Office, the WLGA, the IOD, the FSB, the CBI, the North Wales Business Council, the Cheshire and North Wales chamber and the Mersey Dee Alliance.

The news comes in the same week that The Northern Powerhouse Independent Economic Review was published.

The Review highlights areas in which the North is a world leader and also identifies the measures needed to bring about improvements to the regions economy. It says radical change is needed to close skills and productivity gaps but that such changes could potentially result in 850,000 jobs by 2050.

Ken Skates said:As Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure I am determined to maximise the economic potential of North Wales.

To that end I will be hosting a North Wales summit to discuss emerging priorities for North Wales and to agree, with our partners, a coherent vision for the region as part of the cross border Northern Powerhouse.

There is no doubt that we face new challenges as a result of the referendum outcome.

These are challenges we can and will overcome and joint working and partnership, both in Wales and cross border, innovation and learning from the success of others will be key to our success.
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This article is old - Published: Sunday, Jul 3rd, 2016

The Welsh Ambulance Service have continued to exceed targets after attending over 75% of Mays immediately life-threatening calls within eight minutes.

Throughout May the Welsh Ambulance Service were called to 38,624 emergency calls  an average of 1,246 per day. Throughout the month there was a 5.4% daily average in the number of calls made to the service.

Overall the Welsh Ambulance Service responded to 75.5% of calls for people with an immediately life-threatening illness or injury, known as red calls, within eight minutes.

This exceeded the target of attending 65% of category red calls within eight minutes. Mays response time figures were also an increase on the 71.1% in the previous month.

Speaking about Mays response time figures, Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport, Vaughan Gething said: The Welsh Ambulance Service has exceeded the target of 65% of calls within eight minutes for the eighth month in a row, despite steadily rising demand.

Half of those who needed an immediate emergency response received one in less than five minutes, and all areas of Wales improved performance on April despite the increased activity.

I want to thank Welsh Ambulance Service staff, as more people are getting the urgent attention they need quickly.

In north Wales Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board were called to 9,670 throughout May  attending 73.9% of immediately life threatening calls within eight minutes.

Of these calls 381 were classed as category red  with emergency response attending 376 of the calls and 278 of the incidents attended within eight minutes.

Last months response times have been praised by Richard Lee, Director of Operations at the Welsh Ambulance Service, who said: We are really pleased by the latest figures, which show we are getting to more of our sickest patients within our eight minute target and have exceeded it for the eighth consecutive month.

Our average response time to red calls in May was five minutes and 52 seconds. This is vital as red call patients are suffering life threatening problems such as cardiac arrests and choking.

He added: It is a sign of the very real progress we have made since the new clinical model pilot was introduced in October last year.

It ensures that patients in genuine need of urgent care are receiving the fastest response possible and the positive results we are now witnessing are a huge testament to the hard work of all our staff.
Anup Ojha is a reporter for The Kathmandu Post primarily covering social issues and human interest stories. Before moving to the social beat, Ojha covered arts and culture for the Post for four years.
TALLAHASSEE, FL. (WTXL)-- Frenchtown Farmer's Market hosted its Candidate Forum Saturday to allow residents the chance to connect with candidates.

The farmer's market provides residents with access to vendors and local produce and Saturday it had some familiar faces as several candidates running for office were there to answer questions allowing community members the chance to cast an educated vote come election day.

Michelle Gomez, Director of the market, says it is all about providing access to the community at large give them the opportunity to get involved and be engaged.

The Frenchtown Farmer's Market is open every Saturday at Martin Luther King Boulevard.
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The CPN (Maoist Centre), a key ally in the governing coalition, has decided to keep the doors open to the possibility of forming a majority government with the Nepali Congress if the largest party in Parliament agrees on a fresh power equation based on key political and social agendas.
You are the owner of this article.
More than 70 years before Donald Trump proposed a border wall with Mexico, the federal government sought to bring Mexicans to work on America
Met office issues flood alert for Tarai districts

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Minister Pokharel urges to invest in agriculture and tourism

Minister for Culture, Civil Aviation and Tourism Ananda Prasad Pokharel has urged investors to invest in agriculture and the tourism sector.
At the beginning of their meeting, Professor Joel Sayfan takes out a note from an old photo album and shows it to Surin Hershko, a soldier who was seriously wounded during the Entebbe Operation. The 40-year-old note, which includes the schedule for the operation, is stained with Surin's blood.

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A single bullet was fired by a terrorist at Paratrooper Surin Hershko. It entered his body through the right side of his upper lip without even leaving so much as a scar. But the bullet kept moving in a destructive path, breaking Hershko's teeth, and moving forward still until hitting his spine. Surin, who was only 21 years old, was left paralyzed from the neck down.

Joel Sayfan, 71, was at the time the Paratroopers Brigade's doctor. He was the first to get to Surin only a few seconds after he was wounded. The schedule, which was inside his right breast pocket, was soaked with blood when Sayfan leaned over Hershko to treat him, protecting him from further harm with his body. The doctor saved the piece of paper as "an evidence of a constitutive event."

Prof. Joel Sayfan and Surin Hershko meet 40 years after Operation Entebbe (Photo: Ilan Sapira)

"This is yours. The original note, you can do a DNA test on it," he told Surin, presenting him with the paper with its faded blood stains. "After returning home and taking off my uniform, I unbuttoned the shirt and pulled out the note, which was soaked with blood. I've treated wounded in the field, and in battles, and at nighttimeboth before and after Entebbebut it never became this personal. The sixty-some minutes, our entire stay on the ground in Entebbe, the entire operation, was spent treating Surin. Everything around itthe planning, the arrival, the returnit was all just background noise. The essence of this operation, for me, is Surin. It's hard to describe it in words. This is a real bond between two people who met under certain circumstancesin an event that was perhaps the most important in their lives. There is a true bond between us, a bond of blood."

Surin, who turned 60 last year, was emotional by the meeting. Forty years have passed since a bullet cut through his body and split his life into before and after Operation Entebbe.

"He's the one who saved my life," Surin says of Sayfan. "Without the IV, the bandaging and the morphineI would not have survived. Joel also stayed with me when we left Uganda. I was lying on my back, looking up, unable to move or talk. All I could see was his face over me. It's an image that has remained with me my entire life."





Surin's speech is fluent. He hardly ever raises his voice, as that puts a strain on him, the result of his injury.

We met in Surin's home in Tel Aviv's Afeka neighborhood, not far from Beit HaLohem, a social center for the IDF's disabled veterans, where they receive rehabilitation services. His home is private, but very modest, an indication of its owner's character.

Prof. Sayfan and Surin have not kept in touch over the 40 years that have passed since Operation Entebbe. They rarely saw each other, meeting only at ceremonies and official state events.

"We never really got to talk. This is actually our first conversation," the professor says. The two haven't spoken to each other about what happened in Entebbe, either.

Watch the meeting between the two (in Hebrew)

"I remember the injury," Surin says, as Prof. Sayfan listens to him with rapt attention. "I fell forward, on my face. I tried to get up but I couldn't. I tried to call for help but because the injury was through my mouth, I couldn't speak. I saw a lot of blood in front of me, on the floor."

Sayfan recounts, "I got to Surin perhaps ten seconds after he was injured. I quickly turned him over. There was blood, a lot of blood. I instantly identified a bullet entry wound. I groped around, but couldn't find an exit wound and realized the bullet was stuck in his spine. I raised his hand, and it dropped. I saw he couldn't move anything. I asked him, 'Can you talk?' He indicated with his eyes 'No, I can't.' So I said 'Let's begin. I'll ask you all sorts of questions. If the answer is yes, you'll blink once. If it's no, you'll blink twice.'"

"I remember your instructions," Surin says. "'Blink. Once for yes, twice for no.' And then questions, a lot of them. 'Are you cold? Are you hot? Do you recognize me?' I remember it was very important to you that I remained conscious. It was important to me, too. I was afraid that if I fell asleep, I wouldn't wake up again."

Sayfan explains, "Had he fallen asleep, how could I have known if he was breathing okay? I could've missed the moment he stopped breathing. So we talked all the time. I talked his ear off. 'How do you feel? Are you in pain? We'll be there soon.' I kept looking at you, to see if you were breathing."

What could've happened

"The worst thing that could happen, happened to Surin," Prof. Sayfan says, and quickly adds: "Almost."

"This 'almost' is very significant," he explains. "Because I think Surin did a lot in his life. He paid the ultimate price, his sacrifice was enormous, his life was ruined. It's one step above losing one's life."

"I prefer the definition 'seriously wounded,'" Surin comments quietly. "I paid a price, a very serious one. My disability is very grave. The limitations I suffer from are many. These aren't things I can ignore."

Do you sometimes think of what could have happened if you hadn't been wounded?

"No, it won't do any good. It happened. I don't think I made such a bad decision at the time, to participate in this operation. Being part of such an operation is a badge of honor for me. It is very possible that the circumstances of my injury helped me come to terms with it more easily. It's hard for me to say how I would have reacted if I had been injured in some unnecessary accident instead.

"Of course I wish I hadn't been wounded, that's completely natural. But at no point did I wonder why me, or why did it happen to me, or what that soldier, the 21 year old, would have done had he known in advance he was going to get hurt. I consider the facts, the information, all of the knowledge I had at that time, and I know I couldn't have made a different decision. Not because of the cost. Because you can't just walk up to a soldier and tell him 'You're going to get wounded.' There was no operation in which the soldiers were told 'Guys, you're going on this operation, and the chances are that half of you won't come back home.'"

Prof. Sayfan interjects, "I understand what Surin is saying. He, in hindsight, is both sorry and not sorry. He's obviously sorry he was hurt, but if he had to go back to the moment before the operation, when he was asked to go, I'm sure he would've done it again. If I were in his place and I was asked, even todayI'd go again."

From Romania to the Paratroopers

Surin Hershko was born in Romania. He was named after his grandmother, Sarah. He made aliyah to Israel at the age of 12, moving to the Ramat Eliyahu neighborhood in Tel Aviv with his parents and older brother. Half a year later, his father died of cancer. His mother remarried and the family moved to Nahariya, where Surin grew up. He can't remember having a particularly hard time to fit in, quite the contrary: He learned Hebrew pretty quickly.

What made you want to join the Paratroopers?

"Perhaps it was part of my desire to fit in, to be a Sabra, to be more Israeli. The red beret, the shoesit makes an impression. I'm sure I imagined myself coming home with my red army boots and having people look at me with respect."

He only has two photos of himself from before his injury. One with his friends from the Paratroopers company and the other on his own, in black and white. A handsome young man.

Surin Hershko as a young soldier, before his injury.

He enlisted to the Paratroopers' 890th Battalion two weeks before the 1973 Yom Kippur War. At first, he and his fellow recruits sat idle at the brigade's training base, but later they went through an accelerated basic training and sent to fight in Egypt. Then, they were sent to the Syrian enclave in the Golan Heights.

Sayfan is ten years older. He made aliyah from Poland in 1957. He knew he wanted to be a doctor from the age of five, like his parents and grandparents. He wanted to become a soldier-student and got accepted to medical school at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, but then it turned out he had failed one of his matriculation exams and therefore did not get his high school diploma. Instead, he joined the Paratroopers, fell in love with the brigade and even became an office. The IDF then sponsored his medical studies, and so began a long service in the military that lasted almost a quarter of a century. Throughout his career in the IDF, Sayfan served in both military roles and in positions in the public health system.

On June 27, 1976, an Air France airplane was hijacked by terrorists who flew it to Entebbe in Uganda. A week later, on July 4, the IDF mounted an operation to free the 106 hostages. During the rescue mission, Sayeret Matkal commander Lt.-Col. Yonatan Netanyahu and three hostages were killed.

Surin was on his way out of the army. He was planning to start studying economics at the Hebrew University in October of that year. But the operation changed everything.

Surin Hershko with his friends in the Paratroopers.

"I was a radio operator in the Golan Heights. I had already returned my equipment to logistics. Nehemiah Tamari (then-commander of the 890th Battalion ed.) called and asked me to tell Giora Eiland, our company commander, to organize a group of soldiers. 'A bus will come and take you to a base in central Israel,' Tamari said. It was on Thursday night. We said 'Okay, this must be a retaliatory operation in Lebanon.' We couldn't imagine we'd be sent to Entebbe."

Hershko was among those selected to board that bus and participate in the operation. "The soldiers were hand-picked," he says. "That's why when I was wounded my first thoughts were of frustration. I knew the operation was very important and each soldier was hand-picked to be there. And there I was messing things up. They had to worry about me instead of everything else that was going on around us."

The brigade doctor, Joel Sayfan, also received a call that Thursday evening. He was asked to arrive at the base in Sirkin the next morning. He too, like Surin, thought this was another military operation in Lebanon. When they arrived at the Sirkin base, both of them realized what the operation was about.

"We saw vehicles being loaded onto Hercules planes, soldiers practicing getting on and off the plane. We didn't have to be told anything else, we understood," Surin said.

Sayfan remembers, "I was with the group of commanders, the officers. We started planning the operation. Until that point, there were informal plans of Sayeret Matkal's raid of the old terminal. But there were still loose ends to tie up with the Air Force, the other forces, the Paratroopers, the Golani Brigade. Usually, even the smallest of operations in Lebanon required months of planning and training. In this case, we started doing simulations on Friday night."

What were you feeling?

"I don't know if you could call it euphoria, but we felt optimistic, that it could really work," Surin says.

Sayfan recounts, "On Friday night, I ran home to take a shower. I remember standing in the bathtub and singing. I was pleased, it felt good."

A flying operating room

The planes took off on Saturday. During final preparations, Sayfan wrote the note that would later be stained by Surin's blood. In English, he wrote the name of a medicine he gave the soldiers before taking offTravamin, anti-nausea pills that were supposed to serve as a sleep aid for six hours.

"I didn't take the pill," Surin says. "I was confident I would not vomit."

The rescue team left for Entebbe on four Air Force Hercules planes. Surin and Sayfan were on the first Hercules, a fact neither knew before their meeting 40 years later. They were sure they had been on different planes.

They both remember Sayeret Matkal Commander Yonatan "Yoni" Netanyahu, who was on the same plane. "I actually saw Yoni for the first time" on the plane, Sayfan says. "He went from one person to the othereveryone who were on the planeand shook their hands. As if he was saying goodbye to them. Not that I had some premonition, but I did look at him in that moment. No one else was doing that (shake hands with the soldiers)."

Surin recounts, "I remember he was sitting on the hood of the Mercedes we brought with us on the Hercules. He was reading a pocket book in English. I found that charming, that he has this peace of mind to read a book at that moment."

The elite Sayeret Matkal unit, led by Yoni, were responsible for the raid of the old terminal, where the hostages were being kept. The Paratroopers force, led by brigade commander Matan Vilnai, was advancing on the new terminal to take over it. The Paratroopers ran there.

"It took us a few seconds, about half a minute, to get to the new terminal," Surin says. "We waited outside for a little bit, waiting to hear the first shots fired at the old terminal. It was only then that we went in."

"To tell you the truth," he confesses, "I was supposed to be with Giora Eiland's team, to go upstairs through the outside staircase, and go straight to the roof. I wasn't supposed to go into the terminal at any point.

"On the one hand, I was a good soldier, fairly obedient. But sometimes I had my moments in which I didn't follow the orders to the letter. I decided it was more interesting to go inside, into the terminal. I thought it would be boring up on the roof, as I figured it's likely nothing would happen up there.

"So I ran with Nechamia Tamari. We were competing to see who gets into the terminal first. I beat him there, and we went into the new terminal as a group. We started running into all of the rooms and halls. There was a staircase leading to the second floor so Nechamia sent us there. There were very few people therelocal employees or passengers waiting for their flightand we gathered them all and took them to the ground floor. They were pretty shocked, and they obeyed.

"It was at this point that I headed to the outside stairs to go up on the roof and rejoin my team, with whom I should've been. It was then that I was wounded."

Which means that if you had gone up to the roof when you were supposed to, you might not have been wounded.

"You never know. Giora and another soldier went up on the roof immediately, while we were running into the terminal. I'm aware of the fact I didn't follow orders. On the other hand, if we stayed on the roof and then at some point gone down, and the person who shot me heard us at that pointI don't know what he would have done.

"I'm avoiding blaming myself. I imagine that had we gone home with all of us safe and sound, I'd get told off. I'd get yelled at for not following orders."

The Ugandan despot Idi Amin's son has claimed that Surin's force was tasked with checking if his father was still at the airport offices during the raid of the Israeli forces.

"He was shot by one of my father's bodyguards," Jaffar Amin told Yedioth Ahronoth reporter Itamar Eichner.

The Ugandan dictator, his son said, believed Surin Hershko had been killed. It was only 30 years after the operation that Jaffar learned from a BBC team that he had survived and was paralyzed.

"He's the one person I really want to meet," said Jaffar, who has expressed desire to meet with the families of the victims of the Entebbe Operation and ask for their forgiveness for his father's actions.

Surin remembers seeing someone's silhouette. Two shots were fired at him, and one of those bullets hit him.

"We were at the command post and heard two gunshots coming from above," Sayfan remembers. "Matan (Vilnai) called out to me 'Sayfan, go upstairs, see what's going on.' I went upstairs and saw someone coming out of the door. I realized this was the shooter and raised my weapon to shoot him, but he disappeared. I didn't manage to. At this point I also saw Surin on the floor. All I wanted to know in that moment was whether he could breathe. I was afraid he was bleeding into his throat or that there was swelling in his throat, as that would put him in mortal danger."

He bandaged Surin's face, and then he administered IV fluids. "All of this while the bullets were whizzing all around us," he describes. "There was a sniper who was shooting (in our direction) from the old terminal's control tower."

He was asked to quickly evacuate Surin by carrying him on his back, but Sayfan refused and demanded that a gurney be brought. "I knew that if I carried him on my back, I could exacerbate the spinal injury," the doctor explains. "Matan told me, 'If you don't come now, the crocodiles from Lake Victoria would eat you alive here.' But I insisted, and eventually four soldiers came and we took him on board the plane. We were last."

"I remember being put on the gurney," Surin confirms.

"We put the gurney on the hood of one of the Land Rovers we brought with us," Sayfan continues. "The aircraft technician set up lighting by hanging up a flashlight because the plane was relatively dark and I needed light. I asked for another doctor to join me on the flight, in case we needed to operate to clear Surin's windpipe. The procedure is called tracheotomy, and it was performed on him later, back in Israel, but we had the instruments ready in case we needed to perform it on the plane."

On the plane, they learned that Yoni Netanyahu had been killed. "It was a kind of a shock, for all of us," Sayfan says. "I remember telling Surin. I should have spared him and not told him. This just goes to show how shocked I was. I was also looking for things to talk to him about. I kept babbling on and on, so I let that slip as well."

Surin and Sayfan parted ways in Kenya. Sayfan flew back home on the Hercules, while Hershko was brought to Israel on a Boeing plane and rushedwhile he was unconscious and in critical conditionto the Tel HaShomer Medical Center, where he underwent an operation to remove the bullet.

"One of the doctors wanted to sell the bullet and use the money to buy a machine for the hospital," he says. "At the time, after the operation, it was valuable. I wanted to keep it as a memento. I regretted that decision later. After all, maybe that doctor could have bought medical machinery with it."

For 30 years, Surin could not remember where he had been keeping the bullet. It was only before his meeting with Sayfan that he searched and found it in his home.

Surin Hershko and the bullet that changed his life (Photo: Ilan Sapira)

The realization of the true extent of his injury, he says, was "gradual."

"The late Prof. Rafi Rozin, who was the head of the Rehabilitation Department at Tel HaShomer, sat down with me for many talks. He tried to provide me with the most accurate description of my situation: Not give me false hope, but also wait until the situation becomes clearer, as it takes a month or two until things settle and a full assessment can be done of the severity of the injury. During the first three weeks, he'd poke me with a pin every day, to see if I felt anything. I, too, woke up every morning and tried to see if there was any change. When there was no change, I'd say 'Okay, we'll try again tomorrow.'

"Sometimes, the doctors would identify some sort of movement in my hand, and try to work with that. But with time they realized it wasn't significant. I couldn't do anything with that movement, not even move the wheelchair's joystick. And slowly, we realized (the extent of the injury). I realized after two or three months just how serious my injury was. I realized this will probably be the situation I'd have to deal with. And slowly, I also stopped trying."

Was there a period of mourning?

"No. I'm a practical man. My injury was a spinal injury, not a head injury. There are endless disabilities. But at least I still had the right, the privilegeI'm not sure how to call itto make my own decisions, by myself. So pretty quickly my decision was 'Okay, this is the situation, these are the disabilities, let's see what we can do so, despite these disabilities, I could lead as normal a life as possible.' Depression and self-pity weren't part of the alternative."

There was a massive dissonance between the great joy across the country over the release of the hostages and your own situation.

"Yes, that's an accurate description. I think it was while I was still in the ICU that someone brought a projector and a screen and I was showed all of the news I missed, all of the reports on TV following the Entebbe Operation, so I could see the entire event."

And...?

"And I watched it, and was okay with it. I was happy with those who were happy outside (the hospital), and was worried by my own troubles and problems inside my room."

Using a stick instead of hands

Shortly after he landed at Ben-Gurion Airport, Prof. Sayfan went to Tel HaShomer Medical Center to see the wounded soldier, who was still sedated and on respirator. Only then did he go home. Afterwards, he visited Surin once or twice more at the hospital, while his patient was in rehabilitation. They didn't have any meaningful conversations, these were just formal visits in which Prof. Sayfan received an update on Hershko's situation, no more.

Surin was hospitalized in the Rehabilitation Department for a year. He mostly underwent physiotherapy treatments. He missed the school year, so he registered for the next one, again to study economics and this time at Tel Aviv University, but had to quit soon thereafter. The fact he had to sketch and draw a lot of graphs made school impossible for him. He ended up getting a bachelor's degree in Labor Studies, a combination of psychology and economics. He started doing a master's, but then he discovered computers, which at the time were still a nascent field, and today he is a programmer. He uses a stick in lieu of his handswhich he moves with his mouthto type on the computer keyboard or to type a message on his cell phone, and even to move his wheelchair around.

"This stick, just a stick, is everything to me," he laughs. "Sometimes I even scratch my nose with it."

He also has a caretaker. Over the past seven years, it has been Eric, a Filipino worker who has just about turned into part of the family. Eric knows exactly when Surin needs a drink of water, or anything else for that matter. Their bond no longer requires words. On the weekends, when Eric is off work, there are two Israeli caretakers who take his place.

"You have no idea how envious I am of paraplegics (those paralyzed 'only' from the waist down CKB)," Surin says. "I constantly need the help of another person, while a paraplegic can mostly manage on his own. This is an entirely different life. It's the kind of thing I have a hard time accepting, this dependency."

What's the hardest thing?

"That's a difficult question. When I meet with someone who went through a good or a bad experience, it doesn't matter which, I feel like the best way for me to express myself in such instances is to give them a hug, a pat or a handshakeand I can't do that. And I try to explain that with words, and fail. Because sometimes I just can't find the words. Sometimes, the words don't really exist. There are circumstances in which words are not enough to express what I want, and that frustrates me."

Back to Entebbe

Tzila and Benzion Netanyahu, the late Yoni Netanyahu's parents, came to visit Surin Hershko at the hospital before he even regained his ability to speak.

"They finished the Shiva (Jewish mourning period ed.), went to the Mount Herzl cemetery, to Yoni's grave, and from there took a taxi and came to visit me," Surin says. "I was still connected to the respirator, but I was choked with emotion. I was crying. They were sitting in my room, next to my bed. I think they also came back and visited me during rehabilitation. And after that we kept in touch. My mom also kept in touch with them."





Hershko being kissed by Tzila Netanyahu, mother of Yoni Netanyahu and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: Zoom77)

Do you go to visit Yoni's grave?

"Yes, for ceremonies on the anniversary. Not every year, because Mount Herzl is problematic as far as accessibility is concerned. I come to pay my respects. I think he was a worthy man, that he deserves the respect."

Sayfan adds, "I never went. I didn't know him before the operation, so didn't see a reason to go."

Surin also keeps in touch with Iddo Netanyahu, Yoni's brother. When the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was Israel's ambassador to the UN, he gave Surin a tour of the United Nations building (in New York). Today, though, they are no longer in touch. "But in ceremonies, he always comes to personally greet me," Surin notes.

A younger Benjamin Netanyahu talks to Surin Hershko in one of the commemoration ceremonies for Operation Entebbe.

After the operation, a serious rift emerged between Muki Betzer, who was Yoni Netanyahu's deputy and the commander of the raid force, and the Netanyahu family. The disagreement centered on Yoni and Betzer's place in the Entebbe Operation pantheon.

"I think Muki Betzer is right," Prof. Sayfan determines.

"I think there's nothing more pointless than this," Hershko says of the arguement. "I can't really get into the small details, because I wasn't exactly there. I was a junior soldier. But these are insigificant, small things. There is enough honor for everyone. And this is something we should not have argued about. It pains me."

Throughout the meeting, the two keep repeating that each, in his own way, has "moved on with his life." Sayfan returned to Israel after the operation, finished his time as the doctor of the Paratroopers Brigade, and went on to serve in a series of other positions in the army, including as the commander of the 669 Rescue Unit. After his release from the IDF in the rank of lieutenant colonel, he was made the head of the Surgical Department at HaEmek Medical Center in Afula. He retired four years ago, and today continues working in a private practice. At the time of the operation, he had already been married with two children and has had two more after.

Surin, in addition to working as a computers programmer, is also the chairman of LOTEM  Making Nature Accessible, an NGO that offers accessible hikes and educational nature activities around the country to children and adults with special needs. The NGO is the only thing during the interview that he spoke about with evident enthusiasm.

Surin keeps in close touch with friends from the Paratroopers, as well as with some of the hostages. One of them, who was a child when she was kidnapped, told me that "Surin is one of the most important people in my life."

"I know what you're expected to hear from me," he says when I tell him about that. "For me to say that I saved their lives. But I don't feel that way. It's too bombastic, too pretentious. That's not my style.

Hershko speaks to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose brother Yoni was killed in the same operation Hershko was wounded (Photo: Haim Tzah, GPO)

He is also close to his brother, Ilan Harel. Like his brother, Surin also planned to Hebraize his name after his release from the IDF, but then he was wounded, and decided to keep his original name.

Sadly, he never got to have his own family. "This wasn't my decision, life just happened that way. Am I sorry about it? Yes. Is that the biggest price I had to pay? I don't know. You can't compare. In everyday life, I'm more bothered by the fact I need another person's help for everything I do. Meanwhile I don't wake up every daynot even every once in a long whileand think 'Why don't I have a family?'"

He has lived longer with his disabilities than without them. "But in my dreams," he reveals, "I can still walk. Not always, it depends what the dream is about. But there are dreams in which I get up and walk and get on the bus. And then I can't move forward, I get stuck on the way. Something is stopping me from moving forward."

While Sayfan has never returned to Entebbe, Surin went there once, 20 years ago, and doesn't want to to go back. "I got my closure," he says.

He also no longer spends his time dreaming of a magic solution that would allow him to walk again. "In the year that followed the injury, I went to London as part of a delegation of disabled IDF veterans. I was a guest in the home of a family whose father was in a wheelchair. At the time, he was about the age I am today. He tried to cheer me up and said, 'You don't know what the future holds. Science is advancing, medicine is advancing. New things are being discovered. I won't get to enjoy that, but you're young. At your age, you never know.'

"This is exactly what I would say today to a young person who became paralyzed in some operation. I keep following to see if there are any new advancements, but I'm not counting on it too much. At least not for me."
Israeli leaders past and present, world leaders, Jewish organizations and even celebrities all lamented the death of Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, whose passing at the age of 87 was announced Saturday by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Wiesel "a master of words, (who) gave expression to the victory of the human spirit over cruelty and evil with his unusual personality and captivating stories."

"In the darkness of the Holocaust when our brothers and sisters perished -- the six million -- Elie Wiesel served as a ray of light and an example of humanity that believes in the goodness of man," Netanyahu continued.

Eli Wiesel (Photo: Reuters)

"Elie's prolific creations do not just reflect the Holocaust but also the hope and optimism against the darkness of Auschwitz. Jerusalem -- the eternal capital of Israel -- represented to him our ability to rise from the bottom and reach new heights," he added.

President Reuven Rivlin bid farewell "to a hero of the Jewish People, and a giant of all humanity."

"Elie Wiesel, of blessed memory, embodied the determination of the human spirit to overcome the darkest of evils, and survive against all the odds," Rivlin said. "His life was dedicated to the fight against all hatred, and for the sake of man as created in the image of God --he was a guide for us all."

"One of the Jewish people's greatest sons, who touched the hearts of so many, and helped us to believe in forgiveness, in life, and in the eternal bond of the Jewish people. May his memory be a blessing, everlastingly engraved in the heart of the nation," the Israeli president added.

Former president Shimon Peres spoke of Wiesel's legacy. "Wiesel left his mark on humanity through preserving and upholding the legacy of the Holocaust and delivering a message of peace and respect between people worldwide," Peres said.

"He endured the most serious atrocities of mankind -- survived them and dedicated his life to conveying the message of 'Never Again.' I had the honor and privilege to personally thank him for his numerous years of work and for saving the world from apathy when I gave him the Presidential Medal on behalf of the State of Israel. May his memory be a blessing to us all."

Former president Peres, left, honoring Wiesel with the Presidential Medal (Photo: Mark Neiman, GPO)

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat also lamented Wiesel's passing. "Weisel, who survived the horrors of the Holocaust and witnessed the cruelty of humanitys darkest hour, chose not to surrender or despair. Instead, he delivered a message of peace and tolerance for all."

"The vast trove of Weisels writing, which included dozens of books and literary creations, brought him the Nobel Peace Prize, and turned him into an unofficial ambassador of the Jewish people in general and Holocaust survivors in particular," Barkat added.

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat bestowing Wiesel with the 'Honorary Citizen of the City of Jerusalem' award (Photo: Nir Arieli)

"Elie Weisel was a loyal ambassador and a true friend of Jerusalem, and has demonstrated unwavering support and empathy with the people of the city. His ability to touch the hearts of so many enabled his message and lifes work for the Jewish people and Jerusalem to become global, influence millions, and change the world," Barkat continued.

World leaders remember Wiesel

US President Barack Obama also issued a statement mourning Wiesel's loss, saying he was "not just the world's most prominent Holocaust survivor, he was a living memorial."

Wiesel, left, with US President Obama and German Chancellor Merkel at Buchenwald (Photo: AFP)

"After we walked together among the barbed wire and guard towers of Buchenwald where he was held as a teenager and where his father perished, Elie spoke words I've never forgotten -- 'Memory has become a sacred duty of all people of goodwill,'" the US president recounted. "Upholding that sacred duty was the purpose of Elie's life. Along with his beloved wife Marion and the foundation that bears his name, he raised his voice, not just against anti-Semitism, but against hatred, bigotry and intolerance in all its forms. He implored each of us, as nations and as human beings, to do the same, to see ourselves in each other and to make real that pledge of 'never again.'"

Wiesel with President Barack Obama at the Washington Holocaust Museum (Photo: Reuters)

Former US President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, issued a joint statement.

"Elie shouldered the blessing and the burden of survival. In words and deeds, he bore witness and built a monument to memory to teach the living and generations to come the perils of human indifference. As he often said, one person of integrity can make a difference. For so many, he was that difference, including at the dedication of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1993 when he urged me to stop the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia; at the White House Millennium Lecture Hillary invited him to give; and in all his wonderful books and lectures."

Wiesel with former US President Bill Clinton (Photo: MCT)

Former President George W Bush joined the chorus of mourning, saying "I am grateful for his insight on the value of human life and for his generous spirit and big heart. He was an example of a graceful life, and that example will influence millions for generations to come."

Former US President Reagan, right, awards a congressional gold medal to Elie Wiesel (Photo: AFP)

Leaders in other world capitals expressed their condolences as well. "Elie Wiesel spent his life in service to humanity, keeping the memory of the Holocaust's horror alive. It is for us all to carry this torch." said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

In Europe, German Justice Minister Heiko Maas expressed "Sadness over the death of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel. Witness of the Holocaust and chronicler of the indescribable."

French President Francois Hollande spoke of Wiesel's special ties to his nation. "This universal man had a special relationship with France, where he studied after the war, where he published the first edition of 'The Night' thanks to Jerome Lindon, where he created the Universal Academy of Cultures in 1992. France honors the memory of a grand humanist, tireless defender of peace," Hollande said.

Wiesel receives the French Legion of Honor's Grand Croix from former French president Francois Mitterrand in 1984 (Photo: AFP)

'A message of hope and peace'

Jewish organizations around the globe grieved Wiesel's loss, including the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum.

"Elie Wiesel was a loyal son of the Jewish people. He did much in his life to strengthen the continued existence of the Jewish people and the development of the Jewish creation," said Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev. "As a Holocaust survivor he dedicated his life to bearing witness to it and he did so through his extraordinary talent as a writer and speaker. Elie believed till his final day that the Holocaust must be studied and remembered as a unique event to the Jewish people that has a universal message to the entire world."

Elie Wiesel in 1986 standing next to a photo of his younger self at Buchenwald (Photo: AFP)

Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky said, "Elie Wiesel was the collective moral compass of the Jewish people. He was the first to break the silence surrounding the plight of Soviet Jewry, and he accompanied our struggle until we achieved victory. We will miss him deeply."

World Jewish Congress leader Ronald S. Lauder lamented the loss of "the most articulate witness to history's greatest crime. Without Elie Wiesel in the world, it is up to every one of us now to stand up to the deniers. With his passing, we will all have to work a little harder because we will no longer have Elie to remind us of what happens when the world is silent and indifferent to evil. It is now our job, and that of our children and grandchildren, to pick up the baton and to relay Elie's message of hope and peace to the world."

The The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) mourned the passing of "a courageous crusader against forces of hatred and intolerance and a voice of conscience who repeatedly reminded the world of the moral imperative to prevent mass genocide from happening again."

Wiesel meets with the Dalai Lama in 2005 (Photo: AFP)

"In his writings, Elie Wiesel eloquently bore witness to the dehumanizing acts of anti-Semitism and hatred that came about during Hitlers reign in Germany and that led to the death of six million Jews and millions of others in the Holocaust," said Marvin D. Nathan, ADL National Chair, and Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO.

"His written works about the Nazi genocide were unforgettable, but his passion in speaking out repeatedly against anti-Semitism and in defense of the Jewish state as a home for dispossessed Jews around the world made him one of the great Jewish voices of conscience for his generation.

"We will never forget his warmth, his generosity of spirit, his humanity, and most of all his astute wisdom, which informed and inspired the work of the Anti-Defamation League for many years.

"Elies courageous voice against anti-Semitism and intolerance is now silent. But his writings, his speeches and his memory will live on to be a blessing for many generations to come."

Bnai Brith International President Gary P. Saltzman and Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin also issued a statement, greiving the loss of Wiesel, "whose writing gave voice to the millions who perished in the Shoah, and to the millions of Soviet Jews seeking freedom to emigrate. Eminent thinker and author, his books and lectures taught us with power and grace, but served also, in our own times, to teach us the lessons of history's darkest moments.His passing leaves the world bereft of a profound moral conscience."

Eli Wiesel

Sir Mick Davis, Chairman of the Jewish Leadership Council, said, Elie Wiesel dedicated every waking moment to Holocaust commemoration and to preserving the memory of those darkest of times for future generations. As burdened as he was with his own suffering and that of all of the victims of the Shoah, he was living proof of the capacity of the human spirit to heal and overcome evil. He constantly reminded us that the 'opposite of love is not hate but indifference' and challenged all of humanity to be accountable for their fellow man and to defend the weak and the oppressed. Elie called for us never to stand idly by in the face of injustice, for 'neutrality helps the oppressor' and 'silence encourages the tormentor.'

I had the privilege of meeting Elie in my capacity as Chairman of the Prime Ministers Holocaust Commission. I was struck by the power of his prose and by his devotion to ensuring that 'never again' is not merely a watchword. Today, the Jewish people have lost one of its great moral advocates."

Karen Pollock MBE, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said, "After surviving the depths of inhumanity, Elie Wiesel spent his life ensuring the world understood what happened during the Holocaust and vowed 'Never Again'. His seminal book 'Night' exposed to the world the reality of the Holocaust through one man's experience in the most powerful, harrowing and vivid of ways. He said 'Whoever hears from a witness, becomes a witness' - we honour his memory by ensuring that future generations become the witness and carry his legacy. We have lost a giant amongst men - he will never be forgotten."

Eli Wiesel (Photo: AP)

Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, President of the Conference of European Rabbis and Chief Rabbi of Moscow said: "We mourn together with the whole world the passing of Elie Wiesel. He was a dear personal friend, involved for years in the Freedom For Soviet Jewry struggle. His first stop after his release from the concentration camp was the Jewish Orphanage in Versailles, headed by my uncle Felix Goldschmidt. I will always remember listening attentively when he lead prayers at the Fifth Ave Synagogue in NY, when he used the melodies of his hometown Sighet bringing back memories from the past. For more than a generation he was the most important spokesperson for all the survivors and victims of the Holocaust, awakening the conscience of the world to past and present moral deficiencies."

Michael Zank, director of Boston University's Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies, mourned the loss of "an iconic teacher who brought an incredible intensity to every encounter with students and colleagues. It was a privilege to know and work with him."

"Deeply saddened by the passing of Elie Wiesel, who remained optimistic in the darkest days and pushed us to see beauty in humanity," said Melinda Gates, the co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Celebrities also remembered Wiesel and lamented his loss. "We had a champion who carried our pain, our guilt and our responsibility on his shoulders for generations," said actor and filmmaker George Clooney. "Now he's gone. It's hard to fathom. So I guess it's up to us now. To fight for the disenfranchised. To speak truth to power and to never forget how cruel man can be to man. In memory of Elie it's the least we can do."

"So sorry to hear of Elie Wiesel's passing. I knew him well. He was a great man and a wonderful writer. Rest in peace," said television and radio host Larry King.
The parents of Oron Shaul - whose body was snatched by Hamas during Operation Protective Edge - alongside other members of the family are planning to block the Kerem Shalom goods crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip on Sunday.

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The Shauls and the Goldins have criticized the Israeli government for not making the return of the bodies a part of the reconciliation agreement with Turkey as Turkey has close political relations with Hamas. Hamas has a headquarters in Istanbul.

They are planning to protest and block humanitarian aid shipments into Gaza as long as their son's remains and the remains of Hadar Goldin are held in Hamas captivity.

Turkish aid ship on its way to the Port of Ashdod

Meanwhile, a Turkish aid ship is expected to dock in the port of Ashdod with a humanitarian shipment destined for the Hamas controlled enclave on Sunday as part of the framework of the Israel-Turkish reconciliation agreement.

Shaul's parents said that while the Turks will receive benefits and greater ease in providing aid to Gaza from the Israeli government, there has been no development regarding the return of the bodies of the two fallen soldiers.

The parents added that they have asked the prime minister and the other ministers involved in the issue to have the bodies returned immediately.

Oron Shaul

"There is nothing more humanitarian than releasing the captured bodies of our sons in exchange for giving benefits to Gaza. It needs to be two concurrent humanitarian gestures," said Oron Shaul's parents.

"Unilateral steps don't work, and we can not continue to abandon IDF soldiers who have been held in Gaza for two years since Operation Protective Edge," the parents continued. "We aren't against the agreement or aid reaching Gaza, but we believe that this agreement was a chance to release our boys. For this to happen the Israeli government and its leadership must make sure that this condition (the release of the bodies ed) appears as a central component to the reconciliation agreement."
Thousands have gathered in Otniel on Sunday morning to accompany Michael "Miki" Mark , who was murdered in a shooting attack on Friday , to his final resting place.

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The funeral began at the Otniel Hesder Yeshiva, where Miki served as the director, and will later make its way to Jerusalem where he will be buried at Har HaMenuchot.

Photo: AFP

During a speech delivered by a relative on behalf of Michaels 14-year-old daughter Tehila, who was also injured in the attack, her father's final moments were described: I saw you in your last moments...You didnt let go of the steering wheel, you didnt try to protect yourself. Until your last breath you tried to save us. I never imagined these would be my last moments with you, but I am proud of you. You are a hero,

I miss you, but we will continue to live a happy life for you. God took you because he needs more righteous people with him above. Protect us from there. We love you so much. Tehila, she added.

Photo: Yohanan Gil

Photo: Yohanan Gil

President Reuven Rivlin, who spoke at the funeral, said he is related to the slain father of 10. "I'm a second cousin to your mother Zelda," the president said.

"I stand in front of your coffin, Miki, Michael, in sorrow and anguish, and with me stand an entire nation, together grieving," Rivlin eulogized.

President Rivlin speaks at the funeral (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)

"Miki, I am sorry to say that I learned about you, only after your death," the president continued. |I learned that you were a loving and beloved father, grandfather and son. An intellectual who was also a man of action. A person who loved hands-on work, but also excelled in the 'house of learning'. A director who was also a guide. A pillar of the community of Otniel, and Har Hebron. A decent man. A modest man, who of gave himself even when he knew he might not receive the same back. Today we acknowledge your actions, the values you instilled and the spirit you inspired in your pupils, your extensive family, and all those around you. You were one of the finest of the fine."

"Terrorism has been with us since the beginning of our national home here, for generations from 1929 through to 2016. But even when our loved ones' blood is spilled, it does not to weaken our resolve," Rivlin added. "We are not afraid. We do not give up. We do not retreat. We do not loosen our hold on the ground. Our roots are deeply planted in the soil of this country. Terrorism will never hit the foundations of our building, never destabilize our hold on the country.

"Jewish blood is not worthless. We promise - over Miki's grave - that we will continue to fight terror unequivocally, and without fear. We will fight, and we will win. The IDF and the security forces will cut down the accursed murderers who killed Miki. Nothing will cure the pain. But the light of the way that Miki paved will not be extinguished. May his memory be blessed, and may his soul be bound in eternal life."

Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg

In addition to Rivlin, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, Mossad director Yossi Cohen (who is Mark's cousin) and MKs Shuli Mualem and Yehuda Glick also attended the funeral.

Mark's daughter Orit sobbed as she eulogized her father. "My dad, I love you. I can't believe we're saying goodbye. (It feels like) just a moment ago you hugged me and told me you wouldn't leave us, and now God has taken you. We've always said our Father who art in heaven takes only the best," she said.

"My father, how you've added goodness to the world. How you helped others, and all you've done for us. Whatever we wanted, you gave it to us from the heart. And even when we did something wrong, you were always with us. But now we're here and you're not. Ask our Father in heaven to have mercy on us."

Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg

Mark's son Yehoshua added, "as the years went by, we've learned more and more about the depths of your soul. Father, you were a man of acceptance, of endlessly giving, of thought. Father, what can I say? My heart shatters. I've drowned in the depths of the loss of you."

Netanel, another one of Mark's 10 children, added that his father was "a polymath, such a great man. Everything you touched turned to gold. You were a man of grace, giving to others without anyone knowing. You did everything with modesty. You dedicated your life to the study of Torah. How can I talk about you in past tense? Every Shabbat I'd come to you for guidance, who will I turn to now?"

MK Yehuda Glick (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

"I was sitting and trying to write (your eulogy), and crying," said Mark's 18-year-old daughter, Miriam. "I feel like no words are coming out. You were always with me, always believed in me, always been my fatherin the hardest of times. You've given us so much strength. I promise you I'll be strong, and take care of mum and the little ones. Dad, we're together and will stay together. Thank you for the 18 years in which you did not let me fall."

Photo: Ofer Meir

Justice Minister Shaked turned to Orit, Mark's daughter, telling her: "You are right, God truly only takes the good ones."

Shaked added, "Here in Otniel live the pioneers of this land, and God truly only takes the best. First Dafna Meir, and now Miki."

Of Mark, she said, "You've turned this yeshiva into a lighthouse of Torah. You were a man whose energy was devoted entirely to work of Torah and work for the Land of Israel."

Shaked asserted that "our answer to the murder should be building and more building. That is the way of the settlement enterprise. We will find the murderers and if their family also supports terrorismthey too will pay."

Benny Kalmazon, one of the rabbis at Mark's yeshiva, said the residents of Otniel "will continue the meetings and cooperation with the Arabs. We thank our Arab cousins who passed by the scene of the attack and rescued the family members (from the car)."

Rabbi Kalmazon called on President Rivlin to stress to the government that "it must return security to the citizens it is responsible for."

At around 3pm Friday afternoon, a vehicle of Palestinian terrorists bypassed the Mark family car on Highway 60 near Beit Hagai and opened fire at it. Mark was murdered in front of his wife, Chava, who was seriously wounded, and two of their children - aged 13 and 15 - who were also wounded.
Ahmad Aboul Gheit officially begins his term as Secretary General of the Arab League on Sunday. A former Egyptian foreign minister during Hosni Mubarak's reign, he is replacing another Egyptian, Nabil Alarabi.

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Aboul Gheit comes into the position as the Arab and Muslim world faces unprecedented divisions and is dealing with a wide range of threats, amongst them the maligned status of the Arab League itself.

His first task will be to manage the annual Arab League summit slated to be held at the end of July in the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott, and where the leadership of the Arab world will be in attendance.

Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit

Aboul Gheit gave an interview to the Egyptian newspaper "Al-Ahram" on Sunday where he was asked, amongst other things, whether it is possible to bring about a peaceful end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict within the next five years.

The secretary general said that Israel thinks that it's experiencing its golden age because of the events occurring around it in the Middle East which has brought about upheavals in important Arab states such as Syria, Iraq, and Libya.

He added that due to these upheavals, the fight against ISIS has come to the forefront at the expense of the Palestinians. According to Aboul Gheit, "this is the first time that Palestinians have stood against Israeli stubbornness without strong Arab support. On top of this is the ideological and political schism between Fatah and Hamas, and between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip which only stokes tensions."

The new Arab League secretary general then directed his comments to Israel, stating "Israel knows that the radicalization and threats emanating from Iran and Turkey - as well as the other challenges facing the Arab world - doesn't change the fact that the primary cause for all of these problems stems form the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the land of Palestine, a conflict which began 100 years ago."

Arab League (Photo: AFP)

He added that "the threats which the Europeans are subject to, which is damaging world security and causing all this terror is a direct result of the failure of the international community to solve the Palestinian issue."

"France is almost the only European country which is aware of the inherent danger of Israel dooming the chances for an arrangement, despite the modest Arab requests whereby Palestine is established on the land of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and whereby Palestine becomes a demilitarized state with Jerusalem as its capital."

The Arab League (Photo: AFP)

To this regard, Aboul Gheit noted US Secretary of State John Kerry's announcement which "reflects the Americans' feelings regarding the danger of the problem which can explode at any time despite Israeli domination and tyranny. The self sacrifice of the Palestinians for their rights, and their continuing willingness to sacrifice over the course of decades, proves that the Palestinian issue will stay alive."

The primary target: defeating ISIS

Aboul Gheit fielded his opinion on a wealth of other issues, and claimed that the most important mission facing the Arab League is defeating ISIS in Syria, Iraq, and Libya. The second mission is stopping Iran and Turkey from interfering in Arab affairs. The third mission is to try and find a compromise between the Arab world and the US and Russia regarding the future of Syria, Iraq, and Libya.

On the Syrian issue, Aboul Gheit said that the Arab League needs to fill an important position in making an agreement between the Assad regime and the opposition, and even send peace keeping forces to maintain stability, and creating a plan to return all of the people displaced by the conflict back to their homes.
BERLIN - German arms exports almost doubled last year to their highest level since the beginning of this century, a German newspaper said on Sunday, citing a report from the Economy Ministry that is due to be presented to the cabinet on Wednesday.

Newspaper Welt am Sonntag said the value of individual approvals granted for exporting arms was 7.86 billion euros ($8.75 billion) last year compared with 3.97 billion euros worth of arms exports in 2014.

It said the Economy Ministry had pointed to special factors that boosted arms exports such as the approval of four tanker aircraft for Britain worth 1.1 billion euros.
The Ugandan government has chosen Israelis to re-build the east African nation's infrastructure with money from the World Bank. Four decades after Operation Entebbe, Israel will be building a new Ugandan international airport.

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The head of this massive reconstruction project is Professor Yigal Tzamir from Tzamir Architects and City Planning whose company is based in Haifa, and will be assisted by Professor Moshe Hirsch.

The Israeli company will also be assisted by local experts and by Ugandan government employees who will be trained by the Israeli company.

40 years after the operation, Israel to build a new Entebbe airport

They are making a National Master Plan for Uganda similar to Israel's Tama 35 refurbishment plan. The Tama 35 plan states that all of Israel's infrastructure  from roads and airports to parks and cities  will all be refurbished and overhauled by 2040.

"Uganada is home to 65 million people  10 times the number of Israeli citizens  and it has no plan for the future," said Professor Tzamir. "It's a huge honor that they've chosen Israelis to plan the country, especially at a time when the main construction going on in the country is being carried out by the Chinese. This is a return to the glory days, when Israelis built and planned Uganda in the 1960's."

Protecting the environment

Uganda is known for its nature reserves, including the largest gorilla reserve in the world. However, Uganda has also recently found a large gas field, which should it be developed, may cause environmental damage.

Uganda (Photo: Gili Haskin)

"The plan will focus on finding a balance between environmental protection and economic development," said Professor Tzamir.

Kampala, the capital of Uganda, will receive a lot of attention as it is the economic and urban center of the country.

"The Ugandan government is looking for huge economic growth and significant improvement in its socio-economic status alongside a rise in international status as well as its status in east Africa. And Uganda has chosen Israeli experts to help fulfill this vision," stated Tzamir.

Uganda is home to the world's largest gorilla reserve (Photo: Gili Haskin)

Relations between Uganda and Israel have seen their ups and downs. Israeli companies such as Tehel and Solel Boneh developed all of the infrastructure in the country during the 1960's and early 1970's. The Ugandan Air Force was established with Israel's help, and President Idi Amin visited Israel several times.

However, all relations between the two countries were cut in 1972, and Uganda became an enemy state. Tensions came to a head when an Air France jet was hijacked and flown to Uganda's international airport in Entebbe 40 years ago, prompting a daring Israeli rescue.

Relations weren't restored until the 1990's, and today the relations are considered very good. A large number of Israelis live and work in Uganda.
Three Americans and a Belgian national, who were on board one of the ships of the Marmara flotilla six years ago, have filed a lawsuit against the State of Israel at a US court.

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In the lawsuit filed to a federal court in Washington, a copy of which Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked received over the weekend, the four seek compensation in light of the "war crimes" Israel has committed both in stopping the flotilla, which was making its way to Gaza, and by imposing a military blockade on the Strip.

In May 2010, IDF commandos boarded the six-ship flotilla which was trying to break the blockade. In the clashes that erupted on board one of the ships, nine Turkish citizens and an American of Turkish descent were killed.

The incident led to a six-year-old diplomatic crisis between Turkey and Israel, which reached its official end last week when the two countries signed a reconciliation agreement.

The raid on the Marmara flotilla (Photo: IDF Spokesman)

The four, American plaintiffs David Schermerhorn, Mary Ann Wright and Huwaida Arraf, a dual US-Israeli citizen, and Belgian national Margriet Deknopper, were on the ship "Challenger 1," which was flying the US flag and carrying media equipment. There were 17 passengers and crew members on board.

The plaintiffs claimed they suffered injuries that included partial loss of sight when a stun grenade exploded inches from one of them, and a broken nose when another was hit by a rubber bullet.

The attack on the high seas was unjustified and illegal under international law, lawyer Steven M. Schneebaum wrote.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Photo: Uri Davidovitch, Eli Segal)

The suit went on to claim that the commandos had injured more than 150 people in the incident, and that their operations included torture, cruel or degrading treatment, arbitrary arrest and assault.

The lawsuit was filed against Shaked because she heads the Justice Ministry, which provided legal counsel ahead of the takeover of the flotilla. Other government ministers were also named in the lawsuit.

The complaint argued that "the Justice Ministry advises (the military) on international law and has taken an active role in the planning, approval, preparations and the orders of the illegal raid of the flotilla while it was still in international water."

Shaked said in response, "This is complete nonsense, let them sue. I don't believe an American court would choose to deal with something like this."
Scholar Joshi-led Newar community expresses solidarity with Gathabandans hunger strike

Newar community led by Scholar Satya Mohan Joshi reached Khulla Manch in the Capital on Saturday to express their solidarity with Sanghiya Gathabandhan that is staging relay hunger strike since June 7 as a part of its protest against the constitution.
Former defense minister Moshe Ya'alon has joined the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), it was announced Sunday.

Ya'alon, who also served as the IDF chief of staff, resigned from his position in the government, citing loss of trust in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At the INSS, he will serve as a senior research associate and lead strategic studies dealing with Israeli policies in the post-Iran nuclear deal era and Israeli policies facing other regional threats, particularly those coming from Syria and Lebanon.
Former defense minister Moshe Ya'alon has joined the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), it was announced Sunday.

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Ya'alon, who also served as the IDF chief of staff under former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, recently resigned from his position in the government, citing loss of trust in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At the INSS, he will serve as a senior research associate and lead strategic studies dealing with Israeli policies in the post-Iran nuclear deal era. He will also lead studies on Israeli policies in relation to other regional threats, particularly those coming from Syria and Lebanon.

INSS Director Amos Yadlin and former defense minister Moshe Ya'alon (Photo: Chen Galili)

The Chairman of the INSS Board of Directors, Frank Lowy, and INSS Director Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin, welcomed Ya'alon into the fold.

"The Institute for National Security Studies, as the leading Israeli strategic think-tank with international recognition, is receiving a substantial boost with the addition of former defense minister Ya'alon," he said.

"His rich experience will greatly contribute to the quality of the institute's research in light of threats and challenges Israel is facing, both diplomatic and security. Ya'alon's addition is another step towards strengthening the institute's ability to fulfill its objectivepresenting the public and the decision-makers with a professional, innovative position on the important issues on the political and security agenda in Israel."

Yadlin said Ya'alon will be part of the institute's team during his hiatus from politics, and that the agreement with him will expire when he decides to return to political activity.

"I'm happy to join the Institute for National Security Studies and serve as a senior research associate during my hiatus," Ya'alon said.

"The institutes importance is great, especially at a time in which we are required to ask ourselves, every day, what has changed in the tumultuous Middle East," he added. "The institute is considered leading in its field not just in Israel but also throughout the world. The institute and its researchers have given us, the decision-makers, important viewpoints and significant tools as we were leading security or diplomatic moves."
One week after Israel and Turkey signed a reconciliation agreement , the first Turksih ship carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza arrived at the port of Ashdod on Sunday afternoon.

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The ship contained food, medicine and toys which will be transferred into the coastal strip following a security check by Israeli authorities.

Aboard the ship was a 22-person crew, journalists, and people from the Red Crescent. All passengers were checked by the Interior Ministry and their entrance into Israel was approved.

First humanitarian ship arrives from Turkey to Ashdod (Photo: Avi Rokeach)

On Sunday morning dozens demonstrated at the Kerem Shalom crossing against transferring the goods into Gaza and the arrival of the Turkish ship in particular, and attempted to block the passage of trucks and goods.

Among the demonstrators was the father of Oron Shaul, whose body was snatched by Hamas during Operation Protective Edge and Illan Sagi, father of Erez Sagi , who was killed during the Gaza incursion in 2014. A police presence accompanied the protest.

The parents have vowed to continue to protest and block humanitarian aid shipments into Gaza as long as their sons body, as well as that of Hadar Goldin, are held in Hamas captivity. Avrah Mangisto , also remains in Hamas hands and has been a focul point of the objections to the Israel-Turkey deal. Indeed, the three sets of parents have argued that to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza from Turkey constitutes the forfeiting of IDF soldiers

"There is nothing more humanitarian than releasing the captured bodies of our sons in exchange for giving benefits to Gaza. It needs to be two concurrent humanitarian gestures," said Oron Shaul's parents.

"Unilateral steps don't work, and we can not continue to abandon IDF soldiers who have been held in Gaza for two years since Operation Protective Edge," the parents continued. "We aren't against the agreement or aid reaching Gaza, but we believe that this agreement was a chance to release our boys. For this to happen the Israeli government and its leadership must make sure that this condition (the release of the bodies ed) appears as a central component to the reconciliation agreement."
Families of Palestinian teenage terrorists who are imprisoned in Israel, were invited on Saturday to a special dinner in East Jerusalem during which the terrorists names were glorified.

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Each family was given a commemorative plaque and a drinking mug featuring an image of its jailed relative. The event was attended by former Jerusalem Mufti Sheikh Ekrima Sa'id Sabri, who is known for his extremist views.

One of the families who participated in the dinner was that of Muawiya Alqam, a 14-year-old who was jailed for perpetrating a stabbing attack on the Jerusalem light rail in November 2015 with his 11-year-old cousin, Ali.

Teenage terrorists glorified at dinner

Ali, whose age precluded him from being prosecuted under criminal law, is spending a year in an institution headed by the Ministry of Welfare from which he is given furlough once every fortnight. He too participated in the Saturday event.





Each family was given a mug with a photo of its jailed relative on it.

"Sadly, once again religious bodies who are supposed to moderate are leading incitement in Jerusalem," said Maor Tzemach, chairman of the Lach Yerushalayim (To Thee Jerusalem) organization, which seeks to apply Israeli sovereignty in all parts of Jerusalem. "The Sheikh Sabri, one of the leaders of the incitement campaign against the state of Israel, led the fundraising for the families of terrorists in Jerusalem whose homes were demolished by the IDF. More than once, in his sermons in (the al-Aqsa mosque), he's incited against Israel."

Dinner glorifying terrorists

Tzemach continued, "And now he's complimenting terrorist activity by granting it legitimacy and social backing. We call on Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan to combat the incitement bodies and their leaders, such as Sheikh Sabri, and to expel them from the city of Jerusalem.



Sheikh Sabri was the mufti of Jerusalem between the years 1994-2006. Although another official explanation was provided for his leaving office, he was removed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, due to his extremist views, which did not comport with official PA policy. Indeed, if his public pronouncements are any indication of his political persuasion, Sabri falls closer into the Hamas camp. He has participated in several events commemorating terrorists in the past.
Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump caused controversy on Saturday night after publishing on his Twitter account a tweet designed to criticize his political opponent, Hillary Clinton, inadvertently offending the American Jewish community in the process.

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The picture posted on his feed showed Clinton against a backdrop of hundred dollar bills. Appearing next to her face were the words: Most corrupt candidate ever inside a red Star of David.

Donald Trump's Twitter posts

The picture conjured up images of the typical stereotype equating Jews with money and corruption. Apparently spotting the controversial nature of the choice of symbol, Trump updated the photo by removing the Star of David and replacing it with a red circle. However, in yet another faux pas, he forgot to remove the original version from his account.

Only two hours later did he delete the original version featuring the Star of David. Moreover, the updated version was also the subject of criticism since Trump added the hastag AmericaFirst, a slogan previously defined by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as anti-Semitic.

Donald Trump (Photo: Reuters)

The Republican presidential candidate often furnishes praise on the Jewish community, noting that his daughter, Ivanka converted to Judaism and recently gave birth to a Jewish baby.

At the end of last week, Trump dedicated a long Facebook post to the memory of Hallel Ariel, a 13-year-old Israeli girl who was stabbed to death last Thursday by a terrorist as she slept in her bed in Kiryat Arba.
About 400 Israelis of Ethiopian descent demonstrated in Tel Aviv Sunday, blocking Kaplan St. between Ibn Gabirol St. and Menachem Begin Road. They protested the unfair treatment Ethiopian-Israelis receive from the authorities, and police brutality in particular.

Some of the protesters wore shirts featuring the image of Yosef Salamsa, an Ethiopian-Israeli youth who committed suicide in 2014. Some claim the motive for his suicide was trauma caused by police brutality.
How do you write about the death of a giant? How do you say goodbye to one of the greatest authors, philosophers, and most knowledgeable people of the 20th century?

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Elie Wiesel, a Nobel Laureate, one of the greatest contemporary fighters for Judaism and the memory of Holocaust victims in particular, passed away in New York at the age of 87, after suffering from a prolonged illness.

I use the word giant, but this is not the correct description for a man who, among the dozens of titles received from different countries, was also the recipient of honorary doctorates from dozens of universities across the globe.

Elie Wiesel (Photo: Reuters)

Elie Wiesel was my friend from the moment we first met in 1946 in Paris. Only then did we realize that for several months we had been in the same block of barracks in Auschwitz 3.

He was born in Sighetu Marmatiei, a city on the border between Hungary and Romania. His mother tongue was Yiddish.

I, born in Paris, had already been in the same horror camp for a long time. We became friends then in Paris 70 years ago and our friendship endured right up until his passing.

One of the things to which I dedicated my life was the commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust. The biggest compliment I ever received in my life was when he wrote that I work even harder than he does on this special subject.

So how do I write about such a giant like this. What words can I use? I do not know. Goodbye Elie, my friend.
Elie Wiesel never lived in Israel, but on Sunday the country mourned the death of the esteemed author and Nobel peace laureate as though it had lost a national icon.

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A frequent visitor who was fluent in Hebrew, Wiesel was a confidant of prime ministers and a towering cultural figure so revered that two premiers considered nominating him to be the country's ceremonial president.

His unwavering support for Israel proved divisive at times, with critics arguing that he ignored the Palestinians' situation and backed Israeli construction in disputed territories. He also waded into last year's debate over the nuclear deal with Iran, attending an address by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the US Congress that angered the White House.

Elie Wiesel in 1986 photographed by a picture in which he can be seen in Buchenwald B concentration camp in Germany (Photo: AFP)

As perhaps the world's most famous Holocaust survivor, Wiesel was championed by Israeli leaders as a symbol of the Jewish people's journey from the depths of despair to the redemption of having a land of their own. His enduring legacy of "Never Again" mirrored the psyche of a nation built on the ashes of the Nazi genocide of 6 million Jews and facing constant strife in the Middle East.

"Your voice will continue to be heard. It is ingrained in our nation," eulogized Shimon Peres, the former president and a fellow Nobel peace laureate. "Our people have known darkness and terrible danger, but also amazing rebirth. This is what allows us to continue on."

Wiesel's connection to Israel began immediately after it gained independence in 1948, when he arrived to the newborn state as a foreign correspondent for a French newspaper. He later worked as a roving reporter for an Israeli daily.

He moved to New York in 1956, and gained fame with the publication of his landmark Holocaust book "Night." He became an American citizen, published dozens of books and later hobnobbed with presidents who welcomed him to the White House and tasked him with planning an American Holocaust memorial museum. He received the Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

But in many ways his heart remained in Israel, a place he visited three times a year. In 1961, he covered the trial of Nazi mastermind Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. In 1969, he married his wife there.

Shimon Peres and Elie Wiesel (Photo: Mark Nayman/GPO)

In his words of commemoration, Netanyahu said Jerusalem "represented to him our ability to rise from the pit and reach new heights."

"The memory of this man, who taught us what memory is, will be enshrined in our hearts and in the heart of humanity forever," he said.

Wiesel was a driving force behind the establishment of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. His words, "For the dead and the living, we must bear witness," are engraved in stone at the entrance to the museum. He was also a vice chairman of the council of Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and worked closely with many of its researchers.

He established a synagogue in Jerusalem in honor of his father, who perished in the Holocaust, and a pair of institutions in southern Israel named for his slain sister that were devoted to after-school programs for Ethiopian immigrants, said Dina Porat, the chief historian at Yad Vashem and a friend of 30 years.

"He wasn't a citizen of Israel, but he was a true lover of Israel," she said. "He was an ambassador for the country even though no one appointed him."

Barack Obama hugging Elie Wiesel (Photo: Reuters)

Porat said Wiesel made a personal decision to never openly criticize Israel, and stuck to his word even as he came under fire from fellow humanitarians.

Wiesel said little about the plight of Palestinians wich had ensued as a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and his association with Elad, a hard-line organization that settles Jewish people in the heart of Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem, angered critics.

"Wiesel supported human rights for everyone but for Palestinians, where he advocated for most Israeli policies against our people," Xavier Abu Eid, a Palestinian official, wrote on his Twitter feed.

Wiesel's advocacy for Israel went far beyond Holocaust commemoration. Despite his close relationship with President Barack Obama, he took out advertisements in four major newspapers in 2010 that criticized the Obama administration for pressuring the Netanyahu government to halt settlement construction in Jewish areas of east Jerusalem, the part of the city captured in 1967 and claimed by the Palestinians.

"When a Jew visits Jerusalem for the first time, it is not the first time," Wiesel wrote in the ad. "It is a homecoming."

Photo: AFP

In 2013, he took out a full-page ad in The New York Times calling on the US administration to demand the dismantling of Iran's nuclear facilities because it had called for Israel's destruction. Last year, he was a guest of Netanyahu when the Israeli leader delivered a controversial speech to the US Congress railing against the nuclear deal with Iran . Wiesel sat in the audience, waving to the crowd as the Israeli leader alluded to the Nazis while describing the Iranian threat.

Wiesel's connection to Israel was so close that in 2007, then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reportedly suggested nominating Wiesel as a candidate for president, even though he wasn't a citizen. Netanyahu later considered doing the same.

Although Wiesel spoke Hebrew, in many ways, he was a bigger figure abroad than in Israel, perhaps because the country has so many other well-known Holocaust authors and historians as well as a large but dwindling community of survivors.

His passing is a harbinger of a looming post-survivor era, as the number of survivors continues to decline, and those who remain are either too old to recollect clearly or were children at the time of the Holocaust.

Yehuda Bauer, one of Israel's foremost Holocaust historians and a longtime acquaintance of Wiesel's, said Wiesel always "wanted to be involved" with Israel but never wanted to live in the country.

"He wanted to sort of support it from the outside," Bauer said. "He was a man of the world. He didn't want to limit himself to a small country."
NRB mulling over limiting cash-based transactions

In a bid to make economic transaction transparent and curb the informal economic activities, the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) is planning to decrease the limit of cash-based transaction.
Plastic bag ban to resume from late July

Government has announced to resume the ban on use of plastic bags starting late July. Citing poor monitoring for the failure of previous ban, Population and Environment Ministry stated there will be proper regulations this time.
Preps being made for ration card

The government is planning to introduce a ration card system as part of a welfare scheme to protect the poor from spikes in market prices.
Health News

Scottsdale, Arizona - Are you worried about whether sex after an acute coronary syndrome, such as a heart attack or unstable angina, is safe? Experts agree that most people can safely return to sexual activity after recovering from a heart attack  as long as your heart disease is stabilized.

Heart attacks and chest pain caused by heart disease rarely occur during sexual activity because the activity tends to take a short amount of time.

When you can resume sexual activity will depend on your physical comfort, psychological readiness and previous sexual activity. Be sure to ask your doctor when it's safe to become sexually active. He or she might do a physical exam to determine the risk of heart complications. If you're not at low risk of heart complications, your doctor might recommend a test in which your heart rate is monitored while you exercise (exercise stress test) to evaluate your capacity to exercise and the development of any symptoms, such as heartbeat irregularities.

If you have unstable heart disease, your symptoms are severe or you experience cardiovascular symptoms caused by sexual activity, your doctor will recommend waiting to have sex until your condition is stable and better managed.

If your doctor says it's safe to resume sexual activity, he or she might also recommend taking steps to improve your readiness for sexual activity and lessen the possibility of a complication during sex, including:

Cardiac rehabilitation and exercise. Exercise training during cardiac rehabilitation, which provides education and counseling services to help you increase your physical fitness and improve your heart health, can increase the amount of exercise you can safely handle. Regular exercise is also linked with a decreased risk of heart attack triggered by sexual activity.

Sexual counseling for you and your partner. This type of therapy can help you and your partner deal with anxiety about sexual activity and have an open discussion about sexual concerns. A counselor also can share helpful advice for safely resuming sexual activity, such as making sure you're well-rested beforehand, avoiding unfamiliar surroundings and partners to minimize stress, avoiding heavy meals and alcohol beforehand, and using a sexual position that doesn't restrict breathing.

Keep in mind that some heart medications might affect sexual function. Be sure to ask your doctor if your medications might have any sexual side effects. If you resume sexual activity and begin having problems with sexual dysfunction, such as erectile dysfunction, talk to your doctor. Sexual dysfunction could also be related to heart disease, anxiety or depression. Don't skip taking medications for your heart because you're concerned they could impact your sex drive or function.
Traffic up at commercial port in San Luis, but work still to be done to ensure continued growth
The corruption conundrum

Following a wrong process to remove the CIAA chief will complicate matters
Florida: A Muslim man was beaten on Saturday outside a Florida mosque attended by the gunman who killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub, though authorities and a Muslim civil rights group differed as to whether the attack was racially motivated.

The St. Lucie County Sheriff`s Office said the assault outside the Fort Pierce Islamic Center was reported around 4:11 a.m. local time and that deputies found the victim, who had been punched in the head and face, bleeding from the mouth.

The suspect, 25-year-old Taylor Anthony Mazzanti, was arrested shortly thereafter and booked on a charge of felony battery, the office said.

"Interviews by the deputies and supervisors on scene and a written witness statement completed by the victim do not indicate any racially-motivated comments were made by the suspect prior to, during or after the incident," Sheriff Ken Mascara said in a statement.

Mascara said the investigation was ongoing.

The Florida branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) gave a different account of the incident.

The organization said a senior official with the Muslim non-profit, ICNA Relief, was with the victim and that the attacker approached spouting racial slurs and other offensive language.

CAIR said the attacker, who is white, allegedly said, "You Muslims need to get back to your country," before assaulting the victim, who was not identified by CAIR or authorities. CAIR said the victim was Muslim and attended the Islamic Center.

The Islamic Center`s imam had requested extra security following the mass shooting last month by Omar Mateen at the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, about 120 miles to the north, according to CAIR and mosque spokesman Wilfredo Ruiz.

Ruiz said Mateen had infrequently attended the mosque.

Mateen, who was killed by police after a three-hour siege inside the club, declared himself to be an "Islamic soldier" and pledged allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State militant group, according to emergency call transcripts released by the FBI last month.

Ruiz criticized the Sheriff`s Office for not giving them additional security, saying: "This should not have happened."

Sheriff Mascara said statements on the attack made by mosque officials and CAIR included "untruthful rhetoric."
Melbourne: With the prospect of a hung parliament looming in Australia, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his rival Bill Shorten on Sunday reached out to crossbenchers, who have emerged as kingmakers after a closely-contested election.

The Turnbull-led government suffered a 2.8 per cent swing against it at the election, and according to the latest results it had won 65 seats to Labor's 67, with 13 remaining in doubt.

Counting would resume on Tuesday. While the Australian Electoral Commission cannot say when a result will be known, Turnbull is confident of a resolution by the end of this week.

"Like all of us, Australians would have no doubt preferred a clearer outcome last night," the 61-year-old Prime Minister said, adding: "I remain quietly confident that a majority Coalition government will be returned."

If the ruling Coalition led by Turnbull winds up with fewer than 76 seats, it would need to negotiate with independents and minor parties to stay in power.

Crossbench and independent MPs could prove kingmakers in that scenario, and the Prime Minister confirmed he had opened lines of communication with them.

He said he would work to ensure the "state of new Parliament is resolved without division or rancour".

"What we will do is ensure that we work constructively and effectively with all of the members of the new Parliament to ensure that we deliver the stability and the leadership that Australians expect," Turnbull said.

Early numbers indicate a strong showing for Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party.

Senator Nick Xenophon's newly-formed party, the Nick Xenophon Team, took the lower house South Australian seat of Mayo, formerly a safe Liberal seat. Xenophon is expected to be returned to the Senate and his party appears certain to gain additional upper house seats.

Independents Bob Katter, Andrew Wilkie and Cathy McGowan were all returned to the lower house, as was Greens MP Adam Bandt.

Opposition Labor leader Shorten said Turnbull's policies were the "clear loser" of the double dissolution election, which he said had delivered "anything but stability" for the nation.

He has also spoken with crossbenchers, and said the key message was that they "want to be constructive".

"They don't want Australia rushing back to the polls. I certainly don't," Shorten, 49, said.

Unstable government has been the norm in Australia ever since Julia Gillard deposed her Labor colleague, Kevin Rudd, during his first term as prime minister in 2010.

Gillard never managed to gain the electorate's trust and Labor switched back to Kevin Rudd, who was defeated in 2013 by conservative Liberal Tony Abbott. Abbott was in turn dispatched by current PM Turnbull in yet another internal party coup.

Turnbull promised an end to instability but now, like Gillard before him, he faces a term in minority government, where every mistake is magnified and every by-election fraught.

The people cast ballots yesterday to decide the fate of over 1,600 candidates, including five of Indian-origin, contesting from?over 55 political parities.

The future Australian government would?be resolved by the 13 seats which remain in doubt. Of these, Labor was ahead in six.

Media reports said that there were reports of?Labor Party's Shorten likely?to face a leadership contest against Anthony Albanese.

Albanese has the support of powerbrokers from Labor's left and right factions to take the leadership. Albanese has not denied a move for a contest, telling colleagues Labor's focus should be on forming government.

AEC spokesman Phil Diak said? There's avery strong pattern there that it does take around a month to complete all the counting for the House and Senate," he said, adding AEC won't declare seats until there's a mathematical impossibility of the leader being overtaken, as it were, in any seat.

"So that's often a lot later than when victory is claimed or a seat is conceded," Diak said.
The loss-makers

A long-term strategy is required if moribund state-owned enterprises are to be revived
Patna: The Janata Dal (United) on Sunday launched a scathing attack on AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi for his decision to provide legal aid to five ISIS suspects arrested by the NIA from Hyderabad and demanded his arrest besides the cancellation of membership as a parliamentarian.

"There is uniform civil code in many states..so does that make those states Hindu or Catholic? But it definitely creates the Islamic states. Owaisi is the greatest anti-national. He said he will provide legal aid to the people associated with the ISIS. Such kind of persons should be put behind the bars and their Parliament membership must be cancelled," JD (U) leader Ajay Alok told ANI.

The Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief had on Friday announced that his party would provide legal aid to five IS suspects arrested from Hyderabad earlier this week.

Backing his party`s decision, Owaisi said that the legal system would have anyways offered legal help to the accused and urged the media not to blow the issue out of proportion and be a hindrance in the legal process.

According to reports, Owaisi had earlier decided to support the accused after the family members of the five youth met him and claimed that they are innocent.
Chennai: Days after the Tamil Nadu police apprehended 22-year-old Ram Kumar as the main suspect in the sensational murder case of Infosys techie in the city, her family on Sunday broke their silence on the issue and asked the state government to award the strictest punishment to the killer.

24-year-old Swathi, an employee at Infosys, was found dead with multiple injuries on her body at Chennai's Nungambakkam railway station at 6.30 am on Friday. According to reports, S Swathi was on her way to work at Mahindra City, about 60 km south of Chennai.

Her family members addressed a press conference today in the city where they thanked the Chennai police and the Tamil Nadu government for nabbing Swathi's killer and also demanded the strictest possible punishment for the killer.

Swathi's parents urge the Tamil Nadu government to award death penalty to 22-year-old Ram Kumar, who brutally killed Swathi in a fit of rage after she repeatedly refuses her marriage proposal.

A day earlier, the Chennai police disclosed that arrested Ram Kumar was mentally unstable and was pursuing the 24-year-old Infosys techie for quite some time. He was reportedly angered when Swathi rejected his advances and thereafter hacked her to death using a sickle (sharp metal object) on June 24 in a fit of rage.

A report stated that one of her family members confirmed that Swathi had confided that she was being troubled by one of her friends who was constantly troubling her over marriage.
Raipur: Three Naxals, one of them allegedly involved in the 2013 Jiram valley attack that left 31 people, including several prominent Congress leaders, dead, were on Sunday arrested in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district, police said.

The ultras, carrying cash rewards on their heads, were apprehended from the forests of Kuakonda police station limits by a joint team of District Reserve Group (DRG), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and district force, Dantewdaa Superintendent of Police Kamlochan Kashyap told PTI.

Of the arrested, Bandi alias Bandu (30), who was active as Peddaras LOS (local organisation squad) deputy commander of Maoist, was allegedly involved in the Jiram?valley attack in Darbha region of Bastar in which prominent Congress leaders were killed, he said.

Bandu was also allegedly involved in Tahakwada attack under Tongpal police station limits killing 15 security personnel and a civilian on March 11, 2014, the SP added.

Similarly, equally dreaded Pandaru Podiami (30), deployed as a military platoon section commander, was apprehended. He was allegedly involved in several deadly Maiost attacks, including the killing of 6 police personnel in the forested hills of Tadkel in 2008, the SP said.

However, six ultras were also gunned down in Tadkel attack, he added.

The duo were carrying a bounty of Rs 3 lakh each on their heads. Another cadre Sukhram (38), who was working as a member of military platoon number 16 and carried a reward of Rs 2 lakh, was arrested, Kashyap added.

On May 25, 2013, Naxals had ambushed Congress's parivartan rally convoy in the Jiram valley when it was on the way towards Jagdalpur from Sukma.

A total of 31 people, including the then Chhattisgarh Pradesh Congress Committee (CPCC) chief Nandkumar Patel, his son Dinesh, former Union Minister Vidayacharan Shukla, former leader of opposition Mahendra Karma, and ex-MLA Uday Mudliyar, were killed and several others injured?in the attack.
Paris: Former French Socialist prime minister Michel Rocard died Saturday aged 85, his son told AFP.

Rocard served as prime minister for three years from mid-1988 under Francois Mitterrand, two-term Socialist president who led the country from 1981 to 1995.

Mitterrand appointed Rocard to succeed future centre right president Jacques Chirac after a period of unprecedented left-right "cohabitation".

Born on August 23, 1930 in the Parisian suburb of Courbevoie, Rocard attended the elite National School of Administration ENA and carved out a high-flying political career in a revamped and modernised Socialist Party under Mitterrand.

Rocard, noted for his pro-Europeanism, died in a Paris hospital, his son said.

President Francois Hollande paid tribute to a man he called "a great figure of the Republic and of the Left."
Paris: Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced plans to quit his role as head of France`s Les Republicains party on Saturday, setting up a potential bid to become head of state for a second time.

Supporters of Les Republicains and other right and centre-right parties will vote in November to decide who will be their candidate in the 2017 presidential election.

The winner will face the far-right National Front`s Marine Le Pen and a Socialist candidate, likely to be President Francois Hollande.

Sarkozy would not be able to run in those presidential primaries if he remained head of the party. He would need to resign two weeks before the application deadline on Sept. 9.

"This national council will be my last one as president of Les Republicains," he told a party meeting, calling for a fair contest and no acrimony between the potential nominees.

"This primary will be a time of competition between some strong personalities, between people of significant talent," he said.

"When the right goes into battle it has a front on the left and a front on the extreme right. That is why it is unacceptable that we should attack each other."

For much of this year, centre-right rival Alain Juppe has outpaced Sarkozy in opinion polls, but the man who was president between 2007 and 2012 is making a comeback among party supporters, a recent survey showed, a sign the battle could be more open than many thought.
Istanbul: Turkey's state-run news agency says authorities have detained three new suspects in connection with the attack at Istanbul's airport that killed at least 44 people.

Anadolu Agency didn't identify the suspects or specify their nationalities.

It said today the total number of those detained in relation to the shooting and suicide attack at the airport is now 27. Thirteen suspects, including three foreigners, have been referred to Istanbul's Bakirkoy Court after undergoing medical checks, according to the report.

Three militants armed with assault rifles and suicide bombs stormed Istanbul's Ataturk Airport on Tuesday night. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Turkish officials say they believe it was the work of the Islamic State group, which is based in neighboring Syria and Iraq and has operatives in Turkey.
Chandigarh: With three candidates mysteriously dying after undergoing physical tests for police recruitment in Haryana's Kurukshetra district in recent days, the Haryana Staff Selection Commission on Sunday warned candidates that they would be disqualified if it was found that they had taken performance enhancing drugs for the recruitment.

Commission chairman Bharat Bhushan Bharti said that if any candidate is found trying to take drugs during physical fitness test for recruitment to Haryana Police at Kurukshetra, the candidate would be disqualified.

"Also, strict action would be taken against that candidate according to the rules," he said.

Bharti said that a special team has been constituted to keep vigil on candidates and directions have been issued to depute four doctors to examine the candidates before their registration.

"The commission had already warned candidates regarding it through its notification issued on March 16," he said.

The physical tests for recruitment started on June 15 and over 1.30 lakh candidates have appeared in these.

Many candidates complained of exhaustion as the tests were conducted when the summer was in full swing and humid conditions were prevailing.


Delhi: Attending a programme to mark the 300th martyrdom anniversary of Baba Banda Singh Bahadur in New Delhi on Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that he was not just a great warrior but was also very sensitive towards common people.

"Sometimes a single moment in life gives direction to a person, similar thing happened with Banda Bahadur ji. After getting inspiration from Guru Gobind Singh ji, he imbibed values of a warrior and embarked on a new journey for social development," he also said.

At the same time, he pointed out, "During Baba Banda Singh Bahadur ji's time, for the first time, farmers were given their rights, common man felt empowered."

"Banda Bahadur was a great warrior. Today on Baba Banda Bahadur's 300th martyrdom anniversary I pay tribute to him, his bravery and sacrifice," PM Modi added

He concluded his speech with the chant - 'Waherguru ji da khalsa, waheguru ji di fateh'.

PM Modi released a book and a commemorative coin on Baba Banda Singh Bahadur on the occasion.

Paid tributes to the great Baba Banda Singh Bahadur Ji at the programme to mark 300th anniversary of his martyrdom. pic.twitter.com/AveitXi7BY  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 3, 2016
New Delhi: A days after the devastating terror attack in Dhaka by Islamists militants, celebrated Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen on Sunday said that it's time people should stop saying Islam is a religion of peace.

She claimed that all the terrorists involved in the Dhaka attack were educated and belonged to rich families and rubbished the arguments that poverty makes somebody a terrorist.

On Friday, 20 people, mostly foreigners, including an Indian, were killed when militants stormed a bakery in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave frequented by Westerners.

Bangladesh has announced a two-day national mourning after the attack, which was condemned by the world leaders.

Taslima has not been living in India since 1994. The author has received death threats from extremist groups linked to al Qaeda.
Agartala: An alert was sounded along the 856-km long border with Bangladesh in view of the terrorist attack in a restaurant in Dhaka late Friday night, a top police official said on Sunday.

He said as soon as the report of terrorist attack in Dhaka was received here, BSF and all other security forces including state police, were alerted so that no unwanted element could cross the border to enter in Indian territory.

Twenty hostages, including 19-year-old Indian teenager Tarishi Jain, were hacked to death by terrorists inside the cafe popular with expats in the diplomatic zone before commandos launched an assault killing six attackers and capturing one alive.
Threat of terrorism

A report says Nepal lacks sophisticated measures to prevent possible terrorist activity
New Delhi: The family members of Tarishi Jain, the Indian girl who was hacked to death by Islamic militants in a terror attack at a Dhaka restaurant, will on Sunday leave for Dhaka and will return with her mortal remains tomorrow, a report said.

Her body will be flown to New Delhi on Monday from where her family members will take her to Uttar Pradesh's Firozabad for the last rites, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said.

"It is a case of brutal killing - an unnatural death. Some legal procedure has (to) be completed," Swaraj said on Twitter.

It is a case of brutal killing - an unnatural death. Some legal precedure has be completed. This will be done by tomorrow. /2 @15saloni2626  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) July 2, 2016

The mortal remains will reach Delhi by Jet Airways on Monday 4th July. This is with concurrence of Tarishi's father. /3 @15saloni2626  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) July 2, 2016

The family will take the mortal remains to Ferozabad (UP). /4 @15saloni2626  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) July 2, 2016

Swaraj said the country is with Tarishi's family in this hour of grief and visa has been arranged for them.

Tarishi, a 19-year-old girl was caught up in the horrific 11-hour siege at the Holey Artisan Bakery and was later killed after being taken hostage by a group of attackers.

Jain had finished her schooling from the American School in Dhaka and was pursuing her studies at the University of California, Berkeley, Swaraj added.

Tarishi, a student at UC Berkeley, was on vacation in Dhaka. Her father runs a garment business in Bangladesh for the last 15-20 years, according to officials here.

Twenty foreigners, including eight Italians, seven Japanese and the Indian student, were brutally murdered by the militants inside the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's diplomatic zone before commandos launched an assault yesterday, killing six attackers and capturing one alive, ending Bangladesh's worst terror attack.

The bodies of the victims were recovered during a search in the Bakery compound after the operation.

ISIS terror group takes responsibility

Meanwhile, the ISIS terror group claimed responsibility for the attack that left at least people dead. The Amaq news agency, affiliated with ISIS, posted photos purportedly showing hostages' bodies though the authenticity of the images could not be confirmed.

According to another report, the ISIS group on Sunday released photos of five of Dhaka attackers.
Agartala: At least eight tribal girls from Mizoram were rescued from a car while being trafficked to Gujarat, police said on Sunday.

As many as two tribal youths were also arrested in this connection, the police said.

"They were rescued from a small vehicle on Saturday night while being trafficked to Gujarat via Guwahati," police inspector Ratanmani Debbarma told the media.

"During interrogation the girls gave different versions about their journey. Seven of them are the inmates of refugee camps in Kanchanpur (in north Tripura) where tribals from

Mizoram live. Another teen aged girl is a class nine student from Mizoram," he said.

Debbarma said that to know the details the police have called the refugee leaders who said they were unaware of the girls` journey.

"Their parents said they face acute poverty here. They were sending their daughters to Gujarat in search of jobs in beauty parlours. However, the parents could not give corroborative facts and other details. We are investigating the matter," the police official added.

The girls were aged between 15 and 25 years while the two men are aged between 35 and 40.

About 31,300 Reang tribals, who call themselves `Bru`, have been living in seven makeshift camps for the past 19 years in Kanchanpur area adjoining Mizoram.

They had fled ethnic violence in western Mizoram following the killing of a Mizo forest official at the Dampa Tiger Reserve.

Despite several initiatives by the Mizoram government to bring them back, the refugees have been reluctant to go back to their villages unless their demands for food and security are met.
New Delhi: Days after controversy erupted over his statements related to Islamic practises of qurbani and Ramzan, renowned Bollywood actor Irrfan Khan has slammed clerics.

Reacting to the controversy over his statements, Irrfan Khan wrote a Facebook post sharing what he feels about the entire issue.

"Clerics don't scare me!! Thank God I don't live in a country governed by religious contractors (thekedars )," Irrfan Khan wrote in a Facebook post.

FULL STATEMENT

"Pls Bhaiyon, who r upset with my statement, either u r not ready to introspect or u r in a hurry 2 reach 2 a conclusion. For me religion is abt personal introspection , it's a source for compassion, wisdom and moderation n not for stereotyping n fanaticism. Clerics don't scare me!! Thank God I don't live in a country governed by religious contractors (thekedars ) #FREEDOM (sic), " Irrfan Khan posted on Facebook.

Irrfan Khan had courted controversy by questioning the practice of sacrifice and fasting in Islam.

Talking on the sidelines of the promotion of his upcoming flick 'Madari' in Jaipur, Khan had said, The meaning of Qurbani is to sacrifice something which is close to you instead of any goat or sheep which you just buy to sacrifice. Before sacrificing we should share a bond with that thing otherwise just killing of an animal will not serve the purpose. Nowadays we have lost the relevance behind such religious activities and perform these rituals without knowing the meaning behind them, according to Deccan Herald.

He also talked about the practice of fasting in Islam.

Khan was quoted as saying by India Today, "Rather than fasting during Ramzan, people should self-introspect... We Muslims have also made a mockery of Muharram. It is meant for mourning and what we do? Take out (tajiya) processions."
Kolkata/Agartala: A high alert has been sounded on the Indo-Bangla border in the five states of West Bengal, Tripura, Meghalaya, Assama and Mizoram in the wake of the terror attack in Dhaka with the Border Security Force(BSF) stepping up its vigil.

India and Bangladesh share a 4,096 km-long international border, the fifth-longest land border in the world, with West Bengal having the highest length with 2,217 km. The length of the border in the other four states is Tripura(856km), Meghalaya(443km), Assam(262km) and Mizoram(180km).

The West Bengal administration has asked the state police to be on high alert and take serious note of any suspicious movement in the border districts.

"All police stations along the Indo-Bangla border have been alerted and all border districts have been told to keep a close eye on any suspicious movement," a senior police official of the West Bengal Police said.

Vehicles are being checked at various entry and exit points in the districts bordering Bangladesh, which has declared a two-day state mourning after the attack on a cafe in Dhaka's diplomatic zone on Friday night resulting in the killing of 20 persons, all foreigners, who were taken hostage.

As it was a festival season with Eid and Ratha yatra to be celebrated, a strict vigil was being maintained on the border. But after the attack in Bangladesh, the BSF had further intensified the vigil and special operations were on, IG BSF Sandeep Salunke had told PTI yesterday.

Salunke also said that the BSF was in touch with Border Guard Bangladesh and keeping a close eye on the situation.

A top police official in Agartala said that as soon as the attack broke out BSF and all other security forces including Tripura police, were alerted so that no unwanted elements could cross the border to enter Indian territory.

BSF Inspector General (Meghalaya Frontier) P K Dubey said the force has been put on "very high alert" along the Indo- Bangladesh border in Meghalaya.

"The force has been put on very high alert along the Indo-Bangladesh border following the armed attack in Dhaka. Security has been tightened," Dubey said.

Dubey said he had spoken to officials of Meghalaya Police for coordination and sharing of information as soon as news of the killings came in.

Meghalaya has over 100 "gaps" consisting of streams, rivers and drains apart from the unfenced 90-km stretch along its 443-km border with Bangladesh.

Accordingly, the BSF has sought cooperation of all state and central intelligence units to ensure that no illegal cross-border movement takes place, he said.

Police personnel posted close to the border have been alerted and asked to keep strict vigil in close coordination with the BSF, a senior police officer said.

The Assam police said it had instructed SPs of all districts, especially the border ones, to keep a strict vigil for any possible ISIS activity in the state.
New Delhi: The HRD Ministry is mulling launching its Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) platform 'Swayam' that will host over 2,000 courses for up to 3 crore students across the country on August 15.

Sources said preparations for getting the entire system ready for the ambitious project is on in full swing and it is likely be launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a special ceremony here.

"The preparations for the project are on in full swing. The project has the capacity to revolutionise the education system. It is expected to be launched by the Prime Minister on August 15," a source in the Ministry said.

SWAYAM is an Information Technology platform which will host Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and provide high quality education on various subjects from school level class 9-12 to Under Graduate and Post Graduate students covering all disciplines.

About 2000 courses shall be launched backed by a network that is expected to support 10 lakh concurrent users on anytime, anywhere basis.

Through this scheme the Ministry has proposed to provide high quality e-content to all colleges and universities free of cost.

The HRD Ministry has roped in Microsoft as the technology partner for this venture.

"When completed, it would bring in interactive eContent on MOOCs format of more than 2.5 lakh hours which would make it the world's biggest repository of interactive electronic learning resource under a single window," officials said.

The UGC has already notified the UGC (credit framework for online learning courses through SWAYAM) Regulation 2016 which allows for transfer of credits earned through these courses into the academic record of the student in the parent institution.

"This would allow any student in the country to take the courses offered by the best teachers on SWAYAM, especially bridging the academic deficit experienced in the backward areas and helping raise standards of education," officials said.
Neduntheevu: The Sri Lankan Navy apprehended five Indian fishermen and detained their fishing boat in the early morning hours on Sunday.The fishermen were fishing near the Delfts island.

The Navy arrested the five fishermen as they crossed the international maritime boundary line.Sri Lanka normally releases apprehended fishermen as goodwill gesture but fishing boats are detained.

The local fishermen are urging the government to secure the immediate release of fellow fishermen and 94 detained fishing boats.
New Delhi: India is making all efforts to secure the release of two Indians abducted from Gboko, a town in the Benue state of north-central Nigeria, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Sunday.

The Minister also thanked Indian envoy in Abuja for repatriation of 11 Indians, who were released after languishing in a Nigerian jail for two years.

"I appreciate the efforts of our High Commissioner in Nigeria Shri B N Reddy for expediting their repatriation," Swaraj tweeted.

Employees of a Merchant Navy firm, the crew's ship got stranded in Nigeria and the entire crew was arrested for violating laws of international waters in 2014.

Meanwhile, Swaraj said all efforts were being made to secure the release of the two Indians abducted in Nigeria.

The duo -- Mangipudi Sai Srinivas (from Andhara Pradesh) and his colleague Anish Sharma (from Karnataka) -- were travelling to Dangote Cement Plc Plant in a car from their residential quarters around 7.20 pm last Wednesday when a group of armed men kidnapped them at a traffic signal.

"I spoke to Anish Sharma's wife this morning. I assured her that we are doing our best to secure Anish and Srinivas's release from abductors in Nigeria," Swaraj said.

"I have deputed a senior officer to update the family regularly," she tweeted.

External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup had on Friday described the abduction as "nothing surprising or new in that area", saying such incidents keep happening there.

Asserting that there has been no ransom demand so far, the Spokesperson had said, "As far as our information goes there is no hand of terror group Boko Haram and it seems local criminal elements were responsible for the act."
Jammu: Another batch of 1,871 pilgrims left Jammu city on Sunday in a secured convoy to perform the Amarnath Yatra.

"As many as 1,505 males and 366 females on Sunday left the Bhagwati Nagar Yatri Niwas in Jammu city in 40 buses and 16 light motor vehicles for Kashmir Valley," a senior police official told IANS in Jammu.

"They left around 4.40 a.m. in a convoy secured by ROPs (road opening parties) and mobile protection provided by the security forces."

The Amarnath Yatra started on Saturday and around 9,000 pilgrims began the mountainous trek to cave shrine from north Kashmir Baltal and south Kashmir Nunwan (Pahalgam) base camps.

The shrine is situated 3,888 metres above the sea level in Himalayas in Kashmir.

It houses an ice stalagmite structure called the 'Lingam' that wanes and waxes with the phases of the moon. Devotees believe the 'Lingam' symbolises mythical powers of Lord Shiva.

There have been a number of attacks on the security forces during the last one month on the strategic Jammu-Srinagar national highway which is the only surface link used by the yatris to reach the two base camps in Anantnag and Ganderbal districts of the valley.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh attended the special Puja inside the cave shrine and had 'Darshan' of the ice 'Lingam' on Saturday.

He has advised better coordination among the security forces to provide foolproof security to the yatris.

The 48-day long yatra this year will end on August 17 coinciding with Shravan Purnima and Raksha Bandhan festival.
Neduntheevu (Sri Lanka): The Sri Lankan Navy apprehended five Indian fishermen and detained their fishing boat in the early morning hours on Sunday.

The fishermen were fishing near the Delfts island.

The Navy arrested the five fishermen as they crossed the international maritime boundary line.

Sri Lanka normally releases apprehended fishermen as goodwill gesture but fishing boats are detained.

The local fishermen are urging the government to secure the immediate release of fellow fishermen and 94 detained fishing boats.
Lahore: Pakistan`s Advisor to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs, Sartaj Aziz has said that the strengthening US-India relations were not a matter of concern for Islamabad, as long as the co-operation between the two did not increase the strategic and conventional gap between the nuclear-armed rivals of the subcontinent.

Aziz said in an interview that the United States has constantly assured Pakistan that both countries were of equal importance to them.

"I think US has itself emphasized number of times that our relations with India are not at the cost of Pakistan; both are important for us. India is important in the south Asian and East Asian context, whereas Pakistan is important in west Asia and central Asian context. We are one of the largest Islamic, democratic country, and we have a role vis a vis Afghanistan and in this region," Aziz said.

He also stated that the United States is an independent country and in terms of economic and other relations it can go ahead with India as it desires and as its national interests require.

Aziz asserted that there is only one dimension which they have been emphasizing and that is that their co-operation with India should not increase the gap, the strategic and conventional military gap, between India and Pakistan.

"If that happens, then of course we have to respond. So the objective of strategic stability should be kept in view in whatever co-operation they extend, and they have acknowledged that these are legitimate concerns because they don't want an arms race - a nuclear arms race - in the subcontinent. So that's the only dimension on which we are concerned. Otherwise, the US and India relationship are not a matter of concern," he added.

However, he said that Pakistan would not compromise on adequate deterrence, so the United States must persuade India not to expand its nuclear power.

"When they (India) started the Cold Start doctrine in which they moved 10 cantonments close to the Pakistan border so they can act on our forces at short notice and from across the border, the tactical nuclear weapons were a response to that particular threat. So - the independent variable in this case is India. We are the dependent variable," he said.

He further stated that if the U.S. has to persuade Pakistan to respond in a positive way, they have to persuade India not to expand its nuclear and initiate the dialogue to reduce tensions and resolve disputes.

"But Pakistan has of course clarified that the decision: what is adequate deterrent, how to protect our security, this is our own national sovereign right. This we cannot share with anyone," Aziz said.

It should be noted that the US and many other Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) member countries have supported India`s inclusion based on its non-proliferation track record.The U.S., however, did not subsidize the sale of eight F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan.
Where are we heading?

Formation of the federal states is essential to keep the constitution alive
Ranchi: Maoist guerrillas killed two men, accusing them of being police informers, in Jharkhand's Giridih district on Sunday, police said.

According to police, the guerrillas abducted the two men from their home and killed both by slitting their throat.

The bodies were recovered from Kolharia village of Giridih district, around 200 km from Ranchi and have been sent for post-mortem examination.

Maoist guerrillas are active in 18 of the 24 districts of the state.
Delhi: Even as the world continues to grapple with the terror attack in Bangladesh which killed 20 people, mostly foreigners, in a barbaric attack on a cafe, a post on social media by a Kolkata-based professor about a victim has gone viral.

Professor Aloke Kumar, who is a professor of communication at the University of Calcutta, was friends with the Dhaka-based HR professional Ishrat Akhond.

Ishrat was among those who died in the terror attack at the Holey Artisan Bakery in Gulshan diplomatic zone.

Read the touching post on Facebook below:

ISHRAT no more

My friend Ishrat was brutally tortured and killed by terrorist in a Dhaka restaurant yesterday when she was there with several Italian Fashion Designer.

Most of the Muslim Bangladeshis were spared after they identified themselves and recited lines from the Koran. Ishrat who was not wearing a Hijab and neither wanted to prove herself was hacked to death with a machete.

Twenty other foreign hostages were also hacked to death with sharp weapons by terrorists during a dramatic siege at an upmarket Dhaka restaurant that ended in a bloodbath today morning.

The majority of the victims were from Italy and Japan. There was one young girl. A student from India Tarushi Jain. No Britons have yet been confirmed among the casualties. Two Sri Lankans and one Japanese hostage were rescued, along with around a dozen Bangladeshis.

Six of the attackers were shot dead and one captured during the raid on the Holey Artisan Bakery, an expatriates' favourite.Holey Artisan Bakery, an expatriates' favourite.

I am devastated on hearing the news as I was in touch with her periodically. She had come down to Calcutta last September and we had discussed my possible Lecture tour of the Universities of Bangladesh. This was scheduled to begin in the Fall Semester.

Usually my notes are long but today I have run out of words.

Love you Ishrat, wherever you are.

Army commandos had stormed the eatery and rescued 13 hostages, killing six attackers while capturing one alive.

The Army had said that 20 people were found dead on the premises during the raid, all possibly slaughtered late on Friday, hours before the commandos raided the cafe.

It has been confirmed that the hostages killed included nine Italians, seven Japanese and an Indian. Three Bangladeshis were also among the dead and one of them was a US citizen.
Agartala: The Border Security Forces (BSF) on Sunday shot dead an alleged Indian smuggler at Durlavpur in Sipahijala district, about 50 km from here.

"A group of suspected smugglers set up a temporary bridge on the barbed wire fencing at Durlavpur and allegedly tried to smuggle motorbikes on Saturday evening. When jawans patrolling along the border challenged them, the group attacked the personnel with knives," BSF Commandant Amitav Roy said.

BSF then opened fire that killed one suspected smuggler while others managed to flee, the BSF Commandant added.

The slain Indian national was identified as Prasenjit Das.

Sub-divisional Police officer Babul Das said Prasenjit Das was taken to the nearby Jatrapur hospital, where the attending doctors declared him brought dead.
New Delh: Students can now opt for courses in animal welfare sciences at the prestigious Jawahar Lal Nehru University from this academic session, with the varsity taking over the operations and academic activities of National Institute of Animal Welfare.

"We have signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) for the transfer of operations and management of academic activities of the National Institute of Animal Welfare," a senior university official said.

The National Institute of Animal Welfare was earlier managed by the Environment Ministry.

The memorandum was signed on June 29 by JNU Vice Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar and Joint Secretary, Environment Ministry Anil Sant.

The agreement allows JNU to venture into animal welfare with six 1-month certification courses and one 6-month diploma course, beginning this academic session, and also to start a master's course after one year.

"Courses based purely on various aspects of animal welfare will be conducted for the first time in the country. To recognise animals as sentient beings, capable of experiencing pain and suffering and to promote their welfare is an issue of importance and a part of the social development of nations worldwide," the official added. New Delh: Students can now opt for courses in animal welfare sciences at the prestigious Jawahar Lal Nehru University from this academic session, with the varsity taking over the operations and academic activities of National Institute of Animal Welfare.

"We have signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) for the transfer of operations and management of academic activities of the National Institute of Animal Welfare," a senior university official said.

The National Institute of Animal Welfare was earlier managed by the Environment Ministry.

The memorandum was signed on June 29 by JNU Vice Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar and Joint Secretary, Environment Ministry Anil Sant.

The agreement allows JNU to venture into animal welfare with six 1-month certification courses and one 6-month diploma course, beginning this academic session, and also to start a master's course after one year.

"Courses based purely on various aspects of animal welfare will be conducted for the first time in the country. To recognise animals as sentient beings, capable of experiencing pain and suffering and to promote their welfare is an issue of importance and a part of the social development of nations worldwide," the official added.
New Delhi: Hitting out at the opposition over the issue of drug menace, Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal on Sunday said efforts are being made to defame the people of the state by dubbing them as "drug addicts" and argued had the state been suffering from the problem, it would not have progressed on various indexes.

"I feel sad. Efforts are being made to defame the people and the state... First, we were dubbed as terrorists and now as 'nashedis' (drug addicts)," he said at an event to mark the 300th anniversary of Sikh general Baba Banda Bahadur Singh's martyrdom here.

The event was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, among others.

The SAD leader said the state was high on development index. "We are the biggest producers of hand tools, mushroom, tractor combines... Had we been addicts, we could not have achieved so much," he said.

Sukhbir's father and state chief minister Prakash Singh Badal, Haryana and Punjab Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki, Haryana CM Manohar Khattar and some Union ministers were also present at the event.

Punjab Assembly election in early 2017 could well be India's first state poll where drug abuse could be a central theme.

The movie 'Udta Punjab' has already given opposition parties like AAP -- seeking to make inroads in the state -- a handle to attack the ruling SAD-BJP combine on the issue of drug abuse.

A Punjab minister had recently downplayed the spread of drug menace in the state, saying only one per cent of the population was affected.
Chandigarh: Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh on Sunday demanded an independent probe into the allegations of AAP MLA Naresh Yadav's involvement in the desecration of a religious book.

"Since the needle of suspicion now points towards both, the Akali-BJP combine as well as the AAP, it is important that there is a credible probe to find out the actual truth," the former CM said in a statement here today.

"Given the sensitivity of the matter, we need to exercise utmost restraint and caution," Amarinder said, insisting "no guilty should be allowed to go scot-free."

He said, "It is a clear act of provocation done deliberately to hurt the sentiments of a particular community for vested interests."

The PCC president hoped that the AAP MLA, who was publicly named by one of the accused, will cooperate in the investigation.

"In order to reach to the root of the matter, it needs to be investigated by an independent agency whose credentials are above board," the Amritsar MP said, adding "since the needle of suspicion points at both the SAD-BJP and the AAP, it is important that the probe conducted should be above board and acceptable to all."

Notably, Punjab Police today said Aam Aadmi Party MLA Naresh Yadav has been booked in connection with the alleged sacrilege incident in Malerkotla on June 24 and will be summoned for interrogation even as AAP described it as a "political conspiracy" to defame the party ahead of 2017 Assembly polls.
Baghdad: A bomb ripped through a busy shopping district in central Baghdad early on Sunday, killing at least six people and setting stores ablaze, officials said.

The blast in the Karrada area, where many people go to shop ahead of the holiday marking the end of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, also wounded at least 20 people, the officials said.

Interior Ministry spokesman Saad Maan said the attack was a car bomb near a restaurant, and that it burned shops in the area.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but the Islamic State jihadist group carries out frequent bombings targeting civilians in Baghdad and elsewhere.

IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014, but has since lost significant ground to Iraqi forces, most recently in Fallujah, a city west of Baghdad that was recaptured a week ago.
Dhaka: Bangladesh on Sunday blamed "homegrown" Islamist terrorists and Pakistan's spy agency ISI for the country's worst terror attack in which 20 hostages were hacked to death, ruling out the role of the Islamic State, as the shocked nation began observing two days of national mourning.

"Let me clear it again, there are no ISIS or al-Qaeda presence or existence in Bangladesh...The hostage-takers were all home-grown terrorists not members of ISIS or any other international Islamist outfits," Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told PTI.

"We know them (hostage-takers) along with their ancestors, they all grew here in Bangladesh...They belong to homegrown outfits like JMB (Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh)," he said.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the killing of the hostages, mostly foreigners, and two police officers during the 12-hour siege that ended yesterday after the army stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery popular with expats in the diplomatic zone here, killing six attackers and capturing one alive.

Hossain Toufique Imam, the political advisor to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said that the way in which the hostages were killed with machetes suggests the role of a local terrorist group, the banned Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen.

"Pakistan's ISI and Jamaat connection is well known... they want to derail the current government," Imam told a TV channel.

The arrested terrorist chickened out at the last minute and he holds the key to crucial details, he said.

Two teams of CID investigators and a bomb disposal squad today visited the Spanish restaurant to collect evidence after Bangladesh's worst terror attack.

A police source was quoted as saying by the Dhaka Tribune that all the attackers were Bangladeshi nationals aged between 20 and 28. Police said the attackers were well-educated and most came from rich families.

"All of them were students and communicated at the crime scene in both Bengali and English," the police source said.

Police chief AKM Shahidul Hoque said five of the dead gunmen were listed as militants and police had been looking for them. Police identified them as Akash, Bikash, Don, Bandhon, and Ripon.

Hostages who were killed include 19-year-old Indian girl Tarishi Jain. Nine Italians, 7 Japanese, one American of Bangladeshi origin, and two Bangladeshis were also among the people who were killed.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina vowed to trace the "roots" of the culprits who supplied weapons and explosives to the terrorists.

Her remarks came during a meeting with Japan's State Minister of Foreign Affairs Seiji Kihara at her official residence Ganabhaban.
New Delhi: Barely a few days ahead of the Expedition 48 crew makes it to the International Space Station (ISS), American space agency NASA has announced the names of the three astronauts who will be a part of it.

Presently, the space station is home to Expedition 47's three-member crew consisting of American astronaut Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineers Oleg Skripochka and Alexey Ovchinin of Russian Roscosmos.

The Expedition 48 crew will consist of NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, and astronaut Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will launch at 9:36 pm (7:36 am Baikonur time, July 7) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

All three will spend approximately four months on the orbital complex, returning to Earth in October.

These expeditions are jointly conducted by NASA, ESA (European Space Agency), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency) and Canada, along with the Italian and Brazilian space agencies (ASI and AEB respectively), wherein, the astronauts aboard the ISS carry out experiments related to biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science, which will aid the space agency in its mission for a future Mars and other deep space probes.

As per NASA, the trio will travel in an upgraded Soyuz spacecraft, testing modified systems for two days  and 34 Earth orbits  before docking to the space stations Rassvet module at 12:12 am, Saturday, July 9. NASA TV coverage of docking will begin at 11:30 pm Friday, July 8.

Hatches between the Soyuz and station will be opened about 2:50 am Saturday, when the newly arrived crew will be greeted by Expedition 48 Commander Jeff Williams of NASA and Flight Engineers Oleg Skripochka and Alexey Ovchinin of Roscosmos. NASA TV coverage of hatch opening and welcoming ceremonies will begin at 2:30 am.

The entire event will be covered on NASA's live TV.
Meerut: A spokesperson of the Congress Party has reportedly said that Priyanka Gandhi would address a whopping 150 rallies covering the length and breadth of Uttar Pradesh ahead of the state assembly elections in 2017.

Citing a spokesperson of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC), TOI said that the Gandhi scion will canvass across the state and the campaign would be "nothing like anyone has seen".

"The workers are very enthusiastic about the prospect of Priyanka Gandhi leading the charge. The programme is not final yet but tentatively, it is being said that she will play a leading role in the party's campaign in Uttar Pradesh.

She will address over 150 rallies across the length and breadth of the state. Traditionally, she has only campaigned in Amethi and Rae Bareli. This time, she will move beyond those two Lok Sabha constituencies," TOI quoted Satya Dev Tripathi, chairman of the UPCC communications department, as saying.

"It will be nothing like anything anyone has seen. The Congress will do well in this election. The programme is being finalised at the top level. The final details will be sketched out by the Congress president," he added.
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New York: At least 12 people were killed and 38 others wounded after two parked car bombs exploded in separate neighbourhoods in Baghdad last evening.

Police said that the first explosion occurred in a busy commercial street in the central neighborhood of Karrada, killing 11 and wounding 33, reports CNN.

Those injured and trapped in the adjacent buildings were rescued by the fire-fighting crews.

The second explosion took place in an outdoor market in the Shaab neighbourhood of south-eastern Baghdad, killing one and wounding five.

ISIS in a statement posted on Twitter claimed responsibility for the Karrada attack and said that the group is targeting Shiite neighbourhoods.

And both Karrada and Shaab are predominately Shiite.

In a similar incident, in May this year, a series of car bombs killed scores of people in Baghdad with ISIS claiming responsibility for many of those bombings.
Kabul: Twenty Taliban militants surrendered to the government in Afghanistan`s Badakhshan province, police said on Sunday.

"Taliban militants under Mawlawi Ikramudin gave up fighting and handed over their weapons to police in Faizabad on Saturday," Xinhua news agency quoted a police official as saying.

The surrender took place amid heavy fighting between security forces and Taliban fighters in Raghistan district where dozens of people from both the sides have been killed.


Vienna: An alleged supermarket robber was gunned down and at least two policemen were wounded in a shootout on Saturday evening in Vienna.

The incident, reported by news daily Heute, took place around 6:10 p.m. local time at a branch of the Billa supermarket chain in Hutteldorferstrae -- a station on Line U3 of the Vienna U-Bahn.

According to local witnesses, two employees were held at gunpoint in the supermarket after it was closed.

The dead robber has been identified as a Bosnian man (50), who is a suspect in at least two previous robberies.

He was armed with a pistol with a silencer and was described by police spokesman Paul Eidenberger as "a professional", The locale (Austria) reported.

According to a police spokesman, a silent alarm was trigged. A team of police responded immediately, cornering the suspect, who allegedly opened fire on them, wounding two officers.
Peshawar: At least 31 people, including eight security officials, were today killed after torrential rain hit the south west of Chitral district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, triggering flash floods in the area, officials said.

Around 30 houses were demolished in the rainstorm caused by continuous heavy rainfall in the area near the Pak-Afghan border.

At least 31 people, including eight security officials, were killed and 17 people were reportedly missing in Ursoon Village while as many were injured due to flash flooding in the area occurred due to the over flow of the Chitral river, DPO Chitral Asif Iqbal was quoted as saying by The Express Tribune.

The floods also washed away a mosque at the time when special Ramzan prayers were being held inside, he added.

Pakistan-Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan shared his condolences to the victims families and have asked the government to take urgent steps to trace the missing people.

PTI is the ruling party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) was in constant contact with the district administration for rescue and relief efforts, according to a statement released by the authority.

KP Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra has expressed deep grief and sorrow over the losses caused by the flooding and directed the authorities concerned to speed up the rescue and relief efforts in the affected area.

He also directed the administration to take all precautionary measures to save the lives and properties of the people.
Beirut: Fierce government bombardment of an opposition-controlled Syrian town has killed 43 people, among them children and medical staff, a monitoring group said Sunday in a new toll

Hours of air strikes and shelling on Saturday struck Jayrud, 60 kilometres (35 miles) northeast of Damascus, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said two medics were among the dead, as well as women and children.

The bombardment the first on Jayrud in at least two years began after Syria`s armed forces said Islamist militants killed a government pilot when he was forced to eject from his plane on Friday.

In a statement, the military had pledged that the attack on its pilot "will not go unpunished".

Early Sunday, Abdel Rahman said prominent figures in Jayrud had reached an agreement with government officials "that the (rebel) fighters would leave the town in exchange for the pilot`s body being handed over."

A Facebook page run by Jayrud activists that publishes news about the town said rebels began withdrawing from their bases around the town overnight.

Anti-regime factions in Jayrud include the Saudi-backed Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam), the hardline Ahrar al-Sham, and Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front.

A truce between the regime and local representatives had kept the town calm for over two years.

Dozens of similar agreements have been brokered among the myriad of armed groups fighting in Syria`s complex war.

But a broader cease fire between government forces and non-jihadist rebels brokered by the United States and Russia in February has been repeatedly violated by both sides.

More than 280,000 people have been killed and millions have been displaces since Syria`s conflict broke out in March 2011.
Baghdad: A suicide car bombing killed at least 119 people in a Baghdad shopping district in the early hours of Sunday, making it the deadliest single attack in the capital this year, officials said.

According to security officials, the blast ripped through a street in the Karrada area where many people had gone to shop ahead of the holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. The explosion claimed lives of at least 95 people left over 130 wounded.

ISIS claims responsibility of the terror attack

ISIS issued a statement claiming the suicide car bombing, saying it was carried out by an Iraqi as part of the group's ongoing security operations.

The jihadist group said the bombing targeted members of Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority, whom it considers heretics and frequently attacks in Baghdad and elsewhere.

The bombing came a week after Iraqi forces completely recaptured Fallujah, a city 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad that was a key ISIS stronghold.

Violence in the capital has decreased since ISIS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014, but the jihadists have previously stepped up attacks following military losses.

With Fallujah retaken by Baghdad, second city Mosul is the only major Iraqi population centre held by ISIS.

(With AFP inputs)
Baghdad: At least 12 people were killed and 27 others injured in two car bombings at busy commercial areas in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad early Sunday, an Interior Ministry source said.

One attack occurred at about 1:00 a.m. local time when a suicide bomber detonated his car bomb at a crowded thoroughfare in Karrada-Dakhil in southern central Baghdad, killing 11 people and wounding 22 others, the source said told Xinhua.

Several shops were damaged and several cars were destroyed by the powerful blast, the source said.

Another explosion ripped through the capital after midnight when a booby-trapped car went off at Shallal popular market, killing at least one and wounding five others along with destroying several nearby shops and stalls.

Iraq has been hit by a new wave of violence since the Islamic State terrorist group took control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions in June 2014.
Washington DC: In a major development in Dhaka attack, authorities have stated that all the attackers from the deadly assault on a cafe were Bangladeshi citizens.

Moreover, five of them were militants that police had tried to arrest previously.

Police Inspector General Shahidul Hoque told CNN that two police officers had been killed in a gunfire exchange earlier in the standoff.

The nationalities of the 20 hostages who were found dead inside the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe after Bangladeshi troops stormed the cafe early Saturday morning, ending a nearly 11-hour siege, were also released.

Nine of the victims were Italian, seven were Japanese, one was from India, two were Bangladeshi and one was a U.S. citizen of Bangladeshi origin, according to the country's Joint Force Command. Eleven of the victims were male and nine were female.

Six terrorists were killed and one was captured alive, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said Saturday.

Initially, a U.S. official told CNN that it was more likely that al Qaeda had conducted the attack. But after photos showing the inside of the cafe and dead hostages were posted on an ISIS-affiliated website, U.S. officials said they are now focused on ISIS.
Dhaka: Bangladesh government on Sunday claimed the attackers who slaughtered 20 hostages inside a cafe here in the country's worst terror attack were members of "homegrown" Islamist terrorist outfits and not ISIS militants, as the shocked nation began observing two days of national mourning.

"Let me clear it again, there are no ISIS or al-Qaeda presence or existence in Bangladesh. The hostage-takers were all home-grown terrorists not members of ISIS or any other international Islamist outfits," Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told PTI.

"We know them (hostage-takers) along with their ancestors, they all grew here in Bangladesh...They belong to homegrown outfits like JMB (Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh)," he said.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the killing of the hostages, mostly foreigners and one Indian girl, and two police officers during an 11-hour siege that ended yesterday after the army stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery popular with expats in the diplomatic zone here, killing six attackers and capturing one alive.

A police source was quoted as saying by the Dhaka Tribune that all the attackers were Bangladeshi nationals aged between 20 and 28.

Police said the attackers were well-educated and most came from rich families.

"All of them were students and communicated at the crime scene in both Bengali and English," the police source said.

The government has consistently ruled out the presence of the dreaded terror group in the Muslim-majority nation though experts have been maintaining that series of brutal attacks on minorities and secular activists had the hallmarks of ISIS group.

Meanwhile, police have released the photos of the six gunmen killed during the raid by commandos. A seventh was arrested and is being interrogated by Bangladeshi intelligence officers.

Police chief AKM Shahidul Hoque said five of the dead gunmen were listed as militants and police had been looking for them.

Police identified them as Akash, Bikash, Don, Bandhon, and Ripon.

Bangladeshi media reports said that after US-based SITE Intelligence Group published photos of five gunmen holding assault rifles who, the Islamic State claims, killed the hostages, former classmates have started identifying by posting their old pictures on social media.

According to the reports, three of the five attackers have so far been identified by their friends.

Announcing a two-day state mourning for those killed in the worst terror attack in the country, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina vowed to do everything to eliminate terrorists from the country and asked extremists to stop killing in the name of religion.

She asked all, including the general public, to get united to resist a "handful of terrorists".

Twenty hostages, including 19-year-old Indian girl Tarushi Jain, were hacked to death by terrorists inside the cafe popular with expats in the diplomatic zone before commandos launched an assault killing six attackers and capturing one alive.

Most of those killed were found with their throats slit.

Of the 20 hostages slain 9 were Italian, 7 Japanese, one American of Bangladeshi origin, and two were locals, the army said.

Among those rescued were Indian, Sri Lankan and Japanese nationals, media reports said. Around 30 people were injured.

Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack through its Amaq news agency, nearly four hours after the hostage crisis unfolded.
Dhaka: The terrorists who massacred 20 foreigners and Bangladeshi at a popular cafe here were highly educated and most came from wealthy families, a minister said on Sunday.

"They are all highly educated young men and went to university. No one is from a madrassa," the Bangladeshi media quoted Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan as saying.

Asked why they would have become militants, The Daily Star quoted Khan as saying: "It has become a fashion."

The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the massacre. The militants, who seized the cafe on Friday night, also killed two policemen.

Six of the seven attackers were shot dead. A seventh was arrested.
Dhaka: Three of the terrorists who slaughtered 20 people in the Bangladeshi capital city have been identified by their former friends after their photographs were released.

One of the terrorists, Nibras Islam, has been recognised by his former classmates in the privately-run North South University in Dhaka, bdnews24.com reported on Sunday.

An expatriate Bangladeshi has posted on Facebook a photo of one Mir Sabih Mubashsher along with the photo of an attacker.

He quoted one of Mubashsher`s classmates in Scholastica School in Dhaka as saying that Mubashsher went missing in March before his A-Level exam.

A Mahbub Rajib posted a family photo of Rohan Imtiaz also from Scholastica, known as a school for the children of the well-to-do in Dhaka.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the macabre killing of the 20 people, mostly foreigners, in a cafe in Dhaka on Friday evening.

Six of the attackers were also killed. The attackers reportedly shouted Islamic slogans when they set upon the innocents at Holey Artisan Bakery, in Dhaka`s upscale diplomatic heart of Gulshan.

The assailants killed two policemen who tried to enter the cafe, after taking a number of hostages.

Army commandos stormed the eatery on Saturday morning and rescued 13 hostages, killing six attackers and arresting another.

The army said 20 foreigners were found dead on the premises during the raid.

Terrorism observer group SITE published the photos of the attackers on Saturday night.

Police have also released photos of the gunmen killed during the raid.

Police chief A.K.M. Shahidul Hoque said five of the dead gunmen were listed as militants and police had been looking for them.

Police identified them as `Akash`, `Bikash`, `Don`, `Bandhon`, and `Ripon`.
Cairo: A search vessel has recovered all underwater human remains from the EgyptAir flight MS804 crash site in the Mediterranean, Egyptian investigators said.

The John Lethbridge, a privately owned deep-sea survey and recovery vehicle, is now headed to Alexandria to hand over the remains to prosecution and forensic authorities in the presence of members of the investigation committee.

The remains will then be transported to the forensic authority in Cairo for DNA tests, the committee said in a statement yesterday.

The ship, which was contracted by the Egyptian government, will continue to search the crash site in order to confirm no other remains are left behind, the investigators said.

The two black boxes -- the data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder -- were recovered by the crew of the John Lethbridge last month.

The investigating committee on Saturday said the memory chips of the cockpit voice recorder are not damaged and showed the possibility of retrieving the records which could possibly unravel the mystery of the crash.

Last week, the committee said it has extracted data from the plane recorder. The recorded data highlighted that smoke was detected from the lavatory and avionics bay, which confirms earlier reports about smoke signs.

It also said the recovered debris from the plane's front showed signs of high temperature damage.

EgyptAir flight MS804 from Paris to Cairo crashed into the Mediterranean Sea about 280 kms from the Egyptian seacoast on May 19, with 56 passengers and 10 cabin crew on board.

The wreckage was recovered from the Mediterranean Sea floor earlier this month.

Egyptian officials have suspected terrorism, but no group has come forward to claim credit.

Evidence from the wreckage will enable investigators to build a forensic picture of what occurred. The black boxes offer the best clues to determining why the plane went down.
Baghdad: A suicide car bombing claimed by the Islamic State group ripped through a busy Baghdad shopping district Sunday, killing at least 119 people in the deadliest attack this year in Iraq`s capital.

The blast hit the Karrada district early in the day as the area was packed with shoppers ahead of this week`s holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

It came a week after Iraqi security forces recaptured Fallujah from IS, leaving Mosul as the only Iraqi city under the jihadist group`s control.

The bombing also wounded more than 180 people, security officials said.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited the site of the attack and vowed "punishment" for its perpetrators, his office said.

Abadi`s office later announced three days of mourning for the victims.

The blast set buildings ablaze, and firemen were still working to extinguish them some 12 hours later.

Men carried the bodies of two victims out of one burned building and a crowd of people looked on from the rubble-filled street as firefighters worked at the site.

Hussein Ali, a 24-year-old former soldier, said six workers at his family`s shop were killed in the attack, their bodies so badly burned they could not be identified.

"I will return to the battlefront. At least there, I know the enemy so I can fight him. But here, I don`t know who I`m fighting," Ali told AFP.

IS issued a statement claiming responsibility for the suicide bombing, saying it was carried out by an Iraqi as part of the group`s "ongoing security operations".The jihadist group said the blast targeted members of Iraq`s Shiite Muslim majority, whom the Sunni extremists consider heretics and frequently attack in Baghdad and elsewhere.

UN Iraq envoy Jan Kubis condemned the "cowardly and heinous act of unparallelled proportions," calling on authorities to bring those responsible to justice.

Officials said another explosion in the Shaab area of northern Baghdad killed at least one person and wounded four on Sunday, but the cause of the blast was disputed.

US National Security Council spokesperson Ned Price said the attacks "only strengthen our resolve to support Iraqi security forces as they continue to take back territory" from IS.

Bombings in the capital have decreased since IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in June 2014, with the jihadists apparently occupied with operations elsewhere.

But the group has struck back against Iraqi civilians after suffering military setbacks.

A video posted on social media showed men -- apparently angry at the government`s failure to prevent the carnage in Karrada -- throwing rocks towards what was said to be Abadi`s convoy.

A bystander could also be heard cursing at Abadi in another video.

But the premier struck a conciliatory tone over anger directed towards him.

"I understand the emotional feelings and actions that occurred in a moment of sadness and anger," Abadi said in a statement.

In May, Baghdad was rocked by a series of blasts that killed more than 150 people in seven days.With thousands of vehicles moving in and out of the city each day, such bombings are difficult to prevent.

But there are also flaws in Iraqi security measures in the city, especially the continued use of fake bomb detectors at checkpoints years after the man who sold them to Iraq was jailed for fraud in Britain.

Iraqi forces completely recaptured Fallujah, a city 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad, from the jihadists a week ago.

Anti-government fighters seized Fallujah in early 2014 and it later became one of IS`s main strongholds in the country.

IS`s defeat there was compounded by a devastating series of air strikes targeting jihadist forces as they sought to flee the Fallujah area.

Iraqi and US-led coalition aircraft destroyed hundreds of IS vehicles and killed dozens of fighters in two days of strikes against jihadist convoys after the end of the Fallujah battle, officials said.

With Fallujah retaken, Iraqi forces are now setting their sights on second city Mosul, the last major population centre held by IS in Iraq.

In addition to Mosul, IS still holds significant territory in Nineveh province, of which it is the capital, as well as areas in Kirkuk to its west and Anbar to its south.

The jihadist group seized control of large parts of Iraq and Syria in mid-2014, declaring an Islamic "caliphate", committing widespread atrocities and organising or inspiring a series of deadly attacks in Western cities and across the Middle East.
YEREVAN, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS. NIGEC managing director has reported on the agreement reached with Armenia to bring about a threefold increase in Irans gas exports to the Caucasus region country, reports MEHR news agency.

Following an earlier power deal between Iran and Armenia over increasing the electricity exchange volume, the two countries have reached a new accord for boosting exports of natural gas.

Estimations reveal that electricity and gas exchanges between Iran and Armenia will climb threefold the current amount.

Head of National Iranian Gas Exports Company (NIGEC) Alireza Kameli said Iran is now deploying one million cubic meters of natural gas to Armenia per day asserting on the basis of the preliminary agreement, the figure will hit three million cubic meters overall.

The two sides are currently preparing the required infrastructure for boosting natural gas exchange, stressed the official adding the accord will soon become finalized and operational with more negotiations.

Kameli pointed to the countrys gas production capacity reiterating at the present time, there exist no limitations for increasing gas exports to Armenia.

Last summer, a contract was signed between the two countries for construction of the third 400-kV power transmission line worth more than 107 million Euros.

The transmission line between Iran and Armenia is 275 kilometers long and the entire process of procurement of equipment, construction, installation and commissioning will be carried out by the Iranian side.

It has been estimated that with construction of the new power network, electricity exchange volume between Iran and Armenia will rise from the current 300 to about 1000 megawatts.

One unique advantage of the new transmission line, in addition to development of power ties between Iran and Armenia, would be the possibility to connect Irans power grid to Georgia and Russia providing grounds for power transit among various Caucasus region states.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has said she will formally trigger the two-year divorce process by the end of March 2017 but Brussels and London face gruelling negotiations on a future trade deal

Financial movers and shakers gathered in France on Saturday urged a clear and timely political response to lift the uncertainty caused by Britain's shock vote to leave the European Union.

A raft of top business leaders and intellectuals have gathered in the southern French city of Aix-en-Provence for a three-day meeting to discuss how to react to the fallout from last week's "Brexit" vote.

Participants swiftly agreed on at least one thing -- nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next, the underlying source of their worries.

Britain has not yet begun the process of disengaging itself from the European Union, with arguments raging after the country was split 52 percent to 48 percent in the referendum.

Renault-Nissan automaker giant head Carlos Ghosn said the loss of Britain in itself from the EU bloc was not so much the problem as that the uncertainties such a move would provoke.

"Worried? Yes," said Ghosn. "Not because of Brexit but worried by the uncertainty that has engendered."

For Ghosn, "companies, good or bad, are capable of adapting to everything. all kinds of situations."

But with Britain's new status regarding the European Union not clear he said firms would have to live with uncertainty. "We are going to navigate as we go along," said Ghosn, not least regarding the post-Brexit future of Nissan's factory employing 8,000 in the north east of England.

- 'Could cause damage' -

Oil giant Total's CEO Patrick Pouyanne said for his part that Brexit would "not have a direct impact" as likely sterling weakness could bring down production costs for the group's North Sea operations.

"On the other hand, Brexit will have European growth impacts on the macro-economic front and that could cause damage," Pouyanne said.

"There is an element of more uncertainty, instability, in a world which is already facing up to a range of geopolitical difficulties, with Daesh (Islamic State), Ukraine, a swathe of financial crises and now Brexit."

Story continues

US ratings agency SP Global Ratings cut its rating for the EU by one notch last Thursday citing the uncertainty created by the Brexit vote.

"The only message I would like to transmit is we have to act fast," said Pouyanne or risk allowing uncertainty to "destroy confidence" in the whole bloc.

- Time to make decisions -

Politicians indicated they understand that message and its urgency.

"The first thing to do is lift the uncertainty as soon as possible so that economic actors are able to take decisions quickly, including decisions pertaining to investment and development," French Minister of Finance Michel Sapin said Friday.

"Today," Sapin added, I feel economic actors are demanding political decisions -- perhaps a revamping of politics?"

Paris is looking to use Brexit as a chance to bolster the attractiveness of France and Prime Minister Manuel Valls gave an interview to Saturday's Le Parisien in which he set out France's stall to that end.

"We are working on means of reinforcing our attractiveness. I am thinking notably of tax policy or the status of expatriates. So I say to large international companies -- Welcome to Paris?! Come and invest in France," said Valls.

"We are the number one financial market place in the eurozone in terms of direct and indirect employment with 1.2 million jobs," Muriel Penicaud, director general of Business France, a public body tasked with showing off France's plus points to the business world, told AFP.

The group has just published a paper highlighting reasons to do business in Paris, insisting the capital offers "a robust stock market regulatory and financial system.


Macedonia's laws define vandalism as a misdemeanor which puts a limit on the jail time faced by participants in a political movement whose symbol is splashes of brightly colored paint.

The Macedonian police are notorious for their crackdowns on protest, and the Colorful Revolution's many anti-corruption demands include an end to police harassment of political opposition. To make their point, the opposition has splashed bright paint on national monuments and government buildings.

The Colorful Revolution has picked up steam, creating eye-catching reminders of its existence that persist even when the participants have been swept up by the police. Last week, an attempt by police to seize a van full of protesters' audio equipment had to be called off because massed protesters surrounded the police and chased them off, chanting "Freedom! Freedom!"

The Macedonian government  which took power through rigged elections  has responded by isolating, brutalizing and arresting the Colorful Revolution's leadership, but the Colorful Revolution keeps growing.



After departure from the protest more than 30 policemen stopped the van, driven by Lidija Dimova, MP. At the moment when the crowd gathered in front of the Parliament heard about this, they started coming towards us in order to help us. When our police realised that the citizens are approaching, it took them literally 5 seconds to enter their vehicles and escape as some kind of mafia gang. Is this a normal police?! Thank you, good people, you make our fighting and living worthwhile!

Defying Police Harassment, the Macedonian Colorful Revolutionaries Continue to Chant "Freedom"

[Filip Stojanovski/Global Voices]

(Image: Filip Stojanovski, CC-BY)
Winners

Until September 2014, Suelin Chen had spent her career in the sciences, attending MIT, working as a research assistant at Massachusetts General Hospital, and working at Harvard.

So when she left the world of science and engineering to found her own startup, she didn't think she'd face any pushback. She'd had years of experience, training from one of the best universities in the world and an idea that she was 100% confident would succeed.

But she immediately found that the startup world was not as welcoming as she was expecting.

"There was always huge gender imbalance in my graduate program, but its so much worse in tech," Chen told Business Insider.

"There are so many biases that Ive encountered and theres so few role models for us. I have some great networks in Boston, and I have a lot of great entrepreneur friends, but most of them are men."

Chen began seeking out groups for female founders, which is when she heard about Project Entrepreneur, an accelerator for early-stage companies created by Rent the Runway founders Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Fleiss in partnership with UBS. She applied and her company, Cake, was one of three companies chosen to participate in the program.

'They still don't take me seriously'

Chen describes Cake as a platform for sharing end-of-life preferences. Upon signing up, users answer a series of questions from health care preferences to insurance issues to the music they want at their funeral, with the answers populating a profile that can be viewed by family members.

If you're wondering about the name of the company, Chen said it's named Cake because planning the end of your life should be like a piece of cake, rather than stressful and confusing.

Story continues

As Chen worked to get Cake up and running, she asked for advice from friends in the startup world who have gone through some of the same things, like fundraising and creating a business plan.

But what worked for her male entrepreneur friends wasn't working for her. When she tried their tactics, she faced skepticism and a lack of respect.

"I have a Ph.D. from MIT. I was the director of the Lab at Harvard. It doesnt matter. They still dont take me seriously," Chen said. "No matter my credentials, no matter all the data that weve gathered about my company. We have partnerships with huge health care companies and are working with one of the largest insurers in the U.S. and its still not enough. Ive been told Im too nice, Im too feminine."

SuelinChen

That has changed after Project Entrepreneur, she said.

The six-week program  which involved three female-founded startups working out of at Rent the Runway's headquarters to build their businesses  wrapped up on June 30.

Chen said the best part of the program was not only meeting other women going through the same things she was, but also finding mentors in Hyman and Fleiss who could give her specific solutions to her problems, provide her with feedback she could use and help her build confidence.

Giving concrete advice, not platitudes

Being able to provide specific, meaningful feedback was one of the reasons Rent the Runway wanted to start an accelerator, Hyman said.

"Everyone in the world of entrepreneurship gives you these high-level pieces of feedback and advice that actually dont translate into helping you answer a question like, 'How do I get my employees health care? What if I dont know how to do graphic design? How do I design my first brand?'" Hyman said. "Those are the things that are the real roadblocks for you at the beginning."

As Hyman and Fleiss were working to launch Rent the Runway, they were lucky enough to meet with heads of some big, successful startups like Netflix, Spotify and eBay. While they were offered great advice, Hyman said they rarely received the practical tips they really needed.

That early experience is what made them realize they wanted to help others get their start, and to do that sooner rather than later.

"A lot of things had to go right for us to get to where we are today," Hyman said. "We decided that we wanted to start actively paying it forward right now while we still remembered all of the struggles of the early days. The other approach would be, wait 10 or 15 years, wait until Rent the Runway is a much, much bigger business, and then go out and start helping founders. But youre kind of disconnected at the point from the everyday questions of how do you scale and how do you get traffic to the site."

Judges

Three companies in the accelerator are vastly different. Besides Cake, the judges chose Full Harvest, which connects farms to food companies in order to sell imperfect or surplus fruit and vegetables, and Komae, which allows friends and family to exchange babysitting through points in an app.

All three companies had already made some progress before joining the accelerator, and Hyman said they only accepted companies who could show they had a real and viable business model. Project Entrepreneur isn't looking to launch companies from nothing, and it also doesn't want to launch more companies along the same lines as Rent the Runway.

"My generation of female entrepreneurs has been isolated to consumer-facing businesses," Hyman said. "Some of the most successful female entrepreneurs like Katrina Lake or Julia Hartz or Payal Kadakia, were kind of in a similar space. So it was really important to us to break out of that and show that theres diversity in gender and in background and interest."

And according to Hyman, this first round of Project Entrepreneur is just the beginning. She plans to ask her fellow female founders to participate and hopes to do an accelerator round every summer going forward.

Said Hyman: "I hope that well incubate double, if not triple, the companies in our office next year."

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CASPER, Wyo., July 03, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Westside Animal Hospital, serving pets and pet owners in and around the Casper, WY area, would like to remind animal lovers about the dangers of heartworm. As mosquito populations rise during the summer months, heartworm risk rises as well.

Pet owners should be vigilant and take appropriate measures to ensure their animals are protected. Westside Animal Hospital recommends testing pets for heartworm as well as using preventative medicine on a monthly basis.

Heartworm is a potentially deadly disease that is most often transmitted among animals via mosquitoes. Once a mosquito has bitten an infected animal, the larvae of the heartworm can then be transferred to another animal if the mosquito bites them. Once an animal has been infected, the larvae begin to develop and will eventually mature into adults within six months.

The worms at the root of heartworm disease can live in the heart and lungs of infected animals as well as their blood vessels. Heartworms can grow as much as 12 inches in length. This disease can be quite severe and potentially deadly in just about any mammal. Pet owners should be vigilant about their dogs, cats, rabbits, ferrets and any other mammals kept as pets.

However, while heartworm can potentially affect any animal, the most common host pet is dogs. The American Heartworm Society refers to dogs as a natural host for the invader.

Once heartworms have matured inside an animals body, they reproduce and begin to produce larva. Untreated, adult heartworms can cause long-term organ and artery damage. The heartworm is a parasite that can affect an animals quality of life both during infection and after theyve been treated. Prevention is always the best option, and infected animals should be treated as soon as possible.

A simple blood test is all it takes to determine if a pet has heartworm, Dr. Doug Johannessen explains. And keeping pets on monthly preventative medication can help to protect them against infection.

Dr. Laura Johannessen adds, If your pet tests positive for heartworm, we will help you determine the best treatment option to minimize damage to the heart, lungs and arteries.

As mosquito populations rise during the warmest months of the year, the risk of heartworm rises accordingly. Casper veterinarian and animal hospital Westside Animal Hospital offers both testing and preventative medications for heartworm. This Casper veterinarian also offers full exams, pet surgery, vaccinations, laboratory tests, spay and neuter procedures, nutritional advice, pet dental care and microchipping.

Westside Animal Hospital is located at 631 South Ash Street in Casper, Wyoming. Those in the area who have questions about the clinics services or who wish to book an appointment may do so by calling (307) 460-5604. More information is also available on their website at http://wahcasper.com/.

Westside Animal Hospital, (307) 460-5604
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Along with other faculty from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the medical school, Wise created the Children in Crisis Initiative to to improve the health of children in areas of the world plagued by conflict and political instability.

The program brings together Stanford researchers and students across disciplines.

Nowhere are their efforts better illustrated than in the rural communities around San Lucas Toliman, in the central mountains of Guatemala.

The programs effectiveness rests on a deep respect for the local communities merged with innovation by Stanford researchers.

Its absolutely essential to any program that the people in need be part of the solution, said Wise, who is the Richard E. Behrman Professor of Child Health and Society. Unlike many nongovernmental organizations and health programs, Wise believes the way to create a sustainable health system is for the locals to run it, so the health promoters manage the programs day-to-day activities.

This leaves the Stanford team free to focus on innovation, such as the new app. They believe the technology could change child health programs around the world. Wises team has partnered with Medic Mobile, a nonprofit that creates open-source software for health-care workers, which plans to distribute the app to other areas suffering from malnutrition.

The six Android tablets purchased by Children in Crisis are enough to monitor the programs 1,500 kids through the app.
They speak little Arabic and don't have a real mosque, but Cuba's small Muslim community practices the faith and will quietly mark the end of Ramadan as best they can. In Havana's old quarter, one can see a green and white minaret atop an old colonial-style building. It is here where Cuban Muslims have gathered for the past year to pray. Inside, the walls of the prayer hall are decorated with Arabic calligraphy and a Palestinian flag. The copies of the Quran have been translated into Spanish. "Salam aleikum," says a smiling man named Javier as he welcomes visitors in Arabic on a hot summer afternoon. He was born into a Catholic family but converted to Islam two years ago. "The text of the Bible seemed incomplete to me, so I changed religion," Javier said about his decision, an unusual one in a country where 70 percent of the population observes a blend of Christianity and Afro-Cuban beliefs. There are as many as 10,000 Muslims in Cuba, making up less than 0.1 percent of the island nation's population. According to experts, Islam was introduced to Cuba by Muslim students who came from countries such as Pakistan in the 1970s and 80s. - Mosque - "Tourists often come through this street and they are so surprised when they realize they are looking at a mosque," said Ahmed Aguelo, who converted to Islam 17 years ago and runs the prayer hall where some 200 worshippers gather for Friday prayers. "I am not officially an imam, as there is no training course here," he said. "But I know the basics." A few hundred meters away, a sign advertises the construction of a purpose-built mosque on a two-hectare (five-acre) piece of land. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised it to Cuba in February 2015. But building has yet to begin. In June 2015, the Cuban government gave the go-ahead for the inauguration of the prayer hall in the heart of Old Havana as "Cuba's first mosque." "We write 'mosque' at the entrance because it works like one," said Rigoberto Menendez, director of Arab House, which is behind the mosque project. "A real mosque would have more space" but "the main thing is for Muslims to be able to come together in one place." Cuba's Muslims have been clamoring for their own house of worship for 25 years. "We would meet in apartments around the city," said Pedro Lazo Torres, who converted in 1988 and is considered Cuba's first Muslim. "I can practice my religion totally freely in Cuba." It can be difficult being an observant Muslim in Cuba during the holy month of Ramadan. Tradition holds that Muslims break their obligatory fast by eating dates, but in Cuba there aren't any. "Everything is imported. The Saudi embassy supplies us with dates, traditional garments, 'halal' meat. With the help of God, we get by," said Lazo Torres, who goes by the name Yahya. Alen Garcia, a 33-year-old of African descent, said he gave up a lot when he converted to Islam. "I lost friends when I told them I wanted to become a Muslim. To convert was to renounce drinking rum, eating ham, going to parties and dancing salsa," he said. "In other words, it meant renouncing much of Cuban culture." There are no Arabic courses at Cuban universities. - Learning Arabic a challenge - Garcia explained that Arabic-speaking students from Chad, Afghanistan and Libya who attend the Latin American School of Medicine here give Cuban Muslims free classes in the language of the Quran. The Cuban Muslims also study Arabic with apps they can use offline. As the time approaches to break the day's fast, the prayer hall fills. Children play and squirm on the side of the room reserved for their mothers, who wear veils. The man who distributes food is named Leonel Diaz, but he goes by Mohamed. He converted at age 73. "It is never too late to welcome a good thing," he said. He agrees to discuss Guantanamo, the US prison for terror suspects that opened at a US-held base in eastern Cuba after the September 11, 2001 attacks. "States must find a solution to close this prison," he said. He noted that Colombia is close to reaching a peace accord with FARC leftist rebels after a half century of war. "I would like the same agreement for the Muslims who are held in Guantanamo," said Diaz. Yaquelin Diaz, who goes by the Islamic name Aisha, lived in Spain for eight years and it was there that she converted, thanks to a Pakistani brother-in-law. "Because of our habits lots of people think we are foreigners. They cannot imagine that there are Muslims in their country. But Islam is expanding in Cuba." Aisha said the only thing missing in Cuba is a shop that sells religious garments. "Our brothers from Saudi Arabia give them to us, but we cannot keep living off their charity. We need our own stores, in our own style. We must be able to promote Islam in Cuba." After the Cuban Revolution of 1959, Cuba became an officially atheist state and limited practice of all religions. But over time the restrictions eased. Cuba became a secular state with a constitutional reform carried out in 1992, Menendez said. Ahmed, the imam, adds: "Everything can evolve over the course of a country's history. Look, the United States killed thousands of blacks in the last century. And now it has a black president."
An inclusive rather than a coalition government is what President Duterte prefers, and inclusive means those from rebel groups as well.

In his speech during the change of command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) on Friday, the President bared that he spoke to several people from rebel groups, including Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria Sison and Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) founder Nur Misuari, even before he took his oath as the countrys 16th president.

If (I) can talk to Sison and bring about, not a coalition government, but an inclusive government, they are there already, Duterte said, referring to leftist appointees to his Cabinet like Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo and Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano.

Duterte said he is just waiting for Sisons arrival in the country to begin peace talks.

But the President noted that military and police powers would not be given to the CPP.

Duterte is also set to meet the leaders of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the MNLF in Jolo this week, offering them safe conduct passes.

Duterte said he has received a favorable response from the outside, apparently referring to the camps of the MILFs Al Hajj Murad Ebrahim and Ghazali Jaafar.

My job is to bring peace. My job is to talk to the enemies of the state, to the Communist Party of the Philippines, to the MILF, and to the men, and see if I could make a difference in our lives, he said.

The President has excluded the Abu Sayyaf among the rebel groups he intends to talk to because the Abu Sayyaf, he said, is claiming historical rights and more privileges in Mindanao.

A lot of the historical planners never really took into consideration that there was this oppression by a series of government that is not theirs. And they think that until now, were trying to repress them. And I said to them: You know you cannot drive us away anymore, Duterte said, noting that a number of Filipinos, like him, are related by blood to the Muslim people.

Story continues

But, in reality, we can only take so much. I am not warning Abu Sayyaf, but I said there will always be a time for reckoning, he added.

Newly designated AFP chief Gen. Ricardo Visaya also promised that the AFP under his leadership would launch a final push against internal security threats in line with the Presdients plan to refocus military efforts to addressing internal security conflicts.

We will be unrelenting in our focused military operations against the terrorist groups like the Abu Sayyaf Group and all its allied terrorist cells, Visaya said in his assumption speech.

Visaya also said under his leadership, the military would be realigning its resources to the locations and sanctuaries of the bandits in order to finish them off.  Giovanni Nilles, Jaime Laude
By Matt Spetalnick and Lesley Wroughton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has placed Myanmar, Uzbekistan, Sudan and Haiti on its list of worst human trafficking offenders, drawing guarded praise from some human rights groups following criticism that last years State Department report was politicized. While more than two dozen countries were downgraded in the closely watched Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report announced on Thursday, Thailand was removed from the bottom rung despite what the State Department described as widespread forced labor in the countrys vital seafood industry. Other nations demoted to the lowest ranking were Turkmenistan, Djibouti, Papua New Guinea and Suriname. But the Philippines, a key U.S. ally widely known for its thriving sex industry, was moved up to the top tier  the same level as countries like the United States and Germany  even though the report said sex trafficking there was still a significant problem. Despite that, some human rights groups especially welcomed downgrades for Myanmar and Uzbekistan, strategically important U.S. partners, and said those decisions may reflect an effort to restore credibility to the annual report, which grades countries in the fight against modern-day slavery. Critics had contended that politics trumped human rights in some of last years key ranking decisions. On the whole, this years trafficking report accurately reflects and critiques the record of countries around the world in addressing human trafficking and forced labor, unlike the report issued last year, which was marred by strong indications of political interference, said Sarah Margon, Washington director for Human Rights Watch. But she also said Thailands upgrade, which the report linked to legal reforms and increased prosecutions, was "problematic." Still, it could smooth U.S. relations with the military-run government at a time when Washington seeks Southeast Asian unity against China in the South China Sea. "Were not doing it (tackling human trafficking) for anybody, but its your duty to do so," Thai Prime Minister and junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha told reporters in Bangkok. "We dont need anyone to force us. The State Department demoted Uzbekistan to the bottom ranking just a year after giving a higher rating to the central Asian country, where state-orchestrated forced labor underpins its vital cotton industry. Turkmenistans downgrade was also based on its policy of forcing citizens to work the cotton fields. The report also downgraded Hong Kong from "Tier 2" to the "Tier 2 watchlist" and the local government in the Chinese territory said it "vehemently and categorically" rejected the decision. "We cannot accept that Hong Kong is a destination, transit and source territory for men, women and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor," the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region said in a statement. NOT INFLUENCED BY POLITICS Secretary of State John Kerry said ranking decisions were not influenced by politics or other factors. There are some tough calls. In the end they come down to an element of discretion, but not much," he said. A Reuters investigation published in August found that senior diplomats repeatedly overruled the State Departments anti-trafficking unit and inflated the grades of 14 strategically important countries. The State Department denied any political considerations but U.S. lawmakers raised questions about the reports credibility and called for reforms. U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, expressing dismay over Malaysia and Cuba retaining higher rankings, vowed to introduce legislation to address "flaws" in the ranking process - a threat he issued last year but which has yet to translate into action. The downgrade for Myanmar appeared aimed at prodding the countrys new democratically elected government, headed by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, and its still-powerful military to further curb use of child soldiers and forced labor. It was also meant to underscore U.S. concern about continued persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority in the Buddhist-majority nation. The reprimand came despite U.S. efforts to court Myanmar to help counteract Chinas rise in the region. The Myanmar foreign ministry called the downgrade regrettable. "Myanmar has been addressing the TIP issue as a national priority and making tangible progress," it said in a statement. "It is hoped that steps can be taken to ensure that restrictions associated with Tier 3 countries will not be allowed to hamper cooperation between the United States and Myanmar." In the Philippines, Darlene Pajarito, executive director of the government's Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking, said she was elated at her nation's premier ranking. "They must have recognised our work throughout the years and they must have seen that we have sustained all efforts to stop trafficking and prosecute people behind these activities," she said. The report also highlighted the Syria refugee crisis and reiterated that almost all sides in the civil war there, including government forces as well as U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters, were recruiting child soldiers. The report sorts countries into four categories: Tier 1 for nations that meet minimum U.S. standards; Tier 2 for those that are making significant efforts to do so; Tier 2 "Watch List" for those that deserve special scrutiny; and Tier 3 for countries that fail to fully comply with the minimum U.S. standards and are not making significant efforts to do so. A Tier 3 rating can trigger sanctions, but U.S. presidents frequently waive such action. (Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom and Patricia Zengerle in Washington; Manuel Mogato in Manila, Pracha Hariraksapitak in Bangkok, James Ponfret in Hong Kong and Aung Hla Tun in Yangon; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe, Cynthia Osterman and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
- The announcement by Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery that That Thursday, July 7, is Idd-Ul-Fitr has caused rift among Muslims in Kenya

- A group of Islamic scholars and organizations have blamed the country's Chief Kadhi of ill advising the government on the date of Idd-Ul-Fitr

- The Islamic groups claim that July 7, should not be declared a national holiday as Idd-Ul-Fitr would naturally fall on either Tuesday or Wednesday July 5 and 6 as most Kenyans started fasting on June 6

The announcement by Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery that Idd-Ul-Fitr will be on Thursday, July 7, has caused divisions amongst Kenyan Muslims.

Several Islamic scholars and organizations have accused the Chief Kadhi Sheikh Muhdhar of ill advising the government on the date of Idd-Ul-Fitr and confusing Muslims in the country on the important Islamic date.

The Islamic organizations opposing Idd-Ul-Fitr announcement by Interior CS are the Shura Council, the Council of Muslim Scholars of Kenya, Ummah Foundation, Muslim Lawyers League, Maahad Daawah Organisation and the Kenya Muslim Media Practitioners Association.

Muslims all over Kenya are about to complete the holy month of Ramadan but the date of Idd-Ul-Fitr has become contested between several Islamic religious groups and scholars.

Opponents of the Thursday, July 7, Idd-Ul-Fitr date accuse the Chief Kadhi of going over his mandate to declare an important date a holiday without consulting other Islamic religious leaders.

Shura Council chairman Abdullahi Abdi said the Chief Kadhi is only a judicial officer and under the 2010 Kenyan constitution has no authority on Islamic jurisprudence apart from marriage and divorce matters.

Supreme Council of Kenyan Muslims (Supkem) Secretary General Abdulghafur al Busaidy accused the Shura Council and other opponents trying to ridicule and undermine the office of the Chief Kadhi.

Busaidy also said those opposing the date announced by Nkaissery on the advice of the Chief Kadhi were only driven by politics and aimed at creating division among Muslims in Kenya.

Busaidy said under Islamic traditions and law the Chief Kadhi has mandate on declaring Ramadan and Idd celebrations.

Kenyan Muslims pray outside Jamia Mosque on the second Friday of the holy month of Ramadan in the capital Nairobi October 6, 2006. REUTERS/Antony Njuguna (KENYA)

Muslim groups and scholars opposing the government set date of Idd-Ul-Fitr claim that the important day should fall on Tuesday or Wednesday, July 5 or 6 as Muslims around the world and especially Saudi Arabia had started Ramadan on June 6.

Muslims mark Idd-Ul-Fitr as a three day celebration of feasting on the first day of the month Shawal to end Ramadan which was a month of prayer and fasting.

Cover photo: Getty

Source: TUKO.co.ke
- Israeli Prime Minister Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu jets into the country on Monday, July 4

- He will stay for three days before visiting other African countries

- Netanyahus visit comes at the invitation of President Uhuru Kenyatta

- They will discuss matters of security and development

The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu jets into the country on Monday, July 4 for a three-day State visit where he will begin his tour of the continent.

According to State House Spokesman Manoah Esipisu, Netanyahus visit comes at the invitation of President Uhuru Kenyatta, who extended it during his visit to Israel in February 2016,

Uhuru Kenyatta with Israel Primer Minister Netanyahu

Kenya has established ties with Israeli and worked together on projects such as the ongoing Galana-Kulalu irrigation project.

The two countries have also collaborated in protecting their territories from the shared demon of terrorism.

President Uhuru Kenyatta with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of bilateral talks in Jerusalem.

Counter-terrorism, security, irrigation, energy, and agriculture were some of the areas President Kenyatta discussed with Premier Netanyahu during his visit.

The two leaders will continue with the agendas started by President Kenyatta.

Additionally, a number of agreements governing investment and taxation have been negotiated by Kenya and Israel.

During this visit, President Kenyatta and the Israeli Prime Minister will sign or reaffirm agreements governing investment and taxation as the two nations enter a new phase of closer cooperation and partnership.

Jerusalem is keen on pursuing increased economic, security ties with several once hostile states; Entebbe visit deeply poignant for PM

He said he wants to make the trip close to the anniversary of the July 4, 1976 Israeli hostage rescue in Uganda, in which his brother died.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with his wife Sara at the grave of his late brother Yoni Netanyahu who was killed in Entebbe, Uganda on June 28, 2006.

His brother Yonatan was killed in July 1976 as he led a commando raid in Entebbe, Uganda, to free passengers aboard an Air France plane hijacked by two Palestinians and two Germans.

The Arab-Israeli conflict drove a wedge between African countries and the Jewish state in the 1960s.

Source: TUKO.co.ke
rocket surging upwards take off missile submarine china

China Photos/Getty Images

The rapid buildup of Chinese debt between 2008 and 2015 was nothing short of historic.

In that time, the country's debt-to-GDP level nearly doubled from 154% to 249%.

That "ranks in the 98th percentile of debt buildups in modern history," according to a note from Andrew Tilton and Jonathan Sequiera at Goldman Sachs, published on Monday.

There are few comparable examples outside of war time.

Goldman Sachs, adjusting for the sheer size of China's economy said there were parallels with "Japan in the first decade of the 1900s during and after the Russo-Japanese War, Canada and several European countries during and after World War I, and the United States during and after World War II."

Here is the chart:

GS2

China Photos/Getty Images

When it comes to the nominal amount of debt added, coupled with the sheer size of China's economy, there really is no precedent since 1960, according to Goldman Sachs, which calls the buildup an "outlier in the historical record."

Here's the chart to show how much China stands out:

GS1

China Photos/Getty Images

Goldman Sachs said "one of the most frequent questions" from clients is whether this will inevitably lead to a financial crisis when the bubble bursts. While banking crises are "common," Goldman Sachs said, they're "not inevitable."

Let's hope so.

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By Jane Wardell and Jonathan Barrett SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia was headed for a hung parliament or a minority government with more than half the votes counted in a national poll on Saturday, potentially blocking Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's ability to enact key economic reforms. Official electoral data for the House of Representatives showed a 3.2 percent swing away from the Liberal-led coalition government as officials clocked off for the evening with almost 10 million votes counted. The tight vote is a major blow for Turnbull whose gamble on a risky double dissolution of parliament in a bid to oust intransigent independents in the upper house Senate blocking his agenda appears to have backfired. "Friends, we will not know the outcome of this election tonight, indeed, we may not know it for some days to come," a jubilant Bill Shorten, leader of the opposition Labor Party, told supporters in Melbourne just before midnight. "But there is one thing for sure - the Labor Party is back." Opinion polls heading into Saturday's vote had showed a potentially tight vote after the landslide victory that brought the coalition to power in 2013; but just how tight still caught many by surprise. Former prime minister Tony Abbott told Liberal Party followers it was a "difficult night" after he successfully retained his Sydney seat. On official projections issued as counting was wound up early Sunday morning, the coalition was expected to hold 68 seats, against the opposition Labor Party's 70 seats and five to independents and the Greens Party. A further seven seats were in the balance. With just six seats left to be determined in the House of Representatives, it was unclear if the coalition would win enough to form a government without an alliance with small parties and independents to get a majority. "It is a very, very close count," Turnbull told the party faithful at coalition headquarters in Sydney after Shorten spoke. "I can report that based on the advice I have from the party officials, we can have every confidence that we will form a coalition majority government in the next parliament." Still, there were early rumblings about Turnbull's future given the closeness of the vote. Turnbull had some of the highest poll ratings of an Australian leader on record shortly after he snatched the top job from Abbott last year. But that popularity soured as he appeared to bend his centre-right values on issues like climate change and same sex marriage to the right-wing powerbrokers in his party. XENOPHON ON TRACK The vote in the 76-seat Senate was also looking troublesome for the coalition with the independent centrist Nick Xenophon Team on track to win several seats. Pauline Hanson's One Nation party is also on track to win several Senate positions, bringing the Far Right politician back into parliament after an almost 20-year absence. "I believe that we need maturity in the parliament to start passing legislation that is right for the people and our future generations," said Hanson, who campaigned on an anti-immigration, anti-Muslim platform. Turnbull had said a vote for the coalition was a vote for political stability, invoking the global economic and political fallout from Britain's decision to leave the European Union. Minor parties, possibly in a coalition with centre-left Labor, he argued, could not be trusted to manage an economy hampered by a mining downturn and balance public finances after years of deficits. Xenophon, whose party won its first lower house seat, has vowed to block the coalition's cornerstone A$50 billion ($37 billion) corporate tax cuts if his party holds the balance of power in the Senate. "We've broken the duopoly," Xenophon said to cheers from supporters at a campaign event in Adelaide. "There's only been one of me in 226 seats; there'll be at least four of us and that'll be huge." There is no counting scheduled for Sunday, with counting for the Senate to resume on Monday and the House of Representatives on Tuesday. (Additional reporting by Colin Packham and Tom Westbrook in SYDNEY, Melanie Burton in MELBOURNE and Matt Siegel in ADELAIDE; Editing by Nick Macfie, Susan Thomas and Mark Potter)
YEREVAN, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS. Tajikistan remains committed to its principled stance which says the Nagorno Karabakh conflict must be settled with peaceful means, Foreign Minister of Tajikistan Sirodjidin Aslov said to journalists after the meeting with Armenian FM Edward Nalbandian.

During our meeting we have discussed the issue of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. I have expressed my sincere concern over the recent escalation in that conflict zone which resulted in human losses, Armenpress reports, he said.

Aslov said Tajikistan always supports the peaceful settlement of all conflicts. We have principled stance over this issue. All conflicts, including also the Nagorno Karabakh conflict must be resolved with peaceful means, Aslov concluded.
- Two elderly women lost their life on Saturday, July 2 in a stampede while struggling to get Ramadan gifts

- The gift items were shared to people in the name of the All Progressives Congress (APC) national leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, at Onikan stadium in Lagos state

- A middle-aged man was reported to have fainted in the violent struggle

- Several people sustained serious injury during the sharing of the gifts by the Iyaloja General of Nigeria and Tinubus daughter, Mrs Folashade Tinubu-Ojo.

It was a black day for two elderly women at the Onikan stadium, as they died struggling to collect Ramadan gifts distributed on behalf of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a one-time Lagos state governor.

READ ALSO: Asiwaju Tinubu bags US recognition, wins global award

However, according to the Lagos state police command, it stated that no life was lost as a result of the stampede.

It was gathered that each person was given a gift pack containing a bag of rice, salt, noodles and sugar, in addition, a sum of N1,500 put in an envelope.

SaharaReporters gathered that those who got injured were taken to the Marina General Hospital, while bodies of the dead women, who happened to be in their sixties, were deposited at the hospitals morgue.

An eyewitness named Musbau Adeyanju, who spoke with newsmen via a telephone call in the evening of Saturday, July 2, stated that a large number of people invaded the stadium at about 8 oclock in the morning to collect the Ramadan gifts, while males and females maintained separate queues.

Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu

Adeyanju said the distribution of the gifts was smooth until around 11.30am when it was disrupted by a few people who were not patient.

The eyewitness stated: We started entering the stadium with a pass as early as 8am. The distribution started at 10am and each person was collecting a bag containing rice, semovita, noodles, sugar and salt and a sum of N1,500. It was Iyaloja General that represented Asiwaju.

Around 11.30am, people became impatient for the fear that the gifts might not get to them. There was a stampede and two persons died in the process. Their bodies were laid under a tent, while an ambulance that would carry them was being awaited. It was when the clothes that were used to cover their faces were removed that I discovered they were elderly women.

Their bodies were eventually taken to the mortuary by an ambulance of the Lagos State Ambulance Services. Several people were also injured. I left the place after the women died.

READ ALSO: Akpabio's visit to Tinubu leaks, as PDP senators kick

Another eyewitness, who went by the name of Idris, said some area boys used the opportunity of the violent struggle by people to steal people of their valuables.

Idris said:Initially, the programme was well organised. A gate was opened for males and another for females. Suddenly, some hoodlums at the stadium started snatching phones from people. It was almost my turn when the distribution was disrupted. The age of the women that died should be around 60.

An unnamed official of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA),who spoke to journalists confirmed there were casualties during the violent struggle, but added that he was barred from speaking to newsmen

The official who pleaded anonymity on the other hand did not mention if there were fatalities among the casualties, saying:I cannot say whether the casualties involved loss of lives. But some people were rushed to the hospital.

The general manager of LASEMA, Michael Akindele, dismissed the report of the death of the two women.

Akindele said briefly:LASEMA did not get any report of such.

Dolapo Badmos, Lagos state police command public relations officer, said it was only a man who collapsed and was treated immediately, before he was taken to the General Hospital for further treatment.

Badmos stated: It was a Ramadan lecture organised by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu but he was not there. He was represented. The place became rowdy during the distribution of gifts and a man collapsed in the process. He was treated inside the ambulance at the stadium and was later taken to the hospital for proper treatment. No death was recorded.

In another accident news reported on Saturday, July 2, a bloody crash along the Bauchi-Kano road led to the death of about 12 persons.

Source: Legit.ng
Researchers of National Institute of Materials Science and Ehime University, Japan, developed a new diamond anvil cell by micro-fabricating a superconducting diamond, which conducts electricity like metal and serves as electrodes, on the world's hardest and chip-proof nano-polycrystalline diamond.

A research group led by Yoshihiko Takano, a leader of the Nano Frontier Superconducting Materials Group, Environment and Energy Materials Division, NIMS, and another research group led by Tetsuo Irifune, a director of the Geodynamics Research Center (GRC), Ehime University, jointly developed a new diamond anvil cell (DAC) by micro-fabricating a superconducting diamond, which conducts electricity like metal and serves as electrodes, on the world's hardest and chip-proof nano-polycrystalline diamond (Hime diamond). As a result, the conventional practice of skillfully attaching four electrodes to a small sample (of several dozen microns) was eliminated, and thus electrical resistance measurements under ultra-high pressure have become much easier. Furthermore, because diamond electrodes can be used repeatedly, physical property measurements have dramatically improved in terms of work and economic efficiencies.

A typical DAC is a device to generate high pressure by pressing curettes of paired diamond anvils on each other. To increase the pressure generated by the device, it is necessary to make the areas of the curettes smaller. Specifically, to generate ultra-high pressure (several hundreds of thousands of atmospheric pressure), curettes need to be about 400 microns in diameter.

Operation of such a device would be very difficult due to the requirement that the sizes of the samples to be studied need to be as small as about 100 microns. To generate a million atmospheric pressure or higher, the sizes of the samples need to be even smaller, making it extremely challenging to manually attach electrodes to the samples.

Accordingly, research group micro-fabricated superconducting diamond electrodes on the top of the anvil using the electron-beam lithography method. As it is convenient to use a plate-shaped diamond for the fabrication of electrodes using lithography, they combined a plate-shaped diamond and another diamond with a curette to form a diamond anvil cell.

As a result, research group succeeded in developing a new diamond anvil cell by combining the world's hardest diamond electrodes and the world's hardest diamond anvil. Because advanced experimental technologies are required, materials R&D under ultra-high pressure is still largely unexplored. As such, this field has great potential to offer opportunities for exploring novel materials and superconductors with extraordinary functions. We believe that this new technology will contribute to Japan's advancement in materials development.

A part of this research was supported by the Premier Research Institute for Ultrahigh-pressure Sciences (PRIUS), which has been recognized by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology as a shared-use research facility.

This study was presented on February 23 at a PRIUS Symposium to be held at the Geodynamics Research Center (GRC), Ehime University.
The olive was one of the first trees to be domesticated in the history of humankind, probably some 6,000 years ago. A Mediterranean emblem par excellence, it is of vital importance to the Spanish and other regional economies (Italy, Greece and Portugal). In fact, Spain is the leading producer of olive oil in the world. Every year, nearly three million tons of oil are produced, for local consumption and export. Spain produces one third of this total.

Nonetheless, up to now, the genome of the olive tree were unknown. The genome regulate such factors as the differences among varieties, sizes and flavor of the olives, why the trees live so long or the reasons for their adaptation to dryland farming.

Now a team of researchers from the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona, the Real Jardin Botanico (CSIC-RJB) and the Centro Nacional de Analisis Genomico (CNAG-CRG), has brought new insight to the genetic puzzle of the olive tree, by sequencing the complete genome of this species for the first time ever. The results of this work, fully funded by Banco Santander, have been published this week in the Open Access and Open Data journal GigaScience. The article will pave the way to new research work that will help olive trees in their development and protecting them from infections now causing major damage, such as the attacks of bacteria (Xilella fastidiosa) and fungi (Verticillium dhailae).

"Without a doubt, it is an emblematic tree, and it is very difficult to improve plant breeding, as you have to wait at least 12 years to see what morphological characteristics it will have, and whether it is advisable to cross-breed," says principal author of this paper Toni Gabaldon, ICREA research professor and head of the comparative genomics laboratory at the CRG. "Knowing the genetic information of the olive tree will let us contribute to the improvement of oil and olive production, of major relevance to the Spanish economy," he adds.

Private funding to support public science

The story of this project begins with a presentation, a coincidence and a challenge. Four years ago, Gabaldon worked with Pablo Vargas, a CSIC researcher at the Real Jardin Botanico, on the presentation of scientific results of projects focused on endangered species, such as the Iberian lynx, that had been financed by Banco Santander.

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At that time, Banco Santander had expressed great interest in financing scientific projects in Spain. Over the course of the presentation, Pablo Vargas proposed to Emilio Botin the complete sequencing of the olive tree genome, using the same technology as had been used to sequence the lynx; in other words, the most state-of-the-art technological strategy to achieve a high-quality genome.

Five months after that meeting, a contract was signed to carry out the first complete sequencing of the olive tree's DNA, a three-year research effort coordinated by Pablo Vargas.

"There are three phases to genome sequencing: first, isolate all of the genes, which we published two years ago. Second, assemble the genome, which is a matter of ordering those genes one after the other, like linking up loose phrases in a book. Last, identify all of the genes, or binding the book. The latter two phases are what we have done and are now presenting," says the CSIC Real Jardin Botanico researcher.

To continue with the book analogy, according to Tyler Alioto of the CNAG-CRG "this genome has generated some 1.31 billion letters, and over 1,000 GBytes of data. We are surprised because we have detected over 56,000 genes, significantly more than those detected in sequenced genomes of related plants, and twice that of the human genome."

Decoding its evolutionary history

In addition to the complete sequencing of the olive tree genome, researchers have also compared the DNA of this thousand-year-old tree with other varieties such as the wild olive. They have also found the transcriptome, the genes expressed to determine what differences exist on the genetic expression level in leaves, roots and fruits at different stages of ripening.

The next step, researchers say, will be to decode the evolutionary history of this tree, which has formed part of old-world civilizations since the Bronze Age. At that time, in the eastern Mediterranean, the process of domesticating wild olive trees that led to today's trees began. Later, selection processes in different Mediterranean countries gave rise to the nearly 1,000 varieties of trees we have today.

Knowing the evolution of olive trees from different countries will make it possible to know their origins and discover the keys that have allowed it to adapt to very diverse environmental conditions. It will also help discover the reasons behind its extraordinary longevity, as the trees can live for 3,000 to 4,000 years.

"That longevity makes the olive tree we have sequenced practically a living monument," says Gabaldon. "Up to now, all of the individuals sequenced, from the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) to the first human being analyzed, have lived for a certain time, depending on their life expectancy, but then died or will die. This is the first time that the DNA of an individual over 1,000 years old, and that will probably live another 1,000 years, has been sequenced." say Gabaldon and Vargas.
Changing just one seated meeting per week at work into a walking meeting increased the work-related physical activity levels of white-collar workers by 10 minutes, according to a new study published by public health researchers with the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. The study, published June 24, 2016 in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's journal Preventing Chronic Disease, suggests a possible new health promotion approach to improving the health of millions of white-collar workers who spend most of their workdays sitting in chairs.

Titled "Opportunities for Increased Physical Activity in the Workplace: the Walking Meeting," the study also supports the American Heart Association's recommendations of 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity physical activity for adults, or about 30 minutes each weekday.

"There are limited opportunities for physical activity at work. This walking meeting pilot study provides early evidence that white-collar workers find it feasible and acceptable to convert a traditional seated meeting into a walking meeting," said the study's principal investigator, Alberto J. Caban-Martinez, D.O., Ph.D., M.P.H., assistant professor of public health sciences. "Physical activity interventions such as the walking meeting protocol that encourage walking and raise levels of physical activity in the workplace are needed to counter the negative health effects of sedentary behavior."

Participants in the study, who were white-collar workers recruited from the University of Miami, wore accelerometers to measure physical activity levels during the workday over a three-week period. They also followed a "walking meeting protocol" that included guidance for leading meetings and taking notes while walking.

The average combined moderate/vigorous physical activity reported by participants increased from 107 minutes in the first week to 114 minutes in the second week and to 117 minutes in week three of the study.

"Walking is known to have tremendous health benefits," said lead author Hannah Kling, M.P.H., the study's project director and a graduate of UM's Department of Public Health Sciences. "Having sedentary, white-collar workers consider walking meetings feasible suggests that this intervention has the potential to positively influence the health of many individuals."

Previous studies have proven that engaging in moderate exercise, which includes brisk walking, for as little as 15 minutes per day can add up to three years of life expectancy.
Frank Nadler was about two kilometres away when he felt the concussion from the house explosion on Hickory Dr. in Mississauga.

The 58-year-old manages a warehouse near Hwy. 401 and Dixie Rd. The blast rattled the warehouse doors, he said, and Nadler initially thought a truck had accidentally rolled into the side of the building.

Later, he saw on the news the location of the blast and thought: Please, dont tell me my brother did that.

The house at 4201 Hickory Dr., which suddenly blew up Tuesday afternoon, was owned by Robert Nadler and his spouse, Diane Page. Both died in the blast, which rocked the peaceful east Mississauga neighbourhood.

Residents described clouds of smoke billowing in the air as chunks of concrete, wood, paper and pink insulation rained from the sky. The cause of the blast is still unknown.

As next of kin, Frank expects he will eventually be asked to claim his brothers body once the investigation is complete.

Sitting at his kitchen table in Oakville on Saturday, Frank reflected on Roberts troubled life and said he cannot shake the speculation that the explosion was the result of his brother trying to commit suicide.

Hes hinted at it before, that if his back were to the wall, (suicide) was a viable option, Frank said. I wouldnt put it past him.

Frank says he loved his brother but that they were estranged. And though the two had not seen each other in about five years, Frank says Robert could not hold a job and was never good with money. He believes his brother had burned through a recent mortgage refinancing and was broke.

He wasnt going to leave that house. He couldnt just walk away. I knew what Bob was like.

Frank said his brother was paranoid and afraid of large groups of people. He was afraid to leave the house. He didnt have a drivers licence and didnt like to drive because he felt out of control in traffic. Robert had a need to be in control, his brother said.

Robert Nadler, 55, was convicted of a Peel Region murder in 1982. According to articles from the Stars archives, Nadler killed his best friend in June 1979. The stories detail how Nadler admitted that he bludgeoned, strangled and knifed his friend Eric Pogson to death in a fight over drug money. Pogsons body was found in a shallow grave in a bush near Golden Orchard Dr. in Mississauga on June 3, 1980.

As for reports last week that neighbours on Hickory Dr. saw foil covering the windows and that Robert Nadler believed jet contrails were poison, Frank said those beliefs started with their father.

Persecuted during the Second World War, Nadlers parents fled Europe as teenagers. Frank Nadler met Kathe at a dance at the El Mocambo bar in Toronto and eventually had two sons. Frank worked as a maintenance foreman at a factory and Kathe packed biscuits at a Christies plant.

The younger Frank remembers his father once claiming that airplanes were poisoning his cucumber patch.

My folks were paranoid, he said. They would stockpile food. In the year 2000, they thought the world was going to end. And thats when they put the tinfoil up. They thought . . . it would help with the radiation.

That transferred down to us: Be afraid of society. Dont trust anybody. Dont trust the government. . . Bob just went right along with it. Conspiracy theories.

Robert was also intelligent and liked to write music with the aid of his keyboard. He faithfully looked after both parents when they became ill. And, as far as Frank knew, his brother and Diane were happy together.

In the years leading up to their fathers death, the brothers fought over the will, with Frank claiming that Robert manipulated a change in the will that resulted in him getting their parents house  the house that was destroyed in Tuesdays explosion. Frank dropped his legal battle in part because the costs were too high.

Frank also said that his brother tried to keep his father from the rest of the family, and that he did not find out his father had died until two months after the burial.

Growing up in Etobicoke, the brothers attended the same schools. Frank says Robert was quiet and sensitive.

Into his late teens, his anxiety led him to create an alter ego of sorts, a facade to hide behind, Frank said.

Hed had to puff himself up before he walked into a room. Hed shake his hair and become this character to deal with the group of people he had to deal with. Because he had anxiety. So he created this . . . personality to get through that. Because he had to be in control. Giving you sass. The man in the room.

Robert Nadler was set to turn 56 on Canada Day. His brother does not yet know any specifics of how he died.

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The number of workers accepted into a serious injury program that dramatically improves their access to medical care has been cut by more than half over the past five years, according to statistics requested by the Star  part of what critics call a systematic reduction in fair compensation for vulnerable Ontario workers.

The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board program provides vital support for employees who are catastrophically hurt on the job, such as full-time care for those who have lost their independence, prosthetics and travel allowances for medical appointments. But the number of people admitted into it has plummeted 57 per cent since 2010  down from 318 workers to 137 last year.

Critics say the plunge is related to the boards recent drive to cut workers permanent impairment ratings by identifying pre-existing conditions and by often refusing to acknowledge long-term psychological problems. That means that fewer and fewer workers are deemed to be over 60 per cent impaired, the threshold needed to access the boards Serious Injury Program.

Its very, very difficult to get anyone to 60 per cent. Even if you get 59.5 per cent, the board takes the position that youre not considered seriously disabled, which is ridiculous, said Airissa Gemma, a community legal worker with Industrial Accident Victims Group of Ontario (IAVGO).

In response to questions from the Star, the WSIB attributed the decrease in the number of workers referred to its Serious Injury Program to an overall decrease in the number of claims filed at the board. In 2010, there were around 238,000 registered claims while in 2015 there were about 229,000, a 4 per cent decline. The board also said there has been a steady reduction in the number of workers with permanent impairments.

In an ongoing investigation into WSIB practices, the Star has previously reported on an apparent shift in culture in how it evaluates permanent impairments  legitimized, critics say, by a 2012 report written by a U.S.-based doctor now embroiled in legal trouble south of the border. A Hawaii-based lawsuit, in which claims have not been proven in court, alleges that doctor helped a private insurance company unfairly slash accident victims medical benefits.

The Star also highlighted the case of Fernando Paul, 65, who was left incontinent and bound to a wheelchair after injuring his back in a workplace accident. But his impairment rating was reduced because the WSIB claimed he had degenerative disk disease in a different part of his spine, making him ineligible for the boards serious injury program. His wife must now care for him full time.

She has to do everything for me. Its sad that we have to do this, he said.

Theres just simply been greater reluctance to recognize permanent impairments (at the board), said Michael Green, a lawyer who has worked on behalf of injured workers for 30 years. Between 2012 and 2014, permanent injury awards dropped by 37 per cent, according to WSIBs own stakeholder reports.

Im pretty sure that people who have the objectively very serious physical impairments, people with quadriplegia and so on are still getting into the serious injury program. But theyre narrowing everyone else, Green said.

In a statement to the Star, the WSIB said that in the vast majority of cases, workers were accepted into the serious injury program before they are assessed for permanent impairments. Focusing on early medical intervention and active treatment can often restore the worker to their pre-injury level of function and contributes to fewer workers developing permanent impairments due to their injuries, the statement said.

Were saying no, youre just reducing their awards due to pre-existing conditions,  said John McKinnon of the Injured Workers Consultants. It looks to us to be part of the general austerity program at the board over the last five years.

Gemma said she did not know why workers must be deemed as 60 per cent impaired to be eligible for the serious injury program, a figure she calls arbitrary.

Fifty-nine per cent is just as disabled as 60 per cent. . . I really dont understand the 60 number. Your guess is as good as mine, she told the Star.

As for the boards contention that fewer workers in the province are sustaining permanent injuries, Gemma says her organization has seen no evidence of it  her legal clinic is still overwhelmed by the number of injured workers seeking help.

Ill be very simple. To me, thats a lie.

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LONDONJeremy Corbyn, teetotaller, has clearly lost the bottle as he flails about trying not to lose the battle for his political life.

The beleaguered Labour leader, hanging on to his post atop the party by a chin-hair amidst full-out revolt by hundreds of MPs, has apparently slipped into full Capt. Queeg paranoia. That might be understandable, given all the knives which have been plunged into his twitching body since the EU referendum which split and panicked the ranks. Corbyn is blamed for failing to galvanize the working class towards a Remain vote. Hed been, at best, a phlegmatic campaigner for the cause, torn between an instinctive aversion towards the forces of globalization and the economic benefits of a massive single market  the promised prosperity that actually hasnt been much realized by blue-collar workers.

But such has been his isolation and distrust of his own party  both elite and undertow  that Corbyns top aides have purportedly refused to grant Labour deputy leader Tom Watson access to him.

The Observer, which has close insider ties to Labour, reported Sunday that Watson was refused a one-to-one meeting with Corbyn out of concerns the deputy would try to bully him into resigning, which Corbyn adamantly has rejected, as the first crucial step required to prevent Labour from a) fracturing; and b) collapsing into insignificance at the polls when the next general election is called.

While the Conservatives have come through the fire of the past week relatively intact  even with five contenders now scrapping to succeed David Cameron and nasty as they go about it  Labour has the most to lose post-Brexit, the party most internally at odds with itself and openly at daggers-drawn with its leader. For a party of pacifists  where the anti-NATO and pro-isolationist come to roost  they can be astonishingly vicious.

And Corbyn is apparently not up to the arm-twisting.

Indeed, The Observer quotes a senior Labour source as claiming Corbyns Praetorian Guard have a duty of care to the embattled leader.

My goodness, duty of care?

As a legal concept: Requiring that a person act towards other and the public with watchfulness, attention, caution and prudence.

In this informal, if jarring, context: Makes it sound like an enfeebled and fragile Corbyn needs padded-room protection to keep from harming himself or being harmed by others, specifically the blood-sniffing stalker Watson.

They (Watsons aides) want Watson to be on his own with Corbyn so that he can jab his finger at him, a source tells The Observer.

Ooh, the lethal finger-jab.

Its no secret that Watson, and the vast swath of restive, turncoat MPs for whom he carries the coup standard, has been straining to reach a negotiated out-go agreement with Corbyn, who has vehemently countered: Hell no, I wont go.

This situation is going seriously sideways and its happened very fast. Labour is in existential crisis; Corbyn is either in a state of stasis  reports last week of an emotional Wednesday wobble following Question Period, with a senior aide drawing up a provisional five-point extraction plan for the leader  or battening down the booby hatches, mustering for war.

Over the weekend, his arm-around handlers had to restrain Corbyn back when he appeared to lose his temper at a Say No to Hate Crime rally in north London after a reporter asked if he was running away from questions about his leadership.

A couple of days earlier, Corbyn got himself into a steaming mess by seeming to equate Israel with the Islamic terrorists, Daesh.

The longtime Palestinian-hugger told a meeting called to address a report on anti-Semitism inside Labour that neither Jews nor Muslims should be held responsible for the actions of the Israeli government or various self-styled Islamic states or organizations, such as ISIS.

Like theyre on a par.

Now, if theres a point where I absolutely parted company with the political left, it would be when Israel, once embraced as a plucky quasi-small-s-socialist state in its kibbutzim infancy, was turned upon and denounced and demonized as a Middle East thug, despite being the only democracy in the region.

But this incident, whereby Corbyn stood by impassively while a Jewish Labour MP was accused by one of his loudmouth supporters of being part of a right-wing media conspiracy  the details do not bear repeating  wavered between farce and infuriating.

That MP, Ruth Smeeth, fled the event in tears. Although shed not been among those advocating for Corbyn to quit, Smeeth afterwards issued a statement saying that under him Labour cannot be a safe space for British Jews.

To quote Corbyn verbatim: Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Muslim friends are for those of various self-styled Islamic states or organizations.

This all happened, by the way, on the same day a 13-year-old Jewish girl was stabbed to death in her bed by a 19-year-old Palestinian assailant whod scaled a security fence and crept into the familys home in Kiryat Arba, an Israeli settlement on the outskirts of Hebron in the occupied West Bank.

Britains Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis accused Corbyn of making offensive comments which, far from rebuilding trust with the Jewish community, had caused even greater concern. Labours new shadow foreign secretary phoned Israels ambassador in London to apologize for Corbyns remarks.

Corbyn continued, stupidly: You shouldnt say to somebody just because theyre Jewish, you must have an opinion on Israel, any more than you say to anyone who is Muslim, you must have an opinion on any vile action thats been taken by misquoting the good name of Islam.

Sadly, drawing a moral equivalency between Israel and Islamic terrorism is a go-to for the radical left within Labour  not much different within Canada, for that matter.

Some Labourites are just less tacit about it. MP Naz Shah, for example, suspended by the party for her anti-Semitic blather in Facebook posts; Corbyns close ally and friend Ken Livingstone, the former London mayor, who claimed that Adolf Hitler supported Zionism.

Dismay over anti-Semitism putting down roots in Labour convinced the party to appoint civil-rights campaigner Shami Chakrabarti to conduct a review. The findings of that two-month investigation were released at the event where Corbyn made the offensive comments.

Chakrabarti concluded that Labour and the Left in general had not taken the problem of anti-Semitism seriously enough for some years. While the party was not over-run by racism, its reputation is on the table.

But the situation is dire enough that Chakrabarti was forced to advise Labour members to refrain from bringing Hitler into the debate or using Zionism as an insult. Racial or religious tropes and stereotypes . . . should have no place in our modern Labour Party. I have heard too many Jewish voices express concern that anti-Semitism has not been taken seriously enough in the Labour Party and broader Left for some years. Adding: Labour members should resist the use of Hitler, Nazi and Holocaust metaphors, distortions and comparisons in debates about Israel-Palestine.

Corbyn welcomed the report. But some of his most ardent supporters claim theres a witch-hunt on anti-Semitism in the party.

Maybe Old Labour and Corbyn deserve each other. New Labour wants to kick the feck out of him.

Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

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Eight months after Paulette Leapharts double mastectomy, God spoke to her.

She was at the beach over Labour Day weekend when God told her to remove her shirt. For the first time, she let strangers see her scars. Two women started to cry, and then Leaphart started to cry as well.

Soon, the beach had erupted into applause.

It didnt just free me that day, she said. Everybody who witnessed it and saw my scars, they were freed too.

That moment lifted Leaphart out of a post-surgery depression, and it gave her a new purpose: to help other survivors find beauty in their bodies  to free them.

Leaphart doesnt see it as coincidence that, a year later, after her decision to embark on a topless 1,000-mile trek from her hometown of Biloxi, Miss., to Washington, went viral, Beyonce invited her to appear in the Freedom segment of her visual album, Lemonade. But when she was first approached about it, Leaphart said, she was hesitant.

Im a Christian! I dont want to get involved in that Drunk in Love stuff! she said, referring to a single from Beyonces previous album. It took several calls from the filmmakers to persuade her.

Filming the segment turned out to be a tremendously emotional experience for Leaphart. She was blown away by the power of the costume that she was given to wear. She was dazzled by the grace and humility of Jay-Z and Beyonce, who told Leaphart that she wanted her daughter, Blue Ivy, to be as strong and beautiful as Leaphart when she grew up.

And although she didnt know the name of the song at the time, Leaphart was moved to tears when she watched Beyonce sing Freedom a cappella as she filmed a scene in the video.

You might say that Leaphart continues to make lemonade out of the lemons that she was given. On June 27, Leapharts birthday, she successfully finished her 60-day, 1,034-mile journey in Capitol Hill.

But this was only the beginning of the work that shes set out to complete.

It wasnt just an awareness stunt, she said. She also hoped to inspire change in the U.S. health-care system and to demand that more attention and resources be devoted to finding a cure.

Things didnt go quite as planned on the walk. At several points, Leaphart and Madeline, her 8-year-old daughter, who accompanied her on the journey, had to walk far more than their planned 30 miles per day to find a place to stay for the night. There were also several encounters with police, who would stop Leaphart because of her toplessness, and shed have to explain what she was doing.

Further, the film crew that intended to follow Leaphart and turn her journey into a documentary titled Scar Story announced in early June that they had left the walk and would not be making a film about Leaphart after all. Leaphart told The Post that she and the crew ended up having different visions for how to conduct the project, with much of the disagreement having to do with how to spend the money that they had raised.

But Leaphart described the journey as peaceful.

It was healing to me. It was gaining back my strength. It was spending some personal, much, much, much needed time with God, she said.

After all, she said that God had been there for her at the beginning of her two biggest challenges: her private fight against breast cancer and her public walk to end breast cancer.

In an interview on NewsOne, Leaphart, who lives in New Orleans, said it was God who told her she had breast cancer. Even though she knew that breast cancer ran in her family, and several relatives had died because of it, she had never previously thought about the likelihood that she would also have it.

And so, in early 2014, Leaphart, a 47-year-old social worker and single mother who had never before had a mammogram, immediately sought out a surgeon, who confirmed her suspicions.

From that point onward, Leaphart went on a bit of a downward spiral. She had thought that, even with a double mastectomy, shed be able to have her breasts reconstructed.

But doctors advised against reconstruction, as she has other health issues that may have posed a problem. The mastectomy left me feeling deformed and less than a woman, she said on NewsOne.

Then, her medications ended up costing between $2,500 ($3,225 Canadian) and $5,000 per month. As a middle-class woman, Leaphart said, she couldnt afford to pay for her own medications, and she didnt qualify for programs that would have covered the costs. Most months, she had to decide between paying her rent and getting her medications.

I had to choose between life or a roof, she said.

She chose life, and she was evicted. Leaphart and her four daughters who still lived with her (she has eight children in total) were homeless.

At her lowest point, God spoke to her again. This time, he told her to walk.

Most media outlets have characterized Leapharts walk as an effort to raise awareness  and thats certainly a large part of it. Before her surgery, she said on NewsOne, she was unable to find very many photos online of women who had scars where their nipples once were. The whole purpose of walking topless was to show people what a woman with amputated breasts looked like.

Still, Leaphart has a more concrete goal that she intends to keep pursuing: ending breast cancer altogether. Finding a cure.

She was surprised to learn, she said, that, the day after she arrived at Capitol Hill, Vice-President Joe Biden was hosting a summit where he would announce new initiatives that aim to find a cure for cancer. To her delight, she was able to attend some functions of the summit.

You cant tell me theres no cure for the disease, she said. God said theres a cure.

In addition to attending the summit, Leaphart has scheduled meetings with seven members of the U.S. Congress, with whom she hopes to discuss both the plan for finding a cure and ways to make health care more accessible to people who cant afford crucial treatments.

Then, on July 9, Leaphart plans to hit the streets again, as she leads a march for a cure. The colour featured during the march will be yellow, not pink. Pink, Leaphart said, represents awareness, which she endorses, but yellow is the colour of healing  of a cure.

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BAGHDAD  A suicide truck bomb in downtown Baghdad killed 115 people and wounded nearly 200 others who were out shopping and celebrating early Sunday ahead of the holiday marking the end of Ramadan, security and medical officials said.

The attack, claimed by Daesh, also known as ISIS or the Islamic State, was the deadliest in months in the Iraqi capital, and came despite a series of recent gains against the extremists, including the capture of Fallujah, which was believed to have been a source of such attacks.

The bomb went off shortly after midnight in a crowded shopping area in the central Karada district, killing at least 115 people and wounding 187, according to a police official. The dead included at least 15 children, 10 women and six policemen. At least twelve other people were still missing and feared dead.

Karada is a major commercial area lined with clothing and jewelry stores, restaurants and cafes, and was packed with shoppers ahead of Wednesday's Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of Ramadan. Most of the victims were inside a multi-story shopping and amusement mall, where dozens burned to death or suffocated, police said.

It was the deadliest attack in Iraq since July 2015 and among the worst single bombings in more than a decade of war and insurgency.

"It was like an earthquake," said Karim Sami, a 35-year-old street vendor. "I wrapped up my goods and was heading home when I saw a fireball with a thunderous bombing," the father of three said.

"I was so scared to go back and started to make phone calls to my friends, but none answered." He said that one of his friends was killed, another was wounded and one was still missing.

As with many previous attacks, Daesh swiftly claimed responsibility for the bombing in a statement posted online, saying it had targeted Shiite Muslims. The Associated Press could not verify the authenticity of the statement, but it was posted on a militant website commonly used by the extremists.

Firefighters and civilians could be seen carrying the dead away, their bodies wrapped in blankets and sheets. Smoke billowed from the shopping centre, which was surrounded by the twisted and burned wreckage of cars and market stalls. A group of women were sitting on the pavement, crying for their loved ones.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, a roadside bomb went off in the mostly Shiite Shaab neighbourhood, killing five people and wounding 16, another police officer said. No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but it bore the hallmarks of Daesh militants.

The Sunni extremists frequently target the country's Shiite majority and Shiite-led security forces, viewing them as apostates deserving of death.

Medical officials confirmed the casualty figures from both attacks. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

The attacks came just a little over a week after Iraqi forces declared Fallujah "fully liberated," marking a major victory against Daesh. The city, less than an hour's drive from Baghdad, had been the first Iraqi urban centre to fall to Daesh, in January 2014, and was its last major stronghold in the vast, Sunni Anbar province.

On Sunday, the Joint Military Operation Command announced that government forces retook seven villages south of the Daesh-held city of Mosul as part of a small-scale operation started in March aimed at clearing areas outside the city to cut the supply lines and enable more troops to be deployed ahead of a major operation.

Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, fell to Daesh when the militants swept across northern and western Iraq in the summer of 2014. It is the largest city in the group's self-styled caliphate.

Hours after the Baghdad bombing, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and lawmakers visited the blast site. Video footage uploaded to social media showed an angry crowd, with people calling al-Abadi a "thief" and shouting at his convoy. Eyewitnesses said the crowd pelted al-Abadi's car with rocks, shoes and jerry cans.

The prime minister had received a rare boost after the Fallujah campaign following months of anti-government protests over political gridlock, official corruption and poor public services.

He faced renewed criticism in Karada on Sunday over lax security in the capital, where security forces at checkpoints still use bomb-detecting wands that were shown to be useless years ago.

"We are in a state of war, and these places are targeted. The security can't focus on the war (against Daesh) and forget Baghdad," Sami, the street vendor, said.

The U.N. envoy for Iraq, Jan Kubis, described the Karada attack as "a cowardly and heinous act of unparalleled proportions" and urged the Iraqi government to redouble its security efforts to protect Iraqis during the Eid al-Fitr celebrations.

Daesh militants who "have suffered defeats at the battlefront are seeking to avenge their losses by targeting vulnerable civilians," Kubis added.

The White House is also condemning the bombings.

"These attacks only strengthen our resolve to support Iraqi security forces as they continue to take back territory from ISIL, just as we continue to intensify our efforts to root out ISIL's terrorist network and leaders," National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said in a statement, referring to IS by an alternative acronym.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned the bombings on Twitter.

"So-called Islamic State has again proven itself an enemy of all Muslims. My thoughts are with victims of the Ramadan attacks in Iraq," Trudeau said.

At the height of the extremist group's power in 2014, Daesh rendered nearly a third of Iraq out of government control. Now, the militants are estimated to control only 14 per cent of Iraqi territory, according to the prime minister's office.

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DHAKA, BANGLADESH  Security officials searched on Sunday for evidence and the possible masterminds of the weekend hostage-taking in an upscale restaurant in Bangladeshs capital. The government has denied Daeshs, also known as ISIS or the Islamic State group, claim of responsibility for the attack that left 28 dead, including six attackers and 20 of the hostages.

Police released photographs of the bodies of five attackers, along with their first names: Akash, Badhon, Bikash, Don and Ripon. The men belonged to the banned domestic group Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh, or JMB, and their families hadnt heard from them in months, according to police. Asked whether they might also have had Islamic State ties, Police Inspector General A.K.M. Shahidul Hoque said authorities were investigating that possibility.

Despite the police saying Daesh links were being investigated, the home minister refuted the possibility that Daesh directed the attack from abroad. Bangladeshs government insists the extremist Sunni Muslim group based in Syria and Iraq has no presence in the country, and in the past has suggested that any claims of responsibility for violence waged in the South Asian country are simply opportunistic attempts at grabbing global attention.

They are all Bangladeshis. They are from rich families, they have good educational background, Khan said of the attackers. One surviving suspect was detained when paramilitary forces ended the 10-hour standoff Saturday morning, and authorities said he was being interrogated.

The siege marked an escalation in the militant violence that has hit Bangladesh with increasing frequency. Most of the attacks in the past several months have involved machete-wielding men singling out individual activists, foreigners and religious minorities.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has blamed her political opponents of trying to create chaos by backing domestic militants.

Anyone who believes in religion cannot do such an act, Hasina said Saturday. They do not have any religion, their only religion is terrorism.

On Sunday morning, the first of two days of national mourning for the victims, police were blocking all access to streets near the Holey Artisan Bakery where the siege occurred. Investigators from both Bangladesh and Japan visited the restaurant to collect evidence.

The 20 hostages who were killed included nine Italians, seven Japanese, three Bangladeshis and one Indian teenager. Two police officers were killed by the attackers, and 13 people were rescued when commandos stormed the restaurant Saturday morning. Another 25 officers and one civilian were wounded, and some of the rescued hostages had injuries. The hospitals treating them would not give fresh information on their conditions Sunday.

The attack was the worst in the recent series of attacks by radical Islamists in the moderate, mostly Muslim nation of 160 million. Unlike the previous attacks, the assailants were well-prepared and heavily armed with guns, bombs and sharp objects that police later said were used to torture some of the 35 captives.

That the attackers targeted a popular restaurant in the heart of the diplomatic quarter of Bangladesh's capital signalled a change in tactics. The restaurant overlooking a lake serves Spanish food and is patronized by residents of Gulshan, an affluent neighbourhood where most of the foreign embassies are located.

The hostages were asked to recite verses from the Quran, to prove themselves Muslim, according to a witness. Those who passed were allowed to eat. Those who failed were tortured and slain.

Western embassies issued travel warnings to their citizens, advising those in the country to be vigilant and avoid places frequented by foreigners in the diplomatic zone. The U.S. Embassy also urged its citizens and personnel to avoid travelling on foot or in open vehicles exposed to potential attackers.

In its claim of responsibility, the Daesh group said its operatives had targeted the citizens of "Crusader countries" in the attack, warning that citizens of such countries would not be safe "as long as their warplanes kill Muslims." The statement was circulated in a manner consistent with past Daesh claims of responsibility.

The Amaq news agency, affiliated with Daesh, also published photos of five smiling young men, each holding what appear to be assault rifles and posing in front of a black Daesh flag, and identified them as the restaurant attackers, according to the SITE Intelligence Service, which monitors jihadi online activity. The men in those photographs appeared to match the bodies shown in police images of the dead assailants in the restaurant after the hostage crisis ended.

Amaq identified the five by noms de guerre indicating they were all Bangladeshis. It said the fighters used "knives, cleavers, assault rifles and hand grenades," and had "verified" the identities of the hostages in order to spare the Muslims and kill the foreigners.

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BMW AG is teaming up with chipmaker Intel Corp. and camera-software company Mobileye NV to bring self-driving cars to the road by 2021, becoming the first major automaker to set a specific date to produce a fully autonomous vehicle.

The technology will be used in the iNext, set to supplant the 7-Series sedan as BMWs flagship model, the company said Friday. The iNext will be a basis for fleets of fully autonomous vehicles to cruise highways and eventually also be available as robo-taxis in cities, BMW said. The platform will be open for other carmakers and technology companies to use.

Given the players involved, this will likely become the industry standard, Arndt Ellinghorst, a London-based analyst for Evercore ISI, wrote in an email. Today could be transformational for individual mobility. Mark your calendar.

The biggest luxury carmaker setting a date for its self-driving debut will put pressure on rivals, including Tesla Motors Inc. and Mercedes-Benz, as manufacturers strive to fend off competition not only within the industry but also from the likes of Uber Technologies Inc. and Google. Robo-taxis will make up 40 per cent of automotive profits by 2030, more than selling vehicles to individuals, according to consulting company Roland Berger.

The coalition with Intel and Mobileye is the next core building block to bring fully automated driving technology to the street, BMW chief executive officer Harald Krueger said in the statement. The companies didnt release financial details on the co-operation.

BMWs partnership comes as a fatal accident in the U.S. involving a Tesla sedan driving on the cars so-called Autopilot fuels the debate over whether self-driving cars are ready for the real world. U.S. regulators are investigating the crash, which killed a 40-year-old Ohio man when his 2015 Model S drove under the trailer of an 18-wheeler.

Tesla uses Mobileyes technology in its Autopilot, which it started to introduce in October as a step toward autonomous cars. In the fatal crash, the company said, neither the system nor the driver saw the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky. The equipment in the Tesla that crashed is designed to prevent rear-end collisions, not avoid vehicles crossing laterally, Mobileye said in a statement. Its systems will be able to see and react to lateral traffic beginning in 2018, the company said.

Autopilot is one of a range of technologies meant to be stepping-stones toward completely autonomous vehicles. BMW already offers a self-parking feature, while Daimler AGs Mercedes E-Class can steer itself on the highway  though the driver is supposed to keep his or her hands on the wheel.

Enabling vehicles to navigate without human input through complex settings such as city centres requires them to see and understand situations more like humans do. BMWs deal with Intel and Mobileye brings together companies with expertise in cameras that can model the driving surroundings and computing capabilities to power artificial intelligence.

Mobileye is already working with General Motors Co., Volkswagen AG and Nissan Motor Co. on mapping technology that gathers crowdsourced real-time data from automakers fleets of vehicles.

Highly autonomous cars and everything they connect to will require powerful and reliable electronic brains, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said in the statement.

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NEW YORK  Elie Wiesel was memorialized Sunday at a private service in Manhattan, as family and friends gathered at Fifth Avenue Synagogue and praised the endurance and eloquence of the Nobel Peace Prize winner and mourned him as one of the last firsthand witnesses to the Nazis atrocities.

This is really the double tragedy of it, not only the loss of someone who was so rare and unusual but the fact that those ranks are thinning out, Rabbi Perry Berkowitz, president of the American Jewish Heritage Organization and a former assistant to Wiesel, said before the service at Fifth Avenue Synagogue. At the same time anti-Semitism, Holocaust revisionism keeps rising. The fear is that when there are no more survivors left, will the world learn the lesson because those voices will be silenced.

Millions first learned about the Holocaust through Wiesel, who began publishing in the 1950s, a time when memories of the Nazis atrocities were raw and repressed. He shared the harrowing story of his internment at Auschwitz as a teenager through his classic memoir Night, one of the most widely read and discussed books of the 20th century.

The Holocaust happened more than 70 years ago and few authors from that time remain. Another Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor, Hungarys Imre Kertesz, died earlier this year. Like Wiesel, he was 87.

While Berkowitz and others worry that the Holocausts lessons will be forgotten, some note that Wiesel himself worked to make memories endure. Abraham Foxman, former national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said before the service that Wiesel had written dozens of books. Sara Bloomfield, director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., credited Wiesel with making organizations like hers possible.

Night really put Elie Wiesels personal memories into our personal consciousness and it ended up spawning a global remembrance movement that is very vital today, she told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

He carried a message universally, he carried the Jewish pain, the message of Jewish tragedy to the world but he took it way beyond, Foxman said. He stood up for the people in Rwanda, he stood up for the Yugoslavians, he stood up for the Cambodians, said Foxman, who has known Wiesel for decades.

On Sunday, mourners shared personal memories. Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, remembered visiting Auschwitz with Wiesel in the 1980s and was struck that Wiesels response was not one of hate, but of great sadness.

And he said to me what I think was one of the most important statements: The opposite of love is not hate, its indifference, it was indifference that brought anti-Semitism to Germany and it was indifference that brought the Holocaust, Lauder explained.

Foxman said that in recent months he and Wiesel would reminisce, in Yiddish, and talk philosophy.

We talked about forgiveness, we talked about God. He was struggling with it, Foxman said. Well now hes a little closer. Now he can challenge the Almighty much closer and maybe he'll get some answers, which he asked, but never got the answers to.

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Israels police minister accused Facebook Inc. of complicity in Palestinian violence against his country after back-to-back attacks claimed the lives of a 13-year-old stabbed to death in her bed and a father of 10 killed in a drive-by shooting.

Many young Palestinians incite against Israelis on Facebook and the social network fails to take down such posts, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said. Facebook also sabotages police efforts and turns down requests for collaboration, he said.

The victims blood is partially on Facebooks hands, Erdan told Channel 2 late Saturday. Facebook has turned into a monster. The younger generation in the Palestinian Authority runs its entire discourse of incitement and lies and finally goes out to commit murderous acts on Facebooks platform.

A Facebook spokeswoman said the company works regularly with safety organizations and policy-makers around the world, including Israel, to ensure that people know how to make a safe use of Facebook. There is no room for content that promotes violence, direct threats, terrorist or hate speeches on our platform.

Shaping Unrest

A wave of lone wolf attacks by Palestinians on Israelis that began last fall is being encouraged by posts on social media that call for murder and glorify attacks, the Israeli government says. The violence, which had appeared to lull in recent months before a June 8 shooting at a Tel Aviv retail and food market, has intensified more than two years since peacemaking between Israelis and Palestinians last collapsed.

In all, about three dozen Israelis and more than 200 Palestinians  most of them attackers or people involved in clashes with Israeli troops  have been killed since October.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett, a former high-tech entrepreneur, told Israel Radio on Sunday that by using a simple algorithm, Facebook could block videos inciting to murder from being posted. Israels inner security cabinet discussed blocking social networks in the Hebron area where the two deadly attacks took place last week, within the space of just over 24 hours.

The violence was the most serious in a week that began with clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces at a contested Jerusalem shrine sacred to Muslims as the al-Aqsa mosque compound and to Jews as Temple Mount. There were also Palestinian stabbing attacks, rocket fire at Israel by Gaza Strip militants and retaliatory Israeli airstrikes.

Over the weekend, Israel locked down hundreds of thousands of people in Hebron and surrounding areas, the largest such action since it went after the killers of three Jewish youths in 2014, according to the military.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to withhold some of the taxes and fees it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority on the ground some of the money is transferred to families of attackers. He and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman also approved the renewal of a tender to build 42 apartments in the Jewish settlement outside Hebron where the teenager was killed.

On Friday, the Quartet of Middle East peace mediators said Israeli settlement construction and expansion, and denial of Palestinian development is steadily eroding the viability of a two-state solution. The group, representing the U.S., European Union, Russia and United Nations, also called on the Palestinian Authority to take steps to reduce incitement to violence.

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WASHINGTONBraden Green, a Utah conservative who voted for Mitt Romney and John McCain, never saw a reason to register as a Republican until this years presidential primaries.

He didnt feel a sudden burst of partisan loyalty. Like tens of thousands of his fellow Mormons, he wanted to vote against Donald Trump.

Utah is one of the three most Republican states in America. Thanks to Mormons disgust with Trumps personality and policies, which seem almost custom-designed to appall them, it is also, somehow, a state Hillary Clinton could win.

Will people turn out and vote in November? Theres a real danger that they simply will not come to the polls, and if that happens, then there is an opening for Hillary to win the state, theres no question, said Stan Lockhart, former chairman of the Utah Republican Party. The challenge is: hes not persuaded us. Hes not done anything to reassure us. Hes not done anything to let us know that he stands for something.

Trump is doing poorly in much of the country. In no other place are his numbers quite so dreadful. Romney won Utah by 48 points, McCain by 28. A June poll had Trump and Clinton tied at 35 per cent with Libertarian Gary Johnson at 13 per cent.

Hes wildly unpopular in my state, in part because my state consists of people who are members of a religious-minority church, Republican Sen. Mike Lee said in a Wednesday Newsmax interview.

Trump didnt just lose the Utah caucus. He got walloped, 69 per cent for Ted Cruz to his 14. As Republicans in other states have united behind him, Utah has remained an unlikely bastion of resistance.

The conversations that Ive had with folks, and looking at my personal feelings: we dont trust him, said Ryan Nelson, 43, a business owner and the Republican chair in Iron County. From the things Ive read and studied, I dont agree with some of what hes saying, particularly the way hes saying it.

Trumps Utah problem starts with his behaviour. Republicans elsewhere have viewed his coarse manner of speaking as evidence of honesty, his insult-flinging as evidence of independence, his ostentation evidence of business acumen, his extramarital affairs as irrelevant.

To many Mormons, they are grievous flaws that add up to a disquieting immorality. The Mormon church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, preaches humility, modesty, chastity and civility.

His fundamental crassness and indecency dont remotely pass our smell test, said Ralph Hancock, a conservative political science professor at church-owned Brigham Young University.

Many evangelicals have a similar smell test, and Trump is doing far better with them. Part of the difference can be explained by Mormons higher levels of income, education and church attendance. But the collective recoil is as much about Trumps platform as demographics or personality.

Trumps Islamophobic rhetoric has enthused a large majority of Republicans. In Utah, where three-fifths of the population belongs to a long-marginalized religion that makes up 1.6 per cent of the U.S. population, it has proven a massive liability.

He has given the impression that he is willing to take on and discriminate against a minority religious group. And that has been something that Mormons have taken personally, said Richard Davis, a BYU political science professor and a former Democratic county chair.

The church issued an unprecedented statement in response to Trumps proposal to ban foreign Muslims, declaring itself not neutral in relation to religious freedom. The U.S. secretary of state sought in 1879 to restrict Mormon immigration, calling them, as Trump now does Muslims, potential criminals. The Mormons of the early 19th century faced mob violence and government persecution.

Because it happened to my people, albeit 150-plus years ago, Id like to think that I am more sensitive to making sure that it doesnt happen to another religious group, said Green, 30, a masters student.

Trumps hostility to illegal immigrants has played little better in Utah than the Muslim-bashing. The Mormon church strongly prefers immigrant-friendly reform to mass deportation, and polls suggest Mormons are more supportive of immigration than just about any other religious group. Thousands have done missionary service in Spanish-speaking countries.

I am not a fan of his extremism with immigration. It comes across as racist and xenophobic, said Green, who served a mission in the Dominican Republic. I believe in having secure borders, but that immigration is a positive thing for America and helps out far more than it hurts.

Trump further damaged himself by questioning Romneys own Mormon faith. Romney, a beloved figure in the state, had delivered a blistering anti-Trump speech two weeks prior.

Mitt Romney has a lot of sway with a lot of people, and they look up to him, said Davis County Republican chairman Rob Anderson, 50, a Trump supporter and airline pilot. I was somewhat disappointed when he came out and said those things  but I was a unicorn in thinking that in Utah. I think most people were on board with Romney.

Clinton will still be hard-pressed to eke out a victory in a state no Democrat has won since 1964. Davis said Trump will likely take Utahs six electoral votes in a close race, only because of the partisan factor. Nelson said he will probably choose Trump despite his misgivings: he thinks Clinton is worse.

The majority of Utahns will come around, Anderson said. But it will take time.

If the election was today, he said, turnout would be very low.

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The most powerful smack down suffered by David Cameron for his destruction of the future for young Brits is this. In politics  particularly when you are in trouble and desperate to climb back up  be very careful what you wish for.

The strategic folly David Cameron will now live with forever, in gambling his nations future in an attempt to buy off his own blackmailing party enemies, was Napoleonic in its arrogance. Did no one ever explain to this self-obsessed fool where caving to blackmailers always ends?

And then there is Boris, the mean clown, fired for lying to his first Tory leader, fired again as a journalist for lying and now struggling to hide his terror at being discovered as an enormous liar to the British public. This is a man who submitted two columns to the Daily Telegraph, the day before announcing his intention to abandon his government, his party, and his university pal, David Cameron. One column argued Stay! and the other Quit! Clearly, a politician of firm flexibility, both in policy and ethics.

And now after a two year flirtation with challenging Camerons leadership Johnson stunned the Brexiteers by ducking and announcing he intends to remain a disloyal backbencher. Staggering.

In a functioning representative democracy referenda are almost always a bad idea. They necessarily reduce complex policy choice to a light switch. They never unite, but divide  nations, communities, and most painfully, families. But they have a compelling appeal to Quebec separatists, Arab dictators, and cowardly politicians of every stripe. They allow the spineless to plead, Dont blame me, the voters made me do it ...!

Weve had four in Canada. Two divided the nation over the most fateful responsibility any democratic leader is obligated to own personally  whether to risk the lives of the nations young in battle. Two more ripped families over whether to divide Canada itself. Those who think a referendum on electoral reform will not inflict deep wounds and lasting damage on Canadian political life might want to give David Cameron a call.

Dim bulb Canadian Conservatives, such as Tony Clement  who called the Brexit referendum a triumph  have probably never read Edmund Burke, the intellectual father of British Conservatism. Burke understood that a representative democracy was not a menu from which you chose the issues you were electing representatives to decide  and the ones you retained a personal veto on. Our politicians are elected to make the hardest and most painful choices, not merely to decide what to spend where.

Burke defined the obligation eloquently for his Bristol voters, in a declaration that is powerful and relevant, two and half centuries later:

Government and legislation are matters of reason and judgment and not of inclination ... Your representative owes you not his industry only, but his judgment: and he betrays instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

Consider the power of that vision set against Camerons cowardice  politicians betray you when they fail to use their own reason and judgment to lead. The next politician to suffer the pain of referendum cowardice  one who had looked so promising only a year ago  is Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. His referendum on constitutional change seems likely to fail, leading to his resignation. His successor is likely to be a deeply anti-EU leader, who has promised  you guessed it  a referendum. It seems unlikely the EU could survive the defection of two of its most powerful economies at the same time.

But perhaps the saddest Brexit wreckage is the fate of the entire British political structure. Both Labour and the Tories seem likely to enter a period of bloody civil war. The dangerously vacuous Labour Party leader has just seen virtually his entire shadow cabinet resign in disgust at his Brexit equivocation. He may be forced out within days, leaving Labour with the prospect of the second bloody leadership contest in as many years.

The party elites are far from blameless for this mess, of course. They were each wilfully blind to the dangerous behaviour of their own activists and those political colleagues Burke would have attacked for their betrayal of responsibility.

But it is the young, the elderly, and the poor  and increasingly visible minority Brits  who will pay the price for their folly as the good ship HMS Great Britain begins to list dangerously, with no captain, a terrified skeleton crew and a gathering storm ahead.

Cameron and Johnson wished and prayed for a near miss in their Brexit gambit. History will judge each harshly for the consequences of their stunning joint failure of leadership.

Robin V. Sears, a principal at Earnscliffe and a Broadbent Institute leadership fellow, was an NDP strategist for 20 years.

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Three years ago today, Egypts Muslim Brotherhood-linked president, Mohamed Morsi, was overthrown after millions staged massive protests, blaming him for stifling the economy and their hard-won freedoms.

But it is proving a very unhappy anniversary for all but the cronies of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, the general who promised stability and progress to exasperated Egyptians who felt betrayed in the aftermath of the Tahrir Square Revolution.

Since the coup, and the elections that confirmed el-Sisi in power, the divisions in society that were ripped open have only grown wider, and some in the country are even nostalgic for the days of the former dictator Hosni Mubarak.

Tourism, a major engine of the economy, has run down by 40 per cent since Mubaraks regime. The countrys reserves have dropped alarmingly. The Egyptian pound is devalued. Youth unemployment  in a society where more than half the population is young  has risen to at least 35 per cent.

Meanwhile el-Sisis increasing reliance on brute force against suspected enemies  including peaceful protesters, suspected Muslim Brotherhood members, bloggers and the media  has been accompanied by draconian sentences from a politicized judiciary. Trials of hundreds of political prisoners are a travesty, and death sentences are handed down on spurious evidence.

Journalists are frequent targets. Egypt has been downgraded to 159th out of 180 countries for press freedom, and according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, only China jails more of them.

A particularly poignant casualty of el-Sisis draconian regime is young Irish prisoner Ibrahim Halawa, who once shared a cell with Canadian Mohamed Fahmy. Arrested at 17 while holidaying with his sisters in Cairo, he was allegedly tortured, placed in solitary confinement and faces a potential death sentence.

Other collateral damage is the family of Khaled Al Qazzaz, a Canadian resident who was arrested while working as a foreign affairs advisor to Morsi.

He suffered agonizing neck and spinal injuries during more than 18 months in solitary confinement, before being released without charge. But he and his Canadian-born wife and four children are now virtual prisoners in Cairo, their money for his medical treatment unaccountably confiscated and bank accounts frozen. Al Qazzazs name was posted on a no-fly list without explanation, and queries have gone unanswered.

As the three-year anniversary of the coup dawns, the future of the Arab worlds most populous country looks increasingly dim. Discontent is growing, along with international warnings of instability. Unless el-Sisi can reverse course, and fulfil some of the promises he made to Egyptians, both the country and the region are headed for even darker days.

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Founders Brewings Mango Magnifico con Calor. (Goran Kosanovic/For The Washington Post)

When I set down the bottle of Founders Mango Magnifico con Calor at the cash register, the cashier gave me a curious look. Have you had this beer before? Its interesting. I told him Id tried it a few years ago, when the Michigan brewery first released it, but not since. The mango flavor, and the peppers, he said. Interesting.

That was my first clue that this mango-and-habanero beer, re- released by Founders this year as part of its Backstage Series, really isnt for everyone.

When the beer is poured into a tulip glass, the nose is an intense mango and tropical fruit with a tiny bit of malt. A sip reveals a thick, sweet and viscous body reminiscent more of mango juice than of the mango ale promised on the label. There isnt much hop bitterness before the burn from the peppers arrives, starting in your throat and moving down to the chest. Theres a secondary warmth from the alcohol, because the beer is a strong 10 percent alcohol by volume. The sweet and heat are well balanced, but theres a seesaw effect between the beginning of a sip and after you swallow.

Although I enjoyed sharing Mango Magnifico with co-workers, this is not a bottle Id look forward to coming home to and cracking open on the patio after a tough day at the office. (Well, given the alcohol content, maybe.) But one sip of this beer, and I started thinking that its flavors would make it a fine match with summer dishes, especially tacos. A Food team colleague who cooks a lot took a sip and immediately suggested pairing the beer with citrusy carnitas. And that sounds truly magnifico.

Founders Mango Magnifico con Calor 2016. foundersbrewing.com. $13 to $15 for a 750-milliliter bottle.
Shane Bauer, senior writer for Mother Jones, who spent four months undercover in a private Louisiana correctional facility, after obtaining a job as a prison guard there. (James West)

Undercover reporting is the James Dean of journalism: thrilling, but dangerous.

Nellie Bly did it in 1887 when she checked herself into an insane asylum and emerged with stories of beatings and neglect.

ABC Primetime Live did it in 1992 when reporters posed as supermarket workers at Food Lion to expose some of the chains practices, including the repackaging of older meat with a new sell-by date.

And now, Mother Jones magazine has published its 35,000-word investigation of a Louisiana for-profit prison, based on reporter Shane Bauers four-month stint as a prison guard.

In doing so, the magazine walked up to the line of accepted journalism ethics: reporters shouldnt lie or misrepresent themselves as they pursue a story.

Bauer used his real name and Social Security number in applying for the $9-an-hour job, and said his previous employer was the parent company of Mother Jones, the Foundation for National Progress. But he never let on that he was a reporter, or that he was using recording equipment. (A quick Google search would have revealed that Bauer was famous as one of the American hikers who were jailed in Iran for almost two years from 2009 to 2011.)

We took these issues very seriously, the magazines editor in chief, Clara Jeffery, told me. But editors decided to go ahead for a simple reason: We felt there was no other way to cast light on privately run prisons.

The horrendously short staffing at Winn Correctional Facility in rural Winnfield, La., meant misery for inmates and guards alike.

One prisoner who had lost fingers to gangrene was denied medical care. Inmates attacked and stabbed other inmates. And the prison had no psychiatrist on staff to deal with 1,500 inmates. Brutal force seemed the answer to every situation that arose.

Undercover reporting becomes necessary, Jeffery said, when its about people who dont get their stories told very often.

But there are risks, as ABC found out when Food Lion sued. An initial verdict against the network of $5.5 million was reduced to $316,000, and then reduced again to a nominal $2. But the episode cast a long-lasting pall on undercover reporting.

In the late 1970s, the Chicago Sun Times set up a phantom business, the aptly named Mirage Tavern. Praised for revealing how corrupt government inspectors accepted bribes from small-business owners, the Sun Times report was shunned by the Pulitzer Prize board because of concerns about the ethics of a story based on wholesale deception.

Mother Jones went ahead with publication with a legal threat already lodged by the prisons parent, Corrections Corp. of America. (Notably, it came from the same law firm that represented the billionaire Frank Vandersloot, who sued Mother Jones unsuccessfully a few years ago, and who pledged $1 million to support other suits against the magazine; the situation is reminiscent of fellow billionaire Peter Thiels support of legal actions intended to drive Gawker out of business.)

New York University journalism professor Brooke Kroeger, who wrote the 2012 book Undercover Reporting: The Truth About Deception, told me she is a believer in this kind of journalism  but only under very controlled circumstances and for something really important that matters to the public interest.

She puts Mother Joness Louisiana prison reporting in that category, and has added it to the NYU database in which thousands of examples over many decades are collected.

Many mainstream news organizations dont countenance undercover reporting in any form because they insist that reporters identify themselves as working journalists; The Washington Post is among these.

And for good reason  being truthful is of utmost importance. Misrepresentation, by its nature, works against reader trust. And its not fair to those being written about.

But its not always a clear-cut line. After all, not much of the best reporting gets clearance through public-relations departments.

Kroeger opens her book with a description of The Posts investigation into the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which won the Pulitzer Prize for exposing the deplorable quality of care for war veterans there. While never misrepresenting themselves, Post reporters did get a crucial inside view by staying under the authorities radar as they visited families and patients. The investigation brought real reform.

Ted Conovers book about his undercover experiences as a prison employee, Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2001, which may suggest that the journalistic establishment sees the merits of such techniques yet is unwilling to fully endorse them.

Can any form of misrepresentation (even if indirect) be justly employed to serve a larger truth? Failing the counsel of Talmudic scholars, Ill defer to Conovers description of undercover reporting: the nuclear arrow in the writers quiver, a potent tool that should be used only with extreme care and in a limited number of cases.

The best journalism must peel back layers to reveal the truth. As the maxim has it, News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress. All the rest is advertising.

For more by Margaret Sullivan visit wapo.st/sullivan

Correction: This column was incorrect in stating that a Louisiana prison run by Corrections Corporation of America had no psychiatrist on staff for its 1,500 inmates. The prison has a part-time psychiatrist and a part-time psychologist at the facility on a weekly basis, according to CCA.

In addition, the column stated that an inmate with gangrene was denied medical care. The column should have attributed that statement to Mother Jones magazine's reporting, as well as to a lawsuit that the inmate filed against CCA. The lawsuit is still pending, and CCA has denied the claim.
In February 1976, columnist John Kelly's father and five other U.S. servicemen stationed in England celebrated the Bicentennial by rowing a boat across the Thames, re-creating George Washington's crossing of the Delaware.The story was covered in the Daily Mail. (Courtesy of John Kelly)

The word came down from the U.S. Embassy in London and it was clear: There were to be no excessive Bicentennial celebrations by American military personnel stationed in the United Kingdom.

Yes, the United States and Great Britain were allies, but over-the-top displays memorializing the events of 1776  when a scrappy bunch of Colonials vowed to cast off the yoke of British oppression  were officially discouraged.

My father didnt listen.

Hed been sent to England in 1974, a U.S. Air Force pilot who would spend the next three years as an exchange officer with the Royal Air Force, learning their ways, serving alongside them, flying their airplanes. At his first post  attending the RAF Staff College at a base called Bracknell, 30 miles west of London  a British officer gave Maj. Kelly a bit of advice: Be an American.

The Brits, he explained, liked it when Americans acted American: brash, rambunctious, refreshingly oblivious of sclerotic class distinctions.

There was a tradition of practical jokes among the officers who spent an academic year at the college, a place overseen by a commandant who had flown missions over Europe in World War II. During one class, an American student burst through the doors at the back of a packed lecture hall shouting, The British are coming! The British are coming!

He was riding a horse.

Now that was a prank.

The Staff College attracted officers from all over the world, primarily from former British Colonies on which the imperial sun had finally set. The flags of these nations hung in the Officers Club dining room, where each morning neatly pressed newspapers could be retrieved and read over tea or coffee served NATO standard: milk and two sugars.

On the Fourth of July in 1975, my father sneaked into the dining room early and replaced the dozens of disparate flags with the Stars and Stripes. Everyone had a jolly good laugh. My father was told to have the original flags back up by lunchtime.

This sort of thing was to be expected: national pride expressed with good-natured exuberance. Obviously, things would have to be ratcheted up for the Bicentennial.

My father was involved in many practical jokes that anniversary year. At his next post, RAF Brampton, outside Cambridge, he and two other American officers set off the fire alarm in the headquarters building on the Fourth of July. When the evacuees had assembled outside, they were invited to partake in a massive cake that said Happy 200th Birthday.

Noted the local paper: Not even such a large company could polish it all off, however, and more than half the cake was available to be presented by the majors to the airmens mess.

But the most elaborate prank had taken place several months earlier. On Feb. 18, 1976, my father, along with a U.S. Army officer named John Pritchard and four other USAF service men, assembled in London on the north side of the Thames, near the HMS Discovery, the three-masted ship that had gone to Antarctica with Scott and Shackleton. The ship had become a training vessel for the Boy Scouts, and the Americans helped themselves to a dinghy and four oars. They were going to celebrate George Washingtons birthday by re-creating the generals crossing of the Delaware.

The police arrived and found six Americans in tricorn hats, wigs, breeches and shoes with silver buckles made from aluminum foil. An old-fashioned American flag was stapled to a broomstick.

Rather than stopping the prank, the bobbies simply insisted the Americans don life jackets and be accompanied by a police launch. The Yanks happily complied. Braving the bitter weather, and dodging traffic on the busy river, they rowed across the Thames, claimed the other side for America, then rowed back.

If they hoped this innocent stunt might escape the notice of the nervous nellies at the U.S. Embassy, they were mistaken. The next day the Daily Mail featured the exploit in its center spread, under a seven-column headline that read: Keep calm, England! The damned Yankees are invading.

The story, by Terry Coleman, began: A man giving his name as George Washington, and claiming to be a general, yesterday crossed the Thames at London with a small band of insurgents and planted in the mud of the south bank a flag composed of a variety of stripes and stars.

There was a photo in the Times of London, too. Thankfully, no punishment was meted out.

My father still has the yellowed newspaper clippings. He transferred his love of Britain  of being an American in Britain  to me.

And whenever I read that Daily Mail article from 40 years ago, Im amused by the authors closing line: On the way back, the rebels were nearly run down by two Thames vessels, one called Royalty and the other called Revenge.

Twitter: @johnkelly

For previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/johnkelly.
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Robert F. Dorr, an author and former Foreign Service officer who wrote hundreds of books and newspaper and magazine articles on military aircraft, battles and history, died June 12 at a hospital in Falls Church, Va. He was 76.

The cause was a brain tumor, said a son, Robert P. Dorr.

From 1964 to 1989, Mr. Dorr was in the Foreign Service, mainly as a political officer, and his assignments included South Korea, Madagascar, Japan, Sweden, London and Liberia.

In retirement, he wrote books on topics ranging from World War II history to more recent military missions as well as novels and adventure stories. His 1991 volume about the Persian Gulf War, Desert Shield: The Build-up: The Complete Story, reportedly sold about 100,000 copies.

Mr. Dorr was a columnist for Air Force Times and other military publications and often was a sympathetic voice for enlisted airmen, said Kathleen Curthoys, a presentation editor at Military Times.

Robert Francis Dorr was born in Washington on Sept. 11, 1939. He grew up near Bolling Air Force Base and since childhood was fascinated by airplanes. With money he earned from a paper route, he bought an Underwood typewriter and began writing stories when he was 12.

As a student at Suitland High School in Prince Georges County, Md., Mr. Dorr began his writing career with an unsolicited article in Air Force Magazine arguing that bombers in the Strategic Air Command needed fighter aircraft escorts, the Air Force Times said in an obituary.

After high school graduation in 1957, Mr. Dorr served four years in the Air Force, stationed mostly in Korea. Having learned the language, he eavesdropped on North Korean communications. He later settled in San Francisco, attended the University of California at Berkeley and began writing adventure stories for pulp fiction magazines.

In 1968, he married Young Soon Cho, and they later settled in Oakton, Va.

Besides his wife, survivors include two sons, Robert P. Dorr of Arlington, Va., and Lawrence G. Dorr III of Trinity, Fla.; a brother; and three grandchildren.
A 21-year-old D.C. man on Friday was arrested and charged with assault with a dangerous weapon after police said he shot a woman Thursday evening in Northwest Washington.

Bryan Rodriguez of Northeast shot the woman after the two argued with each other in the 4400 block of Iowa Avenue NW about 5:15 p.m., police said.

The woman started to walk away, authorities said, and Rodriguez allegedly pulled out a gun and shot her.

D.C. police could not be immediately reached Sunday for an update on the womans condition.
It is our species that seems to show the most interest in all the others, which was demonstrated across the Washington region recently in at least two ways.

One was the carefully watched birth of a sea lion pup at the National Zoo, said to be the first of its kind there in 32 years.

The pup was born June 26 to a mother named Calli, who is 11 years old, the zoo said.

The zoo said that keepers are continuing to keep close tabs on the pup. However, the zoo said, it appears to be doing well at the important functions of nursing, moving and vocalizing.

The gender of the newborn has not yet been determined, the zoo said, explaining that the staff is allowing the pup time to bond with its mother.

Zoo staff members were described as warily optimistic that the pup would thrive. They are allowing the mother to care for the pup without interference, the zoo said, and both are to be kept from public view until the mother appears ready to show the pup to the zoos other sea lions.

In a second incident, which also seemed to stem from fascination with the creatures of the natural world, the Prince Georges County fire department deployed a rope Saturday to help a teenager who was stuck waist deep in muddy, murky water in the Upper Marlboro area. He had jumped in, according to fire department spokesman Mark E. Brady, to check out a turtle.

A photograph showed him out of the water, coated almost to the neck with mud. His name was not given, nor were details about the turtle.
Only adults can get married in Virginia, according to a new law replacing policies that made it possible for a girl 13 or younger to marry if she had parental consent and was pregnant.

The law, which took effect Friday, sets the minimum marriage age at 18, or 16 if a child is emancipated by court order. It takes parents and pregnancy out of the equation.

The change is aimed at curbing forced marriage, human trafficking and statutory rape disguised as marriage. Activists say the previous law created a fast-track to child marriages for abusers who could evade investigation by child-welfare officials by simply marrying their victims.

Nearly 4,500 children under age 18 were married in Virginia from 2004 to 2013, according to data from the states Department of Health. That includes more than 200 children age 15 or younger.

[Here are some of the laws that took effect in Virginia and Maryland last week]

About 90 percent of the underage spouses were girls; in many cases, the girls married men age 21 or older, and sometimes the men were decades older, data show.

The statistics prompted the Falls Church-based Tahirih Justice Center, which works to end forced marriage in the United States, to set about getting the laws changed through a rare bipartisan effort.

Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel (R-Fauquier) and Del. Jennifer L. McClellan (D-Richmond) sponsored identical bills that passed during this years legislative session, despite some opposition.

Similar bills were introduced in California, Maryland, New Jersey and New York this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

We hope that legislators will see the efforts in Virginia as a wake-up call about how their laws can facilitate forced marriages of children, said Jeanne Smoot, Tahirihs senior counsel for policy and strategy.

Vogel said she learned about the issue when constituents in an affluent part of her Northern Virginia district sought her help after a man in his 50s was suspected of having sex with a high school student.

As child-protective services began to close in, Vogel said the man wooed the parents and married the girl, eliminating the possibility of prosecution. It was the second time he followed this tactic; the earlier marriage ended in divorce, she said.

Now theyre married, and theres no crime, said Vogel, a lawyer who is running for lieutenant governor. She dropped out of high school. Her life is ruined.

When children get married, Smoot said, they are 50 percent less likely to finish high school, four times less likely to go to college and more likely to have children sooner and more closely spaced than people who marry as adults.

Underage brides are also more likely to experience mental and physical problems, Smoot said, and have a divorce rate of as high as 80 percent.

McClellan noted that her grandmother married at age 14 in Mississippi in the early 1900s, when it was more socially acceptable and before evidence showed the risks of underage marriage.

Today, she said, the new legislation was needed to bring consistency to child-safety policies and to close what advocates call a gaping loophole in marriage laws.

Sex with a child is illegal, McClellan said, but the way the marriage laws worked, if you were under 16 and pregnant, rather than punishing your assailant, you were allowed to marry them.

[Photos: Saddest bride I have ever seen: Child marriage in Bangladesh]

For these reasons, Tahirih is urging states to follow Virginias lead and set the minimum marriage age at 18.

In Maryland, children can get married at 16 and 17 with parental consent and 15 if there is a pregnancy. In at least 200 cases from 2000 to 2014, minors married spouses 10 years their senior, Smoot said.

A bill died in Annapolis this year, but lawmakers plan to try again next session.

In Virginias Republican-

controlled General Assembly, the law passed 65 to 29 in the House and 38 to 2 in the Senate and was signed by Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D).

Although the law sets the limit for the age of consent, a juvenile and domestic-relations district court can emancipate 16- and 17-year-olds who wish to marry if a judge finds the minor is not being compelled to marry, the parties are mature enough, the marriage will not endanger the minor and the marriage is in the best interest of the minor.

Neither a past or current pregnancy of either individual to be married . . . nor the wishes of the parents or legal guardians of the minor are enough to prove emancipation is necessary, the law says.

Thats troubling to opponents such as Sen. J. Chapman Chap Petersen (D-Fairfax), who said it is not for lawmakers to judge the decisions of pregnant teens and their families.

Maybe Im old-fashioned, he said, but if someone gets pregnant and they want to be married when the child is born, not being able to do that of their own volition without going to court, I thought that was a little bit overly aggressive.

Del. David A. LaRock (R-

Loudoun) said he worried that pregnant teens could be more likely to have abortions if they must have court permission to marry.

Ultimately, I was not convinced this was an effective way to fix the problems it was targeting like forced marriage and sex trafficking, he said.

More than 700 million women worldwide were married as children  four times the female population of the United States, according to UNICEF.

The practice is on the decline around the globe as well as in Virginia, where the number of minors married dropped from about 800 in 2005 to about 200 in 2013, state data show.

But advocates at Tahirih worry that the minors still marrying today represent a particularly vulnerable subset of children with few, if any, other options.
Among various types of American workers, it is farmers, lumberjacks and fishermen who are most likely to kill themselves, according to a large new study that shows enormous differences of suicide rates across jobs.

Researchers found the highest suicide rates in manual laborers who work in isolation and face unsteady employment. High rates were also seen in carpenters, miners, electricians and people who work in construction. Mechanics were close behind.

Dentists, doctors and other health-care professionals had an 80 percent lower suicide rate than farmers, fishermen and lumberjacks.

The lowest rate was in teachers, educators and librarians.

The report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is perhaps the largest U.S. study to compare suicide rates among occupations. But it is not comprehensive. It covered only 17 states, looking at about 12,300 of the more than 40,000 suicide deaths reported in the nation in 2012.

Because of the limited data, the researchers could calculate suicide rates only for broad occupation categories, not for specific jobs.

Following are the five occupations with the highest suicide rates. The complete list can be found at cdc.gov/mmwr.

Farmers, fishermen, lumberjacks, others in forestry or agriculture: 85 per 100,000.

Carpenters, miners, electricians, construction trades: 53.

Mechanics and those who do installation, maintenance, repair: 48.

Factory and production workers: 35.

Architects, engineers: 32.


Photographer Shane Epping arranges footprint cards during a photo shoot for Kyson, who died at 34 weeks on Feb. 17, at the University of Missouri Women's and Children's Hospital in Columbia, Mo. (Timothy Tai for The Washington Post)

These are the worst moments of Beth and Dans life.

In a quiet room, baby Emily lies on Beths chest, while she brushes her newborns hair left to right over her forehead. Dan, Emilys father, sits nearby in a recliner, eyes closed, head tilted back, sighing big sighs out of his barrel chest.

Do you need anything, babe? he says every now and then.

No, Beth tells him, still petting Emily. She looks up with worn, smiling eyes. She has Emily, and thats enough for now.

Emily had been an active baby. She moved when Beth moved and would kick or spin away when nurses took sonograms of her. Emily had a cyst in her chest taking up room where her heart and lungs should have grown. Twenty weeks into the pregnancy, doctors told Beth and Dan the condition might require surgery in her first year of life, but afterward there was a good chance shed be a normal little girl.



Epping volunteers to photograph deceased newborns with Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, a national organization for "remembrance photography." (Timothy Tai for The Washington Pos)

A day before Beths 30-week appointment, the baby stopped moving and Beth went in for an emergency scan. The cyst had grown too large; it had crowded out Emilys heart, and now it had stopped beating.

A nurse telephoned Shane Epping.

We might have a situation for you this evening, she told him. Can you be there?

Epping can always be there. In the past three years he has seen more than 50 demises, as they are called  newborns who come into the world and swiftly leave it. He lost his own daughter this way in 2012.

Hes a professional photographer in Columbia, Mo., and a volunteer with Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, a nonprofit that matches grieving parents with photographers who take pictures pro bono of their deceased babies.

He enters hospital rooms with a soft knock and a knapsack full of camera gear, and he photographs the infinite moments that come after a newborns fleeting life.

Emily was born  and died  on Oct. 28, 2015, just before 7:30 p.m. Epping arrived at the hospital after 8:30 p.m.

They came in expecting some abnormalities, but nothing like this, a nurse had told him. The baby looks good, considering, she tells him, then points to a room. Around the corner. First door on the left. Theyre doing pretty well.



Epping prepares Kristen Grimm for a photo shoot with her son, Kyson, who died at 34 weeks. (Timothy Tai for The Washington Post)

Epping knocks on the door, and Dan lurches out of his chair.

Dan is a large man with shocks of brown hair that peak at the forehead from the many times he has run his hands through his locks. Beth looks up and gently moves her daughter from her right arm to her left. She has hospital ID bracelets on her wrists.

Baby Emily is swaddled in a gray and peach blanket that Beths mother made. She looks a little red: Her cheeks especially are rosy, her eyes are closed and her lips are dark and slightly pursed.

Beth and Dan  to preserve their privacy, they asked to be identified in this story by only their first names  werent sure about having photos done. Visuals can be harsh reminders. They are moments unavoidable, recollections of tears and prayers and Why us? But photos are all Beth and Dan can take home from the hospital.

We were mainly just looking for some pictures of her, Beth tells Epping. Maybe one of us as a family.

We can do that, Epping says, draping a camera strap around his neck and under his long black hair. Hes not tall but not slight, and he angles his frame into seemingly uncomfortable positions because thats what photographers do, he says.

Mom, he says to Beth, if you feel comfortable, maybe give her a kiss on the side of the head. She obliges.

Dad, if you could get down on a knee, if thats comfortable. Dan does.

She looks pretty good, Epping says as he gets ready to shoot. Okay, baby.



Epping poses Courteney Grimm for a photo shoot with her nephew, Kyson. (Timothy Tai for The Washington Post)

Changing expectations

Epping and his wife, Mary, learned something was wrong with their baby at 20 weeks.

Things arent looking exactly like they should, the doctor had told them after theyd come in for a regular sonogram, and she handed them an address for Mark Grant, a high-risk-pregnancy specialist in Columbia. Go see him now. Right now.

Grant performed another ultrasound. The baby had one clubfoot, the test revealed, and was a little small. Still, Grant was optimistic. Epping asked for approximate odds that his baby would be healthy.

Eighty-20, the baby is okay, Grant told him.

Two weeks later, more-subtle physical abnormalities were appearing in the baby, a girl they had named Faye. Grant issued new odds : 50/50.

He drew amniotic fluid to test Fayes DNA. She carried trisomy 18, a fatal complication in cell division that stunts a fetuss development. It occurs in 1 of every 2,500 U.S. pregnancies; most babies with the condition are stillborn or die within their first year of life.

Grant called Mary with the news a couple of days later. Mary called her husband at work.

Yeah, he said. I figured.

Mary carried Faye to full term. They didnt tell anyone outside their family about Fayes prognosis. She didnt have other complications. The ultrasounds looked good, aside from the clubfoot. (Other trisomy-18 abnormalities include a cleft palate and wide spaces between the eyes.)

As parents, their expectations changed. They tried to bond with Faye in utero once they learned her diagnosis. Mary talked to her day and night. Shane put ear buds in his iPod and laid them on Marys belly so Faye could listen to music. At their 40-week checkup, things looked good. Doctors were going to induce labor three days later, a Thursday. One last ultrasound showed all clear.



The doctor detected trisomy 18 abnormalities in Eppings daughter Faye. (Timothy Tai for The Washington Post)

Epping wrote Faye a letter  he posted it on Facebook along with a photo of him bent down near Marys baby bump  his first communication with his daughter.

I want you to know that Im ready for you to be my daughter, he wrote.

The doctors say that you wont make it because you have a disease called Trisomy 18. This is no fault of your own. . . . Youll be surrounded by your mom and me. Well be there every second. We will never leave you alone. I want you to do what you have to do to find peace. I think you might be the only one who knows what that is. Before youre even born, youll have to carry a wisdom thats beyond me or anyone else in the room. I wish it were easier. Im a strong person and Ill help you, but I want you to help yourself, too. If you need to let go, thats ok. You will not be forgotten. You will not be forgotten. You will not be forgotten.

Ill see you tomorrow. I love you. Dad.

Two days later, Grant could no longer detect a heartbeat. He pronounced the baby dead.

A day after that, Faye Epping was born.

A nurse summoned a photographer for Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep from Jefferson City, some 30 miles away. She arrived before midnight, wearing flip-flops and jeans, carrying a camera bag.

She looks so good, she said with a smile, entering the room. Whats her name? Shes beautiful.

For the last shots, Epping took off his shirt and held Faye to his chest, skin to skin. The photograph, printed on an 8-by-10-inch canvas, sits on his dresser today.

Months later, Epping signed on to volunteer with Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, to help others find the same healing he had.

Now he walks into hospital rooms, sometimes the same room where Faye was delivered, offering similar lines, rendering gentle smiles, suggesting poses, opening window shades to flood the room with light.



Epping talks to Kristen Grimm after a photo shoot with Grimm's son. (Timothy Tai for The Washington Post)

Most shoots include parents and the baby, maybe some grandparents, too. Theres an incredible stillness to adults holding a newborns corpse, sometimes rocking them or softly bouncing them up and down. Tears fall silently. Most families have already had a few hours to grieve by themselves.

Sometimes parents dont say a word. They dont look up at Epping, dont lurch out of their chairs to shake hands and say, Hello, and Thank you for coming down here. They are scared and bewildered and overwhelmed. Those sessions are the shortest, a half-hour at most.

Sometimes Epping will stay in the room for hours, capturing a thousand frames.

And then there are the sessions with siblings. An older daughter, 10 years old, is all he remembers from one session. She is crying and holding her deceased baby sister; crying and watching her mother hold the baby; crying and posing with her sister and parents.

Thats how photographs can help, he reasons. Some day, siblings will look back at the images and hopefully make sense of them. Theyll place themselves in the situations once more: back in the hospital room getting their first glimpse of being a big sister or brother. Parents can remember their child again. Theyll have proof of a day so sad and surreal.



Nurse Aubrey Coakley, left, talks with Epping before a photo shoot on Feb. 17 at the University of Missouri Women's and Children's Hospital. (Timothy Tai for The Washington Post)

Baby Emily

For the final photographs of baby Emily, Dan swaddles her in the gray and peach blanket and sets her in a hospital crib. Epping plucks two roses from an arrangement that family members had sent to the room. He places them by her side, then snaps a quick two dozen photos in a blast of pops.

The photos come in black and white, he says as Dan scoops up Emily and hands her back to Beth. Theyll be hard to look at.

Were glad to have them, Dan says.

Im happy I have mine, Epping replies, breaking his cardinal rule. He does not generally tell parents about Faye, or Mary. This moment is not about him. Or Faye.

Oh, Dan says. He and Beth look at each other.

Epping loves Faye. Hes proud of Faye. He does not like to talk about Faye. It rehashes the pain and waiting and uncertainty. When he wants to think about her, hell look at a photo. He made a video about her demise and posted it online for those moments and for the moments when people ask about her. He sends them a link to answer their questions.

Its all right there, he says.

Now, before he leaves Beth and Dan, he rummages into his camera bag and pulls out a pen and a form.

Ill need a place to send these pictures, he says, and because Beth is technically the patient, privacy laws mandate that she fill out the paperwork. She hands Emily to Dan and grasps for a pen.

Whats todays date? she asks.

Emilys birthday.
Bicentennial torch bearers selected

INDIANAPOLIS  State officials revealed the names of more than 2,000 Indiana Bicentennial Torch Relay torchbearers, as well as the official torchbearer uniforms, Tuesday morning at the Indiana Statehouse.

The list includes 85 people from the four counties of northeast Indiana  33 from DeKalb, 15 from LaGrange, 18 from Noble and 19 from Steuben. The local group includes five posthumous selections.

The 2,000-plus Hoosiers selected as torchbearers embody the Indiana traditions of service, civic pride, community involvement and volunteerism, said Lt. Gov. Eric Holcomb.

The Indiana Bicentennial Torch Relay will start Sept. 9 in Corydon, Indianas first state capital, and culminate with a celebration on Oct. 15 on the grounds of the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis. The torch relay will touch each of Indianas 92 counties during its 3,200-mile journey across the state.

The torch relay is scheduled to reach Noble County on Sept. 29, DeKalb County on Oct. 1, Steuben County on Oct. 2 and LaGrange County on Oct. 3.

Local police chiefs going to White House

KENDALLVILLE  Kendallville Police Chief Rob Wiley is going to the White House in Washington, D.C., to discuss 21st century policing policies with White House staff members and other law enforcement agencies.

Wiley accepted an invitation from the White House to join the discussion on July 21-22.

I dont know why I got an invitation, but Im looking forward to it, he said this week. Wiley is president of the Indiana Association of Chiefs of Police. Ligonier Police Chief Bryan Shearer has also accepted an invitation, and he serves as the associations foundation president.

The conference was called following the release of a 115-page report from a task force appointed by President Barack Obama to tour the country and review law enforcement community policing policies, training and how police agencies communicate with the public, according to Wiley. This came about after events like Ferguson, he said.

Historic site to add boardwalk with grant

ROME CITY  A boardwalk and wildlife viewing blind will be added to the Gene Stratton-Porter State Historic Sites wetland and prairie restoration area thanks to a recently announced $20,000 grant.

The Gene Stratton-Porter Memorial Society Inc. was one of 25 recipients in the state to receive a Heritage Support Grant from the Indiana Historical Society for work upholding the states heritage.

An IHS committee awarded the society the $20,000 grant based on what it called the societys innovative approach to history with the restoration project, said Dave Fox, the state historical site manager and natural history section manager.

The historic side of this project is that were reconnecting children with Genes vision for preserving and protecting Indianas wetlands and other wild areas, he said.

Improvements to raise sewage rates

KENDALLVILLE  A proposed $8.4 million overhaul of Kendallvilles wastewater treatment plant will mean a utility rate increase for city customers.

On June 7, the City Council voted unanimously to convert the West Wayne Street plant to an activated sludge process with single stage nitrification, which is estimated to cost $8.4 million, according Triad Associates Inc., the citys consultant on the project.

Mayor Suzanne Handshoe previously conducted town hall meetings in February and May to explain the problems with the West Wayne Street plant.

Two options with corrective actions were presented to the City Council on May 17, and on June 7, council members voted for the plants conversion.

The monthly rate for residential city wastewater treatment customers would increase by $7.74  from the current $26.68 to $34.42  based on a five-eighths-inch water meter and 4,000 gallons a month.

DeKalb County owner gives up 26 dogs

FORT WAYNE  A dog owner in DeKalb County surrendered 26 dogs to Fort Wayne Animal Care and Control last week, according to a news release issued Wednesday.

Fort Wayne Animal Care and Control said it cannot consider releasing the dog owners name or address until an investigation by the State Board of Animal Health is complete.

Fort Wayne Animal Care and Control said it was contacted June 23 by the State Board of Animal Health requesting assistance with removal of several dogs of various breeds, living in overcrowded conditions inside a barn in DeKalb County. Local law enforcement officials called the state agency to the property.

The dogs owner agreed to cooperate with law enforcement and the state to bring her dog ownership and breeding activities into compliance with state law, the news release said.

On June 24, Fort Wayne Animal Care and Control received 26 adult dogs from the owner.

Fremont hires interim superintendent

ANGOLA  William Stitt is returning a third time to the Fremont Community Schools, but this time said he wants to head the district until retirement.

Stitt, 48, was chosen as interim superintendent of the district by the Fremont Community Schools Board of Education in a special meeting Wednesday. Stitt will be in the interim position until Oct. 1. By then, the school board intends to have a permanent superitendent in place.
Irving Pollack, who established the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissions enforcement division as its founding director in 1972, died July 1 at his home in Rockville, Md. He was 98.

His death was confirmed by a daughter, Janet Swartz. She declined to give a cause.

Mr. Pollack was a distinguished public servant and a man of incredible integrity who was truly passionate about securities law, SEC Chairman Mary Jo White said in a statement. Irving recognized the immense responsibility of the Enforcement Division to ensure honest business practices and pursued that goal vigorously.

Before becoming an SEC commissioner, Mr. Pollack was a staff member for almost three decades, working in the general counsels office and becoming head of the trading and markets division.

Under his leadership, starting in 1963, the unit began handling certain enforcement cases  ones that crossed regional lines, for instance, or stemmed from commission initiatives. Until then, cracking down on those who violated SEC policies had been the responsibility of the agencys regional field offices.

An overhaul of the SEC under chairman William Casey in 1972 created the new Division of Enforcement at the agencys Washington headquarters. Mr. Pollack served as its director for two years, until his 1974 appointment by President Richard M. Nixon to a seat on the five-member commission. He served until 1980.

In a 2002 interview with the SEC Historical Society, Mr. Pollack recalled that an early obstacle to centralized enforcement was the fiefdom mentality of some regional offices. In practice there was no control by the home office, he said. They were really independent operators.

A series of SEC actions, challenged in court, helped establish the enforcement division.

A seminal case, Mr. Pollack said, involved insider trading at Texas Gulf Sulphur Co. In 1968, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit agreed with the SEC that executives of the company had broken the law by acquiring stock and options while aware of a mineral discovery that hadnt yet been shared with directors.

When Nixon named Mr. Pollack to a seat on the commission, Mr. Pollacks protege, Stanley Sporkin, succeeded him as head of enforcement and became known as a relentless pursuer of corporate misbehavior. As a commissioner, Mr. Pollack spoke up regularly in defense of Sporkin, and of a vigorous enforcement division.

In a 2003 interview for the SEC Historical Society, Sporkin hailed Mr. Pollack as a legend.

Irving Meyer Pollack was born April 8, 1918, in Brooklyn. His father was a tailor.

He graduated from Brooklyn College in 1938 and from Brooklyn Law School in 1942. He served in the Army Air Forces from 1943 to 1946.

He went to work at the SEC in 1946, joining his older brother, Harry. The agency, then located in Philadelphia, was deeply involved at the time with the forced divestitures of utility companies, in line with President Franklin D. Roosevelts Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935.

Another area of emphasis was reviewing company registration statements to protect the process from being corrupted by con men and other people who were trying to use it to accomplish frauds, Pollack recalled.

After leaving the SEC in 1980, Mr. Pollack formed a law firm, Storch & Brenner, with Laurence Storch, another veteran of the SEC enforcement division. In 2005, they joined the Washington office of the law firm Fulbright & Jaworski. Most recently they practiced law as Pollack & Storch.

His wife of 66 years, the former Shirley Margoshes, died in 2014. Survivors include two daughters and a granddaughter.

 Bloomberg News
A view of voters in the electorate of Eden-Monaro in Canberra, Australia. The nations general election failed to deliver an immediate victor Saturday. (Martin Ollman/Getty Images)

IRAQ

23 killed in bomb attacks in Baghdad

Bombs went off early Sunday in two crowded commercial areas in Baghdad, killing at least 23 people and wounding 61, hospital and police officials said.

The bombings came near the end of the holy month of Ramadan, when the streets were filled with young people and families were out after sundown.

In the first attack, a car bomb exploded in the Karrada district in central Baghdad, killing 18 people and wounding 45. Shortly afterward, an improvised explosive device went off in eastern Baghdad, killing five people and wounding 16.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in the Karrada district in a communique distributed on Telegram and Twitter, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist activity. The communique said a suicide car bomber targeted Shiites.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the second bombing.

 Associated Press

EUROPE

U.S.: Russian ship made high-risk pass

A Russian warship carried out aggressive, erratic maneuvers close to a U.S. Navy ship in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the second such Cold War-style incident there in weeks, the U.S. military said Saturday.

The U.S. European Command said the Russian frigate, Yaroslav Mudry, came unnecessarily close to the guided-missile cruiser USS San Jacinto on Thursday and maneuvered in its wake. EUCOM said in a statement that the U.S. ship had not been threatened and that it maintained course and speed. But the closing distance by Yaroslav Mudry before the ship turned away from San Jacinto is considered a high-risk maneuver.

 Reuters

ISRAEL

Militant sites in Gaza targeted after attack

The Israeli military says it struck several militant sites in the Gaza Strip early Saturday in response to a rocket attack that hit a kindergarten in the Israeli border town of Sderot.

No injuries were reported on either side, but buildings were damaged. The exchange comes amid an escalation of violence in the West Bank after a pair of fatal attacks against Jewish settlers, sparking Israels largest military surge in two years.

Late Friday, a rocket from Gaza struck an empty kindergarten, marking a rare successful hit on a civilian target in Israel. Rocket attacks have been sporadic since Israel and Hamas waged a 50-day war in the summer of 2014.

 Associated Press

EgyptAir data recoverable: Egyptian investigators said Saturday that they would be able to access the cockpit voice recordings of the EgyptAir flight that crashed in May despite damage to the flight recorders. None of the memory chips of the electronic board were damaged, the Egyptians participating in the examination of the device in France said in a statement. Flight 804 was en route from Paris to Cairo when it crashed into the Mediterranean Sea on May 19, killing all 66 people on board.

Australian elections too close to call: Australias general election failed to deliver an immediate victor Saturday, raising the prospect of a hung Parliament. Parties need to hold at least 76 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives to form a government. Early Sunday, the Australian Electoral Commission said Labor was leading in 70 seats, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbulls coalition in 68 seats, and others in five seats. The final tally is expected Tuesday.

Syrian government airstrikes reportedly kill dozens: Suspected government airstrikes on a rebel-held part of Syria killed at least 25 people, in what appeared to be retaliation for the capture and killing of a fighter pilot the day before, Syrian activists said. The Local Coordination Committees, an activist network, counted seven medical personnel among those killed in Jeiroud, northeast of Damascus. It said the town had been struck at least 40 times.

Teachers resume blockades in Mexico: Protesting teachers again blocked highways in Mexicos southern states of Oaxaca and Chiapas. Teachers opposed to mandatory evaluations had loosened the blockades to allow gasoline tankers through, but food and other necessities were in short supply.

Mob burns mosque in Burma: A mob burned down a mosque in northern Burma, the second such attack in just over a week in the mostly Buddhist nation, a newspaper reported. It said the mosques leaders failed to meet a deadline set by local authorities to tear down the structure to make way for a bridge.

 From news services
Sara J. Bloomfield is director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

In 1973, five years before President Carter would appoint Elie Wiesel to chair a commission to determine how the United States should memorialize the Holocaust, Wiesel was already a prominent author and thinker. On the other side of the planet, I was an untested middle school English teacher in Sydney, Australia, fresh out of an American college. No one could have predicted that 20 years later we would be together at the opening of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

But something happened in Sydney that perhaps foreshadowed our common destiny. It was an event that forever changed my students  and me. I chose to have them read Wiesels iconic memoir Night in hopes that it might address  and ameliorate  some of the rampant prejudice among my students in this multi-ethnic, working-class community, teeming with immigrants and resentments. Indeed, they were deeply moved.

They were also shocked to discover that I was a Jew. They had never before seen one and were astonished that I was so normal.

It was a transformative moment for all of us. And transformative is the word that defines the life and legacy of Elie Wiesel. His memoir has transformed millions of people worldwide. His vision for the museum was as an institution that would transform the living by remembering the dead. In 2005, Elie and I traveled to Romania, where he was instrumental in transforming that nation from one that denied its complicity in the Holocaust  Romania is second only to the Germans in the number of Jews it killed  to one that now hosts an Elie Wiesel Institute devoted to Holocaust research and education.

In 1986, the Nobel Committee called Elie a messenger to mankind. While that is true, it is not complete. He was one of the few whose message was not just delivered, but heard  if, sadly, too rarely heeded. I sensed that one of the great sorrows of Elies life was the failure of the world in the face of genocides in Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur. He recognized that giving a voice to victims was necessary but insufficient. Action was required.

But it was Elies singular voice  a voice whose moral clarity resonated with millions from all walks of life  that was his hallmark. He also boldly envisioned the museum as a voice. He called it a living memorial. For him, memory was sacred but it also had to have a purpose. He saw the museum as a unique moral platform that would serve as an antidote to one of the worlds gravest problems  indifference.

He himself challenged indifference at the highest levels. In spite of his relationships with all the presidents, he did not hesitate to call them to task. In 1985, he publicly admonished President Reagan for visiting Germanys Bitburg cemetery, where 47 SS officers are buried. And at the dedication of the museum in 1993, after speaking about his beloved mother and how the world abandoned her and all the Jews of Europe, he turned to the newly elected President Clinton. In front of almost 10,000 people, Elie challenged him to do something to stop the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.

Elie never presented himself as having all the answers. He was a man of moral certainty who was also plagued by doubts. Although never consumed by cynicism or anger, he was driven in his pursuit of questions  endless questions. He always said that the museum is not an answer. It is a question.

At the dedication ceremony, he said the museum is a lesson. There are many lessons. You will come. You will learn. We shall learn together. We did. And we do. He is now silenced, but his voice  a voice that both inspires us and challenges us  lives on.
Vice President Biden kisses the head of University of Colorado sophomore Emma Beach in April after hearing her speak as part of the "It's On Us" campaign about sexual violence on campus. (Jeremy Papasso/Daily Camera via AP)

Last month, Vice President Biden penned a searing letter to the victim in a notorious Stanford University rape case. I am filled with furious anger, he wrote, both that this happened to you and that our culture is still so broken.

Bidens letter encapsulated the national outrage that erupted when the womans attacker was sentenced to just six months in county jail. It was also a sharp reminder that one of the Obama administrations most ardent policy initiatives has been a concerted campaign to end the scourge of sexual assault on college campuses.

According to White House officials, top members of the administration  including the president, the vice president, their wives and members of the Cabinet  will not visit institutions whose leaders they consider insufficiently serious about pursuing sexual-assault allegations and punishing perpetrators. Biden said in an interview that he would like the federal government to take away their money if a college or university fails to change its ways.

As the administration nears its end, the urgency of some proposals has dissipated, but the focus on campus sexual misconduct has intensified: Nows the time to put the pedal to the metal, Biden said.

[Obama-Biden rapport transcends the office: its personal]

Appearing at the Academy Awards, Vice President Biden spoke about ending sexual assault on college campuses. (Courtesy A.M.P.A.S.)

Already the efforts of this White House have dramatically transformed the way colleges and universities respond to allegations of sexual misconduct. The Education Department has 253 ongoing investigations at 198 postsecondary institutions into the handling of sexual violence. Hundreds of schools have taken steps to make it easier to report allegations and discipline offenders. Many schools have appointed a specific officer to receive complaints and have determined that a preponderance of evidence is enough to establish that misconduct occurred, a less rigorous evidentiary standard than the beyond a reasonable doubt that applies in most criminal cases.

The changes have also provoked criticism from some students and administrators, who see the federal involvement as heavy-handed and sometimes unfair.

One general counsel for a liberal arts college, who sought anonymity out of fear of federal retaliation, lamented that following the administrations approach can put those accused of sexual misconduct at a disadvantage since so many incidents involve two individuals who are alone and behind closed doors. That makes some of these cases massively difficult to resolve, the official said, adding, We are committed to being fair and equitable to all of our students.

The administration has also launched a public-awareness campaign, Its On Us, which encourages men and women to intervene before sexual assault takes place. More than 344,400 people have taken the White House pledge, and 530 schools in 48 states have active Its On Us chapters.

The administrations approach  through federal enforcement of civil rights protections and a campus-based advocacy campaign  was spurred in part by an emboldened group of survivors who have gone public with their complaints about their schools unresponsiveness. But it also reflects the activism of Biden and President Obama, who became alarmed at the idea of rape as a fixture of college life.

Biden said he spoke to Obama about the issue even before they won the White House in 2008, requesting a staff to work on violence against women within the office of the vice president, rather than at the Justice Department.

He said, Okay. He knew how strongly I felt about it, Biden said, adding that over time Obama became more engaged with the issue. He always thought it was an awful abuse of power. But as his daughters grew, he became more explicitly focused on it.

In February 2015, the White House released a video of President Obama speaking about "It's On Us," a campaign to end sexual assault on college campuses. (The White House)

Reports of campus sexual misconduct are on the rise, which academic and legal experts attribute to heightened awareness of the issue. United Educators, a firm that provides insurance and risk-management services to nearly 1,300 U.S. schools, found that reports of sexual-assault claims among its clients doubled from 2011 to 2013.

[Post-Kaiser poll finds 20 percent of college women say they were violated]

Kevin Kruger, president of Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, said his members have taken a harder look at how they treat allegations of misconduct and at why more students dont come forward to report violations.

We had become a little complacent about thinking this is a societal problem, and we were not doing enough about it, Kruger said, adding that survivors had called out higher education and said, Youre not doing enough, and they were right.

The legal underpinnings for the current strategy lie in Title IX, a provision in a 1972 education law barring sex discrimination at schools that receive federal money. A 1992 Supreme Court ruling established the standard of rape as discrimination. The court ruled that a student in a Gwinnett County, Ga., public school was a victim of sex discrimination under the law after a teacher subjected her to coercive intercourse.

In 2001 the Education Departments Office for Civil Rights issued guidance that sexual harassment constituted a threat to students ability to pursue educational opportunities.

In 2009 Obama appointed Russlynn Ali, a longtime advocate for students of color, to head that office. Ali was appalled by accounts that a 16-year-old was repeatedly raped and beaten in a courtyard outside her high schools homecoming dance in October 2009 in Richmond, Calif. Many witnessed the attack without calling police.

I remember feeling like we had to do something, Ali recalled. Children were being raped at our schools. . . . Of course we were going to use everything in our power to do something about it.

At the same time, Biden asked his staff to compile statistics on violence against women in the United States to compare with data from before Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act he wrote in 1994. For girls and women 16 to 24 years old, he recalled, the numbers remained unchanged. It was devastating, he said.

Ali, working with White House staff, penned a Dear Colleague letter in 2011 informing school administrators across the country that sexual violence constituted a form of sexual harassment and that if they did not take sufficient steps to prevent and address sexual misconduct, they would be found in violation of Title IX and could risk losing federal funds. A 2014 White House task force report fleshed out the protocol.

Cari Simon, a lawyer who has represented dozens of campus-assault survivors, said aspects of the guidance, like accommodations to shield victims from subsequent harassment and trauma, were critical to avoid them going into a downward-spiral path.

But Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, calls the guidance overreach. He said he welcomed the Its On Us campaign but that the Education Department must make it clear that its guidance does not have the force of law.

More than 100 students have challenged some aspect of their schools adjudication process since the 2011 letter, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which promotes free speech and other liberties at colleges and universities. In one case, a student  John Doe  sued Brandeis University after his ex-boyfriend accused him of numerous inappropriate, nonconsensual sexual interactions during an almost two-year relationship.

In allowing the case to move forward, U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV wrote that reducing sexual assault was a laudable goal but noted that whether the elimination of basic procedural protections  and the substantially increased risk that innocent students will be punished  is a fair price to achieve that goal is another question altogether.

Catherine Lhamon, who succeeded Ali as the Education Departments assistant secretary for civil rights, said her office is constantly in reevaluation over whether what we are doing is right but that schools are legally obligated to ensure sexual violence does not undermine students educations.

Certainly, from 1992 forward, she said, citing the year of the Supreme Courts rape ruling, I have no sympathy for a frank abdication of responsibility for the students you are charged with educating and whose civil rights are being violated.

[In secret letter, Education criticized U-Va.s handling of sexual assault]

When the civil rights office releases a voluntary agreement with an institution, it also issues its own findings of fact. Schools are briefed on the findings but do not see them in advance.

Terry Hartle, senior vice president at the American Council on Education, called the civil rights office a Court of Star Chamber, with arbitrary rulings, no rights for those under investigation and a secret process.

In response, Lhamon said, I appreciate that they would like to negotiate it, but it is not actually theirs to negotiate.

Although the federal disciplinary guidance remains controversial, the campaign for bystander intervention that the White House launched in 2014 has won widespread support. Obama himself proposed the idea of involving men in ending sexual misconduct, according to aides.

Matt Hill had agreed to help launch Its On Us in September 2014 while serving as the student body vice president at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. About a month later, a friend called to say that she had been raped the night before at a campus party.

Hill said he asked himself, Why, a month ago, as a male junior in college, did I not think this was an important issue? The following April, he helped organize a 2,000-person campus rally where Biden was the featured speaker.

At a party that weekend, two sorority members he knew told him they had been raped. The women told him the Biden rally left them feeling empowered and supported.

And apart from the campaign, students have started demanding more accountability from schools. Kansas State University is being sued by two students, Sara Weckhorst and Tessa Farmer, who say they were raped at different fraternity houses, in 2014 and 2015, and now share the campus with their assailants because the university refuses to investigate sexual assault off campus. On Friday, the Justice Department filed two separate amicus briefs on the students side, arguing their Title IX suits should go forward.

Zach Lowry, president of the interfraternity council there, is pressing the university to investigate those allegations and others. Kansas State gives his group reports of sexual misconduct so the council can decide whether to discipline any of its 24 member organizations, but the school offers no assistance in investigating the claims.

Its like pushing these incidents aside and not dealing with them, Lowry said. I want to find out if these incidents happened.

For his part, Biden continues to meet privately with women and men, in settings ranging from college campuses to a hallway at the Academy Awards. He ushers out most of his staff, and the men and women tell him their stories.

Laura Dunn, who founded the victims rights group SurvJustice and who filed a federal complaint against the University of Wisconsin in 2006, picketed the Education Department in 2013 for not doing enough to hold universities accountable. But she has also met with Biden twice and has advised the administration on its campus-assault policies for several years.

I think the government heard us, Dunn said.

A previous version of this article indicated a lawsuit against Brandeis University concerning its sexual misconduct policy had settled. It is still pending.
Hillary Clinton is seen aboard the campaign bus in Cleveland on the third day of a bus tour through Pennsylvania and Ohio.

July 31, 2016 Hillary Clinton is seen aboard the campaign bus in Cleveland on the third day of a bus tour through Pennsylvania and Ohio. Melina Mara/The Washington Post

The former secretary of state, senator and first lady is the Democratic nominee for president.

The former secretary of state has clinched the number of delegates needed to be the Democratic nominee for president.

The former secretary of state has clinched the number of delegates needed to be the Democratic nominee for president.

Hillary Clintons weekend interview with the FBI stands as a perfect symbol of what is probably her biggest liability heading into the fall election: A lot of people say they dont trust her.

Clinton sat for an interview of more than three hours as part of a Justice Department investigation into the privately owned email system she operated off the books when she was secretary of state. The timing  less than three weeks before she will claim the Democratic presidential nomination  is an attempt to make the best of a situation that would look bad for any candidate but is particularly damaging for Clinton.

That the interview at FBI headquarters was voluntary does not expunge the whiff of suspicion surrounding the entire email affair that, for many voters, confirms a long-held view that Clinton shades the truth or plays by her own rules.

[FBI interviews Hillary Clinton for more than 3 hours in email probe]

In opinion polls and focus groups, even many people who say they plan to vote for Clinton say they think she has lied or has something to hide. Her poor marks for trustworthiness have much to do with her long and sometimes messy public life, and very little to do with Republican opponent Donald Trump. Both front-runners are deeply unpopular with voters, but Clinton elicits a more visceral mistrust.

Nannygate, Travelgate, Whitewater, Filegate: it's tough to remember all the scandals that plagued then-President Bill and Hillary Clinton through the '90s. For millennials --- here's what you missed. For everyone else, here's a refresher. (Sarah Parnass,Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)

It didnt help matters last week when her husband, Bill Clinton, met with Attorney General Loretta Lynch for an impromptu discussion on an airport tarmac in Phoenix, sparking suspicions among Republicans and head-slapping among Democrats. Lynch has said the meeting was innocent but regrettable.

[How everyone looks bad because Bill Clinton met with Loretta Lynch]

Trust is the glue that holds our democracy together, Clinton said last week as part of a direct effort to address the issue in this small lull between the end of primary voting and the start of full-on campaigning for the fall vote.

I take this seriously, as someone who is asking for your votes, and I personally know I have work to do on this point, Clinton told a friendly audience. A lot of people tell pollsters they dont trust me. I dont like hearing that, and Ive thought a lot about whats behind it.

As she has before, Clinton blamed smears by her political opponents for setting the tone, but she also acknowledged her own mistakes.

You know, you hear 25 years worth of wild accusations, anyone could start to wonder, Clinton said. Political opponents and conspiracy theorists have accused me of every crime in the book. None of its true, never has been, but it also never goes away, Clinton said.

And it certainly is true that Ive made mistakes. I dont know anyone who hasnt, Clinton continued. So I understand that people have questions.

Protesters hold signs outside of a June campaign event with Hillary Clinton, former secretary of state and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, in Cincinnati. (Ty Wright/Bloomberg News)

She promised to try to resolve those doubts through hard work and dedication, and she held up the example of her 2000 election to the Senate. New York voters had doubts, too, but came to know her as a hard worker and effective representative, she said.

You cant just talk someone into trusting you. Youve got to earn it, Clinton said.

[Clinton says she understands many people dont trust her, promises to earn it]

The longtime front-runner is trying to swab the decks of a messy and bitter primary ahead of the Democratic convention and ahead of a week of high-profile campaigning with President Obama and Vice President Biden.

Biden, in an NPR interview Sunday, said a goal in campaigning for Clinton was to vouch for her. The two will appear together Friday in Scranton, Pa., which is Bidens beloved home town and also where Clintons father grew up. Her story of the family lace factory there is a staple of her stump speech.

The hardest thing is vouching. When you vouch for them you say Im putting my reputation on the line. I believe this person is a good person, has character, Biden said in the interview for NPRs Weekend Edition. Youre putting your rep on the line. Youre saying, I think this person has character, and thats what Im prepared to do for Hillary.

Character is exactly Clintons trouble spot, according to polls that have charted an increase in the number of people who say they dont like and dont trust her as the campaign has marched ahead.

In an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll in late June, 69 percent of respondents said they were concerned that Clinton has a record or reputation as untrustworthy. A CBS News poll in June found 62 percent saying Clinton is not honest and trustworthy, while 33 percent said she is. Her ratings on this were similar to Trumps (63 percent not honest, 32 percent honest). But on a separate measure of being forthcoming, 33 percent of registered voters said Clinton says what she believes while 62 percent said she does not. By contrast, 56 percent said Trump says what he believes.

People are far more likely to say Clinton is well prepared for the job, while rating Trump as unsuited for the White House, said pollster Peter D. Hart, who oversaw the latest NBC-Wall Street Journal poll. Where she falls down is on the more nuanced question of character and trust, he said.

For Hillary Clinton its all personal and about values, Hart said. Its, Can I trust her? Do I feel comfortable with her? 

This is somewhat familiar territory for Clinton, who overcame discomfort over her hands-on role as first lady in the 1990s and mistrust of her motives in the 2000 Senate campaign.

When she won election to the Senate, she had to overcome skepticism in the minds of some voters in certain parts in New York, campaign press secretary Brian Fallon said in an interview. She went on to impress everyone with her work ethic and her ability to reach across the aisle, and then managed to win reelection by an even wider margin in 2006. So we know that while the political season brings out all kinds of personal attacks and unfair questioning of her motives, the reality is, once in the job, she never fails to work her heart out and earn respect from even her critics.

Still, although the old scandals and investigations of the Bill Clinton administration have faded in memory, they are at the core of many voters unease with Hillary Clinton. Trump, in his name-calling style, hits a political nerve with his constant reference to Clinton as Crooked Hillary.

Her well-regarded tenures as senator and secretary of state are also years behind her, meaning her campaign must seek to remind voters of the positive elements from those periods.

Clintons campaign is trying to address the trust deficit in two main ways. First, through Clintons own words and actions  including her remarks on the topic at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition gathering in Chicago last week and in what her backers say was a forthright attempt to provide information to the FBI.

Clinton had volunteered to sit for an interview months ago and has said she is cooperating completely in an inquiry that could result in criminal charges for her or aides who sent and received classified material on a system that operated in parallel to government email accounts.

From the campaigns perspective, the interview is medicine best swallowed now, before the full heat of the head-to-head campaign with Trump. The issue clouds the campaign nonetheless, since there is no word about whether anyone will face charges or discipline. An interview with the most significant potential target of the investigation is often the last step before a decision on whether to issue indictments, so it is possible that the legal matter is near an end. Lawyers have said charges against Clinton are unlikely.

The Republican-led House investigation into the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, when Clinton was secretary of state, ended last week with little new or politically damaging information. Clinton backers assert that the tragedy is no longer politically useful for Republicans.

Second, the campaign is spending millions on television advertising that charts Clintons background as an advocate for children and families and portrays her as a stalwart fighter. The positive ads airing in battleground states are running much more frequently than an attack ad about Trump.

The idea is that there is an opportunity now to reset voter opinions about Clinton as a stand-alone proposition as opposed to someone in contrast with Trump. Clinton allies note that Trumps negative ratings are higher than Clintons and have concluded they are less likely to change than Clintons positive ratings. To Clinton backers, that means it is more cost-efficient to try to raise her stature now than to further damage his.

Super PACs allied with Clinton have begun rolling out potentially damaging information about Trumps business practices, while the campaign itself concentrates on trying to tell voters what backers have described as something they dont know about one of the best-known figures in American public life.

Every election is a choice, and we will continue to frame the contrast in this race, and to explain why Donald Trump is temperamentally unfit to be president, Fallon said. But we believe in giving voters a sense of Secretary Clintons own vision and values, not just emphasizing how Trump is so dangerous and divisive. These early weeks of the summer provide that opportunity, as impressions begin to set.

A larger problem, however, is that Clinton has always been more popular, and viewed as more trustworthy, when she is doing a job than when she is campaigning for one.

The campaign trail is just not designed to help her with her trust issues, said Patti Solis Doyle, who managed the first portion of Clintons failed 2008 presidential campaign and is now a prominent supporter.

Having said that, I think it is important for her to acknowledge that she has trust issues and to tell voters that she will work to earn their trust, she added. It shows that she is in tune with the public and can recognize her flaws. This is not something she would have done in 08. Voters appreciate the honesty and self-reflection.
A man lights a candle on flowers he placed near the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where 20 hostages were slaughtered on Friday. (AFP/Getty Images)

Massacres attributed to the Islamic State have struck on four continents this year, reflecting how the appeal of the groups ideology is growing even as the territory it controls in Iraq and Syria has receded, according to experts.

The slaughter of civilians in three large attacks in the past week alone  in Istanbul on Tuesday, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Friday, and in Baghdad on Sunday  suggests that militant actions beyond the caliphates borders are taking place more frequently and not necessarily with any overt direction from some caliphate headquarters. Even more alarmingly, a growing number of attacks, starting with those in Paris and Brussels, were conducted by gangs of assailants instead of by an individual gunman.

Whats striking to me about the Istanbul and Dhaka attacks is that both werent done by lone wolves at all, said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA counterterrorism official and analyst of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State who is at the Brookings Institution. These were done by teams of terrorists working with a very thought-through attack plan. I call them wolf pack attacks. They are rapidly becoming the Islamic States signature.

[Contesting the caliphate]

In the latest incidents in the Middle East, the Associated Press reports that an explosion has gone off outside one of Islams holiest sites in Medina, Saudi Arabia, the same day that two suicide bombers struck in the Saudi cities of Qatif and Jiddah. Only the bombers were killed in those two incidents, AP reported. The Jiddah attack occurred near the U.S. Consulate.

Last week, to mark the two-year anniversary of its self-

declared caliphate, the Islamic State created a chart showing its influence, stretching from the moderate control it claims in the Philippines to a covert presence in France, with 15 other countries in between. Even countries not on the list are fearful. In India, the government says dozens of Indian Muslims are being monitored after they have undergone some kind of training with the Islamic State, but Indian officials acknowledge the actual number may be much higher.

[Inside the surreal world of the Islamic States propaganda machine]

While the core of the caliphate in Iraq and Syria has been pummeled by coalition airstrikes and by armies and militias fighting them on the ground, Islamic State soldiers have spread throughout the Middle East and far afield. Attacks in Turkey, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Libya, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait and several European capitals, and the lone-wolf attacks in Orlando and San Bernardino, show the Islamic States potency as an ideology.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said on CBSs Face the Nation Sunday that the Islamic State is vicious and adaptive in what he called a global terrorism campaign.

Its very much losing territory, but at the same time, expanding its global presence, he said.

U.S. intelligence officials say battlefield setbacks in Iraq and Syria appear to have driven the Islamic States leaders to speed up their timeline for attacks abroad. Many intelligence officials and terrorism experts think that recent terrorist strikes in Paris, Brussels, Turkey and Bangladesh are a reflection of that strategy.

We judge that [the Islamic State] will intensify its global terror campaign to maintain its dominance of the global terrorism agenda, CIA Director John Brennan said in testimony before the Senate last month.

1 of 41 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  What the scene at Istanbul airport looked like after attacks View Photos At least 100 were killed after suicide bombers attacked the citys Ataturk international airport. Caption At least 100 were killed after suicide bombers attacked the citys Ataturk international airport. June 29, 2016 A coffin is loaded into a hearse at the forensic building close to Istanbuls airport. Ozan Kose/AFP/Getty Images Wait 1 second to continue.

While the Islamic State had been primarily focused on building and defending its caliphate, the group has long expressed ambitions for attacking targets outside the Middle East. The jihadists English-language magazine, Dabiq, regularly includes discussions of plans to conquer Rome and other cities of symbolic importance, in addition to capturing all lands that were once part of the Islamic empires of history. In Dhaka, foreign customers at the Holey Artisan Bakery who were from Crusader countries were singled out for death.

[In Bangladesh, an attack on foreigners and the countrys elite]

A news bulletin radio broadcast that the Islamic State disseminates on social media recently provided a rapid-fire listing of attacks conducted by its fighters, which it characterizes as the forces of the caliphate.

The groups aspirations date back to its earliest days, when it was called al-Qaeda in Iraq and led by Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

We perform jihad here while our eyes are upon al-Quds [Jerusalem]. We fight here, while our goal is Rome, Zarqawi famously said, in a line frequently cited by the Islamic States leadership.

The groups highly regimented structure includes a unit dedicated to facilitating attacks on foreign soil, U.S. and European officials say. Former Islamic State fighters now in custody have told investigators that the unit, called EMNI or AMNI, has been active in Europe for more than a year.

One jailed French recruit named Nicholas Moreau recalled meeting some of the EMNI operatives in Syria and described them as part of the secret service for the exterior of the Islamic State, according to notes of the interview obtained by The Washington Post.

The external mission is to send people all over the world to do violence, to kill or recruit young people, or to obtain cameras, or chemicals for weapons, Moreau said, according to a translation of the French investigators notes. He identified as an EMNI operative the Belgian national Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the reported field commander of Novembers terrorist strike in Paris, and said at least four others had traveled to northern Europe to make preparations. It is not clear whether the four have been identified and arrested.

They are dangerous and know the background about weapons, Moreau was quoted as saying. I think they are in Europe. I do not know where they are exactly.

Secretary of State John F. Kerry has frequently said that attacks, whether conducted by or inspired by the Islamic State, are a sign of the groups desperation as the territory it controls in Iraq and Syria is chipped away. Nevertheless, the group apparently remains rooted enough that it recently issued its own caliphate dinar currency, embossed with the words Islamic State.

But increasingly, its the idea of the Islamic State, rather than the groups control of any territory, that has taken on greater significance.

As Dhaka and Istanbul demonstrate, the idea is being translated into a tactic that is much more dangerous than inspiring a single individual to go out and carry out an attack, Riedel said. As horrific as Orlando was, had it been four guys in the bar, think how much more complicated it would have been.

Its making the challenge of defeating it more and more urgent, as well as more and more difficult.

Souad Mekhennet in Frankfurt, Germany, and Rama Lakshmi in New Delhi contributed to this report.
A boy holds an inflatable Spider-Man toy in Dhaka, Bangladesh, as he attends a vigil for 20 people killed by militants late Friday in a restaurant in the city. (Adnan Abidi/Reuters)

The seven militants who killed 20 hostages at a Dhaka restaurant made no demands and a person taken alive by police was only a suspect, Bangladeshs home minister said Sunday, rejecting the Islamic State extremist groups claims of responsibility.

Three of the six gunmen killed were younger than 22 and had been missing for six months, Asaduzzaman Khan said in an interview.

The gunmen stormed the upmarket restaurant in the diplomatic zone late Friday and killed their mostly non-Muslim hostages, including nine Italians, seven Japanese and a citizen each from the United States and India.

Police and government officials have said that the attackers were from well-off Bangladeshi families, an indication that religious radicalization was widening its scope.

Asserting responsibility in a statement, the Islamic State warned citizens of crusader countries  that is, traditionally Christian Western states  that they would not be safe as long as their aircraft are killing Muslims.

It also posted pictures of five grinning fighters, in front of a black flag, who it said were involved in the attack, according to the SITE Intelligence Groups website.

But Khan said the Islamic State was not involved, reiterating the governments position that homegrown militants were responsible for a spate of killings in the country over the past 18 months, including the latest one.

The minister has blamed Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, which claims to represent the Islamic State in Bangladesh but has no proven links to it.

Security experts believe the suspect, who was hospitalized with serious injuries, would be crucial to the investigation. Khan said it was not clear whether he was involved.

Analysts say that as the Islamic State loses territory in Iraq and Syria and its finances are drained, it may be trying to build affiliates in countries such as Bangladesh for fighters to launch attacks locally and cheaply.

Deputy Inspector General of Police Shahidur Rahman said Sunday that authorities were investigating any connection between the attackers and transnational groups such as the Islamic State or al-Qaeda.

National Police Chief Shahidul Hoque said all the gunmen were Bangladeshis. Five of them were listed as militants and law enforcers made several drives to arrest them, he said.

The attack marked a major escalation in violence by militants demanding Islamic rule in Bangladesh, whose 160 million people are mostly Muslim.


A mosaic of Vladimir Lenin rests on a wall of a former secret Soviet Union radar station named "Skrunda-1," now a ghost town, near Skrunda, Latvia. (Dmitri Beliakov/For The Washington Post)

For years, the team of researchers worked in obscurity, patiently tallying what they say is the economic toll of Latvias decades under Soviet rule.

The answer, they decided this spring, is $205 billion. They didnt expect the firestorm that would come next. The report added ammunition to a raging battle between Russia and the West over history and influence. Russias top diplomat said Latvians should be grateful the Kremlin wasnt more violent when they broke from the Soviet Union in 1991. Then the Russian Foreign Ministry announced a competition to pick who could mock the scholars the best.

The conflict between Russia and the West is being fought not just with tanks and troops stationed on either side of the border, but also with dueling versions of the past. Few places feel it more strongly than Latvia. Leaders have battled with their domestic Russian-speaking population and with the Kremlin about whether their countrys decades-long incorporation into the Soviet Union was voluntary or an occupation. With the Kremlin reaching deep into the pages of history to justify its actions in Crimea, Latvians say the fight over the past has present-day consequences for their security  and they are calling for Western support not just with weaponry but also in the battle of ideas. The concerns have grown even stronger after the British vote to leave the European Union, with the Baltics losing an key ally inside the union.

There was an ultimatum. We could not resist. We were occupied completely, said Ruta Pazdere, the leader of the Latvian government-sponsored commission that tallied the costs of the 1940 Soviet takeover of Latvia. She said her group, which has labored for more than a decade, was less interested in monetary compensation from Russia than forcing an honest conversation about the lingering effects of Soviet rule.

It's not easy to recognize your past. And if you start one lie, they just keep getting bigger and bigger, Pazdere said.

[One of Russias biggest holidays is a WWII anniversary Americans dont think about]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has used Soviet history to inflame the passions of his voters, turning the May anniversary of the World War II victory into the countrys biggest holiday. Modern-day Russias opponents are now often dismissed as fascists. There is little tolerance for countries such as Latvia, where for many people, Soviet victory in World War II meant 46 more years of foreign dominion. And since the Kremlin framed the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine as an effort to protect an allegedly embattled ethnic Russian population there, Latvias tense relations with its own large Russian population have new security implications.

These people are deranged beyond help, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said of the Latvian studys authors after the figures were released. Instead of talking about how much the Soviet Union cost Latvias economy, he said, the small nation should be more thankful it was allowed to leave in 1991.

The Soviet Union behaved honorably. No one attempted to keep the Baltic republics by force, Lavrov told the Swedish Dagens Nyheter newspaper. Nobody saw or heard any gratitude for this.

A patriotic painting on a wall of Skrunda-1. (Dmitri Beliakov/For The Washington Post)

The idea that the Baltics were forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940 is widely accepted among mainstream Western historians and backed by historical evidence. But little of that is acknowledged by the Kremlin. Instead, Joseph Stalin has been largely rehabilitated in recent years. Nostalgia for the years of Soviet empire pervades many levels of Russian society.

Russian television  a tightly controlled instrument of Kremlin policy  has devoted significant airtime to attempting to discredit Baltic governments. On one program in June on the state-owned Rossiya 1 channel, for instance, the host, Evgeny Popov, said that Eastern European countries efforts to break from their Communist past were just part of a covert effort to spread fascism.

NATO, the Western military alliance, has struggled to confront a threat that comes not just from tanks but also from television screens. Western nations plan to send about 1,000 troops to each Baltic nation, plus Poland, at a summit starting Friday. And NATO has supported a Riga-based center largely devoted to combating information warfare from Russia. Separately, Latvias state broadcasting agency in April banned one Russian state television channel for six months, saying it was promoting war propaganda and inciting hatred.

For us, World War II ending didn't bring back our independence. They try to use history as another element to mobilize their society, and as part of their information war, said Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics.

[In Latvia, fresh fears of aggression as Kremlin warns about Russian minorities]

Latvians say that the lack of historical reckoning is a security risk, as Putin has declared that he will defend all ethnic Russians, no matter where they live. Some historians contrast Russias approach to Germanys far more contrite approach to its Nazi past.

One of the differences between Germany and Russia is that Germany has admitted that what they did was wrong. Russia has not said what it did was wrong, said Gunars Nagels, the head of the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, which seeks to document life under Soviet rule.



An abandoned portrait of Vladimir Lenin lies in a former secret Soviet Union radar station named "Skrunda-1," now a ghost town, near Skrunda, Latvia. (Dmitri Beliakov/For The Washington Post)



Army barrack ruins at Skrunda-1. (Dmitri Beliakov/For The Washington Post)

Ruins of Skrunda-1s general headquarters. (Dmitri Beliakov/For The Washington Post)

The museum, one of the main historical institutions in Latvia, is sometimes a direct target for aggression. Nagels said his building had to be evacuated on May 9, Russias Victory Day, after receiving a bomb threat.

To activists on the other side of the Latvian-Russian divide, however, the Latvian attitudes toward the past are part of a broader campaign to marginalize the Russian-speakers who remain in the country, about a third of Latvias 2 million residents. Because Latvian citizenship requires a language test, many of the Russian-speakers are non-citizens. The high point of tensions comes every year on May 9, the celebration of Nazi defeat.

The answer is always the same: You're serving Putin if you're celebrating, said Elizabete Krivcova, an ethnic Russian rights campaigner who organized a rally tied to Victory Day this year.

There is a basic Russophobia, she said. It's very similar to undemocratic developments in Russia.

Krivcova said that many Russian-speakers inside Latvia acknowledge that the Soviet Union took over Latvia at gunpoint  but she said that using the word occupation, in many of their minds, leads to being stripped of their rights.

Others are more defiant.

Soldiers came in and they were greeted with flowers, said Meyer Deych, 95, who lives in Riga and served in a Latvian volunteers division of the Red Army. We came to our homeland and we stayed here. Is that occupation?



Meyer Deych, a World War II Soviet veteran, poses for a portrait in his home in Riga, Latvia. (Dmitri Beliakov/For The Washington Post)

He said that Victory Day celebrations were a major part of his calendar.

I was wounded three times during the war. I'm alive now. I always think that this is my second birthday because I could have been killed, he said. These people who are noncitizens are expected to be friends of Latvia. But how can that be when theyre treated this way?

The competing narratives makes it deeply difficult for Latvias political leaders to try to appeal to both sides of the gulf. Those who do are often viewed with suspicion for their motives.

Its a huge share of society. You cannot ignore them. You should address these people, said Nils Usakovs, an ethnic Russian who is a naturalized Latvian citizen and mayor of the capital city of Riga. As the leader of the countrys main ethnic-Russian political party, Usakovs has had success in broadening his appeal at a local level, but he has been shut out of national leadership.

In recent years Usakovs says he has tried to defuse tensions around the Victory Day celebrations, which this year drew 170,000 people, according to city estimates  a turnout on a workday that represents about nine percent of the population.

Ethnic Latvian leaders say that understanding wartime history is the best way to ensure that conflict does not again touch their territory.

What happened in 2014 brought back the worst memories of what happened in 1940, said Rinkevics, the foreign minister. We are seeing a kind of repetition of history.

Read more:

Baltic countries want a longer NATO commitment to counter Russia

In Latvia, fresh fears of aggression as Kremlin warns about Russian minorities

The drug taken by Maria Sharapova was used by the Soviet Union to help soldiers combat stress

Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world
The American Legislative Exchange Council is a group liberals love to hate, mainly because its core goals  limited government, free markets and supply-side economics  appeal primarily to political conservatives.

So it didnt go unnoticed when representatives of ALEC showed up late last month in Madison, seldom perceived as a hub of conservatism, to announce the results of a 50-state index that put Wisconsin in a positive light for selected economic inputs.

The economic output picture painted by ALEC, however, was a bit more restrained.

The 2016 ALEC-Laffer State Competiveness Index, named in part for supply-side economist Arthur Laffer, is a two-part ranking that measures each states economic outlook as well as its economic performance. Laffer is best known for the Laffer Curve, a theory about tax-rate efficiency that heavily influenced President Reagans economic policies in the 1980s.

On the outlook side, ALEC ranked Wisconsin ninth-best among the 50 states based on 15 factors that included personal income, corporate, inheritance and sales taxes, and debt service as a share of tax revenue, all of which of measures than can be easily quantified  agree or disagree with the policy.

Those 15 factors also included conservative agenda items such public employees per 10,000 population; an overview of the state liability system; the state minimum wage; average Workers Compensation costs; right-to-work laws and tax expenditure limits written into state law or the constitution.

The index ranked Wisconsin among the top 12 states for passing a right-to-work law, for keeping its minimum wage low, for not levying an inheritance tax, for passing tax expenditure limits and (perhaps surprising to some in-state critics) its low ratio of public employees per capita. While it wasnt directly measured, ALEC spokesmen also praised Gov. Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Legislature for passage of the 2011 Act 10 legislation that crippled many public employee unions.

Those are all economic inputs, selected and judged through the eyes of ALECs analysts, which make conservative hearts flutter and liberal stomachs turn.

When it came to measuring economic performance, however, ALEC looked at outputs that placed Wisconsin where other rankings often do  toward the bottom of the 50-state class.

Wisconsins overall economic performance rank of 41st included a ranking of 35th for growth in state domestic product for the 10 years ending in 2014; 40th for non-farm payroll employment during the same cycle; and 38th in absolute domestic migration.

The latter category may be the most important because it measures how many people are leaving or entering the state, the so-called brain drain phenomenon. It showed a net loss of nearly 67,000 people over 10 years, with the peak coming in the recession year of 2010.

Economists on the political right and left may not agree about much, but they generally believe there is a correlation between migration and economic prosperity. When people vote with their feet, its a sign they are not finding the jobs, wages and opportunities they want.

Wisconsins demographic challenges are dictating much of what drives its economy. Too many of the people who are being lost to Wisconsin are college-educated and earning higher incomes, which hurts the states ability to retain talented workers and to re-invest in itself.

Most of the top-ranked performance states in the 2016 ALEC-Laffer index are states where people are moving, with Texas, Washington, Utah, Colorado, North Carolina and Oregon being prominent examples. The reasons may have more to do with how people perceive opportunity than specific policy initiatives.

How can Wisconsin make itself more attractive to outsiders and natives alike? By building on existing assets; telling a compelling story about its people, companies and culture; and celebrating whats right about the state  not fixating on partisan divides and whats wrong.

By focusing on economic outputs, Wisconsin can better judge what inputs can make a difference. Keeping the best and brightest home while attracting others like them from around the country and the world is one such measure.


A soldier is seen during a NATO troop exercise in Estonia. Troops from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Britain, Germany, Holland and other European countries were training for warfare in the woods. (Dmitri Beliakov/For The Washington Post)

When unidentified aircraft were speeding toward northern Estonia one recent day, British fighter jets stationed nearby scrambled to intercept them. Screaming across the country, they quickly identified the targets: two Russian fighters and a spy plane. It was just the latest confrontation between the West and Russia in a region that has fast become a tripwire for conflict between nuclear superpowers.

In the two years since Russia annexed Ukraines Crimean Peninsula, the tiny Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have taken an oversize role in facing down Russias challenge to the West. The Kremlin has been building up its military along its border with the former Soviet satellites. Western allies of the Baltics, worried that the region is vulnerable, have responded by pouring tanks, warplanes and soldiers into an area slightly larger than Florida. They will commit thousands more troops to the three countries and Poland at a summit starting Friday.

The British decision to leave the European Union makes NATO even more important as an alliance that binds the West together, NATO leaders say, amid concerns that the political and economic turbulence unleashed by the decision will shrink Britains outsize role in global affairs. The departure plans come at a critical time of escalation between Russia and the West.





Uncertainty and unpredictability always create challenges to our security, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview. It is a more unpredictable situation now than before the U.K. decided to leave.

Western and Russian warplanes already encounter each other in the Baltic skies nearly every day. A Russian warplane buzzed a U.S. destroyer in April, coming within 30 feet and raising fears of an accident that could quickly escalate into a crisis. Any attack on the Baltics has the potential for far more global danger than Russias intervention in Ukraine, since the United States and other members of NATO committed to defend the region when Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined the military alliance in 2004.

Adding to the fears, Russian leaders now routinely raise their willingness to use nuclear weapons, a habit not seen since the height of the Cold War in the early 1960s. Western leaders shy away from talk of a new Cold War. But Russian and Western officials make clear that they are settling into a confrontation that neither side expects to end quickly.

There is a much greater sense that were dealing with a long-term strategic competition with Russia, said Alexander Vershbow, deputy secretary general of NATO, the Western military alliance formed during the Cold War to defend against the Soviet Union. It will be a very dangerous relationship that needs to be managed very carefully going forward, he said in an interview.



A car sits idle in the middle of a potato field in Estonia in May. (Dmitri Beliakov/For The Washington Post)

NATOs new top military leader, U.S. Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, said as he arrived in the spring that the alliance had to be ready to fight tonight against Russia, if necessary. And President Obama quadrupled military spending in Europe in his budget proposal earlier this year, to $3.4 billion.

Russia plans to form three new divisions of its military by the end of the year  tens of thousands of troops  and station them in its westernmost territories, near the Baltics and Poland. Russian President Vladimir Putin has framed it as a simple response to NATO activity.

We are constantly accused of military activity, but where? Putin said Thursday. Only on our own soil. We are supposed to accept as normal the military buildup on our borders.

The Baltics, which were forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940 and won independence only in 1991, fear they could make a tempting target for a Kremlin that has in recent years taken a revanchist attitude toward its neighbors. If they were attacked and NATO failed to come to their aid, it would break the military alliance, an outcome that would probably delight Putin. He has declared NATO to be one of Russias biggest strategic threats.

Western leaders have sought to place enough firepower in the Baltics to deter an attack while avoiding the perception of a military threat to Russia. Many Russian officials say they view the arrival of Western tanks at their frontiers as a security risk. NATO military leaders retort that such fears are exaggerated and that the roughly 2,500 troops that have been sent to the region could do little to harm the vastly larger Russian forces arrayed across the border.



Dutch soldiers board their armored personnel carrier while raiding the woods during a NATO troop exercise in Estonia. (Dmitri Beliakov/For The Washington Post)



Estonian Special Forces soldiers are shown reading the A area map during the NATO troop exercise in Estonia. (Dmitri Beliakov/For The Washington Post)

A Lithuanian Humvee driver is seen through a vehicle during the NATO troop exercise in Estonia. (Dmitri Beliakov/For The Washington Post)

A recent Rand Corp. study that simulated a Russian invasion found that Baltic capitals would be overrun within 60 hours. To change the calculus, the authors recommended a significantly higher Western troop presence in the region than NATO is currently contemplating  seven brigades, more than 30,000 troops. A similar NATO-wide crisis war game in March that simulated an attack from Russia left the West losing to its foe.

Even without a permanent presence in the Baltics, NATO troops have been conducting military exercises throughout the region since the Crimea military operation. Practice for street-to-street combat recently was held in Voru, a sleepy town of 13,000 people 16 miles from the Russian border that is better known as a home for an unusual language dialect than as a future spark plug for world war. An international coalition of troops, including Americans, fought from the outskirts of town into the city center, taking over an old municipal archive, then an abandoned factory and a gas station. The fighting intensified on Paju Street, where 19th-century wooden homes sit in the shadow of a hulking Soviet-era apartment building.

The soldiers fought right past the computer repair shop where Roman Jastrebov, 25, was working on a Saturday morning as his 4-year-old daughter played. He said he was delighted by the war games even if he almost got shot in the face with a shell.

It was like the Fourth of July. Its like a big playground, he said.

But he was skeptical that the combat practice would save Estonia if its worst fears of a Russian invasion came to pass.

Its not like were going to be saved from it if theres a war. One tank division could take us, he said.

Others were less happy about the street-to-street fighting that paralyzed the town for hours.

This is just to scare people, said Kertu Luisk, 24, a cosmetology trainee whose hair salon was in the thick of the fighting. To see this kind of show, Id rather go to the theater. None of us wants to think war is possible. But it seems to me that the real risk is there.

The Baltics flat, open terrain means that the countries could be overrun faster than NATO could scramble a response from elsewhere in Europe, leading to the focus on discouraging Russia from acting in the first place, Western leaders say.



Members of an Estonian heavy-caliber machine-gun team chat with a local resident. (Dmitri Beliakov/For The Washington Post)

Along Estonias forested border with Russia, the only demarcation of the frontier is a series of orange-and-green poles erected every several dozen yards. A new chain-link fence wont be finished for at least another year, and it would do little to stop an invasion.

NATO officials plan to send a battalion of about a thousand troops to each Baltic nation and Poland, about 4,000 in total. The United States originally considered committing about 2,000 soldiers to the effort, but it recently halved its offer, NATO diplomats and officials say, amid growing political pressure to push Europe to commit more to its own defense. Obama recently derided free riders on American military might, while Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, has declared NATO obsolete.

That has left Baltic leaders  and NATO military planners  balancing what they feel they need with what they think they can get.

We dont want to return to the Cold War era, tank for tank, soldier for soldier, said Estonian Defense Minister Hannes Hanso. But in the Baltic Sea, Russia is flying military aircraft almost daily, sometimes five times a day. It would be irresponsible not to respond.

What we are doing is reacting to what theyre doing, Hanso said.

A drive across the Baltics reveals a constant hum of military activity. Camouflaged convoys snake down dim roads late at night. Armored personnel carriers idle alongside fields. Belgian, British and Spanish fighter jets thunder across the skies. Before the Crimean annexation, it was rare to see a combat vehicle in the Baltics. Now they are omnipresent, amid a constant cycle of military maneuvers and rotations. The biggest military operation in Europe this year is underway in Poland, where 25,000 troops from 24 nations are engaged in combat exercises that include live fire from tanks.

The sustained rhythm can be jarring to those who live in the areas seen as most vulnerable. Narva, an Estonian border city that is more than 80 percent Russian-speaking, is often depicted as Russias first target if it were to move on the Baltics. But residents there say they have no interest in switching allegiances.



A fisherman hopes to get a bite near the fortress of Narva across the river of the same name. The body of water serves as a natural border between Estonia, left, and Russia. (Dmitri Beliakov/For The Washington Post)

Narvas streets are in decent shape, unlike the rutted roads in Ivangorod, the Russian town just across the river. Narva residents salaries and pensions are paid according to Estonian standards, while their Russian neighbors earnings have lost half their value with the collapse of the ruble since 2014.

People in Narva love Putin. But its a platonic love. They dont want him here, said Sergei Stepanov, the editor of the local newspaper, Narvskaya Gazeta. People here are not stupid. They can just cross the border and compare how things are in Russia.

Ultimately, Estonian leaders say, the threat from Russia has forced them to unite under pressure.

Five or six years ago, we would have had arguments about holding extensive military exercises, said Hanso, the defense minister. Putin is our best recruiter.

Read more:

U.S., NATO countries begin largest military exercise in Eastern Europe since Cold War

Fearing Russian expansion, Baltic nations step up military exercises

Baltic countries want a longer NATO commitment to counter Russia

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world
More than 140 people died as a suicide car bomb blew up in a busy shopping street in central Baghdad in the early hours of Sunday, many burning to death as subsequent fires consumed cafes and stores in the Islamic States worst single attack on the Iraqi capital.

Another 212 people were injured in the bombing in the Karrada neighborhood, according to a senior Health Ministry official, who spoke Sunday on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. He said he expected the death toll to climb, as many suffering from burns were in critical condition.

Iraqi officials on Monday said the death toll in the attack had climbed to 142, according to an Associated Press report, up from 121 fatalities reported on Sunday.

The bombing follows attacks in Turkey and Bangladesh over the past week that many have linked to the Islamic State. But it far outstrips them in the number of people killed. U.S. officials have warned that the group is likely to intensify its attacks overseas as it loses ground in Iraq and Syria, but civilians in the Middle East continue to bear the brunt of the campaign of bombings.

The attack came at a time apparently chosen to cause maximum loss of life. Families were out on the streets after breaking their fast on one of the final days of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and crowds had gathered in popular coffee shops to watch the semifinals of the Euro 2016 soccer tournament.

1 of 20 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  A devastating scene after deadly Islamic State attacks in Baghdad View Photos At least 142 are dead and 212 are injured after a deadly Islamic State suicide car bomb in the Iraqi capital, according to officials. Most of the dead were killed in a resulting fire that raged through two nearby shopping centers. Caption At least 95 are dead and approximately have been 200 injured after a deadly Islamic State suicide car bomb in the Iraqi capital, according to officials. Most of the dead were killed in a resulting fire that raged through two nearby shopping centers. July 3, 2016 People inspect the site of a suicide car bomb in the Karrada shopping area in Baghdad. Khalid Al-Mousily/Reuters Wait 1 second to continue.

The street was full of life last night, and now the smell of death is all over the place, said Gaith Ali, 26, whose apartment windows were blown out in the explosion.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared three days of mourning for the victims. The Islamic State claimed responsibility, saying it had targeted Shiite Muslims. The militants have now lost almost half the territory they once controlled in Iraq, most recently losing their stronghold of Fallujah, 45 miles west of the capital.

[Under strain, Islamic State takes its battle to the streets of Baghdad]

The blast set off a huge blaze that engulfed two small shopping centers, leaving those inside stuck on the roof and screaming for help as firefighters attempted to rescue them. The fire spread rapidly, trapping people inside the Hadi shopping center, which has a large coffee shop on its top floor. It spread across the street to Laith shopping center.

Dhu al-Fuqqar, 23, was working there when the explosion hit but had left his shop to speak to friends on another floor. Minutes after the blast, fire was eating the building, he said. The owner of the shop where he worked died in the attack along with his son, he said. A second son was still missing, and his mother was in a hospital being treated for shock, Fuqqar said.

They were like family to me, he said. He described how he tried to reach them after the blast but couldnt because of the smoke. He said the streets were crowded because many people had gathered to watch Italy play Germany in the soccer tournament and the match had just finished.

He chose the perfect time to cause casualties, Fuqqar said.

The Karrada shopping district has been targeted by the group multiple times. Residents said that the street had been closed off by police earlier in the evening because of information about a potential attack but that it was reopened about an hour later.

It means they knew but they didnt do anything about it, Fuqqar said.

At least half of those killed Sunday died in the fire that followed the blast, the health official said. More than 80 percent of them were younger than 30, he said, as the area is a popular gathering place for young people.

About 25 succumbed to their injuries in the burn unit of the Baghdad Medical City hospital, according to another health official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. At least 15 children were killed in the attack, the Associated Press reported.

A second explosion struck in eastern Baghdad shortly after the Karrada bombing, but there were conflicting reports on whether it was a bombing. Local media said that five people were killed when an improvised explosive device detonated. Iraqs Interior Ministry said it was an accident caused by an exploding air-conditioning unit.

Abadi, who is from Karrada, visited the bomb site there Sunday, and his convoy was attacked by an angry crowd. Thief! people shouted at his motorcade, throwing stones, bottles and projectiles, according to footage posted online.

Break the windshield! Dont let him go! one person yelled. Abadi has faced pressure from street protests in recent months as patience frays over corruption, lack of services and growing insecurity. The recent successful offensive for Fallujah had given him some political breathing room, but there are still widespread calls for reform.

[American troops edge closer to the front lines in Iraq]

In a statement, the prime minister said that he understood the feelings of emotion and anger from some of my dear sons and that he shared their sorrow over an attack that was designed to rob Iraqis of their victory in Fallujah.

But for many, his words brought little comfort.

I wish I was there when Abadi came, Fuqqar said. The blood of my friends is still on my hands, and I would have wiped it on his face. But I was busy looking for people in the hospitals.

Although Baghdad has suffered numerous bombings at the hands of the militants, Sundays was the single worst in the Iraqi capital since the group was formed in 2013. Its the worst in Iraq in almost a year, since a truck bomb blew up in a market in the eastern province of Diyala last July, killing 130 people.

On social media, Iraqis turned their anger toward a wand-style device that has been proved to be fake but that is still widely used at checkpoints as a bomb detector. On Sunday night, Abadi announced that the devices should be withdrawn from checkpoints. Little more than an antenna attached to a plastic handle, they have been sold as capable of detecting explosives.

Earlier Sunday, after the bombing, the Interior Ministrys website was hacked and a picture was posted of a bloodied baby and one of the supposed bomb detectors.

I dont know how you sleep at night, the hacked website read.

Morris reported from Beirut.

Read more:

After more than $1.6 billion in U.S. aid, Iraqs army still struggles

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Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world
A Nevada man has been charged with neglect in connection with the June death of his autistic adult daughter, who he allegedly left in a hot RV without power or running water alongside her autistic twin sister, PEOPLE confirms.



Roger Killam, 52, allegedly left 25-year-old twin daughters Tammara and Brooke Killam in his RV in Clark County on June 21, as punishment for them going through the his girlfriend's belongings, according to an arrest report obtained by PEOPLE.



Roger allegedly gave the women nothing but bread and water to eat and allegedly gave them a large bucket for a toilet, Brooke told police, according to the report.



The Clark County Coroner's Office said the temperature inside the RV was 108 degrees that Tuesday and Tammara's body temperature was 105 degrees, according to the report. It was not immediately clear if Roger allegedly allowed his daughters to leave the RV, or for how long if so.



Roger allegedly rented a room in a nearby hotel with his girlfriend so they could have privacy, according to the report.



Brooke  who officers said appeared to have diminished mental capacity  said she woke up that Tuesday and found Tammara unconscious on the bathroom floor about 9 a.m. local time, according to the report. Tammara was pronounced dead at the scene.



(It was not immediately clear how much mental capacity Tammara had.)



 Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.



Because she had no minutes on her cell phone, Brooke did not call for help, she told authorities, according to the report. Help was not summoned until their father and his girlfriend returned to the RV about 10:30 a.m.



When questioned by authorities, Roger allegedly said he takes good care of his daughters, and that they know to dial 911 in an emergency, according to the report. He allegedly asked if the line of questioning was "a witch hunt."



Brooke, who allegedly told authorities she hadn't showered in a week, was taken to the hospital with severe dehydration, according to the report.



Tammara allegedly appeared as if she hadn't bathed for weeks, according to the report.





Lawyer: Gillam is 'Distraught' and 'Loves His Daughters'

Killam is charged with one count of neglect resulting in death for Tammara and one count of neglect resulting in substantial bodily harm for Brooke.



Roger is in custody and bail has been set at $600,000, a spokesperson for the Clark County District Attorney tells PEOPLE.



His lawyer, special public defender Joseph Abood, says Killam will plead not guilty to all the charges.



"He's distraught  he loves his daughters," Abood tells PEOPLE.



He says that Killam "has spent most of his adult life taking care of these kids."



"There was no pattern of neglect over time. This sounds like an unfortunate situation to me," Abood says. "And quite frankly, not everybody can afford to have an A.C. on their motor home that's working all the time."
Istanbul (AFP) - Thirteen suspects, including 10 Turks, were charged Sunday over the Istanbul airport suicide bombings, the deadliest of several attacks to strike Turkey's biggest city this year, the Dogan news agency reported.

Turkish officials have pointed blame at the Islamic State jihadist group for Tuesday's gun and bomb spree at Ataturk airport, which left 45 people dead including 19 foreigners.

The suspects, who are in police custody, were charged with belonging to a terror group, homicide and endangering the unity of the state, Dogan reported, without providing the foreigners' nationalities.

Turkey's Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, meanwhile, gave some new details on the probe, saying police had arrested a total of 29 to date over the attacks, including foreigners.

Officials had previously said the three bombers were a Russian, an Uzbek and a Kyrgyz national.

"Everything will be unveiled in due time," Yildirim said. "We are carrying out a vast inquiry in this case."

Istanbul authorities said Sunday that 49 people injured in the attack were still being treated, with 17 in intensive care.

Turkish media have identified the strike's organiser as Akhmed Chatayev, the Chechen leader of an IS cell in Istanbul who reportedly found accommodation for the bombers.

Chatayev allegedly organised two deadly bombings this year in the heart of the city's Sultanahmet tourist district and the busy Istiklal shopping street, the Hurriyet newspaper said.

Turkey has been rocked by a series of attacks in the past year blamed on either IS jihadists or Kurdish rebels.

These have taken a heavy hit on tourism, and on Friday Germany warned its citizens to exercise particular caution if they travel to Turkey.
Beirut (AFP) - Fierce government bombardment of an opposition-controlled Syrian town has killed 43 people, among them children and medical staff, a monitoring group said Sunday in a new toll.

Hours of air strikes and shelling on Saturday struck Jayrud, 60 kilometres (35 miles) northeast of Damascus, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said two medics were among the dead, as well as women and children.

The bombardment -- the first on Jayrud in at least two years -- began after Syria's armed forces said Islamist militants killed a government pilot when he was forced to eject from his plane on Friday.

In a statement, the military had pledged that the attack on its pilot "will not go unpunished".

Early Sunday, Abdel Rahman said prominent figures in Jayrud had reached an agreement with government officials "that the (rebel) fighters would leave the town in exchange for the pilot's body being handed over."

A Facebook page run by Jayrud activists that publishes news about the town said rebels began withdrawing from their bases around the town overnight.

Anti-regime factions in Jayrud include the Saudi-backed Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam), the hardline Ahrar al-Sham, and Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front.

A truce between the regime and local representatives had kept the town calm for over two years.

Dozens of similar agreements have been brokered among the myriad of armed groups fighting in Syria's complex war.

But a broader ceasefire between government forces and non-jihadist rebels brokered by the United States and Russia in February has been repeatedly violated by both sides.

More than 280,000 people have been killed and millions have been displaces since Syrias conflict broke out in March 2011.
A former teacher has made political history by becoming the first indigenous woman elected to Australia's parliamentary lower house, winning a seat for the centre-left Labor party after national polls.

Linda Burney, 59, has been a trailblazer, having been the first female Aboriginal to enter the New South Wales state parliament in 2003.

She joins the first Aboriginal MP Ken Wyatt of the conservative Liberal Party, who was elected in 2010, and follows in the footsteps of former senator and Olympian Nova Peris, who was the first indigenous woman in the upper house.

"I think for Australia it's a really important moment," Burney told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Sunday after winning the Sydney seat of Barton.

"Being elected as the first indigenous woman into the House of Representatives is a moment for this country... this was not lost on the people of Barton. They, and we, have made history together last night."

The multicultural seat of Barton had previously been in Labor hands for three decades before the Liberals picked up the electorate three years ago.

But a boundary distribution hurt incumbent Nickolas Varvaris' chances to retain his seat, and Burney, who was also a former state deputy opposition leader, made the successful transition to federal politics.

"It's starting to dawn on me the importance of this role," she told local newspaper the Canterbury-Bankstown Express.

"I've had messages (of congratulations) from people living in Germany, Israel, friends in America and other friends of mine have had messages to pass on to me from Switzerland and London. It's been lovely."

Burney was the first Aborigine to gain a Diploma of Teaching at Charles Sturt University and has served on the National Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation and with international United Nations working groups.

Aborigines are the most disadvantaged Australians, suffering disproportionate levels of disease, imprisonment and social problems as well as significantly lower education, employment and life expectancy.
Divisive Australian politician Pauline Hanson, who once claimed Asians were in danger of swamping the country, was Sunday on the cusp of being re-elected to parliament after a near 20-year absence.

She is one of a host of minor party candidates or independents on track to win upper house Senate seats, as voters disillusioned with the ruling conservatives and Labor opposition opted for change.

The final counts are not yet settled but Hanson, who rose to prominence in the 1990s as head of the right-wing, anti-immigration One Nation party she co-founded, is forecast to again be headed to Canberra.

"I have got no problems with anyone -- if they have got a problem with me, that's their issue, not mine," she said, adding that the major parties needed to start listening to grassroots Australians.

"I'm the person that's going to come in, like the cleaner, if they don't clean your house properly you get rid of them and you have a clean sweep of the broom."

But Hanson, who wants a halt to Muslim immigration and have a national inquiry into whether Islam is a religion or a political ideology, has already created waves.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale said it was "certain" Hanson had made a successful return to the parliament and his party would do all it could to keep her in check.

"The Greens will stand against her racist and bigoted agenda," he said.

"There is no place for bigotry, for the sort of hatred that she is spreading through her views, that have no place in a modern 21st century Australia.

"We will be the opposition to her in the Senate, taking it right up to her and letting her know that we would rather be a country that doesn't pray on people's fears and anxieties but appeals to their better nature."

Hanson, who famously ditched her fish and chip shop to represent Queensland in the national parliament, lost her seat in 1998 and quit as One Nation's leader in 2002.

She announced her return to lead One Nation after a 12-year hiatus in 2014, saying she felt there was no choice given voter disillusionment with other parties.
SAN FRANCISCO  Last summer, flower delivery startup BloomThat was in an enviable position.

The 2-year-old San Francisco company had raised more than $5 million in venture capital funding. It had earned a tech world pedigree after graduating from the prestigious incubator Y Combinator. And it had its roots firmly planted in the on-demand economy  a business model popularized by Uber that was the hot new category in Silicon Valley.

But to live up to its promise of delivering bouquets within one hour in three markets, BloomThat was hemorrhaging cash. After launching in New York last summer, it was burning through more than $500,000 a month.

It was not good; we probably had around four to five months of runway left, said David Bladow, BloomThats co-founder and chief executive.

Faced with the prospect of going bust, Bladow and his co-founders asked themselves: Do customers really need their service at the press of a button?

Its a question being asked at a number of startups that promise instant gratification. As the on-demand business model strains companies finances and the tech downturn makes investor money harder to come by, companies are realizing that what works for Uber may not work for them.

Some, like BloomThat, have changed course from a model that was, for a time, seen as the easiest way to land funding in Silicon Valley.

Someone said, grow, grow, grow, and someone else parroted it, then everyone else parroted it, and we fell victim to the macro trend, Bladow said.

Last year alone, venture capital firms invested more than $17 billion across 214 companies that had the on-demand business model, up from $7.3 billion the previous year. These investments represented nearly 13 percent of all venture funding that year, according to data gathered by CB Insights.

Uber, the pioneer of the on-demand model, also continued to grow, giving the Valley reason to keep throwing money at on-demand businesses.

But offering rides is different from selling flowers.

For Uber to offer on-demand service, all it needs is lots of drivers using their own cars to log onto the app and start driving. For BloomThat to deliver flowers in a one-hour window, it had to set up distribution centers stocked with fresh bouquets that were ready to be deployed at a moments notice. That takes real estate, supplies and staff  before even getting into the logistics of one-hour delivery.

Zirx, a venture-funded San Francisco startup that offered on-demand valet parking, found its initial business model undermined by similar costs.

The company was paying a premium to lease parking spots in cities that have notoriously few parking spots.

The more popular the company got, the more it cost to secure additional spots. Customers, however, werent willing to pay the premium.

Most consumers have a price point in mind for a service, said Sean Behr, chief executive of Zirx. The consumer is unwilling to pay for the true nature of on-demand.

And so the first signs of an on-demand exodus have started to show. Some, like Spoonrocket (on-demand meals), Homejoy (on-demand house cleaning), and Shuddle (Uber for kids), have gone out of business because they couldnt raise enough money. Sidecar, an Uber competitor, sold its assets to General Motors last year. And Zirx has dropped the on-demand component of its business entirely.

A company needs to look into their own business and ask themselves what theyre best at, said Eurie Kim, a partner at venture capital firm Forerunner Ventures, which invested in BloomThat and supported the companys move away from on-demand delivery. When you do that, you realize there are probably two or three things your customer really loves about your business, and its not necessarily the delivery.

For BloomThat, the company learned that customers thought on-demand delivery was nice, but it wasnt a deal breaker. People didnt mind ordering flowers and getting them in a later window, or even the next day. By extending the delivery window by an hour, the company was able to reduce its number of drivers and distribution centers and cut costs by 25 percent.

The company now offers on-demand delivery only in city centers, and nationwide next-day delivery. The latter accounts for 50 percent of its orders, and the company became profitable four months ago.

When Behr looked at Zirxs model, he realized it would be a very difficult product to make money. So he, too, changed the companys course. Earlier this year Zirx changed its business to offer a service where it moves vehicles for other companies, such as rental car services, mechanics, and car dealers. Behr expects Zirx to be profitable by the end of the year.

The idea that were an on-demand company  that was part of the problem, said Matt Schwab, BloomThats co-founder and president. Were not an on-demand company. Were a company that builds products that has on-demand delivery. It seems trivial, but flipping the thinking changed the focus of the company.

There are some industries where on-demand delivery is critical, said Ooshma Garg, founder of Gobble, a dinner kit company that delivered on-demand meals back in 2012, before changing to a subscription model. But that only applies to two or three industries, not 100.

We figured out that on-demand didnt work for us within three months of trying it, she said.

During its on-demand period, the quality of Gobbles food and service suffered. Its target market, which was families, lived in the suburbs  meaning it had to have delivery drivers stationed across the Bay Area with trunks full of food. Any meals that werent sold went to waste. It wasnt profitable.

Gobble quickly changed direction to a subscription model. It is now 20 times larger and is no longer losing money.

Its not just companies that are waking up to the fact being on-demand doesnt guarantee success  the investor tide has also turned.

As the downturn leads to more cautious investment, on-demand businesses are among the hardest-hit; funding for such companies fell in the first quarter of this year to $1.3 billion, down from $7.3 billion six months ago.

If you look in venture capital markets, the on-demand sector is definitely out of favor, said Ajay Chopra, a partner at Trinity Ventures who is an investor in both Gobble and Zirx.

Its not lost on venture capitalists that the collective fear of missing out on investing in the next Uber is what drove many of the investments in on-demand businesses to begin with.

But as with any boom, there is a shake-out. Here, its been the realization that on-demand delivery isnt as new or groundbreaking as previously thought (e-commerce firms Webvan and Kozmo.com offered delivery in less than an hour in the late 90s before going out of business during the dot-com crash), and its not actually crucial to most companies.

A lot will go out of business, sell, or merge, Chopra said. And I expect a lot of companies will pivot to a different model.

And while a pivot may be an admission that a company didnt get it right the first time, thats just part of running a business, Chopra said.

Its not easy. Gobble, Zirx and BloomThat all went through awkward transition periods. Gobble spent months educating its customers on the new business. Zirx had to cut the consumer-facing part of its business entirely. BloomThats growth flatlined for five months while it figured out its new model.

Its not the straightforward overnight success story that Silicon Valley likes to sell. But its far more sustainable and lucrative than the rush to win at on-demand.

Weve come out of this fog, Bladow said. It allows me to sleep a lot better at night.

A company needs to look into their own business and ask themselves what theyre best at. When you do that, you realize there are probably two or three things your customer really loves about your business, and its not necessarily the delivery. Eurie Kim, a partner at Forerunner Ventures
Mayhem, death, love. Oliver and Felicity breaking up and getting back together. That is what David Ramsey says viewers can expect from Season 5 of Arrow. And though his tongue was planted firmly in cheek with that last part, the status of Olicity is TBD  maddeningly so, in the view of the couples fans.

RELATEDArrow to Host Rematch With WWE Alum Cody Rhodes FKA Stardust

Appearing Sunday at the Heroes & Villains FanFest at the Meadowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus, N.J., Arrow star Stephen Amell said, I was chatting with a couple of fans earlier and they were saying there hasnt been a lot of positivity and reassuring notions when it comes to Oliver and Felicitys relationship. I think that its important to remember that relationships on the show dont have to be only defined by romance. Oliver and Felicity could have a wonderful, fulfilling, dynamic relationship and not be together, right?

Met with a swell of boos, Amell noted with a chuckle, That wasnt a question, OK. Thats how the world works! So we will see where they are this year. Having ended their (brief) engagement and endured some friction during Season 4, only to wind up working together again on Team Arrow (as friends), I hope that theyre both in a happy positive place, Amell said. Whether that means theyre together or not remains to be seen.

RELATEDArrow Casts Role of DC Comics Vigilante Adrian Chase in Season 5

Addressing Season 5 as a whole, Amell said this weekend that the villain that we are introducing is a direct result of things that Oliver has done in Star City [and] calls back to a lot of things that happened in the first season of the show. In doing so, It really grounds the show and really focuses on its core value, which is the battle to save Star City  an appreciably quaint notion, Amell acknowledged, given the multiple Earths and time travel taking place on Arrows sister series. The first two episodes [of Season 5] refocuses us on what the core mission of the show should be, and that to me is very exciting, he effused. Plus? Russia, as in the setting of the next cycle of flashbacks.

Story continues

RELATEDArrow Casts Popular Alum Carly Pope as Coast City Reporter in Season 5

Other topics targeted by the Arrow cast during the Heroes & Villains FanFest:

* Ramsey teased

two changes within Diggles world. For one, his Spartan mask is getting a much-needed, Cisco-created upgrade  something the actor greatly welcomes, having seen and heard all the Magneto and peripheral vision jokes. Also, you will see a new Baby Sarah, as a third child actress takes over the role.

* Surveying Theas future, Willa Holland  while seated next to Arrow alum-turned-Chicago Med doc Colin Donnell  ventured that during her pseudo-break from Team Arrow, she probably  went on a little vacation, to maybe Chicago, and met some guy in the hospital that looked eerily like her brother! Turning semi-serious, Holland said, I hope that Thea in Season 5 is going to be focusing a lot more on herself and learning a little bit more about whats going on inside of her now that she has lost the bloodlust. She needs to take some yoga classes and meditate real hard, maybe smudge [with sage] the apartment she lives in.

RELATEDArrows Stephen Amell Hints at a Meaner Season 5, Mysterious Return

* Paul Blackthorne

said that whereas Laurel was Quentins rock when Sara (first) died, Donna (played by Charlotte Ross) has filled that role in the wake of Laurels own tragic death. Still, Life without Laurel is unimaginable for him, he shared. So of course hed bring her back if he could  be it via Constantine, Lazarus Pit or whatever. (Speaking of the good detective, Amell warned the crowd, Lance does not get reinstated, adding: Im sorry.)

* Asked to name a favorite stunt that they themselves were involved in, Charlotte Ross offered, Running from the bees in my Louboutins! (when Brie Larvan targeted Felicity, Donna and others), while Katrina Law asked with a wink, Does making out with Caity Lotz count?

RELATEDArrow EP Talks About Flashback Woes, Why Season 5 Will Be Better

* Anticipating the four-way crossover set for December and involving The Flash, Legends and Supergirl, Ramsey said, I wanna see Diggles expression when he sees Supergirl flying across the horizon. I want to know what that is. After all, since the Fastest Man Alive to this day still fills Dig with awe, Ramsey reckons, Hes going to pee on himself right there upon spying the Girl of Steel.

Want more scoop on Arrow, or for any other show? Email insideline@tvline.com and your question may be answered via Matts Inside Line.

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By Jonathan Barrett and Tom Westbrook SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia's political parties began horsetrading on Sunday to break an anticipated parliamentary deadlock after a dramatic election failed to produce a clear winner, raising the prospect of prolonged political and economic instability. The exceptionally close vote leaves Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's center-right Liberal Party-led government in a precarious position, potentially needing the support of independent and minor parties. It has also opened the door to the possibility, albeit less likely, that the main opposition Labor Party could win enough backing from the smaller parties to form government itself, although Turnbull said on Sunday he remained "quietly confident" of returning his coalition to power for another three-year term. "I can promise all Australians that we will dedicate our efforts to ensuring that the state of new parliament is resolved without division or rancor," Turnbull, who accused Labor of waging a dirty tricks campaign, told reporters in Sydney. Police said they were considering whether to investigate thousands of text messages sent to voters on Saturday by the Labor Party purporting to be from the state healthcare service Medicare, warning the service would be privatized by a coalition government. Labor leader Bill Shorten said Australians had rejected Turnbull's mandate for reform like cuts to healthcare and a A$50 billion ($37 billion) corporate tax break over 10 years. "What I'm very sure of is that while we don't know who the winner was, there is clearly one loser: Malcolm Turnbull's agenda for Australia and his efforts to cut Medicare," Shorten told reporters in Melbourne. The election was meant to end a period of political turmoil in which Australia which has had four prime ministers in three years. Instead it has left a power vacuum in Canberra and fueled talk of a challenge to Turnbull's leadership of the Liberal Party, less than a year after he ousted then prime minister Tony Abbott in a party-room coup. If the coalition fails to form a government, it would be the first time in 85 years an Australian ruling party has lost power after its first term in office. The uncertainty is likely to spook markets when they reopen on Monday, with analysts warning Australia's triple A credit rating could be at risk and predicting a fall in the Australian dollar and the share market. Vote counting could take a week or more, and the coalition will rule under caretaker provisions in the interim. Official electoral data for the House of Representatives showed a 3.4 percent swing away from the government, with about two-thirds of votes counted. Electoral Commission projections give the coalition 67 seats in the 150-seat lower house, against Labor's 71 and five to independents and the Greens Party. A further seven seats were in the balance. That leaves independents, whose election campaigns ranged from economic protectionism to anti-gambling and policies to improve the treatment of asylum seekers, as kingmakers. Small parties are likely to hold the balance of power in the Senate, with Pauline Hanson's One Nation on track to win between two and four seats, marking the return of the anti-immigration activist to parliament after an almost 20-year absence. LEADERSHIP DOUBTS Confirming that talks were already underway, independent member of parliament Andrew Wilkie said Turnbull had called him just to "open lines of communication". Stirling Griff, a Nick Xenophon Team candidate who is on track to win a senate seat, said the party was scrambling to pull together its wishlist for negotiations after being caught off-guard by the coalition's poor performance. Speculation has also begun about the ability of Shorten and Turnbull to hold onto the leadership of their parties. Turnbull was under the most pressure, having ousted Abbott on a promise of stability and then called the election in a risky bid to sweep out independents in the upper house who were blocking his economic agenda. Turnbull had some of the highest poll ratings of an Australian leader on record shortly after he snatched the top job from Abbott in September. But that popularity soured as he appeared to bend his center-right values on issues like climate change and same sex marriage under pressure from the right of his party. (Additional reporting by Matt Siegel. Writing by Jane Wardell.; Editing by Stephen Coates)
(Reuters) - Australian swimmer Cate Campbell broke the women's 100 metres freestyle world record at the Brisbane Grand Prix on Saturday, sending an ominous warning to her rivals at next month's Rio Olympics. The 24-year-old clocked 52.06 seconds to better German swimmer Britta Steffen's previous record of 52.07 seconds set seven years ago during the now-banned synthetic swim-suit era. The London relay gold medallist beat her previous personal best of 52.33 seconds to claim the first individual world record by an Australian since the supersuit period. "It happened when I least expected it. I still can't believe it happened," Campbell was quoted as saying in the Australian Associated Press. "People have been asking me when am I going to break a world record for the last three years. "Now they will stop asking me the question." After a few testing years with injury and illness, the world number one has her eyes firmly set on the gold at the Aug. 5-21 Rio Games. "Anyone who goes to the Olympics and says they are not after gold are kidding themselves," she added. (Reporting by Nivedita Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Amlan Chakraborty)
A slaughter of foreign hostages has put Bangladesh firmly on the frontline of the global war on terror despite government efforts to portray a campaign of attacks as the work of domestic opponents, according to analysts.

Several dozen people have been killed by jihadists in Bangladesh in the last two years, the victims including mainly local atheist bloggers, Hindus, gay activists and liberal academics.

But while those attacks generated few column inches beyond Bangladesh, this weekend's hostage siege in a Dhaka cafe led news bulletins around the world, attracting the kind of attention its perpetrators had long been craving.

Analysts said the choice of venue, target, timing and method of killing were all designed to maximise publicity for jihadists who were well aware of the outrage that greeted recent massacres in Orlando and Paris.

Eighteen of the 20 civilians who were killed in the Holey Artisan Bakery were foreigners. Nearly all were hacked to death with machetes, even though the hostage-takers had plenty of firearms.

The attack was even more shocking as it came on the final weekend of Ramadan, with survivors describing how the hostage-takers made clear their targets were non-Muslims, separating locals from the foreigners.

Around 90 percent of Bangladesh's 160 million people are Muslims but the state is officially secular.

"By hacking people to death... they wanted to show the world that they can go to any extent for jihad," said K G Suresh, a senior fellow at New Delhi's Vivekananda International Foundation think-tank.

"Once they attack a restaurant popular with foreigners on a Friday night their message is clear who they want to go after. By sparing Muslims, they wanted to send out the message that they are only against Westerners."

According to the monitoring group SITE, the Islamic State organisation claimed responsibility for the attack which it said had targeted "citizens of crusader states".

Story continues

But Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's secular government has long insisted neither IS nor Al-Qaeda have gained a foothold in Bangladesh despite both groups claiming many previous attacks.

That line was reiterated by Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan who told AFP that six gunmen killed at the end of the siege were members of Jamaeytul Mujahdeen Bangladesh, a domestic group which has been banned for a decade.

He denied any link with IS but analysts said that stretched credibility.

Taj Hashmi, a Bangladeshi who teaches security studies at the Austin Peay State University in the US, said there could be "no ambiguity" that the attack was the work of IS.

"Bangladesh must admit that international Islamist networks are actively engaged in killing people in the country and they are not through yet," said Hashmi.

Mubashar Hasan, an expert on political Islam at Dhaka's Liberal Arts University, said it was not merely a local difficulty but was the latest in a line that stretched back to the attacks in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001.

"This is Bangladesh's 9/11. Bangladesh has now entered into the global war on terror," Hasan told AFP.

Critics have said the violence stems from the government's refusal to allow its opponents to operate freely in the political mainstream.

- 'Lack of democracy' -

Bangladesh's main Islamist party has been banned and most of its leaders have been arrested or else executed after recent trials over their role in the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.

Opposition leader Khaleda Zia is facing a string of court cases for her role in violent anti-government protests.

Zia's party boycotted the 2014 general election after Hasina refused to allow it to be overseen by a neutral caretaker government as in the past, and Hasan said growing extremism was an inevitable consequence.

"A dysfunctional state and lack of democracy made it fertile ground for terrorism," said Hasan.

The columnist Zafar Sohban urged the government to end "its state of denial".

"It cannot continue to bury its head in the sand about the clear and convincing evidence of transnational links to domestic terror groups and operations," he wrote in the Dhaka Tribune.

Subhash Agrawal of the Delhi-based India Focus political risk consultancy, said the recent arrests of thousands of Bangladeshis that the government says was organised to eradicate extremism had been counter-productive.

"She has been focusing on her political opponents and going after Begum Khaleda Zia's people while turning a blind eye to the alarming political and social polarisation in her country," Agrawal told AFP.

"Arresting so many people is simply stupid."
By Ruma Paul and Promit Mukherjee DHAKA/MUMBAI (Reuters) - Some leaders of Bangladesh's $26 billion garment industry expect Western fashion retailers to review their ties with the world's second-largest garment exporter after 18 foreigners were killed in an attack on a Dhaka restaurant. Bangladesh, one of the world's poorest countries, relies on garments for around 80 percent of its exports and for about 4 million jobs, and ranks behind only China as a supplier of clothes to developed markets like Europe and the United States. Militants killed 20 people, including nine Italians, seven Japanese, an Indian and an American, inside an upmarket restaurant in Bangladesh's capital, before security forces stormed the building and ended a 12-hour standoff on Saturday. Islamic State said it was responsible for one of the most brazen attacks in the South Asian nation's history, but that claim has yet to be confirmed. It marks a major escalation in a campaign by militants over the past 18 months that had targeted mostly individuals advocating a secular or liberal lifestyle in majority-Muslim Bangladesh with 160 million people. "An incident like this will definitely impact us, in as much as our importers from places such as (the) U.S. and China will be wary to visit because of the security concerns," said Shahidul Haque Mukul, managing director of Ananta Garments. The industry had been recovering strongly from a major tragedy three years ago, when a factory building collapsed, killing more than 1,100 people, prompting safety checks that led to many factory closures and the loss of exports and jobs. It had also seemed little touched by a spate of recent murders on liberals, gay people, foreigners and religious minorities in sporadic attacks claimed by Islamic State and al Qaeda. Between October and January, its exports surged 14 percent from a year earlier. But Friday's attack signaled a more chilling threat to foreigners. The militants targeted a building housing two upmarket eateries popular with foreigners, and several of those killed were Italian garment entrepreneurs. Italy's textile imports from Bangladesh more than trebled in the last decade to reach $1.31 billion last year, as low cost garment production moved outside the European country. "Bangladesh has never seen such a horrific incident," said Mohammad Siddiqur Rahman, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association. "It is a strong slap to our image. It will put pressure on our business, but we cannot say to what extent at the moment." A Bangladesh-based executive for a French-based garment buyer said he feared a deep slump in business in the coming days. But other industry figures said heightened security fears could be managed and that manufacturers could hold more meetings with Western customers outside Bangladesh, in Asian cities such as Singapore or Hong Kong, a trend that had begun some time ago. "Concerns on visiting our factories, holding meetings, etc, by foreign nationals will be there for a few months but I believe within six months, the intensity will thaw and things will be back to normal," said Abdullah Hil Rakib, head of exporter Brothers Fashion Ltd. At least two European retailers which source clothes from Bangladesh, Sweden's H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB and Britain's Marks and Spencer Group PLC , say their operations in the country are not immediately affected. Both said their workers are unaffected, adding they were monitoring the situation. "There are no plans in changing any sourcing but we are following the development closely," Ulrica Bogh Lind, spokeswoman for H & M, told Reuters. She said the company had "safety routines" for workers, adding the company was in contact with its office in Dhaka. The industry owes its resilience to some of the world's lowest wages, the right skills and the fact that China has become less competitive as a producer in recent years. The minimum monthly wage for garment workers in Bangladesh is $68, compared with about $280 in mainland China. (Additional reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in Mumbai, Serajul Quadir in Bangladesh, Ethan Lou in Toronto, Anna Ringstrom in Stockholm, Francesca Landini in Milan; Writing by Mark Bendeich; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Ros Russell)
One hour and 10 minutes.

Thats the time it takes to ride public transit from Holmen to La Crosse or La Farge to La Crosse, despite one being 13 miles away and the other 43.

The La Crosse Area Planning Committee and Mississippi River Regional Planning Commission hope to do something about that in 2017, citing benefits to expanding transit including savings on other transportation costs such as parking, road construction and the need for new roads such as the controversial North-South corridor.

The transportation planning groups are in the initial stages of expanding regional public transit north to Arcadia, with a stop in Holmen, and east to Tomah, with a stop in Sparta. Members of the LAPCs transportation committee are reaching out to businesses in both directions to see whether it is feasible to send a transit service similar to the Scenic Mississippi Regional Transit service down the road from its current routes which link La Crosse to Viroqua, Prairie du Chien and La Farge.

While La Crosse County planner Charlie Handy wont have a report until August, preliminary results show a great deal of interest from employers both in Arcadia and La Crosse, who have employees spread throughout the region and want to cast a larger recruitment net.

Those numbers are pretty high. We knew that going in, but its nice to confirm it, Handy said.

Suburbs to the north, including Holmen, are growing rapidly, with the population of Holmen growing to 9,651 in 2015 from just over 6,000 in 2000. Most residents work outside of Holmen, with the average work commute being 21.7 minutes, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Handy suspected regional employers would be amenable to a transit service after seeing how quickly the SMRT Bus got off the ground in 2013. The SMRT Bus had 19,223 riders last year and has seen an 8 to 29 percent increase in ridership each month so far in 2016.

The success that the SMRT Bus has had is part of it. We see how many people do that and they just have better days, Handy said.

Coming from Holmen

As it stands now, getting from Holmen to downtown La Crosse via public transportation isnt hard, although it requires a lot more time, a bit more work and a little more pocket change than the SMRT Buss $3 one-way fare.

To get started, at least half an hour before you want to be picked up, you need to call in a reservation to the Shared Ride transit service, which will pick up and drop off anywhere within the municipal boundaries Onalaska, Holmen and West Salem, plus some La Crosse locations around the Valley View Mall and at Bridgeview Plaza.

One nice thing about Shared Ride is that with your $3.75 fare, you can get a free transfer to get on a La Crosse Municipal Transit Utility bus. If you need to go downtown between 7:10 and 10:30 a.m. or 2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. weekdays, you could take a Shared Ride minivan to Center 90 on Sand Lake Road in Onalaska and transfer to the Route 9 MTU bus.

In the middle of the day, though, the Route 9 doesnt go through Onalaska, so someone in Holmen has the choice of taking Shared Ride to Bridgeview Plaza for $5 and transferring to Route 6 or paying the standard fare and getting dropped at the Valley View Mall to transfer to Route 5.

The multiple stops and fares dont deter Tyler Loomis, a 2010 Onalaska High School graduate who regularly takes a similar route from his workplace in West Salem, Culpitt Roofing, to his home on La Crosses North Side.

His work day normally starts at 6 a.m., too early to use public transit to get to West Salem, but he said the Shared Ride-to-MTU method has worked pretty well for him. In the two months hed been doing that, he said this day was the first time hed had another passenger in the Shared Ride minivan  an older woman who got a ride to Woodmans.

Taking public transit was tricky for Loomis in the beginning, he said, but hes gotten the hang of it. It was pretty stressful at first, actually, he said. Im just used to it now, I guess.

Going to La Farge

In comparison, Organic Valley profitability analyst Mat Grewe, who lives on the South Side of La Crosse and takes the SMRT Bus to La Farge nearly every day, walks or bikes the  mile to his stop at University of Wisconsin-La Crosse each day before getting on the Blue Route bus, which starts travels between Viroqua and La Crosse  with stops in Westby, Coon Valley and La Farge  three times each day, at 6:50 a.m. He rides it for just over an hour before pulling up to Organic Valleys headquarters at 8 a.m.

Ill read on the bus. Ill take naps on the bus or daydream just because it has beautiful big glass windows and you can just look out and enjoy the scenery, Grewe said. It reduces a lot of stress.

Once in awhile, hell use the wifi to finish up some work or chat with his fellow riders after boarding the bus to head home at 4:30 p.m., getting dropped off at 5:40 p.m. Grewe likes kicking back and letting someone else do the driving, while he takes some time to relax after work.

I dont have to drive and its actually really pretty. Its really not bad and Id take it over bumper-to-bumper traffic any time, Grewe said.

Business interests

Organic Valley replaced its van pool program  which brought in employees at 6:30 and 7 a.m. each day  with the SMRT Bus in September of last year. With more than 20 regular riders, the farmer cooperative didnt have a large enough vehicle to make just one drive, so internal sustainability manager Akshay Gavai began looking for ways to make its carpooling efforts more efficient.

We are located in the countryside, Gavai said. We want to make sure that people who are working with us, our employees, have access to our facilities.  Its not easy necessarily to make that commute.

The SMRT Bus came immediately to mind.

It was stopping at the same places our van pool was stopping, Gavai said. It was just a good idea to partner with an already existing transportation system that could carry more people.

With only 10 Organic Valley employees riding from La Crosse to La Farge each day, Gavai attributes the drop to the number of staff members who now work out of the co-ops Cashton headquarters, which has a successful van pool program as well.

Businesses like Organic Valley, and the SMRT Buss other sponsors  Gundersen Health System, Crossing Rivers Health, Vernon Memorial Healthcare, Dairyland Power and Otto Bremer Foundation  have been a big driver of regional transit as they look at their recruitment and retention of quality staff.

Were a growing co-op and we need to be able to pull from more densely populated areas, La Crosse, of course, being one of them, said Organic Valley workplace services manager Eric Hartwig said. The other aspect is that its the right thing to do environmentally.

Municipal savings

The other thing that really drove this conversation is parking in downtown La Crosse, Handy said.

Between the influx of new development creating a parking shortage and the expense of building both surface lots and parking ramps, La Crosse officials with both the city and county recognize the challenge to find adequate parking for both workers and visitors. Handy hopes increased transit would take some of the pressure off, not to mention alleviate some of the need for a new North-South corridor.

One parking stall can cost up to $20,000. Its an awful lot cheaper for the taxpayers to pay for transit, Handy said.

The SMRT Bus, which is administered through the city of Prairie du Chien and contracted out to Running Inc., has a 2016 budget of about $353,000, 56 percent of which is covered by a Wisconsin Department of Transportation grant. The rest of the funding to keep the three buses running comes from each business sponsor and municipality with a stop, and the $3 fares.

The citys MTU, which served 1.1 million riders on 10 routes with 21 buses in 2015, has a budget of $6.5 million, also supplemented with 51 percent funding from a WisDoT grant.

The problem is making it usable. Knowing where your stop is and your route schedule is vital, but not always easy for new riders. Both the SMRT Bus and MTU have dedicated staff members answering phones to help newbies plan their trips.

Handy said he believes routes similar to the SMRT Buss direct approach will help encourage ridership.

People dont want to sit on the bus for a long period of time, so weve got to keep the routes right around an hour, Handy said.

Handy said the feasibility study would tell them whether people would use the new service if it starts, but he would also expect more interest after it is official.

Once you get the wheels on the ground, people get more excited, Handy said. I think more and more people are realizing that if they can ride with somebody else, thats a positive for them.

Handy has seen an increase in the use of park and rides, both official and unofficial, as well as the increase in bus ridership in the past few years.
The horrific slaughter of diners at a Dhaka cafe has fanned fears that surging Islamist violence may imperil the giant garment industry in Bangladesh, which built its economy on cheaply supplying fashion to the world's big-name brands.

Gunmen stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery in the capital's diplomatic quarter on Friday evening, rounding up foreign hostages before murdering 20 people with explosives and machetes, in a brutal targeting of the small expat community.

Islamic State jihadists released gruesome images of corpses lying in crimson pools on the cafe floor as they claimed responsibility for the deadly 11-hour siege. Most of the victims were Italian or Japanese.

"This attack will turn away foreigners," said Faruque Hassan, senior vice-president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, which represents 4,500 factories.

"The impact of this attack will be very damaging for the industry. We are now extremely worried," added Hassan, whose Giant Group supplies clothes to retailers including Britain's Marks & Spencer and Next.

Even before the cafe siege, Bangladesh, the world's second-biggest exporter of apparel after China, was reeling from a wave of Islamist-linked killings of religious minorities, liberal activists and foreigners, including an Italian aid worker last September.

Concern is mounting that the South Asian nation, wracked by political instability since independence in 1971, is sliding into deeper chaos, with under-pressure police arresting 11,000 people last month in a desperate crackdown.

"The hostage crisis in Dhaka is a terrible tragedy reflecting how security has deteriorated in the country," said Sarah Labowitz, co-director at the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights in New York.

The violence presents "a serious threat to the economy," Labowitz said. "This kind of attack will surely keep (fashion) buyers away in the months leading up to the holiday shopping season."

Story continues

Although a quarter of its 160 million people still live below the poverty line, Bangladesh has clocked growth of around six percent nearly every year since the turn of the millennium.

That's largely thanks to garment exports, the lifeblood of its economy, accounting for more than 80 percent of total outbound goods last year.

Between them the nation's clothing factories employ more than four million people, most of them impoverished rural women.

Ulrica Bogh Lind, a spokeswoman for H&M, which sources many of its clothes from Bangladesh, told AFP the Swedish chain was "deeply sad about the tragic incident".

"We are of course monitoring the situation in Dhaka closely."

- Echoes of Pakistan -

Trade-dependent Bangladesh may suffer the same fate as its restive rival Pakistan, fears Ahsan Mansur, a former representative for the International Monetary Fund in Islamabad.

"I saw the decline of a promising economy into a terrorist hotspot. This attack reminds me of those days, although I hope things won't turn out that way," said Mansur, now executive director of the Policy Research Institute in Dhaka.

When extremist violence began to spread in Pakistan, he said, the first sign of financial malaise was expat families packing their bags, then trade and investment crumbled.

"The perception that Bangladesh is a potential terrorist hotspot can seriously hit our export potential and growth prospects."

Yet plucky Bangladesh has ridden out numerous storms, seeing off threats from labour unrest, mass transport blockades and large-scale political paralysis -- as well as workplace disasters.

Clothing exports swelled nearly 10 percent in the year to June, to $27.3 billion, industry figures show.

The deadly Rana Plaza factory collapse that killed at least 1,138 workers in 2013 shocked the world, heaping opprobrium on Western retailers seen as exploiting impoverished workers.

But the tragedy prompted retailers to act on appalling safety conditions in their factories, where fires and other accidents are frequent.

Brands set up two global alliances to make workshops safer and cleaner -- although it remains a work in progress.

- Global threat -

While retailers will watch Bangladesh closely, industry experts point out that unrest plagues many developing countries where labour is cheap.

As Islamist attacks in France, Brussels and the United States over the past year show, the threat of extremist violence is not confined to single countries.

"If foreigners give in to fear, terrorism's political mission will have succeeded," said Devangshu Dutta, chief executive of Third Eyesight, a retail consultancy in New Delhi.

"Exports and foreign investment are both critical (in) the upliftment of a very large poverty-stricken population," Dutta told AFP.

"The contribution of foreigners is vital. It is important for everyone to remain engaged."
By Ruma Paul and Promit Mukherjee

DHAKA/MUMBAI (Reuters) - Some leaders of Bangladesh's $26 billion garment industry expect Western fashion retailers to review their ties with the world's second-largest garment exporter after 18 foreigners were killed in an attack on a Dhaka restaurant.

Bangladesh, one of the world's poorest countries, relies on garments for around 80 percent of its exports and for about 4 million jobs, and ranks behind only China as a supplier of clothes to developed markets like Europe and the United States.

Militants killed 20 people, including nine Italians, seven Japanese, an Indian and an American, inside an upmarket restaurant in Bangladesh's capital, before security forces stormed the building and ended a 12-hour standoff on Saturday.

Islamic State said it was responsible for one of the most brazen attacks in the South Asian nation's history, but that claim has yet to be confirmed.

It marks a major escalation in a campaign by militants over the past 18 months that had targeted mostly individuals advocating a secular or liberal lifestyle in majority-Muslim Bangladesh with 160 million people.

"An incident like this will definitely impact us, in as much as our importers from places such as (the) U.S. and China will be wary to visit because of the security concerns," said Shahidul Haque Mukul, managing director of Ananta Garments.

The industry had been recovering strongly from a major tragedy three years ago, when a factory building collapsed, killing more than 1,100 people, prompting safety checks that led to many factory closures and the loss of exports and jobs.

It had also seemed little touched by a spate of recent murders on liberals, gay people, foreigners and religious minorities in sporadic attacks claimed by Islamic State and al Qaeda.

Between October and January, its exports surged 14 percent from a year earlier.

But Friday's attack signalled a more chilling threat to foreigners. The militants targeted a building housing two upmarket eateries popular with foreigners, and several of those killed were Italian garment entrepreneurs.

Story continues

Italy's textile imports from Bangladesh more than trebled in the last decade to reach $1.31 billion last year, as low cost garment production moved outside the European country.

"Bangladesh has never seen such a horrific incident," said Mohammad Siddiqur Rahman, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

"It is a strong slap to our image. It will put pressure on our business, but we cannot say to what extent at the moment."

A Bangladesh-based executive for a French-based garment buyer said he feared a deep slump in business in the coming days.

But other industry figures said heightened security fears could be managed and that manufacturers could hold more meetings with Western customers outside Bangladesh, in Asian cities such as Singapore or Hong Kong, a trend that had begun some time ago.

"Concerns on visiting our factories, holding meetings, etc, by foreign nationals will be there for a few months but I believe within six months, the intensity will thaw and things will be back to normal," said Abdullah Hil Rakib, head of exporter Brothers Fashion Ltd.

At least two European retailers which source clothes from Bangladesh, Sweden's H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB and Britain's Marks and Spencer Group PLC, say their operations in the country are not immediately affected.

Both said their workers are unaffected, adding they were monitoring the situation.

"There are no plans in changing any sourcing but we are following the development closely," Ulrica Bogh Lind, spokeswoman for H & M, told Reuters.

She said the company had "safety routines" for workers, adding the company was in contact with its office in Dhaka.

The industry owes its resilience to some of the world's lowest wages, the right skills and the fact that China has become less competitive as a producer in recent years.

The minimum monthly wage for garment workers in Bangladesh is $68, compared with about $280 in mainland China.

(Additional reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in Mumbai, Serajul Quadir in Bangladesh, Ethan Lou in Toronto, Anna Ringstrom in Stockholm, Francesca Landini in Milan; Writing by Mark Bendeich; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Ros Russell)
By Aditya Kalra, Serajul Quadir and Ruma Paul DHAKA (Reuters) - Seven militants who killed 20 people at a Dhaka restaurant made no demands and a person taken alive by police was only a suspect admitted in hospital, Bangladesh's home minister said on Sunday, rejecting Islamic State's claims of responsibility. The gunmen stormed the upmarket restaurant in the diplomatic zone late on Friday and killed their mostly non-Muslim hostages, including nine Italians, seven Japanese and a citizen each from the United States and India. Three of the six gunmen killed were under 22 years of age and had been missing for six months, Asaduzzaman Khan told Reuters in an interview at his Dhaka home. Police and government officials have said the attackers were from well-off Bangladeshi families, a rarity and an indication that religious radicalization was widening its scope. Claiming responsibility, Islamic State warned citizens of "crusader countries" - that is, traditionally Christian western states - in a statement that they would not be safe "as long as their aircraft are killing Muslims". It also posted pictures of five grinning fighters in front of a black flag who it said were involved in the attack, according to the SITE monitoring website. But Khan said Islamic State was not involved, reiterating the government's position that home-grown militants were responsible for a spate of killings in the country over the past 18 months, including the latest one. Asked about the photos, the minister pointed to a wall behind him and said: "If I fix a poster of IS here and stand with a machine gun, will it establish that IS is here?" The minister has blamed Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, which claims to represent Islamic State in Bangladesh but has no proven links to it. Security experts believe the suspect, who was hospitalized with serious injuries, would be crucial to the investigation into the attack. Khan said it was not clear if he was involved. Islamic State also claimed responsibility for two bombings overnight in Baghdad that killed nearly 120 people and wounded 200, most of them in a busy shopping area while residents celebrated the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. Reacting to the two attacks over the past three days, Pope Francis asked people attending noon prayer at the Vatican in Rome to pray for the victims and their families. Late on Sunday in Bangladesh, hundreds of men, women and children held a candle light vigil near Dhakas Shaheed Minar (Martyr's Monument) to pay respect to those who lost their lives. "We don't want this," Nasima, a textile industry worker, told Reuters Television. "Please stop this, stop this, stop this from our society, from our country, I want to live in peace." As Dhaka limped back to normal life, experts questioned the delay in launching the offensive against the militants. More than 100 commandos stormed the restaurant nearly 10 hours after the siege began, under an operation code-named 'Thunderbolt'. Analysts say that as Islamic State loses territory in Iraq and Syria and its finances get drained, it may be trying to build affiliates in countries such as Bangladesh for jihadists to launch attacks locally and cheaply. RICH FAMILIES Deputy Inspector General of Police Shahidur Rahman said on Sunday that authorities were investigating any connection between the attackers and transnational groups such as Islamic State or al Qaeda. He said the militants were mostly educated and from well-off families, but declined to give any more details. On Saturday police released pictures of five dead militants, most of them wearing grey T-shirts. National police chief Shahidul Hoque said all the gunmen were Bangladeshis. "Five of them were listed as militants and law enforcers made several drives to arrest them," he said. Whoever was responsible, the attack marked a major escalation in violence by militants demanding Islamic rule in Bangladesh, whose 160 million people are mostly Muslim. Previous attacks have mostly singled out individuals advocating a secular or liberal lifestyle, or religious minorities. RECITING KORAN VERSE Friday night's attack, during the final days of Ramadan, was more coordinated than the previous assaults. Gunmen singled out foreigners as soon as they stormed through the doors of the restaurant popular with expatriates. They ordered all Bangladeshis to stand up before the killing began, a source briefed on the investigation said. The Bangladeshis were later told to close their eyes and recite verses from the Koran. One militant cursed a Bangladeshi for eating with non-Muslims during Ramadan, the source said. The Islamic State-affiliated Amaq news agency claimed in a report on Saturday that the militants identified and released Muslim patrons from the Dhaka restaurant, SITE said. The victims also included at least three Bangladeshis or people of Bangladeshi descent. The militants hacked most of their victims with machetes, leaving their bleeding bodies on the floor. A standoff of nearly 12 hours with security forces ended when the commandos stormed the building, killing six of the militants and capturing a seventh after attempts at negotiations proved fruitless, authorities said. They recovered explosives and sharp weapons from the scene. HOME-GROWN GROUPS Up until Friday's attack, authorities had maintained no operational links existed between Bangladeshi militants and international jihadi networks. Bangladesh has blamed JMB and another home-grown outfit for the wave of grisly killings over the past year and a half. One line of inquiry being pursued was whether the restaurant attackers received any guidance from Islamic State or al Qaeda, an official in Bangladesh's counter-terrorism wing said. "Pictures (uploaded on Twitter) indicate they might have been encouraged by ISIS (Islamic State) activities abroad," said Muhammad Zamir, a former senior foreign ministry official. "But this does not show a direct link to ISIS. This is exactly what was done and disputed later in the case of the Orlando attack," he said, referring to the killing of 49 people last month by a man who pledged allegiance to Islamic State. Friday's attack in Dhaka was the worst since 2005, when JMB set off a series of bombs throughout Bangladesh in the space of an hour that killed at least 25 people, mostly judges, police and journalists. The authorities executed six top JMB leaders in March 2007 and police have continued to hunt for group members, often detaining suspected militants following intelligence tips. In February, Bangladesh police arrested three JMB members suspected of killing a Hindu priest. Islamic state has claimed responsibility for a series of other attacks in Bangladesh in recent months since first taking credit for a killing in September last year. An Italian missionary was shot and wounded in the neck last November. Another Italian and a Japanese citizen were killed in attacks at the end of September and early October last year. "Why will IS come here ... they are now in Iraq, Syria and sometimes in their neighboring country they enter," minister Khan said. "We have no border with them. Why they will come here and how they will come here?" "SAVE ME, SAVE ME" In a run-down government hospital in Dhaka, two police officers who were on patrol duty on Friday night were treated for gunshot wounds, with bandages and plasters on their cheeks and legs. Behind their beds, a sheet of paper carried details of their wounds. Struggling to speak, 30-year-old officer Pradip, who gave just one name, recalled rushing to the spot after receiving a message that night. A blood-smeared man lay in front of the restaurant, shouting "save me, save me". The police officers called for backup after they were shot at from inside the restaurant. "At some point, I felt blood was rolling down my cheek," Pradip said. "We did respond with fire and the attackers stopped. We then rescued the man, who was the driver of some of the Japanese citizens who were inside." After meeting the officers in the hospital, police chief Hoque told Reuters they had gleaned some preliminary details on the identities of the attackers, but gave no details. GARMENT INDUSTRY The seven Japanese killed were working on projects for the Japan International Cooperation Agency, an overseas aid agency, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said on Saturday. Six of them were in Dhaka to work on a metro rail project, said Bangladesh's communication minister Obaidul Quader. Italian media said several of the Italians victims worked in Bangladesh's $26 billion garment sector, which accounts for 80 percent of the country's exports. Minister Khan said he did not believe the attack would have any impact on the garment industry or the country's economy. But some disagree. A Bangladeshi garment exporter who supplies six European countries said his customers generally visit every two months but will now rethink that. "I feel they will be afraid," he said, declining to be identified. "Even I am afraid." (Additional reporting by Reuters Television in Dhaka; Writing by Tommy Wilkes and Krishna N. Das; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Tom Heneghan)
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- One bad inning added up to a bad outing in the mind of Chad Bettis.

Bettis lost for the first time in five starts on Saturday night, and the Colorado Rockies lost 6-1 to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Rockies right-hander gave up two runs in the first and two more in the third.

Trayce Thompson's double in the third gave the Dodgers a 4-0 lead, and the damage was done. Bettis (6-6) pitched through the sixth without giving up another run. He struck out four and walked one.

''It looked like some cutters that he left out over the plate that they got to,'' Rockies manager Walt Weiss said. ''But he settled in after the third and looked more like himself. We saw more of a pitch mix the second half of the outing.''

Scott Kazmir gave the Dodgers their second consecutive strong outing from a starter against the Rockies, pitching six shutout innings.

Nolan Arenado led off the ninth inning with a solo home run to left field off reliever Chris Hatcher for the Rockies' only run.

Prior to the homer, Arenado had gone 0 for 7 with six strikeouts in the first two games of the series. He came into the series with a 12-game hitting streak.

''We had a stretch there where we were scoring eight runs a game,'' Arenado said. ''Obviously, that wasn't going to last very long. We all knew that.

''Obviously, we should have better at-bats, including myself.''

The Rockies lost their third straight and had not gotten a baserunner to third base in the series until Arenado's homer.

Colorado has scored one or fewer runs in six of its last nine games at Dodger Stadium, dating back to May 17, 2015, scoring 17 runs during that span.

Thompson and Adrian Gonzalez drove in two runs each and the Dodgers rolled on to their eighth straight home victory.

Kazmir (7-3) extended his unbeaten streak to 10 starts by holding the Rockies to a single and two doubles. He struck out 10 without walking a batter.

Story continues

Since May 9, Kazmir is 5-0 with a 3.61 ERA. He has struck out 65 in 57 1/3 innings during the stretch.

Bud Norris and four relievers led L.A. to a 5-0 win in the opening game of the series on Friday night.

TRAINER'S ROOM

Rockies: LHP Jake McGee (sprained MCL, left knee) was activated from the DL and pitched 2/3 of an inning in the seventh. ... 2B D.J. LeMahieu returned to the lineup after being limited to a pair of pinch-hit appearances the last six games. ... RHP Tyler Chatwood threw a bullpen session Saturday and could be ''back here very soon,'' Weiss said. OF Gerald Parra (ankle) continues to struggle running and is not expected back until after the All-Star break.

NEXT UP:

Rockies: RHP Jon Gray (5-3, 4.83) earned his first major league victory on May 13 against the New York Mets and is 2-3 with a 4.65 ERA in seven road outings this year.

Dodgers: RHP Brandon McCarthy makes his 2016 debut after being sidelined more than 14 months recovering from Tommy John surgery. McCarthy made four starts for the Dodgers in 2015, going 3-0 with a 5.87 ERA. In five career starts vs. Colorado, McCarthy is 1-2 with a 5.40 ERA and 20 strikeouts against three walks.
BRASILIA, July 3 (Reuters) - Brazil's state lender Caixa Economica Federal may need a 5 billion-reais ($1.55 billion) cash injection from the government this year to cover a shortfall in the pension fund of its workers, Folha de S. Paulo newspaper said on Sunday.

The potential transfer is under discussion by bank executives and may need to be even larger as a steep recession boosts loan delinquency rates and hurts revenues, Folha reported, without saying how it obtained the information.

Spokespeople with Caixa and the Finance Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Caixa's recently appointed Chief Executive Gilberto Occhi last month said the bank would not need new capital from the government as it was seeking to sell a stake in its insurance, lottery and credit card businesses.

($1 = 3.2342 Brazilian reais) (Reporting by Silvio Cascione; Editing by Alan Crosby)
By Conor Humphries and Amanda Ferguson BELFAST (Reuters) - Protestant unionists are queuing for Irish passports in Belfast and once quiet Catholic nationalists are openly campaigning for a united Ireland, signs of deep shifts in the United Kingdom's most troubled province since Britain voted to leave the EU. Eighteen years after a peace deal ended decades of fighting between mainly Catholic nationalists who favour a united Ireland and mainly Protestant unionists who favour remaining part of the United Kingdom, Britain's Brexit vote is making people on both sides of the divide in Northern Ireland think the unthinkable. Northern Ireland, like neighbouring Scotland, voted to stay in the European Union, with 56 pecent in favour, even though Britain as a whole voted to leave the bloc. "I was always a 'small u' unionist. But I could not in all good conscience say I could vote for Northern Ireland to remain a member of the United Kingdom," said Christopher Woodhouse, a 25-year-old from Belfast. "I am softening to the idea of Irish unity, purely on economic issues," he said. "I am a European." For years, a firm majority of people in Northern Ireland -- many Catholics as well as nearly all Protestants -- have favoured continuing as part of the United Kingdom, drawn to the status quo as a guarantee of stability and prosperity. But that has been jeopardised at a stroke by the prospect that Britain could quit the European Union and Scotland break away from the United Kingdom. The Brexit referendum suggests a new centre ground could form of people from both faith communities who fear the economic uncertainty of leaving the EU. "People are saying for the first time in their life they would vote for united Ireland, having never contemplated it before," said Steven Agnew, the leader of the Green Party in Northern Ireland. CORNERSTONE OF PEACE The membership of both Ireland and Britain in the European Union was a cornerstone of the 1998 agreement that ended the fighting over whether the predominately Protestant six counties of northeast Ireland should be British or Irish. EU rules ensure free trade and travel, and allow British or Irish citizens to work, claim benefits and be treated in hospitals in either country. People living on either side of the border may hold either passport or both, with little practical effect on how they are treated by either state. Although Northern Irish citizens are entitled to passports from Ireland, many unionists would not apply for them. But there were several unionists in a queue seeking Irish passport application forms at the main post office in Belfast this week. One said she was shocked and disappointed by the Brexit vote, and saw an Irish passport as the only way to retain her EU citizenship. None would give their names, as applying for an Irish passport can be controversial among unionists. COSTS OF LEAVING Quitting the EU would have direct costs on a poor province that relies on it more than other parts of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland's largest bank, Ulster Bank, said uncertainty around the terms for Britain's exit from the EU could make Northern Ireland a "no-go zone" for some foreign direct investment. Brexit could cause lower growth, higher unemployment and cutbacks in government spending. "My stomach is churning at all that's happening," said Robert McClenaghan, an Irish Republican Army member turned community worker, describing the potential loss of hundreds of millions of euros of EU funds for former militants, victims groups, and cross-community youth work. "We are in danger of a return to conflict - at a low intensity level - if those funds are taken away," he said. Many believe the biggest threat to the peace would be the appearance of some kind of border checks. The huge military checkpoints that dotted the border were dismantled in the wake of the peace deal. Pro-Brexit politicians have said the Irish frontier would remain open once Britain leaves the EU, but Remain supporters say this would be impossible if Britain wants to limit migration from EU countries whose nationals are free to enter Ireland. "If they put a border up, the dissidents will blow it up," said Sid Johnson, a 68-year-old unionist Leave voter shopping on Belfast's Shankill Road. If the police are forced to send in armed men to defend the posts, he said, escalation could be swift. Under the peace deal, the largest nationalist party, Sinn Fein, co-rules the province with the unionist DUP, which campaigned for Britain to leave the EU. Sinn Fein's party chairman pounced on the Brexit vote, saying it meant Britain had "forfeited any mandate to represent the interests of people here". The party later cooled its rhetoric, with Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness saying a united Ireland referendum should be held "at some stage in the future". The party this week held the first of a series of rallies for a united Ireland. A united Ireland has been the cherished dream of Irish nationalists since Northern Ireland was formed by Britain to protect the large Protestant community in the island's northeast from the Catholic dominated state formed to the south in 1921. More than 3,600 people died in fighting between the late 1960s and late 1990s, between Catholics who said they were denied basic human rights and wanted to join Ireland and Protestants defending the union with Britain. Under the 1998 peace deal, the British government was given the power to call a referendum if it appears likely a majority of those voting would seek to form part of a united Ireland. While higher birth rates among Catholics suggest they will become the majority in Northern Ireland within a generation, opinion polls have consistently shown as many as half of Catholics still favoured the stability of the United Kingdom. But if Brexit makes that Catholic support for the union slip away, a future referendum on Irish unification could be "very, very tight" said Peter Shirlow, head of the Institute of Irish Studies at the University of Liverpool. "Unionists would have to rely on Catholics not wanting to be part of a united Ireland. That has been the trend up to last Friday," he said. "But I think that trend is now changing." (Writing by Conor Humphries; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Peter Graff)
Cambridge (United Kingdom) (AFP) - Britain's shock Brexit vote has left the country's universities worried about its impact, whether on exchange programmes or research funding.

In Cambridge, students at the world-famous university's 31 colleges have left for the summer, but among the teaching staff still here the word Brexit is on everyone's lips.

"It's the only topic of conversation, even a week later," Athene Donald, master of Churchill College, told AFP, adding that it was still "far too early to know what the consequences are going to be".

The stakes, for Cambridge and the country, are high: over 125,000 European students were enrolled this year in British universities, or five percent of the total, while 15 percent of academic staff come from other EU countries, according to Universities UK (UUK).

British universities received 836 million British pounds (995 million euros, $1.1 million) in subsidies and research contracts in the 2014-15 academic year alone.

In the wake of the June 23 referendum, numerous universities have sought to reassure their students from other EU countries, notably on the question of tuition fees.

EU students have until now not paid the same as their counterparts from elsewhere in the world, who have to stump up for International Status fees, which can be much higher.

"In 2016/17, the fees will be the same, and you will still have access to the government loan" as do British students on Home Fee status, said Michael Arthur, president of University College London in a video posted on YouTube aimed at European students.

"If you're thinking of coming to study with us after that time... we believe that nothing will have changed then either," he said, while adding: "We're seeking clarifications on that from the government at the moment."

British universities minister Jo Johnson is also seeking to reassure them.

"UK welcomes EU students. Current students and this autumn's applicants will continue to receive student finance for duration of their course," he tweeted after the shock Brexit vote.

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- 'It won't kill us' -

On Friday, the Scottish government issued a statement saying it hoped Scotland would remain a "destination of choice" for EU students.

Outside the EU, Britain would also have to renegotiate its participation in the Erasmus programme, to which over 200,000 British students have signed up.

"We got emails from British students panicked after the referendum," said Dolores Sobrino of France's prestigious Universite Paris-Sorbonne, where 27 percent of Erasmus students come from Britain.

"We told them they don't need to worry because their registration (at the Sorbonne) is not in question at the moment," she told AFP.

"Nevertheless, the problem could emerge in coming years, if Britain were to leave the Erasmus+ programme."

Back at Churchill College, its head said: "One can imagine a situation where it is not (as) easy for European students to come here.

"But, having said that, we'll still have huge numbers of Chinese, American and Indian students. I do not expect this university to cease to be a global university," added Donald.

She said a bigger worry is funding for research. In her college, scientific research projects get a quarter of their funding from the EU.

"There is no certainty that we will be cut off from that funding. And that's why we need to be arguing very strongly," said Donald, a professor of experimental physics.

"Our vice chancellor saw commissioner (Carlos) Moedas this week... This is a huge concern" she added, referring to the EU commissioner for research, science and innovation in Brussels.

Nevertheless, whatever impact Brexit ultimately has, she is confident Cambridge university -- one of the oldest in Britain along with Oxford -- can cope.

"It won't kill the university," she said. "We shouldn't be too dramatic about the consequences of Brexit. We have been here for 800 years, we will survive."
Even as a young man, Nick Nicklaus understood the power of campus life.

As a student at East Illinois University, he was a leader in his residence halls and became a resident assistant. After graduation, he chose to continue in the field as a hall director and an assistant director of housing before become the director of residence life at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse in 1997.

Nicklaus, who was born in Syracuse, N.Y., retired from the university this week. At 66, he said, the time was right to take some time for himself after a 43-year career and spend more time with his family, as he recently became a grandfather.

It was just time to do something else, he said.

Student development has been a focus for Nicklaus during his career. He saw the power of peer interactions when he was a student and RA living on campus and during his post-graduate study of student affairs and development.

(Residence Life) helps with the transition from the high school experience to the college experience, Nicklaus said. We provide programming and support for students entering the adult world.

Nicklaus said one of the reasons he came to UW-L was the opportunity to teach. Along with leading the residence life program, he has taught a sequence of courses on student development theory in the student affairs masters degree program.

He knows when students come to UW-L, there will be change, UW-L director of university centers Larry Ringgenberg said. He has that understanding of student development that you need to create an environment that fosters the growth of the student. You need to educate the whole student.

During his time at UW-L, Nicklaus worked to modernize the residence life program, which serves about 3,500 students. Three residence halls on campus have been razed and replaced with three new ones that with suite or apartment-style living.

The residence halls have also become more inclusive, Nicklaus said, with more commitment to social justice. Visitation restrictions have been lifted in the halls and work has been done to add gender-inclusive housing on campus, with plans for continuing to modernize and renovate the residence halls after he is gone.

Nicklaus has been a very thoughtful person, with the interests of the students a priority, UW-L graduate and former Reuter Hall RA Molly Davies said. He relates well to the students, she said, and works hard to meet their needs.

Davies has known Nicklaus during most of her college career and also served on the team that hired his replacement, Jacque Bollinger, who is coming to UW-L from Indiana University Bloomington.

Hell be a tough act to follow, she said. He was a very difficult person to replace this spring.

Funds are being raised to start a scholarship in Nicklaus honor, with about $20,000 of the $25,000 needed raised so far. Scholarship amounts and numbers havent been determined yet, but the funds will be target at student leaders in the residence halls, as Nicklaus said one of the things he is most proud of are the student affairs leaders the university graduates each year.

He makes very personal connections to staff, RAs and students, assistant director of staffing, training and development Lisa Weston said. He truly loves helping our (student affairs) grads find their next career move.
The Daily Beast

Photo illustration by Luis Rendon/GettyERIE, PennsylvaniaIn his highly anticipated debate against Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman was asked to square two conflicting statements: one saying hes never supported fracking, and another saying hes always supported fracking.Uh, I do support fracking, and, I dontI dontI support fracking, and I stand, and I do support fracking, Fetterman said.As he tried unsuccessfully to square the two opposing sentiments, a debate watch party
London (AFP) - Belgian international striker Michy Batshuayi has joined Chelsea on a five-year deal from French club Marseille, the Premier League club confirmed on Sunday.

"Chelsea Football Club is delighted to announce Michy Batshuayi has today completed his transfer from Marseille," the club announced on their website.

Reports in France suggested the transfer fee was in the region of 40 million euro (A32.9m, $44.4m), although the Londoners are yet to confirm how much they paid.

Chelsea described the lightening quick striker as "powerful, fast and highly coveted and with a reputation as a fine finisher".

While he becomes the third Belgian international from the current Euro 2016 squad at the London club, he also follows in the footsteps of Chelsea legend Didier Drogba in switching Marseille for Stamford Bridge.

"Eden Hazard and Thibaut Courtois have told me many good things about the club," Batshuayi said of his compatriots.

"And with Antonio Conte coming in it's an exciting time to become a Chelsea player," he added.

"This is a fantastic opportunity for myself and my family, I am looking forward to playing in the Premier League next season," said Batshuayi, whose parents come from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A 6.5-million-euro signing from Standard Liege in 2014, Batshuayi scored 17 goals in Ligue 1 last season, and 23 times in all competitions in a rather poor Marseille outfit that finished 13th in France.

The 22-year-old was however part of the Belgium squad at Euro 2016 and netted with his first touch on his tournament debut, converting a cross from his new Chelsea team-mate Hazard in a 4-0 win over Hungary.

Batshuayi spent his first season at Marseille as understudy to Andre-Pierre Gignac, before the France international left for Mexican side Tigres at the end of the last campaign.

Although he signed a contract extension in January, tying him to the club until 2020, he had been expected to leave this summer as Marseille scramble to balance their books or face a transfer ban.
China will hold military drills in the disputed South China Sea, the government said Sunday, ahead of an international tribunal ruling over Beijing's maritime claims in the resource-rich area.

The drills will be held in waters around the Paracel Islands from July 5 to 11, with other ships prohibited from entering the waters during that time, a short statement by the maritime safety administration said.

The military exercises come as an international tribunal in The Hague prepares to rule on a case brought by the Philippines challenging China's claims in the strategic waterway.

Manila lodged the suit against Beijing in early 2013, saying that after 17 years of negotiations it had exhausted all political and diplomatic avenues to settle the dispute.

Beijing, which asserts sovereignty over almost all of the South China Sea despite rival claims from Southeast Asian neighbours, insists that the Permanent Court of Arbitration has no jurisdiction over the issue and has boycotted the proceedings.

Basing its claims on a vaguely defined "nine-dash" Chinese map dating back to the 1940s, it has rapidly turned reefs into artificial islands capable of hosting military planes.

Manila contends that the "nine-dash" line has no basis under international law and Beijing has no "historic" claim to the ocean.

Tensions in the South China Sea have alarmed other nations, and most notably the United States which has key defence treaties with many allies in the region, and in a show of strength has sent warships close to some of the Chinese claimed reefs.

But President Xi Jinping said in a speech last week that China will never compromise on sovereignty, and that the country was "not afraid of trouble".

In an apparent stab at the US, Xi said: "We will not show up at other people's front doors to flex our muscles. That does not show strength or scare anyone."

Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have overlapping claims to the waterway.
BEIJING (Reuters) - A court in northern China on Sunday sentenced a man to death for starting a bus fire in January that killed 18 people, the government said. Flames engulfed the bus in front of a furniture store in the northern region of Ningxia, state media has previously reported. Thirty-three people were injured. The court in regional capital Yinchuan sentenced Ma Yongping to death after finding him guilty of using an "extremely cruel form of crime", the Yinchuan government said on its official microblog. Ma set alight two plastic bags filled with gasoline on the bus after getting involved in a personal work dispute, the government said, without explaining the connection between the bus he chose to set alight and the dispute. Ma will appeal, the statement added. It was not possible to reach a lawyer for him for comment. Bus fires are not uncommon in China, where regulators have blamed some recent blazes on flawed auto design. In 2013, a bus fire blamed on a suicidal man killed 47 in the coastal city of Xiamen. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Ros Russell)
Rome (AFP) - Artist Christo's orange floating walkway on a northern Italian lake will close Sunday after attracting over a million visitors, twice as many as expected.

The three-kilometre (1.9-mile) undulating path made of 200,000 floating cubes has proved a major hit with the public since it opened on Lake Iseo in June.

Covered in bright orange fabric, the pier stands in stark contrast with the dark water as it links the small islands of Monte Isola and San Paolo to the shore.

"People come from everywhere to walk to nowhere. Not to shop, not to meet friends, they just walk, to nowhere," said the Bulgarian-born American artist, who once wrapped Berlin's parliament in fabric.

Visitors from around the world have flocked to try "The Floating Piers," many of them going barefoot to get an idea of what it feels like to walk on water.

Local officials said Cristo's creation attracted an average of 100,000 people a day, and up to 120,000 at weekends.

Shuttle buses from nearby carparks and trains from the closest big town, Brescia, were often suspended in order to keep the crowds manageable.

The installation, made of completely recyclable plastic, cost 15 million euros ($16.7 million) to create but has been free to the public.

Last month an Italian consumer group said the huge cost of cleaning up after the visitors and ensuring their safety raised questions about whether it should have been allowed.

While Christo had promised a 24-hour sensory experience, the local authorities at one stage closed the exhibit at night in order to allow for cleaning.

There were dozens of medical interventions each day, including some that required hospital treatment.

A medical post had to be set up to handle those overcome by the crowds or merely from waiting their turn in the heat.

But it could be the weather that spoils its final day on Sunday, when rain is forecast. Wet weather has already caused the temporary closure of the orange bridge on several occasions.

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"Given the anticipated numbers this weekend, visitors should be prepared for wait times and the possibility of not making it on the piers due to capacity," the organisers warned on Facebook.

Christo first rose to fame along with his late wife Jeanne-Claude for their eye-catching wrapping-up of famous landmarks like the Pont Neuf across the Seine in Paris in 1985.

A similar project at Berlin's Reichstag 10 years later took almost a quarter of a century of bureaucratic wrangling to get off the ground.
Baghdad (AFP) - A suicide car bombing claimed by the Islamic State group ripped through a busy Baghdad shopping district Sunday, killing at least 119 people in the deadliest attack this year in Iraq's capital.

The blast hit the Karrada district early in the day as the area was packed with shoppers ahead of this week's holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

It came a week after Iraqi security forces recaptured Fallujah from IS, leaving Mosul as the only Iraqi city under the jihadist group's control.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered changes to Baghdad security measures in response to the bombing, which security officials said also wounded more than 180 people.

Abadi visited the site of the attack and vowed "punishment" for the perpetrators, according to his office, which later announced three days of mourning for the victims.

The blast set buildings ablaze, and firemen were still working to extinguish them some 12 hours later.

Men carried the bodies of two victims out of one burned building and a crowd of people looked on from the rubble-filled street as emergency personnel worked at the site.

A member of the civil defence forces said that it would take "a number of days" to recover the bodies of the victims.

Hussein Ali, a 24-year-old former soldier, said six workers at his family's shop were killed, their bodies so badly burned they could not be identified.

"I will return to the battlefront. At least there, I know the enemy so I can fight him. But here, I don't know who I'm fighting," Ali told AFP.

- 'Cowardly and heinous act' -

IS issued a statement claiming responsibility for the suicide bombing, saying it was carried out by an Iraqi as part of "ongoing security operations".

The jihadist group said the blast targeted Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority, whom the Sunni extremists consider heretics and frequently attack in Baghdad and elsewhere.

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UN Iraq envoy Jan Kubis condemned the "cowardly and heinous act of unparallelled proportions," calling on authorities to bring those responsible to justice.

Officials said another explosion in the Shaab area of northern Baghdad killed at least one person and wounded four on Sunday, but the cause of the blast was disputed.

Bombings in the capital have decreased since IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in June 2014, with the jihadists apparently more concerned with operations elsewhere.

But the group has struck back against Iraqi civilians after suffering military setbacks, and in May, Baghdad was rocked by a series of blasts that killed more than 150 people in seven days.

A video posted on social media showed men -- apparently angry at the government's failure to prevent the carnage in Karrada -- throwing rocks at what was said to be Abadi's convoy.

A bystander could also be heard cursing at Abadi in another video.

But the premier struck a conciliatory tone over anger directed towards him.

- IS defeat in Fallujah -

"I understand the emotional feelings and actions that occurred in a moment of sadness and anger," Abadi said in a statement.

With thousands of vehicles moving in and out of the city each day, such bombings are difficult to prevent.

But there are also flaws in security measures in the city, especially the continued use of fake bomb detectors at checkpoints years after the man who sold them to Iraq was jailed for fraud in Britain.

Abadi announced a series of changes to security measures following the Sunday bombing, including scrapping the fake detectors.

He also ordered the deployment of scanning devices at entrances to Baghdad to be sped up, directed that security personnel be banned from using mobile phones at checkpoints, and also called for increased aerial reconnaissance and coordination among security forces.

Iraqi forces completely recaptured Fallujah, a city 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad, from the jihadists a week ago.

Anti-government fighters seized Fallujah in early 2014 and it later became one of IS's main strongholds in the country.

IS's defeat there was compounded by a devastating series of air strikes targeting jihadist forces as they sought to flee the Fallujah area.

Iraqi and US-led coalition aircraft destroyed hundreds of IS vehicles and killed dozens of fighters in two days of strikes against jihadist convoys after the end of the Fallujah battle, officials said.

With Fallujah retaken, Iraqi forces are now setting their sights on second city Mosul, the last major population centre held by IS in Iraq.
Designs by the Danish architectural firm Dorte Mandrup were selected for Greenland's future Icefjord Centre, which will be used as a space for research, exhibitions, and for locals and tourists to meet and discuss climate change.

A discreet, respectful design

The Icefjord Centre, located on the edge of the UNESCO-protected Sermermiut Valley, will give views over its neighbor, the Ilulissat Icefjord with its Sermeq Kujalleq glacier, estimated at 250,000 years old. According to Dorte Mandrup, the firm was selected for its "poetic, simple and visionary design," winning out over five other entries by world-renowned architects such as Snhetta, Olafur Eliasson, and Kengo Kuma and Associates.

The L-shaped wooden frame of the building curves low around the rugged landscape. Its roof also acts as a bridge, viewing platform and seating area for visitors, and marks the entrance to the World Heritage Trail. With both inside and outdoor elements and large glass paneling, the designs show the center's harmonious relationship with its surroundings, offering a "constantly changing view that enhances the experience of the landscape by framing the fantastic viewpoints."

A space to discuss climate change

The center is intended to provide a space for scientists researching the Earth's climates via the glacier, as well as offering opportunities for exhibitions and conferences. Local residents and tourists will also be encouraged to enjoy the center, whether as a precursor to the World Heritage Trail or simply to enjoy the facilities and views. Organizers hope to see up to 25,000 visitors annually.

The Greenland ice sheet is the second-largest body of ice in the world and, as such, the future Icefjord Centre will provide the perfect location to study the effect of climate change via ice melting patterns.

The project is being funded by Greenland's government, Qaasuitsup Municipality and the Danish philanthropic organization Realdania. A completion date has been estimated for autumn 2020.




LOS ANGELES  Writer and humorist Garrison Keillor served up a bittersweet farewell for some 18,000 fans at the Hollywood Bowl, as he hosted his final episode of the old-style radio variety show, A Prairie Home Companion.

Keillors swan song Friday night wasnt markedly different from most of his nearly 42 years of Companion episodes, offering a rich mix of Americana music and often tongue-in-cheek comedy. (Although U.S. President Barack Obama did call in for a special segment recorded earlier Friday, but not even the Bowl audience will hear that until Saturdays broadcast.)

The last-show aspect of the doings was so subtle that, at one point, even Keillors cast mates began to prod their boss, asking, How do you feel (about leaving)? Keillor eventually, reluctantly replied, It feels like something ends and something else is about to happen.

The 73-year-old Keillor delivered one last Lives of the Cowboys comedy sketch as well as the shows best-known segment, News from Lake Wobegon, a folksy report from a fictional town where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average

Keillor sang a few more songs and closed out the show as if it was any other.

Only during the encore did he truly take time to say goodbye, engaging the crowd with a moving medley of songs running the gamut from classic spirituals to pop ballads.

Companion attracts more than three million public-radio listeners in the U.S.; many more counting the shows Armed Forces Radio audiences worldwide.

After Saturdays season finale, it will return with new episodes in October with an updated format and new host, Chris Thile.

Keillor will do concerts and is working on a Wobegon screenplay.
Heres how communities can play a big role in helping people struggling with mental illness

Heres how communities can play a big role in helping people struggling with mental illness

Among all the conditions one can have, those in the mental illness category may be particularly straining, because symptoms can be invisible and difficult to diagnose. Then theres the question of how to care for someone suffering from mental illness; what to say, what to do, how to help. While help from friends, family, and therapists can be invaluable, studies actually suggest the larger community can also be vital in maintaining stability for those with mental illness.

People with mental illnesses are often stigmatized, which can discourage them from seeking the appropriate medical treatment or counseling. According to NPR, its important for community members to have contact with mental illness patients, because this can reduce stigma, crush age-old stereotypes and and encourage a more positive attitude. This in turn provides a safer, more welcoming environment for people struggling with their illness. Of course, none of these changes are quick, but given time, favorable results could occur that might benefit everyone.

Those with mental illness need to feel empowered and confident in the knowledge that they are valued members of society, instead of continuously scrutinized for being different.

There are places in the world where rigorous community contact with mental illness patients has been a regular feature for decades, such as in Geel, Belgium, where the state has been known to pay for for families to care for people with mental illness in their own homes. This is a very humane approach, and makes sense because its about bringing people together to support one another in facing obstacles.

But the US offers only a few similar programs for a large pool of people who need them. One such program is Thresholds in Chicago, which offers social activities, employment, and residential assistance to community members. NPR emphasizes these types of fostering communities should be encouraged to spread, in order to provide a safe environment for patients to pursue a healthy life without the stigma of isolation.

The post Heres how communities can play a big role in helping people struggling with mental illness appeared first on HelloGiggles.
AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France (Reuters) - Britain is paying the price for a high level of inequality and a chronic lack of investment in education which have prompted a disillusioned population to vote to leave the European Union, Credit Suisse Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam said on Sunday.

Britain voted in a referendum on June 23 to quit the EU, a decision that has roiled financial markets and rattled businesses.

Thiam, the former head of British insurer Prudential, said he had lived almost 15 years in Britain and had been shocked to be told on a visit to a school in Tower Hamlets, a London borough near the city's financial district, that about half of children there only ate once a day.

"That's something I had seen in Ivory Coast," Thiam, a former government minister in the West African country, told a business conference in the south of France.

Unexpectedly for a banker, he said Britain should adopt a more redistributive tax system even if that meant raising taxes, to make sure the losers of globalization were not left feeling disenfranchised.

"I was watching the march in London on Saturday, which I welcome. But I would have liked to say to them: 'how many of you would accept to pay more taxes?" he said.

"It's all well and good to have big signs and protest against the 'Leave' vote. But it would be another story if you started having a discussion about creating more solidarity."

Thiam said those with the lowest educational attainment were more likely to back Brexit.

"That's the price paid for a chronic lack of investment in education," Thiam said.

"Something must be done at the national level so there aren't so many people left behind that the result of a national, democratic vote gives a result which is bad for the country in the medium term," he said.

Thiam took up his new post as the head of Switzerland's second-biggest bank on July 1 last year.

(Reporting by Michel Rose; Editing by Ros Russell)
AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France (Reuters) - Britain is paying the price for a high level of inequality and a chronic lack of investment in education which have prompted a disillusioned population to vote to leave the European Union, Credit Suisse Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam said on Sunday. Britain voted in a referendum on June 23 to quit the EU, a decision that has roiled financial markets and rattled businesses. Thiam, the former head of British insurer Prudential, said he had lived almost 15 years in Britain and had been shocked to be told on a visit to a school in Tower Hamlets, a London borough near the city's financial district, that about half of children there only ate once a day. "That's something I had seen in Ivory Coast," Thiam, a former government minister in the West African country, told a business conference in the south of France. Unexpectedly for a banker, he said Britain should adopt a more redistributive tax system even if that meant raising taxes, to make sure the losers of globalization were not left feeling disenfranchised. "I was watching the march in London on Saturday, which I welcome. But I would have liked to say to them: 'how many of you would accept to pay more taxes?" he said. "It's all well and good to have big signs and protest against the 'Leave' vote. But it would be another story if you started having a discussion about creating more solidarity." Thiam said those with the lowest educational attainment were more likely to back Brexit. "That's the price paid for a chronic lack of investment in education," Thiam said. "Something must be done at the national level so there aren't so many people left behind that the result of a national, democratic vote gives a result which is bad for the country in the medium term," he said. Thiam took up his new post as the head of Switzerland's second-biggest bank on July 1 last year. (Reporting by Michel Rose; Editing by Ros Russell)
Dead Whale A bulldozer pushes a dead humpback whale that washed ashore at Dockweiler Beach back into the ocean along the Los Angeles coastline on Friday, July 1, 2016. The whale floated in Thursday evening. It is approximately 40 feet long and is believed to have been between 10 to 30 years old. Marine animal authorities will try to determine why the animal died. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)

The reeking carcass of a dead humpback whale was towed back out to sea some 24 hours after washing up at a popular Los Angeles County beach Friday.

Authorities used boats pulling ropes attached to the tail to pull it off the sand during the evening high tide, taking the whale far out to sea and avoiding a foul stench and grim scene on the beach as Fourth of July weekend crowds began arriving.

Authorities had earlier attempted the procedure at midday, with a bulldozer pushing, but it was unsuccessful because of the low tide. The huge whale washed onto Dockweiler Beach, a long stretch of sand near the west end of Los Angeles International Airport, just before 8 p.m. Thursday and holiday beachgoers began arriving in the morning.

Lifeguards posted yellow caution tape to keep people away and biologists took samples to determine what caused the death of the humpback, an endangered species. Beachgoers watching from a distance covered their noses. (AP)

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Michael Cimino, one of the defining directors of the 1970s has died, Variety and other sources are reporting. A controversial and mystery-shrouded figure, Cimino will always be inextricably linked to the rise and, especially, fall of an era defined by directorial freedom. Born in New York City in, by most accounts, in 1939, Cimino studied at Michigan State and Yale before becoming a sought-after director of commercials in the 1960s. From there he segued into screenwriting, co-writing the ecological science fiction film Silent Running and Magnum Force, the first sequel to Dirty Harry.

It was that latter films star, Clint Eastwood, who helped Cimino transition to directing, agreeing to star in Ciminos Thunderbolt and Lightfoot alongside Jeff Bridges. A shaggy buddy movie thats eventually overwhelmed by a creeping darkness and disillusionment, it provided a showcase for Ciminos unhurried pacing and striking visuals and announced the arrival of a new voice ready to take on even more ambitious projects.

That chance arrived with The Deer Hunter, an unsparing look at the Vietnam war as experienced by the working class kids of a small Pennsylvania town. Starring Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Cazale, and John Savage, the 1978 earned both critical acclaim and captured the popular imagination at a time when the culture was still sorting through the effects of the war in Vietnam. Its a quintessential example of what people talk about when they talk about the 1970s as a golden age for American movies: An uncompromising movie defined by a directors vision that dragged some of the darkness of the American psyche out into the light. It would go on to win five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor (for Walken).

From there, Cimino had his choice of projects. He chose Heavens Gate, a film whose financial failure in 1980 would come to define him as much as The Deer Hunters success. An epic story about the closing of the West and the conflict between European immigrants seeking to start a new life and the entrenched land barons who oppose them, the film featured an all-star cast that included Bridges, Walken, Kris Kristofferson, Isabelle Huppert, and John Hurt. It also became notorious for its spiraling costs and seemingly endless production before it was released.

Its a story thats been told many times, at greatest length in The Final Cut, written by Steven Bach, an executive at United Artists, the studio nearly brought to ruin by the films failure. Its also been a bottomless source for anecdotes for those who did time working on its, by all reports, torturous production. But a curious thing started to happen after Heavens Gate flopped: Some people started to reassess it, leading to a still-ongoing masterpiece-or-fiasco discussion that flared up again when the film was restored for a rerelease 2012, the first time many got the chance to see Ciminos cut on the big screen. If nothing else, its a tough film to dismiss, filled with sweeping vistas and a tough-to-shake sense of mournfulness. Above all, its a film that deserves to be seen and appreciated as more than just a punchline.

Cimino continued working through the 80s, turning out films like Year of the Dragon and The Sicilian that most saw as studio assignments. He had not released a feature since the little-seen Sunchaser in 1996, largely disappearing from the public eye. His legacy will be dual, that of a gifted filmmaker and a cautionary tale. Its comforting to think that, with the outpouring of appreciation the accompanied Heavens Gates revival, he lived long enough to see the former start to overshadow the latter.
In 2013, a Kenny Chesney concert at Pittsburgh's PNC Park resulted in over 70 arrests, brawls and over 30 tons of trash left at the venue. The country star returned to the Pennsylvania city Saturday night for another concert, and while the aftermath wasn't as severe the second time around, the gig ended with 37 people taken to area hospitals as well as a handful of arrests, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.

Kenny Chesney at the Rose Bowl: See Behind-the-Scenes Photos

Despite the arrests, hospitalizations and garbage the Chesney concert left in its wake, Pittsburgh chief operations officer Guy Costa told the Post-Gazette that the city was "very pleased" with their response to the gig. "There was superb inter-agency cooperation," Costa said of the collaboration between city police, public works, emergency medical responders, sheriff's deputies and other county personnel.

The Pittsburgh public safety director added that, of the 37 people who required additional medical attention, none of the patients were in serious condition, with "over-intoxication and dehydration" the main culprit. Likewise, of the seven arrests, most were a result of "alcohol misbehavior," with none of the arrests deemed serious. Another 36 people were cited for underage drinking, while three people were charged with marijuana possession.

Those arrested face charges ranging from trespassing and ticket robbery to simple assault and public intoxication, The Associated Press reports. Additionally, one police officer injured his hand breaking up a fight between concertgoers.

Although the area around PNC Park wasn't trashed as badly as it was in 2013, concertgoers still left their mark on the venue. I have never seen this amount of trash, ever, Chesney fan Jen Telfer told the Post-Gazette. What are we, savages?" However, by 6 a.m. Sunday morning, the majority of the trash had been cleared.

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By Ahmed Rasheed and Maher Chmaytelli BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Nearly 120 people were killed and 200 wounded in two bombings overnight in Baghdad, most of them in a busy shopping area as residents celebrated Ramadan, police and medical sources said on Sunday. The attack on the shopping area of Karrada is the deadliest since U.S.-backed Iraqi forces last month scored a major victory when it dislodged Islamic State from their stronghold of Falluja, an hour's drive west of the capital. It is also the deadliest so far this year. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had ordered the offensive after a series of bombings in Baghdad, saying Falluja served as a launchpad for such attacks on the capital. However, bombings have continued. A convoy carrying Abadi who had come to tour the site of the bombings was pelted with stones and bottles by residents, angry at what they felt were false promises of better security. A refrigerator truck packed with explosives blew up in the central district of Karrada, killing 115 people and injuring at least 200. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement circulated online by supporters of the ultra-hardline Sunni group. It said the blast was a suicide bombing. Karrada was busy at the time as Iraqis eat out and shop late during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which ends next week with the Eid al-Fitr festival. The White House on Sunday said the attack only strengthened the United States' resolve to confront Islamic State. "We remain united with the Iraqi people and government in our combined efforts to destroy ISIL," said the White House statement, referring to Islamic State. Videos posted on social media showed people running after the SUV convoy of Abadi as he left Karrada after touring the scene, throwing pavement stones, bottles of water, empty buckets and slippers, venting their anger at the inability of the security forces to protect the area. Abadi declared three days of mourning for the victims, according to state-run media that also cited him saying he understood the angry reaction of residents. Another video posted on social media showed a large blaze in the main street of Karrada, a largely Shi'ite district with a small Christian community and a few Sunni mosques. Reuters TV footage taken in the morning showed at least four buildings severely damaged or partly collapsed, including a shopping mall believed to be the target, and gutted cars scattered all around. The toll climbed during the day as rescuers pulled out more bodies from under the rubble and people succumbed to their injuries. Comments posted on social media accused security forces of continuing to use fake bomb detectors at checkpoints filtering traffic in Baghdad, five years after the scandal broke out about a device commonly known as the 'magic wand'. A police officer in Baghdad confirmed these hand-held ADE 651 detectors were still in use. They were sold to Iraq and other nations by a British businessman who was jailed for 10 years in 2013 in Britain for endangering lives for profit. AL SHAAB ATTACK In a second attack, a roadside bomb also blew up around midnight in a market in al-Shaab, a Shi'ite district in the north of the capital, killing at least two people, police and medical sources said. Iraqi forces on June 26 declared the defeat of IS militants in Falluja, a bastion of Sunni insurgency, following a month of fighting. Now the militants were "trying to compensate for their humiliating defeat in Falluja," said Jasim al-Bahadli, a former army officer and security analyst in Baghdad. "It was a mistake for the government to think that the source of the bombings was restricted to just one area," he said. "There are sleeper cells that operate independently from each other." The assault on Falluja was part of a wider offensive against Islamic State, which seized swathes of Iraqi territory in 2014. Abadi said the next target of the Iraqi forces is Mosul, the de facto capital of the militants and the largest city under their control in both Iraq and Syria. (Additional reporting by Kareem Raheem; Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Richard Balmforth and Ros Russell)
Cairo (AFP) - Egypt's human rights council said on Sunday that the authorities' human rights record had not improved, noting a string of enforced disappearances by the police and abuse of prisoners.

The National Council for Human Rights, the country's official rights watchdog, made the remarks in an annual report.

"The human rights situation in the country has not changed in spite of the adoption of the new constitution two years ago," the report said.

It added that the council had raised 266 cases of enforced disappearances with the interior ministry, of whom 27 were since revealed to have been released while 143 remained in pretrial detention.

The ministry responded that 44 of the missing people had not been arrested, and may have disappeared for other reasons, including to join jihadist groups, the council's report said.

The cases were documented between April 2015 and the end of March this year.

"Human rights causes have not yet become a priority for the state," it said.

Rights groups had accused Egypt of extensive abuses that spiked after the military overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, unleashing a bloody crackdown on his followers.

The report also criticised the state for failing to pass effective legislation to curb torture, although it acknowledged that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had tried to end the abuses.

Sisi has spoken out against police abuses and several policemen have been put on trial over the deaths of detainees.

The report noted that suspicions that security services had abducted Italian student Giulio Regeni, whose mutilated body was found on the side of a road, had been boosted by "the continuation of the phenomenon of torture" in Egypt.

The report did not shed any light on Regeni's disappearance, which created a diplomatic rift between Egypt and Italy, a close ally. Police have denied involvement.

The council said it had received 296 complaints during 2015.

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"Many of the complaints are related to abuses they are subject to in prisons and other detention facilities, most notably torture and other harsh and degrading treatment," the council said.

The use of torture "continues to be widespread", particularly in initial detention centres.

Meanwhile, pretrial detention has become "a punishment in itself".

Initial detention centres are estimated to hold more than 300 percent of their capacity, the report said.

Detainees "take turns sleeping because of lack of space".
HELSINKI, July 3 (Reuters) - Eight Cuba national team volleyball players have been detained over a suspected rape in Finland, police said on Sunday. According to central Finland police three of the players were apprehended on Saturday, and five on Sunday. The Cuban men's team was playing in a World League tournament in the city of Tampere in central Finland. The police gave no further information about the suspected rape. Finnish news agency STT reported the incident occurred at a hotel in Tampere, where the Cuban team was staying. (Reporting by Tuomas Forsell, editing by David Evans)
Elie Wiesel: 1928-2016 This April 1945 photo shows children and other prisoners liberated by the 3rd U.S. Army marching from the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany. The freed prisoners are walking to an American hospital to receive treatment. The tall youth in the line at left, fourth from the front, is Elie Wiesel. (AP Photo/Byron H. Rollins)

Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, the Romanian-born Holocaust survivor whose classic Night became a landmark testament to the Nazis crimes and launched Wiesels long career as one of the worlds foremost witnesses and humanitarians, has died at age 87.

His death was announced Saturday by Israels Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. No other details were immediately available.

The short, sad-eyed Wiesel, his face an ongoing reminder of one mans endurance of a shattering past, summed up his mission in 1986 when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize: Whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation, take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

President Barack Obama said of Wiesel on Saturday, As a writer, a speaker, an activist, and a thinker, he was one of those people who changed the world more as a citizen of the world than those who hold office or traditional positions of power. His life, and the power of his example, urges us to be better. Wiesels wife, Marion, described her husband as a fighter in a statement Saturday night. (AP)

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Elie Wiesel, the Nobel laureate and Romanian-born Holocaust survivor whose Night became a landmark testament to the Nazis' crimes and launched Wiesel's long career as one of the world's foremost witnesses and humanitarians, has died, it was announced Saturday by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. He was 87.

Wiesel wrote more than 40 books, but Night was considered a classic ranked with Anne Frank's diary as standard reading about the Holocaust.

George Clooney sent a statement to The Hollywood Reporter following Wiesel's death: "Unless you're 88 years old most of us have not lived in a world without Elie Wiesel. We had a champion who carried our pain, our guilt and our responsibility on his shoulders for generations. Now he's gone. It's hard to fathom. So I guess it's up to us now. To fight for the disenfranchised. To speak truth to power and to never forget how cruel man can be to man. In memory of Elie it's the least we can do. Rest in peace my friend. You brought us this far. We'll take it from here."

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Saturday in a statement: "With the death of Elie Wiesel, we have lost one of the great witnesses to history. Few wrote as eloquently or as forcefully about the horrors of the Nazi holocaust, and, more than anyone, he embodied the moral imperative never to repeat similar horrors in future. He will be mourned here in Los Angeles as he will be everywhere - and his message will never be forgotten."

Read More: Elie Wiesel, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust Survivor, Dies at 87

Many from Hollywood and Washington, inspired by his works, took to Twitter to mourn the Nobel laureate.

Elie Wiesel was a great moral voice of our time and a conscience for our world. He was also a dear friend. We will miss him deeply.

- President Barack Obama (@POTUS) July 2, 2016

Thank you Elie Wiesel. The world is profoundly better because you were here.

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- Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) July 2, 2016

Witness is a noble profession | Elie Wiesel, Auschwitz Survivor and Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Dies at 87 https://t.co/Cq7jVeJTyq

- Ken Burns (@KenBurns) July 2, 2016

If only we could be the people Elie Wiesel said we must be #IMAGINE

- Mia Farrow (@MiaFarrow) July 2, 2016

I remember reading Elie Wiesel's NIGHT in high school and feeling my world explode.

- Mark Duplass (@MarkDuplass) July 2, 2016

So sad to see Elie Wiesel has passed. He was such an inspiration to so many people: https://t.co/wFY0u5pejn #eliewiesel

- Dan Rather (@DanRather) July 2, 2016

So sorry to hear of #ElieWiesel's passing. I knew him well. He was a great man and a wonderful writer. Rest in peace.

- Larry King (@kingsthings) July 2, 2016

Mourning #ElieWiesel and an extraordinary moment at the White House when he told President Reagan not to go to SS cemetary at Bitburg

- Andrea Mitchell (@mitchellreports) July 2, 2016

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. - Elie Wiesel ---https://t.co/n2TpQHy1kK via @TheWorldPost

- Rosie O'Donnell (@Rosie) July 2, 2016

RIP Elie Wiesel pic.twitter.com/Fo0eAg1Kca

- Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) July 2, 2016

Elie Wiesel: a hero for our times. A clear, consistent, and enduring moral voice.

- Christiane Amanpour (@camanpour) July 2, 2016

Read more: Hollywood's Last 11 Survivors of the Holocaust
Athens (AFP) - Call it the law of unintended consequences -- a measure to save Greece from the abyss of a default and crashing out of the eurozone now holds its economy in a stranglehold preventing its recovery.

Cast back a year: the standoff between the Greek government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and the EU and IMF over the terms of a new rescue plan for the country was reaching breaking point.

The talks on a third bailout had been going nowhere since Tsipras took power in January after sweeping elections on an anti-austerity platform and the EU and IMF warned the country's place in the eurozone was at risk if it didn't accept more spending cuts and tax hikes.

Meanwhile Greeks had been taking out more and more of their savings from banks, with 20 percent gone when during the night of June 26 to 27 Tsipras shocked the world by announcing he would put the bailout conditions to a referendum vote.

In order to prevent a run on banks, Greece imposed capital controls, limiting cash withdrawals to 420 euros ($465) per week.

The restriction is still in place, and it's having a long-term impact on the economy.

Consumption was down 1.3 percent in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period in 2015, even though prices have been falling in Greece.

Overall, the Greek economy, which had begun growing again at the end of 2014, shrank by 1.4 percent in the first quarter of 2016.

- 'Who has 420 euros?' -

For many Greeks the 420-euro weekly limit was not too much of a brake on spending as they had already been progressively tightening their belts since Greece's first 110-billion-euro international bailout in 2010.

"Families have cut their expenses so much these past years of the crisis that it didn't really create a problem ... as who now has more than 420 euros per week to spend?" said Dimitris Sotiropoulos, a draftsman and father of three children.

However the impact has been greater on businesses, as trade figures show: imports plunged by 12.8 percent and exports by 11.7 percent.

Story continues

The controls, which hampered the ability to import goods and conduct business abroad, added to the "tax pressure and collapse of the social security system" of recent years, said Thanassis Kalabalikis, president of the Athens Manufacturers Federation.

"Small entrepreneurs, who before the crisis were the backbone of the Greek economy, had already taken a blow from seven years of recession, and capital controls just added to the sluggishness," he told AFP.

Some 26,000 Greek businesses of all sizes have shut their doors since capital controls were introduced.

For Panayiotis Petrakis, an economics professor at the University of Athens, "limitations on the free flow of capital and the lack of liquidity are preventing the recovery of the economy and don't encourage confidence among investors."

Greece finally clinched the 86-billion-euro bailout at the end of July, helping bring back a certain amount of economic stability, including by a recapitalisation of its battered banks at the end of the year.

- Low prices, black market -

The Greek government has relaxed the capital controls in recent months, in particular allowing higher withdrawals on funds returned from abroad.

A commission is also in place to examine requests from businesses and individuals for transactions above transfer limits.

However experts worry that capital controls could remain in place to the end of the year, or even to mid-2017, given the experience of fellow eurozone member Cyprus which took two years to lift capital controls it imposed during the height of its crisis in 2013.

Louka Katseli, a former economy minister who is now the board chairwoman at the private lender National Bank of Greece, is among those who believes the capital controls will be lifted later rather than sooner.

For that, she believes that three conditions need to be met: there are effective incentives for funds to return to the country, the problem of dodgy loans on bank balance sheets has been resolved, and most importantly Greece that receives a positive evaluation from its international creditors in a review later this year.

The only advantage of the capital controls has been to encourage Greeks to use other means of payments when they can: bank transfers and card payments inside the country were not restricted.

That would help reduce problematic tax evasion, if more Greek businesses install card terminals.

"People have adapted but not businesses as the installation of card terminals has been a headache, because in addition to many bank commissions many indebted companies are in such a terrible state they don't have the right to install them," said Kalabalikis.

The result has been, according to Sotiropoulos, that "prices have fallen even more and fostered the black market" as businesses are inclined "to offer considerable discounts to get sales by not issuing a receipt and dodging the tax payments."
Athens (AFP) - Call it the law of unintended consequences -- a measure to save Greece from the abyss of a default and crashing out of the eurozone now holds its economy in a stranglehold preventing its recovery.

Cast back a year: the standoff between the Greek government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and the EU and IMF over the terms of a new rescue plan for the country was reaching breaking point.

The talks on a third bailout had been going nowhere since Tsipras took power in January after sweeping elections on an anti-austerity platform and the EU and IMF warned the country's place in the eurozone was at risk if it didn't accept more spending cuts and tax hikes.

Meanwhile Greeks had been withdrawing more and more of their savings from banks, and 20 percent had already gone when Tsipras shocked the world by announcing on the night of June 26 that he would put the bailout conditions to a referendum vote.

In order to prevent a run on banks, Greece imposed capital controls, limiting cash withdrawals to 420 euros ($465) per week.

The restriction is still in place, and it's having a long-term impact on the economy.

Consumption was down 1.3 percent in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period in 2015, even though prices have been falling in Greece.

Overall, the Greek economy, which had begun growing again at the end of 2014, shrank by 1.4 percent in the first quarter of 2016.

- 'Who has 420 euros?' -

For many Greeks, the 420-euro weekly limit was not too much of a brake on spending as they had already been progressively tightening their belts since Greece's first 110-billion-euro international bailout in 2010.

"Families have cut their expenses so much these past years of the crisis that it didn't really create a problem ... as who now has more than 420 euros per week to spend?" said Dimitris Sotiropoulos, a draftsman and father of three children.

However the impact has been greater on businesses, as trade figures show: imports plunged by 12.8 percent and exports by 11.7 percent.

Story continues

The controls, which hampered the ability to import goods and conduct business abroad, added to the "tax pressure and collapse of the social security system" of recent years, said Thanassis Kalabalikis, president of the Athens Manufacturers Federation.

"Small entrepreneurs, who before the crisis were the backbone of the Greek economy, had already taken a blow from seven years of recession, and capital controls just added to the sluggishness," he told AFP.

Some 26,000 Greek businesses of all sizes have shut their doors since capital controls were introduced.

For Panayiotis Petrakis, an economics professor at the University of Athens, "limitations on the free flow of capital and the lack of liquidity are preventing the recovery of the economy and don't encourage confidence among investors."

Greece finally clinched an 86-billion-euro bailout at the end of July, helping bring back a certain amount of economic stability, including by a recapitalisation of its battered banks at the end of the year.

- Low prices, black market -

The Greek government has relaxed the capital controls in recent months, in particular allowing higher withdrawals on funds returned from abroad.

A commission is also in place to examine requests from businesses and individuals for transactions above transfer limits.

However experts worry that capital controls could remain in place to the end of the year, or even to mid-2017, given the experience of fellow eurozone member Cyprus which took two years to lift capital controls it imposed during the height of its crisis in 2013.

Central bank governor Yannis Stournaras on Sunday told the Avghi daily, which is close to Tspiras' Syriza party, that "the lifting of capital controls depends on the health of the Greek economy and the return of confidence."

Louka Katseli, a former economy minister and now board chairwoman at the private lender National Bank of Greece, is among those who believes the capital controls will be lifted later rather than sooner.

For that, she believes three conditions need to be met: there are effective incentives for funds to return to the country, the problem of dodgy loans on bank balance sheets has been resolved, and most importantly that Greece receives a positive evaluation from its international creditors in a review later this year.

The only advantage of the capital controls has been to encourage Greeks to use other means of payments when they can: bank transfers and card payments inside the country were not restricted.

That could help reduce problematic tax evasion, if more Greek businesses install card terminals.

"People have adapted but not businesses as the installation of card terminals has been a headache, because in addition to many bank commissions many indebted companies are in such a terrible state they don't have the right to install them," said Kalabalikis.

The result has been, according to Sotiropoulos, that "prices have fallen even more and fostered the black market" as businesses are inclined "to offer considerable discounts to get sales by not issuing a receipt and dodging the tax payments."
By Francesco Guarascio

BRUSSELS, July 3 (Reuters) - Italy is in talks with the European Commission to devise a plan to recapitalise Italian lenders with public money limiting losses for bank investors, an EU executive spokeswoman said on Sunday.

The move would aim to help Italian lenders at risk of failing the last round of European stress tests, for which results are due on July 29, as they face a collapse in share prices and remain saddled by a mountain of bad loans that make up roughly one-third of the euro zone's total.

"We are in contact with the Italian authorities," a Commission spokeswoman said when asked whether Rome and the EU executive were holding talks on a possible public recapitalisation of Italian banks.

"Based on precedents, there is a number of solutions that can be put in place in full compliance with the EU rules addressing liquidity and capital shortages in banks without adverse effects on retail investors," she added.

Last week, the Commission authorised an Italian government plan to guarantee liquidity for banks in the event of a financial crisis.

To address capital shortages that may be revealed in the end-of-July stress test results, the Italian government is considering an injection of public money for the weakest lenders.

One of the recipients of public money would be troubled lender Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Italian daily Corriere della Sera wrote in an unsourced report on Sunday.

The possible measure needs to be approved by the European Commission, which is in charge of overseeing the application of antitrust legislation.

EU rules on bank rescues dictate losses for bank investors, the so-called bail-in, before taxpayers' money can be used to help a failing lender.

The rules, which have been in force since January, allow a state to directly acquire a stake in a bank that fails a stress test and cannot raise capital in the markets because of "a serious disturbance" in the domestic economy.

But the state support is unlikely to come without strings. The scheme has been already applied to rescue the main Greek banks last year.

Story continues

In exchange for allowing the Greek state to acquire a stake in the private banks, the Commission required restructuring plans that forced the lenders to sell assets and cut jobs.

Holders of the banks' bonds were forced to swap them with shares, resulting in a loss, although the operation avoided the full wiping out of their investment that may have occurred in the event of a winding down of the banks.

(Additional reporting by Francesca Landini in Milan)
Strong feelings of patriotism that peaked in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks have been on the wane for more than a decade, as many Americans grappled with prolonged warfare in the Middle East, the worst recession in decades, and bitter political controversies over domestic and foreign policies.

As the nation prepares to observe another July 4th holiday, the share of people who are extremely proud to be an American has dropped sharply, from 70 percent in 2003 to a new low of 52 percent today, according to a new survey by Gallup.

Related: The Big Winners in the Trump-Clinton Race: Hatred, Prejudice and Voter Disgust

The long-term decline in extreme pride in the country  including steep drops in early 2005 and in 2013 -- are likely linked to a rising dissatisfaction among Americans with the general drift of the country and its economy, according to Gallup. At the height of the patriotic ardor, in 2004, 55 percent of Americans said they were generally satisfied with the way things were going. Since then, the rate of satisfaction has mostly held below 30 percent, according to the polling organization.

Americans patriotism stayed relatively flat from 2006 through 2013, a period that spanned the Great Recession and Barack Obamas election and first term as president, Gallup wrote. But over the last three years, Americans willingness to say they are extremely proud to be an American has declined further.

For sure, there is still plenty of enthusiasm among Americans for their country: 29 percent of the public surveyed by Gallup from June 14 to 23 said they were very proud to be an American, while 13 percent said they were moderately proud. Only one percent said they were not at all proud to be citizens.

Yet since patriotic zeal peaked in 2003 after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, all major subgroups have shown significant declines in the percentage saying they are extremely proud to be Americans, the study found. And the current brutal presidential campaign between presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump and presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton isnt likely to make things better.

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Related: Are Clinton and Trump Really in a Dead Heat?

The billionaire Trump has vowed to Make America Great Again, and yet his attacks on immigrants, Muslims, Mexican-Americans and others have made him one of the most loathed presidential candidates in modern times. Forty-two percent of Americans have a highly unfavorable view of him, according to the latest Gallup survey. Clinton, the former secretary of state, isnt doing much better, with a 26 percent highly unfavorable rating.

The largest decline in the number of extremely proud Americans has been among young people, ages 18 to 29. Over the past dozen years or so, the number of young people fiercely proud of being an American sank by 26 percentage points. Only 34 percent of this group of Millennials say today that they are extremely proud to be Americans, compared to 51 percent of that same age cohort in 2001.

There are a number of theories to explain this. One is that Millennials have far less reasons to feel patriotic today than did young people in the same age group in the wake of 9/11, when many were motivated to engage in public service or join the military to fight terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq. And that generational change may help explain why there has been further decline in patriotism among all U.S. adults over the last three years, the Gallup study observed.

Among other groups that have shown a sharp decline in their patriotic fervor between 2003 and 2016 and no longer say they are extremely proud to be Americans:

. People 30 to 49 years of age, down 23 percentage points.

. White Americans, down 19 percentage points.

. Non-college graduates, down 19 percent points.

. Democrats, down 20 percentage points.

. Republicans, down 18 percentage points.

. Independents, down 18 percentage points

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
* Minister says social network "sabotages" Israeli security

* Jurisdiction over Palestinians in West Bank is in dispute

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM, July 3 (Reuters) - Facebook is doing its share to remove abusive content from the social network, it said on Sunday in an apparent rejection of Israeli allegations that it was uncooperative in stemming messages that might spur Palestinian violence.

Beset by a 10-month-old surge in Palestinian street attacks, Israel says that Facebook has been used to perpetuate such bloodshed and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rightist government is drafting legislation to enable it to order social media sites to remove postings deemed threatening.

Ramping up the pressure, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan on Saturday accused Facebook of "sabotaging" Israeli police efforts by not cooperating with inquiries about potential suspects in the occupied West Bank and by "set(ting) a very high bar for removing inciteful content and posts".

Facebook did not respond directly to Erdan's criticism, but said in a statement that it conferred closely with Israel.

"We work regularly with safety organisations and policymakers around the world, including Israel, to ensure that people know how to make safe use of Facebook. There is no room for content that promotes violence, direct threats, terrorist or hate speeches on our platform," the statement said.

It appeared to place an onus on Israeli authorities, as with any other users, to flag offensive content to Facebook monitors.

"We have a set of community standards designed to help people understand what's allowed on Facebook, and we call on people to use our report if they find content they believe violates these rules, so that we can examine each case and take quick action," the statement said.

Erdan, who urged Israelis to "flood" Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg with demands for a policy change, expanded on the Netanyahu government's complaint in remarks published on Sunday.

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Of 74 "especially inciting and extremist posts" Israel had brought to Facebook's attention, 24 were removed, Erdan told the Yedioth Ahronoth daily, adding that jurisdiction was an issue.

"The big problem is in Judea and Samaria, because Facebook does not recognise Israeli control there and is not prepared to turn over information," Erdan said, using a biblical term for the West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 war and where the Palestinians, with international support, seek statehood.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked called on social media companies to curb pre-emptively content deemed by Israel to be a security threat.

"We want the companies not to approve and to themselves remove posts by terrorist groups and incitement to terrorism without us having to flag each individual post, in just the same manner, for example, that they today do not allow posts and pages with child pornography," she told Israel's Army Radio.

Citing sources familiar with the technology, Reuters reported last month that Facebook and other Internet companies have begun using automation to remove Islamic State videos and other extremist content from their sites.

(Editing by David Goodman)
To those of us raised in the United States, a country of campfires and Scouts, the smore is a childhood treasure. Like so many other lesser cultural highlights of my homeland, I had assumed the gooey dessert was world renowned. So when my wife and I moved from Maryland to Laos a few months ago, we were shocked to learn this was not the case  and not just among sticky-rice-craving locals.

Well-traveled expats from Europe, Australia and the Philippines looked at us cockeyed when we discussed the joys of a marshmallow-chocolate-graham-cracker sandwich. Upon further reflection, though, it does sound like a uniquely American mashup, one designed to hasten obesity. First mentioned in Tramping and Trailing With the Girl Scouts in 1927, the smore has even inspired a Pop-Tart. (Its also the best Pop-Tart flavor, but thats a taste test for another day.)

Everyone broke out in fluff-smeared grins.

When I was packing for the move to Southeast Asia, my wife, who had arrived a few weeks in advance, instructed me to bring fat marshmallows, real graham crackers and proper squares of chocolate. Quality smore ingredients are not typically available in Luang Prabang. Our friends were enthralled. Chanika Pudhom, who hails from Thailand, compared the sensation of eating a smore to that of taking a bracing winters dip in a nearby waterfall: Sweet but super delicious. She was so smitten that she brought American-made marshmallows back from a Bangkok excursion, in order to make more smores.

Our import plan was not sustainable to keep up with growing demand at each charcoal-fueled party. Around town, plain chocolate is hard to find, marshmallows even tougher and no one on this side of the world has even heard of graham crackers. One evening, a dozen pals were enjoying a meal on our deck. By this time, the smores sensation had spread, and our Lao friends were eager for more. My wife and I had decent chocolate and not-ideal-but-workable mini marshmallows. The rub: We were fresh out of graham crackers. I walked to the mini-mart around the corner, casting about for a substitute. I happened upon some coconut-flavored biscuits  in the British sense, like cookies.

Our guests gathered around the hot coals, skewers in hand, making sure the marshmallows were browned but not burnt, just as my wife and I had taught them. The coconut biscuits worked well: They werent cloyingly sweet, and they gave the classic American dessert a hint of the tropics. Everyone broke out in fluff-smeared grins. I could almost hear America the Beautiful playing in the background.
Fans are clamoring to save kids show Doc McStuffins from cancellation

Fans are clamoring to save kids show Doc McStuffins from cancellation

Its a critical moment for fans of the Disney Junior show, Doc McStuffins, as rumors surface that the fifth season of the beloved cartoon might not happen. Fans and parents are outraged and have started a hashtag movement, #RenewDocMcstuffins, to help gather support for the only show on the network staring an African-American as its lead.

The Root reports on the strange and surprising turn of events, reminding us, two years ago, the New York Times reported that Doc McStuffins merchandise clocked $500 million in sales, and was the first nonwhite character to cross over.

This makes the news of its possible cancellation even more upsetting for fans of the beloved show. Folks are rushing to Twitter to show their outrage, and using the hashtag to create attention.

The attention is not, however, solely about the popularity of the show. Doc McStuffins represents the effort to promote diverse characters. With characters of color on TV these days fighting for fair representation, its a really big deal that this show is in danger.

Also #RenewDocMcStuffins because my niece loves her and you better not mess with my niece.  Akilah Hughes (@AkilahObviously) July 2, 2016

Because a Black girl starring in a cartoon is still revolutionary in 2016. And that Black girl being a doctor? More. #RenewDocMcStuffins  C.E. Little (@ItsMrLittle) July 2, 2016

Doc appeals to kids of all backgrounds. She is clever and kind. Teaches them about compassion #RenewDocMcStuffins pic.twitter.com/7QKEIlTu9N  jamilah lemieux (@JamilahLemieux) July 2, 2016

The implications stretch even further, according to Margaret Beale Spencer, a professor of comparative human development at the University of Chicago. In the New York Times article, she talks about the high stakes of play. Childrens play is serious business, Dr. Spencer said. They are getting ideas about who they are from these objects. There are messages about ones confidence, ones sense of self in terms of what I look like and being powerful.

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The creator of Doc McStuffins echoes these and parents concern, and has been very open about what makes Doc special. She told the New York Times last year, The kids who are of color see her as an African-American girl, and thats really big for them. And I think a lot of other kids dont see her color, and thats wonderful as well.

If you want to join the #RenewDocMcStuffins movement, youll be in good company. Celebs are taking up the cause as well. Chrissy Teigen, Roxane Gay, Kristin Davis, Anika Noni Rose, and tons more, are showing their support for our favorite little physician.

Its a good cause to get behind, and you can show Disney you mean business too.

The post Fans are clamoring to save kids show Doc McStuffins from cancellation appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Sagar Bhanushali

After making its public debut late last year, the Fiat 124 Spider has officially arrived in the US. The first batch of cars, in fact, has rolled into the Port of San Diego and the Port of Baltimore. Close to 50 years after the original 124 was introduced, Fiat has launched this new compact rear-wheel drive convertible with prices starting at $24,995 (Rs 16.79 lakh).

The new 124 Spider takes inspiration from the original model in looks and detailing. In profile, its a classic roadster, with its long wheelbase, a cockpit hunkered low near the rear axle and a long bonnet. Inside, all variants come with a leather-wrapped steering wheel, a six-speaker audio system and push-button start. In addition, higher-spec variants get a 7-inch infotainment system, heated seats and piano black trim.

Under the 124 Spiders long bonnet sits a 1.4-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine with up to around 160hp. Power goes to the rear wheels via a 6-speed manual gearbox and compact rear differential. Fiat is also offering an automatic gearbox with the 124 Spider.

Now that its officially launched, the Fiat 124 Spider competes with other performance-focused two-door models like Mazda Miata and the Subaru BRZ in the US.

For more news,reviews,videos and information about cars, visit CarWale.com.

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Game of Thrones stars Lena Headey, Maisie Williams and Liam Cunningham appealed to European Union leaders this week to do more for the approximately 57,000 refugees of the ongoing Syrian civil war who are currently stranded in Greece. The appeal came during a visit to operations of the International Rescue Committee programs in Greece and followed meetings earlier this week with refugees affected by the March deal between the EU and Turkey. The visit included trips to the island of Lesbos, where Headey met with a young Syrian woman traveling alone with three children under the age of 11, to Cherso in Northern Greece, where Williams met a young aspiring actor from Syria, who wants nothing more than the chance to live out her dreams in safety. Cunningham meanwhile met with Afghan and Syrian fathers who talked about their reasons for leaving their countries and what life is like for them as refugees.

These smart, hardworking people want to go home. They want to return to their communities and to their neighborhoods, said Headey in a statement. They want their children to continue their education. They want to continue their university and they are stuck. Theyre stuck. And theyre unbelievably sad. Understandably. We can do better for them. We must do better for them.

For me it is about the children children with so much potential, so many hopes and dreams, Williams said. Where is the humanity that makes it acceptable for them to languish in refugee camps  in Europe?

Added Cunningham, This is not an earthquake, this is not a tidal wave. This is a man-made crisis. 57,000 stranded in Greece. Refugee camps in Europe? Is this truly the standard EU leaders want to set as the way to respond to the global refugee crisis?

Game of Thrones recently completed its sixth season, with Headey, who plays Cersei Lannister, Cunningham, who plays Ser Davos, and Williams, who plays Arya Stark, all set to return for season 7, expected to premiere in April of 2017.

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On July 3, 1978, the Supreme Court issued its historic verdict in the George Carlin seven dirty words case, a decision that still holds sway over the use of indecent and obscene language on television, and in a new era of mass communications.

Carlin himself wasnt involved directly in the case, which was called Federal Communications Commission V. Pacifica Foundation. He had already won a legal verdict, in an unrelated case, several years prior to the Supreme Court ruling after a judge threw out his arrest in Milwaukee for performing the comedy routine at a summer festival.

It was a New York radio station that was in hot water with the FCC for playing a recording of Carlins Filthy Words monologue on October 30, 1973, at 2 p.m. in the afternoon. The broadcast was heard by John H. Douglas, who said he heard the words while driving with his young son in a car. Douglas complained to the FCC, and almost five years later, the case was decided by the Court, with Justice John Paul Stevens writing the majority decision after a 5-4 split among the Justices.

The FCC had warned Pacifica, which owned the station, that it found the language in Carlins routine indecent, and it was prohibited by FCC statute. The FCC didnt fine Pacifica, but threatened to take into account any complaints when Pacifica next sought to renew its broadcast license.

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed the decision in 1977, by a 2-1 margin, with each judge writing separate opinions. Judge Tamm said that the order represented censorship, and Chief Judge Bazelon said the FCCs order must be narrowly construed to cover only language that is obscene or otherwise unprotected by the First Amendment.

But Judge Leventhal argued the FCC correctly concluded that the content was indecent because it was broadcast during the daytime and the FCC had a legitimate interest in protecting children.

Despite the humor in Carlins monologue, the Court was faced with a very serious question: Did the First Amendment deny the federal government any power to restrict the public broadcast of indecent language under any circumstances?

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Justice Stevens agreed with Judge Leventhal from the District of Columbia appeals court.

We have long recognized that each medium of expression presents special First Amendment problems, Stephens said. He stated because the broadcast media have established a uniquely pervasive presence in the lives of all Americans and broadcasting is uniquely accessible to children, the FCC had the right to impose an order on the radio station warning it about the consequences of the broadcast.

The FCC had the right to treat indecent speech as a nuisance, in this one instance, because the Court said that limited civil sanctions could constitutionally be invoked against a broadcast of words dealing with sex and execration.

Stevens then referenced a Court decision from 1926 and a quote from Justice George Sutherland: Nuisance may be merely a right thing in the wrong place,  like a pig in the parlor instead of the barnyard.

The decision officially gave the FCC the ability to impose penalties on broadcasters who presented obscene, indecent, or profane language outside of certain time periods or in certain cases. It also limited the First Amendment rights of broadcasters.

Justice William Brennan wrote the dissent. I find the Courts misapplication of fundamental First Amendment principles so patent, and its attempt to impose its notions of propriety on the whole of the American people so misguided, that I am unable to remain silent.

The Courts decision may be seen for what, in the broader perspective, it really is: another of the dominant cultures inevitable efforts to force those groups who do not share its mores to conform to its way of thinking, acting, and speaking, he added.

In 2012, the Court had a chance to revisit the Pacifica decision when it considered three incidents where the FCC wanted to punish Fox and ABC for what it deemed as offensive content. Justice Anthony Kennedys majority decision ruled against the FCC, but for procedural reasons. Kennedy saw no need to revisit the Pacifica decision.

But Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, while concurring with Kennedys overall opinion, stated her objections to the Carlin case ruling.

In my view, the Courts decision in FCC v. Pacifica Foundation was wrong when it issued. Time, technological advances, and the Commissions untenable rulings in the cases now before the Court show why Pacifica bears reconsideration, she said.

As for Carlin, he said in his 2009 autobiography, FCC vs Pacifica has become a standard case to teach in communications classes and many law schools. I take perverse pride in that. Im actually a footnote to the judicial history of America.

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BERLIN (Reuters) - Senior German politicians called for improvements to the European Union's processes to speed up decision making and boost its appeal among citizens, just a week after Britons stunned the world with a vote to leave the bloc. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble urged member states to be more pragmatic and take an "intergovernmental approach" to solving problems, complaining that EU politicians had taken too long to make decisions on the migrant crisis last year and Brussels operated with timeframes that were too big. "You soon realise if the Commission isn't managing something or if we're getting bogged down in the (European) Council. And that's when governments have a responsibility," Schaeuble said in an interview with Welt am Sonntag newspaper. However, he said reforming European institutions or changing European treaties would take too long and denied that he was calling for the Commission's power to be reduced. In a referendum held on June 23, Britain voted 52 to 48 percent in favour of quitting the EU - a decision that caused major losses in global financial markets and raised concerns about the EU's future prospects. German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel called for the ranks of EU Commissioners to be streamlined and for Brussels to reconsider how it allocates its budget. "A Europe in which 27 Commissioners want to prove themselves doesn't make sense. It would be good to downsize in this respect," he told the newspaper Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung in an interview published on Saturday. Speaking on German broadcaster ZDF on Sunday, Gabriel said: "What we have now, with 27, 28 Commissioners in the European Commission is like an administrative apparatus without any real connection to voters." Gabriel, who is also Germany's vice chancellor, said the EU should reassess if it should still put around 40 percent of funds towards agriculture while much less money is pumped into research, innovation or education. And European Parliament President Martin Schulz, a German, wrote in a piece for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung's Monday edition that the Commission should be turned into "a real European government" subject to parliamentary control from the European Parliament and a second chamber made up of representatives of member states. Schaeuble said on German public broadcaster ARD on Sunday that in view of the Brexit vote and rising euroscepticism in other countries, the EU needed to better explain its role to people and deliver visible results more quickly. "Of course we'll hold on to national ties - no one wants to get rid of them - but there are some things that only Europe can solve better together ... but we need to prove that." He also said that EU members should start cooperating on joint defence projects, even if only a few countries worked together on this to start with. (Reporting by Michelle Martin; Editing by Clelia Oziel)
Over the past year, Donald Trump has alleged that Mexican immigrants are criminals and rapists, called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States, and stated that a Mexican American judge presiding over a Trump University lawsuit was biased because of his heritage. In June, House Speaker Paul Ryan described Trumps criticism of the judge as the textbook definition of a racist comment. But a former Speaker of the House and Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich maintains that, while many of Trumps comments have been misguided, theres no evidence at all that Trump is a racist.

Gingrich is reportedly being vetted as a running mate for Trump, and the Washington Post has reported that hes the leading candidate in a group that includes the New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Senators Jeff Sessions and Bob Corker, and Indiana Governor Mike Pence. But in a discussion with Ann Korologos at the Aspen Ideas Festival Saturday, co-hosted by the Aspen Institute and The Atlantic, Gingrich told attendees not to bet on him. It really messes up your life, he said, adding that any decision would depend on finding out how much power Trump wants his running mate to have. I have a very simple test question: If its about [going to] funerals, Im not interested.

Speculation about Gingrichs vice-presidential hopes rose earlier this week when Gingrich publicly reversed his long-held position on free trade. Trump has called the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Gingrich helped pass in 1994, the worst trade deal in U.S. history; in an email to Politico, Gingrich said that he basically agreed with Trump, and that the country is now in a different era. His comments seemed to help unite the two men on one of their biggest stated differences on policy, smoothing the way for a possible alliance.

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Recommended: How American Politics Went Insane

But Gingrich said he hasnt had any conversations with Trump about being on the ticket, and that his ideal role might be that of an unofficial adviser. Whether or not Trump can win in November, he said, depends on whether he can quit screwing up, and get the election down to three or four issues, all of which come down to a single concept: enough.

Over the course of an hour, Gingrich spoke candidly about Trumps personality, the mistakes hes made over the course of his campaign, why his nomination signals a shift in American culture, and how Republican leaders in Congress have considerable leverage should Trump be elected. Lets assume for a second, which many of you will find horrifying, that Trump wins, he said. The first person he has to talk to about appointing a cabinet is the Senate Majority Leader, so if McConnell and he arent dancing, he has a huge problem.

Gingrichs long history of wrangling Congress likely makes him a valuable candidate to Trump, who has no political experience. Last month, Trump fired his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, after he reportedly clashed with his campaign chairman, Paul Manafort. During his 20 years in Washington, Gingrich presided over the first Republican majority in the House of Representatives in 42 years, passing welfare reform and a capital-gains tax cut before resigning in 1998 after an attempted coup on his leadership and a reprimand for ethics violations.

Recommended: Why Is Populism Taking Over the Republican Party?

Trump has said over and over again he needs a vice president who understands Washington, because he doesnt, Gingrich said. Even though he expressed skepticism as to whether the role would suit him, he also seems to have thought deeply about Trumps strengths and flaws. I give Trump some slack, because prior to June of last year he was a private citizen, he said. A noisy, loudmouth private citizen  but he was happy being who he was.

The best way to understand Trump, according to Gingrich, is to think of him as one part Andrew Jackson, one part Theodore Roosevelt, and one part P.T. Barnum. The reason Trump won, Gingrich said, was that in a climate of suspicion toward elected officials, other candidates mostly ran on the strength of their political experience. People who are sick and tired of Washington dont want someone who can manage the table better, he said. They want someone who will kick the table over.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Last year on July 2, the state Legislature launched a sneak attack on Wisconsins open records law, effectively seeking to exempt legislators from its reach. That effort died following a huge public backlash. But some lawmakers, its clear, remain actively hostile to the states tradition of open government.

One ongoing effort to duck accountability concerns records of communications to legislators. In 2014, a state appeals court ruled that state Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-Madison, must release not just the messages but the names and addresses of people who had contacted him on a given issue, which he had tried to shield.

Public awareness of who is attempting to influence public policy is essential for effective oversight of our government, wrote Judge Mark Gundrum, a former Republican state lawmaker, for the court. Citizens have a right to know who contacts elected officials in favor of or opposed to proposed legislation.

As a reporter, I have obtained correspondence to lawmakers showing overwhelming public support for failed proposals to toughen drunken driving laws and embrace nonpartisan redistricting. Sheila Plotkin, a resident of McFarland, has documented that lawmakers disregarded the vast majority of input they received on altering campaign finance rules and dismantling the state Government Accountability Board, among other issues. See her website: we-the-irrelevant.org.

Recently, Plotkin has been looking into citizen correspondence to legislators regarding proposed water legislation. The office of Rep. Scott Krug, R-Nekoosa, provided her with multiple records of its own creation that listed the names and addresses of people who wrote in on this issue, with the nebulous notation, Wants high capacity wells/CAFOs/ground water reform.

As she recounts in a web post, Plotkin called the office and spoke to Krug aide Dan Posca, who said this vague designation could mean either that the person was for the identified bill, or against it. It was impossible to tell.

I repeatedly tried to talk to Posca about Plotkins post, without success. Krug told me the vague wording was used because there were hundreds of variations of things people wanted done. He claimed all of the emails he received were provided to Plotkin, besides the summary records created by his staff.

Not so, says Plotkin, who found multiple instances where the offices vague record lacked a corresponding email. For instance, she couldnt find her own email to GOP lawmakers, sent Feb. 3, urging them at length and in detail to Vote NO on these bills. The office provided only its internal record, dated Feb. 5, logging a contact from a Sheila Plotkin who wants  reform.

What had been perfectly clear was rendered purposefully oblique, to make it harder for the public to see that its input was ignored. For shame.

In fact, Krug and other lawmakers can freely destroy the correspondence they receive, replacing it with their own records or nothing at all, because legislators are exempt from retention rules in place for everyone else in state and local government. According to The Associated Press, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, deletes his calendar on a daily basis, evidently to keep the people who pay his salary from learning how he spends his time.

That needs to change. Citizens and media should demand an end to this loophole, raising this issue with legislative candidates. State lawmakers do not deserve the ability to destroy public records to protect themselves.

In fact, Krug and other lawmakers can freely destroy the correspondence they receive, replacing it with their own records or nothing at all, because legislators are exempt from retention rules in place for everyone else in state and local government. According to The Associated Press, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, deletes his calendar on a daily basis, evidently to keep the people who pay his salary from learning how he spends his time.
Harrison Barnes

USA TODAY Sports

Harrison Barnes will be getting his maximum contract. His future with the Golden State Warriors, though, seems to be completely out of his control.

Marc Stein of ESPN reports that Barnes intends to sign a four-year, max-level offer sheet with the Dallas Mavericks once league business officially begins on July 7.

ESPN sources say that the Mavericks intend to sign Warriors restricted free agent Harrison Barnes to a four-year max offer sheet on July 7  Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) July 2, 2016

Confirming reports from before free agency, Stein also notes that the Warriors have every intention of matching the Mavericks deal with Barnes if Kevin Durant elects against making the Bay Area his new home.

League sources say Dallas understands Barnes will likely only be available to them if the Warriors land Kevin Durant but want to try anyway.  Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) July 2, 2016

Durant, whos already conducted his meeting with Golden State and is nearly finished being wined and dined by hopeful suitors, is expected to make a decision on his playing future before he begins a promotional tour in Asia on July 9.
Michael Cimino, who won Oscars for director and best picture for the powerful 1978 Vietnam War drama The Deer Hunter, has died at age 77, Cannes Film Festival director Thierry Fremaux announced Saturday via Twitter.

Deer Hunter actor Robert De Niro remembered Cimino in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter: "Our work together is something I will always remember. He will be missed."

In a March 2015 interview with THR's Seth Abramovitch - perhaps the last one he ever did - Cimino described the audience reaction to The Deer Hunter when the film, which starred De Niro, Christopher Walken and John Cazale and collected five Oscars in all, opened in theaters.

"We had a screening and [his assistant] came running up to me and said, 'Michael, you've got to come quick, come quick to the lobby.'" he remembered. "I said, 'What's wrong?' And she said, 'Come with me.' And the ladies room was filled with women who were weeping and wailing and just broke down crying. There were ex-vets who literally crawled up the aisle out of their seat. It was just an astounding, astounding reaction."

Read More: Michael Cimino, Writer-Director of 'The Deer Hunter' and 'Heaven's Gate,' Dies at 77

I cannot believe Michael Cimino has passed away too. 'Thunderbolt & Lightfoot' is one of my favourite films. R.I.P. https://t.co/uh9JHIgAKy

- Edgar Wright (@edgarwright) July 2, 2016

I wish I had paid tribute to Michael Cimino while he was alive.

He was an important and masterful film maker.

We will always have his work- William Friedkin (@WilliamFriedkin) July 2, 2016

RIP Michael Cimino. Many fond memories of watching "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot" with my dad on TBS on Sunday mornings.

- Paul Rust (@paulrust) July 2, 2016

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot

The Deer Hunter

And yes...

Heaven's Gate

- Michael Cimino

May the rest of us do half as well.- Christopher McQuarrie (@chrismcquarrie) July 2, 2016

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On the set of 'Desperate Hours' with #MichaelCimino #RIP pic.twitter.com/VQsqhf4yhB

- Kelly Lynch (@kellylynch) July 2, 2016

Heavens Gate was the bravest swing for the fences. May we all be that bold when we turn on the camera. #MichaelCimino

- Jason Reitman (@JasonReitman) July 3, 2016

HEAVEN'S GATE will forever be on my top 10 list of all time favorite films -- an astounding masterpiece. RIP #MichaelCimino

- Mark Romanek (@markromanek) July 2, 2016

"One shot."

RIP Michael Cimino. pic.twitter.com/LDsKOGjVIk- Jay Baruchel (@BaruchelNDG) July 3, 2016

"I don't make movies to make a point, I make movies to tell stories about people." - Michael Cimino #RIP pic.twitter.com/bCzK8wYoz3

- Tribeca (@Tribeca) July 3, 2016

Read More: Michael Cimino: The Full, Uncensored Hollywood Reporter Interview
By Bill Trott (Reuters) - Activist and writer Elie Wiesel, the World War Two death camp survivor who won a Nobel Peace Prize for becoming the life-long voice of millions of Holocaust victims, died on Saturday. He was 87. Wiesel was a philosopher, speaker, playwright and professor who also campaigned for the tyrannized and forgotten around the world. He died at his home in New York City, the New York Times reported. The Romanian-born Wiesel lived by the credo expressed in "Night," his landmark story of the Holocaust - "to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time." In awarding the Peace Prize in 1986, the Nobel Committee praised him as a "messenger to mankind" and "one of the most important spiritual leaders and guides in an age when violence, repression and racism continue to characterize the world." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed Wiesel as a ray of light, and said his extraordinary personality and unforgettable books demonstrated the triumph of the human spirit over the most unimaginable evil. "Out of the darkness of the Holocaust, Elie became a powerful force for light, truth and dignity," he said. Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, said that Wiesel had taught people not to be silent where they saw injustice and that the void caused by his death could not be filled. "We have lost the most articulate witness to history's greatest crime," he said. Wiesel did not waver in his campaign never to let the world forget the Holocaust horror. While at the White House in 1985 to receive the Congressional Gold Medal, he even rebuked U.S. President Ronald Reagan for planning to lay a wreath at a German cemetery where some of Hitler's notorious Waffen SS troops were buried. "Don't go to Bitburg," Wiesel said. "That place is not your place. Your place is with the victims of the SS." Wiesel became close to U.S. President Barack Obama but the friendship did not deter him from criticizing U.S. policy on Israel. He spoke out in favor of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and pushed the United States and other world powers to take a harder stance against Iran over its nuclear program. Obama remembered him as "one of the great moral voices of our time, and in many ways, the conscience of the world." Wiesel had raised his voice, not just against anti-Semitism, but against hatred, bigotry and intolerance in all forms, Obama said in a statement. "His life, and the power of his example, urges us to be better. In the face of evil, we must summon our capacity for good. In the face of hate, we must love," Obama said. Wiesel attended the joint session of the U.S. Congress in 2015 when Netanyahu spoke on the dangers of Iran's program. German President Joachim Gauck wrote to Wiesel's wife Marion saying: "Your husband knew how to use vivid and empathic words to keep the memory of the darkest years of German history that he witnessed alive and to warn young people especially of the dangers of right-wing extremism and xenophobia." German Chancellor Angela Merkel said a "voice of morality and humanity has fallen silent". Wiesel and his foundation both were victims of the wide-ranging Ponzi scheme run by New York financier Bernie Madoff, with Wiesel and his wife losing their life's savings and the foundation losing $15.2 million. "'Psychopath' - it's too nice a word for him," he said of Madoff in 2009. Wiesel was a hollow-eyed 16-year-old when he emerged from the newly liberated Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945. He had been orphaned by the Nazis and their identification number, A-7713, was tattooed on his arm as a physical manifestation of his broken faith and the nightmares that would haunt him throughout his life. Wiesel and his family had first been taken by the Nazis from the village of Sighetu Marmatiei in the Transylvania region of Romania to Auschwitz, where his mother and one of his sisters died. Wiesel and his father, Shlomo, ended up in Buchenwald, where Shlomo died. In "Night" Wiesel wrote of his shame at lying silently in his bunk while his father was beaten nearby. After the war Wiesel made his way to France, studied at the Sorbonne and by 19 had become a journalist. He pondered suicide and never wrote of or discussed his Holocaust experience until 10 years after the war as a part of a vow to himself. He was 27 years old in 1955 when "Night" was published in Yiddish, and Wiesel would later rewrite it for a world audience. "Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed ...," Wiesel wrote. "Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live." Asked by an interviewer in 2000 why he did not go insane, Wiesel said, "To this day that is a mystery to me." By 2008, "Night" had sold an estimated 10 million copies, according to the New York Times, including 3 million after talk-show hostess Oprah Winfrey made it a spotlight selection for her book club in 2006. In 1985 Wiesel helped break ground in Washington for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the following year was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In typical fashion, he dedicated the prize to all those who survived the Nazi horror, calling them "an example to humankind how not to succumb to despair." Wiesel, who became a U.S. citizen in 1963, was slight in stature but a compelling figure when he spoke. With a chiseled profile, burning eyes and a shock of gray hair, he could silence a crowd by merely standing up. He was often described as somber. An old friend, Chicago professor Irving Abrahamson, once said of him: "I've never seen Elie give a belly laugh. He'll chuckle, he'll smile, there'll be a twinkle in his eye. But never a laugh from within." A few years after winning the peace prize, he set up the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, which, in addition to Israeli and Jewish causes, campaigned for Miskito Indians in Nicaragua, Cambodian refugees, victims of South African apartheid and of famine and genocide in Africa. Wiesel wrote more than 50 books - novels, non-fiction, memoirs, and many with a Holocaust theme - and held a long-running professorship at Boston University. In one of his later books, "Open Heart," he used his 2011 quintuple-bypass surgery as impetus for reflection on his life. "I have already been the beneficiary of so many miracles, which I know I owe to my ancestors," he wrote. "All I have achieved has been and continues to be dedicated to their murdered dreams - and hopes." He collected scores of awards and honors, including an honorary knighthood in Britain. Obama presented him the National Humanities Medal in 2009. Wiesel was attacked in a San Francisco hotel in 2007 by a 22-year-old Holocaust denier, but not injured. Wiesel and wife Marion married in 1969 and their son, Elisha, was born in 1972. (Additional reporting by Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem and Michelle Martin in Berlin; Editing by Diane Craft and Dan Grebler)
By Serajul Quadir and Ruma Paul DHAKA (Reuters) - Islamist militants killed 20 people, including at least nine Italians, seven Japanese and an American, inside an upmarket restaurant in Bangladesh's capital, before security forces stormed the building and ended a 12-hour standoff on Saturday. Islamic State said it was responsible for one of the most brazen attacks in the South Asian nation's history, but that claim has yet to be confirmed. It marks a major escalation in a campaign by militants over the past 18 months that had targeted mostly individuals advocating a secular or liberal lifestyle in majority-Muslim Bangladesh with 160 million people. The gunmen, who stormed the busy restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic area late on Friday night, ordered all Bangladeshis to stand up before they began killing foreigners, a source briefed on the police investigation said. "Let the people of the crusader countries know that there is no safety for them as long as their aircraft are killing Muslims," Islamic State said in a statement, also posting pictures of five fighters it said were involved in the attack. Among the dead was the wife of an Italian businessman killed by a machete. She was found by her husband after he spent all night hiding behind a tree outside the cafe while the gunmen were inside, said Agnese Barolo, a friend who lives in Dhaka and spoke to him. Nine Italians were killed in the attack, the country's foreign minister said, and authorities were trying to confirm the fate of another person missing. Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said seven of its citizens had been confirmed dead in the attack, while one Indian, a 19 year-old female student, was killed in the assault, India's foreign minister said on Twitter. Emory University in Atlanta said in a statement that two of its students were among hostages who were killed. Abinta Kabir, from Miami, was an undergraduate at Emory's Oxford College, and Faraaz Hossain, who was from Dhaka, was an undergraduate student at the university's Goizueta Business School, Emory said. The U.S. State Department confirmed one of those killed was a U.S. citizen but did not identify the person. The department said in a statement it was in close contact with the Bangladesh government and had offered to help with the investigation. Bangladesh authorities are yet to say where all the people killed by the militants came from. The killing of foreigners will likely shatter the confidence of the expatriate community in Bangladesh, many of whom work for multinationals in the country's $26 billion garment industry that accounts for around 15 percent of the economy. Bangladesh is the world's second largest apparel exporter after China. Thirteen hostages were rescued, including one Japanese and two Sri Lankans, the army said. "SHARP WEAPONS" Army spokesman Colonel Rashidul Hasan said he could not yet confirm the nationalities of those who had died. Most of them had been killed by "sharp weapons", he said. Hasan said initially that it seemed all the victims were foreigners but now the army believed some locals were among the dead as well. Six gunmen were killed during the police operation and one was captured, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said in a TV broadcast after more than 100 commandos concluded their operation to clear the cafe. Two police were killed in the initial assault. "It was an extremely heinous act. What kind of Muslims are these people? They don't have any religion," Hasina said. Declaring two days of national mourning, she said the country would stand up and fight the "terror threat" that has mushroomed in its backyard. Islamic State, which has claimed a series of machete attacks on minority groups in Bangladesh over the past year, posted photos of bodies and blood smeared across floors that it said were dead foreigners killed in the assault. Police did not confirm whether the pictures were from the site of the massacre. Gowher Rizvi, an adviser to Hasina, told Reuters security forces had tried to negotiate with the gunmen. SPORADIC GUNFIRE The hostage crisis began when security guards in the Gulshan district of Dhaka, popular with expatriates, noticed several gunmen outside a medical center, Rizvi said. When the guards approached, the gunmen ran into a building housing the restaurant, packed with people waiting for tables, he said. Ali Arsalan, co-owner of the restaurant, said his staff told him the attackers yelled "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great) as they stormed the building, split between Holey Artisan Bakery and the O'Kitchen Restaurant. The restaurant was regarded as a tranquil place that was safe to visit in an increasingly dangerous city. Police said the assailants exchanged sporadic gunfire with police outside for several hours after the gunmen attacked the restaurant around 9 p.m. on Friday. A police officer at the scene said when security forces tried to enter the premises at the beginning of the siege they were met with a hail of bullets and grenades that killed two of them. A cafe employee who escaped told local television about 20 customers were in the restaurant at the time, most of them foreigners. Some 15 to 20 staff were working at the restaurant, the employee said. The rescued Japanese man was eating dinner with the seven other Japanese, all of whom were consultants for Japan's foreign aid agency, a Japanese government spokesman said. Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the Japanese aid workers "were giving their all for the development of Bangladesh". "We feel strong indignation at this inhumane, despicable act of terrorism, which has claimed many lives," he told reporters. SPATE OF MURDERS Bangladesh has seen a spate of murders in recent months claimed by Islamic State and al Qaeda on liberals, gays, foreigners and religious minorities. A Hindu priest was hacked to death on Friday at a temple in Jhinaidah district, 300 km (188 miles) southwest of Dhaka. Local authorities say no operational links exist between Bangladeshi militants and international jihadi networks. They say two local militant groups, Ansar-al-Islam and Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, have been behind the violence over the past 18 months. Ansar pledges allegiance to Al Qaeda, while Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen claims it represents Islamic State. "The bottom line is Bangladesh has plenty of local, often unaffiliated, militants and radicals happy to stage attacks in ISIS's name," said Michael Kugelman, South Asia associate at The Wilson Centre in Washington D.C., using an acronym commonly used for Islamic State. Islamic State had claimed more attacks in Bangladesh than in Pakistan or Afghanistan, he said. The restaurant assault also comes after Bangladesh hanged an Islamist party leader, Motiur Rahman Nizami, on May 11 for genocide and other crimes committed during a 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. That has drawn an angry reaction and some scattered violence from supporters. Foreign diplomats and human rights groups have warned that Bangladesh's ongoing war crime tribunals and the government's pressure on the Bangladesh Nationalist Party have created a backlash domestically, according to Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. (This version of the story was corrected to show that student was an undergraduate not a graduate student at Emorys business school in paragraph 9) (Additional reporting by Krishna Das, Tom Lasseter, Rupam Jain, Tommy Wilkes and Aditya Kalra in NEW DELHI, Isla Binnie in ROME, Melissa Fares in NEW YORK Stanley White, Chris Gallagher and Kiyoshi Takenaka in TOKYO and Ali Abdelatti; Writing by Bill Tarrant and Tommy Wilkes; Editing by Nick Macfie and Martin Howell)
Jerusalem (AFP) - Israel on Sunday barred the Hebron governor from entering its territory after he visited the family of a Palestinian who killed a US-Israeli teenage girl in her sleep, officials said.

On Thursday, 19-year-old Mohammed Nasser Tarayra broke into the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba in the West Bank on the outskirts of Hebron and killed 13-year-old Israeli-American Hallel Yaffa Ariel before being shot dead by a security guard.

The murder sparked outrage and prompted Israel to lock down Hebron, a flashpoint city in the occupied Palestinian territory.

The decision to bar mayor Kamal Humeid from Israel was taken by COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry unit which manages civilian affairs for Palestinians in the West Bank and liaises with Gaza.

A statement said Humeid had paid a condolence visit to Tarayra's family and was therefore "barred from entering Israel" and that he had been stripped of "his privileges", without elaborating.

Humeid said on Facebook he does not enjoy any special privileges and has "no business in Israel" that would lead him to enter the Jewish state.

A day after Thursday's attack, 48-year-old Israeli Michael Mark was killed after his car was fired on by a suspected Palestinian gunman south of Hebron.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the cabinet on Sunday that a series of measures had been taken "including aggressive ones which had not been used in the past" to respond to such attacks.

"This includes the lockdown of the entire Hebron district," home to 700,000 people, he said.

Netanyahu said the army had also revoked the Israeli work permits of residents of Beni Naim, the home village of Palestinian assailants.

Other measures, he said, include a "massive" bolstering of Israeli troops and an investigation into family members of Palestinian assailants "and their arrest if they were involved" in attacks.

On Friday a relative of Tarayra, 27-year-old Sarah Tarayra, was shot dead after drawing a knife on Israeli forces in Hebron.

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Hebron has been one of the main focuses of a wave of deadly unrest that has rocked Israel and the Palestinian territories since October, with the army saying 80 of the attacks on Israelis were carried out by Palestinians from the Hebron area.

Several hundred Jewish settlers live in a tightly guarded enclave in the heart of the city of more than 200,000 Palestinians, a persistent source of tensions.

At least 214 Palestinians, 34 Israelis, two Americans, an Eritrean and a Sudanese have been killed since October.
Jerusalem (AFP) - A consortium led by US firm Noble Energy has approved a $265-million project to sink a new well in a major natural gas field off Israel, officials said Sunday.

Delek Drilling and Avner Oil Exploration, Israeli firms that are part of the partnership led by Noble, announced the financing for the Tamar field in the Mediterranean.

"The Tamar partners decided to approve a budget of about $265 million for drilling 'Tamar 8' and connecting to existing infrastructure in the Tamar field," Delek and Avner said in a joint statement.

It said the latest well would allow "maximum supply from Tamar field during times of peak demand, in light of the volume of production from Tamar and the existing and expected demand for natural gas from the field".

Tamar 8, the field's sixth production well, is located about 100 kilometres (60 miles) offshore and would reach a depth of around 3.5 kilometres below the sea bed, it said.

Drilling is projected to start in the last quarter of this year.

Completion of the well and its connection to the existing pipe network is expected to take four months, the statement added.

The Tamar field was discovered in 2009 and began pumping in 2013.

It is located some 130 kilometres off the Mediterranean port city of Haifa and has estimated reserves of up to 238 billion cubic metres (8.4 trillion cubic feet).

Its gas is so far being used for domestic supply within Israel.

The US-led consortium is also developing Israel's mammoth Leviathan gas field and aims to bring it online in 2019.

Israel hopes the development of Leviathan will allow it to export gas, which could help grease the wheels of regional diplomacy.

Leviathan, discovered in 2010, is estimated to hold 18.9 trillion cubic feet (535 billion cubic metres) of natural gas, along with 34.1 million barrels of condensate.

Development of its own energy resources is seen as a major strategic asset for Israel, which has no oil and little water.
By Tetsushi Kajimoto TOKYO (Reuters) - The families of seven Japanese killed by Islamist militants in Bangladesh prepared on Sunday to retrieve the remains of their loved ones, in shock at the deaths of the development-aid workers caught up in one of the most brazen attacks in the South Asian nation's history. "Im really embittered," Fumie Okamura, mother of victim Makoto Okamura, 32, told Reuters before the families boarded a government flight to Bangladesh capital Dhaka, where 20 people were killed in an upmarket restaurant on Friday. Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida met the families before they left and promised them the government's utmost support. Makoto Okamura, an employee of construction consulting firm Almec Corp, was working on an urban-transport project commissioned by the Japan International Cooperation Agency, which manages the Japanese government's overseas aid projects. "My son wanted to help developing countries," his mother told Reuters by phone from her home on the eastern outskirts of Tokyo. "He wanted to work in the field of urban-transport engineering, which was his dream since when he was in junior high school. "I'm a doting mother, but Im proud to say he was the perfect son." Japan has been heavily involved in Bangladesh infrastructure projects since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged in 2014 to provide support for what is one of the world's poorest countries. "It was an unpardonable act of terrorism," Abe told reporters after a National Security Council meeting to discuss Friday's attack. Italians and Americans were also among the victims of the attack, which could damage the confidence of the expatriate community in Bangladesh, many of whom work for multinationals in the country's $26 billion garment industry. Makoto Okamura's boss, Tamaoki Watanabe, was rescued after being shot in the attack. Six other Japanese men and women aged from their twenties to eighties were killed, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters. Among the victims were engineer Koyo Ogasawara, of Katahira & Engineers International, and Nobuhiro Kurosaki, of Oriental Consultants Co, domestic media reported. The government would not disclose the names of the victims. (Additional reporting by Linda Sieg and Takashi Umekawa; Editing by William Mallard and David Goodman)
Jen in Paris

Jennifer Garner just redefined the classic LBD.

The 44-year-old actress stepped out in a hip-hugging black dress with white accents as she made her way to the Versace fashion show in Paris. She paired the ankle-length gown (with a sexy slit down the leg!) with a gorgeous ring and simple black clutch. The dress is part of Versaces haute couture fall and winter collection, and Jen rocked it during her time in the city of love.

Almost as jaw-dropping as her dress, Garner was beaming as she walked into the fashion show on Sunday.

Garner touched down in Paris for Fashion Week on Friday, but this is not the mother-of-threes first time in the city this year. She and her three kids met husband Ben Affleck in Europe while he was there filming his new movie.

Jen and Bradley

But Jen had another leading man by her side at the Versace show. Garner sat in the front row next to Bradley Cooper.

What do you think of Jens Paris Fashion Week look? Sound off below!

Blake Bakkila
US senator John McCain expressed support for Pakistan's efforts in the fight against the Taliban after visiting a key tribal district recently retaken by the military, the Pakistani foreign ministry said Sunday.

A four-member, bipartisan US Senate delegation led by the former presidential candidate went to North Waziristan, where in 2014, under US pressure, the army launched an operation to wipe out militant bases and end the near decade-long Islamist insurgency.

In May, the army announced it had successfully cleared the area of militants.

The foreign ministry statement said that the US delegation had met with Pakistani Foreign Affairs advisor Sartaj Aziz and held talks on Pakistan-US ties as well as the situation in Afghanistan.

Aziz "appreciated Senator McCain for his positive comments regarding the importance of Pakistan-US relations at a time when the region was facing complex challenges," the statement said.

"Good delegation mtg w/ Chief of Army Staff of #Pakistan Gen Raheel Sharif & discussing regional security challenges," McCain said on his verified Twitter account, also posting photos of the delegation's visit to Waziristan.

The relationship between the two nations has been strained at times with some in Washington believing Pakistan has not done enough to bring its influence to bear and to persuade the Taliban to renounce violence.

Pakistan was angered over a recent US drone strike which killed the Taliban's leader Mullah Akthar Mansour in May in southwestern Balochistan province.

The US Congress also blocked the subsidised sale of eight F-16 jet fighters to Pakistan in May accusing of it of being lax in the fight against militants.

The US has carried out hundreds of drone strikes in Pakistan, mainly in the border tribal regions with Afghanistan, and leaked documents show Islamabad had quietly consented despite publicly protesting.

Drone attacks have proven extremely controversial with the Pakistani public and rights groups.
Czech cinematographer Miroslav Ondricek, who worked on some of Hollywood's most celebrated films, got his big break through the "toss of a coin," his son, Prague-based producer David Ondricek, told an audience Sunday at the 51st edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, which opened July 1 and runs through Saturday.

The late cinematographer, who died last year at 80, was chosen by British director Lindsay Anderson in 1968 to shoot If, starring Malcolm McDowell, kickstarting Ondricek's career in the West.

Ondricek - who went on to be nominated twice for an Oscar, for his cinematography on Ragtime (1982) and Amadeus (1985), both directed by fellow Czech Milos Forman - had met Anderson in Prague, where the British filmmaker had been impressed by Ondricek's work on such movies as Ivan Passer's Intimate Lighting and Forman's The Fireman's Ball.

But before Anderson decided to call Ondricek to invite him to be director of photography on If - the first of a loose trilogy of anti-establishment films the helmer made starring McDowell - he "tossed a coin" to be sure the decision was the right one.

"Anderson was a very superstitious man," David Ondricek said ahead of a Karlovy Vary screening of O Lucky Man! - the second in the trilogy on which his father also worked in 1973 - in a special festival section of classic films chosen by Czech directors."Before inviting my father to work with him he tossed a coin - my father liked the story and used to exaggerate and say he had been chosen on the best of three tosses. It was an offer he could not refuse."

Anderson's invitation came at a propitious time for the young Czech cinematographer; it was a period of relative freedom in the then Communist-ruled country, and he was free to travel to the West. The following year Soviet tanks moved to crush was became known as the "Prague Spring."

"But my father was so worried he would perform badly that during the flight to London he prayed the plane would crash to avoid bringing shame on the country," said the lenser's son.

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David Ondricek, who co-produced the fest's opening film Anthropoid - a wartime drama, directed by Sean Ellis and starring Cillian Murphy and Jamie Dornan, about the assassination of a top Nazi in occupied Prague - said shooting If, in which pupils at a minor English boarding school launch an armed uprising against their teachers, was a seminal point in his father's career.

Read More: WWII Drama 'Anthropoid,' Starring Jamie Dornan, to Open Karlovy Vary Festival

"The film was very influential; it was one of the inspirations for Pink Floyd's The Wall album," he added.

After working on If and O Lucky Man!, Miroslav Ondricek went on to lens dozens of Hollywood movies, including Hair, Silkwood and A League of Their Own.

In 2004, Karlovy Vary honored the cinematographer with a Crystal Globe for outstanding contribution to world cinema.

Read More: Jean Reno to Get Top Honor at Karlovy Vary
Keith Urban may have found a new backup guitarist at his Saturday night (July 2) show in Gilford, N.H.

Keith Urban, Carrie Underwood Among Artists Helping Country Expand Beyond American Borders

Urban -- who was playing the first of a two-night stand at the Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion -- gave aspiring Massachusetts musician Robert Joyce the axe off his back and was visibly floored as the guitarist ripped into his song "Good Thing," off of the album Fuse.

Backed by Joyce, Urban took the mic and began the song as the rest of the band joined in. He even let Joyce take the song's lead by exclaiming, "Play it to me, Rob!"

Urban invited Joyce up to the stage after spying a sign held up by his girlfriend, Lex. After reading the sign -- which read "It's my boyfriend's birthday!" (Joyce held a sign "Can I play your guitar?")--Urban beckoned the young musician up to join the band.

The former American Idol judge then conducted a short interview with his girlfriend, who told the star the couple met "playing pool at school."

"Just pool?" he quipped.

Not missing a beat, Lex suggested that Joyce could be Urban's "backup guitarist."

Joyce is a major Urban fan and has posted several YouTube videos covering his songs.

Urban clearly enjoyed jamming with Joyce, sending a "massive shout out" to the musician in a video on his Facebook page.

"You killed it," he can be heard saying in the clip below. "It was awesome. You played your ass off."

Keith Urban's Ripcord World Tour continues tonight (July 3) in New Hampshire.

Watch the special moment -- recorded by Michelle Rae -- here:
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenyan prosecutors will on Monday arraign in court three police officers over the killings of a lawyer, his client and their driver, the director of prosecution's office said on Saturday. Lawyer Willie Kimani and his client Josephat Mwendwa had filed a complaint alleging that Mwendwa had been shot and injured by police in April. Mwendwa was then charged with a range of offences, including possessing drugs, gambling in public and resisting arrest, rights activists said. The U.S.-based International Justice Mission, which Kimani and taxi driver Joseph Muiruri worked for, said on Friday their two bodies and that of their client Mwendwa had been found in the Ol-Donyo Sabuk River northeast of the capital. Police spokesman George Kinoti said in a statement that the three officers had been arrested in connection with the deaths and that an investigation was underway. "There are three suspects in custody and they will be arraigned in court on Monday," the Director of Public Prosecution said. The statement did not specify what charges they would face. Rights groups have in the past accused some sections of the Kenyan police of being involved in extrajudicial killings, a charge that police deny. (Reporting by George Obulutsa and Humphrey Malalo; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
Products of Midea are seen at a shop in Beijing, China, May 18, 2016. REUTERS/KIM KYUNG-HOONleft2 of 2rightleft1 of 2right



BERLIN (Reuters) - German mechanical engineering group Voith [VOITH.UL] has decided to sell its 25.1 percent stake in robot maker Kuka (KU2G.DE) to Chinese bidder Midea <000333.SZ> for about 1.2 billion euros (1 billion pounds), it said on Sunday.

The sale smoothes the path for Mideas takeover of Kuka, which initially upset German politicians who feared a loss of important technology. The two companies have since addressed those concerns by agreeing a deal to keep its existing headquarters, factories and jobs.

Midea has offered 4.5 billion euros for Kuka, making it the biggest German industrial technology company to be targeted by a Chinese buyer in a wave of deals over recent months.

Voith said it viewed its investment in Kuka as a success because the value of its stake had more than doubled since it acquired it around 18 months ago in December 2014.

I am convinced that Voith is one of the winners of this takeover offer, Voith CEO Hubert Lienhard said.

The company said it would use the proceeds from the sale for its strategy to invest in digital technologies, such as automatisation, IT security, sensors and robotics.

Midea, which already owned a 13.5 percent Kuka stake, has offered 115 euros a share and said it aimed to buy at least 30 percent of the company.

Kuka Chief Executive Till Reuter said last week that the company was in confidential talks with potential new investors to ensure Midea did not get more than a 49 percent stake.

Voith had wanted to use the stake in Kuka as part of its plans to expand its digital operations, but said on Sunday it made strategic sense to sell given the current situation.

Sources had told Reuters last month that Voith planned to tender its stake after a meeting between Voith and Mideas chief executives, at which Midea boss Paul Fang had indicated the Chinese company would not be in favour of Voith remaining a 25 percent shareholder.

(Reporting by Victoria Bryan; Editing by Michelle Martin and Keith Weir)
Kuwait City (AFP) - Kuwaiti security authorities have broken up three Islamic State cells plotting "terror" attacks in the oil-rich Gulf state, the interior ministry said Monday.

Five Kuwaiti nationals were arrested, including a policeman and a woman, who all confessed to plotting attacks against a Shiite mosque and an interior ministry target, the ministry said in a statement.

All members of the three cells also confessed to being members of the Islamic State jihadist group.

Kuwaiti police are still looking for a Gulf man and an Asian who assisted one of the cells, the ministry said.

The action against the Islamist cells comes a year after an IS-linked Saudi suicide bomber blew himself up in a Shiite mosque, killing 26 worshippers in the worst attack in Kuwait.

A court sentenced one man to death and jailed eight others for assisting the Saudi bomber.

Among those arrested in the latest police action was 18-year old Talal Raja who confessed to have been plotting a suicide attack against a Shiite mosque and an interior ministry installation by the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan on Tuesday, the ministry said.

The second cell consisted of a mother and son who were arrested in Syria in the IS-controlled Riga and brought back to Kuwait, the ministry said. It provided no details of how they were arrested.

The 28-year old son had cut short his petroleum engineering study in Britain to join the IS after his younger brother was killed while fighting for the group in Iraq, the ministry said.

The third cell comprised of two Kuwaitis, one of them a policeman, who were seized along with two Klashnikov rifles and ammunition. The pair confessed to plotting attacks in the country, the ministry said.

In November last year, Kuwaiti police busted an international cell led by a Lebanese man that was sending air defence systems and funds to the Islamic State group.

Several suspected IS members and sympathisers were tried in the Gulf emirate for a suicide bombing last month claimed by the group.
Kuwait City (AFP) - Kuwait said Sunday it plans to tap the international debt market through bond issues to finance its budget deficit after recording a first shortfall in 16 years.

The oil-rich Gulf state plans to "borrow up to three billion dinars ($10 billion) in US-denominated bonds from international markets, in both conventional and (Islamic) sukuk issuance," Finance Minister Anas al-Saleh told parliament.

The ministry will borrow another two billion Kuwaiti dinars ($6.6 billion) in both conventional and Islamic instruments from the domestic market, Saleh said.

It will be the country's first foreign debt in around two decades.

The borrowings will take place during the 2016/2017 fiscal year, which began April 1 and end next March 31, the minister said, without giving specific dates.

Saleh said the finance ministry has already borrowed $2.5 billion from the domestic market.

Saleh, who is also acting oil minister, said Kuwait recorded its first budget deficit of 5.5 billion dinars ($18.3 billion) in the 2015/2016 fiscal year.

Kuwait posted healthy budget surpluses for 16 consecutive fiscal years until oil prices began to slide two years ago. Oil income made up around 95 percent of public revenues.

During the surplus years, Kuwait piled up around $600 billion in its sovereign wealth fund managed by Kuwait Investment Authority in holdings mostly in the United States, Europe and Asia.

Parliament later on Sunday overwhelmingly passed the budget for 2016/2017 projecting a huge deficit due to the slump in oil prices.

Revenues were projected at 10.2 billion dinars ($33.9 billion), while spending was estimated at 18.9 billion dinars ($62.8 billion), leaving a shortfall of 8.7 billion dinars ($28.9 billion).

Oil income, calculated at a price of $35 a barrel, was projected at $29.2 billion, down by more than 60 percent of 2014/2015 crude returns before prices saw the sharp downfall.

During the debate in parliament, MPs called on the government to do more to diversify the sources of income to reduce dependence on oil.

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"For the past 60 years, we have remained under the mercy of oil... The government must search for alternatives," independent MP Adel al-Khorafi said.

The finance minister warned that due to the slide in oil revenues, "we now face serious challenges that put the stability and sustainability of our public finances at risk".

Like its Gulf peers, Kuwait has taken some austerity measures that include liberalising prices of diesel and kerosene and plans to hike petrol prices.

Two months ago, parliament approved a law to raise heavily subsidised power and water fees but exempted citizens. Implementation is scheduled after one year.

The wage bill in the new budget is estimated at over half of total spending while subsidies account for 15 percent, said the head of parliament's budgets committee, MP Adnan Abdulsamad.
By Martyn Herman LONDON (Reuters) - Nick Kyrgios teases that it was "love at first sight" when he met Andy Murray but the jokey banter will stop when the Australian takes aim at the world number two and Wimbledon title favorite on Monday. The mercurial 15th seed turned on the style to outclass Spanish veteran Feliciano Lopez on "People's Sunday", knocking off two sets in quick time for a 6-3 6-7(2) 6-3 6-4 win after bad light stopped the third-round clash the previous evening. Murray has won all 18 of his Tour level matches against Australians, but after gliding past John Millman into the last 16, he faces a far stiffer test against the dangerous Kyrgios who was in scintillating form against Lopez. There was a touch of arrogance about the way Kyrgios dispatched the left-hander, breaking once in the third and fourth sets as a packed Court One crowd reveled in his flamboyant shot-making. Even when he faced a beak point leading 4-3 in the fourth he sent down an audacious second serve ace at 122mph. While his fiery temperament has been questioned, Kyrgios was a model of calm on Sunday -- even shrugging off a time violation from umpire Pascal Maria when serving on match point. The 21-year-old, a quarter-finalist two years ago when he knocked out Rafael Nadal, will need equal focus against Murray. "I definitely feel like he's beatable. He's only human. At the same time he's a great player," Kyrgios told reporters. "This is his backyard. He's won here before. But this is probably my best surface, my best chance to beat him. "At the same time he's pretty comfortable on the grass." Murray, the highest seed left after champion Novak Djokovic's shock loss to Sam Querrey on Saturday, has a 4-0 career record against Kyrgios -- his only defeat coming in this year's Hopman Cup. The Scot has long been a fan of Kyrgios's game and even defended the Australian against what he called a "rough ride" from the media at the weekend. "You guys try and wind him up the whole time," Murray said. "He's improving all the time. He likes the big courts, the big matches. Has performed well in those situations before." Kyrgios will have to contend with a partisan home crowd on Monday, although that is unlikely to worry him too much. "I don't think anyone's going to have the crowd on their side when they go out there against Andy," he said. "It's going to be a really fun match. Looking forward to it." (Editing by Alison Williams and Ed Osmond)
London (AFP) - Serena Williams hailed Novak Djokovic for making "extreme history" despite her fellow number one having suffered his earliest Grand Slam exit in seven years.

Two-time defending champion Djokovic suffered a shock defeat to the unheralded Sam Querrey of the United States in the Wimbledon third round on Saturday.

It ended his hopes of going on to secure the first calendar Grand Slam since Rod Laver in 1969.

But Williams, the women's world number one and chasing an Open era record 22nd Grand Slam title, saluted Djokovic, who had won the last four Slams in a row.

"He and I have both made extreme history. He's won four in a row. I won four in a row last year. I think that's historic in itself," said Williams, who is chasing a seventh Wimbledon title this year.

"I am in those situations. Every time I step out on the court, if I don't win, it's major national news. But if I do win, it's just like a small tag in the corner."

- Laver questions Djokovic motivation -

Meanwhile, Laver admitted he was saddened by Djokovic's failure to break his 47-year long Grand Slam record.

"I'm still happy to have the title, but I don't own it," Australian legend Laver told ESPN television.

"I would have liked to have been at the US Open and be the first to shake Djokovic's hand if he did it. Don Budge did that for me in 1962 at Forest Hills."

US player Budge won the first calendar Grand Slam in 1938 before Laver achieved the feat twice, in 1962 and 1969.

Budge's message to Laver was: "Welcome to an exclusive club."

Djokovic had already captured the Australian and French Open titles in 2016 and was heavily favoured to defend his Wimbledon crown.

That would have left just the defence of his US Open trophy standing in the way of him and a place in the record books.

Laver, 77, believes Djokovic may have been lacking motivation after finally winning a first French Open last month which gave him ownership of all four Slams at the same time.

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"He just wasn't himself. Something was off," said Laver.

"Maybe he felt winning all four titles and being the defending champion of all four was a Grand Slam in his mind.

"And so even if it wasn't in the calendar year, it didn't matter. Way back in there somewhere you are thinking one thing, that it doesn't matter, but you are thinking it does matter.

"Those are two different thoughts to have when you are playing."

- Djokovic looking for positives -

Djokovic had admitted that he hadn't been "100 percent healthy" in the match with Querrey and was spotted rubbing his left shoulder as the tie slipped away.

But the 29-year-old refused to dwell on failing to grab Laver's record.

"I managed to win four Grand Slams in a row. I want to try to focus on that rather than on failure," the Serb said.

"Coming into Wimbledon, I knew that mentally it's not going to be easy to kind of remotivate myself."

World number two Andy Murray, the 2013 Wimbledon champion, said Sunday that Djokovic's defeat would have little bearing on his preparations.

As the top two seeds, they were scheduled to meet in the final and not before.

"The players left in my section of the draw are still formidable," Murray told the BBC.

"You've got Nick Kyrgios (who he plays in the last 16), who's beaten Rafa on Centre Court; Tsonga is one of the best grass-court players in the world; Richard Gasquet's still in there and he made the semis last year."

"There are some pretty decent players left in my way, so I'm not getting carried away."
LONDON (Reuters) - Andrea Leadsom, one of five candidates to succeed David Cameron as British prime minister, said on Sunday she would be quick to start the process of negotiating the terms of Britain's exit from the European Union. Asked when she would trigger article 50, the step that will formally begin the process, Leadsom declined to give an exact framework but made clear she thought it should happen as quickly as possible. "We need to get on with it, we need to seize the opportunity," she told BBC television. "It's about giving certainty to businesses, it's about saying to the world 'we're open for business'. Let's start getting some free trade agreements started as soon as we can. We need to get on with it, we need to get a grip and make progress." Leadsom, a prominent campaigner for a "Leave" vote ahead of the June 23 referendum which saw Britain vote to quit the EU, has emerged in the early stages of the contest to succeed Cameron as one of strongest candidates from the Brexit camp. The front-runner is Home Secretary Theresa May, who campaigned for a "Remain" vote. May said on Thursday she would not trigger article 50 this year. "The next person to lead this country has to somebody who believes in the opportunity of leaving the EU," Leadsom said. She added that she was confident Britain could continue to trade tariff-free with EU countries after Brexit. "I genuinely believe on trade with the EU ... there are very strong reasons both financial and for reasons of links we will continue to trade tariff-free." (Reporting by Estelle Shirbon and Michael Holden, editing by Paul Sandle)
(BAGHDAD) Iraqi authorities on Monday raised the death toll to 149 from Sundays devastating truck bombing at a bustling Baghdad commercial street as Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered new security measures in the countrys capital.

The bombing, claimed by ISIS, was the deadliest terror attack in Iraq in a year and one of the worst single bombings in more than a decade of war and insurgency. It underscored ISIS ability to strike the Iraqi capital despite a string of battlefield losses elsewhere in the country and fueled public anger toward the political leadership.

The suicide bomber blew up his explosives-laden vehicle in Baghdads mostly Shiite Karada district, a favorite avenue for shoppers  especially during the holy month of Ramadan, with the streets and sidewalks filled with young people and families after they had broken their daylight fast.

Police and health officials said Monday the toll reached 149 but that it was likely to increase even further as rescuers are still looking for missing people. At least 192 people were wounded, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to talk to reporters.

Hours after the bombing, al-Abadi visited the attack site in Karada, but a furious mob surrounded his convoy, yelling expletives, hurling rocks and shoes at the prime ministers cars and calling him a thief.

In a statement issued later Sunday, al-Abadi ordered that a scandal-ridden bomb detection device be pulled from service. He also ordered the reopening of an investigation on the procurement of the British-made electronic wands, called ADE 651s.

In 2010, British authorities arrested the director of the British company ATSC Ltd. on fraud charges, prompting Iraqis to open their own investigation on alleged corruption charges against some officials. Iraqi authorities made some arrests, but the investigation went nowhere and the device remained in use.

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Along with taking away the electronic wand detectors, al-Abadi also ordered that X-ray systems be installed at the entrances of provinces. He demanded the upgrades of the capitals security belt, increased aerial scanning, a step-up in intelligence efforts and the division of responsibility among various security units.

Iraqi and foreign officials have linked the recent increase in ISIS attacks especially large-scale suicide bombings  with the string of losses ISIS has faced on the battlefields across Iraq over the past year.

Iraqi security forces, supported by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, have retaken the cities of Tikrit, and Ramadi, the Anbar provincial capital. Also in Anbar, Iraqi forces liberated Fallujah from the extremist group just over a week ago.

At the height of the extremist groups power in 2014, ISIS had deprived the government of control of nearly one third of Iraqi territory. Now the militants are estimated to control only 14 percent, according to the prime ministers office. ISIS militants still control Iraqs second-largest northern city of Mosul, north of Baghdad.

___

Associated Press writers Ali Abdulhassan and Khalid Mohammed in Baghdad, and Maamoun Youssef in Cairo contributed to this report.
London (AFP) - The British government faces a legal challenge to stop it beginning the process of leaving the European Union without an act of parliament, a law firm announced Sunday.

Lawyers at Mishcon de Reya argue that the British government cannot trigger Article 50, the legal process for leaving the EU, without a parliamentary debate and vote authorising it to do so.

"The result of the referendum is not in doubt, but we need a process that follows UK law to enact it," said Kasra Nouroozi, a partner at Mishcon de Reya in a statement.

"The outcome of the referendum itself is not legally binding and for the current or future prime minister to invoke Article 50 without the approval of parliament is unlawful."

As a majority of British lawmakers support remaining in the 28-member bloc, the legal challenge has the potential to complicate the process.

Mishcon de Reya said a "group of clients" was behind the legal action, without naming them, though The Lawyer magazine reported the clients were "a group of businesses".

Once Article 50 is triggered, Britain has two years to negotiate the terms of its exit.

The British government said that the details were still to be worked out.

"We have now got to look at all the detailed arrangements," a spokeswoman for the Cabinet Office said.

"Parliament will clearly have a role in making sure that we find the best way forward."

Mishcon de Reya said it had been in correspondence with government lawyers since June 27, four days after the referendum in which Britain opted to leave the EU in a vote that crashed financial markets and sent shock waves through the continent.

One of the lawyers working on the case is Tom Hickman, co-author of an article that argued the British prime minister alone cannot begin Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.

Without an act of parliament, "the declaration would be legally ineffective as a matter of domestic law and it would also fail to comply with the requirements of Article 50 itself" it argued.
By Libby George and Ahmad Ghaddar LONDON (Reuters) - Once-rival leaders of Libyas National Oil Corporation (NOC) have agreed on a structure for the group that aims to put to rest squabbles over who has the right to export the countrys oil, according to a statement. Oil industry leaders in OPEC-member Libya have said they could quickly double production to over 700,000 bpd if conditions stabilized. Before a 2011 revolution, Libya was producing 1.6 million bpd. The rival oil officials agreed in principle to unify the oil sector in May, but the agreement on the structure and leadership of a joint group took weeks of meetings to iron out. (http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL5N18D4JT) Mustafa Sanalla, who led the Tripoli-based NOC, will remain chairman of the group, while the head of the eastern-backed NOC, Naji al-Maghrabi, will serve as a board member, according to a statement seen by Reuters. A UN-backed unity government that arrived in Tripoli in March is seeking to replace two rival governments that were set up in Tripoli and the east, and to unite Libya's many political and armed factions. A united oil sector would be a key support for the unity government. Libya relies heavily on oil exports as a source of income and hard currency. This agreement will send a very strong signal to the Libyan people and to the international community that the Presidency Council is able to deliver consensus and reconciliation, Sanalla said in the statement. Al-Maghrabi said both men made a strategic choice to put our divisions behind us as there is no other way forward. Oil production sank to around 200,000 bpd in May after a political dispute between the eastern and western factions blocked loadings at Marsa al Hariga for more than three weeks. A unified NOC structure could also smooth negotiations to reopen the El Sharara and El Feel fiels, which are closed due to disagreements with local groups. The two sides also agreed a budget for the remainder of the year, taking steps to address any imbalances resulting from the period of division, they said. They also identified infrastructure rehabilitation as a big goal, particularly in the eastern city of Benghazi, "in preparation for the relocation of NOC's headquarters". NOC aims to hold meetings of its board of directors meetings in Benghazi "if security conditions permit. The joint NOC will also submit periodic reports to committees established by both the Presidential Council and the House of Representatives, which it recognised as the highest executive and legislative authorities within Libya. (Editing by Susan Thomas)
PARIS (AP) -- Police say a few dozen people were slightly injured in the Paris Euro 2016 fan zone when a fight among British fans prompted a rush for safety.

It was the first such incident in the Paris fan zone since the tournament started June 10, and comes amid tensions and high security across the country. France is under a state of emergency after extremist attacks last year, and hooligan violence that marred the early days of the tournament.

Paris police and city hall officials said Sunday that a group of fans started fighting during extra time in Saturday's quarterfinal between Germany and Italy. People near the fighting fans moved away, while scores of others ran for the exits, the officials said.

One person was hospitalized with injuries but should be released Sunday, while the others were treated on site at the fan zone beneath the Eiffel Tower, said a city hall official.

The incident lasted barely four minutes and no arrests were made, said the police official. Both officials were not authorized to be named according to government policy.
New York (AFP) - A 19-year-old man was seriously injured, and may have lost a foot, after landing on what appeared to be an amateur explosive or firework in New York's Central Park on Sunday, officials said.

The incident comes as authorities step up security over the US Independence Day weekend, especially at airports and other transport hubs.

"We have no evidence that this is related to terrorism," NYPD deputy chief John O'Connell told reporters, noting that it is "not unusual for the public to make or try to create homemade fireworks around the Fourth of July."

NYPD Bomb Squad Commanding Officer Mark Torre said there was no evidence that the device "was placed or put in this area with a specific intent to harm any individuals."

Authorities said the accident occurred when three males, aged 18-20, jumped off a rock in Central Park. One was injured when his foot landed on the device and caused the explosion.

"The explosion could have been an experiment with fireworks or homemade explosives," O'Connell told the press conference.

The injured male was taken to New York's Bellevue Hospital and was "in serious but stable condition," he added.

A fire department spokesman said first responders had transported the man "with a possible amputation to his leg... It appeared to be partially amputated" by the explosion.

At last report, the victim was undergoing surgery, authorities reported.

The incident took place around 11:00 am (1500 GMT) at the huge park in Manhattan.

Torre told reporters that investigators were "not finding anything consistent with a constructed IED (improvised explosive device)."

"There is some forensic evidence that indicates that it was not meant to go off by somebody stepping on it," he added.

Specially trained dogs were checking the park for any further explosives, the officials said.
There might actually be some good news about the ozone layer

There might actually be some good news about the ozone layer

If youve paid attention over the last few decades, youll know that news about the ozone layer is usually pretty bad. Scientists have observed parts of the ozone layer that have thinned, such as over Australia, which has resulted in an increase of UV radiation threatening all living things  exposure is dangerous as it can lead to a higher risk in cancer in humans, for example.

The ozone layer has also thinned in over Antarctica and actually caused a hole, again acting as a huge threat to the environment and its inhabitants. The ozone layer is essential to humanity, because it absorbs harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun.

There are many causes of this depletion which have occurred over time, from natural wind in the stratosphere, to our own use of substances that deplete the ozone, such as aerosol spray cans and air conditioning. Those products contain chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) , which have chlorine in them and are very harmful to the ozone layer. They were very, very bad news for decades, but finally, scientists are showing us a little hope: An international treaty in 1987 banned the use of CFCs in refrigerator coolants and aerosols, and finally the world is seeing positive results.

According to scientists at MIT who have been monitoring the ozone hole above the Antarctic for the last thirty years, it is shrinking due to the decrease in CFCs. Susan Solomon is an atmospheric chemist at MIT, and she recently published this study about the healing of the ozone layer. As she told Gizmodo, This is a reminder that when the world gets together, we really can solve environmental problems. With challenges like climate change bearing down on the planet, this proof that we can have a positive influence on our environment.

Of course theres a long way to go before the ozone layer recovers, but this is a step in the right direction.

The post There might actually be some good news about the ozone layer appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Cairo (AFP) - Search teams have recovered more human remains from the EgyptAir plane that crashed into the Mediterranean in May, the Egyptian-led investigative committee said Sunday.

The search vessel John Lethbridge "retrieved all the human remains that were mapped at the crash location," the Egyptian Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee said in a statement.

After delivering the remains in Alexandria, the vessel will return to the crash location "to conduct a new thorough scan of the seabed and to search for any human remains," the committee said.

The Airbus A320 plunged into the sea on May 19 while heading to Cairo from Paris, killing all 66 people on board.

Egyptian and French forensic doctors onboard the search vessel supervised the retrieval process, the committee said.

The recovered remains will be examined by prosecutors and forensic specialists in Alexandria before being sent on to Cairo for DNA analysis.

A committee probing the plane disaster said Saturday that the memory chips of EgyptAir 804's black box voice recorder are intact and investigators should be able to access them.

The other black box, a data recorder that had also been retrieved from the bottom of the Mediterranean, has already been accessed.

Investigators said last week that the plane's wreckage showed signs of fire while the data recorder confirmed smoke alarms had been activated.

The plane was carrying 40 Egyptians, 15 French, two Iraqis, two Canadians and one passenger each from Algeria, Belgium, Britain, Chad, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Sudan.
By Barbara Goldberg NEW YORK (Reuters) - The death of World War Two concentration camp survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel was mourned on Sunday by admirers worldwide who honored his life-long fight for millions of Holocaust victims. "My husband was a fighter," Marion Wiesel said in a statement. "He fought for the memory of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust, and he fought for Israel. He waged countless battles for innocent victims regardless of ethnicity or creed." Wiesel, 87, died on Saturday at his home in New York City. His wife was among mourners who attended a private funeral service on Sunday at the Fifth Avenue Synagogue on Manhattan's Upper East Side. A public memorial will follow at a later date, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity said. Speaking to reporters outside the funeral, Abraham Foxman, former director of the Anti-Defamation League and a friend of Wiesel, said the world had lost a great moral voice. "We the survivors lost the voice of memory. And, I personally have lost a very special friend," Foxman said. Condolences from leaders around the world filled social media with memories of Wiesel demonstrating the triumph of goodness over inconceivable horrors. His advocacy on behalf of Holocaust victims earned him the Nobel Peace prize in 1986. He told their story in his landmark book "Night," maintaining that "to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time." Even as he received the Congressional Gold Medal at the White House in 1985, he rebuked U.S. President Ronald Reagan for planning to lay a wreath at a German cemetery where some of Hitler's notorious Waffen SS troops were buried. 'CONSCIENCE FOR THE WORLD' In a tribute on Sunday evening, the lights of One World Trade Center's 408-foot (124-meter) spire in Lower Manhattan will display the blue and white colors of the Israeli flag. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Wiesel was a legendary New Yorker, author and activist, and he added in a statement: "May Elie's memory forever be a blessing." Officials at the Holocaust memorial in Israel said Wiesel was a voice for people everywhere in need of justice. He fought for the rights of victims in Sudan's Darfur region, noted Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, chairman of Yad Vashem Council and former Chief Rabbi of Israel, as well as for Jews behind the Iron Curtain in the Soviet Union. "Over time, Elie Wiesel became really a conscience for the world," Robert Rozett, director of Yad Vashem Libraries, told Reuters TV in an interview. Wiesel's tenacity on behalf of Holocaust sufferers and the downtrodden was matched by his warmth and encouragement of loved ones, said his son Elisha Wiesel. "My father raised his voice to presidents and prime ministers when he felt issues on the world stage demanded action. But those who knew him in private life had the pleasure of experiencing a gentle and devout man who was always interested in others, and whose quiet voice moved them to better themselves," he said in a statement. "I will hear that voice for the rest of my life, and hope and pray that I will continue to earn the unconditional love and trust he always showed me," he said. While the Romanian-born Wiesel was best known for his campaign never to let the world forget the Holocaust, one of his greatest rewards was working with students, including those at Boston University, where he was a religion and philosophy professor. "What was most meaningful to him was teaching the innumerable students who attended his university classes," Marion Wiesel said. Boston University said in a statement the school was heartbroken to have lost such an "iconic" teacher. (Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Tom Heneghan, Bernard Orr)
(Reuters) - A Muslim man was beaten on Saturday outside a Florida mosque attended by the gunman who killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub, though authorities and a Muslim civil rights group differed as to whether the attack was racially motivated. The St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office said the assault outside the Fort Pierce Islamic Center was reported around 4:11 a.m. local time and that deputies found the victim, who had been punched in the head and face, bleeding from the mouth. The suspect, 25-year-old Taylor Anthony Mazzanti, was arrested shortly thereafter and booked on a charge of felony battery, the office said. "Interviews by the deputies and supervisors on scene and a written witness statement completed by the victim do not indicate any racially-motivated comments were made by the suspect prior to, during or after the incident," Sheriff Ken Mascara said in a statement. Mascara said the investigation was ongoing. The Florida branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) gave a different account of the incident. The organization said a senior official with the Muslim non-profit, ICNA Relief, was with the victim and that the attacker approached spouting racial slurs and other offensive language. CAIR said the attacker, who is white, allegedly said, "You Muslims need to get back to your country," before assaulting the victim, who was not identified by CAIR or authorities. CAIR said the victim was Muslim and attended the Islamic Center. The Islamic Center's imam had requested extra security following the mass shooting last month by Omar Mateen at the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, about 120 miles to the north, according to CAIR and mosque spokesman Wilfredo Ruiz. Ruiz said Mateen had infrequently attended the mosque. Mateen, who was killed by police after a three-hour siege inside the club, declared himself to be an "Islamic soldier" and pledged allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State militant group, according to emergency call transcripts released by the FBI last month. Ruiz criticized the Sheriff's Office for not giving them additional security, saying: "This should not have happened." Sheriff Mascara said statements on the attack made by mosque officials and CAIR included "untruthful rhetoric." (Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Mary Milliken)
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- After Clayton Kershaw had a follow-up examination on his sore back, the Los Angeles Dodgers said they remain unsure when the three-time NL Cy Young Award winner will return.

Kershaw said after last Sunday's loss at Pittsburgh that he felt back stiffness. He received an epidural injected and was placed on the 15-day disabled list after an examination by Dr. Robert Watkins revealed a mild disk herniation.

''We don't know much more than we did a few days ago,'' Dodgers President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman said Sunday. ''Everything that's happened in the three or four days since the epidural has been extremely positive. That being said, I think we'll know more in the next week. We just need to give it time past the epidural to get a sense of improvement, and then we'll go from there.''

Friedman is confident Kershaw will avoid surgery. The 28-year-old left-hander will undertake a five-step program and start throwing at some point.

''Obviously that will be a big first step,'' Friedman said.

The program centers around strengthening Kershaw's core muscle group.

''Whenever somebody has anything in the back, the core strengthening helps with the back in that process of when you start throwing, which obviously is what everybody cares about,'' Friedman said.

Kershaw said Saturday that his back had not hurt when he pitched, but had been bothering him for an extended time. He said that it had been taking him longer and longer to get loose, and that until Monday he chalked it up to routine wear and tear.

Unbeaten in his 10 previous starts, Kershaw (11-2, 1.79) had his second-worst outing of the year against the Pirates, giving up four runs and nine hits in six innings.
barack obama

Barack Obama is prepared to campaign for his party's likely nominee more than any sitting president in recent history  starting next week in Charlotte, North Carolina.

That could be a big problem for the GOP. And a huge boon for Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee.

"I'm fired up," Obama said in a video endorsing Clinton last month.

And, apparently, he's ready to go. In a newly released Washington Post/ABC News poll, Obama's approval rating hit 56%  his highest level since 2011, after the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Last month, an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that President Barack Obama's approval rating had jumped to 51%  its highest point since his second inauguration.

NBC's team of political analysts called it the "most important number" out of the poll.

"Why is it important? Because it means that Obama will be an asset to Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail unlike he was in the 2014 midterms, when his approval rating was in the low 40s," NBC's Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Carrie Dann wrote.

The number might seem arbitrary. But historical precedent suggests it could bode well for Clinton, Obama's former secretary of state.

Early this year, Obama's approval rating hit 50% in the weekly average from Gallup's daily survey. Almost three months later, his number in Gallup's poll stands at 51%, as of Friday. For Obama, whose approval ratings have been stuck in the mid- to low-40% range for much of his second term, it was a notable bump.

"While it's hard to pinpoint precisely why Obama's approval rating has risen among Democrats recently, there are a number of plausible explanations," wrote Andrew Dugan, a Gallup analyst, and Frank Newport, the organization's editor-in-chief, in a post earlier this year.

One of the explanations, the pair concurred, was that "the unusual status of the Republican primary race  exemplified in particular by frontrunner Donald Trump's campaign style and rhetoric  may serve to make Obama look statesmanlike in comparison."

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Donald Trump

Trump has come into Obama's crosshairs recently. And with good reason: More so than at any other presidential hand-off in recent history, so many elements of the current administration's legacy are at stake.

The presumptive Republican nominee has pledged to undo signature achievements on healthcare (the Affordable Care Act), the environment (historic new regulations aimed at curbing climate change), and foreign policy (the Iran nuclear deal).

Ben LaBolt, a former spokesman for Obama's presidential campaigns, told Business Insider that those themes will become evident as the president launches into what will be his final campaign: Preventing a Trump presidency. And LaBolt suggested Obama is the perfect messenger.

"President Obama gives Hillary Clinton a hat trick: He can help unite the party by bringing out Bernie Sanders supporters into her camp, deliver an aggressive contrast about the threat posed by Donald Trump, and ensure that all the supporters of the Obama coalition show up in November," LaBolt said.

He added: "Not only does he have strong standing among Democrats and independents, but he has a unique ability to mobilize the young voters and diverse communities she'll need to win."

Obama's approval ratings at this point are far better than his predecessor, President George W. Bush, off whose unpopularity Obama thrived during his 2008 run. His level is most directly comparable to former President Ronald Reagan, who in March 1988 held a 51% approval rating, according to Gallup.

That same year, voters selected George H.W. Bush  Reagan's vice president  to succeed him.

"Yes," said Ari Fleischer, President George W. Bush's press secretary, when asked earlier this year if Obama's apparent rising popularity poses a problem for the Republican Party.

"Certainly, going into an election spring and summer, its better to have an incumbent president increasingly popular rather than less popular if youre the incumbent party," he told Business Insider.

The numbers present a striking contrast to some data points associated with the current Republican presidential frontrunner.

Obama

A Gallup survey revealed that 42% of voters view Trump in a "highly unfavorable" light, compared with 16% who see him highly favorably. That's the highest negative percentage for any major presidential candidate since at least 1956, according to Gallup.

"I've been doing this [since] 1964, which is the Goldwater years," NBC/WSJ co-pollster Peter Hart told NBC of the relative unpopularity of many of the candidates earlier in the year. "To me, this is the low point. I've seen the disgust and the polarization. Never, never seen anything like this. They're not going up; they're going down."

Closest to Trump? Clinton, whom 33% of the electorate views highly unfavorably.

It helps explain why Clinton is attaching herself to much of Obama's legacy. And Obama remains favorable to wide swaths of constituencies whom Clinton needs to turn out to vote in November. The president held high approval ratings among African-Americans (90%), Democrats (82%), Latinos (73%), and voters aged 18 to 34 (64%), according to Gallup.

And despite the strong primary challenge from Sen. Bernie Sanders, in many ways, Clinton has run an incumbent-style campaign, and she has much of the party's establishment rallying behind her candidacy.

As Gallup's Dugan and Newport wrote earlier this year:

"In comparison, the two most recent candidates running to succeed a two-term president of the same party  John McCain running to follow the unpopular Bush, and Al Gore trying to succeed the popular but scandal-prone Bill Clinton  went to greater pains to ensure they were not associated with the outgoing president."

They concluded: "Prior to that, George H.W. Bush in 1988 presented himself as a natural heir to the Reagan legacy and was able to win his own term."

NOW WATCH: TRUMP SPOKESWOMAN: Why the Republican Party has 'miserably failed'





More From Business Insider


Vichy (France) (AFP) - Reigning world, Olympic and European 50m freestyle champion Florent Manaudou suffered his first defeat in two years in his favourite distance on Sunday, just a month before the Rio Games.

Manaudou surrendered the lead to Andrii Govorov at the French Open, the Ukrainian clocking a winning time of 21.93 seconds to pip the Frenchman (22.11sec) to a shock victory.

"When you have not lost for two or three years it sucks," said Manaudou, 25, the world short-course record holder.

"This is the first time in four years that I swam so badly in a final."

Manaudou had been hoping to pull off a 50m-100m freestyle double at the August Rio Games but failed to qualify for the latter at earlier French nationals.

He will nevertheless still swim a 100m in Rio as one of the 4x100m relay team and where France will defend their Olympic title.

Manaudou is the younger brother of former Olympic women's swimming champion Laure Manaudou.
Let us pause for a moment our U.S. independence commemorations  which for most of us, in true American fashion, consist entirely of grilling meat and setting off lesser explosives  to mark the independence of a country on the other side of the world.

The United States declared independence from Britain on July 4, 1776. On July 4, 1946, 170 years later, 70 years ago Monday, the Philippines gained independence from the United States.

The American colonists who fought for separation from the British empire had always been British subjects, and were themselves in the process of subjugating North Americas original occupants, plus the victims of the Atlantic slave trade. Filipinos, at the turn of the 20th century, after centuries of Spanish colonial rule, were on the very verge of realizing their aspiration for self-rule, only to have it crushed by the U.S. victory in the Spanish-American War in 1898.

In the Philippines, a movement led by Emilio Aguinaldo declared independence from Spain on June 12, 1898, two months ahead of the August signing of the Treaty of Paris, which ended the four-month conflict. That document ceded the archipelago, along with Puerto Rico and Guam, to the United States. It also ended the Spanish dominion in Cuba and ushered in a new age of American imperial expansion.

Those pushing for an independent Philippines transitioned from fighting the Spanish to fighting the United States, a country that many Filipinos had hoped would help overthrow the Spanish  not replace them. (Much the same happened at the same time in Cuba.) William McKinley was U.S. president during the Spanish-American War, but Theodore Roosevelt, who succeeded him as president in 1901, inherited both the Philippines and the conflict there. At least 200,000 Filipino civilians died during the PhilippineAmerican War, as a result of violence, disease, or starvation. Although the conflict simmered on in some remote areas for another decade, the U.S. Army won lopsidedly. Roosevelt declared victory over the Filipino insurgents in 1902  on July 4.

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Thats the irony, Vicente L. Rafael, professor of history and Southeast Asian studies at the University of Washington in Seattle, told National Geographic on Friday. The fourth of July is supposed to be a declaration of independence. But for Roosevelt in 1902, the fourth of July was a declaration of conquest.

The bloody Philippines insurrection prompted plenty of soul searching in the United States. In 1900, Mark Twain told a reporter for the New York World:

I have tried hard, and yet I cannot for the life of me comprehend how we got into that mess [in the Philippines]. I thought we should act as their protector  not try to get them under our heel. We were to relieve them from Spanish tyranny to enable them to set up a government of their own, and we were to stand by and see that it got a fair trial. It was not to be a government according to our ideas, but a government that represented the feeling of the majority of the Filipinos, a government according to Filipino ideas. That would have been a worthy mission for the United States. But now  why, we have got into a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater. Im sure I wish I could see what we were getting out of it, and all it means to us as a nation.

At that time, Americans were just beginning to ask many of the same questions the country still struggles with today. Two years after Twains remarks, the Atlantic published an unsigned essay arguing that the Philippines should be free:

It is plain enough now that we are holding the Philippines by physical force only, and that the brave and unselfish men we have sent there have been assigned to a task which is not only repellent to Americans, but bitterly resented by the supposed beneficiaries of our action. Lincoln put the whole moral of it, with homely finality, into his phrase about no man being good enough to govern another man without the other mans consent. The islands came to us partly through force of circumstances, partly through national vanity and thirst for power, but mainly through our ignorance. Now that we have learned what we were really bargaining for, it becomes possible to give over the burden to those to whom it belongs.

But by the 1930s, Philippine nationalists had wrested some important concessions from Washington. The archipelago, still a key piece in Americas Pacific strategy, was inching closer to independence: It became a U.S. commonwealth in 1935, with plans for full independence. Then the Second World War intervened. American and Filipino soldiers fought and died together in campaigns against the Japanese. Toward the end of the war, Gen. Douglas MacArthur famously returned to liberate the archipelago from Japanese occupation.

And a year later, on July 4, 1946, the United States finally followed through on years of promises and granted the Philippines independence  40 years to the day after Teddy Roosevelt declared victory in the Philippine-American War. But in many ways, the archipelago continued to live under Americas shadow. The United States maintained important naval and air bases there until the early 1990s, for example.

The United States might have failed to recognized the irony in declaring freedom for the Philippines on July 4, but the Philippines didnt. In 1962, President Diosdado Macapagal changed his countrys official independence day to June 12  the day the Philippines declared independence from Spain in 1898.

In the Philippines, July 4 is now designated Philippine-American Friendship Day. No one takes off work, and few celebrate.

Image credit: Phillipines Presidential Museum and Library/Flickr
Tom Bergeron, host of this years A Capitol Fourth on PBS, hopes that the event on the west lawn of the Capitol in Washington on Monday is a reminder to put current political divisions in perspective.

The non-partisan event on PBS features performers like Kenny Loggins, Smokey Robinson, Amber Riley, Gavin DeGraw, Cassadee Pope, Sutton Foster and the National Symphony Orchestra.

Something like this, A Capitol Fourth, during a year like this, kind of underscores that while it may be divisive, it may be contentious, it may be ugly at times, we are all part ultimately of a big albeit dysfunctional family, he tells a special Independence Day edition of Varietys PopPolitics on SiriusXM. And we have been through a lot worse. I have had people say, Have you ever seen it this bad? I say, Do you remember the Civil War? Theres been worse things.

Bergeron cited the success of the Broadway musical Hamilton, which he says brilliantly displays the birth of the U.S. while at the same time shows how contentious and ugly some of the aspects of that were.

As with any real estate purchase, I think the ideal party is all about location, location, location, and how can you beat DC and the west lawn of the Capitol for the Fourth of July non-partisan party?

Listen below:

How Filmmakers Got a Close-Up View of JFKs Oval Office

D.A. Pennebaker is most famous for the Bob Dylan documentary Dont Look Back and the Clinton campaign film The War Room. But in the early 60s, he was in the documentary unit of Robert Drew & Associates, which was producing a series of innovative films chronicling the presidential campaign of John F. Kennedy and later his time in the Oval Office.

The movies, including Primary and Crisis, are unusual for the level of access Kennedy granted to the filmmaking team, and almost unthinkable today as public figures are perpetually on guard and determined to craft their own narrative. The movies were recently released as part of the Criterion Collections The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew & Associates.

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Pennebaker tells PopPolitics that Kennedy was willing to allow cameras to follow him because he was determined to have a visual record of history. In Crisis, Pennebaker followed Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy as they navigated a standoff with Alabama Gov. George Wallace over the 1963 integration of the University of Alabama. Both Kennedys, Pennebaker says, understood the power of this new style of filmmaking, sometimes called cinema verite, even as others in media and the administration did not.

Listen below:

PopPolitics, hosted by Varietys Ted Johnson, airs Thursdays at 2 p.m. ET/11 a.m. PT on SiriusXMs political channel POTUS. It also is available on demand.

(Pictured: Alabama at a dress rehearsal for last years A Capitol Fourth.)

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DHAKA, Bangladesh  The hostages were given a test: recite verses from the Quran, or be punished, according to a witness. Those who passed were allowed to eat. Those who failed were tortured and slain.

The dramatic, 10-hour hostage crisis that gripped Bangladeshs diplomatic zone ended Saturday morning with at least 28 dead, including six of the attackers, as commandos raided the popular restaurant where heavily armed attackers were holding dozens of foreigners and Bangladeshis prisoner while hurling bombs and engaging in a gunbattle with security forces. The victims included 20 hostages, mostly foreigners, and two Bangladeshi police officers.

The attack marks an escalation in militant violence that has hit the traditionally moderate Muslim-majority nation with increasing frequency in recent months, with the extremists demanding the secular government revert to Islamic rule. Most previous attacks have involved machete-wielding men singling out individual activists, foreigners and religious minorities.

But Friday nights attack was different, more coordinated, with the attackers brandishing assault rifles as they shouted Allahu Akbar (God is Great) and stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhakas Gulshan area while dozens of foreigners and Bangladeshis were dining out during the Ramadan holy month.

The gunmen, initially firing blanks, ordered restaurant workers to switch off the lights, and they draped black cloths over closed-circuit cameras, according to a survivor, who spoke with local TV channel ATN News. He and others, including kitchen staff, managed to escape by running to the rooftop or out the back door.

But about 35 were trapped inside, their fate depending on whether they could prove themselves to be Muslims, according to the father of a Bangladeshi businessman who was rescued Saturday morning along with his family.

The gunmen asked everyone inside to recite from the Quran, the Islamic holy book, according to Rezaul Karim, describing what his son, Hasnat, had witnessed inside. Those who recited were spared. The gunmen even gave them meals last night.

The others, he said, were tortured.

Detectives were questioning his son and his family along with other survivors as part of the investigation on Saturday, as scattered details of the siege emerged. Authorities were also interrogating one of the attackers captured by commandos in dramatic morning rescue.

It was not immediately clear whether the attackers had a specific goal, and Bangladesh authorities would not say if they had made any demands.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility, saying it targeted the citizens of Crusader countries in the attack, warning that citizens of such countries would not be safe as long as their warplanes kill Muslims. The statement was circulated Friday by IS supporters on the Telegram messaging service and resembled previous statements by IS. It was not immediately clear if its leadership in Syria and Iraq was involved in planning the attack. The Amaq news agency, affiliated with IS, also posted photos purportedly showing hostages bodies, though the authenticity of the images could not be confirmed.

The government did not directly comment on the IS claim but has denied in the past that the extremist group has a presence in Bangladesh. The government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina instead has accused her political enemies of orchestrating the violence in order to destabilize the nation  which the opposition denies.

On Saturday, Amaq published photos of five smiling young men each holding what appear to be assault rifles and posing in front of a black IS flags whom the agency identified as the attackers, according to the SITE Intelligence Service, which monitors jihadi online activity. They were identified by noms de guerre indicating they were all Bangladeshis. Amaq said the fighters used knives, cleavers, assault rifles and hand grenades.

Amaq said the attackers verified the identities of the hostages, sparing the Muslims and killing the foreigners.

The 20 hostages killed included nine Italians, seven Japanese, three Bangladeshis and one Indian, government sources said, as details of the bloodshed began trickling from other capitals worldwide. The White House confirmed Saturday that a U.S. citizen was among the hostages killed, but did not release any further identification.

All the hostages were killed last night. The terrorists used sharp weapons to kill them brutally, said Brig. Gen. Nayeem Ashfaq Chowdhury of the Army Headquarters in a news conference Saturday night.

Two Bangladeshi police officers also died from injuries sustained while exchanging gunfire with the attackers Friday night.

Ten of 26 people who were wounded Friday night when the militants opened fire were in critical condition, and six were on life support, according to hospital staff. The injuries ranged from broken bones to gunshot wounds. Most of them were police officers, but one was a civilian. Hospital staff refused to provide any details of their condition on Saturday.

In the end, paramilitary troops managed to rescue 13 hostages, including one Argentine, two Sri Lankans and two Bangladeshis, according to Lt. Col. Tuhin Mohammad Masud, commander of the Rapid Action Battalion that conducted the rescue operations. Japans government said one Japanese hostage was also rescued with a gunshot wound.
Dads were not the only demographic enjoying Fathers Day weekend as fans of fashionable cars convened at the 29th annual EyesOn Design Automotive Design Exhibition in Grosse Pointe Shores, Mich. The theme of this years event was Powered by Design, the emphasis placed on aesthetics over provenance.

On Saturday, June 18, attendees had the rare opportunity to view the legendary Lingenfelter Collection by way of a side trip to the city of Brighton. Automobile aficionado and owner of Lingenfelter Performance Engineering, Ken Lingenfelter opened the doors to his private enclave of about 200 examples that include an Enzo Ferrari, a LaFerrari, and multimillion-dollar models like the Bugatti Veyron and the Lamborghini Reventon.

But European supercars are only a part of his acclaimed assemblage. About 40 percent of it comprises Corvettes, including the first supercharged examplea 1953 variant built by McCulloch Motors (one of only two). Adding to the cars rarity is the fact that, despite the 6-cylinders supercharger boosting performance by 35 percent and enhancing the rate of acceleration from zero to 60 mph by 3 seconds, General Motors never brought the idea to production.

Also on display was the vehicle that helped save the Corvette line from being scrapped entirelythe famed Duntov Mule. The 1954 prototype was equipped with a 195 hp, bored V-8 engine and reached a record-setting 163 mph in 1955. And as testament to Lingenfelters own prowess with high performance, a 2016 Z06 Corvette features his Stage One engine package that pulls out another 70 hp from the existing 650 hp, 6.2-liter LT-4 under the hood. While the collection is normally closed to the public, special event and tour dates (listed on its website) provide occasional opportunities for viewing.

The festivities hit full speed on Sunday with the EyesOn Design exhibition at the historic Edsel and Eleanor Ford House in Grosse Pointe Shores. The concourse consisted of over 350 cars (shown by invitation only) judged by designers from major marques. Competitors were culled into five classes: Indianapolis Pace Cars (various pace cars from the 100 runnings of the Indy 500); American Classics (a selection dating between 1915 and 1948); Icons of Design (the major automakers important stylistic sensations from 1949 to 1972); American Muscle (beautiful brutes from the 1960s and 1970s); and the Collectors Circle (a cross-category assortment based on owners discretion).

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A benefit for the Detroit Institute of Opthalmalogy, the EyesOn Design event gave a clear vision of vehicle advancement over the decades. The most recent releases, however, will be recognized at the annual EyesOn Design Awards presentation during the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit, Mich. The industry expo will take place next year from January 8 to 22. (eyesondesign.org; lingenfeltercollection.com)

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Macy's

American retail is struggling.

One major problem is that shoppers do not want to come into stores. After all, they have the ease of online shopping.

This is not a secret.

In fact, Forbes' Barbara Thau called the decline in foot traffic a "dirty open secret" in the industry.

In other words: Everybody knows about it.

It shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, though.

Amazon is cutting into the market share, to the point that Morgan Stanley predicts Amazon will hold 19% of the entire apparel market by 2020, up from 7% right now. Further, retailers need to give consumers more reasons than ever to shop in stores.

Yet oddly enough, as fewer and fewer people come into stores, retailers appear to become more lax about how their stores look (or the excess inventory just keeps piling up).

j crew may 27

It ends up becoming a vicious cycle, turning off more and more shoppers.

"To my mind, there are three issues: ease, inspiration, and image," Neil Saunders, CEO of consulting firm Conlumino wrote in an email to Business Insider.

Further, clutter makes it difficult to shop, makes for an uninspiring experience, and it seriously cuts into the company's brand image, something that many brands  from Nordstrom to J. Crew  have been fighting to keep alive, particularly as incessant discounting erodes their respective reputations as premiere retailers.

"The image is of 'pile it high, sell it cheap which, in the case of those retailers, jars with the business model and is at odds with other areas of the shop. This has become a bigger problem over recent years," Saunders wrote.

This gives consumers more and more reasons to shop online  it's much easier, after all.

That's not to say retailers aren't trying to bring people into stores. It's just that lots of the strategies that companies are employing aren't helping; Macy's, Gap, and J. Crew have all reported negative comparable sales in their most recent quarters.

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Macy's actually launched its in-store off-price sections to lure consumers into stores.

However, it's only led to lots of disarray  at least, in its flagship in New York City. Look no further than the photo below as evidence.

Macy's

And Gap, for instance, proudly boasts promotions outside. It's a way to get people into physical stores (especially if they weren't going to buy the apparel at full price, anyway).

Gap

Yet these come at the expense, once again, of disrupting the brand's reputation and conditions consumers to only look for sales.

Macy's, however, seems to get that it needs to latch on to "experiences" to get people  especially young consumers, who value experiences (like fitness, for instance) over "things"  into stores. In Ohio, it's testing out a new format that will include high-end experiences like personal shoppers and a spa.

But it raises a question: If people already don't want to go inside of a Macy's, is that enough to bring them in?

NOW WATCH: The biggest security mistakes people make when buying things online





More From Business Insider


By Alastair Macdonald and Elisabeth O'Leary BRUSSELS/EDINBURGH (Reuters) - Could Scots get their wish to remain, effectively, in the European Union even while maintaining their union with England once the United Kingdom as whole leaves the EU? Dubbed the "reverse Greenland" option, that was among ideas kicked around by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon during a flying visit to Brussels after Scots voted heavily against Brexit while their southern neighbors opted to quit the EU. Sturgeon, a pro-independence nationalist, stressed during her visit to the EU capital on Wednesday that she was keeping an open mind and simply wanted "all of the options for Scotland" considered once a new British government starts negotiations on what, in principle, is supposed be a two-year divorce process. But several people involved in the meetings she had with the EU executive and lawmakers told Reuters that ideas discussed included possible models based on the fact that several states have some parts in the EU and some outside - as in the case of EU member Denmark and its non-EU territory Greenland. At its most extreme - and, in the view of officials and experts, deeply implausible - a "reverse Greenland" solution might see the Scottish government in Edinburgh take on Britain's EU membership while remaining in the United Kingdom and the UK government in London would, like Greenland in the 1980s, pull England out of the EU while keeping the British state united. More plausibly, Sturgeon's warm reception in Brussels amid the shock of Brexit, highlighted the possibility that British withdrawal from the EU could well be accompanied by special EU arrangements for some of the United Kingdom's constituent parts - not just Scotland but also Northern Ireland and Gibraltar. "They discussed possibly Scotland getting special status within the UK to let it still be a member of the EU somehow," an EU official who took part in one of Sturgeon's meetings said. "On the 'reverse Greenland' option, she wasn't trying to put it on the agenda. It was a genuine reflection." Senior EU officials say they are in no mood now to do more than brainstorm, even if they sympathize with the plight of the pro-EU Scots. Brussels faces existential and legal nightmares to cut loose the bloc's second biggest economy and expects to wait months for a new British government even to start the process. "Scotland is a part of the UK," a spokesman for the European Commission said. "All parts of the UK should sort out what they want to do," he added, calling the options "speculation". WITHOUT INDEPENDENCE, OPTIONS OPEN However, Sturgeon's trip to Brussels, on the very day the EU sat down without Britain to consider its options, showed leaders her determination to get a seat at the Brexit negotiating table. Crucially for her charm offensive in a city that rebuffed Scots' appeals for assurances of EU membership during their 2014 independence referendum - a reflection of fears of secession in other EU states such as Spain - Sturgeon kept the secession card firmly off the table, insisting that was not the priority. "We don't come at it from the starting point of independence," she told reporters in Brussels. "We come at it from the starting point of protecting Scotland's interests." Another person familiar with one of her meetings said Sturgeon was told that Brussels did not want to be drawn into a battle inside Britain or offer a future independent Scotland any fast-track to EU membership - and she had not disputed that. "She didn't use the Brexit referendum as an excuse to leave the UK. She wasn't pushing independence at all," the person said. "That was smart ... it's not what Brussels wants to hear." Alyn Smith, an EU lawmaker for Sturgeon's Scottish National Party (SNP) who won a standing ovation in the chamber on Tuesday with a plea to the EU not to "let Scotland down", stressed: "I am talking about status rather than membership ... Everyone wants to talk about Scottish independence - except us." Keeping close EU ties, such as in education and research for which Edinburgh has its own powers and a big economic interest, might be achieved in a variety of ways, involving considerably less constitutional acrobatics than Greenland-inspired ideas. These would be much more likely to secure approval by the other 27 EU states. "Reverse Greenland" is just "silly" in the opinion of David Edward, formerly Britain's justice on the EU's top court and, with Smith, a member of an advisory panel Sturgeon set up in the wake of the Brexit vote to explore Scotland's options. Scotland has 100 times the population of Greenland and, in the reverse scenario, it would be England, 10 times bigger again, that was playing "Greenland" to Scotland's "Denmark". In other states with differing internal relations with the EU, it is minority regions, not the main state, which is outside. But, Edward said, the Scottish government could use devolved powers in some areas to rework partnerships with Brussels. AUTONOMOUS PARALLELS Alyn Smith said the advisory group had drawn up a list of all the different territorial arrangements in the EU, which also include for example exemptions from EU tax and economic rules for the likes of French departments in the Caribbean or the English Channel island of Jersey, ruled by the British crown. The closest, though not very close, analogy, Smith thinks, is that of Finland's autonomous, Swedish-speaking Aland Islands. Scotland should look into using devolved powers to take part in EU programs like the Erasmus student system or the Horizon 2020 research fund, in which several non-EU states - including Israel - participate, Edward said: "It's not much but it's something, given Scotland's commitment to academic research." Sturgeon has not ruled out the possibility of a second independence referendum and Scottish anger at Brexit and chaos in London politics may have bolstered support for secession. But the fall in oil prices has put Scotland's potential finances in a poorer position than two years ago, while the depth of trade ties with England and the problems that a new customs border along the River Tweed would create still leave many unconvinced. The EU also would be unlikely to grant Scotland concessions that Britain has secured during its 43 years of membership. EU officials also caution that Sturgeon should not under-estimate hostility among other member states. The Spanish prime minister, wary of Catalan separatists, was also in Brussels on Wednesday and threw cold water on Scottish EU membership. Yet, the demonstrative pro-European clamor in Scotland has struck a chord with shellshocked EU politicians who, Edward said, are "absolutely fed up to the back teeth" of the British. "At least Nicola Sturgeon maintained goodwill," he said. MEP Smith said that goodwill could be vital in promoting the kind of legal creativity EU lawyers are renowned for: "Brussels is good at this," he told Reuters. "So if there is goodwill - and there is goodwill as we saw - a solution is possible." (editing by Janet McBride)
By James Regan and Jonathan Barrett

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Rio Tinto (RIO.L) (RIO.AX) will keep a newly formed division that includes troublesome coal and uranium assets, its newly appointed chief executive told Reuters, brushing off expectations it would consider a spin off and eventual sale.

BHP Billiton (BHP.AX) (BLT.L) last year separated and listed South32 (S32.L) (S32.AX), a collection of alumina, aluminium, manganese, nickel and other assets, to allow the world's largest miner to focus on its core operations. This year, South 32 stock has outperformed both BHP and Rio.

Rio's creation of a new Energy and Minerals division last month - an estimated $9 billion of assets including Rio's Iron Ore Company of Canada (IOC) - was seen by analysts and some investors as a step in a similar direction, and towards potential sale.

Jean-Sebastien Jacques, who took the helm on Saturday, said there would be no spin off.

"The answer is no," Jacques told Reuters from London in a telephone intervew. "They are run for cash, that's absolutely clear."

He said that while the unit would not be a focus of major new investment, it would serve as an "incubator" for new businesses outside Rio's core areas.

This could include a move into lithium, which promises to benefit from the electric car revolution.

Rio's lithium assets include the Jadar project in Serbia, which Rio estimates could account for a fifth of annual global lithium supplies.

With cash reserves of over $9 billion, Jacques, known in the industry as "JS", is facing the key question of how to pursue growth after the five years of aggressive cost cutting that followed the collapse in commodity prices.

Aged 44, Jacques is the youngest chief executive in Rio's 143-year history, and the first born in France - a rarity at the top of a fiercely anglophone industry - but he is one of a new generation of post-boom, post-bust executives that must rethink growth for the industry's future, at a time when investors remain wary of major investments.

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"We are one of the few mining companies that can look forward to growth," Jacques said.

"We have a good balance sheet, we are profitable at the bottom of the cycle, we continue to pay significant dividends  nobody else is really paying dividends at this time," he said.

COPPER RESURGENCE

Jacques has already unveiled sweeping corporate and executive changes aimed at supporting cautious growth. Analysts and investors have said his own background, as the former head of copper and coal, suggests a shift away from iron ore, which has been the single largest contributor to Rio's bottom line.

"We believe that the first commodity that may get out of the over-supply environment is copper," Jacques said.

Jacques said the miner was open to acquisitions, especially in copper - one of few metals where demand is expected to exceed supply by the end of the decade, and new finds are rare - but gave no specifics.

Fresh from closing a deal in May to finance a $5.3 billion expansion of the Oyu Tolgoi mining project in Mongolia, a key plank in Rio's push to become a copper powerhouse, investors had cautioned Jacques against rushing into deals, even if more than $30 billion of assets are on the table globally.

"When I look at recent prices achieved in the copper space, the prices achieved for the sellers were very good," he said.

"We are not going to rush down this road."

Major copper mine sales over the past months have implied a copper price above the current market, in one case more than $7,000 a tonne - compared to market prices closer to $4,900.

(Reporting by James Regan and Jonathan Barrett; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
Back in 2012, in the UK, Vaseline launched a pink champagne flavored lip balm called Pink Bubbly which was touted as letting your lips enjoy a champagne lifestyle with a gorgeous rose hue for a natural demure look and enriched with champagne grape extract to intensively moisturize and smooth. It was limited edition and sold out quickly across the pond.

You May Also Like: 10 Weird Uses For Lip Balm

Fast-forward to 2016, and this British secret is finally outand just in time to satiate our insane obsession with all things rose, available to the masses in the US. The American product packaging (above) looks very similar to the British original (below) and according to bloggers who reviewed the British release back in 2012, the scent is out of this world delicious, described as equal parts rosy, fruity and fizzy.





The Limited Editon Lip Therapy Pink Bubbly is available exclusively at Walgreens starting today (July 3) for $5. To that, we say, yes way rose!




CAIRO (Reuters) - A search vessel contracted by the Egyptian government has recovered all mapped human remains under water at the crash site of EgyptAir flight MS804 in the Mediterranean, Egypt's aircraft accident investigation committee said on Sunday. The John Lethbridge, belonging to Mauritius-based Deep Ocean Search, headed to Alexandria port to hand over the remains to coroners and prosecution officials, the committee said in a statement. It will return to the crash site to make further checks for any possible remains there, the statement said. The Airbus A320 plunged into the eastern Mediterranean en route from Paris to Cairo on May 19 and all 66 people on board were killed. The cause of the crash remains unknown. The plane is believed to have crashed in the deepest part of the Mediterranean. Investigators have started analyzing one of its so called black box flight recorders and are extracting information from the other. Debris from the jet was brought to Cairo airport last week, where investigators will try to reassemble part of the frame to help establish what might have caused the disaster. No explanation for the disaster has been ruled out. But current and former aviation officials increasingly believe the reason lies in the aircraft's technical systems, rather than sabotage. Initial analysis of the plane's flight data recorder showed there had been smoke in the lavatory and avionics bay while recovered wreckage from the jet's front section showed signs of high temperature damage and soot, the first physical signs that fire may have broken out on the airliner. The Paris prosecutor's office opened a manslaughter investigation on Monday but said it was not looking into terrorism as a possible cause of the crash at this stage. (Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
By William Schomberg LONDON (Reuters) - British finance minister George Osborne is planning to cut corporation tax to less than 15 percent in an attempt to offset the shock to investors of the country's decision to leave the European Union, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. Osborne was also quoted saying he would put more effort into Britain's relationship with China and lead another trade visit later this year, after the shock referendum decision. He told the newspaper he wanted to build a "super competitive economy" with low business taxes and a global focus. Osborne did not specify a date for cutting corporation tax to below 15 percent. In his most recent budget statement, announced in March, Osborne announced a cut in the corporation tax to 17 percent by 2020, down from 20 percent now. That compares with an average of about 25 percent among other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and a further cut may anger some EU countries which have expressed concerns about competitive tax policies. Earlier on Sunday, Reuters reported that the OECD, in an internal email, said it believed a further cut in corporation tax by Britain was unlikely but if it happened it would "really turn the UK into a tax haven type of economy." Other elements of Osborne's plan to steer the economy through the upheaval caused by the Brexit vote included ensuring support for bank lending, intensifying efforts to direct investment to northern England and maintaining Britain's fiscal credibility, the FT quoted him as saying. Last week, Osborne said he would no longer target a budget surplus in 2020 because of the expected hit to the economy from the referendum result. The signs from Osborne of a softer approach to fixing the public finances and tax cuts to woo investors come after Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said last week that he believed the economy would need more monetary stimulus soon. The Brexit vote threatens to redefine Britain's growing financial services relationship with China, which has agreed to a number of joint projects as part of the China-UK Economic and Financial Dialogue programme to deepen economic ties between the two counties, based largely on the UK's membership of the EU. Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a state visit to Britain last October to seal what both call a "golden time" in relations. Britons stunned the world with a vote to leave the EU in a referendum on June 23. Prime Minister David Cameron resigned after the vote, asking his Conservative Party to choose another leader by the autumn. Osborne told the FT he had not yet decided who to back in the Tory leadership contest, which has seen interior minister Theresa May become the front-runner to become prime minister. Osborne was talking to the BoE to ensure lending does not "seize up" and that the Brexit vote does not produce a repeat of the credit crunch in 2007-2008, according to the paper. Osborne was once considered a future British leader but he has not put himself forward to succeed Cameron after the two men failed in their campaign to keep Britain in the EU. But we have got to make sure we are as close as possible to our European allies and that they remain not just key friends and strategic partners but also a crucial export market, Osborne said. (Writing by William Schomberg and Abinaya Vijayaraghavan; Editing by Clelia Oziel and Mary Milliken)
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - U.S. Senator John McCain said on Sunday he would like relations between United States and Pakistan to improve as they have a common enemy in the Islamic State and other radical Islamist groups. Relations between Pakistan and United States have been frayed over the past decade, with U.S. officials frustrated by what they term Islamabad's unwillingness to act against Islamist groups such as the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network. Pakistan rejects harboring militants but says there are limits to how much it can do as it is already fighting multiple Islamist groups and is wary of "blowback" in the form of more terror attacks on its soil. McCain, visiting Pakistan as part of a U.S. delegation, said he had an "excellent meeting" with Pakistani foreign ministry officials. "We come back with a message that we have a common enemy in ISIS, radical Islam and terrorism, and we look forward to closer relations and resolving the differences we have," McCain told Pakistan's national PTV channel. Relations between United States and Pakistan were tested again in May by a U.S. drone strike that killed Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour on Pakistani soil. As part of the visit, McCain traveled to Miranshah, the capital of the restive North Waziristan region bordering Afghanistan. The region was effectively run Islamists by groups such as the Pakistani Taliban and the Haqqani network until the Pakistani military launched operations against them in 2014. "I was very impressed with the progress (on the ground)," said McCain, who is the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "I see us working together in confronting a common challenge  radical Islamic terrorism  and these kinds of meetings are very helpful to both those countries," McCain added. The Islamic State has struggled to gain a major foothold in Pakistan, analysts say, but officials worry the group may pose a threat in the future. Pakistan said the country's top foreign policy official Sartaj Aziz had briefed the U.S. delegation - which includes Senators Lindsey Graham, Benjamin Sasse and Joe Donnelly - about faltering peace talks to end the civil war in Afghanistan. So far China, United States and Pakistan have struggled to persuade the Afghan Taliban to meaningfully embrace the talks. "No country had as much vital stakes in the success of these joint efforts, as Pakistan, (Aziz) remarked," Pakistan's foreign ministry said in a statement. (Reporting by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
London (AFP) - Serena Williams needed just 51 minutes to clinch the 300th Grand Slam win of her career on Sunday as the defending champion made the Wimbledon last 16.

The 34-year-old American brushed aside Germany's world number 43 Annika Beck 6-3, 6-0 on the back of 25 winners and seven aces and goes on to face long-time Russian rival Svetlana Kuznetsova.

"I thought it was good. I still want to get out to a little bit of a faster start but I was really focused and calm," said Williams, who is just six wins short of Martina Navratilova's Open era record of 306 Slam wins.

Williams has now won 82 matches at Wimbledon as she remains on course to equal Steffi Graf's Open era record of 22 Grand Slam titles with her seventh Wimbledon crown.

Williams took the starring role as play was held on the middle Sunday for only the fourth time in Wimbledon history, and the first time since 2004, as organisers tried to clear the backlog caused by days of rain.

Nick Kyrgios, the Australian 15th seed, booked a last-16 clash with world number two Andy Murray after beating Feliciano Lopez 6-3, 6-7 (2/7), 6-3, 6-4 in another tie held over from Saturday at one set all.

Murray, the 2013 champion, is the top seed left in the draw after world number one Novak Djokovic was knocked out by Sam Querrey on Saturday.

"I definitely have the tools to beat Andy, but saying that, he's probably one of the best players in the world and he's probably the favourite at the moment since Novak is out," Kyrgios said.

- Isner going the distance again -

Fans who managed to secure tickets for Sunday's extra day of play got their money's worth on Court Two, where Jo-Wilfried Tsonga downed US marathon man John Isner 6-7 (3/7), 3-6, 7-6 (7/5), 6-2, 19-17.

French 12th seed Tsonga, a semi-finalist in 2011 and 2012, saved a match point in the 32nd game of the final set.

The last set alone lasted more than two hours.

Isner, the 18th seed, famously won the longest tennis match ever played when he beat another Frenchman, Nicolas Mahut, 70-68 in the final set at Wimbledon in the first round in 2010.

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That five-setter, stretched over three days, lasted 11 hours and five minutes.

Tsonga goes on to face fellow Frenchman Richard Gasquet for a spot in the quarter-finals.

Unseeded Czech left-hander Jiri Vesely, who beat Djokovic in Monte Carlo in April, made the fourth round of a Slam for the first time by beating Portuguese 31st seed Joao Sousa 6-2, 6-2, 7-5.

He will meet compatriot and 10th seed Tomas Berdych, the 2010 runner-up, who edged German teenager Alexander Zverev 6-3, 6-4, 4-6, 6-1.

Two-time Grand Slam champion Kuznetsova reached the Wimbledon fourth round for the first time since 2008 despite becoming involved in a row with the umpire over coaching.

The 31-year-old 13th seed battled back from 2-5 down in the final set to defeat US 18th seed Sloane Stephens 6-7 (1/7), 6-2, 8-6.

But the Russian was hit with a code violation for coaching early in the final set which prompted a bitter exchange with umpire Marijana Veljovic.

"I'm just doing my job," said the official.

"Well, you're not doing it very well," responded Kuznetsova, the 2004 US Open champion and 2009 French Open winner.

- Friends clash -

Russian 21st seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova made the last 16 of a Slam for the first time since the 2011 US Open by seeing off Swiss 11th seed Timea Bacsinszky 6-3, 6-2.

Pavlyuchenkova will face US 27th seed Coco Vandeweghe, who knocked out sixth-seeded Italian Roberta Vinci 6-3, 6-4.

Vandeweghe is one of the in-form players on grass this year, winning at 's-Hertogenbosch and making the semi-finals in Birmingham.

Russia's Elena Vesnina made the fourth round for the first time in seven years by ending the run of US qualifier Julia Boserup, the world number 225, in straight sets, 7-5, 7-5.

Vesnina will face doubles partner and close friend Ekaterina Makarova, who was a bridesmaid at her wedding last year, for a spot in the quarter-finals.

French 32nd seed Lucas Pouille saw off former US Open champion Juan Martin del Potro 6-7 (7/4), 7-6 (8/6), 7-5, 6-1 in a tie held over from Saturday.

Pouille next faces Australian 19th seed Bernard Tomic in what will be his first appearance in the last 16 at a major.
London (AFP) - Serena Williams takes the starring role on 'People's Sunday' at Wimbledon when she tackles Germany's Annika Beck looking for a 300th Grand Slam win and a spot in the last 16.

Defending champion Williams is chasing a seventh All England Club title and an Open era record-equalling 22nd Grand Slam trophy.

She has never met 22-year-old Beck, the world number 43, and will be heavy favourite with the German only having won one match on four previous visits before this year.

"I do believe that every match I do plan on getting better," said the 34-year-old American.

"I hope to play more matches to get better. I'm ready for it. I'm ready for any challenge."

A 300th win at the majors will take her to within six of Martina Navratilova's all-time record.

For only the fourth time in history, and first since 2004, play is taking place on the middle Sunday as organisers try to clear the backlog caused by days of heavy rain.

The All England Club put 22,000 tickets on general sale for Sunday which took just 27 minutes to sell out. Around 111,000 people tried to purchase them.

American 27th seed Coco Vandeweghe gets action under way on Centre Court against veteran Italian sixth seed Roberta Vinci who shocked Serena in the US Open semi-finals last year.

The 24-year-old Vandeweghe made the Wimbledon quarter-finals in 2015.

The programme on the main court concludes with German teenager Alexander Zverev facing 2010 runner-up Tomas Berdych.

Tenth seed Berdych is bidding to record his first win against a seed at Wimbledon since 2013.

The German, who is through to the third round at Wimbledon for the first time, is hoping to record his first win against a seed at a Grand Slam.

The men's draw is still reeling from Saturday's shock exit of defending champion Novak Djokovic in the third round.

Andy Murray will now be the joint-favourite with Roger Federer to succeed Djokovic.

Murray doesn't play Sunday but he will take a keen interest in the tie between Australian 15th seed Nick Kyrgios and Feliciano Lopez, the Spanish 22nd seed.

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Murray will face the winner of that third round clash which was one set apiece when play was halted for bad light Saturday.

Kyrgios was at the centre of a new row on Sunday when he was heard labelling one of his own support team as "retarded".

The incident, picked up by microphones on Court One, occurred during the second set of his third round match.

US 18th seed John Isner is two sets to one ahead of French 12th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in their clash.

On Court 12, French 32nd seed Lucas Pouille leads former US Open champion Juan Martin del Potro 6-7 (7/4), 7-6 (8/6), 7-5.

That match will resume with both men having bickered and argued for large parts of Saturday's action.

On Court One, Russian 13th seed Svetlana Kuznetsova, a three-time quarter-finalist, tackles American 18th seed Sloane Stephens.
London (AFP) - Serena Williams takes the starring role on 'People's Sunday' at Wimbledon when she tackles Germany's Annika Beck for a place in the fourth round.

For only the fourth time in history, and first since 2004, play will take place on the middle Sunday as organisers try to clear the backlog caused by days of heavy rain.

Defending champion Williams is chasing a seventh All England Club title and an Open era record-equalling 22nd Grand Slam trophy.

She has never met 22-year-old Beck and will be heavy favourite with the German only having won one match on four previous visits before this year.

Organisers put 22,000 tickets on general sale for Sunday and they took just 27 minutes to sell out.

Around 111,000 people tried to purchase them.

American 27th seed Coco Vandeweghe gets action under way on Centre Court against veteran Italian Roberta Vinci who shocked Serena in the US Open semi-finals last year.

The programme on the main court concludes with German teenager Alexander Zverev facing former runner-up Tomas Berdych.

The men's draw is still reeling from Saturday's shock exit of defending champion Novak Djokovic in the third round.

Andy Murray will now be the joint-favourite with Roger Federer to succeed Djokovic.

Murray doesn't play Sunday but he will take a keen interest in the tie between Australian 15th seed Nick Kyrgios and Feliciano Lopez, the Spanish 22nd seed.

Murray will face the winner of that third round clash which was one set apiece when play was halted for bad light Saturday.

US 18th seed John Isner is two sets to one ahead of French 12th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in their clash.

On Court 12, French 32nd seed Lucas Pouille leads former US Open champion Juan Martin del Potro 6-7 (7/4), 7-6 (8/6), 7-5.

That match will resume with both men having bickered and argued for large parts of Saturday's action.
Singapore is refusing to back down in its pursuit of those responsible for haze-belching forest fires in Southeast Asia last year, despite struggling to bring the perpetrators before the courts and drawing a sharp rebuke from neighbouring Indonesia.

Forest fires are part of an annual dry-season problem in Indonesia, started illegally to quickly and cheaply clear land for cultivation -- particularly for palm oil and pulpwood.

But last year's haze outbreak was among the worst in memory, shrouding Malaysia, Singapore, and parts of Thailand in acrid smoke and forcing school closures as pollution reached hazardous levels and thousands fell sick across the region.

Singapore has served notice to six Indonesian companies it believes may have cleared land by burning but could target others as investigations continue, according to Singapore's ambassador to Indonesia Anil Kumar Nayar.

"We are going after, to put it starkly, the bad guys that are causing this problem," he told AFP in an interview last week.

However, the city-state's efforts to punish Indonesian companies under its own anti-haze law have become a flashpoint with Jakarta.

Singapore argues that international rules allow states to take action -- even if harm is being caused by activities outside its jurisdiction -- but Jakarta has questioned how Singapore could pursue Indonesian citizens for prosecution, especially in the absence of a ratified extradition treaty between the neighbours.

The latest sabre-rattling came after Singapore issued a court warrant in May to detain a director of an Indonesian company linked to the haze while he was in the city-state.

Afterwards, Indonesia's Environment Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar said that she would be reviewing her ministry's cooperation with Singapore on environmental issues.

"Singapore cannot step further into Indonesia's legal domain," Bakar told reporters in June. Her spokesman declined to comment further on the matter when contacted.

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Nayar reiterated that Singapore wasn't crossing any line pursuing these companies and was within its rights to enforce its law.

"We are not doing something that is extraordinary. It is not targeting any country, or anybody's sovereignty," he said.

The law threatens local and foreign firms with fines of up to $100,000 Singaporean dollars (US$74,000) for every day Singapore endures unhealthy haze pollution.

So far just two of the companies have responded to the court order, Nayar said, without naming specific firms.

- Slow progress -

Singapore has repeatedly asked Indonesia for details about companies -- such as maps showing who owns what concessions -- but says Jakarta has not provided any information.

Singapore would "continue to press", Nayar said, but added the evidence needed to prosecute these companies could be found by other means.

"We could go that way as well, but at the end of the day this is part of a legal process. We want to be working with the Indonesian government," he said.

One of Indonesia's main arguments is that a regional approach to solving the haze crisis would be more effective than individual action.

"They (Singapore) know our view on this, on how we can best address this issue of haze through the ASEAN mechanism," ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir told AFP.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has an agreement to create a haze-free region by 2020, though it took 14 years to be fully ratified.

Nayar says regional progress on curbing haze has been slow.

Fellow ASEAN member Malaysia, which also suffers during the haze outbreaks, has expressed interest in adopting its own law similar to Singapore's to pursue errant companies.

Jakarta has promised tougher action in the wake of last year's haze disaster, which turned skies yellow in Indonesia's part of Borneo island and dealt the economy a $16 billion blow.

The government announced in May it would no longer grant new land for palm oil plantations, and established a new agency to restore millions of hectares of carbon-rich peatlands susceptible to fires.
In a frantic final few hours, free-agent forward Al Horford reached agreement on a four-year, $113 million maximum contract with the Boston Celtics, league sources told The Vertical. Horford had been a four-time All-Star in his nine seasons with the Atlanta Hawks, and his decision to join the Celtics gives Boston a chance to elevate itself in the Eastern Conference. Boston met with Kevin Durant on Saturday in the Hamptons in Long Island, N.Y., and will try to sell Durant on joining Horford in the Celtics' frontcourt.
A Massachusetts boy was killed this weekend when a spooked cow on his father's farm trampled him to death.

George Carter was helping his dad exercise the family's cows on Saturday when one of the farm's 20 animals became startled.

Badly injured, the boy was rushed to Anna Jacques Hospital in Newburyport and pronounced dead, CBS News reports.

Watch: Cow Sneaks Into Owner's House and Gets Comfortable Waiting In Living Room

Massachusetts State Police are investigating the death, which happened just before 1 p.m. before the cows were due to be shown at a livestock fair.

Carter's father shared the devastating news in a post to a GoFundMe page created in George's memory and to help the family with expenses as they grieve.

Watch: Mother Cow Watches Rescuers Save Her Calf's Life After Being Run Over By Car

The page reads:

"Jackie O'Sullivan and I lost our 8-year-old son George today in a freak accident; in preparing to show our farm animals at the Barnstable fair, he was exercising a cow and in an instant, the animal got spooked and dragged him to his death.

"I know this is said all the time, but anyone who knew George loved him. Our family is suffering incredible sorrow and hardship at this time and any support is appreciated."

The campaign had raised just over $3,300 of a $20,000 goal as of late Sunday afternoon.

Watch: Woman Uses Hose to Rinse Off Manatee Lost in Florida Algae Bloom

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Julia Furers graduate short Julian, which plays in Karlovy Vary Film Festivals Future Frames section, is a modern tragedy. It portrays at a man who has lost his sense of direction and for whom work is the final security.

Managing this in a 20-minute film that rarely leaves its locale, a freight station sidings warehouse in Zurich, is already an achievement. Filming her subject, the Canadian harpsichord-maker Julian Holman with obvious sympathy but no schmaltz, is another.

Lensed in mostly medium-shot, Julian also captures the tenor of Holmans tragedy. Articulate, histrionic, cultured, but alone, he is able, if only gradually, to admit to himself the enormity of his lifes calamity as he faces eviction and seeming definitive distancing from a little daughter he hasnt seen for 12 years, after he holed up in is workshop. During that time, a once-dashing artist has aged decades.

Yet, he seems unable to do anything about his catastrophe apart from emote in sad-sack self-pity. Pulling out a record from a box of olds LPs, he signs along to Patti Smiths lilting lullaby, The Jackson Song, tears streaming down his face.

Made over three years at the Lucerne School of Art and Design, using tiny fragments, Furer creates a complex portrait of very unusual and fascinating personality, Future Frames program coordinator Anna Purkrabkova explained.

We always feel the filmmakers hand gently directing the angle of the camera and structuring the edit in a most poetic way, added Catherine Ann Berger, head of the Swiss Films promotion board.

Furer may be drawn to life tragedy told by their protagonists with a hint of melodrama. She is now preparingBahija, most probably her feature-debut. It turns on a woman from southern Morocco who wanted to work in a beauty salon but ends up destitute, living in a villa with neither electricity nor running water. Her life story is packed with multiple intrigues and enemies, Furer anticipated.

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For the record, Holman returned from Zurich to Canada and ended up living under a bridge  a fate not so distant from the fractured outsider protagonists of Above and Below, from Nicolas Steiner, also the subject of a profile in Varietys Switzerland: Up Next! They both form part of a promising emerging generation of on-the-rise Swiss documentary filmmakers: Think Jan Gassman (Europe She Loves), Anja Kofmel (Chris the Swiss) and Portuguese-Swiss directors Maya Kosa and Sergio da Costa (Rio Corgo).

John Hopewell contributed to this article

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Republican lawmakers representing districts that cover Monroe County had little to say about whether or not they plan to endorse presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

State Rep. Nancy VanderMeer, R-Tomah, said she wouldnt comment on Trump until the party ratifies its nominee. Trump has more than the 1,238 pledged delegates he needs to secure the nomination but wont officially become the nominee until the Republican convention July 18-21 in Cleveland. There is a movement among some Republicans to change convention rules and release delegates to vote for whomever they want on the first ballot.

Neither state Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, nor Rep. Ed Brooks, R-Reedsburg, responded to multiple Tomah Journal inquiries.

The office of Rep. Lee Nerison, R-Westby, promised a statement which has yet to be received by the Tomah Journal.

A local Democrat was far more vocal on the subject of Trump. State Sen. Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse, whose district includes most of southern Monroe County, criticized Republicans for their silence. She described Trumps criticism of a judge handling a lawsuit involving Trump University as racist and called on Republicans to condemn Trump.

Donald Trump, through his repeated actions and words, has proven he is too divisive, dangerous and erratic to be president, Shilling said. In order to move our state forward, I implore my Republican colleagues to denounce Mr. Trumps hateful rhetoric and unconditionally reject his presidential candidacy.

Trump does have the backing of U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wausau, whose Seventh Congressional District includes the northeast corner of Monroe County. During a speech at the state Republican convention last month, Duffy said, Were going to continue to make America great again, and were going to make America great again with Donald Trump.

In order to move our state forward, I implore my Republican colleagues to denounce Mr. Trumps hateful rhetoric and unconditionally reject his presidential candidacy. State Sen. Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse
Ankara (AFP) - Syrian refugees living in Turkey could eventually be granted Turkish citizenship, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signalled, a plan that has sparked controversy at home.

"I want to announce some good news," media quoted Erdogan as saying late Saturday at a dinner to break the Ramadan fast in Kilis province, on the Syrian border

"We are going to help our Syrian friends in offering them the chance, if they want it, to acquire Turkish nationality."

The interior ministry will shortly announce how the citizenship procedure would work, Erdogan said.

He did not specify whether all of the 2.7 million Syrians that Turkey is hosting would be able to apply, and gave no details on eligibility criteria or how long the process would take.

"We regard you as our brothers and sisters -- you are not far from your homeland, but only from your homes and your land," Erdogan told a group of Syrian refugees in Kilis.

"Turkey is also your homeland."

Ankara has refused to grant refugee status to Syrians who have fled the devastating war across the border since 2011, referring to them as "guests".

Only a select group have been granted work permits and residency.

The country's open-door policy to Syrian refugees was initially a source of pride for many Turks.

But more and more have come to resent the new arrivals, seeing them as a drain on state resources and rivals for scarce jobs.

In Kilis, where Erdogan spoke, refugees now outnumber the native Turkish population.

Life is a struggle for most Syrians in Turkey, who mainly live off odd jobs that are often insufficient to feed and house a family.

The country is also hosting some 300,000 Iraqis who have fled the Islamic State group.

Erdogan's announcement sparked fierce debate on social media, with many Turkish web users questioning whether it was a good idea.

"Granting citizenship shouldn't depend on what one person wants. We need a referendum!" wrote Mahomet Mahomet on Twitter.

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The hashtag #ulkemdeSuriyeliistemiyorum ("I don't want Syrians in my country") trended on Twitter, though some users denounced the reaction as racist.

"The reaction is racist pure and simple -- before everything else we need a measured response," tweeted Omer Sloukas.

Some critics suggested the move might be a bid by Erdogan to register an army of thankful Syrian voters who might back his plans to boost his presidential powers.

The Turkish strongman is accused of increasing authoritarianism since he came into power as 2002 as prime minister becoming the country's first directly-elected president two years ago.

He is seeking to change the constitution to give Turkey a presidential system, a proposal that has prompted staunch criticism from the parliamentary opposition.

To achieve his goal, he would need a three-fifths majority in parliament to call a referendum on the issue, or a two-thirds majority for direct approval.
Baghdad (AFP) - A weeping Zainab Mustafa brought a photo of her husband to the still-smouldering site of a bloody bombing in Baghdad Sunday, seeking word of him and their two missing children.

The three had gone out the night before to buy clothes for the upcoming holiday marking the end of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, and Mustafa has not heard from them since.

The suicide car bombing in the Karrada area, which was claimed by the Islamic State group and killed at least 119 people, sparked raging fires in nearby buildings, and smoke still rose from charred structures more than 12 hours after the explosion.

"We have looked everywhere; members of my family are looking for them," said Mustafa.

The street in the Karrada area is littered with rubble, and the search for victims within the burned buildings could take days.

"The lists of victims I saw included whole families -- the father and his sons, the mother and her daughters -- whole families were wiped out by this explosion," a member of the civil defence forces said.

"We need a number of days to be able to recover the bodies of victims. It is a difficult task," he said.

Fadhel Salem is missing two of his brothers who were in the family's shop.

"I think they are still there inside the store, but I can't see anything because of the heavy smoke," he said.

Five people worked with shovels to try to find their friends at another shop where the ceiling had collapsed.

- 'Nothing there except fire' -

"I knew all of them; they are all my friends," said Sami Kadhim, one of those digging through the remains of the shop.

Kadhim said he brought his friend Mustafa some juice from a nearby vendor moments before the blast, then went home to sleep.

"After the explosion, there was nothing there except fire. I couldn't see Mustafa because his place" was ablaze, Kadhim said.

Baghdad has been hit by a number of bombings this year, but none nearly as deadly as the Sunday attack, which combined explosives and shrapnel with raging flames.

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Identifying all of the victims who are found will also be an enormous challenge.

Civil defence members found a body near where Kadhim was searching, but it was burned beyond recognition and may require DNA testing to be identified.

"It is not possible to know who this body belongs to," one of them said.

A list of victims posted at a nearby hospital listed some as "unknown".

Black banners bearing the names of victims hang from some shops in the area, which has been closed off by security forces.

While dozens died in the bombing and subsequent fires, some made narrow escapes.

"A number jumped off the roofs of buildings despite the height," sustaining injuries including broken feet, said shop owner Sari Mohammed.

And "three people hid inside a refrigerator on the first floor, and after the fire was extinguished, they came out alive," Mohammed said.
Doctors treating Thailand's ailing King Bhumibol Adulyadej have drained a fresh build-up of water on the brain, the palace said Sunday, in the latest in a series of updates of the 88-year-old's health.

Subject to an intense personality cult, Bhumibol's frail health is a matter of significant public concern.

The king is confined to a wheelchair and rarely seen in public but in recent months the palace has begun releasing regular updates on his health.

His reign has spanned seven tumultuous decades and most Thais have never known another monarch.

Analysts say the kingdom's decade-long political crisis is in part motivated by elites jostling to secure their primacy once his reign ends.

Bhumibol has spent most of the past two years hospitalised in Bangkok for a series of ailments, including bacterial infections, breathing difficulties, heart problems and hydrocephalus (water on the brain).

An x-ray on June 30 found the amount of fluid draining from the king's brain through a catheter "was less than normal," the Royal Household Bureau said.

"The medical team asked permission to adjust the catheter to drain more fluid on 2 July... the result was satisfactory," it added.

In June Bhumibol also underwent an operation to widen arteries in his heart.

Sunday's statement said tests showed his heart muscle was now functioning "satisfactorily."

Bhumibol is the world's longest-reigning monarch and is seen by most Thais as a unifying force in a nation bitterly divided along political lines.

His image is embossed by ritual -- Thai schoolchildren learn of his good works, cinema-goers must stand for the royal anthem, while giant portraits of the monarch tower over most major roads.

But detailed discussion of his reign and the role of the monarchy is all but impossible in Thailand because of one the world's strictest lese majeste laws.

Use of the laws has skyrocketed in the last two years since the military took over in a coup with some people jailed for as much as 30 years.
When lists are being compiled of TVs greatest ever shows, certain ones never fail to be included amongst the upper echelons. Of all these revered programmes however, a strong case can be made that the very best of the best, the creme de la creme, is David Chases peerless crime drama, The Sopranos. The show combined searing drama with psychological musings and genuine comedy. Across six seasons, it also showcased possibly the greatest character arc of all time in the shape of James Gandolfinis conflicted Tony Soprano, an often brutal man who suffers from panic attacks as he juggles the pressures of family life with those of being a full time mobster. Its quite hard to narrow down single episodes as the whole show is pure class, but here is just a small selection of the shows greatest outings.

(Credit: AV Club)

S1 E5: College

In this early episode we get perhaps the ultimate example of the conflict Tony faces between separating his work and family life. While taking his daughter Meadow to look at colleges in New England, Tony spots a former gangster turned FBI informant and this prompts his two worlds to collide in the most dramatic of ways. Tony is compelled to take action and his violent nature comes to the fore just as powerfully as his caring fatherly side. Its also this episode where Meadow straight out asks her father if he is in the Mafia, a fact which Tony flatly denies, a telling glimpse into the mounting pressure he faces in keeping his worlds apart.

(Credit: AV Club)

S2 E13 Funhouse

Tony experiences a variety of dream sequences throughout the show and one of the finest comes in this season two episode where a bout of food poisoning leads to him having some wild visions. The most vivid of which regard his friend turned FBI informant, Sal Big Pussy Bonpensiero. The whole season focused on Big Pussys turn and this episode marks the climax to this intense storyline. Its at its heart an emotional character study as Tony and his crew come to terms with their friends betrayal. When the group all take a quiet boat ride together, the range of emotions Tony goes through is clear to see in a masterclass of acting from Gandolfini.

Story continues

(Credit: The Hollywood Reporter)

S3 E11: Pine Barrens

A firm fan favourite here and one which features surprisingly little of the Sopranos themselves. This time, the focus is instead on Paulie Walnuts and Christopher Moltisanti who turn a routine collection into a huge old mess when things go awry and Russian mobster Valery winds up in the trunk of their car. They wind up trying to dispose of the body in the woods, only to discover that Valery is very much alive and is able to make a run for it. Paulie and Chris soon wind up lost and petrified in an icy cold forest and it turns into a dangerous bonding experience for the pair. Plotlines are let unanswered, but its an unforgettable character development for both men and a reference point that crops up again and again.

(Credit: HBO)

S4 E13: Whitecaps

This season finale marks the final breaking point between Tony and Carmella with the long-suffering wife deciding she can take no more after one of Tonys mistresses phones the house drunk. For years its his work life that has caused the worst of his stress but here its Tonys family life that comes crashing down around him. The angry exchanges between the two escalate rapidly and both James Gandolfini and Edie Falco are in absolutely sterling form. The tension between husband and wife has been simmering for four seasons now, and in this one explosive episode, years of bitterness come to the fore.

(Credit: HBO)

S4 E9: Whoever Did this

Tony has various antagonists throughout the shows run, often they are friends disguised as enemies and a prime example of that is Joe Pantolianos Ralph Cifaretto. Ralph is a major pain in Tonys ass and an all-round annoying hot-head. In this episode, Ralphs son end up in a coma whilst at the same time, Tonys beloved horse pie-oh-my, is burned up in a stable fire. Tony accuses Ralph, the horses former owner, of causing the fire deliberately for insurance purposes and after Ralph makes the mistake of questioning Tonys upset, the pair get into an almighty fight. Its an interesting look at Tonys moral relativism on show here, and his increasing detachment from human life. Its an intense episode and one in which Tonys brutal anger takes centre stage.

(Credit: HBO)

S5 E12: Long Term Parking

A powerful episode here in which there are some major developments in the crews ongoing issues with Johnny Sacks family. The main focus however is on Christophers girlfriend Adriana and her increasing desperation after she is forced into ratting to the FBI or facing a long prison sentence. This is the episode where she finally tells Christopher the truth and the pair share an emotionally wrought moment as they decide what to do next. Few scenes in the entire series can match the tension found in this outing when Ade then gets a ride from Silvio to an uncertain destination.





(Main Photo Credit: HBO)
By David Brunnstrom WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Three students at universities in the United States, including a U.S. citizen and an Indian citizen, were among those killed in a militant attack in Bangladesh, university officials, the Indian government and a source said on Saturday. The State Department confirmed one U.S. citizen was killed, but gave no details. The White House condemned the attack in the country's capital Dhaka, which it said resulted in as many as 20 deaths, including that of the American. "We remain in contact with Bangladeshi authorities and have offered any assistance necessary," it said. The Islamic State militant group has claimed responsibility for what was one of the most brazen attacks in the South Asian nation's history, killing more than a dozen foreigners at a restaurant before security forces stormed the building and ended a 12-hour standoff on Saturday. A State Department official said the department was not aware that any more U.S. citizens had been among the hostages. Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, said two of its students were killed and an Indian government official said an Indian citizen who was a student at the University of California at Berkeley was among the dead. "The Emory community mourns this tragic and senseless loss," the university said in a statement. Undergraduate Abinta Kabir and Goizueta Business School undergraduate Faraaz Hossain were the two victims from Emory, the statement said. Emory said Kabir was from Miami and Hossain was from Dhaka. A source with knowledge of the situation said that the U.S. citizen confirmed by the State Department was one of the Emory students. 'MORE LIVES LOST' Florida Governor Rick Scott said the "pure evil" of Islamic State had claimed another Floridian, after a gunman who pledged allegiance to the group took hostages and killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando last month. "We cannot afford to see more lives lost at the hands of terrorists," Scott said in a statement. Tarishi Jain, 19, was the Berkeley student victim, India's minister of external affairs, Sushma Swaraj, wrote on Twitter. "I have spoken to her father Shri Sanjeev Jain and conveyed our deepest condolences. The country is with them in this hour of grief," the minister wrote. "I monitored this personally the whole night. ... It is a case of brutal killing - an unnatural death." Jain had graduated from the American International School in Dhaka, and began studying at the University of California Berkeley last year. Berkeley officials said she intended to major in economics. The university said in a statement that since early June she had been in Dhaka on an internship at Eastern Bank Limited working on e-commerce growth. "We are all very devastated," said Sanchita Saxena, executive director of the California university's Institute for South Asia Studies and director of its Centre for Bangladesh Studies. "She was a smart and ambitious young woman with a big heart. Our deepest condolences to her family, friends, and the entire Berkeley community." UC Berkeley said Jain's father is a textile merchant based in Dhaka and that he was among relatives and friends who rushed to the scene of the attack in hope of news of their loved ones. (This story updates with Florida Gov. Rick Scott, paragraphs 10-11) (Additional reporting by Fiona Ortiz in Chicago and Daniel Wallis in New York; Editing by Dave Gregorio and James Dalgleish)
All hiking trails in the Table Rock area were closed to the public on July 2 as a fire that had burned about 2,500 acres and destroyed one home remained active in spite of being 100 percent contained. Boise Parks and Rec said they hoped to reopen the trails the following week.

This timelapse video, uploaded on June 30, shows a night time view of the blaze. Credit: Rusty Rehl
The owner of S Lazy D Ranch, Daniel Schroeder, welcomed visitors to see his bison roaming the fields June 25.

I enjoy days like this interacting with people, talking to them, telling the story  because it is a passion, Schroeder said.

Schroeder offers a free tour each spring so visitors can see new bison calves at his ranch south of Warrens. Visitors Saturday morning hopped in the wagon Schroeder pulled behind his tractor and set off for the pasture to see this years calves.

Its something you dont get to see every day, Garrick Brown, a visitor from Onalaska, said. Brown had never seen bison calves before and brought his camera to videotape the animals he called the symbol of America.

Schroeder and his visitors found the herd gathered in the sunshine along the base of a slope. Only a distant fence placed the bison in the modern erawithout houses or power lines in sight, the bison wading through the grass and wildflowers could have been of a time long before any cowboys made a home on the range. Before devastating overhunting in the 1800s, millions of bison  the largest land mammals in North America  roamed most of the area that is now the continental United States. Now the population of bison in North America is estimated at 500,000, according to the Defenders of Wildlife website.

Schroeders herd ranges annually from 11 to 23 head. Five new calves were born this spring. The calves, ranging from one to four months old, showed nubs of horns atop their heads and the oldest calf already had a trail of black scruff down its neck, the beginning of a distinctive bison beard. Females will grow to 900 to 1,200 pounds and males to 1,800 to 2,500 pounds.

Schroeder drove slowly toward the herd, as cows protective of their calves can be aggressive.

Theyre incredibly fast, Schroeder said. They dont look it, but they are. Bison can run at speeds up to 35 miles per hour.

This is Schroeders 13th year with bison. He bought his first herd, six heifers and a bull, at an auction in 2003, and the first calves were born in 2005. When Schroeder bought his farm in 1992, his idea from the start was to raise bison.

Ive always been intrigued by them, Schroeder said. The history of the animal, with the country that were in, they go hand in hand.

Although he gets somewhat attached to the bison, most of the animals are never named. A few exceptions are Newt, the herd bull, and the 80s cow, which has big hair, as Schroeder said.

Schroeder butchers bison when they are 14 to 18 months old.

Thats the hardest day of the year for me, Schroeder said. I just hate that day  its not fun. But I know its part of the job.

As far as the taste of bison meat, one of the visitors to the ranch, Eleanor Beebe of Tomah, said that it can be good, but it depends on how its cooked.

The worst thing anyone can do with bison meat is to overcook it, according to Schroeder. In that case, Might as well take your shoe off and eat that, he said.

Schroeders mother, Darlene Schroeder, who assisted with the visit day, said that bison short ribs are delicious.

In 2009, Schroeder started selling bison meat at the Tomah Farmers Market. He said it was the best business decision hes made.

Word of mouth has been the best advertising I could have ever asked for, he said.

Meat sales have improved dramatically since the early days of the ranch.

Now I cant keep it in the freezer, Schroeder said. Its a great problem to have.

Schroeder even wishes he could raise more bison and make the ranch a full-time job, but he doesnt have enough space on the ranch. The bison roam on about 45 acres of the 122-acre ranch, and Schroeder needs the rest of the field space for raising hayabout 100 tons of hay a year for the bisons food and bedding. He estimates that the bison eat 20 to 25 pounds of grass a day  each.

Schroeder also works full-time as a custodian for the Tomah Area School District. It can be difficult for him to balance his time.

Theres a lot of long days just because theres always something to do here, Schroeder said.

He is the only one running the ranch since his wife Ann passed away in 2008.

I dont do much for social life, because I put this place first, he said. I take pride in it.

Schroeder gives tours by appointment for $40. Families, vacationers and school groups are frequent customers. The visit event on Saturday drew over 50 visitors between 11:30 a.m. and 4 p.m.

I can sit and watch them for hours, he said of the bison. They all have a different look, even though they all look the same to most people.

Schroeder likes waking up early and seeing the bison grazing near his house. Its a good feeling, he said, to watch the herd out in the field.
By Julien Pretot CHERBOURG, France (Reuters) - Although he is likely to celebrate taking the Tour de France yellow jersey on Sunday, world champion Peter Sagan said he does not enjoy himself on his bike as races have become a free-for-all. The Slovak switched his rainbow jersey for the yellow, but he was not all smiles especially as his Tinkoff team leader Alberto Contador crashed again and lost time after cracking in the finale of the second stage. "Riders ride like they don't care about life," Sagan told a news conference, hinting safety issues are not just to be blamed on in-race motorbikes. "You never know if you'll be in the race the day after." With top teams obsessed with riding in the front to protect their leaders, jockeying for position has become tougher. "I don't know how to explain stupid crashes. Nobody brakes so if you don't brake for sure you're going to crash," said Sagan, who believes riders have lost respect for the big names in the peloton. "Before there was respect and when somebody was making something stupid someone would throw a bottle at them," he said. "In 2010 when I started, it was a little bit different. Now I can feel things have changed a lot. There is no respect in the peloton, a lot of riders don't care, they just want to stay in the train behind their guys." Former time trial world champion Fabian Cancellara, whose voice counts in the peloton, said before the start of the race that he was worried about safety. "Crashes are never excluded because in the beginning of the Tour, you have 22 teams riding a team time trial," the Swiss said. Asked if he could be heard by the peloton because of his status as a world champion and yellow jersey holder, Sagan said: "It's very hard, because today I'm in yellow but maybe tomorrow I'm home." (Editing by Ed Osmond)
By Barbara Goldberg NEW YORK (Reuters) - A 19-year-old tourist in Manhattan's Central Park suffered a severe foot wound on Sunday after an apparent homemade firework exploded when he jumped off a rock and stepped on the device, authorities said. Police said there was no reason to suspect that the blast, on the eve of Fourth of July celebrations, was the work of extremists or that the explosive object had been designed to hurt anyone. Investigators said the object was likely fabricated by an amateur fireworks enthusiast for the thrill of creating a loud noise and flash. At least one bystander in the park told CNN the blast sounded "like a cannon." Photographs of the injured man, who police said was visiting from Virginia with two friends, showed his left foot bandaged and badly mangled as he was being treated by emergency medical technicians on the scene. The man was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where police said he was undergoing surgery and was listed in serious but stable condition. His two companions, aged 18 and 20, were not injured. None was believed to have had anything to do with making the device. The late-morning explosion occurred when all three men jumped off a rock and the victim landed on top of the object, which had been stashed near the boulder out of the way of normal foot traffic, police said. "At this time, we have no evidence this is related to terrorism," NYPD Deputy Chief John O'Connell told reporters in the park, adding there were "no specific credible threats directed at New York or the July Fourth celebrations." Lieutenant Mark Torre, commander of the police bomb squad, said there was nothing to indicate the device was "put in this area with a specific intent to harm any individual" and that evidence showed it was not designed to go off by someone stepping on it. The sprawling, 778-acre (315-hectare) park in the heart of Manhattan is a major draw for tourists visiting New York City. The park remained open to visitors following the blast. (Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Peter Cooney)
TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada is exploring the use of gender-neutral options on identity cards, Justin Trudeau told a television station on Sunday as he became the first Canadian prime minister to march in a gay pride parade. Trudeau, who participated in the downtown Toronto parade along with other politicians, did not give details, saying only the government was exploring the "best way" and studying other jurisdictions. "That's part of the great arc of history sweeping towards justice," he told CP24. Last week, the Canadian province of Ontario said it would allow the use of a third gender indicator, X, for driver's licenses, which are commonly used in North America to provide identification. Countries including Australia, New Zealand and Nepal already allow the use of the X gender indicator. Trudeau also said last month's relaxation of Canadian blood-donation restrictions on men who have sex with other men was "not good enough," saying the government was going to work toward easing it further. According to Canadian Blood Services, men who have sex with other men can now donate after one year of abstinence, down from five years previously. Trudeau said Toronto's annual parade was made more poignant this year by the shooting rampage that killed 49 people last month at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. "We have to remember the importance of safe spaces and safe communities, like the Pulse was, is something to uphold," he said. (Reporting by Ethan Lou in Toronto; Editing by Bill Rigby and Peter Cooney)
ANKARA (Reuters) - A Turkish court on Sunday remanded 13 alleged Islamic State militants in custody pending trial in connection with suicide bombings at Istanbul's main airport last Tuesday that claimed 45 lives. The 13 included three foreigners, Dogan, a private news agency said. Three militants opened fire outside Ataturk airport's international arrivals terminal on Tuesday night before two of them entered the building and blew themselves up. A third militant detonated his explosives at the entrance. "The terrorist organization called Daesh, which burnt our hearts in this holy month, is the biggest form of evil that targets our religion," President Tayyip Erdogan told a ramadan dinner in Istanbul on Sunday. "They have no links whatsoever to Islam or Muslims," Erdogan said. A total of 49 people are still being treated in hospitals from the attack and 17 remain in intensive care, Istanbul authorities said on Sunday. Two Russian nationals have been identified as suspected Islamic State suicide bombers in the attack, Turkish media said on Friday. (Reporting by Ece Toksabay; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
Ashdod (Israel) (AFP) - A Turkish ship carrying aid for Gaza arrived in Israel Sunday, a week after the two countries agreed to restore ties that soured over a deadly raid on an aid flotilla.

The Lady Leyla container vessel docked at Ashdod port in the afternoon after departing on Friday, an AFP journalist reported.

Its contents were to be unloaded, inspected and sent on to the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, hit by three wars with Israel since 2008 and under an Israeli blockade.

The Panama-flagged ship was carrying 11,000 tonnes of supplies including food packages, flour, rice, sugar and toys, the Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

Turkey had initially pushed for a lifting of Israel's blockade on Gaza as part of the negotiations to normalise ties, but Israel rejected this.

A compromise was eventually reached allowing Turkey to send aid through Ashdod rather than directly to the Palestinian enclave.

Israel says the blockade is necessary to prevent Islamist movement Hamas from receiving materials that could be used for military purposes, but UN officials have called for it to be lifted, citing deteriorating conditions in the territory.

Turkey's ruling Islamic-rooted AKP party has friendly ties with Gaza's Hamas rulers, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been a vocal supporter of the Palestinian cause.

Turkey and Israel were formerly close regional allies, but fell out in 2010 when Israeli commandos killed 10 Turkish activists in a raid on an aid flotilla seeking to run the blockade on Gaza.

Under the reconciliation deal, Israel will pay $20 million in compensation to the families of those killed.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promoted the economic benefits of restoring ties, with talk of building a pipeline to Turkey to export Israeli gas, and the need to find allies in the turbulent Middle East.

The deal received a mixed response in Israel.

There were allegations that it does not do enough to push for the return of four Israelis missing in Gaza -- two soldiers who have been declared dead and two civilians believed to be alive and held by Hamas.

Several relatives and supporters of the soldiers' families protested against the deal outside Ashdod port on Sunday.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department on Sunday extended condolences to the victims of two bombings overnight in Baghdad and condemned acts of extremist violence. "We are in close contact with Iraqi authorities, and stand committed to supporting Iraqi security forces," read the statement from spokesman John Kirby. Nearly 120 people were killed and 200 wounded in two bombings overnight in Baghdad, most of them in a busy shopping area as residents celebrated Ramadan. (Reporting By Patrick Rucker; Editing by Mary Milliken)
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Volkswagen's brand chief, Herbert Diess, is not planning to resign even though he is the subject of investigation by public prosecutors, he told a German newspaper.

The carmaker said late last month that prosecutors in Braunschweig were investigating Diess as part of a probe into whether Europe's carmaker violated disclosure and market manipulation rules by taking too long to inform investors it had cheated emissions tests.

"It's not up for debate," Diess told Sueddeutsche Zeitung in an interview published on Monday, when asked if he had thought about stepping down as a result of the probe.

He added the investigation had taken him by surprise and that he had first heard about it when asked by the media.

Volkswagen's reputation will take 12-18 months to recover from the crisis, although a strategic turnaround will take up to 14 years, Diess added.

The company needed to shift its strategic focus to employ more information technology and battery experts, Diess said. The shift would take "two vehicle generations" to be implemented, he said. Modern cars have a lifecycle of around seven years.

"We must become more efficient, or else we won't be able to afford the transformation," he added.

(Reporting by Victoria Bryan, editing by David Evans)
BERLIN (Reuters) - Volkswagen's (VOWG_p.DE) CEO has rejected calls for the carmaker to compensate customers in Europe over the 'Dieselgate' emissions scandal along the lines of its $15 billion (11 billion pounds) deal in the United States, telling a German newspaper a similar settlement would be inappropriate and unaffordable.

Europe's Industry Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska last week called on Volkswagen to also compensate European owners of its diesel-powered cars, saying it would be unfair for them to be treated differently from U.S. customers just because of a different legal system.

"We have a different situation here (in Europe)," Matthias Mueller was quoted as saying by Welt am Sonntag.

Mueller also said while VW was on a solid financial footing, replicating the U.S. deal in Europe would be tough for VW to cope with financially.

"You don't have to be a mathematician to realise that compensation at arbitrarily high levels would overwhelm Volkswagen," he said.

Mueller said he had spoken to Bienkowska in Brussels this week about his views.

"In the U.S. the (emission) limits are stricter, which makes the fix more complicated. And taking part in the buyback is voluntary (for customers), which is not the case in Germany, for example," he said.

Because the U.S. authorities want as many cars to be bought back as possible, VW also has to offer customers incentives, meaning the situation is not comparable, he added.

(Reporting by Victoria Bryan)
Washington DC might become a state, and get a new name

Washington DC might become a state, and get a new name

As the capital of the United States, Washington DC is not one of the 50 states. Its a federal district, hence District of Columbia, shortened to D.C. But that could soon change, as they are currently bidding for statehood. If that happened, Washington DC would become the 51st state, and its leaders would give it an entirely new name.

That name could quite likely be New Columbia, an old name that was approved by voters in a 1982 referendum in which Washington DC tried for statehood. It originates from Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, who is obviously a critical part of U.S. history.

Washington, D.C. could have been renamed "Anacostia," but advocates for statehood chose "New Columbia."  Posted by International Business Times on Thursday, June 30, 2016

Of course, some long time DC residents are anxious about the name change. Columbus reputation as a hero has undergone quite a sea-change since the 1980s, with many seeing him as a brutal conqueror rather than a noble explorer. According to Matthew Green, an associate professor of politics at Catholic University in Washington DC, Its hard to come up with a name that would honor the citys political, living and symbolic dimensions equally. He mentions that one of the alternative suggestions, Douglass Commonwealth might also be appropriate due to the fact that Frederik Douglass was an important figure in African-American politics. He lead the abolitionist movement, which ended slavery in the U.S.

People are joining in the conversation on social media, adding in their opinion about the name change and possible statehood.

#NewColumbia? You've gotta be kidding me!! Please stick to Washington, DC a/k/a Capital City!  Roro Tetreault (@LeMondeDuRoro) July 2, 2016

Statehood has long been a fraught issue for DC residents, as many who actually live in the district support it, while Congress has typically been against the idea. Among the reasons for statehood include the fact that DC isnt fully represented in Congress by voting members, and that decisions typically made by organizations like a city council instead often require Congressional approval, taking them out of local governments hands.

Presumptive Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton supports the change along with Bernie Sanders, but nothing is set in stone yet. The statehood issue will probably be debated at the Democratic National Convention in July. Until then, well just have to sit tight and see what happens.

The post Washington DC might become a state, and get a new name appeared first on HelloGiggles.


Credit: Courtesy

What would you do if Jason Bourne called you with a secret mission? Would you throw down the phone or follow his every command? What if his instructions involved hot dogs and muttering things about elephants to perfect strangers? Matt Damon and Omaze found out the answer by enlisting a group of unsuspecting park-goers into a spy film simulation in a joint effort to raise money for Water.org.

Taking a page from the Jason Bourne series, men were dispatched to hand cellphones to random people, telling them only to answer it when it rings.

One man immediately threw the phone on the ground, while the others confusedly played along. After briefly considering if the call was for a guy one of them dated, a pair of women stumble through Damon's instructions, which include complimenting a stranger's child.

One credulous man dutifully buys a hot dog from a nearby stand under the guise that he needs to use it to start a conversation with a man waiting for him with a manila envelope. With their envelopes in hand, Damon eventually leads all the participants to a parking garage where he's waiting to surprise them with tickets to Jason Bourne's Las Vegas premiere.

"In the future when people call you with requests like that, don't follow them," he chides one of the shocked participants. Watch the video here:

RELATED: Ben Affleck Celebrates National Best Friends Day with a Collage of Matt Damon

Jason Bourne sneaks its way into theaters July 29.
Screen Shot 2016 07 03 at 11.31.22 AM

The biggest space event of the year is happening soon.

Today, NASA's un-crewed Juno spacecraft will end its nearly 5-year journey through space and embark on a mission to study the planet Jupiter like never before.

But first, the spacecraft must lock on to Jupiter into what's called a polar orbit.

This is the most dangerous part of the entire Juno mission, and is what NASA will be watching instead of fireworks this holiday weekend.

As Juno approaches its destination on July 4, Jupiter's tremendous gravitational pull will accelerate the spacecraft to blazing speeds of more than 150,000 mph, making Juno one of the fastest human-made objects ever built.

After reaching a max speed of 165,000 mph  fast enough to fly around Earth in 9 minutes  Juno will slam on the breaks by firing its engines. This is where things get tricky.

The Juno spacecraft weighs 3,500 pounds and will be barreling through space at 215 times the speed of sound. To slow down, the engines will fire for 35 minutes straight, burning through 17,600 pounds of fuel in the process.

If all goes according to plan, this perilous maneuver will place Juno into orbit around Jupiter, where the spacecraft will remain over the next 18 months, providing an unprecedented look at Jupiter's powerful gravitational and magnetic fields.

If something goes wrong, the $1.13 billion mission will shoot past Jupiter, into deep space with no chance of return.

NASA only has one shot at this. The engine burn will start at 11:18 pm ET July 4/4:18 am BST July 5.

You can watch the action at NASA unfold beginning at 10:30 pm ET/3:30 am BST, as engineers monitor Juno's instruments and anxiously await confirmation of the burn's success. Witness history in the making on NASA TV or below:

NOW WATCH: A spacecraft is about to explore Jupiter like never before  heres what NASA fears the most





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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Sunday condemned Baghdad bombings in which nearly 120 people were killed and 200 wounded, saying the attack only strengthened the United States' resolve to confront Islamic State. "We remain united with the Iraqi people and government in our combined efforts to destroy ISIL," said the White House statement referring to the Islamic State. (Reporting By Patrick Rucker, editing by David Evans)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Sunday condemned bombings in Baghdad that killed nearly 120 people and wounded 200, saying the attack only strengthened the United States' resolve to confront Islamic State militants. "We remain united with the Iraqi people and government in our combined efforts to destroy ISIL," the White House statement said, using an acronym for the self-declared Islamic State. A refrigerator truck packed with explosives blew up in Baghdad's central district of Karrada, killing 115 people and injuring at least 200. In a second attack, a roadside device exploded around midnight in a market in al-Shaab, a Shi'ite district, killing at least two people, police and medical sources said. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the bloodshed in a statement circulated online by supporters of the extremist Sunni group. It said the truck blast was a suicide bombing. The attack on the shopping area of Karrada is the deadliest since U.S.-backed Iraqi forces last month cleared Islamic State militants from their stronghold of Falluja, an hour's drive west of the capital. The weekend market bombing was the deadliest so far this year. The head of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, has said Islamic State may find targets away from battlefields where the group has faced losses. "To compensate for territorial losses, ISIL (Islamic State) will probably rely more on guerrilla tactics, including high-profile attacks outside territory it holds," Brennan told lawmakers last month. Republican critics have faulted President Barack Obama for his administration's handling of the current turmoil in Syria and Iraq, with some calling for a more aggressive approach, more troops on the ground. Senator John McCain, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, on Sunday said U.S. soldiers could help eradicate Islamic State in Iraq. "What we need to do is go to Iraq and kill them," McCain said on CBS Face the Nation. "And you can do that with 10,000 of a 100,000 person contingent using American capabilities." The United States said in April it would send more troops to Iraq and put them nearer the front lines to advise Iraqi forces in their campaign against extremist militias. The increase raises the authorized troop level in Iraq to 4,087, not including special operations personnel, some logistics workers and troops on temporary rotations. Since December, Iraqi forces have taken back territory from Islamic State, which seized swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014. (Reporting By Patrick Rucker, Yara Bayoumy and Toni Clarke; Editing by Alan Crosby)
SAN DIEGO -- With CC Sabathia being pushed back a day, the Yankees have recalled right-hander Chad Green from Triple-A Scranton-Wilkes-Barre of the International League to start Sunday's series finale against the Padres at Petco Park.

This will be the 25-year-old Green's third trip to the major league this season. The first visit didn't go so well.

And the pressure will be on. The Yankees need a win Sunday afternoon to avoid being swept by the Padres. But history is on the Yankees side.

The Padres are 6-20 in day games this season, including a 2-8 record in day games at Petco Park. They are also 3-23 in the last games of a series and 2-10 on Sundays.

As for Green, he made his major league debut on May 14 in a spot start at Arizona and allowed six runs (four earned) on eight hits in four innings. Two of the hits were homers.

"I think Green will be less nervous than in his last start," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said Saturday while discussing the matchup of Green (0-1, 7.20 earned run average) against Padres right-hander Andrew Cashner (3-5, 4.75 ERA), who is coming off the 15-day disabled list due to a neck strain.

"I hope so," Girardi continued in his discussion of Green. "I think that any time guys get called up at an early age, the first time they are nervous. The second time they are less nervous. That is just the way it goes."

Girardi said Green has pitched well at Triple-A. In fact, Green earlier this week was named to the International League team for the Triple-A All-Star Game. He is 6-6 in 14 starts for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre with a 1.54 ERA. He leads the IL in ERA.

Cashner, meanwhile, will be making his first appearance since June 10, when he left after facing one hitter at Coors Field in Denver. He went on the disabled list the following day for the second time this season. Cashner was also out from May 9 to May 24 with a left hamstring strain suffered when he unsuccessfully tried to score from first on a double.

Story continues

"This has been a strange year," said Cashner, who has allowed one earned run over nine innings in two previous games (one start) against the Yankees.

Cashner missed 22 days with his neck strain. He has missed a total of six starts this season.

In four starts between his two trips to the disabled list -- each for issues unrelated to his right arm -- Casher was 1-2 with a 4.42 ERA. His ERA is currently as low as it has been since April 22.

"I thought Cash was throwing a lot better before his neck became an issue," Padres manager Andy Green said recently. "His stuff was sharper and his command was better. He looked sharp in his rehab start earlier this week (with Class A Lake Elsinore) so we're hopeful he's ready to move forward."

There are indications that Cashner's neck soreness could have been an issue weeks before the sprain forced him to the sideline.
Photo by Pascal Le Segertain/ Getty Images.



If you saw a photo of a woman with stick-straight hair and a middle part, or another with fluffy hair and permed bangs, you would immediately recognize the decade (hello disco 70s and not so tasteful 80s). But hair trends arent the only defining characteristics of an era: though not quite as obvious, eyebrows can be indicative of moment in time, too.

Related: The Best Way To Get Rid Of Acne Scars



Weve seen thick, thin, unibrow, nonexistent, dyed, bleached, tweezed, and bejeweled, says brow guru and founder of her eponymous brand, Zoey Van Jones. Much like hair color and hairstyle trends, brows have definitely played their part in creating ones identity as well as classifying a certain era with a distinctive look.

Related: Heres Your Dream Sephora Starter Kit



So with her and other industry experts guidance, we took a look at the major brow trends dating as far back as ancient Egypt, some of the most copycat-worthy looks, and a few that might just be better left in the past. Plus, a prediction for brow trends of the future.



Photo by Images Group/Rex ShutterStock.



Ancient Egypt

A dramatic eye is nothing new: Cleopatra, Nefertiti The Great Royal Wife of Pharoah Akhenaten (looking browlicious in bust form), and those from all walks of life during the Egyptian Empire opted for mineral powder-lined lids and arches. They even plucked or shaved before they elongated and darkened their brows to get the perfect shape. But it wasnt simply an act of vanity, according to new research  they actually used the powder to protect against diseases (oh and ward off evil spirits, too). Bonus fact: When a cat died, everyone in that household shaved off their eyebrows as an act of mourning.



Photo by Dea Picture Library/Getty Images.



Ancient Greece & Rome

Women in both of these cultures believed in the power of purity and natural beauty. Meaning: the unibrow. But if they werent blessed with just one arch, they would often connect the two with dark powder (okay, so maybe they werent as strict about the natural part). It was worth bending the rules, since the Frida Kahlo look was considered more than just a sign of beauty, but intelligence as well  and they were smart enough to fake it.



Story continues

Related: The Craziest Beauty Routines Of The Rich And Famous

Photo by Everett/Rex ShutterStock.



The Middle Ages

In my opinion, the strangest time for brows was the Middle Ages, says Van Jones. Women would pluck their brows almost completely off and tweeze their hairline higher, making their foreheads appear as large and high as possible. Im sure they would say the same thing about some of our trends today though!

Related: This Is What Female-Directed Porn Looks Like



And for those who didnt go completely bare and eggheaded, another brow trend of the time was to dye them red in honor of Queen Elizabeth. Was the ginger arch the Elizabethan Era modern day Kate Middleton blowout?



Photo by Images/ Rex ShutterShock.

Victorian Era

If Cara Delevingne lived during this era, her eyebrows would have been undoubtedly as coveted as they are today  just take a look at this portrait of Florence Nightingale. Makeup was seen as something for prostitutes, so brows were left full and bushy, and skin bare. (The popular bold-brow, fresh-face look seems to have lasted the test of time.) But thats not to say ladies of stature did not try to alter their appearance. Stylish European women would often use brow wigs (face merkins?) made of furry mouse skin to get that full-brow look. And they thought makeup was over-the-top?



Photo Courtesy of Maybelline.

1910s

The idea that makeup was only for women of the night was quickly becoming an antiquated notion, and commercial cosmetics began popping up. One of the starting points was when a man named T.L. Williams witnessed his sister Mabel constantly applying a combination of Vaseline and burnt cork to her eyebrows to make them thicker and more defined. In a stroke of genius, he used a chemistry set to create a similar (and more marketable) concoction he called the Lash Brow Line that would eventually be dubbed Maybelline.



Photo by Rex ShutterStock.

1920s

The Flapper Era marks the true beginning of celebrity obsession as a cultural phenomenon. Women took inspiration from silent film stars like Louise Brooks and Clara Bow, plucking their brows into thin lines that went out to their temples.

Related: Glow International With These Asian Beauty Products



In the Coco Chanel era makeup became bolder from the previous years, explains celebrity makeup artist Tomy Rivero. What was once considered trashy became a trend in transition to women wearing more 'in-charge 'pants attire. Expressing confidence by way of makeup in a male-dominated world at the time.



Photo by Movie Store/ Rex ShutterStock.

1930s

Brow trends are shaped by key influencers like the silent film stars of the '20s and '30s, explains Van Jones. Access to these sought-after looks became accessible, especially after [legendary Hollywood makeup artist] Max Factor started nationally distributing these 'made for film cosmetics to the public.









And even more so after he gave Greta Garbo the brow makeover of a lifetime, which included shaving them off and penciling them back in. That thin movie star-inspired brow of the '20s was still in, but instead of a line straight across, the arch became majorly rounded thanks to Garbos new look.









The very skinny, rounded eyebrow looked great on Greta Garbo for giving her a signature character, says Rivero. But drawing super skinny lines that look like half circles on your face its pretty strange.





Photo by C. Everett/ShutterStock

1940s

During the wartime era eyebrows started trending back toward a more full look, but with a very defined arch. Beauties like Lauren Bacall and Grace Kelly lead by example.





Photo by Moviestore/Rex ShutterStock.

1950s

This was a great time for fashion and a great time for brows. The only thing that could truly complement Diors New Look was a done-up face with bright lips, lined eyes, and a perfectly manicured full brow like Marilyn Monroes.

Related: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Lip Injections



For me one of the most flattering times was the '50s [and] early '60s, says Rivero. The perfectly shaped and sculpted eyebrows with a pronounced arch of the Hollywood starlets were perfectly kept and arched to fit and frame their faces. Its a very beautiful look and I think we are transitioning there slowly today from a more wild, bushy '80s look to a more defined eyebrow aesthetic.



Photo by Silver Screen Collections/ Getty Images.

1960s

If you thought the shaving the brows off and drawing them back on again thing was a lesson learned, lived, and forgotten, think again  although you could never tell by this pic. Supposedly, Sofia Lorens eyebrows curved down too close to her eyes and made her look sad, so she got rid of them completely and penciled them back on using tiny brushstrokes to make them look as natural as possible. Seriously cray, insanely impressive.



Photo by Moviestore/Rex ShutterStock.



1970s

In the decennial flip-flop from skinny to full brows, the disco era reverts back to ultra-thin arches (as seen on Pam Grier), yet thankfully with a natural-looking arch.



Photo by Unimedia/Rex Shutterstock.



1980s

This was the era of excess. Rivero says it was about more makeup and more hair  the bigger the better! The phrase bold brows must have originated in the '80s.



In the '80s, pop era brows were left full and natural creating a bold and decadent look  a sign of times, says Van Jones. Madonna wore them as dark as possible with platinum hair, while Brooke Shields sported them feathery and naturally askew.



Photo by John Dee/Rex ShutterStock.

1990s

Most every brow how-to you come across these days introduces the subject with some sort of lamenting the over-plucking days of the '90s. Its hard to think that we would ever regret doing something that Kate Moss championed, but its true.









"Grunge and Goth-like heroin chic look followed the decadence and excess of the '80s, says Van Jones. [The brows] were shaped extremely thin. This was also the height of MAC & RuPaul, bleached hair, black hair, black & red lipstick, and skinny eyebrows were everywhere.





Photo by Moviestore/Rex/ShutterStock.

2000s

We started to witness the changing tide in brows around the time the new millennium kicked in. (And who better to illustrate it than Anne Hathaway, who had hers plucked on camera in

The Princess Diaries

.) Super-thin sets were officially on the outs, but big, bushy ones werent in full force yet either. Instead, we landed somewhere in-between. Brows were shorter, slightly fuller, and had a tube-like shape. Oh, and they were pretty severely arched  because

thats

always a good look.





Photo by Rex ShutterStock.

2010s

I believe the most flattering time for brows is now! says Van Jones. At the moment, were seeing a huge trend for women to wear full, bold brows. Almost every day, a client comes into the salon with a picture of Cara Delevingne with the desire to replicate her full brow look on them. We love it! A fuller brow can give our clients a more youthful appearance and, at the same time, tinting or filling in the brow creates definition and sophistication to anyones look."



Photo by Victor Virgile/Getty Images.

Today & Beyond

The runway is loaded with various full-brow manifestations  colored, bejeweled, fluffy, feathery, large-and-in-charge, says Van Jones. [In the future,] I see people pushing the boundaries and taking risks with color, jewels, and other embellishments. Women understand more and more that brows can be a true beauty statement, much like a bold lip color.



Photo by Kayle Cuoco.





"We saw pastel-colored eyebrows and goth-like eyebrow rings on the runway last year, and I have no doubt well see those trends making their way into street style very soon, says Van Jones. (Kaley Cuoco is clearly leading the pack with her colored set.)

Photo by Pascal Le Segertain/ Getty Images.

Makeup artists are letting their imaginations run wild when it comes to brows, and treating them more like an accessory. At Moncler, artist Val Garland dusted white powder onto models sets to mimic the effect of being caught in a snowstorm.

Photo by Randy Brooke/Getty Images.

But if crazy colors and textures arent for you, theres also the flip side of 2016 brow trends. We like to call this the no-makeup makeup of brows. Theyre meant to look bushy and slightly undone. The trick, however, is to groom them to look that way. Products like Glossiers Boy Brow have been created to get that perfectly feathered look in a snap.



By Megan Cahn.


New Zealand police said Sunday they have seized a record NZ$14 million (US$10 million) dollars worth of cocaine hidden inside a large diamante-encrusted horse head from Mexico.

The largest-ever haul of the drug in New Zealand has been linked to the rebuild of the city of Christchurch, severely damaged in a 2011 earthquake, and the Australian market.

Detective Superintendent Virginia Le Bas, from the organised crime unit, said they were still working to establish the final destination of the haul.

"This is a significant win for New Zealand," she said. "This is a great success, we should be proud to have detected it at the earliest of stages."

The 35-kilogramme (77 pound) shipment had been air-freighted from Mexico to Auckland where it was detected in the bejewelled horse-head statue in May.

Following a six-week investigation, a Mexican and an American were arrested in Auckland over the weekend as they prepared to fly to Hawaii and another Mexican was detained in Christchurch.

Police believe at least some of the drug was destined for Christchurch which has attracted workers from around the world to get involved in the rebuild over recent years.

Le Bas said some people in Christchurch were using the drug and the rebuild had created a change in demand for some illicit substances.

Drug researcher Chris Wilkins, from Massey University, told reporters the drug may also have been destined for Australia where demand was high in cities like Sydney and Melbourne.
A New Zealand town wants YOU to move there, but theres serious competition

A New Zealand town wants YOU to move there, but theres serious competition

Among all the beautiful places to visit in the world, New Zealand is near the top of the list. And if youve ever wanted to go there, now might be the perfect time! Apparently theres a lot of agricultural job vacancies in the small hilly town of Kaitangata, and not enough workers to fulfill the demand. It was previously stated in the news that the Mayor was offering relocation packages for people to move there, in the sizable sum of $165,000. That would obviously be a dream come true.

However this was a rushed assumption, and it turns out to not quite be correct. BUT there is good news! There are numerous jobs that need skilled workers in Kaitangata, and local dairy farmer Evan Dick is offering house and land packages for the exact amount of $165,000. So for anyone whos interested, Kaitangata is absolutely the place to be! Unsurprisingly, the Mayor has been flooded with thousands of messages since this news broke out, and people are genuinely considering moving to New Zealand to take advantage of the exciting offer in Kaitangata.

Today seems a really good day to pack up and head for #Kaitangata #NewZealand  irma heger (@irmaheger) June 30, 2016

Have decided after reading about the fantastic scheme #Kaitangata are doing its time to pack our bags and move out there!!  ryan smith (@bigsmithy1984) June 29, 2016

The small town is located in the area of the country known as Clutha, and is known for a safe environment, beautiful beaches, and an off-the-main-road feel, despite being less than an hour from a major airport. The countys website touts it as an especially good place for families. If youve always wanted that small-town feel without being landlocked, it might be the perfect fit!

If you are looking for a new adventure in a gorgeous location, we suggest reading up on New Zealand and Kaitangata before purchasing a plane ticket, just to be as informed about the country and town as possible. When youre ready you can visit this site for more information, and kickstart a plan into action (just be aware that, since this story went global, theres a lot of people who want to do the same)! And yes, it includes where to send your job application.

The post A New Zealand town wants YOU to move there, but theres serious competition appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Music lovers in Ghana are pointing out that a new rap song by M.anifest is a jab at Sarkodie, especially, and other rappers who claim to the best in the business.

M.anifest

The music enthusiasts analysed some lines in the track on Twitter and other social media platforms:

1. Whats a king to a god MC?

M.anifest's chorus is said to be a direct attack on Sarkodie who calls himself King Sark and has proclaimed himself the King of Ghana rap.

2. Clash of the titans, I had dinner with Medusa

This, according to analysts, is a response to Sarkodies Clash Of The Titans song which is said to be a diss to M.anifest. M.anifest mocks the song, saying he had dinner with Medusa.

3. Them dey claim pure gold, but them be copper, dont compare a name dropper to a show stopper, like me

This is said to be another jab at Sarkodie and other rappers who claim to be the best. M.aniftest also proclaims himself the best rapper.

4. You wanna be king, get your ass in line

This is said to be another assault on Sarkodie.

5. Call the fashion police, they can make an arrest, these boys copying the west, looking a mess, its retarded

Here M.anifest is said to have gone after the likes of Pappy Kojo and Joey B.

6. Even my nonfa back then had sense in it

This is said to be a jab at rapper's whose lyrics rhyme but hardly make sense.

7. Ghanaians are still concerned about diplomas and awards

Here M.anifest is said to hit out hard at rappers who fight among themselves after award shows.

8. When the boss is around, who can you boss around

He is said to proclaim himself the boss of GH rap.

9. Dont get intoxicated by these drunkards

The line is said to admonish fans not to carried away by the claims of some rappers who say they are the best.

10. I just chock it, laughing hard to their tears in a bucket

M.anifest says he enjoys laughing at such rappers.

Listen to the song below:

What do you think? Let's have your views in the comments section.

Source: YEN.com.gh
A woman has allegedly killed her 37-year-old husband in the Bosomtwe District of the Ashanti Region.

Adwoa Oppong Pokua is said to have stabbed her husband, Justice Adu Bosempem, to death after a quarrel on Friday.

Adwoa is said to have been seen rushing out of the room with blood stains after the quarrel.

When neighbours reportedly rushed into the room, they found Justice lifeless, with his intestines gushing out.

READ ALSO: Shocking! Man impregnates daughter and niece; you need to find out their ages

Justice Adu Bosompem

The deceased is said to have been a teacher at the Kumasi High SHS.

He reportedly had two children with his wife.

READ ALSO: You wouldnt believe why teachers are threatening to curse Finance Ministry

The development has been met with regret on social media.

"Very sad. What becomes of these innocent children? Why can't you seek help or walk out of the marriage if you can't take it anymore? Why kill him? sad," Facebook user Maame Akua said.

Now how will she tell her sons that she took their father away from them by her own hands? I don't give a damn about this lady. No matter how long she's kept in jail, she has destroyed more lives by not controlling herself, another user, Beatrice Thompson added.

Source: YEN.com.gh


July 4, 1776, was the day early American leaders signed the Declaration of Independence and ended the colonies political relationship with Britain.

Right?

Well  the real story is a little more complicated.

It starts a year and a half earlier, in April 1775, when American colonists began fighting with British soldiers. At the time, most colonists just wanted more independence, not complete independence.

But as the fighting continued, public opinion changed. By the summer of 1776, more and more people supported a complete break from Britain.

In June, the colonial government met in Philadelphia.

One of the representatives, Richard Henry Lee from Virginia, called for a vote on whether the colonies should declare their independence.

The other delegates were not ready to vote. But they agreed to allow five people to write a statement about why the colonies were seeking independence.

On July 2, nine of the thirteen delegates finally voted to accept Lees proposal for independence.

A delegate from Massachusetts, John Adams, wrote to his wife that future citizens would celebrate July 2 for years to come.

Two days later, Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the writing committee presented their Declaration of Independence. The delegates adopted it, and the president of the colonial government, John Hancock, signed it in large letters.

But most of the other delegates did not sign the Declaration of Independence until a few weeks later. Some did not sign it until the following year. And some men who signed it had not even attended the vote in Philadelphia.

Historian Ray Raphael challenges many American historical myths. Raphael says early American leaders did not discuss celebrating the anniversary of the colonies independence until it was too late. On July 3, 1777, they agreed to honor July 4 as Americas birthday.

For well over 200 years, most Americans have marked the day with patriotic and family celebrations.

Im Jill Robbins.

Kelly Jean Kelly wrote this report for Learning English. Hai Do was the editor.

_________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

adopted  v. accepted or approved

challenges  v. questions or disputes

myth  n. an idea or story that is believed by many people but that is not true
Asian Americans will make up more than 10 percent of California voters by the time America elects the next president.

Asian Americans are the fastest-growing minority in the nation. Still, Asian community leaders in Los Angeles say the Democratic and Republican parties are each doing a poor job appealing to Asian voters.

The community leaders were reacting to the release of a new study centered on the concerns and behaviors of Asian voters.

California State University, Los Angeles, carried out the study. It questioned more than 1,800 Asian American registered voters in Los Angeles.

The study suggested that Asian Americans politically are moving toward the Democratic Party, if they are moving at all. The researchers said age and country of origin are the biggest issues that divide Asian-Americans.

The study included people of Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Philippine ethnicity. It showed that those from the ages of 18 to 29, or millennials, think much differently than older Asians.

Most of the millennials were born in America. They know English very well. They get their news from the English language media. Their main source of news comes from the Internet.

The study shows that older Asian voters are mostly foreign-born and get their news from foreign language media.

Community leaders say political parties seeking support must find Asian candidates for office. They say Asian American voters often support candidates with whom they share the same ethnicity, even if they do not share the same political party.

Asian Americans across the board support someone from their own community to represent them, said business owner Charlie Woo. Woo is in charge of a community group called CAUSE.

Asian American also differ on what issues are important to them. Younger Asians in the study expressed liberal opinions on social issues, such as gay marriage.

Kat Alvarado is a Philippine American student at Cal State, Los Angeles. She says immigration reform, sexual reproductive rights and gun control are the issues most important to her.

Alvarado says she is a political independent.

Political parties not reaching Asian Americans

Charlie Woo of CAUSE says that the study shows that only one in three Asian Americans voters have had contact with elected officials.

I think the parties have been making a mistake not paying attention, Woo said.

Many older immigrants need encouragement to vote, said David Ryu. He is the first Korean American elected to the Los Angeles City Council.

Ryu said total voter turnout in his election last year was just 16 percent. For Asian Americans - Korean Americans - it was about 40 percent, he said.

The leaders said outreach in politics should differ by age and community. Older Asian Americans are still the majority of active Asian voters. They attend to traditional broadcasts and print media.

Some of the recent Chinese and Korean immigrants follow foreign language media sources. Experts say religious organizations are another way to reach older Asian voters.

Young voters are less religious and more involved with technology. They can be reached through English websites and social media.

Less involvement in community

College student Hannah Hsieh spoke to VOA. She says that reaching Asian Americans like her can be difficult. She says this is because many young Asians are focused on education and career.

That is likely to change. Experts on politics predict that young, liberal Asian voters will become more involved in civic activities.

Im Mario Ritter.

Mike OSullivan wrote this story for VOANews.com. Jim Dresbach adapted the report for Learning English. Katy Weaver was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or visit our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

millennials  n. a group of people whose birth dates generally range from the early 1980s to around 2000

encouragement - n. something that makes someone more determined, hopeful or confident

turnout  n. the number of people who go to or participate in something

focus - v. to cause something-such as attention- to be directed at something specific

civic  adj. relating to citizenship or being a citizen
Bombings in Baghdad early Sunday killed at least 124 people and wounded at least 180 others.

A suicide truck bombing happened shortly after midnight at a busy shopping area in the Karrada district. At least 119 people died and 170 were wounded. It was the deadliest attack in the Iraqi capital this year.

The Islamic State terrorist group claimed responsibility for the attack. It said it had targeted Shiite Muslims, which it considers heretics.

The bombing happened after sundown, when many people were in the streets after a day of fasting. Many Muslims go to shopping areas before the holiday marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

A second attack took place in the northern Shaab area of Baghdad. At least five people were killed and 16 were wounded when a bomb exploded. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited the site of the bombing hours after the attack.

The attacks on Sunday took place about a week after Iraqi forces forced Islamic State militants out of Fallujah, which is 50 kilometers west of Baghdad.

Im Jonathan Evans.

VOA News reported this story. Jonathan Evans adapted it for Learning English. Christopher Jones-Cruise was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section, or visit our Facebook page.

_____________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

heretic  n. someone who believes or teaches something that goes against accepted or official beliefs
Some Russians enjoy taking part in reenactments of historic military battles.

In Russia, the government often plays up past military victories as a show of national strength.

Recently, one group of Russians gathered in Moscow for a reenactment of the Western Front during World War II.

The Western Front was where the United States, Britain and their allies battled German-led forces for control of Western Europe.

For the military reenactment, about 100 Russians wore clothing like that worn by American and British soldiers during the war. As the troops moved forward, the only way to tell their nationality was when the soldiers spoke to each other in Russian.

The reenactors worked hard to make their military camp look like the 1940s camps did. Empty cans of food near the campfire had labels similar to those used in the war. Some were for products or companies that no longer exist. Nearby, an olive green radio played The White Cliffs of Dover and other popular songs of 70 years ago.

A man named Alexei played an American soldier during the reenactment. He said the hardest part for him was all the walking.

Now we're going back, he said. Thats the real war. About an hour walking, then a few minutes of fighting, or no fighting at all, and we are going back.

He and the other Russians recreated historic battles with weapons that look real, but fire plastic pellets. The troops also had realistic-looking grenades and mortar launchers.

Maxim Afonin played the part of an American private named Max Garvel. Reenactment for me it's like a sport. Its an active sport and some fun with my friends, he said.

I don't care about politics, about why Germans are Germans, he added. I mean, why Russian guys wear a German uniform. I don't care. It's like a cool game for friends.

The exercise gave the Russians a chance to use their English language skills.

If you reenact as a Western soldier, you dont know what a Western soldier thinks. You don't know how they talk. You learn it, said Andrei Tuzov. He served as a member of the British force during the re-enactment.

Most reenactors choose to be part of the Soviet Red Army because it was a sign of loyalty to Russia. It also was easier. The Red Army clothing doesnt cost as much as the American or British uniforms. Recreating the western front also means having to order more costly, genuine military equipment.

Need for recruiting allies

In recent years, military tensions between Russia and the West have been rising. Some of the Western troop reenactors found themselves questioned by fellow Russians.

At work, my colleagues have asked why the American soldier? said Andrey Borovoy, who works as a dental technician.

Well, at the moment the relations between our countries are not very good. But lets not mix up policy and history, he said. History is history. We were allies in [the war].

Im Pete Musto.

Daniel Schearf wrote this story for VOANews.com. Jim Dresbach adapted it for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or visit our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

re-enact  v. to repeat or replay the actions of an event

grenade  n. a small bomb that is designed to be thrown by someone or shot from a rifle

mortar  n. a military weapon used to fire shells high into the air at a low speed

label  n. a sign covering a bottle, can or box

uniform  n. a special kind of clothing that is worn by all the members of an organization

genuine  adj. real; true to life
An asteroid the size of a school bus is headed our way. NASA says it will zoom past Earth on Thursday, well below many satellites orbiting the planet.
DHAKA Seven militants who killed 20 people at a Dhaka restaurant were Bangladeshis and authorities had earlier tried to arrest five of them, said officials who denied claims by Islamic State of responsibility for the attack.

The gunmen stormed the upmarket restaurant in the diplomatic zone late on Friday and killed their mostly non-Muslim hostages, including nine Italians, seven Japanese and an American.

Claiming responsibility, Islamic State warned citizens of "crusader countries" in a statement that they would not be safe "as long as their aircraft are killing Muslims".

It also posted pictures of five grinning fighters in front of a black flag who it said were involved in the attack, according to the SITE monitoring website.

But Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told Reuters late on Saturday that neither Islamic State nor al Qaeda were involved. He reiterated the government statement that home-grown militants were responsible for a spate of killings in the country over the past 18 months, including the latest one.

"This was done by JMB," Khan said, referring to Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, which claims to represent Islamic State in Bangladesh but has no proven links to it.

Islamic State also claimed responsibility for two bombings overnight in Baghdad that killed nearly 120 people and wounded 200, most of them in a busy shopping area while residents celebrated the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. [nL8N19P049]

Reacting to the two attacks over the past three days, Pope Francis asked people attending noon prayer at the Vatican in Rome to pray for the victims and their families.

Late on Sunday in Bangladesh, hundreds of men, women and children held a candle light vigil near Dhakas Shaheed Minar (Martyr's Monument) to pay respect to those who lost their lives.

"We don't want this," Nasima, a textile industry worker, told Reuters Television. "Please stop this, stop this, stop this from our society, from our country, I want to live in peace."

As Dhaka limped back to normal life, security experts questioned the delay in launching the offensive against the militants. More than 100 commandos stormed the restaurant nearly 10 hours after the siege began, under an operation code-named 'Thunderbolt'.

Analysts say that as Islamic State loses territory in Iraq and Syria and its finances get drained, it may be trying to build affiliates in countries such as Bangladesh for jihadists to launch attacks locally and cheaply. [nL3N18L3LK]

RICH FAMILIES

Deputy Inspector General of Police Shahidur Rahman told Reuters on Sunday that authorities were investigating any connection between the attackers and transnational groups such as Islamic State or al Qaeda.

He said the militants were mostly educated and from well-off families, but declined to give any more details.

National police chief Shahidul Hoque said all the gunmen were Bangladeshis. "Five of them were listed as militants and law enforcers made several drives to arrest them," he said.

Whoever was responsible, the attack marked a major escalation in violence by militants demanding Islamic rule in Bangladesh, whose 160 million people are mostly Muslim.

Previous attacks have mostly singled out individuals advocating a secular or liberal lifestyle, or religious minorities.

RECITING KORAN VERSE

Friday night's attack, during the final days of Ramadan, was more coordinated than the previous assaults.

Gunmen singled out foreigners as soon as they stormed through the doors of the restaurant popular with expatriates. They ordered all Bangladeshis to stand up before the killing began, a source briefed on the investigation said.

The Bangladeshis were later told to close their eyes and recite verses from the Koran. One militant cursed a Bangladeshi for eating with non-Muslims during Ramadan, the source said.

The Islamic State-affiliated Amaq news agency claimed in a report on Saturday that the militants identified and released Muslim patrons from the Dhaka restaurant, SITE said.

The victims also included at least three Bangladeshis or people of Bangladeshi descent.[nL1N19O0B2]

The militants hacked most of their victims with machetes, leaving their bleeding bodies on the floor.

A standoff of nearly 12 hours with security forces ended when the commandos stormed the building, killing six of the militants and capturing a seventh after attempts at negotiations proved fruitless, authorities said. They recovered explosives and sharp weapons from the scene.[nL8N19O0BU]

It was not clear if the attackers had made any demands.

HOME-GROWN GROUPS

Up until Friday's attack, authorities had maintained no operational links existed between Bangladeshi militants and international jihadi networks. Bangladesh has blamed JMB and another home-grown outfit for the wave of grisly killings over the past year and a half.

One line of inquiry being pursued was whether the restaurant attackers received any guidance from Islamic State or al Qaeda, an official in Bangladesh's counter-terrorism wing said.

"Pictures (uploaded on Twitter) indicate they might have been encouraged by ISIS (Islamic State) activities abroad," said Muhammad Zamir, a former senior foreign ministry official.

"But this does not show a direct link to ISIS. This is exactly what was done and disputed later in the case of the Orlando attack," he said, referring to the killing of 49 people last month by a man who pledged allegiance to Islamic State.

Friday's attack in Dhaka was the worst since 2005, when JMB set off a series of bombs throughout Bangladesh in the space of an hour that killed at least 25 people, mostly judges, police and journalists.

The authorities executed six top JMB leaders in March 2007 and police have continued to hunt for group members, often detaining suspected militants following intelligence tips.

In February, Bangladesh police arrested three JMB members suspected of killing a Hindu priest.

Islamic state has claimed responsibility for a series of other attacks in Bangladesh in recent months since first taking credit for a killing in September last year.

An Italian missionary was shot and wounded in the neck last November. Another Italian and a Japanese citizen were killed in attacks at the end of September and early October last year.

"SAVE ME, SAVE ME"

In a run-down government hospital in Dhaka, two police officers who were on patrol duty on Friday night were treated for gunshot wounds, with bandages and plasters on their cheeks and legs. Behind their beds, a sheet of paper carried details of their wounds.

Struggling to speak, 30-year-old officer Pradip, who gave just one name, recalled rushing to the spot after receiving a message that night. A blood-smeared man lay in front of the restaurant, shouting "save me, save me".

The police officers called for backup after they were shot at from inside the restaurant.

"At some point, I felt blood was rolling down my cheek," Pradip said. "We did respond with fire and the attackers stopped. We then rescued the man, who was the driver of some of the Japanese citizens who were inside."

After meeting the officers in the hospital, police chief Hoque told Reuters they had gleaned some preliminary details on the identities of the attackers, but gave no details.

GARMENT INDUSTRY

The seven Japanese killed were working on projects for the Japan International Cooperation Agency, an overseas aid agency, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said on Saturday.

Six of them were in Dhaka to work on a metro rail project, said Bangladesh's communication minister Obaidul Quader.

Italian media said several of the Italians victims worked in Bangladesh's $26 billion garment sector, which accounts for 80 percent of the country's exports. [nL4N19O0BZ]

A Bangladeshi garment exporter who supplies six European countries said his customers generally visit every two months but will now rethink that.

"I feel they will be afraid," he said, declining to be identified. "Even I am afraid."

(Additional reporting by Reuters Television in Dhaka; Writing by Tommy Wilkes and Krishna N. Das; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Tom Heneghan)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's interview with Times Now editor Arnab Goswami on 27 June was one of the most-talked about interviews. It was Modi's was first major interview with a television channel after he came to power in 2014. During the interview, the Prime Minister broke his silence on Subramanian Swamy and came out in the defence of Raghuram Rajan.

Without naming Swamy, Modi had said, "This fondness for publicity is never going to do any good to the nation. People should conduct themselves with utmost responsibility. If anybody considers himself above the system, it is wrong."

Modi's comment on Swamy aside, Arnab Goswami received a lot of flak from the 'Lutyens' journalists and social media trolls for his 'uncharacteristically' soft interview with the Prime Minister. Many commented on how the interview didn't make an attempt to dig deeper into issues like NSG, India-Pakistan relationship, Uttar Pradesh elections, Rajan's exit, rising unemployment, etc. It was also suspected to be a 'scripted interview.' What took many by surprise was how little Goswami interrupted PM Modi and how little follow-up he engaged in.

Mocking the lack of his usual demeanour, there were hilarious reaction on Twitter to the interview.

https://twitter.com/dpanjana/status/747411664883048448?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Some journalists also questioned the exclusivity of the interview.

On Saturday, it was Goswami's turn to respond to the trolls and critics over what was touted as an 'uncharacteristically' soft interview with PM Narendra Modi on Businessworld.

Goswami responded by quoting the number of hits the interview received  "1.4 billion impressions on Twitter, about over a million video views and 10.2 million impressions on Facebook, trending globally for 8 hours on Twitter and making global headlines by being quoted across the world." He claimed that the interview was the biggest one in the last five years in terms of reach and impact.

He was amused by the collective outrage of the 'Lutyens' journalists over the interview and said that it was the popularity of the show which got them the exclusive interview. He wrote, "Across the world, the first exclusive interviews are given to anchors and channels who command viewership. Not to those who nobody watches. Period."

Goswami took a dig at Sagarika Ghose and wrote, "One of them, a has-been anchor who desperately lobbies for an opportunity to be invited on my Newshour debates, even put out a tweet asking why the prime minister chose to give an interview to me and not hold a press conference. Embarrassed by the angry reactions, she deleted the tweet later. I thought her question was intellectually disjointed."

Goswami also addressed questions like 'Why was he soft?', "Why didn't he raise his voice like on Newshour?', "Why did he keep referring to the prime minister as Mr Prime Minister?"

"Three answers should silence this industry that obsesses about me. First, I used the same tone with Rahul Gandhi. If this industry is disappointed with how he let them down, its not my problem. Second, 'Frankly Speaking' is an interview and The Newshour is a debate, both are therefore different styles and formats. And finally, Mr Prime Minister is the most appropriate reference point when you are speaking to the Prime Minister," he said.

He ended the letter on the note that media 'that has nothing to do but write about him' should 'calm down and get composure.'
Shillong: BSF has been put on "very high alert" along the 443-km long Indo-Bangladesh border in Meghalaya following the killing of 20 hostages in a terror attack at a restaurant in Dhaka, an official said on Sunday.

"The force has been put on very high alert along the Indo-Bangladesh border following the armed attack in Dhaka. Security has been tightened," BSF Inspector General (Meghalaya Frontier) PK Dubey said.

Dubey said he had spoken to officials of Meghalaya Police for coordination and sharing of information as soon as news of the killings came in.

Meghalaya has over 100 "gaps" consisting of streams, rivers and drains apart from the unfenced 90-km stretch along the 443 km border with Bangladesh.

Accordingly, the BSF has sought cooperation of all state and central intelligence units to ensure that no illegal cross-border movement takes place, he said.

Police personnel posted close to the border has been alerted and asked to keep strict vigil in close coordination with the BSF, a senior police officer said.
New Delhi: India's indigenous nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) Agni-V, which can reach targets as far as Beijing, has been stuck due to a technical snag with its battery and not because of any other considerations, DRDO Chief S Christopher said.

The problem is solvable and the next test-firing of Agni-V is expected by the year-end, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) chief added.

Asked about the much-delayed fourth test of Agni-V, Christopher said: "It has been delayed because of a technical snag," adding: "There is a problem with the battery."

Asked about the timeframe for the next test, the DRDO chief said: "Our colleagues have said the issue can be resolved. We will do a test before the end of this year."

The DRDO chief also dismissed reports that the test was postponed due to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the US.

"The reasons for delay are only technical," Christopher told IANS.

Earlier reports had said that the fourth test of Agni-V was scheduled for December 2015, was postponed to January 2016 and then to March, but was rescheduled due to he prime minister's scheduled visit to the US.

Modi was in the US from 6 to 8 June. This was his fourth visit to the US after assuming office two years ago.

The missile was first tested in April 2012 and then in September 2013.

The last test was carried out on 31 January, 2015, from a mobile canister, under then DRDO chief Avinash Chander, widely known as the man behind the Agni series of missiles, on the last day of his tenure.

In the canisterised launch, a gas generator inside the canister ejects the missile up to a height of about 30 metres. A motor is then ignited to fire the missile onwards.

Soon after, DRDO sources had told IANS India planned for at least three more tests, and aimed at handing over the missile for user trials by mid-2016.

The Agni-V is the most advanced version of the indigenously built Agni, or Fire, series, part of the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP) that started in the 1960s and was once overseen by APJ Abdul Kalam, who later rose to become the Indian president.

Agni's earlier versions, which have been inducted in the armed forces, can reach anywhere in Pakistan and parts of western China.

Agni-V is a three-stage missile designed to carry an over one-tonne warhead. Its 5,000 km-range gives it the farthest reach among all Indian missiles.

India joined the US, Russia, the UK, France and China, which boast ICBM capabilities, when it first tested the Agni-V in 2012.
Rajkot: A leopard was beaten to death by villagers in Gujarat's Botad district, prompting the forest department to order an inquiry into it.

The incident was even filmed and the video of people from Rajmol village in Botad beating the male leopard was widely circulated through regional TV channels on Saturday following which the forest department registered an offence under the Wildlife Protection Act. No arrest has been made so far.

In the video, about 7-8 persons were seen attacking the feline with sharp objects and sticks.

"The incident happened on 1 July, when the animal in search for prey may have entered in the village and killed a cow following which the cowherd raised an alarm, prompting the villagers to surround the animal and beat it with sticks and stones till it died," Deputy Chief Conservator of Forest (Botad), AE Samuel said.

The forest officials are in possession of the video in which the entire incident has been captured. The leopard, an adult male, had not attacked any humans.

An inquiry has been ordered against the villagers who attacked the leopard and killed it, the official added.
New Delhi: India is making all efforts to secure the release of two Indians abducted from Gboko, a town in the Benue state of north-central Nigeria, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Sunday.

The Minister also thanked Indian envoy in Abuja for repatriation of 11 Indians, who were released after languishing in a Nigerian jail for two years.

"I appreciate the efforts of our High Commissioner in Nigeria Shri BN Reddy for expediting their repatriation," Swaraj tweeted.

Employees of a Merchant Navy firm, the crew's ship got stranded in Nigeria and the entire crew was arrested for violating laws of international waters in 2014.

Meanwhile, Swaraj said all efforts were being made to secure the release of the two Indians abducted in Nigeria.

The duo -- Mangipudi Sai Srinivas (from Andhara Pradesh) and his colleague Anish Sharma (from Karnataka) -- were travelling to Dangote Cement Plc Plant in a car from their residential quarters around 7.20 pm last Wednesday when a group of armed men kidnapped them at a traffic signal.

"I spoke to Anish Sharma's wife this morning. I assured her that we are doing our best to secure Anish and Srinivas's release from abductors in Nigeria," Swaraj said.

"I have deputed a senior officer to update the family regularly," she tweeted.

External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup had on Friday described the abduction as "nothing surprising or new in that area", saying such incidents keep happening there.

Asserting that there has been no ransom demand so far, the Spokesperson had said, "As far as our information goes there is no hand of terror group Boko Haram and it seems local criminal elements were responsible for the act."
Srinagar: Security agencies have identified the driver of the car which ferried the 'fidayeen' terrorists who ambushed a CRPF bus killing eight personnel, as a probe pointed to the LeT attackers having infiltrated into Kashmir Valley through higher reaches of Gulmarg early last month.

Official sources said on Sunday that the driver, whose identity has been withheld, had driven four militants of Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashker-e-Taiba(LeT) from Baba Reshi, 57 km from Srinagar, four days before the deadly attack in Pampore on 25 June and kept them in a safe house in Pulwama district in south Kashmir.

The driver, who has gone underground since the day of the attack, was considered as Over Ground Worker (OGW) of the militant outfit by the local police but no action was taken against him as there was no evidence so far, the sources said. Security agencies are now hot on the trail of the driver.

Piecing together the evidence collected by the security agencies so far, they said the four 'fidayeens' (suicide attackers) infiltrated through the higher reaches of Gulmarg in north Kashmir and reached south Kashmir in a Tata Sumo vehicle.

Initially, all the four terrorists had carried out a reconnaissance of the National Highway and chose the attack spot which is barely three km from Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI), where LeT militants had gunned down two Army officers and three others ranks in February this year.

After the Pampore attack, raids were carried out at various places in Pulwama during which the security agencies gathered information that it was a group of four 'fidayeens' behind the attack.

Out of the four, two were killed in swift action by the Quick Reaction Team(QRT) of CRPF during the attack while the third was killed in a gunfight in Malwari Newa village of Pulwama district on 30 June.

While the identity of two fidayeens was yet to be ascertained, the third one killed in Newa village was identifed as 'Abu Ayan', the sources said, adding the fourth in the group is believed to have moved towards Shopian and Kulgam area where dense forests provide a natural cover for hiding.

The fidayeens behind the attack in Pampore, which is in the outskirts of the city, had chosen a spot from where they could have escaped through a side lane and take shelter in the congested lanes and bylanes which could have taken them to Tral area as well, the sources said.

Security forces carried out searches at Baba Rishi area, 57 km north of Srinagar, during which they identfied the place where the four terrorists had stayed after their infiltration in the Valley, the sources said, adding that they are believed to have entered through 'Haji Peer pass' in the upper reaches of Gulmarg and then trekked along the foot hills of Peer Panjal range before reaching the halting point.

The army has been asked to increase the vigil along this axis and teams have fanned out along the possible route used by the militants questioning nomads and shepherd who often take their cattle and sheep along these tracks, the sources said.
Rescue operations in Bastadi village of Pithoragarh which was hit by landslides and cloudburst are in full swing. The Indian Tibetan Border Police Force (ITBP) has reportedly given food to 100 locals. Most roads which got blocked because of the heavy rainfall in Uttarakhand have been cleared out and opened. The remaining ones will be operational soon as well, said Chief Minister Harish Rawat.

Most roads have been opened & cleared, the remaining ones will be cleared soon: Harish Rawat #UttarakhandCloudburst pic.twitter.com/eVYkHfmd4C  ANI (@ANI_news) July 3, 2016

Heavy rainfall and landslides had blocked the Gangotri highway and the Rishikesh-Badrinath National Highway 58. The water level of most rivers in Uttarakhand has also increased, according to recent reports. The cloudburst and landslide in the Pithoragarh and Chamoli districts of Uttarakhand has claimed about 30 lives so far.

The Gangotri highway road got blocked because of the landslide and border road organisations are trying to clear the road. On Saturday, 50 metres of the highway was washed away shutting down the Lata area.

#Uttarakhand: Gangotri highway road closed due to a landslide, Border roads organisation clearing the road.  ANI (@ANI_news) July 3, 2016

The Gangotri Dham pilgrimage which was temporarily halted on Saturday has resumed. People who are coming from Char Dham should not worry, Rawat said.

The continuous rainfall has also increased the water level of all major rivers of Uttarakhand. The rivers in the hilly tracts were in spate and the water level has risen well above the danger mark.

Water level at many major rivers in #Uttarakhand above the danger mark (In Pic: An overflowing river in Dharchula) pic.twitter.com/scyUlOiyrF  ANI (@ANI_news) July 3, 2016

The Rishikesh-Badrinath NH-58 which was blocked because of the landslide is also being cleared in Joshimath. Rawat claimed that clearing work is underway for the blocked roads. He has also ensured that the situation is under control and he is personally monitoring the rescue operations from the rescue control room.

Work is underway for roads that've been blocked due to landslides,will be cleared soon: #Uttarakhand CM Harish Rawat pic.twitter.com/J6b8vavhVx  ANI (@ANI_news) July 3, 2016

Rawat chaired a meeting in Dehradun on Sunday to review the ongoing relief and rescue operations.

Dehradun:#Uttarakhand CM chairs meet to review ongoing rescue&relief ops in areas affected by heavy rains&cloudburst pic.twitter.com/ngfzDvy7D2  ANI (@ANI_news) July 3, 2016

In view of the situation, the leaves of all government officers and employees has been cancelled, said state Chief Secretary Shatrughan Singh.

At least 30 people are feared dead and the toll is expected to rise as several people are still trapped under the debris of broken houses. Reports suggest that around 60 houses were flattened and villagers have lost over 200 cattle in the resulting floods.

Eight bodies have been recovered so far from the debris in the village of Pithoragarh.

Alert was issued on Saturday after the water level increased considerably in the Koshi river. The Alaknanda river too rose above the danger level mark after rainfall of over 100 mm within a few hours, leading to floods in most villages of Uttarakhand.

A senior disaster management official said that the weather conditions were impeding the rescue operations. The NDRF teams were rushed to the affected areas and additional teams are kept on alert.

However, there is no respite from the inclement weather as IMD issued fresh warnings of heavy to very heavy rainfall in eight districts for the next 24 hours at least.

All means of communication had also collapsed because of the rain. However, Rawat has written to the Home Ministry, the telecom Ministry and spoken to BSNL in this regard. He has also asked officials to camp in the affected areas and ensure that there is no dearth of ration. He has also announced a compensation of Rs 2 lakh for the kin of each of the deceased.

There are problem in communication services,had conversation with BSNL.We've written to HM and Telecom Minister regarding this: Harish Rawat  ANI (@ANI_news) July 3, 2016

Home Minister Rajnath Singh too ensures all possible support from the centre. Rescue operations are on in all the affected districts of Uttarakhand.

With inputs from agencies
Panaji: On the eve of his 60th birthday, Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar ruled out retirement from politics, saying this was the "right time" he could use his experience.

"As a teacher, I would have retired at 60, but in politics, when you reach that age, the kind of experience you get at the end of life-long churning fills you with the different level of maturity," the teacher-turned-politician told PTI on Sunday.

After having such an experience, every minute of life counts, he said.

"This is the right time to use my experience," the CM of Goa, where Assembly polls are due next year, said when asked he if had any retirement plans.

Parsekar said he would continue to serve people be it through politics or social work.

"In last few years, I had to neglect my educational institute. When the time comes for me to quit politics, I will be working for the people through my educational institute," said Parsekar, who owns a school and a college at his native village in Mandrem constituency (North Goa).

The BJP leader, who took over the reigns from his predecessor and now Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar in 2014, said, "During my current tenure, I never spoke without thinking. I was not perfect in all the subjects but wherever I lacked knowledge, I have tried to understand the subject and took the decision."

Responding to a query, the CM said he had been dragged into unnecessary controversies by media which "misinterpreted" his comments.

"There are times when I speak 10 sentences but only one sentence is selectively picked up and controversy is created misinterpreting everything," he said.

Parsekar had last month courted a row over his comments on Nigerians amid incidents of attack on people of African-origin in Delhi, saying people are angry in general with Nigerians because of their "different attitude".

Recently, RSS Goa unit chief Subhash Velingkar resigned from the committee formed to celebrate Parsekar's birthday, saying the CM has "betrayed" Goans over the issue of the Medium of Instruction in schools.

Parsekar was also in a spot over reinstatement of his graft-accused brother-in-law Dilip Malvankar, attached to Goa State Industrial Development Corporation.

He also dismissed reports that suggested he has been defending Malvanakar, who was arrested last year for allegedly accepting bribe for land allotment and reinstated subsequently.

"When there was allegation against my relative, I ordered his suspension. During suspension you get payment without any work. He has been taken (back) in service after nine months of his suspension. His reinstatement does not mean he is cleared of the charges by Anti Corruption Bureau," Parsekar said.

He said there are "many instances" where suspensions are revoked after three or six months. "He (Malvankar) should not get advantage as my relative but he should also not be disadvantaged for that," Parsekar added.
Baghdad: At least 83 people have been killed and 176 wounded in two separate bomb attacks in the Iraqi capital Sunday morning, Iraqi officials said.

In the deadliest attack, a car bomb hit Karada, a busy shopping district in the center of Baghdad, killing 78 people and wounding 160, according to police and hospital officials. It struck as families and young people were out on the streets after breaking their daylight fast for the holy month of Ramadan.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in the Karada district in a communique distributed on Telegram and Twitter, according to the SITE Intelligence Group which monitors jihadi online activity. The communique said a suicide car bomber deliberately targeted Shiites. The statement could not be independently verified.

At dawn on Sunday, fire fighters were still working to extinguish the blazes and bodies were still being recovered from charred buildings. Many of the dead were children, according to Associated Press reporters at the scene. Ambulances could be heard rushing to the site for hours after the blast. An eyewitness said the explosion caused fires at nearby clothing and cellphone shops.

Hours after the bombing, Iraq's prime minister visited the blast site. Video footage uploaded to social media showed an angry crowd, with people calling Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi a "thief" and shouting at his convoy.

In the second attack, an improvised explosive device went off in eastern Baghdad, killing 5 people and wounding 16. No group claimed responsibility for the attack.

The casualty figures were confirmed by police and hospital officials, who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to release information to the press.

The Baghdad attacks come just over a week after Iraqi forces declared the city of Fallujah "fully liberated" from IS. Over the past year, Iraqi forces have racked up territorial gains against IS, retaking the city of Ramadi and the towns of Hit and Rutba, all in Iraq's vast Anbar province west of Baghdad.

Despite the government's battlefield victories, IS has repeatedly shown it remains capable of launching attacks far from the front-lines.

Before the launch of the operation to retake Fallujah, Iraq's prime minister was facing growing social unrest and anti-government protests in Baghdad sparked in part by popular anger at the lack of security in the capital. In one month, Baghdad's highly-fortified Green Zone  which houses government buildings and diplomatic missions  was stormed twice by anti-government protesters.

IS still controls Iraq's second largest city of Mosul as well as significant patches of territory in the country's north and west.

At the height of the extremist group's power in 2014, IS rendered nearly a third of the country out of government control. Now, the militants are estimated to control only 14 percent of Iraqi territory, according to the office of Iraq's prime minister.
Canberra: Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull says he is confident he can form a government after Saturday's election, but results are still too close to call.

With 69.64 per cent of votes counted, Labor has so far won 66 seats, while the ruling coalition has 63 out of the 150 federal parliamentary seats, Efe news reported

The leader of the Liberal-National coalition needs to win 76 out of 150 lower house seats to form a ruling majority. With about half the votes counted, results suggest a very close contest, BBC reported.

Addressing supporters, Malcolm Turnbull tried to make tonight sound like a victory. But at best his Conservative coalition lost ground.

He said he was confident he would be able to form a majority government but he acknowledged the result was so close it could be days before we know the outcome.

Meanwhile, Labor Party Leader Bill Shorten was sounding upbeat telling his supporters Labor was back, even though he will most likely end up defeated.

Shorten said the close result was a vindication of his Labor Party's policies. Labor has improved strongly on its 2013 election result of 55 lower house seats.

"There is one thing for sure  the Labor Party is back," he said.

Shorten is currently enjoying a slight lead over the Liberal-National coalition of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, with nearly 70 per cent of votes counted in general elections held in Australia on Saturday.

All 150 seats in Australia's lower house, the House of Representatives, are up for grabs at the election, as are 76 seats in Australia's upper house, the Senate.

It is the first time in decades that all the seats in both houses have been up for election.

The double-dissolution election, as it is known, was called by Turnbull in an attempt to break a deadlock over industrial relations legislation.

"At this point, the results are not clear. We see a turn that might not be enough to defeat the government, but we also see the Labor Party won seats," said analyst Antony Green, as cited by state-owned broadcaster ABC.

Labor candidate Linda Burney has also become the first indigenous woman to win a seat in the lower house, according to Channel 7 television.

A total of 57 political and independent formations are presented in these elections, with more than 994 candidates for the House and 661 candidates for the 76-seat Senate.

The Senate, which is being completely renewed after being dissolved on 9 May this year, is key to support the next government.
Dhaka: Bangladesh government on Sunday claimed the attackers who slaughtered 20 hostages inside a cafe in the country's worst terror attack were members of "homegrown" Islamist terrorist outfits and not Islamic State militants, as the shocked nation began observing two days of national mourning.

"Let me clear it again, there are no IS or Al-Qaeda presence or existence in Bangladesh...the hostage-takers were all home-grown terrorists not members of the Islamic Sate or any other international Islamist outfits," Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told PTI.

"We know them (hostage-takers) along with their ancestors, they all grew here in Bangladesh...they belong to homegrown outfits like JMB (Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh)," he said.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the killing of the hostages, mostly foreigners and one Indian girl, and two police officers during an 11-hour siege that ended on Sunday after the army stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery popular with expats in the diplomatic zone here, killing six attackers and capturing one alive.

A police source was quoted as saying by the Dhaka Tribune that all the attackers were Bangladeshi nationals aged between 20 and 28.

Police said the attackers were well-educated and most came from rich families. "All of them were students and communicated at the crime scene in both Bengali and English," the police source said.

The government has consistently ruled out the presence of the dreaded terror group in the Muslim-majority nation though experts have been maintaining that series of brutal attacks on minorities and secular activists had the hallmarks of IS.

Meanwhile, police have released the photos of the six gunmen killed during the raid by commandos. A seventh was arrested and is being interrogated by Bangladeshi intelligence officers.

Police chief AKM Shahidul Hoque said five of the dead gunmen were listed as militants and police had been looking for them. Police identified them as Akash, Bikash, Don, Bandhon, and Ripon.

Bangladeshi media reports said that after US-based SITE Intelligence Group published photos of five gunmen holding assault rifles who, the Islamic State claims, killed the hostages, former classmates have started identifying by posting their old pictures on social media.

According to the reports, three of the five attackers have so far been identified by their friends. Announcing a two-day state mourning for those killed in the worst terror attack in the country, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina vowed to do everything to eliminate terrorists from the country and asked extremists to stop killing in the name of religion. She asked all, including the general public, to get united to resist a "handful of terrorists".

Twenty hostages, including 19-year-old Indian girl Tarushi Jain, were hacked to death by terrorists inside the cafe popular with expats in the diplomatic zone before commandos launched an assault killing six attackers and capturing one alive.

Most of those killed were found with their throats slit. Of the 20 hostages slain 9 were Italian, 7 Japanese, one American of Bangladeshi origin, and two were locals, the army said.

Among those rescued were Indian, Sri Lankan and Japanese nationals, media reports said. Around 30 people were injured.

Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack through its Amaq news agency, nearly four hours after the hostage crisis unfolded.
Dhaka: Three of the terrorists who slaughtered 20 people in the Bangladeshi capital city have been identified by their former friends after their photographs were released.

One of the terrorists, Nibras Islam, has been recognised by his former classmates in the privately-run North South University in Dhaka, bdnews24.com reported on Sunday.

An expatriate Bangladeshi has posted on Facebook a photo of one Mir Sabih Mubashsher along with the photo of an attacker.

He quoted one of Mubashsher's classmates in Scholastica School in Dhaka as saying that Mubashsher went missing in March before his A-Level exam.

A Mahbub Rajib posted a family photo of Rohan Imtiaz also from Scholastica, known as a school for the children of the well-to-do in Dhaka.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the macabre killing of the 20 people, mostly foreigners, in a cafe in Dhaka on Friday evening.

Six of the attackers were also killed. The attackers reportedly shouted Islamic slogans when they set upon the innocents at Holey Artisan Bakery, in Dhaka's upscale diplomatic heart of Gulshan.

The assailants killed two policemen who tried to enter the cafe, after taking a number of hostages.

Army commandos stormed the eatery on Saturday morning and rescued 13 hostages, killing six attackers and arresting another.

The army said 20 foreigners were found dead on the premises during the raid.

Terrorism observer group SITE published the photos of the attackers on Saturday night.

Police have also released photos of the gunmen killed during the raid.

Police chief A.K.M. Shahidul Hoque said five of the dead gunmen were listed as militants and police had been looking for them.

Police identified them as 'Akash', 'Bikash', 'Don', 'Bandhon', and 'Ripon'.
Dhaka: Heavily armed militants chanting "Allahu Akbar" asked their hostages at a popular eatery in Dhaka to recite Quranic verses to know who among them were Muslims. Others were hacked to death, according to one of the many eyewitness accounts of the gory Bangladesh carnage that has shocked the world.

The Daily Star citing a father of a hostage said the militants who stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery, a popular hangout for foreigners in the high-security and affluent Gulshan diplomatic zone of the Bangladesh capital, performed a religion identity check on their captives and asked them to recite the Quran.

Those who recited verses from the holy Muslim book were spared, the daily said. "The others were tortured by the gunmen," said Rezaul Karim, father of one of the hostages Hasnat Karim.

Hasnat had gone to celebrate his 13-year-old daughter's birthday along with his wife Sharmin Parvin and son Rayan, 8. The family was rescued early in the morning.

Rezaul quoting his son said the gunmen did not behave "rough with the Bangladesh nationals" and provided dinner to all of them.

He said the gunmen killed all the foreign nationals dining in the eatery by 11 Friday night. By the end, five gunmen sustained bullet injuries and "probably died".

Hasnat's mother told Bangladesh News 24 that Parvin, her daughter-in-law, was treated well "as she was wearing a hijab (veil)".

Some of the other witnesses said they saw militants, one of them armed with a sword and the others carrying "small firearms with big magazines" raiding the restaurant.

The men shouted 'Allahu Akbar' (God is great) on their way in and started firing at the dozens of guests inside  several of them foreigners, the restaurant's supervisor Sumon Reza, who managed to escape, was quoted as saying by Bangladesh News 24.

The restaurant has 50 staff but only 20 were present at the time of the attack.

A kitchen staff of the bakery, who managed to escape, said the chief chef was among the hostages. "They set off several crude bombs triggering panic."

Gruesome pictures emerged on social media showing the inside of the bakery, splattered with blood and broken furniture.
New Delhi: The mortal remains of Indian teenager Tarishi Jain, who was among those hacked to death by Islamic militants in a terror attack at a Dhaka restaurant, will be brought to Delhi on Monday, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said.

"It is a case of brutal killing - an unnatural death. Some legal procedure has (to) be completed," the Minister said on Twitter.

It is a case of brutal killing - an unnatural death. Some legal precedure has be completed. This will be done by tomorrow. /2 @15saloni2626  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) July 2, 2016

Swaraj said that Tarishi's body will be taken to Delhi by plane on Monday. "This is with concurrence of Tarishi's father. The family will take the mortal remains to Ferozabad (UP)," she added.

The mortal remains will reach Delhi by Jet Airways on Monday 4th July. This is with concurrence of Tarishi's father. /3 @15saloni2626  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) July 2, 2016

The family will take the mortal remains to Ferozabad (UP). /4 @15saloni2626  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) July 2, 2016

Tarishi, a student at UC Berkeley, was on vacation in Dhaka. Her father runs a garment business in Bangladesh for the last 15-20 years, according to officials here. Swaraj said the country is with Tarishi's family in this hour of grief and visa has been arranged for them.

Twenty foreigners, including eight Italians, seven Japanese and the Indian student, were brutally murdered by the militants inside the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's diplomatic zone before commandos launched an assault on Sunday, killing six attackers and capturing one alive, ending Bangladesh's worst terror attack.

The bodies of the victims were recovered during a search in the Bakery compound after the operation.
Dhaka: Bangladesh began two days of national mourning Sunday after 20 hostages were slaughtered at a restaurant as the government insisted the attackers were homegrown jihadists and not followers of the Islamic State group.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina decreed the mourning period as she vowed to drag Bangladesh back from the brink, warning of a concerted bid to turn one of the world's most populous nations into a failed state.

Amid mass condemnation of the killings in Dhaka, whose victims included 18 foreigners, the Islamic State group said it had targeted a gathering of "citizens of crusader states" on Friday night at a Western-style cafe.

But a government minister insisted the killers, six of whom were gunned down at the end of the siege, were members of a homegrown militant outfit and had no links to international jihadist networks.

"They are members of the Jamaeytul Mujahdeen Bangladesh," Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told AFP, referring to a group which has been banned in Bangladesh for more than a decade.

"They have no connections with the Islamic State."

As well as the 20 slain hostages whose bodies were found amid pools of blood after commandos stormed the cafe to end the siege, two policemen were also shot dead in a fierce gun battle at its outset.

Six gunmen were shot dead by the commandos at the final stages of the siege at the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe but one of the hostage-takers was taken alive and was being interrogated by Bangladeshi intelligence.

Security officials said most of the victims were slaughtered with sharpened machete-style weapons.

Hasina's government has previously blamed a string of deadly attacks against religious minorities and foreigners on domestic opponents but the latest will heighten fears that IS's reach is spreading.

"Islam is a religion of peace. Stop killing in the name of the religion," Hasina said in an impassioned televised address to the nation.

The 68-year-old premier said the people behind the attacks were trying to ruin Bangladesh, a mainly Muslim nation of 160 million people.

"By holding innocent civilians hostage at gunpoint, they want to turn our nation into a failed state," she said.

Analysts say that the government is wary of acknowledging that groups such as IS or Al-Qaeda have gained a foothold in Bangladesh over fears that it will frighten off foreign investors.

But Shahedul Anam Khan, an analyst for the Dhaka-based Daily Star, said the attack meant the government could no longer plausibly deny that international jihadist groups were active in Bangladesh.

"While one is not sure that these people are organically linked to the international extremist groups, the government must own up to the reality that the footprints of the IS in this country is very real and no amount of denying can alter the fact," he wrote.

Flags were being flown at half-mast in government offices while prayer services were being held across the country.

Agony in Italy

Italy was mouring the loss of nine of its nationals in the attack while seven Japanese were also killed.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe spoke of his "profound anger that so many innocent people have lost their lives in the cruel and nefarious terrorism" with Pope Francis also joining the welter of condemnation.

The other victims included an American citizen and a 19-year-old Indian who was studying in California.

A Bangladeshi survivor of the massacre told how the attackers split the diners into groups of foreigners and locals, making clear that their targets were non-Muslims.

"They kept saying: 'Do not worry, we are here to kill foreigners and non-Muslims. You should pray to God, pray five times a day'," the unnamed survivor told the Dhaka Tribune newspaper.

Home minister Khan said that all of the attackers were well-educated and most came from wealthy families.

"They are all highly educated young men and went to university. No one is from a Madrassa," the minister said.

Asked why they would have become Islamist militants, Khan said: "It has become a fashion."

The attack, by far the deadliest of a recent wave of killings claimed by IS or a local Al-Qaeda offshoot, was carried out in the upmarket Gulshan neighbourhood which is home to the country's elite and many embassies.

Last month authorities launched a crackdown on local jihadists, arresting more than 11,000 people but critics allege the arrests were arbitrary or designed to silence political opponents.

Bangladesh's main Islamist party has been banned from contesting polls and most of its leaders have been arrested or else executed after recent trials over their role in the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.
Coming down heavily on the recent attacks in Dhaka where gunmen burst into Holey Artisan Bakery restaurant in the diplomatic quarter of the Bangladeshi capital, killing twenty foreigners on Friday, renowned author Taslima Nasreen said that Islam is no longer a religion of peace.

In a series of tweets, the author has also said that the terrorists who entered the restaurant as they set off explosives, shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greater), should be called 'Islamic terrorists' rather than 'gunmen' as reported by the media.

Media calls them 'gunmen'. But they shout allahu akbar, while killing & terrorizing people,. Shouldn't they be called 'Islamic terrorists'?  taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) July 1, 2016

For humanity's sake please do not say Islam is a religion of peace. Not anymore.  taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) July 3, 2016

Why Islamic terrorists hack people to death with machetes even though they hv firearms?Bcz they believe Allah prefers machetes to firearms.  taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) July 3, 2016

You'll not be able to kill terrorism by killing terrorists.You've to kill the root cause of terrorism.Stop brainwashing children w/ religion  taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) July 3, 2016

Bangladeshi Islamic terrorists. They kill for Islam. They die for Islam. pic.twitter.com/5wTRPpkV3l  taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) July 2, 2016

She has also been critical of Bangladesh's PM Sheikh Hasina, who while addressing the nation on Saturday, had said that there is no presence of Islamic State in Bangladesh.

ISIS claims responsibility for Dhaka attack. But Prime Minister Hasina has been saying there is no ISIS in Bangladesh!  taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) July 1, 2016

Hasina was supposed to give a statement about the terror attack in Dhaka.Most of her statement was about herself& her govt,how good they are  taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) July 2, 2016

She also expressed outrage over how 19-year-old Tarushi Jain was hacked to death by the Islamic State terrorists only because she was unable to recite Quranic verses.

Tarushi Jain (19) hacked to death by Islamic terrorists .Her crime was she couldn't recite the Quranic verses? pic.twitter.com/FqOYTzzZvj  taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) July 2, 2016

You don't need poverty,illiteracy, frustration,America's foreign policy,Israel's conspiracy to become an Islamic terrorist. You need Islam.  taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) July 3, 2016

Claiming that Dhaka terrorists were from rich families and studied in elite schools, she said, "Please do not say poverty and illiteracy make people Islamic terrorists."

Nibras Islam the #DhakaAttack terrorist studied at Turkish Hopes school,NorthSouth &Monash university.Then brainwashed w Islam&bcm terrorist  taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) July 3, 2016

All Dhaka terrorists were from rich families, studied in elite schools. Pl do not say poverty & illiteracy make people Islamic terrorists  taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) July 3, 2016

Stating that her country has no freedom of expression as is evident in murders of bloggers and writers, Nasreen told CNN-News 18, "There is no freedom of expression in Bangladesh. So many bloggers, writers were killed only for expressing views different from that of fundamentalists. Many bloggers were imprisoned."

"Many bloggers left the country to America, Germany, India and Nepal. Many secular bloggers stopped writing because of fear," she added.

The Dhaka attack took place after a series of murders of foreigners, religious minorities and secular activists in Bangladesh, blamed on or claimed by Islamist militants.
New Delhi: Brics nations will chalk out a plan for enhancing cooperation in energy efficiency when they meet at Visakhapatnam for a two-day deliberation starting on Monday.

India, a member of Brics, will also showcase its efforts in energy saving, energy efficiency, particularly the LED street lighting programme and PAT (Performance Achievement & Trade) programme for industrial energy efficiency.

"The first meeting of the Brics Working Group on 'Energy Saving and Energy Efficiency' will be held at Visakhapatnam during 4-5 July, 2016. Participation from all Brics countries, viz., Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa has been confirmed," a statement from power ministry said.

According to the statement, during the deliberations, the Brics countries will make presentations on measures taken by them in the field of energy saving and energy efficiency.

The Working Group on Energy Saving & Energy Efficiency will deliberate on a plan on development of cooperation in energy saving and energy efficiency within Brics , it said.

India has assumed the Brics chair for 2016 and will accordingly shape and steer the Brics agenda.

Consequently, the power ministry will host the meeting of the Working Group and will also showcase energy saving initiatives in the country.

On 20 November, 2015, Brics energy ministers signed a Memorandum of Mutual Understanding in energy saving and energy efficiency in Moscow.

They agreed to pursue their energy cooperation through joint research and technology projects; technology transfer; conferences, lectures and seminars; and exchange of experience and best practices.
Falluja, Iraq: A highway overpass in central Falluja, from which Islamic State militants hanged a captured Iraqi soldier last year, bears the marks of the city's latest victors, including a slogan scrawled in green spray paint: "The state of (Imam) Hussein remains."

The overtly Shia Muslim phrase, which appears to mimic Islamic State's own "Remain and Extend" motto, was left a week ago by one of the Shia militiamen who helped drive Islamic State from the Sunni city it captured in January 2014.

With combat over, the militias are staying on, brushing up against army, police and counter-terrorism forces which have each staked out positions across Falluja, heavily damaged by the fighting and now almost completely empty.

The militias' continued presence in Falluja and their pledges to remain for an undefined period of time raise the possibility that nearly 300,000 displaced Sunnis may not feel safe returning home anytime soon.

Keen to avoid a repeat of systematic looting, blamed on militias, after the recovery of cities like Tikrit and Baiji last year, regular government forces and militia leaders themselves say they have managed to limit abuses in Falluja to a few isolated cases.

The government said it had arrested several perpetrators, including those suspected in the summary execution of dozens of fleeing residents.

But government efforts to keep the militias to outlying areas of Falluja have failed, part of continuing tensions over the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), a coalition of mostly Shia militias that report to Iraq's Shia Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi but are trained and armed by Iran.

Sunni politicians say what happened in Falluja shows the militias should be completely barred from a planned offensive on Mosul, the most important Islamic State bastion remaining in Iraq which the authorities want to retake this year.

Looting, arson

Before the military assault began on 23 May 23, Iraqi officials had said the militias would be kept outside Falluja for fear of aggravating sectarian tensions with Sunni residents. The militias initially indicated they would co-operate.

But by mid-June, their fighters appeared on the battlefield and commanders bragged about their important contributions. Prime Minister Abadi later praised their role in the offensive, which was declared over on 26 June.

A government spokesman said the forces deployed in Falluja are clearing it from mines and explosives and restoring basic services so that the population can return under the supervision of the local police that will take over the city.

"When the city is secured, the forces will leave," he said, referring to the units that don't belong to the city, without mentioning specifically the Shia paramilitary.

"Popular mobilization is part of the security forces and they are taking part in the military operations according to the plan set by the commander-in-chief of the armed forces," the spokesman added, referring to Abadi.

The militias were still present last week during several Reuters visits to Falluja, where plumes of dark black smoke billowed into the sky.

Two sources from the elite counter-terrorism service (CTS) said looting and arson had followed the end of combat. One of them blamed the PMF and showed Reuters three militiamen caught in the act.

At least two white pick-up trucks inside Falluja on Thursday were carrying what appeared to be washing machines and other Home appliances , covered with blankets, but Reuters could not verify they had been stolen.

Many roads in the zone controlled by CTS have been blocked off with rubble and burnt-out cars. The second source said the barriers, which went up after Islamic State was routed, were meant to block other Iraqi forces.

"We do that to prevent any looting or violations in our area of operations," he said.

Security forces prevented a Reuters team touring Falluja on Thursday from approaching a large fire in a western district overlooking the Euphrates river.

Such fires were set by Islamic State militants to provide cover from airstrikes as they fled, many officials say, but some acknowledged pro-government forces are also partly to blame.

A spokesman for the Badr Organisation, one of the largest PMF factions, denounced the acts as isolated incidents.

"The (Popular) Mobilisation refuses these acts and will punish all those who those proven to have committed them," said Karim al-Nuri, adding that four or five PMF members had already been arrested.

For how long?

Abu Mahdi al-Mohandis, one of the PMF leaders and head of Kataib Hezbollah, a constituent militia, last week pledged his fighters would not leave their positions inside Falluja.

"The (Popular) Mobilisation will continue to hold its ground in every area. The armed forces still need the Popular Mobilisation," he said in an interview posted online on 26 June.

Nuri, the Badr spokesman, said the PMF would leave "as soon as security returns", but could not specify how long that might take. The militias have remained in many other areas retaken from Islamic State, including predominately Sunni cities like Tikrit and Samarra.

Given Falluja's record of militancy, the threat of Islamic State attempting to return is not unrealistic but a long-term presence of Shia forces could prove destabilising.

The city emerged as the main bastion of the Sunni insurgency after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and swiftly became an al-Qaeda stronghold. US forces that toppled Saddam Hussein suffered heavy losses there in two battles in 2004.

More than a decade later, Falluja is seen by many Iraqis as an irredeemable bulwark of Sunni unrest.

After declaring victory, the operation's field commander Lieutenant-general Abdul Wahab al-Saidi said the entire southern industrial district should be sealed off because, according to him, Islamic State used it to assemble car bombs sent to Baghdad.

However, bombings have continued to target Shia districts of the capital, with Islamic State claiming the deadliest attack so far this year, targeting the shopping area of Karrada overnight Saturday as residents celebrated the fasting month of Ramadan.

The suicide truck bomb that hit Karrada killed at least 115 people and wounded more than 200, according to police and medical sources.

The U.S.-led coalition has trained about six battalions of police and several thousand tribal fighters to ultimately "hold" the city, a spokesman said, but two policemen told Reuters last week only about 700 police had so far been posted to Falluja.

More will likely be needed, as Iraqi forces continue to battle the insurgents in southern and western outskirts. Several hundred fighters apparently trying to slip out of the area to regroup were killed in a series of airstrikes last week.
NEW YORK The death of World War Two concentration camp survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel was mourned on Sunday by admirers around the world who honored his life-long fight for millions of Holocaust victims.

"My husband was a fighter," Marion Wiesel said in a statement. "He fought for the memory of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust, and he fought for Israel. He waged countless battles for innocent victims regardless of ethnicity or creed."

Wiesel, 87, died on Saturday at his home in New York City. A private funeral will be followed at a later date by a public memorial, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity said.

Condolences from leaders around the world filled social media with memories of Wiesel demonstrating the triumph of goodness over inconceivable horrors.

His advocacy on behalf of Holocaust victims earned him the Nobel Peace prize in 1986. He told their story in his landmark book "Night," maintaining that "to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time."

Even as he received the Congressional Gold Medal at the White House in 1985, he rebuked U.S. President Ronald Reagan for planning to lay a wreath at a German cemetery where some of Hitler's notorious Waffen SS troops were buried.

His tenacity on behalf of Holocaust sufferers was matched by his warmth and encouragement of loved ones, said his daughter Elisha Wiesel.

"My father raised his voice to presidents and prime ministers when he felt issues on the world stage demanded action. But those who knew him in private life had the pleasure of experiencing a gentle and devout man who was always interested in others, and whose quiet voice moved them to better themselves," she said in a statement.

"I will hear that voice for the rest of my life, and hope and pray that I will continue to earn the unconditional love and trust he always showed me," she said.

While the Romanian-born Wiesel was best known for his campaign never to let the world forget the Holocaust, one of his greatest rewards was working with students, including those at Boston University, where he was a religion and philosophy professor.

"What was most meaningful to him was teaching the innumerable students who attended his university classes," Marion Wiesel said.

Boston University said in a statement the school was heartbroken to have lost such an "iconic" teacher.

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
NEW YORK Top lawmakers from both major U.S. political parties said on Sunday they trusted the Justice Department to appropriately handle its probe of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's private email server, after a heavily criticized meeting between Clinton's husband and the U.S. attorney general.

Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain said on CBS show "Face the Nation" that they would respect Attorney General Loretta Lynch's decision on whether to prosecute Clinton, the likely Democratic presidential nominee.

Congressman Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, also said he respected the process, though he acknowledged Lynch's private meeting last week at an airport with former President Bill Clinton was unfortunate.

"I think both of them wish their airplanes had never come anywhere near each other," Schiff said on "Face the Nation," adding that he still had confidence in the DOJ and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to do a thorough investigation of Clinton's email use.

"If they say they are going to conduct this investigation by the book, I believe that's what's going to happen," said Schiff, who supports Clinton for the party's nomination.

Lynch said on Friday that she would accept whatever recommendations the career prosecutors working on the case made about whether to prosecute Clinton.

The lawmakers' endorsement for the process follows Clinton's meeting Saturday with investigators at the FBI's Washington headquarters, where she answered questions for three and a half hours as part of the probe into use of her private email server.

The FBI is investigating Clinton's email use and whether laws were broken as a result of a personal email server kept in her Chappaqua, New York, home while she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.

Lawmakers and political strategists speculated on Sunday that the FBI's interview of Clinton signaled its investigation could be nearing its end. But the FBI offered no information about the status of the probe or who its targets may be. Clinton has long insisted she is not a target.

Clinton herself said in comments to MSNBC on Saturday that she "was pleased to have the opportunity to assist the department in bringing its review to a conclusion."

Her rival, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, said it was "impossible" for the FBI not to recommend criminal charges against her. The two have already begun an acrimonious battle ahead of the presidential election on Nov. 8.

Democrats are hoping the issue will be resolved before their four-day convention in Philadelphia that begins July 25, which is expected to culminate with Clinton's nomination for the presidential race.

It is unclear what Democrats would do if Clinton were to be indicted and if any contingency plan exists.

Not all lawmakers said they were confident the Justice Department could maintain impartiality. Tom Cotton, a Republican senator, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday he thought Lynch's meeting with Bill Clinton "raises questions about political interference in this investigation."

(Reporting By Emily Flitter; Editing by Mary Milliken)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
JERUSALEM A two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is slipping away, the U.N. special coordinator for Middle East peace warned on Sunday, after both sides shrugged off criticism by international mediators.

A report released on Friday by the so-called Quartet - United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia - called on Israel to stop its policy of building settlements on occupied land and restricting Palestinian development.

Israeli policy "is steadily eroding the viability of the two-state solution," it said. It also urged the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank, take steps to end incitement to violence against Israelis, condemn "all acts of terrorism" and do more to combat them.

"The Quartet report sounds an alarm bell that we are on a dangerous slope towards a one-state reality that is incompatible with the national aspirations of both peoples," wrote Nickolay Mladenov, U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, in a commentary emailed to journalists on Sunday.

He also addressed Palestinian and Israeli criticism of the Quartet report. "Who will make the argument that more cannot be done to end incitement?" he asked. "Can anyone question that illegal settlements ... are not undermining the prospect for a two-state solution?"

Israel welcomed parts of the Quartet report but signalled no change in settlement building, saying the document "perpetuates the myth that Israeli construction in the West Bank is an obstacle to peace".

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Palestinian refusal to recognise Israel as a Jewish state is at the heart of the impasse.

A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas expressed disappointment that the Quartet did not call for full Israeli withdrawal to lines that existed before the Israel captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem in a 1967 war.

The Palestinians want an independent state in those areas and in the Gaza Strip, a coastal enclave controlled since 2007 by the Islamist Hamas group. Peace talks collapsed in April 2014 and Israeli-Palestinian violence has surged in recent months.

Mladenov appealed to Israeli and Palestinian leaders to implement the report's recommendations, offering the help of the international community to do so.

"I urge leaders on both sides not to miss this opportunity," he wrote.

(Reporting by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Washington: In the aftermath of the Islamic State attack on a Bangladesh restaurant that left 20 people dead, Democratic White House hopeful Hillary Clinton has asserted that the US stands firmly with its allies in the fight to defeat the terror group.

She said her "thoughts and prayers" were with the people of Bangladesh, and stressed that the terror group's "campaign of fear, hatred and violence" would not succeed.

"The terrorist assault on a bakery and restaurant in Dhaka is a reminder that an attack halfway around the world is still an attack on all of us, in the everyday places we hold dear," Clinton said in a statement.

The victims in Dhaka came from all over-- Italy, Japan, India and Bangladesh, she said, adding that at least three, including an American citizen, attended college in the United States.

"Today, we say with one voice: this campaign of fear and hatred and violence will not succeed. We will not retreat," Clinton said.

"We will not turn our backs on each other. The United States stands firmly with our friends and allies in the fight to defeat ISIS and radical jihadism around the world. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families, and the people of Bangladesh," she said.

Mourning the loss of life in the attack, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said the United States is ready to help Bangladesh.

"With heavy hearts, we pray for the victims, survivors, and the loved ones affected by this horrific assault. With determined spirits, we will continue to stand firm against these vicious acts wherever they occur," she said.

"We must continue to confront terrorists with strength, unity, and a comprehensive strategy. Extremists fuelled by hatred can never extinguish the light of international cooperation and the beacon of hope aflame in communities around the world," Pelosi said.
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have work to do in Wisconsin.

The presumptive Republican and Democratic presidential nominees face big challenges to get their campaigns in order by the Nov. 8 general election.

Trump, in particular, lacks the assets about which a traditional presidential nominee can boast: polling favorability, broad support in his own party, and a solid campaign ground game.

Stakes are high for both candidates here as they prepare for their parties national conventions this month.

For Democrats, Wisconsin is a virtual must-win state to retain the White House.

No Democrat has captured the presidency without carrying Wisconsin since John F. Kennedy in 1960.

Republicans see Trumps path to a national victory likely going through Rust Belt states, including Wisconsin, filled with the white, blue-collar voters with whom Trumps message has resonated.

But neither Clinton, the Democrat, nor Trump, the Republican, can build off a victory in Wisconsins April 5 presidential primary.

Polls also show here, as nationally, both candidates are viewed unfavorably by a broad swath of voters.

The latest Marquette Law School Poll found Trump viewed unfavorably by 64 percent of registered voters and Clinton viewed unfavorably by 58 percent.

UW-Madison political scientist Barry Burden said theres no recent example of a presidential race in which both nominees were so disliked  and here in Wisconsin, in which neither won the presidential primary. The Badger State has picked the eventual presidential nominees in both parties each year in its primaries since 1972 with just one exception.

Were in unprecedented territory, at least in the last 50 years, Burden said.

Clinton must woo supporters of Wisconsin primary winner Bernie Sanders. The Marquette poll earlier this month showed one-third of Sanders backers arent yet ready to vote for Clinton in November.

Trump faces an even bigger task. He must persuade Wisconsin Republican voters, most of whom opposed him in the primary, to get on board. The latest Marquette poll shows Republicans viewing him more negatively than Democrats view Clinton.

He also must close a sizable deficit with Clinton, who leads him in general election polls, fundraising and campaign organization. The Trump campaign hired a Wisconsin campaign director last week, its second hire in the state so far, while Clinton has created a more robust, traditional campaign apparatus.

Democratic split

On Wednesday, a west Madison field office hummed with young staffers making phone calls and swarming social media on behalf of Clinton and other Democratic candidates, including U.S. Senate hopeful Russ Feingold.

Clintons campaign had five paid staffers here in Wisconsin as of last month, according to the Associated Press, and the campaign did not provide an update to that figure for this report. It also is buoyed by the Hillary Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee between her campaign, the Democratic National Committee and 32 state parties  including Wisconsins  that finances field offices across the country, including the one in Madison.

There are about 24 field offices operating in Wisconsin, staffed by about 100 paid workers and additional volunteers, according to Brandon Weathersby, spokesman for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

Gillian Drummond, a spokeswoman for the Clinton campaign in Wisconsin, said the arrangement enables the campaign to work more closely with other Democratic candidates than in years past.

Gaining an edge on the ground is key in states such as Wisconsin, where Clintons Democratic primary rival, Sanders, was seen as the choice of the partys grassroots.

Sanders win in the Wisconsin primary gave him a majority of the states pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention, by a 48-38 margin.

Among party elites, its a different story. Nine of the states 10 so-called super-delegates  elected and party officials permitted by Democratic Party rules to back the candidate of their choice at the convention, regardless of how their state voted  are supporting Clinton.

U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Black Earth, who is one of those super-delegates, withheld support for Clinton until she became the presumptive nominee. Pocan said its important that national Democrats draft a party platform that reflects Sanders supporters views on free trade, the minimum wage and changing U.S. systems of campaign finance and criminal justice.

Pocan said hes confident most Sanders supporters will warm to Clinton  in part, because of the choice they face in November.

You can either support Hillary Clinton or Trump, Pocan said. If you really cared about the message of Bernie Sanders, its pretty obvious where you would wind up.

Sanders delegates mull Clinton

Not everyone sees the choice in those terms.

John Stanley, a national convention delegate from DeForest, cited Clintons support for fracking  a type of hydraulic mining used to extract fossil fuels  and the death penalty in explaining why he cannot, in all good conscience, vote for her.

I dont see her being that much different than Donald Trump, Stanley said.

The Democratic National Convention will be held July 25-28 in Philadelphia.

Other Sanders delegates are reserving judgment. Nate Timm, a Sanders delegate from Mazomanie, said he wants to see how the Clinton campaign responds to the issues that Bernie cares about, and how the campaign responds to the Bernie supporters.

Timm said many Sanders supporters are new to political activism. If the Clinton campaign and Democrats in general dont welcome them into the process, they may not return, Timm said.

Its in the Clinton campaigns best interest to be very respectful of Bernie Sanders supporters, Timm said.

Heather Colburn, Clintons Wisconsin campaign director in 2008 when she lost to Barack Obama, said she feels the pain of Sanders supporters in 2016.

Colburn, a Wisconsin Democratic political consultant, is supporting Clinton again this year. She said Sanders supporters may need a little time and space to gain a broader perspective on whats at stake in November.

You just need time to mourn the loss, Colburn said. When you get over that, then you get it.

Trump operation

thin so far

Trump faces some of the same challenges as Clinton in winning over party members who backed his opponents. Wisconsin was fertile ground for the #nevertrump movement and became the last state where he lost before clinching the nomination in early May.

Since then Trump hasnt capitalized in Wisconsin on the head start he had over Clinton for the five weeks between when they clinched their respective nominations.

Republican strategist Bill McCoshen said Trump should have had more boots on the ground sooner. As a result, there are discussions going on about whether this campaign can be salvaged.

Hes putting himself in a vulnerable position by not staffing up sooner, McCoshen said.

Last week, Trump hired Pete Meachum as his state campaign director.

Meachum served as chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy, who represents one of two congressional districts Trump won in the Wisconsin primary. Trump also has hired Vince Trovato, who placed fourth in a 2014 Republican Assembly primary in Waukesha County and served on the county GOPs executive board.

Neither responded to interview requests.

Trump also has a disadvantage in facing negative push back from the states conservative talk radio hosts, who helped propel Texas Sen. Ted Cruz to victory in the April primary.

The best he can hope for is them being neutral, but talk radio being neutral is not enough to win in this state, McCoshen said. You have to have them in your corner.

The state Republican Party has touted having the strongest grassroots operation in the country as evidenced by the record turnout in the primary.

But since the primary Republican momentum in the state has stalled, McCoshen said. In order to reclaim that enthusiasm Trump has to stay on message, do his homework before speaking, not comment about every minor issue of the day and not offend so many voters.

Its an unorthodox campaign, McCoshen added. If the polls dont change, Wisconsin wont be a target on the presidential side.

Trump supporter: Too early to read into polls

Jim Miller, a Republican National Convention delegate from the 7th Congressional District supporting Trump, said the campaign will be different than political operatives expect because Trump is an unorthodox candidate.

Miller said there have been requests coming in for large Trump signs that traditionally pop up along rural highways in presidential election years, but he said hes not expecting the Trump campaign to provide any.

He suggested they might not be necessary because the real estate mogul and reality TV celebrity already has 100 percent name ID.

Throughout the course of this process hes been able to do some big things with very little money, Miller said. Its way too early to say those polls are any indication.

Joe Heim, a UW-La Crosse political science professor, said more important than yard signs is having an established ground game, and there has been a noticeable deficit on the Trump side so far in Wisconsin. That could be because some Republicans in the state are still resistant to Trumps candidacy.

Even Duffy, a Trump convert, has given mixed signals in recent weeks, telling Politico he doesnt know if hell attend the Republican National Convention, July 18-21, in Cleveland.

Heim said Trump has had a rough few weeks and reluctant Republicans are waiting to see if he better organizes his campaign.

With the convention occurring about a month earlier this year than in past presidential cycles, there is still plenty of time for Trump to catch up, Heim said.

You have a strong Republican administration in Wisconsin with a strong get-out-the-vote organization, Heim said. They still have plenty of time to organize that type of thing.
Bangladesh is observing the second of two days of mourning after a group of seven Islamist militants killed 20 hostages and two police officers during an 11-hour siege at an upscale restaurant in Dhaka.

A candlelight vigil was held Sunday evening, and mourners left flowers at memorials near the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's diplomatic zone, the scene of the attack, which started Friday night.

In Rome, the Campidoglio Palace was illuminated with the colors of the Italian flag as a memorial to the nine Italian victims.

The families of seven Japanese killed in the attacks departed for Bangladesh on Sunday to retrieve the remains of their relatives.Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida met with the families before they left and promised to give them government support.

Bangladesh denies IS involvement

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, but any direct connection to the militant group has not been confirmed, and government officials deny IS involvement.

Bangladesh's home minister said Sunday the seven attackers, six of whom were killed, had absolutely no connection with Islamic State. Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said instead the jihadists were members of a homegrown militant group - Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh, or JMB - which has been banned in the country for more than a decade. Khan said all of the attackers were well-educated and came from wealthy families.

Reuters news agency also quoted national police chief Shahidul Hoque as saying the seven militants were all Bangladeshis, and that authorities had tried to arrest five of them in the past.

Kerry calls Hasina

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Sunday to express condolences and offer support. A State Department release said Kerry "encouraged the government of Bangladesh to conduct its investigation in accordance with the highest international standards." He also offered assistance from U.S. law enforcement, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Bangladeshi police released photos and the first names of five of the six attackers who were killed.Police said their families had not been in contact with them for months.

The government has long insisted IS has no presence in the country. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government has blamed a string of attacks in the country on her political foes, saying they back militant groups in the country in an attempt to create chaos.

Widespread condemnation

The White House and the U.S. Department of State condemned the attack and said the United States stands with Bangladesh and is resolved to confront terror wherever it occurs.

A U.N. spokesman said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hopes those behind the attack will be brought to justice and that regional and international efforts to prevent and fight terrorism must be intensified.

In a televised address to the nation Saturday, Bangladesh Prime Minister Hasina said her country would not let "conspirators succeed in their mission" to tarnish its image.She urged all citizens of Bangladesh to "come forward and help fight terrorism."

Kamal Hossain, a former foreign minister and law minister of Bangladesh, told VOA's Urdu Service that terrorism has nothing to do with religion, therefore Islamic State (IS) is not representative of Islam or the Muslim world.

Hossain said the whole world should adopt a unified policy to deal with terrorist groups like Islamic State and al-Qaida.
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The Buffalo Soldiers  the United States first all-black cavalry unit established in peacetime  celebrates its 150th anniversary this year. In commemoration, Columbia, South Carolina hosted a festival that took visitors back in time. Volunteers displayed original uniforms, armaments and even a horse carriage serving as a mobile kitchen. VOA's Ia Meurmishvili has more.
TWIN FALLS  Many government offices and other facilities will be closed Monday for Independence Day:

City offices will be closed in Twin Falls, Jerome, Burley, Rupert, Hailey, Ketchum, Gooding and Shoshone, among others.

County, state and federal offices will be closed along with post offices and banks, the Twin Falls Public Library, College of Southern Idaho and the Herrett Center for Arts and Science.

The Times-News offices in Twin Falls and Burley will be closed.

The YMCA/Twin Falls City Pool will offer open swim from noon to 4 p.m.

Magic Valley Mall will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Trash will not be picked up Monday. Trash collection will be delayed by one day the rest of the week.
TWIN FALLS  July 4 is nigh and its high time to make things go boom.

Two-hundred forty years ago, Americas original thirteen colonies declared independence from Great Britain and later formed what is now the United States of America.

As our powdery-wigged founding fathers would have wanted, we celebrate that in the most purely red, white and blue way possible: By lighting up skies and cul-de-sacs with the Poopy Puppy, Keg Party and 500 gram fireworks made in China.

The only thing more American would be to knock back a Belgian-owned Budweiser while reveling in reruns of Kobayashi at the 2011 Nathans Hot Dog Eating Contest.

But before getting ahead of yourself, there are regulations in Twin Falls that limit just what you can fire off, and when. Call those products, ones that reach heights no more than 20 feet, safe and sane. Call the curfew  between midnight and 8 a.m.  whatever youd like.

Three years ago we stepped up enforcement so we have additional officers patrolling, city spokesman Joshua Palmer said. Theyll confiscate aerial fireworks.

Joe Dirt, in the 2001 comedy of the same name, wondered where the good stuff was  Roman candles, screaming mimis, husker dos, husker donts and whistling kitty chasers.

In Twin Falls, while you wont  or shouldnt  find any of those at fireworks stands, there are still some amusing fireworks residents are snatching up as the Fourth of July approaches.

Whats in the bag?

(The Poopy Puppy) is like a snake that comes out of the rear. Some of our friends saw these on Facebook. I told them we would give them one of our dogs that does it without a match twice a month.  Shawna Smith from Twin Falls.

Whats the Number One Seller?

The Keg Party. Its got colorful cracks and everything. It lasts one minute. You think its done, it pops and then theres 15 ground booms.  Nick Romano, operator of the Family Fun Fireworks stand on Blue Lakes Boulevard.

Selling the Safe and Sane

Every year we get guys who come in and say they got caught and had to pay a fine. We can sell stuff and tell people its totally legal. I will guarantee half the people that come here will say Do you have any mortars? Anything that goes in the air?  Nathan Erickson, operator of Red Dragon Outlet Fireworks on Blue Lakes Boulevard.

What Are the Essential Ingredients to Perfect Fireworks

Lots of sparks. I like colorful ones.  Ivan Keller of Twin Falls.

Were always trying to find something we havent seen before.  Brett Keller of Twin Falls.

I like the crackling ones, the longer lasting ones and the (ones with) height.  Dez Romano, operator of Family Fun Fireworks in Twin Falls.

What Do You Get Out of Them?

I think all the colors and stuff is just fun. I like fireworks because things are colorful and things explode.  Ivan Keller.
TWIN FALLS  The sections of Falls Avenue, Washington Street and North College Road that surround the College of Southern Idaho will be closed at 9 p.m. for the yearly Fourth of July fireworks display.

The fireworks start at 10 p.m. and last about 20 minutes, so people should plan to arrive early. Police ask attendees to be patient with police directing vehicle and pedestrian traffic and to plan for delays.

Impaired drivers have caused crashes at past displays, and the area will be heavily patrolled and suspected impaired drivers arrested, the city said in a statement.

No personal fireworks are allowed on or around the campus during the display.

The fireworks are hosted by the Magic Valley Citizen's Fourth of July Committee and are sponsored by Chobani, the city of Twin Falls and Idaho Independent Health Care Providers.
The Fourth of July is coming up. What could be more American than to pop a cold Budweiser, put a hot dog on the grill, slather it with Heinz ketchup, watch the kids chase the Good Humor Ice Cream truck, and maybe catch the latest summer blockbuster?

Well, technically, youd be drinking a beer owned by a Brazilian-Belgian conglomerate, your hot dog may well have come from Smithfield Foods, a Chinese-owned company, the Heinz ketchup partly owned by a Brazilian private equity group, the Good Humor Ice Cream truck part of a British-Dutch conglomerate, and the movie house you visit will likely belong to Dalian Wanda, a Chinese real estate giant that controls more U.S cinema screens than any American company.

You might be surprised to learn how many iconic American brands have been bought up by foreign companies. Indeed, in this era of suspicion toward free trade and globalization, you might be downright alarmed. Your ThinkPad laptop? Owned by Lenovo of China. The Chrysler Building? Owned by the Abu Dhabi Investment Council. The Chrysler car company itself? Owned by Italian automaker Fiat. Your favorite Sara Lee snacks? Owned by Grupo Bimbo of Mexico, the worlds biggest bread-maker. Gerber baby food, Holiday Inn hotels, Vaseline, Alka-Seltzer, Hellmans Mayo and on and on: all owned by non-American conglomerates.

But before you choke on your hot dog or reach for a stiff Jim Beam (now owned by a Japanese conglomerate), calm down. Global companies generally buy American icons for good old-fashioned capitalist reasons: They want to make money. They have no incentive to destroy the brand. Rather, they want to enhance it, grow its market, improve the bottom line, even rescue it from oblivion.

Take Volvo, for example. In 2010, the Chinese auto-maker Geely bought the struggling Swedish car-maker in a high-profile deal that announced corporate Chinas rise to the world. At the time, Volvo was on the verge of extinction; six years and $11 billion of investment later, it reported record profits in 2015 and is a leading player in the driverless car movement.

Who owned Volvo as it was struggling to survive? Ford Motors of the United States.

While foreign purchases can be disruptive to companies, foreign direct investment has a long record of creating jobs. Foreign companies and their U.S affiliates employ more than 8.5 million people (6 million directly, and 2.5 million indirectly) in the U.S., according to the International Trade Administration. They also contribute to innovation by spending more than $50 billion a year on research. If we take into account productivity growth arising from this foreign investment in manufacturing, this adds another 3.5 million jobs, the ITA says. All told: 12 million Americans owe their jobs to foreign investment.

Take South Carolina. The state may be Trump Country, but its also foreign direct investment country. The state has attracted investment from companies in 40 countries, with some 127,000 South Carolinians employed by majority-owned foreign-affiliated companies, according to the ITA. That accounts for nearly 8 percent of the states private sector employment. Foreign investment also powers South Carolinas export machine: The state exports nearly $31 billion worth of goods, on par with entire countries like Egypt, oil-rich Ecuador, or Bulgaria. Its top export destination? China.

Some Americans may still quail to see a totem of Americana like Anheuser-Busch fall under a global beer behemoth headquartered in Leuven, Belgium. But the parent company gave pride of place to the company they bought in 2008: its name, after all, is Anheuser-Busch Inbev. Bud Light remains the bestselling beer in America, and Budweiser is growing in popularity across emerging markets. If you owned the stock (ticker symbol: BUD) in your pension plan at the time of the purchase, youve seen it more than triple in value.

To be sure, whenever a larger company buys another, cost-cutting will likely lead to lost jobs, but thats the case whether the purchaser is American or Chinese. U.S private equity firms that buy American brands have been ruthless in their cost-cutting. Whats more, a recent Commerce Department report notes that Americans who work for foreign-owned companies or affiliates in the U.S are generally better paid than those who work for U.S.-owned firms.

Even as the U.S. slips down in rankings that measure everything from education to healthcare access to global competitiveness, America stands above the rest of the world in its ability to attract foreign direct investment. All told, the U.S has attracted nearly $3 trillion of FDI stock, almost double the amount of its closest competitor, the United Kingdom  a gap that will likely grow with Brexit, notwithstanding some signs of disquiet over U.S. hyperpartisanship.

And, no, the Chinese are not buying up America. Most of that investment comes from advanced economies, notably Japan, the United Kingdom, and Germany. The Commerce Department notes that 2015 was a record year, bringing in $348 billion, with some 70 percent of that investment going toward Americas ailing manufacturing sector. In 2015, foreign buyers also purchased some $87 billion in real estate. Unless those houses and commercial buildings can fly, those assets are staying home, and contributing to a range of associated service industries.

Meanwhile, U.S companies are by far the worlds biggest foreign investors, with nearly $5 trillion in foreign direct investment. And lest one think U.S firms are piling solely into sweatshop manufacturing in Asia, the vast majority of U.S investments are in advanced economies, mostly in Europe.

So, go ahead, crack that Bud  and rest assured that even if companies in Belgium, Brazil, and China ultimately own some of what you buy, eat, and watch this weekend, youll still be doing right by America.
Republicans and Democrats share a challenge: staving off the fanatics.

For the Republicans  leaving aside Donald Trump for the moment  the test comes from the right-wing House Freedom Caucus threat to impeach Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen. The charges against this official, who is respected by Republicans and Democrats alike, are flimsy. Congress has not impeached an executive branch official in 140 years.

Among Democrats, supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders are waging a campaign aimed at intimidating Hillary Clinton into abandoning any consideration of Tim Kaine as her running mate by depicting the Virginia senator as an unreconstructed right-winger. Kaine, a former mayor of Richmond and governor, once was believed by some Democrats to be too liberal to win statewide. He opposes capital punishment, supports same-sex marriages, argues for a more equitable tax system and insists that the United States can only send forces to fight abroad if war is declared.

Koskinen was a successful business executive, top official at the Office and Management and Budget who guided the response to the worries about the Y2K bug at the turn of the century. He agreed to take over the beleaguered tax agency at the pleading of the Obama administration. With Americans worried about jobs, stagnant wages and the threat of terrorism, wasting time and money on a futile impeachment is the sort of folly that makes the Republican brand so unpopular today. And if Tim Kaine proves unacceptable to Democrats, that party may appear similarly out of touch.

The impeachment fiasco stems from the 2013 reports that the IRS was targeting the tax exempt status of conservative groups. These incidents occurred well before Koskinen was brought in at the end of that year.

But right-wing House members such as Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jason Chaffetz of Utah, channeling a wave of anger toward the IRS, accused Koskinen of lying to Congress and destroying data.

Investigations showed that the targeting by tax authorities was more a matter of bureaucratic ineptitude than political malice. Koskinen didnt lie and the IRS inspector general reported the data destruction was done by lower-level employees.
This appeared in the Idaho Press-Tribune:

Idahos state government is one of the more accessible youre going to find anywhere. The Capitol is open seven days a week until 10 p.m. weeknights during the legislative session, and most offices have an open-door policy. Its also legal to bring a gun into the building.

Compare that to the Canyon County Courthouse. To conduct any business in that facility, you need to pass through a metal detector. Weapons, obviously, are not permitted.

The reason for the tight security at the courthouse is that anyone who enters the building will have access to the courtrooms, where sensitive legal proceedings are held. Judges could be sentencing defendants to some pretty serious penalties, and you wouldnt want a disgruntled relative taking out his frustration with a deadly weapon.

But what happens in state government can also have a profound impact on the lives of a lot of people, which makes it all the more remarkable that an armed citizen can walk freely in a building with so many powerful people in it.

Security is going to be beefed up at the Attorney Generals Office, however, and its a good move.

The AGs office has installed an intercom and video system allowing for people to be screened before they can enter the office, and a door security system has been activated. The glass front doors are locked unless you have a security card to swipe.

This makes sense for the same reason weapons arent allowed in the county courthouse. The attorney general is the states top lawyer, and sometimes people going through the legal system are under the impression that the AG controls everything that happens in the courts.

An agitated man entered the office last month upset under the mistaken belief that Attorney General Lawrence Wasden was involved with his case. Capitol security had to be called over the incident.

When gas prices go up, the AGs office receives numerous calls from angry people demanding an investigation into price fixing. People who have bad experiences with businesses, believing they have been overcharged or wronged in some other manner, call the AGs office in frustration, hoping for help. It may seem like a fairly benign office, but it isnt.

Second Amendment supporters shouldnt feel threatened by Wasdens move here  in fact, they should be encouraged by it. Hes sending the message that his office will not be a soft target for troublemakers or terrorists; that they are prepared to defend themselves. In a dangerous world, its the right message to send, and we support the attorney general in increasing the security at his office.
Four ministers of the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA) have been sacked for failing to take up positions since the cabinet moved to Tripoli, the cabinet said in a statement on Friday.

The dismissed ministers were absent from their work and refused to take up their duties in the Government of National Unity for over 30 days, the GNA said in the statement posted on its website.

Justice Minister Juma Abdullah Drissi, National Reconciliation Minister Abdeljawad Faraj Al-Obeidi, Finance Minister Fakhr Muftah Bufernah and Economy and Industry Minister Abdulmutalib Ahmed Abu Farwa, all from the East handed in their resignation on Thursday.

This latest development downsizes Prime Minister Faiez Serrajs cabinet to 14 members, giving him another difficult task to handle as the cabinet is yet to be recognized by the countrys legitimate parliament; House of Representatives (HoR) based in the Eastern town of Tobruk.

Replacement of the four quitting members will be difficult as the eastern region of the war-torn country has been opposed to the UN-sponsored unity cabinet tasked to re-unify the country of former Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi.

Mohamed Eljarh, a Libya expert working at the Washington-based Atlantic Council think tank believes that the sacked ministers hailing from the East were surely pressured to resign.

I believe that the fact that they are from the east is significant The situation for the GNA in the east is that of rejection, no confidence, no trust, the expert told The New Arab.

The resignations come at the time the cabinet is grappling with various issues including shortfall of cash and flagging economy due to collapse of the countrys oil production and revenues. The GNA is also called upon to tackle rights violations and crimes taking place in lawless Libya.

Militarily, the resignations translate impossibility to unify all Libyan forces to fight the Islamic State (IS) group in the coastal city of Sirte as demanded by Serraj last Sunday.

The eastern part has tossed its support to army Gen. Khalifa Haftar backed by the HoR and rival government based in Beida.
The deed is done.

UK voters have opted for Brexit," or British exit from the European Union. While markets around the world are, and likely will remain, in turmoil in the face of this unprecedented and disruptive decision, several larger thoughts occur to me about Brexit and its implications.

The first is prompted by the sense of shock and remorse that has shaken some voters who opted for leave." I didnt think my vote would count, since polls showed the remain camp in the lead. Politicians pushing for leave have misled us about the effects of our decision. And If I had to do it over, I would vote to remain in the EU.

These quotes are representative of many tweets and online statements made by voters in the leave camp in the immediate aftermath of the vote.

Thus, the first lesson of Brexit is that democracy is not a game. Our votes do matter, especially when stakes are high.

The second lesson is that politicians in this country, as in Europe, need to pay more serious attention to the genuine needs of the people, and heed the many voices calling not for protectionism but for a more thoughtful approach to globalization and its impacts.

Hollow votes against the other partys agenda, repeated votes on hot-button (and often divisive) issues, and other empty gestures do a serious injustice to the needs of this country and its people.

Our nations roads, bridges and ports are crumbling; our middle class  the backbone of democracies everywhere  is shrinking; our tax policies and regulatory burdens discourage business investment at home; and our social programs are on an unsustainable path.

Voters clearly are fed up with the status quo  albeit for different reasons as reflected in the strong showing of non-traditional candidates in both political parties primaries.

So the message to our elected leaders is: compromise is not a dirty word. Reaching across the aisle to do the peoples business need not mean compromising your fundamental principles. Save the digging in your heels for those few issues of principle or conscience that really matter.

The third conclusion I take from Brexit is that this vote marks the beginning of the end of an era  specifically, the postwar era of ever-closer integration and international cooperation through institutions created in the aftermath of World War II.

Ive written before about the fraying of this system of cooperation and collaboration. The World Trade Organization, now comprising 162 disparate countries, has failed to conclude a major global trade negotiation since its creation in 1995. Private capital flows far exceed the resources available to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, making countries far less likely to seek those bodies support in all but the direst circumstances.

And the European Union, creature of two global conflagrations centered on Europe, is struggling with unprecedented challenges from outside and within its borders. While the ultimate outcome of the UK vote to leave is not entirely clear as of this writing, the vote has badly shaken the status quo.

Perhaps we all take for granted the relative peace and prosperity the developed world has known since World War II. Europe, the United States, and a growing number of countries around the world have enjoyed stable democracies, rising incomes, and an improved quality of life for most of their people during this time.

But the foundation for these attributes appears to be weakening. Nationalism and citizen anger at ruling elites are on the rise, and globalization is leaving too many people behind, even in advanced economies. Certainly technology and innovation are responsible for many of the changes weve seen in factories and other workplaces. But relying on the usual mantra that workers need to retrain or reskill begs the question of where new jobs will emerge to sustain a willing workforce.

Answers to these challenges are not easy, and there is no simple cure-all. But Brexits lessons should be heeded by politicians and voters alike.

Elected officials should double down on tackling the nations real problems and avoid stoking even more anger in the electorate.

Voters should recognize that our votes count. The impulse that occasionally strikes us all to cast a protest vote or to throw the bums out is understandable, especially in times of change and uncertainty.

But as the relatively close (52 to 48 percent) Brexit vote shows, it is incumbent on all of us to let our heads, not our emotions, drive our decisions as we exercise this most fundamental right as citizens in our democracy.

Joanna Shelton was deputy secretary general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris; held senior positions in the executive branch and Congress in Washington, D.C.; and teaches at the University of Montana. You can reach her through her website, joannashelton.com.
There's an old joke about a truck with a five-ton license and 10 tons of canaries on board. The driver had to keep getting out and banging his fist on the side to keep half the canaries flying.

Here Jane Mead, who lives in northern California, gives us another truck full of birds. This keenly observed poem appeared in The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, 2015. Mead's most recent book is "Money Money Money/Water Water Water" (Alice James Books, 2013).

Passing a Truck Full of Chickens at Night on Highway Eighty

What struck me first was their panic.

***

Some were pulled by the wind from moving

to the ends of the stacked cages,

some had their heads blown through the bars 

***

and could not get them in again.

Some hung there like that  dead 

their own feathers blowing, clotting

***

in their faces. Then

I saw the one that made me slow some 

I lingered there beside her for five miles.

***

She had pushed her head through the space

between bars  to get a better view.

She had the look of a dog in the back

***

of a pickup, that eager look of a dog

who knows she's being taken along.

She craned her neck.

***

She looked around, watched me, then

strained to see over the car  strained

to see what happened beyond.

***

That is the chicken I want to be.

***

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright 2015 by Autumn House Press, Passing a Truck Full of Chickens/at Night on Highway Eighty, (Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, 2015). Poem reprinted by permission of Jane Mead and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2016 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.
GRASS VALLEY  At one point six years ago, these pristine 75 acres of high-quality farmland west of Missoula were slated for a controversial 30-home subdivision, later approved for 16 lots as a compromise. It would have been called Blue Heron Estates, and like many subdivisions, it would have been named for the creature whose habitat it would have partially destroyed.

With a natural groundwater slough that feeds native vegetation like mature hawthorn trees and cottonwoods, its prime riparian wildlife habitat, a home for everything from great blue herons to woodpeckers to muskrats to black bears.

However, the pastoral property near the Clark Fork River will now be protected from future development  and therefore saved as an important agricultural production ground  for eternity. Landowner Brad Isbell and his family worked with Five Valleys Land Trust in Missoula to place the entire 75 acres under a conservation easement.

As more and more development occurs on flat, well-drained pieces of land on Missoulas fringe  the very places that also contain the best soil for farming and ranching - protected properties like Isbells ranch will become increasingly important to preserve the countys local food security and natural ecosystems.

According to Missoula Countys Community and Planning Services office statistics, almost 29,000 acres of farm and ranch land in the county have been converted to subdivisions or other nonagricultural uses since 1986.

Since a proposal to create regulations to mitigate the effects of development on agricultural land was struck down by county commissioners last year, voluntary conservation easements remain the best option to preserve the remaining critical soils. Isbell bought the Blue Heron Estates land in 2013.

There are better places to build houses and once this is paved over, youre done, Isbell explained. Thats always been in the back of our mind as a possibility. This one just seemed like it was a good opportunity for a conservation easement because other people had in mind that it should grow houses instead of agriculture. And that just didnt seem right, so it was a pretty easy decision to just back away from the subdivision.

He raises a herd of Gotland sheep on the property now, although its taken him years to get rid of the weeds on the property without using chemicals. In the future, he has plans to build a sort of eco-lodge where people can view wildlife and learn about the landscape.

The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation has studied Isbells land, and it contains what the DNRC officially terms prime farmland if irrigated  the second-best soil quality ranking in the state, based on its nutrients and composition.

Sarah Richey, conservation project manager with Five Valleys Land Trust, said that land is not only rich in great soil but also contains an incredible amount of biodiversity.

The Five Valleys Audubon Society has designated this as an important bird area because of the rich bird habitat that is kind of supported by the Clark Fork River and all this wet open space out here, she said.

Richey said the original subdivision proposal was met with opposition because county residents were concerned about the loss of such prime habitat.

It was just going to cover this whole area, she said. Now what were seeing is protection of the whole piece as one. For Five Valleys Land Trust this is just a great example of how voluntary conservation can protect these ag soils, this bird habitat, and its here for generations to come. Its working because Brad wants to do it. It supports his goals, it supports whats important to him too. So its kind of a win-win.

Although landowners can stipulate in a will or covenant that they dont want the property to be developed, that can be undone after the owners death if subsequent family members have different plans. A conservation easement means that there is a restriction on the propertys title forever, and Five Valleys Land Trust will be there as a steward every time the land changes ownership to make sure the terms of the legal agreement are upheld no matter what regulations or laws change in the future.

Because a conservation easement reduces the resale value of the land because it is no longer unencumbered, Five Valleys Land Trust often works with the landowner to compensate them for that loss of value. In many cases, they solicit money from the $10 million open space bond approved by Missoula County voters in 2006. In this case, however, Isbell is simply donating much of the loss of value.

For him, its this assurance that its going to stay like it is, Richey explained. Hes going to be donating a large amount of value. I think it aligns well with the goals of the open space bond, so well be seeking somewhere in the neighborhood of $150,000 from that fund. We try to never leave a landowner high and dry. But if they donate, it is a charitable gift.

Richey said that voluntary land conservation is what Five Valleys Land Trust is all about.

This is what weve been in business for 40 years doing, is waiting for people to say Yeah, this is right for me, and so for us this is an example of how it works so well in an area close to Missoula with high development pressure and great soils, she said.

Since the early 1970s, Five Valleys Land Trust has worked with roughly 150 different landowners to protect more than 80,000 acres around western Montana.

***

Isbell said hes not sure what the area will look like in 100 years given the rapid development, but he believes the community in the future will be thankful that previous generations protected farmland.

This kind of ensures it will stay in agriculture, he said. You dont want to build on something like this. You can make a lot more money growing houses out here. But once you go down that path its done.

For him, its important that there are options for Montanans to buy fresh, pasture-raised lamb produced without pesticides or herbicides rather than imported frozen meat that was flown in from a huge feedlot in Australia.

Getting our vegetables from Mexico is a bad idea, he added. If were depending on our agriculture at some foreign location, we dont know what goes into it. I can tell you what goes into the Central Valley in California. Dow chemicals, thats what goes into the food there. Here I know what goes in. I know I dont put chemicals on. It doesnt need it. There are other ways of doing it.

Isbell said he would recommend conservation easements to other landowners, especially because there are tax savings involved which can be used to buy out family members who arent interested.

Its not for everybody, but the land doesnt need to suffer for that, he said. If we want local beef and local food, we better keep these good soils.
DUPUYER  Standing on the edge of a 1.5-million-acre classroom, Kristina Gillispie looked over roughly 250 pounds of homework.

Her assignment: Find the best way to attach a jumble of food boxes, hardhats, hand tools, sleeping bags and propane tanks to four mules.

Its the fourth-longest day of the year, her mule-packing mentor Ian Bardwell said. Weve got lots of time.

Chico, DB, Ruth and Sparkplug also waited patiently to see what Gillispie would do. So did eight volunteers for the Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation whose gear was going onto the backs of those four mules. Everybody was waiting to walk through the slot canyon guarding Dupuyer Creeks North Fork for a four-day trail maintenance stint.

I think the hardest part is doing this in front of everyone, Gillispie said. A mental health therapist from Marysville in her daily life, Gillispie signed up to spend much of her summer learning the ropes  literally  of the packers trade.

Knots are probably my No. 1 challenge, Gillispie said. All the different hitches  the basket, the barrel, the diamond hitch. They just take practice, practice, practice.

And it seems every twitch of mule packing has a trick to it. Bardwell tilts boxes on their corners so he can loop ropes around them without lifting them. When he lifts, he rests the box on his knees to support the load. When he moves the box toward the mule, he turns toward the tail rather than the head to keep from spooking the animal.

When youre packing cross-cut saws, the right way is whoever is talking, Bardwell said. Theres all sorts of theories about which way to point the teeth. I just know they can cause some awful wrecks.

***

For two decades, the Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation has depended on the services of packers Frank Vitale, Keith Alltucker and Ralph Hopkins to haul tools and supplies into the Rockies. But all three are nearing retirement.

So the foundation offered two scholarships for packer training in exchange for a commitment to work on six volunteer supply treks this summer. Gillispie and Harold Herring of Augusta were chosen from among 20 applicants.

They got to spend a week at the Ninemile Remount Depot with U.S. Forest Service chief packer Casey Burns and the man considered by many as the dean of outfitting, Smoke Elser.

In another 50 years, I might be a master packer, Burns said as he taught alongside Elser, whos been leading the class for 36 years. Youre learning something all the time.

The Remount Depot teaches two basic packing classes a year, with 15 students each. In July it offers an advanced packing skills workshop. The rest of the time, Burns and his packers are on the trail, hauling food, lumber, tools, hay and gear for Forest Service projects.

Right now, its dying, Burns said of the packing tradition. Were trying to keep that tradition alive.

***

The Rocky Mountain Ranger District based in Choteau oversees about 1,000 miles of trail and 100 miles of road. Nearly all of that is in the federally designated Bob Marshall, Scapegoat and Great Bear wilderness areas. By law, any work done in that 1.5 million acres must be done with non-mechanized equipment, using primitive skills, to the minimum extent necessary. That means mules.

The Forest Services trail crews typically include two or three humans and four or five animals. They stay out 10 days at a time, depending on the horses and mules to haul that much food, camping gear and hardware for the job. Wilderness rangers and fire crews also depend on pack strings. Muleskinners supply three active fire lookouts during the fire season, as well as nine backcountry cabins.

Where the bottleneck comes is people with horse skills, Bardwell said. We have a full schedule maintaining our own crews. The Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation volunteers are fairly light to pack in, but we dont have the capacity to cover all of them. There are folks out there like the Backcountry Horsemen with critters who help us out a lot.

But even that organization has struggled to sustain its legacy. Part of the problem stems from the expense of owning and keeping horses and mules.

Were always talking about needing some type of position for the younger generation to get involved with, said Connie Long, a past chairman of the Backcountry Horsemen of Montana and Missoula-area outfitter. There are lots of college kids in Montana who are in things like the Montana Wilderness Association, but not many know about horses.

Gillispie does own a horse, but this summer marks the first time shes tied into the teamster aspect of the culture. Each trip she takes this summer with the Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation will increase in complexity and responsibility, until shes ready to load and lead on her own.

The hope is well be ready to do what Frank and Keith and Ralph do, before they age out, Gillispie said. I would like to take volunteers in myself.
When Kathy Ogren's husband died in a car wreck, officials from Ford came to the funeral and told Ogren to sell their dealership because a woman couldn't run the business.

One week later, executives from Toyota told her the same thing.

Ogren didn't pick a fight with the muckety-mucks, and she also quickly proved them wrong. Just 2 years after her husband died, Ogren started constructing a new building, and the auto manufacturers came around.

For 32 years, the philanthropist built up Bitterroot Motors, retiring just last summer.

This year, Ogren popped into the mind of Susan Hay Patrick when the chief executive officer of United Way of Missoula County wondered who the recipient of the Sue Talbot Award for Outstanding Community Service should be.

"Who can you point to in this town who has just thought with a charitable and businesslike head simultaneously and has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in Missoula institutions?" Patrick said.

When she mentioned Ogren's name to Talbot, the idea stuck, and last week, the longtime giver of funds, time and talent accepted the award.

Ogren said she believes in the three-legged stool that helps others, employers, employees and community. Plus, she was brought up Catholic, and she was raised with the Bible's ethic of service.

"Catholics have never been against money. You are supposed to use your talents for the good of others," she said.

She was also raised in the age of women's lib, and it shaped her. (She has proof in her memorabilia, even as she has moved far from the stereotype. "I do have some of my hippy stuff and pictures with Yoko Ono glasses.")

"We were the age group that started that change, so it was a really exciting time," Ogren said. "Nobody told us that we couldn't be married, have four kids, work and run big businesses. I only slept two to four hours a night. I didn't know you could do any different."

Her son was just three days old when she went back to work.

***

In her presentation of the award, Patrick cited Ogren's background serving on boards, from First Security Bank to the Minneapolis branch of the Federal Reserve Board, where she became the first Montanan appointed in 33 years.

"She was Time Magazine's Quality Automobile Dealer of the Year for Montana in 1996, the first chosen from Montana, and one of 10 finalists chosen from more than 20,000 dealers nationally," Patrick said. "And the list goes on."

She said Ogren's list of nonprofit affiliations is even more extensive, "and illustrates not only her devotion to her community, but her varied interests and passions."

Ogren Park at Allegiance Field, home of the Missoula Osprey, to name just one. The Missoula Children's Theatre, where she co-chaired the capital campaign, to name another. And many more.

Ogren oversaw nonprofit boards through a time of transition, she said, when they were maturing into the modern day realities of IRS checks.

"At one time, I was on 12 boards at once, president of most of them," Ogren said.

One of the most rewarding was the Montana Human Rights Commission, which oversees discrimination allegations for the state's Department of Labor and Industry.

"What appalled me? Over 30 percent of our cases were from government workers. They did what no personal business would ever do," Ogren said.

She said sexual harassment complaints were rampant.

Ogren also sat on the Federal Reserve Board  "the big board," not the one in Helena.

"We really shaped policy, and we actually had (former Chairman Alan) Greenspan in our meetings a few times," she said.

She also has been pleased to see the growth of the Missoula Children's Theatre all over the world, and Patrick credits Ogren with some of its touring success.

"Although she doesn't include this in her bio, we are told that MCT's famous little red trucks wouldn't be running around the country and the world without Kathy's support," Patrick said.

***

Ogren has cut back on the number of boards she's on. At this point, she serves on the AniMeals board and that of the University of Montana Foundation.

She remains busy with Bitterroot Motors because she said a business doesn't end overnight.

At first blush, her success with a car dealership seems uncanny for a professional trained as a microbiologist. At St. Patrick Hospital long ago, Ogren had to help babies with whooping cough, and sometimes, she'd drag her son and daughter in their pajamas to the hospital in the middle of the night.

To grow whooping cough, she needed five cubic centimeters of blood, and she'd wrap a tourniquet around her arm to get the job done.

"I always just drew my own blood," Ogren said.

As she sees it, the move she made to running a business wasn't unusual but fitting: "I think a lot of the math and science are very logical, so you have a good background," Ogren said.

Without a doubt, she'll continue giving her time and money, and Patrick said she does so without fanfare. She wanted the ballpark named after her late husband, Erik "Rik" Ogren, but her other contributions fly under the radar.

"So much of what Kathy has done she has done quietly  more than anyone but the recipients will know," Patrick said.
Someone once said, You dont build a business, you build people. And the people build the business.

In a state like Montana, known around the world for our work ethic and hospitality, building up people and building relationships is the undisputed strength of our businesses.

Thats why, in 2014, when we were asked by Gov. Steve Bullock to help provide our perspective as small-business owners on his Main Street Montana Project, we were excited to help. Between the two of us, weve been in the Montana business community for a combined five decades. We both feel that the communities where we live and do business are our stakeholders as much as our customers who work hard and play hard outdoors. During the time weve both been in business, weve seen the global economy change and our local downtowns transform. In the face of these big transitions, weve always found it helpful to keep the lines of communication open with our neighbors, our peers, our customers and our elected leaders.

We appreciated the opportunity to both share our ideas, challenges and concerns through the Main Street Montana Project, but also to engage our fellow business owners from every corner of the state. The power of the project comes from proactively engaging in a public-private dialogue. Too often, private business and public office holders only interact when theres a crisis.

The governors Main Street Montana Project included 13 industry-specific groups called Key Industry Networks to collaborate, discuss and make recommendations that will continue to grow job opportunities in the state, cut red tape, promote our Montana-made products, and research and invest in our shared business future.

Its also exciting to see our ideas, collectively, as Montanas small-business owners come to life. For example, we recommended that the governor hold an annual small-business symposium that includes discussion forums, training opportunities for employees and managers, networking venues, a dynamic job fair and the opportunity to build an ongoing grassroots alliance among small businesses. On July 13-14, Bullock will host the Peer-to-Peer Innovate Montana Symposium in Billings.

If you are a business owner, aspiring business owner, employee or entrepreneur at heart, the symposium will provide you with tools, insights and professional connections that will be invaluable as you grow your business, engage your community, and contribute to Montanas vibrant small-business ecosystem. We are also excited about the keynote speaker, Debbie Sterling, who is the founder and CEO of GoldieBlox, an award winning company thats on a mission to disrupt the pink aisle with toys, games and media for girls that encourages their interest in science, technology, engineering and math.

But the July symposium is just the beginning. We hope this annual business symposium will serve as yet another avenue for the Montana business community to stay connected, share ideas and resources and inspiration. The Main Street Montana Project, as the governor has said, truly is a business plan for Montana by Montanans. By building each other up, we can strengthen our businesses and communities together. We hope to see you at the symposium in a few weeks!
I have lived in Missoula in the past and I enjoyed living there when I did. All three of my children were born in Community Medical Center so I do have good memories of Missoula.

I have been hearing in the news that there is a small group of people in Missoula who want to bring Syrian refugees into the city. All I can say is that the people of Missoula better stand up and let their voices be heard in opposition to this right now.

If you do not, you will regret the fact that you did not oppose this when you had the chance. All of Missoula will regret having allowed un-vetted Syrian refugees to come to their community. It probably will not sink in until something like Orlando happens there.

Stephen Geiger,

Bozeman
HELENA  Montana wildlife officials say a 38-year-old mountain biker who was killed by a bear riding just outside Glacier National Park likely collided with the bear before he was attacked, and they have called off the search for the bear.

Wildlife response team investigator Brian Sommers said in a statement Saturday that he believes Treat was riding at a high rate of speed along a narrow trail and hit the bear. Visibility was limited and investigators believe the collision was unavoidable.

Brad Treat, who was a law enforcement officer with the U.S. Forest Service, was found dead Wednesday by officers at the scene of the mauling. Treat's riding companion reported the incident and was not attacked.

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks spokesman Ron Aasheim said it was a tragic accident. Investigators are still trying to determine if it was a black bear or a grizzly, and whether it might have been a female bear trying to protect her cubs. Investigators have removed cameras that were being used to find the bear, along with traps that were placed in the area.

"This is an area of pretty high density of bears, and the bear didn't return," Aasheim said. "It was just a horrible accident. The bear was in a defensive mode responding."

Authorities are still awaiting DNA tests that will show if the bear was male or female, and whether records show it might have been responsible for previous attacks.

National Forest spokeswoman Janette Turk said the attack occurred in a heavily forested area, and the area has been closed off.

An autopsy on Treat could help determine the size, age and sex of the bear, Flathead County Sheriff Chuck Curry said.

Treat became a Forest Service law enforcement officer in 2004. He spent the last 12 years stationed at the remote Hungry Horse District in the Flathead National Forest, where the territory stretches into the untamed Great Bear Wilderness.
On Friday an Oregon man was charged with felony assault after he resisted arrest and pulled a knife on a Butte police officer during an Thursday-night arrest.

The man -- Joshua Postema, 39, of The Dalles, Oregon -- was sought by police in Wasco County, Oregon, on two counts of sodomy, incest, and sex abuse of children under the age of 16.

The Wasco County Sheriffs Office notified Butte police that Postema -- a former Butte resident -- was possibly staying at a home on the 5100 block of Warren Avenue in the Mining City.

After visiting the residence Thursday, police spoke with a man inside the home who said Postema had left in a van for Walmart on Harrison Avenue.

While officers stayed at the residence and waited for Postema to return, another officer was sent to Walmart, where he located the van described by the homeowner at around 6:30 p.m.

The van was empty, but the officer saw Postema leaving Walmart.

According to police reports, the officer approached Postema and told him to stop, but Postema continued walking toward the van. After the officer reached Postema near the vehicle, the Oregon man pulled a knife from his pocket and tried to open the vans door. The officer then tackled the 39-year-old to the ground and arrested him but was cut by the knife in the process.

Postema appeared in court Friday morning and was charged with a misdemeanor for resisting arrest and felony assault on a peace officer. He's now awaiting transfer to Oregon.
The outdoors is a big part of my life. After getting released by my doctor following back surgery a couple of weeks ago, I was back out on the river fishing with the help of my friends just two days later. Our public lands and waters are the real treasure in the Treasure State.

Yet often, we are not allowed to access resources that belong to all Americans and all Montanans. Whether it is illegally closed roads that lead to public land, inaccessible checker-boarded public lands, or out-of-state billionaires funding efforts to eliminate our stream access laws, Montanans have overwhelmingly fought off attempts that would remove public lands and waters from public hands. Thats why when Governor Bullock announced in June his public lands agenda I was excited that public lands and public access are getting the attention they deserve.

We know national parks, national wildlife refuges, and national forests are public lands that play a big role in our outdoor experience. But state public lands are just as important. Often they provide access to federal public lands that wed otherwise not be able to access. State lands also provide unique destinations like the nearby Anaconda Smoke Stack State Park or Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park. With the new level of emphasis Governor Bullock is putting on our state lands through his proposed Montana Office of Outdoor Recreation and a public access specialist, well be able to access even more of our state and federal public lands.

Unfortunately, nearly two million acres of public lands in Montana are landlocked and inaccessible, according to a study done by the Center for Western Priorities. Governor Bullocks plan for a public access specialist will work to create amity between private landowners, state and federal agencies, as well as access advocates. Having someone on the job to help resolve conflicts around illegally closed roads, opening up access to landlocked public land, and ensuring private property rights are respected along the way, is no small task. This position has the potential to help open up those landlocked acres by doing something entirely novel in this day and age: Find common ground, and implement consensus decisions to increase the publics use of public lands.

The Governors Outdoor Recreation Economy office will help recruit new businesses from across a wide spectrum of industries who value public lands, and the quality of life afforded by being able to access them. This office will help Montana showcase our outdoor treasures to attract new businesses to Montana.

Likewise, restoring Habitat Montana to its original form and allowing the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks to acquire lands again will help ensure better management of land by helping consolidating checkerboarded landscapes, create space for wildlife to thrive, and keep our hunting heritage alive.

The Governors plan is supported by a wide variety of organizations such as the Montana Conservation Voters Education Fund, for which I serve as president, and outdoor recreation businesses because they know public lands are a huge economic driver. The Outdoor Industry Association says the outdoor recreation industry is responsible for over 64,000 Montana jobs and about $6 billion per year for the economy. Opening up more access to public lands will only expand that benefit to our economy by creating new jobs and putting more money into Montanas economy.

Visit www.MTGreatOutdoors.org to thank Governor Bullock for his efforts to protect our public lands and open more access. Together we can all make sure we can enjoy our shared public lands and our right to access them.

-- Rich Day is president of the Montana Conservation Voters Education Fund and lives in Butte.
Earlier this month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 4775, a bill so harmful to clean air protections that it was nicknamed the Smoggy Skies Act. Im disappointed that U.S. Congressman Ryan Zinke voted in favor of this dangerous attack on public health.

Air pollution is dangerous  and some people can be especially vulnerable, such as Montanas 17,000 children and more than 89,000 adults with asthma. The United States has made great progress in cleaning up dangerous ozone and other pollutants, thanks to the Clean Air Act. But with millions of Americans, including Missoulians, still living in areas where the air is unhealthy to breathe, we still have work to do to protect our families and neighbors. Weakening this highly successful public health law is absolutely a step in the wrong direction.

The bill that the House of Representatives passed is harmful in two ways  not only would it block more protective limits on ozone for years, it would also permanently weaken the Clean Air Acts health safeguards. Im disappointed that my representative, Congressman Zinke, voted to make it harder to protect people from asthma attacks, emergency room visits, and premature deaths from air pollution.

I call on U.S. Sens. Jon Tester and Steve Daines to do the right thing and oppose the Smoggy Skies Act.

-- Elisabeth Ristau, Missoula
MUSCATINE, Iowa  Returning home to Muscatine in May, after a year of traveling, is the Muscatine Art Centers Portrait of Captain LeGrand Morehouse, which was loaned as part of the exhibit Painted Journeys: The Art of John Mix Stanley."

The exhibit premiered at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, in Cody, Wyoming and was curated by Peter H. Hassrick of the Buffalo Bill Center and Mindy N. Besaw of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. The exhibit then traveled to the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma and the Tacoma Art Museum, in Tacoma, Washington. As noted in a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, the exhibit is the first comprehensive examination of Stanleys career. He is one of the most important American artist of his time, yet is often forgotten because of the tragic 1865 fire at the Smithsonian Institution that destroyed 150 of his Indian Gallery paintings. This exhibit brought together 60 of Stanleys works of the nearly 230 that survive.

Labeled by the Buffalo Bill Centers Director, Bruce Eldredge as beautiful and the rarest of the rare, the Muscatine Art Center was asked to lend the portrait from its permanent collection for the retrospective exhibit. He states that the artist and Captain Morehouse met in Galena, Illinois, in 1838. At the time, Stanley was an itinerate painter and Morehouse a young man starting out in business. They were both genuinely gracious men, both ambitious and both interested in art, one as a patron and one as a creative force. The Morehouse painting is considered one of Stanleys finest portraits from his formative years.

The painting is an important part of Muscatine history as well, as Morehouse has deep connections to Muscatine County and the Mississippi River. Born in New York in 1811, Captain LeGrand Morehouse moved to Galena, Illinois in 1836 and remained there until October, 1839, when he moved to Muscatine County where he purchased a farm on the Mississippi River near Montpelier. In 1849 Morehouse married Julia A. Loomis, a native of New York. After retiring as a riverboat Captain, they remained on their Muscatine farm until 1878, at which time he settled with his family in Buffalo Township, in Scott County. Together, they had seven children.

Morehouse was captain of and owned a controlling interest in the following packet steamboats: Iowa, Falcon, Montak, Newton Wagoner, Dubuque, and Lady Franklin. He was Captain of the steamer Lady Franklin during the Grand Excursion of 1854 when the President of the United States, Millard Fillmore and a large group- of eastern and western leaders celebrated the joint railroad-steamboat connection at Rock Island, Illinois.

The portrait was 1968 gift of Mrs. Ralph (Gail ) Reuling and Mrs. A.R. (Leila) Tipton, both of Muscatine, who were the great granddaughters of Captain Morehouse.
Les blattes ou cafards (Blatta orientalis) sont des insectes qui appartiennent a la famille des Blattoptera. Ils se caracterisent par leur forme allongee, leurs ailes []
Chief operating officer of the SABC Hlaudi Motsoeneng has told the Sunday Times it is not true that South Africans dont support him.

I think you have seen that everywhere I go, its fully packed and you can see that people are very excited, said Motsoeneng.

So I dont know who is not supporting Hlaudi.

Motsoeneng said he knows that he cant have the support of everyone, but those who dont are in the minority.

I mean, if you talk on social media you think you are representing people  you are not, he said.

He said journalists who protested outside the SABC on Friday should rather focus on their media organisations.

Journalists picketed at the SABCs offices in a protest against censorship at the public broadcaster.

I dont even understand why theyre making this hullabaloo.

The media organisations the journalists represented have their own editorial guidance, he said.

They know themselves that they treat their staff very bad  we are aware of those issues.

The full report is available in the Sunday Times of 3 July 2016.

More on Hlaudi Motsoeneng

Hlaudi Motsoeneng is not the SABC: ANC

The media might have an agenda against the SABC: Hlaudi Motsoeneng

I dont even know what censorship is: SABC COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng

Suspended SABC journalists taking Hlaudi Motsoeneng to court

SABC cameramen must be retrained because they make Hlaudi Motsoeneng look short
Two men were killed in a shooting incident outside the Mall of Africa in Midrand on Sunday night.

Police spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Lungelo Dlamini said the two men had been standing on the pavement in the taxi rank when they were approached by men in a white VW Polo.

The two deceased were approached by unknown suspects in the vehicle. They asked for directions and while they were being guided to their destination, they produced firearms and started shooting, he said.

The men died at the scene and the gunmen fled the taxi rank.

Dlamini said the motive for the attack was unknown, but said an investigation into what transpired had commenced.

Dlamini would not be drawn to comment on whether or not the shooting was related to sporadic bouts of taxi violence at the mall over lucrative new routes.

At this stage we cannot connect the two, he said.

News24

More on the Mall of Africa

Mall of Africa security in place to fight crime

Inside the IMAX cinema at Mall of Africa  photos
Fideaux Outfitters for Dogs celebrated its 20th anniversary (or 140 in dog years) in St. Helena on June 24.

According to shop owner Erin Morris, Fideaux was one of the first dog boutiques when it opened in 1996 on Oak Avenue, and its success spawned a second shop in Healdsburg.

Since its opening every imaginable breed of dog has come to peruse the shops offerings.

Every breed?

Oh yeah, Morris said. Everything from Chihuahua to Great Danes in our little shop.

Regular clients return again and again for the special gourmet dog foods and treats, she said. But they also see a lot of tourists because St. Helena is so dog-friendly.

Some people come in, too, because they are missing their special friends left at home, and they want to bring back a little something.

The store sells coats, sweaters, beds, collars, leashes, toys, harnesses, treats, food, and travel accessories: all the things designed to please even the most discerning of pooches.

Some visitors have been known to stop by to say hello to Barkley and Olive, Fideauxs two resident canine shop assistants.

Life as a retail animal couldnt be better for them, according to Urban, as they totally believe, its a dog-y-dog world. This is probably a completely understandable perspective coming from such happy Cavalier King Charles Spaniels.

Fideaux is located at 1312 Main St. in St. Helena.
Napa County could look to reduce agricultural burning and plant more oaks as it tries to meet greenhouse gas emission reduction targets.

The county is creating a climate action plan for the unincorporated areas only, with cities coming up with their own plans. It has a list of 36 possible carbon-cutting steps that may or may not make the final cut.

County officials unveiled the steps during an afternoon meeting last week attended by 16 people. A draft climate action plan that might affect life for both rural residents and businesses is to be available in August.

Weve tried to put together a list of measures that are implementable and effective, Planning, Building and Environmental Services Director David Morrison said.

Consultant Erik de Kok of Ascent Environmental talked about the possible greenhouse gas-cutting steps. A few could involve agriculture, the backbone of Napa Countys rural economy.

One proposal is for the county to work with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to find alternatives to open burning of agricultural biomass. Its an air quality issue and the air district is keenly interested in reducing open burning in the region, de Kok said.

Biomass removed from vineyards could be used for composting and in other ways, he said.

Many farmers and growers may already be doing this, de Kok said. But its just taking it to another level, because theres a lot of documented open burning occurring.

Another idea is to support converting diesel and gasoline-fueled irrigation pumps to electric pumps, perhaps making funding available for the switch. Still another is to encourage the use of more electric and alternative-fuel agricultural equipment.

Representatives from the Napa County Farm Bureau and Napa Valley Vintners were in the audience, but voiced no immediate responses to the ideas during public comments.

The county could require that new water heating systems for rural homes be powered by electricity or alternate energies such as solar, rather than natural gas.

De Kok talked about the county going on an oak-planting spree, given that oaks sequester carbon. The ongoing effort by the Napa County Resource Conservation District to plant 5,000 oaks in three years could just be a start. The new target could be 2,500 oaks planted annually.

The county could reduce the number of parking spaces it requires, especially for land uses near mass transit.

Another step calls for trying to have commuter trains operate on the Napa Valley Wine Train tracks, with 15-minute headways during commute hours. This would hinge on reaching agreement with the Wine Train, a county report said.

We know thats a longer-term thing that would take a lot of work, De Kok said.

Creating the climate action plan includes doing a lot of number crunching.

An initial step has been figuring out how much greenhouse gas is emitted in rural areas. The latest tally for 2014 is 484,602 metric tons, with building energy use, vehicles, solid waste and agriculture the biggest contributors.

Californias goal is to cut emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 and 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

No 1990 greenhouse gas inventory exists for Napa County. The county is looking at 2014 as its baseline year, with a 7 percent cut by 2020, 44 percent cut by 2030 and 81 percent cut by 2050.

Napa County could do nothing and see its emissions drop 5 percent by 2020, 31 percent by 2030 and 29 percent by 2050, despite growth. Reductions would come from such out-of-county sources as cleaner autos and tighter state building standards, a county report said.

But theres still a gap between expected reductions and proposed targets. The climate action plan will try to come up with the local steps to bridge that gap.
A levee designed to protect parts of Napa from flooding has not been properly maintained by the authority designed to operate it, the Napa County grand jury has concluded.

For 40 years, the Napa River Reclamation District (NRRD) has basically failed to perform its essential mission of levee control and maintenance, a new 2015-16 grand jury report said.

This Napa River levee stands between the river and 135 homes in the south county outpost of Edgerly Island. But, though the area is remote, the grand jury fears a levee break there might lead to taxpayers throughout the county paying for damage repairs.

Property owners own and maintain their backyard sections of this levee. And, while the grand jury doesnt say the levee is in immediate danger of failing, it is concerned about a patchwork approach stretching across 150 lots, of which 135 have homes.

The grand jury concluded that the NRRD should either be given the legal tools to regulate the levee or be stripped of flood control authority.

We havent really flooded on the island in a good number of years, since 1983, NRRD Board of Trustees Chairman Jay Gardner said. Weve been doing something right. But I think looking down the road is what the grand jury report is all about.

The NRRD Board of Trustees held a June 23 meeting at the Edgerly Island Volunteer Fire Department firehouse to begin discussing the grand jury report.

We are doing our very best to respond to their concerns, Gardner said. We are putting our (written) responses together right now. We are obligated by law to respond to everything they are talking about.

The NRRD website says the districts main duty is running a sewer treatment facility for the Edgerly and Ingersol tracts, with homeowners paying a $1,149 annual sewer fee. It makes no claim to have any levee maintenance or police powers.

The stuff they do at the levee is by moral persuasion, at this point, county Supervisor Brad Wagenknecht said.

To that end, the website recommends that homeowners keep their levee sections 10 feet high. It warns that, should their levee section break, they could be liable for damage sustained by neighbors.

But the levee certainly doesnt look like a uniform, 10-foot-high impenetrable wall. Its size and appearance varies from section to section, as individual-looking as the variety and ages of Edgerly Island homes. One levee section might be ivy-covered, another topped by a gazebo, another bare dirt.

Edgerly Island is a world of water and wetlands, with a towering Erector-set-like railroad drawbridge over the Napa River providing a landmark visible for miles. For 1.5 miles, Dead-end Milton Road has a line of riverfront homes on its eastern side, a kind of linear community.

Gardner, who runs Adventure Cat Sailing Charters in San Francisco, has lived along Milton Road for 38 years. He enthusiastically described the sights that include a pond near the railroad bridge.

Its full of fish and shrimp and the white pelicans get out there and they feed en masse, Gardner said. Its just spectacular.

The community is close-knit, with residents doing such things as attending the annual Christmas party at the firehouse, he said. The wind blowing up the bays keep the temperatures cooler than in the Napa Valley.

Such amenities as supermarkets are several miles away. The Napa River is the star here, with many of the homes having boat docks.

Its just a great place to live, Gardner said. We find people either love it or they dont like it at all.

The Prichett family started the Edgerly Island subdivision in the 1950s. The long Napa River levee extending along the back of the lots was key. The initial idea was property owners would maintain their own levee sections or have it done for them and pay the bill.

During a January 1973 storm, the levee broke in several places, leaving evacuating families trudging through ankle-deep water. Residents petitioned the county in 1974 to form the Edgerly Island Reclamation District  the NRRDs predecessorto care for the levee.

A public notice from the time has a long list of petitioners, more than 60 percent of the areas property owners. It asked the county to form the district to do reclamation maintenance and repair work, with the cost to be assessed upon those benefiting.

A 1974 article in the Napa Register described the hopes of Edgerly Island residents. They wanted a district that could demand property owners properly maintain the levee and order the work done for scofflaws. They worried about the vacant lots and absentee landlords.

As they say here, youre only as strong as the weakest levee, which is true, one property owner said. So, unless we can protect ourselves down here from these weak levees, what have we got?

The Board of Supervisors formed the district at a time when, on the national scene, President Richard Nixon tried to weather an 18-minute gap discovered in the Watergate tapes.

Problems arose. By 1978, the Napa County Local Agency Formation Commission said property tax revenue was inadequate to maintain 8,000 feet of levee. It described the levee as being in moderately good structural shape, but too short.

The district has tried at times to enforce levee standards. It sued two property owners in 2001 for failing to raise the heights of their levees, but Napa County Superior Court ruled in favor of the residents and said the district cant file public nuisance lawsuits, the grand jury report said.

Wagenknecht has worked on the Edgerly Island issue because it is in his 1st District as county supervisor. He said the community has done such things as pile up sandbags and filled in weak spots along the levee when the water is high.

One question is the standard of levee the Edgerly Island community would want to have, given the interaction between the properties and the Napa River.

I can tell you they are not going to build it to an Army Corps of Engineers standard of a levee, Wagenknecht said. That would probably ruin the property for most of those people.

The grand jury report doesnt say what must be done to put the levee in tip-top shape. But a 2005 report by the Napa County Local Agency Formation Commission cites an engineers preliminary estimate putting the cost at $3 million to $7 million. Variables ranged from soil conditions to permit requirements.

One potential solution to the levee issue is to have property owners pay an assessment so the NRRD can create a levee with uniform standards and maintenance. The grand jury report notes several occasions in past decades when Edgerly Island property owners declined to go that route.

Its unclear how big an assessment each property owner would have to pay for levee repairs and maintenance. The number of properties is relatively small to bear any large costs, such as the possible $3 million or more in upgrades mentioned in the Local Agency Formation Commission report.

The grand jury report mentions the possibility of NRRD simply getting out of the levee-maintenance business. Its unclear which agency, if any, would take over the duties.

The Napa County Flood Control and Water Conservation District has tackled flood control elsewhere in the county. But District Engineer Phillip Miller questioned whether it would want to take on Edgerly Island liabilities with no funding solutions at hand.

He talked about the seriousness of undertaking oversight of a levee.

Its not just a pile of dirt, Miller said. Its supposed to be water tight. Its a big deal.

The grand jury report said the Napa County Counsels Office refused to answer questions about liabilities faced by the NRRD and county over the levee situation. It asked the Board of Supervisors to order County Counsel to provide a written opinion that will be made public.

All parties with oversight over the NRRD either know or should know about the districts continued failure to perform its levee duties, the grand jury report said. These parties include the district Board of Trustees, Napa County Local Agency Formation Commission officials and the County Counsels Office.

Possibly federal and state agencies would not pay flood damage costs if the levee broke, given local authorities have failed to make certain the NRRD is taking precautionary steps, the grand jury report said.

The Napa County Local Agency Formation Commission keeps an eye on special districts. Its 2005 report on the NRRD makes many of the same points as the new grand jury report and says there is a strong need for levee control.

Now the grand jury wants the Local Agency Formation Commission to take a more active role. It wants the commission and NRRD to take steps to resolve the levee situation.

Commission Executive Officer Brendon Freeman said the commission is likely to approve responses to the grand jury report at its Aug. 1 meeting.

Wagenknecht talked about working with Edgerly Island residents to find a levee solution that works for the community. What role the grand jury report might play in pushing the discussion forward remains to be seen.

Go to napacourt.com/grand-jury/reports-response%202015-2016 to view the grand jury report.
Samuel Adams stood on his balcony in northern Colorado last week with a patriotic swagger so convincing he could have been mistaken for the original revolutionary hero of 1773. Draped before him was a large American flag. On his navy blue T-shirt, a screeching bald eagle flew across a smaller version of the stars and stripes. Hed even hung tinsel.

Sam Adams, of Greeley, Colo., the son and grandson of veterans, wasnt plotting the Boston Tea Party. But in the name of independence, he was taking a stand.

In a video he posted to YouTube, Adams bemoaned the injustice.

To prepare for the Fourth of July, Americas birthday, he decorated his apartment balcony with Old Glory. But on June 22, he said he came home to a crisp letter from the management of his Sterling Heights apartment complex in Greeley, Colo., that read: Dear Samuel, Please be advised that it has come to managements attention that you have an American flag on the balcony/patio area.

Then it reminded him, in a direct quote from the Community Policies agreement hed signed with his lease, exactly how his patriotic gesture was breaking their rules. Balconies were not to be used for laundry drying, it said, or to store hazardous materials or gasoline. Outdoor furniture is welcomed, read the letter, but not dead plants, boxes or garbage.

Balconies and patios must be maintained in a neat, clean and attractive condition, it said.

The letter closed with this: We appreciate your prompt attention and cooperation in this matter. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact myself or the office. Thank you.

In his video, which Adams cross-posted to Facebook, he dramatically read the entire letter aloud.

Now this will serve, Sterling Heights, as my contacting you officially, Adams said in the video, waving the letter toward the camera. Thank you, America. I look forward to your feedback.

A week later, Adamsand Americawon.

His act of online defiance spread quickly across the Internet, capturing the attention of veterans and military families from across the country, he told the Greeley Tribune. The video was viewed more than 36,500 times on YouTube and 233,000 times on Facebook. More than 1,300 people shared his message on their own social media accounts.

In a comment on his original post, Adams complained that other residents in the complex had equally untidy balconies, and wondered why he had been singled out. He wrote: Donald Trump and Shon Hannity where are you!!!

I thought this was just going to be a whisper but it has avalanched, Adams told the Tribune.

I have never done anything like this before, he said. But it was the right time and it was the right moment. I wanted to be a patriotic American and give tribute to our founding fathers and our veterans, and to have (management) say the flag is inappropriate or comparable to trash is reprehensible to me.

An initial concession came almost immediately. In an email, management from the apartment complex told the Tribune it has nothing against the American flag; in order to keep the residences looking uniform, no flags or decorations are allowed to be displayed on balconies.

Senior Regional Manager Amie Robertshaw added in an email to the newspaper that they would allow Adams and other residents to fly their flags through Independence Day, but then theyd have to come down.

Adams told the Tribune hed didnt care; even in the face of eviction, he planned to keep displaying Old Glory.

Im the kind of guy that when I see a man or woman in a uniform, I go up to them and say, Thank you for your service, Adams told the newspaper. I gladly accept the responsibility given to me of standing up for the veterans and families that have reached out to me.

Within days, Adams received another letter.

In response to the notice you received last week regarding the displaying of an American flag on your balcony, we sincerely apologize for the request to remove it and the reaction this has caused, states the letter. obtained by the Tribune and written by Drake Powell, principal of the property group that oversees Sterling Heights. The notice was not intended to be un-American, unpatriotic or insensitive to all that our great country stands for.

Then, in response to the outrage sparked by Adams video, Powell explained the complexs new policy: From now on, residents are able to display not just the American flag, but the Colorado flag, all year long.

Adams told the Tribune he intends to do just that.

And just as he said in his video, Adams thanks America.

It was because of the voice of the people that things were changed, he told the Tribune. I was just the channel.
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"Taliban militants under Mawlawi Ikramudin gave up fighting and handed over their weapons to police in Faizabad on Saturday," Xinhua news agency quoted a police official as saying.

The surrender took place amid heavy fighting between security forces and Taliban fighters in Raghistan district where dozens of people from both the sides have been killed.

--IANS py/mr

( 81 Words)

2016-07-03-13:26:02 (IANS)
The Haryana government announced on Sunday that it would develop a new industrial township, spread in over 1,500 acres in Sohna and Manesar areas of Gurgaon, at a cost of $5 billion. An MoU regarding this was signed between the Haryana government and China Fortune Land Development (CFLD) company in the presence of Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar in New Delhi on Sunday. "The agreement was signed by Managing Director, Haryana Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC), Sudhir Rajpal, and President, China Fortune Land Development Company, Jerry Zhao," a state government spokesman said here. Khattar said that under the agreement, HSIIDC and CFLD Company would execute the project as a joint venture (JV). "The Chinese firm would develop infrastructural facilities, industrial units and residential and commercial projects in the township. Industrial units related to automobiles and electronics would be established in this township. "These projects would be completed within the next 10 years and would generate employment opportunities for lakhs of youth, besides making available state-of-the-art health and education facilities," he said. Zhao said that the company had identified required land in Sohna and Manesar area, and hoped that all formalities would soon be completed and work on the projects would begin by the end of the year. Over the last nearly four decades, Haryana has emerged as a favoured destination for industrial investment, given the proximity of the state'ss national capital region (NCR) belt to the country's capital New Delhi. The first big name to establish base in Haryana, Maruti-Suzuki, piloted by Japanese car manufacturer Suzuki was a runaway success in early 1980s. The big names that have, over the years, lined up to invest in Haryana include automobile giant Suzuki, Honda, Canon, Yakult, Denso, Mitsubishi, Toyo, Daikin, Yokohama, Showa, Nippon, Kansai Paints, Asahi, Stanley and many others. Most of the investment has been made in Gurgaon district. --IANS js/vd ( 323 Words) 2016-07-03-17:36:03 (IANS)
"We will be shooting these scenes at Mt. Kazbek in Georgia, and this portion will feature over 1000 soldiers, 300 horses and 20 chariots. These scenes will be blended with computer graphics to enhance the overall effect," film's director Krish told IANS.

Balakrishna plays a Satavahana ruler in the film, which also stars Shriya Saran, Hema Malini and Kabir Bedi.

"It's the battle of Satavahanas versus Greeks. The film features three such battle sequences," he said.

Produced by Y. Rajeev Reddy, the film is slated to hit the screens around January next year.

--IANS hp/sug

( 131 Words)

2016-07-03-11:42:02 (IANS)
India's support was a key factor for Kazakhstan's success in achieving a non-permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), said that country's Ambassador to India, Bulat Sarsenbayev. In an exclusive interview given to ANI, Ambassador Sarsenbayev said, "On 28 of June, there was election in the UN for non-permanent seats in the Security Council and Kazakhstan won this seat. We became a non-permanent member of the Security Council. We got 138 votes to Thailand's 55. It is a big majority and is recognition of the authority of my country, Kazakhstan, and the authority of our leader, President Nursultan Nazerbayev and his personal input to this election, because during every meeting with international states, he always raised this issue that Kazakhstan is capable of becoming a member of the Security Council. And Kazakhstan, for the first time, a country of Central Asia, elected from the Asia Pacific group, to become a member of the Security Council." When specifically asked about the Indian government role in promoting Kazakhstan's UNSC bid, Ambassador Sarsenbayev said, "First of all, I would like to say thank you to the leadership of India and to the people of India, because a long time ago, back when we wanted to be in this place (UNSC), in 2010, and from the beginning, the Indian government was supporting us. We are very grateful that India believed in Kazakhstan and they supported us steadily to become a member of the Security Council." He also made a special mention of the strategic partnership between Kazakhstan and India, formed during President Nazarbayev's visit to New Delhi in January 2009. He said, "That time, during the negotiations, we came to the conclusion that we are strategic partners. India and Kazakhstan are strategic partners and we share very similar approaches on many international issues. Politically, we don't have any problem between us. The support of India is a very strong one and we appreciate it. Kazakhstan will do everything possible to strengthen this relationship further. We would like to use our new status as a member of the Security Council to make our world more secure." On the issue of India's demand that there is an urgent need to reform the United Nations and make its various bodies more globally representative, Ambassador Sarsenbayev said, "Kazakhstan has officially expressed its support to India to become a member of the Security Council, a permanent member. We are supporting India on this issue." He also said that there is a need for the global community and world organs like the United Nations to address issues like terrorism and extremism in a calibrated and concentrated manner. "Terrorism is a big problem for the whole world. Our president, during the 70th session of the United Nations General Assembly, raised some proposals such as to make a global network, an anti-terrorism network, to prepare a list of all terrorist organisations and people-based on legislations of countries. In some countries, there are 30 0r 40 terrorist organisations, but in other countries, it is different. It's all based on their own legislations. Kazakhstan has proposed a global list of all terrorist organisations and people who are involved in terrorist activity, and to exchange this information. We will work on these issues to coordinate with all the countries. Terrorism is not acceptable. What happened in Turkey, what happened in Bangladesh is not acceptable. We are in the 21st century, and we are facing such challenges. This is awful," he said. Ambassador Sarsenbayev put forward four priorities that Kazakhstan would focus on during future UNSC deliberations - nuclear, energy, water and food security. "Advancing these priorities in the main body of multilateral diplomacy, Kazakhstan intends to closely cooperate with all partners without exception. Kazakhstan will seek to represent the interests of the whole of Central Asia. Kazakhstan will begin its two year membership in the UN Security Council on January 1, 2017 and this will last till December 31, 2018," he said. He recalled that when the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, Kazakhstan became the fifth largest nuclear power in the world. "At that time, we use to have 1500 nuclear warheads. India, from media information I know, it's about 150. We opted to destroy our nuclear stockpile and were the first country in the world to do so. On 29th of August, we have an international conference in Kazakhstan to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the closing of the nuclear weapons testing ground, the largest in the world. We have invited External Affairs Minister Ms. Swaraj and some MPs for that conference from India. So, Kazakhstan has an open policy on many issues," he said. When asked what was Kazakhstan's position on India's membership bid for the 48-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)? Ambassador Sarsenbayev said, "Recently, there was a telephone call from your prime minister (Narendra Modi) to our president (Nursultan Nazarbayev). They discussed this issue. It was an initiative from the Indian side. They exchanged their positions and they understood the importance of this issue and so on. Kazakhstan is not against India being member of this (NSG). Our leaders discussed, I am not familiar with it, but Kazakhstan is very positive." According to the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), India made its application for (NSG) membership on May 12th, reflecting the progress in its engagement with the NSG. The MEA said in a note that this engagement with the NSG began in 2004. It said that a decision on civil nuclear cooperation with India was adopted by consensus by the NSG in September 2008. Subsequent to that, regular discussions with the NSG too place and continue to take place. India has made it a point to mention that this application for membership of the NSG is not a new subject, and is one that has been discussed within the NSG at every Plenary since 2011. The MEA has said that India's application has acquired immediacy in view of India's INDC envisaging 40 percent non-fossil power generation capacity by 2030. An early positive decision by the NSG would have allowed New Delhi to move forward on the Paris Agreement. While not naming China, the MEA said procedural hurdles were persistently raised by one country, but added that an overwhelming number of plenary participants took the floor and supported India's membership and appraised India's application positively. Ambassador Sarsenbayev concluded the interview by saying, "Today, India is one of the most developing countries economy-wise and your leadership is doing what is possible to bring India to being among the top countries. And, in Kazakhstan, we know the importance of India. In the last few years we have completely come to an understanding that we should do a lot of things together economically. Kazakhstan is very important to India and India is very important to Kazakhstan. I am very happy with what has happened in the two years since I came here as ambassador." (ANI)
Taking a strong exception to Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz's remark that crackdown against the militants in the country could lead to increased terrorist attacks, Defence expert Qamar Agha on Sunday said Islamabad never wanted peaceful relations with India as it has adopted 'proxy war' as a policy. Agha said Pakistan is not a natural state and its survival depends on tension, which is why they keep creating constant tensions at the border. "Pakistan is not interested in talks. Their basic policy is not to keep peaceful relations with India. Proxy war has become their policy. Pakistan is not a natural state, their survival depends on tension. It was formed on the idea of anti-India and anti-Hindu lines, so that need army to run it. Therefore they constantly create tensions," he told ANI. "The entire world knows that militancy from Pakistan is affecting not only India but also other nations. India is for talks, ever since this government has come to power they have taken initiatives to better relations. If they want talks they should shun terror," he added. Aziz had earlier suggested that seeking a large-scale crackdown on all the terrorist attacks at once would overstretch the armed forces and lead to more terrorist attacks. "We have to make sure that we move in a decisive way, but at a measured pace and according to our capacity, and ensuring that the blowback is manageable," he said. Aziz on Friday tried to defend the Pakistan Government against the criticism it has drawn for inaction to crack down on the Haqqani network and allegations of sheltering Afghan Taliban leaders. (ANI)
"Based on a tip-off, police nabbed four persons late last night from old city area of Jammu and recovered three kg brown sugar from their possession," police here today said.

The arrested also included two accused, hailing from Kerala.

"The contraband is worth crores of rupees in the international market," they said, adding that more details are being ascertained.UNI VBH RJ 1225

-- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0098-817174.Xml
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday mocked the Aam Aadmi Party's campaign to form their government in Goa and Punjab, saying that the Arvind Kejriwal-led government was failing spectacularly in the national capital, forcing them to run helter-skelter to other states. "By now the entire nation is familiar with how AAP functions and how they play politics by trying to create a divide in the society. This will not last for long and the upcoming polls will show it. Since they (AAP) have failed in Delhi, they are now running to Punjab and Goa," BJP leader Shyam Jaju told ANI here. Meanwhile, Kejriwal is all set to roll out his party's "youth manifesto" today at the start of his three-day Punjab tour. The manifesto is expected to touch upon drug menace, unemployment, and education. Earlier, the fresh charges against (AAP) MLA Naresh Yadav for allegedly desecrating the Quran by the Sangrur Police in Punjab, came as a major blow to the party, which is gearing for the 2017 polls in the state. Yadav was yesterday named in an FIR related to a recent case of alleged 'desecration' of the Quran. The Sangrur Police booked Yadav after the alleged mastermind in the case, Vijay Kumar, disclosed that he had desecrated the Quran at the behest of the Mehrauli MLA and was offered Rs. one crore for the same. (ANI)
Hope springs eternal for a retired postman, who longs to see his birth place, which falls in present day Pakistan. This is the story of a retired postman, who has lived in anguish of not being able to visit his birth place, which is quite close to the place where he resides now. His last hope is hung on the opening up of Suchetgarh crossing point between India and Pakistan, along the International border. Mohinder Nath, 72 , a resident of Miran Sahib in RS Pura of Jammu and Kashmir, which borders Pakistan, was born in what is now Pakistan. He wants to see his birth place before his last breath but like the protagonist of several heart-wrenching partition tales, there's no one on the other side of the border that he can call his own. Mohinder told UNI "My last desire is to visit my birth place but I am not being allowed to go there because officials need a reference where I would stay. I do not know anyone there." Mohinder reminisces that years ago, amidst the blood and gore of partition, when he at the age three left his ancestral home at Allah Ditte Kothi in Babe-ki-Beri of Sialkot, little did he know that he would not be able to see it again. It's been seventy years to that day and not a night has gone when he has not felt the deep anguish of that separation. According to Mohinder after the partition , his family decided to stay in Sialkot, but had to let go their resolve when the bloodbath came too close. When they got cornered, the family was saved by a Muslim neighbour. Somehow they managed to come and settle at Miran Sahib in R S Pura. When Mohinder came to his senses, the desire to see his place of birth started germinating somewhere in the corner of his heart. But not all desires are meant to be fulfilled. The deteriorating relationship between the two countries meant that he was unable to make that small journey across the border. Mohinder said that in 1971, he had accompanied his maternal uncle in crossing the border and reaching just couple of kilometres away from his ancestral village. Borders were porous then and he tried his luck. However, as luck would have it, the war broke out and Indian Army captured Sialkot. Army stopped them from going any further. In fact, Mohinder's agony is unparalleled. He narrated that after having got a passport in 2007, he has managed to visit Pakistan as many as five times. He went there with Sikh pilgrims and requested Pakistani authorities to let him see his village but was denied permission. In desperate measure, once he asked one of the Indian sentries manning the Indian side of the border to let him have a pip through their binoculars, but it was of no avail as his sight was weak and hecould not see the Allah Ditte Kothi. He has pleaded and begged the authorities several times but his village has eluded him all along. His passport is going to expire next year and at this point in age, he won't be able to run around in order to renew it. He demanded that the government should open the Suchetgarh border to facilitate people living along IB like the people across the Line of Control have been opportunity to meet their near and dear. If authorities or fate does not intervene positively in time, the desire of this lifelong worker of postal service, to take a look of his home, will remain unfulfilled.UNI NS SHK 1351 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0098-817197.Xml
''The main accused, identified as Rajan Sharma, resident of Makaro, Tehsil Akhnoor, District Jammu, was arrested yesterday, after a week-long investigation and he confessed his involvement in the crime,'' Rajouri SSP Rajeshwar Singh said here today.

He said on June 23, the body of Jisietho, resident of tehsil Kheri, district Phek, Nagaland, was recovered from near a tube well in Sunderbani area, following which investigation was initiated.

''The Board of Doctors said the deceased was stoned to death,'' police said, adding that on suspicion, watch was laid and the accused was nabbed.

''During questioning, he disclosed that on June 23, he found the deceased in drunkard condition and taking advantage, he stoned him to death and decamped with mobile phone, cash and ATM cards,'' the SSP added. The deceased was an employee of a private telecom company.UNI VBH RJ 1345

-- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0098-817248.Xml
In a statement released today, Sonia expressed her deepest condolences to family of those killed

"Smt. Gandhi called for the globe to unite, fight and defeat forces of terror and extremism that pose a serious threat to world peace and humanity," the statement added.

Earlier today, the ISIS claimed responsibility for the two car bombs exploding in Baghdad, which killed almost 80 people.

The attack comes in the wake of the deadly attack by terrorists at Holey Artisan- an upscale cafe in Dhaka's diplomatic zone, which resulted in the death of 20 people, including one Indian. (ANI)
Congress poll strategist Prashant Kishore has pitched for an expansion in Priyanka Gandhi's role as campaigner in Uttar Pradesh, believing that her charisma can help in the party's revival, and also focusing on strengthening the organisation's base at grassroots level in order to lift its morale and fortune in the run-up to the 2017 state assembly polls. According to the reports, PK has suggested Priyanka Gandhi to campaign in selected districts of UP including her favourite Amethi and Rae Bareli in the assembly polls. It was said that she could campaign in around 150 assembly seats, where the Congress candidates can win. However, with the elections just around the corner, Congress is the only party, which is yet to set its house right and confusion prevails within the party rank and file over their future. Murmurings have also started on the engagement of Mr Kishore and his team members for the UP polls with a senior party leader, on condition of anonymity, stating that when Priyanka and Rahul Gandhi's campaign could enable the party candidates to win the elections then what is the need for PK and his team. "It is certainly that the team PK was verifying the booth level workers by contacting them on phone or holding meetings with them. But such thing were also done earlier and it was not new for any political parties in the country.The involvement of a poll management group is just delaying the poll-preparedness of the party when other parties have started announcing their candidates," the leader commented. "We are lagging behind in launching an offensive against the BJP and the SP in UP and failed to go before the people taking up the projects launched by the previous UPA government like Right to Information, Right to Food, Right to Education, MGNREGA and other pro-people schemes. I don't understand why the party was not going for agitation over the shelving of the UPA projects in the state even though the strengthening of the organisation can be done simultaneously without any hitch," the leader opined. On the other hand, controversy over change in guards in the UP Congress was also creating much confusion for the party. Lack of decision making within the party was demoralising the cadres. Though the AICC and even the UP Congress cancelled the Iftar party due to the drought situation in the country, the minority wing of the UP Congress held an Iftar party at a five-star hotel fully contradicting the motive of the party. The organising leaders defended the Iftar saying that the party high command had asked the state unit to hold the programme for the poor Muslims,however, they could not justify that how the poor Muslims would be able to enter into a five star hotel and why they did not hold it in the state party headquarters as done every year. However, senior party leader and Chairman of the media committee Satyadeo Tripathi, here today exprewssed satyisfaction over the party's poll preparedness saying preparations were underway on a smooth note and within a month, everything would be seen in black and white. "Team PK was working 'round-the-clock' and the booths have already been strengthened. Now it is the matter of days when people and media would start seeing the popularity of Congress growing in the state," he said. Another senior party leader and panelist Amarnath Agarwal made it clear that Congress always worked like this and presently all the nitty and gritty were being addressed. "Congress will launch its campaign in an aggressive manner in next two months time and take up the other opponents by surprise," he further claimed.UNI MB SV SS -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0103-817265.Xml
The Syro Malabar Catholic Church in Kerala on Sunday welcomed the Narendra Modi government's pitch for a Uniform Civil Code in the country. Addressing reporters here, Cardinal Maran Mar George Alencherry said that he welcomes the decision of the central government to go ahead with it. "This should take place through discussions and a consensus should emerge as ours is a hugely diverse country," said the Cardinal. The Uniform Civil Code is intended to replace personal laws based on the scriptures and customs of each major religious community in India with a common set governing every citizen. The Bharatiya Janata Party in its 2014 parliamentary election manifesto had promised the Uniform Civil Code. But Leader of Opposition in the Kerala Assembly and former Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala told reporters on Sunday that the Uniform Civil Code will spell the deathknell of the nation's secular fabric. "With the upcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, this is a ploy, but this is going to place people on different decks. This is an agenda of the RSS that the BJP government is trying to implement and it will cause serious repercussions," he said. But BJP's state unit chief Kummanem Rajasekheran on Sunday said those who oppose the Uniform Civil Code are those who stand against the growth of the country. "It's rather strange that some oppose even a discussion which is mooted on UCC. It appears that the Indian Union Muslim League is still living in the days of the Partition and it is unfortunate that the Congress party is supporting them. This is not meant to force the Hindu ideology on others," said Rajasekheran in a press release issued in the state capital. The Union Law Ministry has asked the Law Commission to examine the issue of implementation of a Uniform Civil Code. --IANS sg/vd/vt ( 313 Words) 2016-07-03-16:54:01 (IANS)
"Baba Banda Singh Bahadur-ji was not just a great warrior but was also very sensitive towards common people. After getting inspiration from Guru Gobind Singh-ji, he imbibed values of a warrior and embarked on a new journey for social development," Modi said at a function here to mark the 300th anniversary of the Sikh military commander's martyrdom.

"During Baba Banda Singh Bahadur-ji's time, for the first time, farmers were given their rights, the common man felt empowered, poor people and the minorities felt secured. He favoured economic freedom," he added.

The Prime Minister also released a book on the Sikh warrior.

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal were also present on the occasion.

Last month, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had released a commemorative silver coin marking Banda Singh Bahadur's 300th martyrdom day.

--IANS bns/vd/dg

( 195 Words)

2016-07-03-19:38:04 (IANS)
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy is to run for the presidency in 2017, as he announced that he is stepping down as head of his conservative party to pave way for the return bid. Sarkozy, who lost the presidency in 2012 to Socialist party's Franois Hollande, told the members yesterday that it was his last meeting as head of France's Les Republicains party. "This national council will be my last one as president of Les Republicains," the Guardian quoted him as saying. He added, "This primary will be a time of competition between some strong personalities, between people of significant talent. When the right goes into battle it has a front on the left and a front on the extreme right. That is why it is unacceptable that we should attack each other." The party faces primaries in November and Sarkozy is expected to face tough competition against 13 others in his party who have already declared their candidacies. Meanwhile, former prime minister Alain Juppe, who is Sarkozy's main competitor, has criticised him for the confusion. The supporters of Les Republicains and other right and centre-right parties will in November vote to decide their candidate for the 2017 presidential election. The winner will then face the far-right National Front's Marine Le Pen and a Socialist candidate likely to be Hollande. Sarkozy will have to resign two weeks before the application deadline on September 9, as the party head if he wants to run for the presidential primaries. (ANI)
The Red Cross spokesman said that the female keeper's body was discovered at around 5 p.m. local time at the Terra Natura park in the south-eastern coastal resort town of Benidorm.

"The tiger was still in the cage with the 37-year-old keeper," the Guardian quoted the spokesman as saying.

The zoo staff had to euthanised the tiger with sedative darts so that emergency workers could enter the enclosure.

Meanwhile, the police is investigating the case.

The Terra Natura in Benidorm promotes itself on its website as "a new generation" animal park with a habitat area created for each of 200 species of animals.

The website also describes the park as an "immersion zoo", with more than 1,500 animals.

The zookeeper's death comes months after Stacey Konwiser, another zookeeper, was fatally mauled at Florida's Palm Beach zoo. (ANI)
At least 31 people have been killed by flash flood caused by torrential rains in south west of Chitral district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. As many as 17 people were reported missing in Ursoon Village while as many were injured due to flash flooding in the area last night, a report in The Express Tribune quoting DPO Chitral Asif Iqbal said. The flood also washed away a mosque at the time when taraweeh prayers were being held inside, he added.Around 30 houses were demolished in the rainstorm caused by incessant downpour in the area near the Pak- Afghan border. Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) was in constant touch with the district administration for rescue and relief efforts, a statement released by the authority said. Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan has expressed condolences to the victim's families. He urged the Government to take necessary steps to deal with nature's fury in such a way that casualties are averted.. Expressing deep grief over the losses caused by the flooding, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra has directed the authorities concerned to speed up the rescue and relief efforts in the affected area. He also directed the administration to take all precautionary measures to save the lives and properties of the people.UNI XC SV SS -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0103-817104.Xml
Provincial governor's spokesman Abdul Rahman Mangal said the security posts were captured by the Taliban militants two days ago, adding an operation was launched to clear the area from the militants' presence.

He said that few security personnel sustained injuries during the operations and around 15 Taliban insurgents were either killed or wounded.

The Taliban militants late on Friday night launched coordinated attack on security posts in Jalrez district and managed to capture several security posts. (ANI)
One attack took place in Karrada-Dakhil district when a suicide bomber detonated his car bomb at a crowded thoroughfare in south central Baghdad, Xinhua news agency and other media reports said.

The powerful blast set fire to several nearby shops and destroyed many stalls and civilian cars at the scene, which was crowded with shoppers who were preparing their families for Eid ul-Fitr.

The Iraqi capital was the scene of another attack after midnight when a booby-trapped car went off at the Shallal market in Baghdad's northeastern district of Shaab, killing five civilians, the media reported.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited Karrada on Sunday morning and vowed to punish the terrorists.

Iraq has been hit by a new wave of violence since the Islamic State terrorist group seized parts of Iraq's northern and western regions in June 2014.

--IANS mr/py/

( 182 Words)

2016-07-03-13:58:04 (IANS)
In a statement issued on Saturday, Dar said that Khan should act in line with the moral values expected of a national leader and apologise to Maryam after knowing the facts of the incident.

Dar added that Khan was in the habit of reacting to "hearsay and rumours without verifying facts" of the cases involved.

"Being the head of a political party, Imran Khan should adopt responsible behaviour," said Dar, who has been looking after government affairs in the Prime Minister's absence.

Reacting to the comments, a PTI spokesman said that Khan would never apologise to Prime Minister Sharif's daughter.

The PTI chief's sister Uzma Khan had said on Friday that security personnel in Maryam Nawaz's protocol harassed her and her family in the Gulberg-III area of Lahore. (ANI)
Officials including Brigadier General Mohammad Hassan Alemi, commander of Wardak recruitment and training center, Brigadier General Ragbar, commander of the training center, Gul Saeed, general manager at the center, Ahmaduddin Wahab, head of transportation at the center and General Zekria, operation commander at the training center were investigated over the incident, reports Tolo News.

The moves comes after suicide bombers on Thursday attacked a convoy of Afghan police recruits in Kabul, killing at least 30 recruits and wounding more than fifty.

The police convoy was on its way from Wardak province to Kabul when it was hit by two-pronged explosions.

The attack took place in the Qala-e-Haidar Khan area in Paghman district. (ANI)
Police said the first explosion occurred in a busy commercial street in the central neighborhood of Karrada, killing 79 people and wounding 133 others, reports CNN.

Those injured and trapped in the adjacent buildings were rescued by the fire-fighting crews.

The second bomb, which exploded in an outdoor market in the Shaab neighborhood of southeastern Baghdad, killed one and wounded five others.

ISIS in a statement posted on Twitter claimed responsibility for the Karrada attack and said the group is targeting Shiite neighbourhoods.

In a similar incident in May this year, a series of car bombs killed scores of people in Baghdad with ISIS claiming responsibility for many of those bombings. (ANI)
"Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina would pay tributes to the victims of Gulshan attack by placing wreaths on their coffins at the Army Stadium at 10:00am," the Daily Star quoted Prime Minister's Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim as saying.

Karim said that later the bodies of the victims, killed in the barbaric attack, would be kept at the Army Stadium from 10 a.m. to 12 noon to facilitate the people of all strata for paying homage to them.

The 12-hour-long hostage crisis ended after a two-hour long assault by armed forces' commandos killing six gunmen yesterday morning and capturing one alive.

Nine Italians, seven Japanese, one Indian, one Bangladeshi American and two Bangladeshis were killed in the terror attack at Holey Artisan Bakery in Gulshan on Friday night.

Besides 20 people, two senior police officers-Banani Police Station officer-in-charge Salauddin Ahmed Khan and Detective Branch assistant commissioner Robiul Islam were killed while trying to rescue the hostages.

While Salauddin was laid to eternal rest at Banani Graveyard in Dhaka, Robiul was buried at her village home in Manikganj. (ANI)
At least nine militants were killed and 12 others were injured in a clash between security forces and the Taliban in Afghanistan's Saripul and Faryab provinces, an official said on Sunday. According to the official, four militants -- including group commanders -- were killed in Sayad district of Saripul province and five more insurgents lost their lives in Qaisar district of Faryab province respectively. A total of 12 militants sustained injuries in the skirmishes which have been continuing in parts of the said districts. --IANS ask/lok/vt ( 91 Words) 2016-07-03-17:50:01 (IANS)
Turkish military General Staff said an attack on Saturday in northwestern Aleppo province also destroyed two rocket launchers and two IS vehicles, Efe news reported.

The targets destroyed were reported to be preparing missile launches into Turkish territory.

--IANS ss/lok/dg

( 68 Words)

2016-07-03-18:44:02 (IANS)
One in six British jihadis who went to Syria and Iraq to fight along with the Islamic State terror group were killed -- but 400 are back in Britain and were a cause for concern, it has been claimed. Security agencies believe that at least 15 per cent of all British extremists who fled the country to join the IS have been wiped out amid intensified airstrikes and military operations on the ground, a Daily Mail report said. But with 850 fanatics believed to have travelled to IS strong holds from Britain, there were fresh fears that half of them have already returned. Col. Richard Kemp, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, told local media: "My concern is more with the 400 or so who have returned to Britain and pose a threat. We have seen what the IS can do in Brussels, in Paris, in the US and most recently in Turkey." "They can, and will, try to do the same thing here. I think that's what is most concerning. We are not actually being effective in killing them in large numbers as we need to be. Our failure to wholeheartedly attack Islamic State gives people the inspiration to carry out attacks," he added. His comments came days after it emerged that Britain will almost double its number of troops in Iraq. A total of 250 military personnel were to be deployed to the war-torn region to help in the fight against IS at the end of the summer. They will join around 300 soldiers already there. Earlier this month it was reported that at least 85 British jihadis fighting in Syria were killed. Defence Secretary Michael Fallon revealed that around 850 people linked to Britain and regarded as a security threat are now believed to have taken part in the bloody civil war. High-profile British deaths have included Mohammed Emwazi, who became known as Jihadi John after he appeared in barbaric videos in which he decapitated Briton and US hostages. The 26-year-old Kuwaiti-born was killed in a drone strike in 2015. In September, Royal Air Force warplanes killed two British terrorists who were plotting attacks on British soil. The government believes that the number of foreign fighters joining the IS had fallen to around 200 a month from its peak of 2,000. --IANS ask/ahm/dg ( 398 Words) 2016-07-03-19:30:03 (IANS)
BEIJING, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras pays a visit to China on Saturday at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart, Li Keqiang. Following is a brief introduction to the Greek leader.

Tsipras was born in 1974 and worked as a civil engineer. In 2006, he was elected member of the Municipality of Athens Council. In 2008, he became leader of Syriza, a left-wing political party. He was elected as member of the Hellenic Parliament in 2009 and was re-elected in 2012.

In January 2015, he became prime minister after his Syriza party won a snap election. Seven months into his premiership, his party lost majority in parliament after intraparty defections. Tsipras resigned and called for a snap election, in which he won again. Enditem
WASHINGTON, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. government on Saturday strongly condemned the terror attack in Dhaka, Bangladesh, while confirming the death of one American citizen.

"The United States condemns in the strongest terms the horrific terrorist attack in Dhaka, Bangladesh on July 1-2," the White House said in a statement.

It said that one American citizen was among the 20 deaths in the heinous attack.

"Our deepest condolences go out to the families and loved ones of those killed, and we hope for a speedy recovery for those wounded," the statement said.

The U.S. government remains in contact with Bangladeshi authorities and "have offered any assistance necessary," it said.

"This is a despicable act of terrorism, and the United States stands with Bangladesh and the international community in our resolve to confront terrorism wherever it occurs," the statement added.

The terror group Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the terror attack against an upscale restaurant Friday in the diplomatic zone of Dhaka, which at least 20 people were killed.

Many foreigners, including nine Italians, seven Japanese and one American, have been confirmed being among the deaths in the 12-hour siege that ended Saturday morning. Enditem
ISLAMABAD, July 2 (Xinhua) -- At least 13 people were killed and five others injured when a passenger van fell into ravine in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir on Saturday, local media reported.

Dawn News said that driver of the ill-fated van lost control over the vehicle while negotiating a sharp turn near Rawalakot area of Kashmir, located at the northeast of the country.

The van, carrying over 20 people, was on its way to Rawalakot from the country's north Rawalpindi city.

The injured people have been shifted to a nearby hospital by the rescue teams.

Road accidents frequently happen in Pakistan due to poorly maintained roads, violation of road safety rules and reckless driving.

According to data compiled by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, over 9,000 road accidents are reported to police every year, killing an average of around 5,000 people annually in the country.

Traffic police officials said that 90 percent of the accidents in Pakistan are caused merely by human error. Enditem
ISLAMABAD, July 2 (Xinhua) -- At least six security personnel were injured in a bomb attack at their vehicle in Pakistan's southwest Turbat district on Saturday, local Urdu media reported.

Dunya News reported that some unknown militants ambushed the vehicle of paramilitary troops Frontier Corps and blew it up by exploding roadside planted device as soon as it passed by.

Police said that the attackers fled the scene after carrying out the attack in Dusht Plungore area of Turbat, a district located in the country's southwest Balochistan province.

The injured troops were shifted to a nearby hospital where one of them is said to be in a critical condition.

Security forces cordoned off the area and kicked off a search operation in the area.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack yet. Enditem
KOLKATA, India, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The terror attack at a cafe in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka Friday night has created a panic in India's eastern state of West Bengal and some northeast states.

International borders with Bangladesh were sealed Saturday by India's Border Security Force (BSF) and several states were put on high alert by Home Ministry.

All state administrations and police were directed by the Intelligence Bureau and the National Investigation Agency, which deals with terrorism in India, to beef up security in view of the long porous border with Bangladesh.

The BSF's patrolling was intensified using speed boats in the riverine areas adjacent to the Bangladesh border all over India.

The BSF have been conducting search operations in all the villages in the border districts along with the police. Senior BSF officials held series of meetings with district police chiefs to initiate measures to prevent possible infiltration of terrorists.

The Kolkata Police have also carried out searches in hotels in central part of the city where large number of Bangladeshis usually stay and also asked five-star hotels to beef up security.

Special force personnel in plainclothes were deployed at all landmark spots such as Writers' Buildings (chief minister's residence-office), the Calcutta Stock Exchange, Victoria Memorial and all western countries' consulates in the city.

Security at the Kolkata international airport and Haldia ports at the Hooghly river was increased by the security forces.

West Bengal state and the northeast state Assam have been long time plagued with the problem of infiltration of Bangladesh Islamic militants.

The security agencies are concerned as several Bangladeshi terrorist groups might try to sneak in after a crackdown by Bangladesh's Rapid Action Battalion against them following Friday's Dhaka attack, in which at least 20 civilians were killed by terrorists.

Among the dead was a 19-year-old Indian student Tarushi Jain.

Meanwhile, an overwhelming majority of Muslim population in east and north east India are apprehending a backlash and communal riots following the attack.

All states in this region of India have geared up to prevent such communal riots between Hindus and Muslims and security intensified in sensitive areas in these states.

Possible attacks by terror groups like the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh and Ansarullah B Team are also a big concern of authorities here.

Over the past one and half years, several terrorists from Bangladesh have been snatched by Indian security agents in West Bengal.

Moreover, to this eastern Indian metropolis, Saatkhira, one of Islamic militant strongholds in Bangladesh, is only an hour's drive from the border.

The militants from Bangladesh were also blamed for fanning communal riots in the northeast state Assam.

In June 2014, armed militants sailed through the border rivers and massacred ethnic Bodo tribes in the state. Enditem
Earlier in the day, prime minister Peter ONeill PM had told Dr Momis he had no prior knowledge of the Rio Tinto share deal and indicated his willingness to work with Momis on the serious concerns the Bougainvilleans have about control of BCL.

Dr Momis accused the PNG government to have been deeply involved in Rio's decision to transfer 17.4% equity in Bougainville Copper Ltd (BCL) to make the national government an equal shareholder with the ABG.

TENSIONS between Bougainville and Papua New Guinea escalated this afternoon after the president of the Autonomous Bougainville Government, Dr John Momis, condemned a disgusting and shady deal between the national government and Rio Tinto.

But sources have disclosed to PNG Attitude that not long after his conversation with Mr ONeill, Dr Momis became aware that the PNG company, Petromin, through a subsidiary, had accepted the Rio Tinto offer of 17.4% per cent of the shares in BCL which would make it an equal partner with Bougainville in the company.

I advised the prime minister on many occasions that Panguna mine and BCL share issues were deeply sensitive for Bougainville, said Dr Momis today. I told him that national government majority ownership in BCL could endanger peace.

'So I am shocked to find that, without consulting the ABG, they have entered a disgusting and shady deal over Rio shares in BCL.

Making the national government and the ABG equal shareholders gives the national government equal power with the ABG over decisions on Panguna.

Equal shares is just as offensive as majority PNG ownership, he said.

Dr Momis accused the PNG government as being in cahoots with Rio Tinto in plotting the share deal.

I can see no way Petromin could have been ready to jump on 30 June if PNG was not fully involved in Rio's decision on its BCL shares, he said.

They have no excuse for not understanding the dangers to peace if insensitive decisions are made about Panguna. Neither Rio nor the national government are free to make such decisions on purely commercial grounds.

The national government knows the terrible dangers of dealing with Panguna in a way intended to give it greater control over Bougainville. And of course, it is increased control that they want.

We must all be quite clear here. Giving the national government equal equity in BCL is a direct threat to peace.

The apparent involvement of the National Govenunent in the Rio decision adds deep insult to the clear injury involved in the Rio Tinto shares decision.

Dr Momis said he had emphasised to Mr ONeill that the shares issue offers us a remarkable opportunity to bring to an end the divisions and conflict with Bougainville.

If the national government agrees to the full former 53.8% Rio Tinto equity in BCL going to the ABG, it will be clear that PNG agrees to Bougainville having full control of decisions about Panguna.

That will change views of Bougainvilleans.

It will end what are now deep suspicions that, in the lead-up to the referendum [on independence for Bougainville], PNG is seeking to keep control over Bougainville's affairs. We must not lose this unique chance.

'The key issue is the future of peace.

The Bougainville House of Representatives has been asked to resume in urgent sitting to discuss the issues involved.

This is now not just a major dispute between Bougainville and the national government but also the gravest threat to the Bougainville Peace Agreement, and the future of peace between PNG and Bougainville, Dr Momis said.

The Bougainville civil war, which raged from 1988-98, was triggered by a range of factors that arose from the operations of the Panguna copper and gold mine.

Between 15,000 and 20,000 deaths were attributed to the conflict.
LOS ANGELES, July 2 (Xinhua) -- California Governor Jerry Brown has signed six gun-control measures into law, according to local media reports Saturday.

His signature on Friday drew criticism from conservatives who complained Sacramento was eroding Second Amendment rights, though the San Bernardino terrorist attack last December killed 14 and injured 22.

The six bills signed into law will ban possession of magazines with the capacity to hold more than 10 rounds. They also requires people who already have such magazines to turn them over to authorities.

The bills put assault rifles with a feature known as a bullet button into illegal and mandate background checks when a gun is loaned to someone other than a close relative of the owner.

Filing false reports of stolen guns will have tougher punishment and there will be stricter regulations for ammunition, including requirements that ammo sellers get a license, purchases be screened and transactions be recorded.

California Senate President Kevin de Leon, who was author of one of the signed bills, said he was pleased with the governor's action, though Brown did veto a few other proposed gun laws.

"Taken together, these bills will save lives and make our communities, our families and our children safer," de Leon was quoted as saying by local media.

However, Assemblyman Jay Obernolte strongly criticized the package of new laws, which he said clearly infringe on the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment.

"These new laws will not address the underlying problems of why gun violence occurs and they will do nothing to prevent another terrorist attack like the one that occurred in my county on Dec. 2 (the San Bernardino shooting)," Obernolte said.

Senator Jeff Stone said that criminalizing gun ownership instead of prosecuting criminals who use guns to commit crime is not the answer.

San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said he anticipates that many gun owners will balk at turning in their high-capacity magazines in response to one of the new laws. Enditem
RAMALLAH, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The recent report of the International Quartet for peace in the Middle East on evaluating the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel has on Saturday angered the Palestinians, who said the report equals the victim with flagellant.

"The Quartet report doesn't meet the aspirations and hopes of the Palestinians as a people, who live under a military colonial occupation," Ahmed Majdalani, a member in Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) executive committee, said in an emailed press statement.

The Quartet comprises the United Nations, the United States, European Union and Russia. It released the first report of its kind on Friday, which analyzed the impediments to a lasting resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The Quartet report offered recommendations on the way forward, urging Israel to stop its settlement policy and Palestine to end incitement to violence.

Majdalani stressed that the report unveils the double-standard of the Quartet committee towards the conflict, adding that the report equaled between the occupying power and the people who live and suffer under the occupation.

"The world insists not to bear any moral and legal responsibility towards implementing the international laws and treaties to protect the Palestinian people and guarantee their right for self-determination," he said, adding "the report is just like backing the continuation of the occupation."

The Quartet has been working on the report since February. The report calls on each side to "independently demonstrate, through policies and actions, a genuine commitment to the two-state solution" and to "refrain from unilateral steps that prejudice the outcome of the final negotiations."

In summary, the Quartet reiterated that a negotiated two-state outcome is the only way to achieve an enduring peace that meets Israeli security needs and Palestinian aspirations for statehood and sovereignty, ends the occupation that began in 1967, and resolves all permanent status issues.

"The report ignored the Israeli government's responsibility for obstructing the process of economy and social development. Besides its responsibility of undermining the establishments of the Palestinian (National) Authority and its fanatic policies which aim at blowing up the situation," said Majdalani.

The report provides recommendations to what it has identified as the major threats to achieving a negotiated peace: continued violence, terrorist attacks against civilians and incitement to violence; settlement construction and expansion; and the PNA's lack of control in Gaza.

"We are shocked after the Quartet's report held the Palestinians responsible for incitement and violence and didn't refer to the violence and organized state terrorism of the occupation army and its armed settlers who commit daily crimes against innocent civilians of our people," said Majdalani.

The Palestinians want to resume the Middle East peace process that is based on the two-state solution, implement the signed agreements committed to the peace references in accordance to a specific time schedule, including the cessation of settlements and the release of the prisoners.

However, the report recommended that both sides should work to de-escalate tensions by exercising restraint and refraining from provocative actions and rhetoric.

It also recommended that the PNA should act decisively and take all steps within its capacity to cease incitement to violence and strengthen ongoing efforts to combat terrorism, including by clearly condemning all acts of terrorism.

Meanwhile, it recommended that Israel should cease the policy of settlement construction and expansion, designating land for exclusive Israeli use, and denying Palestinian development.

It called on Israel to implement positive and significant policy shifts, including transferring powers and responsibilities in Area C, consistent with the transition to greater Palestinian civil authority contemplated by prior agreements.

Progress in the areas of housing, water, energy, communications, agriculture, and natural resources, along with significantly easing Palestinian movement restrictions, can be made while respecting Israel's legitimate security needs.

The Palestinian leadership should continue their efforts to strengthen institutions, improve governance, and develop a sustainable economy. Israel should take all necessary steps to enable this process, in line with the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee recommendations, said the report.

It called on all sides to respect the ceasefire in Gaza, and the illicit arms buildup and militant activities must be terminated.

Nabil Abu Rdineh, spokesman of the PNA presidency, said in an official press statement that "any report, which doesn't include a complete withdrawal back to 1967 borders, including the occupied city of Jerusalem and doesn't include the illegalization of settlements would never lead to real and everlasting peace."

"If the report doesn't include these stable demands, more tension and more instability is expected in the region," said Abu Rdineh, adding "the only solution is to establish an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital and the release of all prisoners from Israeli jails." Enditem
LAGOS, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The Africa Fashion Week Nigeria (AFWN) 2016 which kicked off in Nigeria's economic hub Lagos this weekend attracts a large number of spectators.

More than 60 designers from across Africa are showcasing their latest designs at this year's event, one of the biggest fashion shows in Africa.

This year's fashion week which also marks the third edition of the event represents the latest trend and changes in Nigerian as well as African fashion industry.

Lucky Idike of the Bank of Industry, one of the sponsors of this year's show said the Bank of Industry is collaborating with AFWN because it is a platform designed to grow the textile and fashion industry in Nigeria.

He added the show focuses on bringing out fashion innovation and creativity among young Nigerians.

The AFWN, a sister event to the Africa Fashion Week London (AFWL) which was launched in 2014 has gained increasing attention in recent years.

This year's AFWN will last until July 3 and is expected to attract over 5000 visitors including buyers, industry professionals and fashion enthusiasts to Lagos. Enditem
AMMAN, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Jordan on Saturday condemned the terrorist attack in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.

Jordan's Minister of State for Media Affairs Mohammad Momani said the Jordanian government strongly condemns the attack with seizing hostages in Dhaka.

He said Jordan repeatedly calls for coordinated and intensified efforts to combat terrorism that seeks to undermine global peace and security.

He also voiced support to Bangladesh and the families of the victims.

On Saturday, gunmen killed 20 foreigners soon after they stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery restaurant, a popular destination of foreigners in Dhaka, as Bangladesh's worst hostage crisis, a spokesman of the Bangladesh Army said.

Director of Military Operations Brigadier General Naim Ashfaq Chowdhury said six attackers were killed during an armed raid on Saturday morning that ended the 13-hour siege in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave Gulshan.

Some 13 hostages, including one Japanese and two Sri Lankans, were rescued after a two-hour operation by Army commandos.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. Enditem
BEIRUT, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Lebanon's Shiite militant movement Hezbollah destroyed two Islamic State (IS) positions entrenched on the outskirts of the border town of Ras Baalbek and al-Zwaitinah, killing a highly ranked official of the extremist group, Hezbollah's al-Manar TV station said Saturday.

Abu Khatab and members of his company were killed in their command center in the area of al-Zwaitinah, on the outskirts of Al-Qaa and neighboring Ras Baalbek, the report said.

Hezbollah fighters posted a video showing guided missiles destroying two bunkers hundreds of meters apart in the barren region that comprised the command center.

Militants from the al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State group are entrenched in the mountains along the Lebanese-Syrian border.

The Lebanese army regularly shells their positions while Hezbollah and the Syrian army have engaged in clashes with them on the Syrian side of the borders.

The northeastern border town of al-Qaa was targeted with eight suicide attacks on Monday, which left five people killed and at least 255 others injured.

No group has yet claimed responsibility of the attacks.

The two extremist groups overran briefly the border town of Arsal in 2014 and engaged in deadly battles with the Lebanese army for several days.

The extremists abducted around 35 troops and policemen before they retreated, among whom al-Nusra executed four while the IS beheaded one. Enditem
LILONGWE, July 02 (Xinhua) -- Malawi President, Peter Mutharika, Friday announced that he will introduce a new law to deal with "evil-minded" people involved in the killings of persons with albinism in the country.

Muntharika announced this at a development rally held in the former Malawi capital, Zomba.

The president's announcement follows a series of abductions and killings of people with albinism in the country for ritual practices.

The Malawi leader denounced the trend and described as "total nonsense" the notion of hoping to get rich by killing persons with albinism for their body parts.

"Next week I'm introducing a new law amending the Penal Code," said Mutharika.

"You'll see what is waiting for them. There's going to be stiff sentences for anyone found with body parts or bones of human beings,"the president added.

Malawi's laws stipulate death sentence as a maximum penalty to those convicted of murder but no president has ever endorsed one before.

In the wake of the albino killings in Malawi, some sectors of the society have been pushing the authorities to put the death penalty into effect.

Recently, parliamentarian for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Bon Kalindo conducted demonstration urging Malawi parliament currently sitting in the capital Lilongwe to bring into effect the death penalty to any albino killer in the country.

Calls for death penalty to anyone convicted of murder have been watered down by Malawi government and Amnesty International.

Amnesty International Media Manager, Robert Shivambu, told journalists at a press briefing held in Lilongwe prior to the meeting with Mutharika that the organization believed that there were other ways of dealing with the matter than death sentence.

Malawi Government Spokesperson, Patricia Kaliati, also told state radio MBC, recently that the maximum sentence for murder convicts remained life imprisonment and that Mutharika would not commit himself to be the first leader of the country to endorse death sentence.

With President Mutharika's announcement of the introduction of a new stiffer law on the matter, it remains to be seen what the Malawi leader has in store for the perpetrators of the infamous killings of people with albinism.

Meanwhile, close to 20 cases of cold-blood killings of people with albinism have been reported since 2015 and over 65 cases of abuse and exhumation of graves keeping remains of the body have been reported during the same period. Enditerm
NAIROBI, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's food security is expected to remain stable until September buoyed by availability of food stocks that is supported by the increasing cross-border imports from Tanzania and Uganda, a food security report published on Saturday shows.

The report by the Famine Early Warning Systems (FEWS Net), an agency which provides early warning and analysis on food insecurity, says the expected average long rains harvest from September through December will boost the country's food security.

"FEWS Net projects that the long rains harvest will be largely average," says the report which is published in collaboration with the Kenya government.

"Whereas the rains have been above average in high and medium potential agricultural areas, poor temporal distribution, which resulted in a lengthy dry spell in May and June, caused moisture stress to crops in the field," FEWS Net said.

According to the report, with the resumption of rains, most of the maize crop in the field is expected to recover from moisture stress, but some are unlikely to recover and develop to maturity.

"As a result, production is likely to be just average. In addition, the long rains harvest from the marginal agricultural areas, though expected to be below average, will also boost the national food stocks," it said.

The report comes after the government said it will release one million bags of maize directly to millers at a cost of 25 U.S. dollars per 90-kilogramme bag to stabilise rising flour prices.

This, Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Willy Bett said, will come from the strategic food reserve in Rift Valley, the grain basket region.

Flour prices shot past 1 dollar per two-kilo packet in April as millers cited a grain shortage. The cheapest brand costs 1.04 dollars.

The ministry of agriculture projects surpluses for maize, beans, wheat, and rice through the end of September, which is sufficient food to meet national requirements.

Data from the ministry shows that at the end of May, the country had an estimated maize stock of 9.45 million bags. Farmers are believed to hold 4.5 million bags of maize while trades held two million bags.

FEWS Net analysis of wholesale maize prices across major urban reference markets of Nairobi, Eldoret, and Kisumu, between April and May, shows stability.

The only major fluctuations were observed in Mombasa, where prices increased 10 percent between this time period, mainly due to dwindling local supply.

FEWS Net however says food insecurity conditions are likely to persist especially in the northeast, northwest, and southeast pastoral areas and coastal and southeast marginal agricultural areas.
JUBA, July 2 (Xinhua) -- A senior relief official in South Sudan on Saturday called on warring parties to stop fighting in Wau and urged access for humanitarian partners to access those in need in the northwest region.

Humanitarian Coordinator Eugene Owusu who made a one-day visit to Wau on Thursday expressed shock and outrage regarding the loss of life, displacement, and suffering that civilians have endured as a result of the fighting.

"This is entirely unacceptable. All armed actors must immediately uphold their obligations to protect civilians and ensure that the guns remain silent in Wau," Owusu said in a statement issued in Juba.

He said it's the civilians who have borne the brunt of conflict in Wau, as in so many other locations across this country.

The relief official expressed alarm at the fighting that broke out on June 24 and has killed over 40 people and displaced an estimated 70,000 people.

Of those, at least 12,000 people are sheltering near the UN Mission in the Republic of South Sudan ((UNMISS) base in Wau.

"The humanitarian community has responded rapidly to this crisis and the team on the ground is working around the clock to assist people in dire need," Owusu said.

"With the rainy season upon us, we are in a race against time and additional funds are urgently required. Our overall response in South Sudan is just 39 per cent funded," he added.

Prior to this latest round of fighting, the UN said there were already an estimated 100,000 people displaced in and around Wau town from previous incidents, including fighting in February.

Many people have now been displaced multiple times and their coping capacities are exhausted. Sexual violence is a particular concern in and around Wau, where large numbers of cases were reported during the February fighting.

"People told us they were forced to flee their homes with nothing but the clothes on their backs and many reported witnessing horrendous acts of violence against family and friends," said Owusu.

"No one should be forced to suffer what these people have been through. The violence must stop and the parties to the Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan must stand true to their word," he added.

Humanitarian partners have sent additional teams and supplies to bolster the response throughout the affected area and have set up mobile health clinics, established temporary water systems, distributed food, nutritional supplements and high energy biscuits, and provided vital non-food items, including blankets, mosquito nets, and kitchen sets. Enditem
KAMPALA, July 2 (Xinhua) -- A road accident in the central Ugandan district of Mpigi on Saturday killed 17 people and left several others injured, a police spokesperson said.

Polly Namaye, deputy police spokesperson told Xinhua by telephone that the grisly incident involved four cars.

"I can confirm that 17 people died on the spot. Some 12 people were injured and rushed to Mpigi health center for emergency treatment," Namaye said.

She said preliminary investigations into the cause of the accident indicate that it was due to reckless driving.

"The police have launched investigations into the cause of the accident and we shall come up with a full report," she said.

Local television station, NTV put the figure at 19 saying that 17 died on spot while the other two died on their way to hospital. They quoted a traffic officer at the scene.

According to the World Health Organization's road safety assessments, Uganda has one of the highest accident rates in the world, with 19,870 accidents in 2012 and 18,368 in 2013.

Police records show that most accidents are due to speeding and reckless driving, driving under the influence of alcohol, and use of vehicles in poor mechanical condition. Enditem
STOCKHOLM, July 2 (Xinhua) -- A total of 61 people drowned in Sweden so far this year -- a historically high figure, according to the Swedish Television reports.

Roughly nine in ten of those who drowned in the first six months of 2016 were men and most of them were middle aged or elderly. However, in a recent survey conducted in Sweden, 42 percent of respondents said they believe newly arrived immigrants are at the highest risk of drowning, followed by children.

When it comes to drowning, men do not tend to see themselves as a high-risk group, said Hanna Axelsson, head of press at the Trygghansa insurance company, which ordered the survey from pollster Novus.

The Trygghansa survey shows that men are more likely to believe they can swim long distances. A total of 85 percent of male respondents said they are able to swim 200 meters.

"Men overestimate their swimming skills and all studies point to men being more prone to taking risks than women," Karin Brand, secretary-general of the Swedish Life Rescue Association, told Swedish Television.

The Association started keeping records of drowning accidents 16 years ago and 61 incidents is the highest number measured so far.

A major risk factor, beyond overestimating one's swimming skills, is alcohol consumption. According to the Swedish Contingencies Agency, 50 percent of men who drown have alcohol in their bodies. For women, that ratio is 30 percent.

Drowning accidents normally increase during the summer months, and Brand of the Swedish Life Rescue Association recommends skipping alcohol before swimming and staying in shallow waters and near beaches. Enditem
It didn't take long for the first general election fight to break out in the 24th Congressional District race.

The National Republican Congressional Committee questioned Democratic challenger Colleen Deacon's independence Thursday after The Citizen reported she received $7,000 from House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi's campaign and political action committee.

Republicans also cited Deacon's remarks during an April interview with Time Warner Cable News. At the time, she was asked if she could be independent and break with the Democratic leadership on an issue.

In her response, Deacon, D-Syracuse, said the Democratic platform "is what I stand for so I don't know necessarily why I would break  why I would want to break away from any of the issues ..."

The NRCC claimed Deacon's comments and the donations she received from Pelosi before the Democratic primary show she would put the House Democratic leadership's priorities ahead of the district's.

"It should alarm voters that Colleen Deacon could not think of a single issue where she would break from Nancy Pelosi to work in a bipartisan fashion for central New York," NRCC spokesman Chris Pack said. "If Colleen Deacon and Nancy Pelosi had it their way, they would undo all of the bipartisan accomplishments that John Katko has secured for central New York during his short time in office."

Democrats quickly fired back and noted that Katko, R-Camillus, has received support from House Republican leaders, including a $10,000 donation from House Speaker Paul Ryan's political action committee.

Last year, then-House Speaker John Boehner visited central New York to headline a fundraiser for Katko's re-election campaign.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said that the NRCC's argument is "ridiculous." The group said it could also apply to Katko, who not only received campaign donations from House GOP leadership but participates in the NRCC's Patriot Program.

The program supports Republican incumbents in competitive districts. Last year, a report revealed that the NRCC required Katko and other members of the program to submit their legislative agendas to the group.

"Why does the NRCC keep hitting their own members," said Matt Thornton, the DCCC's communications director. "Does John Katko agree with his party throwing stones while living in a giant glass house?"

The war of words between the DCCC and NRCC is the first of many exchanges that will likely occur during the general election campaign.

The 24th District seat is a top target for Democrats looking for a key pickup in a presidential election year. When former U.S. Rep. Dan Maffei was on the ticket in 2008 and 2012, he defeated his GOP challengers.

Republicans haven't won the Syracuse-area congressional race in a presidential election year since 2004, when ex-U.S. Rep. Jim Walsh was still in the House. But they believe that will change with Katko, who they think is enough of a moderate to retain the seat.
JERUSALEM, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Israel's government said on Saturday that a cemetery for Palestinian "terrorists" will be constructed in order not to return bodies of assailants to their families in the West Bank.

The move came after a string of attacks on Thursday and Friday, in which Palestinians killed a Jewish teen girl and a 48-year-old man in the West Bank.

Over the recent nine months of Palestinian unrest, Israel has been withholding bodies of attackers as a punitive measure. The practice was implemented mainly against attackers who were residents of annexed East Jerusalem.

While bodies of attackers from the West Bank are usually returned to their families within a short time, the police, which is in charge of bodies of attackers from east Jerusalem, have been held since the beginning of the unrest in mid-September.

On May 3, Israel's Supreme Court recommended that the police will "coordinate with the families and return the bodies of their sons before Ramadan," a Muslim holy month of fasting that begins in June.

Following the petition, many of the corpses were returned, but a few are still kept in Israel.

Former defense minister, Moshe Ya'alon, objected this practice, but his newly-appointed successor, Avigdor Lieberman of the far-right "Israel Our Home" party, is a vocal supporter of it. Lieberman, who has been pushing for the decision, says that avoiding Palestinian families from burying their loved ones will "deter" attackers.

Palestinians and human rights organizations have been criticizing the withholding of corpses, saying it violates the rights of the families to bury their loved ones and fans further unrest among Palestinians.

At least 211 Palestinians and 33 Israelis have been killed since mid-September.
LONDON, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Protesters waving banners against voters' decision to leave the European Union marched through central London on Saturday.

The March For Europe demonstration, organized on social media by comedian Mark Thomas, started at Hyde park. The protesters made its way to the Parliament Square, where there were speeches, according to Sky News.

Banners and placards showing slogans such as "No Brex Please, We're British", "Europe Innit", "I wanna be deep inside EU", "All EU Need is Love", and "Science Needs EU" could be seen during the demonstration.

Outgoing Prime Minister David Cameron has said the referendum result, where about 52 percent voted to leave the EU, would be respected, and the government had begun laying the groundwork for the complicated Brexit negotiations.

From the stage in Parliament Square, Labor politician Lord Cashman told the crowd that British people "need to uphold the values of democracy and inclusiveness which are at the heart of the EU and this country," according to the Sky News.

"I honestly believe the disinformation in this campaign has undermined our democracy. Decent British values are also the values of the European Union," he said.
UNITED NATIONS, July 2 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday condemned a deadly terrorist attack in a restaurant in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, voicing his hope that "those behind this crime will be identified and brought to justice."

The secretary-general, in a statement issued here by his spokesman, expressed his "deepest sympathy and condolences" to the families of the victims and to the government and people of Bangladesh.

"He wishes a speedy recovery to those injured," the statement said.

"The secretary-general hopes that those behind this crime will be identified and brought to justice," said the statement.

"He stands firmly by Bangladesh as it confronts this threat and stresses the need to intensify regional and international efforts to prevent and combat terrorism," the statement said.

"The secretary-general assures the government of Bangladesh that the United Nations is prepared to assist in efforts to prevent violent extremism in all its forms," the statement added.

Gunmen killed 20 foreigners soon after storming a Spanish restaurant in Dhaka on Friday night in Bangladesh's worst hostage crisis, a spokesman of the Bangladesh Army said on Saturday.

At least 40 people, including senior police officials, were injured in the incident.

Some 13 hostages, including one Japanese and two Sri Lankans, were rescued after a two-hour operation by Army commandos.

After planning and waiting through the night, Bangladesh Army-led joint forces launched the assault at around 7:40 a.m. local time (0140 GMT) Saturday.

More than 1,000 rounds of bullets were reportedly fired and explosions were heard in the first 30 minutes of the raid when army men in armored vehicles tore down a wall of the cafe and the commandos galloped into it through the breach. Enditem
DHAKA, July 2, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Bangladeshi army personnel stand guard during a rescue operation after an attack at a Spanish restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave Gulshan, Bangladesh, July 2, 2016. Gunmen killed 20 foreigners soon after they stormed a Spanish restaurant in Dhaka in Bangladesh's worst hostage crisis, a spokesman of the Bangladesh Army said on Saturday. (Xinhua/Shariful Islam)

UNITED NATIONS, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The UN Security Council on Saturday "strongly condemned the heinous and cowardly terrorist attack perpetrated in the city of Dhaka," Bangladesh, which killed more than 20 Bangladeshi nationals and foreigners.

"The members of the Security Council reaffirmed that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security," the council said in a statement issued to the press here.

The council members stressed the need to take measures to prevent and suppress the financing of terrorism, terrorist organizations and individual terrorists, in accordance with resolutions 2199 (2015) and 2253 (2015), said the statement.

The Islamic State in Iraq, also known as the ISIL or Da'esh has claimed responsibility for the attack, which also injured at least 40 people, including senior police officials.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday condemned the deadly terrorist attack in a restaurant in Dhaka, voicing his hope that "those behind this crime will be identified and brought to justice."

The council members expressed their deep sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims, to the people and government of Bangladesh, as well as peoples and governments of foreign victims, and they wished speedy and full recovery to those who were injured, said the statement.

"The members of the Security Council underlined the need to bring perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism to justice," the statement said.

"They stressed that those responsible for these killings should be held accountable, and urged all States, in accordance with their obligations under international law and relevant Security Council resolutions, to cooperate actively with all relevant authorities in this regard," the statement said.

"The members of the Security Council reiterated that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations is criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of its motivation and wherever, whenever and by whomsoever committed, and should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilization, or ethnic group," it said.

They reaffirmed the need for all States to combat by all means, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and other obligations under international law, including international human rights law, international refugee law and international humanitarian law, threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts, the statement added.

Some 13 hostages, including one Japanese and two Sri Lankans, were rescued after a two-hour operation by Army commandos.

After planning and waiting through the night, Bangladesh Army-led joint forces launched the assault at around 7:40 a.m. local time (0140 GMT) Saturday.

More than 1,000 rounds of bullets were reportedly fired and explosions were heard in the first 30 minutes of the raid when army men in armored vehicles tore down a wall of the cafe and the commandos galloped into it through the breach.

Related:

9 Italians, 7 Japanese, 2 Bangladeshis, a U.S. citizen, an Indian among 20 killed in Dhaka restaurant attack

DHAKA, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Nine Italians, seven Japanese, two Bangladeshis, a Bangladeshi-born U.S. citizen and an Indian female were killed in the attack on a Spanish restaurant in Bangladesh capital Dhaka popular with foreigners. Full story

Bangladesh announces two days of mourning for victims of Dhaka hostage crisis

DHAKA, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has declared a two-day state mourning from Sunday as a mark of respect for the victims of Bangladesh's worst-ever hostage crisis. Full story

Sri Lankan President strongly condemns terrorist attack in Bangladesh
By Naim-Ul-Karim

DHAKA, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Nine Italians, seven Japanese, two Bangladeshis, a Bangladeshi-born U.S. citizen and an Indian female were killed in the attack on a Spanish restaurant in Bangladesh capital Dhaka popular with foreigners.

An official at the Bangladesh Army's Inter Service Public Relations (ISPR) confirmed the nationalities of the victims to Xinhua on late Saturday.

He said Nine Italians, seven Japanese, two Bangladeshis, an Indian and a Bangladeshi-born U.S. citizen were among the 20 people hacked to death by the terrorists who burst into the restaurant on Friday night.

The official who preferred to be unnamed said the victims include 10 males and 10 females.

Seven gunmen armed with blades, guns and bombs also murdered two Bangladesh police officers in the early hour of the attack.

Gunmen killed the victims soon after they stormed the Spanish restaurant -- Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave Gulshan -- in Bangladesh's worst hostage crisis, a spokesman of the Bangladesh Army had said in a media briefing on operation "Thunderbolt" that ended the 13-hour hostage crisis on Saturday.

Director of Military Operations Brigadier General Naim Ashfaq Chowdhury in the briefing did not disclose the nationalities of the victims.

According to the Italian Foreign Ministry, the Italian victims are Adele Puglisi, Marco Tondat, Claudia Maria D'antona, Nadia Benedetti, Vincenzo D'allestro, Maria Rivoli, Cristian Rossi, Claudio Cappelli and Simona Monti.

Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj already made public that an Indian female student was among the victims.

"Tarishi was 19 years old. She passed out from American School Dhaka. Presently, she was a student at Berkeley," she said in her another tweet.

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department said a U.S. citizen was among those killed in the attack.

"We can confirm that a U.S. citizen was also among those senselessly murdered in this attack," the department said in a statement.

Chowdhury told a press briefing that six attackers were killed during an armed raid on Saturday morning that ended the 13-hour siege in Gulshan.

"We've managed to capture one attacker alive," he said.

Some 13 hostages, including one Japanese and two Sri Lankans, were rescued.

Around five hours into the attack, according to a jihadist threat monitoring portal, SITE Intelligence Group, IS claimed responsibility of attacking the upmarket restaurant.

The gunmen stormed the restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave Gulshan on Friday night.

The authenticity of the IS claim has not been confirmed by the Bangladesh police.

At least 40 people, including senior police officials, were injured in the incident.
CANBERRA, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Australian swimmer Cate Campbell has broken the world record for women's 100 metres freestyle at the Swimming Australia Grand Prix meet in Brisbane on Saturday night.

Her performance of 52.06 seconds is sure to consolidate her status as gold medal favourite for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics next month.

Her previous personal best was 52.33, set in 2013, which was both the national and Commonwealth record.

"I still can't believe it has happened," the 24-year-old Campbell told the Australian Broadcast Company (ABC) shortly after her world-record performance.

"People have been asking me when I was going to break a world record for the past three years and honestly it really wasn't on my mind but every time I got into the pool it was like, 'will they stop asking me this question now?', and now you will."

The new record is just 0.01 second off the previous world mark set by Germany's Britta Steffen during the "supersuit era" in 2009.

Bronte Campbell, Cate's younger sister who is also a star swimmer, twitted "Guys my big sister just broke a world record! We're very excited!"

Bronte did not contest the 100m freestyle at the pre-Rio departure meet, admitting she had no idea she was under world record pace during the final.
ANQING, July 2, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Rescuers evacuate a senior villager in Shouquan Village of Huaining County, east China's Anhui Province, July 2, 2016. Due to heavy rainfall, rescuers were sent to Shouquan Village to evacuate more than 60 villagers trapped in flood early Saturday morning. The National Meteorological Center (NMC) and the Ministry of Water Resources warned of high risks of mountain torrents in parts of Anhui, Hunan, Guizhou and Tibet from Friday evening to Saturday evening, suggesting residents take necessary precautions. (Xinhua/Chen Kaihang)

BEIJING, July 3 (Xinhua) -- China's meteorological authority on Sunday renewed its orange alert for heavy rain across much of the southern regions in the coming 24 hours.

Thunderstorms will hit the provinces of Hubei, Anhui, Jiangsu, Hunan, Jiangxi, Guizhou and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region from Sunday morning to Monday morning, with precipitation reaching up to 220 millimeters in some areas, the National Meteorological Center said on its website.

The center suggested people reduce outdoor activities and take precautions against possible floods and landslides.

China has a four-tier color-coded system for severe weather, with red being the most serious, followed by orange, yellow and blue.
BAGHDAD, July 3 (Xinhua) -- At least 12 people were killed and 27 others wounded in two car bombings at busy commercial areas in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad early Sunday, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua.

One attack occurred at about 1:00 a.m. local time (2200 GMT) when a suicide bomber detonated his car bomb at a crowded thoroughfare in Karrada-Dakhil in southern central Baghdad, killing 11 people and wounding 22 others, the source said on condition of anonymity.

Several shops were damaged and several cars were destroyed by the powerful blast, the source said.

Another explosion ripped through the capital after midnight when a booby-trapped car went off at Shallal popular market, killing at least one and wounding five others along with destroying several nearby shops and stalls, the source added.

Iraq has been hit by a new wave of violence since the IS terrorist group took control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions in June 2014.

Earlier, a report by UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) estimated that 662 Iraqis were killed and 1,457 others wounded in acts of terrorism, violence and armed conflict in June across Iraq.




ISLAMABAD, July 3 (Xinhua) -- At least 30 people were killed and scores injured when a mosque and several houses were washed away by flash flooding in Pakistan's northwest Chitral district, officials said Sunday.
CHITRAL, July 3, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Photo released by Pakistan's Inter Service Public Relations (ISPR) on July 3, 2016 shows Pakistani soldiers transfer an injured survivor to a helicopter in Chitral, northwest Pakistan. At least 30 people including women and children were killed, 35 injured and scores others went missing in flash flooding in Pakistan's northwest Chitral district, local media and officials said Sunday morning. (Xinhua/ISPR)

ISLAMABAD, July 3 (Xinhua) -- At least 30 people including women and children were killed, 35 injured and scores others went missing in flash flooding in Pakistan's northwest Chitral district, local media and officials said Sunday morning.

Mayor of Chitral district, Maghfirat Hussain, said that a mosque and as many as 30 houses were washed away by the flood water in Urshoon village of Chitral district, located in the country's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The incident happened on Saturday night when people were offering Ramazan prayers in the mosque that was completely destroyed in the flash flooding caused by the over flow of the Chitral river.

Urdu TV channel Express News said that 35 people were seriously injured in separate incidents of house collapse and 31 went missing in the flash flood in the village located near Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Army, paramilitary troops and rescue teams from the provincial disaster management authority (P.D.M.A.) are taking part in the rescue operation.

The mayor said that the rescue teams are facing problems due to heavy rains, which have been lashing the district since last night.
Humanity has won its battle. Liberty now has a country.

 Marquis de Lafayette

Throughout the neighborhoods the wafting smell of hamburgers roasting over an open fire shall fill the air  because it's the Independence Day weekend, and I think we're all looking forward to letting freedom ring.

Obviously we all love this country, and even though the future may not look as sparkly as the fireworks shooting off tonight, we still have a strong sense of patriotism. With that being said we probably don't know all there is to know about our beloved home front, so to make our relationship with this great land a little more fulfilling I've dug up some facts that will help round out our knowledge of the country we're currently celebrating.

Think of it like asking your significant other what their favorite color is. The answer just may come in handy when purchasing gifts.

Right off the bat we have Montana, which has three times as many cows as it does people. Not strange enough? OK. How about the fact that California's official state animal is the grizzly bear even though no one has seen one there since the 1920s.

Did you know that Jimmy Carter was the first president to be born in a hospital? How about that there are three towns in this country named Santa Claus? If that isn't weird enough imagine the reality that Alaska has the highest percentage of people who walk to work than any other state. Think about that the next time you spend 20 minutes warming up the car before your commute.

Here's a fun fact: the flag you'll be waving today was designed by a 17-year-old for a school project. The weird part? He only got a B- for a grade on that one. Imagine how cool it might look if we went with the kid who earned the A?

We all know the national anthem's melody is set to an English drinking song, but the crazy part is that before it was rewritten using that heartfelt poem, it was transformed into an American drinking song used by people running for political office. If you think the discourse is harsh now, imagine what the candidates would be saying after several rounds of Guinness. Actually that might be an improvement.

Also, if anyone starts nagging to you about making America great again clue them into the fact that America actually started out as a penal colony, so no matter how powerful we've become we're still basically the red-headed stepchildren of all the other countries of the world. And don't worry about how you tell them because, in America, we have no official language.

Sure, we live in a crazy, mixed-up melting pot, but this is where we all hang our hats. So here's to you Lady Liberty; keep standing tall and allow your light to continue to be a beacon the world sets their sails for.
SUVA, July 3 (Xinhua) -- A missing Russian couple residing and working in Fiji have been confirmed dead, police said Sunday.

DNA tests conducted have confirmed body remains found washed ashore last week at a beach in Fiji belong to Yuri Shipulin and his wife, Natalia, said Luke Navela, intelligence and investigations chief of the Fiji police.

The couple, from Ryazan City, Russia, had been missing since mid last month. Their car was later found at Natadola Beach in Nadi, Fiji's tourism hub. Items including Natalia's clothes and a passport were found inside the vehicle.

The husband and wife had reportedly been in the Pacific island country for five years and running a farm for two years.

Police are now treating the case as a murder, Navela said, adding that investigations will continue with a new team of divers from the Fiji Navy to assist police divers in the search for other body remains at Natadola waters.
MEXICO CITY, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The Mexican government has airlifted emergency food supplies to communities isolated by a protracted teachers' protest, local media reported on Saturday.

The supplies were sent to communities in southern Oaxaca state, the epicenter of an ongoing conflict between a teachers' union and the government attempting to impose education reforms.

Corn, beans and powdered milk were flown to supply state-run shops called Diconsa, which provide staple items at subsidized prices.

Some "82 percent of the 2,021 Diconsa shops in Oaxaca have been resupplied," the daily La Jornada said, citing information from the Ministry of Social Development.

The shops now have enough basic goods to last for about 15 days, according to the ministry, which began its alternative distribution plan on June 24, also using rural roadways in addition to airlifting 178 tons of food.

Meanwhile, the teachers stepped up their protests Saturday, blocking "at least 20 highway points across the state," the daily Milenio reported.

The teachers urge the government to repeal an education reform package passed by Congress in 2013, saying the reforms are designed to pave the way for the privatization of the public school system.

Negotiations between the two sides have so far failed to produce an agreement.
KUALA LUMPUR, July 3 (Xinhua) -- The Belt and Road Initiative would be an impetus for world development and benefit Malaysia in a win-win relations with China, said a senior Malaysian official on Sunday.

The initiative had already fostered a series of cooperation between Malaysia and China, including the sister industrial parks in Qinzhou, China and Kuantan, Malaysia respectively, said Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai in an interview with the Star, a local newspaper, which was published on Sunday.

Currently, Malaysia is China's third largest trading partner in Asia, after Japan and South Korea, and China is Malaysia's largest trading partner, accounting for some 20 percent of Malaysia's total exports.

In 2014, bilateral trade exceeded 100 billion U.S. dollars. The trade growth has moderated in the past two years, but Malaysia has seen increasing investment from China.

"All these can happen because of the Belt and Road Initiative," said Liow.

China's investments are both timely and crucial for Malaysia amid the global economic slowdown and dwindling foreign investments, the Star reported. Malaysia's exports fell 17.2 percent year on year in the first quarter of 2016, due partly to the sluggish demand for commodities.

Among major investment from China announced recently, China General Nuclear Power Corporation has acquired the underlying assets of Edra, a Malaysian company, including 13 clean energy projects scattered in Malaysia, Egypt, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bangladesh.

China Railway Group Limited (CREC), one of China's largest state-owned companies, announced a 2 billion-U.S. dollar investment in a future transportation hub of Malaysia's capital city Kuala Lumpur.

Liow said his country was keen on fostering an economic partnership with China, and had proposed more projects for China to consider. China has expressed its interest in the high speed rail linking Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, which is expected to cost more than 10 billion U.S. dollars.

Liow, who is also the president of the Malaysian Chinese Association, a leading ethnics Chinese political party, has been making frequent trips to Beijing to entice more direct investments into the country.

"We want China to not only take our projects, but also bring in soft loans and technology transfer. That is why we work with them," he said.

As transport minister, he expects the Belt and Road Initiative and investment to benefit Malaysia's ports and airports. It would benefit Malaysia and the ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as a whole by boosting connectivity through infrastructure development, he said.

"It brings Malaysia and ASEAN closer to China. When people from both sides are closer, there will be more economic opportunities."

According to Liow, Malaysia has wanted to push for a trans-national railway linking China's southeastern city of Kunming to Singapore since mid-1990s, but only recently saw real development after China pledged its support.

"Without China to spearhead this plan, it will need another 10 to 20 years for the project to come to fruition. I strongly believe that the Belt and Road is the impetus for development in the world," said Liow.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has recently suggested building high speed rail linking Kuala Lumpur and the Thai capital of Bangkok.

"It's a win-win pact for us. It's never a one-sided agreement," he said commenting on the initiative.
LANZHOU, July 3 (Xinhua) -- A giant salamander that had gotten stuck in a ditch was released into a river in northwest China.

The 3.9-foot long, 18.7-pound amphibian was trapped among some twigs at one end of the ditch, which drains water from the Yellow River, China's second largest river, for irrigation.

Kong Haiyu, a farmer in Zhongzhuang Village, Yongjing County, Gansu Province, noticed the twisting amphibian when passing by last Tuesday.

Yongjing is located at the upper reaches of the Yellow River, about an hour and a half drive from the provincial capital of Lanzhou.

"There was no way out for it," recalled Kong, "It was too long, and there was not much water there."

Kong mistook it for a catfish and brought it home in a bag.

His wife, Yang Linfang, was surprised by the sight of the "fish."

"It looks more like a giant salamander," said Yang, "[It] should be a nationally protected animal."

The couple searched the Internet and confirmed the wife's guess. They immediately reported it to the local forest police.

"This is the first time we have ever heard of and found a giant salamander in this area," said Dang Yizhi, an officer from the forest police bureau of Yongjing County.

Dang estimated the giant salamander could be as old as 80 years, according to its length and weight.

"The life span of a giant salamander can be 130 years," he said. "It eats as much as two jin (2.2 pounds) of food in one meal and can survive after two or three years of fasting."

Giant salamanders are known as "living fossils," as they can be traced back 300 million years ago to the age of dinosaurs. Today the species mainly lives in the mountain creeks of the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River, Yellow River, and Zhujiang River in China.

It is still unknown how this giant salamander made its way to the trunk stream. Locals surmised that recent rainfall in the area might have brought the creature away from its usual habitat.

Dang said the appearance of the giant salamander showed the water in the area is very clean, as the species is vulnerable to pollution.
HANOI, July 3 (Xinhua) -- A private mini-submarine made by a Vietnamese mechanic went on its first sea trial on Sunday, local media reported.

At around 8:00 a.m. local time on Sunday (01:00 GMT), the mini-submarine started undergoing its first sea trial in Vietnam's northeastern waters. The submarine was escorted by Vietnamese naval ship, reported local Tien Phong (Pioneer) online newspaper.

An evaluation council of Vietnam's Ministry of Defense (MoD) will carry out quality evaluation while the submarine is continuously diving and floating for hours.

Nguyen Quoc Hoa, the one who performed the mini-submarine production, said on Tien Phong that prior to the sea trial, his product must pass around ten times of trial in pools and then in lakes. It also passed two-day exams of floating, diving, running in circles, moving backwards and handling collisions while diving hosted by the MoD.

Hoa, a director of an engineering company in Vietnam's northern Thai Binh province, some 110 km southeast from capital Hanoi, started to produce a mini-submarine in 2014.

One year later, Hoa and his engineers studied to produce a second mini submarine, which is supposed to be in smaller size and have more functions than the first one.

According to Hoa's design, the submarine is made of steel and weighs about nine tons. It is able to operate at a maximum depth of 50 meters at a maximum speed of 15 nautical miles per hour. It can dive for three days and three nights with two people on board.
FAIZABAD, Afghanistan, July 3 (Xinhua)-- A total of 20 Taliban militants gave up fighting and surrendered to government in the northern Badakhshan province on Saturday, police said Sunday.

"Twenty Taliban militants under Mawlawi Ikramudin gave up fighting and handed over their weapons to police in a ceremony held in provincial capital Faizabad on Saturday," senior police official Shir Aziz Kamawal told Xinhua.

Taliban outfit has yet to comment on the subject.

The surrender of militants to government forces in Badakhshan is taking place amid heavy fighting between security forces and Taliban fighters in Raghistan district wherein dozens of people from both sides have been killed over the past couple of weeks.
NEW DELHI, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will embark on a five-day tour of four African nations Thursday, sources said Sunday.

"Modi will begin his African tour on July 7. He will visit Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya, a tour aimed at bolstering and reinvigorating India's ties with Africa," the sources said.

The Indian prime minister's first stop is Mozambique, where he will have bilateral talks with the country's President Nyusi, the sources said.

"From Mozambique, he will fly to South Africa. During his two-day stay there, Modi will hold talks with President Jacob Zuma and other senior leaders," the sources said.

Modi's nest destination is Tanzania, where on July 10, he will have meetings with Tanzanian President John Pombe Joseph Magufuli on a range of areas to enhance mutual cooperation, they said.

He will go to Kenya on the final leg of his tour, where he will hold bilateral discussions with President Kenyatta, before wrapping up his African visit.

India's current trade with Africa stands at 75 billion U.S. dollars and it has implemented 140 projects in 41 African countries.
LOS ANGELES, June 3 (Xinhua) -- An active compound in marijuana can contribute to the removal of toxic proteins in the brain, which are thought to kickstart the progression of Alzheimer's disease, a new study has found.

Published in the journal Aging and Mechanisms of Disease on Friday, the study said that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and other compounds found in pot can help to remove toxic clumps of amyloid beta from nerve cells.

The finding supports the results of previous studies that cannabinoids have protective effects on patients with neurodegenerative diseases.

But beside it, the study, carried out by the California-based Salk Institute for Biological Studies, is likely to be the first to demonstrate that cannabinoids affect both inflammation and amyloid beta accumulation in nerve cells, leading researcher David Schubert said.

Amyloid beta is considered a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. The toxic protein accumulates in people's brain, forming plaques and disrupting the communication between nerve cells.

To find out more about the role of amyloid beta in the disease, the scientists modified nerve cells to produce high level of the protein.

They found that increased amyloid beta production led to increased expression of pro-inflammatory proteins in nerve cells, causing inflammation and inducing deaths of neurons.

Then, the team applied THC to nerve cells with high amyloid beta production, finding that the marijuana compound reduce the protein level and eradicate the inflammatory response to the protein, which ensure nerve cell survival.

Inflammation within the brain is a major component of the damage associated with Alzheimer's, researcher Antonio Currais said, adding that it became clear that THC-like compounds can be involved in protecting the cells from dying.

Alzheimer's disease, a common cause of dementia, is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and gets worse over time.
DHAKA, July 3, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Bangladeshi policemen check local residents near the Spanish restaurant where the militant attack took place in Dhaka, Bangladesh, July 3, 2016. With all the national flags at government and semi-government offices and foreign missions down at half-mast, Bangladesh is mourning on Sunday the deaths of victims of the country's first-ever hostage crisis involving militants. (Xinhua/Shariful Islam)

DHAKA, July 3 (Xinhua) -- With all the national flags at government and semi-government offices and foreign missions down at half-mast, Bangladesh is mourning on Sunday the deaths of victims of the country's first-ever hostage crisis involving militants.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has declared the two-day state mourning from Sunday as a mark of respect for the victims of the country's worst-ever hostage crisis.

Hasina made the announcement in a televised address to the nation on Saturday night.

Earlier in the day, the premier condemned the attack at a restaurant in Dhaka that left 20 hostages killed.

Hasina called the incident a "militant attack."

Green and red national flags flew at half-mast on Sunday alongside black flags over all government offices.

Prayers were held as Dhaka observed the first day of mourning for the victims.

Nine Italians, seven Japanese, two Bangladeshis, a Bangladeshi-born U.S. citizen and an Indian female were killed in the attack on the Spanish restaurant in Dhaka popular with foreigners.

Seven gunmen armed with blades, guns and bombs also murdered two Bangladesh police officers in the attack on Friday night.

Gunmen killed the victims soon after they stormed the Spanish restaurant -- Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave Gulshan -- in Bangladesh's worst hostage crisis, a spokesman of the Bangladesh Army had said in a media briefing on operation "Thunderbolt" that ended the 13-hour hostage crisis on Saturday.

Hasina reiterated her commitment to combat militancy and terrorism in the country.
NEW DELHI, July 3 (Xinhua) -- At least 10 people were killed and four others injured after a jeep in which they were travelling plunged into a gorge in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand late on Saturday night, a senior police official said Sunday.

The hilly state has been hit by cloudburst that triggered heavy rains, flash floods and landslides, with swelling rivers sweeping away villages and killing over 30 people, bringing normal life to a standstill in the past 72 hours.

"The incident took place at around 11.30 p.m. local time Saturday on a state highway when the driver of the vehicle tried to negotiate a road damaged by rains and flash floods. Most of the occupants of the jeep have been killed," the official said, on condition of anonymity.

Those injured have been admitted to a local hospital, where the condition of some of them are said to be serious, he added.

Local TV channels reported that the bodies were retrieved only after 5 a.m. local time Sunday after the local administration got to know about the accident from residents of the area, who were the first to initiate rescue work.

A probe has been ordered into the incident, the official said, adding that motorists have been urged to avoid driving during heavy rains in the state.
July 3, 1936

William A. Aubin, city parks commissioner, and Carl Armbruster, florist, received the commendation of hundreds of Auburnians at the rose show held at Hoopes Park Wednesday afternoon and evening for the beautiful display, not only of roses, but of other varieties of flowers in full bloom.

Aubin said visitors at the rose show included rose lovers from all parts of Central New York as well as from various states, including California, New Mexico and there was one visitor from Alaska.

July 3, 1961

(Pictured)

ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATED  Four generations gathered to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Lorenzo Campanello, seated. From left to right in back are their son, Joseph, their grandson, Lawrence, and their great-grandson, Lawrence Jr.

July 3, 2006

Five Cayuga County dairy farmers have donated the milk income of one cow on their farms to rebuild cattle herds in Mozambique, while three Ithaca-area churches donated the costs of caring for and feeding the cows to a nonprofit that works to solve hunger problems in Africa.

The joint farmer-church charitable effort raised $20,000 for the nonprofit Food Resource's Bank's Adopt A Cow program. The farmers and the churches recently celebrated their fundraising with the Food Resource Bank's Norman Braksick in attendance at a community celebration at the Aurora Ridge Dairy. The five dairies  Aurora Ridge Dairy, Oakwood Dairy, Scipio Springs Dairy, Sunnyside Farm and Willet Diary  raised $13,767. The churches  First Baptist Church, First Presbyterian Church and St. Luke's Lutheran Church  donated $6,233.

July 3, 2011
People gather at the site of a suicide car bomb in the Karrada shopping area, in Baghdad, Iraq July 3, 2016. (Reuters photo)

BAGHDAD, July 3 (Xinhua) -- The suicide car bomb attacks at a crowded commercial area in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad early Sunday has killed 79 people and wounded 133 others, an Interior Ministry source said.

"Our latest report said up to 79 people were killed and 133 wounded by the suicide bomb attack in Baghdad's Karrada-Dakhil district," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Two busy commercial areas in Bagdad were hit by car bombings, with one of the attacks occurring at about 1:00 a.m. local time (2200 GMT) when a suicide bomber detonated his car bomb at a crowded thoroughfare in Karrada-Dakhil in southern central Baghdad, according to what the source told Xinhua earlier.

The powerful blast set fire to several nearby shops and destroyed many stalls and civilian cars at the scene which was crowded with shoppers who are preparing their families for Eid al-Fitr, or the Festival of Fast-breaking, which marks the end of a month-long of fasting for Muslims, said the source.

The Iraqi capital was the scene of another attack after midnight when a booby-trapped car went off at Shallal popular market in Baghdad's northeastern district of Shaab, killing a civilian and wounding five others, the source added.

Iraqis gather at the site of a suicide car bombing claimed by the Islamic State group on July 3, 2016 in Baghdad's central Karrada district. (AFP photo)

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited the scene of the massive suicide car bomb attack in Karrada Sunday morning , and promised to punish those behind the attacks, according to a statement issued by his office.

"The terrorist groups carried out such desperate deadly attack as a result of being crushed in the battlefield," the statement said, referring to the latest defeat of the Islamic State (IS) in the country's western province of Anbar, including its stronghold in Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad.

Abadi also sent his condolences to the families of the killed and the wounded people and promised that "victory over these terrorist groups is very close."

Iraq has been hit by a new wave of violence since the IS terrorist group seized parts of Iraq's northern and western regions in June 2014.

Earlier, a report by UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) estimated that 662 Iraqis were killed and 1,457 others wounded in acts of terrorism, violence and armed conflict in June across Iraq.
KARACHI, Pakistan, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The Bin Qasim power plant project, a pilot project of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) located 20 km east of Karachi, is hailed for its potential role in helping quench Pakistan's energy thirst.

At its construction site located just by the sea, a 195-meter-tall chimney and two 162-meter-tall water cooling towers are already in place.

Early July is normally the hottest time of the year here. However, when the summer sun grills the Pakistani coast before the monsoon season arrives, the 1,500 Chinese and 1,600 Pakistani workers still work tirelessly.

As power shortage is taking a serious toll on the Pakistani economy, the local government wants to have the plant begin operations before the end of 2017. That's why it is asking PowerChina, the Chinese construction company commissioned with the project, to shorten the construction time by 12 months.

Chen Enping, a manager at PowerChina, said good progress is underway and if everything goes well, his team will be able to meet the deadline.

He said that as construction is nearing completion, his team would start installing the generator units and other systems, and thus would likely hire even more local workers.

Two 660-megawatt generator units will be installed, which would generate 1,320 megawatts of electricity per year, more than a quarter of the 4,500-5,000 megawatts of power shortage estimated for the year 2012.

"Three more plants like this and Pakistan would have no more energy woes," Chen said.

Covering an area of 0.81 square km, the coal-fired project is one of the projects that received priority funding from China. It includes a heavy cargo wharf, where imported coal from Indonesia or Australia can undock.

Pakistan's energy sector has long relied on oil and natural gas as fuel for its heat power plants, but coal-fired generators can produce more at lower costs.

To make sure that the project is up to environmental protection standards, Chen said the factory's chimney is equipped with desulfurization devices, and they can add a denitration process if necessary.

"On a sunny day, it's almost impossible to spot smoke coming out of the chimney," Chen said.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif calls the project the flagship of CPEC, saying the plant means not only much-needed energy, but also thousands of jobs for Pakistanis.

Rawat, a 28-year-old Pakistani who works on the site, is happy with his job. He said that with monthly salary reaching 40,000 Pakistani Rupees (380 U.S. dollars), he is able to support his family.
President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe addresses the Sustainable Development Summit at the UN headquarters in New York, Sept. 25, 2015. A momentous sustainable development agenda, which charts a new era of sustainable development until 2030, was adopted on Friday by 193 UN member states at the UN Sustainable Development Summit at the UN headquarters in New York. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

HARARE, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwe has reaffirmed its support to China on the South China Sea issue, emphasizing that the matter should be resolved through dialogue.

"Zimbabwe has been following with interest developments in the South China Sea. Zimbabwe supports the peaceful resolution of the South China Sea dispute through friendly bilateral consultations and negotiations between the countries directly concerned," says state media the Herald.

The Foreign Affairs Ministry was quoted as saying that Zimbabwe respected efforts by China and the ASEAN countries to safeguard peace and stability in the South China Sea through dialogue.

"This is the only way in which a resolution can be found to this problem, which affects a number of countries in the region," the ministry said.

Last week, President Robert Mugabe told the visiting Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Ming that he supported the position of the Chinese side on the South China Sea.

Since 2013, the Philippines has been headstrong in bringing its maritime dispute with China to an international tribunal. It filed a compulsory arbitration against China at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague with respect to the two sides' dispute.

China maintains that the tribunal handling of the arbitration proceedings has no jurisdiction over the case, which is in essence about territorial sovereignty and maritime delimitation.

Territorial issues are beyond the scope of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and China has excluded maritime delimitation from compulsory arbitration in a declaration it made in 2006 in accordance with Article 298 of UNCLOS.

An aerial photo taken on Sept. 25, 2015 from a seaplane of Hainan Maritime Safety Administration shows cruise vessel Haixun 1103 heading to the Yacheng 13-1 drilling rig during a patrol in south China Sea,. Hainan Maritime Safety Administration launched a patrol on Sept. 25 in which seaplanes and cruising vessels both participated. The patrol focused on the environment of the cruise routes in southwestern sea area of southChina's Hainan Province, condition of drilling rigs of Yangcheng 13-1 and Dongfang 1-1, and pollution state of adjacent sea area. (Xinhua/Zhao Yingquan)

China, therefore, has made it clear it will not accept or get involved in those proceedings.

"The so-called South China Sea issue is an issue between China and littoral countries of the South China Sea," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said earlier this month, adding that China has opposed the internationalization of the South China Sea issue from the very beginning.
BEIJING, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Despite Beijing's repeated call that outsider countries play a constructive role on the South China Sea issue, Tokyo seems to have stepped up its meddling moves, at the cost of regional stability and without giving any thought to its relations with China.

In the latest of Japan's series of maneuvers to seek greater influence over the issue, Koro Bessho, Japanese ambassador to the United Nations, said on the first day Japan took over the monthly rotating presidency of the UN Security Council that he would put the issue on the agenda of the 15-member council if there is a request from its members, or other UN members.

Considering Japan's recent records in hijacking meetings and forums to highlight its "deep concern" over the South China Sea, Bessho's remarks on July 1 could easily be an invitation for voices against China, at a time when an arbitration case unilaterally initiative by the Philippines against China is capturing news headlines.

Bessho's remarks also marked the second of such practices by a prominent Japanese politician within a week, after Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shinsuke Sugiyama said earlier that he was "closely watching" how a UN tribunal rules in the arbitration case.

Though being not a relevant party in the South China Sea dispute, Japan has shown exceptional interest in hyping up the issue and fueling tension in the vast body of water.

By doing so, it aims for gains in multiple fronts, first and foremost for leverage against China regarding the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea.

Another motive is to cement its alliance with the United States, which, as the world's top power, imposes itself over the South China Sea issue in an unmistakable endeavor to contain China.

While Japan's tricks of fanning the flames in the South China Sea may earn itself a reputation as a faithful lieutenant of the United States, they could hardly land Tokyo in a more favorable position in dealing with Beijing.

And for any clear-eyed observer, what Japan has done in the past few months regarding the South China Sea has only complicated the issue and threatens to disturb decades-long stability in the region.

He who plays with fire gets burnt. To avoid the fate of being incinerated in flames it helps to start in the first place, Japan should waste no time in halting any counterproductive actions that make a final peaceful settlement of the disputes more distant.

Related:

China urges Japan not to stir South China Sea issue

BEIJING, June 28 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday urged Japan not to "hype up" the South China Sea issue.
BAGHDAD, July 3 (Xinhua) -- The Islamic State (IS) group on Sunday claimed responsibility for the suicide car bomb attack in Iraqi capital Baghdad that killed at least 79 people and wounded 133 others, the group said in an online statement.

One of the group's suicide bombers, nicknamed Abu Maha al-Iraqi, detonated his car bomb at a crowd of Shiite people in the predominantly Shiite district of Karrada-Dakhil in southern central Baghdad, according to the statement, of which the authenticity could not be independently verified.

Earlier in the day, an Interior Ministry source said that two busy commercial areas in Bagdad were hit by car bombings, with one of the attacks occurring at about 1:00 a.m. local time (2200 GMT) when a suicide bomber detonated his car bomb at a crowded thoroughfare in Karrada-Dakhil district.

The powerful blast set fire to five nearby buildings and several shops and destroyed many stalls and civilian cars at the scene which was crowded with shoppers who are preparing their families for Eid al-Fitr, or the Festival of Fast-breaking, which marks the end of a month-long of fasting for Muslims, said the source.

The Iraqi capital was the scene of another attack after midnight when a booby-trapped car went off at Shallal popular market in Baghdad's northeastern district of Shaab, killing a civilian and wounding five others, the source added.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited the scene of the massive suicide car bomb attack in Karrada Sunday morning, and promised to punish those behind the attacks, according to a statement issued by his office.

"The terrorist groups carried out such desperate deadly attack as a result of being crushed in the battlefield," the statement said, referring to the latest defeat of the IS in the country's western province of Anbar, including its stronghold in Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad.

Abadi also sent his condolences to the families of the killed and the wounded people and promised that "victory over these terrorist groups is very close."

The IS has frequently targeted the security forces and areas where crowds of people gather, including markets, cafes and mosques across Iraq.

Iraq has been hit by a new wave of violence since the IS terrorist group seized parts of Iraq's northern and western regions in June 2014.

Earlier, a report by UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) estimated that 662 Iraqis were killed and 1,457 others wounded in acts of terrorism, violence and armed conflict in June across Iraq.
MANILA, July 3 (Xinhua) -- A senior Philippine government official said Sunday that he is ready to talk with the terrorist Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG)for the safe release of a Norwegian hostage in southern province of Sulu.

Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza, in a statement, said that he got word from "someone" in southern city of Zamboanga that certain Abu Rami allegedly from ASG wanted to talk to him regarding Kjartan Sekkingstad, the remaining hostage from Samal Island in southern province of Davao del Norte.

"I told the person that I was ready and willing to talk with anyone for the release of hostages and save live provided that it would not be about ransom," he said.

Dureza said he gave a "secure phone number" for the Abu Sayyaf to contact him.

Sekkingstad is one of the four hostages that the ASG seized from a posh resort in Samal Island in September last year. Two other hostages, both Canadians, were beheaded after government refused to pay ransom. The other female Filipino victim was freed recently.

The ASG reportedly threatened to kill Sekkingstad if they hear nothing from the administration of new President Rodrigo Duterte.
Somali women carrying Somali flag take part in the 56th independent day celebrations in Mogadishu, Somalia, on July 1, 2016. Somalia on Friday marked its 56th Independence Day when the northern and southern regions merged to form the first government in 1960. (Xinhua/Faisal Isse)

MOGADISHU, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Top UN and Africa Union (AU) envoys in Somalia have lauded progress made so far since the country pulled itself out of a prolonged civil war, saying the Horn of Africa nation is on the right path to stability.

The Special Representative of the Chairperson of the AU Commission for Somalia, Francisco Madeira and the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Somalia Michael Keating also said separately the upcoming elections will help steer the country into prosperity.

"I strongly believe that Somalia is on the right path to becoming a peaceful and stable nation, where citizens enjoy freedom and contribute to the nation's prosperity," Madeira said in a statement received on Saturday as Somalia marked 56 years of independence.

Members of Somali police force march during the 56th independent day celebrations in Mogadishu, Somalia, on July 1, 2016. Somalia on Friday marked its 56th Independence Day when the northern and southern regions merged to form the first government in 1960. (Xinhua/Faisal Isse)

He said since the establishment of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) in 2007, a lot has been achieved with the help of Somalis who want to live in a peaceful and prosperous nation.

"The joint operations conducted by AMISOM and Somali security forces, for example, have liberated large swathes of the country, which were hitherto under the control of terrorist militants Al-Shabaab," Madeira said.

He said AMISOM, the government and regional states are working closely to stabilize and restore the rule of law in these liberated areas.

"To this end, AMISOM has so far trained thousands of police officers, who have since been deployed to various parts of the country to maintain law and order," Madeira said.

The envoy said this year's independent celebration which was marked on Friday is special for Somalis as they not only remember the enormous sacrifice made by their forefathers in the independence struggle against colonialism, but also the progress made so far since the country pulled itself out of a prolonged civil war.

Somalian women pick clothes on hand-cart in Bakara market of Mogadishu, capital of SomaliaJuly 2, 2016. Muslims around the world are getting ready to celebrate Eid-al-Fitr festival, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. (Xinhua/Faisal Isse)

"I congratulate all Somalis who have continued to work tirelessly to make Somalia great. Those who have sacrificed their lives to ensure that the country is stabilized and that residents enjoy the peace they yearn for," said Madeira.

He lauded the Somali leadership for setting clear timeliness for the electoral process during the just concluded National Leadership Forum held in Baidoa.

The electoral process agreed upon by the leadership will herald a new dawn in politics as the country moves towards universal suffrage and achieving gender parity in leadership.

In his statement, UN envoy Keating praised the entrepreneurship and perseverance of the Somali people as their country emerges from decades of uncertainty and conflict.

A Somalian boy tries clothes in Bakara market of Mogadishu, capital of Somalia July 2, 2016. Muslims around the world are getting ready to celebrate Eid-al-Fitr festival, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. (Xinhua/Faisal Isse)

"The last 56 years have been turbulent for Somalis. Their extraordinary political journey continues. Unfortunately, insecurity remains a major problem. But Somalia continues to make remarkable progress in so many fields, political, security and economic, defying even many Somalis' expectations," Keating said.

The UN envoy praised the work of Somalia's security forces and AMISOM to counter the menace of violent extremism and underscored the crucial role they continue to play.

"Strengthening the capability of Somali National Security Forces is essential, not only to partner with AMISOM but also as part of Somalia's state building objectives," he said.

Keating said the last few years have seen the gradual emergence of a federal state, of national as well as regional institutional capacity, and of laws and plans that provide a basis for meeting Somalis' expectations.

"Progress is tangible, and confidence is growing. But it is still vulnerable," said Keating, noting that the overwhelming majority of Somalis have rejected violence as a means of resolving differences, but that Al-Shabaab remains a threat, especially to civilians.
A relative of a hostage cries near the site of an attack at a Spanish restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave Gulshan, Bangladesh, July 2, 2016. (Xinhua/Shariful Islam)

DHAKA, July 3 (Xinhua) -- With all the national flags at government and semi-government offices and foreign missions down at half-mast, Bangladesh is mourning on Sunday the deaths of victims of the country's first-ever hostage crisis involving militants.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has declared the two-day state mourning from Sunday as a mark of respect for the victims of the country's worst-ever hostage crisis.

Hasina made the announcement in a televised address to the nation on Saturday night.

Earlier in the day, the premier condemned the attack at a restaurant in Dhaka that left 20 hostages killed.

Hasina called the incident a "militant attack."

Photo taken on July 3, 2016 shows flowers laid in front of a Spanish restaurant in memory of victims killed in an attack at the Spanish restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave Gulshan, Bangladesh, July 3, 2016. (Xinhua)

Green and red national flags flew at half-mast on Sunday alongside black flags over all government offices.

Prayers were held as Dhaka observed the first day of mourning for the victims.

Nine Italians, seven Japanese, two Bangladeshis, a Bangladeshi-born U.S. citizen and an Indian female were killed in the attack on the Spanish restaurant in Dhaka popular with foreigners.

Seven gunmen armed with blades, guns and bombs also murdered two Bangladesh police officers in the attack on Friday night.

Gunmen killed the victims soon after they stormed the Spanish restaurant -- Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave Gulshan -- in Bangladesh's worst hostage crisis, a spokesman of the Bangladesh Army had said in a media briefing on operation "Thunderbolt" that ended the 13-hour hostage crisis on Saturday.

Hasina reiterated her commitment to combat militancy and terrorism in the country.


TEHRAN, July 3 (Xinhua) -- French car maker Renault will produce five new products in Iran in collaboration with two major Iranian companies, semi-official Mehr news agency reported on Sunday.

Saipa Motor Corporation and Iran Khodro Company (IKCO) will produce three and two new cars, respectively, in cooperation with the Renault, said Fardad Daliri, deputy head of the Industrial Development & Renovation Organization of Iran.

The return of the French car makers to the Iranian car market began after the implementation of the nuclear deal between Iran and the world powers (known as JCPOA) in January.

Last week, IKCO and the French carmaker Peugeot-Citroen (PSA) agreed to launch a joint company in the capital Tehran to produce cars.

The 50-50 joint venture, if finalized, would be worth 400 million euros, Tasnim news agency said.

The would-be company would manufacture the Peugeot 208, the 2008 sport utility vehicle, as well as 301 compact utilizing the local potential to make most of the parts.

Thirty percent of the cars, to be produced jointly, would be exported to the Middle East and other countries, Iran Khodro's chief executive, Hashem Yeke Zareh, was quoted as saying.

Under the U.S.-led sanctions against Iran on the latter's disputed nuclear issue, Renault and PSA left Iran in 2011.
TEHRAN, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the terrorist attack in Iraq's capital of Baghdad on Sunday that killed at least 79 people, according to Tasnim news agency.

The Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi expressed condolences to the Iraqi government, nation and families of victims of the deadly bomb attack, stressing that the Islamic republic will stand with Iraq until the defeat of terrorist groups.

He slammed the so-called Islamic State (IS) for resorting to cowardly measures and slaughtering civilians after it underwent successive defeats in military confrontations with the Iraqi forces and the recent liberation of the city of Fallujah, the report said.

The IS has claimed responsibility for the suicide car bomb attack in Iraqi capital.
It has been said that the perfect is the enemy of the good. Other variations of this aphorism include the ideal is the enemy of the real. This phrase came to mind as I have been following the chaos caused by Great Britains vote to leave the European Union.

One reason for the chaos seems to be that the proponents of exiting the EU did not think they would actually win. Their surprise victory caught them unprepared, which is why so many of them have been denying campaign promises, such as how leaving the EU would provide a windfall for the National Health Service. It wont. As German Chancellor Angela Merkel has pointed out, England will not be able to enjoy the privileges without sharing the responsibilities of membership.

The European Union is far from perfect. So-called technocrats make many decisions, leaving many people feeling that they dont have a say in the policies that affect them. While the individual European nations have not lost their borders, languages or cultures, they have had to adapt to changes, as people have moved freely from one country to another. One might say that the cultural glue that held people together in earlier times has been threatened. Furthermore, the work of absorbing immigrants who come from non-European cultures, particularly the masses who are fleeing war zones, has brought its own set of challenges. It should be added that it has been less than 30 years since the original members of the European Union began absorbing the eastern European countries that had been Russian satellite states since the end of World War II.

In a perfect or ideal world, millions of refugees would not be pouring into Europe, trying to move north to the strongest economies. Also, in a perfect or ideal world, there would not be such a disparity in economic opportunities between the various nations. As a third point, in a perfect or ideal world, people would feel both a connection to their own local cultures, as well as a connection to the wider European society that is represented by the European Union.

There is a certain messiness to the EU that is causing unease or discomfort to those who are uncomfortable with all of the changes that have been taking place. My sense is that many of the people who voted Leave in Great Britain, as well as the nationalists in places such as France, Hungary, the Netherlands and other places throughout Europe, have forgotten the original impetus for the creation of what began as the Common Market, and then evolved into the European Union. That is the fact that the two bloodiest wars in our planets history took place during the first half of the 20th century, and started in Europe.

Back then, tribalism and various forms of hatred, including anti-Semitism, homophobia, anti-Gypsy sentiments and disdain for people with physical and mental disabilities manifested itself in state-sponsored genocide. The United States, Canada and other countries still feel shame for their refusal to provide sanctuary for refugees fleeing the maw of the Nazi-led mania. (It should be noted that pogroms and other mass killings were simultaneously taking place in eastern Europe, as well.)

The European Union arose as a hoped-for antidote to such barbarism. It has never been perfect, perhaps because perfection is an unrealistic expectation. Merely being good has enabled civility and peace to prevail. In this light, Brexit, as it is known, is a sad and lamentable outcome that tarnishes the good that has been wrought from this noble experiment.

I have a personal experience that leads me to this belief. In 1995, our family was driving around Europe. When we arrived in March, we drove from Amsterdam to Germany. In less than 90 minutes, we were at a border stop. Two months later, the treaty opening borders was in place. As we prepared to drive from Germany into France, I noticed an abandoned border stop. I took a few moments to record it, before I drove through. I tried to explain the meaning of it to my young sons. Later, we would drive from France to Belgium, Luxembourg and Holland, without having to stop.

That empty border stop, signaling vulnerability as well as an aspiration for peace, remains a metaphor that guides my life. So much of our lives is spent in pursuit of some perfect, idealized goal  whether it is the perfect marriage, job, relationship, church or minister  that we lose sight of something wonderful that is attainable. Rather than lamenting the absence of perfection, we should rejoice in the attainable  in this case, peace. That is why, at this time, I hold in my heart the people of the EU, including those of Great Britain, as well as the refugees who are fleeing war zones in search of sanctuary. As the Buddhist mantra tells us, May we all know peace.
DAMASCUS, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Radical rebel groups have handed over the body of a slain Syrian pilot they had killed earlier to the the Syrian authorities, a monitor group reported on Sunday.

The body of Lt. Col. Nawras al-Hasan, who had been executed by the rebels when he parachuted his crashing warplane over a rebel-held areas east of Damascus last week, was delivered to the Syrian authorities, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Al-Hasan was executed by rebels from the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front in the town of Jairud in the eastern countryside of Damascus.

The state news agency SANA said al-Hassan was on a training mission when his plane malfunctioned and crashed, after he ejected himself.

However, the rebels said they downed the plane.

On Saturday, the Observatory, which relies on a network of activists on ground, said the Syrian air force carried out intense airstrikes and shelling on Jairud, killing 43 people, and injuring tens of others, some in critical conditions.

The shelling of Jairud appeared to be a retaliation for the slain pilot.

On Sunday, the Observatory said there is information that the rebels of the Nusra Front and likeminded militant groups were evacuating their posts in Jairud, following the intense shelling.
ASHDOD, July 4, 2016 (Xinhua) -- "Lady Leyla" arrives at a port of Ashdod, Israel, on July 3, 2016. The Turkish ship with humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip docked on Sunday afternoon in Israel, as part of a deal between Turkey and Israel to normalize ties after years of tensions. (Xinhua/JINI)

JERUSALEM, July 3 (Xinhua) -- A Turkish ship with humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip docked on Sunday afternoon in Israel, as part of a deal between Turkey and Israel to normalize ties after years of tensions.

The Lady Leyla docked at the Ashdod Port in southern Israel after embarking on Friday from Turkey's southern port of Mersin.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said last week that the ship is carrying 10,000 tons of supplies, including medical equipment, food, toys, and other aid.

A spokesperson for Israel's Coordinator of Government's Activities in the Territories Office said that 250 trucks would carry the shipment to Gaza in the next two days through Kerem Shalom, a border crossing on the Gaza-Israel-Egypt border.

The cargo will be arriving at the Palestinian enclave just before Tuesday's Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which celebrates the end of the holy month of the Ramadan.

The shipment is part of a reconciliation deal that Israel and Turkey signed on Tuesday, after six years of a diplomatic crisis between the two former allies over the fatal Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound Turkish flotilla in 2010.

The family of Oron Shaul, an Israeli soldier whose body is being held by Hamas in Gaza, and dozens of supporters rallied Kerem Shalom on Sunday morning, threatening to block the aid trucks.

Shaul's family, as well as the families of another missing soldier and two live Israeli civilians who are reportedly being held in Gaza, pressure the government to include the returning of their loved ones in the deal.

Gaza has been under Israeli blockade since 2007, with many types of products not allowed in.
DAMASCUS, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Syria's President Bashar al-Assad endorsed on Sunday the new government, which maintained many of the old ministers, according the state news agency SANA.

On June 22, al-Assad issued a decree, tasking Minister of Electricity Imad Khamis with forming the new government, as the new prime minister replacing Wael al-Halqi.

With Khamis as the new prime minister, the new government brought 14 new ministers and four ministers of state to the 32-seat cabinet.

Few of the key ministries that received a change are the Information Ministry, which is now claimed by Ramez Tarjaman, the former directer of the national Syrian TV, replacing Omran al-Zoubi.

The Electricity Ministry, which was headed by Khamis in the previous government, the Industry Ministry, the Economy Ministry, the Oil Ministry, and the Ministry of Finance.

Major ministries were kept unchanged, as Fahed Jassem al-Fraij remains the Minister of Defense, and Walid al-Moallem continues to be the Foreign Minister.

The Interior Ministry also retained its old Minister Muhammad al-Sha'ar, while the Ministry of Justice maintained Najm al-Ahmad as its minister.

The new government didn't include any of the home-based opposition figures.

The formation of a new government came weeks after the Syrian parliament was elected among a boycott from the opposition.

The new government is the sixth to be formed under the presidency of Bashar al-Assad, who succeeded his father in ruling the country in 2000.

The last government was formed in August 2014, following the re-election of al-Assad, and was headed by al-Halqi.
TAIYUAN, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Rescuers have managed to contact on Sunday night eight of the 12 people trapped in a coal mine in north China's Shanxi Province after it was flooded on Saturday night.

Eight people trapped in the mine shaft in Jincheng City have been reached by phone, the rescue headquarters told Xinhua at 8:30 p.m. on Sunday. Rescuers are still searching for the four others.

The flooding occurred at around 10:53 p.m. Saturday when 94 people were working in the shaft, 82 of whom were evacuated.
Federal police clash with members of the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE, for its acronym in Spanish) during an operation to clear the Oaxaca-Mexico Highway near the town of Nochixtlan, state of Oaxaca, Mexico, on June 19, 2016. (Xinhua/Max Nunez)

MEXICO CITY, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The Mexican government has airlifted emergency food supplies to communities isolated by a protracted teachers' protest, local media reported on Saturday.

The supplies were sent to communities in southern Oaxaca state, the epicenter of an ongoing conflict between a teachers' union and the government attempting to impose education reforms.

Corn, beans and powdered milk were flown to supply state-run shops called Diconsa, which provide staple items at subsidized prices.

Some "82 percent of the 2,021 Diconsa shops in Oaxaca have been resupplied," the daily La Jornada said, citing information from the Ministry of Social Development.

A man walks next to the debris of a burned truck after a violent clash between policemen and teachers in Oaxaca, Mexico, on June 20, 2016. (Xinhua/Max Nunez)

The shops now have enough basic goods to last for about 15 days, according to the ministry, which began its alternative distribution plan on June 24, also using rural roadways in addition to airlifting 178 tons of food.

Meanwhile, the teachers stepped up their protests Saturday, blocking "at least 20 highway points across the state," the daily Milenio reported.

The teachers urge the government to repeal an education reform package passed by Congress in 2013, saying the reforms are designed to pave the way for the privatization of the public school system.

Negotiations between the two sides have so far failed to produce an agreement.
ISLAMABAD, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan on Sunday strongly condemned the terrorist attack in Baghdad, which resulted in heavy loss of lives and injuries.

The suicide car bomb attacks at crowded commercial areas in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad early Sunday have killed 79 people and wounded 133 others.

"The Government and the people of Pakistan extend their heartfelt condolences to the brotherly government and people of Iraq over the loss of innocent lives," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"Pakistan stands in solidarity with the brotherly people of Iraq in this hour of grief. Our hearts go out to the bereaved families and we wish speedy recovery for the injured," the statement said.

Pakistan reiterated its strong condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.
BEIJING, July 3 (Xinhua) -- China on Sunday condemned a terrorist attack that killed 22 people in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka and expressed condolences to the victims and sympathy to their families and the injured.

Twenty civilians and two policemen were killed in the attack, and 40 others were injured at a Spanish restaurant in a diplomatic zone of Dhaka on Friday night.

"China firmly opposes all violence against innocent civilians and strongly condemns the hostage incident in Dhaka," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei said in a press release.

He added that China supports all efforts made by Bangladesh in fighting terrorism and safeguarding national security.

Among the 20 civilians were 9 Italians, 7 Japanese, 2 Bangladeshis, a U.S. citizen and an Indian national.

Authorities said six attackers were killed during an armed raid on Saturday morning that ended the 13-hour siege in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave of Gulshan.

Some 13 hostages, including one Japanese and two Sri Lankans, were rescued. Enditem
SINGAPORE, June 3, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Admiral Sun Jianguo (2nd R), deputy chief of the Joint Staff Department of China's Central Military Commission, meets with Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov (2nd L) in Singapore, June 3, 2016. (Xinhua/Then Chih Wey)

MOSCOW, July 3 (Xinhua) -- A series of large-scale joint anti-terror exercises kicked off here Sunday with the participation of the Chinese People's Armed Police Force (CAPF) and Russia's newly-formed National Guard.

The special drills are being held from July 3 to July 14 in Russia's Moscow and Smolensk regions. China's Snow Leopard and Falcon commando units, as well as the Russian National Guard's Vityaz unit, are participating in the exercises.

Liu Zhijun, deputy director of the CAPF's Exercises Department, said this is the third time for the two countries' interior forces to hold such exercises, which center on tactical skills in combating terrorism to boost practical cooperation between the forces of both sides.

Participants from China and Russia will conduct a host of drills in a joint manner, with a view to exploring effective methods in joint anti-terror campaigns to boost their abilities in this regard, he added.

Sergei Chenchik, chief of staff of the Russian National Guard, spoke highly of the discipline of the CAPF, saying Russia is ready to launch a new stage of cooperation with China and to carry out common tasks based on the two countries' comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination.

Russia's National Guard was created in April following the order of Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a bid to better fight terrorism, organized crime and drug trafficking across the country.

Related:

China-Russia declaration on international law shows concern on dispute settlement mechanisms: FM spokesperson

BEIJING, June 27 (Xinhua) -- A Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Monday said that a China-Russia declaration on the promotion of international law showed that the two countries agreed on dispute settlement mechanisms.

The declaration reaffirmed the principle of peaceful settlement of disputes. Foreign ministers of the two countries signed the declaration on Saturday. Full story

China, Russia pledge "unswerving" partnership

BEIJING, June 25 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin vowed to unswervingly deepen their strategic partnership of coordination during their talks Saturday afternoon in Beijing.

The two heads of state agreed to beef up mutual support and enhance political and strategic mutual trust. Full story

China, Russia sign joint statement on strengthening global strategic stability

BEIJING, June 25 (Xinhua) -- China and Russia vowed to strengthen global strategic stability in a joint statement signed by Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
by Marzia De Giuli, Luo Na

SAN FILIPPO DEL MELA, Italy, July 3 (Xinhua) -- A plant which produces energy from sun and sand - a promising technology in renewable energy sector - has begun its operation in Italy's Sicily.

In the first 2-megawatt modular unit of solar thermo electric power (STEM) technology, solar radiation captured by 786 heliostats is concentrated on a secondary reflector made of flat mirrors, and subsequently focused in a receiver positioned at ground level.

The revolution is that for the first time ever, the receiver is based on a fluidized bed of sand, which is able to absorb, store and transfer heat to produce steam both for the conversion into electricity and other thermal uses, technicians explained to Xinhua at a ceremony to mark the launch of the plant on Thursday.

The daily output of the modular unit, which occupies a surface of 2.25 hectares in a northwestern area of the island region, is 20.5 tonnes of steam, with estimated 890 tonnes of CO2 emissions saved every year.

Not only this technology is totally clean, but gives the unprecedented possibility to store solar for use on demand at night and on sunless days, and all without batteries, Giovanni Valotti, chairman of Italy's largest multi-utility company A2A, stressed at the launch ceremony.

A2A inaugurated the plant at its integrated energy district San Filippo del Mela in collaboration with Magaldi group, an Italian specialist in environmental-friendly technologies, which patented STEM.

"Our key words are environmental sustainability and social responsibility," Valotti told journalists. "All leading companies in the world should have the objective not only to benefit themselves but to improve environment and society," Valotti elaborated.

An overall 180-million-euro (200.50 million U.S. dollars) investment planned by A2A at the site over the next five years also includes a biogas plant and a waste energy plant, he added.

However, with the threat of global warming accelerating, STEM is a significant international advance in concentrated solar power compared to existing systems which use molten salt for heat transfer and storage, said former South Australian premier Mike Rann, who took part in the launch ceremony along with local authorities.

"STEM can produce a huge amount of energy, is incredibly cost efficient and can have fantastic applications in many parts of the world where the sun shines like Australia, Asia and Africa," Rann, who has a special interest in renewable energy and also was one of the world first ministers for climate change, told Xinhua in an interview on the sidelines of the event.

"The sun provides enough energy every hour for the planet to be powered for all year, and if we are smart then we would grab it," he pointed out.

A2A CEO Luca Valerio Camerano wished Italy can have dialogue with China on this brand new technology. "Our idea is trying to explore whether we can export our green technology to China and help fill the existing infrastructure deficit there," he told Xinhua.

Another move that can be considered in the future, he added, would be to join hands with Chinese universities. "I think it would be key to develop that because we are aware of the depth of research and innovation in Chinese universities," Camerano added.

Mario Magaldi, the head of Magaldi group, said he wished that his family company with 120 years of experience in green solutions would be able to build reliable partnerships with China.

"Presently all big countries of the world are under pressure to develop clean energies. In this common effort, collaboration is fundamental to enhance good businesses that not only help save the planet but are more efficient and cheaper at the same time," he said. Enditem
ISLAMABAD, July 3 (Xinhua) -- At least one man was killed and three others were injured in a hand grenade attack in Pakistan's northwest Peshawar city on Sunday, local Urdu media reported.

The Express News reported that some unknown militants hurled a hand grenade at a shoe shop in the Pishtakhara area of Peshawar, the capital city of the country's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The militants on motorbike fled the scene after the attack.

The injured have been shifted to a nearby hospital where one of them is said to be in critical condition.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack yet.

Police have cordoned off the area for investigation. Enditem
The New York State Legislature recently passed a bill, unanimously, that over time will have a significant impact on Cayuga Countys state mandated expenses.

The bill will provide Cayuga County taxpayers relief from one state-mandated expense: indigent legal defense. While the relief will be phased in over the next six years and relief will not begin until 2018, when fully implemented in 2023, the bill will reduce the amount Cayuga County pays in state-mandated services by between $800,000 and $1 million.

Sponsored by Senator John DeFrancisco (R-Syracuse) and by Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy (D-Albany,) the bill passed the Senate and the Assembly unanimously. All thats left is for the governor to sign the bill.

Cayuga County currently budgets $1,058,607 for the defense of those who cannot afford an attorney. Of this, $880,000 goes directly for defense attorney services. Cayuga County taxpayers pay for these services through property taxes.

NYSAC President William Cherry said, This bill accomplishes three objectives. It provides real and meaningful mandate relief for counties and property taxpayers. It protects taxpayers from costly and unnecessary lawsuits against New Yorks public defense program. And, it improves legal defense services for the poor in all counties in the state.

It is waiting for the governors signature. This bill is important to every Cayuga County citizen. Please let the governor know you support this bill and that he should sign it now.

Suzanne Sinclair

Auburn

Sinclair is Cayuga County administrator
Guo Jinlong (R), a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and secretary of the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee, shakes hands with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in Athens, Greece, June 21, 2016. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos)

by Maria Spiliopoulou, Liu Yongqiu

ATHENS, July 3 (Xinhua) -- The enhancement of Sino-Greek cooperation is a strategic choice, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras told Xinhua in a written interview here before departing for his first official visit to China from July 2 to July 6.

"Our peoples have a long history and ties for thousands of years. Based on our traditionally excellent relations, we consider the strengthening of our bilateral cooperation, which has been governed by the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership since 2006, our strategic choice," he told Xinhua on the development and prospects of Sino-Greek relations.

SIGNIFICANT VISIT

The visit to Beijing and Shanghai marks the "mutual will of Greece and China to take a big step forward starting with our outstanding cooperation in the port of Piraeus at the base of a new mutually beneficial agreement and the conclusion of the Maritime Cooperation Year," the Greek premier said.

The visit marks the mutual will to "truly become strategic partners with upgraded trade and investment relations in a series of sectors, but also to develop a new level of political dialogue at a very critical juncture in international and regional developments," he noted.

"We seek the upgrading of the political dialogue with China on international and regional issues of mutual interest, for which we very often share common approaches and principles. The Mediterranean and the Far East may be far away geographically, but in a globalized world, the challenges we have to face are often common and increasingly interlinked," the Greek leader said.

"Secondly, we look forward to a closer cooperation with China in the economic sector -- a partnership with a global economic power," he stated.

Bilateral trade relations are already at a very good level, he noted, explaining that the Greek government aims particularly at further increasing the already significant exports of Greek products in the large Chinese market, especially in the agro-food sector as well as boosting Chinese investments in Greece -- mainly in transport and infrastructure.

"The expansion of cultural and educational exchange, the transfer of new technologies and the increase of tourist flows, with the launch of direct air link, are also among our immediate targets," he added.

Asked on the agenda and expectations of the visit to China, the Greek premier highlighted that it comes at a crucial time for the development of the Greek economy, but also in a difficult time for the international community and the European Union.

With a view to promoting bilateral relations, the two sides will discuss the content of the Sino-Greek strategic partnership and specific political issues that concern Greece and China, he said.

BILATERAL COOPERATION

Regarding bilateral collaboration under the framework of the "Belt and Road" initiative, Tsipras underlined that Greece's geographical and geo-strategic location makes the country a gateway for Chinese products and a bridge of understanding and trust between China and Europe.

The Greek government's plan to make Greece a transit hub and the "Belt and Road" initiative converge can lead to mutual benefits to both sides in the maritime, air and inland transport sector, in logistics, but also in processing, he said.

As both Greece and China are maritime nations it is natural to consider cooperation between our two countries in the shipping and transport sector, critical, he stressed, noting that in this context 2015 was declared as Year of Greece-China Maritime Cooperation.

Tsipras said more than half of the seaborne transfer of oil imports, raw materials and consumer goods to China is carried out by Greek-owned ships, while Greek ship owners are the second largest customers of Chinese shipyards. In parallel, Greece has competitive expertise in the fields of ship repair and production of marine equipment.

"Our cooperation in the field of port infrastructures, commencing from the successful presence of China COSCO Shipping at the port of Piraeus, is a typical example of the possibilities for cooperation which lie ahead of us," he stated.

"In addition, given how much Chinese people appreciate the Greek history and culture, there is equally remarkable dynamic to increase the number of Chinese tourists visiting Greece through the launch of direct flight connection," he added.

INFRASTRUCTURE BOOST

Referring to bilateral cooperation at Piraeus port, the Greek leader stressed that COSCO Shipping's investment in Piraeus has made the port one of fastest growing ports in the European area.

"The Greek side welcomes the Chinese interest for new investments in infrastructure of strategic interest in the transport sector, which was certified by the purchase of a majority stake in OLP (Piraeus Port Authority or PPA) by COSCO Shipping," he said.

On Thursday, the Greek parliament ratified with an overwhelming majority the landmark concession agreement with China's COSCO Shipping for the acquisition of a controlling stake in PPA.

"We expect that this presence will contribute both in funding and know-how, which are necessary for the development of the port and the upgrading of its position in the international transport sector," Tsipras said.

This prospect is linked with the broader prospect of linking the port of Piraeus to Budapest, through a rapid railway line which will minimize times for the transfer of products to central Europe, he explained.

These projects upgrade both the role of Piraeus to a combined transport center as well as the wider region, focusing on the Thriasio Plain, he noted, referring to plans to create a major center for the transshipment of commercial goods unloaded in the port of Piraeus to the rest of Greece and other European countries.

"It is undoubtedly a mutually beneficial cooperation, since it can ensure both better access in Europe for Chinese goods, as well as inward investment and job creation in Greece. Moreover, the synergies between the trans-European networks and the land and maritime Silk Road 'Belt and Road' consolidate the international role of Piraeus as a geo-strategic knot between Europe and Asia," the Greek leader underlined.

MULTIPLE CHALLENGES

Addressing the refugee and debt crises, Tsipras noted that Europe faces three parallel crises -- economic, refugee and security -- which test its endurance.

"Indeed, Greece has been the focus of the first two crises, for reasons that often exceeded our country's responsibilities and will, such as its geographical position at the EU external borders. Nevertheless, Greece has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness and ability to respond and deal with crises, committed to its values and producing results," he said.

"Despite the given budgetary constraints, we mobilized the state mechanism, we coordinated with the citizens and the social organizations and we were able to manage refugee flows which very often exceeded the numbers of the local population with respect to international law, human rights, security, and responded effectively and humanely to the challenge of the refugee crisis," he said.

Tsipras added that these actions, however, cannot address the root causes of the refugee crisis, which are found in Syria and the wider region.

Despite its size, Greece has taken a number of initiatives for consultation and cooperation in the region and supports the efforts for peace and stability in Syria, Libya, Ukraine and Afghanistan, he said.

"Moreover, we seek dialogue and cooperation both with our Euro-Atlantic partners and with global and regional forces such as China, Russia, Israel, Egypt and Iran, as part of our multidimensional foreign policy," he underlined.

Regarding the economic crisis, the Greek leader said that systematic efforts are made to overcome it.

"After a difficult negotiation, we achieved a viable agreement. We achieved for first time to open the dialogue on the sustainability of the Greek debt at the highest level, we are implementing a series of reforms, we have promoted a new investment law and the first results are already visible," he said.

"The economy and employment are recovering; the country is gradually restoring its credibility and soon we will be advancing with positive growth rates. Certainly, much remains to be done in order to recover our lost national wealth. But in any case, the hardest are behind us," he stated.

STRONGER TOGETHER

Concerning bilateral cooperation on regional and international issues when Greece and China have the same or similar standpoints, Tsipras stressed that "Greece as a member state of the EU and NATO can become a bridge of friendship and closer cooperation and understanding between China and the West."

"Respect for international law and the preservation of peace and stability are the basis for the strengthening of our cooperation," he said.

"In parallel, in a series of issues of special interest for each country, such as the 'principle of one China' for the Chinese side or the Cyprus issue for the Greek side, the common approach of the two sides is long standing. This common approach and the participation of Greece and China in important multilateral organizations make our broader collaboration even more necessary, fruitful and productive," he said.
JAKARTA, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Forest fire hotspots increased significantly in western and central parts of Indonesia on Sunday, an official with the national disaster management agency said.

A total of 288 hotspots have been detected in the two areas where the country's palm oil industry is mainly located, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman of the national disaster management agency said.

Up to 245 hotspots were found in Sumatra Island and the rest in Borneo Island, he said.

"Most of the fires in the hotspots were caused by those who purposely burned forests," he said.

Indonesia is home to the world's largest palm oil industry and the traditional annual slash-and-burn practice is the main cause behind the forest fires.

Such fires also hit the national park at Palalawan in Riau province of Sumatra Island, deteriorating air quality in the province, Sutopo said.

The efforts of dousing the fires are underway, involving soldiers, police, firefighters and those from local disaster agencies.

Two helicopters and two aircraft for water bombings have also been dispatched to the affected areas, he said.

Last year, the Indonesia government launched the biggest ever battle against forest fires across the country that killed 17 people, with over 22,000 soldiers and dozens of aircraft under international assistance involved.

The fires had sent thick haze to neighboring countries, triggering health problems and huge financial losses. Enditem
by Stephen Ingati and Fabian Mangera

GARISSA, Kenya, July 3 (Xinhua) -- A somber mood engulfed the African Inland Church in Kenya's Garissa town as worshipers gathered on Sunday to mark the fourth anniversary after the 2012 terror attack that claimed 17 people.

While marking the anniversary, hundreds of worshippers from different denominations -- Muslims and Christians -- urged the government to step up efforts to enhance security in the region which borders Somalia.

Together the worshipers danced, prayed and consoled each other following the heinous attack, which also left several people with life threatening and permanent injuries.

Gunmen believed to be members of Al-Shabaab stormed the African Inland Church on July 1, 2012, killing 15 worshipers and two security officers.

Speaking to journalists after attending the service, Garissa County Commissioner James Kianda said that the church attack had only acted to unify Muslims and Christians.

Kianda said that the security that has been witnessed in the last one year was as a result of good cooperation between different stakeholders.

"These terrorists do not discriminate when attacking; they do so in churches, buses, social gatherings, restaurants, police and military convoys. We are working round the clock to make sure that we don't witness such attacks in our county again," he said.

While lauding the government for improving security and giving them moral support, Pastor Eliud Mule, a victim in the attack, urged the state to do more for the victims who are still undergoing treatment in hospitals.

He said majority of them were still struggling with offsetting their medical bills, saying that frequent attendance to the hospitals had drained them economically.

Mule said the church, which was recovering from the attack, was made worse by the Garissa University attack that claimed 148 lives in April 2015, adding that the worshipers have reduced.

Daniel Mugo, who was one of those who escaped the attack but with serious injuries, came from Kitui in eastern Kenya to join his colleagues in commemorating the day.

He still has grenade pellets that are just near the heart.

"I saw it fit to join my fellow worshipers in remembering out lost brother and sisters. It was a dark day that I will personally never forget for as long as I am alive," Mugo said.

"The incident completely changed my life upside down. I cannot do much nowadays because I am now weak thanks to some foreign object that is still in my body," he told journalists in Garissa.

"I have become a frequent visitor at the Kijabe Hospital. This has drained me economically and I can no longer bare it anymore. I am appealing to the government to come to my assistance," said Mugo.

He said that the doctors said that the shrapnel cannot be removed because he might loose his life if they go ahead and remove them.

For Gladys Benjamin, another victim who was also present, the grenade pellets completely destroyed her left leg, something that forced the doctors to amputate the leg.

"All we are asking the government for is assistance. We sometimes think like the government completely forgot about us. We would appreciate assistance of any kind. But for now it has not been forthcoming," she said. Enditem
Iraqis evacuate a body from the site of a suicide car bombing claimed by the Islamic State group on July 3, 2016 in Baghdad's central Karrada district. The blast, which ripped through a street in the Karrada area where many people go to shop ahead of the holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, killed at least 126 people and also wounded 152 people. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)

BAGHDAD, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Up to 126 people were killed and some 152 others wounded in bomb attacks in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad on Sunday, an Interior Ministry source said.

This is the bloodiest attack this year in the country where the army are fighting against the Islamic State militants.

The busy commercial district in southern Baghdad was hit by a car bomb at about 1:00 a.m. local time (2200GMT) when a suicide bomber detonated his explosive-laden pickup truck outside a shopping center.

The three-floor building was completely destroyed, when lots of people were in it. Many of the victims are women and children, the source said.

The powerful blast set fire to the shopping center and four nearby buildings while many shops and stalls were charred and destroyed, along with destroying dozens of civilian vehicles at the scene, the source added.

Dozens of rescue workers, firefighters and civilians were removing debris and burned wreckage from dawn to the evening, looking for survivors and dead bodies.

The attack happened when many families and young people were in the crowded thoroughfare where many shoppers were preparing their families for Eid al-Fitr scheduled to start on Tuesday, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

Meanwhile, another car bomb went off in a market in northeastern Baghdad, leaving one killed and five wounded, the source added.

The death toll could rise as many wounded are in critical condition.

The bloody bombings have been claimed by the Islamic State group which said that one of its suicide bombers detonated his car bomb at a crowd of Shiite people in the predominantly Shiite district of Karrada-Dakhil, according to a statement posted online, which could not be independently verified.

People gather at the site of a suicide car bomb in the Karrada shopping area, in Baghdad, Iraq July 3, 2016. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited the explosion site in Karrada on Sunday morning, vowing to punish those behind the attacks, according to a statement issued by his office.

"The terrorist groups carried out such desperate deadly attack as a result of being crushed in the battlefield," the statement said, referring to the government's recent victory of retaking Fallujah city from IS in the country's western province of Anbar.

Abadi also sent his condolences to the families of the victims and promised that "victory over these terrorist groups is very close."

Local resident Mohammed Musa said:"Now we demand a solution from the government, because since 2003 to 2016 we are uncomfortable, we are in a difficult situation. And those people, all of them lost their money, properties and lives and other things, everything is gone."

The Iraqi government announced victory of retaking Fallujah, one of the last two strongholds of IS in Iraq, late last month, after almost a month of military operations.

The army are expected to by deployed to the northern Nineveh province, preparing to launch attacks against Mosul city, the country's second biggest city that fell into IS control two years ago.

In a statement issued on Sunday, Iraqi President Fuad Masoum condemned the deadly bomb attacks and called on the security forces to "take urgent measures to totally eliminate the sleeper terrorist cells and arrest the perpetrators."

He said "the sleeper terrorist cells are seeking to avenge the defeat of terrorists Daesh (IS group) in Fallujah and other regions of the country."

The IS has frequently targeted the security forces and areas where crowds of people gather, including markets, cafes and mosques across Iraq.

Observers said there could be more attacks against military targets and civilians in the future as the army advance to the last IS stronghold of Mosul

Iraq has been hit by a wave of violence since the IS terrorist group seized large parts in Iraq's northern and western regions since 2014.

A report by UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) estimated that 662 Iraqis were killed and 1,457 others wounded in acts of terrorism, violence and armed conflict in June this year across Iraq.
A soldier of Chinese People's Armed Police Force tries Russian equipement during the joint exercises in Moscow, Russia, on July. 3, 2016. (Xinhua/Evgeny Sinitsyn)

MOSCOW, July 3 (Xinhua) -- A series of large-scale joint anti-terror exercises kicked off here Sunday with the participation of the Chinese People's Armed Police Force (CAPF) and Russia's newly-formed National Guard.

The special drills are being held from July 3 to July 14 in Russia's Moscow and Smolensk regions. China's Snow Leopard and Falcon commando units, as well as the Russian National Guard's Vityaz unit, are participating in the exercises.

Liu Zhijun, deputy director of the CAPF's Exercises Department, said this is the third time for the two countries' interior forces to hold such exercises, which center on tactical skills in combating terrorism to boost practical cooperation between the forces of both sides.

Participants from China and Russia will conduct a host of drills in a joint manner, with a view to exploring effective methods in joint anti-terror campaigns to boost their abilities in this regard, he added.

Sergei Chenchik, chief of staff of the Russian National Guard, spoke highly of the discipline of the CAPF, saying Russia is ready to launch a new stage of cooperation with China and to carry out common tasks based on the two countries' comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination.

Russia's National Guard was created in April following the order of Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a bid to better fight terrorism, organized crime and drug trafficking across the country.
A crew member takes part in a fire drill on China's largest and most advanced patrol vessel Haixun 01 on the South China Sea, April 4, 2016. (Xinhua/Xing Guangli)

PRAGUE, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Vojtech Filip, vice speaker of the Parliament of the Czech Republic and leader of the Czech Communist Party, said Philippine position is self-contradictory on the South China Sea case.

"I am convinced that in this respect the proposed arbitration is extremely premature, outside the framework of international law, and in its own way disrupts that which the Philippines have worked for in the past -- a unified approach to all countries that border the South China Sea," Filip told Xinhua in a recent interview.

"I consider the approach of China to be adequate, i.e. that they refuse to participate in the arbitration case," Filip stated.

Manila unilaterally initiated an arbitration case against China over maritime disputes in the South China Sea at the Permanent Court of Arbitration(PCA) in The Hague in early 2013 under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

China has pointed out that territorial issues are not subject to the UNCLOS, and that as early as in 2006 it declared -- in line with UNCLOS -- to exclude disputes concerning maritime delimitation from mandatory dispute-settlement procedures. Some 30 countries have also filed declarations of this kind.

On June 29, the PCA announced it will decide on the South China Sea case on July 12.

The Chinese government has repeatedly reiterated that it would neither accept nor participate in the arbitration.
JOHANNESBURG, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Two men were shot dead in Midrand, Johannesburg, police said on Sunday.

The shooting took place outside the newly opened Mall of Africa on Sunday evening, police spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Lungelo Dlamini said.

The two victims were shot by unknown gunmen while standing on the taxi rank, apparently waiting for guests, according to Dlamini.

The spokesperson said the gunmen approached the victims, asking for directions, and when they were being guided to their destination, they started shooting.

The men died at the scene, Dlamini said, adding that no arrest has been made.

The shooting is believed to be linked to taxi violence. Dlamini, however, refused such link, and said the motive for the attack was under investigation.

Rivalry among taxi ranks often leads to violence in Johannesburg. In April this year, one taxi owner was killed and four others were wounded in a shooting at a taxi pick-up point, also in Midrand. Enditem
LONDON, July 3 (Xinhua) -- The first moves were taken Sunday to resolve the civil war engulfing Britain's main opposition Labour Party.

Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has seen virtually the whole of his front bench team resigning from his shadow cabinet, has offered a peace formula to his estranged party colleagues.

His move came after 172 Labour MPs at Westminster supported a vote of no confidence in Corbyn, and have since urged him to quit.

In other moves to restore harmony on the Labour benches, one of the party grandees, Lord John Prescott, has been suggested as a go-between, while Len McCluskey, general secretary of Britain's biggest trade union also intervened.

The Unite boss said trade union leaders, with their negotiating skills, had the ability to broker peace.

McCluskey called for an end to the fighting against Corbyn, adding that the leader had been the victim of a political lynching.

In a message published in a Labour-supporter Sunday newspaper, Corbyn said he was ready to reach out to the MPs who had opposed him.

"I am ready to reach out to Labour MPs who didn't accept my election and oppose my leadership, and work with the whole party to provide the alternative the country needs.," Corbyn said.

He added: "But they need to respect the democracy of our party and the views of Labour's membership."

Making it clear he has no intention of quitting, Corbyn added: "Those who want to challenge my leadership are free to do so in a democratic contest in which I will be a candidate."

Corbyn will learn in the coming days whether one of his MPs in the House of Commons will force a leadership contest.

He said Labour must respect the democratic decision of the British people and negotiate a new relationship with the EU.

Both main parties in Britain have been thrown into turmoil in the wake of the decision on June 23 to leave the EU.

Within hours of the leave vote winning, British Prime Minister David Cameron quit, with five Conservative MPs now in a fight to win the keys to 10 Downing Street.

All five used Sunday newspapers and political programs on television and radio to spell out why they would be the ideal successor to Cameron.

Frontrunner remains Home Secretary Theresa May, but two leading Brexiters, Justice Secretary Michael Gove and Andrea Leadsom, minister of state at Department of Energy and Climate Change, say pro-remain May is not the best person for the job. They want a brexit MP to handle what are expected to be tough negotiations with the EU over Britain's exit arrangements.

Also in the contest are former Defense Secretary Liam Fox and a rising star in the party, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Stephen Crabb.

Conservative MPs will start the process of ballots on Tuesday until just two candidates are left to enable party members to decide who should be the leader and prime minister.

Related:

Search starts for new PM as Labour's Corbyn refuses more calls to quit

LONDON, June 29 (Xinhua) -- The first name was put forward at Westminster Wednesday in the search to find a new Conservative prime minister. Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb announced his candidacy for the keys to 10 Downing Street.
NEW YORK, July 4, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Police stand guard at Central Park in New York, the United States, on July 3, 2016. An explosion happened early on Sunday at New York's Central Park, leaving one man seriously injured. (Xinhua/Li Changxiang)

NEW YORK, July 3 (Xinhua) -- A young man was seriously injured after he was hit by an explosion in New York's Central Park on Sunday, authorities said.

The Central Park was partially closed for police investigation after the explosion rocked the southeastern part of the park, near the corner of 5th Avenue and 62th Street.

The part of the renowned park remained closed throughout the afternoon, with heavy presence of law enforcement standing guard and evacuating tourists from the site of the blast.

It was yet unknown what caused the explosion but it may have been fireworks prior to the Independence Day holiday on Monday.

The victim was identified as Connor Golden, an 18-year-old from Fairfax Virginia, who was visiting New York from Washington D.C. for the holiday, according to local media.

Eyewitnesses said Golden was climbing a rock structure with two friends when he stepped on something that blew up, according to the police.

The police and paramedics rushed to the scene after a call came in at 10:53 a.m. local time. The NYPD bomb squad was also dispatched.

The victim suffered a severe leg injury and faced "a possible amputation," said a Fire Department of New York spokesperson.

A witness, John Murray, said Golden's left foot was "all but gone." He told The New York Post that he spoke with Golden's friends after the blast and that they denied they were carrying fireworks.

The area affected was a popular tourist spot, which was a short distance from the Central Park Zoo.

"It was an accident," said police officer Ramos, who was standing guard near the site of the explosion.

Ramos said the explosives may likely be fireworks given that Monday marks the Fourth of July Independence Day. The national holiday is celebrated with display of fireworks around the country as a tradition.

Wrapping papers of what appears to be from fireworks had been recovered nearby by the police, local media said.
A man is loaded into an ambulance after he was injured after an explosion in Central Park, in Manhattan, New York, U.S. on July 3, 2016. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

NEW YORK, July 3 (Xinhua) -- A young man was seriously injured after he was hit by an explosion in New York's Central Park on Sunday, authorities said.

The Central Park was partially closed for police investigation after the explosion rocked the southeastern part of the park, near the corner of 5th Avenue and 62th Street.

The part of the renowned park remained closed throughout the afternoon, with heavy presence of law enforcement standing guard and evacuating tourists from the site of the blast.

It was yet unknown what caused the explosion but it may have been fireworks prior to the Independence Day holiday on Monday.

The victim was identified as Connor Golden, an 18-year-old from Fairfax Virginia, who was visiting New York from Washington D.C. for the holiday, according to local media.

Eyewitnesses said Golden was climbing a rock structure with two friends when he stepped on something that blew up, according to the police.

The police and paramedics rushed to the scene after a call came in at 10:53 a.m. local time. The NYPD bomb squad was also dispatched.

The victim suffered a severe leg injury and faced "a possible amputation," said a Fire Department of New York spokesperson.

A witness, John Murray, said Golden's left foot was "all but gone." He told The New York Post that he spoke with Golden's friends after the blast and that they denied they were carrying fireworks.

The area affected was a popular tourist spot, which was a short distance from the Central Park Zoo.

"It was an accident," said police officer Ramos, who was standing guard near the site of the explosion.

Ramos said the explosives may likely be fireworks given that Monday marks the Fourth of July Independence Day. The national holiday is celebrated with display of fireworks around the country as a tradition.

Wrapping papers of what appears to be from fireworks had been recovered nearby by the police, local media said.
On behalf of HEAL (Heroin Epidemic Action League, Inc.) I would like to thank the Cayuga County Legislature, and especially Mike Didio for the wonderful proclamation in support of HEAL read at the June 28 meeting. We are so blessed to live in a community where our political leaders at all levels of government: City, county, state and federal have come out to support our efforts to combat this terrible disease. Our hospital, our sheriff, our district attorney, our police chief, our schools and our whole community are engaged in a "fight for life."

Never before has anyone ever seen an attack on our families, friends and neighbors such as the heroin and synthetic narcotic drug cartels are currently using to destroy lives for profit. No one is safe. No one is immune. Drug dealers are engaged in a $100 billion a year "business" in the United States and 150 of our friends and loved ones are being murdered every day, with tens of thousands more, sick and in immediate danger.

HEAL is committed to bringing awareness, education, prevention and treatment strategies into our community. In the last few months we have spoken to almost every seventh through 12th grade student in our county. We have held and will continue to hold community forums. We have a parents support group and a Heroin Anonymous group meeting regularly. On July 9th we will have our first major fundraiser at Casey Park, a 5K Color Dash Run. Please participate and help us to help you.

HEALHEROIN.ORG is our website, Heroin Awareness Cayuga County is on Facebook. Contact us if you need help. We'll do everything in our power to get you the help you need. Our address is PO Box 458, Auburn, New York 13021.

Again, our deepest gratitude to our community leaders for their on-going support. Cayuga County and the City of Auburn are communities that truly care about their residents well being and quality of life.

Lon A. Fricano

Cayuga

Fricano is treasurer of HEAL (Heroin Epidemic Action League, Inc.).
Photo taken on July 3, 2016 shows the car bomb attack site in Karrada-Dakhil district of southern Baghdad, Iraq. (Xinhua/Khalil Dawood)

UNITED NATIONS, July 3 (Xinhua) -- UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Sunday condemned terrorist attacks in the capital of Iraq, calling on the Iraqi government to bring "the perpetrators of this horrific crime" to justice as soon as possible.

The secretary-general "is appalled by the utter disregard for human life displayed by the perpetrators, who struck as residents prepared for Eid al-Fitr celebrations," said a statement issued here by Ban's spokesman.

A busy commercial district in southern Baghdad was hit by a car bomb on Saturday night, while a suicide bomber detonated his explosive-laden pickup truck outside a shopping center.

At least 126 people, including 25 children, and some 152 others wounded in the bomb attacks, the bloodiest attack this year in the country.

The Islamic State, also known as the ISIS or Daesh, claimed responsibility for the deadliest attack in Iraq, the third in a week.

Ban expressed his deep sympathy and condolences to families of the victims, and to the government and people of Iraq, the statement said. "He wishes the many injured a speedy recovery."

"The secretary-general appeals to the people of Iraq to reject any attempts to spread fear and undermine the unity of the country," it said.

"The secretary-general wishes the people of Iraq a peaceful remainder of the holy month of Ramadan," the statement added.
A man walks past a mural dedicated to Freddie Gray April 25, 2016 in Baltimore, Maryland, a year after the protests that were sparked by Gray's death in police custody. AFP PHOTO / Brendan Smialowski

WASHINGTON, July 3 (Xinhua) -- More than half of Hispanics in the United States say they have experienced racial discrimination, and the race relations in the country are generally bad, found a new poll by the Pew Research Center.

Fifty-two percent of U.S. Hispanics say they have experienced discrimination and being treated unfairly, according to the poll.

Meanwhile, 58 percent of Hispanics say the race relations in the U.S. are generally bad, a similar share to blacks.

Hispanics' experience with discrimination or being treated unfairly varies greatly by age, it added.

Among Hispanics aged between 18 and 29, 65 percent say they have experienced discrimination or unfair treatment, while only 35 percent of Hispanics aged above 50 say the same.

The poll also discovered that Hispanics born in the U.S. (62 percent) are more likely than immigrants (41 percent) to say they have experienced discrimination or unfair treatment.

There are also differences by race. For example, 56 percent of non-white Hispanics say this has happened at some point in their lives, a higher share than that among white Hispanics (41 percent), according to the poll.

There are estimated 56.6 million Hispanics living in the U.S. in 2015, a major voting bloc that could well decide the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

Millions of people from Latin America have immigrated to the U.S. in recent decades, driving Hispanic population growth in the 1980s and 1990s, according to the Pew Research Center.
PLEASE NOTE!

Due to the March 23, 2020 NM DOH Public Health Order, These Event Listings Are Not Accurate!

All non-essential businesses are closed, public gatherings are prohibited!

(One day some of these events will be rescheduled or will resume, but they are not happening now!)
100 YEARS AGO

The Big Elks Celebration of the 4th of July 1916 was the greatest our city has ever seen. There were 100 autos from Williams and a special train from Winslow. Moving around town was difficult as the streets were filled with celebrators. The parade began at the Emerson School and proceeded down Aspen with the combined bands of Williams and Flagstaff in the lead. It halted in front of the Elks building, where speeches including an address by Governor Hunt were made and the band played the Star Spangled Banner while the crowd removed their hats. The Governor then departed on the 2 p.m. train to speak at other celebrations.

More festivities followed including 3-legged races for the boys and backward runs for the girls at City Park, plus a great rodeo.

75 YEARS AGO

Fireworks are prohibited by state law. The sale, use and possession of fireworks in the State of Arizona by other than a public works display by permit only from the Fire Chief in incorporated cities and unincorporated counties. A bond for damages must be posted. Violations are classified as a Misdemeanor and carry a fine of $100.

A railroad track gang employee Diablo Diaz was killed by a moving train near Winslow on Monday. It is unknown whether he was already on or attempting to get on when he slipped and fell under the rolling wheels.

The Arizona Corporation Commission has endorsed the proposed plan for the Arizona-Utah Public Service Co. to purchase and to operate the Flagstaff Electrical Company and other local electric companies.

H. 83 Sun. L. 37 Thurs. Rain 0.12 Mon.

50 YEARS AGO

The 38th Annual Pow Wow began with 11 tribes marching in a spectacular parade at the city Pow Wow grounds followed by colorful ceremonies in the evening.

The Eastside Post Office that has been in Chapmans Market for the past 8 years is to be closed for the lack of bids.. Postmaster E. H. Husband. Happy Chapman says the east side needs a Post Office and petitions should be circulated.

Last Saturday 12 persons made the trek to ski in the Inner Basin with Forest Ranger Ed Grosbeck. They departed from the Post Office at 6:30 am and traveling the old Weatherford route by car as far as possible then taking to their skis arrived at the Fremont Saddle at 7:10 .

Thursday evening a fire at Buffalo Park destroyed a large number of Yule trees that had been collected after the holiday. Thankfully there was no other damage to the park for all the dry weather.

H. 79 Fri. L. 45 Sat. Still no rain.

25 YEARS AGO

H.91 Wed. L. 41 Mon. & Tues. Rain 0.08 Sat.

The fireworks viewed from the Fairfield Country Club Driving range by several thousand people were as thunderous and brilliant as the monsoon storm that arrived in the afternoon.

End 1st week -- July 2016 --Submitted by Susannah Carney
CAMP VERDE  The northern Arizona map is peppered with attractions that, with the help of the Internet, word of mouth and media coverage, have proliferated into It destinations, once off the beaten path but now drawing people by the tens of thousands.

The Wave at Coyote Buttes, Havasu Falls, Upper and Lower Antelope Canyon, and Horseshoe Bend are just a handful of once sleepier side attractions now drawing hordes of visitors by the carload and sometimes by the busload. It creates challenges for agencies and land owners to protect the natural beauty, determine access and manage demand.

Among these names of discovered natural gems is Fossil Creek Wilderness Area, a gushing, perennial stream in a high desert canyon that has become another example of the loved to death paradigm. So, land managers had to make big changes.

As reported this spring, the U.S. Forest Service launched a special prepay and print permit system to reduce the traffic and visitation. The permit is $6 and reserves one of 148 spaces in nine possible lots, for day use only with no camping. The parking reservations and camping restrictions are active May 1 to Oct. 1.

Eight of those lots are found along Forest Road 708 accessed six miles east of Camp Verde. One is located at the Fossil Springs trailhead, accessed via 708 out of the town of Strawberry. The road is closed in the middle and cant be passed through.

The number of cars now allowed in the Fossil Creek corridor is about half the number that would cram along the forest road on busy summer days, said Nicole Branton, Red Rock District ranger.

A lesser toll

Halfway through the first summer of the permit system, Forest Service staffers said the new reservation system appears to be accomplishing exactly what they were hoping. Crowding along the narrow dirt road to Fossil Creek has declined, fewer cars have to be turned away and the reduction in daily visitation is taking a lesser toll on the environment, Branton said.

It allows people to plan ahead to know whether or not they have space and for us to have a system that operates safely and protects resources, Branton said.

The response from visitors has been positive as well, said Francisca Adrian, the wilderness, trails and rivers coordinator with the Red Rock Ranger District, who regularly staffs the Fossil Creek entrance gate.

The feedback Im getting from the public is thank you, it was about time, it was so needed, Adrian said. People are glad to know this beautiful piece of heaven is being protected.

Two months in, people are getting the hang of the reservation system and permits are quickly selling out for the remaining summer weekends, Branton said. Permits completely sold out on Memorial Day and Fourth of July weekends and have been close to selling out every weekend in between, she said.

The Forest Service is turning away about the same proportion of people relative to the number that are let in, but the numbers themselves are smaller, Branton said. Of the nearly 130,000 visitors to Fossil Creek last year, one third of them  about 43,000  had to be turned away because there was nowhere else to park. Now on busy weekend days, that number is about 40 cars, Branton said. When people do have to be turned around, rangers suggest they try nearby reservoirs, Wet Beaver Creek, Oak Creek or the Verde River for a similar experience, she said.

Another benefit of the new system is that it allows Forest Service staffers to speak with every car that comes down the road  a major leap from last year when the Forest Service made contact with just 40 percent of visitors.

That initial interaction as they check peoples permits gives rangers a chance to tell visitors about the importance of preserving the resource, packing out trash and using designated restrooms as well as relay safety advice like the need to drink water and know the risks of hiking long distances in the hot summer sun, Branton said.

It appears the resource protection message is getting across. On a typical Memorial Day weekend the Forest Service would expect to pick up three truckloads of garbage, Adrian said. This past Memorial Day weekend? The amount was just three bags.

Its going better than we had anticipated for sure, said Adrian, who was a major contributor to the plan and its implementation.

At least one measure of safety risk is improving as well. Rescue incidents recorded by Gila County Search and Rescue have dropped from 200 last year to only 30 or 40 so far this year, Branton said.

Positive changes

On the first Sunday in June, Arizona Daily Sun features editor Seth Muller visited to Fossil Creek Wilderness Area for the first time in six years. The intense traffic and party atmosphere of earlier visits made the experience less than desirable for him, but his trip this summer reflected the positive changes noted by the Forest Service staffers.

The experience under the permit system and new management approach began with the drive along 260 east out of Camp Verde, where two construction signs displayed information that Fossil Creek was accessible by permit only. About a mile down Forest Road 708, an employee of the Forest Service checked permits.

Steady traffic appeared along the 16 miles of washboard dirt road to the creek, but nothing like past lines of cars and backups during peak summer weekends. Given the road conditions, travel along the backway took about an hour.

A second ranger and station to check in came at the fork in the road, with one way going east toward the more popular area of the creek and another going south toward the Fossil Creek confluence with the Verde River.

From here, the traffic to the creek and around the creek area was moderate and manageable  even as some foot traffic crowded the road due to people walking in from the parking areas farther out. Still, permit holders can easily find their designated lot and know that one of the clearly lined-out spaces belongs to them.

The closest parking lot to the big waterfall is the Waterfall Trailhead Parking Area. Here, visitors leave their cars and walk up the closed-off part of Fossil Creek Road and walk a quarter-mile to where the trail drops off the road and down to the creek.

On the early June visit, many people trekked the mile or so up to the waterfall, but most of the smaller waterfalls and swimming holes downstream were empty or sparsely crowded. One pool below a four-foot waterfall with a deep section below it had no visitors. However, an area with a shallower pool and a rope swing attracted a handful of families by midday  many of them hauling in large coolers and camp chairs for the creek-side afternoon.

Beauty restored

Its no wonder that Fossil Creek drew visitation that met and surpassed the six-figure mark. As creeks go, it is right up there with Oak Creek, Wet Beaver Creek and Havasu Creek as one of the most stunning waterways in the region.

Its also within a two-hour drive of both Flagstaff and Phoenix, and summertime revelers have flocked to the 70-degree, spring-fed creek and its aquamarine pools and waterfalls.

According to the Verde River Basin Partnership, Fossil Creek Spring is the single largest spring that discharges into the Verde and its tributaries, with a flow of 21,647 gallons per minute. This flow into the lower main channel was increased significantly in 2008 when a dam and flume system as part of a power plant was fully decommissioned.

The flow has added to the draw, with the creek churning and the waterfalls pounding. A few features farther upstream from the main waterfall, though, such as ones locals have nicknamed the toilet bowl, have become dangerous due to the swift currents, according to rangers working the creek.

Overall, the restoration of the creek has both brought a healthy stream flow and a healthy flow of visitors.

As for the visitor improvements, it does not look like they will stop with the permits. The parking plan is only a precursor to a more comprehensive river management plan, Branton said.

Some sort of reservation system will very likely be a component of that larger design, which will also address bathrooms, parking, other types of recreation facilities, visitor contact stations, trails and various types of permitted recreation, she said.

An overlook trail and different options for motorized and nonmotorized recreation in the creek corridor are all options the Forest Service is considering, Branton said. The plan is one to two years away from being finalized.
Coast Guard seize $39m in cocaine

According to a release, at approximately 1 am while on a routine patrol on the North Coast of Trinidad the Coast Guard intercepted a pirogue named EL LIBERTADORES registered to the Port of Guria in Venezuela.

Upon spotting the Coast Guard the suspect vessel sped off and a futile chase ensued, the release stated. The Coast Guard then commandeered the vessel with eight Venezuelan Nationals on board and returned them to Staubles Bay. Searches at Staubles Bay resulted in three crocus bags containing 84 packs of cocaine, weighting 98.5 kg with a street value of $39,400,000.

This serves as the second largest single cocaine drug bust since August 22, 2005, when Coast Guard seized 1,749.09 kg worth $750 Million in cocaine off a house on Monos Island, the release stated.

The men and narcotics held yesterday were handed over to the Organised Crime Narcotics Firearm Bureau of the Police Service for further processing.

The Coast Guard pointed out that the latest seizure brings the total street value of drugs seized for the year January 2016 to July 2nd 2016 to $58,971,760 that has been prevented from hitting the streets of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago by the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard.

The Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard continues to protect our Maritime Boarders from all manner of illicit activity including that of narcotics trafficking, the release stated.
Rishi, a humble Muslim

Sankar, 34 of Perseverance, Couva , went missing last Wednesday and was last seen at Stone Road, Piparo.

Information received by police officers led them to believe that he was killed, chopped up, and his and his body dumped in the Mitan River, in Mayaro. His neighbour, a 27-year-old man was held for questioning and is in police custody, assisting with investigations.

Investigators revealed that, after Sankars disappearance, the 27-yearold man was seen driving Sankars white AD Wagon, near Sankars home on Stone Road, Piparo. When police held him for questioning on June 29, he reportedly admitted to killing and dismembering the prison officer.

Police were continuing to search for Sankars body and were depending on an aerial search by the air guard to see if his body has washed out to sea. According to police, the suspect told them that Sankar was involved in an extra- marital relationship with his wife.

But yesterday a female relative, who asked not to be named, described this allegation as very inaccurate and said a motive nor any other motive had been conveyed to the family by the police. The relative questioned how could someone be murdered over a marital affair and then the perpetrator drive around with their vehicle.

The relative also pointed out that Sankar was a practising Muslim and he was fasting at the point in time when this happened. He lived a very humble, quiet life, she said.

She reported that Sankar had been pursuing Association of Chartered Certified Accountants certification and his goal was to own his own home. She said he was the youngest in the family, is an upstanding Muslim in society, as a humble, introvert and extremely hard working.

She said because Sankar was fasting for the holy month of Ramadan he would have been at his weakest moment if an altercation had occurred. She added that it was tragic for something like this to happen during the holy month of Ramadan and the family wanted to safeguard his reputation from being ruined.

Sankar was last stationed at Remand section.

Attempts to contact head of the Prison Officers Association Ceron Richards yesterday was unsuccessful.

The Coast Guard was assisting the police with the search in the Mitan River but up to news time he had not been found.
Manning, a visionary

This is how citizens, politicians across party lines and the people of the Caribbean hailed former Prime Minister Patrick Augustus Mervyn Manning, who passed away, age 69, at 8.15 am yesterday at San Fernando General Hospital.

Trinidad and Tobagos longest serving member of Parliament and former political leader of the Peoples National Movement (PNM), Manning first served as the countrys fourth Prime Minister and also served four terms as Prime Minister in 1991, 2001, 2002 and 2007.

Family members first posted on Mannings Facebook page yesterday morning announcing that he had passed away peacefully surrounded by family and loved ones after battling acute myeloid leukaemia. The family thanked everyone for their prayers, love and support during this trying time.

Condolences and tributes poured in to the family and the nation on radio and social media from all branches of Government, including the Opposition and the Judiciary, the labour movement, business organisations, regional leaders, and citizens at home and abroad.

Among those expressing condolences were Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, former prime minister and Leader of the Opposition Kamla Persad-Bissessar, and Mannings long-time friend Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr Ralph Gonsalves, who visited him in hospital on Tuesday.

They all expressed sadness on the occasion of Mannings death and a sense of loss of someone who has made sterling contribution to nationhood and regional integration.

The mood in the capital city, Port-of-Spain, was one of sadness.

A similar sombre mood was reported in Tobago. Citizens were grief-stricken in the San Fernando East constituency, which Manning represented in the House of Representatives for 44 years, from 1971to 2015.

To add to the solemness, the national flag, the Red, White and Black was lowered at half mast on all national buildings, and foreign diplomatic missions did likewise in mourning.

Prime Minister Rowley announced that with the concurrence of Manning wife, Hazel, Mannings remains will be laid to rest during a State funeral.

The funeral, according to the Ministry of Public Administration and Communications, is set for Saturday, July 9.

Books of condolences will be opened at the NAPA building in Port-of-Spain and SAPA building in San Fernando from today until Friday from 8 am to 6 pm. Books will also be opened at the Arima Borough Corporation, Rio Claro/ Mayaro Regional Corporation, Chaguanas Borough Corporation, Point Fortin Borough Corporation and in Tobago at the Assembly Legislature.

Mannings body will lie in State at SAPA on Thursday and at NAPA on Friday.

A book of condolence will also be opened at Balisier House, headquarters of the PNM in Portof- Spain, according to Rowley.

Mrs Manning, who once served in her husbands Cabinet as Education Minister, her family and the relevant State agencies and the Manning family will organise the funeral which is tentatively set for the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Port-of-Spain.

In a tribute, Rowley said on radio i95.5FM that Manning, who joined the PNM at 19 years, has left remarkable legacies for the people.

As the longest serving MP, he said, Manning did not serve just the people of San Fernando East, but all of San Fernando. That alone labels him as a remarkable man and an outstanding citizen, he said.

Acknowledging that TT would be poorer for his passing, Rowley said that whatever Manning represented and accomplished, the most important thing was that he dedicated his life to public service. A sombre Rowley added that in public service there are good days and bad days, gratitude and ingratitude, and whatever Manning represented and did, he will continue to be in our history. Manning, he said, gave up his life for public service and that meant, he was robbed of a lot of his life. We just say thank you. When his Cabinet members heard of Manning death, he said, Those of us who are outside of the immediate family, received the news with shock. At the level of the Prime Ministers Office, he said, We are making sure that Mr Manning has a funeral that is worthy of his station in the country. He was not just as leader of the PNM or Prime Minister of the country, but as a citizen of TT who has passed on, he is leaving us better than when we started out. Rowley said he knew there were some people who would ask why the State would be celebrating Mannings life.

For the younger ones who have that question, he said, Any time you think about LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) which pays the bill for TT, think about Patrick Manning. That was his doing. When you think about GATE (Government Assistance for Tuition Expenses), think about Patrick Manning. That was his vision. That was his doing.

When you think of the University of Trinidad and Tobago. That was his vision. Rowley continued, Those were some of the legacies over and above the physical things that you would see, but those far-reaching, public, nation-saving developments were a realisation of a vision that Manning and his team worked with and for which he provided the leadership.

He urged the younger generation, Do not take those things for granted today. He said, May he rest in peace and may the nation acknowledge him for the citizen that he was, and as the citizen that he was, he will continue to be in our history. Meanwhile, a statement from the Office of the Prime Minister later said Manning will be remembered as a visionary, a patriot and a Caribbean man who always strived for excellence.

He made the development and well-being of TT his priority and in so doing, dedicated his life to serving the twin-island State.

During his tenure as Prime Minister, TT experienced unprecedented growth and development, the benefits from that period are still helping us through the trying times we face today, the statement said.

Up until his death, Manning remained a source of guidance and inspiration to a generation of national and regional leaders who still sought his counsel even after he left active public life, the Office of the Prime Minister said.

Mannings death came as a shock to many as he was reported to be resting fairly comfortably since his hospitalisation and was reported in high spirits.

Manning was hospitalised on Monday evening for investigation concerning an aberration in his blood-count. On Thursday, Mrs Manning said, his condition continued to be stable, and that he was reasonably comfortable, chatty, and jocular. On Friday, she posted that he was diagnosed on Thursday evening as having acute myeloid leukaemia and was being prepared to undergo chemotherapy.

Although he had the option of being flown out of the country for treatment, he was reported as having told doctors that he preferred to remain home for treatment.

On Friday, however, Newsday was told that Manning condition was critical.

Manning passing comes after a number of health challenges from as early as age 13 when he survived rheumatic fever, a by-pass heart surgery in 1998, a surgery to remove a cancer of the kidney in 2008, and a debilitating stroke in 2012.
Petronella: My brother suffers no more

Manning, who also served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for the San Fernando East, was admitted to San Fernando General Hospital on Monday. He died at about 8.15 am yesterday after battling Acute Myeloid Leukaemia.

Speaking to reporters outside the Accident & Emergency Department of the hospital, a tearful Manning-Alleyne said she was still in a state of shock on the death of her brother.

I am lost for words, I am still at the point where I am still soaking this in, she lamented. As she slowly composed herself, Manning-Alleyne continued, He (Manning) was very much loved and he has done his work well. The difficulties he has had with his health in the past has been immense. But, she said, Manning was still able to survive and overcome all.

I really think he is now at peace and he did not need anything more than that. Enough is enough, enough suffering. He did not need anything more, the grieving sister told reporters.

At the time Manning-Alleyne was surrounded by scores of Peoples National Movement (PNM) supporters and other members of the San-Fernando East constituency.

Many cried openly while others were seen consoling one another.

One woman, Karleen Granger, had to be taken into the hospital on a wheelchair to have her blood pressure checked as she wept uncontrollably.

Grangers piercing screams echoed throughout the halls of the hospital.

Oh God no, why why Mr Manning why you leave us? He was the best Prime Minister and friend anyone could ask for,she wept.

We loved you, we loved you, you was such a great leader.

Former PNM senator Joan Yuille-Williams, who was also at the hospital, said it was a sad day for the nation.

We lost a friend, a father a visionary, she said holding back her tears. San Fernando East MP, Randall Mitchell, Mannings successor in the constituency, said the country is now in mourning.

We have lost a great leader, a great man and our thoughts are with the family of Mr Manning.

I am very sad at his passing and we mourn his loss, Mitchell told reporters. Later on his Facebook page, Mitchell said his thoughts and prayers were with Mannings wife and two sons, Brian and David.

Mr Manning served the people of San Fernando East with great distinction for 45 years, and an honour befitting his life of great vision, aspirations and achievements that have propelled Trinidad and Tobago forward will be forthcoming, Mitchell stated in the post.

At about at 10.10 am yesterday, Mannings body was removed from the hospital and taken in a hearse to Belgroves Funeral Home, Coffee Street ,San Fernando.

Security personnel and police officers blocked the hospital entrance to bar media personnel. A security officer said such instructions were given by family members to prevent the media from taking photographs or video footage of Mannings body being taken from the hospital.

San Fernando Mayor Kazim, in a press release, said the nation lost one its greatest leaders.

Patrick Manning was a visionary leader whose ideas were before their time. He served our country locally, regionally and internationally at the highest levels, and his exceptional leadership and service to the city of San Fernando was a constant fixture over the past four decades, he said.

Hosein said he was consoled that Mannings legacy will live on through the many individuals serving in Government today and many whose careers he helped to shape and guide.

This is also a personal loss as Mr Patrick Manning was part of my own family, having been a mentor and confidant to both me and my father the late Rakeeb Hosein, former mayor of San Fernando. One of his memorable phrases that guides me to this day, is that God gave us two eyes and one mouth so we can observe fully before we act. I still hold on to this important lesson as a decision-maker for my family and the people of San Fernando, the Mayor declared.
CJ praises regional leader

Archie expressed condolences on Mannings passing in a release yesterday on behalf of the Judiciary.

It is with sadness and regret that the Judiciary of Trinidad and Tobago joins the rest of the nation in mourning the passing of former Prime Minister Patrick Augustus Mervyn Manning... On behalf of members of the bench and staff of the Judiciary, I extend deepest condolences to the family, relations and friends of the departed statesman at this difficult time, the release stated.

As the fourth and sixth Prime Minister of our great twin-island Republic who also had the distinction of being the longest serving member of the House of Representatives, Mr Mannings contributions to the growth and development of Trinidad and Tobago are noteworthy and are a cause for positive reflection. His championing of regional collaboration and cooperation earned him the respect and admiration of many in the Caribbean Community and beyond. May his legacy of unwavering national service live on in each citizen of the Republic, the release concluded
Manning championed TT aviation

It is with great sadness that the board, management and staff of the Trinidad and Tobago Civil Aviation Authority (TTCAA) join with the rest of the national community in mourning the passing of Mr Patrick Manning, former Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, TTCAA stated in a release.

Apart from his outstanding contribution to the development of Trinidad and Tobago through politics, Mr Manning had a great passion for aviation and contributed to the growth and development of the local aviation industry. The authority pointed out that it was during Mannings tenure as Prime Minister that Trinidad and Tobago established the State Aviation Safety Oversight System to meet the highest safety standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization and gained the United States FAA Category One status in August 2005. Also, during his tenure, construction of the TTCAA Aviation Complex was commissioned in 2008, which is today one of the most modern Aviation Complex in the world.

TTCAAs Director General Ramesh Lutchmedial stated in the releas, Mr Manning and I first met in 1976 when we both served as members of the House of Representatives in the first Republican Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago. Prior to entering politics, he wanted to become a pilot. Our friendship continued outside of politics and I last spoke to him about a month ago. The TTCAA extended its sincerest condolences to the family of Manning and pray that they have the strength to overcome their loss.
Ministers undergo health care

Acting PNM public relations officer Stuart Young confirmed this yesterday amid speculation that Khan, who is also the partys chairman,was to undergo major surgery for a severe illness.

Young also dismissed rumours that Trade and Industry Minister Paula Gopee- Scoon also was gravely ill. He confirmed Gopee-Scoon did have a minor procedure done at a medical facility and all went well.
Seales wants to be top cop

Even when as a 20-year-old he applied to the service for want of a job, he failed to make the grade, not because education or physical fitness did not qualify him, but because of the bad area where he lived.

Seales was born in St Augustine but subsequently moved to 2nd Caledonia, Morvant. At age 18, his father, a teacher, and his mother, a housewife, could not afford to pay for him to do his A levels examination, nor attend university, and it was decided that he should find a job.

In March1988, he saw a recruitment advertisement from the Police Service and he responded. On his first attempt he was unsuccessful and would later find out he was not recruited because of concerns over the bad area where he lived - 2nd Caledonia Morvant - and a desire for more investigations. He was eventually recruited in September of hat same year, and also never had any intentions to join the Police Social and Welfare Association (PSWA). Fast forard to today and at age 47. not only is Seales PSWA president-elect, even with a sedition charge hanging over him, but he also harbours aspirations of sitting at the head of the police service as Commissioner.

After completing his training, Seales went to work at Maraval Police Station in 1990, the year of the attempted coup. Seales described working during that volataile period, which included setting up roadblocks and investigating reports of sporadic attacks by the Jamaat al Muslimeen, as a frightening experience.

In 1991, he was stationed at the Maraval Police Station at the rank of constable and was known as a a lock up police because of his many cases. He was later transferred to the divisional CID and became a detective. After Maraval, he was transferred to Four Roads and then West End Police Station, Diego Martin.

While at West End a file went missing and Seales was blamed though it was miraculously found subsequently. Seales would later go to the Special Investigation Unit under the Fraud Squad. Former Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Maurice Piggott was in charge at the time.

In 1999, Seales was screened for the Organised Crime and Narcotics Unit (OCNU). He emerged as one of the top inductees to that unit and was transferred in 2000. He worked there for almost five years but in 2005 he was transferred to Traffic Branch based on something I had (reportedly) done wrong.

Seales said he loved the OCNU and hated being transferred. He explained that Traffic Branch had the stigma of being a dumping ground for errant policeman though he did not see it that way.

In his first two days working at Traffic Branch he was made wrecker clerk and he made the best of it. He encouraged the officers to take photos before wrecking vehicles and these photos would be shown to drivers who claimed unfair treatment. He also asked the officers to show pity on a pregnant woman who had been wrecked while parked to pay a bill at TTEC.

Seales would not remain in Traffic Branch long, however, as due to has training in crime scenes he was transferred to Homicide months later. He recalled it was a relief to have his income restored. At Homicide he was promoted to corporal and then to sergeant.

Seales was involved in the investigation of the murder of US Army veteran Balliram Balo Maharaj and was able to secure the confession of two of the suspects and assisted in breaking the case open.

He pointed out that he received a commendation from the US Department of Justice for his part in the case.

By 2007, Seales earned his law degree and, fortunately or unfortunately, he was representing policemen in matters. He unsuccessfully defended PC Clint Auguste in his case with then Prime Minister Patrick Manning which emerged from a confrontation between Auguste and officers of Mannings security detail on July 26, 2008, outside the Prime Ministers residence at La Fantasie, St Anns.

Seales met his future colleague, Inspector Anand Ramesar while the two were representing different parties in a case. He recalled that Ramesar asked him to go up with him for the PSWA elections in 2010 but Seales was reluctant.

I did not like the association business at all, he said.

He explained that back then he viewed the PSWA as a hindrance to his professional life and at the time his was plan was to leave the Police Service. But Ramesar persisted and filled out the forms for Seales who finally relented and told him go ahead, do what you want. But Seales informed Ramesar that he would not be doing any campaigning.

One day, at 2 am, he received a call that he had been elected PSWA secretary.

I say how that happen, he recalled.

From there he began to learn about Ramesar, then PSWA president, and get acquainted with him. In December 2010 the two had a major falling out and Seales had walked away. He was however persuaded by their first divisional representative Wayne Mohammed to come back for the good of the policemen.

Seales and Ramesar were re-elected to the leadership of the PSWA in 2013. Seales recalled that he got to know Ramesar better.

We learned each other and stood up for each other from a professional standpoint, he said.

He pointed out that Ramesar encouraged him academically and Seales went on to do his masters in business administration; he graduates in October this year. He said he always liked the idea of business and his dream is to be Dr Michael Seales. He reported than in wage negotiations the PSWA was able to secure nine percent when other bodies were receiving five percent.

They also negotiated with then Prime Minister Kamla Persad- Bissessar $1,000 tax free and the last occasion 14 percent negotiation.

On the recent elections, with he and Ramesar switching contested roles, Seales explained that in his position as secretary Ramesar would say that he was actually president. He said, therefore, moving forward in the new roles was therefore an easy continuation.

He said that professionally they respected each other and each others views and we both shared almost the same vision for the police service so thats why we would have made the decision lets stay on and lets continue the fight and try to make the best for policemen.

Because our dream one day is to really take over the Police Service and we dont want to inherit a broken police service. We want to inherit a police service that is functional so that it would make our jobs easier so that (we can) revolutionise the police service, he said.

He explained they are looking at the posts of Commissioner of Police and Deputy of Commissioner of Police though they both want to be commissioner. Maybe there should be a consolation, you should have two commissioners, he joked.

On Wednesday, Seales appeared before Chief Magistrate Marcia Ayers Caesar at the Port-of-Spain Magistrates Court charged with making seditious comments on June 24, 2015 on Independence Square in Port-of-Spain. The charge comes almost a year after Seales was suspended by Acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams who ordered an investigation be launched into an allegation of public misconduct.

About concerns over his legal issues, Seales explained that part of the selection of their team was with the possibility of his suspension and being charged. He said they had to build a very strong team and pointed to Cynthia Trim, who will handle issues affecting officers in the Tobago Division and women officers; First Division officers representative Wayne Mohammed; and vice president Richard Corbett who he described as one of the most knowledgeable persons I know.

He noted it is time to deliver their mandate outlined in the manifesto, saying issues such as job evaluations would be taken care of with the Chief Personnel Officer (CPO), and on the absorption of SRPs the Commissioner was being engaged.

On the homes for members, Seales said it is a ticklish issue but they will put forward the Oropune model where the introduction of 76 officers to HDC Oropune settlement in 2012 resulted in a negligible 50 crimes over five years.

About the public perception of the police and the PSWA being affected by his criminal charge, a concern raised by PSWA elections runner-up Inspector Richard Taylor, Seales said a number of persons who called and messaged him before and after election with support were civilians. He said many had been praying and even went to La Divina Pastora in Siparia to pray for him.

The amount of prayers, the amount of candles lit for me. People went up on the Mount. And that is the civilian population, he added.

He said prayer is powerful and he prayed for himself, but when you have a number of persons petitioning God for you in terms of what you stand for and what you represent God hears your prayer. He said from that context and based on call-in radio programmes he listened to there is overwhelming support for me in terms of what I stand for.

What (Taylor) is saying does not align with what the public is saying and moreso what the police population has said, he added.

Seales receives his instruments as PSWA president around July 11.

When not on duty Seales spends time with his sons Yvann and Johann and elder daughter Dr Tamka Seales. He said the family enjoys a lot of outdoor activities and are ardent swimmers, and they live at the Couva Community Pool.
Chambers: Manning, a formidable force

These were the words used by the American Chamber of Commerce of TT (AmCham) and the Chaguanas Chamber of Industry and Commerce (CCIC) to describe Manning following his sudden death yesterday morning.

The former Prime Minister and longest-serving Member of Parliament (MP) in TT passed away at about 8.15 am at San Fernando General Hospital, San Fernando where he was being treated for Acute Myeloid Leukaemia.

AmCham yesterday afternoon said it was saddened by the news of Mannings death, describing him as a formidable force in politics and our nation (who) played a significant role in the development of our countrys post-independence life. AmCham also praised Mannings commitment to greater cooperation amongst the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

He was a true Caribbean man who believed in the potential of the region and the benefits of regional cooperation. We extend our heartfelt condolences to his family and his loved ones, AmCham stated.

Deepest condolences were also expressed yesterday by the CCIC through its president, Richie Sookhai, to the Manning family and the nation.

Looking back at Mannings 44 years as San Fernando West MP (1971 to 2015), Sookhai said the veteran politician had etched his name into the history and memory of our nation for his dedicated service to this country and his unflinching commitment to his visions and ideals. Referring to the Peoples National Movements (PNM) massive loss in the 1986 General Election, during which Manning was one of only three PNM MPs to retain their seats, Sookhai said, few other politicians in our history have shown the mettle that Mr Manning did during his long tenure, helping to take the party from defeat to victory, becoming PM in 1991.

Manning then went to serve as Prime Minister twice again between 2001 and 2010.

During his prime ministership from 2001 to 2010 Mr Manning notably achieved the hosting of both the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) and the 5th Summit of the Americas, which saw both US President Barack Obama and late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on the same soil for the first time, Sookhai noted.

He added that the nation has watched with deep concern and sympathy as Manning battled his illness over the past several years, having suffered a stroke in January 2012 and then three days ago (June 30), being diagnosed Acute Myeloid leukaemia.

His dignity and courage in the face of these physical challenges have only served to cement his legacy as a man and a PM who stood tall against all challenges and remained unbowed until the end, Sookhai declared.

The Employers Consultative Association (ECA) praised Manning for this countrys growth and transformation.

The ECA in a condolence statement pointed out that Mr Manning will be remembered for having aspired astonishing growth and transformation of Trinidad and Tobago, a man of fortitude who was unafraid to make the unpopular, but necessary decisions which allowed the country to emerge from the tough structural adjustment period of the 1990s and usher in an improved and more prosperous economy at the start of the 21st century. The statement continued: He was a visionary leader committed to shaping the growth of the nation. We have lost an eminent statesman, affable, calm and diplomatic. He bequeaths to posterity an invaluable legacy On behalf of the ECA and its members, we express our deepest condolences to his family, colleagues and the nation on his passing.
A great Caribbean man

There is no leader in the Caribbean who was a regional integrationist as he was, Gonsalves said yesterday. His record stands in various attempts at a political union in the region and in his many contributions to regional development. Gonsalves, a friend of Manning since their days at the University of the West Indies (UWI) in the latter half of the 1960s, told Sunday Newsday, in an interview from St Vincent, that when he heard that Manning had died I was actually very saddened. Gonsalves who flew into Trinidad on Tuesday specially to visit Manning at Hospital said did not expect Manning to die when he did because during the visit at San Fernando General Hospital Patrick was in such very good spirits, but I did not know the extent of his illness. Manning, he said, was my very dear friend. I loved him very much.

When I left him on Tuesday, I held his hands and looked into his eyes.

I told him I would always love him.

His wife was there. Their friendship, Gonsalves said, goes back a long way from the days when they were both students at the UWI Mona Campus, Jamaica.

Irrespective of time and days, he said, We were always in touch. He would always remember Manning as a devout Christian, excellent father, loving and caring husband and family man, and a peacemaker.

Gonsalves said when they were prime ministers at the same time, they would speak with each other every day. As early risers, he said, he would either call Manning at 5.30 am or Manning would call him and they would speak until after 6 am. We were close, he said.

When Hurricane Ivan ravaged a number of Eastern Caribbean States in 2004, St Vincent and the Grenadines was not spared. The seaside Byera Village on the north east coast of St Vincent was flattened.

The TT government under Patrick Manning, Mitchell said, contributed TT$4 million that went towards purchasing lands to relocate the people to a low income housing settlement that was developed adjacent to Byera.

At the opening of the housing settlement, Gonsalves said, I told the people that this settlement would not have been possible without the contribution of the government of Trinidad and Tobago under Patrick Mannings leadership. A large gathering was there, he said, and someone shouted out, Let us call it Manning Village.

The crowd took up the chant of Manning Village, and Gonsalves said, he was only pleased to say, Manning Village it will be. The village is also not far from where Gonsalves also has a home.

Likening Manning to the Jew, Daniel, who was chief administrator of the Persian empire in the Book of Daniel in the Holy Bible, Gonsalves said Manning was Excellent in Spirit as Daniel was.

Extending condolences to Mannings wife, Hazel, his children, other family members and to the Government and people of TT on behalf of the people and government of St Vincent and the Grenadines, and his own family, Gonsalves said, We will miss him.
Kamla prays Mannings peace

Opposition Leader, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, highlighted Mannings terms as Prime Minister (PM)  1991, 2001, 2002 and 2007. She noted also that he was TTs longest serving parliamentarian and one of the longest serving public servants in the region. Expressing deep sadness at the news of his death, Persad-Bissessar said, The grief we share at his passing is, without doubt, grief that will be shared by our fellow nations in the region. We wish the Mannings Gods guidance and support and pray that the former Prime Minister will find a place of joy and rest. Persad-Bissessar and the Peoples Partnership coalition dealt Manning a heavy electoral defeat in 2010, ousting him and the PNM from office by 29 to 12 seats, although Manning remained an MP until last year. Persad-Bissessar and the PPs fortunes reversed when they lost the 2015 general election to the PNM under the now Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley.

The Opposition Leader also spoke highly of the strength exhibited by his wife, Hazel Manning, during their years in public life.

Hazel has always exemplified strength and fortitude in her family, something which was clear throughout their public life, Persad-Bissessar said.

Former political leader of the Congress of the People, St Augustine Member of Parliament (MP), Prakash Ramadhar, spoke of the tremendous loss Mannings death is to TT and the entire Caribbean.

Though we sat on opposite sides of the political divide and we differed fundamentally on policy-related matters, especially policies which directly impacted the poor and the vulnerable, there can be little doubt that Mr Manning always did what he believed was in the best interest of the country. This made him a role-model for young politicians, Ramadhar said.

He also praised the former PM for willingly sharing his expertise and experiences with others, always with a smile, which Ramadhar said made Manning a source of invaluable information. Regarding Mannings commitment to regional integration and cooperation, the St Augustine MP said throughout his terms as PM, Mr Manning repeatedly demonstrated his commitment to our Caribbean neighbours by the alacrity with which he sought to offer them assistance - not just in times of natural disasters but for the purpose of regional economic development. Recognising that the bulk of this countrys exported manufactured products was sold within CARICOM, Ramadhar recalled that Mannings often repeated mantra was that for TT to be strong, the rest of the Caribbean must also be strong. Caroni East MP and Opposition member, Dr Tim Gopeesingh, also spoke highly of Mannings unwavering service to his country as a career politician who entered parliamentary politics as the MP for San Fernando East in 1971, in the then Eric Williams Government, and continued serving in that post until 2015, when his illness forced his exit from politics. Gopeesingh said during his terms as PM, Mannings policies helped to shape TTs global industrial thrust in the energy sector and had the most significant impact over the shaping of our modern day economic and social systems and society as a whole. Saying Manning served the nation with obvious joy, dedication and commitment, Gopeesingh declared that we must always and eternally be grateful to him for all he has done to keep our nation the stable, progressive democracy that it remains today. We sat on different sides of the political fence but that never affected our mutual admiration and respect for each other, Gopeesingh shared, revealing that he first came to know about Patrick Manning through his fathers proud comments during Gopeesinghs stint as an employee of the then Texaco refinery labs from 1967 to 1968.

At the time, Manning was studying at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona Campus, Jamaica.

Gopeesingh said Mannings father cited his son as an example of what education can do for a person.

Mere years later, when I myself entered that same campus, I stayed on Irvine Hall where Mr Manning had also stayed, and learnt quickly of the considerable legacy he had left in such a short tenure as the then Hall Chairman. Gopeesingh added that over the ensuing decades, they would socialise regularly through mutual friends and then, politics.

He said Manning never failed to impress me as we moved in these professional and occasional social circles with his true gentlemanly status, his deep knowledge about the TT economy and politics, and his strong convictions of his philosophies for our development as a nation. Mannings most famous political opponent and fellow former PM, Basdeo Panday, is out of the country right now but Sunday Newsday spoke with his daughter, Mickela Panday, about the loss of their close family friend.

I was extremely surprised and very, very deeply saddened. I only saw him a couple of months ago and he seemed to be strong and well. We had a nice conversation, so yes, I was very, very shocked.

Very, very sad. Asked if that last conversation occurred by chance, Mickela told Sunday Newsday Manning had asked to see her.

Although she declined to reveal what they chatted about, saying it was private, Panday said he looked really well that day.

She also said, Our families have always been very, very close.

Contrary to what is portrayed in the media, the reality isnt always the same. So weve always been very, very close. Mickela plans to visit Hazel Manning and her sons, Brian and David, very soon to lend her support in their time of grief.
Android Nougat coming to HTC 10, HTC One A9 and HTC One M9

New Delhi, Sun, 03 Jul 2016 NI Wire

Its confirmed that Android Nougat is coming to flagship HTC devices HTC 10, HTC One A9 and HTC One M9. Company announced the news on its twitter account.

Android Nougat is the next version of Android operating system and this time it is coming with many exciting features which will increase the productivity of the users. This phone comes with the multi-screen support on the screen. You can use two applications side-by side on the screen at once. Check Android Nougat: Features and release date for more details.

Official account of the twitter of HTC posted "So sweet. Android Nougat-the next version of Googles Android-will be coming to the HTC 10, HTC One A9 & HTC One M9."

Company posted this information to inform the users of these mobile phones about the availability of Android Nougat OS updated after release of the OS.

So, if you are planning to buy HTC phone and would like to have latest Android Nougat then you should buy these models of HTC:

HTC 10

HTC One A9

HTC One M9.

Android Nougat supported HTC Mobile Phones

These models of HTC are top model and comes with world class latest mobile phone hardware which gives high performance.

So sweet. Android Nougatthe next version of Googles Androidwill be coming to the HTC 10, HTC One A9 & HTC One M9. pic.twitter.com/cB5S2zv0PW  HTC (@htc) June 30, 2016

Other mobile phone manufactures also announced the models of the mobile phones which will get Android Nougat updates.

Android Nougat is expected to released in August/September this year.

Related News:
Greek lawmakers on Thursday ratified the sale of a majority stake of Piraeus Port to China COSCO Shipping, a major privatization project of the bailed-out nation under a left wing government.

Under the 368.5 million euro deal signed in April between COSCO and Greeces privatization agency, COSCO is to buy 51 percent of Piraeus for 280.5 million, with a further 16 percent for 88 million after a five year period. It is also contingent on completing investments worth 350 million euros over the next decade.

The sale of Greeces biggest port had been halted by the leftist government of Alexis Tsipras when it won elections in January last year but it was resumed under Greeces 86 billion-euro bailout deal agreed with its euro zone partners in August.

Privatizations are a major element of Greeces bailouts since 2010, but political foot-dragging and a highly unionized workforce in the public sector have been hurdles.

Cosco representatives in Greece objected strongly to terms of a first draft submitted to parliament on Wednesday, saying it clearly violated terms of the accord signed last April.

Greek officials scrambled on Thursday to fill in the gaps, while downplaying the fracas.

Since the Chinese shipping behemoth agreed to take over container operations at two piers in Piraeus in 2008, traffic has surged at Greeces biggest harbor.

Piraeus, Xu says, will become the Mediterraneans largest container transit port, the international logistics distribution center of the eastern Mediterranean, and the southern gate of Central and Eastern Europe, and the Balkans.

Chinese money will be invested to restore ship repair facilities, boost jobs and provide key support to the booming cruise terminal business.

Greece has said the overall value of the agreement is about 1.5 billion euros ($1.71 billion), including investments, dividends and income from an existing concession agreement

Becoming a transit hub for EU-East Asia trade will help put the country back on the path to sustainable development and free it from public debt.

Cosco, one of the largest container shippers and handlers in the world, will now be even more involved in the Greek transport networks, he says. Piraeus Port will continue to play a major role as a transit hub between China and Europe  and Greece as a door to Europe.

Piraeus relatively short distance from the main Mediterranean maritime route allows it to act as both a transshipment hub and gateway, according to a 2012 report by consultants McKinsey and Co, which said the country could transform itself into a regional cargo and logistics center as part of a 10-year plan.

There is serious Chinese interest in a plan to build a major freight and logistics center on the Thriasio plain, an expanse thats been described as the industrial backyard of Athens.

A major new airport planned for Crete would give the Chinese an additional foothold in the Mediterranean. Cosco is also thought to be among the suitors to purchase Greeces train operator, Trainose.

The Athens-based Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research estimated in March that the deal would add 0.8 percentage point to GDP growth by the end of 2025, create more than 31,000 jobs  in a nation with the EUs highest unemployment  and reduce public debt by 2.3 percentage points of GDP. It could draw 867 million euros in investments from other companies in the next 10 years.

SOURCES  Reuters, China Daily
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Workers carry away a victims body at the scene of the blast. Photo: Sabah Arar/AFP/Getty Images

At least 120 people are dead and hundreds more injured after a massive car bomb struck a crowded shopping district in central Baghdad on Saturday night, both ripping apart and setting fire to an entire city block. Al Jazeera reports that the ISIS-claimed suicide bombing occurred in the citys middle-class Karrada neighborhood just after midnight as many had gathered in the area after sunset to break their fast and celebrate one of the final nights of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. It is the deadliest bombing in Iraq so far this year, and the third major terrorist attack in a Muslim country that has been attributed to the group in less than a week.

The powerful bombing and resulting fires decimated nearly an entire city block. Photo: Sabah Arar/AFP/Getty Images

The death toll is also still expected to rise, as many victims are believed to have been buried by rubble due to the blast and resulting fires, which continued to burn overnight into Sunday morning. In addition, many of the at least 200 people injured in the attack remain hospitalized in critical condition with severe burns. The Associated Press reports that many of those killed were apparently inside a multistory shopping and amusement center that was nearly demolished when the car bomb, a pickup truck loaded with explosives, was detonated.

More than 120 people were killed last night in the latest ISIS attack on Baghdad: https://t.co/byYn4vXDZa pic.twitter.com/7dnuTblRhW  NYT Graphics (@nytgraphics) July 3, 2016

In their statement claiming responsibility for the bombing, the Islamist militant group said they were targeting Shia Muslims, but as the New York Times notes, Karrada is also a mixed neighborhood. Many of the victims were families, and at least 25 of the dead were children, according to some reports.

Iraqis grieve over the bodies of five family members killed in the blast. Photo: Haidar Hamdani/AFP/Getty Images

The attack comes a week after Iraqi forces, backed by the U.S., were able to recapture the city of Fallujah from ISIS. Coming after other major attacks in Bangladesh and Istanbul over the past week, the Baghdad attack demonstrates  likely by design  that ISIS continues to be able to cause mass death and destruction far from the shrinking battlefield it controls in Syria and Iraq, and officials in Iraq fear the group will increasingly resort to such tactics as its territory wanes. As a result, Baghdad residents have already been angry over what they feel is inadequate security outside of the citys heavily fortified Green Zone. On Sunday, Karrada residents shouted and threw rocks at Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadis convoy as he toured the scene of the blast.

#Iraqi Prime Minister has ordered the immediate halt to use of all those bogus bomb scanners. Years after they were proven to be useless.  benwedeman (@bencnn) July 3, 2016

A second bombing also struck the a city market on Sunday morning in the Shia neighborhood of al-Shaab, killing at least 5 and injuring at least 16, though no one has claimed responsibility for that attack yet.

Its worth remembering, following attacks like these in Baghdad, that for all the legitimate concern over ISIS in the West, particularly after large-scale, ISIS-linked attacks in multiple Western countries over the past year, the fact remains that the vast majority of victims killed and maimed by the militant group continue to be Muslims in Muslim-majority countries.
Far far more important than Wills/Harry/Kate, my Chancellor () Lemn Sissay was at Heaton Park up here in Manchester on Friday reading his new poem 'The Listening Post'.







He was going to be our guest at the International Festival of Public Health, but had to cancel for the Somme 100 reading. I FORGIVE HIM. He's wonderful and lovely and I fangirl hard inside every time I get to work with him.





Edited at 2016-07-03 02:44 pm (UTC)

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ty for sharing this

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He is of the Christopher Lee category when it comes to voices.

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Strong narration game

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`Voice power on fleeeeeeek~

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I read up on the Battle of the Somme after watching Peaky Blinders and my goodness that is terrifying and heartbreaking



Well all war is but :(

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The sheer pointlessness and loss is horrifying to contemplate

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I wish I could find video for Julie Fowlis performing An Eala Bhan. Love that song.



Charles' voice is outstanding.

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WWI was stupid as fuck.

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The #wearehere memorials around the UK gave me chills.

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At least they remember, idk whether I'm more sad or angry at the way soldiers from my country who fought in WWI have been basically ignored and forgotten. I have cousins whose learning about WWI basically came from 2 paragraphs in their history book talking about Archduke Franz Ferdinand and who didn't even realise people from the wider Commonwealth fought in the war until they read Rilla of Ingleside (they had questions about why Canadians had to go right from 1914 but not Americans...and that led to about whether Indians fought).





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and the colonial armies of their empires



A Canadian wrote one of the most recognisable war poems, even!



http://www.greatwar.co.uk/poems/john-mccrae-in-flanders-fields.htm



And the French Army, e.g.



Edited at 2016-07-03 05:38 pm (UTC) There were so many people from so many nations who were touched by this! We talk about "the British" or "the French", but really it was those core nationsA Canadian wrote one of the most recognisable war poems, even!And the French Army, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senegalese_Tirailleurs

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WWI was actually the big game changer in warcarft so like I was intensely fascinated with it as a kid. It is not done any credible justice in the history books though.



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https://becausewearehere.co.uk/



They were handing out cards with the names of those who had died written on as well, which was very emotive, I thought Did you see the website which collected the sightings from around the UK?They were handing out cards with the names of those who had died written on as well, which was very emotive, I thought

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Missing daddy Tywin!! He was hot in all that leather with the bossy voice!



RIP to all those who died in senseless wars. (Western) Europe is the devil's nest.

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Some of the more terrifying Brexit articles I've read really stressed how important the EU is to keep Europe stable. Then I try not to think about that too hard.

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ikr? the only geriatric who could get it

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Excuse you. Timothy Dalton still could get it

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So many young lives were lost to this stupid as hell war. My great-grandmother lost 5 of her 7 brothers.

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http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33317368 it's always a little bit of a revelation to me how strongly driven WWI is into the collective memory of the UK. Over a million people from my country fought in it but other than the British war memorials, we hardly bother remembering them (probably bc they were fighting in the army of the people who colonised us) and that is a damned shame.

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I had no idea, thanks for sharing that article.

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yas daddy Tywin, forever living on in my heart

looking hot in a suit here tbh

and his voice is just aahhhh

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WWI needs to be talked about more because it is way more representative of modern war than WWII.



All parties stumbled into it on a stupid pretext and incompetence (and all of them ended up poorer for it), no decisive victory was won in the end and there wasn't a "good" side. Instead it enabled at least one country to get away with a genocide and can be directly blamed for everything that went wrong in history afterwards.



But people prefer to hype themselves on the idea of a just war because these are the only historic wars they gets taught about.

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I don't know about everywhere, but it is a pretty big feature of the GCSE (and equivalent) history curriculum in the UK. IA absolutely re it's importance, and I hope that doesn't change

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This so much, it was basically what began everything else that the 20th and the 21st centuries faced. Plus the total breakdown of how warfare was traditionally practised led to the dehumanization of many affected populations.



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oh God, yes. This was perfectly poignant. Iconic WW1 portrayal

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Nnnnoooooooooo this was wonderful

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oh god yes



and the fact that because it's Blackadder, you don't quite see this coming, it hits even harder because of that.

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WWI is still pretty incomprehensible. I listen to- I'm not a great reader- whatever I can about it.

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If anyone is interested in the Canadian side of WW1 the series "For King and Empire" is really well done.



But I really do wish there was more docs, books etc about WW1 from the Commonwealth. Their perspective is just as important.

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China appears willing to help Moldova become a nuclear power. But for now officials in Chi?in?u seem hesitant to go all-in on atomic energy.

Chinese representatives from the state-run National Nuclear Power Company (NNPC) were in Moldova in mid-May for talks aimed at identifying opportunities to boost bilateral cooperation in the energy sector, according to an official statement. Chinese and Moldovan officials agreed to complete a feasibility study on launching new projects for producing electricity in Moldova by the end of 2016.



Officially, the NNPC wants to invest in renewable energy, wind, solar, etc. in Moldova, a country with about 3.6 million people. But the etc. is what matters.



The director of the Moldovan Academy of Sciences Energy Institute, Mihai Tar?u, told EurasiaNet.org that the talks with China were not primarily about wind and solar energy investments, but nuclear energy. I do not know whose idea it was to build a nuclear power plant in Moldova  Moldovas or Chinas, Tar?u said.



Bordered by Romania and Ukraine, Moldova, an aspiring European Union member, is nearly entirely dependent on external energy resources. Russia is a major supplier of natural gas. In addition, about 80 percent of Moldovas electricity comes from a power station located in the Moscow-loyal, breakaway region of Transnistria.



With Vladimir Putin keen to reestablish a dominating geopolitical role for Russia, the Moldovan government, like others in Eurasia, has shown interest in energy diversification.



Tar?u received a letter from the Economy Ministry seeking his institutes expertise about bringing Chinese nuclear energy to Moldova, he said. He was asked to attend the meeting with Chinas delegation, but declined.



The National Nuclear Power Company, he said, is willing to finance the nuclear power plants operation, as well as take on the cost of a feasibility study and construction.



For now, the Moldovan government seems more interested in renewable energy. I really do not know why they did not say anything about nuclear energy, and only [talked] about renewable energy, Tar?u commented. Perhaps the reason is that our assessment was negative! Related: Is Raymond James $80 Oil Realistic?



Tar?u said that he advised against a nuclear power plant because of the environmental risks, plus Moldovas lack of water resources, facilities for storing radioactive waste, and qualified and experienced staff in this field.



Another risk also exists: an Associated Press report in late 2015 indicated that Moldova could be a trafficking hub for nuclear materials. Criminal groups with supposed Russian ties allegedly have used the country four times since 2010 to try and pass radioactive materials to anti-Western customers (including a Moldovan undercover agent posing as a representative of the Islamic State terror organization). None of the attempts succeeded.



As of yet, these risks have not raised public questions. Local media and Moldovas few environmental activists paid little attention to the NNPC visit.



Neither the Economy Ministry nor the Chinese Embassy in Moldova responded to a request from EurasiaNet.org for details about the energy talks.



No official public data is available about Chinas existing investments in Moldova. Over the past few years, however, the Peoples Republic has been promoting ambitious development projects throughout Eurasia and bordering markets.



In European Union member Romania, Moldovas western neighbor and cultural cousin, the China General Nuclear Power Corp. agreed in 2014 to build and operate two reactors for Romanias Cernavod? nuclear power plant, about 67 kilometers (roughly 42 miles) west of the Black Sea.



In Ukraine, various Chinese concerns have invested some $22.6 million as of late 2015, primarily in industry, according to the Ukrainian Embassy in Beijing. Further afield, in the Caucasus, Chinas most active interest appears to lie in Black Sea state Georgia, which hosted a 2015 founding summit for the China-proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Chinese companies have become active in everything from real estate to mining, and have started to move into the tourism sector.



Denis Cenu??, an economic analyst at the Expert Group think-tank in Chisinau, attributes Chinas interest in Moldova to long-term, strategic thinking. Chinese state companies  are always interested in reaching new markets where they can export their products and technology, including for renewable energy, he said.

Related: Zombie Stocks Brought Back To Life By Lithium Boom



For China, the attraction of Moldova as an investment location could be tied to a 2014 association agreement that allows items produced in Moldova to be exported duty-free into the European Union. Moldovas energy sector attracted a relatively small amount (6.9 percent) of Moldovas overall $228.52 million in foreign investment in 2015, according to government data. To investors not deterred by the countrys reputation for corruption and opaqueness, that could spell opportunity.



Deputy Prime Minister Octavian Calmac described the talks with China as part of a comprehensive reform and modernization process of the national energy system in all compartments, including the exploration of alternative energy.



But energy expert Tar?u does not believe that a nuclear power plant will be built in Moldova. Thirteen years ago, Moldova also considered the possibility of a French-built nuclear power plant, but the discussions resulted in nothing.

By Eurasianet

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
The only thing certain about any and all economic forecasts is that they are wrong. I dont know why and dont know in which direction, but be assured the published information will not be correct. There are just too many unknowns when predicting the future. The multitude of wrong predictions on oil prices in the past two years is but one example.

That said, modern commerce depends upon forecasts and therefore they proliferate. But for years economics has often been called, the dismal science. The old George Bernard Shaw quote goes, If all the economists were laid end to end, theyd never reach a conclusion.

This is in stark contrast to climate change forecasts for which the science is settled. It seems counterintuitive that a civilization which cannot predict the future price of oil can accurately forecast the weather with such accuracy and what the necessary political response is. Perhaps the oil guys should hire some environmentalists.

And so it goes with the latest forecast on future oil production by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP). In mid-June CAPP released its annual Crude Oil Forecast, Markets and Transportation study. It is actually pretty good news considering the current state of the industry because it shows continued production growth through 2030. Like previous forecasts it is most likely wrong, but it does provide some optimism about the future for the Canadian oilpatch.

CAPP writes in the prelude to its supply forecast, Crude oil is one of the most important commodities in the world. Not only is it the dominant source of transportation energy now and for the foreseeable future, it has many other uses. It is a crucial raw material for the chemical industry, and in the production of plastics, which makes possible almost every item in our daily lives. CAPP is forecasting Western Canada crude oil production to grow by over 1.1 million b/d by 2030. After blending and including imported diluent volumes, this means over 1.5 million b/d of crude oil supplies need to be transported to refining markets.

This must be what oil producing associations feel compelled to write in the face of a loud and growing anti-oil movement, one which increasingly espouses the view hydrocarbon fuels will soon be obsolete.

(Click to enlarge)

1) Total bitumen production is actually higher. The oilsands mining and in situ figures are for net bitumen production after upgrading.

2) Conventional western oil production includes light and medium crude, heavy crude and natural gas liquids such as pentanes and condensate.

3) Conventional eastern production is primarily offshore but there is a small amount of production from Ontario.

Over the 15-year period CAPP sees crude oil production rising by 1.1 million b/d from 3.852 million b/d in 2015 (actual) to 4.928 million b/d in 2030. Most of the growth will come from oilsands which will rise from 2.365 million b/d to 3.668 million b/d, an increase of about one-third. Western Canadian conventional production will fall nearly 200,000 b/d from 1.311 million b/d in 2015 to 1.167 million b/d in 2030. Eastern Canadian output will rise from 176,000 b/d last year peaking at 275,000 b/d in 2019 as new projects come on stream. Thereafter it will taper off to only 93,000 b/d by the end of the forecast period.

What is important about these numbers if correct is that Canada will remain a significant oil producer on a global scale. The following chart shows the top ten oil producing countries in the first quarter of 2016. They have changed somewhat since March (Iran may be a bit higher) but Canada is unlikely to be removed from the worlds top ten oil producing countries anytime soon unless non-oil alternatives make considerably more progress than is currently anticipated.

(Click to enlarge)

CAPPs methodology for oilsands growth includes projects which are known or on the drawing board but which have not yet been completed. Imperial Oil, for example, has announced a couple of projects which are not yet underway. The primary source of growth will be increased production and efficiency from existing operations once the current round of major project construction is completed. Related: Oil Outages Come Back Online, Cause Large Downside Risk

CAPP writes extensively about market access and how North America is and will remain the major market for Canadian crude. By 2017 western Canadian output will exceed existing pipeline capacity. CAPP wrote, Canadian crude supplies (from the WCSB) are forecast to grow by 1.5 million b/d in 2030 (In this number CAPP includes bitumen diluent which is imported into Canada and must be shipped to markets as a blended commodity). Pipelines are the preferred mode of transportation to move this product but unexpected extensions in the regulatory projects have created new uncertainty around project timing. However, it remains clear that better tidewater access will be needed to reach growing global market outlets and capture full value for western Canadian supplies.

To this end the full report carries an extensive survey of the array of crude-by-rail transloading terminals in western Canada which the report indicates must be utilized in the absence of new pipeline capacity. In previous presentations CAPP had included startup dates for various pipeline projects. Not this year.

CAPP makes no predictions on oil prices. It does, however, provide a comprehensive list of known and approved oilsands projects which are either in production or approved.

Hopefully, the future will unfold as presented above. It is great news for the oilfield services industry which provides equipment and services for all aspects of the business. Of particular interest is the size of the production maintenance sector which, based on production, will be 25 percent larger in 14 years than it is today based on total crude oil output.

However, this forecast is somewhat tempered from that of previous years because of the realities of the oil price collapse and the absence of meaningful new low-cost pipeline takeaway capacity. Such is the inherent risk in the forecasting game. In the 2012 CAPP crude oil forecast production in 2030 was predicted to be 6.2 million b/d, the major change being oilsands output of 5 million b/d compared to this years estimate of 3.7 million b/d. This 1.3 million b/d decline is the negative impact of the numerous projects which have been delayed or cancelled in the past few years.

On June 27, 2016 oil and gas forecasting and analytics company IHS Energy released its own forecast for Canadian oilsands production. In a Globe and Mail report IHS sees output reaching 3.4 million b/d by 2025, about the same as CAPPs number if upgrading volume loss is not included. This is a million b/d increase in the next nine years, not the rate of growth service and supply had hoped for but hardly a sunset industry. IHS figures that since 2014 the capital cost of a new oilsands plant has fallen by $10 a barrel and thermal operations could now break even with crude at US$50 per barrel (full cycle cost, not just operating which is lower). Related: The US Drives Forward To Become A Player On The World LNG Market

Forecast or not, much of the oil output growth in the next three years from 2016 to 2018  520,000 b/d  will come from projects that are for the most part already underway. As challenging as this market has been  compounded by the devastation of the recent wildfires  this is a great reason for the workers and companies supporting this industry to be at least modestly optimistic about their future. Oil prices have not risen high enough to spur this sort of production growth in any of the other major crude and natural gas liquids producing regions of North America.

For conventional light, medium and heavy crude and natural gas liquids investment and activity will recover with price. After four months of almost steady price recovery, recent events in Europe have set back the crude oil price recovery for the moment. But this is likely temporary. In its weekly report ARC Financial Corp. wrote about Brexit on June 28, 2016, Brexit is unlikely to affect demand growth in a meaningful way; to the contrary its more likely to delay investment into new supply, which will lead to higher prices. The thesis is turmoil in global capital markets will make it even harder for oil companies to raise capital which will, down the road, further pinch supply.

If the foregoing is even modestly correct it is all good news.

By David Yager for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
The discovery of a massive helium deposit in Tanzania this week has excited both scientists and mining experts, yet for all its potential this new cache holds risks for Dodoma. Specifically, this new deposit threatens to only further increase tensions between indigenous groups and the government; as development projects continue to infringe on ancestral lands. Tanzanias extractive, agribusiness, and tourism sectors all face increased uncertainty going forward.

This latest find, estimated at 54 billion cubic feet of helium, is a major shot in the arm to global helium reserves which have been running dangerously low, with prices rising by 500 percent in the last 15 years. Despite being the second most common element in the universe, helium is very rare on Earth, as it is only produced from the slow decay of uranium and other elements. Helium has many uses, including in welding, leak detection, nuclear research, cooling systems in medical equipment and the Large Hadron Collider.

With this latest find valued at $3.5 billion, Tanzania has much to gain, considering its nominal GDP stands at $46.8 billion. The find will further galvanize the Tanzanian mining sector, and is likely to be top of mind during the Mine Expo Africa summit in Dar-es-Salaam starting on July 2nd.

The problem for the government is that the discovery has been made in Tanzanias Rift Valley; an area already beset with land claim issues between indigenous communities and businesses. Tanzania was already admonished by the UN in 2010 regarding the removal of pastoralists without informed consent. Indigenous groups, notably the Maasai, have been repeatedly (and often violently) evicted from ancestral lands to make way for development projects.

Consequently, long-standing grievances exist among local groups, who do not feel represented by the government.

Helium is no laughing matter in Tanzania

While unresolved land claim disputes are not a new phenomenon, in recent years Tanzania has been adopting an increasingly aggressive approach, in order to entice FDI and ensure growth. This trend, combined with last years election of the heavy-handed, firmly pro-development John Pombe Magufuli, means a greater risk for violence in the event of large-scale helium extraction.

Magufuli, has earned the monicker The Bulldozer for his strong-willed and forceful push for development. With Tanzanias GDP increasing by 7.2 percent in 2016, and growth forecast at 7.4 percent for 2017, Magufuli is charging ahead to awaken the sleeping giant that is Tanzania, with a focus on the countrys under-exploited natural resources. Moreover, in his budget released in June, Magufuli is increasing government spending by 31 percent to finance infrastructure and industrial projects, with infrastructure spending jumping from 25 percent to 40 percent of total spending.

While investors may laud Magufulis drive, anyone called Bulldozer is unlikely to be tactful or patient, two key traits needed when negotiating complicated land claims. As a result, the uncertainty faced by investors in Tanzania emerges from several issues related to land. Firstly, the Tanzanian government owns all land in the country, with the president acting as trustee, leasing it to businesses. Secondly, the governments unclear regulations regarding land use and tenancy mean it does not recognize ancestral claims by indigenous groups. Lastly, these tensions are further compounded by a heavy-handed and ad-hoc approach to dispute settlement.

Land claim disputes mar key sectors in Tanzania

Large scale helium mining in Tanzania would trigger a slew of additional land disputes, bad news for a sector already plagued by conflict with natives. For instance, Barrick Golds North Mara mine has been embroiled in scandal, following revelations of rape and assault by employees and guards against indigenous communities. Moreover, there is a three-way fight broiling between mining firms, small-scale artisanal miners, and indigenous groups over land usage.

Despite these tensions, the government is unlikely to do much, given the fact that in March, Dodoma finally ended a long-standing fight with seven gold mining companies around non-payment of corporate taxes, dating back to 2009. After this victory, the government will want to bury the hatchet with mining companies, who in turn will push for more mining (including helium) concessions in the short-to-medium term. This will pressure Magufuli to green-light further developments, drawing the ire of opponents directly, especially given the presidents role as trustee.

Alongside mining, there is trouble brewing for tourism and agribusiness companies. With regards to tourism, local Maasai groups are currently seeking to appeal a decision regarding a 30-year land dispute. The Maasai sought the return of over 12,600 acres managed by a U.S safari company, which they claim was transferred to the firm illegally. While the court granted the Maasai 2,000 acres in restitution, they are appealing the decision.

Furthermore, in May the government banned drought-afflicted indigenous herders to leave Tanzanias national parks, under the pretense of protecting valuable tourist destinations from damage.

Magufuli has also been keen develop the countrys agribusiness sector, as some 80 percent of Tanzanians are subsistence farmers. While seeking to improve the lives of citizens, the government is disenfranchising indigenous groups who occupy fertile land.

Under Magufuli, Tanzania made headlines earlier this month after receiving an opt-out by the World Bank concerning the organizations rules protecting indigenous communities. This was to aid a $70 million World Bank loan to the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) initiative. SAGCOT is a government initiative to promote FDI in Tanzanias agribusiness sector, with the aim to convert 350,000 hectares for commercial production by 2030.

Alongside indigenous resistance to SAGCOT, a $500 million project by Agro EcoEnergy is stuck at the proposal stage, due to land claim disputes with native tribes. The project, which seeks to establish a sugarcane plantation and processing facility for sugar and ethanol, is tied down over issues of relocation and compensation.

While the governments ad-hoc resolution process treats these disputes as individual cases, indigenous groups view these conflicts as inter-connected manifestations of Dodomas disdain for their plight. The remote nature of many of these projects  where the governments presence is thin on the ground  put them at greater vulnerability to local instability and violence.

It is imperative that Tanzania implement a clear and just dispute resolution mechanism, or foreign companies will pay the price. Magufulis antics have made him a meme (#whatwouldMagufulido) in East Africa  the real question is what must Magufuli do to avoid instability.

By Jeremy Luedi via Global Risk Insights

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Residents of Bronzeville and Walker Square are glad that Bublr Bikes are now available in their neighborhoods, but some parents would like to see the bike-sharing service offer cargo bikes, so they can transport their children.

"I think its awesome, but I need something more kid-accessible," said Carina Krantz, a mother of four young children who lives on the South Side.

Krantz said she would consider using Bublr Bikes if cargo bikes were available.

Brent Grier, a South Side parent, said he would use the bicycles "in a pinch," but noted it would be useful if there were a cargo bike option.

One of two new bike stations is located in Halyard Park at Brown Street and Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, in the area known as Bronzeville. The other is at Cesar Chavez Drive and Washington Street in Walker Square.

Lucia Jenkins, a Halyard Park resident, said she would not be using Bublr because her family has their own bikes. However, she too said she would be open to use them if cargo bikes were available.

Xochitl Morales who lives in the neighborhood and works at Time Warner Cable, uses Bublr Bikes on her lunch break to explore Downtown. She said she would like to see a cargo option.

"I have grandchildren, and thats something I would want," Morales said. She added that she and her grandchildren have enjoyed using cargo bikes before.

Kevin Hardman, executive director of Bublr Bikes, said he has heard the request for different types of bikes before. He said it is a possibility, but it is in the hands of the supplier, BCycle.

"Its crucial we hear from users about what they want and need," Hardman said.

Hardman added that the concept of bike sharing is evolving. He said as it becomes more popular, he anticipates new styles of bikes will be introduced.

Halyard Park resident Pam McFarling said she was excited to see Bublr Bikes come to her neighborhood.

"I saw them in other places, and I thought it would be cool to have one in the neighborhood," McFarling said. "I dont have a bike, but I really like riding them."

McFarling added that the rental fee would not deter Halyard Park residents. "I dont think the rates are bad because bikes are pretty expensive," McFarling said. "Its a good alternative if youre not going to ride regularly."

When scouting for new locations, Bublr Bikes asked Russell Jobs, general manager of DreamBikes, for suggestions. Jobs recommended the location on King Drive because its close to residential areas. DreamBikes, 2021 N. Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, is a nonprofit organization that employs neighborhood youth and provides community members with affordable bicycles.

"Its hopefully breaking down invisible borders between the Downtown and the neighborhoods," Jobs said.

Ashley Parker, who works at DreamBikes, said she thinks the bikes will probably get a lot of use because many neighborhood residents do not have cars.

Ian Bautista, executive director of the Clarke Square Neighborhood Initiative, noted that the bikes also will benefit the South Side.

"Its an affirmation we are connected to the rest of the city," Bautista said. "It validates were a viable economy."

In the next few years, Bublr Bikes plans to expand to more than 100 stations and 800 Bublr Bikes in the Milwaukee area. The Milwaukee-based nonprofit has launched 40 bike share stations Downtown and in adjoining neighborhoods.
The OnMilwaukee Summer Festivals Guide is presented by Potawatomi Hotel & Casino. Create your summer story by participating in casino wide promotions with the chance to win big. This summer I will own it! Click here for more details.

If awards shows and critics best-of charts are to be believed, Alabama Shakes and Chris Stapleton are two of the best in the music business right now. But would the two be a good fit for one stage  especially the biggest one Summerfest has to offer?

While the two are far from small indie acts, neither one has yet reached the kind of household name status that typically claims the Amp stage. You could scour your radio for hours and never hear an Alabama Shakes song, while Stapleton needed an award-winning, show-stealing turn at last Novembers CMA Awards before his album, "Traveller"  released half a year earlier  began to receive the sales and radio play it was due.

Even putting that aside, other than their critical darling status, the duo would seem to share little common ground  and even less of a common audience, with Shakes leaning toward soul and Stapleton heavily edging toward country. Would they mesh as one show  and, more pressing, would they draw?

After close to three hours of music between the two acts  not even including the opener J Roddy Walston and the Business  the answer to both questions was a resounding yes, with a packed and active Amphitheater crowd treated to one of the best concerts you may see this year  at Summerfest or anywhere else for that matter.

Three-time 2016 Grammy Award winners Alabama Shakes were the first of the potent pairing to take the stage, which was decorated simply with seven large colorfully lit columns of fabric. The show would certainly not need crazy theatrics, as from the opening number, "Future People," powerhouse frontwoman Brittany Howard provided all of the electricity, explosiveness and emotion one would need with her soulful howls, wails and guitar strums.

She was low on audience interactions Saturday night  a few sincere "thank yous" scattered about  but thats fair considering the shared headliner status. And even so, her performance style couldnt be the furthest thing from impersonal. Each song  from country-driven build of "Always Alright" to the soulful jam of "Rise To The Sun"  felt freshly torn from Howards bleeding on-stage heart. I would kill to see the band play a more intimate venue, where her bluesy heart-on-sleeve emotion and dynamic vocals (especially with the quieter lyrics, which occasionally got oh-so-slightly lost in the Amp) could be even more upfront.

However, even in the sprawlingly large venue, her expressive on-stage performance  from her finger-pointing on songs like "Heartbreaker" to simply her steely heartbroken singing on "Joe" and raw howling on "The Greatest"  spoke clear all the way to the back of the grass. When some dramatic flashing lights went off during "Be Mine," her on-stage power rendered them utterly redundant.

Howard is certainly the star of the Alabama Shakes show, and the music that serves as her delivery device is no slouch either, searching out all sorts of nooks and crannies of soulful blues rock. There was the Motown vibe of the bands second song "Dunes," the dreamy soul of "Guess Who," the rollicking rock of "The Greatest," the wailing blues ballad "Gemini" and plenty more. The result was a satisfyingly setlist of unpredictable ebbs and flows, united by Howards incredible voice and presence.

Speaking of unpredictable, during "Gemini," Howard managed to lose her glasses  a first in Alabama Shakes history. Yet even knocked down to only four fully working senses, Howard soldiered on through the hypnotic jazzy dream of "Sound and Color" and jammed on "You Aint Alone" as though nothing happened. A stagehand eventually found her specs  or at least summoned a new pair from backstage  just in time for the slow burn finale "Over My Head."

Alabama Shakes Brittany Howard lost her glasses "I've never done a show blind". Sight does not affect sound. pic.twitter.com/x4tasfAgov  Steve Palec (@stevepalec) July 3, 2016

The night of firsts continued into the evenings second headliner, Chris Stapleton, who quickly announced this was his first sojourn to Milwaukee. The Marcus Amp crowd gave him a fond welcome, loudly singing along right away to his twangy roots rock set opener "Nobody To Blame."

Stapleton feels sadly like an anomaly in todays country music scene. Most of the popular Top 40 country acts are generic white shirts, each seemingly with the same carefully calculated, sanded and smoothed out songs and lyrics to go with their carefully calculated, sanded and smoothed out stubble.

None of that applies to Stapleton. Forget stubble; the Kentucky native rocks a long hair and beard combination that makes him look like a "Duck Dynasty" member but with talent. But most importantly, his music is raw, true and authentic, a drastic step away from typical Top 40 arena-approved safeness and back toward the backroads and dusty bars of which the music was born.

Much of the difference between a good country song and a bad one is texture  real texture  and Stapleton proved he has that in spades Saturday night, from the whiskey howls and harmonies of "Outlaw State of Mind" and "Drinkin Dark Whiskey" to the soulful old school country balled "The Devil Called Music." There was no manufactured twang to be found in his set, but there was plenty of great sounding, rockin noise  impressive considering it was just Stapleton and three others intimately assembled on stage.

Its fitting that Stapletons breakthrough album is called "Traveller" as his set seemed to traverse all across the country rock spectrum. "More of You" delivered a drawling crooner with sweet harmonies reminiscent of Johnny Cash and June Carter (and not just because its also a husband-and-wife duet, with Stapletons wife, Morgane, providing the harmonies throughout the night; unsurprisingly, they had sweet on-stage chemistry). Theres a dash of a 70s stomper in a new track called "Hard Living" (whose awesome strutty hook also sounds like a country-fried "Superstition"), as well as a more bluesy country sound in "Fire Away" and "Was It 26." And each variation came with his own roaring authenticity, strong guitar work and shockingly impressive vocal range.

77% of Chris Stapleton songs reference whiskey. Awesome performance at Summerfest tonight. pic.twitter.com/AgIH8FJK53  Steve Palec (@stevepalec) July 3, 2016

Perhaps the song that most showed what makes Stapleton special was his final act rendition of "You Are My Sunshine," a country concert cliche made fresh and uniquely felt thanks to his rockin yet soulful update. What couldve been an eyeroll was instead another highlight in a set full of them.

The clear standout of the bunch, however, was "Fire Away" near the middle of the set, a great bluesy ballad. At the end of the song, impressed by the crowds singing along with the words, he asked the audience to sing a quick reprise. And did they, singing on their own with such startlingly enthusiastic volume and clarity that Stapleton was moved to tears and had to take a moment with Morgane looking on equally moved and flabbergasted. It was one of the more touching moments youll see at any Summerfest gig.

The incredible moment seemed to loosen up Stapletons on-stage persona even more for the final stretch. For much of the first chunk of the show, his crowd interactions were a bit mumbly, but cutely humble and simple. He told a short story before "Traveller" and joked about being asked about a wedding proposal on Facebook before "More of You," but for the most part, he seemed more musician than showman. By the end, however, he was introducing his fellow band members via a playful show and poking fun at his bassist.

By the time he wrapped up his well-earned two-song encore  a solo acoustic performance of "Whiskey and You" followed by the roaring soul of "Sometimes I Cry"  Chris Stapleton left no doubt that his current title as the savior of true country music was well deserved.

In the end, as different as they seemed on paper, Alabama Shakes and Chris Stapleton ended up an ingenius mashup by Summerfest, both reflecting two sides of the same coin  or perhaps two closely related sides of the 24-sided dice  called rock. One act was slightly more blues, one act was slightly more country, but both are led by roaringly soulful and talented leads, and both are utterly unencumbered with simple genre labels or expectations. And their joint show Saturday night was a reaffirmation that rocks not dead; its just as indefinable as it's always been.

Set list

Alabama Shakes

"Future People"

"Dunes"

"Always Alright"

"Heartbreaker"

"Rise To The Sun"

"Guess Who"

"Miss You"

"The Greatest"

"On Your Way"

"Joe"

"Be Mine"

"Gimme All Your Love"

"Dont Wanna Fight"

"Gemini"

"Sound and Color"

"You Aint Alone"

"Over My Head"

Chris Stapleton

"Nobody To Blame"

"Midnight Train to Memphis"

"Outlaw State of Mind"

"Drinkin Dark Whiskey"

"More of You"

"Might As Well Get Stoned"

"Was It 26"

"The Devil Called Music"

"Hard Living"

"Traveller"

"Fire Away"

"You Are My Sunshine"

"Tennessee Whiskey"

Encore:

"Whiskey and You"

"Sometimes I Cry"


4th of july View Photo Page Source at flickr.com/photos/38532170@N07/3545417066/ Owner: Michael_Hoeppner at flickr.com/people/38532170@N07/ License: Attribution-NoDerivs License

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Independence Holiday in the USA becomes a time when citizens tend to reflect on the nations two hundred forty year history. It is a history typical of six European empires in the areas of genocide and plunder.

- genocide: 1. the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation. plural: genocides [Google Dictionary]







Americans hoping to make US mass murderous crimes against humanity that are prosecutable under Nuremberg Principles law appear to be less than genocide, attempt to employ the old and outdated dictionary meaning of genocide wherein its scope and intention is defined as the utter and complete extermination of a group, race or nation.





The USA, like its parent colonial power the British Empire, before it, has had its undeservedly wealthy elite through their private speculative investment banks continually investing in genocide in order to both maintain its power over society, accumulate capital and extend its power wherever and whenever regardless of laws, regardless whether religious, common or statutory.



Genocide means killing people of a group, race or nation until a desired profitable arrangement is accepted by them. US banks have invested in profitable genocide non-stop over the entire life of the nation up to today and have their CIA and Pentagon laying plans for more genocide as we read.



-USA's AFRICAN genocide 1776-1864: New England banks financed deadly but lucrative slave trade, forced labor in the North, before massive forced labor in South; a million died during seizure and transport from Africa and another million died in forced labor. (For the first time in recorded history of slavery, inhumanity toward slaves as practiced in the USA and Colonial Powers, eventually became based on having inculcating society with fear-fostered ignorance and a preposterous insistence of racial superiority, sanding on its head white feelings of inferiority in the face of the far more accomplished cultures pale-skinned Europeans had conquered. [5]



-NATIVE AMERICAN 1776-onward: Genocidal theft of habitats of a thousand Native American nations instigated by banks speculating in land; forced captive marches, broken treaties, wars, deaths from malnutrition certainly reached more than one million deaths already long ago.







MEXICO 1836 US rapes away half of Mexico through merciless war. Mexicans are made aware that Americans will keep killing Mexicans until USA demands are met. "2014 U.S. 'intelligence' assistance is larger than anywhere outside Afghanistan" [Washington Post]







-PHILIPPINES 1898-1902: Invasion and massacres during Filipino war for independence - upwards of a million lives savagely taken. The overseas investment community propagated the racist concept of 'Manifest Destiny' make genocide tolerable.



-CHINA 1900 murderous sacking of Beijing, orgy of killing and stripping away all the cultural treasures for sale that the American and British could load into a few boxcars of a train.





-in EUROPE and in European colonies world wide many millions die as US banks through the Federal Reserve financing and entry of US Armed Forces enable WW I to go on an extra year and a half; 1934-36 Senate Nye Committee investigates allegations that the U.S. entered WW I to make big profits. Senator Nye created headlines by drawing connections between the wartime profits of the banking and munitions industries to America's involvement in World War I; investigation of these "merchants of death" documents the huge profits that arms factories made during the war; found bankers had pressured Wilson to intervene in the war in order to protect their loans abroad; arms industry had been price fixing; held excessive war investor influence on American foreign policy leading up to and during the war.



-SOVIET RUSSIA 1917-20: Two US Armies invade along with armies of thirteen other capitalist nations to foster, aid, support and participate in civil war; seven to nine million new Soviet citizens die, three million just from typhoid.





-ITALY 1922 -1936: Fascist Mussolini frequently lionized in both the New York Times and Washington Post, Fortune Magazine; Morgan Bank's Thomas Lamont, served as the international chief of Mussolini's finances; Mussolini received great investment aid from US bankers; especially, Bank of America head A.P. Giannini and Otto Kahn, a leading banker with Kuhn, Loeb. Pres. Franklin Roosevelt expressed admiration for Mussolini. In 1935 Fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia bringing death to more than a million Ethiopians, tens of thousands from mustard gas dropped from planes on civilian population. [Angelo Del Boca, The Ethiopian War 1935--1941 (1965)]

-GERMANY 1933-37: US investments and joint-ventures of 50 largest US corporations build the Nazi Wehrmacht up to world's #1, facilitating WW II and Holocaust, the magna return on investment making USA the single superpower, the investments and joint-venturing done in full knowledge of Hitler's continually announced plans for ridding Germany of Jews and communists uand to fulfill Germany's historic 'Drang nach Osten' [Push to the East] into the Soviet Union; of the 40 million dead in Europe 27 million are Soviet citizens. 1945 US makes sure Nuremberg Trials do not indict Nazi industrialists and bankers with whom American corporations, investors and banks had partnered.

-CHINA 1944-49: US funding and military aid draws out civil war. CIA incursions; many millions starve.



-JAPAN 1945: Two cities of civilians Atom-Bombed, sixty fire-bombed, nearly one million civilian lives taken. At Tokyo Trials of Japanese War Criminals, a US general of highest rank, commented off the record, "If the Japanese had won the war they would have tried us."

-CHINA 1944-49: US funding and military aid draws out civil war. CIA incursions; many millions starve.-JAPAN 1945: Two cities of civilians Atom-Bombed, sixty fire-bombed, nearly one million civilian lives taken. At Tokyo Trials of Japanese War Criminals, a US general of highest rank, commented off the record, "If the Japanese had won the war they would have tried us."





-VIETNAM 1945-1960: Truman criminally brings back French Army (which as Vichy French, had murderously run its Indochinese colonies for the Japanese Empire profit during WW II), in US ships to reconquer a Vietnam declared independent by US decorated ally Ho Chi Minh with US major in attendance. Tens of thousands of Vietnamese are killed by the French 80% funded by USA.











PALESTINE: 1947-2014 US forces through with threats a UN approval of a farcical and outrageously thieving plan to partition the Holy Land, a colonial crime against humanity against the residents of the Palestine, in full knowledge that permanent civil war would result and obviously intended to create deadly conflict, permanent hostilities, destabilization and facilitate Western imperialist penetration. The financial establishment in the US has its colony in the heart of Middle East oil reserves at the cost of tens of thousands of lives, some of which from families of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust denied US refuge before, during and after the Holocaust which itself would have been impossible without the heavy US investment and joint venturing in Nazi Germany. [US Economic Facilitation of Holocaust and Middle East Destabilizing Partition

click here ]



-USA ITSELF 1947 onward: Operation MOCKINGBIRD -- CIA recruits news organizations and journalists to become spies and disseminators of propaganda. Washington Post becomes a major CIA player. Eventually CIA's media assets include ABC, NBC, CBS, Time, Newsweek, Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Copley News Service and more so media can fear monger the public into accepting genocides.



-KOREA 1950-2014: Two and half million Koreas will perish as US bombs both south and north flat, after US Army invaded, criminally cutting the nation in two, overthrowing a democratic Korean government and installing a murderous dictator in the south, whose police and special forces would butcher nearly two hundred thousand before the army of the north swept south reuniting Korea. Perhaps another million deaths as a result of crippling sanctions on the northern part. [see Prosecutable US Crimes against Humanity in Korea "Dissident Voice.org click here PALESTINE: 1947-2014 US forces through with threats a UN approval of a farcical and outrageously thieving plan to partition the Holy Land, a colonial crime against humanity against the residents of the Palestine, in full knowledge that permanent civil war would result and obviously intended to create deadly conflict, permanent hostilities, destabilization and facilitate Western imperialist penetration. The financial establishment in the US has its colony in the heart of Middle East oil reserves at the cost of tens of thousands of lives, some of which from families of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust denied US refuge before, during and after the Holocaust which itself would have been impossible without the heavy US investment and joint venturing in Nazi Germany. [US Economic Facilitation of Holocaust and Middle East Destabilizing Partition-USA ITSELF 1947 onward: Operation MOCKINGBIRD -- CIA recruits news organizations and journalists to become spies and disseminators of propaganda. Washington Post becomes a major CIA player. Eventually CIA's media assets include ABC, NBC, CBS, Time, Newsweek, Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Copley News Service and more so media can fear monger the public into accepting genocides.

-IRAN 1953 & 1980-88 1953 Oil coup; CIA and British M16 false-flag overthrow of Iranian democracy, many deaths./1980 air attack/1980-88 US backs Saddam Hussein invasion-war - more than half million Iranians lives lost/CIA and British M16 false-flag overthrow of Iranian democracy, many deaths/1979- US sanctions and threats of nuclear attack from US presidents.



-GUATEMALA 1954 President 'Ike' Eisenhower ordered CIA overthrow bombing of first elected democracy; decades of massacres, mass murders follow. [Author performing on tour, is told horrific in conversations behind closed doors.]







-VIETNAM 1955-1975: Upwards of 4 million die. Twice the bomb tonnage dropped in all of WWII/1973 CIA Operation Phoenix murders 20,000 Vietcong/ [1993-99 Author periodic Assist. Conductor Ho Chi Minh founded National Symphony Orchestra in Hanoi and on tours; every member of orchestra lost family "killed by Americans" spoken with Buddhist equanimity.]""

-TURKEY 1955: Istanbul Pogrom a false-flag plot by Turkish branch of Operation Gladio, a clandestine anti-communist initiative created by the US; many Greeks, Armenians die; Turkish communists arrested/[Author visiting Istanbul forced to room in safe UK WMCA during provoked riots]









-ETHIOPIA 1960s: US huge military arms sales build up for Emperor Selassie /1977 US switches and backs and arms Somalia invasion of People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia/Late 1980s US Heritage Foundation involvement ending in bloodbath civil war; for using Ethiopia and Somalia as pawns in Cold War a million est. starve to death. [Author on film shoot for African Development Bank during Mingustu socialist government in 1983 before it was overthrown with great loss of life by CIA organized attacks.]



-Laos 1957-63 The CIA carries out approximately one coup per year trying to nullify Laos' democratic elections. The problem is the Pathet Lao, a leftist group with enough popular support to be a member of any coalition government. In the late 50s, the CIA even creates an "Armee Clandestine" of Asian mercenaries to attack the Pathet Lao. After the CIA's army suffers numerous defeats, the U.S. starts high-altitude carpet bombing, dropping more bombs on Laos than all the U.S. bombs dropped in World War II; Tiny Laos will become the most bombed country in history; A quarter of all Laotians will eventually become refugees, many living in caves. [Steve Kangas, A Timeline of CIA Atrocities www.huppi.com/kangaroo/CIAtimeline.html -ETHIOPIA 1960s: US huge military arms sales build up for Emperor Selassie /1977 US switches and backs and arms Somalia invasion of People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia/Late 1980s US Heritage Foundation involvement ending in bloodbath civil war; for using Ethiopia and Somalia as pawns in Cold War a million est. starve to death. [Author on film shoot for African Development Bank during Mingustu socialist government in 1983 before it was overthrown with great loss of life by CIA organized attacks.]

-WORLDWIDE 1960s-2014: CIA involved in lives-destroying illegal drug cultivation and trafficking has cause impossible-to-estimate loss of life worldwide - also CIA hypocritical anti-narcotics programs mean to spread further CIA penetration and covert violence for political-economic control in Latin America.







-CONGO 1961-2014: Assassination of popular Pres. Lumumba, CIA US Air Force Interventions, overt and covert operations, have fostered civil wars; it is estimated between 15 and 20 million have died from warfare and famine, and if one goes back to the US destruction of the new nation, all this was to retain Congo governance profitable88 for US investors.









click here

July 4 Weekend Reality-Check Chronology of US Speculative Investment Banking Instigated Genocide If the reader wishes to go on revisiting the subsequent decades of US genocide for profit, see the OpEdNews published article the beginning of a very long list is taken: look at:



Before and after July 4, 2015, genocide for profit (in speculative investment driven Western Colonialism there never any other reason for it) is taking place thanks to participating and cooperating Americans in uniform and CIA in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen, and surely further lives are being planned to be taken in the Ukraine and Venezuela and elsewhere as profits therefrom appear sure.



This article closes with a reminder that US genocides perpetrated after 1945 are prosecutable crimes against humanity under Nuremberg Principles law and as US economic power wanes in the world economy, lawsuits for indemnity, reparations and compensation by survivors can be expected to be so enormous in number as to make American investment in genocide unprofitable and thus inoperable.

Americans show zero interest that GIs brought death to a million and half innocent Iraqi men, women and children with bombing, invasion and occupation war prosecutable under international law even within the US Constitution. Celebrating on the July 4th is pure criminal insanity in a mesmerized TV worshiping inhumane and de-civilized society.

The reader is invited to check out the website of a strong lawsuit against American citizens by an Iraqi mother that is being assisted by former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark at the lawsuits website below and spate of articles:

Before and after July 4, 2015, genocide for profit (in speculative investment driven Western Colonialism there never any other reason for it) is taking place thanks to participating and cooperating Americans in uniform and CIA in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen, and surely further lives are being planned to be taken in the Ukraine and Venezuela and elsewhere as profits therefrom appear sure.The reader is invited to check out the website of a strong lawsuit against American citizens by an Iraqi mother that is being assisted by former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark at the lawsuits website below and spate of articles:




The Washington Post is reporting that when he met with President Obama a couple weeks ago, Bernie Sanders told him that he would fight to reject the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) in the Democratic party platform. President Obama's response was quoted as, "I won't allow it." Is this supposed to be some kind of new winning campaign slogan, "I Won't Allow It?" Seriously, folks, at what point did "Yes, We Can" transition to "I WON'T ALLOW IT?" Well, we'll tell you exactly when that happened in a moment. But first, if on the other hand, you are still interested in standing on some kind of principle, why not request our new Bernie Forever cap, which you can find on this page?

Bernie Forever cap

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New Bernie FOREVER Cap: www.utalk.us/?g=2:F And most importantly keep encouraging everyone you know to continue to speak out against the TPP. What Part Of No TPP Don't You Get? Action Page: www.utalk.us/?a=no_TPP OK, so we're going to take a little trip in our wayback machine here, actually not so far way back really. The year is 2009, it is the 11th day of January, 9 days before Barack Obama would even be inaugurated for this first term as president. We are in a television studio and George Stephanopoulos is asking him if he will appoint a special prosecutor to investigate torture and illegal wiretapping by the outgoing Bush administration. The response? "We need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards."

The reason Stephanopoulos was even asking the question was because President elect Obama had invited the American people to come to his incoming transitional website and tell him what issues were most important to them. And that was the number ONE question.

Why do we remember all of this so well?

Because WE made that the number one question.

WE did that!

Yes, that's right, our resource wrote the server forwarding code to pipe all those submissions by real people into the Obama website, partnering with Bob Fertik with democrats.com who drafted the actual question, and to help mobilize their base as well.

And right then and there, on Jan 11, 2009, we knew we were all screwed like a pooch. No later than that day "Yes, We Can" was heard by all with ears to hear as nothing but a cynical and disingenuous campaign slogan. The truth is, it was never anything more than that.

In just the same exact way that the Democratic party is now refusing to take a position on the TPP, Barack Obama even before he set foot in the White House refused to take a position on war crimes. And there were no prosecutions of these crimes, not even an investigation, because as president he personally would not ALLOW it.

They speak now of a "diversity of views" on the TPP. Was there a diversity of views in the Democratic party on war crimes too?

In just the same exact way, single payer was never seriously considered as an option for health care reform, not even a vote on a limp so-called "public option" was permitted in the end, because President Obama would not allow it.

And now President Obama dictates that he will not allow opposition to the TPP in the Democratic party platform?

It just so happens we've got some bad news for the president. It's not his Democratic party anymore. He's not running for office this November and there will be another nominee. Indeed, under his "leadership" of not "allowing" what the people really want he has converted about the biggest congressional majorities the Democrats ever had into about the smallest minorities.

Some people are worried about repudiating the president??

If the loss of both chambers of Congress by such lopsided counts was not a repudiation, we don't know what is. He's very lucky that the 2012 Republican nominee was such a smarmy creep, the last person who could complain about the health care bill, and further fortunate that Pakistan already had Bin Laden in custody in a restricted compound so he could be shot as a campaigning trophy like a fish in a barrel. Otherwise President Obama would have lost his own reelection.

And now the new presumptive Democratic nominee has a choice, a "hard choice" to borrow a coined phrase. She can embrace a REPUBLICAN policy agenda, because that's what the TPP is, or she can be the next president of the United States.

She can honor her stated opposition to the TPP by restating it in HER OWN platform, or she can kiss all the battleground states in the Rust Belt goodbye, and go down for this president . . . again . . . like so many former members of Congress before her.

Whose party is it, his . . . or now hers?

Obama don't allow no TPP opposin' round here.

Obama don't allow no TPP opposin' round here.

We don't care what Obama don't allow, gonna oppose TPP anyhow.

Was Clinton's opposition to the TPP ever sincere, or was it just expedient?

Whose Democratic party is it really? If it's just the other party of the corporate special interests, pushing behind the scenes for lame duck session TPP passage, we frankly fear the worst in November.

And believe us when we tell you, that is NOT the result we want, which is what compels us to keep speaking out now.

What Part Of No TPP Don't You Get? Action Page: www.utalk.us/?a=no_TPP

And after you submit the action page, feel free to request one of our "Expressway To Trade Hell TPP" bumper stickers, or any of our other progressive policy change message items.

Of you can get one directly from this page for a contribution of any amount.

Trade Hell bumper stickers: www.utalk.us/?g=1:SE

(Article changed on July 4, 2016 at 15:14)

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Reprinted from Consortium News

A senior United Nations official has accused Ukraine's SBU intelligence service of frustrating U.N. investigations into its alleged role in torture and other war crimes, even as the SBU has been allowed to guide the international investigation into the shooting down of Malaysia Airline Flight 17 for nearly two years.

On June 29, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic criticized various "armed groups" in Ukraine for engaging in torture and arbitrary detention, adding that "The Security Services of Ukraine (SBU) is also not always providing access to all places where detainees may be kept. " OHCHR (the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights) also continues to receive accounts about torture and ill-treatment, arbitrary and incommunicado detention by the SBU, especially in the conflict zone.

"Torture and threats to members of the families, including sexual threats, are never justifiable, and perpetrators will be held to account sooner or later. ... War crimes, crimes against humanity and grave breaches of human rights cannot be the subject of an amnesty."

In late May, U.N. inspectors called off their Ukraine torture investigation because the SBU denied the team access to detention facilities where human rights groups had found evidence of torture.

"This denial of access is in breach of Ukraine's obligations as a State party to the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture," according to the U.N. statement at the time. Sir Malcolm Evans, head of the four-member U.N. delegation, said: "It has meant that we have not been able to visit some places where we have heard numerous and serious allegations that people have been detained and where torture or ill-treatment may have occurred."

Yet, the SBU, which is also responsible for protecting state secrets, has strongly influenced the direction of the supposedly Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team trying to determine who was responsible for shooting down MH-17 over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing 298 people.

Conflict of Interest

Although Ukrainian military units are among the logical suspects in the case, Ukraine was made one of five countries responsible for the inquiry and granted what amounts to veto power over what information the JIT can release. A recent internal report on how the JIT operates also revealed how dependent the investigators have become on information provided by the SBU.



President Barack Obama and President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine talk after statements to the press following their bilateral meeting at the Warsaw Marriott Hotel in Warsaw, Poland, June 4, 2014.

(Image by (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)) Details DMCA



According to the report, the SBU has helped shape the MH-17 investigation by supplying a selection of phone intercepts and other material that would presumably not include sensitive secrets that would implicate the SBU's political overseers in Ukraine. But the JIT report seems oblivious to this conflict of interest, saying:

"Since the first week of September 2014, investigating officers from The Netherlands and Australia have worked here [in Kiev]. They work in close cooperation here with the Security and Investigation Service of the Ukraine (SBU). Immediately after the crash, the SBU provided access to large numbers of tapped telephone conversations and other data. "

"At first rather formal, cooperation with the SBU became more and more flexible. 'In particular because of the data analysis, we were able to prove our added value', says [Dutch police official Gert] Van Doorn. 'Since then, we notice in all kinds of ways that they deal with us in an open way. They share their questions with us and think along as much as they can.'"

The JIT report continued: "With the tapped telephone conversations from SBU, there are millions of printed lines with metadata, for example, about the cell tower used, the duration of the call and the corresponding telephone numbers. The investigating officers sort out this data and connect it to validate the reliability of the material.

"When, for example, person A calls person B, it must be possible to also find this conversation on the line from person B to person A. When somebody mentions a location, that should also correlate with the cell tower location that picked up the signal. If these cross-checks do not tally, then further research is necessary.

"By now, the investigators are certain about the reliability of the material. 'After intensive investigation, the material seems to be very sound,' says Van Doorn, 'that also contributed to the mutual trust.'"
Oh Hillary, won't that pesky email problem ever go away?



Now we have the F.B.I. involved.

Your number one political nemesis, Donald Trump, quickly wrote on Twitter after getting wind of the F.B.I. interview: "It is impossible for the F.B.I. not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton, What she did was wrong!"



Hillary Clinton - Caricature

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Always with great aplomb (hrumph, ah'choo), the experienced political charlatan said of the F.B.I.'s intrusion: "I've been eager to do it and I was pleased to have the opportunity to assist the department in bringing its review to a conclusion," [Clinton told Chuck Todd of on MSNBC and NBC News Saturday.]

Whew! Hillary, aren't you glad that email mess is over now? Well, let's hold on for one cotton pickin' second -- what if there's a second F.B.I. interview? I mean isn't that how the men in black operate? If big city detectives and even small-town cops aren't too shy to stop at the door of a suspected criminal for a second, third, or fourth interview, and sometimes these visits can go into the teens and twenties, well, can't that happen to you, too, oh Hillary? It's you, Hillary, and it's the F.B.I., but these aren't apples and oranges we're comparing here. No, they're lemons and lemons.



Oh wait, yes you are going to be the next President of the United States and this will not happen. Such trivialities are beneath you. That old Republican Rattlesnake, Richard M. Nixon, erased less than 20 minutes of tape (18-1/2 minutes to be exact), and the scandal drug on and on and on and on. We watched it on the nightly news long before there was nonstop news, all day, all night and at all in between times, for what seemed like eons....



Most opednews.com readers are wrinkled and old, but I might say, wise. Sure we have a few gray hairs and most of us have a bit of a paunch, but we're far too jaded and cynical to actually think that this interview two days before Independence Day, 2016, is simply over. Yes-sir-ree, it's done! Bill and I are going to pick out the Oval Office draperies and our new line of china for holding dinners with foreign dignities, so shoo! Before you go, though, do you mind filling up this tumbler with that ocher-colored juice over there? And where is he, that rogue? He has a date with Little Miss Energizer?! Well I'll be a Monkey's Great Uncle! You tell him to come back here right now!



No, it's not over, Hillary, and even if you become our 45th President, Ms. Clinton, those men in black are going to be visiting the Oval Office frequently. Very frequently. They didn't become super-duper cops and got to the ranks of being wily and cunning sleuths from playing Game of Thrones, after all.

Just for all the opednews.com faithful, I have included a little ditty, a song of patriotism and honor that so many of our neighbors to the north sing with great pride. Usually, many of them have tears running down their faces as they sing the words to this great anthem. And with apologies to our Canadian friends, some of whom are also opednews.com writers and readers, I've finagled around with "O Canada" a bit to make a Fourth of July version of this anthem for us, here in America. And it all has to do with Hillary, the F.B.I., and that aggravating nuisance of an email problem that simply won't go away:

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Rumification

In one of the closing chapters of his masterpiece 'Occidentosis' (gharbzadegi), Jalal Al-e Ahmad (d. 1969) famously observed:

[Today] a film studio calls upon a person to portray some historical or legendary"[figure].. and then spends fantastic sums to market these heroes for advertising, embroider their lives, their marriages"divorces"struggles" Beginning a year or two before the film appears, the newspapers, radio, and television report this and the news reaches the ears of the media [everywhere]. Then it comes time to reap the harvest: the film hits the screens in fifteen world capitals with the participation of leading society figures in a single gala opening night. As a result, another hero has been added to the ranks of the heroes of the silver screen. That is, another historical or legendary hero has been bled dry of any dignity or credibility [1].

And so, after thirty years since the New Age pop culture of Euro-America first appropriated the medieval Persian Sufi mystic and poet Jalaluddin Muhammad Balkhi (d. 1273) (better known to posterity as 'Rumi') -- an appropriation, I might add, facilitated via a Rumi publishing industry spawned from the adaptations (and not proper translations) made by American beat poets Coleman Barkes and Robert Bly -- we are now to anticipate a forthcoming Hollywood biopic about his life on the big screen.

The rumoured casting for the film has Leonardo DiCaprio in the main role as Jalaluddin Rumi with "Iron Man" Robert Downey Jr. being hinted at the supporting role as Rumi's spiritual preceptor, the Shams of Tabriz (d. 1248). David Fanzoni, of "Gladiator" (2000) fame, together with Stephen Joel Brown are the screenwriters and producers for the forthcoming Hollywood extravaganza; and ever since its announcement earlier in June, the future film has already created a storm of controversy, with accusations of whitewash abounding in the corporate media, blogosphere and social media alike. An online petition has even been made directly calling on Fanzoni and Brown to reconsider their choice of casting with over 14,000 signatures collected as of this writing that correctly characterizes this choice of casting ""as both ludicrous and offensive." The petition further highlights the fact that ""Muslim actors are readily typecasted as terrorists, but when a movie portrays a Muslim in a positive light, they are shunted off to the side to make room for another white actor [2]."

Although perhaps a first for Hollywood, it should be mentioned here that this forthcoming Hollywood biopic by Fanzoni and Brown will not be the first instance of an on-screen adaptation on the life and times of this among the most widely known and universally cherished figures of Persian Sufism. Dozens of productions, too many to name here, have already been made in Turkey over the years; and Iranian producers Shahram Asadi and Arash Meyriyan's acclaimed Persian language mini-series dramatization of Rumi's childhood entitled "Jalaluddin" --- a series that covers his early life all the way to the period of his family's flight from Balkh --- aired its final, eleventh episode in Iran only last year (2015) [3].

Rumi, Shams and History

Mawlana (our master; Turkish 'Mevlana') Jalaluddin (the majesty of the religion) Muhammad ibn Muhammad Baha'uddin al-Walad al-Balkhi was born in Balkh (located in modern north-east Afghanistan) --- others contend his birthplace was actually in Wakhsh in modern south-eastern Tajikestan --- during the early thirteenth century to a notable religious family whose father traced his lineage back to the family of the first Sunni caliph Abu Bakr (d. 632) [4]. Rumi's father Sultan al-Ulama Baha'uddin Walad (d. 1231) -- who was arguably his first teacher on the spiritual path -- was already an accomplished Sufi as well as a renowned exoteric religious scholar in his own right. Political rivalries with other scholars in the royal court of the kingdom of the Khwarizmshah -- together with the Mongol onslaught that would soon engulf the whole of Central and most of South-West Asia (and beyond) in an orgy of blood and destruction -- forced Sultan Baha'uddin Walad to move his family out of Balkh, eventually settling in Seljuq Anatolia in the town of Konya. Here Sultan Baha'uddin Walad quickly established himself as one of Konya's chief religious dignitaries. After his death (only two years after arrival) this function would pass over to his son Jalaluddin, now an adult.

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Environmentalists oppose it. So do labor unions, medical professionals, and major religious groups, as well as every leading presidential candidate.

So why hasn't the Democratic Party gone on record opposing the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)?

That's what Bernie Sanders wants to know.

Noting that the deal "is opposed by virtually the entire grassroots base of the Democratic Party," Sanders said Sunday he will reintroduce an amendment rejecting the TPP at next weekend's full Democratic Platform Committee meeting in Orlando, Florida.

In an op-ed published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Sanders praised the platform drafting committee for including "some very positive provisions" in the final draft released Friday.

"At a time when huge Wall Street financial institutions are bigger now than they were before the taxpayers of this country bailed them out, the platform calls for enacting a 21st-century Glass-Steagall Act and for breaking up too-big-to-fail banks," Sanders wrote.

"The platform calls for a historic expansion of Social Security, closes loopholes that allow corporations to avoid paying taxes, creates millions of jobs rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, makes it easier for workers to join unions, takes on the greed of the pharmaceutical companies, ends disastrous deportation raids, bans private prisons and detention centers, abolishes the death penalty, moves to automatic voter registration and the public financing of elections, eliminates super PACs, and urges passage of a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, among many other initiatives," he continued -- all provisions where Sanders' influence was in evidence.

However, Sanders wrote, "there were a number of vitally important proposals brought forth by the delegates from our campaign that were not adopted." These included a national ban on fracking, a carbon tax, and clear language on corporate-friendly "free trade" agreements like the TPP.

To that end, Sanders said he will offer an amendment in Florida "to make it clear that the Democratic Party is strongly opposed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership" and to ensure the deal doesn't come up for a vote during the lame-duck session of Congress.

"My hope is that a grassroots movement of working people, environmentalists, and human-rights advocates will work with us to demand that the Democratic Party include these initiatives in the platform to be adopted by the full committee in Orlando," he wrote.

As Sanders and others observed last week, by tacitly backing the TPP, the drafting committee was not only working against the party, but undermining Clinton's own stated position.

Indeed, Sanders wrote in the Inquirer op-ed:
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Sufism in the service of Empire: The Case of the Maryamiyyah The Maryamiyyah Sufi Order, its checkered history, and its ties to the Western Establishment. Wednesday, November 2, 2016The Maryamiyyah Sufi Order, its checkered history, and its ties to the Western Establishment.

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The Banality of Evil and the Ivory-Tower Masterminds of the 1953 coup d'etat in Iran On the role of two British academics in masterminding the 1953 coup d'etat in Iran. Friday, August 26, 2016On the role of two British academics in masterminding the 1953 coup d'etat in Iran.

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Rumification by Hollywood: Whitewash and Backlash Fanzoni's and Brown's forthcoming biopic on the life of Rumi has generated a storm of controversy, with accusations of whitewash even generating an online petition with over 14000 signatures. Sunday, July 3, 2016Fanzoni's and Brown's forthcoming biopic on the life of Rumi has generated a storm of controversy, with accusations of whitewash even generating an online petition with over 14000 signatures.
Pak USA agreed on bilateral cooperation for peace

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and The United States on Saturday agreed to carry forward their bilateral engagement and cooperation for peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan.



The agreement was reached during a meeting between US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Ambassador Richard Olson with Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry  a second meeting in three weeks and since the bilateral relationship took a dip following a drone attack in Nushki in May that took out Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour and amid growing concerns in the US Congress that Pakistan is soft on the Haqqani network and the Taliban during its counterterrorism operations.



Meanwhile, Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif, while countering the reservations in Congress during a meeting with a senior US bi-partisan Congressional delegation led by Senator John McCain, Chairman Senate Armed Services Committee, at the General Headquarters, counted the successes of militarys counterterrorism Operation Zarb-i-Azb in North Waziristan. Also, the army chief listed unregulated border and rocky ties with Afghanistan as major challenges for sustaining those achievements.



[The] COAS dilated upon security challenges faced by Pakistan and Pakistans contribution to regional stability and global peace. Pakistans successes in war on terror, [and] need for an effective border management across [the] long porous Pak-Afghan border to check illegal movement on either side of the border were also discussed, a statement from ISPR said about the meeting.



The delegation, which included Senators Lindsey Graham and Joe Donnelly, is visiting Pakistan on an invitation by Gen Sharif.



During its stay in the country, the delegation would study the actions Pakistan has taken against terrorism and their impact on regional peace and security.



The delegation would also visit the operational area.



Concerns in the US Congress that Pakistan did not fully act against the Haqqani network and the Taliban during Operation Zarb-i-Azb had earlier prompted Senate Foreign Relations Committee to stop the use of Foreign Military Financing programme for partially funding the sale of 8 F-16s, which ultimately led to the cancellation of the deal.



The US defence secretary has, meanwhile, also been withholding a certification to the Congress that Pakistan has adequately acted against the Haqqani network and the Taliban. Deductions have, therefore, been made from the Coalition Support Fund reimbursements for Pakistan.



Ambassador Olson had at the Atlantic Council on June 21 repeated those concerns when he noted: It doesnt seem to us that Pakistan will have a bright futureunless and until it goes after the Afghan Taliban.



The US opinion is that a strong action by Pakistan against the Taliban sanctuaries and supply lines on its territory would push the insurgent group to join the peace process.



Pakistan had been claiming that its security forces acted against all terrorist groups indiscriminately. But lately they have become more forthcoming by admitting that they cannot start a war on their own soil for Afghanistan by taking on the Haqqanis and the Afghan Taliban.



Adviser to the PM on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz said in an interview with Reuters the previous day: There are risks involved of how far we can go and in what sequence we should go and in what scale we should go.



Gen Sharif very candidly explained the situation as he described normal relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan as key for regional peace and security.



The Pak-Afghan relations, except for short periods of calm, have remained tense. Pakistan sees Indian involvement in Afghanistan as a major security threat for itself.



Gen Sharif had in one of the meetings with a US delegation last month also asked for Afghanistan to dismantle the sanctuaries of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan on its soil.



Pakistani officials have been hoping that the Congressional delegations visit would help address the misperceptions in the Congress about the operations.



Sartaj Aziz has said that he will in his meeting with the Congressional delegation counter the allegations that not enough has been done.



Although there was no word from Senator McCains office on the GHQ meeting as yet, Pakistani officials said the delegation was appreciative of Pakistani achievements and understood their constraints.



Mr Olson also separately met Gen Sharif.



The Foreign Office in a statement on Mr Olsons meeting with Aizaz Chaudhry said: Both sides agreed on continued constructive engagement between Pakistan and the United States in the areas of trade, investment, education, health and energy.



Mr Chaudhry reiterated Pakistans commitment to the Quadrilateral Coordination Group as an effective forum to facilitate an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led reconciliation process, the statement said.
Baldev Duggal, founder of the photo lab Duggal Color, which anchored New York Citys Photo District from the 1960s through 1990s, died at home June 29, according to a statement from his company, Duggal Visual Solutions. He was 78.

Born in Jalandhar, India, Duggal arrived in New York City in 1957 with a student visa and $200. An avid photographer, he began processing color film for photographers in the bathtub of his apartment. In 1962, he started Duggal Color in a Manhattan neighborhood of photo studios and photographers lofts know as the Photo District. (Photo District News was launched in the same neighborhood in 1980.) Duggal Colors use of an automated dip-and-dunk film processing system helped build a large professional clientele.

After moving to a larger space in Soho and investing $5 million in Kodachrome processing equipment, Duggal Color filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in 1992, but continued offering film and digital services to individual, corporate and retail clients. Duggal Digital Solutions (as the company was later called) developed a variety of outdoor displays, and printed the all-weather, outdoor exhibition series The Fence, shown annually in Brooklyn Bridge Park during the Photoville Festival.

In 2013, Duggal opened Duggal Greenhouse, a 100,000-square-foot, solar-powered event space and rehearsal hall. At the opening, Duggal told The New York Daily News, This is my legacy. I want to leave the world a better place than how I found it.
President John Dramani Mahama has said there is the need for a shift in the thinking of the media in Ghana, in order to create a situation where emphasis is placed on positive news over negative stories.



According to him, there is the need to restructure media programmes to focus on the achievements of Ghana, and not only the challenges confronting the country.



We are always highlighting our negatives against our positives. Every day, you listen to the media and it is like nothing is working in this country, but there are a lot of successes that we should be championing and encouraging our people that we have been able to get this far he said, during his Accounting to the People tour of the Ashanti Region on Thursday June 30.



We can go even further. Our media thinking too must change. Every programme goes with phone in sessions. I think the medias duty is to inform and educate and often when you want to educate, you must bring a man of God or an academic or an intellectual who understands the subject and let him educate people without the interruption of people calling in and diverting the argument completely.

Source: Classfmonline









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Erick Nason spent so much time with Jacob Clarke, he has to remind himself he isnt the fictitious Rogers Ranger from the French & Indian War.

I keep forgetting I have to transfer back to not be Jacob, Nason quipped.

Growing up in Glens Falls and Queensbury, Nason immersed himself in the regions military past. Then, he joined the Army and served for more than 20 years in Special Forces.

I havent seen a good book in a long time, especially focusing on that time period, said Nason, who lives in Virginia.

So, he decided to write one  or four. This holiday weekend, Nason will be visiting the area to promote In the Presence of Wolves: The Adventures of Ranger Jacob Clarke, the first in a four-part series about Clarke, a young frontiersman from Maine who joins the famed Rogers Rangers.

Nason isnt new to writing, though. His first book, From Desert Storm to Iraqi Freedom: One Soldiers Story, a memoir about his four tours of duty in Iraq, was released in 2006. He has bachelors and masters degrees in history and a doctorate in education. He works for a company that contracts with the U.S. Army, and spends much of his time creating guides.

That means a lot of writing, and a lot of travel, which provides him time alone to write.

At home, youre worrying about what you need to do, there are a lot of other things going on, he said. So I normally wait until Im alone and its quiet.

He wrote In the Presence of Wolves in about six months, but spent a long time before that researching it.

Theres a lot more fact than fiction, he said.

Throughout the book, he uses real locations and people. He uses real Indian names for places throughout the region, pulls in original names, like Onion Bay, and looks at the origin of regional landmarks.

Using Major Rogers orderly book and logs, Nason incorporated real events into the book, including the Battle of Lake George and Bloody Pond, and set the fictional parts of the story around them chronologically.

Readers from the area will definitely recognize places like Saratoga and Schuylerville, he said.

The main character, Jacob Clarke, is a conglomeration of some of Nasons ancestors.

It goes back to our original family in 1620, he said. Jacob is my main ancestor who did fight in the Revolution; Clarke is a mix of my grandmothers names.

Nasons ancestor was taken hostage by American Indians, brought to Montreal, then sold into slavery, so he opened the book with that.

I tried to do research to make it as historically correct as I could, he said.